#this post can be /p or /r

[max-nico]

A moment of acknowledgement for the mutual domestication trope. Just two characters who are absolutely feral and batshit crazy until they're reunited with the other person, and then all of a sudden they're both sweet and gentle like a dog lounging in the sun after a long hard day of doing nothing

[wistfulwatcher]

[easyaesthetics]

Long time, no Akeshu memes

[sloaners]

to some it must be paradise

[justaz]

once merlin puts arthur to rest, the world around him disappears and he’s in ealdor staring at his mother’s back. his sobs from the lake grow worse at the sight of his mother and he wails like he’s a child again, calling repeatedly for his ma. she spins around and finds him, without asking any questions she dashes forward and pulls him into a hug, holding his weight as he falls apart in her grasp, choking out nonsensical words and soaking her dress with tears, snot, and drool, his overwhelming grief causing him to ignore any sense of shame he might’ve felt at such a scene.

he doesn’t remember explaining anything to her, frankly he doesn’t remember much beyond the cries he pressed into her shoulder, but she says he’s been in ealdor for a week. she’s clearly worried and asks, no, begs him to eat or drink but he doesn’t feel the need or desire to, and even if he did, he simply doesn’t have the energy to bring the sustenance to his mouth. she cradles his head in her lap and runs her finger through his hair like she did when he had a nightmare when he was younger. it’s almost enough to make the entire thing seem like a horrible, horrible dream. but theres blood on his tunic where he held arthur’s body to his own so he knows it’s not true.

his mother doesn’t ask any questions, the look in her eyes telling him that she knows anyway. perhaps his nonsensical babble created a clear enough image for her to understand. maybe she just saw the broken look in his eyes and came to the conclusion on her own. she doesn’t mention him. merlin isn’t sure if he’s relieved about that or not. in the end, he brings it up, he asks how she was able to go on after balinor left. he asks how she was able to pick herself back up on her own two feet and carry on life as normal after receiving his letter informing her of his passing. she says sometimes she can’t, sometimes she lays in bed and listens to the birds sing and can’t help but hate them. she says she lives on for him anyway. she pushes herself up and makes food and works in the fields even when she hate the world around her.

merlin tries to relate, tries to understand, tries to imagine himself getting up every morning and living on in his name. he can’t. his parents loved each other, he knows that, but they were their own people and were able to stand the years apart. merlin…merlin is arthur’s, even in death. everything he is, everything he’s done, has been for arthur. he is half of merlin’s soul, the center of merlin’s world. how can anyone expect him to move on as if he’s capable of being alone? how can anyone expect him to function as if half of his soul, half of himself, isn’t dead in a lake? merlin can’t do it, he can’t imagine living a life without arthur. he barely got through the week and that’s only because he was passed out for a majority of it. how could he make it a year, much less another fifty?

he can’t. he can’t do it. he can’t breathe, he’s in agony, the world around him doesn’t exist anymore. not without arthur.

he’s back at the lake now, tears still streaming down his face despite the pounding headache from dehydration yet it doesn’t matter, not anymore. none of it does. he stumbles into the lake and sends his magic into the water to tug excalibur from the depths. he can feel freya pulling the sword back, but his magic overpowers hers easily and the sword springs from the lake, gleaming in the afternoon sun. freya’s face appears in the ripples of the water next to him, her expression pleading and sorrowful. merlin whispers an apology before turning back to the sword, staring at the sharp point of the blade. he brings it closer to hover just over his heart, the metal pressing against his skin but not enough to draw blood just yet.

peace washes over him. the sun warms his skin and the water cools him to keep it from being unbearable. the birds sing in the trees as the wind whistles through the leaves. merlin stares up at the brilliant blue sky and pure white clouds roll by, images of bunnies and birds and crowns and horses staring down at him. he wonders if avalon will be this peaceful, if he and arthur could lay out in a field for eternity, basking in the sun and laughing as they point out misshapen clouds that supposedly look like the other.

he plunges the sword into his chest, right through his heart, and falls back into the water. bubbles trail out of his mouth up towards the surface, blood spills from his wound and mixes with the water. he closes his eyes as he sinks further and further. he knows when he opens them, he’ll be with arthur once more. it’ll all be okay. he doesn’t feel his body hit the bottom before blackness fills his mind.

arthur awakens from his fitful slumber in a bed that is not his own. he squints at the room, or rather hut, around him and finds an old man hunched over a book in the corner. arthur tries to speak but all that comes out is a squeak of air, his throat too dry to speak. the man hears and whirls around to begin treating him once more, prattling on and on about how he found arthur in the woods outside his village donning shiny clothes which he discarded bc of the blood staining them yet he couldn’t find a wound. arthur’s hand reaches up to his side but there’s no stab wound there, not anymore, though he does sport the scar. he remembers how he got it, he remembers stumbling away from the battlefield, he remembers being found by merlin- merlin.

he asks the man about him but he seems confused and denies ever knowing someone by that name. arthur climbs out of the bed (the flash of golden eyes) and hastily pulls on his armor (“i’m a sorcerer. i have magic.”). he’s out the door before the old man can protest. he’s in a village he doesn’t recognize, they must not be anywhere near camelot (“i’m still the same person.”). he turns to the old man hobbling out of the hut and demands directs to camelot. the man stares at him oddly and scratches his ear before informing him that he’s never heard of a camelot before (“you’re my friend and i don’t want to lose you.”).

he instead asks for directions to the woods where he was found and sets off in that direction, the old man shuffling after him (“me, i was born to serve you, arthur.”). it doesn’t take long to reach where he was found. if the old man had carried him home it couldn’t’ve been much of a hike (“and i’m proud of that.”). he steps into a clearing where the man panted that he found him here (“and i wouldn’t change a thing.”). it’s no where near the lake where merlin held him as he took his last breath, it’s no where near camelot. the man didn’t even recognize the name of his kingdom (“it’s not why i do it.”).

arthur sits in the grass as he thinks on his next move and the man who watched over him sits next to him (“i’m not going to change now.”). he speaks lowly of a prophecy about a man from a time long forgotten sent on a journey, a quest, to retrieve what has been lost. he says how the prophecy led many to a sword lodged in stone (“i’m not going to lose you.”) but no one could pull it free. he points out arthur’s armor and calls it odd, he mentions camelot, a kingdom of which he’s never heard, and gestures around the clearing where he found the mystery man. he concludes that perhaps the prophecy spoke of him (“i can’t lose him.”).

arthur, with no other options, follows the man’s directions to a lake. not exactly lake avalon but close enough. theres a small island in the center that seems more like a hill. the sword, his sword, excalibur is buried in a stone covered in moss, misshaping it’s actual form. arthur wades across the water and climbs the hill. he wraps his hands around the hilt of excalibur and closes his eyes. he imagines merlin confident and reassuring expression as they and all his men stood in the woods around this damn sword in a different stone however long ago it was. he breathes in and out (“he’s my friend.”) and pulls.

excalibur comes free just as it did before. arthur watches the metal pull free and as it does, the moss on the stone falls away revealing its form. it looks like a collapsed figure, excalibur having been lodged in it’s chest, right where it’s heart would be. arthur squints at what looks like the head and feels a flash of familiarity. the stone slowly fades away from the hole where excalibur was all the way to the hill. as the stone fades, it leaves behind skin and clothes and hair and…merlin.

arthur drops excalibur and falls to his knees to hold up merlin’s limp form. he feels warm, as if he didn’t just spend however long with a sword in his chest as a stone. he’s not breathing. why isn’t he breathing? arthur grasps around, shifting his clothes out of the way to find the wound where excalibur had once been. the skin is stitching itself together with tiny golden threads. arthur looks back up at merlin’s lax face as the wound fully closes. he inhales sharply as his eyes fly open, glowing gold, and all around him it seemed the world finally inhaled after suffocating for millennia.

merlin exhales and golden sparks shoot from his lips to flurry around in the air. the grass under them grows longer and curls around both his and merlin’s body where they rest against the ground. the water around their island clears from the murky brown to a blindingly clear blue. the air is crisp and clean, the sun brighter and warmer, and one soul finally whole again.

[denkilightning]

dont think about how cinder, jays new partner, moves like nadakhan and how similar their smoke must be, and dont think how geo, coles new partner, made a home in the land thats literally a junk yard. dont think how jays kid new kid (jordana) is just a too-powerful child eager to prove herself larger than the world that scares he and how she got possessed the same way lloyd did. dont think about how coles new kid is a skeleton and how before having his green gi lloyd used to wear a hoodie with a skeleton design. dont think about how when they were all forced apart, cole went to the closest replication of his best friend, making a new family with a metaphorical white picket fence, and jay ran away from any form of structure and routine, prefering to die out in the wilderness, until a three-personned replication of his abuser found him. dont think about how cole runs to comfort and family and jay runs from it. dont think how theyre sharing their mothers' fates

[writeouswriter]

Reading a fic that's so well written I wish I could close my eyes and just let the descriptions and atmosphere wash over me, but the dilemma with closing my eyes is, well, I then would not be able to continue reading this fic, now would I.

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Good morning ~!! I wanted to try something special, today--I've had this idea in my mind for a while, and since I have the day off, I'm giving it a go.

Today, I'm opening my inbox up for you guys to interact with Plushcliff and the infamous Beancliff, and Ishbean, as well, should you want! Basically, this is like a takeover, but for my character plushies.

I'll be relaying their answers (the Beans in particular have terrible punctuation /lh), so feel free to ask them whatever you want (so long as it's appropriate, of course)!

[alienglowgarden]

funfact: whenever I draw Sym without fingernails that is very much a conscious choice uwu

Uncanniness is hard to do with cartoonier art without just seeming like a stylistic choice, so thats one of my little shortcuts toward it. Along w generally making his hands a bit too enlongated in that classic Martian Grey kind of way.

[ekuboo]

Needle felting my boy……

Process breakdown (disambiguation) in tags :)

[moongothic]

i would love trans crocodile but im very cynical that oda would write him in a respectful manner. thats not even thinking of how horrible that one portion of the one piece fandom would treat him

Yeah the fandom sucks and I'm going to strangle everyone (including the cishets who claim to be trans allies and then use "Crocomom")

But with Oda it's weird because like. The more I think about it, the more I'm like... 50/50 about Oda being able to actually deliver good, respectful trans masc rep.

Like I've posted about this before but One Piece does have this on-going theme of having characters "stuck in wrong bodies" or "having one's body changed" (sometimes reversably, sometimes irreversably; sometimes against their will, sometimes consentually). Which, in theory, in my mind, does kind of signal that on some level Oda understands the idea of being "the wrong sex" (whether or not that's a good way to explain The Trans Experience™ is a whole different subject but it's an old fashioned explanation that Oda would probably be/is familiar with) But at the same time, while the concept pops up again and again in One Piece, Oda doesn't really dwell too deep into the idea of what that's like. Like, emotionally. How it feels like to like, get turned into a toy or be a child who gets aged 20 years or to get turned into a cyborg or a giant child or have parts of your body permanently turned into animal parts (sometimes with a will of their own) etc

And like. Part of me understands why, Oda does tend to want to focus on writing a story he thinks teenaged boys would be interested in reading, and he has often stated he wants to have fun with his story too (like that's partially why Luffy's a Rubber Man, because Oda thought giving Luffy a ridiculous ability would make him more fun to write and draw long-term, which is valid as hell) This is why for example Oda has avoided doing any romances in OP, and while there are dark themes in the story, often he has done his best to avoid making them too blatant, as some things would be too mature for his youngest readers (like, for example until Kuma's backstory, it was never explicitly stated what would happen to the slave wives of the Tenryuubito, even saying it was "implied" would be pushing how that subject had been treated until now)

So like. Because of that, I understand why Oda hasn't dwelled into The Feelings™ part much/at all despite the "stuck in the wrong body" narrative appearing time and time again

Either Oda thinks it'd be too boring either for himself or his readers, or he hasn't dwelled into it because he doesn't really understand gender dysphoria and can't relate to the experience (despite how often it shows its face in OP). Or it could be both, even

The thing is though, as OP has gone on, while I wouldn't say Oda has "broken his writing rules", Kuma's backstory alone has pushed them to a new limit with the love-that-never-was story and the all-but-explicitly-stated storytelling.

So a part of me wonders, if Crocodile is trans, could Oda actually like... take a slightly deeper look into his feelings and explore his queer experience? ('Cause god knows, if Crocodad Real, then there really would be a literal coming out-story built into his backstory that would be extremely unavoidable, and as I've mentioned before, the fact that we haven't gotten to learn almost anything about his backstory yet is Kinda Fucking Sus)

Also I do want to mention how... like Oda gets a lot of bad rap when it comes to queer rep in One Piece, but the more I think about it, I think it's more an issue with the terminology and how translators have gone about either localizing it, or more often than not, leaving it unlocalized 'Cause like. Yes the "okama" would be horrible trans rep but... really... they're not trans representation. They're representation for draq queens. Piss poor draq rep, but still, they're draq queens. And just like our very real life drag performers; some of them are cishets. Some of them are gender non-conforming gay men. Some of them are nonbinary*. Some of them are trans women. Obviously lumping all of these people into one group is kinda offensive (which is why "okama" is (as far as I understand it) such an unpopular term even amongst queer people in Japan), and the way Oda often chooses to draw these characters looks no different to how gender criticals choose to present trans women in their propaganda.

*Like Bon-chan, who explicitly states they are both male and female. And Iva-chan, who switches between boy-mode and girl-mode from time to time, could arguably be called genderfluid (though any specific terminology is up to debate). Both are nonbinary draq queens.

And yet, despite all that. It can not be understated how if you put aside the nameless background gag-characters, Oda does treat the actual, proper queer characters with respect. Everyone would agree that Bon-chan is an absolute hero, we would all die for them. Iva-chan (and Inazuma too) is explicitly presented in a heroic light, seen as someone who helps people and fights for justice (with the Revs)

And then there's the first binary trans characters we've actually gotten, Okiku and Yamato. And I'm pretty sure we would all agree Okiku is 10/10 perfect trans fem representation (I am not entirely serious, I'm not trans fem so I can't speak for trans women here, it's just that I can't see anything Horrendously Wrong with how Okiku is presented within the story- not actually perfect but all things considdered, damn good). She is stunning, people around her (INCLUDING SANJI!!) don't just view her as a woman but would go out of their way to date her (as in, she is seen as "desirable", and not as some kind of a disgusting freak to avoid), she is heroic and sweet and kind and just. IDK I love her And while I'm sure many trans mascs would agree Yamato may not be how they want to be seen by the world (though having Yamato ID as a man while having the biggest moobs is surely validating for a lot of people, including anybody who might not want or be able to get top surgery and/or HRT), again, he is only presented as heroic within the narrative and respected by the characters around him, Luffy especially, which is by far the most important part; the protagonist going out of his way to be respectful of trans characters does represent the values of the story.

And like.

Think about how Oda has treated Crocodile so far.

Like, although we're all having a bit of a laugh over the whole Cross Guild thing, Oda is still treating him as a cool character whom he presents seriously and treats with respect. Like Oda wants the readers to see Crocodile as at least a little bit cool. So I can't imagine him pulling a full 180 with how Croc would be treated in the story if he was revealed to be trans, especially when the potential foreshadowing for that was laid out in the story years ago already.

All this to say; Oda is not perfect at all, but considdering the things he has gotten right so far, I think there is hope he could pull it off. Because Oda is for Queer Liberation.

Really, my only concerns would be whether or not there's a risk Crocodile could get somehow detrans'd during the story (I'm praying the Haki theory isn't an option, really Doc Q might be the only true risk here), if he's stealth and that got presented as "a wrong thing to do" (which I'd hope not, like our previous queer characters have been okay with being openly queer but that may have been more for the readers than anything else. At least, I hope, god knows if Crocodile is and wants to be stealth trans then that's his right and he shouldn't have to out if he doesn't want to, and yeah, I don't want him to be demonized within the narrative for being stealth (if he's stealth, for all we know he could be out)) and like, most importantly, what'd end up being Crocodile's "motivation" for transitioning in the first place

Like. God. I just. I don't want there to be a twist where Crocodile transitioned because "being a woman was weak" or because he "wanted to be acknowledged by Whitebeard" ('cause WB doesn't take women into his crew) or "the scar in his face made him so ugly he decided he should be a man instead" (seen unironic Redditors suggest that. Almost lost my mind) or something

Like I hope someone's at least tried to explain gender dysphoria to Oda. Like the man does have actual queer friends in real life (some of whom inspired characters in OP), so I'm hoping at least someone's tried to explain the feelings that come with The Trans Experience™ to him so that, if Crocodile's trans, then Oda can actually try to base his reasoning to transition on those feelings instead of any stupid "reasons" that no actual queer person would relate to

But it all just boils down to... Is Oda willing to actually dwell into those feelings and explore them in the story.

It... it really could go either way with Oda

So yeah. Anon, I'm with you, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was at least A Little Worried. But also... I want to be hopeful. Because I do believe there is reason to be hopeful.

Only time will tell how it'll go

[minnieposting]

Uugghhhhhhhhhhhh why do autism evaluations have to be so complicated

[thetomorrowshow]

cold, empty, lonely

have a short little fic about death and disconnection :)

cw: canonical character death, description of dead body

~

He finds her body on the side of the hill, crumpled upon itself, red hair dulled against the cold, yellow grass.

Bdubs doesn't touch her, at first. He just watches, waits for some kind of movement.

In the weak light of the moon, the chill wind that blows almost makes it look like her chest is slowly rising and falling. Her hair flicks up a bit, blown like the grass around, and her clothes shift a little, and if Bdubs squints his eyes almost shut and stares at one spot long enough, he could swear that she was just sleeping.

They aren't actually breathing, though. And when he opens his eyes wide, lashes not blurring his vision, he can see again the red that shines against her grey shirt.

They had brought him her armor. It was cheap stuff, iron, held together by whatever leftover straps she'd been able to scrounge up after her good set of armor had been claimed as loot by the Red Army. They hadn't wanted the new set, and had brought it, bloodstained, as proof of their conquest.

Bdubs had pleaded with them for what felt like hours for the location of her body.

He needn't have. He could have looked out a back window and seen it, if he hadn't been so distracted with everything going on.

Their body lies just above the little river that feeds into the Crastle's moat. The river has begun to freeze at the edges, little broken-off sheets of ice forming from the rocky shore, frost touching the red-spattered stones and pebbles. And their body is just beyond that, where the stones and grey dirt turn to dying grass and bare shrubs as the slope climbs upward into a squat hill, alone in the darkness of the night.

He stands there, at a distance, watching their body for probably ten minutes.

Her body looks so lonely.

Cold. Empty.

Lonely.

Bdubs sighs (his breath puffs out in a mist before him—winter really is coming, isn't it?) before crossing the distance between them, crouching down beside the body.

Their flower crown—the one that Bdubs had collected the flowers for—has come apart, a crushed halo of daisies, partially obscured by their hair, a petal weaved in here and there.

Her hair is long, tangled, spilling out around her head like the rays from the sun, curling around her throat and caught under her body.

With a gentle touch, Bdubs brushes their hair away from their grey lips, where some strands have stuck.

Her cheeks are almost colorless, the few stubborn freckles faded. Their lashes are long, soft, forehead unwrinkled and face expressionless.

There's no twist of her mouth, no scrunch of their eyes, no desperation in their brows to denounce pain. There's nothing else, either, though—no peaceful relaxation, no joyful grin, no angry glower.

She's simply blank. It's as if she never lived, never felt.

Her face is cold. Empty. Lonely.

There's still sticky blood on her shirt, her chest slick with it, the ground stained. A lucky stab, straight to the heart. A cleaving of lifeless flesh, right through their chest, somehow missing the bone frame that once held the body together.

Bdubs pulls her shirt a little bit, rearranging it to cover the ugly, open wound. He's not quite sure why he does it. He'll just bury her, anyways.

But he does. He touches the shirt, stiff and sticky with blood, and tugs it over the wound. He pulls more of her hair away, where it's become plastered to her body with blood. He arranges her body so that it isn't half curled on its side, but fully on its back.

They look almost as they always did. Just missing everything that made her alive.

She wasn't supposed to die first. It was always supposed to be him, everyone knew it. Not her.

They probably worked so well together because of how reasonable she was. Bdubs doesn't like being reasonable, likes to kill first and ask questions later—or, if he feels like it, let them sell him a coffin first and ask questions later. She preferred to observe, keep track of enemies and allies, sneak around quietly behind the scenes and make chaos of her own kind.

Which is why Bdubs should have died first. He's so publicly provocative of the Reds, so eager to spill blood.

If anything, she was fairly peaceful. Not genuinely, but she always chose to take a step back from conflict and find a way to profit from it.

It was their Red blood that got to them, Bdubs thinks idly. They hadn't been Red for long enough to let the bloodlust acclimate, and had just gone on the hunt rather than let it simmer.

And now they're dead.

He needs to bury the body. Preferably now, when it's night yet and the battles haven't resumed.

He doesn't wait any longer.

He gets to work, picking up the shovel that he'd brought with him and stabbing it into the earth. Again. Again. Again.

The rough wood of the handle pokes into his palms, but he doesn't stop. The pain reminds him that he needs to keep going.

Every so often he pauses, wipes the sweat off his forehead, looks over at the body.

Then he keeps shoveling.

The world has lightened by the time he finishes, bathing the hill in grey. Bdubs shakes some clumps of dirt off his shovel, whacking it against the ground a couple of times.

Without further ado, he hops out of the shabby hole he's dug and tosses the shovel to the side. He gets on his knees, back creaking, and looks down at his hands.

He should wash them before he touches her, probably. Dirt is packed into every crease of his palm, his nails torn and muddy, grit between his fingers. A couple of splinters sticking out of his skin here and there.

Not that there's any point to washing them. Dirt goes to dirt and whatnot.

So, gently, Bdubs gathers up the body in his arms. He slowly turns, scooting a little on his knees, until he's facing the shallow grave.

Bdubs sets the body down, carefully, supporting the neck so their head doesn't loll. He moves their arms over their body, one limp hand placed over the other.

They wouldn't have liked this. They didn't like being touched.

He doesn't touch her any more, then.

Bdubs grasps the first handful of dirt, holds his closed fist over the grave. A couple of grains of dirt spill out, running down her shirt.

He holds it there, for longer than he should. Long enough that his arm grows weary. Long enough that somewhere, a bird starts chirping its wake-up call.

He needs to let go.

Probably, the worst part of all this is that he's doing it alone, he thinks absently. It's always been the two of them.

And there are others who could be here. Other friends. Other allies. Enemies, even. He shouldn't be alone in this. He shouldn't have to bury her alone.

It still looks like her.

He drops the dirt. It lands on her face, on her grey lips, on her bloodless cheeks.

Then he picks his shovel back up and gets to work, heaving load after load of dirt back into the grave.

And when Bdubs returns in the windy morning, the impromptu occupants that he'd left in the Crastle the previous night are all gone. It's just him, in a small castle that used to belong to two.

And Bdubs is cold.

Empty.

Lonely.

[clownsuu]

yall i think jack died

Nah I'm fine dawg, iv been busy these past two-three days

[koushirouizumi]

Meanwhile with DigiAdvs' KouTai {Koushiro x Taichi} {""Millennium"" Bug}: Y2K24 Edition

Taichi, walking back in Way Late after a really tough day of Taichi's own: (Loud enough murmur) Koushiro, are you awak-- TENTOMON: (sHHHHHHH) {Lightest of buzz'ng noises} T A I C H I: Tentomon, Quietly to Taichi: (Koushiro was in bed by 2 A.M. tonight but is actually getting decent rest in).... TAICHI, Taking in view: TAICHI, Light laugh: (I should be expecting it by now) Koushiro, half curled up on side, sheets haphazard, still in work outfit, full rest mode GO: . . . . . Taichi: (It's ok if Koushiro's still in Koushiro's work outfit, we'll take care of that later.) Taichi: (Also, Koushiro uses the way better software that Koushiro personally developed, anyway.)

[thatpurpledudetrey]

acotar modern au but feysand and nessian relationship got ruined ever since rhysand and cassian started to binge watching skibidi toilet and scrolling through yt shorts