#to each their own interpretation

[deargravity]

love akashi so bad. that's my pookie, my stack of sunshine, my beloved cat. i will defend him to the ends of the earth. i will burn a house down on someone for speaking ill of him. i will bombastic side eye, criminal offensive side eye anyone who calls him "scary" or "cold" or reduces him into a caricature of his grandiosity because he is so much more than that and, in fact, he is actually quite the opposite of it.

he's been distanced so much from people his age because of constantly being raised in a state of vigilance and absolute perfection that prevents him from showing weakness or vulnerability even in his relationships because he's associated it with punishment but he wants to be approachable, to be seen as less intimidating. when he's dissociated into his second self, he's masking (unconsciously or consciously, who knows) because even though he may be intimidating, he is safe behind this superficial mask of superiority and perfection, he is untouchable, but as soon as it shatters, the very real fear of being abandoned by his friends comes crashing in - he just wants to keep playing basketball, on this court where it is his domain, where his father can't reach him and where he's closest to his mom. the very identity that he was hiding behind, to protect himself, is his greatest weakness. it's ironic that his second self is meant to be an image of absolute strength that maybe would have, in his eyes, made him worthy of companionship but all it does is contribute to it falling apart.

i think he is just a boy who has gone through way too much all by himself and has known no other way to experience the tragedies and obstacles in his life. he's learned he has to work to be worthy of his father's love, that love - his life - is a privilege meant to be earned rather than an experience to be created and shared. i could write so much more on how the visible power deferential between akashi and the rest, as well as the literal distance akashi puts between himself and them was meant to be adaptive, to protect his mask, but then became maladaptive - there is just so much to say about this but i could go on forever and i don't want to do that here.

he is just my boy and i love him dearly and no one understands him the way i do.

[curlytsunamiart]

a confrontation between miquella and messmer in the shadow keep throne room

[winkle-pickers]

Covenant

[nightowlfury]

continuation (p1 and p2)

[lucabyte]

Hmmm just gonna spit this headcanon out in text post form since A. I don't think I could exposit it well enough in image form and B. It's not actually textually/thematically substantiated and I don't like actually staking my stuff on just vibes alone*

But anyway. I'd say it's pretty evident that all the islanders forgot their names, right? King obviously. Because why the hell else would he do that, but also Siffrin No Middle Names No Last Name.

They're 'pretty sure' they've 'always' been 'Just Siffrin' 'as long as they can remember'. It's a pretty cruel twist of the knife to say that they don't even get to keep their birth name as a memento, which is why I'm saying as such.

My utterly unsubstantiated claim is I think it'd be cute to say that Sisyphus *is* the name Siffrin initially picked, assuming the myth of King Sisyphus is recontextualised as idk, just a play or something in the setting. But I like the idea of Siffrin going 'oh shit 🫵 he's just like me fr' at a tortured fictional character long before the irony kicks in.

As for how Sisyphus -> Siffrin. I think that chronic mumbler and emotional doormat Sif just did not correct people who misheard the name during their time travelling, and went through enough places with incompatible phonologies (pronounceable sounds in the language) without ever really writing it down that it just got kinda. Changed until it was unrecognisable, and Siffrin just went with it until the earlier pronunciations slipped out of their swiss-cheese brain. And they just kinda don't remember any of that.

Also, something something the horrid realisation that Siffrin also named themselves after a King. Just not as blatantly.

*(though I think there's something here about Siffrin, a guy from a belief system that seems to thoroughly disincentivise autonomy and self-motivated choice continuously having their hand forced to make changes/choices they don't want but have no choice but to... It's not solid enough to really back this up tbh, but it informs it.)

Anyway.

[kagoutiss]

din’s champion

[demonkinguwu]

The Three Subcon Bosses [My fanon version lol]

The trickster shadow, the wrathful queen, and the disappearing moon

Lore Below <3

Snatcher: Once was a kind lonely prince whose only talent was painting, often overlooked and ignored due to this. He fell in love with Vanessa quickly as she was the only one who understood the loneliness of his paintings. The two married after a year of courtship, but the prince worked hard to learn to rule by her side, even going to law school. Unfortunately, he ignored the terrible treatment by his frantic wife for fear of true loneliness until it was too late...

Now the kind prince turned into a terrible and manipulative shadow, using robbed souls and his smarts to grow as powerful as he is, growing to be the sole ruler of the Subcon Forest. He prefers to be in control and over-possessive of everything he deems 'his', including the terrible wife who killed him painfully. He despises her but deep down knows she's the only person who will ever truly care for him even as a monster so she gets to stay as his pathetic little toy <3

However, he can't help but enjoy the very small snippets of moments between them that remind him of a better time when they were young and naive. He can't help but smile as the princess Vanessa was once shines through that red mass of anger, oh how he wishes to rip open the beast and find his princess within it, safe and innocent as she used to be

Vanessa: She was once a kind and sweet princess filled with so much loneliness especially since her father ran away. On a visit to a foreign kingdom, she was immersed in the large gallery of paintings depicting how she felt perfectly, lonely. She soon fell for the painter, a kind but mischievous prince who was just as lonely as she was. But her horrible mother was jealous of her daughter's happiness and poisoned her heart and mind with her evil words, reminding the princess of her father who ran away. The princess' desperate thoughts turned dark and possessive, wanting the prince all to herself, even getting rid of her mother who she thought wanted her prince. The now Queen was more desperate, her heart and mind growing darker and bitter with each day that passed without her beloved... Soon it would all explode, taking every soul within Subcon with her.

After a few years of mindless wrath and pain, she 'cooled down'. Finally gaining sense and guilt, but since no one wished to accept her apologies, she learned not to care over such matters anymore. Her heart grew bitter, cold, and uncaring of much but the evil monster her beloved became. His very existence enrages her, reminding her that her kind sweet prince is gone and all she has is this thing, this terrible and evil shadow who took everything from her. But even so, she can never get rid of him, for he is the only one who will 'care' for her, who could relieve her of her loneliness even if his actions are cruel and taunting. She doesn't want to be truly alone, but he is the only one she can truly trust, so he is the only intruder who will remain safe from her terrible wrath even if she hates him so. Though she knows her prince is gone, she relishes the small brief moments she could see a flicker of him through the monster's wicked being. Oh, how she wishes she could grab her prince in that brief second and never let him go.

Moonjumper: He was once a naive but adventurous lad, a time traveler who shone bright with the moon. Crashing into the strange planet, he met a cold princess whose heart was as cold as ice. He felt understood as he didn't understand what love was either, so he decided to stay with the princess and become her king to find out what love was. They soon had a princess who they named Vanessa. The king loved his daughter very much but didn't love his title or his wife, for he was a being of freedom. Without confronting his wife, he planned to take Vanessa and escape, but he left her behind once his wife figured out his plot. His wife, who grew to love him, was heartbroken and distraught over his betrayal, and so she cursed him with her magic to death, over and over again.

The man became a distorted time rift, cold and alone, wanting nothing more than to find someone to stay with him in his lonely horizon, especially his little princess.

Hundreds of years have passed, and he watches on with great pain as the sweet girl his daughter was once turned into a monster. All thanks to the monster who took over Subcon with that disgusting smirk, he made his daughter the monster she is! And she was no better! Being easily influenced by that monster and turning into a monster herself, they were both horrible beasts! Both were responsible for taking away his little princess! Once he has the chance, he'll get rid of them both! But since he is much weaker and scared of them, he'll abide his time until he can finally avenge his sweet daughter. For now, he searches for someone he could keep in his lonely prison, someone who he can raise to be just as perfect as his little princess...

[taintedmind6669]

Missing my beloved Pacific Rim characters

[dingodad]

please god i need to know what U think of the whole “jadebloods are all female!” thing because i got into homestuck in 2019 around the time of friendsim and (retching) Lanque so i always assumed they were explicitly intended to be an all-female caste. however, re-reading the comic this year, i couldnt find a mention of it other than virgo and the Space aspect being really feminine, but i think kanayas journey with motherhood is more kanaya-centric than All-Jadebloods centric??

on one hand, it makes sense given that alternia has very real gendered oppression, so what’s better for that than CATHOLICISM?? on the other hand, i always saw kanaya as being transfem coded, because it connects so well with roxy yknow.. homestuck fans love to insist that certain characters just have to be cis women (kanaya, jade, roxy)

(as an aside; was “long hair was butch on alternia” a one off joke? i like speculation about alternia’s fashion opposing earth, lol)

most all of our basis for explicitly gendered interpretation of Alternia comes from act 6 intermission 3, where Aranea tells us that "jade 8loods were also an almost exclusively female caste". so the door has always been open for there to be "some male jadebloods". but it's a mistake to view this as having anything to do with any kind of "biological sex". the whole idea of biological sex among trolls is a smoke screen. the jadebloods' assigned gender at birth is "jadeblood". this is what makes them a feminised caste.

Caliborn doesn't have a clue what biological sex is. Aranea will tell you that there are boy cherubs and girl cherubs, but for your own sanity you need to cast this idea out of your mind: cherub sex takes place between good and evil cherubs - which is determined by their blood - and anything else is just roleplay. Caliborn's attitude toward sexing is that the ones he likes are boys - that's all the thought that goes into it. and that's the mindset we need to be aware of when we delve into understanding troll gender. there are some trolls who have breast tissue and some who don't, but they aren't "mammaries" in any sense, so there's no reason to believe they're actually sexual characteristics of any kind; maybe this is what Lord English chose to base his gender schema on, but the idea that this means there must be "male trolls" and "female trolls" is completely imagined for the narrative convenience of the human reader.

when we read that there are "male-dominated" highblood castes and therefore by implication female-populated lowblood castes, it's not by some coincidence of biology: the highblood castes are male-dominated BECAUSE they are highblood castes. each caste has a role to play in Caliborn's Alternia, and just as the highblooded roles are those of patriarchal domination, the lower castes must take on roles of feminised submission; and in the case of the jades in particular, this means breeding duties. the fact that this also comes with the expectation to wear makeup and pretty clothes is just more roleplay.

so tl;dr what i think of "the all jadebloods are female thing" is that it is very obviously true but in a way more 5 dimensional gender studies way than anyone else tends to mean when they say it

my pet "long hair was butch on alternia" headcanon - which is a joke but in the way all headcanons about alternia should be jokes of some kind - actually kind of relates to this lol. bc i figure that if gendered expectations of female trolls includes working in disgusting underground caverns filled with genetic material, it's going to be practical to keep your hair close to your head where it won't get dirty, in much the same way the feminist image of the short-haired woman became popular in the west during and after world war 2, wherein a lot of women had to start wearing their hair close to their heads to avoid scalping themselves in the factory machinery they suddenly had to start working with. hence kanaya dedicated to her assigned feminine role and wearing her hair short vs. porrim rebelling against it for feminist reasons and thus wearing her hair at a length that would be totally impractical for wading through gene pools.

[0alix0]

you hate solas x mythal because you think solas shouldn't have had any previous relationships in thousands of years of his life

i hate solas x mythal because it's yet another exhausting love triangle where the slaver and abuser gets a funky reincarnation and the victim gets blamed for absolutely everything and put into magical prison forever..........

we are not the same

[serpentface]

A typical example of a kulimane hunting dog, a prized animal in Imperial Wardin. They represent the most positive feelings towards dogs in this cultural sphere, an animal that otherwise has an often ambiguous or even disdained status.

Kulimane are the 'hybrid' offspring of domesticated sighthound breeds and the kuliku (colloquially called 'salt wolves'). Kuliku are not actual wolves, but rather the feral descendants of VERY ancient domesticated dogs that have been living wild for millennia in grassland, savannahs, and semi-desert, and are fully functional and efficient predators. Kuliku have slender builds, huge lungs, and long legs, and use bursts of tremendous speed to chase down prey. They mostly take small game, like rabbits, hares, birds, and hippegalga, though pairs are capable of bringing down mid-sized ungulates. They do not readily mate with fully domesticated dogs, but can be encouraged to do so in captivity, thus producing the kulimane.

The production of kulimane was introduced by the third Burri empire and has been fully adopted into contemporary Imperial Wardin. Kulimane are commonly seen as the best and most ideal of hunting dogs, combining the speed, power, and heat resistance and predatory instincts of their wild parents, and the loyalty and tameness, and other bred-in qualities of their sighthound parents. In practice, most Kulimane used in hunting will have been the product of several generations of breeding to produce an ideal animal (initial 'hybrid' generations are often still too wild). Their appearance can vary wildly, but the ideal form for a kulimane is to have a domestic-type coat (fully solid colors are preferred, but rare) and to retain the pointed ears and black tail tip of their wild ancestors.

Most kulimane are independent, intelligent animals that will form close and protective bonds with their handlers, but will be shy and wary of strangers. They usually retain strong territorial instincts from their wild ancestors, and can double as excellent guard dogs. Their disposition towards other dogs can vary- a well socialized kulimane can usually be introduced to new dogs with few issues, but some have striking tendencies to aggression towards strange dogs, and are often muzzled in public. Most are kept in same-sex sibling pairs, and away from unfamiliar or unrelated dogs. They are rarely outright cuddly, often preferring to sit at a distance than to sit on one's lap, but are appreciative of praise and affection from their owners.

Well trained kulimane make for truly excellent sighthounds. They can quickly adapt to changing situations in the field with little to no input from handlers, and quickly and instinctively dispatch most small prey. Their high prey drives Can be a problem for owners. They are frequently known to kill livestock and sacrificial stock, and have a tendency towards surplus killing. You don't want a kulimane to get in with your poultry.

Good kulimane stock is very difficult to produce and takes several generations of breeding, and the animals can be very costly to maintain and keep in good hunting conditions. As such they are VERY expensive animals, and function as status symbols. Sighthounds in of themselves have associations with wealth, and kulimane are specifically associated with royalty and the social elite. They represent the most venerated and beloved end of a very, very wide spectrum of cultural opinions towards dogs in the Imperial Wardi sphere.

The status of dogs in the cultural schema mostly depends on their perceived role. Working dogs tend to have positive cultural connotations- guard dogs and especially hunting dogs are seen as noble animals and symbols of loyalty, and herding and livestock guardian dogs are of great practical value in the rural sphere. Keeping dogs for pure companionship is fairly uncommon, though there are a few established companion breeds in the region. The practice of raising livestock dog breeds has decreased or become obsolete in parts of the region, largely due to Burri influence (which regards the meat of predators and scavengers as wholly unsuitable for consumption), but meat specific breeds like the salutachin are still valued in the city-state of Wardin as providers of an excellent, delicacy meat. The commonality between all valued dogs in Imperial Wardin is their utility, well-established roles, and sharp distinction from feral dogs.

Feral dogs are a fact of life around most settlements. Imperial Wardi cultural outlooks on them tend to be highly negative, characterizing these as uniquely greedy, cowardly, lowly pest animals at best and depraved corpse eaters at worst. Exact attitudes vary throughout the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, but one near-ubiquitous element is regarding the excrement of feral dogs (and corpses of feral dogs) as potent sources of spiritual pollution that should never be touched with bare skin, and should ideally be removed and buried in barren ground (or their polluting influence should at least be mitigated with a blessing of the tainted location). Superstition holds that stepping in the feces of feral dogs can inflict curses, and the word for 'dogshit' is one of the most insulting terms available in the language.

Hatred of feral dogs is particularly acute in the city-state of Godsmouth. The core city experienced a collective cultural trauma as a result of a siege during the formation of the Wardi empire, in which civilians starved en-masse and descriptions of bodies being eaten in the streets by feral dogs (which were, in turn, eaten by starving civilians) dominate historical records of the event. Feral dogs are by and large hated in this part of the region and seen as outright vile animals and acute sources of spiritual pollution via their very presence. They are actively culled on a routine basis. The outskirts of the city of Godsmouth and some of the city-state's towns have unique practices of allowing semi-tame hyenas free movement through settlements, where they fulfill the dogs' function as refuse cleaners and keep dog populations in check.

While the keeping of feral dogs is generally frowned upon throughout the region, individuals caring for their local feral populations or adopting feral puppies is not unknown, and the distinction between feral and kept dogs (and stigma towards the former) is MUCH less pronounced in many rural communities, where semi-feral dogs may be valued as likable or useful village animals.

No dog breeds are standardized (or even technically 'breeds' in any modern sense), but there is usually great effort to keep working, livestock, and companion dog stocks wholly separate from feral dogs. The word that roughly means ‘mutt’ in this language does not refer to mixed dog breeds as a whole (or even crosses between different types of working dog), but specifically crosses between kept breeds and feral dogs, which is generally regarded as unfavorable (though not uncommon, both due to inevitability in a world without spaying, and practicality- these crosses may produce perfectly good working or companion dogs, and introduction of feral stock reduces inbreeding).

The dog is one of the constellations in the Wardi zodiac, found at the heel of the Hunter constellation and variously interpreted as either being a noble hunting dog trailing its master, or a lowly scavenger looking for scraps. The latter characterization tends to win out in terms of the characterization of its associated birthsign. Being born under the sign of the dog is mostly regarded as inauspicious, and a potential indication of a cowardly, stupid, lustful, and greedy character (though some positive qualities are ascribed, chiefly loyalty).

‘Chinops’ (literally ‘dog-born’) refers neutrally to the dog birth sign, while ‘chinmachen’ (‘dog-faced’) is an epithet given to those considered to have the associated personality traits, which is rarely anything BUT an insult. (These also spawn the purely derogatory phrases of ‘chisnops’, ‘chismachen’, and ‘chismache’, which have functional meanings closest to ‘son of a bitch’ ‘bitch/slut’ and ‘cunt’ respectively)

[deargravity]

love allen so, so, sooooo bad. he gave up an entire life he knew for an uncertain future in hiphop just to pursue what he loved and he's earnest, passionate, devoted to his art and he's clearly having the time of his life writing these songs (unserious lyrics or not, i support his silly babygirl endeavours). not to mention his love for what he does is so infectious because it is simple and sincere. allen and your interests and passions are not random they are inherently connected to your purpose or something like that. allen and every creation is ultimately a form of protest or something like that. allen and you are not what your father wants you to be and it's okay, it's okay to burn the bridges you need to because you'll never let yourself go back there again, you're never going to look back anyway or something like that. allen and the act of creation is the reward in and of itself or something like that. allen and fire, allen and burning, allen and rising, allen and birth hurts so rebirth hurts too, and that's what it means to burn so if i must be reduced to ashes first to rise again, so be it. allen and giving birth to yourself again because your parents didn't do it right the first time. allen and raising yourself better than your parents. allen and building new bridges that serve your new self and bring love into your life. allen and never looking back because you're worth more than that, you always were. or something like that.

i'm crazy about him. my beautiful, silly babygirl who is full of joy and whimsy and love that is so infectious, the world is a slightly more beautiful place for anyone who strays into his orbit.

[lambmotifz]

this is a controversial take but i don’t really think sexual wincest dynamic would be the same as the dynamics they have with girls. mostly because this interpretation tends to ignore canonical nuances that define sam and dean’s relationship, which includes dean’s extreme possessiveness, sam’s willing submissiveness with dean (especially when it comes to physical touch), the fact that dean is the only one with whom sam is able to be physically vulnerable in a way he can’t with anybody else, the fact that dean genuinely loves taking care of his little brother. it’s an essential part of their relationship, and it just makes sense for it to be part of their sexual dynamic too

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #89

Danny didn’t know what would happen when his parents portal turned on for the first time but this wasn’t it. He accidentally turned it on and the next thing he knew he was in front of this pool of green swirling liquid with this lady named Talia telling him she’d take care of him. The weird thing is he was now half dead with weird ghost powers and he somehow was turned back into a 5 year old. He met a kid the same age as him and the two quickly became inseparable, his name was Damian and even though he was to be the next head of what Danny assumed was a cult, he knew it was but he was in the body of a 5 year old and couldn’t exactly go home like this.

5 years pass and Danny gets sent along with Damian to Gotham to live with Damian’s birth father Bruce Wayne. Danny didn’t want to go at first but Bruce seemed to welcome him with open arms regardless of his background with the league. Everything is going well for the 2 until Danny meets Tim’s secretary, it’s Sam and she absolutely did not know how to handle her now smaller best friend. Tucker is doing an internship at Wayne Tech too.

[elinordash]

Sherlock Holmes | 7x03 The Golden Pince-Nez

− When you say 'hardly any weak spots', what exactly do you mean? We all have vices of some kind or another. − Willoughby Smith has nothing against him, either as a boy at Uppingham, or later as a young man at Cambridge. Although I gather he was fond of a drink or two. − Nothing wrong in that. − He also had a bit of an eye for the ladies. − Each to his own.

he really just said that, huh. like some people are heterosexual, what can you do