#trying something new with these idk how i feel about it

[alllgator-blood]

'FOGGY STREETS AND CHRISTMAS LIGHTS'

(part 3/3)

I'm gonna infodump about the backstory of this comic, don't feel obligated to read it because it's not cotl related it's just personal stuff, I just want to be able to write about it somewhere cause I can't really talk to anyone about it.

As always, thanks for reading this far, sorry my stuff has been such a bummer so consistently. This comic goes out to all my "christmas induced depression" homies, I left my house maybe like ~5 times all month and it was NOT pleasant hearing "IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!!" on the radio when I'm so ready for it to be over. Gonna take it reaaaaal easy til the year ends, you guys take it easy too!! Got some asks I have to respond to when I'm more stable but probably no new comic pages til january

Alright uhhh so this part of the comic is pretty much taken directly from the last time I saw my great-grandma alive, a few days before christmas. She didn't remember me, but at the nursing home there was a piano, and I sat down and played some stuff because I didn't know what to say. I was really into lisa the painful rpg at the time, and I played that "I've got the joy" song that the villain sings without realizing it was an old christian campfire song. She didn't really say much or move that whole night, just kind of gave me a polite blank smile, but started singing the words when I played the notes to that song.

I kinda stopped in shock, my dad frantically asked me to keep playing, so I did. While the comic I made is way more sappy than the actual moment was, I wish I'd cherished the moment longer. I didn't know it was the last time I'd see her alive. Every family christmas was held at her house when she was around, so it's been weird the past few years. I actually lost another dementia-addled grandma to cancer on christmas eve in 2009, so the holiday was already kind of weird for me on top of everything else that makes me sad this time of year. That's what part 2 was about, I'll spare the details but I wrote leshy to act out how I felt back then. Why are we all sad? This is supposed to be a happy time, all the decorations are up and we're almost all here, so why is everyone smiling yet everything feels so wrong? I feel like since leshy's canonically the most ignorant one to things lurking below the surface, he'd be the one to try and make everyone feel better but not quite understand why everyone is so miserable. My first memory of having self injurious behavior came from then, hence why I had leshy pull his leaves off in the last comic. It was confusing and frustrating and I was just old enough to comprehend something was wrong, but not old enough to understand the depth of it, it DEFINITELY didn't help that nobody helped me back then so I made leshy's siblings actually come in clutch instead of grabbing him/yelling at him.

That night with the piano was something that's stuck with me the few years she's been gone, but I felt kind of strange when I asked my dad and my sister about it and neither of them remembered it. The room we were in was completely empty so nobody else witnessed it but us three. I myself have a history of head trauma and memory loss (plus, native americans are disproportionately more likely to develop dementia... lucky us) so if I ever forgot about that moment, there'd be nobody left to remember it. Sometimes when I do comics, it's my way of going "this happened at some point, and the only evidence it ever happened was me witnessing it, so if something happens to me I want the memory to stay alive in some form."

Anyway. The autistic urge to overshare, am I right? Idk what my religious ass great-grandma would think of me drawing demonic comics about my last memory of her, she'd probably think it's funny though cause she raised my dad whose interests have always been "death metal and devil worship". I'm not sure if anyone read this far, I just hope my dumb comics can convey the things I can't say with my voice and struggle to say through text. None of this was supposed to be "feel bad for me!! Woe is me!!", it was supposed to me more like...cathartic? Healing? I almost didn't post this comic because it felt kinda weird, but seeing people connect with it made it worth it imo. Thank you

[mumms-the-word]

Notes on a Caretaker

I find something about this note so fascinating. Every time I pick it up or scroll back around to it I have to sit with it and just...linger, trying to understand it.

So this is my attempt to break it down and sort through my thoughts about this note, which I think is so obviously from Solas. I think it hints not only to his spirit background, but also his perspective on the path he feels is set before him. Which, idk, is cool!

Mini analysis under the cut! Also a lot of Veilguard spoilers!

This note has a smear of paint on one corner: Have they always been here? There are beings in the Crossroads unknown even to the wise, though the most ancient ones make any domain their own. Certainly, this Caretaker belongs here now.

We’re led to believe this note must be from Solas because of the smear of paint. And I would argue the paint perhaps clues us in to when this might have been written. No doubt Solas was painting murals when he was running around as the Rebel Fen'Harel, since we see some of them in Trespasser, but I think he painted the murals in the Lighthouse after he left the Inquisition (in part because we have that last mural where he kills Flemythal, and he left his paint pallet in the music room after recreating the Inquisition murals there). So it could go either way, but...

I can just imagine Solas, lost in the throes of his regrets, painting his sins on the walls of the library and his memories of the Inquisition in the music room, finally noticing the Caretaker who has arrived, or perhaps was always there. Perhaps he pauses to consider the nature of the Caretaker, and the mystery of when it arrived. We find this note in the kitchen/dining area, where Solas still has a single place setting laid out for himself. So perhaps the Caretaker arrived to take care of him?

Or maybe this is a really, really old letter from when Solas first retreated to the Lighthouse and began to use it as his base of operations. How ancient is the Caretaker? Did they arrive to see to the Lighthouse during the days of the rebellions against the Evanuris, or did they arrive later? Did they arrive because they were drawn to the needs of dozens, hundreds of rebels and refugees, or drawn to its echo after they were gone? Which is it?

I personally go back and forth about it, but it's fascinating that the letter subtly supports both perspectives. Anyways!

I wonder what we look like to them. Need is a scaffold, and the needs of the living ever rise and fall upon it. Hunger, thirst, sleep... imagine the constant cacophony to one sensitive to such things.

The "we" suggests maybe this is a much older letter. I can see a much younger Solas leading his rebels to the Lighthouse and contemplating the nature of this Caretaker, worrying about how so many physical bodies in one space might affect a spirit sensitive to physical needs. But I can also see a much more recent Solas pondering this new (or new to him) creature, so I don't know.

Either way, "we" vs. "them." Solas is well and truly part of the living here, as opposed to viewing this all entirely as a spirit. It's like he's wondering what these spirit-born elves, or even mortals in general look like to a spirit like the Caretaker. A spirit whose focus is on needs, surrounded by these elves with physical bodies who now have very real, tangible needs. Hunger, thirst, sleep, things a spirit does not feel. But the Caretaker does, at least, sense these things in others.

The chorus of one person's needs must be a lot, but the cacophony of dozens, hundreds, as there would have been when the Lighthouse was in its prime? No wonder Solas has a moment of concern for this benevolent spirit.

Or am I too simple? Wants are fleeting; needs have deeper roots. Perhaps that's why I find this particular spirit's presence both comforting and disconcerting. The prospect that our heart's desire and our truest need could differ—or are even at odds—is hard to contemplate.

This. This is the most fascinating part of the note.

Or am I too simple? I think this is a hint, super early in the game, that Solas is a spirit. Spirits are the pure manifestations of emotion and thought. Complexity comes with personhood, with being part of the living in the tangible world. But spirits in the Fade (even before the Veil) are always pretty simple.

Solas is grappling with his nature here.

Wants are fleeting; needs have deeper roots. Perhaps that's why I find this particular spirit's presence both comforting and disconcerting.

I wonder if this is Solas struggling a bit with the unique experience of being both spirit and elf, undying but also very much alive, originally intangible but now physical. Wants come with being a spirit—spirits want to see beyond the Veil, if they're curious enough, or Cole as Compassion wants to help, he wants to look like the boy who died in the Spire. But here it's like Solas is suggesting that need is an intrinsically mortal or at least physical thing—something he didn't need to consider much before he had a body.

After all, spirits who don't have purely physical bodies don't seem to have the same needs. Like when Dorian talks with Cole about having a body, despite him not seeming to have physical needs:

Dorian: Do you need to eat, Cole? Or sleep? Cole: I thought I had to. But I don't. The Old Songs can pull me.

Or Blackwall suggesting that now that Cole is more human (if you take that path) the physical needs will likely come up:

Blackwall: So now that you've dealt with the templar, you're a real boy? Cole: Realer. Blackwall: Good enough. I suppose you'll stop looking into people's heads soon? And you might want to look into, I don't know, eating. Cole: Blech.

Often I think Solas struggles with where he stands, what he is, what he can be, what he should be as someone whom was first a spirit and then a person with a physical body. Short of dying, it sounds as though the process of going from spirit to elf is irreversible. He cannot return to the Fade as a pure spirit anymore. After the Veil, he can only return in dreams, at least until he finds ways of tearing through to the Veil to enter physically again.

But time and again he thinks and acts like a spirit with a simpler, focused nature rather than a complicated nature like a person might have. When he asks, Am I too simple? it feels like he’s acknowledging this. Is he too simple, too focused, too spirit to understand the experience of being fully, complexly mortal or physical?

The Caretaker’s presence is both comforting, because Solas knows that his (or others’) needs will likely be tended to, and yet disconcerting because it’s probably weird to even have those needs.

Ah but here we come to my favorite part.

The prospect that our heart's desire and our truest need could differ—or are even at odds—is hard to contemplate.

I’m sure this is hard to contemplate even for a normal person. How often do we struggle with knowing what we want isn’t always what we need? We may want the sugary cake, for example, but our bodies may need the healthier vegetables or fruits instead.

But going deeper, it’s easy to conflate needs and wants when it comes to abstract things. Like, say, vengeance, penance, atonement, or restoration.

Solas wants to repair the mistake he made thousands of years ago by creating the Veil, but he doesn’t need to do that. Yet in his mind, he treats it like a need, with roots so deep he can’t escape being bound up in them.

He wants to honor Mythal, who died because of his mistakes, who died again at his hand, but he doesn’t see that he can let go of that purpose, because somehow this want isn’t fleeting or fading like wants normally do. It sticks around. Therefore it must be more than want, right?

His heart’s desire is for the elven people to be restored, immortal, free, prosperous, and he throws his entire being into making that goal come true, that dream a reality. But he doesn’t see that his truest need is actually to be freed himself. Free from the purpose he’s given himself in the wake of Mythal’s death. Free from a path of vengeance that no one asked him to take, but that he feels obligated to walk.

His truest need, which he can’t see, because he can’t seem to sort through what is more want versus what is more need (and who can really, when they’re in the thick of things?), is not to cling closer to Mythal and honor his friend (or whatever it is they were), but to be freed from any and all entanglements with her.

He doesn’t want to let her go, but he needs to.

But without her around to release him, he clings to his plans to restore the elven people, restore her people, and hope that that will be atonement enough.

I think that’s why in the redemption ending, when we do see Mythal release Solas, he nearly collapses with this mixture of grief and relief. When he finally straightens up again, yes he’s hurting, but he’s the calmest he’s ever been in the entire game. As in, not tense, not plotting, not agitated. You get the sense that he can see or think with clarity now. Perhaps even breathe freely for the first time in ages.

And he finally sees that what he needs to do is not fix his mistakes, if doing so only causes more chaos and heartache and death for thousands or millions around him, but to seek atonement.

I love the line Rook can say when they’re trying to talk him down and make him bind himself to the Veil.

“[Making the Veil collapse] is what you want. Making amends isn’t about what you want.”

It doesn’t convince Solas, because he still doesn’t see removing the Veil as a want. He views it as a need. Not his need, but the world’s need. The world needs to be restored to the way Mythal would have wanted it, or so he believes.

I think that’s why Mythal has to release him before he can see everything clearly. She is the only one who can give him what he needs but does not what—freedom from her service.

It may not be everyone’s favorite choice, but I understand how we get here, especially since we find this letter so early in the game. Whether this letter is Solas from the distant past or the more recent past, it sets up a trajectory that we can trace all the way to the end of the game. And I just find that fascinating.

[prettyboykatsuki]

u don’t have to answer but how do u long for someone u loved so much at 14 while also being deeply committed to your partner. no judgement in pbk land i am just a lil drunk and trying to understand

i will try my best to explain this but being very frank (and not at all in a negative way!!) i think we are probably just two fundamentally different people with two vastly different concepts of what constitutes love and longing

the short answer is simply bc they are different people. my love for this person (ill call them j) and my partner are separate things. because they are just separate humans and separate experiences. the things i love about them sometimes overlap but they are both my people in different ways. i would never compare them.

its all very messy but all three of us are close also. like this person is my partners best friend and the whole arrangement is kind of complicated and idk how much i wanna air my business out kfjfshdkj. tldr is that me and j love each other very deeply in a way that is not romantic nor quite platonic and they are someone that will always be in my life. we did try romance sort of but they are aro and i dont think that feeling is what i feel for them anyway. its different to what my partner makes me feel.

so the sense of love and longing is not the exact same though it's probably closer to 'romance' then what we view typically as friendship. like i hold them in my lap and other gay shit lol

im the kind of queer that is very free love about these kinds of things. my partner has a qpr who i dont know and everything too

my partner is my life partner and the person i feel closest to in my life. it is romantic of course but its also more than that. i talk to him about everything and trust in him to communicate and vice versa. if im jealous or lonely or scared - i tell him and we work it out and he does the same for me and we check in on each other all the time. he comes first and he always will.

but my love and affection for someone else does not dim my love for him. love isnt a scarce resource i have to preserve but something i give of my own will. its not a threat because there's nothing to threaten. no love will replace him because it's not like anyone can be him any way.

when your love for someone transcends the role they fill in your life, a lot of doors open about who and how you love i think. i fall in love and experience affection for people as they are if i had to put it to words. not because of what they can do or a desire for connection but because the experience of them, specifically, moves me. i cant really speak for other people but for me its like that.

im not someone who really personally subscribes to monogamy and i never really have. my partner and i have had a more open relationship for all of it pretty much with some years and my trust in him has only deepened over time and through several wounds.

i long and crave and miss people because they are who they are. no person is replaceable ykwim. so the absence of someone cant be filled by someone else and it also cant be changed by another person. my partner is my life partner and the man i want to marry someday.

but j is my j. i love them because they have silly idiosyncrasies. theyre a talented artist and skittish with affection and sensitive. and i love them so deeply it makes me sick. i love how much they try for me.

and i love my partner just as much. we'll spend new years together, all three of us (and j's whole family dsjfjsld) - but im seeing them both separately and im sure they'll see each other separately too

so its like these things are not contradictory to me in anyway. they're not feelings in conflict with one another inside of me at all. its complicated but relationships are always that way

i hope that made a little sense!! its kind of hard to explain without extra context!!

[mattstrahm]

ESAPEKKA LAPPI pours his nearly full bottle of sparkling rosé down KALLE ROVANPERÄ's race suit on the podium at the 2023 WRC Vodafone Rally de Portugal

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[theygotlost]

G-A-R-Y! YOU AINT GOT NO ALIBI! YOURE GARY! WHAT! WHAT! YOURE GARY!

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

[deanpinterester]

hello! i haven't seen anyone on my dash talk about Lebanon yet so i thought i'd bring it up in case there are those who don't know:

as of Sept 24th, more than 500 are killed and hundreds more are injured from airstrikes and bombings (CTV article linked here for further reading).

no doubt more info on how to help will come out (or probably already have) but for starters i've donated to Doctors Without Borders / Medicins Sans Frontieres (Canadian website linked but they're available in other countries as well) and hopefully anyone who is able can donate too.

[edenfire]

✨️🌟 he is looking at akira 🌟✨️

been working on various projects and I've been missing my boy;;;; so ofc I had to doodle up something quick for him🥰💗💞

also just assume that every piece of art I create includes implied shuake lol

[oysterspearl]

down in a hole

and they’ve put all the stones in their place

days 7-8: boarded up & forgotten

[dykedvonte]

I hate the stretch lines in the front of Curly's uniform because that means the devs rushed to make a model in like a month or so and thought "They gotta at least know he has huge knockers, gotta know he's got back pain." Cause like what is the thematic importance of his tits having overhang?

What responsibility is that representing? Breast reduction? It shows an inherent greed in his character due to the excess and heshouldletmeholdone and that he clearly is blinded cause if he tries to look down his damn ladder all he's seeing is his own cleavage.

[mynameis-veryfuckingconfused]

they say, "what a sad sight"

[thebirdandhersong]

Lol

[laaawliet]

adunamentum

L/Yagami Light | Teen & Up Audiences | 1.8k | complete | Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence | Minor Character Death | Grief/Mourning | Angst | Alternate Universe - Kira Wins | or does he

Light sighs. “I thought about it,” he says, as if that makes any sense. “But you were never going to agree to this, L. You’re not used to it yet.” L feels very cold all of a sudden, and not because of the weather. He turns, despite his initial resistance, and stares into Light’s eyes. “Used to what?” “Sacrifice.” Written for Lawlight Week, Day 1: Death

my entry for @lawlightweek2024 prompt 1: death!

read here!

[loisfreakinglane]

[tepidti]

🧚🏻‍♂️🌿✨