something something the emotional divide between scary and the boys. being excited by the prospect of dming for her friends but unintentionally making the game so miserable that eventually they end up playing without her.

something something the role of isolation in manipulation, and scary becoming so disconnected from the world and other people that the question she asks at the prospect of something horrible happening to them or their families is "what's the big deal?"

something something the consistent clashing of scary, a kid unwilling to love or accept love, and normal, a kid who gives love so freely and wants nothing more than to receive it.

something something willy using lark, a kid so consumed with anger he could no longer feel love, against henry, too trusting and willing to forgive, to get to the doodler.

something something scary. fighting to be understood but hurting the people around her. just like lark. just like the doodler. and pushed farther and farther away from her friends until she's perfectly positioned for willy to use her against normal, to get to the doodler.

The sight that greeted Victor Rookwood as he exited the Hog's Head that fateful evening would be forever ingrained in his memory.

The street was dark and eerily quiet, and the dapper wizard had just taken a few steps outside the seedy pub before he realized something was amiss, causing him to stop abruptly and survey his surroundings.

"Lumos."

Continued below...

At first, Victor was more disoriented than anything - unsure that he could trust what he was seeing with his own eyes. The dark wizard blinked a few times in confusion before, slowly, he began to make sense of the gruesome display before him.

Heaps of... dirty rags? Someone has made rather a mess, it seems. . .

No. That's blood.

Blood and worse.

Before him was a scene of utter carnage the likes of which he'd never seen. A slaughter. The lifeless bodies of several young witches were splayed out in the middle of Spire Alley, a spectacle so macabre that even the dark wizard, well-accustomed to death, felt his stomach lurch at the sight.

A ginger witch lay eviscerated. Another's golden hair fanned around her angelic face like a halo. A brunette was positioned face down in a pool of her own blood. A strange-looking witch with odd-coloured hair... Victor shuddered as he recalled that one. He remembered her as having been particularly annoying.

And yet more still.

Sisters in death. Some he recognized outright, a vague familiarity to the rest. Their faces - doubtless once beautiful, now befouled by their own blood. Twisted limbs at grotesque angles. Internal organs now decidedly external.

Gods..

And in the center a... survivor? Victor tentatively stepped forward, perhaps even to offer a helping hand, as the pale witch clad in black gazed up at him adoringly.

"Victor.. I did it for you. For us."

Rookwood watched, horrified comprehension dawning on his face as the witch released a bloodied dagger she'd been holding. He barely registered the sound of the steel clattering to the cobblestone over the pounding of his heart.

"I love you, Victor."

-------------------

Now a video.

| How Familiar… | (@thelone-copper) silly goobers

anyways here’s some silly shit

Miri’s Birthday was on the 8th so I wanted to draw something to celebrate her for Buddy Daddies Friday this week!

imagine if it turns out the friendship scheme was all for nothing

PHEW! Got some halloween costume stuff done!

First thing is Scary n Taylor arguing who gets Link for the costume contest, Normal is tryna diffuse it while Lincoln is confused bc he’s not entering like??

Second is all the costumes on halloween!

Extra Oakworthies for those who want it under the read more

I am not immune…

Hehe I want to shake them like marbles in a jar

Btw I haven’t stopped thinking about Link’s most recent teen fact. I know it was funny silly! Lincoln sneaks in to clean his dads’ bedroom! But also. it made me SO sad 😭💔 I’m almost always sad when we learn more about the Grant and Marco’s relationship bc wow yeah the Wilsons never change :( For all of Grant’s efforts to communicate better with his son, to do a better job at that than Darryl and Carol did, he doesn’t communicate with his husband! He outright lies to his family! And now we know that Marco also doesn’t really communicate that well lol

no yeah miri's mom was NOT the ""villain"" and she definitely was not presented as such either.

with the smile spell miri mentioned earlier, and just overall despite the situation she was forced into, misaki clearly did her best with miri even with her conflicting emotions.

the only obviously "bad" choice shes made so far was sending miri, a 4 y/o all alone into the city but 💀 to some degree the thought of sending her to be with her dad is also. yeah. like shes not in a place where she can take care of miri properly, and even if miri seemed to be some sort of... bargaining chip?? miris dad has the resources to help miri more than her mom could

and kazuki isnt the ""good guy"" either nor was the situation presented as so black and white. both parties said things that they've internalized due to their own separate situations, and while kazuki was mostly projecting due to his own losses and experiences, itd be good if he manages to learn about some other worldviews.

but yeah tldr: neither misaki nor kazuki were villains, and they werent PRESENTED as such either. they just said whatever and you the viewer have to interpret it.

i am aware a lot of series often demonize women who dont want their children or are in similar situations etc. but thats not what happened here luckily

starts one of those ‘i’ll send u a letter from ur comfort character’ etsys for dndads because some of yall goin through it /j

so long london but its about my father

thinking about how jason todd's memorial in the batcave describes him as a "good soldier" and not a good son, or a good kid, or anything else that would emphasize his youth and connection to bruce. like, bruce chose that wording to make himself more comfortable, right?

he set up jason's robin costume (and not even the one he was wearing when he died, since that was shredded and bruce discarded it to conceal jason's identity postmortem, so this was all a choice, bruce had this constructed) as a tribute, as a reminder of his failure that he'll see every time he acts as batman. but even when he's trying to stoke his guilt he still won't acknowledge jason's dependence on him, even if you only read their relationship as just a mentor and protege rather than a father and son (which is wrong, but I digress). he can and will use his failure to self-flagellate, to fuel his crusade as batman just like the loss of his parents did, but he can't admit that jason was on unequal footing to him. that's too much for him. which isn't to say that jason had no agency---just that there's going to be a huge power difference between a sidekick and the hero they're attached to, especially if they literally live with and are raised by that person, and it calls into question whether kid sidekicks should exist in the first place (the great "is being robin reckless child endangerment?" debate). rewriting jason's legacy to emphasize him as a "soldier" neutralizes that discomfort. jason was a soldier bruce happened to care for and train, not his son, not someone he had any special responsibility for. he has to have been. bruce wouldn't be able to handle it otherwise.

ANYWAY what I'm getting at is that bruce has a tendency to downplay and distort his relationship to his proteges to minimize his responsibility for them (which is especially clear with dick, who floated around in the status of "ward" for years, not legally claimed even though he was bruce's son for all intents and purposes), because he's allergic to vulnerability and the idea of being someone's role model in a meaningful way, not just a legend who saves someone's life once and leaves, but a person who has to maintain a close interpersonal relationship and be there for someone else emotionally, makes him uncomfortable. they're his "partners," his "soldiers." not his kids. even when they really, really are.

right up until the end, this anime is like they are buddy daddies, lmao

In episode 10 of Constantine, John says to Zed the Achilles tendon that nullifies magic is Chas' favorite trick. So he is into magic cancelling ropes... something to chew on. Happens around 5min into the episode.

sorry to have taken so long to answer this (though this is NOT the oldest chastantine related message i'm responding to tonight 😬) but also it's partly bc it's driving me insane that this wasn't a bigger deal when the episode first aired, or since then, bc obviously i went to look it up and:

(from a transcript site that doesn't uh identify the speakers, which is unhelpful, but that's john & zed).

i have to admit i haven't re-watched quid pro quo in literal years despite it i guess being one of the most explicitly (lol) chastantine-y episode, between the kiss (i still remember the showrunners being like 'ooooh just wait for episode 10, john's actually going to KISS a MAN' and then it was. chas and it was a cheek kiss which tbh i do still love but also the camera refused to actually let anyone perceive it fully, SO) and the arthurian curse that's forever binding chas to john (or at least till the 47 lives run out) and the hug and the pride flag hanging directly above john, zed, and chas as john looks smugly on at chas threatening someone w a shotgun.

but from what i recall there's a lot of talk in that episode about how well john knows chas (or how well john thinks he knows chas, which is actually what gets him in trouble/punched in the face, ultimately). so that exchange is a nice little hint of that early on in the episode, of john knowing that chas has a favorite (magic related) thing john does. and bc it's chas OF COURSE it's a magic-negating magic related thing (like, bondage potential aside, my first thought was -- was that the first magic-related thing john did for/around chas, to help protect him from whatever queenie was doing to him?) anyways i'm emotional about it, it's fine.

tho obviously the bondage implications ARE NOT LOST ON ME but i think i'd have to do a refresh by watching the episode itself to get a firm grasp on how that would -- potentially work.

Thinking about how Lark and Normal had such different reactions to what they saw on the throne and how ‘Larks’ entire monologue was about how it was all his fault, about how Lark blames himself for everything that has happened, and earlier in the series Sparrow refers to ‘what they did’ but Lark says it’s what he did

Thinking about how when Henry touches Lark on the throne he feels Love, Confusion, Betrayal, Sadness and Anger.

How Anthony says that he looks at Lark and sees sadness and self hatred in his eyes

How in Anthony’s monologue the Doodler specifically feels Lark’s self hatred and resentment. How it’s that that grows into the resentment for everything in the world.

It’s your fault and everything is bad- and it’s obviously not just the Doodler that feels that way

About how the Doodler looks at humanity as it’s dad, but also it resents humanity as much as it loves it and wants it’s validation

These flashhbacks are only a few years post season 1- sure he’s older but he is still a literal child being confronted by the weight of these emotions from an eldritch being that directly parallel so much of what he’s gone through and actively stem from the choices he made

Does he say they have to kill it because he knows what it’s like to feel this way? Because he knows what that rage and resentment feel like to him, a human being, and knows what it grew into for him, and can you imagine how much worse it is coming from the Doodler? They can’t risk not stopping it and the surest way to do that is to kill it?

Does he say it because killing the Doodler is the only way he’ll be able to forgive himself for releasing it? To make sure this can never happen again, by getting rid of it completely?

Or does he say it because he can’t imagine a way to help it? It’s just something he can’t comprehend, there’s no other way to end it, there is no happy ending.

And Normal now is the age that Lark was then, and he’s going through it too but in a completely different way! Normal is also dealing with a lot of incredibly complicated feelings, especially regarding his parental figures. He’s darker than he was at the start of the series, but all he wants is to be loved respected for who he is.

And maybe it makes a difference, but he has a support system that’s not just one person (Sparrow for Lark)! He has friends, and people to talk to and he still has so much hope for himself and compassion for the world, so of course that’s going to extend to the Doodler. This entire time the teens have been saying they need to find another way, that they can’t doom a whole planesworth of people just to save their home

So like. Why wouldn’t that extend to the doodler, now that they know it’s an option??

shoutout to that one masters of horror movie I watched on ye olden youtube at the tender age of 16. which was like. a retelling of frankenstein’s monster? maybe? kinda? about this nervous lookin little guy who wants to learn how to bring the dead back to life. 

the whole movie eventually culminates in some sexy married lady he meets getting GANGBANGED in a CEMETARY by a bunch of rotting decaying zombies

what a film. that was

They call it better call Saul because you “SAUL” the show