#the tragedy of them. so good

[sketchy-scribs-n-doods]

the four horsemen of Queer Agony

[stealingpotatoes]

heres a crappy venn (??) diagram explaining the dynamics in the tl4j time travel au bc it's easier than trying to write a full plot

[gods-favorite-autistic]

To me there’s like a line between the Bad Kids who were always themselves extremely authentically and that fucked them up socially (Riz, Adaine, Gorgug) and the Bad Kids who spent a good portion of their lives playing a part and that fucked them up mentally (Fabian, Kristen, Fig)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm not going back to Gusu with you.

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[mobius-m-mobius]

(insp) // (mirror set)

[wu-does-art]

im not immune to Salvis (platonic or romantic? up to you) bonus because yeah

[future-crab]

The thing about TMA is that if I think about Sasha James too much I will cry and if I think about Michael Shelley too much I will cry and if I think about Agnes Montegue too much I will cry and if I think about Jonathan Sims too much I will cry and if I think about Naomi Herne too much I will cry and if I think about Gerry Keay too much I will cry and if I think about Tim Stoker too much I will cry and if I think about Jane Prentiss too much I will cry and if I think about Martin Blackwood too much I will cry and—

[mellosdrawings]

May I ask what you like about Jamilkal?

Oh my gods ok Imma try not to infodump but also stay clear while I'm rambling.

So, mostly I'm a "platonic soulmates KaliJami" believer. It's less about romance or lust or whatever else and more about them just... gravitating around each other in a way that simply cannot be described with the words we usually associate with love.

Especially since you gotta add the hatred/hurt aspect to it all. The power imbalance. The fucked up situation they're both in. The traumas they've both gone through.

They love each other. They hate each other. They need each other. They keep sabotaging each other. They can't imagine their lives away from the other. They drag each other down and themselves all the time. They care so much for each other. They keep hurting each other.

It's all about tragedy. There is no way for them to heal and get a better relationship but by being separated. But they could never willingly part ways from each other. They'd need to be forcefully pulled apart, and even then they'd probably fight tooth and nail to get back to the other. Even when they're apart they can't stop thinking about each other. The other is seared in their DNA at this point, it'd be like cutting a limb to force them away from each other.

You might think "yeah but Jamil tried to kill Kalim." While he was overblotting, yes. As did all the overblotters, whether or not they loved the people they were attempting to hurt or not. But Jamil, while he did try to ruin Kalim's reputation and have him leave the school, never intended on hurting him. He could have done so much worse, Kalim and his family have so much faith in him, and the only thing he did was trying to get Kalim fired. He would have ended back under the Asim service as soon as school was done. He never meant to get rid of him forever, just push him away long enough so he could find himself.

Which he couldn't. Because fate simply refuses to leave them separated. Because Kalim or his father insisted they stayed together. And now you might think that Kalim is the one pushing this relationship, but have you heard just how much Jamil refers to Kalim? Kalim can live without Jamil, but damn is Jamil obsessed with Kalim. To an unhealthy extent.

Yes it's because of his upbringing. Yes it's because he fears for his and his family's sake. Yes it's because he's an overbearing mom friend. Doesn't change the fact that he has Kalim under his skin 24/7.

The point isn't that it's healthy. They could never be healthy together, no matter how much they try to change their dynamic. Jamil stifles Kalim's growth by being overbearing. Kalim stifles Jamil's growth by constantly relying on him. They feed off each other. Their flaws feed off each other. They just keep making each other worse.

And that's just such an interesting dynamic to explore. They're made for each other but they can't be together. Their story can only end well if they separate. It's as tragic as you could make.

So yeah. That's why I love KaliJami. They're a tragedy. They gonna burn together and they're gonna do it clinging to each other.

And boy, if that ain't love.

[petr1kov]

a lot of people call the inciting incident of berserk's golden age arc (or the eclipse, more specifically) a classic case of miscommunication between guts and griffith, which is true, but what i like about it is that i seriously cannot imagine a scenario in which they do communicate openly with one another. i can kind of see guts opening up under certain circumstances, but griffith? impossible. the only reaction i see him having to guts confiding in him about what he heard him say to the princess on that night and how that sparked his desire to find his own dream and be a person worthy of standing by griffith's side, someone who can become his friend and equal, isn't 'guts, i already think of you as a friend and equal. i have admired you from the first time we met, so much so that i cannot envision a future in which you're no longer at my side. you have nothing to prove to me :)', it's 'ah, you shouldn't worry about those things, guts. you'll always be at my side, because you are mine. i won you, so you belong to me, forever :)' which could, somehow, make things even worse. maybe.

[cannibalisticskittles]

so much of the wigmaker's job continues to stay with me but especially this bit.

like. do you think illario hearing lucanis brush off the possibility of his death again and again contributed to illario giving lucanis to zara.

because yes, of course there's jealousy. of course there is. lucanis is primed to get everything illario wants and nothing illario does seems to change that in the slightest. he can never be good enough, not when there's lucanis to measure up to.

but. not only does lucanis not actually want what's coming his way (he does not at all want to be first talon but they both know caterina DOES want this and lucanis could never tell her no), he's also throwing himself into these jobs with such disregard for his personal safety that there's a sense of inevitability that surrounds the idea of his death.

this conversation feels like... it may not have been discussed like this so clearly before, but they've at least poked around the edges in the past. thought about it. and this moment might have been a turning point, in a way -- illario coming to terms with the fact that lucanis really just will. not. stop. for ANYTHING. his cousin WILL get himself killed doing this and lucanis won’t have any regrets. he’ll leave illario to go this alone. (no one to follow after anymore.)

i wonder if he started to think -- if lucanis is going to die anyway, maybe it’d be better to have that happen sooner, rather than later.

lucanis wouldn’t be happy as first talon (+ honestly, maybe this part is a stretch, but illario seems to see that what lucanis is NOW isn’t so much ‘happy’ as it is ‘obedient and content to accept the scraps that gives him’), and he’s GOING to get himself killed doing this, anyway…

so yeah, he could wait it out. wait for lucanis to do something foolish enough that he can't just walk away from it. maybe he’ll even last long enough to be made first talon (if caterina can bear to loosen her grip from the title) and be miserable for a while. years even, maybe! before lucanis, again, does something he can’t walk away from.

or.

illario could cut through all the pointless waiting and get right to the point. go straight to where this was always going to end up. and if illario is in charge of this, maybe he can benefit from it, and salvage one good thing from this whole mess, instead of being caught up in it later down the line.

(which then might tread into the territory of anticipated grief, too – lucanis' loss will be agony, but, if illario controls when and how it happens, he can control his grief. …except he hadn’t accepted the inevitability of lucanis’ death quite as well as he’d thought and when he gets sloshed at the wake, real grief seeps through the cracks)

just... something about this conversation. both of them viewing lucanis’ death as a foregone conclusion. lucanis accepting that easily, and illario struggling with that more -- and maybe having that shape his actions. not exactly a healthy expression of grief, but since when has anything this family done been healthy?

[inkstaindusk]

Congrats to Lucky Cyan for escaping the curse of the dead husband!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 12: Beware the Grapes of Wrath.

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[fist-of-vengeance]

so what do we think fiddleford saw when he looked into the gremloblin's eyes? dude was so traumatised that stanford "oblivious to my assistant's emotional turmoil" pines took notice. it's what motivated him to INVENT THE MEMORY GUN IN THE FIRST PLACE. I'm honestly surprised i haven't seen more speculation about this

[fumifooms]

Firefly Wedding is so…

It’s so

It’s them. It’s "It’s just a firefly, they’re meant to die soon. Why should I care about the sick, or the poor?"

It’s "I was purposely trying to scare you and push you away to see how far you were willing to go with your act, how desperate you were to play with my feelings as if I was a fool, but it didn’t work."

It’s "I know you’re just using me but now I care. Please keep using me. I need you to need me."

It’s choosing to give her her freedom anyways. Because your love is no longer all about you, no longer selfish. Because this love isn’t just a shallow balm to soothe your complexes anymore.

It’s being betrayed, finally facing the lies and no longer pretending you both don’t know that this is a farce, but desperately wanting to keep it going anyways. It’s "I should hate you now. Why don’t I? Hey, tell me we’ll go through with the plan, tell me you’ll marry me after all. Otherwise, why am I still here? Why don’t I want to leave? You act like you don’t need me but I still need you."

Like that’s so revolutionary for a yandere story. The self-delusion is strong, denial that things have changed despite it being impossible to truly believe, BUT HE STAYS. It’s no longer selfish 😭😭

"I don’t care about you anymore, I won’t help you. Get yourself killed for all I care." <- Jumps to her rescue 3 milliseconds later when she almost falls down a ladder/roof. It happens twice. The ‘lying and trying to emotionally distance yourself from something to protect yourself and not get hurt’ defense mechanism is blatant and it’s failing really bad.

It’s "My sense of duty and goals to have accomplished something useful in my short life are making me do this, but I do want you to stay with me." The yandere stuff here gets turned on its head because what he says is empty where it matters and meaningful where it matters. It’s knowing that if Satoko asks him not to kill anyone he won’t, but knowing that he won’t give up on her no matter what, even if she’s unattainable, even if she’s sickly, even if she pushes him away like just before. It’s so thinly veiled for "I’m determined to see my goal through, but that’s not what I want. If you just so happen to take me away and I don’t try to run away hard enough then we can elope and be free. I want to have an excuse to leave with you. Please give up on marrying me. Please don’t. I want that, but I can’t."

It’s "If I didn’t burn brightly in my short firefly life, then what was the point?"

Except that burning brightly doesn’t have to mean making big achievements, or being useful to your family.

It can be living happily, living for the ones you love, fighting for them. It can be worth to risk it for things that actually matter to you.

It’s giving your heart to someone, figuratively and literally. To lend it to them even if it might get used or battered, for as long as it beats to use your body to protect them, even if you have to sacrifice yourself. A love that burns bright into a bonfire before they both turn to ashes. Unwise but wholehearted.

It’s despite even that, needing grandiose gestures to be able to trust that this is real. It’s needing external cues that prove it to feel safe in their love existing, other people to confirm that he’s not crazy, that this is happening and this is how they both feel. Their love has been fake, both being a warped love and being a lie, only being out of necessity or because the other was the only one willing to offer it to them, offering comfort, safety, support and care. And showing that they care is the most loving of all. It’s despite everything falling back into old habits that "Oh if she was miserably worried for me then that means she’s not indifferent to me! That’s good!" And then once again being taken aback by her, by her earnestness and by her will. Because oh, no, this goes deeper than that. She cares. It’s love.

It’s opening your heart up to love, and both being punished and rewarded for it.

But most of all it’s

And it being the most loving thing he’d ever heard

Firefly Wedding is so…

And yet it’s also

The complicated and hurtful nature of love and the joy and light it brings are two sides of the same coin, because that’s what inevitably happens when you care about something. But caring about a firefly isn’t a waste even however short lived it is, or how hard the loss will inevitably hit you. Isn’t their light just such a wonder to witness?

[carnation-damnation]

Fear of being left behind, and wanting to be loved as much as you love others. Sometimes little reminders from a friend can help. Peep my tags

[kooki914]

What are asgore and spades favorite colors