#never ended up actually writing it

[supremeprince-bensolo]

If you had full control of tros, what changes would you make for Finn/Rose/Jannah's story lines?

Finn should have led a stormtrooper rebellion. That is what his journey through TFA and TLJ had been leading towards. Crossing paths with Jannah, who was also a former stormtrooper, making him realise he’s not the only one. Doubling down on what Rose told him in TLJ - it’s not about fighting what we hate but saving what we love - and have that notion be a part of how they defeat the First Order - by freeing their army instead of killing them.

And I think Jannah being Lando’s daughter could have been really interesting! Would have actually given Lando a reason to be in the movie, and seeing him reunite with his long lost daughter would have been really impactful.

As for Rose, first off actually let us know what happened between her and Finn (it was so weird to not acknowledge the kiss at all). Things just didn’t work out between them unfortunately, but they’re still friends.

I would have loved to have seen Rose and Rey be friends! Have them chat about their boy problems (maybe Rose is the only person Rey has told about her connection with Ben), give each other advice, complain about how annoying Poe is. Rey still needed to go off on her own journey in the movie but Rose could have supported her from afar.

I think Rose could also have been a part of the stormtrooper rebellion plot, helping them infiltrate the star destroyer and transmit a message from Finn that inspires the stormtroopers to defect.

There is so much they could have done with these characters.

[thefloatingstone]

Appleseed PDA montage to save you from reading endless pages of unimportant politics that don't amount to anything

also because I have nothing better to do, I'm bored, I'm moody, my gaming laptop is still broken so no BG3, and it's too late at night to start drawing after doing animation clean-up all day.

[rayveneyed]

cw; violence, gore, angst with a tinge of hope, god!au, power imbalance

the reputation of the war god, sukuna, casts a monstrous shadow over the land.

four arms and two heads and a gaping, snarling maw carved into his stomach — a host of violent magic at his disposal. he is the boogey-man beneath the bed, the shadow lurking around the corner, the glinting edge of cold steel. he is the pang of hunger in the stomachs of marching soldiers; the cold sweat of fear in women and children, cowering low in their homes as their village is ransacked by enemies. he is pain and adrenaline and strength, cleaved in half and sewn shoddily together. he is all of this and more, and yet you serve him.

you have never seen your patron god. you have never hoped to see him. to devote yourself to the two-faced one is to fear him. thousands of years have passed without a single sighting of him, or any god, for that matter — you are poorly prepared to stand in his presence.

and so, when the war god sukuna looms above you in the crushed remains of your home — a temple once grand, once mighty — with his coiling muscles and gargantuan size, you repeat this to yourself. a comfort of sorts.

pain and adrenaline and strength. the glinting edge of cold steel. the boogey-man beneath the bed.

to have him stand above you is enough to have your breath curdling in your throat. he eclipses you completely, his size almost indescribable — in your fear, in your grief, you can only gape up at him, teary-eyed and shivering like a kitten in the cold. your vestments have all been torn, or burned, or bloodied. this is not how you should present yourself to your god.

you shouldn’t even dare to meet his eyes. you’re simply too shaken to right your wrong.

“my lord,” you manage to greet, though most syllables catch like treacle in your throat.

you are insignificant. you realise this, in his shadow. your life is minuscule, paltry, meagre in his presence. he is a god and you are a girl, bones and veins and flesh that gives, and he may as well be obsidian. diamond, perhaps. he has seen thousands of years pass — empires rise and fall. the follies and infightings of man are entertainment; the deaths of millions are nothing but numbers lost to time.

he hums, and it’s like your brain is snapped from its shackles. you feel the blood drying against your cheek. the smell of burning flesh dizzying your mind. viscera beneath your palms. the entrails that were once your sisters give a sickening squelch, and all at once bile rises in your throat. you try to temper it, to focus on anything except your life that is crumbling to pieces around you — but the only thing to ground you is the cracked marble underfoot, cool and hard where your skin presses against it.

sukuna regards you as if you’re nothing but a speck of dust; there’s that sort of bored amusement about him, a cat batting idly at a squirming, broken-winged bird. he tilts his head, and raises a sharp, dark brow.

“woman,” he speaks, and his voice is a thousand drums beat in unison, the roar of a moving war-front. echoing and sonorous and enough to have you shivering where you sit. “it seems you are the only survivor.”

you make a sound like the wind has been punched from you.

“pity,” continues sukuna, seemingly ignoring your squeak. his gaze rises to the shattered pillars and rubble of your home, the smoking piles of fabric, the fires that rage even now. “you were minutely more valuable than cockroaches, at least.”

again, those eyes — four of them, unerringly dark — drift down to you, his brow furrowed in what you suppose might be curiosity. his lips twitch upwards in the cruel imprint of a smile. “oh? you protected yourself. how quaint.”

as if to make a point — or perhaps just to startle you — he reaches one grand hand out, and moves to flick you with a razor-sharp nail — only it never makes contact with you. you watch, wide-eyed and sick-stomached, as the air around you shimmers with a blue reflection. his finger bounces right off, though the force he first hits it with is far more gentle than his limit — the next time he flicks, seemingly finished with his demonstration, the paper-thin barrier cracks and shatters into a thousand shards, all eventually carried off by the wind. it is all too easy for him. you are once again reminded that you are nothing in comparison.

one of those monstrously large hands lunges forward, grasping your chin roughly. those sharp nails prick painfully against your cheeks. your god clearly does not care much for the blood and tears that scar you.

“i still desire some modicum of worship,” declares sukuna, glaring down at you. “i have lost 59 priestesses, and i must cull those who worked against me. you will have to do.”

a tear tickles the side of your nose as it migrates further from your eye. “yes, my lord.”

“my mercy does not strike twice,” he warns — and though his voice is so amused you have no doubt he is being truthful. “a hair out of line will see you joining your sisters.”

another sudden burn of tears. his grip on your jaw is still quite painful. “y-yes, my lord.”

silence reigns once more. the crackle of fire reminds you of the snapping of tree branches. the flicker of flames reminds you of the dances you and your sisters once performed in devotion to him, intertwining and spiralling, ceremonial swords and daggers and spears. you never would have danced had you known this fate would once befall you. you would have left this temple as soon as your girlhood ended.

sukuna tilts your head side to side, suddenly, as if to inspect you. his eyes trail from your jaw, to the curve of your cheekbone, to the roundness of fat that forms your cheek. they finish at your eyes — teary, bloodshot eyes, squinting in pain and sorrow and discomfort.

“hm,” he says, releasing you to turn on his heel. the muscles in his back ripple with each step he takes away from you, and the ground seems to tremble in time. “yes. i suppose i’ll keep you.”

he disappears through the crumbled archway, and your lungs seem to collapse. you suddenly feel very frail.

the remaining priestess of a war-hungry god. you suppose that a purpose is exactly what you need, now that your home is destroyed. now that all you have loved has been reduced to ash.

death may have been a mercy for your sisters, but should this be your last task before you join them, you can only do what you have always done: worship.

you can only hope you survive long enough to do them proud.

[orykorioart]

June 2023

How could you forget Lup?

[Image Description: A 5-panel illustrated comic featuring Taako and Lup in a limited color palette of pink, light brown, light red, purple, blue and yellow. Taako is is depicted with light brown skin and dark hair, which he ties behind his back. He wears a purple cloak. Lup is depicted with light brown skin and dark hair, which she ties in front of her. She wears a red cloak.

Panel 1: Young Taako and Lup, on both sides of a pot. Lup is stirring as Taako looks in. Below the panel is captioned with purple text:

“What’s the feeling”

Panel 2: Close-up of young Taako and Lup. You can see half of their face, and they are excitedly talking to each other. Below the panel is captioned with purple text:

“When you have a broken home, home, home?”

Panel 3: Pans down to young Taako and Lup’s torso. They are standing close to each other, indicating that they are holding hands. Below the panel is captioned, text in purple:

“Where’s the love when you were left on your own”

Panel 4: Taako’s hand, wearing the Bureau of Balance bracer. His hand is relaxed, but alone. There is a brief out line of Lup’s hand, reaching out for his. Below the panel is captioned with purple text:

“So alone”

Panel 5: Taako is standing center-frame, and you can only see the bottom half of his face and his torso. There is a single tear rolling down his cheek, his mouth slightly agape. He is grasping the Umbrastaff tightly in one hand, holding it close to his chest. There is a faint outline of a hand on his shoulder. Below the panel is captioned with red text:

“Who said you’re on your own?” End ID]

[froschli96]

Can we talk about how Kadar says to Altaïr in the beginning: "An excellent kill! Fortune favors your blade!", and then in the bureau with Malik, before Altaïr goes to meet "Robert", Malik says to him "Fortune favor your blade, brother."

And then THAT is what prompts Altaïr to actually finally apologize to him?

(It's these little things in the writing that make me go feral! Another one of my favorite parts is Altaïr and Malik calling each other "Dai" - Altaïr first calls Malik Dai before doing investigations during the Majd Addin mission, showing his character growth in how he's willing to humble himself in front of Malik by basically acknowledging him as a superior of sorts (he's even THANKING him here for his help - compare this to "I am your superior, in both title and ability! You should know better than to question me!"), and then when they last talk before Altaïr goes to confront Al Mualim, Malik calls HIM Dai, in turn acknowledging his growth 😭 I just... I love them so much, I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.)

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

To elaborate more on the Pesterquest stuff -

Alternia is a hell world. It's shitty to live in, even if you're a highblood, unless you fit a very specific mold of person AND are lucky enough to be born of a high caste. Every troll character we care about is, in some way, fucked over by their relationship to their society; Eridan and Vriska get it the worst, having been forced to participate in the murdering side of things since they were young, but every lowblood is screwed and every highblood is made worse even just by their passive participation. Kanaya becomes less sympathetic because she seems completely at peace with the society she grew up in, and Feferi wants to enforce casteism, even if it's of a different flavor. Gamzee and Equius both hold genuinely casteist beliefs and attitudes, which slip out and alienate them from the people they care about.

Putting a friendship simulator into the middle of all this is... a choice, I guess. I'm not going to begrudge anyone for wanting that or liking that, but it's going to be inherently at odds with what Alternia is and is meant to represent, and thus, fundamentally at odds with many of the characters' arcs and even basic personality traits, so heavily are they influenced by the shit society they grew up in.

For a non-Eridan example, Karkat loathes himself in massive part because his society loathes him. He's kill-on-sight and lives in daily terror of death. He wears a symbol at all because not having one marks him as even more of a freak, even though he knows that that symbol is connected to the empire's biggest rebel, whose footsteps he is expected to follow. The reason he's so obsessed with being leader-y and earning his teammates' reapect, or the respect of anybody, is because he's so deeply insecure about whether or not he even deserves to exist.

If you soften Alternia to the point you can write a lighthearted friendship simulator in it, then that characterization... goes away. Karkat is no longer motivated by deep, overwhelming insecurities, which drive him to idolize the society that deems him unworthy, mistakenly believing that if he can find validation in that society, he'll feel less bad about himself. Instead, Karkat is just kind of an asshole!

It's the same way with Eridan. He and Karkat are equal and opposite in this way - while Karkat is marked for death by his society, Eridan belongs to the extremely privileged caste of sea dweller royalty - even moreso than Feferi, as Feferi is slated to be murdered by the Condesce as soon as she comes of age (and her ridiculous optimism is likely something she cultivated in outright defiance of this fate). But it turns out that being a sea dweller sucks shit, too, if you aren't the extremely niche type of person that society deems "correct."

Eridan is not actually casteist and genuinely likes his land dweller friends - and this is unacceptible. Not only that, but smaller "unacceptible" offenses are wrapped up in big ones - despite not liking murder and feeling guilty about it, murder is objectively the correct thing for Eridan to be doing, constantly, to the point of it being "all [he's] ever done practically," because if he doesn't fulfil the duty of his bloodline to be murdering lusii (and by extension, their charges, who are culled when their lusii die), EVERYBODY dies. The constant push-pull of trauma, societal expectations and obligations, the fate of the species, and the fact that he is inherently not the "right" kind of person for his society, are pretty much his entire character. He's basically a walking ball of anxiety and emotional turmoil.

So, again, if you soften Alternia to the point where you can write a story about Eridan wanting to see Shrek in a public theater (something he would not actually be able to peacefully do in canon Alternia - at least not without taking off his cape, hiding his fins, and going anonblood - as sea dwellers are considered ridiculously hostile to the point even Gamzee's nervous about being on the beach for too long), Eridan ends up being just kind of an asshole!

Pesterquest!Eridan is, and I cannot stress this enough, fundamentally not the same guy as canon Eridan. They have practically nothing in common, from the fact that PQ!Eridan is willing to do something for leisure, to the fact that he isn't widely feared and the movie theater doesn't empty out in a panic when he turns up, even down to the fact that he likes femme fashion (canon Eridan goes to Lengths to lean into masc fashion) and Shrek (canon Eridan is a hipster). Hell, even the fact that PQ!Eridan SMILES is a massive deviation from canon!Eridan, who has never once been depicted smiling, and probably hasn't for many sweeps.

Also that he has that much beef with Sollux when, canonically, the two had a lukewarm mutual dislike and didn't even bother interacting until Feferi was added to the mix and Eridan became mad that Sollux was dating her. He wasn't even casteist about him until then, and after, even Sollux and Feferi don't think he's casteist, they just think he's ashenflirting so he can get into a quad with Feferi. Like come on, if you're going to feature another troll in Eridan's route, 1) make it be Karkat, and 2) have Eridan cheat on you the whole time with Karkat like he does to Feferi.

Eridan is just overall a wild choice in a friendship sim - I can't even blame them for just writing an OC and putting an Eridan skin on top - because societally, Eridan isn't even supposed to have non-sea dweller friends. The sea dweller/land dweller race war is something the Condesce deliberately put into place in order to keep land dwelling nobility in line, and Equius cites it as one of the reasons he never got along with Eridan. Like, the very fact that Eridan talks to two land dwellers on friendly terms (Kanaya and Karkat) is a MASSIVE deviation from what he's "supposed" to be like, and a huge hint that he's not as casteist as he'd like to appear. You are genuinely hundreds, if not thousands, of times likelier to end an encounter with Eridan either orphaned or dead than as his friend. He's an unstable maniac, and there's a reason so many members of his team don't like him even though he's legitimately not casteist and they mostly seem aware of it (nobody really complains about or even notices Eridan's casteism by the time they're on the meteor - his contradictions are really obvious, and it's likely that they've more or less realized that he's full of shit).

Again, I don't begrudge anybody for wanting or liking PQ. Who cares, really. I'm just saying that as a canon discussion blog, there's not really any place for PQ because it's so far removed from canon that, like, there's not really anything meaningful to discuss about it. The setting and characters in PQ are fundamentally divested from canon, and not even in an AU way. And it's totally fine if that's what you like, but, yeah, like.

Was Eridan written well (where "well" = accurate to canon): no. Maybe he's fine as an OC with an Eridan Minecraft skin slapped on, but that's not my beautiful son, that's not my baby boy.

What did they get wrong about Eridan (where "wrong" = inaccurate to canon): all.

What route would I have written for Eridan: he shoots you with a gun and you die. And then maybe cheats on you with Karkat

[sciderman]

Which do you prefer, Spideypool or Poolverine?

glances at my decade-long running spider-man and deadpool blog

...hm. good question. i'll have to think about th

[fromtheseventhhell]

It's crazy that people still uphold show!Sansa as a well-written character and pretend that liking her is the pinnacle of feminism when it would be infinitely more impactful to acknowledge her terrible and misogynistic writing. This is the same character who, while written by two men, was thankful for the abuse she suffered because it allowed her to grow. The same character who we had to be told was smart because the writers were too lazy to develop or show her intelligence. The same character who had to rely heavily on the men surrounding her and ended up accomplishing nothing on her own merit ( and no, thinking that she deserved to be Queen doesn't mean that she earned it). She is not well-written, she is not complex, and she is not a feminist character. Which is fine! If you enjoy her then good on you, but please stop pretending that she's something she isn't just because you feel the need to justify liking her character

[wistfulpoltergeist]

List 5 facts about a favorite sim of yours, and send this to 10 simblrs whose sims you adore ♥♥♥

Thank you! Спеціально для тебе, сонечко, я обрав цього древнього як моє життя упиря :D

I present you... COLD ICE!

1) Cold Ice is one of my oldest characters. I created him as a kid when I was... idk 11? And this is the first digital picture of him↴

Yeah, enjoy my old childish art :D

2) I was so obsessed with his appearance that I wanted to study 3D JUST to make him close to real.

3) Cold Ice neither a man, nor a woman. He's also both a man and a woman. Sometimes he turns into Lady Winter. (Yeah. I made him like this as a kid. And I'm from a quite ordinary family, mind you.)

4) Cold Ice is a nosferatu. Which means a simple "vampire", but I imagined that nosferatu in the vampires' world is something like archangel in the world of angels. Though, like all kids, I went even more epic and egocentric than that. I made him the mother and the father of all undead, the will of the Darkness itself. :D

5) But the most creepy fact about Cold Ice is that he was actually born from my imaginary friend I used to talked to when I felt sad.

Oh, hey! I found pics of him I made in Sims 2 eons ago!;D

[tiktowafel]

do you ever think about how all you used to draw when you were 10 was ponies and that you should still know how to do that, then get an idea and proceed to draw something like these in nearly one sitting and it turns out better than any drawing you've done in the entire past month

sooo anyway does anyone have cutie mark or pony name ideas for them?? lol

[stevethehairington]

He needs a break. A chance to breathe for a moment. This lifestyle sometimes feels like the corsets that Robin is always complaining about — too tight, too constricting, and superfluously unnecessary. Steve pities Robin, and the rest of the poor women, who have to deal with both. The circumstance and the corsets.

Steve knows better than to complain, though. He lives a lavish existence, one that many people would give anything to have. It isn’t fair of him to pity himself like this when there are so many people out there that are so much worse off than him. He should feel grateful. Lucky, even.

But it’s hard not to feel suffocated instead, sometimes.

The alcove is quiet, thank god, and void of any stray party guests. It’s hidden away, tucked between two rocks that overlook the seaside, and the crash of waves from down below has a mollifying effect on Steve’s agitated disposition.

He reaches for the cravat at his neck, loosening it with deft fingers. He’s in the act of tugging it away from his throat when the clear crunch of a footstep has him spinning around sharply.

And there, emerging from the shadows to block Steve’s only escape route, is a man.

The first thing Steve notices about the man is the curtain of dark curls that frame his face. They’re long enough to tumble freely over his shoulders, and they’re pulled back by a thick swath of fabric, deep red in color. The ends of his bangs peek out from beneath the bandana, as do a pair of thin braids, each tied off with two hollowed out pearls.

With his hair out of his face, Steve can see it all. Every single feature, open and on display — those soft cheekbones, that sloping nose, the gnarled scar that stretches across the left side of his jaw and pulls the corner of his mouth into a twisted, permanent smile.

Steve is sure that he’s never seen this man before, and yet there is something achingly familiar about him. A tugging within his gut; it feels like he should know him, but from what, he can’t quite place.

The man’s left ear is pierced through twice, two identical gold hoops looped through the skin. And just beneath his ear he has a small mark. A tattoo. Steve isn’t quite close enough to make out just what it’s of. He squints his eyes and nearly takes a step closer to take a proper look, but catches himself before he does.

It’s then that Steve realizes that he’s been staring, borderline ogling, for much longer than is appropriate, too. His cheeks warm as he averts his eyes to the ground. But rather than the cobblestone path below, his gaze falls to the man’s feet.

Flared brown boots cover those feet, rising up nearly to his knees. They’re old looking, worn and well-purposed, but still sturdy, even after countless strops though mud and water and sand and all sorts of other rough terrains. Beneath the boots, his stalwart calves and strong thighs are encased in rough-hewn black breeches, tight, yet functional.

Steve’s eyes stray further up, despite his best efforts. 

The man wears a thick brown leather belt, layered with a silken red cloth and an even thinner black belt, this one scaled like a dragon, with a shiny gold buckle. It sits around his waist, atop an open black vest that accentuates his slim figure. His blouse beneath is a deep wine red, made from a gauzy looking material that clings to his skin. Steve imagines that if it were to get wet it would be absolutely sinful. The neck of it is rather plunging, too, exposing the man’s collarbones, and the corner of another tattoo on his chest. 

And there, above his heart and to the right, in the very center, hangs a pendant — some sort of serpentine creature with wings, gaudy and golden and absolutely eye-catching.

Steve feels a little hot under the collar, taking it all in. He has to look away.

The man makes an amused humming sort of noise. “Like what you see, sweetheart?” He drawls, flicking both eyebrows up at once. A lazy grin unfurls across his full lips, and he practically drapes himself over the rock behind him.

The position puts his whole body even further on display, in an entirely new way this time, and looking away is futile now. Steve’s eyes are heedlessly drawn back to it, raking over every inch. It feels… dangerous, to be looking this much, this long, but he can’t help it.

The man lifts a hand to examine his black varnished nails, an air of boredom to the action. His fingers are adorned with chunky silver rings that glint in the mid-afternoon sunlight. Casually, he pulls a dagger from its hiding place amongst the belts and uses the sharp tip to pick at one of his nails.

Idly, he starts to whistle — a low, warbling tune that has an almost menacing edge to it.

It, too, strikes a chord of remembrance in Steve, and he wracks his brain trying to think of where he’s heard it. And then it hits him.

“You’re a pirate!” He gasps out. It sounds scandalized, when he says it, though, really, he isn’t scandalized at all. He doesn’t find himself very afraid, either, though he knows he should be. Instead, he’s just intrigued.

The man snickers. “Very good, sweetheart,” he commends, tucking the dagger away again. He brushes his knuckles against his shirt. “What gave it away?”

Steve frowns. “What are you doing here? Where’s your ship?”

“What am I doing here?” The man repeats. Laughs this breezy little thing. “I’m meant to be taking you prisoner, actually,” he tells Steve.

“Take me— prisoner?” Steve repeats, shock coloring his tone. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“Oh, yes,” the man replies, pushing himself off of the rock. He starts to circle Steve. “I’m meant to be snatching you up— well, that’s the interpretation of it, anyways. All they said was that I needed to deal with you, and, really, that’s so vague.”

He starts to circle Steve, slinking around him slowly, purposefully. His voice carries as he does. “Pirates are supposed to be unscrupulous, though, aren’t they? What with all the threatening and the stealing and the killing and the like. I figured it only makes sense that I take you.”

Steve has a million questions — like who the hell is they? And what do they want with him? And why did they send a pirate to do their dirty work?

Instead, what comes out is, “I guess that would make sense.”

He folds his arms over his chest, just for something to do with them, and then a thought surfaces to the forefront of his brain.

A crease forms between his eyebrows, and his lower lip pushes out into a contemplative pout as he mulls it over. “But what if—” he starts. Pauses. Cuts himself off like he won’t dare finish the thought.

Only it’s too enticing, too tempting not to. 

“What if you didn’t take me?”

The man comes to a stop right in front of Steve. He’s close, much closer than anyone would normally be comfortable with, but Steve doesn’t care. If anything, he has to refrain from curling his fingers into that necklace and using it to leverage him even closer.

Steve looks into the man’s dark eyes. Big, endless, easy to lose himself to. But he doesn’t. He meets them head on, unwavering with his gaze, as if he’s challenging him.

“Sweetheart,” the man starts, dripping with condescension. He raises a hand and flattens it against the rock behind Steve, boxing him in. Another wry chuckle tumbles past his lips. “I don’t think you get it,” he says. “I have an order. I need to follow it.”

Steve just his chin up, defiant. “I don’t think you get it,” he returns, poking the man in the chest, much to his astonishment.

“What if you didn’t take me,” Steve repeats slowly, putting emphasis on his meaning. “But what if I… went with you anyways?”

It takes a moment for the words to properly sink in, but when they do, a slow spreading surprise settles over the man’s face. “Oh,” he says, sounding pleased. His lips curl back into a grin that bares his teeth. “How rebellious of you,” he tuts.

“You say rebellious, I say free-thinking,” Steve replies, brushing him off.

The man’s smirk grows, but he doesn’t accept the proposition. Not yet. Instead, he watches Steve carefully, like he expects his bravado to fall away any second now and for Steve to renege. 

But Steve holds his ground. He’s not taking it back. He’s not chickening out. In fact, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life.

He’s going to go with this man.

Finally, the man relents. “If that’s what you want,” he says.

“It is,” Steve replies, without hesitation.

The man gives a firm nod, and without another word, he turns on his heel and starts to briskly walk away.

Steve scrambles to follow him, out through the opening of the rocks and across the open courtyard that leads towards the port. He glances behind him every so often to make sure that he hasn’t been spotted or followed by any of the partygoers. By any of his family. 

But each time he looks, there’s no one.

He doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or thrilled by that.

The further he gets from the party, though, the easier it gets to breathe. Like the noose around his neck loosens with each step. That almost makes him want to laugh, considering his choice here would earn him a real one, permanently.

Ships line the port, when they finally make it to the water’s edge. Great big ones, with hulking hulls and dozens of ballooning sails. There are at least four, anchored in the bay, but none of them stick out to Steve as a pirate ship. Not that Steve’s ever actually seen a pirate ship before. He’s only heard tales. Still, he expected that they’d be distinct.

The man approaches one of the ships, and he doesn’t hesitate before tromping up the shoddy wooden gangway and stepping foot onto the polished deck. His hands slide onto his hips and he casts a wide glance around. He takes in a deep breath, then lets it out slowly, his whole body relaxing as he does. Like he’s finally home.

He turns then, back towards Steve and offers out his hand.

Steve looks down at it, then back up at the man.

“I’m Steve,” he says, taking it. The man’s palm is rough against Steve’s, but it’s warm too. It feels nice.

The man laughs. “I know,” he says. “And I’m—”

It’s then that Steve notices it. It’s subtle, in the sense that it’s just the one detail. But that detail itself is anything but. Just past the man’s head, right in the center of the biggest sail, a red devil. Pointed horns protruding from its skull, wicked yellow eyes, razor sharp teeth. 

It is unmistakable.

“You’re Eddie Munson,” Steve says, recognition finally hitting. And, jesus christ, he feels so stupid for not realizing sooner. The most notorious pirate in all of the seven seas — how could he have forgotten?

“That I am,” Eddie muses. Then he uses his grip on Steve’s hand to pull him the rest of the way onboard.

It tightens, and he doesn’t let go right away, like maybe he thinks Steve will try and make a run for it now that he knows who he is. 

But Steve doesn’t. He stands his ground, holds Eddie’s gaze steady.

Something zings up Steve’s spine as Eddie’s big eyes bore back into his own, and he thinks briefly to himself that whatever he’s gotten himself into here, it’s going to be well worth it. He’s in for the adventure of a lifetime here.

Eddie drops his hand then, and a slow grin, just as devilish as his flag unfurls across his pretty lips. He flourishes one of his own hands out around him.

“Steve Harrington,” he practically purrs. “Welcome to Hellfire.”

[possamble]

I absolutely really need to be writing anything but random ideas while I procrastinate and this is so awful rough bc I literally wrote it on my phone in one sitting while avoiding work but

Do you see my vision. Her Nosy Bitch Syndrome would actually be good for him when they've both chilled out a little in the postcanon.

[pepperpixel]

“put me on a pedestal and i’ll only disappoint you

tell me i’m exceptional, and i promise to exploit you

gimme all your money, and i’ll make some origami honey!

i think you’re a joke!!! …but i don’t find you very

fuuuuuuu~nyyy”

More tagr art!!! Assorted stuff this time! Featuring some cute chibi stuff. Some solo gaz’s, a lil uhhh. Comic of an altercation.. and a very belated Halloween pic I started drawing last Halloween and didnt finish lol. Also featuring lyrics from pedestrian at best cuz that song rllly rlly fits my ver of tak lol.

[tender-emotional-music]

If byler isn’t a threat, then why do people claim Will is coming between Mike and El?

*Regina George voice* So you agree? You think there’s actually a chance Mike could end up with Will?

[simcardiac-arrested]

wait, that elias?