#maybe? question mark?

[branches-of-time]

Heaven In Hiding (pt. 1)

Songs That He Sang in the Shower

"I was…"

He trails off as your hand makes it's way back to his neck, and his breath hitches when a nail runs along the underside of his jaw.

You freeze, waiting to see how Venti responds, and watch as his eyes blink open again. He looks a little disappointed at the sudden stillness, and you almost feel bad for teasing him.

Almost.

You cock your head to one side, like you're truly curious and not just toying with him.

You ask him again.

"You were what?"

Pairing: Venti x Reader - Established Relationship

Word Count: 3,341

Synopsis: The Church of Favonius is holding a charity fundraising event, and you rope Venti into helping out. Step one is getting him out of the shower.

Contains: I suppose I’d rate this 18+ for the heavy suggestive tones, but there isn’t any actual sex. Domestic Fluff with Venti. Showering together. Dominant!Reader. Nudity. Kissing. Hands wandering. All that jazz. Blasphemy, perhaps. Slight Implied Alcoholism / Recovery. Anxiety Issues.

A/Ns: This is fic 3 of 16 that I’m doing based on combining prompts from this list!

Day 3 (Apples) & Day 18 (Hiding)

Part One (you are here!) - Part Two -

More notes at the end!

Your anxiety has always been a bitch in the morning.

So, as usual, when you first wake up, you don't open your eyes. The sudden rush of being pulled back into reality, back into consciousness, is jarring enough on it's own without the added input of sight.

Every morning you recall the grounding technique that Venti taught you, and do your best to follow it. It's usually easier when you can reach out and find Venti's hand to hold onto in the darkness, but his familiar presence is missing from his side of the bed this morning.

So instead, laying flat on your back, you bring your attention to what you can perceive with your other senses.

Smell. You pull in a slow, deep breath, focused on letting your stomach expand instead of your ribcage. The room smells faintly of apples, maple, honey, and… rum, from the candle that Venti bought last week. He blew it out last night but must have left it uncovered on the dresser.

Touch. You feel a warm round weight on your stomach, and from past experience you already know it's Rhythm, curled up and apparently still asleep in spite of the movements from your breathing. You run your hands slowly across the blankets. They're incredibly soft, and pleasantly warm on this cool November morning.

Sound. You focus in on what you can hear, and the faint sound of the shower running comes to you from down the hallway.

"On a lark,

On a whim,

I said there's two kinds of men in this world and you're neither of them."

Venti's voice is mixed in with the sound of the water, singing something familiar.

You bring your arms up, straighten your legs out and stretch as much as one can with a sleeping animal atop them. Flexing your wrists and rolling your ankles, you wonder how tired you must have been last night to have slept in longer than him.

"And his fist, Cut the smoke, I had an eighth of a second to wonder if he got the joke."

Venti's voice grounds you more effectively than anything else ever could, and finally, you feel steady enough to face the daylight.

Breathing in deep, you let out a long sigh and blink open your eyes as you reach down to the small white dog on your stomach. Rhythm stirs in response to the feeling of your nails combing through her fur. You smile down at her.

"Morning, sweet girl."

Rhythm blinks up at you. You shift a bit.

"Think you could move to Venti's side of the bed so I can get up?"

Rhythm huffs in response and uncurls herself, ungracefully rolling down off of your side and onto the mattress in the process.

You huff a laugh at the indignant display and sit up, turning to face the dog.

"Why didn't you wake me up when Venti got up, huh? You want to use me as a pillow so badly you'd let him beat me into the shower?"

Rhythm just stares at you as her tail swishes across the bedsheets.

"Okay, fine, I do usually shower at night but last night was an exception!"

Looking at the clock, you cringe at the time. 8:32. You need to get ready soon if you're gonna have time to pick up the packages from Springvale and make it to the city on time. Sighing, you're almost glad Venti's already up, but you do miss the feeling of waking up beside him, even if it's just this one morning. There's something calming to you about being the first one awake, with Venti sound asleep beside you. The absolute peace of the moment.

Come to think of it, why is Venti not only awake, but already in the shower? He must have taken your request for help last night pretty seriously if he's already getting ready for the day. Usually you have to drag him out of bed with a promise of breakfast and a kiss.

Through your silent thoughts, you pick up on the muted sound of Venti's singing once again.

"In a room, By myself, Looks like I'm here with a guy that I judge worse than anyone else."

Looking back down at Rhythm, you push down an emotion you can't name and continue your one sided conversation with the half-asleep dog attempting to make a nest out of the bedsheets.

"Look at the time, Rhythm. I've overslept. Now he's beat me to it and you know how long that man spends in the shower."

Rhythm makes no visible effort to acknowledge your words.

You close your eyes again, and focus one more time on Venti's voice traveling from down the hall.

"So I pace, And I pray, And I repeat the mantras that might keep me clean for the day."

Your mind wanders to last night.

-

The two of you were in the kitchen throwing together a late dinner. As usual, you were exhausted but still eternally grateful to be able to end the day in peace, with good music and good food. Venti had picked the song playing from the phonograph in the corner, and something about the tune was making you feel… content. He always seemed to know exactly what you needed to hear.

You recall watching Venti reach up and pull a wine glass out of the cabinet, singing to himself while quickly turning and setting it down on the kitchen table. Idly stirring the rice frying in the pan on the stove, you watched Venti dance his way across the kitchen to open the refrigerator. Noticing the way his voice died down, you watched as he suddenly halted like he'd just remembered something.

Opening the door, he reached inside and his hand hovered over the neck of a half-empty bottle of wine from the day before. He was completely still for a long moment, thinking. Visibly, he took a deep breath, his shoulders rising up and dropping back down on the exhale. Looking something between disappointed and resolute, he retracted his hand, reaching instead towards the containers in the door.

Pulling out a bottle of apple juice that Sucrose had gifted to him, he smiled at the memory of her nervously explaining that an experiment had turned it into something akin to the taste of wine, although it wasn't an alcoholic beverage. She had been working on something for Diona, and while this wasn't what the bartender had wanted, Sucrose thought Venti might like it.

You watched transfixed, nearly letting the rice burn, as he nodded to himself, shutting the refrigerator door and bringing the bottle to the table. Opening it, he poured the juice into his wine glass and took a tentative sip. A look of satisfaction slowly crossed his face, and when Venti looked up from his glass, he caught you staring.

Smiling, he picked up his glass, walking around to the stove. Wrapping one arm around your waist, holding his drink in the other, he let his head rest against your shoulder. Looking down at the pan, he spoke up over the music playing in the background.

"The rice is gonna burn, love."

-

Snapping back to the present, you feels Rhythm's paw on your thigh, as she tries to climb back on top of you. Shaking your head, you pull yourself out of your memories and slide your legs off the side of the bed, stretching and yawning as you stand.

Rhythm huffs in annoyance and instead makes her way over to one of Venti's pillows, and you watch her curl up on the middle of it.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I do have to get up eventually."

Your gaze roams over the floor for a few moments, passing over discarded clothes, dog toys, and Rhyme, laying in his bed in the corner. The large black dog looks up at you as you approach him, squatting down to pet him. He raises his head to lick your hand.

“I’m surprised you didn’t follow Venti into the shower. We usually can't keep you away from water. Did he ask you to watch over me while I slept?”

The only response you receive is another lick, this time on your wrist, and you smile as you pull back and stand up, stretching again and reaching for the ceiling.

Dropping your hands to your hips, you think for a moment, looking down at a pair of Venti's shorts, discarded on the floor by the doorway. An exasperated smile grows on your expression, and you reach up, combing your fingers through your messy hair.

Glancing again at the time, you realize you're really gonna need to get ready soon. As you consider Venti's tendency to take his sweet time in the shower, an idea suddenly pops into your mind. Laughing to yourself, you pull up a throw blanket from where it slid off the end of the bed and gently drape it over Rhyme, still talking to the dogs.

"Sorry to leave you guys alone in here, but I've got to go remind your father that there's enough room in that shower for two people."

If either of them understand a word of what you said, they certainly don't show it.

Making your way out of the bedroom, you step over one of Venti's shirts and his shorts. You find his tights laying in the hall, and shake your head with a fond smile, picturing Venti stripping on his way to the shower. Why he doesn't just take it all off in one place you're still not sure.

You recall asking him once and he just shrugged, saying "I'm a free spirit, love. One of the benefits of living in your teapot is the ability to take off whatever I want, wherever I want!"

He accompanied his statement with an overexaggerated wink, and you couldn't stop the laugh that slipped out of you at the sight.

He picks up after himself most of the time, so it doesn't really bother you, per say, you just feel like it's… inefficient.

The shower is still running when you quietly crack open the door, steam immediately spilling out into the hall along with the sound of Venti's voice. You've never understood nor felt the urge to sing in the shower but this man certainly does. He puts on an entire performance every time, even if it’s to an audience of soap bars and shampoo bottles.

As you figured, his underwear are lying on the bath mat, looking like he stepped out of them and directly into the shower. The hair ties from his braids are resting on the counter by the sink, along with one single earring of his that matches the one that you wear in your opposite ear.

"…the church bells are ringing for those who are easy to please,"

Venti's still singing, of course, and his current choice is actually a song that you recognize as one that you introduced him to.

"…and the frost on the ground probably envies the frost on the trees."

When you came to Teyvat, you brought with you some of the music from your homeland, and Venti had been absolutely overjoyed to be introduced to music that he didn't already know.

"And the songs that she sang in the shower are stuck in my mind…"

He quickly learned which ones were your favorites, and in no time he could cover them beautifully.

You stand there, silent, listening to the love of your life sing to himself in the shower and for a moment you're overcome with the emotion of it all.

"…like 'Yesterday's Wine'…"

How lucky you are to have found him after all this time.

"…like yesterday's wine."

God, he's got a beautiful voice.

You take a deep breath and remember what you came in here to do.

Before Venti can finish his song and potentially ruin your surprise, you quickly slip off what remains of yesterday's clothes, and quietly reach out to grab hold of the shower door's handle. Pulling it aside in one quick motion, Venti's voice cracks on a high note as he spins to face the source of the motion.

The thought flashes in your mind right after the fact that Venti could have slipped and fell. Could have hurt himself because you wanted to play a stupid little game with him. You start to internally curse yourself for acting on impulse like that… but stop when you see that he’s okay. He didn’t slip, he’s not hurt, and you watch as Venti's face goes from shocked, to confused, to a mischievous smile.

Venti opens his mouth to say something, but you speak up before he can, gesturing to the water spraying out onto the tile.

"Mind if I join you or are we both gonna stand here making a mess?"

Laughing, Venti shakes his head and moves back into the spray, making room for you to step in and side the door closed.

As the steam wraps itself around you both, you close the distance between yourselves and press your bodies together. Looking at him, with that little smile on his face, you can't resist teasing him a bit.

"Thought you could beat me to the shower this morning, huh, bard?"

There’s humor in Venti’s eyes as he listens to you speak, but it shifts to something a little more knowing as he hears what you call him.

"Oh? Well good morning to you too, love."

Your hands run up his sides, and he notes the way your eyes seem to light up. You hum in response, distracted, so Venti speaks up again with a teasing tone in his voice.

"I think I see how it is today. You just woke up and you're already in a mood, aren't you?"

You’re feigning cluelessness as you run your hands up and down over his back, going lower and lower with every stroke.

"What kind of mood would that be, hm?"

He’s smirking at your response, running his own hands over your hips, stopping and letting his thumbs rest in the dips just above your thighs.

"You know exactly what kind, angel. You never call me bard unless you're in the mood to play with me."

He’s not wrong, but you aren’t ready to admit it.

"Play with you, huh? Playing in the shower's pretty dangerous, you know."

Your tone of voice drops a bit lower and you slide one hand down to the back of Venti’s thigh, lifting him up with no effort at all, and pressing him against the tile wall. Smiling at the way Venti’s gone quiet, you speak again in a dark, serious tone.

“You could slip."

Now, that would sound threatening if you were speaking to anyone else, but Venti just smiles. He knows he’s safe, and he quite likes this game even if he won’t admit it just yet either. You both know what you’re doing to each other, and the unspoken understanding is half of the fun.

He brings his other thigh up and locks his legs around your hips, coming back with a question.

"Alright then, what do you call this if you're not playing with me?"

You reach up and thread your fingers through the back of Venti’s hair.

"I call this… helping you hurry up and get the hell out of my shower."

Gripping his hair just tight enough to pull, but not enough to hurt him, you coax his head back enough to gain access to his throat. Dipping your head down, you trail kisses from his jawline to his collarbones, reveling in the way his breathing hitches and the way he stutters as he speaks.

"H-how in Teyvat is this helping me hurry?”

You bite down on his shoulder and he makes a very embarrassing sound.

“It- f-fuck- it seems to me you're trying to keep me in here."

He can feel the way you chuckle against his skin, placing soft little apology kisses over the bite mark. Pulling back, you smile at him, releasing your grip and threading your fingers through his hair.

"Nonsense. I'm just rinsing you off, love."

He rolls his eyes, smiling at you, always oddly comfortable in your arms regardless of what you’re doing to him. He finds his voice, a bit stronger now that your lips aren’t on his neck, and replies in a playful mocking tone.

"I was already done rinsing off, love."

You huff, faking offense and adjusting your grip on him so you can carefully place him back down. You make sure he’s steady on his feet on the slick shower floor, pulling back a bit but not fully stepping away. Guiding him back underneath the water, you watch as he leans his head back into the spray. He closes his eyes and lets you rinse him off again anyways, which is mostly just an excuse to run your hands over every inch of his body. He's not complaining though.

A comfortable silence falls over the scene, and you let it linger for a moment. Watching the way his chest expands when he breathes in, and the way the archon mark there lights up as he does. Slowly, you trace your fingers over it. He trusts you, and that knowledge fills you with an emotion that makes you want to cry.

Barely resisting the urge to kiss him, you instead break the silence to question him again.

"If you were already done, then why were you still in here, hm?"

Venti is busy focusing on the feeling of your nails gently combing through his hair. With his eyes closed everything feels so much more intense. The water hitting his skin, gentle hands trailing over his body, your voice in his ears. He struggles to get his mind to think clearly enough to come up with a response.

"I was…"

He trails off as your hand makes it's way back to his neck, and his breath hitches when a nail runs along the underside of his jaw.

You freeze, waiting to see how Venti responds, and watch as his eyes blink open again. He looks a little disappointed at the sudden stillness, and you almost feel bad for teasing him.

Almost.

You cock your head to one side, like you're truly curious and not just toying with him.

You ask him again.

"You were what?"

Venti laughs a little at the display and looks up at you, smiling.

"I was… just finishing my song."

You hum in thought, watching the way the water drips down from the ends of his hair, landing on his shoulders and trailing down his chest.

You pull in a deep breath, the steam suddenly feeling suffocating as you remember that you do not have time to start this game today, let alone finish it.

You both need to be at the church soon.

"Well, it never hurts to rinse off again.”

You release him from your hold, nodding in approval as your eyes rake over his form. Your tone of voice switches back to something close to normal, as if you weren’t just about to do something unholy to your God.

“See? All clean."

Venti smirks at you, a knowing look in his eyes, speaking up as he moves to step out of the shower.

"Thank you very much for the assistance, angel. What ever would I do without you?"

The sarcasm in his voice is obviously an attempt at masking how flustered he is, and you find that awfully cute.

Moving to follow Venti, you brace a hand up against the shower doorframe and lean out as he steps onto the mat. You say his name and he turns around with a curious look in his eyes. You reach out and pull him back into a quick kiss before retreating into the shower, quickly sliding the door closed again.

Standing there naked, wet, and flustered, Venti can hear the smile in your voice when you respond to his rhetorical question.

"You'd still be in the shower, probably."

Additional Notes!

Title is from the song that heavily inspired this fic- “Heaven In Hiding” by Halsey.

Title of part 1 is from “Songs That She Sang in the Shower” by Jason Isbell. It is also the song that Venti is quoted to be singing throughout the fic! It’s a beautiful song and you should go give it a listen.

Header Image is from Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

I’ll be back with part 2 in hopefully a few days? Idk. I’m slow but it’s on the way. Y'all will finally make it down to the kitchen and hopefully out of the teapot by the end of pt. 2 lmao.

If you enjoyed this, I’d love to know. Every little bit of feedback I get motivates me to no end, and I cherish it all. (Even if I can’t respond 'cause this is a side-blog.) Thank you so much for reading. ♡

[lsandom]

“I think that you’re worth keeping around / I think you’re worth holding onto” ☀️

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XIII)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

PART ONE is here PART TWOis here PART THREEis here PART FOUR is here and PART FIVE is here PART SIX is here and PART SEVEN is here PART EIGHT is here PART NINE is here PART TEN is here PART ELEVEN is here PART TWELVE is here and this is part thirteen??? Hello??

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts

Where we last left off...

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

…Bart doesn’t really do patience.

He doesn’t have to, so he doesn’t. Growing up in a world that wasn’t exactly real didn’t make for a real strong understanding of reality, or timing, or estimating how long something takes, or how long it would take a garden-variety human to complete a task.

He sits in the chair. He kicks his legs.

So. Bart doesn’t really do patience. When he wants to make his way through a book, it takes a few seconds to read through the whole thing at his standard pace. It’s great! Finishing the Troy Dodson series had taken ten minutes. He watched the full set of movies on quadruple-fast mode in about half an hour, and then still had the time to show up to the tower for trivia with the team that afternoon. It had been Crash!

And when—when Bart had wanted to learn how to cook, he went through half the recipes in Ma Kent’s copy of The Delights of Cooking in two days flat. And that was with missions. He even taught himself how to prepare squirrel from the back of the book! It tasted…uh, weird, sure, but that might have been his substitution of Caribbean jerk seasoning for garlic powder.

Patience is… Well, when Bart is on a mission and he has to wait for everyone to go at a human-comprehensible speed when laying out the plan of action, that’s patience. Sometimes he jumps the gun a little, maybe—but usually it all works out!

And when Bart has to wait for Barry and Wally to be free and off work for their day jobs, because they’re adults with real world things they have to do and Bart’s just—well, he’s—he tries to be patient! And he distracts himself with other things, and he takes the time to explore the world and get in new experiences he couldn’t have before in his own little virtual world, and he tries new things, and he eats new foods, and then Wally or Barry shoot him a text or ring him up and then he’s back in town in seconds anyway!

…But there isn’t a way to speed this along.

The doctor with the cute cat lanyard and Wonder Woman both have been trying to explain to Bart how bad the damage is. But Bart can tell. He has eyes.

His friend is physical now, but he’s not…right. His face is caved in, like someone hit him really really hard, or someone gouged out the whole front face of his skull—Bart can’t see any red matter, but that’s because of the pulsing green sheath that’s covered all of his friend’s open injuries.

And there’s a lot of green.

That means he’s super injured. Bart can see most of his glowing green not-face through the window of the metal tube his friend is sleeping in.

It’s not just his missing face, his crooked jaw, or his barely-moving chest, or his green-soaked fingers anyway; there’s open pits in his chest, slathered in green goo that shifts when he breathes and glows just a little in the odd light of the medical wing, lumpy and half-scarred from stitches that were sloppily applied. Utilitarian.

Tim told Bart that the sutures were probably meant more to prevent extra clean-up in a lab setting than to keep Bart’s friend alive.

…Bart doesn’t really want to think about that.

There are lime-tinged scrapes and scars across and around his friend's hands and up his arms, verdant-veined legs that aren’t exactly the right shape and orientation legs should be, crevasses in his stomach, his chest, against his collarbone, and the clawed-out pit where a face should be.

All green. So green. Like grass… Like the Earth, when Bart comes home from space.

It’s scary. It’s frightening.

Wonder Woman gave Bart a hug and said it would be okay when the Medical team started to apply white-swathed casts around misaligned legs, and Bart almost cried. The medical team thinks the green is his friend’s body working on healing him. That Bart’s friend will be okay.

Bart lets everyone say comforting things, because it’s kind when everybody’s kind. But Bart’s been an experiment in healing the unhealable and he knows as much as anyone else does that there’s simply no way to know if his friend will be okay.

But his friend isn’t alone like he was. Bart makes sure of it.

So he sits at his friend’s bedside, eats a granola bar, kicks his feet in the stiff chair Medical had to offer him, and Bart practices his patience.

By the end of this, he might even be good at it.

[incorrect-ralvez]

Spencer: I think Luke is in trouble.

Garcia: Alright. Struggling to give a fuck, if I’m honest.

[w98pops]

sparkbird — envy

[gay-archie]

Do you guys get it? Does this make sense or do you need to have listened to Ghost Quartet for years and be obsessed with the “was that us or was that a movie?” line from Riverdale and the “it is happening again” line from Twin Peaks and the part in Jesus Christ Superstar where Jesus calls Judas a Judas and then Judas says “Christ” as if he’s cursing and subsequently the similar part in Ghost Quartet where Scheherazade is called “a real Scheherazade” and the shot in The Jughead Paradox when Betty and Jughead go back downstairs and all their friends are standing around the table and it just feels so very fake happy ending—do you need all that to get this? Anyway;

It Is Happening Again: Twin Peaks, Riverdale, Ghost Quartet, Jesus Christ Superstar: Prophecy and Repetition

Twin Peaks 2.7/ Riverdale 3.1/ Jesus Christ Superstar “The Arrest”/ Ghost Quartet “Bad Men”/ Jesus Christ Superstar “The Last Supper”/ Twin Peaks 2.?/ Ghost Quartet “The Camera Shop”/ Twin Peaks 2.8, 1.1/ Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me/ Twin Peaks 2.7/ Ghost Quartet “Usher Part 3”/ Riverdale 3.4, 3.2, 1.6, 6.5/ Ghost Quartet “The Camera Shop”, “Midnight”/ Twin Peaks 2.7/ Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me/ Twin Peaks 2.?/ Ghost Quartet “Usher Part 3”/ Twin Peaks 2.7

[robinfollies]

some design comcepts for older lily + lewis!!! my latest and greatest headcanon for them is that in the future they get gems and can do magic of their own :33 i just think it’d be neat,,, something to do with their love of magic!!!! 🥺

[shrinesong]

concept i couldnt get out of my head

[midnottart]

🐍 • when Loki accepted his heritage and stayed in his Jötunn form, his horns began to grow too.

[elasgottoomuchfreetime]

[concerned partners + their kids]

A little S2 doodle because it floated through my brain and I wanted to draw.

And because I think it‘s cute.

[b1gwings]

Could I please get a sketch of a Fantasy high teen of choice with ducks

THIS WAS SUCH A CUTE PROMPT... I have been missing Riz a lot lately. I wish I wasn't so busy, bc if I wasn't I would draw all of them with ducks...

anyway his hat is perfectly nest-shaped :')

if you VOTE GLENN HERE, you can request a sketch from me!

[roki-roki-roll]

The Tailor

[bb-fennelposting]

get his ass

[localgardenweed]

Metal Sonic and Silver join the Shard doodles

[emily-mooon]

ST x ‘In Another Universe’ Text Posts (pt.1?)

[r0semultiverse]

Was Celia drunk as fuck or is this something supernatural?? 👀

Who the fuck is Jack?? 👀

Alice is such a delight, I love her!

Oof so one or both of them have trauma involving grandparents then.

I love Samama & Alice so much. 💜 They have a great dynamic!

Oh shit, right, Gwen is probably still getting over Mr. Bonzo too. 👀

"I just… I dunno. When I left the coffee shop, it felt like someone was following me."

Please don't take away Alice, she's one of my faves! I hope this post doesn't age poorly. Watch me have to quote this post very soon.

OH NO, is it that [ERROR] following her??? 😰

"Don’t joke about that, mate. I was dreaming about it all day." Okay, yeah, that's a creature.

Sam & Alice are both about to run into a creature... 👀

"Classifying unspeakable horrors all night for no discernible reason?" @/entities-of-posts & @/which-entity-this-post-serves is that you? :]

Hmm, now why is this episode called "marked?" I assumed Mr. Bonzo was gonna find his mark, but maybe Alice is marked by an entity/creature that was locked in the Magnus Institute?

"giving up the ghost" okay so someone saw an apparition? Honestly not sure what entity this episode is about so far.

It's giving The Corruption ✨🧟‍♀️⚰️ (maybe The Buried)

"It’s just that one of the graves had a body in that was too well-preserved for the age it should have been." 👀👀👀

This thing is about to jump out of the grave & run off, isn't it? 🏃‍♂️

"The back was completely covered in this complicated tattoo of a ship sailing across an open sea towards an open horizon." Peter Lukas?!?!?

Oh 100% The Buried, without a shadow of a doubt.

Lots of tattoo & carvings in walls imagery in this sequel prequel sidequel, isn't there? 👀

Hey wait, that's Ink5oul from episode 2, isn't it? 👀 Ink5oul definitely feels like a conduit or vessel for The Flesh or some other kind of entity.

Okay, there's something weird going on with this place, the salt water & waves near this cemetery are kind of seemingly enticing them to come drown in it's waters. In the very least it's messing with these guys' mental states! Pretty freakkyyyy! 👀🌊

Also the repeated emphasis on dreams is interesting this episode, wonder if that'll play a part in something later on. 👀👀

"If it’s any consolation, he’s with the sea now. The deep will care for his bones." I literally called it!!

I think Gordon Alan Johnson also wants to be with David. 👀🌊🌊

I think Gordon Alan Johnson also wants to be with David. 👀🌊🌊

I don't know, Gordie, I think you did it! Unless Ink5oul is collecting tattoos like an alternate universe version of the Leitner books. Wait yeah, what if the tattoos are like conduits for the entities of this world or even the original one? 🖌

Another way to look at this is asking... Is The Deep a new entity/fear or is it a servant of a fear like The Vast? I stg there was a colossal water monster at some point in The Magnus Archives!

Okay so yeah, there's already a precedent for this. Also feels like The Lonely, The Buried, The Corruption, The Vast, & maybe even The Flesh are all involved in this one though I don't know if Flesh (Ink5oul) is working with or against the other fears at this time.

Gwen, you can tell your coworkers what's wrong, oh my fucking god. Please. Celia, you have me so invested in whatever is going on with you.

Weird unexplained noise at 17:44 too as Celia enters the office. Wonder what that's all about, maybe it'll come up later on.

"He is one of our Externals." Okay; so, there's more of them & they have their own secret hitman title too!

Mr. Bonzo when he was on TV

"And they usually like it." I bet fear creatures do like it when you scream. That makes a lot of sense actually.

Also what's that weird "boowomp" noise as they're talking or is it just the OST? 👀

Is Gwen going to be turned into something not quite human at some point? Just throwing darts at a board with that speculation, but wouldn't that be wild?

Okay; so, these little digitized noises are absolutely important!

I wonder how many times & when people have lied so far throughout this season. 👁️👁️