#this one was a struggle yall

[saltmalkin]

cat spirit

[oliversgarden]

Maltober day 4!! Hospitals and Helping hand (:

How yall feel about a Frankensteinian human John who puts himself together (with the help of Arthur of course) piece by insufferable piece??

[morgana-ren]

I DONT KNOW IF YOU WRITE FULL FICS BUT IF YOU DO PLEASE WIRTE ONE ABOUT TGAT LAST ASK.

Just about Astarion sitting in his throne of sorts, in the palace, with tav sitting in his lap. He’s bored, tav sits there- dissociating and wishing they were anywhere else. He asks them if they’d like to do something fun and they say something like “Only if you do my lord” and he saddens some, expecting them to come up with something fun like they used to but they can’t think of anything that he would approve of them doing after so many years of breaking them down and he realizes it’s gotten so dull because tav was the person that brightened his life

"Awfully dull today, hmm? How would you like to do something fun, my love?"

It's an oh-so rare quiet day in the Crimson Palace, and his favorite source of amusement sits placidly on his lap, silent as the grave and still atop him. Content as he is in the peaceful quiet with solely her company, he'd spend the day with her doing– well, something, surely. It’s been a while since they’ve had any time to themselves to truly enjoy each other’s company alone. In fact, he cannot recall the last time with any distinct accuracy.

It seems so terribly long since they've had any time to themselves. Being a Lord keeps you awfully busy.

In a tender moment, he reaches forward to brush a stray strand of hair out of her face and behind her ear with a long, pale finger. She doesn’t react save a slight instinctual flicker of her lashes. Not a hint of expression on her face. He expects her to lean into his touch as she used to and is almost shocked when she does not.

Odd, he thinks. She hardly even seems to notice anything at all.

It’s almost like she isn’t entirely present.

Still, before he can chastise her, she responds to his bid for her attention.

"If that is your wish, my lord,” She responds to his question, lifeless and monotone. Perfectly obedient, just as befits her, and yet—

He frowns, just a little. It irks him, but now that he thinks about it, he cannot recall the last time he saw enthusiasm on her face– or much of anything at all aside from the blank, hollow mask she has now. Completely impassive and unresponsive in a cruel sort of practiced indifference. 

He studies her for a moment and comes to the conclusion that it reminds him of the robots they found in that strange tower in the Underdark so long ago. Programmed to respond to the right things and make the right moves, but utterly incapable of acting on her own whims. Eternally awaiting instruction. 

Empty. Robotic. Precise and yet disingenuous somehow. Eerily so.

Has she been like this before? Has he simply not noticed?

Perhaps she just needs to awaken a little more. It was such a long night, and he had kept her remarkably busy. She must be exhausted, but surely, she will perk up. She always does. 

Doesn’t she?

“Come, darling. What would you like to do?” He jostles his knees, dandling her on his legs like one might a small, particularly grumpy child. She bumps up and down, only reaching to steady herself on the sides of his throne. 

“Whatever would please you would please me, my lord.”

He groans, rolling his red eyes, a very sudden burst of irritation bubbling in his gut. Always with the My lord, My lord, scraping and bowing like some sort of indentured serf. Proper respect is important, of course, but for the first time in a while— longer than he can honestly think back on, to be honest— they are entirely alone. He is her Lord, yes, but she knew him by another name once– did know him by another name. She knows better than to tease him in front of his vassals but surely—

He can’t remember the last time she said his name. 

His real name. 

How long since he has truly sat by her side and talked with her? Spent time with her? He's been so busy, laying plans and waste, conquering and shedding blood of those who oppose him. The Lord Tyrant, come to rule over his dominion of Eternal Night. She is always by his side, never straying and yet— 

(“I love you, Little Star,” She’d laugh, planting a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose, which would promptly crinkle in annoyance. 

“I’m not ‘Little Star,’ and I’ll never understand why you insist on calling me that.” 

“That’s what your name means, doesn’t it? Little Star? Or perhaps Little Starlight– I don’t really remember.”

“Then why make that my pet name?" He rolls his eyes, annoyed at the use of his own childish moniker that follows him like a shadow to anyone who speaks even a lick of his native language. "Of all the things your brilliant little mind can concoct, you give me a child’s handle? I’m strong, dashing, capable, handsome, fearsome– but instead you choose that absurdity” 

“Because you’re my little star!” And she would smile so brightly that it seemed impossible in the darkness, and he could not help but smile himself. “My light in the darkness. My Astarion, for as long as you want to be. And I love you.” 

His expression would soften once again and he would simply sigh, pulling her close to kiss her temple. The night was cold, but she was so impossibly warm against him, somehow fitting perfectly in his lap and into his heart, where she’d wormed her way in against his own will. The dim firelight reflects in her eyes as she tells him again that she loves him forever if he’ll have her, and he can think of nothing he’d desire more than to ride out the endless night of eternity with her here on his lap, cradled close.)

Something gnaws at him. Something raw and edged with a vicious sort of misery he’d done so well to avoid in ages. He cannot place it but as he looks at her, his stomach is as a dark, abyssal pit, circling and swelling like a maelstrom. 

Something is wrong.

He cannot place the negative emotion, and so he does as he always does now, making the strange yearning her responsibility to soothe. 

He lashes out at her. 

“I’m growing bored,” He says with a cold, cruel edge to his voice. “You know how much I dislike boredom, don't you, darling?"

What he seeks is a reaction. A sudden spark of life from within her. For her to grab his hand and take him to do— to do something. Surely—

And yet, with a motion so fluid that it implies an aged and practiced skill, she slides from his lap down to her knees before him, reaching towards the laces of his breeches. There is nothing behind her eyes as she extends her hand forward to unlace him, hardly even seeing him. Nothing at all. 

“What are you doing?” He slaps her hands away, scowling down at her, taken back by her brashness. 

“You said you were bored, my Lord.”

“And why would you think–” 

Because that is what he’d taught her. 

That her body was built for his amusement; his temple to defile at will. Because of the cold nights in the castle after so many years where he would reach for her, and she would quiver and shake her head with eyes rimmed red and puffy and beg to be left untouched and yet he would speak the words without thinking and she would bend for him any way he wished. 

Because even as she would obey, she would cry and turn away, and he would give it little thought until one night the crying and protesting simply stopped. He thought she had learned. Made peace with her duties and loyalty to him and what it entailed. Mayhaps she had come to realize that her theatrics had little impact on him and surely, he wasn’t so wretched to her now that these waterworks were necessary. His touch could not repulse her so that her weeping was remotely acceptable. She loves him, surely she—

Because he would command her until she would kneel, and so now, she kneels without command.

He sighs, breathing the fire from his lungs, reaching down to pull her back up into his lap. She does not respond, only obeys in kind to his guiding instruction as he settles her back down on his legs. He finds a semblance of patience from within himself which is a strange and unusual feeling, mustering it up to once again ask:

“My dear, what is it that you would like to do?” 

Her head cocks. She does not understand. 

"What would you enjoy? If you had the freedom to do anything, what might it be?"

It takes a moment, but for the first time, a reaction: Confusion. It is slow to take hold but becomes blaringly apparent as it does. It is not as if she doesn’t know the answer, but almost as if she doesn’t understand the question. 

“Whatever you would like to do, my Lo–”

“No, no, darling. What is it you would like to do?” He impresses, harsher this time, and she flinches, recoiling from… something. 

From him.  

If her heart was still capable of beating, he'd be able to hear the way it pumps into overdrive. As it stands, he cannot, but he is aware no less. Her scent changes entirely around him to something that has his brows furrowing. Shortness of breath, dilating pupils, hands beginning to quake— Adrenaline. Steel-edged anxiety. As if this is not a question at all, but rather a test and she does not know the answer, and failure means his displeasure and his displeasure means–

"I— What would you—" She hard-swallows, harrowed by the open-endedness of the question. "—I want what—"

("Come to the meadow with me, Asto," She would grab his hand with a mischievous smile when their compatriots were fast asleep, tugging him up from the comfort of his bedroll. "I want you to come with me."

"It's late, darling. Wouldn't you rather come here and lie with me?" He would try to tug her back down playfully, but would fall against her aggressive temerity, being pulled to his feet through her sheer will. She would stifle her giggling with a hand as she guided him past their slumbering companions, through the tree line and deep into the forest. 

"Come on, lazy boy, come! Come with me!"

"Well, I'm trying to—"

She would hush him and yank him by the wrist, out into the field where he'd first had her, down once more into a bed of wildflowers and long grass. Her melodic laugh like a strange song as she yanks him to the ground despite his weak protests until she would lie her head on his chest and trace gentle patterns on his white shirt against his flexed chest. 

"We don't have to come all the way out here to make love, darling—" He would move to try to kiss her, but she would adamantly press her head against his torso, insisting he stay down in the dirt with her. 

"I'm not trying to seduce you," She would giggle, pointing at the star-spangled sky. "I want to lie under the stars with you." 

"But… why?"

"Because I know we'll have eternity to do it, but it's my favorite moon tonight and it reminded me of you."

He squints, struggling to find anything different about it at all. "I don't notice anything, darling. It looks very much like the moon we see every night." 

"It's so full and bright! Look at the rays!" She holds her hand out as if to cradle a silvery moonbeam in her palm. "It reminds me of the color of your hair." 

She reaches over him to delicately pluck something from the grass, tucking it gingerly behind his ear after she does so. "These poppies are the same beautiful deep red of your eyes in the moonlight. I feel safe here; home, with you. I just wanted to enjoy it for a moment. Just the two of us."

He would wrap his arms around her waist, squeezing so tightly that she would gasp and worm about, trying to return the favor, and yet he would not relent. 

"I want you to feel safe with me," he would whisper into her hair, desperately trying to memorize the scent of it, as if expecting Bhaal himself to come and steal her from his frantic embrace. "Now and forever, I want to feel home in your arms, with you.")

He thinks, for a moment, to return to that meadow, and that perhaps his love— the one he remembers— will return to him. As if her ghost still lingers there, trapped and waiting to be rescued. 

He can’t. 

It is not a meadow any longer, but a battlefield, not unlike the vile destruction left in Ketheric's wake at Raithewait; another one in a million places sacrificed in his conquest for glory, littered with bodies and bones. A graveyard tribute to his power, scorched soil and dead grass. No flowers bloom there anymore— there is nowhere for them to bloom between the suffocating aura of death. 

All that is left is a beautiful memory buried beneath a river of dried blood, and you cannot water flowers with dried blood or wean them on bone dust. That meadow is one moment suspended in time as trapped in amber, impossible to claw free from its temporal prison. He cannot remember the last time he saw that jovial smile she had saved just for him in that damned meadow. 

He cannot recall the last time she said the words "I love you" and cried his name as a preternaturally beautiful siren song without being commanded. 

He frowns, feeling something strange and haunting in his chest. Something viciously clawing up his throat as he looks at her: at her empty red eyes that were once the most beautiful color, full of love and life when she looked upon him; at her contorted expression that used to be as radiant as the sun and he could have sworn that her light could have sustained him through the dark, miserable nights of his eternal curse if only she was by his side; at the frailty of her body that almost seems to creak and break beneath his weight. 

"My love, look at me."

And she does, if not by command, then by instinct. 

"Smile for me, will you? Can you do that for me?" 

And she does, her lips turning upward and raising to reveal two sharp teeth— and nothing more. It's uncanny and revolting and wrong. There is nothing behind her eyes, nothing at all. No light, no life, and certainly no love. 

He used to be able to see himself in her eyes. How her heart sang for him, cheeks blossoming with blood at the sight of him. He could hear her heart rabbit behind her ribs, her hands quaking with excitement to touch him even in the most innocent of ways. Through her eyes, he found his own value— his own worth— and finally began to understand that he deserved love; he deserved happiness. She had healed him, giving almost all of herself to do it, selflessly and without asking for anything in return even as he despised himself and refused his own agency—

And she stares at him now with soulless eyes, he is left to wonder if he has taken too much from her in his quest to take everything. Wonders if she will ever be that lovestruck, moon-eyed girl again, wanting nothing more than to lie under the moonlit meadow with him. If she will ever kiss his eyelids as a delicate butterfly and whisper eternity in his ear. If she will ever feel safe and home and loved around him again in his embrace–

Save she is no longer quaking with anticipation at his touch, but trembling from fear, lost and terrified at the posing of a simple question. Her scent is foreign even as it is familiar and he cannot recall when it began to change. There is something in her eyes that haunts him, and though he can see himself within him, what stares back is not him. A terrible realization rakes knives down his soul, a gaping maw threatening to swallow him whole. A tightening in his lungs, and even as he does not breathe, he does not believe he could even if he tried. 

“Darling?” 

“Yes, my Lord?” 

Her face is impassive once more. Perfect porcelain expression. Not a crack in the mask. Not a wrinkle in the facade. Practiced day in and day out until it becomes real. He remembers it well.

How long has it been? How long since he has looked at her? Truly looked at her? Spoken to her? Told her he loved her? 

Showed her he loves her?

When was the last day he did not command from her that which she begged not to willingly give?

He cannot remember. He cannot recall. 

He demanded and she had no choice but to give. More and more and more. He drained her dry and now where was once his sacred oasis, there is nothing at all. No matter how long he looks, there is never a flicker of anything in her glassy eyes. 

He wonders if even as he has gotten everything he has ever wanted, he lost the one thing he needed. 

It paralyzes him. For the first time in an ageless eternity, he feels something: Panic. 

Even his endless power cannot bring her back. His beloved is dead, and he has killed her. Upon him sits a pretty corpse, empty and devoid of all that made her her. A doll with her face. A doll with barely even that. 

Her laugh, her smile. Her passion and desire and love. The tenderness inside of her and the warmth she once held. Everything that pulled him from his shell and showed him how to love once more. He bloomed in her light– and then snuffed it out entirely. 

How long has it been? How long has she been gone?

Though she may be undying, he realizes with horror akin to a dawning sun that she is gone– and has been for some time. 

“You seem stressed, my Lord? How can I make you happy again?”

Second part of the story HERE

[cerealforkart]

Dungeons and Daddies | Episode 28: King of the Hell

@ghostlynotion said: "i liked the scene where glenn threw taylor (on the candy cane) but i don’t remember the episode number/name"

Not sure I'm married to this Glenn design but otherwise I'm quite happy with this one!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Redraw of my first post on this blog. Oh how far we've come B'*)

[Now with it's own redraw!]

[delzinrowe]

What do you make of having a vampire in our camp?

[aheathen-conceivably]

Because we love mess out here, ya'll already know when I saw @adelarsims 's template for blorbos as Onion headlines, I had to do it. Featuring some gameplay captures, outtakes, and a forever classic - lasagna boi 😏

[the-cooler-kizy-art]

"Why did I fall in love with you...?"

colors and compositions inspired by @gigizetz part for the song "Not sorry for loving you" from the livestream!!! Design belongs to me :D

[suntails]

⚔️🍎

[mrmeepsmadmind]

rewatching this over and over again.. mainly bcs tarn makes soundwave into a manlet but also bcs it's hilarious

[queer-coffee]

simple words | pt. 1

Part 2 | Part 3 | Read on Ao3

Sanji sparks a light, just as the rising sun sends a beam of light through his tiny kitchen porthole.

Really, he wants to ask Franky if he can do something about that. Sanji’s favorite part of the day, and he can’t properly enjoy it through just a tiny porthole what with croissants that need an egg wash before the dough gets too warm, and bacon cooking alongside a maple glaze that will burn the sugar if it gets too hot, and weighing out the proper mix of five different tea leaves that he knows makes Zoro smile into his cup when he thinks no one is looking, and all the other things that must be done in a precise order, perfectly timed, so that breakfast is ready, but with a welcoming sort of ease fit for first thing in the morning, as his crewmates start to stumble in after a late night to enjoy it.

Not to mention, he needs more airflow in here. Sanji pauses as the sunray reflects off the ceramic of his stovetop to open the porthole. He exhales in its direction and ashes his cigarette after, so nothing disrupts the flavor of this meal.

But Franky worked so hard on this ship, and Sanji knows how much thought was put into every other aspect of his kitchen, his wine cellar, his aquarium with the freshest and most delicious fish he can find, that he can’t bring himself to critique something so trivial.

A crisp gust of wind blows the smoke back in his face, and into his kitchen.

Sanji sighs.

It’s so trivial.

But he can’t get it out of his head, what that stupid moss brain said to him last night.

And he knows it wasn’t personal, or intentional, or even really meant as an insult at all.

In fact, it was one of those rare moments that Sanji loves, when they catch each other in just the right mood, both just drunk enough, both alone.

Their crewmates were all laughing and yelling and drinking in the room over, oblivious to what was happening to Sanji just a stone’s throw away.

Sanji was returning with a few favorite picks from the wine cellar. A red blend for Robin, a sweet orange for Nami, whole milk for Luffy he grabbed from the kitchen, and whatever table wine for the rest, except for a small bottle of the finest sake he could get his hands on at that last island.

And the Sunny hit a swell. And Sanji, normally used to these unexpected changes in his center of gravity from being on a ship his whole stinking life, was too distracted polishing a smudge off the sake bottle to react in time, and lost his balance.

Sanji was ready to go down, unable to break his fall with his arms so full of precious cargo. He held on tight and braced for impact, but that impact never came.

Because the next thing he knew, strong arms were wrapped around him, and his nose was buried in someone’s musky shoulder. He caught his breath, inhaling sharply.

It didn’t take him but a second to place that warm scent, and Sanji’s heart pounded hard. He could feel the sweat on Zoro’s neck from the warm, muggy night, and still smell the sweet rum of that cocktail Usopp spilled on him.

“Hey shit cook, watch where you’re going” Zoro barked, pushing Sanji away from his chest, “You can hold your liquor better than that. How drunk are you?”

Sanji gripped his liquor bottles tighter, realizing that, while he was no longer buried in Zoro’s chest, Zoro still hadn’t let go of his shoulders, his grip fierce.

“Not drunk enough to be getting manhandled by you.” Sanji retorted, enjoying that spark a suggestive comment always put into Zoro’s eye.

But that spark was a little different tonight.

Zoro took a step in. Instead of muttering something insulting back, like the swordsman usually would, he pulled Sanji in closer. “It’s a good thing I don’t like women anyway,” he said.

Sanji’s heart fell.

“Lucky me,” Sanji muttered back. He pushed by Zoro, suddenly resenting all touch.

He took a few pounding steps, but stopped.

Sanji turned around. Zoro was frozen where he left him.

“This is for you,” Sanji said, holding out the bottle of sake. Zoro turned and stared at it, for a moment. Then he took it.

Sanji left before Zoro said anything else.

I don’t like women anyway.

The words replay in his head for the thousandth time that morning, like a knife twisting. He takes a small sip of coffee, a new habit he picked up since his brief stay on Whole Cake Island, and opens the oven door to put the croissants in. A gust of hot air blows his hair back, taking him aback.

He cut it short recently, too short to tie back, and he still isn’t used to having it loose rather than up when cooking.

Nami said she loved short hair like that on girls, while she was cutting it, but that it would make him look like a boy. Sanji didn’t tell her that was kind of the whole point.

It’s hard to tell everyone that he is finally coming to terms with the fact that he isn’t a woman, like they all think. That he’s never been, and it wasn’t until his time with Iva-sama that he finally realized it. That he learned what all those feelings he had meant, and that there were other people like him who also felt those things.

At the time he rejected it so horribly, terrified that he was also like that. He saw how difficult life was for those people, and he didn’t want his life to be any harder than it had been. He worked so hard to press those negative memories back. His childhood. He never wanted anything to be so hard again.

But then he trained alongside them. He talked to them. He cooked for them. And laughed with them. And he learned more about what being queer really was. It was hard, he was right about that, but it was also free. And all he ever wanted was to be free. Free like them.

It would just be hard first.

And he is just finally accepting that. Ever since he nearly lost everything that ever meant anything to him on Whole Cake Island, he is craving that freedom even more now. He thinks it’s finally time to go get it.

It will just be hard first.

Sanji inhales on his cigarette, allowing the nicotine and caffeine to gently wash over him, as he repeats it to himself, still in awe of how good it feels to not only know, but to accept. I am a transgender man.

Sanji exhales out the porthole, and closes the oven gently, letting that good feeling go.

He thinks of Zoro.

And wonders how on earth he’ll tell his friends.

Part 2

[jadecantcreate]

Kremy Lecroux and Gideon Coal had forgotten they were a simple flinch, a passing breeze, a slippery hand, or a drop of rain, away from ruin, and that ignorance was the beginning of their downfall. Hubris and rage, greed and wrath…no matter its origin, sin leads to sin, and sinners attract other sinners. Whether due to chance or fate, two paths cross and intertwine, never to split again.

my take on how gideon and kremy first met & what led up to it! beta read by my beloved mutual @szaryherbatnik

its 6.2k words so a pretty short (but hopefully enjoyable) read, id really appreciate it if you checked it out! <3

[thewisestdino]

Et Tu Brute?

[stunfiskz]

well shivereth my timberth you little bimbo

[mueritos]

i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.

some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.

This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."

If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.

I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.

fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.

[egberts]

feelin real foolish for stocking up on trick or treat supplies instead of groceries over the last two months