#barely eating and emaciated

[froggydelicious]

i was trying to remain positive or whatever but i'm being evicted in two weeks and i have nowhere to go. i have my top surgery date at the beginning of next month and if i don't have housing i don't know what i'll do. i'm really freaking out

[sakuravalenp]

Don't eat anything else - Part 3 - DP X DC

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Masterpost

Sam had somehow fallen asleep after hours of rolling in her bed, so of course, when her phone started ringing, she was just about ready to send the thing flying across the room. She covered her ears with her pillow, hoping the thing would shut up soon enough, and cursed her past self for leaving the phone in her desk instead of plugging it to the socket that was just behind her bed. She could have already shut the thing off then, but no, she’ll have to get out of bed to do it. She was going to maul whoever decided it was a good idea to call in the middle of the night.

With a resigned huff, she got out of bed and went to the desk, stumbling over the chair because of course she hadn’t pushed it back into the space the desk left for it, and snatched the phone roughly, pulling the charger and making her pencil case fall off the desk. The clattering sounds let her know she had also left that open. She groans, and squints at her phone screen, her eyes complaining at the sudden light, she takes a look at the insistent caller: Tucker. She answers while letting herself fall into the chair.

“Tucker, it’s like two am. You better be dying, or I swear to the ancients I’m throwing your beloved PDA into a natural portal to never be seen again!”

“Check the Phantom chat.” Sam blinked. She was expecting some sort of dramatic response. Then her mind caught up to what her friend had just asked.

“Did Danny text anything!?” The call was already being placed on speaker as she took her phone off her ear and started looking for their chat server.

“You’ll have to check yourself, it’s a full text wall, I’ve just read like- the first paragraph. Just- check it out and call me back when you’ve read it all.”

Sam frowned at the beep of the call being ended. She had never hated so much that their server took so long to load. She understood why; a hidden server that went through the infinite realms? Tucker was a genius for creating it. Still, in times like this the waiting was excruciating.

Danny didn’t tell them anything about his life with Vlad. She would say it screamed red flags, but it was Vlad. The moment the man had gotten custody of Danny all the fire alarms were going off in Sam’s head, and they hadn’t stopped since.

They tried not to push much at the start. The Fentons and Jazz’s death was too fresh, so they just checked in, asking how things were going, trying not to prod. But weeks turned to months, and they hadn’t been able to see Danny, and he was not telling them anything.

They had been keeping tabs of what they could get. Danny checked in at least once a day, until he didn’t. There would be days without response, and then Danny would check in again with some vague excuse. When that became common enough, Danny stopped making up excuses and just directly checking in without explaining the absence.

His texts were useless to understand his situation, other than he was well enough to text them, so their next focus was his public appearance. There weren’t a lot of those, but they would be happy with any scraps they could get. 

Vlad had taken Danny to more than a couple of galas and some political events, proudly flaunting his heir, and yet, there were barely any photos of Danny at said events. It was up in the air whether it was due to Vlad avoiding the pictures getting out or due to how difficult it was to get a clear photo of Danny.

Nevertheless, the few pictures they did get weren’t great. He looked emaciated, lost so much weight, lost any brightness in his eyes. Still, Sam had almost cried from relief the first time they got a picture. The mind can be cruel when there's nothing to hold it back, and Sam had about a thousand terrible thoughts of what Vlad could be doing to Danny. At least he was in one piece. 

Her phone vibrated, letting her know the server had finally loaded. There was a bubble beside the Phantom group chat letting her know there were new texts. She pressed on the group chat and was indeed greeted by a wall of text. She scrolled back to find the beginning.

Hey guys, you’ll probably won’t see this until tomorrow but I needed to write this right away before I started doubting. Not that that’s really a choice at this point, not when the Waynes already left with those notes.

The Waynes? Oh, yeah, Danny had mentioned Vlad had invited them to dinner once. First visitors they would be getting. Sam had idly wondered if she would have gotten a chance to see Danny if her parents were more influential. She had never wished for her parents to be richer before. 

So anyway, the Waynes visiting kind of changed things here a bit. I may not have been really honest about how things were going here with Vlad. Though, you probably already knew that, and I’m sorry, but I don’t know if I can tell you guys. I just don’t think I can get myself to tell you, and I’m so sorry, because you’re always there and deserve the truth, but I can’t. So, let’s just leave as things hadn’t been great, and Vlad was more of a monster than we ever thought he could be. 

Sam didn’t like that, it was terribly vague. What had Vlad done to Danny that he didn’t feel he could tell them? Sure they had been dealing with Danny’s silence, but now he was straight up telling them he couldn’t get himself to talk about it. The fact that he couldn’t even explain what Vlad had done meant it was probably worse than what she imagined.

They’d faced their fair share of horrors over the years while combating the rogues, and there had never been a problem verbalizing it. Something horrible had happened. Sam was going to kill Vlad. She didn’t care what the full story was, if it was bad enough that Danny actively refused to tell them, it was bad enough to revoke Vlad’s right to existence. 

The thing is, I can’t keep this up. The Wayne’s came in, and Vlad's plans for dinner made me realize I couldn’t let this keep going. I managed to sneak a note to Timothy Drake-Wayne. Everyone knows the Waynes have connections to the Justice league.

Sam frowned. The Justice League had been shining for their absence from everything involving Amity. That absence still burned like acid. They’d begged for help. Pleaded. Amity had become a warzone more than once, and no one had come. Would they really show up just because the Waynes got involved?

I know they hadn’t been answering our calls, but now it affected the Waynes. Again, I can’t explain how it affected them, but I’m pretty sure the Waynes will make sure the Justice League gets involved. I had to tell them that Vlad isn’t human. It would only end in an apocalypse if they came looking for Vlad without being prepared. They’ll look for you guys. I told them you had the means to combat him. 

Oh shit. Was she really meeting with the Justice League? In friendly terms? After all the ignored calls, Sam had swore it would be on sight if she ever met the assholes. And if they really showed up just because the Waynes were the ones to call, Sam wasn’t sure if she could keep it civil.

I didn’t reveal myself to the Waynes, I don’t know what the Justice League stand on ghosts is, all this is already a big risk, the GIW are bad enough on their own, there’s no way we would survive the Justice League hunting us, but Vlad needs to be stopped. I need you guys to give them what they need to not be possessed, and the ectoguns that I modified, maybe an ectoshield. Nothing more, they have a good history with non-humans, but I don’t know if we can trust them to not start a hunting campaign after Vlad. Try making it clear that this is a Vlad problem, not a ghost problem. I’m sorry I’m leaving everything to you guys, I can’t do anything from this side.

Her breath trembled. If the Waynes were really able to convince the Justice league to finally intervene, they might have days. She and Tucker needed to prep everything.

Ghost attacks had become rare since the portal was destroyed, but sometimes ghosts still came through naturally forming ones. There couldn’t be a ghost attack while the Justice League was there. Not when they needed to convince them that Vlad was the exception, not the rule.

They needed to get the gear and figure out how to lie to the Justice League convincingly enough that they wouldn’t turn every ghost into collateral damage.

Because Vlad might be the monster. But the League could still be the executioners.

Still, despite all the anxiety running through her veins, Sam felt hopeful. Danny had reached for help, after months of silence he had finally reached for help, and for once there seemed to be a chance they'd see Danny again. 

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

They couldn’t continue reading the paper right away. There was no way to do it. Cass was more sensitive to people's deaths than anyone else in her family, and Bruce had focused on supporting her so he wouldn’t have to think about what he had just eaten. He had helped Cass to the bathroom like he hadn’t vomited as well. Tim had mumbled something about needing a shower, a really long shower, and left. Jason had forgotten the pretender had been bathed in that cursed soup.

He did think about taking the paper and finishing reading it himself, but green edged his vision, rage bursting under the skin, and he needed an outlet, which he didn’t have here. The punch he had thrown onto the wall had already left a mark, and this was a house they rented as Waynes, he couldn’t just trash it all.

He had worked through some breathing exercises Dick had introduced to him. He’ll never tell Dick, but they did work somewhat. It wasn’t really a surprise, Jason knew Dick had anger issues. The bastard seemed like the perfect young adult holding it together these days, but Jason was there for his teenage rebellion, and that was supposedly an improvement from how he had been as Robin. So of course the breathing exercises helped, but it wasn’t enough.

He felt like giving the wall another punch from the frustration, but he had been trying to “redirect his anger” in less violent ways lately, and this was the kind of situation where it would be better to clear his head instead of exploding. He could save the explosion for when they had that reprobate on their hands. 

His phone was pinging and Jason knew it was probably the rest of the family asking for an update. The sudden silence probably got them worried the supposed poison had been something serious, and as the only one in commission at the moment, he should be the one reporting, but he was pretty sure he would crack his phone if he used it right then. His helmet took his attention where it resided on the desk, and he made a decision.

You’re not supposed to ride while you're angry, that’s how accidents happen, but that didn’t apply to people like him. Red Hood spent most of the night in his motorcycle while absolutely furious; they knew how to ride without becoming a public safety issue. 

He grabbed his helmet and screamed before putting it on. “You better don’t read the damn note before I’m back!” And then he was on the road once again. 

He rode around the small city, making the same circle over and over again at maximum speed. Harsh changes in direction that made the adrenaline pump in his veins. It was a good outlet. At some point the green receded enough for him to think clearer. He lowered the speed a bit, and connected his helmet to the comms. The questioning screams from everyone on comms came instantly.

“Shut the fuck up. I can’t understand a single thing you are saying.” As expected, that didn’t have any effect, but a minute later the line went dead silent. Babs must have muted everyone's lines. 

“Hood, what’s the situation? Did the antidote work without problem?” Babs asked.

Jason almost laughed. Antidote. They wished it had just been some stupid poison. “It wasn’t poison, or drugs, Batman and Orphan are… physically fine.”

There was a moment of silence, then Jason could hear the crackle of a line joining the comms again. “What does that mean Todd?” Damian finally asked.

Jason could feel the rage try to creep back at the thought of what really was in the food, he pushed it back. He didn’t want to really talk about what really was in the food. Another crackle. “Little wing? What was in the food?” 

Jason sighed. Why should he be the only one in commission to report back? No, he was glad to not have been anywhere close to that hideous concoction that didn’t have a right to be called food. He turned the speed back up.

“Apparently, Vlad Masters is a cannibal. One in the habit of sharing his taste with others.” The silence in the other line was about what he expected, so was the new explosion of voices that came afterward. 

Yeah, no. Report given. They could deal with the news themselves. Jason disconnected from comms and started riding back to the house. Checking the time on the edge of his helmet screen, he saw he had been riding for quite some time. How has two hours already passed? 

He left the motorcycle in the garage. There was no one there, so Jason wandered inside. He found Tim was sitting on the sofa with his laptop in the living room, the note folded beside him. Bruce sat on a chair beside him still looking pained. Jason talked from the door.

“Did you actually wait for me?”

Tim shrugged and without taking his eye off. “Figured it would be better to read once we were all here.”

“Where’s Cass?” He asked, walking to the opposite side of the couch.

“She asked to be filled in later.” Bruce answered. “It’s better we read the rest of the note already. I can’t imagine what else Danny would like us to know.”

Tim sighed, like someone had asked him to be the one to read the letter instead of him being the one to take it upon himself. He took the note, unfolding it again, and Jason could see he was making an effort to ignore the first line.

“I don’t know who the victims are, or where Vlad gets them, but they’re recently deceased. So somewhere there must be people disappearing constantly. It may not be the same place all the time, or it may not even be the same city. Vlad isn’t human.”

“Fucking great. Just what we were missing. What is it this time? A vampire? He definitely has the aesthetic going for him.” The pretender glared at him for the interruption, but Jason thinks the situation fully justifies his reaction.

Bruce sighed. “Language. Please, go on, Tim.”

“He’s a kind of ghost.” Tim raised an eyebrow but continued reading. “I know it may be hard to believe for outsiders, but ghosts are pretty much a common occurrence in Amity Park.”

“I thought that was just a tourist trap.” Jason commented, which gained him another glare from Tim. Jason didn’t bother to acknowledge it, though, inside, he was quite enjoying getting the little shit annoyed.

Tim huffed, and lowered the note a bit before commenting. “There are quite a few claims of ghost sightings, but we couldn’t find any proof of them when we took a look at Amity while searching for a house to rent.” He turned to the computer and started typing something.

“Even then, those reports were not of great importance, mentions of seeing a figure for a couple a seconds in the corner of a room, of a shadow following them around the city, or a pale little kid running around in the cemetery.” Bruce added. “The whole city works around the theme.The biggest school is called Casper High, and most attractions are named after ghost-related puns. We concluded it was, in fact, a tourist trap.”

“So what, the kid is imagining his guardian isn’t human? Making things up to cope with the fact that he is a cannibal? That-”

“Um. Bruce, you might want to see this.” Tim interrupted him.

His eyes were wide, scanning quickly through a webpage. Jason moved close to see the screen, and so did Bruce, standing up from his chair to lean over the back of the sofa. Tim started reading titles while he passed the mouse over them. 

“Octo-Ghost Assists Kindergarten Party and Almost Becomes The Birthday Girl's Pet. First Ghost Attack of the Week in Casper High, Red huntress Captures It Before It Can Disrupt Class. Ghost Known as Lunch Lady Visits Local Restaurant and Asks for a Cooking Battle With the Owner: See the Unexpected Results. Don’t You Miss When Ghosts Would Interrupt Class at Least Once a Day? A ranting blog by Phan_number1. None of this existed when we were checking Amity!”

“How is that even possible? The Batcomputer should have pinged something if there was anything blocking the information,” Bruce says in what sounded like a monotone voice, but any of his kids could tell he’s alarmed by the fact that so much information was successfully hidden from the Batcomputer. “Try sending a link to Babs.”

Tim goes ahead to do that with the ranting blog, but honestly, Jason couldn’t care less if the oh-so-great Batcomputer missed this.

“So the kid isn’t making things up, great. Can you both have your freak-out about the information blockage after we finish reading the note?” If Tim were a super, Jason would have a hole on his front, he’s sure of it.

Babs: Why are you sending me a recipe for making ghost-themed pie?

Tim looks at the message in disbelief, and clicks on the link he had sent. The ranting blog opens, no pie recipe to be seen. Tim takes a screenshot and tries sending it, but a warning message appears, saying the file is corrupted. He tries to send an image of his gallery, it goes without any problems.

“This is weird. It’s not like any kind of blockage we had seen before. It even redirects links to a page that matches the city's theme.”

“Try sending the image through the Bat server.” Bruce says with a voice that it was more serious than Jason expected, which makes him glance back at the man. 

Bruce is glaring at the computer with a dark expression. Realization hits Tim, and he quickly tries to send the image through the Bat server. It goes through, and even Jason feels relieved at the received checkmark. 

“Okay… okay. So they’re monitoring private conversations, but the Bat server is still safe.” Tim murmurs. Then goes ahead and tries sending the link once more, with a message saying it should open the website shown in the image. 

Oracle: All that link opens is the pie recipe Red Robin. If this is some kind of joke, you know the Bat server is not for that.

Tim rolls his eyes at the response and starts writing down a response, explaining the situation to Babs.

“The link must be blocked by IP Address. Tell her to try using a residential proxy.”

“Already on it.”

Jason hates when the old man understands more about technology than he does. Damn his time in the grave. He had been working on getting up to date, and he can do some basic hacking and whatnot. Enough that he doesn’t need external help for every little thing. But he’s still so far behind. 

Oracle: I’m in. You’re also seeing all these things about ghosts?

Red Robin: Yes. 

Red Robin: Somehow they have the city under a blockage that the Batcomputer wasn’t able to detect.

“Okay. Babs can take care of investigating that. We have a note to finish reading, remember?” Jason says, reaching for the paper Tim had left beside the computer, which Tim promptly snatches back. “Hey!”

“You won’t read it outloud for everyone.”

“According to whom!?”

“Kids…” Bruce sighed, “Continue reading, please, Tim.”

The little shit looked smug for a second before going back to the note.

“Please understand that in general ghosts aren’t bad, it’s just Vlad. But ghosts are powerful, and Vlad is really powerful. This can’t be resolved through normal means. I know the Waynes have contact with the Justice League, so I ask you to please get in contact with them, and don’t get anymore involved. I doubt the Justice league is equipped for the type of ghosts we have in Amity park. My friends Samantha Mason and Tucker Foley know where to find specialized weaponry and protective devices. Please, convince the Justice League to go for them first, it would be a disaster if one of the Justice League was overshadowed by Vlad.” That’s where the letter ended.

“Overshadow?” Bruce echoed.

Tim wasted no time putting the word into Google, which, now that Jason noticed, was decorated with little ghosts. Did Amity have its own Google doodle? The definition of the word popped like any other word would, and Jason wondered if that was something else that was blocked outside the city.

“It seems to be how Amity Parkers refer to possession.” Tim said after skimming the definition.

“What do we know about Samantha Mason and Tucker Foley?” Bruce asked, already in work mode.

“Not much, outside of being known friends of Danny. The Masons are a well positioned family in Amity; they’re new money. Izzy Manson, Samantha's great grandfather, invented a machine that twirled cellophane around deli toothpicks, the patent and inheritance placed the family where it is today. Pamela Manson owns a jewelry brand that’s grown in popularity in the Midwestern elite, while Jeremy Manson is a real estate developer. They often attend galas in Wisconsin, and sometimes in other big cities. Samantha Mason is a known teen activist, and has had her fair share of incidents at galas.” Tim said, as he opened the report he had made before coming to Amity.

“Incidents?” Jason asked.

“She has a sharp tongue and doesn’t seem interested in keeping appearances. It’s well known she isn’t fond of the styles her mother gives her for the galas. In any photo she posted on her personal accounts in the last two years, she has a gothic aesthetic.”

“Ah.”

“There’s less about Tucker Foley. His mother, Angela Foley, works as a chef at a local restaurant called “A Ghost's Secret Recipe.” His father, Maurice Foley, is an IT technician for the city government. Tucker seems to take after his father in his interest in technology, and has a history of winning local programming contests.”

“There’s nothing that really screams “I know how to fight ghosts and have ghost weaponry” is there?” Jason comments.

“Well, this is the information we have while searching with the city's information being blocked. Search for Daniel Fenton on the web,” Bruce says, and when Tim enters the name, a lot of news articles come to light. “We should have suspected something when there weren’t a lot of news articles talking about an explosion taking the life of a whole family.” Tim nods to that.

Jason frowns at the screen. “Are you seeing these titles? Local ghost hunters die from mysterious explosions? Something tells me that the access to weaponry has more to do with Danny’s parents than anything about Samantha and Tucker.” 

“What did we have about the Fentons from the investigation in Gotham?”

“They were supposedly part of the tourist industry, “entertaining tourists with street shows about ghost hunting.” We were literally blocked from one of the most important details of Danny’s life.” Tim groaned. 

Bruce sighed. “Let’s try getting some sleep. We’ll try meeting Samantha and Tucker tomorrow in the late afternoon.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Late afternoon?”

“They’re teenagers. I would prefer to interrupt their class time or disturb them too late. They might not even know we plan to meet with them.”

Tim nodded, already starting with the new background check. “I doubt Masters lets Danny have his own phone.”

Jason unceremoniously closed Tims laptop, putting it aside and carrying the kid in a firefighter carry.

“Trying to rest applies to you too.”

Tim protested as he trashed, trying to get him to let go, and if the pretender had actually been serious about it, Jason may have not been able to keep a hold of him.

“I’ll tell Babs to leave the investigation for tomorrow as well. You’ll have time before we go meet Danny’s friends, so let’s rest for some time first, okay?” Bruce said with that voice he always used when he was treating them like little kids. And if Jason found it soothing, that was between his mind and himself.

Tim groans, but relaxes, accepting defeat, and the kid is asleep before Jason even makes it out the living room. Jason wonders, not for the first time, if Tims ability to basically sleep anywhere, anyway, anytime, would go away if the kid actually followed the sleeping schedule Bruce and Alfred tried imposing, instead of taking random naps around the clock. 

He’s sure the little shit will be back in front of the computer in 30 minutes. Whatever. He already did his mandatory older sibling duty by getting him to stop for a nap. 

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Next part

[mommyslittlebird]

Wanda x Sick!Reader

This is a purely self indulgent drabble, as I’ve been going through a particularly bad flair up for the past couple weeks. Yesterday I finally had to cave and put my NG tube (nasal feeding tube) back in. I always hate wearing one, partially because it’s uncomfortable, but primarily because it makes me feel terrible about myself. I always feel disgusting with it. But writing this made me feel better and maybe reading this can make someone else feel better too.

⚠️TW: vomit, graphic description of a sickly body, non-graphic description of taking an NG in and out ⚠️

⚠️Please do not repost this with any pro-ana/eating disorder tags. This work is in no way meant to promote disordered eating⚠️

You woke up around 5am with your stomach already lurching. You sat up quickly, bolting out of bed in hopes of making it to the bathroom. Unfortunately, weeks of sickness had made your body weak. You barely made it out of the bedroom doorway before collapsing onto the ground and throwing up all over the hallway floor.

Wanda jolted awake when she heard you hit the ground. She was by your side before you had even finished vomiting, holding up your head and rubbing soothing circles into your back. “Shhhh, you’re okay baby. You’re okay.”

She gently pulled you upwards, not caring about the mess you had made of your shirt or the hardwood floor. She sat you up, leaning you back against the wall and brushing your hair away from your eyes.

The feeding tube hung grossly from your mouth, still threaded through your nose and nasal cavity, but it had come up out of your stomach when you threw up.

She squatted down in front of you, gently removing the tape from your cheekbone that kept the tub in place. You stilled her hand with your own. “I’ve got it.” It was easier for you to take it out yourself.

She nodded, standing up and walking to the bathroom. She stood in the doorway, respectfully turned away from you while you pulled the long tubing from your nose. She never found it as disturbing as you thought she did, but you didn’t like it when she watched.

She kneeled back down beside you, wiping your face and neck with a warm washrag. When you were clean, she slung your arm over her shoulder and gently wrapped her arm around your waist. “Alright, can you stand up for me? We just gotta make it a few steps back to the bed. Come on. Three… two… one.” She lifted up, pulling your small fragile body tight against her side. You put all of your weight on her, too weak and exhausted to stand on your own.

Wanda internally winced. This recent bout of sickness had only been going on for a little over a week, but you had already dropped so much weight. You felt like nothing, even though she was practically holding up your entire body. You felt so fragile, like a doll made of thin porcelain. She was afraid you’d break if she squeezed a little too hard. “That’s it. Lean against me. Just a little further.”

She sat you gently down on the edge of the bed. “Arms up,” she instructed softly, grabbing the hem of your vomit stained shirt and carefully pulling it off, making sure not to get anything on you.

For a split second, she froze at the sight of your bare torso. You were so small. Each of your ribs were visibly under your translucent skin. Your sternum popped out of your chest, leaving you with unnatural looking ridges. Your collarbone jutted out, giving way to your skeletal neck and face. Your eyes were dark and sickly. Your cheekbones were hollow and concave. She felt her heart shatter in her chest.

Her eyes caught for less than a second, but it was still long enough for you to notice. Your eyes swelled up with tears, and you curled into yourself, turning away from her. “Don’t look at me!” You cried, trying to hide your emaciated body. As you turned, your spine jutted obscenely out from the skin of your back. She could see each plate moving and twisting.

She lifted a throw blanket up to your shoulders, which you quickly grabbed through balled up fists and bony fingers.

She rubbed her hand up and down your back, feeling the shaking of your shoulders as you cried. “Shhhshsh,” she soothed. “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

“I look awful,” you cried. “I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not disgusting,” she reassured. “You’re beautiful. You’re sick, but you’re still my most beautiful girl.”

You turned back to face her, eyes red and teary. “Do I at least look pretty without that tube on my face?”

Her face fell. “Oh baby,” she sighed, pulling you into her lap and rocking you back and forth. “Your feeding tube isn’t ugly. It doesn’t make you any less beautiful. It’s the thing that‘s getting you healthy. It’s the thing that’s keeping you here, in the world, with me. And that, to me, is the most beautiful, precious thing in the entire universe.”

She cupped your face, letting you nuzzle into her hand. You kissed her palm. “Thank you,” you whispered. “Thank you. Sometimes I just… it makes me feel gross. Everyone treats me like I’m contagious. No one wants to be around me, much less hold me. Love me like this.”

She pressed a long kiss to your forehead. “They just don’t understand,” she explained. “But I see you, my love. All of you. I have seen you at your best and at your worst. And I choose both. I choose you everytime.”

You sniffled, burying your face in her chest. “Thank you,” you mumbled into her pajama top.

“Of course, my love.” She kissed the top of your head with an exaggerated ‘mwah’. “Now what do you say we go ahead and do meds now and then we can sleep in a little later?”

You nodded and sat up, grabbing a fresh tube and some lubricant from the cart next to your bed.

Wanda got up and grabbed some pills and a syringe, running to the bathroom for some water.

By the time she came back, you had gotten your tube back in and she had cleaned up the mess in the hall. She filled the syringe with some water and dropped the pill in, putting her finger over the hole and snapping the plunger to crush it up, just like you taught her. She was practiced in getting the syringe hooked up to port and pushing the proper amount of medication.

When she was done, she laid down on the bed behind you. You had to sleep propped up and a wedge, and you assured her many times she didn’t need to do the same, but she had none of it. Nothing in the world was going to stop her from sleeping with you in her arms.

[slytherin-pen]

Pup

pairing: Fenrys x Reader

word count: 1.5k

a/n: written for day 2 of @sjmxreaderweek friends/family. tried to get a little creative, so you and Fen adopt a new family member 🤍

The war left behind many things. Crumbled buildings, charred forests, and scars. But worst of all, it left behind children with no family left to care for them.

You started working at the orphanage in Orynth after Aelin had been rightfully crowned Queen and the others had settled into their new positions. Aelin had offered to give you the emissary position alongside Fenrys, but you had declined. Something about the children called to you.

It wasn’t glamorous work, but it mattered. Feeding small mouths. Rocking trembling bodies. Wiping away tears. You tried not to fall in love with each of them.

But then there was him. A boy named Dakota.

He was six when a few Bane soldiers found him, crouched and trembling in the hollow of a tree near Allsbrook. When you first saw him, he was tucked into a corner on the floor of the orphanage’s intake room. There was no telling how long he had been out there for, but based on how emaciated he was—it had been quite some time. Matted black hair fell into his green eyes. Dirt and dried blood clung to his face.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t speak. He barely ate. But something about the look in his eyes reminded you of your mate. Fenrys.

That night, you sat beside him in your shared rooms at the castle, cross-legged on the rug, picking at a tray of meat and cheese while Fenrys read a book on the couch. The fireplace cracked gently between you, casting your shadows together on the walls.

“I’m worried about him,” you whispered.

Fenrys looked up from his book, his brown eyes steady on you. “The boy?”

You nodded. “Dakota. He won’t talk. He barely eats, and gods know he needs to. He’s a wolf shifter like you, but they made him shift back as soon as he got to the orphanage. Something about not scaring the other kids.”

Fenrys set his book down, his face softening with sympathy. “He’s mute?”

“I guess so. Me and the other orphanage workers have tried talking to him, even the other kids, but he hasn’t said a word. We don’t know anything about him.” You sighed, your shoulders sagging and pushed the tray of food to the side. “I don’t know what to do. How can I help him if I don’t know what he needs?”

“Take me with you tomorrow,” Fenrys said.

You blinked. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he said gently. “I want to try something.”

The next morning, the orphanage buzzed with the usual chaos. You brought Fenrys in through the back courtyard to avoid overwhelming the children.

Dakota was sitting in his usual spot in the corner of the sitting room, knees pulled to his chest, eyes tracking the movement of everyone in the room.

You knelt beside Dakota. “This is Fenrys. He’s my mate. He wants to try to help you.”

Dakota didn’t answer, didn’t look away. But his gaze sharpened.

Fenrys crouched beside you, then slowly shifted.

One moment, he was a broad, golden-haired male. The next, he was a massive white wolf pressing low to the floor in submission.

Dakota’s eyes widened.

He didn’t move for a long moment. Then, with jerky, unsure limbs, he got on all fours and shifted too.

It was the first time anyone at the orphanage had seen his wolf form.

Small. Jet black fur like his hair. Even in wolf form his malnourishment showed, his ribs and hip bones protruding.

Fenrys didn’t approach. He simply lowered himself impossibly further to the floor and wagged his tail once.

Dakota crept forward, step by step, until they were nose-to-nose.

You could see it then. It wasn’t words or speech, but something different. A language of movement, scent, and sound. Wolves didn’t need spoken words to understand each other.

They played in the courtyard that afternoon.

They weren’t rough or loud. But a quiet, soft tumble of paws and playful nudges. Dakota made a sound—a tiny huff of breath that could almost have been a laugh.

You smiled as you watched them. This was a big step for Dakota. He had yet to play with the other children. He always remained in the corner watching vigilantly for any sign of threats. Your eyes burned as Fenrys rolled onto his back, exposing his stomach and Dakota’s small form gently pounced on him.

Days passed.

Then weeks.

Fenrys came with you to the orphanage every morning, unless duty called him elsewhere. The other children grew to love him quickly, but Dakota remained glued to his side.

They ran in the garden together and curled up on the porch under the sun together in wolf form.

At night, you often worked the late shift. You used to hear Dakota’s cries from down the hallway but ever since Fenrys began coming the cries had grown rarer.

You still checked. Still peeked in to make sure he was okay but now you usually found him with Fenrys’s old cloak draped over him.

One evening at home, you sat on the bed with Fenrys’s head in your lap, brushing your fingers through his hair.

“He’s getting better,” you murmured.

Fenrys nodded, eyes closed. “He has something familiar now. His parents were likely wolves too.”

You hesitated before asking what had been on your mind for days. “What do you think about adopting him?”

Fenrys blinked up at you. “Us?”

You nodded. “He’s doing better with you, finally acting like a kid…or a pup.”

You both chuckled.

“But there are so many triggers at the orphanage. The other kids, they’re kind, but they have their own trauma too. Some throw tantrums or objects and it can be triggering. And there is just always so much going on, too much to give him the one-on-one time he needs. I mean all the kids need extra love but when he can’t talk and we can’t be there all the time…I worry.”

Fenrys sat up slowly, the mood shifting from sleepy to serious. “And you think he would do better with us?”

“I know he will. It will be up to him, of course, but he needs to feel safe, and a routine, and if he was with us he could be in wolf form whenever he wanted.”

Fenrys reached for your hand and squeezed. “Then let’s ask him.”

The next day, you brought Dakota into the garden behind the orphanage where Fenrys was already waiting.

You knelt beside Dakota. “Honey, Fen and I want to talk to you about something important.”

He looked up at you with those sharp green eyes. Always watching.

You took a breath. “How would you feel about us adopting you?”

He blinked.

You kept your voice gentle. “You’d have your own room. You could see Fenrys whenever you want. No loud rooms. No restrictions on when you can be a wolf. Just a home and a family who loves you.”

Dakota looked back and forth between the two of you, then slowly wrapped his arms round you in a hug.

When you looked up, Fenrys was already looking at you with the biggest smile on his face.

That night, after finalizing paperwork, you brought Dakota home.

The castle felt different with a child in it. It had been a full house already with you, Fenrys, Rowan, Aelin, and how often their friends stayed over despite having their own homes.

Dakota explored in small doses, sticking mostly to your quarters and the gardens. He still hadn’t spoken, but you and Fenrys had learned his tells. The tilt of his head when he was curious. The twitch of his fingers when he was scared. The way he leaned into you when he needed comfort.

You decorated his room together. Dark navy blue walls like the night sky with stars and a crescent moon. A bean bag in the corner for when he was overwhelmed, and after learning he could read you got him books at various levels.

Fenrys and Dakota often roamed the castle together in wolf form, sometimes startling visiting courtesans. You learned Dakota loved to help cook, so before he and Fenrys went on their evening run through the woods he’d help you prep dinner, sometimes sneaking bites here and there. You’d teasingly scold him, but inside you were jumping with joy. He was finally putting on weight and every bite counted.

One night, as you were tucking him in, Dakota touched your hand and held it to his cheek.

A thank you.

You brushed his hair back and kissed his forehead. “We love you, pup. Always.”

Weeks turned into months. He started to hum. The same lullaby you sang to him. The same melody Fenrys whistled as he completed reports.

Dakota took to drawing. Quick, scratchy sketches that grew more detailed over time. Wolves. Trees. A trio of figures with linked hands. You, Fenrys, and him.

One evening, you stood in the doorway while Fenrys tucked Dakota into bed. Your mate kissed his brow and pulled the covers up to his chin.

After Fenrys closed the door he pulled you into his arms, pressing his lips to your temple.

“He’s like a completely different kid,” he murmured.

You nodded into his chest. “He just needed time and love.”

“Do you think he’ll ever speak?”

You hesitated, then smiled. “I think… he already does. We just had to learn the language.”

general taglist: @phamtastical @tele86

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[hipstergecko]

Waking Up.

Hey so remember that DPxDC prompt I wrote awhile back? I've been writing it! Here's a brand new chunk.

Ghost in a Box: Danny experiences extreme sensory deprivation after getting trapped in a coffin like box his parents invented. His box is opened on the JL watchtower after being found in an underground bunker. Humans can't do sensory deprivation for too long. Apparently neither can Danny.

Original Ghost in a Box prompt here.

----

Black bat was waiting. She was quite good at waiting. Sometimes on a mission you had to be patient. Still and silent. Waiting.

The boy that had come out of the box had been in the intensive care unit for days. He had been dehydrated and was terribly emaciated. He had been starving. How long had he been in the box?

They couldn’t ask him until he woke up. So she had been waiting.

Cass sighed and walked silently down the hall to the ICU. After they had gotten the boy into the medical wing, she’d gotten the whole “that was incredibly dangerous” spiel from her dad Batman. He was proud of her though. She could tell. It spoke through the lines of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. The softness of his hands. Hopefully that softness would be given to the boy from the box.

There had been multiple debriefs and meetings to discuss how to proceed with the boy. The majority of heroes were loath to continue opening boxes. What if they were full of creatures much like the boy? Capable of so much damage and danger. They didn’t even know what he was.

The documents they had uncovered called the boy a ghost. But after checking his vital signs, they found he had a pulse. He had a heart, breath, and blood. He was human.

But he was in the box. So he wasn’t. The members of Justice league dark had been contacted and were due to arrive any day now. They had been on assignment somewhere else. Cass hadn’t bothered to find out where they’d been.

None of that mattered anyway.

What had mattered, truly, was that the boy from the box was afraid. Afraid and unable to communicate. And Cass understood him. He was terrified and desperate. And Cass saw him beyond the horrors.

He was a child and he needed help.

So he was hers now. No matter what anyone else said. She reached out to him first and he was her new brother/son/child. Bruce would have to deal with it.

She had stayed on the watchtower, with Bruce’s blessing, since the box had been opened. She barely left the boy’s side much to Bruce’s chagrin. He was not pleased with the possibility of her being in danger. But Tim had pointed out that she was plenty dangerous herself.

She loved her brothers.

She stayed on the watchtower all the time now. Staying with the boy and only leaving the observation room to shower and eat on her own. The doctors had insisted, gently, that she should take some time to herself after those first few days. So she does. Today she took a hot shower and attended a few meetings to keep up as to what they planned to do with her new brother. She also got to spend some time with Spoiler who had just so happened to be on the watchtower that day (she sent a thank you message to Tim over the family chat).

She looked through the observational window, a frown hidden behind her mask. The boy was hooked up to various machines to monitor his vitals. His eyes were still covered and the headphones were still firmly on his head. He looked so small and frail against the bed linens. There wasn’t much more they could do until the JLD members arrived.

The doctors inside the room were gently cleaning the boy. Running a warm soft wipe down his arms and legs, checking his vital signs, laying a warm blanket over him for comfort. She watched impassively at first, then with intense interest as some of the monitors showed brain activity.

Signs of waking. Her new brother was waking up.

She was the first one in the room when the boy jerked awake with a gasp.

---------

Consciousness.

Discomfort.

Gravity.

The air tastes funny. His arm itches. His legs feel heavy.

Weird.

Danny floated on the edge of wakefulness. Or at least what he thought was consciousness. It was hard to tell anymore. Everything was a cycle of dreaming and waking, or was it dreaming and dreaming? It was hard to find reality. Nothing changed except the hallucinations his mind conjured. And even his mind had started to get things wrong.

He couldn’t trust his memories anymore. He couldn’t remember what life was like. If he saw his mother in the box with him, he couldn’t make out the details of her face. Or His father’s laugh. Or his sister’s hair. Everything was fuzzy. Distant. Faded from his memories.

Did he even have a family? Was that something he made up?

He couldn’t remember.

How long had he been in here? He’d stopped counting the days when his eyes ceased to glow. Recycled ectoplasm was good at sustaining a ghost, but not good at feeding a ghost. And him being only a few years dead, he was still developing powers. Well he would be if he wasn’t essentially being purposefully stunted in this stupid box.

What a stupid box. Can’t even sit up in it. It was more like a coffin than a box. It would figure that he finally got put in a coffin. Specially since he died all the way but not quite once already. How lame. Someone somewhere was probably laughing about this.

What was he thinking about? Oh yeah. His eyes stopped glowing. Made it harder to see what was real. He couldn’t see the shadows of his real hands and the lack of them on the images his mind conjured. It was hard to tell the difference. If he could even tell the difference anymore.

He probably couldn’t tell at all anymore really.

He floated beyond consciousness for a moment more, resisting the press upon his mind to wake. Better to sleep. After all, there wasn’t anyone coming to get him. The whispers were silent when he wasn’t in his mind. The voices stopped. The hands didn’t pull at his mouth and eyes. It was the only chance at peace he got.

Something touched him.

Weird.

Wait…

Something, no, someone was touching him. Moving his itchy arm. He felt hands on his legs, moving them under the heaviness.

The hands were touching him.

Danny jolted to full consciousness with a gasp. He violently jerked away from the hands and scrambled back. They’d never moved him before! They’d only tried to! He had always fought them off! They were just hallucinations!! His mind only thought he was being touched!! What happened?! How?! WHY?!

His breath came in larger gasps of air as he spiraled into panic. The hands, glowing and green, decayed and skeletal reached out of the darkness. Whispered words filled his ears, static and chiming all at once. He flailed out at them frantically, touching nothing. He whimpered. They weren’t real they weren’t real they weren’t real.

One of the hands grabbed his arm.

He cried out at the contact. The weak and raspy sound pulling painfully from this throat as he lashed out at the hand and fell back. The ectoplasm felt firm and plush beneath him.

Wait, was that really ectoplasm? Was this real?

Somehow in his retreat, he reached an edge. He slipped.

He fell.

He hit a hard surface and felt the air whoosh from his lungs. He choked on the strange air and grasped blindly around himself. There was no ectoplasm, nothing swishing around him as he moved. He struggled to breathe and reached frantically out to his sides.

There were no walls.

No walls, no ceiling, no swishing stale ectoplasm.

What…

He… he wasn’t in the box.

This couldn’t be real.

He scrambled back along what he felt was the floor until he hit something hard. A wall? He didn’t care. This wasn’t real, but it felt real enough to use as an anchor, so at the wall he stayed.

Danny grasped at his arms. Nails dug into muscle, piercing the skin and drawing ectoplasm. He felt the pain and it grounded him. He was real. He was still real. His breathing was still harsh, the panic still real. The hands still reaching for him weren’t real. The floor and wall weren’t real. He was just trapped in another hallucination.

He just needed to calm down and wait until he came out of it naturally or hurt himself into reality. Either way he would still be in the box.

Abandoned in the box.

He dragged his nails down his arms, leaving behind gashes that wept. He wasn’t concerned though. His ghost form would heal fast enough that it wouldn’t make a difference. All he needed was to stop seeing things that weren’t real. He’d shed enough tears over illusions of his friends and family. Been through enough terrors and memories to doubt his mind. He knew he was in the box. Once he found the box again he could try to go back to sleep.

He’d lost the will to do anything more what felt like a lifetime ago. All he had left to his obsession was protection. Self protection. Survival. Keep his human half alive. By staying a ghost and surviving the horrors of his mind.

It was all he had left.

He ran his hands up his arms to start tearing at his skin again and found… wetness? He hadn’t healed yet? He lifted a hand to his face and licked the wetness on his fingers.

Copper tang. The faintest taste of ectoplasm.

It tasted like… blood?

Danny’s heart stopped in his chest. Wrong. His heart stuttered in his chest and he scrabbled at his neck. He fingers found his pulse.

Oh no.

He had a pulse. He was human again!

The darkness surrounding him was suddenly suffocating, pulling at his breath and stealing his rational thought. He was real, but he was going to die. Humans can’t survive as long as he had without food and water and air! He couldn’t keep control of his ghost form and his human half was going to die! He had to change back or he would fail at doing the only thing he had left!!

He started hyperventilating and desperately grabbed at his ghost core. An immediate searing pain shot through his chest. The sound he made was akin to someone tearing paper and he fell over on his side. He began trembling all over.

That hurt so bad. That hurt so bad.

He couldn’t think. He could breathe but that just brought him closer to death. Tears welled from his eyes and caught on something just beyond his eyelashes, turning the blackness somehow darker. He was going to die and the recycled ecto had failed and he was going to die and the static wouldn’t stop and the hands wouldn’t let him go and he was going to die alone and forgotten he was going to die again nopleasenopleasenotagain-

Something touched his hands.

Danny jerked back and away, nausea surging up his throat. He pushed himself up only to vomit stomach acid. The only thing in his system. It burned as it came and went. His stomach clenched so hard that he curled over on himself. His muscles shook with strain as he hyperventilated. He couldn’t get enough air. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move…

Something touched him again. A gentle pressure on his back. Warm and soft.

He tensed beyond what he thought he was able. Rigid, but shaking in fear. He had no thoughts beyond the sheer terror of what he thought was unreality becoming reality.

Moments passed. And nothing happened.

The pressure on his back stayed. It did not grasp at him like the hands did. It remained gentle and soft. A warmth. It was different. It was scary.

It felt nice.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Danny’s breathing calmed. Slowly, he felt things around him. He felt the blood trickling down his arms. The cold floor under his legs. The soft, long shirt on his body didn’t close in the back or reach down past his knees. He was warmer than the floor which was strange, but made sense. He was human again. He couldn’t even remember the last time he turned back human. It was his greatest fear. To turn human in the box and die alone and small in the dark enclosed space.

But he wasn’t dying. He was breathing. The air was fresh. It tasted strange. His hands fluttered along the wounds on his arms. He felt pain and knew it was real. And the pressure on his back felt real.

Did… did someone open the box?

Hope hit him so hard that he began to cry softly. He couldn’t let himself hope, but he couldn’t deny it. Not when this all seemed so real. His crying grew harder. Harsh stuttering breaths that he couldn’t even hear. Which was kind of odd. Why couldn’t he hear himself? Did he still have ears? He slowly reached up and felt where his ears should be. There was something covering them. A hard plastic thing that went up over his head. Slowly his hands moved in front of his face. He found his nose and his mouth. They were still there. Then he touched the places where his eyes should be. He felt cloth.

His eyes and ears were covered?

Another hand touched his own and he jolted. It was as gentle and warm as the other hand. He could finally hear his ragged cries as the hand took his gently and intertwined the fingers. A gentle squeeze had the tears coming hard and fast. From fear or hope? There was no telling. A sheer outpouring of emotion.

Someone had opened the box.

And they were holding his hand.

He desperately hoped this was real.

----------

That's it for now! Honestly I'm just writing snippets of story beats and then stringing them together when the anxiety has quieted. I have an AO3 account now, but I'm still posting everything here first!

Nyeeeh keep an eye out for more I guess.

[mothmothm0th]

some dolls never truly feel Still until their Witch has consumed their heart. it is, of course, a vestigial organ by that point, encased in porcelain, clockwork, fluffy stuffing, what have you. but for that class of doll, though the heart is emaciated and shriveled, desiccated, mummified, it beats still. can you imagine it? the typical human form is built on flesh and sinew and bone. flesh is never Still, neither is sinew. fools might think bones are Still but discerning eyes know better. these are not merely glib observations about how freaky human bodies are but definitional to whatever the opposite of Stillness is. humanity? maybe. the point is, some hearts survive the doll tf, which adds a bit of w to the acronym for deffos.

if you're reading this and you're raw doll material, I wouldn't worry about any of this. the hearteaten doll is a taxonomy of its own. perverts, of a particular kind. some of you dolls for sure got a lil tingle from imagining the ideal witch they'll never meet outside of their daydreams reaching into their chest and plucking out their heart and if that's you? yeah you? come closer. good doll. let me just whisper something in your ear. you deserve a witch who actually exists, flaws and all. you deserve a witch who will eat your heart. funnily enough, that kind of yearning is very moth-coded of you. ie even heard a rumour through the grapevine that the hearteaten dolls' hearts might somehow be mothly cocoons! haha what a funny concept. I can neither or deny this.

now, it is best practices to save a doll from whatever fate its yearning heart might have for it. eating the heart is necessary to bring Stillness. the magic of psychosexual metaphors and somesuch. for the witch, it's sort of like grooming (no not that kind, perv), only you do it just once. so maybe like neutering? must research further.

so, the doll gets to be Still, the witch gets to fixate on fixing its little blorbo, and the cocoon?? it's a win win win! I mean cmon where do you think us witchly moths come from? go along, lil doll-to-be. find a witch to bare your heart to~ 🫀

[tgirl-communist-number-infinity]

I feel compelled by some recent realizations to share the story of my lifetime experience with weight, weight loss, fatphobia, and self acceptance.

I weighed 180 lbs for a lot of my early childhood, and got bullied constantly for it. It was comorbid with severe, impairing asthma that limited my ability to use my body at any pace faster than a brisk, if I was lucky, walk. Nobody ever blamed the asthma, they just called me out of shape, lazy - all the usual insults. I got kicked out of high school gym class in both grades it was a required course because I couldn't run fifteen laps of the gym. I never signed up for it again.

I was the school whipping boy wherever I went. (I moved schools a lot, because I'd lash out violently about this happening to me) One time in elementary school a group of boys hid behind me because they were being bothered by some girls, and knew they wouldn't get within ten feet of me outside the classroom where they were forced to. The first guy I ever hooked up with negged me to lose weight and join him at the gym if I wanted to do anything more serious with him.

Then a growth spurt combined with a two week vacation where I only ate ramen twice a day in high school shaved literally a third of that off. 120 lbs. My parents and I considered it a miracle. Suddenly I really liked how I'd come to look. I went from a frumpy, comely child to a heroin chic rockstar like David Bowie, and all the other imitators that chased after him, and I wasn't even trying!

I was skin stretched over bones. If I lifted my arms up every single rib from the collarbone to the stomach was pronounced, with gaps you could run your fingers along. This was before I realized I was trans, so I was mostly putting myself into the world as a twink (femboy hadn't really come into parlance yet, I'd probably have used it if so). People started treating me well for the first time in my life, I was popular. My romantic advances were reciprocated instead of pushed away in disgust for the first time in my life, I went on dates, I had a couple short lived girlfriends.

Some time in my twenties, I realized I was lactose intolerant. To both truncate and avoid needless disgust; once I took steps to mitigate that my weight rebounded back up from the 160 it had ended up settling at as my metabolism evened out, to 216. So I tortured myself with the most bland, boring diet in the world: plain oat cheerios, cashews, barely seasoned salads and coleslaw, microwaved chicken wiener sandwiches. It sloughed off the pounds, at first.

I hit a hitch around 180. I had originally wanted to go back down to 160, with the height I'd gained since high school that would put me in about the same ballpark range as how I looked then, and it's what the BMI scale says is healthy for my body proportions. But I simply could not go under 180.

Even a single cheat day a week, the recommended amount for any diet, would make my body snap back up by two pounds the next day, which took me the entire rest of the week just to get back to where I started. It was truly miserable, checking the scale every single morning and beating myself up over every single time my family took me out to eat or brought me leftovers.

So I stopped. I said fuck it, let my body sit at 185. Now? I can eat pretty much anything I want and it barely makes a dent in the long run. Recently checked in after three nights of stacked turkey dinner plates for the holidays, with eggnog and ice cream and a whole bag of christmas candy sitting on my desk next to me that I take occasional nibbles from. 184.8, exactly where I want it to be. The BMI scale says this is the borderline of overweight for my height.

An acquaintance who had known me while I was in that emaciated point in my life recently reconvened with me, and said that I looked a lot healthier. It was genuinely the first time anyone in the world had made a positive comment about my body outside of that short lived stint of emaciation. It was a genuine shock, because I hadn't up to that point considered for a second that I could possibly have looked bad to anyone at that point.

An article I doubt I could find with how bad google is nowadays once said that around 97% (I might even be lowballing it) of diets fail, because the body will slash your metabolism by 30% if you drop even 5% from where it wants to sit. I guess all I have to say is: listen to your body.

If maintaining your slim figure is a hobby all unto itself: with a meticulously crafted diet and double digit hour exercise regimen that you lock yourself in by checking the scale every morning? It's not worth it, holy shit. Maybe you'll end up with an extended illness that keeps you from working out for a week or two. Maybe your willpower will just finally give out, and you'll spend a week catching up on all the pleasure you'd denied yourself while you were dieting. But I know, from experience, that one day you'll just end up where your body wants you to be, whether you're comfortable with it or not.

I promise you that the freedom of accepting the weight your body wants to be at and being able to treat yourself guilt free will bring you so much more joy than having a thigh gap does.

[pencilpavlova]

Hi!!!! I don't know if you've been asked this before but how did you get mercutio? Tell him I say he's very handsome:3

Hello!! :D Ty for asking, let me give you-

✨️ Mercutio's Tragic Backstory ✨️

Mercutio was rescued as an injured baby by me and my bestie/Brainstorm Buddy @anonspiceart (they're largely responsible for the og pigeon heist) XD

We were in the city in August 2023, and came across the saddest little greasy-ball-of-drier-lint in the shape of a pigeon u ever did see.

Behold a 3 day post-rescue photo of him: 😔

Full, probably long, rescue story below 👇

The bby we saw was dragging one wing and seemingly couldn't eat properly, so we decided to try catching it. 🖐

Most birds that are dragging one wing can still fly (I call it the "Sickly Victorian Child Act" to get more sympathy food XD ) and often look really afronted when you try to help them.

Not so with Mercutio...

When Anon scooped him up, he barely even struggled; instead, he going limp and seeming to accept his fate because he was so weak.

A kindly old man saw us grab the pigeon and suggested Anon hold the birb inside their jacket. Then we caught the bus home, while pretending Anon had a broken arm and *that's* why they were keeping it tucked up 🤣

Just for context-

-both Anon and I have kept birds since we were kids. I am also a rescuer of native birds for work. In almost all Australian rescues, Non-natives are euthanised on the spot, so taking him elsewhere wasn't an option. Even getting vet care for a new rescue is nearly impossible! (Anon can attest to this for NZ 💀)

So we did birdy triage and found:

- no signs of canker (yippee!)

- the wing had been injured (and had scabbed over) but was not broken (double yippee!)

- more scabbed injuries on his head and breast

- bby was extremely underweight and couldn't eat alone yet (only 210g iirc 😔 )

- he was still peeping, not cooing, so was too young to be alone but there hadn't been any parents around

- very swollen feet and lumps on any exposed skin*

*We thought this might have been some kind of pox, so Anon came up with the name Mercutio after the guy from Romeo and Juliet:

"A pox o' both your houses!"

The "Scunge" part of his name was my contribution because, well

He scungy! (First photo of him ever lol)

We used bird-safe antibiotic ointment on the injuries and added oral antibiotics to the water. Also immediately lice sprayed the poor bby who was Very Itchy.

Anon had to handfeed for the first day or so, just to get some food into the emaciated little guy. Then we used YouTube videos of pigeons eating, stuck in a bowl of seed:

Which worked! He started eating unassisted after a couple of days of this.

Tiring work 💤

After a few weeks of recovery and feeding up lil guy as best I could, I found a vet who claimed to be versed birds.

It didn't start great because they had him listed as a Rat, not a Sky Rat /affectionate

But most importantly, Mercutio was granted a clean bill of "not super healthy yet, but will improve with TLC". And the "pox" turned out to just be Papillomavirus- harmless skin warts!

So maybe we should have named him Oliver instead...

Thanks anyone who read this far!! Hope u enjoyed learning about the story behind my sonby c:

More baby/glowup photos here

[lulublack90]

Prompt 4 - Marriage of Convenience

@wolfstarmicrofic May 4, word count 972

Sirius spotted him while out shopping for new shoes. They’d lost touch after school. He and James had gone to prestigious universities, but Remus’s parents hadn’t been able to afford them, so Remus had gone straight into working for his father.

Remus was slumped in a closed shop doorway. He had about three threadbare jumpers on and a grubby duvet tucked around his legs. He had an old fast-food cup sat in front of him and passers-by tossed coins into it. 

Sirius approached. He had to once he realised who he was. 

“Remus?” He asked. Remus slowly opened his eyes, as though it took a lot of energy. Once the recognition sunk in, his eyes began darting about, looking for an escape. He grabbed his things in his arms and lurched to his feet. “Hey, hey, calm down.” Sirius tried to calm him. He reached out to steady him as he swayed on his feet. “I have a flat down the road. Come and have a cuppa.” He wrapped his arm around his old friend and began to lead him away from the gloomy doorway. 

He put a steaming mug of tea in front of him and the tin of biscuits. He went hunting in his fridge and cupboards and made him a thick ham sandwich with a wedge of cheese and a whole bag of Doritos. “Eat as much as you want.” Sirius told him. It was only when he’d put his arm around his friend that he’d realised how skinny he was. Remus dug in as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Which could very well be true given the state he was in. When they’d been boys Remus would easily have been able to finish the entirety of food before him. But this emaciated man could barely get the sandwich down. He dunked a couple of biscuits in his tea and that was it. “Come on Remus. I know you can eat more than that.” He goaded slightly, worry marring his face. Remus shook his head. 

“If I eat more I’ll be sick.” His voice was barely a crackle from lack of use. It broke Sirius’s heart. 

“What happened to you?” He needed to know. He couldn’t understand why Remus hadn’t come to one of them. 

“My father caught me with one of his employees in a compromising position, and he threw me out with nothing but what I managed to get on before he shoved me out of the door.”

“What, he chucked you out because you were shagging Brenda from accounting?” Sirius scoffed. Lyall had always been a hard bastard. 

“Jeremy from marketing, actually.” Remus winced as he took a sip of his tea and added more sugar. 

“Well, I refuse to let you spend one more night on that street. You’re taking my guest room and that’s that.” Sirius folded his arms and dared his friend to argue with him. Remus didn’t have the energy anyway. 

The next morning, Sirius arranged a meeting with his solicitor. Remus was still sleeping, so he left him a note. 

“I’m sorry Mr Black, but unless you are related to him or married you cannot, gift him the amount you want to.” Arthur had stuttered at him. All he wanted to do was set Remus up, so he wouldn’t have to worry. Sirius could afford it. What was a house, a car, a new wardrobe and all the bills paid for if he got to help a friend? 

“Thank you, Arthur.” He shook his hand and left. Stupid laws. But there was a way if only he could get Remus to agree.

Remus was picking at a slice of toast when he got back. He sat down opposite him and put on his serious face. “Remus, I need to ask you something, and you aren’t going to like it.” Remus’s head tilted and his brow furrowed. “I want to help you. Like properly. I want to get you a house and a car and whatever else you need. But my solicitor says I can’t just gift you that amount without you being related to me or,” He paused for a second. “Married to me.” He let the words sink in. Remus’s eyes widened in shock. 

“You—you want to marry me?!” He stuttered, dropping his toast onto his plate. 

“Don’t worry, we can still see other people.” Sirius winked at him. 

“Shut up. No. I mean why? Why would you want to do all that for me?” Sirius took pity as Remus’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. He reached across the table and took his friend's hand in his. 

“Because my family kicked me out and disinherited me when they caught me in a compromising position with Bernard from IT.” Remus’s eyes grew wider. 

“Oh,” He said. Sirius moved around the table and got down on one knee. 

“Remus Lupin, will you marry me, so I can gift you all the things I want to and know you’re safe. I don’t want anything in return and if you want a divorce down the line, I’ll sign the papers. But please know I want this because you're one of my best friends, and you mean the world to me.” He grinned a crooked smile at his friend, which turned into a full beaming smile when Remus nodded his head. 

“Okay, yes. If you’re sure.” He swallowed and added shyly. “Do I have to move into a house straight away or can I stay here for a bit?”

“You can do whatever you want, Remus, stay as long as you want and when you’re ready we can talk about what you want to do. But just know you’ll have a very nice allowance as my husband.” He added cheekily. 

They started the paper work that afternoon and were married within a month. 

[edutainer2022]

A great discussion with @janetm74 about this prompt spawned a little Jeff and Scott thing in the early days of IR:

"Scott, I need you to give Kyrano a hand with debris outside!"

The father's voice was strained. Tightly controlled.

"It's okay, Dad! Lee has him covered. I can't let you go any further alone! The building is too unstable!"

"Scott, NO! I don't need you here!"

"It's fine, Dad. I'm almost there! We'll split the search, it'll go faster!"

"I said LEAVE! RIGHT NOW! Don't come any closer!"

He couldn't see his son flinch from the bellow, but he could hear pained hesitancy in the boy's hitched breath. He could hate himself for making Scott recoil later. Right now he couldn't let him SEE what was in front of him. The basement of the building they came to evacuate was obviously used by a human trafficking ring. Or worse. Emaciated, battered people were shackled to walls. They were probably abandoned by captors when the earthquake hit. Most were passed out. Or dead. Jeff would need to reroute Lee and Kyrano there with scanners and first aid kits, but he absolutely, under any circumstances could let Scott step inside. Not when he found his son in a very similar state, manacled and bloody, and barely breathing, in the bowels of a military compound in That Place - not enough time ago. There would never be enough time to erase the image from a father's memory. And he under no circumstances would allow triggering those memories in his son. Not after Scotty was on a good recovery streak - he was eating, he could almost sleep through the night with only one night terror, almost! Those were milestones Jeff would defend with his life. Maybe he was going overboard, hovering and doing the helicopter parenting he had NEVER done before in all of Scotty's life. Maybe it was twenty years or so too late. But Jeff couldn't risk it. Through an unimaginable strike of luck and inhuman effort he got the son back. A second chance to protect him, whereas he dropped the ball before. Too many times.

He was of two minds as to letting Scott train for the fledging Rescue mission he was building. The idea of letting Scott into danger AGAIN made him nearly black out. But the physical régimen was good for the boy. The trauma therapist confirmed the sense of purpose could also go a long way to advance the recovery. There was a SPARK in Scotty for the very first time since so painfully long. A determination. Jeff couldn't let that go to waste either.

Rhythmic steps echoed in the hollow pathway, and Jeff nearly collided with a slender frame in blue, running to him. Jeff used his slightly superior height and now vastly superior bulk to stop the kid on his tracks and forcefully rotate him to face away from the entrance. Scott was startled and struggled against the restraint, but he was no match to a father on a mission.

"Easy, Bluejay! I told you to stay away!"

"I can't let you stay in the building alone, Dad!"

There was hurt in the boy's voice. Disbelief. Scott would think Jeff couldn't trust him in the danger zone. He would hate himself for that later too. Nothing mattered now more than avoiding a flashback.

"Shhh, Scotty, I know that! Now let's go! Nothing to see here!"

"But, Dad!"

The head, shifting to crane to steal a look, was firmly pressed into his father's shoulder.

"It's okay, Scotty! Kyrano will deal with it. I promise! We're not needed, let's GO!"

"Dad, what's going on! You're scaring me! What's inside there!"

"Nothing, baby. I'll send Kyrano in and we'll help Lee with those debris, eh!"

Jeff hadn't talked that way to Scott since he was about three. Not true, strictly speaking. He DID talk to Scott like that through the excruciating weeks at the hospital, then at home - calming him down, placating to let an IV line in, soothing through nightmares and regressions. Jeff wasn't ashamed. He'd spare no cost to pull the boy out of the shifting sands of terror, swallowing him whole.

Here, on a rescue, the protocols had to be ironclad. They were professionals first. There probably would be hell to pay in Scotty's fury. Jeff didn't give a damn. He invested a lot of effort, time, energy, and resources into getting the cutting edge Rescue service off the ground. Time taken away from being there for his children. But he would scrap it all in a heartbeat if he saw it was harming his son more than helping him cope. So he tightened the grip on Scott's tence form and led the way out.

[itsdrawingmen]

I saw a dunmeshi art where they lined up the characters in their underwear, and got brainworms from it. I'm not really good at painted studies, it turns out, or maybe it just didn't work right now, but I like how the drawing came out. It was an excercise in different bodies, and I think they’re all neat.

Some headcanons and musings:

Zen has boobs, tits even, but that's canon, and all the time I was drawing him I was thinking about that selfie from his album where he's wearing a half-buttoned white shirt and his cleavage is visible. I am looking at him respectfully (not really, I am looking at him like this:

He's shaved everywhere, and he wears very plain, neutral-coloured underwear. His normal state is being pretty meaty, but he doesn’t like himself that way. He’s often dried out for his roles.

Yoosung is narrow-chested, thin, covered in moles, and comparatively kinda hairy — not by my European standards, but compared to the others here. He doesn't care about shaving, for himself or anyone else. He often wears funky boxers, and has sort of got a collection. Even when it's not funky-printed, his underwear is usually bright-coloured. He's cringe, but he's free. Also, not pictured, but he’s often covered in hickeys, normally from the chest up. Not gonna say who leaves them, but anyone who knows me even a little can take a wild guess 👀

Jaehee is wide in the hips and big-breasted. Her underwear is normally mismatched, because she doesn't care. The only thing she cares about is that it doesn't show through her clothes. In the canon timeline, she usually wears those thick stiff heavily padded bras that smooth everything out, and then over the course of the postcanon she gradually switches to softer cups. She's sedentary, often stressed, and doesn't eat well, so she's not really thin. She has acne on her face, neck, back, chest, and shoulders. She shaves because she’s too used to it, but she gradually gets more relaxed about it.

Next up is Joori Nam, the MC. She's a big, tall young woman, quite heavy and strong. She likes to show off her edgy and feisty personality in clothes and underwear, and she's also pretty expressive and energetic in gestures. She's depressed and a self-harmer. She barely shaves, only where is absolutely necessary to look ‘presentable’ for work. Otherwise, she can’t be assed.

The Chois are emaciated and scarred. They've both got some mild pectus excavatum. The Mother Choi used to stub cigarettes on them, and Saeran has got it worse.

Saeyoung is slightly more muscular and slightly less scarred. He has knobby square fingers, and nails bitten to almost nothing. He's also an active self-harmer. He's missing several toenails. All of his underwear is a little baggy on him.

Saeran is even thinner and less muscular. He has a lot of piercings, and his tattoo is blacked out into a full sleeve. He has barely any body hair at all. He is pretty much covered in cigarette burn scars, as well as scars from being whipped with cables, and several deep and crooked scars from gashes made with glass bottles.

Jumin, without his PR team, can't pose for shit. He is good at doing what they tell him, and he looks fine when photographed candidly, but as soon as he starts posing on his own, he just looks awkward and stiff. He has a weird case of CEO-body, where he's fit, but also weirdly soft in unexpected places (namely, his chest and arms). He shaves because it's 'hygienic'. He also wears briefs. Sorry, to me he looks like someone who wears briefs.

Jihyun is normally pretty toned, but after the whole ordeal with Rika and having to cover for her he has gained some weight and gotten soft. He has a long torso and wider hips and a bit of a belly. He hunches his back a lot, and picks at the skin of his fingers.

Rika is slender and dancerly, and very traditionally feminine. She’s small and graceful, not muscular, but soft, with smooth porcelain skin. She wears lingerie, always matching, always beautiful, and pretty much only owns thongs and tanga. Somehow, despite always looking up at people, she can easily make you feel like she’s looking down at you.

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Bloody Brilliant

First posted: October 8, 2019

Focuses on: Bruce Wayne & Kiran Devabhaktuni

This is my “behind the scenes” series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

Finally back at these for my own enjoyment after months away. I was in the middle of noting up this exact fic when my browser shut down unexpectedly and lost everything and I collapsed into a fugue.

Anyways.

I was innnnncredibly nervous about borrowing Dev for the first time, because I wanted to do a good job! But I also wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn't show @bowditch anything until it was done. She ended up being my sounding board for several plot points—the magnet, whether Dev should get stabbed or shot, the alarm system setup, how Dev is at throwing—without knowing it, because I am crafty and can weave questions unsuspiciously into casual conversation.

Dev’s flat was hardly his castle. It was a place to sleep, sometimes a place to eat, a place he tolerated but rarely enjoyed. It was just… a place.

Dev's ambivalence about his place was pulled directly from CEC, in reverse. I wrote it first, then went back to make sure the vibes checked out. They did.

The look of stunned disbelief on Wayne’s face when he had taken in the front lock had been almost funny. Less so was the genuine alarm from Alfred, who had been the first of the two to visit Dev’s flat and had been the one to call Wayne to begin with.

pulled directly from the chat, thanks Bow

In addition to a now fully wired flat with a door built to withstand Killer Croc on a rampage and walls bristling with listening devices and sensors sensitive enough to track Dev’s resting heart rate, Wayne had also added vigilance training to Dev’s barely tolerated self-defense lessons.

also this, thanks again Bow

He wanted to drop his bag off on the mat, walk out of his own shoes, scrub the antiseptic hospital stink out of his hair, and collapse into bed for at least as long as he had already been awake.

I think I mentioned this in another BTS but this is exactly how I think through activity strings. I'm like a Sim. Gotta connect those tasks in a sensible order. At least Dev doesn't chant reminders to himself like I do.

Shower, bed. Shower, bed. Shower, bed. It was a chant that kept his feet moving all the way to the bathroom.

Okay, maybe he sort of does, but mine are granular.

“What the bloody hell.”

When I did let Bow read the draft, she was instrumental in pointing out the places where Dev needed to swear more.

The intruder was short, no more than 165 cm. For some reason that exasperated Dev, to be held at knifepoint by a shorter man. Not that the vertically challenged couldn’t be dangerous—look at little Damian or even Tim—but Dev had spent his life shying away from taller men. It seemed unfair to now be threatened by a wee one.

165 cm, for the Americans, is 5'5", while Dev is over 6'. Also while Dev's exasperation comes from a personal place (spending his life being afraid of big men), we share it. I also get irritated when I feel other people aren't living up to their full potential when inconveniencing me.

The issue with this particular man (other than the knife) was he had a look Dev recognized, even while sleep-deprived. The hunched shoulders, the emaciated frame, the sallow skin, the scabbed sores across the face, the jittering hand and dead eyes… Dev had seen it more than once, both on the streets of Gotham and in his hospital’s own emergency room.

I rewatched the opening to The Sixth Sense for this and googled drug addiction symptoms. I can't remember which kind of addiction I used. I know very little from my own experiences, so googling was my go-to.

“The drugs, man,” the wee one hissed, and Dev fought the temptation to ask if he had checked at the end of his rainbow.

Dev is too sassy, literally. A joy to write, a pain to keep alive.

me 🤝 Alfred

Wayne was going to give him such shit for this. Timothy, too. Mugged in his own flat because he forgot to click the little button on his way out. Dev’s gaze skittered to his left. And forgot to lock his bedroom window, apparently. Such shit.

I wish I could say I would react with more focus and alacrity. Unfortunately, I find it useful to base bits and pieces of the Fam on myself and I damn myself with this bit.

It was ridiculous. He was standing in an flat rigged to high heaven by the bloody Batman and he couldn’t even signal for help because he had harangued Wayne into raising the sensitivity level for shouts after one too many gaming-based false alarms.

This was also from the chat, thanks Bow.

It felt like a nightmare, one of those horrible dreams where everything slowed and a dash felt like running through quicksand. He couldn’t gather the breath to shout for help, and the monster was on his heels.

I am so mean, putting him in socks.

A mass, rigid and weighted, slammed into his back. Dev stumbled forward and fell with a cry, head slamming into the cold, unyielding front of his icebox. Around him, his photos and magnets fell with a clatter among the shattered pieces of a stool. Shooting stars flamed in front of his eyes.

I was pleased to accomplish two things here, both the magnet (which was the whole point of the fic for me) and the head wound because I'd already had a flash of what I wanted to do with that in a bit.

Dev threw up his arm, for what little it would do him. It had never been much effective before.

:3

The shadow plucked the magnet from the air, then looked down at the plastic Bat symbol resting in its glove. “Did you just try to batarang me… with me?” the shadow asked.

That. That right there was the whole dang point of the whole dang fic, spawned from a conversation about bat-shaped magnets and who would own them. I'm always so glad when I get to use a line exactly as I first heard it.

Batman made a low noise that sounded like a grumble, one Dev had come to realize meant something like distress. Wayne had used it only yesterday to fuss over a dog-eared page Tim had left in his copy of Treasure Island. There was something perversely comforting about being placed on the same level as a bent piece of paper.

I had loved reading that book as a kid. The full, original, unabridged version. I can't even really say why now, but I do love giving Bruce similar interests when I can swing it.

Batman had taken a step back so he no longer loomed between Dev and the light. . . . Batman waited patient and still. . . . Giving Dev and the chaos around him a wide berth, Batman retrieved a clean hand towel from the drawer next to the stove and handed it to Dev.

He's no dummy, that Bruce.

The opaque lenses eyed him steadily for a moment more, then Batman turned away. He looked about until he spotted Dev’s bag by the door and rifled through the pockets until he found the mobile. After a quick dial and a few murmured words, he passed the device to Dev.

Ugh, figuring out the practicalities gave me a bit of a hiccup at first. They wouldn't just leave the intruder chilling on the floor, even restrained. But if I let Bruce leave, then Dev would take care of himself before Bruce could get back and do it for him but on the other hand if he weren't well enough to take care of himself, Bruce wouldn't feel comfortable leaving!

As always, Alfred saves the day.

Wayne shut the door, then crossed the space between the door and Dev to crouch just out of arm’s reach. “May I help you up?” “If you flip that switch by the door, the lighting’s alright.” Wayne nodded and backed away.

Bruce Wayne is NO FOOL and I love writing unspokens. Bruce knows better than to crowd Dev right now and when he asks for permission to help Dev up, Dev doesn't give it. Because he doesn't feel steady enough to get up. And Bruce gets all that without Dev having to say it out loud, so he pivots to meeting him on the floor instead!

One of those knees rested against Dev’s thigh as Wayne leaned forward to remove the towel. The warmth of it was grounding and Dev shivered as a piece of him came back to himself.

casual platonic touchingggggggg

The next bit of dialogue banter is also a fave. I like giving Dev the backward and archaic (to American ears) phrasings that work so well as Britishisms and I love him giving Bruce crap and Bruce giving it right back.

Dev retched, bidding a woeful farewell to the microwave burrito that had been his only food in the last eight hours.

The fact that I can, even when reading this, picture both the microwave burrito in question and the box likely means I pulled that detail from a memory. I don't like burritos, and certainly not frozen ones, so a memory of what, from where, who's to say. The mind is a mysterious thing.

He spat, then sat back again, this time against a warm brick wall of human instead of the cold metal door of the icebox. . . . “You’re alright,” Wayne said in a voice low enough to make his chest rumble against Dev’s back. It was a little like leaning against a tiger.

and now we're just being suuuuper indulgent. This was why I wanted to bang up his head. I want to use Bruce Wayne's chest as a backrest.

Wayne smacked a kiss against Dev’s temple and rumbled, “Yes. Hand me the kit.”

a gift from me to me

“Then I’ll get one every single day. And I’ll come check on you every single day.” Bruce nudged Dev into the room, then released his elbow to rifle through the dresser drawers.

THAT'S LOVE YO

He picked a pajama set off the top and placed them on the bed.

I spent too long frowning at this line during this BTS write-up. I can't decide if that's wrong, actually, because Dev would never be put together enough to have matching pajamas or if it's correct because he'd toss one into his cart out of expediency and laziness.

Dev hesitated and looked to the still-open window. Bruce’s mouth pressed into a flat line. “We’ll do something about that as well. You have the couch tonight, I’ll take the floor.”

I decided, as I was coming to the end, how I wanted it to end and that would not work if Bruce was on the couch in another room. Thank goodness I'd already set up the open window.

“You’ve already set off the heart rate monitor six times since I’ve been here, and if I went home now, Alfred would just send me back. Go to sleep, Kiran.”

This was also suuuuuper important to me, acknowledging that Bruce knows Dev but also has independent confirmation of how Not Good he's doing, no matter how well he's been hiding it, because the dang heart alert is still going off! I think I may have been feeling indeterminately anxious while writing this.

There was a hand in Dev’s, broad and calloused and strong. Dev held it while he slept.

I know exactly what Bruce Wayne's hand looks like and mannnnn I want to hold it so bad.

[sexiestwerewolf]

my new Ninjago OC!

more information ↓

I haven't come up with a name for him yet bc I suck at those but I've got a backstory

- He was outcast by his species before the merge because of a reason I haven't fully flushed out yet (thinking of making it so that he can't do any shapeshifting at all and making it an entire allegory), but he deals with a lot of feelings of inadequacy because of this and he thinks he's failed as an Oni

- he was outcast before March of the Oni and was lost between realms trying to find a way back home to the first realm without the power of the darkness to guide him. essentially the realm crystal is the EASIEST way to travel realms but it isn't the only way, and he spent a lot of years alone

-When the merge happens he's forced to live in a world he doesn't understand at all and a lot of people during this time are struggling to figure things out. He manages to find a job at Chen's Noodle House and starts to enjoy the life as someone who serves food so eventually he leaves with enough money saved up and opens up his own restaurant

- I like the idea of someone gaining weight when they're happy bc he used to be really emaciated and could barely eat even 3 times a week due to how hard it was to survive but now he's got a healthy relationship with food and his body and he's generally a pretty sound guy and pretty mature considering things. It doesn't look like he's fat in the image but from experience an apron will hide a lot of that lol

- He does a lot of introspection and his outlook on life is that "it's complicated and messy but at least it's life," and he usually looks at things from a realistic perspective while hoping for the best.

-He still gets irrationally angry at a lot of things though and often he'll find himself taking it out on inanimate objects and then he'll feel bad about it afterwards. He doesn't do it a whole lot in front of people, especially customers, but if he's comfortable around you you'll see him swearing and breaking things (usually with his claws on accident) a lot more

- Meets Lloyd a few weeks after the merge when he just started his job at Chen's and initially Lloyd is weary at first because yk he's an Oni and Lloyd had subconsciously associated Oni with bad and everything wrong in his life, but [name I haven't come up with yet] is essential to something Lloyd is trying to figure out so they need to interact and Lloyd figures out through sheer power of being exposed to something that HEY you dumb idiot your ancestry isn't evil or bad

- He had severe issues for awhile with meeting people's expectations and he constantly ran himself ragged trying to keep himself in multiple places at once. He felt like he had to depend on only himself for a while because of the fact he let down his Oni tribe and because of the fact he lived so long in isolation away from others. When he's hired by Skylor he burns himself out within the first week because he doesn't take a break except to go home and sleep.

- Y y y es this is meant to be an OC shipped with Lloyd but they're both demisexual here bc I will always make my favs be on the ace spectrum no matter what

-Hes 21 when the merge happens and by the events of s1 he's 27 (2 years older than Lloyd). He was outcast by the Oni when he was 15 years old (around the events of season 1)

-fun fact, Oni still have pupils in my hc you just can't see them very well. they're kind of like the changelings from mlp where they do have pupils once you look closely but they blend in so well with their irises that you can hardly see them. most Oni eye colors are red, purple, or blue. some are occasionally orange, yellow, and pink. [name I haven't come up with yet] has purple eyes

- he has so much fur/hair (think kind of like mohair on a goat) that he has to stuff a lot of it in his shirt and then use pins to hold it in place and he spends like 30 minutes each day just combing it

- he works out every other day to help clear his mind and to calm himself down but Oni are naturally pretty big anyways and really strong

- despite the fact he knows how to cook he has the worst appetite known to man and will not hesitate to eat the nastiest things ever. I like to think that anytime Lloyd gets offered gross food (as he's somehow done a lot in the show) he pretends to "steal" it but he does genuinely enjoy every single food he comes across and it's not just something that comes from his life of being outcast it also comes from his Oni biology. Though, he seems to be a lot more inclined to eat certain things even for an Oni

if it's not poison, it's food!

- has abnormally large ears for most Oni and he can hear slightly better than most people. it's also another reason why he stretch himself too thin while working when he first started because he believed everything he heard needed his attention and he was constantly trying to get to multiple places and do many tasks all at once

okay now imma go to bed hehe this was actually really fun

-has a better work/life balance in the future at the very least lol so dw

-has digitigrade feet! they're not very exposed bc he wears baggy pants all the time but if you look down you'll see he's never wearing any shoes and his paws are just out

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

Never have I Ever: Vampire AU?

I actually have never written vampires. Welp. Here goes a first try??? Am I crossing my vampire lore with zombies and werewolves??? It’s not usually my flavor and Idk what I’m doing, but here you go, Anon!

❤️ kdnfb

Never Have I Ever

RATED E: vampires and biting (duh), questionable medical stuff, sexual content, dark themes.

She should be relieved. Peeta is back. He’s been missing for nearly six months, vanished the night his brothers took him out for a surprise bachelor party. He’d last been seen on the bar’s security footage, stumbling, apparently drunk, in the arms of a woman Katniss hadn’t recognized. At first, the police suggested she was a prostitute who had taken Peeta out back of the bar to conduct her services.

Katniss refused to believe that. Not her Peeta.

Further examination made them postulate that she had somehow drugged Peeta and taken him against his will.

While that thought made Katniss violently ill, she was more willing to believe it than the prostitute theory. But why would someone want to abduct Peeta?

And as she stares through the widow of a surgery room at the hospital, Katniss doesn’t even try to hide her tears. Emaciated and pale, sweating with a dangerously high fever, the man they’ve identified as Peeta Mellark thrashes and fights the doctors, until they sedate him and strap him to the gurney.

In a daze, Katniss listens to the litany of his symptoms. He seems to be fighting some kind of blood borne disease. His heart rate is so low that the monitors keep declaring him flatlined. He’s not responding to normal fever reducers and antibiotics seem to have no effect. The only thing that seems to help are blood transfusions. They’re not certain yet if it’s contagious. Measures have been taken to isolate him.

His body shows signs of malnutrition, dehydration, and abuse. They haven’t ruled out the possibility of rape but won’t know for sure until he regains consciousness.

Her mother brings her coffee she barely drinks and food she barely touches.

“You need to eat,” her sister urges when she stops by during one of her breaks.

“Today should’ve been our six month anniversary,” she murmurs and pushes the flaky croissant away from her.

Eventually, he wakes. And Katniss is allowed to see him and speak to him through the glass.

He remembers her and presses his palm to the window, as though desperate to reach her. She places her hand so they’d be palm to palm if the glass weren’t between them.

“I love you. You have to let me go,” he says in a throaty voice and Katniss shakes her head.

“I can’t.”

Several days later, the fever finally stabilizes and now the doctors worry that his body temperature occasionally dips dangerously low. But he’s started eating, mostly meat that’s nearly raw, and his need for the blood transfusions has dropped to once every couple of days.

He still doesn’t remember what happened to him. That or he refuses to say.

On the day Katniss brings him home, Peeta stares around their apartment as though he doesn’t recognize the place at all. He can’t remember simple things like where he stores his favorite whisk or how the living room window often sticks and has to be juggled a certain way before you can open it.

At night, he refuses to touch Katniss.

She tries not to take it personally. The police now firmly believe he was taken by and escaped from some kind of human trafficking group.

She tries to tell herself that he’s just traumatized and will come back to her eventually. If she’s patient and loving enough.

His appetite has changed drastically, and Katniss rarely, if ever, sees him eating. He never baked or cooks for her anymore. He refuses to leave the house. He seems almost scared to do so. He can’t sleep at night. He does paint again, though. Sometimes he’ll lay in bed with her until she falls asleep, but when she wakes up, he’s locked himself in his studio. When he emerges, his skin will be pale and flecked or smeared with paint. Dark circles will ring his eyes. At least he’s painting, but he seems to take no joy in it and he refuses to let Katniss see any of his work.

When she suggests maybe he should seek out a therapist, someone he can talk to about what happened, he loses his temper.

They fight. They fight like they’ve never fought before. Katniss can only describe the expression glittering in Peeta’s eyes as malice as he yells at her that she’s asking too much of him.

“What the fuck do you want from me?”

“I just want the man I was going to marry back! Just for one night, I need you to be my Peeta!”

“And what if I can’t? What if the cost of me being like that again is impossible to pay?”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

She breaks down in tears after he storms from the apartment. Hours later, when he still hasn’t returned, Katniss drags herself to bed and stares at the empty pillow where Peeta’s head should be.

She sleeps. Fitful and marred with terrible, blood soaked dreams. She must sleep because she wakes to Peeta nuzzling her and whispering her name, inhaling at her throat and moaning.

She’s missed that sound. So desperately that she doesn’t question the sudden change or demand an apology. He licks something dark from the corner of his mouth and she shivers at the heat glittering in his cool blue eyes.

“I want to taste you. Katniss, I need to taste you now,” he practically growls. They push her shorts down just enough for him to slide between her legs. She sighs and then moans, her fingers clinging to the silken strands of his hair as his tongue relearns her taste.

He hasn’t forgotten much, she barely has time to think as he drives her so quickly towards orgasm that she doesn’t bother to quiet her moans. Damn the neighbors and courtesy.

She’s still dazed with an earth shattering release as Peeta settles between her spread thighs, licking her from his lips and grinning down at her as he teases her entrance with his tip.

“I miss this so much more than real food,” he whispers, his teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. Before Katniss can process his strange words, Peeta thrusts his cock inside her. He feels different, somehow, but he moves too deep and too quickly for her to name the difference.

And it feels good. So impossibly good, especially when Peeta kisses and nips at her neck. When she comes again, his moans and frantic thrusts tell her he’s right there with her. His teeth sink into her neck and his entire body shudders, and his euphoric moans border on obscene. Dazed and drugged on pleasure, Katniss sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep before he even pulls out of her.

He’s different after that. More like himself. He still refuses to go out much at all, and never alone or during the day. He still won’t talk about what happened during the six months he was gone. He still doesn’t cook and barely eats. He still won’t let Katniss see his paintings.

But he holds her at night and once a week, he’ll wake her and ravenously make love to her.

He’s been home almost a year when Katniss turns on the news one morning, singing to herself and scratching at the spot where Peeta bit her last night when he came.

“And it seems this couple suffered the same ritualistic style killing as the last three pairs. Their bodies were entirely drained of blood—“ Katniss pauses with the bread hovering over the toaster, honing in on the words. “—and left in a dumpster behind a bar. The killings seem to be happening at regular intervals, about once a week.”

“Hey,” Peeta says as he wraps his arms around her from behind and nuzzles her neck. “Anything interesting happening in the world?”

She drops the bread into the toaster and flicks off the tv. Turning in his arms, she smiles and kisses his lips.

“No. Nothing is wrong. Life is wonderful.”

[mathanlin]

// mentions of past starvation/hypothermia

Witch/Hybrid AU where the SBI coven are all Piglins — and human!Tommy pretends he’s one of them. 

It’s simple. A potion he takes every morning, shifting him into the perfect Piglin child, warm and lovable.  

But when it’s time for SBI to hibernate, Tommy can’t follow. 

As they prepare, Tommy keeps frantically pretending.

“You need to eat more,” Phil says worriedly, nudging another bowl of mushrooms toward him. His supposed ‘favorite.’ Another lie. “Store up for the winter, mate.”

It’s so kind, Tommy barely has to force a tusky smile.

He’s lucky. 

For having that shapeshifting potion the first time he met them, begging for help. For being able to stay, to steal ingredients for a hundred more potions.

To have them, even if it’s only because of a lie. 

And even when he slips up, they just teach him. 

“It’s okay,” Wilbur reassures, when Tommy shakily explains he doesn’t understand the chuffing sound Phil made. “You didn’t have anyone to teach you.”

He's right. Tommy didn't have anyone for *anything.* Not until the coven.

And they're about to leave him.

“This spot’s for you.”

Techno lays a massive blanket right in the middle of the nest. Tommy’s fake, stolen instincts wail as he sets a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, smiling softly. 

(Tommy knows it’d be a snarl if he’d forgotten to take the potion that morning.)

“You tell me if it’s uncomfortable, kid.” He laughs — or at least, that’s what the short chuffs apparently mean. “Even if you’ll be fast asleep.”

*I won’t,* Tommy wants to sob. *I’ll be awake. And you’ll all leave me.*

*All winter, I’ll be alone.*

And there’s nothing he can do to stop them when the first frost comes. 

It’s Wilbur who drifts off first, buried in the nest at Tommy’s side. Then Techno, pulling him close as he slides into sleep. 

Only Phil stays awake, eyes half-lidded and voice slurred.

“Are you okay?”

Tommy nods, shivering against Techno’s slow-falling chest.

Phil huffs worriedly. He pulls another blanket over Tommy, chuffing in concern so deep it’s painful. “Sleep. I’m here. You’re safe.”

*I know you’re here,* Tommy thinks. *That’s the problem.*

But words can't convince Phil, so deep in his instincts. Only actions.

So Tommy forces his eyes to shut, breathing steadily even though all he wants to do is sob.

And when Phil curls around him, sliding into unconsciousness, Tommy doesn’t lean into his touch.

Doesn’t wake him.

For that night, he can pretend everything’s okay. That he’s not wide awake, trembling as the coven sleeps. 

It’s only when the sun rises that he lets himself cry, sobbing when the potion wears off for the first time in ages. 

Just a reminder he never belonged in the first place.

He forces himself to stand, pulling away from the coven’s embrace & flinching when they huff quietly at his absence, still deep in sleep. 

And he tries not to shiver when he slips out of the magically warmed room. 

Because being alone isn’t just an emotional war. 

He has a winter to survive. 

Food, to find (as he refuses to steal any more from them). Cold, to bear (so he doesn’t sleep in the nest & risk disturbing them). 

But without them, he’ll be right back where he started. 

And this time, they’re not awake to save him.

.

.

.

It’s Techno that wakes early, ripped out of hibernation.

He knows immediately what’s wrong — the cold spot where Tommy should be. Dazed with sleep, he rips open the nesting room’s door— 

And a human kid tumbles in from where he’d been leaning against it.

It’s not hard to piece together.

The potion ingredients that’d been stolen — potions for shapeshifting. Tommy’s confusion about Piglins (despite ‘being one’). The tattered clothes the kid’s wearing — *Tommy’s* clothes. 

And the way he slurs, “I’m s’rry,”” before passing out.

It’s a coma.

Tommy’s starved, entirely emaciated. His human skin’s icy under Techno’s hands — too cold, even for a human. 

And even when Phil & Wilbur frantically wake from their hibernations, Tommy stays in his. 

They’re all thinking it, even if it’s not said aloud — *We left him.*

So this time, they don’t leave. They hurry him into the nest, desperately using every kind of magic they can to break the coma — and it works.

But when Tommy wakes, he’s delirious. 

And utterly terrified.

“I woke you up.”

It’s spoken with horror, though Tommy’s voice is painfully weak. He lets out a sob as he looks at himself — frostbitten, starved, but worst of all, *human.*

And in their nest. 

“I’ll— I’ll leave—”

“Are you fucking serious?”

It’s Wilbur that snaps out of his relieved stupor first. 

“Leave? Look at you, you’re half fucking dead, Tommy.”

(*Look at you. You’re human,* Tommy thinks.)

“I’m sorry, I can— I’ll go—”

“No,” Wilbur cries, incredulous, “Tommy, we want you to *stay.*”

“Why?”

It’s quiet. But all of SBI hear it.

Even the words Tommy doesn’t speak — *I’m human. I lied to you.*

And Phil still reaches towards him, letting out a comforting chuff.

“C’mere, mate.”

Though Tommy stays frozen, Phil wraps a thick blanket around him, gently nudging him towards the center of the nest — the spot they’d set up for him. The spot that’s still his. 

Whether he’s a Piglin or not.

It takes months of consoling to assure Tommy he belongs there.

But they have months. Instead of hibernating, they just rest, always awake enough to attempt to Tommy’s needs. Food, water, warmth. 

But he’s most relieved to have them. 

And they’re overjoyed to have him. 

[jumpywhumpywriter]

Beauty and the Freak part 12

Warnings: malnourished, emaciated whumpee, poor/judgmental treatment, human refered to as 'it', 'creature', and 'beast'

The whole table was quiet as Annabelle dug into her meal, ignoring all the stares but one -- Silas was watching her intently, not touching his food.

Annabelle swallowed a mouthful of beans and opened her mouth to let him know he could eat -- but Silas did it himself, to her surprise, fumbling awkwardly with the fork next to his plate and using it to spear a bit of turkey meat.

Oh. He'd been staring at her to figure out what the custom on how to consume food was here -- so he could mimic her. Clever guy.

But the way he struggled to handle and coordinate the single utensil in his hand had Annabelle wondering how many times he'd been made to eat off the floor or use his bare hands, if he'd forgotten basic human motions.

Annabelle's father quietly cleared his throat, snagging her attention from across the table.

"So, uh, how have the past days been, with... your birthday gift?" Theo gave a weak effort at striking up a conversation. "Has it given you any trouble yet?"

Annabelle narrowed her eyes at the word 'yet'. It sounded like her father was hoping for an excuse to kick her new friend out onto the streets -- or return him to Austin, the terrible man that had done such horrible things to Silas in the first place. "He's been very well-mannered and gentle towards me. He poses no danger."

"Don't underestimate people like him -- you don't know what they're capable of," her mother suddenly hissed in a burst of anger -- before calm composure took over. "I would like to request placing two guards outside your bedroom to assist if things with your beast ever... got out of hand, or if you needed help controlling him."

Annabelle gave Sofia a wounded look. "I'm not a helpless child, mother. Those guards won't be necessary," she whined.

“You won't be saying that if your creature suddenly turns on you unexpectedly. You'll wish you'd listened to me then – I thought you were smarter than this.”

Annie bristled with frustration. Her parents always treated her like she was a stupid toddler, always questioning her choices and butting into her business and walking all over her. It was infuriating.

“He's not some vicious creature,” Annabelle growled through gritted teeth. “He's a person, and his name is Silas.”

Sofia waved a dismissive hand with an arrogant scoff. “Hardly,” she retorted. “From what I've seen, he's more beast than man. What does that make him?”

“Of course he'll look like a beast to you if you keep treating him like one!” Annie snarled, slamming a hand down on the table and pushing out of her chair. Her parents were despicable sometimes – always thinking they were better than everyone else. Treating others like animals. Disgusting.

Even though her anger wasn't directed at him, Silas flinched hard when she slammed her hand on the table – startled enough he dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter and stared wide-eyed at Annabelle, his focus like a heavy weight on her as he watched to see if she'd lash out and hurt him.

Annie could see in his eyes that he had instinctively braced himself for pain, and she immediately regretted her outburst, settling back into her seat with an apologetic glance at him.

Silas didn't pick his fork up again, and Annie cursed herself for scaring him so bad.

“Can it even talk?” Theo frowned.

"Him. It's a him, not an it," Annabelle corrected bitterly.

Her father near-imperceptibly rolled his eyes with an annoyed sigh.

"Can he even talk?" He amended dryly. "He's staying awfully quiet over there."

Annabelle looked at Silas, who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, clearly anxious about all the attention he was receiving and not sure how to appropriately respond to it.

"You can talk, if you'd like,” she prodded quietly. "You have my permission, or whatever."

Silas gave her a surprised look, swallowing hard as he lifted his gaze to stare across the table at Annie's parents for the first time, both of who were watching him with nothing but hostile contempt in their eyes.

"I... can speak," he rumbled, low and uncertain. Glancing at Annabelle to see if that was good enough -- Annabelle nodded.

Silas's jaw worked as he mustered the courage to say more. "Your daughter... has been very kind to me. I would never harm her after the incredible mercy she's shown me."

Annabelle couldn't help a small smile. This was the most she'd gotten him to say in every day he'd taken to recover this far.

She hoped his words would reassure her parents of his harmlessness, but they only narrowed their eyes at him further in harsh judgment and scrutiny.

"Keep him on a tight leash, Annie dear," her mother said sweetly, eyes shifting to her daughter. "Remember your deal. If he steps a toe out of line or hurts a hair on your head, he gets put down. Understand?"

"You don't need to remind me," Annabelle hissed angrily. Her parents were being absolutely awful right now! She'd expected them to at least have a shred of dignity at the dinner table -- but apparently even that was too much to ask of them.

They were too fussy and overprotective of her, specifically after her sister died. It was like any bit of freedom she'd had before was stripped away after her sister's death -- her parents always wanted her to stay close, stay safe, keeping her from exploring. Probably as a way to ease their consciences over failing one of their daughters. But it was too much, way too much.

Annabelle abruptly stood up, face red -- then spun around and stalked off. She didn't have to listen to this garbage for one second longer -- and Silas didn't deserve the beat down he was getting either.

"Silas, come with me?" Annabelle asked. Silas got up from his seat, but she caught him giving his still mostly-full plate a wistful, hungry glance before obediently turning to follow her lead.

"You can bring the food," she added quickly.

Silas's face slacked with relief, and he scooped up his plate in both hands, trudging after Annie as she marched angrily out of the room and back to her sleeping quarters, leaving her fuming parents and their servants behind.

The moment she and Silas were back in her room she locked the door and flopped on her bed with an agitated groan.

"Ugh, my parents are unbelievable sometimes!" She lamented. "I'm sorry you had to go through that -- I should've known they wouldn't bother hiding their disgust. It's so unfair of them not to even give you a chance!" She rolled onto her side to look at Silas, who had carefully taken a seat at the edge of his own bed and was staring down at the plate of food in his hands, making no move to eat it.

"Are you... not hungry?" Annabelle asked with a frown.

Silas risked a brief glance up at her before quickly looking down again.

"I... thought you were angry with me," he mumbled. "And you didn't give me permission to pick my fork back up when I dropped it, so I assumed you didn't want me to finish eating as my punishment for flinching. I'm sorry."

Annabelle blinked dumbly at him, trying to see if he was joking.

He was dead serious, apparently.

"I'm not punishing you for being afraid!" Annabelle gasped indignantly. "That would be so cruel!" She bit her lip, a cold realization hitting her. "Do you... always have to ask permission to do things?"

Silas nodded grimly.

"But you didn't wait for permission when you picked up the fork the first time," Annabelle pointed out.

Silas cringed. "That was... a mistake. I didn't mean to do that – sometimes I forget I'm not supposed to be a human and that I'm supposed to either be a loyal pet, or a weapon. I'm sorry."

Right when Annabelle thought she couldn't possibly be more horrified with what had been done to him, this happens. This was way more horrible than anything she would have imagined. To strip someone of all humanity and freedom of choice whatsoever??

It was barbaric.

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