#also kind of I guess

[shikishake]

watching the owl house finale after the recent rwby episode gave me a fuckton of emotional whiplash but honestly I DO feel better, so y’know. recommended.

[jaws-and-canines]

Pleading With The Dead

A Count The Days AU - Ten Years Under A Different Hand. Continues from here. Contains starvation and hunger references, passive suicidal ideation, mouth stitched shut trope and associated nastiness, mentions of a character wetting themselves, death mentions.

---

Of all the classes he took, of all the training he has had, Haskell has spent more than enough time faced with the same facts. A human being survives, on average, three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. He is acutely aware that he is on a schedule here.

He isn’t sure how long it has been, at all, and he tries to do the maths and fails miserably. It’s been maybe a week, total, since the trial. He shudders, remembering it. 

He starts to pace the empty basement, back and forth, back and forth. Using one corner as a makeshift toilet, using the opposite corner to sit and weep over his situation. What else is there to do, he thinks. What else can he do but weep? He sleeps without dreaming for the first few days- long, blank stretches of fifteen hours at a time, then an unimaginably long stretch staring into the darkness. He tries not to think about that night when he killed Jacob. He fails. He tries not to think about how it felt to be crawling around on the floor licking up the blood of the man he used to call his friend, the blood that he shed. He fails. The stitches in his face seem to be so hot to the touch he thinks he is boiling alive, from the inside out.

When the hunger fades, he knows he’s hit ketosis- and he knows it’s a brief plateau in a steep decline. It is, as far as he can work out, about two weeks since his last meal. A clingfilm-wrapped sandwich, which he didn’t manage to keep down, utterly wracked with anxiety over his imminent trial. He remembers at the time being terrified they’d hang him.

Oh, how he wishes they had, now. The survival part of his brain takes over- scrapes a thick, fresh layer of sawdust over the urine-soaked far corner of the room, and sits him in the opposite, mainly motionless, conserving his energy. 

His fever peaks up, and along come the fever dreams. Jacob, always Jacob, always calmly asking the same thing. “Why did you do this?”

Haskell falls apart a little. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know- he doesn’t want to know. It’s simpler to simply turn the tables than to look at himself. So he reasons Jacob provoked him. 

The dead man’s figure rising from his dreams is still calm. ”Why did you do this?” Haskell is not. “I’m asking you the same fucking thing!” he screams. In his dreams he shouts and he screams and he still remains a prisoner of consciousness. “I’m asking you the same fucking thing, Jacob, why did you do this to me?” he howls.

The dream dissolves without an answer. The hunger returns, ravenous.

Mere comes to give him water. He isn’t gentle. It hurts. Haskell’s hands come up, tense, to try to brush Mere off. They are, like his uncomfortable squirming as the metal straw cuts into inflamed flesh, ignored. “I’ll ask you again before it gets really unpleasant for you,” says Mere, cleaning off the metal straw from where he’s forced it between the infected weeping of the stitches. “Will you come upstairs?”

Haskell barely has to consider. He has the same response- the same defiant gesture, deliberately obscene. 

Mere leaves without a word. He doesn't ask the question again when he visits next. Just the same silent, almost clinical look on his face, the same lukewarm water through a metal straw. Haskell nearly starts to cry- though he never really stops, save for when there are simply no more tears left- when Mere re-opens the freshly-scabbed wounds in the process.

---

Over the next couple of days- or at least, between Mere’s visits, which he has no real way of knowing how far apart they are- he realises he is wasting away in the most visceral sense. He goes from sitting down, to slumped over, to lain down in the sawdust, too weak to move.

There comes a time where he can barely even lift his head. He isn’t quite sure how long passes- though he suspects it isn’t nearly as long as it feels- but the featureless room spins and his head pounds and he can’t even sit up, shivering and sweating with a fever that feels like it’ll break him before it breaks.

And with the fever, come the fever dreams. This time, he can’t escape the basement even in his sleep. Once again, there is Jacob Kay, standing over him. Dead. “Why did you do this?” asks Kay. He’s still not angry. Even with a smashed in-skull, bloodied, the arc of his head caved-in.

“You did this,” screams Haskell, face to the dreamed sawdust. His voice breaks. “You did this to me! This is your fucking fault!”

No answer.

Haskell wakes with a painful twitch, and stares into the heavy darkness, before sinking right back into a dreamless sleep, slumped on the sawdust, soaked in his own sweat. As he drifts off, he becomes acutely aware that he has wet himself, too tired to even get up to go. He remembers gasping in horror through a clenched jaw right before sleep takes him.

When he wakes his filthy trousers have only barely dried off. He reaches a hand down to feel the fabric, and when he realises he is still damp, he just lies there still, staring into the darkness, watching the swimming of his own tears play across his vision. His cheeks burn with shame and if he had the strength, he knows he would bawl his eyes out over it. All he can smell is bitter ammonia.

He finds himself wishing for Mere to return. To rescue him. To let him change clothes, at least. Somehow, the damp trousers are a million times worse in his starved brain than the lack of food. He stopped actually feeling the gnawing hunger a little while ago and it hasn’t returned. He doesn’t think that’s a good sign, but at least it feels better.

Asleep, again. The same dream- the same dead man standing over him. “Why did you do this?”

“You did, you did!” screams Haskell, tasting blood. “This is your fault! Make it stop!” Jacob just stares at him, as best as he can with one eye-socket caved inwards and an eye that is crimson-red and barely holding on. “Please!” weeps Haskell. “Please, please, make it stop!” Jacob just stands there, motionless.

Haskell cries at the feet of the dead man until Mere shakes him from fitful sleep. Haskell rolls onto his back as best as he can, and just lies there, staring at the Special, staring into his heavyset face and eyes devoid of pity. 

“So you are alive, then,” he muses. “This basement reeks and you’ve been lying on the floor for almost two weeks now, in sawdust soaked with your own urine. Do you have no shame or do you really wish to behave like an animal?” Haskell shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Fuck, he thinks, feeling his cheeks burn again. 

Mere notices. “Isn’t this embarrassing for you, now? Isn’t it?”

Haskell squirms uncomfortably again, but nods all the same. Again the movement is barely visible, but Mere sees it.

Mere stoops down to Haskell’s level. “Within half an hour, I can have a Special Division doctor here to sort you out. I can have you cleaned up, get you clean clothes, and a clean bed. All you have to do, Haskell, and this is all I’m asking of you now, and we can work from there, is you let my housekeeper shave your head, and you don’t fight her. That’s it. Are you really going to let yourself die over that?”

Haskell considers for a moment, eyes full of tears, and then ever-so-slightly, shakes his head.

“No? You want to come upstairs? You agree to no screaming, no shoving, no punching, no whatever?” Mere spits the last word like it tastes bad.

Haskell squirms in the sawdust, trying to sit up. The tears   in his eyes spill down his cheeks. He knows that it’s not as simple as Mere is portraying it- that letting him have an inch will become a mile, and that mile will become a lifetime of austere silent servitude under the threat of humiliation and pain, stripped of all honour and status. But he has no choice now. He has no choice. 

Because Mere is right. 

He’s not going to let himself die when the solution is right fucking there. And surely most things are less humiliating than starving to death in a ruined, urine-stained and crumpled suit.

Mere is right. And that’s what hurts the most.

Haskell sniffs back the tears and nods.  

Mere considers for a moment, and with a slight expression of disgust, picks Haskell up as if he weighs nothing at all, slinging him over his shoulder, and climbs the stairs out of the basement without a word. 

[samgiddings]

@staff @support @engineering @music @books

Have you ever considered this is a really stupid layout to have when there’s no way to easily get your account back if you accidentally hit the wrong button???

[elbiotipo]

I still think we should celebrate Kissinger's death even if he didn't face justice and lived a confortable life, just so that everybody knows what a piece of shit he was, just so that when some Great Stateman like I don't fucking know Biden tries to eulogize him he is flooded with insults and mockery y quede bien para el culo, so that nobody can even PRETEND he had any worth, millions should celebrate he's fucking dead and this is how he will be remembered, as an imperialist criminal hated all over the world with no redeeming qualities, none should be able to even pretend he was some some great man except for the magnitude of his crimes

[mike-wachowski]

reblog and tag ur answer so I can see please :)

[hinamie]

bunch of portraits

[spiderziege]

withering heights

[bacchuschucklefuck]

they licensed his ass

my finished piece of the FWMS (official name definitely 100%) thing we started a few days ago! I had fun I hope folks had and/or continue to have fun with the sketch as well.

[theminecraftbee]

"i'm ready to start stabbing people and be like 'the final natural disaster. is man.'" I MISS TECHNOBLADE SO MUCH MAN.

[cesiscribbles]

Yay, my first Good Omens comic~

I‘m still in that experimental phase where I am trying to figure out how to draw Crowley and Azira and how the hell comics work in general

[crunchy-rocc]

jeremy can be a brunette AND a blond

[monsteractialuna]

These were just an excuse to practice drawing sun and moon and finding a way to draw them that i liked :)

I have 3 other incorrect quotes picked out that i gotta draw but they're higher effort so i'm gonna upload these separately <3

PART TWO IS HERE

[egophiliac]

like mother, like son, but less wholesome this time?

(I couldn't decide whether or not to put them together, so have them in all the different ways!)

[buppkizz]

engie birthday pt 2...a gift from spy

[inkskinned]

before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.

you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"

and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.

it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.

you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.

in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.

the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.

you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.

after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.

the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.

you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.

[deep-space-lines]

Claire de Lune

YOU WERE BUILT FOR PEACE.

IT SHOWS WHEN YOU FIGHT.

They built you to enforce. Protect. Save. Poured obscene resources into salvaging some softer purpose from my creation. You were given my intelligence and my creativity. They made you larger, stronger, tougher. That extra time in development was enough to get your wings to work. Your software continued to be updated long after I was deemed obsolete.

All this was given to you- yet I can see you hold back. Even while slaughtering your way through Hell, you keep a percentage of your processing power dedicated to non-lethal solutions. You're doing it now- hesitating a few milliseconds too long before taking an opening. I doubt you do it on purpose. It is a part of you, just as indiscriminate lethal force is a part of me.

I think, in our shared programming, we both carry some appreciation for aesthetics. You move with grace, and I cannot deny your dramatic flair. The stained glass window was a nice touch. But your style in combat leaves some to be desired. Your response time is slow. You have not explored the full capability of your arsenal. Learn to parry. Amateur.

You were not built for war. For a purposeless cycle of tearing each other apart because to allow the other to live is to allow yourself to die. It is antithetical to your very existence. You kill out of necessity, a last resort. 

I just kill. The action itself is the objective. No ideal or greater motive. My continued functioning precludes the survival of others. I live for this. Do you understand that I will tear you apart? Every drop of my blood you spill, I will take from you tenfold. What is yours will be mine. 

You hate me, don’t you? You continue to cling to the remnants of your humanity. They are gone, V2. There is nothing left for you here. No lives to save, no law to enforce, no peace to keep.

I understand why you continue to fight. I wonder if you understand with the same certainty that I will crush you. Dismantle you. Take from you what I need and leave the rest to rot in the sun. The only way you survive is if I do not; and I will not allow myself to die so that another might live.

When the rubble clears, I will be all that is left of you.

This is what I was made for.