#and these two were a lot of fun to write

[sysig]

Experimentation (Patreon)

[gingermintpepper]

"…Do you like snakes?" The question is innocent, natural. It sprouts up from the well of Ares' mind and passes through his lips like pollen on a careless breeze. Apollo isn't angry at it. He isn't even a bit surprised. It doesn't stop his instinctual flinch, doesn't stop that phantom scent of venom and stale blood from clogging up his nose. "I'm actually rather afraid of them." Ares looks up from where he's beating his brush into the marble, his frown more a pout as he glares at Apollo, "I thought you couldn't lie? Everyone knows you're not afraid of snakes." He sniffs, annoyed and testy, bangs his brush against the marble again ruining its sable brush-hairs for good this time, "You don't have to make up nonsense to try and make me feel better." Apollo very patiently does not bang Ares' head into the marble for destroying one of his most precious paintbrushes. As a child who has not yet partaken in the hunt, he knows not the skill it takes to capture a mink, nor the labour that goes into plucking their hairs, nor the artistry that comes from binding those fine hairs to a suitable piece of etched birch. Instead, he dips his own paintbrush in the setting salve and pointedly paints in large, obvious and even strokes, "It's not nonsense. I do not like snakes." "But you killed Python." Ares digs into the salve and spills thick globs of it about the floor like a boar at the trough. Apollo graciously notes that next time, he'll endeavour to put old linens down so as to skip the hard work of scraping sealant off his tiles. "You weren't afraid then. You bathed in her blood. You enjoyed it. I felt it."

"Yes," the wet squelch of the salve is as bubbling blood in his ear. He'd shot her full of arrows then flayed her open on their points. Black from head to toe, that's how he'd returned. His hair dark with her venom, his skin soaked in her guts. His smile black with her death. "I suppose I did enjoy it." Apollo puts his paintbrush down, takes a step back to gauge the breadth of work that remains before them. "I do not think I'd enjoy such a thing now." Ares' eyes are hot on his cheek. He's rolling Apollo's words around in his head, contemplating them with a graveness he rarely lets the others observe. Apollo just wishes his gaze wasn't so probing, so snake-like in its intent. Almost predatory. "You can't change what you were born to be, Phoebus. None of us can." "On the contrary," he meets Ares' dark stare - viper versus cobra, two snakes in their little circular pot, "I have it on good authority that change is necessary for living."

[optiwashere]

Hello! If you're still taking prompts, B2 with Aylin and Isobel just... calls to me. Perhaps it will to you too, but thank you for doing these in any case ^^

Heya anon! I definitely see the Vision for that prompt, so I feel you on that. I'm happy you're enjoying these, and thank you for asking for this one! 💜

---

B2. Scars

"They are horrible, are they not?"

Isobel glanced up from Aylin's body, surprised by her words. They lay together in their sequestered place within the camp of the same adventurers that saved Aylin. It took all of Isobel's will not to remain nestled in Aylin's arms sometimes, and it was even worse for Aylin.

There were mornings when Aylin pulled Isobel back to her. Refused to part from Isobel. They spent morning after morning together. Isobel would hardly have called it a waste of those hours.

That morning, Aylin lay shirtless in their shared tent. Isobel traced with her finger each web of scars that marked Aylin like a fulgurous display of the Lady of Silver's resilience; her strength as a daughter of the Moonmaiden worn on her skin now. They simply made her more beautiful, in Isobel's eyes.

"Do you think they're horrible?" asked Isobel, lifting her fingers from Aylin. "I suppose you would. Reminders, aren't they?"

"Reminders of my naivete in trusting a cur like Balthazar," Aylin hissed. She set her jaw to one side, anger flashing in her eyes. "And your traitorous father."

Isobel ignored her comment. In time, she would deal with what her father had done, but at that moment she did not want to discuss it with Aylin. Every mention of Ketheric Thorm lit a fury in Aylin's eyes that Isobel knew would consume her for hours or even days at a time, and all Isobel wished to do was waste those hours and days in that tent with her.

"Now they are gone, and you're here. With me." Isobel pressed a kiss to one of Aylin's scars. "And I don't think they're quite so horrible."

"They are torturous to look upon."

"Beautiful."

"They besmirch the form of the divine."

"They're proof you survived."

With every response, Isobel matched her words with a kiss on the golden cracks in Aylin's skin. Each kiss rose higher up, until Isobel straddled her and began tracing a mark on Aylin's throat with her lips.

For all this, for all the time they'd lost and now the time they'd been gifted, Isobel saw nothing but the hurt in those scars. She heard the screams of Aylin in her dreams, in the dark earth she called her resting place for years. She knew Aylin heard worse. Felt each of those moments of unending, immortal agony again and again and again.

She saw it in Aylin's eyes. The way she stared up at her with disbelief, relief, or some mixture of the two in her tired gaze.

She felt it in her touch, a needful thing Isobel knew herself all too well.

So she leaned down, fingers skimming scars one either side of Aylin's torso, and kissed her.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Still wild to me that the Avatar team saw a guy write a love story between a stick and a monkey and were like "This is the guy who we need to write Rangshi and Yangvik" and then he ended up making two of the best couples in all of the Avatar-verse TT0TT

[nie7027]

You know what I've been thinking? I ve been thinking that Atlus shot itself in the foot by honoring p2 and making the explosion on the bridge caused by the death arcana to happen on the same year as p2 instead of a few years later.

Because imagine this.If it had happened a few years later we could have this narrative:

After the events of p2 EP Nanjo, not satisfied with the resolution reached, decides to take Kandoris research(that he had previously saved and kept under lock so it wouldnt fall on the wrong hands), create an investigation team and fund further research regarding Shadows and the collective unconscious/the des of souls in hopes to find a better solution to the fragile situation the splitting of realities caused.

Unbeknownst to him (as the P1 team had no idea about the true extent of Nyx power, only having fought a small scrap of it in the form of the Snow Queen Mask) Nyx starts to take control of the minds of the scientists working for him who start to commit unethical experimentation in the name of the research to fulfill Nyx objective.

Eventually Nanjo finds about the unethical experimentation, including a future project regarding experimentation on children, and immediatelly shuts down the research, angering the group of scientists and causing the fights that eventually lead to the separation of the group who will go on to become the Kirijo group under the leadership of Kouetsu Kirijo.

They of course take/steal the research with them.

As Nanjo couldn't draw the media attention and risk the knowledge that his company was involved with unethical experimentation to come out Nanjo couldn't stop them and he had to play the card about how the separation was a mutual accord caused by a difference of interests while trying to find a way to close in and stop the Kirijo group from the shadows without the research leaking out even more (here's where he hires Baofu and Ulala and starts working with them to find a way to subtly bring the Kirijo group down)

This all comes to an end when the Kirijo lab explodes and all the research is seemingly lost.

Nobody knows what happened and everybody involved died in the accident.

No matter how much they search they can't find anything.

Not even the son of Kouetsu, Takeharu Kouetsu, who now that his father is dead has inherited the company seems to know anything (in part because Kirijo is keeping everything under wraps, in part because even they actually don't know what really happened. The only one who knows it's Ikutsuki and he's manipulating everyone).

So believing everything was truly lost and there's nothing more to do, ridden with guilt born from everything bad that happened since he decided to revive Kandoris research (he should have know anything related to THAT would need up this way, he should have known it was a terrible desicion, why did he have to be so arrogant to want to take everything in his hands...) Nanjo ceases and decides to focus on his company and watching over his own team and the p2 cast (keeping watch on them and making sure they don't accidentally bring the end of the world by recovering their memories)

But there's always something inside of him telling him to keep an eye on the Kirijo group, to not ignore them and he kinda does by maintaining close business relationships.

But it isn't enought.

He's not as as meticulous as he was before, as he should have been.

Thisakes him completely unprepared when the Fall happens years later.

And again nobody knows what happened, worst of all, everybody seems to have actually completely forgotten anything even happened.

But he knows.

He knows whatever happened was Persona/Shadow related so he once again turns his full attention to the Kirijo Group but this time he keeps a careful eye on the young heiress, Mitsuru Kirijo, as it's clear to him she isn't all that it seems.

He keeps his distance, not interfering, but staying watchful. Hoping to learn anything about what truly happened before acting seeing as how badly trying to take everything in his hand went last time.

And that's how Nanjo eventually learns about the Shadows ops (but funnily enough still knows nothing about the Fall being this the most guarded secret the Shadow ops, NO, SEES has).

And this narrative would have been great.

It would have been good way to keep everything connected ... IF ONLY the kirijo lab had happened a few years later.

By making it happen a few months after p2 it gives a very tiny widow of time for the fallout between the Nanjo and Kirijo groups to occur.

In fact it gives too little time for everything to happen considering P1 takes place in 1996.

By 1999 only 3 years have happened since the P1 cast found out about personas, shadows and defeated Kandori.

Only 3 years for the Nanjo group to start its research, a fallout to occur which ends up creating the Kirijo group AND then the Kirijo group doing everything they did until the formation of the death arcana and it's battle with Aigis on the bridge...

All of that in the span of just 3 years with everything in P2 happening at the same time.

And I KNOW I could change it.

I could move the dates a little to make everything fit better without really changing anything...

(Makoto losing his parents at the age of 8 instead of 4 for example doesn't really change anything. He would repress equally the same)

BUT changing the 10 years that Minato stored death inside of him feels SO WRONG.

It feels likes it's something quintessential to the narrative...AND I DONT KNOW WHY.

*coughcoughmaybeit'sjustmyfixationwithmultiplesof10coughcough*

[hum--hallelujah]

like a sledgehammer to a disco ball - 3.9k words, Fun Ghoul angst and protective Kobra Kid

Kobra jerks awake at the first creak of the floor. The only person who has any right to be in his room at night knows better than to step where the floor creaks. Instinct takes over and he's holding his blaster at body height by the time his brain and eyes are awake enough to see through the dark.

"It's me, it's me, it's me," Ghoul stammers, holding his hands defensively in the air. Only, it sounds more like "'smee," because of the way Ghoul is slurring. And he's bleeding.

Kobra drops the blaster as soon as he realizes that the dark smear across Ghoul's face is blood. "What the hell, man," he hisses, groping in the dark for a light with one hand and trying to pat Ghoul down to make sure he's not like, actively dying, with the other. He could be blackout drunk or he could have gone out alone like he does sometimes and any number of things could have happened. The cold metal of an old flashlight meets his fingers and he flicks it on, shining the dim light over Ghoul.

"I did something stupid," Ghoul says. Only, it comes out as "Uh did su'hn stooid," wavering slightly, because the entire right side of Ghoul's face, from the corner of his mouth to his cheekbone, is sliced open. There's a horrific flap of flesh hanging loose that's supposed to be connected to the rest of his face. That's where the blood staining his face and clothes and hands is coming from, and why when he speaks, it sounds wrong.

"Holy shit," Kobra whispers, feeling cold Zone night air sting his eyes because they're open so wide. "Okay. Okay, what happened?" He holds Ghoul carefully by one arm, feels the way he's shaking. He's always shaking, except when he's got his hands in a bomb. This is worse than normal though. This is so much worse than anything Kobra's ever seen.

Ghoul shrugs, waves his hands vaguely and wildly. Kobra hisses a sharp breath through his teeth, frantically runs a hand through his hair. "Okay," He says again. "I'm gonna get-" He needs Jet, de facto medic, he needs Party, needs his brother-

"No," Ghoul says sharply, and that at least is completely clear. His eyes are wild from what Kobra can see in the dark. If human eyes could glow, his would. He grips Kobra's arms. "Please don't," he mumbles around the gruesome injury. His voice is high and frantic, and it has to hurt to talk. "Just you."

Kobra freezes. There's a slowly building feeling of dread, growing stronger by the moment. He pulls Ghoul off him, holds him by the wrists. "Okay. Just me," he promises, and feels sick about it. "Just me."

Ghoul noticeably relaxes, though he's still trembling head to toe, and lets Kobra drag him across the diner in near-silence aside from the occasional seemingly involuntary whimper on Ghoul's part, into the single-stall bathroom with a barely working lightbulb. Somehow, they make it past the front room where Party sleeps without waking him, much as Kobra wants to let his brother take care of this. He's practically trembling at how badly he wants Pois right now.

There's a medical kit in the cabinet that Kobra pulls out immediately. He knows how to handle this, physically speaking. It's whatever else, the shit he doesn't know and is scared to find out, like how this freaking happened, that makes him nervous. Ghoul stands in the flickering light like he doesn't know what to do.

"Sit the fuck down," Kobra snaps nervously, gesturing to the toilet lid. Ghoul does. Kobra pulls a dubiously clean rag from the cabinet and eyes it. It scares him to see Ghoul like this. Usually if he's scared, he fights. He hisses and spits and claws at whoever comes near him. More often than not, that's Kobra. But this, the wide-eyed jittering, is a whole other animal.

"This whole thing is gonna suck," he says stiffly. Ghoul nods. With a little more light, Kobra can see the thick, shiny blood streaming from the wound through his cheek. It isn't enough that Kobra's afraid Ghoul will bleed out, but the cut is so long and clear through and absolutely grotesque. He crouches down in front of where Ghoul is sitting, sideways on the toilet, and he can't tell if Ghoul is looking at him or through him, almost as if he's the ghost.

In a quick motion that startles both of them, probably, Kobra grabs the back of Ghoul's head with one hand and presses the rag to the seeping wound with the other. Ghoul's eyes go even wider and even greener, and what starts out as a shout of pain from him turns into a choked keening sound. Hearing it feels like being stabbed.

"What happened?" Asks Kobra again, when he's convinced that the bleeding has slowed enough to try and actually deal with this thing. He twists the handle on the faucet on and off, on and off, enough times that the ancient water pump starts up and clean water gurgles into the sink. He cleans the rag that way, then wets it and wrings it out before shutting the water off.

Ghoul's shoulders rise and fall in short, panicky breaths. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm- I didn't think, it was stupid, I'm sorry," he continues babbling like that before going silent again aside from the sharp sounds of his breathing.

In a testament to Kobra's selfishness, his biggest worry is that Ghoul took his motorbike out for a spin and crashed it. He can't think of what could have caused something like this. He has visions of his bike sliding out on a turn, crumbled metal and Ghoul's body flying through the air. But if that had happened he'd be hurt other than this. If that had happened he might be dead.

"Yo," he says quietly. "Chill. Just tell me what happened." He presses the now-damp rag to Ghoul's face, trying to ignore just how grotesque the wound really is. Maybe because it's fresh, maybe because of the fear, but somehow it's worse than the space where Jet's other eye used to be. Kobra never wanted to see an injury of that level on another person again in his life, let alone someone he cares about.

Ghoul flinches away, but Kobra shoots him a look and it must process somehow, because he stills and lets Kobra clean the already drying blood away from the edges of the wound with barely a whine. "It was stupid," he repeats, his voice shaking as much as it's slurring. "I don't know why I did it, Kid."

Something about the way he says that, voice small and wavering, sends a chill down Kobra's throat. Sudden understanding dawns on him. The blood on Ghoul's hands. He's not injured anywhere else. "You did that to yourself?" Kobra asks hoarsely.

Ghoul's eyes snap onto his and the rest of the color drains from his face. Kobra thinks he's going to pass out for a second, but he doesn't. He pulls as far away as he can, scrabbling awkwardly against the cold tiles and porcelain of the bathroom. "I don't know what I though, I was stupid, I don't- Kobra," he whines, with enough animalistic despair that Kobra wants suddenly to burst into tears, if he weren't so utterly stunned.

"Ghoul, calm down, I've gotta stitch it still," he says on autopilot. "Cool your engine, man."

Maybe it's the practicality of the thing that makes Ghoul momentarily stop panicking. "I'm sorry," he says again, tears welling in his eyes that he then blinks away half-frantically. Kobra's never heard him apologize for anything before tonight. He never wants to hear it again.

"It's okay, man. I've got you." He replies. If his own voice is shaking now, too, no the hell it isn't. "Come on, you have to let me..." he trails off, eyes wide. "Ghoul, why..." Then he shakes his head. He can't think about that now. He needs to disinfect the wound and stitch it up. And it's going to hurt Ghoul really, really badly.

He reaches behind him, grabs at the bottle of alcohol. This stuff is rare out in the Zones. They try to use it as little as possible. Only in emergencies. This is enough of an emergency, though. This is a fucking crisis.

He pours the bare minimum of the alcohol onto another piece of cloth, feels the cold soak in. Ghoul watches every move with jerking, stilted intensity. Kobra looks up at him from where he's now kneeling on the cold tile. He puts a hand behind Ghoul's head again. "This is going to hurt," he warns. They've nearly gouged each other's eyes out before, yet suddenly Kobra feels like he's going to be sick at the thought of causing Ghoul any more pain. Ghoul shuts his eyes in preparation.

Ghoul still nearly screams when Kobra dabs the alcohol over his wound. Kobra can see it in the way he holds his breath, the spring-tight tension in Ghoul's entire body. The only noise he makes is a quiet, drawn out whine, though. When a tear streaks down his cheekbone, Kobra catches it before a drop of salt can enter the wound.

"'Kay," he says in a ragged whisper. "That's done. Now I have to-" he gestures like he's sewing. Ghoul's eyes pop open to see what he's saying and he visibly forces himself to breathe again.

"'Kay," Ghoul says back in an equally torn up voice.

It only takes Kobra three tries to thread a needle. Medical supplies of any type are hard to come by, a whole new kind of commodity, but this stash has been here for as long as he can remember, just in case. Blaster burns, the most common injuries amongst 'Joys, come pre-cauterized. He's rarely had to sew sutures before.

Ghoul flinches back when the tip of the needle first touches the edge of his torn skin, and Kobra pauses. "Hold still," he grumbles, more out of familiar sniping than any real frustration at this point. He keeps his hand in Ghoul's hair the entire time he sews.

The feeling of a needle piercing flesh is horrible. The fact that it's his friend, someone he'd give his life for before seeing them hurt, is even worse. Kobra wants to fucking throatpunch whoever did this to Ghoul, or better, do the same thing to them, before he remembers with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Ghoul did this to himself.

He ties off the suture just barely keeping his hands from shaking. He doesn't know how Ghoul does this with bombs. Ghoul flinches again, violently, when Kobra cuts the excess line, and Kobra has to jerk back to keep from catching a flailing, uncoordinated fist in the face.

"Hey," he snaps. "Ghoul!"

Ghoul slips off the toilet lid and onto the floor almost as if he intended it but halfway as an accident and immediately curls in on himself. He pulls his knees to his chest and curls his arms around his head and Kobra can hear him hyperventilating. Kobra fucking freezes. He's used to fighting and wrestling and knee-jerk reactions that wind up with someone sporting a black eye. He is terrified right now. And there's still Ghoul's blood on his hands, too.

"Ghoul..." He cautiously reaches out, puts a hand on Ghoul's leg. Ghoul twitches, lets out a hiccupy sound that takes a moment to register in Kobra's mind as a sob. Ghoul, chaos loving, cackling Ghoul, is crying. And not just a single tear, now, his whole body is shuddering with the force of how hard he's crying. Kobra's heart is pounding with how hard he does not know what's happening, but he grips Ghoul's arm and lightly shakes him. "Hey, I'm still here, man."

Ghoul makes that keening whine again and Kobra thinks at first that he's going to pull away at best, or throw a real punch at worst. They fight enough, for any and no reason at all, that he expects it now. That's their normal. This isn't.

Ghoul scrambles to his knees, his hands finding the front of Kobra's shirt. This restroom is small, they're already in close quarters. But maybe unintentionally, maybe just scrabbling for a little purchase on anything, Ghoul winds up grabbing onto Kobra. And Kobra has always had a hard time letting anything go.

Ghoul's forehead crashes into his shoulder and Kobra instinctively puts his hands up, grabs back onto Ghoul in return. Ghoul's usual shaking is familiar to him, but the repressed wracking sobs aren't. Kobra clutches desperately around Ghoul's back, like he could hold together what he's just sewn up, like if he keeps Ghoul close enough he can't shake into pieces. No one should be able to break Ghoul. Not even Ghoul himself.

The edges of the cabinet dig into Kobra's back, but he ignores it. Ghoul is folding in on himself, making himself as small as he can against Kobra, and Kobra doesn't fucking know what to do. He's never seen Ghoul cry like this. He's never seen anyone cry like this.

"It hurts," cries Ghoul suddenly.

"I know," Kobra says, before he realizes that crying like this is probably making everything worse, that he'd worried about salt in the wound a minute before for this exact reason. He can't imagine the pain Ghoul is probably in.

"It didn't hurt at first," Ghoul mumbles, then chokes on a sob. "It didn't hurt when I started. And then it did."

Kobra wants to ask again, why? But he won't get anything intelligible. There's a part of him that doesn't want to know. He's terrified of knowing the truth. Instead, he threads his fingers through Ghoul's hair again and just repeats, "I know. I know."

A few minutes pass in speedy, spiraling silence. The only sound between them is their shared too-fast breathing.

"I can't," stammers Ghoul finally, after his cries have tapered out into raspy gasps. "I can't turn it on or off."

"Huh?" Is all Kobra can think to say. "Ghoul, you're not making sense, nothing about this makes sense," he snips, too quick and too tense. He's so beyond his depth. He wants Jet or Party to come help but he can't have it his way because he promised. He promised Ghoul. He wants to hit something. A wall, just to feel the impact. To imagine he's hitting whatever it is that hurt his friend so badly he hurt himself.

Ghoul sniffs. All Kobra can see of him is the top of his head and the cheek with the stitches. The wound is swollen and red and is going to leave a horrific scar. Kobra clenches his fist tighter behind Ghoul's back. "When I'm having fun or not," Ghoul says. "I can't. I am or I'm not. But."

"But what?" For fuck's sake, Kobra just wants to understand. He can read Ghoul like a book from cover to cover most times, and it scares him that he's so lost right now.

"It isn't good enough," he mumbles. "It's... It's in my fuckin' name, Kid, if I can't live up to that what am I?"

Kobra stares, wide-eyed, at the wall across from him. Something clicks. The clean cut through Ghoul's face, clearly from a recently sharpened knife, clearly intentional, reached from the corner of his lips almost to his ear. "Oh fuck no," he whispers. "Hell no. What the fuck. You're not-" He feels himself shaking suddenly, with restrained searing hot anger. Ghoul cut his head open, mutilated himself, to make himself permanently grin. "You're not fucking beholden to your fucking name," Kobra says. He never swears this much, only in his own mind. He's running out of words. "Fuck," he says, with feeling.

Ghoul shudders again. "I'm fuckin insane, aren't I?" He asks with sudden clarity.

It's exactly what Kobra had been thinking, for once completely unable to figure out Ghoul's mind, but he can't just say that. He can't just say that he's terrified because nothing makes sense and he's never going to freaking leave Ghoul alone again because this is all completely unhinged on so many levels that he can't even begin to sort through it. He can't say anything. He hopes Ghoul is sane enough to understand that, at least.

He just holds his friend tighter. He wants his brother more than anything right now, wants Party to come and take this weight out of his hands, but a part of him knows that even if he did, he wouldn't be able to let go of Ghoul. Why didn't Ghoul want anyone else but him? Why, after pretty much imprinting on Party like a feral kitten when they'd first met, to the point that sometimes Kobra thinks bitterly than Ghoul might know Party better than his own brother does, did he come to him? Why did he do any of this?

If a few tears of his own drip down Kobra's nose and land in Ghoul's tangled hair, no the hell they don't. He's never seen anyone go to pieces like this and he's struck dumb at the fact that it's literal. Very, very literally, Ghoul has gone to pieces. Taken a knife, that's probably still lying on the floor of his abandoned-office bedroom, and cut a line through his own cheek just so others might see a smile there.

There's crazy in his veins. Acid, maybe. And Kobra's always known that even if Party recognized it first. Watching your whole family die, failing to save your baby sibling, doesn't leave a person without any scars. Only, now, the scar is far too visible. Kobra's always known that Ghoul is more wild than any of them. Feral, unpredictable. He was raised by a pair of Killjoys who named themselves Hoot and Holler, and the thing is, a ghoul is just a ghost, and ghosts wail too. He should have known.

"I should've known," he says out loud, the first words in a while. He knows Ghoul so well. Better than he knows himself. He should have known something was wrong. He should never have left him alone. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He can't even blink. He stares hard at the opposite wall and tries not to scream.

Ghoul shakes his head against Kobra's shoulder and winces. "Nuh-uh," he mumbles. "I'm crazy, man. I'm insane." The fuzzy way it sounds around the stitches and the swelling just seems like proof. Just last night Ghoul's cheek was smooth and soft as he grinned across a table in triumph after winning a card game. How is it that that was just a few hours ago? He shudders again. "I'm scared," he says more quietly.

"Me too," Kobra says. As soon as the sun comes up he thinks he's going to storm out into the desert and find something, anything to beat up. Even a freakin cactus would do at this point. He doesn't know how he's going to explain this to Pois or Jet but he knows that much. He's gonna shake so hard he blows up, like a can of soda, unless he hits something. "I fucking hate you," he snaps suddenly.

Ghoul starts to flinch away, but Kobra doesn't let him. In fact, he curls tighter around him without even knowing why. "What the hell," Ghoul rasps.

Kobra hisses through his teeth. Speaking of living up to names. He fucking hates anyone who hurts his friends. But he can't say it. Hard as he tries, in the one moment of clarity about his own mind that he has, he can't speak.

"I fucking hate me, too," Ghoul says finally. The single dusty lightbulb above them flickers. If it goes out, they'll be in total darkness. Kobra thinks one or both of them might have a wicked eyeshine by now. The desert makes you wild. For some people, they're born that way.

"I think you're my best friend," Kobra finally manages to whisper. It isn't exactly what he was going for. It's not something he would ever say if he had thought of it before it popped out of his mouth. But Ghoul gets the point. Of course he does. Ghoul always gets his sharp edges, snakebite teeth and misspoken definitions and all.

"I think you're mine," Ghoul says back. "I'm-"

Kobra smacks the back of his head, like this is in any way normal, like they aren't collapsed on a dim bathroom floor in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning and like one of them isn't mutilated for life by his own hand. Like this isn't the worst thing they've ever gone through together. "If you say you're sorry again, I'll cut you myself."

It's rough, and it's torn up and pained and choked, but Ghoul laughs. Just a short bark of laughter, hardly like the dry, rasping cackle that Kobra knows so well. It sounds like agony but it also sounds like the sun coming up. Kobra makes a noise in the back of his throat, more whine than laugh, but he's so close to blowing up that it's as good as it gets. He wants to freaking die if that would keep Ghoul in one piece.

Ghoul shifts in Kobra's arms and pulls away just far enough to look him in the eye. He clumsily wipes at the tears and snot all over his face and Kobra has to snap a hand out to catch his wrist before he unthinkingly swipes at the fresh wound and stitches. "Kobra," Ghoul says, shivering in the dark. The sun won't take long to come up once it starts but until it does, the Zones are freezing. "Kobra."

"Yeah, man, I'm still right here." Kobra forces himself to look Ghoul in the eyes and not the stitches. The wound takes up so much of his face. It's all Kobra can see when he looks at Ghoul, his best friend's mutilated mouth, sliced open by his own hand. Kobra flinches just imagining it. He focuses instead on Ghoul's green eyes, boring holes into his head with the desperate pleading in them. "I'm still right here," Kobra repeats, quieter. Reminding himself, too.

Ghoul doesn't blink. Kobra doesn't blink. Their eyes reflect the dim light back at each other. This is what wild animals must feel for each other. Terror. Uncertainty. Just themselves, each other, and whatever comes. Ghoul licks his lips, tongue flicking briefly, visibly, to the corner of his mouth that he cut open. "Don't let me-" Ghoul starts and then falters. "You gotta make sure," he says. "Don't let me- do stupid shit like this, don't let me go crazy again, Kobra, please."

Kobra stares back at him, matching Ghoul's trembling desperation. He's known Ghoul since the day their crew found him, shell shocked between the shelves of an empty gas station with the bodies of his parents and previous crew around him. Perpetually shaking hands and feral bared teeth, animal eyeshine. No one can match Ghoul for determination, and no one knows Kobra as well as he does. Even if Ghoul does know his brother better than him, the same is true in reverse.

Kobra Kid has a hard fucking time ever letting go of anything once he's got it. Fun Ghoul holds on too loosely. They're both terrified. What a pair they make. But when Kobra Kid makes a promise, he means it. He grabs the ends of Ghoul's hair and pulls, not too hard, but hard enough. That's their normal. Play fighting and hair pulling, and they both know it's a kind of language for when they can't speak. "Okay," he says, and because it's a promise, he repeats it. "Okay."

[drdemonprince]

i think in the past few weeks i finally overcame the long slow soul curshing burnout i fell into after writing my last two books and breaking up with a partner of over 10 years. lately i have been feeling ENERGIZED and excited by future projects rather than bitter and resentful about needing to do anything, and im more tolerant of stimulation rather than being so extremely stress averse that i cancel anything that requires much energy. my energy is feeding into itself now. perfect time to fuck it all up by writing another book.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Principle of Moments

start of a scifi space opera series

a teen girl in the far future where humans are oppressed learns she has a destiny & a lost sister and escapes

and a young time traveler who’s given up trying to find his father through time, and is about to settle in 1812 with the prince he loves, but is unwillingly thrust into the future

they both learn their fates are entangled by a prophecy, and have to race across the galaxy, followed by a galactic emperor and the legacy of heroes from an ancient religion

[motherforthefamicom]

redownloaded an old art program

[namazunomegami]

Lord of the Flies, Gluttonous Queen, Prince of Filth, Prince of Decay, Goddess of Ekron, Lord of Slander, Queen of Pestilence and Famine, The Rotting One

I Solomon said unto him: “Beelzeboul what is thy employment?” And (s)he answered me: “I destroy kings. I ally myself with foreign tyrants. And my own demons I set on to men, in order that the latter may believe in them and be lost. And the chosen servants of God, priests, and faithful men, I excite unto desires for wicked sins, and evil heresies, and lawless deeds; and they obey me, and I bear them on to destruction. And I inspire men with envy, and desire for murder, and for wars, and sodomy, and other evil things. And I will destroy the world.” - The Testament of Solomon

[fruitybashir]

keeping the tradition of posting a few teasers for the upcoming chapter hehe ✌🏼✨️

[bearenjoyers]

sorry im just thinking about bcs but like. why not add a few smaller scenes of gus interacting with his own men? why does it seem like, in comparison, mike is almost immediately elevated to a higher status than those two in bcs purely because we actually get to see him having normal conversations with gus? like i understand they might not keep the plot moving as well because of the fact obviously if victor is currently doing something it’s because gus told him to etc. but for the most part all of the smaller interactions gus does have with those two ends up being in a somewhat high stress situation where it feels very tense between everyone. and it’s just like damn! is it always like that?? why do those two even care that much about their jobs if their boss is a bit of a dick? etc. i think even an additional scene or two with those guys (either alone or the both of them) talking with gus in a more normal situation could’ve both added a bit more depth into how gus treats his employees (we got a lot with how he treats lyle and co., but not a whole lot with the illegal side of things), how comfortable vic and tyrus feel around him in a calmer setting, and exactly why they both feel the need to be as loyal as they are to the guy.

and also on the other side of this i don't think it'd hurt to maybe elaborate on their pay just a bit..? i'm not saying to randomly put a number out into the atmosphere but i just mean some smaller things like. do they buy nicer things for themselves? what's their housing situation? what's their car situation? are the escalade / yukon their own vehicles or does gus just use those two for business situations? do they use them when they're doing their own stuff off the clock or do they have their own cars? etc. that can also help with understanding their motivations a bit. don't get me wrong i don't think they should be visibly rich or something because that's not what gus would want but just smaller things! cause it's easy to write their loyalty off as Well they probably get paid super well, which i'm sure is true, but if they don't show a single hint of that then what's the point. even something as simple as giving tyrus a nice watch, or maybe victor having a nicer looking gun, etc. something small like that. because as it stands right now the average 41 year old viewer who watched the show once only knows and will only ever know victor and tyrus as those two guys in the background who do random stuff for gus with no clear motivation. just the personification of "On it boss (salute emoji)". and to be honest this is true for a whole lot of fans who do watch the show multiple times and enjoy thinking about it more in depth, because on screen we barely have anything about the two.

and to be clear i'm not trying to say we should have an episode just for them or something like no i understand they're side characters. i understand we don't need all that. and i understand this is also primarily Jimmy's show. but it's not like these two are on the same level as like, arlo or paige and kevin etc. these guys have been around since brba. victor was literally introduced in the same episode gus was. and they are a huge part of gus's story, especially in brba. s4 wouldn't have been what it was without victor and tyrus. and in bcs, ignacio's situation wouldn't have been the same if it weren't for victor and tyrus as well. and i just personally believe that if their goal with gus in bcs was to go back and elaborate on how everything came to be and show what he was like a few years younger, they could've dragged victor and tyrus into that. and i think his character would've benefited from taking that extra step with those two.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

13/15 is fun right bc he needs to be touched so so so bad bc she basically touch starved herself to death and she neeeeeeeeeeeds his body she Needs his body but no way in a million years do they have the framework to interpret that need as what it is so they assume it's sexual, right? it's gotta be. i need to be inside you bc i need to be touched bc im my own type bc the trust issues are Dire so just fuck me until ive forgotten im a person or remembered how to be one. right?

until one day like weeks months way longer than it should be into this self-destructive self-actualisation self-care routine theyre lying on the floor of the console room catching their breath and she goes "do you think.....do you think pythia's curse is still in effect or is this gonna be a problem"

and hes like "fuck! susan"

[chibishortdeath]

Some attempts at a design for Selena :3. The second image is inspired by the wedding in Haunted Castle, but I changed Simon’s outfit cause idk I just can’t picture him being comfortable in a suit.

The last two of these are way more headcanon-y lol. They’re under a cut mostly in case my headcanons and story ideas change d(^^ ). One of them was inspired by a Kikuo song I was listening to while drawing lol, the song “Let’s Go to Heaven”.

[alchemiclee]

been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)

[outlanderalien]

Izzy x Ricky premises (I might write):

. Undead!Izzy hunts Ricky down and they become nemeses that fuck nasty between battles

. Izzy is taken captive by the navy, Ricky bothers him daily until the sexual tension overflows and they fuck but Izzy uses it as an opportunity to escape, leaving Ricky feeling jilted.

. Ricky is taken captive by the revenge, Izzy bullies him daily until they decide to fuck (with instant regret)

. Ricky chooses to spare Izzy and bring him with him, but his ship is destroyed in a battle. The two are left stranded and survival demands they work together