#because he is not quite like the rest

[daggery]

i forgot if i ever said it on here before but it’s a shame that it’s so hard for me to think about and interact with tpw nezha and the series on its own terms in its own right because i’m constantly looking at him through the lens of someone who really likes nezha mythology. even when i was reading the series, a significant part of the reason i was so miserable about everything was not just that the series is miserable but also i wanted to like tpw nezha so badly but you know how tpw is. but maybe i’ll reread it eventually with greater distance

[technically-human]

The hug!!

This one was once again commissioned by our dear @i-am-as-normal-as-you-are and we actually talked about this scene quite a lot. Charles is still going through it, and he doesn't even feel like he should be getting the hugs he needs. Poor boy.

[a-heist-of-words]

In the most 'Greek theatre' of ways, this is a tragedy. Tragedies are meant to teach onlookers: "See how these rich idiots, despite their riches, cannot escape the consequences of their actions, their hubris, and their defiance of the laws of common sense and decency? See their awful demise? Don't be like them."

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[buwheal]

Hey Spamton, how are Pipis created?

[ihavesomejays]

sunday lmao

closeup under keep reading

[undertheredhood]

jason accidentally trauma-dumps to this masked vigilante who he’s somehow immediately comfortable trusting while willis todd who is not dead and is very much still alive (but still hasn’t told his only living child yet) is internally screaming “WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY PRECIOUS BABY BOY?!?!?!?”

[youssefguedira]

I wish you would write a fic about irreconcilable artistic differences on a movie set between Joe and Nicky.

not really irreconciliable as in not solvable at all but you know i had fun with this

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, covering his face with both hands, and leans forward. His shoulders tremble uncontrollably. He takes a short, sharp breath, and another, and another, but he can’t quite seem to get enough into his lungs. There’s a lump in his throat and a weight in his stomach. He leans forward with a low, wounded sound and–

“Cut,” Nicky says softly. Then, because it takes Joe a second to hear him: “Joe, stop.”

Slowly, Joe raises his head. Wipes at his eyes and takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Nicky’s already up, frowning ever so slightly as he looks at the camera. 

“What is it this time?” Joe manages. His voice is hoarse; he has to clear his throat once or twice. Nicky doesn’t look up. The clock on the nightstand reads 01.34, but Nicky’s changed it a few times over the course of the shoot. He has no clue what time it really is, only that it’s dark outside.

It’s just the two of them in the room. Nicky had wanted to keep this one small, just him and Joe and the camera. The apartment they’re in is nice, if a little empty, though Joe supposes that’s the point. They’re in the bedroom, Joe sitting cross-legged on the bed, shirtless, sheets bunched up over his lap, a phone lying on the nightstand behind him. One entire wall of the room is taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window which lets the moonlight in, though there’s a few low lights set up behind Nicky to send bars of silver light across the bed, because the natural light hadn’t quite been strong enough for the effect Nicky wanted. It’s otherworldly; it’s beautiful. 

Nicky still isn’t looking at him, so Joe says again, “What?” It comes out a little harsher than he means it to, but it gets Nicky’s attention.

Nicky runs one hand through his hair. Joe can’t see him well, not with the light behind him and the shadows in the room. “I don’t know,” Nicky says. “It’s missing something.”

Joe has worked with Nicky enough times before. It’s not that he doesn’t like working with him - they’re friends - but he can’t fucking read him, and so after the sixth take of the same scene he can’t help but take it a little personally. 

Joe reaches for the bottle of water hidden just under the bed and takes a long drink, mostly to keep himself from snapping. What time is it? “I can try again, but I can’t do this indefinitely, Nicky.”

“I know, I know,” Nicky says, fidgeting again with the camera, “it’s not you, it’s just–” 

“What else could it be?” Joe interrupts. He’s not stupid. This scene doesn’t work if he can’t get it right, which means the entire film doesn’t work if he can’t get it right. More than anything else, this one depends on him. No music, no camera movement, no dialogue, nothing but him and the camera. And he wants to do it right, he loves this project almost as much as Nicky does, but there’s a hollow feeling in his chest and he’s spent the last however-many-hours having a near-complete breakdown over and over again and it’s still not right. And Joe doesn’t know what it is he’s doing wrong.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says quietly. Now he is looking at Joe, and Joe can’t tell if he’s disappointed, or angry, or – or what. He’s perfectly expressionless, as always. 

Joe loves this job. And he wants to get this right. But it doesn’t mean it’s not one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, and he’s tired.

“I don’t have much more left in me, Nicky,” he says, and this time he does snap. He wipes at his eyes again, can’t look at Nicky. He’s supposed to be making himself vulnerable, above all in this scene, but suddenly he can’t stand the way Nicky’s looking at him. “Pass me my hoodie.”

“Joe–”

“I can’t. I can’t keep doing this.” He kicks the sheets off and gets tangled trying to do it, grabs his hoodie when Nicky offers it, pulls it over his head in one fluid motion and gets out of there as soon as he can. Thankfully, there’s only Andy and Nile in the other room, Andy lying back on the couch with her feet up and Nile perched on the arm of it. They both look up at Joe as he enters, both look like they’re about to ask, and Joe can’t stand it, can’t be in here a second longer, can’t–

“We are done for the day, I think,” Nicky says behind him, startling Joe. He hadn’t realised Nicky was there.

Andy raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. It’s already the second day of trying to shoot this scene: they’re running the risk of falling behind schedule. 

“We’ll find something else to do tomorrow,” Nicky says. “I’ll look over everything tonight. We will try this again on Monday.”

Andy and Nile look at each other. Nile shrugs. 

“Get some rest, Joe,” Nicky says. 

Joe shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t say a word.

–--------------------------------

He doesn’t get called in the next day at all, and he doesn’t interrogate it too closely. Takes the day off, pretty much, because they’ve only really got one scene left to film, and there’s not much more he can do for that. Nicky had wanted to leave it to the last, and Joe had agreed, at the time.

At about nine pm, someone knocks on his hotel room door, which is unusual on a day where they don’t have a night shoot to do. When he opens it, Nicky is on the other side. Joe lets him in without a word. 

“I wanted to apologise,” Nicky says, standing in the middle of the room and looking as uncomfortable as Joe’s ever seen him. “For last night. I was pushing you too hard, and I should not have done.”

Joe closes the door behind him. Nicky fidgets with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“Sit down,” Joe says. 

Nicky does, settling himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, not quite looking him in the eye. Joe joins him, after a moment. 

“At the risk of sounding cliche,” Nicky says, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Joe laughs, mostly because the phrase sounds so strange coming from Nicky and also because out of everything he’d thought Nicky might say, he hadn’t expected that. 

Nicky smiles slightly, too. Then he gets up and heads for the minibar. “Mind if I have a drink?”

Joe shakes his head. Nicky gets out a little bottle of wine, glances at the label, and takes a swig straight from the bottle without bothering to get a glass. 

“I can’t seem to get it right,” Nicky says. “You know I wrote almost fifteen different versions of that scene?”

The scene in the script itself is barely a page long. “No,” Joe says. 

Nicky nods. Rubs a hand over his face. “I wanted it to feel real. I thought if I could get it right, it would… help, somehow. I don’t know.”

It’s the exact same reason Joe said yes before he even read the script, when the whole thing was just an idea in Nicky’s head, when they were talking about it over drinks at Andy’s and Joe was in love with the idea almost immediately. He knew exactly why Nicky was writing it; he knows, now, exactly why it needs to be right. But at the same time – “I don’t know if that’s possible, Nicky.”

Nicky sighs. “I know.” He crosses back over to sit beside Joe again, takes another drink from the bottle. “But there is something missing, and I cannot seem to find it. And so it does not feel real. And I know this is not easy for you.”

“It’s not,” Joe says plainly. 

“But you know,” Nicky continues, “I could not have trusted anyone with this but you. If you had not said yes, I would not have done this.”

That, Joe didn’t know: he knows he’d been Nicky’s first choice, but he’d assumed that’s because they know each other well enough already. But it makes sense: the reason Nicky wrote the script is the same thing they’d bonded over. 

Even still, it’s a lot. “I don’t know if I can do it the way you want,” Joe says. 

Nicky looks up at him from where he’s been running his fingers over the label on the bottle absentmindedly. “If you want to stop, I can–”

“No,” Joe says quickly. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to be exactly the way you felt.”

Nicky looks away. “It is a lot to ask,” he says. “I know this.”

Joe doesn’t think; just reaches over and takes Nicky’s hand. “I know,” he says. “Trust me.”

Nicky takes a deep breath. Then he nods. "Okay."

[damthosefandoms]

the thing is I have no idea how to put it into words but dally loves about as hard as soda does. just in a very different, very specific kind of way. soda loves everyone at first glance until it’s proven a mistake and dally loves only a few specific people so much it kills him.

[diino8081]

swap au or something

ekko -> viktor

viktor -> jinx

jinx -> ekko

i read this fic and got inspired. it doesn't follow the canon to it but it inspired me (do check it out though it's really cool)

if you got any au questions then throw em at me (i've only watched arcane once tho so i might not have answers)

(more in the tags)

[bonicedemandarina]

Happy birthday Viktor! Ignore Jayce over there, he's cut out bc this isn't about him/j

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red eyes staring up at him. “Hungry again?” he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. His brothers and sisters had not been permitted to bring their wolves to the banquet, but there were more curs than Jon could count at this end of the hall, and no one had said a word about his pup. He told himself he was fortunate in that too. His eyes stung. Jon rubbed at them savagely, cursing the smoke. He swallowed another gulp of wine and watched his direwolf devour the chicken. Dogs moved between the tables, trailing after the serving girls. One of them, a black mongrel bitch with long yellow eyes, caught a scent of the chicken. She stopped and edged under the bench to get a share. Jon watched the confrontation. The bitch growled low in her throat and moved closer. Ghost looked up, silent, and fixed the dog with those hot red eyes. The bitch snapped an angry challenge. She was three times the size of the direwolf pup. Ghost did not move. He stood over his prize and opened his mouth, baring his fangs. The bitch tensed, barked again, then thought better of this fight. She turned and slunk away, with one last defiant snap to save her pride. Ghost went back to his meal. Jon grinned and reached under the table to ruffle the shaggy white fur. The direwolf looked up at him, nipped gently at his hand, then went back to eating.

Jon I, AGOT

It's interesting that GRRM would dedicate several paragraphs to a seemingly unimportant exchange between a boy, his wolf, and an unfriendly third party. But there's just something about this passage that has continued to nag at me for years since I first read it because, considering how heavy handed GRRM was with the foreshadowing in AGOT, this feels important.

Jon is sitting at table full of squires - aka would be knights. We don't really know who they are or what families they belong to, but it's safe to assume that they come from a certain level of privilege; this is considering the fact that it cannot be financially easy to be a squire. And these boys already have a slew of tales detailing all their previous knightly exploits regarding "battle and bedding and the hunt" which suggests that they have some capital. So you have boys who will soon be men. And they will, presumably, become men of some power.

These lads eat their fill of the chicken until only half remains, which Jon then gives to Ghost. The direwolf's name is not so important here but what he represents is. Throughout the series, we're told that Ghost is reminiscent of the weirwood trees (because of his red eyes and white fur). He's stated to be of and from the Old Gods and since he's a personification of the weirwoods, he might as well be one of them. It's almost as if Jon is presenting whatever is left on the table to the Old Gods (Ghost). He lets them devour his offerings while he silently watches. And the motif of watching is so interesting here because it's kind of like Jon takes on a stewardship role - to watch over land/people/etc. He oversees Ghost eating the chicken, so he's overseeing whatever has been given to the Old Gods. This is not new imagery to his arc. As a brother of the Night's Watch and eventually its leader, we have several instances where he leads people to adopting the Old Gods in some fashion. In ADWD, several recruits swear their vows to the Old Gods while he watches on as their Lord Commander. The Old Gods are also primarily of the North and we're told that Jon has more of the north in him than his brothers; interesting that this also includes Bran. So perhaps whatever is being offered to the Old Gods relates to the North.

We must also note that Jon initially thinks to give only a small portion, a leg, before pivoting and providing the entire thing. It feels to me a bit like the process of carving up a kingdom or something similar. The lords (represented by the squires) take what they want and leave aside what they don't; or perhaps they have eaten to their fill and can take no more. Then when his time comes, Jon first considers a small piece of land/group of people before eventually absorbing all of whatever is left behind. The concept of carving up a kingdom rings harder considering that we have several callbacks to the ideals of kingship in this chapter. Robert, Jaime, Tyrion, and even Mance though we don't know it yet, all play into this. And then there's the aspect of Jon letting the chicken slip between his legs which evokes birth/fatherhood, a very curious choice when GRRM could've just had Jon place the chicken on the floor. So land/people are carved up and Jon then uses whatever is left to birth his own type of kingdom. And this kingdom is one for the Old Gods.

This also touches on something that has been quite prevalent throughout Jon's arc. It's the concept of accepting the "others" or "those left over" who live apart from the accepted social norms. Arya (a tomboy), Sam (a gender non-confirming boy), the Night's Watch (criminals, extra sons, and men who have no future left or place to go), and even the wildlings are all examples of this. And Jon takes on a leadership/paternal role to every single one of them. He looks after them as a leader would/should. Sometimes, in the case of Arya and the wildlings, he's equated to a king. He's a steward/shepherd/king. There's messianic undertones to this:

Come unto me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30).

If you're familiar with Judeo-Christian tradition, you'll know that Jesus is often personified as one who spent the majority his time among the outcasts. The idea is that he came to save them too and that anew kingdom (or new earth depending on your translation) would spring up after the end of the world where he would forever rule as king; which presents the idea of a final king after the earthly ones are done away with. Now GRRM isn't so heavy handed with Christian allusions as other authors out there, but he does have a Catholic background and Jon is so overtly a Jesus figure. And in Revelation, Jesus is king and god at the very end....

One last thing: the mention of the mongrel who challenges Jon has always been rather interesting but confusing to me. A mongrel doesn't really relate to one specific type of dog. But it's interesting that Jon notes several roaming about where he is. They follow the serving girls who carry the food to be offered. Mongrels are used to describe antagonist/villainous groups in ASOIAF. Sometimes, they're used to describe slavers in Essos. But what's interesting is that most of the time, they're used to describe Euron's Ironborn especially in Victorian's POV. So I don't think the mongrel who challenges Ghost is a supernatural threat of death (i.e., the Others) but rather a human one. They represent those who are called to the scene once the lords have finished playing their games. It almost feels like a feast for (carrion) crows....

But it doesn't really matter because this mongrel isn't much of a challenge for Ghost. Though the mongrel is much larger, the direwolf is able to fend her off very effortlessly. Given that "mongrel" is used to describe Ironborn raiders, could this exchange between Ghost and the mongrel point to reavers or sea raiders who rise and fail challenge Jon kingdom? There is a historical King Jon Stark who did this....

When sea raiders landed in the east, Jon drove them out and built a castle, the Wolf's Den, at the mouth of the White Knife, so as to be able to defend the mouth of the river.[1][2] His son, Rickard, followed him on the throne and annexed the Neck to the north.

ref.

So this might shed some light not only on Jon's already published arc, but also on what we can expect in the future. We have some foreshadowing through Jon's ADWD dream that he will not only rise with the dawn (thereby live through the Long Night), but will be in a position to lead people (wildings in that chapter) to a new peace after a hard fought war. Also remember that the wildlings, rather enthusiastically, swear oaths to him as if swearing oaths to their king. In this instance, the supernatural (a dream of the war for the dawn) is followed by the natural/human. So perhaps this particular passage (and Jon's dream) can be used to predict that Jon comes out on top, and quite effortlessly too, as a leader. And he becomes a leader who rules by association with the Old Gods; or rules a kingdom for them.

To end, I think it's of note that this passage immediately precedes Jon's conversation with Benjen where he voices his desire to go out on his own - the hero's call to action. This is the adventure that's going to kickstart his growth as a man, warrior and most importantly, a leader. So it looks like before we even began, GRRM telegraphed how it would all end in just three short paragraphs.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

here together

[grinchwrapsupreme]

it's too bad the Captain died before pub quizzes were a thing he would have been absolutely insufferable

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

One final cooking poll.

[satanic-fruitcake]

was thinking about how Armand is basically a canon video game enjoyer but fanon dictates he mostly plays cozy games where you can control everything (in character i won’t lie) but since i don’t really play those i can’t help picturing him playing like. elden ring. and then, like a premonition from god it became crystal clear that he would be really unwell about Miquella