#woe! headcanons be upon ye

[hiskillingjar]

Hello! I really like your writing with Strade! If you’re up to it, can you come up with a scene where Strade is uncomfortably soft and gentle, talking to mc about movies and then tricks them into watching one of his livestreams.

okay so i saw this prompt, fucking loved it and did something completely different BUT in the same vein?? yes?? no??

whatever it's my blog

2300+ words, cw for uhhhhhh murder, snuff and necrophilia yayyy

"What're we watching?" Strade asked as he settled down next to you, cracking open a tall can of beer as he did so.

"Oh…j-just a movie."

You smiled politely, and awkwardly, as you adjusted yourself on the sofa, bringing your knees up to your chest and making yourself smaller as you pressed into the corner, giving him plenty of space to sit.

It had been a few months since the fateful night in the basement, since he'd collared and claimed you like an animal, and you were still a little…jumpy, to say the least.

And he obviously liked how jumpy you were, too.

"Heh, you're still so skittish. It's cute, you know." Strade chuckled pleasantly, reaching over to place a heavy arm around your shoulder and ruffling your hair as he did so. "Like you're my new, little pet or something, and I have to get you housetrained."

"Mph," You bit your lip as he pulled you in closer (thus negating your attempt to give him room), his side against yours, now running his fingers through your hair. "I guess so."

"And I still haven't gotten tired of it~" He teased, before taking a long swig from his can, smacking his lips as he swallowed, and lightly scratching the crown of your head with grubby fingernails. "So, what are you up to tonight?"

"Oh right," You sat up (not minding the contact as much as you should have), your eyes going back to the television. "I'm, um…like I said, I'm just watching a movie, just-" You swallowed as his fingers trailed down the back of your neck, towards your collar. "A horror movie."

"A horror movie, huh?" Strade smirked once more, his gaze softening with amusement for a moment as he started watching with you. An especially grisly scene was taking place when he walked in, a pair of giggling psychopaths filming a crying, bound woman as they taunted her with a knife, though he appeared less than interested as he watched. "And you're watching it all by yourself? Not scared?"

"No, I, uh…" You stammered as his hand gently curled around your neck. "I…I'm not scared. I don't get scared from movies, especially not movies like this."

"Oh, you don't?" Strade chuckled as he squeezed your neck, his eyes wandering down your body, to your thighs pressed to your chest, soft flesh spilling around your shorts. "Hm…that's pretty interesting, buddy. Don't you think that makes you kind of disturbed? Not reacting to…something so graphic?"

"It's…It's not that graphic." You murmured, though that was counteracted by just how grim the scene was becoming, as the tip of the knife toyed with flaps of skin and muscle. "I mean, it's kind of tame, actually. I've definitely seen worse."

"Hmm…" Strade thought about that for a second, taking yet another swig of his beer before setting it aside on the side table next to the couch. "Well, the fact that you can just…sit there and watch someone be killed and dismembered without flinching does seem a little…peculiar," He gave your head a teasing shake, chuckling. "And kind of ironic, ja?"

"Hmph," You pressed your knees a little tighter against your chest as you continued to watch the movie.

You didn't want to admit that he might have had a point…especially on the irony part.

"You know…we should test this out," Strade suggested after a few quiet moments of movie-watching, grinning widely before he stood to his feet and went searching for something in the cabinet beneath the TV, his body propped up on one knee. "See if you're really not scared of movies…"

"Test what? You asked.

"Well, these American films, they're cute but they are just," He started, his eyes going up as if searching for a word, a gesture he did somewhat often. "Lacking, right? They don't really get as visceral as they could, and everything just looks so fake anyway. No wonder you're not scared!"

"I guess," You shrugged your shoulders, watching as he sorted through a stack of DVDs and VHS tapes to find what he was looking for. You didn't say it, but you silently appreciate that in spite of many of his flaws, his collection of physical media was kind of impressive. "I mean, I've seen some European movies that get kind of fucked up and they still don't scare me. So, what were you thinking?"

If he brought out A Serbian Film, you might have asked him to kill you, right then and there.

"I was thinking that I could show you something a little more…graphic. Something closer to home." He said, glancing over his shoulder with an innocent smile (or as close to innocence as Strade could get). "And we could see if you…ya know, reacted like a normal person?"

"F-Fine…" You murmured softly, almost laughing as he popped open an unmarked VHS case and slid the tape into the player. "Looks like something old anyway…doubt it'll be scary at all."

"Don't be so presumptuous, liebling," He teased, standing back to his feet and sitting down heavily beside you. "Modern movies are garbage. You'll find way better scares in something older~"

"I have no doubt," You replied cryptically, as Strade took up the remote and started the VHS player.

After an initial buzz of static, the movie started.

Though, you had a sense that this wasn't really a movie…or, at least, it wasn't a normal movie.

The screen occupied the lens of a static camera, fixed on a pair of writhing, sweaty bodies on a thick plastic bed sheet as they had rough sex, the only sound coming from the speakers being their heavy breaths and desperate groans.

Strade let out a low chuckle as he watched the scene unfold on the screen, taking up his beer can again, his eyes roaming over every detail, and his free hand reaching over to squeeze your thigh.

His gaze remained steady and unfazed despite the graphic nature of the 'movie', but you didn't get the sense that he was particularly invested with this one either.

"Are you just showing me gay porn?" You asked through a frown, your tone a little flat as the 'bottom', a pale man (you assumed) with light blonde hair and dark tattoos on his arms and ribs, let out a desperate whine, pushing his backside more firmly against his partner's hips.

"Heh, I guess I am," Strade chuckled as he adjusted his grip, his hand squeezing your thigh tighter as he leaned back indulgently into the sofa and took another slow sip of beer. He gave you a teasing grin as he spoke again. "So, it's not really doing it for you, huh?"

"I mean, I was kind of expecting a horror movie or something," You replied, as the man's partner (tan skin, no tattoos and his face wasn't visible due to the camera focusing on the 'bottom'). "Not this."

"Is that so?" Strade asked, reaching down to gently urge your ankles over his lap, pushing your bodies that much closer together. "I wouldn't assume so much yet…keep watching."

So, you did.

You kept watching for another few minutes, as the bodies pressed together and the 'bottom' let out even louder moans and groans for "mehr, mehr, bitte", all the while, Strade stroking up and down your legs, up your knees, and ending back on your thighs, spread apart in his lap.

You sat up when you heard the two men speaking together.

The German was predictable (you had no doubt that he had more patriotic tastes when it came to porn), but as the 'bottom' shifted onto his back, allowing the 'top' to assume a missionary position, your eyes instantly widened.

"Is that…"

Strade smirked knowingly at your reaction, watching your wide eyes with amusement as he continued to let his fingers wander over your legs.

"Mm...is that what?"

You looked at him dumbfounded.

"Is that…you?"

It certainly seemed that way.

He looked younger, maybe your age (so the tape had to be at least fifteen years old), his arms and jaw were a little more well-defined (and non-scarred) and his hair was longer, but…it was Strade, it had to be.

"Well," He drawled with a shit-eating smirk. "It does look an awful lot like me, doesn't it?" He laughed, leaning in to get a better look at the screen, his fingers trailing even higher, up the front of your loose shorts and…tracing between your thighs. "Damn…I look good, don't I?"

You couldn't really argue with that…he did look pretty good.

He looked like the kind of guy you would have gone insane over in high school. Dark hair, tan skin, ambiguous bisexuality and metal hoops in each of his ears.

You took in a quiet gasp as his fingers brushed over your clit, feeling the slowly gathering wetness of your cunt.

"You like what you see, huh?" He asked, leaning in a little closer and brushing his lips over your ear. "Don't blame you. Everyone did back in the day."

He slid a finger inside of you, listening intently to your little breaths of pleasure, though they were pretty minor compared to the howling gasps of the 'bottom' on screen.

"Which isn't to say that I'm not a looker now, of course," He added with another low chuckle, his free hand kneading your thigh and pulling you closer in his lap. "But I was really fighting them off back then."

Not knowing what to say, you kept watching the tape.

The Strade on screen had his partner's legs hooked up high over his broad shoulders, forcing the skinnier body into an uncomfortable position but letting the camera see everything as his thick cock slid into his tight asshole. The 'bottom' threw his head back each time Strade thrust into him, his own, pierced cock bobbing uselessly against his tattooed belly, drooling cum on his pale skin.

And you were never much of a porn watcher, but…this was getting you kind of hot.

"Are you…getting a little excited?" He asked, his smirk widening as his thumb trailed over your erect clit and your body tightened involuntarily in his lap. "Are you wishing you were in his position, hm?"

"Who…" You started, your breathing a little heavy as he easily slid a second finger inside of you. "Who is that? Y-Your partner, I mean."

"Hm?" He blinked curiously, before a slightly mean grin came to his face. "Ah, I guess you could call him that, yeah." His fingers pressed a little deeper, rubbing at your more sensitive spots as the action on screen became a little more erratic and loud. "Truth be told, I think he might have been a little more into me than I was him. But, you know…" He shrugged. "I'm not one to say no to some fun."

"Mm," You moaned softly, pressing your face into his shoulder (he was softer now, but the muscle was still there) as he kept toying with your cunt, playing with you just as well as he played with the man on the tape.

"No, no, don't look away," He ordered softly, grabbing your face with his free hand and turning it back to the video playing. "Eyes up…you'll miss the best part if you don't look."

You let out a little whine, your body growing even tighter from the order, as you continued to watch.

The Strade on-screen had moved his strong hands (as strong as they are now) up to the pale man's neck while you were trying to hide your face. You knew the gesture, you had seen it in countless videos before and were even closely familiar with it in person.

But…

"Stefan?" The speakers picked up on the breathless gasps from Strade as his hips stilled. "Stefan?"

You felt your blood run cold and your eyes widened.

"Stefan, wach auf! Stefan…?"

After a long moment, the Strade on-screen kneeled up, drew his (still hard) cock out of 'Stefan' and pushed shaking hands through his hair, staring down at the now dead body beneath him.

"Scheiße…"

You swallowed tightly, trembling in his lap.

"You…killed him?"

"Well…I guess you could say that," Strade replied after a beat of silence, a little smirk, lit by the unnatural blue light of the television screen, slowly spreading across his lips despite the grim situation. "Guess I got a little…carried away, huh?"

"He didn't…do anything wrong," You murmured, taking in a little whimper as he brought his lips down against your neck and drove his fingers even deeper inside of you.

"Mmmm, do they ever?" Strade murmured, pressing another kiss to your neck as he continued to tease your clit, still hungry despite the dulled 'mood'. "I guess you're right, though, he was just…too vulnerable y'know? Too easy…a cute sucker in the wrong place at the wrong time."

He chuckled and nipped at your neck.

"A little bit like you."

The worst part was, the video…just kept going

You felt a morbid compulsion to keep watching though, despite your blatant disgust.

In spite of how much your brain was telling you not to, your eyes were pulled up towards the screen, no matter how much you wanted to look away.

Because how could you look away?

This was the one and only time you'd ever get to see a video like this…a video showcasing the truth behind the man sitting next to you.

You watched as the Strade on-screen stood to his feet, showing off an impressive physique (it was a little less impressive these days, thank god) and a still-hard cock, and paced out of shot…to retrieve a knife.

Not a bowie knife, like he used now, but a workman's knife.

You felt your body grow tense, and Strade rested his chin on your shoulder to watch with you, still finger-fucking you while you were both distracted.

"Here comes the best part…" He mumbled airily.

You watched as he knelt on the bed again, the plastic sheets creaking under his weight, and lowered the knife down to the dead body, using the blade to open its (you grimaced as your brain refused to properly acknowledge the body as human) sternum, blood streaming from the deep cut, and…

He slid his cock into the hot, wet opening in the body, letting out a low and ravenously hungry moan as his pace picked back up and he fucked the corpse harder than he had ever before.

"Oh god-" You gagged, reaching up to cover your mouth as you pressed your face back into his shoulder. "Strade…t-that's disgusting-"

"Ahh, there we go," He laughed, pressing another bite into your throat. "We found something that scared you, didn't we?~"

[walkman-cat]

this happens more often than you'd think

[lightningbig]

its missing them hours so, thinking about qpissa again. once missa gets comfortable, he is a chronic cuddler. being vaguely undead means he is always cold so he's constantly squirming underneath phils wings, plastering himself along his side, basically burrowing under his clothes if he could. phil is exasperated but he indulges it, will complain but secretly Loves having missa close

missa absolutely takes advantage of the closeness to be a menace. just smothering every inch of phil's skin he can reach in kisses. phil is trying to make toast for the kids but missa is just leaning his full body weight on him and planting the most exaggerated smooches over the side of his face. phil tries to tell him off for it but he's giggling too hard for it to be serious

phil is constantly making new robes for missa, sewing them with thick fabric, enchanting them to be heat insulating. their house is full to bursting with blankets, partly to keep missa warm and partly to fuel phils tendency to nest

whenever missa comes back from a long trip phil absolutely bundles him up in bed, tucking him so securely into their nest. missa laughing the whole time about how he can't even move. phil's just like "GOOD, DONT!" big "L + ratio + ur not allowed to leave for that long again" vibes

[amazinglyegg]

Forever thinking about the headcanon how, despite Danse being a very no-nonsense guy, he has a soft spot for a specific kind of dirty humor.

Like, don't be a potty mouth and don't you dare say it in front of a superior, but the right joke about Supermutant love-making at the right time will have him laughing way harder than anyone would expect.

He'll just never admit that he got that sense of humor from Cutler.

[cherry-blossomtea]

also my worst ifrit headcanon is that the stuff she's yelling during a battle is stuff that was said to her at Haydn and Rhine. So.

[dansemacabre]

i read a pinescone fic recently abt wirt being the anti-beast by leading lost children out of the woods and it drove me insane and i suddenly started thinking abt my pinescone early aughts university au and. wirt instinctually leading people away from being lost without realizing. going into psych to become a guidance counselor/therapist. working part time at the library and directing people to the right section- he always seems to have the right recommendation for someone going through a hard time. his lights shine a bit brighter than everyone else’s, and his window on the top floor faces the woods, so anyone in the forest can see campus in the dark and find their way home. he frequents the lost and found- his laundry always seems to spawn socks that his floor mates lost four years ago. he’s always getting stopped by visiting families and freshmen for directions- he thinks he just walks too slow and looks approachable, no matter how much he scowls. he walks shortcuts over hills and through groves of trees and finds the ground below him a bit more worn than normal every time. wirt is a beacon to the lost and hopeless without even knowing it. even when he is at his loneliest, he is always being followed and always being watched.

[silverskye13]

Being the universe's smartest super computer still made for a derpy, non-functional person. It was really easy for people to get caught up in the Cool Sci-Fi Shenanigans of cyborgs and robots and forget how awesome and powerful organic, sentient life was.

For example: Xisuma has a perfect memory. If someone gave him a date and a time, he could scan back through his memory logs, replay recorded data and footage, and tell you the exact recipe he used for those vegan cookies that one time six years ago. He knows the ambient temperature of a froglight that's been submerged underwater for six hours, three minutes and twenty-nine seconds. He can rewind a recorded memory, pause the time lapse, and watch in slow motion as Grian breaks a stone block at spawn with his bare hands because he was bored during their intro-season speech.

However, recorded data takes up a massive amount of memory on a standard hard drive when you record everything you see as a passive function, and all of it has to be purged by hand, regularly, just so Xisuma can maintain the memory needed for daily functions. He's tried writing algorithms to do it for him, but even the best pattern recognition software can't account for his momentary preferences. What differentiates his favorite sunrise from any other? If he were human, he could program some kind of learning software using data from tables tied to the output of different brain chemicals and electrical pulses that most frequently line up with a formative memory -- but if he were human he wouldn't be making a program like that in the first place, now would he?

It's one of those long, long days of trawling through recorded data. It would be shorter if he would just parse through the most recent memories, but he likes keeping long-term memory storage at exactly thirty percent of his total data storage, and he's been resting at thirty-four percent for the past month. Putting off the inevitable. It's just, there's been a lot of stuff to remember the past few weeks, and it's hard to choose what to get rid of sometimes. He's started deep-diving through old data, walking down memory lane. He has to be careful, some of this data is important, tied intricately with the complex spider algorithm that forms his memory data access system.

Click! Click! Click!

"What are you thinking, X?"

The screen that makes up the lion's share of X's face organizes itself into a smile, lights flickering on in the nanoseconds it takes him to process the memory he's watching and attribute happiness to it. Yes, this is a good one.

The playback jolts as he looks down at Tango. Not pictured is a redstone project they are picking away at. Xisuma knows this because this particular memory has a transcript, full of branching tags and keywords that pull up a wealth of information alongside it.

That's another thing about memory that organic life never appreciates. Memory isn't just the memory itself. It's a web of associations built on prior, learned knowledge. A tree isn't just a tree. It's color and texture and symbol and "when was the first time I drew a tree?" and "apples" and "saplings" and a thousand other tiny associations they just arbitrarily have. Xisuma has to synthesize that web. A memory doesn't exist in a vacuum. Unlike the organic mind, however, Xisuma can pull up as much accurate information as he has the processing power for. This memory brings him two more closely associated recordings, associated memories he's kept for context, the transcripts of six more deleted memories, the definition of redstone, a playback of isolated sound he deemed important.

The playback continues.

Click! Click! Click!

"What are you thinking, X?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Tango, I didn't know you'd walked up! I was doing research."

"Yeah? What kind?"

"Oh well, you know the new update. Redstone's always a little finicky after."

"Right, yeah, totally. I've been putting mine off, honestly. I don't feel like fixing broken stuff right now -- oh but, I guess you can't wait, huh?"

Xisuma parses through the data brought up with the memory. He knows the date this was recorded, the recent change to redstone mechanics brought on by the server update. He'd had three farms break. There was a linked document to a transcript of Doc's rant on redstone as it relates to radiation. There was a script note document typed the day after this recording was created: Clicking Good. There was a preliminary version of what he'd nicknamed "The Tick Script.Exe".

"Yeah, I've got a lot of bugs to fix."

"Are you going to get rid of the clicking?"

"Clicking?"

The clicking was an ambient noise made when Xisuma's system was a bit bulkier, his algorithms and scripts that handled memory and data access crude and unperfected. It caused a disc in a driver somewhere to click when he did searches. At the time, the clicking had been the closest thing to an annoying habit Xisuma could manage.

Computers don't have habits. Habits are repetitive motions that become subliminal, that take effort to break, and are oftentimes formed subconsciously. Xisuma doesn't have a discernable difference between conscious thought and subconscious. He has background processes, he has backburnered data, and he has executive commands.

Xisuma queries the memory, pulling up related tags and searches, letting the algorithm reach. This memory had been the start of a, for lack of a better term, humanification process for him. There was his observation table on organic ticks, habits, and movements. It had taken a lot of uncomfortable staring, but back then, staring was all he'd known how to do. One of the first entries on the table was blinking. Organic things blinked, clearing away dust and debris from lenses and membranes. Xisuma didn't have eyes, didn't blink. But the screen that managed his facial expression animations could be programmed to blink.

Xisuma queries blinking. He pulls up a transcript of an interaction with Stressmonster, where she mentioned he blinked every thirty seconds. She knew this because when she first noticed him blinking, she'd noticed it's regularity. That was when Xisuma learned that, to convincingly blink, time variation was necessary.

Coding randomization into redstone circuitry had always been difficult.

Xisuma returns to the Tango memory recording, replays the question about the clicking, the unintentional habit. Xisuma still clicked when he thought. The others probably still thought it had to do with bulky drivers. In reality, it had been a test in trial and error.

How many clicks was acceptable for a thinking pattern? The three dot ellipses was common in writing, and a two dot pattern was too reminiscent of a heartbeat. When he'd temporarily switched to a four dot pattern, he'd noticed people getting impatient, or worrying if his mechanics were stalling. (Stalling and slow loading does sometimes happen, but it manifests in freezes and long pauses, not in repeating clicks). He invented a three click pattern, tested a variety of click sounds, settled on something similar to a rotary phone click when a number is dialed. It was a good sound. Heavy and sharp. It sounded like something falling into place with intention. Click! Click! Click!

Xisuma doesn't actually need a sound to think. But it's a clever replacement for harder to code things, like remembering to two a surface or fidget.

Click! Click! Click!

Shifting weight had been a harder thing to code. Standing stationary, legs an equal width apart, was the most steady way to stand. It also made him look like a statue, made his unblinking stares eerie and uncomfortable. Organic things read it as unnatural, borderline on predatory. Large predators often froze and stared right before pouncing.

Looking back through old memories, Xisuma could tell if they were from before or after his algorithmic programming because of how still they were. Made for clearer visuals, and he knows in high-stress situations that focus on accuracy, he can cycle them off, but they're comfortable for people to watch.

Xisuma rocks back on his heels away from the screen he's watching. If someone else were in the room, it would be a sign of thoughtfulness. For him, it's the execution from a random table of acceptable fidgets while standing still. He should turn it off. He's alone right now. But sometimes the movements still catch him off-guard and the longer they run, the more he gets used to them.

Xisuma queries: rocking on heals

He gets a handful of save recording bits. Doc rocks onto his back legs and stretches his forelegs. Gem rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, her arms crossed behind her back, mischievous and excited. Scar rocks back on his heels and crosses his arms, thoughtfully examining some terraforming. Xisuma isolates the last recording and mimics it, feeling how the weight of his crossed arms counterbalances the lean back.

Xisuma queries his habits table and adds the motion to the list.

He never quite figured out how to program what to do with his hands. They spent a lot of time at his sides, or in pockets. Objectively he knew that was bad. Hiding the hands was often a sign of hiding something, and he liked being transparent.

Xisuma queries: Hands

Xisuma blinks at the long list of results.

Xisuma queries: Hands behind back

He gets several animations of Gem, Grian, and Scar, all with some variation of hands behind their backs and mischievous grins. Most of them are snippets made for studying purposes. Two are attached to longer videos, catalogued memories he's kept. His query returns almost four hundred memory transcripts.

Xisuma likes making transcripts. He feels it's similar to the hazy, distant memories people have when time and distance transform them. When someone else remembers something falteringly, he remembers the way he described it to himself. The older transcripts were rougher. He's gotten better at writing them over the years. His learning and pattern recognition softwares are still pretty good, even if they aren't perfect enough to manage the full range of expression on their own.

Xisuma queries: Do my friends know how hard it is to look organic?

This returns no direct results. He receives a directory of the people he's flagged as "friends" over the years, an article on the recent organics additions to the world in the latest update, and a handful of unrelated memory documents where he'd asked this question before and similarly pulled up no response.

Xisuma queries: Do I care?

This pulls up more entries. Xisuma glances across them and clears them.

Xisuma queries: Do I care today?

This pulls up only slightly fewer entries. He smiles. Asking subjective questions to a computer never gleans intended results. Computers aren't subjective. Or, well, they're not supposed to be. Of course, if he were merely a computer, he wouldn't be doing this, would he? If he were merely a computer, he would be sitting on a shelf, or a desk, running prewritten programs and searches for someone else, letting someone else build his code, rules by the guidances and intentions of someone who ultimately viewed him as a tool, if nothing else.

Xisuma queries: Who's flying this thing, if not me?

He pulls up a list of song lyrics and chords, a clip from a movie he'd watched once, an IMDB rating off some database somewhere.

Xisuma clears the data. He pulls up the last memory he was watching, rocks back on his heels and crosses his arms thoughtfully. He presses play.

Click! Click! Click!

"Are you going to get rid of the clicking?"

"Clicking? Oh, I guess I am clicking, aren't I? It's just an inefficiency. I'll fix it at some point, I guess."

Tango smirked at him. One of his hands plucked at his sleeve. Xisuma clips the motion, tags it with hands, nervous, thoughtful, fidget.

"You sure it needs fixed? I kinda like it."

Click! Click! Click!

[dead-man-in-the-grave]

a vex, a watcher, a demon, a vampire, and a moth person enter a bar. inexplicably, they're all riding horses painted to look like race cars. they play level up by jono and tell the bartender and patrons to "buy at boatem", then leave without buying any drinks. the bartender finds out later that there are several bottles missing, a piece of paper reading "I O U" in their place

[lavampira]

dear love, take care of my heart, I’ve left it with you

[aroaceleovaldez]

miscellaneous series of Will Solace doodles and comics from awhile ago. ft some bonus Promare.

[Post that Will is quoting in the first image]

[gierosajie-art]

Whumptober 2023 Prompt List | No. 31: “I thought that I was getting better.” | Emptiness | Setbacks

Faruzan couldn't remember much of her time being trapped. And when she did, all it had were impressions and blurred memories.

Now when she woke up in the middle of the night, the oppressive feeling of the room loomed over her. Trapped, alone. It was quiet. All too quiet with only her breathing made known.

Out. She had to get out.

Out out out OUT.

Shaking hands took knobs and tore open the door. And then another door.

She can't stay here.

She has to-

Breathe.

The dark early morning air rushed through her face and into her lungs as she slammed open the door. The sound echoed through the empty street.

Faruzan sat on the stairs. She had just recently been cleared by the Bimarstan after so long. It wasn't as bad as when she first got back, on that first night in a closed room. They had to move her to the open air wing after that.

“I thought that I was getting better.”

And she had gotten better. She knows that. But the bare room, empty of any personal artifacts, from traces of her cousins, and nieces and nephews, the familiarity of her family home, to the missing rustle and life of her old lodgings long given to another generation– it made her feel all the more alone.

[bloodcrownedking]

I think kian would probably be a pretty good cook but in that he would cook up the most delicious meal ever but if u asked him about the recipe he would kinda just shrug and say "you just gotta ride the flavor wave man. let it guide you" when in reality he actually probably put a lot of genuine thought and care into it. Rand probably has one thing that he can cook really really well, i think like a family recipe or something of the sort that he learned to make as a kid, that stuck with him. but he never makes it anymore and hes scared that if he ever tried to cook it again it would just taste like ash. And rolan meticulously follows recipes and yet somehow his cooking always ends up tasting bland and just a touch over or undercooked. Not awful, but deeply mediocre.

[warrior-of-waistbands]

high school

[altschmerzes]

🌹🌹 Wriggle Up and/or New York Minute pleassssse 🙏

yesssss okay new york minute has taken over my brain for a moment so i'll go with an excuse to share some of that one

('new york minute' is my first fic for the bear, btw, it is a cousin michelle from the christmas episode pov of The Whole New York Debacle. as always i am really really anxious taking my first try at character voices, and picking a pov character who is a minor side character in one (1) episode has been both freeing and anxiety provoking LMAO. so. here's this.)

(also it's.... long. we know this about me and clips.)

As soon as Carmy is under her roof, safely tucked away in her guest room, Michelle takes what feels like her first full breath in since Christmas. It’s not like everything is magically okay now - Carmy certainly isn’t okay, and he’s just one little piece of the whole fucked up puzzle, but she’s finally done something about it. Michelle has found the one piece of that puzzle that she can do anything about at all and she’s done it. That’s the part that’s driven her the most out of her mind - knowing that things need to be done, that nothing is alright in Chicago, and not knowing what to do. Who to try and help, never mind how.

Natalie has Pete and her friends from school. She’s got a home and distance and she’d mentioned while on a walk with Michelle, looking away like she wasn’t sure what the response would be, that she had started therapy after Thanksgiving. And Michael has… Well. When they talk on the phone, Natalie doesn’t have a lot to say about Michael that’s encouraging. Michelle is worried about Michael but it’s not like she can do anything about that. They were close when they were younger but the older they got and the more Donna took a shine to her the more strained her relationship with Michael got. They were a competition of their own, really, or at least a battlefield on the war between their mothers.

Grandpa Berzatto, right? Michael Berzatto. A looming figure gone before any of her generation was born, and so of course the oldest grandchild is named after him - both of them were, at the beginning and the end of the same year, one down each branch of the family tree. Michael and Michelle. They thought it was funny when they were younger. Used to tell people they were twins, when they were real little. It’s not like that anymore. At least Richie is there, though. At least Richie is always there.

Thank god for Richie, said almost no one ever and Michelle several times over the course of her life.

One time, she was seventeen and going out with a guy who was far too old for her and a massive asshole on top of that. When she finally dumped him and his reaction scared her enough to tell them what was going on, Michael and Richie got a baseball bat and a tire iron out of the garage and broke every window and light cover on the guy’s car. Richie took one of the pieces from the tail-light to wood shop class the next day and while the teacher was off making sure some sophomores didn’t lose any fingers using a table saw, he sanded down the edges and put a hole through it, then gave it to her on a keychain. Michelle still has it somewhere. Michelle still has that keychain somewhere and Richie still has Michael and so that’s one thing she doesn’t have to worry about not being able to fix.

So there’s nothing to do for any of them, because Natalie is going to be okay in ways that even Michelle isn’t, and Michael is out of her reach, and Donna is out of everyone’s reach. (Donna needs help. She’s obviously suffering and needs some serious help, but Michelle learned long ago with her own mother that there’s no forcing help on someone who won’t accept it and will stop speaking to you for months if you try to push it anyway.)

But Carmy… Carmy is in her guest room and it’s still pretty early but she thinks he’s asleep and this she can do. This, him, Michelle can help.

(Michael caught her on the way out, when she and Stevie were leaving. She was worried for a moment, because he had that intense look on his face that meant trouble could be coming, and when he said heard you asked Carm to come stay with you for a few days in New York she steeled her nerves for one last explosion for the road. Michael was silent and Michelle was silent and he still had a hold of her arm but he wasn’t squeezing or anything so she let him keep his hand for now. And then he just said Good. Get him the fuck out of here and do not let him come back. Then he gave her a hug so tight she couldn’t breathe and kissed her on the cheek and said love you, Mitch and he was gone.)

[ind1c0lite]

This was for my own convenience so I can get proper colour refs for a bunch of em in one place but I spent way too much time on it so u all get to look at it as well FHJGKHLJ poses were just ones from offical art cause I didnt feel like making my own gfjhgkhl

[dragonairice]

I FINALLY FINISHED EM

I’M BEEN WANTING TO DRAW THESE FOR A MONTH AND I NEVER GOT THE MOTIVATION TO START

HAPPY PRIDE BMC FANDOM

Bonus Squip /j