#snippets as i see it

[ambidextrousarcher]

Snippets as I see it: Putting the snippet under a read more, it is fairly long for this exercise.

Tagging @whippersnappersbookworm @celestesinsight @mizutaama @thereader-radhika @harinishivaa and @thelekhikawrites

Comment or drop a text if you want to be added/removed from the tag list!

Feat: Sendhan Amudhan’s sass at its finest. (I know he’s a fictional character, but I still enjoy him.)

Context: Kundavai and Vanathi visit the underground prison to free the Pazhayarai healer’s son and glean knowledge of Vandiyathevan’s whereabouts from him. They find the aforementioned man already freed by Nandini, Sendhan Amudhan imprisoned instead, and they ask him of the happenings. He is narrating the good news the traitor who betrayed Vandiyathevan and spoke ill of Poonkuzhali gave him, citing it as the reason he did not kill the other man.

“அது என்ன அவ்வளவு நல்ல சமாசாரம், அப்பா?”

“என்னுடைய நண்பன் வந்தியத்தேவனுடனேதான் இவன் கோடிக்கரைக்குப் போனான். அங்கே இந்தச் சண்டாளன் என் சிநேகிதனுக்குத் துரோகம் செய்து பழுவூர் ஆட்களிடம் பிடித்துக் கொடுத்துவிடப் பார்த்தான். அது முடியவில்லை...”

“முடியவில்லையா? அப்படியானால் அந்த ஒற்றன் தப்பித்துக் கொண்டு விட்டானா?" என்று வானதியும் குந்தவையும் ஒரே குரலில் ஆர்வத்துடன் கேட்டார்கள். இதைத் தெரிந்து கொள்ளத்தானே அவர்கள் இந்தப் பாதாளச் சிறைக்குள்ளே வந்தது!

“ஆம், அம்மணி! என் நண்பன் தப்பித்துக்கொண்டு போய்விட்டான். பூங்குழலி அவனை இரவில் படகில் ஏற்றிக்கொண்டு கடலில் இலங்கைத் தீவுக்குச் சென்றுவிட்டாளாம். தேடிப் போனவர்கள் ஏமாந்தார்கள். இந்தப் பாதகனும் ஏமாந்தான்!”

பெண்மணிகள் இருவரும் ஒருவரையொருவர் பார்த்துக் கொண்டார்கள். அவர்களுடைய உள்ளத்தில் ததும்பிய மகிழ்ச்சியை அவர்களுடைய முக மலர்கள் வெளியிட்டன.

குந்தவை சேந்தன் அமுதனைப்பார்த்து, "அப்பனே! ஒற்றன் ஒருவன் தப்பித்துக் கொண்டது பற்றி நீ இவ்வளவு சந்தோஷப்படுகிறாயே? உன்னைச் சிறையில் வைத்திருப்பது சரிதான்!" என்றாள்.

“தாயே! அந்தக் குற்றத்துக்காக என்னைச் சிறையில் போடுவது சரியானால், உங்கள் இருவரையும்கூட எனக்குப் பக்கத்து அறையில் போட வேண்டுமே!" என்றான்.

பெண்மணிகள் இருவரும் நகைத்தார்கள். இருளடைந்த அந்தப் பாதாளச் சிறையில், சேந்தன் அமுதனுடைய பாட்டு எவ்வளவு விசித்திரமாயிருந்ததோ, அப்படி அவர்களுடைய சிரிப்பும் அபூர்வமாக ஒலித்தது.

Excerpt From

Ponniyin Selvan Anaithu Pagangal (Tamil Edition)

Kalki

“What spectacular news was it, sir (that you pardoned so great a crime?)”

“He (the Pazhayarai healer’s son) had truly gone to Kodikkarai with my friend Vandiyathevan. There, this quarrelsome man had betrayed my friend and tried to lead the Pazhuvur men. However, he could not do so…”

“He could not do so, is it? In that case, has the spy escaped?” asked Vanathi and Kundavai in a chorus. After all, they had arrived at the prison for the purpose of ascertaining this as it was!

“Yes, my lady! My friend escaped. It is said that Poonkuzhali ferried him by boat at night to the isles of Srilanka. Those that went looking for them were fooled. This traitor was fooled as well!”

The two ladies looked at each other. The gladness filling their hearts bloomed on their faces.

Kundavai, her gaze on Sendhan Amudhan, said, “Sir! You are showing such happiness that a spy escaped, are you not? it is indeed for the right that you are imprisoned!”

“My Lady! if it is indeed right that I am imprisoned for that crime, then the two of you must also be imprisoned in the cells next to mine!” riposted he.

Both ladies laughed. Their laughter was as alien as Sendhan Amudhan”s melodious singing in the deep darkness of the underground prison.

Sendhan Amudhan, my man, you are hiding quite a lot of sass behind that innocent face, are you not? Score!

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[ciderjacks]

thinking again about how much trust he had to have in Laios to recommend his own daughter in case he dies

[limboni]

"Children in the woods" 5/5

<- Previous

[luvo27]

Look its about how sometimes alfred will threaten to/talk about resigning from his job and wondering about the dynamic of how alfred would have raised bruce as an employee instead of a parent and the skewed power dynamic and how threatening to resign might have been one of the ways alfred was able to actually get bruce to listen to him and how it would have been so effective because bruce was a child who lost his parents violently and would not want to lose another and its about how this relationship shapes the way the Batman and Robin dynamic works. Does love make the most sense when its a job. Is firing robin a test to see if they love him when they dont have to or is it him proving to them he loves then when it isnt a job. I dont know what im talking about but do you see where my mind is at

[malacandrax]

Cliff & Father Eugene refresher and timeline

I wanted to make a more proper introduction, for people that missed the first comics! 

I know it's hard to keep up in the fast paced internet, and investing in new characters and stories is difficult, but give it a go. Companies are sucking our souls away with engagement driven content and a great way to combat that is to connect genuinely with the creators who want to share their passions with you.

I also made a loose timeline below that you might be interested in!

Set in 1983 (...ish) London

Intros

Cliff is a raised catholic gay guy living in the outskirts of London who is struggling to find himself, he ran away from home as a teenager and did sex work to make a living. He moved back home for his mum after his dad killed himself, but still does sex work for the thrill. His mum has leant heavily on the church and alcohol after her husbands suicide. Cliff is reckless and impulsive, he drinks to excess, gets into fights, and generally cares very little for his wellbeing. The more dangerous something is the more it makes him feel alive.

Eugene is a closeted Irish catholic priest who’s recently been transferred to Cliffs local church. He has promised Cliff's mum that he’ll pay special attention to her son, who has lost his way. Eugene joined seminary as a young man to escape rural Irish life, and to try and bury his same sex attraction. He’s since come to terms with being gay, but tries his best to live in the closet to protect his position. Eugene is sensitive, softhearted, and more than a little fruity. He has few close friends and even less he sees regularly, and having a promiscuous young gay man in his parish is proving to be quite the challenge.

Their dynamic together:

Cliff sees a challenge in scandalising the priest at first, but is taken in by how genuine Eugene’s care for him is. He finds himself wanting to be better to impress him, and finds some reconciliation with the church after many bad experiences in catholic school. Mostly though he’s into Eugene, not God.

Eugene is secretly flattered to have drawn Cliffs attention. Being with Cliff makes him feel young again, and allows him to express his stifled sexuality without fear. He also sees how Cliff looks up to him, and thinks he can use that to nurture his potential and also help him become closer to God. He doesn’t account for how tempted he is to stray from the path himself. 

Voices, actor inspo 1 , 2

-----------

Timeline

I’m working on them roughly chronologically but I have skipped ahead sometimes, and there are gaps I’d like to fill. It doesn’t read like a complete linear story, but like a series of snippets.

I know a list with links isn't ideal, but it's the easiest way for me to be able to add things in as I go. Honestly though just going into their patreon collection or tumblr tag and scrolling from the bottom is a fine way to read it, and the story isn't going to be ruined by reading some bits out of order, but still I hope this timeline will be useful or interesting for some people. God be with you if you aren't on desktop.

I will one day make a pdf once I'm done with their story.

Also! It’s a little sillier at the start before I realised I wanted to develop them properly.

[Patreon links are in red. That includes some early access, and a Lot of the 18+ work. I share parts on twitter/bsky but not usually the whole thing]

Beginning:

Designs and Meetings- link

Eucharist (18+) pt1 | pt2

Cliffs confession (cinema hookup)- link

Eugene’s imagination (cinema hookup 2) (18+) twitter/bsky

Kelly Green (Eugene meets cliff on the streets) link

Christmas Party (Indirect kiss) link

2AM (Cliffs genuine confession) link

Moment of weakness (18+) link

---------

Cliffs penance:

Penance (Cliff shows up at the rectory) link

Church boundaries (Cliff helping with Eugenes duties) (18+) twitter/bsky

Poof (Cliff consults a friend) link

Laundry (Eugene smells good) link

Hugs (Cliff decides they hug now) -link

Takeout (Eugene vents about the bishop, Cliff causes mischief) link

Prayer and dreams (18+) link

Bridge (Cliff shows blatant disregard for his life) link

—- here is where I’m currently adding the major comics to! Everything onwards is a little choppy.

------------

After Cliffs penance is over:

(basically all the real plot is yet to be added)

Subway (they get close)- link (image 5)

Coming out (Eugene opens up) link, extra

Sports-link

------------

After they’ve gotten together

(this is where I’m loosely drawing most of the 18+ stuff, there’s less plot here.)

Snowstorm (Eugene rescues Cliff) link

Thunderstorm (18+) pt1 | pt2 | pt3 | pt4 | pt5 | pt6 (in progress)

Blasphemy (18+) link

Church office (18+) pt1 | pt2 | pt3

Afterglow- link

-----------

Extras [a mix of canon and non canon]

(mostly ask replies and cute doodles)

Neck kisses- link

Clothes swap- pt1 | pt2

fav animals- link

Cliffs hair- link

Lick- pt1 | pt2

Just a whole bunch of doodles- link (cuddles, bunny/dog cliff)

------------

Non canon

Confession booth (18+) pt1 | pt2 | pt3 | pt4 | pt5

Eugene ride and drag alt (18+) link

Nun outfit link

Nun sequence (18+) pg1 | pg2 | pg3 | pg4 | pg5 | pg6

Short shorts (18+) pt1 | pt2

Naughty list (18+) twitter/bsky

Bunny Eugene link

This was quite a complicated undertaking, so let me know if anything is broken.

Making this made me realise I'm insane I think. I've only had these guys for 6 months where did all this art come from, there's like 100 pics of them...haha... ;;;;

[laddertek]

etho said actually you _don't_ understand the intricacies of how tango is my boyfriend and bdubs is my ex

(and how tango and bdubs kiss too)

Scar: We went on that little adventure, you know! Etho: Yeah, yeah, we had our adventure, that's true, that's true. Scar: You disparaged your teammates. That's it, all right, no more spoilers. Etho: (laughs) Our team has -- our team has some weird dynamics this -- this season. Cleo: (overlapping) Really, Etho? Is there trouble in paradise? (pause) Who's third-wheeling with you, again? I can't remember. Etho: (laughs) Uhh. The -- Cleo: Genuinely can't remember. I know it's you and Bdubs. And...Tango? Tango. Tango. Etho: (loudly) Why -- Why is Tango the third wheel? Why -- why isn't Bdubs the third wheel? Cleo: Because it's you and Bdubs. I'm sorry. I understand how that relationship goes. Etho: (dissatisfied) Hmm.

[elderwisp]

immortalis

the undying

[lucky-draws]

is this anything ...

[leons-art-pit]

thinking about the porty clone and also mixtape <3

not completely sold on the full body design i've made for porty, but i wanted something different than just pants. if i keep drawing mixtape, or just porty, that might change

[flaccid-rats]

pre ANH au where Din and Luke meet on Tatooine, have their summer romance and all that, and when Din inevitably has to leave Luke gives him a japor snippet (“It’s a good luck charm,” Luke says with a smile. “I’ve seen how reckless you get on your bounties.”) and Din thinks it’s a little silly, but he lets Luke put it around his neck anyway.

It is only a few days later that Din hears about the Lars family, about the fire, about how they never found a third body.

And then Din just…never takes that japor snippet off.

For years he wears it, the sound of the japor clinking against the beskar of his mythosaur pendant becoming so familiar to him that he panics when it falls silent. He reaches for his neck when he cannot hear that ringing sound, reaches for the japor, desperate to make sure it’s still there, that he did not lose what he has left of the man he would never really stop loving. Even when Din is dying, when he takes off his mythosaur pendant to give to Cara, when he begs her to take it, to bring this child he knows nothing of to safety, he keeps the japor close to his slowing heart.

And somehow, Din lives.

(“It’s a good luck charm,” Luke says with a smile.)

[altcvnningham]

canis major

adler x bell!reader

summary: adler doesn’t go back to berlin to forget, but he isn’t so eager to remember, either. after leaving you for dead on that clifftop in the arctic, he knows best to leave the past well alone. too bad that past seems to be alive and walking right in front of him; though where he wants to forget, it seems you’ve already beaten him to the punch. or; bell survives solovetsky and only has a hole in her head and amnesia to show for it. read on ao3

tags/cw: bell!reader, amnesia, light angst, referenced adlerbell, somehow bell survives the ending of cw, adler can't let shit go, adler is not capable of remorse but mayyybe a lil guilt?? dog symbolism always, no pairing yet but hopefully i continue this as a spicy drabble series idk wc: 2.7k

a/n: sooo this is my first fic for the cod fandom and the first fic i've posted online in a long time so hopefully this lil ramble suffices!! i've had adlerbell brainrot and wanted to get at least something out before bo6 ruins all of my headcanons so here's a snippet of something i hopefully find the motivation to continue into a mini series. enjoy :')

Sometimes, he goes back to Berlin.

Stumbling out of the muggy bar into the dank alleyway out the back, Adler fishes out a pack of cigarettes from the front of his jacket; two firm knocks of it against his palm before he plucks one out with his mouth, pockets the box, and flips open his lighter. The clink of the metal echoes into the empty around him, the sudden quiet suffused with the sounds of passing cars on the street, muffled laughter from inside the bar, and the distant barking of dogs. Strays.

The cigarette ignites, glowing a cherry red, and he gasps around the filter greedily. Upon exhale, he sighs.

Adler isn’t a sentimental man by any means. What little he clings to, he does so with a loose grip, less than happy but stolid enough to allow whatever else he deems unnecessary slip through his fingers. Places, people. Things. Memories. Tucks the important things- logic, rationality, work, duty- into orderly compartments at the forefront of his mind, archived and marked off ‘til he needs it, while the rest, the mess, gets done away with, thrown into the great black gorge of oblivion. Anything else that stays- more often than not a thorn in his side, an unbidden, wriggling tumour he can’t find let alone cut out- is sequestered to a dark aperture in the back of his mind, anchored deep where it can’t come back up. Yet somehow, some nights, they always do. The smell of his ex-wife’s hair. The day he got his scar. Vietnam. The lab. Solovetsky—

The next word, the name, forks across his mind like lightning, and he bites his tongue before he can think it. It sits at the back of his mouth, nestled like an aching cavity in his molars. A tremulous breath that he forces down with another drag of his cigarette. Out with the rest. Out with the rest.

The barking doesn’t cease. Dogs, a pair of them, he can hear a couple streets over. He pictures them from the gravelly register of their snarling- maybe German Shepherds, a Bullmastiff or a Rottweiler. Their fight enunciated by the violent rattling of chain-link fences, segregated, the only threshold that keeps teeth from necks.

But no, not a sentimental man. He tells himself that the itch to revisit Berlin every Summer is for superficial reasons, and by no means is renting out a shithole hotel room opposite a sewer-laden river considered a vacation from anything other than the luxuries he gorges himself mindlessly on at home- maybe this is to keep him humble, more than anything. It doesn’t do well to remind himself of old times, not when he’s lived the life he has. Remembering seldom accompanies itself with the bittersweetness of reminiscence, and the taste it leaves in his mouth is always acrid. He doesn’t miss Berlin any more than he misses that dismal safehouse, or that sterile room he wheeled you into, questioned- tortured- no, interrogated- well, he doesn’t care to remind himself of the picture. Or the person he strapped to the gurney. But he catches himself thinking back to the city divided more than he likes to admit, and for whatever ostensible reason it is that drags him back here, he relents to it every time.

He tells himself it’s the weather, the cool rain a nice reprieve from the scorching California heat. Or that the food is better, not so much overprocessed shit and sugars. Can take his coffee as black as he likes without the waitress turning her nose up about it and double-triple-checking if he’s sure. And it’s the people, maybe, who leave him well enough alone. Or the drinks. The views, some places. The- air.

Not like Arctic air. Not like—

The one dog’s snarl rips bloodcurdling through the night, all froth and venom, and as the chain-link fence screeches and judders in its rusted welding the other mutt quiets a moment. Cowers under the meaner dog’s ferocity. Then, like it had been wounded, it lets out a low, anguished howl, beast reduced to a scared little pup. Adler holds the smoke in his chest around a stifled breath anticipating a release. But the first dog just grumbles, the fence clinks, and there isn’t much noise after that.

But the quiet doesn’t last long- just as Adler drops his cigarette and snuffs it with a wrench of his heel, another sound resonates, yowling through the alley.

The grinding of tires upon wet asphalt crunches from just beyond the alleyway entrance. The streetlamp overhanging the entryway glares bright yellow as it bounces off of the garishly coloured taxi cab, pulling up to a groaning halt outside the bar.

He thinks nothing of it, pulling at the collar of his leather jacket. It’s getting cold, and he’s left his drink inside. Wouldn’t want to waste good beer. Adler turns, and makes for the door.

And you step out of the car.

A half-finished cigarette bounces on the sidewalk before you exit, the softened heel of your boot following soon after in a splash upon the flooded curb. Your German is rusty- always has been- but it’s easy enough to utter a quick and easy danke as you pull yourself up out of the cab. The door shuts with a slam, and you tilt your head back to gaze up at the sign above the bar- Der Fluss Lethe glaring in faded lightbox red- and you let out a contented sigh, your breath suspended in the frigid air. Pink, bitten fingers pluck at your gloves, fingerless faded green knit, shovelling them into your jacket pocket.

Adler’s fist is already curled around the handle of the back door as he clocks your presence in his periphery, a stranger like any other- but your image resembles the one that coagulates in the borders of old memory, the dried blood of you he hasn’t been able to wash his hands of since ‘81. Enough that he does a double take, his eyes wide behind tinted glasses, and he stops, his heart following suit.

He’s seen enough bodies in his time to fill the morgue in his mind twice over, and plenty ghosts to wander coldly among the unmarked graves. Vietnam alone is an unwinding cemetery stretching endless, catacombs along the inside of his skull, lined with what his old shrink would call remorse. Guilt. As if the feeling mattered. As if self-reproach could turn self-flagellation into something so incandescent as redemption. As if the bile in the back of his throat could bring back the dead.

And it couldn’t, because it isn’t… that’s not—

Bell.

It’s in the way you stand, your back rigid, that slight slouch to your shoulders, always dragged down upon you like they bore the weight of the whole world (and they did, once, do you remember?). The pelting of rain smacks off of the lapels of your jacket and ricochets like stars, caught in the light of the streetlamp overhead, but for all he knows or cares it could be raining diamond and all he sees is you- the wrinkling of your nose as you accommodate to the cold, how your cheeks flush at the chill (as they had those nights he pulled you into the darkroom, evidence of your apprehension drowned in the red glow of safelights); your hair is longer, unkempt, but still that same colour (clumps he’d find in his clenched fist when you’d argue yourselves into a wrestling match, pinning each other by the throats to dented walls in Die Landebahn); that scar upon your brow; that wavering line of your lip, pursed and hiding behind your reticence as you always did, and your eyes- your eyes—

—you feel someone watching—

—your eyes turn, and fix upon him with the startled softness of a doe, hunter betrayed by the snapping of a branch underfoot. Adler’s heel crunches against broken glass, his hand lingering right in that threadbare threshold upon the doorhandle, and he can’t speak, can’t move, can’t think—

Open the door, Bell, open the door—

—and you stop outside the cab, your breath caught in your throat. You see a shadow in the alley, in the shape of a man.

The darkness of the alley gives enough cover that you don’t see much, but what you do make out of the man prickles at a part of your mind long dormant: the haughtily broad set of the shoulders; the halo of blond tinted red just beneath the flickering exit light above the door where he stands; the shadow of a strong, clenched jaw; and in the brief glinting of passing headlights as cars rush on behind you, you see a face half gorged by a thick, forked scar, a fissure struck down his furrowed expression. A pair of dark aviator glasses hide those eyes that you know are looking at you, reflecting back nothing but your own bewilderment.

There is something you know. Deep inside that half rotted head of yours, where an incomplete recollection of your existence before you awoke bleeding on that clifftop lies, you feel a twinge of recognition. Familiarity. Something. Something stirring deep in your marrow- a fear inherited, a conditioned surrender, a faded polaroid, a kiss? Your migraine, chronic, comes clawing back with a vengeance, as it does most nights, but this time with a savage fervour that wrenches your face into an involuntary grimace. Where the hole in your head had once been all those years ago it tickles and burns, burrowing into your brain and groping greedy fingers along remnants of memory. It claws at you, digging through your amygdala to find something fresh, something old, something palpable, real, something- anything. Searching what little remains visible to you in the thick fog of your own mind to pin a meaning to this feeling, an answer to your question, a name to that face.

You’ve seen him before. You swear. Somewhere. In a dream, reoccurring, behind a red door. You don’t know how, or why you’d think you recognise him- in those dreams, the door never even opens. Your hand ever stuck on the handle, jammed and impenetrable, what sits behind it forbidden to you. Like not even your own mind wants you to know. It confines you to your ignorance, almost blissful.

Adler’s heart kicks violently in his chest. He shot you. He killed you. He’d heard your death rattle on that clifftop in Solovetsky and the sound was almost like singing, your last word, your last breath. A miserere for your short and fractured life. And he’s looking at your ghost, standing there all owl-eyed and as beautiful as the day he found you bleeding out on that airstrip. Before he took you. Before he took you and collared you and made a damned mess of things.

The only thing separating you from the Bell he knows he killed- his Bell- is the star-shaped scar split across your left temple. The only wound he never had to sit and heal as he belligerently patched you up, poking and preening you like his prize dog. Yet in spite of never seeing it before, he recognises the wound all too well. He put it there himself.

And as you stand there for that brief moment- no more than twelve seconds stretched to an eternity- he thinks for a moment that you’ve put it together. You recognise him. You see him. As he is. You’ve figured him out, Bell, as you always do. You’re the only one to have gotten away with it, nearly. Or so he thought. And now he’s watching a corpse having dug itself out of the grave he put it in, standing there, staring at him. Suppose you’ve always been a dead man walking.

You could do it, he thinks. Turn. Fling your heel round and barrel towards him with all the enmity of a cornered animal. He thinks of the strays, barking. Can picture your mouth frothing at the sides as you sink your teeth down into him- gnarled canines, hooked to your chain-link fence- which he probably deserves. Not an unfamiliar feeling by any stretch, but one faraway enough to seem almost sweet now through the hazy lens of nostalgia. If there truly is a sentimental bone in his body after all, then maybe it’s just for that. Still, he holds his breath, awaiting the killing blow he’s surely due. But it never comes.

You release your held breath, finally, tearing your eyes away from the callous faced stranger. It’s a ridiculous notion. Just an uncanny instance of déjà vu. You don’t know that man any more than you know yourself. You settle on a more rational answer- just one of those faces. And with a disgruntled sigh you rub the scar upon your temple to soothe the ache, turn around, and enter the bar alone.

Adler sighs, his heart sinking from up high in his throat back down to his chest. His hand has latched onto the doorhandle for so long it’s gone numb from the cold, bruised knuckles bluer than they were before (bar fights- not here, but another, as there will always be). He wrestles his jaw pensively, knowing he ought to take it off, keep the door closed, turn away, and leave. Slink back, tail between his legs, to that shithole hotel room to drink himself into a stupor. Let you haunt him there, instead. As you always have.

But he doesn’t. He has no idea what idiocy compels him, what soft, dewy-eyed weak link in him snags on that chain, to willingly wander back into the viper den of reminiscence, but he wrenches his fist around the handle, pushes, and lets himself back into the bar, the thick, hot air hitting him like a drug that he breathes in, tart and sour with the cloy of sweat and alcohol but still faintly- just faintly- of you. Like rain carried along the wind.

And Russell Adler is not a sentimental man.

But from across the bar he hides behind his beer glass, watches as you move about, a phantom, weaving through the faceless mass of people celebrating a championship he cares nothing to follow. You take your order at the bar with a smile he’s never seen on you before, boots folded to tip-toes as you lean over the liquor-stickied top, your perfect mouth pink and sweet and laughing and alive. The world seems to move about you in a haze, an indistinct mist of blurred faces and bottled voices and beyond all the light and life and joy that seems to burn bright around you like a halo all he sees is you.

Maybe, then, he’s a fool.

But it isn’t lost on him, how your fingers skirt across your hair in an attempt to hide the scar upon your temple. Nor is it lost on him how you wince at the feeling, the stars in your eyes dimmed for just a split second as you shiver, like a touch imperceptible running fingers down your back. Nor even the way you fight the urge to look, to follow the feeling of his eyes fixed upon you, and surely not the way you lose that fight, surrendered to it, your sweet face turning and finding him in an instant. Without so much as trying, like instinct, like something as pathetic and saccharine as fate. Your heart called to it, a lighthouse in the fog. Port in the storm. Ships passing in the night but called crashing to the same shore.

(The pieces of you are scattered everywhere, Bell. He finds you in every split seam inside himself. Splintered shrapnel dug through his temporal lobe, severing synapses ‘til they go dark. Even stars die quicker than that. Quicker than you. Is that what it felt like for you, too? When the lights went out, was it him you last saw- or the sky, waxen, over the Arctic? A waning night, a distant moon. The inconsequence of death- brief celestial ephemera.)

The stranger across the bar looks at you, offering nary a smile, eyes indiscernible behind shadowed sunglasses. And where you ought to find his apparent coldness disconcerting, instead you wring out of your chest with a white-knuckled caress a feeling like… comfort.

Sometimes, Bell, you go back to Berlin. You don’t quite know why.

[reunitedinterlude]

the cake scene saga

[demaparbat-hp]

Oh, Lala...

[strang3lov3]

Hmmm. Do we ever get into ummmmm. Like topping from the bottom on this page because there are some men we talk about here whose asses I need to eat while they call me a whore or like who I need to ride my strap and laugh at the fact that only he’s getting off and refusing to properly touch me. Things of that nature

You’re on your stomach, lips and jaw and tongue so tired. And you’re hot and sweaty, mascara running down your cheeks. Keep going, honey. Look how messy you are, eating Daddy’s ass. Filthy fuckin’ girl.

Or maybe Joel’s making you peg him, and you’re losing steam, completely exhausted. You just want to feel him, and here you are fucking him on a plastic cock. Sliding your hands from his hips to around his soft belly, reaching for his hard and leaking dick - he slaps the back of your hand. “No.”

Being scolded for slowing down, for not fucking him hard enough. “C’mon, kid. You can do better’n that.”

“I’m so tired, Daddy.”

“Tsk, poor thing. Ain’t used to doin’ a lick of hard work in your life, are ya?” Joel says. “Drink some fuckin’ water and buck up, and fuck your daddy like a big girl. I know you got it in ya, darlin’.”

[messymoonmad]

I LOVE YOUR ODYSSEUS DESIGN SO MUCH WTF HES SO PRETTY PLS KEEP THE LONG HAIR IT FITS I PROMISE TRUST -mun

Head empty just his wife and son and bloodshed

I gotta admit it's growing on me. I'll keep this design for my upcoming animatics

The second one is hotter cause i used @/taln.art (instagram artist) as reference and they are an expert in handsome bearded men