#Cave answers

[sentientcave]

Honest question. What tags do I use in ao3 to give me the EXACT vibe of retirement party? Bc I’m craving more like a junkie and I need a fix 😭

I have no idea! But here, have a little something from a few chapters ahead that I wrote in a fit of inspiration after reading this by @syoddeye. I might also recommend looking at Sy's work! They have lots of really good stuff in there. Also @391780 has a ton of awesome stories and was a big inspiration for how I write John Price. I always assume people have read their work but if you haven't? You're in for a treat.

Spoilers ahead, kinda, sorta. It could get scrapped if things take a turn I'm not expecting! I don't know!

The hand on your shoulder pulls you out of your focus.

You startle, knocking your headphones back from your ears with the back of your hand, smearing paint on your cheekbone. John stands above you, holding a glass of water like a peace offering.

“I knocked, but I don’t think you could hear me over your music,” he explains. “Haven’t heard a peep from you since this morning, and I was starting to worry.”

“What time is it now?” you ask, reaching for the glass and then pulling your hands back. Your hands are covered in paint. “Oh, shoot. I should’ve grabbed a rag. Give me a tic, I’ll wash my hands.” You try to uncurl your legs, and fall sideways into John’s legs. “Hm. Okay.”

“Legs asleep?” John sets the glass of water on the dresser and crouches down to help you rearrange your unresponsive legs out in front of you. He reaches for the glass of water again. “Poor thing.”

“My own fault. I thought I set an alarm, but I probably just typed the time into the calculator app.” It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Pins and needles prickle up and down your legs.

“You need to drink this,” John says, holding the water up to your lips. His other hand curls around the back of your head to grip your messy ponytail, tilting your head back so he can carefully pour water into your mouth. He makes you drink the whole glass, one sip at a time, his eyes turned dark, blue nearly eclipsed by black. Your eyes fix on his, something soft wrapping around your brain as you watch the way his gaze tracks from your mouth down to your throat and back up. When the glass is empty, he sets it aside, but doesn’t let go of your hair. He tips your head back again, tracing his thumb across your lower lip, collecting a few errant drops of water.

Your lips part, and he slides his thumb inside your mouth, his breath catching as he presses down on your tongue.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he growls. Your clit throbs at his words. You curl your tongue around the digit, tasting the salt of his skin. The hand tangled in your hair tightens just a little. “You ready to let me take care of you?” His thumb pops free.

It takes a moment for you to collect yourself enough to speak. “Please.”

Dividers by @/cafekitsune

[luxaofhesperides]

Soulmark AU + Sleeping Beauty ; requested by @candeartist422!

For the last few years, Duke’s been waiting for his soulmate to die.

It sounds cruel to say it that way. But the waiting is more painful, he thinks, than just mourning a lost love. It’s not like most people ever meet their soulmates anyways; his parents weren’t meant to be, but they still loved each other and had a life together. He wishes he could turn his focus away from his soulmate, but Duke is a romantic at heart and has always wanted to find the other half of his soul.

But since he was fourteen, his soulmark has dulled, fading in and out of color. What was once a vibrant blue crystal star, with eight points and a swirl of watercolor hues around it, dimmed more and more until Duke was sure he was watching his soulmate die slowly. 

His soulmate didn’t die then. Whoever they are got better, his soulmark gaining color, but it never went back to the way it was. For years after, Duke would check at the beginning and end of each day, keeping track of when it faded and when it regained its color. 

He thought his soulmate was sick. In and out of hospitals, fighting to stay alive.

And then it went nearly colorless. 

Duke doesn’t remember much about that day. He knows he woke up, brushed his teeth, the lifted up his shirt to check his soulmark in the mirror. The blue was almost completely gone, the star on his left hipbone nearly gray with how colorless it was. He started at it for a moment, shocked, and reality slid away from him as he retreated into the safety of his mind, fully dissociating. 

Bruce had found him when Duke didn’t show up for breakfast. He held him and offered quiet words of comfort that Duke couldn’t understand, but just having someone with him lessened the hurt of losing his soulmate. 

Seeing the color come back the next day, faint as it was, hurt even more.

A year later, Duke still can’t break the habit of checking his soulmark twice a day. It hasn’t changed at all, still faint and dim, but carrying just enough color to show that his soulmate was still alive. At the very least, they were still breathing, but his chance of ever meeting them is basically zero. Still, he can’t help but hope, wishing that he could meet them even once before they die and leave him forever. 

“Same as ever,” he murmurs to himself as he brushes his thumb against his soulmark. He’s terrified that he’s forgotten how beautiful the blue of it was when his soulmate was healthy. 

Duke doesn’t let himself think on it too much anymore. Though his thoughts often turn to his soulmate during quiet moments like these, the busy nature of Gotham is usually more than enough to pull his attention back to the here and now. There’s no use in obsessing over his soulmate anyways; they’re just going to die, sooner or later, and Duke knows he’ll never get to meet them. They’ll just be another empty space in his life, right next to his parents. 

“Come on, Thomas, focus,” he tells himself firmly, then gets dressed and heads down to the kitchen for breakfast.

The manor is quiet. It usually is in the mornings, with everyone from the night shift dead asleep and trying to get as much rest as they can before they have to start their day. Not that many of them stay in the manor these days; Duke and Damian are the only permanent residents at the moment, but Steph usually stays half with her mom and half in the manor during the summers when she’s home from college, and the others drop in whenever they feel like it. 

Bruce lives more in the Batcave than the manor, so he doesn’t really count. It’s also why Duke is surprised to see Bruce awake and dressed like a normal person, drinking coffee in the kitchen as if this is a normal occurrence. 

“Morning,” Duke offers.

“Good morning, Duke,” Bruce replies. “Sleep well?”

“Well enough. Alfred out or something?”

“He may have kicked me out of the Batcave to clean it up a bit,” Bruce answers tiredly. “Want me to make breakfast?”

Duke has heard the horror stories of Bruce’s attempts to make edible food in a kitchen. In the interest of not dealing with food poisoning, Duke shakes his head quickly and says, “Nah, it’s fine. I was kinda wanting to eat out for breakfast. Get out there as me, and not a mask, you know?”

“Mind if I join you? Alfred may forgive me for not sleeping if I willingly go outside.”

Duke laughs. “Sure man, as long as you pay.”

“I’ll drive, too.”

“What, don’t trust me behind a wheel?”

Bruce gives him a tired look, eyes dead and dull. “I have taught all my children how to drive. The day I willingly let them take the wheel when I am not actively dying is the day I’ve been replaced by a robot clone of myself who doesn’t know better yet.”

“That is… very specific. Is that a thing you usually worry about?”

“I’m Batman. I have to worry about everything.”

Yeah, that tracks. Duke wouldn’t be surprised if he has at least five contingency plans for that scenario, should it ever happen. “Well,” he says, “Right now, all you need to worry about is having your wallet and driving us down to The Foodie Nook. I’ve been craving their breakfast plates for ages.”

Bruce doesn’t object to his choice of restaurant and follows Duke down to the garage, grabbing a random set of keys and pointing it out to the many cars he owns. One near the front blinks its lights as it unlocks and Duke cheerfully tosses himself into the passenger seat as Bruce opens the garage door. 

The drive into Gotham is smooth. They don’t hit traffic until they reach the bridge that leads into the city proper, taking them away from the quiet of Bristol. The morning is busy, but not enough that Duke worries about being out as the Signal to help keep the peace. It’s a normal type of busy, one borne from people going about their lives, feeling safe enough to go out. 

The Foodie Nook is entirely local and very popular, so the parking lot is nearly full. But they expanded their space last year, which means he and Bruce don’t have to sit outside while they wait to grab a table. Bruce keeps conversation light and casual, well aware of the many listening ears around them, and it’s nice, feeling normal for once. 

Well, as normal as life can be with Bruce Wayne™. The server who comes to lead them to a table realizes who she’s talking to after she gets a proper look at them while holding open the door and promptly stutters over her words. 

“No need for any special treatment,” Bruce laughs lightly, “We’re just here for breakfast. Nothing special.”

“Of course,” she replies, cheeks red. “Um, right this way! We’ve got a table by the windows for you. Just two, yeah?”

“Yup! Just two. Thought this was a good day to spend some time with Duke. He’s a great kid, you know, I’m glad I was given the opportunity to foster him.”

The sunny, cheerful Bruce Wayne persona is so different from the usual Bruce he works with that it feels like he’s standing next to a stranger. But his words are sincere and warm his heart, filling up the gaps that his soulmate has left. 

“Here you are!” their server announces, showing them to their table. “I’ll be right back with some menus.” She’s gone in a rush, and other customers glance over before quickly averting their gaze. 

It’s one of the unspoken rules of Gotham: give the Waynes their privacy while they’re out in public. Questions and conversation are for public events only, but if they see a Wayne out and about during a normal day, everyone leaves them be unless spoken to first. Duke used to follow those rules as well when he was just another Gothamite. It’s strange being on the other side of that now that he’s in with the Waynes.

Duke barely has to look through the menu when it’s handed to him. The breakfast plates are his favorites and he gets one every single time he comes to The Foodie Nook; stacked full with breakfast foods from around the world. As a kid, he loved the Mexico Plate, but these days he’s craving either the Brazilian Plate or the Vietnamese Plate.  

He can’t decide on which one and thinks about tossing a coin to decide, but seeing how that’s Two Face’s whole thing, he decides to hold off and settle the matter with eenie-meenie-minnie-mo. 

He gets the Vietnamese Plate.

Bruce, on the other hand, reads through the entire menu like it’s a novel, then leans over and says rather loudly, “Duke, what’s a tort-illa.” 

The pain he feels hearing that is only worsened by the amusement in Bruce’s eyes. He’s doing it on purpose, playing up the Brucie act for the public so he can psychologically torment Duke. A few nearby customers choke back laughter, turning away to hide their smiles. 

Duke shakes his head and says, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just food. Don’t ask any more questions, I just want a peaceful breakfast.”

“Well then,” Bruce replies, “I suppose I know what to order now.”

As if she was summoned, their server reappears before them, cheeks still looking a little flushed. “Hi! Ready to order?”

She writes down their orders quickly, valiantly keeping a straight face at Bruce’s mispronunciation of tortilla, then heads off to deliver their orders to the kitchen. 

Rather than draw out a conversation with Brucie Wayne, Duke settles for playing a few idle games on his phone; his current favorite is one quiet cat cafe game where he directs cats into fulfilling cafe orders. 

Bruce, despite being out in his civilian identity, is working. He’s on his Batman phone, which looks the same as his other cell phones except this one has a bat symbol sticker just barely hiding a Superman sticker on the phone case. His brow is slightly furrowed as he reads whatever file he’s accessing from the Batcomputer. It’s a little worrying but it could be anything. Bruce makes the same expression when he reads one of Tim’s snarky comments getting quoted in the news.

But that’s not Duke’s problem! He’s here to enjoy his breakfast and it will take the end of the world itself to remove him from his seat before he’s done eating.

The game takes most of his attention until their food comes out, and by then Bruce has tucked away the smallest of his Batman mannerisms. They enjoy a normal, peaceful breakfast. Bruce ends it by asking their server if she has any debt that’s weighing her down, then giving her a tip that’s at least five thousand dollars above that. 

She does cry and Bruce hugs her. It’s very sweet. 

As soon as they get back into the car, his easy going smile drops and Duke knows some superhero nonsense is about to take over his day. 

“Duke,” Bruce starts, seriously, “I received a message from Zatanna.”

“Don’t drag this out,” Duke says, “Just give it to me straight. What terrible thing is about to happen to us?”

“It’s nothing too big. They just recently defeated a magical being who had been tearing apart secret government facilities in Illinois. He had both magic and a high tech weapon, which they confiscated and are delivering to me. The government agency he was fighting was suspiciously interested in the weapon, and based on their behaviors and newly revealed work, Zatanna made the decision to turn the weapon over to us so it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Bruce smoothly merges into traffic as he speaks, getting them onto the road back to the manor. There’s a look in his eyes that means he’s keeping a lot unsaid, and Duke knows without a doubt that whatever this government agency was doing is bad if Zatanna needs Batman to act as extra security. 

He’s not sure about her decision to trust the weapon to be safe in Gotham, either. Sure, Batman will keep it as safe as he can, but with their luck, it’ll end up in the hands of a Rogue and lead to a lot of death and destruction. 

As soon as they cross the bridge and return to Bristol, Bruce steps on the gas and the car tears down the road. Without any other cars to worry about (or traffic laws), it takes barely two minutes to reach the manor, when the gates open for them and let them into the garage. 

Alfred waits for them by the door, looking them over with a critical eye. “I see you have managed to go outside, Master Bruce. What’s the special occasion?”

“Just breakfast,” Bruce answers. “I’m heading back down to the Batcave. Zatanna will be here soon to deliver a weapon.” He’s gone before Alfred can say anything more, hurrying down the hall and turning the corner, disappearing from sight as he heads towards his office. 

“I see we have yet to break that bad habit of his. Did you enjoy your morning out, Master Duke?”

“Sure did, Alfred. I’m, uh, also going down to the Batcave. He’s definitely not telling me a lot about what’s going on, so I’m just going to read about it over his shoulder. I’ll be back up for lunch, though!”

“And perhaps you’ll be able to drag Master Bruce away from that cave of his,” Alfred comments wryly as he walks with Duke towards the office. He gives Duke a nod, then splits away from him, returning to the kitchen where Duke can hear Damian speaking to someone, probably Tim by the annoyed tone of his voice, and mentally wishes Alfred luck in handling them.

Duke sets the correct time on the clock in Bruce’s office and heads down to the Batcave, taking the steps two at a time. 

Bruce is already at the Batcomputer, shoulders tensed, when he arrives. 

“More bad news?” he asks as he makes his way over.

Bruce doesn’t bother looking away from the screen as he says, “More details about the fight. It seems the magical being called himself a ghost and was going on a rampage due to a betrayal. He says they nearly killed his son.”

“Oh, yikes.”

“And two of the scientists working with the government agency said that he stole their son and is keeping them from saving him.”

“Yikes,” Duke says with more feeling.

He doesn’t get to hear anymore details about JLD’s fight with this ghost when he catches a flicker in the corner of his eye. Duke turns and stares at the empty space in the Batcave near the medbay and watches as colorful magic gathers and swirls in dizzing circles. The portal opens a moment later and Zatanna steps out, looking exhausted and lightly singed. 

“Batman,” she greets, holding a white gun that looks like it belongs in an early sci-fi movie from the 60s. “The GIW is trying to arrest us. Constantine keeps burning their badges and documents so it shouldn’t be a problem, but they are determined to get this back. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came after you next. They’ve got some way of tracking things, but I didn’t have time to get any details before I had to leave.”

Bruce takes the gun from her hands carefully, looking it over with a sharp gaze. “Why would a ghost want to use a gun?”

“I don’t know. He had a variety of powers, too.”

“What does this do?”

“Shoots ice. He never let it go and nearly burned me alive for taking it before we subdued him.”

“We’ll keep it locked up,” Bruce promises. 

Zatanna sighs. It looks as though a physical weight fell off her shoulders. “Thanks. I’m going to head back to stop Constantine from getting into a fistfight with the GIW agents.”

She opens another portal with a waved hand and a muttered spell. Bruce is already walking away to set the gun down on a work station, so Duke is the one to wave Zatanna goodbye. 

By the time he reaches Bruce’s side, the gun is already dismantled, all pieces neatly set aside. Sticky notes denote which pieces go together and in what order. It looks the same as most guns, save for the aesthetic, but the heart of it is a glowing blue orb, large enough to cover the entirety of Bruce’s palm, and it brings a chill to the air.

Duke stares at it and feels his soulmark burn ice cold.

“Duke?”

It’s in his hands. He doesn’t remember reaching out to take it, but it’s in his hands. He can’t take his eyes off of it, cradling it gently and bringing it closer to his chest. 

It’s the same blue his soulmark once was. Before his soulmate began to fade, before every day became a waiting game to see how long his soulmate will last before they die. 

This has something to do with his soulmate. He’s sure of it. 

He won’t let anyone take it from him. 

“Duke. Give that to me.”

He doesn’t feel like he’s in his body. He’s detached, floating somewhere outside his body, puppeteering his limbs, making them move without feeling the motion. Shadows condense around his feet and Bruce takes a step back, wary. 

“Duke,” he says again, but Duke can’t find any words, can’t draw on his voice, can’t even look away from the bright, bright blue of the orb. It pulses lightly in his hand like a heartbeat. 

Bruce reaches a hand out. 

He’s pulled back by shadows before he can get close, and Duke holds the orb against his chest, right against his heart, and feels the cold seep into him. 

“Duke. I need you to look at me.” This time, Bruce’s voice has Batman’s growl in it, a heavy command that he can’t help but instinctively follow. He looks up and meets Bruce’s eyes, but he can’t focus. All his awareness is in his hands and the heartbeat of the glowing orb.

“I have to protect this,” Duke manages to whisper. “I… I think it’s alive.”

“Okay. Let’s get you to the medbay so you can sit down. We’ll figure this out, Duke.”

Bruce slowly, carefully, sets his hand on Duke’s shoulder. He keeps his attention away from the orb, so Duke allows it and lets Bruce guide him to the medbay and onto one of the medical cots. Bruce leaves him after a minute of quiet fussing, muttering about calling Zatanna.

Whatever. None of that matters when the heartbeat of the orb grows stronger, steadier, and Duke feels it match the beat of his own heart.

Time slips away from him. Distantly, he hears people move around the cave, speaking in low tones. A hand presses against his shoulder, warm, then moves away. 

The orb in his hand moves. 

Duke blinks slowly, then claws his way back to awareness, pushing past the haze that’s fallen over his mind. The orb turns over in his hand, then cracks right down the middle. The glow grows stronger, washing the medbay in blue light and a symbol appears on the orb.

It’s his soulmark. 

Later, he won’t be able to say why he did it. There were no thoughts, no reasonings, no explanations. Duke simply moved on instinct and lifted the orb up to his face and pressed a soft kiss against it. 

One moment, the orb was still.

The next, it had burst in a flash of light that blinded everyone in the Batcave, and then a thin, injured teenager had fallen into Duke’s lap. 

Hands immediately grab him, pulling him away from Duke. The teenager puts up no fight, eyes barely open, but he reaches for Duke weakly. On his wrist is the bright blue snowflake, the color strong and vivid. 

“That’s me soulmate,” Duke whispers as he watches Bruce and Tim set the boy down on another medical cot. 

“What?” Tim says, turning to face Duke, concern clear on his face. 

“That’s my soulmate,” he repeats, louder. Then, panicked, he pulls up his shirt enough to see his own soulmark; the color is still dull, weak, barely there, but it’s more blue that it has been in a while. He doesn’t need to say anything. Tim sees the dullness of his soulmark, looks at the boy, and puts the pieces together on his own.

“I’ll call Doc Thompkins,” he says, already moving to fix everything. Bruce remains where he is, making sure the boy is tucked in and breathing steadily before he returns to Duke. 

“Are you alright?”

Duke swallows roughly, unable to tear his eyes away from the boy. He’s pale and thin, as if he’d been starved, and there’s frost beginning to spread on the bedsheet from his fingers. “He’s my soulmate,” Duke manages to say. “He’s been dying for two years.”

Bruce’s eyes a hard, a determined light in them. “We’ll save him,” he promises. 

If anyone can, it’s Batman. 

If anyone can, it’s them, Batman and the Signal, and their entire network of family and friends. 

Duke’s been waiting for his soulmate to die all this time. Now, he’s going to save him.

[trek-tracks]

all our yestertweets

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bonus 9: So that's where the turtle came from!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[three-penguins-in-a-trench-coat]

you live in pelican town. The farmer comes up to you, covered in slime, gore and other fluids. They have not slept for two days, and are functioning on caffeine and rage. they' lost the ability of verbal communication after the twelfth cup of coffee. They hand you the foot of a rabbit, it's the eighth one this month. You do not question where the rabbit feet come from. The farmer looks really hot today

[hinamie]

not a question but i'm losing my mind a little bit over airbender gojo.......in lok we learn that airbenders can unlock the ability to fly by severing all earthly tethers.....and what happened to gojo's tether? his one and only???? can he fly because he killed suguru? i'm not okay

that would be a good theory!!! if gojo was an airbender :3

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[thatsbelievable]

[howlonomy]

sand

who the fuck is that guy

[shinynewmemories]

Katniss in her Pre-Peeta Era: " Being out in the woods with Gale . . . sometimes I was actually happy. " Also Katniss (in the cave with Peeta):

" 'And right when your song ended, I knew— just like your mother — I was a goner,' Peeta says. 'Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.' 'Without success,' I add. 'Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,' says Peeta. For a moment, I’m almost foolishly happy [...] " Also Katniss (in bed with Peeta):

" 'You didn’t have any nightmares last night,' he says. He’s right. For the first time in ages I’ve slept through the night. 'I had a dream, though,' I say, thinking back. 'I was following a mockingjay through the woods. For a long time. It was Rue, really. I mean, when it sang, it had her voice.' 'Where did she take you?' he says, brushing my hair off my forehead. 'I don’t know. We never arrived,' I say. 'But I felt happy.' " Also Katniss (in love with Peeta):

" As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta’s child could be safe. [...] When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta. "

[fisheito]

found a baby yaku amidst the Sketchbook-glitch-corruption wreckage..... wondering if he flipped skin tones between black and red and everything in between until he saw his to-be-grandparents (and started mimicking THEIR skin tone....... )

[sentientcave]

Hello hello! I’m interested in hearing more about your Rugby fic! What’s it about and who does it feature?

Hey there, howdy, hi!

Rugby is a Ghoap x 2ndPOV FTM OC/Reader (He's got a name and a nickname (Ripley/Ripper), but it's not clear if it's a first or last name). Astonishingly little actual rugby happens. It's mostly just silly boys being boys in love (Ghost and Soap are actively trying to date Ripper and he is like, hahaa they're such good friends).

Here's a lil snippet (There's also a few lil snips in the list of WIP Wednesdays listed at the bottom of my masterlist if you'd like to know more). This is mostly a texting bit that I don't think I've posted before.

You text Johnny and Simon as soon as Liv gets off you, opening the group chat that Johnny set up, which is mostly just Johnny sending you tiktok links and Simon sending pictures of dogs and cats that he sees.

Ripper: hey lads. Asking a big favour, but could you put me up for a week? Roomies got family coming and their accommodations fell through. No problem if you can't/don't want to, won't be pressed about it.

Soap: !!!!!!!!!!!

Soap: r u fukkin kiddin me rn Rip? Course ye can stay

Ghost: Only got one bed though.

Soap: Rip's just a wee feller we can squeeze him in

You laugh. As if you’re going to be choosy about the sleeping arrangements when they’re doing you a big favour.

Ripper: Lads, I will gladly sleep on the couch. Or the floor tbh. Bathtub even.

Ghost: Nah just kidding.

Ghost: We have a guest room.

Soap: we've got a playroom 2 if yed like to see it

Ghost: Johnny

Soap: Yeh LT?

Ghost: Shut up.

Soap: Get yer arse over here n make me

Ghost: In a minute. When do you need to come over?

"Hey, Liv, what day are they coming?"

"Wednesday, they'll be here in the evening."

Ripper: Wednesday. Could come home with you after practice.

Ghost: We'll pick you up so you don't have to lug your bag to the pitch. Be there 6:30.

Ripper: Thanks, lads. You're lifesavers.

Soap: nythin 4 u Rip.

Soap: n I mean ANYTHIN

Soap: jcudheiks

You figure that's Simon making good on his promise to make Johnny shut up.

[jbbartram-illu]

hello ! do you think you're going to sell cave painting mugs? i would love to get one and cherish it

I am indeed going to be selling them! These two will be in the next shop update (sometime in the middle of Nov) & I'll be working on making more for future shop drops, so this isn't your only chance to get one!

[muzzleroars]

If Gabe went to s-2 would he see Mirage, nothing, or would he see some other high school metaphor for his own fears and anxieties? assuming Mirage is a manifestation of v1's complex feelings on it's fragile mortality spawned by the terminals and hell toying around with different torments thus replicable with Gabe as protag.

I imagine Mirage world Gabe would be a sort of class council member that was kicked out due to their failures and is now too ashamed to face any of the students who once looked up to them and so needs help seeing their own inherent value and that their broken relationships can be healed with effort.

i really do like the idea that 2-s is sort of v1 facing its own anxieties, which involve its growing sentience and the coming of the end at the beginning of its new life. given the idea now that machines may be coming into consciousness (even developing a "soul") due to their blood consumption, it's possible v1 has just absorbed enough blood at that point to start the process by the time 2-s comes around...and it's thinking "why?" to be an unthinking, unfeeling machine is much preferable in its given scenario. the world has ended. resources are finite. how is it that now, after years of nothingness as a prototype, that it finally begins to enter life. it has to decide how it wants to see this, to become existential and view this intelligence as a terrible burden, or to allow itself to live in this limited time it has in a way it sees fit. mirage gives a voice to this part of itself, and v1 chooses how it wants to respond before it enters into hell (essentially choosing to go forward, in whatever way that means).

ALL THAT TO SAY yeah i think for sure, if gabriel did see anything, it would similarly manifest his current dread at the crossroads he's found himself at. he's given up everything he was and could have very little time left, so what can he possibly do? coming to a place like 2-s would have him confronting the new life he's chosen so close to the end, and dealing with a past that could easily lock him in when it's too ingrained in his very being. and i think you're right about there being a heavy emphasis on making amends, yet feeling like that can't be done or whatever he could do would be far too small. it's all further compounded by the fact that the pain of all of this, burdened with what he's chosen, has now turned out to be something he can no longer see goodness in. it's the collapse of an eternity that he's not even sure he can escape from....so i think his 2-s counterpart is really going through it.

[eggsploded]

never posted THIS CLIFFY!!!!!!!!! oops

[lennsart]

mermaid legend freaking out over mirrors

or normal legend with a mermaid mind

Hi, I think you must have seen one of my posts asking for ideas for train sketches ? But since I am not in a train anymore, you get a ✨fancy tablet sketch✨!

I've mentionned Legend struggling with the fact that he looks like a monster in A cave like a net... I think if he found a piece of mirror, he'd struggle even more D:

The other idea made me snort, I might do a lil something for it too... :D

Edit : I did

[meirimerens]

MEIRI!!!! i am taking a class in art history and i wanted to ask about your favorite paleolithic cave paintings, cause i know you're very passionate about that!

OOOHHAHHGRGHH MY GODDDD

YOU'VE AWAKEN MY EVIL POWER......

okay so this is gonna be real hard for me to choose. like reallll hard. but i think i can narrow it down. i don't know how much #info you need or how much Lore you care for me to add, but you've activated my trap card, so now you're stuck in the cave with me, i have the torch, and if you try to leave you won't find your way back. okay. let us start.

GENERAL LORE:

at least in the Franco-Cantabrian geographical and paleo-cultural area [this thing], which contains some of the most famous painted caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, Pech-Merle, Altamira, etc, one main currently reigning hypothesis, because it allows to explain the most amount of [gesture] Stuff Going On, is that cave art exist within a magico-spiritual system of belief of the animist persuasion likely with shamanic elements. The places where walls were painted in the caves, were very, very rarely Living quarters. paleolithic tribes prefered to make camps outside, or just at the very entrance of caves: the depths were Hard to navigate, dangerous, possibly inhabited by predator animals. you didn't got to these places to fuck around; you went because you had a drive, you believed in something about them.

Jean Clottes (one of our main prehistorians in France, who wrote Pourquoi l'Art Préhistorique ?, or "Why Prehistoric Art", translated into english as "What is Paleolithic Art" which is fucking stupid, the "why" is the whole question he's trying to answer in the book, is this guy fucking stupid) identifies 4 main concepts that exist within indigenous, nomadic or semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherer, animist & shamanist societies and peoples, that are widely distributed (as such having "universal" elements) and could, likely, have been found within paleolithic societies, and possibly give us clues to their belief system, which are:

the INTERCONNECTEDNESS: of animal species between one another (explaining the numerous accounts of paloelithic art depiction species together, or separated), and of human and animal: including through mythologies in which humans were created from animal(s), or animal(s) later changed into human(s).

the FLUIDITY of the living world: animal species are recognized as kin, for they can become it; animal species are given, or projected-onto attributes that make a tribe, a clan, recognize themselves in it

the acceptation of the COMPLEXITY of the world: paleolithic people likely had deep, complex mythologies and cosmogonies, which we might Never, Ever, know anything about (this drives me insane.) their language, and their rites, might (have) reflect(ed) an understanding of the complixity of nature, or animals, that sedentary, then later capitalist societies might have lost the nuances of.

the PERMEABILITY of the living world(s). this again is seen in beliefs in the permeablity between human & animal, human a animal, animal as human: this is also where Shamanism might come into play. shamanism(s) rest(s) upon the conceptualization of the world as divided-but-permeable between a physical, living world, and an unseen, spirit world: the Shaman is the mediator, the person who can freely go between these two worlds, to communiate, to heal, to direct, to plead, etc. AND, and this is where it gets real interesting for The Caves: potentially, the belief in the permeablity of the cave rock itself: multiple painted sites might contain hints of a belief in the cave being the place where spirits dwell; and painting them is less "calling" or "invoking", even if there might be some of it, but rather "revealing". the cave itself, maybe, could (have) be(en) considered the place where spirits dwell, and come forth/from. more about that later.

WITH ALL OF THAT IN MIND. at least in the franco-cantabrian area, the placement of cave art is, very Very likely, extremely deliberate. it is not just the art that counts, but where it was made. we can ask ourselves, why it was made here, and not elsewhere. i am picking my answer on this axis. some caves might be so beautifully painted, but are The Vibes here? if the expression of this potential magico-spiritual complex and tens-of-thousands-of-years-spanning(!!!!!!!!!! this is nother thing that's fucking insane btw. did you know we are as close to Lascaux as Lascaux is to Chauvet, another very ornate painted cave. MULTIPLE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS) is visible, or #feelable, let's mention it. now onto the good part

CAVE ART THAT DRIVES ME CUCKOO CRAZY:

THE NIAUX (pronounced "Nyo") CAVE

reason: i've been there. twice. sobbed both times. came out changed like genuinely. made me go back to uni. the Niaux Cave is located in the Ariège (a-ryeh-juh) département [think smaller than a state bigger than a county] of southern france, in the Pyrénées (pee-reh-neh) mountains making the border with spain.

the almost entirety of the art is concentrated in the "Salon Noir" of the cave.

now. come close and listen to me. the Salon Noir is some 700 meters from both the modern entrance and the prehistoric one. today, like back then, you have to navigate rough, slippery terrain, crouchspaces, and generally accident-inducing (source: my dad slipped & fell just like our guide warned us about) walking space. for most of the way, the ceiling is 5 to 10 meters above, and the walls relatively close together (but not claustrophobic). the Salon Noir seems to be "indicated" by, on both of its sides, red symbol markings. now listen to me. the Salon Noir's ceiling is twice as high. even with modern lamps, you struggle to see it. now imagine. having walked all the way there, in the Wet, the fire of your torch or your grease hand-lamp to guide you, and suddenly not only can you not see the ceiling anymore, but the rock seems to speak back to you. the echo is intense, in the Salon Noir, way more than anywhere in the lower-ceiling'ed cave. your voice carries on for 5 full seconds, if you sing the rock continues singing after you. did you know? in france and spain, studies have shown that most parietal (=cave wall) art corresponds to particular acoustic features. did they sing? did they play the flute, the drums? did they use lithophones: the stalagtites & stalagmites, hit of small sticks, to make them ring? in the Salon Noir, most of the animals are bisons, as is very common in the franco-cantabrian area. now this is just something fun that our guide told us, possibly nothing more than an interesting coincidence, for its truth would rest on an unproven-hypothesis-within-an-unproven-hypothesis, but did you now that the female bison has the same gestational period as the human? 9 months.

the bison to the right, with the red markings and the "eyebrows", is my dad's favorite: he says its profile looks like him, with his beard and his big nose, which to be fair, truly it does. in a previous-previous-previous-previous life my dad as an upper paleolithic era bison. this is my dad's paleolithic fursona.

my favorite is this horsie. see? she smiles.

so does this one on the left, a protome (= name for the depiction of only the front of an animal, of a human)

PERGOUSET (pronounced per-goo*-zeh) CAVE

(* but the "oo" sound is short)

i'm cheating a little. because this is not painting, it's carving. but i consider sculpture an art, and parietal carving to be as important and interesting as parietal paintings, so. take it or don't!

yeah the whole cave. you'll see why. basically if i think about Pergouset for too long my skin starts melting i foam at the mouth etc. anyways. since the cave is closed to the public, and basically only available to researchers' viewings, it is quite hard to find images of it, so we'll just ball on this one.

Pergouset is located in the département of the Lot, in southwest-central france. this region is Plentiful with caves, including Pech-Merle that is basically next door, and Lascaux 1.5h away. why this one & not any of those two? well. come closer.

okay. the pussies & this guy with his penis out cave. what's her deal. Well, first piece of lore is to know that, in the grand scheme of franco-cantabrian paleolithic cave art, human representations are minimal. animals make up the majority of depictions, however, "archetyped" or "stereotyped" human figures that insist on sex characteristics are Plentiful. and within representations of that, "female" archetypes outnumber "male" ones by a lot. basically you cannot cough on a paleolithic "human" depiction without landing on a vulva frankly. many such cases in life as well. one of the hypotheses, which Michel Lorblanchet brings forth in his book La Naissance de la Vie: Une Lecture de l'Art Parietal (from which the picture above is from) is that it could be part of a belief system in which the cave, the whole cave, itself could be a "female" principle or archetype: the whole of the cave a matrix, a uterus. basically its giving, it's giving birth. one of the biggest data point he has for that hypothesis is the Pergouset cave. in the Pergouset cave, carvings of vulvae rhythm a long narrow passage following an underground river. the 3 vulvae could represent that of pre-birth, that of currently-pregnant (with the line in the middle, like the pigmentation line on pregnant belly + carved over a convex part of the stone), and that of currently-actively-giving birth: "vulva 3" is just two streaks in the rock, surrounding a naturally-occuring hole in the rock: as if that feature of the cave itself had been recognized as It's Giving Birth / hereditary voice I Am Your Mother. as you can see on the picture, vulva 1 is all the way back in the #depths, in the #dark, and vulva 3 the closest to the exit, indeed to the light ( -> it's giving birth). now. and this is the insane thing. foaming at the mouth like unwell arms shaking rn. i've had to go pace 4 times since i started typing. in the depths of the cave, the animals that are carved are less (see the numbers on the picture). but also, they're... more fantastic. stranger, more unusual. lacking the realism that is typically associated with parietal art. they're... as if from a dream, an undetermined land of weirdness, of amorphousness. as they get closer to the light, they get more numerous, they proliferate, life crawls the walls: they become also more and more realistic. as we reach the last carved vulva, as it is giving, what is it: giving BIRTH, animals are numerous, abundant, fully formed, their visible selves in the world outside: it is as if the cave itself, the depths of cave itself, gave birth to these animals, formed them inside of itself, let them out from this unknown, amorphous, strange land beyond the stone, where human cannot reach. humans went in, and meticulously, sometimes using a natural relief in the stone for an eye, a feature, "released" the animals from the stone, "revealed" them from their state of hidden-inside-of-the-depths-ness. the whole cave this Mother from which all the animals drawn on the walls emerged.

tldr