#way to end the year ig

[ace-with--a-mace]

panickng and i cannot breathe

[solarisfortuneia]

— 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬.

and the smell of camphor dancing in the wind.

✦ info: he didn't know he'd lose you so soon. (come back, please. even if it is just for five more minutes.)

✦ featuring: alhaitham.

✦ warnings: angst, character death (reader), heartache, 1.2k words, somewhat proof-read.

✦ notes: i cried so goddamn hard writing this. why is my first work after hiatus pain. why did i pick up the angst wip. but!! i'm writing again, so that's good. (more notes at the end.)

he didn’t know that it was your last day together. 

he didn’t know that the smile you gave him that afternoon, your eyes sparkling like sunlight upon the serene waves of the ocean, would be the last he’d ever see. that the playful light in your gaze would fade so very soon, slipping through his fingers like sand.

he didn’t know that last night would be the last time he held you close while you drifted off to sleep. he didn’t know that today would be the last time he’d wake up with you.

he didn’t think he’d lose you like this. 

he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to save you from that blow. 

“please, please,”  he begs, both to you and to whatever force that is just barely holding you together. “just stay with me for five more minutes, please. until i can get you somewhere.” 

the rain soaks him to the bone, clothes and hair sticking to his skin. your lips stay motionless, eyes shut.

“wake up, please,”  he bargains. “you can have all the five minutes of extra sleep you want later, i promise. just—”  his vision blurs, and something shines on the ground before it is gone, swallowed by damp earth, lost amidst drops of falling rain. 

desperately, he tears off parts of his traveling cloak to staunch the bleeding. deep inside, he knows it is futile. he knows your wound is too great. he knows what lies ahead. but he cannot help but press the cloths to your wound and pray. 

please, please tell me it’ll be okay. 

please stay with me, beloved. i’ll read you all the books in the world. i’ll sleep in with you everyday, even if we end up whiling away our time. 

please. stay. stay with me. i can’t lose you yet.  

“— just wake up, beloved.” 

by some miracle, your eye flutters. just a bit. just enough to set hope ablaze, just enough for the grip on his heart to loosen a tiny bit. he buries his face in your shoulder, resting his head against your neck, uncaring of the blood that stains his clothes. your blood. on his clothes. his hands. everywhere. 

no. no. this can’t be happening.

he feels you strain beneath him, your unwounded arm gently, weakly brushing his back. he jolts upright, eyes trained on your face. you send a frail smile his way. he clasps your face softly as you nuzzle into his palm.

“alhaitham—” 

his full name. archons, how long has it been since you called him that?  

“— take good care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, chest heaving, your fingertips touching a tear on his cheeks. “i love you. so much.” 

those are the last words he hears fall from your lips. he presses a kiss to your forehead, to your eyelids, and to your cheeks and to your lips, over and over and over until he feels your breath slow, hoping they’ll say what he knows he cannot manage to choke out.

i love you. 

he stays there next to you for who knows how long, holding you until the rain slows and a faint rainbow smiles in the sky.

until he can’t smell camphor anymore.

—

every person has their curiosities. 

they’re just the little traits that set them apart from others, the things that make them tick just a little bit differently, the things that make them, them.

for instance, someone may be obsessed with collecting tiny furniture, while another eats the crusts off their sandwich before actually consuming it. someone may have an affinity for the most niche aspects of linguistics, while another can accurately predict the next raindrop that slides down a window pane.

after all, no two people are exactly alike, are they?

alhaitham knows he’s got his fair share of these curiosities himself. his aversion to soup and all things that resemble it, to name one. and with you, he’d noticed two things. 

number one: the scent of camphor that seems to linger on every inch of your person. 

he’d caught whiff of it almost immediately the first time you met. you were but one of his juniors in the akademiya, filled with bright-eyed curiosity and anxiety to match. you had tripped over a stair and bumped into his table in the library, bringing the mountain of books in your arms crashing down.

and with subsequent coincidental meetings, he learnt that the subtle scent of camphor dancing in the air meant you weren’t far away. 

you were, unfortunately, one of the poor souls who seemed to be cursed with constantly recurring minor illnesses, and almost always walked about with a stuffy nose. and so, you always carried a small disc of camphor in a handkerchief, as well as in your pocket.

you swore up and down, left, right and center that sniffing the vapors helped make breathing easier.

‘it’s my grandmother’s remedy, alhaitham! camphor always works wonders. well, that and eucalyptus oil.”

alhaitham may not know the validity of your claim or the legitimacy of the cure, but he knew to never, ever question a grandmother’s remedy. that, and he’d much rather refrain from starting a back-and-forth about something so small.

and number two: your neverending pleas of different variations of ‘just five more minutes!’ 

“five more minutes, ‘haitham. please.” you’d whine grumpily when he woke you up to start your day. “let me sleep in for five more minutes.” 

“five more minutes, habibi,” you’d ask when he put down the story you’d requested he read out to you before bedtime. “read me the part where she finds the music box?”

“five more minutes, baby,” is what you’d tell him when he asks how much longer you’d take getting ready. “you can’t rush perfection!”

those five more minutes were never five minutes long. 

but he’d always, always indulged you and those pleading eyes of yours. as stoic as he appeared to be, you lived in his heart. of course he could never deny you anything under the sun.

—

alhaitham remembers that silly little song you sang over and over, the one you’d learnt from a kid in the bazaar. he’d taken you to see one of nilou’s performances, and, friendly soul that you were, you’d struck up a conversation with some of the eager audience members before the play. 

“oh, how i wish i was a bird flying free,

i’d see the world, every mountain and every sea!

oh, how i wish i was a cloud in the sky,

wouldn’t you like to wave to me as i pass by?”

you’d hum that rhyme on every idle afternoon.

loss is inevitable. he knows that, with how logical and rational and straightforward he is. he’d lost his parents, but he was far too young to remember. he’d lost his grandmother, but she passed in her sleep of old age, serene and wise.

but you? he didn’t think you’d leave him this soon. a singular wish sits in his soul, making its home in his bones. 

a wish that you’d come back, somehow. 

he wishes you gave him five more minutes, just as he always did.  but he knows that you could’ve given him five more hours, five more days, five more years and five more decades and it would still not be enough time spent with you. 

a blue feathered bird comes to perch on his shoulder, interrupting his musings just as he raises his face to the sky. he sees the heart shaped cloud that floats idly above sumeru city.

 he thinks of the rhyme again, and something in him tells him to wave. and so he does. a scent so familiar lingers, faintly brushing his nose in the wind that picks up.

“alhaitham, it's time to go.”  kaveh calls his name softly.

 alhaitham doesn't move. “five more minutes,”  he says, echoing your favorite phrase. “i smell camphor in the breeze.” 

✦ extra notes: my alhaitham characterization for this fic stems from how i believe that when alhaitham is attached, he's attached. so i focused more on that, and less of all that rationality and whatnot. this one loves deeply, yk?

that camphor thing is a real grandma remedy in our household (my mom would tie some in a hanky and put some under my pillow and still to this day reminds me to do it when i'm sick) which is what originally sparked the idea for this

when i'd initially started this wip, i didn't expect it go this way. usually i write with my brain, but i think i wrote this one with my fingers working faster than i can think hsjhsj so sorry if it's kinda out of place lmao but yk what? i'm happy with it still even though i feel like it doesn't have my usual quality.

thanks for reading.

[doggolol]

HE ALMOST SURRENDERS TO THE KISS

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO SURRENDER TO THE KISS

IM SOBBING

[liauditore]

new suicide squad anime got me thinking about the genderbend batman au i made when i was 16 again.

extra (nsfw??? body horror + shirtless doodle lol) art under the cut + drabble.

A mysterious actress appears in Gotham!

Production for the long-anticipated remake of the 1930s classic horror film, "The Clay", is saved in part thanks to the audition of one woman with no credits to her name, just a face and demeanor identical of the late leading actress of the original film.

However, the cast and crew have bigger worries than their limited budget and endless demands from their producers -- everyone involved seems to be disappearing one by one!

While the average gothammite worries that the cult classic's "cursed" reputation might be a little more than an urban legend, The Batman refuses to entertain such unfounded silliness and aims to get to the bottom of this crime against cinema!

presenting BATMAN '63 - THE RISE OF CLAYFACE coming not actually ever lmao

(her hair is brown now because I like the idea of her appearance never being fully consistent lol. shapeshifters gotta do their thing)

[malama-art]

liko and roy

[introspectivememories]

NICO: WE SHARED THE LIFT THIS MORNING! I WAS GOING TO THE POOL TRAMPOLINE WITH MY TWO DAUGHTERS AND HE WAS GOING TO THE RACETRACK. PINKHAM: VERY DIFFERENT LIVES YOU'RE CURRENTLY LEADING.

[canisonicscrewyou]

my eye-spy sitcom best friendcore ass apartment. btw. just thought you should know. I kind of recommend zooming in if you want to.

Constant Visual Stimulation. No Escape.

bonus: the newest addition that we stole rescued from my place of work yesterday after taking these pics. a lovely lady.

[jamandjazz]

The only time I ever make characters say “Darrel” is when they’re pissed/have to speak formally to Darry. Like a new teacher at Pony’s school Darrels him until corrected, because there’s a chance ‘Darry’ is a family-only nickname.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a character call Two-bit ‘Keith’ aside from one (1) time I had Ponyboy use it like a codeword to tell Two-bit something was 100% wrong while having to go “everything’s fine :)” for his own safety.

The first one’s real. Once I had a teacher ask my sister if there were any nicknames I went by (for a preferred name probably or just in case) and she panicked and said a family nickname. I did in fact want to kms whenever she used it

[nikoisme]

slavic folklore stories are fucking insane dude. it's basically "if you don't do the thing this creature is going to fucking kill you and leave you in a ditch, and if you do the thing this creature is going to fucking kill you and leave you in a ditch. good luck surviving till morning when a rooster crows three times asshole"

[paperglader]

it’s always ily and never

…

it’s never

[mwagneto]

like obviously it's always sad when the doctor regenerates but 13 makes me feel such a specific kind of misery and sorrow at how she was treated (and by extension how we, the handful of fans left standing, were treated) during her era like obviously her casting was always gonna be controversial but the sheer level of vitriol directed at her was so exhausting... and then on the other side the absolutely insane decline in interest even from the fandom itself like i remember how excited the entirety of tumblr was when she was announced it was literally unavoidable even when i wasn't on the dw side of tumblr. and then like everyone just gave up on her which yeah ppl are gonna lose interest if the plot is bad which don't get me wrong it is but when is it not? ppl survived 6 seasons of moffat but gave up after like less than a season of this? and that's the other thing it's just so fucking frustrating how all the horrifically bad writing somehow gets blamed on HER? like somehow casting a woman made the WRITING BAD??? THE WRITING DONE BY A MAN?? not to mention a man who's been writing for this show for decades now😭 and she's literally just a character but somehow the entire responsibility of just how shit her era is falls on her shoulders despite her being a made up woman on a screen which every shitty person still uses as a gotcha as to why the doctor should never have been a woman. and ofc there's the ppl who specifically disliked her personality coz she was too cold or too mean etc all of which are things ppl easily forgive or ignore or outright love abt any doctor played by a man and let's not even get INTO thasmin. like sorry this is so incoherent but im so endlessly sad about how the joy and hype of finally getting a woman doctor turned into everyone abandoning the show, including the people that were initially rly excited and hopeful like yeah i get why ppl hate the plot i hate it too but i have such a deep sense of loyalty to 13 idk I'll always cling to her with all my claws she deserved so much better both writing-wise and fan-reception wise😭 anyway...

[zymstarz]

yeah sure that's how i'll [re]come out

[deus-ex-mona]

when freedom is in sight!!!!!!!!

[nakanotamu]

Utami: Miyu worked very hard to leave a bunch of very ~loving~ marks on my neck... a LOT... Uh, thanks... 😂

Kamitani: Huh... Utami-san...? 🥺

Utami: What - HUH???

Kamitani: With a girl who isn't me...!? 🥲 Utami-san.... 🫠

[eveningrainstorm]

nighttime contemplation

[kindahoping4forever]

Just wanted to post a quick note saying today is the 5th anniversary of when I finally went to my first 5SOS show. Every year I think about how wildly different my fandom experience would've been if I'd been able to attend previous tours, how everything aligned just right for me to finally go to MYT, how I almost talked myself out of attending the night before, how completely unrecognizable my life would be today if I hadn't gone. I probably wouldn't have a blog to post this to. You wouldn't know me, I wouldn't know you. I never would've met so many of my friends. I wouldn't have ever met my best friend, the best friend I've ever known. I never would've rediscovered my love for writing. I genuinely don't know how I would be spending my days and I wonder if they would still be filled with the kind of joy I have found here in this community.

It feels fitting that this reflective day coincides with the last show of this tour, a tour that has been powered by appreciation for the bond we share and celebration of the time we've all spent together. Keeping up with this tour has been impossibly fun (and sometimes just plain impossible) and I can't think of a better way to have spent the past three months. I'm happy to have experienced it - and the past 5 years - with this band and with all of you. Thank you to this band, to my friends, to anyone who's ever interacted with me here and most of all, to Past Me for buying those tickets all those years ago. I wouldn't have a place to call home without you. 💙