#ahhhhh i really liked writing this

[kandicon]

Okay I need to write something abt Ivy's brain overheating n starting to cook her head bc it overworks and there's no way there's enough space in her super computer brain for an efficient cooling system combined with Tim involuntarily salivating and feeling hungry when he smells burning flesh as a hold over from eating corpses during the Moon War. This is no longer a want it is a need.

[ccherrybloom]

Ashtrays & Antihistamines Pt. 1

oc, m, hayfever, wc: 2.8k

Part 2

CW: foul language and allusions to gay sex lol

~~

a.n. + summary: i don't think i've ever posted a snzfic on this blog, but there's a first for everything, right? featuring my lovely little ocs and their stupid dumb little band. i don't normally write them in snzcerions, but...every now and again i can’t help myself and one slips through the cracks lol. This particular one centers around my absolute shithead of an Irishman, Peter, as he deals with a hayfever flare up for the first time in like…twenty years, lol. of course, ever the lucky one, this begins to happen during the band’s first mini-tour. Cue shenanigans. I hope you all enjoy!

~~

“hH’RRSHhiue!” Peter fell into himself with a harsh sneeze, the band’s rundown van jerking sporadically with its driver’s sudden movement. “Goddamnit!”

“Bless.” Geoff offered lazily from the passenger seat as he turned a page of his book, unbothered by the vehicle’s erratic veer. “That’s like the tenth one since we’ve left Dublin.” The bassist pointed out, shooting the guitarist a pointed look from the corner of his eye. “You alright?”

“Fuckin’ hayfever,” Peter answered as he scrubbed his palm aggressively against the underside of his nose, careful not to put too much pressure against his nose rings. He followed it up with a drawn-out sniffle. “I’m fine. Christ.”

“I don’t remember ya being like this before,” Maurice quipped from the back of the van, leaning forward to join in on the conversation. “I mean hell, ya lived in Dublin fer how many years…?”

“Longer than you, Frenchie.” Peter retorted as he thrust a tattooed hand backwards to try and shove the singer away. Maurice easily dodged with a laugh, swatting at Peter’s hand as Geoff instinctively reached out to steady the van as it began to swerve again. “You can piss right off.”

“Look, I’m just sayin’, yer born and bred Irish — who knew all it took was a few months in London for yer own country to turn on ya.”

“I said piss off.”

“Who gives a shit!” Chris suddenly interjected as he pulled his headphones from his ears, a curly lock of the drummer’s dark hair falling between his eyes. “Just keep your bloody eyes on the road! I dunno ‘bout you lot, but I’d like to get there in one piece.”

Maurice backed off with a snicker, hands up in surrender as Peter quickly flipped Chris off in the rear view mirror before returning his full attention to the road.

After Peter and Maurice had both left Dublin for London a few months shy of one another, the four men began to pour almost all of their free time into their passion project, The Undergrounds. Much to their genuine surprise, people seemed to really enjoy their band’s sound and performances, so much so in fact that they’d hit a point where pubs across the UK were beginning to reach out to them, asking the group to come play for their open mic nights, with some even offering payment. With the requests getting further and further away from their homebase in London, the band finally decided to bite the bullet and buy themselves some transportation, namely their shithole of a van lovingly referred to as Van Halen. Despite its old clunkiness, it really did do the trick, and allowed the men to head across the border on their first ever ‘Let’s-Not-Call-It-A-Tour’ Tour. Realistically, with two of the four members being from (or as close to ‘from’ as one could be, in Maurice’s case) Ireland, the band had picked up quite a bit of traction across the small country with the men getting many open mic night requests which they normally had to turn down, much to Peter’s dismay.

At least until now, that is.

Peter had noticed something was off after their show in Dublin the night prior. At first he just assumed he strained his voice singing backup vocals — a product of over-excitement from getting to play in his old stomping grounds. But by morning the scratchiness in his throat lingered and was now accompanied by faint itchiness in his nose that forewarned him of worse yet to come. 

By the time the men packed up their gear and filed into the van late that afternoon, the unwelcoming prickle that had been festering in his nose demanded more attention, and his eyes began to itch in a maddening way that he hadn’t experienced since he was a kid back in Belfast. Initially he tried to ignore it, chalking it up as a residual reaction to dust from the old pub, or that it had been awhile since Van Halen had gotten a good clean. But as time slowly passed on their nearly three hour drive to Cork, and the itchiness in his sinuses progressed into full-blown sneezing, the reality of the situation began to dawn on him. He was immediately thrust back to Belfast, memories of summers spent constantly sneezing thanks to the fields near his old home, his eyes watering, his nose running, each summer spent absolutely miserable. He hadn’t had a hayfever flare-up in years, thinking it was something he had thankfully outgrown once his mum had moved them to Dublin, but yet here it was, back to rear its ugly head once more all these years later. The familiar lush scents of the countryside that used to conjure such vivid memories of home were now turning every intake of breath the guitarist took into a gamble. 

The itchiness in Peter’s nose only seemed to increase in urgency as Van Halen bumped its way through the Irish countryside. The landscape blurred past the windows, a mix of greens and greys under a sky that threatened rain.

“Nearly there.” Geoff hummed, taking a peek at the map app on his phone. “About another twenty or so.”

“Thank fuck.” Peter grumbled with a sniffle, his eyes squinting past the relentless itchiness. He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and pulled his glasses up slightly before slamming his wrist into one eye and scrubbing hard.

“I think we could all do with a pint,” Maurice chimed in, trying to lighten the mood. “Especially you, Peter.” He added, gently poking the man’s shoulder.

Peter managed a weak chuckle in response, his wrist still pressed hard into the corner of his eye. 

“Just keep it steady Pete, yeah?” Chris leaned himself forward and rested his elbows onto his knees, eyes scanning the road ahead. “Not much longer and you can go ahead and drown yourself in whatever local brew you fancy.”

Peter opened his mouth to reply, but the van hit a particularly bumpy patch of road, jolting everyone inside. Instead he just swore under his breath, turning his full focus back towards the road as Cork began to appear on the horizon.

“There she is.” Geoff whistled, pointing ahead. “Welcome to Cork, lads.”

Peter managed to manoeuvre Van Halen expertly through the narrow streets of Cork despite battling his allergic reaction, the van’s tires crunching over cobblestone as he pulled them into the parking lot of their dingy motel.

“Home sweet home.” Maurice hummed as he clapped a hand onto Peter’s shoulder, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips as the other two members filed out. “At least fer the next few days.”

Peter leaned back into the driver’s seat and let his eyes drift closed as he exhaled deeply, shutting off the engine. He only cracked an eye back open when he felt Maurice give his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“You alright?” The singer asked, his voice low and expression soft.

“I’m grand, Mur.” Peter grumbled, his voice heavy with sarcasm. The real truth of the matter was that he was miserable, itchy, and absolutely dying for a cigarette — not that he cared to say any of that out loud. 

The guitarist pulled off his glasses to give his watery eyes another scrub before continuing. “Just got a fierce bad dose of this nonsense…This shite best be all said and done before our show or I’ll–hh! hH’ITSHHhiue!”

“See, but that’s what we don’t wantcha doin’, actually.” The blonde teased as he patted the guitarist’s shoulder before the other quickly slapped it away as if he were swatting a mosquito.

“You fuck right off, Murry.” Peter sniffled hard, dragging the backside of his hand beneath his nose. “Just get yer shit and get goin’.”

Maurice did as he was told and hopped out of the van with Peter not far behind as the pair hurriedly began to help the others unload. With the sky steadily darkening the four moved quickly, eager to avoid the potential rain. Luckily the unloading and reloading of Van Halen had become more and more familiar with each passing gig, and it didn’t take them long to have all the necessities laid out beside the van, ready to go.

The motel itself was a shabby vintage looking two-story building, its neon sign flickering with an almost uncertain intermittence as if it were clinging onto its last shred of life.

Maurice and Geoff took the lead, carrying the group’s heavier equipment while Chris and Peter followed suit with their four bags. They bustled their way to the reception desk where they were met with a disinterested looking clerk who simply handed them a single worn key with a faded plastic tag attached.

“Yer in room 107.” He mumbled, barely looking up from his magazine.

“Cheers, mate.” Geoff scoffed as he shot the others an exasperated look and snatched the key. He led the group down the dimly lit hallway, their feet dragging against a carpet that had clearly seen better days. When they reached their room Geoff wasted no time unlocking the door and shoving it open, revealing a tightly packed space with two queen beds, a small television, and a bathroom that looked like it hadn’t been updated in at least two decades.

“Alright, how we doin’ this?” Chris asked as he tossed the bags he had onto the closest bed.

“By drawing straws, of course.” Geoff instructed as he pulled a set of straws he had prepared earlier out of his pocket. “Shortest straw shares with the other shortest straw.”

The others agreed on this being fair enough and drew their straws, quickly comparing them.

“Well, it’s you and me, innit?” Chris said as he held up his short straw next to Peter’s. He gave the other a playful nudge and smirked. “Just don’t go tryin’ nuffin, yeah?”

Peter sniffled thickly and shoved Chris away before pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger, careful to avoid the rings, and itched it aggressively. “I got enough of ya the first time.” He moved from rubbing his nose to scrubbing his eyes, trying to ignore the way Maurice bristled at the mention of their one-off fling. “Won’t be doin’ that again.” Chris flipped him off and called him a wanker, but he went ahead and ignored that too.

“Hey, Pete,” Geoff called out as he tossed his bag onto the other bed. “Why don’t you take a shower? Might help clear up a bit of that hayfever.”

Peter, who’s eyes had started to glaze over, did his best to nod in the ginger’s general direction. “That’s the best ideee-hha I’ve heard all d—hh! hhUH’DITSHhhiuew! ‘IGKSHhhiueww!” He doubled over hard into cupped hands, his entire body tensing violently with each sneeze before he groaned thickly against his palms. “—all damn day.” He finished on an exhale, voice cracking. “-snf- Jaysus…”

“Bless you.” Geoff offered, a twinge of sympathy in his voice. “You know you really ought to—”

“G’way outta that.” Peter interjected with a dismissive wave of his hand as he trudged his way to the bathroom, eyes half-lidded. “Last thing I need is yer bloody mother hennin’, Geoffrey.” He added before pulling the door closed behind him. 

Flicking the light switch, Peter had to wait a full second before the dull fluorescents sputtered to life, illuminating the unsightly bathroom as he dragged his feet towards the shower. The tiles were cracked and the floor was splotchy, but he didn’t care, he just wanted some relief. 

The pipes whined in protest as he turned on the taps before water began to sputter out from the shower head. The water pressure seemed abysmal at best, and Peter cursed to himself as he leaned his weight against the sink, waiting for the water to warm. As steam steadily started filling the small space, he could feel the tightness in his sinuses ease up slightly, making his nose run. The liquid caught on his septum ring and trailed rapidly down towards his upper lip. Blowing out an annoyed breath, the guitarist took a second to wipe his nose haphazardly against his sleeve before stripping and stepping into the tub, letting the warm water cascade over him with an appreciative sigh.

Outside of the bathroom Geoff and Maurice were seated on each side of their shared bed as they sorted through their bags.

“Think he’ll live?” Maurice asked as he pulled out his plastic toiletry bag, setting it to the side.

Geoff gave a small shrug in return, glancing towards the bathroom door. “I reckon it could go either way with that dumb git.”

Maurice snorted at this, but his knit brow betrayed his feigned air of nonchalance. “Just hope the shower helps, I s’ppose. Don’t think we can really afford to have him down fer the count.”

Chris, already sprawled out on the other bed, headphones back on, piped up. “Eh, he’ll be alright. Just needs to wash off whatever’s settin’ ‘im off. It’s no big, yeah? You French people are wound too tight.”

Maurice rolled his eyes at this but chose to ignore the drummer’s comment. “I just don’t want anythin’ to screw this up for us.” He murmured as his eyes fell onto the bathroom door. “That’s all.”

“hh-Hh! hH’dDZTShiueww!” Peter sneezed loudly and openly, his head snapping downwards as the shower’s stream continued to steadily pelt against his tattooed back. He blinked hard, eyes bleary as the need to sneeze lingered in his nose like an unwelcome houseguest. Instinctively he brought up a hand to hover over the lower half of his face as his breathing began to come out in shuddering, shallow gasps. “hah…Ha’TdSHhhiuew!” This one bent him double and he swore immediately afterwards, more than a little frustrated as he blew his nose harshly into his hand. Had his hayfever always been this maddening? He couldn’t remember. It had been a long time since he’d had a flare-up, probably pushing two decades at least. The thought that it had come back now during the band’s first tour just pissed him off further.

Sighing, Peter turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, reaching out for one of the worn threadbare towels from the hotel rack. He dried himself off quickly before wrapping the towel dangerously loose around his waist – the only member who had yet to see his dick was Geoffrey, and the guitarist couldn’t give less of a shit if today was the day that changed.

Wiping a hand across the fogged bathroom mirror, Peter allowed himself a moment to peer at his reflection as he dragged a hand through his damp, dark hair and threw on his glasses. His green eyes were still red-rimmed and watery, his nose and cheeks were decorated with a soft dusting of pink…he looked pathetic, but at least the shower was helping him breathe a little easier.

Residual steam billowed out into the cooler room as Peter made his way out of the bathroom, catching the eye of Maurice.

“Peter,” The singer looked up from his bag and offered the dark-haired man a small smile, taking in the other’s lean frame. “How ye fairin’?” 

“Bit better, I’d say.” Peter hummed, though a small sniffle still escaped him as he wandered over to his bag, making Maurice frown.

“Reckon you’re up for a drink?” Geoff asked, not looking up from his phone. “We were thinking of checking out this pub nearby. Interested?”

Peter mulled it over for a moment, turning his back on the others before dropping his towel and pulling on a pair of boxer-briefs. “Yeah, g’wan then.” He finally affirmed, clearing his throat against a fist as he fished an old t-shirt from his bag. “Pint’ll do me some good.”

“Are ya sure?” The singer asked, chewing on his lip nervously as Peter wiggled into a pair of jeans. “If yer not feelin’ up for it–”

“Sod off, Maurice, will you?” Chris suddenly retaliated as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Actin’ like you’re his bloody mum or somefin’ just cos you’re shaggin’. Prat.”

Peter couldn’t help but snort as Maurice glared daggers at Chris, his face turning a delightful shade of crimson. The fact that he and Maurice slept together on occasion wasn’t exactly a secret – their initial one-night stand was how the two had met in the first place, after all – but it wasn’t something that was often discussed amongst the group. Peter personally didn’t care, but Maurice clearly did.

“You don’t see me actin’ like a bloody bellend even though I’ve also sucked his–”

“Ça commence à bien faire!” Maurice shot up suddenly from the bed, cutting Chris off as his native tongue spilled rapidly from his mouth. “Fer the love of God, no more, thank you!” 

The singer hurriedly made a beeline for the hotel room door, grabbing his coat as he rushed past the others, his face absolutely aghast as the others snickered. “Just…hurry up, then! Christ, I need a feckin’ drink…”

“I think we all do.” Geoff huffed as Maurice stepped into the hall. “C’mon, lads. Let’s go.”

[lunar-years]

i love it in fics when Roy reacts before he's processed his feelings and says/does something he very soon after hates himself for saying or doing and then he spirals in guilt and regret and apologies. something about it resonates soooo deeply like yeah!! lets give this guy a hug and some grace!! let's shower him in it!!

[pardonmydelays]

clancy tour (watching a livestream) essay 🙏

anon, this question made me so unbelievably happy omg. i just can't get around to the eras tour essay, however, i do feel the need to write, so we're doing this instead.

for the context: i woke up at 5:30 today to watch the livestream of clancy LA show. no, i wasn't there in person. but mentally i was.

please, listen to this incredible playlist while you read my essay (no one's gonna read, it mark my words):

i have decided we will just go through the entire setlist. i don't want to make this too long but i wanna talk about EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. let's fucking go.

OVERCOMPENSATE

so this is when i started crying. who the fuck cries on overcompensate, you would ask... well, me, apparently. i honestly think this is the best opener for both, an album and a show. this song gives me so much serotonin i can't even explain it. i'm always worried about tyler tho because his entrance looks dangerous (the jump, the jump, I AM TALKING ABOUT THE JUMP!). nothing bad happened tho, thankfully. i also noticed he was wearing the other version of clancy jacket today, the one with the hood. not that it's important, but it kinda is. for me at least.

HOLDING ON TO YOU

ok, so if you know me you probably know this is my ultimate favourite twenty one pilots song. and the live performance is even better with the crowd stand at the beginning (i swear to god, it's so incredible to me how much trust tyler has for the clique), clancy mask and lightbulb mic (you can tell tyler has a lot of fun with it), and my favourite part - josh's piano backflip during the bridge of the song. fucking iconic. what's not to love.

VIGNETTE

first thing i want to talk about is the insane transition from holding on to you to vignette. honestly, all transitions are so fucking amazing on clancy tour, it's impressive. now, tyler's little dance during this song is one of the most adorable things i've ever seen (he is such a cat omg) and and and! NEIL BANGING OUT THE TUNES!!! i'll be honest with you, because of this part vignette became one of my favourite songs from clancy and definitely one of my faves from this tour.

CAR RADIO

another one of my favourites. car radio will always hold a very special place in my heart, it's so relatable to me. it makes me so happy that we have a chance to see it being performed in clancy costume (and clancy mask!!!). and when tyler teleports at the end! (also i think he's wearing a totally different jacket in this clip which probably means he has three different clancy jackets, i have no proof tho so i'm just gonna shut up. the video is from LA night one tho. not my show). here's another clip, you can see how he teleported here.

THE JUDGE

ok, so for those who don't know, right before every show the fans in their incredible outfits are being filmed while singing the judge together and every night they show a different video of them singing first verse + chorus and then after that tyler comes out with his ukulele to finish the song. it makes me cry for no reason at all. yes, i cried today too (it just makes me so happy to see all the clikkies singing together and they all look so beautiful always). so what happened today? content warning glitch happened during fan video, you can watch it here, then blurryface tweeted this:

i am losing my goddamn mind over this, people on the livestream were losing their shit when this happened, I STARTED CRYING LIKE A GODDAMN FOOL BECAUSE I'M SO FUCKING EMOTIONAL ABOUT EVERYTHING THIS BAND IS DOING. ugh. i was so right to watch today's livestream. something's gonna happen soon guys. they are warning us.

(i added CUT MY LIP to the playlist but technically it's the judge/cut my lip mashup so there's really not much to say about it)

THE CRAVING + TEAR IN MY HEART

the transition. the goddamn transition!!! it's honestly so fucking cool and probably one of my favourite parts of the tour. i absolutely love all jenna's songs and everyone who says they should not be on the setlist, fuck you forever. in this house we stan all jenna's songs. i usually cry on the craving and tyler is being so silly during tear in my heart - this is my favourite thing in the world. plus, do you really hate the sound of ukulele???

BACKSLIDE

ok, i actually started crying as soon as i realized we're singing backslide now. i love this song so goddamn much, it means the world to me. at one point it was my favourite song from clancy. the chorus breaks my poor little heart every single time and live performance of this song is so emotional... especially at the end when tyler is on his knees (the video is not from tonight's show but it's my favourite one from backslide, please watch it, his vocals here are INSANE). it's like crying for help. i wanna kill myself now. i relate to this song so much. also, backslide is the reason i decided to buy clancy tour tickets, so there's that.

SHY AWAY

oh, thank god this one is on the setlist. you know how much i love scaled and icy and i think out of all the songs from this album shy away is the best one to put on the setlist because the live performance is always so fun!!! don't you shy aWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! the scream is absolutely fucking everything oh my god. actually, i just love when tyler screams. but don't we all.

HEATHENS + NEXT SEMESTER

ok, now don't hate me, please, but i was never the biggest fan of heathens (i don't hate the song, i like it, just not as much as the others. i probably wouldn't cry if it wasn't on the setlist). however, the transition (again!!!) from heathens to next semester is the best goddamn thing in the entire world and i am losing my mind every single time i come across any clip of this moment. please, watch it, this is everything!!! one question tho: i know tyler was playing bass on the platform for next semester and he didn't do that today, did he just stop doing this recently or is it because of what happened yesterday during the show? (not during this song tho, or at least i know nothing about it, but it seems like LA fans absolutely cannot behave and he was definitely being more careful today, more about it later tho).

ROUTINES IN THE NIGHT

oh boy, this is my vigilante shit for real. remember vigilante shit performance from the eras tour and how everyone was losing their shit when they saw taylor doing the choreography with this motherfucking chair? yes. it's basically that except tyler is fully dressed. which is even worse maybe (y'all know how i feel about his clothes for some reason). one of my favourite songs from the album, but after seeing the live performance for the first time i became absolutely obsessed with the song. i was genuinely scared today because this is basically what happened last night in LA (i swear to god people are acting like fucking animals) and i noticed that tyler was being much more careful this time: he wasn't coming so close to people, and honestly good for him. he didn't even let them touch him during this part. i can't blame him. i feel so bad for what happened. hope he's ok.

ADDICT WITH A PEN + MIGRAINE + FOREST + FALL AWAY

my favourite mashup in the entire fucking world. but before we get into it, please this is so fucking funny and adorable. so basically, before playing the mashup, tyler sat by the piano and he said "currently i'm temperature hot. so i would want to take my jacket off, i promise not to turn on all the dads tonight" and then this happened. poor guy didn't know what to do LMAO. he's such a cutie, please watch the video, he's so adorable i can't. he's also the funniest person on earth. back to the topic, the mashup... i am such a slut for their old songs and this mashup is absolutely fucking insane. the song i love the most out of those is, of course, forest. according to tyler, this song is so old it basically doesn't exist. fuck you, tyler joseph. i can't believe i'm going to hear it live tho, holy shit. i will be fucking SOBBING during this part, i just know that.

MULBERRY STREET

this is such a fun song to play live and one of my favourite moments. you can tell how much fun tyler has each time they play it, also this! this is everything!!! he's always so happy when this happens, he trained us well hahaha. it's so fun omg. can't wait to be a part of it. this has always been one of my favourite songs from scaled and icy so i'm glad they decided to keep it on the setlist.

NAVIGATING

get in, losers. we are entering the lore now. ok, honestly, this part of the tour is absolutely everything to me. torchbearer with his torch? and clancy jacket?? coming to pick him up so they can perform while dema is burning??? AAAAAAAAAAAAAA. oh my GODD. also, navigating is so special to me (i picked this url for a reason) and live performance of this song is fucking fire. watch it. watch the clip. just watch the goddamn clip, will you? we all know this song is on the setlist because of josh, so everybody say thank you josh. also you can tell tyler is very emotional about this song and i just wanna give him a hug. oh my god. i can't wait to hear it live. this will fix me (it will probably make me worse).

NICO AND THE NINERS + HEAVYDIRTYSOUL

the MOTHERFUCKING transition!!! i know i say this a lot but i am such a slut for all the transitions on this tour, oh my god. they are so good. also i absolutely fucking love how we're still in the lore and also, the visuals are absolutely incredible, and also, nico and the niners is one of my favourite songs (the one that got me into their music actually) and also heavydirtysoul live is INSANE and also-

MY BLOOD

ok, i'm sorry, i keep forgetting that this song is on the setlist. it's not one of my favourites (don't fucking hate me, i like it, it's just not my fave). i will be very much singing it at the concert tho cause it's so good live. not much to say about it tho.

OLDIES STATION

boy, here we go. so i started crying at the very beginning of the song and honestly i have no idea how i'm going to handle this live. i am so very normal about this song. it means everything to me. the worst part of it tho was when during the song tyler said "thank you so much for using our music. you've saved us in ways you'll never know". OH MY GOD. i started weeping even more. it's like... their music saved US but we also saved THEM and i need 3-5 business days to recover after that. good lord. listen, i love slowtown and i'm sad that it's not part of the setlist anymore, but i love oldies station a hundred times more and that was a good change me thinks.

FAKE YOU OUT + GUNS FOR HANDS

putting those two together just because i can and i will. vessel is such a great album and it makes me so happy that those two are on the setlist. screaming "our brains are sick but that's okay" with the entire arena is going to fix me, for sure. also, here's the clip of tyler messing up the lyrics (he basically went kjbufbfkkjejkebfkjk after that lmao). can't blame him. the rap part is so fast. i died tho. he's so funny, please.

LAVISH

i can't even begin to explain how happy i am to have this one on the setlist. it's the funniest moment on tour and i love watching them being stupid on stage. also, jOsH iS sHiRtLeSs. the walk, THE WALK LMAO. the best choreography you've ever seen. i just love seeing them so silly and happy and this is everything. i paid a lot of money to see this live. i'm definitely not gonna regret this.

RIDE

so the thing i love about this tour is that every single night while performing this song tyler brings a different kid to sing the chorus with him (it's the equivalent of giving the hat during 22 on the eras tour i would say). tonight we had an adorable girl named callie (if i'm correct). she did so well! also i was giggling so much when tyler said she's cute (he was giggling too hdshfbhekj). i just love watching him with kids, it's so sweet!!! also she had a great beanie with band's logo, i want one too. please watch the clip of them singing together!

PALADIN STRAIT

i was crying. i was crying so much, i love this song and the live performance is so emotional. i put the song bandito on the playlist, because there's this moment in the song where tyler is singing the bridge of paladin strait and josh is singing bandito at the same time and OH MY GOD. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR THE LORE??? THIS IS SO CLEVER AND I AM LOSING MY GODDAMN MIND EVERY SINGLE TIME I THINK ABOUT IT. please, watch. this is sick as fuck. you don't understand. do you even understand? OR AM I THE ONLY ONE I KNOW???? i'm sorry i just can't i can't i am defeated i am absolutely insane about this part. also, the ending when they are showing the clip of paladin strait music video combined with other clips which looks like a flashback from clancy's life and his never ending battle with nico? the fuck??? and then we go straight to...

JUMPSUIT

the motherfucking coat. not gonna say anything else. just. the coat. oh dear lord. now i am temperature hot.

MIDWEST INDIGO

now my favourite part of midwest indigo is tyler taking off his coat very slowly. because he fucking knows what he's doing. but also, this song is so special to me. i know he wrote it as a love letter to ohio and i'm not even american but somehow this song always makes me think about my hometown. the live performance is so great. the beginning with the bass! he's adorable!

STRESSED OUT

"i don't want stressed out on the setlist it's so overplayed" kill yourself. i love stressed out because i have good taste. it's fun. it's a great song with great lyrics and you fuckers hate it only because it's popular. just shut up. shut the fuck up. in this house we actually enjoy listening to good songs. i personally want it to be on every setlist. if stressed out has no fans it means i killed myself. i'm dead. i'm gone. stressed out defender forever and always. also clancy tour version is incredible. just watch it and shut the fuck up.

TREES

again, i was so scared about my boys because of what happened yesterday in LA. people are fucking animals. i'm so glad, because tyler actually decided to call them out for this and seems like it was much better today. but still. guys please, behave, cause if you're not gonna start acting responsible they are going to stop performing like this. it's still insane compared to the opening night of clancy tour where people didn't even come closer until tyler told them to. i also just noticed now that tyler's t-shirt had black font today (the previous one had red font) for the first time. i think i was just too tired to notice this before. there's not much i can tell you about trees, because you just simply have to be there to understand. it's a perfect song to end the show (for those who don't know: they always close their shows with this one), it's something i experienced live once before and i can't even compare it to anything. i wasn't even crying. my soul literally just left my body. trust me, there's absolutely nothing like trees live. i can show you thousands of clips and it will never be enough. nobody does it like them. seriously. this is the moment. the moment of all moments. i am in fact crying now...

TO SUM IT UP:

great show. 10/10. would recommend. i'm going to see them live in 223 days. this is the thing that makes me want to stay alive. yes. i need to stay alive for this. whoever sent me this ask, thank you. it means the world to me. i need to talk about them because it's the only joy in my life now. they are the reason i want to push on through. also, if you made it this far, thank you. i love you. and i'm sorry.

[snckt]

i wondered if villainy was like armstrong feint, someone once kind and gentle who lowered himself into treachery, or more like a mysterious beast, hidden in the depths and summoned to wickedness. but all these questions seemed wrong.

@asouefanworkevent day three of woevember : the clusterous forest, alternatively titled,   a lesson in turpitude.

[mariyekos]

Fic time. Chapter 1 of many. In the middle of revising so I don't want to post on AO3 yet (that and I'm uh. Still debating on whether I want to post this on AO3 at all or keep it to myself) but for followers who like DMC if you want a preview here it is. This is supposed to be an adaptation of a response I had to a prompt way back in February of this year! (oh man I've been working on this for 6 months). Also if this sounds familiar I've posted the first 3k before, but this time there's more like 7k words. I cut out about 1400 words today so it used to be longer too 😅

Summary of the whole fic will probably be:

"After defeating Mundus, Dante finds himself stuck in Hell. While looking for a way home, he finds something- or someone- unexpected and proceeds to make several bad decisions. (A DMC1/DMC5 fusion)".

Chapter 1

Mundus is dead. 

Or as close to it as he can be, at any rate. For a being as old and powerful as Mundus, millennia of conquest and victory and tribute fueling his lifeforce and abilities beyond what he’d have accumulated by simply living that long or inheriting strength from his forebears, can’t really be killed by something as simple as what Dante did to him. Not when it boiled down to ‘hit hard and fast with all that you can’ and not much more. All that could do- all that will do, has done, however you’d want to phrase it when the deed’s been done but the effect’s still going- is delay him for a while. Force him to take a nice long nap while he gathers back his power. A reprieve for Dante but not a panacea for the world in general. 

Sure, Dante packs a punch, especially when down in the demon world and fueled by the sword bearing his father’s name and legacy, itself fueled by the sword and amulet that for two thousand years sealed and separated two once-joined worlds, but in the end he was just brute forcing it, and that wouldn’t cut it when it came to something as strong and storied as Mundus. That’d be too easy.

To truly kill Mundus, he’d need something a lot more complex. Elaborate. Drowning in preparation and ritual and kind of magic that could seal Mundus to the point of erasure. And though Dante knows a handful of helpful spells and has made up a few wards here and there, he’s far from an expert on the stuff; more a dabbler than a practitioner, if he had to put a name to it. So if he really wants to blast Mundus from this plane of existence, he’ll either need to come back in a few years once he’s learned some new tricks, or convince someone who already knows them to take a dive into the other side for a quick kingkilling trip. That or send his more-magically inclined son to clean up his messes once he’s ready, if said son ever ends up existing. Who’s to say? That’ll all depend on whether Dante ever manages to escape his current predicament. 

That predicament being the fact that he’s very much stuck in Hell with no way home. ‘Least, not as far as he can tell. That’s why goal number one right now is to find some portal that’ll pop him back where he needs to be before he loses it. 

Which is. Well. Something! Dante’s trying to be an optimist about it right now but he’s not going to lie and say he’s very happy about it. Interesting as Hell can be, he chose the human world for a reason. Hell- the Underworld, the Demon World, whatever you want to call it- it just doesn’t have the same appeal.

It’s Mundus’ fault anyway. Maybe if Dante had killed him it would’ve reversed whatever spell Mundus had used to drag him here and sent him right home, but he didn’t and now Mundus is gone so he’s going to have to figure this out all on his own unless Mundus comes back with a quirky ‘surprise! And goodbye!’ real soon, which, given Dante did beat him about three inches from oblivion, is very much not going to happen. 

Back to Mundus and his semi-unkillability, the reason why killing Mundus is such a tricky endeavor is that he’s more than just your average demon. He’s King of the Fire Hell, for one. Important guy right off the bat. Strong. Impressive. Titled and storied, ranked and elevated, high brow and high class and all that jazz. He’s also Demon Emperor to top it off, whatever that means, which makes him the highest ranked demon Dante’s ever heard of, not to mention faced, and that comes with its own perks of bonus survival.

(It should perhaps be noted that that does, technically, leave room for higher high ranked and higher strength demons Dante hasn’t heard of to exist, by virtue of them either not attacking the human world in recent times and thus staying out of his path, or by them being a whole lot more subtle than the guy who burned down his house, murdered his mother, kidnapped slash brainwashed his brother, and sent a demonic clone of his mom to lure him in after years of sending his lackeys to ruin his life before that, but that’s a different topic for another time. If Dante has to deal with anyone else like that before he’s able to get home, sit down, maybe cry a bit, and take a nap, he thinks he might spontaneously explode). 

Mundus is a capital-E Entity, a legacy, not exactly cosmic but definitely beyond the rest of the rabble Dante’s faced over the years, and even though he knows Mundus could still be beaten into hibernation by someone without all the fancy know-how to permanently off him- Dante just did it, after all- it wouldn’t and didn’t really kill him. Not in a way that would stick. Not in the way that would truly, fully, permanently eliminate him from existence. 

See, if demons are the Underworld’s equivalent of men, then Mundus is the equivalent of a god, and gods don’t simply dissipate when there are still hordes of believers left to will them back into existence with their body (and souls) as fuel. So the texts Dante’s found say. Or so he’s translated them. Linguistics isn’t his strong suit.

(That had always been-)

But if any two demons were to be considered gods of the true sort, those two would be Mundus and Sparda, and Sparda is gone, gone, lost to the winds, deader than dead, never to return- at least as far as Dante can tell given the guy disappeared and never came back with milk or cigarettes or ancient artifacts or even his just his body and soul, and Mundus seemed to think so too, because he kept gloating about that during their fight and the various demons Dante has met over the years never stopped yapping about how the traitor which spawned him had died and left behind a disappointment in his place- so if Sparda can die, Mundus can probably die too.

Dante just doesn’t know how to cause that. 

Yet.

Maybe one day he’ll unravel the mystery behind all that and use his newfound knowledge to stick it to the bastard who came into his life swinging and lit the candles on a birthday cake that would consume the rest of his life in its flames. Maybe he’ll lay out all the pieces that make up god-killing for dummies and have a little scene when he realizes it’s way more complicated than anything’s he’s done and requires a way larger skillset than he has at his disposal, meaning it’ll probably be beyond him no matter how hard he tries to prepare. Maybe he’ll discover the secret to killing a demon-god is actually stupidly easy- if obscure- and just stand there dumbfounded by the fact that his father apparently died from something so basic after two thousand years of romping around a world that he’d split himself. Maybe he’ll discover it was some sort of freak occurrence that had never happened before and would never happen again- unless either Dante got insanely lucky or Mundus got insanely unlucky, which knowing Dante’s luck will never, ever happen- and decide to go back to cleaning up his father’s messes in other ways because there’s nothing he can do about it and that’s what he’s been doing for the past ten plus years depending on how you look at it, so why not? Revenge done, Mundus (not) killed, it’s time for cleanup duty and to carry a cross he never asked to bear but has never been able to bring himself to set down. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Being miserable does not count as being broken. It’s just unfortunate. 

Basically when it comes to taking what happened to Sparda and applying that to Mundus, Dante has absolutely no idea where to begin. To do that he’d need to know at least something, and the closest he’d ever gotten to unraveling the mysteries of his father’s death and Mundus’ slaughter had been a day or so before when a scantily-clad version of his mom showed up on his now in-pieces doorstep spilling out the sob story that was his past and inviting him to the place where she said he could explore it and earn his revenge. 

Getting revenge? Sort of happened. He fought Mundus, even if he didn't exactly kill him, and that’s way more than Dante’s managed to do in the past twenty years. And he certainly did do the whole exploring thing. A lot. Probably more than he had in nine years. 

(Since the-) 

Mallet Island had been a hassle at the best of times and a maze at the worst. Had Mundus been the one to plan out all those keys and thingamabobs needed to open up all those doors? Or had he found a random castle with a conveniently obtuse set of navigational tools and thought ‘Ah, yes, this is the perfect place to torment the son of my greatest enemy by making him not only fight his way through my army but exhaust himself trying to figure out how in the world he’s supposed to get through the lion door in the courtyard that speaks in tongues from a statue beneath alongside the other fifteen weird entry things this castle for some reason has’? If this were any other situation, Dante might’ve had a good time going through those puzzles. They were clever. Dante’ll admit that much. But when you’re trying to fight and kill the guy who ruined your life? Clever puzzles just turn into annoying obstacles, if he’s putting it nicely. 

What was the point of all that anyway? Did Mundus think it would be funny to watch Dante struggle? Did he want some entertainment before the actual show? Some fun advertisements to tide him over before the movie began? Or was there some sort of judgment or valuation thing going on? Did he decide Dante needed to go through a special trial before he was worthy of bowing before him? Was Dante’s ability to put a trident in a stone and a sword in a statue some sort of measure of his worth? 

Maybe if Mundus wakes back up in Dante’s lifetime he can get the answer to some of these questions. Maybe he should’ve just asked Trish during one of the handful of times they saw each other between their arrival and her- betrayal. 

(Death. Sacrifice. Why do the women who wear his mother’s face seem to think he wants them to die for his sake-) 

But he didn’t. He’d just gawked and marched on.

Now Mundus is as good as dead, Trish is dead and on another plane, and Dante’s alone with no one to ask anything of. So there’s not much he can do besides wander.

That all wraps back around to his current predicament. The whole “stuck in Hell with no way home” thing.

See, right now he’s cruising through the Demon World mowing down any and all demons that are so unfortunate as to cross his path, because whatever fancy magic Mundus had used to send them to Hell apparently didn’t have an automatic reverse button, so with Mundus down Dante’d lost his world-crossing express ticket, and now he’s stuck in the world he doesn’t want to stay in with no idea how to make it back. 

It’s not all bad. Flying’s pretty nice. Fighting too. It’s been ages since he last has so many good fights in a row.

Fighting and flying also feel like his only options at the moment, which does definitely put a damper on how good they sort of are since it’s that or leaning back on his well-practiced habit of sitting in misery, but he’ll just say he’s having a (not) good time to give himself a moment of reprieve in this otherwise crummy situation. 

The high of killing Mundus had clearly done something to his brain and body that put them on full go-mode, because right now he just knows that if he doesn’t blow through as much energy as he possibly can in the next however-long period of time it takes to blow through it, he will either Actually Explode or go full on Demon-Mode in a way he’s terrified he won’t be able to come back from. So fly and blast away it is. At least until the feeling dies down and he’s certain taking a break will not lead to the Death of Dante in the most pathetic way possible besides just lying down to starve or something equally unpleasant and unepic.

Man. Could the scenery at least change? Dante’s been zooming through Hell for what’s gotta be at least five hours at this point and for all he knows he’s been going in circles because everything still looks indistinguishable from the place he started out, all lava plumes and giant rocks and the occasional craggy pit. It would be nice to know he’s at least going somewhere, even if he doesn’t come across a portal right away. At least that way he’d be able to say he was theoretically making progress.

If he had to describe how he’s doing, Dante would say he’s having both a wonderful and terrible time. He feels better than he’s ever felt. He feels…not the worst he’s ever felt, because nothing compares to the fire or the Temen-ni-gru, and the whole Mallet thing hasn’t hit him fully yet because he shoved everything that happened during this big yet-to-end trip to the back of his mind to keep from having some sort of mental breakdown that would be really inconvenient for his get-home-plan, but he feels awful too and it’s just too much to process so he’s just going to say he feels A Lot. 

In the Underworld, Dante feels stronger than he ever has despite the exhaustion that by all rights should be forcing its claws into him, sliding in under his skin and pulsing its grip to either tear him limb from limb or at least gore him a bit as it drags him down and pushes him under the lovely pinkish water of Hell and gift him with the lovely burning sensation that comes with taking a dip. He’s never maintained his Devil Trigger this long, never pushed himself this hard this long, never kept fighting and flying- and it’s the flying thing that’s the most out of place, probably, because yeah he’s fought for really long times before even if not while expending so much energy and putting as much effort in as he is now, but when it comes to flying he usually prefers to stick to the ground or maybe glide for a few minutes but not stretches that are probably in the hours- this long. This kind of effort and expenditure should come with the sort of exhaustion that would have him collapsing onto the couch instead of walking the few extra steps to his desk and the comfy chair there. If he was on a normal mission, it’d be the sort of thing that would have long since sent him stumbling for the nearest Divinity Statue desperate for a Vital Star of whatever size he could get his hands on.

But it hasn’t. Dante’s still got a star in his pocket, untouched and undesired, and he feels like he’s on top of the world. Exhilarated. Delirious. All-powerful. High. 

Was it killing Mundus that did this to him? Did Dante absorb some sort of special demon energy from him when the Demon Emperor not-died? It’s been ages since the last time he’d done something like that- not since the Geryon and his evil clone back in the Temen-ni-gru whose powers he hasn’t used in an age because they don’t really make battles any more fun- and he can’t remember exactly how that felt or if that feeling was the same as the feeling he’s feeling now. He doesn’t think it was. What he’s feeling now is unique.

(What he’s feeling now is like the battle high he’d felt the last time he was in Hell turned up to ten, back when he’d fought-)

It could also just be because he’s in Hell. Maybe Dante’s demon side is latching onto whatever sort of ambient energy exists in the Demon World and is having a field day with it while the human side of his brain just doesn’t know how to process it all. One side high, one side confused. Dante the single man left with mind a whirl. 

It reminds him of when he’s stocked to nearly bursting with red orbs, having killed so many demons in so short a time that it feels like his body’s filled to the brim with so much energy that if he doesn’t either slow down for a bit or get to a Divinity Statue to spend them, he’ll have to Trigger and toss some fancy moves around just to burn through enough to gather all the rest. That’s the sort of feeling that will send him rushing down passageways high and careless, ready for slaughter and bouncing off the walls to look as cool as possible while doing it. 

If by some chance any of that sounds somehow pleasant, it’s really not. 

Not emotionally. Not before he’s started or after he’s done. It’s that sort of indulgence that feels so good in the moment but so bad at every point when you’re not experiencing it, and one that Dante both longs for and loathes. 

It’s the longing that makes his distaste cross to disdain. Annoyance to hatred. 

(Though not enough to keep him from ever shooting for it when he realizes just how close he is. For as much as he likes to say he hates the high in the before and after, he loves it in the during, is addicted to the feeling in a way where the temptation’s easy to ignore until the bottle’s right in front of you and there’s no one to yell at you to put it down, and the hatred that follows is a more a mix of disgust at his indulgence and inhumanity and a longing for the feeling of power and fulfillment and rightness to flow through him once more).

When Dante loses himself like that, when the high of battle crosses over him and the flair he puts into every fight he’s ever in goes from something meant to make a battle as fun as possible while he’s stuck putting something down to something where he’s toying with enemies who would probably be begging for mercy were they intelligent enough to ask for it- and with some of the big ones, sometimes they do beg for mercy, promising to stop attacking or to leave him alone forever or even to bow down in subservience if he’ll only let them live and not either smite them on the spot or entrap them in weapons he’ll sell the next time he runs out of cash- in those moment, or after those moments are over, Dante’s left feeling inhuman. Like his demon side has won. Like the side of himself he wishes didn’t exist had taken over without his permission and caused him to do things that don’t actually sicken him nearly as much as he feels they should. 

That’s a problem he faces a lot more than he’d like to admit.

Feeling like he should feel one way or another, but not actually feeling that way or the other. Moments where he arrives at a mission to find the contorted remains of the five hunters who failed before him and thinks ‘huh, I should probably be horrified right now’ but only feels mildly disgusted by the sight and smell. Moments where he hears a demon’s nest has been cleared out before he can get to it and thinks ‘aw, but I wanted to be the one to do it’ instead of being happy that said nest was destroyed before any more people could be hurt. Moments where he realizes he should feel bad, and does feel bad, but only because he’s feeling bad about not feeling bad, in a twisted sense of the word.

Basically, Dante is a very messed up person trying his best to be human but occasionally failing terribly and that realization does not make him a happy man. 

He doesn’t want to be a demon. As fun as it can be when he indulges, he spends way, way more of his time not wanting those things and not being happy about that kind of stuff, and the joy of indulging does not outweigh his disgust at that joy. When Dante chose the human world, that was not a temporary choice. He didn’t do it just to sound good. It’s a promise he made and one he plans to uphold until the day he dies. It’s the person he wants to be. It’s the feelings he wants to have.

It’s just a matter of how much choice he really has in the end when those demon instincts sometimes have such a more powerful hold than the human ones.

(Supposedly, he’s fifty-fifty. Logically, each side should have equal claim over him.

But based on the beings he’s encountered, demon instincts run a lot stronger than human ones, and sometimes he feels like even with the fifty fifty split it’s more a seventy thirty or eighty twenty when it comes to urges that the demon side of him loves and the human side stares at in horror.)

Back in the present and his merry jaunt through Hell, he finally gets a change in pace when a pack of Blade descends upon him and gives him a chance to burn through at least a little bit of his battle high. 

It’s not that much of a battle. For all they’ve given him trouble in the past, he rips them to shreds before they can lay a finger on him. 

His claws dig into the tail of the first to reach him as he snatches it out of the air, launching the beast at its brethren with enough force to both tear its spine from its body and fling said body not just into but through the Blades trying to get the jump on him from the side. The move practically douses him in various liquids that Dante does not want to think about; blood is blood and if he had any sort of significant (well, actually, he does have a pretty significant reaction to it, but it’s one that’s good-bad and one he can tamp down because he doesn’t want to be that person) slash visceral reaction to that he wouldn’t have survived a day in his current profession, but he thinks there might be spinal fluid too and for some reason the prospect of getting that in his mouth is absolutely disgusting, so he scrunches up his face as he tricks away. Not that that gives him a reprieve. A lot of demons don’t have particularly strong self-preservation instincts, so what Blades remain launch themselves past the bloody remains of their fellows to get an attack in on the thing that decimated their brethren and Dante deals with them much as he had the first. One by one, or sometimes in twos or threes when they’re feeling annoying, the pack descends. And one by one, or sometimes in twos or threes if Dante aims just right, the Blades fall and die.

Something about Hell makes their energy disperse in an odd way. It’s like an express delivery right to Dante’s heart, a rush of power bursting forth as their corpses burst into a million tiny specks that fade into the non-existent wind an hour or minute later. Really the stagnancy of the air is one of the things about Hell that puts Dante most on edge. It’s unnatural. Unreal. Dead.

(There’s a part of him that urges him to shove his own power into the corpses long enough to keep them solid; to break apart their ribs instead of just their spines, shoving Ifrit-clad fingers into their chests to part the bone and expose entrails rich in whatever it is demons feed on down here, before popping them out with a little fiery flare like they’re nice breakfast sausages ripe for the taking.

Dante not-so-politely yells at that part of himself to shut up.

He’s half-demon, but he’s not a monster. He’s not a cannibal.

Because while he’s half-human and it’s the human side he wants to indulge, he’s still half-demon, so eating a demon would basically be cannibalism and that’s a line he has no interest in crossing.

Not yet at least.

Hopefully not ever.)

The high lasts through the Blades, as it’s lasted through each and every fight Dante's thrown himself into since Mundus had gone down and Dante had been left wanting. Again, he wonders whether this is from Mundus or just Hell itself, and if it is from Mundus, if there’s an actual physical component or gain he got from the killing or if it’s all just in his head. Killing-  felling, defeating, whatever-the-hell it was, Dante was just gonna say killing from now on because he liked simple things- the guy who killed your mother, almost killed your brother, then tortured your brother, and brainwashed your brother, and enslaved your brother- (but not killed! Because no, twisted wretched bastard as he was, Mundus hadn’t been the monster who had killed Vergil. That had been Dante. His own damn twin-)

Well whatever it was that he’d done to Mundus, Dante feels half like he’s on top of the world and half like he’s going to burst into a million tiny pieces if he doesn’t rip everything in sight into a million tiny pieces first, and he wonders if maybe it is all just from satisfaction at achieving at least some degree of revenge. If that’s the case, he’s in for one hell of a crash when the mental high finally wears off and Dante’s subjected to whatever kind of terrible backlash-exhaustion he’ll face once his body finally finishes processing all he’s forced it through and lets him know just how badly he’d overextended himself.

Dante continues forward. He doesn’t really know where he’s going. Just forward. Maybe if he goes far enough he’ll run into a portal and make his way home. Maybe he won’t and he’ll be stuck in Hell forever. 

The latest in the series of bottomless, fiery canyons Dante’s passed eventually gives way to a fiercely boiling lava lake- or some sort of large body of not-water, Dante can’t see the end so maybe it’s an ocean, he doesn’t know, doesn’t think he can figure it out with the way his brain is still buzzing and body is still humming with an excess of power he can’t figure out what to do with- and in the center of the lake is something that throw Dante off nearly enough to make him nose dive because oh. Oh boy. Finally, finally there’s something that’s not only different, but looks promising.

For in the middle of the lava lake stands a castle. 

A grey-stone, big towers, fancy crenellation, a few bretèches, honest-to-the-potentially-nonexistent-god castle.

It’s the first sign of civilization he’s seen since he landed in Hell. The first one recognizable to his human-raised brain, at any rate. It’s reminiscent of the one on Mallet Island. 

(Does this mean Mundus did have his people built Mallet? That this was a long con? Or did he instead choose it because it reminded him of the architecture back home?)

The castle reeks of Mundus, even from miles away, and Dante’s certain it’s a prominent part of Mundus’ domain. Maybe even a summer home or something. He’s not there right now- again, Dante can just tell, his demonic senses are even stronger down in Hell to no one’s surprise- but it’s chock full of demons and Dante’s going to hope that means there’s something worth protecting inside.

There are a few enticing things about the castle, which run through his mind as he speeds through the skies:

First, that maybe a place as human-looking as a castle might have something as human-adjacent as real food. 

The hunger he’s facing right now isn’t that bad yet, but the ‘yet’ is carrying a lot of weight, and he doesn’t want to get to a point where he ends up doing something he’ll regret. Even demons need to eat, and Dante’s seen enough invasions that involved a kitchen raid to know they don’t only subsist on the flesh of their brethren. Hopefully Mundus and co. have tastebuds Dante can appreciate and the guards haven’t cleaned out the pantry in their master’s absence. 

Second, that castles usually have bedrooms, and if there’s a bedroom, there will probably be a bed, and maybe being in a bed in a real room will allow Dante to relax enough to get some sleep. 

Sleep would be more than welcome. He’s not about to drop or anything. He could keep going for days, maybe even weeks if he conserved his energy. Hell’s powering him in a way the ambient Human World never has. But despite having been born a half-breed, the two halves that make up Dante’s whole haven’t always worked very well with each other, and right now Dante’s human side feels like it’s seriously lagging despite the overwhelming energy keeping his demon half raring to go. And again, his human side is his favorite, so it’s the side he wants to pamper, and also the side he does not want to lose if it comes down to it. Who knows what might happen if the human side of his brain undergoes the whole saying about how if you don’t choose a time for your body to rest, it’ll choose a time for you? What will his demon side do? Will it still feel like Dante doing it? Will he do a bunch of terrible stuff while thinking he’s being perfectly reasonable, until the human side of him wakes up and he gets slammed by guilt and horror once it processes everything he’s done? Will he black out entirely while doing whatever demon stuff his demon side wants to do, like it’s an actual split personality instead of just a voice that he thinks is probably slightly more vocal than most people’s impulsive thoughts but has never really considered a separate consciousness (since he’s never given it an opportunity to prove it’s nothing more)? Will he flip some sort of switch so Demon Dante is the Dominant Dante and will remain that way until he encounters some sort of soul-sucking orb or annoying demon-sealing sigil again that quiets it down enough to let Human Dante rise back up and go ‘What have I done?’

After that train of thought derailed off a cliff and took all of its passengers with it Dante’s not really sure what his original third thought was, but the quick replacement is that maybe the castle will be occupied by demons that will put up enough of a fight to sate his own demon side, burn off some of the energy that has left Dante feeling like he’s stuck in someone else’s skin, and let him calm down enough to come up with a better plan for escaping Hell. He’s tired of the Wrongness in the air and what it does to him.

(He’s scared by how the Wrongness feels Right.)

The castle is guarded by some sort of giant serpent that Dante can’t help but compare to Cerberus despite the utter lack of visual similarities. The thing doesn’t even use ice. Or speak. Really it’s only similar in that it’s a guard and that it seems to be sneering at him when he tries to rile it up. The fire it uses is the opposite of the old pup. It’s a lot more level headed too.

(Really he’s only making the comparison because he’s spent the last several hours trying so hard not to think about something that that something is trying to worm itself into every other thing he does spend more than five seconds considering.) 

The serpent rears its head at Dante’s approach, launching itself from the point where the castle’s bridge would be were it to have been lowered. As it is the castle is sealed tight, so the bridge and the serpent are Dante’s best bet of getting into it and he isn’t going to pass up the grace of convenience. Its tail makes some good swings for him, and the fire breath does make Dante all toasty warm, but the thing never does manage to squeeze him tight enough to make him pop, and though the acid-like venom that shoots out from its mouth when it dives for him with teeth bared and mouth letting out an earsplitting screech does manage to sear an unfortunate hole into his coat, it ultimately misses skin. He’s had more than enough practice dodging projectiles to keep out of the thing’s way. So many flying scythes. So many globs of bug juice. Acid spit’s just another thing to add to the list.

The fight gets his heart rate up even if it doesn’t draw any blood, and Dante would say it was a nice little reprieve from the monotony of his latest jaunt. When the thing dies from one last shot to the head Dante thanks it for the entertainment. He feels a little less jumpy now that he’s gotten a more significant chunk of his energy out. Wonderful. He’s finally making progress. Points to the castle even if its only redeeming quality is the gate guard and the inside’s a complete bust.

The bridge falls open once the serpent is dead. Convenient. The dirt it sends into Dante’s eyes is annoying, but it’s worth not having to circle the castle for ages looking for a suitable entrance so in he goes.

Unsurprisingly, Dante’s jumped about five steps into the castle walls. Though the minions prowling the halls are child’s play in comparison to the serpent guardian, what they lack in strength they make up for in numbers, and while it’s not too bad when Dante’s in a large room, the wealth of corridors make things a little more tricky which is in this case more an annoyance than a pleasant source of entertainment.

It reminds him of Mallet, just without the puzzles. Thank god for that. He doesn’t have the brainpower for puzzles right now. If he has to face one he thinks he’ll just turn around and walk the other way.

Violence though? Violence is laced through his blood, entwined with his essence in a way it can never be torn from. Just because people like to say that violence is the thing of beasts, that doesn’t mean humans can’t be violent and can’t enjoy it too; the word depravity wouldn’t exist if humans weren’t around to do deprave things, violence and maiming and killing and tearing among those things which are frowned upon yet still extant and unfortunately common, so that’s a part of him that has support from both sides and clings to him like sap to a tree.

He blasts through hall after hall, the static flowing through him letting him know that he won’t be able to rest until each and every potentially-interesting but highly-doubtfully-challenging demon still alive in the castle is dead and gone. It’s died down somewhat in his most recent bout of pistol fire and evisceration-by-sword, the multitude of red orbs that do neat little dances to hop toward him whether he goes for them or not actually seeming to quiet the burning need in him for once rather than just charging him even further. He’s not sure of the mechanics of that. Maybe it’s some sort of overflow situation; once you get so high, you go back to zero. He’d be cool with that if it means he can rest. And hey, Mallet had some annoying orb doors that could only be broken if you had the cash, so maybe his new stockpile of orb-energy will prove useful making progress in the castle if he’s barred by a glowing door with a phantom hand that demands payment for progression. Maybe that’s what’ll get him back home.

He continues onwards.

And onward.

And onward.

Hot damn this castle is huge.

He goes through the castle level by level, clearing out the entire ground floor before ascending to the next, then the next, then any towers or protrusions as he encounters them, et cetera. His exploration hasn’t revealed an end to the flow of lesser demons committing suicide-by-Dante, but it has revealed a few somewhat useful looking bedrooms, so he files those away in the back of his mind to use later. The beds look cozy enough to stay in if his searching doesn’t reveal any magic portals. 

Other fun rooms include a giant hall for dining with a gargantuan throne at its head, an armory, a completely foodless kitchen (boo), a room full of enchanted chests and barriers that he leaves be after they don’t shatter with a few hits from Rebellion- and oh, he has Rebellion, when did that happen? Did it sense he needed it after gifting the Sparda and thus Force Edge to Trish and somehow make its way back to its wielder? He has no idea when he swapped to it from Alastor, just that it’s in his hands- and a trophy room full of things Dante doesn’t want to think about.

From the looks of things, he’d say this castle was very recently in use. The demons populating it seem more like guards than fellow looters, though Dante can’t help but feel like they’re missing a few big guys who’d be better at beating back actually competent intruders.

He’s not sure whether he’s happy or disappointed about that.

Still he moves forward, ascending and clearing room after room until he finds himself doing a little loop up the staircase of the last tower left to check, muttering under his breath about how there better be something actually useful in the room because while a bed would be nice the castle has been an overall disappointment and he really, really would like to get home.

The tower is immediately unsettling. It doesn’t look notably different from any of the others, but it instead feels completely and utterly muffled. As in, from the outside, Dante hadn’t felt anything from it at all. No guards. No inhabitants. Nothing. And going up the tower, Dante can hardly feel his own power either. It’s like the whole tower has been enchanted to suppress whatever’s stored within it. It doesn’t siphon his energy, but it feels like it might be setting him up for that to be done by another power. Dante doesn’t like it one bit.

If you’d mentioned the suppression concept to Dante ten minutes ago- or ten hours ago, probably, he’s not sure how long he’s been in Hell because whatever sort of weird day and night cycle that may exist here doesn’t align with the human world’s and his internal clock has fallen off the wall- he’d have said he was all for it. He’s so over the buzzing. Going into some sort of sensory deprivation chamber sounds nice after dealing with however long it’s been of feeling as he felt.

But while actually ascending the tower? It makes him feel nauseous. Rather than tamping down on his power, the tower does something to make him feel almost separate from it. Like it’s forced his demonic energy into a box too small for it, locked it away, and then kicked him and the box so they went tumbling down the hill in a way that couldn’t help but leave you slightly motion sick.

Whatever the tower is for isn’t a good thing. More than anything else in the creepy castle, it feels like a prison. That includes the bloodstained cells he’d seen in one of the other towers. It’s just Wrong.

As he finally reaches the door at the top of the staircase, Dante resolves to just peek in, do a quick check to see if anything jumps out at him, and then turn around to make a break for one of the bedrooms so he can sleep all of this unpleasantness away. 

He kicks open the door, unlocked and unsealed, and doesn’t even bother taking a step into the room as his eyes quickly run over the contents and he preps to leave.

But he doesn’t.

Because as his eyes run over the room they land on something he could never mistake for something else- never again- and the world falls out from under him.

Because there, still, limp, and lying in a heap on the ground, is-

“Vergil?”

[that-was-anticlimactic]

giving you something to lean on

“Ritsu-kun?”

Still, nothing. He was definitely worried now. As much as Ritsu may dislike him, he was still always polite and wouldn’t just blatantly ignore him like this. Maybe he was sick or something? Arataka craned his neck, scanning him for possible injuries.

And that’s when he noticed the blood.

“Holy crap! Ritsu, you’re bleeding!” he exclaimed, fumbling out of his seat and running to him. It looked even worse up close. Blood coated both his hands like a second skin, and speaking of skin, his looked pretty torn up.

No response.

Now that he was closer, Arataka could hear his very quiet, almost sporadic breathing. Shoot. Something was really wrong.

[or, ritsu is stressed & can't stop scratching, so he goes to reigen for help]

🍃7,241 words | platonic ritsu & reigen🍃

s/o to @cowgirlwizard for helping me out whenever i got stuck <3

[obliviouskara]

Consider this additional encouragement to write your headcanons!! 👀

Awwww, Mel. You're so nice. Consider me additionally encouraged. Is that even a thing? But thank you! This is super sweet!

[stinkrascal]

dont think i’ll be able to finish editing n begin posting the vlad/brie backstory reprisal by the 31st like i hoped i would 🤒

[tvrningout]

What kind of love are you?

Love as a Choice

You choose to love. Love does not come to you easily, but every day you wake up and choose it. It would be so easy, wouldn't it, to grow cold and callous and grim. But you rise to greet the world, making the conscious effort to find something, anything to love. When you fall for someone, you do not kid yourself of their flaws. Instead, you resolve to see them for who they are, mistakes and all and you love them all the same. Your love is work, and it does not come easy. Your love sweats and toils. It is calloused and sunburned; it bears scars and comes with stories. Your love is worn, but it is no less valuable for it. Being loved by you is like being loved by a gardener, a mother, a teacher. Your love may not always be the simplest, but it is worth the effort.

Love as a Threshold

Your love does not ask for much. Your love does not take. Your love is free, and unquestioned, and here for wherever needs it. When you fall in love, it is as gentle as a breath in the night. It is quiet, and it is effortless. It is tender. If your love was a house, it would readily welcome all who come through. If your love was a hearth, it would warm the hands of whoever stopped by, whether for a day, a month, a year, or forever. When you fall for someone, it is without strings, without conditions, without need. You love for the sake of loving, for the sake of caring for those who need it. You love with a giver’s heart and a giver’s hands and are made so much stronger for it. Being loved by you is to always feel at home. Your love may not always be well-received by those unprepared to linger, but it is unforgettable all the same.

tagged by: @un1awful thank you very much hehe <3 tagging: whoever sees this and hasn't done it!!

[buildacatboy]

Gimme your Vault Boy headcanons

grin. this is a dangerous dangerous question anon.

but ill try to answer with one or two. ah.. hm how do i start this. i like to think of vault boy as living in his own vault boy style universe. but i like to think that the tapes we see are just recorded and that he is in fact an actor. Obviously not in the primary "realistic" fallout universe like obviously he is just animated, but in my mind there's another universe where everyone just looks like that and he's a straight up dude!!!

is he good at being an actor? Kind of. Is he a total monster like every celebrity? 100%. would he cannibalize someone after the end of the world? Without a doubt. i think he's a terrible fucking person but he has whimsy and a silly nature that make him fun to watch, even if he is a terrible terrible person. i think he has awful ego issues from the vault tec limelight too and like a fucked up contract where he basically sold his soul away for a company that does not care about him outside of branding purposes. i think if he was alive post nukes he would do everything in his power to ruin their image because he feels like his life was ruined since he actually survived the nukes to begin with, and now he's got nothing left other than the memory of a company who completely fucked him over by making him the face of some of the most horrific crimes ever...

[singwith-love-at-our-throats]

i’m reading like the longest spuffy fic ive ever read right now and am half way through and right now it’s all pain and hopelessness and despair and I just need to keep forcing myself through it cause it’ll get better probably???

everything hurts 😭😭

[kimmkitsuragi]

not my first reaction to this information as i learned it during the intermission of challengers (yes i finally went to see it) and i was having a lowkey breakdown through the intermission and the beginning of the second half a little bit but ummm: well of fucking course i literally dont deserve anything

[number-one-hog-hater]

I don't know if Mac would LOVE Good Omens or Despise it.

[dumplingsjinson]

i'm trying to work through the prompt requests because i've got quite a lot piled up in my inbox and i've been really slacking lately lmao

[origami10]

Oh man Chainsaw Man episode 6 was SO GOODDDDDDD

I get why everyone likes Aki now. It took a while but between episodes 5 and 6 to say he grew on me would be an understatement. Not a big fan of Kobeni right now but maybe she’ll get her time later? Still can’t help but see her replaced with AoT Sasha.

This just felt like such good writing, like… someone (the author? not sure how closely it follows the manga here) came up with JUST the perfect situation and mix of characters to test all of their limits at the same time. Brilliant. Himeno’s pretty neat too. I like how she and Aki seem so similar right now. I love the implication that he’s like that because of her. I love that he needs Denji because he can’t do it alone. Her quote about the ones the devils are really afraid of are the hunters who have a screw loose really snapped everything into place- that seems to be a theme of Chainsaw Man and it works PERFECTLY. I feel like I can’t help but compare it to Jujutsu Kaisen and I love Yuuji and Nobara and Nanami, but… maybe it’s because all the devil hunters so far seem to be more or less the same age, and everyone definitely has a screw loose. I feel like writing about JJK takes away from how impressed I am with this episode, but there it is. Anyway, it just kinda reminded me of one of those locked-in-a-room doujin that force the characters to confront things, with a really really smooth flow to it. Even the flashbacks felt like they fit in really naturally. I feel like I’m definitely going to want to watch this again or read it 😊