#does her bloodlust know no bounds?

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #37: Avengers Disassemble!

October, 1988

The team is TORN APART -- and this MYSTERY WOMAN is about to make matters WORSE!

Dammit, Mantis!

Stop throwing gas on the fire, apparently?!

And stop ripping the cover and unsettling the issue box! What will happen if the Comics Code seal of approval falls out?

I’m guessing the fallout of Mockingbird/Hawkeye’s divorce is gonna fall out here and they’re going to split up the kids.

Last time in West Coast Avengers: due to secret Russian internet chatter, Hank Pym became convinced his dead deceased wife Maria Trovoya was actually alive. When the West Coast Avengers were ambushed by a bunch of old Ant-Man villains and Quicksilver when they went to Hungary to investigate, I assumed that it was a ruse to lure the Avengers into a trap. Because Scarlet Witch and Vision had also been baited into a trap.

BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT HANK PYM’S FIRST WIFE IS ALIVE AND HAS A MASSIVE BRAIN. Hank is going to quit the team to try to help reverse the giant braining of his first wife.

ALSO: When the West Coast Avengers went to the past times, Mockingbird got kidnapped by a cowboy who drugged her into being his girlfriend. When other cowboys helped her fight off the drugs, she pursued the first cowboy, Phantom Rider, and confronted him. This resulted in Phantom Rider falling off a cliff and Mockingbird not attempting to save him. Because: fuck that guy.

Except it turns out that he became a real phantom and has decided to haunt Mockingbird for rudely manslaughtering him. And when it looked like Mockingbird would come clean to Hawkeye about what happened, Phantom Rider spilled the beans himself, and framed the story to make Mockingbird look really bad.

Hawkeye was Big Mad that Mockingbird killed manslaughtered someone because Avengers Don’t Kill Or Through Inaction Allow A Person To Die and also because she hid it from him. Both Hawkeye and Mockingbird are stubborn, prideful people so the discussion immediately escalates into an argument where Hawkeye fires Mockingbird from the Avengers and Mockingbird fires him from the marriage.

It be like that.

And even after a long flight back from Hungary, they’re still fighting.

Geez, you two, not in front of the teammates!

Look at Tigra! She’s agitated!

Wasp is trying to play peacemaker. Trying very hard.

Hawkeye: “She admits she let the Phantom Rider die, Jan!”

Wasp: “That’s not the same as killing him! Besides, he’s a ghost, so he’s not dead!”

Mockingbird: “He is dead! I let him fall because he deserved it and I don’t apologize!”

Wasp: “I’m trying to help you, Bobbi!”

See. Both stubborn, both prideful.

Hawkeye even says that Wasp has nothing to do with this. She’s just a special guest star, not a West Coast Avenger and definitely not the chairman.

He IS the chairman so he makes the decisions!

(Maybe its different in the West Coast Avengers but the East Coast Avengers used court martials, not just uncontested decree from the chairman. According to the original Avengers charter, it requires a two-thirds vote to expel an Avenger - I’m pretty sure Mockingbird has the support but then Hawkeye would probably rage-quit.)

Mockingbird: “This isn’t because I let a creep pay for what he did to me -- something most husbands would hate, too --”

Hawkeye: “I hate it -- you bet I do -- but I don’t condone death as any answer for anything!”

Mockingbird: “But death isn’t the issue! It’s the fact that I didn’t tell you about it!”

Hawkeye: “You didn’t just not tell me -- ! You lied about it, to my face --”

At this point, Hank jumps in and says okay you, Bobbi, go over there out of yelling range. Me, Hank, will take Hawkeye over here and bum him out with divorce stories.

Oh my god, Hank.

Vision joins this weird huddle to go tell Hawkeye how much marriage rocks, actually. Scarlet Witch and Tigra go to talk to Bobbi.

Scarlet Witch is currently married. Tigra was married but her husband Bill died. So everyone has opinions here.

Well, Wasp, Wonder Man, and Moon Knight hang out in the middle. I assume Wasp is tired of people not listening to her and isn’t joining either huddle. Wonder Man and Moon Knight aren’t married... as far as I know. Hell, maybe Wonder Man did have a wife before he did crime and then died. But he was dead long enough for the relationship to be legally over.

But I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t married.

Wonder Man: “Wasp -- Jan -- is it written down somewhere, this rule about not killing?”

Moon Knight: “Yes! I am new to the Avengers! How serious is Mockingbird’s infraction?”

Wasp: “Well... it is written down, in a charter we drew up years ago...! But Bobbi’s right, Simon -- Clint’s reaction is more his wounded pride than anything else! If I were your chair, I’d let it go!”

As far as I can tell, the Avengers charter doesn’t explicitly say Thou Shalt Not Kill. It says that Avengers won’t take upon themselves any aspect of the punishment process.

I really don’t know where manslaughtering a cowboy falls into that.

But it doesn’t really matter because Hawkeye is just deciding things and Mockingbird is loudly also deciding to gtfo because fuck that guy.

Anyway, the separate pep talks didn’t work.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird get back to yelling at each other and then Mockingbird decides to g t f o.

And she’s taking half the team in the divorce.

I thought I was joking about that but it turns out that I wasn’t.

Tigra decides to go with Mockingbird because even though she decided against doing a murder in the ‘Tigra too horny’ story arc, she cat nature tells her that sometimes killing is necessary.

Moon Knight also decides to stick with Mockingbird. He doesn’t explain himself but he has already expressed support for the idea that sometimes killing is necessary and his god (i.e. him) is the god of vengeance.

I kind of feel like making this about whether or not murder is okay sometimes misses the point that it was a) manslaughter at best, and b) not even really about the killing, its about Hawkeye’s hurt pride that Mockingbird didn’t confide in him and his decision that means that he can’t trust her and his unilateral decree kicking her off the team.

Hawkeye protests that they can’t just split up the team but Mockingbird shoots back that HE is the one who split the team.

She kinda has a point.

I think that’s probably why the East Coast Avengers do the court martial process with 2/3rds vote required to boot someone for bad behavior. It makes sure that half the team won’t split because they think the bad behavior wasn’t so bad.

You fucked this up, Hawkeye.

Mockingbird offers anyone else the opportunity to join team Mockingbird.

Dr Pym... I don’t know why he has an opinion. He’s leaving the team either way. He’s not going with Mockingbird but he also offers a kind of support. Reflecting on how he formed the Avengers and helped form the rules and then broke the rules and got thrown out (actually, he quit before he could be judged but it didn’t look good for him). And that he came back. “Not because I made the Avengers, but because the Avengers made me!”

Wonder Man also says no. He was ready to leave the Avengers recently and focus more on being a movie star. But the movie star life is shallow and he’s happy that he’s doing good, real work with the Avengers.

Hawkeye, who has an opinion, of course he does, reflects that he killed someone as an Avenger. Remember that time? He killed Egghead? But it was an accident and that’s an important distinction! (Kinda like how Mockingbird didn’t murder the cowboy, just didn’t save him. Which feels like a distinction too. But whatever.) He wants the team to stay together but he’s not willing to budge. Avengers should never kill!

-laughs in hindsight-

Wasp says she understands where Mockingbird was coming from because Phantom Rider was a dangerous, obsessed cowboy and saving his life is not required behavior. But she’s also not going to undermine Hawkeye. He’s the chairman, she’s a guest star.

Vision says that he’s not an Avenger currently but he doesn’t doubt that one day he and Scarlet Witch will return to duty. But he says that if it were up to him, he’d call this a leave and not a firing. And he’s willing to nag Hawkeye a lot until he agrees.

(You’re a character, Vision.)

Scarlet Wanda just speaks of marriage. “Some marriages run smoother than others -- I can’t give you any advice -- but marriage -- joining male and female -- is an ancient and sacred ceremony precisely because neither one alone is as good as the couple! And both sides have to give!”

Feel like she’s calling someone out on being stubborn.

Also feels like gay marriage would have blown her mind but she’s a lot more mellow these days.

Ha. Awkward.

Hank can’t let the awkward moment hang because he’s got places to be. He taps Hawkeye on the shoulder and tells him he’s gonna mosey on. Gotta get started on debrainifying his super wife.

He offers to come help if Hawkeye ever needs a two-fisted science adventurer but Hawkeye tells Hank to take all the time he needs because he’s paid his due to the Avengers and deserves a chance at happiness.

-laughs in different hindsight-

Because it seems like the time for it, Wasp also announces that she’s leaving. Or ending her guest starring, I guess.

She came to help the team during the rough period of Iron Man leaving and becoming an international incident but she feels like maybe she hasn’t helped out.

(I suspect that its also because nobody is listening to her. She might as well go on vacation)

Hawkeye: “You’re really let what Bobbi did go -- ? Including the part where she lied to me?”

Wasp: “I would! She’s not you, Clint! She never will be you! That’s not a wife’s -- or an Avenger’s -- job!”

Hawkeye kinda admitted that the real problem was Mockingbird not confiding in him.

So I don’t think focusing on the do Avengers kill/manslaughter is the way.

Get out of here, Wasp, you nut!

Hank walks her out.

Wasp reiterates that they weren’t legally married (-angry noises-) and finally gives Hank that hug he’s been wanting.

Wasp: “It’s easier being friends now, isn’t it -- with the past wiped away?”

ITS NOT WIPED AWAY

GAH!

Anyway.

Inside the West Coast Avengers Compound, Mockingbird tosses her Avengers communicator, defense grid deactivator, and ID card on the couch.

She’s not giving Hawkeye any reason to come after her, claiming she broke rules by not turning them in.

Moon Knight decides to share his thoughts on whether Avengers should do a murder.

Moon Knight: “It is stupid, Mockingbird -- this prohibition against killing! The history of man is the history of murder!”

Tigra: “That’s a little heavy, Moonie! I just think you have to go with the laws of nature! Some of the people we fight are really dangerous! Like that guy we just faced -- the Voice! Maria silenced him, but what happens if her mental block wears off someday?”

Mockingbird isn’t really interested in olde West Coast Avengers business. Instead, she asks Moon Knight and Tigra to form a team with her.

Moon Knight agrees because he wants to help her if Phantom Rider comes back.

Tigra suggests they call themselves the Ex-Whackos, which Mockingbird laughs off as sounding like a mutant group.

She tables the name and Phantom Rider for now.

Mockingbird has another thing she wants to address. She snatched an incoming message from the Fantastic Four forwarded by the East Coast Avengers off the computer.

Master Pandemonium showed up at the South Pole in Fantastic Four #314-315. His first appearance since that whole arc with the cat people in West Coast Avengers. Turns out he got trapped on Arcturus IV after doggy piling out on the demonic river.

As it happens, Steve Englehart is also writing Fantastic Four, thus explaining why Master P showed up in that book.

Anyway, Mockingbird wants to check it out.

Tigra: “We may be Ex-Whackos, but we’re still heroes, no matter what anybody says!”

Meanwhile, outside Hawkeye is grappling with now having a team consisting of just himself and Wonder Man.

Resignedly, he assumes that Scarlet Witch and Vision will be leaving too, what with the kids.

They surprise him by saying that they don’t want to leave him with just Wonder Man. Two people isn’t a team.

Wanda suggests that she and Vision will take turns being the superhero parent and the stay-at-home parent.

Hawkeye is really excited and proclaims that this is what the Avengers spirit is! He’s not wrong to uphold those standards!

(We’ve established though that your real problem was more about wounded pride but whatever.)

Wonder Man is also excited that he’ll get to spend more time with Vision. They haven’t gotten a chance to really bond after coming to the conclusion that they’re brothers, actually.

Wanda opportunistically jumps in and suggests that maybe sometimes Wonder Man can watch the kids so both Scarlet Witch and Vision can be with the team.

Good hustle, Wanda!

This is all good. I love Scarlet Witch and Vision. But Hawkeye can do the math.

Hawkeye: “Still -- that’s only three or four of us! When I had five I used to worry about not being powerful enough! I know me an’ Wanda, Cap an’ Quicksilver were the whole team once, but that was when there weren’t many Avengers!”

He muses about finding Iron Man but is interrupted by the arrival of the Real Star.

IIIIIIIIITS MANTIS!

She’s green, she’s wearing a tassled skirt, and she doesn’t believe in shoes!

It’s Swordsman’s Girlfriend, Mantis!

Y’know, the one who married a tree.

Most of these guys haven’t seen her since she flew off into space on her tree honeymoon and Wonder Man has never met her but has heard a lot.

She got into the grounds when Mockingbird et al were leaving.

And Hawkeye is thrilled to see her because he is going to recruit the hell out of her. And Wanda is annoyed because she remembers Mantis trying to be a homewrecker between her and Vision.

I’m really only surprised that it took this long for Englehart to try to bring Mantis back into things. He has a habit of taking her wherever he goes.

Anyway, Wonder Man introduces himself and shakes her hand, saying he’s glad to meet Mantis.

Upon which she tosses him on his ass and starts jump kicking everyone.

If you were wondering why I didn’t have an image of her showing up, its because a page later there was an image of her kicking people. And I liked that one better. Because of the kicking.

Hawkeye: “What the ding-dong blazes?!!”

Hah, just say what the fuck, Hawkeye.

He asks her if she’s under mind control or something but she doesn’t answer. He shoots some arrows at her but she just catches the smoke and tear gas arrows out of midair and then uses them to blind Wonder Man when he tries to tackle her.

Wonder Man: “My eyes are filled with ionic energy, but they’re still eyes!!”

That’s a mighty weaksauce weakness, sir.

Sitting on his back, she steers him with his belt jets and rams him into Hawkeye.

An interaction that Hawkeye comes off the worse for, by far.

His eyes clear, Wonder Man tries to get her for making him look like a fool chump but she punches him in the solar plexus and then baits him into knocking a tree down on himself.

While he’s pinned, she uses a nerve jab to paralyze him.

Sure!

Apparently nerve hits even worked on Thor so why not!

This just leaves Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Wanda asks what Mantis’ deeeeeeal is? Why is she here? Why isn’t she hanging out with her plant husband that she married and went to space with?

Mantis doesn’t know though.

Also, she kicks Scarlet Witch so her hex bolt hits Vision, knocking him out of the air.

Mantis is really making fool chumps out of this entire small group of Avengers.

Scarlet Witch yells at Mantis, asking where her empathy is for a robot man that she once claimed to love.

Kinda weird angle to take on things but okay.

Mantis: “Empathy is denied this one -- it is one of the reasons she came to you! But now, her victory must not be denied!”

Wonder Man unparalyzes and tries lunging at Mantis again. But she hops on top and knocks him to the ground.

Hawkeye finally recovers his senses and dazedly thinks that this is similar, sorta, to the situation in Hungary where one Avenger had to fight the rest.

And from there, he just jumps to an incredibly bizarre conclusion based on zero supporting evidence. I’m so, so mad that he turns out to be right.

Like in a fever dream, Hawkeye speculates an insane situation where the Voice escaped Maria Trovoya’s mental block against using his powers, followed the West Coast Avengers to California, and happened to mind control Mantis when she happened to show up.

I am livid that this is the actual plot to this comic.

While Mantis continues to beat seven kinds of hell out of Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Man, Hawkeye wanders off, hops the wall, sneaks through the forest surrounding the compound, and does, indeed, find the Voice lurking outside.

God dammit.

The Voice: “Maria Trovaya’s control of her mind was almost infinite -- but she was new to its use, and I’ve honed control of my voice to its sharpest edge! Every night since the Hungarians gave me back my power, I told myself again and again to throw off any attempt at brainwashing! All those nights I thought I was protecting myself from a falling out with them -- but when Maria struck, and Quicksilver had to go meekly back to the Inhumans on the Moon -- the Voice alone could see his way clear to final victory! I was free to leave Hungary -- free to fly to California and wait for my chance to turn Avenger against Avenger -- which came sooner than I could have hoped, with the arrival of an unsuspecting, and even distracted, Mantis!”

OKAY.

SO THAT IS APPARENTLY THE PLOT WE’RE GOING WITH.

Two things: why are we going with this plot?

Yeah, it’s good to have an excuse to have Mantis show her stuff. I presume that she’s about to join the team. But there’s so many ways to justify it.

Two: how did he know that Mantis could solo the team? He doesn’t know the team was breaking up. Sure, he might have seen Mockingbird, Moon Knight, and Tigra leaving. Mantis did say she saw them on the way out.

But that still leaves Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Dr Pym, the Wasp, and MARIA HERSELF possibly inside.

Thing the third, yes, I did add another one: the dude lucked out with Mantis showing up. Instead of having her try to beat up an indeterminate amount of Avengers, why didn’t he just have her lure them out to him? Where he could mind control them all?

This guy is an idiot.

Didn’t even bring anyone to watch his back. He can literally control randos to stand lookout for him and he doesn’t think of it.

Hawkeye tries to talk up what a terror this guy is despite all the grumbling I just did about nuh uh.

Hawkeye, to himself: “How can anybody ever beat this guy? His power is absolutely irresistable if he gets a chance to use it on ya!”

You, specifically, Hawkeye, could turn your hearing aids off. In fact, you’re an idiot if you haven’t done that for this encounter.

Hawkeye, to himself: “I could solve the problem by killing him, of course -- but whatever his power, it ain’t a capital crime! Bobbi’s wrong, darn it! Besides, if I killed him, I couldn’t use him for my purposes...!”

Why are you still relitigating this??

And that wasn’t even the debate that you were supposedly having! She killed ONE cowboy that did something unforgivable to her. And she didn’t even kill him. She manslaughtered a cowboy! It’s not like she became Wolverine and started advocating murder as the first and only solution to all of her problems!

Don’t bring up the topic if you don’t have anything relevant to say!

Back at the fight, Wonder Man solves a problem like Mantis by just grabbing her wrists while she’s beating the shit out of Wanda and then hoisting her into the air so she has no leverage.

She can kick his shins all she likes but he’s a break outhouse of ionic energy and without the nerve pinches, she can’t do much about it.

We barely need Hawkeye to arrive with the solution at this point, even though he does anyway.

Hawkeye forces the Voice to say “Mantis, return to normal” and nothing else. And then Scarlet Witch scarlet witches him so he can’t say anything else for a while.

They’ll call the Vault later where the prison scientists there can figure out how to safely hold him.

Mantis apologizes to Hawkeye for all the trouble. Just like Hawkeye’s random guess, the Voice did mind control Mantis when she happened to show up. And she’s bummed about it.

And when Hawkeye says he’s just glad she’s back to normal, she bursts out that no, she’s not normal, and she needs the Avengers to tell her what normal is!

So the plot thickens, on the last page.

Mantis woke up two days ago in a house that she apparently owns and no memory of anything since she saw the Avengers last.

Her magical superpower of empathy with people and plants has also vanished so she couldn’t even interrogate the houseplants!

So she went to Avengers Mansion to talk to them, only find out that Avengers Mansion is gone.

A police officer on scene tells her that it’s been moved to Hydrobase, which Mantis is like whatever that means.

This is a really well-informed police officer too because he brings up the West Coast Avengers’ recent Zodiac adventures and that Mantis’ dad Libra was killed by the robot Zodiac.

(It’ll turn out that he survived, he’s just having a snooze.)

Since Mantis isn’t going looking for whatever a Hydrobase is, she decides might as well get on a plane, fly to California, and ask the West Coast Avengers for help!

Hawkeye responds by yelling AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

Which, I think, in his mind means ‘no sweat, when you’re here, you’re family.’

Okay. So a lot of changes here.

A lot of changes that I don’t really know how to feel about.

It’s not an Avengers book if things aren’t being shaken up. And in fact, the West Coast Avengers roster has felt a little static up until Hank and Moon Knight joined.

And now Hank and Moon Knight have left! As have Tigra and Mockingbird.

I will say that after the secret has hung over Mockingbird for so long, the fallout was sufficiently big. She split the team up!

And her little group is apparently going to stay together as a splinter team. Fun!

I kind of wish Hank wasn’t going. For one thing, I’m still annoyed at ‘oh your first wife isn’t dead and that means nothing that happened in our marriage counts!’ But for another, he’d only recently reinvented himself and joined the team. I don’t think he stayed out long enough to wear out his welcome. And his fighting style of pulling random stuff out of his pocketses was fun.

Alas.

I’m not going to complain about Scarlet Witch and Vision being on the team. I like them. I’m not going to complain about Mantis. Against all reason, I like her too.

And not surprised that Englehart brought her back to the Avengers. Guy brings her wherever he goes.

Follow @essential-avengers​. Do it. It’d be a nice thing to do. Like, reblog, and comment too. Also nice things to do.

[coriannawrites]

Warnings: Depictions of violence, cannibalism, demons being demons

Which demon would let you be evil?

It was bound to happen. Threats about getting your heart ripped out thrown around left and right have made you a bit… prone to violence.

You just itch to call on your demon to eviscerate the incubus that couldn’t take no for an answer.

You’re prone to calling your demon to rid the area of creatures you don’t like.

To cut down the forest housing biologically necessary creatures that stung you once.

The answer is all of them. They love you— your newfound twisted nature is just a bonus.

And it’s not really, really twisted. It’s the Devildom, evil is the norm.

Sure does look good on you.

You’re at your most beautiful when you don’t see the need to call your demon to deal with a meddling imp. They aren’t worthy to be cursed by the presence of your pact demons, let alone Lucifer. No. You’ll kill them yourself.

Mammon knows Lucifer is wrong. You’re the sexiest when you steal for the fun of it. That succubus’s prized anklet? You wanted it so bad, you had no problem whistling for Mammon to drown her in the toilet while you pilfered her stuff. Mammon asked if you could make out after.

You’re cute when someone has something you want. Not in that disgusting greedy, sticky-fingers way, no— Levi knows you’re downright adorable when your eyes crinkle in distaste at an imp coming first. You worked so hard on that project. How could you let that lesser demon walk all over you, gloat all over you? One look towards Levi has him quivering, rushing to destroy the demon that’s worked you into an envious frenzy.

Envious frenzies are nothing compared to how stunning you are when you’re worked into a rage. Satan was peacefully reading, plotting to curse another one of Lucifer’s ties when you bathed in. He’s awestruck. The rage is oozing out of you, and when you grab him by the tie and tell him to erase the demon that humiliated you today, he’s more than happy to.

Bloodlust is sexy. Fullstop. Shaking, twisting, grinding at the Fall and Asmodeus wants to put his hands all over you. Please, let him. You tut, gently turning his face towards the succubus that had tried seducing him earlier. Wouldn’t it be so cute if she wasn’t bothering him anymore? You know you would both look good in blood red. Asmo loved your confidence.

Hunger kills. There’s a long line to Madam Screams, you’re starting to tap your foot impatiently. Beelzebub’s stomach growls. That sets you off, what sort of pact master would let your sweet little demon go hungry? You’re attractive as you step aside and tell Beel to clear the path. You’re to die for when you laugh and laugh that the long line is gone, ignoring the half-eaten hand sticking out of Beel’s mouth.

You’re cute asleep. Vulnerable, almost angelic. Belphegor knows your the furthest thing from angelic when you’re rudely woken up, interrupted from your dreams of world domination. Stupid lesser demon for barging in to your classroom. Didn’t she know you’d be in here, huh? She didn’t, and you knew that. Here’s what Belphie finds ridiculously attractive and annoying— you yawn and wave at him to do your bidding, ridding of the pest. He complains and grumbles about his own sleep, but he relishes it all the same.

[luxurychristmaspudding]

Clot | Joel Miller

summary: joel has lost something. but once he pieces himself back together, he'll remember what it is.

pairing: jackson!joel miller x f!reader

ratings/warnings: mature. canon typical violence, mentions of blood and injury. mentions of a dead child (sarah), lots of grief, canon suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts. canon divergent. abby wants a cure and she’ll break up families to get it. joel losing a limb and hating himself for it. wanky formatting as a treat. reader has hair but is otherwise not described. no use of y/n.

wc: 3k

an: i can't edit this anymore, it's making me ugly cry.

Everything is hot, heavy, and delirious, 

                                    and Joel has lost something. 

A tight band is wound around his head, and it’s making him ache. It’s making his skin pull taught with blisters, wind and throb with thick blood. For so long, it’s all he can feel. Everything else is too dense.

His head revolves like a planet on strings, like it rolls on some unstoppable, destructive axis between galaxies. He doesn’t know if he shifts and pitches it, or if someone else does, or whether it really moves at all. The whole inside of his skull spins, and between deep, deep black and boiling red, he can feel the acid of that spin climb up his throat and dribble out his mouth. It burns and tastes foul, but he can do nothing to stop it. He can do nothing but spin and float somewhere both within and outside his body, and feel - more than know - that something is missing. 

There is something viscid around him, like he’s been wrapped and bound, like everything’s too tight and too thick. He can’t hear properly, which isn’t something new - but it’s deeper, soupy. It panics him, tightens the skin around his chest.

                                        He’s sure he’s drowning. 

He’s sure he’s drowning, but he doesn’t know how or why. All he knows is that it’s taking him too long to get back to his body, to surface, too long to remember something.

But he is so, so tired. And leaden, everything burning or burned - scarring and flaking and broken and agonising.

When he is something only close to conscious, something a hair away from lucid, he can feel himself twist in clinging sheets, can feel his fingers clutch at a mattress. He can feel broken bones unset themselves in blind fury and fear, can feel bloodlust and scorching wildfires of pain. He can sense loss which grows bone deep, a cavern he cannot turn his face from. High-pitched, too-fast breaths, a wisp of coconut against his chin. Something he hasn’t smelled in so long, something his arms ache to reach out to touch, to snatch, to hold. It’s a desperate feeling. It clings to his chest and cloys his breaths and drips through his ribs, sticky and tar-like, oozes down his body until it fixes him where he lays. He tries to move, he really does. But he can’t match the thoughts with his muscles, can’t see his body, can’t feel his brain. He needs to wake up. He needs to wake up. He needs to wake up he needs to wake up he needs to wake up

he needs to wake up, because he’s failing again. He’s losing again, something is slipping away again. High-pitched, quick, gasping breaths, the clutch of brown curls in his fist, coconut, the wet flash of her eyelashes against his neck, her fear, oh god, her fear, how scared they were, how scared she was, so scared he thought he’d be sick, the clutch of her hands as she pushed against him, as she tried and begged not to move, the blood so much blood the terror in her eyes i know i know i know

                            tommy help me 

come on babygirl, nothing nothing nothing he could do nothing but feel wet, warm blood rapidly cooling in the night air help me don’t do this baby come on please -

Come on, Tommy is saying, come on, we’ve gotta go.

But he can’t. His brother is there, his daughter is here. His body is welded to where he holds his girl in his arms, but his body is nowhere at all. His body is a gaping emptiness of a thing, and he thinks that alone in this vacuum, this grief, this misery, he might consume the whole universe and everything in it.

And he would not be sorry, to destroy the thing that took his baby away. He would not be sorry to destroy the coward who flinched from his own bullet.

                                           He has lost something.

Things are dark for a long time.

There are sounds that reach and pull to him, droplets of rain which patter quietly along roofs and find their way through gaps to drip and run towards him. If he were a body in the dirt, he would grow things. This would be new life. 

But he is not. Instead he absorbs and swallows and pays no attention except to the destruction of what is leaking into him. He gnashes at the darkness he is locked within, wrestles with the lumps of his heart.

When the tenor and tone of their voices becomes tangible, he can taste it.

He can taste the cigarettes he used to share with Tommy while their mama wasn’t looking, he can taste canned ravioli from out on the road to… somewhere. He cannot remember. He lets Ellie and Tommy soothe and lull him in and out of consciousness, lets the swell and tangle of their voices sew shut the gaping wound he has become. Something pulls, something tugs, something that is still missing. Joel searches for it in their muffled conversation, but he can’t summon it. Can’t get them to say it aloud until there is a familiar sound, a name, rough palm pressed to his aching head, a squeeze of a smaller hand to his, and Tommy is saying again come on, we’ve gotta go.

For the first time since the floating darkness began, Ellie’s voice stops. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t sing. There’s no rhythmic sound of her sleepy breathing, no hollow tone of a guitar. The comfort and company he has heard in Tommy’s voice for days stops, too. He drifts in and out on the swell of a tide, grasping for purchase at a starless shore, and then Maria comes to his ear, quietly furious, outwardly heartbroken. He can’t understand what she’s saying, but he understands the intonation. 

Tommy has always loved so hard, been so loyal. Whatever the reason he’s disappeared, it must be good. And Ellie must have gone with him.

The knowledge brings him no peace, and his shapeless, fervid nightmares become worse.

Echoes of what Maria had said swirl around his brain like leaves circling a drain, illuminating with each dull thud of his tired heart. They’ve gone… they’ve gone… they’ve gone to…

He tries to grapple with it, he does - so hard. Gone to find - He feels like he should apologise. To Maria, for having some part in whatever idiot ploy Tommy has dragged himself and Ellie away into. To others. Faceless, nameless people who he waits to reveal themselves. To Sarah. Sarah.

                                                                      He has.

Every night he has apologised to his little girl for failing to keep her safe, for failing to die instead of her, with her. He has been on his knees beside his bed on so many nights, sobbing into his hands with his full body, the grief making his chest so unbearably tight, his throat raw, and even if he screamed for the rest of his life it would not be enough. It would not be enough. He has apologised to Ellie, so softened and so drowned in sadness that she had to forgive him. Pathetic, broken. But there’s someone else, someone else. A dark figure slouched in the corner, the dark smell of blood. Dark, dark, dark.

A small girl in a hospital gown, a gunshot echoing in an underground parking lot. The smell of her hair, pine needles lingering even after a wash. The heat and pressure of her against his chest.  No blood cooling in night air, but holding her just as tightly. The ache, the ache, the grief years in advance of what he’d have to confess, what he’d have to admit to her. They were gonna kill you. I cannot fail again. A tiny person curled up in a stream of light and grass, the twitch of something long broken in his heart. He knew, he knew even then I'm taking a ride with my best friend I hope he never lets me down again it’s okay babygirl it’s okay it's me i’m sorry i understand it's me i love you. The crack and bright of her grin through an astronaut's helmet, the scramble of limbs through a window. She’s not my kid, not my kid, my kid, my kid, my kid is dead, yeah she’s mine. My girl. Mighty and fierce and blood of my blood flesh of my flesh as close as she can be to -

The twitch of a limb which is no longer there. The phantom ache and strike of pain which should not be able to breach air. 

Without opening his eyes, he can tell. He does not know how long he has been out for, what drugs they gave him, but now, through this crack of bright in his skull he is beginning to understand. Sarah letting him go, Ellie bringing him back - come on, old man, you gotta work it out soon - it’s gone. His leg is gone. The dark, slouched figure in the corner. Smell of blood -

                            Where are you?

His breathing is so quick, so agitated, so panicked and wheezed, his body spasming so tightly that he hears Maria call for the doctor, for something beyond the grasp of his comprehension. He has lost something. He is useless - he will be nothing, he will rot. The people of Jackson will place him outside the wall because they would rather watch him crawl in circles in the dirt than let him back in, useless old man. If he has only one leg, he cannot keep people safe. He cannot patrol, he cannot ride, he cannot walk. He cannot stand to have anyone look at him like he is half a man, have Ellie look at him like she does not know who he is, have you, have you -

have you have you have where are you where are you where are you he wants to grab Maria’s hand where from its place on his mattress to ask her where are you but the doctor where is pressing something sharp into his where are shaking arm you. Hold him still, he says and Joel is powerless against the hands that find him. Useless old man who can no longer fight, no longer protect, and he is so disgusted with himself, so betrayed and overwhelmed by his body that he understands why you haven't been around because you must feel the same.

Disgusting, useless old man. Puckered with scars, beat up and burnt out and mutilated, and you have left you have gone and it clefts his heart in two, wet as the blood between your teeth as you chomp his chambers and arteries somewhere in Jackson, or worse, elsewhere entirely.

Somewhere else, somewhere else where he might never see you again. Something crawls down tendrils to scratch at his brain but he can’t pick at it enough before the burning and the pain and the panic fades again, the doctor’s needle working its magic.

Soft, easy breathing, your face turned to his, your hair tickling the crook of his arm. I love you. Every morning, your eyes so far away at first flutter and then sharp into his, barreling like no one ever had before i love you. A force he could never try to stop, a choice he never could make i love you the inevitability of the promise you made each other i love you, the soft of your hands on his cracked knuckles, the way his nose fits to your neck to breathe you in i love you.

                                                     I love you, be safe.

And through thick, rolling waves of fog, Joel begins to piece it together. He cannot remember what happened, where it came from. Who did it. But you were there. He remembers through dreams he cannot wake from, how you screamed and cried and begged and pleaded from the floor, your cheek pressed into the wood, blood leaking from your hairline. The rivulets of it running across your temple, your cheek, into your eye so it stained the white pink. Your eyes, so wide with terror. How bright, how red, how deep the blood had been. How pretty. The pool and glisten of it as it spread from him, your fingers scrabbling and slipping through it as you tried to reach for his hand. 

He remembers how hoarse you had been as you told them your name.

                                                 No. Not your name. 

Ellie, you’d said. Ellie. I’m who you’re looking for. The thrust of your forearm as you showed them the scarred and gnarled bite mark from the savages who had held you captive for the first years of the apocalypse. The chunk one of them had torn from you in a fit of fury. In low light, it looks little different to Ellie’s, and Joel thinks they must have no idea what the girl he took from the hospital looked like. 

                                 Because they took you instead.

They took you instead.

The shock of it is enough to reel Joel awake. Maria is sat at his bedside, keeping vigil over the man who looks so much like her runaway husband. She is the only one who sees him break this time, who witnesses the gaping, festering wound ripped open, the rot of the universe, the decay of his grief. The way he howls and gasps and cries and begs and pleads where is she i don’t know where are they i don’t know when are they coming back i don’t know i’m sorry joel i’m sorry i’m so sorry if i had known if we had known maria i’m sorry

He does not know how long they hold each other for. He does not know when Maria climbed onto the edge of his bed, does not know if there’s anything more that tethers him to this world than his sister-in-law's arms. 

When he wakes, he is cruelly alone and limitlessly hollow. The room is small and he can focus on nothing beyond that, beyond the press of the walls and how close it feels and the bloodied rags they are using to blot and clean his stump while it dribbles crimson. It’s still clotting, the doctor says, and Joel doesn’t care. He wants to bleed. He would rather die than stay here in this bed, knowing in his heart that you won't come home, won’t survive this. He won’t wait to see whether Tommy and Ellie make it back safely, because if he loses again, if he fails again, there will be nothing left. Empty shell of useless man.

He empties the thin contents of his stomach several times a day into a bowl they keep at his bedside. They pump him full of drugs and tell him eventually the pain will lessen and we’re already pleased with how you’re healing we’ll just keep you in here for a little longer even through he’s already been cooped up for weeks. He hasn’t been able to remember you for weeks. And it’s not his phantom limb, not his broken bones and torn skin he’s recoiling from.

Your screams as they dragged you from the floor, your own pain. Noises Joel had never heard you make before in all the years you’d been together, patrolled together, been at war together. Something awful and ragged and already broken leaving your throat as they hauled you out the door and up the stairs as Joel could only useless old man watch you be taken, watch you sacrifice useless yourself to save him, your family, Ellie and Tommy. Animalistic, strong, straining the tendons in your neck as you stretched to scream, your ankle flopping at a crooked angle, blood drip drip dripping and swiping along the floor, soaking into the wood and that’s all he can remember.

He couldn’t say anything to you, couldn’t help. Not even a last I love you. He had failed. Because he’d heard it in your scream - i love you i love you please stay alive please live just this last thing for me make it out get back to jackson back to ellie live long and be happy but don’t forget don’t forget don’t forget i love you don’t forget i was here and don’t forget nothing but this could drag me away i love you please be safe be alive - and he had forgotten. He had forgotten your promises in his blood and your cries, in your scar and your lie. You would not leave him. Not over a sawn off leg. But you would leave him so he and your girl would live, so he will. He will. He will push aside the maw of his heart and try to fill the space he knows he is wasting. The shift feels light and heavy in his chest. He doesn't know how to be happy in a world without you pulled tight to his chest every morning, but if it's what you ask, he will do it. He will live long and happy and he will sit at that gate every day to wait for you and Tommy and Ellie to come back. He will spend the rest of his life waiting and telling himself he is okay if that's what you want him to do. Don’t forget I love you. Don’t forget I was here.

Sat on the hospital bed, he opens the gape in his chest so it can begin to devour the universe again, to suck you back into his orbit, bring you back to him. He won’t forget again. And when he can, he will start his vigil. He will live long and happy and wait for you to come back, wait for you to smooth this pain to dullness, this ache, this tightness in his chest that makes it so hard to breathe. Wait for it to ease, to deaden. But for now, all he can do

                      is sit and wait 

                                                                 for the wound

                                                                                                                                       to clot.

[mister-eve]

things i wish the sonic franchise brought back or implement.

.

Dark Sonic

seriously, i love imagining a fight between Dark Sonic and Eggman inspired by Korra vs. Zaheer ( when she was poisoned ). where he loses the cool attitude, the smile, everything, and goes in with full power, charging himself left and right at Eggman. it'd be even more fascinating to still have Dark Sonic lose. not because of his lack of power, not because of lack of skill, even when blinded by rage, but because of Eggman's ingenuity.

a lot of people, to this day, misinterpret Dark Sonic as a murderous, rampaging monster, but that completely misses the purpose of why he exists to begin with. i believe this is a case of people not exactly knowing where he comes from, or just a lot of fans drawing a murderous Sonic and it took the internet by storm one day, but just in case you don't know:

Dark Sonic is from Sonic X, a TV show that is sort of an expansion on Sonic Adventure 2, adding more lore, character arcs, and overall meaning to the game's original plot. Dark Sonic was revealed in the episode "Teasing Time" in s3, and the reason he appeared is because he discovered his friends ( Cosmo and Chris ) were injured and that one of them ( Chris ) was unconscious.

the whole reason this form exists is Sonic's love for his friends essentially fueling his rage. it's like Darkspine Sonic from SATSR, or has similar formula. Dark Sonic isn't inspired by any bloodlust or desire to kill, but rather by burning anger at seeing his friends be put in harm's way.

Dark Sonic is made from the strong desire to protect his friends.

2. An Actual Arc For Shadow

you guys might be confused, especially if you consider some of my previous posts, but lemme explain.

for a long time, it's never felt like Shadow has actually recovered from his trauma, atone for his actions ( yes, i understand he saved Earth ), or live life really at all. it doesn't help that, to this day, SEGA continues to make Shadow relive the past.

i don't consider the movies to be a part of the problem, as Shadow being introduced to the plot was basically a given, and you can't introduce him in your own take without his general backstory ( unless you're Boom or Prime, i guess ). i believe the movie will be doing taking some creative liberties to his story, as they did so with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and i see no reason that they should stop.

the reason why i have an issue with this is because it's an ongoing issue within the games, specifically. Shadow the Hedgehog ( 2005 ) was a disservice to his setup and the 'first arc' ( considering he's still alive after the fans demanded his return ) to his story.

aside from it just giving 'early 2010s deviantart edge', it's just so...

childishly handled.

for one, you're immediately given a Hero or Dark route, like in SA2, which i feel completely misses the point of SA2's true ending. Shadow has redeemed himself ( or began to ), so to give him complete reign to just become an antagonist all over again defeats the whole purpose of a redemption.

it's like what Prime did with Dread, giving him an already established redemption arc ( sort of ), but then corrupting him again for no real reason other than just because.

another issue i have is Shadow's amnesia and attitude in general within the game. technically speaking, yes, it does make sense for him to suffer memory and // or physical issues from his fall from space, but to completely wipe out every single thing he did just to give him the opportunity to relearn his past, do some fucked up shit, do some less fucked up shit, then throw away everything in the past, Maria and her wish included, is...

amazingly obtuse, for lack of a better word.

again, while it's technically not out of bounds, i feel like giving Shadow complete and total amnesia just disrespects SA2's vision and execution of the story. it's redundant, it's lazy, and overall just really damn frustrating to watch.

Shadow deserves to have a story that allows him to heal from his trauma, discover who he is, and respecting Maria's wish along the way. a lot of people seem to think it's either he forgets about his past ( or buries it ) or full-on dedicates his entire life and doesn't bother picking up a life lesson or two, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Shadow can heal, grow, and change. SEGA just won't let him.

3. The Echidna Tribe & Knuckles' Story

Knuckles is one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise as a whole, but his character and story is sorely dismissed. while Shadow has the issue of repetition, Knuckles suffers from being dropped on the head multiple times and played for a joke ( i think Frontiers is one of the more recent games that didn't do this, but i might be wrong ).

one of the reasons why i love Knuckles is how straightforward, yet reluctant he was about finding out his past. at the end of Sonic Adventure 1, he says something to the extent of:

"maybe i'm better off not knowing the meaning behind all of this. because i feel something terrible will happen if i do."

he is content being ignorant for the sake of his own peace of mind.

but in SA2, he's more or less forced to start facing his fear and learn more about the past. unfortunately, though, we don't actually get to see much after this game, because the tribe is almost entirely forgotten. instead, it's brought up in comics that are more or less canon ( i think ), but not fully aligning with the games. i think it's safe to say the comics are their own canon?

like with Shadow, i would've loved to see an actual conclusion on this arc of Knuckles' story. to see more of the tribe in the past, of their wrongdoings, character moments, more of Tikal or Chaos or the little Chao, and how it all ties together.

but instead, we have lots of media repeatedly insulting Knuckles' intelligence, ignoring his tribe and // or his job entirely ( i guess they forget the Master Emerald is portable? ), and just generally dumbing him down to be a hotheaded moron that apparently doesn't care about being the Guardian!

Knuckles is one of the most relatable characters in this series for me, as there's a lot of things i would rather not know and stay ignorant to, but have to face head on in order to fully move past it and grow to be better.

he was completely isolated on Angel Island for so long, yet people still make fun of him to this day for being manipulated by Eggman in SA1 ( even though he didn't even fully believe Eggman, it was just a precaution, but who cares about the details- ). he's not just a hothead, he's strong, he's kind, he's pretty blunt and, honestly, really fucking adorable, i love this echidna.

look at him, just standing there. i love him.

anyway, Knuckles deserves a proper story surrounding his tribe, his identity as the Guardian of Angel Island, his relationships, and to have a satisfying conclusion. or, at the very least, more games or media in general not dumbing him down to an angry hothead with nothing better to do but to yell and ignore his responsibilities.

3. Sonic

"what're you talking about, ashe? sonic's meant to be a flat character! what could be wrong with him?"

yeah, but after frontiers, i want more mentally ill sonic that needs to be concerned for by his friends, okay, that's all i want-

4. Storybook Era

now, now, i know a lot of people don't like the storybook games because of their shoddy gameplay and all that, but i genuinely love these games, their flaws included.

i do believe satbk has a better story than satsr, but i still have an attachment to the latter game, so suck it.

it'd be really nice to see a storybook game with switch, xbox, ps, or similar controls. as the era has Sonic diving into different worlds, maybe a world like Alice and Wonderland could be an interesting game. several elements to work with, locations turning into creative levels or even hub worlds. this is sort of a long shot dream that will probably never exist, but i wanna see an adventure-style storybook game one day.

i'll probably die before that idea is even considered, but it's a fun thought and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

there's no real big reason as to why these matter or anything, as i don't believe you need a storybook in order to send off the messages these games try to give, but they're just really charming to me and i love to see how this type of game could be implemented into video games today, with all the new engines and whatnot.

5. Teams

oof, okay, um-

there's a few games that have teams in them, and i guess you can count sonic forces as one of those games, so i should be more specific here.

i like SA1's flexibility with the roulette-like system, where you could play as any character you wished, but i also like SA2's team system, where they all had a close-knit role within the story from a similar perspective ( hero vs. dark ).

SA1 served multiple perspectives, all giving you pieces of the same puzzle that you have to figure out as you go. by the final story, all of the characters ( except Big, but idc, i love him ) have their character arcs and it's with their changes that the story is fully complete.

SA2 served the entirety of two perspectives and merged them together for the final story, heroes and villains having to work together to fight off the greater evil at hand.

overall, i want more games having the characters work together, having different details // information or even moral differences ( it depends on which system they go with, though ) on the situation at large, but maybe still having to come together.

whether or not they use official teams, i want the sonic franchise to bring back using other characters as necessary plot points with their own individual arcs.

it may not be needed, per say, as there's still a few games that work and don't have either of these systems, but i really miss the adventure games and wish for more of their elements to be implemented in future games.

6. CHAO!!!

BRING THESE LITTLE CREATURES BACK, GODDAMN, WHY ONLY TWO GAMES?!

.

anyway, that's all i can currently think of. i think these would serve either character or charm to the franchise, but maybe you have some other ideas of what the games could give! maybe proper returns of characters, other forgotten stories, or even new ideas!

lemme know what you think.

[nevermorgue]

Hayley! I hope you're well! I come into your inbox to ask about your thoughts and opinions on each spectre, and your favorite ones! Love your blog! :D

HIIII!! I’m so fantastic thank YOU for coming in here. I love your art and your rambles.

My favorite spectres currently are Will’s and Duke’s. But I really love them all. I’ll go into the opinions now

Annabel’s Lady in White - I think she’s beautiful. I love her abilities and the whole bride thing she has going on. I at first wished her dress was more detailed but it’s fine to grow on me. I love the petals, and the hole in her chest is agonizing. Such a pretty spectre. kiss of death is just sooooo. idk her abilities are definitely one of my top favorites.

Morella’s Guardian Spirit - Plain-ish compared to the others, but still fantastic. I feel like her and Annabel are slept on because of how early they were revealed. I love how long her hair gets and the whole celtic vibe. and that she’s mainly defense with the healing and stuff! it’s very unique and it says sooo much about her past. if it were me i’d make her look a little less human wirh maybe more glowing or something but she’s still fabulous :)

Pluto’s Cryptid - im so so so interested in this because apparently domesticated cryptids are super rare? I wanna know more about the other cryptids poppet mentioned so badly. its so fucked that he has a collar too!!! he wanted to escape society but even in death it's like he's bound by the neck. I'm dying for info on that dumb coat too. He's so silly looking. I really wanna see his other abilities. I'll have a stronger opinion when that comes. Ada's Banshee

- I am dying to know what "Mark of the Grave" is so bad. And I love her confusing ass torso. Is she a shadow. is it a dress. I want to know. also LOVE how her limbs being detachable/having the stitch marks implies she was chopped up and buried like that. and her hat. thats a very "southern belle lady" sort of hat. she gets to be the lady she always wanted, just ugly and hideous!! love her and i love her spectre. "fear itself" is one of my favorite abilities and i hope she utilizes it more cough cough on will-

Prospero's Shadow Man - i am dying to know if he can take the mask off. imagine he's like. a sickly corpse looking kind of thing. like himself but rotting or weak as hell. i LOVE his abilities i just wish he had more detaaaailing. hes so cool and handsome though. i also think its super weird/cool how he has to activate his abilities with the stopwatch. i havent seen any other spectres have a "trigger point" like that. would he be rendered useless without it? Montresor's Dybbuk - nipple rings. sorry anyways - i love the chains. because it's not like he's using them, he's the one chained. and the whole. goat legs thing. bc goats are associated with the devil for some reason. I wonder why that is. idk i just love the whole demon thing. because he's been seen as such since like. his birth. and he cant even escape it in death. love it love his shit. his ability to force his way into peoples' memories is CRAZY too i cannot WAIT to see more of that. Eulalie's Chimera - SOOOO pretty. So aesthetically pleasing. I love how she can make stuff with her dreams!!! and the fact that its implied she can yank malevolent spectres back into their regular forms is soooo cool. and just the fact that she can neutralize other spectres in general is such a unique power. shes like defense similar to morella, just in a different way minus healing. i love her. i really dont dislike any spectre i just love them all. Berenice's Strigoi - I will forever be mad that her teeth count as an ability but WHATEVER. She's still badass. I can only imagine how it must feel to basically lose your hands. I'm really excited to see what "Bloodlust" as an ability does. like there are so many cool spectre abilities we havent seen in action yet. The bite that makes you drunk will forever be iconic too. I love her look and i love how her whole outfit is directly correlated to her time period. also love how like each mouth on her is like. its own being. she cant control it. Duke's Poltergeist - I need to like control myself because I will yap nonstop about this one. The NEONS the colors are just fantastic and I LOOOOVE HIS EYES. THE EYES. all of his abilities fuck so hard and i love how like. his "hypnosis" isnt really like full hypnosis its more like a very powerful suggestion? and he couldnt even figure out how to get ada out of it? like he didnt TELL her to use her ability on montresor, he just kinda planted the idea in her head. i also noticed that one of his abilities IS levitation despite us seeing other spectres float on multiple occasion. so the key difference here is the telekinesis portion of the power. just thought that was silly. love him. i love duke. he's my 2nd fave. Will's Doppelganger - i physically have to stop myself from writing a page's worth of bs here. He has DIRT IN HIS JOINTS. like he's DIRTY. like buried and forgotten!! and if he's dust bowl era like so many of us think, perhaps its that same dust. he was left buried in it...forgotten. unidentified. And and and he's SO OP. everyone IC is underestimating how he has one of the most powerful spectres. He was able to almost fool the misfits as duke, he honestly did a fantastic job. He has to memorize so much. like its genuinely impressive. and then his ribbons. notice how they wrap around HIM before/during use. like he's fucking tangled in in them too, not just his victims. i dont think he's ever been free. he's never not been wrapped up in someone else's shit. he's never been "william". i- i need to stop. hes the best. best spectre- and i pray that the characters realize how much POWER he really has.

[preciouslittle-bhaalbabe]

Very specific headcannons for this version of Astarion and my durge, Tempest.

Astarion:

Warlock with the first vampire as his patron (mod on nexusmods :3)

Lawful Evil

After being kidnapped and escaping the nautiloid he was offered a way to break free from Cazador. By devoting himself to the great old vampire instead. It gives him the powers of a true vampire except he is still bound to Cazador until he kills him and takes his place. After agreeing to serve the first vampire and getting his powers, his eyes started to glow.

Was attached to Tempest immediately through their shared bloodlust. Turned into something deeper over time.

Constant power struggle/dynamic between the two. They both want to be on top lol

Loves her completely and obsessively. Never leaves her side.

Spoils her rotten with gifts he steals while on their journey

Tempest:

Absolutely hated Astarions guts at first and wanted to kill him.

Started to have feelings after he showed support and encouragement to her more unorthodox habits.

Knows exactly how to turn him into a whimpering mess, and vice versa.

Fully intent on becoming a vampire as well someday. Has already asked Astarion multiple times.

Chaotic Neutral

Likes to bite

The only person Astarion will ever be soft around

Wears all the cute jewellery Astarion finds for her during their travels

He makes her clothes

Completely head over heels for her vamp and does not want any other partners.

BRAT lol

[fe-fictions]

waiii happy new year! love love love your works, ive been a huge fan of urs since 2016 and its my first time sending in a prompt im so excited ajdjjqnss!!!!!!!😭❤️❤️

could i request some lonqu hurt comfort??!?! maybe something to do with self sacrifice....like robin pleading the enemy to let go of him when theyre both captured hehe! thanks so much >_<

(Finally finished this one and I'm thrilled to put it out !! Nothing like a stressed out Lonk U V U )

You didn’t know how you got into this situation. Neither you nor your husband. It was a simple reconnaissance mission, venturing a few miles into enemy territory in an attempt to figure out what they were plotting.

It was already risky since you were short-staffed, and with your exceptional analytical abilities, you’d be able to figure out what was going on the fastest.

Lon’qu wasn’t going to let you go in by yourself, and he definitely didn’t trust Gaius with your safety; he might be sneakier, but he was much more laissez-faire with the lives of others than he was comfortable with.

And so it was just the two of you. Lon’qu had stuck to your side the entire time, watching for threats while you took down hastily scribbled, imperative notes. But all it took was one silent assassin that was able to go undetected…and suddenly, you were both bound and forced to your knees.  

“Well, well…whatever do we have here?” Orton’s voice was more than recognizable; the slimey rat that had escaped your justice when you first rescued Maribelle, not long ago.

You struggled against your restraints, recognizing the unmistakable bloodlust in the bastard’s eyes.

“I’m sure Lord Gangrel will be quite pleased with the little rabbit caught in our snare. This one is new, though.”

He eyed your husband, “Bring along some cannon fodder?”

“Leave him alone. He’s got nothing to do with me or any of this.” You glared at him, earning a glance from Lon’qu. What were you talking about?

“I doubt that very much, Tactician. There must be some reason he’s tagged along with you all the way out here…far from safety.”

He brandished his polearm, the tip pointed inches from Lon’qu’s face. The blood in your veins burned hotter.

“A soldier, assigned to me for protection. Nothing more. I’m the one you want, not him.”

“Robin-”

“Let him go, and I’ll come willingly.” You demanded, not skipping a beat. Lon’qu’s expression was difficult to read. But the fear that flashed in his eyes was immediate, and impossible for you to miss.

Orton laughed, turning the spear to you, instead.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to negotiate, girl. But I respect the attempt.”

He nodded to one of the soldiers behind you both, and immediately there was a painful yank on your arms, forcing you back from Lon’qu.

“Hey!!” He barked out, ready to lunge in spite of his predicament. Instead he was pulled the opposite direction, separating the two of you.

“You know what I think?” Orton mused, spinning the weapon in his hands. “I think he’s more important than ‘some soldier’. I think he’s a lot stronger than you’re pretending he is.”

“Leave him be, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’m Chrom’s right-hand; there's more than enough that I can give him.”

“Really? You’d sell out the crown over one paltry soldier?” He narrowed his eyes at Lon’qu, who fought so very hard not to let your facade be for nothing.

He was glaring sharply at you, pleading with you not to make a foolish deal.

“It is a captain’s duty to protect her soldiers; no matter how small.” You spoke with conviction,  “Surely you can understand that, as an honorable military man, yourself?”

“I’d be lying if I said Milord felt similarly about the lesser of our ranks, but…I cannot say no to such an alluring deal. Leave that one, boys- the mountain lions will get to him before anyone else does. Take her away.”

“Stop! Damn you-!!” Lon’qu roared, fighting against his restraints. He was only pulled further away. His arms twisted painfully behind him, dragged further and further away from his wife. 

You could only watch as he was flung from your view, sent crashing down the ravine into and out of sight. It was scafrier when you couldn’t hear him.

It took everything in your power not to try and reach him. To fight back and rescue him.

“Now then, Tactician; I believe I was promised some answers.”

The paralyzing fear was the only thing that kept you from lashing out; the swirl of endless emotions was stalling your mind. All you could do was stare at the ravine, getting further away with every drag across the dirt.

You hoped Lon’qu’s head would pop up, revealing him waiting for you and preparing to save you from your enemies,

But no such surprises would occur.

You still stared after that empty place, waiting with baited breath for the man to appear who would not return.

At least…not right away.

But there was nothing you could do but wait and pray that he hadn’t died after that nasty throw. There wasn’t much else available to you.

-------------------------

“You promised to give me what I wanted. Why do you insist on silence?” Orton was growing tired of your disobedience.

He had you tied to the pole of some ratty tent, interrogating you without  a hint of mirth in his eyes.

“You promised not to hurt my soldier, but you condemned him to death anyways. What right do you have to ask me questions?”  You spat, earning a click of his tongue and a slap across your face.

Enough of this arrogance!! You are in no position to hold such arrogance- you do not have the upper hand, woman!”

You fought hard not to focus on the stinging pain in your cheek; he’d drawn blood and all but numbed the side of your face.

Who knew those bastards could pack such a wallop?

“I can only tell you…what I know…which is very little. The Fire Emblem is a sacred artifact to the royal family, and it is hidden somewhere that none can find, unless Exalt Emmeryn reveals-!!”

You were cut off by another strike, this one sending you headfirst into the ground. The ringing in your ears grew louder, your vision clouded and blurry. That definitely wasn’t a good sign.

“If you don’t stop playing foolish games, then you’re going back in a casket. I planned to deliver the head tactician to King Gangrel in one piece, but if he knew how infuriating you are, he’d have you brought to him in pieces!!”

The man spat at your feet, stalking away to try and regain himself.

You did make an effort to focus on his words, but it was so very difficult. After a few deep breaths and a number of colorful expletives left his mouth, Orton stopped his pacing and returned his focus on you.

Maybe it’s because you were tired of looking at him, but you found yourself looking past him and at the guards by the tent entrance as his ugly boots came back into view.

“I’ve been more than patient with you, wench- but I’m running out of options on how to deal with you, and you’re running out of time.”

There was a sudden shift in the colors of the bushes behind a guard. A bright blue and red appeared behind the green.

You blinked, brow furrowing in an attempt to focus your vision. A pair of hands had shot out from the leaves and grabbed the man, mouth covered so as not to allow a shout. The other guard and Orton…didn’t notice.

You must have been hallucinating. 

“I want the location of the Emblem.” He spoke again, louder and closer than before. He hadn’t noticed that one of the soldiers had disappeared.

Your gaze flicked to the other man standing just the opposite, confused by the fact he was now standing alone.

Within an instant, a dart stuck into his neck, and he crumpled. A shadowy figure caught him, dragging him away.

You couldn’t even think to react to what you were seeing. Orton’s hand was on your face, grip tight and painful on your jaw to force you to look at him.

“You’re not getting away. Stop looking outside.” He grinned viciously, “The only chance you’re getting out of here alive is if you give me what I want.”

He stared down at you, grinning wickedly. His grip was so tight it felt like he was going to crack your bones.

“Now…tell me. Where is the Fire-”

The tip of a blade broke through his armor, silencing him with a wet choke. Your eyes widened, staring in shock at the sword mere inches from your own body.

“W-what…did you…”

He crumpled to the ground when the sword was pulled from his chest. When he fell away, Lon’qu stood over him, raging fury in his eyes.

“Oh my gods-” You gasped, stunned at what you were seeing. “L-Lon’qu?”

“I’m here.” He closed the distance between you, throwing the blood from his sword before cutting away your bindings. 

As soon as you were free of the ropes your arms were flung around his neck. Lon’qu grunted from the impact, welcoming the embrace all the same.

He squeezed you close, his face pressed to your neck. 

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m-” You were suddenly jerked back, Lon’qu holding you an arm’s length away to search you over. “Wait, w-why are you asking about me? They threw you down a ravine!!”

“Shepherds found me. They were on our trail when they realized we weren’t in the headcount.” He nodded his head back, and you were able to make out the shapes of Gaius and Cordelia, the few who passed by the tent to secure whatever camp the Plegians had brought you to.

“So you’re okay?”

“I am. But...” He nodded, but the sharp glare in his eyes had yet to dissipate. “I can’t believe you.”

“What?”

“How could you do that?” He glowered, his grip tightening on your arms. “How could you give yourself up like that? The hells is wrong with you?!”

“I wanted to protect you.” He scoffed at your response, harsh and bitter. “If I knew he was going to try and kill you anyways, I-I never would have-”

“It doesn’t matter. You bargained your life, when you know damn well that I-!”

“Lon’qu, we couldn’t find her in the camp! Did you- oh!! Oh, thank the gods!!” Your husband was cut off at the sound of Chrom’s voice, the prince thrilled to see you were here. 

The Myrmidon spared you one last glower, before he pulled back, letting Chrom and Lissa flurry past him. 

You bit your lip, trying to fight the urge to press the argument. He looked deeply upset, and you didn’t want to cut it off before it could be resolved. There was nothing worse than letting him stew in his hurt.

“It’s okay, Robin!! We’re here now! Lon’qu led the  way, and the whole camp’s cleared out! Though we’ll need to do something about that body…”

“We’ll worry about Orton and the rest later. Lissa, can you heal her quickly?” Chrom asked his sister, who already had the stave pulled out and glowing.

“You got it! Just hang tight for a second Robin, we’ll get you out of here in no time!”

It wasn’t yourself that had your mind occupied. It was the fact that Lon’qu stormed out of the tent without looking back that had your focus.

Lissa gave you a pitying look, the healing glow of the stave some comfort.

“Sorry, Robin. I/…we tried really hard to keep him calm. But he’s been angry since the second we found him.”

“Not angry.” Chrom sighed , following the man’s storm from the tent. “Scared.”

-------------------------

When everyone made it back to camp, many of your dear friends who had been so terribly worried were awash with relief.

There was a mild swarm, a million questions being flung at you, but you were simply glad to be back in the arms of your friends.

You did your best to answer as many questions as you could,, but it didn’t take long for your patience to run thin.

Sure, you were healed and feeling far better physically, but there was a deeply hurt man on the far side of camp that you needed to speak to. It was clear what your decision had done created a much bigger issue than anticipated.

So you took a deep breath, steeled yourself, and made your way over to your shared tent. You could hear the sound of steel being sharpened against a whetstone, but little else.

Lon’qu was absolutely steaming. You would tease him and categorize it as sulking, but you figured it best not to try your luck.

Not when there was a serious issue to resolve.

Wordlessly, you entered the tent, making sure to latch it shut behind you. He was kind enough not to lock you out, at least.

“Lon’qu…” He did not stop his work when you called him, his back to you. “We need to talk.”

He did not answer. The stone ground against the blade harder.

“Please, love, I…I’m sorry I hurt you. But I need you to understand why I made that decision. I was trying to protect you.”

This seemed to slow the grinding. He still did not look at you. With a deep breath, you crossed the tent, coming to sit behind him.

Tentatively, your hand touched his back. He did not recoil, which was an improvement; at least he was receptive.

“If they knew you were my husband, they would’ve used you against me. If I let them carry on, they would’ve killed you in cold blood as a simple guard. I…I just…I didn’t think they’d toss you into the ravine like that. I thought you’d be safe.”

Lon’qu shook his head, his grip tightening on the sword. “They’re the enemy. Why the hells would they keep their word?? Surely you knew better than to trust them.”

“It was all I had to ensure your safety. W-when they threw you over the ledge, I…I saw it. I thought that it was over…I t-thought they killed you.”

Lon’qu’s shoulders braced against your touch, feeling your forehead touch his back. You were leaning fully into him, trying desperately not to cry.

“I-it was my fault that you were…that you were in danger in the first place. If I’d been more v-vigilant, I wouldn’t have put you at risk. I wanted to protect you, Lon’qu…please…please understand.”

He sighed, turning slowly and taking your hands into his and pulling you away from his body. He looked at you directly, but the bitter sting wasn’t present in his glare anymore.

“I don’t blame you for this. It wasn’t your fault we were ambushed. I’m upset because you bargained your life for mine. You are not worth less than I am. You have no right to sacrifice yourself for me.”

“I have every right, as your wife.” You argued, squeezing his hands, “And even in that, I failed you. I thought…”

“Robin...” He squeezed your hands, “I understood your intent. But if I’d lost you in that moment, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself, either. Your right to protect me reflects on me, too. It’s my duty to keep you safe. You know my past. Do you really think that I would be okay with you giving your life for mine?”

“It…it didn’t phase me in that moment. What mattered more was making sure that my husband would still be here.”

“You think I would be different? If I was in the same situation, I wouldn’t put my life in front of yours?” Lon’qu was staring into your very soul; trying desperately to make sure you understood what he was feeling. “After everything I’ve been through- what I’ve suffered- you would have me relive it again?”

“No.” You leaned closer, holding his hands to your chest. “No, I wouldn’t. And I’m so sorry that I put that fear in your heart, again. I just want to protect you, because I love you.”

Lon’qu nodded, his gaze falling to the ground. You released his hands so you might wrap your arms around his shoulders, drawing him into your embrace.

“I love you so much, I can’t bear the thought of losing you. And I know you would’ve done the same for me. We have to look out for each other…and we can’t always be safe. But I swear to you, I don’t want to throw my life away. I want to share it with you, more than anything.”

Slowly, finally, he returned your embrace, squeezing you tightly for fear of you ever slipping through his fingers again.

He hated feeling this way- that fear would consume him when it came to you. How badly he didn’t want to lose you. 

His face pressed against your neck, all but engulfing you in his arms like a shroud that cloaked your whole body. 

“I love you, too.”

He felt the slightest tremors in response to his words. How your fingers curled into his tunic, clinging to him with just as much force.

You were everything to each other, reminded and reassured through the tears that slipped from your eyes as feverish kisses connected over and over again.

There were promises to be more cautious with your lives, to find ways to protect one another without putting yourselves in mortal danger…and at the very least, employ some stealth training with Gaius so you could sneak around without “foolishly” (Gaius teased) getting caught again.

Which was a fair argument, if you were being honest.

[aethersea]

📚 [sorry I didn't know what book to go with so I picked many haha]

You send multiple books, you get multiple fics! Kinda. See, I really want to read the stories that the people of Gotham come up with about their resident vigilante cryptids—rumors, urban legends, wattpad rpf with dubious content warnings, all of it. I have a whole list of increasingly insane theories about what the batfam’s whole deal even is, but I never got any further than writing the frame story for one of them.

Some highlights from the list include:

Batman is a warlock and Robin is a demon bound to serve him. When ten years are up, Robin gets Batman’s soul.

Batman and Robin live in the sewers and can pop up anywhere in Gotham via manhole covers. They’re always fighting Killer Croc for real estate.

Obligatory vampire theory! Batman is a vampire and Robin is the person he feeds from. If Robin dies, Batman will go into a frenzy of bloodlust and drain half the city dry.

Robin is a trickster spirit who helps Batman out because it’s fun, and because the Joker’s bad sense of humor pisses him off. Batman has to keep him constantly entertained or he’ll run off and join the Riddler.

Cass (in her terrifying void-black costume) is the vengeful shade of the previous Batgirl, who finally clawed her way back from the afterlife and is here to take no prisoners.

Vampire theory v2: This Time With Duke! Everyone’s a creature of night and darkness except Signal, who is the sun incarnate. STRONG teen paranormal romance vibes, heavy-handed metaphors of self-destructive love or something, definitely involves shipping Signal with one or more batkids.

Batman is a professional comedian who got sick of Joker’s bad clowning. Things got out of hand.

Batman & Robin aren’t real. Criminals are making them up. 

One of my favorites, though, is the theory that Robin is the ghost of a murdered child, who wants revenge for his murder but, in the meantime, is willing to help Batman make sure no more children end up like him. This would be a story written by one of Dick’s classmates, maybe for English class. Dick reads it and it’s a whole emotional roller coaster ride, especially the scene where Robin’s ghost looks in on his living parents, as he does often to make sure they’re safe, and wishes more than anything that he could hold them and be held by them just one more time.

[spacedustmantis]

*cough cough* *pulling up notes* *squinting at notes* *realising i don't have bad vision* *unsquinting at the notes* *reading the notes*

how does the life series work in the FUCK I FORGOT THE AU NAME THIS WAS ALLL FOR NAUGHT

i am so glad you asked!!

alright so. the series of events goes like this:

one day grian, as he so often does, gets bored

in his defense immortality gets boring quick and he's been doing this for a While

so, he descends onto a random planet, one that in grian's opinion could do with a little entertainment. he draws up the rules of this game he's planning, pays a carefully selected bunch of cold-hearted, skilled, desperate-for-money workers and has them build a huge fucking arena, kidnap the planet's best fighters, and work on this project full time once it gets rolling

amongst the workers are a few incredibly talented medics, people who, with the right tech, could bring you back from death's door

grian personally installs chips into every contestant's brain that activate as soon as the person is not yet dead, but good as, and then put the body in a temporary stasis, so that it may be transported beneath the arena and the medics can do their work to send them back up fully restored so they can join the fray once more

the whole event is recorded via multiple cameras following around every contestant, edited down into a thrilling reality tv show, and broadcasted weekly for a good few years, which is how long it takes for the game to come to its conclusion

naturally there are a few quirks to this game

every contestant originally gets three lives, three times they get to enjoy the experience of dying, but soon enough a few of them figure out how to hack the chips. they can't seem to alter their function whatsoever, but they do figure out how to change the number of lives the chip grants you, and they also figure out that if the system clocks too many (or too few) lives granted overall in comparison to how many deaths there have been in total, it sends alarm bells ringing. and so there is an underground life trading ring that forms about seven months into the fight

somewhere in the arena there is whispered to be a strange stone statue that, if you play your cards right, bestows gifts to those who complete the tasks it gives them

there is an illness spreading through the arena, like a common cold, just much more destructive. it is known as "red fever" to some, to others it's simply "the bloodlust"

occasionally, caused by apparently nothing at all except coincidence, or some weird glitch in the system, or what certain people might call fate, two contestants get bound together on a metaphysical level. they share pain and wounds and death. they share all the bad, and none of the good

the overarching story roughly follows 3rd life (mostly bc that season works best as a mechs style retelling), with monopoly mountain and dogwarts as the two main factions that crystallize after a few months, but small story elements of each season are dotted around the plot, like one man who managed to defeat all his enemies by taking advantage of the secret keepers boons and playing dirty, or a woman who ran in solitude with only the company of her wolves and who against all odds was the last one standing - until the man she was bound to blew himself up, and her with it.

ultimately two people survive (these people are not grian and scar, but are played by them on stage). and then one person survives. and then the winner of the life game throws himself off of a cliff

of course, grian is not the biggest fan of watching as other people slaughter each other while he sits and does nothing, so naturally he joins the fight. no one knows or would even guess that the scrawny guy who maybe likes explosions a touch too much could be the same individual as The Spectator, the mysterious figure who is behind running the Life Game, not even the staff that has been hired to set it all up. grian, alongside committing murder, also keeps an eye on the game's development as well as the numbers the show gets online.

after a few months he runs into joel, whom he knows is one of the fan favorites, and sticks with him for a while. after joel dies his final death - shot through the heart by scott - he mechanizes him, and, after discovering that mechanizing joel also mechanized the man he was bound to, takes him and etho back to the xisuma to join the crew.

[blackjackkent]

Now that we're out of Moonrise, we can bring Minthara into the party, and she has a LOT of camp chat for Rakha to catch up on. Moving this into its own post from the other camp stuff, because there's a lot of it.

Annoyingly, we can't have the usual Durge onboarding conversation that we've had with the other companions, about Rakha's murder urges and bloodlust and memory loss. She also has a dialogue node labeled, "I need to talk to you about a private matter," but when I select that item, there's no dialogue options in it, which is weird.

We do, however, have the option to ask her about her opinions regarding the other companions, which is always fun.

"I'm curious to hear your thoughts about our companions."

"A disparate collection of vagabonds and strays. Did you have anyone particular in mind?"

-----

"I'm curious to hear what you think of Shadowheart."

"She is tolerable, but her faith in the Lady of Loss is poisonous."

"What do you have against Shar?"

"The Nightsinger has some admirable qualities - far more than her insipid sister - but her followers are repressed. Take the child, Shadowheart. She does not even know who she is, but still manages to pity herself. The very concept of Sharran worship is self-indulgent. They would have you think every whispered word and hidden thought is of value, but it is not so. I have performed a thousand interrogations, squeezing out the most-guarded secrets held in heart, mind, and soul. I can tell you this - when the trivial parts have been whittled away, and I have sifted through what remains, in most cases a person amounts to nothing at all."

This is a rather novel angle on philosophy for Rakha - but it echoes her own lack of interest in the religions that her companions are so invested in.

Somewhere in her past, she too has tortured people - she's had flashes of memory of it. Nothing concrete - but enough to know that her own experience was about pain and death, not about digging out information.

She wonders a little about the interrogations Minthara describes. What would that look like? Would Minthara, perhaps, be able to wrestle out the secrets hidden in Rakha's head that she herself cannot access?

Or would she, too, amount to nothing at all in the end?

-----

"What do you make of Astarion?"

"He's been deprived of freedom and strong blood for so long that he is addicted to both. While those addictions have their hold on him, he is still a slave."

"He'll be a slave to his blood-thirst as long as he lives."

"And while you live, you'll be enslaved to *your* appetites and hungers. We all feed on something, and if we are deprived of it, we will fight for it. But Astarion is not only bound to his needs and desires, he is still bound to something more powerful - his Master. He will only be free when Cazador is dead, and that is as it should be. When the time comes, we must hope that he does not only take Cazador's long life, but the power that has sustained him as well."

Fascinating.

The line about "appetites and hungers" obviously hits different for Rakha as a Durge, although Rakha has already long since equated her struggles with the Urge to Astarion's bloodlust.

More than anything specific about what Minthara is saying, I think Rakha is kind of just fascinated listening to her talk. In a way she is as blunt and direct as Rakha herself is, but still manages to project an eloquence and a sense of her words being informed by long experience in a way that Rakha simply isn't capable of.

-----

"How do you and Lae'zel get along?"

"I have encountered few githyanki in my life. Those that I did were raiders - they croaked out please for mercy in their alien tongue as they died. Meeting Lae'zel makes me wish I knew more of their culture."

"Why not ask Lae'zel to educate you?"

"I did. She told me she has nothing to teach that cannot be learned through observation of her prowess in combat. Perhaps she is right - she certainly cuts a striking figure in battle. There is a precision to her ferocity that I admire."

"It seems a rather brutal culture."

"To one who only sees the surface of things, perhaps. You should look deeper. In spite of her youth, there is a patience and precision in Lae'zel's thoughts and actions that I admire. Those qualities will strengthen as she matures."

I do like this quite a lot in the context of the drabble I wrote about Lae'zel and Minthara's initial meeting in Rakha's worldstate.

Minthara definitely sees a lot that she respects in Lae'zel and also sees that she is terribly young but has potential to be much more than she is currently. Clearly she sees right through Lae'zel's attempts at bluster. In this case, Lae'zel refusing to teach her directly was absolutely another bit of trying to puff up and look big.

Continuing to be fascinated by how Minthara really feels like a refined and sharpened and experienced version of Rakha's own thought processes. I feel like Minthara is in many ways a vision of what Rakha might have been like with a more solid amount of perspective and education to draw on.

-----

"Have you spent much time with Gale?"

"The wizard? No."

"Don't you like wizards?"

"Don't sulk. I admire your mastery of the Weave, but I have known many wizards. In my experience, they do not usually live long enough to make the effort of befriending them worthwhile. Either the enemy recognizes they are a threat, and kills them swiftly, or their curiosity leads them to combust while experimenting with the limits of magic." [Here she pauses and squints sardonically at Rakha for a moment] "Present company excluded, of course. I am sure you will live to a *ripe* old age. Gale, however, is already in a state of suspended combustion thanks to that orb between his ribs." [a humorless laugh] "I suspect it is only a matter of time before he goes up in smoke. I will reserve my social graces for those who might live long enough to appreciate them."

LOL. OK, it's official. I love Minthara.

I briefly thought this was sorcerer-specific dialogue but then I remembered Rakha has a couple levels in wizard; luckily it works regardless, because Rakha was definitely about to get sulky about he implications. I think she's gathered that the nuances of distinction between wizards and sorcerers tend to be lost on most people.

Minthara was absolutely being WILDLY sarcastic about Rakha living to a ripe old age. She's only seen Rakha in combat once so far, but she already knows her new traveling companion has a tendency for, to put it mildly, recklessness.

Historically, Rakha tends to be a little sour towards people who are mean to her companions. However, Minthara now is a companion as well, which in Rakha's eyes gives her a little more room to speak her mind. And, deep down, Rakha has to admit she has a point; after all, Gale himself insists that he has no choice but to let the orb do its work in the end.

-----

"You and Karlach seem to be friendly."

"I have never known anyone so ferocious and unassailable in battle, and yet so fragile and impermanent in their very being. I often think of mortality as a curse. In time, all that I am and all that I have known and learned will be lost. In time, our cities will be dust. Karlach does not seem to have such anxieties. Perhaps because she cannot afford to. She exists in the moment, and she will burn out and be gone in a moment. There is something very beautiful about that."

<3 Everyone loves Karlach.

Rakha didn't have any further comments to make about this one. I think she's just kind of listening quietly. This conversation has already been enough to show me that Minthara just utterly fascinates her. Everything she says feels like something Rakha might have thought but would never have been able to find the words for - a blunt and pragmatic view of the world touched a deeper understanding and near-poetry. Her words are informed by history and memory, where Rakha has none.

She wishes she could speak like this to Wyll.

Speaking of which...

-----

"Any thoughts on Wyll?"

"He is exceedingly self-righteous. Amusing, considering he bound himself to a devil."

"Wyll is a good man."

"I will take your word for it. I only care that he is a good soldier, and he has not disappointed me on that front."

Hah. This absolutely reads to me as Minthara getting herself revved up to roast Wyll like nobody's business, and then belatedly remembering Rakha's obvious feelings for him and just deciding to keep her mouth shut. XD

I don't think, at this point, Minthara could talk Rakha out of caring for Wyll; he's had too much of a formative impact on her worldview. But it would have made her uncomfortable, certainly, to listen to Minthara talk derisively about him.

-----

There are a few other quick dialogue options outside the companion discussion; most of them are things we already know. Ketheric is invulnerable, which she witnessed in person in battle, and while her oath of vengeance on Lolth's behalf is now broken, she has a new one - revenge against the Absolute and all those who follow it.

But one bit was particularly interesting to me as part of Rakha's story:

"Do you remember all that you did in the Absolute's name?"

"I was the Absolute's dagger. I remember every throat that it held me to, and every drop of blood it forced me to spill. I take no responsibility for the lives I took. I did nothing in the Absolute's name - I was merely a weapon that it wielded."

This is the first jarring note in the conversation, really. Rakha, too, has felt at times like her body is merely a weapon for the beast in her head... but she is all too conscious, especially lately, of her own feelings of guilt at what she has been made to do. "I've lost control of myself before," she mutters harshly. "I hate it."

Surprisingly enough, Minthara's expression softens slightly. "You have my sympathy. The tadpole... the Absolute... they work together like a drug. I did not feel I was compelled to act against my will. I felt ecstatic to serve. Every action seemed a deliberate choice - the best choice - even though I could no more have resisted its commands than flesh can resist decay."

"Even rational minds like ours cannot reject such a powerful influence. The Absolute can make the impossible seem inevitable."

Rakha remembers the moments where the beast has won. It is not exactly like what Minthara describes - more like watching her body puppeted from a distance while she is torn out of her own control. But it is still close enough that it makes her shudder.

Then again... with Rakha's help, Minthara has found a way free of the compulsions that the Absolute drove through her. Perhaps, with Minthara's help, Rakha may yet find a way free as well.

[ephemeral--dreams]

Late night yandere thoughts - Kaveh, Zhongli, Yelan

☆ ☾ ☆ ──────────────────

Kaveh

I worry severely for his ability to be a proper yandere tbh

By which I mean he struggles so much with not just letting you go the moment you plead with him to. He's really too emotional for this - rather, he folds too easily, and is almost more likely to be manipulated than to manipulate you.

It's that very same quality that has the power to guilt trip you into staying, though. It almost feels more like taking pity on him rather than being kidnapped, with how clingy he gets when you tell him to stop this nonsense…

(Of course, he is not entirely oblivious to this, either. He knows what he is doing is wrong, and that he wouldn't have the heart to harm you if you tried to fight your way to freedom. However guilty he feels about playing on your emotions to get you to stay, though, isn't it for the best? You're safe with him. He will not lose another person he loves, so this is better for you both. Anyway, if you'd loved him before, can't you love him while stuck here, too?)

He'll take good care of you, he promises!! Pretend he hasn't put security measures on every exit and everything will seem normal.

Don't expect Alhaitham to help. It's too much energy to get involved in Kaveh's affairs. He'll leave you alone as long as you leave him alone.

Kaveh honey can you even afford to keep a person. Where are you getting the money to do that from.

Zhongli

Dragon. Possessive. You see where this goes.

He doesn't follow any sort of human morals. He has been above such things for centuries. Even living among them, his polite demeanor is partially an act. He would like to blend in with society, and does not feel any particular bloodlust. But he feels no remorse for being swayed into taking you.

Likely manipulated you into signing a contract that effectively placed your life into his hands. Who knows what it was… All that matters is that he has you now, and by Liyue laws, you agreed to it. No matter if you try to fight after the fact.

Will keep you chained up if he must. It will be much easier on you if you cooperate, however. Zhongli would like you to be able to move around your shared home freely. Keeping you bound to a single place is much like locking up a beautiful treasure in a box - a useless endeavor. Pretty things should be enjoyed, so do behave yourself.

Also not above training you to behave. Don't test him.

He might even let you have little outings once he knows you won't bolt from his side the moment the door opens. Wouldn't you like a romantic dinner out? <3

It's very simple with him. Be good and get spoiled, or don't, and face consequences. Either way, you will be his until the end of your life.

Yelan

Another possessive one. In a different way, though. She won't kidnap you, but she will always be watching. Best get used to the prickling of eyes on you.

That, and her sudden appearances. The unexpected way she appears behind you while you wander the local market, leaning over your shoulder to point out which produce to buy (someone was looking at you for a bit too long, and she had to make certain her claim was stated), or when she climbed in through your window late in the evening (she was overly concerned about you being targeted because of her. Better to stay the night just in case she needed to protect you. She dealt with dangerous people each day, after all).

There is that paranoia - that you may get hurt due to your connection with her. Or in some way entirely unconnected. The mere thought that you could be taken from her is enough to make her arms tighten around you, for her to spend time resecuring the house after you're sleeping, to guard over you even more.

You're kept in the dark about the trail of bodies that follows you. Anyone she deems a threat, anyone who bothers you or irritates you. Gone, just like that. You will have peace and safety, without disturbance from any criminal scum. And then you will come back to her happily without an inkling of the blood spilled for your sake.

Wife that loves you enough to kill people for you what more could you want.

[needlemeister]

I'd love to see an info post about the goobers you made. I want to know what their deal is!!! And their designs are so cool, my fuckin' brain craves INFORMATION

See this post for how the antitheses of the canon/DLC scugs look!

EXPERIMENT

Era: Spearmaster Diet: Same as Spearmaster. After meeting anti-FP, they can use their mouth to devour anything they can fit inside it whole. (OOOOO|OOOOO) Abilities: The Experiment has the same ability to create needles as the Spearmaster, though not as efficiently - mostly, they have several poking out of their flesh at any given time when in combat for protective reasons. They have the agility and scales of a Red Lizard and the might and appetite of a Leviathan, albeit with their mouth currently bound shut. Iterator: Anti-SRS, Silently Recursive Sanity, considers the Experiment their magnum opus. The product of a machine that decided to play God rather than focus on the Problem, which still exists in Antiworld. The ultimate apex predator, set loose upon the world. Rather than treating the Experiment as an equal, anti-SRS treats them as nothing but a potential weapon, a wild animal given their "blessings". Anti-FP, Fragmented Precipice, marks the Experiment and frees their jaws.

EXILE

Era: Artificer Diet: Same as Artificer. (OOOOOO|OOO) Abilities: The Exile still has her pups, and yet has even more bloodlust - this time more like hunting for sport than for vengeance. She is constantly on the verge of burning out, and her explosions are much more violent - at the cost of reaching her limit twice as fast, her explosions do mass-scaled damage. One of her legs is replaced with an explosive spear, and if she does a front flip and lands directly on top of a creature, it impales them. Rather than having a normal tail, a stump leaking sparks and embers in her wake trails behind her. She is untouchable by spears, the equivalent of using the Auto-Parry mod ingame. Iterator: Fragmented Precipice is caring for her pups, as she would rather paint the Wastes red than be a parent. She is already marked thanks to stealing an ID Drone - the Antiworld equivalent of the one the Scavenger King has.

PARADOX

Era: Post-Artificer, Pre-Hunter (Inv) Diet: Capable of digesting most things it can fit in its mouth thanks to being full of void fluid. In the amount of time it would take a Jungle Leech to steal a pip from an attached creature, the Paradox randomly gains or loses a pip. (OOOOOOOOOOOO|) Abilities: The entire world has a mix of the Voidmelt and negative Hunter cycle effect on it at all times, and each movement to a new room changes what part of the timeline the Paradox is placed upon. The Paradox can do bomb jumps like the Artificer/Exile at the cost of forcing the timeline to randomize mid-room and disorienting the Paradox. Contact with acid, explosives, and electricity causes the Paradox to explode like a Singularity Bomb due to being full of void fluid. Iterator: No matter what part of the timeline the Paradox is in, every single can is eerily silent and empty. The gravity turning on and off causes a timeline jump every time.

CARNIVORE

Era: Hunter Diet: Obligate carnivore. Going too long without eating will cause its pips to slowly drain - going past zero fills the pips with red. All pips filling with red causes a permanent game over where the Carnivore completely loses itself to its Rot instincts. Starving twice in a row does this as well instead of killing it. Can only eat by grabbing creatures and pulling them inside its mass, like a Rot Cyst. (OOOOOOOOOO|) Abilities: Weak to explosives and feared by any creature that fears the Rot. Extra sensitive hearing at the cost of heavily reduced vision. More agile than most in zero gravity conditions, and capable of suspending itself from its tendrils. Iterator: Originally purposed to be an assistant to anti-NSH, The Never-Signaling Herald. Anti-SRS "borrowed" it, claiming to be giving it improvements in its purpose. Instead, it was mutated into a monster and starved so that upon returning to anti-NSH, it saw his neuron flies as a buffet. The Carnivore came to in a now-silent wing of anti-NSH's can, completely devoid of all organic matter. Assuming that it killed him, it fled, never looking back.

VANTABLACK

Era: Post-Hunter, Pre-Gourmand (same as Caregiver). They were cast out from Journey's End by the Despot for speaking out against their hoarding, selfish tendencies, so they have no idea that their family (Remnant, Pacifist, Dragon Slayer) was further torn apart. Diet: Same as Survivor and Monk. (OOOOO|OOO) Abilities: Completely silent and invisible in the dark, except for their eyes. They make an unnaturally low amount of noise, able to slip past even the most keen of Black Lizards. Iterator: Eventually marked by anti-FP. I don't have much for this fella OTL

DESPOT

Era: Gourmand Diet: Same as Gourmand. (OOOOOOO|OOOO) Abilities: Very similar to the Gourmand, but various valuables are in the pool of items they can cough up. Mostly pearls. They can direct allied and tamed creatures by pointing and gesturing, able to command others to do things for them - such as gathering food for them. Their fatigue bar is shorter due to being a lot lazier thanks to expecting others to do things for them. Iterator: N/A

REMNANT

Era: Survivor Diet: Same as Survivor. (OOOO|OOO) Abilities: The least divergent when it comes to abilities. If dragged into a den by a predator, they have a low chance of being able to crawl back out out of sheer determination instead of dying. Iterator: Marked by anti-FP.

PACIFIST

Era: Monk Diet: Same as Monk, with the ability to eat from corpses at half their usual nutrition value. (OOO|OO) Abilities: Their tail is like one giant Yellow Lizard antennae, giving them dominance over and the ability to communicate with them. Yellow Lizards are tame by default and treat them as a pack member and leader, and drop karma flowers if they die. If a Yellow Lizard in their pack is hurt, it will stun the Pacifist for a moment due to them being capable of feeling their pain. Iterator: N/A

DRAGON SLAYER

See this post!

RIPTIDE

Era: Rivulet Diet: Same as Hunter - nearly an obligate carnivore. (OOOOOO|OOO) Abilities: Even faster underwater than Rivulet with nearly infinite breath at the cost of being incredibly clumsy on land (minus climbing being okay). They get easily fatigued with extended land movement and their back legs are vestigial. They have good sight both in the dark and underwater due to living mainly in the murky, rotten lakes around anti-LTTM, Lingering Traces Toward Malady. Eel Lizards and Salamanders are positive to tame toward them. They can maul creatures while underwater and are slightly bioluminescent. Iterator: Created by anti-CW, Churning Waters, but closer to anti-LTTM. They're similar to the Experiment in that their creator doesn't really treat them very well or like an intelligent equal. They feel monstrous and like assisting anti-LTTM in cleansing the rot out of her system - she's rotten instead of anti-FP, thank anti-SRS - will somehow "redeem" them.

MESSIAH

Era: Saint Diet: Completely incapable of eating and has no need for it. Shelters refuse to work until the blizzard flares up to make up for this. Abilities: Already attuned, thanks to sort of being an echo despite not ever reaching the void sea yet. Or have they? Their attunement state lasts longer the less maximum karma they have, and they are capable of "ascending" Echoes to avoid raising it. The X-shaped marks on their body open like eyes when they are in the attunement state. They cannot die in a way that matters - cycles continue as normal and whatever killed them simply closes up and scars. Iterator: Anti-SOS, Solitude Over Salvation, created them while experimenting desperately to try and solve the Problem. Anti-SOS does not think they are the solution - they think the Messiah is a horrible, horrible mistake. The Messiah, however, genuinely believes that they are the Triple Affirmative made flesh. basically if saint is scug jesus this is the scug antichrist

UNDETERMINED

Anti-Watcher will be figured out when we know more about the Watcher.

[asmallmoon333]

Halloween season! So monster AU Lawlight. What do you think they would be? The rest of the cast?

Fun question!! I'd say in a Haloween setting we'd have:

Light: Demon, particularly one with powers of compulsion, contracts, and death. Makes a contract in exchange for a life, the contractees never get what they think they will and all end up dying of heart attacks. Alias Kira, goal to purify the world. He's a pretty young supernatural, only a year old after dying as a human at 23. Demons are humans or supernaturals that died with unfilfilled desires, but ones so strong they become demons rather than ghosts. Helps if they contracted another demon before dying. They can also very sucessfully pass as the human/super they used to be, making them difficult to find.

L: Vampire, very old and powerful, has spent most of the last few decades napping. May or may not have been due to an epic sugar crash. He heard Demon blood tastes wonderfully sweet from an anonymous source and now wants to confirm >v>. Goal: to have cake and nibble on Kira.

Misa: Witch, she's been working ages to make a love potion that works on a demon. Has been unsuccessful. In the meantime tries her best to kill L with unique spells. Also unsuccessfully. A very powerful witch as she has a demon familiar who shares her powers with Misa.

Rem: Demon familair, Misa's in particular. Her original form was something aquatic, deep sea horror-type supernatural. She bound herself to Misa willingly out of love and gave Misa full access to her powers. That's why Misa is a very powerful witch despite still being human, and why Light keeps her around.

Ryuk: Also a demon, but uncontracted. Was a tengu before dying. He was the one that made a deal with Light was the latter was human, and the reason Light was reborn as a demon after dying. Is having the time of his life.

Mello: Vamp, sired by L so he took some of his traits. Mello was dying one night from a gang fight and L saved him and then just vanished. Mello wants to meet L to ask him why he turned him. He's competitive against Near. Doesn't try to control his bloodlust at all, and becomes the head of the mafia that killed him in a very brutal takeover.

Near: Also a Vamp sired by L, doesn't care as much as Mello does, but is still curious to meet him. Was half-fae on his mother's side but no one knew it since he was an orphan, the fact that he managed to turn successfully into a Vamp shocked a lot of people. Is under constant watch by the US government. He can control his bloodlust very well and has muted emotions. He's ambivalent to Mello.

Matt: Sylph, electric specifically. Likes to static shock people for fun. Was Mello's friend when he'd been human but didn't tell him about the supernatural community. He and Mello are sometimes at odds because of it since Mello thought they'd told each other everything, considering they grew up together.

Watari: Mad Scientist/Professor Fankenstein type. Can bring inanimate objects to life. He woke L from a very long sleep and now works with him to police the unruly supernatural community in exchange for the blood of criminals L catches. His main goal is to stop Kira.

Kiyomi: Siren, her voice and words can compel people to believe her. Acts as Kira's public voice. She thinks her voice works on Light; it does not.

Mikami: Werewolf or werecat. Hates it. His main goal in life is to be able to suppress his animalistic transformation completely. Hates both humans and the supernatural community, loves Kira for culling them.

Matsuda: Wizard. Very bad at it lmao, but born into a powerful family so he has access to a lot of good tools and relics for hunting demons.

Soichiro, Sayu, Sachiko: All human, Light's family whom he still protects. Light pretends to be human still and lives close to them. Soichiro knows about supernaturals since he works in the government, and has his suspicions of Light.

Rest of the cast: a menagerie of humans and otherwise, but my brain is tired. In general, the governments of every country know about this but keep it quiet for public panic reasons.

So, yeah, thanks for the fun question!! It ended up turning into a whole AU with background involved lmao.

[liminally-charged]

Time to ramble about D&D character concepts, because every other DM I know never has any free seats in their campaign.

A rogue who's small, even for the standards of their own race. At a young age they were kidnapped and indoctrinated into a cult centered around a hag coven worshipping some old forsaken god-thing. Throughout their life the character is treated as the runt of the litter, the absolute lowest thing of the cult; so much so that they lose their sense of personhood entirely and refer to themselves as "this" or "it". Inevitably the ritual meant to summon the god-thing into reality goes tits up and explodes the hag coven, allowing the character to escape from the cult and wander somewhere in the wider world. The theme I wanted to go for with this character was 'failure'. A half-feral character with such a substantial lack of social ability/ self-respect/ common sense/ etc., only good at sneaking and backstabbing and spitting poison words - how can such a character grow into something more? How much does it take to reform them? How much internalized failure can be undone?

Another one is more of a comic relief character. A gnome rogue who used to be at the head of a powerful mob organization. She calls herself Brittlebones, but her former lackeys called her "Mom". Turns out that being nice and making homecooked meals for the goons that work for you can ensure their undying loyalty. But after 30-something years of organized crime, Brittlebones decided to turn her back on that life and start new as an adventurer - except her former lackeys are trying to convince her to come back and run the business again, because it's so much nicer when she's around.

Another one is Mool, loxodon barbarian. This one is pretty simple, he's a barbarian with such a low intelligence modifier that he's unable to grasp the concept of evil. He knows how to feel good or bad about things, but beyond that any abstract understanding of morality are lost on him. This was much to the frustration of the wheelchair-bound hag that tried to raise him as her agent of evil. He doesn't get the implications of why she's telling him to kill, he just does it because she cooks dinner and that's why he has to do it, because she told him so. Mool is such a gentle soul, a precious giant bean; he just needs a better wrangler.

The opposite end of the spectrum is Kazh. A barbarian with intelligence as his highest stat, who is frighteningly sharp-witted. He makes the plans of attack, he figures out what the next step should be for the party. But beyond a thin veneer of civility, there's a ravenous beast waiting to pounce and devour. He's especially brutal in combat and has no qualms with abandoning any sense of morality if it can further his bloodlust. Unlike Mool, he's fully aware of the evil he commits, and he revels in it.

Gonna close this post with another martial class (yes it's a theme with me, I don't like using spells all that much), a rogue who's gotten the raw end of a bad deal. Callaghan Black, former son of a noble family invested in the occult, was a bystander to a ritual which opened a rift to the Far Realms, where he bore witness to something mindbreaking: a god being devoured alive. He escaped with his life, but his sanity was shot full of holes. Callaghan used the last of his money on a wizard who promised him to get rid of these memories. Surprise, the wizard majored in necromancy, and used his body as a vessel for an experiment instead. The outcome was a success: Five souls merged into the body of one person, fighting over control of the body. Unfortunately for the wizard and the general population, the soul who won control over the body was a serial killer. I think it would be fun to play five different personalities switiching back and forth, each with their own agenda.

That's all I want to write here. Steal whatever you like if you want to, these characters probably won't ever see actual play otherwise.

[selfshippinglover]

~Cannibal Town and Rosie HCs~

~Yeeah Cannibal town is EASILY my favorite location overall though! Between the gorgeous aesthetics, the peaceful(in Hell's standards anyway) people, and the general casual nature of like, stepping out onto the street and seeing the bloodbath that no one is really blinking and eye at since it's just their typical Sunday. Like, really enjoy the casual bloodlust of it all! XD Also, it looks like everyone there is living in really good living conditions tbh! like, they've all got whole ass houses and all the essentials! This may be the only ring living pretty but hey! There's someone living good at least XD Plus, it's a place where Alastor is bound to pop up sometimes! :DDD

~She has balls, parties, bashes, and the like year round! I think she'd prefer to keep it to the town and like, the Pride ring but also she'd invite the other Overlords as a necessity...and for some juicy gossip hopefully lol

~Because she cares so much for her people she's prone to overworking herself at times. case in point, the big as parties. She also insists on giving her subjects only the best which feeds into that! I like to think she has an assistant and they often have to remind her to take a step back and take care of herself. As well as offer assistance and low-key poke others to help where Rosie can't see sometimes.

~Rosie IS the Overlord with the most patience and care in all the rings to me tbh. Like, everyone else sees it more as a job or a way to keep themselves safe and in power. They don't see the other residents as anything more than a means to end. The one exception miiiight be Carmilla? Need more of her to feel more sure tbh

~It hasn't been shown but I firmly believe that Cannibal Town has lots of shops in it! A hat shop like the one in Howl's Moving Castle, older style barbershops, beautiful and bountiful dress shops, and the like! I like to think they're all run by Cannibal Town residents and it's like, a lot if not all of them are home run so all funds go straight back to the town! :D

~Following that, they like to have tourists! It's an excuse to get dressed up, throw a shindig, annnd go all out! Though, Rosie is quick to kick out others that won't use their manners =-='

~Cannibal Town looks like the most walkable city we've seen also tbh? Like, you don't have to go far to find the local veggie place or cozy little coffee shop, groceries anything you need is all right there and easy to get to! I think it'd be cool that if the place has public transportation it's more like railroads or trolleys! :DDD

~OOO Them having a yearly like, pagent would also be soooo cool!

~They grow the best greenery in all the rings hands DOWN! Someone for sure runs a flower shop and can name every flower species and describe their symbolism off the top of their head <333

~No one is sure how but Rosie just KNOWS ALL THE GOSSIP IN TOWN SHE JUST DOES. You have questions about a new arrival or a demon that's bee there for eons? She's your gal! <333

~Rosie is the town matchmaker and is happy to take people out of town up on thing in that ilk if they ask! Just uh, make sure she isn't busy with other things first, yeah? She's quite the busy lady! Special shout out to if you're a friend you get gossip and matchmaking completely free cause she lives for the drama lkfdhlhg

~I get the feeling that Cannibal Town doesn't have dealings or good transports from other rings unless it's absolutely necessary, she's partnering with an Overlord, (could be short or long term) and/or it's part of playing nice with other Overlords to keep peace in her town. The town is so self-sufficient it isn't really needed. Could see carmilla's weapons being an exception to this when it coems to Extermiantion day thou

~Rosie would get along well with Zestiel! Like Alastor, he's another person that values good manners, is clearly quite intelligent, speaks very eloquently,(i could SO see them writing letters to one another and/or poetry <3) and sure looks like he knows ho to dance! :D I think they'd have a great time! Pluuuus, she can get gossip from before she died and from other rings~ Only wins here!

~Speaking of dancing, Rosie really emnjoys dancing! It's a general passtime of hers, something she enjoys doing with friends, lovers, anyone she has a bond with! I think she'd be really happy to teach others too! It's a great way to bond, is a requirement at most of her parties, and is super fun! She likes to lead the town's children in dances at the balls and such <3 They're jsut so cute she could eat them up!

~Heehee Rosie is a dad pun ENJOYER as well as plenty about killing and eating! She's sooo funny and trades puns with Alastor often! Like to think Alastor is one of the few people thta can keep her on her feet in that way, actually!

~Rosie is generally for the people but also needs a bit more money than the townspeople for negotiations and construction around town. On a related note, I think thye like to keep their building as long as possible! Whether it's beacuse they're legitmately from that time period or designed to look like that, Rosie and the townsfolk care a lot about the work that goes into it so they keep em around as long as they aren't a health risk

~Rosie gives off the energy that she came from a rich family that had important duties or perhaps diplomatic roles which is why she's so good at being a leader and was quick to make a place settled under her roots.

~This is small but you'll see more personal or little touches outside in Cannibal town like suncatchers and birdfeeders. Things thta are decorative but in fun shapes

~I'm a big believer in the head canon that you can freely drift between Rings in hell, It's just you are "born" or sent to the one that is closest related to your personal sin and you have to start from there. Like, the satrting point in a videogame!

~I FORGOT! THE MAN EATING PLANTS! Those are a common sight around Cannibal Town! I like to think they end up as centerpieces and/or door guards a lot of the time :3

~Rosie LOVES musicals! She prefers to go see them live and in person ofc. It was normal for the time she's from and she feels more connected to the art that way but also she isn't willing to let Vox or any of his tech into her town >:( not only does Alastor hate the guys guts but all the Vees seems to speak with an amount of disregard and/or disdain for the past. Which rubs her the wrong way

~To be clear, that doesn't mean she wouldn't potentially befriend or even date Vox, she cares about her friends opinions but she's very much the type to make her own decisions in friends UvU,, Alastor both respects this and is annoyed by it at times XD

~I know Rosie would never allow Vee tech in her town but OUGH SHE NEEDS TO SEE SWEENY TODD SHE WOULD LOOVE ITT

[eashmo]

Bloodlust part 7

-Yuanfen-

Warnings: Tender smut and fluff.

A/n: yuanfen- two people meant to be together; destiny.

Picture by me. long chapter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being stabbed was definitely an experience that could be tolerated because I was lucky that none of them were fatal, but fast travel was a far worse experience ever, i do not recommend. I threw up once we were in the front yard.

“Sorry baby.” Eddie winced. He held my hair up as I threw up in the bushes. Great, that's charming. I waved my hand at him, signaling that I was fine.

The kids, Steve, Nancy, and Robin raced out the front door. “Oh thank god.” Nancy took me in her arms, and I gave a painful groan from her squeezing me.

“The fucker is dead, I ripped his throat out. he…” he was starting to get angry again. putting my hand on his cheek and giving him a kiss on his nose. He relaxed him instantly. 

“You both look like shit.” Steve says, trying to lighten up the mood.

“We are still better looking than you, dingus.” I tried to laugh, holding a hand on the knife wound on my stomach, leaning my back against Eddie's chest, and my legs were starting to give out on me. Eddie noticed this and supported me by wrapping his arms around me Protectively.  

“We're just glad to have you back, I don't think we could've lived without our most favorite badass.” Robin smiles. I smile back at her.  

“Well this badass needs some rest and painkillers.” I snorted.

“Come on, everyone, let's give leave her be to rest. Eddie’s got her.” Nancy says. “Right Munson?” she asks.

“Most definitely, also I wanted to thank you guys.” he says.

“Thank us for what?” Steve questioned.

“For being here for her” Eddie says with a small smile. 

“Of course.” everyone said.

Saying goodbye to everyone, Eddie and I made our way into the house slowly.

“Let me help you, gorgeous.” he says as I start to sway on the stairs, trying to make my way to the bathroom.

“I’m fine, baby.” I quickly say. He chuckles, “I know you are, firecracker. but you're bleeding too much. I want to heal you.”

I grunted as I made it to the top step “fine.” I breathed, leaning into him more. He walked me into the bathroom. He goes  down on his knees. He gently took off my bloody work jeans, I hissed in pain when the fabric brushed against my thigh wound. 

“Sorry baby.” he winced as he gave me tender kisses from my hip down to where the wound was. I leaned on the counter and gave a peaceful hum as he licked up my now drying blood and sealed the wound close. Once he was done He stared up at me, I gave him a loving smile and brushed his bangs from his eye. One of his hands slid the rest of my pants over my ankles and threw it

across the room without breaking eye contact with me. His stares were intense, causing me to blush.  

I peeled off my shirt, exposing the stomach wound, groaning because my muscles were sore from being bound. Looking down, I finally saw my wound damn it looked worse than it felt. I felt his lips on me again, going up my body and making his way across my tummy, I gripped the back of his head as I felt his lips finally reaching the wound. His tongue made me moan when he tenderly licked it. Repeating the healing process. Now he stood before me, I took a good look at him. He still had Jason's blood on his chin and chest. He sat me on the counter, stepping in between my legs as  I reached for a washcloth, soaking it and ringing out with water. I wiped Jason's disgusting blood off his chin. His eyes are still watching me. 

“I love you.” he says, breaking the silence. His right hand went over top of mine that held the washcloth to his chest.  

“I love you too.” I finished wiping away the blood, throwing the towel down to the floor. looking up at his crimson doe eyes. 

~kiss me~

Instantly, his lips were on mine, and we kissed softly. No speed or rush. No fiery passion. Just two people in love wanting to savor the moment. Eddie pressed a kiss to my jaw. Giving him a little giggle in response. He pressed another kiss to his favorite spot on my neck, and he inhaled my scent with a content sigh.

I arched my neck at the feeling. I slid his jacket off his shoulders, the jacket hitting the floor with a thump. His arms wrapped around me, hands resting on the counter, caging me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, bringing him closer. His lips capture mine again. 

I arched my neck at the feeling. I slid his jacket off him, the jacket hitting the floor with a thump. His arms going around me, hands resting on the counter, caging me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, bringing him closer. His lips capture mine again. 

My hands caressed his face, then tracing down to his neck, feeling the outline of his collarbone, roaming along his chest, feeling the shape of his thin hips, tracing the outline of his protruding hip bones. Eddie's own hands were unclipping my bra, his fingers softly brushing away the straps from my shoulders. I dropped the bra on the growing pile. His Lips attach themselves  on my neck. 

“Nngh, more…please” I moan softly. Eddie grinded his hips against mine, our clothed crotches rubbing against each other. I gasped at the sensation I craved him.

 “Kitten, you're so impatient,” he muttered against my skin, unable to hold back a smile. his hand firmly grasped my hips. He looked up at me. 

“You're so beautiful” he says just above a whisper, running his eyes along the view before him, taking it all in. I was leaning on the mirror, my bare skin flushed, dirty and bruised, hair tangled and sticking to the edges of my face. I laughed.

“I look like hell, you can thank Jason for that.” 

He growled at the name, and fury flashed in his crimson eyes. “You are forever beautiful in my eyes and a fucker like jason will never take that away.” I could feel the anger rolling off him. I pulled him down tenderly, capturing his lips. 

~please baby, make love to me~

“Gladly angel” he said in my lips, picking me up and walking into the bedroom. He gently placed me on the bed. 

Kneeling before me, placing kisses wherever he can on my exposed skin before reaching my covered core. Slowly, he links his fingertips into the waistband of the last bit of cloth, dragging it down and throwing it across the room. He parts my thighs, giving him space to place gentle kisses on my core before connecting his lips with my clit, Lightly sucking.

I whimpered and pulled on his hair, “eddie… no… need you to fuck me… please, baby.”

He groans into your core from hearing my desperation, looking up at me 

“i Need you inside me now," I pleaded. 

 my neediness for him turning him on even more, “as you wish kitten”

He places another kiss on my clit, sending a jolt of pleasure. He crawls up my body, hovering over me, kissing my nose before he stands back and slowly removes his belt and jeans, maintaining eye contact.

“God…” I breathed as I took in his naked body, clenching my legs together. giving himself a few tugs before on his hardened length. Climbing back onto the bed, he spreads my legs apart again, He pulls me closer by my hips, then guides his tip through my wetness, teasing my clit before lining up with my entrance.

“You ready, kitten?”

I nodded. He slides into my slick, warm walls, causing me to sigh in content at finally being full as he moans out praises of how good I feel around him. Digging my feet into his ass letting him know I was ready for him to move. He thrust slowly into me, savoring the feeling of my walls being wrapped around him. His moans and grunts above me make me wetter because hearing him moan was like music. feeling my walls grip him tighter as I grow near my release. 

“Eddie! I’m gonna cum…” I moan out, lips parted as I gasp for breath.

“Cum for me, kitten, you're so pretty when you cum,” he encourages me.

The moan that escaped my throat was a high-pitched whine. The sound nearly pulled him over the edge with me. He’s barely hanging on as he fucks me through my high, curses and moans falling from his lips.

“ baby, cum for me, don't hold back” I moan out,

His pace quickened, chasing his own high, causing me to have a second wave of pleasure. His thrusts get deeper and longer, and my grip on him pulls his orgasm from him, moaning out my name, tossing his head back and slowing his movements as he spills into me.

“Fuck, i love you” he breathes out as he slowly pulls out of me. taking in my body seeing his cum flow out of me.

“I love you too.” I say through heavy breathing. He lays onto the bed next to me, pulling me into him as he kisses my face and neck, sharing a deep kiss before snuggling into his frame.

“Before I forget, i need to show you something” I said as I drew lazy patterns on his chest as he caressed my waist.

“What's that kitten?” he whispers between kisses at my temple. Getting up from his embrace, my legs wobbled from the post-orgasim. I bent down to the edge of my bed and grabbed a hard black case. He stared at me with curiosity, and I smiled at him. 

“Close your eyes, baby.” I said softly, and he did. 

I pulled out his Warlock NJ electric guitar. This was the first time I touched it in a year. 

“Open your eyes.” he looked at me then to the object in my hands. He gave me the biggest smile, which made me melt.

“I figured you wanted to have your baby back.” I grinned at him. He joins me on the floor, taking his guitar from my hands, and puts it on the bed. This confused me until he pushed me flat on the ground with his lips on mine hovering over me.

“I do have my baby back, and she's right underneath me” he whispers in my ear. 

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