#what up i had a nightmare about an eldritch horror trying to steal my baby and john mcclane from die hard shooting it to protect me

[s0fter-sin]

trans!soap taking his baby and running away from his rich abusive husband

(cw angst, financial abuse, single threat of child abuse, single mention of transphobia)

he's owned soap for years, since he was a teenager; paid for his medication and all his surgeries and tied them so deeply, soap’s lost hope of ever getting away. he gets even worse when soap falls pregnant. he was always controlling; blowing up at him if he spent too long out of the house or did something without telling him. but he becomes utterly possessive during the pregnancy

soap knows it has nothing to do with his safety or the baby's

he knows he sees his baby as an investment; another being he can control and hold over him

he gets worse and worse but there’s nothing soap can do. there's been nothing he can do for a long time. then a few months after the baby is born, soap doesn’t watch his tone closely enough and his husband threatens to drop his baby in punishment for it

soap doesn't think. he doesn't plan

he takes his baby and runs

he sneaks out of the servant's quarters of the sterile mansion he's been forced to live in for almost a decade and walks down the street without a backwards glance; his baby the only thing in his arms. he knows all of his husband's cars have trackers, all of them in his name since he never lets soap drive or go anywhere by himself, so he walks far enough to be out of view of the mansion's cameras and steals one. it doesn't have a car seat and all he can do is clutch his baby to his chest as he drives

he doesn't know where he's going beyond away

he doesn't know what he's going to do; he doesn't have any money, no supplies for his baby, he doesn't even have water for himself so he can reliably breastfeed him. he's terrified his husband will find them; he’s always felt omniscient, always everywhere and seeing everything he did. if he didn’t have eyes somewhere, he paid someone who did and they always dutifully reported back to him

soap just keeps his eyes forward. just keeps driving and driving, lost to the road and numb until the low gas light pops up on the dash and it all hits him at once

he turns into a gas station he can't pay for, in a car he stole, and parks behind it and his baby immediately starts getting fussy

he can't even call him by his name sometimes; too afraid to get attached, too afraid to lose him. as if he doesn’t love him more than life itself

even throughout his pregnancy, as happy as he was to finally have a baby, he didn't know if he could carry to term and that fear just let his husband dig his claws in even deeper; paying for extra scans he could never hope to pay for, favours on top of favours so he would aways owe him and isn’t he such a loving husband? taking soap in when his parents kicked him out for being trans, looking after him for all these years? you can’t even take care of yourself john, you’d still be a woman without me, john, what is this tantrum about john-

soap tugs his shirt up to let his baby feed, drops his head back and cries

he can't stop it; wails loud and uncontrolled, chest heaving with his sobs enough that it sways his baby, occasionally breaking his latch and he can't even do this right-

he can't save him

a light knock sounds on the window and soap flinches, curling over his baby to protect him from his huband's cruel hands

but it's not his husband outside the window

soap blinks tears from his eyes and looks at the large stranger standing beside the car. a neck gaiter covers his mouth and it should be off-putting… but something about him stops the feeling in its tracks. the stranger takes a half-step back and lifts a chilled and sealed water bottle, pressing it towards the window

soap quickly swipes his face clean and rolls down the window. "sorry 'bout that," he apologises with a choked laugh, the careful front he’s built over the years cracked and bleeding

the stranger gives a dismissive but somehow not diminishing shrug. "long day?" he asks

"could say that," he gives a shrug of his own and pats his baby's back as he makes a disgruntled noise, unconsciously swaying him

he politely keeps his gaze up on his face. "looks like you could use a break."

soap's breath hitches, anxiously darting his tongue out over his bottom lip. "could say that," he repeats uselessly and takes the water with a quiet “thanks,”; his throat dry and screaming for it after crying so hard

the stranger hums, watching him down the bottle and soap doesn’t notice his eyes drifting to the backseat and footwell of the passenger side. doesn’t notice the slight tension in his fists at what he sees. "how long you been runnin', lad?"

soap freezes, the water settling in his stomach like a stone. he swallows thickly and the bottle falls from his lips

"not long enough."

the stranger just nods, looking idly back down the highway

"you know, this place is connected to a garage,” he starts, nodding back to a building attached to the station without taking his eyes off the road. “lotta people drift through 'ere on road trips; too many to keep track.”

soap frowns slightly, shifting his hold on his baby

“funny thing is, plenty of 'em just abandon their car when they break down. like yours,” he adds and finally turns back to him with a pointed look. “got a whole junkyard of 'em. just rustin' away. be pretty easy to convince me to trade ya one."

soap’s mouth parts in a gasp as he realises just what the stranger’s saying. "how easy?" he whispers

he shrugs and even with his face hidden beneath the gaiter, he doesn’t feel afraid. "i'd say this car'd be a good deal. would blend right in with the rest of ‘em; no one’d ever notice it. what say i take it off your hands?"

soap's breath shudders out of him, his whole body going limp with relief. his baby's eyes fall shut with a satisfied hum and for the first time he can remember, he feels the gentle touch of hope

"i think we can work something out."

🧼💀

ghost owns the service station soap pulled into. he wanted something quiet and isolated after he retired and you can’t get much quieter than a backwoods servo surrounded by forest. he hasn’t had anyone pull in in days so he’s quick to notice soap’s car. he’s also quick to notice soap's subsequent breakdown in one of the cameras. the sight of him crying, desperately clutching a baby like they’re all he has left in the world, is so familiar he felt sick with it

he knows someone running when he sees it

if he didn't check on him, if this lad disappeared one day and the baby along with him, he'd never forgive himself. the lad doesn't even have a baby bag or car seat with him, and the personalised sticker on the back window of a lady and a dog is a dead giveaway that the car is stolen

but the lad is terrified. and when he startled him, he didn't turn. didn’t lift his arms to protect himself. no

he covered his baby

like he was afraid he'd be hurt

that's enough for ghost

🧼💀

i'd wanna set this in the 80's or 90's, just to make it even harder for soap to get away from his husband. he's a trans man with a newborn; he has no one to run to and no resources to help him. his husband's bought and paid for everything for him since he was 17; a few whirlwind weeks of unbelievable dates and extravagant gifts and he was living in his mansion, getting married the day after his 18th birthday. he thought it was love. thought he was being looked after and cared for the way he’s always wanted

he was in pain and alone and naive enough to believe the first person who came along and promised to make it better. nothing's in his name, not his insurance or his meds, he doesn’t have a bank account or savings; other than a birth certificate, nothing even ties him to his baby. his husband could take his world away from him with a snap of his fingers and he made sure soap always knew it

he never had a chance of getting away

but ghost is ex-military

he doesn’t know the lad’s story, doesn’t know the details of what he’s running from. he doesn’t need to know

he decided he was helping him the second he pulled into his service station

[thecrimsonjaguar]

A Short List of Adventure Time AUs

So I got a google doc of adventure time aus I’ve made over the past two or three years. Here are some of my favorites (and also the ones I came back to and edited)

If you’ve got ideas for an au or ideas to add onto the preexisting ones I’ve got here, please tell me! I’m always up for some au discussion. 

1.) Jermaine AU: Jermaine comes to live at the treehouse after his house blows up. This, unlike canon, happens rather early in season 3. The rest of the series mainly stays the same, except this time there's three brothers instead of two. He's a kinda anxious dude with demon hunting expertise and a painting hobby. He sometimes wonders if he made Dad disappointed by letting all his work explode. Finn and Jake help him out, and he helps them. Despite this, Jermaine is the only one with a brain, and Finn and Jake share exactly one (1) braincell that they trade every so often. Jermaine is tired. (Jermaine is the only one who tries to clean regularly, and he's also the one to keep Neptr, Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant, and a few others company. He's a bit of real wisdom the early series Finn and Jake needed.

2.) Melted Ice AU: Mid season two, IK is hit with something that de-ages him. He turns six. Maybe this mystery de-aging thing blows up the top of the ice mountain, who knows. Maybe he wakes up in the snow, with no memory of how he got there or why. No memory of the last one thousand years. Finn and Jake don't know about his backstory since that happens in season three. Simon is carried by a snowman out of the ice kingdom where he breaks down in the plains. Finn, of course, finds him and is ecstatic to meet another human. Completely missing the fact that this small child is, in fact, the Ice King, Finn declares to help this boy no matter what. That promise soon becomes difficult when people hear about the second human in Ooo, and whatever effect that's keeping him young starts to wear off. (Marceline comes to visit and has a heart attack)

3.) Adventure Falls AU: AT x GF baybee!! Seventeen year old Stanley Pines hops on the Stan O' War and sets sail when he's kicked out. Unfortunately, that boat is nowhere near sea worthy, and all it takes for him to go overboard is one sudden (magical) storm. But, miraculously, Stan doesn't die. He washes up on Ooo, the island of misfits. Where there's daddy issues galore and punching things and getting gold is a legitimate career. He's found on the shore by none other than Finn, who asks if he's okay and if a dungeon adventure would soothe his worries. Stan accepts, because that sounds awesome, and they maybe date. For the next ten years, Stanley is a professional hero. He travels with Finn, he lives in a tower with tons of gold, he's respected, adored, and has made a family for himself. Ooo has a habit of forcing traumatic therapy onto to people, so Stan gets (read: is forced) to work his issues out. And then, somehow, he gets a postcard from his brother.

4.) Young Pups AU: Jake's kids grow up fast- but not that fast. He stays with lady for a few episodes being Dad and when the Pups are old enough, go visit Finn and Jermaine. Also Jermaine is there when the pups are born that always bothered me in canon like what the fuck. This whole AU results in Jake the Dad being a better father than in canon, because he actually has time to make mistakes and learn from them. He sometimes shapeshifts into one of those baby carriers but suited for five kids instead of one. Finn and Jermaine fight for best uncle privileges. Finn is considerably more awesome but Jermaine's got magic junk and juicy stories about Jake. So far the votes are: FINN: Jake Jr, T.V.  JERMAINE: Kim Kil Whan, Charlie. Viola remains undecided.

4.) Evilgreen AU: Evergreen was evil. His idea to make the crown to stop the comet was actually a cover story to take control of all the elements and freeze everything. Of course the same thing happens here as it did in canon, Gunther gets the crown and wishes to *be* evergreen. This is bad. Very bad, so bad in fact, that things get FUnKy. A couple eons later, Simon gets the crown as per canon, and then things start to slide downhill. Since the crown is significantly worse, Simon tries to get rid of it. No amount of magic pull is going to get him to put on the eldritch hat. It teleports back. When things go to shit, the crown tells him he's got two options: He can either live, or he can live unwillingly. This all coalesces in super angst and mild horror as Simon has to fight off evil urges and somehow keep both he and Marceline safe. Things start looking up, though, when he summons Hunson Abadeer.

5.) Nightmare Therapy AU: Simon, now himself post canon, has some funky nightmares. Problem is: he's due for a visit from the cosmic owl due to some mystical bureaucratic bs. If that were to happen, Simon's dreams of Golb and Orgalorg and the world ending and everyone dying and maze would come true, without the veil of metaphoric junk dreams are known for (also due to bureaucratic bs). So, Simon gets a dream therapist. An OC, probably, that would fight off his nightmares when they came and talk to him about his issues.

6.) High School AU: Except they're all still magic and crap. Finn's a jock that's part of the LDnD club(Literally Dungeons and Dragons), Jake's got a job at a pancake place and hosts the Card Wars clubs on Wednesdays, Jermaine's in college and their parents were still detectives/demon hunters. PB is preppy/nerdy girl with weird fucking family and is absolutely a mad scientist. Marceline is still a demon/vamp (vampire biker gang, they all died, deaths pending) and her uncle is Simon. Simon is a history teacher whose ex wife might be an eldritch abomination (the students wonder, but there are no answers)((simon says cryptic things every so often that are the subject of much ridicule, but he's a nice guy)). Ooo High has all of the AT characters in some shape or form. Tree trunks is the lunchlady, Mr Pig is a janitor. Lemongrab is just there. LSP(Q?) is a teacher because that's hilarious. Hunson is dead along with Marceline's mom because fuck hunson. Magic Man is a hobo that snuck onto campus and can't be chased off (his brother is the superintendent, Glob). there's a lot more but that's for a different word doc.

7.) Back to the Future AU: So PB fucks around with time travel, right? For science. She gets sent back in time a thousand years, before the war. Now, she's a pink lady who can shoot jelly beans from her hands, of course needs to lay low. And of course she needs to get home, but she's in a Futurama situation where she only has one type of time machine; the one that can go into the past. Not to mention her own time machine got busted on her way there, so she's double screwed. But, she remembers something. There is an individual (two, actually) that knows about time travel in this time period. She knows him, and he's likely to help her if she plays her card right. She needs to find Simon and get back to her own time, preferably without dooming herself in the process. (perhaps she tries to steal the notes Simon has, and Simon's completely oblivious, except Betty can smell trouble from a mile away and immediately notices some pink woman trying to steal books and she goes ham. Perhaps she goes ham in such a way that Simon doesn't notice. Perhaps this goes on for seven acts.)

8.) Bread and Butter AU: Bella Noche during the episode Betty creates a huge black cube that engulfs all of Wizard City. This box acts as a cage and prevents Wizards from escaping the magic purge. Simon is unable to bring Betty back from the past, and he's fading fast. In a desperate attempt to stop things from escalating, Simon chugs a bottle of anti-magic like a fucking god. He gets through the cube that surrounds Bella Noche and knocks their lights out. He passes out, and when he comes to, the anti-magic he consumed as merged with him. This is because of a simple rule: Magic sticks to magic, anti-magic sticks to anti-magic. And since humans have always had just a little bit of anti -magic present within them, humans and anti-magic go together like bread and butter (badumtish) ((I have actually written a fanfic about this, you can find it here))

9.) Swapped AU: Through various shenanigans Ice King's and Magic Man's powers gets swapped. These shenanigans somehow land them in space as well. This happens before Magic Man's trial. The swapping of their powers results in Simon getting his memory back. It also gives Magic Man the Ice Crown, unfortunately for him though, it seems to hate him. Simon's glad to back, but quickly realizes one issue: He's still crazy. So the pair try to make it back to Ooo. MM needs his powers to swap himself with some other shmuck so he doesn't croak when his trial comes, but Simon's made it clear he isn't giving his powers up without a fight. The pair starts off rocky, neither trusting the other, but space trouble forces them to work together. Simon's a nice enough guy he wouldn't leave someone to die and MM really needs Simon alive so it works out. A weird friendship forms, and they learn get along. Just a couple of crazy space wizards. Then the crown is destroyed. MM is freed from the crown's control, and he's freed from magic. He gets his sanity back, just in time for his trial.

that’s all I’ve got for now!

[leidensygdom]

1, 2, 12, 13, 26!

OKAY SO I’m gonna try to focus on the campaign  I’m running myself (Gharmyra) because I’ve had so much RP over all these years and so on I wouldn’t ever stop talking otherwise. It’s gonna be a good way to talk a bit more on what has had Syg been invested into for the past half year!

1. A favorite character you have played.

I think that out of all the NPCs in the campaign I’m running, I’m enjoying Vest the most. He’s an old character of mine (Vor’kalth/Veth’shal, as he’s gone through many names in-character) who I really enjoyed back in the day but couldn’t RP since forever. While working on the campaign’s prep, one of the players mentioned he’d be multiclassing to warlock, and it was both a great way to introduce watchers early on (since Vest, as an undead, is a watcher) and getting to use him again. And I’m really glad I did that, because he’s been hella enjoyable and was probably a much better choice than a possibly edgy-brooding-patron instead.

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

oh god this one is just too hard to answer I hate playing favorites with other people’s characters. But p much if I’ve RPed with you I love ur character xoxo

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

OH god so we have a few--

There’s a running joke over Yu’Yden, that cutie up above, being the BBEG. To the point we have an exclusive channel in which I keep track of the times he’s been called evil. So far, he’s been called evil 44 times

Another one of them is bacteria. It came up on accident, I think it was @eine-krone​‘s character (Hákarl) who mentioned it, and then we realized “shit, this is an industrial setting, bacterias aren’t a thing”. So canonically his... character, who’s an artificer, has invented a soap that kills bacteria. Except nobody knows what are they. Just a marketing thing.

Hákarl’s character also scores very bad in medicine, to the point he often gets crit-fails. As he put it, “he’s a machine-doctor, not a human-doctor”. Most times he checks for someone’s health, it leads to an “inconclusive analysis” on knowing if the person is either dead or alive. He’s currently writing a report on another party member’s defunction, despite how she’s alive. And well. And talking and so on

The monk eats about anything. Including magic items. Specially magic items. Anytime we come in contact with something edible-looking or just... shiny, he rolls a wisdom save to determine if he’ll eat it or not. This is getting problematic, since he once ate a puzzle piece, and he went through a room filled with poisonous pies and ate a couple of them (and he didn’t eat the rest because the party was examining those). One of the things he ate sometimes whispers him stuff. (and for the record, the character’s a human. A regular human)

The roguelock just never sleeps okay. Being a kalashtar, she should be able to have nice sleep, since she literally cannot have nightmares per se, but- She just doesn’t. This is also dice-rolled, and she rarely, rarely scores anything over 10. And if she does, seeing her feeling okay usually scares the rest of the party

Actually, she just has awful luck. Like, she defies all statics overall. A grand majority of her rolls are below 10, or even below 5. She has a +9 bonus to perception, but rest assured, she’ll never score more than 15 on it.

In the same manner, Vest (the roguelock’s patron) can use his own cantrips to do stuff, as long as it’s for comical purpose and not actually interfering with battles or the plot. He will use these for nefarious reasons. Or to steal shinies. Specially to steal shinies. 

There’s a cutie pink tiefling NPC, Isolde, who can be summoned at any point by holding chocolate. No matter what. She’s also effectively inmortal as far as we know.

One of the players has this sheet where he keeps track of all the incognitos, questions and theories about the plot. It’s two-sided, and he filled one side already. And I think the only item they have solved for now was because I officially confirmed “no, there are no aliens either”

I wanna mention Eine did a whole mind map to keep track of the plot too. It’s complicated

13. Introduce your current party.

Ok so lemme introduce my player’s characters!!

This cheerful guy here is Glar, the human monk. He was sold by his family to a thieves’ gang to settle down a debt, and was raised rough. The thieves’ gang kinda disbanded after the two guys in charge got in a big fight, and he’s been trying to figure out his life ever since. Chaotic to hell and beyond, often the comic relief of the group.

This guy here is Hákarl (Cousin Hákarl, legally), a dwarf-goliath artificer and @eine-krone​ ‘s character. Dwarf goliath means he has the proportions of a dwarf but the height of a goliath, and everything about him is pure cryptid fuel. He owns a business which invents all sort of weird gadgets: Everyday items made into weapons, soap, plushies, etc. In his backstory, he... Split his soul in half and put the other half in a warforged as his bachelor’s thesis. Except all the nice things about himself were in that side of the soul. So, the warforged (Ténn) is a sweet cinnamon roll, while Hákarl is certainly cursed. He also wants to destroy Gharda (one of the nations) and commit deicide.

And this one is Laestis Luvali, the rogue-warlock kalashtar. She’s baby, really. Born in the first caste (akin to nobles in this setting), she’s has been realizing her peers are actually pretty awful. Her and her family have now cut ties with the first caste and have moved with The Chain, the rebel ludite group that’s actively fighting against them. She’s a kalashtar because of the sword, a family relic passed down generations that their ancestor fetched from a war from a millenia ago, which... turned out to be sort of cursed. It has a watcher within, one of these crystal-undead beings. Vest, her patron, has been trying to reach the Luvali forever to maybe get himself out of there, and Laestis has been the first one to answer the call. And their friendship gives me life tbh

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

oh gods i have so many i want to show them but HUH stuff I’ve done-

I really enjoyed when I introduced them to the first (enemy) watcher they had to deal with, Nilodus, and what happened after. 

It was just ominous as heck, and it was the point in which the players realized what kinda stuff were they facing. At the same time, I enjoyed a lot when one of the villains they had been facing (Uth’gaeel) transformed into some big crystal eldritch horror, with an animated battlemap and everything. The boss fights have been overall very fun, and I’m doing my best to homebrew them and make them interesting!! I have one planned I want to s c r e a m about. Overall I just have a lot of plans--

Anyways, thanks a lot for asking! And damn that was a long post

[words-writ-in-starlight]

what's the die thing that you mentioned in the tags of that d&d post?

I know you said to disregard this ask because you checked back through my tag, but I am…reading the rules set for the DIE RPG and I am…expiring with glee, so I’m going to actually subpoena this ask as a chance to grandstand about my current favorite comic.

DIE, the current comic coming from the excellent Kieron Gillen, is basically what would happen if DnD and Jumanji had an extremely goth baby, ft the artistic stylings of Stephanie Hans.  If any of those words in any configuration made sense/interest you, this is my usual plea to trust me and buy the trade paperback that just came out, Fantasy Heartbreaker, rather than reading the rest of my hollering.

Anyway, on to the hollering.

DIE focuses on six friends who played a game when they were teenagers.  That game went great!  Right up until it sucked them all inside, trapped them there as their characters as they fought to escape, and kept their game master–permanently.

Now the five that are left are in their forties and have never told a single living soul what happened when they went missing for two months and came back short one person (and, in the case of Angela, short one arm).  When it becomes obvious that someone is trying to remind them of The Game That Shall Not Be Named, they get together again to try and figure it out, and…

Well, they end up right back where they started, courtesy of their long-lost friend and game master, Sol, who’s been sure to keep the world of Die in perfect condition just for them.  If they want to go back, Sol either needs to agree to leave with them, or he needs to die.

Roll the title card.

The characters are:

Dominic Ash, star of the show: Dom is a chronically depressed man in his forties in the real world, who tragically lost his best friend in a mysterious accident and has drifted from his friends ever since.  In the game, she’s Ash, the ethereally beautiful Dictator, who can make you do anything, feel anything, with a word and a smile.  The Dictator archetype is basically a bard, if bards were fucking eldritch horrors of emotional mind-control, and Ash is…terrifying, mostly because when she’s feeling desperate, everyone is fair game.  I’d die for my monstrous wife.  Also I firmly believe Ash is a trans woman accidentally living her truth in a nightmare world, and neither God nor Kieron Gillen can stop me.  In fact I think Kieron Gillen may agree with me.

Angela: Ash/Dom’s little sister, who lost an arm in Die the first time and now is absolutely ruthlessly determined to escape in time for the custody hearing for her kids.  She’s the Neo, which is half rogue, half cyberpunk warrior, and all addict–where most adventurers steal gold for the sake of the gold, the Neo’s powers are all dependent on being able to pay.  If you can pay, you can hack reality, full on Matrix-style.  If you can’t pay…well, I guess you have a knife, huh?

Chuck: the Fool, and the only one who was willing to face the idea of a fantasy novel after their first trip to Die.  In fact, he made a killing as a famous author of fantasy novels, all while working around Ash’s geas against speaking of their misadventure.  As the Fool, he can do anything, fight anything, survive anything, as long as he’s cocky and careless and grinning.  He’s unkillable as long as he doesn’t give a damn.  Whether or not his friends survive is…less certain.

Matt: a loving father who has long since gotten a handle on his teenage depression, which makes it inconvenient that he’s the Grief Knight.  Emotion Knights are unstoppable tanks, able to take anything anyone throws at them and dish it out twice as hard–but only as long as they’re immersed in their Emotion.  Matt’s their fighter, the one they depend on to save their asses when everything goes to hell, but it’s been a long time since he grieved hard enough to kill a dragon.

Isabelle: a brilliant and beautiful bilingual bitch, their Godbinder.  The Godbinder is half demonologist, half mafia godfather–Isabelle does favors, and she reaps the rewards.  I feel like all you need to know about Isabelle as a person is that the first time she summons a deity, he tries to get uppity with her and she snarls “You’re just a god, now do it.”  God she’s…so sexy.  I had other stuff to say about her but…listen…the power.  She’s so hot.  I love everyone in this bar but especially Isabelle and Ash.

Sol: Die is a game and Sol is the Master.  Reality is what he says.  And he says that he wants his friends to pay for leaving him.

The first arc, now compiled into Fantasy Heartbreaker, is INCREDIBLE and I’m going to tell you absolutely nothing else about it because it’s so good.  PLEASE read this incredibly fucked up DnD-as-horror-movie Jumanji comic.