#without context this is very weird

[driftingballoons]

Some creatures are more difficult to perceive than others

[smytherines]

I've been so fully invested in this spies are forever x severance au that I just had to write something for it. I'm not sure if I'll post it on ao3, all four people who are into spyverance are already beloved mutuals, but here's a little drabble based on this conversation between @szollibisz and @missholloween that I haven't been able to stop thinking about

"Curt... what are you doing?"

Shit. Curt glanced up at the mirror, but he didn't need to see Owen lingering in the doorway to know it was him. That strange lilting accent had been rattling around in Curt's head ever since he'd first heard it crackling over the intercom.

Curt scrambled to figure out something else-- anything else-- to tell him, but he had a dull pair of office scissors in one hand and half his beard was in the bathroom sink, so he figured he was already busted.

"I just-- uhhh--" And what could he say? That three days ago the new hire, fresh off another failed escape attempt, had mockingly told Curt that he'd be handsome if it wasn't for the beard? That he'd spent three days just thinking the word shave over and over again, hoping his outie would somehow get the message? That for some fucking reason he cared about the opinion of a man who had been nothing but trouble ever since he arrived on Chimera's severed floor?

He couldn't say that. So instead Curt silently watched in the mirror as Owen removed his dark brown suit jacket and folded it carefully over the top of a bathroom stall, unbuttoning the sleeves of his crisp white shirt to roll them up to just below his elbows.

"Alright, let's see it then."

Curt sighed and finally turned to face him. 

Owen's brow furrowed. His lips made a tight line, one finger pressed up against them like he thought it might be enough to hide that smirk on his face.

"We don't have any razors here..." Curt heard the whine in his voice as he trailed off, staring at a spot on Owen's collar to avoid meeting his eyes.

"Mm." Owen nodded, stepping in toward him until Curt was practically leaning up against the sink. "May I?"

God, he was close. Close enough that Curt could smell his aftershave, or cologne, or whatever he wore that smelled so good.

Curt managed to look up at him, and the bathroom felt smaller somehow.

Owen's eyes traveled down to Curt's hand, his palm outstretched, those long, slender fingers wiggling expectantly until Curt finally figured out what he wanted.

"Y'know, last time I gave you something you almost split my head open with it," Curt said, placing the handle of the scissors in Owen's hand, "So if you could do me a favor and--"

Owen held his free hand up in front of him, "I will try my level best not to break the skin this time."

"You get one," Curt warned, only half-joking. He still had a scar on his forehead from the mug Owen had launched at him. "Next time I hit back."

"Noted." 

Suddenly Owen's fingers were tipping Curt's jaw up, his thumb pinching onto Curt's chin to tilt his head.

Curt tried to remember the last time another person had touched him. There had been a handshake with Cynthia a few weeks earlier. But Curt had to formally request it, and it had been every bit as uncomfortable as he expected. 

Tatiana hugged him once, not long before her unexpected departure. And thinking back on it, that was the only other time Curt could remember someone touching him on purpose.

With his chin tilted up, and Owen hovering over him with pursed lips and those dull scissors, it was hard to avoid looking directly at Owen's face. 

And that wasn't a problem for him, really. Because Curt found that he liked looking at Owen's face. The crooked grin that peeked through on the rare occasion where he wasn't scowling. Large, deep-set amber eyes that always seemed to be looking for an exit. Eyebrows that twisted and wriggled almost as much as Owen's hands did when he spoke. 

Owen made him feel... something. Which was unnerving, because most of the time Curt couldn't feel anything but numb. Numb and nauseous, sweating and shaking more and more as the hours ticked by. His mouth was dry and his head was sore, and every day was the same boring bullshit in the same boring place.

And when Owen moved his hand away to begin cutting, Curt desperately wanted to pull it back down and press it against his skin. To feel that churning in his gut, that pressure in his chest. Feel the way his heart raced and he could hardly catch his breath. Feel something.

Owen's eyes narrowed, and he wasn't looking at Curt's jaw anymore, and just for a second Curt wondered if Owen felt something too. 

But it was just a flicker, so brief that it might have been a trick of the light. 

"We could--" Curt jolted out of his thoughts as Owen spoke again, "Do try and stay still, love," he tutted.

"Sorry, I was..." Curt didn't know what he was doing anymore. "What were you going to say?"

Owen glanced up, scanning Curt's face quickly and uncertainly before getting back to work. 

"I was going to say that if you're really that desperate for a change, we could always botch this. Give him--" Owen flicked his eyes toward the ceiling, "no choice but to shave it all off."

"Does it really look that bad? I thought it looked kinda... cool?" Curt said hopefully. His hands were shaking, but he tried to keep his voice even.

Owen's head bent down, tilted low enough that Curt couldn't see his eyes. His skin prickled as he braced himself for Owen to laugh at him or insult him. But instead Owen's voice came out unexpectedly soft and quiet.

"I think it would be an awful shame for you to hide yourself away."

That felt like something too. But before Curt could comment on it (not that he could think of anything to say), Owen had resumed cutting. 

"So that was a 'no,' on the sabotage idea, I take it?" Owen said lightly, like nothing had happened. So maybe nothing had happened, at least not for him. 

Curt took a breath, louder and more ragged than he intended. "Nah. He grew this beard, so he's probably already lost the will to live--" Owen chuckled at that, "I don't want to push him over the edge."

"You're far more merciful than I."

"Clearly." Curt laughed. Owen had threatened to chop his own fingers off as a threat to his outie, so the bar was admittedly pretty low.

"Well, if you won't allow me to take chunks out of it, I suppose my work is done here." Owen smiled, just slightly. His hand returned to Curt's face, brushing off the hair he had just trimmed. 

Owen's hand lingered on Curt's chin, two fingertips barely touching Curt's cheek, and Curt's heart was beating so loudly that he could hardly hear himself think. They were only a couple of inches apart now, and he wondered if Owen could hear it too.

Owen swallowed thickly. There was something in his eyes. Something more than a flicker. Something definite.

That was when Curt realized that his hand was on Owen's hip. 

He quickly snatched his hand away, his mouth already trying to form an apology that his mind hadn't come up with yet. He tried to put space between them, but Owen had backed him up into the sink and there was no place left to go.

Owen stumbled backwards. His face contorted painfully as his back connected with the far wall of the bathroom. 

"Owen, I--"

But he was out the door before Curt could finish. 

And there he was, alone again, shaking, with nothing but the blue tile walls and the blue tile floors, and one dark brown jacket.

[hihiimmimi]

You know what *posts omori fanart without context*

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[getosugurusbangs]

what if i said i actually love too weird to live, too rare to die and think it’s underrated. what then.

[lucabyte]

As a fellow aroace, I did think it was romantic, but also all my preexisting ideas of romance come from other ships and none of them are as interesting as this (aside from madoka/homura but all my favourite ships are some variation of that) anyway I'm eating your sifloop interpretation with ten spoons. Have you considered writing fanfic because if you did I would read it on loop

aroace people will look at a pair of characters who are this 🤏 close to mutually assured destruction and yet fundamentally cannot exist without each other and go : . yeah that's romance? right ? ?

(also god. i think i last watched madoka when i was what? 13? i need to rewatch that its been over 10 years my god. i never even got to any of the movies.)

also no i do not write fic !! not confident enough in my prose outside of dialogue if im honest. i play with prose in my little noncanon oc sandbox on toyhou.se where there's no pressure to be halfway decent. maybe i'll be strong enough someday, but also as ive said prior this is the first fandom in uh. over 5 years if not more. that i've really made actual fancontent for. and the first one ever where anyone's noticed me. so i've no experience in the medium. i will continue putting way too many speech bubbles in my comics though don't worry about that.

[egoarc4de]

ant mill wip #1536 so i can talk in the tags

[pyrriax]

hi tumblr im pyrr pyrriax and im in my trimonthly artist arc, lord help me and all the projects that are currently sitting in my drafts while i am lured in by the siren song of drawing

[soullust]

hi!! charlie seen with a little girl in the background is at 5:00 ;)

omg thankyou, i never thought to look in the background there b4. charlie-has-a-little-sister-headcanon confirmed!

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Sun and The Void

Venezuelan inspired high fantasy

follows a young outcast swordswoman taken in by her grandmother, the dark sorceress for a noble family, who relies on the magic to keep her alive after being attacked by monstrous creatures

and a young noblewoman who’s the shame of her family because of her mixed heritage and desire to use magic

both are manipulated by those with more power than them into a plot to free an ancient evil god

mineral based magic, politics, nonhuman MCs

[cambriancruelty]

Cambrian that was m3. Art3sk. I ask3d you to Know n3ttl3s wiggling day and you said that it was th3 sam3 for you. I tri3d to show you with my chumhandl3 acronym thing.

CAMBRIAN: you do understand there are a finite combination of letters in existence, yes?

[corviids]

.

[sophegg]

i love the egg child part of the qsmp so much i just need to put it into words. it’s such a smart idea for how to make sure the server stays active — it’s not an activity requirement, but if you don’t take care of your egg, it will die. theoretically, you could just let your egg die and you can let someone else take care of it when you aren’t free to join. but people fall in love with their little pixel children and then they WANT to be active, it’s not an obligation they have to fill but something their consistently excited to do.

and having the parents be an english streamer and a spanish streamer is such a good way to make sure they all interact with each other across the language barrier. sure, there is some in-game translation to make things easier, but they also end up talking on discord to coordinate childcare and in the screenshots we’ve seen i think it’s so interesting how they’ll often speak the other person’s language rather than just picking one to both use or only using their own. co-parenting also gives them the basis for building up strong and unique relationships between the streamers themselves and their qsmp characters, which would’ve been much harder to develop without being given a starting point given the language barrier.

it’s just so clear how much thought quackity has put into this server and it’s so fun to watch everyone fall in love with their little egg children

[kalitheinksimp]

Day 3 of inktober: Medicine

[blujayonthewing]

crucial to me that you understand that this happens right before laios tries a little raw bite of the giant parasite they all cooked and ate like a fish

[the-somwthing]

Ok the confession I remembered seeing was on the mcyt confessions blog instead that makes sense lol. I just wanted to look at it again. The feeling of seeing someone finally point out that treebark could be seen as unhealthy and being like “omg someone finally said it-“ and then the notes are all just “what? anon is being so weird they’re literally the healthiest ship in the entire series” like HE CHOPPED OFF HIS HEAD??? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???