#yeah. thats about it

[lovediives]

𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰

ೃ⁀➷✎ warnings: suicide ideation, slight blood ೃ⁀➷✎ pairing: Valo (f/o) x Iolanthe (s/i) ೃ⁀➷✎ word count: 1,472 ೃ⁀➷✎ summary: iolanthe asks valo a very important question. its a shame that he's not well equipped to handle it. ೃ⁀➷✎ a/n: oktavia covers tew good. i love writing while listening to them on repeat! i wanted to make a quick one shot of my little freaks and i got mad freaky. /mental illness ೃ⁀➷✎ divider credit: @/k1ssyoursister this song goes well with this fic. give it a listen for a better reading experience! (suicide tw)

“Would you be happier if I died?” Iolanthe asked in a frightened voice as he looked over at his companion, Valo. “I… I cause a lot of problems by being alive.” Valo looked up from his book, hoping in his search to see that familiar yellow gaze, but only met Iolanthe’s long, down-turned lashes. Iolanthe took a step back.

Valo opened his mouth with a minuscule voice, “No?” He answered, but the question was more apparent on his tongue. Valo held his hands together, tapping them, and wet his lips before he spoke once more. “No, I don’t think I would be happier if you died,” he clarified as he slid his book to the side and turned his chair to face Iolanthe. He bit his bottom lip as his tail was swishing frantically behind him.

Speaking softer, his words catching in his throat, Iolanthe continued. “But do you know if you would be?”

“No.”

“No, to what?”

Valo pushed away from his chair with a screeching sound that seemed deafening in the cutthroat silence. He moved swiftly as he rose to his feet and made deliberate steps towards Iolanthe as he held out his hand. Valo watched as Iolanthe’s eyes watched his hand raised up, and Iolanthe took a frantic step further and raised his arms in front of his face. He could see how Iolanthe shrunk down like he was trying to become one with the wall. His eyes squeezed shut tightly as he took distraught breaths through his nose. The noise wheezed loudly. Valo stopped and backed up. His hand slumped down back to the side as he kept his gaze upon the floor. Why was he so bad at this? How could a prince, the beacon of hope and pride of thousands, be this… useless? “I, I don’t know the answer.” Valo’s shoulders slumped, and his ears flattened against his head in shame. He moved his hands behind his back. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Forgot about… how your family… show love. I’m sorry.”

“But, I promise! I’m nothing like… them! I’m not your family,” he continued. Valo’s eyes darted around the floor with a manic glint, hoping to catch a flicker of reassurance in Iolanthe’s expression.

Iolanthe whimpered, and Valo thought he could die on the spot. Iolanthe didn’t move, and all Valo could hear was a choked “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” slipping from the traveler’s lips.

All Valo could think about was forgiveness. He wanted nothing more than the friend who was melting into the floor like they were nothing but water. This was nothing his family prepared him for. Orders or commands? He could do those without a passing glance, but he couldn’t do that to Iolanthe. Never. Iolanthe was more than just a subject. Iolanthe was his beacon of hope. An embodiment of everything he longed for and more — freedom and individuality. But what choice did he have left? “Iolanthe,” he started with a tranquil, yet assertive, voice. “Listen to me when I say this.”

“No!” Iolanthe screamed out as his own tears strangled him as he knocked down the books beside him. “If I died, no one would be mad at you anymore.” Valo froze. Moving closer, he hissed out in pain as Iolanthe’s nails cut against him in the outburst. The blood seeped down his arm and stained the white suit in a rich dye of red. “If I wasn’t born, none of this would happen! I hate this. I hate myself for all of this!”

Valo watched as the blood dripped down his arm, eyes widened and shrinking down as the iron flooded his senses. He opened his mouth partly as he took hurried breaths. His fist clenched. The blood pouring further as he grabbed onto Iolanthe’s wrists and gripped them like cuffs. “Shut up!” he wailed as his voice cracked like a broken wall. His face was wet and warm, with flushed cheeks. When was he crying? “I don’t care what you want now. I’m not going to let you die!”

Silence. It was a vicious silence as neither of them breathed, moved, or said anything else. Their tears shed beside Valo’s blood as their eyes met for the first time. Valo’s hands twitched on Iolanthe’s wrists as he gradually eased his grip, only to snap his hands back on Iolanthe. To Valo, Iolanthe had the most beautiful eyes. Even as they were driven by fear, unable to soften or focus on his own desperation, he was always glad to see them in moments as cruel as these.

Valo drew out a shaky breath. His arm was throbbing in nearly unbearable pain, but it was nothing compared to the empty hole in his chest that begged to be filled. He looked at their brushing fingers, the blood from his arm staining not only his shirt, but Iolanthe’s arms as it slid down his arm. Despite how obvious it was, Iolanthe remained still, not moving away from their shared mistake. Red wasn’t a color that suited Iolanthe, Valo concluded, not when he stained Iolanthe with his filthy blood. His sleeve stuck closer to his body, like a second skin, as the blood tickled against his senses, like a roach climbing up his body, for only a few seconds.

“Just by living, I’m hurting everyone around me,” Iolanthe said to break the silence. “The world would be better if I died, and everyone could smile again, even you.”

Valo slid to his knees in front of Iolanthe and pressed their foreheads against each other. His fingers moved up Iolanthe’s wrists to intertwine their fingers together. “You could hurt everyone in the world, and I’d still pick you,” he whispered back. The pain was picking up again as he gritted his teeth and wheezed out in pain. “They hurt you first. Why can’t you hurt them back?” Valo sobbed. His heart shattering into pieces as he pulled Iolanthe into a hug. Was it too tight? He couldn’t tell as he held them until he thought their bodies would be one with how close they were. “It’s not fair. Why can’t anyone see how special you are, Io?”

He wiped the tears off his face with Iolanthe’s shoulders. “Here I am having another breakdown because I’m too useless to help you. The only one who truly sees me and understands me.” He sniffled a few times. His fingers moved to Iolanthe’s hair as he ran his fingers through the braids. “A useless idiot who can’t do anything right at all. But as long as I’m yours, that’s okay.” He leans up and holds Iolanthe’s blank face in his hands. “So don’t leave me, please.” Valo pleaded.

“Okay,” Iolanthe answered in a trembling voice. His own hand moved to Valo’s hair and stroked it. Valo purred as his tail tangled up with Iolanthe’s. “I’m sorry for that. I didn’t mean to explode like that.” Iolanthe’s nails dug into the floorboards and Valo shushes him.

“It’s not your fault,” Valo muttered. It could never be Iolanthe’s fault. The world could burn, and there would be someone else to blame, but never his savior. His parents, the servants, the civilizations that all called Iolanthe a witch? If the flames consumed them, he would turn away just to stare into the depths of Iolanthe’s eyes for eternity.

Iolanthe relaxed in Valo’s embrace as he wrapped himself firmly in his arms. To say the prince had become giddy was an understatement. As they purred in sync, a soft, involuntary laugh escaped from Valo’s lips, and Iolanthe matched it with his own. Valo couldn’t stop the goofy grin from spreading across his face ear to ear as he pressed up more against him. “I still hurt you. Why don’t you ever care if you get hurt or even die?” he asked.

Valo started, “It’s okay.” He paused, watching the blood cover Iolanthe’s neck as he moved his arm away. “Nothing bad could happen to me as long as you’re alive.”

The silence eased up on their fragile, burdened hearts, leaving them alone with comfortable purring sounds as they sat alone together. Valo allowed himself time to relax. Iolanthe was safe and in his arms. He could feel their body slowly ease up the tension, their stiff muscles becoming like a warm pillow as Valo settled against Iolanthe and rested his eyes.

Iolanthe hummed, moving to sit on Valo’s lap as he wrapped his body around him. “Valo, I love you.” Valo’s lips turned into a smile as he shoved his face into Iolanthe’s neck and pressed a slight kiss to the skin. He could taste his own blood, but fuck, he didn’t care at all because Iolanthe was there with him. Iolanthe would always be Valo’s, and Valo would always be Iolanthe’s.

“I love you too.”

[blu-engineer]

favorite stan twins characterization is that they're both equally insane. stanley just gets more air time to show it off. loosely inspired by a post i read earlier but here's some absolutely insane things both of them have done

stanley:

drugged a person and turned them into an exhibit in the mystery shack

had a vegas wedding to a prospector-themed novelty dispenser

gave mabel a grappling hook

failed to steal an animatronic badger

chewed his way out of the trunk of a car

punched at least three bald eagles

is multiply divorced, possibly even with the novelty dispenser

committed premeditated murder on a llama

faked a heart attack to get on Wheel of Fortune

took his clothes off in front of a live studio audience on Wheel of Fortune

has a rivalry with a fifth grader, a grandmother, and a man who exclusively dresses like a corn cob

stanford:

pulled a gun on a bus driver when he wouldn't let a pig on board

directly assisted in mind-controlling ronald reagan during his election in 1980

gave mabel a crossbow

got bitten by a vampire bat and subsequently began sampling human blood

owns contraband outlawed in 9000 dimensions; keeps it in an extremely flimsy plastic case

"accidentally" set a hawk on fire

has exes ranging from as normal as his old college buddy to as weird as a triangle and an alien with 7 eyes who put a metal plate in his head

wears turtlenecks because he's hiding multiple tattoos he regrets, including one themed around "all star" by smash mouth

is an Extremely wanted criminal across hundreds of dimensions; was completely kicked out of one for card counting

is, bizarrely, super into the band Eurythmics

can see shrimp colors

[yb-cringe]

something insanely meta about jack and tommy chatting about how it all sucked everything sucked and it was a mess and it hurt and no theyd never wanna go back but.. they miss it sometimes. to the way things were and how they felt. sometimes you just wanna go back

[valtsv]

my main advice for writing an enemies to lovers relationship is to resist the urge to make the characters' loathing and attraction mutually exclusive opposing forces. it's okay if they're getting weirdly into it and having Thoughts whilst also sincerely wanting to kill each other with hammers.

[saturnisfallingdown]

man supernatural might be bad but also ill be damned if thats not the most american show ever. like theres movies and tv that've tried to be this american but 99% have failed. you watch a particularly good episode of supernatural and suddenly you feel the hours of highway winds against your skin and theres more asphalt road than livable terrain for miles and you eat the best meal of your life at a pit stop and you havent gone to church since you were a kid but you still think about praying sometimes and you split a 6 pack with someone you love and a few too many people around you have guns and the land around you is so big when youre right in the center of it you feel like it could swallow you up and you know for a fact theres an unimaginable amount of mythology just beneath the surface. and then you watch the next episode where sam kills paris hilton or something

[uncharted-constellations]

The Princess and Hero of the First Great Calamity

The orange snoot is very important to me….

[loverboylen]

no one is doing grief like rendog. oh you built a grave? you named a tower after him? well, me and my dead teammate, we fused. we combined our dna together. and i'm gonna carry him to the end. if you even care.

[unholyxvoid]

httyd live action is to httyd fans as eels are to dragons

[abstractfrog]

Happy 1 year anniversary to Mr Sherlock Holmes! Here's a litttleee celebratory comic from me

[lucabyte]

monologue

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[beastlyidiocy]

my sweet old man who is genuinely too kind for the world he lives in :(

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

actually, it would be really funny if gerry shows up in a statement in tmagp considering the arg confirms that he & sam were in the same unethical magnus experiment. like he just just up in the middle of a talker & goes "gerard keay??? the gerard keay from traumatic childhood??? my fucking trauma buddy gerry???"

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[shepscapades]

[Part 1] [PART 2] [Part 3]

The unexpected return of a face Xisuma never thought he'd see again.