#were that confident walking in

[tennant-the-tigger]

Fruity Four: Haunted House

They thought they could handle it, no problem, considering everything they’ve been through.  

More ST Art (x)

[artharakka]

Beautiful, But Broken

[imthursdaysyme]

It’ll pass series 1/5: ronance

[jaggedjot]

Choosing to believe that the coven are not going to retroactively punish Claudia for having broken their laws by attempting to kill one vampire and succeeding with another, but for the far more serious infraction of giving Armand an opportunity to rant to the theatre troupe, yet again, about how brilliant Lestat is, how he is a better actor than any of them, how Armand definitely does not miss him, how (presumed) big his

[kaeyx]

it’s always yandere!chuuya or yandere!Dazai but what about yandere!reader!!

just imagine having a room with pictures just of chuuya as you make it so painfully obvious how much you love him even threatening Dazai at some point. But chuuya is so kind and accepts that weird part of you, understatement your love, until you’re crying about him not loving you because he keeps talking to those other people, Just making him feel guilty

Yan reader my beloved it's been a while.... You see how everyone looks at Chuuya, both inside and outside the PM, and you can't really blame them but you also can't stand it. He's gorgeous, strong, caring.... everything you could ever want, it's only natural you'd have competition. But you know he deserves only the best, he shouldn't be with someone who's going to date him only for his looks or his money or the protection that he can offer them, he needs someone that loves him properly, someone willing to devote themselves fully to him.

Someone like you, of course. He's always so kind to you, even though you know he probably doesn't sees you like that he never makes you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. Chuuya really is everything you could hope for. It's only natural that you'd memorize his likes and dislikes, you want to bring him gifts and pick me ups for all that hard work he does! Chuuya pushes himself too hard, you have to take it upon yourself to bring him food and a coffee on late nights. You always give him presents on holidays and his birthday, sometimes signing them, sometimes leaving them blank. You write him letters that you burn or lock in a box under your bed, swearing you'll give them all to him one day. You learn where he shops and what shampoo he uses, you begin to wash your clothes with his detergent so you can pretend you do your laundry together. It's the little things that help tide you over, at least until you gather the courage to ask him out for real....

[reindeerswillsavethisworld]

you know, there's a lot of art (both as an actual art and fanfiction) in phandom that elaborates and deepens the relationship between danny and ghosts, and not much about ghosts and everybody else. there's some things about vlad and danielle and jazz and surprisingly mr. lancer (?), and that's usually it. and honestly, good for you all, the things i saw were really fascinating, genuinely.

but like. i would DIE to see more about the relationship between sam and dora. the parallels alone are??? ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES, I'M TELLING YOU.

i want them to be friends. i want them to be kindred spirits. i want sam to treat dora's kingdom as a safe heaven, a calm harbor where she can simply be, with no expectations and daunting responsibilities. i want dora to teach sam how to differentiate fabrics by feel alone, how to dance with her eyes closed and all the different messages flowers can tell. i want her to tell sam about that time sir albert made a fool of himself trying to oppose a new economic reform, talk about all the economic, legal and political reforms she's been making in all it's excruciating detail and then to teach her the perfect curtsy.

i want sam to show dora how to tend to a garden. to show her the joy of watching a new life grow and knowing that you did this, that you hands can be gentle and loving, that you were not born to hurt. i want them to recite poetry to each other, to argue and debate and discuss, to find a meaning where the words before were empty, to offer an angle never thought before. i want sam to teach dora how to skate, be it skates, rollerblades or a scateboard, and dora being absolutely terrible at it and yet still doing it everytime they meet because it makes them laugh.

i just think they'd be really good friends, if given a chance.

[thedreadvampy]

My housemate is moving out in January

She told us this a week or two ago, when she sat down and, after sitting with us watching TV for over an hour, said "hey so I bought a house and I'm moving out. We agreed on 2 months notice so I won't move until the end of January."

The last time she talked in the immediate terms about buying a house was in 2021, when the sale she was working on fell though and she was unemployed so it was a "when I'm back in a position to look I'll start looking again." Since then I've occasionally asked her how she's doing on the house buying front and she's been like "oh I'm getting there financially" but hasn't mentioned anything concrete.

She didn't tell us she was looking at places. She didn't tell us she had put in an offer. She told us when the offer was finalised. A week AFTER she emailed the letting agent about getting out of her part of the lease. And, it increasingly feels like, only because the letting agent's response was that we had to agree to change the lease.

The letting agent's response (which our housemate obviously didn't copy us into; we had to follow up separately and they copied us into the email chain) also includes that when we change the lease, they're empowered to change the rent, quote, "no cap". Rent was already going up in January - there's no possibility of Sam and I paying her share of the rent.

The really fucking upsetting thing is we're not strangers. This isn't a casual "housemate we found on flatshare" thing. She and Sam have lived together literally their entire adult lives. Me and her have known each other well over a decade. I lived in her and Sam's flat when I was homeless. We were the first people she came out to as trans. We're not super close but I thought we were fucking friends. And she's literally gone out of her way to not talk to us about this for what must have been months while the sale completed - which means she's lied to my face at least once cause I've asked her about her finances in that time (cause she's in a job she hates that she only took to get the house money, so it's like. when we've been commiserating about work stuff I'm often asking 'are you almost free?'). she literally went out of her way to talk to the letting agents before talking to us about putting us in a situation where we could lose our fucking home.

And she keeps. trying. to pretend nothing's happened. Every time I've seen her since then she's not mentioned anything or apologised or anything, she just keeps chatting away and offering hugs and fistbumps like nothing's happened. Like we're still fucking friends.

All it would take for us to still be friends and to be happy for her would have been one fucking sentence in the groupchat like "hey, just put an offer in on a house" or "I'm looking at properties, just so you know, that might happen in the next few months". Like nobody begrudges her for buying a house! It's very cool for her! She's 31 she's worked really hard to get the money I would love to be happy for her! Unfortunately she decided avoiding conflict is more important than giving the people she fucking LIVES WITH (who btw fronted her a month on the rent here while she was unemployed and agreed to take on a larger proportion of the move-in cost back in 2021, if we're still holding ourselves to shit we said 2.5 years ago), so no, you are not entitled to our friendship or to going back to normal.

like if she'd been honest with us it would have been something to process but we'd have had time to figure out our next steps. instead she's left us in a position where we have to find a new roommate before she gives her one month notice, which means finding someone by the end of December, which oh look that's the middle of the fucking Christmas holidays. and she didn't tell us anything until the START of December, or copy us into her conversation with the letting agent, meaning we still don't know what the rent on that space will be so we aren't yet in a position to advertise it. Has she offered to help find a roommate? Has she fuck. Has she offered to help out by moving her move-out date? Nah, she's moving as soon as she gets the keys because, quote, "that means her finances won't have to change". SOUNDS LOVELY. NOT HAVING YOUR FINANCES SUDDENLY CHANGE. I THINK THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY REASONABLE FUCKING GOAL.

Thirteen fucking years she's lived with Sam. Four fucking weeks over Christmas she's left us to figure out a way to not turbofuck our living situation. And she's got the fucking nerve to try and pretend we should be interacting like nothing's changed. Jesus Christ. What a fucking unhinged way to treat...anybody, honestly. never mind the friends-your-entire-adult-life part. literally cannot imagine a scenario in which I would buy a house without telling the people I lived with.

(haha actually this is what my parents divorced over so apparently it's not unusual. although at least my dad had the decency to tell the woman he shared finances with at the point he put in an offer not the point the fucking sale went through.)

Like we'll be fine. It's a huge city centre flat with decent rent and queer housemates, hopefully even when the rent goes up it'll be an easy sell in a city with a huge housing shortage and big queer community. We've got a couple of people interested already, sight unseen - worst case scenario we have to live with someone we don't get on with. And it's given Sam and me a push to look at our own finances and as of today, we've got a mortgage decision in principle and can start looking at flats in the area - mind, we'll be transparent upfront and tell any prospective housemates that yeah, we're looking to buy and move out in the next 6-12 months, and we'll tell them if we put an offer in, because we're decent fucking people who aren't going to spring that on someone out of the blue.

But it's been I think 2 weeks and I'm so fucking angry I could spit. It's such a fucking betrayal. And frankly you know selfishly like. I just had a breakup a couple of months ago, I'm in the middle of moving jobs, both me and Sam have a history of housing instability and this has been the first decent, stable, safe, not-mouldy not-freezing home I think any of us have had, and this is so fucking triggering and upscuttling I could just start biting. like I was talking to my friend about it last week and it's just like. Can I have One Fucking Thing of the three main tentpoles of survival - home, work, relationships - that are fucking stable right now? because shit has been In Flux lately. and at least the work and relationship stuff has changed because of my decisions. going through all that work to make myself short-term unstable to gain long-term stability has been really hard and draining and then just as I was reaching the crisis point with work stuff BOOM, IT'S HOUSING INSTABILITY WITH A STEEL CHAIR. fuck. seriously fuck this and fuck her. we're going to make something good come of it but what a deeply, unbelievably shitty thing to do.

[kaeyachi]

modern!Kaeya wearing high fashion casually and always looking good in it

he looks like he should be on a runway with how bizarre but cool and artistic his outfits are

and sometimes, the stuff he wears should not have been wearable in the streets, and yet he looks oddly normal in them? It's the way he moves and the way he looks that make the clothes he wears truly work ( it takes confidence and proper planning to rock said outfits in the first place, and he does it so well).

People would take a double take if he ends up wearing something simple like a button up with slacks. He looks underdressed all of the sudden lmao (they legit go "Who are you and what did you do to our Kaeya?!")

[oatbugs]

lmao looking at her insta highlights was a mistake

[shivunin]

Breath of Life

In which Zevran meets a familiar Crow in the streets of Denerim

(Full version (Explicit) on AO3 here)

CW: Hurt/comfort; Blood, wounds, combat, death, spiders; references to near-death experiences

“When I heard that the great Zevran had gone rogue, I simply had to see it for myself.”

Arianwen stared up the stairs at the stranger with the cruel face. Her hand rested on one of the daggers at her back; if Zevran had not made it clear that he knew this man, she would have thrown it already. 

“Is that so?” Zevran said, his voice holding an unfamiliar cold note, “Well—here I am, in the flesh.”

“You can return with me, Zevran,” the Crow at the top of the stairs said, his face twisting into an expression of false sympathy that set Wen’s teeth on edge, “I know why you did this, and I don’t blame you. It’s not too late. Come back and we’ll make up a story. Anyone can make a mistake.”

 Somewhere behind her, she heard Alistair take a slow breath. There was no need to look at him; she knew his hand was already on the hilt of his sword. 

Ready to step between them if Zevran tried to stab her in the back. 

Anyone can make a mistake. Yes; that was something Wen knew all too well. She’d made far too many herself, though she tried to think about them as little as possible. Had it been a mistake to trust Zevran? To fall in—

No. 

No, she didn’t think so. 

Wen turned to look at her lover, lifting her chin, and spoke. 

“Of course, I’d need to be dead first.”

Zevran met her eyes, reading something there, and gave her the smallest nod before turning again to Taliesen.

“And I’m not about to let that happen,” Zevran said, resolution coloring every syllable of the words. 

She had not doubted him—not really, not after the past few months—but even so, some unnamed fear melted away in Arianwen’s chest.

“What? You’ve gone soft!” Taliesen spat. Scorn painted deep lines on either side of his mouth, and to her right Zevran’s shoulders loosened slightly. 

Someone was creeping closer to Wen’s group; she could see them out of the corner of her eye, shifting slightly beside the stairs. The blade at her back came free from its bandolier soundlessly, slipping into her hands like the touch of an old friend. 

“I am sorry, my old friend,” Zevran said, and Wen knew him well enough to know that the note of sadness in his voice was real, “But the answer is no. I’m not coming back…and you should have stayed in Antiva.”

The Crows who’d been creeping closer struck, Taliesen among them. As Zevran finished speaking, Tabris’s hand whipped out from behind her back and her blade bloomed from the throat of the fighter by the stairs. They fell soundlessly, not that any of them could have noticed; battle had been joined in full, and she and her friends had their hands full already. 

Zevran darted past her and up the stairs, sword and dagger in hand. That seemed right; a betrayal by an old friend must be his to handle by rights. She did not try to stop him, nor did she follow him. When another Crow raised her blade to intercept Zevran, Arianwen threw another dagger, and then another when the first failed to incapacitate the woman. While the steel spiraled through the air, she slicked her sword with poison and blocked a blow meant for her shoulder. 

There had been a break in the crowd right at the beginning, which was how Zev had gotten through, but the rest closed ranks around them now. Wen found herself back to back with Alistair, batting away another slash at her torso before she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled hard. 

She’d no idea where the lovely spider kept herself while they traveled through Denerim, but Princess dropped down from a rooftop nearby and leapt for a bowman, snapping him up in her pincers with a sickening crunch. 

“Ugh,” Alistair said emphatically, and Wen laughed, already caught in the high she always felt when fighting. 

“Don’t fuss, Ali, I’m sure it’s delightful—right, Morrigan?” Arianwen said, but it was no use; the mage in question did not have a mouth fit for speaking at the moment. A bear battled at their side instead, batting one Crow into another with a crushing blow of the paw. When the two fell, the crowd around them opened for a moment and she had a clear view of her lover, still fighting at the top of the stairs.

Zevran could hold his own; she knew that. What Wen did not know was how to balance her feelings for him with an honest estimate of his abilities. For example—he bled from a wound along his side now, and though it was plainly a slice across the ribs the sight of it filled her with an unbounded rage. 

How dare this stranger lay hands on one under her protection? How dare he harm what was hers?

She fought all the harder, some of the joy of battle going from her all at once. She threw a handful of dust into the face of one man, then slit his throat while he was still coughing. When he fell away, she shifted forward, and drove her foot between the legs of the man who tried to block her. It would have been smart to stab him in the heart when he fell to the ground, but she leapt over him instead and started up the stairs. Alistair cursed behind her, and there was another horrible crunch, but Arianwen paid them little mind. 

Taliesen was laughing, batting away Zevran’s dagger and returning the attempted blow with a strike across Zevran’s forearm. She could see the jump in the muscle along his jaw, a sure sign that he was in pain, and his sword fell from his hand. 

A body was in her way; Arianwen hardly even looked at it as she drove her longsword into its belly and shook it from the steel. 

At the top of the stairs, Zevran danced away from another blow and sliced Taliesen’s cheek. The latter laughed as blood poured down his cheek, then swung hard at Zev. Dodge, dodge, strike—but Zevran had overextended himself and knew it, from the way his brows drew down even as his dagger drove toward Taliesen’s throat. 

She was not moving fast enough. He needed her—he needed her and she was—

Wen spat in the face of the person before her, drove a dagger through his eye, then threw it at Taliesen. It would have hit—she knew damn well how to throw a dagger, even one with a hilt like this—but another Crow got in the way, dancing back from the bear ascending the steps behind her. The dagger killed the woman, but it was too late. 

Taliesen caught Zevran’s wrist, grinned, and drove his blade into her lover’s belly. 

“No,” Tabris screamed, ducking the Crow’s body that slumped before her. Magic hissed past her face and struck Taliesen, but Wen paid it little mind. Zevran slid from Taliesen’s blade, his face turned up, one hand still clutching a dagger—her mother’s dagger, the one her father had hidden under the floorboards for over a decade. 

Arianwen felled another assassin and dodged their falling body to race upward. It felt like all of this was happening too slow; she couldn’t seem to lift her leaden legs, nor to make her eyes focus as they ought. 

Taliesen laughed when Zevran hit the ground. Then, he bent and reached for the rosewood and silver hilt of her mother’s dagger.

No; he would not. Could not. She would not allow it.

Wen found a burst of speed from some hidden well within her and threw herself at Taliesen, knocking him back several steps before he recovered. 

“Don’t be mad,” he laughed, “It’s what he wanted!” 

Wen dodged a blow, rapidly scanning the wounds Zev had scored into the man’s body. He was favoring his left side and his arm was bleeding badly. Good; she would make this quick, damn him. 

Zevran needed her. 

“Didn’t you know?” Taliesen went on, swinging for her arm and dodging back when she took advantage of the opening to stab at his side. 

“He came here to die. I’m only giving him what he wanted.”

Taliesen grunted when her sword dug deep into his bicep, then dropped his dagger when Arianwen pulled away. Good; she’d hit something important, then. There was a buzzing in Wen’s ears that did not entirely sound like the usual battlesong her blood hummed to her. No; it was fear, fear she never felt when she fought anymore. 

Zevran lay on the ground beside her, choking on his own blood—and the man who would call him dead was still talking. 

Wen ducked a strike, spun up beneath his guard, and drove her poisoned dagger sideways between his ribs—a trick Zev had taught her. 

Damn him, he had to live. 

“Clever tr—” Taliesen began as the blood began to spread beneath his tunic. He did not go on; ice spread from his chest to his mouth, stilling his tongue, and Arianwen did not wait for Morrigan’s spell to wear off. 

She kicked her mother’s dagger into the air, replacing the one she’d left on the stairs, and caught it in one smooth motion. When she drove it into the man’s heart, it made a soft crackling noise, as a kitchen knife cutting into frozen meat. 

“Shut up,” she spat, and pulled the dagger loose with a practiced tug. 

Taliesen fell to the stone behind her, but she was no longer looking at him—or anything else. The fight might still be going on down the stairs. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. The others could take care of themselves; her Zevran could not. 

“Zev, Zevran,” she said, falling to her knees and dropping both blades without a second thought, “Look at me. Look at me?” 

His eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, as if he was trying to do as she said, and one hand pressed over the gaping wound in his belly. 

Maker; she’d seen the blade go through to the other side. He wasn’t—he wasn’t—

“Open—open your mouth,” she said instead, slipping one arm under his neck and tugging a potion from her belt with the other hand, “Open—for me?”

Zevran’s lips did not move; Wen had to do it instead, pressing his lower lip open so she could tip the viscous red potion into his mouth. He swallowed reflexively, his breath wheezing horribly as soon as he’d finished. 

“It’s going—you’ll be—” she could not find the words. Wen had never been good at comfort, and now that she needed to know what she was saying the right words flew right out of her head. She positioned herself more fully underneath him, cradling the curve of her head in one hand. 

“...wen,” he said, the words more of a rasp than they were words, and she huddled over him. 

If anyone stood behind her with a blade, the strike to end her life would be very easy. She could not even say that she was wary or paying attention; there was no ounce of her focus directed anywhere but at the limp body in her arms. 

“...I,” he tried again, but she shook her head. 

“Don’t—don’t try to talk,” she said, though it felt like there was a hand gripping her throat to stop her words, “Rest, just rest, please.”

Zevran sighed, the exhalation whistling painfully, and he went still in her arms. 

“Zev?” she said, jostling him slightly, and pressed a hand to his throat. 

Was his heart beating? Could she feel the pulse there? She couldn’t tell; her hands were shaking too hard to feel his skin properly, and he was so still. 

“Zevran?” she said again, her voice high and unfamiliar, “Zevran? Look at me, please, oh—No, no, you can’t. You can’t. You promised me, you promised—”

Water dripped down his face, and it was several dizzying breaths before Arianwen realized that they were tears. Her tears, and he was not stirring at the touch of them. She kissed him instead, desperately and repeatedly somehow certain, certain beyond the touch of any doubt, that this must be the thing that made him open his eyes again.

His lips remained still and unmoving beneath hers. Even dozing in the mornings, he responded to her touch; he had never failed to kiss her back. Never, never.

“You promised,” Wen said again, weeping in earnest now. Her grip was tight around his shoulders, and as she spoke Morrigan knelt across from her. 

“Hush,” the witch snapped, firmly enough that Wen’s mouth snapped closed. She could not see the magic the other woman called, but she could feel the hum of it in the air, like a struck tuning fork. An armored hand settled on her shoulder—Alistair’s—and she flinched at the touch. 

“Is he—” Wen began, but Morrigan glared at her until she shut her mouth again. 

It only took a moment; she knew, because she’d seen Wynne cast this same spell a hundred times. Even so, time seemed to stretch before her like a hallway in a nightmare, looming and threatening and dark. Wen’s hands curled into the warmth of Zevran’s body, a silent entreaty, and Alistair’s hand bolstered her, steadying Tabris when she felt she might shake apart. 

Morrigan’s hands fell away. Arianwen, still weeping no matter how she tried to stop, curled over Zevran again and cleared the bloodied golden hair from his face. 

“Come back,” she whispered, as if words could hold him to her, as if words had done a single thing when she’d watched her mother cut to pieces in the street before their house in the alienage. 

“Please,” she said, “Please. Come back to me. You promised.” 

A moment; one silent, awful moment, and then—

Zevran coughed, convulsing in her arms, and dragged his eyes open. They took a moment to focus on her properly, but when they did a smile crept slowly up the sides of his mouth. 

“Now, Warden,” he said, his voice worn and ragged, “Tell me you are not crying over a little flesh wound.”

She stared at him for a moment, tears still falling unchecked from her cheeks. Zevran beamed up at her, as if he’d just done some clever knife trick, and that was what did it.

“I hate you,” she sobbed, bowing over his body until she clutched him too close to see his face, “I hate you, you awful man, don’t you ever—”

“You do not—”

“—ever do that to me again, I thought—”

“—hate me, my dear, I am far too—”

“—you were dead, I thought you—”

“—handsome and clever to hate, and in any case—”

“—left me alone!”

At the vehemence of her words, Zevran sighed and fell silent. The others shifted on either side of them, and soon she heard feet on the stairs beyond. Thank the Maker for that; she felt like she was shaking apart, and the only thing holding her together was the arm he’d wrapped around her back

“I am right here, mi vida,” he murmured, and she squeezed, “Though I may not be if you hold me any tighter.”

Arianwen loosened her grip, sniffling faintly, and turned away to wipe her face clean when he sat up under his own power. 

This—this was exactly what she’d feared when he’d kissed her by the fire all those months ago. She cared too much; it hurt her too much to see him hurt, and the thought of him dying—of leaving her—

She could not bear it. She had to bear it. Tabris was caught between the knowledge of both, the very breath squeezed from her lungs by the conflict between the two.

Wen lifted her mother’s dagger from the stone beside her, pulled a cloth from her pocket, and turned her face away from him while she cleaned it. She took her time, as if the task demanded all her attention, as if each speck of blood on the steel was a personal affront. Zevran drank another potion from his belt before resting his arms on his knees and sighing. 

“And there it is,” he said after a moment, “Taliesen is dead, and I am free of the Crows.”

Wen glanced at him, wiped her face on her shoulders, and returned her attention to the blade. She would need to oil it, she thought, once they returned to Eamon’s estate. It ought to be fully, properly cleaned. 

It was several minutes before Zevran went on.

“They will assume that I am dead along with Taliesen,” he said, ”So long as I do not make my presence known to them, they will not seek me out.”

Wen had to take a drink from her waterskin before she could answer him; her throat still felt too thick, too dry, as if the nearness of losing him had tattered her vocal cords. 

“That’s a good thing, right?” she said at last, and Zevran chuckled. The chuckle grew to a laugh, until he clutched his stomach and coughed instead. 

“A very good thing—it is, in fact, what I’d hoped for ever since you decided not to kill me,” he said, once the coughing stopped. 

Wen nodded once. Away down the stairs, the other two were arguing over a body, Morrigan’s hands in the air and Alistair’s on his hips. Princess was slowly and methodically wrapping a corpse in her web, her long legs delicate and graceful as they spun the body around. Good; they were all fine for the moment. 

Arianwen held the dagger by the blade and extended it to Zevran without looking. He took it from her hand, careful not to cut her, and she heard the soft noise of steel against leather when he tucked it away again.

“ I suppose,” he said tentatively, “it would be…possible for me to leave now. If I wished, I could go far away, somewhere where the Crows would never find me.”

Arianwen stood and retrieved her sword, leaning against the wall beside the platform. She could not watch him while he told her he was leaving; she could hardly look at him at all after what had just happened. He was still sitting in a pool of his own blood; was she to ignore that while he spoke of traipsing across Thedas without her?

Zevran rose with a grunt of pain and she straightened at once, ready to offer aid. He didn’t need it—he rose without help and ran a hand over the blood covering the front of his armor.  

“I think,” he went on contemplatively, “however, that I could also stay here. I…made an oath to help you, after all. And…saving the world seems a worthy task to see through to the end, yes?”

Zevran looked up at her, then, a hopeful glint to his eye, and her heart thudded against her ribs. Stay—oh, she wanted him to stay. Hope hurt her, almost more than the fear had, and she had to push past both before she could bring herself to speak.

“I would be glad to have you stay,” she said, and the words sounded wooden, not like her at all. Zevran didn’t seem to care; he moved closer stiffly, one hand still pressed to his stomach. Tabris turned to face him when he moved, until both of them were leaning against the wall, only inches apart.

“Then stay I shall,” he said, resting one hand on her face and stroking the swell of her cheek, “I am with you until the end.”

It might almost have been romantic; Wen was already stepping closer to kiss him, in fact, the relief of him living and staying stronger than her need to find a small, quiet place to hide away in. 

But—then Zevran went on talking.

“Provided you do not tire of me first,” her lover said with a foolish little smile, “Or I die. Or you die. But—there you go.”

Arianwen tipped her face against his chest, incapable of speech. Or I die—like it was a joke! Like she hadn’t thought she’d lost him not twenty minutes earlier!

Zevran kissed the top of her head by way of apology. 

Arianwen snorted, then laughed; there was absolutely nothing funny about this, or anything that had just happened. She had killed one of his oldest friends; she’d held his dying body in her arms, incapable of doing a single thing to keep him here. 

And she was desperately, endlessly glad that he was still here to make the stupidest, most ill-timed jokes. Wen tipped her head back and laughed, and laughed, until his mouth caught hers and swallowed the sound of it. 

They stood there kissing for a long time, his lips still tasting strongly of elfroot, until the other two went silent behind them and Wen had to walk away to make sure neither had killed the other. 

But she could feel him still, walking along behind her, watching her back—as he was meant to do, for as long as he’d stay by her side. She had only to reach a hand behind her and he would be within reach, reassuring her—reassuring both of them—that this had not been an end after all. 

“Let us move on,” he said when they neared the others, and Arianwen finally let herself relax.

(For @greypetrel's prompt, "a kiss shared while holding your dying lover." It got away from me a bit, but I hope you enjoyed the pain!! c:)

[cleromancy]

i absolutely do not vibe at all with any red hood steph concept ive ever seen because fucking nobody engages with it in any depth its just 🤔🤔 steph is basically the same as jason right? people who dont like jason online say so so it must be true~

like i need you first of all to walk back several steps and understand two major things about utrh and stephanie brown here. the first is that steph got into crime fighting in the first place bc she wanted to ~spoil~ the crimes of her c-list supervillain father. the second is that the core of the tragedy of the red hood is that batman is supposed to be his fucking dad.

so if you do want to do a red hood stephie concept here which. to be clear is not something i am INHERENTLY opposed to. you have a couple options to make it potentially coherent but you need to actually be deliberate and clear about what youre trying to do with that concept. you need to step away from jasons tragedy and look at hers and figure out where exactly her anger and hurt are coming from and who exactly theyre directed at, as well as what specifically in your au concept it would be so different than the canon one where when she comes back she wants to do pretty much the opposite of what jason wanted when *he* came back.

and. crucially. if the difference is the relationship she has to bruce being different you actually do need to show not tell that dude. im sorry but if you just *tell* me that in your universe that steph has a more deep and meaningful relationship to bruce i 100% always am like "ill believe it when i fucking see it". like, she has parents of her own and while that doesnt preclude having a more signficant relationship with bruce (see: timmy)... you really do have to do the legwork or it looks like youre just writing them out and asking us to take your word for it that Of Course steph wants bruce to adopt her, hes batman! gag, retch, spew. do notdo this.

FRANKLY in a reverse robins concept i vibe way more with steph as red robin than anything specifically her getting the dumpster costume from whoever you do put in the red hood role. (frankly x2 i still think if they really truly had to do the storyline they did in canon where shes still trying to do bruces dirty work for him and hires assassins to kill tim to ~make him better~ lmao she should have been the one who wore the Bad Robin uniform before tim got it instead of fuckin ulysses i just think it would have been more coherent and also funner for me personally)

anyway if you link me a red hood steph concept here and it sucks or does any of the things i Just finished critiquing i will be very irritated and i will not be polite to you about it. just as a fair warning.

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Just listened to Bayo3’s Moonlight Serenade and it just hit me again how absolutely furious I am about this game. Waiting 5 years since the announcement and then 2 further years before I could finally play it just to be met by that was… I don’t even have words for it.

And the worst part is - I was having so much fun playing it! Sure, it wasn’t on the level of Bayo1 or Bayo2, but it was still a delight to play! I loved the new designs, I loved the new weapons, I loved the music, I loved the new flow of combat, I genuinely had such a great time! Alright, the writing wasn’t exceptional, but the idea of parallel universes was still fun to explore - and I’m not fond of the enemies’ design in general, but I had a blast fighting them once I figured them out, and I appreciate the fact that they tried to do something different once again (after fighting angels in Bayo1 and demons in Bayo2). I even loved Jeanne’s little spy levels!! They were so cool and charming and so much fun to play through!

And I liked Viola! The narrative really didn’t do her justice but she was still such an endearing character! Her fighting sections were different but still enjoyable, and I enjoyed everything about Cheshire, which made her levels even better.

And I just - to take all that potential, all that joy, and squander it so completely and maliciously right at the end was just… devastating to me. I know Bayonetta isn’t made for the girls and the gays, but that’s not even the point - I would’ve at least enjoyed a Cereza/Luka ending if it had been written properly! Instead they decided to assassinate the characters we all knew and loved, spit on all the established lore and themes of the previous games, stomp on all the newly introduced characters, and all to shoehorn in a fated-lovers narrative that doesn’t even work on its own, without taking into account everything that contradicts it in the previous instalments.

And as if that’s not enough, they forced it into the most depressing, most nonsensical, most malicious finale I have ever witnessed. Why are you punishing me for winning the fights? Where is the reward for getting to the end? I was waiting at the edge of my seat for the entire game to see how Cereza would turn the situation around, how she’d overcome the impossible odds and come out dancing on her enemies, and instead they told me no, she saves almost no-one, she dies a pointless death she could’ve easily avoided so we can get a) the stupidest romance ever seen and b) a new protagonist that we spent no time developing, and nothing you did in this game had any meaning at all, fuck you.

Sorry for the rant, but I’m just… I’m so disappointed. I really really wanted to like this game and instead the finale ruined the whole experience for me. I literally sat in silence as the final scene and credits rolled out because I just couldn’t fathom what I was watching. How do you take such a great cast of beloved characters and decide that this is what you want to do with them? With a 5-year development time, no less? They deserved better, Cereza especially deserved better, and we all deserved so much better.

[freebooter4ever]

i send my friend suggestions of tourist places to see in his new country (his contract was extended, lucky him!) or messages about friend of friends i have living there that he could maybe meet for fellow americans to talk to, and his response is always that he doesnt have time. and not in that exaggerated way that people do to seem busy. but in that bone tired way i recognize from him here in LA, that i recognize in myself.

[boxwinebaddie]

does ravenstan have his tooth gap filled?!? he better not but i feel like kyle woulda totally noticed by now! ahhh and whats up with chapter 6 D: it was an absolute masterpiece to me!

unfortunately...that's affirmative, darling. :(

when you are a big hotshot celebrity boy and everyone is looking at you, you cannot afford ( ironically ) to have fucked up teeth, so he did have his tooth filled in. or rather, management had his tooth filled in.

& technically, he also is *Supposed* to wear an invisalign at night, but ravenstan forgets the lyrics to his own songs ( granted the recent ones C.D. has released haven't been written by him at all :/ -- that's why they're all shallow, vapid and gimmicky ) so idk how they expect him to remember to put that hunk of Plastic in his mouth like...like the closest thing that man has to mouthwash is a shot of jack smh.

i wrote...way too much in this ask meme. this was a wild ride, i'm sorry for being unhinged. i spiraled halfway through this, lmao. <3

edit: i forgot to bring up chapter six. i will bring it back, mayhaps. i had a Stannic Attack after posting it, also, felt weird about it. but i am glad you liked it. i also...liked it? but it was stressing me out, so just hang in there and i'll try to give you a more in depth answer later xx.

but riiiiip stan's beautiful chipped tooth!!!!! :((( a testament to his love for kyle broflovski via pint-sized homoerotic hockey puck heroism at stark's pond </333 i bet you when raven was getting his tooth fixed, somewhere in nyc, jersey kyle felt a sudden, sharp sting of pain and sorrow he couldn't place. the second he finds out u better believe my man will be screaming, crying, punching the air, trying to fight every dentist in the world. THAT WAS HIS TOOTH. HIS STANS TOOTH!!! :(

management....count your fucking days.

( i kind of want to tell you guys what the record labels name is, but it might say too much but also...;)))) i'll take a compliment bribe >.> )

also because it was RavenStan...it was probably pretty much the best orthodontist they could find and it looks really good. tbh i don't think you would be able to tell that his tooth was fucked up at all...sigh. :/

really, the only evidence of stan's tooth being fucked up is from photo albums ( a lot of them got burnt up ), the polaroids that kyle has, the pictures of him in the sp yearbooks ( which were the ones ran in the papers and one online article when news broke that he died...with his fucking dead name printed under them...choke and die, south park )

speaking of school pictures, fun fact! or actually not that fun...sixth grade was stan's last year of school. physically, at least. he had to do school from home/online because for obvious reasons, stan could not risk going to actual irl school after he disappeared. he was told it was 'way too risky and dangerous, bird' ( the person taking care of him called him that as a nickname c: )...stan did literally Beg tho :(

which is actually really sad bc stan complained abt actual school sm when he was actually allowed to go when he was 'alive' and then was forced to watch every other kid be able to do actual hs stuff while he sat at home, safe, robbed of having a normal adolescence. im so </3

i fucking love act two of the rm!prequel. i want to talk about it more, but it features a lot of stuff we don't know abt it yet/important chars.

not like that's gonna stop me, lmaoooo!!! again! i'll take a bribe! ;))))

anyways!!! back to school and stuff, kenny was constantly like dude i wish i could stay home!!! school sux! and stan was like at least u can GO to school, ken! u just choose not to!!! >:c ( like stan...stfu, do not pretend like u wouldn't be asleep or ditching ) kenny DID sneak him out a lot to go to high school parties and he got into a looooot of trouble for doing that oh my god smh. worth it...my boys, my boys.

not a lot of pictures of him from act two either, i'm afraid. definitely nothing digital. there are physical pictures, home videos, things like that. he wasn't really allowed to have any social media At All 4 safety.

but uh....if you want to hear something really fruity and pathetic...stan was specifically not supposed to use the internet to snoop on kyle. like he was Specifically Banned and Strictly Forbidden from looking up shit about kyle broflovski which...BOOOOO!!! COME ON!!!!!

...that did not stop him tho. he made a looooot of burner accounts to snoop. but like...no such luck, really. kyle had like no social media. he had an instagram, i think. but it was private and had...1 picture on it.

do u know how actualy Nutso Fucking Batshit Insane it made stan to not know what that ONE picture looked like? do you know how many times, he downloaded/redownloaded insta, how many fake accounts he tried to make to try and trick kyle into following him? smh gaywad.

so, dw team! while kyle was in/out of psych wards bc he was seeing stan everywhere, stan was perpetually grounded for being gay aka google searching kyle and looking pretty much everywhere for him.

but speaking of the internet, the cd boys did run a joint meme account while they were living together. no pictures of them just...low quality meme content. BUT SPEAKING!!!!! of low quality. THE ONLY DAMNING EVIDENCE OF TOOTH!STAN!!!! is a super old battle of the bands video that was taken of them at some piece of shit event like 3...4 years ago? the camera quality is really bad and shaky, the sound quality is even worse. also that video has like 57 views TOPS but it was before they got scouted and stans tooth is fucked up in it. ;)

not that u can see it, lmao. or know how to find it because they were not crimson dawn until they got signed. in LA they cycled between a lot of really bad, cringey band names so it would be really difficult to locate that video or pause it in the right place to like barely make out stans tooth bc the light was catching on it sm/it was out of focus.

BUT IDK!!! IF ANYONE IS CRAZY AND UNHINGED ENOUGH TO FIND THAT VIDEO, ITS KYLE BROFLOVSKI, BABEY! GO KYLE GO!

tldr: stan's tooth did get filled in and now our hearts are empty. but it Would be too easy to identify him; kyle would know that tiny fucked up tooth anywhere. tbh the tiny stan right eye beauty mark is also v damning, but stans hair is always in his eyes/his eyeliner is always so badly smudged that you can't see it all the time ( kyle also purposely tries Not to look at raven bc hes dummy Hot and doesnt want to admit it lmao like hes subconciously aware that he would simp lmao )

YOU ALSO REALLY CANT BE LIKE THAT CELEBRITY MAN ALSO HAS A BEAUTY MARK BY HIS EYE, THATS MY DEAD SBF!!!! i would not put it past kyle to try that, but i think regardless he would have gaslight himself into thinking that ravens stan beauty mark was an ugly mark and that he was having clozapine hallucinations again because stan....is....dead and is clearly not raven of c.d. clear...ly. <3

the way that kyles 'psychosis' is just him having really good intuition.

the world owes kyle broflovski an apology, istg. i see you, baby!!!!!

-uncle nina, cassandra complex kyle matthew broflovski apologist

[bronzeagepizzeria]

thought about the marauders a little too hard and then I thought about 11 year old harry who is so afraid that he knows absolutely nothing about the wizarding world and magic and quidditch and how can he possibly be the chosen one????

and just…thinking about the life that was stolen from him. the one he was supposed to have—spoiled rotten by his extremely loving parents and his godfather and his uncle remus….god. we’re really going thru it today 🚬

[zapsoda]

people are so so inexplicably comfortable being fuckin weird as hell about trans men