#sands brain thinks

[yuudamari]

✌️✨

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about how deeply lucanis' life has been defined by a lack of control of that life -- as he himself points out, even before the ossuary went and carved the headline out again with big bloody letters. of course he reacts badly to losing what little control he did manage to construct for himself even within those circumstances.

(namely: experience has taught him that things (caterina, loss, pain, love, all horribly and indelibly intermingled) will happen to him whether he wants them to or not and there's nothing he can do about that... but he gets to decide what's let in or out of his soul as it happens, even if he has to close it all down and deaden and numb himself out in the process. (even if that means he drifts further and further away from illario, who's been desperately reaching out and trying to keep hold of him until he finally gives up completely and tries to cut the bond all at once when lucanis doesn't seem to reach back anymore.) it's such rare well-observed freeze logic solidly constructed from the bottom up, I'm still so impressed with it.

the way illario seeks constant external means to cope with caterina's abuse and importance in his life -- he can't win her admiration or acceptance or warmth (or like. acknowledgement even, at times :') ), no matter what, so he goes out and finds those things in others and then disdains and dismisses it for how easily and falsely it's won from them. he plots, he conspires, he tries to beat her at her own game however clumsily, he tries. lucanis doesn't try things that way. he's not about 'how do I improve my situation' by nature, he's 'how can I stop this from getting worse'. he avoids, he internalizes, he hunkers down and makes himself nothing until the pain maybe ends. he's fundamentally not a plotter, he's a reacter. an expert assassin pantser, if you will, to illario's clear and stated exasperation fhsak. man I love them. illario says 'get us out of here!!! if you loved me as I love you you'd help me get us out of here before it kills us both', lucanis says 'there is no other place, there's nowhere to go, all we can do is endure. and if it kills us... well, that's just family. that's what love is (the way things are headed I'll die first anyway so it's fine I won't have to face losing you)', and they're equally baffled and hurt by each other's POV. but they're both right, and they're both wrong. there's no 'right' way to deal with caterina's treatment of them, or their situation. the house always wins, if you pardon the expression. house dellamorte still stands and that is what matters to caterina in the end more than anything.

it also fits so well b/c like... their core wounds are that illario is the least favourite and is constantly dismissed, so he has to prove to caterina again and again that he matters. not even that he's worth love or respect or warm regard, but that he's here at all and as such should be considered. he has to shout 'in case u forgot I EXIST!!' at the top of his lungs or else be rendered nothing within the family structure (and himself, because it's all about family, that's all that really matters. in some weird twisted way I think caterina openly declaring him before all the other crows to still be of house dellamorte -- and no one from house dellamorte kneels -- is kind of a victory for him, as much as it's also a furthering of a prison sentence and public humiliation. house dellamorte brainfuckery goes hard.). lucanis is the favourite, and it's the double-edged sword that he gets all the affection and attention but also all the control and impossible expectations. drowning under all of that constant stress and close evaluation, his brain whispers 'I don't exist' to try to escape, to hide and hold on to the deep parts of himself that are crucial to life but not part of the perfect grandson caterina demands of him as the price of her love.)

I think a lot about how what seems to disquiet lucanis the most post-ossuary (as it would anyone with that psychological makeup) is the dissolving of internal boundaries and control he's been relying on, which is part of what spite symbolizes. his anger and reactivity has seceded from the union to the point of personification as a little guy (a little guy he resents and fears for his unpredictability and invasions into regions of his psyche he wishes to stay frozen and barren, and yet cares about deeply, loves! and also constantly dismisses and frequently helplessly lets down unless he's helped to learn to do otherwise. does this remind you of another relationship in his life, perhaps. it makes me feel nuts to think about the illario/spite parallels thanks for asking), and now that little guy is out there running the show freely the moment he glances away or closes his eyes. literal nightmare scenario I feel for him so deeply. so much of his coping is predicated on being able to Not do or feel or want certain things, and that's out the window now, Spite has Opinions. Spite refuses to stay wisely in place even if that place is hell on the logic that if you move you could find yourself in a place that's even worse, somehow. Spite actually wants to experience the world, however fucked up and scarring the way he arrived here, not just endure it. Spite means he has to face that maybe illario wasn't wrong all those years, at the same time as having to admit and face what illario has done to him, and figure out what to do about any of it.

anyway. mary kirby ma'am that's some good fucking metaphor work. thank you, and sorry about all the shit that happened

[pridoo]

I've been reading Diplomatic Relations…it's insane

[premamelody]

drawn ref for a flowey wof cbc (mine i made six months ago)

[anidealistatbestburntoutatworst]

dj, play “daddy’s home” by usher…

[077891st]

upside down🌀 downside up

[aropride]

ohhh this is so fun i like watching this guy pick at old wounds and dig under rocks trying to Figure Out What Happened At Any Cost

[sour-crepes]

some fanart for @crystallized-cheese craftstale au!!!!

I looked through the official blog and couldn’t find MK anywhere so I sent an ask asking what craft supply they would be but was way too impatient to wait for a response so I just drew them watercolours as their art supply

[notthequiettype]

i've been trying for many years to get into meditation bc i have need-to-calm-the-fuck-down disease and sitting still and breathing thoughtfully while trying to dismiss thoughts i'm not having on purpose feels like the exact kind of torture that could Fix Me if only i could do it right

so this year i was like, i am going to meditate for five minutes a day every day bc trying to do it three times a week or whatever just meant that i was never doing it (it's easier to build a daily habit than any other kind! i have lived and learned! just do it every day!) and so i use the balance app which is fine but they're always wanting me to scan my body and i don't want to! i am in pain often! in ways that are not relievable! i do not need to be MORE aware of it! so i got one real good one once where my friend ofosu made me imagine a garden and like, build it and it was the first time i ever finished meditating and was like, oh shit i feel better??? but short visualization activities with the right ratio of leave-me-alone to guidance are impossible to find??? so i just started doing an unguided meditation and building my own garden or whatever and for me, this is doing exactly what i want meditation to do, it steadies my pulse, it makes me slow down, it takes me away from all the worries and thoughts that are in my mind normally bc i am actively thinking about something else, and it's lovely

but like two weeks ago, instead of a garden i got a Blorbo Image and i was like... huh... meditative blorbo thoughts... i can work with this, so every day i spend five minutes thinking about my special little paper dolls and i come out of it with all the benefits previously experienced doing visualization and i am here to recommend it to you!!

sit down in a quiet space and set a timer for five minutes, close your eyes, take a deep breath and Imagine Your Guys!! put them on a beach, put them in an airport lounge, put them in your favorite restaurant and invent a reason for them to be there, put them in the backyard of your dream home and throw a party

the secret i think is the timing and also that you need to be building an IMAGE, when i get distracted and like, think too much dialogue i find that i do not feel as ~clear afterward, it's fine that they talk (and ymmv in all of this ofc) but i have to break it up with more scenery and detail than i would when i am writing which is good for my brain AND my writing which has been fun

ANYWAY, tips from someone with an overactive brain to you, it is very important when times are as hard as they are for many of us atm to let yourself breathe and actively think about anything else so i hope you do that in whatever way works for you

[lesbians4armand]

much to be said i think about how in iwtv the tragedy often boils down to either “this character died too soon” or”this character should have died a long time ago but didn’t”

literally “let us die young or let us live forever” but both are tragedy

[gunsatthaphan]

#already gone.

[kalied0skull]

Ik you said I'm on my own freakbleveel

But do we match at all fiance?

well as almosthusbands i can without a doubt confirm that we most absolutelys match freaks 🙂‍↕️

ur freak just be too swagger for me, sometimes i just have to stare and go "waaaoow" in impresse..e.. there's not a word for that, but I'm impressed 💀 /pos

[fennysstuff]

how do you think Brain and babynort would get along? Would he be a little weirded out or compete with player to be the best Weird "Uncle", a mix of both? Would he have beef with a 4 year old over something silly like putting sand in his hat?

I think they’d get along pretty well! Brain seems like he’d be good with kids eventually and I could see him babysitting for Player. I think Xehanort would be excited to meet someone from another world so he'd tell Brain all about his island!

[skeletalheartattack]

have you posted about gelato before :o ?

honestly, every mention ive made of Gelato in the past month or so has just been through the tags of some posts ive reblogged on here, it's only been until now that ive gotten around to showing him off!

this is Gelato, a Flamingo/Secretarybird mix that my friend @meetthehelper put together!

for a while, i've been wanting to figure out a bird fursona for myself, and i wanted one that had a similar silhouette to that of Scratch (i.e. Scratch & Grounder), and the bird that seemed to make the most sense to me was a flamingo. it was Helper's idea to mix him with another bird species, and i really like what she ended up with :)!

[sunflowcrsinspace]

in a rut on my original stuff so time to resort to my security blanket of writing increasingly unbelievable hurt/comfort fics of those idiots to remind myself that i actually can glue words together into actual effing sentences

[archiebaldo1414]

Why am I finding sooo many parallels between TGWDLM and Cabaret like I feel like a conspiracy theorist