#Getting between you and God

[adriles]

they are Cancelling me for dealing with my grief as best i can . also for the vicious war Crimes

[v0idwraith]

quite frankly idgaf what Luigi Mangione’s politics are, he actually did something to make a change and that’s more than most people can say

[vaguely-concerned]

lucanis is a 'I could sit in our quiet kitchen on a grey tuesday afternoon drinking coffee and talking with you about nothing much in particular forever and be the happiest man who ever lived' romantic, not a 'classic tropes and grand gestures' romantic. this is a distinction and conceptual gap I personally feel is crucial to understanding what's going on with him when romanced. for all his almost painful sincerity and clear depth of feeling he's not a very effusive guy by nature, but in the history of time no one has ever, with their whole soul, chest and being, been so genuinely and openly happy to just do laundry and taxes with you.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[seiwas]

cw: pro-hero bakugo, reader has boobs, kind of explicit/nsfw? idk i describe boobs, reader is smaller and shorter than bakugo, unedited sawry

bakugo's muscle tee looks as ill-fitting as it'll ever be draped over you.

there are reasons for this, perfectly founded and logical reasons for why that is—the main one being that, it's, well, his; two, maybe even three sizes larger than what it should be to fit you properly.

but, he can't stop staring, and there are reasons for that too—the main one being that, it's his, and yet, the only way he can ever imagine it now is when it's being worn by you.

your hips sway to the song you've been humming for the past five minutes. it's the same one, the chorus on a perpetual loop. he's sure it's the only part you know; you do this often enough that it's the only part he knows now, too.

the hem of his tee hits right at the top of your thighs, concealing just enough to tease, but he’s confident that if you reach up even the slightest bit for the cupboard overhead, there'll be nothing to hide.

he feels a little bit like a creep like this, watching as he stands in the middle of your shared living room, but it's impossible too look away—you've got to be doing this on purpose, right?

heat flares inside of him when you turn your body ever so slightly, the armhole of his muscle tee large enough to give him the clearest view of skin—

he gulps.

it's smooth, sloping just right; the side view of your under boob curves into its perfect shape and he can imagine it, feel—

(is this considered perving if he's been with you for years?)

the pan in front of you sizzles as you plop in god knows what. you pour in something from the side and wait, one hand propped on the hip you pop out. then, you pick up the pan, attempting to flip what's inside (probably a pancake, now that he thinks about it).

it’s hard to focus on what you’re cooking though, especially when all he sees is plump flesh jiggling, bouncing as you further agitate the pan.

he just got the pants of this suit readjusted, and now they're fucking tight.

bakugo normally runs hot; it’s kind of part of his dna. but this warmth is different, flushing him from head to toe. it creeps up the side of his neck, painting the tips of his ears a blooming red.

you turn around then, plopping the pancake on the plate atop the counter behind you.

"oh! you're done," you greet him with a smile. so. fucking. casually.

as if your tits aren't fucking peaking against the gray fabric of his tee.

as if you think he buys the fake innocence poorly concealing that sly, conniving look in your pretty eyes.

as if you aren't standing in front of him in his muscle tee, wearing nothing underneath it like you didn’t do this on purpose. like you don’t know what it fucking does to him.

his eyes squint suspiciously, deep vermillion staring straight into yours.

you tilt your head, the tips of your lashes kissing the top of your cheekbones as you blink. you reach for a bottle of honey.

“everything okay?” you ask, voice syrupy, sickeningly sweet.

your movements play in front of him languidly, the corner of your lips curling up slightly as you smirk. honey catches on your finger as you pop open the bottle cap.

he’s supposed to be out the door in five minutes if he wants to make it in time for a meeting at the agency. technically, he should already be there if he wants to keep up his track record of consistently being fifteen minutes too early.

but you start to approach him, rounding the kitchen island. there’s a narrow space between him and the slab of marble, but you slide into it like it was made for you.

he’s certain it was, from the way the tip of your nose brushes against his as you tiptoe. your tits are right fucking there, brushing against the skintight material of his suit.

there’s too much fucking fabric if you ask him, between cotton and spandex.

your grin widens, and he feels hot, the heat from his cheeks radiating.

then you whisper, still saccharine, “breakfast is ready,” before kissing him on the lips lightly. a short peck, soft in the way that promises more before you slip away, giggling in your retreat.

he huffs, watching you leave. his feet shift as he thinks.

five minutes, huh?

like hell he’s going to eat these damn pancakes for breakfast today.

[elodieunderglass]

It's not about the glow-up or the maturity or the mental health or anything. It's about the what the fuck happened to the bleedin' TIME

[mobius-m-mobius]

Lokius + touch in season 2 / (season 1)

[starrcrossrose]

If aged up characters bothers you THAT badly, you’re not allowed to enjoy bad OR good future stuff tbh. Sorry.

[momentsbeforemass]

The secret of our Faith

Most of the problems that you and I have to deal with in life – most of the things that will come between us and God – come from one of three sources.

They come from the things that happen to us. They come from the things that we do to ourselves. And they come from the people around us.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is warning us about the people around us.

Most of us never give much thought to who we have around us. The people around us are a fairly random collection of folks we’re related to, people we know from work or school, people we live near, and so on.

Almost none of those connections are intentional.

But what Jesus is telling us to do is just the opposite. Jesus is telling us to be intentional about who we have around us.

He’s telling us to take stock. To see who’s around us, who we’re letting influence us.

And to be honest with ourselves, about what sort of fruit they’re producing in our lives. To be aware of the impact that they’re having on us. Ask yourself,

Does your stomach sink, when you get a notice that they just texted or called you? That’s some bad fruit.

When you tell them your good news, do they take the joy out of it? That’s some bad fruit.

After you’ve talked with them, do you feel worse? That’s some bad fruit.

That is not who God wants you around. Because when you’re weighed down with all of that bad fruit, that’s what you’re going to be paying attention to. There’s no room in your life for God, when that’s what you’re filled up with.

Which is why Jesus is clear about what has to happen – “Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The people that are producing bad fruit in your life? They have to go.

And you’re thinking, “Oh, but I’ve known them for years. I wouldn’t want to upset them.” Maybe they’re even family.

Jesus isn’t saying that you have to tell anyone why they’re seeing less of you. Or tell someone that they’re bearing bad fruit in your life. You don’t have to make a dramatic exit.

But you do need to start making yourself less available to the bearers of bad fruit, starting today.

You know what isn’t in today’s Gospel? Exceptions.

Nobody has permission to fill your life with bad fruit. Nobody has permission to dump a bunch of garbage between you and God. Even if they are family.

You are God’s beloved child. He did not pay the price to redeem you so that you could waste your time being miserable, being beaten down by the bearers of bad fruit.

The old catechism put it this way, “God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

The secret of our Faith? Is that God loves you too much to make you wait until forever for all the good that He has for you.

Happy with God starts in this life. And it starts with getting rid of the bearers of bad fruit.

Today’s Readings

[claraoswalds]

This is a brand new science for me, and I love it. The language of luck. 'Cause what is a coincidence but a form of accident? Two things bumping together unexpectedly. Like you and me.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

the thing about Lucanis and Spite is like. neither of them actually wanted to be there. and that is both how they were able to survive the melding and why they resent each other so much. Lucanis' banter about the Ossuary where he says to survive it he "Shut down completely. Think nothing. Feel nothing. Except what you need to escape." And when asked what's left he says "If you're lucky? Revenge. And bad dreams." like. he always had this core of his own personal spite down in him (not doing crow jobs the easy way, ignoring Caterina's summons, not embracing his future as a potential first talon, to "live truly is to live fully" but he HASN'T been allowed to and resents it, etc etc etc) but in the Ossuary he really hollows himself out into the perfect vessel, empties himself of everything but wanting to survive anyway. and "no one was in the Ossuary by choice, not even the demons" so of course he and Spite can agree on this One Thing. they make their deal that they're gonna make it through just because everyone else there is waiting for them to die, and of course they're not gonna just give them what they want. even if they're fighting each other the whole time (hence Lucanis being used to Spite 'hitting' him etc when he doesn't get what he wants), they still have this united purpose Every Day about getting through it. like it's utterly crucial that for both to survive at all the demon had to be something that wanted to defy what the venatori wanted from it.

and this is also why their relationship falls apart once they do escape, because without something else present to rail against every day, they have to turn on each other. and of course it is actually an absolutely miserable situation for both of them to be in--Lucanis is living the nightmare of his body being puppetted around without his consent, just like the blood magic he already had to endure under Zara, and can't ever be alone again even in his own mind. Spite is trapped in a world that no longer responds to his shaping, lacks the autonomy of a truly possessed host body, and can barely comprehend the new laws that govern the place he's in.

for both of them it's such an intense violation of being, and one I wish got more emphasis/recognition. it's really easy to make jokes about how Lucanis could be better at sharing/compromise with Spite more (like I make them too myself, it's easy) but really just... man. this isn't like with Anders & Justice, who agreed to their situation, or Wynne where Faith is content to be mostly a silent passenger and did it to save her life. Lucanis and Spite are suffering the most complete form of intimacy under the worst circumstances, and neither actually wanted it. which makes it honestly impressive at all that (unhardened) Lucanis & Spite are able to reach an accord at all by the end. like i'm glad that they did--and have SO many thoughts (& fanfic WIPs lol) exploring just how they managed to get there--but boy was it hard won, if you actually look deeper into it than the game has room to explore.

[vaguely-concerned]

huh. you know something I just consciously put together for the first time about caterina and lucanis' relationship is that through the game we get to hear them talk about each other a lot, but we get very few chances to hear them speak with each other at any length at all. contrast it with other companions whose storylines have elements of 'believed lost/long time no see relative returns!' like bellara and davrin, where we get to see both of them have several pretty in-depth conversations with cyrian and eldrin. hell I think even rook talks with varric longer in the regret prison scene than we ever get to see lucanis and caterina interact directly.

(and when we do see them interact, it's mostly one-sided -- it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, caterina who is doing most of the talking and giving all the orders, as he ruefully observes is her wont after murder of crows. including jumpscaring him with 'you're first talon now btw' and the shocked pikachu face in five acts he goes through in response lmao. perhaps it's more accurate to say that she talks at him and he reacts, than that they talk to each other much.)

it has such an interesting effect too, because in deliberately denying us direct insight or experience and only having this mosaic of description from each of them to go on, as well as forcing us to pay attention to the negative space of what is carefully not said, it's evocative along the same principle that you never actually show the monster in a horror film. if you've read the wigmaker job you have a clearer image of the more uh. worrying elements at play here going in, but there is something fascinatingly insidious and naturalistic in the way it's 'hushed up' in the game itself. she has his complete loyalty both as a member of her house and, more importantly, that of an abused child to a parent figure. he readily admits several times that she's a difficult person to live with, an even more difficult person to be loved by ("even for me. and I was her favourite")... but never once does he actively blame her nor truly conceptualize that he has every right to do so (that he can be angry with her and still love her, because whether he should or not he unavoidably does), or that she might have acted differently than she did, that she made a choice every time to hurt him. even affectionately he speaks of her as a force of nature, an act of god -- something that can't be reasoned or pleaded with or resisted, something you can only hope to navigate with as little pain as possible and pray to survive. let yourself get carried away by the riptide, resisting it will only make it worse. you don't compromise with a hurricane, you just try to find the best shelter you can and cross your fingers while you wait for it to pass and be calm again.

love is that hurricane. you do whatever she asks. you earn her continued affection day by day by never letting her down. you only want the things she tells you it's okay to want and cut everything else away preemptively. ("A wyvern tooth dagger?? I loved wyverns as a boy --Caterina would never let me have one of these, though." and as we have all wept and gnashed our teeth over, it never even OCCURS to him that he's a like thirty-five year old adult man who can buy himself any dagger he wants at any time. she said he couldn't have one. so he'll never have one. that's just how it works. and maybe if Illario could just accept that and find his peace with it like I have, this whole thing wouldn't be so difficult. oh lucanis.)

such is the price -- and the cost -- of being loved by her, it's a loan on which the interest will never stop piling up. you have to keep paying it down in perfection every day if you want to keep it. who got the worse deal there: the grandson who has abandoned everything else in life to live up to that and mostly succeeded, until the day he's so burned out and broken it threatens to no longer be an option, or the grandson who can never seem to scrape together enough worth in her eyes no matter how he begs, borrows or steals it, how he hustles and plays dirty?

one of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to be loved by a selfish god. another one of the worst things that can ever happen to anyone is to not be loved by a selfish god. (hope that helps, boys!) even in betraying everything else, Illario can't bring himself to hurt his grandmother, because that would defeat the whole point. who would he defiantly be proving himself worthy to, without her. in love, devotion, submission, hatred, frustration, bitterness, everything is defined in relation to her, you can spot the gravitational force of it through how the dellamorte family move through time and space. she -- her love and regard and attention -- is still the sun both of their worlds orbit around, even as adults. the game might never tell you outright 'she used to beat and starve them growing up. for their own good you see, so they'd be strong (and broken down enough for her to build them up again however she wanted but I'm sure that's incidental)', but if you know even a little bit about how these dynamics can work the writing is on the wall everywhere you look and all the more unsettling for it.

follow lucanis' freeze-logic and fraught interpersonal catch 22 irreconcilable mixed emotions problems back far enough, looong before the ossuary entered the picture, and you start to see caterina's ghost around every fucking corner. she is so proud of him. (well, she would be. she made him. she forged exactly the knife she needed and it rests willingly, devotedly, in her hands, it would return to her every time because it doesn't know love as anything but to be a knife. his tama never taught him how to be anything else. his biggest fear with her is that she won't even want him back, the way he is now.) to the best ability of her soul, whatever parts of it survived a lifetime of crow politics and 'five children, eight grandchildren, only Illario and me left now', I think she really does loves him. he certainly loves her, with all the sincerity and artless desperation of a child, of the little boy he was once. and what she's done to him (and to illario, for all his shitty gremlin scar-ass antics lol) is awful. the harm is real, and the love is real, and trying to find a way for these two truths to exist in the same space is driving all three of them their own individualized forms of insane. you know. the way only family can and so often does lol.

through implications and short glimpses and having to put the pieces together yourself, you can have the feeling that there is very genuine mutual love and attachment in this relationship... and that beneath that there is something so profoundly wrong. and the sneaking '...oh shit it gets worse the longer I think about it' horror of that is more effective for me at least than the stark in-your-face presentation of the facts of the matter could have been. the love is here. the love is here. it only ever makes it worse.

[radiance1]

A silly idea based off of this post of mine and one made by @puppetmaster13u

Danny gets summoned, which is something he rather much hates yet as the new Prince of All Ghosts he is incapable of ignoring a summons unless he is actually stopped from doing so in a way that is unavoidable.

Like how the Ghost King was trapped in forever sleep.

Danny doesn't want to experience forever sleep just to avoid summoning, however.

It doesn't exactly help that, in the process of being transferred, the Infinite Realms dresses him up in clothes that, yes, befit his station of royalty (that he didn't ask for) and no he is not going to question how the infinite managed to get said clothes.

At least they're comfortable and he doesn't have to have the embarrassment of showing up in his pjs.

And it was at, said summons, that Danny had rather unintentionally fallen in love with someone who looked to be a age. A sacrifice for (which Danny was still new why in the infinite do they think he wants sacrifices???) the ritual to summon the Ghost Prince in exchange for a favor of some sort.

Danny, obviously, did not do that.

The Infinite Realms, of course, having tagged along knew exactly what Danny was feeling. Their little blorbo had developed a crush! A crush!

So of course, as any good higher being that favors one their special little guys, they try to make more chances for them to meet by interrupting various other summons because yea it can just do that now that it was given the incentive to do so.

Danny is both mortified, annoyed, and the teeniest tiniest bit thankful.

Also why is this kid always being captured by cults????

---

Meanwhile, with Billy.

He thinks an interdimensional Ghost or some sort of Godling-? Has fallen in love with him, so much so that he interrupts any of the times that Billy has been used for a sacrifice.

Which has been getting increasingly more often, as of late, and he's vaguely concerned on why that is.

If only the Gods in his head would stop chanting for him to be more proactive instead of a Damsel in Distress when he's caught the interest of the High Prince of the Infinite.

(I genuinely can't remember or just don't know if he can only hear it as Shazam, so if that is indeed the case then just imagine they keep bugging him when he's Shazam-ed)

No he is not going to try and kidnap him-!

[normal-nightmare]

God I am OBSESSED with this panel. The sheer amount of yearning in Jason's eyes, looking almost shy. Sneakily stealing a glance at Dick. Dick smiling a little, staring up at the ceiling, completely unaware of Jason's stare.

This feels, like, CLASSICALLY gay. This feels like a scene you'd see in a movie or show where two characters are clearly pining for each other but haven't yet confessed (but it's clearly heading that way).

Like, there is ZERO way to interpret this as platonic or as "just hero worship". Especially in the context of the entire annual. It feels like a 150k slowburn fanfic the way this annual is written. This entire thing threw me off so badly when I just joined the fandom bc this doesn't at all feel platonic.

I could talk about this annual for HOURS man

[justaz]

merlin (immortal) giving arthur (pendragon) the only blade that could kill him

[aroaceleovaldez]

my hot pjo take is that Jason isn't a second Percy, Jason is a second Annabeth. Jason is just if Annabeth was a guy and also a Big 3 kid.