#rn she's not with me

[pyrlemon]

I stay strong on that Zoey love 😋

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[eightofpents]

I'd be perfectly willing to just chalk this up to dumb animation.

But it's more fun to say it's canon that Nathalie's the sort of person who jumps small fences and such with no regard for social mores.

[duckysprouts]

siblings of war: ares and athena

Brutality feasts on his offerings while his older sister Tactics stands watch

i like to imagine that because ares embodies the misery and bloodlust of warfare, he also embodies the aftermath. when his champions triumph, he becomes the tall, beautiful hero which history books portray winners as, but when his side fails he will physically take on the appearance of an emaciated child that gorges on the guts of war horses and human corpses (always sacrificed to him without fail, the battlefield is his altar)

athena, her father’s beloved daughter, always grew faster than her brother. she was the oldest, yes, but their ages became more evident as war tactics, strategy, and weaponry became more advanced. with each new scientific, methodical, or philosophical breakthrough jn the name of war she seemed to age, become more elegant and handsome, more cold and intelligent.

but brutality is an ageless song, and from the moment the first man raised his fist to strike down another until present day, violence for the sake of violence had never developed past instinctual bloodlust. ares’ adult form came to be unnaturally, after eons of his ritualistic feasting, his muscles and sinew and bones stretched and grew because of the blood he consumed.

athena’s marble temples spring up across the land, her offerings are hot wines, fat calves, olives and blue grapes, perfumes and spices and incenses served on silver platters by maiden hands. her brother’s face is covered in gore and his red eyes seem even more wicked on his skinny face. their father does not look at him because his gaze is honest and truthful. but the eyes of kings never have room for ugly things.

[lazylittledragon]

i need guenhwyvar to be Cat so bad

[definitelynotshouting]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SCARIAN WEDDING OFFICIATED BY GEM REAL NOT CLICKBAIT HELLO??????????????!!?!?

[clip courtesy of @isjasz the beloveddd]

[reiimorningstar]

pilot vs finale luz 😔

[sirazaroff]

I’m feeling wicked

Non scribbled version

[shoujopowerscaling]

toxic yuri this toxic yuri that. and just when you think it couldnt get any crazier they break out the spinning piano

[ribbittrobbit]

these kids are incredibly stressed out

[bixels]

(walks in dazed with mystery blood dripping down my forehead and past my eyes and cheeks) honey! i'm home!

[opikiquu]

[owlpero]

I know the district spelling bee hated to see her coming

[midoristeashop]

don’t even THINK of going thru my 2023 drawings of her they’re all embarrassing,,,

Anyway w the amount of protein intake + axe throwing + training she does,,, buff Astrid,,,

[niccolites]

a gouge in the wood - unfinished 1.7K words came back wrong au, simon 'ghost' riley x reader cw. violence

The thing wearing your ex-husband’s face stands in your living room and watches you.

You map out where he’s standing, the muck on his boots, flaking off and sticking to your wooden floors. There’s a mad moment where you think it may not be him - might not be Simon. Some other threat, that is raising the hair on the back of your neck. Some faceless military grunt, here to string you up, just like Simon had always feared they would.

You know him though, even when you cannot see his face. Something beyond knowing just the curve of his shoulders, like how he holds his right just an inch further back than his left. Where your amygdala takes over at the sight of him, like you know what he is before you think of his name.

You also know that it cannot be him, when you identified him on that cold autopsy table just a few hours ago.

You hover in the open doorway, eyes on him as if that will stop him from moving, and consider your options. You could run out the door, screaming, but you know his bulk belies his speed. You may make it back onto the step behind you before he caught you, but you wouldn’t get further than that.

You flex your keys in your hand before you step inside and let the door swing shut behind you. His eyes track your movement, dead on, centre. You wonder if you should stop thinking about it as a ‘he’ but rather something else. Something unknown, something that’s alive and grown and decided to invade your home.

“If you’re trying to intimidate me, can you knock it off,” you say, voice slightly tilted as if you want to make it a question. It doesn’t move. “What do you want?”

Now, that generates a response. Tiny, but a slight shift of his head. You’re too far away, but you like to imagine you can see his pupils flex. So, it does want.

Something about that, desire in something that you do not understand, has your body choosing flight. You flinch back, hare brain kicking you towards the door, and it’s on you.

You’re knocked back, skull rattling back against the door, its forearm braced against your chest and the other around your jaw. Thumb pressed into bone, catching sound there and stealing it.

You blink up at him, restrained. It’s Simon, you know it now that he’s closer. His dark eyes, you’d thought he still had his paint on his skin but you can see that it’s a bruise now. It’s also not. Maybe Simon was a little heavy handed in a way that you knew your friends wouldn’t like if they found out, but this was a new level. Simon always knew that the best way to corral you was to create the perimeter around you and let you tire yourself out. Patient, in the way that predators are when they crouch in high grass.

“Simon?” you wheeze, dots around your vision. A question.

The thing wearing your ex-husbands skin says your name. An answer.

You swing your hand up and only feel a brief satisfaction as it cuts the side of his shoulder. The feeling disappears when he doesn’t even flinch as he yanks your keys out and lets them drop to the floor with a terrible clink.

You shriek, muffled under the paw of his hand and he rattles your skull against the wall.

Your vision goes blurry, as if you have been submerged underwater. Pain blossoming out with each thump of your pulse, weighted and red.

You crumple but you’re caught and dragged upwards. You feel like you’re made up of static, as if someone has yanked the station and you’re hovering in some no man's land, an irritating buzzing noise that needles until it's fixed.

Given the way that you’re being carried, tossed over a shoulder and limp, you are placed on your couch with a lot more care than you expect.

You slump to the side, and the black lump that must be Simon - or whatever it is - shifts up and slants a cushion under your head.

He’s saying something, but you feel groggy, sickly. Unable to do anything other than stare at your coffee table as the sounds filter through to you. Water through paper, soggy and ruined.

Simon reaches up and takes off the balaclava, and he looks like he did on that cold table. Stubble grown out, you know he must be complaining about not being able to access a razor. Bruises cutting across his temple to his eyes. They said a bullet to his head. The way that you put down a dog.

“Fuck off,” you slur. He doesn’t crack a smile. He crouches down further in front of you so that your faces are level and you feel peculiar about being so close to his bare face. There had been a layer of deniability that you hadn’t truly believed when he’d been wearing the mask. At least you could maybe start to kid yourself that it isn’t him. The wrinkle of his brow, unbearingly intimate, this close to your eyes.

He reaches his hand out and into your hair. Pain whites out your vision - station found and blaring - and you whimper. “What -”

“Do you feel nauseous?” he asks, pulling his hand back, a jerk in his at your pained noise. He squints at his fingertips, the back of his hand against your cheek. His skin is so cold against your own, a block of ice against your fever.

The pain beats like your heart, and you can barely formulate a thought to force it out as a sentence. You blink at him, dumb and mute.

He shifts his hand and cups your cheek to hold your head steady. A balm, drawing sickness out of you and into him. You shut your eyes, inhaling deeply. A smell of dirt and moss lingers on him, the outside, dragged into your living. “Do you feel nauseous?” he repeats. The LT voice, commanding.  You grit your teeth against it, petulant.

“Yes, you fuck,” you groan, refusing to open your eyes again before you sick up all of the food that you ate that day.

He’s satisfied with your response, hand still as steady but melds into the curve of your face. Thumb on your temple, smooths your baby hairs out of your face. Like an apology, like you're a stunned bird in his hands and he didn't mean to break your wing.

“You’re dead,” you say, when he doesn’t move. You can feel the weight of his gaze on your face, but refuse to open your eyes to the rollercoaster that your body is on.

He grunts in response, knees clicking as he shifts on the floor.

No comforting response is forthcoming. You think of the bullet rattling around in his skull. No death will take, not even the real, permanent kind. It’s so ridiculous that you feel a manic laugh start to bubble up in your chest but you stifle it before it can escape.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he barks, shaking your head to jostle it until you cry out.

“Fuck you, asshole, I hope I fall asleep and die, you fuck,” you whimper.

He doesn’t have a further response to that, but stares you down until you stare back. Awake, against your will.

You drop your gaze to his shoulder, can see the cut in his jacket, where you managed to dig your keys in. You reach a hand up and press your thumb into the fabric, trying to part it to reach his flesh.

He lets you, his gaze still heavy on your face as if waiting for you to suddenly fall asleep. The look in his eye is different, but the weight of his attention is the same as it was before. Encumbering, to be loved by Simon. He had clutched on with both hands, but always had the stiff back as if waiting for the command to curl up and die.

You realise that you’re seeking something here that you cannot find in his hands. Some type of truth that touch will provide when your eyes won’t confirm it. His hands could be that cold for any reason. But here, in the meat of his shoulder, this is where you used to tuck your head under when it was cold at night.

There’s no comfort here. Simon is a stiff wall of flesh under your palm. Goose-flesh rise up all over your skin, your body finding a truth that you don’t want to acknowledge. Unsettling, like seeing something out of the corner of your eye and actually catching it in the full of your vision. 

You drop your hand, unsettled, and stare at a point over his shoulder.

Once he’s satisfied that you’re not going to drift off and get yourself killed, he gets up slowly. It’s unnerving, watching him move out of your vision and he completely disappears. He’s soundless, the faint shuffle of clothes as he moves before that disappears as well. If it wasn’t for the wet smell of mud that he’s left, you wouldn’t have known that he was in your home at all.

You stare out at your wall, unseeing. Fear of the thing in your home stops you from closing your eyes like you desperately want to. Sleep like molasses that drag your limbs down and leave you heavy. Drift downward like a weighed anchor, drowning.

Time slips away, meaningless. Memories feel like silk, forming in your mind before fluttering away, entire minutes forgotten. One moment Simon isn’t there, and then he’s back. The time between smacks together until it is thin enough to wear through in your mind. “It’s you,” you slur, although you don’t think he is.

He grunts, and reaches beneath you and hoists you up into his arms. The world takes a sharp turn and takes your vision along with it. You groan unhappily, but he ignores you and slings you around until you’re across his shoulders.

A mountain of a man, you had thought once. The view from the top is horrifying now that you’ve reached the peak, you tuck your head into his shoulder to hide from it. You wish he would hit your head again, you don’t remember your last journey up here just a few minutes ago.

“Where we goin’?” you ask, mouth choked in the cotton of his jacket.

“Out,” he says, helpfully. You throw your leg out in a pathetic attempt to kick him, which is so sad that he doesn’t even acknowledge it.

He opens the door of your car and places you in the passenger seat. His hand on your throat as he steadies your head.

It’s starting to rain, fat droplets that smack against the roof of your car.

“I’m going to pass out,” you let him know, polite, at least. The shift of his brow as he goes to snap at you again, but you’re yanked down into a pillowy darkness and you much prefer that company to this one.

[troubldteenz]

just read kill switch. you just had to twist the knife man☹️

link to fic here by @king-candybug-backup