#it hurts to be awake

[i-drop-level-one-loot]

Hey.

I have not been doing well lmao

I have an MRI coming up next month, the medication isn't alleviating the pain at all, and my insurance has decided that being in pain for three months straight without break isn't an issue, medically speaking.

Also, I might be severely depressed, because every doctor I have spoken to about my debilitating pain has taken a moment to ask me if I've considered scheduling an appointment with a psychiatrist. Like, my doctor called me while I was at work for an unofficial phone call to inform me that she was concerned about me.

[briefcreationpoetry]

[potato-lord-but-not]

what if…. Noel centric angst? ever think about that?

[sentient-forest]

#cecilsweep and Welcome to Night Vale trending #1 in 2023

[thevoidstaredback]

Danny smiled from his place on the clocktower roof. He'd been in Gotham for a while now, two years to the day exactly, but he'd never get tired of the view. Sure, he hated not being able to see the stars at night, but there were worse things. He did make sure to leave the city every night to see them, though.

He liked being up high. It reminded him of, not simpler times, but times when he wasn't as alone. Jazz had made her way to Harvard, Tucker was MIT, and Sam was at Pomona. Danny was nowhere.

They say after he turned fourteen, he died. It, to say the least, wasn't a pleasant or painless death, though it didn't hurt past the initial shock and revival. When he was sixteen, he realized he wasn't aging. Sure, Danny Fenton aged until he was sixteen, but Danny Phantom stopped at fourteen. Good for keeping a secret identity, but horrible for wanting to half live normally.

The day after he turned eighteen, exactly four years after he died, Danny disappeared. He left everything behind and hid out in the one place he'd always said he'd avoid. It was the one place no one would look for him. The one place where he was just another face in the crowd.

Gotham City allowed Danny the anonymity that normally came with death. Instead of just another headstone in the graveyard or a body in the harbor, though, he was just another kid on the streets in a busted hoodie and jeans. No one looked twice and no one asked questions.

In the two years he's spent on the streets of Gotham, he's learned a lot. Survival was something all humans are born with, but growing up with neglectful parents amplified that instinct. Dying and becoming an unwilling hero honed those instincts. Living in Gotham gave him a chance to learn more.

Learning the lay of the land was another thing he learned very quickly. Batman is over all of Gotham except for Crime Alley. That's Red Hood's haunt. Gotham Proper was split into blurry lines and shared between Batman and Robin, Red Robin, Orphan, and Spoiler. Nightwing is over Gotham's sister city, Bludhaven. Signal is the only day shift, so he had the most ground to cover in the least amount of time.

Of course, the Rouge's all had their own territories drawn with hard, barely flexible, lines. Black Mask was really the only one to breach those lines by trying to take Crime Alley, but Red Hood had been keeping him in check.

Learning the rules for each territory and how to interact with each person, Rouge or Vigilante, took time, but he managed. His own experiences had probably helped with that.

The next thing Danny had mapped out was where the neutral stations were. Every territory had them. They were places no one attacked because the important ones have standards. In Crime Alley, it's The Club. In Penguin's area, it's the Iceberg Lounge. Ivy marked off Robinson Park. Etcetera. The Joker is really the only major Rouge without a neutral mark on his map, but that's because he's more of an asshole than the rest. An asshole with standards, but an asshole nonetheless.

Very few of those neutral areas were available to spend the night in. Even fewer we're hiring. So, the homeless population of Gotham City stuck to the streets and back alleys.

However, there were two places Danny knew he could go where he'd be safe from scrutiny if someone looked too close at him. The Club in Crime Alley where all the working girls and boys checked in and reported any Bad Johns or Bad Janes, and The Iceberg Lounge in the richer parts of Gotham.

The clocktower was where Danny liked to spend his nights when the streets were too loud and the lights too bright and the fights too close for comfort. Oracle, who was Batman's eye in the sky and ear to the ground, worked from the clocktower, but he made sure to avoid her. It wasn't easy with what's basically super hearing that he can't turn off, but he found a spot near the very top where he could block out all Bat Business. Plausible deniability and all that.

Danny misses the stars. He misses being able to peek his head out of his bedroom window and name of each constellation he could see. He can't do that in Gotham because of the light pollution that clung to the sky like black mold. It was part of the reason he'd sworn to never go to Gotham.

There are Shades in Gotham. Shadows of people who have died but aren't quite ready to move on. He helps them as best he can, but there's so many that he sometimes feels like he's cutting off a Hydra's head. He gets to see results, though. Some days the parks are more colourful, the clouds have drifted enough to let natural sunlight through, and the graveyards are buzzing with thankful energy.

Danny forwent the thought of trying to get a job a while ago. As far as the world is concerned, Danny Fenton is missing, likely dead. Being dead, in case it wasn't well known, is a legal barrier. Sure, most jobs in Gotham didn't do background checks, but Danny didn't really want to join the Goonion. He's just fine living on the streets.

Ectoplasm is scarce compared to Amity Park, but that's to be expected. Besides, the miasma crushing the city like a weighted blanket was enough to sustain his basic abilities. Food was a bit harder to come by, but, like sleep, he could survive longer without it than a living being can. If anyone were to ever ask - though the likelihood of anyone even finding out - how he was alive, his answer was "Photosynthesis, but for ghosts."

Danny liked being just Danny. No name, no responsibilities outside of keeping himself alive.

Danny Fenton, the loser nerd who fell to the bottom of all his classes, who's obsessed with space and everything in it, who could tell you exactly how long it would take to get from Earth to Betelgeuse and back, is dead. He died the day after he turned fourteen.

Danny Phantom, the hatefully loved vigilante who appeared with the throngs of ghosts, who grew more powerful with every fight, who won more fights than he thought he could because there was no other option, is gone. He disappeared after exactly four years.

Danny just exists. He lives on the streets of Gotham City, staying away from trouble because he learned how to recognize it as soon as he could walk. He loves space and finds every opportunity he can to get out and watch the stars and moon and planets. He likes heights because being up that high reminds him of when he was living and not just surviving. Was there really a difference anymore? He hangs out in graveyards and the docks because the dead are so much more tolerable than the living.

Danny liked being just Danny because Danny doesn't have the world of Infinite Realms and Possabilities on his shoulder.

Danny likes to be able to just be for once.

Storyboard Part 2

[simandy]

I find it fascinating how every single one of my health issues can be mistaken for laziness

[ruporas]

nightmares

[seabeck]

I don’t want it to be sunny I want it to be foggy and cloudy >:(

[tarysande]

this morning, half-asleep, lying in bed, i wrote a ficlet in my head

i didn't write it down; i don't know if i will

but i wrote a ficlet in my head and it had a beginning, middle, and end

and it gave me hope that one day soon i'll be able to actually put words on paper again

[mitskiluvr]

oh okay like obviously after akechi dies in the engine room joker literally lays awake in bed thinking about him O.K. Like of course. Which could mean nothing. Obviously.

[clockworkvampyre]

my favorite steamgoth icon

[spilledkaleidoscope]

Did I mention that, for about 7 years not a single doctor noticed that a fall twisted my hip to the point of one leg being an inch shorter than the other? Causing permanent pain and nerve damage? To the point where sometimes I can't bend enough put on socks and getting out of bed every morning is already a challenge? That, at several points, I was told it's period pain? That it can't be that bad. That I'm too young to have back pain like this (I am but I do.).

Sorry just. Sometimes when it's bad I get so angry and also, so sad. This is probably not going to go away anymore and it didn't have to be this way.

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

a knife in the dark, pt. 3

[adar/oc]

read part 1 | part 2

Set in the "Awake, Arise"-verse (I'd recommend reading at least chapters 1-9 if you haven't already to get the history of these characters) PREMISE: Erenyë is reembodied in Valinor, but Mandos shrouds her memories of Utumno, hoping to spare her pain in her new life. But she is restless in Aman, sensing that something is missing... She boards a ship heading for Middle Earth, hoping to discover just what that is.

OKAY PEEPS AS PROMISED, HERE'S THE SPICE. [cw: blood, knife-play, implied previous dubcon/noncon, related to the creation of the orcs]; M rating applies.

ENJOY. (don't look at me.)

Cuiviénen.

Her blood sings at the sound of the word. She does not know how it could be true, only that it is. She begins to pick up the scattered pieces, the visions that she had seen: a lake under stars… water flowing over stones… tall, primordial trees…

With eyes full of questions, she lets the dagger fall away from his throat. “And you…”

“I was yours,” he says, tremulous and yearning. “And you were mine.”

A breeze moves gently through the glen, and in her mind’s eye, she catches a glimpse of him, young and uncorrupted—his skin unblemished as he steps into a patch of moonlight, breathless after chasing her through the wood.

She remembers how she’d led him through the trees after he’d caught her, down to a secluded place by the waterside. She remembers how they’d spent blissful hours discovering one another beneath the stars, how much she’d hungered for him.

She realizes then that she knows his name—for it is an inextricable part of her own: Eren.

“Oh,” she gasps, struggling to reconcile that vision of Eren with Adar who sits before her now, still bound to the tree. She can still make out unmistakable traces of his elvenness—his pointed ears, his high cheekbones—but his terrible transformation from elf to orc is clear.

She squeezes her eyes closed, overwhelmed suddenly by more memories of her own—of time spent in darkness and torment. For she had not escaped a similar fate…

Despite the strengthening sunlight, she is suddenly pulled down, plunged into icy waters—she is drowning in cold, swimming in a sea of terrible truth.

“I was with you,” she says, discovering it slowly. “In that dark, nameless place. They brought me to you, after I had been changed… after I had forgotten your name, and mine.”

She lets out a strangled sob, remembering the chamber, remembering being held down, remembering Morgoth, watching. “He forced us.”

As quickly as they’d returned to her—those blissful memories of starlit Cuiviénen—they are eclipsed by this single, horrible fact. As quickly as everything had come together, it now smashes, like a pane of glass against stone.

Erenyë crumbles with a terrible cry, wrenched from the depths of her soul as she comes to full understanding. They had been used—both of them—by Morgoth, to create the race of the orcs. She hearkens back to the hordes of snarling creatures that had attacked her party earlier. With a wave of nausea, she realizes that they are descended from her.

She looks back at Eren—Adar, she reminds herself. He is Adar—an orc, an enemy. She considers leaving him there, bolting off into the forest, returning to Pelargir, forcing the ship to turn around and return her to Valinor.

But Valinor is not her home…

At last, she understands the reason why she’d always felt incomplete. She never belonged in Valinor, not truly. She belongs with him—he is her purpose, her place in this world.

But she does not know how to have him now, after everything.

She is no longer the wild elf-maid who had danced carefree through the forests at Cuiviénen. Now, she feels broken and afraid—and she senses that he is, too. They are both changed, though her body bears the physical scars no longer.

“Erenyë.” His voice, barely a whisper, pleads with her. “Á cene ni.”

Look at me.

His unlovely face is bathed in golden sunlight. As the moments slip past, she allows everything else to fall away, piece by piece, until she focuses only on him. She allows herself to see him—to see in him that which Morgoth could never destroy, and what even the turbulent storms of ten thousand years could not weather away. She feels a hunger stirring deep within her, a hunger that only he has the power to slake.

She is utterly at a loss for how to proceed, but she feels a faint flicker of the boldness she’d once possessed, and it helps her to take the first step. She returns, kneeling over him, straddling his legs, reaching out with her free hand—the one not still clutching the dagger.

To her great surprise, he recoils from her, shaking his head.

“I do not deserve your touch,” he says, his voice thick with self-loathing. His eyes fall to the knife in her opposite hand, and she understands that given the choice of pain or pleasure, his preference now is for the former.

With a terrible pang, she wonders if he can even remember what tenderness feels like.

A part of her is angered by his denial, but she strives to accept it. They are neither of them who they once were, she reminds herself. They must forge a new path through the ashes.

She raises the dagger, letting it rest lengthwise against his cheek. Taking a steadying breath, she digs it into his skin enough to make him wince and squeeze his eyes shut.

“How are you here?” he murmurs, incredulous, as a single tear escapes.

She leans in, tilting her head toward him until they are almost nose to nose. She breathes him in, her body slowly relearning how to be close to his. She shifts, rolling her hips tentatively, experimentally against his legs, feeling heat kindling to life deep within her core. Her lips move close to his ear. “I am here,” she replies.

He shivers, leaning into the blade like a caress. Angling it carefully so that it will not rend, she traces it down the side of his face. His eyes open, and they are tinged with the haze of deep memory.

“I watched you die,” he says, laying his anguish bare before her, and it is a gaping chasm so wide and deep she fears her own heart to be in danger of splitting into and falling into it.

She had been so caught up by her own harrowing discoveries, she had not yet fully contemplated that while she had lived long in ignorance of their torment, he had wandered the world carrying the full weight of everything that had befallen them under Morgoth’s hand.

“I came back for you,” she breathes, seeking to reassure him, to assuage his anguish as best she can. She wishes he could accept softness, and she offers up a silent prayer that in time, he might come to do so. But for now, she drags the blade again, letting the tip of it settle at the center of his lower lip. He is trembling now, and his breathing is heavy as he begs her silently with his eyes.

She lets the dagger pierce him, splitting his lip in two and drawing blood. And then she dives, hungrily, unwilling to wait any longer, swallowing his gasp of surprise with her mouth. He resists at first, but she moves the blade to his throat—a gentle but direct threat. He acquiesces, opening himself to her kiss. She does not try to be sweet; she devours, letting their teeth gnash together before moving to nip and suck at the wound she’d made.

He moans against her mouth, and she remembers the thrill of being needed by him. How, she wonders, had she survived for so many years without this?

She twists the fingers of her free hand into his hair, pulling his head back so that she can assail his neck. She nicks him with the dagger several times in succession, letting him feel pain for only a moment before allowing him the balm of her lips. His black blood tastes bitter on her tongue, but she savors it, nonetheless.

With a sharp intake of breath, he shifts beneath her and she grinds herself down hard against the cradle of his hips, the heat between her legs blooming until it is slick and wet and impossible to ignore.

She pulls back, lowering the dagger to the cord of elven rope that binds him. Hesitation flickers across his face, but she grips his chin in her free hand, jerking him toward her to claim his lips again. “Grant me this,” she says when they are both breathless, resting her forehead against his.

He makes a noncommittal noise in the base of his throat, and she prepares her argument, but he interjects before the words reach her lips.

“Grant me one thing in return.” He leans back ever so slightly, his eyes raking over her face, coming to rest on the long, dark braid draping over her shoulder. “Your hair,” he implores. “Undo it.”

Warmth floods her chest. It is such a simple request, but as she moves her hand to undo the cord, he watches her with a startling intensity, and as she begins to finger the strands free from the braid, she realizes that she had never worn her hair this way back in Cuiviénen, and that his request is born out of a desire to see her as she had been then.

His breath hitches as he watches her, and she slows her movements, taking deliberate care as she unwinds the rest, combing through her dark locks carefully until they fall free at last, framing her face.

“There was starlight in your hair on the night of our awakening,” he murmurs, his voice dreamlike. “I have never forgotten it.”

His desire for her is so guileless, so open, as it ever had been since their earliest days, and she feels a sudden burst of incandescent joy amid all the anguish that had passed between them during their reunion.

She takes his face between her hands, heedless of his earlier talk of undeserving, and kisses him fiercely, thumbing over his scars and broken skin. Then, with haste, she reaches down for the dagger she had dropped, and slices cleanly through the elven rope, freeing him, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms enveloping her.

But he does not match her fevered pace—and when he does reach for her, it is to lightly stroke her hair. He does so with reverence, as though handling a holy relic. She leans into his hand, placing her palms upon his chest to brace herself, for even under this lightest of touches, her knees grow weak.

His armor is firm and solid—an outer shell that she longs to remove. She wants nothing between them, just as it had been when they had lain together in the eldest of elder days. But as she gropes for the fastenings, he catches her wrists, and the pained look in his eye tells her no.

She wants to ask if he means never or not yet, but she is frightened to learn the answer, so she leans in soundlessly, winding her arms around his neck, knitting her body against his, coaxing his lips to part for her once more.

She is confused by his unwillingness and wracked by feelings of selfishness for wanting him so recklessly. She prays he will not notice her hot, anguished tears as they begin to fall. But she soon tastes their salt, and she knows he can, too. He pulls back, and she drops her eyes immediately, ashamed.

She feels the cold kiss of metal as his gauntleted hand tips her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. His face is contrite yet pained—he hides nothing from her.

“For you, it was once,” he explains, and she knows immediately that he is speaking of their violation in Utumno. She clenches her jaw, feeling the icy, sick sensation overwhelm her again as he continues, his voice thick with emotion. “For me, it was… many times. Always at Morgoth’s command.”

Her heart shatters at his confession. The death she had suffered—it had been a mercy. She understands that fully now. Her tears fall faster as she aches for everything she imagines he’d endured, alone. Without her.

She yearns to comfort him, but to her distress, she realizes that she does not know how—she does not know anymore what will soothe him, or if there is anything that can.

With a shuddering intake of breath, he continues. “Being lost to lust—I fear it now.” He looks to her mournfully. “But I do long for you.” His unclad hand caresses her now, sliding slowly down her neck, between the valley of her breasts, over her belly and down to the cleft between her legs. “Oh, how I long for you,” he growls low, stroking her there.

She cannot contain the cry of pleasure that breaks free, and to her surprise, he smothers it with a sudden, scorching kiss.

His hands move to unfasten the clasp of her cloak, letting it fall away behind them. Snatching her around the waist, he tips her back, laying her out on top of it, a silken barrier between her and the ashes that lie beneath it. He kneels carefully over her, and she watches a silent struggle play out upon his face. He breathes in deeply, finding steadiness within himself.

She waits, as patiently as she can manage, though every inch of her feels raw, and in desperate need of his hands. One by one, he undoes the fastenings of her tunic, unfolding the fabric gently, unwrapping her, letting the morning sun soak her pale skin. A ripple of delight courses through her as she watches him look down upon her, followed by a surge of impatience. She thinks she sees the edges of his lips curl up ever so slightly as he slides his fingers beneath the hem of her trousers, as he begins to tease them slowly down her legs.

His unhurried pace is maddening. She bucks her hips as he strips the garment finally away, releasing a pathetic whimper. He returns it with a satisfied growl that sounds from deep at the base of his throat, before lowering his head, planting a chaste kiss on the skin just above her hip. His bare hand moves to cover her breast, fingers sinking into a slow caress as his lips forge their own path across her abdomen and lower.

When he reaches the place where she needs him most, he delays no further—her legs part as his tongue finds her center. She undulates in pure, simple, velvet-soft ecstasy, as half-conscious sighs and moans fall freely from her lips.

The sensation of his mouth upon her sex makes her deliciously weak, but she summons enough strength to raise her head enough to look down and watch him, his dark head between her thighs, eyes closed in concentration, his grey hand kneading her breast, his iron gauntlet gripping her hip, the sharp spikes of his fingers sinking into her flesh.

Within a few moments, she is finished, reduced to quivers and cries as she comes undone beneath him.

His face swims into view above her, wan and satisfied, his green eyes cloudy with arousal. She clasps him around the neck, pulling him down to kiss her, catching the trace of her own tang still upon his tongue. Finding more strength, she rises somewhat clumsily, moving to straddle him once more, so that his back is against the tree.

They are both breathless, and for a moment, they linger in stillness. Her hand drifts to his forehead, brushing strands of dark hair away from his face. Then she leans forward, kissing along his jawline before teasing at his ear with her teeth. He gasps at the sensation, hands digging deliciously into her bare back.

She presses her body close to his, flattening her breasts against the hard plate of his armor, rocking so that she feels the friction of his mail against her flesh. Her hunger for him—having been momentarily sated—comes roaring back, and her motions grow more frantic as she confronts again a deep sense of emptiness between her legs, aching to be filled. She trails hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of his throat, each an invitation.

Please, she begs in between them.

His hands abruptly leave the base of her spine, and for a moment she fears that they have reached the end—that she has asked too much, pushed too far.

She buries her face in his neck, unwilling to tear herself away. But then she feels something brush against her—something hard that teases at her still-weeping entrance. She sucks in a sharp breath, glancing down at the space between them. He is holding the hilt of the dagger against her slit, clutching it in his own hand by the blade, and she can see a thin rivulet of black blood running down his fingers. He winces, but she reads in his face just how much the pain grounds him, and she remembers his earlier words, his fears of being fully lost to lust.

This, she realizes, is what he can offer her now. All she can do is accept it and be content, and live in hope that together, they might conquer the rest in time.

It is a challenge that she is more than willing to accept for him, and she tells him so with a deep, passionate kiss. Pulling back, she locks her eyes onto his, letting herself sink down onto the hilt, as a breathy moan begins at the back of her throat. He manipulates the dagger gently, pressing it inside of her as the sound deepens and lengthens. His forehead droops against hers and they breathe in time together with each thrust until she comes, and his hand is covered in blood.

With her body still quaking from the aftershocks, she wastes no time in tending to him. Reaching for her cloak, she tears a strip of fabric and binds his mangled palm. When she finishes, she holds his hand carefully in both of her own.

Where will we go now, she asks him, suddenly fearful of what may lie ahead.

Home, he answers. To Mordor.

...y'all still with me?

want more?

[i have some ideas]

lemmeknowkthanksbai

[alexjcrowley]

The thing about brocedes still living in the same building makes me wanna munch my walls because on one hand I am convinced they're basically playing gay chicken except the first one to move out of that condo is not gay but implicitly admits to be psychologically weaker so now the fight is not about who wins the championship but who can recover more swiftly from 2016 and pretend he's unbothered by losing one of the most meaningful relationships of his life, it's psychosexual and unbelievable and uselessly painful and nobody really wins so they're both fucking ridiculous, they really said after the most heartbreaking friendship breakup ever documented on live tv let's be a little silly let's prolong our rivalry to levels only reached by american sitcoms

On the other hand

On other hand it makes perfect sense. They're not gonna move out because moving out would mean letting the fight die which would mean getting out of eachothers lives forever. Because when the fight ends we can't go back to being friends so I'd be forced to simply leave you behind and I can't do that. Let's keep up the fight, let me keep us for a little more, out of spite if not out of love. Yes I hate you and I can't even say your name and I won't call you on your birthday but please let me pretend it's out of my hands if I see you in the hallway one morning and then I hide behind a door. Until we live in the same building I have an excuse to see you without admitting I want to. Without testing my pride to see if I had the courage to come to you when we had no chance to meet on the stairs anymore, because I don't think I would allow myself that and I know I would suffer tremendously for it. We can't be a part of eachothers lives anymore because I've hurt you too much and you've done the same, we can't go back, but please don't let me move forward. You won't speak to me anymore but let me at least see your face once in a while. Not on posters or tv or internet, your face, without filters and the perfect lighting, with eyebags and imperfect hair and anything other than the press-trained smile because that is- was my friend, the man on tv- I don't know who that is. And it's my home, my home, understood, you can't force me out of it like you forced me out of your life so you move first if you want to move but I don't want to. It's my home and you were my friend and I'll be damned if I let you take anything else away from me again. I can't bear you in my life and I can't bear you out of it. Let's keep things muddy and confused and ridiculous, let's not ever put an end to this. Remind me everyday why I hate you rather than go away and force me to think maybe I still care about you more than I have ever hated you. Do not let this heal, because who knows if one of us will ever have the courage to go back to this car crash to see if there's still something that can be saved. I will stay here, forcing you to look around before you leave your apartment and check the flight of the stairs to see if I'm coming up when you need to go down, like a monster always hidden in a dark corner, like a ghost I will haunt you. I will force my presence into your life, if not in your home, at your table, in your living room, then in the corner of your eye, in a set of steps you could never not recognise, in a shadow approaching the hallway. The hurt will persevere and so will the love, in this new wretched form. We swore we would always be at eachothers side, we never said how. No, I won't move out and I won't move on. Allow me to force you to do the same.

[yangjeongin]

HYUNLIX for @leenope 💓

[lelelego]

i shutter and shake the memory is raw and it's awake

---

johnny's tattoos are thanks to @vinkumakkara, who very nicely cleaned them and posted them on their tumblr! thank you again!!