Will haunting the narrative as both the innocent who was wrongfully destroyed AND the one that got away.
Season 2 Will impacting everything Mike does from that point forward just as much as Will's death impacts everyone.
El thinks of him when she confronts Brenner about the mind flayer, we know things like that. But Mike also thinks of him when he tells El he loves her.
They're all thinking of him. The last time they saw him.
The way he was never the same.
But Mike is thinking about the last time he saw him.
Losing him.
The way they were never the same.
(The way he can't get him back)
Yes, Will's disappearance changed everyone's trajectory forever. But he also changed Mike. He also made Mike's personal and romantic life impossible to return to after him.
He haunts more than just the people who mourn his death.
(The sole purpose of Mike's season 2 separation from El in the first place is so that he can never truly go back after Will)
142 notes
·
View notes
Hi, hey, hello. I decided to animate Moon's face being silly goofy <3
Bald moon bald moon He's only bald because I am not gonna put the effort into animating his hat. sobs.
I started this lil gif because I was upset with my family being crappy. I finished it because I wanted to make him look silly and make his eyes go google-y.
Hope you enjoy <33333
601 notes
·
View notes
smaller than everyone chilchuck being understood by autistic laios. is this anything. (i am small and autistic and felt deeply represented by your post)
Oh my god I spent so long writing a FUCKING RESPONSE and tumblr deleted it kill me. ANYWAY “is this anything” friend this is everything. 🤝
I think the two of them are uniquely able to understand each other bcuz in summary, the things they are both most vulnerable and affected by, the things that have probably damaged their lives most, are things they cannot conceal from others. Laios’ autism and Chilchuck’s size. There’s VERY good discussions on whether Chil is totally normal, autistic but very good at masking, somewhere inbetween, or even whether he’s cis, and those would all INFORM this conversation but whichever way you read him, he is socially aware enough to see that Laios is NOT. And it drives him crazy and he is constantly frustrated and trying to teach him to be more aware of himself as the party leader and just “be more normal”. In my opinion this is because Chil KNOWS how much it hurts to live with a part of yourself you can’t control that makes it hard to make your way through the world — in his own way, he is trying to take care of Laios. This may be both for selfish (he wants a good stable party and that requires a good socially savvy party leader) and selfless (chilaios…) reasons, but either way. It’s essentially just there in the text To Me.
Chilchuck is probably extra frustrated because, at least as he seems to see it, Laios COULD choose to shave off those rough edges of himself and “pass” as respectable/“normal”. (Another reason I kinda think Chil has his own autism thing happening. In my experience, shamefully, I’ve been least patient with people who I see as like me but they just haven’t figured out how to stop the world from hurting them like I have.) (I imagine chil often thinks things like. why don’t you just change. Don’t you see how much easier it would be for you. Don’t you see how much you’re letting the world hurt you. Don’t you know what that will do to you, over time.) meanwhile Chilchuck cannot stop the rest of the world from seeing him as either childLIKE or just straight up a tall-man kid. No matter how professional he is or how scathingly he can insult people or how much he can drink — he can’t stop what people SEE when they LOOK at him (this also makes him a great trans character To Me). I think Laios knows exactly how this feels. He’s not seen as a kid, so it’s not exactly the same. But despite having everything Chilchuck would like to have (tall, looks manly, socially respectable in appearances)… Laios is never going to pass as normal once people get to know him. He ISN’T socially aware. He CAN’T pretend to be someone else anymore, not once the story starts.
So autistic Laios keeps bumbling through social situations that make people want to fucking hunt him for sport. He can’t say the right things, and when he has tried to be himself, we can assume it’s been very poorly received in the past, both when dungeoneering and prior as a little kid. When he’s not being manic about his monster special interest he seems to constantly be doing an Autism Stare that serves to keep people away from him and his sister.
The fact that Chil and Laios both, to some degree, can’t hide what they hate most about themselves, makes them uniquely able to understand each other. And treat each other with sympathy/empathy underneath it all. Laios is the one out of their party who most treats Chilchuck as an adult with agency (understands the stress of his work, defends him, lets him steer situations, listens to his advice, never demeans him or gives any indication he thinks he’s a child altho he did assume Chil is younger than him). If the daydream hour extras that give rough indications of who joined the party when are canon, Chilchuck is the party member who’s been with the party the longest, almost since Falin and Laios founded it, despite thinking of Laios as “the party leader comma I GUESS”. He keeps trying to beat lessons about leading parties into Laios’ head despite many ppl around him considering him a lost cause. As I’ve said in other posts…. He could probably just fucking walk out at any time and either retire or get a different party, and we know Chil has no problem hitting da bricks, but he doesn’t.
The things about themselves that make them most able to relate to each other are also the things that sometimes make them grate against each other (Chil berating Laios in the way only a guy with a major complex can and Laios pouting about it lmao. Laios continuing to be a big cute socially inept dummy anyways.) BUT THAT’S LOVE, BABEY!!!
126 notes
·
View notes
There's just something about the way that Olek is so class-conscious when he first encounters Ling Yi.
He frees her from the box but then backs away, giving her space and deliberately not touching her. He sees that she's shivering and offers her his jacket ("it's dirty, but it's warm"), only taking one step closer with an outstretched arm. He glances at her out of curiosity and concern, but keeps lowering his gaze because he knows (despite the strange circumstances) this is a first-class passenger and he shouldn't be making direct eye contact with her.
Something shifts, though, when he tells her his name, and suddenly they're looking at each other the way that a first-class girl and a soot-covered boy from the engine room are not supposed to look at each other.
Even though he offers her his hand as they escape off the fog-covered deck, the knowledge of the divide between them is still there when they reach the open-air compartment. ("I know it's not first class," he acknowledges.) Olek's eyes are downcast again, only for him to grow a little bolder and lift his gaze up to her face. Still, he doesn't get any closer or try to touch her, not even when he returns with food and finds her on her knees, sobbing and struggling to breathe. His eyes are wide, searching hers, as he listens to her tearful words, but it's Ling Yi who steps closer in search of comfort, clutching at him, her arms circled around his back. There's such hesitancy in the way he touches her — he's not allowed to be holding her like this, is he? — but then comes the moment when he finally gives in and wraps his arms over her shoulders, pulling her into his (dirty, but warm) embrace while she cries.
558 notes
·
View notes