#he didn't care about that At All

[maegalkarven]

I have an awful idea of Karlach and Durge actually knowing each other in the past, quite well, actually.

(The reason Karlach did not recognize Durge is because Durge always used that shape-shifting mask of theirs and looked like someone else).

Durge and Gortash met for the first time 11 or so years prior the game.

Durge was already a cult leader, Gortash was not yet Bane's Chosen or even banite, but was starting to work on the cults angle.

Durge hang around just enough for them and Karlach to hit off; it was actually Karlach who is the first person Durge felt genuine connection with.

Father Bhaal disapproved and Urge started to act up; Durge blacked out several times killing innocent tieflings, acted a lil weirder than usual.

Gortash, being Gortash, noticed.

He had a list of candidates from whom he was planning to choose the right person for Zariel's engine.

But he discarded them and sold Karlach instead; he explained it to himself as there's no better candidate for the role. She would survive the engine being installed and, if she was tough enough, would survive Avernus and emerge victorious.

It had nothing to do with his unstable ally acting more unstable than before.

Durge, who at that point had caught up what Father demanded Karlach dead and, for the first time ever, were hesitating to kill someone, visited Gortash and found out Karlach was gone.

"Good," is all they said. They did not elaborate.

[essayofthoughts]

Genuinely, I think one of the most fun and crunchy things about any character is

How far they will go for things they want

What they will do to get things they want

Things they won't do, no matter how much they want what they'd get in exchange

Because these things tell you some very important things about the character, namely their limits, their price, and their absolute No's. (And it lets you create some really REALLY crunchy conflict)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!

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[tackykachowch]

What Ekko, Vi and Jinx should've thought about Silco's methods after Cait gassed Zaun tbh

[fascinationstreetmp3]

i need daniel to be overcompensating for his insecurities so bad. 100 times more cocky and rude and aggressive and insensitive than he was as a human, falling back into old dangerous habits and vices, not just because now he has new energy and power and wealth to flaunt but because it's ALL he has, and he needs to cling onto it. play it up and revel in it so no one sees that underneath, he feels like a botched fledgling in the body of a sick, faded old man who maybe has no real idea why he was even made. that armand might think he failed in making him. that his maker didn't even really want him.

[v10l3tz-thmblr]

Would yall believe me if I said I made these just for the shits and giggles. Ehe?

[Not in order!] Satbk au belongs to me

Rockstar Silver au belongs to @ken-yamh

Sing for Blood au belongs to @hayweerc

Death and Love au belongs to @lm-tomatito

Bound by Chaos belongs to @hayweerc

Dadpio belongs to @retrocandyfloss

[vaguely-concerned]

literally never am I getting over the unexpected and acknowledged throughline in this game that 'part of the reason lucanis is so good at what he does is, surprisingly, that he has a frankly remarkable capacity for empathy'. his instinct for it is so strong that it even kicks in looking at actual demons he's been culturally conditioned to think of as mindless monsters and lets him realize that they are just as innocent in the middle of this horror as every other prisoner, which is what helps him survive in there and reach an understanding (and even a warmth beneath it all!) with spite, when spite was at his most terrified and confused and needed him. it makes him an incredibly kind and devoted friend, and a terrifying enemy. shorn of most of the compassion that goes along with it in his private life, he uses it in his professional one as one more knife to kill with as easily as he does in SO gently and softly helping to untangle lace harding's people pleasing problems with her. so long as the three categories of people -- family, enemies, targets -- stay distinct and separate in his head, this seems to be working out swimmingly for him! (well. that's probably what he'd tell you at least lol it's certainly helped him survive and do his job I'll give him that.) the MOMENT the lines start to blur, he is fucked. this dude was compartmentalized to hell and back long before the ossuary.

(he shares the 'incredible insight into people and human nature -- as long as I don't have to interpersonally engage with and adapt to it on the spot. b/c then you'll see the biggest mess you could ever imagine' trait with merrill. which does make quite a bit of sense in that they're written by the same person and also in my estimation a not entirely dissimilar shade of autistic lol. also yet another tick on the 'lucanis - iron bull parallels' tally haha. 'ben-hassrath, kid. we can use anything.' what if your circumstances and upbringing forced you to turn some of the kindest fundamental instincts inside you into tools for violence and you only got to keep guarded scraps of it for yourself. what if you're so fucking scared it'll break bad inside you some day and turn you into a monster and you'll end up hurting the people you love. saddest freeze slash dissociative trauma response handshake meme duo To Me)

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Do your best today! I'll be waiting here when you get home, starlight~💕"

had two busy days of work outside of my cave and the only thing that kept me going was the sight of my housewife/househusband Eclipse waiting for me at home

that is, the sketch of him waiting for me to finish drawing him 😂

starring @starriegalaxy's Eclipse from her Fear Factor AU/House Husband AU

[automatonwithautonomy]

the moment where spike brings joyce flowers fucks me up so much. because. he liked her. she treated him like a person. something maybe no one else had ever done for - decades. longer. he had a bad break-up and she gave him cocoa. made awkward small talk. she didnt act like he was a freak. so he went to her grave. helped her grieving child try to resurrect her. he looked after her daughters. he didn't like seeing summers women take it so hard on the chin. he just - he liked joyce.

[ineffably-human]

So here's my problem.

And it's not about Nandermo, not exactly anyway. Because I didn't expect Nandermo to become textual until the very end, if at all. The show kept making it clear that they liked their ambiguity to keep the relationship on the razor's edge, and Paul Simms made it clearer and clearer that for some reason (put a pin in this) he just couldn't see their connection as a sexual one.

But I frankly don't care about that, because if anything is canon in this show it's that the vampires will eventually fuck everything, and Nandor canonically fucks his other friends. More importantly, their connection was always the emotional core of both characters. And Paul always did say he saw their relationship as a romance, if a strange and non-sexual one.

So I figured we'd maybe get Nandor confessing that Guillermo meant a lot to him (and immediately walking it back a little), or Guillermo confessing how lost he feels without his vampire dream and Nandor offering him a place. Maybe an ambiguous, could-just-be-queerplatonic-partners 'I love you'. Maybe just the hug they kept teasing for three or four seasons and never got. We got like...half of two of those, in episode 10, so I guess that's a wobbly semi-fulfilled thing by my definition of it.

But it's not the Nandermo of it all. It's the Guillermo of it all. And how this final episode seemed to almost mock Guillermo's place at the emotional core of the show.

And the Guillermo of it all is why we never got the Nandermo of it all.

Shadows has vampires doing absurd-ass things, but every character also has things they want and feel, and there are various amounts of emotional ink spilled about it. The show has found space, sometimes very poignant space, to take that seriously in between the piss and sex jokes. The vampires change very slowly and in spirals, they repeat a lot of their old issues that stem back even to their mortal lives. But they always try.

And things do change in the vampire house; that is not the same household from the first season. Every single character, right down to the Baron and the Guide and Derek, are in different and better places than they were before the show began. They've made progress in their individual desires, and a lot of that is due to the improved connections they have with each other, connections we've watched them foster. A lot of the time it's because they're talked about as a found family, something Guillermo started and Guillermo believed before any of the rest of them did.

---

So where is Guillermo this season? Our human point of view, our dynamic character, the character who has a dream and wants something more than any of the others? Whose dream drives the storyline of the entire show?

Guillermo has chosen to be human, and he thinks he can't be part of the household if he's not a vampire. We watch Guillermo try to throw himself back into the human world trying to make up for lost time - to the point that he forgets the person he called his best friend, the people he called his family, in a way I think we never fully resolve. He thinks he's thriving, and he doesn't even seem upset about leaving the others behind.

We watch him revert (and that's fine, people revert sometimes) to the same waiting lapdog he was when we started the series. We watch him realize that and he says no. Nandor stands up for him, and feels better and more fulfilled in doing so, and that's a great capstone for Nandor and Nandor's own tendency for selfishness. And that's excellent. Episode 10 was a great start for all the ground they had to cover.

Nandor offers for Guillermo to be his partner in crime. His sidekick, but Guillermo expressed that desire back in season one so it's not an insult inherently. But here's the problem. Here's the part of Guillermo that has frankly always been a problem, because I thought it's something the show was eventually going to cover respectfully, and instead it was always part of the joke.

---

Guillermo is someone who made a decision sixteen years ago as part of a very young man's desire, to be respected and have cool powers, to live forever, to see the world. (He somehow thought being a vampire, and only a vampire, could get him those things but that's a rant for another time.)

That young man has grown up. He's in his mid-thirties, he has a body count. We've watched him at various times be empathetic, clever, cunning, and brave. Also extremely sexy in bodyguard gear. (And for some reason, the show keeps wanting us to forget that for a season he was extremely competent and badass and sexy pretty much all the time, and he seemed thrilled to be in that role, and he didn't even care about being a vampire if he could protect Nandor in that way and be regarded as 'part of the team'.)

Then Nandor dresses him in a stupid cowboy costume, and gives him a sidekick name ending in 'Kid', which he seems less than thrilled about. They all still talk about him the entire episode as if he's a disobedient child. The vampires speculate if Guillermo is having a fling with the crew, but no - Guillermo's had one boyfriend, who we saw him hug once and nothing more. Despite living in a house for fifteen years that is openly raunchy and shameless, he seems like a character designed to be both desexed and humiliated, and they never expand on the reason why.

(And if Guillermo were ace it'd be amazing, hell it's my headcanon at this point, but I don't think that's what they're going for. I think the show just desexualizes Guilermo. As a matter of praxis. For some reason.)

And the show has done this more and more to Guillermo in the later seasons. Nandor says he could steal original!Freddie easily from Guillermo if he wanted to. The vampires laugh at the thought of him being a vampire - "a little bat pooping everywhere," and Guillermo's time as a vampire has him basically feeling no different in his sexuality or, after a very brief moment, his confidence. Even Nandor's big climactic moment in Episode 10 has him saying that just because Guillermo isn't as cool or hot or interesting or strong as Jordan (or Nandor) doesn't mean Guillermo deserves to be treated poorly.

Look, I don't know if it's because Harvey Guillen is babyfaced, or because he's fat, or because he carries a different energy to his masculinity. Or because it's great to talk about gay sex and being horny, but writing a gay relationship is just too hard. Or some fun combination of all those things.

But I keep thinking about everyone freaking out when Nandor swooped into the collapsed floorboards to save Guillermo in season 4, and everyone freaked out and swooned. And Paul Simms expressed that as "[Nandor] has to save his little buddy."

Guillermo is a grown-ass man, with a desire to feel powerful and special and accepted, who Nandor sees as his little buddy. (Who everyone in the house sees as their little buddy, and it's nice he's part of the family, but...) After every emotional beat that makes them seem like equals with a special connection, he reverts to the less-cool sidekick who makes Nandor feel special and important. And Guillermo's prior devotion to Nandor - not to vampirism, not to a job or promotion, to Nandor - changes to other things, but Nandor never figures out why that hurts him so much. And for some reason the deepest bond of the series just isn't sexual, the showrunner just can't see it that way, in a house where everyone's fucking but not you Guillermo.

We're at the end of the story, and that's our punchline.

---

And we don't end on one of the points where Guillermo is asserting himself as someone who deserves to be taken seriously, and given the things he wants - and the show has had plenty of those moments, all of which seem to be building and evolving his relationships over the years.

We end on Guillermo being told that suddenly, the documentary is packing up without any fanfare or clarity on what they were looking for in the first place. We get Guillermo stumbling for clarity on what it all meant, what the point was for him and what his life is going to be now. We're told over and over again the documentary (and Guillermo, and the viewers) needs a satisfying capstone, needs emotional closure.

And the vampires tell him to shut up. And they tell him this has all happened before, and none of it is special to them. ("No human is special," Nandor said several episodes ago, and never went back on it.) And they tell him to do a little dance for their amusement, and Colin recites some pithy lines. And every attempt to take a moment to care about Guillermo's journey, or the core of his character and what he needs, is turned into a joke for him and for us.

Guillermo's looking for a point to it all, for some kind of fulfillment, and there wasn't one. And everyone is satisfied in that but him. And even if there were times Guillermo got the chance to be respected, to have cool powers (which he kept, but the vampires keep forgetting them), to live forever (he will die and leave Nandor someday!), to see the world - none of these things are going to come to him now.

It would make absolute, complete, and devastating sense for Guillermo to feel he's outgrown them and to leave. Nandor doesn't even seem upset enough to try and stop him. We never really get a clear reason about why he decides to stay.

I mean, it's for friendship or something, with a line about how they can still be close but he needs 'his own thing'. But in six seasons, over and over and over, we've been driven back to the idea that the most emotional part of this story is Guillermo's desire to become accepted in this family, and the effect he has on Nandor. That Guillermo needs this home and he consistently makes Nandor softer, kinder, less selfish and more fulfilled when they're together.

But those parts of their relationship, the love story parts, don't matter. Guillermo is going to find 'his own thing' when it's been clear how entrenched in this world he is (right down to his DNA), but Nandor will drag him back into shenanigans anyway, probably keeping Guillermo from whatever 'his own thing' is.

And Guillermo will always be Nandor's sidekick, his little buddy, never to be taken seriously. And one day, Guillermo will die, and he'll be someone they all forget. And for some reason, he'll be just fine with that, because he belongs with them but will never really be in a better position.

And he'll be satisfied with that. For some reason. But I won't.

[nelkcats]

Time crisis

Clockwork looked sick, this was the first time Danny had witnessed something like this so he couldn't help but feel concerned for his mentor. However, no matter how many times he asked what was going on, the Ancient refused to answer.

The halfa was taking care of him and finally Clockwork revealed that he was under attack. Danny raised an eyebrow in confusion, he saw no one in Clock Tower and the Observants were not around, seeing his confusion the Master of Time explained himself more clearly.

Clockwork had multiple bodies, distributed in different dimensions. And while they didn't follow the same rules, their job was the same, "preserve the timelines". One of his other bodies must have sensed his timeline being altered multiple times and awoke from its rest to repair the error.

Someone must not have been happy about that, if the damage Clockwork was receiving was anything to go by. The Ancient had no doubt that if they kept attacking him they would cause him further damage, which would be a big problem for the timelines.

The reason he didn't want to tell the halfa that was because he knew Danny would want to help, but not all of his "parts" were good, nor did they have the same methods to "repair" and he didn't want to show the boy a bad part of himself. Although he doubted his other "self" would attack young Daniel, seeing how fond he was of him.

Danny of course, offered to solve the problem. Knowing the boy was stubborn, Clockwork sighed in resignation and opened a portal to the DC Universe, where the Justice League was facing Kronos, Danny stepped through the portal immediately and started running to the battlefield.

Wonder Woman was gritting her teeth in fury as she faced Kronos, who was scowling in annoyance, his gaze seemed to be fixed on the speedster for some reason; half of the League were injured but holding their ground, and John Constantine had almost finished preparing a spell to destroy the titan once and for all. He opened his mouth to tell the Titan it was his end when a teenage boy ran past him.

Danny, who had no idea what was going on, stood in front of Kronos not knowing what to say. He didn't quite know how to fix the situation. Kronos looked at him in confusion as John choked as he noticed the boy in the path of his spell.

"Fate is not inevitable" the halfa told the Titan decisively. While he had been a hero and understood why the people around him would want to "stop" the other Clocky, he didn't want to see his mentor die (even if this was some sort of clone? Danny didn't quite understand), he was selfish, and he knew the other Clocky had his reasons. He looked at the wounded on the battlefield and took a deep breath before looking at the Titan again.

"Come home with me and we'll find another way to solve it" Danny offered, ignoring the heroes glaring at him. Kronos was still silent, he knew he could kill the boy in seconds but something in him protested at the idea.

Danny wondered if he could lock the being in front of him in a Fenton thermos.

[jazillia007]

I can't stop thinking about how Penelope praised Colin's writing. And it was actually smut, personal smut.

But I think what makes it beautiful. Despite of the content, Penelope really loved his writing in itself. The man barely gets praised by anyone but her.

And to be praised by Penelope who is not only a avid reader but also writer, is the biggest praise you can get.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

He was just being a silly little guy!

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[darkdragon768]

Various doodles of the Dorito Twins.

I just like to play with them like dolls and put them into situations.

[dirtytransmasc]

I find it deeply depressing that every adult in Spider's life had children, yet he was never anyone's priority. every adult he could and most likely attempted to match in to. the adults he remembered as the closest things he had to parents since birth (Jake and Norm, even if they weren't acting as his parents, because Spider, genuinely, would not know better). down to his actual foster family (the McCoskers). essentially went out of their way to de-prioritize him.

like I'm not faulting them for having kids, for having a family. but Spider was their first priority. he didn't need to be adopted by any of them, per say, but he was their responsibility. he was their orphan, Jake especially, considering he was the chief of his people, but Norm as well, seeing as he's a prominent figure head of the clan/Hellsgate.

the McCoskers took him in, but over the years, as they had their own children, he was more and more neglected. he was now no longer his actually appointed guardians priority. and that only gets worse and worse as he ages until they become outright abusive (Nash does anyway, cause thats what I'm gonna call violently kidnapping his, throwing him in a room and locking him there, and trying to kill all of them, him included, when they run away. as abuse. and I'll get back to the whole "you have to turn yourself in to the RDA" x2 speech from Jake in a second). they also didn't really accept his culture. with their resentment towards the Na'vi brewing, Spider most definitely faced some heat for being more of the forest than of humans, in terms of culture.

3 times over, Spider came first and was put last. put last by parents who know damn well how much love, time, care, and attention a child needs. who should be able to see when a kid is being neglected. who dialed to advocate and protect him from neglect (instead of calling him a stray).

he was a child and they were his advocates. all three parties failed in their duty as advocates, to protect Spider. to ensure he always had a loving home that made him their priority. that fulfilled all his needs, not just the physical ones. but all put their own families first, and abandoned Spider to the scraps of their love, time, and affection.

imagine being Spider, an orphan who can't even mention his birth parents and is always treated like he is the physical rebirth of his father's sins by half the people around him. every adult in your life has kids and seems like they're such a good parent. you watch their kids being loved and tended to and having a steady home. they receive love and affection constantly. but your fosters pay less and less attention to you as they have babies. and now your a stray to the man you look up to so much. and the man who probably taught you how to put an exopack on has less and less time for you. no one has time for you. you're no one's child. no one's priority. just a stray. a nuisance. and you don't truly belong anywhere.

no one was putting him first. children need to be someone's priority. psychology. they need it.

and then the RDA returns. the McCoskers leave, Spider is expected to leave everything he has ever known, to join the very people he hates and has been trying so hard since he could understand what it meant, to prove that he wasn't like them. Jake, the man he once looked up to, was telling him to leave. sending him away. stripping him of the little amount of family he could somewhatly claim, that being his siblings.

once again, Jake is his chief, should be looking out for him. not even as a father, per say, but as his duty to Spider as his chief. a chief should never be sending away his most vulnerable ward, a child he should consider his own (as all of his clans children should be one with his own children), to the opposing enemy force.

this happens again when they're running away, Jake tells him ever more directly to hide in the forest alone until the RDA stops shooting at everything that moves and then turn himself in so he can his own children could run. once again, putting him last, instead of protecting all of them.

then for a year, Spider has no family. no one. the McCoskers are gone and no one has stepped up to bat for him. he's 15/16 and alone. his the big sibling to the Sully's. those kids are all he has, but they aren't really looking out for him. he's looking out for them. cause he's the oldest. that's just how it is. he is one with the clan. lives with them. does chores. watches out for his siblings, the whole nine. but Jake isn't doing his duty of watching out for his ward. he is once again giving and giving and giving, and not receiving.

and then he is taken, he is taken, and while Jake may not have had the means to go back for Spider, or been able to take the risk of going back for him, he abandons him without a thought for his safety, and puts his children first. it's the language and attitude be poses towards the situation that is wild to me. he has every right to be worried about his children, but he could not spare Spider an ounce of concern, even knowing the danger he was in, and is more concerned about him spilling details then anything else. Spider is, once again, not his first, second, or even third priority. he is a means to an end. a necessary loss.

people only care about Spider when there's nothing else they can put before him.

[macksartblock]

hey gang <3