#the way he looked at her... im sad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bestworstcase · 6 months

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what do you make of ozma’s motivations given that he initially rejects the god of light’s offer and only takes it once he knows it’s the only way he can see salem again, but then once they’re actually reunited he places the mission from the god of light above being with her? did he aways have that much faith? is it just that salem’s faith was broken so completely that she’s the only one who can see the gods clearly?

ozma's like. fundamental dilemma in TLF is whether or not to trust salem. as much as he dearly wants to be with her… "salem lives, but the woman you hold dear in your memories is gone. heed this warning: where you seek comfort, you will only find pain."

think about what must have run through his mind when he heard the god of light say that to him. he's just learnt that the god of darkness did something so bad that all of humankind was wiped out, and that the brothers have chosen to depart. but light also tells him that humanity will return, diminished, and that he wants to send ozma back into the world to prepare for a day of judgment. "if your kind is unchanged, if you demand our blessings while still fighting among yourselves, then man will be found irredeemable and your world will be wiped from existence."

light doesn't say it in so many words, but the implication that Humans Fucked Up is crystal clear. if your kind is unchanged, you will be found irredeemable and destroyed.

then he tells ozma that salem is still alive, but unrecognizable as the woman he once loved, and that she will hurt him if he seeks her out.

what light's implying here in essence is that salem provoked the god of darkness, causing the "tragedy" that led to the brothers' departure. (and that is what happened, as far as he's concerned.) ozma picks up on that implication, but what he hears is "the woman you love is damned, but there is still a chance for redemption."

after all, why else would the god of light ask him to do this? at this point ozma has no reason to doubt what light tells him, and light presents himself as a benevolent authority hopeful that humanity can redeem itself.

"i'll do it!"—he wants to save her.

notably, ozma does in fact heed the warning for quite some time; he travels for years, hearing whispers of a dangerous witch wherever he goes, before deciding he "need[s] to see what she had become."

but then he sees her again, and… she's herself. physically she has changed, sure, but he recognizes her; she recognizes him. she still loves him. she's overjoyed to see him again—she even still remembers what he said to her on the day they met, and echoes it back to him with tears in her eyes.

so like ???

is it over? has whatever curse or madness befell her broken now they’re together again? or… was the god of light wrong…?

she tells him her story, but there are pieces missing. the gods are to blame for ending the world, she says. it is impossible to miss how much she hates the brothers.

what did she do?

"though time passed and all seemed well, ozma's conversation with the god of light still lingered in his mind. he had found happiness, but humanity seemed more divided than ever before." <- he begins to worry that maybe it's not that salem will hurt him; maybe by choosing to stay with her now, he's jeopardizing the chance for redemption.

but he isn't willing to leave her because, of course, he wants to save her. so he cautiously tests the waters by commenting on how divided humanity is.

and her answer seems really promising! "are you surprised? this world is quite literally godless. these humans have no one to guide them. perhaps that's all they need."

that… actually sounds very much like she thinks the brothers' absence is the source of the strife and suffering, just as the god of light told him it would be. and it catches ozma off guard, because he didn't expect that from her. so he asks what she means.

"we could become the gods of this world; our powers surpass all others. our souls transcend death. we could mold these lands into whatever we want…" <- okay, that's more in line with what he might have expected based on her opinion of the brothers, and it's not great. but then she warms to the idea:

"what you want! create the paradise—" watch how ozma's face changes as she says this. his expression softens. he smiles. he's hearing that—blasphemy notwithstanding—salem really wants to support him in this. that's the part she's enthused about. what you want.

and then she finishes the thought: "–the old gods could not."

it isn't just that she hates the brothers; salem envisions a paradise without them. she doesn’t think this world is damned at all; as far as she's concerned, the brothers' absence is a cause for hope.

(and what does that mean for her?)

this:

is not a "you convinced me" face. this is an "i can fix her" face.

the problem of course is that he can't. salem hates the brothers because when she prayed to them they forced her to watch her lover burn to death in her arms twice over and then sentenced her to eternal suffering to punish her for lashing out. she hates them because she is the sole survivor of their genocide. no matter how long ozma goes along with her, no matter how long he lets her believe that this is what he wants, he's never going to be able to coax her out of that hatred.

which doesn't stop him from trying.

he's able to keep the deception going as long as they're building a following, and establishing a prosperous new kingdom, and having children together. but he told her he wanted to unite the world—end all division and bring everyone together under one creed. salem is, er, right to point out that the only way to do that is by conquest.

and that's the point where ozma has to admit to his ulterior motives, because salem was not kidding when she said she would do this for him. so he pumps the brakes and tells her everything, still hoping to somehow do the impossible and save her.

"don't you see? none of that matters anymore! why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be?"

[obligatory note: i think she means "replace the gods" here, as a reiteration of her extremely longstanding ambition of doing exactly that; the goal of her rebellion was for humans to "destroy their old masters" and "claim the powers of their creators for themselves," she tells ozma "we could be the gods of this world" and that they can "create the paradise the old gods could not" like this has always been what she's about.]

cue ozma:

he really does think about it.

i think this is the point where he faced the reality that he had to choose between joining salem in rebellion or sacrificing her for the world's sake. and… he wants to take her hand, he wants to stay with her, but the consequence of hiding this from her for so long is he's never actually thought about her utter rejection of the gods in a substantive way; he's warped their whole relationship through the lens of that hatred being a problem he needs to solve. it's not that he had faith in the god of light so much as it is he never had faith in her.

if it were ten or fifteen years ago and she was asking him to forget the mandate and stay with her in their cottage, it would still be frightening to take the hand she offered him, to trust that she is right to blame the gods and say these humans do not need redemption.

but now? when he's sunk so much time inching down the road to war in the name of saving her from those ideas, and he has to not only trust that she's right about the brothers but also that she'll be willing to turn away from the tyrannical path they've walked down together? he's done nothing but play along all these years in the ever-fainter hope that one day she'll be more amenable to the mandate; he has no idea how she'll react if he pushes back, and he thinks of her as damned.

so… he can't, in the end. when she confronts him with the choice he falls down the path of least resistance to conclude that he can't save her and that he'll bring the world to ruin if he keeps trying. so he leaves.

and then he's locked into that choice because they murdered each other and killed their kids and destroyed their kingdom about it and even if he could admit the desire to himself how can he possibly make amends for doing that to her? any apology or gesture of reconciliation he made, she has no reason to trust and every reason to see another attempt to deceive her again. the mandate is really all he has left, so he clings to it even as he gradually distorts it more and more into this existential struggle between himself and her.

#and then salem's desperately trying to make him STOP.#look how you've diminished. how you've lessened yourself. and for what? these children? this ruined world? why do you keep coming back!?#it's for her. still.#holding onto her the only way he can think of #but salem doesn't believe that he ever loved her at all—i think that is pretty evident from how she acts around him now—so she's at a loss #anyway im sad.

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rainyraisin · 1 year

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@cupcakeslushie 's Sep!au is super cool!!! And I literally adore Three with all my soul he is so freaking amazing!!! So what did I do?

Comic.

(Words underneath each panel, I gen forgot my handwriting is awful, apologies!)

"Donnie, you have to stop hanging out with the purple dragons."

"Why? We're frien-"

"No, you're not! They're using you!"

"What would they have to use?! Come on, April!"

"You're searching for something that isn't even there just to get mad at me!"

"No, *you* come on!"

"I care about you, Dee. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"No, you only pretend to care cause one tries to!"

"Look, I get it. You hate me, and... I hate you too. We don't have to be anything more than that."

---

I had to cut it down a bit to make sure it was only ten panels but I hope you still like it!!! I tried to keep it as true to the characters as possible. I really wanted to include Three's hallucinations in there somewhere but with the limited amount of panels I didn't get the chance. I hope to draw something related to that in the future!

I dont remember if this has been stated or if this was a hc but I honestly feel like even though Three is grateful to be apart of a family, given his faint memories of Draxum actually giving a crap about him prior to being affected with emperium, he'd be afraid that they don't actually care and they're going to rip it all away from him. Also I remember it being said that Three kinda tests the boundaries of their patience to see if that's going to happen? So that plus the purple dragons ask kinda culminated in this! Along with the idea that part of the reason Donnie doesn't get along with April is because since she argues back, she must hate him, so if she hates him then why shouldn't he hate her back? He doesn't see that she's trying to have a (platonic) relationship with him. Also I feel like he totally distances himself from her so what happened to Tim doesn't happen to her cause he knows his brothers care about her and they're already doing enough for him, he can't be even more of a burden to them. (This is all hcs ofc!!)

Also completely unrelated but hc that Three had paint all over his hand and touched the back of his mask but didn't realise and had that stain on there for months until somebody pointed it out to him-

#i am the no.1 Three fan fr/lh #i love this boy sm he is so fun to draw he is so fun to read about he is so fun to look at i just A H!!#Three/pos #three my platonic love #just gonna casually hyperfixate on three if thats okay with yall #also april #shes really hard to draw but i keep drawing her for some reason lmao #this post is basically just hcs and me being way too hyped for the purple dragons to appear #whenever i see three angst im just like YOOOOOO THIS MAKES ME SO SAD BUT I LOVE IT!!!!#three angst/pos #rottmnt #rottmnt sep au #rottmnt separated au #seperated au #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt april o'neil #i both love and hate donnie and april having a strained relationship #cause angst!!! but also noooooo their dynamic is so cute they are *the* besties/siblings :(#i cant wait to see their first meeting #three's view on humans after the stuff with Tim interests me sm!!!#this has exactly 250 layers and i love that sm #i spent 9 and a half hours on this and gen cant think of a better way i could've spent that time #me when the sep!au fr!!!!!

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hadesoftheladies · 14 days

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hate going for christian weddings sometimes because i always see the prettiest women with the ugliest men, the sermon is always some shit about wives being slaves (but not like bad slavery, mutual slavery except the husband is a benevolent master which makes it okay) and making babies for their husband, the music is always lame, the mc is always weird and obnoxious, and older women keep fucking asking me when it's gonna be my turn and never take no for an answer.

#mine #personal #brief storytime in the tags #one of my family friends got married and i was happy she was happy #her parents are like an aunt and uncle to me #i was happy to share that moment with them #we cried and laughed together #and my friends #their other daughters were on the line and looked gorgeous #it was just beautiful watching us all grow up in a way and move on to “the next” together #BUT #im a pastor's kid #and my dad loves weddings #he drinks them in whenever he can now especially because they make him happy and he's had to attend a lot more funerals this year #he's been burdened a lot by how many people he's had to bury and how many hospital visits he's had to do #so i was happy to see him happy too #it just all felt so bittersweet to me #because i know how badly my parents want this for me and for themselves #there was a daddy-daughters dance at some point and i could feel my dad beaming beside me watching that #and i was a little sad about it because i was like im never gonna give you that #this could be the best thing i could ever give you and i will never give you this #i can never kneel at an altar in front of a pastor and swallow that sermon #i would never marry a man in my generation #if i married a woman you and almost the entire tent filled with people that watched me grow up would not attend #my happiest day would be another funeral for you #it was worse because im kind of a small celebrity in this community because of my parents and their siblings who are politicians #so people i barely knew kept coming up and asking me when it would be my turn and how they so looked forward to the day #and i was like i love that we're a community here and i missed the pestering of aunts since i left church #but at the same time i was glad to remember why i left #there is no freedom to be myself at all with them because all they do is project their beliefs and ideas on me because that's what children

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corfisers · 5 months

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i really need to finish this one day

#one of my fave ideas but i keep getting stuck or starting over. third time's the charm hopefully #anyways. posting it as an excuse to rant because i'm losing my mind over this rn for no reason #incoherent but i just need to Talk or my brain won't shut up #you ever think about how fucked up it is that aoi feels guilty over what happened. i do. i think about her a lot #he can't even look at me. we aren't even blood related but he still had to go to jail because of me. i still love him #in reality none of it is her fault. it shouldn't be about doumeki in the first place. baby girl you were 15 when it happened.#you can say that yashiro is cruel in his dismissiveness (on the surface) of doumeki's trauma but you can see where he's coming from #you got a glimpse of what your sister was going through? of what i went through? and now you're sooo guilty over it? and who does it help?#doumeki's so focused on his own feelings that he ignored aoi when they were living together. “saves” her by pure chance #proceeds to focus on his guilt and ignore her again. if yashiro didn't get involved she'd be sitting in the rain for god knows how long #yet she still loves and to some degree idolizes him #yashiro and aoi both saying that doumeki isn't the type of person to be a yakuza too. doumeki's good doumeki's better than that #and then ch 24 happens. where yashiro says that he's going to throw up and doumeki's response is “i probably won't stop even if you do”#“guess i am like my father after all” and yashiro still goes “you're not. you're pure and im the problem”#(touches doumeki's face. rare gentle gesture. he's gentle afterwards too before leaving. man.)#he's not cruel enough to repeat what he said in the earlier conversation and he doesn't actually believe it anyway #but i wish yashiro was cruel there. it shouldn't have been about doumeki and his feelings. again.#something about yashiro throwing a knife at another person and it flying back at him huh #for all the talk about how doumeki supposedly romanticizes yashiro it really is the other way around. always has been #which is a whole other conversation but yeah. everything about aoi and yashiro in relation to doumeki makes me so fucking sad #but this is also what i mean when i say that aoi doesn't haunt the narrative per se but still has this weird presence?#she's in the parallels. she's in the brief but important mentions. she's in the “your sister was lucky she had you”.#wips tag

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dykeinthedark · 8 days

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venting in tags about gender n shit (long as hell) (u can comment and talk 2 me as always :3)

#okay so i got a really masc haircut about a month ago and i know it's just a haircut but holy shit has it changed EVERYTHING for me #like.... i've always leaned masc except 1) before i came out 2) when i was actively in love with someone who i knew liked femmes #and they always described me as a fem. because that's what i showed her. because i wanted to be with her.#but lowkey whenever i'm in a not-impressing-anyone raw-dogging-life-no-crush era i always resort to a very masc style #like masc being my default and i'd only lean fem to impress people whether it's for love or peer pressure in a specific setting #like ''dressing up'' has always been a form of drag to me. like something i HAD to do to fit in or impress my parents (scott favor core)#but ever since this haircut i've realized... i could just BE masc innately like i really don't have to be womanly if i don't want to #which i usually don't. again i have only ever dressed fem for other people. but it's not even being masc that attracts me on its own #it's like. being masc in a distinctly lesbian way. as in whenever i look in the mirror i don't wanna be like a Guy i wanna be a dyke.#like lesbian as a gender identity too sort of thing honestly. okay i've been waffling but basically i sort of want to call myself butch #but i don't know if i like... can?? if i'm allowed to???#everyone always says it's MORE than just wearing boy clothes and not wearing makeup and having short hair (which i already do all those)#i mean i've always id'd as genderqueer because it literally just means gender weird and i experience gender in a queer way #what's probably the most telling is that my friends (all queer) CALL me a butch lesbian #like every time they do i feel really internally validated. it's not just my clothes but my personality too ig is what people tell me #i have a higher pitched voice relatively speaking but apparently the way i talk is quote ''very clockably into women''#which?? gender euphoria asf. my best friend specifically he (gay trans guy) always uses butch to describe me very intuitively #people have also noticed that i ''transitioned'' in all aspects except hormonally. like ppl have commented and noticed my masculinzation #but at the same time i always feel rly haunted by my ex relationships because one wanted me to be more masc #(she's the one who came out as straight and would treat me like a man) which i didn't like and i didn't like playing up being fem either #bc now it feels like she (butch) won't believe me if i called myself butch too bc she remembers me being femme #idk i feel like there's her voice in my head all the time that sees everything i do through her eyes (i'm lowkey still in love)#i feel like even though this comes so naturally to me i must be putting on a performance #even though i've actually read stone butch blues and done research into the history and i truly love and id with the culture like i rly do #that im still just a sad imitation of a butch lesbian and can never really be a part of it because i used to enjoy dressing up sometimes #like it's so stupid but can i still be butch if i wore a dress to prom and i think i looked good in it??#even though i was envious of my friends who wore suits?? that i used to try goth makeup?? that i liked long dresses??#that i enjoyed stacked necklaces and rings on every finger???#and tbh ALL OF THAT CAME FROM A CONCIOUS EFFORT TO FEMINIZE MYSELF IN JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGHSCHOOL WHEN I WAS 16 #because omfg it was 2 months before junior prom and i was worried that i was too masc and wanted to get comfortable with being fem

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sensazioneultra · 5 months

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i love my mum and i love my cat but he's clearly not gonna get better which we knew would be the case it was only a matter of (very little) time but my mum keeps trying to buy him new different food to get him to eat and again i love them but this is breaking my heart

#he looks so so sick..#i don't know if there's any point in trying to get him to feel better #when we know it's terminal and they gave him 35 days over 35 days ago #obviously the number is not exact i know that but it is a fact that he's so so sick #and it breaks my heart to see him like this bc if he's pain i really don't think it's good to #keep him around for our own selfish reasons #i wish so badly we could enjoy his presence for longer #but... it's. idk. it might be cruel. if he's in pain it's cruel to not end his suffering #i understand my mum i really do i was the same with our previous cat when she got old and was clearly not gonna last #and in the end i regretted waiting til it happened naturally bc i know i just prolonged her suffering #which was entirely for selfish reasons bc there was no way she'd get better #and it's the same for ripy now. it hurts so so bad i'm crying my eyes out rn #but i can only imagine how much HE is hurting. and what is the point when we know there's no chance #for him to get better #he might die later but having been in more pain for longer. why should we do that to him when he could die as peacefully as #possible with us by his side and so he can rest wherever good sweet cats go after death #idk. i feel so sad. and im here alone crying while church bells ring. and while everything feels meaningless

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8rujaa · 7 months

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to anyone dealing with ptsd, has there been anything that has helped relieve some of the symptoms?

#im emotionally stuck due to the constant reliving of what happened #i get these weirdly intense flashbacks where i can remember the how the fabric of the couch looked like up close #and how they felt. and how everything looked. the way the colored lights hit the room a certain way #i think i did myself a disservice by thinking i was soooo in love that i didn’t want to forget any details lmao #now i can remember everything like a photograph and sometimes i find myself back in my old apartment and the fear floods my chest #and i can’t breathe and my stomach starts turning it’s terrible. i really felt like i was in hell #i stopped smoking ouid 3 weeks ago bc whenever these flashbacks would happen the high would make them HD and it would send me into a loop #but now i think weed was the thing keeping me above water… it’s been a rough 3 weeks. but before i start smoking again #i wanted to ask if anyone found something else that made it a little easier #it’s been months since our break up and i really want to move on. i’ve tried to meet other people but i’m terrified of men #and i find myself unable to connect with anyone…#i’ve been physically better which i am so grateful for because being unhealthy was my biggest reason i was so depressed #i’ve been doing therapy but i talk about the same thing with her every week. i’m tired of it #i think i’m still in disbelief that they did that to me. i never thought they’d be capable of hurting someone so badly.#i can’t get over the fact that he r***** me for months while i was disabled and pretended not to know what he was doing was bad #i realized he knew when he tried to make it look like i was crazy. that made me really sad. i think i was hoping he was clueless so #i could still believe he was a good person… or at least the man i fell in love with. i was willing to forgive him once he apologized…#when he tried to make it seem like i was going insane the blindfold came off and i saw him for who he really was #like no wonder i was so scared of u dude… no wonder i kept having panic attacks anytime we were together and i couldn’t sleep next to u #i’ve been afraid to admit that shit broke me as a person. i don’t think i’ll ever be the same. i can’t function.#plus knowing i stayed for her bc i was worried for her and didn’t want her to experience the same thing without someone there bc i realized #how good he was at gaslighting and lying. only to find out she was waiting for an excuse to get rid of me… she wanted me gone…#i went thru all that for nothing…#and i still don’t understand why each time i tried to leave for my own good- to get medical help and support they begged me to stay!!! why #brain vomit

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paperclipfanatic · 1 year

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Unconditional

(Rant/Analysis in tags)

#midnight doodle? midnight doodle #i can't sleep but this one's very pretty. wanna share #crazy how fast ran gets attached to sara. looks like a simple crush at first but its clear that his feelings for her aren't purely romantic #he notices how much effort she puts into carrying the group and the toll it takes on her #and for a reason I cant quite decipher he desperately wants to take that weight off her shoulders #saviour complex? maybe a way to make up for his past life. he did say he regrets not making friends and living to the fullest #the guy tries to better himself but fails to go about it the right way (socially awkward tingz i guess lol)#still #sad that sara takes advantage of that in the logic route #go girlboss but damn dont do the boy like that #rip ranmaru you wouldve loved mcr and panic! at the disco #yttd #ranmaru kageyama #sara chidouin #paperclip draws #btw correct me if I got sumn wrong cuz i might jus be spouting bull rn #its like 1 AM so im smooth-brained #cw knife

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mossytrashcan · 7 months

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Unrelated but I was thinking about Koschei for reasons (I was reading about proto indo European pantheon and it turns out 'Fire God formed in water' is a myth researchers think they mightve had and it remonded me of Vassa) and am I allowed to say how funny it is that like, Koschei is so directly named after a myth. Like Bone Carvers his own thing and Stryga is technically got like The Three Fates/The Witch in Hansel and Gretel vibes, and then there's Koschei who is basically just the guy from the myth including the title. ALSO protoindoeuropean pantheon speculation is dope BTW you should research it its fascinating

Bold of you to assume I haven’t already researched it. I fucking loved anything protoindoeuropean as a kid, the folklore FUCKS

Anyways, personally I would’ve loved it if SJM combined Lanthys and Koschei together into one character. I think (no shade to ACOSF and it’s enthusiasts) instead of the rehab/whatever plot we got, we could’ve gotten to see a little brief corruption arc w Nesta and Koschei

Cuz like imagine a story where this deathless death god found out about cauldrongate and was like psychologically manipulating Nesta into gathering all of the troves (his soul bits) so that she could 1) become his queen/weapon, 2) make him all powerful, and 3) become a literal shield for him because the gang would have to kill her to kill him

(gonna unprofessionally ramble in the tags because I need to brainstorm about this lol)

#this probably sucks ass but I genuinely love the Koschei the Deathless myths sauuur much #like how fucking dare you throw him in there casually #anyways I need to work out the wrinkles in this hmmm #I know I’m bomb at pitching stories but there’s stuff missing and I need to work it out yknow #but yeah drop the mortal queen who’s evil thing cuz honestly who gives a fuck #also no shade to the rehab thing it was v relatable but also clearly a background for super sex #it could’ve been set up in the christmas special too #like oooo look something’s weird with nesta what could it be #and then also instead of there being too much free time for cassian to come off as an asshole #maybe he’s like trying to get thru to her or something #maybe it could be a literal retelling of the koschei story where the guy fucks his ass up for his lover #yeah that’s good see I just need to brainstorm in live time #sjm critical #THIS ISNT ABOUT HER I SWEAR IM JUST PITCHING #also also you could tie in nesta’s grooming for grooming #like in a sick way this is what she was raised to do #her wacky grandmother who def existed to make her story more sad laid the foundation for this #and now she has to like break that cycle and reaffirm that NO she doesn’t need to exist for old men #she deserves something better and epic #idk man I’m going crazy sorry

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