#he keeps it in just to b sure

[vaguely-concerned]

on the one hand I think inner demons could stand to have a bit more romanced rook specific content, but on the other hand the underlying in-built implication that 'yours is the one true voice of comfort and safety in my inner world' is a sentiment and intimacy so way beyond the romantic or the platonic or any secret third thing you could care to name that it makes me lose my entire poor little mind a bit. it's so big and fundamental — near-existential — that in that exact moment at least the distinctions kind of seem irrelevant.

all the people lucanis' mind conjures up along the way are relationships he has that are unavoidably mixed and fraught in some ways even when they're also full of love (they are fraught BECAUSE they're full of love) — the good in them inseparable from things that hurt him at the same time. (it's about: the basic disorganized attachment patterns this poor guy is dragging around with him. careful with those, they're dellamorte heirlooms. what you love also inevitably hurts you and you won't be allowed to have one without the other, you have to surrender parts of your soul to hold on to what little you have left: this is the story up until now.) and the idea that rook isn't that to him — that beneath the fear of wanting them when romanced (which is more its own separate thing because within this psychology, actively wanting something and not just clinging on for dear life to even a meager status quo lest you lose it is in itself dangerous bordering on catastrophic), this is a relationship where there isn't resentment, or guilt, or shame, or dread, or rage, or self-hate, or any of the other emotions that keep him paralyzed, unable to move this way or that. no debts, nothing owed of yourself and your soul's substance except what you can freely and safely and happily give. love and freedom don't coexist — but, I mean, you're almost starting to make me think........... unless...👀👀👀. the unconditional and undramatic 'you are here and I am here with you, you can be exactly how you are right now with me and it's safe for us both even though you're afraid it won't be, I'm not going anywhere' acceptance rook shows him here that he returns to them in the big romance scene, when it's rook who needs it. the way he's just. standing there in the center of it all, like a child desperately helplessly waiting to be found, hiding in the place he hopes you'll know to look first. (rook does know. it's one of the first things they say in there.)

in short the most important room in his little mind palace for the romance is the very first room — the one where rook isn't. where, in fact, rook cannot be, because they disprove the entire structure of the place with their existence and presence in his life. with everyone else he's putting words in their mouths about what they think of him, and rook is the one who actually gets to come in to speak their own words to him — and have him listen. ('he'll listen to you, he always listens to you', 'your voice is a comfort'.) of course rook isn't present anywhere else in there — at the risk of stating the obvious to a tedious degree, they aren't one of the locks, they're bringing the key. in the very finest 'the messenger and the message' sort of way.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[byfulcrums]

if we keep adding to this this post will become infinite

also i saw ur rb like 5 hours ago but had to ignore it cause i was in school :((

AND SHIT URE RIGHT THT SONG DOES FIT??? DAMN. ALSO I WILL DEFINITELY TELL U IF I WRITE SMTH

HUGS

GODD YES THEM JUST, GOING FROM FIGHTING TO TRYING TO SQUEEZE THE LIFE OUT OF EACH OTHER (THEY ARE NOT HUGGING, NO, WDYM)

THEM CHILLING IN SPACE TOGETHER.... I MEAN THEY'RE PRETTY MUCH THE ONLY 2 BEINGS ON EARTH THAT CAN SURVIVE BEING IN SPACE SO WHY NOT??

something i have always loved is the idea of a hero, or just a superpowered person, chilling in a way that would be weird to others. flash running around town, spider-man reading upside down, invincible floating around in boredom, you name it

the idea of mark (it doesn't even have to be in this au, just in general) being so not human but still so human is beautiful to me

i have a hc that viltrumites like flying and floating better than walking (it's like nature to them. walking is what crawling would be to us: we can do it, but it's not exactly comfortable), and so nolan and mark would always be flying around at home

mark could ask his dad about what being a viltrumite is like. so, when he got his powers, he finally got to experience it. and every single thing that happened, the things that made him realize that he's not actually a biological human (sharper teeth, maybe. liking the feeling of boiling water on his skin. struggling to act like he's in pain when he's punched, and then finding it almost impossible to not break someone's jaw when defending himself), he could share with his dad

but now his dad is gone. his new brother doesn't have his powers yet. his mom is a normal human. even the heroes that can fly wouldn't understand it, because they're still not viltrumites

it makes him feel a little lonely. he hates what the viltrumites do and what they represent, but life would be sm easier if he could just. share his worries with someone else that's like him

enter wasp.

he does not "share his worries" w him. at all. fuck no

but still-- having someone who acts just like him, in the more alien-like ways, reminds him that he's not the only one

this. isn't really a good thing

basically wasp is a living reminder that the viltrumite empire is out there, which means mark cannot slack off because the moment they arrive they will fucking decimate earth

most importantly, he's a reminder of what mark himself is; of what he could (or will) become

"No one has a broken nose. It's mystifying" ASHDHASD everyone being both super surprised when they hate each other that much, then being even more surprised when they actually work w each other without any murder attempts

CAIN INSINCT BUT TAKEN TO THE EXTREME... i have 2 siblings so i know very well what the cain insinct is like, and it being dialed up to 100 is insane

yk when you ruffle your sibling's hair? that but its them trying to pull each other's hair out

softly smacking your sibling's head when they say something stupid?? it's like they're trying to rip each other's heads off. jesus. what was that cracking noise??

or when you kick your sibling. they try to break each other's bones regularly (wasp usually starts it. hey, he's basically a prisoner. the least he can do is try to take some of them out before he gets out! [or so he says])

imagine they're fighting a villain together. they usually do the "i kick him to you then you punch him in the face and send him flying" thing, but sometimes, when wasp is feeling silly, he'll be the Older Sibling TM and refuse to give the villain to mark

it's like two dogs fighting for a chew toy. mark gets the villain off wasp's hands but wasp immediatly tackles him to get him back. most crime doers now refuse to fight those two when they're together bc of the amount of nausea they feel afterwards

RUDY WANTING TO STUDY THEM ASHFDSHAJH

rudy is the type of person to scientifically study his friends without their consent to figure out what the fuck is wrong with them

wasp Does Not Like That. mark doesn't either but he's not as murderous as that other idiot (wasp begs to differ. "have you seen what he did to angstrom? he has it in him. i just have to bring it out") ("he said that? he stopped mid-fight to pet a puppy the other day") ("i would have killed it. i was about to, but this asshole interrupted me") (they are in the same room when this conversation happens theyre just ignoring each other)

comic con!!

they were raised VERY differently so yeah, them disagreeing on smth that reflects their own personal character arcs fits so well

the only reason they refuse to fight right then and there is because they don't want to be banned from going to comic cons. that is the only reason. the literal only reason

also i could imagine that since wasp is Like That, at some point he has to drop comics because hey, destroying earth means to comic books. so seeing how far the comics he likes from his own dimension are getting in this other asshole's dimension is an Experience

(he so wants to take over this world)

"Why consider your emotions when you can fall back on the one thing you're incredible at? Violence!"

this. reminds me of mark too

mark ignores everything and goes out to punch stuff and beat villains to clear his mind. wasp just straight up murders people. the thing that differentiates them is why they're doing it, to who, and to what extents

"I can totally see Wasp snapping at Mark and telling them to get a rise out of Mark."

oh but this would so be the way they find out about that

wasp is angry as fuck 24/7 (can't blame him but also dude, chill out) and this one particular day he's even angrier than usual, so he just randomly decides that the best way to rui mark's life is to tell everyone the truth (smth that has literally ruined mark's life once, see episode 8 of season 1)

and wasp knows that the thing mark fears most is turning out like his father, so why not tell his friends that he's destined to be a megalomaniac murderer in almost every universe??

they do love mark, but some of them are. a little freaked out

he doesn't even tell his friends, he tells everyone. it's on TV. people are debating whether it's true or if he's jst fucking w them (he does that a lot)

half the internet thinks he's lying because he always lies, but the other half is sure he's not because he never looks this angry and earnest and mad (in the crazyness way) when he does

mark finds out and throttles him but wasp is laughing like a goddamn maniac. mark doesn't kill him (he never could) because of how familiar that face is

then the whole "we're the same person" thing strikes again

"He hates Wasp does have more training."

this

they're the same, they have the same strength and speed and durability. they're both smart, both cocky, they both smile a lot and make fun of the enemy they're going against, they have similar strategies bc of their similar powers

but wasp has sm more experience

it angers wasp too, because this asshole, who has literally no experience at all, can actually keep up with him. it's the worst. he hates it so much

ALSO i just had an idea. yk thos fanfics where 2 characters are stuck together bc of magic? like forced to hold hands or smth? imagine that w them. imagine the disaster that would be

when they finally stop biting each other they start thinking about how to fix this

add them being stuck in a cave together (there are other people inside there. the exits were blocked. it's unstable, so if they drill they way out, they will kill everyone inside. wasp doesn't care, but mark really fucking does, and he's technically the one in charge sooo)

the poor civillains that are now stuck with them...

wasp n mark r used to fight separately. mark tends to handle the more "saving ppl" aspect of the battles, while wasp handles the bloodshed. then this random villain binds them together w some sort of magic spell, and they are so thrown off their game

they try to go separate ways all the time, which results in then falling and crashing and destroying buildings instead of, yk, winning. mark tries to go save the family that just had a car dropped on them, wasp tries to attack the villain

they both fail. they fall on their asses

its so embarrassing

turn this into a bonding experience where they learn to take advantadge of the fact that they are the same person. once they have the same goal (ex: getting out of the cave, defeating the villain once there are no civillains in danger [which would definitely throw them off again, bc mark would try to help them again and wasp would fight him, making them crash again], finding a way to free themselves from the other, etc), they kick ass. it's just... kinda hard for them to want the same thing

if i write a fic w these two it's gonna be about this. it's just so funny

ALSO THAT ART OP??? AJFHSJADKFHDSJKFHASJKDFHDSJK SO GOOD. SOOOOO GOODDD

this is making me want to draw too ngl. BUT I CANT, THEIR HAIR IS SO HARD TO DRAW FOR ME AAAGHH

EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK, EVIL MARK!!! I want to be coherent about this season but please picture me foaming at the mouth and running on the walls. S2 being what if Mark's just like his Dad? Insanity. I love this show. Anyways, AU where an Evil!Mark tries to make Our!Mark worse, and Our!Mark tries to make the other better. Something something confronting your idea of the worst version of oneself. Plus, tweaked black and yellow costume because I saw it and immediately went murder hornet lookin' ass and knew I had to draw it. Evil ass Mark. Horrible. I think he should be dragged kicking and screaming into redemption.

[beatcroc]

there's no way the bathroom at peppino's pizza is actually that big but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . hey ummm anyway.... i care them...... anyway there's a lil ramble on my take on fake pep's like psyche or whatever in tags on the og post if ur into that kinda thing :y

hey! it's a series! fake peppino world tour: [noise] [noisette] [peppino]<- u are here [gustavo] [gerome] [noisette again]

[fumifooms]

What if we were both magic prodigies and it otherized us in different ways and we devoted ourselves to protecting a family member who has general other goals & priorities. What if we both did self-sacrifical devotion in opposite ways.

What if we were dark mirrors of each other and where I've grown overcontrolling you've grown complacent. What if, bought as a servant into a pretty loving home, ownership and control is what love looks like to me, and to you neglected and lonely growing up, love is gratefully taking any scraps of it you’re lent.

By belonging to someone, even if she comes back injured or fails at finding Delgal, she feels like she belongs and is cherished, by owning someone he feels safe in them not leaving him.

She’s what’s tethering him do you see… And he’s the only thing giving her direction and purpose in her state. She needs a compass and he needs a support.

They’re both so out of it 😭 It’s the weirdly intense and unearned mutual trust and reliance on each other?? They’re each other’s weird little comfort codependent teddy bear. Or at least they were headed towards that before SHE DIED THEN HE DIED THEN THEY BOTH FORGOT ABOUT EACH OTHER AND NEVER MET EVER AGAIN. Though she’s also the guard attack hound keeping him safe… And vice versa he heals her and can rewrite her very being with just one wave of his hand. They’re both so so mentally and physically vulnerable both but they cling onto each other. They can’t perceive things accurately but despite it all someway somehow they stumble into something closer to resembling companionship just before they both die. Falin is just that kind and Thistle is just that lonely. Overworked.

We both haven’t lived for ourselves in a very long time, haven’t we.

They both have a similar devotion to the people they love but again the difference is that Thistle starts overtsepping while Falin is self-effacing. The other difference between them is that people care about Falin <3 People have given up on Thistle long ago, and he has given people reasons to, while people refuse to give up on Falin. Yaad has a mini arc about it dw about it it’s ok he’s not all alone in the end 😭😭 He reached out for Marcille’s hand but they already all wanted to help him, they just had to be given the chance to, Yaad just had to be given the chance to, it’s okay I’m okay

Hey what if we learned to get in touch with our own identity and the world around us and living in the present again through being in the worst codependent situationship ever.

Falin and Thistle sitting in a tree, sucking on flowers together because they’re h-u-n-g-r-y 💕💕💕

I bet he’s only ever thought of flowers as useless ornaments. Weak weeds. But she shows him they’re tasty and useful and good and pretty in their own right too and deserve existing without proving their worth and waaa <33 Thistles…... Did you know thistles taste sweet if you remove the thorns and eat them?

"Even as a chimera, her kind nature remains" you can’t suppress her in the way that matters. You can’t soothe him in the way that matters. It’s doomed. You’re doomed. It’s all doomed. Save me.

[dalandduh]

Goober...

[stephofromcabin12]

God I love hapless confused but trying toddler dad Dionysus

Me reading pjo for the first time and getting pulled out of burnout by a deadbeat (but kinda not really) dad and his quiet love for his sons:

[unproduciblesmackdown]

winston my quant of billions

[aroaceleovaldez]

Every description about Nico (especially the canon ones) describing him as “cold” can personally fight me. Nico is jaded, yes, and often closed-off and sometimes stand-offish and defensive but he is not "cold”. He cares SO SO SO MUCH about EVERYONE. He loves and cares with his entire heart constantly and that is a core part of his character. He doesn’t often make public shows of his affection but he takes care to be kind when it matters and doesn’t hide that he does care (usually, the only exception really being him being in the closet, but even then he only hid his crush specifically and not the fact that Percy is important to him). He fine with hugging his friends in front of a crowd and will sit with strangers at a campfire just so they’re not alone. I mean, heck, he’s an extrovert! We know this! He actively seeks out people and gets lonely very quickly and easily! If he can’t talk to living people he will chat with the dead! That’s how much he thrives on being social!

The only time Nico has ever been actively “cold” was the couple of months between TTC and BoTL when he was actively mourning Bianca. Nico is not “cold.” He loves so much and he does show it, just in his own way.

[transsextual]

i think i have problems and issues

[maulfucker]

time for clones

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been picking mostly only the essential flirt options with lucanis in the romance so far (I've personally found the dynamic much more natural and mutual when you do that, more like forming a solid friendship slowly and inevitably becoming something else and less like you keep pushing on him and getting little back b/c he seemingly just gets overwhelmed and goes into freeze instead), and I think rye is a pretty hard person to read at the best of times even though he's been Down Real Bad from pretty early on and their chemistry as people is naturally really good. so the way the almost-kiss plays out in this playthrough feels a lot like it has the added layer of lucanis realizing that no but for sure rook is flirting and not just being kind or a good friend* it IS actually happening it's not just wishful/fearful thinking!!! and then uh. maybe going a bit too hard a bit too fast in all the excitement at that revelation haha

*in lucanis' defense he has seemingly literally never had a friend who wasn't his cousin-brother before, under those circumstances I suppose some confusion is extremely natural if not outright expected lmao

[swatato]

I refuse to believe a damn thing I’m seeing thanks <3

[artist-issues]

outer banks melting from something barely watchable to something certainly unwatchable before our very eyes

[jrueships]

yall thought yall were safe from my 1998 temptations movie posting, but, rest unassured, you are not . melvin is old man running toward you with his chronic rheumatoid arthritis at excruciatingly slow speeds as we speak .

he's so :3

[bthump]

I don’t think the ending of lost children is saying that people like Jill should stay with their abusers or that it’s noble to suffer I think it’s just making the point that there isn’t a paradise where you will never suffer, as it seemed that Jill tried to leave with Guts as a form of escapism thinking her problems would disappear if she did, like rosine did with the sacrifice. Yeah it’s still not that great and it doesn’t reflect well on guts either when he could’ve just brought her to Godo and had him look after her or something. Though the narrative does frame it as though guts made the “right” choice, basically tough love and making her stronger or whatever. And there was the idea that the demons haunting him at nightfall would be too dangerous for her anyway.

Enh I'll admit that Jill's naivete is a detail that makes Jill's decision to stay work strictly on a character level. Sure, Jill is frightened off by ghosts and decides to stick with the devil she knows, I'll totally buy that.

But yeah like you go on to mention, the narrative framing it as the right choice is the real problem here for me. I doubt Miura intended to flat-out say that abused kids should just deal with it, but it's effectively what the narrative says consistently throughout the Lost Children arc, from putting the Peekaf 'you'll regret leaving home' story in the arc about child abuse to Rosine's regret and longing for home as she dies to Jill deciding it's best for her to stay with her abusive parents and just struggle and cry her way through it.

Also maybe worth noting that plot-wise Jill's decision doesn't actually fit the larger narrative of Berserk. This is probably accidental lol, due to being a serialized story, but think about it: she decides to stay with her family because it's dangerous elsewhere too. Well, what happens a year later when her village is leveled by dragons because Griffith genre shifted the story to high fantasy? It's a hell of a lot safer to be traveling with Guts than it is to be an ordinary villager during the Fantasia arc lol.

So yeah. ia that staying with her abusive family makes sense for Jill on a character level, but it's the way the themes of the Lost Children arc seem to support that decision that bothers me, and I don't think it really works on a plot level either, taking the later story into account.

Thanks for the ask!