#if forced to go to a party

[vaguely-concerned]

the more I play the more I think lucanis basically knows it's illario who betrayed him right from the beginning (he's had a year in the ossuary to think. not that many people knew where he was going. when you ask him 'did Illario know you'd be on that ship' his only answer is the hardest flattest 'yes' you ever heard). so it's not so much about figuring out who the traitor is (because that's ludicrous. we all know. immediately. they didn't really bother to hide it lmao) as about methodically closing off every single avenue of denial lucanis has clung to that whole time with as much or little gentleness as you might prefer until he has no choice but to admit it. because the moment he has to admit it, he'll have to do something -- feel something -- about it. and that's such a catastrophic event in lucanis' inner landscape (he has had TWO people in this whole entire world up until now and will do anything to hold on to them with a heartbreaking child-like desperation, even at and especially through the detriment of his own self) that he'd rather just. not. what if we quite simply. didn't. what if we just stayed here in the emptiness where we can both pretend you didn't hurt me in a way I should never forgive. I have so much practice in that with caterina already it's always worked out great for everyone so far. (press x to fucking doubt but that's trauma logic for you lol)

after everything illario did, so much of the storm of lucanis' emotions around it is 'what the FUCK did you get yourself tangled up in this time and how do I get you out of this mess safely'. what's worse: the fact that your brother murdered you, or that he put himself in horrible danger doing so and thus exposed you to the risk of losing him forever. lucanis' heart certainly has an opinion here and it's fucking unhinged (affectionate)

the themes of dissociation in lucanis' character in general makes me feel nuts. allllll these contradictory messy things he needs to cut off from each other because they can't coexist or be easily reconciled inside him. but all remain stubbornly true separately anyway and will have their due one day. love and resentment. tenderness and fear and rage. terror and longing. love and freedom don't coexist. the burned out golden child anthem is playing in the background. he was always caterina's favourite and he has to keep striving to deserve that dubious honour with every breath he takes and then, presumably, mercifully, some day he will die and be excused and can rest. and until now he's suppressed all the -- natural, healthy, protective! -- negative feelings that threaten the few attachment relationships he actually has, at the cost of ever actually having his needs for connection and safety met and leaving his core self imprisoned and compromised. and spite goes 'what. no. that's dumb fuck that' (*spite voice* I do not understand that and even if I did I would not respect it) and does not allow him to fall back into that, which I think is what saves his life, ultimately. it took being possessed by a demon for lucanis to even contemplate telling anyone he loves 'no' in any way, but hey. whatever gets you there right lol

lucanis is dealing with the freeze response allll the way down baby. and he was even before the ossuary, that just turbo powered it and brought it to a breaking point way before it could happen naturally. but something was going to break eventually no matter what, and I'm just glad that in the end, through the power of friendship and also pure spite, it doesn't have to be him

[lucabyte]

Not all who wander are lost. Some who wander, however, are extremely, extremely lost.

[marivanilla05]

My favorite scenes from The Odyssey (books 18 to 21)

Odysseus fighting a random beggar being its own book was not something I expected to enjoy this much when reading The Odyssey, but here we are.

[notbecauseofvictories]

also I've spent the last couple weeks reading some older historical romance novels, and my made up, wholly unverified hypothesis that in the 2000s romance authors finally grasped that the old-fashioned "no, don't! stop, you brute" etc. scenes were not really landing with audiences anymore. So they faced a conundrum about the future of the genre. Ultimately, I think they chose to quietly stop writing those heroes, and switch them out for a more sensitive model. Still dark and brooding! But with limits, often a Heart of Gold, and more general emotional intelligence.

Still, somewhere out there is a parallel universe where these authors decided to take the opposite approach---to write heroines as unhinged, cruel, impulsive, and emotionally ignorant as their heroes. I don't know if I want to live there, but I wouldn't mind a trip to their library sometime.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wei Wuxian 🤝 Maleficent: Not being invited to a child's birthday party but showing up anyways (to make things worse).

(for @youremysunshine8)

[witchazard]

Serena is a self proclaimed leader of a group of lesbians who don't respect her, of course she's going to be dramatic

[alfalfapie]

as someone whose journey with aspec is currently still ongoing and who took a while to actually like realize what attraction looked like for me, I love Riz Gukgak so much. like baby Riz it IS ok to not be physically attracted to ppl rn and it IS ok for that to evolve over time.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

green apple flavor

[cosmic-espero]

I won't lie Will is a much better person than me because imagine hanging out with himbo extraordinaire Leon Strohl Da Haliaetus under the starry night sky only for him to gift you a seashell bracelet, which by the way later turns out to be culturally associated to romance by the Mustari because your supposed canon love interest literally gives you another shell with a similar function and describes it as a gift wives give their husbands.

And then he tells you he likes you.

And right as you're already planning a summer wedding, the motherfucker adds "like a brother".

Like, I would've ended up on the news.

[anodetodiamonddust]

I’ve been out of the Hazbin/Helluva fandom for a while now, (although I still lurk) but wanted to post this bc the implication that all of the overlords have to occasionally get together to have, like, group meetings and shit is so funny. Like, these hoes all have to sit at a table and act like everything’s all peachy-keen and talk about the weather like they don’t try to kill each other every year for territory lmao. Like, Alastor and Velvette being in the same room and probably having to brainstorm ways to keep the Exterminators away is fucking hysterical. It’s like when you were in high school and got paired up with your mutual frenemies to make a group presentation.

[wildstar25]

The 3rd Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon - or in other terms, June 3rd - marks the day a very special cat entered the world. Happy Birthday Arsay!

(Opening images in a new tab is recommended for best quality viewing, thank you!)

[arolesbianism]

I received a vision and had to doodle it immediately

[horribluh]

hilarious mpreg zosan thought, sanji has a kid that has green hair but its not zoros kid. he has in fact never disclosed who the other father was (choose ur own adventure dead beat dad edition) and his siblings already have amazing technicolour hair so its not outside the realm of possibility for his biological children to also have weird hair colours. but when the kid pops out with green hair everyone immediately connects the dots that hey, doesnt the strawhats first mate that sanji famously doesn't get along with also have green hair? is this why sanji never said who the other father was? hes a fucking dead beat! get his ass!

this misconception integrates into everyones mind bc it makes too much sense to not be true and everyone is suddenly deadset on "protecting sanjis honour" and making zoro "take responsibility"

sanji is screaming crying throwing up disgusted bc no!!! the shitty mosshead is not the father!!! stop saying that!!!! but since he still wont say who the actual father is, everyone is just like its ok sanji, you dont have to defend a deadbeat even if he is your crewmate and sanji has no choice but to kill himself and also zoro for daring to have green hair

when the strawhats show up for sanjis baby shower they also unanimously come to the misunderstanding that sanji and zoro totally boned. franky goes as far as to call the kid mini marimo. brook makes a hundred innuendos, chopper is upset at the implication of them having unsafe sex, and robin alludes to "knowing all along" in a very ambiguous way. usopp is the only one who refuses to connect the dots and he is sanjis favourite strawhat fr. jinbei pats sanji on the back and says he hopes they work through their differences for the sake of their kid. sanji is dying, youre killing him, you're killing your cook

even more shenanigans ensue when zoro shows up 3 whole days late to the baby shower and is gaslit into thinking hes the father by everyone in attendance despite being Pretty Sure that he and sanji never fucked. zeff gives a pretty good shovel talk and nami gives an even better one (debt increment is involved) while zeff nods approvingly behind her and then luffy slingshots in all parents should be married right? and doesnt wait for an answer

anyway, like 2 hours later zosan find themselves standing at a makeshift altar on the thousand sunny, saying their vows. sanji insists to the very end that zoro is not the father so they dont need to get married but alas luffy isnt giving him a choice in this (he wants to eat wedding cake)

to sanjis eternal despair, the kid grows up to really like swords

additional zosan thought, sanji does not help things by shouting "this is all your fault!" the moment he sees zoro. zoro is futher gaslit

[chirpsythismorning]

[ghoulishautism]

I think the reason people thought sam x danny felt "Forced" wasn't because it "came out of nowhere", but more that the show talked about it so much throughout all three seasons that it was basically shoving your nose into the mess you made on the floor every chance it got.

It wouldn't be as bad if, say, Danny and Sam has more genuine moments together. To their credit, there are a few- but when you're writing romance (esp if he was a boy, she was a girl- can I make it anymore obvious?) people WILL tell if you're only forcing them together because a show needs a romance subplot, and not because they actually complete each other.

What makes ships like GrayGhost (Valerie x Danny) interesting is that these two characters have a very complex and layered relationship with one another. Val starts off a bit standoffish to the trio when she was still a popular girl, but starts warming up to Danny after she's let go. THEN you have the whole other layer of huntress!Val vs Danny Phantom that makes it extra sticky.

Its GREAT because we as the audience were able to see their dynamic constantly growing and changing before the prospects of romance was even brought up a few episodes later.

With Sam and Danny, it was always "Ha ha these two like each other!!"

...Why? Why do they like each other? Because they're hormonal teenagers and Sam is the only girl Danny knows besides his own sister? Because when you put it like THAT, it doesn't sound as good now does it? Making two characters blush randomly isn't enough. We need to actually KNOW what qualities they value in one another.

Then you have the whole aspect of "Sam is more attracted to Danny PHANTOM than Danny FENTON contextually" -- which COULD have been interesting if they actually approached the idealization Sam had towards Phantom while completely disregarding Danny as a whole person. Like if thats the path they took with the ship, I'd be totally into it. But no, with them getting canned when they did, they kinda just brushed that aspect under the rug, never to be seen again.

This isn't me bashing Sam x Danny as a concept, I think it had a LOT of potential that was fumbled by the fact that Sam herself was barely allowed to even act like a real person. Butch wanted her to be goth Louis Lane and thats all he wrote!!

[alistair-blackwood]

for my money, labru is head and shoulders above other ships involving them simply due to the unmatched yap potential, i imagine them feeding off each other's energy like they're slipstreaming in mario kart until they start going fast enough to break the sound barrier