#and was like 'please don't leave'

[inkdemon-whore]

bit of a continuation of this post, this art, and maybe also this art, bendy, having made hundreds, if not thousands of different versions of audrey to try and appease joey and set itself free, grew attached to a select few over the time he's made and re-made her.

the one drawn in the bendy basically being a dad image, is his most favorite. he doesn't name her, or any of the others, so anytime he talks about her, he just says "My Favorite." and thanks to some of my own ideas, and this lovely lil comment uwu

his "favorite" might have given him, at least a bit of a change of heart, just for a while at least.

(this is a bit long and slightly fan-fic-y, so i'll put it under keep reading)

(also look at the tags they got tw's, that's kinda important)

when ripping parts of himself to make audrey, he digs out pieces of himself. pieces that seem insignificant to him now, but when isolated, might act out in ways he couldn't expect. there may have been versions of audrey that where horrible monsters, killing things just like him, or little ones full of rage, envy, sorrow, or loneliness.

with him having so much of those emotions to go around, having those parts of him torn off, he isn't too surprised, and it doesn't really phase him.

but at some point, he dug a little deeper, just in the right spot, to pull out something that all those negative emotions buried.

now, i also hc that at this point, the ink demon was/is mostly an abusive parent. being rather neglectful, and only starting to care a little, at least for the audrey's appearance, in the hopes that so long as she looked human, he could be freed. he would call all of them names, and say "you'll likely die" whenever it was time for them to meet joey, and he was always right, so he never bothered. he'd push his own creations away, because of his own trauma.

but this one. this one he calls his "favorite". at some point started to realize that, despite the ink demon saying mean things to her, he was rather kind, and didn't hurt her. despite him killing and eating people, around her, he was rather protective, maybe a little too protective. even if he would threaten her life, or get close to eating her, she wouldn't seem scared. (it could also be that she just freezes, or dissociates due to abuse)

he could call her a hideous, ugly wretch, that no one would ever truly love, while still having cleaned her, and tried to make her look pretty, and she would pick up on that. "you don't rrreeeaaallly think i'm ugly, do you? you spend all this time fixing my dress and my hair. if you really think i'm ugly, maybe it's because you're not very good at making pretty things."

a majority of the time, the ink demon would be straight up with her, saying "i eat people, because i enjoy tormenting them. ripping them apart limb from limb, and hearing them scream, and cry, and beg." and anytime he even seemed like he was lying, mostly in contradictions between his words and actions, she'd ask him about it, and he wouldn't really have an answer for her. and not having an answer made him feel vulnerable.

sooner or later, he slowly becomes more kind to her, taking her to heavenly toys, or bendy land, just spending time with her, if at a distance and seeming detached or aloof. still insulting her and being a bit abusive, but not physically hurting her all that much. he even brings her supplies to draw, and watches her on occasion. he starts extending his time with her, enjoying her company, occasionally wondering if he should play "the end" reel on himself, simply to spend even more time with her.

but her time is coming to and end, and joey is getting impatient. once it's time for her to go, he's finally nicer with his words, if not still blunt and distant. she ask him if joey will like her, and he coldly says no. she ask if he can come with her, and once again he says no. she ask if all those horrible things he said about joey where true, he says yes. she's squeezing a bendy doll he gave her, holding back tears, "is he... really going to kill me if i'm not perfect?"

... something in him finally clicks, and for once, he honestly, genuinely tries to reassure her. that she doesn't have to be "perfect". she doesn't have to be "born right" to be beautiful, or deserving of love. that what imperfections she has means something to him, and make her who she is. and for a moment, he doesn't want her to go.

but she goes...

and she's gone...

she's dead...

like the rest of them...

and he regrets not being kinder to her...

and he hates himself for not having more time with her...

and he eats her, like he'd done the rest, dug around, hoping to get that little piece of him back once more, to see it just for a moment, but could never find it, and could never rebuild it again...

just more sad, angry, or detached audrey's, that sure, began to look more human, began to be more human, but slowly became more and more of a blank slate. more of a marry sue even, but it took a lot out of him (pun intended) to just get that.

audrey may be perfect... but she is not his Favorite.

[magnusbae]

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

A post in 2014:

A zoom out of the same post:

This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

[sun-snatcher]

If you're writing for dp3 then Hiraeth from your prompt list would work SO well since they're all stuck in the void! 🤲🏽😭 We need Gambit fics its a DROUGHT HELP

♧ ⎯ LUCK O’ THE DRAW !

summ. You find the Devil himself at the end of the world. Surprisingly, it isn’t the first time you have. It is, however, the first time it hurts. pairing. Void!Gambit x f!Anomaly!reader (established relationship. Kinda. Multiverse be funky like 'dat.) w.count. 1.8k a/n. Because Channing deserved that Gambit all those years ago, and I've come to (attempt to) deliver what the the people have asked. Masterlist here.

MOST PEOPLE MEET THE DEVIL at a crossroads, but you meet yours in— quite literally— the back end of fuckin’ nowhere.

It hurt more than it should.

Your heart practically stutters. 

“Remy.”  

Then he turns, and you wait for the flash of recognition in his eyes.

Nothing comes.

And then. And then.

Realisation— logic. The cold, hard truth: This isn’t your Remy LeBeau. Your Remy had died long before, in a Universe that was pruned and erased into nothingness by the TVA. Your Universe. The joke? That the Gambit before you is merely a variant amongst a million. The punchline? He looks exactly the same as the day you’d lost your own. 

“Well, this is awkward. You know off-shoot Hawkeye here?” Wade says, astonished, before his eyes widened. “Ah. Tragic exposition time for the readers, I see.”

Your mind is still reeling. It feels like someone’s just jammed a chisel straight into your gut. “I— Knew a version. Variant, I guess,” you manage to correct yourself, distracted by the skirting trenchcoat and the all too familiar sound of shuffling cards. 

Christ, it’s like he’d stepped right out of your memories.

Remy’s eyebrows shoot up as he studies you. Something in your chest pulls taut, threatening to snap as he speaks. “Apologies, mon ami. But as far as I remember, I ain’t never seen you before.”

“Ouch,” Wade winces, looking between you both. “What a classic trope! This is like, me talking to my past Mom in The Adam Project. Funnily enough, my Mom was you!” He snorts, pointing to Elektra. 

You ignore Wade and offer Remy a wan smile. “I figured. It’s okay.”

…It is obviously, in fact, not okay. 

You avoid him like a plague shortly after the entire commotion; it’s almost comical. Wade had managed to come up with a plan with the rest of the group, albeit a ramshackle, flimsy one, but you’ve hardly been able to pay attention through the bloodrush of shock rocketing in your head, anyway. 

Being around this Remy is stunningly stifling. 

The lilt of his accent, the sharpness in his smile; the flourishing of cards and the faint hum-drum of kinetic charge against his fingertips. 

You’ve seen it all before, once upon a time. You never thought any of it could ever bring you to this bad of a heel. 

It hadn’t taken long before you’d tried drowning yourself at the end of a bottle of brandy Logan had handed you that night. (The whiskey tames his mordance and makes him uncharacteristically civil. He’d said something along the lines of: Y’need this more than I do, bub; look like you’ve just seen a fuckin’ ghost. Shit, I guess you did, huh? )

“Mais la,” comes a huff. “Ain’t that mine?”

A frisson runs through your heart. 

“Sorry,” you say, barely glancing up from the barrel fire tucked outside the team’s hideout. You’re not quite sure you can handle meeting his gaze. “I know I should’ve asked.”

A playful hum. Remy settles on the log adjacent to yours. “S’alright. No harm done, chèr.”

It takes everything in you not to flinch at the endearment. If he’d noticed, well— he’s smart enough not to mention it. He’s curious and it stands to reason; afterall, he’s never quite seen someone look at him as weathered as the way you do. It’s as if the effort itself to do so would be unbearable.

“Y’kno’, I been told I’m easy on the eyes. Not for you, tho’, eh?” Remy shoots you an amicable smile. It’s charming, if a little compelling. “Guessin’ I made bad on you where y’from? You done been boudéin’ since y’first got here.” 

You let out a laugh. It’s the most brittle sound he’s ever heard come from someone. 

“No, no,” you shake your head. “It’s… You just make me a lil’ homesick, is all.”

Remy bristles with his deck of cards. A Charlier cut; a One-handed shuffle. It’s a mindless tic; your variant used to do the exact same with the exact same ease.

(Such a miracle, you remember thinking once, that there could be symmetries in the Multiverse. Now you learn, perhaps, it’s far more a curse. Either way, you can hear Remy’s doting voice in a distant memory, dimpling coyly at you: “S’just the luck o’ your draw, chèr.” )

You tamp down the memory before it could sink its jowls any deeper in you. 

“You’re curious,” you say.

He makes a noise of assent. Revolution cut; One-handed shuffle. Repeat.

“I ain’t gon’ axe if y’ain’t wanna answer.” 

It’s kind of him. 

You forgot he was like this.

Witty, yet gentlemanly. The way Remy always has been.

Underneath the blanket of the night, the crackle of the flames limn the planes of his face in flickering, hazy saffron. The look in his eyes is sincere as they meet your red-rimmed gaze. It’s been awhile since you’ve seen him, and in this light no less: tall, cutting, strong.

Lively.

The last you’d seen Remy, he’d been drawn out and battered by the war. Not that he’d ever admit it; he always insisted on keeping up his sunny disposition despite the constant losing battles happening. (Sometimes you think you resent him for doing that; it’d felt like he’d taken the light of the world with him when—)

You thank your lucky stars the variant Remy doesn’t make a comment on how you must be staring so openly. It’s a feeble attempt to committing every detail to memory, you suppose, in case you don’t get the chance again.

“In my Universe, a war was waging against mutants.” Your nails tinker against the empty bottleneck of the flat whiskey you’d nursed, thinking of how to cut a bloodshed of a story short; to get your point across before you falter and lose your footing.

“There was a mission sanctioned, and during it— a decision had to be made at that moment. So… you chose. Easily.” Your brows pinch tight against your will. The molten burn returns to the back of your eyes. “You saved so many lives the day you died.” 

Something catches in your throat when you realise your mistake, find yourself amending instantly, “He. He died.”

(It had been swift. A small mercy, all things considered. There wasn’t even a need to check for a pulse when you finally managed to reach for him.)

You’re fidgeting, too, with something in your other hand. Remy catches sight of it only now: a card, sitting pinched between your ringed fingers. Nine of Hearts. Its edges are torn and creased across the face, singed an ashen black. 

A proverbial piece of Remy’s heart, carried to the end with you.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a cold rush over his body at the sight. 

“…I’m sorry, chèr,” he offers quietly, inadequate as it is. He hadn’t expected that. 

He can’t imagine how haunting it must be to look at someone you’d shared a lifetime with and be met with a complete stranger instead. 

A living, breathing, ghost.

That unbiddable feeling of longing had always seemed to accompany the sight of him; but now it’s different. Now, there’s a blistering, brutal pain to come with; All-encompassing grief, thick as molasses in your lungs, overturning itself like a phantom from wherever you thought you’d buried it a long time ago. 

The only way to smother it would be to reach out, to hold him like you had once before, and isn’t that an ironic inconvenience? 

“No, no. I’m sorry,” you tell him, sigh coming out as an awkward laugh. A breeze passes and you inhale deep to ground yourself. Press your eyes shut momentarily to will away useless tears. “It must be so weird to hear all of this from me about— well, you, technically.”

“Mais, can’t ‘ave all been a bad memory, tho’, right?”

Right. No. It hadn’t been. There’s something else too. An undercurrent. Beyond the grief, the deep ache in your marrows— you think it’s nostalgia. Hiraeth. More bittersweet than it is painful.

It’s… It’s watching mutant schoolkids teaching him UNO for the first time. It’s the bickering over the beignets for breakfast, or your feet on his lap at the couch in the lounge after dinners with the rest of the X-Men. Lazy banter. Conversations that go everywhere and nowhere.

“Yeah,” you agree, feeling something bloom in your chest you thought long lost. “You taught me everything about your home, too. Down South. Told me about the bayou, the cypress trees. Your Cajun, your ways. We used to play Bourré.”

Talk of home has him ducking into a laugh. Remy had been in the Void far longer than the rest (he figures, at least)— he’s very nearly lost most of his fragmented memories to time by now. “Did I? Oughta’ play a game or two wit’ you.”

You buckle at that. “Ah. You were always the better player.”

Then:

He makes the leap before he runs out of steam. “Was we…?”

His finger darts between the space you two share.

“Oh, no,” you override, sheepishly. “No, we, we were good friends and stayed good friends. I was—” Your breath scurries; a reconsideration. “I was glad with that. You had a Southern belle named Anna Marie. A powerful mutant called Rogue. You two were good for each other.”

You must have given yourself away somewhere, though, the way Remy is reading you with a pinned gaze. It’s the same, levelled look you’ve seen before— the kind he gets in a game of cards. 

Something discerning eclipses in his eyes.

He’d gotten the measure of you in an instant. 

“Gambit musta’ been blind blind not t’see you.”

Ah.

You smile. It’s windswept. Resigned. “Well. Doesn’t matter now, does it? My Gambit’s gone. No matter how much I wish I can see him again.”

Remy’s eyes dart to your hands.

“Y’kno’, chèr,” he begins, something spirited in his tone. “In the world of cards, each a’ these and they suits hold a meanin’.”

He flourishes his deck, hypnotisingly smooth with every elegant cut, fan and spring. Every shuffle cascades as smooth as liquid in the sleight of his hands.

“Some of my folks back in New Orleans I remember, they learned me to read ‘em. Now, outta the whole deck? What you got there; the Nine of Hearts is also called the Wish card.”

The small laugh that punches out of you is bell-like. “Really?” 

It’s warm. Bright. Musical to his ears. It washes over him, and he can’t help but hang on to the peal. He wanted to hear it again. 

“Yes, Ma’am.” Remy clicks his tongue as he shoots you a sunny look. “Would never lie t’you, chèr.”

The cracks in your soul don’t disappear, but they surely lighten as you look gently at him. “Huh. Well, I guess I got my wish, didn’t I?” 

He chuckles. 

“Mais, I ain’t your Gambit but—” 

He leans. Reaches out behind your ear with an empty palm, playfully revealing a gilded card from seemingly thin air with a sharp flick of his wrist:

Another Nine of Hearts. His. He hands it over to you, by way of meaning—  I’m here, now.

New beginnings.

You take the card with a smile.

[spielzeugkaiser]

[MASTERPOST] - [prev] I just want you to imagine Jaskier, very early post trial, mostly nonverbal, not in control of his strength yet being just such a creepy kid sometimes. (His parents still love him obviously.) I also have a feeling that Jaskier is subconsciously 100% stressed at all times and wants to do his absolute best to please his parents and make zero mistakes so that they won't send him away again. (They didn't and he knows that, but he is just a traumatized child.)

[isatartdump]

Would do the entire dialogue but drawing Bonnie crying is the bane of my existence! HA

Anyway my reaction to when this entire dialogue was over was just. Hihi.

[werecreature-addicted]

for someone who wants to bang a werewolf, I sure do scream like a fire alarm when my dog brings me "gifts" (dead lizard) realistically if a man brought me his hunt as a gift I'd pass out.

[fruityedge05]

So I just found out that some people are calling Percabeth by a new ship name...

Smartwater.

I'M SORRY WHAT?

LIKE I SAW SOMEONE SAYING THAT "UGH SMARTWATER IS SUCH A CUTE SHIP NAME!" LIKE NO IT ISN'T BABES. IT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING ELON MUSK WOULD NAME HIS BABY. PLEASE JUST LEAVE PERCABETH AS PERCABETH I'M BEGGING YOU.

[fangirltothefullest]

I am begging tumblr to understand that "proshipping" doesn't mean you condone taboo subjects in real life please i am on my fucking KNEES

I literally see people being like "I am pro choice! A woman's body is her choice!" then go around and be like "YOU CAN'T SHIP THESE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS FOR *insert reason* IT'S GROSS/MORALLY WRONG/TABOO/BAD/SINFUL/I DON'T LIKE SEEING IT!!!!"

If it does not hurt a real life person, if it is not pushing someone into something they dislike, if it's not pushing for hate/harm to others- it's HARMLESS.

Naruto and Sonic do not have real feelings to hurt. Don't like what you're seeing/reading? Cool! No need to make a big deal about it! JUST HIT DA FUCKIN BRICKS!

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

hot garbage 👇

[lazylittledragon]

right now i'm very torn between "taking critique is important as an artist and it's not an attack on me personally" and "people commenting about my same face syndrome under my posts upsets me an unreasonable amount and i wish they would stop doing it"

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Danny and Jason: Ch2 Remastered

-------------------------------------------------------------- late at night when the stars don't look quite right -------------------------------------------------------------- there's something burning in the empty room inside of my head fill it up with doubt let it in, let it spread

Jason nearly falls flat on his face when he sees the photo of Danny. He’s in a warehouse, finishing up with a gang selling drugs on his turf. The guys he’s got tied up are cursing up a storm at him, throwing every insult under the sun his way that he’s all heard before. His eyes drag over to them, and silently Jason adjusts his jacket to reveal the guns strapped to his thighs, his hand hovering over the handle of one. 

They all fall silent, and Jason moves his hand away. His phone in his other hand, texting Oracle to alert the police. Jason hates that he has to; these guys will be out of their cells in a matter of months, and nothing will change. 

But he’ll play nice. 

And then his phone buzzes, and when Jason looks down he sees a banner from Tim. A message he planned on ignoring, but his eyes skim over the text on instinct, and suddenly the air is stolen right from his lungs, and his thumb is hitting the screen before he can really think it through.

[Hey Jason, your best friend just appeared in Gotham for the first time since your funeral.]

Impossible. He thinks, yanking his phone close to his nose, as if that will make it any less real or fake. Danny hasn’t been in Gotham in years, Jason checked. But then the image loads, and then he’s staring Danny Fenton in the face. And then he’s greedily tracing every minute, new detail he can find. The gang left half-forgotten in his mind.

Danny’s got an undercut, it looks self-done. It looks good. He looks taller. He’s got piercings in his ears, gold and jewels lining up the sides like a magpie’s find. He’s got an eyebrow piercing. 

Something old, something new; Danny is smiling and it still looks just as Jason remembers it. Crooked, lopsided, warm like the sun and belying the mischief underneath it. He remembers to breathe in that moment, and the sound comes in sharp. Danny’s eyes are as blue as they’ve ever been. 

(“I don’ get why books talk so much about peoples’ eyes.” Danny complains to him one day when he’s visiting the manor, his legs thrown over Jason’s back like an anchor tied to its ship. They’re sunk into the mattress of Jason’s bed, sunlight peering through the windows. “They’re just eyes! I don’t need t’know that they’re ‘as blue as the sky,’ or- or the ocean, or whatever blue thing in the world there is.”) 

(Jason’s smile comes to him like breathing, and he twists around to lay on his back. His arms trap Danny’s legs to his stomach. “Pretty sure it’s jus’ for emphasis on how much they’re noticing the person’s face.”)

(Danny’s face scrunches up, and Jason’s smile splits into a grin, heart swelling three sizes on instinct. “I think it’s stupid, s’just some fuckin’ eyes.”)

(“Eyes are windows to the soul, Dan.” Jason retorts, barking out a laugh when Danny gives him a deadpan look. His hands creep for a pillow, one of the soft downy ones wrapped in silk, and he throws it at Danny’s face. “And besides, speak for yourself! Your eyes are the bluest thing I’ve ever seen.”) 

But most importantly, Danny looks tired. 

Hiding is something that comes free with the purchase of living in Gotham, and Danny’s good at hiding things, he always has, but Jason knows him like the palm of his hands. He looks tired, and Jason wants to reach through the screen and ask him why. There’s an age-worn look there, catching in the flint of his iris, where his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Jason gets the ETA from Oracle, then leaves as fast as his legs can carry him and his grappling hook can zip through the air. He needs to see Danny with his own eyes, to confirm himself that Danny was here, and that it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him. Or that it was Tim playing a cruel joke on him — and if it was, he’ll have to rethink his whole killing thing. 

Gotham’s air is warm and suffocating, but her winds bite at him as he soars through it.

It’s second nature for him to find the west end balcony, and Jason finds himself with his feet locked in place on the building beside it. Grappling hook in hand, and a balloon in his lungs, all swelled up and squishing the air out of him. 

It’s just his luck —with whatever he has left— that Danny is there as well. In the same spot he’s always been, with a cigarette caught between his teeth. He’s stuck halfway, head tilting, eyes closed, with the shadows of Gotham on his back and the light of the gala at his front. 

For a moment, for a fleeting, terrifying moment, Jason thinks Danny’s going to tilt himself back off the side.The thought has him blindly tilting himself forward with his heart in his throat. Hands reaching for his grappling hook, swinging down to drop down beside him.

Danny is staring at him before his feet even hit the ground, face nigh unreadable beyond the small, wary furrow of his brows. Danny’s never looked at him like that before, it feels like  stumbling on the last step of the stairs. 

Then, like fire to black powder something flashes and ignites in Danny’s eyes. Mouth curling, eyes burning, for a moment, just a moment, they’re kids again, getting into fights and turning soft hands punch-rough. Danny looks at Jason like he’s going to tear him to shreds.

Jason’s mouth runs dry like a desert in the summer, but his blood chills in fear cold in his veins. Why are you looking at me like that? His mouth opens, but his tongue is leaden in his throat, and no sound comes out. It’s me. Don’t you recognize me?  

Danny yanks the cigarette from his mouth like it burns him, his free hand gripping onto the railing like it’s the tether to a leash, nails threatening to turn into talons. “Red Hood.” He says, voice low and timbre, smoke dripping from his lips like dragon’s breath.  

Oh.

That’s right. Jason suffocates on his heart as it sinks and soars with relief. Danny doesn’t know it’s him. In his tunnel vision, he forgot that simple, easy fact. It’s not because it’s Jason that he’s angry. It still doesn’t explain, though, why Danny looks at him like he ought to sink his teeth into his throat and rip him open. 

He’s half-distracted by that, and then distracted by the need to drink in the sight of Danny again. A photo is one thing; the real person is another, and with his fear subsiding, Jason rakes his eyes over his best friend and swallows him whole. His eyes are bluer in person, his memory and Tim’s photo doesn’t do them justice, and Danny inherited his dad’s height. He’s gotten so tall. They both have. They both used to be such scrawny kids. 

So distracted is he, that he forgets to respond to Danny, to say anything. Not until Danny tries to dismiss himself, and Jason kickstarts into gear. White hot panic fills in his lungs, burning him up like magma. No, no, no, he’s moving without thinking, always when he’s with him, and he nearly latches onto Danny. Nearly wraps his hands around his arm to hold him in place. Don’t leave. You’re finally here; don’t go. 

Danny stays, but he stares at Jason’s reaching hands like he’ll bite them off, stares at Jason with his eyes burning, watchful. Jason’s excuse is lousy and he knows it, but he wants, wants, wants to stay and figure out every new thing about Danny. 

And he feels like he’s losing something. Time bleeds together beside him and Jason feels trapped behind a glass wall of his own making. Something old, something new. The distance of which Danny keeps him at is foreign to him. He hates it. 

Tell me everything, he thinks, because he can’t find the words to say it. He hands Danny a cigarette instead, and hopes that it’s enough. Tell me everything and more, tell me what I’ve missed. 

In the end, he still feels like he’s losing something, but he also feels like he’s missing something. Answers that are water, and that water is slipping through his fingers. Danny leaves him with more questions than answers; something that’s never happened before, and Jason watches him walk back inside with a spinning mind. 

What do you mean you spoke to my ghost?

I told you that the Joker killed me?

Have I told you anything else? Have I already told you everything I’ve wanted to?

What happened while I was gone? 

Is that why you’re scarred?

Because Jason isn’t blind, he’s never been. Not in Crime Alley, not as Robin, not now. And not when it comes to his best friend. He sees the silver lightning scars ripped jagged up Danny’s arm, sees that they disappear under his sleeves. He saw, faded as they were, invisible until the light hit right, as they spread like tree roots up his throat and across the side of his face.

Scars that Danny’s never had before. Scars he didn’t have when Jason was alive the first time. Scars he didn’t have the last time Jason saw him. Or — what he remembers to be the last time he saw him, because apparently he saw him as a ghost. He sees the curve of his ears and how they point more than a human’s should, he saw the glint of his canines, sharper than they should be; sharper than he remembers. Metaphorical fangs turned real.   

Jason should’ve asked where he got them from, should’ve taken Danny by the front of his collar and stopped him from leaving. Who did this to you? He should have said, a fire burning in his chest and wrapping around his throat, pulling his voice into a snarl. He should have said, his guns weighing heavy on his sides; Who did it. I’ll take care of it. Just tell me who. Tell me everything. 

Instead, something crawled into his mouth and died, and his tongue is glued to the roof of it. And he doesn’t say anything, because saying something means telling his best friend who he is. It means having to take off his helmet and mask. It means telling his best friend that he’s alive, that he has been. That despite being two halves of a whole, Jason spent five years letting him think he was dead. 

He can’t tell him, not when he’s in too deep already. Not when Jason is so unrecognizable to who he used to be that if he told him, Danny would hate him.

And Danny is still grieving him. So plain as day mourning, still angry over his death. Angry enough that he wants the Joker dead, angry enough that he wants to hang the noose and kick the chair out himself. 

Jason wishes he told him that he looks tired. 

Instead he’s standing alone on the balcony, trying to get his thoughts in order as music blares muffled through the gold-light door. He’s left staring at the crushed cigarette laying on the ground, Gotham’s ambience at his back and a poem hanging in the air that he has no words for. It’s already there. Like stars on a painted ceiling.

And there are so many questions he needs answers for. 

Like his ghost. His ghost.

What did Danny mean by his ghost? 

Does he really want to kill the Joker himself? Was it just the grief talking? Jason knows — or thinks he knows — Danny like the palm of his hands. He’s been through everything with him, he’s seen him say something and then immediately follow through with it. He knows when he’s being serious, he knows when he’s not. 

Danny wants to kill the Joker. Stealing is one thing; murder is another. And Danny wore a look on his face that looked like he meant it when he told Red Hood that he wanted to kill Joker. But saying and doing are two different things. Jason doesn’t know what to think.  

Something old, something new. Danny is still the same, and yet he’s changed so much. 

What did Danny mean by his ghost? 

Jason doesn’t ever remember being a ghost. But Danny knows the Joker killed him. He knows how he killed him. Danny’s parents are ghost scientists, and Jason remembers the letter he got one day telling him about the portal they were building in the basement. 

He remembers thinking about telling Bruce — this was something beyond the glowing green samples stored in the fridge, giving life to the food inside. This was beyond the weapons, the inventions they made that only saw the light of day when the Drs. Fenton brought them up to showcase them.

And he didn’t, because if he hadn’t told Bruce about everything before, he wasn’t going to start. He admits, it was part fear that Bruce might intervene and prevent him from seeing Danny that he didn’t.  

Neither of them had expected it to work — but it sounds like it did. 

(Jason has avoided Amity Park for a reason. He knows he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from going there if he didn’t. But now, he just might have to look into it. He’s missed too much.) 

And Danny wants to kill the Joker, and Jason isn’t sure if he means it or not. Because the look on his face when he said it is oh-so familiar. It’s the one he wore when he needed Jason to distract the clerk while he snuck behind the counter to steal cigarettes from the shelves. It was the one he wore when an older kid cornered them near one of Gotham’s many alleys, threatening them over something Jason can no longer remember clearly. 

(He remembers puffing himself up, rearing for a fight. Danny, with glass in his teeth and blood between his fingers, lands a square kick to the spot between the kid’s legs. His knees hit the ground, and Danny’s hand found Jason’s to drag them both out of there.)

It’s the look of a boy, Gotham-touched grime in his soul, soft fingers turned calloused and scarred, about to do something he’s not going to regret. It’s the look of a boy that has set his mind to something and is going to do it. Some might call it the eyes of a cornered animal, but Danny’s never been cornered, not when Jason’s been with him. 

(But Jason hasn’t been with him. Not for the last five years. So can he really say it wasn’t the eyes of a cornered animal?...Yes.) 

Jason gets off the balcony before he can be seen, and he shouldn’t, but he loiters. He should get back to patrol, the night is never over. Not in Gotham. But he stays, hidden atop the roof nearby.

—---------------

An hour later, Danny walks out the doors with a man Jason recognizes as Vlad Masters — another new mystery for him to uncover. The paparazzi have long since left. Gotham’s nights are dangerous and everyone knows that, not even the vultures would stick around for a scoop, not unless there was something worth seeing. 

A black limousine pulls up beside them, and Masters walks around the back to reach the other side. He’s bristled like an angry cat. “I thought I told you not to embarrass me.” He hisses, eyes snake-narrowed.

Danny, for the most part, just looks unbothered, his hands shoved into his pockets without a care. But he narrows his eyes right back, an expression made of stone. “You have a pretty low bar for what you think is embarrassing.” 

Masters just scowls, “I don’t understand you, I would have thought you’d spend the whole time mingling with the Waynes, badger.” He says. Danny ruffles at the nickname, lips curling into a snarl. Jason finds himself unconsciously mimicking him. “And yet, I find you sequestered away in the corner like a little fly on the wall. Were they not up to your standards?”  

‘Sequestered’ Danny mouths mockingly, eyes burning like he was going to claw his hand down Masters’ face. Instead, his hands dig into his arms. “I did talk to them, that’s more than I can say for you. You couldn’t even keep Mister Wayne’s attention for more than a minute.”  

Jason frowns, and Masters scoffs, puffing up like an owl with its ego bruised. “Regardless, I am not the one losing here. Or did you forget what you promised me?” 

Jason’s frown deepens. Danny doesn’t promise anything. At least, he doesn’t promise with just anyone. He deals; he repays; he indebts. But he does not promise. Promises were power, with only one side benefiting. It was trust to promise someone something. Danny doesn’t trust easily, neither of them do.

Something that hasn’t changed. Danny rears up angrily, mouth twisting, teeth baring, snarling out a fury sound. A wire cut live and sparking. He grabs the door handle and yanks it open harshly. “I didn’t promise you anything, Vlad.” He hisses, Jason strains to hear him. “I offered and you agreed. Do not fucking twist my words.” 

There it is. Jason should’ve known better, guilt string-plucking in his chest for his doubt. Danny doesn’t promise things; not to people like this Masters guy, at least. 

Danny grabs something from the car and throws himself back. “Don’t wait up.” He snarls, a wild thing just as Jason is, and yanks on a red hoodie over his arms. It zips up, and hangs off him, smothering the vest and button-up beneath. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” 

Then he slams the door shut, shoulders hunched and with a scowl carved into his face. They’re both made of broken glass; independence — disobedience — and rebellion cut into them from every broken beer bottle shattered on the streets.

(Jason makes a mental note to look into Vlad Masters — Danny’s never told him about him, so they must have met after he died. The man leaves a rot in Jason’s mouth, and there is a greed festering inside him that Jason knows has left him in decay.)

(He doesn’t like how close Masters acts with him, doesn’t like the affiliations between them both. Masters reminds him of Luthor and every other rich socialite with their hands in something dirty. He hates even more that Danny is making deals with him. What has he missed?)  

Jason follows after Danny, partially concerned that Danny is wandering Gotham alone. Regardless of what he can do, Gotham is still dangerous. It is bone-rotting, lung-choking and unforgiving. Danny knows this, Jason knows he does. He’s partially curious to know just where he’s going, and whether or not it was important enough to visit in the dead of Gotham’s bloody nights.

Danny surprises him — slipping between alleyways, sticking close to the shadows. Someone taught him how to be stealthy — or, at least, refined what stealth Danny already had. More new things that Jason needs to learn. More things he will never get to know. 

Who taught you that? 

Just what, exactly, have I missed?

I want to know everything. 

Five years is a long, long time to be away from someone. If a caterpillar can become a butterfly in two weeks, then what can five years do to a human? It’s a long time to change, to become something else entirely. Jason’s become someone new, and he thinks, so has Danny. 

Dread pools in his ribs, into his lungs, and weighs heavy on his heartstrings. The urge to drop down in front of Danny, to grab him by the arms and ask him to tell him everything, returns with a vengeance. This is why he avoided Amity Park. 

Will I still know you like I used to? Jason trails behind Danny from the rooftops, like a ghost. Do you still love the stars? Do you still take tea over coffee? Will you tell me, if I ask? 

And if he doesn’t? If he doesn’t ask, like he isn’t right now? 

If he doesn’t ask about his ghost — something that still boggles his mind, because it means the Fentons were right and that portal might have worked, and Danny found Jason’s ghost? If he doesn’t ask what his ghost told him, if he told him anything else? Did his ghost tell you that he was Robin, like he always wanted to?  

He will just have to keep his questions to himself. He will just have to tuck them into a folder in his mind, and file it under all of his other regrets.  

He feels like he’s Robin again; keeping secrets and hiding things from his best friend because it simply wasn’t safe enough for him to know. It’s maddening.  

Why has nothing changed since he died? Why has nothing changed, now that he was alive?

—---------------

Danny leads him to the Gotham Cemetery. Jason freezes outside the gates. Oh, he thinks.

Oh.

He thinks back to what he thought earlier. 

What could possibly be so important that he’d go to it in the dead of Gotham’s night? The cemetery. Of course. Something old, something new, something bittersweet sets over his tongue that he swallows down. 

Jason forces himself to follow. 

“Hey.” Danny says as Jason settles behind a tree, voice gentle in foreign familiarity. He’s standing at Jason’s grave, his hands shoved into his pockets. The light is low but it doesn’t stop Jason from seeing the starlight-soft look in Danny’s eyes and his half-tilted smile, the smile that Jason is more familiar with than the wary scowls. “Sorry I’m late.”

Guiltish misery wraps its hands around Jason’s lungs. Pin-prickingly, stabbing at his heartstrings, Jason’s mouth moves on its own; “It’s okay.” but no sound comes out. Danny doesn’t hear him, and neither does Jason himself.  

Danny sits down before Jason’s tombstone, groaning low and tiredly as his legs fold beneath him. He’s older than Jason, and immediately his mind switches over to all the jokes he used to lob him with. 

(“Need help crossing the street, old man?” Jason, eight years old, asks with a grin so wide and painful across his face; giggles in his chest. He hooks his elbow with Danny, and keeps him tight against his ribs. “You’ll need all the help you can get in your ancient age.”)

(“I’m not that old.” Danny says, glaring at him before they scurry across the street with the light still green. Traffic laws are a joke in Crime Alley, it’s like a game of frogger as the sound of honking horns and screeching tires follows their heels. “We’re six months apart!”)

(“Six months and four days, actually.” Jason corrects when they reach the other side, snickering as they race down the sidewalk. Drivers lean out their windows and curse them out as they get away, Danny dodges an empty soda can thrown at his head. “Can’t forget the four days.”)

“I would’ve come sooner.” Danny tells him, pulling him from child-fuzzy memories and back into reality. Jason peers around the tree to see him running a hand through his hair, head ducked down. His palm splaying against his neck. “Sorry I didn’t. I got scared.” 

Scared? Jason blinks, he leans against the bark and bumps his helmet against the wood. The thunk is loud in his ears, but Danny makes no indication that he heard. Of what? 

But Danny doesn’t say what, he drops his hand and glances off to the side. He sits like a man who isn’t quite sure what to do, his mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes scrunched. Grief carves into the lines of his face like a sculptor carving into marble. 

“I was gonna get you flowers on my way here.” Danny continues. His voice cracks, begins to wobble, and Jason sees Danny’s jaw tighten and his eyes close for a moment. When they open, there’s a wobbling sheen on his bottom lashes; tears threatening to bleed.   

Danny flicks at the tears with the nail of his thumb, it does nothing. It just makes his breath hitch. “Um, but they- uh, didn’t have any open on the way here.” He says, giving Jason’s grave a tremulous smile. “Sorry, I’ll make sure to pick some up on my next visit.”   

Next visit. Jason’s heart squeezes uncomfortably, before he reels at the words. Danny’s going to be visiting again, after five years of being out of Gotham? Next visit, why are you visiting again? Was this the reason he came to Bruce’s little charity ball with Vlad Masters? So that he could come visit Jason’s grave?

It couldn’t have been. There are other ways to get to Gotham that don’t require making deals with shady rich men. Danny’s smart, smarter than Danny himself gives him credit for. He’s brilliant. Why did he need Masters’ help to get him to Gotham?

There had to be another reason why.

God, there were so many questions that Jason wants the answers to. He’ll find them, one way or another. 

But, he focuses in again. Danny is only here for the night. One night, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back again. Jason wants to commit every detail of his best friend to memory before he leaves. 

“You like zinnias, right?” Danny pets the grass at his side absently, and yes. Yes, Jason does, and Danny remembers. Even five years from his death, he remembers. Of course he does. 

“Yeah, you do. You used to pick the petals up off the sidewalk from those uh, fuck — the vendors. The Victorian flower language too, I think. Got a book on that somewhere. I’ll get you red an’ yellow ones.” 

Grief traps in Jason’s chest, and he barely tamps down the bitter laugh forcing itself out of the chokehold of his throat. You fucking sap, you big fuckin’ sap.

Red zinnias. Steadfast beating of the heart. The irony. It’s got double the meaning now, now that he’s alive. But Danny doesn’t know that, so the heart that’s beating could only belong to him. But even with Jason alive, he’s hiding. Between the both of them, the only one here with a beating heart is Danny.

(Between the two of them, the only heart here is one that's made between the two of them.)

Yellow zinnias. Daily remembrance. Of course. That doesn’t need any explanation, the writing is right there on the wall. Raised, so that even the blind may read it. It doesn’t need to be said what that means, Jason can hear it on the wind, in the grass, in the trees. His heart crumpling like a rag being twisted out to drain the dirty water soaking in it. 

I miss you.

I miss you. 

I miss you. 

I’m right here. Is what Jason wants to say. It’s what he should say. He should step out from behind the tree; should speak up and say something. To announce his presence. To do something to let Danny know that he’s speaking to someone who is more than a ghost (who feels like one anyways) and a corpse in the ground. 

Here I am. Here I am. HERE I AM.

His feet are gravebound to the dirt, his tongue cut out of his mouth and shoved into a jar. He feels, in some way, like he’s clawing out of his own grave again, but the dirt keeps falling and his arms are burning. His lungs are filled with more soil than air. He’s not getting out. 

Shame burns cigarette smoke in the back of his throat, shriveling up what little remains of his tar-filled heart. It should be his lungs, and it’s got that too. His feet are grave-bound to the floor.

Danny’s begun to cry, much to Jason’s horror. It should be more incentive for Jason to step out. He doesn’t. His best friend sniffles and scrubs at his face, soaking tears into his hoodie’s sleeve. “I’m sorry for not visitin’ sooner,” he says, voice spiraling with grief, “I don’t have an excuse. I should’ve come sooner. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Don’t be, Jason thinks. Finds himself surprised by the truth of it. He should be upset. Five years and not a single visit. He abandoned him like everyone else. Except he didn’t. 

He’s not upset, he can’t be. Not when Danny’s finally here. Not when he’s still crying over him five years after the fact. Not when he’s going to put flowers on his grave that means he thinks of him daily. Not when Danny knows who killed him and wants him dead. 

Jason isn’t sure of what to think of that still. He wants Bruce to kill the Joker. More importantly he wants change in Gotham. He wants something to be done. He doesn’t know if Danny is being honest or not — and honesty doesn’t mean anything if someone doesn’t act on it.  

Danny continues talking to his grave, his voice full with sorrow. He talks about the gala, about running into Bruce and talking to him again.��

Jason listens in dutiful silence, soaking in Danny’s voice like a sponge. This is what he was expecting on the balcony; this easy conversation. Except it’s not a conversation, Danny is talking and not expecting a response. Jason feels like a stranger imposing on his own grave.He should slink away, let Danny have his peace on his own.

He refuses to move. He can’t bring himself to.

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that he's sitting in front of him. He can pretend he’s thirteen again, with him and Danny crawled under the bed at the manor and trading all the stories they couldn’t fit in their letters. Danny tells him about another fight he had with Dash Baxter, eyes rolling but smug teeth flashing in a stifled smile. Then he tells him about something Sam and Tucker did; about one of Sam’s protests she led against the biology lab, and Tucker coding his PDA to play Doom. Easy, stupid middle schooler shit.

They’d sneak out to the balcony for their vices, Danny clutching a carton of cheap cigarettes in hand. Alfred always finds the ones Jason hides, so they usually share whenever Danny comes to visit. Jason tells him about Gotham Academy, about the people there and the classes. Prep school is another beast entirely, he likes seeing Danny’s reactions to the politics that goes on inside. 

Or, further back, they’re eight again, climbing a rickety fire escape to the rooftop and hanging their feet over the edge to find Batman and Robin. Danny was in the lead before he left for Amity Park. Jason remembers it clearly; they’d spent all night outside on that rooftop. 

Jason doesn’t close his eyes.

Jazz decided to change career goals; psychology’s become more of a hobby for her, and she’s going to go to med school instead. She’s thinking of doing an internship in Metropolis. Danny says he’s glad that it’s not Gotham, and when he told Jazz this, she laughed at him and told him that she was going to save that for later. 

She’s Gotham-touched too, she knows it’s blood just as much as Danny does. She wants to help the people there, but knows what Gotham’s like. She knows what she can and cannot do. Determination doesn’t equate skill, it just means the willingness to learn. 

Sam is staying in Amity Park and doing online classes for college, but Tucker got a full ride scholarship in software engineering. Danny’s thick with pride as he tells Jason’s headstone. Jason’s happy for him — they weren’t close, not like he and Danny were, but they were still friends. 

Jason soaks it all in; tell him more. He wants to know everything. 

"I don't know what I want to do." Danny says when he’s finally done talking about everyone else, his chin laying on his knees. “S’not like I can be an astronaut anymore, but there’s not anything I can see myself doing.”

The corner of his mouth coils, sardonic. “I’ve had five years to come up with somethin’ new, and I’ve come up with nothin’ at all.” He huffs. It’s a rough, bitter sound. Gotham has been steadily seeping back into his voice since he arrived in the graveyard, and now it comes out thick, like it never left. 

Danny’s face falls slack, like a puppet losing its strings, and he sinks into himself. “I guess I…” He exhales slow. “I’ve just been distracted.” A faraway glaze eclipses his eyes, and before they close, tears begin to bleed onto his eyelids. Again, grief mars the lines of his skin, settling into the curve of his mouth and threading between his brows like second nature.

Fuck, it’d be so easy for Jason to just step out. Move. His best friend is grieving. He could save him the pain of it and tell him now. Move, move, move. 

He doesn’t move.

For a while, there’s nothing but silence, just Jason hiding in his shame; a rat on the street would be bolder than him. Danny’s eyes don’t open. Eventually, his head tilts and slumps into his knees, Jason almost thinks, somehow, that he’s fallen asleep — but Danny’s hand threads into the hair on the back of his head, his finger beginning to tap an invisible beat into his skull. 

It’s the perfect opportunity for him to slip away. Danny’s distracted; lost in his thoughts. He won’t notice if Jason slinks off now. He could go and hide away on a roof nearby, ensuring that Danny gets his rightful privacy without leaving him to the teeth of the streets.  

Jason still doesn’t move. 

Danny begins to hum. It’s a low, breathy sound, and it shakes unevenly. There’s no discernible melody, but a breeze picks it up and travels it through the air anyway, rooting Jason to his spot. His throat swells, and his back sinks into the bark behind him. 

For a full minute, maybe two, Danny just hums. It’s a simple tune, but it fills the graveyard with the sound. When it goes up, he sharpens, when he goes down again, it flats, and sometimes it wobbles.  

When he lifts his head, when he finally opens his eyes, he’s still humming. Soon it dies down, and the next time Danny exhales, it comes out tumultuous and slow. His hand slips heavy from his head and drops into the grass. 

“Where’d you go, Jay?” Danny mutters, and despite his voice coming flat, he still sounds so tired. Danny’s eyes flick up, lifting off the grass to burn into the headstone. He’s not even looking at him, and yet Jason still freezes up, he still feels pinned under the weight of his stare. “I know you’re still out there, somewhere. I know it.” 

Jason breathes in shakily, a sting deep in the back of his throat. He gives no answer; guilt is an animal with claws, and it burrows deep into Jason’s heart to make itself a home between the tendons. He’s right here. 

Silence falls over them again, and this time it’s only the sound of the city around them that bleeds into the air. Danny stares at Jason’s grave, staring like he’s expecting an answer. He doesn’t get one. 

Danny sighs out low, and stands. His knees tremble slightly, and he rubs his sleeve into his eyes, catching the stray tears falling from his lashes. Like breaking a spell, Jason jolts from the fog of sorrow hanging in the air. 

“I’ll see you later, an’ I’ll make sure to bring you those flowers you like.” He tells him, and miraculously, a shadow of a smile flits over Danny’s mouth. “Y’better be here when I get back, alright? I’ll kick y’fucking ass if you’re not.” 

Jason bites back a huff, his mouth upturning in a wobble. I will, he thinks, and watches Danny trail out of the graveyard with his hands in his pockets. He waits until he’s disappeared behind the gate before following.   

Guilt is a thing with claws, and Jason leaves the cemetery with it eating his tongue. But he makes sure Danny gets back to his hotel safe before he slinks back to Crime Alley; he might not be a ghost anymore, but he can still trail behind Danny like he is. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ayy i finally got chapter 2 of CFAU/TMWS edited/redone! It had to get rewritten because a lot of stuff became obsolete in the wake of the new chapter 1. and also it just kinda. fucking sucked imo lmao

(you can also read it here on my ao3!)

[sov666sov]

I don't want to talk about this in art account i made to spread my art to other people, but i can be silent when my country and people are suffering from russian aggression

I'm scared for my family

For myself

Yesterday and today i spent all night and morning at the basement of my house because it's was huge missile and drones attack at all Ukraine and who know if this night they will do it again

I just want to live peaceful life, draw what i want, be happy, find a job,but all this impossible when russia try to kill you. every.single.day.

All i think right know that i scared for that night and i don't know if i survive if they again attack us with rockets

I'm sick to my stomach, all i can do it's cry and hope today me and my family will live

Please don't close your eyes on this. It a genocide. They will not stop when they occupied all country and kill as all.

Please support Ukraine and pray for us because if Ukraine fall - next it can be your country.

[rosalind-hawkins]

~I made another thing~

Originals under the cut

[fishofthewoods]

Oh my god I woke up this morning and my Stardew Valley meta post had almost 150 notes????? Hello?????????? Anyways I started writing this last night because @moon-is-pretty-tonight left nice tags on the original so thank you so much!!

We know from the starting scenes of the game that the farmer's grandfather loved Stardew Valley. So why did he leave? Pelican Town is a good place to grow old; George and Evelyn are just fine. It's a fine place to raise a kid, but maybe he just wanted to raise his child closer to real schools and other children.

Or maybe, just maybe, he understood.

Was there a day when he was in his thirties where he looked at his friends and realized they weren't like him? That he could run faster than them, work longer, explore deeper into the hidden places of the valley?

Was there a day when he went to the wizard to ask him for help, for knowledge if nothing else? Did he learn then that his family was different? Special? Chosen? And how did he react? He couldn't possibly raise a child in the valley if they would be as strange and fey as him. He had to leave. There was no other way.

But years later, on his deathbed, did he regret that choice?

Is that why he gave the farmer the letter?

Is that why they went back home?

When the farmer steps off the bus that first day, the valley is still on the cusp of winter, just barely tipping over into spring. The flowers are starting to bloom, but a chill still hangs in the air. As soon as the farmer's boots touch the soil there's a change. The air gets warmer. The trees get greener. Not by too much, not all at once, but it changes.

The junimos watch the farmer as they do their work. They're new to farming, but take to it with frightening speed; their first batch of crops is perfect. None of the townsfolk tell them that parsnips don't normally grow in less than a week, that cauliflowers don't grow to be ten feet tall, that fairies don't visit when the sun goes down and grow potatoes and beans and tulips overnight. The junimos talk amongst themselves in their strange, wild language, and agree: this is the one. They're back. The valley recognizes its own, even when they've left for a generation. The farmers have come home.

Things change fast in the valley. The community center, empty and decrepit for so many years, is rejuvenated. (Lewis says it was abandoned only a few weeks after the farmer's grandfather left. Strange coincidence, he says, that it both came and went with the farmer's family.) The mines and the quarry, similarly abandoned, are explored for the first time in ages. The town becomes cleaner, brighter, more vibrant, happier.

And it is happier. Not just the environment, but the people. It's the talk of the town for weeks when Haley does her first closet purge. Leah's art show in the town square is a huge success. Shane's smiling for the first time since he moved to the valley. All of them, when asked, say it's all thanks to the farmer.

People love to ask why Lewis didn't fix the community center on his own. Why Willy never repaired the boat to ginger island. Why Abigail or Marlon never went down to fix the elevator in the mines, or why Clint didn't fix the minecarts.

But isn't it so much more interesting to ask how those things were there in the first place? How they got so broken down? If the stories the townspeople tell are true, the valley was once a beautiful place, flourishing and full of life; why did that change? When did it change?

Was it when the farmer's grandfather, the locus of the valley, its chosen representative, left town?

And if so, what happens when the farmer comes back?

[fearandhatred]

the rapture

it's a holy thing, in theory, a glorious celebration, where those who believe rise to meet the lord in the air. it's a day of joy, in theory, and maybe even of vindication for those who have always believed.

but no one thinks about how it's like to see the dead rise again—bodies clawing their way out of bolted wood and six feet of packed earth, bodies decomposed and maggot-feasted, nails stained with rot and dirt. no one thinks about the violent lurch of their bodies being jolted into the air by the stomach, gravity flinging their heads back down to earth as they struggle in vain to find footing on molecules and gas. no one thinks about those who don't make it.

no one thinks about the screams.

crowley hadn't thought about any of these things. he certainly hadn't thought about the angels that would be called back to heaven along with the believers.

here they stand dead in the middle of absolute ruin, the promise of heaven the only thing left to look forward to on the wasteland of this earth. the sky has opened up like the eye of god, watching over her people for the very first time, and crowley's black wings against the beams of light only remind him that he doesn't belong up there with the rest of them. crowley wraps his arms tight around aziraphale, squeezes his torso like he can maybe keep aziraphale with him through sheer will or, laughably, demonic intervention. like love could ever be enough. like love could stay.

around them, the cacophony of wails and mockingly exaltant trumpets scorch the earth in their intensity, clashing and agonising even—especially—for them, and words make no sound. but they hold on to each other, even as they shrink into themselves against the noise of the undying. i don't want to leave you either, aziraphale doesn't say, but his hands dig into the cotton of crowley's sleeve, and crowley hears the words through his fingertips.

he feels a stronger upward resistance against his embrace now, and he clings tighter, steadfast, even as aziraphale's grip falters. but he knows he can't hold on forever. he knows that nothing ever lasts.

trembling with something unspeakable, he lifts his arms from aziraphale's torso and covers the angel's ears with his hands. he feels more than hearing aziraphale's resulting sob, and he spreads out his wings to wrap them around their bodies. a shield, a comfort, a goodbye.

it's okay, the gesture says in silence. i'll see you in another lifetime.

[walker-lister]

I look forward to more people discovering just how impactful what Jodie Whittaker did as the 13th doctor was.

To me, she ran her own marathon at a sprint, breaking down boundaries without so much as a word for those who had put them in place.

And she seemingly did it all with joy, and respect, and kindness (jfc if you ever get the chance to meet her she is so kind I cannot put it into words).

She is an incredible ambassador for the ability of representation to inspire, to recognise, to reconfigure (dare i say also to regenerate lol).