#just SOMETHING would be nice

[ravenbeakx]

[artistmarchalius]

I had this dumb idea going ‘round in my head so I let it out as a quick comic.

NEXT

[theshadowrealmitself]

I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them

People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human

“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”

“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”

“Yeah!!”

“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”

“Mostly just my dish but yeah >:(“

“How illogical”

“That’s what I’m saying!!!”

[shay-creates]

Apparently, my decision to be silly and make fanart of someone's writing (because I genuinely enjoy the story the person is writing and I was struck with inspiration upon reading a particular scene) has benevolent and wildly unforeseen consequences.

I apparently gained a bit of control of the canon because said writer really loved the art and decided what I drew/draw is canon.

2. Writer put said artwork into the document of his story right below the scene, so now it's IN the story where people who read the story will see it (with a link to me)

3. He sent the artwork to all his friends and people he knows because he was so excited

Wholesome interaction and I watched him do all that in real time, good stuff. However...there are two more consequences I was notified of today...nearly a full week after I gave the artwork.

Seeing the artwork caused his friends to become interested in reading and hearing about his story, which means more people are reading what he's writing and giving him critique on the story (which he actively asks for).

Apparently, upon seeing the art, his writer friends got a sudden second wind to pick back up writing they'd abandoned for a few months. Because, I quote, "seeing that someone enjoyed {his} writing enough to take the time to make art of it gave them the motivation that maybe THEY can write something that will inspire someone to also create something." I have accidentally caused a writing frenzy among his writer friends and my silly idea to make art for someone has had a butterfly effect for people who I don't even know.

Uhh...I'm pretty sure there's a moral here but I am tired and have a great deal of emotions about this.

[egophiliac]

Malleus' bday is coming up, thoughts on what his sleepwear might be?

anticipating that reveal any time now, so gotta get my predictions in real quick (aka extremely fast drawings) (I'm sorry)

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo learns something about himself 🏳️‍⚧️

Based roughly on this old post.

Bonus:

[Leo is taking the fact that he was born biologically female simultaneously very well and also not so well but overall he’s mostly coping with the fact that it was Draxum that just essentially gave him the turtle equivalent of ‘The Talk’.]

[twilight-zoned-out]

Learning about the Doctor Who specials' expanded budget: oh no, what if they overuse CGI to look more 'professional' and high-budget?

The first scene of the Doctor Who Special:

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[honey-doc]

Why I appreciate Kabru and Mithrun's relationship in the story (with pictures!)

I just want to express how much I loved reading through the chapter with the 6 days they spent together and how I think their relationship developed in a pretty sweet way.

I feel like a lot of people reduce their dynamic to "nurse and patient" and that makes me sad because I personally got a lot more from it than that.

I do wanna start off by saying I'm here appreciating their dynamic as it is in the text.

Read more (spoilers ofc):

The beginnings

When they first met, there was an air of intimidation surrounding Mithrun as the captain of the ominous Canaries. He demonstrates his proficiency as a fighter and leader which worried Kabru because he knew it would lead to the dungeon falling into elven hands once again. But this threatening aura begins to dim in Kabru's mind as they get to know each other.

Even before they fell down the hole, the both of them ended up relying on each other's abilities a number of times (when the underground governor turned out to be corrupted Mithrun defeated him and Mithrun needed Kabru's deduction skills during the battle on the first floor) which is already the beginning of a great dynamic

(Kabwu is scared but Mithrun just asks for his help)

After Cithis tasked him with "taking care of Mithrun's needs" for the time being, Kabru treated Mithrun with proper respect and doesn't take advantage of his disability, even using his title “Captain” when he knew Mithrun wouldn’t have cared either way after learning about how he lost his desires. This is in contrast to Cithis who immediately took advantage of her position to mess around with Mithrun when she was taking care of him.

(When Cithis was put in charge of taking care of Mithrun)

The whole time Kabru is with Mithrun, he treats him like a person and more than just someone to be taken care of, as also he relies on Mithrun's fighting skills, knowledge of the dungeon, and teleportation magic.

When you reduce their dynamic to just "caretaker and patient", you're ignoring Mithrun's own capabilities and making him seem totally helpless. It actually feels rather ableist. They have a more balanced relationship with what Mithrun brings to the table than you may think. Mithrun couldn't have survived down there on his own, but it's the same for Kabru (who famously dies every time he fights)!

Kabru doesn’t show signs of trying to manipulate Mithrun either, and he's no longer intimidated by him in the slightest once he learns he’s not a threat or after his life. Though he does instinctively revert to his "sparkly" persona to get Mithrun to eat the disgusting mushroom, it doesn’t work so Kabru just has him eat it normally and never tries it again. This is the beginning of Mithrun unintentionally encouraging Kabru to be more honest with others.

(Kabru realizing he can chill out)

(Kabru being unreserved and Mithrun being silly)

bonus funny moment:

Bonding

Throughout the journey they talked to each other, shared things with each other, and ate with each other. And Kabru expresses genuine concern about whether Mithrun is comfortable (which is something he could live without and wasn't something the Canaries told him to do).

(Kabru showing he wants to make him comfortable by making food for him which is a very important part of the narrative)

(Kabru sharing intimate memories with Mithrun)

(Kabru initiating conversation without hesitation or worry. This part also is referencing how Mithrun shared very important details of his life with Kabru. Kabru also ends up trusting Mithrun with information about Laios despite knowing he could possibly tell the other Canaries about him and impede his plans..which he does lol they do end up knowing about Laios before meeting him.)

For a bonus Lycion implies Kabru was taking better care of Mithrun than they had been which is interesting to me.

Mithrun also shows that he has come to trust Kabru's decisions over the Canaries' when he says he wants to stay in the dungeon after fulfilling the caretaker requirement. They did talk to each other a lot, during that time. I wonder what Mithrun's Shapeshifter double of Kabru would look like now?

Here, Kabru goes out of his way to make sure Mithrun doesn’t overexert himself by knocking him out after the demon leaves with Marcille (again, when his time taking care of him is already over), and I think that demonstrates an extra level of concern he holds for Mithrun.

(Kabru holding back a hellbent Mithrun)

(KNOCKOUT!)

He even managed to make Mithrun mad. It's probably because he "let the demon get away" but I think it's cute and funny because would he huff like that at anyone else? Lol

When the demon breaks through the surface

Kabru begins panicking after Laios turns into the giant monster because he's wondering if he made the right decisions etc. If Mithrun didn’t care about Kabru at least a little bit, he would’ve just left him alone when he started losing it (right after Marcille did the same thing and she is technically more to blame for empowering the demon than Kabru was for not allowing Mithrun to go after it), but he went out of his way to snap him out of it.

It also means a lot to me that Mithrun even says Kabru's name, because in Japanese you can go your entire life without referring to someone by name and it wouldn't sound wrong (just rude) and it's the first time Mithrun says Kabru's name on screen (I checked).

Though it was with a slap, I think it says a lot, because if Mithrun didn’t care at all he wouldn’t have done anything and left him alone. It's not like Kabru could've done anything to stop the demon. He didn't even to tell him to do anything even though Kabru looked ready for an order.

(To be honest I don't know exactly why Mithrun starts beating him up here but you can say it's another rare demonstration of emotion Kabru was able to evoke in him lol. Maybe it's payment for Kabru stopping him the first time. That can be interpreted as paying it back and/or paying it forward I think.)

The last few chapters

And in the end when Kabru’s motivating Mithrun to continue living his life, he speaks to him like they’re friends/have no rank between them despite using the Captain title for him the whole time. Even Lycion initially gets upset that he’s acting “too familiar” with Mithrun.

It feels like Mithrun changed so much in the short time he spent together with Kabru and before the final battle, and it’s thanks to Kabru that Mithrun finally starts to be able to move past his lingering obsession with the demon and begin to really heal.

This is despite the fact that he spent so much time with Milsril and the other elves who never managed to break through to him like that.

(Before Kabru) (After Kabru)

And even after his role as Mithrun's caretaker was loong complete, he still shows concern for Mithrun and tells him to take a break when he's using up all his magic to slice the Falin meat (lmao).

He didn't need to do that! But it shows how he at least slightly considers Mithrun some kind of friend.

It all culminates with Kabru helping Mithrun regain his wil to live and Mithrun confiding in Kabru. Their relationship is important. Kabru continuing to do things for Mithrun to me is more of a sign that he just plain cares about him. Isn't it normal when a friend needs medication for you to remind them to take it? I think it's like that.

Kabru is there with Mithrun when he comes out about his feelings of uselessness AND when Senshi helps him put a spin on the 'vegetable scraps' metaphor and he find meaning in his life again. He's the first one to see him cry :')

Along with the fact that it feels like Mithrun is the first person we see Kabru doesn't feel the need to change his personality with or put on airs for since Mithrun doesn't need buttering up and he won't get offended if someone were to say something socially awkward, I think they made a pretty good team!

BUT ALSO the REAL reason I became endeared to them is cute shit like this:

GOD I love them!!!!! There are so many funny sides to Mithrun Kabru was able to bring out, and really show his charm as a character. Mithrun also brings out the best in Kabru while Kabru’s the most genuine he’s been since his debut with Mithrun. We are able to see that he’s just a kind and caring person, rather than the shady obsessed guy most fans have come to believe him to be.

The true depths of their dynamic also grew on me over time :)

TLDR

All in all it’s so nice seeing how even though Mithrun is a really deadpan person, and Kabru is a really secretive and withheld person, they clearly seem to have developed some kind of bond while they traveled together and even changed each other to an extent.

Doesn't Kabru feel more honest near the end? Maybe it's because of how much he talked to and shared with Mithrun during those 6 days so candidly...because they taaaalked a looooot like wow.

They mean so goddamn much to me. I don’t need them to be in a romantic relationship but I do want them to be together forever :'))) or like at least hang out when they have off time since they're still in the same country lol. Praying for Kui to make another side comic of them some time (crying).

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I mostly arranged this because it makes me sad to see people reduce their dynamic to only one singular aspect.

Anyways ya...love 'em (heart hands)

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[mooneggtarts]

To think TCO would soften a bit with Orange makes me go jumping on the ceiling. To think all of TCO's repressed emotions in the sake of survival just deflates and released once Orange was there. To think Orange willingly fight a 4v1 battle in order to keep TCO safe when he coulda just ran away and leave him. Brothers ever 😭😭😭

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[popcorn-ceiling-chickemn]

I can't wait for Jean to spit out the most devastatingly encouraging and positive rhetoric during exy matches in with the most venomous bite as he has to hold back his Raven habits. Meanwhile Jeremy hearing Jean say things like "have a winning day!", or "good job on your foot work!" To their opponents like he's spitting curses and his racket tight in his fists with a face like he's about to knee cap them and remove their spleen with Jeremy standing on the court heart eyed and about to get checked into a wall because he's too busy watching Jean and forgot he has the ball.

[undertheshivers]

And what if Jinx escaped? Left behind a few things to move forward? What if she finally rode on "one of those things" and got out of Zaun and Piltover?

What if on her travels—to heal, to find a new purpose, become a girl who isn't damned, to be someone who isn't reminded of her past in everywhere and everyone she looks—she ends up in Demacia?

What if the story continues after magic has been reintroduced into Runeterra and we see it through the perspective of the kingdom so against its very existence? Introduced to the girl who resents the deal she's been dealt in life and fears—if not ashamed—of who she is: part magic.

What if these two opposing characters, for whatever reason or another, meet?

Lux, ever the optimist. Jinx, the guilty pessimist.

Lux, the girl who hides who she is in fear of being rejected and captured. Jinx, the girl who's been rejected and unwanted far too many times to count.

Lux, with a dream of adventure yet stationed in one place because of duty. Jinx, almost chronically bound to do what she wants or deems the better choice, despite what anyone wants, tells, or expects of her.

What if Jinx inspires a new way of seeing the world for Lux—one where she's not limited by others and can become a truer version of herself? What if Lux inspires a new way of seeing the world for Jinx—one where she can learn to love who she is, rather than view herself as a curse?

WHAT IF?