#my god. read something else like???????

[thefabelmans2022]

romance booktok in particular is completely fucking unhinged.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's just guys night talk! Don't worry about it!

(Read Tiger Tiger and shake this man awake so he can finish that thought!)

[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.

[grey-viridian]

DTIYS for @tizeline

Congrats on 10k!!! (love your artstyle btw sooo soft and beautiful i wanna look at your art all day!)

The original outfit was perfect but I still felt like something was missing...

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[greatgoddyke]

pony posting

[crystalpallette]

I still can't believe they killed him like that

[rapidhighway]

the way I was introduced to dc was teen titans in which nobody ever uses their secret identity ever. They never use their names, only their pseudonyms and that has stuck with me for some reason. Idek if they know what Robin looks like. Robin is Robin, Starfire is Starfire. Stop calling him dick grayson stop deadnaming him

[defiledtomb]

merry xmas! im drinking rum with aleks and listening to some really old techno. i blurted everything about ouro and all the tough things surrounding, and its future, and i got so excited i yelled and yodeled into the dead and dark forest. it's been such. such a good christmas. 2025 got nothing on me. we live we die and we fucking live again. hold my hand. giggle with me. have some zacapa. i love you

[burningarsenic]

GET OUT OF MY HEADDDDDDD

I read the Perseverance fanfic and its stuck in my head now congratulations

Idk whats going on with this man idk if hes the harbinger from the symbol and at this point im too scared to find out, but hey no ones ever gonna stop me from putting a halo over a possible cult messiah

GO READ PERSEVERANCE NOWWWWWWWWWWW NOW NOW NOW

Version without all the visual bullshit i added:

Perseverance AU and fanfic by @pastelaspirations

Turns out inspiration struck way quicker than i thought it would. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your masterpiece :)

[soni-dragon]

flowers, i remember fields… someone by my side…

finally saw hadestown today, absolutely incredible experience and now i will be drawing them for the next few days most likely. quick painting before i must sleep, but the west end cast was amazing just ahhhhhh

[marzipanandminutiae]

women who were the only girl with F/F ships in their mostly-sapphic teen friend group, and had to feign interest in the Pretty Gay Anime Boys Of The Week to talk to their friends at all, deserve financial compensation

[waitineedaname]

hiiii lily what is this ‘orv’ i have been seeing…..

HIIII MIKE. SMILES. orv is Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint! it's a webnovel with an ongoing webtoon adaption and it is making me Fucking Crazy. basically the premise there's this really unpopular really long webnovel called Three Ways to Survive an Apocalypse, and for years, Kim Dokja has been the only reader. when the novel finally ends, the author sends him an email with the txt file of the whole novel, and then suddenly the novel is wiped from the internet and in that instant, the events of the novel begin taking place in Kim Dokja's world. the apocalypse begins and humanity is subjected to cruel scenarios and challenges livestreamed for the entertainment of these powerful entities called constellations, and as the only one who read the story to its end, Kim Dokja is the only one fully equipped with knowledge of how this story goes (or at least, how it originally went)

it is SO good. it lures you in like "ooh this is a normal reverse isekai" and then ends up being CRAZY. it deals with questions about the boundary between characters and Real People and whether that distinction really matters, and it's one of those stories that looks the audience dead in the eye and dares you to look away first. literary devices are made Real (oh fourth wall we're really in it now...) and it plays with narrative voice and pov and unreliable narration in such fun ways. it is ultimately about the value of stories and the value of being a reader and the choice to wrestle with the story that's been written for you in favor of the story you really want to tell. it's also about Kim Dokja having something Deeply Wrong With Him skdlfjlksdjf the journey i went on with him was "okay he's a reader insert who reads novels as escapism, i get it" -> "oh actually he has something wrong with him" -> "oh he has something Wrong With Him" -> "WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK. HELLO. WHAT WAS THAT." I'm obsessed with him.

I read the webtoon first which I think is a pretty effective onboarding point! some of the art had my jaw on the FLOOR it's so cool. the webtoon has adapted roughly the first third of the whole novel so far, and if you want to read the novel just dm me and I'll hit you up with the epub file lol (not just mike but anyone who is interested!)

[margina1ia]

Idk where it was, but I think I saw a post about how Cassandra couldn't finish saying the word "fair" without being consumed by the rage shard. Going back and watching the moment when it starts to go wrong in the wizard synod, Cassandra says "it's not fair" immediately before the shard rips through her and she begins bleeding out.

Thinking about this with the Bad Kids' convo with Lydia Barkrock and how the pit fiend in her chest couldn't say the name of the dead fallen god he served or he could only say it in certain contexts... I wonder if Cassandra had another sibling aside from Galicaea and Sol (or maybe it is Sol?? Or Helio???) that she was a right hand to or had a contract with (now I'm thinking about rules and relationships re: figs warlock classes????), and maybe what Lydia's party invoked is what happened to Cassandra. I wonder if, when the Bad Kids find out more about the ritual, they will recognize elements of what happened at the wizard synod.

Anywayyyyys, maybe I'm just drowning in red strings lol

[bayetea]

seeing non-black people critique rick's portrayal of black characters is interesting sometimes. only like 30% of the critiques I see make any sense to me to be honest

[luna-the-cretar]

You’d think that, between Gideon and Kremy, Gideon would be the easier one to get a read on (in terms of feelings towards certain situations and party members), but no. I can read Kremy like a motherfucking book. The way he spins lies and half-truths like a spiderweb; the way his tone will shift subtly depending on who he’s talking to, what they’re talking about, his feelings on the situation/subject/towards the person, etc; all of it. Kremy is so fucking easy to read for someone who’s supposed to be a silver-tongued conman.

But Gideon? His tone doesn’t shift all that much. He generally has a happy, confused, or entertained tone in his voice, with the exception of when he’s angry, frustrated, or upset.

Idk, maybe it’s harder for me to read Gideon because I listen to the podcast (it’s just easier for me since I can listen while driving or working), so I have to rely on tone shifts and other verbal cues. That, or maybe it’s because all of my past blorbos have been emotionally constipated men, who would only express their actual feelings about a situation based on tonal shifts, body language, and reading into what they’re saying.