was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.
to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:
kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him
i feel so bad for nikola tesla like imagine spending years beefing with a guy who has conned the public into believing he's some sort of supergenius when in reality it's his overworked employees developing all of his world-changing inventions and you end up dying broke and starving and alone and then 100 years later another guy cons the public into believing he's some sort of supergenius when in reality it's his overworked employees developing all of his world-changing inventions and he's doing it all IN YOUR NAME. he must be rolling in his grave like a fucking rotisserie chicken
Like actually in general my parents never just. bought me video games unprompted. I listen to Scott the Woz talk about his parents buying him games and Nintendo Power subscriptions just for no reason and I'm like. ?????? Families do that?
“Grandmother is visiting,” Damian suddenly said with no warning and with his usual not-quite demanding tone.
“Who?” Tim wasn’t the only one to startle, seeing as Bruce had practically froze, a downturn to his lips in a silent show of confusion.
Damian scowled. “Are you deaf Drake? Grandmother is coming to Gotham to, quote, make sure I am being properly cared for.” None of them had known that Ras was with anyone actually. At least Tim was pretty sure that would have been in the files.
“Oh?” Dick didn’t quite crouch to Damian’s height but it was a near thing. “She-” “He,” Damian corrected, interrupting him. They all exchanged a glance before Dick continued.
“Is he coming to the Manor or…”
Damian scoffed again, a tiny bit of a flush against his face. “No, Grandmother will most likely be staying with Akhi-”
Currently thinking about a reader who, while having a full-time job and playing the part of a “real adult” pretty well for the most part, is still kind of lost and pathetic. It feels less like they’re living and more like they’re surviving, getting by on their own with just a cat for company.
Enter John Price, who’s currently on medical leave and just itching for a project. Maybe reader works at a store near his home that he shops at almost every other day, or works at the library where he goes when he needs to get out of the house. Either way, he spots this pretty little thing who clearly needs some love and guidance, preferably from a strong, gentle hand - and who better to do that than him?
Anyways, save me bossy and demanding Price with a savior complex, save me
he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.
except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?
at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.
except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.
about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.
he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.
Imagine Astarion with ears so sensitive that he's never willingly allowed anyone to touch them except for you. Imagine laying next to him in your bed, facing him, lifting your hand up slowly for that first touch. His eyes on yours, the rapidity of the breath he doesn't need to take, but still does reflexively. Seeing that he's nervous, but that he's trusting you, feeling his shaking hand come to rest on your waist. The audible sound he makes- half a moan, half a gasp- when you finally brush your thumb over the soft skin at the tip of his ear.
You trace the long shell of his ear and watch his pretty eyes, deep red like velvet in the moonlight, flutter shut. He says your name softly, as close as you've ever heard him to prayer. You pinch his earlobe gently, and his hips roll forward involuntarily, the jut of his hipbone pressing against your thigh as he makes himself still. Heat flares low in your belly, but you tamp it down as quickly as possible- likewise, Astarion makes himself still against you. This isn't sex and won't become sex, you'd promised each other (though that's not to say that you won't explore this thoroughly during one of your hours-long lovemaking sessions. He is all about experimentation these days, after all).
You lay there, touching him in his most vulnerable place, with reverence and grace and occasionally disbelief that you could be here at all with this beautiful, horrible, ridiculous and wonderful man, that you could be trusted so completely. You take in his every shuddering breath, the flexing of his fingers in your shirt, the softness of his mouth when he presses his lips to yours and tells you he loves you. If you have your way, if he has his, if somehow your utterly insane lives hold together for a year or a decade or ten, it will always be like this.
When Danny was told Vlad was coming over, he didn't care, much. After all, being told that he's lost all romantic interest in his mother, is trying to keep thoughts of murdering his father to just thoughts, and genuinely trying to be better than he was before.
Danny decided to give him at least a portion of leeway. You know, to see if he's holding up to his word.
But this, this is not it.
He dragged Vlad out of the room, shooting out an excuse that he just needed Vlad's help with something and just wanted to talk for a bit. Then brought him down to his level-via pulling on his collar- with a scowl.
"You trade my mother for that thing!?"
The thing in question, was some British guy by the name of John Constantine. Who smelled like smoke, alcohol and genuinely seemed to be questioning how exactly he ended up in this situation.
Vlad, to Danny's displeasure and increasing horror.
Is smitten.
Why did it seem that when Vlad turned good his intelligence just seemed to take a nosedive. Enough so that he settled for that and he is happy he isn't going after his mom but, like.
Started on the sixth of January and planned to be finished on the fourteenth, but landed up not doing that. Somewhere on the sixteenth, I basically said "haha whoops" and pumped out twenty panels. According to Procreate, it took 15 hours and 37 minutes to finish Panels 1-10; 27 hours and 15 minutes on Panels 11-20; and 34 hours and 8 minutes for Panels 21-30.
In total, I have no idea. I just know it took some serious time.
Unlike with She's Gone, I wrote a script. Well, all I wrote was dialogue and some minor actions for Panels 5-23, though lines were changed "in post." Everything else was by the seat of my pants. However, I can say for sure that I was planning on ending it with N being hopeful, but all I had room for was him crying. He cannot catch a break.
(also to those who suspected uzi was still in there, guess you were right all along.)