#but I can See The Dynamic.

[landfilloftrash]

I have, quite literally, had this image sitting in my art program’s drafts for the past two years. I finally sat down and drew it.

[inkskinned]

in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!

they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.

they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.

you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.

but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.

where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.

and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?

doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are also judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.

but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and both good for each other and bad in equal measure.

what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.

just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?

your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[kettle-bird]

I've been getting into X-Men lately! Or, well. One specific X-Man.

[rozzsum]

[purplecatghostposts]

You don’t understand, I NEED to see how Adrien would pretend to be Félix for something. I need some sort of situation where Félix needs Adrien to pretend to be him for a few hours so he can get away for a while and for Adrien to at first be like, “You sure? I’m kinda rusty but I think I can pull it off!” And then for Adrien to immediately dial up the dramatics the second he’s in Félix’s clothes.

I need Adrien to exaggerate all of his cousin’s traits, being over the top cryptic, cold, and snarky one moment then a dramatic showman the next. I need Adrien to visibly be having so much fun because he’s helping his cousin by making fun of him a little. I need Félix to witness Adrien’s performance and be like, “Oh no, he’s terrible, this was a mistake—” but then be absolutely wrecked by the knowledge that NOBODY is noticing a difference aside from like, Kagami and have a mini crisis of “Is this how I act?? That’s not how I act?? How are they falling for this??”

And by the end of it Adrien is like, “Y’know, that was really fun! We should do this more often, I see why you do it all the time! :D” And Félix is just sitting there. Head in hands. Grappling with this new information.

Also just:

Adrien, pulling out an absurd amount of stolen rings out of his pockets: Also what do you do with these once you’ve got them? I might’ve committed to the role a little too much.

Kagami, nodding along very seriously: Your method acting is incredible.

Félix, staring in horror: I’m not a kleptomaniac… Am I?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 5: Flip Slip.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5)

[madamemiz]

saw a post recently about the sun and moon fandom and how non-selfship content is rare, and how that's frustrating, and it struck me, like... how rare that is. genuinely in all my 20ish years in online spaces, i've never seen a fandom that not only welcomed selfship but actively encourages it, when usually the rule of thumb is that it's tolerated at best and despised at worst

so why is this fandom so selfship centric?

the answer is a combination of factors, of course, but I think it was mostly just a perfect storm of the right character with the right traits at the right time. many people between about 23 and 33 were and still are experiencing intense childhood nostalgia that's being perpetuated by online culture and various media, often through a distorted or slightly unsettled lense. the daycare attendant is fun! they're childish, but decidedly not children. they're not human, unattainable in reality, but plausible enough in the age of ai that they make you ponder. they make you long to nap and play and color and do all the whimsical things you wish you could take a week off from your dull job and do! but there's something... off about them. an element of danger that's intriguing. they're dangerous, but what if they aren't to you specifically? or, if they are, what if they overcame that, just for you? what if you were worth it?

people our age are lonely, and if not, often working through issues they didn't have time to contemplate in their teens and early 20s because they were still living throigh the issues. younger people too, of course, but it's especially rampant in the aforementioned age group. past college and college friends, too caught up in work to make new ones. if the dca really clicked with you as a character, it's kind of fun to imagine what it would be like to hang out with them. what if they were your friend? what if they were more?

which leads to my last point--cringe is dead and we stomped on its corpse

maybe it started with a few people drawing a y/n with the dca, and wow the art is cute! who's the cute jester character? ... is that a self-insert? huh. and then more people join in. is that allowed? yes! and the crowd cheers for it too! the right people drawing the right character dynamics at the right moment, drawing others like a moths to a strange robotic flame

ultimately, the fandom attracts so much selfship because that's the bedrock, the foundation the rest of the fandom built its home on. almost all of the common tropes and characterization have roots in selfship fic and art. the dca's popularity very much kicked off from that, and seeing other people using them as an outlet for their loneliness, friendship, romantic or sexual desires, or even just for creative character and plot setups that are only tangentially related to canon actively encouraged others to join in, in a way that could only happen while riding the funerary coattails of cringe culture

it's very much a lightning in a bottle fandom, the likes of which i doubt we'll see again for a while

[kingzombear]

remember that one post you did a while back with pomni and jax’s personalities swapped?

can i have more of that, my good bear?

She likes to sneak in his room when he's sleeping w an airhorn and when he jolts awake screaming she decks him in the face with a pie lol

[timethehobo]

Final what-if pair. Chats over their occupation over tea and coffee?

[vaunteir]

bgc is so gay/aroace hostility

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[seth-whumps]

in the mood for some comfort/caretaker prompts!

Whumpee, after losing their voice, only has to give Caretaker a look for any reason. Caretaker knows them well enough to understand

Playing. With. Whumpee's. Hair.

In that same vein, Caretaker holding their head up by lacing fingers behind their neck, using thumbs in front of their ears to hold them steady

That moment where Caretaker thinks Whumpee was in danger, and they're safe, so CT crushes them in a hug. Followed by a classic "Don't you dare pull that stunt ever again."

Normally composed passive aggressive caretaker getting in Whumper's face with a vitriolic "I will rip you apart piece by piece if you ever lay a hand on them again."

Caretaker physically shielding Whumpee at any possible threat, even if they're more than likely safe. Caretaker who is unable to consider losing Whumpee even for a second

Caretaker-turned-whumpee talking Whumpee through how to take care of CT's wounds

Caretaker turned whumpee curling up in a friend's arms, unused to being comforted and taken aback by how sweet it feels

Caretaker-turned-whumpee period actually

Caretaker who protects Whumpee even when absent. Telling off other people who try to visit. Guarding the hospital room door like an attack dog

Whumpee taking Caretaker in their arms to whisper "I'm okay. Calm down, please, I'm right here, I promise."

a lot of them perhaps but I've just got caretakers on the brain these days SO i hope you enjoy :>

[demaparbat-hp]

Oh, Lala...