#like if you talk to me i will talk to you but im not initiating things you know

[thaatdigitaldiary]

passenger princess

paige bueckers x fem reader

disclaimer!! i don’t usually write fics, i’m better at writing educationally (lame) but me & my friends wanted me to try something out of my comfort zone so enjoy. criticism is welcome, but be kind!

this is based off of the picture i posted of paige earlier so that’s the context (also on the banner)

tags: @rosemariiaa & @patscorner for encouraging me to do this elohel kisses to yall

enjoy 🤫

it was 10:47 am. the ac blasting throughtout your studio apartment. you tossed and turned in your bed, groaning from the lack of sleep the night before, caused by a stressful day of work yesterday, completely draining you. you were in a slump to say the least, and the only person who could help cheer you up, was your girlfriend. as you picked up your phone, it vibrated suddenly with a notification popping up, “p 💓” it read, and you opened the message.

it was a picture of her and a brand new car, a red cadillac with a black interior. after the picture comes through, another message follows.

“surprise?” it reads, and you’re shocked, not only about the fact that your girlfriend impulsively bought a new car, but how undeniably beautiful she looked.

her beautiful blonde hair, roots slowly coming through, but she made them look so good. she was clad in a gray sweatshirt despite this summer heat, and those stupid, yet adorable 2024 sunglasses you gave her for new years last year perched on her head.

as you go to text her back, you hear a knock at your front door. you fix your hair and throw your robe on, and go to answer it, while a text that just came through your phone appears.

“i’m outside”

“hi baby.” she says standing in front of you, grinning like a kid who just entered a candy store, jingling her new keys.

“paige.” you say sternly, slighting smirking at the fact that she was so excited to show you her new car. despite the fact that you and her have been dating since your sophomore year of college, she still made you nervous.

from her tall, lean figure, to her beautiful eyes that wander everytime you two see each other. she starts talking, but you can’t stop looking at her.

“baby.” she says, laughing a little. you were staring, and hadn’t heard a word she said to you.

“im sorry, did you say something?” you say, chuckling nervously, feeling embarrassed, but paige never found it embarrassing, she found it cute, matter of fact she loved it.

“i said did you wanna come ride wimmie? you gotta be the first in this car and you know that.” she tells you, leaning on your doorframe, taking you in. she looked you up and down and bit her lip, admiring you and your figure.

“of course p, lemme get dressed and fix my hair, i shouldn’t be too long.” you say sweetly, smiling at her and kissing her on the cheek.

she goes to sit on your couch, manspreading per usual, watching you walk away and into your room to find something to wear.

you rummage through your closet to find something comfortable but cute to wear, just in case you two make any stops, which you knew you would.

you do some finishing touches on your hair, leaving it down, just how paige liked it.

you walk out of your room, having a slight sway to your hips as you walk, which drove paige insane. you wore jean shorts and a black tube top, with your “p” necklace sparkling around your neck.

“jesus ma.” she says, whistling while her eyes travel all over your figure.

“what? should i change?” you asked with concern, worried you were overdressed.

“fuck no, you look beautiful, especially repping me like that,” she says, referring to the necklace with her initial on it, as she rubs her hands together and bites her lip, making you laugh.

“we can go wherever you want to mama, i filled the tank right after i left the dealership.” she grabs her lanyard with her keys attached to it out of her sweatpants pocket, and goes to open the front door for you.

“hm, there’s a new spot not too far from here, they got real good breakfast food, me and jana went the other day.”

“anything for you ma.” she tells you, sneaking a kiss in as you approach her car.

“okay this is beautiful p, and shiny as hell jesus,” you say, describing the darkish red colored car your girlfriend just impulsively bought.

“it needs a beautiful girl to sit in it y’know,” and you roll your eyes at her corniness, but you secretly love it. she opens the door for you and closes it behind you, and walks to the driver’s seat.

about 10 minutes pass and you two are almost at your destination. paige hooked up her bluetooth to her car as soon as she got it, you both listening to her playlist and singing along with the windows down and the wind blowing in your faces.

paige watched as your hair flowed in the wind, your smile so beautiful, and all she could think about what was how lucky she was, getting to see you whenever she wanted, hold you, kiss you, and be there for you, all the time.

she rested her hand on your thigh, driving with one hand, and smiling.

“baby,” you said softly.

“yeah ma?”

“i love you.”

“i love you more than anything ma, yk that.”

you two made it to the restaurant, paige disconnecting her phone from the aux, and gets out to open the door for you.

you could really get use to this new car smell, and being paige’s passenger princess for a long, long time.

I HOPE YALL ENJOYED! this might be a one time thing as i could never be too consistent but lemme know any feedback and i love you guys! 🙂‍↕️

[vampiricgf]

WATER SONG [PT. 1]

merman leon x gov't researcher reader

word count : 7k+

warnings : female reader, reader has a sort of type A personality and some mild anger issues, talk of medical experiments, he's referred to as a subject and specimen quite a lot, descriptions of predatory behavior (animal kind, not the sexual kind), slow pace, sfw, lots of yearning for touch

okay part one isn't terribly exciting im sorry ajdgakab I just wanted to establish a connection between the reader and him in the setting n such before developing any deeper connection. also like 1% research went into this so im sorry if you're knowledgeable about oceanic research this'll probably piss you off lmao. also all credit for this au idea goes to @/bunnivievve tysm for letting me write a lil interpretation of your idea! this was inspired by this post of theirs as well ‹𝟹

JUNE

Subject Zero. 

Male, combined characteristics of humanoids and aquatic species. Captured by a trawling vessel, out in deep waters usually traversed by cargo freighters but occasionally by commercial fishing vessels. A freak happenstance. When the net had been dredged up in a fantastic spray of salt water, the hoard of tuna quickly spilling into the sorting containers, the men on deck had spotted something much larger than white fin tuna thrashing in the net. 

Upon careful inspection they feared they’d pulled up a man, some poor unfortunate victim of a seafaring disaster. A capsized or otherwise destroyed vessel, a near drowning victim that had fallen overboard perhaps. 

Until they spotted the flashing of sharp teeth, and the thick, muscled tail slamming against the wet metal under their feet. 

Thankfully their transmission to the Coast Guard was intercepted, a naval craft catching the broadcast and setting course as fast as possible for the trawler. 

And now Subject Zero finds respite in your “office”. If an office can be counted as more of an observation space, nevertheless. A part of you feels bad, the less scientifically trained and inclined part that is, for keeping such a clearly intelligent creature within a tank inside a black site. The initial placement had been… difficult. It was clear the subject missed the open ocean, and you did feel sorry that it had been so unceremoniously plucked from its home and deposited in such an alien space on land. But there was nothing to be done about it. 

He was far too valuable as a research opportunity. The cold, clinical part of your mind understood that. He was a marvel of nature, flesh and blood proof that man could be intermixed with seafaring species, it was one of the single greatest events in modern marine biology. And an immense privilege for you, the scientist chosen chiefly to study the subject. 

A dream. The government all but telling you to do whatever you deemed necessary, no concern over the expense. Gone were worries of securing grant funding for more piddling projects or the endless anxiety of thinking you would be stuck as one name in an endless list of names relegated to ordinary oceanic study. Not that your peers' works weren’t valuable, but you always held the selfish desire for notoriety. Had dreamed endlessly throughout your undergraduate program of the day your name would be the one filling up library indexes and publications with impressive, weighty studies. Discoveries so undeniable you would join the ranks of the most noteworthy in the field. 

And seemingly, your wish had been granted. Subject zero would be the gravel that paved your road to success. It’s just a pity it has to be such an intelligent creature. 

You sit back, uncuring from your hunched position at the desk, rolling your shoulders and wincing as you hear your joints popping. Documentation was a never ending pain in the ass but it had to be done, if you wanted to keep the convenience of not having to answer to nor justify your expenses to an overhead department. Ordinarily that work would be relegated to a lower priority researcher, but you preferred being able to sign off on it all yourself, comforted by the fact that there were no unforeseen surprises lurking in the documents or spreadsheets or data tables. Nothing anyone would be about to point out as a discrepancy, leaving you humiliated and floundering. 

As you close your eyes you can feel it, the hair on the back of your neck slightly on edge. The feeling of being observed. 

He seemed to prefer watching you when your back was turned or if you were otherwise unaware. If you were facing the ten foot thick glass of the massive elcousure he would recede into the farthest corners of it, shying away into watery obscurity. In a way it was cute, an obvious curiosity for the beings around him but he seemed stricken by shyness, didn’t know if you were trustworthy. Which was understandable. You were the one keeping him there, at least to his limited viewpoint. The one that denied him reentry into his former home. 

That irritatiningly scentimental part of your mind whispered to you again. 

What if he thinks you’re cruel?

So what? We don’t even know to what extend he does think. 

You say that but you do care, at least a little. Thats why you sneak him extra food. 

You sigh to yourself, pushing up from the familiar desk, palms flat on its slick glass surface before rising to your full height. Out of the corner of your eye you catch the white coat you don most of the day, every day, slung carelessly over the back of another chair at a separate station. Your badge attached via a shiny, silvery little clip. Walking over you purposefully keep your eyes directed away from the elcousure, your movements slow. This is a good opportunity to see how long he’ll watch you as long as he believes you aren’t paying attention. 

The badge is solid, though lightweight as you pick it up, bringing it closer to your face. It’s hard to believe you look so excited in the small picture in the upper lefthand corner. Your name in bold typeface as last name, first name all neatly lined up next to the photo. In it’s reflection you can see him, one hand perched against the glass, that thick midnight blue tail swishing up and down in a soft, rhythmic motion as he stays still. Ever watchful. 

Its hard to see in the little reflective glimpse but subject zero does have more… handsome features. You smile to yourself, recalling one of the other researchers giggling while telling you it wasn’t weird to note that because it was true. What man on land, with two legs, had eyes that shade of blue or a jawline that impressive? None that aren’t using photoshop or filters. 

Maybe if the discovery of the subject was publicized there would be throngs of people banging on doors trying to find out where he’s being kept. It did make you huff out a laugh, the idea that a half fish man who couldn’t speak was more appealing than the majority of men on earth. 

Maybe we should open an instagram page for him. 

You shake your head to yourself, still smiling, as you set the badge down. 

The office slash observation room remained quiet save for the occasional sound of sloshing water. It was late, well past time fo anyone other than the usual armed military guard to be roaming the facility. Well past time for you to go home. 

At that moment you turn, just enough to peek over your shoulder and as soon as your eyes fix on the spot he occupied all you catch is a low flash of dark blue, retreating into the shadowy depths encased in glass. 

~

OCTOBER

Three months of observation. 

Hardly enough to form any evidence based conclusions, but enough time to get started on the right path. You had approximately nintey days of solid data on his diet, his presenting condition each day, endless notes on his observable physiology. He preferred deep water fish, clearly an omnivore as he also didn’t mind the addition of oceanic plant species mixed with the fish when it was introduced into the tank. In fact he seemed to greatly enjoy the sudden introduction of variety, although still preferred to eat his meals in a semblance of solitude. 

His distrust was only natural, you had to remind yourself. Until such time as he’s fully used to his new environment you’re unlikely to observe any great variation in his behavior. 

At least he wasn’t showing signs of aggression. That had been a legitimate concern, and still was, of course. All proper safety precautions were followed to the letter when it came to subject zero, and absolutely no one was to physically get in the tank, not until further tests could be done on his temperament and how he reacted to certain stimuli both pleasant and unplseant. 

You grimace seeing a newly sent email notification, the little computerized ding signalling that your attention was required. 

When isn’t it?

You put the sleek desktop into split screen mode, keeping the charts on the subject to the left while your email opened to occupy the right side. Amid the usual low importance emails from general staff there was a new one, at the very top. The name made your stomach twist in preparation of the message. Dr. Gregg had, for lack of a better phrase, a raging hard on for the opportunity to remove the subject from the tank and getting it into a smaller one in order to sedate and extract genetic material. It didn’t matter that he’d already been sedated and had samples drawn when he was initially transported here, no. The good doctor wanted more than that, but you couldn’t accommodate the request in good conscience. 

Or rather, you were worried about the effect it would have on him. It could set back the last nintey days of progress, or worse, inspire severe mistrust and heightened aggression towards all researchers. There was no way, even with sedation, that cutting into him wouldn’t cause pain. And a source of pain that a creature like subject zero had no way of understanding would only lead to problems. 

The two of you had been butting heads over the issue for the last week, culminating in an argument yesterday where you all but told him to get fucked. You were the lead on this, you made the decisions and he wasn’t going to usurp your authority. Your credit. 

But as your eyes scan the email you can feel yourself getting physically hot, your blood pressure threatening to rise. 

You may be the lead, the head researcher on this project, but do not believe for one moment that I will not go above your head. You are not CIA, doctor. You don’t call the final shots here, and it would do you well to remember that. Whatever your personal feelings on subject zero, you cannot stand in the way of necessary elements that better out understanding of the creature. 

With shaking fingers you close the window, not bothering to respond and not trusting yourself to either. Every fiber of your being wanted nothing more than to march down that hallway and wring his wiry old turkey neck. Who does he think he is? He’s just some physiologist, some ancient fuck. Who is he to threaten you? If his contributions were so invaluable wouldn’t he have been made lead?

You squeeze your eyes shut, hands clenching in your lap as you breathed deeply in through your mouth and out through your nose. The meditation app you’d been using had provided you with some useful tools, being that your temper had plagued you since you were small. Always the first to fly off the handle at even the idea you could be questioned, your competence or credibility casted in doubt. 

Inferiority complex, a nasty voice giggled in your head. 

It’s not that it wasn’t true, and it was a bit of an achilles heel for you. But what took priority now was holding Gregg back, keeping him away from the subject and minimizing the risk that he could fuck it all up before you even had a chance to really begin. So, once you felt that initial flashpoint of rage quelling you reopened the email application, setting your shoulders back as you began typing. 

Under no circumstances are you permitted to sedate nor perform any surgical procedures on subject zero. You have not been given any formal authorizations, so it would do you well to remember not to threaten your head researcher in the contents of easily retrievable emails. You are free to broach the topic with any superior officer on sight, and I am more than happy to entertain a line of questioning from said superior officers on why I do not believe it to be prudent at this juncture to allow for another extraction of material. Research is not a race, Doctor. 

You can’t help but smile smugly to yourself, imagining his fury at opening your reply. If he thinks just because you’re young that you’re easily pushed around he is sorely mistaken. Nothing and no one is allowed to jeopardize the most important work you may ever do. 

With that you abandon the desk, it’s dull and mind numbing work, in favor of standing in front of the tank yet again. It was nice, having a portion of it extending into this area as an offshoot of the main tank where all the feeding and the bulk of physical testing was done. He seemed to enjoy it too, which despite yourself you did place some importance on. 

It was important to ensure he was as comfortable as possible. He was still a living being, despite his status as a research subject, and you took no pleasure in the idea of him suffering in any way. It was definitely a slight drawback, you could begrudgingly admit, that you tended to get… overly attached to the species in your care. You’d done the same in both undergrad and postdoc, although it was more important than ever before to keep a tight hold on those tendencies now. 

How would you feel, if you knew that man was so hell bent on slicing you open? 

Probably afraid. 

What are you feeling now?

It would be so much easier if he were capable of speech. The bridges that had to be built between what was known and unknown had to come from the very foundations, things that required occasionally unpleasant experiences in order to build their understanding of him. But if he could just explain some of it, that would be easier. A half formed bridge is faster to finish than one from scratch. 

Uselessly you peered into the clear, clean water. Between swaying stalks of plants there was nothing to see except the seemingly endless expanse of water. Several mind boggling tonnes of it, all kept nicely contained in ten foot thick military grade glass. Bulletproof. Shatter proof. Even if subject zero were to ram it with intent, crack it even, it would still hold. 

You couldn’t help but wonder, as you remained staring through that glass, if he was lonely. Seeing so many strange, upright walkers but being unable to even touch them, even consider the act of doing it. 

As you frown at your own reflection, you feel it again. 

Duel observation.

~

It was bizarre, to him. These two legs, tall men. He knew they existed, they’d always known a different sort of being lived on the land, domineered it and then took to making attempts at dominating the sea as well. It had all become so noisy, so very nearly unbearable thanks to their hulking monstrosities of shining metal and the things they constantly kept dumping into the water.

Every day there were new threats to avoid. Long gone were the days of simply worrying about other predators lurking in the open waters or within the sediment and foliage. 

He hadn’t seen the net, as they called it, until it was too late. Had been too caught in the euphoria of finding such a gigantic school of gorgeous, meaty tuna, that his mind switched off to everything but pure instinct as he’d circled them quickly, calculatedly. His jaw had felt the ache of hunger so viscerally it was like the bones themselves were vibrating with it. 

And then they’d all begun moving. Swept up, trapped in an upward drag that he’d been powerless to fight against while overwhelmed by the wriggling, frantic fish flashing across his vision, no way to know what was forwards or backwards, up or down. 

Then the shock of air. His lungs had seized up painfully with it, the feeling of being constricted by nothing at all yet everything all at once had been horrific, beyond frightening. 

After that it was too messy, too jumbled in his mind. Harsh sounds, their sounds, were prevalent in his memory but just beyond his grasp. Far too loud without the water to act as a buffer between, softening the blows of each reverberation against his eardrums. 

But her sounds were different. Or, it was that she didn’t make many to begin with. The look of them all was mostly similar from behind the thick material they kept him in, in this unknown space. At least they offered readily available food, although not nearly what he was used to hunting for himself and his webbed fingers itched at the thought of clawing through water in pursuit of some darting piece of prey. It would feel so, so good to sink his teeth into flesh, to feel it rip and catch in chunks between his teeth, the iron rich scent of blood swirling around. The roar of adrenaline in his ears. 

It was difficult to keep his focus on much here, save for her. The best parts were when the others disappeared but she would still be in that corner, down the long corridor of water and he would be able to see her, sitting and doing wholly alien things with her hands at something large and flat, but vaguely shiny. Hers didn’t have webbing, none of them did from what he could tell. How did they ever swim competently? 

She was softer than the rest and he enjoyed watching her do her strange tasks, sometimes she would pace around holding a sheet of paper in her hands, chewing on her bottom lip. Her teeth didn’t seem all that sharp, since she never seemed worried about cutting her flesh on them. What did they eat, with useless teeth? 

Just like at the present moment, with her back turned it was easier to look at her fully. Usually he wouldn’t approach openly like this, unsure of the intentions of everyone here, but this space seemed to be reserved for her only which put him at ease. That and none of those harsh spotlights were present, if anything she seemed to prefer it half dark which was fine by him, preferable to that loud bright area behind him back through the water corridor. But she seemed tense, the set of her shoulders curled forward, almost in on herself. Something in front of her was clearly upsetting and in some odd way he felt offense on her behalf. She was kind, gave him extra food before she would disappear through the night, always seemed to be keeping a close watch over him and how the others were with him. 

He may not be able to speak, but he’s pretty sure she was the reason he wasn’t suffering in this place. And that was good enough, at present, to make him feel a sense of kinship with her. Closeness. 

As she carried on with whatever it was that kept her so occupied his mind wandered to what it would feel like to touch her. They seem to enjoy touch, most of them being very casual with the way they interacted. How did she like being touched? Or would she dislike being touched by him outright? Would she find his webbed, clawed fingers disgusting, would she flinch away?

He frowned behind the glass. Hopefully not, but there really was no way to know. They seem intent on keeping a wide distance from him, which wasn’t unwelcome. The only one he was at all curious about was her anyway, not that he would purposely antagonize anyone who ventured inside his new domain, though he certainly wouldn’t circle them like one of the friendly, if a little dumb, nurse sharks do occasionally out in open water. 

He was so caught up in that worry he nearly failed to catch her movement, but his reflexes are faster than hers. Before she could approach the glass fully he’d already retreated a safe distance away. Watching as she stared into the expanse of water, her face unreadable but the set of her eyebrows told him she felt some kind of stress, strain. 

His fingers twitched at his sides, thinking about reaching out to touch her again.

~

You smile to yourself, a soft hidden kind, at the now familiar feeling. It was like there was a strange sense of understanding between you two, although you could just be ascribing things to him he doesn’t possess. Thats always something to keep in mind, as a researcher but more often than not lately you’re coming to resent that line of thought. It was clear subject zero was intelligent. Maybe not to the degree of a human being, but he was close enough evolutionarily speaking, that he was like a cousin in the chain. An offshoot of the formerly solidly established line of human life. Theres no reason, as yet identified, that he wouldn’t be able to communicate if given the chance to learn how. 

You aren’t thinking of him as a subject anymore. That’s dangerous. 

You know it is, know that voice is right. But it doesn’t account for everything. The odd push and pull, hide and seek game you two play here in this office every single evening. Its to the point now that you feel tense, uncomfortable if you don’t sense him behind you, watching you work or pace around nonsensically. You’ve spent over an hour before reading and rereading the same observational notes and data sets because you kept grinning to yourself like a fool feeling those eyes burning holes in your back. 

He’d even made appearances in your dreams a handful of times over the last month, flashes of deep, endless blue that clung to the soft corners of your mind as you went about your morning routines, ruminating over his appearance as steam from your coffee curled around your hands, ghostly fingers clawing at the air. Tension crept up your beck, spreading out over the tops of your shoulders and trapezius muscles prompting you to stretch against the back of your office chair, rolling your joints and hearing their familiar cracking in response to hours of sustained poor posture. Lazily you grasp your phone from the desk, thumbing open the music app and scrolling a bit through your shuffle playlist before settling on something bubbly, but easily tuned into the background. 

You wonder if he enjoys music, what his preferences would be if he could swipe through your library of songs. It makes you smile to yourself thinking about it, maybe that would make for a good test of his thinking abilities, how he responds to different genres, different artists. Standing, you bend slightly to make a quick note on a half discarded sticky tab: musical testing?

And suddenly a somewhat mad thought grips you, what if you tried right now? Whats the worst that could happen, he lurks in the background while you sway around the dim office like a fool? At least the only people who could see would be the guards, not that they’d say anything either beyond thinking to themselves that every researcher here must be insane. That makes your smile grow wider, giggling to yourself a bit as you take slight steps in time with the beat, giving a little spin on your toes to face the take. 

It only somewhat shocks you to find yourself face to face with him, that he hasn’t retreated to the safety of the shadowy corners. His eyes, a remarkably similar color to the water surrounding him, track your movements with abject curiosity as you follow an imaginary path, one foot placed delicately in front of the other to carry your body with the faint sound of the music. All the while his eyes never stray from you, even when he has to move to keep you in his sights, even when you come right up to the glass and offer a little spin in front of him, giggling to yourself a little more freely now. 

And to your amazement, at your laughter, he smiles. He smiles and it makes your chest feel light, like a ten pound weight you hadn’t even been aware of was finally lifted off. Some might find his fanged appearance frightening, to you it was boyishly cute. A toothy little grin, the tips of his elongated enscisors catching against his bottom lip, and his thick, muscular tail began to move. As if, had he possessed legs like yours, they would be moving in tandem with you. 

It felt like a genuine breakthrough, making you hug your arms around yourself as you stopped moving, still laughing and feeling just a tad bit lightheaded. He genuinely smiled at you. 

He was moving with you. 

That was a major breakthrough, even if just a personal one. Increased rapport meant things would be easier going forward, for both of you. 

With a contented sigh you pressed one hand to the smooth, icy surface of the glass, your fingers stretching over the sleek glass and he does something that makes your breath freeze in your lungs. Gingerly, the way people stretch out their hands to scared animals, inch by inch his own rases to be a perfect mirror of your own. One larger, webbed, hand pressed to the glass right behind your own. It felt silly but you were too afraid to even exhale with any effort, for fear even the barest noise would ruin the moment and he would flee right back into the far corners, beyond your reach. 

But he doesn’t, doesn’t stop holding your gaze for a single second and you marvel at the way his blonde hair sways in the water, like the finest strands of silk-

“So, thats why you keep refusing to allow any progress of this “research”?”

You nearly jump out of your skin at the voice from behind you, a signature grating tone you could pick out anywhere. As your head snaps to the side, body following the movement only a second after, you see him standing in the door way with his arms crossed nearly reeking of smugness. 

Fuck. 

~

One week. 

You have one week to figure out what to do. 

After shattering your late night revelation with subject zero, who has been increasingly attached to you ever since, the resident pain in your ass physiologist had made sure to fire off emails riddled with concerns and accusations addressed to the operatives truly in charge of the site. Questions of your ability to continue in any capacity with the project, the nature of your relationship to the subject, insinuating you had some kind of perverse intention, even going so far as to insult your credibility. Not only cc-ing yourself but “mistakenly” sending those emails to every person working on site.

It had effectively turned you into a pariah with regards to your peers. Whispers of conversation that would be cut off as soon as you set foot into a room. Strange looks from your coworkers, ranging from disgust to perverse curiosity. It felt like you were continuously on fire, every minute of every day. There would be a meeting in one weeks time, and until then you were relegated to nothing but the paperwork in your office, per the tense instructions given to you.

But your panic had less to do with your professional reputation, surprisingly, and more to do with feeling very nearly physically sick when you recalled how fixated he was with the idea of getting to cut into subject zero. If you were removed completely from this project there would be no one else to act as a roadblock, to keep that from happening. 

Your eyes slide over to the observation tank, noting the worried way he’s been watching you for hours now. You wished you could haul him out of there, explain what was happening, the risk of what could happen to him. Maybe he would have some idea of how you both could get out of this. But was there any way out? Or is the only option allowing yourself to become a laughingstock, a professional embarrassment and to allow subject zero to languish in whatever horror would surely be inflicted on him? 

You can’t say if desperation is the only thing motivating you, but your mind becomes mostly blank as you leave the office. Its early enough, after you’d been practically climbing up the walls all night, so maybe the choice was fueled by sleep deprivation. Whatever the case may be, you find yourself moving as if through a dream: down the cavernous corridors, turning and twisting to follow the slate grey concrete all the way to the impossibly large main observation chamber. 

With a swipe of your ID card, forcefully and defiantly, the locks give a little beep before disengaging. Mechanically you make your way to where the suits are stored. Specially designed, one of a kind. Made of an interwoven, enmeshed material not unlike chainmail to prevent sharp teeth from being able to puncture both cloth and flesh, and featuring only the best in terms of diving design. The manufacturer had created them after winning a defense contract from the governenment and you wonder if they ever would have guessed someone would be stripping and tugging the suit on in order to come face to face with something most people would assume only existed in a fairytale. 

But here you are: yanking and adjusting the suit before prepping the oxygen tank, also designed to be compact but sacrificing the amount of time one could spend fully submerged at any depth. Either way it would work for this application, although no one had been given clearance to dive yet. 

You knew doing this would come back to bite you far worse than just those vendetta fueled emails. Diving without any clearance, using untested equipment. It was beyond insane. But the circumstances felt insane enough on their own to justify it. Subject zero was overwhelmingly likely to be just as intelligent as you were, and just as likely to feel physical and mental distress in similar ways. Trying to communicate was step one and what better way than face to face. Then you could form step two: proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he was intelligent and thus, could be advocated for medically even if he couldn’t advocate for himself. 

That was the only way to halt the now speeding train of decisions being made on his behalf and without his input. If he could even write out the most barebones statement, even that would work to prove they needed consent to continue with any of this. Tomorrow you could wake up in a whole new world, one where there is technically a second legal classification of human being, one with a tail and gills. The though made you smile despite the tense circumstances. 

What you were doing was a halfcocked, absolutely batshit attempt at a hail mary but it was worth a shot. Your reputation was already in tatters on site, how much worse could it be? If you fail in this all that happens is you’re dismissed and removed from the site, doomed to be a whispered footnote for future researchers. Did you ever hear about the lady that went crazy with one of the subjects? A cautionary tale about getting too attached to your work. 

But fuck that. If you’re not at least a little attached to your work then do you even really care at all about any of it? You would argue that the resident physiologist holds no love for the work, only a love for the idea of something else experiencing pain.

With a deep breath you sit carefully on the steel ledge that runs the length of the tanks open ceiling. Easy, you just flip backwards and hit the water, reorient yourself and try not to get eaten by one potentially pissed off subject. Yeah, a real piece of cake. With that you decide theres no more time to waste, it’s probably already flagged in the system that you accessed the main deck, they’ll be here any minute. 

Good, that means they can all see I’m not insane or inappropriate. He can comprehend things just like we can, the music wasn’t a fluke. 

In the span of a second your worldview dips, swirls, and the splash of water hits your ears at the exact same moment the shock of cold does. The water is kept at approximately the same temperature as the water he was captured in, frigid Atlantic delights. As bubbles envelop you, you manage to get yourself turned right side up, carefully circling your arms to tred water and remain mostly stationary. This would be the key moment, you have to exercise extreme caution. 

You’re another predator that has invaded the territory of a fellow predator. In the natural world, it’s a killable offense. But you keep your eyes open, sweeping the dimly lit, wide expanse of saltwater around you. No sign of him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t here, watching you, gauging the situation. As you continue to keep your breathing even, your movements slow enough but steady enough to keep your body afloat, you catch sight of something in your peripheral. That intimately familiar midnight blue tail. He was moving behind you now, one webbed, clawed hand slicing through the water like knives as the rest of him came into your view. That sandy, dishwater blonde hair floating in fine tendrils around his face, framing piercing blue eyes that took you in critically, curiously. 

You allow him to keep circling you, doing your best to calm your nervous system that felt on high alert, panic just on the cusp of overriding your sensibilities. Allowing that would spell disaster, you would certanly be killed if you started thrashing or spinning wildly, it would scare him, you could both be injured in any kind of violent altercation. They would kill him if he killed you. 

But your worries abate as he slows to a stop in front of you, and despite your eyes staying locked together you’re conscious of the audience you have on the other side of the glass. The feeling of being watched by many people is something quite unique, it’s also unnerving. You wish you could apologize to him, you hadn’t realized before how uncomfortable literally living beneath a microscope was. 

You raise your arm, hand extended, in a painfully slow movement that makes the muscles in your forearm ache. His attention goes to the appendage now how hanging between you two, eyeing it with equal parts suspicion and what seems to be excitement. The physical equivalent of a high pitched alarm happens in your body as he moves closer to you, the air suddenly locked in your lungs as you wait. This was another critical moment. Would he grasp your hand? Rip it off? It was entirely unknown, beyond dangerous. 

But none of those things happen. The painting, god touching adam, comes to mind as he raises a clawed index finger delicately up to yours. They don’t touch but rather hover in proximity to one another before a grin works its way across his face, those sharp incisors catching against his bottom lip as his eyes flick back to your goggled face. 

You hope he can see that you’re smiling too, but you hope its not like it is with monkeys where grins are signs of aggression. But it seems that fear is unwarranted as his tail twitches erratically, the wispy bits of filigree flesh on the split end swirling through the water in a gorgeous display of deep blue and white. Like sheer fabric winding through the air. 

The ecstasy that floods your brain is a feeling like no other, a full body sensation that spreads from the tips of your fingers to your fabric covered toes. His tail moves to brush against your kicking legs, the heft of it is shocking. You can immediately imagine the sheer power of it kocking into you, it would feel like being hit by a freight train no doubt. For something that looked so elegant and otherworldly, it was still a threat. 

But you couldn’t get distracted you needed some display of his intelligence, and you needed it now. 

So you shake off the awe, do your best to refocus on his face. Carefully you draw back your hand, pointing to yourself and then at him. You repeat the gesture several times, hoping to receive a reaction that displays understanding. 

And he doesn’t keep you waiting long. 

In a flash one clawed, webbed hand encircles your wrist and halts your movement. 

It’s like time suspends, a complete and total pause as you feel a different kind of chill within the suit. It’s like you’re watching in third person, your throat seizing as your fingers intertwine hesitantly. It’s an oddly tender gesture, and then your body is tugged through the weight of the water, pushed against the solidness of his chest. Your arms came gingerly around him, and his enveloped you in turn. He was all firmness, so solidly built it shocked you. You hadn’t properly appreciated the sheer mass of him, the way his body had been crafted for underwater pursuit, hunting. But also to accommodate displays of affection, just like your own. 

And as you two embrace you can’t help but smile again. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to form one hell of an argument on his behalf and you would shout until your face was blue that going forward, communication would take priority. Worrying about the innerworkings of his physiology could wait until later.

[auroratumbles]

first of all, do NOT in any way harass nor send hate to anyone mentioned in this post. this is simply to raise awareness about it all!!

user @/ceneid (formerly) was a popular person in the genshin writing community who lied about their age, identity, faked an ed, and was just mainly a shitty person in general.

all the information on this post comes from an anonymous source

the blogs that were owned by elise are:

ceneid

hikoiaa

umiloa

ha-yami

scarasgfreal

symphxony

fionvancia

fixnaie

a quote from my source:

"for context, elise ran a total of 4-5 accounts, with her very first blog being ceneid that was also mutuals with you - they’re the same person. elise had multiple accounts where she claimed she was different ages and it was fairly obvious it was her due to the fact that she didn’t bother to change her typing style or themes, one of the blogs claimed she was 18, a few of my friends and i ended up noticing she had a terrible tendency to say things like “oh i haven’t eaten in 20 hours! should i eat? oh nvm” and such which led to everyone being concerned, these were EXTREMELY frequent, and she’d speak about self harm - randomly putting it in a casual conversation without warning.

she also asked for my location at some point, and overall i eventually grew tired of it and blocked her. later on, someone i know made a callout post on her and it ended in shambles, elise continued to try to get them to take the post down but to no avail until elise deactivated ceneid and started the hikoiaa blog. the person who made the post found out it was her and the cycle continued, until elise ended up admitting everyone and apologized to everyone per the person’s request.

after elise did that, the person deactivated their blog thinking elise had changed for the better - and i even interacted with her too because i thought the same thing. unfortunately, we were all wrong and found out elise owned the @/symphxony blog where she says she’s 17. multiple things have it away that it was her such as coincidentally posting the same things, following the exact same people, and elise also bypassed someone’s boundaries by interacting with them through the blog as a way to become friends with them despite the person telling her to not interact with her directly.

elise made excuses when i confronted her and told her to stop, and she played it off as coincidences like she did before when the owner of the call out post tried to talk things out with her. i have people who can vouch for everything im saying, as well as some screenshots that would unfortunately not fit into this ask because there’s too many of them, she also has this strange obsession with following and interacting with people that i follow and interact with in any shape or form, this has happened almost 7 times now as well. she’s constantly made blogs to follow me on despite me telling her to NEVER contact me again. this stopped a few days ago when she blocked me."

screenshots provided were

another quote:

"elise’s stories never made sense, they were always exaggerated and/or made her seem smarter than she actually was - this was a small bit of the proof that she was lying about her age at the end when she claimed to be 16. she linked a few tiktoks on her blog, revealing her account in the process that studied 7th grade science"

she was called out by someone else on tumblr initially, but that post was lost to the depths. she lied about having a joint blog with someone when it was really just her. to save her own skin, she dmed them.

when that blog blocked her, she made a 'burner account' to talk to them even more.

another blog named 'scarasgfreal' was made. they were 𝜗𝜚 anon and 🦢 anon. the blog was made a few days after the incident mentioned above.

the blog confronted elise.

part 2 of this post

[starry-bi-sky]

Childhood Friends Danny and Jason: Ch2 Remastered

-------------------------------------------------------------- late at night when the stars don't look quite right -------------------------------------------------------------- there's something burning in the empty room inside of my head fill it up with doubt let it in, let it spread

Jason nearly falls flat on his face when he sees the photo of Danny. He’s in a warehouse, finishing up with a gang selling drugs on his turf. The guys he’s got tied up are cursing up a storm at him, throwing every insult under the sun his way that he’s all heard before. His eyes drag over to them, and silently Jason adjusts his jacket to reveal the guns strapped to his thighs, his hand hovering over the handle of one. 

They all fall silent, and Jason moves his hand away. His phone in his other hand, texting Oracle to alert the police. Jason hates that he has to; these guys will be out of their cells in a matter of months, and nothing will change. 

But he’ll play nice. 

And then his phone buzzes, and when Jason looks down he sees a banner from Tim. A message he planned on ignoring, but his eyes skim over the text on instinct, and suddenly the air is stolen right from his lungs, and his thumb is hitting the screen before he can really think it through.

[Hey Jason, your best friend just appeared in Gotham for the first time since your funeral.]

Impossible. He thinks, yanking his phone close to his nose, as if that will make it any less real or fake. Danny hasn’t been in Gotham in years, Jason checked. But then the image loads, and then he’s staring Danny Fenton in the face. And then he’s greedily tracing every minute, new detail he can find. The gang left half-forgotten in his mind.

Danny’s got an undercut, it looks self-done. It looks good. He looks taller. He’s got piercings in his ears, gold and jewels lining up the sides like a magpie’s find. He’s got an eyebrow piercing. 

Something old, something new; Danny is smiling and it still looks just as Jason remembers it. Crooked, lopsided, warm like the sun and belying the mischief underneath it. He remembers to breathe in that moment, and the sound comes in sharp. Danny’s eyes are as blue as they’ve ever been. 

(“I don’ get why books talk so much about peoples’ eyes.” Danny complains to him one day when he’s visiting the manor, his legs thrown over Jason’s back like an anchor tied to its ship. They’re sunk into the mattress of Jason’s bed, sunlight peering through the windows. “They’re just eyes! I don’t need t’know that they’re ‘as blue as the sky,’ or- or the ocean, or whatever blue thing in the world there is.”) 

(Jason’s smile comes to him like breathing, and he twists around to lay on his back. His arms trap Danny’s legs to his stomach. “Pretty sure it’s jus’ for emphasis on how much they’re noticing the person’s face.”)

(Danny’s face scrunches up, and Jason’s smile splits into a grin, heart swelling three sizes on instinct. “I think it’s stupid, s’just some fuckin’ eyes.”)

(“Eyes are windows to the soul, Dan.” Jason retorts, barking out a laugh when Danny gives him a deadpan look. His hands creep for a pillow, one of the soft downy ones wrapped in silk, and he throws it at Danny’s face. “And besides, speak for yourself! Your eyes are the bluest thing I’ve ever seen.”) 

But most importantly, Danny looks tired. 

Hiding is something that comes free with the purchase of living in Gotham, and Danny’s good at hiding things, he always has, but Jason knows him like the palm of his hands. He looks tired, and Jason wants to reach through the screen and ask him why. There’s an age-worn look there, catching in the flint of his iris, where his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Jason gets the ETA from Oracle, then leaves as fast as his legs can carry him and his grappling hook can zip through the air. He needs to see Danny with his own eyes, to confirm himself that Danny was here, and that it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him. Or that it was Tim playing a cruel joke on him — and if it was, he’ll have to rethink his whole killing thing. 

Gotham’s air is warm and suffocating, but her winds bite at him as he soars through it.

It’s second nature for him to find the west end balcony, and Jason finds himself with his feet locked in place on the building beside it. Grappling hook in hand, and a balloon in his lungs, all swelled up and squishing the air out of him. 

It’s just his luck —with whatever he has left— that Danny is there as well. In the same spot he’s always been, with a cigarette caught between his teeth. He’s stuck halfway, head tilting, eyes closed, with the shadows of Gotham on his back and the light of the gala at his front. 

For a moment, for a fleeting, terrifying moment, Jason thinks Danny’s going to tilt himself back off the side.The thought has him blindly tilting himself forward with his heart in his throat. Hands reaching for his grappling hook, swinging down to drop down beside him.

Danny is staring at him before his feet even hit the ground, face nigh unreadable beyond the small, wary furrow of his brows. Danny’s never looked at him like that before, it feels like  stumbling on the last step of the stairs. 

Then, like fire to black powder something flashes and ignites in Danny’s eyes. Mouth curling, eyes burning, for a moment, just a moment, they’re kids again, getting into fights and turning soft hands punch-rough. Danny looks at Jason like he’s going to tear him to shreds.

Jason’s mouth runs dry like a desert in the summer, but his blood chills in fear cold in his veins. Why are you looking at me like that? His mouth opens, but his tongue is leaden in his throat, and no sound comes out. It’s me. Don’t you recognize me?  

Danny yanks the cigarette from his mouth like it burns him, his free hand gripping onto the railing like it’s the tether to a leash, nails threatening to turn into talons. “Red Hood.” He says, voice low and timbre, smoke dripping from his lips like dragon’s breath.  

Oh.

That’s right. Jason suffocates on his heart as it sinks and soars with relief. Danny doesn’t know it’s him. In his tunnel vision, he forgot that simple, easy fact. It’s not because it’s Jason that he’s angry. It still doesn’t explain, though, why Danny looks at him like he ought to sink his teeth into his throat and rip him open. 

He’s half-distracted by that, and then distracted by the need to drink in the sight of Danny again. A photo is one thing; the real person is another, and with his fear subsiding, Jason rakes his eyes over his best friend and swallows him whole. His eyes are bluer in person, his memory and Tim’s photo doesn’t do them justice, and Danny inherited his dad’s height. He’s gotten so tall. They both have. They both used to be such scrawny kids. 

So distracted is he, that he forgets to respond to Danny, to say anything. Not until Danny tries to dismiss himself, and Jason kickstarts into gear. White hot panic fills in his lungs, burning him up like magma. No, no, no, he’s moving without thinking, always when he’s with him, and he nearly latches onto Danny. Nearly wraps his hands around his arm to hold him in place. Don’t leave. You’re finally here; don’t go. 

Danny stays, but he stares at Jason’s reaching hands like he’ll bite them off, stares at Jason with his eyes burning, watchful. Jason’s excuse is lousy and he knows it, but he wants, wants, wants to stay and figure out every new thing about Danny. 

And he feels like he’s losing something. Time bleeds together beside him and Jason feels trapped behind a glass wall of his own making. Something old, something new. The distance of which Danny keeps him at is foreign to him. He hates it. 

Tell me everything, he thinks, because he can’t find the words to say it. He hands Danny a cigarette instead, and hopes that it’s enough. Tell me everything and more, tell me what I’ve missed. 

In the end, he still feels like he’s losing something, but he also feels like he’s missing something. Answers that are water, and that water is slipping through his fingers. Danny leaves him with more questions than answers; something that’s never happened before, and Jason watches him walk back inside with a spinning mind. 

What do you mean you spoke to my ghost?

I told you that the Joker killed me?

Have I told you anything else? Have I already told you everything I’ve wanted to?

What happened while I was gone? 

Is that why you’re scarred?

Because Jason isn’t blind, he’s never been. Not in Crime Alley, not as Robin, not now. And not when it comes to his best friend. He sees the silver lightning scars ripped jagged up Danny’s arm, sees that they disappear under his sleeves. He saw, faded as they were, invisible until the light hit right, as they spread like tree roots up his throat and across the side of his face.

Scars that Danny’s never had before. Scars he didn’t have when Jason was alive the first time. Scars he didn’t have the last time Jason saw him. Or — what he remembers to be the last time he saw him, because apparently he saw him as a ghost. He sees the curve of his ears and how they point more than a human’s should, he saw the glint of his canines, sharper than they should be; sharper than he remembers. Metaphorical fangs turned real.   

Jason should’ve asked where he got them from, should’ve taken Danny by the front of his collar and stopped him from leaving. Who did this to you? He should have said, a fire burning in his chest and wrapping around his throat, pulling his voice into a snarl. He should have said, his guns weighing heavy on his sides; Who did it. I’ll take care of it. Just tell me who. Tell me everything. 

Instead, something crawled into his mouth and died, and his tongue is glued to the roof of it. And he doesn’t say anything, because saying something means telling his best friend who he is. It means having to take off his helmet and mask. It means telling his best friend that he’s alive, that he has been. That despite being two halves of a whole, Jason spent five years letting him think he was dead. 

He can’t tell him, not when he’s in too deep already. Not when Jason is so unrecognizable to who he used to be that if he told him, Danny would hate him.

And Danny is still grieving him. So plain as day mourning, still angry over his death. Angry enough that he wants the Joker dead, angry enough that he wants to hang the noose and kick the chair out himself. 

Jason wishes he told him that he looks tired. 

Instead he’s standing alone on the balcony, trying to get his thoughts in order as music blares muffled through the gold-light door. He’s left staring at the crushed cigarette laying on the ground, Gotham’s ambience at his back and a poem hanging in the air that he has no words for. It’s already there. Like stars on a painted ceiling.

And there are so many questions he needs answers for. 

Like his ghost. His ghost.

What did Danny mean by his ghost? 

Does he really want to kill the Joker himself? Was it just the grief talking? Jason knows — or thinks he knows — Danny like the palm of his hands. He’s been through everything with him, he’s seen him say something and then immediately follow through with it. He knows when he’s being serious, he knows when he’s not. 

Danny wants to kill the Joker. Stealing is one thing; murder is another. And Danny wore a look on his face that looked like he meant it when he told Red Hood that he wanted to kill Joker. But saying and doing are two different things. Jason doesn’t know what to think.  

Something old, something new. Danny is still the same, and yet he’s changed so much. 

What did Danny mean by his ghost? 

Jason doesn’t ever remember being a ghost. But Danny knows the Joker killed him. He knows how he killed him. Danny’s parents are ghost scientists, and Jason remembers the letter he got one day telling him about the portal they were building in the basement. 

He remembers thinking about telling Bruce — this was something beyond the glowing green samples stored in the fridge, giving life to the food inside. This was beyond the weapons, the inventions they made that only saw the light of day when the Drs. Fenton brought them up to showcase them.

And he didn’t, because if he hadn’t told Bruce about everything before, he wasn’t going to start. He admits, it was part fear that Bruce might intervene and prevent him from seeing Danny that he didn’t.  

Neither of them had expected it to work — but it sounds like it did. 

(Jason has avoided Amity Park for a reason. He knows he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from going there if he didn’t. But now, he just might have to look into it. He’s missed too much.) 

And Danny wants to kill the Joker, and Jason isn’t sure if he means it or not. Because the look on his face when he said it is oh-so familiar. It’s the one he wore when he needed Jason to distract the clerk while he snuck behind the counter to steal cigarettes from the shelves. It was the one he wore when an older kid cornered them near one of Gotham’s many alleys, threatening them over something Jason can no longer remember clearly. 

(He remembers puffing himself up, rearing for a fight. Danny, with glass in his teeth and blood between his fingers, lands a square kick to the spot between the kid’s legs. His knees hit the ground, and Danny’s hand found Jason’s to drag them both out of there.)

It’s the look of a boy, Gotham-touched grime in his soul, soft fingers turned calloused and scarred, about to do something he’s not going to regret. It’s the look of a boy that has set his mind to something and is going to do it. Some might call it the eyes of a cornered animal, but Danny’s never been cornered, not when Jason’s been with him. 

(But Jason hasn’t been with him. Not for the last five years. So can he really say it wasn’t the eyes of a cornered animal?...Yes.) 

Jason gets off the balcony before he can be seen, and he shouldn’t, but he loiters. He should get back to patrol, the night is never over. Not in Gotham. But he stays, hidden atop the roof nearby.

—---------------

An hour later, Danny walks out the doors with a man Jason recognizes as Vlad Masters — another new mystery for him to uncover. The paparazzi have long since left. Gotham’s nights are dangerous and everyone knows that, not even the vultures would stick around for a scoop, not unless there was something worth seeing. 

A black limousine pulls up beside them, and Masters walks around the back to reach the other side. He’s bristled like an angry cat. “I thought I told you not to embarrass me.” He hisses, eyes snake-narrowed.

Danny, for the most part, just looks unbothered, his hands shoved into his pockets without a care. But he narrows his eyes right back, an expression made of stone. “You have a pretty low bar for what you think is embarrassing.” 

Masters just scowls, “I don’t understand you, I would have thought you’d spend the whole time mingling with the Waynes, badger.” He says. Danny ruffles at the nickname, lips curling into a snarl. Jason finds himself unconsciously mimicking him. “And yet, I find you sequestered away in the corner like a little fly on the wall. Were they not up to your standards?”  

‘Sequestered’ Danny mouths mockingly, eyes burning like he was going to claw his hand down Masters’ face. Instead, his hands dig into his arms. “I did talk to them, that’s more than I can say for you. You couldn’t even keep Mister Wayne’s attention for more than a minute.”  

Jason frowns, and Masters scoffs, puffing up like an owl with its ego bruised. “Regardless, I am not the one losing here. Or did you forget what you promised me?” 

Jason’s frown deepens. Danny doesn’t promise anything. At least, he doesn’t promise with just anyone. He deals; he repays; he indebts. But he does not promise. Promises were power, with only one side benefiting. It was trust to promise someone something. Danny doesn’t trust easily, neither of them do.

Something that hasn’t changed. Danny rears up angrily, mouth twisting, teeth baring, snarling out a fury sound. A wire cut live and sparking. He grabs the door handle and yanks it open harshly. “I didn’t promise you anything, Vlad.” He hisses, Jason strains to hear him. “I offered and you agreed. Do not fucking twist my words.” 

There it is. Jason should’ve known better, guilt string-plucking in his chest for his doubt. Danny doesn’t promise things; not to people like this Masters guy, at least. 

Danny grabs something from the car and throws himself back. “Don’t wait up.” He snarls, a wild thing just as Jason is, and yanks on a red hoodie over his arms. It zips up, and hangs off him, smothering the vest and button-up beneath. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” 

Then he slams the door shut, shoulders hunched and with a scowl carved into his face. They’re both made of broken glass; independence — disobedience — and rebellion cut into them from every broken beer bottle shattered on the streets.

(Jason makes a mental note to look into Vlad Masters — Danny’s never told him about him, so they must have met after he died. The man leaves a rot in Jason’s mouth, and there is a greed festering inside him that Jason knows has left him in decay.)

(He doesn’t like how close Masters acts with him, doesn’t like the affiliations between them both. Masters reminds him of Luthor and every other rich socialite with their hands in something dirty. He hates even more that Danny is making deals with him. What has he missed?)  

Jason follows after Danny, partially concerned that Danny is wandering Gotham alone. Regardless of what he can do, Gotham is still dangerous. It is bone-rotting, lung-choking and unforgiving. Danny knows this, Jason knows he does. He’s partially curious to know just where he’s going, and whether or not it was important enough to visit in the dead of Gotham’s bloody nights.

Danny surprises him — slipping between alleyways, sticking close to the shadows. Someone taught him how to be stealthy — or, at least, refined what stealth Danny already had. More new things that Jason needs to learn. More things he will never get to know. 

Who taught you that? 

Just what, exactly, have I missed?

I want to know everything. 

Five years is a long, long time to be away from someone. If a caterpillar can become a butterfly in two weeks, then what can five years do to a human? It’s a long time to change, to become something else entirely. Jason’s become someone new, and he thinks, so has Danny. 

Dread pools in his ribs, into his lungs, and weighs heavy on his heartstrings. The urge to drop down in front of Danny, to grab him by the arms and ask him to tell him everything, returns with a vengeance. This is why he avoided Amity Park. 

Will I still know you like I used to? Jason trails behind Danny from the rooftops, like a ghost. Do you still love the stars? Do you still take tea over coffee? Will you tell me, if I ask? 

And if he doesn’t? If he doesn’t ask, like he isn’t right now? 

If he doesn’t ask about his ghost — something that still boggles his mind, because it means the Fentons were right and that portal might have worked, and Danny found Jason’s ghost? If he doesn’t ask what his ghost told him, if he told him anything else? Did his ghost tell you that he was Robin, like he always wanted to?  

He will just have to keep his questions to himself. He will just have to tuck them into a folder in his mind, and file it under all of his other regrets.  

He feels like he’s Robin again; keeping secrets and hiding things from his best friend because it simply wasn’t safe enough for him to know. It’s maddening.  

Why has nothing changed since he died? Why has nothing changed, now that he was alive?

—---------------

Danny leads him to the Gotham Cemetery. Jason freezes outside the gates. Oh, he thinks.

Oh.

He thinks back to what he thought earlier. 

What could possibly be so important that he’d go to it in the dead of Gotham’s night? The cemetery. Of course. Something old, something new, something bittersweet sets over his tongue that he swallows down. 

Jason forces himself to follow. 

“Hey.” Danny says as Jason settles behind a tree, voice gentle in foreign familiarity. He’s standing at Jason’s grave, his hands shoved into his pockets. The light is low but it doesn’t stop Jason from seeing the starlight-soft look in Danny’s eyes and his half-tilted smile, the smile that Jason is more familiar with than the wary scowls. “Sorry I’m late.”

Guiltish misery wraps its hands around Jason’s lungs. Pin-prickingly, stabbing at his heartstrings, Jason’s mouth moves on its own; “It’s okay.” but no sound comes out. Danny doesn’t hear him, and neither does Jason himself.  

Danny sits down before Jason’s tombstone, groaning low and tiredly as his legs fold beneath him. He’s older than Jason, and immediately his mind switches over to all the jokes he used to lob him with. 

(“Need help crossing the street, old man?” Jason, eight years old, asks with a grin so wide and painful across his face; giggles in his chest. He hooks his elbow with Danny, and keeps him tight against his ribs. “You’ll need all the help you can get in your ancient age.”)

(“I’m not that old.” Danny says, glaring at him before they scurry across the street with the light still green. Traffic laws are a joke in Crime Alley, it’s like a game of frogger as the sound of honking horns and screeching tires follows their heels. “We’re six months apart!”)

(“Six months and four days, actually.” Jason corrects when they reach the other side, snickering as they race down the sidewalk. Drivers lean out their windows and curse them out as they get away, Danny dodges an empty soda can thrown at his head. “Can’t forget the four days.”)

“I would’ve come sooner.” Danny tells him, pulling him from child-fuzzy memories and back into reality. Jason peers around the tree to see him running a hand through his hair, head ducked down. His palm splaying against his neck. “Sorry I didn’t. I got scared.” 

Scared? Jason blinks, he leans against the bark and bumps his helmet against the wood. The thunk is loud in his ears, but Danny makes no indication that he heard. Of what? 

But Danny doesn’t say what, he drops his hand and glances off to the side. He sits like a man who isn’t quite sure what to do, his mouth pressed into a thin line, his eyes scrunched. Grief carves into the lines of his face like a sculptor carving into marble. 

“I was gonna get you flowers on my way here.” Danny continues. His voice cracks, begins to wobble, and Jason sees Danny’s jaw tighten and his eyes close for a moment. When they open, there’s a wobbling sheen on his bottom lashes; tears threatening to bleed.   

Danny flicks at the tears with the nail of his thumb, it does nothing. It just makes his breath hitch. “Um, but they- uh, didn’t have any open on the way here.” He says, giving Jason’s grave a tremulous smile. “Sorry, I’ll make sure to pick some up on my next visit.”   

Next visit. Jason’s heart squeezes uncomfortably, before he reels at the words. Danny’s going to be visiting again, after five years of being out of Gotham? Next visit, why are you visiting again? Was this the reason he came to Bruce’s little charity ball with Vlad Masters? So that he could come visit Jason’s grave?

It couldn’t have been. There are other ways to get to Gotham that don’t require making deals with shady rich men. Danny’s smart, smarter than Danny himself gives him credit for. He’s brilliant. Why did he need Masters’ help to get him to Gotham?

There had to be another reason why.

God, there were so many questions that Jason wants the answers to. He’ll find them, one way or another. 

But, he focuses in again. Danny is only here for the night. One night, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back again. Jason wants to commit every detail of his best friend to memory before he leaves. 

“You like zinnias, right?” Danny pets the grass at his side absently, and yes. Yes, Jason does, and Danny remembers. Even five years from his death, he remembers. Of course he does. 

“Yeah, you do. You used to pick the petals up off the sidewalk from those uh, fuck — the vendors. The Victorian flower language too, I think. Got a book on that somewhere. I’ll get you red an’ yellow ones.” 

Grief traps in Jason’s chest, and he barely tamps down the bitter laugh forcing itself out of the chokehold of his throat. You fucking sap, you big fuckin’ sap.

Red zinnias. Steadfast beating of the heart. The irony. It’s got double the meaning now, now that he’s alive. But Danny doesn’t know that, so the heart that’s beating could only belong to him. But even with Jason alive, he’s hiding. Between the both of them, the only one here with a beating heart is Danny.

(Between the two of them, the only heart here is one that's made between the two of them.)

Yellow zinnias. Daily remembrance. Of course. That doesn’t need any explanation, the writing is right there on the wall. Raised, so that even the blind may read it. It doesn’t need to be said what that means, Jason can hear it on the wind, in the grass, in the trees. His heart crumpling like a rag being twisted out to drain the dirty water soaking in it. 

I miss you.

I miss you. 

I miss you. 

I’m right here. Is what Jason wants to say. It’s what he should say. He should step out from behind the tree; should speak up and say something. To announce his presence. To do something to let Danny know that he’s speaking to someone who is more than a ghost (who feels like one anyways) and a corpse in the ground. 

Here I am. Here I am. HERE I AM.

His feet are gravebound to the dirt, his tongue cut out of his mouth and shoved into a jar. He feels, in some way, like he’s clawing out of his own grave again, but the dirt keeps falling and his arms are burning. His lungs are filled with more soil than air. He’s not getting out. 

Shame burns cigarette smoke in the back of his throat, shriveling up what little remains of his tar-filled heart. It should be his lungs, and it’s got that too. His feet are grave-bound to the floor.

Danny’s begun to cry, much to Jason’s horror. It should be more incentive for Jason to step out. He doesn’t. His best friend sniffles and scrubs at his face, soaking tears into his hoodie’s sleeve. “I’m sorry for not visitin’ sooner,” he says, voice spiraling with grief, “I don’t have an excuse. I should’ve come sooner. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

Don’t be, Jason thinks. Finds himself surprised by the truth of it. He should be upset. Five years and not a single visit. He abandoned him like everyone else. Except he didn’t. 

He’s not upset, he can’t be. Not when Danny’s finally here. Not when he’s still crying over him five years after the fact. Not when he’s going to put flowers on his grave that means he thinks of him daily. Not when Danny knows who killed him and wants him dead. 

Jason isn’t sure of what to think of that still. He wants Bruce to kill the Joker. More importantly he wants change in Gotham. He wants something to be done. He doesn’t know if Danny is being honest or not — and honesty doesn’t mean anything if someone doesn’t act on it.  

Danny continues talking to his grave, his voice full with sorrow. He talks about the gala, about running into Bruce and talking to him again. 

Jason listens in dutiful silence, soaking in Danny’s voice like a sponge. This is what he was expecting on the balcony; this easy conversation. Except it’s not a conversation, Danny is talking and not expecting a response. Jason feels like a stranger imposing on his own grave.He should slink away, let Danny have his peace on his own.

He refuses to move. He can’t bring himself to.

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that he's sitting in front of him. He can pretend he’s thirteen again, with him and Danny crawled under the bed at the manor and trading all the stories they couldn’t fit in their letters. Danny tells him about another fight he had with Dash Baxter, eyes rolling but smug teeth flashing in a stifled smile. Then he tells him about something Sam and Tucker did; about one of Sam’s protests she led against the biology lab, and Tucker coding his PDA to play Doom. Easy, stupid middle schooler shit.

They’d sneak out to the balcony for their vices, Danny clutching a carton of cheap cigarettes in hand. Alfred always finds the ones Jason hides, so they usually share whenever Danny comes to visit. Jason tells him about Gotham Academy, about the people there and the classes. Prep school is another beast entirely, he likes seeing Danny’s reactions to the politics that goes on inside. 

Or, further back, they’re eight again, climbing a rickety fire escape to the rooftop and hanging their feet over the edge to find Batman and Robin. Danny was in the lead before he left for Amity Park. Jason remembers it clearly; they’d spent all night outside on that rooftop. 

Jason doesn’t close his eyes.

Jazz decided to change career goals; psychology’s become more of a hobby for her, and she’s going to go to med school instead. She’s thinking of doing an internship in Metropolis. Danny says he’s glad that it’s not Gotham, and when he told Jazz this, she laughed at him and told him that she was going to save that for later. 

She’s Gotham-touched too, she knows it’s blood just as much as Danny does. She wants to help the people there, but knows what Gotham’s like. She knows what she can and cannot do. Determination doesn’t equate skill, it just means the willingness to learn. 

Sam is staying in Amity Park and doing online classes for college, but Tucker got a full ride scholarship in software engineering. Danny’s thick with pride as he tells Jason’s headstone. Jason’s happy for him — they weren’t close, not like he and Danny were, but they were still friends. 

Jason soaks it all in; tell him more. He wants to know everything. 

"I don't know what I want to do." Danny says when he’s finally done talking about everyone else, his chin laying on his knees. “S’not like I can be an astronaut anymore, but there’s not anything I can see myself doing.”

The corner of his mouth coils, sardonic. “I’ve had five years to come up with somethin’ new, and I’ve come up with nothin’ at all.” He huffs. It’s a rough, bitter sound. Gotham has been steadily seeping back into his voice since he arrived in the graveyard, and now it comes out thick, like it never left. 

Danny’s face falls slack, like a puppet losing its strings, and he sinks into himself. “I guess I…” He exhales slow. “I’ve just been distracted.” A faraway glaze eclipses his eyes, and before they close, tears begin to bleed onto his eyelids. Again, grief mars the lines of his skin, settling into the curve of his mouth and threading between his brows like second nature.

Fuck, it’d be so easy for Jason to just step out. Move. His best friend is grieving. He could save him the pain of it and tell him now. Move, move, move. 

He doesn’t move.

For a while, there’s nothing but silence, just Jason hiding in his shame; a rat on the street would be bolder than him. Danny’s eyes don’t open. Eventually, his head tilts and slumps into his knees, Jason almost thinks, somehow, that he’s fallen asleep — but Danny’s hand threads into the hair on the back of his head, his finger beginning to tap an invisible beat into his skull. 

It’s the perfect opportunity for him to slip away. Danny’s distracted; lost in his thoughts. He won’t notice if Jason slinks off now. He could go and hide away on a roof nearby, ensuring that Danny gets his rightful privacy without leaving him to the teeth of the streets.  

Jason still doesn’t move. 

Danny begins to hum. It’s a low, breathy sound, and it shakes unevenly. There’s no discernible melody, but a breeze picks it up and travels it through the air anyway, rooting Jason to his spot. His throat swells, and his back sinks into the bark behind him. 

For a full minute, maybe two, Danny just hums. It’s a simple tune, but it fills the graveyard with the sound. When it goes up, he sharpens, when he goes down again, it flats, and sometimes it wobbles.  

When he lifts his head, when he finally opens his eyes, he’s still humming. Soon it dies down, and the next time Danny exhales, it comes out tumultuous and slow. His hand slips heavy from his head and drops into the grass. 

“Where’d you go, Jay?” Danny mutters, and despite his voice coming flat, he still sounds so tired. Danny’s eyes flick up, lifting off the grass to burn into the headstone. He’s not even looking at him, and yet Jason still freezes up, he still feels pinned under the weight of his stare. “I know you’re still out there, somewhere. I know it.” 

Jason breathes in shakily, a sting deep in the back of his throat. He gives no answer; guilt is an animal with claws, and it burrows deep into Jason’s heart to make itself a home between the tendons. He’s right here. 

Silence falls over them again, and this time it’s only the sound of the city around them that bleeds into the air. Danny stares at Jason’s grave, staring like he’s expecting an answer. He doesn’t get one. 

Danny sighs out low, and stands. His knees tremble slightly, and he rubs his sleeve into his eyes, catching the stray tears falling from his lashes. Like breaking a spell, Jason jolts from the fog of sorrow hanging in the air. 

“I’ll see you later, an’ I’ll make sure to bring you those flowers you like.” He tells him, and miraculously, a shadow of a smile flits over Danny’s mouth. “Y’better be here when I get back, alright? I’ll kick y’fucking ass if you’re not.” 

Jason bites back a huff, his mouth upturning in a wobble. I will, he thinks, and watches Danny trail out of the graveyard with his hands in his pockets. He waits until he’s disappeared behind the gate before following.   

Guilt is a thing with claws, and Jason leaves the cemetery with it eating his tongue. But he makes sure Danny gets back to his hotel safe before he slinks back to Crime Alley; he might not be a ghost anymore, but he can still trail behind Danny like he is. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ayy i finally got chapter 2 of CFAU/TMWS edited/redone! It had to get rewritten because a lot of stuff became obsolete in the wake of the new chapter 1. and also it just kinda. fucking sucked imo lmao

(you can also read it here on my ao3!)

[snow-and-saltea]

something about titles for stories that sound utterly generic but it ends up being a masterpiece you binge read for two days straight. i love it so much. go read "my in laws are obsessed with me" on webtoon

rambling under the cut; some spoilers but nonspecific and vague

i fkn love so much the show not tell element in this story, it never feels like i'm being spoonfed information by having five speech bubbles in one panel. characters rarely say what they truly think or feel, atmosphere and mood are set solely by composition and art, some of the most heartbreaking and scared ive felt reading this manhwa had NO speech bubbles at all and there was no fancy effects or sfx you'd normally see in comics. the world goes on normally while you see a character in pain, full body wailing with grief at the ache of heartbreak. i teared up and i didnt even know what her voice sounded like, i didnt know what thoughts were going through her mind or the overwhelming bodily sensation of emotional pain that must've wrecked her. the build up of seeing an adaptable, grounded and sometimes cute and awkward person you've gotten to know over 50 ish chapters, only to then see her doubling over in pain and screaming, soundlessly to my ears. one of the most visceral experiences ive had recently.

i don't even care if i sound like im being biased or gassing this manhwa up btw Who Give A Shit bc not me!! i will talk about the things i like about bc i like them!

i love the mc / fl most of all because of how she's such... a neat vessel to the world. not spoiling it about her backstory and disposition and such, but the way she, on paper, sort of fits into that niche of people who don't know how much they matter to people around them. usually in regression / revenge stories with an insecure low self esteem FL, they start out really defensive, angsty / edgy, and then mellow out as they receive love. but our FL is reasonable, even-tempered and logical - that her emotional "insecurity" in regards to being tethered to people around her is mostly rooted in her own "seeing is believing" mentality and understanding, somewhat sympathetically, why people wouldn't / don't like her, and she doesn't really take it to heart.

what's funny is that even when people are subtly showing adoration and love for her, she doesn't know how to take it to heart, and she gets uncomfortable and awkward about it. not in a usually fluffy "this is so moving that i cant respond sensibly" way, the way most loved FLs usually pass by as a marker to Growth, but because it puts her in an awkward situation and she doesn't know what to do about it. she gets a little embarrassed but doesn't overreact, because she probably doesn't realise the depth of their affection and doesn't attribute it to herself directly, but rather by other people's kindness. multiple times she's been surprised at when someone (who didn't before but has now warmed up to her) responds kindly to her inquiries, and while i understand her surprise, it's still funny and a little sad to me that she was prepared to take it in stride if people STILL didn't like her after all the ways she's benefitted them.

in other words pereshati you're my queen and i love you. literally who would not love her. her ease and understanding at being distrusted makes her ironically easier to trust because she doesn't hold anything against you and understand that you need to form your own judgement, even if it doesn't turn out well for her. literally who is doing it like her. queen

[astranauticus]

Link Click single "Prometheus" Fan Translation

translation under cut!

让黑夜吞噬最后一点光

Let night swallow the last bit of light

就当是一场梦

Pretend this is all a dream

如果无法挣脱索性就让一切都失控吧

If I can't escape, then let everything go out of control

尝尝我的痛

If you have a taste of my pain

或许才会明白哭到失声根本没有用吧

Maybe you'll understand that there is no point to crying

倒数着三二一���

Count down, three two one zero

卖弄可笑的六欲七情

You're still playing up your laughable emotions and desires

这世界已经天翻地覆

This world has already been turned upside down

不如和我一起跳到深渊感受这失重吧 Why don't you jump into the abyss to feel this weightlessness with me

叫他们的幻想蒸发

Let their dreams evaporate

像是面无表情撕碎玩具那般从容

As simple as coldly tearing apart a stuffed toy

谁叫他们学不会听话

It's their fault they keep falling into my hands again and again

还是一次又一次地落入我的手中

Because they can't learn to stay in line

早听腻了烦人的叽叽喳喳

I've long grown tired of this annoying chattering

用绝望在墙上染个碎花

Use despair to paint a splatter on the wall

请他们永远永远闭上嘴吧

Invite them to never, never speak again

[(LTX:) piano solo]

隐秘的血色的黑夜童话

The hidden, blood-soaked midnight fairytale

刹那间将所有光芒抹杀

Smothers all light in an instant

偷走那神的火把

Steal the torch of the gods

坠落下万丈悬崖

Fall down the bottomless abyss

没有归处的人等待世界崩塌

The ones with no home await the world's collapse

（最后的 狂欢吧

(The final carnival

最后的 狂欢吧）

The final carnival)

偷走那神的火把

Steal the torch of the gods

坠落下万丈悬崖

Fall down the bottomless abyss

没有归处的人啊

The ones with no home

静静沉睡吧

Sleep peacefully now

暂时藏起了利爪和鳞片

I'll conceal my claws and scales for now

魔鬼躲进她黑白的琴键

The demon hides in her black and white keys

收起你那套因果循环

Keep your talk of causality and repetition to yourself

我会遭报应吗？反正还没应验

Will I receive retribution? We don't know that yet

都是我的消耗品

(LX:) They're all expendables to me

被我牵着鼻子走还抓不着要领

I'm dragging you along by the nose and you still can't figure it out

一个 两个 三个 四个

(LX:) one, two, three, four

心跳加速只是我的白噪音

The sound of a racing heart is just white noise to me

撬开一层层的保险

Prying away the layers of safeguards

像茶余饭后的消遣

Just to pass the time after a fine meal

对黑夜缺了点敬畏

You people who get hurt needlessly

白白受伤的人

Because you lack respect for the night

看着我千万别眨眼

When you look at me, never blink

下一秒骇人的画面

Lest you miss the scenes of carnage

命运她由我来加减

I am the one who will alter fate herself

我是那灭灯的神

I am the god that extinguishes the light

隐秘的血色的黑夜童话

The hidden, blood-soaked midnight fairytale

刹那间将所有光芒抹杀

Smothers all light in an instant

偷走那神的火把

Steal the torch of the gods

坠落下万丈悬崖

Fall down the bottomless abyss

没有归处的人等待世界崩塌

The ones with no home await the world's collapse

没有归处的人啊

The ones with no home

静静沉睡吧

Sleep peacefully now

(bonus: my translation of 321!)

[moeblob]

So uh. Eventually I'll stop drawing these guys so obsessively but not today I guess.

(DND AU where it's just these two, Brent, and Paul on a life mission to annoy Chris the GM by having the pact of "we're only here for Karen's benefit")

Karen is a warlock, Right is a cleric, Paul is a paladin, and Brent is a bard (so he can use bardic inspiration on Karen).

[cerealmonster15]

why am i getting 2 people in the same week texting me their dick thinking im some girl named anna

[thedrotter]

not-yet-dead-person

silly comic of a conversation in-game i thought was too funny not to make something proper for instead of a doodle ww

(timelapse + wip images (thus silly process commentary in read more if you like artist commentary :3)

i think the sketch looks silly and goofy and funny so i find it important to share with you the mere presence of the faces i drew on it. i drew it on top of the boxes without staying inside its borders because i find my proportions can get wonky if i draw them cropped in a restricted space. and I feel trapped otherwise and i will draw BAD!!! give me spaceeeee to go wild!!!!

the head circles are there for emotional support

very low res speedpaint because truth is the canvas was much bigger than the space where my comic was placed. i didnt account when exporting my timelapse in 720px that that tiny space would look so pixelated ... but it's able to be percieved, so its okay.

(i will now comment on my process and it is not brief sorry)

usually i would try to clean up my sketches and figure out what goes on top before jumping into linework, but since there are multiple panels and drawings i chose to jump into inking right away for the sake of brevity. i just went in with a brush that uses pen pressure and drew what was needed. i added extra line thickness and contrast in areas around the face because it helps direct your eyes there more easily that way.

according to her equipment rei has a chain belt but i only remembered it existed once I was going to color, and i did not like that discovery... I chose to ignore it to maintain my peace. i already have the color palettes for these characters figured out, and i didnt really want to think about a new element at the moment www I tend to overthink those things a lot so i skipped it

the rest is rather straightforward! not that anything else wasn't, but in here i could turn my brain off and sing. linework and sketching require mumbling so i cannot turn my brain off. just block in the characters with a solid color so i can have a mask (something along those lines,) where the color can stay inside. then just color in !!!

Base colors just had slight cell shading on the skin, and for the hair i airbrush a bit of the skincolor in low opacity near the forehead... I'm not sure what it means, but i can look at the faces easier with it somehow. i like the gentle subtlety it adds even if you cant really tell. it makes things look nice.

background was just me blocking in the color of the wall and floor, shade the wall a bit, then slap a noise and free use wood texture on top. work smarter not harder ! yet it took a bit to make it look stylistically fitting with the characters, and even now i think bottom middle panel looks odd. whatever!!!

for the middle panel i thought itd be funny if the background was a solid silly and colorful one to contrast the next panel's sketchy black one. a contrast to how the word widow is seen. on that note my handwritting is not pointy. i gaslighted my hand into thinking that it was indeed pointy in that moment so i could write "not-yet dead person" in letters that didn't seem cute. my hand did not fall for it but it complied anyway

that's basically it! I'm not sure what else i could say that doesn't feel barebones because it really is that straightforward. if you're curious I used clip studio paint for this. only special brush used was for linework (a brush named Lemon Brush), the rest used were just the default. my computer gets the least credit. it was trying to convince me a 20mb file was going to nuke it all the time and hardly let me save multiple times so i do not appreciate it

[murmurmurl]

I was hit with a silly idea at 2 am, wrote it down, forgot and now it hit me again in the middle of drawing akitoya

What are we thinking. Rui is a moth-person-thing and Tsukasa is a light keeper or smth idk yet. And. Get it. Because. HE'S RUI'S LIGHT. Anyways, idk if something will actually come out of this, but if it will, there will be angst teehee

[atthebell]

i think what is interesting about march is that while all the characters are multifaceted in various ways he is much less one dimensional than anyone else. like eiland is obsessed with archeology adeline with government luc with bugs juniper has her whole mean witch schtick valen tells you to take walks etc. etc.

and while march IS a nerd about blacksmithing obviously he also has a lot of other stuff going on like. he clearly has self-esteem issues and anger issues and is fiercely loyal to his brother and to mistria and that makes him lash out at you. but also he's snarky in a funny way and as he warms up it's more playful and more interesting. idk what i'm saying ig his whole mean guy covering up insecurities thing is actually working for me now that he's opening up more

[turtlespancake]

me when i write a character who is prone to dooming themself and then they run off and doom themself. core traits are stubbornness and a willingness to disregard their own humanity gET BACK HERE IM NOT DONE WITH YOU

[skrs-cats]

still holding out hope for a jayfeather/Lionblaze se or novella... my one dream

[mblue-art]

Hi yes I would like it if you went insane over cross (publically on Tumblr dot com) thank you

(hehe hi catto i appreciate u 🫶🫶🫶)

today is not the day, btu. i really wish you guys could see through my brain, and look at the part of my brain that's responsible for simping for cross (DAILY) and see how fucking, weird it is, how delulu i am for him how ill i am for this guy

[monachopism]

am i autistic or am i just paranoid. level: impossible