#I think about them a normal amount...

[wellwhatnowlove]

I reread Light Bringer then Golden Son back to back... and I noticed a parallel that lead to (yet another) long winded essay... (spoilers for red rising saga up to Light Bringer) (its way too long im so sorry)(no im not)

“When you’re on your heels, you’re a liar. On your toes, you spit truth.” She swings again. “Now spit.” She hits my kneecap. (Golden Son, Ch. 33)

First and foremost, can we appreciate that Virginia literally chases Darrow around his bedroom with a practice razor to make him talk about his feelings. Pro tip for ladiez dealing with emotionally unavailable men... have you tried interrogating him about philosophy while trying to take out his kneecaps with a blunt weapon?

It’s hilarious

but only mildly effective bc Darrow starts to hit his ✨power off✨button. So Mustang pivots:

“Then her. The girl you lost.” I say nothing. She’s never pried. … How stupid of me. How could she forget? How could it not linger there inside her, forcing her to wonder, as she lay with her head on my chest listening to my heart beat, if it didn’t belong to another girl, a dead girl. “Silence isn’t the answer right now, Darrow.” (Golden Son, Ch. 33)

Virginia corners him and what spills out is everything she’s never said. She’s always known about Eo (if not the full scope of the situation). She’s always wondered if there’s a part of Darrow she’ll never reach.

And Darrow wants so badly to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. He stays quiet.

It’s not malicious. It’s not cold. It’s fear. It’s the same silence that will haunt their marriage for the next decade.

Now jump to Iron Gold. Years later. Married. MILF and DILF respectively. Survivors of ten thousand heartbreaks. And yet the same wounds are there. Ready to surface when they find themselves stretched to their breaking points.

“What is the point of this- marriage-if there’s no faith between us?” she asks. “No trust? I know you love me. I know you love our son. But love isn’t enough. You can’t hide things from me just because I’ll disagree with you.” … “But maybe you think you’re meant to die. Maybe you think you’re supposed to follow her.”

I feel sudden pain for my wife. “This isn’t about Eo.” “No, it’s about you praying for storms, believing that when they come they’ll bring you peace.” (Iron Gold, Ch. 33)

When I read this fight I almost felt awkward for intruding which is why it’s brilliant. Because it’s not about who’s right…. it’s about how long these two have held onto insecurities and grief they never truly voiced aloud. Darrow still carries guilt like it’s armor. And Virginia? She still wonders if she’s second. Still fears that part of him is trying to disappear.

“It’s like you want me to shut myself off to you. Is that what you want?”

She’s begging. And beneath the anger, it’s the same plea as back in Golden Son:

“Why do you pull me back if you’re just going to push me away?”

They are still asking each other the same questions. They are still hoping the other will finally answer.

And then Light Bringer. After so much death. After distance, horror, regret and loss...

Darrow comes home. He’s broken, battered, and finally ready to stop hiding. He says to Virginia in their almost-reunion post Battle of Phobos

“I thought one last push would see us through. Numb myself. Put it all on me. Get it done. Then we’d get to live the life we’d promised ourselves. Experience the future we wanted Pax to have. […….] But I know I tend to shut down. Sometimes for years. That’s not right. It’s not…the path I want to walk anymore. It’s lonely, and we’ve always been stronger together.”

It calls back the scenes in Golden Son and Iron Gold down to the wording! The boy who let Virginia walk away rather than tell her the truth finally confesses and confronts a fear he's been battling for YEARS: the way he shuts down to protect others. The way he shuts her out. The way he believes he has to carry it alone.

And now? He doesn’t want to anymore.

But here’s the irony, the tragedy, the exquisite twist of the knife. Virginia says, voice strained with grief and tears:

“Darrow, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. The hardest thing—” My voice breaks. I fight back the tears. “Every morning you are my first thought. Maybe news has come as I slept. Maybe you’ve just landed in Agea…” I can’t keep the strain from my voice.” And then she sends him away. : “But we need you out there, beyond their siege line until you can return at the head of an armada.”

This is why I love them.

Because this isn’t a love story built on grand gestures and perfect timing. It’s built on pain. On misunderstandings. On missed chances and trying again anyway.

Darrow’s deepest insecurities? They echo across six books. Virginia’s? She carries them silently, always rational, always in control.. until she isn’t.

And they don’t learn to just forget about those deep insecurities, they linger, especially in dark times (Dark Ages? lol) despite all the self awareness and intelligence imaginable,

They both falter. They both withhold. But they also learn. Slowly. Brutally. Truthfully.

From:

“You shut me off.” To: “I know I tend to shut down..”

This isn’t resolution. It’s recognition. It’s love as a process- not as a performance.

They’re not perfect. But they’re real. And that makes me love them more.

[starbuck]

i say i like tragedies and everyone’s all like ‘why do you like sad stories? are you depressed?’ and never ‘how was the catharsis? was the catharsis fun?’

[lavb-b]

My first princesses in pristine cut (and by far my favourites)

[rocketrrush]

a 100 sets of fooling around

[cowsnotcrows]

more lesbingqiu lol

they have a scheduled cuddle time where sqq gets to rant about the novel she’s reading and Binghe gets to stare at her while going insane. And then they kiss <3

Binghe is very normal about her wife 🥰

Here’s the doodles from Binghe’s thought bubble. I thought they were silly :]

[meraki-sunset]

heheheheheheheehe

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[teethlordd]

There are worms in my head

[chapelh1ll]

Get a load of these guys smh

[tommylovingho]

bucktommy + hands

[clumsypuppy]

these two are so interesting to me

characters belong to @canisalbus

[rsenak]

crashing on the ground with crow sketches from last week and today. hi

[ghavrielthegabe]

"In the moment,we're lost and found"

Final part of the little comic idea I had :) Enjoy! and Happy Valentines to these two especially <3

Part 1 | Part 2

Thanks to @dreadlordberri for helping out with the dialogue!!

GEE WHERE DID THOSE FIREWORKS COME FROM hehe

[arthur-liquor]

Be careful with that knife dude

[imaginariumwanderer]

Mkay last post before logging off. Featuring silly pixel art I made w/ my mouse.

This chart was actually made out of pure self-indulgent a while back with no intention of being posted, I ended up scribbling(?) all over the thing. Hopefully it's readable when zoomed in.

It's "my ship in 5 minutes" but I can make it 30 if you want. WARNING: Tons of sappy yapping+pixel art download under cut.

About "tropes": The trope is called Angel-Devil shipping, oh but I don't think PV is an angel. He's more like a God for SM (at least that's my preference)… Thinking at all the possible tropes that suits them make me really wonder why some people consider Shadowvanilla a crack/pro ship. Enemies to lovers or villain/hero ships have been pretty archetypal since the day of olds. Compared to all the ships I've encountered in the past… Shadowvanilla is more or less the "slightly out of the norm" on the "problematic ships scale" <- typing this out make me feel like an old fandom veteran haha

About "how it happens": I have no idea where to put PV on that chart. He's the one who approached first, but not out of romantic intents, him falling for SM is as unexpected as can be. SM fell first and slowly, and in 'slow' I meant decades upon decades. It's inevitable, painfully so, spending all those years watching over this cookie who's so perfect in his imperfections, how could one not feel something? Of course it's not so simple, that 'something' is a horrid mixture of disgust, envy, hatred, understanding, both the need to preserve and destroy… And maybeee the tiniest crumb of affection? SM realized something around the first couple hundredth years mark, he then spends the next thousands in denial of it. No matter. Whether it's PV or the Soul jam, his birth-given rights. SM knows what he wants and he WILL get what he wants. (He's wrong on both fronts. And somewhere in the back of his mind, SM knows that. But he'll never admit it. He'll never ever admit anything. Until it's too late. In a way, the same goes for PV)

About a certain someone who's not clingy, but would die for attention: I think PV gets lonely easily. As he's hyper-aware of himself and considerate of others, appearing clingy is the last thing PV wants. So PV would put extra efforts in taking care of those around him, be it cookies, animals or the greenery in his garden. A healer is always busy, always helpful. If he's always needed by others then he would never be afraid of being alone. Ironically enough, this ended up making PV come off as a little overbearing. As of late, the only ones able to see through the facade are Hollyberry cookie and you-know-who.

Other scattered thoughts: These two are completely different yet can't be more similar, on the various sliding scales they're either stuck to one another or are flung to both ends. On another note, honestly I can't see these two doing anything domestic together, the most I can see is cooking, which is basically the same as magic in the cookie world. Anyways, are they in "love"? Are they dating? Not really, no. It's more of a a parasitic-turned-symbiotic-soulbond, a will-they-won't-they-destroy-the-world situationship (iykyk) I do enjoy relationships that's hard to put into words. Their feelings are somehow romantic, somewhat deranged and something much, much deeper.

My desire to ship these two comes from the desire to see them grow beyound their archetypes. Being with PV does give SM the chance to be horrible as can be, yeah, but I'd like to think SM does have a personality outside of being a villainous tormentor. He spends so long observing others, and now for the first time he's being seen. Now SM have met someone who can see right through him, who can glimpse into those dammed vulnerabilities of his. Being with SM does let us see PV in his darkest moments, but it's at the same time the moments where PV can shine the most, to prove SM that his ideals isn't naïveté or simple platitudes. In canon, SM+PV works well as enemies, but it is the many contradictions born when romance is added into the mix that got me shipping. They simultaneously break down and bolster one another's greatest traits. Like binary stars, they orbit around the other, so close yet so far apart, lest they collide. They could've been so perfect for each other. But not in this life, or the next, or the next...

Pixel art time! I have way too much fun w/ Smilk's many faces, his and PV's combined came to around 22 expressions. These are quick to made due to their small size (25x25 px). Zip file includes both the og and 75x75 sizes. I don't mind if any Vanilla milkshakers might use these, just please remember to read the my art terms and conditions first! (which can be found in my About)

Some disclaimer: some images may have different names. This is the first time I'm using Getuploader so sorry if something broke.

Link

[shyaringan]

i went through all of my various saved files to count how many times i drawn/doodled/sketched each member of the mechanisms and..

my own blatant favoritism sickens me… TS im so sorry its just that your hat is so hard to draw 😭