#A Whisk in Time

[paintermagazine]

‘Cupcakes?’

Original artist: Rudolph Belarski

[spaciebabie]

you know the fandomscape has changed b/c now whenever a piece of media gets popular I no longer see Malk, Circletine, Gay or European, or Left Brain Right Brain animatics anymore

[lorebird]

In which Ford struggles so badly to relate to other people that he wonders if he’s really human at all. The more isolated he becomes, the harder it is to reconcile with his own humanity.

[podcastenthusiast]

"Here should be safe to set up camp," Geralt says, scanning the treeline with his eyes in that odd witcher way. Like he's seeing much more than a mere mortal could.

"Thank the gods," sighs Jaskier, who's been really starting to regret skiving off those physical fitness courses at Oxenfurt.

"Get a fire started while I tend to Roach."

"Oh Geralt, I'd love to, I would. Truly it's colder than a sorceress' shapely—"

"Jaskier."

"Well, as they say: you can lead a bard to timber, but you can't make him—"

"Just do it, Jaskier."

"I don't know how! All right? I've never built a fire in the middle of nowhere before! It's not one of the seven liberal arts, and I much prefer my fires stoked by comely barmaids in taverns."

Geralt looks at him for a long moment. It's a complicated look—frustration and amusement and a hint of regret. Mostly it's a look that says Jaskier is an idiot for joining him on the Path.

"Right," Geralt says slowly. He begins building the campfire himself.

"I imagine they teach wilderness survival to baby witchers at witcher school."

Geralt looks at him again and there's something different in his expression. The ghost of a smile? Jaskier doesn't quite know how to read it.

"Kaer Morhen," he says. "And yeah. Something like that."

"Oh?" Jaskier has to rein in his enthusiasm, his curious questions. Geralt so rarely reveals anything personal about himself or his past. Not that Jaskier has been forthcoming in that regard either. They live in the moment, day by day, but some context would help his creative process.

Besides all that, he genuinely wants to get to know Geralt a little better.

"Vesemir took me out into the forest one day. Gave me a knife and left me there for a month."

There is no bitterness in his words. If anything, the witcher sounds...almost fond. Nostalgic. Proud of his younger self for overcoming the challenges his mentors set before him.

It takes a moment for the true meaning of that to sink in and, once it does, Jaskier is horrified. His own parents weren't great, but even they would never simply abandon him.

"He just— like as a test— what—?"

"Real eloquent, bard. I doubt he had any choice. Probably wasn't even supposed to give me anything."

"How old were you?" he demands, unsure if any answer will make this revelation less abhorrent.

"Six? Seven? Maybe eight. I don't know." Geralt makes a gesture with his fingers and the pile of wood beneath his hand sparks with flame. "Not old enough to have learned Igni yet."

He can picture it, too, so vividly. Curse his dammed artist's imagination. Geralt, just a kid, alone and scared and definitely cold��because no one bothered to teach him how to start a fire.

"Stop it," the witcher snaps.

"What?"

"Looking at me like that. I'm fine. I was fine back then. Wasn't so bad at all compared to the Grasses. Vesemir came back for me like he said he would. I survived the trial—no, I didn't just survive; I exceeded all expectations, which is why they..." The witcher trails off. Takes a breath.

All of that... It's quite a lot of words for Geralt. Honest words, even.

It's his job to talk, to sing, to commit the most painful and difficult experiences to beautiful poetic verse. But Jaskier doesn't know what to say to his friend right now. Surely he has to say something.

"Geralt..."

"Don't waste your pity. Save it for the ones who didn't make it through. I did."

"Okay," the bard replies, careful and tentative. He isn't a brave man, nor a particularly kind one. But Jaskier considers himself an honest fellow so he adds, "Just because you made it through, you know, that doesn't mean what happened to you was all right, Geralt. Children aren't supposed to be left alone to fend for themselves."

The witcher laughs—a humorless, wretched sound. He doesn't say anything at all to that. Which is okay, really; Jaskier just needed him to hear it.

There is a long silence. The fire crackles. Jaskier absently strums his lute.

"You're gonna write a ballad about this, aren't you," Geralt says after a while.

"No!" Maybe. Yes. He won't perform it.

"Hm."

The fire crackles.

Quite out of the blue, Geralt tells him, "I befriended a wolf back then."

"What? You're joking!"

"Witchers don't have a sense of humor. Common knowledge."

"Common misconception. Most people are just stupid. No, hang on, stop distracting me—You had a pet wolf?!"

"Not a pet," the witcher corrects, smiling faintly. "Fangtooth was her own wolf."

"Fangtooth?" Jaskier repeats, struggling to contain his amusement. "Not Roach?"

"No."

"Forgive me, but that's adorable."

"I was just a child. I wanted to stay with her in the wilderness. Be a wolf, too. Or a knight." He shakes his head dismissively. Silly childish dreams.

"But you didn't," Jaskier says. And feels stupid for saying something so obvious.

"Too late for that," Geralt replies without reproach. "I was already a witcher."

"As a child, I wanted to run away and join the circus," the bard offers.

"Of course you did."

They're quiet for a moment then. Comfortable, shared silence. Just the sounds of birds and forest creatures, and Roach contentedly eating grass. The fire crackles.

"Geralt, will you teach me to light a fire? Without witcher magic, obviously, since I don't have any."

"Why?"

"Because...well, because I could be a more useful traveling companion. Like Fangtooth must've been."

"...Fine," Geralt agrees after some thought.

It is a skill he will be very grateful to have on freezing nights in the coming years, especially whenever the witcher is too injured or ill from those dreadful potions to help set up camp. He will try not to think of the child Geralt once was, subjected to horrific tests of his ability to survive all on his own.

Except he hadn't been on his own back then, not completely. And he isn't alone anymore, either.

[lavenoon]

He's been waiting for a chance to use that line himself

@naffeclipse everything in my brain is bounty hunter, even the self care

*self insert Aster is not a girl (he/she) *og detective au by sunnys-aesthetic

[majosullivan]

[rouxboo]

the moral of wonderful precure is that violence will never be as powerful as autistic tboy swag

[ratatatastic]

Vanha Kauppahalli (Old Market Hall) | 10.29.24 (x)

[tteokdoroki]

when you’re pregnant i feel like katsuki learns how to crochet so by the time baby arrives he’s crocheted a bunch of baby hats n mitts n socks :((

[5ftboy]

[selfishpresley]

Listening to Lana Del Rey’s Honeymoon album and licking these photos…

This is Ultraviolence coded.

I neeeeed to be his young girlfriend with daddy issues!!

[swampstew]

No you people simply do not understand ~ this shot fucking BROKE me. This is almost exactly like Gray Terminal. Eustass Kid had such a rough life and he deserves so much better. IDGAF that he went down the angrier path unlike Luffy. If y'all went through even a fraction of what this little Tulip had to go through, do you think you'd come out of it being even remotely mentally well? Or happy go lucky?

Who protected this baby boy besides another young child? Who provided them with shelter or basic fucking needs?? It makes me so angry that people constantly shit on him for losing to (and ONLY losing to) Emperors, like that's something to turn their noses at. Call him useless captain mid in front of me and I'll catch a charge idc, don't you dare disrespect him, less so in front of me.

[sciderman]

You said that if you dated Peter or Wade it would make you miserable. Which– Okay fair, Wade does have a history of purposely hurting the people he loves.

But what about Peter? Why do you think dating him would make you miserable?

because I’ll always know I had the option to climb a 6’8 cyborg and I passed that up for a sweaty little twunk that I perpetually have to remind to bathe (sorry peter)

[agathas-megacoven]

I’m scared for my lil guy Mobius on the timelines all by himself. What if some non-Kang related big bad who has managed to evade the reformed TVA’s watch and wants to control a bunch of timelines puts 2 and 2 together, realises that Möbius was a key player in helping establish Loki at the centre of the Yggdrasil (that Loki cares deeply about Mobius and visa versa) and comes after him in the hopes to oust Loki? Part of me feels like Mobius could handle it but Mobius doesn’t have big scary dog privileges anymore girlies, what with Loki being tangled up at the Citadel and it worries me. Sylvie is a slippery lil sword wielding snake (affectionate) who’s entire childhood WAS self-preservation and survival, she’ll be fine. B15, O.B and Casey are all somewhat afforded better protection from within the TVA but what about Mobius? He’s just a lil mourning retiree trying to make a new life for himself. What if danger finds him? I trust B15 to have some sort of protection and emergency measures in place for him but what if it’s not enough?

[keysmanydudes]

meeow very empty doodle page of 3 completely different horror games

[jamiesfootball]

Augusnippets Day 15

Alternate Prompt: whipping

cw: brief moment of implied violence, but actually zero violence and 100% nonsense

Summary:

Roy receives a text from Jamie that's either very concerning or very stupid.

Here on AO3

[Prick]: Hey coach, I’m not gonna make it to training this morning

[Prick]: My arm is completely dead. Can’t barely move it from the shoulder down to the wrist. My back got it bad too

[Prick]: I’d push thru but last time I did that you yelled a lot, so technically if you yell at me now you’re a hippocrit

[Prick]: and yes I already sent a message to the physios. I’ll check in later this morning

[Roy]: You’ll check in with me right now

[Roy]: Was it the weights?

[Prick]: what weights?

[Prick]: oh

[Prick]: no

[Prick]: It’s nothin

[Prick]: It’s nothin bad

[Prick]: I fucked up

[Roy]: Fucked up how?

[Prick]: didn’t think it looked that bad when I cleaned up last night, but this morning the bruising came in

[Roy]: Bruising from what?

[Prick]: Relax, grandad. I’m not like injured-injured

[Prick]: It was just a bit of whipping

Typing…

Typing…

Typing…

[Roy]: Don’t fucking move. I’ll be there in ten

Half of Roy’s mind knew this was probably a misunderstanding. Not only because the annoying little prick had cartwheels and roundoffs where normal people had straight-line logical thinking, but also because Roy was dead certain if there was something wrong with Jamie – something actionably, seriously wrong – Jamie would never just come out and tell Roy what it was.

He’d come to him, maybe. But he’d never say it.

Half of Roy knew this.

The other half had him driving too fast through stop signs on the way to Jamie’s house, his mind turned grimly towards what-ifs and contingency plans and late night wake up calls to his sister if there was a need for off-the-record medical attention. The other half was hardly awake, roused by the chime of his phone before his 3:30 alarm had a chance to sputter, the same way he’d been dreading for months. And if the other half demanded that he get eyes on Jamie and assess for himself that the idiot was in one piece, that that was his own fucking business.

He didn’t trust this rehab bullshit, he didn’t understand how Jamie’s father had wormed his way back into his son's life, and he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was always another shoe.

Of course then he arrived at Jamie’s house, and aside from dark raccoon circles under his eyes and an ice pack pressed to his shoulder, the muppet was fine.

The unneeded Roy-half packed up its contingency plans and took its leave. This left room for pure, incandescent annoyance – annoyance that was not relieved when Jamie showed him the reason for his injury.

“It’s a cake!” Jamie claimed, gesturing at the lopsided blob on his kitchen counter. It sure didn’t look like a cake. It looked furry – or rather like it’d started out furry before getting caught in the rain. The ‘whipped’ cream was practically liquid, dripping down the sides in streaks. It looked like someone had snuck into Jamie’s house in the night and left a sopping wet Yorkshire Terrier in a baking tray as a prank. Or an Ugg boot; it sort of looked like a Ugg boot. A flattened, sopping wet Ugg boot.

Jamie, who come to think of it was a bit like a Yorkie, continued yapping away in defence of his flat Ugg boot cake.

“I followed the recipe exactly like Simon said!” Jamie waved his iPad in Roy’s face. His finger slipped on the screen, and the screenshotted recipe swiped to photo of Isaac kissing a puppy. “I got through the cake part easy, but then the instructions said I needed whipped cream, and ‘e told me I couldn’t use the pre-whipped stuff from the store ‘cause that’d be cheating.”

Jamie snorted; as if asking for extra effort for a fucking gift was the height of unreasonable expectations. “Easy for him to say. Simon’s got one of those fancy stand mixers. Don’t see how that’s not cheating.”

Privately Roy agreed, but Jamie didn’t deserve words of affirmation for this level of stupidity.

“So you whisked it by hand?” Roy asked, side-eyeing the travesty. How had his life had come to this: rotating his star player’s arm to assess the blotched bruising bursting along the jointline because he’d attempted baking unsupervised.

Jamie grimaced in pain as Roy thumbed what he thought was a bruise; it was cocoa powder. “What? No, I used a spoon.”

“You-,” Roy cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel cocoa and flour rubbing off on his skin. “Why didn’t you just use a whisk? Big fancy pre-loaded fucking kitchen, and you’re telling me it didn’t come staged with a whisk?”

Jamie’s mouth opened, then closed. He had that guilty, prey animal look in his eyes that meant Roy was about to hear something truly, godforsakenly stupid.

“Um. You know.” Jamie mimed stirring something with his hand. “It’s upstairs.”

“What?”

“You know.” Jamie made that cursed stirring motion with his hand again. “Upstairs.”

“Stop that,” Roy pleaded. Jamie stopped that. He didn’t want to know, but like a train travelling at two hundred kilometres per hour towards five innocent nuns on the tracks, or however that maths problem went, his mouth ran on ahead of him and refused to pull the lever that would put the other person out of his misery. “What the fuck do you need a whisk upstairs for?”

“You know,” said Jamie. “For my bath bombs.”

“Your bath bombs,” repeated Roy.

Jamie nodded excitedly.

“You….whisk your bath bombs.”

“Um, yeah, obviously,” Jamie snorted condescendingly. “What do you do? Whisk them in by hand?”

The reality of the situation settled in. Roy was standing in Jamie’s kitchen, a little after four in the morning, still in his fucking house slippers because he hadn’t bothered to put shoes on when he was racing out of his house, fear in his heart and images of vengeance in his head because he thought that he was racing headfirst into learning yet another reason why James Tartt Sr was a living shitstain of the earth who didn’t so much as deserve to breathe oxygen, let alone be a part of his son’s life, court-mandated rehab be damned.

And instead he’d arrived to find out that the only danger to Jamie was the lad’s barely existent reading comprehension and his knack for innovating parts of the human experience that were better left untouched.

A whisk for a bath bomb. Jesus fucking Christ.

With more Schadenfreude in his heart than Ted would ever approve of, Roy watched Jamie try and fail to fill the kettle without moving his limp, deadened arm. A cup of tea was the least he could do

“Do you think I should buy a second whisk?”

“No,” answered Roy.

“But if I only had another whisk–”

“If you only had a fucking brain. No.”

Jamie sulked. He traded his tea for his ice pack, hissing as he pressed it against his shoulder. “What do you think I should do with the cake then? I was gonna give it to Sam as a taste test-”

“Don’t kill Sam.”

“-but it’s all-,” Jamie wrinkled his nose, “-Goopy. I don’t want to give Sam a goopy cake for his birthday. That’d be illegal or sommet.”

It was goopy. That would be illegal. He didn’t want Sam to die.

Roy sighed. “Give me a fork.”

That wattage on Jamie’s face should be illegal at 4am. Most things should. But maybe it was worth it. The training and the false alarms and the misuse of cooking utensils when normal people were asleep – maybe there were worse things to suffer for.

Jamie turned around with the plates and-

“Is that a carving knife?”

“This?” Jamie held up what was, in fact, a carving knife. “No? I’m pretty sure it’s for bread.”

Then again, maybe there weren’t. Didn’t matter.

Roy would have his boot-shoe cake and eat it too. For Sam.

As far as disasters went, it didn’t taste too bad.