#mind and soul and body

[sunderwight]

SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a kind of mimicry demon.

He still gets tasked by the System with replacing Shen Qingqiu, except this time he actually has to pull off an imposter role on multiple levels, while the real Shen Qingqiu is stuck in a coma due to his qi deviation. Initially he thinks the situation is going to be temporary -- just take over until he figure out how to get the original goods to wake up -- but Shen Jiu's condition proves to be more difficult to repair than just waiting. Shen Yuan buys special side missions from the System to find items and artifacts to keep Shen Jiu alive, mainly because he doesn't want to be stuck playing this part until Luo Binghe kills him, but also after the first couple of times Shen Jiu regains some consciousness (not enough to leave his bed), Shen Yuan starts to feel kind of... bad for him. Too. Despite everything.

Shen Jiu, of course, is deeply suspicious of this doppelganger that has obviously taken advantage of his weakness to infiltrate the sect and steal his identity. He initially theorizes that the creature must be keeping him alive because it needs some aspect of his vitality in order to keep posing as him, but as they share more encounters is forced to concede that the thing might just be insane? And weirdly softhearted. Over time and by feigning sleep to listen in on Shen Yuan's muttering, he figures out that this all has something to do with Luo Binghe, which he's not pleased about. But he can't deduce what. (Luo Binghe doesn't get to move into the side room in this version of the story, because Shen Yuan has the house on lockdown for obvious reasons, but he does still get to make Shizun's meals!)

Anyway, Shen Jiu doesn't manage to conveniently wake up before the Immortal Alliance Conference. Shen Yuan has to throw Luo Binghe in, which he hates, but along the way he manages to recover that magical flower macguffin that won't work on Without-a-Cure (which he doesn't have in this AU because his species is immune to it), brews a tea that finally fixes Shen Jiu, and then fucks off to go mope about Binghe being in the Abyss.

Shen Jiu doesn't tell anyone about his demonic replacement, for a variety of reasons. One, he's punishing the other peak lords for not figuring it out themselves. Two, he's punishing himself for the fact that a literal demon replaced him for like 3 years and everyone considered it an improvement. Because it was. Three, he has mixed feelings that might potentially amount to not wanting to hunt down and kill Shen Yuan, but he's not admitting that even to himself.

Everyone thinks that Shen Qingqiu's return to asshole form is a result of Luo Binghe dying, and that his sudden new research projects are part of him like, trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy, and coping. But no, he's still trying to figure out why the fuck Luo Binghe was important and why Shen Yuan inserted himself into their lives only to basically just do Shen Qingqiu's job while he was indisposed, and then fuck off the moment Luo Binghe left the picture again.

After... healing Shen Jiu. Also. For some unfathomable reason.

But this version of the System's just happy that the plot is back on track! And surely it will stay back on track. Yes? Problem solved, right? Shen Yuan? Definitely nothing is going to mess with the rest of the story, cough cough, wait why are you visiting User 01, and what would you, a demon shapeshifter, need with a Sun & Dew seed...?

[jessicawwcaww]

Father mulcahy kind of the character of all time. He’s a priest. He boxes. He’s cute as a button. He’s in with the black market. He’s in with the black market to get goods for orphans. He regularly fleeces his unit playing poker. For the orphans. His sister the Sister plays basketball. He tends bar so people will confess to him. He got drunk to preach about temperance. He says jocularity. Southern Baptist services are too forceful for him. He’s threatened violence on multiple occasions. Lesbians want him

[jay-wasreblogging]

"I won't forget you Buddy"

Comic book Eddie would've started to track down and slaughter Knull. 😭

[spacedace]

Still thinking about the Social Worker Jazz concept that @gilbirda posted about and it's slowly turning into a full Anger Management fic send help

-

Jason at length - much longer than it really should have taken really - set the resume down.

The new Social Worker’s resume. Because she was there, in his office, trying to convince him to hire her as a member of his criminal organization.

Crime Alley’s new social worker. A bright eyed Midwestern transplant from some tiny speck of a place that only qualified as a city because there was nothing bigger in a hundred miles in any direction to claim otherwise. The new social worker who had a Psy D. and three masters degrees and who had graduated Valedictorian. The one that had high paying private gigs lined up all over the country with the offering companies fighting over her.

The one who had, apparently, decided to take a shit job in Gotham’s shoddy social services department instead. The one that got kicked to Crime Alley - which was its own division despite technically being a small neighborhood in the grand scheme of things - within her first month. Supposedly for the sole purpose of scaring her off or getting her killed for all the questions she was asking and secret dealings she was sticking her nose into.

That social worker.

“I’m gonna need you to run this by me again.” Jason said, never so grateful for the voice modulator in his helmet as he was in that moment. It stripped out the bewilderment that had bled through into his words and made him sound stoic instead.

“I’d like to work for you.” The social worker - one Dr. Jasmine Nightingale - repeated primly. Back straight, clothes neat - if skewing more on the librarian side of professional - expression confident and hopeful. Completely and utterly oblivious of how fucking insane she sounded. “I was told that you’re the person in charge of Crime Alley.”

He resisted the urge to scrub at his face. It’d just look weird with his helmet on and not do anything to actually settle him in that moment anyway. “I understood that part.”

“Look, Doc,” She earned a doctorate and she was crazy enough to waltz into the office of one of Gotham’s most powerful Crime Lords, he’d be respectful about using her proper title at least, even if he suspected she was ten pounds of crazy in a five pound bag. “You’re going to have to tell me why. I was under the impression the only reason you ended up dumped on our end of the city ws because you wouldn’t play ball. But now you want to sign up for my crew?”

Nightingale frowned a little at that.

“Is that what people are saying?”

“What else are they gonna say?” Jason answered, leaning back in his seat, “Head of the department only dumps Crime Alley on folks he don’t like. And everyone knows he doesn’t like anyone that can’t or won’t play his game by his rules.”

“Alright, well. I’ll give you that.” Nightingale conceded, “Payne doesn’t like me. The feeling’s mutual. But for the record,” She added giving him a wry smile, as if sharing wry smiles with Red Hood was just something people did, “I asked to be assigned to the Park Row and Bowery neighborhoods.”

“You wanted to work here.”

“Yes.”

“Bullshit.”

Nightingale laughed. It was a bright sound. Not especially clear or pretty, but warm and welcoming in a way that carefully calculated giggles or overdone guffaws couldn’t be. Something with real and honest amusement in it, that encouraged those nearby to laugh along. Not the kind of involuntary, nervous chuckling people tended to slip into when they thought they had pissed someone that scared them off.

She just wasn’t intimidated by him at all, was she?

Behind his helmet, Jason found himself smiling. Just a bit.

“I’m serious.” She assured, blue-green eyes meeting the dark stare of his helmet without a moment of hesitation. He watched as she brushed a lock of her bright red hair behind her ear and out of the way. She’d woven it all into a practical, neat braid but a few sly pieces had snuck out to bounce around her. Gilding her quiet professionalism with a playful charm that worked well with her academia but make it cottagecore kindergarten teacher aesthetic.

“I’ll admit, Gotham wasn’t part of my plan when I first graduated. Time and choices take you funny places sometimes.” She plucked an invisible bit of lint off her soft blue cardigan, not nervous but absent as her gaze went distant for a moment. Thinking back on the events that had led her to his fine city. In a blink, those sharp eyes were back to focusing entirely on him. “But Gotham is where I am now, and I want to help.”

She looked at him, a serious, determined expression settling easily on her face. “The city as a whole has so much chaos and crime breaking out all the time.” No censure or horror in her voice, just a neutral fact to be observed. “But where the rest of the city has millions of dollars poured into it by various foundations or charities run by the Waynes, Park Row is largely ignored.”

Jason watched as steeliness sharpened her gaze, the blue-green shifting from the shine of a bird’s wing to the warning hue of something poisonous and deadly. “No one deserves that. No one.” Her chin tilted up, proud but not imperious. “So yes, I want to work here. There are people in Park Row and the Bowery who need help and I refuse to let any of them feel like they are going to be ignored.”

Jason considered her.

Really looked at her. Pealing back his initial off handed impression of her as some clueless transplant in over her head with no idea of what she was doing or what she was poking her nose into to find the real woman beneath. Her confident poise, her clear unshakable belief, her unflinching willingness to look danger in the eye and not blink. The tense curve of her frown, the lines of pain at the corners of her eyes, the simmering anger beneath it all. There was an edge to her, too. Something sharp and dangerously well hidden by the cardigan and folksy charm of her accent.

It was personal for the woman before him, Jason realized. Maybe not Crime Alley specifically, but something about the whole situation. The treatment the neighborhood and its residents received from the city at large, from those even beyond it.

Crime Alley wasn’t a place that received much in the way of charitable thought. The average joe with their house in Somerset and job at some corporate shithole hating every second of their life but thinking at least I don’t live in Crime Alley. Those asshole hoity-toites in city hall throwing money around equally between shit that’d get them re-elected and their off-shore slush funds in the Caymens doing their damn level best to pretend the black mark on the other end of the city just didn’t exist. Bruce, flooding the entire city with charitable programs and carefully constructed infrastructures shying away from the manifested grief and trauma that was the place he watched his parents get murdered.

For the most part no one from outside of the Alley gave a shit about the Alley other than as a place to avoid at all costs. And most of the time those natives that manages to claw their way out into better and brighter lives didn’t ever turn to glance back. Orpheus could have learned a thing or to from an ex-Alley Kid who managed to eek out a steady 9-to-5 and move to Burnley.

And something about that seemed to piss Dr. Jasmine Nightingale Psy. D right the fuck off.

He could see why Bill said he liked her enough to let her in.

“Alright.” He said, tilting his head, watching the woman seated across from him carefully, “Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. Why you’re trying to get on my payroll.”

“I’m not trying to get on your payroll.” She said, some of the glinting edge softening, but the steel remaining. Strong and unyielding. “I’m trying to get into your community outreach program.”

Jason thanked god and all the saints once again for the gift of his helmet. That baby had saved his ass more times than he could count both by keeping his head in one piece and keeping his stupefied expressions wrapped up and hidden from view. Dr. Nightingale was one hell of a woman to make him have to rely on that fact twice in one conversation.

“Wasn’t aware that was something I had.”

Nightingale, not fortunate enough to have a full face covering helmet of her own, had nothing to hide her stupefied expression behind. Jason had a feeling she might have removed it to make sure he saw even if she did though. She looked like she had caught him eating glue like it was a cheese stick.

“Yes you do.” She said, sounding deeply confused but unshakable confident in what she was saying. “I’ve seen it. The soup kitchens, the shelters, the collection boxes for donating old clothes, the after school day care.” Nightingale ticked off on her fingers, “I’ve lived here for less than two weeks and I’ve lost count of all the things I’ve seen setup to help people struggling in the area that I’ve been very reliably informed you and your organization are behind.”

Oh.

Those.

“Those aren’t part of some community outreach program.” He said, “We are simply locals offering services for our neighbors.”

He watched as her caught-him-eating-glue expression shifted into one that said she’d stumbled upon him licking electrical sockets for a mid-day pick-me-up instead. He had to give it to her, the woman was not afraid to let one of the most dangerous men in the city know she thought he was a fucking idiot.

“Let me see if I understand this right.” She said, and he appreciated that there wasn’t any kind of condescension in her voice, even though she very clearly thought he’d been dropped on his head as a baby. Possibly from the top of a three story building. “You have a large group of people working together to plan, organize and execute multiple services in your area - your community, if you will - that provide aid and support to those that otherwise would not receive it. Reaching out with your available time and resources to offer these services, that you provide. For free.”

Alright, Jason got it. He had stumbled ass backwards into creating a community outreach program. But he wasn’t just going to let her think she won this one. He was Red Hood, he had a reputation to uphold here.

“What makes you think any of that is free?” He tilted his head at just the right angle, the one that cast shadows across the planes of his helmet and made him look hell-touched and terrifying. “Just because we don’t charge money, doesn’t mean there isn’t a price to pay.”

Dr. Nightingale, dressed like a damn kindergarten teacher, laughed at him.

[lovedecoded]

bless his heart. he doesn't have a clue in the world

[beccawise7]

Sunday kinda feel.

~beccawise7 💜🖤

[icarus-n-flames]

It’s really not THAT difficult to understand @netflix See I made you an academic diagram on why you should #RenewDeadBoyDetectives . Further sources: Please 🥹 #DeadBoyDetectives

[kaaaaaaarf]

Was no one gonna tell me that Esteban Kukuriczka was just out there being Remus Lupin, or....?

[delarpix]

[blackfire5561]

And these shadows keep on changing

I've had Alan Wake 2 on the brain all month, send help

[yuwuta]

MORE KNIGHT YUTA PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!!

yes ofc. he’s obedient, but still sly...... to me, knight yuuta will do as you say, but he will also act before you speak if he thinks that’s what’s right to protect you...... it’s like..... he thinks he’s the only person who can protect you, and you’re the only person who can protect him from himself........ anyway, enjoy this teehee cw mentions of murder (what else is new)

Yuuta sighs when he sees your silhouette in the moonlight, peering over the grand balcony. The heavy fabric of your dress resists rustles in the shallow winds of the evening; it tells Yuuta that you have not gone to bed, that he did not wake you, that you waited for him, that you anticipated him. 

From his position below, standing center in the courtyard, you appear something like a goddess, but he knows better than to compare to something so fickle. Gods are fable and you are truth, you are real. 

“Princess, you should be asleep. Might I help you to bed?” Yuuta offers, voice loud enough for you hear him one story higher, but quiet enough not to rouse the other knights on watch for the night. 

Yuuta watches intently as you shake you head, trails the smooth movement of your fingers grazing across the stone ribboning of the railing. You stop at the center, resting your clothed forearms against cold stone, wrists and hands hanging over the edge, and the lightest hum escaping from your lips, “If I were to fall, would you catch me, Yuuta?” 

Yuuta nods, without hesitation, “Yes, princess.” 

His eyes remained glued to you, carefully tracking your movements as you slowly sway to your left, delicate footsteps carrying you to the top of the stairway. Yuuta’s body turns with yours, standing at the base of the stairs, awaiting your arrival. 

Your careful to lift up the skirt of your dress with one hand, press your palm to the railing for support with the other, tilt your head down enough so that Yuuta can see your face in the moonlight, “And if I were to ask you to escort me to the kitchen, would you?” 

One, two, three steps, and you pause. Yuuta answers, “Yes, princess.” 

A hum, another step, then three, then four, then another question, “And if I said I craved fresh berries, and asked you to gather and wash and prepare them for me, would you?” 

“Yes, princess.” 

You continue at a slow pace, three steps, another question, three more, and Yuuta answers; always yes, always willing. You stop, three steps before the end of the stairs, and yet it only makes you a head taller than your knight. You drop your dress, take the smallest step forward, but not down, before you pose your next question. 

“And if I asked you to return to your quarters and not kill Lord Hajime tonight, would you?” 

This time, Yuuta cannot meet your eyes, head turning down, gaze set on the cold floor of the courtyard.

“Would you not do what is asked of you, Yuuta?”

He hears your voice first, then feels the warm touch of your fingers when you reach out to comb through his hair. Your fingernails scratch against his scalp, tugging with gentle vigor until you’ve forced his head up, until you’ve forced his gaze; and then, slowly, you bring your other hand to join its companion, and you have him between the palm of your hands. You always do. 

He holds his tongue, still; he wouldn’t dare say no to you, even if he thinks it. 

“Or do you only do as you please?” you tilt his head between your hands, “You would lie to me, wouldn’t you? You’ve done it before.” 

“Only for your protection,” Yuuta says, pleading, “I promise.” 

You hum, warm fingers brushing against his cold skin in the night. You look daunting, beautiful. 

“I might not be as conniving as my guards, nor as divisive as my cabinet, but I am still the princess, and you still serve me,” your words are calm, steady, eerie; Yuuta shudders into your touch when you trail you left hand down, pointer finger tracing along the frame of his face before hooking under his chin, forcing further accession between you and him, “Do you no longer wish to please me, Yuuta?” 

Yuuta sighs, raising his hand to wrap around your wrist, the cold metal of his armor whistling with his movement. With worried words and weary expression he asks: “Would Lord Hajime please you, princess?” 

He watches as your face falls, eyes sad and lips solemn, moving your hands down his face to swipe your thumbs against his temples. Yuuta lets go of your wrist, but he remains pliant in your hold, obedient under your touch, grateful when you shake your head.  

“Then why can’t I kill him?” Yuuta questions, earnest and upset. 

“Oh, Yuuta,” you muse, brushing away a fallen eyelash before bringing his head to your chest and cradling it between soft palms and soft cloth, “My Yuuta,” your words are spoken against the top of his head and the warmth radiates down the rest of his body.

“Lord Hajime will be dealt with accordingly. This is not how I wish to resolve things,” you assure him; Yuuta doesn’t like your solution, but you are his princess, so he will listen, he will stand and be warm against you, “And you are obvious. Another murder would only raise suspicion.” 

“They do not know it was me.” 

You chuckle, only lightly, and Yuuta can feel it against your chest, “But now I know.” 

Yuuta looks up, chin resting against your chest, his hands reaching up, resting greedily against your waist. Your palms find purchase against his cheeks again, and his eyes flutter closed for a moment, sinking into his dream. 

Slowly, he opens his eyes, blinks up at you. “I will accept whatever punishment you see fit.” 

This time, you tilt your head, allowing the moonlight to strike his face. Yuuta glows in anticipation, awaits your word. A moment, and then a hum. 

“I’m sure you will,” you tell him, before removing your hands from his face. Yuuta whimpers, pout growing deeper when you turn around in his hold, your back to him as you begin to ascend the stairs. 

Again, he waits, hands falling to your side as he eyes your silhouette. He counts ten steps before you turn your head over your shoulder, “Come. That’s an order.” 

Yuuta dips his head down, clasps his hand behind his back before he begins to follow you up the stairs, “Yes, of course, princess.” 

[mejkosmos]

my every waking hour nowadays:

[hungee-boy]

you literally dont need to know anything about kamen rider to watch kuuga

you dont even need to know anything about tokusatsu to watch kuuga

kuuga is for free on tubi

kuuga is worth every ounce of your time

watch kamen rider kuuga

[beccawise7]

Rest the mind. Feed the soul. ✌️

~beccawise7 💜🖤

[foxdoodles]

forza!! 💪🦊

[wizard-legs]

I finally watched season 1 of the bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ