#was waiting to get to this part

[rustingcat]

Midnight

"Kara, can you come over to look at something?" Lena asked with clear worry in her voice. 

They’d spent the past 6 weeks since the decision having their lunch breaks in the lab, checking daily on the pods. So it was unusual for Lena to call her in the middle of the night, Lena's concerned voice woke her up in a second. 

Kara made it to the lab just as the clock struck midnight. She hurried to Lena's side, feeling a shot of anxiety run through her body. In those few milliseconds she already had the worst scenarios run through her mind; did their baby have a terrible mutation? Did they develop a terminal disease? Were they already dead?

Kara swallowed hard as the air around her felt thicker and harder to breathe. "What's wrong?"

"It could be a problem with the machine, I'm just not sure I'm reading it right. Look at this." Lena pointed out to the live ultrasound view on the terminal. They only got it working recently, prioritising it last in favour of more important tests. "It could be the angle, or I don't know, I might be reading it wrong." Lena continued.

Kara studied the screen closely, following Lena's finger as she pointed the anomaly out. The image on the screen was clear, as Kara's eyes grew bigger with the realisation and her smile spread bigger on her lips. "Oh, Rao." Her hand went to cover her mouth in shock as she took a slight step back. Joy and anxiety spread freely in her body.

"So it's-"

"Twins!" Kara exclaimed loudly. "Oh Rao, we're having twins!"

"Dear lord." Lena slammed down on the nearest chair, clearly not as excited as Kara was. "I really hoped I was reading it wrong."

"What? Why? It's great news Lena! Double the excitement!" Kara always wanted a sibling growing up on Krypton, specially she wanted a twin like her mother.

"It's double the trouble. Kara, do you know how hard it is to handle twins? It's two human-Kryptonian hybrids running around causing trouble and refusing to sleep."

"I know, I know, but it's still exciting! They'll have the perfect playmate to play with, someone to always understand them at every stage of their life, someone to confide with when things are tough and the world doesn't make sense."

"I… it's still going to be super difficult."

"Being super is kind of my speciality." Kara said with a smirk.

"Don't play cute with me Supergirl, you know what I mean." Despite the jab she seemed to have calmed down a bit. "I didn't even know that twins were possible to get in the machine to be honest." She added.

"Oh yeah, it is. Twins actually run in my family, I probably should've mentioned that." Kara bit her lip. 

"Yes," Lena muttered. "Speaking of sharing important information, I think this is probably a good time to have that talk." Lena said reluctantly as she got up from the chair and gestured for Kara to follow her to the couch.

Kara did and took the seat next to her. She wasn't sure she was ready to confront it yet, to make it real, but then again the image on the screen was very real, and Kara promised to do everything in the world to keep those two little beans safe and sound.

"What should we start with?" Kara cleared her throat, preparing herself mentally and physically for it.

"God, we have so much to talk about. We're going to raise half Kryptonian children together in a few months, there's a lot to cover. We'll probably not get to everything today, but we can start with what we can for today. Like where are we going to live? Are we even going to live together?" 

"Of course we'll live together!" Kara quickly responded. "If you want to of course, I wouldn't force you to do anything, I just think that it would be better. For the babies and stuff." Kara cleared her throat again.

"Yes, I think that would be for the best." Lena agreed, her cheeks slightly flashed. "Now, the question is which house. Considering your house doesn't even have one bedroom, I would say it's out of the question. My penthouse has only two and a half extra rooms, which in the long run might be a problem if we wanted to include a home office and a room for each child."

"Right, well, getting a new place is expensive. And I know you have money but this is a responsibility we share, so I want to be able to contribute equally. We're gonna need a really big house with lots of rooms, preferably in the downtown area. That's gonna be really expensive. I am making much better money in my new position, so I can start saving up and might be able to afford something in a year or so if I get a good mortgage."  And cut off some of her food supplies and any fun purchases and so on. It wouldn't be ideal, but it was doable.

"Hmm." Lena's eyebrows furrowed as she pondered their options. "Well, the apartment below me is actually empty for security reasons, we could possibly take over it and connect it to my place. The renovation should be much cheaper and give us more time to save up for if and when we want to get something bigger." Lena was obviously a genius. She never doubted that, but she still felt herself filled up with pride and joy every time Lena made it apparent.

"What about the security measures?"

"We can figure out new ones. Plus we can probably open up a convenient roof entrance for when you need to leave quickly." 

"Right. Well, how big are the renovations? Do you know how long they'd be and how much it's going to cost?"

"I'll have to get back to you on both once I settle on a construction company, but I would imagine it would probably take a couple of months." Lena shrugged.

"Okay, so if you need a place to stay, you can stay with me and once it's done we can move in together, as a family." Kara smiled at her excitingly, reaching out to take her hands. Lena's eyes darted immediately to their joined hands, but made no move to take them away. "I assume the place is yours so you don't pay rent."

"Haha no." Lena chuckled.

"Mortgage?" Kara tried.

Lena raised an eyebrow "Kara, need I remind you that I'm an actual billionaire?"

"Yeah, okay. I just feel bad because this is your place, like you paid for all of this."

"And you're gonna help me pay for the renovation to make it ours. Plus, don't worry, we'll have plenty of expenses. We still have a whole lot of shoppings to get done."

Kara's eyes lit up with excitement.

"Not before the three month mark. We want to make sure before we buy." She had a point.

"Yes I know," Kara nodded in disappointment. "I should probably talk to Kal at some point, maybe he and Lois can give us some advice on raising half Kryptonian twins." She suggested.

"Good idea. Although, it's best to talk to them after we tell everyone else, meaning after three months."

"Why does it feel like forever?" 

"Eager to become a parent?" Lena teased.

"A bit." Kara answered honestly.

Lena only squeezed her hands in response. They sat together in silence for a moment before Kara made a realisation.

"Oh!" She got up from her seat, startling Lena as she rose.

"What? Kara is everything alright?" Lena asked, concerned.

"I first thought it was some new parts in the machine, but it isn't." Kara felt her eyes getting blurry with tears. "I can hear them." She turned her head to Lena once she reached the pod. "I can hear their little hearts."

Lena walked up to her and interlocked her fingers with Kara once more. "They'll be here soon." Lena promised. Kara put her forehead to Lena's, closing her eyes and focused on the tiny beating sound. "I can't wait to meet them."

Read in order in AO3

[secondbeatsongs]

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[tagerrkix]

Eden was their ✨disney princess era✨

[umblrspectrum]

part 4 of a lot funnier in my head than on paper

[rendevok]

“Take my hand” pages 16-18

1 -> 3 - day 4 - swap

[captainjonnitkessler]

Things I wish women were learning from true crime podcasts: how to spot early warning signs of abusive relationships, how to escape abusive relationships, how easily domestic violence can escalate to murder, how incredibly unlikely it is to be the victim of a crime done by a complete random stranger as opposed to friends and family

What women are learning from true crime podcasts: I am in CONSTANT danger and every day I survive without being murdered by a serial killer is a miracle. I should react to everyone I meet with distrust and paranoia and live my life as if I am in mortal peril and if anyone suggests that might not be healthy then they just don't understand what it is to Be A Woman In Today's Society

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[emo-batboy]

A Wild Battinson (Social Media AU)

Part 43 (Masterlist)

(Part 44)

Me, to myself: I just think the series was better when I posted several times a week because the pacing felt more natural, and it translates better when people binge it.

Also Me, holding two jobs and a bat: If you try to post once a day again, I will disconnect your head from your shoulders—

@bruciemilf guess who’s back

Anyways, folks! :D So I'm thinking of a new upload schedule where I spend a bit preparing the next ten or so parts then post it all in two weeks? I think that would be fun (and much better for my creative process.)

I’ll be posting the next part very soon :) But it's going to be drastically different from what I've done before. Let’s see if anyone can guess why.

Yada yada don’t die LOVE Y’ALL

[art-by-fate]

HUGE congrats to sir Skizzleman for hitting that big shiny 100k!!!!

[artemistics]

Paul swallowed. The figure in front of him turned into the moon's path and he saw an elfin face, black pits of eyes. The familiarity of that face, the features out of numberless visions in his earliest prescience, shocked Paul to stillness. He remembered the angry bravado with which he had once described this face-from-a-dream, telling the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam: "I will meet her." And here was the face, but in no meeting he had ever dreamed.

[kuromi-hoemie]

ngl it does really annoy me when everyone accepts “ace people don't have sex” as the baseline assumption instead of ace people just not experiencing sexual attraction.

you can still have sex but be driven by different reasons, like to me it is a kind of affection and way to hang out with people that is influenced by the relationship we have with each other. i can think people are pretty to look at with or without their clothes without sexual attraction in the mix.

when i see something full of ppl assuming ace people don't have sex i always want to jump on it and be annoying like MEEEE I'M ACE PEOPLE WHO HAS SEX, WE EXIST WE EXIST STOP ASSUMING WE DON'T THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO STRAIGHT UP WILL NOT DATE OR BE INTERESTED IN ACE PEOPLE BECAUSE OF THIS MISCONCEPTION AND WE E X I S T.

stop!!!! assuming ace people do not have sex!!!!!!!! if you don't know then ask if it's appropriate!!!!!!!!!!! stop thinking about it in a binary you either do or don't have sex kind of way!!!!!! this is fundamentally off!!!!!!!!!!!! if you are ace you do not have sexual ATTRACTION!!!!!!!!!!!

as to how we feel about and handle sex, that varies person to person but sex favorable aces are a lot more common than you'd think. hell, figuring out I'm ace was the hardest thing to figure out about myself because all i ever saw people talk about was whether you have sex or not. I'm sure there's a lot more people who haven't figured it out for this same reason, and let me tell you it's hard to know you're missing a whole ass type of attraction when you've never experienced it before and didn't know it was missing to begin with!!

ace is not synonymous with sexless. aces who don't have sex don't speak for me, and y'all gotta stop letting them be the only face of the community. there are More Of Us, it is All Of Us.

accepting that baseline at face value leaves you uninformed and it's frustrating to see this over and over again. challenge yourself to do better and try understanding ace people more.

[haunted-xander]

The rebirth demo has me so hyped how DARE you make me wait until the end of the month for the full game

[egophiliac]

IT WAS ERIC AFTER ALL!!!! I'm so glad we got to meet him (before Vil snaps him away with those Infinity Gauntlets) (can't wait to see what happens when we get the matching Infinity Tiara to go with them, there will be no survivors)

(sorry to be so slow/rough lately, just got a lot of stuff on the ol' brain at the moment! alas, if only I could spend all my time drawing incredibly stupid characters I mean I do but)

[mumblesplash]

part 2!!!! [read part one here]

transcript below the cut arranged into stanzas to help show where the rhymes are:

“that’s why they brought gem in? as a failsafe?” as a pawn. we were told to point her at whoever we need gone

“gem won’t hurt her allies. …yet.” the curse she carries will it’s had its eye on her since she lost the other eye she was specially selected for her hunting skill it’s quite the high honor. “wow. how generous.” we try

think about it: why does almost no one fight the curse? “given how fast scott killed skizz last season, i can guess.” [“any pain you spare your friends, you’ll have to suffer worse”?] it’s designed to shut down higher reasoning with stress

[astearisms]

may you find peace 🌾