#ep4 spoilers

[whale-trawl]

i will entertain vekoa

[corrudaily]

131. ichor is the humor most associated with sacrifice

[jellielover]

CORRU OBERBER???

CASTE AND FUNCTION

my main assumption is that the 4 castes originated as specialization for different roles in a hive, such as tir with acid for expansion and kiv for guarding. This does seem to have literal biological implications, those being different abilities that different castes have and the different receptor shapes that they have. More on this later…

if we're really getting into it (sociology major voice) then the closest allegory imo is sex vs gender, where we assign certain physical traits as belonging to a certain sex and then the social roles accompanying those as genders, so caste is probably both a physical thing (tirs with acid and hand-shaped receptors) and a social thing (tirs being kind). I do think there are physical aspects but i wouldn't be surprised if caste implies both a biological and social aspect. Perhaps sex is treated as a medical fact that has no bearing on social gender roles, and so the concept of gender ceases to exist because gender is a social construct, so with no social importance it has no meaning. Translating this to caste, the Obesk are kind of like "yeah we have these 4 castes (sexes) but who give a shit?" except we also assign certain traits to each caste, so in that aspect it is also a social role one can occupy.

As for Obesk, they seem to not give a crap about gender/sex because their main social roles would (theoretically) stem from what one's caste does to maintain the hive/cave-city. my assumption is that Obesk have human-esque sexes but put all the social role baggage on receptor shape instead: we get comments like how Kazki and Bozko are both 'vel-like at heart' and Vekoa being the perfect jut because she's unemotional. I'm also keeping in mind that this is all from Akizet's perspective (and unreliable narrator, but she doesn't have a lot of reasons to hide sociological processes).

From the gameplay end, there's some confusion over which character use what pronouns and why and how and blah blah.I'd like to assert that we don't know if pronouns are on the mindspike end for our benefit or what they symbolize to the obesk. Pronouns in english aren't a hard-ball way to ping gender either: a pronoun simply takes the place of a noun. We don't really know what the pronoun indicates for Obesk in this case, especially because we don't specifically see any sexual dimorphism. Being intersex in humans is as common as a peanut allergy, and technically the drone/queen/worker thing ARE the biological sexes of bees, so we really don't know much because we also don't know anything about Obesk reproduction.

One interesting thing to note is that Akizet refers to people with they/them until proven guilty, seen with Itzil's 'partner' becoming 'she/her' once we talk more about her. If there's so little sexual dimorphism AND this does indicate gender, then how does one tell this information?

PHEREMONES

Obesk is known to be a dark-surfaced moon where most of the sentient life lives in caves together in cave-cities. Obesk also have four different castes with four roles that might come with a functional insect hive: Kiv are larger and guard the nest, Tir have acid and expand the nest, Jut seem to focus on building and structure, and Vel might be messangers and do odd jobs. Over time, Jut became the engineers they are known to be now with the corrucystic revolution, being able to 'teach' corru.

The discussion about pheremones originally came from the fact that obesk are assumed to be insectoid, which has a bunch of evidence from how they speak about themselves. They were 'larval' before ascending, and have things like chitin and carapaces. There's also the plain association of the pets and things they have around them, like their dog is a bug (similar to how humans and dogs are both mammals). Obeski also has a ton of parasitization, its a huge theme in the story (especially with secri, zuzucri, and the whole implication that Obesk are parasites of corru itself). Obesk become infected with secri like a wasp laying its eggs inside of a caterpillar and bringing it back to Terrible Life. In addition to this, Obesk blood is always mentioned to be cyan, just like how hemocyanin and hemolymph in bugs appears.

A lot of the evidence for pheromones specifically also comes from the Zuzucri memhole, where they mention being able to smell out castes by pheromone, namely vel and kiv (and tell that they're dead!) and suspecting something is wrong because the unnamed vel has their scent tainted by the presumably metallic zuzucri. Akizet also mentions something about 'trails being dispersed,' which would make sense if they were going from the relatively-sheltered caves to the windy, stormy surface.

I'd like to also point out that there's a ton of funny stuff you can do with pheromone headcanons.

-One comes from those experiments they did where they put ant death pheromones on alive ants to see if they would be taken to the pile of ant corpses (they were). Zuzucri memhole specifically does say that they can smell dead Obesk. Get the picture?

-My personal thinking is that Bozko might resemble a wasp with a very skinny waist, which then brings to mind the danger pheremones they release: they smell like overripe fruit. We know that when Bozko died he was the survivor of a cave-city being infested, and part of the kiv caveguards that had to kill all the husks. Bozko's cave-city post-secri-infection probably smelled like rotting fruit.

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x04 - “Paint the Town Blue”

[irrational-anthropocentrism]

⟡ ݁₊ . Gangle expressions from the latest episode !

[watchyourbuck]

I think the reason Eddie crashes the bucktommy date is bc Buck mentions him three times in a row and ends up summoning him like in Bloody Mary

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Aziraphale [about Job being talked to by God]: I don't suppose he's getting any answers.

Crowley: No. But just to be able to ask the question.

[l13]

The loud thumping wakes you up, and you blink tiredly as the sound persists. You look at your ceiling for a second before you realize someone is knocking at your door. You groan, bringing your duvet over your ear as you snuggle in again.

“Leave me alone,” you mumble against your pillow as the knocking becomes more forceful.

Suddenly there’s silence, and when you finally think that whoever is bothering you has left, the knocking starts again.

You groan, cursing under your breath as you stand up, grabbing your gun from your vanity. You walk to your front door, opening it angrily.

“What-” your outburst dies down at your lips when you lock eyes with the last person you’d expected to see standing outside your apartment, but one you’d longed for, for years.

Your first instinct is to panic, there’s no way you were conscious. The person standing at your door was supposed to be dead.

So you raise your gun up, hand trembling, “This isn’t real.” you choke out, and Vander raises his hands slowly, opening his mouth to speak but you cut him off, “You’re not real, you’re not here.” There are tears dripping down your cheeks, the gun threatening to fall from your hand with how much you were shaking “Y-you’re dead, this can’t-” you clutch at your chest, heaving, and Vander’s hands grab at your shoulders when your knees buckle,

“My love,” The gun slips from your shaky grip and falls to the floor the moment the words leave his mouth. His voice, god fuck, his voice. You’ve dreamed of it, you’re certain you’ve heard it, back when the grief first clawed at your heart, when the illusions spilled into reality to try to mend what was broken.

But this sounded too real, and you gasped when his hand cupped your cheek, thumb wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Darling, my darling girl. It’s me,” the sweet but rough sound of his voice sent shivers down your back, and you wanted to drown in it, you wanted to hear it again and again and again until you couldn’t anymore. You blinked rapidly, tears blurring your vision as your eyes danced across his features, the five bright white dots across his forehead would have confused you, if you weren’t on the verge of a panic attack.

You didn’t realize you’d raised your hand to cover his, until you felt the warmth of his hand under your skin. “S-stop, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real,” you squeezed your eyes shut, whispering frantically in order to wake up from this sickly realistic dream, to end this before you woke up and missed his touch again. And yet you craved more, desperately running your hands down his sides, back up to his chest, his shoulders, his back.

God, he felt real, and he was so warm, not like the previous dreams you’ve had when he was always cold, just a silhouette of the man you loved. He even smelled like your Vander. A sob broke through you, and you threw your hands around his neck, crying against his chest. Even if this wasn’t real, you’d still take advantage of this opportunity to feel close to him one last time.

You tried not to cry harder when his arms immediately circled around your torso, hugging you tight to him as you both slipped down to the floor, “Shh sh, love it’s me. Please, look at me,”

“If I do then I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone.” you muttered against his chest, nuzzling closer to him, “Let me have this, just for a moment.”

“You have me, forever.” His rough gravelly voice vibrated against your chest as he spoke, his breath hitting your ear as he nuzzled against your hair, his hands running up and down your back, spreading warmth everywhere.

Too real, too real, too real.

“I miss you so much. I-I can’t-” you take a shuddering breath in, “I can’t live without you. I need you back, please. Please, I’ll do anything.”

“My love, my heart. You beautiful, stunning creature. Look at me, I beg you.”

You could feel him leaning away just so he could cup your jaw, lifting your head up softly, so so softly.

Please.

“Look at me.” he mutters, the softness of his request filled with desperation. You slowly open your eyes, blinking away your tears, gaze immediately locking with his.

Your lips part as you take him in. The color of his eyes was much greyer than you remembered. You raised your hand to follow each feature, each wrinkle of his. After a moment, You brought your other hand up, as well, cupping both his cheeks in your hands, feeling his stubble prickle at your palms. “Vander… This- this can’t be real.” you move to pull away but he cups both your hands, keeping you in place, leaning his forehead against yours, “It can, it is. I’m here honey. I’m here.”

You can’t help but stare at his lips, watching them move as he speaks, your mind trying to make sense of what you’re seeing, hearing, feeling.

Please.

You can’t let yourself get too hopeful because this isn’t possible, and he seems to get it too, so he starts explaining.

He tells you everything. How he was on the verge of death, how a man, Singed, found him, turned him into something vile, but the mutation kept him alive, even if he wasn’t entirely himself. He tells you about how all he felt was pain, but you and the kids were the only thing in his mind the whole time, trying to block away everything else. Tells you about Powder, Vi, and Isha, how they found him, brought him somewhere, a colony of some sort. A man, the Herald, helped him, and “..honest to God he kind of scares me, but it-it didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now because I’m here. I’m here with you.”

Please.

You don’t realize you’ve lost track of time until you’re looking at yourself. You blink quickly, eyebrows furrowing, but then you realize you’re looking at yourself in the mirror. Vander is still holding you tightly, and the side of your face is pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as he whispers sweet nothings against the crown of your head. You stay there, listening to his voice and his heart for what feels like forever.

He grabs your shoulders, pulling you away from him just enough for him to look at you in the eyes, “Are you okay?” he asks, but his voice is muffled, sounding too far away. You blink slowly up at him and he frowns sadly.

“I missed you so much. Even in death I missed you, but I wasn’t selfish enough to wish I could see you again because that would mean you’d-” he cuts himself off, the strands of his hair moving as he shakes his head, eyes clenched shut as if to rid himself of that painful thought. “I-I’m here. I’m real. Darling, I’m alive, and I need you to know this.”

His eyes are pained as he stares down at you, once again cupping your jaw, thumb caressing your cheekbone “Say something.”

“I love you.”

His face immediately crumbles, eyebrows squeezing together as his tears start falling, and he tucks his head against the place between your neck and shoulder, crying as he squeezes you impossible tighter, “I love you.” he chokes out, and you feel him pepper soft kisses over your skin, the brokenness of his voice bringing fresh tears to your eyes as well.

You don’t know how long you stay tangled together like this, just holding each other, but Vander leans back suddenly, looking at you with so much adoration that it makes you want to scream. “Hi,” he mumbles, petting your hair softly, his other hand drawing circles on your back.

You start pressing soft kisses all over his face, not being able to contain your affection, and he closes his eyes, laughing giddily, the deep sound traveling over your skin, spreading warmth everywhere. God, you’ve missed this, missed him. “Hi.” you mutter, pressing one last kiss at the corner of his mouth.

His puffy eyes glance down at your lips, “Can I-”

“Please.”

He kisses you.

2024 © l13 | Do not steal, copy, edit, translate or re-post any of my works.

[redwhitebuddie]

buck might be saying that he was jealous of eddie because he wanted tommy

but tommy was no where to be found in this scene, might wanna re-analyze there buck

[hermit-frog]

[whale-trawl]

your heart in my hands

[corrudaily]

133. council apology video

[consultingfujoshi]

outie irving incessantly painting the testing floor hallway. innie irving incessantly drawing burt in his notebook. we know the images of the painting bled through, even in the most incomprehensible and abstract ways. now I wonder if the images of burt will bleed through the other way.

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: SEASON 2 ACT 2 (2024)

[bananafire11]

TADC EP4 SPOILERS; CW: SUICIDE/MENTAL HEALTH SHIT

Gangle has become very dear to me, so i thought i'd try smth new for her:]

[watchyourbuck]

There’s something so beautiful about the conversation right after the kiss. In the way that we all know this moment’s huge for Buck, but Tommy takes the lead, doesn’t let him spiral, or overthink, or be nervous about what it means. Tommy keeps him grounded, invites him out, tells him about his shift. He touches him, straightening his shirt, which is such an ‘earth to Buck’ kinda moment. It’s so soft ???