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a-stars-art-blog · 1 month ago

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Shitposts + serious WIP (?) comic

2nd shitpost inspired by @euporie-art ‘s tags on one of my other shitposts lmao

Tangent about the jail scene here ⬇️⬇️⬇️

It’s been rattling in my brain whyyyy Barok faces away from Albert in this scene

It’s an obviously deliberate decision so it got me thinking. Now unless someone already did an amazing analysis about this, please ignore this so I don’t look stupid and send me it instead fjskakak

TL;DR exactly what the comic said

Highly doubt Barok was so upset at Albert as to not face him (at least not too much). He DID go visit him actually, which is something Albert didn’t even predict. (Take that as you will). Barok could still be upset with Albert but I don’t see him as the type to turn his back to him like this.

My initial thought could be that Barok didn’t want Albert to see how grumpy and gloomy he’s become but I figured since he knew they were gonna see each other soon anyways, there’d be no reason to avoid it (unless he wanted to avoid a barrage of questions/concerns from Albert)

It’s like,,,what possible reason could there be that doesn’t make you think “well they were about to see each other in court in, like, less then 24 hours so what was the point?”

That’s when my thought train decided to go away from “Barok personal self-loathing” reason to “Barok personal something else” reason

Why would Barok not want to look at someone he considers a friend, especially one in a tough situation? Maybe, I thought, bc it would be to painful for him

When they were in uni, they probably had high hopes for each other. To expect the other to do great things, be great people, be famous. Imagine 10 years later you find out your buddy is in JAIL??? That’s probably very heartbreaking. I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to see someone he holds in high regards in a cell. But he’s still gonna be a good friend and visit him anyways <3

Okay another thought that JUST popped into my head!! Barok not wanting Albert’s image of him to change just yet.

Up until just recently, Albert had nothing but positive and nice things to say about Barok. He hadn’t talked to him in YEARS so his image of Barok is still of “the little darling”/varsity days.

Albert was probably the only person closely connected to Barok that still held that image. And Barok probably knew that. I think it’d be incredibly tragic if Barok wanted someone to still believe in him. To have someone who still saw him as nothing but good and hopeful. A bright man with a bright future. Albert seeing his face and seeing that brightness gone away would probably make him understand something’s gone horribly wrong.

Of course, them seeing each other is inevitable but Barok prolonging it is still a painful thought. The fact Barok prolonged their face to face meeting at all is really sad :(((

But bright side is that Albert never commented (initially) on his appearance. Just his mean behavior lol and I actually really really appreciate how their friendship was never really put into question. They never had a conversation where they were like “hey you’re scary now” or “hey I’m scary now” “we should probably stop being friends” they’re both fucked up <3 but it’s still fun to imagine that “what if”

Anyways all this to say that Barok cares so much about Albert that even his actions that look cold and heartless, actually come from a deep place of love and respect holy shit????

That or he’s just a tsundere

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landwriter · 8 months ago

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Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

#asks #the sandman #dead boy detectives #fic #crossover? fusion? i guess? who is to say! not me!#dreamling #perhaps some notes of chedwin #(a fabulous ship name btw. i may not get cob but i WILL get chedwin)#author wrote this while sick as dog so please excuse errors :')#might put on ao3 later if i have a chance to clean it up and expand on it a little!#my writing #me yesterday: 'i really don't see the appeal of blending both stories beyond doing it for the sake of it'#me today: 'no you don't understand they NEED each other here is my chart of the interpersonal dynamics and a list of all the ways hob can h #accidentally writing the new inn reunion scene i'd always dreamed of oops

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sforzesco · 1 year ago

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--or perhaps,' continues Octavian. 'You're angry that I've outplayed you at your own game because you were too busy fucking in your old master's house to notice anything that was going on around you.'

He smiles suddenly, bright and wide. 'Enjoy the party, Marcus.'

this scene takes place sometime after philippi, and was originally just some historical fiction I was writing last year for fun focusing on antony, octavian, and agrippa. then I got stressed out watching the new season of a show, started drawing while it played, and ended up turning it into a short comic lmao

the dialogue in this scene is referencing this bit out of Suetonius:

In early youth he incurred the reproach of sundry shameless acts. Sextus Pompey taunted him with effeminacy; Mark Antony with having earned adoption by his uncle through unnatural relations; and Lucius, brother of Mark Antony, that after sacrificing his honour to Caesar he had given himself to Aulus Hirtius in Spain for three hundred thousand sesterces, and that he used to singe his legs with red-hot nutshells, to make the hair grow softer. What is more, one day when there were plays in the theatre, all the people took as directed against him and loudly applauded the following line, spoken on the stage and referring to a priest of the Mother of the Gods, as he beat his timbrel: "See'st how a wanton's finger sways the world?"

Suetonius Augustus 68

what a fun group of people!! they should all eat each other

#octavian #mark antony #komiks tag #roman empire tag #WOW it's been a minute since i got to use that tag #the bit of my own writing (technically all of this is my own writing but in the text part of the post) is referencing #some shit about antony letting the conspirators go ahead and assassinate caesar for his own ends #which is fun to think about bc octavian proceeded to pull a similiar move but better #the gods favor one of you for sure lmao #i favor neither of you except for where i sided with octavian bc his narrative potential appeals to me more

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throughdarkeningskies · 5 months ago

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one small thing I like about the starless sea is the whole thing of like. even if you fuck up and miss opportunities and don't make the right choices wonderland will wait for you. maybe the magical adventure of a lifetime comes to you later, when you aren't a child anymore, and maybe that's for the better. magic as something that spans a lifetime. adventure and wonder as something that can drop into your life anytime, anywhere

#the starless sea #the whole thing of 'not yet.' u know!!! i could write so much about those two words but its late and im tired #i feel like this book was made especially for me every part of it appeals to me so much

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chialattea · 7 months ago

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whenever I feel sad I just sketch these guys to cheer me up,,, have a sketchdump,,,

#chia draws #one piece #kinda low quality doodles but eh.#they’re the only thing keeping me going right now (unable to get my meds)#trafalgar law #donquixote rosinante #corazon one piece #trafalgardwaterlaw #“because I said so!” law: “heh… pitiful… appeal to authority lol”#some of these are actually from last year but gotta free up space u know #yesterday I blinked and suddenly I had written like 5k of corazon/reader fake marriage au slow burn #I mean… at least I’m writing again?#should have been studying immunology but ehhhh

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laswells-ashtray · 4 days ago

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Usually, in these situations, he'd get up, throw on a t-shirt and shoes and go outside to smoke by the entrance to their building. But the rain is battering off of the windows with enough force that he half expects them to shatter.

So, instead, he stares at the ceiling and desperately tries not to disturb the hulking bear of a man wrapped around him. After years he's mastered the art of slipping out from the Russian's grip, he has to escape him legs first or Nikolai would clamp around his waist like a vice and drag him back into the cavernous heat underneath him with his face nuzzled into John's chest.

The ability to sleep soundly had been lost on him from a young age, bottles shattering on walls had gradually transitioned to bullets piercing skulls. He'd been naive enough to think he'd be able to stop it this time, years ago he had thought that maybe this time he could prevent it. Today, he knows that brain matter and skull fragments are harder to clean than broken glass and spilt whisky.

He blinks up at the ceiling, sometimes Nikolai's breathing is enough to dim the noise buzzing in his head. The rest of the time he knows that the only effective silencing method is to leave someone else cleaning up his brain matter.

He still has a few good years in him before he gets to that point.

Nikolai's nose is pressed against his neck and his skin is damp from the other man's breathing. There's a large, calloused hand resting over his ribs and a leg entangled with his own. The pilot had a habit of clutching John like he was afraid of what would happen to John when he let go. He had a radiator hidden in the form of a breathtaking Russian in his bed and he was ungrateful enough to think about leaving him for a smoke, that's the type of man John is.

He adores Nikolai. He could spend days sketching every little detail of the other man's body, he could list off the scars and the stories behind him, the stretchmarks and the way he nips at them whenever they're fucking around like horny teenagers and he could damn near list every grey that had made an appearance in Nikolai's mane. And the subsequent negative effect each of those greys had on his knees.

But he wondered who out there was better suited to the other man. Watching people flirt with Nikolai was something he was subjected to whenever they went out for a simple drink together, it was always someone younger, fitter and he'd bet a hell of a lot less scarred. Nikolai had his pick of the litter and he found himself stuck with a captain-shaped pit of despondency and antiquated, contemptible self-pity.

John's only use is getting a job done, there's a reason he's so highly regarded in his field. His fingers were made to wield weapons and his mouth was made for barking orders. Outside of the job he was robotic, there was little purpose for him in everyday life. John was a means to an end on the field. He's barely a person. He's a blacked-out name in a file.

Nikolai is lively, he's charming and he can function in any context because he was crafted out of a humanity that had been bred out of John's family line. Nikolai was modelled after the word benevolence.

And he found himself chained to John.

John who had made a career out of handing death certificates back to families, used nationalism to guide youthful faces into war and used detachment to send them back in a box.

He blinks up at the ceiling. There's no light shining in from the window, it can't be approaching a reasonable wake-up time so he has no choice but to lie there until it does or the rain stops pounding away and he can smoke in peace.

The one time he had a working lighter and he could remember where he had left it and he couldn't bloody smoke, typical.

He had to avoid the little old lady who lived downstairs when he went out for a smoke. She'd corner him and question him about when he was finally going to bring home a nice woman and start a family. Apparently, she was under the impression that Nikolai lived elsewhere in their building and not plastered against John's back whenever he was cooking.

The pensioner would shake her head and insist that when John finally has a wee one of his own, he'll be happy. It felt like some parasite under his skin squirming about under his flesh and eating away at the person inside, the thought of ever having a child of his own.

It was nauseating to imagine a baby somewhere with his features, he wasn't a father and it was the ideal outcome of life. To be a father to anyone was John subjecting them to something terminal. They'd never escape his impact and he was like a cancer who'd play the vital part in shutting every good part of them down.

He'd never subject a child to that, he couldn't. He refused to shadow his father's footprints that led him into a grave, belt in one hand and bottle in the other.

John isn't built to be a father, he's made to pull the trigger of a gun that no one else would ever consider picking up. He couldn't raise a child, instead of counting sheep his children would have to count every body in the trail left behind him.

He works for the greater good, they all do but there are only so many skeletons that you can cram into one closet.

He blinks up at the ceiling and turns to lie on his side only to be met with dark brown eyes staring back at him, far too knowing and far too tired. He had missed Nikolai pulling away from his neck, hadn't been alert enough to feel it. He was slipping.

"How long have you been awake?"

Nikolai pulls John to the centre of the bed, wrapping himself around him and pinning John in place. One hand cradling the back of his head all too carefully, as if he'd fracture under the slightest touch.

People have a tendency that John will splinter under intimacy like he was a glass pane and they're a hydraulic press. They're closer than he'd ever be able to admit verbally.

"You think too much, you should be sleeping." Nikolai murmurs, voice rough with sleep as he rests his head against John's shoulder. The warm feeling of his cheek burning John's bare skin.

He offers back a vague grumble of acknowledgement and pretends he doesn't melt under the hand that caresses his cheek, thumb tracing over a faint trail of freckles.

"Go back to sleep, дорогой."

Tomorrow, John will choose to believe that he followed the order because he's a good soldier.

#captain john price #john price #cod nikolai #nikprice #sorry i think ive been appealing to what other people want on this blog too much recently and lost what i like cod writing wise #if you get what i mean #i know everyone likes wholesome happy go lucky everyone is best friends and so do i #but i prefer a bit of angst #isnt my best but it'll do

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