#they're so in love its actually physically sickening

[p4nishers]

THE FACT THAT buck will ALWAYS find his way to eddie. how no matter what happens or what argument they get into or how badly either of them are hurt, they'll ALWAYS FIND THE WAY TO EACH OTHER. and maybe it takes a little time and maybe it's buck pushing more than eddie, but the fact of the matter is, they'll always be there for each other. no matter fucking what. and 6x12 proved that perfectly. i mean eddie (probably?) knew about maddie sending ppl to buck but he didn't go cause he knew buck would come to him when he was ready. HE KNEW buck would eventually turn up and when he did eddie let him in without a question. BC THEY HAVE EACH OTHERS BACKS. IM GONNA TEAR MY HAIR OUT.

[losingcards]

dude i hate the yttd fandom. its sickening how often i see people trying to justify soushin. having to go through every account to see if they're normal before following them is tiring.

like. yes. enjoy their dynamic. i love their dynamic. but under NO circumstances does it need to be romantic. shin sees midori as a brother. it's easy to compare their relationship to shin and kanna's. we have NO CLUE how old midori is, and we KNOW he snuck into shin's highschool, it's SO likely that he wasn't even highschool age.

you like toxic yaoi?? GREAT. ME TOO. but shin actively feels uncomfortable around midori, even when he's not doing anything, even when they were friends. that's so much different than just hating someone. midori wants to harm him, physically and mentally. it’s abusive.

you don't actually ship it?? then WHY do you support people who DO? why do you use the tag? you are putting yourself in a group of people who genuinely do ship it, who genuinely do support and romanticize that behavior.

tldr: soushin shippers, block me. people who are ''neutral'' on soushin, block me.

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Kamaitachi

CR 13

Chaotic Evil Medium Fey

Bestiary 6, pg. 176

These wicked and fickle fey can appear just about anywhere that there's pain to be caused and lives to be ended. They appear cloaked in their Dust Devils, magical winds that whip around them at all times, carrying their little weasely bodies around like a single spaghetti noodle in a pot of boiling water. Despite how cute and silly they look, they're among the most vicious and sadistic of all Fey, maximizing the fear and agony in whatever creature crosses their path for no other reason than their own twisted amusement. What's worse is that there's almost no warning before they strike; depending on what sort of debris is in the Dust Devil, one may not see the beast within until the wind blows past them and tears the flesh from their bones.

While in their shell of wind, Kamaitachi (which I will shorten to 'itachi' from here on out) can fly at speeds of up to 120ft a round without issue, bending and twisting through the air with the ease of a barracuda in the open sea. Their sole offense is their quartet of Deadly Claws, scythe-like limbs so razor sharp that they can straight up do the Samurai Diagonal Cut at will, but more on that later, for now we'll focus on the claws themselves. Each claw deals 1d6+12 damage boosted by their constant Greater Magic Fang to hit even harder, and as previously mentioned these claws are especially deadly, critically hitting on a 19 or 20 and dealing x3 damage on a successful crit. Every blow also lacerates the target to deal 1d6 bleed damage a round, and the weapons of the Itachi are designed to flay the targets so agonizingly that a struck creature must make a DC 23 Fortitude save every time they're hit or become sickened by the pain for a round.

Able to make upwards to four of these attacks if it manages to Full-Attack, an adventuring party will rarely have to deal with that except against a foolish Itachi. It's got Flyby Attack and no reason not to use it to cut a party to ribbons bit by bit, savoring their slow and terrible demise. It can get away with this kiting behavior, too, because while a cursory glance at its stat block reveals only DR 10/Cold Iron as its primary physical defense, you have to look a little further down to realize that you're going to need to be able to fly or have a way to ground the beast to actually fight it and win, because Dust Devil automatically deflects ALL small projectiles; arrows, bolts, and bullets are utterly useless against it, and any throwing weapon has a 30% miss chance. Magical AoE, lines, cones, and rays all still work, though they have to contend with the wonder weasel's 24 Spell Resistance.

Side note because I'm legally required: If you or a loved one has ever been beaten to death by a creature with Flyby Attack, please remember to regularly apply readied actions to your party bruisers.

Anyway, these vicious weasels have another, far more horrific use for their claws than ripping someone to shreds: blackmail. As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, Itachi can swing their cutting limbs with such speed and ferocity that the victim doesn't even realize they've been cut until the violent fey blows on them just a little too hard and they fall to pieces. Delayed Doom allows the fey to 'store' its claw hits up on any number of targets, preventing the damage, bleed, and Pain but leaving it on a trigger delay, allowing it to deal otherwise fatal damage to a creature but refrain from killing them outright.

Such unfortunate creatures are walking time-bombs, the Itachi able to cause the stored damage, bleed, and agony to blow up all at once with nothing more than a free action at any point within the next two weeks. This allows the Itachi to wring poor souls for all they're worth in the hopes that it will choose to spare their life, turning friends and family against one another or forcing victims to perform painful, humiliating, dangerous, or otherwise criminal actions at its request... only for many such victims to suddenly fall to bloody pieces anyway, as the Fey has no compulsion to honor any deal it makes.

This also means an Itachi can do a drive-by scything on someone and make them believe it missed, so it can just float in the air above them, giggling to itself as it picks the perfect moment to make their head fall off. Being hit with a Full-Attack causes, at minimum, 52 damage + 1d6 bleed, so an especially sinister DM could have one of these creatures ambush the party multiple days in a row, FA-ing them one at a time before flying off, and then once it's stored up damage on everyone over a few days, drop in and instantly take off half the party's HP with a free action. That, or fly down, hit someone a few times, then fly back into the sky and carefully wait for their HP to drop below a threshold where the Delayed Doom would kill them. Is that unfair? Yes. I only recommend this tactic if you want to be especially evil to your party!

How does it know if someone is below a specific threshold, though? Because Itachi can also cast Status at will, and frequently do so in order to keep track of interesting or amusing victims. If a victim manages to get further than 1 mile from the weasel, or is so amusing to it that it doesn't trigger Delayed Doom for 2 weeks, all the stored damage falls off harmlessly, so the weasel has a vested interest in keeping them relatively close if it wishes to prolong its suffering.

Delayed Doom also ends if the Itachi is slain, and doing so is actually a little bit simpler than it looks... if you have access to specific spells. See, the Dust Devil of a Kamaitachi gives it incredibly offense and defense, but the weasels must maintain control of the wind in order to keep its shields up. If it enters the radius of any spell which controls or alters the winds, no matter the spell's level, it must save against the spell or the Dust Devil dissipates, taking away the Itachi's fly speed, immunity to projectiles, and 6 points of its AC (lowering it from 29 to 23). Alter Winds and Control Weather are both options presented by the book itself, but with such long cast times (and Control Weather being a spell level too high for a party encountering a single Itachi besides), you may want to aim for more practical spells such as Calm Air, Tailwind, Air Geyser, or Gust/Blast of Wind, all of which either end the Itachi's flight or can easily be argued to do so.

The Itachi can still make a saving throw against the incoming inconvenience, but if it fails it has to waste its entire turn using one of its 3 castings of Control Wind on itself just to restart its Dust Devil, giving the party enough time to surround it and beat the snot out of it. Without its defensive tornado it's both less mobile and more vulnerable to being beaten into the ground... and depending on how high up it was when your party invoked the winds, it might already be damaged by the fall. I think, after all the trouble one of these little bastards can put a party through, they may take some satisfaction in seeing it hurl towards the ground, tumbling end over end like a dropped pasta noodle.

You can read more about them here.

[chihirolovebot]

idk if it’s ever been talked abt before but i was suddenly gripped by physicist in the love hotel thoughts like. what would be their ideal??? what would go down???

the love hotel is actually an insane concept but now i can’t help but think about it with physicist (and physouma, of course)

phys in the love hotel .... i dont think ive talked abt it before ? at least not at length . probably bc the love hotel is Slightly Weird to me , even if u hc the characters as adults which i do, there's still like . shinguuji, shirogane and iruma's which are just certified dr freakishness all over.

HOWEVER i think ive said before im a big fan of some of them. i love ouma's for character reasons and bc when i played the game i was a much bigger saiouma shipper than i am now ( not that i dont ship them anymore they just dont take up as much space in my head + i prefer kiiruma lol ) . i loved amami's , kiibo's, harukawa's, and momota's too :3

PHYS THOUGH . ok lets think. lets ponder together. we r those monkeys holding hands and spinning rly fast in a circle. you mentioned with physouma BUT i wanna quickly explore what a canonverse phys kamasutra event would look like, which would be with saihara.

i think it would be one of the events that kinda . border on romantic ? but is never explicit. definitely one of the more wholesome ones that would maybe revolve around them bonding or opening up to each other and ends with some slight physical touch ( which is sort of a big thing for phys ) like them resting their head on saihara's shoulder or them cuddling up in bed together and falling asleep. i think that could be kinda cute :3 as for the 'ideal' saihara would play for phys i can imagine it being maybe a childhood friend or a classmate they've known for a while, so they dont have to do the building blocks of building intimacy or small talk . which makes them anxious.

OKAY PHYSOUMA TIME. claps hands. the 'ideal' ouma would be playing would probably look different, since it's implied a big part of phys's initial attraction to him is trying to solve what makes his brain tick. they're a lot like saihara in that sense , and i feel like their love hotel event would take a similar form to the saiouma event in the game, with ouma playing like a phantom thief and saihara as a detective . very classic. but phys doesn't suit the role of a detective , exactly...

ok angsty thought . it's been mentioned that phys has passed through a few orphanages and foster homes so what if ouma as their ideal was another kid there . one who was super mysterious at first but is implied through phys's dialogue to have gradually opened up, and is now at the point where they have a fully trusting relationship. like phys makes comments on 'i'm so glad you opened up to me eventually' and 'i feel like getting to know you was such a puzzle... but i'm glad i stuck with it in the end! because it was worth it, for you.' AHHGHGHH sticking my head into a drain and screaming so my agony is reverberated throughout the entire street. just . so much emphasis on how phys's ideal for ouma is one where he trusts them entirely and their relationship is based on open and equal communication.

i can also see phys confessing and that being like the central kind of .plot point for lack of a better word. like the whole thing is kinda building up to it and ouma's getting progressively more nervous as he realises what they're getting at. i think he would try to evade it at first , do his normal tricks, but it risks the dream ending because phys's ideal of ouma is one that Doesn't Do That. so he very uncertainly relents and allows them to express how they feel . and at this point he's all I've Made A Big Mistake because its gotten way too emotional and intimate and theyre looking at him for an answer and it feels so real .

would he confess back or let the dream end . i guess it depends on how far in the story we are . sickening as it is. in a non killing game au i think he would confess . i think far enough into the story he also would , knowing that he cant and wont in real life because of what he plans to do in chapter 5 . but who knows ! who knows.

[puella-1n-somn10]

Almost done with finals, but I really, really needed to rant.

I know this is a problem with Madoka Magica's purposeful mishandling of its male characters (WHICH I WILL TALK ABOUT LATER), but the way Kyosuke, a literal fucking child, is demonized by both canon and the fandom is beyond sickening.

He was in the hospital for most of his life. He was told in his face that he would never live a normal life by doctors. Those around him only loved him for superficial reason. May I also add that he is, at most, fucking 14? And ya'll treat him worse than those two assholes on the metro?

I am not calling Kyosuke Kamijou a saint, but you have to take his circumstances into account. Heck, the fact that he is not emotionally there at all for anyone as soon as he is healed is an immediate red flag for his safety; yes, he is healed physically, but he still has the trauma to deal with, and I am forever mad that this has never been addressed because, of, oh, he is a dude, and all dudes are like that- gtfo of here with this disgusting take. The portrayal of a symptom of his trauma as HIS FAULT is...ughhhhhh....

Adding on to him "focusing on his violin career"- again, he is 14, and he should be focusing on school, his friends, his life, but, no; he still has doctors up his ass trying to figure out how he was healed so fucking quick and is back to him playing the violin. Has Sayaka ever asked him anything about his day after he was discharged? Has she ever seen him as anything but a violinist?

Was Hitomi the first person ever to see him as an actual person outside the work that his parents have shoved him to?

Kyosuke was done so fucking dirty, and it is one symptom of many in regards to Madoka Magica's inability to strive forwards with its writing. To say that all men are incompetent, they're all emotionless husks, and all girls are required to do the jobs is misogynistic in of itself; it boosts misogyny rather than tackling it head-on. It's literally no different than all these sitcoms where dudes are free to act all childish while their wives are their second moms. This take not only opens the floodgates for TERFs, but also boosts the dehumanization of men of color, which is just heartbreaking especially in the current circumstances of me writing this.

Justice for my kid 2024 and, ffs, study some actual gender sciences Madoka Magica team, because I am tired.

[phtharticdelights]

I had written this at the time of my Freddie Mercury/Queen hyperfixation. It’s on ao3, but some of you might not use that site so I thought I’d bring it here as well.

If I Found I Could Fly, I’d Soar To The Sun

CW: internalized homophobia & implied sex

Sleep evades Freddie that night.

He rises from bed and stalks over to the window. A cool gust of wind caresses Freddie's skin as he opens his and Mary's bedroom window. After days and nights of sweltering heat, the drop in temperature is welcomed with open arms. With his elbows propped up on the window sill, Freddie leans out into the night. The breeze lifts his ebony tresses of hair like a gentle lover.

Freddie remembers the cigarette dangling between his lips. He reaches for the box of matches beside him, liberating one from its confinement and striking it against the rough surface of the box. Freddie sets the cigarette ablaze. The match, having served its purpose, is tossed into the dark. Maybe Freddie will pick up the used match tomorrow morning and dispose of it properly. Or maybe he'll leave it there. He isn't entirely sure.

Taking a long, slow drag of his cigarette, Freddie gazes at the luminous moon. It is nights like this─quiet and dreadfully lonely─where his mind becomes a wasteland for wandering thoughts. His doubts, worries, and fears fester like an untreated flesh wound. Freddie finds nothing to soothe the infection, which leaves him in unbearable agony. The mental anguish is enough to remind him why he shouldn't be left alone in the first place.

But he isn't alone─not physically, anyway.

A lingering glance over his shoulder confirms Mary's presence. Strands of blonde hair partially obscure her fair face. With the moon's silvery light filtering throughout their bedroom, Mary's golden locks are practically glowing. She's glowing. His own real life sleeping beauty, as radiant as the morning sun.

Freddie should consider himself a lucky bloke. Out of all the men in London, it is he who lays claim to such a lovely woman. He is the one who has the privilege of lying betwixt Mary's milky thighs. He gets to make her double over in a fit of laughter. He wishes her goodnight at the end of the day before sleep takes them under.

I love you, Freddie proclaims a thousand times over.

And he does. How could he not? Mary, with her belief in him and kind words of reassurance, makes loving her easy. Only a fool would resist her.

Yes, he's lucky.

So bloody lucky.

Freddie's dark eyes quickly return to the moon. He mustn't venture to that place. He won't allow himself to muck up his one chance at normalcy.

Freddie loves Mary.

Mary loves him.

It's enough for him. Mary is enough. She has to be enough. Freddie needs her to be enough. He doesn't know what would become of him if he loses Mary all because of─

"Freddie?"

Her sleep ridden voice forces Freddie back to reality. Back to their little bedsit on Victoria Road, Kensington.

The rustling of sheets suggests movement.

"What are you doing up so late?" Mary asks.

Freddie finds himself tongue-tied. He feels her draw nearer, but doesn't dare look back. The eyes are a window to the soul, and his is too dissolute for any decent person to bare witness to. Especially his ray of sunshine.

"Freddie," she wraps her arms around his shoulders. "What's the matter?" Concern is evident in Mary's tone. Of course. It’s in a woman’s nature to worry, after all.

A barely audible sigh escapes Freddie's lips. "It's nothing, darling." he lies without hesitation. "I just had a little trouble staying asleep. I thought a smoke would do the trick."

It truly pains him to be dishonest. However, falsehoods and half truths seem to be essential if this relationship is to last until they're both wrinkled and grey. To tell the truth─the sickening, ugly truth─would mean to admit his wickedness to not only Mary, but to himself.

Thoughts and hazy memories are one thing, but the idea of actually putting his─it into words makes Freddie want to curl into a ball and just die.

Freddie takes one last drag of his almost forgotten cigarette, then he asks Mary to bring the ashtray over. She obliges his request. He puts out the cigarette, quietly thanking his girlfriend as she places the ashtray on the nightstand.

He finds himself in Mary's warm embrace once again. Her head fits snugly in the space between his neck and shoulder. Long, soft blonde hair brushes against Freddie's skin, sending a wave of apprehension down his spine.

"Come back to bed, love." She whispers suggestively, her small lips faintly touching his ear.

A lucky bloke.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Freddie closes the window and lets Mary lead him to their bed. When she sheds her nightgown, Freddie knows that he should be aroused by her nude body. Mary's humble, perky breasts and soft curves should awaken in him a want─an overwhelming need. He should be more than willing to explore the inner-workings of her womanhood.

But most of all, he shouldn't be wishing for those breasts to vanish into thin air, replaced by a flat, toned chest. For those soft curves to become angular in shape. For the velvety, moist opening between her legs to morph into─

No!

He can't go down that road. Not tonight. Not ever.

[fat-butch-dyke]

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR OCS PLEASE INFODUMP I LOVE HEARING ABOUT THEM how did Adam end up coming to earth? How did they find it when they first arrived? Did eve tell her friends about Adam and if so what did she say? Has eve's sister met Adam? Please tell me anything and everything your world building and these characters make my brain go brrrrr💜💜

This might be long so more under the cut and this is subject to change a bit depending on how I develop their story 😂 let's get into it!

Adam (and another of their kind whom I shall develop more later) were sucked in through a wormhole of some variety whilst they were floating around up wherever they come from. (In my universe at least) eldritch beings gain strength, power and influence by feeding off each other and absorbing the other's energy. That's what they had been ATTEMPTING to do before they'd gotten trapped in the gravitational pull and interrupted. Adam was actually about to lose that battle, the other creature managing to take a pretty gnarly bite out of it before they'd been dropped on earth like hot trash, the two of them landing in heaps on opposite ends of the planet and leaving chasms large enough to probably fit small countries in. They've both been weakened considerably from that but Adam has taken to eating humans as a means to regain its strength.

Adam was positively sickened when they first arrived! Having a physical form of any variety kinda sucks when you've spent millenia not really feeling the heat of the sun or the sharp slap of rain. Their first night was spent curled up in the crater they landed in just trying to deal with the sensory overload of earth. There are just so many different sounds. They can handle the far off noises of stars exploding or the passing of time and how it warps in certain areas of the cosmos, but all the PEOPLE and ANIMALS and the SOUNDS on earth absolutely overwhelm them even now sometimes, though they've gotten better at managing it. Their first night was spent just suffering through the agony of hearing. They have since come to almost enjoy earth though (it helps that Eve likes it so much, she wouldn't take them up on their offer to leave together). They've come to enjoy the gentle light of the sunrise and the soft feeling of rain hitting grass as they walk. They even began growing almost affectionate for humans but moreso the way a farmer comes to care for its animals before slaughter. They're fascinated by people, humanities flaws and strengths and how deeply they FEEL things, Adam loves seeing what makes them tick almost as much as they love indulging in their meals. They think it makes them taste all the sweeter.

Eve has mentioned Adam though her friends haven't met them yet. She's a bit nervous about introducing them since it's a bit...possessive and she knows they'll be frightened by them. Adam doesn't particularly care to meet them, it's happy to simply bask in her company and enjoy the happy feelings pouring out from her after a night on the town with her friends. That's all he really cares about them.

Eve's sister has met Adam though it was a bit of an accident 😂 Adam was hanging out at Eve's home one evening and her sister (Lynn) had stopped by without notice. Eve was definately wary about introducing the two since they can both be protective of her but she couldn't really pretend Adam wasn't there since Lynn has a habit of just walking in as soon as she unlocks the door. They both bristle at each other from opposite sides of Eve (like when you first introduce your cat to a strangers' cat) and dinner is tense (Lynn invites herself to stay, she doesn't trust Adam as far as she can throw them.) They eventually reach a mutual understanding that they both want Eve to be happy (and that Adam is forbidden from eating Lynn). After Lynn threatens to peel Adam's skin off if they hurt Eve, it almost finds itself growing almost fond of her. That sort of fierce protectiveness an older sister can provide makes Adam beam a bit, happy that Eve has someone else who'd literally kill for her (though they do laugh a bit at the threat). Lynn still isn't their favorite person, to be honest I think they can only TRULY care for Eve, but they get along well enough and can handle being in each other's company without biting the others head off.

I think that was all the Qs! Thanks so much for asking I'm so 🥺💜 I love these two so much aaaaa

[transsexualhamlet]

okok 10 + 25 for bsd 17 for tolkien stuff n 19 for ons

choose violence ask game

ohohoheuehe yes indeedy

(bsd)

10. Worst part of fanon

oh god there's so many ofc. Obviously it has to be said the "sigma is three years old" thing is SO fucking tiring and everyone knows it. But also for the love of god the people who've gotten ahold of nikolai and fyodor who've made them "immature insane sadist with no inner thought" and "russian stereotype" i hate them i hate them i hate them you're the only one who's allowed to say things about them you're rhe only one who's right

25. Common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing

I have to say I just. Scroll past most Fandom Complaint type things because usually they're. Stupid as balls or I've heard them a thousand times before but. Can people stop complaining about Mori it's just time to move on from Mori

I also like, I get the point of them but I'm beginning to get really tired of the constant complaints about people not appreciating the female characters, I'm not gonna lie? I literally see stuff about them all the time this happens in legit every fandom especially anime ones

(tolkien)

17. There should be more of this type of fic/art

I'm actually kind of surprised that there seems to be so little fic/art that explores the real original aspects of Tolkien's world. Most notably, the physical environment of Arda, especially in the eras prior to the sun and the moon when everything was so significantly different than what we're used to. For a fandom that puts so much effort into creating personalities and rich inner lives for characters that are mentioned maybe three times, I rarely see people delving into the aspects of like, what it's like to live under the light of the trees (the direction of shadows are literally always the same, night is almost equally bright to day, how much light you get depends entirely upon where you're geographically located, if ur on tol eressea all ur light is coming from a tiny slit in the mountain) and how that would probably affect people's lives and what it looks like to live there. I see people try to work around it more than they explore it and I think it's a lost opportunity for some real interesting stuff. In that same vein, I would love to see more imagined about how Maiar and Valar work biologically and how life is different for elves because those guys are straight up real. It's really the imaginative bit of this fandom that I so rarely see showing up, and I think there's a potential for so much more of it!!

(ons)

19. You're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

THE WHOLE THING. THE WHOLE CONCEPT. OWARI NO SERAPH

I love ons and it just is so sickening that the concept and the world and the magic and the characters are so intriguing and then the execution still has to be DOGSHIT . i love the integration of science and religion I love the exploration of the horrors of living in a postapocalyptic military society I love the horrors of guren's situation and the body horrir and the queer longing and then the execution os SO BAD AND WRONG i just AUGH

Also Mahiru. Its such a problem I wish she was a girlboss but she is Not.

[eruanna1875]

I am still going through old tags, and this was one I saved lol

The WIP I decided on for this is "Kingdom of Othrys" - which is my Tangled AU featuring characters and story elements from my own stories because of a weird dream I had once. It's almost its own thing at this point. It even has a blog (@tpc-tangled-au)

"Star" was surprisingly hard to find, actually. It was always either plural or part of a compound word. But I settled on a plural at last, from the beginning of Chapter 4 (Dire Warnings):

Azarias whirled like wind over the hills, wisplike in his dematerialized form. It was not quite like real flying, but it was faster. Faster too, he knew, was Wayland, astride the swiftest horse he could find. Between the two of them, they would surely find King Frederick soon. But these hopes brought Azarias no cheer. His mood was still foul, and his thoughts stewed in its growing heat. I grow sickened of kings. Kings are fools—they do not understand the power of these stones! You cannot simply take them at will, to use or destroy! The Underworld is already thrown into chaos by ITS king, all because he thought he could rid himself of one as easy as if it were a rat in his cellar. Now this Othryan, this roughland ruler, thinks he can pluck a fireflower and not catch his kingdom ablaze! THEOS tou keravnoú, can they not SEE the stars can rend them?! His silver form flickered black once as he flew. Only once. He kept his head level, so far as any phantom physically could in that wisplike state. He kept his sight peeled for any signs. He kept his focus to the task at hand. But a low growl echoed behind in the hills as he left them, and he could feel frustration creep along his spine.

I really like Azarias and Wayland, guys. They're so epic, and I love their dynamic. (Honestly, I could've used my Chesterton reference for "star", but I just wanted to have one with Them so much.)

"Fade" was actually pretty easy - it came up less than I realized! So I have part of the first appearance of a... certain evil witch, in Chapter 5 (The Impossible Blossom).

As Salome sang, a familiar change crept across her. It tingled of power, and tasted of magic. The tune was forbidden fruit upon her tongue. Ahh... She smiled as she sang, feeling wrinkles fade from its corners. ‘Tis well for me. Well that I do sing so sweet, even as age comes forth. Her weak and brittle hair strengthened, thickened, darkened. No bearer am I, dear master, nor you. Only a mistress of magic, I. Beneath her gloves, her fingers reclaimed their softness and cleverness. But even if I knew no magic, it would be well. And well now. She ran her hands across her form, restored to its familiar shape. ‘Tis the music that does it. Well for me.

(By the way, the magic is triggered by singing in general, not a specific song. She's singing a bad song, because she's a witch and she's bad. Also, this was actually the first time I'd ever written a scene for Salome, AU or otherwise!)

"Time" came up a lot. But I decided on a little bit of description from Chapter 8 (The Lighthouse).

The tower, though tainted by time, had once been white. But faded splotches on the sides told also of stripes worn away. Gleaming black and bright red, once upon a time. Its walls smelled of lost seas. The little gold thing made a half-circle, tracing along the tower’s side. Then it stopped. It returned to the side where it had first arrived, and started back the other way. Furrows scratched into its face as it roamed. But no questions came aloud. The stairs, facing the north westerward, were gilded at last. The gold thing scrambled up readily through the ivy. But it found no greeting. No cracked boards, no rusted knobs, no gaping hole into which it could creep. Only blank. The furrows scratched deeper. “What sort of tower hasn’t any door?”

(That's the Tower, you see, being explored by a certain young prince. Also, I like the Lighthouse. He's nice.)

"Laugh" is a fun one. The one I picked is from Chapter 6 (Seeing the Lights), and it is cute. That whole chapter was super cute, but I liked this moment especially.

She glanced at her friend, about to reply. But she stopped. Naphtali was staring at her, mouth slightly open. His grey eyes gleamed wide in the light. “What?” “I never heard you laugh afore.” “Oh.” Melisande shrank, just a little. “Is it bad?” “Nuh-uh.” He shook his head, his grin returning. “’s nice.” Naphtali smiled at her, just a little moment more, before he looked back out at the lights. It didn’t take long for excitement to spark in him again, and he soon started eagerly pointing out the splendidest lanterns, guessing who made which one, and bouncing on his heels. And Melisande smiled too. She liked the lights. But she decided she liked them standing right here much better than she would like them flying. She didn’t notice that he hadn’t let go of her hand. But then, neither did he.

(BABIES)

So yeah, I know I sort of stole this from a long time ago, but it was open! And I had fun, so maybe I can get this going around again.

I'm assuming I need to pick new words for another round, so I will pick... silver, cheer, hands, and fire.

And I will tag... @amerasdreams @claramurphyqueenoffandoms @whoopsididitdarker @girlwiththe221bread @scarecrow-hat @o0whiterabbit0o @awesomebutunpractical @why-bless-your-heart (I don't know who's off for Lent, but if you're off for Lent, this will be waiting for you after Easter!)

Tagged by @isfjmel-phleg to find the words whisper, leave, last, and door in my current WIPs. I’m rather late to this, sorry, but here goes!

(Since my definition of “current WIPs” is rather…fluid, I decided to search my docs in general and take the most recent use of a word. :P It’s mostly Back to the Future right now…)

“Whisper,” from my Gravity Falls “what if DaMvtF happened but Weirdmageddon didn’t” WIP:

It would be really nice to stay, Dipper thought. Even if Stan and Ford kept…not-getting-along, it would still be nice to stay here with the two of them. Great-Uncle Ford was exciting and amazing and he could teach Dipper so much, but—Grunkle Stan was, well, Grunkle Stan. He was safe, and he was home, and in his own weird imperfect way, he was…pretty amazing himself.

And maybe that was why Dipper found himself saying, “Hey, Grunkle Stan?” without really thinking it through first.

Stan glanced down. “Yeah, kid?”

Dipper chewed on his lip again. “…Have you seen Mabel?”

“Not in a little while.” Stan stopped, eyes sliding uneasily back to Dipper. “You, uh, you talked to her since you got back? She was…kinda down earlier.”

“…I know,” Dipper said. His gaze fell to the ground. Why had he started this, he didn’t want to talk about this, he just…

…Well, maybe he did want to talk about, it, kinda.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Grunkle Stan,” he confessed in a whisper, wrapping his arms around his chest.

:( I forgot how stressfully this AU starts. (It gets better! It’s not an angsty AU! But this is like ten minutes after Mabel ran into the woods and Dipper’s not in a good place right here.)

“Leave” came from one of my new BTTF WIPs—to be specific, this is based on a scene from the BTTF video/one of the comic storylines. Have a teenage Emmett Brown, with a Marty who made friends with him under false pretenses:

For that matter, Emmett thought suddenly, why tell me he was lying at all?

He could easily have kept up the charade for a few minutes longer, giving Emmett some quick response about waiting to hear back and then going on his merry way. But he hadn’t. He’d confessed, as if genuinely not wanting to leave Emmett with false hopes, and then he’d (sort of) explained himself. As if Emmett’s feelings mattered to him.

The way he’d sounded when he was talking about the “someone” he needed to “save”… Well, if that distress was real, Emmett couldn’t really hold his deceit against him. And…even if he hadn’t done it for Emmett’s sake, Corleone had still spent the day obtaining illegal spirits and subpoenaing a gangster’s accountant to get this drill working. Clearly it was very important to him.

Do I have anyone I would go to these lengths for? Emmett wasn’t sure.

But he thought it was worth helping anyone who did.

(I tried to keep up canon-typical levels of dramatic irony on this one. It was fun.)

“Last” comes from my BTTF fic that has the most chance of actually being finished! I like this one.

“Hey Doc.”

“Mm?”

“You ever think about what the world would be like if you’d never been born?”

Doc looked up from his work with a start, spinning around to stare at Marty. His friend was still bent over his guitar, though, practicing chords, and missed Emmett’s reaction entirely.

Which was…probably a good thing, actually.

“What brought this on?” he asked, leaning back and restricting his tone to a relatively normal level of interest.

Marty looked up with an untroubled shrug. “It’s a Wonderful Life was on last night,” he explained, and grinned. “Me ‘n’ Dave ‘n’ Linda started arguing after, about which of us would make the biggest difference if we’d never been born.”

Doc laughed, relaxing. No time-travel wrinkles here yet, just Christmas movies and sibling rivalry. “So, did you reach any conclusions?” he asked, intrigued.

They talk about sibling rivalry and chaos theory and how you define “making a difference.” Doc has Time-Travel Context but Marty doesn’t yet. It doesn’t really matter.

“Door” is another BTTF comics scene—this time from the comics’ “what-if” storyline set in the movies’ Darkest Timeline. (I was thinking of doing a 5 + 1 centered on Doc & Marty’s many “first” meetings…)

Marty scooted forward, leaning toward him. “Wait, wait. You’re tellin’ me that…you’ve met me, but I haven’t met you. Because you met a future me? You’re tellin’ me time travel is real?” His voice rose in pitch as he spoke, squeaking a bit on the final words.

“Indeed.” Doc grinned at him. “Given the nature of the subject, it’s hard to ‘begin at the beginning,’ so to speak…but for me, it began one night in 1955 when a young man called Marty McFly began hammering on my front door, insisting that I help him get back to the future. The future he was from. That’s how I know you!”

For the next round, I’m picking the words star, fade, time, and laugh, and…tagging everyone I’m mutuals with who has active WIPs and wants to do this. Please do! (Even if you’ve done another version of this recently, please feel free to do this one too. :P )

[tibby]

LOVE your posts about Bobby Dagen. OBSESSED with the jigsquad wanting to torture him 10% he is profiting off their trauma and they’re all protective, 90% because it’s funny. thank you for your service

oh thank YOU! bobby dagen being such a flop character and his entire narrative being so poorly executed is so frustrating because the idea of a fake jigsaw survivor is SO good and could have been excellent if it was in a better film. unfortunately as it was it was weird and disjointed and messy and the only good thing to come out of it was lawrence being gay and evil and the reapperance of simone and mallick my beloveds.

HOWEVER. as this is my city now i do have a lot of feelings about the idea of bobby dagen in the jigsquad universe because they absolutely would take it personally and they obviously do not have normal reactions to things. and it'd be one thing if he was just doing it in his free time to pick up girls or whatever (which. while still shitty. is not SUPER high on their list of People We Should Trap) but he's making a profit off of it and has the nerve to come to jigsaw survivor meetings every so often and talk down to ACTUAL survivors for not healing well enough or whatever. and sure maybe lawrence is only going to those things to scout for new members of team torture and maim and maybe they don't have a right to judge when they're to blame for what happened to everyone else in that room. but also it's offensive. maybe they ARE a little petty but also fuck you dude.

and it's also like. whether they're aware of it or not they're ALL still playing one of john's games, because he's dead and buried but they're still trapped in this life, continuing his legacy because they no longer know any other way to be. and they're all fucked up because of that and because of their original games, mental and physical scars that are very very real and not something they just made up to sell a book. lawrence lost his foot and adam's arm will never have full mobility again and everything john did to amanda will take years for her to unpack and hoffman's sanity is hanging on by a thread. THEY have to actually live with all of that and it's sickening to them to watch bobby dagen claim that he knows what he's been through when he's never had to experience anything like it.

so it just is natural for them, in all their mentally warped minds, to be like "okay well if this guy wants the physical and mental scars that come with surviving a jigsaw trap then we'll give it to him."

i think the ONLY part they'd have moral qualms about is putting joyce in the brazen bull, because they know that she doesn't know the truth (which is also anger inducing, because bobby is lying not only to the world but also to the woman he claims to love) but. they're also all well aware that losing the person you love the most is its own unique kind of suffering.

and i think it just adds to the deliciously devious nature of the fact that...bobby's game is designed to almost guarantee his survival. it's everyone else who suffers because of his lies, and it's a game set up to leave bobby scarred and mentally broken and guilt ridden but alive. just like he wanted, right? he gets the scars on his chest and the mental trauma and gets to tell the story about how he survived.

they make sure bobby dagen gets everything he wanted out of his game. and now he has to live with the consequences.

[p4nishers]

istfg eddie calls him cowboy ONE time and bucks immediately like "you're so attractive I'm taking my own life" and when that doesn't work he kicks his feet and giggles about it in his fucked up little dreamland