#that's just the Bible guys

[queenlucythevaliant]

Her True Name

A Retelling of "That Dear Name," a Russian folk tale. Written for the @inklings-challenge Four Loves Fairytale event.

Note: I’m retelling this story based on the version by Pavel Bazhov in his beautiful book The Malachite Casket, which I happened to pick up at a used bookstore a few years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t find that or any other version anywhere online (it’s apparently way more obscure than I realized??), but the Wikipedia page for the original tale is here. 

 -

This is a fairy-tale, but it did not happen once upon a time. This fairy-tale happened in 1586.

It happened four years after Yermak Timofeyevich and his five-hundred-forty Cossacks rode against Kuchum Khan and the Six Tatar Princes in 1582 and turned their bones to water on the banks of the Irtysh River. 

It happened two years after Yermak drowned in a different river, pulled down by the silver shirt of chain-mail that Tsar Ivan had given him as a gift. The Tatar Princes divided his armor up, it is said, but his body they buried with due honor. That was in 1584. 

Two years after the Cossacks were left without their great leader, this fairy-tale happened. It began in Siberia in 1586. It is still happening today.

In those days, in a high and lonesome place in the Ural Mountains, there was a village whose streets were paved with gold. To the heroine of this tale, whom we will call Lidik, this never seemed extraordinary in the slightest

Lidik’s people were neither Russian nor Tatar nor Vogul nor Ostyak nor any other group that you may have heard of; they were an Old People who had lived in isolation for a thousand years, so that they neither knew nor cared about the world beyond their village. 

Yet this land on which this Old People lived was the kind of place in which people often find gold. Flecks of gold were scattered through the sand of the streets. Larger nuggets laid about like ordinary stones: the men hunted with lumps of gold in their slingshots and the women pounded the washing against gold-veined rocks by the river. Children played with golden baubles and no one thought anything of it. Try to imagine what Lidik’s world was like: to her, gold seemed as common as steel is to you and me.  

High in the Urals, these people lived and worked not in wooden buildings but in caves that their ancestors must have dug out of the rock. The largest of these was beneath Azov Hill: so large it was that even when lit with a hundred torches, a man standing at the entrance could not see full to the back. In the old days, the village would gather there for meetings and dances, weddings and funerals.

Now, the cave beneath Azov Hill is full of secret things. These secrets, and Lidik’s role in them, are the subject of this fairy-tale.  

Lidik was the second child and the first daughter of the chief elder. Brave she was, and resolute; yet she was also kind and vivacious. She sang like a bird, and she laughed and wept with equal vigor. In the year in which our story takes place, Lidik played with the village children and sang round the cookfire with the other women. At festivals, she was the first to leap to her feet for a dance, and then all the young men of the village would line up to be her partner, and the old women would shake their heads and say, “Ah, to be young again.” 

The Old People loved Lidik very much. 

In those days, the world was growing smaller and people began coming to this remote village in the Urals from distant lands. First, the Tatars rode by on new trade routes, but they took little note of the village and did not linger. No, it was not until the Cossacks came that the trouble really began. Without knowing it, Lidik’s village had been annexed by Russia and now the Cossacks had come to tell them.

These Cossacks were not evil men; I want that understood. There are no evil sorcerers or black knights in this fairy-tale. No, these were men who had once lived free in a land of their own, the same as our villagers. Yet they had sold themselves into the service of the Tsar and were under his orders to tame the Siberian wastes. Once Yermak Timofeyevich was drowned in his silver shirt, his soldiers did as they liked for themselves.  

As I have said, the Old People hunted with slingshots, but the Cossacks had muskets. When a scout returned to camp with reports of a village whose streets were paved with gold, greed bloomed in the Cossacks’ hearts and at once they decided that they would ride against the Old People, put them to death, and carry away all their gold.

Yet the Cossacks were not all of like mind. As plans were being drawn up for the attack on the village, one man – a lad called Stepan Vasilyevich —heard what they were planning and his heart recoiled against it. Stepan hated what had become of the Cossacks in Siberia since Yermack’s death (in the river, weighed down by the Tsar’s gift). What's more, Stepan Vasileyevich loved the Old People, though he had never met them. Thus, he made up his mind to go to his commanders in protest, though he feared they would not heed him.

“Have you no shame?” Stepan asked with a heavy heart. “Before, we attacked other soldiers who had weapons and fortifications. Then, we stripped merchants of their wares unprovoked.  Now you mean to rob these folks of their last and put them to death for it? I say again, we are soldiers, not bandits. These people have not harmed us and may not even know of us; let us leave them in peace.”

Yet Stepan’s fears proved true: the other men heeded him not. Instead, one of them stabbed him in the belly with his saber and they left him in the forest to die.

But the wound they gave him was a seeping wound, not a bleeding wound, and so Stepan did not die quickly. Instead, he staggered deeper into the wood in the hope of reaching the village of the gold streets. He knew the way the Cossacks meant to take and he followed it. “For,” he reasoned, “if I can find these people before I die, perhaps I can warn them of the attack.”

Here, at last, the maid Lidik enters our tale.

She was fond of walking the tree line as evening fell, you see. Even in winter when all was dark, she would stroll along the place where forest met stone after supper, singing softly to herself and nodding to any friend she happened to pass. One night, she was doing just this when she heard a noise in the distance. It was like the cry of a man’s voice, and in Lidik’s heart it stirred curiosity and compassion in equal measure. She ventured into the forest to find the source of the sound.

There, tangled in the underbrush, she saw the form of a strange man (who we know to be Stepan) lying where he had fallen when he at last could go no further. He was half-conscious and bloodied, but he cried out again and again though his eyes were closed. He was dressed in clothing that seemed to come out of another world and he bore weapons that Lidik did not recognize. Instinctively, she drew back in fright.  

But Lidik was brave and her compassion won out. Moments later, she bent and inspected the man till she found his wound. She bound it with cloth from her garment, carried him to her father’s cave, and there began to tend him.

All the while, the strange man went on crying out, but because she could not speak his language, Lidik did not know what he was saying. She thought his words must be exclamations of pain.

In fact, Stepan was warning her of the coming attack with his every breath. Yet after a time, his breaths ran out and he lapsed into sleep.

When he woke, Stepan found himself surrounded by strange people, and the woman who had found him the evening before was among them. A man – who seemed to be the woman’s father– spoke an unfamiliar language, and Stepan could not understand him.

Yet as it happened, Stepan knew Tatar and some of the Old People, who remembered when the traders had ridden past, knew a small bit as well. Thus, in snatches of Tatar and with gestures to fill in the gaps, Stepan issued his warning.

The chief elder thought for a long time before replying. “The mountains – too treacherous – winter,” he said. “Men survive—children perish. We remain.”

“My people do not know I am here. You attack from your caves when they come–turn them back for a while,” Stepan managed to say. “Soon it will grow colder.”

As her father and brother went to confer with the elders, Lidik remained by the strange man’s side as though bound to him. For three days, she sat at his bedside and fed him meat, honey, and vegetables. As she tended to his wound, she often sang softly in her own tongue. In broken Tatar, she whispered “thank you” again and again. “Thank you. Thank you for coming here. Thank you.” Lidik loved her people very much, you see.

Meanwhile, the Old People set a rotating lookout atop Azov Hill. Day and night, they watched the woods with vigilance, prepared to light a beacon fire if any disturbance came from the forest. 

As they spent their days together, Lidik and her stranger slowly began to speak. Their talk was some Russian, some Tatar, some the tongue of the Old People, a little Balachka, and much laughter. They bandied words back and forth in four languages and made up the deficit with gestures and looks and more than a little patience.

"I come from a place by the sea— a great body of water, yes?” Stepan said Russian. “A long journey south and west of here. My people are called Cossacks. Free men.” He gestured to himself, then west towards the setting sun. 

Lidik repeated his words in Russian. "You are Stepan. You come from the sea. You are Cossack. From south and west.” Then, in the Old Tongue, she added, "It must be very far south, I think. You look like a man who sees a great deal of sun."

In the Old Tongue, Stepan replied, "Home is many weeks away by horse. It is very beautiful." 

Then, because she still had not told him, he asked, “What is your name, lady?”

After a long pause, she replied in the Old Tongue. “You may call me Lidik, though it is not my name.”

Puzzled, Stepan repeated the question in Tatar. “Do you know what I mean, ‘name’?” 

“It is how you are truly known, yes? Lidik is what I am called, but it is not my name.”

Are you surprised, Dear Reader?

Among the Old People, names were sacred things. Only Lidik’s father and mother knew her true name. When she married, she would give it to her husband: she would whisper it in his ear after their hands were fastened, or perhaps later she would gasp it to him when they came together. All of this, she explained to Stepan with no small amount of stammering and blushing.

“Only those who gave me life and the one to whom I am joined in the flesh can ever know me truly,” she concluded. “Is it not so with you?”

“No,” said Stepan. "My people shorten the names of those we love. My family called me Stiva. Yet for us, names are not a matter for blushing." 

This only made Lidik blush all the more fiercely. "You are a stranger. Ordinarily, I would not need to explain such things."

The attack came at dawn on the fifth day, but the Old People were ready; they ambushed the Cossacks from their caves as the soldiers emerged from the wood. Since it was a dense wood, the Cossacks were not mounted, and the caves proved to be good fortresses. Thus, the Old People managed to turn the Cossacks away with nuggets of gold from their slingshots. Yet they knew that this was only a temporary reprieve.

When the Old People returned victorious from their battle with the Cossacks, they came again to confer with Stepan. Then, with Lidik’s aid, he told them why the Cossacks had come and why they would return.

“All the gold you have—the yellow metal, yellow stone–that is the cause of all this,” said Stepan in Russian, pointing to a gold trinket that sat nearby on his bedside table.  

“What of it?” asked Lidik, with an exaggerated shrug for emphasis.

“My people come for it. They will kill you to possess it. They will never let you be.”

Lidik conferred with her father in brief, then mimed giving something to Stepan. “They can have it.”

“No. You must hide it from them. When the winter ends, word will have reached the Tsar that there is gold here and then you will have no life worth living.”

The elders again conferred. “What would you have us do?” Lidik asked in Russian.

“You must take these stones, all these yellow ones, yes and every golden trinket and bauble that you have, and put them out of sight. Cover the flecks in the sand with earth. Then depart for another place. Perhaps, if you do this, your children may someday return to live here.”

And Lidik told her father all that Stepan had said.

So it was that the Old People spent the rest of the winter moving all the gold they could into the cave beneath Azov Hill so that it was all out of sight. They covered their golden streets with black earth from which grass might grow. Then, they made preparations to abandon the village for another place when spring arrived.

All this time, Lidik continued to care for Stepan, but she was not alone in doing so. One of the guards often took it upon himself to carry Stepan to Azov Hill where he could sit with the lookout in the fresh air. "Good for the blood," he would say in faltering Tatar. 

A neighbor woman made Stepan a gift of her thickest bearskin blanket. "My son is lame," she told him. "He cannot run. If we had been attacked without warning, my dear boy surely would have died." 

The village’s healer looked in every day. She brought herbs and salves and even rich foods from her own larder. Yet for all her ministrations, Stepan’s wound continued to seep.

When at last, the day came for the Old People to leave their village (whose streets were no longer paved with gold), Lidik’s father issued instructions for Stepan to be counted a member of his own household. Stepan only shook his head.

“Death is close to me,” he said in Russian, looking to Lidik to translate. “I will not survive the journey. You must leave me here.”

Lidik turned back to her father. “He says that he is dying and will not leave this place.”

"But for you we may all have died. I will not allow you to be left behind alone. As chief elder, I forbid it." 

Yet when she heard this, Lidik did not speak again for a long moment. She knew that Stepan spoke true when he said that he would not survive the journey; she had changed his bandages for more than three months and knew that he had healed very little. 

Yet equally, Lidik knew that her father spoke true when he said the Old People would not abandon Stepan to die alone. They loved him too well, and for that they would joyfully waste precious time and resources on a man they could not save. This, she must not allow them to do. 

“He will not be alone," Lidik said in the Old Tongue. In Tatar: "I will stay with him." Then finally, she turned back to Stepan and in Balachka, she repeated, "I will stay."

Didn't I tell you that Lidik loved her people? Didn't I say she was brave?

"What do you mean?" demanded her brother. "This man is not your husband. What is he to you that you should leave your people to be with him?"

"He is the man who staggered injured through the forest for love of our people, though he knew us not. I will not forsake him,” Lidik answered. 

So it was that when the Old People left their village behind, neither the Cossack Stepan Vasilyevich nor the maid called Lidik was among them.

“Well then,” Stepan finally said once all the Old People were gone. “I still say you ought to have left with your kin—but all the same, I am grateful not to be alone.” Then, in Tatar, he whispered, “thank you.”

Together, Lidik and the dying man retreated into the cave beneath Azov Hill and she laid him among the piles of gold. They were terrible to behold: golden stones and nuggets and all manner of trinkets heaped like coal all throughout the enormous cavern. When the early spring light pierced the darkness, they shone like a thousand little suns.

They waited. Stepan slept a great deal, and when he woke Lidik gave him meals of dried meats and honey. She sang softly, both to comfort her companion and to occupy her own mind. But when at last she heard the sound of horses in the distance, Lidik got up and sealed the door.

Then, as the darkness settled over them, Stepan knew that his hour had come; but he wished to leave Lidik some hope. He did not have the words in any language she would understand to express what he really meant, so this is what he told her:

“Hear me, Lidik. A day will come in this land when there are no more Tsars or soldiers and even their names shall be forgotten. People will come here from all over and they shall not kill or steal, and one of them will call out your name—your true name—from beyond the cavern door. On that day—not before and not after, you understand?—you must go out to him with a brave, merry heart and take him as your husband. And when that day comes, let any man who wishes it take the gold, if they have use for it.”

In the Old Tongue, Lidik answered: “How will this man know my name if I have not given it to him?”

“You and I have loved each other a little, have we not? I warned you of the attack, though it costs me my life; you have stayed with me, though it costs you yours. Yet the man who is your true husband has loved us a hundred times more. He knows your name and mine, dear one. I promise.”

"Then I will do as you ask."

"Good," he said in Balachka. "I pray the wait will not be too long." 

With those words, Stepan fell asleep, there in the cave beneath Azov Hill surrounded by piles of gold. 

His body cooled, and yet it did not decay. And what’s more, by some magic the woman called Lidik did not die or even age as the years wore on. She remained forever young and vivacious, alive in her cavern of treasure with Stepan's body beside her. 

See? I told you this was a fairy-tale.

From that time, no one could enter the cavern beneath Azov Hill, though they tried in every way. Gold is a powerful incentive. Soldiers came with cannons, but the door did not yield to them. They bore into it with shafts and hammers. They tried dynamite and buried charges of black powder. In the ‘60s they fired at it with missiles, but even that was no good. The door holds; no one can gain entrance by force. 

Yet there is an even greater hope for laying hold of all that gold, piled like coal in the keeping of a maid who does not age.  

Over the centuries, crowds of people have come to stand by Azov Hill. They shout all manner of words. “Azovka!” some cry, “Lapochka!” Others call out every female name they can think of, "Natasha!" "Anna!" “Soo Lin!” "Jenny!" Still others shout gibberish until they lose their minds with it; until they forget what words are and babble only nonsense till they die. Each man hopes to happen upon the lady Lidik’s true name so that she will open the door to him. To this day, none have ever succeeded.

Yet I can assure you that the lady called Lidik lives still. You can hear her singing if ever you come to Azov Hill. When the serfs were freed, some said she sang for joy, and likewise some claim that her songs turned melancholy when the Iron Curtain descended. Others will tell you that her song never changes: grief and hope are blended in her songs, and so it has always been.

That was how it seemed to me on the day I stood before Azov Hill and listened to the sweet voice that seemed to come from the very heart of the mountain itself. I did not try to guess Lidik’s true name; there is only one who can know it. Instead, I simply called to her in my own language. I told her this: “I’m waiting too.”

[answermywearyquery]

great 😳 + dr. tyme's large equipment 😏

[spicyvampire]

Hate /heɪt/ verb -> Enduring anger focused on a particular person or group of persons. Over time hatred may generate the personality trait of hostility. Surprise /sɚˈpraɪz/ noun -> The briefest emotion, surprise is triggered by the sudden occurrence of an unexpected event. It is often a way station that leads, after more appraisal, to any of the other emotions. Fondness  /ˈfɑnd·nəs/ noun -> A liking. Guilt /ɡɪlt/ noun -> Regret about a past action [...], a feeling of worry or unhappiness that you have because you have done something wrong, such as causing harm to another person.

Atlas of emotions + Cambridge dictionary

4MINUTES (2024) EP. 6

[dudethatsmyundeaduncle]

Danny’s parents want to kill him and he’s like “f in the chat y’all dinner boutta be so awkward tonight smh”

Ok so I know everyone loves the angsty headcannons where Danny is terrified of his parents cuz they wanna kill him but we’ve had that hot take since 2005 I’m here for a source material revival, the much more entertaining “Danny’s parents want to kill him and he actively doesn’t give a fuck”

CUZ UH, IM REWATCHING THE FIRST SEASON AND I FORGOT HOW GENUINELY BLASÉ HE IS ABOUT MADDIE AND JACK TRYING TO GET HIS ASS ITS SO FUNNY.

Like mom holding a literal ghost gun to his head: eh kinda unphased he even has time to quip, his parents say they wanna tear em to pieces: meh see u guys at dinner, LIKE OUR GUY IS SO UNPHASED HE THINKS THIS SHIT IS FUNNY! (s1 ep. 14 public enemy)

And he’s unphased despite knowing his parents tech works and knowing that his mother is actually a good shot. So like I love angst Danny and y’all should keep up the good work but where is my s1 Danny ‘COULDN’T give less of a fuck about his parents’ Fenton representation?

Cuz think of this, for your DPXDC AU consideration, Danny would fit in so well with the bat gang if only because they could try to stab, shoot, capture, brainwash, and stalk him and he’d be like “oh cool villain of the week shit? Nice, what’re we having for lunch.” He. Wouldn’t. Flinch.

[ohbo-ohno]

merry christmas @luminousbeings-crudematter, here's the ghoap x reader purge au! (a week and a half after you posted about it... im so sorry)

5.7k, mind the tags <3

cw: ROUGH NONCONSENUAL SEX in all caps, pwp, under-prepared/painful anal sex, some pretty intense fear stuff, people covered in blood and referenced violence (it's a purge au lol)

Your hands tremble where they’re tucked close to your chest, blood sticky and thick between each finger. You feel coated in it, like someone has taken a brush and gone over every inch of your skin, painted you in red.

It’s in your mouth. You can feel the warmth of it on your tongue, the taste of iron sickening. You tell yourself that maybe you bit your tongue, that it’s not really your ex Phil’s blood coating your teeth.

Your thin pajamas are hardly any protection against the chill of the night air, less so with how soaked they are. The stench of piss is heavy in the air, a mixture of yours and his, but you don’t have time to go back inside and change.

You’re running on pure instinct, an animal urge deep in your mind insisting you run. You’d always thought you’d have more of a flight instinct than fight. Despite how you feel now, how your legs itch to carry you as far away as possible, the cooling corpse left behind tells you the truth. 

You stumble into the wall, a wave of nausea knocking you off balance. There’s a trail of red left behind as you use one hand to balance yourself, the other held protectively over your heart. 

Your security system - cheap, but usually enough to let you sleep through the Purge - is completely destroyed. There’s no chance of it protecting you, and the bust in windows will let anyone on the streets see your vulnerability. You’ll never feel safe there, and you can’t shake the need to run.

There’s no chance of any of your neighbors helping you. There’s some neighborly camaraderie between your floor-mates, but that all disappears on Purge night. It’s every man for himself, every year, without fail. You know that. You even think the same as them, pretend no one else exists when that siren goes off every year. 

But now, shaking and terrified, you wish you could knock on a door and see it open. Hear the security system disengage and see a familiar face, beg for help and thank them on your knees.

It’s a nice fantasy. Reality is less kind, seeing you shake with a dawning chill as you manage to shoulder open the door to the stairwell, cringing when it slams behind you.

The cold cement is rough on your feet, and a distant part of yourself worries about slipping - your feet are slick with blood, and you can hear yourself leaving a trail of footsteps. You don’t try to slow down, holding tight to the metal railing and shuffling down the stairs.

You’re halfway down the first of four flights when the door on the next floor opens, a large figure stepping into the stairwell. Your stumble to a stop before you even register that you’re not alone anymore, and you’re backpedaling before you even fully realize.

He’s big, his face covered in a red skull mask. From your vantage point you can see his hair is shaved into a mohawk, and he’s shirtless with only a pair of gray sweatpants on.

He’s drenched in blood. Even more than you, and you feel like you’re drowning in it. If you’re painted in blood, someone took a bucket and dumped it on this man. You can hardly see any unmarked skin, and you wonder for a split-second if the skull was once white.

There’s an audible grin in his voice when he calls up to you. “Look’it you, bonnie thing. You tryin’ to run?” He steps to the side, leaving a wide open space for you to pass him to the next staircase. You’re frozen where you’re leant against the railing, hardly able to breathe. “C’mon, give it a shot.” 

You listen, scrabbling further back and all but throwing yourself up the stairs on all fours. You’re only the need to get away, an innate fear that tells you to get as far from the blood-soaked man as quickly as possible. You swear you hear him laugh as you launch yourself up the next flight, panting already.

There’s no safety found in going up though, as hardly two flights later you’re tugged to a stop by your instincts alone.

Standing above you, hardly six feet away and blocking the door he must’ve just come from, is another giant. This one fully clothed and with a white skull mask, somehow bigger and more intimidating than the man you can hear coming up the stairs behind you. You can’t see even an inch of skin, black gloves on his hands and mean black combat boots reaching nearly his knees.

There’s a moment, before the chase ends, where you contemplate jumping over the railing. There’s no going up, there’s no going back, and you can’t even begin to imagine what these two men want with you. The only thing that keeps you from throwing yourself over is the fear that you wouldn’t die on impact, that you’d be left injured and even more vulnerable to these men.

You’re not sure you could’ve tried that plan had you even wanted to, because the moment it forms fully in your mind a pair of thick arms wraps around you, and a heavy weight forces you to the ground.

You cry out at the sudden shove, palms scraped raw against the cement. The man behind you covers your body completely - his knees bracket yours, his hands rest on either side of your head, and there’s no part of the back of you that isn’t cloaked in him.

He doesn’t say anything as he ruts against you, the blood from his chest soaking through your tank top and making you cringe further away. You can’t stop the quiet stream of whimpers as you try to shrink into the stairs, try to get away from the beast behind you. He doesn’t care, only drops more of his weight onto you and pantomines fucking you.

You can feel the outline of his cock through his pants, as thin as the clothes both of you are wearing are. If you weren’t wearing your shorts, if he tugged the waistband of his pants down, he’d be inside of you.

The thought makes you tear up, makes you want to slam your head back and try to knee him in the balls, makes you want to fight.

But all your fight is gone. It died with Phil and your security system, and you’re left only with a weight in your bones that makes you wish you could sink through the floor. 

The hard plastic of the skull mask presses to the sensitive skin of your cheek, biting into the fat there. You can see the gleam of bright blue eyes in the sockets, the creases at the edges that tell you he’s smiling.

“You gonna fuck her here for the first time?” The white skull asks, voice deep enough that you hardly register the words. Your eyes are jerked to his form and it makes you shiver to see him sitting on the top of the staircase you’re pinned to, legs spread wide as he stares down at you with a cigarette between lips exposed by the tilted mask. You feel like a sacrifice, thrown to the stairs of a temple for a god.

“Can I?” The man over your shoulder pants, accent roughened from his own movements. You can’t tell if the wetness between your thighs is piss, blood, or an even worse option. You bite your tongue to hold back a whine, wince at the burst of iron in your mouth.

The man above you tilts his head, smoking blown into the air. “You fuck her here, you won’t get to go again on the roof. Don’t need you gettin’ spoiled.”

Your nails dig into the concrete, folding beneath the pressure as you shake beneath the red skulled man. He whines over you, like a petulant kid being told no for the first time, but goes still against you. That alone has you blinking open damp eyelashes, watching him from the corner of your eyes.

“Alright, I’ll wait,” he pants, chin resting on your soldier. “Give ye some time to get ready, huh lass? It’ll be easier for ye then. Just think about what we’ll do to ye, how good it’ll feel to get properly fucked, yeah?”

You sob when he grinds one final time against you, your hips pushed into the harsh edge of the stairs. 

He’s dragging you up after that, hardly letting either of you stand fully before shoving you up the stairs. You can’t catch your balance and let out a small cry as you fall back to your knees, mouth twisting in pain at the unforgiving surface against your naked knees.

You flinch when a gloved hand grasps your chin, tugging up until you’re forced to look towards the white skull above you.

You’ve landed between his feet, a boot on either side of your body, and if you’d moved forward even another half foot, you’d have face planted into his lap. 

Your heart skips a beat when you realize you’re making eye contact with him. The dark brown of his pupils blends almost seamlessly with what must be black paint smeared around his eye sockets, and the only reason you even realize you’re locked in a staring contest is the way the light reflects off the whites of his eyes.

You don’t have time to try and move away from him on your own (or, more accurately, to throw yourself backwards and pray you didn’t break something falling down the stairs) before a pair of bare hands are shoving you up from beneath the armpits, making you almost squeal as you jerk in the direction you’re forced.

“Up, c’mon,” red skull grunts, hands flitting from one part of your exposed skin to the next as he herds you upstairs. “Need to get inside ye, kitty, fuckin’ walk.”

You sob as you stumble up the stairs, the top of your foot scraping painfully against the concrete. You glance over your shoulder just in time to see White stand to follow you two, but you’re nearly sent sprawling again when Red only shoves you all the more harshly.

“Pl-please,” you manage to gasp, shoulder roughly bouncing off the wall. A glance up tells you you’re two full flights away from the rooftop. “Please, I don’t know what you want, b-but…” You can hardly talk around the sobs floating in your throat, choking you. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”

Red groans as he tugs you nearly off balance, the sound echoing off the walls and full of what you can only describe as hunger.

“Fuck, haven’t even gotten ye naked yet ‘n yer already beggin. Knew ye’d be perfect for us.”

You can hardly see through the tears in your eyes, the rest of the trip up to the roof all gray with streaks of red and black. You can’t focus enough to try and get away again, can’t get enough of your panic under control to fucking think.

The red skull catches you when you almost go careening over the rails, one broad hand catching you by the chest and gripping.

He groans, you flinch. “Fuck, cannae wait to get my mouth on these.” He pinches with his whole hand, your breast going sharp with pain on every fingertip. You whine, flinching further against his chest and trying to shrink away.

“Keep movin’, Soap.”

“Aye,” Red - Soap - pants, and you can practically hear the saliva gathered in his mouth when he swallows. “C’mon, kitty, only a little further.”

The blood on your hands has dried by the time White is shouldering open the door to the roof, your hands itching and the red flaking away every time your fingers twitch. The night air is a cold shock, just jarring enough to tug some reason back into your brain.

Soap doesn’t stop his herding until you’re far enough from the door for his partner to block it with an old metal chair, the back tucked under the door handle. You tuck your hands beneath your arms, shoulders curled in in an attempt to preserve warmth.

You wouldn’t have expected the night to be so cold. Half of the street is burning - flames painting the sky, giving you the exact opposite impression of the biting chill you feel. There are dozens of people in the streets, carrying guns and axes and chainsaws and all sorts of other weapons you can’t see. You feel bile rise in your throat when you realize the dark pools reflecting flames in the street are blood, not water.

“Fuckin’ finally,” Soap grumbles, and you don’t have any time to think before his mouth is pressed forcefully against yours, tongue shoving at your lips.

Your eyes are wide open, unlike his, and you make a shocked sound high in your throat at the sight of his maskless face. You can’t really see what he looks like with the way he’s pressed against you, but it’s a shock nonetheless.

You keep your lips pressed tightly together, no matter how much his tongue prods and tries to force its way into your mouth. You feel more than hear him laugh against you after a few long seconds, and one of his massive paws comes up to cradle your jaw pointer finger against your temple and thumb under your chin.

He stops trying to force himself between your lips after almost a minute, instead shifting to just… licking your lips. His tongue paints wide across your mouth, soaking you in his saliva. He’s almost scarily determined in the way he accosts you, his grip tight on your face as his other hand shifts to bruise your hip, covering what feels like the entire bottom-half of your face in his spit. You can’t help but grimace, trying to pull away from him, but he’s pressed too close.

“Can’t fuckin’ wait to be in ye,” he pants, breath warm and wet against your cheeks. “I know yer gonna squeeze me just right, bonnie, can tell already.”

“Please,” you say, voice weak. “Please, don’t, I don’t want you to-”

His groan is guttural. “Ye wanna know a secret, bonnie?” His voice is quiet between the two of you, bright blue eyes boring deep into yours when he pulls back. To your endless frustration, he’s handsome.

He leans close, whispering so low that you almost have to strain to hear hum. “That’s what makes you fun. Wouldnae be draggin’ you up here if ye wanted it, could get you any other night of the year for that. But it’s Purge night, lass… so you go ahead and fight as much as ye want, yeah? Just makes it more fun for me.”

You can’t help but sob at that, fat tears streaming down your face as he maneuvers you. You feel disconnected from your body as he forces you down to the ground, your soft belly left exposed when he pushes up your tank-top to cup one of your breasts, a whimper crawling out of your throat at the way the gravel presses into you.

You feel his breathing grow heavier as his hands move down to your shorts, shoving them off your hips and leaving them loose around your calves, completely disregarding your pitiful attempts at crawling away.

“Poor thing, been stuck in these the whole time? They fuckin’ reek, bonnie, no offense. That his piss or yours?”

You shake your head against the ground, face twisted up in acute humiliation. For some stupid reason you don’t want to even begin exploring, you find it necessary to whisper, “H-his.”

Soap hums, and you curse yourself inwardly when the humiliation is slightly alleviated.

“Get ‘em off her,” the white mask says, and you can’t help but jump at the sound of his voice. He’s sat on a large box only a few feet away, leaning back and relaxing, looking for all the world like he’s settled in for his favorite show. “Don’t want anythin’ of his touching her now.”

The sound Soap makes at that is animalistic, a snarl coming from deep in his chest that makes you flinch as he all but tears the shorts from your body. You wince at the wet splat of them landing several feet away.

You force your forehead into the gravel when your knees are forced wide, a rough hand and another pair of knees spreading you.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no…” you can’t help but beg, voice trembling. “Please- god, please don’t-”

“Fuck,” he moans over your shoulder. “Yeah, keep goin’, lass.”

You sob at the feeling of warm skin against your bared behind, his thick length slotting itself smoothly between the slightly spread lips of your pussy. Your eyes squeeze shut and it takes all your willpower not to keep begging.

He slides himself back and forth against you for a few long breaths, using online the slight slickness from a mixture of piss and blood to get some friction. But to your immense horror, it only takes a few moments for the sensual movement against your clit to have your body preparing itself.

The slight wetness at your hole might be a betrayal, but it’s not nearly enough to ease the way when he pushes inside of you with no warning.

You nearly scream, a high sound of pure panic and pain when it feels like you’re being split in two. Somewhere off in the distance, you hear someone laugh. Right above you, Soap groans.

He’s buried himself to the hilt inside you before the pain has had any time at all to fade, and he’s fucking into you hardly a second after that.

Every thrust forces a grunt from your throat, the entire weight of him slammed into your back each time his balls smack against your clit. Your face is twisted up in a grimace, your whole body racked with pain that your assaulter couldn’t care less about.

“Fuck, kitty. Yer squeezin’ me so good, such a good girl, shit-! Knew you’d be ti-tight as a vice, fuck, but didn’t know you’d be squeezin’ me so tight I can hardly move.”

Your whine is plaintive, his moan is filled with pleasure.

“Yer gettin’ so wet for me, bonnie. Ye like this, huh? Bet you like it just as much as I do, gettin’ thrown around and takin’ advantage of. That it, kitty? Ye like being forced?”

You sob and shake your head against the ground, crying all the more when sharp pebbles dig into your cheeks.

“Naw, I think ye do. Why else’d you be- fuck, squeezin’ me like that?” 

“Cause- because-” you try, but you can’t get the breath in to get more than a single word out.

“Huh? Cause- cause-?” Soap mocks, his voice pitching up to mimic you as he plants himself deep inside you, grinding his hips against the meat of your ass. “C’mon, kitty, tell me why. Go on.”

“Cause I want you to stop!” You cry, balled up fist slamming into the gravel. You can’t help but whine ow when the sharp rocks poke into your skin, and Soap’s laugh shakes your entire body.

“Good,” he whispers, breath hot against your ear. “Squirm all ye want, lass. I love it when you fight.”

You can do nothing but go limp beneath him as he begins fucking you again, his pace somehow faster and even more relentless. It’s a small mercy that there’s no fight left in you, that you can’t give him any more pleasure. 

It certainly doesn’t stop him, though. Despite the fact that you’re doing your best impression of a dead fish, Soap pants and moans against your shoulder like you’re the single best thing he’s ever slept with. His cock is painfully hard inside of you, and his pace never once slows.

He’s loud when he finally comes, the sound of his orgasm clear enough that you know he’s thrown his head back to the sky. You can only whimper as he rolls his hips against you, working the last spurts of cum out of his cock and into your unwilling body. 

“Fuck,” he sighs in your ear, sounding far more satisfied than he has any right to. “Good girl, kitty. You were perfect.”

You sniffle beneath him when he slowly pulls out, both of you groaning at the sensation. He gives you an almost perfunctory pat on the ass, and stands to walk away. You manage to open your eyes and focus just in time to see him slide to the ground in front of his partner, leaning against the wall.

“Yer turn,” he sighs. “Warmed her up good for you, Lt.”

Despite the hatred boiling in your gut, you can do nothing but lay limp on the ground and watch as his partner stands, cracking his neck and moving towards your prone form. 

You want to run, you want to fight, but you can only watch the executioner come closer and wait for the metaphorical axe to fall.

He crouches by your head first, grasping your chin and pulling up until your torso tries to follow to alleviate the tension. He stares deep into your eyes for a long moment, and you find that it’s impossible to even tell where his pupils are with no real lighting. You feel like you’re truly looking into the empty eye sockets of a skull, no man and no mercy to be found.

“You’ll call me Ghost when I fuck you,” he rumbles, thumb stroking over the scrapes on your cheek. He doesn’t wait for a response, simply hauls you up by the shoulder and turns you onto your back. 

He’s rough with your limbs as he shoves your legs together and up, his forearm banding across the backs of both of your knees and holding them to your chest. You whimper and wiggles as best you can, but the bruising blow against your thigh is enough to have you gasping and stilling.

“Don’t fight,” he warns, and you feel his gloved fingers running up the crack of you. “You’re hurtin’ enough as it is, and I’m not gonna help. You wanna make it worse too?”

You shake your head, unsure if he can even see you through your legs. He doesn’t respond, and hums when he swipes two fingers through the liquid gathered between your lips.

You whine when those fingers move further down, a fresh panic creeping in when he presses around your back hole.

“You should be glad Soap fucked you so good,” Ghost drawls. “He gave you all the lube you’re gonna get.”

You feel like an animal when you whine again, unsure of how to even begin trying to speak. You yelp when a thick finger slides into your hole, completely disregarding any resistance and forcing its way in until it’s buried to the knuckle. Your cries go ignored.

“Quit squirmin’,” Ghost scolds, pulling his finger out to smack your ass before shoving two back in. “You’re fine.”

You’re not, you’re terrified and hurting and upset, but none of those things matter when Ghost only coaxes more of your slick and Soap’s spend to your unused whole so there’s less resistance. 

The only blessing you have is the fact that you can’t see more than the outline of Ghost’s figure with the way he’s got you positioned. You try your best to close your eyes and float into disassociation, and while you can’t fully manage it, the fact that you can’t see his face - his mask - helps you distance yourself from what’s happening.

The moment you realize this is of course the moment it stops being true. 

He seems to decide you’re ready after scissoring three fingers inside of you, hefting himself up so that he looms more fully over you. You can only whine as you feel the movements of him unbuckling his belt, feel the weight of him slap against your slightly spread cheeks.

Fresh tears fall past your lashes as you stare up into the fathomless darkness that are Ghost’s eyes. There’s nothing there, just a cold empty skull prepared to ruin you.

You don’t even have the energy to beg.

The stretch of him inside your ass is five times worse than Soap was. There’s no natural lubrication, and nowhere near enough synthetic lube either. Your hole feels like it’s on fire, the stretch white hot as he gives you no mercy.

You’re not even fully sure what you’re babbling as he slowly sinks to the root, only aware of the pain and fear and panic sitting heavy in your heart. You fear you’ll choke on your tears, head jerking back and forth.

He sighs when he bottoms out, heavy barrel chest forcing your knees past your shoulders. Your hips strain, just another pain from the endless abuse.

“There,” he grunts, patting your thigh when you go limp from it all. “Stay nice and still now, just need a place to dump my cum.”

Upsettingly enough, that hurts. The idea that you could mean nothing to this man is somehow worse than the thought of him having some other twisted feelings for you, your hormone-addled mind deeply insulted. 

His thrusts are long and slow, each one pulling nearly completely out before slamming back in. The sound of your skin slapping together is embarrassingly sexual, and a distant part of you is aware enough to pray that no one nearby had heard your screams and cries.

Ghost is near silent as he fucks you, the opposite of Soap. You can only hear the occasional grunt when you squeeze him because he’s inches away from your face - you can even feel the occasional gusts of breath when his hips start working a little faster. 

There’s nothing you can do but lay limply beneath him and take it, just a vehicle for his pleasure. You almost manage to float away, to pretend none of this is happening or has ever happened, when his free hand moves from your thigh to the top of your cunt.

You nearly squeal when he rubs your clit, the smooth leath gliding over your slick bud. Your eyes fly wide open, back arching as much as you can with three hundred pounds of man holding you down. The loud laugh from several feet away only makes you writhe more.

“Make her squirt, Lt!” Soap shouts, his voice carefree.

“Shut it, Johnny,” Ghost grunts, voice roughened with pleasure. You don’t even have time to focus on the fact that he’s just told you Johnny’s name, far too preoccupied with the tidal wave of pleasure rushing towards you.

You have no idea why it happens. You’re never quick to come - almost every single partner of yours has complained about you taking so long to get off, it’s been an Issue in several relationships. 

So it makes absolutely no sense that after hardly a minute of rough circles against your clit, you’re clenching down on the cock in your ass and moaning loudly as your orgasm overtakes you.

The natural clench of your body only makes the pain worse, a sharp spike of it running up your cunt and making your moan shift into more pained sounds. Ghost only moans in tandem above you, his thrusts becoming slightly less even as he lets your orgasm coax out his own.

You sob when you feel his cum paint your insides.

Unlike Johnny, Ghost doesn’t pull out after he comes. He lets your legs fall limp on either side of him, just barely managing to catch them for you before you slam your ankles to the ground. He leans his torso over yours, elbows resting on either side of your shoulders while you do nothing but wait beneath him.

He’s sweat off some of the makeup. This close, you can see hints of pale skin in the sockets of the mask. There’s nothing to read in his eyes, but that flash of skin tells you he’s still a man.

You swallow, trying to work moisture back into your dry mouth, and whisper, “Will… will you let me go now?”

You know it’s more likely he’ll kill you. It’s what you can only imagine happened to all those bodies in the streets, what you know happens to tens of thousands of women every year. 

So it’s not a surprise when he doesn’t answer you verbally, instead covering your mouth with his palm and pinching your nose shut with his fingers. 

Your eyes flutter shut after a moment, lungs tightening already, and all you can hope is that suffocation is a quick death.

———————————————————————

You wake, gasping, in a dark room. 

You’re lurching forward before you’re even fully aware that you’re awake, coughing loudly and gasping when it feels like your throat is bleeding.

“Oh, poor thing,” you hear a familiar accented voice coo, and a moment later there’s a warm hand patting your back. “Yer alright, deep breaths.”

You jerk back from Soap - Johnny - as soon as your coughing is under control, scrambling back on your palms and staring at him with wide eyes. He only grins at you, looking for all the world like any other normal man in his sweater and sweatpants.

He got changed at some point - these pants are clean. He’s not wearing his mask either, and you’re struck dumb by how non threatening he manages to look.

He also changed your clothes - or Ghost did, maybe. You try to cover your chest with one hand, but there’s no hiding the fact that you’re completely naked. 

Johnny only laughs at your attempted modesty. “Been starin’ at them for hours, lass. Ye’ve got nothin’ to hide.”

That’s… horrifying, and does absolutely nothing to calm you down.

It’s then that Ghost rises from a chair, stepping forward and making you aware of his presence. “Calm down, Johnny. We don’t want her panickin’ this early.”

Soap fully pouts, tilting his head at you before glancing up at his partner. “I haven’t even done anythin’, Ghost. Was just sayin’ hi, tha’s all.”

Ghost snorts, gripping Johnny’s mohawk and tugging back until the other man sprawls back on his ass. “You know how you are, pup. Give your kitty some space.”

Johnny listens, crossing one leg beneath him and bending the other close to his chest, looking casual as can be. Meanwhile your heartbeat only gets faster, and you wince when you happen to lean too far one direction and feel a throbbing reminder of what these men did to you.

Ghost steps forward again, crouching just out of arm's reach. You realize he’s not wearing the same skull mask as before, but a balaclava with a printed skull pattern instead. His eye sockets are unpainted, and you’re shocked by how such little things make him look so much more human. 

“You can calm down. Long as you behave, nothin’ much worse’ll happen to you.”

You find yourself almost comically not-comforted by that, and can do nothing more than stare at him with wide eyes. 

“Where…” Your voice cracks, so you swallow and start again. “Where am I?”

It’s Johnny who speaks up. “Our place. We finally brought ye home with us, kitty.”

The world feels like it’s slowed around you, and your eyes drag from one kidnapper to the other. You have to swallow again to work any moisture into your bone-dry mouth.

“Is the Purge over?”

The creases at the corner of Ghost’s eyes are painfully obvious with how pale his skin is, and you shudder at the thought of him smiling.

“Been over for… what, five hours now? Somethin’ like that.”

You can’t fight the tremble in your voice now. “Then… then you have to let me go.”

Ghost’s head tilts, the creases get deeper. “Do I?”

You nod with as much conviction as you can - which is almost none. “You can’t keep me here. You’re breaking the law.”

Ghost leans closer on the balls of feet and you lean further back, your spine pressing into the wall behind you. “Are we now? And who do you think will stop us, pet?”

“The- the police. Someone will report me missing, they’ll come looking.”

“Oh? And you think they’ll come here?”

You nod as best you can, and jump when Ghost laughs. It’s low and quiet, only a few beats, but it’s like gasoline thrown on the small fire of panic in your mind.

“You have no idea where you even are, and you think they’ll find you? I hate to break it to you doll, but you’ll be lucky if they look for you for a week. You have any idea how many people go missin’ after the Purge?”

Your breath is quickening. “So that’s it? You’re just going to… going to keep me here, forever? What are you even going to do?”

His laugh is sharper, meaner this time. “We’re gonna do a whole lot more of what we did last night, pet. Keep you as a little cocksleeve, a pretty thing tucked in the basement just for our entertainment. Ain’t that right, Johnny?”

You manage to tear your eyes away to look at Soap and see that he’s nearly salivating, having inched closer and closer and shifted so he’s knelt behind Ghost. There’s a feral spark in his eyes that has every hair on your body standing straight up.

“Yeah, tha’s right. Don’t worry, lass, we’ll make sure yer never lonely. Might even stay the night with you, cuddle up in the winter. Bet ye could keep our cocks nice and toasty in the cold, huh? Gonna let us use ye as a little heater?”

“A heater, a mattress, a fleshlight… your future’s lookin’ bright, sweetheart,” Ghost drawls, mockery dripping heavily from the cruel words.

Your eyes dart back and forth between the two men and their predatory stares, your heart racing against your ribcage.

It’s not a conscious choice for you to launch yourself towards them, reaching out and clawing your sharp nails down Soap’s face with a feral scream that tears your throat to shreds. 

Even as Ghost throws you off and forces you to the ground, you vow to fight these men to the end. You’ll kill them both if you have to, leave them dead and wander however many miles it is back to your apartment.

Ghost only laughs when you shout this in his face, and you scream as you lunge forward, just managing to catch his masked chin between your teeth and bite.

With your fight instinct back in full force, you’re ready to make their lives hell.

[a-coolrock]

“the past is a grotesque animal” 8” x 10” canvas with acrylic paint, crayon, oil pastel, posca pen, & nail polish

i started this one the same day i started the last one if it wasn’t obvious by the theme of fan being the focus and an of montreal song being the inspiration,,, i just finished this one later because it’s bigger & i WANTED to use clay on this but i don’t know where my clay is….. MAYBE I’LL FIND IT NEXT TIME!!!!!! (HOPEFULLY) ALSO i know this one’s more choppy and messy and not as clean/flat colored as the last painting but that was SORT OF the point and also I REALLY DONT LIKE PAINTING LAYERS IT TAKES TOO LONG AND I AM VERY IMPATIENT … so i use crayon instead heheh

other versions as well!!!!! this time i put the non-shiny/glittery one as a secondary variation because the quality is SO BAD AND IT SCREWED THE COLORS UP . also kind of figured out how to get the glow in the dark to show up on camera … it’s brighter in real life & i had to use SO MANY FILTERS just 4 that 2 show up…….

[roses-red-and-pink]

Lolol sometimes it’s so funny reading peoples posts about “Mormon” theology that is based on Exmo stories, tradition/culture but not doctrine, and like random statements by some church leader 200 years ago that was not put into doctrine/canonized, or that he was corrected/reprimanded on, and all of us look back on like “well that guy was racist/sexist. Anyways moving on…” like tbh it just makes me laugh. Like I know our theology is a bit different than mainstream Christianity but y’all don’t need to make it sound like we are out here truly believing half the stuff you say about us.

[sashayed]

time for me to review The Whole Bible. ready? ok. to be honest my favorite part of the gospels is Mark 8.22-26, when Jesus spits in some nice blind man's eyeballs and accidentally gives him cosmic consciousness. guy's just like "may i have a teaspoon of visual response to stimulus" and jesus is like "oh sure" and gives him God Vision. fuckin...ayahuasca sight that perceives the interconnectedness of all life. "oh is that not normal? does everyone not have that? nuts. ok try these eyes. are those more regular? great. maybe lie down by yourself for a while and please don't mention this to anyone"

[yorkiepooh]

I've been speculating who would win in a fist fight, laios or kabru, and I always thought that kabru would win cause he specializes in fighting humans UNTIL i found out that kabru is 5'7 and 135 pounds while laios is 6'1 and probably over 200 pounds of pure muscle, I shouldn't be surprised cause that man can wrestle a horse underwater and win but damn. Maybe with a sword it's more even but laios can probably pull some monster shit to throw kabru off and bite him

[aiscapades]

i hear amon pronounce the ou in your and i know that southern accent is fake

[nikkashidashipper]

im going through the same emotional journey watching house md for the first time as i did while watching hannibal for the first time

like i go into it with the smallest of ideas of what the show generally is about, and a hunch that apparently theres two guys who will be fun to imagine as a ship because of some subjectively read homoerotic subtle subtext hints

and then i watch the show and its just. text. not even text the show should actually be called "they never kissed or fucked on screen but it would be less graphic than whatever the fuck im watching happen between these two"

[hanzajesthanza]

the witcher saga begins with dandelion being saved by yennefer and he tells her that he was wrong about her is indebted to her and that he will repay the debt to her in his songs, by making people know she is a good and fair lady . and later he also chronicles the journey of geralt’s company from brokilon to beauclair in his half a century of poetry, for posterity.

in the final act, the entirety of stygga castle is damnatio memoriae’d off of the face of the planet by the lodge of sorceresses who wished to write history in their favor, so the hanza’s graves (and… column) simply ceased to exist, it’s only a crater, dust, a nuclear blast site. even though it is the hanza whose questing alongside geralt made it possible for him to fulfill his (their) quest and whose sacrifices were in exchange for the return of ciri and yennefer to the proverbial realm of the living.

and furthermore, the battle of the bridge was not mentioned by any chronicles of history, and the old bridge itself, ruined from the battle, was replaced by a shiny new one.

and at rivia, yennefer’s presence was forgotten by all but one legend. but the majority of which said that triss stood alone on the “rivian hill” (… pile of refuse), and no one mentioned yennefer. even though she was the witcher’s eternal starcrossed lover and killed herself on top of his dead body hopelessly trying to ressurect him, and the two went off to avalon together.

but through the writing and song, “in the end,” dandelion made good on his promise to preserve their memory, and (alongside the folk stories) made sure people would remember them all as heroes… as families… a beautiful story…

even as monuments crumbled, and others tried to erase them.

[answermywearyquery]

#what it's like for my autistic ass™ to use the elevator

+ survived:

[bandtrees]

got a ref down for my dialtownsona c: has inexplicable one-sided beef with god about their respective fursonas. millennia-old closed species drama, that is.

dog tries dogs hardest to be an upstanding gent and uplift the downtrodden citizens of dialtown - but it's easier said than done with the kinds of people who live in this town, and when dog can hardly look after dogself.

as a result, joey bible's kind of a jaded guy who tends to slack off on his job, but not without guilt on the matter, always compelled to try and be a good samaritan to varying degrees of success. if nothing else, he's giving more of an effort than his boss, so that's something.

joey was around long before the worldwide dialup and has been changing dogs head out to be various gimmick toys, etc, fitting the time period to, "like, inspire the children and junk?". dogs idog era is much preferred to the likes of dogs Furby era.

in the world of canon relations, he prides himself on being marginally more respected by mayor mingus than his boss is. he's a little smitten with phonegingi, too, but isn't everyone?

(full name "joeyseph", given to him by god (who doesn't even really remember MAKING angels, and sometimes thinks joey's just some guy gaslighting him?), who has claimed it was, quote, "to differentiate you from the other joseph from the bible". joey is still a bit mad about it.)

[firelise]

up thinking about the fact that Great's brain literally has no idea why he was shot so it just went "...hmmm...real head-scratcher....I guess it could be because of that lady we ran over that one time...? or maybe that time we helped our friend do a murder...? or maybe cuze we fucked that one guy our family hates who also hates our family...? well even if we could undo all of those decisions it could also just be because we come from a shitty family that does bad things and kills people, there's always that, can't change that huh..."

and y'know....his brain wasn't not right, a broken clock once a day and all

[mars-ipan]

Matthew 7:15

(my commissions are open!)