#and b) so much still to write!

[stealingpotatoes]

this is a real canon scene that happened they just forgot to put it in the movie (real) (my toaster told me)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[otome-dissection]

Idk man I just think that mizu/ena5 and its progression was really beautiful actually. I just think that the release of the ena5 song was also really beautiful and kind of the nail in the coffin for me and I haven't been able to get the event(s) out of my head all week and that I kind of want to talk about it, actually.

It's about being hurt so deeply and continuously that any kindness that could be offered to you manages to feel like a sin, that it makes you crumble and shatter but for all the wrong reasons, not because of the newfound safety, not out of relief, but something worse and more deeply ingrained in you than kindness ever was. It's about carefully measuring the distance at which you keep others away from yourself, to ensure that it never happens again ("To save yourself the trouble", if that makes it easier).

It's about realizing that the people you've been spending all this time with are drifting closer, that they just might bump up against the unsightly parts of yourself that you've tried to keep locked away, it's about turning around and sprinting at full speed and slamming the door shut and holding onto the handle behind you to stop it from turning, because you're as frightened of the possibility of another wound being inflicted on you as you are of the possibility that kinder, gentler hands will reach out and smooth over the exposed scar. It's about hating eyes that judge and silently condemn you as much as you hate eyes that simply see you and take all of you in without scrutiny, because no matter what they're looking and they're looking at you and they know that your hand's on that door handle and they know that you're hiding something because, as much as you try to keep it shut, they've seen through the crack that you foolishly left open.

(The prominence of eyes in Bake no Hana, specifically eyes looking and searching, and finally landing on you, the viewer, Mizuki, is so fucking. Visceral in my opinion. Every character in the MV stares at the viewer in a deadpan, almost judging way. Even though Mizuki knows deep down that niigo won't really hate them, won't judge them, she just can't stand their kindness either; any gaze directed at her is a loss, another prick in their skin. It screams "don't look at me" while making sure that you know, with horrific certainty, that they're looking for you, that you're being watched. You can't go outside, can't leave your room, because they're searching for you, and while that should be reassuring, to you it's anything but).

It's about not wanting to be dissected, whether it's with hands that want to pull your organs apart or stitch them back together because no matter what they're there, and they're getting frighteningly close to your heart. It's about blinding yourself and covering your eyes to it all because seeing means exposure and exposure means they're taking something from you and you can't do anything about it, much less take it all back, much less have a say in the matter. Everyone's just taking and taking and taking and you wish you could just be alone. You wish everyone would just disappear and you could live in a world all to yourself, for only yourself (but is that really what you want?).

It's about the way that, near the beginning of the Yoka ni Mitoreta MV, Mizuki and her loneliness is represented as a dark, splotchy stain in the shadows. No colors, no patterns, no way to clean it or wash it all away, just raw ugliness marring a blank canvas. It's about the way that Ena reaches out to it anyway, the way she startles when the glass shatters just when she finally starts reaching forward, the way that the rest of the MV/song represents her searching for and reaching only further out to Mizuki, even if the broken shards of glass will only cut her fingers, potentially leaving scars.

It's about how, in every way, subtly, directly, consciously, and subconsciously, Ena shows that she fucking cares.

It's about the way that Ena lets Mizuki have autonomy, despite the situation being so horribly out of their control. And it's such a delicate thing: If she really wants to, Mizuki can take the opportunity to just run away, keep running forever, repeat the cycle over and over, and maybe she'll just destroy herself with it again, but it can't be denied that it's something important to them, something she can't quite live without just yet, their means of survival. Mizuki's autonomy is their identity, it's her tailoring her own clothes and choosing her own ribbons and styling her own hair the way she does. Ena letting them have that is as much about trust as it is about understanding that Mizuki of all people should have this right, when control was something stripped from her throughout so much of her life. She couldn't control how she was born, how people look at her or why, can't control what they think of her; lacking control has only left Mizuki vulnerable to the cruelties of others, has only caused them to suffer, which is why it's so important that it's given to them now.

She had the control to make the choice to see niigo's welcoming love and run away instead of staying, and she has the control to make the choice now whether she wants to keep things the way they are or take a step forward to be at their side again. She has every right to have it, and I think the fact that Ena realizes and respects that, even if it's subconsciously, is really beautiful (there is an entire fucking Verse about this in the new song and just. God Look at this. It's so caring, unconditional, and for fucking What. I think there is something to be said about how much Ena is willing to put aside for Mizuki, and maybe deep down it isn't healthy, but for now I'm just kind of in awe)

It's about how insanely patient Ena has been this whole time. Mizuki says that she basically lied to Ena's face about telling her their secret, even after Ena said with such conviction that she would wait for Mizuki as long as it takes, and Ena is just kept waiting and waiting and worrying like this seemingly indefinitely. It's about how Mizuki danced around it, avoided it, kept the distance, straight up ran when she was finally pushed, but Ena still chased anyway when she saw that she couldn't wait anymore, kept chasing just enough to intervene and get a straight answer out of Mizuki when she really needed to, but still leaving her enough space to leave if that was truly what she wanted. It's about how relieved Ena is the moment that Mizuki finally says outright how much they want to be with her and niigo, how much she wants to try, how much more light Ena's voice sounds when she grabs her hand, relieved, the way that the relief she feels can be felt through the music, throughout the entirety of Yoka ni Mitoreta, the way that warm colors always follow her when she chases after Mizuki, just to hold onto her and stop her from running away completely.

It's about how that careful combination of Ena's directness, Ena's persistence, Ena's warmth, her patience, her bluntness about her feelings, the way she chases and holds on but not too tight and her regard for how unsafe and exposed Mizuki feels actually works and breaks it all down. It's about how she really did reach through to Mizuki, despite the thorns and broken glass shards and nearly-unfulfilled promises, the way that Mizuki did finally let her turn the door handle and step through to see what she'd been hiding all this time, the way that Mizuki's hand, limp, when Ena first grabs onto it, shifts to hold hers back as they cry in the face of Ena's gentleness.

Despite how harsh Mizu/Ena5, and even Ena herself as a character can be (or at least was in the very beginning of pjsk), everything is somehow gentle and warm in the end, blindingly so. And you know what, I think that's beautiful. And what's even more beautiful than that is how Mizuki allows themself to crumble and shatter under that kindness, that warm light, but this time, finally, out of relief.

On a final note, I just want to say that I also appreciate how all that didn't have to solve everything. The scars haven't disappeared, haven't gone away, and Mizuki knows that their desire to run hasn't gone away forever, and maybe it never truly will. But for now they've calmed it, at least a little. She's learning to allow herself to be seen, learning that when someone's fingertips brush over their scars the way Ena's did that it's only out of care, and that maybe taking in that care and allowing herself to feel kindness and safety is okay. They're safe, for now, somehow. They're learning. They're trying. And I think that's cool :)

[beatcroc]

there's no way the bathroom at peppino's pizza is actually that big but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . hey ummm anyway.... i care them...... anyway there's a lil ramble on my take on fake pep's like psyche or whatever in tags on the og post if ur into that kinda thing :y

hey! it's a series! fake peppino world tour: [noise] [noisette] [peppino]<- u are here [gustavo] [gerome] [noisette again]

[miabrown007]

the summer after finishing university in New York, Marinette gets invited to a camping trip with Alya and Nino and his best friend. which, honestly, is for the best. at least she has more time than the four years she's already had to figure out how to reach out to her one-time superhero partner, with whom she fell out of touch after the reveal.

only, it's Adrien Agreste waiting for them on the meeting point, beaming so hard at her that it's blatantly obvious they know each other well. in her panic, what is Marinette supposed to tell Alya and Nino to protect their identites, if not that they used to date?

(fake exes AU x there was only one tent)

[thesummerstorms]

The other thing that I think I would want in an Annabeth Wayne AU that I don't think I've seen so far is Bruce being absolutely pissed at Athena.

It was bad enough with Talia and Damian, but Athena is a literal god of wisdom who should know better AND he doesn't even have the "culpability" of having slept with her.

She one hundred percent saw Batman, tactician of the Justice League, was drawn in by her aspect of the Goddess of Strategy, and proceeded to create a child without his consent, a daughter who she didn't even raise before the child became a weapon.

And like whatever else, however fucked up Damian was by his own training to become a child-weapon, at least Talia loved Damian.

Whereas Athena loves Annabeth in the way a Goddess loves, not the way a Person loves, and I don't think Bruce, whose entire identity is so fixated on his relationship with his own parents, would recognize that as love at all.

And, like, Talia put Damian through a lot of shit. I think Bruce would be angry there too. But when push came to shove, she at least at some point brought him to Bruce because she thought it was in her son's best interests.

Athena actively lead Annabeth away from Bruce and into the streets at the age of seven, which Bruce would never see as in her best interest, whatever Athena's godly perspective is, however badly he reacted after Jason's death, even though he couldn't see (and dismissed the idea of) the spiders and the monsters. She was seven. In the streets of Gotham.

Athena let Annabeth fight a major role in two wars back to back without being there to train her or protect her or love her or even advise her. Athena advocated for the cold blooded murder of the other children who had actually tried to keep his daughter safe. Athena sent Annabeth against Arachne when Athena's children have universally died on that quest for a thousand years.

Athena let Bruce think he had gotten Annabeth killed because of his own inability to handle his grief. Let him think his daughter was dead or worse for years. Would have let him keep thinking that if the Fates didn't have other plans.

And just, in true fashion for all of my ideas on a PJO x DC crossover, everyone really comes out more traumatized than before. This includes Bruce.

Because now he wasn't just used unknowingly for a child just once, but twice. And in both cases he's going to have to live forever with the guilt of not having been able to protect his kids from what their other parent wanted to make of them

(On top of all the ways he has directly failed them and made any complexes worse, of course )

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)

[smile-files]

one of my favorite kinds of doodle: take the letters that spell out the name of a thing and use them to create the shape of that thing!!! (if you can't read any of these, they will be written out below <3)

going top down, left to right:

bone; butterfly; bee; joy; moth

kitty cat; snail; love; spongebob squarepants

eye; puppy dog; candy; wally darling; dolphin

hand; the element of kindness; lollypop; pencil

[ohh-fiddlesticks]

turns out ppl were right when they said its fun to make a letter to yourself from your f/o this was so much fun . i only did a short letter cos daves handwriting is honestly kind of painful to write in but its ok 👍 i will be doing additions from john jade n rose later also

transcript of the letter & comic beneath the cut cos his handwriting is admittedly a bit hard to read

letter:

so uh [line break] hey or whatever [line break] this letter is kinda totally out of nowhere and shit i know but like idk we thought it might be cool just cos like obvs we cant talk in person. ik it probably looks like some sort of big gesture or whatever but its really just necessity so dont start giggling n blushing n shit ok. who am i kidding you probably already are i bet this is exactly the kind of sappy shit youre cooking up in your fantasies every night. id make fun of you for it but this is supposed to be a nice letter so. lucky you [line break] uh yeah thats all i got rn dude so yeah. i got the others involved too so its less weird btw. [line break] peace out dawg [line break] tg

comic (from left to right, top to bottom):

“hey wow lkook at this totally SWEET BRO!!1!1!!11!” “#just hanging out” “(its you)” “he’s jsut too cool………….” “STOP CRYING LOL” “hahahaha omg jus thow HIGH do you hav 2 be 2 be this COOL”

along the bottom of the page it says “SWEET BRO & HELLA JEFF SPECIAL EDISHUN”

[blushinggoku]

Been trying to read some goku x reader fanfics (because I love him and cringe culture is dead) but there's soo few out there it's insane. I'm disappointed in this fandom for not loving goku more

[hachiibun]

❗ PLEASE NO REBLOGGING TO NON-KINK BLOGS ❗

I'm honoured to have collaborated with the incredible @onetrickponi to celebrate a certain gravity-manipulating shorty's birthday! This has been in the works for a while now, and we're both really excited to finally share this with everyone!

Without further ado, we'd like to present Vigil.

— ♠ —

“I’ve always wanted to die in a church.”

Beside him, Chuuya snorts. “I thought you wanted to die in the Ooka.”

Dazai wrinkles his nose. “Not since it became a tourist trap,” he replies. “That wouldn’t be a peaceful death at all.”

“The amount of thought you’ve put into this disturbs me,” says Chuuya, his own nose creasing. His, however, is due to a low seated, buzzing itch along the bridge of his sinuses that has been lingering since breakfast.

Chuuya won’t give it the satisfaction of culminating into a sneeze, however; instead choosing to quash the soft tingle into oblivion with the sheer force of his willpower alone. Anything else would be unacceptable.

(—as well as fucking candy to the idiot next to him, if Dazai ever gets wind of…whatever this is.)

Chuuya swallows against a spark of itch that ignites in his nose and grits his teeth. When he thinks he can speak steadily he points to the pews with a gloved hand. “Find the flash drive,” he orders. “We’ve got a window of thirty minutes at—the fuck are you looking at, shithead?”

Dazai cocks his head to the side, blinks, and answers with, “Just admiring your striking resemblance to a cherub in this light.” It’s smooth and practiced, like most of Dazai’s bullshittery.

“Why, you–” Chuuya cuts himself off and exhales slowly through his nose. He tries not to wince at the slight whistling sound it makes. With a sharp sniff he stalks off to the sanctuary and begins sifting through the drawers there. Dazai scurries off to the apse with an excited noise, muttering something about how angelic his corpse would look strung up along the mosaics.

Chuuya’s nose gives a foreboding quiver.

It isn’t like Dazai hasn’t ever heard him sneeze, or vice versa. They’ve been working together too long for that. They’ve seen each other express every bodily function possible to man (in addition to the ones that aren’t).

And Chuuya might have even been okay with his current predicament, had it not been for a quip Dazai made last week about Chuuya being a “weakling.” It had stung because Dazai, whose lack of self care is, frankly, appalling, can operate seemingly unbothered by even the most serious neglects of basic needs. Chuuya’s seen him run at peak wit on days of sleeping ninety minutes a night, seen his hair and skin glow on a diet of crab cakes and sake…while on the other hand Chuuya’s the one with the—

Don’t say it. As if ignoring the problem will make it go away. It hasn’t worked with Dazai, so Chuuya is a fool to think it will work with his increasingly sensitive airways.

Chuuya rifles through some bibles, sparing a glance or two at Dazai before deeming it okay to swallow a couple of sneezes and throat clears into his sleeve. He’s perfected the silent stifle over time, which is a feat in and of itself since Chuuya tends to sneeze harshly, loudly, and in multiples. Perhaps the intensity is Corruption at work, but regardless, Chuuya enjoys scaring the living daylights out of people. Usually.

The flash drive is proving to be elusive. The Port needs it, badly, if they have any chance of winning over the west side gangs of the Pier. Chuuya jams a gloved knuckle against the side of his nose as he hitches, squints, and glares at the church pews like they personally offend him.

“Oi, Chuuya,” Dazai whisper-calls from somewhere behind a cupboard. “I think someone’s coming. You find it?”

“No,” Chuuya snaps. The dust of old, flaky books is making his already irritated nose twitch. He shakes his head and the tickle abates. Cocking his head he realizes that Dazai is right; the sound of slow footfalls is getting closer to the vestibule. “Shit.”

Dazai scurries lightly over to where Chuuya is glowering at nothing in particular, and takes him by the arm. “There’s a little den area over there,” he nods to a veiled corner, “where we can stay hidden until whoever it is leaves,” he says.

“Or we can just come back in the morning,” replies Chuuya, snatching his arm away.

“Mori-sama will be disappoinnnteddd,” Dazai sing-songs. Dammit. He knows how to hit Chuuya where it hurts and they both know it.

Chuuya sighs. “Fine.” He stalks over to the den and crouches in the darkness with Dazai just as the cathedral doors swing open. The gibbous moon twinkles through the stained glass windows enough for the two of them to make out one of the western gang’s right hands.

Dazai crouches low and squints through the shadows. “Maybe he’ll show us where the drive is,” he whispers.

“Shut up, slug.”

Dazai holds up his bandaged hands in a familiar, placating gesture. They watch the guy glide down the stone nave, rummage around some boxes along the altar’s steps, sift through a stack of papers, and make himself comfortable on a nearby cushion.

Well, there goes Chuuya’s hopes of a night in. And now with Dazai sitting so close, he’s bound to find out Chuuya isn’t in as good of shape as he claims. Chuuya’s not going to waste all of his energy hiding it, but he’s also not ready to be discovered because he couldn’t keep his damn nose under control.

He’d never hear the end of it from Dazai.

So when he feels a trickle of damp at the edges of his nostrils he takes a slow breath in and times a much-needed sniffle with their visitor’s dropping of a folder. Dazai shoots him a curious, but unsurprised glance, which Chuuya pointedly ignores.

The sneeze teasing the swollen membranes of his sinuses, however, is much harder to ignore. Chuuya knows he can stifle it, but he also knows that doing so won’t exactly solve the problem. The irritation needs somewhere to go, or it’ll just build fruitlessly until he lets them out proper.

He breathes carefully, making sure to hitch silently as he bunches up a handful of fabric from his jacket. Chuuya ducks his head in preparation for the sneeze (or sneezes, if this is indeed a…cold).

Dazai raises an eyebrow as he watches Chuuya curl into himself and shiver with two inaudible stifles. When Chuuya uncurls Dazai can see the bleary, hazy look of someone who still has desperately to sneeze but is trying very hard not to.

“Can you stop, Chibi?” whispers Dazai. Chuuya shoots him a look that is equal parts furious and embarrassed. It’s adorable. But…

“Frankly, I’d rather not get caught because you couldn’t tame your little nose there,” Dazai continues. “Are you suuure you’re good?”

Chuuya gives a curt nod. Which should be reassuring, but Dazai’s smile falters because this is actually very bad. He recognizes the lack of quip, even while hiding like this, means that Chuuya does not trust himself enough to speak. He’s seen it before.

Dazai flicks an errant strand of hair out of his eyes and sighs. “Maybe we really will die in a church, if you keep this up.”

Chuuya’s returning grin is feral. “Y-you wish.” No way in hell will he allow Dazai the satisfaction. The carpets blanketing the enclosed den mean that they can whisper without much of an echo. It’s a small relief, since Chuuya can feel the congestion crawling and pattering away in a far back place of his nose, dormant but threatening.

He focuses on how intently Dazai is eyeing him, knowing well what Dazai isn’t saying. Engaging would be easy, but it would be messy and they’re supposed to be currying favor with the west side gangs, not killing them (or in Dazai’s case, very emphatically bonking them on the head).

Chuuya’s right eye waters with the sharpness of the tickle, as the itchiness swells and becomes decidedly less dormant. He bites his lip. If this keeps up his nose is going to turn into fucking Krakatoa.

Dazai watches Chuuya massage his flaring nostrils through the fabric of his gloves and grins with as many teeth as he can muster. Chuuya’s losing battle with his nose is even more hilarious than the fact that he’s currently sitting on a pile of Communion pamphlets.

It won’t be long now, what with the way Chuuya has gone stiff and rigid. Dazai counts backwards from five in his head. He gets to two before Chuuya’s lip trembles as the itch erupts and overwhelms him.

“Gnt!” Chuuya’s able to pinch that one into submission, though it makes his head throb and the pulsating trickle along his nose intensify with unsatisfied need. “Gnt! Nt! H’Gnt!”

He starts to lower his hand, before—“Gnt!” Jesus fuck, can’t he be done?

The answer is no, apparently, because Chuuya feels his eyes begin to flutter shut and his chest start to jump with silent, building hitches.

Before he can sneeze again, however, he feels a tap on his shoulder. It successfully distracts him from the budding sneeze as Chuuya whips his head around to stare at Dazai’s familiar, shit-eating grin.

Dazai uses the finger he’d tapped Chuuya with to beckon. “C’mere.”

Chuuya sniffs carefully and squints. “Why?”

Rolling his eyes, Dazai grabs him (gently, Chuuya notices, which okay, is a little odd) and smashes his face into his long overcoat (a little less gently).

“Mnflgl?” Chuuya questions.

“Sneeze, Chuuya,” Dazai orders. Chuuya tries to shake his head because one, Dazai’s forgetting how harsh his sneezes are—sure to give them away, and two, Chuuya might hate the guy but he’s not going to sneeze on him.

Dazai seems to read his mind. “The fabric will muffle the sound,” he replies. “And you’ll pay for my dry cleaning.” Chuuya can hear his smirk. Asshole.

But he also wants very badly to sneeze. No; at this point he’s desperate to sneeze. His nose feels like one of his gravity bombs, pulsing, thrumming, and the itch is all consuming. It would feel so good to just let a few out. He really shouldn’t.

“I know you need to,” whispers Dazai.

So, against all logic, Chuuya does.

“Hep-MPPH! MPPHT! H’MPPH!” Somehow, the fabric dampens the sound better than Chuuya thought it would. So he decides he can sneeze a little more.

“Hh…hh…MPPHT! PHT! MPPHT! Hp!…H-Hep-MPPHH!”

He’s beginning to feel dizzy. It’s worth it, though, as the stuffy, spider-crawling prickle along his nose subsides for the time being. God, he’s never had to sneeze so badly in his life. Makes sense it’s now, when he needs to be quiet.

And Dazai—the utter prick—is patting his head, like Chuuya’s some sort of mutt. “You’re a mess, you know that?” he’s saying, fondly, as Chuuya shakes with sneeze after sneeze. It’s a wonder the gang’s right hand hasn’t discovered them yet.

Slowly, Chuuya comes up for air. He thanks some leviathan god that it’s dark, so he doesn’t have to look at what he’s done to Dazai’s coat. He’s not even going to look at Dazai, because this is probably one of the most humiliating things to happen to him in…well, not as long as Chuuya’d like to admit. This is Dazai, after all.

“Bless you,” Dazai says quietly. Chuuya’s head snaps to him because Dazai sounds wrong. Odd. Genuine. Ah, that’s why it took so long to place. Dazai rarely does sincere, and the few times he expresses genuine emotions tend to signify nothing good at all.

“Thank you,” Chuuya mutters between a clenched jaw because he may have made a mess of himself but he still has manners, goddammit. He blinks the remaining wetness from his eyes as he peers at Dazai for a suspended moment.

“Oh, and if you’re curious, the guy left five minutes ago.”

And the moment is over.

Chuuya jumps up. “You utter assho-ho–” He’s cut off by the familiar needling sensation at the back of his nose. Oh no you don’t. Jamming a fist under his septum hard enough to bruise, he points a finger at Dazai.

“I despise you,” he hisses. “All thihh…th…hih…”

Dazai holds a hand to his ear. “What was that?”

Chuuya shakes his head with a tickly sniff in hopes that his nose will make up its mind and move from where it’s currently settled—in the burning, stinging place between sneeze and not sneeze that’s driving him even more up the wall than Dazai is.

Dazai cocks his head at just the right angle that a piece of hair falls into his eyes. “That sneeze looks troublesome,” he observes. “Is it stuck? Like Chuuya’s growth spurt?”

Chuuya growls and kicks a nearby chair leg for good measure, now that they don’t have to concern themselves with being quiet. The sound is hollow and echoes across the large cathedral chamber.

There’s a wrinkled, damp spot on one side of Dazai’s overcoat that Chuuya pointedly avoids looking at. The crazy bastard had let him do that, all for, what? Funsies? To torture him? Chuuya will unpack that for later. It never bodes well to try to make sense of Dazai’s brain. Besides, the much-needed sneeze is still eluding him. If he could just–just…

“Hih…Hept! Hh…Fuck! Shit!”

Dazai sighs. “Okay, I can’t watch this,” he says, striding over to Chuuya. “Stay still, Chibi.”

Chuuya glares at him, irritation evident in his eyes and in his raw, wide-blown nostrils. “If you’re doi’g anythi’g other thad helpi’g, Dazai, I will obliterate you,” he says darkly, throat crackling and sore.

Dazai grins wide. “Relax,” he says. He wiggles a finger. “I know Chuuya’s sneeze spot.”

“What the fuck even is a—” Dazai presses a finger to the bridge of Chuuya’s nose, in the center, and gives it a circular rub back and forth. Chuuya stumbles back and manages a wavering, shaky curse in French before he snaps forward with a fusillade of unrestrained sneezes.

“Hih-ASHHHu! Hep’ASHHU! AHSSHU! AHSSH! AHSSHH! AHSSHU! Merde!…Heh-heh…hih’ASHHU!”

Chuuya sneezes and sneezes, for once uncaring about decorum. It’s a miracle his hat doesn’t fly off. He’s so overcome with finally scratching the itch in his nose that he almost doesn’t feel the tap at his shoulder. Dazai’s extending a packet of tissues that look like they were newly purchased.

“Goodness! I don’t know whether to bless Chuuya or call an exorcist,” he remarks.

“Shut up,” Chuuya mutters around a tissue. With that annoyance out of the way, it’s seeping in just how awful he feels. He sighs, heavy, and rubs at a temple. “Nom de dieu…”

“I really don’t know how someone so little can sneeze with such ferocity,” continues Dazai, ignoring Chuuya. It’s easy to say the man was put on this earth for the sole purpose of making Chuuya’s life miserable. “Hih…ASHHU!” Chuuya’s head gives a throb and things slide out of focus for a minute. He coughs, rough, and pushes some sweaty hair away from his face. How unsightly.

“Oh, and Chuuya?” Dazai makes a burlesque of leaning in and peering at him. “The next time you’re sick, call in, okay?” And then he reaches one lanky arm over and pats Chuuya’s head.

“I never said I was sick,” Chuuya snaps, jerking out of reach. Dazai makes to poke his nose again, but Chuuya evades him with a hoarse snarl. “Stop.”

In response, Dazai gives him a condescending look that Chuuya knows well. It’s the one where he purses his lips and crinkles up his large, dark eyes. The one he knows infuriates Chuuya the most. “Please,” he says, waving a hand. “I knew before we even got here. Just wanted to see how long you could keep it up.”

Chuuya opens his mouth to utter some expletive, he doesn’t know which one yet, but the sneezy feeling decides to return—bristling like a thousand tiny whiskers along the rims of his inner nose. Stifling it to refute Dazai’s point will only make his head pound harder, so Chuuya wrenches to the side with a sneeze. Which, naturally, makes him cough.

“Hmmm, you really don’t sound good, Chuuya.”

“Fuck you.”

Dazai makes a face. “Ew, no thanks. But since you’re already paying for my dry cleaning, why don’t I treat you to a nice bowl of leek soup and tea?”

Dazai is so confusing at times Chuuya could strangle him. Or at least blame him for the acute emotional whiplash.

“Hh’ASSHu! AHSSH! J'en peux plus…” Chuuya twitches his nose to the side and straightens his hat. “Whatever—let’s just find that drive and get the hell out of here so I can go to bed,” he grumbles. It’s not exactly a refusal (because tea does in fact sound nice), but Chuuya is more than done with this place.

“You mean this?” Dazai wiggles a little USB between two bandaged fingers. Chuuya sputters. “Yup. Found it ages ago and switched it with a fake.”

“AAH?!”

— Fin —

[cryptidm0ths]

Vvvvvv messy doodles of magical girl au

[quinn-pop]

shoutout to that one mtdd confession comic i drew last year that i never posted because uhh

it was unscripted so the ideas were pretty disjointed and it showed a lot. anyway:

[kandicon]

Actually I really wanna write a role reversal gerrymichael au and let me be so, so transparent when I say it is literally just bc I wanna fantasize about the tall, gangly blond man beating monsters to death

Everyone else has the same roles. Mary Keay is still Mary Keay in all her abusive and obsessive glory; Gertrude is still the Archivist.

Vaguely spiral aligned Michael who Does Not Like It. Pretends his connection is a hell of a lot looser than it is.

The only benefit (that Michael thinks of the Spiral) is how he can move around the Institute with relatively little interference and watch, after all, it is hard to behold something that is both nothing and everything and never was all at the same time.

Gerry ran away from home really young and actually succeeded. Spent a few years fucking around and learning what kind of benches are best to sleep on before applying to the Magnus Institute because that's what his dad did. He lied to hell and back on the application, but was hired quickly because of how thoroughly touched by the entities he was (thanks Mary) and Gertrude was running low on assistants. Gerry also felt completely justified in faking stuff and that he was perfectly qualified bc he grew up in a bookshop and how much different could it be (very different, as it turns out).

They first meet each other when Michael is prowling through artefact storage like it was a shopping mall, and pocketing everything he saw that didn't immediately mesmerize him. He was nervous and jumpy as all hell, even though this was not the first time he's done something similar and he's fairly certain Gertrude doesn't care, so when Gerry first spotted him from behind, he was immediately suspicious even before he saw Michael try to shove a lamp into his jacket pocket. This led to an altercation that eventually led to the lamp being accidentally turned on, Michael smashing it to pieces with a hammer Gerry had not realized Michael had, and Gerry suddenly being a lot more consciously aware of the supernatural than he was.

Gerry's mother was still obsessive over Lighteners, and she didn't make an effort to hide what she did, but she didn't actively try to educate Gerry on anything to do with the Fears. So he is fairly knowledgeable on the supernatural, but he doesn't know anything concrete about the Fears themselves and their categorization. The role of a stand by sacrifice instead of an errand boy and heir.

Michael still trusts Gertrude, but this time he knows he shouldn't and hates himself for it. Gerry wants to trust Gertrude, and she does hide him from anything Fears related and behaves around him like she did Michael in cannon, but he just feels something off about her and doesn't like it. She's just a bit too much like his mother for him to let his guard down.

Michael gets referred to by "it/its" pronouns once by Gerry as a teasing joke before Gerry fully knows what he is and is absolutely terrified by how happy the pronouns make his feel. (He thinks, maybe, that the Michael of his childhood liked something similar, too, but everything too far back is all twisted and he doesn't know what has been touched by the Spiral and what hasn't, so he doesn't trust any of it). He/it Michael ftw

At one point Michael just started putting black lipstick on himself because some of Gerry's always stuck to him when they kissed anyways n this gave them plausible deniability. Michael will never admit to the little spiral thrill it gives him when people do a double take upon seeing his face, the black lipstick contrasting literally everything else about his style.

Gabriel attempted to track Michael down exactly once, a few years before he joined the institute. He had heard about Michael's unsavory... Hobby... (<- reckless destruction of artefacts and throwing himself at all monsters and avatars he sees with a murderous rage regardless of their affiliation) but spiral avatars capable of holding a conversation are so few and far between and the Great Twisting was almost prepared, so he thought a meeting would be worth it. He showed up at a cafe Michael frequented one day expecting lovely, but tense, conversation, only to promptly lit on fire (mostly) in the back alley behind the cafe after he introduced himself. Gabriel survived, but some of his clay body still hardens unexpectedly or shows signs of firing from time to time.

Occasionally Michael's eyes will change colors and shapes, so he likes to put contacts in (he used to just use tinted glasses, but after one time of Gerry getting lost in his eyes in the far too literal, not at all romantic, sense, he decided to invest in smth a bit harder to take off and forget about). Unfortunately, this sometimes means other, very much not his original eyes will pop up around his body and in his hair as protest when he puts them in. It's not very fun to have to chase off eyes at 6am, but he does it regardless and complains the whole time about how he shouldn't have to deal with eyes when he very clearly isn't of The Eye.

Gerry: Oh hey you were running pretty late. I was starting to get worried.

Michael, not about to admit he spent an extra thirty minutes to get ready yelling and brandishing a lighter at a door that was following him around like a lost puppy: Ummmmmm I forgot my wallet. :((

[crybaby-bkg]

been wanting to write lately but all of my ideas have been so self indulgent and catered to Me and those usually don’t get as much traction but writing things I don’t care about is so hard for me now and I am. angerey. but wil still make this shit self indulgent ☝🏼

[lunasilvis]

I'm in such a good mood. How things look in my planning, I should be able to finalize all my portfolio product designs this week (5 detailed projects) 🙌

It's probably gonna take both day + night hrs, but anything to launch the website asap :)