#man is having a bad time

[atsadi-shenanigans]

What Shall We Become 5 - Fed

The rogue enjoys a nice meal, despite the rising, existential dread.

On AO3.

This is the third time he’s tasted her in this way. The first crunch of teeth piercing skin, sliding through muscle. He’s careful not to go too deep—a wrist isn’t a neck, with more tissue and thicker vein walls. He doesn’t want to cripple her hand.

Blood spurts. That first release. It hits the roof of his mouth, slides down the back of his tongue and his throat opens and he cannot help the low sound he makes. It would be embarrassing in any other context; a needy thing. But the monster within him is too focused, already too intoxicated in the taste of her.

Rich, like the memory of cream custard on a spring afternoon. A hint of spice—some hot drink as gray rain patters on windows. Salt and iron, surely. But so much more.

He’s got her arm in both of his hands, now. Lips latched, tongue lapping at the inside of her wrist. He tries to let it fill his mouth, wants to savor the feel of it, the hot slide of a gulp. But he’s too impatient. He needs this in his belly, needs it inside of him now.

He catches a sour tang: her fear. Not of him, he thinks, but of this cave. Of the Absolute and the gith and their uninvited cranial guests. And something else, something old woven all through her veins.

Beyond that, there’s her breakfast that morning: toasted bread with peppered eggs, her delight at slitting the yolk open and letting it run over her toast and the rich flavor as she chewed. There’s the scent of woodsmoke and the heat of roasted venison. Flesh tearing between her teeth and the grease she licked off her fingers lest it go to waste. The warm contentment of a full belly and a cool night. Laying on her bedroll and staring up at unfamiliar stars.

The acidity of sorrow.

He suckles as gently as he can. Pulling too hard hurts her, and he doesn’t want that. Gods, but it is a glorious temptation. Draw her in, draw in all that life. Suck it right out of her until it fills him, until he’s drowning in it, stuffed full and fit to burst—

A tap on his shoulder. Her captive hand flexes.

“I think that’s enough,” she says.

Oh, but it’s not. He could seat himself at the bottom of a river made of her blood and open his mouth and let it gush into him until he drained the whole of it, and it would never be enough.

But she doesn’t have a sea of blood within her. And he rather needs her alive if he ever wants to indulge again.

So he breaks off. Laps at the rivulets still so eager to be taken by him. Tongue at one of her punctures, feels the shape of it—he wants to jam the tip of his tongue into it, rip it wide open—

She hisses. He forces himself to pull away. She’s ready with a cloth bandage; of course she is. He takes over clamping it down. Needs that pretty wrist to seal itself back up. Seal off that delectable blood so she can make more. So he can feast upon her again.

“Did it help?” she says as they sit there, her wrist held tightly in his hands.

He’s kept his lids shut tight. Didn’t want to sour the experience should it not…

But now it’s time. He needs to know.

He cracks one eye open.

To utter blackness.

Both eyes open and it’s the same. Nothing. No light. No shape or colors, not even the miserable gray shades of his cursed nightvision. Just the deepest black he can imagine.

“No, it didn’t work,” he says. He’d fling her arm away if he wasn’t trying to stop her bleeding everywhere.

“What the fuck,” she says.

Indeed.

The panic turns sharp, claws digging out through his abdomen, climbing up his throat and he doesn’t need to breathe, but still he’s choked. He’s blinded. Left in the dark forever. Hideously underground, trapped and forever and he can’t claw through the walls, can’t even depend upon the tender mercies of his master—

“Astarion?”

Their leader. She’s here. He’s squeezing her too tightly, and he forces his grip to loosen. Clears his throat. “Yes?”

Her free hand touches his shoulder. Though “touch” is a generous description. It’s barely more than a pluck of his padded armor.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” she says.

Shit. He smooths his expression back to calm. Can’t go around wearing his weaknesses for anyone to see.

“Gale thinks it might be some kinda curse, and I know I can’t do magic stuff—”

“You do realize you’re making this worse, yes?” he says because he cannot stop himself. The fear is too great to contain. So rather than crumple before her, he does what he usually does to anyone not above him and opens that pressure valve to blast her instead. “You’re incapable of doing a thing about it, and we’re gods know how far from anyone who can. So spare me your reassurances. We’re both useless and we both know it.”

She says nothing. Hardly moves, save for a flex of the hand he still holds captive.

“The Underdark might be fun if I could bloody see, but now the both of us are going to die in some gruesome manner.”

While she continues to sit quietly, he feels her pulse pick up between his hands. Yet her voice is a forced calm when she says, “Gale seems to think there’s a network of them waypoints down here. All we gotta do is find one. Just one.”

“Because that’s likely.”

“Would you rather sit here and starve to death?”

She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. He’s done this before. Curled into a ball in a dark, cold corner as his flesh mummified around his bones. How those bones cracked and chipped at the slightest movement as his mind cracked and chipped, but never sank into oblivion. He lay there for tendays, for months as his eyes withered into useless, wrinkled things like dried fruit. As his gums pulled back and his skin eventually cracked open, with only the stink of his own flesh for company.

“And you’ll have us do what, exactly?” he says. Sneers, if he’s being honest.

But their illustrious leader doesn’t lash back. Doesn’t belittle him or snap at him. Doesn’t strike him or choke him or command him to kneel and prepare for punishment.

He almost wishes she would. Because that he knows. His mind knows the paths to exit the immediate area, knows how to fade away and wait until it’s over. Instead, he has to sit here, still holding her arm while she churns things up inside him that he left long, long buried in two hundred years of rotting detritus.

“I will do my best to get us the fuck outta this tunnel,” she says. “And then I will do my best not to lead us into a crevasse or some kinda ambush and to find one single, goddamned motherfucking waypoint stone.”

Even her swearing isn’t angry. Not aimed at him. She just…just uses it as a vulgar garnish for her calm, steady words.

The woman is infuriating.

“Will you?” he says, all bladed tongue.

“Unless you got a better idea?”

Which… “settle in and wait for death” isn’t an actual idea and he pointedly doesn’t want to waste away down here, thank you very much.

He can feel her gloat.

“At the moment, no,” he says.

“Alright.” She’s so very good at not letting the gloat he knows she feels seep into her voice. Always acts like she’s listening to everyone. Even him. That she’s genuinely open to one of his silly ideas.

Ideas she…actually incorporates into her plans for some reason he can’t even begin to decipher.

Because she’s clever like that and she’s better at the game than he initially gave her credit for.

“Well, as we’re in a tunnel, which way shall we go?” he says.

She hums. The tadpole behind his eye squirms as she reaches out—not to him, but to the others.

“That way, I think,” she says after a pause.

And likely points, because that is helpful to a blind man. But then she does something. Taps the wall behind him with her staff, and then tugs his sleeve until he releases her wrist (the blood scent is weak and fading; she must finally be clotting).

She holds her other arm out, and he realizes she points his arm in the direction she intends to go. She’s used the sound on the wall to orient him, and he begrudgingly lets himself feel the first slither of relief.

It’s not towards the boulder field.

“The ground here is cracked to hell,” she says. “And there’s big rocks all over, looks like chunks fell off the walls and roof a long time ago. They’re all worn smooth around the edges. I’m thinking you give me that torch, and you take my hitting stick, and you can use it to feel the ground ahead of you a bit?”

She’s not going to leave him. She’s taking him with her and handing over her only weapon. Just so he can use it as a prop.

“And…” She pauses again. “You got rope in your pack, right?”

He does. Plenty of it, in fact. She’s not the only one who likes to stuff her pockets with more than the standard valuables.

“I was thinking we tie ourselves together. So we, y’know, don’t get separated somehow?”

He cannot fathom what her play is, here. He’s not valuable enough to keep as an ally now. Certainly not one for this level of investment. Should one of them fall down a crevasse or be snatched up by something lurking in the dark, the other one will be at risk themself. He’s not sleeping with her, can’t use his superior vision to scout ahead or even see an enemy to strike, and he’s just taken enough blood from her that he can catch the slow, deep inhales she takes now and again (she must be dizzy).

He’s a liability. Yet she’s treating him like an asset. Like there’s something he can do for her and she’s yet to name it.

He saw things when their tadpoles connected. She truly doesn’t want to have sex with him. She had such a visceral reaction to it, and he doesn’t think that’s changed overmuch in the last tenday or so.

But then, what else could she want? What kind of alliance could this even be?

Damned alien yokel.

“Lead on, then,” he says. He’ll just have to find another way to ingratiate himself to her. Find something he can provide her.

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[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[proxycrit]

Day 26- Lanayru Mountain

Perhaps dragon song sounds familiar. No matter; it’s time to get to business.

On that note, magnesis is reacquired! Purah’s still working on the other glyphs.

(“We’ll find a cure by the end of this year, I promise.”

“I hope we do, Mimi. I really, really hope we do.”)

((This is a totk au called familiar familiar! Zelda doesn’t go back in time, history is forever changed, and link is beset by ghost memories from his magic arm as per usual.))

(Want to throw a coin to an exhausted art hermit? Check out my patreon!)

[kaahmbem]

legend has it that the young witch circe and the once beautiful nymph scylla shared a complicated past...

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[cinderduck]

I had an idea what gripped me so violently that i had to make it real

[jjkyaoi]

by the way. people are allowed to complain about this season feeling rushed. i don’t know when it became a thing in this fandom to completely jump people who have valid complaints like YES arcane is a fantastically produced and beautifully animated show and nobody will be able to top it but they did start things with some characters only for it to never go anywhere so it can all be wrapped up in three episodes ����

[captain-krow-drozdov]

Danny Is An Alternate Version Of Ra's Al Ghul And Flash Already Called Dibs On Adopting Him

Danny In All His Sleep Deprived Slightly Scuffed Up From A Fight Glory Is On His Way To Clockworks Tower To Hopefully Get A Nap And Maybe Some Homework Done When A Natural Portal Opens Up In Front Of Him And Proceeds To Unceremoniously Drop Him In The DC Verse Just Outside Of Central City Before Promptly Closing Leaving A Tired Danny Behind In A Run Down Abandoned Parking Lot.

It's Times Like This When Danny Regrets Putting Off Learning How To Make His Own Portals, Cause Now He Is Very Much Stuck For The Foreseeable Future And He Has No Idea Where Or When He Is. Luckily For Him However Central City Isn't Too Far Away, Unlucky For Him However Is That Once In The City He Realizes This Isn't His Dimension. He's Pretty Sure He'd Remember Something Called The Justice League.

So What Do You Do When Supernatural Bullshit Fails You? You Fall Back On Your Mad Scientist Roots And You Make A Portal Gun. So That's Exactly What Danny Plans To Do.

Unfortunately Staying Alive And Building Questionably Safe Portal Technology Requires Money And Supplies, So He Ends Up Wandering From City To City Doing Odd Jobs/Fixing Up Busted Tech For Cash Or Unwanted Electronics For His "Operation: Get Home" Needs. This Obviously Ends In A Few Superhero Encounter Shenanigans.

Though He Always Ends Up Back Near Central City, Both On The Off Chance The Natural Portal Will Open Up Again And Because Out Of All The Superheroes That Apparently Exist In This Universe The Speedsters Are His Favorite (Red Robin Is Solidly His Second Favorite Ever Since The Gotham Vigilante Gave Him A Large Coffee Filled With Enough Caffeine To Kill A Man).

Unbeknownst To Danny However Is That Every Hero/Vigilante He Has Encountered Has Come To At Least One Of The Following Conclusions; 1. Run Away Meta Who Is In Desperate Need Of A Good Meal/Adoption Bait. 2. Possibly Red Robin/Tim Drake Clone 3. A Good Kid But Could Possibly Be A Future Rouge If Left Unsupervised. 4. Did Bats Get A New Kid And Why Is He Here?

All Flash Knows Is That He Saw The Kid First And Therefore Has Dibs. Suck It Bruce.

Fast-forward A Few Months And Danny Gets Hurt During A Rogue Attack While Trying To Help Some Civilians Get To Safety (Old Hero Habits Die Hard (Ha Die Hard) And All That Jazz) And He Nopes Out Once Everyone Is Safe And When The Paramedics Are Busy With Other People Unaware He Left A Blood Sample Behind.

One DNA Test Brought To You By Paranoid Bat Concerns Of A Possible Red Robin Clone Later And They Find Out That Dannys DNA Matches One Ra's Al Ghul.

They Now Think Danny Is An Escaped Ra's Al Ghul Clone.

Memes For The Vibes:

[sweetlullabyebye]

When she tells you your best mate gets jealous when you say you want to shag someone

vs when someone wants to shag your best mate

[puppppppppy]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[kyo-mei]

A redraw

[bedforddanes75]

im not american but some of you guys are just fucking stupid ong what do you MEAN youre not gna vote because you disagree with like one part of what youre voting for. like okay me when im fucking thick

[hinamie]

I could've been a better man, but I'm not

more lmhs megu bc i love him. he is here fr ur lunch money :>

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[ruporas]

in a mood (ID in alt)

[inkskinned]

hey btw if you're in the USA at  2:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Oct. 4, they're testing the emergency broadcast system. your phone is probably going to make a really loud noise, even if it's on silent. there's a backup date on the 11th if they need to postpone it.

if you're not in a safe situation and have an extra phone, you should turn that phone completely off beforehand.

additionally, if you're like me, and are easily startled; i recommend treating it like a party. have a countdown or something. be surrounded by your loved ones. take the actions you personally need to take to make yourself safe.

i have already seen mockery towards any person who feels nervous about this. for the record, it completely, completely valid to have "emergency broadcast sounds" be an anxiety trigger. do not let other people make fun of you for that. emergency sounds are legitimately engineered to make us take action; those of us with high levels of anxiety and/or neurodivergence are already pre-disposed to have a Bad Time. sometimes it is best to acknowledge that the situation will be triggering for some, and to prepare for that; rather than just saying "well that's stupid, it's just a test."

"loud scary sound time" isn't like, my favorite thing, but we can at least try to prevent some additional anxiety by preparing for it. maybe get yourself a cake? noise cancelling headphones? the new hozier album? whatever helps. love u, hope you're okay. we are gonna ride it out together.

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.