#I'm really proud of this one :D

[skz-vla]

Twenty Five Inch Dreams

✦ TV producer Minho, Rock Band Guitarist Jisung, Strangers/Enemies-ish to Lovers, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Falling in Love ✦ Minsung, for minsung bingo and han bingo on twitter ✦ Chapter 1/2, 17.6k ✦ Not rated

[kokoskwark]

Happy birthday to the maknae on top <3333

[eyenaku]

SUN FIZZYFAZ CUP GLAZED!! YEYEYEYAYAAYA!!

[babykittenteach]

A young Ed in a fairytale style illustration.

[zu-is-here]

[ ? ]

Aftermare Week by @bluepallilworld

Geno by loverofpiggies

Nightmare by jokublog

[flowercrown-bard]

A while ago I wanted to embroider some pride flowers on a shirt

How it started

How it's going now

[missingn000]

hey all, i wrote a fic about the complex father-daughter dynamic between doflamingo & baby 5 from crocodile's outsider pov! i’d really love if you gave it a read. thanks so much!

link

happy reading!!

[silvadour]

[owlpellet]

Negative Energy.

(🎵)

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @zu-is-here 🎉

I'm so happy I had the opportunity to join in a collab for once hhh xD especially when it's something as sweet as a hug bomb for one of the kindest souls I ever interacted with online waa have a great day zuuu >:'Dc <3333

[agir1ukn0w]

One Piece (2023) 1x06 - Luffy's little smile

[mel-loly]

-Luffy! <3

[blackjackkent]

Camp scene with Lae'zel was sweet enough as far as it goes:

"It is not in a githyanki's nature to say 'thank you'. Our language doesn't even have a phrase for it. Chraith'kan zharn is the closest equivalent I know - 'May your enemies know agony.' But after releasing me from Orin's grip, there is only one proper response: Thank you. Sincerely."

"You're welcome."

"Ah, hm. Well. Good then. Let's carry on."

It was kind of cute - she approved and got a little bit flustered and awkward about it. But - realistically, the game can't offer me an actual scene that matches my specific Hector headcanons.

And I think there's a far more interesting way this reunion could play out. >:)

-----

There's a flicker of some magic dispelled as Hector unlocks the chains binding her to the altar; in a flash, Lae'zel's eyes are open and she is up off the stone, rocketing backwards away from him and the others. Gauging the situation in a quick sweep of her eyes, she comes up with a sword off the body of one of the dead cultists and has it up in both hands, warding off an attack that does not come.

Hector goes utterly still, both hands spread at his sides.

Silence. She stares at him with a baffled, hunted look; the point of the sword trembles minutely, then steadies as she redoubles her grip. "Hector?" she rasps.

He nods slowly. "It's me. It's all right--"

Even barely conscious, she moves like lightning - a sudden dart forward this time. He's weakened from the fight with Orin and not expecting the blow, which cuffs the hilt of the sword across his jaw with an impact that makes his ears ring. Her free hand grabs him by the collar and pulls him in a throw he's almost certain she learned from watching him fight; the momentum flips him up and over her hip and lands him in her place on the altar.

She kneels over him, the blade at his throat, her eyes full of blind rage and tortured pain.

"Is it not enough?" she snarls. "Is it not enough that you have tormented me, all these days, that you now appear before me wearing his face? Do you think me such a fool?" The cold metal presses over his jugular. "It is you who are foolish, Orin, to open my chains and think I would stay my hand on a mere pretense."

"Stop--" he hears Karlach shout.

"Stay back, doppelganger," Lae'zel barks without looking up. "One further step and I shall sever your queen's head from her body." She leans forward; Hector can feel the heat of her breath on his cheek as she hisses in his face.

"Cease your blaspheming of my friend's image, shka'keth. I would see your true eyes before I open your throat."

"Lae'zel--" he gasps out. "It's me! Orin's dead! It's me-- I promise you--"

She freezes. Her head draws back; the pressure of the blade eases just slightly. "So many days I have waited," she mutters. "I swore to myself I would not be weak when the moment came..."

"It's me." Hector's eyes flick wildly around the room as he grasps for some way to prove it. "You-- we met on the nautiloid. You thought I was a thrall. We escaped, we crashed... we found you in a cage with the tieflings... Shadowheart didn't let you forget it for weeks..." His breath catches on a slight, hysterical laugh without any humor. "The creche... you took me there, we saw through Vlaakith's lies together... we traveled in the shadows and you told me of the light of the Astral Sea..."

He feels, to his shame, that his voice is starting to shake, to crack-- the battle exhausted all his control and he barely has the strength to think, and seeing her staring at him with such fury, after all he has done to try and reach her, feels like a last brutal blow struck by Orin from beyond the veil.

"Ch'mar zal'a Orpheus," he mutters shakily, parroting the words he has heard her mutter in camp. "You opened your mind to me when you made your choice to turn away from Vlaakith... you trusted me then, please trust me now..."

She draws a sharp breath in; her eyes narrow. His words are breaking through the haze, bit by bit, a little of the mad rage starting to fade. Her head jerks and he feels the familiar prod of the tadpole connection in his mind, his parasite squirming in answer to hers. For the first time he can recall, he is desperately grateful for that connection, for the proof it offers.

Images begin to flash between them, a thousand upon a thousand memories of their shared struggle. He groans, his eyes rolling back in his head. "You almost broke my jaw, that night in camp, and said perhaps our pain would bleed out of our wounds..." he whispers. "It hasn't yet, but I have hope... put the blade down, Lae'zel, please... it's me..."

She draws back. The sword slips from her fingers, clattering onto the stone next to the altar.

"Kaincha..." she mutters. "You speak truth..."

He sits up slowly, rubbing involuntarily at his neck where the blade pressed. "Have I ever lied to you?" he asks softly.

Her shoulders are rigid, her whole body taut, and he can see that every bit of her strength is going into preventing her from trembling. "She came in so many faces. Every one familiar. Every one a mockery. I came to doubt my own eyes..."

"It's all right," he answers gently. "It's done with now."

He's dimly aware that Karlach has come up next to him, that one of her hands is resting on his shoulder, that she is bent forward on the balls of her feet in a protective aspect, ready to strike should Lae'zel show any further sign of violence. But the fight has gone out of the githyanki warrior now; with the moment of adrenaline gone, she looks beaten and exhausted. Ashamed.

He considers a moment, then deliberately pitches his voice a little slower - a sharper snap, like those he heard from the githyanki at Y'llek.

"The way out is clear," he tells her firmly. "Go back to camp. Rest. We'll talk when I return."

She blinks - and he sees a flash of something like relief through her eyes at having an order to follow. "Yes," she agrees with a crisp nod, standing at once. "I will wait there." She turns, looks around the bloody atrium as if fully registering it for the first time.

A slight pause, and then she adds, "I should offer my gratitude. But there are no words with which I was trained to express it. You came through fire for me, and I answered you with a blade."

"Thank you is enough," Hector says; a slight smile tugs at his lips.

She snorts softly. "Hm. Thank you, then," she mutters. "It is... insufficient, as is much in your barbaric tongue. But it will do for now."

Without another word, she stalks up the gore-slicked stairs towards the sewers.

They all watch her go, and then Hector groans softly and lets himself fall back to lie on the altar again, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. Karlach's face drifts into view as she leans over him.

"Same old Lae'zel, eh?" she says dryly. "Gods, I'd give her a thrashing for threatening you like that, if I wasn't so glad to see her."

"She was afraid," Hector says absently. "And I don't blame her for it."

Jaheira sits down on the edge of the altar with a weary sigh. "There are none of us, I think, who have not done something foolish in the name of fear." A smile flickers across her face. "That said, had she injured you, we would have made her feel it."

He shakes his head. "It's all right," he says firmly. "The Chosen are dead, finally, and we've stood against all their machinations; the last thing we need is to start tearing ourselves apart now. She's back with us. That's enough."

[wyvernquill]

A short comic I drew as an illustration for the second chapter of my fic Love and Fraud on Planet Gunsmoke, featuring insurance contracts, fraudulent marriage, and more such shenanigans!

(Image description in the alt text)

[sundered-souls]

FFXIV Vanilla #4 — Battle

I died for this screenshot lmao

Having traveled through Ilsabard once, Kazan agreed to accompany adventurers to Garlemald after its fall, acting as their guide. But where he once met hostility in the form of harsh words and cranky soldiers, all that was left to face now was lifeless machinery roaming the ruins of what used to be a city bursting with activity...

[Vanilla GPOSE prompt list]

[noyin]

chapter 4 - Golden Ridge