#and mystic too

[roseytoesy]

Cuddle Time

a little something I made for my best discord friends.

love you guys so much platonically

Griff and Adam were happily sitting on the large couch in the cuddle zone, the sound of rain tapping against the windows and the warmth of a fire burning in the ornate mantle in front of the two humanoids. The cuddle zone was a wonderful place to hang out for pred and prey alike, with specialized furniture to make it easy for smaller folks to get around but not get in the way of larger people.

Both of the preds let out content sighs as they sank into the plush couch in the night sky-themed room. Rosey, Mysic, and Nebby were all happily cuddled up against their friend's sides. Nebby and Rosey against Adam, and Mystic against Griff. They had been quietly conversing and laughing for a while, but things had calmed down and everyone was basking in the nice moment.

That is until Adams's stomach decided to let itself be known with a low blrblrbrl sound. Adams's face flushed red as he put a hand over his middle trying to quiet the sounds, but this seemed to cause the stomach to growl all the louder, almost whining.

Adam covered his face with his hands, "Augh, sorry you guys... I... guess I should go get something to calm that beast down." He said reluctantly, shifting to get ready to get off the couch.

"Hang on there buddy," Rosey said quietly. fluttering up to be at eye level with him. She had a light blush on her face but she had a determined look despite her slight embarrassment. "I-I could help with that. If you want, of course."

Adam closed his eyes and shook his head for a moment before his stomach roared again, making him wince. He sighed before gently removing his hand from Nebbys back and cupping them under Rosey, she happily kneeled on his palms. He looked into her eyes asking are you absolutely sure? Rosey nodded and gently patted Adams's checks with a blinding smile of her own. "Don't worry, Adam. I know." She said so softly and with so much warmth that Adam felt his eyes sting with happy tears.

He chuckled and brought her closer to his mouth. "You're going to give me cavities Rosey I swear..." He mumbled before opening his mouth wide, allowing Rosey to crawl over his tongue, the taste buds ticking along her skin as the tongue squished under her weight. Adams's lips closed carefully around her waist and the tongue moved around her. Adam couldn't help but hum at the delightfully sweet taste of his friend, making sure to drench as much of her in saliva before tilting his head back. Rosey giggled a bit as the tongue poked at her sides as he swallowed. He quickly swallowed again, one hand moving to his throat as he felt her slide down. her legs and feet quickly followed her down as his body eagerly pulled her deeper into his core.

He let out a small gasp as she cleared his throat and started to fill out his stomach. The organ's bubbling sounds quieted to a singular grumble as it welcomed Rosey with a gentle squeeze.  Rosey squirmed a bit to get herself readjusted and comfortable. Adam also shifted a bit in place as his stomach rounded out a bit, Nebby just cooed at him and nuzzled into the softness of his middle thanks to Roseys presence. The two quietly chatted as Adam got comfortable again.

"You alright in there Rosey?" He asked quietly looking down at his middle, still so surprised that she was so willing to be inside of him like this. He will likely never get used to this, but that was ok, it was wonderful every time he was allowed to do this with either Nebby or Rosey, sometimes both if he was feeling down.

"I'm all good, thanks Adam," she said as she snuggled into the folds around her.

"I should be the one thanking you Rosey..." Adam mumbled, feeling the overwhelming warmth from his core and starting to cloud his brain a bit with how full he was, it didn't help that Nebby was slowly rubbing small circles into his middle and snuggling against his side to rest. It was a good day to relax anyway.

Adam turns his head as he hears Mystic mumbling to Griff. Griff just shook their head with a chuckle and lifted Mystic above their head, quickly swallowing Mystic in a few practiced deep gulps. They sighed as they patted their now slightly rounded middle. They noticed Adam watching and smirked, their large tail swaying next to them.

"like what you see?" Griff joked before cringing at what they said. Grimacing again as they felt mystic kick outward at that terrible line. "Oh gross, no." they shook their head. Adam chuckled at them, his own hands gravitating around his middle. "nevermind." they sighed, and a few moments of silence passed before they spoke up again. "this is nice..."

"Ya. it really is, I'm glad you're here Griff." Adam smiled as he watched the flames dance in the sun-themed fireplace. the embers glowing bright and the flames licking over the wooden logs. "This might be one of my favorite things so far we've done." He added, looking back over to Griff. Griff let out a huff and chuckled. Readjusting to get comfortable, their tail slowly swaying behind them.

"Just wait 'till Kate shows up, then all hell will break loose," They said, laying fully back with a stretch. They both laughed at that, voices filled with joy. The laughter calmed after a few moments and the two sighed, content and full, with good friends in and around them, it was the perfect equation for an afternoon nap. The rain and fire crackling also added to the perfect ambiance and the group of friends happily drifted off to sleep and deep relaxation, free from the world's worries.

[kelpreee]

Bro couldn't believe his eyes (quite literally)

[turtleblogatlast]

Something about this kind of swimming getup for characters always immediately gives me transmasc vibes. Blue swim trunks and a tank top? Sorry man my brain already connected the dots. The vibes are there, and they’re not leaving.

[zhouyes]

wasn't the dream beautiful? the nightmare is when you think it's over, it's just the beginning. the grand dream will end, only the feelings will be remembered forever.

fangs of fortune, 大梦归离. [ TRAILER ]

[imaginariumwanderer]

Is that a hair bun...? A ponytail, maybe?

I think it's a bun, kinda like steamed bun

[deepiintheocean]

[mostlyfate]

No.

FANGS OF FORTUNE 大梦归离 (2024) dir. Edward Guo, Luo Luo, Wei Nan  

[plushievash]

how we feelin fellow dark cacao warriors

[sogthewoz]

I had a vision come to me in a dream

[lukochi]

She gettin’ that soul jam

[rohansdisciple]

this very specific genre of men 💐>>>

[marshmallowprotection]

MC who constantly makes stupid brainrot meme references both in texts and in real life and Ray just looks at the chat logs like

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[heymeowmao]

大梦归离 | Fangs of Fortune E34 ° Dead demons will turn into stars in the sky. And what about you?

[kiaxet]

HOW ABOUT THAT @somerandomdudelmao DISASTER TWIN REUNION, HUH

Went a little feral to the tune of 2.2K words of self-indulgence. What else is new?

~~~~~~~

Donnie can't sleep. More accurately, he won't sleep. Not until he's done. He'd never been one to leave a project unfinished; death and resurrection hadn't changed that.

He taps incessantly, repetitively, on a keyboard and screen, the motions long since past inputting data and now only serving to keep him awake. The repetition is soothing, easy, and - counterintuitively - he finds his head drooping forward into sleep-

And he snaps back upright. No. Not until he can confirm Leo is okay.

Leo is behind him, he knows. Breathing. In bed. Asleep. Very much alive. And-

He jumps and whips around as a thud sounds behind him. "What the-"

Leo is on the floor.

Well, that answers the question as to whether his twin is awake.

For a fraction of a second, part of him wavers uncertainly. He loves his idiot twin. The question he hasn't been able to answer is whether his reaction to Leo waking up will fall on love or idiot twin-

"Leo!"

He can hear the exasperation in his voice, and yep, it's the latter. He takes a knee next to Leo and hauls him into his arms, lecturing him all the while, and if he can hear the annoyance in his voice then Leo sure as hell can. Sleep deprivation for the purposes of keeping his brother's soul alight had done nothing for his temper. "I swear to God, all you had to do was make a sound! Why are you such a difficult patient?"

He deposits Leo carefully on the bed - "Sit still!" - and checks him over, running every scan he can think of and making sure his brother's new body really is in good working order, spouting increasingly irritated commentary all the while. Of course the fall didn't hurt him - Leo is tougher than that, and Donnie does better work than that - but he still can't help the rising anxiety in his throat.

This almost didn't happen.

"-stupid, stupid selfless idiot!"

Donnie almost couldn't save him.

"Grrhh-"

Leo nearly died for real. Permanently beyond Donnie's reach. Well and truly gone-

"Do you have any idea how close you were to having nothing left to save?"

And now here Leo is, in perfect health, sitting on Donnie's bed with a big dopey grin on his face as Donnie chokes on his anxiety and damn near shakes himself apart-

Oh for fuck's sake.

"Hey. Are you even listening?"

Leo speaks up for the first time since he's woken up, voice shaky from disuse. "D-Donnie?"

And that is not a goddamn answer to anything Donnie has been saying, because of course it isn't. It's Leo. He's always had his own priorities. "Yeah. No. You're not fucking listening." Donnie heaves a long-suffering sigh, sinking back into the routine comfort that irritation at his twin provides. "At least you're talking." Small favors. "Although I'm surprised you're not throwing your stupid jokes at me." Even smaller favors.

He stops short as Leo's hand closes around his wrist, drawing Donnie's arm to Leo's plastron. "You're real," his brother breathes, looking from Donnie's hand to Donnie himself with tears streaming down his face. "You're real!"

And then, in the space of a thought, Leo's joy breaks, his smile turning desperate. "Are you?"

For a moment, Donnie stares at his twin, wondering at the sudden change in expression. He takes a breath-

And the part of him that had lain dormant for so long after he'd woken up - the part of him that had been screaming for his twin's safety ever since they'd recovered the few scattered embers of Leo's soul - gasps to life, blooming like a time-lapse video of a flower and reaching to the edges of Donnie's soul. Leo had called it their twin sense, and Donnie hadn't had it in him to argue after a while. Whatever it is, it's back, connected to Leo's renewed presence, and-

Donnie's heart floods with emotions. Relief and joy sprout quickly and are nearly swept away in a tide of exhaustionanxietyfearfearfearfearFEAR-

But down beneath it all, steady against the rising wall of terror, is the little blue spark of hope that his brother always carried. His core. The thing that let him continue on in the face of insurmountable odds, and lent that same strength to everyone around him. A ninja's greatest weapon.

It's Leo. It's Leo-

And Donnie can't leave him alone in his fear. Not when there's no need for it. Not when they're safe.

He lets that breath out, and sits next to Leo on the bed. "Mhm. I'm alive. And you're alive. We're safe. The Krang are gone." That's all the news that's fit to print, or at least the most important parts. What else does he have to say?

Oh.

"I'm sorry I..uh…"

He's sorry he what? Died? Left a mess for Leo to deal with? Didn't do enough while he was alive to keep everyone else alive in turn after he was gone? Kept his brother's soul in a fucking mug, because that was the only way he could ensure he wouldn't break it while Leo was still fragile? All of the above?

…yeah, it's all of the above.

He owes Leo one hell of an apology, and he's never been good at any of this, so instead he shrugs haplessly and leans forward, pulling Leo into his arms and hanging on tight.

It's a matter of moments before Leo has him flat on his shell on the bed and is sobbing into his arms. Normally he'd hate seeing his twin cry, but it's proof of life - proof that Leo made it, that his soul is intact enough for him to still be Leo, that he's alive and awake and here - and Donnie will take it.

And if he's squeezing Leo back pretty hard himself, well, that's fine too. Nobody else needs to know.

~~~~~~~

Donnie is yelling at him.

Donnie is strong enough to have picked Leo up off the ground, well enough to be on his feet without support, running tests and reading Leo the riot act over his latest boneheaded maneuver - in this case, forgetting he was missing an arm and falling out of bed.

Donnie is yelling at him, because Donnie is here to yell at him.

And Leo is smiling, because he couldn't be happier. He lets the words wash over him, draping over his shoulders like a favorite cozy blanket that he'd lost so many years ago, and he basks in the warmth that is his brother's voice and smiles.

It's enough to interrupt the yelling for a question, though he doesn't really hear it - just keeps smiling, and says Donnie's name, and it's so nice to be able to say it with a smile now, because Donnie is here-

-he is, right? This isn't just a dying hallucination on Leo's part, right?

(It couldn't be- he remembers his death, remembers breathing his last, remembers being trapped- but this-)

He reaches out, taking Donnie's wrist in hand, and pulls his brother closer to him. "You're…real…" It certainly feels real - skin and scales, softer than his own, and his fingers barely fit all the way around the wrist instead of encircling them with room to spare - and he stares down at it, tears rolling down his face as he finally looks back up at his twin. "You're real!"

The Krang show you what you want to see.

The thought strikes him unbidden, turning his joy and relief to ice. It's a well-known fact: a Krang infection can show its host what they want to see, visions of comfort and family and home, and extract intel from the host's reactions. He knows that- he knows that, and-

And he'd died surrounded by Krang- and even if he couldn't see or hear or feel, he knows he'd been held captive-

But it's Donnie- he wants this to be real- he needs this to be real- he wants his twin back so badly he can't think, and the idea that this could be a Krang hallucination is almost too much to bear-

"Are you?" He can hear how choked the words are as they leave his lips, but he needs to know-

And Donnie stops, and sits down next to him, and tells him everything he wants to hear - everything he could've ever wished for. They're alive. They're safe. The Krang are gone. It all sounds too good to be true.

And then Donnie offers him an apology and a sad half-smile, pulling him into a strong hug-

And the ice in Leo's mind shatters in a flood of warmth as his twin sense opens for the first time since Donnie's death. He feels his twin's irritation, and deep-seated exhaustion, and a choking wave of guiltguiltguiltguiltguilt-

And beneath it all, steady and strong as ever, the thrum of unending determination, powered by an unfathomably deep well of love. It's the backbeat to the melody of Leo's life, the point-counterpoint to his own heartbeat- it's something he'd never had to live without until he did, but it's back, rushing in to fill the silence he'd known with the strength to go on and the knowledge that he is loved loved loved, strong and overwhelming and all-encompassing in the way only Donnie can love-

It's something the Krang could never imitate.

This is real. This is all real-

He throws himself against his twin, toppling them both over on the bed as he clings to Donnie, unable to stand even a fraction of an inch of space between them, as though he could push their hearts together through their plastrons, and he cries, sobbing out worry and terror and grief and the slow, crushing exhaustion of a losing battle finally lost. He cries as though the world was ending - and it had, once when the Krang had invaded and again every time he'd lost a member of his family, over and over until he'd sent his last hope through a portal that had cost his littlest brother his life and succumbed to death himself.

And now he's alive. Here, wherever here is, with Donnie. Clinging to his twin, and being held in turn as Donnie gently sits them both up, never letting go as Leo cries himself out.

It takes a while - long enough for Leo's gaze to settle into a stare and his thoughts to settle into a comfortable static. He's alive, Donnie is alive, and he has no fucking idea what else is going on, but he's just going to be okay with that for now.

His thoughts rouse enough to inform him of something wrong - the line of tension Donnie is carrying down his neck and over his shoulders. That won't do. Leo could try to massage it out with one hand, maybe try to get Donnie to talk about it, but Donnie never likes to talk about it, and Leo isn't one for slowly soothing away tension when he can just take an axe to the release valve instead. Plus, it gives him something definite to focus on, instead of…this whole situation. Whatever 'this whole situation' actually is.

Donnie had mentioned his stupid jokes, right?

"H-hey Dee?" His voice wavers from disuse, thick with tears, but he pushes through. "Why did- why did the tree buy a camera?"

"What?" Oh, Donnie is not going to see this coming. Excellent.

"To do a photosynthesis." It's nowhere near the level of pizazz he normally uses for a punchline delivery - he's still too tired and frazzled and clinging to Donnie entirely too hard for that - but that beautiful pause of a terrible joke sinking in tells him it had hit home nonetheless. Donnie moves - he can hear the telltale slap of face meeting palm - and then breaks down into helpless laughter, smacking the back of Leo's shell as the tension Leo had felt in his twin's shoulders abruptly relaxes. Good. It worked.

"This is so fucking stupid," is all Donnie manages as his laughter fades, and he slumps fully against Leo with a murmur. That's...abrupt. Sure, Leo had felt Donnie's exhaustion, but he hadn't realized it'd been that bad. He takes hold of Donnie, gently laying him down on the bed to rest-

Remember what happened last time Donnie fell asleep next to you.

He gasps sharply at the thought - not again NEVER again - and keeps his hand steady as he moves, laying both fingers gently against Donnie's neck and feeling for his pulse. It's easy to find, strong and steady and even, like it had been before the infection had taken Donnie's vitality and then his life.

But he's alive, and healthy, and sleeping. He's okay. And Leo-

Leo moves his hand to the side of his own neck. His pulse is also easy to find, quickened with the adrenaline of an unknown situation and multiple consecutive shocks to his system.

Okay. Take stock. Assess. Figure out a plan from there.

He's alive. Donnie's alive. The Krang are gone. And everything else…is a big fat question mark, with no easy answers and no indication as to where to begin looking for them.

Well.

Uh.

"What the fuck," Leo whispers to the room at large, as though the walls could answer.

~~~~~~~

(A world away and still very close, a younger pair of twins cling to one another the way a drowning man clings to driftwood: desperately, clutching tight, as though letting go will spell their doom. Neither of them know where the emotions came from, or why; all they know is that each of them are damn glad the other is alive, and they'll do everything they can to make sure that continues to be the case.)

(What the fuck, indeed.)

[piromina]

OVERANALYSIS OF THE BURNING SPICE UPDATE TRAILER BECAUSE YOU KNOW I HAVE TO

we open up like this. pretty ominous words ... and you wonder which one is the demon and which is the god. burning spice and golden cheese seem to be very similar, possibly the most parallels that one could draw from the ancients and their respective beasts.

And then we get this shot. Obviously it's showing the soul jam, but there are also some things behind it. One resembles a snake ... APOPHIS ANYONE? this has THE most Egyptian mythology symbolism ever. if golden cheese represents ra, which makes one hundred percent sense considering her kingdom and wealth and radiance and all that, and the fact that she resembles a falcon, then the snake on this wall HAS to represent apophis. it can't not. heck, in some versions of the story apophis was A FORMER SUN GOD. like crk def knows what they're doing.

there's also this tiger character ... nutmeg tiger I'm pretty sure? something like that. they seem to be under the influence of burning spice, as well as all the creatures around them. they seem to be at a higher "position" than all these other guys, though. maybe a willing host?

and there is this. this is really interesting. the fact that Golden Cheese is the one to say this is very intriguing. as far as we knew, the ancients had no knowledge that the beasts even existed until pure vanilla's trip. he wrote the letter to dark cacao, and it was all "you won't believe this - but the place called BEAST-yeast has BEASTS in it!!!" and dark cacao was equally surprised. they didn't know. they thought they were the first ever wielders of the soul jam. but golden cheese ... seems to know a bit more than she lets on to the rest of the group. and a bit more than us. what the heck is the spice swarm?

also, the return (and release) of smoked cheese!! man I missed this guy. he seems to be working with golden cheese in this shot, but then what was his little deal at the end of the first teaser about? it does make sense, though, that he would try to at least be against burning spice - his entire goal is to get the soul jam because he thinks the current wielders aren't worthy - but to me it seems like he might have his own third side in this battle. he'll probably convince both sides he's working with them, knowing this dude. he wants the power of abundance and destruction, a second half he knew nothing about, the ability to make a change in the kingdoms and the lives of everyone in them.

and these two images are probably the most interesting of them all. they seem to be part of some sort of ancient papyrus or prophecy or something like that. golden cheese is yelling about the "great destroyer." could it be possible he was some sort of legend in their kingdom, a prophecy just waiting to unfold? could golden cheese have known about this threat since the beginning? could the beasts' corruption have been inevitable from the start, written in the stars ... and could the witches have known about it?