#it's always about love in the end

[mindfogs]

a brief comparison of compleately different medias that rewired my brain. yes i'm aware the target audience of this post is me only.

It was supposed to be a joke but I can’t do anything casually so a more vaguely detailed analysis under the cut.

spoilers for all three obviously but vague spoilers about themes and not plot points. i could have gone more in the specifics but it's late and i don't want to fall in this rabbit hole right now i need sleep.

If you strip these stories of all the cool visuals and funny jokes, if you take away their narratives with the world about to end, you're left with pure, naked, vulnerable love that is such a core essence of any of these characters. Love is what can destroy or save the world. Love is what drives the heroes forward. Love is what keeps them from dying.

I think all three stories are about being loved and accepted for who you are. Even if you've changed and you don't like yourself, even if you've stayed the same and you don't like yourself.

They're about tearing yourself apart, throw up, slashing yourself open in front of the one you love. Let them see everything, the bad and the gross and asking "do you still love me?".

They're about enduring, sacrificing yourself, everything, sacrificing the world, God, the entire universe for the one you love.

They're about trusting to choose each other over and over again, everytime, in every universe, even if the next time you see me I may not be what you remembered. Even if you don't recognize me.

They're about eating, gnawing, cannibalizing each other over and over and over in a mutual exchange of obsession.

They're about carving your own peace when you don't even know what peace it's supposed to be like

They're about grief and loss and learning to be whole again.

They're about submitting oneself to the horrifying oredeal of being known in order to allowing the reward of being loved.

It's about "it's rotten work" and answering everytime without esitation "not to me, not if it's you"

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[haunted-xander]

Well, I guess you didn't have much of a choice either

[shorthaltsjester]

watching the sdcc panel and i am just very :) about how sweet their answers to “what are some of the micro moments from the game that have stuck with you the most over the years?” are. taliesin saying what the fuck is up with that which was the first like The Party Gets To Know Each Other moments of c3. travis saying asking his wife if he could kiss her in campaign. marisha going way back to the cannonball competition in campaign one. ashley choosing the beauyasha date but also just the silly goat noise matt made. liam adding onto that to compliment matt roleplaying grass so well and then saying his favourite moment was writing a story for laura and reading it to her as caleb for jester. and then matt saying that was his answer, and that his favourite moments of the game are when they find ways to give gifts to each other whether tangible or not. and sam saying his favourite moments have less to do with the story and is more so when he can just. see his friends across the table from him. when marisha perches and when laura and ashley are (badly) drawing dicks and liam saying he loves when sam sneezes and ashley tells him to stop it and just. yeah. they Are an extremely popular online powerhouse, but i’m so happy that they’re also friends building a world together out of gifts to and love for one another.

like i Am so enamoured with the characters and the world of exandria but the moments when you can feel the love that those people have for each other reach out from behind the stained glass of their performances (to steal a metaphor from brennan lee mulligan) are so extremely special and i am endlessly grateful that they decided to share their silly little home game with the world.

[gummi-ships]

[ruporas]

on the run!! (ID in alt)

[goodtimeswithgrian]

local dungeon master overwhelmed by the love people have for his murder dungeon, already making notes for another murder dungeon

[chiricat]

acheswan 🔥

[negativespace06]

eh, he’s a treasure hunter, he’ll find them eventually.

[atalana]

so the good place is widely lauded on this site for its takes on morality and capitalism, which i totally agree with

but i think it should get more recognition for the line "all humans are aware of death. so we're all a little bit sad all the time. that's just the deal. we don't get offered any better ones. and if you try and ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway. i've been there, and everybody's been there. so don't fight it. in the words of a very wise bed bath and beyond employee i once knew - go ahead and cry all you want. but you're gonna have to pay for that toilet plunger."

[nelkcats]

Paranormal Department

Something strange was happening in the world, something that even the League would not have prevented. It seemed that the United States government had been fighting things they didn't stand a chance with, and this almost ended in disaster if it wasn't for the kindness of what they were dealing with. The details were highly classified and encrypted so Batman didn't know the details and it was frustrating him.

All that trouble resulted in Justice League Dark working steadily with the "Paranormal Department", there wasn't much information on their members and they worked in the shadows (Bruce wasn't amused, he needed contingency plans) but Zatara claimed they were excellent allies, despite their strange use of modern technology.

Bruce didn't know what they were about, or what agreement the president had made, but he didn't trust this "new department". They could betray them at any second. That's why when Constantine informed him that they would take over the "Lazarus pits" he flatly refused. Apparently his refusal didn't matter at the end since the "Department" got jurisdiction over the case.

Team Phantom, which was now headquartered in downtown Amity Park (and had many new members like Paulina and Dash) was having fun pissing off the Bat. While Danny had made an agreement with the government to deal with threats from the Realms, one of the clauses was not to tell the heroes they existed (After years of living with the Fenton's Danny was not amused that anyone knew ways to eliminate him, Clockwork was backup enough). Sam thought it was childish but didn't stop him.

Sam handled all the legal stuff, but it seemed like they had jurisdiction over all the cases that interested them (more than JL, since they were an elite team in that field), and no one could reveal their identities, which relieved Danny greatly.

Their main job was to send the ghosts home and close the rifts, plus deal with demons, or creatures that came out of said rifts. Easy enough for them, but probably extremely risky if you were inexperienced. Honestly, since they dealt with the GIW themselves, Danny didn't trust the heroes, however JLD was fine.

[pokimoko]

haunting the narrative -> haunted by the narrative -> haunting the narrative -> haunted by

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[wigglebox]

Personal space? [x]

[estrellami-1]

First Cuts

Part 1 | Part 2

“Hey,” Steve says breathlessly. “Y’know that thing that we are not mentioning, ever, on pain of death?”

Eddie blinks. “Y’know you’re still mentioning it even if you don’t call it what it is, right?”

“Eddie,” Steve says seriously, which causes Eddie to focus. “I need your help. I’m kinda freaking out, here.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, running through things in his mind. “Want me to come over? Or wanna come over here? Or just over the phone?”

“I’m stressed out enough I can’t make any decisions right now,” Steve says.

“Okay,” Eddie says, “then I’m coming over. Unlock the door for me, ‘kay? I’ll be there in ten.”

“M’kay. Thank you.” With a click he’s gone, and Eddie hangs his phone back up too, looking around for his keys.

He snatches them off the counter, jams his feet into his shoes, and takes off.

He realizes halfway there that he’s still in his pajamas.

He walks in when he arrives to find Steve sitting at the table, staring at an envelope like he’s trying to disintegrate it with just his vision. Eddie thinks he can almost see the paper smoking. “Hey,” he says softly. “What’s going on?”

Steve doesn’t meet his eyes, just keeps his gaze locked on the envelope. “I did something impulsive. And Robin doesn’t know. And either nothing changes, or everything does.” He lifts his face to Eddie’s. His bottom lip is bitten raw.

“Okay,” Eddie says. “Well, first things first is to figure out which of those options it is, right? I’m assuming the letter will determine which it is.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, reaching for it, only to push it towards Eddie. “I, uh. I applied to a specific school. And I know the kids are going to tease me about it-”

“Hey,” Eddie interrupts, brows furrowed. “You’re plenty smart, Stevie, don’t listen to the little shitheads, alright? Whatever the answer is, whatever you decide to do, I’m with you. One hundred percent. I’ll even punish the little twerps during our next session if they say anything, okay?”

“Can you open it?” Steve begs, whispering, eyes wide.

Eddie’s hopeless to refuse. “Of course I can,” he replies, just as softly.

He looks at the envelope. Good, thick paper. Sticker return address. He opens it and pulls out a letter.

Dear Steven J. Harrington,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen for 1988’s starting class! In Tricoci University, we pride ourselves on…

Eddie looks up at Steve with a grin. “You’re in.”

“Holy shit,” Steve breathes. “Holy shit!” He begins to grin. “I made it!”

“You made it!” Eddie celebrates, then keeps reading.

We hope you look forward to your time here at Tricoci University of Beauty Culture Bloomington.

Eddie looks up at Steve again. “A beauty school?”

Steve flushes scarlet. “Cosmetology. I wanna do hair.”

Eddie sits for a minute, thinking, before he grins at Steve and stands to sweep him into a spinning hug. “That sounds perfect for you!”

Steve giggles giddily, then grins happily at Eddie when he’s set down. “You really think so?”

“Think so? I know so! Stevie! This is gonna be so good for you!” He drags Steve over to the couch so they can both sit. “I mean, think about it. And I don’t just mean the obvious high school shit. Even the little things. You’re good with people, dude. They just like you just ‘cause you’re you. And who knows more about you than anyone else?”

Steve frowns. “Robin?”

Eddie chuckles. “My mistake. General you, not specific. Your hairdresser! You tell them everything. And you live for that shit, Stevie, I see how your eyes light up when the kids share gossip.” He grabs Steve’s hands and smiles warmly at him. “I promise, everyone’s gonna be so happy for you.”

“Thanks, Eds,” Steve murmurs, cheeks still pink.

“And hey,” Eddie says, grinning again. “You’ve got at least one lifelong customer.” He points to himself, grinning when Steve laughs.

“Thanks,” he says, then takes a deep breath, suddenly serious again. Eddie schools his face accordingly. “Will you help me tell Robin?”

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