#but it can be read by itself

[delicateartisantrash]

Excerpt from "Scoped Out"

I will likely never post the full fic in its entirety, as it is very much not a properly organized story like most my other writings. I just write whatever comes to mind to de-stress, so the scenes jump around a bit.

Anyhow, this is a cute scene with Crosshair for a mildly force-sensitive, female Reader character who ends up joining the Bad Batch as a janitor to take care of the barracks on Kamino, after helping them escape a newly occupied Separatist city that they were living in. The Reader (aka 'Butterfly' as she's been nicknamed) was injured during the escape from her home planet, so she's been healing on the Havoc Marauder on the way back to Kamino. Also, fight me, I tweaked canon with my magical keyboard powers and made Crosshair's bunk the one most easily accessible from ground-level, rather than Hunter's. It's fanfic, roll with it.

I have all kinds of ideas about toothpicks.

---

“How long will we be in hyperspace for?” you wonder from where you lay on your back, scooted as far over in Crosshair’s bunk as you can get to make room for Omega, who lounges on her back next to you, legs bent, a datapad in her hand. She’s been chatting your ears off for the last hour or two, which you’ve welcomed sincerely. Hunter keeps looking over at you both like he’s worried his kid is pestering you -- because despite the men all referring to Omega as their little sister, you have a feeling Hunter has a more paternal stake in his feelings. In any case, wherever she is, he’s not far behind you’ve noticed. Echo is a short second, at least in terms of supervising, but you’ve noticed Wrecker spends a lot of time with her as well.

“About three days is what Tech said, but Echo thinks it will be more like four,” she answers absently, still focused on the datapad before she brightens, and turns it to show you a photo of the entire squadron on some forested planet, posed together for a picture. “Here! This is it, this is when Wrecker had the art done on his armor.”

Though she’s showing off the photo to embellish a detail in her storytelling, the first thing you notice in the picture is Crosshair’s expression.

Unlike most the photos Omega has shown you, in this one, the tall sniper is smiling. Not a smirk, a taunting gloat, or his resting frown, but an easy, good-natured smile that softens the entire features of his face.

You’re not aware you’re staring, transfixed, until Omega suddenly turns the datapad around to look at the screen herself, an eyebrow raised.

“What are you looking at…?” she wonders, her eyes flicking rapidly back and forth as she no doubts studies the photo

“Nothing,” you say without meaning to; your ears feel warm.

Omega gasps, and beams at the photo she’s looking at.

“I was just looking at--”

“Hi, Crosshair!” Omega blurts suddenly, lifting her head up off the pillow.

You jerk your head to look up at him, not having heard him approach, fighting to keep your expression neutral. His eyes linger on you for a moment before flicking down to the datapad Omega is holding, and he pulls the toothpick out of his mouth to address her.

“Hey, kid. What are you doing?” he wonders, holding out his hand. Omega beams up at him as she easily passes the holopad over, and the man studies the group photo on the screen for several moments, before a smile tugs at the corner of his lips, softening his features.

You know you’re staring, and if anyone calls you on it, you will absolutely blame it on the medicines’ lingering after-effects.

Crosshair hands the device back to Omega, the smile gone but his features still softer than before, the hard line of his brows relaxed into an amiable expression.

“That was an interesting mission. Ask Hunter to tell you what the inside of a Kobbo-bo looks like,” he suggests with a smirk.

From the cockpit, Hunter’s muffled voice shouts something along the lines of “Kriff off, Cross!”

Omega’s eyes go wide and round, her mouth dropping open.

“Whaaaaaaat?” she gasps, and before either of you can say anything, the girl flips herself off the bunk and bolts down the ship for the cockpit as Crosshair watches her go, amused. You’re blinking after her, rather glad she managed not to jostle you on her hasty way out, because--

You just about jump out of your skin when the mattress dips a bit beside you, and Crosshair settles himself down onto the vacated spot, leaning against the wall with his upper shoulders and neck. The pillow Omega had been using, stolen from Echo’s bunk, fills the small gap and braces his back. He’s skinny enough that he fits in Omega’s place just fine, though his much broader shoulders fill the space completely as he crosses his arms over his chest.

You gape at him, but the sniper’s eyes are already closed as he lets his head fall back, resting against the wall with a tired sigh.

After a few moments, heart fluttering, you slowly relax, knowing your cheeks are probably as pink as Echo’s had been during The Refresher Incident.

“I’m not Hunter,” Crosshair abruptly speaks, breaking the silence, “but even I can tell your heart accelerates every time I come near you. Why is that?” he wonders.

“How can you tell?” you ask as exactly that starts happening again, your heart pounding in your ears. You don’t even bother to deny it, wondering what his intentions are in asking in the first place.

Eyes you can mistake as golden when the light hits them just right, as it does now, open to slant sideways down at you.

“Every detail in my scope of vision is observed and processed at precisely the same time,” he explains quietly, and suddenly, you feel a shiver creeping over your skin for every time you’ve thought he wasn’t paying attention to you in his peripheral vision. “Many lifeform’s pulses are strong enough that I can see the movement of the fabric, if not the veins themselves,” he explains, his gaze never leaving yours. “Hold still long enough, and even your eyes should be able to focus on it. Mine see details like that without having to try,” he explains, then smirks. “Echo thinks I called you a butterfly because of your hairpiece.”

Your heart stutters. Crosshair is the one who coined the source of your nickname?

“Why did you call me Butterfly?” you ask curiously, aware your face is warm as you hold perfectly still, trying not to betray yourself as easily as you apparently had been. You don't think it's working.

His lips tug further up on one side, and Crosshair’s gaze flicks down briefly before he straightens his head forward again, eyes drifting shut. His lips still curve in a little, easy smirk that is doing dangerous things to your insides, hanging out on a face like that.

“Your heart flutters like a winged insect,” he drawls, almost poetic.

“Ah…” is your articulate reply.

His smirk turns into a smile.

“Your pupils dilate,” he continues, conversationally. “Your gaze drifts around like you can’t focus. Shift your weight, flare your nostrils, turn pink as a burra fruit,” he lists off. “You’re watching me when you think I’m looking elsewhere.”

Kriff, had you been staring at him that much?

This close to him, you can practically sense his easy mood and amusement. You want to say he looks smug, but there’s more to it than that.

A single honey-brown eye opens to peek at you, neatly framed by his severe tattoo.

“Um,” you manage. It’s a start. Stars, you’re trying to form words to speak, but all you can manage is staring up at him, unable to look away.

“Hm,” he answers.

Hesitantly, you shift your shoulders and reach over with your right arm. Crosshair’s gaze immediately shifts to watch the progress of your hand directly, his head leaning back a bit on reflex as you near his face.

Your fingers still shake a little bit, especially with lifting your arm this high up from your chest, but you manage to neatly pluck the toothpick from his mouth, then tuck it between your own lips, rolling it over your teeth with your tongue until you settle it comfortably in the corner, watching him.

The possessive gleam in his eyes sends heat pooling in your belly.

You thought you were being very clever, showing him you’re interested in intimacy without having to say it out loud with your tongue being tied up in knots. It’s probably better you don’t say it out loud anyhow, with how many ears are on the ship. You’re pretty sure Hunter has already figured out your little crush, but he’s not made any mention of it.

Your mouth nearly drops open when Crosshair abruptly turns at the hips at the same time he pushes off from the wall and leans down. His face fills your vision as he hovers over you without coming into contact, the scent of campfire smoke, that perpetual metal-and-oil scent that weaponry has, and his own personal scent clouding your nose.

Crosshair bites the other end of the toothpick and easily plucks it from your mouth, holding your gaze.

Breathless, your fingers twitch, wanting to grab him, but you hold yourself back, acutely aware of how not alone you both are on the ship.

As if to punctuate the thought, you hear footsteps approaching as someone leaves the front of the ship.

By the time Echo appears in view, you’ve thrown an arm over your eyes to feign sleep, and Crosshair has returned to a relaxed state leaning against the wall with crossed-arms, rolling the toothpick idly in his teeth.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I'm re-reading the Discworld series for reasons, and honestly the most relatable part of reading these as an adult is how many of the protagonists start out being tired, used to their little routine and vaguely disgruntled by the interruption of the Plot. Sam Vimes wants to lie drunk in a gutter and absolutely doesn't want to be arresting dragons. Rincewind is yanked into every situation he's ever encountered, though he'd much rather be lying in a gutter too. (Minus the alcohol. Plus regretting everything he's ever done said witnessed or even heard about fourth-hand in his whole life.) Granny Weatherwax is deeply suspicious of foreign parts and that includes the next town over; Nanny has leaned into the armor of "nothing ever happens to jolly grannies who terrorize their daughters-in-law and make Saucy Jokes"

Only the young people don't seem to have picked up on this---and that's fortunate, because someone has to run around making things happen, if only so Vimes and Granny and Rincewind have a reason to get up (complaining bitterly the whole time) and put it all to rights. Without Carrot, Margrat, Eric, etc. these characters don't have that reason; they're likely to stay in the metaphorical gutter and keep wondering where it all went wrong or why anything has to change.

............well, that's not quite true. You get the sense that Vetinari knows how much certain people hate the Plot. And as the person sitting behind the metaphorical lighting board of Ankh-Morpork, he takes no small pleasure in forcing the Plot-haters specifically to stand up, and say some lines.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Part 2/2

By the time Stanley had realized he wasn't as alone as he believed himself to be entrapped in this ravenous abyss; he had honestly begun to suspect that he was finally starting to properly lose his mind.

In all the ceaseless miles that Stanley had journeyed during his apparent permanent residence within the dark devouring void, not once had he encountered another conscious, walking, talking being similar to himself. Every other formerly living creature that he had crossed paths with had been so... silent. Empty. Dead, in every sense of the word. It was as though the very essence of life itself had been sucked out of their bodies with a straw, their forms slowly falling apart piece by piece under the vicious gluttony of the darkness that surrounded them. They looked like they actually were supposed to be there, unmoving and comatose, unlike him.

So, when Stanley first began to encounter the twins, all of a sudden, he wasn't the only one in the dark.

When meeting the first pair of them, he found himself standing in a lake.

He hadn't even noticed the changes at first. It felt as though he had been walking for weeks on end, his body moving purely on autopilot and his aching legs leading him towards a destination only it knew. A thick fog of forgetfulness and flickering memories had descended upon his brain like a heavy blanket of numbing static as he had traveled. In this absentminded state, he hadn't even realized that the ever-present undulating, buzzing darkness surrounding him had begun to gradually shift and morph to form a horizon line; stretching into tall looming cliffsides that almost seemed to close in on him. Once the nonexistent floor beneath his soles abruptly began to ripple and warp, like the disturbed surface of a shallow puddle; only then did he finally notice his transformed environment.

The transition was seamless, almost dream-like. One moment, he was still surrounded by that filthy, overwhelming abyss; and the next, his boots were suddenly plunged deep into the cold, dark lake water.

The silence didn't leave, however. It still choked and stuffed its way into Stanley's ears to clog up his mind with thick cotton; the eerie quiet not quite matching the calm, almost serene scenery the void seemed to have abruptly transformed itself into. Like a movie with its sound cut off; leaving only the unsettling hum of the projector to fill the empty air.

It was odd. The lake was surely incredibly deep. He could obviously tell from how thin and pathetically small the shores appeared all the way from where he now unceremoniously stood in the middle of the lake. Stan could look down and see the darkness below his feet swallow what meager light that managed to break through the murky waters. The overwhelming black almost seemed to beckon him, gaping and haunting; a bottomless underwater pit of pitch black that never seemed to end.

And yet, he didn't sink. Stanley remained perfectly level, the almost ink like waters stopping just at ankle level, as though he were held up just above the surface by some invisible force. Even the writhing waves seemed small and low, as though the waters were shy to climb up his legs further than that. It was odd, so very odd.

However, it wasn't nowhere near as odd as the sight that greeted him when he finally lifted his eyes from the waters.

Stanley had crossed paths with truly unbelievable sights in this strange somewhere; from bursting, collapsing stars; to the imploding heat death of entire universes, but none of them seemed to hold the candle to what he saw then when he lifted his eyes:

Children.

Two, to be exact. Two, nearly identical looking children stood motionless before him; completely soaked through to the bone as though they had taken a plunge into the frigid water that pooled around their ankles. It was a girl and a boy, both adorned with twin expressions utterly devoid of emotion, their wide eyed stare seeming to burn holes into his thin jacket. Their drenched clothes sagged off of their scrawny frames; thin rivulets of water dirpping off of them and disturbing the glassy surface of the water at their feet. The little girl's hair had messily stuck to her face in thin sodden strands, her cheeks still full and round with youth just like the boy's. They looked young. Too young to be in a place such as this.

Oh, but their eyes; their eyes.

They burned with such anger; such injustice, brighter than any dying star or galaxies he had ever seen. Anger towards the world, to fate, to whatever cruel deity that had deemed them fit to be sent to this wretched place so prematurely. They were too young to be here; to be entrapped like he was amongst this hungry darkness. And yet, here they were, sheer denial against their own untimely deaths being the only thing keeping them awake and conscious amongst the dead and rotting. A show of juvenile defiance to nature itself so vehement even the all-consumign darkness seemed hesitant to devour them whole just yet.

It saddened him. It saddened him to know that they belonged there, that they were supposed to be there. He could see it, he could feel it; they were dead. No amount of determination could deny that universal fact.

When they spoke, Stanley could hear anger:

Stan chuckled in a futile attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere that threatened to crush him whole. "A lake monster? You kids and your imagination," he teased, hoping to somehow rid the poor kids of the haunted look that seemed to whirl in their glares. No child should have been burdened with such a knowing look; such eyes that looked like they had seen everything there was to see about the world, the horrid and the good.

Clearly, it had been the wrong thing to say, and Stanley's faux pas was rewarded with a scowl from the little boy. A world's worth of sour contempt etched into every contorted groove that his grimace seemed to dig into his much too young face. Stan suddenly felt guilt squeeze at his weary bones for having caused that.

"That's what they all said," the boy spat out, eyes shining with a sheen of wetness Stan wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with.

Stan left that first interaction with the twins with the feeling of guilt and sorrow still clining to him.

He couldn't have known, at the time. He couldn't have known that this wouldn't be anywhere near the last time that he would meet the pair. He hadn't realised just how many of them there were. After that first pair, his endless journeying within the Abyss was hardly be spent alone anymore. Countless more times, he came face to face with the exact same two young and impossibly worn faces; forced to meet one pair of beaten and bruised kids after another.

Not one pair had died the same death as another. Some had gotten lost, prey to whatever threat that had snatched them up out in the open; some had fallen from high up; some had been crushed under an incredible weight; some had burned; some eaten alive; some zombified. Some didn't even seem physically harmed at all, body perfectly intact, and yet that same faraway, distrubed look in their eyes remained.

He thought the worst ones were the ones he found alone. A little girl or a little boy, left all lonesome without their other half there. Twins, he remembered a pair of them telling him once.

Once, he had come across a town full of silent, stone statues. It was a rustic, shabby, almost nostalgic looking town- odd and strangely familiar. The sight of it had tugged at an aged memory that had long since wasted away in the back of his mind. It was serene, almost deceptively so. The sun shone; the air smelled crisp and fresh; numerous waterfalls continued to crash down from the tall cliffsides; and a soft nonexistent breeze whistled through the thicket of pine trees that blanketed the outskirts of the town. None of it seemed to match the gruesome scene of the hundred wailing statues that littered every inch of the town.

He had found the boy's statue on the other side of town, deep within the green forest and toppled over the gnarled roots of a towering tree. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he too, was frozen mid-shriek; his stone face twisted and contorted into a mock impression of a silent scream as his body lay paused in a writhing struggle. He made sure to be gentle when he carried the boy's statue over to place it beside the girl's, whose statue stood far deeper into the forest, sporting the same rictus grimace of terror as her brother's. It somehow felt wrong for them to have been so far apart from one another, even in death.

He had come to dread meeting of the twins. He hated every second he had to confront yet another pair of dead children that did not belong here, but fate had decided they did. He despised having to listen to their tales of woe as they wept about the injustice of the world, of having died young; he despised himself for being unable to do more than weep with them.

"We don't belong here, Grunkle Stan," he would listen to the little girl weep, calling him a title he didn't recognize. He never remembered if they had ever told him their name, but they all seem to know his, without a fail. "If we're dead, then what about you? What about Grunkle Ford? Mom? Dad? What about them? We can't be dead, we can't be," they would say, confusion and frustration written all over their faces. They didn't understand. They didn't understand why they had come to the darkness so early, so unfairly.

He never knew what to say, he'd never been good with words.

All he could do was kneel down to their levels and engulf them in his arms, hoping he could somehow squeeze the pain straight out of their bodies in his embrace. He hugged them, because what else could he do?

[dukeofthomas]

"Are the Robins child soldiers" It depends. If the story is super serious and into exploring complex morality and grounded from reality's standards, then yes. If the story is lighthearted, made for children, fluff, etc., then no. If it's somewhere in the middle, it might depend.

If an author wants to write a story seriously delving into the fucked up-ness of children fighting criminals, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a fun story about villains and heroes featuring Robin in a world where that's not an issue, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

If an author wants to write a serious story but not apply IRL-logic to Robin, they can, and if you don't like it, you can read something else.

[isjasz]

[Day 238]

💤💤💤

---

ME WHEN I GET A FULL BLOWN FIC INSPIRED BY MY ART AND MAKE A FULL PAGE COMIC OUT OF IT HOW WE FEELING💥💥💥💥💥

Explodes this still feels like a fever dream hi so @definitelynotshouting this absolutely batshit insane guy wrote "honey it's starting to storm" INSPIRED BY THIS ART FROM CHRISTMAS. I need to yell about it more istg this is the W of the century. Guys please it's so good go read it go read go rea

Emphasis GO READ IT👉

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[nyancrimew]

Can I pay you to hack the apex legends servers?

no

[theminecraftbee]

Tango makes a terrible, terrible face as he walks into Grian's new creation. Bit rude, he thinks that is, but whatever. Grian waves his arms out, getting ready to show Tango more than he'd shown him when the practice room was still in-progress, when Tango says:

"What did you do to it?"

"Huh?"

Tango shudders. He folds his arms over himself and looks at Jellie the ravager. "What did you do to it. To this place. Why is it... warm?"

"I mean, it's not really warm, see it's all white so it actually doesn't retain heat very well, even with the froglamps, so I had to do some work to make sure the temperature was appropriate for heavy physical activity while not risking frostbite the way the actual dungeon does, and..."

Grian trails off.

"The point is that it's mostly just, I don't know, mild temperature? Unnoticeable temperature? The fact you commented on it is weird."

There's a strangely echoing quality to Tango's voice as he steps back again, against the door to the practice room. "It's clean."

"Yeah. I mean, that's the aesthetic, isn't it? Wiped clean of everything but the ravager, the water, and the drowned. None of the distractions. Good for practicing, you know?" Grian squints. "You should like it. You said you'd like it. Wanted people to be able to practice so they'd do better at the dungeon."

Tango shudders again. "You've wiped clean the ravagers, too. I can't... touch her."

"What?" Grian says, baffled.

"What have you done to this place," Tango says.

"Listen, I won't have you insulting my clean room," Grian says. "I cleaned it of all the dungeon bits. It's nice and easy and white and understandable. I won't have you corrupting it."

Hm. Not sure where that one came from, he realizes. Probably a bad sign. He'd certainly guess as much from Tango, who is staring at him with something akin to horror.

In a voice that echoes like a card readout, Tango says: "You won't do this in the dungeon. You'll feed us what's left from this. Or I'll have to ask you to move it."

Grian rolls his eyes. "Geez, yeah, I won't touch the actual dungeon! I already broke the sound test room, I'm not breaking any really important redstone. Now, do you want to see the drowned dodging room or not?"

"I'm horrified to find out what happened to the drowned, if this is your ravager."

Grian looks between Jellie's blank stare and Tango and throws up his hands. "Nothing! I did nothing to her! I have no idea what you're on about!"

"It's like you bleached their insides," mutters Tango. "Bleached everything. It's not natural."

"Not natural? Like you're one to talk!"

"I need to know. Show me," Tango says.

"Right then. Take off your armor first, I don't want Jellie getting thorned or something, then let's practice some dodging and get in there. Then you'll see this is a perfectly normal set of eerie white rooms and leave me alone, right?"

Tango makes a face.

"I don't know why I bother. Honestly. You'd think I'd done something weird," Grian says, and then neither of them talk much, on account of the ravager trying to chew their faces.

[23fallencomets]

Creatures in Heaven

Model!Logan AU

[Once a racer, always a racer, Dalton had said once, under the Floridian sun, on the ever-blue waters of the Keys, bittersweet wine and cold beer heavy on their tongues. Logan has laughed, head thrown up to the sun he grew up under and tries to ignore the cold feeling in his gut that reminded him of gloomy early mornings and cold spring nights.]

logansargeant made a new post!

liked by liamlawson30, oscarpiastri and 890,972 more

logansargeant: told me he knew a place and then took me home

liamlawson30: i was tired 🙄

olliebearman: this is what you guys did when we left??

frederikvestioffical: are we even surprised at this point

oscarpiastri: this is why you didn’t come back with us

liamlawson30: he chose me

oscarpiastri: we live together

arthur_leclerc: since when???

user4: liam and oscar fighting over logan was not on my bingo card

user5: they used to do this all the time

logansargeant made a new post!

liked by olliebearman, arthur_leclerc and 987,376 more

logansargeant: back to work, have a lot coming up in a few weeks

arthur_leclerc: was the pizza just for the photoshoot or did you eat it

olliebearman: ignore him, we got our new diet plan

logansargeant: we ate it and it was yummy

olliebearman: arthur just let out a sob

user6: surprised oscar hasn’t liked the post

user7: my brother in christ, the australia gp is currently going on

[Twitter]

logansargeantspotify:

currently playing: Wanna be yours by The Arctic Monkeys

logansargeantoffical: ??? let a man pine in peace??

user8: okay heart eyes logan sargeant

user9: you say this like if you don’t ignore anything and everything when oscar is in front of you

user10: exactly like stand up!!

logansargeantspotify:

Now playing: Lover of Mine by 5sos

user11: oh he’s in trenches

user12: pulling out 5sos is criminal

logansargeantoffical: making my spotify private wtf i do not need to be called out at 5 in the morning

oscarpiastri: mate…

logansargeantoffical: aren’t you supposed to be asleep 🤨 that’s the whole reason we hung up

oscarpiastri: landon wanted ice cream

logansargeantoffical: you tell a man goodnight and he goes out with another 😞

landonorris: don’t be jealous sarge, he wanted the ice cream more than me i was already falling asleep

user13: SARGE???

user14: i know!!

user15: you guys are so funny, logan hangs out in the Mclaren hospitality whenever he has time to go to a grand prix

[applestorms]

thinking about how near refers to light at the end of the series— not really as light yagami, not even really as kira, and not quite as L, but rather an amalgamation of titles: L-KIRA, a twisted mix of two personas, masks on top of masks. no longer a person but a series of letters, a filtered voice through a screen. a man who has built his entire life in the space between lies, who cannot let himself stop for a second without the weight of his own guilt, his sins, crushing him. regrets repressed because this is the only way it could ever be, it has to be worth it, it has to, it has to, because you can’t even bring yourself to consider what it all means otherwise.

i am a firm believer that light yagami, the son, the student, the average human person, dies at the same time that L does. at least at the beginning of the series he has some semblance of normalcy to hold himself to, the Serious Student persona that keeps him walking to and from school and talking to people and eating dinner with his family at home. how many times do we really see him going outside, post-L death? how often do we see him outside of some L-based police HQ, talking to people he isn’t trying to manipulate? really, it’s no wonder he falls so far, alienated as he is from the rest of humanity. when was the last time he breathed long enough to remember what the sky looks like? hugged his mom, laughed with his sister? did he ever visit his father’s grave? does he remember what the breeze smells like? was he ever really happy? did he deny himself his only chance?

at least in the case of L and near the isolation feels intentional, a preferable choice, carefully and logically considered for all the pros and cons. light never asked for the position he fell into, that fell upon him, that he created for himself. he denies the death note being a curse, but it’s not like he could ever admit it if it was.

light’s story arc in death note really feels like a tragedy to me, specifically in the sense that he never really gets the chance to change. on a plot level this is true, much of the second half of the story post-L death is light utilizing the exact same strategies as before (taking away his ownership of the DN to Strategize, romancing a woman he doesn’t care for to use her, fighting a snarky troll of a super genius hiding behind a letter whose real name & face he cannot find), but it’s true on an emotional level too. light never really gets to grow up, he never gets the chance to truly question his ideals or goals without the world he’s built by himself crashing down around him.

i keep thinking back to the significance of matsuda asking him about his dad, how he could drag him to his death for the sake of all of this. light’s response, so truthful in its desperation, really sums it all up: he died for a reason. KIRA has to win, or his dad died for nothing. he cannot face the idea that he caused his own father’s death, so KIRA must be justice. there is no other alternative. KIRA is god, or light yagami killed his own father for a fairytale.

really, it’s so fitting that his name uses the kanji for moon. moonlight— not originating from the moon itself but a reflection, of something brighter, greater, more powerful than he could ever be. light dies the same way as every other criminal he passed his judgement upon, on his knees and desperate, pathetic, begging for life even as he knows he is doomed to the same fate of nothingness that he granted to everybody else. godhood denied. he said it himself, that he could never be anything more than a human, but somewhere in the fog he lost track of the person he once was. and it’s near’s cruelest observation that stands out the most to me in that final scene— that he never really had to be this. he could’ve stopped at any point, felt his guilt, paid his regrets, and moved on with his humanity still intact. light has spent far too long repressing and denying to ever consider that an option anymore— but there was still room for sympathy for the 17 year old kid who killed without thinking, long before he built up such a dedicated palace of lies to justify his actions and hide away his guilt.

L-KIRA dies on the floor of a dirty, abandoned building, surrounded by the people he spent years manipulating and lying to and betraying. light yagami dies in a helicopter, locked and chained to his only closest equal, holding a notebook that he would use to sound the death knell of his own fate and wearing his father’s gifted watch.

[beanghostprincess]

A bit tired of people complaining about Sanji's principle of "not hitting women" being misogynistic when it has been clearly stated multiple times that he does not choose it and it's heavily tied to his trauma and admiration for his dad and respect for women and definitely not from seeing women as somehow weaker than him

[salamispots]

wanted to do a couple more examples for the commission sheet

[luckyartdrawer]

^^^ Cover art for the fic that goes with this!!! vvv

*Please read the tags before reading!

vvv Summary, Clear full image, Close ups, and Yapping below! vvv

Summary:

Then someone new came along. Long after the encounters with death. Long after the obsession with words has settled in.

They had nothing to do with either of them, nor the daycare, and not even the other animatronics. Just a simple tour guide, bringing groups around place to place, with simple explanations, free goodies, and overly preppy cheer. It may have been in the job description, but they acted as if they were best friends with any animatronic they introduced – including them.

It felt wrong. It felt ugly. It felt as if the perfect smile on that face as they bestowed compliment after compliment on each tour was just that. Skin deep.

Drip

Are they as beautiful on the inside as they pretend to be on the outside?

Drip

_____________________________

A Moon centric horror story to celebrate spooky month/Halloween! Inspired by the song Bones by Will Wood and The Tapeworms. Enjoy!

⚠️ I do not condone this behavior! Check the tags before reading! This fic is heavily inspired by the song and leans into the anorexia and gruesome/literal aspects of its lyrics, if those subjects bother you please be careful as they're in this fic! ⚠️

Clean Version: (No words and No blur)

Close ups:

Yapping:

I'm very excited to post this! I've been holding onto it for a while now and I'm very proud of it! ^^

I really did want to wait until further into October to post these, but with the chance of being out of power for 2 weeks due to back to back hurricanes, I figured it's best if I post this now rather than risk being late. It's still spooky month, and plenty of people can enjoy the spooks any time! <3

I love horror stories, so hopefully this unnerves some of y'all hehe >:)

And of course it's Moon centric, I've accepted my bias at this point.

[weareallgonnaliveforawhile]

Y'all know those fanfics where Saiki is an asshole to Teruhashi or really rude to her until they start dating? Yeah, this is what I imagine what that Saiki meeting Canon Saiki would be like.

Canon Saiki: So do you still deal with Teruhashi?

Fanfic Saiki: I can not avoid that woman. The other day she was bothering me when a mob of her fans showed up so I teleported away and-

Canon Saiki, surprised: You revealed your powers to her?! I mean, her fans do suck, so I can understand panicking and teleporting the both of you away-

Fanfic Saiki: What? No, I teleported myself away and left her there.

Canon Saiki: You what.

Fanfic Saiki: I teleported myself away. Well actually, I was the one who kinda summoned that crowd so that she'd be too overwhelmed with them to go find me-

Canon Saiki, shaking with murderous rage: You what.

[cavennmalore]

with the amount that the main series dunks on the forbidden cities i would just love for unraveled to be just an unabashed celebration of humanity. like yes there is poverty and pollution and crime but also there is dancing and music and rollercoasters and scary movies. let keefe discover the beauty here! the first book was all about the wonder of the lost cities but unraveled could be all about the wonder of the forbidden cities

[soren-apologist]

time for more soren character analysis:

petrine’s battle conversation with soren in chapter 23 has always been a favorite of mine, and now that i’m looking at it again i noticed a few extra details:

it’s important to mention that this battle takes place directly after ike and soren’s a-support, in which soren confesses he’s a branded and expects to be shunned, only for ike to tell him that it doesn’t matter and he wants soren to stay by his side regardless.

anyway, besides “Now let me show you true fear!” being a really hard line, it’s really cool to see how soren’s reaction to his branded status being pointed out changes so sharply over the course of a handful of chapters. i already analyzed his reaction to nasir’s betrayal where he’s agitated over the fact that he could have prevented it if nasir hadn’t threatened to reveal him being branded to the army, so seeing him being so confident in himself is great, and i’ll touch on why here.

one of the reasons i like to say the game treats ike and soren’s a-support as canon is actually this particular conversation. soren, having just been reassured that ike will always want him at his side regardless of who or what he is, now suddenly has had his biggest fear and insecurity taken off his back. he doesn’t need to hate himself for being branded because ike, the only person who’s ever truly mattered to soren, doesn’t care at all.

back to the conversation, soren’s judgment over the situation at hand is no longer clouded by his own self-loathing. instead of comparing them as branded and seeing himself as just as horrid and disgusting as petrine (tiger branded, fun fact), he’s able to instead compare them as individuals and realize that what he’s done up to that point will never measure up to the atrocities she’s committed. i think the best part personally is just how disgusted soren looks by the notion he and petrine are the same, because he’s right— him being cutthroat and pragmatic is nothing compared to everything petrine has done in daein’s name— and the fact he can clearly see this means that, for the very first time, he’s finally starting to heal from the mental wounds inflicted upon him by his childhood.

overall, i like this little nod to soren starting to learn to grow and change from who he was at the beginning of fe9. it’s more clearly seen in radiant dawn, where he’s calmer to the point ranulf even comments on it, but these little inklings implying the start of soren’s healing are really cool to see.