#darkness between two worlds

[mouthpoisons]

once again i cant fully believe they pulled ''disabled man who has been forcing himself to be palatable and Useful and Inspirational and has been Working Hard for the benefit of Other People his entire life cataclysmically Snaps so hard under the pressure of his internalised 'i have to be perfect' ableism that he literally forsakes his humanity to become The God of Perfectionism and almost destroys the world over it but being told You Were Never Broken by his destined soulmate pulled him back and saved him'' im still in utter awe of this chat. we thought they were going to end the show hating eachother . chat what the fuck

[lexia-solve-e]

🧠 a sentient canvas

[wikitpowers]

what if ty asks julian for love advice? what if he asks him how he was able to do it for all these years; how was he able to repress his feelings for emma when all he felt was love for her? when hiding it hurt so much? and what if he admits he’s in love with kit? 💔

[dokudoki]

Them,,,

[tizeline]

Who becomes the closest with splinter after they decide “hey maybe we shouldn’t kill humanity?”

I'm not sure, honestly. I guess Leo? He's already on the Lou Jitsu hypetrain, something he feels a lot of guilt about considering he views Splinter as evil. So when he figures out that Splinter isn't actually a terrrible person he'd be pretty excited to get to know him better. And while Leo isn't exactly neglected by Draxum, he still doesn't usually get quite all attention he needs from his dad (middle child lol) so he might be quicker to seek out an extra father figure.

Raph and Mikey would eventually get closer to Splinter as well, though!

[ni-kol-koru]

NOW PLAYING ▸ Rakuzan as Dreamcatcher songs

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 12:20 AKASHI — Deja Vu - Odd Eye

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 3:01 MAYUZUMI — OOTD - JUSTICE

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 9:23 MIBUCHI — Red Sun - YOU AND I

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 7:25 HAYAMA — BOCA - 2 Rings

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။‌‌‌‌‌၊|• 4:30 NEBUYA — VISION - DEMIAN

[haveyouthoughtaboutcomicstoday]

I don’t have time to write up something properly on this topic this week, but here’s an incoherent ramble.

It’s so important to me how it was as an end point for Guy’s new52 character to be him as a Blue Lantern. The blue ring is about healing and faith (in yourself, the people around you, in things bigger than you), and is rooted in belief that things can always get better. That Guy gets to spend his future going around healing people in a universe where he didn’t get the opportunity to pursue that as a career initially is so rewarding.

His role as community leader/teacher/public servant is so integral to how he was first introduced. And through the ups and downs of his story arc in the years following, his ability to forgive people for anything, even to offer that forgiveness first, is what makes him such a good person. We see this most often in his relationship with his family and with Hal, but it’s definitely not limited to them.

There’s also something about Guy opting away from any of the rings that give him strength to do violence in favour of one that is powerful in taking down enemies in other ways. He still carries them with him, and knows sometimes he might need to use them to save people, but thats not his first instinct anymore.

Social worker Guy, psychology student Guy, the version of Guy that is gentle and timid and doesn’t like violence at all (that we only ever saw as a joke in JLI) would all be so proud of him for getting here in the end.

[fleshosphere]

Though I know there's no undo What do I have left to lose?

[cburambles]

I'm so giddy about the way they decided to re-introduce Elena's character in the new trailer because I was worried at the idea they would take the route of doing what the fandom (who don't read the novels) mostly perceive her with: a comic relief due to her klutzy tendencies & her crush, who constantly need to be hand-held by the boys in the group to the point the fandom interpreation render her as a shy or genki girl/ almost swap her personnality with other female characters as if she was a blank state.

But the devs instead decided to follow throught how she was depicted in the compilation: A flawed, fierce, unapologetic woman from the slums coming from an emotionnally distant family, who was the top student of military school while working in a bar in Wall Market prior joining the Turks ( who used to belittle her all the time, mind you) for the sake to gain people's approval, to prove that she's better than her sister and doesn't hesitate to beat up & torture people in front of their sickly relatives. her gung-ho attitude create a mutual frustration in the group, even Tseng doesn't really get an hold on her.

She also can be competent as she was the top student of the military academy but also did some significant contributions post-OG: She is the one who managed to have Midgar's population mostly evacuated post-Meteorfall, she is the one who goes to ask questions to people during investigations, she is the one who maintain a cordial relationship between the towns around Healen's Lodge by proposing & organizing the distribution of medicine to Rufus & then goes looking for the materials & employees necessary for its production. She is the one who find the Jenova's remains in AC & get them to Rude & Reno before going back to fight the remnants to help Tseng. She was in OG the Turks with the most powerful stats as well.

She's not a character you can swap with Cissneï (like some people apparently hoped?) We don't get to skip or not her boss fight this time. She is re-introduced as her class of origin: a martial artist (instead of giving her a gun like in AC). She is an actual threat & even Rude this time warn the party about it. Which I hope will be kind of omnimous story-wise as I think Avalanche & the Turks may become more & more aggressive toward each other throughout the story.

I think we're also gonna see interesting dynamic in the group, as since she's the newbie with an inquisitive & active side, she may be the player eyes into the dynamics & conspiracy in Shinra.

I also think it's the first time we see a Turks get that violent with Aerith & we know that Reno, Rude & Tseng cares about her. Among the group, the one who is never show feeling sorry about being a Turks is Elena.

I hope Rebirth will finally bring justice to her, with her qualities & flaws. She is as important as her comrades within the structure of Shinra & I want it to be explicitly acknowledged in the story.

[cuteniaarts]

Digitalised + coloured + redesigned version of my Suiren and Vaatu sketch from two days ago, as promised!!

Coming up with Suiren’s design was a very long process of trying and failing because after you’ve drawn 9+ different versions of one character, the creativity starts to run a little dry, but I’m actually really proud of this one, she looks absolutely adorable <3

(Also yeah I did mostly just scribble Vaatu’s pattern because who has the energy to draw the all out accurately. Not me, that’s who, I’m chronically tired. People who draw him on the regular have my utmost respect. He’s still a funky little guy though :D)

Bonus, Raava incessantly screaming inside Suiren (and being completely ignored because Suiren is tired of her) while all this is happening:

[yellow-dejavu]

[groonklie]

So... Homestar and Deltarune are the new big thing, huh.... my turn :)

(Original sizes below)

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

There’s something so…gorgeous about how the story of Vermax laying dragon eggs in the crypts of Winterfell works as piece of symbolism. It doesn’t really matter if physical dragon eggs exist down there imo because this story adds so much meaning to Jon’s status as a hidden dragon and also his status as one of the last remaining scions of House Targaryen. Plus it does a lot to contextualize how Ned’s action of saving his nephew’s life is in line with centuries old magic, even though he never intended it to be such.

Because Jace and Cregan quite famously made a pact which was called the “Pact of Ice and Fire”, in which they promised to join their houses through the union of marriage. We also have the canonical representation of Starks as 🧊 and Targaryens as 🔥. Two opposing sides that could do harm to each other have decided to come together through marriage and procreation. Through this pact comes a new life that will be a balanced union of ice and fire.

Then we get the story of Vermax laying eggs in the Winterfell crypts. An act that symbolizes the continuation of life. It’s so interesting because we know how this story ends. We know that after this, the dragons will die and will be no more in Westeros….BUT there’s the exception of the eggs in Winterfell. They may be unhatched but they are like a promise of life. And it’s Winterfell’s crypts that keep them hidden from danger and Winterfell’s heated walls that cover them.

What’s even more gorgeous is that this pact is made in a period of civil war that threatened the survival of the Targaryen dynasty. And like… isn’t that Jon Snow’s life story?! He was born at the tail of of Robert’s rebellion which saw the death of the Targaryens. Aerys and Rhaegar (and Rhaegar’s children were dead). A child Viserys, Rhaella, and an unborn Dany were all that was left of the Targaryen legacy.

And then comes the unexpected Jon Snow. Born of the union of Stark and Targaryen, ice and fire. Ice and fire were on opposing sides in the war and killed each other. But then comes Jon Snow to mend that rift and heal that divide. He is born after a period of death to represent new life and new beginnings. He’s just a little baby but he symbolizes so much!

It’s why I think Jon serves better as a symbol of spring and not winter. Because everything about him represents the promise of life after death: born at the end of a civil war, him being represented by a winter rose, him being symbolized as the corn king (a mythical figure who represented the cycle of life and death), his presumed death at the end of ADWD but the promise that he will be resurrected, etc.

And then we have Ned Stark being the unwitting proxy to his ancestor Cregan. Ned took this dragon egg and hid him away within Winterfell’s walls. Then he took Jon’s mother and also placed her in the crypts. It’s no wonder that Jon has so many strange dreams regarding the crypts. Symbolically, the secret of his birth being hidden away in the crypts ties in quite nicely with Vermax’s hidden dragon eggs. In both cases, a symbol of Targaryen life is hidden within the walls of the Winterfell crypts. Then there’s Summer’s strange vision of a winged serpent as Winterfell burned. Many fans has often wondered what this vision meant. I’m not sure either, but it would be a nice touch if this is a symbolic representation of Jon Snow. As it was with Summer’s vision, Jon is the dragon that has hatched and left the confines of Winterfell’s walls, and he is ready to do some damage.

[curedigiqueen]

Mimi notably never directly refers to Yamato over the course of both adventure and 02. However there IS an implication of interactions in the first half of the show.

Mimi is one of the youngest in the group. Though she and Koshiro are the same age, Koshiro's quiet serious nature and computer skills often lead him to be treated more seriously while Mimi's penchant for complaining (no matter how justified), makes her treated a little more like a junior. There's a hierarchy of protection, that Mimi sits only above Takeru for. Mimi, being on the younger side, is more free to complain about her situation. Sora clearly looks after Mimi as the senior girl, as does Joe as the oldest over all, but Yamato also seems to look after her, at least in the first half of the season, as an extension of looking after Takeru. For instance, very early in the series, Yamato advocated for taking a break, presumably on behalf of Takeru, but it was both Takeru and Mimi who were struggling. And in episodes 5, 7, and 19 Yamato seems to be tasked with looking after the younger kids, Takeru and Mimi, Koshiro sometimes, even if I don't think it was necessarily purposeful in 5.

As such while we don't see much of Yamato and Mimi directly interacting it does stand to reason that they get along and do work well together. Yamato is generally rather considerate of people's negative emotions, such as with how he treated Sora's breakdown in episode 26 and how he handled Mimi's graves early in the dark masters arc. I would imagine that Yamato is relatively tolerant of Mimi's complaining. Conversely I would imagine Yamato is someone who Mimi holds a lot of respect for.

As a side note, the fact Taichi leaves Hikari in Yamato's care I think also speaks to Yamato's unspoken role of "babysitter", the complimentary shield to the role of sword Taichi plays. Yamato's tendency to prioritize the group's well being, over Taichi's tendency to take initiative and confront enemies. It also of course makes sense in the context of their crests, Taichi is courage (to do things), and Yamato's is friendship (to look after people).

And of course on the other side we get Joe Taichi and Sora as a group, the initiative takers, the ones who are more likely to do a dangerous job. Joe who went out in episode 7, Taichi and Sora who went to find him. Those three were the ones dealing with Andromon while the others looked around the factory, and the ones who went in for Sora's crest. Koshiro goes either way depending on if his skills are necessary or not.

[lesbianaglaya]

the world you love... the problem is it ISNT a world. it's like if the truman show's resolution was for christof to go but dont you love seahaven :( it'll be destroyed if you walk off set. and for truman to go you know what? point! and sail back to continue on as before. like that is cardboard and tinfoil.

[acourtofquestions]

"I didn't break," she said quietly. His heart cracked at the words. "I didn't tell them anything."

She didn't say it for praise, to boast. But rather to tell him, her consort, of where they stood in this war. What their enemies might know.

"I knew you wouldn't," he managed to say.

"She ... she tried to convince me that this was the bad dream. When Cairn was done with me, or during it, I don't know, she'd try to worm her way into my mind." She glanced around the cave, as if she could see the world beyond it. "She spun fantasies that felt so real..." She bobbed under the surface. Perhaps she'd needed the cooling water of the lake to be able to hear her own voice again; perhaps she needed the distance between them so she could speak these words. She emerged, slicking back her hair with a hand. "They felt like this."

Half of him didn't want to know, but he asked, "What sort of illusions?"

A long pause. "It doesn't matter now."

Too soon to push—if ever.

Then she asked softly, "How long?"

It took the entirety of his three centuries of training to keep the devastation, the agony for her, from his face. "Two months, three days, and seven hours."

Her mouth tightened, either at the length of time, or the fact that he'd counted every single one of those hours apart.

She ran her fingers through her hair, its strands floating around her in the water. Still too long for two months to have passed. "They healed me after each ... session. So that I stopped knowing what had been done and what was in my mind and where the truth lay." Erase her scars, and Maeve stood a better chance at convincing her none of this was real. "But the healers couldn't remember how long my hair was, or Maeve wanted to confuse me further, so they grew it out." Her eyes darkened at the memory of why, perhaps, they had needed to regrow her hair in the first place.

"Do you want me to cut it back to the length it was when I last saw you?" His words were near-guttural.

"No." Ripples shivered around her. "I want it so I can remember."

What had been done to her, what she'd survived and what she had protected.

Even if the woman treading water before him didn't seem to have vengeance on her mind. Not so much as a hint of the burning rage that fueled her.

He didn't blame her. Knew it would take time, time and distance, to heal the internal wounds. If they could ever really heal at all.

But he'd work with her, help in whatever way he could. And if she never returned to who she had been before this, he would not love her any less.

Aelin dunked her head, and when she emerged, she said, "Maeve was about to put a Valg collar around my neck. She left to retrieve it." The scent of her lingering fear drifted toward him, and Rowan lurched a step closer to the water's edge. "It's why I—why I got away. She had me moved to the army camp for safekeeping, and I ..." Her voice stalled, yet she met his stare. Let him read the words she could not say, in that silent way they'd always been able to communicate. Escape wasn't my intention.

"No, Fireheart," he breathed, shaking his head, horror creeping over him. "There ... there was no collar."

She blinked, head angling. "That was a dream, too?"

His heart cracked as he struggled for the words. Made himself voice them. "No—it was real. Or Maeve thought it was. But the collars, the Valg presence ... It was a lie that we crafted. To draw Maeve out, hopefully away from you and Doranelle."

Only the faint lapping of water sounded. "There was no collar?"

Rowan lowered himself to his knees and shook his head. "I—Aelin, if I'd known what she'd do with the knowledge, what you'd decide to do-"

He might have lost her. Not from Maeve or the gods or the Lock, but from his own damned choices. The lie he'd spun.

Aelin drifted beneath the surface again. So deep that when the flare happened, it was little more than a flutter. The light burst from her, rippling across the lake, illumining the stones, the slick ceiling above. A silent eruption. His breathing turned ragged. But she swam toward the surface again, light streaming off her body like tendrils of clouds. It had nearly vanished when she emerged.

"I'm sorry," he managed to say. Again, that angle of the head. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He did, though. He'd added to her terror, her desperation. He'd— "If you had not planted that lie for Maeve, if she had not told me, I don't think we'd be here right now," she said.

He tried to rein in the twisting in his gut, the urge to reach for her, to beg for her forgiveness. Tried and tried.

She only asked, "What of the others?" She didn't know-couldn't know how and why and where they'd all parted ways. So Rowan told her, as succinctly and calmly as he could.

When he finished, Aelin was quiet for long minutes.

She stared out into the blackness, the rippling of her treading water the only sound. Her body had nearly lost that freshly forged glow.

Then she pivoted back toward him. "Maeve said you and the others were in the North. That you'd been spotted by her spies there. Did you plant that deception for her, too?"

He shook his head. "Lysandra has been thorough, it seems."

Aelin's throat bobbed. "I believed her." It sounded like a confession, somehow.

So Rowan found himself saying, "I told you once that even if death separated us, I would rip apart every world until I found you." He gave her a slash of a smile. "Did you really believe this would stop me?'

She pursed her mouth, and at last, those agonizing emotions began to surface in her eyes. "You were supposed to save Terrasen."

"Considering that the sun shines, I'd say Erawan hasn't won yet. So we'll save it together."

He didn't let himself think of the final cost of destroying Erawan. And Aelin seemed in no hurry to discuss it, either, as she said, "You should have gone to Terrasen. It needs you."

"I need you more." He didn't balk from the stark honesty roughening his voice. "And Terrasen will need you, too. Not Lysandra masquerading as you, but you."

A shallow nod. "Maeve raised her army. I doubt it was only to guard me while she was away."

He'd put the thought aside, to consider later. "It might just be to shore up her defenses, should Erawan win across the sea."

"Do you truly think that's what she plans to do with it?"

"No," he admitted. "I don't."

And if Maeve meant to bring that army to Terrasen, to either unite with Erawan or simply be another force battering their kingdom, to strike when they were weakest, they had to hurry. Had to get back. Immediately. His mate's eyes shone with the same understanding and dread.

Aelin's throat bobbed as she whispered, "I'm so tired, Rowan."

His heart strained again. "I know, Fireheart."

He opened his mouth to say more, to coax her onto land so he might at least hold her if words couldn't ease her burden, but that's when he saw it.

A boat, ancient and every inch of it carved, drifted out of the gloom.

"Get back to shore." The boat wasn't drifting—it was being tugged. He could just barely make out two dark forms slithering beneath the surface.

Aelin didn't hesitate, yet her strokes remained steady as she swam for him. She didn’t balk at the hand he extended, and he wrapped his cloak around her while the boat ambled past.

But Aelin turned toward them, hair dripping onto the stone at her bare feet. Half a thought from her could have had her dry, yet she made no move to do so. "We're being hunted."

"We know that," Lorcan shot back, and were it not for the fact that Aelin was currently allowing him to rest a hand upon her shoulder, Rowan would have thrown the male into the lake.

But Aelin's features didn't shift from that graveness, that unruffled calm. "The only way to the sea is through these caves." It was an outrageous claim.

"And I suppose they told you that?" Lorcan's face was hard as granite.

"Watch it," Rowan snarled. Fenrys indeed bared his teeth at the dark-haired warrior, fur bristling. But Aelin said simply, "Yes." Her chin didn't dip an inch. "The land above is crawling with soldiers and spies. Going beneath them is the only way."

Elide stepped forward. "I will go." She cut a cold glance toward Lorcan. "You can take your chances above, if you're so disbelieving." Lorcan's jaw tightened, and a small part of Rowan relished seeing the delicate Lady of Perranth fillet the centuries-hardened warrior with a few words. "Considering the potential pitfalls of the situation is wise."

"We don't have time to consider," Rowan cut in before Elide could voice the retort on her tongue. "We need to keep moving. Gavriel stalked forward to study the moored boat and what seemed to be bundles of supplies on its sturdy planks. "How will we navigate our way, though?"

"We'll be escorted," Aelin answered.

"And if they abandon us?" Lorcan challenged. Aelin leveled unfazed eyes upon him.

"Then you'll have to find a way out, I suppose." A hint-just a spark-of temper belied those calm words. There was nothing else to debate after that.

And they had little to pack. The others gave Aelin privacy to dress by the fire while they inspected the boat, and when his mate emerged again, clad in boots, pants, and various layers beneath her gray surcoat, the sight of her in clothes from Mistward was enough to make his gut clench.

No longer a naked, escaped captive. Yet none of that wickedness, that joy and unchecked wildness illuminated her face.

The rest of their party waited on the boat, seated on the benches built into its high-lipped sides. Fenrys and Elide both sat as seemingly far from Lorcan as they could get, Gavriel a golden, long-suffering buffer between them.

Rowan lingered at the shore's edge, a hand extended for Aelin while she approached. Each of her steps seemed considered—as if she still marveled at being able to move freely. As if still adjusting to her legs without the burden of chains.

"Why?" Lorcan mused aloud, more to himself. "Why go to these lengths for us?"

He got his answer—they all did—a heartbeat later. Aelin halted a few feet away from the boat and Rowan's outstretched hand. She turned back toward the cave itself. The Little Folk peeked from those birch branches, from the rocks, from behind stalagmites. Slowly, deeply, Aelin bowed to them. Rowan could have sworn all those tiny heads lowered in answer.

A pair of bony grayish hands rose above a nearby rock, something glittering held between them, and set the object on the stone.

Rowan went still. A crown of silver and pearl and diamond gleamed there, fashioned into upswept swan's wings

"The Crown of Mab," Gavriel breathed. But Fenrys looked away, toward the looming dark, his tail curling around him.

Aelin staggered a step closer to the crown. "It—it fell into the river."

Rowan didn't want to know how she'd encountered it, why she'd seen it fall into a river. Maeve had kept her sisters' two crowns under constant guard, only bringing them out to be displayed in her throne room on state occasions. In memory of her siblings, she'd intoned. Rowan had sometimes wondered if it was a reminder that she had outlasted them, had kept the throne for herself in the end.

The grayish hand slipped over the rock's edge again and nudged the crown in silent gesture. Take it.

"You want to know why?" Gavriel softly asked Lorcan as Aelin strode for the rock. Nothing but solemn reverence on her face. "Because she is not only Brannon's Heir, but Mab's, too."

A throwback to her great-great-grandmother, Maeve had taunted her. Who had inherited her strength, her immortal lifespan.

Aelin's fingers closed around the crown, lifting it gently. It sparkled like living moonlight between her hands.

My sister Mab's line ran true, Elide claimed Maeve had said on the beach. In every way, it seemed.

But Aelin made no move to don the crown while she approached him once more, her gait steadier this time. Trying not to dwell on the unbearable smoothness of her hand as it wrapped around his, Rowan helped her aboard, then climbed in himself before freeing the ropes tethering them to the shore.

Gavriel went on, awe in every word, "And that makes her their queen, too."

Aelin met Gavriel's gaze, the crown near-glowing in her hands. "Yes," was all she said as the boat sailed into the darkness.