#JUST BREATHE

[dark-side-blog3]

Horrid idea. Reverse isekai, but with a fanon only fan, who completely disregards canon.

Like, imagine someone coming up to you and demanding you be married as they shove a basket of white clothes and rings, and when you say no they get all huffy because “that’s not what you’re like! You’re supposed to go ‘ah you’re gonna marry me? That’s what those mean you know! Oh~ What am I saying? You couldn’t possibly understand our world’s marriage rituals!’ And kiss me!”

They show up outside your house with a bunch of baking supplies because you canonically ate bread once on screen. Or with a fuckton of carrots, if you can’t eat bread.

They get mad you don’t play an instrument they headcanoned you learning, or you don’t actually have any strong opinions on the guy from a gas station three months ago.

[frownyalfred]

all of the anons who told me, entirely unprompted, that I was a horrible fucking racist and I should kill myself because I’d never written a fic with Duke Thomas as the main character have been MIGHTY quiet since eye in the sky got published. just saying.

(this is your reminder that what people like to read/write doesn’t make them bad people irl. and just because someone hasn’t written a certain character does NOT mean they hate that character’s background or identity. I can’t believe I have to say that on here again, but here we are)

[micha3l-mell]

are y'all ever breathing then just decide nah not today and just stop- or like just forget to? or is this just me

[dawnofiight]

Picture it! Asher x David argument

I feel like they have tiny arguments that aren't really all that serious. But occasionally they have a really big fight. Like super huge. And it always doubles down to either a misunderstanding or David being a problem solver and not a comforter.

Milo being the mediator because his bfs are stupid.

I just think whenever they argue it's always over something that could easily be solved if they would just be like "ok wait we're arguing about two completely different things" or maybe even a "ok so this is not a problem solving issue and a comfort issue"

It was worse right after Gabe died. David was in no mood for comfort, as soon as he was appointed Alpha he wanted to fix things to prove he was a good alpha. But, when Asher needed a hug instead of "just do this" that's not what happened so they blew up on each other and said things they both didn't mean.

Asher hits David with a : I know you're feeling pretty incompetent right now but can you not talk down to me and make me join you???

And David is like : .

And then they don't talk to each other for like weeks.

[godblooded]

so it… looks like my aunt’s probably not gonna make it.

[myfairstarlight]

Rewatching s1 for fic purposes and this scene? God this scene.

Penelope thinking she found the one thing to solve everything without needing to hurt anyone - George's last letter is a forgery. Marina's love may not be lost! But Marina? She's burned out, she doesn't have any hope left. She cannot go any longer in a feeble hope for love.

It's Penelope's idealistic view versus Marina's realistic and hardened one. Penelope thinks this means true love will prevail. Marina knows it is not enough and clock is ticking for her and her child.

The discussion then turns to Colin, and yeah, Penelope is also meddling because Colin is involved, she's in love with him but more importantly, he's her friend, and no one wants to see their friend get baby trapped, even if she sympathises with Marina's situation.

But what Marina cannot see is that Penelope is also doing it for her. Marina was the only one in this house who showed her kindness. They had a sweet friendship before everything got complicated, and Penelope genuinely wants her happiness and she believes she can achieve it by finding George again now that there is hope. After all, Penelope was willing to let it go, to let Marina and Colin wed, had she not learned of her mother's scheme to trap him into marriage by pushing Marina to seduce him. However, upon realising Penelope's feelings for Colin, Marina sees her as an obstacle. And so:

This crushes both of them. As Penelope walks away, you can tell Marina regrets her words. A few scenes earlier, Marina told Penelope she wished they could still be friends even if Penelope did not condone her actions. But with this, she's crossing out the only real support she truly had in this house (because let's be honest, Portia did not count).

And then Penelope cements it by writing the Whistledown column as her last resort to save her friend who she ends up choosing, ruining Marina and also their own family in the process (a detail I feel like a lot of people conveniently forget).

They break my heart, truly, and I wish we could have had some resolution for them in s3. Penelope and Marina were to each other the first family member who treated them with kindness, and they were also each other's undoing.

[swiftfootedachilles]

im just gonna be honest gang obviously its gonna be easy for you to say youre in love with a character and theyre an angel when anytime they do something you don't like you brush it off as out of character

[evilmannodasmybabygirl]

//how its literally going rn. LMAO!!!! @serpulalacrymans

[howlonomy]

In the Clover collapsing comic, god i fucking love Ceroba immediately seeing the parralels to what happened after Kanako got injected, and it's auuughhhhh love it, a mother's trauma.

HEHEHE YEAAHH IM GLADD my absolute favorite part was starting it and being like oh. oh this is just like kanako. ohhhh >:)

i loved drawing the parallels between them and how i think ceroba would react to it!! ofc her first instinct was “oh god they fell down. their soul is cracked in two”

[betonbennett]

I am not alone this time. I am not alone. I never will be, not anymore. Not with them. They will keep me safe. They won't leave me. No matter how cold I get, they will stay with me. I am their home. They will not leave. I am safe. I have them, and they have me. I am loved. I am not alone. I will not return to that place. It cannot get to me this time. They will keep me safe from the cold. They will not forsake me. I am not alone.

All I need to do is keep listening to the song. That is all. I can do this. I will be fine. We will be fine.

[iniziare]

Hoyo, I didn't want a Quintet muse. I stopped making her blog last year for a reason. God-- damn it. And all because, and all because:

"After the High-Cloud Quintet each went their separate ways."

My big fucking toe they did. Hello Jingliu, welcome aboard.

[freshlyhooked]

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL YEAH I'LL PROMPT YOU OKAY WHAT'S UP man i had to scroll through a bit but THIS FEEL VERY DARBY-ESQUE AS DIALOGUE TO ME so it stood out

(17) “You know what? You can go shove that apology up your ass because I don’t want to hear any of it.”

or if you want to write Jack, because i always default to touch for him

(31) reassuring touches

oh my god KATYYYYYYY YOU’VE DONE ME THE INCREDIBLE HONOR OF PARTAKING IN TUMBLR PROMPT WRITER CULTURE FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE BEHEST OF ONE OF MY MOST FAVORITE FANDOM AUTHORS EVER?!!??!?! we go fucking BIG or go HOME in this bitch which means you get BOTH PROMPTS for the price of ONE and then I KISS YOU!!!!!!! 

this got a little out of hand but.,. we live and we breathe. ENJOY!

-/\-

“I’m gettin’ real sick of your hot-and-cold, can’t-make-up-your-mind bullshit, Perry.” 

The back of the Scapegoat bus is rapidly approaching sauna-like levels of hot after spending all afternoon baking in the unrelenting South Carolina sun, and the cheap mobile AC unit Jack rigged up to the dash two months ago only works if the bus is running. East Coast gas prices are entirely too high right now for Jack to waste a few gallons sitting around in his dumb bus with the AC on, so sprawled out shirtless on the futon it is, killing time praying to a god Jack doesn’t believe in that everyone will just leave him the fuck alone until he’s scheduled for his promo later. 

Not praying hard enough, apparently, because the only warning Jack gets before tattooed knuckles are banging at the bus's back door is the crunch of thick rubber soles on gravel and a few carefully crafted expletives. Jack groans under his breath. The banging just gets louder. 

(The back door doesn’t lock. Jack knows that Darby knows the back door doesn’t lock. He bought the bus for less than five grand on Facebook Marketplace. The back door doesn’t fucking lock, and he’s still knocking.)

“Oh my god, fuck off!” Jack snaps after a few agonizing minutes, loud enough for Darby to hear through the metal walls once he realizes that Darby’s discovered his hiding spot and has no intention of leaving anytime soon. He kicks at one of the wheel wells hard enough to rock the bus's chassis for good measure; not that he’s foolish enough to believe it’ll scare Darby off, because it won’t, and it doesn’t. “Don’t you have a psycho cowboy to survive tonight? You got your stupid title shot, so—”

Darby must finally get tired of knocking, because there’s the godawful screech of the metal door handle scraping against the rusted, non-functional lock and then the back door swings wide open. It might be some kind of poetic irony how the fresh air that rushes in is an instant relief against Jack’s superheated skin, flushed and glistening with sweat in the light of the few rays of afternoon sunshine that sneak in around the Darby-shaped shadow now hunched in the doorway. 

“It smells like hot ass in here,” is the first thing Darby murmurs once the door’s open, quiet and unobtrusive, in direct opposition to how he’s just barging in like he owns the damn place, as per the fuckin’ usual. Jack’s still blinking hard against the sudden bright sunshine, trying to get his vision to focus. For a moment he’s terrified, trying to recall where he’d stashed the belt before he remembers it’s tucked under the driver’s seat up front. Darby knows that, too. So why is he…?

“Why the fuck won’t you leave me alone?” Jack growls once his eyes finally adjust to the contrast, picks out Darby’s face against the lightly graffiti’d backdrop of the bus walls just to fling one of his lumpy travel pillows at it. Darby dodges. Jack goes to stand, but the heat maybe took a little more out of him than he thought, because he gets about halfway to his feet before his vision starts to spin. One hand smacks hard against the steel wall as Jack scrambles to balance himself, stomach churning, and— “Jesus Christ, dude, were you trying to kill yourself back here? Jack, you’re burning up.”

Darby’s hands are cold. They’re not usually cold, Jack’s familiar enough with the rope calluses on Darby’s palms to know that much, but right now they’re just another stark relief. He must’ve come straight from inside the arena. Cool fingers press against Jack’s cheeks, his forehead, splay across the dip of his collarbone, and between one blink and the next he’s sitting down, back pressed against the wall, overwhelmed by the dizziness. His futon is drenched in sweat. Jack hopes Darby doesn’t mind. 

Another blink, and Darby’s got Jack’s water bottle in his left hand; screws the top off with his right as Jack blinks blearily at him, trying to figure out where he’d procured it from, because not even Jack can remember where he’s got the thing stashed half the time. But the bottle’s open, and Jack is nauseous as fuck, and Darby’s coaxing the rim of it between his lips, so it would be foolish not to just grab the damn thing and drink, right? 

The only sound for a few precious moments is the creak of the rusty hinges on the bus door as it sways a little in the breeze. Jack sucks down what’s left of the water in his bottle in hopes that maybe, just maybe Darby will fuck right back off to wherever he came from once he’s done, but Jack polishes off the bottle and scrubs the back of his hand over his mouth and the moron is still fucking staring at him. 

(The dizziness abates some, though, once he’s a little more hydrated. Maybe he should’ve spent the extra cash on gas for the AC after all.) 

“What?” Jack rasps, the petulant huff tugged free from his chest when the prickling silence and the staring combination become too much. Darby doesn’t answer immediately, just plucks the empty bottle from Jack’s palm and eyes him with a look Jack can’t place. It makes him nervous. Most things make him nervous these days. And then Darby opens his mouth. “You lose one cage match and your first course of action is to burn yourself alive in the back of your shitty bus?” 

Jack’s still swallowing down the last of the nausea, weak all over, but it does nothing to keep him from flipping the double bird at where Darby’s now crouching between his feet. “You’d know a lot about that, right? Burning people alive. Fucking psycho,” Jack grumbles, kicks one heel out to try and topple Darby over when he swats at his wrists in response. There’s a scoff and then the offending leg is snatched up by cool fingers, curving around Jack’s ankle, firm against the bare strip of skin between his rolled-up pant leg and where his sock begins. Jack kicks again, weaker, not aggressive enough to dislodge them. “Jealous I’ll finish the job before you can?”

Darby doesn’t respond. Not verbally, at least. Those cold fingers tighten around Jack’s ankle for a moment, a brief squeeze, and then they’re skimming up the length of his calf, tucking beneath the rolled fabric of his jeans. The temperature difference prickles goosebumps along Jack’s skin, makes the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. Like this, Darby between Jack’s spread legs, it’s almost like they’re back in Nashville; both soaked through with sweat and blood, reeking of gasoline and shitty grease paint, Darby’s hands on Jack’s skin, and— 

Darby needs to leave. Jack needs to make Darby leave now.

“You need to—”

“You’re hiding in here,” Darby says, the words carefully chosen, and it isn’t a question. Jack stares at him, expression maybe a little too openly off-balance, because every conversation between them anymore is a damn game of chess and Darby never hesitates to press his advantage. “You’ve been hiding in here all day. From who? From me?” 

“From—” Everybody. “—nobody, you dick. Not everything is about you.”

“From your EVP buddies?”

Jack sits up with a start, shoots his hands out to shove once, hard, at Darby’s shoulders. Darby’s not expecting the sudden motion, goes over easy with a muffled curse, and then they’re tussling on the floor of the bus. Because god forbid the two of them sit alone in a space for more than five minutes without either fighting or fucking, right? 

“Get the fuck out.” Jack’s fingers curl tight around Darby’s shirt collar. A seam pops. Jack’s just glad Darby’s wearing a shirt at all.

“Matt, right? You mad at him for last week?” Darby rips Jack’s hairtie out. Curls half-matted together with sweat come down in front of his eyes. Jack’s obscured vision makes it easy for Darby to flip them, forcing Jack onto his back, pinning his shoulders to the shoddy carpet squares he bought on clearance when he realized he probably needed to cover up the rusty bus floor before somebody got tetanus. Jack gnashes his teeth, shoves at Darby’s arms. They don’t budge. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Darby replies too quickly, shrugs too casually, and Jack hates that he can tell it’s a lie. He shouldn’t know these things about Darby. How his fingers twitch when he’s focused. How he blinks fast when he’s trying not to laugh. Jack’s dizzy all over again trying to figure him out when Darby settles back, sits on Jack’s hips to keep him prone. Jack struggles for a few tense seconds, bucks and squirms to see if he can dislodge Darby’s weight, but—

A trash can clatters somewhere outside the bus. Jack realizes all at once that he’s shirtless, Darby’s perched on his waist, and the back door is still wide open. Darby’s grinning. Jack’s ears are burning. He goes still. 

“Darby,” Jack catches his breath and tries again. Forces his voice to stay level, quiet, because he’s acutely aware that if anyone were to come wandering back near the trailer bay parking lot and see them through the open door this would be incredibly difficult to explain away. He can’t even explain it to himself, Darby’s insatiable obsession with him, but— but maybe it’s Jack’s fault in the first place. Enabling, and all that. “What do I have to do to make you leave?”

To his credit, at least, Darby doesn’t beat around the bush. “Tell me why you keep sending me away.”

Jack… laughs. A real laugh, disbelieving, maybe a little bit mean. “Did you hit your head? Are— Are you fucking serious?” And it is mean, but it’s not Jack’s fault. He knows a lot about Darby, and Darby doesn’t typically ask stupid questions. “Darby— we don’t— we can’t do this. I—”

“Then why’d you let me in? Last week?”

Jack freezes up. His tongue goes thick in his mouth, clumsy, visions of spine tattoos and ice blue eyes dancing in his head. Darby doesn’t let up. “Before then, too. In Vegas.”

“...The back door doesn’t lock. Nobody let you in.” Jack croaks after a terrifyingly weighted pause, a misdirection, a non-answer. He’s never been good at chess. Darby knows that, too.

“You would have, if I asked.”

Jack goes tense. Narrows his eyes. “And— And I would’ve given you a fucking title shot, too, if you had asked.”

When it comes to their game of misdirections and half-truths, it’s probably too honest for Jack to confess; but it’s easier to admit he would’ve given away the title shot than attempt to come face-to-face with his own feelings. Maybe that’s why Darby still looks upset, brow furrowed in frustration, and Jack realizes suddenly what Darby’s real goal is. Darby wants him to put a name to this. Darby wants Jack to label this tenuous something between them that isn’t just fits of passion borne from residual bloodlust. Jack’s stomach goes cold with fear. “Darby, I—” 

“No— No, Jack, you listen to me—”

“—Look, I’m sorry, okay? This isn’t—”

“I don’t want your fucking sorries!” Jack isn’t expecting the outburst. His jaw clicks shut when Darby shouts, shoves at Jack’s shoulders, eyes going wide and furious. Worried for a second that Darby’s back in a fighting mood, that they’re going to draw unwanted attention, Jack tenses up. Anticipates a punch that doesn’t happen, because as fast as it had come, Darby’s anger is gone. Instead, it almost sounds like exhaustion, when Darby sighs. “Take— take all your stupid, half-baked apologies and shove ‘em up your ass. I didn’t come here for you to say you’re sorry.”

Jack can’t look him in the eyes. “Then what did you come here for, Darby?”

Is it terrible to admit that it’s not quite a surprise? Darby, as good as he is at twisting his words, at making Jack feel like he’s winning until he’s accidentally bared half his soul… it’s not his preferred method of communication. No, Darby’s all action; hard lines of movement, of strength, and it’s the same now, when Darby buries his hands in Jack’s hair and presses them together hard at the mouth. 

And even this is usually a battleground, too. Kisses are generally a war, between them— gnashing teeth and tongue, just another way to play the game, to decide a winner. But it’s different today. Today, Darby holds him still and teases into his mouth like a lover, and at least this part is unexpected enough to bring Jack pause. It’s the middle of the day, and the bus door is wide open, and Darby’s tongue does something that rips a groan from Jack’s chest, and… 

Sometime later, Jack comes to. 

He’s dizzy, but there’s a cool breeze washing over his skin, gentle fingers brushing curls out of his eyes as he pants for breath against Darby’s lips. There’s something unspoken there in the way that Darby looks at him. It’s noisier outside, more foot traffic, and Jack can hear people talking, the jingle of keys as more staff pull up to the arena. For all of two seconds Darby seems frustrated, annoyed, and then he’s… sitting up. Standing to his feet. Leaves Jack boneless and devastated on the floor, still trying to blink himself back into coherence, and flicks Jack’s hairtie back into his face for good measure. Jackass.

“I’ll win tonight. And the belt, too,” Darby says, and the words are absolutely, completely meaningless; Jack already knows. There’s a determination on Darby’s face that hadn’t been there before, not even when demanding his TNT title shot in the cage, and Jack has an awful, terrifying theory on the reason behind it that he’s saving for later. It’s easier to have an emotional breakdown in an actual bed. “And turn the fuckin’ AC on, if you’re planning on staying out here until call time.”

“Get lost, Darby,” Jack mutters back. There’s no heat behind it. The bus chassis shakes as Darby steps through the door, hops off the back stoop into the gravel below, and Jack sits up just to watch him go. Stares at the hard line of the spine tattoo peeking out from beneath the collar of Darby’s shirt until it disappears behind the rest of the trailers and then he’s alone again, though it isn’t as triumphant a victory as he’d hoped. 

Because it isn’t a victory at all; Darby’s going to keep wedging himself in between Jack and the rest of the Elite until he’s satisfied, until he has Jack all to himself, and god fucking damn it, Jack’s going to let him.

(He turns the AC on.)

-/\-

[wandercr]

@mayormentats post reminding me how i've always felt that playing as a woman lone wanderer in fallout 3 is the best way to get the most dynamic storyline and explore the father and child connection and now my brain will not shut up about it

[godblooded]

Holy fuck Jesus some stupid bitch of a child probably opened my back gate. So i go outside. And kk and leia are gone. Fucking gone. I run up the blog SCREAMING LEIA KK LEIA KK PRINCESS LEIA and kk comes trotting up to me from down the block like ??? So this woman drives up next to me and she goes YOU LOOKING FOR A DOG and i am CRYING. so she goes HOP IN and i jump in her car. Leia's dumb fucking ass is sitting there running around the sidewalk with this woman's sister. I take her, thank them, start walking her home. She is consistently running like twenty paces in front of me. I keep yelling. I panic. She turns the corner and I'm freaking out LEIA LEIA LEIA and she's sitting at the side gate like ????????

[raytm]

[araneitela]

We're returning to salt today. Tumblr and X tire me. I'm so tired of the word 'empowerment', and these phrases of 'slay, queen, slay', and people thinking that characters should be liked on the premise of solely being women. No, they should be liked on the premise of being well-written characters regardless of their sex. And then what drives me especially crazy, is when they actually are well written, and very nuanced; and they're then reduced to everything that these same people (women, yes, I have absolutely zero problem calling many of you out) complain and accuse cishet men of reducing them to: sexualized, one-dimensional ship fodder.

Not only is respect earned, instead of commanded. But maybe, just maybe, before you expect anyone else to do it: you should respect these "beloved" female muses you claim to love so much.