#and they're all so supportive and lovely

[captain-fflewddurfflam]

Percy: "You don't have to get involved in this."

Vex: "Oh, we are SO involved."

Grog: "Yeah we do, you said you want 'em dead."

Vex: "We've got your back, darling."

Vax: "Percival, you don't really have a choice in the matter."

[matchingbatbites]

2112 Days | Ao3 link

tw: memory loss

When Steve wakes up in the morning, he doesn't know where he is. The last thing he remembers from the night before is the party all piled up in his living room, everyone too anxious to sleep, and now he's in a bedroom that he has absolutely no memory of.

He looks around the unfamiliar room, tries to get a sense of what the fuck is going on, and on the nightstand next to him, he finds a tape recorder sitting on top of a photo album. On the tape recorder is a sticky note, with the words 'play me' written across the yellow paper in scratchy handwriting.

Steve is so confused and frustrated, he doesn't have time for this, they have a plan to carry out. But something deep inside him keeps him in place. Tells him to play it. He picks up the device and sees another note on the album, this one reading 'open me', and he presses play on the tape recorder before grabbing the book. 

There's a little bit of sound fuzz before a voice says "Good morning, Stevie!" and Steve blinks, because that's Eddie's voice. 

"Today is Saturday, August 29th, 1992, and it's been 5 years, 9 months, and 12 days since we killed Vecna and closed the gates permanently." 

Steve's hand jerks out and stops the tape, his breathing picks up because what the fuck? That can't be right, they're supposed to fight Vecna today. That's why they all stayed at Steve's house. One more sleepover, one more chance to be there for each other before they have to split up, before they have to finish the job.

He takes a moment to just breathe, lets the words sink in as he opens the photo album. It takes him a second to realize it, but the first picture is of himself, in a hospital bed, bandages wrapped around his head and a tube down his throat. He looks bad, and he doesn't remember a single second of it. 

There's more of that scratchy writing just below it. ‘November 20, 1986. Taken by one of Owen’s guys.’ The next page has a doctor's report, and Steve sees the words 'brain injury' and 'short term memory loss' before he continues. 

He flips through the album, sees more pictures of himself that he doesn't remember being taken. Each one has a date next to it, and some have a little description to give him context. There are photos of him with the party, with Robin and Eddie and Nancy, and there are news articles scattered amongst them, important things he should remember, that make his head hurt when he tries too hard to do so.

There are pictures of Nancy and Robin's graduation from college, Wayne's wedding to some woman named Cynthia, the grand opening of Jonathan and Argyle's pizza shop.

A photo of him and Eddie, wearing tacky sweaters and kissing under mistletoe, with the description '1987, Our first Christmas together', and oh, that's something that sends tingles up his spine. He'd had more than a crush on Eddie before their second run in with Vecna, but he hadn't had the courage to do anything about it before they ran head first into danger, again.

Are he and Eddie together now? Like, together together? 

The answer seems to be yes, because the next few pages are just more photos of him and Eddie, most taken by Eddie himself, his arm stretching out to capture the moment. Pictures of their first apartment, multiple anniversaries, the day they got their cat (Lucy is written next to this one in Steve’s handwriting, along with a little heart).

And then a photo that makes Steve's heart stop. It's them again, standing on a beach, hand in hand as they face each other. They're both barefoot, wearing slacks and nice shirts, Eddie's a deep, wine red, and Steve's a soft baby blue, and the love on their faces is blinding.

The description says 'June 15, 1991, Our wedding. Not legal, but very, very real.'

And Steve looks at his hand, for the first time sees the gold ring on his finger, like it's perfectly happy at home there, and he thinks he might start crying.

On the bottom of the page is his own handwriting, a small addition that just says 'play the tape.' Steve glances over, presses play again with a shaky hand, and Eddie's voice starts up once more.

"You got pretty banged up during the fight, and your many knocks to the head finally caught up with you. You have some extensive brain trauma, and your short term memory is basically non-existent.

"It's okay, though. You're not alone, you've got tons of people that care about you, baby. The Upside Down stuff is all over, there haven't been any blips on the radar or anything. The kids are all okay - scattered to the wind, but okay.

"Robin's in town today, we're meeting her for lunch at noon, but you've got plenty of time before then. Finish looking through the album, and as soon as you're ready, come find me in the house. Just follow the sound of music, baby. I love you."

The tape ends, and Steve takes a minute to process. He flips through the rest of the album, pictures dated all the way up to a month ago, when he and Eddie had apparently visited Nancy in New York.

It hits him that this is real, this is his reality. He looks at the tape recorder, thinks that this must be an everyday thing for Eddie, and he's suddenly overcome with emotion for the other man.

He climbs out of bed and grabs the tape recorder before he heads out of the room, hears music coming from somewhere, and follows it to a kitchen. 

And there's Eddie, with his hair pulled up into a messy bun, wearing sweatpants and humming along to the tape that's playing on a nearby stereo. There are more tattoos inked into his skin, more piercings in his ears, and Steve can see that yeah, he has aged a little. 

"Eddie?" he says softly, and the older man turns to look at him with a bright smile. 

"Morning, Stevie. How are you feeling today?"

Overwhelmed, Steve thinks, but he swallows hard and holds up the tape recorder. "Do you record these for me every day?" 

Eddie's smile softens at the question and he motions Steve closer. "You ask me that too often, like you just can't believe I'd do something like that for you."

Steve goes over to him, sets the device on the counter as one of Eddie's hands settles on Steve's waist, the other moving up to cup his cheek. "I can't believe it, it's so-" Kind? Selfless? 

Steve doesn't have the proper word to describe it, and it only adds to that overwhelmed feeling. Eddie's thumb strokes over his cheekbone and he hums softly.

"It's worth it for you, sweetheart. After all the shit we’ve been though, that you’ve been through, you deserve a normal life, and I swore do everything in my fucking power to make sure that happens."

And Steve is definitely crying now. The fact that Eddie has been doing this for almost six years, that he's stayed by Steve through it and hasn't given up on him? The effort he’s put into helping Steve feel somewhat normal? It's too much for Steve to comprehend, and Eddie pulls him into a tight hug, mutters softly softly into his ear as he starts to sob.

"I know, baby. It's okay." 

They stay like that for a while, until Steve's tears slow, then stop, and he's able to breathe normally again. "Sorry," he mutters and scrubs a hand over his face, and Eddie shakes his head. 

"Don't apologize, Steve. This happens sometimes, and it's perfectly okay. It's a lot to process all at once, and we just take it a day at a time, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay," Steve says, and takes another deep breath. He thinks back to the album, to the photos of him and Eddie, and he knows exactly what he wants in this moment. "Will you kiss me, please?" 

And Eddie smiles, says "Of course, honey." 

It feels right when Eddie kisses him, and it's weird, because he doesn't remember ever kissing Eddie before now, but it's like his body does, like it knows all of the steps to this dance that his brain can't remember. 

They stay in the kitchen for a while just kissing and talking, Eddie answering all of Steve's questions with such patience, until it's time to go meet Robin.

-

Later that night, just as Steve is dozing off, he feels Eddie pull away before getting out of the bed. 

"Where 're you goin'?" he mutters, and Eddie cards a hand through his hair. 

"Gotta go record your tape for tomorrow. Just go back to sleep, baby." 

Steve hums his disapproval and hears Eddie chuckle, before a kiss is pressed to his forehead. "I'll see you in the morning, gorgeous."

-

When Steve wakes up in the morning, he doesn't know where he is.

[spielzeugkaiser]

I'm procrastinating so hard (and still coughing my lungs out) that I not only procrastinate on the things I have to do but also on the things I planned to draw, sooooo... another trans!Hinata piece 👉👈 Poor guy feels a bit insecure first.

[aq2003]

really love how throughout a lot of smith and jones martha is really skeptical and apprehensive towards ten (+ one of my favorite exchanges between them - "what, people call you 'the doctor'?" "yeah?" "well, i'm not. far as i'm concerned, you've got to earn that title."), not taking everything he says at face value, even doubting the fact he's an alien until over halfway through the episode.. And like. i really truly think the thing that wins her over isn't him kissing her or any of the other insane mixed messages he manages to send, it's this scene here, where he /earns that title/ in her eyes:

(+ david's bit in the commentary, where he says: "[the doctor] has actually sacrificed himself, and - i would say, that that final act of selflessness is what finally, eventually, welds martha to him. [...] and she now returns it. she returns that act of selflessness.")

this is what their relationship is built on. it isn't about martha being the second-best replacement to rose or a rebound or whatever. bc it isn't really about rose. it's about doctor-in-training martha meeting someone (quite literally, "the doctor") whose ideals she aspires to, and doing her best to be the same person to him as he is to everyone else. it's about ten in return admiring her intelligence and inquisitiveness and how she cares for human life, recovering his compassion, letting himself lean on her for support - and then remembering at the most inopportune moments that he's supposed to not need anyone and be on his own forever. And around in their little nightmare loop they go where they save each other over and over until one of them breaks

i've seen ppl look at martha and go "why she does she admire/why is she so in love with ten if he acts like that to her?" or something along those lines and like. it's not just the fact she's in love with him (in fact i'd argue she actively tries to push it aside post-gridlock). it's the fact that she knows he's the kind of person to put everyone else's lives/well-being over his own. she trusts him to save her when she's in trouble even though it's been like two days at most that they've known one another bc she recognizes that same "deep all-encompassing drive to help others" in him. and she also recognizes, much much earlier than him, that he needs someone to save him, especially when he's unwilling to save himself. and yeah for a bit she thinks he returns her feelings and is just playing hard-to-get, but she realizes pretty early on that this probably isn't the case, and i think that realization fully solidifies here:

(this is when she's listening to ten talk abt gallifrey). And idk it might just be me but i think this expression isn't just her empathizing with his loss. it's also guilt, for wanting something from him that he's clearly unable to give when he's wracked with so much grief. (and you see it in the next episode, where tallulah asks if they're together and martha says for certain that they're not, and that he doesn't know about her feelings for him. she keeps everything to herself bc she now knows that when he shut her flirting down at the end of 3x01 it was the genuine reaction of someone who a) isn't interested and b) is scared of getting close with someone else again)

freema described their dynamic as "she's keener than him" and i think about this all the time. martha doesn't really take what ten throws at her. what she does instead is constantly poke holes in his already-failing front of "i will show someone the wonders of the universe so i can ignore what is wrong with me". what she does is stand up and fight him when he tries to go off on his own. what she does is put aside her well-being in favor of helping someone - just like what she saw him do for the people in the hospital when they first met. tldr, that's the doctor and his doctor and rip martha you would've loved who's gonna save u now by rina sawayama

[shima-draws]

Watching an interview with Taz and Iñaki and Iñaki was like 'I wonder what happens on Whole Cake Island between me and Taz 👀' AND I'M SITTING HERE LIKE

[skyloftian-nutcase]

I want to write some stuff for this but am actively nodding off so y'all just get an info dump before I forget it instead. (My baby loftwing being all fluffed and happy on my chest is not helping me focus lol)

Anyway! Miphlink baby!

I think it would be pretty neat if he was hard of hearing. The mix of Hylian/Zora genes mostly goes fine, but that's the one thing that just gets him. Part of it is because Zora and Hylian ears are different - Zora ears are small openings hidden under the side fins on their heads, and we all know about Hylian ears. Zora rely on different hearing sensors when underwater, hollowed out structures in their heads that allow, essentially, for echolocation. Miphlink baby is born with Hylian ears tucked behind thinner side fins, no structures for echolocation, and not the best hearing. So Link and Mipha have to sign with him most of the time, though he does hear a little better underwater since sound travels better underwater.

While Mipha's color scheme for her scales is like crystla red and creamy white, baby's color scheme is a lighter shade of red paired with Link's skin tone. He doesn't have claws, either, but he does have sharp incisors. He's got his dad's blue eyes.

As for size, when he's full grown he'll stand around the height of an adult Hylian man, so he'll be taller than his dad but short by Zora standards (I figure Mipha seems pretty short for her people's standards too - she is a teenager, of course, but like... she's shorter than Link. Girl is tiny). He's got the structural fins like any Zora, but his body proportions are those of a Hylian (longer legs, shorter torso, whereas Zora are shorter legs and longer torso).

He grows at a rate similar to Hylians - Zora age twice as slow as Hylians until they hit adulthood, and then they just... are adults for a million years. But Miphlink baby grows roughly at the rate of a Hylian, maybe a little slower, and the rest of the Domain is just floored at how fast this kid is hitting his growth milestones.

He definitely has that cute "head tail is too big for his body" thing going on that Sidon had <3

[daily-hanamura]

[crescentfool]

the persona 3 protagonist 25th anniversary nui in food appliances!

[hokkienmee]

Ossan's Love Returns おっさんずラブ-リターンズ- (2024)

[mobydickering]

merlin magic reveal where they're on some sort of jaunt through the forest™ and they come across land that's been sucked dry of everything, and albion itself screams for merlin to fix the wrongs he's committed by killing magical beings on this soil. and merlin stumbles off his horse and sinks his hands into the ground and the earth sucks his remorse and his magic from him, and somehow??? arthur knows that for him to have a kingdom to rule over there must be a kingdom left standing, and this--magic being pulled out of merlin while his eyes leak molten gold tears--is the only way he'll have merlin intact and by his side while he rules.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hi! do you draw your comics traditionally? saw u said ‘rescan’ in the previous ask (i’m not the same anon tho). side note, thank you for making my day w your art

[bruhstation]

HAPPY (EARLY) BIRTHDAY RED @hkpika07​ I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS HUMBLE ART OF YOUR THREE STOOGES

[glorious-blackout]

It's so interesting going back to Käärijä's Instagram comments around the time Cha Cha Cha was released because you can pinpoint the exact moment the other UMK competitors realised the underdog was going to beat them 😅💚

[pastafossa]

Late to the party, first time watching DD completely, not in bits and pieces.

Ya know, thinking about it, in TRT, you've added ANOTHER parallel to Fisk and Matt.

They both fall in love with women who enable them.

Vanessa reassures Fisk that he's doing the right thing, that he's not to blame for what happened as a kid.

Jane reassures Matt that he's doing the right thing, that he's not to blame for what happened as a kid.

They both calm the raging fury that's inside of them.

I'd love to see Venessa and Jane have a conversation, just one. Just to see their personalities bounce off of eachother. I have a feeling Jane would start to show her teeth and Venessa would start to show her second face by the end of it.

(Not fully caught up with trt)

YESSSSSSSS! And that's the thing, like - the parallels between Matt and Fisk have always been an amazing piece of writing for me in canon. They set it up so beautifully, weaving in all these layers where you see how similar they are, but also slightly different: their first drink with their father (Matt while stitching up his dad, Fisk trying to please his dad), their father's deaths, the rage, trying to 'fix' the city, etc. And so it felt right to show something similar with Matt and Jane versus Fisk and Vanessa who, spoiler alert: I also fucking love as a couple.

Both are arguably healthy (ish) relationships in their own way. Supportive, loving. Like you said, they encourage or enabling the other depending on the circumstance/where you're standing: you're doing the right thing. I believe in you even when no one else does. You can do this. You're not to blame for what happened then. They're kind to their partners. And neither of them are as innocent as Matt and Fisk initially think.

But much like Matt and Fisk, there are slight differences, showing the different ways the wheels can turn even in similar people, namely in the way Vanessa leans into that personal darkness, and Jane is, at least for now, trying to lean away from it. Because Vanessa's very comfortable, confident with strolling through that darkness, as is fitting for a villain power couple. Jane meanwhile is more like someone who's trying for the second time to cross a Decent Person wire above a darkened I Want To Murder Many People canyon but she slipped and is now hanging onto it upside down, holding onto that rope with her teeth, fingers, and toes all while Circumstance butters her fingers and Matt desperately uses his balancing pole to swat at Circumstance from the nearby wire Matt himself is barely walking labeled 'Violent Catholic Vigilante Issues'.

ANYWAY, I agree. I think Vanessa and Jane would have a lot to talk about, and the push and pull between them both would be really interesting! Because there's so much they agree on, and yet, there's just enough different that ooooh... that slow build in tension would be delicious. How long before the masks fell, and they both got a true sense of the other? Only time would tell.

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF SHENKO 1/?

The end of the world has a way of reminding you of all the things you forgot to say do. Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[sysig]

Delusions (Patreon)

"Could I have your hand, sir?" Max didn't move, which Dexter was, sadly, getting used to.

"Sir?" Max jerked, then turned and stared at him, lost and blank. "Your hand, please."

Max's hand lifted shakily, and he laid it gently in Dexter's upturned palm. Dexter gave a quick and quiet "thank you," then turned it over in his own hand, observing him closely.

Too closely - his knuckles were rough and his fingernails were dull and cracked in places. His once-soft, not-a-day-in-his-life-subjected-to-hard-labour hands were now, already, toughened and split and scarred in places, especially the heel of his palm. He turned it over again, this time to stop looking so intensely. He had only wanted to give it a cursory glance to begin with.

"Do you know what I see, sir?" he asked as conversationally as he could manage, running his fingers along Max's abused flesh. He seemed to be at least half paying attention, his eye gazing down between them, and he'd occasionally twitch, encouragingly Dexter thought. He seemed to want to curl around him, then stopped and shook, his hand squeezing into a fist. Dexter coaxed him back out, encouraged him to hold himself lightly.

"What do you see?" He was almost startled by Max actually continuing their conversation, that happened so rarely now, shaking and quiet as it was. He took a deep breath, was he really going to do this?

"I see a hand, with five fingers." Max remained quiet, though his brow curled, and a guarded look came into his eye, though he still wasn't looking at Dexter. He felt a pang of guilt, but he had to try. "What do you see?"

Max's eye unfocused and began to water. He looked up, but not enough to reach Dexter's gaze in return, instead staring through his chest, and he felt just as hollow and empty as he must look to him.

"Do you take me for a fool, DAX?" Quiet and as close to angry as he'd heard since they'd been here.

No, not angry.

Betrayed.

He swallowed down the stinging lump at the back of his throat. He had to put on a brave face, had to keep his composure if he wanted Max to get better. That was the only thing he wanted, more than anything.

"Of course not, sir. Genuinely, what do you see?"

Max pulled his hand away and turned his body, his bandaged side facing Dexter. Shutting him out, pointedly. Dexter's empty hand curled into a fist, he was no better.

"Please, don't..." Max took a shallow, shuddering breath, and several beats before he spoke again, even quieter. "Don't ridicule me." Dexter could hear his breath catch, and he wanted nothing more than for this all to just stop.

"Sir, I didn't-"

"I've had enough of that." He shook his head stiffly, the action strange and wrong, like he had forgotten how. He stilled, his head turned even further away. "More than enough."