#feels like it's been much longer than that tho

[etclouie]

i loved your hotch fic from kinktober, could you write 2 and 20 from the first group of prompts please? the 50 prompts list

˚୨୧⋆｡ prompt/s; 2) “do you think things would be different?” “how so?” “i mean, if we hadn’t met at a strip club” and 20) “i love you” “i don’t care anymore” — from 50 dialogue prompts

˚୨୧⋆｡ warnings; hotch x stripper!reader, uh kinda a breakup??, angst tho, that’s it really but if i missed any lmk

˚୨୧⋆｡ a/n; i got my car on friday, so i’ve been dealing with that mainly (sorry for not writing much)

— thank you for celebrating 600 with me || submissions are now closed

towards the end of your shift, Aaron had shown up at the club. 

you’d pulled him aside and outback, away from prying eyes and the nosey guys that would always try and keep you to their selves. 

but the look in his eyes told you that whatever had to say was serious, so you waited. 

he gave you a ride home, and his whole demeanour was avoidant. 

he stood in the doorway to your bedroom as you got changed, his eyes flicking from you and away again. a churning feeling in his gut as his eyes grey half lidded. 

his suit blazer had long been discarded, yet his shirt still remained creasless— his expression remained just as guarded as it usually was, but tonight the usual walls between them seemed a little thinner. 

you still had your heels on, the sound of them tapping against the hardwood floors mirroring the beat of your heart. 

for the past few months now, Aaron had been trying to balance his world with yours. 

he’d never been one for casual relationships, told you so when you first starting seeing each other—especially not with someone who’s life was so different to his, complicated in a sense. 

yet somehow, you both had found each other amidst the chaos. 

“do you think things would be different?”

his voice broke the silence, he hadn’t intended to speak aloud but the question had been sitting on his tongue for longer than he liked. 

glancing over your shoulder towards him, eyes quickly searching his for an answer you weren’t sure you were ready to hear. 

“how so?”

you asked, your tone measured but soft. you let your eyes pull away from him as you sat on the edge of the bed, finally peeling off your heels as he watched. 

he pushed off the doorframe and walked towards you slowly, staying a foot or two away. 

“i mean… if we hadn’t met at a strip club. if i hadn’t walked in that night, would we have still crossed paths?”

your fingers lingered on the intricacies of the heel, his words settling in as you placed the heel on the floor. 

hands moving to work off the other one, and for a long moment you didn’t answer. 

the truth was you’d thought about it too. 

your life before Aaron had been a series of stripped down, fleeting encounters. and as some would say, unsurprising for a woman who worked as a stripper— only for what you could offer in a few minutes of attention. 

but that night when he’d walked into the club with the rest of the team, it was different. there was something in the way his eyes lingered on you, not with judgment but instead curiosity. 

it was the first time in years you’d been seen, really seen. for who you actually were beneath the surface. 

and you hadn’t been able to shake it since. 

“i don’t know”

you finally said, voice tinged with uncertainty as you set the other heel down by the first. 

standing from the bed and moving through your dresser, pulling out clean pyjamas and setting them on top. 

“maybe it would’ve been easier, you know? if we hadn’t met that way. but at the same time, i’m not sure i’d want that. maybe it’s the only way it was supposed to happen”

you shrugged, finally turning to face him again. and you couldn’t help the sigh that pulled from your chest at the sight of him. 

he took another couple of steps closer, close enough for you to feel the warmth that always radiated off of him. 

“i don’t want to regret it”

he said softly, not just to you but to himself too. his eyes met yours, and the softness behind them remained but it was mixed with something else. 

you swallowed the lump in your throat, the rawness in his voice hitting you harder than you expected. 

“you’re not regretting this, are you?”

his eyes searched yours again, for a long moment. the weight of his gaze felt heavy, like he was reading into every part of you and stringing together fragments of your past and present. 

finally, he exhaled a breath and shook his head. 

“no”

he told simply, but you sensed a ‘but’ coming. 

“but sometimes i wonder if we’re just living in two different worlds”

you took a step back from him, your back hitting the dresser and knocking something sat on top of it. 

the distance between you remained small, but it felt like a chasm. 

you’d always known this wasn’t easy.  ring with someone like Aaron, so tightly bound by duty and a life of danger and trauma—while you danced for men in dimly lit clubs for a living. 

you loved your job, even if others told you that you shouldn’t. but you couldn’t help but notice the wedge it had driven between you and Aaron as of lately. 

the silence between you grew heavier as you searched his eyes once more, the softness had dissipated and been replaced by something sadder. 

“i love you,”

you whispered, voice almost breaking slightly on the words. the admission felt like it carried a weight of its own, something you’d been holding onto for far too long. 

Aaron looked at you, but his expression hardened from its sadness seconds ago and the air seemed to crackle with a newfound tension. 

“i don’t care anymore”

he said, his voice tight almost as if it physically hurt to speak the words. 

you recoiled, a sharp sting of pain hitting your chest. you’d expected it, in a way. 

there was no way this relationship—your life— could be simple, no matter how much you tried to make it work. 

Aaron stepped back, his gaze never leaving yours and the hurt in his eyes was almost more painful than the words he’d spoken. 

“i’m sorry. i just.. i can’t keep pretending that this is okay. that it’s sustainable”

that stung. 

you couldn’t even pretend that it didn’t. 

but you nodded slowly, trying to keep the tears from pooling in your eyes. you had known deep down, that this day would come. but that didn’t make it easier. 

the man you loved, the one who had seen you beyond the stripping and the shadows, was telling you that it was time to let go. 

“i get it”

you whispered, your voice barely audible but the words felt final. 

“maybe this was just a chapter that ended too soon”

for a long moment the room was filled with nothing but the soft sound of your breathing, the tension so thick it could be cut through with a pair of scissors. 

finally, Aaron moved closer to you again. his large hand cradled your face, and despite the urge to pull away you let him. his thumb soothed across your cheek as he mumbled out to you. 

“i never wanted to hurt you, but sometimes i think loves just not enough”

your throat tightened and though you fought to keep yourself composed, your emotions broke free in the form of a single tear that escaped down your cheek. 

you wiped it away quickly, refusing to let him see how much it for at you. 

“i know”

you whispered softly, voice barely audible. 

“but it doesn’t change how i feel”

Aaron sighed, pulling you into his chest. his hand that held your face now lay on the back of your head as it lay against his chest, the steady thrum of his heartbeat grounding you despite everything. 

even though everything inside you screamed to stay, to fight for this love that you both knew had no clear future. 

in the end, some love stories were written with a beginning and an end that no one could control, no matter how hard you tried to keep the pages from turning. 

and it ate you up inside. 

but now, as he held you—all the pain and tears disappeared, if only for a moment. until he left, you still had him but once he did leave you knew all the pain would come rushing back all at once. 

⋆˚࿔ reblogs are highly appreciated 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

[overdevelopedglasses]

OC-tober Day 3 - Old OC

I guess we'll keep the trend of TTRPG characters with the first one I ever made! Norian "Nor" Montrin, a tiefling sorcerer who uh. Is really sad, good GOD. He's 4 years old but acts like he's 10. He's a bit of the stereotypical first D&D character (doesn't trust anyone, likes being alone) but also he's 4 and is traumatized and he does have a fake personality that IS actually cooperative so.

I do have some art of him, but credit where credit is due ofc. This art is by u/jebusbeltran23 on Reddit (i couldnt find another way to credit them other than reddit, sadly). If they somehow see this, I always remember how special my little guy is since he got his own art <3

[mordremrose]

ART PARTY BABEY HAPPY PRIDE

Enjoy ur bees, give magic swords to little girls and baked beans to slublings— and be wary of rogue noodles

EU doodles: my own Mehndra, Hey Barbie, Tai of the Order and their cursed snack choices, the never ending bench, Strongessst, Necrotechnician Fip, Soft Skunk, Ruárn and Lux Pyrefaith

NA doodles: Khynain (ft a very tiny goofy version of my lad Draikôs) Wet Gunk, Harley Vuong, Tine of Nice Dreams, Kimber Truthspeaker, Zuutes and Master Dokks

As always, if you would like to be tagged with your toon, please let me know!! Otherwise, enjoy ur mischief

[tetzoro]

good morning & happy friday friendz (ㅅ´ ˘ `) we have made it to the end of the week !! i hope you all have a wonderful day and an amazing start to your weekend !! friendly lil reminders : ෆ drink water ! unclench your jaws ! blow a kiss to the sky ! be gentle with yourself ! ෆ

[ineffabildaddy]

can someone come and switch my brain off at 9pm each night because the "my fics are shit and i'm not saying anything worth saying with them" thoughts really do tend to fly at me with increasing fervour as the eve wears on

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry if you've already mentioned but what (re?)ignited your love of comics/x-men/cherik? curious because there are so many different adaptations of them

i think im gonna speak for a few (or a lot of) people when i say that TL;DR the wolverine x deadpool movie that came out this summer is what pulled me back into comics and i COULD leave it there but i will go into excruciating and unnecessary detail instead because i love an origin story and i love oversharing.

under the cut tho because im nice sometimes (there's also wxdp doodles in here. if you want to see that)

ironically (and probably commonly), growing up i was more of an avengers kid. Kinda. Loosely <- binge watched the cartoons and movies and read copious amounts of comics and fics and i am hoarding fanart in my old dresser as we speak ok 'loosely' is a modest lie.

embarrassingly i remember getting into discus cause of captain america LMAO so yeah needless to say i was a Humble Fan- me joining my school's comic class/club didnt help either (shoutout to my teach from that she was the realest one out there for. A Multitude of reasons). she definitely is was inspires me to even draw still and make comics and i often think bout the tips i learned from her class tbh she was great

back to the movies t and comics tho, i got into em because my brother would offer to take me and that's how we'd hang out (i rarely saw movies in theaters and i even more rarely went anywhere as a teenager. still kinda like that today tbh ooops) and yk. it just snowballed after that.

my brother and i have always liked comics- he just more than me for a while (though he still very much loves comics and As We Know From My Posts we still talk about them whenever i see him To An Exhausting Degree)

durin then i was really into stony and i have a few surviving doodles i made but those are between me and god. and anyone who asks tbh LOL

'snap can you make this related to x-men again this is long' ok so fast forward to This Summer again I Still Don't Really See Movies but my brother offered to take me and this was the first time i'd actually seen an x-men movie in full

as a kid i only remember seeing the 'perfection' scene between erik and raven in first class while i was channel surfing. pretty sure i changed the channel after seeing mystique naked cause i was scared my parents would get mad at me if they caught me watching it LOL

BUT MOVING ON As A Kid i think it's also natural you'll sometimes watch 92 if it's on And I Did though evidently it didn't stick too hard (i do remember really liking beast and gambit though.... still do really): my knowledge of x-men was. INCREDIBLY sparse. like diabolically so so i didnt have too much expectations (aside from the fact i vaguely liked deadpool beforehand).

tbh i dont know why my bro never took me to see any of the x-men movies. it's not like he doesn't Also like x-men (90% sure nightcrawler's his favorite but my brother will be caught dead saying he has absolute favorites like that)- he owns a bitch load of deadpool comics/omnibus sets too (of which ive read over the years and reread this year) but Shrug moving on

Much Like Most Of The Internet i fell down the rabbit hole that way. i have some doodles i made a couple days after seeing WxDP that i now have an excuse to throw at all of you Look And Perceive

and so. As I Do. i got curious and told myself i'd binge watch all the x-men movies the week before i went back to school And Then I Did ft. My Brother Sometimes and then i said i'd binge watch all of '92 and And I Did That ft. My Brother Sometimes But Less So and now we're here. currently watching Evolution...

once i got to school i realized i lived near a comic shop and started getting into the comics that way (the first ones i got since going down this rabbit hole was Magneto Was Right!, The Resurrection of Magneto, and The Trial of Magneto. if you were curious !!!!! clearly i didnt care too much about context i just needed to see My Guy jelvejlkvj i have no regrets and Evidently ive read more since)

i'm pretty sure what dragged me into cherik specifically was the fact i saw a clip of The Famous ending to 92 where erik's aghast at the notion jean even has to question his love for charles. i think that was what officially had me refocus my lens on them: not a single poolverine thought after that LOL (all the cherik posting i saw on twitter definitely helped too but that was the nail in the coffin for any other interests i had: i was locked into cherik and x-men in general now)

that clip specifically, i was surprised at the fact they- frequently even- have the x-men franchise say erik loves charles and vice versa so bluntly. even if it's not meant to be romantic, i fear im just a fan of how casually the word's thrown around with them two and i got tender bout it all. Then Yk. i just live for the drama. the hilarity even. the sincerity .... they make me sick if i think of them too long so im gonna end it here

before i go tho ironically enough, the first x-men issue i owned was This one (story a this is that while stuck in some wacko dimension charles accidentally gets himself trapped in logan's mind while utilizing his astral projection. if you were curious). pretty sure i got it for free with another comic set i got years ago since our old comic shop loved to do that, but it's poetic aint it. maybe ill doodle something referencing it..

i should probably look into finishing this arc someday im Dummy curious to even know how it started and how it ends.....

[chickenmcnuggies]

sometimes I see you on my dash and I'm like "wow these posts are pretty good but I dont remember why I followed this person" and then I load up my dwarf fort with my beloved hippogryphs

YEAAAAH im glad you like them! the hippogriffs and griffons are two of my absolute favorite creatures, so im very biased to them :) (also glad that you can tolerate my other post lol)

i suppose on that topic, it gives me a good excuse to show off the last 6 beast/giant variants going into the mods since i already finished all their sprites.

first up is the stymphalian bird! it's a small bird with feathers composed of bronze. they're docile by nature but are capable of shooting out their metal feathers to attack their predators

...on the other hand there's the giant variant, which is vicious by extension of living in savage lands

speaking of giant variants, there's 5 other ones being added

(griffon, fae dragon, bicorn, warg (it's default sprite was changed and the old sprite repurposed), and chimera)

the other brand new creatures are:

owl bear, a large carnivore with claws capable of slashing through metal. inspired by the cool looking owl bears from baldur's gate 3 that i saw when a friend was streaming the game. can be war trained if tamed

basilisk and mandrake

the basilisk are aggressive carnivores which possess a gaze that can turn their prey to stone, similar to the gorgons. unlike the gorgon's stare though, supposing their victim doesn't die while in statue form, they will return to normal after an in game week (they dont require food/water/breathing while afflicted)

Mandrake are small plant creatures who live rarely in underground lakes, where they 'breed' by planting their seeds in the ground. upon death they drop their seeds which can be planted to make very potent ale. the ale has many beneficial effects, such as helping infection and stress relief, but also has a grocery list of rare (2-10% odds) of triggering multiple ill side effects, such as nausea and sending a person into a fit of rage. made entirely just to make taverns all the more FUN

something i didn't plan to add, but added based on request: a tressym! flying cats from forgotten realms (and also baldur's gate) that i thought looked cool and had interesting enough lore to make a good addition. I only actually finished their sprites earlier tonight, and their raws aren't made yet.

going off what i read about them, they were going to be the same size as a cat, capable of being 4 different colors/coat patters, and immune to poison. it also mentioned them being able to see invisible creatures, so i'd like to play around with them having extra vision/high stats to be able to detect ambushers, tho i'd need to test to make sure they dont completely trivialize it. Was planning to make them like the griffons and wargs, where they have the [PET] token, but not [COMMON_DOMESTIC], so there's a chance for dwarves and humans to tame them in world gen, but they would hopefully be very rare due to their spawn biome (taiga?) and frequency (was thinking around 7%)

last but not least, another mega beast, this time the Undead Dragon! an undead mega beast that's intended to be a similar difficulty to the bronze colossus. it lacks blood, and damaging organs or connections doesn't bother it. It is capable of raising corpses once a day, and breathing a cool breath that makes a target drowsy and nauseous. while it can of course be killed in the usual dwarven solutions (magma, crushing) it can also be killed instantly by being speared in the skull by a spear, or decapitated. it is not capable of flight due to it's body being too rotted.

[welcometogrouchland]

May I ask about your Jason Todd idea? <3

Hm, okay so. How to lay this out sensitively since I know it might be a tad controversial...

Prefacing by saying I'm not an expert on the minutias of Jason characterization. I like him when he appears, I think the battle for the cowl/Morrison era and some parts of modern era for him are Weird and Bad, but I'm not Jason scholar (for that I'd say maybe check out @/tumblingxelian and their great video essays), I'm just trying to think of what might be an interesting step forward for him.

First, the canon facts

Jason got lobotomized and has panic disorder on steroids. By the end of Gotham War (specifically when Jason was. Flying the batplane into the asteroid. God I can't believe that's the plot) he was finding it in himself to power through said panics

In Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #12, the joker gives Jason a "low dose" of joker venom, which has an ambiguous effect on Jason, allowing him to power through the fear (which joker explicitly states is still very much present, just not physically debilitating, like when Jason couldn't run over in either Catwoman #57 or #58, the one with the kid in the building) even though he'd been able to do that sans venom over in Gotham War, like I previously stated.

The effect of said joker venom seems to be lingering for now, minus the creepy grin side effect it gave Jason over in that man who stopped laughing issue, as seen in the latest batman issue (number is escaping me rn, #147??). He still has the stutter which is a shorthand for fear, he's drawn with fearful expressions by Jorge Jimenez, but he says that he's "working through it" thanks to the chemicals

This is both super interesting and kind of maddening as it doesn't completely remove the consequences of what happened in Gotham War, but is trying to sweep them under the rug and get back to business as usual. I, however, propose making said consequences front and center like a fashionable urn on a mantle piece:

Since it's never stated how exactly the joker venom works, and I think the current answer is "it works how the story needs it to" I've decided that because it's a low dose, it eventually wears off. And when it wears off, Jason's back to square one in terms of mental state. Ergo, if Jason doesn't want to live the rest of his life as quaking shivering husk of his former self...he's going to need more.

(read more for the meat of things)

So, Jason self medicates for a condition given to him by the father he has endlessly complicated feelings towards with a cure invented by a man who represents everything he hates in the world who once tried to take everything from him.

Which, insert poetic cinema gif here, I'm quite proud of myself for that one.

Anyway, there's a lot of directions you could take this. Personally I think it'd be interesting to explore Jason trying to get back into the drug trade like he did in UTRH (FULL TRANSPARENCY I HAVEN'T READ THE FULL COMIC, I KNOW BROADSTROKES BUT IM NOT GONNA TRY AND MAKE PARALLELS) as he tries to use the resources (production plants and other drug runners who can hook him up with samples of joker toxin/similar stuff you can probably find around Gotham) to manufacture his own cure that means never having to go back to the joker again. Maybe he ambushes a joker toxin chemical production plant to get his own supply, and then Jason uses this as his foothold back into that world.

This isn't necessarily me saying we should regress Jason alll the way back to UTRH, that was before his anti-hero era and I'm not willing to fully shoot him back into the past. I just think that's not how you tell good stories in a medium like comics. But it'd inherently be a little different just bc he's doing it for different, slightly more self motivated (depending on your take on villain Jason) reasons and the people around him would have a different reaction to it.

Anyway, all sorts of problems can arise! Depending on how you wanna characterize Jason (wayward son who longs to be back in the fold or black sheep who doesn't play by daddy's rules, etc) he can either a) try and hide this criminal enterprise from his giant family full of nosy detectives (good idea there jay) OR do it out in the open, trying to justify himself but still putting himself on the opposite side of the family again (not the law bc that boy hasn't been on the 'right' side of it since he died)

There's also the fact that Jason now needs to take something 24/7 in order to live his life. He essentially can't be without it, he's dependent on it, in fact he'd get sick without it despite any adverse effects it may have on him (which are guaranteed, I mean. No clinical trials)

I imagine it'd be easy to become addicted to it in some way.

And uh. This is the part where it works slightly better as a fanfic pitch than an actual comic pitch. Because as much as I think it'd be such an interesting beat for Jason's character considering his fraught history with addiction and drugs (looks away from that one urban legends story where he suggests terrorising addicts to get to the suppliers and bruce lectures him. The easiest way to make Mr "we don't sell drugs to children" sympathetic and you beefed it)

I also fully recognise that this is a sensitive topic that DC doesn't have the best track record with (although addicts aren't a monolith and feel a number of ways about addictions portrayals in comics) and that there's probably some pitfalls inherent in the premise, namely bc of Jason's background as an impoverished kid and his grey morality, and how those play into stereotypes of addicts. Addiction is already such a misunderstood and stigmatized condition that I imagine playing with it with an antihero might be enough to turn some people off. Addiction is not a moral failing and I'd hate to write it as a moral failing of Jason akin to his willingness to kill, etc.

But with all that said, I think that stereotypes are primarily harmful because of their shallowness. They inhibit understanding of groups labeled "other" by presenting them in simplistic ways that don't portray richness or complexity. And I think a truly good red hood comic could give both sympathy and complexity to Jason, even as an addict. If anything, Jason is a popular character (mostly) and there could be something nice about seeing a main character go through what you're going through, gritty details and all. YMMV (can we bring that back btw?) and it depends on execution. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong, but seeing as it just lives as a hypothetical rn, I think there's also a lot of ways it could go. I mean, not right, it's a downer story beat for Jason but it's mostly meant to be interesting and a vehicle for more stories as Jason navigates it, ya know?

Anyway, I have a lot of spiels littered in my notes app and discord DMs that elaborate on all this (how this could work as act 1 in a broader Jason story where his little operation goes to shit and he has to hit the road (jack) and maybe do some character development for better or worse. I'm a sucker and wanna say better- not squeaky clean better but. Yknow, finding himself to an extent. I recognise I'm a sap and a fool tho. Or how a new outlaws team could factor into either of those eras (since I do like Jason with an outlaws team. It gives him an excuse to exercise his compelling relationships and dynamics with other characters without having to constantly tip-toe around the elephant in the room whenever he's with the batfamily all the time. He just needs a good lineup) but that's all for another time

... though without elaborating on the vision in my head it kind of just sounds like my pitch is "Jason gets addicted to his hyper-anxiety medication" BUT I SWEAR ITS MORE THAN THAT.

It's like. If Jason has struggled as a character (and this is very subjective on my part so feel free to disagree) because he has compelling relationships with all of the batfamily, but also has compelling grey morality that makes it hard to capitalize on those relationships, without the conflict always coming to "Jason stop killing!" "Nuh uh!" OR just being ignored, and the main way writers have addressed this is via reboots instead of arcs...

Then giving Jason and the bats:

real, legitimate and fresh reason for jay to be mad at Bruce (taking their relationship of love with very little understanding to it's most dramatic conclusion)

give the family a real reason to want to bring him back into the fold (feel bad about the lobotomy and it would be pretty immoral to let Jason waste away slowly and painfully because of something Bruce did)

capitalize on all the ways Jason is sympathetic (bc the addiction is a natural lead into his backstory, which is one of his most sympathetic elements)

And the ways in which he's very out of step with the bats post-resurrection (I'd be mad asf too if i came back to life just for my dad to a) not avenge me and b) LOBOTOMIZE ME meanwhile the cunt ass clown giving me my meds is just lurking out there).

Idk it's not a sophisticated pitch as of this moment but I think a real chef (writer) could cook something w/ this

[mariocki]

Shadows of Fear: Did You Lock Up? (1.1, Thames, 1970)

"And they didn't make much mess?"

"No, not really. They forced that door. Smashed the cabinet, slashed a sofa. And kicked a hole in the bedroom door."

"Ah. Big mistake."

"What is?"

"Never lock inside doors. Anything you can to keep them out - but when they're in, let 'em get on with it."

"I'll remember."

[todayisafridaynight]

At which point did you realise that the plot of IW is ass? I've seen people complain only about the ending or the halfway point where the teams separate, while I was already actively rolling my eyes like four-five chapters in

i think the moment i fully accepted that IW's story was. Definitely A Story was the moment ebina announced 'bleach japan'. like i think leading up to that point i was thinking to myself 'oh i hope i see X happen' or being like 'i wonder where this is going' and that sort but the proverbial bucket of ice was definitely that moment

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Not much has been shared yet for the Nicky day of the week which has me thinking that *I* wanna draw a Nicky to share but... That would require... Drawing and... Liking what I draw...

[curls-cat]

idk why but something about the monetization of the amelia project annoys me way more than other podcasts. they're not doing anything worse than anyone else who uses acast but i hate it more

[skyeateyourdonuts]

weeoo

[juicemitio]

Shaving the rest of my head tomorrow I'll probably be ugly but idrc

[arc-archernar]

ive found that, unlike what many people say, i actually find it harder to confront people / assert myself online than in person

[skitskatdacat63]

I think I need to just watch AD 2009 and finish off that season tonight so I don't feel so morose about F1 today haha