#im gonna keep it for nostalgia though

[icallhimjoey]

More!!! More!!!! More bookstore!joe! MORE!!!!!!!!!! we've seen his erratic behaviour when he visits the store after not having been able to come in for a while, but what about the visit before he knows he's not going to be able to come in for a while?

omg im so here for the bookstore!joe requests, but the "i already miss you even though youre still here" somehow turned into whatever this is... idk why i went where i went, my apologies, and tw for vomit Wordcount: 3K

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Lost Moments To Keep

You hadn't stopped staring at Joe with the biggest eyes. You seemed confused and weirdly mesmerised. Your eyes tunneled a little, vision darker around the edges.

"That's Joe." Anne just said, and then your eyes moved to give her the same wild look.

"And I'm Anne. We like me, a lot. We don't like Joe. You've got temporary loss of normal brain function, look, Google says." Anne held her phone to your face, too close for anything to register.

"You're not helping, Anne." Joe scolded through clenched teeth.

"Wha–"

Joe was on the phone to someone, and... you knew who that was. You knew who that was. What the fuck. What was Joe Quinn doing in your bookstore?

And why were you on the floor, exactly? Your left elbow hurt, but the back of your head much worse.

"Yea, she's awake. She hasn't lost consciousness at all." Joe said to whoever was on the other side of the line. "Confused, though. Brain's all scrambled."

"Do you feel dizzy? Google says you might feel dizzy."

"I... what day is it?"

"Oh my God, she's asking what day it is." Anne said, turning to Joe like she was blaming him for what you'd asked. In Anne's terms, she was panicking. Anyone who didn't know her, though, would think she was being exceptionally calm given she'd just witnessed her boss lift a box of books that tipped her over backwards.

Your head hurt.

And you did feel dizzy. And nauseous too, a little.

It made sense that you had fallen, but it was strange to not remember and to have two strangers fret over you in your own business.

Your eyes darted from the worried face of famous actor Joe Quinn who was stood by your feet, to the wildly uninterested face of a younger girl who sat next to you with her legs crossed as she scrolled on her phone.

"Any vision disturbance? Are you more sensitive to light than you'd usually be, do you think?" Anne asked, seemingly going down a list she'd found online.

"Okay, thanks. We'll make sure she doesn't move until you get here." Joe looked at you as he said goodbye and hung up. That looked like your phone.

"Her mum's on her way."

Why was he using your phone?

"Any mental fogginess?" Anne continued, ignoring Joe and additionally ignoring you, entirely unfussed that you weren't answering any of her questions.

"Hey," Joe softly said, catching your attention as he stepped closer and leant an elbow on the counter as he bent down a little. He smiled warmly at you when he asked, "How are you feeling?"

Joe Quinn.

Joseph Quinn.

What was he doing in your bookstore?

And who the fuck was Anne?

Your eyes moved from one to the other until you saw black spots and the pain behind your eyes grew. Your ears were ringing when you softly said, "I'm... I'm gonna throw up."

Joe almost hadn't gone in today. He almost hadn't, because he didn't really have any time to waste. But, Jesus, he was glad he was there.

God, imagine if he hadn't been.

When Joe had woken up that morning, he thought he was likely going actually insane. He was flying out for work the next day, and instead of preparing, of packing, of seeing family and friends before he'd be off for a while - instead of all that, he showed up on the bookstore's doorstep at 10 am sharp. Right when Anne unlocked and opened the door. Just because that was where he wanted to be. He kind of already missed the store, even though he was right there.

Anticipatory nostalgia; Joe could feel it in his bones.

Instead of stepping aside and letting him in, she gave him a deadpan tired stare and waited for him to take the A-frame from her hands to put outside on the pavement.

Joe happily helped out. Said, "Good morning, sunshine!" all chipper and laughed when Anne looked like she had to try really hard not to vomit.

He'd called a good morning into the store, got a faint "Morning!" in reply from the backroom where you were making yourself a coffee, and found his ledge... empty.

Anne saw him look at the spot where he usually left the books that he was reading. You'd granted him that small little surface area of the store so you wouldn't have to keep putting his books back on the shelves, and so Joe wouldn't have to go looking for those same books again the next time he'd come in. A win win little ledge of excuses for Joe to return to your store. A real privilege, Joe thought.

Except he'd left books there.

He knew he did.

Where had they gone?

"I tidied." Anne said unsentimentally and challengingly looked at Joe over her mug as she took a sip of hot coffee.

She loved being a little shit and inconveniencing Joe wherever and whenever she could. Tidying the store was part of her job, and Joe knew if he was to complain, she'd have the upper hand, because what was he even really doing? The store wasn't a library, no matter how much he had starting treating it like one.

So instead, Joe used her inconvenient power move as an excuse to take his time to browse the whole store and took care to be in the exact wrong spot at the exact wrong time.

You secretly smiled every time you heard Anne sigh with frustration and heard her mutter, "Move!" under her breath before using a shoulder to push him aside. Every single time, Joe pretended he was totally oblivious. Would go, "Oh! Sorry! Was I in the way?" all innocently, but you could see how his mouth was fighting to keep his own smile hidden.

It took maybe forty minutes for Joe to have built up a little stack of books on the small sidetable next to your granddad's armchair in the window, and then Joe sat and read undisturbed for an hour and a half.

You loved it when Joe was in.

Just sat there.

Reading.

Absolutely engrossed in his own little world.

The faint feeling of envy was always overshadowed by the joy of being allowed to unashamedly stare at him from the counter, leant on both elbows.

You'd brought him a coffee after those 90 minutes of silent reading, and he'd given you a quick wink and a smile as a thank you.

Customers filtered in and out, and you went from moments of it just being Joe in the store to having eight people needing your attention simultaneously. It was both busy and not, and the switches in energy had left you in a weird spot mentally.

You hadn't realised you'd fully skipped lunch.

You'd seen Joe dart out for some pastries, and you'd ordered Anne to get her ass into the back to go and eat something, but you never followed up on your "I'll take my lunch after."

It was why, in a moment of quiet, you'd picked up a box of books from behind the counter that had sort of been in the way the whole morning, you been unsuccessfull.

Maybe you'd gotten up too fast.

Or maybe the box was just too heavy.

The entire thing had taken you down quicker than you'd been able to get it off the floor. It didn't help that the box was open. The reflex of your body became about making sure none of the books would tip out and hit you in the face, when the reflex should've been about cushioning your fall.

You shot no arms out.

You didn't drop the box.

You just... fell.

The weight of the box pushed the air straight from your lungs and left you gasping.

The back of your head had hit the wooden floorboards so hard, you immediately saw stars.

After impact, for a short moment, it was pin-drop silent. Anne froze, pausing for a moment, listening. She was waiting for you to go "I'm all right!", but that never came.

Joe was ripped from his book at the sound of the fall, but was confused. One moment you'd been there, and then now, you were gone.

When a soft wincing gasp was heard from where you were hidden form his view, he was on his feet in an instant, rounding the counter and finding you there on the floor, box of books heavy on your stomach, eyes completely glazed over as you rapidly blinked up at the ceiling in an attempt to erase the fuzzy bits in your vision.

"Oh my G– Anne!" Joe was quick to remove the box and the books that were tumbling out. "Breathe. Careful, don't move, just focus on breathing." Joe advised as he watched you struggle.

"What dropped?" Anne asked, getting closer now and trying to find the source of the whack.

"She did."

"I know she did, but what was that–"

"That was her." Joe tried to make eye-contact. "Hey, just breathe, all right? Are you hurt?"

The eye-contact failed, as did answering Joe's question.

You hadn't even properly heard him it felt like.

Anne and Joe shared a look, for a moment both unsure of what to do. Who was going to take the lead on this? Joe didn't work there, but Anne was a literal teenager.

Before they could even think of discussing a game plan, you incoherently asked through a constricted panicked voice if anyone had thought of the fire escape. They both turned to look at you, both faces frowning in confusion.

"Huh?"

"What was that?"

Joe and Anne spoke at the same time.

"I think I forgot. Are the bugs gone?" you winced as you moved a hand to where your head hurt, and Joe was quick in deciding he was going to have to be the one to call the shots on this. He'd clearly chosen to spend all day at the bookstore for a reason, so it seemed.

It took a little while for you to return to normal.

You babbled through some more disjointed chat whilst Joe carefully checked with his fingers if your head was bleeding. It wasn't, which was good. But you did wince in pain as he slowly felt around in your hair before you tried to sit up and take your shoes off.

Anne had to fight you back down onto the floor and sternly told you to relax whilst Joe slid his folded jacket underneath your head.

When your consciousness returned into the room, you were met by a girl sat by your side who was scrolling through concussion symptoms, and a guy stood up by your feet, talking to someone on the phone.

"What's going on?" You'd asked, and Anne had just casually said, "You fell."

Joe'd called your mum on your phone. Anne knew the code. Joe told himself he'd give her a stern talk about normal-people things like privacy later. Priorities lied elsewhere right now.

And then you'd thrown up into the box of books that had taken you down earlier.

Served it right, Joe thought.

Joe'd held your hair through it, and kept brushing back little pieces that kept falling into your face. His touches were so tender and gentle but they still hurt, and you were absolutely mortified. So fucking embarrassed. There was a fucking celebrity in the store and you were vomming into a box of books that, halfway through, got swapped for an empty bucket.

It smelled awful, and it probably was the most unattractive thing in the world.

You felt like the most unattractive thing in the world.

"Sorry you had to see that." you croaked when Anne handed you a glass of water to rinse your mouth.

"We think you're concussed."

Somehow, that made perfect sense.

"You took quite the tumble. The back of your head must be hurting."

You moved to sit with your back against a cupboard door, careful to not lean your head back too far, and Joe decided to stay put next to you. Keep an eye on you. Hold your hair back in case you weren't quite done throwing up yet.

Meanwhile, Anne had moved into the backroom and did her best in trying to save whatever books she could from where you'd thrown up over them.

"Do you have any pain anywhere else?"

You paused a second to focus on the feelings inside of your body, and then moved an arm to touch the opposite elbow.

"Your elbow? Are you bleeding?" Joe used a soft hand to move your arm so he could have a look. "Does it hurt a lot?" No broken skin. Joe hoped that maybe the blow he'd heard had been your elbow, and not your actual skull.

"Stop asking her a million questions!" Anne shouted from the back, like she hadn't been doing the exact same thing before.

"You'd tell me if you weren't okay, wouldn't you?" Joe's voice remained soft and warm for you. All kind and gentle.

For a moment, you just looked at him.

"Hi," he smiled, and he saw how you were trying to puzzle the situation together. "I'm Joe."

"I know who you are."

"Oh, that's great!" Joe exclaimed.

"Were you... did you happen to just be in here to buy books, or..."

Oh.

Not so great.

You knew who he was, but you didn't know who he was.

"Um, no, not really. I actually come in here a lot. I um... you let me hog one of the armchairs where I read books."

"You do?"

"Yea, it's awfully rude of me." Joe smiled. "But I'm lucky. You're very cool about it."

Joe could feel his chest swell at the faintest hint of a smile coming from you.

"He's your boyfriend." Anne bluntly interrupted as she stepped back into the storefront, and before you could even begin to process that wild bit of information, she added, "But not really. The two of you are... you're really weird about it."

It sounded like a weird joke, and you looked between the both of them to figure out what the punchline was, because you didn't get it.

Joe just smiled when you looked at him.

"She hates it."

"I do." Anne confirmed, walking across the store to move the sign on the door to 'closed'. Your mum was going to come by and pick you up to get your head checked and there was no way Anne wasn't going to go with.

Joe craned his head to watch Anne as she went to fetch the A-frame out front and then leant close and whispered, "We kind of like that she hates it."

That made you smile into your lap.

"Have you um..." you started, suddenly frowning. "Do you have a plaster for me?"

Joe's concern immediately grew again. He wasn't quite back where he was twenty minutes ago, when you'd laid right where he was sitting now, unable to catch your breath properly, but his eyes bulged like he was just as worried anyway.

"Why? Are you bleeding? Where?"

"I've not finished my homework."

"You've not..." Joe tried to make sense of something nonsensical before he realised he'd lost you again.

Joe wondered if he could let someone know he wasn't going to be able to leave the city tomorrow. Let alone the fucking country. The prospect of leaving you like this for a few weeks and having to actually do a job seemed impossible.

How was he not going to be thinking about you all the time?

To be fair, his life was already like that, a little.

But especially now; after all this, no one could expect him to not constantly worry if you were all right, could they?

"I don't think I've got any plasters for you, sorry."

"Oh," you seemed disappointed, but only for a second. "You bought Blindness from me."

There you were. Back again. God, he really did already miss you, even though you were right there.

"I did."

"You hadn't... you'd not read it, but you'd seen the film."

"I had."

"I remember."

"Read it in one day."

You'd likely be fine.

People got concussions all the time, didn't they?

"Sorry, I'm all over the place."

"You're not actually," Joe smiled. "You're right here."

Joe was going to leave the country tomorrow, and you'd stay with your mum until you'd be one hundred per cent again. You would keep the store closed, so there was no use in him hanging around anyway. And then, when you'd be all better, he'd pop back in on a random Tuesday morning without any warning, and then he could tell you all about today. You'd likely not remember a thing of it, all of it a lost moment to you, but one that he'd get to keep. Get to cherish. Get to share with you later.

"My head hurts..." you suddenly said like you'd only just realised it.

"Yea, you fell." Joe could go through this loop again, he didn't mind.

"I did?"

"Hmm, we think you're concussed. Your mum is coming to pick you up, have you checked out by a doctor to double check and make sure you're okay."

"We?"

Joe saw how you went to reach for the back of your head again, but before your fingers could disappear into your hair, the bell above the door chimed and Anne said, "No sign of her yet."

"That's Anne." Joe calmly explained, and then reached to grab hold of your hand, protecting you from touching your painful bits again. He'd make sure to hold it until your mum arrived.

Joe saw your eyes grow wide as you recognised him again, and smiled.

"And I'm Joe."

---

The Taglisted

@ali-in-w0nderland, @alwayslindie, @babybluebex, @capricornrisingsstuff, @chaoticgood-munson,

@choke-me-eddie, @demonsanddemogorgons, @did-it-work, @dirtyeddietini, @djoseph-quinn,

@dolcevit4, @eddies-puppet, @emma-munson, @emotionaldreamer, @everythinghasafacee,

@figmentofquinn, @ghost-proofbaby, @ghostinthebackofyourhead, @hanahkatexo, @harringtonfan4,

@hazelenys, @jewellethief, @joesquinns, @keikoraven, @kennedy-brooke,

@lovelyblueness, @manda-panda-monium, @mandyjo8719, @mexicanfolklore, @munsonluvrr,

@munson-mjstan, @nadixq, @nglharry, @notverywise, @pepperstories,

@phyllosilicate-s, @royale1803, @sherrylyn0628, @sidthedollface2, @solzi1420,

@songforeddiemunson, @sweetberry47, @take-everything-you-can, @thebellenouvelle, @tlclick73,

@werepartnersnow, @winterwakesthewolf, @witchwolflea, @yelyahcardella, @yunirgo

taglist currently full, sorry

[carisisrolledupsleeves]

79. "we're not just friends you know that" with Sonny please please

thank you anon, i hope you like.....listening to one of my favorite songs (First Love/Late Spring by Mitski) inspired this....also Peter in Mutual Friends gif because I needed something pre-SVU (also i love Nate sm, iykyk)

i got a bit carried away with this ngl

PS: to anyone else sending prompts, im gonna be super busy in the next few days so i have no idea when ill be able to write again but keep on sending them!

‘Carisi, I swear to God you stay the fuck away from me with that water gun!’ you squeal while running to the other side of the pool to escape the ice-cold water stream he’s been trying to aim at you. 

‘You’re gonna get wet eventually!’ he warns with a smirk, making it sound incredibly suggestive. 

You shake your head at him and roll your eyes but you can’t help blushing at the same time. Admittedly, you love his childish attempts at teasing you, and you know in this atmosphere and with all the alcohol flowing this weekend, the flirting will only get worse. Not that it ever leads to anything. You’re just friends, it’s innocent. So far. And you tell yourself you don’t want it to go further even though you catch yourself staring, your eyes wandering over his body as he takes off his shirt. 

It’s always been like that between you two. Ever since you met as undergrads at St. John’s a few years ago, taking the same sociology course. Sonny ended up sitting next to you, and that same evening you found each other again at a party and had started talking. He was sweet, and funny, and you could see yourself falling for him immediately if it hadn’t been for your recent heartbreak, that grueling breakup from your highschool sweetheart. You’d still had feelings for your ex although looking back now, it must have been nostalgia, and the fact that along with him, you had left girlhood behind for good. Going off to college meant becoming an adult and starting this new chapter was scary. When you met Sonny, all you needed was a friend. And he had been an amazing friend to you all these years, without ever asking for more. 

‘What’s that?’ your girlfriend asks, pointing at your chin and you avert your gaze from Sonny. 

‘What?’ you instinctively touch your face.

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just swear I could see a bit of drool there.’ she laughs and you shove her.

‘Stop!’ 

‘Hey, I don’t blame you! He is hot. And you know he’s been checking you out in that bikini.’ she states and you swallow the lump in your throat just to let out an awkward laugh. 

‘We’re just playing around. You know how he is. It’s not that serious.’ you don’t know who you’re trying to convince, her or yourself. 

It’s true, your friendship has always been on the verge of becoming something more. The flirting wasn’t even the worst of it; it was the intimacy you shared, the fact that you had always been there for each other when times got tough. When Sonny questioned his choice of becoming a cop after finishing his degree in criminal justice, wishing he had gone to law school instead of the police academy. When your mom had that cancer scare and your dad was losing it, absolutely helpless and unable to take care of himself while she was getting her treatment. It wasn’t just fun and games. At the end of the day you had a deep and true friendship, and neither of you wanted to throw that away. 

But you can feel something shift. It is the way he looks at you as the sun goes down on that first day of your 4th of July weekend. Between laughs and giggles your eyes meet and he gets all quiet and serious, and there’s something in the air you can’t quite grasp. Or maybe it’s the way that friend of a friend asks you about him. If he’s single, and her smile in his direction when you tell her he’s not seeing anyone as far as you know. And then as you get tipsy in order to forget about it all, you realize that he’s keeping his distance for some reason, when he would normally be right by your side, having shots with you, annoying you with his lame jokes. 

Your phone vibrates and it’s a text from Sonny. A song by one of your favorite artists that you weren’t even aware he knew of. You look up to scan the crowd for him and find him sitting by the pool by himself, a bottle of beer in his hand. 

But I find that lately I’ve been crying like a tall child

You know the lyrics by heart, and there it is again, the lump in your throat. And that devastating feeling in your gut you’ve ignored so many times in the past. The longing to be close to him, to reach out and touch him, you’ve fought time and time again. His eyes meet yours and you draw in a sharp breath, wishing he would just go back to goofing around with you instead of this. Because this, you can’t come back from, you can’t undo.  

The only thing you can do is flee but he catches up with you just as you reach the top of the stairs, about to go hide in your room. Sonny’s hand grabs yours and you turn around to face him. And all of a sudden his lips are on yours.

Even if you wanted to protest, you can’t. It feels too good. After the initial shock you kiss him back, your hands are around his neck as his wrap around your waist. Maybe this isn’t right but you want it. You want him. Finally admitting it to yourself is your doom but what if it’s a blessing at the same time? Harboring this secret for so long, these fantasies you had about him and you, what if he’s had them too? Or was it all just another silly little game encouraged by the summer heat and booze?

Please, hurry, leave me, I can’t breathe

Please don’t say you love me

A spark shoots through you and starts to linger between your thighs as his tongue slips into your mouth, a needy moan on his breath. No, you can’t. You can’t give in to this if it’s simply a desire you have to satisfy, or curiosity. Your friendship means too much to you, and it would ruin everything. 

One word from you and I would jump off of this ledge I’m on, baby

Tell me “don’t” so I can crawl back in

You push him away and Sonny gives you a confused look, searching your eyes for the answer to a question that hasn’t been asked. 

‘We can’t, Sonny.’

‘Why not?’ 

‘Because…I know we would regret it. And then I would lose my best friend.’ you reply, looking down on the floor to avoid his blue eyes piercing into yours.

‘We’re not just friends, you know that.’ he whispers, his finger under your chin lifting up your head again. 

‘Don’t…’ you’re scared of what he’s going to say next but it bursts out of him.

‘I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. But I knew you were hurting and being your friend was enough for me. I would never ask for more if I didn’t think it is what you wanted as well. And now we’ve been in denial for so long, and I keep thinking, what if it’s all in my head, y’know? So, please. Tell me it’s not all just in my head.’ he pleads and you can see his eyes filling with tears and it feels like your heart is twisting around itself in your chest. 

‘It’s not just in your head.’ you assure softly, your hand reaching out to touch his cheek where an ecstatic smile appears. 

‘So you’re in love with me too?’ Sonny asks, sounding like a little boy. 

It’s time to let go of your fears. Your own insecurities that had been holding you back although he had always brightened your day, always made your heart beat faster, ever since he asked you your name on that very first day of college. 

‘I am, Dominick. I’m in love with you.’ you confess, biting your lip shyly before kissing him again. 

A sweet, timid kiss, and yet it doesn’t take long until you pull him towards your room, shoving him against the door the second it closes. He groans, his hands traveling under your short sundress before almost tearing it off you. The rest of your clothes, and his, follow, landing all across the room. 

‘Fuck, you should always be naked. You’re so beautiful.’ Sonny breathes as you push him down on the bed, straddling him. 

‘I would get arrested.’ you grin, feeling him hard against you.

‘Good thing I’m gonna be a cop soon.’ he chuckles, his hands wandering over your body, making you tremble as one finds its way to your wet folds.

‘Dominick…’ you moan his name as he starts dragging his fingers back and forth through you, his thumb on your clit, massaging there. His touch is heavenly. 

You lift your hips again to guide his hard cock into you, letting him fill you to the hilt as you sink down on him. Fuck. In all your wildest fantasies you could have never imagined how amazing he would feel, stretching you in the most delightful way, throbbing so deep inside you. His thighs tense as he lets out the prettiest moan, taking in the sensation of your pussy around him, so wet and tight.

‘God, baby, you…-fuck!’ Sonny pants as you start moving on him, your fingers digging into his shoulders, waves of pleasure already crashing over your body. 

Finally being with him is exhilarating. The way he grips your hips, pulling you down harder onto him, showing you exactly how badly he wanted you for all this time. And you’re desperate for him too; your lips on his neck, sucking, licking, nibbling as blind passion takes over. His deep moans are music to your ears, unleashing something inside you you didn’t know was there before. You push him back on the bed in order to ride him harder, and his mouth hangs open as he watches his cock disappear into your glistening cunt. It doesn’t take long and you’re both panting hot messes, close to your orgasms. Sonny reaches down to find your clit, rubbing tight circles and you clench around him in response, feeling yourself climbing towards that peak and you steady yourself on his chest, smiling down at him. 

‘’You’re so fucking hot.’ you purr breathlessly. ‘You’re gonna m-make me c-cum. Fuck! Dominick!’ 

He thrusts up into you roughly, hitting that sweet spot just right, sending you over the edge. You come hard, scratching his skin and making him hiss as your pussy twitches around his cock. Your orgasm is earth-shattering, and if it wasn’t for the loud music downstairs, everyone would have heard your moans, the string of curse words leaving your mouth as you shake. You keep riding him, your flushed body grinding against his as you feel him tensing beneath you, and he spills into you, crying out your name. Fuck, having him come inside you makes you feel even more delirious; having him rub your clit still, making you pulsate around him again and again. 

When you finally collapse next to him you are both struggling to catch your breaths, and your thighs are still shaking as he pulls you close, kissing your hair. You remain like this for God knows how long before you decide you’re in need of a shower and you get up, dragging Sonny with you to the bathroom where you turn on the light.

‘Oh shit!’ you gasp, staring at his chest.

‘Guess I will have to keep my shirt on for the rest of the weekend.’ Sonny states, as he looks down, noticing the red scratch marks all over his upper body.

‘I’m so sorry.’ you cover your mouth with your hand, looking at him apologetically. 

‘Don’t be. I like it.’ he bites his lip, wiggling his brows at you. 

You have to laugh, and he reaches out to tickle you, to make you laugh even harder. The excitement of it all makes you dizzy. Dominick makes you dizzy. And your hands are all over him once more as you step into the shower, the feeling of his body pressed against yours making you moan again.  

request a prompt from the smut prompt list 🔥

[lackadaisy-headcanon-supply-unit]

Can I request Mordecai with a dead gn crush who can visit him in his dreams and can appear as a ghost if he's near/in a near death situation?

And let's say he's in a situation where he would have died but then the reader is like "You're not supposed to be here, I'm sending you back." And he wakes up alive. I think that'd be pretty cool

I wound up putting these two together. I hope neither of you mind.

TW for described gore and brief character death

"MERDE!" Serafine slammed the driver's side door shut and threw the clutch into reverse, the screeching of tires making her pin her ears back against her skull."Merde, merde, MERDE!!"

A large paw gripped Mordecai's own when he tried to speak, to ask her to stay quiet. "Shhh, cher," Nico whispered. "You're gonna be alright."

The constant pain in his abdomen begged to differ. Against his better judgement, he looked down at his stomach—or what was left of it—and groaned as it churned when he was met with the bloody mess of his innards. Nico's paw tightened on his own and the tomcat had a rigid set to his jaw when Mordecai looked to him again, though he still managed an easygoing smile.

"Keep 'im talking!" Serafine snapped. "We all know it's what he likes to do. Ask 'im about 'is—ah...His—'is home life!"

"I'll keep 'im going." Nico's voice was surprisingly level. "You focus on getting us back home."

The car ran over a bump in the road. Mordecai ground his teeth and hissed in anger and pain. Nico steadied him with his free hand, let Mordecai let go of his paw and almost pulled him into his lap.

The car was either much more steady on this side or this cat had enough body mass to make up for the pitiful amount of shock absorbers in the vehicle. Mordecai raised his head and made it onto Nico's shoulder to look out the window. "Where 're we...?"

"Home, cher." Nico's bandaged paw stroked Mordecai's head like he was a frightened kitten. "We're takin' you home to patch you up some. Sit tight, okay?"

Another bump in the road. Mordecai's confused brain tried to grab on to his stomach, to literally hold it in. He moved his head off Nico's shoulder just to lean against it. Everything felt heavy. He was so tired.

"Don't close those green eyes!" Nico's harsh pinch made him flinch. "You stay awake! We're almost there!"

"Wake m' up when we arrive."

"Serafine, pull over! We're losing 'im faster than you can drive!"

Car tires screeched again, this time to a stop. The lights started going out as Nico gathered him into his arms and tried to open the door with his elbow.

Mordecai made it to the grass outside before the world around him disappeared.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't to just suddenly exist in a white void. He could see his paws in front of him, he could feel his cufflinks when he adjusted them, but that was about it: this place was as empty as empty could get.

At least he wasn't in pain anymore. What a way to go; gored and confused. What an ending. Embarrassing.

"Fancy meeting you here."

He glanced around at the familiar voice, his eyes finally landing on a H/C cat standing with their arms crossed. "Y/N?"

"Hey, Heller. What're you doing here?"

Mordecai cleared his throat, then winced and rubbed it. Funny how that started hurting. "Yes, well...Ahem. I had—unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances arise-"

"You died."

"Yes. Like I said, unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances."

Y/N chuckled and walked closer to him, running their claws through their fur in playful exasperation. "Still talkin' like a dictionary, eh?"

"You can still "decode" what I say, it seems."

Y/N shook their head with a smile. For a moment they stood merely eyeing him, a mixture of nostalgia and sorrow in their expression. They looked much more lively from the last time he had seen them in person.

Probably because the last time, they weren't actually alive.

"You're not supposed to be here," they said with a shake of their head. "It's too early. Way, way too early."

"What are you going on about?"

"Your death, Morde." Y/N heaved an exasperated sigh and rubbed their temples. "Augh, I'm getting such a headache just talkin' to you. He's not gonna like this."

"What is—"

"I'm sending you back."

Back? Back to the bloodthirsty Savoy twins who would throw him under a train for a dollar? Back to walking on eggshells, trying to rein those two in with a roll of his eyes and sarcastic quip?

Back to his background mission. Y/N was right, he had to go back.

But first...

"Y/N. May I speak with you for another min—"

"Later." Y/N grabbed his upper arm and almost yanked him off his paws. "Come. Now."

Their no-nonsense tone told him this was not negotiable. The two walked in a hurry, Y/N sometimes glancing off to the side at something Mordecai couldn't see. What where they so afraid of?

They stopped suddenly, making the Tuxedo cat bump into them. They heaved a sigh and turned to him. "There's your way out. Go. Now!"

"I don't see anything."

"Of course you don't. Because why would he make this easy?"

Y/N shoved him ahead of them. His paw caught a doorframe and he braced against it. "Just one more moment! I need to ask you something."

"You're sister's not here, no. You're in Limbo, the in-between bit. Now please would you-"

"Before you passed on," Mordecai spoke over them. "Before the accident. You pulled me aside, you told me there was something urgent that needed my attention. What was it?"

Y/N hesitated. Their ears moved about like little radars before they sighed and folded them back.

"I love you, Mordecai." Their voice was low. "I had for a long time. At that point I finally worked up the nerve to tell you this, but, well...I died before I could. I spent a year waiting for us to meet again, even too early like now; but it's not there anymore, so don't worry about it. Now go home, I'll be watching over you."

They stepped forward and gave him a shove, making him stumble back through the invisible-to-him doorway and start falling.

Good lord, everything hurt. Everything from the abdomen up pounded, throbbed or crackled like electricity. His chest and stomach felt particularly weird, though considering he had died for an unknown amount of time there was small wonder as to why.

Mordecai carefully moved his left arm underneath him and pushed himself up, wincing and biting back a hiss at the discomfort rippling through his stomach when it squished. He rubbed his eyes to get read of the fog clouding his vision, finding himself in a familiar hotel room. A chicken clucked it's way past him, bones hanging from the ceiling glinted in the early-morning lighting and the smell of something he couldn't place was strong enough to make him sneeze.

The Savoys brought him to their apartment. The thought gave him a single drop of relief before he was gripped with fear. What the Hell had Serafine done to him while he was gone?

A fuzzy head suddenly poked into the room from the doorway. Nico gave him an easy smile and opened the door all the way. "Ah, cher, you're awake. How you feel?"

"Fine." Mordecai roughly cleared his throat. Talking was a chore all of a sudden. "Where are my things? I am heading home now."

"Oh no you are not, mon ami." Nico made his way further into the room, closing the door slowly and shoving the chicken away from it with his paw. "You die for twenty minutes, sleep for hours and think you can just leave?"

Mordecai felt his ears press against his head. Nico took a step back, so he either looked like he was going to bite him if he got closer or fearful for his life. The larger tomcat raised his paws in an "I'm innocent" gesture, so Mordecai pinned his hopes on the former.

"Settle down now, cher." Nico moved across from him to sit on the arm of the couch Mordecai was currently taking up residence in. "I am over de moon that you're feelin' fiery, but there is no need to try an' take my head off. My work is around your body, after all. Your filling is nice and snug now."

'My filling?'

Nico smiled wider. His smile faltered when Mordecai's eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the couch again.

Maybe it was a bit too soon to start teasing him about his brush with the maiden of death.

[catboygirljoker]

What were your thoughts about KHearts before you got into it vs Now having been into it? Also late welcome to the community hope you've had fun!

thankyou :D!! i have had fun, sitting in my little crevice and exporting my xigbar images and xigbar posts. im happy that people have connected with it in some way :]

thoughts about KH before i got into it:

for some reason i was under the impression that the games were about a boy who has dreams about disney worlds. and he has regular size feet in the real world and only has big feet in the dream world. i also think he traveled with mickey and not donald or goofy

also for some reason i was under the impression that ventus was sora's dad. it was not until i actually watched the cutscenes in birth by sleep and saw lea and isa that i realized OH. this is NOT as far back on the timeline as i thought it was

images of a spiky red boy and a spiky blond boy and a black haired depressed girl eating ice cream together with lots&lots of people sobbing in the replies. (REALLY emphasized the slow creeping emotional dread of that game for me. like golly i sure hope i dont get emotionally destroyed like all those other people! and then i , was)

when i was in middle/high school i had friends who were super into it, but i was never able to play it because my parents had a policy of No Consoles. we were allowed to have handhelds, though, because my family took frequent road trips, so when i found out that there was a KH game for DS i said to a friend "oh, cool! dyou think id be able to play it without playing the other games?" and she looked at me, and looked at her copy of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and said "........no"

only ~15 years later do i realize how funny of a question that was

thoughts about KH as i was getting into it:

too numerous to count. i shall attempt to keep it moderately brief

last year my husband listened to a podcast called "lore dump" where people explain the lore of different media to each other, and they did an episode/series on kingdom hearts, and i heard some pretty WaCkY sTuFf (i specifically remember them explaining what the recusant's sigil is, in the context of xigbar explaining that they'd been tracking sora and riku through the story of DDD)

found a vod of one of my favorite streamers streaming 1 and 2 to benefit abortion rights in texas, and i was like, well, here's my chance, heh, im gonna understand all of the WaCkY LoRe

i start up the stream. within the first 15 minutes i Get it. like it feels very dated in a lot of ways but i instantly understood what made people connect so strongly with this series. even as someone who didn't grow up with any attachment to it, and was a little put off of it even by how into it my friends were, to me kh1 is just pure high octane nostalgia. the tone is so specific and warm and bittersweet. i cried multiple times during the ending. it just really got to me! i was hooked!

when i fixate on a media property i like to have a hot person to chew on. i really. really thought it was gonna be axel. he is exactly the kind of character i would've fixated on when i was younger, when i had friends who were into KH. older mentor figure character who takes younger characters under his wing. associated with fire. projects brash confidence. k,ills people. he's a really good character! i love him a lot! every time he appears on screen i get on all fours and start barking! and there's all this fanart and merch and...then i got distracted......

hey blake in early 2023. it's me, blake in late 2024. have you heard of kingdom hearts. yeah. yeah youre gonna get really into it. yeah youre gonna have the longest running blorbo since you mega-fixated on the tenth doctor when you were 14. yeah. yeah um. you know the clip where the guy says "me? i'm already half xehanort!" and sora says "that's..nuts!"? yeah that guy? yeah. yeah. that guy. the half xehanort guy. yeah youre gonna make a fool of yourself online for that guy.

[fenharels-teeth]

is it just me or are all the s*lavellan related lines in dav giving wattpad fanfiction? as a former s*lavellan i know weekes writing is much better than whatever hot garbage that was in dav. half of it seemed ai generated. even the “reunion” scene was very anticlimactic and solas was like

l*vellan was the one always reaching out to him and he barely acknowledges her, then he thanks rook and walks off without her and once again she had to chase after him while he ignores her. it read like neither weekes or the animators gaf about s*lavellan anymore so they just wanted it out of the way. in fact why was the inquisitor there at all? they brought absolutely nothing to the story they only appeared for nostalgia’s sake. it feels like the writers really didn’t know what to do with them and im gonna be completely honest they should have just left them out of the game

but back to my original point, not just the s*lavellan lines, though they were definitely the worst, a lot of the dialogue and writing in general felt half-assed. them also retconning half of the lore established in previous games, and not keeping continuity from dai, didn’t help imo

[alphadogmp3]

nine people you'd like to know better

tagged by: @freckliedan tysmm omg. i did start writing this on the 21st but then i got busy :(

last song: was sin eater by penelope scott last friday (when i started to write it) and still is LMAO. very good song 10/10

favorite color: well ok. it was blue¹ for the majority of my life and i still love blue a lot But!! i think i gravitate more towards pinks (and some reds—pink is just diluted red anyway) nowadays so like yeah my fav colors are pink and blu—ah fuck accidental transgenderism

currently watching: tmnt (2003)...... nostalgia is one hell of a drug.. idrc tho it actually holds up in many aspects lmao. i also bought a dropout tv subscription so im watching game changer & make some noise

sweet/savory/spicy: im literally eating nutella as i write this lol. i mean. i do enjoy those other things as well. but yeah

relationship status: naaahhhh. a (romantic) relationship sounds fun in theory but ive never felt the need for one in my life ever. like i keep waiting for the moment where i finally want one but naaaahhh as it stands nope. not in one don't really want one.

current obsession: i have a few! game changer & its spin-offs on dropout, caryn and connie (i love their sims builds!! their banter is also very fun to listen to in the bg) and the aforementioned accursed turtles.....

last thing you googled: i use duckduckgo 😎 that being said it is "what is ctrl r in google docs" LMAO can't escape google.....

tagging: UM. I DONT KNOW. i am quite afraid of seeming annoying and pushy. to overcome my fear i will tag some people BUT do not feel at all like you have to do it!!!! im just gonna tag mutuals/people who were mutuals for a long time

@captainquacksheart @maybebi47 @heyitsphoenixx @thursdaygirlmp3 @cartilagexfluid @thepeonie & anyone who wants to do it !!!!!!!!

¹ actually tho speaking of blue (language rant incoming) many cultures have different ways of categorizing colors and our color perception is in part shaped by that! a lot of languages differentiate btwn lighter hues of blue and darker hues of blue (e.g. russian and turkish) SO when i say "blue" i am actually thinking of the color "mavi" which refers to lighter shades of blue!! isn't that rly fucking cool!! the other word "lacivert" refers to the darker shades of blue. now, mavi is the more general name for that color, and lacivert could be considered a shade of mavi, but even then, a lot of native turkish speakers would find it super odd to call a super dark blue thing mavi. even calling something koyu mavi (dark blue) wouldn't be the same as calling that thing lacivert even though lacivert refers to a darker blue, bc guess fucking what there is also.....KOYU LACİVERT!!! isn't language so cool. i love thinking about language and words wait what was i doing

[angstics]

my chemical romance has always been a band about death. bullets' bonnie and clyde, three cheers' resurrection-rampage plot, black parade's dying main character, danger days' "where the good guys die and the bad guys win". the vampires and corpse-like make-up and lyrics constantly looking to the end. 1000+ hits when you google: "death-obsessed" "my chemical romance". gerard way's "if we never play another show again, keep yourself alive" in 2008, when the band had an exhausting few years and an uncertain future (video, article).

it took a few years, but the band eventually played its last show. it wasn't just a break or dissolution. the band died. their final song was released posthumously in 2/14 and it was titled "fake your death" -- not a hint at reunification, but a finale that put to rest who they were as my chemical romance. as gerard way said: "i don't think my chemical romance is supposed to happen again. i think it's supposed to stay beautiful forever; it's a beautiful thing. it's supposed to die young in the car wreck" (kerrang , 7/14).

dying young has haunted my chem as long as death has. every single main character of theirs' was both dead and young: irl demolition lovers on the LOTMS cd, the patient being "too young to die", the fab four being teenagers according to the killjoys: california comics. even gun's "never gonna have a son" and "if im old enough to die for your mistakes / then let's go". even helena, who is directly about the ways' grandmother, is played by a young actor -- with make-up matching the bands'. there were fears surrounding gerard's health ending the band then at one point his life, as stated by brian schechter in LOTMS. after the band ended, mikey and frank had near-death experiences. gerard released hestiant alien's how it's going to be, a song about "waking up from the dream and realizing it's not exactly what you wanted" (video): "you said we'd all be dead by twenty five" and "we're just bored you're still alive". the entertainment industry is marked by the iconization of artists who died young. the 90s - 00s was a time + place defined by DARE and AIDS and young veterans. the band coincided with BIG life changes (sky-rocketing careers, new families).

this is all to say that my chem tightly links youth and death. there is also a great emphasis on death as a performance -- dedicating songs and albums and theatre productions and art and stories and appearances to it. the aesthetic of death.

though the band died young, its people didnt. years went by. my impression as an outsider to that time is that even without reason (least of all from these fuckin guys), hope didnt die. it laid dormant. the group friendship and musical relationship was revived sometime 2017 - 2018 because of a family bbq (podcast, quote). that was two years of possibility before they decided to return in 2019. after some hurdles where hope never diminished, they began their first tour after a decade -- filled with projects and personal hardships and children growing up -- in 2022.

this tour has been marked by their visible and stated joy. not a nostalgia tour, not an album tour, but a chance to "reintroduce ourselves to the world" (podcast, quote). the sources of joy are endless (isnt that just so beautiful??) one of them is discovering the link btwn living and old age.

theyre still about death, theyre still about youth, theyre still about drama. gerard's dressed as princess diane and joan darc, famous women who died young. the when we were young night 2 costumes are bout the horror of aging but not changing. it's a forever mcr theme.

[hollowfaith]

1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

QUESTIONS FOR MUN

1. Who has been your favorite muse to play?

ughhhh this is hard...im gonna cheat and go for nostalgia ok

although i think i missed the mark with her muse in some places i have a special fondness for dahlia hawthorne and her specific brand of caustic sarcasm.

i don't think i've ever come up with so many different creative insults during her runtime...also she had the neatest mix of relationships with random muses, not just in AA cast (tho i remember her tormenting at least 3 different feenies??) but beyond, notably izaya and edward cullen comes to mind.

i also really liked my run as kasen kanesada because he's a very lyrical sword (or at least works hard to cultivate that image) so i had to express that in writing and ended up having a lot of fun doing flowery replies and making up poetry and generally going big ham. (it did take a lot of mental energy though so i started losing steam later on.)

i remember he had a thread with FGO Shakespeare that was pretty nice cause we got to be nerdy and talk about eastern/western literature lolololol, then for his challenge he had to kill like 5 ppl in 24 hours so i actually got 5 volunteers to get decapitated and RP'd mini threads with them all, which was wild (and again a very, very random mix of muses including X-Files Fox Mulder)

i didn't RP OCs back then but i like them a lot now too! the lack of art is an unfortunate reality but the amount of customization you get in exchange...so powerful.

5. What is the most difficult thing about writing your current muse?

stupid guy won't just kiss klaus and marry him that would solve 99% of their problems hey klaus are u listening u need to seduce this idiot or something so his brain has nothing but u all day to keep him out of mischief hey hey klaus

ahem

also his unspoken obligation to be lawful good (in his POV) really limits his ability to "act out," so sometimes i need to find different ways to de-escalate situations before he hits moral event horizon. you know, flattery and adoration goes a long way in wrapping him around your finger, i'm surprised more people don't try (i guess they can't stand him long enough to get there lol)

7. Who was the very first muse you ever wrote?

i remember answering this question on another meme maybe...?

there's a more accurate answer now: pre-tumblr, i remember RPing a Lopmon on some digimon forum once upon a time. also remember the mod that was RPing with me called me out for "slight godmodding" because i was describing how my digimon was crossing a bridge and apparently that was taking things too much into my own hands LOLOL

8. Have you ever written a novel? If not, does it interest you?

i've started written novels but i haven't finished any except for like, a couple of original oneshots. technically Veoc is a supporting character/love interest (spoilers: he's not the canon pairing) in a sci-fi story where i have the general plot laid out but y'know, actually writing it is... *flops down*

9. Do you write fanfiction, or have you in the past?

i definitely wrote more in the past but i've slowed down to a trickle since then. uhhhh i want to start up again, maybe with drabbles/oneshots, but i need to catch up on canon first before i try to do the characters justice

10. Do you like stylized icons and formatted text or do you prefer to keep things simple?

god a part of me regrets giving Aury his fancy brackets b/c i have to copy/paste that thing in every reply

so yeah i am never doing that again i just wanna open up a post and type my reply and be done with it, bless.

same with icons as long as they show a face and expression (or even body part) im happy wheee i've got plots to write

11. When did you start roleplaying?

i can't remember...gotta be probably early to mid high school cause i didn't know RP existed back then

12. Have you roleplayed anywhere other than tumblr?

forums, emails, tried a LJ group but my app got rejected so i didn't even get in (ROFL), tumblr has been the most stable medium with most long-term interactions though

[smokeys-house]

Puukko's Pirate Tales 5

Painters, Authors, and Purses

(Art by @mumrikpaws ❤️, alternate version below the cut!)

" 'ave I e'er told ye I'm in books?" The old moomin woman notices you eyeing the shelves with curiosity. "Mind ye, I'm not in all those. I don't just keep the ones with me in 'em." She sets down the hoop she was idly embroidering on and meanders over to the shelf nearest you.

"O'course there's plenty of truth and legend alike, and varying qualities 'tween the lot. One's I'm most fond of is the dime novels an' penny dreadfuls! Way I see it, only I can tell my stories with the right amount of oomph." She struck her chest with her paw, before noticing the familiar look in your eye. 

"Don't be givin' me that face, just on account of ye know I'm fixin' t' tell ye another tale. Have a seat, it'll be a quick'un." She motions dismissively to the nearby seating, and sets a few small, quite old books down on the low coffee table. 

"My reason for liking the cheaper shorter ones ain't fer the fact I'm a slow reader. It's mostly fer the art on the cover. I'm either painted as the fearsome scourge of the seas or I'm the housewife's romantic fancy. Nothin' like ye see on any wanted poster." She rummaged through some cupboards and began to set up for some coffee. She had a tendency to task while storytelling. It was as if she could never sit and look you in the eye while aggrandizing herself, true or not. 

"I reckon a lot of them's the reason fer most folks thinkin' I met my end by now. Usually they don't start romanticizing criminals til… well til after they're not around to read 'em. I suppose my rapid slip into obscurity helps support that rumor." She set two mugs upon the table, the one in front of you is a rich blue and gold. More of a nice tea cup than a mug, and it's much finer than the one she'd chosen for herself. 

"Iffin' I have met me end, a cozy house in the mountains seems pretty enough an idea fer eternity. Anyway the writers were a pretty mixed bag. 'Avin a stranger at yer heels while at sea is a bit of a nuisance. They don't help out much with the ship and they watch yer every move and ask ye all kinds of funny questions. Me crew and I almost ate one once! Boiled shoes and pouches and chewed the leather first. Lucky for 'im, on account o' we made landfall afore appetites got too… unseemly." The kettle began to whistle from the kitchen, her ears stood full and flicked themselves in its direction. She prepped a cloth over an empty glass jar, and filled it with ground coffee. 

"Sometimes they was rather fun. Adventure seekers and story tellers, not unlike myself." She eyed you, noting your surprise at the casual delivery of a brutal story. 

"We uh. We weren't really gonna eat him. Just made like we were fer some mean-spirited fun... But I did eat two coinpurses and at least some of a shoe." She cleared her throat awkwardly before returning to her task.

"Anyway, the painters was where the real fun were. Aside from the actual painting part o' course. Sittin' in the same pose fer hours is a real pain in the tail. I'm supposin' it weren't so much the artists that I liked as much as the art, and the publicity what came after. Though there was one I loved dear, she used to paint on account of her well-to-do parents. She were workin' on a painting of the two of us. Not sure what happened to it, though. It weren't never finished I should think." 

For a moment she stared off into nothing, her paws hanging idly in front of her. You ask what she's doing and she shakes her head a bit, seemingly having been lost in thought. The fireplace's gentle crackling fills the air. The lack of words for the moment, while comfortable, fills you with an understanding as to why she's so eager to tell stories. 

"Coffee's almost ready." You can hear an air of nostalgia in her voice, it's laced with a somber note. It's not as though she's hiding something, but you can tell she's choosing not to elaborate. Puukko's cabin home is lovely and spacious, but you can't help but wonder what secrets she does have, if any. 

"Folks always think about the pirate days as always bein' aboard and abroad. Though that were most of it, I spent a lot of time ashore as well, spendin' me haul. Blunderin' me plunderin' as it were. Drink and comp'ny are the bane of a full coffer, as any sailor'd tell ye. Some time after I'd been handed mine by a royal pardon, I had a lot of coin to spend and nothin' but time." She let out a frustrated sigh.

 "I'd been a tale throughout many a place fer some time and some folks wanted in on that tale. Trouble were gettin' art fer a cover fer their books so it'd sell, and the wanted posters were very intentionally unflattering." She pours coffee into both of the mugs at the table, spilling a bit here and there before wiping it up with a handkerchief. 

"Strangest bounty I ever had put on me. An accomplished author was offering quite a price t' anyone what could capture my likeness in a way that best suited their work." She fanned through one of the books that was sitting on the table, and nudged the other one toward you. 

"Weren't but a few days after that I was suddenly meetin' all manner of 'friendly' strangers. After word got out I wasn't posing fer free, well, that's when things got odd. I'd be at the market doin' some shopping and some clever fellow tells me to hold a lemon up a certain way, says it's the only way to tell the good'uns from the bad. Then he says to me 'Great! Now turn yer head that-a-way!' an' that's when I realize he's got a pencil behind his ear and a sketchbook under his arm. Lots o' folks after that asking me fer strange things trying t' get me in a silly pose, look heroic or flattering." She's suddenly very animated, gesturing along with her story and making faces at no one in particular. 

She pauses a moment, and lifts her mug to her snout with both paws wrapped around it. She savors the aroma, then takes a long, and very slow sip. Her features seem to soften a bit as she sinks back into her chair, eyes closed. 

"Where was I, again? Oh, yes!" She sits upright once more. It's difficult to tell whether she genuinely lost her train of thought or if she was simply messing with you. 

"There were this one gal. Real tall critter. She broke into where I were stayin' and posed me while I was asleep! In me pajamas fer Booble's sake! That's about where the nonsense stopped. One way or another she ended up out the window an' I got me a nice new sketchbook." She guffaws loudly, slapping her knee. 

"Met a feller in a bar that night, seein' as I couldn't sleep right. After that intrusion y'know. Anyway, i thought he were another loon, but he turned to be the sensible type. A real no nonsense kind of hemulen. Strong, too. Challenged me to a fight, and iffin I won I were to be left alone, but if he won, he got to draw me fer the book and he'd give me a cut o' that author's bounty." 

Perhaps it's the warm coffee, or maybe the gentle fire and soft blankets, but somehow you feel as though even stories like these with all their unpleasantness have a way of building a comfortable atmosphere. You wonder if they make her feel that way, too. 

"Anyhow I was feeling a mite skittish about crossing the law now that I was on the other side of it. Explained as much to him. I'm no stranger when it comes to paw-to-paw combat, but Marion an' me crew were still out there. They only got their freedom so long as I stayed off ships and kept me snout clean, so to speak. Told him I love a good scrap, but what I really want is fer all these bold artists to stop chasin' me tail!"

As if mentioning it reminded her of it, she lifted her tail and pulled it into her lap, idly fidgeting with it. 

"I thought it a bit strange that he were a painter and a pugilist, but he just went on saying 'a Hemulen should be well versed in all things'. He also said there were art in fighting and fighting in art, and I'm inclined to agree given both the way he fought, and the uh… personal grievances? Of the other artists he challenged. Had no idea there were so much drama among painters." 

She drew the fur in the tuft of her tail straight and to a point before mimicking painting with it. She looked up from it and to you, realizing you were still looking at her. 

"Must've been oh, seven or so fights I watched? Didn't see all of 'em. By the time it were over we'd been all over town and had a drink or two. The way I figure it, he earned that painting. Went back to his studio the next day. Oh, and we had lunch!" She smiled cheerfully.

"Now, you might be asking yerself; 'Miss Puukko, which one of these fine volumes did the pugilist painter hemulen pen fer you?'." She looked on at the books lying in the table and scratched the end of her snout. 

"Well I don't rightly know! I don't recall his name. Do they even put the cover artists name in the book? I don't think I e'er looked! Ah, well." She stacked the books and set them aside on the shelf. 

"Every so often I wonder what folks from back then are up to, if anything." She sunk back into her chair once more. "But only every now and then… think I'm gonna take m'self a nap now…" She yawned deeply and held onto her tail, setting her paws comfortably in her lap. 

You briefly consider reading through each of the books she set aside, but they're too near her to reach without disturbing her. You decide it's best let sleeping moomins lie. 

Clean version of the art!

[froot-batty]

Any fun little facts about your rogues/au that don't really affect the plot much(or they can, either/or is good) or maybe even facts that might not actually come up but add to the sauce, that make you ridiculously happy? I love little trinket thoughts about aus to collect. :)

Also hopefully my questions haven't been too many or annoying, I just really like your version of Batman, Froot <3<3<3

YOU SILLY !!!!! SEND AS MANY ASKS AS YOU WANT I LOVE GETTING THEM (and im so glad you like my fools >:])

but sure! i can dig up a couple (this is gonna be a long guy i think)

Hugo strange has only been hurt Once, despite working at an asylum full of individuals who would really like to stomp him into a paste. It was an accidental electrical burn on his left arm gotten from Maxie Zeus right after they discovered her abilities (even though she gladly would've inflicted it anyway if she knew she could do it). It wasn't strong enough to completely fry him, but it does mean his left arm is weaker than his right, and occasionally spasms when he uses it too much. He's not upset about it at all though. He thinks it's fascinating

Viktor and Nora have matching necklaces! People (and they themselves) often joked that they were like the sun and the moon, so they got a sun (which Nora wears) and a snowflake (which Viktor wears). After the accident, Viktor still wears his, over the suit that keeps him (somewhat) alive

Harvey's trick coin was a gift from his mother, somewhat. He was really bad with making decisions as a kid (partially because of trauma, partially because he would just have a lot of thoughts in his head, and it made it hard to settle on one thing), so she bought the coin and used it to help him decide on something. Of course, since both sides were heads, she'd say the option she thought was the best one was going to be heads. Even after she gave him the coin, and he was well aware both sides were heads, he'd still use it to decide on things - mostly for nostalgia's sake

Maxie Zeus is nearly completely blind, because of repeated electrical injuries to her eyes. She is too stubborn to use any mobility aids, but she does occasionally wear a welder's mask while...."working"

My Red Hood and Killer Moth are actually pretty decent friends. They both are in the "pay me and I'll do whatever" business, but Red leans more towards anti-heroism while Moth is a career criminal. Red's main beef is with the Joker, though, so she tends to leave other rogues alone (unless Bats needs her help)

[n0phis]

5 (im gonna send u a few for the ask game)

5. estimate how much art you post online vs. keep to yourself

honestly theres only 1-2 things a month that don’t at least get posted in the server! i don’t tend to draw for myself. most wips aren’t posted to my socials necessarily, but i still send them to friends and in the wips channel of my discord lol

7. a medium of art you don’t work in, but appreciate

all of them tbh, but particularly normal traditional drawing! i have textural issues that make drawing on paper really uncomfortable, but a nice pencil sketch always looks gorgeous and i miss being able to do it. music making, pottery, sewing and carving are others that i can think of off the top of my head that i wouldn’t do myself but love watching!

11. do you listen to anything while drawing? if so, what?

lonngggg youtube videos that don’t require much attention! i can 100% follow a described narrative and can usually focus better when drawing, but a sorry boys video would obviously require my full attention. vods are kinda in between. i tend to gravitate to interesting, niche video essays most of the time though! nuclear reactors, plane crashes, chemical tier lists and jacob geller stuff generally, but a good commentary essay or dissection of old internet dramas or communities can never go wrong.

21. art styles nothing like your own, but that you like anyways.

i love disney style furries, and most more cartoony or exaggerated warrior cat style artworks! i try to go more of a lineart-heavy, detailed and slightly more realistic style for my own work (though my fanart tends to be more bright and happy than i intend) but i can still appreciate the nostalgia and appeal in cartoony or aesthetic cat designs, or zootopia critters.

24. do your references include stock images?

uhhh whenever i use references i tend to just google body part/animal/expression, stare at it for a bit, and then work from memory back on my canvas. i guess that’s mostly stock images?

30. what piece of yours do you think is underrated?

bold of you to assume i remember my works. but i think an old cranboo piece i did! love it a lot. enderwalk (ill attach it here) i need to paint more again LMFAO

[flyfish1999]

For the character thing P3PHeroine?

thanks elle-p !!!!!!!!!! good luck with my character too ^_^)/ !! i feel like i totally don't talk about her (or tbh anyone outside of ryoji ...) as much as i should .. ! im gonna work to change that \o/ ! starting here :]c putting this one under a cut because it actually got suuuper long ^_^;; whoops !

favourite thing about them: she exists !!!!!!!!!!!! and she's so cool . she's like, devastatingly cool . both in her concept and just .. herself .... move over chad narukami losers !!!!!!!!!! especially in her exclusive links, her kindness and kick-ass-ness and depth comes out in full force and i love her so much for it. i know i'm a ryominahead, but i miss her everyday !!!!!!!!

least favourite thing about them: not her fault AT ALL . but aside from how underrepresented she is, i am still a firm believer that she should've received her own ryoji ... it's so sad, because i absolutely adore how they open up to each other, but i've talked to others before about how ryoji in her story as seemingly HER mirror just feels wrong, like he's transplanted from another place (which he literally is .. he's created in minato's image). i would've loved to see how her ryoji could've been more specifically shaped and changed by her quirks + her approach to her trauma

favourite line: "but, when i first saw him... he didn't feel at all like a stranger to me." "i can't explain it well, but it was almost like nostalgia.... or some kind of closeness." "i'm him, and he's me...?" it's criminal that q2 left it at this.

brOTP: junpei and hamuko is especially special to me ... more so than minato and junpei really . they bounce off of each other so well, + the extended/enhanced arc where junpei is kind of misogynistic to her alongside the leader jealousy and how that develops is so cool T_T

OTP: HAMUAIGIS 4EVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aigis im so sorry yr girlfriend is still in the vault . can you imagine femc the answer . would destroy my soul .

nOTP: her + junpei . .. maybe im a little hater but the GAME doesnt even let you do it lmao ...! it means a lot to me that they're best friends . other than that, i'd say she fits cutely with nearly everyone else just like minato does !

random headcanon: okay lets be real . am i stupid ? where does her mp3 player attach ? it just kind of hangs out in midair while minato obviously hangs it on a lanyard . i like to think she's a bit more crafty with it !!! clipping it onto the zipper of her uniform or her scarf or keeping it on a wristband etc ^_^

unpopular opinion: gwa ........... i should just own this i think, even if people disagree !! in my opinion ... femc is supplementary content. and that means you should not be playing her route as your first experience in persona 3. just like how i believe you shouldn't read the manga or watch the movies before playing the game. you need to play the male route first. the way she presents the game's themes through her character and modified story is designed to be in direct opposition and contract with minato's route, and enhances both routes to that effect and can totally change your experience when viewing your previous playthrough of the male route and your current route as her through the lens she teaches the player. in a sad sort of way, i am kind of happy reload hasn't enforced this idea that femc is just one of two ways to experience p3 . this isn't a character select .. she's more like a perfect ng+ to me .

song i associate them with: back to the lighthearted stuff ! cop car by mitski ^_^ easiest answer so far !

favourite picture of them: either this [below], the cover of persona compilation II, or either of the persona music live/tour 2009 and 2010 artworks ! i'm a shin apologist though, so take that with a grain of salt ;] i really love how she's shown in opposition with narukami here, how he's looking straight at her but she's not meeting his eye . i would really love to see these two together more !

[kairithemang0]

tell me your thoughts on something (anything) (talk for as long or as short as you want)

:)

ok i've been looking for a reason to talk about this for a while and im just gonna go off the rails here

i recently started watching Colin LooksBack's disney villain retrospectives and I'm so damn obsessed with them. I've mentioned this before, I'm a disney fan through and through. No matter how much I painfully despise so many of their recent movies, nostalgia and the hope of finding something as good as their classics keeps me coming back, as disappointed as I am with their recent features from all sides of the company

I'm especially a disney history fan, I love learning about the first few decades of this company for some reason, their movies from that time aren't even my favorites but just all the old concept art and ideas from the imagineers is so cool to me. Mary Blair's work specifically, her art for Cinderella is stunning.

Disney villains specifically have just always been amazing to me. I was obsessed with Ursula as a kid, I thought she was the coolest freaking character. I love her design, her voice is amazing, I adored her then and I still do.

If we're talking about disney content creators though? Avelo (formerly known as Dreamsounds) has my heart and soul. Her videos are everything to me, they got me through covid. I was so sad when she left when she was getting her bottom surgery, worried she'd never return. I audibly gasped when I saw her return video show up on my recommended because I love her videos that much, and still do, even if it's not as disney focused.

I dunno, I think my disney obsession and Kingdom Hearts obsession go hand in hand (hah, that's a kingdom hearts song). I mean KH and disney are tied together by nature, but I got into KH for the disney. I found my moms old kh1 copy a while ago and I wished I could have the chance to play it on the ps2 (which we sadly don't have anymore). I haven't ever finished kh1, the controls are too clunky and I hate that stupid fucking camera. Even still, it's a game that matters to me a lot. KH2 does more for me in the end though, I reset the game so often just to play through Roxas's section in twilight town. it's nostalgic, not even just for playing kh but it's the type of fun me and my friends would have during our summer vacation. seeing roxas's life fall apart is scary because in some way i relate, the friendship he had with hayner, pence, and olette in the data twilight town wasnt real, and neither were my friendships with those people.

back to more regular disney, i fucking love the disney parks. honestly im so nostalgic for fastpass, i miss needing to go up to those little stands and put it on some card. i hate genie+ and lightning lane because it feels much less personal, so do the disney parks in general for me now. maybe it's because i'm getting older, i wouldnt be surprised if that was the case. even still, i love going. i mean cinderellas castle is my damn wallpaper (godddd i love that wallpaper so much....) and there are multiple of these "disney parks music" videos that i will actively use to fall asleep because idk nostalgia is a bitch. the boardwalk one is a personal favorite of mine, something about it just hits for me. me and my family went right after covid started to slow down, the boardwalk was having a soft opening and we got in for cheap. we got this amazing room overlooking the boardwalk itself, and for lack of a better word the vibes were incredible. like... WOW. we drove down, it sucked because it was exhausting and i cant be in small spaces like that for too long, but in the end it could've been worse. i had given myself this challenge to watch all the disney movies before going, i finished encanto on that drive. it's what got me back into so many of them, treasure planet specifically. it feels like every year ill just find myself obsessing over one specific disney movie around this time, last year it was tp and the tinkerbell movies. this year id say it's alice in wonderland, which ive had an obsession with for years. it's just a plotless fun movie with memorable characters that mean something to me. i dunno, im a sucker for anything nostalgic, twisted is my favorite starkid show for a reason, and i don't just love kh for it's crazy plot and characters (although that's most of it)

sorry this is REALLYYY long.....

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

OMG MACCCC R U REWATCHIN TOKYO GHOUL...... shakin ur hand rn little 14 year old me loved this shit. kaneki ken fucked up little guy going thru things he never should have gone thru </3 have u ever watched the very last season??? i finally watched it when i did my rewatch of the full series like maybe a year or so ago and BOYYY IM NOT GONNA SPOIL ANYTHING BUT GOD...... it'll fuckin get u mac it'll GET U!!!! so excited i am grabbin ur hands and spinning around in a field of flowers with u i love this fucked up little guy i love blood and cannibalism <3

I DIDNT EXPECT TO GET SO INTO IT AGAIN. I WAS JUST GONNA WATCH THE FIRST COUPLE EPISODES FOR THE NOSTALGIA AND THE HELL OF IT AND THEN I GOT HOOKED AGAIN. KANEKI HAS WHITE HAIR NOW AND HES SOOOOO FUCKED UP <3 extended torture scenes spanning 4 episodes will do that to a mf.

ALSO NO I NEVER FINISHED IT !!! which is part of the reason im watching it again!!! when i watched it the first time it was still being released so i just kind of forgot 2 keep up with it bc i wasnt technically allowed 2 be watching anime and had to sneak it anyway. i just kinda fell off and forgot abt it. i honestly dont even know if i finished season 2???????? i somehow completely forgot about the torture arc so this might mean we are reaching the end of what i actually saw. this is awesome though 14 yr old me was so predictable <3

[richardsphere]

Leverage Redemption Log: The Bucket Job

Title makes me think "bucket list"? either that or Keeping Up Appearances? (had to google "that show with the bucket woman" to remember the name) --- bells are playing and there is a giant semi-hollow pipe-structure of a snowman outside the building we're in. Its Christmas Special Time.

Librarian is giving the children some classic reading recomendations based on his knowledge of their likes (the girl likes pirates, which is a nice little gender-stereotype breaking to sneak in there without drawing attention to the subversion. Love it when shows feel confident doing that without the need to detract by boasting about it.) Young Man used to get Sherlock Holmes.

And the librarian is having a heart-attack... --- Harry is calling his daughter. His daughter doesnt want to spend the holiday with him because Mom is going on vacation to some resort (I think Aspen is a resort town in the states?) Ok either he has a son as well as a daughter, i am misremembering him as having a daughter, The daughter might be trans, or Nick is short for Nikita/vero-Nic-a, or Nick is more gender-neutral as a name then i thought (wouldnt be the first time, i went years thinking Sam was exclusively a female name because the only "sam" i ever heard of was from Totaly Spies). I am not sure which is the case. (im gonna place money on its a shortened-nickname though) Ok Sophie confirms its a daughter.

Elliot has been cooking, Parker is taking the long-distance part of Long Distance Relationship a bit hard around the holidays.

Knock on the door: its Doyledude. He's asking for Elliot by full name (sus). --- Doyledude's gay and his dads a preacher who didn't aprove of "woke" books like Charlie and the chocolate factory. (Yes Christians are that bad. Source: My dad got a chainletter that refered to the antichrist as an "avatar" of satan once and "The last airbender" and the blue smurfs were both insta-banned from the household forever).

--- "I am totally fine with revenge it allows us a range of outcomes the mark deserves". good line.

"Guess theres a lot of maurice's out there" KNEW IT, the moment they named him "blanche" i suspected we were gonna be getting a Maurice Leblanc reference. (of course they'd go for Arsene Lupin in an episode about the importance of libraries)

Harry's "so do I" is a simple joke but it lands well. 8/10.

I think we found todays villain: Its the guy harassing a homeless man for using the library. (fuck that guy) Ok ominous cut of someone taking pictures of Elliot. --- Sophie is walking around the theatre loading 100 checkov's guns at once (confetti cannon, Parker is booking a helicopter, red sportscar, Harry has a cane)

Sophie does a speech about the team needing to remember that this is a good person.

Elliot has gotten some of his old budies to work stuntmen. Parker is asking the very crucial heart-attack related question. Our safeword is Winnebago (google says its a campervan? Honestly, if it werent for the whole "automobiles are deathmachines I dont trust myself with" angle, i'd like one.) --- Librarian dude takes one look at the red sportscar and just thinks "dafuq kinda spy are you?" before stealing a regular car like a sensible person on the run from crooks would.

So, clearly the guy is either a someone bad upbringing who brought himself around, or an actual retired spy himself, who reads those books primarily out of nostalgia.

Ok its misspent youth, also the way he casually tosses the phone out the window. Love this guy. --- Im gonna be honest, while i apreciate the consistency of parker still being the Christmas Monster, the way her characterisation has mellowed out to using store-brand santamugs after she was first introduce as off-the-wall enough to use priceless jewelry as garlands is weird to me.

Breanna carelessly dismisses an attack on their own firewalls and servers. Harry's moustache is bad but the eyepatch is worse. --- Four stars? Comeon man. (good improv)

Actual Goons are here! "take spencer" knew it! no way that Doyledude would know Spencers full name. Mr Blanche has stolen a sportsbike. --- Turns out yeah, he was a former spy. Its RIZ bitch (did we get a name? I dont remember) she's looking for "the ledger" (presumeably a list of secret identities. We're looking for a book kept by a librarian. Its in the library. Probably that book samurai book he's been reading regularly) Ok so this is definitly becoming a recurring thing with the way she first used Elliot to find which guys to hire and is now talking about making him an instructor. Is she the secret person he's been phone-ing that breanna was asking about this whole episode? (i thought it was the Supercop from Arlo) --- Blanche has a gun pointed at our heroes. PTSD in a bottle, cause thats a thing that exists now. Wilson is still holding old job secrets from them? Thats... weird. --- Wait, Elliots dad is alive? But I thought that the episode ending implied otherwise? (Might be me being bad at understanding the subtext of that scene, might be a retcon) --- Mr Blanche has already beaten all the guards in the time it took a drugged out Elliot to break a chair. (Pretend to be the new guy, classic "heavy object in a sock" prison-improv weapon. 8/10, guy knows what he's doing, but is also a bit rusty and forced into improv mode) --- Turns out, he didnt retire because he wanted to retire but because no one would believe the ledger was destroyed. Luckily floppy disks suck at long-term storage.

Harry is talking with his old boss, trying to be the angel on his shoulder while the boss is trying to be the devil on his. (still really odd that we went through the trouble of establishing our heroes broke in to find Harry's ledger of old sins and that we're now going the "Harry wont tell them his old sins" route.) --- Copperhead and Elliot are talking. Copperhead does not want to go out by cancer. (we're faking his death and assigning him to International arent we?) --- Confetticannons are a go-go! (they're meant to simulate pages being shot by guns)

Blanche got disarmed and shot with his own gun. (definitly a death-fake) --- Huh, RIZ-woman doesnt actually kill the guards who fail her objectives. She just blackmails them into following their NDA's. (profesional)

Yup it was in the big samurai book. (obviously) and he's getting the rental.

OK so Hardison sent the library boy. (explains why he knew Spencers name)

Ok So Elliots dad is alive just not around for the holidays ever.

[sp1tballz]

General creepypasta headcanons :)?

Im gonna give you my top 3 creepypasta guys I like a lot <3 Not including Toby because I just did his (Im also bumming some of these off of my friends @spinningtusk and @memeliamarie)

Eyeless Jack

-We all know the story, healthcare student

-Kids division! He's great with kids before demonification

-I think a bit of that still lingers after... its just, you know, harder to do that without being faced with screams of terror

-I don't like the "He's limited ONLY to human meat" hc I just think thats his favorite treat and he eats it a lot (comfort meal moment /J)

-Occasionally he goes back to his human favorites for a sense of nostalgia though

-Personally. I don't think he'd like jtk. One part being Jtk is essentially a kid, and another part being he'd view him as a whiney brat because jtk is a whiney brat

-Advanced surgical knowledge allows him to also stitch up victims after he ate their organs. Not really relevent to anything but its SO funny to imagine he took the time to make them look neat before getting the fuck outta there !!

Helen Otis/Bloody Painter

-Artistic and poetic soul

-I dont talk much about romance stuff in these hcs but Helen...

-He's secretive about the murders, in his day to day he's described as manipulative and apathetic

-In my head, he uses that to a sorta advantage. Good with words = Good with flattery. In any case, You'd fall for him in .2 seconds flat.

-"You're as radiant as the moon overlooking a crystal clear lake" "You're a gem. To lose you would be a horrible devistation to this world and to myself." "May I paint you? I would love to have the memory of tonight, forever."

-I cant get over this guy

-He uses it as a lure. Get you in close, then go for the kill.

-Other than that, I can see him not having very many friends in his adult life.

-I imagine he attracts horrors a lot. He's bumped into BEN and Toby once or twice, he's regularly visited by The Puppeteer, Jack stops by every now and again to see if he has anything to spare, etc. He's like the monster hot spot, somehow he attracts all these creatures.

-He has paintings of all of them too <3 Tokens of gratitude for keeping him company.

BENDrowned

-Gamer

-Ik we hate the emo headcanon or whatever but hes a teenaged emo boy

-He doesnt smoke weed. Toby does. It's an influential force, and sometimes they smoke together.

-Troublemaker.

-My friend lio (@spinningtusk) imagines Ben and BEN to be two different people. Ben being the boy who's possessed and BEN who's the possessor

-Ben is nicer to talk to than BEN

-Toby also likes Ben more than BEN

-I personally dont have very many headcanons for him, I just think he'd be a fun friend to have under the right circumstances. Toby found those circumstances, theyre an inseparable pair in my eyes. Best friends (maybe more 😲)