#violence and gore

[whimsicalmeerkat]

WIP Wednesday Game Fills

Sentences from all this can be broken, previously just known as violence and gore, as requested by @asha10100101010 @wizisbored and @aparticularbandit. Thanks for making me write!

~

"Can you ride the winds?" Daemon asks as they skirt a pile of severed heads, making their slow way to the entrance of the house.

Lucivar doesn't try to avoid stepping in the blood that's run and spattered on the floor. He's spent too much time as a warrior to be bothered by the blood of his enemies, although he would prefer it if his feet weren't bare.

"I can probably ride the Red," he says, answering Daemon's question. "My Ebon-gray jewels are drained, but I still have one Red untouched."

"How long?" Daemon asks him.

"A week," Lucivar answers, "but they didn't try the safframate until today."

"Did they say what they wanted?"

"Philomena said something about you falling in line once she'd tamed me."

[arachnixe]

Once A Hero

The knight was a hero once. The princess called her that, at least, before sending her on this quest.

Princess Eira does not speak idly. She is special, heir to a powerful bloodline, able to tap into ancient powers. When she speaks, one must listen. Her visions foretold a dark and terrible threat to the kingdom—that if left unchecked might tear apart the very foundations of the world.

The world needed hope.

Legends speak of a powerful sword, long hidden, able to vanquish any foe, if the right hero were to wield it, and unlike a princess, a hero could always be anyone, even someone from such humble origins as Leora.

Chosen for her skill in battle, for unwavering determination in the face of hardship, and for some unnamed quality the princess saw within her heart, Leora was given her quest.

Here, now, at the end of a long journey, the knight arrives at her destination.

She stands in the corpse of some ancient temple, a ruin that might once have been impressive, but which has been slowly reclaimed by roots and moss, and suddenly doubt clouds her heart.

The silence of the grave greets her. Even the heavy thud of her footsteps is choked and smothered by an unsettling pressure in the air all around. Leora’s breathing is labored. Sweat slicks her brow. She grits her teeth and pushes deeper into the ruin.

In the center of all this decay she finds an intact chamber. If there was ever a door, it long ago crumbled into dust. Leora moves past words carved at the entrance in some ancient, dead language, setting foot inside a room somehow more desolate than the rest of the ruin.

Her eyes are drawn to the altar in the very center, on which rests a small, cloth-wrapped bundle bound to the altar with thick lengths of solid-gold chain.

The knight takes one cautious step after another, approaching the relic that she knows must be her prize.

The cloth itself, thick and many-layered as it might have once been, has rotted as much as anything else here. As she approaches, she catches a glimpse of strange, otherworldly light peeking through a hole in the fabric, and her heart skips a beat.

A faint hiss displaces the chamber’s silence. It’s only after the knight takes a deep breath to steady herself that Leora realizes she has been making the sound herself through clenched teeth.

An eternity later, she reaches the altar. Sweat beads on her skin. Her hands shake.

Trepidation or no, her hands know what to do with the chains binding the weapon. She grips them, flexes, and the solid gold links crumble to dust as easily as ancient, rusted-through iron.

The work of the sword’s magic, certainly. It wants to be free. Its light beckons.

Such a beautiful weapon, its sable hilt simultaneously practical and lavishly crafted with fine details to draw the eye, its guard fearsome and predatory, bearing a lovely gem like an unblinking crimson eye, the light of its blade an enchanting and indescribable color.

The knight discards her old weapon in an instant. She reaches for the sword. Her fingers brush against it, gentle and reverent, before wrapping around the hilt—feeling its weight, its strange and comforting warmth—grasping it firmly and pulling it from its ancient prison.

Swinging the blade through the air, it feels like no other sword she ever wielded. Its power courses through her sword arm, filling her muscles with exhilarating strength.

A wispy thread wends its way into her mind, and she shivers with the first glimmer of understanding.

The knight was a hero once.

But as she strides away from that ancient gaol, she doesn’t feel like a hero. The sword has changed her. With its power crackling through her body, she is more powerful than she ever was before.

Better than a hero. An unstoppable threat.

---

The threat is here. Eira knows this with the same certainty as she knows which way the sun rises in the morning. Her dreams have slowly been taken over by nightmares—dread visions of blood and chaos and terror and awful, sadistic laughter.

She puts her faith in the brave champion who has not yet returned. She prays for a miracle to come in the form of her bold and beautiful knight bearing the glowing sword spoken of in legend, the one she only catches glimpses of in her prophetic dreams.

That sword must be the key to victory. Her heart tells her so.

Still, the threat is here, and the princess has heard no news of her hero. What news she receives from her messengers is terrible. Knights lost, soldiers slaughtered, the Westfall outpost razed to the ground. Time is running out for the kingdom.

Sounds of shouting jolt Eira from her rumination. She hears the clashing of swords and the screams of dying guards. The castle is under attack, and it sounds like the assailant is getting closer. Glancing out the window, a trail of destruction littered with armored bodies confirms her worst fears. The threat isn’t just here, it’s right here.

With one last—all too close—wet thump, the violence ends. There is no time to think, no time to fear, before the door slams open to the princess’s personal chambers.

Eira glares toward the doorway, but defiance flickers and fights with a sudden, confused spark of hope. She recognizes the woman looming in the door frame, with her raven hair and piercing eyes. Half the knight’s armor is missing, and her wild grin, a predator’s sharp and feral baring of teeth, is out of place, but the princess could never fail to recognize the woman who seized her attention from the moment she laid eyes on her.

Her eyes fall to the shining sword of legend, now dripping with the blood of royal guardsmen. There is no mistaking the blade from her dreams. Her hero won the power to vanquish her foes, but this is not the outcome the princess hoped for. All of this is wrong!

“Leora…” the princess begins, then falters, momentarily at a loss for words. “What have you done?”

The knight approaches slowly, radiating a menacing power that grips Eira’s heart with ice-cold fear.

“I’ve done exactly as I was commanded, your majesty,” she says, her voice like bared steel, sending shivers down the princess’s spine. “The power of the sword is mine, and now there is no enemy who can stand in my way.” With a flourish, she brandishes the blade. “Just as we planned, right?”

The princess shakes her head in disbelief. “But my guards… those soldiers you killed…”

“Loyal to the king, not to you,” the knight replies.

The princess can’t help but notice—and not for the first time—just how much the other woman towers over her. She swallows a lump in her throat, taking a step backward, feeling the wall behind her blocking further retreat.

“Are you loyal to me, then?” Her heart pounds in her chest with something more than just fear. “Will you hear me if I command you to put down that sword? There must be some fell curse upon it, and—”

Leora’s booming laughter interrupts the princess, making her shrink back involuntarily. “Your majesty, you don’t understand at all. This sword’s gifts have made me unstoppable.” She takes a step closer, and there is a manic, dangerous light in her eyes as she speaks. “With a swing of my blade, I slay lesser soldiers by the dozen. They fall to me like paper dolls. Would you truly have me set aside this power? Would you set aside this power if it were in your grasp?”

The princess feels a quiver of something like excitement at the thought. She always lived a life circumscribed by the demands of her role and the edicts of her father. Leora must once have been similar in her own role as knight, she realizes, but it’s clear that her terrifying new power grants her near limitless freedom to pursue her every desire. In spite of everything, she finds herself acknowledging a certain allure in that.

“If I don’t understand, then make me understand,” Eira begs, her stomach a knot of confusion and despair, her heart hoping for some explanation for what has become of her hero. “Tell me about this power.”

The knight’s eyes brighten with eagerness. She tells the story about the razing of Westfall, growing more animated the longer she speaks. The princess leans forward in rapt attention, absorbing the tale of her battle. Although, the princess thinks to herself, it sounds less like a battle than an absolute slaughter. Leora shows no remorse and leaves out no detail of her bloody conquest, painting a picture of a battlefield covered in gore, bodies strewn wherever they fell, even describing the screams of the wounded and dying as music to her ears.

Whenever Eira heard stories of great battles before, they were always described as viscerally horrifying. Not at all like this, with such fascinating hunger filling the knight’s rich, dark eyes. There’s a strange thrill to hearing Leora’s words, describing something so terrible with such naked pleasure.

“My every swing felled an enemy, cutting through armor as easily as flesh.” The knight closes her eyes for a moment in relish. “But it goes beyond strength; my speed has increased tenfold. No, more! I cannot describe the feeling in mere words, princess, of reaping men as easily as wheat. They might as well have been standing still, baring their necks in surrender.”

How frightened they must have been, set upon as they were by this perfect warrior. The princess unconsciously tilts her head slightly, exposing her own neck to Leora, imagining the tip of that blade at her throat, the slow bite of cold steel reminding her of her own mortality, the wicked pleasure on Leora’s face as it sinks into her vulnerable flesh and brings a hot, wet flood spilling down her chest…

She forcibly shakes herself out of the scene, returning to the present moment.

“The bodies of all those people…” The princess licks her parched lips, her voice quiet and thin, nearly a whisper. “When you looked and saw what you did to them, how did you feel?”

The knight’s grin widens. “It was a sight to behold. Severed limbs, mangled torsos, bodies broken and bent in ways they could never survive. Blood slicked the ground. The stench of death was everywhere. It was a massacre.” She comes closer, her voice losing some of its boisterous tone and taking on an intimate quality. “It was art, and that battlefield was my canvas. I felt unstoppable. Without a scratch on myself, what else could I feel but exaltation in my own power?”

The princess shudders, imagining the scene, both repelled and drawn in by the vivid description of mass murder. “No wonder the legends spoke of the sword as such a powerful artifact. It is fearsome indeed.”

The knight is not finished. She continues with barely restrained passion, describing yet more killing in her assault on the outpost. It seems her true goal was the knight-commander stationed there—a woman the princess remembers as proud and austere—who had apparently, years ago, done Leora a great wrong. An unforgivable crime, the princess agrees, and she takes a grim satisfaction in hearing of her champion’s revenge.

Gods, if she’s honest with herself, it’s more than grim satisfaction, she can feel the heat flooding her cheeks. She can’t help how her face flushes upon hearing how Leora used her bare hands to do it. Thumbs in the eye sockets, the knight applying enough force to crush a woman’s skull like an overripe melon.

The satisfaction of licking her hands clean afterward.

There can be no more doubt. Leora, the tall and dashing knight, her chosen champion and the long-secret subject of her longing, is the evil the princess has spent years planning to fight. Yet now that the knight is here, having become the threat she was always fated to be, the princess finds herself a prisoner of her own desire, torn between horror and shameful, perverse admiration.

She could never, not in a hundred lifetimes, pit herself against Leora.

Eira’s breathing is heavy, her hands trembling with an excitement she fears to name. Her eyes drift to the sword in Leora’s hand.

The larger woman catches the direction of her gaze, taking another step closer until the princess can feel her hot breath on her cheek.

Leora’s voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “You want to feel the same power, don’t you?” she asks, brushing a strand of hair from Eira’s face with her free hand. “You want to hold someone’s life in your hands, to snuff it out on a whim, to take what you want without consequence.”

Their faces are so close, she can smell the taller woman’s sweat. Those piercing eyes seem to peer down into her very soul, leaving no room to hide.

The princess nods, unable to deny the truth lurking deep down inside. She wants to feel the elation, the rush that the knight describes, even while part of her screams that she shouldn’t want this, that it’s evil, that something very wrong is happening here.

“I…don’t know if I can do this,” she says, her voice wavering and uncertain.

“You can, my dear,” the knight responds, her hand cupping Eira’s face, eyes suddenly burning with a possessive fire. “You just need to be brave enough to take the first step, and the sword and I will handle the rest. Let me show you the pleasure of destruction and domination.”

Eira loses her grip on herself, giving in to Leora’s irresistible magnetism. She leans forward, pressing her lips to the knight she wanted from the very beginning.

The knight’s kiss is not soft and gentle, like she always imagined it might be. It’s fierce and punishing, bruising her lips with the force of her hunger. For all its lust, there is something cruel in the kiss, contemptuous of the princess’s all-too-human weakness. She whimpers, as unable to resist Leora’s inhuman strength as she is unwilling to try.

The knight’s tongue pushes its way past her lips, and as she welcomes it into her mouth, she tastes the first spark of energy leaping into her. A pleasant tingle rapidly intensifies to pinpricks, then to a raging inferno pouring from the other woman’s mouth into hers. She gulps it down greedily, even as it starts to feel like fire in her veins, as the sword’s malevolent power corrupts the magic of her bloodline into something altogether new and deadly.

She feels the cruelty and malice in the deluge, and she eagerly drowns herself in it until no fear remains, only twisted pleasure.

The kiss leaves Eira breathless and unsteady, but her newly enhanced magic, awakened to its true potential, thrums in her blood, aching for an opportunity to be unleashed against her enemies.

A whisper in the back of her mind sharpens her. The world comes into sudden focus, as though a veil has been lifted from her eyes. Her beloved knight was right, this world is filled with so many opportunities for conquest and domination. How did she fail to see it before?

She was weak, that much is clear. Afraid to wield her own magic for more than parlor tricks and divination. Afraid to pursue what she truly wanted. The princess looks her knight up and down, admiring the swell of her chest, her thick legs, those strong shoulders. Not anymore.

It is now clear to her that the sword is more than a mere artifact of great power. It speaks directly to her mind with its own intelligence and will, its own desires and goals. The blessings it grants also collars them both, binding them into servitude. She feels no resentment, however. She will happily serve as long as she still gets to take everything she desires.

Starting right now. The princess grips her champion by the collar, pulling her into another kiss with the force of a lifetime of pent-up need.

[fic-ive-read]

Link To The Fic

[mortuaryprince]

they hate me for my slut waist and recurring self harming behavior

[igottatho]

A new world is possible, my friends. Le Guin famously said: “The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable; so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”

We WILL free Palestine

[19-1-20-25-18]

[shepscapades]

A last life ethubs comic that isn’t really about last life ethubs

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dead beat down

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[skullingwaydraws]

substance art, so far

[solelifauna]

With Bared Teeth & Prayers (Yandere Batfam X Neglected Reader) (Dark!!! Werewolf AU) (PT. 1)

TW: Mentions/allusions to cannibalism, death, and violence.

Three years had passed since that fateful day and your life had only gotten more miserable. Whatever hopes you had for being a part of a family were thwarted as soon as you stepped foot in the household. Bruce doesn't care about you, Dick was straight up mean, Jason (as the pack protector) was aggressive, Tim found you annoying, and Damien simply loathed your existence and would join Dick with his cruelty.

Both Stephanie and Barbara were civil with you, but neither really cared about what you did. Cassandra was nice, sometimes signing to you and giving you scented clothing, but she still didn't really go out of her way to engage with you. The only person who you felt truly cared about you was Alfred.

The first two years you tried your hardest to fit in and get the others to like you. You did whatever they wanted, made sure to learn their interests so you could talk to them, never complained, and made sure to respect the pack's boundaries.

You hoped that eventually, you’d all move past this hurdle and soon you would get along and be allowed in the pack den and other pack activities. Unfortunately, you realized that you would never be considered part of the family or the pack. Which as heartbreaking as it was, was the least of your worries.

You see, there was an ancient custom in werewolf culture concerning new pack members and pack initiation. When a new werewolf is introduced to a pack and their territory, the new werewolf has a certain amount of time to be accepted into the pack; if they’re not, well, they're killed and eaten. 

Yeah… quite terrifying and barbaric if you think about it, but mostly only the old lineages still continue this practice. Which is why you’re absolutely fucked. See, typically when children come to a pack they get accepted immediately, pups were (usually) considered precious.

In your case, being a half-blood severely reduced your chances and well, you guessed the Wayne family just didn't like you. Which sucks because you only have until your 18th birthday to get them to accept you, and considering your 16th birthday was coming up, your time was coming to a close. 

Or, you could always just run away. Hey! It was an option, one that you weren't sure the Bats would even let happen. Still it was worth a try. Which leads to your current situation in Bruce's office; you were trying to cut your losses a little early.

~~~~~~

“Look, I just feel as though this is the best course of action for your pack’s and my own safety.” Came your exasperated and desperate voice.

“Safety?” Bruce questions, causally flipping through some Wayne Industries documents, as if he doesn't know exactly what you're talking about.

“Considering Damian’s tried to kill me five times, two of his attempts almost being successful, and Jason's pit aggression that has him ready to rip my throat out, you can see why someone would feel unsafe.” You state, voice raising slightly in pitch.

He hummed noncommittally, his eyes still focusing on whatever paperwork he was going over.

“I'll think about it.” He replies, still disinterested.

“There’s nothing to think about! I should be allowed to leave if I want to, and if anything I'll finally be out of your pack's way.” You say, finally letting your frustration show through.

Why couldn't he just let you leave? Did he seriously want to keep you here just to kill– sorry, eat you in another two years?

“Excuse me?” He finally looks up from his work, his blue eyes meeting yours. He was unimpressed, you could tell that much at least, coupled with a dark look of simmering anger.

Okay, so maybe you should tone it down a notch.

“Come on, I'm not an idiot. I know me being here is simply a public formality, good fluff bits for the press y'know. But I'm not part of your family, and I'm certainly not part of your pack. You and the others have made that very clear. So please, allow me to do us both a favor and get out of your way.” You add.

“Where would you go?”

“Huh?” You blink in surprise.

“Where would you go?” Bruce repeats again.

“That–that is honestly none of your concern.”

“None of my concern? Aren't I entitled to know where my kid is?”

“No, you’re not. Sure you're biologically considered my father, but we all know I'm not really considered your kid.”

“Is that what you think?” He questions.

“Am I supposed to think any differently?”

“You carry the Wayne surname do you not?”

“I do.”

“Then you belong to the Waynes. To me. Which means that I decide what happens to you.”

There was the familiar darkness that you saw pooling in Bruce’s eyes, the type that left the Joker a tortured mess, the type that disemboweled Ra’s Al Ghul, the type of darkness that reminded you that Batman doesn’t kill. Oh no, he maims and tortures instead.

You unconsciously take a careful step back. 

Bruce’s stare felt like ice, and his words hung in the air, thick and heavy with an authority that was absolute. You wanted to argue, to say something, but every instinct in your body screamed for caution. There was a darkness in his gaze that you had seen glimpses of before, but never directed at you, and now it was there, unblinking, cutting through any hope you’d harbored for mercy or understanding.

Your heart hammered, yet you forced yourself to stand straighter, swallowing down the instinctive fear. 

“With all due respect,” you began, your voice smaller than you intended but steady, “staying here for another two years just for you all to—to follow through with that—custom, doesn’t seem fair.”

Bruce’s expression didn’t soften, but his posture shifted slightly, his gaze piercing through you like he could see every thought you tried to hide. 

“Belonging is earned. It isn’t granted because of blood,” he stated coldly. “If you truly wish to belong somewhere, you work for it.”

“I’ve tried,” you said, voice thick with frustration. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve followed your rules, I tried with everyone, and stayed out of everyone’s way. But nothing I do is good enough.”

“You assume that acceptance is given on your terms,” he replied, voice as controlled as ever. “Pack structure doesn’t bend to anyone’s whims. Least of all a half-blood who hasn’t proven their loyalty.”

The words stung, tearing open a wound that you thought had scarred over. You clenched your fists, feeling the sharp ache of your own nails digging into your palms. “And what exactly does proving myself look like here? Surviving Damian’s attacks? Letting Jason rip me apart every chance he gets?”

“Watch your tone,” he warned, his voice low, cutting through any retort you’d planned.

You took a shaky breath, forcing yourself to take another step back from his desk. Challenging him wouldn’t help. He’d already decided where you stood, and nothing you said would change that. Maybe it was better to save your energy, conserve your strength for the day you’d finally slip away.

“Understood,” you said, swallowing the bitterness in your throat. “If that’s how it is, then I’ll stay out of everyone’s way.”

 But you’d still leave when the time comes.

Bruce’s gaze hardened, like he knew what you were thinking. “Your place is here until I decide otherwise,” he said, a finality in his tone that told you any further argument would only worsen things.

He dismissed you with a look, returning to his papers as if the conversation were over, as if you were no longer there. Every step you took out of the office felt heavier, like the manor itself was holding you down, binding you to this place that was never truly a home.

As you closed the door behind you, the cold emptiness of the hallway wrapped around you, and you knew then—you were on your own. If you were to survive this, it would be on your own terms.

It's like clockwork when Alfred calls you down for dinner. The same time, the same routine.

You show  up to dinner, hands still shaking and mind still reeling from your disturbingly cryptic conversation with Bruce. But, never mind that you’d just eat quietly and leave like you always do. You moved to your normal seat only to find that all the chairs near the end of the table had disappeared. What the actual fuck. Was this some type of powerplay? Something to imply that you didn’t even have a seat at their table anymore? 

You mean, you wouldn't mind eating in the safety and comfort of your own room. With an exasperated sigh, which had a couple of heads turn their attention to you, you grabbed an empty plate and started loading it up with food. You were about to head back to your room when you heard an outraged growl from behind you.

The kind of growl that had you tensing, ready to submit and roll onto your back.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Jason growled out from behind you.

You freeze.

“To my room?” You responded meekly, curling in on yourself as much as you could.

“And pray tell, why do you think that’d be acceptable?”

“Uh–um, ‘cause my seats’ gone?”

Jason only smirked, the feral kind that almost always promised pain to his enemies.

“Oh, but your chair isn't gone, it's right here.” Jason says pointing to a chair right near the head of the table.

You blanked. That's not right. Only pack was allowed that close to the head of the table, where Bruce sat, where the pack leader sat.

“B-But, I can’t–”

“Did that sound like a suggestion?”

You shook your head no, swallowing down a whimper that almost escaped your lungs.

“Then sit your ass down,” Jason growled.

He didn't have to tell you twice.

Immediately you shakily sat down in your new seat, on the left side of Bruce’s seat at the head of the table with Jason sitting at your left shoulder and Dick across from you. Not good, not good at all. You could feel the acidic, green gaze of Jason burning into the side of your face whilst Dick languidly sipped his wine, a sickeningly sweet smile (with way too many teeth to be considered anything but malicious), plastered on his face as he stared at the new seating chart. You let out a shaky breath, trying to get your heart rate back to normal; you were so gonna die tonight.

Thankfully, Bruce arrived and sat himself in his seat at the head of the table; right next to you. You closed your eyes, trying to focus on getting air in your lungs and slowing your racing heart. Unbeknownst to you, Bruce shot a knowing stare at the rest of the table. As much as you tried to conceal it, they could all hear your rapidly fluttering heartbeat and your poorly hidden breathing. Tim and Jason both watched you amused; you looked so darn pathetic, sitting there trembling like a leaf. 

You glanced down at your plate, picking at the food without really tasting it, hoping that staying silent would help you melt into the background.

Bruce, however, remained still and silent, his presence looming over you, radiating the authority that seemed to keep everyone else in check. But even that felt like a facade; the way his gaze lingered on you for a split second too long told you he was watching closely, assessing.

You forced yourself to take a bite, trying to steady your hands enough to appear somewhat composed. But the sound of your own heartbeat seemed to echo in your ears, loud and unrelenting, as if amplifying the anxiety that twisted in your gut. They could hear it too; you knew that much from the way Jason’s smirk deepened, from the way Tim’s lips twitched with barely-contained laughter.

As the dinner dragged on, every clink of a fork, every quiet murmur, felt like it was directed at you. The food turned to ash in your mouth, each bite only reminding you of the eyes trained on you, dissecting you with every chew and every breath.

The rest of the dinner passed in strained silence, every second an endurance test as you forced yourself to stay seated, to keep your head down. When Bruce finally pushed his chair back and dismissed everyone, the wave of relief was almost enough to make you lightheaded. Quick as a whip, you practically ran up the stairs towards the safety and solace of your room.

When you make it, the locks on your door are immediately fastened (not that it would do much if anyone wanted to actually force their way in). You exhale in relief as you try to collect your thoughts. Fuck, everything was going to shit; the worst part being you had school tomorrow (which thankfully you did not go to Gotham Prep; you'd kill yourself if you did). You groaned at the thought, digging the heels of your palms into your eyes to relieve the ache shooting through them.

Looks like another night of shitty sleep.

Taglist!!: @lostsomewhereinthegarden, @the-rouge-robin, @confused-they

[whimsicalmeerkat]

WIP Wednesday Game Fills

@wizisbored requested ‘gore and violence’ and @zyrafowe-sny and @somefishycat both chose a 2-for-1 deal with shareable sentences from it. Thanks for making me write!

~

“Come on, Prick,” Daemon says.

His voice has a biting coolness that Lucivar thinks couldn’t be faked, but he doesn’t know what kind of drugs he’s on. He sends a thought out along an Ebon-gray thread. He’s too tired to form it properly, so it’s mostly a wordless inquiry.

I’ve got you, Lucivar, he gets back.

It’s confusing, but it does confirm it’s Daemon. No one else could communicate with him at that level. It’s just—

“You never call me that,” he says.

[arainydancer]

you are my one desire.

[reupload because the original post got flagged. youtube link here just in case.]

[st-rbiter]

i'll hide a piece in every city she'll never see

first art fight attack of the year! for @barrenclan . im very normal about this comic

[kathaynesart]

BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT MASTER POST

It is done! I feel both like I spent far too much time on this update yet not nearly enough. Some poses are a bit stiff but hopefully the battle itself still reads. I know not much progress was made plot wise, but trust me, there’s a few things in here that are going to become very important much later on in the story.

Leo’s Ninpo: The keen reader might recognize that a number of Leo’s attacks are ones he picked up from Gram Gram, but with a bit of that added portal flair. I really wanted to push the boundaries of where he takes his skills, but stay true to the belief that rather than becoming a heavy hitting powerhouse like his brothers, his strength lies in his ability to calculate and react on the fly. I also wanted to give some level of limitation to each of their gifts. For Leo, it’s less the number of portals he creates that exhaust him, but rather the size and amount of energy that passes through these portals and his ability to keep them stable during the transaction. He has also become much better at keeping his portals well protected (so that portal pirates can not interfere or rather, so that the pirates aren’t killed by stray laser beams rushing through). As far as the Portal Choppers, we’ll be coming back to those and how they work later on in the story…

As always, thank you for your patience, hopefully the next one won’t take as long to create haha.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Part 2/2

By the time Stanley had realized he wasn't as alone as he believed himself to be entrapped in this ravenous abyss; he had honestly begun to suspect that he was finally starting to properly lose his mind.

In all the ceaseless miles that Stanley had journeyed during his apparent permanent residence within the dark devouring void, not once had he encountered another conscious, walking, talking being similar to himself. Every other formerly living creature that he had crossed paths with had been so... silent. Empty. Dead, in every sense of the word. It was as though the very essence of life itself had been sucked out of their bodies with a straw, their forms slowly falling apart piece by piece under the vicious gluttony of the darkness that surrounded them. They looked like they actually were supposed to be there, unmoving and comatose, unlike him.

So, when Stanley first began to encounter the twins, all of a sudden, he wasn't the only one in the dark.

When meeting the first pair of them, he found himself standing in a lake.

He hadn't even noticed the changes at first. It felt as though he had been walking for weeks on end, his body moving purely on autopilot and his aching legs leading him towards a destination only it knew. A thick fog of forgetfulness and flickering memories had descended upon his brain like a heavy blanket of numbing static as he had traveled. In this absentminded state, he hadn't even realized that the ever-present undulating, buzzing darkness surrounding him had begun to gradually shift and morph to form a horizon line; stretching into tall looming cliffsides that almost seemed to close in on him. Once the nonexistent floor beneath his soles abruptly began to ripple and warp, like the disturbed surface of a shallow puddle; only then did he finally notice his transformed environment.

The transition was seamless, almost dream-like. One moment, he was still surrounded by that filthy, overwhelming abyss; and the next, his boots were suddenly plunged deep into the cold, dark lake water.

The silence didn't leave, however. It still choked and stuffed its way into Stanley's ears to clog up his mind with thick cotton; the eerie quiet not quite matching the calm, almost serene scenery the void seemed to have abruptly transformed itself into. Like a movie with its sound cut off; leaving only the unsettling hum of the projector to fill the empty air.

It was odd. The lake was surely incredibly deep. He could obviously tell from how thin and pathetically small the shores appeared all the way from where he now unceremoniously stood in the middle of the lake. Stan could look down and see the darkness below his feet swallow what meager light that managed to break through the murky waters. The overwhelming black almost seemed to beckon him, gaping and haunting; a bottomless underwater pit of pitch black that never seemed to end.

And yet, he didn't sink. Stanley remained perfectly level, the almost ink like waters stopping just at ankle level, as though he were held up just above the surface by some invisible force. Even the writhing waves seemed small and low, as though the waters were shy to climb up his legs further than that. It was odd, so very odd.

However, it wasn't nowhere near as odd as the sight that greeted him when he finally lifted his eyes from the waters.

Stanley had crossed paths with truly unbelievable sights in this strange somewhere; from bursting, collapsing stars; to the imploding heat death of entire universes, but none of them seemed to hold the candle to what he saw then when he lifted his eyes:

Children.

Two, to be exact. Two, nearly identical looking children stood motionless before him; completely soaked through to the bone as though they had taken a plunge into the frigid water that pooled around their ankles. It was a girl and a boy, both adorned with twin expressions utterly devoid of emotion, their wide eyed stare seeming to burn holes into his thin jacket. Their drenched clothes sagged off of their scrawny frames; thin rivulets of water dirpping off of them and disturbing the glassy surface of the water at their feet. The little girl's hair had messily stuck to her face in thin sodden strands, her cheeks still full and round with youth just like the boy's. They looked young. Too young to be in a place such as this.

Oh, but their eyes; their eyes.

They burned with such anger; such injustice, brighter than any dying star or galaxies he had ever seen. Anger towards the world, to fate, to whatever cruel deity that had deemed them fit to be sent to this wretched place so prematurely. They were too young to be here; to be entrapped like he was amongst this hungry darkness. And yet, here they were, sheer denial against their own untimely deaths being the only thing keeping them awake and conscious amongst the dead and rotting. A show of juvenile defiance to nature itself so vehement even the all-consumign darkness seemed hesitant to devour them whole just yet.

It saddened him. It saddened him to know that they belonged there, that they were supposed to be there. He could see it, he could feel it; they were dead. No amount of determination could deny that universal fact.

When they spoke, Stanley could hear anger:

Stan chuckled in a futile attempt to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere that threatened to crush him whole. "A lake monster? You kids and your imagination," he teased, hoping to somehow rid the poor kids of the haunted look that seemed to whirl in their glares. No child should have been burdened with such a knowing look; such eyes that looked like they had seen everything there was to see about the world, the horrid and the good.

Clearly, it had been the wrong thing to say, and Stanley's faux pas was rewarded with a scowl from the little boy. A world's worth of sour contempt etched into every contorted groove that his grimace seemed to dig into his much too young face. Stan suddenly felt guilt squeeze at his weary bones for having caused that.

"That's what they all said," the boy spat out, eyes shining with a sheen of wetness Stan wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with.

Stan left that first interaction with the twins with the feeling of guilt and sorrow still clining to him.

He couldn't have known, at the time. He couldn't have known that this wouldn't be anywhere near the last time that he would meet the pair. He hadn't realised just how many of them there were. After that first pair, his endless journeying within the Abyss was hardly be spent alone anymore. Countless more times, he came face to face with the exact same two young and impossibly worn faces; forced to meet one pair of beaten and bruised kids after another.

Not one pair had died the same death as another. Some had gotten lost, prey to whatever threat that had snatched them up out in the open; some had fallen from high up; some had been crushed under an incredible weight; some had burned; some eaten alive; some zombified. Some didn't even seem physically harmed at all, body perfectly intact, and yet that same faraway, distrubed look in their eyes remained.

He thought the worst ones were the ones he found alone. A little girl or a little boy, left all lonesome without their other half there. Twins, he remembered a pair of them telling him once.

Once, he had come across a town full of silent, stone statues. It was a rustic, shabby, almost nostalgic looking town- odd and strangely familiar. The sight of it had tugged at an aged memory that had long since wasted away in the back of his mind. It was serene, almost deceptively so. The sun shone; the air smelled crisp and fresh; numerous waterfalls continued to crash down from the tall cliffsides; and a soft nonexistent breeze whistled through the thicket of pine trees that blanketed the outskirts of the town. None of it seemed to match the gruesome scene of the hundred wailing statues that littered every inch of the town.

He had found the boy's statue on the other side of town, deep within the green forest and toppled over the gnarled roots of a towering tree. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he too, was frozen mid-shriek; his stone face twisted and contorted into a mock impression of a silent scream as his body lay paused in a writhing struggle. He made sure to be gentle when he carried the boy's statue over to place it beside the girl's, whose statue stood far deeper into the forest, sporting the same rictus grimace of terror as her brother's. It somehow felt wrong for them to have been so far apart from one another, even in death.

He had come to dread meeting of the twins. He hated every second he had to confront yet another pair of dead children that did not belong here, but fate had decided they did. He despised having to listen to their tales of woe as they wept about the injustice of the world, of having died young; he despised himself for being unable to do more than weep with them.

"We don't belong here, Grunkle Stan," he would listen to the little girl weep, calling him a title he didn't recognize. He never remembered if they had ever told him their name, but they all seem to know his, without a fail. "If we're dead, then what about you? What about Grunkle Ford? Mom? Dad? What about them? We can't be dead, we can't be," they would say, confusion and frustration written all over their faces. They didn't understand. They didn't understand why they had come to the darkness so early, so unfairly.

He never knew what to say, he'd never been good with words.

All he could do was kneel down to their levels and engulf them in his arms, hoping he could somehow squeeze the pain straight out of their bodies in his embrace. He hugged them, because what else could he do?

[weabooii]

A fight against futility

poor Junpei :'(