#sweat therapy

[fresherfriut]

[lovesickeros]

☆ i dream of embers

{☆} characters arlecchino {☆} notes no au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings none {☆} word count 1.1k

The House of the Hearth is quiet — or, if you really wanted to be precise, the rats scuttling through the walls are working around the bubble you exist in. The children dare not tempt fates hand unless you asked for them by name, a contradiction. An order to the rules — they mustn't approach you with trivialities, but they must listen if you speak. Your words carry more weight than gold in this house, whether you know it or not.

A tenuous position.

You haven't done anything to earn their reverence, their almost acrid fear — but Arlecchino has. She wields her silver tongue with as much ease as her polearm, ensuring your care in her absence. Her devotion, her service, is felt in the warmth of her chambers, the silks she adorns you with, the bed so soft you feel as though you melt into it. A gift, a promise — a gilded cage need not be something undesirable.

You've grown used to the encumbrance of her presence, these days. The deep timbre of her voice, honeyed yet melting into something rougher, quieting into haunting silence as if she seeks not to disturb you. Dim candlelight is all that illuminates her broad frame as she slowly presses the door open and closed behind her, pallid skin streaked with darkening red, her bottom lip smeared with it like lipstick. There is a tension to her shoulders even when she sets aside her polearm, out of sight and out of mind, harsh lines on her face visible in the deep furrow of her thin brows.

Here, she let's the weariness settle deep into her bones — it's just the two of you, even if she hasn't acknowledged you at all. Still, it's a vulnerability she shows no other, even if that vulnerability is hidden behind layers of barbed wire and teeth.

You watch rather idly from the bed as she wets a cloth in a basin of water, the bed creaking beneath you as your feet sink into the plush rug beneath. You know from experience that trying to help her is like trying to soothe a wild dog, but your knuckles brush over the sharp line of her cheek anyway, free hand stealing the soaking cloth from her hands when her jaw flexes and tenses beneath the pads of your fingers.

It is only then that she looks down at you, eyes as sharp as blades yet so indescribably warm — like a flame licking at your skin, burning so deep you feel it linger for weeks after. Arlecchino is not soft, far from it — but she blunts her jagged edges for you anyway, brushes her lips against your knuckles and allows you a moment of adoration. Carves her worship bone deep in the ghost of her touch against your lower back as she leans down, let's you wash away the blood certainly not her own, never blinking as if you'd simply up and leave if she stopped looking at you for even the smallest moment.

You are well aware she is caging you in. You let her.

Though she is still stiff as a board up to the moment you set the washcloth over the side of the basin, her jaw flexing again, a moment of consideration given. She is not used to soft and brittle things, though — not used to touch that does not lead to steel at her throat, in her gut, carving out softness like a butcher carves up meat, section by section.

But this affliction of affection is stronger than the discomfort, at times.

You almost half consider letting her take the room and have a night of proper rest, but she is faster than you — a calloused hand tilts your head back, half lidded eyes glinting beneath the weight of exhaustion, her thumb firm against your bottom lip. She could kill you without even blinking, you are aware, but she is nothing but careful with her touch — not soft, not Arlecchino, but there is adoration in her touch. Like thumbing a locket portrait, trying to imprint their features into memory by touch alone.

Her touch is fleeting, but the warmth lingers long after — you don't need to be touching to feel the weight of her attention. She stokes the flames of the dying fire, has one of the children bring a fresh pot of tea, lingers even when she doesn't have to. You're sure her desk in her office is far more comfortable to work at, but she'd crammed a small desk into the room anyway, stayed even long after you fell asleep most nights. You never did get to stay up long enough to notice her slip in beside you, nor wake up early enough to find her there with you, but the heat lingers — she leaves breakfast at your bedside table, a small note of affection if she's feeling particularly sappy. Even when you don't see her, she makes sure you feel her presence however she can.

Neither of you need to speak to express it. The silence is..oddly comfortable, filled by the shift of paper or scratch of a pen, the clink of a cup or crackle of fire. It's a little too easy to get lost in watching her work, masking a smile whenever she glanced back at you with a question on the tip of her tongue that goes unsaid.

It's better that way, you both think. The silence was best left undisturbed — as if trying to break it would be like breaking the mirror to each others lives. You don't busy yourself in the affairs of the House of the Hearth, and she doesn't make you. It's better that way, too. Maybe that makes you naive, blind even, to the bodies at her feet piled so high she could drown, but you don't want to give up this fragile tranquility.

So you let the dull scratch of a pen lull you to sleep, try not to smile too much when a hand reaches out in uncertainty to cup your cheek, thumb brushing over your cheek with so much affection it makes it hard to breathe.

It's a tenuous balance, but come the next night you will wipe the blood from her cheek again and she will care for you the only way she knows how — distant service.

And when you wake up to an empty bed, warm despite the fires long burned out, you'll still feel her presence in the allure of a warm drink and pastries at your bedside, a note tucked beneath the plate.

Just like the day before, and just as you expect tomorrow to be. But one day you'll gently pull apart the barbed wire and be let in — not today, no, but someday. It's a slow process, but you're patient enough to wait — and when she let's you in, you'll tend to the scars that it left like you've always done.

One step at a time, one day.

[star--anon]

Newt is surprisingly tranquil when it comes to video games, opting instead to simply turn the game off and stop playing for a while. Secretly, this is because he anthropomorphizes everything, and he thinks video games get sad when you stop playing them.

literally just putting them in time-out like "think about what you did"

Minho, on the other hand, has tremendous video game rage.

For the sake of world peace, Newt sits with him while he's playing and peppers him with kisses when he loses

[iristial]

"Surely Shouma wasn't the Granute that ate Hanto's mother," I said calmly while pacing the floor because why would Shouma have this reaction unless he was a witness or the perpetrator, we haven't seen Shouma's Granute form yet, and the story hasn't clarified whether making minions with a gavv specifically requires eating humans, which means that maybe during Dente's modifications he let Shouma loose in the human world to see if the surgeries worked/Shouma went a little wild and broke loose from containment, but nothing happened when Shouma ate a human aka Hanto's mum so the Stomachs dismissed the modifications as a failure, Dente suppressed Shouma's memories of the surgeries and the 'failed' minion experiment, and that's why Shouma can't remember anything from that time period that would add to his extensive list of reasons to hate myself -

[guardian-angle22]

911 lone star fashion -> every marjan outfit

↳ 4.12

[galaxythreads]

i'm locking everyone who writes about abusive parents and their kids (regardless of age) in a room until they can write a storyline that ends without

the abuse being explained away or not "actually having been abuse, they were trying to protect you or insert bs excuse here"

the abusive parent child reconciling

the child is somehow at fault for not having considered their parents emotions and catering to them. yknow. as a child.

"they just couldn't reach out to you the way you needed :( sorry. He'll do better now! it actually had nothing to do with you and all the years of your life you felt ignored and belittled actually all had to do with him, and better forgive and forget!

the child having to make up because their kids "deserve to have grandparents" (not these grandparents)

emotional abuse/neglect being treated as a lesser form of abuse because it didn't leave physical wounds

moms are somehow less accountable for abuse because she's a girl and all moms are magical beings who can't be abusive somehow. (this is false)

[bongo-clash]

This is a complete crack idea. However: dp/dc au where Danny is Alfred. He found out that he is 1) Immortal and 2) can shapeshift and he's just been randomising his customisation settings ever since. When he goes into butler work for the Waynes he decides to be as stereotypical as possible figuring it'll be really funny for the few years he works for them, and the bit is indeed Very Good- right up until their son gets orphaned. It's been 30 years and now the bit is just his life. 

[anglerflsh]

unspecified werewolves

[razzle-zazzle]

Ok tell us about imposter au bc 👀👀👀

OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THIS ONE.

Okay so. without looking through my old stuff for it. What can I remember off the top of my head.... there were clones, I know that, and the clone the story focused on, #424, mainly had an arc about realizing he's not Cole but Cole's clone and then having an existential crisis + becoming his own person.

And then I think the OG Cole destroyed the facility making the clones and then fucked off to be a hermit in the woods because.... OH YEAH he found a BABY in the rubble and needed to protect it! I can't recall if the baby was a clone of all the ninja or just some of them.... I think they were called Coffee though?

Man, some of my old AUs really were just. Whatever concepts I wanted. And I was so real for that kind of self-indulgence actually. I need to be sillier with it tbh

[sen-ya]

this week kicked my ASS did u know if it gets too hot out the New Jersey transit trains just stop working?? All I’ve been tryna do is type set 12 pages of life after this week and I have four left I will probably finish them today but know I am frustrated to have lost my train drawing time because I had to fist fight my way into the hell hole that is New York City

[velveteenpup]

realized i’ve been struggling so much lately because i’m trying to detach from good things in my life and it’s been mentally exhausting to force myself to stay in good situations and relationships

[specters]

big changes coming in the andrew specters lifeosphere transgenders transsexuals etc etc... i finally got set up with a consultation for top surgery!!!

[reitziluz]

the knight shirt

"it might end up too small, and i'll have to give it to someone else."

"maybe to me?"

nephew got his very own net shirt (without having to wait for my other project to fail), and it was dubbed a knight shirt!

considering i 1) used my own winged/in-progress pattern 2) didn't have basically any measurements, the fit ended up great! much more of a long tunic than intended, but honestly it just contributed to the knight look.

the fact he could pause tearing through the presents to put it on tells me he really liked it. couldn't get a better pic tho, because there were swords to open and test out. we'll see if i can get him to model it for me for more pics, but i probably won't post them here and just show them to friends.

i'm working on a similar shirt for myself from chunkier yarn. tragically lost one finished piece on the train. not too tragic tho, it doesn't take long to make.

[snekdood]

i hope those kids who beat up and killed that trans kid get their shit rocked.

[anyataylorjoys]

Weirdos will literally enter your dms just to argue with something you’ve said or tell you that they think you’re a dumb fuck or whatever. I realize some people haven’t matured to the point of understanding that not all disagreements require an energy investment. But then there's others who engage in this behavior because it's only about taking out their rage on a total stranger to boost their ego. If you have ever engaged with me this way, just know you tried (and failed) to make your issue with me my problem, at the end of the day it's still only your problem and I go to sleep unbothered. In my mind, you are literally the equivalent of a random person coming up to me in the street and yelling in my face, narcissistically expecting that I am to care about your opinion, or that I will be changing mine because you called me a "big dummy"… Who are you? Reclaiming my time.

[claudemblems]

OH MAN AM I GONNA HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO MY FUTURE THERAPIST THAT I WRITE FANFIC???????