#trying to color one panel scares me enough

[tender-rosiey]

Hii, can I request a fic where sukuna is trying to court the reader but she's still scared of him and doesn't realize what he's trying to do?🫶🏾

tethered — ryomen sukuna x f!reader

a/n: i could not let reader be trampled on; am sorry :( i mean you can tell she is scared but she aint gon take crap from him ALSO if you guys saw that I used this sukuna panel before, pls tell me tyyy

the room feels far too small with him in it, despite its towering ceilings and wide stone floors. his presence suffocates every inch of space, like the weight of a storm pressing down on you, demanding attention.

your hands tremble slightly as you pour tea into the lacquered cup, but you force them to steady. you’ve been doing this long enough to know better than to show fear, even if your pulse hammers in your throat.

the weight of sukuna’s gaze is heavy, as always, but you keep your eyes trained on the task, pretending not to notice the way he watches your every move, like a predator biding its time.

you place the tea in front of him, bowing respectfully.

yet the air between you shifts—his presence thick with something unfamiliar. you glance up, wary, only to find his eyes, crimson and sharp, still locked onto you.

that smile—the one that sends chills racing down your spine—curves his lips.

“you’re trembling again,” he says, his voice low, dark amusement coloring every word.

you grit your teeth, forcing yourself to breathe slowly, evenly.

“it’s cold, my lord,” you respond, as calmly as you can manage, though the lie feels feeble. everyone knows that with sukuna in the room, it’s never the cold you have to fear.

he leans forward slightly, one of his lower arms lazily resting on the table, the other two still folded across his broad chest. “is that so?” his voice is smooth, but there’s an edge to it that unsettles you more than his usual biting remarks.

you’ve heard the whispers, the rumors—how he’s been different lately, his focus shifted. and it’s not hard to guess where that focus lies.

you’ve felt the shift, too. the extra care given to your meals, the finery left in your chambers, and the subtle way he’s been keeping you close. too close.

you glance at him from the corner of your eye, nerves flaring. “I don’t mean to waste your time, my lord. if there’s nothing else, I should return to my duties.”

his chuckle fills the room, rich and deep, as though you’ve just said something absurdly amusing. “so eager to leave?” he asks, his voice low. “I’ve been generous, haven’t I?”

there’s something different in his tone now, something dangerous. your stomach knots as his gaze sharpens, studying you with unnerving intensity.

“my lord, I—” you stop yourself, choosing your words carefully. the last thing you want is to provoke him. “you’ve been more than kind. but I am still just a servant. I don’t require such attention.”

his smile widens, showing more of his sharp teeth, the predatory glint in his eyes growing darker. one of his upper hands moves, reaching out to tilt your chin upward, forcing you to meet his gaze head-on.

“just a servant?” he repeats, voice dripping with mockery. “you really think I would waste my time on someone who means nothing?”

you swallow hard, refusing to flinch under his touch. his hand is surprisingly gentle, but the power behind it is unmistakable. you force yourself to meet his eyes, despite every instinct screaming at you to look away.

“I—I…think I don’t know why you would waste your time on someone who isn’t afraid to speak her mind.”

his eyes flash with something dark and unreadable, but it isn’t anger. it’s interest. you can see the amusement flickering beneath the surface, and it sends another chill down your spine.

“you think you’re brave?” he muses, his voice lowering to a dark whisper. “or perhaps foolish?”

your breath hitches, his words unsettling. “I don’t think it’s foolish to speak honestly,” you reply, voice steadier than you feel. “especially when I’ve done nothing to earn the attention of someone like you.”

sukuna leans forward again, all four arms now resting on the arms of his throne as he stares you down. the air feels heavier, charged with something dangerous and electric.

his voice drops low, smooth as silk but with a dark edge. “you’ve earned it by surviving in my presence this long. by not running when you had the chance. that interests me.”

your heart races, the closeness unnerving, but you refuse to back down. “I’m here because it’s my duty,” you manage, your voice sharp and defiant. “not because I seek your favor or your… gifts.”

sukuna laughs then, the sound deep and rumbling, like distant thunder.

“ah, so you do notice my gifts. modest as they are.” he leans in closer, one of his lower hands brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “tell me, little servant, if it’s not favor you seek, what do you want?”

your stomach flips, the closeness sending a wave of heat through your cheeks, but you stand firm.

“I want to be left alone,” you reply bluntly, trying not to flinch under his gaze. “I want to do my duties without feeling like prey every time I enter the room.”

his eyes narrow slightly, a dangerous glint flashing in them, but there’s something else too. amusement. curiosity. he’s not angry—if anything, he seems more intrigued than before.

“you think you’re prey?” he muses, his voice lowering to a dark whisper. “perhaps you are. or perhaps, you’ve already caught the ‘predator’s’ attention in ways you don’t yet understand.”

his words sending a chill down your spine, but you stand firm. “If I have, it’s not by choice, sukuna-sama.”

his smile softens, just a fraction, but it’s no less menacing. he rises from his seat, towering over you as he closes the distance between you in a heartbeat.

his four hands move with calculated grace, two of them resting on either side of your face, trapping you in place as he looms over you.

“choice is an illusion for you humans,” he murmurs, his breath hot against your skin. “but you’ll come to understand that in time.”

despite the trembling in your limbs, you lift your chin, meeting his gaze with a newfound defiance. “I’m not afraid of you.”

he smirks, his eyes gleaming with approval at your boldness. “good. fear is boring.”

then, in a startlingly unexpected move, he leans down, brushing his lips against your forehead—an act of tenderness that catches you completely off guard.

the warmth of his breath lingers, and the moment stretches between you, almost surreal.

“besides,” he continues, voice low and surprisingly gentle, “I find your spirit rather… enticing.”

your heart races, confusion mingling with the fear that had gripped you moments before.

this man, this powerful being, was something else entirely, and as you step back, you can’t shake the strange warmth that blooms in your chest.

with that, he releases you, stepping back and letting the tension between you linger like smoke in the air.

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[amelizscribbles]

OK, EXPLAINING DABIS SCARRING because @good-lord-not-books asked

*note these are just my hcs and some medical research

I'm putting this under a cut because it's long as hell, and I apologize in advance for any typos or if it's confusing. I have no problem explaining further♡

His scars are hypertrophic. which 1) explains the discoloration. It's what happens when the smaller blood vessels become partially or fully obstructed with scar tissue. They typcially start off pinkish or light red. (like when he woke up from his coma.)

Typically the treatment for this is laser removal. But if you don't have access the color may naturally shift with age/as it natueally heals. But with continuous damage to the areas.. the scar will get darker as the veins and tissue is further injured (the deeper into the skin and possible muscle it damages)

most hyrpertophic scarring can take a year + to heal. but obviously Dabi just keeps making his worse. The scars themselves are cause by the body over producing collagen for wound healing and not actually being able to break all of it down.

Which leaves collagen fibers in the skin to harden and thicken. Hardened skin doesn't allow much give, lessening the skins elasticity over all. Which can be shown in the way his unscarred skin pulls along the edges where the dermal rings line said scars. (my thoughts on his staples acrually being dermal rings will be at the end)

That's not even going into the nerve damage systemically for him considering hes covered in that kind of scar. So when he says he can't feel a thing it's literal as the nerve endings are shot to shit. And that is only going into skin deep level.

Interal organ nerve damage is a whole other mess due to the scaringbeing from burns. As severe enough burns cause systemic damage. (will also go into atfer the scarring part)

His skin looks TIGHT on him. If he did have and semblance of sensation in his nerves it might feel like hella tight/dry skin. Also I think hypertrophic scars are an inflammation response to the body healing.

His body is literally misshapen from it. (and yes we love him the way he is) You can see in panels where the skin is probably softer where there's lack of muscle definition but can see where it's tighter or pulling over his arms/ shoulders/ribcage because the skins elasticity is non-existent. The instances where it's sifter looking is probably due to his body trying to retain as much body fat it can to keep healthy (or as healthy as it's going to get in his state.)

As far as it going right up to his lower lids and having zero tear ducts. that man has chronic dry eye like it's nobodies business. so itchy and possibly bleeding eyes isn't a shock. he probably has several counts of grand larceny in artificial tears alone.

Ok so as for his scaring being from burns, burns affect the whole body and how it works depending on the severity.

It can effect muscle tissue/muscle mass, bone structure and interior organs.

Given he seems to be perpetually giving himself 3rd degree + burns .. his respiratory system and cardiovascular system are probably shot to shit. Just from smoke inhalation and perpetual injury. (hypertrophic scars fill the veins with scar tissue remember) Assuming how deep the burn and scar tissue goes.

But we haven't seen him with much breathing issues so I'm assuming it's whatever. He has mentioned motion sickness and we've even seen him turning down food. So I can at least go into it's affects on his GI tract.

In the GI tract, burns can result in increased gastric secretions, reduced intestinal motility, decreased nutrient absorption, increased GI mucosal permeability, bacterial translocation and increased intra-abdominal pressure. If it's bad enough he may have ulcers or gi hemorrhaging. Severe burns also cause liver and intestinal damage.

The fact that he's been alive this long is wild if he's been homeless this whole time and just committing small crimes to not die. One thing that irritates me is when people think he would be incredibly unhygienic due to the scars and such.

Like do you understand how CLEAN you have to keep burn injuries to keep them from getting infected?? Even if it's layered over already damaged and scarred skin. He might smell like burnt flesh but I doubt he's letting wounds fester.

Yes he could probably just cauterize himself but that's still just burning burn wounds. Especially with 0% health insurance. I always assumed he kept breaking into the Todoroki family home when he knew no one would be there to do basic things to make sure he didn't die on the street over the years.

Quick add on to my thoughts on his staples just being dermal rings to homd his skin together/as a form of human Kinstugi.

They (the rings) are pretty rounded in the manga, surgical staples aren't nearly that large either so I always assumed human Kinstugi regardless of metal color (between manga gold or anime silver) and it was both decorative and necessary for his skin.

I just assumed wherever the rings weren't, it was just spots he couldn't reach.

it's also shown in the manga that he's adjusting/adding more along his scars.

als, in case anyone is unfamiliar with the term Kintsugi, it's this

Kintsugi (Japanese: 金継ぎ, lit. 'golden joinery'), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The method is similar to the maki-e technique. Its the Japanese philosophy that the value of an object is not in its beauty, but in its imperfections, and that these imperfections are something to celebrate, not hide.

which I think suits his character very well when his piercings and dermal rings are gold looking in some of the colored manga art.

ok, I'll shut up now, ♡

[mysewingadventures]

Making the ✨Lioncourt Gown✨ (Part 4/4)

It's been such a fun project working on the Lioncourt Gown (aka Interview with the Vampire's Lestat de Lioncourt's theater costume -

made into a 1790s women's redingote) and I can finally say that I have finished it. It's done, and I love it. It didn't turn out exactly how I'd planned, but that's how it is with me and sewing. I admire anyone who can just stick to their original plan haha but that person is not me. Usually, when sewing I don't think too far ahead, I just do it until I hit a point where something just isn't working out and have to find a way around it. I'm also self-taught, so my workarounds may not be standard procedures when you actually know what you're doing. But I'm still really, really happy with it, and I did a little photo shoot as soon as it was done.

But anyways, here's the final part of this project.

In my last post, we left off with the still detached but finished collar/yoke and the finished bodice. I attached the yoke to the bodice, and then went on to make the final piece - the outer skirt.

For that, I essentially did the same thing I did with the bodice and the sleeves. I attached the colored satin triangles and stitched them down with the tape. Here is a picture just before I attached the tape:

This process is very time consuming and I had severely underestimated it. I did end up finishing it in a day, but it was the only thing I did that day. You have to stitch super close to the edge or the satin is going to fray and stick out and it's not a pretty look. It did end up happening in a few places, so I had to take the stitches out and redo them. But when that was done, I added red tape to the raw edges of the fabric and finished the skirt.

Then finally, it was time to attach the skirt to the bodice. For that, I gathered it with a quick basting stitch to bring it to the needed width and then had to hand stitch it in place, making sure I was attaching it only to the lining layer so the stitches wouldn't be visible from the right side.

Once that was done, it was time for the first complete try on! For one, I was really excited to see it as a basically completed project, but more importantly, I needed to know where to put the buttons. So I put on all my layers for this (shift, stays, bumroll, two petticoats, the skirt, and the bodice with the outer skirt), and realized... it was a bit smaller than anticipated. It fit, but I'd planned to make it double-breasted and the front panels didn't overlap quite enough to make two button rows possible while keeping them centered. So I ended up deciding in that moment I was only going to do one row of buttons. The original only has one row, so it was fine either way. But while on the topic of buttons, another thing: I'd mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't sure whether to add buttonholes or to fake the closure with hooks and eyes, and I decided to do neither. I was way too scared of the satin fraying if I did button holes and the whole hook and eye system is pretty annoying to do, and since I'm only really gonna wear it once or twice a year I decided to just use some red pins to pin myself into the dress for the day. This protects the satin from fraying and is less work for me. It doesn't look super professional though and while historically accurate for some dresses in the 18th century (some even used to sew themselves, or have someone sew them into their dresses), it was not used on redingotes (as far as I'm aware) for practicality reasons. Redingotes are essentially riding coats and were used primarily outdoors, so buttons was the most common way to close up these types of garments. Still, I did not want to risk ruining the fabric, so I decided to do it this way.

So once I'd figured out where to place the buttons, I sewed them into place. On a side note, I do love the way they look. They're so pretty.

I added four in the front, two on each sleeve and four in the back.

So this is it. It's done.

This was, mostly due to the color details, the most time time-consuming and frankly expensive project I've ever worked on (well, maybe except for my very first dress as I still didn't know what I was doing back then - that one took me literal months hah). But it was so worth it. It's been in my bedroom for a few days now and I smile every time I see it. I still can't believe it's in my possession.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

[faellain]

The Accidental Baby Trap Incident

Summary: About four years after the events of First Class, Erik arrives at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters with two little twins who he didn't know existed. Thinking he doesn't know what to do, he runs to Charles, not knowing the state his old friend is in.

Snippet 6

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charles sighs as they wheel down the long walkway to the machine itself. the completed room is gorgeous, all metal panels with projectors ready to show the tour de force of charles xavier's telepathy. dust coated everything in the room.

"these are muscles i haven't stretched in some time," charles says somberly, picking up the helmet. gently, he blew the dust off. for a moment, his lips looked their correct shade, that brillaint natural almost-red. once, erik had insuated that charles' lips were a physical result of his mutation. that had made charles' laugh, wondering what telepathy would have to do with his lips.

raven had raised an eyebrow and replied, "why did my skin have to blue for me to shapeshift?"

charles settles the helmet onto his head. hank preps the machine, warning them before he turns it on. as it comes back to life, charles grimaces. erik quickly puts a hand to his shoulder, squeezing it trying to center him as the room is bathed in red and white. they had considered this- color coding the humans and mutants. his breath is caught in the beauty of it all as he watches charles try to locate sean, try to zoom into vietnam.

instead, the room starts spinning, charles unable to control the though. pained yells scrape their way out of his throat. all erik can do is move to hold both his shoulders, coming around the front. charles' shoulders shake beneath his palms.

"hank, turned the damn thing off!" he snaps.

just as hank comes alive, trying to do so, the power shorts out, plunging the room into darkness. charles all but throws the helmet to the ground, his chest rising and falling in heavy breaths. he's not well; erik doesn't need to be a telepath to know that.

"i-i'll go check the generators," hank murmurs before dashing off to do so.

charles runs his hands over his face, "this was a mistake."

"you said yourself you're out of practice," erik reminds him, "it wasn't cerebro that did that."

charles looks at him ruefully, tired and bitter. his hands shake again as he touches his forehead, "my power comes from here. from," his hand moves to his chest, but he abadons the words. a dispodant death resides in his tone as he sighs, "it's broken. i feel like one of my student's. helpless…"

erik moves to cup his cheek, thumbing at the skin there, letting his fingers trace over the scruffy beard. he finds he still truly hates it. perhaps it's the lack of familiarity to the clean-shaven scholar he had known when all this began.

"you're not," he says, "you've become scared of yourself. i know you. you can do this."

"it's too much," charles tries not to wheeze, still catching his breath, "we need to call your telepath."

"you are my telepath," erik replies, "emma is terrifying when she wants to be, but she is not you."

charles laughs bitterly, leaning back in his chair, "then she's good enough to work cerebro while i can't. i'm not jealous for heaven's sake. i just- i can't do this anymore. there's too much pain."

erik frowns. he knew that charles could know anyone's pain just by touching their mind. their history was an open book to him. he'd known erik's pain, his hurt. but he'd also brought back some of erik's happiness as well.

"let me take some," he offers, "you know my pain. let me have yours."

charles shakes his head, "no. god, no. you have enough pain-"

erik leans down and kisses charles' cheek, slowly, presses his nose against the side of charles' head, "which is why you know i can handle your's. give me your pain, charles. stop bearing it alone."

there is some hesitation, but charles opens his mind to him. everything is on his terms. that is the trouble with only one of them being telepathic. erik must trust that what charles is showing him is not just the truth, but that he withholds few things. but trusting charles has always been easy. no one else ever broke through his barriers. no one else could ever love him him.

and that is why the pain hurt so much.

erik knew there had been a stepfamily in charles and raven's lives, but he did not know they were cruel. their mother, already inattentive, started drinking. kurt marko was cruel. for all the house's beauty, each room had its own reminder of strikes against charles' tender skin who was but a child- a child. bruises should not litter a child's body. screams should not reach a child's ears.

he'd mocked this place, this temple to charles' forgone youth, this church of suffering. yet, charles continued to live here. when he had first started accepting students he wanted to fill it with enough good memories to wash away the bad. now, there were more bad filling up the empty air. charles was suffocating.

a few tears pass by erik's cheeks as charles pulls the memories away. he is crying too, far more than erik is, but it is a silent endeavor. erik kisses charles' cheek again, then his lips.

"i'm here," he whispers, "they're gone."

"i know," charles says, his voice waivering.

erik peppers kisses into charles' hair, "we will fill this place with good memories. you, myself, our children. students and teachers."

charles moves and cups erik's cheeks, "that's a nice thought. really. it is. but you have your world and i mine."

i will start with this school, erik kneels before charles' chair, presses his hands over charles' as though pledging feality to a lord, and then i will make a place for mutants to be safe. a utopia for mutants alone should your humans prove lack luster.

charles blinks away tears, "but erik-"

"i want you at my side," erik tells him, "i want you to hope again. i will build a world you will love brick by brick. with dirt beneath my fingers. with blood and sweat. if you can forgive me, i will give you everything."

as erik cups charles' cheeks, cerebro's lights flicker back on. they both smile and charles nods, letting his cheek lean and rest into one of erik's large hands. hank is on his way back up he can sense it.

"we'll talk more later," charles whispers, pecks erik's lips chastely.

it's not 'i love you'. perhaps, it is not the answer that erik wants to hear, but it's what charles can muster. he can still feel erik holding him, can feel erik screaming his thoughts as a plea to get charles not to plunge another needle into his arm. he'd forgotten how lovely it was to have another mind dance with his.

they have a second chance. maybe this time, things will go right.

hank's footsteps echo as he jogs along the path to the center console, "power's back. do you want to wait?"

"no," charlies replies calmly, "let's try once more."

the second time putting on cerebro still hurts as he forces himself to tune out things that are unnecessary. still, this time, he is successfully. sean is at some sort of facility in vietnam. most likely he'd be moved to a secret base where they might lose him forever. but for now, he was safe behind what should have been friendly lines.

"i've got him," charles says, then frowns, "and what seems to be a handful of other mutants but they're muted. something is blocking them."

erik shakes his shoulder, "i knew it. we have to save them. janos might be among them. "

hank mouths, janos?, to himself but with erik in his mind and he in erik's charles knows riptide's name now.

they deliver the news to raven who is visibly relieved to have some idea of where sean is. erik sits by a window as everyone talks, watching pietro and wanda play with the tire swing. a small smile crosses his face. still, he can feel charles' eyes watching him.

to no surprise when he turns, charles is smiling at him, lips quirked up playfully. fondness is sewn into the lines around his mouth. erik rolls his eyes at charles with exagerattion before turning his gaze back toward his children, cringing as pietro jumps from a tree branch, only avoiding a fall by wanda using her powers to make the ground become a hill to catch him.

"erik!" raven snaps. he looks at her and her raised eyebrows, eyes flashing like amber, "care to join us?"

"i'm listening," he assures, "we need to take the blackbird to vietnam. i'll have to call azazel- if janos is there, he'll want to be part of the rescue."

"he's the teleporter right?" asks hank, "because he seemed so nice when he was dropping fbi agents from the sky."

"azazel is twice the man those government hacks were," sniffs raven. erik smiles at her. both of them have come to deeply care for their russian brotherhood member. he grew up mistaken for a devil, hidden away from the world. he and raven had bonded over that. erik cared for his blunt candor.

"it will be better to have him," charles says, "and emma frost. i would just slow you all down."

"no, you wouldn't," erik argues, "your powers-"

"are still coming back," charles reminds him, voice soft. a gently hand seems to caress erik's stormy thoughts, "and someone needs to be here to watch the kids."

"we should ask angel to stay here," raven adds, "just in case. that way it's not just charles and the twins."

erik hadn't thought about that. missions had hardly crossed his mind when he ran here, but he should have considered it an eventuality. at some point, his kids would have to understand their father had work to do like any other. his was just more dangerous.

"you trust her to stay?" asks hank, skeptically. erik considers punching him, but charles reaches over and physically grabs his wrist.

i wasn't going to do it.

he's still hurt.

raven narrows her eyes, "do you trust me?"

"of course," hank replies, trying not to sound sheepish.

"then you can trust her," she ends the conversation there, standing, "i'm going to call the safehouse. hopefully, at least one of them is there."

erik turned his eyes back toward his kids once more. soon, his mysterious disapperance was going to be revealed. he could practically hear azazel calling him an old dog. charles' fingers threaded with his own, both of them coming to look out the window.

we should talk before you go, charles says, though his eyes train on wanda, trying to undo the small flat-topped hill she's made.

you know my feelings, erik reminds him.

charles shakes his head, we need discuss the school. your brotherhood. how that coexists.

it will coexist if i say it coexists, erik tries not to wrinkle his nose in disgust. instead, he feels the emptiness of charles's hand leaving his.

"stubborn as always," charles replies, though that fondness is still there. he takes his hands and rolls his chair back, "maybe you should speak to your brotherhood before me then."

"but charles-"

i'm tired, charles tells him, i'm going to rest before all the excitment starts. i think you'd better help your kids.

there is affection there, but erik is not a telepath. he can't tell if charles is shielding truer feelings from him. the realization leaves no small amount of frustration bubbling in his chest. nothing mattered but the promise erik had made to him. he would build a world charles could love.

his eyes moved from wanda to hank, thought of raven finally walking around her childhood home in her true skin. he thought of azazel who could not hide in plain sight. they deserved a world they could love too.

[plz-help-meeee]

The shadows are my friends!!

Tw: Mention of suicide, cringe???, logic is none in, death,

A/n: this is my first fic, this is inspired by "get off my screen" by @matrixbearer2024 go check them out their really cool. I really did want to add more to this fic but I couldn't think of anything else so if you have question or have headcannons about this that you want to share you can send them to me.

Synopsis: just a normal teenage dirtbag who can also parts of hell without being dead.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

It started small with seeing little shadow out of the corner of your eye, Thinking you saw a critter go under your chair but you thought this was all just normal stuff that people always see.

That was until you started to see the sky be a red color only for you to rub your eyes or look away and it to go back to normal. Strange tall figure walking by you and you turning back to see no one there.

One day when you were walking back home you saw what looked to be weird red demons and a wolf girl in an alleyway, you spied on them as they walked through a portal talking about having just finished a job.

You lean against the wall after they were gone, you should have been scared, you should have been panicking but a smile creeped its way up your face. Any other person would have been confused and terrified but to a suicidal teenage dirtbag like you this was the most exciting thing to happen in your dull life.

You started to stare up at the red sky longer wondering how long it would take for it to change back to normal, you drew the figures you would see trying to get as many details as you could get right.

You started to change, you started to say 'good morning' and 'I love you' in a more happy tone, you became for active in school.

You even made little horns made of cardboard and fabric in the style you saw the red demons had, you saw a figure who had spikes on their tail once and you decided to make a tail to go with the horns that looked like the figures, you know it was cringey but it made you happy.

You started to recognize the streets you'd frequently see specific figures at, you'd always see this tall owl thing walk down the street you walk down to get home, the demon you walk by who had spikes on his tail would walk down the park you go to to relax

One time you close enough to touch the spiked tail demon's hat, you got so excited, you started to try and touch every figure you walked by.

There was this one figure that stood still no walking by you, or scooting just out of sight, they were just standing there. The figure was tall, much taller then you, they color palette consisted of mostly blue, they had what looked to be fire as it's head, in fact it had three heads one in the middle and two on either side of it.

You were afraid to look away thinking it would disappear as soon as you did, you tried to reach out to touch one of the heads but you stopped when you heard a voice "Ozzie!!". You turned around to see who said that but you found nobody, the figure started to move and you were able to touch their arm just slightly.

You never really saw that figure again, but that was okay you had plenty of others you could see. You patted the tall owl things shoulder whenever you would walk by him on your way to school, you tipped the spiked tail demon's hat over his eyes for fun when you could.

You kept a journal were you wrote down which figures you passed by on what street and also drawings of the figures with little information panels besides the drawing, you named the owl thing towel (cause tall and owl, get it, I'm not funny I know) the spiked tail demon was named cowboy, the figure that had three fire heads was named Ozzie (Asmodeus???, no that would be absurd, right?)

Everything was going great and you started to improve, you got better at speaking to people, had gotten a better relationship with your mom, heck you even texted your brother the one person you said you would never want to see again.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

Today you were walking to school like always, you got your backpack, ate your breakfast and got your lunch box. You said by to your mom and was about to leave but you got this gut feeling, something telling you to do something. You walk up to your mom who was on the phone and hugged her, "I love you mom" you said in a genuine voice.

Your mother looked surprised at your hug but decided to hug back, "I love you too baby" your mom said back with smile on her face. This was the first time you two had said you love each other without malice or irritation in your voices.

You walk outed of your house and to your school, on the way you patted towel's shoulder like usual and hummed a song. You were near the part were you had to cross the road.

You saw a little kid run into the street to chase after a duck toy they had, you noticed quicker then anyone that car was heading straight towards the kid. You reacted fast as you ran towards the child to get them out of the way.

You grabbed the kid's arm and pulled them close to you as you kneeled down to shield them. Thankfully the car the avoided you and the child by mere inches, you scoffed when you saw that the driver was on their phone through their car window.

The child looked upset "my-" "toy?" you cut the child off, "right here" you said as you showed them their duck toy that you managed to save in time. "You should really be more careful kid, your life cost more then some toy." you lectured the kid about safety, you felt like a hypocrite saying all this considering only a few months away you were ready to die at any time.

Your lecture stopped when you felt a cold metal press against your head, "you just can't seem to die can you?" a familiar voice said. You turned your head around slowly, "bro-" you were cut off as everything went black.

[onlythegoodpretzels]

"We'll get it out."

Followup to this sketch!

Been coloring this for a while! So many people to shade. But I finished it in time for @augustofwhump's Day 7 prompt: Promise.

Snippet of WIP fic for it under the cut, ft. more promises and Shiro flashbacks.

***

“Ok. Ok, let’s get this off.” Hunk balked for a second, but he managed to reach for the muzzle. Ulas winced but held rigidly still as Hunk ran his fingers tentatively over the surface.

“This isn’t what muzzles are for,” Hunk said into the quiet. “On dogs, I mean. They don’t keep their mouth closed, its only to keep them from biting. They need to be able to pant. This…this is just…cruel. What’s it even for?”

Shiro forced himself to see the mechanism rather than just blur over it. He might know. He might know, and he didn’t want to know, but he might. “Most Galra don’t pant like dogs do.” He shivered. “And they are cruel.”

Curved bars matched the shape of Ulas’ head and neck tightly, holding the heavy cage in place. Tightened automatically, too seamless to pry under. The muzzle’s central panels were dark and opaque, emblazoned with the imperial sigil over where they sealed the wearer’s mouth. The only holes for air were two narrow slits in front of Ulas’ ears, whistling softly as he breathed.

The higher bar, the one that curved under Ulas’ eyes and across the back of his head, was a disturbingly familiar, magenta-ish metallic color.

Dizzy something ached in the back of Shiro’s head, where the crescent scar jagged across his neck. “There’s two components here.” He tried not to wince, and moved slowly as he pointed. “This section, is a prisoner head collar. Across the skull under the eyes.” Hunk froze, fingers shaking on the bridge, but Shiro made himself keep going. “The muzzle was anchored to it. Maybe activated from it.”

They were looking at him, both of them. Katie’s face was torn between furious curiosity and blazing anger. Hunk looked sad and scared and like he knew ---

Shiro couldn’t not blink. He couldn’t not lose the thread, suddenly blotted out by phantom ---

Pain dug into his neck, the sound of his own muffled cries in his ears, hard edge biting into his hair.

Galra words. Over him. “Face down, and it stops.”

He hadn’t. He’d snarled and fought, scrabbling against hard metal, dragging against the awful snap of the shortening chain wrenching on his head. He’d kept his knees under him, his chest off the ground.

“Prove you know the word, olka. Or do you want me to make this worse?”

VRRRR

Pressure crushed suddenly into his jaw, the panels of the muzzle grinding into him from all sides. Pain jagged and sudden, shallow spikes extruding into his cheeks and under his chin.

He screamed.

“Coryx! Enough! You already confirmed ---.” 

“If I wanted your opinion, Ulas ---

“Shiro!”

Shiro blinked, torn suddenly in between. He was down on his knees and he was standing with his arms curled over his face. He was howling into a gag and he was heaving gasping, whimpering breaths in empty air. It was dark, purple, and it was bright, blue.

Ulas the Galra pushed another dark form over him, armored, unbattered,, and Hunk his friend stared up at him, hands out, pale with worry. There were Galra yellow eyes behind Hunk.

He couldn’t keep Hunk safe here! He had to get him out!

“It’s ok. Shiro? It’s ok.” Hunk’s eyes shimmered, like he’d been crying. “I promise. It’s not on you. It’s not going to hurt you again.”

The panic tilted, unbalanced, as the reluctantly focused. Hunk didn’t sound scared. What was going on? At first Shiro only saw the damn head collar, muzzle extended. Not --- not on him. He could see it and all its awful crosses. 

The strap dug wrong into fur, biting into Ulas’s face. The same face. Ulas sat curled in on the table, face narrowed, eyes sharp. He swiveled his ears forward and Shiro realized with a start they were even rounder now. “Shhhhr,” Ulas wheezed, face drawn with pain from trying to talk. “Mkkkkkr.”

The memory had a tail, a faint echo that barely clung on now. Hands on him, holding him pinned. Unhooking the tension dragging him down. Makur, stop. You’re exhausted.

Ulas’ voice. Shiro knew without even having heard it.

He shuddered, lowering his hands. He didn’t want to know anything else right now. He nodded shakily to Hunk. “S-sorry. I’m ok. Let’s just…get this over with.”

Katie watched him, her face clouded with things she wasn’t saying. Like a trap he might fall into someday. But instead she said, “Yeah, now that you pointed it out, I can trace the interface signals between those two pieces.” She waved a small detector wand near Ulas’ jaw. “They are real chatty.”

A small panel lay on the table next to her, with bent metal and detritus next to them. It looked like while Shiro was freaking out they’d made some progress. He cursed being so easy to make useless.

Hunk hesitated, but when Shiro came back, he followed. Ulas didn’t turn his head, jarringly pliant as Hunk reached into a small opening in the neck loop of the muzzle. “There’s lots of conduits in here. And I still have no idea what energy source they use.”

He should stay quiet. He should focus and do what he had to and not jab at any of the rest. But Shiro watched Ulas shudder, and couldn’t. “Tell us if it hurts you,” he ordered quietly in Galran, confused again with how steady his voice came out. “I want to know.”

Ulas twitched, blinking rapidly. Then, as Hunk worked, he began to make small, soft sounds, back of the throat, no attempt to make them into words.

Not very bad then. Despite himself, relief chilled up Shiro’s shoulders. He knew Galra could shriek if they were in pain.

Hunk paused, looking queasy at the sudden feedback from his work. “Is he…um…ok?”

Shiro nodded, swallowing hard. “Quintessence can be intense if it touches skin. Be careful if something splashes.” Tingles across his tongue were something he needed to not think about right now.

Hunk’s eyes widened. “You know what this is? What state of matter is it? Does it sublimate?” He bit his lip. “Wait, I think…”

Before Shiro could answer, the muzzle lit up, awful purple lights. The snap smell of sweet and glass itched along Shiro’s mouth. Ulas flinched, sitting suddenly straight, hoof cloves lurching sharply apart. “Whoa!” Hunk wrenched back, hands fluttering in the air like he wanted to help but was too scattered to know where. “Well it’s on, but it’s expecting some kind of cue? Like a key?”

But something jarred in Shiro’s head. He’d tried to remember this, over and over and over again. “Wait, Hunk, keep it…Ulas, grax.” He caught Ulas’ arm with one hand, curbing and steadying him at once, and reached for his head with the other. Ulas yelped, dragging away from Shiro’s hand for a second. Then he seemed to catch himself, and, slowly, painfully, he come back.

The muzzle’s awful edge loomed centimeters in front of Shiro’s fingers. Some part of his brain was trapped in a screaming circle, convinced if he touched it somehow it would crawl up him and find his scar, bite into it again.

Shiro tapped the muzzle in sequence, thumb and forefinger. He tried to be gentle, and he heard how each key hurt in Ulas’ faint, louder sounds. Jaw. Side. Center. Jaw. Jaw. He let himself slide between which finger and which place quickly, without thinking, just where they ought to go.

Neck.

Neck was last.

Vrrrrrr.

Shiro froze, still touching the back of Ulas’ neck, his entire body locking rigid. The sound made him want to swing at something --- anything --- make it go away. Force it farther from the parts of him it wanted to capture. Hunk startled, pulling out of the guts of the collar as the contraption clacked and shifted. The tight bars glinted hungrily, shimmering as they woke up.

“Hell yeah!” Katie swarmed forward triumphantly, suddenly too close. “Shiro, you’re a genius! I need you to write that down later!”

Ulas reached up as the muzzle began to fall, but stopped as Katie caught it. It kept whirring and unknitting, bright lights glaring like eyes.

It was unlocked. He’d unlocked it. Something about that shook Shiro so hard it was hard to see the parts reconfigure. But he shuddered --- why weren’t the muzzle panels dematerializing?

But he saw Ulas’ face crumple in pain when Katie pulled to ease it off his head. “Wait!” Shiro caught the crest just as Ulas whimpered, ducking to follow the pull. The jarring urgency cluttered so far into him it felt like he needed to run somewhere. Spikes. Were there spikes?

Hunk and Katie stared at the two of them. Katie let Shiro brace the muzzle, eyes wide, and Shiro realized he’d spoken in Galran again.

“Wait. Something’s wrong.” Shiro blinked hard, trying to stay present.

It’s ok. Faelbar’s voice filled up his entire body. We are not hurt.

Shiro wanted to tell him, yes, he knew that, but for some reason it helped anyway. It helped him keep his voice steady, keep the panic roiling somewhere in his fingers from shuddering out into Ulas when he asked, “What? Where?”

Ulas blinked hard, clawing the air between them in small, reflexive motions. This close, Shiro felt a faint double-shudder in his breaths, like something was garbling up his throat. How long had it been on him? Katie hadn’t said how she’d found him, only that it had been bad.

“Show me.” They needed to know. He needed to know.

Slow, tentative, Ulas caught the edge of the muzzle near Shiro’s hand. His fingers were jarringly, confusingly big. He nudged against the edge, angling his head slightly back and forth, figuring out the right way to move with whatever was hurting him. Then, with a wet, ragged pant, he pulled back, the straps scraping deep furrows in his fur as they dragged by.

For a moment Shiro saw his face, so familiar it made him freeze. Long, shallow, inhuman snout, bony, wide forehead, light shimmering off the strange flat span between his eyes and nose. Shallow gouges scraped and scabbed across jutting cheekbones which were incongruous with the hollow cheeks and narrow chin under them.

But Ulas held his mouth open, and then Shiro wasn’t seeing anything else, because a narrow chain snaked between his teeth. As he moved, Shiro felt rattling in the muzzle. It was attached.

Tense, unsettled feeling tingled up Shiro’s fingers. He didn’t recognize this. He didn’t know if it had ever…

Ulas reached some sort of end on the chain. He paused again, orienting, and then leaned away, extending a tapered orange tongue. His hand tremored next to Shiro’s.

No wonder. The chain anchored to a dark eye bolt connector pierced six centimeters from the tip of Ulas’ tongue. Yellow winked around the studs where it had tugged against him. 

Shiro tasted bile. Shit. He’d sounded muffled and pained even when the muzzle let him speak, before the druids changed whatever stopped him short. It must have been there, punishing him for every word. And now it sat tethered so close to the muzzle he couldn’t speak at all.

“Fuck no wonder you couldn’t talk.” Katie’s entire body tremored with fury.

“Wait, that --- that’s what it’s for? That’s awful!” Hunk covered his mouth with his hands, clearly vividly imagining the sensation. “What is wrong with these people?”

Galra who speak against the empire don’t exist. You won’t ever find one.

Shiro wasn’t sure who he remembered saying that. He didn’t want to know. He held still in a way he didn’t recognize, sweat pricking on his neck that he was holding the other end of something that painful. Ulas mumbled wordlessly, falling back forward, trembling from the effort of holding the chain weight.

Damn it. Shiro didn’t think he had piercing scars on his tongue. But now he’d have to check.

“Katie, bring one of those casings.” Shiro was startled by how calm he sounded. The palpable panic in the other two made him very still inside, like if he touched it it would explode. “Hunk, what do you have to cut this?”

Thankfully, having something to do was right for both of them. Katie snatched the nearest capsule of Altean medical something with its square edges. Hunk balked a step away, but he leaned forward, peering at the inside of the muzzle. Shiro didn’t dare glance down himself, keeping all of his attention on Ulas.

“Here.” Katie held the tin out to Shiro.

“It’s for him. Hold it horizontal.” Shiro blinked, forcing himself to meet Ulas’ eyes. He didn’t want to. Something about the tether in his tongue, and how Shiro could feel it dragging even right now, and how clearly trapped it meant he’d been when Katie found him.

He was the one Shiro was supposed to meet. Supposed to find. The voice shouting to him to run in his night terrors.

But he hadn’t been looking. Hadn’t be sure he would. If Katie hadn’t found him… “Bite down on this. We’ll get it out.”

Ulas slowly lifted his ears. This time when he tried to answer it was visible, his tongue bending but then snapped down by the chain. “Uhhzzz.” He winced, and stopped, instead parting his teeth and tilting carefully so Katie could slide the metal jam into the crook of his jaw. She stared, mouthing numbers quietly to herself. Shiro had no idea what for, he just had to assume it would come up if it were important. 

“Shiro?” Hunk grit his teeth, hand fluttering forward but stopping short of touching the metal rim. “I…none of my repair kit tools will be small enough for this.” Instead of looking just upset, he looked…angry? “Maybe the Alteans have something. I’ll find Coran, and --- “

“No.” Shiro blinked, momentarily dizzy, as repercussions and tradeoffs cluttered off his head. Where had that come from? Had he always been thinking like that? “I don’t want them seeing this.”

He kept his worries to himself, that Allura might decide she liked this safeguard, that he would have to explain to an alien sovereign about what humans would and would not do. But not well enough, probably, judging by the sharp, suspicious look Katie shot at him.

Hunk frowned. “They wouldn’t,” he said softly. But he crossed his arms nervously and didn’t keep heading toward the door.

Maybe. Shiro wasn’t sure what he thought was likely anymore. He shrugged. “I can do it.” He flexed his hand, the mechanisms whirring softly.

Hunk swallowed. But he didn’t argue. “Do you have that kind of dexterity with that thing?”

“You can melt metal?” Katie grinned wildly at him, before she caught up with what she said and frowned just a intensely. “That doesn’t sound safe like this.”

“Cut.” Shiro pressed his fingers together, forcing himself to consider. The Alteans felt dangerous. But so was he. It was sort of refreshing to get direct blunt questions like that instead of people being careful. Usually Hunk tried to tiptoe around it. “Yes. I do.” Shiro paused, expecting more from the certainty, some memory, some data. But, no. Nothing. He just knew.

He glanced at Hunk. That was a lot to trust someone’s tongue to. But, then, it was also the least massive responsibility they’d been handed recently.

Hunk set his shoulders. “What can I do?”

Hell he deserved to be so far away from anything like this. Shiro swallowed down the guilt. Two jobs, only one of which he thought Hunk could manage. “Help him hold still.” As Hunk crossed cautiously to Ulas’ other side, Shiro caught Katie’s eye. “Hold this steady?”

She grit her teeth and barked, “Yes.” Her hands were small and she perched on the edge of the table, both of which helped her be stabler than either of them. Katie looked very pale. “It’s ok,” she told Ulas firmly as she took control of the chain.

He didn’t shiver this time when Hunk reached around him. His entire frame sagged minutely, like the support reached much deeper than just bracing his neck and shoulders.

Shiro looked from one grim face to the next. “Ready?”

Hunk and Katie nodded.

Ulas pinned his ears back and let his tongue droop loose. His yellow eyes tracked Shiro’s face, not his hand.

Eerie. Shiro wasn’t sure how he knew where eyes with no pupils were looking. But he did. He lit his arm, the cold rushing through his shoulder like a warning. It lurched him viciously, suddenly alert, ready to fight. 

Reaching between the muzzle and Ulas’ pinned tongue splashed awful light across the gashes in his face. This close Shiro could almost smell them. It glimmered on his tongue, and edged the scabbing there. Shiro caught the chain, feeling desperate puffs of air on his fingertips.

He had to do this exactly right. A mistake would burn, he thought, best case, or cut, worst.

But the chain was slippery, trailing yellow and clear rivulets from Ulas’ mouth. And the links were small with complex jagged edges. Reaching for it, Shiro felt the barbs, the twists. It was designed to hurt even without pulling. It spun between his fingers before he could get a good grip, shrieking at the heat.

Ulas’ eyes lurched too orange, too dark, and he keened. Involuntary motion dragged his tongue back. The piercing clacked when it brought him up short.

No! They didn’t get to make this worse. THis was something he got to do with the arm that helped.

Shiro snarled and crushed down hard, the kind of hard that made his brain balk, ready to feel pain from the metal. But he wasn’t soft like that, not anymore. The chain sliced cleanly off the muzzle.

For a moment, Shiro was too stuck to see anything other than the chain, the muzzle, and how blood beaded up on Ulas’ tongue as he flinched back. Shiro’s fingers ground into the face plate almost of their own accord, while pain screamed out of his jaw and nose. Memory or not, he could barely tell.

Someone. Someone made him want to destroy this thing. Right now SHiro couldn’t quite put a finger on a face or a voice or anything like that. Just the fierce, burning hatred loose in his head.

Ulas shuddered, hand coming up to catch the links trailing down from his mouth. It looked like a snake trying to twist into him, and he made a faint, pitched pain sound that jittered all the way up Shiro’s spine.

Give it to me, Faelbar hissed. I’ll crush it. Shiro had the echoing, massive feeling that the lion knew what the pain felt like, because Shiro had. That he wanted nothing more than to wipe the horrible thing off the face of the universe.

That helped. At least he could make this one let go.

[the-things-ive-seen]

Wonder Twins - Wonder Comics Volume

The worst of the Wonder Twins

As I flipped through the pages of the Wonder Comics yet again, I could but feel depressed, confused, and, of course, deeply pissed off. What sort of audience was meant to be turning these pages, and what exactly would they feel about the teenage wonder duo, who were shitting not just on their own legacy, but everyone else's as well?

To put it simply, In this new volume of the Wonder Twins, Jayna and Zan are space aliens who moved to Earth from their home planet and serve a upcoming superheroes with a lot to learn about Earth. Except there's a problem. The wonder twins used to live on a utopia world without crime and spontaneous orgies, and Earth is a political hellscape of suffering and drama. Feeling out of place and deeply horrified by the nature of Earthlings, Zan and Jayna try to deal the difficulties of justice and society.

But that description paints a bit of glamourous view on the series as a whole. In reality, Jayna and Zan are the descendents of their world's version of space Hitler, so they quickly leave their home world out of shame and migrate to Earth. After awkwardly jamming themselves into a highschool setting and becoming junior Justice Leaguers, they constantly complain about how inconvenient everything and how Superheroes, specifically the meta of Superheroes, is crass and stupid joke. The series continues spotlighting human nature, societial issues, and strawman arguements until the Wonder Twins have had enough. The volume ends with the Twins yelling at the Justice League for not understanding moral ambiguity before they're kidnapped by a racist TV star who wants her cell phone back.

Normally, I don't have a lot to say about comic books, even bad ones. But goddamn, this entire volume is horrible; both in concept and in execution.

This series is a lot like the TV show Velma, and you all fucking know that is not a compliment. Its depicted as bright, colorful, and comedic but constantly tries to drag you into the dark and serious. It tackles ideas and social issues, but it doesn't actual know them except on a surface level. I think what's even worse is that the 'solution' to these problems is to just... fix it. Doesn't matter how, or why, or who it effects. Just fix any problem infront of you, simple. World hunger? Just fix it. Cat in a tree? Just fix it? Dad trapped in the Phantom Zone? Just fix it. Thank you Wonder Twins, I had no idea that all of life's problems were just one panel transition away from being fixed. I must've forgotten that I had all the resources, methods, and charisma to deal with everything. I guess the problem was me all along.

I guess what pisses me off about the series is how they Wonder Twins are such shitty superheroes (In this volume at least). Upon first going in, I thought I would be frustrated by how their powers work in each issue. But no! The Wonder Twins themselves are quite possibly some of the worst Superheroes I've ever seen in action.

Sadly, Zan is not being sarcastic. They actually are trapped in plastic bags after an unprompted home invasion. The Wonder Twins spend most of volume fighting powerless human beings who may or may not be wearing stupid costumes. I'm not refereing to armed thugs either, but usually groups of three or less people. This is not counting when they get to scare off the angry mob crowd, which is recurring villain in this series. 'Society is the real villain', said the teenage white girl.

Aside from these performance issues, I'm also refering to Zan and Jayne's character. They... suck. A lot. I actually used to like Zan, but now I think he's just an ignorant moron. Which is what the series was going for; a lovable moron, but the story never hesitates to water him down or belittle his existence and relevance. I genuinely feel bad that he can't play a bigger role or have important things to think about and share his perspective, which sounds very strange for someone who is a main character. As for Jayne, she is the worst. Like, insurmountably the worst. A humanoid being I wouldn't tolerate being around for ten minutes. I think Lisa Simpson was at least likable and had solutions for life's problems. Jayna is just a miserable sad sack looking for more reasons to give up. I can literally count the initiative and planning she shows on one hand because most of the time she's complaining about how the planet Earth is too complicated and broken. Yeah, she's a teenager and everyone eventually becomes disillusioned by life on Earth, but holy shit stop ranting for one second and do something already. Stop complaining about walls and start climbing. Stop acting hopeless and go find some. Batman sometimes exhausts me with dark poetry, but listening to a teenager complain about the mere existence of crime and corruption, without dissecting why that happens in the first place makes for an abysmal experience.

Sigh.

I guess that takes me to the heart of my argument, and my personal gripe with the volume.

Did I mention I hate Jayna?

For context, "a Soap Box is a raised platform on which one stands to make an impromptu speech, often about a political subject. ... The term is also used metaphorically to describe a person engaging in often flamboyant, impromptu, or unofficial public speaking." -- Wikipedia.

When I say The Wonder Twins is a soap box, I'm not referring solely to the political overtones of the series, but I'm referring to how the story portrays these themes and the beliefs of the person writing it. When I read this series, I didn't walk out more self-aware of my actions and the government's failures to make a better world (this comic came out in 2020, by the way). I came out feeling embarrassed to have read such a painful virtue signal for anyone who donates money every day to a tip jar. This series is a painful mishmash of anarchism arguments, radical vanilla ideas, and lazy school intern adventures. And in the midst of all that I'm supposed to adopt an intentionally vague message to rebel against authority because a comic book series, the medium best known for maintaining the status quo, is appealing to my inner narcissist? I mean, it's either that or the author is so obsessed with telling people to fight American status quo, that they forgot that they were writing a comic book, where the point is they need not change the world, but inspire the world to change. Because it's a fucking book.

Look, everyone has an off day. We lose focus of what we're fighting for and begin to lose faith in our beliefs. I already mentioned the disillusionment thing. I'm not going to speak for everyone, because sometimes it can be a good thing to lose faith. It gives us an opportunity to change, to see if something is working for us. What's important is that we don't lose hope and give up completely; that we don't flip tables in hopes that the mere idea of starting over will make us feel better. I think Superheroes used to help with that, because even someone like Batman could overturn a hopeless situation. And, with good writing, a story like that can be... inspiring. Superheroes could be inspiring.

The Wonder Twins don't make me feel that way. I feel like they were supposed to be, but here they don't. The Wonder Twins series feels like a reminder that in superhero land the world gets slightly farther from the real-world status quo every day, becoming better and reaching nonexistent solutions, before the editorial office slingshots the whole DC meta backward and suddenly 9/11 was inevitable. The Wonder Twins themselves feel especially hopeless, demanding rewards for kindness and being privileged to the point of genuine confusion. I don't see them as heroes, they're just doing their job. They hate their job and everyone involved with it, but hey, they wanted the job. As if to further my point, the series literally ends with them working in a facility where they get to make their own rules to bend while working as Superheroes.

Maybe I missed something or maybe one guy's personal change of heart is supposed to convince me that Zan and Jayne make a difference in anybody's life. Maybe this was supposed to be the story of how the Wonder Twins realized there are no rules when it comes to giving someone the help they need, just consequences. Well, all I can think of is what it was supposed to be. It's a wonder how it turned out this way instead.

Also, the art direction sucks. Every fight or conflict is less than a page long. This is what I meant when I said they forgot that they were writing a comic book.

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 1

We know all the secrets surrounding June 1983, but we don't know everything leading up to that month.

Everything begins at some point likely around the mid 1950s. Before she was Miyo Takano, she was Miyoko Tanashi. She was scared of horror stories, loved collecting the flags that came with her kids meals, and loved her parents very much.

S-Save me r/vexillology!! I'm trying to identify all 19 of the flags Miyoko has collected.

The flags I can identify for sure:

Brazil: near the bottom center

Canada: near the center to the right of Brazil

China: in the top right corner

Denmark: In the top left, above South Korea and partially buried under two other flags

Finland: Above Denmark and slightly covering it up

France: The flag covering up Denmark

Germany: bottom left corner

Greece: Center far right

Japan: Near the center

South Korea: Center far left. Partially covered by the drawer wall

Switzerland: Bottom center, next to Brazil

Turkey: Bottom right corner

United Kingdom: Top Center

United States: Top center. Right above Canada

Meanwhile I think these are also in the pile:

Argentina or Austria: The flag under the Swiss and Brazilian flags. I'm leaning toward Argentina because red is drawn in darker shades

India: The flag at the top right above the US flag and partially covered by the drawer

Italy or Ireland: Flag to the right of Switzerland and above Turkey. I'm leaning more toward it being Italy.

I cannot figure out what the flag between Canada and Greece is. At first, I thought it was the Czech Republic, but the shading on this image doesn't match the Czech colors at all. And it's backward too. There's also a flag in the top right corner that is very hidden. All I can tell is it has white on the bottom. My guess is it might be Indonesia. I was also considering Estonia, but Estonia was under Soviet rule at this time and it was illegal to fly the Estonian flag.

I was really hoping the Mexican and South African flags might be in here.

You're placing a curse on your kid if you tell them god will give them happiness if they're good. You're telling them it is their fault when life happens and things fall apart. And almost as if on cue, Miyoko's life falls apart on the same day her father told her that. The only thing you could say she did wrong was she didn't hear her father when he called out to her.

Mr Tanashi losing his right hand in the train derailment is just twisting the knife. It's not enough that Miyoko's mother died in the accident and that she saw her father die. She's also denied one final headpat before he dies.

I want to try being fair to the social workers working on Miyoko's case. This is the mid 1950s. World War II ended at most a decade ago. Around 4% of Japan's population was killed in the war. Two cities were utterly destroyed, and there's the general economic collapse that comes from long-term military action.

No matter how much they may want to help, resources in this environment are stretched thin. Trying to find and contact a single person with no leads would likely be difficult today. It would be a herculean task in the 1950s.

And it's also this kind of scenario that lets an institution like the one Miyoko was sent to to exist. Those social workers were genuinely clueless about how that orphanage mistreats the children brought to it. They genuinely think they're providing the best possible solution given the situation, and the head of the orphanage knows how to put on a kindly face in front of them.

I genuinely don't know if the panel of the man patting Miyoko's head is real or her imagination. Him giving her even the slightest kindness is so out of character. And Miyoko grew up in the exact opposite of an abusive home. Her instinct when seeing someone raise their hand to her is expecting kindness and being utterly confused when she's hit instead.

I love and hate how that first slap to Miyoko is so perfectly executed. A full page image on the right half of the page spread. You just turn the page and see Miyoko violently slapped across the face. It's as sudden to us as it is to her. And right before it happens, the chapter implied that there is hope for her despite everything that's happened. But that one slap knocks the hope out of her and us.

back

[eternal-sacrifice]

Fanfiction thing

So I never ever ever write fanfiction but I wanted to spite Soda so

Erghhhhh I'm so mad this is the first piece of my writing I share on the site

Watcher grian reset thing I guess

One.

Two.

Three.

Click.

"Can you hear me? Is this thing on?"

The sound of static fills your room. You hear it, buzzing in your ears, dulling the rhythmic drumbeat of your heart, digging out your flesh.

"...Please. I didn't want this to happen. Please. Don't kill them. Not again."

The smell of blood. You feel your face instinctively, but the only thing you feel is a bead of sweat on your forehead. Why were you sweating? Why are you breathing so hard?

You don't know. You haven't figured it out yet. It's okay, you will soon. You always do.

"Please, please, please. Please. I know I swore I wouldn't get attached but I'm so scared that they might be gone for real this time- please."

You wonder where the sound is coming from. It sounds… frantic, doesn't it?

There's two sounds.

One inside your head, and one outside it.

A shriek roars through the static and you tense. 

That's the first one, the sound outside. And judging by that noise, it's the one you should deal with first. You can barely even think with the static eating out your skull, anyway.

You trust the second voice. And you look around the room.

You think it's a room. You can't remember, you're not sure. It's so dark- you're afraid to move in any direction. 

It's okay, it's okay. You'll just have to make the choice. You can do that.

You turn around, even though you can't see anything, your footsteps echoing for what feels like forever in a cold, dull, metal ache.

"NO! STOP- GET OUT!"

The shout shrieks inside your ears, the grind of the audio peaking making you wince, but your feet begin to move, and then move faster, and then you are running.

You are thinking get out get out get out get out over and over again, aren't you?

You keep running.

You're running left, or maybe right. Or maybe neither. Or maybe both. Direction doesn't seem to mean anything in this place, where whatever recording is playing never gets quieter and the voice never goes away.

Your heartbeat is getting dangerously fast. Your lungs- your arms- do you have more than two arms? There's something else connected to you, something you didn't have before but you can't think about that now-

Keep running. Keep running. It doesn't feel like you're going anywhere, the recording's sound never changes, how is it playing everywhere? Surely, surely there's got to be some way to navigate by sound, some way this makes sense, some way the endless echoing…

There. To your left. There's a pedestal.

You slow down, but your heart is beating even faster, your eyes are growing wide, your arm reaches out like your body has a mind of its own. You have no idea why you are feeling terrified. And that in of itself is enough to send a chill down your spine, rocking your entire body.

There are buttons. You don't know how you can see them, in the pitch black, but you can. You reach out, your hand meeting the cold marble of the stand, and…

A panel in front of you. It must be glass? It's glowing, that's all you can tell for sure, and now you can finally make out the lettering on the buttons.

Forget

Forgive

Fracture

Your hand stops moving. The panel dims, to the point where you can see what must be your face in its reflection of you.

Glasses. You tilt, trying to get the glasses reflection to move so you can see your eyes.

Messy hair, you can't tell what color. There's something in it.

You reach up, feeling around your hair, and you grasp it.

A piece of… paper. Or something like it. You bring it down to your face, only just reading one of the words written on it- Forgive, the same as the button- before you catch a flash of something in the glass. You carefully move your eyes up to see it, not daring to move.

It's your eyes, finally! But… They're… not… right. Something is off with them. They're moving right and reflecting fine and seeing perfectly well, but- you can't put your finger on it.

You let out a breath of air. You're real, you think. You have a reflection.

And then a thought hits you.

That means this isn't a nightmare, right?

You're… trapped here, in this space, with this glass and-

You don't even realize you've done it, do you?

Your eyes inch over slowly to the marble pedestal, even though you already know what awaits you, and then you realize two things.

The static's cut out.

And you're pressing a button.

You know, somehow, instantly, which one it was.

The glass panel goes dark. You can't even see the pedestal now, somehow it's darker than before.

And as the voice in your head begins to grow louder and you swear you hear footsteps that aren't your own, you realize a few more things, because they're right in front of you, walking towards you and making your heart beat faster with each step.

You don't have multiple sets of arms. You feel your back just to check and they're there, not the warm feeling of skin but the cold of chilled, soft feathers.

You're glowing. That must be how you saw the buttons earlier, though you have no idea where they've gone now if that's true.

You're hungry. You're practically drooling. You have a craving, something specific, some sort of specific want… It's familiar. It's forgiveness.

This is a nightmare. You were wrong earlier.

You back up, staring down the set of eyes right in front of you, staring at the glasses identical to yours, and you scream, you scream at yourself this is just a reflection, even as you are on the floor and I am ten steps away, echoing in your head.

Your vision starts to fade, even as the click click click clack click of footsteps gets louder.

You finally remember, because it's staring you in the face, looking at you in a way that scares you, in a way you should not be able to look, in a way that makes you want to feel terror again, even as it's fading, because that face has no emotion drawn on it, and the face and the footsteps stop as I look down at you with nothing. You reach out before your arm goes limp, desperately trying to hold on to your sudden realization, even as everything else is leaving you, and you grasp it just for a second, cold and clear. 

Your eyes are purple.

[pahichannel]

AnimeExpo Recap Day 1-2!

I like the idea of using Tumblr for more blogging style Pahi rants so... that's what I'm gonna do! Welcome to Pahi's adventures at AnimeExpo! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*✲ﾟ*｡ Boy is LineCon not a joke. Get in a line to get in to get in a line to get into the area you want to go to get into a line to see a paticular artist... it's absolutely wild out here LOL. I really didn't stop walking (or standing) for 11 hours the first day and day 2 wasn't much better. But I GOT A LOT OF COOL THINGS FOR MY TROUBLES!!!

Hitsukuya was my Day 1 first stop because she had limited post cards and I love her OC Hi-chan so I really didn't want to miss it! They were numbered and I was customer #10! Hitsu goes to a ton of cons so I already had most of her stuff but the Honkai stuff was quite new! Next picture is Xeph whom I have a lot of prints from last AX but the Honkai ones are new so I picked up that as well! Then there's Minsgraph who had a holo Silverwolf which looked SO GOOD. I wouldn't be surprised if I accidently double-bought the Gura and already have it... aaaaa I have too many prints. I could stand to more properly organize what I have but at a certain point they're all either on my wall or in a portfolio and you start forgetting who drew what and just kill me. Maybe I should start asking for business cards to slide in with each poster I keep safe. Last pictured is Gyool! They had THE ONLY TOKI I COULD FIND IN THE WHOLE VENUE. I love Toki. Someone please draw more Toki. Also always nice to still see someone drawing Sagiri!

Dealers Hall was next and Inti Creates just reprinted a Lola tapestry I've been looking for forever...??? No seriously, I've been camping Yahoo Auctions, Mandarake and Surugaya for probably a year now for this exact tapestry and it either just doesn't exist or costs 8000 yen plus. And there it was for 25$? Excuse me? Was tempting to buy 2. Probably the happiest surprise of the con for me. As much as I didn't care for the first Gunvolt game the designs are so heckin' cute and Pahicore. I'll probably give the Luminous Avenger games a try at some point...

I have no clue what Fatal Twelve is, I literally pointed at it and said "sell me on this" to the people at Sekai Project and they did a good enough job. I may never make the time to play a lot of visual novels I own but I just love to own them physically and have a soft spot for collecting them up. I'm sure it's just boomer brain where even only 10 years ago visual novels were extremely niche in the west and what was available licensed was incredibly sparse. I'm very happy I can finally buy stuff like Beat Angel Escalayer, something that feels a bit surreal to be a new release given my first encounter with the series was on some backwoods anime hentai site probably 15+ years ago.

Probably my happiest accomplishment was getting alternate color variants of Reimu and Marisa fumos from the AmiAmi booth! It was first come, first serve with a small allotment for them each day so I made the decision to make getting them my mission day 2. At first I just wanted Reimu as she's my favorite 2hu but... she needs a friend right? So I caved lol. Thanks @myrral for joining me to double our chances getting through the crowd for them! I actually had a scare where I thought Marisa was stolen or fell out of a bag but luckily I set it down at a artist friends booth and they kept it safe for me. Glad to have them reunited!

While the entirety of day 1 involved going through all the shops, day 2 I spent a little bit of time in panels! ...getting to them was absolutely awful! I wanted to get to the Lazulight panel but it was absolutely packed and there was no way I was making it with how little time I got there before it started. There was literally a line to get up an escalator so you can get in line for a security checkpoint so you can get in the actual line for the panel, which was capped. I stuck around to get to the next event, a Q&A panel with CDawg and Ironmouse... though that had it's own mishaps. I somehow got ushered into another panel room which was some sort of Studio Bones press announcement panel? I almost gave up and stayed there but I wondered my way out and by some fluke I found where I was supposed to enter the same time security said they can let a few more people inside. They didn't allow anyone to line up once they thought it was full so I got to sneak right in, super lucky!

Day 1 and 2 were so hectic that it ended feeling like I really did everything I wanted to do. I went hard on trying to line up for the things I cared most about and min-max'd my browsing time amongst the artists and exhibitors booths. I'm ready for a much more chill day 3 and 4... so chill that this is my first time I've decided to take a breather and sit in my hotel room the whole con! I'll have a follow up blog for the last days and lots of photos of the general sights and not just what I bought lol. But until then it's time for me to weather the crowds once again though, wish me luck! (￣^￣ )ゞ

[ripdragonbeans]

On Monday (Take 2) ~INTRO~

Modern!Aemond x femReader

Reader and Helaena are BFFs 

Summary: You and Heleana head over to her place to work on a philosophy project only for you to be thrown into a little matchmaking via Helaena.

Second shot at On Monday, also in a completely new direction compared to the first one. I really want to finish out the rest of the song, mainly because it’s a cute song and the guy in it is absolutely Aemond coded lol. 

No Warnings for this one, maybe except my questionable writing style/format

Mainly set up stuff so there’s only a bit of Aemond at the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hel, wait up!" You laughed as you ran after your friend.

"No, you can catch up!" Called back Helaena.

Helaena had found a moat beautiful sunset moth and was absolutely dead set on catching it, if even for just a little bit. She finally slowed down to creep closer to the moth and crouched down to admire it. You caught up to her but kept your distance knowing that your harsh breathing would probably scare the creature away. Helaena gently guided the moth to her hand and brought the small one up to you.

"Look at her! Isn't she just beautiful?" Helaena wondered out loud. "All her colors, her little fuzz, everything."

You leaned down towards the creature and smiled. "Yes, Hel. She's absolutely gorgeous."

Helaena smiled at you before gently releasing the beautiful sunset moth. She gazed up at it, almost in a daze, when she remembered that you were with her as well.

"Shoot, Y/N it's getting late and we gotta finish that project!" Helaena cocked her head and gently tapped her it trying to figure something out. 

The sky was slowly getting becoming a purple orange as the sun began to set. 

"Why don't you just spend the night at my apartment? That way we can still hang out and actually get some work done." 

You laughed at her little joke. "Of course! Let's get going." 

The two of you linked arms as you made your way off campus and to her apartment. Despite being friends since freshman year, you've never actually been to her apartment before. Helaena told you she just preferred to be on campus basking in the sunlight and hanging in the quad with her friends. As an entomology major it did help to be on campus more often for the labs she frequently had to do.

As you two walked, you talked about everything and nothing at all. Pretty soon you looked up and saw the apartment, a fairly big apartment. Your mouth fell open in amazement. Everything was so sleek and modern, and that was just the exterior.

You felt a slight pull on your arm. "Come on, girl! I know it's a bit intimidating, and if it makes you feel better I miss living in my childhood home. Way more plants and much more inviting, if you ask me, but I promise you the inside is really chill." Helaena shook her head slightly and chucked. 

"Well, as chill as it can be living with my two brothers. They can get a little…heated at times but I think you’d get along with Aemond,” giving you a knowing glance.

"Oh, I didn't know you had brothers! I mean, I knew you had brothers but I didn't know you lived with them," you squeezed out. 

You deliberately ignored her suggestion of her brother to you.

It wasn't a lie. You knew Helaena had brothers but you had no idea what they looked like and absolutely didn't know that they shared her apartment as well. They were simply little thoughts that have never been important enough to question and bring to life until now. Well, at least one of them was. All you ever really heard about in a positive way was Aemond. He piqued your interest, even if you only knew him as Helaena’s brother.

Helaena tugged your arm a little harder, giving you no choice but to follow her. As you neared the door you couldn’t help but take in every little detail. The delicate carvings on the walls created a beautiful texture that shone brightly against the dark grey paneling. Before Helaena could unlock the door it opened up to reveal the same silver blond hair as Helaena’s.

The guy looked you up and down with no shame and no attempt to hide his action. A mischievous smile tugged at his lips.

“Well, hello there,” he drawled.

“Hey, Aegon! This is my friend Y/N and she’s gonna be spending the night with us. We have a project to work on so don’t mind us,” Helaena explained.

“Spending the night, huh?” Aegon’s smile has definitely made his way to his face now. “I’ll be around, don’t hesitate to call me if you want some more…company.”

Aegon gave you a little wink before moving out of the doorway to let you two in. He gave you sneaky vibes, like someone you know would get the both of you in trouble if you decided to become friends with him. Aegon looked like he was on a prowl and his wink and smile solidified that assumption.

As you walked through the threshold, your breath got caught in your throat yet again. The exterior of the apartment was stunning and the interior was no less beautiful. Unlike outside, everything inside the apartment seemed to hold a story, some old and some new. Pictures decorated the wall along with what looked like religious icons and stars.

You could hear some noise coming from a room nearby and you were a little relieved when Helaena led you that way. You met the first brother and were now nervous about the second. Helaena has been suggestive about you and her brother getting to know each other better, maybe something even more than that. Your hands felt a little clammy as you entered the living room. The Planet Suite played softly in the back. 

Helaena called out to her second brother. “Aemond? I know you’re here. I want you to meet my friend, Y/N!”

Soon enough, a tall, lanky body stepped out of the hallway, looking a little annoyed but softened at the sight of his sister. 

“Yeah, Hel?” Aemond asked as he leaned against the wall.

“Just wanted to introduce you to Y/N! She’ll be staying the night and I just wanted to let you know,” she smiled at her brother.

Aemond looked at you and you felt your heart quicken. He was beautiful. He had a violet eye and what looked like a shining blue gem in place of the other with an aggressive scar passing through it. His silver hair was pulled up in a half bun while the rest of his hair cascaded to his shoulders. Aemond’s good eye scanned your body, similar to the way Aegon had done before but in a gentler way. He didn’t seem hungry. 

“Well, make yourself at home, Y/N. I’m going to be working on an essay here if you and Hel are going to hang out in her room.” 

“No! Stay here, Aemond!” Helaena stopped him before he could turn back to get his things from his room. 

You looked at your friend, pretending to be confused as to why she was asking him to stay. Helaena was trying to put a plan in motion and you were both dreading and looking forward to it.

“Helaena, if he was work to do we should leave him alone,” you half whispered to her. Part of you didn’t want him to stay, nervous about what could potentially happen if he did. But at the same time you were curious and wanted to venture into this situation that your friend has obviously planned out in her head.

“Y/N, we’re going to want his help.”

Aemond’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “My help? My sister and her friend needs my help for what?”

You quickly explained what was going on. “We’re just working on a little philosophy project as well, it’s no big deal. You can work and we’ll leave you alone.” Your heart beat a little faster when you locked eyes with him and made fast work to break it.

“Aemond is a philosophy major, and it would be really useful to have him around while we did this,” Healaena all but pleaded. “If it has to do with philosophy then I can help. And if you have Dr. Greyjoy you’re going to want my help,” Aemond simply stated his fact and immediately left to gather his materials.

While he was gone you gave Helaena a desperate look and groaned. She gave you an uncharacteristic sly smile. 

“Oh, give him a chance, Y/N! You need something else in your life besides academics and so does he. It’s a perfect match. Would you rather I try to push you towards Aegon?” She questioned.

“Please, no, not Aegon. He already looked at me like I was his next meal.” You chuckled and took a deep breath. “Okay, I put my trust in you, Hel. But know that if he breaks my heart, you’re going to have to be the one who takes care of me for a few days.”

Helaena squealed. “Yes! Oh, I’m so excited!”

“Excited about what, Hel?” Aemond had come back into the room looking amused at his sister.

“Nothing, nothing! Let’s just get this project started!”

Aemond gave a small chuckle as he plopped down on the couch and you hesitantly took the love se​​at across from him. Aemond layed out all his books and notes and smiled up at you as Helaena took the seat next to him giving you the biggest smile while flicking her eyes between you and her brother.

“So, let’s see how you guys are faring, shall we?”

[lyfrasilly-edda]

Working title: Lyf and Marius un-divorce

Cw: discussions of Out, dying, and similar

When Nastya found Lyf, they were in slightly better shape than they had been when she’d seen them storming out of the room. They were still glowing a bit, the rainbows in their eyes swirling more than usual, but the more eldritch parts of their form seemed to have calmed down. At least, the excess eyes had shut, and the colorful cracks in their skin had lessened. They were clutching a stuffed cow close to their chest, sitting curled up and staring out the window and at the stars beyond. A strange amount of the cow plushies and similar dotted the floor beside them. Tears still stained their cheeks, but their gaze was hard.

Nastya didn’t bother to hide her approach, but they didn’t acknowledge her appearance as she stood next to them. “Mind if I join you?” She asked. Instead of looking at her, they glared at one of the walls of the ship.

“Aurora.” they chided the wall. Nastya let out a soft sigh as one of Aurora’s panels flickered to life.

“You calmed down enough to the point of being safe around hours ago.” The panel read. “Talk to someone.” Lyf snorted, looking away from the wall and back out the window. They didn’t seem that upset. They’d probably expected she’d send somewhere their way soon enough.

“Fine.” Nastya took that as an invitation and plopped down next to them. She stayed silent, though, instead staring at the stars like Lyf was. They were nowhere near any celestial object, so the sky was near empty, dark and littered with small pinpricks of light. Just an endless void of stars and darkness.

“Are you going to give me a lecture about Marius’s reason for lying, too?” Lyf grumbled. Nastya leaned her head against Aurora’s wall, letting out a deep breath.

“Could you consider that lying?” She asked in turn. They squeezed the cow plush tighter.

“He certainly wasn’t telling me anything.” They growled. “I’ve been on the ship for fifty years, he could’ve told me it at any time- I’ve asked why he doesn’t like the octokittens. He could’ve told me then. I asked what the anons were talking about, with the watches and octokittens and 11.7 seconds- he just told me not to worry about it. He was trying to hide it from me.”

“You know he hates it when you worry.”

“And he knows I hate it when he brushes off his problems like that.” They responded. “He should know better than to avoid this stuff- after everything, he should know better.”

Nastya let out a hum of acknowledgement, and they sighed, resting their chin on the cow plush. “I thought it was just a normal phobia- I was trying to get him more used to having them around, because I thought if there wasn’t anything to be scared of- he was probably panicking the whole time. They're the only thing that can kill him, that is going to kill him, and I was just treating them like pets.” they shoved their face into the fluffy fabric. “Gods, I feel like shit.”

“How were you supposed to know?” Nastya commented. “He did not tell you.”

“He was still scared of them, and I just kept having them in the room.”

“I thought you were mad at Marius, not yourself?” She said, and Lyf pursed their lips. “Sounds like you are blaming yourself. Again.”

“I’m not-” they let out a huff. “Alright, maybe. I’m pissed at him for not telling me, but I- I don’t know. I feel like I should’ve noticed sooner.”

“Once again, he did not tell you.”

“I know.” They growled. “And I don’t know why he didn’t. He does it every time. One bit off his thumb last week. He plays himself up, never lets himself have problems. Just- shoves it away.”

“He is not used to someone caring.” Nastya stated, curling her knees up. Lyf scoffed. “Never has been. It’s been millenia, and he still is not. He is a caretaker. He does not think he should be allowed to have issues.”

“He’s an idiot, is what he is.” Lyf grumbled, and Nastya hummed in agreement.

“He is. But you knew that already. You did sign up for this.”

They sighed. “I did, didn’t I?”

“He is an idiot, and he is going to make dumb decisions, but fortunately for you, he has already written an apology note that’s at least six pages long. Might be longer now.” Lyf let out a snorting laugh, rubbing a hand over their eyes.

“Gods, has he really?”

“Did you expect anything less?”

They sighed. “No, I guess not.” they paused for a second, continuing to stare out the window, before they spoke again. “... Nastya, it isn’t happening soon, is it?”

Nastya leaned back and let out a sigh. “Did Marius actually tell you what powers our Mechanisms?”

Lyf considered that a moment. “...No. He just said he didn’t know when it would happen.”

She held up her hand, inspecting the skin, and more specifically, the quicksilver blood that ran under it. She could barely remember what her flesh looked like when red ran beneath it, the silvery blue had been there so long. It was cold, it was cursed, it was unnatural, but it was a part of her. She could hardly imagine a life where she didn’t bleed silver. “You know we are storytellers, yes?”

“Couldn’t have guessed.” Lyf muttured in response.

“Hm. Well, we are storytellers. Not just in the fact that we tell stories, it’s a part of who we are. And stories are what power our mechanisms.” Lyf looked at her curiously. They obviously hadn’t heard this yet.

“Now, according to our prophesied deaths, and according to the doctor, once we run out of stories, we die.” she continued. “When there are no more tales to be told, we have our final death, getting devoured by octokittens or floating in space or burning in a library or what have you.”

“But, there is something that neither the doctor, nor any of Brian’s prophecies could have anticipated.” Lyf raised an eyebrow at Nastya, and she smiled.

“Technically, I am dead.” She proclaimed with a shrug. “According to Brian’s prophecy, I was supposed to go Out and never return. I thought that without Aurora, my story was done.” She rested a hand on Aurora’s wall, and the temperature raised in the room by a few degrees. Nastya gave a soft smile, and Lyf stared at her in interest.

“But I am still here. And I do not plan on going anywhere anytime soon.” She turned back to them with a smile. “So there’s no guarantee anyone else is leaving, either. Who knows? Maybe I’ll go Out again. I don’t plan to, I don’t want to, but things can change. Or maybe, what was supposed to be my death was just another part of life. And maybe it’ll be the same for everybody else, too.”

Lyf stayed silent for a moment, thinking over her words, before letting out a sigh. “I need to talk to him, don’t I?”

“You should.”

They rubbed their eyes, which Nastya noted were red and puffy. “I will, I just…”

Nastya nodded. “Take your time. He’ll understand. He might not like it, but he’ll understand.”

“Right.” They sniffed. “It still… He still hid it from me. He was still putting himself in danger just because I thought those damn things were cute.” They shoved their face into the cow plush, their voice coming out muffled as they continued. “I didn’t think about him dying before. I thought it was the one thing we didn’t have to worry about, I had people I couldn’t lose. Not like…”

Nastya put a hand on their shoulder, rubbing it slightly. Neither of them needed to hear the end of that sentence.

Death was always a strange thing for the Mechanisms. None of them had ever really had mortal lives. They never had calm moments, always fighting for their next meal, getting stabbed in the back left and right. Some of them worse, some of them better, but there had been so much they would have never experienced if not for their extended lifespans.

Millenia, though? Thousands, millions of years, living every day, watching billions die, causing billions of deaths themselves, living every experience ever thought of and dying in every way imaginable? Nastya had been the first to snap, after she had thought Aurora had died. She by far was not the only one who had stared out into the void, and wondered what it would be like to spend the rest of eternity out there. She was happy now, but they all knew their deaths were inevitable. Nothing could last forever.

Lyf was new to immortality, though. The idea and wish for an eternal rest had probably barely even occurred to them. 350 years wasn’t much in the face of forever. Nastya knew even Marius, in all his masks and smiles and laughs, had resigned to his death a long time ago. She didn’t know how Lyf had shaken his viewpoint on that, but death was only natural. None of them wanted to live forever, at this point.

Lyf let out a shaky sigh, lifting their head back up. New tears had begun to flow from their eyes, but they quickly wiped them away and stood up. They took a few slow, deep breaths, before giving Nastya a shaky smile. “I’m going to go talk to him now.” She rose with them, giving them a silent nod.

When Lyf opened the door to walk back into the cabin, they were immediately barreled into by Marius giving them a massive hug. Nastya snorted as they stumbled a bit, before wrapping their arms around him in turn. He shoved his face into their shirt, blubbering out barely comprehensible apologies and promises to never to never hide anything from them again.

Lyf let out a fond sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Marius, love, give me some time to breathe first.” He immediately took a step back, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Shit, sorry- Schatz, I’m so fucking sorry- I just- fuck.” He shoved his face into his hands. “I should have- I didn’t want you to worry about me, so I just-”

“Kjære, breathe.” Lyf leaned down so they were at eye level with him, rubbing his arm. Marius let out a small sniffle, wiping the tears from his eyes, but did as they instructed and took a few deep breaths in. Lyf smiled at him. “It’s alright, I’m not mad, I just-” They gave another sigh. “Well, I am a bit mad. But Nastya said you were ready to apologize?”

“Right- I-” Marius took in a deep breath, closing his eyes as he tried to get his words in order. “I’m sorry, I just- I shouldn’t have hid it from you. You deserved to know, even if I didn’t want you to worry, because hiding things from you is stupid-”

“You’re not stupid.” Lyf chided. “What you need to know is that you’re allowed to have your own problems, alright? And you need to stop trying to brush things off for my sake.” They wiped a tear from his cheek. “Alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll- I’ll stop. I promise. To try, at least.”

“Good.” They wrapped him in a crushing hug, letting out a soft laugh. “And I’m sorry for yelling at you, too. I shouldn’t- I understand why you didn’t want to talk about it. I just…”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Marius murmured. “You were justified in yelling.”

“I still shouldn’t have.”

Nastya sighed as the two continued to whisper reassurance and apologies to each other, folding her arms. She turned to the doorway where every single one of the crew was very obviously peeping into the conversation, and raised an eyebrow at them. In an instant, they disappeared, scampering away to who-knows-where.

“Nosy asses.” She muttered.

[ectopal]

I'm still losing my mind about part 1 but I am so in love with part 2 it's unreal!!! Thank you for putting so much love into this, it's SO gorgeous and I literally can't go into enough depth about all of the reasons it's so fantastic!!!

but that sure as hell won't stop me from trying!!!!!

First, the reminder that Val's watching!!! Love the choice to point out that while she's not in this scene, Valerie is still here, still waiting for her perfect moment to strike. I love the subtle approach to this, I think it really shows a mastery of the craft and how creative you are. The glitchy effect around the edges of the panel were an excellent choice, btw!!! You said that the layout was difficult, but you pulled it off so flawlessly and it reads SO well.

I love Skulker's posture in the third panel, giving off huge 'I fucked up vibes' and I'm in love with how scared/worried he looks! Choosing to include the over Vlad's shoulder angle to make Plasmius look huge and Skulker really small was such a good choice; the angle/perspective really drives home how big this mistake was :D

Also one of my favorite Vlad's to date:

so menacing, so pointy <3 I love this man so much and you make him look so cool and dangerous. (I also love the zoom in to Skulker's shoulder and back as he's trying to avoid disaster, an EXTREMELY cool way to show he's backing up and I LOVE it)

AND I JUST NOTICED the teleportation lines in the fourth panel, I'm SCREAMING what a fantastic decision to show the 'here one second, gone the next' aspect of Vlad's movement.

And then to follow it up with THIS???

Amazing, perfect, so cool, what an awesome use of space (also something you're really good at, I love when you pull back and show scale/distance. You did it at the end of part 1 to show how far away they were from each other and I LOVED it)

I love Vlad's straight legs/untense posture. It shows how easy he's lifting Skulker and emphasizes that he's the bigger fish in the pond. The cape's movement behind him as it settles from the teleportation also looks very good.

Hey wait a second

I just noticed that their text boxes are different colors!!! I love that Vlad's is darker than Skulker's, that was a fun choice. And speaking of the text boxes, I love how they unravel a bit when the ghosts are mad but trying to hold it together vs. when they're actively yelling and they get spiky to show how upset/loud the characters are being.

I love these three panels. The juxtaposition of Vlad and skulker on either side, separated by Vlad's hand squeezing down on Skulker's neck is SO good. I LOVE that Vlad's face is shadowed and only the glow of his eyes comes through. It's also cool how still Vlad looks compared to Skulker; the line of movement from Skulker's eye helps show how panicked Skulker is in the situation compared to Vlad.

And then we get my favorite Vlad to date:

I love him. He looks SO FUCKING MAD and I really think it captures how badly Skulker fucked up. This man is fucking DONE. When I was writing, I decided that BOTH of them knew that if the next thing Skulker said wasn't an apology, Plasmius would have destroyed him right then and there. They way you drew him here captures that beautifully, and I'm blown away at how much justice you did this scene.

I'm sure as I keep looking I'm going to see more, because your art is the kind that is so well thought out and executed that I don't think it's possible to catch everything with the first (or tenth in my case) pass.

I can't say it enough, but THANK YOU for making this. I am so touched that you did this and I love everything about it <3 <3 <3

[PART ONE] - PART TWO (you are here!)

“Sorry,” Skulker bites out as soon as Plasmius loosens his grip. “I only meant, once I find it, it’s going to take a while before he’s back to normal.” - (Our Pupils Grope for the Shape of What We Know, CH 3.)

second part of the comic, original fic by @ectopal here on tumblr and ao3!

OKAY SO LET’S CHAT!! welcome to cap’n ney’s art context corner!

the layout for each page was something that really gave me a headache, and tbh i would probably have no idea how to assess if they make any sense. but my favorite page, by FAR, is in part one where vlad is yelling at skulker (“i gave you a job…”) etc. the idea was depending on how angry someone was, they’d break through the panelling more and more.

this. took. forever.

well not forever, only like. four days. but that’s because this had such a fucking grip on my brain that i genuinely dedicated almost all my spare time to it. i did a couple other doodles (that you probably saw yesterday) but man. i haven’t drawn this much in one sitting in a while.

this whole thing gave me so much more respect for the new graphic novel that’s coming out btw, because holy shit this was draining. i can’t imagine doing literally almost 200 pages.

thank you so much again to ectopal for sharing your fantastic works with us. and thank you to all of you for indulging my nonsense o7

i’d say i’m sorry for the spam, but really this will probably happen again someday. can’t help it if fics blow my mind :’D

[menace-sama]

sappy continuation under ‘keep reading’ below ⤵

“Good night, Roman,”

---

This was drawn way before Thomas announced those youtooz dolls. I only have the courage to share it now hhhh

I’ve been whining about wanting a custom roman plushie for months (yes, way before the dolls announcement) I could buy the youtooz ones but the site doesn’t accept paypal plus it’s long past now. still in coping phase, really

[hey-its-cweepy]

A/N: ... Okay so this was going to be a drawing, but on top of the fact that its night time rn- drawing + coloring all the panels is kinda a pain in the butt and my hand still sorta hurts (EVOLNATION OC WILL COME OUT TOMORROW I SWEAR- I JUST NEED TO DRAW THEM-)

IM NOT THE BEST AT WRITING SO PLEASE FORGIVE ME IF ANYTHING OOC-

Mellow belongs to @fumikomiyasaki! Also Im sorry if Im getting annoying with pinging and stuff... This is getting long-

--------------------------------

Momo ran through the halls after being scared over and over after getting a little lost during the halloween event. Tears ran down her face as she just finished scrambling out of the previous location, being scared from the costumed students.

Once she was far enough, she sat down on the ground with her knees to her chest as she quietly sobbed to herself.

"... Dallas was right, Im so pathetic..." She sniffled to herself "... I c-cant do this... M-Maybe I should just head back to the dorm a-and pretend I was s-sick or s-something..."

Mellow seems to have been passing by after fulfilling another task, about to return to his respective dorm before hearing her quiet cries as he steps in, concerned.

"M-Momo? A-Are you alright?... Did... Something happen?..."

Momo flinches a bit in surprise, quickly trying to wipe away her tears as she looks up at him, trying to not make it obvious she was crying but it was too late.

"M-Mellow! U-Um... I-Its nothing, I swear! I'm... I'm just a little t-tired b-but Im fine" Momo has always been a terrible liar...

Mellow seems to only grow more concerned as he hesitantly sits next to her, his cheeks having a small hint of blush to them.

"Momo, i-if something's wrong, p-please tell me... I w-want to help you..."

"I-I... I..." Momo sighed as she looked away from Mellow and down at the ground, about to start crying again "... Im just b-being a baby... Everyone's just d-dressed in costumes b-but... I dont kn-know its just-... So s-scary..." Momo curls up a bit more with a sniffle.

"H-Hey, you're n-not a "b-baby" for being s-scared... I can s-stay here with y-you for a bit to help you c-calm down if you w-want..."

Momo looks back up at him, a bit caught off guard by the offer "S-Stay here? B-But... But wh-what about your d-dorm?..."

"Im... Im sure they can h-handle a few m-minutes without me... B-Besides... I want to m-make sure you're alright.."

Momo still seems a little surprised by the response as she uncurls herself a bit. "Th... Th-Thank you... M-Mellow..."

She hesitantly scooted a bit closer to him, one of her fingers nervously reaching out to hold his hand, her face a bit red from both crying and the fact that she's touching his hand. Mellow's soft blush becomes more evident as he slowly yet gently holds one of her hands.

"D-Dont w-worry about it... I w-want you to b-be okay..."

Momo appreciated his company but seems very hesitant to do anything more than hand holding... Mellow doesn't really mind as he's also too nervous to advance any further than hand holding.

As time went on, Momo seemed to have mostly calmed down as she stands up despite being a little shaky.

"Th-Thank you, r-really... B-But... I... I th-think I... H-Have to go back..." Momo didnt really want to go back, but she knew she had to if she wanted to go back to her dorm.

"I-I'll... I'll go with y-you..." Mellow gently squeezed her hand as he stood up with her, Momo's face blushed more "... Th-Thank you s-so m-much Mellow... I-I... I r-really a-apreciate th-this..."

"You r-really dont n-need to thank me for th-this... L-Let's go... T-Together..."

Momo and Mellow continued to hold hands as they made their way around the school, with Mellow comforting Momo anytime a student scared her (intentionally or not)

[kickingitwithkirk]

Frau Perchta or Krampus's Gal-Pal is a Bitch

Characters - Dean Winchester x Witch!Reader x Witch!Sam Winchester

Summary - Its Christmas-Winchester style

Word Count - 2735

*This story contains Dark!fic content-do not read if subjects listed in warnings triggers you

Warnings- Cursing, angst, injury on job, flirting, WIIWD, D/s tone, witchcraft. evil entity, stalking, voyeurism, attack with knife, attempted murder, imprisonment

A/N -for @spnfanficpond @mrswhozeewhatsis #SPNFanFicPond Secret Santa

Story gift for @negans-lucille-tblr

Bingo Squares Filled: @j3bingo -dungeon @spnmixedbingo -Christmas @anyfandomgoesbingo - “screw consciousness, that’s what I say”

A/N II- WIIWD (What it is we do) TPE (Total Power Exchange)

I ran down a flight of stairs heading deeper into the Bunker to lure the evil that has invaded into the Dungeon so I could trap in the heavily fortified room.

One week earlier

“This place is creepy,” I commented looking at rows upon rows of wooden crates haphazardly stacked nearly to the rafters in the large, dimly lit, dockside warehouse we were standing in after a hunter named Gerald contacted us about picking up a case he had to bail on, “it’s like that government storage facility in Raiders. How the hell are we supposed to find whatever it is in all this?”

Dean came up behind me and gripped my waist, sucked on the bruise one of them left on the back of my neck making me hiss, “that’s what we brought Sammy for.”

Sam flattened his lips shooting his irritable little brother face at Dean getting handsy with me on the job flipped through the log-in book again, “the crate is stored in Row Y, #256.”

Two hours of searching later..

“Don’t worry he said, it’s gonna be a cakewalk..” I mumbled to myself trying to find a foothold while climbing up another stack of crates searching the stamped info for the so far elusive one.

“What was that sweetheart?”

Shit, “nothing..my foot slipped.”

“Uh huh, do you remember what I said your punishment for lying would be the next time you did it?” Dean asked me in the tone.

“Yes Sir.”

“That didn’t sound very remorseful. I know he put that panel gage and flogger in his duffel.”

Hearing Sam’s voice I looked down and saw him standing at the base of the stack dusting off his shirt glances around making sure Deans not within sight since we’ve kept the fact I’m a natural witch a secret before gesturing to his eyes, “you see it?”

“No, it must be stored somewhere else, “ I replied, starting to climb back down. I barely set my foot on a crate I’d used coming up when a hellacious cracking noise drowns out whatever being shouted at me.

At the sensations my burgeoning consciousness is allowing I move to touch my head when he grabs my arm, speaking low, “don’t move, you might have injured your spine.”

“Jesus fuck Sam!” I wanted to spit out with venom but came out a bit slurred instead. Sam’s face wars between pissed and overly concerned boyfriend as his eyes change colors giving me a quick go over, “I can feel my everything,” then we heard..

“Is she waking up!”

He quickly shifts his eyes back to normal as Dean appears on my left side clutches my hand, “fuck babygirl don’t scare us like that again! ”

I slowly sat up with their help, rotating my sore shoulder and groaned, “well that’s one way of getting out of punishment for my lippiness.”

I watched the brothers do their oft annoying silent communication, “what makes you think you’re off the hook?”

Smirking, I pointed over the remnants of shattered wood, “cause my spectacular acrobatics found us the crate.”

The Bunker’s Library

When we got back the guys hauled in the symbol covered trunk that was concealed within the crate, sitting it on the table then hustled me into the shower room and did a very thorough examination of my personage for hidden injuries.

Afterward Dean rubbed the ointment I concocted into my shoulder and decided it’s bad enough to bench me.

We found Sam busy going between his laptop, several books containing symbols and his ever present legal pad, “so get this, according to Gerald’s email, the information he came in possession of wasn’t complete and he has no clue what’s actually in it.”

Dean frowned, “doesn’t look like a curse box, don’t recognize any of these symbols so for all we know we could be opening a Cracker Jack Box.”

“Or Sex Toy Box.”

They both gave me the same look.

“What? They both contain fun surprises.”

“That’s two sweetheart. You’re coming close to a red ass to match your shoulder.” Sam informed me and I demurely lowered my eyes as my cunt clenched at the mental image of him sitting on his bed, clad only in jeans and me face down across his lap as he doled out the punishment with his huge hands.

***

Dean and I had been playing for a while when Sam found out and explaining that we were more WIIWD than BDSM, since neither of us would go completely TPE being hunters, was an interesting conversation and depending on the circumstances, i.e. someone screwed up on a hunt or stepped over the set limits, we switched.

I shocked both of them when I asked Sam if he was interested, knowing Dean could be a possessive bastard and Sam was the only other person he’d allow to partake.

After some negotiations, thanks to Sam’s detail-oriented brain, we took our fledgling steps into a polyfidelitous relationship.

***

“Let’s crack this sucker open,” Dean sets his beer down picks up the large hammer hitting the old lock twice before tossing it on the table and cautiously lifting the lid peers in then makes a face, “WHAT THE FUCK..someone has a sick sense of humor!”

He pulls out the most nasty, vile, hideous, revolting, loathsome, repugnant, abominable, stomach-churning object ever created at the hands of the human race and trust me, having seen what I have, that’s saying something!

I screamed scrambling from my chair so fast it fell over and I’m gone before either brother knew what's happening.

“Y/N please open the door.”

“..”

“Okay, can you tell us what happened back there?”

“..”

“Sam quit trying to reason with her.”

“Dean, for whatever reason that scared her and I don’t want to..”

*fist hitting door*

“Open this damn door right now cause if I have to break it down you’re gonna be edging yourself whenever and wherever for the next two months and not be allowed to cum!”

“Dude, we don’t play that hard ..”

I slowly open the door keeping my gaze downward from embarrassment, not submission, “sorry for freaking out, you guys must think I’m a complete idiot.”

“No we don’t,” reassuring me Dean pulled me into a quick hug and kissed the top of my head then handed me to Sam, who wrapped me in his arms and said, “we all have something that wigs us out.”

“Yeah, your clown thing is..” Dean makes that face.

“Hey!”

“Guys don’t start, can we just figure out what..that was doing in the box so we can get it dealt with?”

Sam walked into the kitchen late the next day with a book in one hand going straight for the coffee pot.

“From what I can decipher so far, the markings are some warning against imbibing in cultural taboos.”

I laughed, ”we’re fucked cause probably what, ninety-nine percent of what we do is considered that.”

“Still not sure what the el..”

“Hey,” I snapped, “what’d I say about calling it by its name?”

“Sorry, still not sure what the thing has to do with cultural taboos let alone imbibing in them.”

“Think about what it was created for.”

Sam looked over at Dean for clarity. He nonchalantly shrugged and went back to making his sandwich.

I shook my head walking towards the door at how someone so smart could also be so dense, “whatever. I’m gonna search in the grimoire since Dean finally removed the thing from the library.”

Sam waited to the count of twenty and asked, “you did relock it in that trunk?”

Dean sat down across from him and took a big bite not answering when I ran back into the kitchen pointing an accusatory finger at him, “you asshole, I know you did it!”

“Did what?” Dean asked around his mouthful and I spit out, “put that thing by the Katana sword!”

“Dude, you said you’d secure it in the trunk.”

He raised his eyebrows and kept chewing.

Sam made a disgusted noise and got up giving me a quick kiss, “I’ll take care of it,” picked up his book and mug headed out.

I turned to Dean to tear him a new one and froze.

He continued eating with this look in his green eyes, normally they exude a warmth he’d never verbally express ‘cause, hello, it’s Dean, but they're scrutinizing me in a calculating manner that I haven’t seen since he had the Mark of Cain.

The scrutiny continues over the next few days.

Dean avoided physically interacting with me. It also wasn’t the last time I would find that thing innocuously sitting around the bunker watching me, coming to the conclusion this was his way of punishing me for getting injured.

What should’ve been the tip-off that something wasn’t right was his surliness with Sam but we were too caught up in research to ponder the warning signs.

**

I walked into the library and Sam, not looking up, started telling me about how he’d decipher a few more symbols. I moved next to him and leaned against the table playfully joking they probably weren’t a warning but a dirty limerick.

Sam looked up from the laptop, “dirty limeri..ooh,” his eyes roved over me, drinking in the amount of skin I’ve got on display in nothing but his unbuttoned flannel.

“Do you contribute anything around here besides your three holes?”

I spun gripping the shirt closed, “what the fuck is your problem? You’ve been acting like a complete douche nozzle!”

“My problem? Ever since we got back the only thing I’ve seen you do is spread your legs distracting my little brother from his responsibilities.”

“Dean, that's enough!” Sam got up glaring and Dean taunted, “of course you’d come to the damsel in distress's rescue Sammy..”

“I don’t need anyone to come to my rescue and you damn well know I more than pull my fair share around here,” I snapped, “and I suggested we enter new parameters into the algorithm Charlie created to speed up deciphering that gobbledygook. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna take all my holes and see if your laundry is done,” walking out I yelled, “and between the three of us I’m not the one who’s a whore Dean.”

Christmas Day

I had run into Lebanon early on a last-minute errand when I got a text from Sam that the translation was complete replying I’d be back asap.

I was putting the stuff up in the kitchen when I spotted a smear of blood that made my instincts kick in. I pulled my gun and cleared the hallway. Entering the map room scanning the crowsnest and stairwell for any threat.

Not finding any progress towards the library where I see Sam slumped over at the table softly calling out, “Sam?”

He doesn’t respond, not even a twitch and my stomach seized in anxiety as I slowly climb the three steps checking the reading nooks move towards him hear drip drip drip over the always humming electrics drawing my attention to the dark crimson pool between his feet.

Placing my gun in my waistband I grip his shoulders and pull him upright. His head lulls backwards, once expressive eyes dulled, staring at nothing, as his life drains from where he’s sliced open in disembowelment.

I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming, not knowing where whatever did this is.

Taking a steading breath, I touch his forehead finding a spark of his essence still there and place my hands over the gaping wound begin intoning the healing spell Rowena used on Amara.

Mahday, eelohtah sahn.

Serloh, eelohtah.

I can feel his skin moving, the wound knitting itself together when he takes a gasping breath regaining consciousness rasps out, “Dean..” suddenly his eyes flash and lunging forward tries to get up but instead ends up taking both of us to the floor.

“Sam, you’ve lost too much blood, you need to stop.” He lays back grimacing but stills, “why would Dean attack you?” His eyes drift towards the destroyed books, shredded notes, smash phone and laptop lying broken on the floor, useless.

I lightly stroked his temple, “can you show me what the translation said so we can figure out how to stop him?” He nods then I place my middle and forefingers against both temples and see disjointed images of his hands moving, writing words when a name surfaces.

Perchta

I pull out my phone googling it, finding numerous sites containing similar info.

“Fandamntastic, so when Dean opened that trunk and touched that thing he got possessed by a pagan goddess who likes to punish sinners by splitting their bellies open.” I plopped down on my butt next to him, “and boy do we fall into that category.”

Sam hooked his pinky finger around mine using the connection started projecting, “okay, we have the binding symbols to contain her so all we’ve gotta do is figure out how to extract her from Dean and re-trap her, which isn’t gonna be simple cause she’s got access to Dean’s memories and knows our tricks.”

“That's just awesome but the first thing we’re gonna do is find somewhere to hide since you’re in no shape to fight and pretty sure our abilities have attracted her attention.”

I decided Castiel's room would be the best place to hide since Dean doesn’t know that he had me add some specialized warding to his personal space. It was slow going and when we got to the curve of the hallway I saw the thing sitting in one of the doorways gave me an idea.

I link our fingers again, “I’ve come up with plan H.”

Sam vehemently objected but it was the only thing left in our arsenal.

After I got Sam settled in his room, I took a moment to reach out to see Dean/her moving through the bowels of the bunker smashing stuff in frustration and the thing randomly popping up trying to find us seized the opportunity to sneak into a storeroom for the items I needed.

***

My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I approached the thing sitting on a shelf, so deceptively innocent looking in its red Christmas outfit and saccharine expression.

“Alright you bitch, you want me, come and get me!”

I snatched that elf off the shelf and ran through the bunker with the pounding of boots closing in on me, down a flight of stairs heading deeper into the Bunker to lure the evil that invaded into the Dungeon so I could trap it in the heavily fortified room.

He/she cautiously entered the room finding me standing in the middle of the devil's trap skyclad, Dean's green eyes having a sanguinary glint matching the long knife they're carrying slowly walking around the circle's outer ring trying to suss out what I’m up to.

“You will not stop me from fulfilling my purpose.”

“You no longer have a purpose, that's why you were locked up. And using a thing that's supposed to bring happiness to spy on people,” pointing to the elf sitting on the shelf, “is wrong on so many levels.”

Dean/she sneers at me and tentatively sets a foot across the trap’s ring. When nothing happens, they get bold and come right at me flipping the knife around to slice when I snapped my fingers cutting off the lights revealing the room, and me, painted in glow-in-the-dark binding and protection symbols from the trunk.

“I did my research; you only have power during the Twelve Days of Christmas and you can’t damage the vessel you’re inhabiting. So, on January 6th at 12:01 a.m. when Dean’s body expels you, I will gank you and your little elf doll too.”

He/she laughed, taunting me that during confinement Dean’s soul will be her plaything.

“I don't think so,” holding up a receptacle incantate, “capare!” then walk out shutting the door on a cursing Dean/her and cast an enchantment on the door to only reopen on the specified date and time.

I scrub myself raw in the shower room and setting Dean's soul on the night table collapse next to Sam on the bed and hear him mumble, “screw consciousness, that’s what I say,” knowing he wants to forget the horrors of the day that seem to be the hallmark of a traditional Winchester Christmas.

SPN TAGS: @donnaintx @lyarr24 @flamencodiva @b3autyfuldisast3r

Sam/Jared @idreamofplaid

Dean/Jensen @thoughts-and-funnies @stoneyggirl @akshi8278 @beabutterfly987