#- like his eyes are

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[freefallintothevoid]

Dick Grayson's unmatched success as a child vigilante makes a lot more sense when you remember the Court of Owls was a thing and that Dick was meant to be the next Grey Son.

There is no way that someone at Haly's Circus wasn't there keeping an eye on him while he grew up. A future weapon needs to be trained and monitored after all, and a circus, a place where weird skills are completely normal, is actually a great place to secretly train a child.

You know, just some knife tricks that translated really well into actual fighting. How to get out of restraints and pick locks while under a time limit. Death defying acrobatic stunts that coincidentally do wonders for parkouring. That sort of thing. Nothing that seems out of place for a boy growing up around circus performers to learn, but would literally any where else.

I mean, while I fully believe that most kids would want to kill the man responsible for their parents deaths, Dick was weirdly prepared to go through it. He tracked down Zucco with way more ease than any normal child should have too. He became the first child vigilante, for goodness sake. The first Robin! He only started getting formal training after he basically forced Bruce into it!

Bruce himself has no idea that this kind of competency in a child is unusual, considering he was much too blinded by the similarities between his and Dick's tragic orphanhoods.

Alfred is in a similar boat because he’s desensitized to weird children after he somehow managed to successfully raise Bruce 'The Batman' Wayne, so he doesn't clock the hyper-competency as abnormal either.

By the time the other batkids start popping up (Jason 'The Audacity' Todd, borderline-street rat with no fear) (Tim 'the greatest stalker in Gotham history' Drake, child genius, also bullied his way into becoming Robin) (Barbara 'raised by the only uncorrupt cop in gotham' Gordon) (Stephanie 'daddy issues and spite' Brown) (Duke 'Pretends he's the normal one and people believe him' Thomas) it's too late.

It would also explain how Dick got along so well with Damian out of all of them. Similar childhood with different approaches and all that. On some subconscious level, Dick recognises and resonates with the murderous ten year old assassin with strong familial ties to a secret elite assassin organization.

It isn't until after the whole Court of Owls and Grey Son reveal that suddenly Dick realises a whole lot of things about his childhood that suddenly make a lot more sense.

[fogmoo]

Lamb to the slaughter

[supine-ly]

Natural selection at its finest

[hinamie]

morning glory

[puddingandp1]

anyone else noticing how big caine's eyes are getting over time lol

[lotus-pear]

he's so crazy we can't take him anywhere 😭🤣

[keplerspacecraftofficial]

electing to believe this is what griddlehark looks like to everyone else

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[wolfythewitch]

Jon sketch but it’s one of those aus where he becomes a professor post eyepocalypse

[anetesenpai]

Eternally fascinated by the fact that, canonically, Zoro's single (1) neuron is good at maths

Other crewmate's reaction

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Yeah, I don't know about you, Fidds, but I'd fold at this 🙏

Previous!!

Next!!

First!!

[shotmrmiller]

sex pollen trope where you're the one affected, having been exposed to some dense gas while on an op that felt like harsh sandpaper across your throat and lungs, and now you're a feverish mess on some ratty cot in a safe house and with only ghost as company, it's miserable, as the saying goes.

hair sticking to your sweaty skin, plastered onto your forehead and neck, every swallow feeling like you've got a mouthful of sand, your fluttering pulse wild and deafening in your ears, and the throbbing ache deep in your core, the blistering heat right below your navel— it'd only been uncomfortable in the beginning, the faint throbbing incredibly familiar, but the more you ignored it, the worse it got.

and now you're here, with arousal sticking your underwear to your pussy, unable to do anything about it because your lieutenant is seated in a corner that lets him have both you and the front door within his line of sight. a quick, discreet rub under your clothes is not an option.

someone put you out of your foggy misery.

"squirmin' like a worm on a 'ook isn't gonna help." his staring doesn't either, yet he does it anyway.

"got to make sure ya aren't dyin' on me." you want to snap that you don't think proof of life is on the darkened stain between your legs, the retort pressed behind clenched teeth but another thick wave of bestial need rolls over you and god, you're about to shove your hand into your underwear, propriety be damned—

"best you don't do tha'." why the fuck not? "you'll only get relief for a moment 'fore it comes back twofold." he says as if he's reading off the morning paper and not watching you fight tooth and nail to not fuck yourself against the pillow your head is on. (soap's offer to be friends with benefits is only looking better by the hour.)

you hastily decide that it'll be better than nothing. you'll just have to rub your pussy raw until this drug runs its course and you're telling him to piss off or don't, but you've had enough. you're stuck here with him anyway, no flight home until the morn and you're not about to spend it writhing around.

"if tha's wha' you want," ghost bites his gloves off, spitting them out onto the ground before curling his hands around your ankles and dragging you toward him. "i will help." your entire world narrows down to the feel of him touching your skin, his fingers searing as they hook into the waistband of your pants, and you almost kick him in the mouth trying to get them off faster.

"but 'm not fuckin' you." the bite of disappointment is quickly forgotten, his breath warm against your slick pussy, and after three quick glides of his tongue over your pearl, your orgasm crests, pulse after pulse of pleasure so potent it stung.

in less than a minute you're burning again, need thrumming through you and with the heady push and drag of his middle finger over your sensitive nerves, curling in you until he can fit two, three—

you're lost.

(ghost telling you that he's not doing anything else because if he's going to fuck you then you're going to remember it falls on ringing ears.)

[ineed-to-sleep]

Collection of bg3 sketches I've been nibbling at over the month. teehee