#idk what this is!

[forgottenarthur]

Storm at the Gates | Arthur & Aria

"They're out there!" Arthur stabbed a finger in the direction. "They're at our gates! This requires a resolution and I can give it! Please! Father! Now is the time! Let me--"

"NO!" boomed the emperor. Roderick Varmont's gaze was steel, tooth to tooth in full snarl. "You will do nothing of the sort. This is not a matter requiring imperial intervention."

Breath hissed between his clenched teeth. "Once before, Father, I stood in this position while a riot overtook the people in my charge. I cannot stand by--"

"MY charge!" declared Roderick, rising from his throne. "These people are no concern of yours, boy! And there is no trouble here! You will report to safety and you will do nothing. That is an order!"

Arthur's shoulders hunched. He couldn't slow the pounding in his chest. He tore his gaze away, towards the sandstone floor. "Yes, Your Imperial Majesty," he bit out, at last, tracing a cursory bow and stalking out of the room.

All around him, shrieks echoed through the corridors. This was wrong, he thought. All wrong. All his life, Arthur had trained, sword in hand, heavy armor banding his body like a steel glove. He was meant to be a warlord. He was meant to fight, not to cower behind stone. The gates boomed. They were pushing against them.

Even at Kil-Kennar he'd not hidden. At Kil-Kennar, he'd led the charge, when he might have quelled them, instead. The great gates shook. Arthur balled his fists. He was naked without his sword. Without his armor. And Kil-Kennar was all around him. He smelled the metallic tang of blood. The battered gates boomed in his chest. Screams echoed in his earts. It was all come again. Aine's bright red blood splashed upon Daybreak's gleaming blade and too-hot upon his own face. Weeping, screaming. Even then he might have spared lives. Even then...

Boom, boom! The gates clanked and clattered and Arthur had not even a sword.

'Hold fast!' some past version of him had barked to his men. The people howled outside. They wanted blood, red as the banners he'd used to claim Kil-Kennar. His men were praying. Pleading. There were far too few.

'We fight for our emperor!' Arthur had shouted. 'We fight for our lives! And we fight for our god! Hold fast and take heart, for there are no greater warriors in all the world! Today, all who raise their swords with me are sons of our divine emperor, my own brothers in bloodshed! Emmissaries of the true god, your deeds shall never be forgot!' He had them, now. He could feel it. When he had finished speaking, Arthur unsheathed Daybreak, turning towards the shivering gates. 'Those men are calling for blood. Let's give it to them!'

His words has swayed them. He knew it well. The cowering men had taken heart, rising, a hundred swords unsheathing with his own. But the consequences had been terrible. They were all of them -- soldier and rioter, alike -- his people. His responsibility. Every drop of blood had been his own, every broken bone, and every life forever altered. If he had only spoken out to the crowd...

He still might. They were at the gates, again, crying out for justice. He had taken justice from them before. But this time...this time it could all put to rights. Aine's life could not be restored, but the Stafford name could! How could it be worth all this bloodshed? Arthur turned back towards the room he'd just left, about to march back into his father's presence, but he recalled, then, his emperor's final words. If he spoke, now, it would not be with the voice of the god. It would be his own mortal hubris. It would be a sacreligious betrayal of his own true emperor, the God's own Champion. He could not.

Still and half shivering, Arthur turned his back upon the shuddering gate. He felt sick, nausea rising towards the crown of his heart with each heartbeat. He darted for the stairs. There was nothing he could do out there but, he reminded himself, there was something he might still do within these high walls. He knew where the women and children would be sheltered. he could take charge of the guard, he could see to it that they were all kept safe within the walls. He breathed a little easier at the thought, yet still the booms shrieked in his ears. Up and up and up he wound, mind turning over to his mother, his sister...and to Aria. The Queen and the Princess would be well protected, he had no doubt, his father's men would die defending them, if needs must, but Aria? Where was she? Who would look to her safety beyond keeping charge over some kind of prize?

Sucking in a deep breath, Arthur ran up and up and up, taking two stairs at a time. He had to find her. The first two places he looked, she was not, but at last he came to a small room, high above and replete with windows. Fear was a bird hovering just at his heart, weightier and weightier with every room he checked. God, he prayed. God, save her. He couldn't let her be hurt no matter what, but even worse to think of her injured with the way they'd left things after the Ice Ball! Yet, as he came into the room, his prayers were answered. There stood Eilionora and Aria. His heart was in his mouth to see her so close to danger.

"What are you thinking?!" barked Arthur at the guards, storming into the room. "Get them away from the windows! These rabble-rousers have projectiles! It's not safe!"

Eyes widening, the guards jumped to attention, moving in towards the women, but as soon as they moved to draw them from the windows, Eilionora resisted. Arthur ignored them all, stepping up to Aria, himself, and pulling her away, towards a dark corner of the room while the soldiers dealt with her struggling sister.

"What were you thinking?!" demanded Arthur, hands fluttering anxious across her waist, her arms, her shoulders, her head with its crown of ebony hair, searching for any wounds. She was so slight, her eyes wide, and his heart was a hammer, hands frantic in their search. What would he do if something had happened?

But he couln't think of that, couldn't think at all, as the weight of her eyes fell upon his. His questing hands slowed. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes bright. She looked at him. He couldn't breathe. Her breath was warm. One hand stopped at her waist, pulling her close. The other touched her face. The heat of her satin skin. His thumb gently traced the sweep of her cheek. He tucked a strand of unruly hair behind her ear. "Are you all right?"

[passivenovember]

Billy opens the black velvet box and says nothing.

Steve wrings his hands. Thinks about wrining his own neck. He runs through everything Robin said to him, every ending to every nightmare he's ever had about this moment and locks those thoughts out in the cold.

This is the worst and hardest and most--

Terrifying thing Steve will ever do.

He counts to fifty. Thinks, if he can make it through this promise he can make it through anything.

And Billy doesn't get it.

His knuckles are white on the lip of the coffee table, sock feet peeking gently from where they're tucked against Billy's pajama pants, and.

His cheeks are red and pillow lined. Nap-fresh. Babyfaced.

And it hits Steve right through the center of the chest. It's like taking a nail gun to the upper lip, stubbing every toe on each foot against a wall that's caught fire-

Steve loves him.

More than anything.

And, he used to think that was a figure of speech. I love you more than anything--that it wasn't possible for a man to love someone more than he loves the sound of his grandmother's Sunday service voice, or the first winter frost, or the amber tint of the sky at dusk--

But. Billy wets his lips. "I don't know what it means," He admits finally.

And Steve loves him.

More than--

"Anything," Steve hears himself say. His mouth is dry, cotton all the way down. "It means anything you want it to. Anything you want to give me."

Because it doesn't matter, what Billy's answer is. If he shuts the velvet-lined box and tilts it back across the table. If he gets up and puts his boots on and stomps out the front door and never comes back ever again, because.

"I got it for you because we're too young to get married," Steve tells the coffee table. "Because I just wanted you to know that I would if I could. Because you're. Everything."

Steve's heart bangs on his uvula. Asks to be let out along with his breakfast and all his fear, where it sits bottled in the back of his throat.

Billy sits like that for a long time. Civilizations rise and fall around them. They both turn to stone, to pillars of salt, to galaxies full of stars, and back again, until.

Billy puts the ring on his finger.

Billy puts the ring on his finger, and the entire ocean of love inside of this room, this house on Hawkins hill, calms.

It sleeps, lapping gently at Steve's own left hand when Billy takes it and nestles the matching ring where it belongs.

Steve is swallowed whole

[tuckersdeslauriers]

Chenford + I don’t know what you want from me.

"I don't know what you want from me," she grins, biting gently on the rim of her glass, her eyes aglow as she raises a brow at him. Tim swallows, pursing his lips, keeping quiet. He raises his own brow back at her and she lets her shoulders go slack, laughing as she relaxes back into the couch and sets her glass down on the side table. "What? I don't. You haven't said."

"You really don't know what I want from you?" His voice is soft, sincere, and he can tell that it gets to her. Lucy's cheeks flush and her hair falls over her face as she slides in closer to him, her hand pressing gently into his leg as it moves from his knee to his thigh. He reaches out and pushes her hair out of the way, smiling gently as she meets his gaze.

She shakes her head, her voice so quiet he swears she's mouthing the word, "no," as she says it. He takes a slow pull from his beer, then leans forward to set it down on the coffee table before moving to pull her into his lap. She laughs, letting him tug her right where he wants her, then rests her hands lightly against his chest. She fiddles with the tiny buttons on his henley, not actually doing anything with them more than just busying herself and avoiding his eyes. "What, baby?"

He chuckles, settling his hands on her waist where her shirt's ridden up from her jeans. "Hmm," he murmurs, pressing his thumbs lightly into her skin, his eyes settled on her mouth. "What do I want from you, love?"

Lucy looks up at him, her eyes serious for a moment, full, before she softens and tips her head to the side. "Yeah," she nods gently. "What do you want from me, love?"

Tim licks his lips, the candlelight warm as it casts over her face. He hums softly, sliding one of his hands further up her waist, letting it brush over her ribs as her fingers graze up to his neck, tapping lightly against his pulse. "Everything," he murmurs, doing his best to sound casual.

She swallows, raising her brow at him. "That's a big ask," she breathes, leaning in closer, her nose nudging against his own. "Don't you think?"

He ghosts his lips against hers, quiet and thoughtful as he drags his thumb along the curve of her waist slowly. "Not when you're asking the right person," he decides after a long few moments of the only perceptible sounds being their breath and the soft crackling of the candle's wick.

She doesn't bother agreeing with him verbally, but he can feel that she knows exactly what he means in her kiss.

[writhe]

*suddenly does a u turn and skitters down a gravel road while braking hard and hops feverishly out of my car with a knife and runs to these because i’d spotted them driving and thought they were chicken of the woods only to find i was wrong*

[pinkandblueblurbs]

being bratty to rick grimes!!!

“Quit bein’ stubborn” Rick says calmly as he cleans out his gun, unimpressed by your crossed arms and petulant scowl.

“I ain’t bein’ stubborn, you’re bein’ an ass!”

Rick turns around to face you, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “‘Scuse me?” He takes a step towards you, and it takes everything in you not to back away. “You wanna try that again?”

You swallow, faltering enough that you can’t say the insult again. All you manage is a muttered repetition of “I ain’t bein’ stubborn.”

“No?” He comes closer to you, his tone patronizing. “What is it, then, you want attention? That why you’re bein’ a brat?”

You blink up at him dumbly, eyes wide, and the look in his eye compels you to keep your mouth shut.

“Cause I’ll give you attention. But you ain’t gonna like it.”

[buffyspeak]

Prometheus, who stole fire

Summary: There's always a consequence for bringing someone back from the dead. The real question is this: who's the one paying for it? 

ao3 link

It’s eleven-twelve, which means it’s almost the worst moment of Clary’s life, suspended in the stifling Institute air, the smell of death and salt-lake brine taunting her.

Clary arranges his pillow as Jace lies back on the bed, a strategically cut sheet of plastic that just manages to cover the bed placed under him.

“Okay?” she said, then shakes her head. It’s a stupid question.

Jace tries to smile for her. It doesn’t reach the brilliant shine of his eyes.

“It’s all good, Clary. No more I’m sorrys, remember?”

“I love you,” she offers, as small it feels, and brushes a loose strand of hair out of his eyes to tuck it behind his ear. Jace opens his mouth like he’s going to respond, but he chokes on it, and when Clary looks down, his shirt is soaked through with blood.

They’ve tried dressing the wound before. There’s not much point when it heals back up after he wakes, like it was never there, and when his blood is fully replenished. Like it never happened.

Still, “I’m sorry,” Clary says and holds his hand through it. She’s not sure how much pain he feels and how much is lost to numbness. She never asks. “I’m sorry.”

She stays there until the tight grip of his hands goes lax and his eyes flutter closed.

If she was any less selfish, she’d stay with him the whole time, whether it takes hours or minutes. It varies a lot.

As it is, though she can’t leave the room—someone needs to be here when he wakes—she can’t quite bring herself to stay at his bedside, his skin growing colder against hers, his face growing sick and pale and alien to her.

So she grabs her sketchbook from her bookshelf, and then sits with her back to the side of it, legs crossed and back stiff against the dark wood.

The whole scene doesn’t coax much inspiration from her.

What would she even draw? Her boyfriend dying? His greying skin? Their other friends? Izzy, with her trusting, unknowing eyes, and Simon with that smile that’s always believed in her goodness. It’s laughable.

Or the mother she couldn’t save, didn’t save, didn’t wish for.

Or then there’s Alec, with dark circles painted under his eyes, panic and terror masking themselves as anger in his unyielding expression.

Jace has deluded himself into thinking that Alec can’t feel it. Clary, for her part, knows they’ve ruined his life, too. He’s stopped asking questions, but he’s also stopped speaking to either of them much at all, except to send them out on mission.

They’ve been making it work, but Clary wonders how long that can last. There are few things she fears more than the day when they’re late getting back and he goes down and doesn’t get up again. When a demon spots how weak she’s made him in the moments afterward, when he breathes back to life, disoriented.

When he dies on her for real.

Clary shakes her head out of the thought and looks back over to where Jace lies.

Yup, still dead.

Unbidden, her mind conjures swirling images, merged together from memories of some mythology class she took in school—Prometheus, who stole fire. Sisyphus. And that goddamn boulder.

All the legends are fucking true, Clary thinks, and without conscious thought, she slams her sketchbook shut and lets it clatter to the ground as she pulls her knees to her chest. She closes her eyes, but not for long, because when she does, she’s back at Lake Lyn, the salty breeze of it on the tip of her tongue, the angel bright and solemn, on the very precipice of this existence. The way she’d forced her will into becoming his.

Valentine’s eyes as she worked the dagger in. Once, then twice, then three times for good measure. After she’d already slit his throat, too.

She leans her head back against the wood.

It’s worth it, she thinks, even as she turns to Jace and he’s still lying there, the room nauseatingly quiet. It has to be.

Clary feels acidic bile rise in her throat. But she chokes it back. And then she picks up her pencil.

Clary arranges his pillow as Jace lies back on the bed, a strategically cut sheet of plastic that just manages to cover the bed placed under him.

“Okay?” she said, then shakes her head. It’s a stupid question.

Jace tries to smile for her. It doesn’t reach the brilliant shine of his eyes.

“It’s all good, Clary. No more I’m sorrys, remember?”

“I love you,” she offers, as small it feels, and brushes a loose strand of hair out of his eyes to tuck it behind his ear. Jace opens his mouth like he’s going to respond, but he chokes on it, and when Clary looks down, his shirt is soaked through with blood.

They’ve tried dressing the wound before. There’s not much point when it heals back up after he wakes, like it was never there, and when his blood is fully replenished. Like it never happened.

Still, “I’m sorry,” Clary says and holds his hand through it. She’s not sure how much pain he feels and how much is lost to numbness. She never asks. “I’m sorry.”

She stays there until the tight grip of his hands goes lax and his eyes flutter closed.

If she was any less selfish, she’d stay with him the whole time, whether it takes hours or minutes. It varies a lot.

As it is, though she can’t leave the room—someone needs to be here when he wakes—she can’t quite bring herself to stay at his bedside, his skin growing colder against hers, his face growing sick and pale and alien to her.

So she grabs her sketchbook from her bookshelf, and then sits with her back to the side of it, legs crossed and back stiff against the dark wood.

The whole scene doesn’t coax much inspiration from her.

What would she even draw? Her boyfriend dying? His greying skin? Their other friends? Izzy, with her trusting, unknowing eyes, and Simon with that smile that’s always believed in her goodness. It’s laughable.

Or the mother she couldn’t save, didn’t save, didn’t wish for.

Or then there’s Alec, with dark circles painted under his eyes, panic and terror masking themselves as anger in his unyielding expression.

Jace has deluded himself into thinking that Alec can’t feel it. Clary, for her part, knows they’ve ruined his life, too. He’s stopped asking questions, but he’s also stopped speaking to either of them much at all, except to send them out on mission.

They’ve been making it work, but Clary wonders how long that can last. There are few things she fears more than the day when they’re late getting back and he goes down and doesn’t get up again. When a demon spots how weak she’s made him in the moments afterward, when he breathes back to life, disoriented.

When he dies on her for real.

Clary shakes her head out of the thought and looks back over to where Jace lies.

Yup, still dead.

Unbidden, her mind conjures swirling images, merged together from memories of some mythology class she took in school—Prometheus, who stole fire. Sisyphus. And that goddamn boulder.

All the legends are fucking true, Clary thinks, and without conscious thought, she slams her sketchbook shut and lets it clatter to the ground as she pulls her knees to her chest. She closes her eyes, but not for long, because when she does, she’s back at Lake Lyn, the salty breeze of it on the tip of her tongue, the angel bright and solemn, on the very precipice of this existence. The way she’d forced her will into becoming his.

Valentine’s eyes as she worked the dagger in. Once, then twice, then three times for good measure. After she’d already slit his throat, too.

She leans her head back against the wood.

It’s worth it, she thinks, even as she turns to Jace and he’s still lying there, the room nauseatingly quiet. It has to be.

Clary feels acidic bile rise in her throat. But she chokes it back. And then she picks up her pencil.

[corroded-coffin]

comfy cuddle date nite

[everoutoftouch]

If you have Spotify reblog this and tag what your number one song on your “on repeat” playlist is.

[retrobr]

I have no excuses and no regrets

[swordbeliever]

tried to vent in a trans space about how, as a trans man who’s been on T for a long time (over 7 years now), i have noticed that the more i pass as a man, the less welcomed i am in queer spaces unless i go out of my way to feminize myself. and how that sucks! and it’s isolating!!! and it feels horrible to see ppl who used to like you and be close to you drift further and further the more masculine (& therefore more comfortable in urself) u become…

only to get ppl replying to me and saying “well if you dressed more fem then ppl wouldn’t be intimidated by you. you signed up for this”

i’m sorry but i didnt sign up for social isolation when i transitioned, i signed up for gender euphoria and comfort in myself and my life. and i had hoped that the ppl in my life would be able to see how much joy that brings me and continue to love me.

[sylvies-kablooie]

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

[noddynods]

Story of my life

[dracoj]

what they dont tell you about adulthood is that it’s startlingly easy to go long periods of time without having any fun at all not even a little bit. btw this makes ur brain try to kill you with knives and hammers.

[cowboysmp3]

there’s something sooo sickening about how dunmeshis whole energy is like sometimes something terrible and awful happens to you and it changes you forever and nothing can make you the person you were before but there’s still love and there’s still sharing a meal together and there’s still living

[some-pers0n]

I hate how people will look at popular indie artists who had one or two songs go viral on TikTok and start making fun of anybody who listens to them. "Oh you listen to Lemon Demon, Will Wood, Jack Stauber, Glass Animals, and Mother Mother? Tsk, don't you know that is stupid TikTok neurodivergent white transmasc preteen music? It's so mid and bad you should listen to real music–" you are a pit of misery

[factavius]

If you're reading this, you're on Tumblr!