#call it what you want to | threads

[hearttsck]

when: early june ( pre- event) where: the hellcat’s den who: poppy & rafael ( @havntedhouses )

Naturally he’s in the very last establishment she checks. Which isn’t saying much given how small this town is, and really Poppy should have just started here knowing him as well as she once did. Rafael is mercifully alone in a booth, but for a moment she imagines the ensuing hilarity of sharing her news with a dancer on his lap. She will just have to make do with him alone.

“Hi,” she sinks into opposite booth and slides a double of whatever passed for top shelf here towards him, pageant queen smile to temper the coolness of her voice. “It’s been a while.” Poppy downs half her gin and tonic, then leans forward, elbows resting on the table. “Right, so there’s really no good way to start this but… do you remember that night in New York, about six or so years ago?”

[hearttsck]

“Oh wow!” Poppy summons something close enough to genuine excitement, she’s always been good at faking it – plastic smiles and shiny eyes. “Congratulations!” Vaguely she wonders if Tala knows him, knows him truly. Poppy won’t pretend she does, but she lived long enough with violent and cruel men to recognize that look – even if it didn’t hit her until long after they broke up. “Raf didn’t say anything when I spoke to him recently,” the mean girl cruel streak flashes once, “but that ring is stunning. Do you have a date set? Are you planning on getting married here?” Poppy laughs lightly, “I don’t know if I’d count a bonfire as a dress up worthy event, but maybe I’ve been spoiled by DC.”

"No worries," Tala smiled back, taking Poppy's hand in greeting before offering her name. "Tala. Bautista, soon to be De Oliveira." Flashing her engagement ring as she released her grip, it wasn't even that it was Rafael's ex that had her dropping his name... that wasn't the whole reason, anyway. The poor girl could not pass the Bechdel test since the day she'd met him. "Honestly, I have only lived here a few years, but they certainly don't have events like these as often as they should. It's far too rare to have an excuse to dress up in this town."

[98chao]

truly i love all of you and i'm so grateful for all the support i get on my vanilla milkshake posts here because i've just seen the way people talk about vanilla milkshake and mysticao on twitter and its genuinely taken 50 years off my life. now i've been reminded as to why i should never join the crk fandom on twitter

[becauseimanicequeen]

I already mentioned this in part 3 of my series on Ming and Joe's colors, but, seriously...

Am I seeing things?

Or am I completely delulu?

Or am I seeing things?

Tell me I'm seeing things!

And I don't mean the pretty boys (even though I see them too)...

I mean other things...

Even if those things are small...

I am seeing things, aren't I?

Duh, Joe, I'm talking about the red!

Please, don't look at me like that, Ming... Because I'm pretty sure I'm seeing it...

Whether it's thin or thick...

You do too, don't you?

I mean, I'm fine being delulu too...

But I see the things...

No matter how small or big they are...

I'm definitely seeing things...

Welcome to my delulu world.

[hearttsck]

“My daughter!” She snaps, and instantly regrets it. How were they not concerned? How could they not understand her panic and her fear – this was her child! People were dying, people were being threatened. Poppy’s eyes dart from Rowan to Austin, and finally pleadingly to Josh. Josh knows Tillie, he loves Tillie, and he’s just standing there saying nothing. “We have to go; I have to get to her!!! They were burning those effigies, and they can’t possibly know that not yet, but I have to go make sure she’s safe! Please –“ she’s desperate again, glancing around at all of them. Then Austin is grabbing her arm and pulling her close, holding her face like he used to and looking at her like she’s the center of his world again. “Please,” Poppy whispers, trying her best not to cry. “I can’t breathe, not until I know she’s safe, please take me home.” @thvndrstorm

Josh was suddenly realising that he was in fact not drunk enough. Hearing Poppy scream for Tillie, Rowan asking what she is talking about and then Austin. Watching his brother grab Poppy, cup her face and call her baby.. oh boy. "Huh? What?" He responded to Rowan as though he hadn't heard her and immediately turning his attention back to Austin. "Yeah, anyway.. yes.. we should keep walking or something.. the further away from the bonfire the better right? We should keep going." Josh ushered with his hands to keep it moving in an attempt to pretend all of that didn't just happen in a short amount of time. He was suddenly preferring the heat of the bonfire as he watched people dive head first into it than whatever he just got himself mingled in the middle of. "Is it hot out here or is it just me?" The man started to pull at his tee in an attempt at cooling down, the situation had him stressed. @hearttsck

[starstruckodysseys]

babe wake up nsbu oc just dropped

lanie woodward, girlie of all time everyone!! she gives off “popular girl who says you’re her best friend but in a way where you can’t tell if she’s being serious or making fun of you” vibes but she’s genuinely a sweetheart. if she cares about you, that is. perhaps she spends a little too much time flirting with her coworkers and customers alike and not enough time figuring out how to pay for the college she dropped out of six months ago. that’s none of your business. fuck off

(also she steals the body of cara loft, international super spy slash woman who steals things from museums and returns them to their rightful owners but in like a super intense action way. like that reverse indiana jones post. and is a lesbian) (cara i mean not lanie. lanie is a very noted pansexual)

also here’s my tags from a previous post bc i am insane about my own character !!

[y-rhywbeth2]

Who decided the drow should have so much fucking lore anyway.

('I should've been a drow.' You can't fucking stand Cazador or your 'siblings' you would not fucking want to be a drow. Although I guess Astarion would make a fair Vhaeraunite.)

[hearttsck]

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about him. It's been years, but he still looks like that one sparkling summer – the only good in a long string of bad. But this place has it's own gravitational pull, stay too long and you’ll never be able to get out. Poppy paid the price in blood to leave, and she wouldn’t let anyone draw her back in. A bit rich, she thinks, tipsy and starry-eyed as she collides with Austin. “Oh my god! Austin, hi!!!” She’s bright and bubbly and putting on the Perfect Poppy mask, but she stills throws her arms around him and buries her face in his neck, soaking in the familiar feel of him. “You can’t leave now! Please stay, for me?” She pouts sweetly and knows it's not fair of her, but she’s nothing if not a selfish creature. “I haven’t seen you in forever, please?”

location: summer solstice event open: @helltownhqstarters

Austin didn't know what he was doing there. He wasn't someone that went out and socialized with the other residents of the town. He liked to keep to himself. Yet here he was, browsing through the lined table of food, keeping his current opinions of the state of the dishes to himself. He let out a heavy sigh, turning himself around a lot quicker than he meant to, causing himself to collide into the person trying to get by just behind him. "Shit, that's my bad." He chuckled awkwardly, trying to leave the interaction before it had even started. "I was just headed home, sorry about that."

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 49🚨

He had just been crowned the khagan's Heir. With Nesryn as his potential bride. Potential, to Aelin's amusement, because Nesryn herself wasn't so keen on being empress of the mightiest empire in the world.

But what Sartaq had said— Elide blurted, "You mean to not go to Terrasen?" Aelin kept still, her fingers curling at her sides.

"Terrasen needs aid," Rowan said, his face the portrait of steely calm as he surveyed their new allies and old friends.

"And yet Terrasen has not called for it," Hasar countered, utterly unfazed by the wall of Fae warriors glowering at her. Exactly the sort of person Aelin had hoped she'd be when she wrote to her all those months ago.

Chaol cleared his throat. Gods above, Chaol was walking again. And married to Yrene Towers, who had healed him.

A thread in a tapestry. That's what it had felt like the night she'd left the gold for Yrene in Innish. Like pulling a thread in a tapestry, and seeing just how far and wide it went.

All the way to the southern continent, it seemed. And it had rippled back with an army and a healed, happy friend. Or as happy as any of them might be at the moment.

Aelin glanced sidelong to Rowan. Found him already staring at her. We'll convince them to go to Terrasen, her mate said silently.

"It's back," he panted, gaping at Nesryn. "For days now, I swore I felt something, noted changes, but today it just all came back."

Nesyn angled her head, her curtain of dark hair sliding over an armored shoulder. "Who…"

Borte squeezed the young man's arm. "Falkan. It's Falkan, Nesryn." Prince Sartaq stalked to Nesryn's side, graceful as any Fae warrior. "How." But the young man had turned toward Aelin, eyes narrowing. As if trying to place her.

Then he said, "The assassin from the market in Xandria."

Aelin arched a brow. "Hopefully, the horse I stole didn't belong to you." A cough from Fenrys. Aelin threw the warrior a grin over her shoulder.

"I was always young," Falkan muttered. "I just didn't look it." His gray eyes again found Aelin's. "I gave you a piece of Spidersilk."

For a heartbeat, the then and the now blended and wobbled. "The merchant," Aelin murmured. She'd last seen him in the Red Desert-looking twenty years older. "You sold your youth to a stygian spider."

"You two know each other?" Nesryn gaped.

"The threads of fate weave together in strange ways," Falkan said, then smiled at Aelin. "I never got your name."

Hasar chuckled from the other side of the desk. "You already know it, shifter."

Before Falkan could figure it out, Fenrys stepped forward. "Shifter?"

But Nesryn said, "And Lysandra's uncle." Aelin slumped into the chair beside Chaol's.

Rowan laid a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up, she found him near laughter.

"What's so funny, exactly?" she hissed.

Rowan smirked. "That for once, you are the one who gets knocked on your ass by a surprise."

Aelin stuck out her tongue. Borte grinned, and Aelin winked at the girl.

But Falkan said to Aelin and her companions, "You know my niece."

"Lysandra is my friend, and Lady of Caraverre," Aelin said. "She is not with us," she added upon Falkan's hopeful glance toward the tent flaps. "She's in the North."

Not their considerable beauty, but their size, their pointed ears, their weapons and elongated canines. Aelin whispered conspiratorially to the girl, "Make them roll over before you offer them a treat."

Lorcan glared, but Fenrys shifted in a flash, the enormous white wolf filling the space.

Hasar swore, Sartag backing away a step, but Borte beamed. "You are all truly Fae, then." Gavriel, ever the gallant knight, sketched a bow. Lorcan, the bastard, just crossed his arms.

Yet Rowan smiled at Borte. "Indeed we are."

Borte whirled to Aelin. "Then you are Aelin Galathynius. You look just how Nesryn said." Aelin grinned at Nesryn, the woman leaning against Sartaq's side. "I hope you only said horrible things about me."

"Only the worst," Nesryn said with dead flatness, though her mouth twitched.

But Falkan whispered, "The queen," and fell to his knees.

Hasar laughed. "He never showed that sort of awe when he met us."

Sartaq lifted his brows. "You told him to turn into a rat and scuttle away."

Aelin hoisted up Falkan by the shoulder. "I can't have my friend's uncle kneeling on the ground, can I?"

"You said you were an assassin." Falkan's eyes were so wide the whites around them gleamed. "You stole horses from the Lord of Xandria—"

"Yes, yes," Aelin said, waving a hand. "It's a long story, and we're in the middle of a war council, so..."

"Piss off?" Falkan finished

Aelin laughed, but glanced to Nesryn and Sartaq. The former jerked her chin to Falkan. "He's become our spy of sorts. He joins us in these meetings." Aelin nodded, then winked at the shifter. "I suppose you didn't need me to slay that stygian spider after all."

But Falkan tensed, his attention going to Nesryn and Sartaq, to Borte, still gawking at the Fae males. "Do they know?"

Aelin had a feeling she'd need to sit down again. Chaol indeed patted the chair beside him, earning a chuckle from Yrene. Doing herself a favor, Aelin indeed sat, Rowan taking up his place behind her, both of his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. His thumb ran along the nape of her neck, then drifted over the mating marks again scarring one side thanks to the seawater they'd used to seal them. But as her muscles soothed beneath that loving touch, her soul with it, her breath remained tight.

It didn't get any better when Nesryn said, "The stygian spiders are Valg."

Silence.

"We encountered their kin, the kharankui, deep in the Dagul Fells. They came into this world through a temporary crack between realms, and remained afterward to guard the entrance, should it ever reappear."

"This cannot end well," Fenrys muttered. Elide hummed her agreement.

"They feed on dreams and years and life," Falkan said, a hand on his own chest. "As my friends have said the Valg do."

Aelin had seen Valg princes drain a human of every last drop of youth and vigor and leave only a dried corpse behind. She wouldn't put it past the spiders to have a similar gift.

"What does this mean for the war?" Rowan asked, his thumbs still stroking Aelin's neck.

"Will they join Erawan's forces is the better question," Lorcan challenged with a face like stone.

"They do not answer to Erawan," Nesryn said quietly, and Aelin knew. Knew from the look Chaol gave her, the sympathy and fear, knew in her bones before Nesryn even finished.

"The stygian spiders, the kharankui, answer to their Valg queen. The only Valg queen. To Maeve."

[unproduciblesmackdown]

another day another "applying the concept 'disposability' to 'someone withdraws from a personal relationship, & that wasn't signed off on by the other'" kill me

[magnusmodig]

╰┈➤ VI TALKS ABOUT THOR/MCU / @veldinstar / ACCEPTING !

🔥

||. 😶 ......... Thor is the strongest Avenger, change my mind.

Runner ups off the cuff include: Dr. Strange, Wanda/Scarlet Witch, the Vision (who Thor partially created), but honestly for as much as I absolutely adore those three too, all of them rely either directly or indirectly from an infinity stone, whereas Thor's is all natural. ...Pun intended.

[hearttsck]

"God, no," Poppy shudders melodramatically, then laughs. Its hollow, like most things in this town, so much so that no one really notices anymore. "Gin and tonic, pretty please. Monkey if you have it, Hendricks if you don't. And if you don't have either, please don't tell me what you put in it."

LOCATION: the jersey devil

FOR: @helltownhqstarters (anyone, everyone, open)

Hearing the approaching footsteps, Braxton looked up from where he stood behind the bar, busying himself with wiping down the counter at the moment. "Please don't tell me you're here for a lemon drop," he all but pleaded, though his tone and expression remained playful. "If I have to make one more tonight, I swear I'm chopping my hands off."

[sandcrafted]

Lately, Isabel's been struck by a weird feeling.

It's like... the sense that she's done this all before. She's sure there's a name for that feeling, but she can't remember what it is - it's not important, anyway. What's more important is that with feeling, sometimes... comes a sense of dread that makes it hard to breathe.

More than anything else, it's irritating. Isabel's doesn't get scared, and there's no way she's gonna let some irrational delusion keep her from doing whatever she wants to do! If she told Farlan and Big Bro, she's sure they'd laugh her off, so she keeps it to herself - but it's not the kind of thing she worries over much anyway, so it's fine. Still, though. That doesn't make it any less annoying when it pops up!

Like right now. Abruptly, Isabel slaps her cheeks with her hands and shakes her head as she's hit with another cold sensation, like blood freezing in her veins. Of course, there's only one thing to be done about feelings like that... with a grin, she turns to Levi, and makes an impulsive decision as she says what's on her mind.

"Hey, Big Bro! Haven't things been too boring around here lately? C'mon, let's do something fun!"

@chaoslulled ( starter for levi! )

[math-rocks-and-lizard-bats]

we get more of reckless soldier boy tonight yall!!! :))))

[fizzingwizard]

"My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon’s, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her[...] she should fall?" - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

[hearttsck]

Tillie’s been growing like a weed, Poppy swears they bought new shoes before leaving DC. She hates the mall, and there’s a tiny part of her that fears her daughter looking anymore like her father – there’s no way anyone will think Tillie gets the height from her. There’s nothing in the food court, even though her daughter insisted they stop by. Poppy gets a call – the 202 area code has her answering with a mouthed apology to the five year old. It’s maybe three minutes, something stupid she clears up and then finds her daughter is no longer beside her. Panic drags out the fleeting seconds where Tillie is out of sight, until Poppy locates her speaking with the only other person in the food court.

“Cause there’s nothing here,” Tillie responds, so reasonable, “not even a dippin dots and the zoo has a dippin dots, we went there to see the pandas before they left. Have you ever seen a panda?” Poppy rushes over, catching the tail end of the conversation. “I’m so sorry, Tillie, love, you know better than to talk to strangers.”  

LOCATION: Helltown Mall STATUS: Open ( @helltownhqstarters )

Asa stands like a corpse reanimated just slightly wrong - a tattooed man in an oversized collared shirt with eyes as dark as brackish water. Some fictional scientist's necromantic mistake that fits in just a bit too well in Helltown, Ohio. Despite the Irish lilt to his voice, the eyes that jitter as if he's waiting for someone to tell him he doesn't belong here, what's he doing here, he shouldn't BE here... he is here. In the skeleton of an old mall. And somehow, it feels like home.

The food court is empty, but there's tables, and he's decided to sit for a moment. "How many people d'you think actually... come in here in a typical day? Think you an' I are the only ones I've seen. Well, besides that Nepalese shop's lovely cashier who said I smelled nice."