#god i hope they are FUCKED UP

[solaneceae]

shall we look at the moon, my little loon?

People didn’t get sick on Quesadilla island. Maybe because they always had potions and gapples on hand. Or maybe the Federation’s Rules simply didn’t allow it, another restrictive function shoved into server code to keep its residents happy. This Server, though… read on ao3

Red pebbles shriek under his step, rolling down the hill to reveal the sun-bleached bones of a long-dead tiger. The air feels sweltering even though the sun is setting, bathing Purgatory in long shadows. His backpack’s strap feels frayed between his fingers, against his shoulder. The friction hurts. Cellbit heaves his body up the last rocky steps, a bout of dizziness almost making him sway and fall off the cliff. But he catches himself, crouches down for a moment, breathes his way out of the creeping darkness.

His head is pounding, his brain cooking inside his fever-heated skull. But it’s nothing he can’t push through. He knows how to survive in the worst places, it’s what he’s good at. He raises his head, stares at the entrance of the hole he calls home. His eyes are always red these days, throat always raw from breathing in this tainted, sulphuric air.

(He remembers anger. Rage. Now he barely knows how it felt, bloodlust long since turned to regret and apathy. He has nothing left. Nothing to fight for, to kill for.)

(Except for one thing, maybe.)

“Baghs,” Cellbit calls out with a soft whisper as he crosses the mouth of the cave, steps deeper into the mercifully cooler air and dim lights of improvised lamps. He rips his gas mask off his face and lets it fall with a dull thud, rubs at the indents it left behind on his face. Kneels down, winces when his wounds sting and throb with pain under dirty bandages. “I’m back, patinha. Can you wake up for me?”

Baghera does not respond, quiet and still, curled onto her side on their poor excuse of a bedroll — more of a pile of hay at this point. He drops a damaged backpack onto the dusty floor, rummages through it in search of something. “I found water,” he produces a full bucket from his pack, sets it down and scrolls through his hotbar until a glass vial appears in his hand. He coughs as he fills it up — it hurts, acid and fire in his trachea. “Good water.” Even the water goes bad now, after a while. Sitting nauseatingly in their stomachs and making them hurl out whatever they had managed to eat that day.

“You need to drink something,” he pushes, shakes the other’s shoulder carefully. Baghera doesn’t stir.

People didn’t get sick on Quesadilla island. Maybe because they always had potions and gapples on hand. Or maybe the Federation’s Rules simply didn’t allow it, another restrictive function shoved into server code to keep its residents happy. This Server, though…

The Watcher made the rules here. And as server Host, it too had extended its protection upon them as they went at his beck and call, doing his bidding. They had done well as its bloodhounds, seeking and maiming, raining hell onto hidden bases and sinners alike. But ever since they had refused its last order, their privileges had seemingly expired. (‘kill the sinners’, it said. kill each other, it had meant. And they hadn’t, because above being loyal to the Watcher, they were loyal to each other.)

Their ‘benefactor’ had gone silent after that day. No more orders, but also no more protection, no more supplies appearing in their chests to keep them fed and geared up. Injuries that should’ve healed over in minutes now lingered, their armors no longer mending, their supply of food now rotting. Even their meagre wheat farm had decayed, the dirt too toxic for anything to grow. Which meant that they were back to square one, scrounging for scraps of food and hurting and hiding from disasters that they were no longer immune to. And in a place like this, it hadn’t been long before it all started to take its toll on them — too many disasters, too many wounds left to fester, and a mockery of a caretaker who no longer cared enough to keep them alive. 

The sickness had creeped up on them — from drinking that lukewarm and unclean water, from wounds wrapped in haste with no disinfectant. Cuts on their arms and legs growing red and swollen with infection, poisoning their bloodstream. Baghera had fallen to it first, eyes growing less and less focused as the days went on and nothing changed, red skies and sulphur and complete isolation. She could no longer hunt, too weak to run — so Cellbit left more often in search of the odd patch of wheat, as much as he loathed to leave her alone. “Baghera,” he tries again, shaking a little harder when the other doesn’t react beyond a vague twitch of her eyelids. She’s so warm, too warm, the fever just isn’t breaking despite all the damp rags (now dry and falling off of her as Cellbit shakes her limp form), and her feathers aren’t helping. “Please…”

(“Please don’t leave,” Baghera had pleaded the first time he had to go out there alone. “Please.” He had gone anyway, despite the aches in his limbs and the fever making the world too warm and fuzzy, because he had to. Came back with a lackluster haul of three dead rats and some sugarcane only to find his packmate curled into a tight ball against the wall of their cave, broken chirps and quacks tumbling from her bill endlessly. where, where, flock, scared, help, he recognized. Pale yellow and white softness littered the floor around her, some of it stained red, as she smoothed over her wings with her bill and plucked feather after feather until Cellbit cupped her face to make her stop. He started to plan around her after that, waiting for her to slip into restless, sticky sleep to leave.)

Cellbit sighs. Wipes the beads of burning sweat off his forehead, glares at the way his hand shakes from the fever. At least he can sweat it out — Baghera can’t, her breath coming up in short little puffs of too-hot air as she pants in her sleep, her body struggling to cool itself down. She looks awful — they both do to be fair, so much so that he barely dares to glance at his reflection in the water these days. He can’t even remember the last time he took a bath, and he doesn’t have enough ocelot in his code for grooming to be an option. But days of unconsciousness and delirium have left his packmate dreadfully thin, her feathers dull — she hasn’t preened them in weeks, water no longer rolling off of them without the oil. Her face is pinched in discomfort, her eyes swollen and bruised by weeks and weeks of restless nights spent tossing and being jolted awake by nightmares.

(He knows them all by now. White cloaks and needles, the few memories she regained of her childhood. Pomme dying. Cellbit, dying or leaving, her being alone. He holds her when she wakes, too weak to cry, because his own dreams taste of blood and flesh he knows a bit too well but it’s not as bad when she holds him.)

“Hey,” Cellbit gently rolls her onto her back and sneaks a hand under her neck to lift her head up. He feels feathers and heat, heat, too much. Baghera doesn’t react beyond a croaky whine, her chest heaving as she pants. “I’m getting some water in you, right now. Come on.” He slowly, ever-so slowly tips the glass bottle, lets a few drops fall into her open beak. She chokes on her next inhale, coughs painfully, and Cellbit whispers apologies in sheepish Portuguese, tilts her head up a bit more. At least she’s more aware now, cloudy eyes cracked open and darting around aimlessly. “Boa tarde, patinha,” he attempts a smile, but it feels more like a grimace on his face. Baghera hums, rests her head against his scarred-up arm. Mumbles something with harsh consonants and fricatives. “Didn’t get that, sorry.”

“Connard,” she croaks out, and oh, this he understands. She hasn’t spoken anything but barely-legible French in days, too out of it to bother with translating. “So you recognize me. That’s good. Maintenant bois,” he switches to heavily-accented French to make sure she understands. (The lack of, well, anything to do meant that they have spent plenty of time learning each other’s languages in the last few months.)

“Non.”

Stubborn as always. “Discute pas, Baghs. Ou je te donne du thé à la place.” He’s lying, of course — they do not have tea on hand. But the threat works, and the duck makes a weak sound of disgust. “Non, non…”

“Then please don’t fight me on this.” He gently grabs her hand-wing (a confusing anatomy, his packmate has) to curl it around the bottle, letting her feel the chill of fresh water inside glass. “Think you can do it yourself today?”

She can’t — her arms shake too much, her grip on the bottle too loose. So Cellbit pours the water through the side of her open beak, a gentle, slow trickle, until the bottle is empty and his friend silently nudges it with her bill. “Need more?” She nods. “Okay.” Good, that’s good, he thinks. She drains about half of the second bottle before she bats at his arm to make him stop, visibly fighting a wave of nausea. It fades, thankfully.

“How’d you feel about eating?” he asks next, and the look she gives him is hazy and unsure — but not a straight refusal. Food is scarce in this hell, even more so than water — and what little he finds is nothing like the softer things you would feed a sick person. Only the meat of the vermin that can’t outrun him (yet), and tasteless bread from the occasional wheat crops he stumbles upon outside. Still Cellbit tries, carefully ripping up and chewing tiny bits of meat and bread before feeding them to her — munching on solid food is a complex endeavour with no teeth, and if Baghera managed fine with just her bill before, she is no longer in any state to do so.

(He would make a joke about mama birds, but he does not find any levity in it. Not when the only person he has left in this world is fading away, right there in his arms.)

When she’s done (which she makes him understand by turning her head away from his hand), he shoves every soft material he can gather beneath her upper back and neck. Hopefully it will help her keep the food down this time. Manoeuvring her is hard despite how light she is, mostly hollow bones and feathers — but he’s so tired, and he kinda wants to throw up — the nausea getting worse the longer he stays up, vision getting hazy. 

“Tu penses que j’la verrai ?”

He blinks, sluggishly. Baghera’s words are slurred and quiet, which makes them hard to parse. “Mh?”

“Pomme.”

A startled mrrrp. Baghera never talks about her. Didn't even open that expansive journal of hers, the one they had found along with all those old blue and red signs amongst herds of bulls and flights of butterflies. She makes a weird sound as her head rolls to the side, like laughter, or maybe a sob. “J’l’entend, des fois. Placer ses panneaux… près de moi.” Her hands curl into fist-like shapes, briefly. “Et puis… j’me réveille, et elle est pas là. Elle sera plus jamais là.”

(He tries not to think of it. Of him. His egg, his baby, his brave and rambunctious kit. Pain and longing blooms inside his chest, thorns and blood-soaked petals, and he ignores it because packmate sad, packmate in pain, fix, fix.) “Baghs…” Cellbit reaches out to touch her shoulder, and she wails, a heartbreaking sound caught between a sorrowful wail and a distressed quack. “Baghs! Shhh,” he pulls her into a tight embrace, making sure she feels pressure from all sides, her head resting in the space between his shoulder and his neck. “Calma— pare, pare. Vai se machucar.”

“I want to see her,” she sobs, and Cellbit is so startled by hearing English again he doesn’t respond. “But I’m— ’m a bad person, failure. She was good, so good, she was my baby and I can’t go where she is.” A cough; it sounds so bad, like there’s fluid inside her lungs. Cellbit prays it’s not blood. “My Pomme is in Heaven, Cellbo, and I’m going to Hell.”

(Few of them believed in such concepts, back on the island — many were acquainted with deities, ruling over things such as Creativity or Death or Beauty, or with entities from the Other Side, yes. Baghera herself had chosen to give herself over to Chaos, but never seemed the type to adhere to more classical religious beliefs. But Purgatory had happened. Purgatory was something you didn’t walk away from unchanged — or at all, in their case. They were both sinners, as the Watcher had oh-so-helpfully drilled into their minds over and over until they broke.)

“It’s okay,” he whispers, and he could scream at how wrong that is, nothing is okay, our kids are dead, your only friend is dying and in pain, are you fucking stupid? “Shhh.” He places his lips on her forehead, winces at how hot it is still. She needs to cool down. “You’re not bad to me, patinha. You’re the best thing I have left.”

Baghera chirps and quacks unsteadily, eyes clouding over as she descends back into avianspeak. egg, egg, baby, where, nest, flock, where, help, and the trill-name she uses for Cellbit, several times over. Something like flock-blood-brother-me. “Estou aqui,” he murmurs, keeping one hand squeezing hers as he lays her back down to pick up the dry rags around her. “Je suis là. Avec toi.”

“You’re not going to die, are you? You’re not going to leave me?”

“I told you,” he hums, pouring cool water onto the rags and placing them on her chest, her arms, her forehead — he has considered just digging out a hole, filling it with water and dipping her into it instead, but he was afraid it would be too much of a shock to her system. “I won’t leave you. So you don’t either, okay? Stay.”

She doesn’t reply, eyes closed and chest heaving with short, hot puffs of breath. She’s out again.

Cellbit sighs, drapes one last damp rag over her tear-swollen eyes. He gently presses his forehead against hers, angling himself so her beak doesn’t poke at his chin — the rag is blissfully cool against his skin, but he can already feel the heat of her sickness radiating through it. “Por favor,” he whispers, aware she can’t hear him — let alone understand him. He lets himself sag against her, exhaustion pulling at him, heavy head resting upon her feathered chest just above her heart. He can hear it: rabbit-quick, restless, fighting. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. “Por favor. Viva. Pra mim.”

“No. We promised, right?”

“Right…”

“Você também me prometeu,” he slurs out, tendrils of darkness creeping in. He’s so tired, sick, and his entire being begs for reprieve. “Não… não me deixa sozinho. Não posso perder você também...”

"Please don't leave me."

"I won't. Never."

Within a dilapidated cave, Cellbit and Baghera drift. Atop the waves far away, a little motorboat sails, leaving white foam and inky black feathers in its wake.

[fandomestuff]

[adastreia-12]

poseidon’s relationship with percy is something that is so personal to me. love so flawed and complicated, so wary and tentative. your father is here. he’s always been here. he’s not sure what to make of you but he is proud of you. you’re not sure what to make of him either. you’re sally jackson’s son, but you have your father’s eyes. you are the sea as much as he is. trust him. trust yourself. breathe. the sea does not like to be restrained.

[akans-dead-at-sea]

It's alright

30 second timelapse:

[multifandom-lesbian09]

Finding out that the majority of anti Destiels are Wincest shippers is actually so funny to me. Y’all gotta, I dunno, get the fuck outta Alabama or something idk.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[felsicveins]

His heart belongs to another

And no other heart will do

[cutter-kirby]

DEVASTATING episode btw. "i failed you" and "he is my friend" and "you're a good person" and "i didn't let him win" and noel and arthur's screams and "but his ears still work" KILLED ME KILLED ME DEAD

[puppyeared]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[this-should-do]

happy pride month fo3 folks

@valen-dreth ,,,,

[followerofmercy]

I think Freminet has some of the most interesting dissonance in his self perception of any Genshin character.

Like, of the Hearthlings we know, he's one of the most emotionally mature and intelligent. Lynette might still have him beat, but after playing her hangout... I dunno. I think they're tied. Lyney is Crumbling, Alrecchino is. Well. Arlecchino. Everyone else is a deeply traumatized child or adult and Freminet seems to pretty regularly be people's emotional support. His character stories talk about getting his vision by saving a bunch of other kids on a dive that went bad. The Selkie event literally had him being a therapist for a grownass woman, citing his past experiences with all the other Hearthlings that have died or killed themselves. And he handled that situation WELL. Yeah, he seems to live in a fantasy, but goddamn he's alive and a lot of people in his position aren't so clearly something is working.

Either his or Lyney's character story talks about the time Freminet had reached out to Lyney to try to ease his burdens, which resulted in Lyney blowing up at him. That probably contributed to Freminet thinking he's not good at it, but I think the reason Lyney reacted so badly was BECAUSE Freminet is actually a good support. He can't allow himself that from the little brother he's supposed to protect.

Freminet seems to both cry and dissociate often, but like... Kiddo you are in fact the only person in this family actually processing your emotions. Lynette dissociates 24/7. Arlecchino. Lyney lies and tells everyone he's fine and would literally rather die than admit otherwise. In comparison, Freminet is doing FANTASTIC

Freminet also gets a lot out of helping people! Like anyone, he needs to feel useful and needed. He seems to be an excellent mentor to the younger Hearthlings and perfectly competent on his own, but when you put him in a room with Lyney and Lynette who baby him and insist that THEY take care of HIM, he withdraws into himself.

Like, Freminet by himself feels like a young man and Freminet with the magician twins feels like a teenager. I have no idea how old he actually is. Logically, he would be OLDER than them! He's been with the House much, much longer and his experience shows. I think it's fascinating that they love him SO MUCH and yet, they just Cannot let him help them. Which is hurting him.

(Lynette is much better about not babying him and that is probably why their relationship is so much better than Freminet and Lyney's. Also why she keeps having to mediate between them. Because Lyney charges off trying to Fix Everything and that just makes Freminet feel useless and he doesn't want to get in the way and- you get the point)

Idk. It's hard to tell what things the previous director said to him vs what Arlecchino has said to him. I'm inclined to think our Arlecchino was the one that said he cries too much, but in a "crying in front of your enemies will get you killed" way and she herself is too fucked up to realize how "you cry too much" could be damaging.

Also I try not to consider gameplay stuff when it comes to story, but Freminet also has some of the most BRUTAL animations. He SMASHES HIS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT METAL PENGUIN INTO HIS ENEMY'S FACE. He doesn't think he's the most amazing fighter, and by Fatui standards he probably isn't, but he is winning fights against most grown men.

Tldr Freminet thinks he cries too much and is a burden and isn't good at helping people when he's actually the most mentally stable Hearthling send tweet

[yudol-skorbi]

he likes to make her laugh

[fortunefavorsthebrave-dude]

“the only thing that matters right now is my marriage and my children” sure didn’t matter when you were sticking your dick in your employee huh

[thatgoddamngingerundercut]

‘Butter’ Jacket Shoot Sketch Day Three - RM, j-hope, Jimin, and V

[kaeyacollection]

Who's ready for my Master Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss Crepus Theory!!

I originally posted this over at Hoyolab and people there seemed to really like my favorite joke theory that Crepus just tries to gaslight the whole of Mondstadt right after obtaining Kaeya

Majority of this will be the same but with little tweaks for the wonderful tumblr audience

This joke stems from Kaeya's introduction:

and the use of the word "rumored"

Cause it's not like it said beyond Teyvat or the seven nations just Mondstadt

And I mean like c'mon how many families are living off the grid in Mondstadt

(Actually... Don't answer that I forgot Glory's boyfriend is just

Out there in the bush with Razor...)

Initially I had the idea of Crepus walking around the markets one day carrying Kaeya with Diluc beside him running into Varka who asks:

"Who's the boy?"

"You mean my son?"

"Not Diluc the boy you're carrying"

"I have two sons? You know this??"

But then the Caribert quest came out mentioning Kaeya ran away from home near immediately and was dragged home by Crepus just as fast and it became even funnier

Cause imagine you're by the docks one day and richest man in town gets off the boat with no cargo but instead a tiny child you may not have seen before that Crepus seems to be very cross with at the moment and threatening to turn him into a leash kid if he runs off again

In a small town that loves gossip do you know how fast that information is spreading? Cause I do and Varka's knocking on Crepus's door 30 minutes later like:

"Is this what we're doing? We're just taking kids now?"

Both paths lead to Varka asking where Kaeya comes from and getting hit with a

"I think you're a bit too old to still be confused about the birds and the bees Varka"

Varka getting frustrated to the point he just starts demanding Kaeya tell him what's up

Love to see him following in his fathers footsteps of stressing Varka the fuck out

And upon hearing how his birth father left for juice and didn't return Varka went

"Good! That was ALL I needed to know!!"

Follow ups on if his father intended to abandon him or got lost in the storm and needed a search party?

Don't care!! You weren't kidnapped!!

Welcome to the knights! 🤝

Which bringing it back to it only being a rumor

In a town of alcoholics, who's gonna call out the one guy with the winery?

Here's some add ons that got sparked from the comment section 😘

Bonus panels would have included Varka showing up with Rosaria one day mimicking Crepus about "wHaT you ForGot I haD a Kid" sparking a trend within the community of just adopting random children to the point posters are made saying "In Barbatos name: See a child Take a child"

Alice seeing it and pulling a "when in rome" tucking both Albedo and Diluc(who is yelling he is an adult) under her arms and telling Klee if she ever sees someone in need of a mom let her know she'll send over the paperwork right away

And then the last bonus: Venti wakes up, walks in through the gate while playing a tune, and stops when he sees the poster, not sure if he needs to start yet another revolution, or if this one is fine actually

I imagine the posters had to be taken down because visitors were losing their kids left and right and the solution of parents pinning a note saying "not dead & still want custody" to their kids shirt didn't catch on but the saying still lives strong in the hearts of Mondstadt's citizens I mean look Bennett and his 27 dads Mondstadt may have a lot of orphans but the demand is even higher

Comment on original post:

"I have a headcanon where Kaeya fooled first Crepus, then the rest of Mondstadt but.this is too funny!! I want to see this happening!"

Which prompted one of my new favorite lines at the end:

"Wait by fool Crepus first do you mean like Crepus finding him out in the storm bringing him inside to ask him where he lives and Kaeya's just

"? I live here? You adopted me? Are you feeling okay?"

Cause I'm absolutely cry laughing over this that's so good but that also means when Kaeya runs away Crepus is just

"hey no no l'm not misplacing you a second time come home" "

[haunted-xander]

Do you think Saix' emotional co-dependence started as a Nobody or did it start as human Isa and just grew to an unhealthy degree?