#which I love for us

[softquietsteadylove]

Hiiiii could I ask a fic of a ghost face fic with the eternals I loved Scream and I would die to read Thena and Gil in a situation or a storyline like that!🥹😍🖤🖤🖤

(Happy birthday my dear, sweet @dalhia28! You have been such a supporter of mine from the beginning and I am always happy to see you around)

"Sersi," Thena hissed at her, gripping the Elemental Eternal's shoulders as she cried, "there's no time for that."

"Thena," Sersi sniffled, reeling from the idea that not only was their reunion with their family a stage for Ikaris' betrayal of them, but now he was picking them off one by one. "I-I can't-"

"You can," Thena said more resolutely than she could really feel at this time. But they didn't have the luxury of time--not to grieve for Ajak, or Sprite, or Kingo. "We have to."

Thena pulled Sersi to her feet. The statue of Arishem was too open an area. Ikaris could be silently floating around anywhere in the labyrinthine ship. They were at a disadvantage being split up from one another.

She had to find Gilgamesh.

They were all scattered around the ship while they were conceiving their plan. Thinking about it now, perhaps that too was part of Ikaris' plan. Maybe all this time he had been watching them like a predator, thinking to himself how weak his family was and how easy it would be to hunt them just like Deviants.

Thena kept Sersi close to her, her shield in front of them and her blade in her hand. It would be held aloft, ready to be swung. But Sersi was clinging to her hand like a trembling child.

She couldn't be angry with her--the poor thing had watched the man she loved - her ex-husband - shoot down their own right in front of them. He had told them himself of the murder of their leader and 'mother' by his own hand.

No one would blame Sersi for her tears.

Thena stopped, pressing Sersi's back to the wall with her. The corridors of the Domo were narrow, barely wide enough for two people.

Ikaris passed by.

He never was the best hunter of them. His vision was good, but he was too arrogant to make full use of his hearing, the way they were all able to feel the air bend around them.

Thena squeezed her eyes shut as the air compression and sound of Ikaris firing his lasers sounded one hallway away. The wall he was aiming at clearly relented against the force. Sersi flinched.

"Come on out," his accent drawled as he floated through the new door he had made for himself. He was moving away from them, but it was undeniable that the echo of his sinister tone felt right on top of them. "I'll make it quick, love. For old time's sake."

What a wretched man he was. The Soldier Eternal no longer, nor even an Eternal brother, now he was just Arishem's little murderer.

Thena brought Sersi with her by the hand, although she was highly aware of the sounds Sersi made when she moved. Her clothes made sound, her shoes did (Thena was still barefoot), she wore a pendant that dangled loosely around her.

She still had to find Gilgamesh.

He was somewhere deeper in the ship, healing from the fight in the Amazon. She had to get to him before Ikaris did. If he was able to be woken from his healing, perhaps he could even help them try to move the rest of them to the healing bay. At the very least, their bodies.

Thena paused at every corner, listening for every wisp of air, every moan of the Domo's metal body, every possible sign of movement. She nodded to Sersi.

Sersi's tears were dried, which was already admirable. Sersi was always the one with the most human heart, but it couldn't be said that she was weak in any way. If anything, how human she could be at times was something that made her stronger than most, Thena would say.

Thena nodded her head, telling Sersi to find refuge in Phastos' lab, just outside the healing bay with his equipment. She might find refuge in the greentank, which could offer organic material for her to connect to (it might calm her to be around material she couldn't transmute).

The healing pods were humming, one in particular engaged and glowing gently. Thena dispelled her Cosmic Energy into the air, walking over to it.

Her sweet Gilgamesh.

He had nearly given his life to save her in the rain forest. She would have done the same for him, of course, but it didn't make watching it any easier. And here they thought their worries were over after killing that monstrosity.

The monstrosity they had thought killed Ajak.

Thena knelt down to the pod, tilting her head at the image of him. His face was so still. The lights blaring on his face in the echochamber gave distinct lines and bends to his face. She raised her hand slowly, her fingers nearly trembling at the tips.

Her hand went right through him.

"Thena!"

"Gil!"

Of course. Of course he hadn't been able to kill them all going so undetected. Not even Ikaris could be in two places at once. They had seen him shoot Kingo, and then found Sprite's body, seeing the blood. But seeing meant little when it came to the Illusionist Eternal.

"Easy, Thena," Ikaris muttered, his arms locked around her head and his elbow driven into her. "You know very well not even your thick skull can withstand me at point blank range."

Gilgamesh knew it too, revealed from under Sprite's shroud with a knife to his throat. They were each other's insurance policy--Gil and Thena would never do anything to endanger one another.

Ikaris had always been behind Thena, his eyes focused on her. Sprite had rushed right to the healing bay and woken Gilgamesh with the knife ready, telling him that if he made one wrong move, they would toss Thena's body at his feet.

The perfect hostages.

"Gil," Thena managed to squeak out as Ikaris held her head. If she were human her neck would have already snapped. She could feel the heat building in his eyes against her hair.

"Please," Gil whimpered. He was softer than she was--he had no problem begging and pleading with their assailants for her life. "Let her go. I'll help you."

"Shut up," Sprite's once light and lyrical voice barked at him. "We don't need your help--we don't need anyone!"

Oh, Sprite, of course. Kingo had been right, in his oddly perceptive way of seeing the world through his own lens. Sprite, the unseen and even worse the unacknowledged.

"Tell us where the point of emergence is," Ikaris directed Thena, his eyes both on the back of her head and on Gil and Sprite by the door. "I don't care who. You tell us, we'll spare the other one."

"Thena!"

"Don't move!"

Thena's ear was ringing after Ikaris shouting in it. But Ikaris' lasers were far too deadly, and even with too many targets to look at, it would take a fraction of a second for him to kill all of them.

"Not a muscle," Ikaris glared at Sersi, completing the triangle between Ikaris holding Thena and Sprite blocking off Gilgamesh. She held her hands out, having skidded to a halt at the sight of that familiar and menacing glow. "Or I'll fire straight through both of 'em in one shot."

He could, and they all knew he was capable of it.

Thena's mind raced. They were limited on options. Ikaris wanted the point of emergence, and killing them was merely...a series of steps for him. She could tell him, doom humanity, and for all she knew, still not see Gilgamesh's life spared. The same could be said if he bent first.

"Please," Sersi whispered. Her tears returned. "Please don't do this."

She looked at Ikaris, who had far too many balls in the air. His stance kept shifting as he held Thena's head tight. His eyes cooled slightly, "just tell us, Sersi. Just...you could come with us."

Sersi shook her head faintly, baffled and probably disgusted that he would ask that.

"No, she can't!"

Thena moved her eyes from Gil's teary ones to Sprite's suddenly enraged expression. This could work.

"You said it was just gonna be us!" the small Eternal spat, although rather than point at Ikaris in her rage her hand twitched, jabbing Gil in the neck just a little harder.

Thena flinched but Ikaris' grip held strong as well.

"Sprite," he growled at her.

"No! No, you said Sersi wasn't coming with us!" Sprite continued in her accusations. She glared at her sister, "you're ruining this!"

Sprite was just as old as the rest of them, and yet she really could embody that youth that kept her mind tireless and which Ajak had adored so.

"Sprite!" Ikaris repeated. Things were unravelling, "keep it together!"

"No, you said-!" Sprite whirled around at her partner in crime--the love she had who convinced her to turn on their family. She pointed the knife at him.

Thena let her knees go, dropping from Ikari's hold rather than wrestling free. She slipped away. Gil launched forward knocking Sprite's hand out of his way.

Ikaris fired but Gil called his exoskeleton over him, the same way Thena could hold a shield. He landed a punch to his face, shattering bone the way a bullet would.

"Sersi!" Thena called out, but Sprite was already lunging at her.

Sersi moved instinctively. Her body was designed to recognise the makeup of any material it touched--to react and reformat it. Her hand came up to block the knife, but all it did was fade to water and splash onto the floor around them and into their clothes.

"You bitch!" Sprite raged at her. She'd had enough.

Sersi pressed her palm to Sprite's soaked shirt. She could turn steel to water, why not water back into steel?

Sprite's body jerked as the water collected and, while not much, reformed a blade within her skin. She choked on the air in her throat, "S-Ser..."

The Alchemist scrambled back from what she had done. She looked from the bloodied body of their sister to Ikaris, whose head was half caved in from taking a direct hit from the Strongest Eternal. She looked away.

Thena and Sersi helped each other stand. Gilgamesh came over, bending over their smaller frames and placing his hands gently on their shoulders. The night was over.

"I-I can't-" Sersi shook her head, looking at the body of Sprite splayed on the floor, eerily similar to the staging of earlier. "I didn't-"

"No one did," Thena finished for her, pulling her sister's head closer to her. No one saw their betrayal coming, and no one wanted things to turn out like this, either. No one thought they could kill their own family.

Sprite sprang up.

Gilgamesh pulled them back, Sersi held her hands up and Thena materialised her shield. It happened in two seconds. But a glow of gold flew through the air, clean through the smallest Eternal's body from behind.

Kingo gripped the door frame, his shooting hand dropping heavily as his side continued to bleed from Ikaris' earlier inflicted wound. He looked at what remained of his family, "rough night, huh?"

[inkskinned]

she's singing in another room and my dog is asleep at my feet. my grandma asked me why i haven't found a man yet and i laughed. oh, you know. i like my house clean.

my girlfriend is also my man is also "my partner" if i'm in a professional setting. yesterday we went to a ren faire and a man mimed at me - you're together? and at my delighted nod, his baffled, you're gay? made me laugh. a woman with rainbow hair said i love the two of you together. you're both so beautiful it's absurd.

my dad introduced my partner as my "..... friend. or whatever" the other day. he knows we're dating. in the same way, i was never able to get my sister's husband to stop saying that's gay like it's 2008. he still uses the word fa***t, and my sister's defense of him has always been well, he's just kidding.

my lover and i dance to old music in a tiny kitchen. we judge new music together and take food critique very seriously. we watch love is blind before we fall asleep and agree that if they had a queer season, it would be bloody but also make for excellent tv. of fucking course queer people would know someone for only 2 weeks and agree to get married. what are you saying.

at a bar with friends, a man puts his hand on my wrist. got a boyfriend? and yes, i do have a boyfriend, she's amazing. i am texting her while i wander around a gas station named after geese. i am visiting a swing state for a wedding. in the candy aisle i overhear: she's actually like a lesbian it's disgusting. two teenage girls with packaged sandwiches in their hands, giggling. no literally, like. i'm not, like. okay with her being there while we're all, like, naked and changing.

my girlfriend and i tailgate, drink gin and cider out of cups. from the frat group beside us, a man corrects himself with one of his friends: bro, i mean, nonbinary entity, and it makes everyone around him laugh, myself included. he razzes his friend the same way i would have killed for at 19 years old - like nothing happened, he continues: you apply sunscreen like an alien. he does a little sassy (and fairly accurate) dance interpretation of the motion. his friend is laughing so hard they're crying.

i am lucky, i live in a safe neighborhood in a safe state. my masc passenger princess comes up from DC. i drive her for an hour to where all the leaves are a violent arrangement of color. we walk along the trails, letting autumn into our blood. in this part of the state, there's a lot of pickup trucks and trump signs. when we chastely kiss before getting into the car, i accidentally make eye contact with a woman holding her child's wrist. she looks disgusted. she looks fucking pissed.

two hours later my girl and i are eating dinner on a patio, soaking in the last warmth of new england sun before the chill of winter sets in. we are giggling and trying to talk through plastic vampire teeth. at another table, i see a young woman sit up straighter. i watch her watch us. she blushes and takes her partner's hand from across the table. shy, like the taste of evening has just become something deeper.

it's worth it for this moment, i think. my lover is still humming the same song she's been singing for four days straight and i don't want to kill her for it. her guitar is beside my bed. her toothbrush is in my bathroom. in a few moments i will make us lunch. we are lucky enough to have found each other. it is lucky enough to be in love.

[happyheidi]

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ﾟ. November will bring blessings.

ﾟ･｡･ﾟ

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.

[adobe-outdesign]

Neopets discourse is always funny to me because whenever drama starts up 90% of the time it's over something that's just objectively really silly

For example, right now there's neo-billionaires threatening to quit the site over a rare item being released, which wouldn't be funny except the item in question is a tiny pea wearing a Santa hat

[nnobodoodles]

Huh.

So I randomly remembered Croc is pretty much Italian.

[demaparbat-hp]

He truly did.

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

I am such a big Werewolf Stan advocate I had to jump on this particular train 🙏 (but I didn't really wanna commit to full line art, you guys understand)

Oh, and you guys aren't gonna believe this, but here's part two 🙌

[puppyeared]

renaissance dogys

characters belong to @canisalbus

[hinamie]

spiraling

[theoldkyokodied]

The Allegiance of the Ascended Vampire and the New God of Magic

[egophiliac]

was this anyone else's first thought, or

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanny mixed up FNAF Help wanted with Digital circus,,

[bonetrousledbones]

fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.

there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.

we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.

please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.

r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)

How to set up disaster roaming for cell service

WLOS Live updates

Duke Energy power outage map

WNC Landslide Map

Hotels accepting locals

Emergency shelter locations

I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.

[akanemnon]

Despite everything, it's still you.

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MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

(NOTE: I will be taking a small break after this comic. I got a lot of stuff going on and plenty of recovering to do. Asks will still open for 24 hours after this comic drops. But the comic itself will return on December 8th!)