#actually no I'm not sorry for that lmfao

[edgeray]

Arlecchino is a patient person.

(Arlecchino x Reader Blurb)

Contrary to what people may think of her, as hotheaded her Pyro Vision may suggest that she is, Arlecchino is a patient person. She reserves patience for the right people, for those worth her time and worth her consideration to even wait for. There are few that do qualify for both of those qualifications, but it is often limited to the children of the House of the Hearth.

And you.

There are times that necessitate haste. And there are times that necessitate patience. She had known since the start of her relationship with you that she needed the latter, even when an internal part of her wanted the former. Because you are not a duty ordered for her to complete. After all, she can't hurry the bud's growth and expect a rose in full bloom. A relationship with you is both spontaneous and gradual, and it is the graduality of things that make the spontaneous that much sweeter, that much more beautiful.

You make her impatient however. You make her restless. Like her former coworker, Arlecchino knows that one day she will also be buried in ice, having died from her service to the Tsaritsa. She does not know when this day will approach, but she fears, yes, fear, that it will be soon. The Fourth Harbinger does not have many things she is afraid of. Cautious, perhaps, wary. If she were to part from Teyvat, the House of the Hearth would be in good hands, she assured that there is already a successor that will take her place. She is wary for what might come for the children, hence why she had taken precautions already.

There is no precaution for you. The day that she does not come home, she knows that her death will surely shatter you.

She knows this because your smile radiates warmth toward her, your touch is tender and innocent on her skin, and your words are whispered and soothing. A pleasurable constant in the everchanging and unpredictable world she's in.

She knows this because every night, you refuse to fall to asleep unless it is under her covers and in the safety of her arms. It matters little to you if your sleep is few or many, you wait every time for when she finishes with her work so that the two of you could sleep together.

She knows this because every time she must leave the confines of home, you kiss her throat with red lipstick to leave a mark of your presence on her. And every time she comes home, you envelop her in welcoming arms and kiss her lips, regardless if she's arrived at the doorstep bathed in blood.

She knows this because you take her hands and instead of shifting your sight away in disgust or jerking away from fear, you trace over each crease and fold of her blackened skin. When you intertwine your fingers with hers so perfectly, she wonders if this was the purpose for her hands: to hold yours.

It is for this reason that she does not want to be patient even though she needs to. Time with you is not eternal, it is an indubitable fact. But she knows patience is key, and the ring in her pocket cannot be displayed to you so thoughtlessly. You deserve so much better than that after all. When the stars align, she will surely take her chance to make you officially hers.

Arlecchino is a patient person. But you make her impatient.

[hamartia-grander]

Din and Bo-katan are such siblings it's SO funny. Din shaking his head as he left her Palace like he's been dealing with her pessimism all his life instead of like two instances. "I toLd you😡I wanna be left aLo- Where's your dad😐He's in trouble? Let's go." Saves Din's life, "it's honestly adorable you believe those children's stories🙄". Teasingly gives him a tour of the Waters, immediately jumps in to rescue him when he falls in. Come on

[arsgoeteia]

yeah.

[patheticlogic]

i still haven't moved on.

if we consider in the fact that hu tao didn't send zhongli to whangshu inn for sesame oil at last year's lantern rite, zhongli bringing this up a whole year later implies to me that he's curious if xiao has figured out that he's teasing him. but xiao hasn't seen through zhongli because he still holds zhongli in reverence.¹ xiao takes his every word seriously² because zhongli is still someone who should be listened to earnestly. xiao's "about zhongli" voiceline makes this very obvious. no matter what zhongli does, there must be a greater meaning to it all.

i can't believe that every zx interaction challenges the power imbalance of their previous relationship, as well as xiao's own view of it. hyv writers put their all into these two.

zhongli gently but firmly reminds xiao each lantern rite that he's no longer a god and shouldn't be addressed as such. last year, xiao still struggled with this. now, he corrected himself even though he was just thinking!

sure, he didn't drop the 'daren' but still a huge step forward.

¹aka world's slowest slow burn. they aren't even friends yet. well. in xiao's eyes at least

²last year, when zhongli teased him about how he should be the one referring to xiao by a formal title, xiao immediately shut it down ("heaven forbid!" hahaha)

[demigod-of-the-agni]

redraw of the first ever pavitr drawing i did a little over a year ago <3

[swordspider-fr]

okay want to preface this that the new ancient breed I genuinely like so much more than the other recently released ones (the sandshark guys + the moth alien ones, edit: completely forgot about grass snakes bc they were so mid to me). The design feels very cohesive/strong to me AND weird in a way we haven't super had yet with the headshape (BALD!!!) + limbshape (those huge+few claws <3). like this isn't just Tundra2 but bigger or coatl2 but it's more snake-y.

HOWEVER............ they literally coulda been moderns. like pllllsssssss no more ancients with the 2-wing 4-leg format bc I'm just gonna look at them and wish they are moderns so I could dress them. Like design coulda been vastly improved IMO if they got isopoded-up and just slapped 4 more legs on that thing, imagine legs on the tail section that woulda be great. think they also coulda made it fatter bc we haven't got a fat breed in so damn long but that's also my bias.

[essektheylyss]

Okay but for real, please download Merlin, the Cornell-based bird-logging app. It is so great. It will tell you about birds in your area. It will make you so insufferable on hikes and outings. It doesn't have any comments section so if this site gets nuked do NOT try to find me there but know that that's where I'm hanging. Having a great time birdwatching. Logging the bluejay that bullies my cats. Helping researchers track where birds are for climate change-related population monitoring. 10/10, highly recommend getting a life and doing some silly birdwatching.

[dykefaggotry]

being in ur 20s & 30s is so fucking weird in 2023 like. me and all my peers are at such different stages.

some of them have 2 kids and have been to prison, some of them are living in a friends type housing situation throwing parties like once a week and doing so so much coke, some of them have 3 jobs and started their own food truck, some of them still live at home and walk to work at a coffee shop, others are unemployed and doing so many fun things w their free time, some of them have Adult Jobs as college advisors or work in offices or as teachers, my sister has a kid and a husband and has been a social worker for years, meanwhile my other sister is dating like 3 people and driving a weed delivery truck while transing her genders, and then there's me sitting on my couch rewatching doctor who for the 20th time while disassociating my way through college

anyway I'm convinced the ages 20-35 are just an insane choose your own adventure and absolutely none of us know what the fuck is going on

[covenofthearticulate]

Have you decided what your fav characters’ favorite plays are?

NO I'M TOO OVERWHELMED LMAO HELP!! Okay but here are some thoughts about what sort of theatre I think they enjoy:

Lestat: Obviously since he got his start doing commedia dell'arte I think he'll always have a soft spot in his heart for those old comedies. (Honestly, I think Lestat is one of the only vampires who enjoys "lowbrow" comedy and I love that for him.) The style of traveling street theatre Lestat would've been performing during his time as Lelio was largely improvisational, and though it moved into a more scripted form over time, I think Lestat is an improv queen. I also get all giddy and happy thinking about his reaction to the fact that commedia dell'arte is still performed today! Like, I did a production of Servant of Two Masters in college lmfao it's still viewed as one of the foundational tenants of theatre to this day and I think that would really tickle him.

He's also a Shakespeare fan but historically speaking we know Lestat would've had to have read French translations which of course weren't impossible to come by, but given all of Lestat's circumstances in his early life (poor, uneducated, etc) it's definitely worth noting that he would've had to have worked hard to get at Shakespeare. I think it's so funny that his favorite play in canon is Macbeth and that he sees himself as Macbeth, whereas Louis and Claudia totally saw him as Lady Macbeth (which is why I wrote a lil ficlet about it LOL)

Okay LASTLY I also just want to say I think Lestat loves loves LOOOOVE restoration comedy and the comedy of manners that was a little before his time but just really focused on like. Outrageous comedy and satire. Lestat likes to laugh, okay!! He loves Moliere just as much as he loves Shakespeare! Tartuffe and She Stoops to Conquer are definitely plays he can quote by heart.

Armand: Shakespeare, yes, but very specifically: Jacobean Revenge Tragedies. These were a lot darker, a lot more hardcore and angsty (as the title suggests!). One day I'll have to get Armandblr's input for some meta and psychological background as to why Armand would be obsessed with plays where the protagonist is wronged so egregiously that they go down a path of murder and (gruesome, often cannibalistic) bloodshed and rage-induced hysteria that ultimately ends in their own demise. But for now I'll just say that I feel it in my bones. I think he staged The Spanish Tragedy at least a few times at the Theatre des Vampires.

Also I think he'd definitely be into theatre of the absurd, especially in his Devil's Minion era! He goes through phases where he really leans into the existentialism and finds it amusing and thought-provoking, but sometimes it also majorly fucks him up (similar to Lestat)

Louis: He's a Romantic at heart, and certainly he loves the classics, but we've already been over Shakespeare so I'll say that I also think Louis has a soft spot for the American canon. Think Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, etc. He's a modernist girlie, and I think those plays would be a good guiding light into understanding modern America for Louis. I think Louis often sees middle class America as a fascinating subject to study (rather than, like, a reality that real people live), and I think modernist plays are really good at toe-ing the line of like, being deeply humanizing and beautiful and tragic if done right, and also still being somewhat performative and maybe even a bit artificial and contained behind a fourth wall. I think that dichotomy would be fascinating to Louis. His favorites would be A View from the Bridge and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Marius: Unfortunately there are like 0 Roman tragedies that survived in writing, but we know that they existed and were actually slightly different than Greek tragedies in that the characters actually voiced more of their internal psychological conflict, and also apparently the playwrights were influenced by the development of new rhetorical theory, so a lot of the writing incorporated like public persuasion. So I do think Marius would've been into those but listen I also happen to know for a fact that Marius' favorite play is Shakespeare's Coriolanus. He told me himself. I just read over the wiki synopsis to refresh my memory and I'm losing my mind over this line: "The two tribunes condemn Coriolanus as a traitor for his words and order him to be banished. Coriolanus retorts that it is he who banishes Rome from his presence." like PLEASE that's so petty I love it. Real talk though Marius loves a good political drama and look I know I've brought up Shakespeare a lot in this post already but no one is doing it like him, especially with the Romans!!

Daniel: he's a theatre of the absurd queen <3

[veggiecorner]

Working my way through chapter 2 (aka Link's breakup era)

[solradguy]

Daisuke Ishiwatari told me that Dizzy was born when Frederick and Aria held hands >/////< owo they forgor her in the freezer for 200 years…

SEX

[jankwritten]

JASICO WEEK DAY 3: Angst/Comfort

CW: major character death, grief

Nico runs his brush over the lettering on the face of the headstone, delicate despite the dirt worked into the cracks. He should be harder with it, he knows -  it’s not like he’ll be able to break it. The headstone is too new for that, not worn down with age like the others in the cemetery. The dirt around the grave is so fresh, weeds haven’t even begun to grow over it, not that Nico would let them. He’s gotten good at weeding. Pruning flowers. Anything, to take care of this spot. 

Jason Grace, the headstone reads. Beneath that, his rank, and years of service. The date he died. 

Nico brushes his thumb over the curves which mark Jason as seventeen on his day of death. One of the eldest in the graveyard. 

Back when he first heard, when Nico first felt the impact of Jason’s death like a saw blade through his gut, Nico couldn’t come visit the grave at all. Every reminder of Jason being gone was too much, the weight of loss sitting in him in a way Nico hadn’t felt since he was ten years old. He didn’t know what to do with himself, with his grief, except to cry, and cry, and cry. 

He’s glad to be past that stage. His heart still aches, every day is still hard, but Nico can breathe through it, now. He can clean the gravestone, and talk to Jason even if Jason doesn’t talk back. He can make sure this site is as respected as the man it honors. 

Nico adjusts the flowers Hazel brought last night, a bouquet of blue and purple and white. Jason would think they’re pretty. The smell would make him sneeze. 

His favorite color was yellow, though. Nobody ever brings Jason yellow flowers. Always blue, like his eyes, like the sky, like his father. 

Daffodils. Nico will have to bring him some daffodils tomorrow. And irises, and carnations. Maybe Persephone will help him put together a bouquet. She always had a soft spot for Jason, not that she’d ever admit to liking one of Nico’s friends. Whenever Nico would talk about Jason with her, she would listen with this look on her face, like Nico was saying the most interesting things. It felt good to know someone appreciated Jason in the same way Nico did. 

Maybe not the same way. But as close as someone else could get. 

“It’s been a good day today,” Nico says. He runs the brush over the crown of the stone again, gentle as before. “Things have been slow. Father hasn’t given me as many jobs this week, and there’s finally been a lull in attacks near the borders. Hazel and Frank are introducing a new bill to the senate tomorrow, which…well, I’ll tell you how it goes, then. I don’t want to jinx it for them.” 

A breeze blows through the valley. Nico leans back, tilts his chin up into it. 

He closes his eyes. He can almost imagine the wind in his hair is Jason’s hand, ruffling in a way nobody else has ever been brave enough. Easily affectionate, despite all the ways Nico threatened him, kept him at a distance. Jason was just like that, always eager to be there, to hold, to comfort. 

Gods, Nico wishes he could’ve accepted one more hug. Had one more conversation. 

It’s starting to rain. The temperature drops and the sky darkens and Nico can smell it, the dampness in the air. The first drops splatter across his cheeks and his nose, his lips. He doesn’t flinch. He’s used to sitting out in storms, now. 

“I love you,” he tells the sky. 

In return, the rain pelts harder, quickly turning from a drizzle to an outright downpour, soaking Nico’s hair to the root in seconds. His clothes stick to his skin. 

He still doesn’t move. 

“Don’t cry with me.” It’s silly, to act like the rain is Jason’s doing. Still. It helps Nico cope. Sometimes, if he imagines hard enough, he can still see memories of Jason’s grin, that scar on his lip, the tilt of his nose while the skies opened up around them, a display of power, a force of nature.

Nico never saw Jason cry. He supposes Jason never saw him cry, either. Just another thing they’ll never get to share. Another thing they missed. “You’re going to drown your flowers, at this rate.” 

The deluge does not die down. 

It’s enough to almost make him laugh, the sudden mental image of Jason scowling down at the flowers he doesn’t really like at all, the ones that make him sneeze and itch. Jason Grace, mighty son of Jupiter, champion of Hera, using all of his power to destroy a few flowers that have wronged him. 

Nico didn’t get to know that side of Jason very long, the side of him that was a young boy, the side of him who was a person. But gods, of everything they did get together, that is what he’s happiest to have had. The truth. Not the son of Jupiter, not the champion, not the praetor. Just the boy. 

Nico smiles, even as he cries, leaning back in a graveyard during a near-biblical rain storm. Nico smiles. 

Every day, it gets a little easier to. Every day, he hopes Jason is smiling back, from wherever he is. 

[astrxealis]

if i do "?" in text i'm genuinely tilting my head like a dog if i do "!!" my eyes are sparkling and i am figuratively wagging my tail if i am IN ALL CAPS i'm screaming from the top of a mountain with all the power i can with love and the strength of RAGHHH within me

[harmonyonparade]

it's ayase day!

considering i've had her as my pfp for months, only makes sense i'd draw her eventually hehe (she's my fave p1 character who would have guessed)

[swordfright]

cyclical violence & the dsmp finale

I’m seeing a lot of folks on Twitter interpret the DSMP series 1 finale as “can you believe they forced an abuse victim to befriend his abuser in the end, that’s so sick and tasteless!!” and after a bit of pondering (i.e. absolutely rabid conversations with @ringenthusiast) I think I’ve realized why that interpretation bothers me. Personally I find it extremely reductive to read DSMP as being solely about abuse rather than as a story in which abuse happens and is explored, but even if you’re only prepared to consume it solely as an abuse narrative, you absolutely must acknowledge that the story is about both interpersonal and systemic abuses, and moreover that it’s about how interpersonal and systemic abuse enable each other.

c!Tommy is a victim of horrific interpersonal abuse. c!Dream is a victim of horrific systemic abuse. c!Dream is the perpetrator of the interpersonal abuse c!Tommy suffers, and his abuse of c!Tommy is later continually used as a justification (both in canon and in fandom) for why c!Dream deserves to suffer systemic abuse. This isn’t a coincidence, it’s clearly a very well-planted and thoroughly developed overarching theme: abuse is cyclical. Abuse perpetuates itself. One type of abuse perpetuates and enables other forms of abuse. That’s the point.

There are plenty of examples of this theme being explored outside of the “Dream vs. Tommy” conflict -- the instance that immediately comes to mind is c!Quackity being treated terribly by c!Schlatt, only to turn around and torture an incarcerated person, ostensibly for profit but also presumably for personal enjoyment. Again, abuse is cyclical. This is actually why I think it’s really important that c!Tommy and c!Quackity are, in a sense, set up as foils for each other. c!Quackity makes the decision to become as bad as (if not worse) than his abuser, and that decision is a source of strength and agency for him even though the audience is expected to understand it as a downward spiral. c!Tommy’s approach is different, after he sees c!Dream’s perspective from limbo. It has to be different because c!Tommy is different.

It’s kinda wild to me that anyone could watch the DSMP finale (not to mention the past two years of the show) and not see the final interaction between c!Tommy and c!Dream as a representation of restorative justice. You are not obligated to fix, forgive, or offer redemption to someone who hurt you... but you are obligated to at least try to see them as a person, because the alternative can and will enable atrocities.

This is both a positive ending for c!Tommy and a very uplifting message to end series 1 on. Remember what I said earlier about c!Quackity and c!Tommy being narrative foils? Well, they certainly are, at least insofar as the theme of cyclical abuse is concerned. c!Quackity is an abuse victim who becomes an abuser. That’s an arc that makes sense for his character and personally, as a longtime c!Quackity stan I’m happy with it... but it would be super depressing if that was how every abuse plotline in the series turned out. The final interaction between c!Tommy and c!Dream offers an alternative outcome: that abuse victims are not obligated to forgive or attempt to understand their abusers, but in some cases it’s worth it to try. The abuse c!Tommy suffered makes him neurotic and angry and depressed and fearful and paranoid, but he never lets it make him unkind. He never becomes an abuser himself. The message is clear: abuse can be cyclical, but it doesn’t always have to be. You can break the cycle. The snake doesn’t always have to swallow its own tail.

That, to me, is an incredibly meaningful ending.

[tabriscadash]

my most controversial take apparently is that i genuinely don’t think alistair is an equal to anora as a candidate for the crown, and that nothing bioware claims about him as king after the fact is substantiated by any gameplay up to the landsmeet.