#i need a short story. I need it.

[paintedcrows]

In my heart, Ford once went to an ice dimension and got Really Good at ice skating, and now he's absolutely insufferable about it.

[junigray]

I have never plotted anything in my life and have no idea how stories work and am getting stupider by the minute.

I think it is time to step away from my computer.

[egophiliac]

bring your son to work day

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Five foot something and he's royalty.

[violecov]

((Finwe and Feanor (and baby Nolo) go on a long walk)).

This took me way longer than expected :00 . Anyway, here is a slightly ~Winter~ themed story.

Hope you guys like it!!

[perplexingly]

I’d give so much to hear their banters between Awakening and their merging

[pausegame]

Neri de Acutis & Rook de Riva | Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)

[sparrowlucero]

this is the iconic dinosaur horror jurassic park wishes it was

[medicalunprofessional]

never change, man !

[rufwooff]

ok, I think I can post this

(just wanted to imagine what the colors would look like, so come up with the context yourself)

've been doing things very productively lately

Raph doesn't have the right size pants, so he just wraps a piece of fabric around himself 🔥🔥🔥

[dirtytransmasc]

I find it deeply depressing that every adult in Spider's life had children, yet he was never anyone's priority. every adult he could and most likely attempted to match in to. the adults he remembered as the closest things he had to parents since birth (Jake and Norm, even if they weren't acting as his parents, because Spider, genuinely, would not know better). down to his actual foster family (the McCoskers). essentially went out of their way to de-prioritize him.

like I'm not faulting them for having kids, for having a family. but Spider was their first priority. he didn't need to be adopted by any of them, per say, but he was their responsibility. he was their orphan, Jake especially, considering he was the chief of his people, but Norm as well, seeing as he's a prominent figure head of the clan/Hellsgate.

the McCoskers took him in, but over the years, as they had their own children, he was more and more neglected. he was now no longer his actually appointed guardians priority. and that only gets worse and worse as he ages until they become outright abusive (Nash does anyway, cause thats what I'm gonna call violently kidnapping his, throwing him in a room and locking him there, and trying to kill all of them, him included, when they run away. as abuse. and I'll get back to the whole "you have to turn yourself in to the RDA" x2 speech from Jake in a second). they also didn't really accept his culture. with their resentment towards the Na'vi brewing, Spider most definitely faced some heat for being more of the forest than of humans, in terms of culture.

3 times over, Spider came first and was put last. put last by parents who know damn well how much love, time, care, and attention a child needs. who should be able to see when a kid is being neglected. who dialed to advocate and protect him from neglect (instead of calling him a stray).

he was a child and they were his advocates. all three parties failed in their duty as advocates, to protect Spider. to ensure he always had a loving home that made him their priority. that fulfilled all his needs, not just the physical ones. but all put their own families first, and abandoned Spider to the scraps of their love, time, and affection.

imagine being Spider, an orphan who can't even mention his birth parents and is always treated like he is the physical rebirth of his father's sins by half the people around him. every adult in your life has kids and seems like they're such a good parent. you watch their kids being loved and tended to and having a steady home. they receive love and affection constantly. but your fosters pay less and less attention to you as they have babies. and now your a stray to the man you look up to so much. and the man who probably taught you how to put an exopack on has less and less time for you. no one has time for you. you're no one's child. no one's priority. just a stray. a nuisance. and you don't truly belong anywhere.

no one was putting him first. children need to be someone's priority. psychology. they need it.

and then the RDA returns. the McCoskers leave, Spider is expected to leave everything he has ever known, to join the very people he hates and has been trying so hard since he could understand what it meant, to prove that he wasn't like them. Jake, the man he once looked up to, was telling him to leave. sending him away. stripping him of the little amount of family he could somewhatly claim, that being his siblings.

once again, Jake is his chief, should be looking out for him. not even as a father, per say, but as his duty to Spider as his chief. a chief should never be sending away his most vulnerable ward, a child he should consider his own (as all of his clans children should be one with his own children), to the opposing enemy force.

this happens again when they're running away, Jake tells him ever more directly to hide in the forest alone until the RDA stops shooting at everything that moves and then turn himself in so he can his own children could run. once again, putting him last, instead of protecting all of them.

then for a year, Spider has no family. no one. the McCoskers are gone and no one has stepped up to bat for him. he's 15/16 and alone. his the big sibling to the Sully's. those kids are all he has, but they aren't really looking out for him. he's looking out for them. cause he's the oldest. that's just how it is. he is one with the clan. lives with them. does chores. watches out for his siblings, the whole nine. but Jake isn't doing his duty of watching out for his ward. he is once again giving and giving and giving, and not receiving.

and then he is taken, he is taken, and while Jake may not have had the means to go back for Spider, or been able to take the risk of going back for him, he abandons him without a thought for his safety, and puts his children first. it's the language and attitude be poses towards the situation that is wild to me. he has every right to be worried about his children, but he could not spare Spider an ounce of concern, even knowing the danger he was in, and is more concerned about him spilling details then anything else. Spider is, once again, not his first, second, or even third priority. he is a means to an end. a necessary loss.

people only care about Spider when there's nothing else they can put before him.

[timethehobo]

It’s so rare for a game to give us a canon older character romance option (who looks their age) and I’m so damn ready.

[fyllophobia]

seliph & ares commission, thank you!

[natalievoncatte]

Spoilers for Arcane Season 2. Ending Spoilers.

The tables had turned, and now Vi was the one waiting. She was so tired, so utterly absolutely tired of being the one to helplessly watch. As she waited she flexed her fingers and tugged at her wraps, sometimes rolled her shoulder as if, suddenly, there was something she could do with all her strength. Her knuckles were still sore from punching the wall in Jinx’s cell.

It had all happened so fast. How long had it been? The sun had set, but she’d lost track of time. She wasn’t leaving this room, no matter what.

Part of her had almost run. When she lurched down from the hexgate, limping and dragging one depowered gauntlet with the other, spotting Caitlyn alive had made her heart sing, a bright spot that kept the hollow in her chest from collapsing in on itself and pulling her on with it. She had someone. She had a reason.

Cait saw her, took two steps, and collapsed in a heap, bleeding profusely from her left eye, her uniform soaked in blood from a gash on her flank.

Vi didn’t think she had it in her to run that fast. She’d ignored her own injuries. Nothing mattered but keeping Cait safe. Picking her up and carrying her left Vi herself covered in blood. There was so much, but somehow Cait was still breathing.

She lay in her own bed, chest softly rising and falling. She looked like she was merely asleep, unbothered even though the left side of her face was a mass of bandages and there was a bottle of fluids feeding into her arm.

Vi felt the silent presence in the room and glanced towards the door.

Tobias.

The last thing she remembered him saying in her presence was “what is she still doing here?”

He hadn’t said a word to her, even though she stood by for hours while he and the other doctors had worked on Caitlyn. Barely even looked at her. He wasn’t even the one who handed her a cloth mask to wear over her face and he said nothing to her of Cait’s condition or her prognosis.

It was the same when he came to stand by the bed. An awkward pall fell over the palatial bedroom and Vi couldn’t look at him. The man has already lost his wife and his daughter lay maimed in her bed and might not wake up. What was there to say?

He shuffled awkwardly and Vi noticed he was carrying something. He put the bundle on the bed.

“Clean yourself up. You’re filthy.”

Vi blinked. She’d discarded the jacket of her uniform, but the blood had soaked through to her undershirt, and she was battered and bloodied herself. She’d almost broken her arm and her right shoulder was screaming. Her clothes were crusted with dirt and other people’s blood.

He was not wrong.

“I brought you these, they’re mine. I don’t think anything of Caitlyn’s will fit you.”

Vi muttered a soft, confused “thank you” and took the bundle of clothes, briefly wondering where she should go, before she remembered that Cait had her own bathroom.

As Vi walked inside, she felt a cold rush on her skin. She still couldn’t comprehend that she was allowed here, among all this marble and brass. Cait’s bathroom was big enough to live in. The shower alone was as big as the hovel she’d been living in between bouts and binges.

As she began to undress she realized how tired she was. Every movement was stiff. As she peeled herself out of the uniform she unwrapped bruise after bruise, bloodstain after bloodstain, a road map of agony from head to toe.

The water was a revelation, almost unbearably hot. Old blood and grime sluiced between her toes as the water scorched her back and soaked her hair, the remaining dye sluicing in dark tendrils down her skin.

I don’t deserve this, she thought. I failed everyone. Vander is gone. Jinx is gone. I thought I could be free if I could let Jinx go, but am I free or just empty.

It should have been her.

Even Caitlyn’s towels were luxurious. She’d never felt anything so soft in her life. The heat had loosened her up a little but she still felt creaky and her joints ached. She picked up the shirt Tobias had brought her; she thought it was meant to sleep in. The fabric was even softer, and it felt alien on her skin. It hung too low thanks to Tobias’ height, but it was big enough for her save where her arms and shoulders strained the fabric.

Once she was dressed, Vi returned to the bedroom. She hoped desperately to step out and see Cait sitting up and talking but she was still just lying there, steady but shallow breaths and all, Tobias seated on the edge of the bed and fussing over her.

Vi took the same chair and sighed softly, feeling not much better, just cleaner.

“Let me look at you.”

His voice startled her so much that she simply meekly complied and let him examine the florid bruises on her hand where her knuckles had crashed into the cell wall, even when he gently cupped her chin and turned her head this way and that, staring individually into each eye.

“I know you must hate me.”

His hand fell away. He would no longer look at her. He stood up and turned around, peering through a gap in the curtains.

“I did at first. At first I was so angry. Her whole life, Caitlyn has been obsessed with these notions of justice and progress, with making the Enforcers honorable and just and helping the Undercity, making amends and rebuilding. She’s always had such a kind heart. Then this happened. The Undercity killed my wife, and to me you were the Undercity. Not to mention that every single time you bring her home she’s hurt, and worse than the last time.”

A cold ball clenched in Vi’s gut. He was right. How many more times could this happen before Vi was bringing him back a body and not his daughter?

She was the jinx, wasn’t she?

Tobias’ shoulders hitched and Vi realized he was crying softly.

“I lost one of the two people I live for in an instant… and then began watching the other slip away, piece by piece. Caitlyn became harsh and cold while you were gone. She barely spoke to me, instead spending all her time with that Noxian bitch and her pet whispering poison into her ear. I thought I’d lost her.”

He turned. “Then she brought you in her half dead and begged me to save you and she was just my little girl again, just for a moment.”

Vi’s head snapped up and their gazes briefly met before he broke away.

“Is she going to be okay?” Vi asked softly.

“Okay?” said Tobias. “Okay? I had to remove her eye, Violet. She’s lucky the dagger didn’t pierce her gut or she’d die of sepsis. Now you ask me if-“

He froze, giving Vi a shocked look before his face fell.

“I don’t know what things will ever be between the two of us, but we have her in common, I can see that. Yes, I think she will. My daughter is stronger than you think.”

“I know.”

He turned to leave, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll return in an hour to look in on her. I know what you’re thinking. It’s safe.”

After he left, Vi had to ponder what he meant by that, then it struck her.

Carefully, Vi climbed on the bed, settling beside Cait, nervously settling her weight into the impossibly soft mattress. The bed was so enormous that she had plenty of room.

All she wanted was for Cait to wake up, to hold her again. She had to settle for reaching across the bed and curling her aching fingers around Cait’s limp hand.

She was so tired. Fatigue pressed down on her like a weight and sank her into the bed. Before long, her eyelids grew heavy and she began drifting off despite wrestling to stay awake.

She woke in full dark, the lights doused. Someone had thrown a blanket on her and the bottle of drugs hanging beside Caitlyn had been replaced. Vi sighed, starting to pull her hand free of Cait’s.

She found she couldn’t. Cait’s grip was alarmingly strong weak but her fingers had curled around Vi’s palm and held fast. Her good eye was open, glittering brilliant blue in the dark.

“Violet?” Cait murmured, her voice small and parched.

“That’s my name,” said Vi. Her voice was thick and she choked up a little. “I’m here, Caitlyn.”

“Good,” Cait sighed. “If you’d died I’d kill you.”

Vi snorted.

“I didn’t say this before. I was afraid of what might happen if I did,” Cait rasped. “I love you.”

She squeezed Vi’s palm, not very hard but enough.

“You’re in love with an angry oil slick?”

“My angry oil slick.”

They were quiet for a moment. Cait turned and looked at the ceiling.

“I would understand if… if you feel differently after everything I did to you. I’m sorry, Vi. I’m sorry I hit you, I’m sorry I did those awful things.”

“Cait.”

“I was so angry, I couldn’t-“

“Cait,” Vi insisted. “I love you, too.”

Cait closes her eyes -eye- and smiled softly.

“So you’re in love with an unhinged mongoose?”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

Cait laced her fingers through Vi’s and squeezed, hard.

“No. I am not letting go.”

[monkayy]

[xxplastic-cubexx]

erik will genuinely jump at any chance he can to steal charles' last name and be so catty about it i know this for a fact WHAT is his deal

[Magneto (2011)]