#actually 1 more thing

[c-infinity-83]

Pls info dump about your system. I saw in your tag that you want to so consider this a free pass to do so I want to know all that ya want to share

HI!!!! SORRY YOUSENT THIS LIEK A WEEK AGO WE WERE WAITING 4 WHEN WE JAD ENOUGH ENERGY 2 INFODUMP JSISJDJFFNDJD OK OK UNDER THE CUT

WE ACTUALLY. ... DONT KNOW WEHRE 2 start Uhhhmmmm. hmmmm. OH MAYBE THE HEADSPACE!

ok SO the headspace changes DRASTICALLY like every few months or few weeks or so. Just a week ago it was a copy of the house we currently live in. We like,,, grew up in this house so it was Also our headspace for years as a kid and we had the vibe tht it was. The exact headspace frlm back then too bUT WE never did get to find out bc it changed AGAIN like a few days ago. smh. Now i think we're just above & outside of The Cave™™™™™ tht was discovered here earlier this year. WHICH IS REALLY FUCKING COOL! BECAUSE THAT MEANS:

The headspace survived the nuclear winter!!*

HOYL SHIT WE'RE IN THE MAIN HEADSPACE AGAIN LET'S GOOOOO <= has been stuck in Harry's headspace for the past half yearIEJFKDKFMC

[*Sometimes it just fucking gets Destroyed. Like... Semi permanently. As in, if it gets destroyed there is Very Little Chance we'll see that variation of our headspace AgainFHDJDKFKFJ and last we uhhjj Talked to anyone in the Main System, bc we are... TECHNICALLY A SUBSYSTEM! FJDJFJ, they were like Yeah no everything is fucking Destroyed <3. But that's not the case snymore ig???????]

SO w all this information actually if we rlly wanted we could probably make a decent map of the area. cuz if We jave this headspace back then we have Everythingggg it had in it back too & everything that it was connected to THAT'S NEAT WE MIGHT DO THAT!!

uhhjjj waht else. HMMM. i thuink our current front roster is neat TBH there's some guys active rn that we'd have never expected. like HI PHYS! WYD WHY R U HERE RN <3 QJAIWOSKSKDNCXN but it's fun !!!! i hope everyone innn our subsystem will fromt here at lEast once bc I Am Lov Collecting Informatión On Everyone <= Primarily fills out everyone's PK & Simply Plural descriptions. actually I think maybe everyone has fronted a sufficiently long enough time EXCEPT FOR HAND/EYE LIKE S I R GET YOUR ASS UP HERE TELL ME ABT YOURSELF BASTARD !! GJCJCKCKF all ik abt him is that He enjoys making Pokeblocks On Pokefarm. that is IT and that's NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION MY GUY but anyways.

i also think us Existing Here is so funny in itself like our asses rlly just got Possibly permanently isekai'd huh. like. like. Genuinely I don't know if our past mains r coming back at this point but that's FINE we already did the whole 96 stages of grief shit about it IF that be the case then SO be it Whatever there's pros to this life ig. like THIS body isn't on the verge of SUDDENLY DYING FOR NO REASON and also We have a cat. we have a cat!!!!! and a dog!!!!!! whaddahell!!!!!!!

there's lotsa fun shit here But there r also the Horrors. Like I PERSONALLY WOULD LOOVE TO EXIST with Out the Constant Paranoia And Delusions but IT *IS* PREFERABLE! OVER WHSTEVER THE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH HARRY <3 AJSJDJF

I will say tho. When we uhhhhhhh All popped in & all we Just assumed we'd be Gone & dormant MONTHS AGO but ummmm . well. apparently not! sO the things we wanted 2 Experience have a High probability Of Happening,! Like PT is excited for Halloween and UNLESS those pirate fucks completely take over the roster within the next like week [0f.md s2 on the 5th babey!!! holy shit!!] then it's. Probably gonna happwn!!! which is so cool we don't actually... hey did Halloween exist in (source game)

man and speaking of. Memories Of The Past as we call source memories. It's a collective sys-wide trait thing All our fictives from aNY source rlly enjoy piecing together what they remember from their canons & all It's like enrichment for us. BUT we've been kinda piecing together a rough timeline of when We all formed in our canon That's our biggest Thought Project™ rn. No estimated time 4 when it'll be Complete tho probs never tbh. and w that in mind u may or may not believe who harry's first sysmate was According 2 what we've put togetherJTJEDKFKDJS

ok that's liek 5 trillion words Whoops. we r so talkatives <3 I am going to stop there it's like 5 am JFJDDKCKF we gotta go back to bedddd -E-Chem

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[superbat-lmao]

Jason travels to an alternate universe where Bruce only cares about being Batman. He took in each of his kids to serve the mission, not be his children.

Now, faced with alternate versions of his family, Jason has to grapple with the fact that his Bruce does care, that he is his father. Because the man in front of him now, trying to send him home, isn’t even close.

[inkskinned]

the problem is that being single is seen as the consolidation prize, and not the natural neutral state of being-a-person. at the end of the movie or the book or the poetry, there is a person waiting for you at the altar, and they love you. if the play is a comedy, everyone gets married. the metaphor is about how you are not-whole. the metaphor is about how everyone is going to be happily-ever-after. the metaphor is that romantic love is the most important resource on the planet, not just all-love. all-love is not a thing, that is a disappointment. the treasure is not the friends we made along the way. the treasure is the girl you landed.

the metaphor is that you cannot be alone, that means you are broken. are you getting over someone? that is acceptable, you can be getting over someone, but not for long. you must be single because you would rather not be single. you must be single and looking to not-be-single. you must want to date, eventually.

friendship and community are never seen as being equal-to or even-better than romantic connection. that person is your one! you need to find them. you need to hunt through the sand particles until you can shift out some kind of gem. this is regardless to your own experience of the beach and the sun. you need to be somewhere with someone.

if you are taking this time alone to heal, that is so sad. everyone gives you this little pitying look. the understanding is that you are not actually happier than you were before you were single. it is seen as a sort of pity - oh, you are choosing yourself, making yourself the priority? - that isn't quite right. you must mean that you are making yourself ready for the right person. you are just laying the bed better this time. open up your heart. you'll find them, we promise!

what do you mean you're really-truly genuinely-very happy? you are probably misremembering what it was like to be in a relationship. and besides, once you meet your person, that time will look grey and bland and wasted. your person is the only way for you to see in color. so what if you have taken this time - for the first time in your entire life - to actually-for-real do the fucking work. you can be proud of yourself, sure. but the way we need to know that you got better is that you get a partner. you're healed enough for the next bad part!

people don't choose to be single, they just say they're choosing to be single - they actually mean "nobody wants to date me." it doesn't matter how many people you have gently rejected or how many times you've talked it over carefully in therapy. what matters is that you are single, and by all accounts - that means you are something worth our pity. your successes and life all seem pale in the sunlight. sure, you have done amazing things and finally found your way in life. what matters is that there wasn't a person in the room with you while you did it.

you want to tell them - that's the whole thing. i didn't know how to be alone in the room. i didn't know how to handle the silence. every moment was so sharp, and i kept choosing the wrong way to close the door. i have spent my entire life in the empty well, living in the ricochet of someone else's cruelty. for once i have built myself a ladder. for once everything i taste is all mine, every bite of sunshine and laughter. i have learned how to sleep out in the open with my memories. recently, they have started to purr.

your father rolls his eyes. listen. this isn't about you. i just want a grandchild in my future.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Not Quite his Twin

Danny Fenton is not Danyal al Ghul. They’d wanted him to be, but he wasn’t.

He still remembers when he first woke up, his whole body feeling raw and ill-fitted. Even his mind felt wrong, his memories not quite his own.

Which, he supposes, they weren’t.

Because Danyal is still dead. Executed on the orders of the Demon’s Head for failing to live up to his twin.

But the spurned heir would make a perfect figurehead to build legitimacy for a coup, so a splinter sect of the League stole away some of his remains before they could be disposed of. They may not have had permission to access the Lazarus Pits, but they could still turn to some more unorthodox methods of attempting resurrection. A combination of cloning, a few stolen and processed samples of Lazarus Water, and pieces of necromantic rituals.

And it almost worked.

Almost.

The body they constructed did indeed come to life, and clearly possessed at least some of Danyal’s memories, but it wasn’t him. The memories were locked behind a barrier, present in abstract but not felt. This thing they created could never pass for the deceased heir, and thus could never be the figurehead they wanted. So they decided to dispose of him.

But the clone’s memories had shown him this sort of betrayal before, and he did still have some of the original’s skills. He struck first, killing several of their agents and managing to escape the lab.

He had no idea what to do next, but at least he was free. Free to form his own life, to become someone unique rather than just not-quite-Danyal.

[eightglass]

What laptop manufacturers think people want:

What people actually want:

Seriously!

Like, what happened to 4:3? Websites and word processors work with VERTICAL SCROLLING. That means we want more VERTICAL SPACE.

What happened to buttons on the trackpad? The smooth square is bullshit. Bring back buttons. Also there should be a scroll wheel beside the trackpad.

Why are laptops so thin nowadays? Where's the sturdiness? Where's the space to put things?

What happened to the io? I WANT MORE USB. I should not have to buy an adapter to have enough USB ports.

Disc drives! SD card readers! Why did they leave?? Put them back.

And easily removable batteries!! That should be common again!! If the battery stops carrying enough charge, anyone should be able to replace it easily.

Also, like, why are laptop speakers consistently so ass? Make them good!

Keyboards should have more buttons! Un-merge the function keys and the, like, volume and brightness control keys. More buttons more better.

Why is there usually only a power button? Put a sleep button next to it!!

[luminarai]

Most people will tell you that giving your pets any kind of medication in pill form is an absolute nightmare, meanwhile I have the exact opposite problem.

A friend of mine was watching my cat Mim while I was travelling this weekend and when he went to split her weekly allergy pill (made to split into 4 small pills when you press down on it with a finger) to give her the usual 1/4, he fumbled it and sent it skittering across the floor where my ridiculous pill-loving menace of cat immediately gobbled down the whole thing, leading to me receiving a panicked phone call at 11 pm from said friend who was understandably freaking out (everyone’s fine, a single high dose won’t cause any problems as long as it’s just this once).

Behold: the villain herself, basking in the success of her crime (she’d be planning her next pill-related heist but, as you can see if you look closely, there’s there’s nothing but elevator music behind those eyes)

[gghero]

[ screaming at the top of my lungs in the confession booth ]

[starcurtain]

Please do elaborate on Kaeya and Diluc's fanon! Your post on Kaeya and Venti was amazing to read.

First, before any Diluc lovers come out of the woodwork trying to defend their favorite from me, I gotta place my disclaimer: I am also a Diluc lover; he is definitely in my top three favorite Mondstadt characters (after Venti who is my favorite archon and Kaeya who is one of my favorite Genshin characters in general). So as I make this post, please just keep in mind that I also love and respect Diluc and his role in the story; recognizing a character's flaws and mistakes isn't a personal attack, mmmkayy?

All right, so anyway...

When it comes to Diluc and Kaeya's shattered relationship (personally I view them as strictly brothers, but I can also stay in my own lane, so there is no ship hate intended by this post), everyone talks about the damage Diluc supposedly did to Kaeya's eye and focuses on their duel on the night of Crepus's death.

People are quick to forgive Diluc because he had an obvious reason to be completely overwhelmed; having just lost his father, Kaeya's timing of coming clean about his secret was absolutely abysmal. If Kaeya had managed to wait even one day, the situation might have been very different, so I don't think there's any particular surprise that Diluc ended up attacking his brother, and I think this is where fanon takes on Diluc and Kaeya tend to focus--that Diluc had an warranted emotional response on the night of his father's death and lashed out, and Kaeya has mostly his own terrible sense of timing to blame for what occurred.

Therefore, the fanon approach to Diluc and Kaeya seems to be largely that both of them owe each other reconciliation and that, if they want to mend their relationship, both of them need to put in equal amounts of work.

But personally, I think this is neglecting two glaring aspects of the canon material we're given:

Kaeya's physical injury (if there even actually is one) is absolutely minuscule in comparison to the emotional damage Diluc's attack did. Even years later, Kaeya is not okay.

The diametrically opposed ways that Kaeya and Diluc understand and react to the people around them make Diluc's methods of atoning for his behavior virtually incompatible with what Kaeya emotionally needs from his brother.

I am not downplaying the incredible pain that Diluc would have gone through, having to mercy kill his own father after barely surviving a brutal attack thanks only to his father's sacrifice. To then learn, on top of that, that the brother you had loved, who had been an accepted and trusted member of your family for years, was actually a foreign entity planted in your country with the possibility of becoming a sleeper agent for the enemy--this is beyond the pale of what any normal person could accept. Diluc's anger, pain, and desire to lash out are understandable, and turning on his brother in that moment was essentially inevitable.

However, what people neglect is that Kaeya told Diluc the truth in that moment explicitly because of guilt.

Kaeya felt that his own reaction to Crepus's death wasn't appropriate (he felt liberated by Crepus's loss because it resolved Kaeya of the pain of making the choice between his blood father and his adoptive father) and he was trying to immediately atone for his perceived selfishness by being honest. Kaeya believed that telling Diluc the truth in that moment was better than continuing to perpetuate another lie for the person who had just had to confront his father's likely lifelong deception with the Delusion.

By baring himself completely, being honest for the first time in all his years in Mondstadt, Kaeya thought he was doing the right thing--even though he knew it would cost him his relationship with Diluc.

Diluc repaid Kaeya's honesty with rejection, and Kaeya viewed this as a deserved punishment.

Kaeya's confession was effectively a form of self-harm. He was disgusted with himself because he perceived his complicated feelings over Crepus's death as insufficient grief--Diluc had just lost the most meaningful thing in the world to him, and so Kaeya wanted to "make it right" by losing what meant the most to him too. It was self-sabotage of the highest caliber, provoking Diluc into attacking him because that's what Kaeya thought a liar like himself deserved.

But even though Kaeya knew what the outcome would be, it's clear that he did not understand the extent to which he would internalize the messages he learned that day:

No one should put their faith in me, because I will eventually betray everyone who cares.

and

If I tell the truth, I will lose everything I have.

We're told that, as children, Diluc and Kaeya were thick as thieves, but that Diluc was the extroverted and outgoing one, while Kaeya stuck "in his brother's shadow."

Stories from their childhood reveal that Diluc was the troublemaker who dragged Kaeya into his antics. Kaeya's hangout confirms that Kaeya was a quiet, well-behaved child (it's possible he feared that acting out would cost him his place in Mondstadt) and that his people-pleasing tendencies were already firmly in place, if the stories Adeline has to tell are anything to go by.

And yet the Kaeya of the present is described as shifty, deliberately untrustworthy, and even the type to put others in danger to suit his own ends, refusing the trust of even those closest to him:

It's obvious that there's intentionality behind this behavior--a double-edged blade: Kaeya successfully deceives everyone around him about his actual past, blinding people from asking the hard questions with flashiness and diversions on the surface--and yet he also cannot bear to be trusted. He has internalized the impression of himself as a liar and a betrayer so deeply that he actively repels others' attempts to get closer to him, acting shady and unreliable to introduce doubt into every relationship he forms, so that when the inevitable happens and his secret is finally revealed to the world at large (as it was once revealed to Diluc), he won't face the same pain of loss again.

Kaeya cannot betray anyone ever again if no one ever trusts him to begin with.

Thus, Diluc's reaction to Kaeya's reveal didn't just cost Kaeya his relationship with Diluc. It effectively cost Kaeya his relationships with everyone.

Kaeya went from being a quiet, well-loved child to the kind of person who would smirk while putting his own men in danger, the kind of person who every single other character in Mondstadt (and even the Traveler!) calls a "mystery" whose words can't ever be trusted:

The people of Mondstadt, particularly his fellow knights, clearly love Kaeya; they want to be close to him. The archon of Mondstadt clearly loves Kaeya. But Kaeya's self-image is so horrifically warped by the fact that he revealed the truth of himself one time (just one time!) and immediately lost everything he loved because of that truth, that he has become incapable of letting anyone close again, sabotaging all his relationships in advance before the people on the other side can figure out that he's not who he claims to be.

Because of how Diluc reacted, Kaeya has subconsciously drawn a connection between honesty and pain: So long as Kaeya hides who he is, he can be accepted and tolerated in Mondstadt. But if he dares to reveal the truth, he will be met with violence and outrage.

Thus, Kaeya has resigned himself to a literal "lifetime of lies," a "never-ending performance" in which he can never be honest with those around him--even while other characters like Albedo cruise through life with seemingly no care that people know their Khaenri'ahn connections.

This is why "acting" is so prominent a theme in Kaeya's character, both in the past and present, why we constantly see him "playing a role" (as a prince, as a bandit, as a hero, etc. etc.)--he is never the real person, always a performer, and it is often only through his performances that he's able to express some of his own true thoughts and feelings, masking himself behind someone else's script as a way to "safely" express the tiniest hints of his own truth.

What happened with Diluc fucked Kaeya up bad, in the most basic of terms.

Because the problem is: Kaeya doesn't want to be the way he is. He clearly loves the people of Mondstadt with everything he has. He adores Klee, greatly respects Jean, and has an incredible desire to protect the city that took him in. He wants to be close to others. He wants to reconnect with Diluc. He's a desperately lonely character who practically begs the Traveler to spend time with him and reacts surprisingly harshly when the idea of his being lonely is dragged into the light.

I'd even go so far as to argue that his legitimate issues with alcohol stem from the fact that the taverns of Mondstadt are the one place where he is guaranteed to find company, where no matter what time of the night, he is sure to find someone--even if it's just bandits and treasure hunters--to fill the silence.

Because of his past experience, Kaeya can neither be honest with others nor comfortable with lying to them, constantly forced to keep others at arm's length to avoid the painful possibility of further rejection for just being himself. What happened the night of Crepus's death essentially shut Kaeya out of any healthy adult relationships, leaving him entirely alone even in the middle of a city full of people who want to love him.

(This is why it's so important to me that Dainsleif already knows all of Kaeya's background, even the parts Kaeya is still keeping quiet about--but that's just the DainKae shipper in me jumping out, so I'll move on lolol.)

While grappling with the very real fear of his own future, of knowing that his destiny will catch up with him--but wracked with the uncertainty of not knowing where and how--while struggling with his divided allegiances, while just trying to figure out where his own place in the world even is, Kaeya is entirely alone, trapped on the sidelines of his own life in no small part because he took the risk of being himself one time and it cost him everything he loved.

And this is where I think fanon struggles, because it's much easier to just say that Kaeya is dishonest by nature, that he was always going to be a deceptive character, or that the worst outcome of his duel with Diluc was the scar on his face. There's this ridiculous notion that Diluc is already done atoning for that physical wound...

But the scar on Kaeya's face (if there even really is one) is utterly meaningless. The reason Kaeya won't take off his eyepatch has nothing to do with his appearance. He won't take off that eyepatch because it's symbolic of his fear of revealing himself. Kaeya's eyes are synonymous with his identity as a Khaenri'ahn, and thus his refusal to reveal his other eye is nothing more than a visual indication of his discomfort with himself, his divided loyalty, and his internalized belief that the cost of revealing himself fully will be the thing he most cares about: his home in Mondstadt.

Kaeya's entire personality, his sense of self-worth--his life--was reshaped on the night he dueled with Diluc.

And this is the tragedy, of course: Diluc's actions were understandable. Even Kaeya knew Diluc's lashing out was inevitable. It's not like we can really say "This is your fault, Diluc." But the fact of the matter does remain: If Diluc had only managed to control his emotions just a little bit better, if he had only been able to stop himself for a moment to think about his brother as a person who was also hurting and fraught in that moment, he might have realized the emotional significance of Kaeya revealing who he truly was. If Diluc had accepted--or even just tolerated--Kaeya's truth, Kaeya's entire adult life would be different, and that's just a basic fact.

Diluc has his own flaws though! He has his own crosses to bear that made it impossible--that I think, to a certain extent still make it impossible--for him to understand the damage he did and can still do to Kaeya.

So this whole fanon notion of them being on a reasonable path to reconciliation, that they'll be able to resolve their past disagreements by meeting each other in the middle... I just don't think that's really all that accurate to canon. I don't mean that they're not working toward reconciliation or that they won't get there eventually, but that the notion of "reconciliation" in the first place is entirely tangled up with Kaeya's sense of self-identity, and until he is able to resolve the truth of his past and his lingering loyalties to Khaenri'ah, I don't think he'll ever be able to fully repair the relationship that was lost between himself and Diluc.

And to be honest, this is just my personal view of the situation, but... I find it particularly hard to stomach the idea that Kaeya should be the primary driver of repairing the relationship between himself and Diluc, which I've seen in a lot of fanon takes (perhaps because fans in general agree that Diluc is a lot less likely to take action in an emotional situation than he is when fighting monsters lol).

I don't believe Kaeya really thinks it's possible for him to fully reconcile with Diluc. Kaeya cannot apologize for his existence, for being Khaenri'ahn--he cannot change who he is. He cannot "undo" his revealing the truth or make the reality of his double life go away. Thus, in Kaeya's eyes, he effectively has no way to make himself "acceptable" to Diluc again. This is why he continues to shy away from Diluc, even all the way to the recent archon quest, where he tries to excuse himself immediately, claiming that they'd just get in each other's way:

It's why he behaves like a thief sneaking into the Dawn Winery and repeatedly calls himself nothing more than a "guest" in the house, even though Adeline and the other employees pointedly tell him it's still his home and he's still welcome.

It's why, despite continually doing things to show he still cares--keeping Diluc's Vision safe, sending letters while Diluc was away--Kaeya isn't even brave enough to call Diluc his brother to his face anymore.

Kaeya cannot "fix" what happened between himself and Diluc, and his own image and sense of worth have been so shattered by what is now years of internalized self-doubt and self-imposed isolation that he seems afraid to even genuinely expect anything of Diluc at all, let alone consider the possibility that Diluc might owe him an apology instead.

Diluc knows he does, though.

He just can't give it because of who he is.

This is, I think, the most frustrating--but also most realistic and best written!--part of Diluc and Kaeya's relationship: Diluc clearly does want to atone for what happened the night Crepus died. He is doing many things, in his own Diluc-ish way, to signal to Kaeya that he wants to put the past behind them and restore their relationship.

He kept and displays the vase Kaeya hid his Vision in (despite it being garish on purpose); he also keeps the lantern Kaeya brings him from Sumeru in Kaeya's hangout.

He responded to Kaeya's letters during his absence from Mondstadt. He allows Kaeya into the Dawn Winery, with the implication that the doors were always open for him in the first place.

When Kaeya tries to leave during the most recent archon quest, Diluc essentially makes it clear that there's no reason why they shouldn't stay together.

Showing a picture of Diluc's in-game model feels like character assassination at this point...

Although Diluc can be prickly and doesn't always have the nicest of things to say about Kaeya to others, it's pretty clear that he isn't intentionally holding a personal grudge. For the most part, it comes across as if Diluc seems set on quietly putting aside their past--as if it didn't happen.

This is, effectively, an apology without actually speaking one: If Diluc allows Kaeya back into his life, acts as if Kaeya is making a big deal out of nothing (like when he told Kaeya to quit guilting him over the eye injury), and implies that Kaeya still belongs in the Winery family, at the Angel's Share, etc., then isn't he doing the right thing? Isn't he showing Kaeya that he does accept him as he is? That he knows who Kaeya really is and still can tolerate him?

You can almost feel the thought process: Do I really have to spell it out?

But the problem is that Kaeya's sense of self-worth is so crippled by his internal perceptions--I'm a liar, I have and will continue to betray my loved ones, I'm not meant to be here--that Diluc's presumptuous and silent form of reconciliation is essentially incompatible with what Kaeya actually needs to hear and experience. Kaeya does, in fact, need it spelled out. In glaring red letters. And then probably fifteen more times for good measure before he'll actually start to let himself believe it.

Over and over and over again, people reassure Kaeya of his place in Mondstadt and in the Dawn Winery family specifically:

But over and over again, Kaeya dodges and dismisses their reassurances, because until he believes Diluc has forgiven and accepted him, he will never feel confident in his place in the Ragnvindr family (and by extension, Mondstadt) again. Even though Kaeya has visual proof of Diluc's continuing care--the vase in the lobby of the winery--he doesn't dare to make any major assumption. He isn't confident enough to take Diluc's string of small gestures for actual, meaningful acceptance.

Despite how obviously Kaeya wants to be Diluc's brother again--the moment at the end of the recent archon quest is the most joyously animated we've seen Kaeya in a long time--

--their reconciliation is effectively doomed to continue at a glacial pace because of who they are as people.

Diluc's method of handling the emotional issues in his life is critically avoidant, while Kaeya desperately needs direct and unambiguous confirmation that he cannot rationalize away.

Until both of them are able to confront the heart of the matter--which is Kaeya's identity and Diluc's explicit acceptance thereof (Kaeya's explicit acceptance thereof!)--they will continue to make minuscule progress as Diluc lets his gestures, rather than his words, speak on his desire for reconciliation, and Kaeya tentatively toes the line and then retreats, two steps backward for one step forward.

It's my personal belief that we'll likely see a "real" reconciliation between Diluc and Kaeya only when Kaeya is able to finally reconcile with himself.

But Diluc could fix this problem at any time, if he wasn't, you know... Diluc. 😂

Anyway, all this to say that I think fanon really favors Diluc over Kaeya in a lot of cases and that there's a critical lack of reflection on the long-lasting and very serious effects that their falling out had on Kaeya's emotional and mental state.

It's not about the duel, it's not about the eye scar--it's about Kaeya becoming convinced that his entire life must, by necessity, remain a lie forever, crystalizing his belief that he can never feel comfortable in his own skin.

He was already struggling and uncertain about his dual allegiances, but to take the risk of revealing himself to someone he loved only to face immediate and violent rejection... Kaeya knew it was coming and it still messed him up a lot, a lot more than people seem interested in talking about.

Just sayin'.

[sunny-knight]

CARDS

DAY 4

my favorite dysfunctional woke family…

[daftpatience]

i lov planning outfits the same way i love drawing diagrams for rearranging furniture. its plotting and scheming

[feroluce]

There were a ton of parts I loved about 3.3, but this one became a strong favorite, even for how brief it was 💕

When you find Caenis after the sky begins to burn, you have the choice to Choose Violence

Hyacine was a good girl who taught me the value of forgiveness. But unfortunately I am an awful student *cocks gun* ajfkdlsjafkldj

Which I was already so pleased that that was an option, but then! If you actually pick it!

PHAINON AND THE TRAILBLAZER LITERALLY LOOK TO DAN HENG FOR PERMISSION TO KILL EKSJJSKWJE

There is no discussion of this beforehand! No warning! No "what if we run into Caenis later," none of that! Phainon and the trailblazer are just that much in sync!

And there is something so hilarious and adorable in that, that Phainon has been getting buddy-buddy with the trailblazer ever since they met, and he watched them and how they defer to Dan Heng, and just decided like oh, ok! me too!! :D

And Dan Heng! He really just saw the way Phainon and the trailblazer run around together, and realized oh god there's two of them now. Like he really just adopted Phainon as Dumbass #3 and rolled with it. Phainon came up and happily handed Dan Heng the other end of his leash and Dan Heng just sighed and took it. How dare these three be so cute. 💕

(And then Dan Heng didn't even tell them no! He just told them not right now! I love him when he's greenlighting violence smshksjsjd)

[theokusgallery]

Why, hello there, Virgil. Long time no see!

[lighthouseshepard]

you know. fandom is so fun when you have like. ten or so specific people to participate in it with. even if there's just the one. theres something very cool and special about creating, whether art or music or writing fics, alongside a group of people who are all insane about the same thing you are. its a strange kind of vulnerability and openness and love. id write a novel for my friends if they asked

[annabelle--cane]

the thematic underpinning of wooden overcoats is super rich and consistent in what it says about death and grief and personal identity and social responsibility and gender and sexuality and human relationships and artistic expression and nihilism and acceptance and self-worth but I also feel completely insane making notes about, like, the pseudo gothic doubling among the four lead characters and what that says about the text's approach to differentiating the life and death drives when this is a podcast narrated by a mouse who lives in one of the protagonist's pockets while she works on writing several volumes of best selling memoirs that she publishes via random mouse.

[kelocitta]

they gave me this dog for being voted least mentally ill at my job