#Gotta be my favourite trope

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

The wanderer: Pt 1

I loved my ball. It had been with me for a dozen years, since I was but a child. To the untrained eye, it was a generic squishy ball, the sort you might find in a child's playset. But if you asked me, I could think of a dozen fond memories with it, playing with friends at parties, bouncing it while I was bored, squeezing it in my hand as I cried. It was, for all of its lack of anthropomorphism, a friend. Sure, seventeen year olds were a bit too old to play with toys, but I had always had a childish streak.

That was why, when it rolled into a drain, I jumped after it without a second thought. The drain was narrow, too short for me to stand fully, so I knelt to get in. My shoulders and hips were twisted to the side awkwardly, one leg trailing behind the other like I was lunging, but I kept shuffling forward.

It was dark, too. Light filtered through the fixed grilles, creating a patchwork of bright and dark that guided me. As I went on, my front knee aching from the strain, rough stone rubbing against my sides, I began worrying.

Had I missed the ball? It seemed like I had been walking on forever. It occurred to me that I wasn't quite sure how to back out again. I couldn't turn around, and moving backwards would be a laborious process. The pain in my legs grew, and so did my panic.

The stone seemed to entomb me, rubbing against my back and chest, keeping me from breathing deeply. What if I was trapped here, forever? Would anyone hear me when I screamed? Still I kept moving. Stupid, blind loyalty to my ball would not allow me to back out.

I wanted to crack my neck, but there just wasn't enough space. The hand that I used to support myself began burning, the skin rubbed raw. I was coated in a layer of dirty water and dust, my clothes clinging to me. Still I kept moving. It was too late to back out, now.

The lights became further and further apart, grilles turning to thick concrete slabs. Was the passageway narrowing? I felt squashed, compressed into a cube. Everything burned. Still I kept moving.

My breath came in shuddering gasps. It was so dark. Where was the light? I wanted to collapse, my thighs trembling with the agony of constant weight. But if I fell now, I would not get back up.

So I kept moving.

And eventually I reached an exit, where the drain led to an opening. Light, proper sunlight, shone in an uninterrupted ray. And where it fell sat my ball, haloed like an angel. I pushed myself forward and grabbed it, just as my legs gave in. Collapsing, I clutched my ball to my chest and rested.

After an indecipherable amount of time, I got up. My back ached, but the worst was over. Figuring that I could just follow the drain back home, instead of taking the gruelling underground route, I stepped out into the light.

I had no idea where I was, save that it was filthy. A layer of grime and rust coated every surface, and the light highlighted smog in the air. Suddenly the drain seemed to be a fine way back home.

Was it a scrapyard? There were machine parts scattered in heaps, serrated metal jutting out in piles. But there was flesh, too. Rotten, stinking corpses of things that were not human, their skeletons smashed to unrecognisable bits, blood like a dried up fountain staining the ground red-brown.

Was it a garbage heap? Perhaps a butchery was nearby, and these were the remains of their products. But the corpses were too whole for that, and they had been mauled rather than butchered. There was too much violence in the air, too much blood and fury.

So was I somewhere else entirely? I turned back to look at the fateful passageway. Here, in this strange place, it was a concrete tunnel, with walls and a ceiling thick enough to bear my weight. I stepped atop it, and began following it like a trail.

The desolation stretched as far as the eye could see, machine and monster intermingled endlessly. The sky was cloudless, the sun beating down on me relentlessly. The mud that was smeared all over me began to dry, leaving me caked in dirt. I fit right in, an explorer in a post-apocalyptic world.

Everything was red, from the viscera to the corrosion to the soil. Even the sun itself was a massive crimson globe hanging in a fiery sky. Only my little pathway home, my fateful drain, was a grey testament to a different colour.

My old taped-up sneakers were a blessing in that endless slog, the socks mercifully dry, even as my feet grumbled, a steady pain that was dwarfed by the anguish of the drain. I squeezed my precious ball repeatedly, as if to remind myself that it was still there, and kept a brisk pace.

It seemed that I was the only person for miles around. Nothing stirred in the red-brown meadow, not even buzzing flies laying eggs in putrefied flesh. Nothing breathed in the flesh-rotted air, not even carrion-vultures feasting on the dead. Nothing lived in the hellscape that I wandered, not even the crawling maggots that should have lurked in the rotten meat. I hummed to distract myself from the uneasiness of being all alone.

As if the sound awakened something, I heard a shrieking cry. It came from above, a haunting, sorrowful noise. 'Run,’ it seemed to say. 'This place is not for you. Whilst your heart still beats, you must leave.’

I heeded it, my pace quickening. The scream came again, closer this time. I looked up to see a great serpent in the sky. Blood gushed from a dozen wounds, and it released a third cry of agony. Even so, it twisted in the air magnificently, looping in the sky with peerless grace, silver scales glittering in the sun.

I stopped to stare, awestruck. Some things in this world can only be experienced, and the sight of that dragon was one of them. No words could describe the regality, the raw determination, the sheer terrifying power of it.

I was watching a god fall, and I knew it. My heart wenched as it released a final ululation, a serenade to the dying world, and hung in the air for an infinite moment.

Then it collapsed, dropping like a stone into the mass graveyard that surrounded me. When it landed, a thump resounded through the world, like the land itself had broken upon impact. The dead dragon was lost amidst the gore and gears, and I wept for it.

I wept for that dragon and the untold horrors of the world I wandered through. I wept for fear that I would never get home, for the pains in my body and the grime all over me. I wept and wept and wept, clutching my ball like a security blanket and walking all the while.

Finally, I let out a scream. It was a hoarse, thin thing, a poor mimicry of the full howl the serpent had produced, but it was all I could make.

When the cascade of tears subsided, I found myself standing at the end of the path. I was not home, not yet. But I had found something else, something that belonged to my world.

A train station.

[drgnflyteabox]

Has anyone thought of single mom reader on Halloween night, walking door to door with her child in a homemade costume, who comes upon a super dark house :O

Where you try to discourage them from running up but the temptation for candy is too strong and they drag you with them up the steps towards the bowl, balanced on the knee of a frankly giant skeleton decoration...

Only for Simon to have been sat all night waiting to scare people, especially pretty girls like you, and hey- you kids laughing while Simon drops a huge handful of treats in their pumpkin-shaped basket, already thinking about how he's gonna become the dad that stepped up... and how easy it is to find out where you live by following you home :')

[martii-art]

Two 🩸✨Astarion's✨🩸 portraits I've made referencing some random screenshots. Icons like this and other commissions are open~

[inhurtandincomfort]

I love characters who've been through so much finally learning to love. Not just people but to love the world as a whole. They've been through so much pain and suffering and they've been all "The world is cruel, humans are the real monsters" but now they've seen good, they've seen love, they've seen the beauty of a summers sunrise atop a hill surrounded by golden fields, they've admired the millions of stars in a winter sky on a clear night. They watch the doe guiding her fawn, the baby rabbits playing with each other. They've experienced community, the busy mother next door who still finds the time to make you food when she knows you can't manage it yourself right now, the old man who loves sitting on his porch and regaling stories of his adventures, of his family all with their own families now, where just for awhile you keep each other company and it fills you with a fuzzy warmth inside, a soft joy as you realise this is what life is meant to be, surrounded by friends and neighbours who you can rely on and who in turn can rely on you. The world is beautiful, humanity can be too, and they finally start to see that.

[warriordragonart]

Anri of Astora my beloved (+ untrue dark ring)

I went for a shoujo love interest vibe, with the sparkly blue eyes, big eyelashes and anime boy hair, and I wanted them to be so androgynous that the design could be applicable across their male and female versions without making any changes. They’re also a unsure lil guy and I wanted to capture that in their body language and expressions (top left is them smiling at Horace because I love these two’s dynamic so much)

[iristial]

[foileadeux]

ummm body horror/self harm AND blood(?) warning for this one but i was thinking about how pkradis body would take injuries and ive come to the conclusion that they are immortal due to some wacky essence/soul loophole so their wounds just heal up fast. And they can also meld sharp objects into weapons using their blood. fun stuff!

+ also pk does feel the effects of being Stabbed but only once he returns to his body so now imagine him waking up and screaming bc all the pain is hitting him at once!

[isaac031]

I made a q!roier fic. Hurt/comfort. Go check it out!

[arsonistman]

Oughhh Jiaoqiu, my poor traumatised pink fox

[luxhesperus]

absolutely love it when love does change the story — though not necessarily the ending — but not because the character is loved by someone but because they love someone; when they are altered by their own love and so it alters the things around them

[casdeans-pie]

I saw a post last week about fake dating to help with working a case and who would be the funniest pair. So may I also bring to the table:

S11 Dean and Hannah.

The circumstances to how it happens are not important. It would just be delicious to watch. Like a car crash in slow motion. Hannah would hate it, Dean would hate it, Cas would hate it. The only person having any fun would be Sam.

[sparfloxacin]

instead of sleeping last night I though about that hearbreaking wedding fic some more:

so Aleksi and Olli are making out and getting into it too and they almost get walked in by a fellow bandmate who notices them at the last second before retreating back behind a corner again all 😳🫣😬, and THEN this bandmate sees the bride walking towards the room to get something and the bandmate has to exaggeratingly loudly distract her to 1) alert Olli and Aleksi, and 2) to avoid an inevitable disaster 😶 the bandmate doesn't dare bring up what he witnessed with anyone, not even with Olli and Aleksi themselves (except maybe eventually when enough time has passed after the wedding), but Olli and Allu immediately realise what they had been doing and snap out of it. Aleksi gets angry at Olli for seducing him on his wedding day and proceeds to get so drunk that at the end of the day he just passes out on the rosepedal-decorated wedding suite bed (sorry, new Mrs. Kaunisvesi! 😭) and Olli gets angry at Aleksi for getting angry at him even though it takes two to tango 🙄 so he gets drunk too and hooks up with a friend of the bride's whose name he doesn't even care to remember afterwards 😪 (I'm thinking Olli is single in this AU, but of course we can make it extra heartbreaking and messy and miserable and have him be in a relationship as well 😫)

there must be a happy ending to this all somehow, but I'm yet to figure out what it is 🤧 (maybe they just avoid each other until enough time has passed and the feelings aren't as strong anymore (yet they sometimes can't help but wonder what could have been 🥺) ...or maybe Olli starts dating that friend of the bride's he hooked up with, and because it's one of her best friends she's very excited about Olli and her friend having found each other at their wedding and keeps organizing double dates because how fun is this!! your friend and my friend ending up together because of us 🥰 meanwhile Aleksi is suffering because it's so hard to see Olli with someone else 😭)

omg the suffering 😭😭 I love this

I’ve been thinking about Aleksi getting angry at himself for falling for Olli but ooohh him getting angry at Olli for seducing him yes yes yesss 😩😩

another thing I’ve been thinking is Olli hooking up with everyone and hngghhhhh yes he would do that to fulfill his needs (the horny fucker he is) but also to make Allu jealous 🥴 and ooohhh the more heartbreaking and messy and miserable the better 👀

I’m sure they will figure it all out in the end though! 🥰 (…right? 🥹)

thanks for the ask 💗 I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of the day 🥰 have a lovely Thursday 💖💖💖

[shiveringfrogspawn]

why does my self-love journey have to be enemies to lovers with an extremely slow burn I didn’t ask for this

[chloefraazers]

sometimes i’m sad i never got to finish stuck au before burning shores came out… i just dunno how to go back to it now tho… sigh.

[libartz]

“So. That was marriage.”

“Indeed it was.”

“What do we do now?”

“I suppose we, uh…consummate the union.”

“Aren’t I supposed to buy you dinner first? Sorry, I have no idea what I’m doing. But you probably know that by now.”

“Honestly, me either.”

“Really? But you’re so put-together!”

“I was the third son. I was never meant to take the throne.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I mean, it’s not a relief, it’s terrible that your entire family was murdered, I just thought I was going to be fumbling around while you handled all the important stuff-“

“Hey. We’ll get through this together. Isn’t that what marriage is all about?”

[dirt-str1der]

T-they took it ... they took his arm .......