#and conquer that fear

[stillmevalz]

Wolfwood WAS afraid of Vash too. There's a whole ass arc of him coming to terms with that, please. 😭

[wiltkingart]

"In the ruined lands of Old Humming Vale is it said a Fairy King once ruled cruel and unforgiving."

bonus cover art for another short story of mine, this one following a dewinged fairy's attempts to survive a viscous insect pit, even as they start to poke at (and burrow into) his warmest wettest holes.

Crystalline is the 2nd story in Mouth to Mouth to Mouth, an erotic transmasc horror collection, available on [itch.io].

[bamsara]

Pppsssss. Today we celebrated my friend's birthday, and I'm just gonna quietly slip her kofi right here. Shhhhhh (Happy Birthday Mika!)

[born-to-riot]

Cassian: Azriel, Two truths and a lie, who would you fuck if you had the chance?

Azriel: alright bet.

Rhys: Give us three names and we’ll guess which one is the lie.

Azriel: option one, Hybern’s headless corpse

Cassian: woah, woah, woah bro WHAT—

Azriel: option two, bryaxis

Rhys: Azriel what?

Cassian: HOW DARE YOU?

Azriel: and finally option three, Eris Vanserra.

Cassian: …

Rhys: …

Azriel: tell me brothers, which one is the lie?

Cassian: …

Rhys: …

Cassian: I…

Rhys: I think it’s better off if we don’t know.

Azriel: suit yourselves 🤷‍♀️

[fortist166]

A little late but Happy Halloween! My country doesn’t celebrate it so I’m kinda jelous of these guys 🥹

[moonwoodhollow]

getting there - slowly but surely.

[kriskukko]

portrait

[faerieliights]

everybody swarm the man for his birthday while i steal his knife and key

[somewhere-in-the-rain]

I think something that makes Violet and Xaden such a good couple is how completely deranged they are for each other. They have reached a level of down bad I just have not seen from another book couple in a while.

“He fell harder” is fun, but what about “he fell first, she threw herself over the edge after him”?

The extremes Violet and Xaden have shown they are willing to go for one another is what I love so much about them and their dynamic:

Xaden burst into her room and killed everyone threatening her without a second thought. Violet walked the Parapet in a dress just to talk to him. Xaden risked the secret about the rebellion and Aretia in order to save Violet’s life. Twice. Violet allowed herself to be tortured for five days to protect his secret. Both of them left their assigned posts to fly across the kingdom to get to the other. Violet was willing to die if it gave Xaden a chance to live. Xaden turned venin so Violet would survive.

they’re so insane for each other I just adore them

[vorbarrsultana]

i finished rereading the first four vorkosigan books (+ "the flowers of vashnoi" because ekaterin!!!), and you really have to feel for piotr vorkosigan because what a nightmare life, truly.

imagine you are born just in time for your world to be unified by dorca vorbarra and rediscovered by people from wider galaxy. things are finally looking good, for the first time in 600 years of isolation there is no more feudal infighting, and the promise of galactic medicine and technologies being available lightens everyone's perspectives. sure, your grandpa is called count pierre "le sanguinaire", but who doesn't have terrible relatives?

then you are 15, and suddenly your planet is attacked by the aggressive eugenecist space empire hell-bent on subjugating your people and turning them into disposable material for unethical genetic experiments. you flee into the mountains, away from your family, and create guerrilla forces from locals sworn to your dad, and it's really terrible for a very long time. you have no high-tech weapons and no food, you sleep in a cave in the dead of winter, and the cetagandans try everything (from carpet bombing to chemical weapons) to murder you.

but hey, at least you now have your bff ezar vorbarra, and (from the bff's words on his deathbed) it sounds like you two had so much fun between unimaginable horrors and despair, and it's not surprising, since no one really believes in death after life at 20. then the emperor makes you a general at the tender age of 22. fortunately for him, you & bff make a frighteningly competent dream-team, and the joke's on cetagandans.

then, several years later, you ask the emperor for weapons, because you still sleep on the bare cave floor, there are little resources, and every ghem on the planet is trying to murder you. he offers you the hand of his granddaughter instead, like it's some sort of twisted fairytale, but you grow to love your olivia more than anything, and the tide of war is finally turning, and you allow yourself to entertain the idea of peaceful life, and then...

the space eugenecist empire nukes your hometown, killing your mom, dad, surviving brothers, and two hundred thousand of your people. plus your bff (ezar) gets a radiation doze large enough for it to cause severe cancer thirty years later. great.

but you win! your district is in shambles, your capital is an irradiated crater, your castle is in ruins, but you win! the old dorca dies, and yuri ascends the throne, but politicking is secondary to the fact that you are alive.

yes, you are probably not entirely sane, and you've long forgotten what the peaceful times look like, but you are alive, just under 35, and your entire life is ahead of you. olivia is alive too, and ezar, and you now have three wonderful children, and the extended vorpatril-vorbarra family that hosts regular get-togethers. sure, your mom-in-law is a betan with all sorts of crazy ideas in her head, but she is not pierre vorrutyer. small mercies.

but then the new emperor goes mad, and decides to murder your entire family overnight. your brothers-in-law are gone, one of your sisters-in-law too, and all your nephews and nieces except little padma. but all of this pales in comparison to the facts that olivia is murdered, and that your heir and daughter lay dead beside her.

all you have left of her, of your house, of the family you've lost in vashnoi not a ten years ago, is aral, whom you keep by your side throughout the bloody civil war to put your bff on the throne.

but you win again. you are 43, and ezar vorbarra is now the emperor. you are responsible for the imperium's entire ground forces. you are also responsible for a severely traumatized boy of 13, and the only children you've interacted with without olivia's genle guidance were little messengers of guerilla companies.

what a mess.

[galluslonging]

there's a lot to lose... isn't there always?

[trappedinafantasy37]

Sometimes I think about when Minthara first joins camp after you save her from Moonrise. She sits in her tent, alone at night, surrounded by strangers who she believes have every reason to kill her. She sits there paranoid, feeling that they will just kill her at any moment for any reason. You have earned a small sliver of her trust, but not completely. And she goes along with you and everyone because she really doesn't have much of a choice. And it's not like her fears are unfounded, some of the companions do state their reservations about her when she is first recruited (and one of the companions actually does want her dead if a certain datamine ever gets added to the game).

She only comes to completely trust you when you allow her to read your mind. But, it doesn't clear her of any paranoia with the other companions. She only trusts them because you trust them, and she trusts you.

In spite of this paranoia and fear, she is still willing to risk her life to protect them and save them from whatever trouble comes their way. Even if she won't admit it, she does care about all the companions in camp. Yes, even the wizard. But she feels that none of them will ever lift a finger for her and will let her die when she needs help the most.

One of the many reasons why Orin kidnapping her is so heartbreaking. Because ALL of the companions want to go and save her and get her back from Orin. And one of them is extremely outraged and pissed that Orin had the audacity to take her Minthara away from her. The one time the companions show unanimous love and support for Minthara, she isn't even there to hear it. If only she knew how much they wanted her back, she would probably stop being so paranoid of them.

And she attends the reunion party still thinking that nobody likes her and they all hang out without her. When in reality, they all love her. She is surrounded by people who love her, and she thinks they hate her and are still plotting to kill her. And it's all because she wasn't there to hear how much they do care about her.

[captainjanewaylovespuppies]

Season two of Voyager has the best five episode run of the whole series!

S2E21 - Deadlock: Two Janeways!

S2E22 - Innocence: The Tuvok finger!

S2E23 - The Thaw: Fear is afraid of Janeway.

S2E24 - Tuvix: The debates about Tuvix will probably outlive us all.

S2E25 - Resolutions: Janeway and Chakotay are stranded on a planet but they launch 1000 ships.

It’s my opinion obviously, but can you name a more iconic five episode run of Voyager?

Season two of Voyager is not perfect (it also has the worst five episode run of the series) but it deserves far more praise and respect than it gets from most trekkies.

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

Now all your troubles are over / And they've made you a saint in an inlaid frame

[massy2ly]

Bison and Fadel running into each other on the way back from their respective little trips, ENGAGED, instead of mourning their traitor boyfriends they’d initially set to kidnap and finish off in the middle of nowhere.

Meanwhile, Style and Kant who probably thought the next time they’d meet each other would be in front of the gates of Hell…

[neorhythm]

⛱️ Drinks by the ocean sound so relaxing 🍹✨

This was a submission for a Draw This In Your Style challenge over on Tweeter. I'm sure Scott is fine (probably lol)