#should I turn this into something?

[fantasykim]

Writing sprint

“Hey, can I ask a weird question?” she asked, I nodded for her to continue. “Did you ever have a crush on me? Ya know, back in highschool?” 

I looked down at my hands, picking at the last bits of nail polish and chewing the inside of my cheek. I wonder if I had been obvious about it, or if she was only realizing in hindsight. Or maybe she was just curious. I had always been out and proud since before we met. And she only just came out to me. Makes sense she might ask a question like this.

I took in a deep breath and held it in for a moment before responding with a small, sheepish smile. “Yeah… I did.” 

At first I had just thought she was the coolest person I’d ever met. I traded in my leggings and skirts for jeans after a few months of knowing her. When she wore a bandana in her hair, so did I. Sometimes we would match colors by accident. Those days made me smile brighter.

I watched every show she mentioned, and listened to every song she quoted. Just to understand her better. So I could relate, and talk about whatever she wanted to talk about. 

She cared about me in a way no one ever had before, and it touched me in ways I’d never understood until meeting her. And I fell for her. Hard and fast. She was my everything. I couldn’t go a day without talking about her, to her, thinking about her. 

Her arsenal of bracelets and rings made me look into jewelry. And I bought her a necklace. One day I asked her what piece of her jewelry she loved most, and I prayed she would say the yin that hung around her neck, that matched the yang hanging from mine. And when she did I had to hide my smile.

I told her secrets I’d never shared before. She didn’t judge me on my low days, instead she lifted me up. And I did the same for her. We made sure we had at least half of the same classes each year of highschool. And her mother never asked if I was coming over anymore because she knew the answer was yes.

I was so in love with her. 

But she was straight. So I dated other girls, tried to pretend I wasn’t. But I only got hurt in the process.

Maybe I hid behind those relationships, for fear of her realizing I loved her.  Had it not worked? Had she seen through it all? The only problem was even though she wasn’t straight anymore, I still couldn’t have her.

“When did you stop?” she asked with a smug smile. “Having a crush on me, I mean.” she knew she was beautiful. She was the most confident girl I’d ever met. And I’m so lucky it rubbed off on me in our highschool years.

When I got too low and it started to drag her down, I thought I had lost her as a friend. But I didn’t stop loving her then. When we got into a huge fight junior year, and didn’t talk for a month. I thought it was all over. But my heart still ached for her then. When I tried a little to hard to get her to be around me and she was annoyed, I feared I had scared her away. But we stayed best friends.

When she called her other good friend a ‘best friend’ it sent a dagger through my heart. But I know more than most people that you can have more than one best friend. But sometimes I stayed awake at night, wondering if she thought of me as a best friend, or if it was only one sided like my love. I simply couldn’t stand the thought.

I wrote essays on how much she meant to me, letters she would never read. Epic poems of how deep my love ran through my veins, all of it for her, but she would never know. Because what if it was too much. What if that was what made her turn her back on me?

What if offering to turn out friendship into a relationship was the straw that broke the camel's back. Something we could never come back from.

I couldn’t take that chance.

I opened our texts and typed it out hundreds of times, only to abuse the backspace key into wanting a divorce with me. When I ever did say something sweet to her, she would always laugh it off and brush it aside. So instead of letting each other know we valued the other, we called each other names with big smiles.

I still tell her basically everything. But I have a feeling it’s not the same for her. And I wonder when the rift between us came to be. Are we more fragile now? Were we stronger before?

I’m scared of what my words can do, and how I can never take them back. But i’ve waited long enough. I’ve waisted so much time already. I’ll never move on if I don't know how she feels about me in return.

When did I stop liking her?

I chuckled softly and bit my lip. Then slowly lift my eyes to meet hers.

“I never did.”

[ciearcab]

gouache falin

[hinamie]

corvidae

[dreamingdeadly]

mildly obsessed with ryo devilman

[umblrspectrum]

getting in that spooky spirit

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[vaguely-concerned]

the more I play the more I think lucanis basically knows it's illario who betrayed him right from the beginning (he's had a year in the ossuary to think. not that many people knew where he was going. when you ask him 'did Illario know you'd be on that ship' his only answer is the hardest flattest 'yes' you ever heard). so it's not so much about figuring out who the traitor is (because that's ludicrous. we all know. immediately. they didn't really bother to hide it lmao) as about methodically closing off every single avenue of denial lucanis has clung to that whole time with as much or little gentleness as you might prefer until he has no choice but to admit it. because the moment he has to admit it, he'll have to do something -- feel something -- about it. and that's such a catastrophic event in lucanis' inner landscape (he has had TWO people in this whole entire world up until now and will do anything to hold on to them with a heartbreaking child-like desperation, even at and especially through the detriment of his own self) that he'd rather just. not. what if we quite simply. didn't. what if we just stayed here in the emptiness where we can both pretend you didn't hurt me in a way I should never forgive. I have so much practice in that with caterina already it's always worked out great for everyone so far. (press x to fucking doubt but that's trauma logic for you lol)

after everything illario did, so much of the storm of lucanis' emotions around it is 'what the FUCK did you get yourself tangled up in this time and how do I get you out of this mess safely'. what's worse: the fact that your brother murdered you, or that he put himself in horrible danger doing so and thus exposed you to the risk of losing him forever. lucanis' heart certainly has an opinion here and it's fucking unhinged (affectionate)

the themes of dissociation in lucanis' character in general makes me feel nuts. allllll these contradictory messy things he needs to cut off from each other because they can't coexist or be easily reconciled inside him. but all remain stubbornly true separately anyway and will have their due one day. love and resentment. tenderness and fear and rage. terror and longing. love and freedom don't coexist. the burned out golden child anthem is playing in the background. he was always caterina's favourite and he has to keep striving to deserve that dubious honour with every breath he takes and then, presumably, mercifully, some day he will die and be excused and can rest. and until now he's suppressed all the -- natural, healthy, protective! -- negative feelings that threaten the few attachment relationships he actually has, at the cost of ever actually having his needs for connection and safety met and leaving his core self imprisoned and compromised. and spite goes 'what. no. that's dumb fuck that' (*spite voice* I do not understand that and even if I did I would not respect it) and does not allow him to fall back into that, which I think is what saves his life, ultimately. it took being possessed by a demon for lucanis to even contemplate telling anyone he loves 'no' in any way, but hey. whatever gets you there right lol

lucanis is dealing with the freeze response allll the way down baby. and he was even before the ossuary, that just turbo powered it and brought it to a breaking point way before it could happen naturally. but something was going to break eventually no matter what, and I'm just glad that in the end, through the power of friendship and also pure spite, it doesn't have to be him

[marigoldendragon]

I drew the boys as scrumply as I could. Some could stand to be worse

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Congratulations to TEAM CHEESE for winning the popular vote on the Charcuterie poll!

[xxplastic-cubexx]

give me some whiskey and ill draw The Most Thing i can come up with

bonus:

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[dookiespooky]

Driftingstars and dreamcaptor fusion au thing! This takes place right after mabel falls through the portal ig dk what im doing lmaooo

(Dreamcaptor au belongs to @neonross )

[hinamie]

もう一回、もう一回

[fisherrprince]

some of what’s up with this guy

edit: can you pretend I wrote “after” instead of “before” THANX

[recreationaldivorce]

it is kind of crazy how often when i get back in touch with a transfem friend i haven't spoken to for a while she has to disclaim to me "btw if you hang out with me [group] will probably be mad at you jsyk". not saying it's unique to transmisogyny but anecdotally this kind of total social exclusion to the point of also excluding anyone who associates with the excluded, seems so frequently targeted at transfems. really dont understand how this kind of behaviour always comes from "progressives"/social justice types, like how can you do this to someone and think youre justified when every single person I know who's been subjected to this has been a transfem communist who has made big personal sacrifices in pursuit of liberation. like im not talking about nazis or right-wingers, even if your dispute with these girls had a legitimate basis the solution would obviously be mediation & talking to them about it bc these are all fundamentally reasonable and good people who are receptive to criticism...

[kizzer55555]

Welcome to the Restraint! (Restaurant)

Imagine Danny runs to Gotham and starts squatting in an abandoned old building in Crime Alley. Slowly putting some ecto into the place to claim it as his haunt (while recovering from the sudden loss of his old one). And he does the normal stuff to survive. Finds some odd jobs, often as a messenger, and is just surviving. Another thing he does is make his own food. It’s cheaper than takeout and he’s gotten pretty good at cooking (out of necessity instead of eating sentient hotdogs). Then he ends up accidentally taking in some street kids. Or more like they follow him home. He can’t just turn them away so he makes a meal for them and lets them stay the night then sends them on their way. And then it happens again. And again. And ok, so maybe he saved a girl from getting molested. And that older guy from getting his only good blanket stolen. And sure, maybe letting that poor pizza delivery guy rant was unnecessary but he looked like he was having a bad day ok? Pretty sure that kid with the scar is a meta too but…he needed a place to stay a few nights alright? It’s not like any of them stay permanently. Danny’s started picking up a few more odd jobs to pay for all the extra food he’s had to buy. Always keeping his place stocked. At least he doesn’t have to pay for water and a fridge, he just makes some ice (or melts it). Sure the water is cold, but it’s probbaly the cleanest water in Gotham. And then some of the people start paying. Like…actually paying in exchange for food. Not sure if it’s because of guilt or pity but Danny won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. And with all the money, he hasn’t had to take as many dangerous jobs. Soon, his little abandoned apartment became what’s essentially the closest thing to a legitimate restaurant in Crime Alley.

It didn’t look normal. The chairs and tables were more like old couches and stools pulled up to coffee tables and cabinets turned on their side. Although with the bulling becoming more like Danny’s haunt, the walls naturally started repairing themselves so at least it didn’t look like it was gonna collapse anymore. And ok…so Danny might have rescued a few feral kids who…weirdly have gold eyes. And possibly stopped a meta trafficking ring on accident. And look, these people didn’t have anywhere to go! And the apartment did have empty rooms. It was already known as a place someone could crash for the night (last winter the entire place was cramped with people. Danny had to break up multiple fights but they usually calmed down when he got there.)

One benefit from controlling a haunt is controlling the temperature inside so it was one of the only buildings with ‘heat’. But back to his…strays. So yeah…most didn’t seem like they could rejoin society…so he let them stay. And…they kind of became employees? Impromptu bodyguards? (Some of the golden eyed people almost felt like he was rangling feral ghosts again.) they came in all ages. A few kids, lots of teens, and a few adults. Same with the metas he rescued. They mostly helped deliver food to costumers. They even got a phone line working and could take orders. (Although the new…employees…also got more protective whenever a fight broke out.) With all the extra money he’s been getting he was even able to afford some medical supplies. A lot of his customers(?) came in injured and he tried his best to patch them up but now he could do more than tie some ripped clothing around the wound and use ice to numb it. He’s got bandages. And pain killers. Plus other medical stuff. He can even give someone stickers now! All that experience as an injured vigilante was paying off. Even Villains and goons start attending this place. The place was unofficially designated as one of the Alley’s ‘safe zones’ where no fighting takes place inside (the body guards make sure of it.) the metas and Talons are getting an identity for themselves, the street kids even get a job and a hideout, random people can go there for help or to pass messages, this place provides food, shelter, and medical care. No one wants it going down.

So yeah, welcome to the restaurant!

(I’m debating whether I want this to be the weirdest restaurant/safe place/truce area in the alley, or whether I want Danny to accidentally become a crime lord. Possibly both.)

Also, this place is called the Restraint because I keep misspelling Restaurant and I think Danny would do the same so the name stuck. (Or one of the kids spelled it when making a sign or passing around messages to spread the word of this safe place.)

So anyways, to add some angst, after Danny adopts a bunch of crime alley kids/villains they find out about Danny’s powers and that he’s a ghost, only they don’t know about Halfas so they think Danny is fully dead and this super kind guy who has been the only person to ever treat them like people…died. He died likely a long time ago and there’s nothing any of them can do to change that.

(And if the GIW dare to come into the alley, they better be prepared for the entire place to turn on them.)