#technically he’s not all the way dead

[alyakthedorklord]

Spare Parts (dp x dc prompt)

Warning for Fanon-typical vivisection.

The Bats have a new case where bodies keep having organs taken from them. This happens in morgues, to bodies found on the street, with absolutely nothing in common except for one thing.

The bodies with stolen organs all have little notes. Last words. Wills. Passwords to safes and bank accounts, sweet I love yous to spouses and kids. Some rather specific info from a body that was identified to be a gang member, which allowed the bats to catch the boss (who had betrayed the guy.)

Almost as if the ghosts are writing these notes.

And, well, they are dictating them. Phantom is the one writing them for the spirits, and in return, he’s taking body parts as payment.

He doesn’t care if a liver is past expiration date and therefore the living can’t use it as a transplant. A little ecto will fix it right up, and he can put it into his body, frozen in a fusion of his ice and clockworks time. He’s not fully dead. Just… split. That’s fine though.

He just needs to replace the parts that got ripped out of him in the vivisection.

[nelkcats]

Winter in Spring

Danny was not a spirit of the seasons, he didn't have any idea if those kinds of spirits existed out of movies, what he did know was that for some reason the flowers were behaving rather strangely in one particular dimension right at the beginning of spring. And although he certainly didn't want to affect the place he knew he had to investigate it.

From what it seemed: strange plants that glowed just like those born in the Infinite Realms were appearing in Gotham and coming to life on their own. At first he suspected Undergrowth but the Ancient was offended by the accusation and commented that he was too busy in his haunt to care about a random city. Which turned out to be true.

Then he thought that maybe it was fine: the bright flowers seemed harmless (although they were very very...alive?) and didn't hurt anyone. That was until a red-haired girl seemed to upset them and they started attacking everyone around them; unfortunately, because they were ghost flowers they could dodge attacks very easily and the "heroes" couldn't defend themselves.

So, with no other options Danny traveled to Gotham and well, to put it simply he became a fake winter spirit; what else was he supposed to do? He needed an alibi and to spread ice as quickly as possible. Telling Gothamites that winter was coming early because of him was the least of his problems.

What he didn't expect was that after turning the city into a wasteland of ice and snow (and saving them from the invasion of ghost flowers, you're welcome), some guys in bat suits would start following him around with questions. He also didn't expect one of them to stare at him and ask if he'd be back in winter, he wondered if faking his identity was a good idea.

[palossssssand]

grief paralysis

[littleliterarylesbian]

He's been warned about this sort of thing. Everyone has, nowadays. It's something a parent tells their child once they're old enough to understand.

Look both ways when you cross the street.

Stranger danger.

And that demons are of no good.

So of course when James wakes up in the middle of the night, the moonlight outside covered by clouds, with a weight on his lap his first, sleepy, delirious, thought was 'Oh. I didn't call my mum yesterday.'

It very quickly changed though. He wouldn't call himself a prude nor a whore. It's just that he's a man and he has needs, that's all. And the person on top of him, straddling his lap, seems to cater to each and every one.

Dark hair that curls around and frames sharp cheekbones, moles that litter pale skin, silver eyes that seem to glow in the dark, a thin waist emphasized with a black ribbon tied around it like it's a present just for him. Fuck.

But there's also the other things. A pair of horns, curling up over his head, small bat like wings, a tail that is curled over that pale hip- tip pointed and sharp and nails that matched on thin wrists and long fingers. It's so very obvious what this nightly visit would entail.

It's said that a visit by a succubus meant death, that those who survived always lost their minds trying to chase something that could replicate the pleasure that was given to them that night.

But, as his hands slide up smooth thighs and settle on the demon's waist, playing with the ribbon with his thumbs, James thinks he'd be fine. He'd survive. He won't be like the men that have undoubtedly come before him.

The beauty in his lap leans down, red lips ghosting James' jaw.

"Hello, darling." Accented words fill the air, quiet but proud and satisfied. A small nip to his skin comes right after. His skin feels tight and buzzing. Logically he should be pushing away, walking across the hall and getting in between Sirius and Remus but. No. It feels like a crime at this point, to do such a thing. He'll stay right here.

James grips tighter, a lazy smile stretching across his face.

"Hello, love."

Yeah. He'll live. He's sure of it.

[1driedpersimmon]

Hello Haurchefaunt, Bye Haurchefaunt

[wannabemylover]

rewatching the first episode of Hannibal and holy shit I forgot how good this is but it's actually insane that Brian fuller set up the ep like this, he introduces will and Hannibal by first briefly showing them at their core, at the darkest, most vile part of them---we get a glimpse behind the curtain---and then its gone, the curtain is snapped shut and we see their masks, their human suits.

Will empathizes with killers because he likes it, and he wants to kill but he refuses to give into the urge because he knows how much he'll like it and he won't be able to stop. So he lives vicariously through other killers, satisfying his own dark urge by feeding it little morsels of secondhand blood lust. Every crime scene he works gives the urge something that satisfies it, not enough for it to grow, but enough for it be sate. Enough that he can ignore it for long enough that he can walk around and be Professor Will Graham who is Weird, Brash, and Non-sociable.

And Hannibal is a cannibal at night and a psychiatrist by morning.

[i3utterflyeffect]

i think it'd be funny if SC actually slept a normal amount for a hollowhead and the other hollowheads are just so constantly stressed that they don't know what sleeping normally is like

[cabeswaterdrowned]

There’s more I could add but some of those things aren’t set in stone / could change and these I’m 100% committed to (I’m unsure of Who the lavender marriage drama happens between but there is definitely lavender marriage drama in the fic)

[sherlokiness]

Jon's shameful dream before RLJ reveal was to be Lord of Winterfell but he could never because he was a bastard. After RLJ reveal, he could still never be Lord of WF even if he's not a bastard bc he comes from the female line of Starks. I know of one way that could make this wish come true. Isn't this the case for Jonnel and Sansa?🤡🤡🤡 Sansa should have inherited but her claim got merged with Jonnel.

[thebongcloudopening]

i'm just saying that the likelihood all these cult members arthur keeps saving start a cult of their own for him is not zero

[mantisgodsdomain]

3,4,15 for any member of team snakemouth!

...how about all three?

(for this ask game)

3. Obscure headcanon

For Kabbu, though we may have noted this before, we think that the North is quite firmly considered a patch of Deadland - and its inhabitants, as a result, tend to be very, very strange from the perspective of the rest of the world. For Kabbu, specifically, this means a variety of things, both biologically and culturally - though Northern beetles are a lot more common in Bugaria, deadlands in general come with a very high rate of mutation and a very high rate of death, and that means a high rate of superstition both in things that actively impact survival and in things that do not - as well as the simple fact that a constantly-changing set of genetics means that what a northern beetle is like is often very, very open to change.

Kabbu is an example of a burrower - a subspecies of sorts primarily identified by claws designed, very specifically, for digging. His claws grow into a sort of broad shovel shape and tend to be much sturdier than an equivalent beetle's - getting underground in moments in soft ground isn't really an exaggeration! Though he can dig through harder ground, it takes time and effort, and he can't go at it with the sheer speed of softer soil - technically, he could burrow through solid rock given enough time, but it would be both hard and extremely painful. It's a trait that's heavily prized in the North for its ability to create shelter and safety - beetles dominate the North's underground, and there's nothing that can really pose a threat to them. Tunnels are safety, and it really surprises and disorients him when things underground attack him, because back home that just kind of doesn't happen unless it's Another Beetle specifically targeting you.

In terms of more social things, he has a lot of trouble getting used to the concept of mimics. This is mostly due to the fact that mimics as a whole don't really... exist in the north, at least not in the means of gaining benefit from mimicking anything else. If you can talk to them as any other awakened bug, they're usually exactly what they say they are, and species mimicking normal geological features and plants haven't found any success, unless you're willing to get extremely generous with describing the snow-bank camouflage of a Northern Silk Moth's topcoat.

Though sand wasps or "white bees" still exist, the thing they're mimicking no longer exists in the same area. Any Hive that once was in the North is long dead, overly-large groups of bugs tend to die out quickly thanks to the handful of large predators that may decide the benefits outweigh the consequences when enough tasty beetles gather in the same place, and when the enemy you're dealing with is both too heavily armoured to be really deterred by most weaponry and capable and intelligent enough to stalk your group through the snow until the cost outweighs the benefit of eating you... well, the sort of small groups generally sent to start a new colony of social bugs really don't stand a chance.

It is, occasionally, very hard to get used to the fact that southern silk moths only grow a few heads taller than him. He's used to them presenting a lot more of a threat.

For Leif... we think he's completely, 100% blind. His eyes are frozen over due to quirk of his biology - the thing about his integration that makes him a failure, specifically. With any of the Snakemouth cordyceps, they do not naturally transfer the immunity to their own magic that any other variety of mage would have, and so need to alter their hosts in order to get the appropriate biology across. With Leif, that protection is not sufficient to protect the host, much less to preserve valuable organs - eyes, especially, are fragile, after all. The cold he naturally generates exceeds the host adaptations he provides, resulting in, even beyond the blindness, unusually brittle chitin, extremely stiff and easy-to-damage tissue, organic food processing efficiency appropriate for a bug currently freezing to death...

Well, you get the idea. Functionally, if alive, a host body would be in a state of perpetual hypothermia, prone to breaking down over time and needing persistent repair that his strain of cordyceps cannot provide, as any repair he could offer that's not within his host's natural healing capabilities requires manually breaking down and reconstructing any parts, which... is inconvenient at best. As he is, he gets around most of these issues by simply replacing his host body's soft tissue with cordyceps, but that has its own issues, mainly in making him look and move incredibly uncanny. Injuries take a very long time to repair, relatively, though the less tissue damage is done the easier it is to fix - being cleanly sliced in two, for example, might be easier to handle than any sort of crushing damage. As far as his eyes go... eyes of any sort are delicate, and the slightest damage can permanently blind someone. Any of Snakemouth Den's cordyceps tend to go blind anyways as the fungus burrows into ocular nerves - if anything, this is better for hiding, since the frost over his eyeballs conceals any mycelium in the eyes themselves. In theory, it can be repaired... in practice, it would be far too much of a pain for work that will be undone the moment he overtaxes his ice magic again.

...also, he doesn't really care. Sight is not the most important sense a moth has and his scent and ability to sense pheromones is fine, along with a general sensitivity to things like vibrations in the air. More than fine, even, since he's now kind of hybridized with both Ant and Bee and the number of pheromones he's sensitive enough to sense has shot through the roof. This on top of the "magic sense" he has means he has absolutely no trouble getting around, though reading books requires more or less sticking an antenna or fungal tendril over them and parsing out where the ink is by scent and texture. He full-on didn't notice he was blind until after the cordyceps reveal.

For Vi, while this might be one we've mentioned before, we headcanon that she's got a bit of minor mutation throwing her antenna... maybe 2% more towards a non-social relative, which gears her just slightly more towards being able to detect "foreign" scents - predators, prey, and any pollen or nectar in the area. Unfortunately, this slight shift in what scents she's made to pick up comes with a reduced sensitivity to pheromones and pheromone communication within the hive, along with loss of the general innate understanding that an average bee would have of how she's meant to "fit in" to a structure that utterly cripples her communication and social life in the hive.

It's minor enough of a mutation that she's never been flagged - she's a mutation of a social bee, not a normal variant of a solitary - but she smells weird, and she doesn't pick up on pheromones quite enough, and the variation in signals she puts off means that she both fails the communication to get across what she might need and fumbles the communication conveyed back to her about what she should do. Subtle things build up over time, and within the Hive, the negatives far outweigh the benefits - the Hive is only built with bees that fit to a standard in mind, and even minor deviations can get you dragged far, far behind.

This is getting very long so, uhh. Here's a cut. Everything else is below it. We enjoy getting very long-winded. There's a lot in here.

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

Well, this one will depend on if it's "in general" or "by their standards". Putting any sort of objective moral judgement on just about anything is ridiculously difficult, especially with how values vary by culture or individual.

There is no such thing as objective worst, and we absolutely don't guarantee these would line up with your idea of worse, and so we'll offer two options here - what we believe they would think of first if posed with the question, and an alternative answer that would likely crop up.

For Kabbu, his own response would be easy - abandoning his teammates to The Beast. It haunts him to this day - really, what sort of beetle abandons their swarm to a fate like that? If he was a little faster, a little braver, a little less of a coward - but no. He abandoned those he was meant to care most for, and they died because of it.

For the other...

There are some things that are necessary, to survive somewhere as harsh as the Deadlands. Not everyone can be saved. Not everything can be helped. Not everyone can be taken in. Tradition and law is the heart and soul of the North - rules that everyone must comply to, if not for the sake of themselves, than for the sake of those they may interact with. To break a law, for any reason, is to be shunned by the community, most likely to your eventual death.

She broke a law. It could have been for understandable reasons, or not - it doesn't matter. She put the community at risk, and for that, she couldn't stay. She was put out in the cold, despite her pleading to the contrary. She was allowed to beg and plead and bang on the door, and yet, it meant nothing. The beast she would have lead to them caught up, eventually. He would still believe it was justified.

For Leif, his first response would be... exactly what you expect of him, really. The body he took without a care. The life he stole. He might vary on whether it's the action of stealing it or the lies he's told with that body, but the answer would be the same.

For the one he wouldn't think of... He could have spoken up. He didn't. He met their eye, slated for execution on crimes that he could parlay them on if he implicated himself, and he said nothing.

The look on their face still haunts him sometimes. It hurts more now that he's two, rather than one. It's what was needed to protect his family.

For Vi... a fault in a machine. The instructions were boring, and confusing, and hard to read. She tried to do whatever she thought might work, instead of following the manual. There was an injury. Then another one. It was her fault, really, for rigging it wrong, but she was tired and angry and she argued instead of just sucking it up and fixing it when confronted on it, and it went unfixed for days more. A minor fault can very well lead to deaths, and though this one didn't, it came close - one more inch, a slightly looser bolt, and it would have cracked a bug's shell clean open. It's a miracle it turned out as well as it did. It's a miracle that no one connected it to her enough, even when it was fixed. Someone else was punished, and she was old enough to know not to step forward - she's not stupid, after all.

The guilt still haunts her. The "what-if". The possibility of it. If someone died of her own stupid negligence, if she made someone else take the fall - she would let them, really, her sense of self-preservation isn't that bad, but she's not sure she could live with it after.

With the one she wouldn't think of personally... considering the background she's got, the journey to the Ant Kingdom, and the fact that it's already stated she took jobs before canon? We think there's a fairly good chance that Vi's off jobs got... shady. It's not like she has much in the way of morals when it comes to money, and "will do just about anything for enough cash" is a decent market. If you're willing to forsake your morals, you can get more money than your heart desires - at the cost of just a bit of risk, at that!

She doesn't think about it, really. It wasn't something she needed to think about. They were threatening her, they were a risk to her team, they were the price she had to pay to eat, the specifics of what happened don't matter much at this point. Put in the position again, would she choose their life, or hers? It doesn't matter. They're dead, anyways. She should know. She was the one to take the payment for it.

4. Favorite line?

We're copy-pasting these straight from the game! These Direct Quotes are all sourced from @aquilamage's Bug Fables Transcript project, which we highly recommend checking out! It's an excellent resource for double-checking dialogue without having to replay the game first, and a repository for just about all the dialogue in the game (provided it wasn't taken out by previous patches, of course).

We will be honest: there's a lot of dialogue in this game. This might not be our absolute favorites, as a result of a general poor memory as well as Too Much Game. Also, we have blatant favoritism towards Vi in all ways. Most of these are favorite interactions, rather than anything else, so...

For Leif:

Kabbu: Leif. If you need to take a break, let us know. Vi will carry you. Vi: That is not happening. Leif: Oh, the fatigue, it kicks in... Vi: I said it's not happening!

...and for Vi, we're fond of this dialogue, specifically because the first time we encountered it we misread "exploring" as "exploding".

Leif: Science looks like a lot of hard work. Vi: It's like uh...the thinking version of exploring!

But of course, our favorite Vi Dialogue as well as our personal favorite dialogue in the game in general would be the Bee Guard overworld spy.

Leif: Vi, you're the only Bee explorer, right? Vi: Huh? Uh, yeah! That I know of... Leif: We've been thinking it's a bit weird, to see so many Bee guards, but only one explorer... Vi: Look, they're not guards because they want to or anything, okay? Vi: They were born to be guards, so they guard. That's it. Kabbu: That's a bit somber... Vi: ...That's just how the Hive is sometimes.

"I'm allergic to bouncers" is a close second, of course. In terms of story implications, we pull on her Jaune interactions and especially the point just after getting kicked out of the studio for the first time during Jaune's request, but that's... it's less we "like" it, per se, and more that the implications are fun to toy with. In terms of the actual dialogue, it just... makes us feel sad. Sad, [], and maybe a bit angry on her behalf. We've been there more than we care to admit, after all.

We... wouldn't wish something similar on anyone. And no matter how good the good gets with Jaune, it still can't really outweigh the fact that the bad starts ticking boxes about emotional abuse in a way that makes relationships like Mothiva & Zasp that more people are willing to try and call out pale in comparison. We probably need to finish that essay some time...

Anyways, we like it when Kabbu gets mad enough to yell at people.

Kabbu: This is ridiculous! You realize you could be dooming us all!? Kabbu: What if the Termite King loses trust in the Queen!? Kabbu: What if you lose to the Wasp King without our help!? Kabbu: Have you gone completely, utterly insane!? Have you lost all intelligence! Mothiva: Yikes. You're overthinking this WAY too much. Mothiva: The Ant Kingdom's way better in our hands than with you LOSERS. Kabbu: We have SAVED YOUR LIFE BEFORE, you WITCH!

[chibishortdeath]

I think about this artwork of Christopher doing a spooky smile and the fact that the boss theme from The Adventure is called “Kill! Kill! Kill!” sometimes. I know his games don’t really give him a whole lot of characterization, but man I’m taking this as a character trait now lol. Serious, wholesome Mr. Dad Belmont himself can be a little sadistic if he wants to, like his job as a vampire hunter a little too much maybe—

Belmonts are allowed to be a little scary sometimes I think :3

[curiosity-killed]

the parallels aren't actually there but there is always a part of me that wants to make sirion + callebero more orphesus and eurydice-esque

[thevioletscout]

A burial on Hallowmas

You scream yourself hoarse. The noise is deafening. Nobody comes. Nobody can hear you.

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

So Hallowmas is coming to a close, and I'm going to have to get used to actually managing my menaces again. Before the event is over, I thought I would make the most of it. You see, the Moth mask and the Weary Wayfinder companion add some buffs to your shadowy skill, and paired with a parabolan suit I saved up for that would make getting into the orphanage super easy.

So yeah, Poor Edward caught me and buried me alive.

Now admittedly, I kinda got caught on purpose. It was actually because I liked the idea of Emery being buried in her Hallowmas costume, helpless as the festivities go on above them. But I was right that the buffs would help because I returned to the orphanage mere hours later and while I narrowly got caught again, I managed to escape with Clarabelle. Emery started a riot too.

Honestly, kinda wonder if I would have made it without getting caught if I just chose not to help that one prisoner.

[abyssalpriest]

Lev really is one of those grandpas you find out was involved in hardcore war shit and a bunch of serious high ranking jobs when he was younger and you just cannot believe it's the same person

[graham--folger]

okay the thing about alien 3 is it's so grimdark in comparison to the other two. there's no real sense of hope. ripley's convinced she has to die. all the prisoners have no way out and their best possible ending is in taking the alien with them. just thinking back to alien 1979 and how even though nearly everyone was dying there was still a chance for ripley (and jonesy) to escape and get a "happy ending". in aliens there was a chance of ripley surviving alongside hicks and newt. but alien 3 erased that possibility and took all the hope with it. idk it just feels so resoundingly hopeless even though ripley "wins" by killing herself and the alien with her. but even then we know that wasn't successful either because of alien resurrection. it's just kind of funny how they like to totally throw away the previous movie plot for the sake of a reboot but in doing so thematically butcher the franchise