#and go read something else

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's just guys night talk! Don't worry about it!

(Read Tiger Tiger and shake this man awake so he can finish that thought!)

[obsob]

bedtime story with my love !!

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[spacesheeeeeep]

Actually so tired that people mainly focus on the bdsm when they talk about La Pianiste when we literally have this dynamic right here. Like, that's insane.

What if you were a little girl in her 40's who couldn't grow up because of your mother-wife who made you sleep in her bed and forced you to repress every sexual desires and thoughts of becoming your own person just to keep you close to her ? What if you fought back and yearned for dangerous things out of her reach ? But also, what if you let her because it's all you've ever known and been taught to want ?

[bunnieswithknives]

The soul of Wicked is randomly inventing extremely elaborate relationships between characters who barely interact at all in canon. Also Fiyero is here.

[thonkphonk]

Spideytorch high school sweethearts AU except Johnny breaks up with Peter after he gets back from space. Johnny's still in love but his family's safety is now banked on public opinion, and Johnny's terrified what being out as gay would do to that.

Unfortunately he completely botches the explanation to Peter, who only hears that what they had doesn't mean anything now that Johnny has to leave and go be a celebrity. His boyfriend's too good to be with humdrum ol'Peter Parker with the ratty shoes and dead parents. No, it's probably going to be supermodels and brand deals for the Human Torch from now on, and at best Peter gets to be the old friend from high school who calls sometimes. Not even good enough to be seen hanging out together. Well, if that's the case, Peter's not interested in being "just friends" with Johnny who still gets to "talk on the phone sometimes". In fact, he's perfectly fine with never hearing from him again.

Johnny flies away from that conversation in anguish, heartbroken that he has lost the first and only friend he's ever had, his first love. Peter develops a level of spite towards the Human Torch that rivals the future animosity of J. Jonah Jameson towards Spider-Man.

When Johnny later learns about Spider-Man he's enamored with the idea of befriending him, someone who understands what it's like to be a young superhero struggling through life. This hope crashes and burns upon them actually meeting, when Spider-Man makes some extremely personal attacks completely unprompted. Their rivalry is started with the verbal equivalent of tossing a lit stick of dynamite, and from then on it's so bad that Spider-Man is often identified as a member of the Human Torch's rogues gallery.

What really, really doesn't help is Johnny and Peter's reunion a few months later. Johnny, feeling guilty of how it all went down and struggling to get over Peter, apologizes and asks if they can be actual friends again, not that half-hearted stuff he'd initially proposed. Not only does this get turned down, Peter hints that he's been seeing other people after Johnny, and he's not naming any names, but Spider-Man's a better kisser than the Human Torch.

Johnny doesn't take it well.

[technically-human]

Hi i'm absolutely in love with the reverse au!!

I want to know, in this verse does edwin still confesses to charles? if so how is it different? i feel if he did he would end it by apologizing, you know, religious guilt and all

There’s a train that goes through Hell.

Its journey starts in Wrath, and it departs already full of souls. It took Charles far too many years to realize that there were separate, more spacious wagons that demons could board. Not that he could understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t.

Actually, Charles couldn’t recall ever boarding the train. As far as he could tell, he just appeared there one day, and had spent the next tortuous decades trying to get out. It was part of the torture. Getting out was entirely possible. More than that, it was necessary.

The train had no regular schedule that he could discern (not at first, though he had always been good at finding patterns, and was eventually able to crack it) but it would make quite a few stops before finally returning to the Wrath ring. Souls inside the train were already angry and far too close to each other (close, so close not even air could squeeze in) but when they got really violent was when the train made a stop.

Getting out didn’t mean you were free, no matter where you managed it, be it Sloth or Gluttony, Pride or Lust. No, as soon as the train finished its journey, you would appear back inside, in Wrath where you belonged, suffocating once again, getting ready to claw your way out for the millionth time.

Because if you didn’t get out, The Conductor would get you.

If he thought about it calmly, Charles could probably say that he got out of the train more times than not. Still, being caught by The Conductor once was bad enough, as there was no coal in Hell, and something had to serve as combustible. Souls could not burn to death, and the whole journey always felt longer than eternity when he was caught. Once it was over, he would be inside again, and fight with more desperation than before, not caring who stayed inside so long as it wasn’t him.

He couldn’t understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t. But as the souls pushed and bit and clawed and punched their way out, Edwin boarded the train. And that wasn’t even the most groundbreaking revelation Charles had that day.

ko-fi

[ricky-mortis]

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby being published, so I drew Gatsby and Nick to celebrate :)

[neglectedsodium]

Still find it really really funny that Suo showed the slightest reaction to not liking natto and the class immediately latched onto that and dog piled him. No hesitation, just immediate teasing.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Do you like sci-fi and indie animation? Check out Monkey Wrench!

[itspileofgoodthings]

No one talks enough about how different each Austen book is. the vibes are insanely specific and distinct every time.

[dennisboobs]

standing in front of a firing squad would have been easier than reading this script i need to be shot

[bacchuschucklefuck]