#bc they can’t see the scars

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Elves don’t see elves as humans see elves.

I really like the idea that elves, when they look at other elves, don’t see each other with the same kind of awe inspiring beauty as humans that would look upon elves do.

In an elves eyes, other elves look just as unremarkable as a human would find most other humans unremarkable.

The reason is because of an elf’s vision. They see everything in extreme detail, so while we humans might see unblemished skin, an elf would be able to see every minute scratch and dent that graced the elf’s skin just as easily as a tattoo.

A human will look at an elf and see perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect grace.

An elf will look at another elf and see a canvas of scars crisscrossing over the skin, telling the tale of the centuries they’ve lived.

A human will look at an elf’s face and find it as though it was cut from marble.

An elf will look at that same elf’s face and see a stark, angry scar dragging across the elf’s face.

[castleclerics]

the world if mike ended the show with a scar on his cheek that resembled the birthmark that he had in the og pitch

[con-zombie]

new tattoo!!

[valleynix]

went back to Miranda’s model viewer because gay reasons and remembered what her back looked like :’)

[dutybcrne]

I am a simple Allie: I see unhinged, I wanna put em with Taru or Kae

[liesandbrokenhearts]

I'm not just being nice. Your face truly is beautiful. Like, extremely beautiful. I wish you could see it the way everyone else does, because it is a wonderful sight.

I’m sorry I can’t take this in because I know that it is an attempt to make me feel better, but I truly appreciate it all the same. Thank you for showing me compassion either way.

[handfulofmuses]

I like that Shenzi isn’t 100 % on board with killing Mufasa at first. Scar starts his song with looking down on the hyenas (I know that your powers of retention are as wet as a warthog’s backside) and then continues with his ego.

So far, she shows no interest in what Scar is trying to do.

"And where do we feature?”

She is skeptical. She has no interest if only Scar appears to benefit from that - it’s only when he says that they will be rewarded when he’s given his dues, and are fully on board when he says to stick with him so they will never go hungry again.

Scar was feeding them what they wanted to hear.

[cream-and-tea]

LAY ME DOWN. chapter seven excerpt. unedited. featuring: agnes taking some time to explore her new surroundings and reflect on her old ones. blasphemy. implied homophobia. religious trauma. mild injury.

[Transcript under the cut]

hiiii! we’ve had pallas’s existential gender ponderings so it’s only fair that i post something that features much more heavily in the plot: Agnes And The Ongoing Sexuality Crisis! now go and listen to hallelujah (in your arms) by semler at least 50 times to accurately recreate the experience i had writing this chapter <3

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-). @vellichor-virgo​ @nicola-writes​ @doctormoss​ @gerbermatter​ @cactusprincewrites @houndmouthed @muddshadow @just-wublrful @midnights-melodiverse @corkywantstowrite @paradisiacalshroud @andromedatalksaboutstuff @kingsinking @lungs-and-gills @lychniscitrus @phantomnations

This isn’t the first time she’s dreamt of girls. 

Agnes considers that fact as she pulls everything out of the chest sitting at the foot of the bed (spare bedding mostly, sheets and quilts and pillowcases— multiple of each—and at least one heavy coat). They’ve never felt like that before though, clear and cold like water running over her skin, so obviously there. Most of the time she doesn’t even remember the other ones, just the feeling of them, waking up part ashamed and part euphoric (the euphoria always wore off long before the shame).

Agnes checks under the bed, then opens and closes the drawer on the end table, scoots it over to peer behind it, not really sure what she’s looking for. Secret passages maybe? Hidden traps? Something to let her know what the rules are here. 

There are, in her experience, at least three kind of rules in the world: the kind that people will tell you up front, the kind that they expect you to just know about and act surprised when you don’t, and the kind that they never say out loud but you can feel somewhere in your bones must be followed at all costs (We don’t talk about how Agnes sees ghosts and we don’t talk about how Agnes thinks about girls both fall into this category). Normally it takes her way too long to figure out which are which, she can’t afford to do that here where everything is already so confusing. 

Pallas would probably know all the rules, if she can find them, if they don’t make her brain explode when she does. Pallas had seemed to know everything about whatever this place is. What would they think of the girl in her dreams? They’re a weird and very sharp sort of person, she thinks, not really anything in particular at all. A why more than a what. If they weren’t definitely going to murder her if she looked at them wrong she would ask about that. 

There’s nothing in the desk but pencils, pens and a stack of notebooks. There’s nothing under the rug or behind the dresser filled with clothes that all look her size. The bookshelf is half full of titles she doesn’t recognize. She’s too weak to climb up to and push aside the strange painting of a human-faced deer full of arrows that hangs over the fireplace. When she limps her way to the bathroom the tub is still full and stagnant from when she filled it the night before but her clothes have mysteriously vanished from their crumpled pile on the floor. 

Agnes sways, then sits on the edge of the bathtub to appease her screaming ankle. She swings one leg into the water, hoping that will somehow help the pain, presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Okay. Okay okay okay.”

Things she knows: This is a library in a forest a long time after libraries stopped being something people thought about (her mother is dead). This library is supposedly full of people like her and people like Pallas (her Papá is gone). It’s going to teach her about what she is (her mother is dead). It’s not going to be easy (her mother is dead). She shouldn’t tell anyone her name (her mother is dead). The Library is supposed to save the world. (her Papá is gone). There are doors in trees that lead to tunnels that lead to here and things that look like dogs but aren’t and people that can bend blood and flesh and a Director who’s office sits in the void with a sword hanging above it in suspended animation (her Papá is gone and her mother is dead her Papá is gone and her mother is dead but somehow she is alive alive alive).

Things she doesn’t know: How exactly The Library is going to save the world. What The Library knows about the men in white. Where the men in white could have taken Papá. How these people can teach her about ghosts. How this place stands untouched in a forest that consumes everything around it. Why the girl in her dreams was asking her to find her. Whether or not there will be people her age here. Why the dogs and the Director and the librarian remind her of what the men in white did to her mother. Where her clothes went. If she’ll ever see Pallas again or if they’ve left her for good. If God hates her or not. Why there’s a sword in the Directors office. If there’s a place she can get food. If there’s any point to the deer painting or if it’s there just to creep her out. 

The closest thing they’d had to art on the walls back home was a wood-burned etching of the Virgin Mary that sat propped on a shelf above the kitchen table. Papá had made it for Mother for some anniversary and it really was very beautiful, dark line’s swirling across polished cedar. Her mother loved it and Agnes loved it too, there was something mesmerising about how the natural whorls and grain of the wood mixed with scratchy charcoal dark swirls. She’d liked the way the Mother of Gods eyes were ever so slightly downcast, as if she wanted to look at you but couldn’t quite bring herself to. Agnes could relate to that. And then one night when she was thirteen and everything seemed awful forever she’d gone to bed late after too little time spent with Mother and too much time wandering with the ghosts and dreamt that the carving had come alive. 

Mary had still been the colour of wood in the dream, but soft to the touch, human and wrapped in flowing fabric. Agnes had been standing barefoot and bareshouldered in the middle of the kitchen and Mary had knelt in front of her very very close and Agnes had used to clumsy hands to move the veil from her hair and the Blessed Virgin's hair had come loose around her face and she’d put her carvedgirl hands on either side of Agnes’s face. 

Then Mary had said nos diligimus, quoniam ipse prior dilexit nos and put her lips close to Agnes’s and Agnes had woken up screaming like someone had doused her with boiling oil. 

This, obviously, woke her parents, but she’d been too sick with horror and shame to lie so instead had sobbed out everything into Papá’s shoulder. Then Mother had begun to talk in the high and strung out way that there was something very, very wrong and Papá had sent her to sit on the steps outside in the gnawing February air where she’d pressed her hands to her ears and her snot-streaked face to her knees, trying to block out the sound inside while a dead woman and her barely-there son had pressed to either side of her, trying to be comforting but really only making her colder.

She felt about the same then as she does now, half-awake and shuddery and like she could make one wrong move and the world would collapse in screaming fire around her, well-worn prayers buoying in her heavy head, bits of wood carried along by a torrent of floodwater.

Oh Lord, what’s happening to me.

Oh Lord, why why why why why.

[scionshtola]

i’m only at gnb level 62 but i’m already thinking it might become cori’s canon tank job that they never use bc someone else should tank but i’d have to make them a real glam and their pld glam is already perfect to me

[cuteniaarts]

First posted piece of 2024 featuring Ghazan’s older sister Haya, take 2!!

[luvfromlucifer]

dress however you want!!!!! don’t be held back by stupid things like gender stereotypes or any of that dumb shit!!!!!! personal style is so important!!!!! you will feel 100 times better when you’re dressed in a way that makes you happy!!!!!!

[vins-oc-hell]

Shoutout to the time Loki spent an entire battle cowering under some rocks. 😔✌🏻

[madeofbees]

i’m not even a person, i’m just a bunch of traumas stacked on top of each other in a trench coat made of fandoms.

personality ? me ? no no, that’s just season 4 of community. common mistake though !

[dutybcrne]

I need to write up a thing ant how Kazu treats relationships like there will Never be enough time

[autistic-danvers]

how many little things are left in us by the people that pass by or stay for a while or leave immediately or maybe weren’t even truly there to begin with. so many little heavy things we carry with us forever

[bluelizze]

Me after reading this:

LIKE AN OLD CARDIGAN.

✰ starring: shigaraki tomura x fem!reader ✰ synopsis: you are the lamplight left on in the hallway when tomura comes home. ✰ content: soft shiggy loving hours. i miss him ✰ warnings: none. love. fluff as fluff can get ✰ word count: 2.1k ✰ author's note: hi it's hera. yeah i know. pretty lazy of me to just be posting old patreon content but it be how it be. i'm in my sad hours right now just thinking about coming home to my girlfriend and i thought about this fic. i don't know. hope u like it. goodnight

it’s late when he comes home.

to be fair, it always is. shigaraki has never had the luxury of choosing his work hours. it’s always dark, the moon hanging high in the navy night as he turns the lock of the meagre apartment he shares with you, the one he’d choose over his paranormal liberation front-mandated penthouse any day. the welcome mat is old and shoddy, but he remembers the day you picked it out together, looking through various designs online.

he doesn’t expect you to be awake when he comes home. it’s late, almost quarter past two, the light from the hallway lamp still on, illuminating the small home with a warm, homely orange. it buzzes and fuzzes at the edges, and he wonders if he needs to change the lightbulb. shigaraki drops his coat and his bags at the door and staggers his way through his home, your home.

exhaustion courses through his veins, turning his legs to lead. his footfalls are heavy, almost dragging along the hardwood floors, and he’s almost sure he’s trailing blood like a snail trail. his? some pro hero? he doesn’t know. genuinely, he doesn’t care. all he wants is a hot bath, and you.

you. you, you, you, who throws yourself into his arms every chance you get, never minding his deadly touch. you, who kisses his temple when he has a headache. you, who sing to him when he can’t sleep. shigaraki felt like a fool thinking you would love him the way he loved you, and still does believing that you’re telling the truth. but when your voice is sweet, thick and rich like honey, it’s hard to colour your words in anything other than candour.

when shigaraki reaches the door of your bedroom, he hesitates. he sees his hands, calloused and rough and pale. he hates the sight of them, the destruction they cause, the fact that he can’t hold you with all five fingers, skin against skin. the black nail polish he begrudgingly let you paint his nails with is chipping away, and he finds himself wanting to ask you to touch them up for him. he twists the doorknob to your bedroom, letting himself in.

shigaraki comes home to this sight almost every night, and yet he can never stop the way his breath gets caught in his throat, the way his heart aches to be next to yours. the dim light from the hallway creeps towards you slowly through the crack in the door, and it feels almost invasive the way it dares to trespass into your vicinity, onto your bed. warm orange fills the room with a soft glow, and there he spots pachinko and chico curled at the foot of your bed. he lets his eyes wander further and further up until he takes you in. soft and gentle and cuddled up to his side of the bed, your legs splayed just slightly.

“tomura?” he hears, your voice trimmed with sleep. that’s right. outside he’s shigaraki. he’s the embodiment of all for one, he’s a monster with the world in his hands. but in here, in this bedroom, he’s tomura.

tomura keeps looking at you as you turn around, barely roused from your sleep. “tomura, oh,” you murmur, covers rustling as you get up. “i must’ve fallen asleep, i…”

“i’m sorry i woke you up,” he mumbles. “you should sleep. ‘s late.”

the bed dips as you move, sitting where he stands, your legs folded under you. “no,” you shake your head, a small smile growing on your face. “wanted to see you home.”

tomura shakes. tomura trembles, his lip quivering as he lifts a bloodied hand, covered in soot and grime and someone else’s demise and places it on the side of your head. his thumb soothes the patch of skin under your ear, careful to leave his pinky up as he cradles your face. “i’m home.” his voice is gruff and tired, chock full of phlegm and the torrent of his day.

he used to be conscious about the dirt he tracked into the house, hardwood floors tainted by the wear of his days. but you never said anything, only mopped and swept the next day. “shower?” you ask, looking up at him, eyes wide with adoration, and he matches your smile.

“yeah,” he clears his throat, but makes no move to walk to the bathroom. “come with?”

you beam at him, a ray of sun in the twilight of his life. “always.”

he sheds his clothes, soiled and dirty and you push over the laundry hamper for his to throw it in. tomura hesitates for just a second, looking at your delicate panties, white jumpers, and then at the mess of black, brown and blue in his hands, roughed and tattered. “do you need me to stitch any of it up?” you ask, your back turned to him. you’re bent over the tub, testing the water to see if it’s too hot or too cold (tomura likes it warm. not lukewarm, not hot, warm.).

“maybe,” he murmurs. “i’ll look at it tomorrow.”

you hum in agreement. tomorrow’s your day together. tomura tried to spend as much time as he could at home with you and the cats, opting to schedule the league and the front’s happenings around what you wanted to do. grocery shopping day never clashed with a meeting. he was always home for movie night.

tomura turns, now naked and bare in front of you. there’s a smatter of blood, a smear of soot along his collarbone, and you reach forward with your hand wet to wipe it off. “long day, huh?” you ask, eyes flickering up to meet his for just a second.

“very.”

“saw it on the tv.” you pull him along to the tub, his arms long and lean and toned, hands warm. “looked devastating. not for you, though.”

he chuckles, lets you fuss over him. he steps into the bathtub, the water sloshing and splashing messily onto the floor. but your foresight is stronger, your bath rugs pulled towards the feet of the tub to catch the water. it’s the perfect temperature, always is when you run it for him, bubbly and soapy water clinging to his skin. you sit on the edge of the tub, watching him.

“come in,” his voice tugs on your heart, his hand breaking the water to reach for you. “shower with me.”

you smile. “was waiting for you to ask.” you stand, removing your sleep shorts and shirt, dipping your toes in slowly before letting yourself enter on the opposite side of the tub, your legs tangled together, facing each other. the water is pleasant, but it’s his warmth that comforts you. “bend down.”

he does. tomura only listens to one person, and that’s you. he dips his head, the long strands of soft hair soaked in water. you cup your hands to collect water, and lift it above his head to pour it on his scalp, soaking the rest of his head. it’s a quiet, methodical process, pouring water on his head before taking the shampoo from the side of the bathtub. you squirt a little bit into your hands, lathering it up before scrubbing his hair, making sure the suds clean the dirt off his scalp.

tomura’s hands bring death. yours bring life.

he sits there in silent contemplation, watching the water ripple with your actions. it distorts the image of himself, his reflection broken up into waves on the surface of the water. the big, bad villain melted away in your palms, now just a man being showered by his love. his girlfriend, who has stayed every day. who promises him better days.

there’s not enough in the world that he could give you in return. to compensate, to reward, to thank you. all he can do is sit quiet in this tiny bathtub in this tiny bathroom in this tiny apartment with you. all he can do is love you, and let you love him.

you wash him meticulously, not a word out of your mouth as you trace over scars, new and old, gashing or small. except for a small tut when your fingers reach his sternum, where a big, blue bruise is beginning to form. you recognised it; it must’ve been when he was compromised and cornered by mirko and some other pro-hero, before he gained the cohesion of mind to crumble the ground they stood on, knocking them off their stances just long enough to pick up the poor nameless hero by the collar. you’d turned away for a second when you watched that. you knew what happened to people who tomura got his hands on.

did you think the war was foolish? of course you did. it never escaped you the death toll, the property damage, the harm he caused. but you also understood that what he was setting his hands on was a government and a system that failed him, that failed every person who was deemed a villain. you knew that your life as a quirkless was much less valuable than someone with a quirk. you knew that those with quirks they couldn’t control, those with quirks that couldn’t serve, couldn’t save, they were thrown to the sidelines. who are they to deem who is good and who is bad?

once you’ve scrubbed his body with the loofah, you set it down on the side of the tub. “look up,” you direct him gently, your fingers tipping his chin upwards. “look at me.”

vermillion eyes flit up to meet yours, and your features soften just looking at him. you’ve looked at tomura plenty of times. it’s your favourite thing to do. but in the middle of the night, he just looks so… vulnerable. there’s a softness in his eyes you can’t explain.

you know that he tells you all his secrets, but you can’t help but feel like there are so many more buried behind his eyes.

a damp washcloth wipes along his jaw, his cheeks, his nose. you dip it in and out of the water, droplets melodical in your tiny space, tracing his sunken eyes and his scarred skin. the back of his neck where he scratches out of habit. his lips, chapped and flaking. you soak it all with your cloth and soapy water.

when you’re done, you can tell he isn’t. the bathwater’s long since gone cold, but he makes no move to get out. he’s still, the only telltale sign that he’s even alive the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. you let him steep in the water, let him take as much time as he needs to gather enough of himself to become a person again.

finally, he speaks. “do you love me?”

it’s a simple question. he’s asked it many time before; in the mornings, when the two of you spend the lazy hours together in bed. in the afternoons as you fuss over his clothes before he steps out the door. in the evenings, over the phone when he can’t make it home for dinner. in the nights that he spends buried inside you, your hands laced together, panting into your mouth. this is not an uncommon question for tomura.

but somehow, you feel like it is momentous today.

“i do,” you murmur, your hands still fit along his cheek. “i love you.”

he looks at you. “can you say it with my name?”

a beat passes. you find your tongue, and say, “i love you, tomura.”

a small frown etches in his forehead. you’re struck by a sudden fear you’ve said the wrong thing, your mouth opening to take it back. you would rather die than hurt tomura. you would rather burn through a thousand years in purgatory than do anything that upset him. you’re ready to ask what’s wrong when he shakes his head, eyes squeezing shut. there’s a tightness in his face you want to smooth with the pad of your thumb, that reaches into you and wrenches your heart. squeezes it until it bursts.

“n-not tomura. not that name.”

oh. oh.

you understand that vulnerability now. in scarlet eyes, you watch a small boy huddle close to you, like you’re a hearth of warmth and comfort. you are. you are, to him. you burn for him.

“i love you, tenko.”

and he softens. he melts, like butter in your hot, hot hands, under your blazing fingers. tomura shigaraki, the king of the underworld, the biggest villain known to man sits in your home, in your bathtub as you wash him clean. but it’s tenko shimura that you hold close to you now.