#peeled him bc he has so many layers

[its-coda]

I love his (˶ˆᗜˆ˵) face

[starry-bi-sky]

this just in: danny fenton is just as much of a mask as Brucie Wayne? - another danyal al ghul au

Turns out, being placed in a civilian family who have no knowledge of your background is actually detrimental to the health and development of a child assassin due to lack of proper support! Surrounded by strangers in a foreign city, Danyal Al Ghul does as assassins do best. He hides. Espionage is one of many teachings one learns in the League, and it only takes half a day for Danyal to construct a new persona to hide behind: Daniel Fenton.

By the time dinner rolls around, Danyal al Ghul is safely and securely tucked behind the face of Danny Fenton; brand new adoptive child of the Fenton family who came from overseas. A shy, quiet little boy with a thick accent and curly hair, with brown skin and blue eyes, and an avid interest in the stars. The best fictions are always cobbled together in a little bit of truth, it's some of the only truth he ever lets through. He apologizes in a meek voice for his behavior early, he didn't mean to be rude, and he watches the three of them eat it up with coos.

Lies roll like silk against his lips, he struggles to meet their eyes and offers them his weakest, shyest smile. It's too easy. It's easy to go from there.

Danny Fenton, adoptive son, shy and awkward and unconfident but friendly. Who struggles in his classes and isn't the brightest, but tries his hardest. He makes bad jokes and has a quick tongue and a sarcastic mouth. He wants to be an astronaut. He's got the best aim in school, and is a terrifying dodgeball player. He's one of the least athletic kids in his grade.

It's like playing two truths and a lie, but there's only one truth, and the rest are lies. It's easy to pretend when he knows it's insincere.

Danyal Al Ghul, grandson to the Demon Head. Deadly, trained assassin. Has spilled blood, has had blood spilt from. Environmentalist, animal activist. He loves the stars. He owns a calligraphy set. A sharp tongue, an even sharper blade. He's clever, quick-witted, he would be top of his grade if he tried harder. He purposely doesn't.

He misses his family. He misses his mother, and he misses his brother. Mother visits a few times a year, so few times that he can count it on both hands. He cherishes every visit, as brief as they are. It helps remind him who he is.

Sam and Tucker are Danny's best friends. They've never met Danyal, but Danyal's met them.

It becomes routine to become Danny Fenton. As familiar and as easy as pulling on a shirt in the morning. Danyal wakes up and is always first to the bathroom in the mornings; stares at himself in the mirror until he can finally see Danny staring back at him. At night, he locks his door and sheds the mask.

Dying throws a wrench in his mask; splits a crack straight through the porcelain. He's able to smooth it over with sandpaper and liquid gold, but it's a little hard keeping his ghost form under wraps. It instinctively wants to shift to show his true self. Danyal can't have that, he's spent four years as Danny Fenton, he'll spend another four as him as well. Even if the feeling of the hazmat suit in his ghost form feels restrictive, like a too-small shirt suctioned to his skin that needs to be peeled off.

He'll live. Er-- well, you know what he means. It's frustrating however, trying to keep his Danny Fenton mask up even as Phantom - fighting in the air is something he needs to get used to, and the sudden propping of powers throws him off. But he is nothing if not adaptive, and he hates that he needs to slow his own skills down in order to keep pretenses up in front of Sam and Tucker.

The first time Danyal summons a sword when he's alone, is one of the few times Danyal gets to grin instead of Danny. He's fighting Skulker, and from an invisible hilt he draws a katana from thin air. It startles them both. Skulker takes a step back at the smile that spreads across his face.

They're both silent as Danyal examines his new sword.

"Do you know what people like me do to people like you, poacher?" Danyal finally asks him, the accent he began to hide a few months in slipping through. He drops all pretense, dragging the flat end of the blade slow and appreciatively against his palm. It's a good make, and when he cuts it through the air, it slices through like butter. He looks up at Skulker with a smile; "are you ready to find out?"

When Sam and Tucker ask about why Skulker seems so skittish around Danny now, Danny shrugs at them and says with a playful smile; "I don't know, I guess I kicked his butt too hard after our last fight." and he watches as Sam rolls her eyes exasperatedly, and Tucker snickers with his own joke.

By the time he reunites with Damian before their 15th birthday, Danyal is buried beneath so many layers of Danny Fenton that his brother will need a shovel to dig him out. He's not sure what he'll find.

[spaghett-onaplate]

i ate a meat pie fresh out of the oven yesterday and burnt off a few layers of mouth skin and now whenever i drink a liquid i can feel the loose layer of skin swelling slightly. according to google it's a second degree burn

[nereidprinc3ss]

mojave ghost

in which spencer reid spends the night with fem!reader—a total stranger—because she just feels so familiar. based on the song "my life in art" by Mojave 3.

18+ (implied intimacy) warnings/tags: based on a song about a stripper who runs away from her abusive boyfriend. tws for mentions of physical abuse. r has bruises from pole dancing. a little ooc bc Spencer hooks up with someone he just met but that's the point and if u know him like I do u know its not completely impossible. mentions of typical cm violence/murder. one brief mention of spencer's addiction. spencer's childhood trauma and abandonment. it's kind of just a heavy one, lmk if i'm missing anything a/n: I doooo suggest you listen to the song first just to feel the vibe of the piece and also how it is literally about Spencer Reid. and also bc its gorjus. anyways its been a while and this is not my most standard content but pls lmk what u think and if u liked it <3

He shouldn’t have done it. 

But when he saw you, sitting in a metal folding chair next to some peeling veneered-desk, his breath caught. Something primal deep in his stomach tugged the way it does when he finds little external fragments of himself, calling out to him—usually nonhuman objects. He’s seen himself in books, still warm from the hands that held them but ultimately forgotten on a bench or in the airport, needles in alleys or in between tiles on his bathroom counter, in shards of glass, in a hundred open wounds and dead animals, abstractly gutted on the side of the street. 

When he does see himself in a person, it’s in alarming glimpses. The man in the sleeping bag on the corner who talks to people that aren’t there. The lost child crying on the subway platform, rooted to the spot and still gripping the straps of their little backpack with responsible fists. It’s never anything he wants to know about himself, but this identification, this taxonomy and recognition of sameness—it’s so strong it stops him in his tracks, every time. He never really relates to the people he’s supposed to. Not Hotch. Not Gideon. Not even Maeve, in the way he’d so naively hoped for. Three people, all incredibly intelligent, at times standoffish. Used to being on the outside. All still possessing things and redemptive qualities he doesn’t. And what Spencer has secretly believed about himself for what has recently become a very long time, is that he is defined by his lack. The shape of him is made of negative space. He feels like whatever is in your lungs when you’ve pushed all the air out. 

And then, you. 

Physically, you look nothing alike. And he stops and lurches and does a double take like he’s seen his doppelgänger or been startled by his own reflection in a passing window anyway. Maybe it’s the way you hold yourself—hunched, foot tapping, head hung but still scanning the room, ever vigilant as you pick at your nails. You want to be small. You want to fold in yourself so many times you become a black hole. Spencer knows this. 

Something calls out from deep inside him, from all around him, that is not quite in his voice, but feels like grasping and reaching. 

I know you, I know you. 

He doesn’t catch himself in time before he’s walking toward you like he’s been waiting for you. 

Of course your head snaps up at the same time as he stops, and your eyes are shiny but not teary—frozen over with a layer of thick, dark ice like you’d carried the cold inside with you. You look caught. He searches for some sort of recognition in your eyes, anything to betray the fact that you have met before, because he never forgets a face but he knows what familiarity feels like and he can’t remember meeting you. 

His throat forms around something but the wrong word comes out. Halting, like he’s trying to lasso it and pull it back in. 

“Hi.” 

You pull your scarf down—a deep Roman purple—to reveal a pretty mouth, lips chapped by the unforgiving freeze outside. 

“Hello,” you say, politely, considering his probably strange behavior. He gives you a proprietary scan. Utility coat over a thick grey sweater. Jeans, cuffed at the bottom but still nearly too long, probably belted, although he can’t tell from the posture and the sweater. Brown boots. Your bag is a frayed tapestry of neutrals and patches. Fingerless knit gloves. You’ve given yourself false density, let the clothes swallow you up. Shapeless. Nearly faceless, magnet eyes framed between the scarf and the hat. But you’ve got a name. Everyone has a name. There’s yet to be anything humanity has discovered and not bothered to name. 

He forgets to ask. You clear your throat. 

“Um, I spoke to someone on the phone—Aaron, I think? We’re supposed to talk.”

Spencer tries to pick his jaw up off the floor. 

“Yeah, um, I can—I’ll… go get him.”

He turns away and breathes for the first time since he saw you, but he feels you behind him. He’s aware of exactly where you are in relation to the back of his head, he can feel you, like a hot spot, all the way to Hotch’s door. He lets himself in, slipping between as small a gap as he can manage and shutting the door gently behind him. Hotch looks up, not noticeably displeased at having been interrupted in his endless paperwork. 

What Spencer learns from his boss is this: you live in DC. You heard about a murder in Kansas—a girl, her hair still a fine, pale cornsilk. Barely not a child. You heard the details, and you called the cops, because you swear to god you know who did it, and they told you there was nothing they could do and gave you the number of someone who might be able to help, and so you followed a bureaucratic trail of phone numbers designed to discourage until you got to the BAU. Hotch says he’s going to interview you, but it’s probably nothing. 

“Actually, I’d like to do it if that’s okay.”

Hotch frowns deeper than usual.

“Why?”

Spencer swallows. Hesitates. 

“I finished my incident report early.”

Though he clearly has his reservations about Spencer’s sudden interest, Hotch is knee-deep in paperwork. So that’s how Spencer ends up in the round table room with you. 

You look too young, too raw to have been married, but you’re rubbing at your ring finger with the adjacent thumb like something is bothering you there. An absence that has become a presence. Negative space. You see things that aren’t there. Spencer knows that, too. Maybe you’re the kind of person who could look at him and see something.

That is his most intimate fantasy. He imagines it with you and feels the same kind of illicit shame and bloodied, starving hunger other people feel when they imagine sex or drugs or ravaging power; the way anyone imagines anything they want and can’t have.  

But he can’t put that kind of pressure on you. He can’t hold expectations like that. You’re a stranger. 

“Do you always do that?”

He points to your fiddling and gets that sour feeling in his throat he always does when he says something and wishes he hadn’t said it. That probably doesn’t show on his face. Most things don’t show on his face. Or maybe they do and nobody has bothered to tell him. 

You flex your pretty hand and then make a fist like you’ve been burned, probably to stop the compulsion. When you give a self-deprecating laugh, Spencer feels incredibly guilty for having pointed it out. But he doesn’t know how to talk to you. And at the same time, he almost expects it’ll be like talking to himself. Only nobody will give him odd looks. 

“Uh… old habit. I used to spin my wedding ring around when I was nervous.”

Used to. You’re especially too young to have been divorced. 

“You’re nervous?”

Your eyes flash as you look up to him. With what, he doesn’t know. Lightning, maybe. Electrical impulses that are a little less well insulated in you than in everyone else. 

But maybe he’s projecting. 

“Yeah. I feel crazy. But I was with a guy for a while who—and he was from Kansas—who would always, like, talk about… about hurting people. And I thought it was a joke at first, but… he laughed, at other people’s pain. He liked to hurt people. And animals. His dad had a farm, so I thought it was maybe he was just cavalier about life and death, but it was more than that. And he lived… he lived in that town. Where that girl died. He probably knew her. I… I probably knew her.”

Spencer’s heart sinks and he clears his throat like the force could bring it back up the right level again. 

You’re not his soulmate. You’re just paranoid. Looking for answers and resolution, like everybody else. 

The piece of himself he saw in you was just free radical damage. Instability. 

“Did he ever kill anyone before?”

“Wh—not that I know of. But I don’t really think he would’ve told me.”

But you would’ve known. You’re here because you’re lost. 

“Did he ever seriously injure anyone?”

You swallow and sit up a little straighter. Heat lightning in your eyes, again. It makes him feel something. He sits up too, despite your indignance, because it’s entrancing. 

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“He… he…” you melt as quickly as you inflated and go back to spinning a ring that’s not there. It’s like watching technicolor go to black and white. “He’d beat people up. He cut them with broken beer bottles and… yeah. A lot of other shit. He was just… he was crazy. He wasn’t… okay.”

The way your gaze flickers back and forth like you’re reading pages of a book or perhaps in REM as you recount in vague detail what your ex had done clues Spencer into the fact that you’re extremely traumatized. The way you make sure to emphasize that your clearly abusive ex wasn’t okay clues him into the fact that you care too much. That you’re too quick to excuse people’s bad behavior, or dismiss it, because you know how it feels to be dismissed entirely and you don’t want to make anyone else feel the way you’ve felt. 

Or maybe he’s still projecting. Maybe he’s idealized you in these few short minutes since you met and he’s too far gone. Maybe he should’ve let Hotch do this interview after all. In fact, he absolutely should’ve. 

But the worst thing by far he did was ask to walk you to your car after all was said and done. 

The interview went on for over two hours, and he’d learned things about you he suspects you’ve never told anyone before, and thus has learned about himself, and the building is mostly empty when you finally leave. The work day is over. So he selfishly asks you to wait while he gathers his things—buttons his coat, wraps his scarf, packs his bag—and then he soaks in the silence on the elevator because it’s that terrible, beautiful space between where you first cross the line and when you do something unforgivable. Asking to walk you to your car was crossing the line. 

Sleeping with you was unforgivable. 

And he didn’t care. Maybe he knew he was going to do this from the moment he saw you. Spencer never does this. The knowing that it was going to happen is quite a distinct flavor of intuitive knowledge and it was always on the back of his tongue. 

You’re silver and purple, a streak, a blur, you move too fast to keep up with and even when you’re perfectly still the atoms around you scramble like they’re jonesing. You inspire movement. You are movement. But he gets to see you slow, and despite having known you only a few hours, he knows this is nothing short of a natural phenomenon. A once in a lifetime sort of shooting star. That’s where the silver comes in. 

The purple, though—it’s in strange places. Around your upper arm. Between your thighs. On your knees and shins and hips. The first time he noticed it he couldn’t ignore it, but he couldn’t very well ask what’s hurting you while he was touching you in a way that was decidedly not painful, if he wanted to keep it that way. And he did. He wanted to keep you looking at him through half-lidded eyes like he was something to see. 

Still, he can’t notice it and then fuck you without saying something—or maybe he could, and you desperately want him to and you ask for it and maybe most people would, but he won’t—so he brings it up. 

“I lead a very active life,” is your whispered excuse, shaped by a smile that is something like mischievous. And then you’re kissing his flushed neck and making your descent and so he can’t ask very many questions. 

It’s only in the precarious after that he can fit his questions in, which is dumb and he knows that, because you’re a dizzying contradiction of cagey and flighty and really the slightest thing will send you running. It’s funny how he knows that after a few hours and sex. Sex can tell you so much about a person. Spencer has compiled all the data from his experiences and decided sex is radically more effective a profiling tool than interview. 

You’re on his pillow, lying on your stomach, and his hand is in your hair. Falling in love is quite a distinctive taste as well. Or at least, the recognition that if you spend enough time around a person you will, beyond a shadow of a doubt, fall in love with them. It is almost the same thing. It aches because it’s there and the proper thing to do is pretend it’s not. 

And his hand is in your hair. And your eyes are closed, and you look like you might fall asleep, and he should be beyond grateful for all of these things. He is. 

But that pesky desire to ameliorate, to improve and make better, and fix and heal, is too strong. Probably it’s the only way he thinks anyone will love him, is if he makes himself useful. That’s no revelation to him. The thought is not shocking whatsoever. It’s just true. 

So he asks again. You blink your eyes a quarter of the way open. 

“Hazard of the job.”

“What job?”

You make a noncommittal noise of reluctance—a discontented puppy’s whine, half-asleep. 

“I’m a circus freak.”

He laughs and remembers to keep scratching your scalp. The way you smile, eyes closed, is infectious. 

“Yeah? What’s your act?”

“Guess,” you challenge through the remnants of a smile, oozing satisfaction and glowing like a star. 

When he pauses to regard you, to seriously consider, studying the curve of your cheek and the color of your lips, you open your eyes again. 

“Tightrope walker,” he finally says, earnestly, so soft it could tear down the middle like gauze. 

Your answer is a smile into the dark. “How’d you know?”

The corner of his mouth vies higher. 

“I sensed a kindred spirit.”

Silence floods the room again, slowly, thickly, like molasses. It’s pleasant. You’re still here, in his bed, and he’s still measuring time with the pendulum of his hand in your hair. 

“What do you really do?” 

He expects you to be asleep. 

“Dancer.” Your lips hardly move as you say it, inflectionless, immediate. If his hand falters, it’s only momentarily. That explains the bruising, and so is a relief, as far as he’s concerned. But perhaps his silence is misconstrued. “Do you want me to go?”

It certainly doesn’t seem like you want to go. Your eyes aren’t even open. 

He keeps his voice low and gentle like maybe you really are asleep. 

“Why would I want you to go?”

“Don’t… do that.”

“What?”

“Don’t act like you’re not judging me.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m from Vegas. Your job is not a novelty to me.”

This time when your eyes slide open, there is a new, curious light behind them. 

“Really?”

He nods, distracted by a freckle just beneath your eye. 

“When I was ten I ran into my bus driver wearing two quarters as a shirt. And we weren’t even on the strip. We were in a Texas Roadhouse parking lot.”

You snort with laughter and it’s melodic, like twinkling crystals, like running water. Even as you hide your face behind your hand, he’s transfixed. God, he’s never cared about being funny before. Now he wants to make you laugh over and over again. He wants to keep you softer than you’ve ever been. The laughter fades slowly and he grieves it—but your hand sliding away from your face like the sun coming up from behind a mountain eases the ache. 

You reach out as if in a trance and run your thumb gently beneath his eye. He holds his breath as you make contact, butterfly light. Nobody has ever touched him like this before. 

“You’re gorgeous,” you murmur. A thoughtless observation. A truth cast to the breeze. Knuckles carefully follow the dip of his cheekbone—a cartographer, learning her way by touch. Marking her territory. He’d let you do it. His eye stings, ready to spring forth a river just so you can have the pleasure of discovering it. “Breathe,” you laugh, softly, and he does. 

“Sorry.”

You don’t say a thing. You let your fingers trace borders into his skin and follow them with soft eyes and he wonders what he’s ever done to deserve this kind of magic. He wonders if he’ll ever feel as good as he does right now, when it’s all over. Nobody has ever paid this much attention to him—but you’re intent, focused, like he’s art. 

“Tell me about Vegas.”

It takes him a moment to reply. 

“Hm?”

He feels bewitched. Warm. Foggy. A thumb brushes over his lips, but it’s only a pass, thank god, because he can hardly stand how you’re touching him already, at the high point of his cheek, beneath his brow. Finally getting enough sometimes feels awfully close to too much. He’s already almost cried once. 

“I wanna hear about Vegas. I’ve always wanted to go. Is it hot?”

Spencer will say whatever you want him to say, but he has to focus a little—like he’s speaking through honey. 

“In the summer, during the day. In the winter at night it drops to below freezing.”

“Desert-y,” you hum.

“Very.”

“Tell me more.”

There’s a rousing hunger in your voice and it reminds Spencer to want you again. He finds your waist and tugs you closer. Who is he with you?

Is he better? 

“There are 175 casinos in the city, but only thirty on the strip. There are 15,000 miles of neon tubing on the strip alone. It’s the brightest place on earth. You can see it from space.”

“Not that.”

Petulant. He loves it. 

His lips find the softness of your shoulder. “Then what?”

The only clue that you can feel what he’s doing to you is the twitch of your fingers on his cheek. 

“Tell me something… tell me exactly how it feels to stand in the middle of the desert. With nobody else around. Tell me things and details I couldn’t know about unless I’ve been there.”

At the junction of your neck, he pauses. This beautiful girl, and her beautiful brain—you are so disarming. So perfect. 

You shiver into him as his fingers brush up the back of your neck, gently pushing away hair so he can learn you everywhere. So he can remember your landscape, just like he’s doing as he closes his eyes and falls into memory. 

A gas station, off the side of the road—seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Desert all around. His dad’s ’79 Ford Fiesta—the one he didn’t take with him when he left. The driver’s door is open. Spencer’s dad has been inside for minutes. Spencer is watching from the middle of the road, because he looked out from the backseat of the Fiesta, and saw that dark, unassuming spot, and thought—how would it feel to be the darkness? What would I see if I were nothing at all?

When he gets there, and he stands on the sun bleached pavement, veined with spiderwebs of tar, and he sees this all from a distance—he realizes he feels exactly the same as he always does. So he pivots his head to the left. The road goes on until it disappears into the smudgy horizon. To the right, it does the same. The earth swells, far away, so many miles, so coal black, so impossible. Hardly even real. But there is something out there, he thinks. There is something, even if nobody else has ever been there, and I want to stand in the middle of it and I will learn how it feels to be nothing. I will not observe—I will become apart of the landscape, with the Joshua trees that have been there for a thousand years, and the rocks that haven’t moved in millennia. 

So he begins to walk. 

The rocks crunch under his feet, and that is the only noise. 

He walks for minutes. He walks until he knows the gas station will be small. He walks until he can feel the emptiness on the back of his neck, until it feels like an embrace. 

“It’s silent,” he hears himself say to you, in some other universe, decades in the future. “At night, it’s completely silent. You can hear yourself breathe. If you throw a pebble ten feet away, you’ll hear it hit the ground.”

Little Spencer takes a deep breath of inky air. 

“It smells like… geosmin.”

“What?”

Perfect. Your voice is perfect. 

“Dirt. But it’s not the same as dirt anywhere else. It’s… drier, like it’s smelled the same way for a really long time.”

Spencer’s cheeks burn. He’s doing a terrible job explaining.

But he feels your breath on his cheek—eager. Your hand at his shoulder as you lean closer, enraptured. Reverent, almost. 

“What else?”

What else?

Dry brush snags on the hem of the corduroys his mother had picked out for him. They’re a little too short. She’s going to try to take him shopping again tomorrow. It’ll work this time—they’ll get to the store. Mom’s just been having some trouble leaving the house lately. 

Rustling leaves skim the tips of his fingers as he reaches out for them, and keeps walking. When was the last time someone touched that shrub?

“There’s vegetation. Creosote, mostly, if you’re in the scrubland. Larrea tridentada. It’s dry—kind of twiggy, with green leaves and yellow flowers in the spring. The smell is bad, like asphalt, but you only notice if you get close.”

He hears his dad calling his name. It fades in and out. 

It’s dizzying, hearing his father’s voice. His father saying his name. 

It’s been a long time. 

“It’s so flat that things don’t echo. But because of the extreme variations in temperature the air pressure sometimes forces the sound waves to the ground and makes it impossible for them to propagate. They’re called the Santa Ana winds. Someone could be standing right next to you and if the wind blows at just the right angle, you won’t be able to hear them. But when it’s still, sound carries far.”

His father is angry. Or is he worried? 

Spencer can make out his dad, pacing frantically back and forth across the gas station pad, white button-up a glowing beacon even from this far away beneath the lone yellow street light. He looks so small. So very far away. Ant-like. 

Santa Ana comes slow—warmer than the night air around him, to ruffle his hair and rustle the dry leaves and blow soft clouds of fragrant sienna dirt around at his knees. It blows through him. For a moment, it wakes the desert up. 

Then it’s passed. It moves further down the desert and leaves Spencer behind. Things settle into silence again. He’s alone again. 

Spencer’s stomach flips as he realizes his father can’t see him this far away, this deep into the dark nothing. 

As he finally feels the enormity of the distance on all sides. 

Suddenly the void behind him is massive. Suddenly it is everything, and it is sucking him deeper. Nobody can see him. He could just disappear into 25,000 square miles of desert. He’s already, what—a thousand feet gone? More? The weight of all the infinite space behind him presses, and he thought it’d feel interesting but it feels like dying and there has never been so much regret or dread curdling in his stomach before. His face crumples, eyes stinging in the dry air, and he takes one step forward, and then another, and then he runs like he’s running for his life. But he doesn’t feel chased—no, that’s the worst part. He is running from an infinite, vacuous, nothing. Dad! He screams, but even this young he knows how sound waves work in the desert and he can tell his dad can’t hear him and he’s running and screaming until his lungs burn, and the scrub lashes at his ankles, and it has been the same for a thousand years and it will stay the same for a thousand more with or without him. Dad, I’m right here! He sobs, the words ripping up his throat with desperation as they go. 

Finally, finally, he’s heard, and he’s close enough to see his dad seeing him, he stops pacing and stares dumbfounded at the little boy appearing from the desert, sneakers slapping cracked asphalt. He gets closer and closer until he can see the lines on his father’s face and the color of his eyes and he sobs as he crashes into him. His dad’s hands are vice-tight around his arms, as Spencer cries and can’t breathe and thrashes like a fish out of water. 

What? Is all his father can manage, tight and baffled and afraid and the first word of a question he doesn’t even know how to ask. He says it again and again, like a skipping record; what—what? What?

On the drive home, Spencer sits in the backseat, a bottle of Bug Juice in his lap. His ankles sting, whipped and bloodied and punished for wearing too-short pants. 

The silence is cloistering and at the same time, completely par for the course. He does not expect his father to speak to him, but he sort of thinks maybe another father would. 

Outside, the black spine of distant mountains rolls on forever and stays impossibly far away. He peers out into the nothing, past what the moonlight can illuminate—and now, he doesn’t have to wonder. He knows how it feels. Imagines another little boy made of shadows, as far away from the road as he’d been, and feels sick from all that fruit juice. He won’t ask his dad to pull over—all he wants is to get rid of that feeling on the back of his neck, like he’s dissolving into space. Like he’s the only thing for miles and miles. 

But the problem is—the feeling doesn’t go away. 

Not in the driveway. Not in the bath. Not in bed, later that night. 

Spencer did a bad thing and he wishes he could go back to normal. He wishes he didn’t get that desert feeling when he was surrounded by other people. But it comes back, again and again. At school. When he tentatively asks for new pants and his mom throws a vase at the wall and then sobs on the floor for forty minutes. When a few weeks later, his dad leaves, and doesn’t take the Ford with him—so it sits under the carport, greets him on his way to school every morning, and over the course of years the windshield turns opaque with dust. 

He hasn’t stopped feeling that way since. 

“You okay?”

A long, soft breath draws him back into his body. Into his bed. 

Not creosote. Not geosmin. Not the Santa Ana winds, coming from the deepest parts of the desert and carrying their desolation to him. Shampoo. Warmth. A girl who smells sort of like him, now—a girl whose perfume is all over his neck and chest and pillow. 

You’re there. You, a stranger. You, a girl he’s going to fall in love with. You—the only person he ever brought into the desert with him. The only person who ever brought him back. 

Point Nemo is not in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Asphodel is not in the underworld. It’s a little less than half a mile out across from an old gas station on the I-15 in the middle of the Mojave desert. 

Spencer nods because he can’t bring himself to speak just yet. 

You smile and take the time to find his hand in the dark. 

“Felt like I was out there with you. Thanks.”

And he squeezes your hand—because for the first time, it feels like someone is going to come looking for him. 

lyrics from my life in art <3

[star2fishmeg]

getting married to Luke and doing that thing at the reception where your bridesmaids discreetly hand him risqué polaroid photos of you

Hi nonnie!! I have a blurb for this exact scenario, you can find it here! But you can never have too many blurbs and I like to spoil so here's Groom's Eyes Only II ;) Except in this version, he's more discreet and suffers bc of it.

In the beginning, he was fine, the polaroids were periodic and your bridesmaids did a great job at slipping them into his pockets without him knowing. They weren't lethal at that stage, hot but not dangerous, just you in divine, lacy lingerie posed all pretty for him in your shared bedroom. He was able to take a peek when he found himself alone and let the grin crawl onto his face, imagination running wild and plotting the things he'd do to you back in the hotel room.

Halfway through the reception just before food, his pockets start holding a weight only he knows about. He's found new polaroids in his pockets, and the more he finds the less clothing you have on and the more his cock throbs against his boxers. His most recent one he finds while in the bathroom and thank the heavens he was alone because if anyone else were to see that photograph of you with your hands grabbing at your bare tits for him, the 'L' necklace draped between them, he would have blown his cover. His cock twitches in his slacks, his chest becomes tight and he slips the photo into his pocket, taking deep breaths to contain himself. He's done so well so far, no pink cheeks, no stuttering and no suspicion that anything could be up and he certainly hasn't let on how unfathomably horny he is. Luke stuffs his hands into his pockets again, doing his best to readjust his slacks (and maybe himself) to look decent. He still has dinner to get through before he can devour you.

When dinner rolls around, he sits next to you at the table, you've got that glint in your eyes. The glint that only awakens when you're planning something and he knows then and there that his last polaroid is to be presented by you and he's not surprised in the slightest that now is the time you've decided to make his life difficult. You're both waiting for the guests to take their seats, your hand finds his and he's side-eyeing you as subtly as he can. You changed your outfit long ago, to a shorter dress for ease and he doesn't complain when you're dragging his fingertips along your inner thigh, the fabric rising along with them. He swallows hard, chest rising and falling in a way that's surely noticeable by now. Then he feels it. The lace, the polaroid. His final gift of the night, tucked under your white garter belt on your thigh and heat flushes through him, collar suddenly too hot and stuffy, slacks unbearably tight but he can't peel his eyes away from the polaroid displaying your nude: everything he loves about you on full display.

Your fingers gently tug on his tie, pulling him down to your level and you murmur in his ear, airy, seductive, "I'm not wearing any underwear, Lu."

The reception is over, guests are in their rooms, and you're officially Mr and Mrs Hughes. But Luke's not done with you just yet. He barely lets you close the door before his mouth's on yours, tongue asking for no permission as it laps against yours and his needy hands pry away your dress, leaving it in a pile at the bottom of the bed with his slacks and shirt. Chest to chest, you've riled him up so much throughout his own wedding day that he gives you no room to talk, only release gluttonous moans from the pits of your lungs that bounce off the walls while his hips rut and drive his cock into your sopping cunt relentlessly. He's almost chuckling at how breathless you are, clawing at his back and begging out his name with tears making your mascara stream down your cheeks. All that attitude, that minx from dinner fucked out and sprawled beneath him coated in layers of sweat and hickey's he's decorated you with so beautifully.

Yeah, it's been the best day of his life.

[necrotic-nephilim]

what are your favourite batcest ships and why?

AAA i love this question so much. i'm going to limit myself to a top five, because otherwise, i'd just end up listing all of them. the true joy of batcest is they're all so good for such different reasons and there are so many unique dynamics you can explore.

JayTim - it's funny bc, before i started this blog, i don't know if i would've put these two losers as my number one. but because i've done so much deep diving into their dynamic and i write them the most, i think it'd be a disservice for them to be anything *but* number one. their canon dynamic is just. so fun to play with. i truly love all of their interactions, particularly pre-Flashpoint. the concepts of Tim holding such contempt for Jason while Jason is weirdly obsessed with Tim. i'm a fan of Hannibal and Killing Eve and well. if this isn't a Hannigram-coded ship idk *what* is. i like ships where love and hate co-exist and there's no real "happily ever after", just fucked up co-existing, where they crawl back to each other like a bad habit and really, this ship is that so perfectly. the themes of jealousy in the Robin mantle. Tim wearing Jason's Red Robin suit to punish himself. i will likely never shut up about them. even in the New-52, there's such a substance to them, though the dynamic is wildly different. they will always be so weirdly dependent on each other's existence. i love them.

BruDick - you can't outdo the doer, i fear. i think i like BruDick mostly for the history of it, yk. there's genuinely *so much* queer history seeped into the homoeroticism of Batman and Robin, these two have been a symbol for queer people for decades. but the ship itself has so many dynamics i love. problematic age gap, "are we family or lovers", "i can't be in a room alone with you without getting into a screaming match but if you called i drop everything for you". all of it. i especially favor 80s/90s BruDick when they were in their divorce era just because it's so messy. Dick has canonically said he would die for Bruce, even during their arguments. no matter what, these two will always be single-mindedly devoted to each other. there will be other Robins, but none of them will compare to Dick Grayson, for Bruce. it's a unique and complicated bond that has endless layers to peel back. they always crawl back to each other bc no one else will match their level of intensity.

DamiTim - years and years ago, when i was a teen trying to people-please with how i existed in fandom, i used to insist i didn't like batcest and found it icky and gross. but there was one DamiTim fic that was my exception. that fic was my fucking roman empire. i reread it like once a year even though it's not completed and likely never will be i do not care. so now that i've killed the morality police in my head and i let myself ship what i actually want to ship, this ship holds a top place in my heart just bc of that fic alone. but in general i do fucking love their dynamic. similar to JayTim there's just so much mutual hatred in these two that has endless potential. Damian's insistence to not see Tim as a Wayne and as a legitimate brother/heir to Bruce is something you can play a lot if you give Damian an angry, fucked up crush on Tim he doesn't want to admit to. they have so many reasons to dislike each other, so to try to get them to slowly fall in love is a fun challenge. they either have a long complicated forgiveness arc and end up a happy married couple or they are the couple that tries to kill each other once a week. no in-between.

JeanTim - there's like. one person here on tumblr who goes as hard for this ship as i do and truly god bless them bc they feed me. Jean-Paul is too underrated in the batcest scene. once i reread Knightfall, i will have to help popular this tag on ao3. i enjoy both a very fucked up version of this ship during the peak of the Knightfall arc, where Jean-Paul is deep in his murder Batman era and Tim is trying to stop him to no real avail, but i *also* think there's so much you can do with the ship afterwards, where Jean-Paul is trying to make up for what he's done and be a better person and better hero. they're the peak Batman/Robin ship, to me. they truly care about each other, but have a very complicated/bloody history and i just. man i love it so dearly. i've been meaning to write a fic where Jean-Paul goes to Tim post the Sword of Azrael (2022) arc to properly discuss and apologize for all his actions in Knightfall for his personal healing and they end up fucking. it could be sweet and cute or kinky fun bc what is the joy of a character with that much Catholic guilt if you don't give them a weird religious kink.

BruCarrie - The Dark Knight Returns got me into comics and i will defend it till the day i die. Carrie Kelley can be pried from my cold dead hands. i just really love these two? Carrie took one look at that cranky old bastard and decided she was his problem. and Bruce is at a stage where he should be very averse to the idea of having a Robin, he knows it's a bad idea. but he just. accepts her anyway. idk how to explain their dynamic other than she plunks herself in his lap and stitches up his wounds while telling him he's an idiot and he lets her even if he's grumbling about it. they have the biggest age gap of any Batman/Robin ship and for that, they should get like. a dead dove gold star no matter how rare the pair is.

also honorable mention goes to BruTim, because *god* do i love the concept of Tim offering himself up to Bruce as Robin in every way, knowing that there are likely sexual/romantic implications to being Robin. it's one of my favorite flavors of batcest to exist. i don't view them as a "happily ever after" ship, because Bruce will always go back home to Dick, but it's a fun lil dead dove moment.

[seireitonin]

What alternative subcultures the Creepypastas would be in!!(pt 1)

This was an ask I accidentally deleted! Oops! I also listen to all the music I put in here! So it’s also a small glimpse into what I listen to! Also as some of you know I’m in the scemo and goth subcultures! But I know a lot about alternative cultures period so this was fun to make!

LJ: VICTORIAN GOTH 100%!! / Victorian Circus Core

I mean he’s literally from that era

The feathered shaw, the black and white color scheme, the black lipstick and guy liner with the pale white face!!

Literally a goth king. That’s an outfit I would definitely see at a goth club!(I’ve been to many)

Another part of goth culture is liking horror/ monsters. Since LJ is a monster he’d fit right in!

He’d be accepted by most goths despite his looks bc goths have morbid dark fashion senses themselves!

So if they saw his swirly cone nose and sharp teeth they’d be like: omg! I love your look!

He’d definitely listen to classical music and other goth music Specifically Switchblade symphony and Cocteau Twins

He definitely listens to old PATD

I can see him wearing other Victorian inspired clothes too!

Like dis:

Jeff: Metalhead/ with 90s emo(for nostalgia.)

I mean look at him

He’d definitely shit on nu metal and still listen to it

The long greasy black hair, not showering, thinking he’s better than everyone else yeah sounds like a metal head to me/ hj

He listens Cattle Decapitation, Peeling Flesh, Suicide Silence, Cannibal Corpse, Avatar and literally anything with machine gun drums

He listens to some 90s emo but will never admit

Definitely wears band shirts especially the ones he got from concerts when he was a teen

He loves a good mosh pit

You know, the ones where you come out all bloody?

Yeah he loves those

He can hurt people in them and it’ll be fine? Sign him up! (Man has no pit manners smh)

Definitely a metal elitist

“You like SOAD? Ugh that not REAL metal”

Stfu Jeff.

Yeah. Metalhead to his core.

LJill (I love her, so underrated)

Victorian goth as well, but she leans more in the gothic Lolita side of it

Wears pretty gothic Lolita dresses with lots of black and white lace, buttons and she’ll have a matching bonnet and parasol to match when she’s feeling extra fancy!

She feels so elegant and feminine when she puts her multiple layers of petticoats on! She wouldn’t be caught dead without them!

Her makeup and lipstick is always perfect.

Her hair is always either perfectly curled or perfectly straightened

The goal is to look as doll like as possible ( also because she is one!)

She listens to music box like music if that makes sense?? For example Swan Lake by Fairy Lullaby or Porcelain Eyes

She, like LJ listens to classical music and goth music

But mainly classical and music box!

Will go to tea parties and knows how to make tea cakes and sandwiches

Just a lady all around!

Jane: Trad Goth/ Casual Goth/ Amy Lee

Since Jane is always on the move and doesn’t really have time to get all dressed up

So she’ll usually be in a simple black dress or black pants and a turtleneck

But when she does get a chance to dress up

She dresses trad goth mixed with Amy Lee

She’ll have her hair long with bangs covering her forehead

Trad goth makeup, but a bit more modern,big eyeliner and arched brows

She’ll be wearing corsets and waist trainers

Long skirts, ripped leggings

High heel platforms

She goes all out and she looks great!

Listens to music like The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Years Day and The Birthday Massacre

Can do goth dances very well

God she’s beautiful

Toby: Midwestern Emo/ early 2000s emo/ a tad grunge/ indie

He just looks like one tbh

But seriously he had a hard life and emo music gives him comfort

Toby wears flannel shirts, grandpa sweaters, simple tee shirts and pants that are loose but not too loose

Hiking boots, sneakers

He listens to Chidos, The Front Bottoms, State Champs, Real Friends, Nirvana, Yawning, Hail the Sun, The Used, A Lot Like Birds, Static Dress, Mild High Club and many many more

He can play the guitar, drums and sing pretty well

He needed something to keep him busy while he was homeschooled after all! And it took his mind off of the horrible things he was going through

Plus with him feeling no pain, he could practice his hands bleed so his hands are really calloused

He likes to sit in the woods and just listen to music sometimes

He’s a loner like that

Especially in the fall when the leaves are so pretty

He feels almost peaceful. Almost

EJ: Tbh I can’t put him in a single box I feel like he’d be everything

He’ll listen to whatever whenever

Except religious music it freaks him out

Ya know because of the cult that took his eyes

But I see him liking dark ,dreamy music if that makes sense

His taste actually lines up with Toby’s pretty well

Static dress, MGMT, YKWIM by Yot Club, Homage by the Mild High club, My Bloody Valentine, Grouper

Also anything with sad guitars like wish by sign crushes motorist (Toby likes music like this too)

Sometimes even lo-fi if he has to unwind

Jack wears all black most of the time. Just so he doesn’t look too dirty

Black hoodie, black shirt, black pants, black shoes

He also feels like any other color won’t go with his now grey skin

But yeah EJ is just a dude with a wide music taste

We love that for him

Nina: Obviously Scene+Emo= scemo

Do I even have to explain?

She listens to Pierce the Veil, Sleeping with Sirens, Bring Me the Horizon, Paramore, AFI, FOB, Get Scared, Hey Monday, MCR, Ghosttown, Millionaires, Brokencyde, Medic Driod, Dot Dot Curve, A Skylight Drive, ISMFOF ,everything Toby listens too as well(and many more)

Nina wears either all black with colorful hair or has her signature black and pink with more colorful outfits

Cheeta print, skulls, DIY stuff, band shirts, tube tops, tutus, skinny jeans, brass knuckle necklaces, hoop earrings, black eyeshadow, big teased hair with raccoon tails

Yeah she’s 2000s emo fs

Goes to raves and concerts like crazy

But she’s not opposed to any kind of music and will do goth makeup for fun

And wear Jane’s clothes

She thinks goth is really pretty but it’s just not her

She’ll stick with scemo lol

Jason The Toymaker: Steampunk/ Victorian Circus Core

The copper in his clothes

The bright red hair

The long flowing jacket with intimate details

Yeah he’s definitely steam punk

Im not sure what kind of music steampunks listen to but I’d like to know!

Jason definitely listens to Emilie Autumn and old PATD

BEN: EDM

I mean…it was obvious

Skillix, deadmouse, xxxanteria, Luci4, old Flying Lotus albums, 9lives

He’s literally code so I think he’d like it

Not much else to say here tbh

I’m getting tired so lmk if you want a part 2 lol

[propertyofwhitney67]

i refuse to believe anyone who shits on whitney has seen his loft event. he wasn’t a LI i enjoyed very much but i still wanted to give him a fair chance and i’ve never 180’d on a character faster

RIGHT

I hated him when I first started playing but as more content came out I grew to love him

He truly has so many good scenes and if they could get their head out of their ass they could see that. You don't have to like the guy but he has his good moments just like the rest of them. Truly amazing moments that I want to cry about bc my sweet demon baby has layers and I want to peel all of them and see what he is at his core, what made him this way

[wendytestabrat]

WHAT I THINK THE ICARLY CHARACTER’S BIG 3 ARE IN ASTROLOGY

ok time for icarly edition of the big 3. it’s the layers of an onion. i talk abt the rising sign first bc that’s how u come across to others on first appearance, then the sun sign is like ur identity & shit, and your moon is ur deep emotional side. all of the icarly characters’ birthdays have been confirmed so yeah all of these sun signs are canon but the rising & moons are my wild guesses. imo these sun signs are ON POINT and the icarly writers or whoever the fuck did a good job picking the characters’ birthdays lol. except for spencer tho idk if scorpio would’ve been the best sign i’d pick for him. okie….

CARLY:

yeah carly is DEF a libra rising she comes across super nice, sweet, polite, & friendly and she’s always mediating conflicts when sam & freddie are fighting LOL. but yeah when u peel back the onion she’s a canon leo (her bday is july 24) bc when u get to know carly better she’s not as sweet as she seems and she’s actually rlly bitchy and bossy AF like a leo LOL. (which is why her & sam get along bc sam is an aries which is also a fire sign so that’s why carly enables sam’s cruelty and bad attitude sometimes AND why they both like to be in the spotlight). she’s a total diva & an egomaniac bc the bitch named the webshow after herself and thinks it’s all about her (look i know how to make fun of my own sign isn’t it great how we leos know how to take a joke) & carly is a HUGE leader too. i’m also a libra rising leo sun so i have the same problem where i come across all nice & sweet at first to most people but then when they discover my leo they realize how much of a cunt i rlly am LOL (and then they hate me bc they thought i was someone they could use & manipulate at first but then they discover i’m not so they’re like oh shit bye i’m done with you). i feel like most of us leos are like carly we’re all nice & friendly and shit but we’re not afraid to let out the sass and be mean if we have to which is carly af LOL. and then carly is a capricorn moon which explains why she’s def the responsible one of the group. carly is rlly mature for her age and has her shit together considering the fact she’s always the one who ends up parenting spencer and not the other way around.

SAM:

sam def gives me earth rising vibes so i feel like she’s a taurus rising. sam comes across rlly dependable and loyal (she sticks by carly’s side through thick and thin) and sam keeps shit real too like a taurus. AND she loves food too LOL. but yeah peeling back the onion she’s DEF an aries which is EXTREMELY fitting bc they’re the aggressive, feisty, impulsive ones of the zodiac and that’s literally sam’s entire character. but yeah peeling back the onion even MORE i think sam is a cancer moon bc deep down sam is sensitive AF like a cancer and she’s rlly intuitive too which is why she’s so manipulative in so many episodes LOL. jennette mccurdy is a cancer irl so i feel like there’s a lot of cancer vibes in sam’s character too. it also makes her aries outbursts like 100x more volatile and emotional bc of all the mood swings she has. sam is a rlly caring person she just doesn’t like to show it prob bc of her aries sun lol. AND she’s protective af too like remember that time she whooped that girl’s ass at the groovy smoothie after she was bullying carly?

FREDDIE:

yeah he’s def a virgo rising. freddie comes across rlly brainy and analytical & he’s extremely dependable too and quick to lend a hand and help someone out if they need it. peeling back the onion he’s actually an aquarius which is fitting AF. freddie is a total tech nerd and aquariuses are the innovators of the zodiac lol & he’s rlly aloof and overly logical abt shit but freddie is still rlly friendly, nice, & easygoing like a typical aquarius. but deep down freddie is a pisces moon bc freddie is sensitive AF and gets butthurt easily lol. he’s a rlly passive person and he gets pushed around easily and taken advantage of like a pisces which was why he let carly string him along for 47373892 years and let sam bully the shit out of him LOL. freddie is too nice for his own good and has a total martyr complex bc he helps bitches too much who don’t deserve his help.

SPENCER:

spencer is an aquarius rising bc yeah spencer comes across weird af. he’s constantly inventing shit and sculpting random ass art projects and he does NOT like to live life the conventional way hence why he has no real job. but yeah spencer is actually a scorpio (which honestly isn’t the best sign for him i’d rather him just be an aquarius sun) which makes sense to some extent how he’s RLLY passionate and focused on his art projects and shit. spencer is also rlly loyal, caring, & protective like a scorpio and he has his occasional moments where his stinger comes out and he gets overly protective like that time he didn’t want carly dating the peewee baby dude LOL. but yeah spencer is a sag moon bc he’s SUPER energetic, spontaneous, & adventurous and he does NOT like to settle down. i mean the dude was only in law school for 3 days and then dropped out that is some sagittarius shit right there. spencer has to have some fire in his big 3 bc he’s the dude who literally starts fires all the time soooo LOL.

GIBBY:

yeah gibby is a sag rising he comes across SUPER outgoing & adventerous and he’s always down to do the craziest shit. he’s a fun guy u wanna hang out with. and he also can be aggressive af too like u do NOT wanna mess with gibby, remember when he whooped nora’s ass???? but yeah gibby’s bday is jan 20 which is RIGHT at the beginning of aquarius season (i deadass thought he was a capricorn at first) so yeah he’s an aquarius bc he’s weird AF. gibby doesn’t give a fuck and he does his own thing. he likes dancing with his shirt off. only an aquarius would do something so humiliating. but deep down he’s a taurus moon. gibby def gives me earth vibes he’s chill af and he’s rlly solid & dependable and always there for everyone. he keeps it 100% real no bs. gibby doesn’t pretend to be someone he’s not. gibby is gibby.

[angelsdean]

re: /710631118215495680/sooo-funny-ladies-man-dean-winchester-takes-the?source=share

I just finished a S1 rewatch and it is CRAZY to me how much the fandom misremembers/misinterprets S1 Dean as this huge misogynist who has never so much as taken a sip of respect women bc it's just not true! We get that impression at first glance because he's flirty and talks a big game, but sooooo many of his interactions with women in S1 are like. him making one (1) flirty comment and then proceeding to empathize deeply with the girl of the week and developing genuine emotional bonds and advocating for women like... repeatedly. It's genius sleight of hand from the writers (and on a narrative level, it's a brilliant performance from Dean that Sam swallows hook line and sinker) but it's hilarious that going on 17 years since S1 finished airing people who dedicate whole blogs to SPN still buy the falsehood!

literally !!!!! god i wish i could make spnblr do a mass rewatch and then hold post episode discussion forums where we engage analytically with the text and dissect the character behaviors and motivations and deep-dive into themes and symbols and SUBTEXT. because all of dean's character esp in the early seasons is literally. subtext. what's on the surface is what we're seeing from main character sammy's pov and it's one dimensional and it's a performance and it's a mask and if you literally want to know anything about dean you HAVE to look deeper and read into the parallels often being drawn between him and the victim or monster of the week or read between the lines of what he's saying versus what he's actually doing or feeling. dean postures and overcompensates SO much. he'll flirt (often badly) and shoot charming little smirks and smiles and he'll openly check out women often in a very over the top way and then turn to sam and say something like "she's hot" and then in the next scene he'll be blushy and awkward or so so sincere and empathetic to the girl he's talking to and he gets all flustered and shy over cheek kisses and simple pecks.

And it's just so clear once you're really looking that all of his "ladies man" behaviors are just. this over the top act. It's a caricature. And sam just, takes it for face value and thinks that's all there is to his brother because he's never really questioned it. And that's not all sam's fault because the whole point is that dean is trying to hide a lot of his true self to fit into a certain image and persona, one that he thinks john would approve of, one that keeps him safe. And while Sam can't really see it, we as the audience can once you start really paying attention and peeling away at those layers. It's like, there's Dean Winchester, ladies man hunter in john's jacket. And then when you take off the jacket, that overcompensating persona that covers conceals his true self, you start to see the there's a lot more hiding underneath.

[crunchyroaches27]

hybrid!Soap and owner!rescuer!Ghost, bc why not?

one of my first fanfics, I apologize beforehand 😔✊

AU where soap and a couple other randos are half a different species bc of evil scientists!1!! Soap is half tiger.

Soap was a beast. A genetically modified product of the human egg and tiger sperm. He had a long, ochre-and-black girthy whip of a tail. Fuzzy copper ears with black tips served as his ears. Soap’s nails and canines were tapered and keen, just like a tiger’s.

“Why have these attributes if I can never really use them?” Soap thought, and grunted dejectedly. Sure, he got to tear up the enrichment items slid from behind the metal slot on the wall of his enclosure, but the material was not able to be clawed through easily. Soap yearned for the tearing of flesh underneath his sharp nails.

But alas, items such as skin weren’t always easily accessible, so he resorted to other bad habits. Yowling, roaring and meowing out of pure boredom. Of course Soap would communicate in human speech, but he preferred his more natural noises. His vocal chords were more fit for big cat sounds; his human speech always came out gruff and harsh.

Bored and annoyed at the people scrutinizing him through the glass wall, Soap decided to start grooming his muscular forearm with his papillae-filled tongue. No, he did not have fur on that area, but he still seemed to do it subconsciously. Maybe the thick layer of body hair counted as fur? He wished inwardly that he could leave his cell one day.

GHOST POV

“Let’s head in,” Ghost called out to his squad, which obediently trailed behind him gingerly after his signal. They kept their eyes peeled, turning and twisting their bodies to see everything at every angle. But Ghost doubted that they would miss what they were looking for— monstrous, horrid science experiments. Hybrids, they were called. Human DNA mixed with an animals’. They were bred purely for fun, money, or power.

After silently dispatching many security guards and other personnel, hope started to fade from the squad. They could not find the cells of these so called “people.” Frantically they searched until they swore a peeved yowl echoed from a couple doors up.

“Move in!” Ghost hissed urgently to his team as he forced the door open with a powerful strike to the door with his leg. But it seems they were prepared, too, as bullets flew uncomfortably close to them and their bodies.

SOAP’S POV

Out of nowhere, in an instant, the bland silence had been replaced by the symphony of bullets whizzing by. Many were wounded and shot, yet the fight seemed to be in favor of the opponents. Soap felt his hackles rise in what could be apprehension.

Soap glared at the newcomers. He soaked in every detail through the clear wall. All of them had rifles that reeked of gunpowder. The one with the skull mask intrigued Soap the most. “What could he be hiding under ‘ere?” he mrrowed, quietly and thoughtfully. “His sign of dominance?”

Soap’s pensive state seemed to break when he realized bullets were not flying around before him, instead, they were lodged between the flesh of his creators. The blood welling around the soon-to-be dead scientists drove Soap into a frenzy. The scent of iron filled his nostrils, and also the other’s as they collectively started to roar or howl (or make whatever sound they did) as they became crazed with bloodlust.

GHOST’S POV

“Bloody fucking hell!” Ghost gasped as a choir of furious yowls and roars started to erupt. Ghost’s head swam. His squad had nervous glints in their eyes. “What are we gonna do?” inquired one of his men meekly. Ghost inhaled deeply. His mind dug and dug for one of his brilliant ideas.

All these creatures were in a state of dementedness. Their senses were on high alert, because of course, they were half-wild. And they have probably just seen murder and blood for the first time. Their senses.. senses.. Ghost’s eyes lit up; what better way to dull their sensory faculties than to knock them unconscious? “Who has the sleeping gas?” Ghost barked to his team, his eyes flitting around his men.

“Here, sir,” replied a gruff voice. The man held up a canister of the gas, a curious expression painted on his face. “Well, then, knock ‘em out.” Ghost replied back wryly, a knowing smirk sported on his mug.

SOAP’S POV

Soap could hear his hysterical roars lessen into mewls. He felt as if he could not do anything to stop the situation, the spread of drowsiness over his body. Soap felt as if he were just watching himself, in third person, flop onto the solid ground and lose his consciousness to the alabaster-colored gas that permeated into the room. His maw parted to deliver one final, crestfallen roar.

timeskip 8 hours later, Soap was transported by tf141 to a new, more luxurious cell.

Soap stretched his stiff limbs awake, groaning obnoxiously in pleasure the moment his joints popped and cracked. The bloody desires were somewhat gone. He wiped his eyes, still a bit sticky and bleary from sleep, and gasped amusedly to his new environment. Soap chuckled in disbelief, his tail flicking up and down excitedly.

Soap felt like he was in some sort of hybrid paradise. He almost squealed in pure delight when a mouse scurried across his room. Soap quickly dispatched it, and started to instinctively tear the flesh off the rodent’s bones and gulp it down with his pointed teeth. His mouth watered and he purred contentedly; this was his first time catching prey!

GHOST’S POV

Ghost hummed in a pleased amusement when he saw the prideful tiger-man strut confidently around his new enclosure through the cameras, dangling the corpse of the ravished mouse pinched between two fingers, and yowling in such a way it could almost be perceived as gloating. Ghost clicked his tongue sardonically, and called his mates over to watch the humorous display of pride.

Out of all of the nine varying hybrids him and his task force saved, tiger hybrid John “Soap” MacTavish as his files named him, was one the males that appealed to him the most. His unique, yet iconic orange and black stripe pattern seemed to fit him perfectly. Bold; diverse. He was real frisky and easily driven by his predatory tendencies, as his files advised.

timeskip, to tomorrow, 9 am

GHOST’S POV

“It’s crucial you guys get a physical on those hybrids,” Laswell noted, her intonation still being able to sound serious even through the computer speaker. “You don’t know what the they have, or what they don’t,” she continued. Ghost hummed.

“It’s on my schedule, Laswell..” Ghost replied affirmatively, nodding his head as a gesture of acknowledgement. Price hovered over Ghost’s shoulder, gazing at the illuminated with intent. “Sure. In fact, we’ll do it today.”

Ghost’s eyebrows rose upwards. “Today?” he repeated. “Today, right now,” Price affirmed. “Take Gaz and Roach with you,” he finished, stalking away and leaving Ghost no chance to retort. “Bloody hell.” “Well, get to it, Lieutenant.” Laswell chuckled, the beep following her voice indicating she’d disconnected.

WILL POST PT2 IN A LIL!!!

[scattered-winter]

brother i have QUESTIONS (ao3) 3 12 19 27 29 30 and secret bonus question that was NOT included in the text post but as an additional special query , if someone (me) were trying to write an adashi fic for you for the past like two years but they were very fucking bad at committing to a fucking plot what would you want the circumstance to be

3: What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

DEFINITELY my voltron rewrite. its about the length of an entire novel and i've grown more as a writer during this project than . pretty much anythign else i've ever done lmao.

12: How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

uh. well. i tried to count all of my unfinished WIPs but i gave up somewhere around the 95 mark. i KNOW i'm well into triple digits however. and that number will only ever increase.

19: What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

i wanna do more stuff with danny phantom in general. romantic platonic familial etc etc etc all the things. i ALSO really want to finish my team STRQ manifesto sometime next year because i am always so fucking sick over them

27: What do you listen to while writing?

instrumental music usually!! it WIDELY varies but generally i avoid things with lyrics because its too distracting for me. problem is, im so mentally ill about instrumental music that 80% of the time THAT'S too distracting for me too bc i'll be paying so much attention to what i'm listening to that i forget i'm supposed to be writing. i literally can't win </3

29: Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

i was revisiting my STRQ manifesto today as i am likely to do and my god. i really really went off with this one here: _______

Summer sighed, and reached for Ruby. “I should put her down, too.” Qrow gently pulled his finger out of Ruby's mouth and reluctantly let Summer take her back. At the same time, he couldn't wait to get the baby away from him. He was all too aware of how small she was, how fragile. It would be so easy for something to happen to her, for his Semblance to hurt her. That all-too-familiar buzz of anxiety was climbing up his throat, making him have to resist the urge to tap his fingers against Harbinger at his side. He needed a drink. He needed to leave, before something bad happened. “I better debrief with Oz,” he said, half-turning toward the door. Summer's hand on his wrist stopped him in his tracks. She looked at him, silver eyes seeming to bore into him and peel his layers back, one by one. Her hand was rough against his skin, callused from years of battle. “You don't have to leave, you know,” she said softly. You know I do, Qrow wanted to say, but he gave her a crooked grin instead. “You know how Oz is. I'll try and swing by before I head out again, yeah?” Summer's brows drew together, her fingers tightening around Qrow's wrist like she didn't want to let him go. Her lips twitched, like she was trying to say any of the things she had to be thinking. “Would it really be so bad,” she said at last, “if you stayed? Just this once?”

Qrow looked at her, at the brightness of gathering tears in her eyes. She'd missed him, he realized, and it made his heart twist to think about how the months he's away on missions must be for her, for Tai. How they must wait, agonizing over every day he's gone and dreading that he'll never come back. It's strange, knowing that someone misses him when he's gone. Strange that he has somewhere to come home to, strange that there are people who will welcome him there when he arrives. Strange, and a little sad. He almost preferred knowing nobody would miss him when one of Salem's monsters finally did him in. Summer was still looking at him, expression pleading. Qrow sighed, and turned his wrist in her hand so his fingers were twining with hers. His other hand rose, to brush against the soft, plump curve of Ruby's cheek. “It's not worth the risk,” he said, so softly he could barely hear himself. Summer's eyes closed. Her fingers tightened around Qrow's. She nodded slowly. Qrow squeezed her hand back and carefully leaned in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. He gave Ruby's face one more gentle brush before turning to walk away again. This time, Summer let him go.

30: Biggest surprise while writing this year?

i have discovered that i am quite incapable of writing anything romantic and making it hit but if im doing some kind of platonic intimacy????? brother i will write the hell out of that shit. this probably should not have been surprising to me since i'm the most aromantic guy on planet earth but. well. i am also not a very smart man so jot that down

and in regards to your other question ,,,

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PLS I WOULD BE SO HONORED ,,,,, you can do whatever your heart desires of course but i would love for it to be some kind of scenario in space in which one of them gets hurt and the other one yells so loud about it ,,

ao3 wrapped !!

[sabotsen]

Im so. Im so feeling. I'm not quite sure what but its strong. I have had so many thoughts regarding pgr designs I could talk for hours. Like have you ever noticed less humane Roland's hand is the one that's covered with modt straps? Also Bro doesn't have a bit of skin exposed outside of his face. Actually, he has MANY layers to his clothing. like holy hell he has pants then cowboy pants then jacket tied around his waist. and we're here waiting for him to open up (badum-tss)

But at the same time his upper body is kinda... bare? Look at his back, lines are imitating muscle contours. Dude has his life force mapped. It's like "let them see my back without letting them see my back". Now that I think about it, we see his insides (muscles are insides right?) instead of seeing his outside (skin). Considering musculoskeletal system is what keeps us going we can see what keeps him going but not his skin. But nobody notices! Am I even comprehensible?

Also Spine — and back in general — is supposed to be our weak spot, right? His spine even *glows*, it catches attention and it's,,,,, taunting??? Am I strange? Am I strange or is it alluring? -But then you remember he's actually a construct, extremely powerful at that, and his spine is strong. And to even get to his spine you'd have to go extremely long way.

Dude is so two opposite things at the same time. How does he have so much clothing but simultaneously is bare. (I just HAD to dump these thoughts SOMEWHERE I know there probably wasn't so much philosophy implied into his design initially BUT thanks for listening) 🍀

No .... no you're making sense nonny you're making sense and I'm

Hold on o h hold on nonny hang on I need a moment to pull this knife out of my lungs you fucking sniped me hang on I nee d a moement

Also the comment about the spine and his back --- hhhh remember also a stage actor rarely, if ever, shows their back to the audience. The one "vulnerable" spot is the only spot on him that glows brightly... but it's not a true vulnerability, just a metaphorical trap to lure.

Ha ha there's so many layers to this man 🥲 my friend calls him a clownion bc the more layers you peel back of this clown the more you cry 🥲

[ge]

sumt about chung myung having a (relatively) softer heart than tang bo makes me melt... u can see tang bo doesn't reach out to things that he feels doesn't need it, but chung myung actively takes things into his heart... man i love how they're so diff from how they're presented as. usually the smiley, touchy one would be the self sacrificial one

(idk where this is from but is tang bo actually cold to others when not in front of chung myung...? this is such a popular thing i see in works lol)

yall genuinely have no idea how often im thinking about tangchung character studies theyre so interesting to pick and prod at.. chung myung keeping his softness under so many many layers of rock hard defense and even when u get close enough to him to break those walls down, hes so unused to being unprotected that gentleness feels like something that has to be coerced, gripped, and dragged out of him, affection making his chest feel clogged and cumbersome, and love felt so heavily it feels like it could bring down the sky.. he feels with such an overwhelming excessiveness that displaying it freely in any way other than casual familiarity feels like humiliation, and asking for it in return even more shameful.. he is a empty house hungry to be lived in and yearning for a flame but he would much rather let his terse and concise and seemingly brutish actions speak louder than his softness, no matter how it may end up being interpreted....my long winded way of saying i think chung myung has an extreme hedgehog dilemma and is a tsundere about it

tang bo is a little trickier for me to get a read on maybe bc i hvnt read much about him yet and most of my knowledge of him comes from fics & twt users LOL (which im aware are mostly extremely ooc..it kinda grates on me knowing most or all of my knowledge of him is secondhand and distorted) but i must agree with you.. the tang bo in my head is predominately headcanon ive built up myself so whatever i say about him might be extremely off the mark but idgaf..i like the version of him i have in my head currently..

compared to chung myung, tang bo feels hrmmm..more sociable but impersonal.. im not sure if he can be called cold exactly, but he doesnt seem to show much care or affection to anyone he isnt particularly close with.. he seems to have an almost impassive business type relationship with most people, including his family though it should be mentioned aside from chung myung, he is also friendly towards chung mun and chung jin, having been said to drink w the three of them often.. from what ive seen he seems to treat them like a second family in a sort of way? i attribute tang bos dispassionate demeanor to his family, the way he was raised formed a sort of crust around not, not so much a wall but a poker face..and chung myung was the first person who directly challenged the monotony of his life

smth about the dichotomy of their natures is sooo interesting urhg.. tang bo, a young master of a reputable rich family given everything he could ever want for, taught to be upright and gallant since birth, wearing the seemingly permanent mask of impersonality and tranquility that was hammered into him since young, meeting someone who brought back colour into his dull world for the first time in his life and suddenly that mask starts crumbling and tang bo finds himself happy in a way he was never allowed to be under the watchful eye of his familys strict elders

compared to chung myung whos life was nearly the complete opposite, an orphan taken in and raised in a sect by people who showered him w as much uninhibited familial love as he could want for, taught him to be honourable and respectable, grows up w a penchant for keeping his true emotions hidden deep underneath his surface, not out of malice or obligation but because, unlike tang bo, it was simply how he was..meeting and befriending tang bo made him begin to WANT, for the very first time..to actually show someone how deeply he can care, to peel back the veil and show someone the desperation for intimacy he desires so profoundly that buzzes underneath his skin in a way he couldnt, wouldnt, speak of out of the sheer indignity of it all...yeah so basically what im saying again is that hes tsundere and tang bo saw that and was like i need that gay boy

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Shrek

The Man. The Myth. The Legend himself. Shrek is love. Shrek is Life.

Aside from being an Endless Meme Factory though, Shrek is a pretty great movie in its own right! There's this certain charm to the first Shrek, a certain sort of innocence to it (despite being so blatantly made to make fun of Disney). This really was Shrek before it became everything it originally stood against, its Shrek in its most Pure Form.

As a result, we get a really great introduction to this world and these characters. Shrek himself is wonderfully written here, we really get to peel back the layers (pun intended) of this curmudgonly loner as he interacts with Donkey and Fiona and eventually see him come to genuninely care about them both and its really sweet. He's also just hilarious, but we all already knew that.

Donkey is always fun, though I think maybe he rambles on a bit too much at points? Like I think they just put Eddy Murphy in the recording booth and let him do whatever he wanted and sometimes it works, other times, I'm with Shrek in wanting him to just shut the fuck up. Fiona is cool, weird and sassy in all the right ways and serves as a great foil to Shrek, while Farquaad is a little ass man who is so much fun to hate.

The plot is really well put together, and while there are a few holes in it here and there (that breakdown of communication between Shrek and Fiona going into the final act), for the most part, its a really solid story that's a lot of fun to follow along, with some great jokes and action along the way.

The animation has... aged, I won't deny that. But for 2001, it is still very impressive, especially when you look at some of the texture work. I definately think our main cast gets a glow up in Shrek 2, but for their first outing, they look fine enough. The music is also solid! Not many animated movies pull off a pop soundtrack, but this one really does (All Star is iconic for a reason, folks) and the score is also very beautiful at times (the castle escape music is so intense and perfect).

At the end of the day, I think its easy to see why Shrek became the cultural juggernaut that it is today. It's a very memorable movie, one that was so unique and unlike anything else most had seen at the time of its release. It's also just... so damn funny, like seriously, there are some jokes that still get me laughing out loud. It follows a trend I've noticed with early Dreamworks movies where it's not really made for kids, but its not quite for adults either. In that sense, its made for well... everyone to enjoy. As animated movies should be. Early Dreamworks understood that so well. (idk what the fuck happened bc now they seem to have mostly forgotten that philosophy)

But yeah, Shrek is good. If you haven't seen it in a while, give it a watch cause its a genuinely good time.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Verdict: WHAT ARE YE DOIN IN ME SWAMP

Previous Review (Chicken Run)

Next Review (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

[grokebaby]

WAIT HELLO LASSI'S DAD KILLED MOST OF THE PLAGUES ?? I wanna hear THAT story 👁👁 does Lassi himself know about that ? What does he think about his dad with that added context ?

(in response to this post)

[The Incident™ has been mentioned before in this. Also I drew a thing related to it]

(cracks my knuckles) alright buckle down kids time to hate on this shithead. Press like to explode him now press reblog to explode him now comment to explode him now

To get into the issue with the Plagues there's a few layers of lore to peel back. I prefer to be vague bc this involves some characters that are really close to my heart and I prefer to not talk about them too publicly.

Flashcards go! There's this deity who's the creator of this demon kind - which Lassi, Siru and everyone belongs to. Also the creator of a huge portion of the plagues (intentionally or not). We shall refer to this deity as The Mistress (hen/hens or she) but long story short: hen is the deity of the duality between life and death, deprivation and prosperity, and all that jazz. Big deal. Has two forms, and the death form is horrific and unstoppable (and extremely tortuous on the mistress henself btw). It can literally ruin lands from being fertile again bc it's in a constant state of desperate starvation and so will eat any living thing it comes across. I'm telling this to emphasize how serious shit can get if you summon the death form (which is understandably a major taboo, and obviously avoided at all costs).

- Also relevant: The Plagues are divided into "Courts" (fin: Piirit), based mostly on what their whole Deal is. There's a separate court for sicknesses, another for suffering (like, pain), one for pests (like Pesticinger and Margaretta) and so on. There is also a court associated with Plentiness and prosperity (often also called The Mistress' court, for reasons you can probably gleen?). They range from benevolent bringers of good fortune, to greedy entities capable of consuming endlessly. Often both.

Onto The Incident🕴️

The Mistress was throwing a huge feast in honor of spring. Lots of people were invited - notably, pretty much the entire court of Plentiness (and some pests bc there's alot of bugs who like to eat in there). Many demons were also invited, such as P, Mr Varpunen and Nan. Lassi and Siru were little babies at the time so they stayed home.

Since Mr. Varpunen has shitbrain manbaby disease (cannot shut up and let go when something doesn't go his way), he decided to cause a scene in the midst of the feast (not bc of the feast itself but as mentioned earlier on, he's mad bc his wives don't wanna go along with a huge decision he wants to make. For all of them.)

The Mistress of course publicly called out his behavior and scolded him in front of everybody (you stepped on this soap box, now lay in it). Manbaby storms off to sulk and perhaps find the nearest item that can substitute for a summoning device..

After some time he comes back and talks the absolute shit out of The Mistress, and to prove his superiority, forces hen to shift to the death form via amateur summoning. It wasn't graceful so the whole process was messy and not fun for anybody. Yes, people tried to stop him, which made it all the more messy. You can probably guess that all hell unfolded upon the feast after that.

We can at least be satisfied in knowing that when the perpetually starving (and mighty pissed off) death God emerged, Mr. Varpunen was the first to be gulped down. Unfortunately, P (Mrs. Varpunen) was very quickly after, since she was frozen in shock.

Soooo (pulls out a long scroll that keeps rolling a mile ahead of me) this ofc had lots of immediate and far reaching consequences. Here's a little overview on the overall damage list (not even mentioning the fact that the feast, which used alot of resources and effort to put together, was completely ruined):

- About 90% of the court of Plentiness were eaten, bc nothing more tasty than fortune bringers when you're a starving deity. There are only a handful of survivors, and most of them got away bc they ran as far as they could and didn't stop running until they no longer recognized the world around them. There is a certain Mx. Kuhilas who has lived in the human realm for the past 30yrs since..

- Most of the bug pests from the pest court also died. Did you know Margaretta was invited to this feast? Did you know the only reason she survived is bc she's a bit of a ditz and she was hours late?

- Damn near all demon villagers who were invited. Dead. Definitely every single one who was at the big table during the Incident. The village lost almost a whole generation to this.

- SO much livestock. So much food. Gone.

- Did you know the death form attracts plagues that are also related to all things destruction and taking away?

- This was a fucking nightmare. The whole rampage was only stopped bc the hassle caused a certain plague to be summoned, and this certain plague has the expertise of making people vomit. It wasn't enough to save any of the people already eaten (when eaten their souls literally disintegrate), but it did prevent anyone else from being eaten bc it caused the death deity to collapse from exhaustion and go comatose.

Now, believe it or not there was at least a little unselfish motivation behind Mr. V's actions. There were claims and tales that people who've managed to escape the death form are able to "cheat death", so to speak. Since evading this deity at all in the first place is kinda like cheating death, rumor has it that survivors could do it again. This isn't a very concrete claim however and it's a very flimsy excuse to fuck over everyone this badly. See, Mr. V thought since Lassi and Siru would obviously dodge the Wrath of the deity, they'd be granted this special fate. However, most people involved enough to know about this stuff, are aware that it's a false belief - often much like the warmth that hypothermia victims feel seconds before their death.

[Sad trumpet sfx]

No, Lassi is not aware of this whole incident. Siru is, bc Nan told her when she was old enough (which is unfortunately sometime around after Lassi moved away from home). Nan didn't talk about the Incident for YEARS after it happened since she was traumatized (unsurprisingly). Before she really talked about everything, the general consensus was "Mr and Mrs. Varpunen died bc of something horrible he did. Alot more people also died that same day."

Lassi and Siru did gleen some hints when they were young - ykno, from disdainful whispers and pitying looks their family received for a while. Also the momentary flinching terror that people had when they saw Lassi's eyes, or the almost expectant shame when seeing Siru's hair (the curse.. Manifests on both kids in some way).

Boy, if Lassi did find out.... Alot of pieces would fall into place let's say that. He'd understand why people were so weird about him looking alot like his dad. He'd understand why it was wrong of him to sell that silver bell for money all those years ago. Ykno the silver bell that the Mistress gave Nan as an apology, which is a protective artefact? Yeah. Oh jeez. He'd probably feel like an even shittier person than he is but also a victim bc. C'mon. He didn't know. He didn't deserve to be treated like the ghost of a monster when younger. Have everyone hover around him as if he could grow up to be capable of the same. He didn't know..

It'd be heavy to shoulder, considering everything he's went through in the big world. And one thing's for sure...

He'd be even more insistent that his underlings never call him Mr. Varpunen.

Ever.