#see right through me

[icequeenlila]

See right through Me (Locorro)

context: Spider and Lo'ak got surprised by Quaritch coming home. Lo'ak went out of the window. Spider got called down to the kitchen.

“What is it?” He tried to suppress the roll of his eyes when stepping into the kitchen, but failed miserably.

“First of all, you can stick that attitude up your ass”, his father said from where he was clearing out the dishwasher. “Second of all, there’s chicken nuggets on the table. Eat.”

Spider frowned at him. “That’s what’s so important?”

Yes, he was annoyed, but that didn’t stop him from crossing the room towards the kitchen table. He was hungry after all the kissi- He was hungry after all.

“You always bitch about how they get all soggy when cooled off”, his father answered without looking up at him. “So, for the sake of my piece of mind, yes, it’s that important.”

Spider rolled his eyes again, letting himself plop down onto his chair.

“You know I have eyes at the back of my head”, his father warned.

Spider grinned to himself, rolling his eyes once more for good measure. And then he took a bite of his chicken nuggets.

“How was work?”, he asked over a full mouth, ripping off the lid of the sweet and sour sauce.

His father placed the last plate into the shelf, closing the now empty dishwasher. Then he turned to look at Spider with subdued annoyance.

“Never mind”, Spider groaned, his eyes rolling on their own.

“Spider.” It was a warning. A mild one, but still.

“Okay, okay.”

His father didn’t like him asking about his work. Spider didn’t even know what kind of job he had. Only that it was paid well enough for his father to afford their big ass house, a big ass Jeep, and sending Spider to a big ass private school.

“I’ll just sit here, silently eating my chicken nuggets, pretending my father isn’t probably some kind of mafia boss or criminal”, he said, dipping a nugget into his sauce.

“You say that, still all I can hear is you japing away.” His father was unimpressed by his antics, and Spider knew it was useless to push the topic.

So, he settled for looking down at his food to hide yet another roll of his eyes from the man’s sight. He wondered if Lo’ak would eat once he got home. He had only managed to get him to eat half a slice of pizza earlier. After that they were too busy with eating each other.

Spider cringed at his own choice of words, feeling the tips of his ears burn with shame. Also, it just reinforced pictures from earlier this day, making an endless playlist of Lo’ak smiling, Lo’ak gasping, Lo’ak kissing him, replay before his inner eye.

Spider was so fucked.

“Had fun?” His father’s voice startled him from his indecent thoughts.

“Huh?” Spider looked up at him, feeling the blood shoot to his cheeks at getting caught like that. “What?”

Miles Quaritch tapped two fingers at his own neck. “Got something there.”

Oh shit.

Spider clasped a hand over his neck, only now remembering the mark Lo’ak had left there. He hadn’t yet had the chance to inspect it, so he hadn’t realized how bad it was.

It still tingled.

Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh Eywa, safe him.

His father quirked a brow at him, still unimpressed, leaning against the counter with his big arms crossed over his chest.

“Was it the boy or the girl?”

Spider was still frozen in shock, half chewed nugget forgotten inside his mouth. He frowned at his father, because he literally wasn’t able to do much more.

Now his father was the one to roll his eyes. “Was it the Sully boy or the girl?”

Spider chocked. So much that there were tears springing to his eyes as he coughed against the burn of his throat and down his chest. “Wha- urgh- the fuck?”

His father wordlessly walked over, towards him, giving him two heavy slaps to the back, until Spider spit out a pulp of mashed chicken.

“Why- “

A cough.

“How do you- “

Another cough.

Spider felt sick.

“You don’t have any friends, Spider”, his father said, like it would explain things. “It was the boy, wasn’t it?”

Spider was shocked speechless, unable to do more than stare up at the man in something that was close to fear.

His father, still unimpressed, just gave him a light slap against his temple. “Shame, that kid is a pain in the ass.”

He turned away from Spider, heading for the hallway. “I’m taking a shower. Don’t dare to turn off the light as long as I’m in there.”

(The light switch was outside the bathroom, and young Spider had found it hilarious to turn off the light while his father was standing under the shower. The man sprained his ankle once, because of it.)

“Hope he’s worth the trouble”, Spider heard him say, before the bathroom door fell shut behind him.

And then he just sat there. In the silence of the kitchen. The faint noise of the washing machine, echoing from the laundry chamber, and the shrill ticking of the kitchen clock were the only sounds inside the room.

Spider blinked into empty space. And he blinked again. And again. And again.

“The fu- “

+

From chapter 4 of 'See right through Me'

Link to fic:

[tawnysoup]

Finally now that the comic is fully public on comicfury, I get to share it with all of you here, too <3

If you enjoyed, please consider supporting by buying a PDF of the comic on itch.io: https://tawnysoup.itch.io/home-in-the-woods

[agentperezbian]

I'm curious. Tag this with your sexuality and what your favorite M/F ship is.

[melmov]

I cast: curse of the eldest (can’t ask for help)

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[bixels]

I watched Starship Troopers tonight.

[dadszlo]

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS — 6.06 Laszlo's Father / 4.01 Reunited / 4.03 Grand Opening / 4.05 Private School / 4.10 Sunrise, Sunset

[guardian-angle22]

This or That: Tarlos Edition -> Babe or Baby

[daeyumi]

Crossing the desert 🌫️☁️🚩

[2022]

[vaguely-concerned]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[icequeenlila]

See right through Me (Locorro/human au)

Warining: Spider has a mental breakdown here.

(The shoe is not important, it's just what his mind fixates on in his panic.)

Spider walked up the stairs and he felt numb, numb, numb.

His feet prickled sickly every time they touched the ground. It was almost like he was floating, hovering over the steps. He didn’t feel solid ground, his brain just didn’t register it.

He heard his father’s distant voice calling for him. Spider didn’t turn. He just kept floating up the stairs, eyes fixed on his feet.

He reached the door of his room, immediately locking it behind him when he entered. He kept on walking, not daring to look up once. Lo’ak had been here only hours before. His ghost was everywhere.

Spider walked until he reached the bathroom connected to his room, he closed it behind him, he locked it. And then he stood.

He just stood there. Eyes on the ground. Not daring to look up. Not daring to move at all, because as soon as he would, something would break. He knew it and he feared it.

So, he stood there. And he stared at the ground. At his feet. His dirty socks. No shoes.

A sick grin forced itself onto his lips.

He wasn’t wearing his shoes.

A strangled laugh escaped his throat.

Because he’d left them at the hospital.

The chuckle bubbling up his chest felt disgusting. The taste of bile filled his mouth. Spider clutched a hand over his mouth, sealing his lips shut to keep the sound from escaping.

They had taken off his shoes.

“Hah.”

 They had taken his shoes.

“Ah- hahaha- ahh …”

No shoes.

No shoe.

Lo’ak had been missing a shoe.

A shoe.

A fucking shoe.

Shit.

Spider fell back against the door, his body cramping in on itself as something built inside his stomach. Oh, it was ugly, tearing open his innards and creeping up his throat.

A sound, strangled and small escaped him. It tasted vile, rotten. It built in the depths of his chest, lingered on the back of throat, and finally broke free.

Spider clutched at his chest, desperately fighting to keep it in. He didn’t want to feel it, he couldn’t take it, he would go insane, simply lose his mind.

A missing shoe. Lost in the floods. Lost. Forever.

“AAAAHHHHRRGGGHHHHHHHH!”

Spider’s legs gave out under him, admitting defeat. His knees hit the ground hard, but it didn’t hurt. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything. Only this ugly, terrible thing inside of him. Only the way his lungs restricted inside his chest, the way his heart thundered against his rips, the way his limps couldn’t support him any longer.

“AHHHHH- HAHHH!”

Everything felt cold and dark and inconsistent. Spider was on all fours now and his arms gave out, his face mere inches from the cold floor.

“No! No! NO!”

He tasted salt on his tongue. Hot tears building a stark contrast to the way his whole body was shivering with cold.

“Please, no. Eywa, no, please!”

He didn’t know what he was begging for, what he was trying to prevent with his pleas. It had already happened. It was done. The shoe was lost to the floods. The fucking shoe!

“Give -urgh- give him back!”

Spider was rasping for air now, his throat closing up on him with every retching sob punching up his chest.

It didn’t hurt when his face collided with the ground, he barely felt the coldness of the tiles when he rolled over onto his side. He was already cold, shivering all over, not able to breathe right, chocking on his own tears.

“Oh fuck oh no oh no urgh…”

The world was ending. The world had already ended.

“Lo’ak, oh no- ahhhh… “

No strength left inside his body, Spider kept lying there on the cold bathroom floor for a long time.

+

smoll taste of chapter 6

chapter 1 of 'See right through Me'

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[cowboycannibalism]

one of the things that annoys me so bad right now is seeing letterboxd reviews about Lisa Frankenstein being like "she's such a horrible character", "those people didn't deserve to be killed" blah blah blah

SHUT UP

it's a horror romance!! a girl keeps a reanimated dead guy in her closet and falls in love with him! what did you think was going to happen? it's SUPPOSED to be fucked up and weird and that's part of its charm. quit being boring, let female characters (esp in horror) be messy and chaotic and morally gray.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.

[ew-selfish-art]

Dp x Dc AU: Jazz Fenton, after years of fixing her brother’s injuries, becomes a Doctor with an inclination towards behavioral health and psychology- In order to make the difference she wants to see in the world she joins Dr. Leslie Thompkin’s practice. 

Jazz Fenton, M.D. has spent years of her life doing research, doing the hard work and the emotional labor, and finally, finally, she’s joining a practice she can feel 100% confident in. She’s goddamn good doctor and she wants to make the biggest impact that she can. 

Dr. Thompkins (who insists that she call her Leslie as they’re colleagues now), is a kind woman, sharp as a tack and keeps her practice open at odd hours to help the most unfortunate. It took some time for them to bond and trust to be built, but now Jazz is being allotted a few night shifts here and there. 

It’s incredible. Jazz gets to spend time with the kids who come in and really talk to them (in addition to getting them antibiotics, heating pads and pokemon themed bandaids) to help equip them with a few coping skills. Her passion for psychology never disappeared after all, but the expansive knowledge of how to heal the human body has made her find a sense of fulfillment like no other.

Having proven herself and worn Leslie down, Jazz now takes up about 1/3 of all the night shifts in the month. She’s hoping to get to 50/50 by the end of the year but she’s content with what she has. Danny keeps odd hours anyway so calling him after work on her walk home can happen any time of day and he will always answer enthusiastically. 

It’s a particularly busy night before he comes in. The Red Hood. 

He was known for being an ally to Leslie, despite being on contentious terms with the Bats, but Jazz had never asked directly. Never one to turn away a patient with bullet hole wounds, she hops into action to get his wounds cleaned, sewed up and gauze wrapped. She’s handing him a sheet (an Infographic! Dani made it with her! Graphic design is her passion!) on how to care for his wounds when he first seems to recognize that she’s not Leslie. 

“No, Of course not. I’m Dr. Fenton. I can’t blame you for not remembering but I did introduce myself as you bled in the entry way. You’re Red Hood, right?” 

“Hm. Didn’t realize the practice was expanding. Where can I find-” He grumbles before pushing her hand aside from where she had still been supporting his shoulder.

“Hold on there, mister. You’re going home, you’re following this infographic and you’re going to get some sleep.” 

“Lady you don’t know-” His voice modulated ton came across antagonistically. As if he was trying to intimidate her. Ha, Jazz rolls her eyes at the inclination.

“Who I’m talking to? Who I’m dealing with? You’re hilarious. I can eat you vigilante’s hero complexes for breakfast. Tell me who I’m calling to pick you up and then you can say thank you.” Jazz snaps at him. It really had been a long night but his whole dialogue thus far is making her a bit batty. 

“Oh really Doc? You know Leslie’s tough shit, and from what I can tell you’ve got nothing on her-” 

“Trying to make me feel insufficient when I just saved your life? That’s cute. I’m sure a lifetime of abandonment by both of your parental figures gave you that. I’m also sure that you inherited this desire to prove you’re not going to be dependent on anyone who wants to help from whoever got you dressing up in tights to fight crime in the first place. Again, I’d love to talk at length about how predictable you-” 

“Bwah- wait- I’m Predictable? You’re probably some nepobaby who had parents who told her she could have the world-” But Jazz cuts him off with hysterical laughter- he couldn’t be further from the truth. Her parents loved her, but nepotism? With what, the ghosts? If anything she got that from Danny, but he doesn’t need to know about her ghostly titles. 

“You’re just some guy who came back from the dead and made his trauma everyone else’s issue. So shut it. And tell me how I’m getting you home from this clinic.” She seethes though her voice stays devastatingly level with each word. 

Speechless for a moment, he eventually relents to Jazz that he’s already called for help on the comms but it will be hours before they can come for a pick up. The sun had already come up and the night had been over for most of them before Hood had walked into trouble. She groans and the realizes the time for herself and the empty clinic around them.

“Fine. My shift just ended anyway. I’ll get you home in one piece and I swear to all the ancients that you’d better follow the directions on the infographic.” 

And that’s how Jazz ended up calling her brother while supporting the weight of a grown ass man (who no longer wanted to talk to her) on her walk home. 

The next time Red Hood appears in her clinic, he’s brought a dozen roses in addition to the cut on his neck that definitely needs to be pressurized like ASAP. Did he stop for the flowers on his way to the clinic? He’s going to pass out from blood loss! She doesn’t even like roses!

[shima-draws]

I'm rewatching GF since the whole world seems to be into it right now (thank you Alex and the Book of Bill) and AGHHH I FORGOR about the body swap episode when the twins find the secret room and Stan picks up Ford's glasses and later we see him sitting on the couch looking at them wistfully...

Shut up shut UP that's NOT okay