#Metaphorical stuff

[thebrokenmechanicalpencil]

@quibble-auk

(Tw. Panic attacks, violence, angst, gore.)

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Comet was laying with his back to Dropmix.

Comet couldn't breathe.

The large mech  had gestured and not so kindly asked him to lay down on the extra berth in the room. Now revealed by the bright sterile lights. Comet remembers it as not so kindly because he knew what the mech was unintentionally signaling with his clenched jaw. 

It revealed a hardly grasped anger.

 Dark blue optics sharp and lips in a tight line, the very moment Jeopardy had slipped from the room like a clueless child. Cometeater wasn’t supposed to have seen that though. Wasn't supposed to smell the flash of fear. Nor witnessed the way Dropmix had smoothly hid it. The fear and concern was the first to plunge. The ripples of his cold facade drowned any emotions he allowed on his face.  With that, and a sharp gesture, Comet was ordered onto a table.

That glimpse of Dropmix’s anger did nothing to soothe the Pretender. 

His throat still throbbed from their earlier squabble, his back plating burning from the impact on the wall. Comet did not want this medic near him, medic now right? When he allowed his eyes to cut up at the imposing “medic,” all he saw was the same mech who had fought in the arena. Mercilessly ripped the heads off of mechs who had tried to run. Tried to escape. To hide. Comet felt his heartbeat pick up as the old battered memories peeked over the wall in his mind. Their wet bloodshot eyes winking in dried blood. 

“I said, you need to lie down.”

Comet jolted at the firm growl, Dropmix watching him carefully from the opposite side of the berth. Comet felt his muscles stiffen at the very idea of doing so. Sitting next to him was bad enough. “Don’t make this difficult Cometeater, the sooner we get this done the sooner I go.” The large mech kept his face perfectly neutral, but a raise of an eyebrow showed the smallest twitch of tension. Comet knew if that tension broke he wouldn't survive it a second time.

“How?” He didn't like how quiet he sounded, he was never supposed to put himself in a situation like this. Weak, vulnerable. Where had his bravado gone? It's probably stuck in the heavy joints of Dropmix’s fingers, where they had locked so tight on his throat Comet had lost any and all sense for far too long. 

Weak.

“On your left side, you said it was your right hip?” Dropmix gestured slowly at the slab of metal gleaming in the lights. Dropmix had wanted them on. 

Comet didn't want to.  It was too much like laying with his belly exposed. Begging to be gutted. His whole body screamed as he cautiously laid down on his side. Making sure he faced the ex gladiator. You need to be awake for Sideswipe, he reminded himself to maybe soothe the growing fear. 

Dropmix was staring at him. 

You need to agree to this to keep him safe. Comet clenched his fists to ignore the shaking. He was doing this for Sideswipe.

Dropmix moved out from in front of him and Comet felt his back scream in warning. In a chain of muscles his whole back tensed for an impact, instead Dropmix spoke again. His deep baritone shook Comet to his core, “I’m going to run a couple tests,” No choice. No room for argument. Those awful optics bore into his skin as the mech moved. His once faint scent now wafting and smothering everything else. Cold and cloying. Comet felt his breath pick up as his skin tightened. “Relax, I can’t do these properly if you're stiff as a board.” Comet forced, and it was an exhausting effort, himself to relax. His muscles twitched in disagreement, jumping under his skin. 

He could feel Dropmix.

In a warm heat behind him. Too close. His leg twitched with the need to run, to hide. Dropmix was too close. He needed to run, now. Comet felt his armor start to tremble with tension at danger being so close. Shame bloomed in all its ugliness, he needed to calm down. Comet was better than this. He had been examined before. Ratchet had done this before.  Comet slowly breathed in and out, lowering his head onto his folded arm. 

Ratchet had never ripped a mech’s face off.

Dropmix slowly grabbed his thigh, allowing enough of a warning for a normal bot. But it did nothing to ease the influx of panic. It whirled over Comet in deep gusts. His heart was beating so fast it hurt, pounding in his chest as Dropmix lifted his leg to test its limits.

The shot of agony sent a sudden sharp chirp from Comet’s mouth.

Comet shoved his face into his arm, as that awful shame and fear mixed. He didn't dare look up at Dropmix. What was wrong with him? He was better than this. Comet tried to shake out the fear and panic as Dropmix began to slowly move his leg again, after a long moment that had Comet’s face burning. 

He’s going to rip your leg off. 

The rogue thought sent a wave of terror down his spine. Thick and cold he felt like his lungs were about to collapse.

No he’s not. Why would he? Cometeater forced even breathes, closing his eyes against the now horrendously bright clinical lights. 

Because he has done it before.

The faint smell of the pits from the gladiator behind him made Comet’s mouth water like he was about to throw up, images of Dropmix doing that very thing echoed across his closed eyes.

A thick limb in the gladiator’s hands, energon cascading in a pink waterfall. 

Comet forced a breath, he needed to calm down. He needed to stop.

His red and black helm coated, teeth clamping on the mech’s face.

Comet’s heart hammered as he felt his chest cramp from the force of his scattered breathing.

The ripping of wiring, the horrible gurgles as energon erupted from Dropmixes mouth as the bit into another gladiator's belly.

Comet couldn’t smell Sideswipe anymore, only the Pit. Only Dropmix

The arena smelt hot and dry, it hurt. Why did everything have to hurt?

Dropmixe’s clean scent choked him. His breaths were too erratic. Why was Dropmix closer now?

Dropmix was in the arena. It stank of him. He glared from the back of it.

Dropmix had a firm hold on him. Pinning him. Touching him.

Those horrible hands clenched around him. “Don’t be so scared little one.”

Optics flashed. Cold and unforgiving.

She smiled, his blood painting her face.

Comet screamed.

The scent was everywhere. Dust was choking him.

Comet could only hear his own breaths. Haggard and loud.

Its too loud.

The hands tightened.

“STOP!”

He wrenched himself away, cold tears marking trails of liquid terror down his face.

Her breath fanned him, she smelt like Sunny’s energon.

“PLEASE!”

Comet hit the ground as the sobs overwhelmed him. 

He couldn't breathe.

[manga-and-stuff]

Source: Eden: It's an Endless World! エデン

by Hiroki Endo

[raviollies]

Just who are you, Councilor Medarda?

[caemidraws]

Twelve Hours Prayer 1/2

[vaguely-concerned]

the strength it must have taken for illario to not immediately go full 'lmao since when have you even had a kiss hello lucanis' sibling violence mode during the café talk. inspirational. rook and lucanis really were doing all that right in front of his salad huh

[gay-pidgeons]

we got over that red king charles portrait way too fast actually. remember that

[divorceblogger]

this show rules sorry

[lovelizards]

i hope you can add so many good things to your life that your stains fade into the background

[zipsunz]

leon strohl da haliaetus cooldown

[l0ve-sicc]

crane wives go crazy

[peofun1]

Compiling Metaphor Refantazio humans and their Hieronymus Bosch inspirations

Enemy spoilers up through 7/17 on the in-game calendar

far from complete, since I'm nowhere near done with the game yet, but these are all the funny little guys I've managed to find the inspirations for! I've put the enemy's names and the names of the Bosch paintings in the alt text for each image.

I highly recommend checking out Bosch's paintings, for these guys and the many other fantastical and macabre creatures in his works. it's kind of like a game of I-spy, lol

enemies I was NOT able to find a 1-to-1 inspiration for under the cut. if anyone out there HAS spotted a better match for these ones, feel free to add on!

so I couldn't find a good match for the big terrible baby, unfortunately. best I can say is that Bosch tends to paint a lot of creatures that are just a human head on legs.

same goes for the giant sandworm; I couldn't find anything even remotely similar even after scouring through every Bosch painting (and some sketches!) I could find. it feels inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights, but I didn't see anything that really resembled this thing.

but again, if anyone knows of a better match for either of these, I'd love to see it!

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[mollysunder]

This is the worst lie Jinx has ever told herself.

Felicia's literally just Vi with a braid.

Now young Silco, that's just male Jinx with less baby fat, but we all know Jinx's face is only getting sharper.

Forget the Felicia, it's like the artists decided Silco was literally Jinx's only parent. The resemblance is still there even when Silco gets older.

You think anyone who knew Silco when he was young looked at Jinx and went, "yh that's Silco in blue".

[imaginariumwanderer]

Happy late birthday for @98chao! Here's your complementary blueberry!

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[jesncin]

Hear me out with this one

Martian

But FLUFFY

Fluffy martian is giving wookiee,,,but green,,,