#these things are so fun to write about lmao

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

i see there's shipping discussion occurring in your ask box so i figure i'll throw in my two cents as well!

i used to be a REALLY heavy shipper, in exactly that shallow "reduce their personalities to the concept of kissing each other" way that tons of people are complaining about. i wouldn't get into ship wars or harass people or anything, but i was totally the kind of person who you couldn't just have a level character discussion with— because i would be pretty intent on just going through the motions with whatever best friend or acquaintance I'd decided they had a huge crush on.

by contrast now my biggest most important "ships" end up all being somewhere between 3-5 people with a lot of care put into the nuances of each connection on the relationship chart— i still refer to them as poly ships (as a shorthand mostly), but of the 3 to 10 different relationships between the characters, i usually only see a few of them as romantic or sexual, with the majority a lot closer to a found family or queerplatonic sort of vibe

honestly i think the biggest reason for the reductive style of shipping was that 1) i wasn't as skilled a writer then as i am now, so i wasn't really sure how to really retain all of the features of a character that i liked, and 2) i wanted the biggest feelings IMMEDIATELY and there's some kind of instant gratification to shipping where the end goal is for them to kiss and you can just draw/write/think about them kissing and you're done.

it's kind of like the instant ramen of fictional relationships to me. it's kind of "one size fits all", low writing skill requirement, low effort, really really fast and easy, and ultimately not really that rewarding at the end of it. and just like how real actual ramen exists separately from instant noodle cups, it IS possible to write a really amazing and beautiful and deep romantic ship fic that successfully plays off of the kinds of people these characters are, but ramen still isn't the end-all be-all of relationships! there are so many different hypothetical dishes that could be made with the same characters!

and my personal favorite is polyqueerplatonic ships for this very reason, because with just a few characters you can get a whole diverse array of interactions and dynamics!!

anyway tldr; i think romantic shipping is fun, and even "cheap" reductive romantic shipping can be fun, but (to return to my instant noodles metaphor) it would be reasonably upsetting to attend an awesome community potluck only to find like 90% cup noodles. and the people serving the cup noodles frown at you whenever you ask if anyone's serving like, gourmet spaghetti or dumplings or something.

so just know that if you're bringing your silly "ouhhh they should kiss" fan works to the fandom, you're appreciated and I'm glad you're having fun, and if you're bringing the super precisely thought-out nuanced relationship fan works to the fandom, you are ALSO so appreciated and additionally i really wish there were more of you in my own fandoms.

flashbacks to the time i looked up a ship that i THOUGHT was pretty popular but it only had like 230 works on AO3 at the time and basically all of them were romantic instead of my hyper-specific one-sided queerplatonic one-sided fully platonic thing i had pictured in my mind....

Okay, as someone who has tried their hand at writing slow burn in the past, I totally get the instant gratification thing. "You know when would be a good time for them to kiss? NOW"

I'd get frustrated at my own characters for not just making out already and I was the one writing them not making out lmao

[nadianova]

im sorry if anyones asked this before but! what's your process for planning out your vns? it might be too open-ended a question but playing malmaid its clear that you have a lot of skill and really have the medium nailed, so like... what does your workflow look like? how do you piece together whatever beginning idea fragments you have into something so coherent and well put together as this? what kinds of things do you prioritize? have you written about your process before?

i should tag my shit better i had to scroll forever to find these

but uhhhhhh i think. i seriously think the biggest misconception is that i somehow know what I'm doing like consistently the moments that people like in my games are moments i wsnt even thinking about and instead i put my effort into some entirely dismissed location.

i dont know what im doing but if i am to point at a skill my skill is the fact that i can in fact complete games and that gives people an opportunity to enjoy them

if you go read my first vns you'll notice they are not malmaid but after having made so many its just helped me build a repertoire of scripting abilities and knowledge on how to express myself in a visual novel format.. ultimately i am kinda writing the same thing over and over again in my vns cause that's just what i like to do

so its just trial and error really while having fun with the process

but yeah theres two other links wheere itry to go in the details but everything is so vague and shifting i might be doing something entirely different for my next game I'm already learning that i HATE planning so much as I've done for NAOMIDA and i have way more fun just winging it like i did with hopeless junction and dddeviance

my notes are actually insane like

lmao

look at these are my current notes and starting baseline for my lina side story in my game

like srly i just throw shit in be it memes or tweets or snippets of my own thoughts i wrote half asleep at 4 am and then figure out the details later and when i feel like my story is clear enough in my brain from shit like this i just start writing it hopping from scene to scene usually writing the fun scenes first and then suffering when i gotta string everything together

[doomspiral]

ur asks r finally open i wanted to say this for forever but i love whenever a historical gil post comes out and u and a bunch of other gil fans just all flock together and discuss his character and how history plays into it. you are all so passionate about him and its super fun to see!! i was never rlly into historical hetalia until i followed u because u just do it so good

I AM SO GLAD TO READ THIS!!!!

For the most part I've noticed the current Pru fans want to get along even if we don't agree on things, which means we can launch shit back and forth under different lenses. I really do love the varied takes just for this one guy, because so much of it is based in easily accessible, amateur research. That does make us all each other's peers for review though since we all have the same list of books on our shelves LMAO.

We have brainworms for real and every time I think I've settled on a read of the text, I'll see something else and go "ah damn, maybe that's it" and the cycle begins anew.

I know the Historical Hetalia fandom got a track record for getting stuck in the weeds, writing what I've been told is called "wiki fic", and in general being very hostile to each other and other types of fans, and I know this because I got to see the tail end of it and also read some of these fics. A lot of the takes were also deeply flawed, as they tended to erase non-white, queer, non-christian, and non-European histories within the context of Europe as well as simply whitewash the reality of those people into the bland, Hollywood Victorian ideals of etiquette.

What I've seen NOW is a bunch of insane history nerds trying to be as weird as possible while being grounded enough in historical research that nothing breaks immersion for the reader (some kind of mix between Master&Commander and The Great).

[h-didanart]

Hello hello, welcome back everyone to the Sunrise Arc Theatre au!

Now, for today’s batch of doodles we have some stuff from the Sunset and Moonlight Musical, brought to you by me going into a four(?) hour long YouTube binge for songs from musicals and stuff to add to both plays. It’s still pretty barebones compared to Get in Losers but it’s slowly gaining shape.

The first thing to show you all will actually be parts of a performance by the main villain of the play!

Thanks to all the chaos Moonlight and Sunset managed to set themselves with, Phantom Lunar was able to get the star with little difficulties. It was only natural for the little devil to then proceed to rub it in everyone’s faces, It’s Gonna Get Weird is the closing number for this arc of the play.

Featuring black lights and a harness (that’s what the thing that makes people fly on stage is called, yes?), this song is a chaotically fun performance truly brought to life by Haunting’s cheery delivery and bone-chilling demeanor. They have shown to love this choreography, often adding his own little dance moves to their different on stage performances, though at first he was reluctant to even try it due to the flying sections, they’ve never been a fan of heights. It definitely didn’t help that the worker in charge of him apparently teased them for it. The worker did not deny having said something about it when asked. Regardless of past fears, Haunting enjoys this song a lot and very often can be seen mindlessly practicing the moves.

And now, you will all get the chance to see some small sneak peaks into some of the songs in this play’s lineup, and get some exclusive commentary from the actors! Let’s get to it!

What was a casual hangout in the Alternate Lunar’s dimension soon turned into an awkward situation for the young Eclipse. He hadn’t known he’d step into a touchy subject with that small joke! Luckily the Alternate Lunar seemed more preoccupied with making a point about stuffing your face with sweet icy treats rather than guilting the solar bot about his mistake. Upgrades.

“I try to make the same face I made the first time I heard that line, but like, there’s something about the shock from that statement that just manages to get me to pull that expression even if I’m not trying to. It’s useful but oh my god is it awkward” —Clipsy Corona Galaxia

“I find it very funny honestly, that whole musical is just my sense of humor really! Though it does mean that I have to play it cool when I’m mentally cackling like a hyena at this guy’s reaction” —Umbra Blaze

Short lived but well remembered, an unlikely duo terrorizes the twins, dropping by randomly and demanding to play tea party. Moonlight and Protostar would wave them off had Phantom Lunar not had the powers of a God and basically be able to puppeteer anyone at any point they so desired. This was a party they could not decline the invitation to

“I like to sing this one! It’s very fun, and upbeat, and then it turns into a horror movie! What more could you ever want?” —Haunting Lune Aurora

“Yes, yes, this one is wondrous, quite charming really. Shame we do not get more appearances together, but alas, we got one semi-duet and that feels right for the characters and play” —Ruin Eclair Baker

“Moving as if you were a puppet is a lot more difficult than it appears, would not recommend” —Morning Star Galaxia

Having struggled to put himself in the right path, Moonlight finds himself frustrated with his twin’s lack of communication. It wouldn’t come as a surprise that he’d reciprocate the treatment, going through his own routes to ensure his family’s safety. Surely it will all work out in the end.

“I love this song. I know it’s a villain song but honestly that just makes it better, it’s just so cool! And way better than what I was gonna sing originally, I still think they switched my and Sunrise’s scripts or something” —Waning Moonlight Galaxia

“We did not switch their scripts, Get in Losers had already had a few runs before we even started auditions for Sunset and Moonlight. We just saw that the song would fit someone over here more than over there” —Herald Shadow Art, Head of Writing

It went wrong. It all went so wrong. It couldn’t have gone worse.

“I’m just gonna say it first, this is a completely safe thing to do. Yes there’s props that can catch on fire around, but me and some of our special effects guys have already thought that through. The only thing that’s gonna get burned is gonna be my clothes and that’s for a very cool quick change that probably won’t hurt me, so it’s all fine and good” —Waning Moonlight Galaxia

“It’s special fire produced by a specific mix of magically rooted powders, it looks like a tough flame but it can barely light a scrap of paper on fire” —Moonstone Crystal, Special Effects Department

“Finding a textile that would burn with such little heat was fucking hell, so no, there’s no danger in these stunts” —Eclipse Solar Macabro, Head of Costuming

[jeiyuuen]

So Luffy and Law reunion after two years, some totally biased thoughts...

Luffy really just recognized Law right away like that, huh? After two years of not meeting at all, and barely having interacted prior to Marineford. What was the first thing he recognized that he was sure that's the guy who saved him then? (Is there something you would like to share with the class, Luffy?)

It's so funny because nothing could've prepared Law for Luffy's sheer joy when they met again. He was so genuinely happy to find Law and it's ruining Law's emo vibes.

Like damn, he built up a reputation!

Pretty much everyone else up to that point has called him cruel, ruthless and all that. Back to Marineford and Sabaody, people talked about bad rumors about him. Even when he saved Luffy, they doubted his intentions. They were so sure there must be a catch to Law's help. (There was no catch.) It's just fun to think about because here Luffy is treating him as something good that happened in his life. Poor Law couldn't handle that much positive attention.

And uhm no, trying to deflect saving someone's life from death as "nothing" or something like that wouldn't really work. Especially when Law really didn't need to risk it all like that to get Luffy out of Marineford. They barely had a connection and even a potential rivalry is hardly worth the risk. Calling it a "whim" is the most Law can call it before he starts questioning his life again. But whatever the reason is, the fact still stands that he helped Luffy... And isn't that what matters, anyways? To Luffy, at least.

Law: "We are both pirates." (we're enemies)

Luffy: ":D Okay, anyways, you saved my life."

Law !!!! He ADORES you already !! It's over !! And giving more helping hand doesn't actually help your case !!

Also more exhibits of Luffy being excited over Law that I just find so cute. The way he perked up when Law was mentioned... He likes him.

He didn't say anything during Brownbeard's story until Law was mentioned, Luffy my guy.... He likes him so much, not necessarily romantic, but Luffy really just likes Law.

Law really stood no chance and asking Luffy for that alliance was the final nail to his coffin. He sealed his fate to be Luffy's super duper mega best friend FOR LIFE.

[braisedhoney]

we’re supposed to be the good guys.

[fearandhatred]

i was thinking about this line from my fic:

But the fall had hurt, too. Because the wind had cut into his useless wings like knives, his skin and grace peeling away under the friction, and he had been looking right up at the multicoloured and unreachable expanse of sky just to see it fade from his eyes into dull greys.

and i came up with this. i hope the vision came through

[mstormcloud]

I think applying tropes commonly found in Sonadow fics to other sonic ships is very funny

Like today I saw the cute posts by Blu-ish about how hedgehogs circle and headbutt eachother when courting and how Sonic and Shadow would do that and I agree.

However I think the implication that mobian hedgehogs do this is HILARIOUS when applied to ships that only involve one hedgehog.

Like Silver starts circling around Espio one day and lightly shoving him with his hip or his shoulder and Espio is like: ???? What are you doing??

Or even Blazamy like- Amy keeps circling Blaze and the less Blaze reciprocates Amy does it more to try to get Blaze to react. Blaze eventually just tries to politely tell Amy to stop cause it’s hard to hold conversation while she’s moving all around.

But later Blaze talks to Silver and is like: “I have no idea what she is trying to do…perhaps she is finding a weakness in my stance? Should I fear her hunting me for sport???”

And Silver is like: uh. Well. I think she’s hitting on you? It’s a hedgehog thing.

And Blaze just freaks out because WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMY WAS FLIRTING WITH HER

[genericpuff]

vent post

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.

[twisting-in-wonderland]

if there was an autobiography based on any of the twst characters lives, which one would you be the most interested in hearing?

I'm torn between two--

but in the end. DEFINITELY Rook's--

He'd write so much irrelevant detail, and in the end you'd know so much, yet so little about his life,,

plus- hear me out-

there's 70 parts in total

(second place was Lilia, since that guy's been through a LOT ( i mainly want to hear about the places he's been to and the food he's had tbh--- (if lilia did try and release his autobiography, it'd probably be a multi-part too- most people would think it was a fantasy story instead of an actual autobiography though lol--))

tied third was crowley and Grim as a joke, because 99% of it would be exaggerated and full of lies, i would read either one's to make fun of it-)

transcript under read more-- (since my hand writing is rough sry--)

image 1 :

Rook - 'Roi du poison! I have finished my Autobiography!'

image 2:

Vil - 'It's very well written, Rook.'

Rook - 'Oh! Bon! I am over-joyed to hear that! So you like it, Roi du poison?'

Vil - 'Of course.'

Rook - 'Bien! I shall fetch part two for you both!'

(on the side-

Epel - 'Why are there two pages describing us...?'

Image 3:

Vil and Epel - '...Part two?'

[bonefall]

Does leopard still have 3 lives in her final battle? Or was that changed?

Yep. I think she drowned her once, then Leopardstar lunges up refreshed, and she gets the upper paw on Mistyfoot with 2 lives to go.

(MAYBE tw gore, but I really did try to be tasteful about a head being smashed on a rock.)

On her back, splashing and thrashing furiously against Leopardstar's claws dunking her head under, Mistyfoot glimpses a wave breaking just over the tip of a stone-blue rock. Her only chance.

With a surge of power, her claws sink into her leader's golden shoulder and they tumble and roll to the right. Before the tyrant even realizes what's happening, she's yanked up, and then whipped backwards with a wet CRUNCH

And then again

And again

And again, until Mistyfoot can't even make out what's left of her leader anymore. All she can see is that it's a red, brown, and yellow blur, because her eyes burning with salty tears and her whole body is trembling.

She drops the corpse onto the stone and it slides into the water, lifelessly. After a moment it spasms aimlessly one last time, like an insect does after its head is bitten off, unlike the deliberate, agonized throes of Tigerstar suffering through his doomed lives. And then it's still.

There's only the tranquil sound of bubbling water, and Mistyfoot's frenzied panting. Her pounding heart makes it hard to hear either.

The blood is carried off by the shallow water in scarlet swirls, but the lake runs pale red as if it's washing it away. Some were aware of this prophecy, but Mistyfoot was not.

It isn't closure to her, or a fulfillment of divine decree. It's just blood that should be on her paws, slicked away by the complicit river. She wished it could feel like it's over, but she's smart enough to know the truth. Has been through enough terrible events like this to understand what comes next.

Her body will move foward. Her mind will need to consider her deputy. Her paw will come down on code-defying cats like Blackclaw and Greenflower. But her heart will stay here, next to the remains of Leopardstar, the same way another piece of it remains at Stonefur's side across space and time.

[bongo-clash]

Peacock Au Part 1

Okay so Big Huge credit to @stealingyourbones for letting me do my own take on their amazing eldritch Danny idea!!!! This started out as me just doing a drawing but then I ended up with a whole DPxDC fic that I'll be posting the part two for at some point!!! Anyway, here's the vague designs:

And here's the part one of the fic under the cut!!! :D (Edit: Part 2 is Here!!)

There’s a Lazarus Pit forming underneath Gotham. Normally, this would not concern John Constantine at all, because it’s Gotham, therefore Bat territory therefore not his problem, and honestly he has his own things to worry about. Unfortunately for him, however, the infamous Dark Knight has somehow gotten it into his head that he can do something about it and, Hell, he’d said it would be a ‘big favour’, which meant the man really must be desperate; had to have been in the first place, he supposed, to have even bothered with John in the first place. 

Still, he’d almost kind of forgotten what a huge mess any kind of favour for Batman could be, and thus, he now holds possession of a book that is probably going to get him killed. 

Whether the actual book itself wants to kill him is up for debate, but Constantine has read the contents of this particular Book of Summonings and nothing in here seems remotely safe. He’s absolutely going to be hiding this away somewhere deep in the archives of the archives of the Justice League watchtower with an incredibly pointed ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ on it once he’s done with this, but for now, it’s the only thing he’s got in the way of sorting out this Pit problem. 

There’s an entity that exists, this book claims, that keeps the balance between realms. ‘Closes doors’, apparently, and the doors the pages depict certainly look like a Lazarus Pit. This is brilliant news, obviously, but the book doesn’t describe the entity itself at all beyond that; barely any of the other entries are as vague as this, and that plus some of the frankly bizarre sigils he’s having to draw to summon the damn thing are giving him no comfort. The only remotely comforting thing about it is that the ritual doesn’t require any blood- which either means the entity is benign, or it wants something more valuable than blood. 

…Okay, maybe not that comforting, actually. 

But, before he can consider that maybe this wasn’t his best idea and backing out would be for the best, the sigils flare with light, and Constantine squints to keep track of the way they activate, desperate for any indication of what he’s managed to summon with that stupid book. 

His feet feel feathery against the ground, like they’re barely tethered by gravity and just waiting to float away, and perhaps the seeming lack of atmosphere is fitting with how dust like stars lift from the summoning circle, bringing with them intercepting layers of purple-blue-pink-white, galaxies and nebulae being peeled off the floor. It comes with a sound- something whistling, almost. Seeming hollow, between a shriek and a bell ringing, or maybe more musical than that. It seems to change every moment he tries to focus on it, as if it’s something his ears can’t really hear but his brain is desperate to process, painful to try. 

And then, the entity begins to form. 

Unnoticeably at first, a white glow drifts forming in the centre. It congeals as Constantine’s gaze finally fixates on it, layers forming like jellyfish trails, or flowers, or peacock feathers with runic circles at the tips, fading smaller and smaller as they reach the centre, and a thing akin to a body unfolds into view at the front, a centrepiece. A child’s image of a shadow in opalescence, a strange curving feature where a neck might be, and searing-green spots of varying sizes scattered along the space where cheeks and eyes could’ve been, fading up and down across the lower-half of the ‘face’ and into the ‘hair’. He barely understands what he’s looking at, but maybe that’s the point. 

The sound of a thunderstorm rings across the room, and the curve of the neck unfolds, and it’s an eye, and the tips of a thousand twisted, cosmic peacock feathers become eyes as well, if they weren’t always. They move, wavering, either lashing or flickering from visibility. 

“And what is this?” The voice is a kaleidoscope, echoing off and from every corner of the room, and when they speak, infinite eyes become infinite mouths, too many teeth barely contained by the edges of what seem vaguely like frostbitten lips. To have something even remotely human suddenly etch itself onto the entity is somehow worse than the parts he can’t comprehend. “Who are you, to have summoned me, and seem so afraid?”

Constantine wishes, maybe for the first time, that it hadn’t been an obligation to do this alone; he’s never wanted Batman or one of the Light members with him more than now. It’s a difficult thing, almost impossible, to shake off the speechlessness. It’s a wonder that it’s possible at all, with how the room seems to have been twisted into a vacuum. “I was told you could- you could help with the pits?”

“The pits. There are many pits.”

God, this is creepy. “The Lazarus pits to, uh, to be specific. There’s a huge one cropping up under Gotham that’s not supposed to be there, and the local- I mean, the locals are getting antsy about it. …I heard you can take care of them.”

“I can smell its blood between the gaps of atmosphere, encircling. You, whose soul is bound in so many directions, who may be pulled apart like meat in time- can you sense it? Does it draw you?” John doesn’t know how this- this thing knows that, but he’s scared asking will invoke some kind of consequence, and more and more he’s wondering why the Hell he decided to do Batman this favour. He feels exposed. 

“Uh… no, I don’t think so. But can you fix it?”

“Yes.”

“…Will you fix it?”

The chill is getting to him. Goosebumps are running across his arms like a livewire, and he’s never doing anyone a favour ever again. The entity makes an approximation of a hum, his ears shriek with whale song and stars, and after a pause, everything switching up and down on itself, the peacock eyes form into huge, reaching hands. For a second, Constantine’s whole body freezes with terror, because he’s petrified the thing’s going to grab him, but then the arms tumble phasing into the ground, and the green spots on their ‘face’ flare with a supernova glow and they make another piercing noise, chiming or trilling. 

A long moment later, the hands slowly return to the entity’s back, and fade into the peacock feathers or jellyfish bells or whatever they were before, blinking at him. “It is gone.”

“Uh… cheers?”

“It will not return, but this place shall see its dead for some time. Try not to look.”

This is maybe the worst day of Constantine’s life. “Can I- uh, yeah, great advice. ‘Appreciate it. But, can I ask just, y’know, what you are? Or not.”

“That is up to you.” They say, and though the eyes that appear briefly between sentences bely or reveal no expression, it feels scrutinising. “What is it that closes doors? Is it alive?”

He hates riddles. He hates riddles and he hates cosmic horrors and he hates eldritch entities and he hates Batman for getting him to agree to this horrible favour. He wants to go back to the House of Mystery and pass out for long enough that this whole thing becomes a dream. “Fair enough! Forget I asked- cheers for sorting out that pit, though. Uh, don’t suppose you’ll just let me go on my way or anything now.”

“I know of your Bat.” 

Oh dear. Constantine’s stomach sinks like a shipwreck into the Mariana Trench, but the entity moves on like they’d never even said it. “I will recede, and find you in time, perhaps both. You will know when I am coming, and I will find my recompense.”

And just like that, their whole form shimmers into clouds and pearls and smoke and mirrors, and they fade back into the runes that summoned them like tap water down the drain. The galaxies they’d formulated within the confines of the room fold back in on themselves and turn to whispers and then nothing, but the feeling persists on his skin long after weight has settled back onto his bones. He hadn’t known a thing like that existed until now. He doesn’t know what it can do, doesn’t know how all-encompassing it truly is. 

And he owes it a favour. 

Crap. 

[skitskatdacat63]

Roleswap anyone??

Tell me Fernando wouldn't make a fantastic general/emperor, and that Napoleon wouldn't make a fanastic driver/tp!!

[willowser]

okay last thing and i know this is easier said than done and i think it's less of final end point and more of a continuous journey but once you let go of your shame and embarrassment over the things that make you happy, you'll have a lot more fun