#what sort of person one is

[lilislegacy]

i’m just gonna come out and say it

if luke comes back in a future book, i hope percy is taller than him now.

[paperbackribs]

[postersbykeith]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji goes to Lotus Pier (No relation to the AU of the same name)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[vaguely-concerned]

on the one hand I think inner demons could stand to have a bit more romanced rook specific content, but on the other hand the underlying in-built implication that 'yours is the one true voice of comfort and safety in my inner world' is a sentiment and intimacy so way beyond the romantic or the platonic or any secret third thing you could care to name that it makes me lose my entire poor little mind a bit. it's so big and fundamental — near-existential — that in that exact moment at least the distinctions kind of seem irrelevant.

all the people lucanis' mind conjures up along the way are relationships he has that are unavoidably mixed and fraught in some ways even when they're also full of love (they are fraught BECAUSE they're full of love) — the good in them inseparable from things that hurt him at the same time. (it's about: the basic disorganized attachment patterns this poor guy is dragging around with him. careful with those, they're dellamorte heirlooms. what you love also inevitably hurts you and you won't be allowed to have one without the other, you have to surrender parts of your soul to hold on to what little you have left: this is the story up until now.) and the idea that rook isn't that to him — that beneath the fear of wanting them when romanced (which is more its own separate thing because within this psychology, actively wanting something and not just clinging on for dear life to even a meager status quo lest you lose it is in itself dangerous bordering on catastrophic), this is a relationship where there isn't resentment, or guilt, or shame, or dread, or rage, or self-hate, or any of the other emotions that keep him paralyzed, unable to move this way or that. no debts, nothing owed of yourself and your soul's substance except what you can freely and safely and happily give. love and freedom don't coexist — but, I mean, you're almost starting to make me think........... unless...👀👀👀. the unconditional and undramatic 'you are here and I am here with you, you can be exactly how you are right now with me and it's safe for us both even though you're afraid it won't be, I'm not going anywhere' acceptance rook shows him here that he returns to them in the big romance scene, when it's rook who needs it. the way he's just. standing there in the center of it all, like a child desperately helplessly waiting to be found, hiding in the place he hopes you'll know to look first. (rook does know. it's one of the first things they say in there.)

in short the most important room in his little mind palace for the romance is the very first room — the one where rook isn't. where, in fact, rook cannot be, because they disprove the entire structure of the place with their existence and presence in his life. with everyone else he's putting words in their mouths about what they think of him, and rook is the one who actually gets to come in to speak their own words to him — and have him listen. ('he'll listen to you, he always listens to you', 'your voice is a comfort'.) of course rook isn't present anywhere else in there — at the risk of stating the obvious to a tedious degree, they aren't one of the locks, they're bringing the key. in the very finest 'the messenger and the message' sort of way.

[bunnieswithknives]

(nature au) you said that while dale dislikes dev using a cane in the house he doesn’t really care too much, but what if dev used a cane in public? i can’t imagine dale would be okay with that at all. he’d be pissed, like confiscate the cane kind of pissed

Originally the gag here was just going to be Dev clinging onto his dads arm for dear life while he shivers like a chihuahua but he is just. So small.. I couldnt get it to look reasonable

Bonus:

[katabay]

THERE AIN'T NO ATLAS, KID. NEVER WAS.

if you peel him back far enough, there's nothing but a pile of theater masks

like, it's really fun how fontaine starts spiralling out the closer jack gets to him in the final arc of the game and returns to appropriating the image of family (the fake family in the beginning, the flawed father position later) to try and appeal to jack in some way but it's like. buddy. baby. you already took off your mask. anything you try and put on after this is going to come across as cheap and desperate. the magic is gone! and personally? I'm hooting and hollering

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta

[canisalbus]

Can I ask how Vasco reacted to hearing about Machete’s assassination? :o did he put on a brave face? Was he inconsolable? Does he imagine that if he were there, he could’ve done something (even if that isn’t true? I imagine it would be tortuous mentally and emotionally for him, poor lad

He most likely went through a mental breakdown, followed by years of paralyzing grief and depression. Vasco had proven to be outstandingly resilient and optimistic in adversity, putting on a brave face was his second nature. But this was his final 'break the unbreakable' moment. He turned withdrawn and apathetic. He had never lost anyone this abruptly before, and he became visibly paranoid about the safety and health of his family while failing to look after his own wellbeing.

Of course he kept rewinding the events in his head and second-guessing himself about whether he could've prevented this outcome somehow, even when everyone who knew about his situation kept telling him there was no reason for him to blame himself for it. He struggled with the suddenness of it, and the lack of closure, and couldn't get over thinking how the love of his life had died alone, surprised, scared and in pain, and that there was absolutely nothing he could do to remedy that. Ludovica's support was invaluable to him. Since he couldn't mourn openly she was one of the few people who were there for him.

Eventually he came to terms with what had happened and learned to live with it, and even though he slowly regained his good-humoured personality, he never fully recovered back to his previous self.

[ekingstonart]

POV you’re Kara Danvers and your bestie just caught you staring at her cleavage across the crowded ballroom for the fifth time tonight

[sonknuxadow]

its so frustrating how a lot of scu fans cant handle other sonic fans not having the exact same taste in sonic media that they do. like i feel like you can say something negative about literally any other sonic media on here and people generally wouldnt care that much but the second you say anything less than positive about the movies people start getting all weird about it and trying to argue with you ive had it happen to me and seen it happen to others as well .... like the sonic franchise is very big and has many different media types and writing styles not everyone is going to uncritically love everything. get over it ? im not trying to be mean but idk what else to tell you

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[justaz]

somehow some time magic goes wrong and young arthurs from different points in time are pulled into king arthur era. everyone kinda has this back and forth of who is going to watch the literal 8 month old. gwen and lancelot are pretty good at taking care of him, so is percival but he doesnt seem comfortable with it so no one forces him. elyan tried to hold him but baby!arthur started wailing after three seconds. leon is sorta good but he has like no idea how babies work or what they need so when baby!arthur found his sword and almost lobbed his own head off, leon was forbidden from taking care of the child. gaius is too old and busy researching how to reverse the issue. who the HELL would trust gwaine with a child? arthur has this Odd aversion to the child but no one pushes him on it. ofc merlin, magic incarnate, has this like aura or energy that draws all these innocent woodland creatures to him so obviously little arthur is also drawn to him. in fact, merlin seems to be the person he likes the most. and merlins a natural w kids apparently so hes often the one that baby!arthur is handed off to.

he complains about it at first but when baby!arthur breaks into a fit of giggles after merlin calls adult!arthur a clotpole, he has merlin wrapped around his little finger. merlin stops complaining but does let arthur know that the one thing he Will Not Do is change his diaper. arthur laughs and walks away. merlin talks to baby!arthur like they’ve been friends for years (bc they have). arthur points out that baby!arthur cant understand him and merlin retorts that its like how it normally is. merlin gets to perform magic in front of baby!arthur and he LOVES it

my point to this was merlin dotting on little versions of arthur is a way that no one ever really did for him growing up and adult!arthur seeing it and healing little pieces of his inner child as he watches merlin play games with baby!arthur and make sure he’s taken care of. it especially hits him when gaius finally finds a way to send baby!arthur back and while everyone seems torn between upset they have to say bye, they’re also relieved to get the baby back where hes supposed to be,, merlin is like choking back fat tears. everyone backs off to give them privacy and merlin just kisses baby!arthur’s forehead and whispers some encouraging and heartachingly sincere words that have adult!arthur choking back tears.

then BOOM the spell also backfires and while yes baby!arthur got back to where hes supposed to be, now theres toddler!arthur. he has this gravitational pull to gaius (can recognize him) and merlin (magic soulmates ofc he has an innate trust in the man). merlin is happy to have his little friend back and gaius goes back to the drawing board. now they have this little 2-3 year old toddling after them and blabbering something that sounds like english if you’re patient enough

(merlin makes another comment about how little arthur has changed over the years)

the cycle repeats, merlin and toddler!arthur get attached and adult!arthur watches and heals a bit more of his inner child. gaius finds another cure that falls through the same way and now they have child!arthur. he has a bit more of uther’s influence in him but hes still a child. he gets hurt and tries to fight back tears but merlin sees he’s in pain and tells him it’s okay to be hurt, to feel pain, to cry. child!arthur says in that stutter cry children do when they’re fighting back tears that his father says boys shouldn’t cry. merlin wipes a tear that slips down child!arthur’s face and whispers about how he cries and lets himself feel his sadness before picking himself back up and dusting himself off before getting back to it, that it doesn’t make him weak but stronger. adult!arthur hears this and this may not be the beginning of his deconstruction but it makes a tremendous amount of progress in him rewiring his brain away from his father’s toxic ways of thinking.

idk if they’d get a teen!arthur since gaius probably would’ve learned his lesson by then but if they did, we’d get to watch Merlin vs Arthur Showdown 2.0 as merlin humbles the young prince and i think that’d be funny. especially for gwaine since he didn’t get to see it happen the first time.

[rawbin-hsr]

OMGGG Your latest smut fic is so amazing!!! The smut is absolutely delicious! but....the angst is breaking my heart so...could you please write a continuation or part two where the reader confronts Aventurine's dark internal thoughts and comforts them? A fic where they actually get him to believe that they love him for real, where they tell him that he's not a monster and that he wasn't ruining them.

You've got it ! (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Aventurine x Reader

You treat Aventurine with more respect than he deserves. (Part 2)

Read part 1 here !

CW: dehumanisation (internal, thoughts Aventurine has of himself, referring to himself as a “monster”), lots of mentions of death, passively suicidal Aventurine, violent imagery (through metaphors, nobody is actually physically harmed), intrusive thoughts, Aventurine thinks kind of vicious things about you (refers to you as "stupid", "brainless", "naive" etc), cursing.

Lmk if there’s anything else I should warn about !!

Small note: Spoiler alert sorry, but you will not completely fix Aventurine in this fic. Making any real progress would take YEARS. The trauma he's gone through and his beliefs about his own humanity are EXTREMELY deep-seated, just one conversation would not be enough to make him truly believe he was loved. Super sorry since I'm sure that's not what you wanted (you specifically requested they "truly get him to believe that they love him for real", but this does still end on a hopeful note so I hope you won't be too disappointed (•ᴗ•,, ) )

Sometimes Aventurine gains enough clarity to remember where he stands. More importantly, he gains enough clarity to remember where you should stand. That is to say, as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately, you are never keen on doing that. 

In these moments of clarity, he distances himself. If you won’t do it, he has to. He needs to. He needs to even when he can feel the little pieces of him that you’ve managed to haphazardly glue together splinter into tiny shards again, even when it feels like every step away is a step walked on shattered glass. He can hardly be called a ‘person’ anyways, what does his suffering matter? He has already lost so many good things, why not add another loss to the tally?

He reads your texts, but he doesn’t respond. He hangs up on you the moment you call. By doing this, he makes sure you know he is alive. Both because he knows it would devastate you if you thought he died, but even more so to make sure you know he is intentionally ignoring you. He hopes at least some part of you hates him. He thinks part of him hates you.

But he can never stay away for long. Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. Thoughts of you always cloud his mind too much to do what is right. He reminds himself he will destroy you. He comes back anyways. He is too selfish not to. 

And you welcome him with open arms every time. Sure, sometimes you yell. Sometimes you berate him. Sometimes you cry. But he never does something beyond the bounds of what you’ll forgive, even though he tries to. You’re patient to a fault. Though he feels bad, he never takes it fully seriously, because you always hold him with so much sweetness, even when your words are filled with righteous anger and justified hurt. You always end it by reminding him that you love him. Something clenches in his chest; something that is not his heart, because he has none. He claims he is sorry, but you both know he will do this again. He always does. You know he will hurt you over and over, even if you don’t know the extent. You know he will test you, that he will ignore you, that he will cling to you and that he will taunt you. You don’t know he will drag his claws through you and tear you to ribbons; you don’t know he will sink his teeth into your neck and drink all your blood; you don’t know he will lure you to sea and drown you. You are never aware of the true danger you are in. 

Maybe that’s why you one day feel comfortable enough to corner the creature that has taken on the appearance of a lover. You sit down next to him in bed one evening after one of his many attempts to push you away, your expression grim. You look straight ahead, right into his dead eyes, unaware that a monster is towering over you. 

“We can’t go on like this,” you say. For one moment, the crushing relief and devastation threatens to consume him, and he’s not sure which of the feelings is stronger. For one moment he can’t breathe. 

He hacks our a laugh, his skin straining. Something is shifting beneath his flesh, something ugly and dangerous. He needs to leave and he needs to do it quickly. 

“You’re right, we can’t,” he agrees, his voice a lot more steady than he feels. He feels the urge to grab you and shake you until you pass out. He feels the urge to suck out your life force until your body is an empty husk. He feels the urge to slam your head into the bathroom sink in the next room over. He feels the urge to shoot himself in the head, because he does not want to do any of that. 

“I love you,” you say, unexpectedly. Or maybe it’s not unexpected. You always say such stupid, brainless things. (You say it with sweetness. The only sweetness he can offer in return is the sweetness of bacteria digesting rotting meat. Is the flesh his, or will it be yours?) He laughs again. 

“I thought we were breaking up,” he says. Smirking, as if it’s funny. (It isn’t.)

“No, we’re really not,” you say firmly. He snorts. 

“Maybe we should.”

You don’t answer. Instead, you come closer. 

Get away, he thinks. Run, you fucking idiot. 

You don’t have many flaws, but the ones you do have are insurmountably big. You are too forgiving, you are too kind, you are too selfless, you are too naive. You will kill yourself doing this one day. You will let him kill you.

Your arms wrap around him. He can’t help but relax. The thing lurking under his human disguise grows more restless. 

“I don’t hate you,” you say, unexpectedly. And this one really is unexpected, because what made you say that? Your arms squeeze around him tighter. “I thought I was being obvious enough about that, but you’re so bad at understanding it.”

The feeling he has is the same as the feeling he gets when he realises a deal is going awry. You are the highest risk stakes he has ever made a bet on: will he ruin you, or will you ruin him? What you could do to him is so much more serious than death. He knows that he is holding a losing hand. He doesn’t even know what he stands to win.

You kiss his neck. He shudders. 

“Why are you so scared of me?” you ask. 

Scared? He is not scared. What an outright laughable concept. Neither of you are scared, but if one of you was, it should be you, but you aren’t, for some reason.

“What gives you that idea?” he chuckles, but his voice is not as steady this time, and he can feel his smile slipping. (What is wrong with him? He doesn’t want to think about it. The answer is always ‘everything’.)

“Your hand is shaking.”

It is, but that is not because he is afraid. Fear is a human response, borne from the desire to live. It is instinctual. It means kicking and screaming, it means clawing your way out of hell for the chance to see another day, it means fighting for the life you don’t want to end. He cannot die, you see. Death cannot occur twice. Just because his body reacts, that does not necessarily mean he can truly fear any longer.

(Then again, maybe his reaction does not come from the thought of his death.)

“I’m not scared,” he says, and his voice sounds a lot weaker than he had expected. You pull him closer, cradling his head against the crook of your neck. His blood is pulsing too quickly.

“It would be okay if you were,” you murmur. “I know you don’t know how to be loved. That’s okay. I’ll teach you. You just have to let me.”

Squash. Slice. Tear.

Maybe you are the monster. He can feel your claws prying his chest open; he can feel your teeth dig into his flesh; he can feel something that is not air fill his lungs. The biggest difference between you and him is that he devours, while you give. You painfully shove something back into the cavity meant to contain his soul, you pump blood back into his system, and you fill whatever gaps are left in him with something that is first cold but quickly warms. 

(He realises, belatedly, that something is pumping inside his chest again. But it can’t be a heart, can it? He lost that so long ago.)

“I’ll kill you,” he manages through gritted teeth, claws digging into your shirt. It is not a threat. It is not a warning. It is just the truth.

“You think too much,” you admonish him. Your tone is as gentle as your words are cutting. “I wish you would trust me more. You’re so determined to ruin your own life, and I don’t like it.”

“That’s just how I am. Deal with it or leave.”

“I’ll deal with it, then.”

Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. He will destroy you. But you accept it. 

He has tried time and time again to push you away, but he is weak. So incorrigibly weak, and though your flaws are insurmountable, his are all-consuming. He is a monster in all the ways that matter. But you stubbornly will not leave despite that. 

(Maybe that makes him a little more willing to try to change his nature. Just a little. Just for you. If you will not leave anyways, maybe he could try to make his presence a little less torturous.)

“Just… please stop ignoring me,” you sigh, nuzzling into his hair. Tenderly, tenderly, tenderly, so tenderly it makes his skin crawl. Your claws are softly piercing into him and he is helpless, unable (unwilling) to fight back. “I can deal with everything else. I just hate it when you do that. I can’t keep going weeks without speaking to you. I know you have some kind of… weird ideas that I’d be better off without you, but that’s not true. I love you, and I love being around you. I can’t help you when you cut me off at every corner.”

Cut, slice, slash.

Something in him breaks. Something he knows cannot be salvaged. Something he knows you would not want to salvage. Something he is not sure if he wants to salvage either, now that it is broken anyways.

He breathes a shaky breath, his fingers — his fingers, not claws, not this time — digging into your back. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, and he does not feel the urge to bite down. Though his eyes feel wet, it would not be enough water to drown you. 

He knows your line of logic is wrong. He knows the fact remains unchanged: he is a monster of a man. He will ruin you. But maybe your presence sparks enough electricity to keep his heart pumping, just for a little while, and maybe he can wait until things actually start going downhill before he lets you go. Maybe he can remember how to be a human for a bit, maybe he can pretend he is. 

“I just… don’t want to do something I can’t take back,” he whispers. “Not with you. You’re the… the only good thing I have left. I don’t know what I’d do if I…”

“That’s sweet, but I’m not as weak as you think I am,” you reply. “I’ve held out this long, haven’t I? Put more faith in me.”

He smiles.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

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

My inbox is open, feel free to send in asks or requests, I'd love to ramble about things <3 Also reblogs are EXTREMELY appreciated the final push I needed to finish this was from a very kind individual who reposted and analysed my writing I've been riding that high ever since they did that ily bro

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[blistering-typhoons]

reading some more of the original stories and drawing contrast with them to the granada series and seeing how often they split holmes' dialogue to watson and just- i just 🥺🥺🥺

[hypogryffin]

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