#but he does still struggle a lot

[commanderhorncleaver]

Maybe you've mentioned it before but I didn't see it and I'm curious, what's the exact deal with Gaius and gladia, what did he do? :0

This is sort of a complicated thing, but the simple answer is he did his job!

The detailed answer deals with his backstory as having been born in Flame Legion to an Iron Legion dam who, when he was around two, fled with him back to the Citadel, and shortly after went on her final patrol. Babby!Gaius dedicated himself to the idea of becoming the best soldier in Iron Legion to live up to/make up for the loss of his dam. Fast forward to when he's 21 and made gladium after losing his warband. After a year of self-loathing, he's able to enlist in Blood thanks to some favors, and he eventually transfers back to Iron, and eventually makes his way to Centurion.

But the problem is that Gaius has really no talent for Iron legion type things. He's a great soldier and strategist, but he's got none of what makes Iron Legion Iron. Additionally, he's not actually in charge of soldiers who are part of the things that he's good at--he's just in charge of engineers and shit, so the vast majority of his job is paperwork.

Except that he also gets to do disciplinary action, and the primary folk that get sent his way are awol wannabes being made gladium. He beats their asses, lops off a horn, does their paperwork, and they're gladium.

This was his job for around 13 years before personal story, where he was pretty much allowed to enforce his belief that the only good gladium was a gladium who was doing their best to throw themselves back into action. His personal story is separate from that of what occurs in game, where after being invited by Rytlock on an assault on Barradin's Vault (you know, the tutorial) he gets caught up being framed for actually killing a pair of gladia whose horns he'd recently cleaved. His personal story is spent being demoted to legionnaire and gathering a band to help him figure out who's framing him and why.

As you can guess from things you've seen lately--this perspective isn't something he's proud of? He's 48 at the start of personal story, and the exposure...to everything that occurs as commander really helps him grow and become more empathetic, and, well. Unfortunately, he's still got a reputation, since among Iron, he's unfortunately better known for his time as centurion than anything he's done as pact commander except IBS (you know, the phenomenon of people knowing you before you got big and since everything you did while a hero was outside their periphery--no matter how big it was--it doesn't feel as real to them).

[haunted-xander]

Who's the "real" me?

+ some references for the Rise-related things I included <3

[fumifooms]

That. That screentone on Chilchuck’s chest in the low open collar. Is Chilchuck having chest hair canon Kui. Kui? Gripping my knee

[willyhoos]

the mikes.. the michaels, even...

[mooneln0ne]

Messy comic about his Intrusive thoughts

[lemongogo]

what is their problem tbh

[sp0o0kylights]

obsessed with your latest steddie au! steve’s relationship with his parents is so emotionally abusive and manipulative and my heart is breaking that nobody seems to recognise that

Thank you!!

I really wanted to focus on how Steve's parents are abusive in a way that is a lot harder to clock.

They're not out there screaming and kicking him out of the house. These people want you to like them, and they lie like they breath.

These are the adults who downplay serious issues, who make you doubt yourself, who smooth things over or even apologize on your behalf as a way to control and isolate you.

If everyone thinks you're terrible, and your amazing, doting, angelic parents are once again swooping in to save you, then your escape routes close up rapidly--which is of course, the whole point. They want their victims to rely on them and them alone.

For a lot of the Party, that's just not an evil they've encountered yet.

Throw in the fact that Steve does in fact, have a head injury, and things get muddy FAST.

It makes for delicious, angst-ridden scenarios and I am delighted everyone's happy to come along for the ride.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[bunnieswithknives]

sorry if idk this but what do you think about Wordgirl now in 2024 do you still like it do you still want to make art or talk about it or are you just done with all of it forever and plus i seen that you haven't made art of it since 2022 so you just done with all of it oh yeah and what about The Magnus Archives + Wordgirl ao3 fic too like is that just going to be and i know that your working on 2 au's now just wanting to know that's all

My interests tend to come in intense bursts and then fade. Unless something like, big happens like it gets a reboot its unlikely I'll be coming back to it anytime soon. As for the fic I don't have any current plans to finish it unfortunately.

[keeps-ache]

hit random on a picrew n dressed him up :3

[inks below because they're neat]

[skunkes]

why doesn't talon like looking young?

dis was gonna be in the little lore write up but i still have to iron out many details surrounding it ➡️ connecting to my general vampire lore....anyway the answer is abuse at the hands of higher rank vampires and mortal men who sought out young "boys" just like him + also he already hated that he would never get to age bc people would treat him weird even before all that (as in, they'd just treat him like he was stupid because he looks so young)

[quirkle2]

the angst in your zombie au bREAKS MY HEART INTO PIECES (I LOVE IT VERY MUCH)

okay, okay, so!! if the kagebros got separated from reigen and teru when mob is still fine, i imagine that their reunion would be hEARTWRENCHING also, i'm a bit curious, would mob still be able to recognize teru and reigen? or would he thought about them as strangers?

(tbh, following your lore, i imagine mob would act a similarly like nezuko from demon slayer? but instead of little hums, his zombie sounds would more like babbling and incoherent mumbles :"D)

the reunion is fuckin AWFUL man it's SO gut-wrenching. both reigen and teru feared this for Months while looking for the brothers; pretty much the worst case scenario was that mob or ritsu or Both turned—a lot of humans prefer death over being a zombie any day, so the idea of ritsu or mob having to go through that and wander around aimlessly until starvation or smth else gets them,,,

it hurts them so much to think about. teru forces himself not to dwell on it and he's pretty good at that but reigen thinks abt it a lot and he's honestly not sure what scenario is worse. best case is that they're both alive and unturned, obviously, but what's the worst case? you'd think it's both of them getting killed, or turning, but reigen also knows that if One of them got killed/turned, the other would probably lose their mind, especially if they had to watch. the fact that they're kids makes this all three times worse and reigen has to act like he's Not worrying himself sick over the brothers while he tries to keep teru in high spirits

the reunion itself is rly fuckin gut-wrenching for them. they see mob from afar, wandered off just a bit from ritsu and tome who are just around the bend looting a place, and they book it bc ofc they do, it's mob!! but then they see how pale he is, and when he turns around they don't see that light in his eyes that's usually there and the red is dulled and dead looking,, teru almost moves in for a hug before he realizes mob looks vastly different when he Rly takes him in, and mob doesn't rly react too much besides staring at them blankly. the obvious answer is almost too horrifying to even consider, so it takes them a minute to rly,,realize what's going on

tome comes around the bend and shouts, cuz when humans and zombies mix it's usually guns pointed at zombie heads. ritsu comes running out after her and when he sees reigen and teru his thoughts go, in order: holy shit is that reigen and tero ohmygod oh my god they're alive they're alive ohmy god i could fucking cry, and ohmy god they see shige ohno oh no oh no

ritsu sounds like a lunatic when he pulls mob away from them on instinct and says that he's safe to be around and that he's "still him" and he's "not gone" and he's very aware of that. he's very, intimately aware that he sounds fuckin crazy, bc ofc he does, this is what all the crazy people in zombie movies sound like. but he doesn't care, he doesn't care if reigen or teru dismiss him as nuts—he has to make them understand that his brother is still in there somewhere

and yeah, they both kinda think that ritsu's lost his marbles a little bit, but while teru is focused on that and the fact that mob doesn't look like he's rly tuned into Anything that's happening rn, reigen is a bit more focused on the fact that both ritsu and mob look awful? they're both very skinny and very dirty, obviously barely scraping by. they're cut up and ritsu's jacket is basically blood and dirt with a little bit of green fabric mixed in. and just by the look in ritsu's eyes, reigen can tell, man ... reigen can tell ritsu is like.not okay at this point he's kinda lost it.

i think the most painful thing about this whole reunion in general is that later that night, when reigen and teru r finally like ok we get it he's,, he's still mob. we believe you (they want to believe him... [they Do believe him, later, wholeheartedly]) and they settle down someplace safe, teru asks how long mob's been like this. and ritsu has to answer "since we got separated" and they both have that to stew over while everybody else sleeps

they realize that ritsu likely watched mob turn, watched the entire process, and that process takes a long time. it's at least a week of deteriorating motor functions and cognitive skill, and the fact that ritsu stayed for that to keep mob company is .ough. and it doesn't end there bc ritsu obviously stayed after that too

given how these things usually go, ritsu probably did think about killing mob. it probably did cross his mind, bc that's basically what everybody's been told to do. kill them before they have a chance to do any more damage. and it's obvious that ritsu did not have it in him

ritsu not only did not have it in him to kill him, he didn't even have it in him to leave him there. the kid fucking took him with him. a zombie. and he's somehow made it work, for months. and the next few days are filled with watching him still treat mob like a brother and take care of him and gently steer him away from a bird he tries to follow down the wrong street.ritsu is as gentle and kind as he's ever been with his brother. and even tho they're both hungry and tired and barely making it, ritsu is doing a rly good job taking care of mob with what he's been given

the kid obviously wholeheartedly believes in a cure and that mob is still There. he's gone through the trouble to take care of him, and the grief of continuously seeing a loved one that many would consider effectively dead, to get him that cure. to get him his brother back. and mob doesn't seem to be in any pain or distress, so reigen and teru think that this path ritsu has followed is probably infinitely kinder than the mercy kill method they've been taught to do

i think they have a new respect for ritsu, after that reunion

[fluffs-n-stuffs]

"Cuhut it out- you guys!" "Nu-uh, not until you're all perked up first! You don't want those gym challengers meetin' with an ol' mopey leader, do ya?" "Whitney's right, dear friend. No need to hide that beautiful smile of yours, alright?~"

What it takes to cheer up Johto's beloved ghost boy 👻💕

[bonefall]

Voted for Bumble bc of course but also if you think Alex would not pspsps Bumble you are wrong. If they could communicate they would go to therapy together /s

If then could communicate they would go to therapy together

/GEN

Kyle/Green Lantern resurrects her but then he becomes convinced that she's not the same person she was before the incident, OR SOMETHING SOMETHING Black Lanterns aren't ACTUALLY bad they're just misunderstood Grim Reaper types, in either case Alex ends up breaking it off with Kyle because they've become very different people.

And then Bumble's there

And then they go to therapy or Alex adopts Bumble, and then uhhh Bumble's like one of the superpets. Like Krypto the Superdog. Free premise go forth and play with it if ur a DC fan

[moeblob]

Windy at my house + power flickering = no comm work = quick laptop doodle

[anthromimicry]

jandy nelson, i'll give you the sun | jean anouilh tr, by lewis galantière | @soulinkpoetry | trista mateer, the dogs i have kissed | the bible