#the muse of nightmares

[dorkthyon]

Ruby, from Laini Taylor's duology Strange the Dreamer

[theoppositequeens]

i'm the albatross (i swept in at the rescue)

Fandom: Strange the Dreamer Pairings: Korako & Eril-Fane, Eril-Fane & Sarai, Azareen/Eril-Fane, Korako & Novali, Eril-Fane/Isagol (mentioned) Rating: E (for safety) Warnings: Canon-typical violence, Non-con, etc. Please read the full tags on Ao3. This one is the one with the happier ending - no Carnage.

Read the fic here on Ao3.

i'm the albatross (i swept in at the rescue)

"It's alright," Korako said. "The big man, Sarai." "Big man, " Sarai repeated, and started walking towards the warrior covered in blood. Her gait was no longer unsteady, and she crossed the distance easily. Eril-Fane visibly wrestled with his instincts for a bit, then handed his sword to the man beside him and knelt down on one knee to receive his daughter. She climbed trustingly into his arms when he opened them hesitantly, snuggling against his chest, and he lifted her off the floor, rising immediately. Eril-Fane shifted the girl to his left arm, balancing her on his hip like he had done it a thousand times before. He reclaimed his sword, and then stood still for a moment, undecided. "Within hours?" He confirmed. Korako nodded, then leaned her head back against the wall. It would be a waiting game now, and she wasn't sure she'd be allowed to stick around for it. "Mhmm," she hummed, offering up her throat. "They could be sent away," she suggested softly. "To orphanages far away from here. Just let them live, Eril-Fane." He didn't answer. ----- A Christmas gift for @tunguszka20

[exhausted-electron]

"Blood was flowing from the holes in their armor, pumping out in spurts and mingling between them, catching and pooling where they pressed together. Azareen thrust her hands against Eril-Fane’s chest to try to keep his blood inside him, as though she didn’t notice her own was escaping."

— Laini Taylor, The muse of nightmares

[whimzycle]

you wanna know the fun thing that I noticed about Jack when I was rewatching rotg?

On both instances that Pitch was about to attack him, he froze up.

[lemm-moxx]

Yes killer i believe you do.

[dolcegbaby]

lily rose and her style

[ohdorothea]

The Tortured Poets Department (song) is I think is very clever at showing a deeply toxic painful unhealthy relationship then it covers that up really well with the “Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist” and so on because the silliness/quirkiness distracts from the lines that show how harmful this relationship is

[cloudysarts]

TICK-TOCK, TEDDY-BEAR! TICK-FUCKING-TOCK!

[thiscoldheart]

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I.. am taking a picture. Something to remember you by."

ONE DAY (1.01)

[marstonsboy]

doing my duty of obsessing over tiny details again: idk how many of you have played undead nightmare, but if you haven’t you should, since i’m about to spoil it a little.

when jack is younger in rdr2 (aka the ages we see him at, 4 and 12 for the main story and the epilogue respectively) he tends to call abigail “momma”. he also has a couple lines around beecher’s hope where he can call her “ma’am,” similarly to him calling john “sir,” but that’s a different rant altogether. in rdr1, at 16, he’ll almost exclusively call her “ma”. i’m assuming it’s supposed to show that he’s grown up, and isn’t really using the slightly more childish term of address for her anymore. for a couple lines at the very start of undead nightmare, jack calls her “mother,” in a teasingly chiding tone as well after she stabs herself with a needle and curses.

but a little bit later, (though still in the opening cutscenes of undead nightmare) after uncle attacks the family and abigail gets bitten and subsequently turned, jack runs to check on her. he’s understandably distressed by, you know, the sight of his mother bleeding out on the ground. he panics and calls her “momma,” like he hasn’t done since he was much younger, probably because he’s scared and confused— and hurt, since he does the same thing after she bites him a couple seconds later. it’s just the first time i’ve heard angry 16-year-old jack sound like a little boy, or anything like the boy he was before all the effects of the trauma he’s endured really started making themselves clear, and it kind of breaks my heart.

on top of that, undead nightmare isn’t even canon. now i’m just sad over something i know didn’t actually happen, except the existence of it is giving me ideas. maybe, when abigail died in 1914, a 19-year-old jack called her momma for the last time, because he was scared of being alone. maybe he didn’t even get to, because she was gone before she heard it. maybe i should stop making the sad game even sadder, but we all know that’s not gonna happen.

[chipper-smol]

Grimm is a shit parent with a troupe that actually knows parenting

they're bugs

[dorkthyon]

Sparrow, done in watercolors

[theoppositequeens]

Drabble

Fandom: Strange the Dreamer

Pairing: Azareen/Eril-Fane

Rating: T

Warnings: implied/referenced non-con

Read on AO3 here

i didn't love to lose (somebody like you)

Azareen puts her foot down when Eril-Fane starts talking about releasing her from their marriage vows.

The first time, she slaps him. "How dare you?" She hisses, and that is the end of that conversation.

"No," she says, the second time, and turns on her heel.

"You don't get to run before you talk to me," she says the third time. "I know we're both traumatized, and we're not making any big life choices now."

The fourth time, they argue like cats and dogs. Azareen knows nothing of what his last three years have been like, except what she's seen herself, because he won't say a word. "You're a coward," she throws at him. She pulls out all the cards she knows will hurt, just in case they might break through to him. "Your mother cried herself to sleep for years, I cried myself to sleep for years, and now you won't comfort us or accept our comfort. You tell the others not to be ashamed of what was done to them, and then you blame yourself for the same thing. Hypocrite!"

The fifth time Azareen kisses him until he shuts up. Literally just presses her mouth against his. He doesn't struggle, doesn't seem to know how to react.

He doesn't try a sixth time.

Instead, he sits down next to her on a dusty bench on a quiet morning. He presses closer than he has since Skathis took him to the citadel, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He stares into the wall and his voice is wooden, but he talks.

Azareen gives him her silence, her time. He talks until he is hoarse and then he talks some more. He talks for three whole years worth of horror. And when he is done he hangs his head, and she's never seen him so defeated. He is proud, her husband, and strong and steady and larger than life. Azareen hates Isagol for bringing him so low. Hates all of the gods for their cruelty.

Azareen doesn't say anything. She simply rests her head on his shoulder, letting him carry all of her weight, trusts him with it. Lets him feel like he's doing something for her.

That is when he confesses that he doesn't trust himself any more. To tell right from wrong. Hate from love.

"I trust you with my heart," Azareen says, and that is that.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

So, (sits down at the table) (lights up cigarette) are we all ready to discuss how Six's lack of gender conformity in the beginning of the franchise can be read not only as an expression of her nonbinary identity but also an inherent refusal of what their assigned gender requires of her, which is why they are put in contrapposition with the Lady, whose name and role is inherently tied to her identity as a woman, and by refusing to abide to that standard Six challenges not only the structure of the Maw but also the basic concept on which the Lady based her entire life and identity on

[cruel-hiraeth]

nagi sleeps with both arms wrapped around you and a leg thrown over you for good measure (attempting to escape is futile)

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Kokichi gives me the kind of vibes of having the right personality traits to accidentally end up doing stalking. He finds himself interested in someone, so he tries to learn more about them, which includes finding out schedules, and then he wonders what he can find online with them, and then it just keeps escalating until someone looks at him and goes "stop, get some help" because he never realized it had long since past the point of going from quirky to creepy because it just constantly felt like the most logical progression was to be like "name, age, phone number, social media, schedule, address, where they sleep, what kind of clothes they like, what are there parents names, do they have medical issues" and it just keeps going and going until someone is like "kokichi you cant just, make a flow chart to establish their grocery habits by breaking into their house and checking their fridge over a period of time"