#but seriously what is she doing

[hermajestycleocatra]

I spent an hour building Cleo a fancy cat tower and she spends her time on the empty bottom shelf of my bookshelf. She’s now gotten comfortable and is snoozing in there. Like ma’am please, the cat tower has soft fabrics and little hidey holes why are you choosing this place of hardness??

[liauditore]

do you guys ever think about that time she said her backstory was that she was only partially zombiefied and was fully conscious mentally while she ate and killed her family. and that she was a princess. i do alot.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Sublime Equine.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[copypastus]

What if acotar antagonists got the same level of justification as our 'heroes' from the Night Court did?

[choccy-milky]

finally drew clora and seb's kids!!🙌🙌

Celeste Sallow: OK THIS IS THE NAME IM SUPER PROUD OF BAHAHA because not only does the name celeste relate to the stars (in typical ravenclaw fashion...clora picked the name) but celeste sallow is also an alliteration. BUT, its an alliteration that begins with a C, which means clora gets to match with celeste in the form of both of their names starting with a C, whereas sebastian gets to match with celeste because both of their names are an alliteration/they're alliteration allies🥹ITS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!🥳

Lewis Sallow: as for lewis, if you've read my fic then you know that seb has a vendetta against names that start with an L bahaha, but 'lewis' was actually HIS idea. when celeste was born, seb wanted to find a muggle story to read to her, since clora's favourite story is ALSO a muggle one (sherlock), and he wanted to stick with tradition. so he ended up finding alice in wonderland, which he loved because of how adventurous and clever alice was and of how much she reminded him of clora and celeste (both personality and looks wise). it became his favourite for those reasons, to the point that when they had lewis, sebastian overcame his L-name hatred by naming their son after lewis carroll.

Houses: celeste could have been sorted into either gryffindor or slytherin, but ultimately ends up in slytherin because she wants to be like seb. kinda like how clora also probably could have been in gryffindor, tbh. as for lewis.....him being 10000% in ravenclaw doesnt need any explanation BAHA, just look at him.

Appearance: since clora has a tiny bit of veela blood in her, thats obvs passed down to their kids, too, and so they mostly take after her as a result of it. but there's still little bits of seb that shine through in each of the kids: for lewis its his brown curly hair, and for celeste its her complexion/freckles. and the fact that celeste looks so similar to clora only doubles up sebastian's stress/protective instincts when he watches her BAHAH. he's ofc still proud that she takes after him so closely, but seb also cant deny that he wishes it had been their SON that had taken after him instead, to keep her out of danger.

Celeste & Lewis: for celeste and lewis’ relationship, celeste is a super proud big sister, and treats lewis kinda like how seb treats clora. if there's anything that needs to be done, she offers to do it for him. and although she doesn’t have the patience to read stories herself, she loves playing outside and having lewis read to her in the background, and loves to act out/use his stories to fuel her imagination. and lewis makes sure to pick stories that he KNOWS she’ll like (which mostly involve heroic and daring feats of adventurers or pirates. he's tried to read more classic fairytales and romances to her a few times, but celeste always gets bored). she loves to draw though, so sometimes when lewis reads books that have no pictures, she'll draw them herself.

Celeste & Seb/Clora: celeste is a daddy's girl LOL and always tries to impress seb with the stuff she does, especially after hearing how HE was at her age, and so its half to impress and half because shes competitive that she wants to do the same/be just as good. and seb always gets a kick out of hearing her feats in the crossed wands club, or in defense against the dark arts class, and he also goads her on, telling her she'll have to do better than that if she wants to be as good as HE was. and whenever celeste gets detention, clora always stresses and asks why, whereas seb just tries to keep the smirk off his face. as for celeste and clora, clora also reads to celeste, and bakes and cooks with her, which is something celeste actually likes doing. not only because it keeps her busy and she likes to help and get messy in general, but also because she likes the fact that it results in good food afterwards LOL, and constantly asks when things can be taken out of the oven. also, for as tomboy-y as celeste is, she honestly doesn't mind/likes the clothing that clora puts her in and likes when clora dresses her up, bc it makes her look like one of the princesses from the storybooks, and it just amuses her more than anything else. once she enters hogwarts, though, its mostly trousers. but she still DOES like the occasional girly clothing.

Lewis & Seb/Clora: lewis is a momma's boy LOL and unlike celeste, doesnt care about duelling or of proving himself or anything like that, and is only concerned with stories and his future studies. so ofc clora had to show him sherlock, which he naturally loved. it even inspired lewis to want to write his own stories, so that he could challenge his own skill and see if he could, but also because he wants his mom to read them, and likes the idea of writing his own sherlock-esque story with equations and mysteries to be solved that he can offer her. lewis also wants to write a book for celeste as well, bc although he wont admit it, he basically wants to write a story tailor-made for her and her interests. one that he thinks will have everything she’d love in it. and part of it is genuinely because he WANTS to do it for her, but the other part of it is also for his ego, and to see if he CAN write a compelling story, and write something that would actually get THE hyperactive celeste to sit down and read it in its entirety (not to mention of her own volition). as for with seb, lewis looks up to him more than anyone else, due to how well-rounded he is and how hes so good at practical stuff AND studying, and he kinda sees seb as a main character/protagonist from one of his books, and uses sebastian as inspiration for his own stories. if hes stuck on what he thinks the dashing main character should do next, he'll ask his dad what HE would do, which results in seb getting very weird questions that he nonetheless is always happy to answer. also, when lewis is older and finally learns the full story of what happened with clora and seb and ranrok and rookwood, he writes their story in novel form, except he just changes their names/some of the details, and it becomes a best seller LOL. and i didnt know where to put this, but the four of them all read a story before bed every night, with lewis in the middle and seb and clora on either side of him. though celeste stands at the foot of the bed, basically doing a charade/mime show of what theyre reading, and putting on a little play to go along with it BAHHA.

OK thats all i can think of for now ive yapped enough😩 if youve read all of this ur a real one.... ive also considered giving them a 3rd (and last) child, which would be a boy that looks exactly like seb, and seb would just be praying like please.....let this son take after me🧎‍♂️🙏 BAHHA

[vibinginthebg]

Still some doodles of them :DD

[sky-kiss]

@molinaesque / @shahs1221 was kind enough to design a timeskip!Raphael. He's utilized and abused here.

Posted with her permission. And honestly, if you're not following her: go follow her. Because LOOK AT HIM. Look at that moody, sexy man. Look at his hair. Look at his everything.

Seriously. Go follow her. She's so insanely talented, and so purely lovely. Do yourself a favor. Good god. She's incredible.

[daily-odile]

AUGH I’d love to see more time looping odile if possible,,,,, how do you think she’d like; “devolve” over each of the acts as compared to Siffrin over time :O

ok im gonna be honest i did like portrait edits months ago and just never finished them. so here you go

act 3:

act 5:

[vale-n-tina-and-the-internet]

OK SO HERE IT GOES

Ok so story time: This was commissioned by the lovely (not to mention patient and supportive) @greypistacchio for her monumental fic Pieces of Paper we Hold, and it’s going to be the cover for the printed version she’s going to sell to raise money for SA survivors. It’s a great initiative and it comes with loads of merch from super talented artists so go.check.it.out. cuz it’s all kinds of awesome! (For real, the art for the merch is superb 😍)

Also it was my first commission ever 🤯 Nearly crapped my pants with nerves, but Gee was crazy enough to entrust it to me and I couldn’t be more grateful cause I’m kinda proud of the result and to be part of a project like this.

Some progress shots under the cut just for fun

[essektheylyss]

My thing about Veth potentially venturing into polyamory is that I do think everyone involved would be perfectly fine with it and happy to help her experiment, and I think that no matter how they do it, it would not fix her. This isn't to say that she wouldn't get any benefit out of trying! It's just to say that it's not a solution to her actual problem, because I genuinely don't think the problem is that she's lacking any one thing that would make her life complete.

Fundamentally, I think Veth struggles with the idea that there will come a point at which she has to settle. Not in a bad way, just in the sense that she is one person with one life and she will have to live within those bounds. Because the thing is, I don't really think her issue ends at struggling to "have it all"; to an extent she does! She is a good parent, even if her kid is a little rebellious; her marriage is supportive (and has fun sex); she gets to go off to save the world with Yeza's blessing on occasion, when the world needs saving. She doesn't have all of these things all the time, but... that's not really a flaw, that's just a fact of life.

But she started out her adult life settling to an extent—even if she loved Yeza and loved being Luc's mom, she did the safe thing that was expected of her. The goblin attack and everything that transpired after shoved her out of that life, but in retrospect, to an extent it likely feels that that pushed her to find something more that she wouldn't have had otherwise. Being pushed to her limit under the worst conditions made her better, stronger, braver, and at the end of it she found that she could have both her original life and much of her new life—so why wouldn't she then wonder if further experiences of that ilk could do the same?

Crucially, she has not actually run up against a hard limit yet, and as such she hasn't had reason to believe that there is a point at which she has to stop and recognize that there isn't more for her to find. When she was drinking more heavily during missions, even when it caused the death of herself or others, there were no long-term consequences. And the thing is, I'm not saying that she should face that kind of major consequence, but she seems as though she is scared to accept that maybe she could be happy if she stopped before she does.

I'm also not suggesting that she should stop experimenting or trying new things—the Luxon knows I am not one to talk in that realm—but I do think she is searching for novelty not because that would make her happy, but because she doesn't believe that she has the capacity to know what would make her happy. She was unaware that polyamory was even an option, so think of what else she might not be aware of! She doesn't have perfect knowledge of the world, after all, so how can she trust that she's found what she really wants? So yeah, she could fuck someone else, and it might even be an enjoyable experience that she didn't know was missing! But that only prolongs the question of what else she might be missing.

I think that deep down, she's terrified that if she doesn't keep pushing until that external hard limit, she will end up with regrets later, and simultaneously she is resentful that her friends all seem to have reached a point where they are largely content with what they have, because she wants them to have everything. She wants herself to have everything. And she has not yet allowed herself to come to terms with the fact that only she can determine when the everything of what she already has is enough, and anything else is the cherry on top.

[sketchy-etchy]

NAH MAN HOW DID PIXAR ACCURATELY DEPICT THE FATHER/DAUGHTER DYNAMIC THIS IS LITERALLY EAGER AND ANGER‼️‼️🤯😭

[explaininghellaverse]

Everyone’s obsession with trying to justify Stella’s behavior is sooo icky to me.

“Well why they write her like that just as a prop to make Stolas look better.”

Has it ever occurred to you through the process of making a story certain characters exist to be a foil to the main protagonists. That not all characters are meant to be sympathetic or to be sympathized with and that’s not a fault in writing.

Someone being a villain character isn’t bad writing, and not having a character entire story before a show is over and claiming how under developed a character is- well a little idiotic.

Events have to happen in a certain order in a story for it to make sense, I’m sure we’ll find out more about Stella as the show goes on.

And there is also the huge can of worms of people trying to justify Stella’s actions. Male victims of abuse are hardly ever shown. Why are you trying to make Stella seem like the good person in this?

Yes it was an arranged marriage, yes it’s fair to say Stella was unhappy about that. That does not justify Stella abusing Stolas. Guess what Stolas was never happy about the arranged marriage either. Not to mention he is literally a gay man, but he didn’t become abusive.

“Oh but he cheated on her.”

Yeah after almost two decades of being abused and in a loveless hollow marriage. That’s hardly the same as being abused. Also that’s pretty common to happen to people being abused it’s behavior of someone trying to get out of a bad situation.

Y’all keep saying there is no depth and then try and take it out the messy nature of these things.

Legitimately if Stolas was a woman and Stella a man you’d all be praising Stolas. Support male domestic abuse victims and stop justifying abusive woman.

And of course that’s not saying you can’t like Stella as a character, just stop trying to make her seem like the victim. Stop saying you love her as a character and then going “well why did they write them like this, why didn’t they write them as having a friendly relationship.” Because that’s not the story being told.

And while I’m at it I know some people hate Octavia but she’s honestly great from what we’ve seen of her. “Why does he hate her more than he loves me?” As someone who grew up around this situation in my older teen I felt that. I felt that hard, these things are complicated for all people involved.

[sentientcave]

Retirement Party

Chapter 4 - Runaway

<<First Chapter - < Prev Chapter - Next Chapter >

Contains: No Y/N, Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Dubcon, Plus-sized reader, female reader, Poorly thought out action sequences, Guns, There is something fucking wrong with these guys for real, More reader details given, but we're still pretty vague about it. Even though it is hard for me. No promises for future chapters though I might even tell y'all her name.

~3.8k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above

You wake in the morning with your nose buried in a thick patch of chest hair, and strong arms around you. Your legs are hooked around one of his thick thighs, and something hard digs into your stomach. You start to inch away, but his arms tighten, and his hips cant against you, a thick, sleepy groan rumbling in his chest. It would be a nice way to wake up, if not for the circumstances. It’s been ages since you slept beside another person, let alone someone that feels as comfortable as John does.

“John,” you say softly. You don’t want to fully wake him up, just get him to let you go. “John, please let me go.”

He hums, one hand sliding to your waist, and then down to your hip, pulling you closer, grinding you against his thigh. You squeak in protest, becoming aware that you’re already wet, like you’ve been unconsciously humping his leg in your sleep for some time. You push your slightly freer top half away a little, so you can look at him. He’s still sleeping, a little frown on his face as he’s pulled unwillingly toward consciousness. He really is handsome, especially like this, all his defences down, grumbling like a hibernating bear.

“Don’t wake up,” you tell him, as if it’ll make any difference. “I just have to pee.”

One of his blue eyes cracks open, a little unfocused. “You comin’ back?” His voice is rough from sleep, rasping like sandpaper.

“Sure,” you say, even though you have no intention of doing so. Your body seems as eager as his is for something you’re sure is dangerous. Maybe he smells good, like tobacco, warm, boozy spices and something undeniably male, and maybe he feels warm and solid against you, but you don’t want to encourage this. You just want to enough space to clear your head. His admissions last night still have you spooked, John’s words not tempered by a night of surprisingly good sleep. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He loosens his hold on you enough that you can wiggle free, his eyes opening a little more so he can watch you slip out of bed. He rolls over onto his back, and starts snoring gently before you’ve even made it to the bedroom door. You take the opportunity to snag one of the bags stacked in front of the closet and your purse off the dresser and bring both to the bathroom with you. You’re not sure what’s in the bag, but you know the larger suitcase has things from your closet in it, so you’re hoping this one has more from your dresser.

You get dressed, glad that most of your underthings and a comfortable pair of jeans and a thick sweater are inside and pack your toothbrush and makeup bag into the larger one, and creep downstairs carefully. One of them is snoring gently on the couch, but otherwise, the house is silent. You carefully fish a set of keys off the hooks by the door and sneak outside. You don’t know where any of your shoes are except the red heels, so you just leave in your sock feet, and pile your things into the pick-up truck. You’ll drive it into town and leave it there, buy a ticket on a train or a bus, and get the hell back home.

It sucks to have to leave everything you own, beyond the clothes in the one bag and the contents of your purse, but maybe you can call the cops— Well. Probably not. Better to just start over anywhere else. You have digital copies of a few pictures of your parents, and that’s better than nothing, even if their wedding album is sitting on a shelf in John’s living room, along with all the family photos that your parents took of you and them while you were growing up. Your mother’s sketchbooks too, and her camera, and your dad’s guitar.

You bite your lip, holding back tears, and start the truck.

No sense mourning things. The memories are in your head and your heart, not trapped in the pages of books or twisted into the strings of the guitar. You don’t need them.

You haven’t driven in a long time, and the truck, unfortunately, is a manual, which you haven’t driven in even longer, but you manage to pull away from the house without revving the engine too hard, and pick up speed once you get to the road, only just remembering to hit the clutch with your left foot before you change gears. You’d feel pretty pathetic if you only made it to the road before stalling out the pickup.

You’re not sure which way town is, but you figure the road has to lead somewhere no matter which way you choose, so you navigate blindly, turning onto a bigger road a little ways down the gravel one that leads to John’s house. Bigger road means more people, although the hour is still so early that there’s no one around yet. The sun is barely up, and it’s still shadowy in the woods on either side of the road. The woods give way to fields suddenly, the sun making a too-bright debut, shining right into your eyes. You flip down the visor and adjust the rear-view mirror, wincing when you see a blue car a ways behind you, approaching fast.

You didn’t notice the car when you were leaving— It must have been parked behind the bigger van that they’d used to move all your things— but it looks sporty and fast, and judging by the way it closes the gap, there’s no question that it’s them. You push the truck harder, squinting against the light, heart hammering. The car’s engine roars, loud enough that you can hear it over the blood rushing in your ears, and pulls into the lane beside you. Gaz motions for you to pull over from the passenger seat.

You slow up enough that they pull ahead a little, and you yank your steering wheel to the side and stomp down on the gas and the clutch, shifting into third gear and nailing the side of the car, shattering a tail light and making it spin, stopping just shy of the ditch.

For a moment, you’re still close enough to see the shock on their faces, but you’re moving fast and leave them in the dust, at least momentarily. It won’t take them long to recover and catch up again, and if they hit you with the same maneuver, there’s no way you’ll be able to get the truck under control. There’s not enough weight in the bed of the truck to compensate, and you’ll wind up in the ditch for certain.

Funny, how it comes back to you. Learning to drive along mountain roads way outside Aberdeen, either in your dad’s little car or your mom’s old truck (usually the car, which was the easier one to drive. Your dad was the safer driver too, the better parent to learn from), and you can almost imagine your mother in the passenger seat, laughing her head off at the insane circumstances, encouraging you to throw caution to the wind, to get a feel for the road under the wheels and the way the old truck handled. She always laughed when she was under stress, but it’s comforting to think of. Your mum would never let a couple of thick-headed military assholes get the better of her.

The car is catching up again, so you floor it and smash through a fence gate into a muddy field, where the car won’t handle as well, and speed your way across the stubbly remains of wheat, already harvested. The car follows, and, predictably, struggles, the low frame too close to the muck, bumping unhappily over the soft, uneven ground.

Laughter bubbles up in your chest, relieving some of the built-up anxiety. You smash through a segment of the fence on the other side and yank the truck back onto the road, giggling when the truck fishtails a bit, mud slicking the tires on the pavement. There’s so much adrenaline coursing through your system that you feel like you might be sick the moment you let any of this catch up with you. So you keep driving, and pray that it doesn’t.

The car gets close again when you reach another wooded section of road. Through the rearview mirror you can see Gaz pop out of the window, gun drawn, but you don’t hear the crack when it fires, you only feel the impact when the bullet strikes one of the rear tires. You shriek, slamming on the breaks as the truck spins out of your control and off the road, slamming into a tree head on.

The lurch forward as the airbags deploy, your body hitting them hard, knocking all the air out of your lungs as you’re slapped back into he seat. The seat belt bites into your shoulder painfully. You unbuckle yourself quickly, ears ringing too loudly for you to hear the screeching tires of the pursuit car. You fall to the ground when you try to get out, head spinning.

You stumble into the trees, still blinking away double vision. If you can find a good spot to hide— Maybe you can double back and take the car while they chase you blindly through the trees. You cast about, feeling every rapidly forming bruise, wishing desperately that you had shoes, and dive into the underbrush, scooting forward on your belly, brambles catching in your hair as you curl up, out of sight.

“Please come out, doll,” you hear Gaz call out, boots crunching through the woods, closer than you would like. “It’s okay, we’re not mad. Just come out and we’ll take you home, yeah?”

Johnny is yelling further off, his voice incomprehensible but sing-song, mocking. Gaz moves further into the woods. You wait until his voice grows a little more distant before you drag yourself back out, sweater streaked with mud, leaves in your hair, and quickly sneak back to the road. The car is still running, the driver door left open. You breathe a sigh of relief.

“There you are, bird.”

You scream. A gloved hand drops over your mouth, cutting off the sound, and an arm loops around your waist, picking you right up off your feet.

Fuck.

"Look what you did, bird. Wrecked up Price's truck. 'E's not goin' to be 'appy about that." He turns so you can see the slightly smoking truck, the front half of it crumpled beyond repair.

You shake your head until he pulls his hand away from your mouth. "Its not my fault I crashed. Gaz shot the tire out. I wasn't even going to steal it, just leave it in town once I'd gotten to a bus stop."

He hums. You hear the slight crackle of a radio. "Got 'er, lads. Come back to the car."

"Rog."

"Aye."

Ghost shoves you into the back seat. "Stay put," he says sternly. "You're already banged up, don't want to 'ave to tackle you."

You sigh, all the fight leaving you. You feel awful, bruised and shaken up and trembling, and you do nothing but watch as Ghost gathers your things from the truck and puts them in the boot of the car. You slump back in the seat, inspecting the scratches on your hands idly. Your head hurts, and your shoulder aches, and you feel a bit like you've been stepped on, but nothing feels broken, just bruised and tender. You got lucky.

Well, not lucky. There's very little about any of this that counts as luck. Especially considering the look on Johnny's face when he jogs out of the trees. At first he looks stormy, but he grins when he sees you and opens the back door to crawl onto the seat and on top of you.

"Steamin Jesus, where'd ye learn ta drive like tha'?" He asks. "Didnae ken ye were a racer."

"Outside Aberdeen," you reply. Your ribs hurt. Soap’s weight makes every little ache more acute.

"Price isn't gonna be happy about his truck," Gaz says, tossing himself into the driver's seat. "What were you thinking, doll? You could've been hurt."

"You didn't have to shoot the tire." You try to push Soap off, but he wraps himself around you, a bit tight, but bearably so. You’re trembling, and he’s trying to help, in a thoroughly unhelpful way. "I was just trying to get home."

"That's the wrong way. Your home's with Price now." Ghost gets into the other front seat, and Gaz reverses back out onto the road.

You sigh, leaning your head against the window, watching the countryside flash by. It takes an embarrassingly short time to get back to John's house. You didn't get as far as you would have liked, hardly got anywhere at all. Your eyes prickle with tears, but you don't want to cry in front of them. You want to go back to bed, maybe back in time to the morning. You would have been wiser just to curl up next to John again.

Soap drags you from the car, hands a bit rough on your bruises, and pulls you back to the house. John rushes out, worry creasing his face, blue eyes sweeping over you and turning furious. "What happened?" he barks, not at you, but at his men.

"Bird was makin' a run for it," Ghost says.

"Wrecked your truck," Gaz adds.

"That's not my fault!" you protest. "You shot at me!" You glare at him, frustrated tears overflowing down your cheeks. It’s like they have no idea what kind of stress they’ve put you through.

"Woah, woah, c'mere, doll." John pulls you against his chest, wrapping strong arms around you, stilling some of the tremble in your limbs. "You broken?"

You shake your head, leaning into him, gripping his t-shirt tightly. You breathe in raggedly, trying to steady yourself.

"Lads. Why did you shoot at her?"

"Trying to stop the truck."

"She's a civilian you muppets. I take it that the truck's in no shape to drive, or you would've brought it back. You could have killed her." He pets a hand over your head, plucking out a few leaves. "You should’ve let her go."

"She stole your truck!" Soap protests.

"So what? It's wrecked now anyway, innit?" The silence behind you speaks volumes. "Alright, doll, why don't you go get cleaned up? " he murmurs against the top of your head. "I need to talk to the lads, and what I have to say is not fit for a lady's ears."

He gently ushers you into the house and closes the door firmly behind you. You trudge upstairs, feeling utterly pathetic, and lock yourself into the bathroom. Still sniffling, you comb sticks and leaves out of your hair with your fingers and put yourself into a hot shower, where you give yourself the freedom to cry your eyes out, hoping that the sound of water drowns your stifled sobs.

The house is quiet when you shut off the shower and dry yourself off. You wrap the shirt you'd slept in around you and poke your head out into the hallway. John is right there, holding out a bundle of clothes. "Here, sweetheart," he says softly, like he's worried a sharp word will set you off again. He must have heard everything. "I sent the boys to deal with the truck and that tail light, so it's just us. Just come on downstairs when you're ready."

You open the door wide enough to accept the clothes, and he turns to leave again, content to leave anything else to be said when you make it downstairs.

He'd obviously taken his cue from what you'd been wearing already, because he gives you a sweater and jeans again, comfortable worn in things. You go downstairs carefully, every joint and muscle in your body aching, even after the shower.

"How do you take your coffee?" he asks. "Or do you prefer tea?"

"Coffee, please. I can make it. I'd feel better if I did, honestly." You skirt around him to the cupboard where you'd seen Gaz take mugs out, recognizing your own nestled among John's mismatched ones. You put milk and sugar in your favourite mug, and pour in coffee, stirring it throroughly. The clink of the spoon is loud, and so is the pan he sets on the stove top.

"Eggs and toast okay?" He asks.

"Um, yeah. That would be nice. Over easy?"

"Yes ma'am." He looks at you over his shoulder while butter melts in the pan, blue eyes all worry. "Did I say something to you last night? Maybe the sort of thing that made you feel like you needed to steal a truck and run as fast as you could away from here?"

"Um. Yes." You hold onto the mug with both hands. "Some stuff about wanting to start a family. With me."

His ears turn pink. "I see."

"I suppose this is where you tell me it was just the whiskey talking, right?" you ask hopefully. You like him, even if it’s ill-advised, maybe even dangerous to do so.

"Wish I could."

Your stomach twists. “Oh.”

John turns around fully, guilt and sadness written all over his handsome face. He steps closer and touches your arm gently. “I’m so sorry about what my boys have put you through, sweetheart. None of this has been right.” He sighs, brushing a few tendrils of still-wet hair away from your face, studying you, those intense blue eyes focused on you intently. “But there’s something special about you, doll. I really do want to keep you forever. Not if you’re scared, and not if you feel forced— It’s just, the thought of you leavin' and never wanting to speak to me again is— I don’t want that.”

You swallow nervously. “This is just really overwhelming.”

“I know. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let this happen. Soap really could have just given you my number.” The smile he gives you is hopeful, and you can’t help but return it, just a little. “Now go sit down, doll. Let me take care of breakfast, hm?”

You nod and move to the table, sitting where you can watch him, and peek out the window too. The car is gone, but the van is still there for the moment, sitting idly to the side. You consider making another run for it, but your aching limbs protest even the thought. There’s not enough fight in you, and you’re not even sure you want to fight John, not the way you do the other three. His only crime has been wanting you to stay, and being a bit overzealous about it. You can’t be mad at him for that, can you? It isn’t really his fault.

Well, it might be his fault, in a roundabout way. He trained them, taught them how to ruthlessly pursue an objective. It’s just not his fault they can’t keep it from coming home with them. That’s a clear failure of whoever does their mental health assessments.

You sip your coffee and watch John crack eggs into a pan. He keeps glancing at you, and his smile flickers on a little longer each time that he catches you looking back, until he doesn’t stop smiling, and just looks happy, glad to have you there, even if you’re just keeping a silent vigil on the other side of the room.

It's not like you have anywhere to go. It'll take days at least to feel like you haven't just been in a car crash, and days more to locate everything to pack it back up. So long as you don't have to share a bed with John again, you think you could live with this, for at least a week. It can't be that terrible, so long as the others leave you alone. You rather hope they just leave. If you asked, would John send them away?

"John," you say as he sets a plate with buttered toast and a couple of eggs on it in front of you, and sets a couple tablets of paracetamol beside your plate. "If I stay… Will they be staying too?"

"I'm going to have them leave this afternoon. That alright with you? We can go for a walk to the neighbours while they pack up, if you're up for it. Maybe dr-- Well, not drive." He sets his own plate down and sits next to you, handing you a knife and a fork. “Have to get that sorted out. But the neighbours-- Rob and Melissa-- Their dog just had puppies a few weeks ago. Do you like dogs?”

You nod, breaking the yolks of one of the eggs with a corner of toast. "My parents had a dog when I was growing up. Some kind of German shepherd cross. Best boy. His name was Rob Roy, because he was a wee outlaw. Mam found him digging in the trash and--" you stop and give John a baleful look. "Sorry. That was more than you were asking."

"No, that's the most you've said at once this whole time. I'd listen to you talk all day, doll. Don't ever apologize."

"Sorry I-- Oh, shit, sorry--" you press your fingers to your mouth, cutting yourself off. "Force of habit."

"I'd like to see you lose that one. You have nothin' to apologize for. Not one damn thing, and especially not talking. I think you have the prettiest voice I've ever heard."

You roll your eyes, but you can't help smiling. "You're just saying that."

He touches your arm lightly. "You don't know me too well yet, doll, but I never just say anything."

Yet hangs in the air, heavy and deliberate. He wants you to know him, wants you to stay with him, wants you to like him. Even if it makes no sense, the offer is tempting. It's been a long time since you've let someone get close— You've had the occasional fling, and the odd reunion with an ex that you’d stayed friends with, but grief is like a canyon you can't bear to cross. What if you love someone and you lose them, the way you lost your parents? How could you live with that all over again?

Still, there's something that feels like warm sunlight in his smile, and you can't help but incline toward him, slowly but surely reaching for the light. No one can live in the shade forever. There’s no nobility in suffering.

So you let yourself talk, at least a little. And he listens, hanging on to your words like they're precious, gazing at you with something unfurling in his expression that you can't name. You're almost afraid to try.

Image Credits: Banner

Dividers: 1 - 2 - 3 by @/Cafekitsune

[aintnopartylikeaprideparty]

"we need more messy and toxic relationship dynamics in fiction!!" u guys can't even handle the non-canon Rebecca Sugar gregpearl art

[electrozeistyking]

What if disassembly drones could unwittingly overwrite the way their body heals based on how they view themselves? And if they just so happened to believe they were a dangerous monster... you see where I’m going with this, right?

I consider this an alternate take on the end of Episode 2, where all N’s body knows is that something hurts and he seemingly doesn’t have enough material to repair it, so it spends the next few weeks constantly demanding more material, but instead using it to turn him into a “dangerous monster.”

Imagine showing up to Prom 3071 with this. Holy shit, imagine Doll turning and being like “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” while N’s awkwardly hunched over and being like “I could’ve been Dapper N, but instead I rolled up to prom as a monster.”

(SolverUzi/Monster N crossover when???)

[egophiliac]

Sorry, most likely my memory being poor, but I thought Malleus' mom (don't know how to spell her name and too lazy to check how to spell it) was already an adult when Lilia ""proposed""?? Like I was always under the assumption that it was like a one-sided child crush on somebody completely out of your league you tend to have as a kid 💀

I don't think they say how old she was? although it's entirely possible I just misunderstood; my Japanese is...shaky. :') the actual line is "幼い頃に私に求婚したのは偽りか?", which I read as "isn't it true that you proposed to me as a kid?", and took as her being older than him, but not necessarily an adult (like, I was thinking of Lilia as being not quite a preteen and Mel being preteen/young teen). although I don't know if there's a connotation or something I'm missing that implies a bigger age gap, if that makes sense!

(and of course, I might also just be forgetting some other line -- if someone else knows, then please correct me! I need to know which headcanons need adjusting 👀)

BUT YEAH in a canon-y sense, Malleus is 178 and around the third-years developmentally. which makes me think that even though dragons have a way longer lifespan, they go through childhood at about the same rate as most fae (or at least the kind that Lilia is) and just kinda...slow waaaaay down once they hit adulthood. so it makes sense in my brain that he and Meleanor could've basically grown up together!

...it makes it angstier that way, anyway. :)