#depends how you define it

[ficauthor]

Tale of two Stans never fails to make me sad. What do you mean these two overly dependent assholes both end up at the worst lowest points of their lives at the same exact moment? What the fuck!? How was it that of everything in their lives to coincide it's them being at their lowest that meet.

What do you mean their childhoods never gave them a chance to be individuals and so all of their weaknesses and blind spots caught up with them in the end. What do you mean that without Ford, Stan was destined to get himself into trouble? What do you mean that without Stan, Ford was destined to get himself in trouble? What the fuck!

What do you fucking mean that they depended on one another because that's all they ever knew.

What do you mean Ford never bothered to learn to read when people wanted to use him cause he had Stan? What do you mean Stan never learned to think ahead because he had Ford?

I'm so haunted by the fact that Ford was able to mostly keep his life stable for a few years but in the end his inability to truly read and connect with people got to him. Why did filbrick make him think he was only good for one thing so he pushed himself too far in a way it was easy to take advantage of? What do you fucking mean his fatal flaw is he's convinced he's never good enough and thus is easy to manipulate?

I'm gutted by the fact that Stan was never doing well by any means but he was surviving against the odds and doing better than terrible. Until his tendency to push things, to prove himself, got him in too deep. Why did filbrick convince him he was good for nothing so he pushed himself to find something he was worth? What do you fucking mean his fatal flaw is he's convinced he's never good enough and thus he's always pushing himself to the edge at great risk to his own safety even?

What do you mean their flaws as people are reflected and can only make full sense with the context of the other. What do you mean!

filbrick Pines how the HELL did you fuck up your sons in a way so poetic and fucked up its beautifully tragic?

[demigods-posts]

something that i would absolutely love for the show to do is to have percy and annabeth have another private moment to themselves. annabeth explaining the feud between poseidon and athena, and how it might mean that she and percy were destined to never be friends. only for percy to reassure her that their parents actions don't define them. that whatever happens in the future, he'll fight next to her. and annabeth assumes its because he needs someone who won't hesitate to make a tough decision, like he stated back at camp when he was picking people for the quest. only for him to correct her and say that it's because he considers her a friend.

[duckprintspress]

alright y'all time to air your dirtiest secret...

if you vote other I'm very curious why.

bonus, reblog and tell me which one you plan to read next!

[deluxewhump]

The Bahkauv: Communication

Fantasy whump, previous torture mentioned, nonhuman whumpee, captivity, multiple caretakers (carewhumpers is a fair definition too because of the captivity element), it/he pronouns intermittently, fear and reassurance

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Stephan’s bandaged hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat. To avoid agitating it, he tried to stay still. Just before full dark, they had been joined by another traveler. Francis was curious, as always, and too friendly. Stephan would have preferred they told the man to be on his way, but the hospitality of his companions won out over his caution. A lone traveler was just as likely to be a fugitive and a cutthroat as anything else, especially in these wilds.

The visitor claimed he’d had a river trout for his dinner, but that it had been stolen by a clever fox that was trailing him as he headed southwest. They’d offered him food.

Stephan prodded their campfire with a stick. At least they were headed in opposite directions, he thought irritably. The flames danced higher, illuminating the stranger’s shadowed and scarred face. He was bigger than all of them, including Stephan, with an axe on his belt and greasy hair that looked like it had not been cut in some years.

“Kind of you to give a stranger food,” he commented, chewing a piece of their carefully packed rations. “I’ve come across naught but unfriendly types in these times. Everyone suspects everyone else of something. I suppose it doesn’t help that someone’s just killed the King.”

None of them responded. Even Francis knew better than to engage an armed stranger in talk of politics. Half the people in these northwestern hinterlands called the old King the usurper, and the other half accused the new King of the same.

“Happy to help a fellow traveler, if we can,” came Francis’s diplomatic reply. It was belated, and the stranger looked up with a chuckle.

“I suppose you don’t have any antivenom among you, do you?”

“What bit you?” asked Francis immediately. He’d probably ask to see the bite, Stephan thought. Take notes in his field journal like an obsessed scry. Always the scientist, even in moments where it was hardly appropriate.

“Not me.” The stranger nodded toward Stephan’s bandaged hand. “The big redhead. You get bit by an adder collecting firewood? Or was it that creature you’ve got there that you’re pretending is a particularly quiet companion?”

Stephan’s gaze flicked to the bahkauv before he could stop himself. It had heard, alright. And Stephan no longer had any doubts it understood. Until a moment ago, it had done nothing but stare sullenly into the fire, a foot farther back than the rest of them, hunched against the evening chill. Despite the fact that none of them had punished it for biting Stephan that afternoon, it was still afraid of them. Now it was downright terrified, chest rising and falling faster, dark eyes wide.

The stranger on the other side of the fire gave a self satisfied smile and took another bite of salt pork. “I thought so. I was almost certain. That mop of hair hides the ears well enough in the dark, but it’s the eyes.” He pointed two fingers up at his own, glinting with firelight. “Not quite right, are they? I can always tell your kind, leech.”

Francis was looking at their captive with open sympathy on his face. Stephan wished he could elbow him without being noticed. Arthur was steadfast, betraying nothing with his expression.

“Antivenom?” Stephan asked as if he were largely disinterested. His bandaged hand throbbed and ached.

“Yes. You’ll be needing it, come the morning. Or maybe afternoon, it’s hard to say. You’re tall, and strong. Maybe it’ll take a while. But a single drop’ll kill a draft horse. Just takes its time.”

“Are you a hunter?”

“No,” replied the traveler. He nodded his head vaguely north. “But I’ve spent time in the far reaches. I know their kind. They’re rare, but still a nuisance. They look human when they’re not feeding. It’s disarming, I know. I see it too. But one of these things will kill you as soon as look at you, and when it’s on you, it looks like a wild animal. They stalk like mountain lions, move like shadows. It prefers to get a man alone, preferably too far into his cups to defend himself. They call it a bahkauv. Did whoever sold it to you tell you that? That bruise is fresh, or it would’ve healed already. Did you hit it?” he asked Stephan. “For the bite it gave you?”

“I’m afraid we’re all exhausted,” Arthur said, standing and brushing campfire ash from his pants. “And if what you say is accurate, we need to pack up before first light and make the city as quickly as we can.”

The stranger rose to his feet, surprisingly agile. “I’ve overstayed. I’ll be on my way. I thank you again for the food, and I wish you safe travels.” He stopped to ponder the bahkauv, as if studying the impressive boy-shaped disguise it embodied.

“Take another piece,” Francis insisted, going into his own pack and drawing out more of their rations. “For the road.”

The stranger took it with a grateful nod and untethered his horse, leading it cautiously into the darkness.

“Stephan,” Arthur said when their visitor was out of earshot. “How is your hand feeling?”

“It’s a bite. It hurts. But not unusually so.”

Was his heart beating faster than it ought to, or was he just alarmed by the idea of venom leaking steadily into his blood?

“The city is more than a morning’s ride,” Francis said. “I doubt any little hamlet we might cross before then will have anything to aid a rare, foreign venom, either.”

“If that man was even telling the truth,” Stephan pointed out, partly to calm his own nerves. “We shouldn’t have mentioned our route. What if he was a scout for some thieves? Or hunters?”

“We’re too far from the main road for that,” Francis reasoned. “That’s just paranoia.”

Arthur was resolute. “We need to leave now.”

“It’s pitch dark.”

“The trail is good enough to follow in the dark. We don’t have much choice. If—“

“No.”

Stephan turned at the same time as his companions like they were all drawn by the same puppet string. The fire crackled. Insects hummed in the trees and on the thick forest floor, and all else was silent. Their captive had spoken. It was looking up at them with wide eyes, its left jaw and cheek dark with a bruise from Stephan’s fist.

Francis climbed to his feet and went closer, crouching to a non-threatening kneel a few feet away from it. “What did you say?”

They’d all heard it. No, it had said, clear as a ringing bell. What Francis meant was— did you really just speak?

It leaned back from Francis like it wanted nothing more than to bolt to the trees. In the firelight, Stephan could see its hands were shaking.

“It’s alright,” Francis urged. “Will you say it again for us? We were arguing, we didn’t hear.”

“No,” it repeated, softer. “You don’t have to leave.”

“Its got a fucking northern accent,” Arthur muttered, barely audible.

Francis was the first to recover from this new revelation. “If Stephan is going to get sick, we need to seek help. That help is far away, in the city.”

The bahkauv shook its head. “He’s not.”

“He’s not going to get sick?”

The bahkauv looked from Francis up to Stephan as if it were on trial. “No.”

“How do you know?” Stephan asked.

“Because…” its eyes shifted among them again, trying to read the situation, like one of them might suddenly decide to hurt it. “Because I didn’t use those teeth.”

Stephan raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t use teeth that have… venom?”

The bahkauv nodded cautiously. “Just these.” It lifted its upper lip to show a row of unremarkable, human-looking white teeth.

“And you have…other teeth?”

The bahkauv took its his hand away from its face, mouth in a somber line now. It didn’t seem to want to answer that. “I didn’t use them,” it said forlornly.

“Are they hidden?” Francis pressed excitedly. “Do they retract, or are they a… a part of that other form you take? Can you use them at will?”

“Francis,” Stephan hissed to shut him up. Though the harsh tone was meant for his friend, the bahkauv flinched.

“Why didn’t you speak before?” Arthur asked. “It would’ve saved us all trouble these past few days.”

“I couldn’t,” it answered apologetically. It tapped its throat.

“You lost your voice,” Francis said. “Screaming?”

“Or burning,” Arthur added darkly.

The bahkauv dropped its gaze to its feet.

“So I’m not going to get sick?” Stephan asked. “No venom, not even on accident? I won’t be angry with you. I won’t hurt you. But I need to know.”

“No,” it whispered without looking up. “I swear it, Sir.”

“I’m not a Knight,” he said, but couldn’t help the gentle tone of his admonition. “I’m no Sir.”

He was not pleased that he only had the warnings of a strange vagabond and the promise of a captive to consider, but the little creature seemed sincere. He’d begun to think of it as such, as a gently pitiable little thing, rather than an threat, even after the bite. It was that disarming face, as the stranger had said.

“Why didn’t you use your venom?” he asked. “If you have it, and it’s so lethal… why not use it in self defense against your captors?”

The bahkauv looked wounded, and more than a little fearful. “You… you’ve been so merciful. I-I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to bite at all. I’m sorry. Please.”

Stephan held his captive’s gaze, both bright and dark and not quite human, like some sprite sent to trick unsuspecting wanderers into a dark wood. Again he was struck by what seemed like desperate sincerity in the bahkauv. Its voice grew thick with the beginning of tears at the end of its last sentence, and its chin quivered for a moment in such a convincing way. It was either more cunning than the fox that took the stranger’s fish, or it was a sensitive, frightened creature that had just had a very unlucky run with man, who was both its prey and predator.

“Now that I am certain you can understand me, I’ll tell you again. I didn’t mean to hurt you, either. I’m sorry I hit you. I reacted in fear just as you did. I hope there’ll be no more of it between us.”

The bahkauv’s face colored and it turned its delicate head. A few kind words of apology had made it shy, Stephan thought incredulously. After all he’d seen at that hunters camp, the fact that it could communicate not only in basic ways but in sophisticated sentences, and feel something as simple yet profoundly human as shyness made him feel suddenly queasy. How long had the creature begged with words for his tormentors to stop? Did they punish it for speaking, or was begging just so utterly useless it had given up?

“Thank you for telling us,” Francis said. “You’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Now I feel bad putting that muzzle back on him,” Arthur mumbled with an air of disgust. He looked to Francis, and Francis looked to Stephan. Stephan held up his hands, bandaged and unbandaged. “You three work it out.”

“You’re the one he bit,” Francis pointed out. “I didn’t want to muzzle him in the first place, but I conceded for your benefit.”

Stephan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Just the rope on the ankles is fine with me. I think we’re all sufficiently taken in with this… apology. Maybe we’re fools, maybe not.” He turned to their captive. “Do you have a name? What can we call you?”

It seemed taken aback by the question, and swallowed before giving an answer in that small, clear voice. “Rune.”

“Roon,” Arthur repeated. It sounded different in his Muirish accent. The bahkauv said it with a far-north R, the tongue lower in the mouth, like Hrune. “Do you want us to leave that muzzle off your face for the night?”

“What-whatever you wish. Sir.”

The bahkauv’s answer was intended to be deferential, probably informed by its time spent trying to appease hunters. In effect, it was just hauntingly true. They would do as they wished.

Taglist:

@paperprinxe @whumpsday @i-eat-worlds @handsinmotion @stormchaser819 @annablogsposts

@clickerflight @daffyduckcommittedtaxfraud @scoundrelwithboba, @blood-and-regrets @morning-star-whump

@pumpkin-spice-whump @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question @shiningstarofwinter @vampiresprite @thealchemistal @risk606

@alextries @distinctlywhumpthing @gr8butnotstr8 @a-formless-whumper @valravnthefrenchie @jumpywhumpywriter

@sordayciega @wollemi-whump @fleur-a-whump @tundra-tiger

[sunnykeysmash]

Man of words

[icewindandboringhorror]

indeed my exact process once every 8 months or so

[houndvoice]

Taking the exact same screenshot of my Rook (Valeria De Riva) a hundred time but she’s just sooooo pretty

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[commsroom]

there's an interesting statement being made about identity if you accept all of the wolf 359 characters are equally themselves as of the finale: eiffel is form without memory; hera is memory without form; lovelace is both, but without continuity of experience; minkowski is both with continuity - and she's still not the same person that goddard recruited. if we're never the same people we were, but we're always ourselves, then the only way the self can be defined is through its own assertion - and maybe it can be argued that "my name is-" (and later, being able to say "my name is hera" reintroducing herself to pryce) and "i am captain isabel lovelace. no matter how hard you try, you are not taking that away from me" and "without me, who are you?" / "renée minkowski, and that is more than enough to kick your ass" are all the set up for (and part of the answer to) "am i still doug eiffel?"

[todaysbird]

hey do birds stim? I saw a video of a crow hopping up and down and the question came to my mind.

I’m not sure how to answer this accurately; birds do behavior that we can’t identify as ‘purposeful’, like things just for fun, so I guess in a sense they could?

[godsfavoritescientist]

well hold on, if we define a character flaw as any limitation a character deals with, regardless of whether it's something Morally Wrong With Them or not, then Ford's paranoia counts as a character flaw since it does in fact negatively impact him and the people around him. Let me use better wording here: I will die on the hill that Ford's paranoia is not a moral failing.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

the fact metal sonic has canonically read the Bible is so funny to me do you think she read the Ten Commandments and immediately decided to break all of them.

[4listr]

azratoon ( @nottoonedin ) is the sonas toxic doomed straight...

[jash-updates]

Jash Song Info Update:

Lore for lines in Chonny's Inferno

[the-blossica-fan]

Actors AU ^-^

When it comes to Bessmert, Marta and Doctor Dores, you could either say they're the same person and just with a long name... or, the funny idea, in which they're all identical triplets 😭 (quadruplets counting Urð 😭)

Dores: Gertrude, what does these texts say? I, ah...

Gertrude, looking over: ...They're fans of you and your sisters. Very big fans. They mention you have nice lips.

Dores: Oh! Well, aren't they sweet ^-^

What's your thoughts? ^-^

I'd say it's just one woman doing everything, and as for her name, it would be funny if they just chose a name and last name for each character, something like: Martha Urd Dores Bessmert. Two names, two last names.

But the idea of quadruplets is so funny 😭

So then, one of them had Vertin, Vert, Mercuria and adopted Yenisei and the others are just divorced aunts with no kids. One has no kids and a divorce pending, the other isn't even married yet and the last one is single to this day.

I still believe it would just be one woman. Bessmert can't catch a break from acting, she appears left and right and haunts the main story, meanwhile backstage she's just a married woman who loves burgers.

And well, did you see that woman? She's to die for. We can't take one we won't be able to take FOUR of these women.

Vert: Most people as if Mom's single, it's starting to get on my nerves.

Regulus: Yo, Vert. Is your mother single? 'cause that woman's so hot!

Vert: ...Regulus I swear to God--

She would get along with Balloon Party as well, she probably has a side job as a college teacher and gave Gertrude a couple classes when she studied for her PhD. Bessmert's a good teacher, I don't doubt her.

[bookwyrminspiration]

obsessed with cognatedom as a metaphor for queerplatonic relationships

it's a unique agreement you consent to and define together, one that's nebulous to those outside of it--but you know what you are to each other.

and there's different ways to go about it, but many of your actions/ your dynamic is interpreted by others through a prescribed lens. e.g. when cognatedom was described as similar to a marriage, similar to how many qprs are understood via platonic/romantic ways of thinking/terms by others. qprs aren't platonic or romantic (simplification), and a cognatedom isn't marriage, and yet.

and the subversion of actions/behaviors widely considered platonic/romantic? the exchange of rings is, in some cultures, a significant symbol of romance. yet in the cognate relationship it's redefined and represents something unique to that specific relationship. they share the commitment, but they're not the same

makes me FERAL do you see what I'm getting at?