#he's the fun one i swear

[allimili]

"My Little Star~!"

[s0fter-sin]

the 141 recovering brainwashed!soap but he’s just a shell of his former self; never speaking, never moving without orders. he never even blinks; just stares straight ahead with his unnatural green eyes.

empty.

but ghost can't accept that.

price and gaz can't stand watching ghost torture himself day after day; visiting soap in his cell for hours at a time, trying anything he can think of to bring back his sergeant.

he shows him pictures of the 141 but soap thinks he's being given targets and moves to eliminate them before ghost stops him. he brings him his journal, tries to trigger his innermost thoughts and feelings he never shared with any of them, but after he reads it, soap summarises it like he's giving a mission briefing. impersonal.

cold.

it's late when ghost finally calls it; low and defeated after another long day of being stared at with eyes that don't see him. he isn't thinking when he pulls his mask off and harshly scrubs over his face, grinding his palm into his eye.

"don't worry, johnny; we're still fixin' each other's problems," he promises, little more than a whisper as he tries to summon the energy to leave johnny behind. again.

he pushes himself to his feet, his hand on the door handle when-

"what's my problem?"

ghost freezes, something like grief - something achingly closer to hope - chilling him. he slowly turns and though soap is still starring ahead, there's a faint light in his altered green eyes.

"the mask," he forces out. "take it off."

he knows there's no way to remove the mask - the muzzle - from his sergeant's face. it's too high-tech, even for them; the biometric scanner too advanced for any bypass they know of.

it's just another way he's failed him; bringing him home still bound in their enemy's chains.

soap- jolts; a sharp, almost painful looking flinch jerking his body.

"show my face?" and his voice has changed; no longer the monotone delivery that's haunted ghost's every waking moment.

it's smaller. uncertain. recollection of a memory half-destroyed.

"yes, johnny," he breathes.

soap moves unprompted for the first time since they found him; running his finger along the edge of the muzzle where his skin bulges from the pressure, half-visible scars hidden beneath the harsh metal.

"ugly," he murmurs.

ghost immediately shakes his head, almost stumbling back to the table; haphazardly throwing his mask on it. "quite the opposite," he insists.

it doesn't matter if he has no lower jaw left at all; johnny could never be ugly in his eyes.

agonisingly slowly, soap's eyes shift to the mask. he takes in the balaclava and hard shell skull like for all the times he's looked at it since his rescue, he never truly saw it. his lids fall in less of a blink and more stage curtains closing; slow, heavy, requiring effort and no small amount of strength to open once more

"good... to see you again..." he trails off, his hand shifting up to the top of his shaved head; nails digging unforgivingly into his scalp

"simon," ghost finishes for him; that horrid grieving hope tearing at his heart

soap's fingers flex and a drop of blood trails down his forehead, over the ridge of his nose to catch on the muzzle. "s-simon..."

his nails dig deeper, the drop falling to the table just to be followed by more and ghost aches to stop him but he's terrified to interrupt him. terrified to lose him now when he's so close to something.

soap's bloodied nails scratch down the crown of his head, following the line of his stolen mohawk until they come to rest on the back of the muzzle and ghost's heart drops.

they can’t get it off.

they can't get it off and he doesn't know how to explain that to soap; doesn't know if he can stomach watching soap pull at the monstrosity holding him captive, the inevitable bloodbath as the edges cut into his skin.

"show my face," soap repeats.

"johnny..." ghost begins weakly, reaching out to him but he doesn't know how, doesn't know if he even should-

the muzzle clatters onto the table.

the biometrics they couldn't bypass, the fingerprint they needed that they were so sure belonged to makarov.

it belonged to soap.

how cruel to torture him with freedom he didn't understand he could take; didn't even understand he could want.

just the kind of sick game makarov loves.

ghost doesn't know what's louder; his heart pounding in his ears or the long, uninhibited breath soap takes.

his eyes fall shut as he leans his head back with it, the blood still dripping down his face as he straightens through his exhale. his lower jaw is a mess of scars where he fought against the previous iterations of the muzzle, the corners of his lips cut through and cracked.

but the green in his eyes is duller; that light sparking brighter as blue struggles to break through the glow.

ghost's never seen anything so beautiful.

"good to see you again, johnny."

[mochapao]

silly guy radar explodes

[okartichoke]

at a concerrttt yyessss yessss

klapollo >:3

design notes

link to masterpost || some quick justifcations/explanations below cut!!:

Birds of paradise <333 Them being of the same bird family is important to me... (honorary mention to the snowy owl for Kristoph) (also honorable mention to the paradise crow) (but i like them having matching ribbons (and the two birds i went with are more closely related))

I originally tried giving Klav the whole fluffy back of yellow/white feathers, but (a) he looked SO over complicated (especially compared to everyone else) and (b) I realized that no other character has back feathers, anyways. so it would make sense he does not either.

The ribbon-tails are similar to Apollo and Trucy's hearts: they both inherit this feature from one of their parents. (One parent is a stephanie's astrapia, one is a lesser bird-of-paradise). (Also of note: the lesser bird-of-paradise also has two long wire plumes, if you look closely)

Tails: (Klav's is basically a ribbon-tailed astrapia's tail btw.) Because the tail is such a notable feature of these species, I'm including it, though they also come from the base of the wing (though I'll probably just draw them as essentially tails in the future), and are much shorter than they would be, were they proportional.

i got very lazy on the individual introduction sheets they're so bad 😭😭 specifically klavier pls just imagine he and his wings look better there 🙏🙏🙏 LOL i hope the other drawings make up for it !! >:3

FINALLY MY CAT!!!! it’s been a while,,, this is him everyday after taking his pills cuz he knows it’s milk time now (image from my dad) (also flat colors and zoom bc me likey this image)

[syrupbitee]

free my boy from his own show he did nothing wrong

[phonification]

doodle dump because i will not finish these evar!!!!!!!!!!

[turrondeluxe]

Lovers Rock

[spookythesillyfella]

told you guys ive been plagued by the analogue horror fixation again

[necrotic-nephilim]

you mentioned the arrows stealing tim from the bats and i just had the hilarious idea of that + jaytim

poor oliver would lose his mind bc he goes and saves tim from the bats and then tim brings one of them home

put it back tim you don't know where that's been

i'm CRYING this is so funny. it's even funnier given what Jason did to Mia. like of all the morally questionable mob bosses Tim could've dragged home, he had to pick *that one*? Oliver is trying to be supportive of Tim and give Tim more agency than Bruce gave him, bc Oliver worked *hard* to steal this one and he's not going to lose all of the progress he made. and it does seem like Tim's doing *somewhat* of a decent job of making Jason less murdery. and Jason agrees to the rule he'll keep out of the Star City scene, but Gotham's still his fair game. and honestly, that makes Oliver like him just a *little bit* because if he's going to make Bruce's life more difficult, maybe Jason is alright.

it also does *not* help that when Oliver goes to Roy for support bc Roy agrees that Jason is untrustworthy as hell. but Roy is *also* the guy who had a daughter with Chesire, so the best he can do is give Oliver a shrug.

also think it's fun if Tim is sort of tense, expecting Oliver to put his foot down and tell Tim no. like he's not used to a vigilante parental figure who's actually good at the parent part, so it's weird having this level of freedom, esp when he knows Oliver does disapprove. but Oliver lets Tim figure out hs own love life and make his own mistakes, even if he's ranting to Dinah about Jason until two in the morning. it doesn't help that Jason makes no move to try to get along with Oliver. he's just a shit to be a shit. at this point Tim is pretty sure Jason enjoys driving Oliver up a wall more than he enjoys dating Tim. who's to say if it's true.

[marclef]

Day 7 of whatever this Pizza Mess is!!!

i bring you Rats!!! the character i had written down was just Brick, but why not have a couple extra friends in? let's just hope they're not anywhere near the pizzeria.... 👀💧

(also haven't been too happy with how i've drawn these rats before... so i decided to change them up a bit! i like them a lot more now 😁)

[kastillia]

[krysmcscience]

I will be the first to admit I'm not the best at drawing animal or furry characters, but I wanted to get something scribbled down in my Non-Goof style, anyway. Plus, I've been enjoying the many reference pages folks were posting of their own designs for the Lamb and Narinder, so, uh. Here's mine, I guess! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

do not comment on how long narinder's tail is or i swear to the lamb i will make it even longer next time >:]

[bbbrianjones]

the stone roses in paris, oct 1989

[maskedchip]

2 min before disaster

[celtrist]

I don't know if this is a "hot take" and by no means am I trying to be rude, but It's funny since, considering the designs I've seen, most to every radioapple fan child looks like they could be a radiobelle fan child and vice-versa.

Makes sense as Charlie is Lucifer’s daughter and takes... EVERYTHING after him. But you see, it's all in the nose. But no one wants to be giving noseless children, so Radiobelle is the only one of the two that's able to have a differentiation from Radioapple kids with the puppy nose lol

[synthshenanigans]

the Identity lacking knowledge of its identity

[fun alt repeating thing above & neat alt versions below]