#Leading Age

[rookinthecrownest]

Demon of Vyrantium

from a screenshot study of this post

[hislop3]

Mish-Mash Monday

A new week and lots of data/info. coming on a variety of fronts. Today’s post is less about one thing and more about a few things, a bit of smorgasbord to start the week. State by State SNF Data/CLA: Back at the start of the month, I wrote a post on the state of the SNF industry, incorporating CLA’s (Clifton Larsen Allen) annual SNF cost report analysis data.  That post is here:…

[rookanisstuff]

The Dellamortes

[bluerosefox]

Soulmate Across the Multiverse

A DPxDC soulmate au idea

So DCverse is a soulmate world (pick any soulmate way btw, words, touch, drawings on the skin, can't see color(s) until they see or touch them, etc etc)

DPverse doesn't.

Meaning Danny wasn't born with a soulmark BUT he gets one after becoming a halfa because he is now connected to the Infinite Realms.

SO its during another one of Vlad's schemes, he's popping into different worlds and stealing things or something like that (basically like that one ep where Danny chases Vlad through the timeline after he stole Frostbite's map)

During the chase they pop out into the DCverse in one of the hero cities (pick any, not picky on which) and their fight is getting a bit out of hand (Vlad's fault, he's using the stuff he's been stealing, and Danny is doing his best to getting innocent people from getting hurt)

ANYWAYS during the fight, one of the cities hero's come to try to help/find out whats going on when Danny is hit by Vlad and gets tossed at them. The moment they either touch or Danny/Soulmate says something to the other, Danny feels the odd mark on him burn up and is MEGA confused on whats going on but decides to do what he does best.

Ignore it for now. He'd figure it out later he still needs to stop Vlad.

He apologizes to the other hero and gets back into his fight, missing the look of complete smitten awe/shock said hero had on their face.

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[roses-and-revolutions]

DC x DP Idea

After several years, Danny and Damian meet each other again at a gala. But there was no heartfelt reunion since the moment they led eyes on each other it was all-out war. Damian takes out a sword from somewhere and Danny just starts throwing hands.

The fighting is intense, and blood is being spilled (what are those glowing green specks?). They are screaming at each other in Arabic as it's easier to slip back to your mother tongue when in rage right? This makes the fight more personal.

Most people don't understand what they're saying but those who do look at the boys then Bruce. Bruce then back to the boys again. Like B, we know you're stupid but you fucked this person twice.... did you NOT see the red flags the SECOND TIME!?!?

The fight ends with Damian on the ground with the sword grazing his neck. He looks up to Danyal with the fear of god in his eyes, knowing that with one swift movement, he'll be dead on the dance floor. But Danny's eyes were cold and tired, they were dead. No spark, no sense of life in those chilling blue depths.

Calmly, Danny spoke to Damian. His voice was crystal clear, cool like a mountain stream.

"Just because you jumped into the fire behind me doesn't mean you felt the pain I did.  Your hand was held above the flames while I was being burnt in the fucking fire."

Damian begins to cry because he knows that Danny is right. No matter what he went through, it would never compare to what happened to his big brother. Even more so, when he feels long lanky arms wrap around him, a cool hand rubbing his back soothingly, and whispers of sweet nothingness entering his ears.

He cries because no matter what he does he will never be like his big brother.

[maripolifan]

If MHA was just a little sillier...

The biggest question left in the series unanswered (so far)... 

Who is Hisashi Midoriya? Who IS Izuku's father????

Ik I'm playing Russian roulette rn with how things are going in the manga lmao

Note:

Endeavor is here because Izuku being his secret love child is an actually funny theory (to me)

All Might is here because he's def hitting that

AFO thinks he's the top dog, but he is, at most, a clown

Mystery guy. Ignore him. Maybe he got lost on his way to the restroom?

[ghostbsuter]

There was a teen in the cave.

A teen no one knows and looks like he could be a wayne, stands in the cave.

"Actually, I'm a wayne." He says with a shrug.

Bruce, Batman, carefully thinks of the implication.

"Not yet," The teen, Danny, doesn't say anything. Simple smiles. "You're not a wayne, yet. You will be. But not yet."

Then Bruce sighs, dropping the batman mask in order to take in the teen.

"Does future me know of the time travel?"

Dannys smile grows into a grin, deciding to take pity on the man. "You, grandbat, have..." He makes a vague gesture. "Theories, which none of your children ever confirmed."

The bat's mind short-circuits at the choice of words

Dick is sputtering incomprehensibly, there are Baffled expression all around.

Because.

Because that child isn't Bruce's, but one of theirs.

"Who is it?" Jason demands, hand clenching his gun uselessly.

Danny continues to smile, a hint of mischief now peeking out.

The cave is filled with theories, some yell, some sob, yet all eyes leave danny.

All but one pair.

She had known the moment his body language switched just enough for her to read.

She had known the moment he disappeared before the clan.

Had known when his hand found hers, shoulders bumping.

Her heart clenches, throat dry and memories of her childhood flooding to mind.

So she asks, voice soft and hesitant.

"Am I a good mother?"

And danny looks up at cass, adoration and pride laid out plain for her to see and accept.

"You're the best."

And so they both watch the clan together, silent and comfortable.

(Cass doesn't question when she finds him, how and why. All she knows is that she's more attentive when out on patrol, looking and waiting.)

(This is how Cassandra Cain-Wayne returns one night from patrol, a child, barely out of toddler stage and clinging to her form.)

(This is how the Batclan officially meets one Daniel James Cain-Wayne, freshly washed and clothed, a cookie in hand and hiding shyly behind Cass.)

(When they meet, all they say is "Welcome home, danny," and "Good to see you again.", Danny doesn't necessarily get it, but that's okay. Maybe his new mom will explain it one day when he's bigger.)

[artschoolglasses]

Ghost of Yōtei (2025)

[ottostoast]

playing around with some spider-KID designs

[mattelektras]

i didn't expect to be here. grey wardens have an expiration date.

[emacrow]

The little prince reincarnated.

Danny was obsessed with Space since he was little, alongside Auntie Alicia old rose bushes that barely grow single rose each season until he started visiting as a kid.

Roses bushes always grow and bloom a lot when he visits.

Auntie Alicia always tried to grow her roses right but unfortunately didn't get a green thumb like her ma. She gets extremely happy whenever Danny visits because she believes he knows the secret of the roses' growth.

When he died in that mom and dad portal at the age of 12 at the last day of middle school after a Sam and tucker wanted to take a last pic in his last middle school red uniform, and purple scarf jazz knitted for him, after they dyed each other hair for one last rebellious fun. Danny, being the shortest of them both after they got their taller overnight.

Sam's blond hair was currently inky black that she absolutely loving, Tucker tried the red dye that didn't work much on his brown curls, and Danny's black hair was now bright purple to match his scarf that jazzed knitted for him.

Sam and tucker smiling face shifted into the look of wided eyes horror after they just took the picture right as danny accidentally activated the switch in the ghost portal that was just finished prototype.

He didn't get just ghostly powers alongside becoming a halfa, but the past life memories explode and merging in his mind of a littlest boy living on a tiny planet alongside his best friend rose. His adventures traveling to earth only to unable to travel back out to space due to how heavy his physical body became, trying to die by a snake but failed thanks to being saved by a wander black haired gardenerette with the loveliest laugh.

For him to grow older, unconditionally falling in love with lovely gardenerette with that most beautiful laugh and get married as they dance under the night.

To confess his gardenerette of his origin and hoping she would stay with him while she accepted and a reveal a beautiful surprise.

Him frantically worrying over his stubborn pregnant wife who trying to water their garden, him holding his daughter the day she was born with his beloved tiring smiling at him with a tearful wet laugh.

Them watching their kids grow and have their own children and die smiling upward towards the starry night with his own children and grandchildren in their garden after his beloved gardenerette passed away in bed that morning with the last thoughts of hoping he awakening on that tiny planet with his best friend rose and hopefully his gardenerette along with him to introduce her his best friend rose.

Danny's ghostly form was thinner than he was. His dyed hair became lightest, nearly blindingly golden. His red uniform became bright green, and now the bright golden scarf floating around his neck defy gravity.

A sobbing Sam and Tucker frantically trying to wake him up as he sat against the wall with his blurry green eyes glancing up at them.

With a young floating ghostly figure gardenerette with her hair not black but white as the stars behind them, smacking a ghost with her water can back through the active ghost portal, her green eyes now a beautiful rosy red.

[aroaceleovaldez]

my hot pjo take is that Jason isn't a second Percy, Jason is a second Annabeth. Jason is just if Annabeth was a guy and also a Big 3 kid.

[vaguely-concerned]

to be distressingly earnest for a moment, I cannot applaud sylvia feketekuty enough for how incredibly well she balances comedy and actual emotional impact in emmrich's storyline. it's such a fine line to walk as a writer, and she does it perfectly to my mind. johanna hezenkoss is a wonderfully cartoonish heightened comedy character whose literal stated goal is world domination by means of necromancy and also this giant skeleton mecha monster I built. her main redeeming quality is that she's SO entertaining and perfectly unrepentantly herself at every turn and never ever does she grow anything we might readily recognize as a conscience; she may be a monster but in such a marvellous way you simply cannot begrudge her for it. we are going full tilt into the yzma zone here and never looking back. and yet! emmrich's reactions to her, and the lingering emotional fallout of their friendship ending clinging to everything, are very real and grounded and genuine, and her functionality in the narrative rock solid. it's still funny the whole way through, but also weirdly poignant.

she is a blunt archetype, but her presence causes nuance in other places. it tests emmrich's inherent kindness to show some of the flaws running through it. it shows quirks in his character you couldn't get at otherwise, exposes what the lines of temptation can get their hooks in him even in all his genuine basic well-meaningness way before the lich storyline gets fully unveiled -- that there is something in him that was drawn to her ambition and unceasing intellectual exploration of the world, even when it edged up on ruthless; that it was only when the line was openly crossed he put his foot down for good. it exposes the darker side of nevarra's political life, especially the mortalitasi -- that it would only take a handful of them forsaking their oaths and morals and deciding that ruling from behind the throne isn't enough. in the words of emmrich, how easily it would make them a new tevinter, except with a skeleton army so arguably much more metal. the slope is slippery. watch where you put your feet, watcher.

and johanna's cheerful and unrepentant spider verse doc ock supervillain antics are emblematic of the way that aside from anything else, this storyline is also -- and I must return to it once more, one cannot emphasize this enough -- so so SO entertaining about it along the way. it sets the tone in that it's campy and over the top and hilarious... a levity you really do need to bring to emmrich's arc, revolving as it does around *checks notes scribbled on hand* ah. the desperate crippling all-consuming terror of death. like um. yes. you need some liberal spoonfuls of comedic relief to make that particular theme palatable enough to get through and process, and providing that feels like both a very kind, a very intelligent, and very wise thing to do as a writer. and also ties in so perfectly with the whole thematic structure and conclusion -- the message that perhaps you will always be afraid of this thing. maybe that fear of cessation, of irretrievable loss, will be with you forever. but there is kindness and connection and fascinating things to discover in this world to make it bearable. it's all very elegantly done and I admire it deeply on a craft level as much as I appreciate getting to engage with it as a player. a masterful balancing act of tone. thank you for coming to my ted talk and goodbye

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Just realized: Rise of Red is maybe funny a little for its connection to the first three films for one reason:

Maleficent says to Mal back in D1, "When I was your age, I was cursing entire kingdoms." But cut to ROR and...she wasn't even doing that lmao, she was playing lacky to Uliana and got frozen by a book.

[yeyinde]

WIP WEDNESDAY.

a portrait of madness | oil on canvas (in the clumsy strokes of a child's fingerpainting)

JOHNNY MACTAVISH X READER

18+ | IMPLIED KIDNAPPING. NON-GRAPHIC SMUT. TRAUMA.

He burns incense on Sunday.

Catholic, he says with a slight roll of his shoulder, tone dipped in a thick coat of nonchalance that drips like hot wax over his words. Habit. 

It's piled together with other things, too—his life story eliding into a thickened paste, slurring over the edges until they're blurred and distorted. Nonsensical. Something he seems to realise by the pinch in your brow, and clicks his tongue in irritation, murmuring a jagged apology under his breath that makes you want to weep.

You won't, though. Crying just makes him frantic. Makes him gather you into his arms, holding you tight as he whispers it'll be okay and you fight the urge to tell him it's all your fault. 

Swallowing it down is easier than letting him pretend he's a hero, so you watch him instead. Voyeuristic. Riveted as he brings his hand to the mangled mess of his temple, fingers folding into a fist. Driving, digging, into the scarred tissue that frames his temple. Angry. Muttering under his breath as he grinds his knuckle into bone—

It's episodic. These little spells of torment last several minutes where he digs and you fight both the urge to be sick all over the sheets and to cry, beg him to stop. Don't hurt yourself. 

A farce. 

It shouldn't matter that he's chiselling into tissue, raking claws through grey matter; playing Dies Irae over coiling gyri. Orchestral condemnation that makes you feel like you should be relishing in his torment. Conducting madness with barbed words and caustic accusations. But—

You derive no pleasure from his suffering, and spend the day choking on the heady plume of incense as it fills the small room he keeps you locked inside, begging him to stop.

(Please, god, stop—)

He won't, though. Not until he's satiated some indivisible need to hurt himself—righting a phantom wrong with the push of his fingers into torn tissue; trephination costumed as self-flagellation. And it's only when this urge is quelled will he climb into the lumpy mattress with you, eyes glazed over and blood dripping from the scratchmarks on his temple, and gather you into his arms. Shackling you to his heaving, sweat-slicked chest as he mutters insanity into your ear, and runs his sticky, blood-damp hands over your body. 

"Mine," he'll bite out, and it'll be the only thing he says that'll make sense for the rest of the night. Everything else is the scrape of iron over lodestone; grunts and whimpers and ragged breath. 

He'll take you apart with teeth and tongue, nipping at your skin as he laughs into the hollow of your throat, dazed and dizzy with the split of your thighs bracketed around his waist. A perfect feckin' fit, pretty doe. 

In these moments, you'll forget yourself. Clean slate. Blank canvas. You'll pull him closer and whine when he pushes himself inside of you—a perfect fit, just like he said. A missing piece, just like he is. 

You've never realised how empty you felt until he rolls his hips, sinking deep inside of you. Filling the space that aches like a bruise when he pulls out. Yearning. 

And it's such an ugly thing, isn't it? To find that missing part of yourself in the thick split of his cock as he gasps about stolen ribs and figs and how he remembers you from a past life. 

It'll make you sick in the morning when you feel him—sticky and thick between your thighs; cum dribbling out of your bruised, tender cunt (already aching)—but you'll beg for it as he buries his teeth into slope of your breast, grunting into the wound like you've gutted him. 

And maybe you have. In a past life. A different time. Took a blade to his firm, trim belly and sliced through the tangle of thick, black hair until a line of red grinned up at you; a vicious twist of its lips, mocking and cruel. Flensed maw gaping wide enough to swallow you whole—

The worn bible on his desk, kept next to the dogtags and locket they sent him home with, speak of murder as a mortal sin. He laments this in mutable sermons sometimes, spinning reviled lies of death and destruction. Penance in pounds of flesh. 

He talks about that a lot. 

Penance. 

Whispered out between feverish mutterings of nonsensical things too ground up in his thick patois for you to discern. To make sense of. Everything is blurred under heavy brogue, except—

"Are ye finally gonna confess today, doe? 

He asks this with his legs spread wide, knees far apart. Bible resting on the top of his thick, muscular thigh. Rosary clenched tight in his fist. The cross on his chest swings like pendulum when he leads forward, eyes wide. Wild. Peering into the heart of you as he asks the question again. Softer this time. Slower. A caress. Sweet in your ear. 

Enticing. 

You like him better when he's drenching his fingers in grey matter and screaming at the ghosts to stop hiding things inside his closet. 

So, you evade. You look away. Pretend he isn't real. Doesn't exist. That he's a ghost. A phantom. A bad dream—

"look'it me, doe—"

A shadow in a hallway. A noise in the dark. 

"Look'it me—!"

Whispers at midnight. The ocean in a seashell. Creaking floorboards in an empty house. Something in the corner of your eye. 

"don't do this tae me, doe! Ye cannae—"

Immaterial. Something you made up inside your head—

"why'd ye dae this tae me, doe? Why'd ye do this tae us?" 

Not real. Not real. Not real—

Until his hands are around your throat. Teeth bared, lips cocked in a snarl. 

"oh, ahm real, doe. Ahm very real—" madness drips in the back of his eyes like condensation down a glass. He tugs you closer until his blood-stained teeth pinch at the soft skin of your cheek. "An' don't ye forget that, doe. Ahm just as real as ye are. Ahm just as—"

Sometimes you think it's a little strange how you can still breathe even when his hands are tight like a noose around your neck. Even stranger, maybe, that you like it. The way it feels. The sight of him breaking apart, unravelling. Coming undone. Unmoored as you turn your head away from him, drawing those fevered eyes to the slope of your throat—

He bites down until skin breaks, tears. Buries his canines into you first, gasping at the puddle of blood that wells beneath his teeth. Slurping. Sucking. Groaning into your neck as your warm blood soaks his tongue, almost choking himself on the flood of it. His front teeth follow, slicing through tissue. Punishing. 

Feeding. 

Vampiric. You knot your fists into his shorn, messy hair, pulling him closer, nearer to your vein. The ridge of your jugular. Just get on with it. 

End me, you demand. Make it worth it. 

He closes his palm around your fingers when you go to push him away when he refuses your plea, wrenching your hand down to his side, his ribs, and moaning low in his throat—the sound wet, gurgling; sticky—when your nails catch his skin. Tearing. More blood between you than air in your lungs. 

He presses them hard into his muscle until it yields against bone. 

"feel th'?" He slurs, iron drenching his words. Sodden chin jutting into the hollow of your throat as he heaves with an airy, pluming laugh. "S'missin', ain't it, doe?" 

The hand gripping your fingers tightens until they go numb. Your dizzy gasp swallowed up into the ragged spill of his breath as he slides the tips of your fingers down to bottom of his ribcage with a grunt. 

He asks again—feel th', doe?—and you offer a feeble nod in response. 

"what'd ye do wi' it, doe?" 

You don't have an answer. You don't know. 

His growls, this low, dangerous thing, and pushes your knuckles harder into his skin until it sinks against tissue—

"S’not there, is it?" He laughs with his tongue against your neck, lapping at the blood. The scorching puff of humid air against the wounds hurts like a sunburn. You bear your neck a little more. "Where'd ye put it?" 

Your head hurts. Swaying like a loose pendulum on your neck—a teetotum—and you wonder if he bit too deep this time. All the way through until it clings to your body by a thin piece of tissue—

You drop forward, slumping against him. Forehead pressing into his cheekbone, lips dragging against stubble. 

"You're crazy," you slur into skin, and he laughs, a muffled rumble buried in the makeshift cage of your throat. 

"ahm no' crazy," he grunts, pushing you down until your back is flat against the mattress, his body boxing you in. Heavy on yours. Smothering. His head is still buried in your neck. Tongue lapping at the last drops of blood that weep from the wounds you can't feel anymore. 

Not crazy. You think about this room. These four walls. Concrete. Stone slabs. Gothic revival. A bed that smells of sweat, sex, and incense. Old paper. Dusty books. 

Blood.

The hollowness of his ribcage. The missing door—

He mutters things as you lull between lucidity. Talking about a man named John. Someone named Simon. How they warned him this would happen. 

"aye," he concludes as you sink deeper into sleep, clinging by a loose, fraying thread as he buries himself inside of you once again. "Sift me as wheat—"

On the dredges of sleep, he'll murmur, soft and sorrowful: why'd ye dae it, doe? Why'd ye—

You don't know. 

But in the back of your head, a memory dredges up from the bowels of your subconscious, spat up like vomit. Regurgitated madness. It festers, writhing like a parasite. A worm in your brain you can't control. 

Ribs between your fingers. bury the bone in the backyard. But no—

Hung on a spit, blackening in the flames. Charred marrow crushed between your teeth like stale, hard bread. Chew, swallow—

You think you might have killed him. Devoured him whole. 

Metaphorically speaking, that is—

(in dreams. in the empty vacuum of your mind. a different time, a different place;)

—because the thing in your memory isn't you.