#Dancing in the Disturbance

[geraiodli]

Azazel and Jophiel from @/asleepyy's au dining!! I hope nothing ever bad happens to them🫶🫶

Flat colours+line and bonus because I can

[pinktrapped]

CW: DISTURBING IMAGERY

He wants to know what time is it

I made this as a practice, here's the background. I took another picture as a reference!

[milquetoast27]

"Here are the missing links of a very simple chain: 1. You had chalk between your left finger and thumb when you returned from the club last night. 2. You put chalk there when you play billiards, to steady the cue. 3. You never play billiards except with Thurston. 4. You told me, four weeks ago, that Thurston had an option on some South African property which would expire in a month and which he desired you to share with him. 5. Your checkbook is locked in my drawer and you have not asked for the key. 6. You do not propose to invest your money in this manner."

What does all this reveal? Holmes is obsessively watching and observing every single one of Watson's movements and habits.

[lvminisciel]

dance macabre

let us have this dance of macabre!

strums of lullaby accompany our steps

spectators of all kinds eagerly waiting in silence 

people of all race, of all ages

humans and fae alike, mingling into one

isn't this what you always long for, my dearest?

rub away your tears, if you would

look above, my dear!

look how the ceilings crumbled, 

forging a path upon the starry skies

under the sea of stars shall we waltz with grace

one step forward, two steps back

a tango everyone desires

now then, don your brightest smiles!

as we are the prima donna of this palace 

knightly boots replacing glass slippers

briars and thorns, prettier than roses

mere infatuations and lust desist,

only loyalty alone shall exist

hush now, dear

do not loathe me amidst parada

cease your sadness at once

bury your soul deep within one’s eyes

never let those speckles of aurora

be tarnished by the mere sight of carcass 

for I have bestowed you the honor

of taking my hand for this dance

moving in front ochos,

I whisper to you eternal happiness

a promise that’ll never go unkept

holier than the eternal slumber

oh, if only the crowd would cheer!

rather than rotting beneath our feet 

but fret not, my dear 

as we have a long night ahead of us!

[taplaos]

[OC- Marlin and Rosemary ] Marlin enjoys the human pleasure in dancing. Also pppshh making a playlist for them

[voidedjuice]

skaspec real!!!

Also this gives a sad context to the sculpture of the abyssals we see in that one encounter, they were sculpted by Laurentina right before she died :_: auaagh

[psicadetterra]

Clem boogie

[faejilly]

one thing i hate in fics is when they say that alec is less flexible than magnus, matt being less flexible than harry? absolutely.

but ALEC LIGHTWOOD accomplished warrior, master archer, and much more, being less flexible than magnus just doesn’t make sense to me,

like i’m my mind all shadowhunters are crazy insane flexible bc it just doesn’t make sense that they’re not, so that whole notion is bullshit to me and once i would love to see alec being more flexible than magnus

12/10... I would say no notes but actually I have SO MANY NOTES so the meme dies with me. (This is not a new thing. 😅)

There are a lot of different types of 'flexible' but I will agree that like... Magnus' physicality is absolutely partly about knowing he can handle any situation thrown at him, is part self-defense and psychological armor and health, strengthens his magic and his mind and his mood, but it's also for FUN and dancing and teasing and playing!

And all of that, even the self-defense & fighting when necessary, is entirely different than the physicality of a trained soldier who fights every single damned day of his life and has since he was (at least) ten, and probably younger.

(Shadowhunters were all child-soldiers! They're deeply fucked up and violent and competent! EMPHASIS ON VIOLENTLY COMPETENT.)

And I wrote a whole tangent on child-soldiers and Alec as a mentor but that is NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT WHOOPS, I'll try and come back to that somewhere else at some point.

The whole point of Shadowhunters, however, is that they can successfully fight demons AND (however reprehensible this bit is) they have the skill & power to subjugate the entire Down World, including the Warlocks who have vast and flexible magical powers that can pretty much do anything they want them to.

Now, part of this is numbers, because even if they are in a constantly losing battle against the demons, they do still have children which as far as we know none of the Downworlders can manage.

But part of this must be that they can, in fact, handle/fight against magic, demonic skills, and people who have hundreds to thousands of years of experience keeping themselves alive in a world that is hostile to them. They can hold their own against vampires and werewolves and warlocks and even seelie knights who ALSO TRAIN TO FIGHT FOR DECADES OR CENTURIES, because the fae do in fact prefer to stay in their own realm rather than fight for an equal seat at the table with the nephilim.

Like. WTF think about that. The Seelie Queen is capricious and powerful and power-hungry and terrifying and she lets her people be second-class citizens in our realm because it's not worth trying to fight the nephilim.

Now part of that is clearly she doesn't want to have to be the one dealing with demons and she does in fact have her own realm to live in, but still.

STILL.

Nephilim must be absolutely horrifying.

The most famous 'greeting' from angels when they meet humanity is "Be Not Afraid" but nephilim want and encourage that fear.

They are infected with angelic grace in a way that overrides their humanity, in a way that even overrides demonic power, because children of nephilim are always nephilim even when they don't know it, even when one of their parents is demonic or Downworlder. (Even Jonathan Morgenstern is still a nephilim, as well as everything else he is because of Lilith's blood & Valentine's abuse.) They have runes to enhance and control and shape their angelic grace, but even without a single rune activated they are not mundane.

Even a bb!nephilim with minimal training like Clary can survive being thrown off a building and breaking every part of her body. She survives! (When apparently unprepared and without active runes!) Long enough to be healed with magic/iratzes/handwaved-something-or-other off screen and for it to be entirely irrelevant five minutes later. Alec gets stabbed in the heart with adamas (which has been shown to be very hard to heal from in other contexts!) and is fine the next episode! We all kind of complained about the lack of healing/comfort/explanation in the show, but THINK ABOUT IT.

They can heal from almost anything to the point that they're child soldiers who don't even have to learn what mundanes would consider basic first aid because they don't need it.

Magnus puts on a good show but he is terrified of the Circle returning. Now there are a lot of very good reasons for this, including politics and prejudice and systemic power structures but it is also because nephilim even on an individual level are terrifying.

They have to be, or their historic ability to oppress the rest of the world falls apart. They can neutralize and hold their own against vast cosmic powers (the more powerful demons) and ancient vicious capricious warriors who have no love for them (fae) and/or wild magic powered by incredibly emotional beings who are terrified for their lives and souls and giving it their all because they have absolutely nothing the fuck left to lose (warlocks), and the nephilim consistently, reliably, win.

Not without cost, of course, but still. They win. They are not trained to survive or outlast or get away to hide and fight back another day, which is clearly the goal of most Down Worlders. They are trained to end a threat quickly and economically and sacrifice themselves if necessary to do it. (Survival is preferable, so you're around to fight the next thing too, but it is understood that it is not always possible.)

Realistically, this means that if a nephililm is actually trying to fight they will be able to do things with their body that are impossible, and they will be able to work through damage that would be fatal to everyone else without even flinching, and if you're close enough to see how a nephilim can really move you're probably already dead you just don't know it yet.

[blastlight]

some nights you stay up too late and get really depressed

other nights you stay up too late and can't stop jamming long enough to get in pajamas

[outlying-hyppocrate]

call me skeleton appreciation day the way i can see my bones

[soysaucevictim]

I think being the kind of horror fan I am, it helps me keep some perspective on my own relatively infrequent run-ins with ITs.

Some of it's trauma flashbulbs, some of it's health anxiety scenarios, some of it I can't really put in those boxes.

Being in therapy helps keep them mostly manageable. But they sometimes get the best of me. And all I wanna do is Distract Distract Distract. :P

[anqaspond]

i want you guys to know that on tiktok and pinterest there are microcommunities in the arab world where theyre incredibly xenophobic to every country that isnt their own and they constantly talk about wanting to breed a pure race and breed out the neighboring degenerates. like we have muslim eugenics

[crowholtz]

okay I'll talk about Helene and Strahd a little let's go. I'm going to make some bullets of things about them, and I'll put under a read more more detail about how they met. This will have some spoilers for CoS so yeah woo

They have a red thread that links them together that can be seen in the ethereal plane

They both value propriety and politeness, though Helene hates politics

Their hearts literally beat as one. He gave her a necklace with a piece of the Heart of Sorrow but has since used Fabricate to encase her heart with the crystal, syncing her heart with his. He literally owns her heart

They're both huge nerds who like science and magic and poetry.

They write poems for each other

They were once racing horses back to the castle, and he tried cheating by just simply running, faster than her horse. So she cast Daylight (which my DM rules as sunlight) to stop him from running forward but he was running so fast that his momentum carried him into the Daylight and he burned up, turning to mist and flying back to his coffin. Later he was... Playfully miffed at her.

Helene was once tortured by a witch, so Strahd ripped the witch's arms from her body and gifted them to Helene. She loved it

He had his coffin expanded in size so she could sleep in it with him. They have slept in it together (among other things)

They're addicted to each other's blood

They stalk each other all the time. They catch each other stalking the other at the same time they are.

Strahd has gotten her to execute criminals

They once had a snowball fight

He's somehow managed to get Ireena and Helene angry with him, and then when they confronted him together he managed to verbally finesse and talk his way around not only calming them but seducing them. At the same time. All in the same night

He's showed her his secret lab with all his fucked up experiments and they've compared notes

they're both horse girls. They loves talking about horses

Both blood mages. He's always impressed by her talent with blood magic

He (and Ludmilla) have taught her arcane magic and contributed to her taking levels in wizard

Helene composed for him a song on piano

Knowing Strahd often is spying on her, she'll just do something ambiently to taunt, tease, or flirt with him. Once she killed something and mockingly bowed to him

They can mentally talk to each other at all times

One time they were cuddling and she said she wished she could hold his heart in her hand. He said she can and proceeded to rip his own ribcage open and guided her hand inside. She held his heart in her hand, pleased, and they kept cuddling 🥰

Strahd took her ice skating once

They love to fight each other. Literally. Whether it's an actual battle, a game of wits, a sparring match. They love it

Strahd brought Helene to Barovia because she's a cleric of the Red Knight and has a keen mind for strategy, and intended to groom her to be his General

Helene is an ever inquisitive young woman, she has to know everything. She also is the type to absolutely sit down with the most evil, misunderstood, or monstrous of figures to pick their brains. She intended to do this with Strahd as a way to information gather.

They first started in depth correspondence when the party rescued Doru from the church basement. since he was engaged to marry Strahd when he was locked in the basement, they thought to garner good will with Strahd. Helene contacted him and told him Doru was alive and indeed not destroyed, which prompted Strahd to immediately send a carriage to pick up Doru. Strahd told Helene that he owed them a favor for returning his love to him.

Strahd, on his part, also intended to seduce her. They started amicable conversation pretty soon after she arrived in Barovia, with her absolutely fascinated by him. She learned she could pray to him to contact him from a distance

This led to them forming a mental connection in which they communicate through the language of Supernal, able to contact each other at any time, see the other's immediate surroundings and sort of project the image of themselves to each other.

Eventually she started developing very intense feelings for him, an attraction, so he did indeed succeed in seducing her. She fell hard into his web. buuuut also, he fell way harder for Helene than he intended to. like we're talking Tatyana levels of obsession. he's actually very conflicted about it because he feels a little like he's betraying his dedication and love to Tatyana and the duty he feels to constantly chase her.

Their first intimate moment was at the dinner he forced the party to attend with him. He took her aside and had a private conversation, picked each other's brains. they played games of chess for hours, lost in their company of each other. She revealed to him she was a fallen aasimar (something he already knew, but she usually keeps it hidden), and she was always ashamed of her blackened, torn bat wings. but he told her they were magnificent and beautiful, and that sparked the first romantic feeling in her

Helene became very obsessive. she was always contacting him, always thinking about him - she'd done this in past relationships too. girl's unhealthy. she'd always try and spy on him, see what he's up to. and more often than not she'd catch him spying on her at the same time.

The Night It Boiled Over - St. Andral's Bones

eventually, during the fiasco with the bones of St. Andral in Vallaki, Helene was cornered alone by a group of vampire spawn. Strahd showed up and lectured the spawn, angry and annoyed, and then slaughtered them before they could hurt Helene. He quickly checked her over to make sure she was alright, then left. Helene caught up with the rest of the party who were running the bones back to the church. When they walked in, Strahd was there, covered in blood and ash from the vampires.

Strahd told them to hand over the bones. After a tense moment, Helene said "I call the favor." She was calling in the favor he owed them from saving Doru. this infuriated and impressed Strahd. She was playing on his propriety, on him being a man of his word, to directly thwart his plans. He left.

Later that night, Strahd asked Helene join him for dinner at her manor (previously Death House). they sat, ate, drank wine. they talked about blood wine, and she wondered if aasimar blood tasted different, and offered to put some of her blood in his wine. he accepted and savored it calmly.

He then asked her about what she did regarding calling in the favor, wondering how she felt about it. He was obviously upset, but impressed by her. She looked him dead-on and told him that she was not sorry for doing it. She achieved her goal. She won that battle.

The tension snapped then, and he moved across the table and kissed her. From there it was... a very enthusiastic, violent coupling. Both of them are kinda freaks.

The Rest of the Campaign (so far)

From there, Helene fell hard. She was persuaded to spend a week at castle ravenloft, during which he spent a fair bit of time (with Escher's help) corrupting her, trying to get her to give into her darker urges, getting her addicted to his blood. He gave her a bride necklace (necklace with a piece of the Heart of Sorrow) and she became engaged to him.

After she left, they've been having rendezvous, and he often tries to get her to give up and just come to the castle and be with him and her 'family' (she'd bonded quite a bit with the brides during her time there). But she knew that'd be a bad idea, she knew she'd end up becoming just another bride in this endless cycle of suffering in Barovia.

She's since officially declared war on him as tensions have only escalated and the party has collected all of the items they need. they love war and strategy, so this is somewhat of a mating dance between them as well lmao.

The more Helene grows, the more Helene realizes that Strahd isn't good for her, and she wonders even when Vampyr is no longer influencing him, will he still be bad for her? She's since leaned into her relationship with Vasili (Strahd's reincarnated soul in our campaign) because he's a better man.

But Strahd still gets under her skin. Strahd is in her thoughts constantly. He drives her insane. They aren't healthy by any stretch, but damn they are in a disgusting amount of love with each other

[enemy-to-the-state]

my dad’s girlfriend: well you’d like this since you know a lot about theatre and entertainment

me:

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

see sometimes I try and think about it all more logically. what if it was all happening to a friend. my friend!! you completely forgot to feed your kitten his wet food for five days? you haven't drunk water for a couple of days? you didn't shower or change your clothes for four days? you've only eaten two actual meals in the last two days? your average sleep in the last week is around five hours? my friend, you need help.

since it's me, I don't need help.

[headlesssamurai]

‘‘ A language unspoken burning between them in strident moans and silent heat. She wanted to take him until the frosts melted, and the leaves returned to the trees. She wanted to consume him entirely – drink him into her very soul like some elysian draught of smoldering light. ’’