#that's the TLDR

[neuroticbookworm]

@respectthepetty first off, that was an amazing deep dive, and I'm so glad that you're as obssessed with these characters as I am. Seriously, how is this show not completely taking over the minds of all BL girlies yet? Get on the clown train, people!

I agree that Lomfon is a fasicnating character, and also a wonderfully complex (pseudo-)antagonist in Patts-Tai storyline. Your analysis on Lomfon is spot on: he is logical, challenges the notion of soulmates and ponders its value over shared interests with the other person.

Soulmates in Rainverse and the analogy to Modern Love

As much as the show revolves around soulmates and the novelty of that experience in the show's universe, it also actively challenges the idea of soulmates and its meaning, via the failed marriage of Tai's parents and Lomfon.

No matter the relationship, there has to be something more than love, a connection, COLORS(!), or a shared condition. There has to be communication, understanding, a desire to stay, AND a desire to see the other person happy.

Yes to all of this. But I want to focus on a commentary in the show that might be subtle, but nonetheless discusses something that is equally important in any relationship.

There are plenty of moments in the show where the brief rain-inflicted hearing loss is framed as a disease and how it is endured by the people who are affected. This sentiment is also reflected by the characters who have the condition, whenever they discuss it on the show

But if we shift the focus to how the rest of the world treats this condition and how they respond to it in their everyday lives, a new perspective emerges.

When we see Patts' friends talking about his hearing loss, this is what they had to say

His friends are worried because they, for a brief period of time, are cut off from Patts and have to go through a extra hurdle to communicate with him at this time. They fear that him having this experience that is so foreign to them, something that they can never relate to, only sympathise with, is isolating Patts.

And when Patts and his gf were fighting, this is what she states as the breaking point

Her inability to share the experience of hearing loss with Patts makes her feel like an outsider. And on top of that, she knows that Patts can share his experience with someone, his soulmate. Even when he reassures her that he has no romantic interest, and that he only wants to talk to his soulmate because he doesn't want them to go through this experience alone, it is not enough to soothe her mind.

All these discussions make me wonder if the show is layering a subtext underneath the soulmate aspect of Rainverse: boundaries in relationships and navigating the reality of sharing a life with someone, who might sometimes have experiences away from you.

It is simply not realistic to spend your every waking moment with the people you love. The life experiences are not always the same, and sometimes, the experiences you want might not interest the other person. This doesn't mean that they are drifting away, it simply means that people have complex lives and multiple interests that doesn't need to be always aligned with their loved ones.

Lomfon and the folly of excessive logic

Yes, Lomfon is logical. He approaches the rain-induced hearing loss and its effects similar to how a scientist would do it: hard facts. And in result, he brings in some very valid arguments to the entire concept of soulmates.

But. But.

In having a one-track mind laser focused on challenging and disproving the soulmates theory, he has already failed at one of the most important parts of any relationship, soulmate or otherwise: open and honest communication. If we assume that Lomfon is the acquaintance who helped Tai through the difficult times of his parents' divorce, then he has established a communcation with Tai that is severely lopsided.

Also, given how he is already establishing himself as someone who has a lot of similar interests with Tai, he has immersed himself into the "must have common interests" part of the love equation, while fully ignoring the "must give them space to have differing experiences" part.

And this is why I don't trust him. I don't trust him to come to his senses quick enough before he causes a whole lot of hurt. I recently went down a Myers-Biggs personality test rabbit hole and I'm convinced that Lamfon is a INTJ (logical, plans ahead, heavy reluctance in acknowledging the intelligence of other people, difficulty in factoring in the feelings and emotions of the people around them into whatever calculation is currently running in their brain, etc). So when the tension in the group finally boils over, and someone (possibly Tien) sits him down to explain why his elaborate flowchart to win Tai's heart might not be his best idea, I'm afraid that he will simply stick his snob nose up in the air and ignore them.

I am aware that I'm watching a BL and so the chances of a genuinely sad ending is extremely low, and yet, whenever I see this boy, my heart fears.

woah that's a lot of words, apologies if you made it this far

[sushiisiu]

im not gay greg.jpg

[nat-20s]

i think perhaps the most annoying/exhausting phenomenon in existence is when something kind of genuinely sucks but it has, like, a female lead or whatever so half the people that are saying it sucks are nightmare people that unironically call things "woke garbage" and the other half are people that just like. have a basic sense of story structure and knowledge of character arcs as a concept that quite reasonable think this thing sucks. BUT it gets assumed that 100% of people who think it sucks are in that first half and then there's a backlash TO the backlash and all along it's still not a good fucking story. I call this "The twilight phenomena" because it got a lot of hate because of a mockery of teenage girls when it had well deserved hate for the like racism and misogyny and the throwaway detail that a grown ass man is somehow romantic soulmates with a quite literal baby.

[hoshizoralone]

reflection

[stpansy]

so telling to me how some of you would rather completely write off appalachian and southern states than extend compassion and solidarity to the poc and queer people who live here and lead lives just as valuable as anyone’s in a blue state. living under a nearly constant suppressive government is an uphill battle that i and those i am in solidarity with choose to fight every day and the results of the an election we showed up for despite the overwhelming odds do not mean we as a whole deserve to be discarded

[soaked-doors]

a comic about wine, a wager, and reconnecting through your weird kids

-

this behemoth of a comic is finally done - and just in time for zoros birthday huehue. initially i wanted to make a zolu introspective from an outsider POV and was like you know who would have really funny input on this … mihawk. and then it spiraled into seven pages of mishanks sitting and talking. i thought it would be funny if mishanks ended up doing self imposed couples therapy the day mihawk brought luffys bounty bc well. its kind of hilarious to think abt mihawk realizing shanks was onto something all those years ago after he meets zoro and luffy. like sure this new generation is batshit crazy but my god are they cooking. anyways. cheers. get some kids

[marinewaltz]

daily life on board the ARK. even if he couldn't help cure her i think it would be nice if shadow helped maria in managing her illness

[montyfinchirl]

A dead boy with a cricket bat and a magic backpack: if you wanna get to him you have to go through me!

Another dead boy who spent over 70 years in hell AND clawed his way out of it, is an insanely skilled magic user, doesn’t even notice when he’s burnt by iron, and got up and started walking around like he was in barely any pain after being trapped in a machine for half an hour that evaporates other ghosts in SECONDS: :3

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

STOP TREATING THE USAMERICAN COLONIAL PROJECT LIKE IT IS COMPLETE!!!!! it is an active settler-colony, and by acting like it's not actively colonizing the land it is on you are literally doing their job for them. you all are like five minutes away from lamenting the fucking vanishing indian.

[taylorpixiedust]

We're raising money on Twitch!

hey, i don't really talk about streaming on Twitch, or post about when i'm live, but this month is different.

For the entire month of September, I'm going to be trying to raise money for the One of Us Global Foundation, because why not.

The link to the campaign is right here, and it should redirect you to the Tiltify page, but if that doesn't work, it'll be in my bio when I get around to putting it in.

Right now, the base goal is 150$ USD, but there's no real urgency, since we have the whole month. If you could spare some money, it'd be really appreciated, and if you do it on-stream, you can use the donations to make me do weird stuff.

Unfortunately, my schedule is iffy, because I'm a college student, but I'm going to try to stream daily around 2-3 PM EST. In the spirit of the core of the foundation, as well, I'll be streaming Minecraft and trying to not be absolute trash at Hypixel minigames.

Reblogs and signal boosts are heavily appreciated, and thank you so much for taking the time to read this!

[infectiouspiss]

there's someone in my inbox saying porn didn't exist until the 70's what

[fishbloc]

ashes to ashes, dust to dust

[zipsunz]

we all have to play our part 🪶

[itsscaredycat]

ah yes…

my thoughts under the cut (turned out to be longer than initially intended lol)

honestly, kinda mixed feelings :’)

it’s great that the fandom is making a comeback because gravity falls is seriously an amazing piece of media, and all the offshoots that came from the main series are equally incredible. it deserves this second wave of attention and more! still one of my favourites, all the mysteries and secret codes back in the day changed my brain chemistry lmao

as far as personal feelings go, i can’t believe the amount of people i’ve had tell me that i inspired them in some way to be an artist through my old gravity falls art, it’s amazing! and i am so flattered and happy that i could have that kind of positive influence on people. art is my passion and knowing i had a hand in making it other people’s as well is a really cool feeling :’) i read every single message i get in my askbox and some of them have made me legitimately emotional (in a good way)

but then on the opposite side, there are a lot of people— most of whom i have never interacted with— who have a fully formed opinion on me based on actions of mine that are almost a decade old. just knowing that has been crippling, i’m ND and i’ve always struggled with anxiety issues surrounding how others think of me. it feels kinda hopeless and scary, because there is no way my current actions and the ways i’ve changed will ever reach all of them. but i’m only human, all i can do is focus on the positive and keep being kind in both my offline and online lives, and hope it comes back around

the shy part of me wishes i was just another person in the fandom so that i could share my art without fear of hateful comments, but also having made enough of an impact that something i made got acknowledged in “canon” is hilarious and pretty fucking cool (shoutout to @valdevia LOL) i’m just gonna keep doing what i’ve always done: make art because it makes me happy, and share it in hopes it will make others happy too 🩷

[corvus-frugilegus]

The real tragedy of the Dellamortes is how inevitable Illario's betrayal was.

Caterina's refusal to really see either of her grandsons for who they are sets all three of them on this path. Lucanis's mother was Caterina's favourite, she was probably the person Caterina had in mind to succeed her. That loss, the loss of so much of Caterina's legacy had to have been devastating. She'd built so much and it was all torn away in a single conflict. All she has left in the wake of it is two young boys and this tenacity that will not allow her to give up on what she's built.

So she puts it all on Lucanis. The son of her favourite (bonus angst if he looks like his mother). She's unable to see this sweet boy who loves wyverns and just had his life ripped apart for who he is. She just see's her legacy. The daughter she lost. She puts it all into him, he's pushed into the role of favourite.

Lucanis responds to this by shoving down the parts of himself she doesn't want to see- his gentle heart, his love of wyverns, the little boy who needs to be loved. If he's good enough, strong enough, the perfect crow, the perfect granson- then and only then will she love him, will he be safe.

And then you have Illario! There isn't as much to go on in the text about his family or what he was like as a boy but there's a few things we can pretty confidently infer. Like Lucanis, Illario violently loses everything he has at a very young age. All he has left are the other two Dellamorte's.

But he isn't the child of Caterina's favourite. She isn't automatically putting all of her legacy on his shoulders the way she does Lucanis. He still gets the training, and what we do see in the wigmaker job and the wake and even in the codex entires in the game is that Illario does become a comptent and capable crow. He has a level of skill that I suspect is broadly expected of house Dellamorte, he was trained by the first talon herself. But the Illario we meet as an adult has this laissez-faire affect and presents himself as a seducer and a bit of a peakcock. He also very overtly refers to himself as Dellamorte-the-lesser and at the end of the wigmaker job when they're discussing the title of first talon you can feel the resentment below the surface.

For Illario it's not about the power and the prestige that comes from the title of first talon. It's not even about having the title itself. It's about FINALLY earning Caterina's love and respect. Things he undoubtly never felt as a boy.

How could he? When he's a child the only two people he has left in the world have this special bond that he never gets to be a part of. His only caretaker has a clear favourite and she shows it. He's lived his whole life in Lucanis's shadow, and a shadow that Lucanis never wanted to cast! Which if anything just adds insult to injury for Illario.

Lucanis has everything Illario wants and he doesn't even want it.

I imagine as a boy Illario tries SO HARD to win her love, her favour, he'll do anything to feel like he's loved and wanted and valued. And when after YEARS it doesn't work even though Lucanis clearly doesn't want the role he's been forced into? Illario gets resentful, he gets angry, he starts acting up. He becomes the suave peacock, the grandson who fucks up sometimes- probably not because he's bad at being a crow but because at least Caterina's ire is attention. It's a scrap of love.

Illario and Lucanis love each other. They're brothers. Illario resents Lucanis for being loved and favoured. Lucanis wants nothing more than to give it all to Illario. Illario doesn't want that he wants Caterina to love him on his own merit. At the same time (pre-inner demons) Lucanis will never actually give the title up because it means he's loved, he's valued, he matters.

The title of first talon has been synonymous with emotional safety and love for these two for their entire lives, and it's twisted them up so badly.

The real irony of it all is that this whole time Illario is so much more like the person Caterina wants Lucanis to be. Her heir, the Dellamorte best suited to be the next first talon has been right there infront of her all along, but she's so caught up in grief and legacy she misses it. She never really see's either of her grandsons for who they are.

I actually suspect that when it all comes to light, even though she's furious with him, Caterina finally starts to see what she's been overlooking in Illario all along. And Lucanis who's started to heal... well I think she's starting to see him too, and the truth of who he is is something she'll struggle to face.

When the day finally comes that Lucanis tells her he doesn't want the job, when him and Illario both accept that their lives have meaning outside of Caterina's opinion of them, is the day that the Dellamorte's can maybe start to really see each other.

[gracefireheart]

A few sketches of these guys :]