#settle in for a long read

[umblrspectrum]

i love learning cursive just to write text for exactly one character

[bold-embrace]

Tethered at the wrist (by @nebrasska-alasska on ao3) fanart now in color…everyone needs to read this fic now it has changed my life

[lucabyte]

Different standards

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about how deeply lucanis' life has been defined by a lack of control of that life -- as he himself points out, even before the ossuary went and carved the headline out again with big bloody letters. of course he reacts badly to losing what little control he did manage to construct for himself even within those circumstances.

(namely: experience has taught him that things (caterina, loss, pain, love, all horribly and indelibly intermingled) will happen to him whether he wants them to or not and there's nothing he can do about that... but he gets to decide what's let in or out of his soul as it happens, even if he has to close it all down and deaden and numb himself out in the process. (even if that means he drifts further and further away from illario, who's been desperately reaching out and trying to keep hold of him until he finally gives up completely and tries to cut the bond all at once when lucanis doesn't seem to reach back anymore.) it's such rare well-observed freeze logic solidly constructed from the bottom up, I'm still so impressed with it.

the way illario seeks constant external means to cope with caterina's abuse and importance in his life -- he can't win her admiration or acceptance or warmth (or like. acknowledgement even, at times :') ), no matter what, so he goes out and finds those things in others and then disdains and dismisses it for how easily and falsely it's won from them. he plots, he conspires, he tries to beat her at her own game however clumsily, he tries. lucanis doesn't try things that way. he's not about 'how do I improve my situation' by nature, he's 'how can I stop this from getting worse'. he avoids, he internalizes, he hunkers down and makes himself nothing until the pain maybe ends. he's fundamentally not a plotter, he's a reacter. an expert assassin pantser, if you will, to illario's clear and stated exasperation fhsak. man I love them. illario says 'get us out of here!!! if you loved me as I love you you'd help me get us out of here before it kills us both', lucanis says 'there is no other place, there's nowhere to go, all we can do is endure. and if it kills us... well, that's just family. that's what love is (the way things are headed I'll die first anyway so it's fine I won't have to face losing you)', and they're equally baffled and hurt by each other's POV. but they're both right, and they're both wrong. there's no 'right' way to deal with caterina's treatment of them, or their situation. the house always wins, if you pardon the expression. house dellamorte still stands and that is what matters to caterina in the end more than anything.

it also fits so well b/c like... their core wounds are that illario is the least favourite and is constantly dismissed, so he has to prove to caterina again and again that he matters. not even that he's worth love or respect or warm regard, but that he's here at all and as such should be considered. he has to shout 'in case u forgot I EXIST!!' at the top of his lungs or else be rendered nothing within the family structure (and himself, because it's all about family, that's all that really matters. in some weird twisted way I think caterina openly declaring him before all the other crows to still be of house dellamorte -- and no one from house dellamorte kneels -- is kind of a victory for him, as much as it's also a furthering of a prison sentence and public humiliation. house dellamorte brainfuckery goes hard.). lucanis is the favourite, and it's the double-edged sword that he gets all the affection and attention but also all the control and impossible expectations. drowning under all of that constant stress and close evaluation, his brain whispers 'I don't exist' to try to escape, to hide and hold on to the deep parts of himself that are crucial to life but not part of the perfect grandson caterina demands of him as the price of her love.)

I think a lot about how what seems to disquiet lucanis the most post-ossuary (as it would anyone with that psychological makeup) is the dissolving of internal boundaries and control he's been relying on, which is part of what spite symbolizes. his anger and reactivity has seceded from the union to the point of personification as a little guy (a little guy he resents and fears for his unpredictability and invasions into regions of his psyche he wishes to stay frozen and barren, and yet cares about deeply, loves! and also constantly dismisses and frequently helplessly lets down unless he's helped to learn to do otherwise. does this remind you of another relationship in his life, perhaps. it makes me feel nuts to think about the illario/spite parallels thanks for asking), and now that little guy is out there running the show freely the moment he glances away or closes his eyes. literal nightmare scenario I feel for him so deeply. so much of his coping is predicated on being able to Not do or feel or want certain things, and that's out the window now, Spite has Opinions. Spite refuses to stay wisely in place even if that place is hell on the logic that if you move you could find yourself in a place that's even worse, somehow. Spite actually wants to experience the world, however fucked up and scarring the way he arrived here, not just endure it. Spite means he has to face that maybe illario wasn't wrong all those years, at the same time as having to admit and face what illario has done to him, and figure out what to do about any of it.

anyway. mary kirby ma'am that's some good fucking metaphor work. thank you, and sorry about all the shit that happened

[radpool]

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself

to hold on to these moments as they pass

- counting crows, a long december

detail below the cut (and wolverine angsty musings in the tags lol)

[acid-ixx]

oh my god, i got so distracted by a concept this anon sent about the loving family series, that i accidentally switched my focus on writing a oneshot for it instead 😭

guess that means you guys will be spoiled with not only a new chapter for a&a, but you people who have been thirsting for a loving family scraps will also be well-fed...

[aihaloos]

A gong bangs when she enters the room even though she's a Spanish woman in a French association

You don't understand how happy I am that she's releasing today (I'm building a burn team just so I can field her)

[in-tua-deep]

I saw a murderbot daemon au where ART built murderbot a drone to act as a daemon and implies constructs are severed and yall know im a sucker for daemon aus?? But also like. daemon au where every secunit automatically comes with a minimum of one (1) drone, and at least one drone is essential to functioning. why? folks don’t know, maybe it’s storage or something. If units have multiple it’s usually as decoys for the important one

anyway obviously this drone is a daemon by another name. they don’t change shape partially bc they don’t know they can, partially bc the gov module will zap em dead if they change

It is making me think that after murderbot goes on the run it discovers its beloved drone has like. Idk. Multiple settings? Little spider drone that can skitter. Little lizard drone that can stick to walls. It can even do things like, lil cat drone that can claw up someone’s face real good (:

Ignore the people who think that this apparently means murderbot’s drone is a daemon. those people are stupid bc humans have daemons and murderbot is a CONSTRUCT and this is its DRONE thank you

but anyway yeah in a daemon au murderbot has the best and coolest drone and has its hands over its ears and is LALALALAing at top volume whenever anyone suggests it might be a daemon

[0uterrim]

sad cat poem - spencer madsen

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

That great expectations at the end really is every Ponyboy.

Trevi as canon Pony

Josh as adopted au Pony

JPC as older Pony

Emma as fem Pony

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 85

Dan is very grumpy. He’s not pouting, despite what the others would claim, he’s brooding. How many times were they going to get de-aged?! And this time they were all clones! He did not sign up for reincarnation, nor for getting turned into a literal baby. 

He doesn’t care if this world has heroes or villains or whatever, he’s going to bite the next person to pick him up. Happily if it’s one of the scientists currently scrambling around as alarms go off. 

Though he’ll happily do the same to the new colorful people too. Honestly he’s just feeling particularly violent, and it’s not like he can murder with his tiny baby hands. At least his so-called siblings look just as ready to attack as he does. 

[into-fiction]

I have a long ass road trip tomorrow so someone rec me their favorite long gelphie fics!

[chiropteracupola]

A very fine captain, and a finer friend.

[blvck-minou]

:)

[variksel]

rghhrgrhrggrhrhrgr kcd1 theresa romance KCD1 THERESA ROMANCE!!!!!!! i am biting at the bars of my enclosure The way the second they slept together / offically got kinda together henry was immideatly like well when we get married i will have to ask your uncle for your hand and theresas like slow ur horses baby we can just chill for a while ;) AND ITS SO!!!! THEYRE SO CUTE!!!!

[necrotic-nephilim]

as an apology for being gone for a month, have a uquiz i spent a week making! pls feel free to reblog with which character you got, i worked way too hard on this silly little thing. there are eight different characters you can get that are varying levels of unknown, with comic recommendations for each character <3