#i have a lot of thoughts about these two

[zorangezest]

thanks for listening

[myheadphonesareneverloudenough]

how many times have i watched Curt and Joey's SAF staircase scene swap? yes.

there's something so chilling about how Curt reads Owen's lines. Joey's original performance was angry, screaming 'I'm going to single-handedly dismantle everything you've ever believed in!' like he's still hurt by what Agent Curt did to him after four years. and when it comes to his final minutes with Agent Curt's gun to his head, he calms down. accepting it. like he had always known that Agent Curt was going to be the one to kill him after the last time. Curt's reading is far more sinister. he's proud of himself, less angry at Agent Curt and more basking in the sweet sweet revenge of it all. but once Agent Curt has the gun to his head, that's when Curt!Owen gets angry. he swallows the fear and hides it beneath that villainous act, but simply just the way Curt reads 'what are you doing?' shows so much stress. Joey!Owen expected death and Curt!Owen feared it.

and Joey reading for Agent Curt is so much more heartbroken. Curt's original performance heard Owen's speech and gained so much resentment. he was mad at Owen. you could hear the anger in his voice during 'taking your advice'. but Joey!Agent Curt? that small quiver in his voice as he said his final words to Owen before killing him? there was sadness there. a part of him was still hurting after all of that.

obviously Joey and Curt in their original roles are perfect and i couldn't imagine it being any different. but it's just so cool to me to see how they interpret each other's lines and make them their own, even on a silly little livestream :)

[apoptoses]

Thoughtful ask incoming!!! It's me DA, shaking and crying and throwing up in anticipation for your big WIP. I don't think my brain can even fully grasp the 40k words thing, it's like trying to measure the universe yk. But I *am* ready to embark in what is probably bound to be one of the all time great VC fanfiction expeditions (and when I say fanfiction I mean, I'll immediately process every word as canon, such is your understanding and dissection of the characters). And YES please drop the excerpts, we're so hungry 🥺

Dungeon anon! I love that I sent up the bat signal in my tags and here you are ♥

Oh man, it was hard to pick what to share because this thing is 40% angst, 40% smut, and 20% loving moments to rot your teeth out with. We're taking that reunion in Prince Lestat and expanding it out so that Armand and Daniel can finally put all of their cards on the table and figure out how they work together in the modern day. And it all happens in the form of a road trip of all things.

But lately my favorite topic is Armand's past as Amadeo and what experiences he had that were left out of TVA (for being too racy or too dear to his heart? who can say! I think about both a lot).

(also this is the biggest section I can give you without giving anything away about what is going on between the two of them, so)

Here is a secret little story he tells Daniel:

Armand glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. A blank shell of a thing stared back, waiting to be cracked open to see what new image of himself would come through.

He drifted through his past. Inside he was like a book that had survived the flood, the ink of his memories blurred and runny with time but still legible if he squinted hard enough. Back and back and back Armand went, to old Venice with its sun warmed plaster and the tang of the sea in the air. That very first chapter in the memories of his life.

“Daniel. Would you like to hear a story?” Armand asked.

Daniel’s phone let out a click as he pressed the button on its side. The screen went black. “Sure.”

Armand took a deep breath. Set the cruise control so he would no longer have to think about the gas pedal and let himself become once more a young and mortal boy.

Amadeo and Riccardo, awash in the carnation pink blaze of the late afternoon sun. The rough hewn edge of the dock dug into the back of Amadeo’s thigh through his thin woolen hose. From his fingers a half drunk bottle of wine dangled, heavy and precarious above the lapping waters of the canal. At home they’d been reading the Romance of the Rose. An old French poem of courtly love. Lips buzzing with wine and boyish melancholy, Amadeo confessed he’d never experienced such a thing himself. Probably he never would.

What sort of thing, Riccardo asked him.

The pleasures of a first kiss. He’d been kissed before, of course. Rough and unwanted things stolen from his lips. And Master kissed him, yes. But that was a rich and heedy experience, charged with all the fear and arousal that came with doing such a thing with someone much older and more experienced than him. Amadeo had never known the innocence of a kiss with one his own age, one he’d chosen all by himself. He had no such sweet and romantic memories to carry through his life.

The tide was coming in as the sun set. The water rose toward their feet. If Riccardo stretched out his toes he could have dipped his expensive leather slippers straight into the sea.

You could kiss me if you like, Riccardo said. I’m not so much older than you. A year, perhaps. 

Amadeo looked at him. At his dark hair curling around his ears, his cheeks flushed ruddy and red from the wine and the heat of the day. Sometimes when Master painted the god Mars he came out looking rather like Riccardo, with his proud nose and shell pink lips.

Are you certain you’d want to kiss a boy like me, Amadeo asked and brought the bottle of wine to his mouth. Cheap stuff, the kind that burned the throat as it went down and left his chest on fire. Are you really sure, Riccardo?

Riccardo laughed. Of course. Amadeo was the handsomest boy in all of Venice, everyone knew that. Anyone would be lucky to kiss him.

Alright then.

Amadeo screwed up his courage. Never before had he been nervous to kiss anyone but there he was, heart fluttering in his chest. He licked his lips. Angled his head carefully and leaned in, waiting for Riccardo to meet him halfway.

Their mouths met. The bottle of wine slipped from his fingers and sank to the bottom of the sea.

The feeling of it was so sweet Amadeo forgot to breathe. It was a perfectly chaste thing. Riccardo didn’t even part his lips. Didn’t demand anything more than what Amadeo had to give and that was perhaps the most thrilling thing about it. That the warm press of someone’s mouth against his could be enough to steal his breath away and set his heart beating as rapid and desperate as the hummingbird’s wings. 

The water lapped at the pillars supporting the docks. Somewhere a gondolier called out for passengers. Amadeo broke away and then, changing his mind, darted back in for another quick taste of the wine on his best friend’s lips.

Riccardo laughed and stood. Sucked his lower lip in between his teeth, as if to savor the taste of Amadeo on his skin, and held out a hand. Come. Master will be home soon and we should not be late.

The road before Armand was black and slick as the Venetian canals at night. Daniel was silent at his side.

[discountsoysauce]

Kunikida making sure Dazai is eating healthy by putting a bento box in the agency fridge that says "Kunikida's Lunch - Dazai DO NOT TOUCH" because he knows Dazai can't resist messing with him

Lunch thief! Lunch thief!!!!!!!

(it was actually made for him but shhh don't tell him)

Happy birthday Dazai!!

[tawnysoup]

CW DEATH, DEAD BODY, STRANGULATION, BLOOD, IMPLIED SELF-HARM (in case my tags aren't enough!!!! stay safe)

(Above you, you hear Loop trying to take a breath.)

[999spiderarch]

Gabriel being the morning person and Ramsey being the fuckin goblin that stays up all night and sleeps all day.

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[hazelnootnut]

ACT 2 "You're... me?" "That's right, stardust!"

You know I've been drawing Loop as their Siffrin form so much that it's got me thinking. I've read and seen so many fics and artworks of Loop eventually getting back to looking like their old self, but I don't think I've seen any so far of Loop already being a mirror copy of Siffrin. So uh, yoink?

ISAT AU where the game plays out the same way (plot-wise at least) but Loop looks like Siffrin the whole time and while Siffrin is extremely perplexed that there's another him, he's still gotta accept their help because how else are they supposed to escape the loops? Good ol' Loop is here to help, helpful friendly Loop!

Siffrin is going through it still but Differently.

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[milkamel]

✨ Kross AU where soulmates share pain from injuries ✨

I’ve been thinking about some kind of a soulmate AU for these too (just for fun, nothing too complicated) and this concept was quite interesting so here it is. I also wanted to make it angsty but instead, it turned silly- I think it’s even better this way. This idea was sudden so there may be plot holes and inaccuracies.

So, Killer and Cross are soulmates and they’re linked by the pain they share (the one that comes from injuries, being hit etc. If any of them gets physically hurt, both of them feel it). Killer has a pretty high pain tolerance due to his experiences, trauma and general numbness, so he barely feels any pain and can easily ignore or not notice injuries on himself.

Cross on the other hand can feel everything clearly but he’d just learned to pretend like everything’s fine. He’s a soldier after all, he has to be strong for his people, friends and his soulmate that he’s bound to meet. He can’t show weakness no matter how unbearable sometimes the pain is. Though he can’t help but be concerned over how intense the pain is sometimes so he tries to avoid anything that might bring even more pain to his poor soulmate who suffers so frequently.

So, in conclusion, we have two idiots who hide their pain and can’t realize that they are soulmates because of that 🎉🎉 Mutual pining and idiots in love 🎉🎉

Killer belongs to rahafwabas Cross belongs to jakei

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

oh hey! i was reading a fic the other day where Wangji was once misspelled as Wangu. which leads me to: MDZS Pingu-style??? noot noot!

Do you think love can bloom on the sea ice?

[alliekitaguchi]

do you ever think about the fact that essek is probably a million times nicer to verin now than he ever was before?? and that verin, for the first time, gets the really meet his brother???

do you think about the fact that the cold mantle of the shadowhand is gone and withered, replaced by the warmth of the nein and caleb's love, and verin, for the first time in his life, gets to have a real relationship with his big brother that's not a facsimile of den politics or social standards??

the scene where verin and essek (in disguise) meet with vox machina is SO important, because essek--the former shadowhand to the bright queen, traitor to the entire dynasty, fugitive to two nations--smacks his brother on the arm and chides him for being embarrassing in front of people of high station. he doesn't try to hide himself AT ALL. he's just... open. warm. at peace.

there's no more cold smiles, there's no more polite aloofness, no more haughty attitude or snide remarks... essek's just a big brother again. a big brother whose little brother came to work with him one day, walked up to the president of the country and asked her to sign his pamphlet with a shit-eating grin, while essek tried not to burst a blood vessel in the corner.

no matter what verin's opinions are on the dynasty and the beacons and essek's crimes, i'm willing to bet that there was a part of him that wouldn't have changed a goddamn thing. because without essek having stolen the beacons and handing them over to the empire, and without him meeting the nein, verin would've never gotten the chance to have his brother back.

[leminaus]

is it ok to be a little selfish

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[allastoredeer]

I've been thinking about the fact that of the two fallen Angels we see, Lucifer and Vaggie, neither really 'fell' - they were PUSHED. I.E, they were forced out. So what if there was an angel who wasn't forced out, but left of their own free will - and what if it was Alastor? If we go by Heaven thinking that yearly genocide is not just fine but GOOD, and the headcanon that Alastor chose his victims among rapists and child abusers and racists and so one like the butcher from the comic, what if when Alastor died he went to heaven, because heaven considered him killing those people not just not a sin, but a GOOD THING? Alastor thinks this is nonsense. He thinks heaven is awful and dull. So he says hi to his mother, maybe gives her a radio or something so they can keep in touch, and then goes down to hell. It's why he was so powerful as a newly born demon - he was actually an angel in disguise. Imagine when he's fighting Adam and his Microphone breaks - and so he just breaks out the wings and holy blasts Adam right back in his smug face.

Adam: What?

Vox: WHAT?

Lucifer: WHAT?!!!!!

(And imagine an appleradio relationship happening and Lucifer getting to be with another angel. Mutual wing preening! Alastor facing the fact that while he's a very powerful angel, Lucifer was the most powerful of the Seraphim, and still outclasses him! Alastor ending up moaning face down on a bed with his wings spread and his tail up, presenting for demon form Lucifer...)

Undercover Angel AU - Part 1

Part 2 ->

I have more pages for this, but I decided to split it up into parts because coloring takes a long time (who'da thunk?) so expect more in the future.

Also, @kitsunesongs, I see that last bit. I SEE it, and you better fucking believe that I'm going to draw that scene. Expect it. I don't draw smut often, but that is too good to pass up.