#it's an impulse i can't help;;

[chloecherrysip]

it has been days and i haven't seen ANYONE mention this so fine, FINE, i will be the one to do it

"We'll see how tough this Mario is when he watches me KILL HIS BROTHER!"

THIS LINE ALL BY ITSELF FELT VERY SCARY AND I FULLY UNDERSTAND WHY THERE WAS NEVER A MOMENT WHERE BOWSER COULD ACTUALLY TRY TO MAKE GOOD ON THIS THREAT, THAT'D BE TOO INTENSE FOR THE TONE THEY WERE GOING FOR, BUT...

WHAT IF...

(look, all i'm saying is the angst gremlin inside of me came ALIVE for a hot second and started imagining scenes playing out in different ways where Bowser DOES have this opportunity with both brothers together before the final battle and it is extremely heartwrenching stuff, OKAY)

I was originally gonna end this post here but welp, now I brainstormed a whole alternative scene under the cut

Imagine this: we're on the Rainbow Road. The blue shell hits! DK does still fall into the ocean (maybe yelling "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAUUUUULT" at Mario as he goes down) but Mario is thrown back by the explosion onto the side of Rainbow Road with Cranky Kong and the other Kongs (he is definitely injured, though) and lands there as they freak out about DK. Peach and Toad are still safely on the other side.

Mario is thus captured with all the other Kongs and taken to Bowser's airship (Peach and Mario call out to each other worriedly but there's nothing she can do and the flying Koopas are coming after her too so Mario yells for her to run and her and Toad have to flee, waaah)

(This would also let Bowser and Mario actually get to meet before the end, which I think would have been nice! Not absolutely necessary, I think the movie works fine without it, but it would have really driven home the threat/stakes a little harder and created a stronger Darkest Moment, I think)

Bowser, seeing that Mario is captured, is just FILLED with hateful glee and wants to break this little man down so badly after he DARED to get close to HIS princess, and he asks Kamek to bring out Luigi from the prison

Mario, now in the airship and restrained, gets to actually SEE Bowser and register how big/menacing he is and they have some banter where Bowser is FURIOUS and Mario is honestly just kind of confused, like, "dude, what is your problem with me??? I just came to this world two days ago???" (He's scared, of course, he's never seen anyone quite like Bowser before, but he also knows his type right away - he's a bully, and Mario's dealt with his fair share of bullies, that's for sure)

But then of course the conversation comes around to "WHERE IS MY BROTHER, LET MY BROTHER GO" and then Luigi is brought in, hands bound, and the brothers can't help but have big, teary smiles and call out happily for each other

But that happiness ends QUICKLY because Bowser advances on Luigi and Mario realizes all at once what's going to happen and he tries to run at him but Kamek drags him back with the magic

And like...I am not one for anything TOO excessive here, I wouldn't want it to be TOO far outside what a movie like this would include, but Bowser does start to hurt Luigi - picking him up and throwing him down, kicking him, scratching him up, and Mario is just in AGONY and desperately struggling to pull free from the magic and begging Bowser to stop, please, if he's mad at someone, hurt HIM, beat HIM up, whatever he wants, but please, don't take it out on his brother, PLEASE, he'll do ANYTHING

But of course, that just makes Bowser taunt Mario more, because he CAN'T do anything. He wants to see Mario broken down and a pathetic mess and begging HIM, the great Koopa King, for mercy because the princess would never be attracted to someone like THAT, how could she, how shameful! Bowser will be sure to tell her ALL about it when he proposes, he is delighted

(oh man, Bowser could even say something like that "whatever happens to him is YOUR fault, you brought your dear brother down with you when you dared to meddle in my fairytale wedding!!!" And it's a ~*~THEMATIC CALLBACK~*~ to Mario's dad, waaaah)

And finally, it looks like Bowser is going to strike a BIG blow but Kamek gets distracted or Mario just becomes desperate enough to pull free of the magic's influence with the power of BROTHERLY LOVE and he gets a punch in on Bowser that knocks him back!!!

And then Mario is helping Luigi up, holding his bruised face sweetly and reassuring him that it's gonna be okay, they're gonna get out of here and go home, and they try to run but they get dragged apart by guards/Kamek/etc again

Bowser is EXTREMELY MAD but manages to calm down and says that he actually appreciates Mario interrupting him with his pathetic little punch because he almost acted too rashly. After all, if he kills Luigi now, he'll be one prisoner short for his ritualistic sacrifice for him and Peach's wedding! Can't have that! Too bad Mario's gonna miss it! And then he grabs Mario and carries him out while Luigi is being carried/dragged back to prison and they're both horrified and crying out each other's names desperately as they're separated AGAIN

Mario gets thrown off the airship by Bowser into the ocean and left for dead (Mario probably gets one more defiant line where he swears he's gonna stop Bowser and Bowser tells Mario that'll never happen but not to worry, him and Peach are going to be very happy together and Mario and his brother will be reunited soon enough - in DEATH [evil laughter])

And then Mario gets swallowed by the eel and DK is already there and things start to play out the same way as the movie from there EXCEPT that when him and DK snipe at each other, Mario starts to break down a little and the line "Well, at least your brother's not gonna die because of you!" has a LOT more emotional weight to it and it's just a longer, more heartwrenching Darkest Moment scene in general, sob)

(and you could also have a scene with Luigi back in prison where he is obviously extremely shaken up and hurt and not knowing what happened to Mario, what did Bowser do with him, is his brother even still ALIVE, why was he so WEAK and unable to do anything, unable to even protect himself or help Mario, etc etc and that helps him have a character beat that maybeeeee makes his surprise rescue of Mario at the end feel more earned????? HMM)

I'M SORRY, I LOVE ANGST (that eventually ends happily) AND IT COMPELS ME

i'm gonna have to write this as an actual, full-fledged fic, aren't I, lolol

[fromtheseventhhell]

Arya watched them die and did nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? One of the women picked for questioning had tried to be brave, but she had died screaming like all the rest. There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones. (Arya VI, ACOK)

--

The night she was caught, the Lannister men had been nameless strangers with faces as alike as their nasal helms, but she'd come to know them all. You had to know who was lazy and who was cruel, who was smart and who was stupid. You had to learn that even though the one they called Shitmouth had the foulest tongue she'd ever heard, he'd give you an extra piece of bread if you asked, while jolly old Chiswyck and soft-spoken Raff would just give you the back of their hand. (Arya VI, ACOK)

Arya: *restrains herself from acting out when captured by the Mountain and his men because she knows fighting back/being brave wouldn't accomplish anything*

Arya: *takes note of the temperments of several Lannister guards so that she can learn how to navigate around their behavior*

Fandom: Arya is a feral idiot with no self-control uwu 🤗

[sysig]

can i requeeeessstt edgar rescuing scriabin from something |D

Day 6 - There are consequences out here

Bonus, of what he was doing to get stickers in his hair:

[the-chosen-half-of-one]

[ID: The Toy Story "I don't want to play with you anymore" meme where Andy is throwing the Woody doll on the ground, with Woody labelled to read, "Subject I've been literally obsessed with for years," and Andy labelled, "Me getting a new hyperfixation over the course of a day." End ID]

[beanghostprincess]

we gotta start giving luffy more credit for his emotional intelligence and empathy because i don't think y'all are aware of how fucking smart this lil dude really is

[ehlnofay]

Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, “What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

[menlove]

who cares how they treat you put her first ffs

well yes I absolutely have the money to drop everything and move thousands of miles away to support not only her but 2 other elders (her husband and daughter) on only my income and constantly expose myself to family members who like actively abused me in every box you can tick. this is a good plan I hadn't thought of that thank you queen 🫶

[iamthepulta]

The best thing about Italy and Europe is that linen just- exists here. I can go buy a shitty cheap 100% linen dress like I would go to Fry's and buy a shitty cheap 100% polyester dress in America. Absolutely revolutionary for my wardrobe. I can't actually buy wardrobe enhancements because I have a carry-on suitcase, but the fact I still have the option is amazing.

[fist-of-vengeance]

after making that post about redemption arcs i read another really good post about the difference between unforgivable characters and irredeemable characters and uh oh post cancelled I'm thinking about daisy tonner again

[blackbutler-readerinsertsandjunk]

tomorrow is my first day back to work and I'm a lil nervous

I haven't been able to get anything written for here bc I've been trying to get a couple other things written (updating my Bill Cipher redemption fic and starting a Gyutaro x reader x Daki because I make poor life choices)

but I'm on light duty for a month, basically just sitting at the register checking people out, unable to do any stocking or anything bc I'm not allowed to lift anything over 15 pounds so I can't lift totes, bend much, or reach much, so I'm allowed to bring something to do in between customers... maybe I'll get some writing done? I feel as if I'll be slacking off bc that's how my brain works

but you know what, I kill myself for that store normally, I don't work full time simply because I can't afford medical insurance if I did, but even working only part time I give my all while I'm there, I'm not someone who slacks off. so if I'm healthfully and approvedly permitted to slack off and take it easy for a month, I guess I'll take it (... plus, I mean, I'll still be working, just light duty, it's not like I'll show up and get paid to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, I'm still gonna be ringing out customers)

ANYWAY MY POINT IS-

get those last requests in! after I get home from work tomorrow, I'll be closing the askbox and won't open it back up till this batch is finished and I swear I mean that this time 😂

[freak-n-ready]

Thinking about cleaning the Ask Box again...

And leaving it with just some few asks (Max 3 or 4 of em), so u can make new questions, cuz some of them I'm pretty sure have been just there since 2021 and I feel very bad answering them now lol (Sorry x''d)

So, what do you say?

(I hate the the only options for the polls are 1 day or 1 week I CAN'T WAIT SO MUCH, BITCH--- HELP)

[sysig]

Let him dad her!! (Patreon)

[plenilune]

hehehehehe 😈

[ghost-likes-drawing]

I'm putting this out there incase someone who actually knows both source material well enough to know the characters but I have a fic idea:

One Morning Q!Cellbit and Q!Roier wake up in C!Roier's and F!Cell's bodies respectively. (Incase it's not clear Cellbit in Roier's and Roier in Cellbit's) at what point in their archs in those series I don't know (I personally think after Sally was born because then Cellbit is now left also taking care of a baby and I think that'd be interesting but I'm not picky.)

They both are left with a slightly tamer version of the impulses the body they are in would have weather it's murder, cannibalism, stalking, etc (ideally for me on the Q! Side it's also post purgatory 2 so Cellbit knows Vaugly who Natalan is and post somehow Roier is Back in his body before the swap but again I'm not picky)

They now get front row seats to the lives their spouses used to live stuck with the impulses their lovers used to (or still do) have running at all time

[crossover-enthusiast]

Papa's Pizzeria/Spooky Month crossover. Is that anything

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

dietitian warned me the other day i may need to go inpatient if this keeps getting worse and it hasn't left my mind ever since. partly because i don't see the reason. i am literally gaining weight. and also because a non-zero part of me wants to go back inpatient and i don't know why