#i should start a tag for my writing

[inoreuct]

would you agree that we all need more Sanji getting nosebleeds over Zoro in this fandom?

YES *pelting down a hill waving the proposal for this in my hand like a madman* YESSSSSS

the first time sanji gets a nosebleed over zoro is his clue-in that oh. i’m not straight, am i. the swordsman’s doing a bench press (shirtless, as always) as sanji walks by (and sanji sneaks a look, as always, because who wouldn’t?) and when he glances over the plates he has to do a double take because what the fuck. zoro’s pressing more than twice his body weight. zoro’s repping more than twice his body weight. he’s just registered that maybe he’s stared for a bit too long when he feels something warm and wet on his upper lip, iron dripping over his mouth, and he books it for the galley.

he slams the door shut and presses his back against it before he slides to the ground and screams into his knees because what. the fuck. it’s not even that he’s getting hot and bothered over a guy; it’s just that the guy’s zoro. he’s not supposed to get nosebleeds over zoro.

but he does.

and it gets worse.

zoro walking around shirtless on deck? nosebleed. zoro re-tying the sails and just hanging on with his legs around the mast? nosebleed. zoro strutting out of the shower door, damp with steam and hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist? nosebleed. zoro tsking irritably and grabbing all of sanji’s food and packages from him to haul the whole lot over his shoulder? NOSEBLEED.

and not even that. he starts getting breathless around zoro and his chest hurts. he kicks zoro back while they’re sparring one day and the swordsman grins, feral and unrestrained and all challenge and teeth, and sanji’s heart spasms so hard that he actually wonders if he’s about to go into cardiac arrest. he’s barely twenty, he isn’t ready to die— much less because of some stupid marimo. chiselled abs and a nice set of biceps are only worth so much of sanji’s dignity. he twists and smashes the sole of his shoe right into zoro’s pretty face.

still, it gets so, so bad that he’s elected to just. avoid zoro completely. he’s sneaking around corners and running across open expanses ducked low like some kind of goofy thief and he knows it’s so fucking stupid but he doesn’t. he doesn’t know if zoro likes— no. he doesn’t even think about it. there’s no way, and if he gives himself false hope he’ll just break his own heart. he doesn’t know if zoro likes men, or anyone, much less him; nobody in their right mind would, not really. he's nice to have but not to keep and he's come to terms with it.

…until zoro corners him in the galley and demands to know what the fuck’s going on.

sanji stays facing away, slowly washing the dishes even as his heart pounds so hard it hurts. he is painfully aware of the way zoro’s seething like an over-boiled kettle in one of the chairs behind him, arms crossed over his stupidly broad chest and stock-still because he never, ever shakes his leg even though sanji knows he wants to.

his sponge squeaks across ceramic. the water’s warm against his fingertips, and his eyes flick up to meet his own reflection in the porthole window; he looks… well, he doesn’t know. scared, maybe. nervous. his mouth is thin, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, a shudder running its fingers down his spine even as his heartbeat thumps between his ribs and god, fuck, it aches. and he knows. he looks himself in the eyes and he knows that somewhere along the line nosebleeds had turned into falling in love and he was the stupid idiot who had just let it happen because he was too weak to pry zoro out of his thoughts.

his gaze flicks down sharply when he hears the sudden scrape of the chair, and zoro spits, “look, i can’t fix whatever i did wrong if you don’t tell me what it is.”

sanji’s heart throbs. “what?”

he can hear zoro’s scowl. “what, what? i obviously did something. you’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

the cook almost laughs. he bites it down and swallows his words, salty-sweet at the back of his throat. guilt nips at him; zoro’s his rival and and his personal annoyance and a blockhead but he might also, maybe, just maybe, be sanji’s best friend. and sanji hasn’t been very fair to him lately.

he swallows again, clears his throat silently. “you didn’t do anything, marimo,” he murmurs to the plate in his hands, trying for airy and getting more somewhat vaguely strangled. he coughs. “just forget about it. sorry i’ve been weird.”

sanji will deal. he will, somehow; he’d been careless and careless is dangerous and for perhaps the first time in his life, he has too much to lose. he’ll squash his heart into a box and lock it down tight like he always has and it’ll hurt, but when does it ever not? he mentally declares the matter done and dusted as he shakes off the plate and gently sets it on the drying rack.

his lungs hitch as a callused hand cups his elbow.

zoro pulls him around. he’s too weak to resist. the edge of the sink digs into his hip as stormy grey eyes scan his face and zoro looks tense, his jaw set in the way it only is when he faces off with a particularly vexing foe.

“did i not look happy enough at dinner?" he asks, and it could be mockery but it isn't, not with that edge to his voice; not desperation, but damn near. like filter paper burning its way to ash. "was it my clothes on the floor? my boots on the bed? what?”

sanji can't stand it anymore. he looks away, tries to twist out of the invisible bonds zoro has him trapped in, but fingers looped around his wrist are all it takes to make him stay and fuck, fuck, he's so fucked.

"sanji, what did i do?” zoro breathes, brow furrowed, voice too near and too damn earnest, and sanji's throat bobs as he digs the heel of his palm into his eye.

this isn't how it's supposed to go. zoro isn't supposed to care. zoro isn't supposed to be standing here in the galley saying his name in that tone of voice. a hand carefully pulls his own away from his face, and zoro doesn't fucking let go, and sanji feels too much like he's been stripped down to the bone.

"i know," zoro continues, gruff like he doesn't know how to be anything else, "that i upset you. so would you please tell me what i did so i can fix it?" he bends lower still, ducking to try and catch sanji’s line of sight but sanji just can't look at him. "i'll fix it, i—"

"you can't fix this." the words are out and in the air before he can stop them, and a bittersweet smile curves his mouth. "there's nothing to fix, so you can't fix it. just let it go, alright?"

zoro wants to argue. sanji can tell. but the swordsman lets out a measured exhale after a long moment and pulls back, face carefully neutral. "at least tell me what's going on, cook."

sanji looks down at his feet. "...i can't."

"like hell you can't," zoro replies immediately, and it's such an abrupt reminder of their normal banter that it wrenches a rough noise from sanji's chest. "i was the one who held your hair back after you had, like, seven margaritas too many. don't think you could tell me anything worse than the experience of trying to stop you from falling into your own puke."

"oh, jesus fuck," sanji swears on instinct, then laughs. it's unfortunately hollow. "that was one time, asshole."

"one time too many," zoro hums, raising an eyebrow. "so you gonna tell me what's going on, or do i have to make it a captain's order?"

sanji grits his teeth.

"i will drag luffy in here, i don't care—"

"fucking—" he holds his breath, flipping around to white-knuckle the edge of the sink and letting it out slow. "fine. you ever loved someone, marimo?"

"sure." zoro shrugs easily, crossing his arms as he looks out the window. "kuina, but i think i learned to love her memory more than anything else. luffy, nami—" a near-unnoticeable flutter of thick lashes. "you."

sanji exhales through his nose as he rocks back on his heels. squeezes out air till it hurts. "you know that's not what i meant."

"what did you mean, then?"

he turns to look at where zoro has settled lazily against the counter, the moon turning his eyes to silver. "I mean the kind of love that makes your blood race. that makes you want more even when you know you'll never take more than you're allowed. the kind that makes your heart hurt so badly you feel empty without it."

the swordsman's face is unreadable as he tilts his head slowly. "i did say i love you."

it hits sanji like a bullet. he sucks in a sharp breath, and his throat burns as he turns away and tries to stop his shoulders from heaving up. "don't fuck with me, zoro. not about this."

it feels rather like a cruel cosmic joke. he's so near yet so far, just one step away with a gauzy curtain between but he can't touch it. he won't. he's got too many things on the line and yet he can't even name one of them.

"hey."

he squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of salt that shouldn't even be there, and look at that. little sanji's gone and broken his own heart again.

"hey," zoro tries again, more insistent, one hand hovering in the space between them and sanji feels the pull of it like a magnet.

he doesn't turn away as it cups his cheek. doesn't run as fingers slide through the short hairs at his nape, a thumb behind his jaw. his lashes are damp. it is everything he wants and everything he cannot have and he can't—

"look at me."

"i can't," he breathes, lungs rising fast and shallow. he's afraid to open his eyes. he's afraid of what he'll see.

"yes, you can." zoro shifts closer and another hand joins the first. it's big and rough and warm and he holds sanji's face like he's the moon herself. "look at me, curly."

he can't.

he does.

zoro's gaze is almost painful to meet straight-on with how intense it is. he seems to realise, face softening as he leans closer, closer, posture loose enough that it would be no problem for sanji to shove him away. "you love me," he breathes. "yes or no?"

sanji's heart stops. his tongue is clumsy in his mouth, his brain a mess of yesnoyesyesnoiwon'tican’tido—

"don't think." zoro's voice cuts through the haze as he shakes his head slowly; a sword through smoke, silver-bright, singing in the air and leaving silence. "don't think. you love me, yes or no."

the galley swims around sanji as his vision blurs. he feels his tears spill hot down his cheek, knows the way zoro aches to brush them away and yet stays still. he opens his mouth and it feels like stepping out of the only shelter he's ever known; he is an open fucking wound and he's raw and everything hurts, everything but zoro. zoro. zoro. "yes."

just one word, three simple letters, and still it feels like damnation; if he'd never said it he could deny it but now it's real. the swordsman relaxes, shoulders dropping enough that his forehead brushes sanji's, and sanji tracks the way his throat bobs. the way steel-grey eyes flicker over his face, molten in the light of the electric lamps and the moonlight spilling through the window, gilding zoro like something out of a dream. a fairytale sanji read as a child until the edges of the pages fitted familiar to his thumbs as his little hands reached for a happy ending that was never meant to be his.

he shakes, now, as zoro reaches up to run tentative fingers through straw-pale hair. "let me love you. yes or no."

"i—" the sound that twists from his mouth is cracked jagged down the middle, unpolished as a common pebble picked up off the damn street. "you don't—"

"yes or no."

"i'm not what you want," he gasps, his face wet.

"yes or no."

sanji wants to break apart. because zoro sounds like he's begging, and he cannot fathom anybody possibly wanting him that much. he wants to scream and cry and claw at the walls until his nails break. he wants to shatter into pieces all over the floor without having to worry about putting himself back together. he wants. he wants, and zoro's looking at him with the closest thing to reverence he's seen in his life, and even that isn't enough for him to believe it. "i'm not what you want."

he can barely look at zoro. he can barely look at himself. the shame is clawing a pit into his stomach, and he lets it, feels every inch of it, because what kind of person doesn't know how to be loved? his breath catches wetly as zoro cups his jaw in both hands, tilting his face up, and once again sanji is too weak to pull away.

"you are everything i want."

the words are so fierce, so sure, and sanji is cracking apart at the seams. the stitches pulled tight by his own hand are unravelling and he can't stop it—

"yes or no."

zoro's breath ghosts warm across his mouth, fingertips in his hair, just far away enough for sanji to see the way his eyes are blazing and yet he waits. his thumb on sanji's cheek is the gentlest thing sanji has ever known.

"you'll get tired of me," he tries weakly, one last time for good measure, and zoro just shakes his head. the resolve in his expression does not waver even once.

sanji breaks.

"yes." the word scrapes itself out of his throat seconds before arms are going around him, and he sobs. lets the swordsman bring them both to the kitchen floor as he curls up in zoro's lap, fingers clawing into his white shirt, numb with how hard he cries because nobody, nobody has ever stayed. not without him getting hurt in the process. he pushes them away when he gets scared and they let him and then it becomes his fault when it all blows up in his face, but zoro's not leaving, and it's so foreign to him that he's shaking so badly and he can't stop.

a warm, heavy palm smooths over his spine and he lets himself be shifted closer, settles sideways as zoro wraps an arm over his shins and rocks them until his breathing evens out. the embarrassment hits like a gut punch; he knows he looks like a mess, face blotchy and hair everywhere and eyes puffy as hell, but zoro cards his bangs out of his eyes and looks at him like he doesn't care, and sanji turns away.

he feels... fragile. like he's made of tinted glass and spun sugar, like he'll cave in at the slightest touch. there is something melting in his chest and it drips down over his ribs; pools fresh as a river in spring, offset by the grounding presence of zoro's hands on his skin. "don't say i didn't warn you," he mumbles, masking his very real fear behind a layer of watery bravado as he hides his face in zoro's shoulder, and of course, of course zoro sees right through him.

the swordsman's thumb traces the swirl of his eyebrow before zoro rests his chin on top of sanji's head. "i don’t listen. you know that."

you know me, is what goes unsaid, and sanji doesn't deign to reply. he buries his face into zoro's chest and breathes in the smell of steel and sword oil and— he sits up slightly, eyes narrowing. "you've been stealing my deodorant, yes or no." the way zoro stills momentarily is a dead giveaway, and he yelps when the swordsman flicks his forehead.

"would you rather i be stinky?" zoro scoffs, rolling his eyes gently as sanji settles back down with a huff.

"you still are stinky. if we're gonna be together i'm expecting you to shower at least once every two days—" zoro groans, and he powers through, raising his voice, "—and if you aren't fussy i'll let you shower with me."

the way zoro instantly stops complaining cracks a laugh out of him. it's weak and watered-down, but it's a start. zoro's hands slide back into his hair and he hums as he lets his eyes fall shut.

the moon's full tonight. their ship rocks gently, and sanji gets comfortable; zoro's warm and solid and happens to make a perfectly respectable pillow. the thought that he can have this now sends a thrill through him.

he's not a fool. he's not optimistic when it comes to this. when it comes to love.

but with zoro's thumb rubbing mindless circles against the side of his thigh and a kiss pressed to the top of his head, he's got a pretty good feeling about this time around.

#er. this dragged me down the hill and i let it #this got so off-topic anon i apologise #but to be fair even after they start dating sanij gets absolutely HORRIFIC nosebleeds #like hello?? that man is hot as hell?? and he's MY man??? good lordy #cue him leaning against the wall in a dramatic swoon and yelling for zoro to catch him #(zoro does not catch him. sanji falls on his ass.) #(he does get a forehead kiss before zoro walks away cackling though so. a win is a win!) #black leg sanji #zosan #one piece zosan #zoro x sanji #roronoa zoro #one piece zoro #one piece sanji #one piece #ino writes #ino's ask box #sanji's issues deserve a tag of their own #my habit of segueing from chill fun rambling to emotionally damaging content should be studied. jesus christ.

[buglaur]

this is kit, please commission some art from them on social bunny 🙏

#ts4 #sims 4 #just wanted to test out relight but now i have a whole new gameplay i wanna do #my house wifi's been down since friday so i'd nothing better to do lol #assignments shouldn't exist. i should be able to play video games all day >:( #i think i'm going to remove this font replacement cus it can't do accented letters :( #i had to uninstall wickedwhims cus my uni friend wants to play sims on my laptop tomorrow LOL #anyways kits cool though #they're in the same save as virgil's tjol :) #so they might meet him! #uuughhh i fuckin hate thursdays. i'm out of the house for like 14 hours :(( #going to england in 8 days tho i'm so excited to see my family again :) they got a new dog too!! a jack russell named paddy lmaooo #i got tagged in kmik posts but i'm saving them for friday night when i'm not busy <3 #goodnight simblr #it's 11:50pm and i need to start writing my essay due tomorrow D:

[ailithnight]

A fic based on this prompt by @chaoswarfare that I had originally put in the reblogs, but decided to move to its own post since I've got some ideas to continue it. No promises on this ever being a completed fic, but I'll try.

A King in Arkham

Listless eyes trace the cracks in the ceiling; their owner blinking slowly from his place, lying nearly motionless on a thin mattress supported by a metal shelf held to the wall by thick black chains. His face is blank, not sad nor angry nor despairing like so many others in this cold and lonesome place. No, his expression is empty, as though there is simply nothing to feel.

Bruises and scratches and even a couple very deep cuts litter a small body. Were anyone watching, they'd see a new one appear as if by magic across a gaunt cheek. Even as blood begins weeping from the slash, not a single emotion flits across the face. Not even a flinch.

Tomorrow, doctors will assume the patient cut himself. They will search his cell, again, and find no weapon. They will search his body and find not so much as a fingernail capable of creating the mark. They will check the security feed and find, as always, that the moment of injury glitches; one second no cut, the next fresh blood. They will try to force the patient to admit self harm, but he will remain silent.

When the door to his cell swings open with a buzz and a clang, echoed by every other cell in the building, the blank faced boy with dull eyes doesn't move. It's the 6th time this month, and the 13th since arriving 3 months ago.

When the sounds of screams and rioting grate on sensitive ears, he merely sighs, the first hint of feeling flashing across his face in the form of a minute second of frustration before blankness returns. When a pair of escaping patients rush past, one stopping to ask if he's coming, he remains unresponsive.

"Leave him! Kid never tries to escape. He's to far gone."

The kid in question feels his eyebrow twitch. He's not 'gone' anywhere, thank you very much. There's just no point. Nowhere to go. No one to help him; to understand that he's not crazy, just haunted. At least, no one who won't turn him into a monster. A horrible, world destroying, viscious monster.

Besides, Arkham's not too bad. At least it isn't a GIW lab. And his rogues have even started showing up less and less since he was sent here! Though maybe that has less to do with Arkham or Gotham and more to do with the kid's utter refusal to even defend himself.

"Now come on before Bats start showing up and put this place on lockdown."

A black form with a red head drops from above, just barely within the kid's peripheral vision. A brief moment of recognition and even something adjacent to interest flickers in blue eyes.

"Bats like me, perchance?"

.

Red Hood was assisting containment with an Arkham breakout. There had been a lot of them in the last few months and Batman was getting grey hairs trying to figure out why. No one in particular was even trying to break out. No one could be pinned for the inciting incident. Just randomly, at any point in the day, the automatic locks would spazz out and everyone would be released.

So the big bad Bat had called all hands on deck, requesting at least one vigilante be at or near Arkham at all times, hoping to at least keep most of the big fish in their cages while they tried to figure out what the hell was going on. And Jason had graciously agreed to help. So here he was, at 3am on a Saturday morning; assisting guards in keep inmates corralled; keeping any eye out for any maximum security escapees.

With none spotted so far, and the people below him literally admitting that they're giving up hope when the Bats arrive, Jason figured he might as well see if a bit of scare tactic will convince them to go back to bed willingly.

"Bats like me, perchance?" The would be escapees in front of him startle and whip around.

"Red Hood?"

"The one and only." Jason shifts to not so subtlely place a hand on his weapons. "Now why don't you 2 just go on back to your rooms and we can forget this little infraction. I won't even tell the guards to write up a discipline slip." The two inmates eye him, then his guns, then each other warily. Finally, they both raise their hands in surrender and begin walking back to their cells.

Jason permits himself a quiet chuckle, much to low to be picked up by the modulator. As he turns back to grapple up to his bird's eye view in the rafters, his eyes catch sight of the inmate who apparently doesn't try to escape. For just a moment, green swamps his vision as Red Hood registers the sight in front of him.

He almost steps in to the cell before a harsh buzz sounds and cell doors clang shut again. An intercom crackles to life announcing the effective lockdown, instructing guards to begin escorting patients back to their cells, cataloging each attempted escapee for future disciplinary measures.

Batman's voice sounds out over comms.

Not a single inmate made it past the main gate. Good job Hood.

Jason seethes for moment longer in front of the cell before biting out his question on the main channel.

What the hell is a kid doing in Arkham!?

A strangled sound makes it through the feed and Nightwing responds, strained.

What?

A KID! Can't be older than 15. In cell... 26B. Looking rather roughed up, I might add. Since why does Arkham even accept minors?

Oracle responds.

Pulling records right now.

Jason eyes the kid, who seems to be entirely unfazed by Red Hood discussing his imprisonment 8 feet away from him. Actually, unfazed is the wrong word. Apathetic is better. Entirely emotionless. Green threatens Jason's vision again as he ponders the potential reasons for the look of resigned desolation on a face so young.

Looks like he was transferred over from a psych ward in Illinois 3 months ago. Ward of the State. File says self-destructive behavior. Apparently he picks up unexplainable injuries and claims ghosts gave them to him.

That still doesn't explain why they sent him to Arkham!

Batman's voice filters back in.

Hood, pull out.

Jason has to force himself to keep his voice down.

WHAT!? I'M NOT LEAVING A KID HERE!

It's almost 4am. Red Robin is on route to relieve you.

I AM NOT LEAVING A 15 YEAR OLD IN ARKHAM!

We will be investigating this further.

15! YOU KNOW, THE SAME AGE I WAS WHEN YOU LET ME DIE IN THAT FUCKING WAREHOUSE.

Jason almost regrets the statement as he here's Dick's stuttered breath. But it seems the kid might have heard him and something about the statement seems to catch his attention.

He actually turns his head to look quizzically at Jason. The expression only lasts a couple seconds before slipping back into blank neutrality as he turns back to the ceiling.

Batman's voice grinds in his ears, an edge in his tone telling Jason that if he doesn't listen, the Bat himself will come pull Jason out.

Hood, his transfer coincides with the start of these break outs. He may be involved. We will be investigating this further, very thoroughly. If he's clean, we will be getting him out of there. But for now I need you to pull out. File your report.

The tone softens.

And get some rest.

#dp x dc #Danny Phantom in Arkham Asylum #A King in Arkham #my writing #I guess I should start a tagslist #I'll try to pull some from the original post #But it would be easiest if y'all just drop tag requests in the comments

[hailsatanacab]

I'll ask after that secret number 8!

I only remembered secret number 8 because I saw your wip here! I'd started this one based on the same prompt, then lost said prompt and stopped working on it 😅

Instead of a snippet, I'm just dropping it all here - maybe that way I'll feel inspired to finish it?

———

It’s a full house for dinner tonight and, really, that should have tipped him off.

Bruce sits at the head of the table, smiling softly as he watches over everyone’s antics. Damian is regaling Dick with everything they saw at the zoo that day (Danny had been so happy to see Delilah the purpleback gorilla again, and her new little additions to the troupe, too!) and how well they are implementing the grant the Wayne Foundation had gifted them. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Duke are all engaged in a thumb-war tournament which Danny has no interest in participating in. It just wouldn’t be fair on them.

Danny loves that look. The one where Bruce’s eyes crinkle when he thinks none of the kids can see him. It oozes love and it makes Danny’s heart, his core, ache. 

It’s been a little over a year since Alfred found him on the street and managed to wrangle him back to the manor to stay—even after the whole biting thing when he realised how rich they were. 

A little over a year here and Danny’s starting to feel like family.

Starting to feel like he might, just maybe, like to make it official.

“Danny,” Bruce says, drawing everyone’s attention. Danny starts at his name, but Bruce’s voice is warm and calm, and his shoulders lose their tension almost immediately. “Danny, I have something I would like to tell you.”

“Uhhh…” is all Danny can croak out, eyes flicking back and forth between Bruce and the rest of them. Smooth. Looking good, Danny.

Except… they’re all happy. All smiles, all relaxed body language, all radiating calm and love and acceptance. Well, not Damian—his face is as thunderous as it always is—which at least means it’s nothing too out of the ordinary.

“Danny, first of all, I just want to impress upon you that this is in no way something you have to do. You are under no obligation to join us and, no matter what, you shall always be welcome with us in the manor.”

Wait, what? Danny squints at Bruce, trying to parse exactly what he’s saying… Is he—is this them asking to adopt him? Do they want to make it official, too? 

It’s been a little over a year and of course Danny has imagined calling Bruce ‘Dad’. Of course he’s imagined being part of the family, of course he wants to make it official!

He can’t help the beaming grin or the bright and bubbling “Yes!” already waiting on his lips. All Bruce has to do is ask, all Danny needs to hear is—

“I’m Batman.”

The smile freezes on Danny’s face.

His lungs stop working, his heart stops working, he stops working, he just—

“And I’m Nightwing,” Dick smiles, breaking the awkward silence. 

Danny’s eyes snap to him, and then down to Tim when he admits to being Red Robin. Duke is Signal, Steph is Spoiler. Damian begrudgingly tells him he’s Robin, but Danny can barely hear it over the ringing in his ears.

“I’m Black Bat.” Cass cocks her head, almost looking concerned. It always felt like she understood him the most. Whenever he was feeling low, too in his memories, or stewing after a nightmare, she was always there, ready to card her fingers through his hair and never mention his tears. It makes his heart ache to think of it now. “It’s okay, Danny.”

It’s meant to be reassuring, but how—how can it be okay? How? 

Danny’s spent a little over a year with them. A little over a year with Batman. 

Batman, who works with the Justice League, who works with…

A little over a year. 

Just under 16 months since he escaped.

“Danny? Are you alright?” Bruce asks

Finally, his lungs kickstart and suck in a shuddering breath, only for everyone to drop their smiles.

Didn’t take them long, did it? Now that their ruse is up, there’s no kindness in their eyes, they’re just… cold, calculating. Evaluating. 

“Why?” Danny gasps, his fingers tingling, his heart in his throat.

Just under 16 months since he—has he escaped? Or was this just another one of their experiments?

"I... I trusted you, why—" Danny chokes back a sob, gritting his teeth as his shoulders shake. Why? Why would they do this? "I was happy here, with you. I thought... Weren't you happy?"

"Danny..." Bruce is looking at him, eyes narrow and eyebrows pinched, in some cruel facsimile of confused concern and all Danny can think is how much of an actor he is. How well he can play the part of a doting father. How much he made him want that.

"I don't understand, why..." 

"I'm sorry we didn't tell you before, I can imagine that it comes as a shock. We shouldn't have lied to you, Danny, but—"

"Stop it!" Danny slams his hands down on the table and pushes himself up on wobbly legs. Even standing, he feels so small. Smaller than Bruce, than all of his adopted siblings. They crowd above him when they all stand, too. "Just stop it! Why are you doing this, why are you still pretending? Stop it!"

It was easier, with Danny's biological parents. The knowledge that they'd do anything to get him on a lab table, to open him up and see what makes him tick, to rip him apart molecule by molecule, had always been there. He knew they hated ghosts. He knew they hated Phantom. He knew they hated him. It was easier because it was something he'd known all his life. When he died, when he became a ghost, he knew what to expect from them. It hurt, of course it did.

But it was easier than this.

"Danny, I'm going to need you to take a deep breath. You're having a panic attack and you need to breathe."

"Breathe?" Danny laughs, the sound harsh and choking, too high pitched in his hysteria. "You're joking, right? Or is this just more of the—the experiment?"

"Danny, please, we don't know what you're talking about, you—"

"You don't know? You're Batman! You work with the Justice League, you work with—" His words choke off as his stomach churns, bile rising in his throat. His whole body itches, screaming at him to leave, he can't go back, he can't, he can't, he can't!

Bruce takes a hesitant step forward and Danny scrambles back, his feet catching on the chair behind him and sending him careening to the floor. Where are the agents? Why aren't they swarming in, ready to apprehend him, strap him back on the table, carve him from the inside out.

"Please, Danny, calm down. We don't—"

Danny stops listening. His back hits the wall and he pulls his knees into his chest, his shoulders dipping down as he begins to sob. His heart throbs inside his throat, too painful to swallow around. Tears fall hot and heavy on his face.

Sure, he could run. He could phase out through the wall and he could be out of Gotham in a couple of hours. He's escaped the GIW once, he can do it again.

But that was before Batman knew who he was. Before he had the World's Greatest Detective on his tail.

Before he... 

He really thought this would be different, you know?

He wanted to make it official.

"Why did... Why were you so nice to me? Why did you make me like you? I really—I really liked you. I-I thought we could be a family."

"Danny, we are a—"

"Don't lie to me!" Danny snaps, but the force of his anger leeches all the fight from him, and suddenly all that's left is a bone-weary tiredness. There’s a lump in his throat that hurts. There’s a line down his chest that burns. "I don't care. I don't care anymore, I don't. Just... don't make me go back there. Please." 

Is it futile? He thought he knew how the GIW operated by now, the depths that they would go to achieve their results, but this... this was a whole new level of pain that Danny thought he had left behind him in Amity.

"We're not going to make you go anywhere, Danny, you're safe here, I promise."

"Safe? Safe? You must have—" he takes a deep breath, tries to stop the quivering of his voice. It’s all starting to make sense, now.  "The reason you're telling me who you are is because you must have told them everything already. I know the Justice League—I know you're working with them, which means the ex-experiment is over now, and they're coming to take me back. And I can't go back."

"Danny—"

"I can’t!” Danny glares at Bruce with all the rage he can, fingernails digging into his skin. “I’m not going back!"

"That's right, you're not going back, Danny. I won't let that happen." Bruce crouches down in front of Danny, his hands open and raised as if he's trying to say he's not a threat. "I don't know who you're talking about, and I'm sorry about that, but I can promise you that you’re not going back there. We will keep you safe."

Danny pulls himself closer, tucks himself further into the wall, eyes flickering all across the room waiting for that tell-tale flash of white as the agents start to swarm.

He should take his chances now and run, he should go, he needs to go!

The rest of them, his brothers and sisters of a little over a year, are spread out, giving him and Bruce some space. The same concern colours all of their faces. Why are they still pretending?

Steph is chewing on her thumb. 

Danny liked Steph and her brash confidence, her jokes. She's been promising to paint his nails for months now, they've just never found the time. He was going to go for green and black, or maybe a galaxy theme, depending on what she felt comfortable doing.

He likes them all.

"You were supposed to be my family." His mouth turns down at the corners and his voice shakes like a child. "You were supposed to—why? Why would you—I don't understand why you would make me like you..."

"This isn't an experiment, Danny," Bruce's voice is steady, soothing. "I promise."

"But you work with them and—"

"Who do I work with?"

"The Justice League."

"Yes, I do, but we—"

"And the Justice League works with them. The GIW." Danny trembles with the name, clutching tightly onto his hoodie. "I'm not going back there, Bruce."

Danny doesn't miss Bruce's look over his shoulder, nor Tim's nod in return. Tim turns slightly to the side to hide his movements, but Danny bets he has his phone in his hand, probably letting them know they can take him now. Guess this is it, then. They'll be here soon, and he'll be gone.

"Kill me."

"Danny? What do—"

"If you ever had any kindness for me, if you ever cared, kill me. Please, Bruce. I can't do it again."

"Danny..."

"End me now. Take my core out and break it, please, before they get here."

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dpxdc fanfic #wip game #thanks for the ask <3 and thanks for helping me remember this fic lol #also huge thanks for having the prompt linked because i have S O M A N Y prompt wips that i can't ever post because i've lost the post #didn't really know how to get danny to calm down #that's a lie #i have a few ideas of where this can go but no motivation for it - not against all the other wips #i'll keep at it and ig post to ao3 should it actually start looking alright #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #dudes did u kno u can pin shit to your clipboard on desktop because i fucking love that #also if you use the windows key + . there's like emojis and shit #(((φ(◎ロ◎;)φ))) #<- and kaomoji too!!!!! #anyway that's been fun facts and fanfic with me. ur welcome #oh shit my writing tag #hailsatanacrab🦀🦀writes #at some point 'oh shit my writing tag' will just become my writing tag #anyway thank you again for the ask #good night everyone!!!!!

[charlunday]

The boy with the bread 🧡

Part 1 of my everlark portraits! Can you guess who I referenced for this? (Hint: there are multiple correct answers)

#i should really start an art tag #the hunger games #peeta mellark #everlark #katniss everdeen #if anyone accuses this of being ai i will punch you #i worked my wee fingers to the BONE on this #give me nice comments to get me through writing an essay #alright bye #ill do katniss this weekend <3

[brother-emperors]

CAESAR AUGUSTUS AND MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS

this is about the spolia opima that crassus was robbed of lmao. like, yeah okay octavian could've asked him not to claim it, but nevertheless. a kind of theft happened there.

Fact and Fiction: Crassus, Augustus, and the Spolia Opima, Catherine McPherson

#this is one from the vaults I started a few months ago and finally finished. it’s always the furniture details that put things on hold lmao #the former co consuls are fightinggggg (?) #rome is built on top of other people. this is about both the imperialism-slavery machine and the way that all these guys would #politically devour their own generation to sit on a throne. etc. anyway. octavian specifically sits on a throne of other people’s #accomplishments. that’s a specific kind of debt to carry around your neck. or theft depending on who is doing what #this was theft. anything involving Agrippa was a gift so there’s an obligation to succeed which is it’s own kind of currency so to speak #sugghrhfh. every crassus always has to be like this. in my heart i always root for whoever decides to go up against rome #and then i'm stuck with the guy who should've got a spolia opima like. congrats on your win. i guess. i think. RIP. #ACTUALLY YOU KNOW WHAT. while im talking about this crassus. domina fucking sucks. what an absolute clusterfuck of a show #anyway. if anyone ever does augustan age politics again. octavia would be a great character if you want to invent shit #but also more importantly octavian should seduce crassus for this. thank you. #octavian #marcus licinius crassus.....christ how do i write down that he's the grandson of my crassus. i'll figure it out later #roman empire tag #drawing tag

[goldensunset]

O you, who at the world's far-off end dwell,

I know your wish- it is my wish as well.

#ephemer #khux #khml #kingdom hearts #kh #missing link #kingdom hearts union x #kingdom hearts missing link #kh ephemer #thinking about... how among the people in scala he's this legendary figure #but from a personal point of view he was simply someone riddled with grief #he founded a new world but he did so alone when he should have been with all his friends... #mine: kh #my art #so time may or may not have gotten away from me... i started this drawing in July. lol #the caption is part of old verse 2 from pokémon legends arceus #the entirety of which is absolutely perfect for ephemer but would be too long #i'll just write it in tags here: #'o you; who at the world's far-off ends dwell; i know your wish- it is my wish as well. #my own beloved is now gone from me; departed to a place i cannot reach. #my old companions have left me behind; their faces faded into days gone by. #still to my breast i clutch this hopeless dream; a futile wish for us once more to meet. #oh you; who at the world's far-off end dwell; i know your wish- it is my wish as well. #but ours are cold and endless winter days; warmed only by memories locked away.' #[minor edit: fixed the color of the lines on his shirt!] #[i am so proud of this one you don’t understand]

[lloydfrontera]

i'm about to be a bitch about alloyd so like. skip ahead if you're not into that ig.

the thing thats grinds me the most about alloyd is that,, we've seen lloyd plan out living the rest of his life at someone's side. we've seen him actively wish to spend the rest of eternity with someone. we've seen him think what sounds suspiciously like marriage vows about someone.

i am not joking or exaggerating here are the quotes:

That’s why, you bastard. I’m going to take care of you until the very end. Once I, your wise and older friend, solve the restoration of destiny problem, you’re going to enjoy the rest of your life by my side in peace. [...] He smiled at Javier and thought to himself. You’re my only friend, Javier. I couldn’t have overcome all the obstacles in front of me without your help. So, my trustworthy and reliable comrade, stick with me until I become a lazy lord and you become my personal guard. I hope we will be able to grow old together… -ch 327

Lloyd felt reassured by Javier's presence as he gazed at him. He could not have gotten this far without the knight. Therefore, he did not want to lose Javier and hoped they would keep bickering with each other for eternity. -ch 361

He thought he'd always be with Javier for the rest of his life. Just like now, he thought they'd spend all their time together moving forward. And like they always did, they'd be by each other's side during hard times. Happy moments. Relaxed days. They'd share all these moments as they exchanged insults and corny jokes, growing old as a lazy lord of a fiefdom and his knight. Lloyd always thought so. The thought just came naturally, without much effort from him, much like breathing. Lloyd believed that Javier would always remain by his side as that was how it had been until now. -ch 222

and at no point in any of those occasions has he ever sounded remotely afraid, threatened or uncomfortable with the idea.

so how come he is all of that when it comes to the idea of marrying what is supposed to be his canon love interest? like???

This is bad. Really bad. Terrible feelings struck his gut. Lloyd's lifelong wish was to find a rather ordinary woman to fall in love with, before getting married and having kids with her to lead an unremarkable family life. This was the extent of the luxury he had always dreamed of, not the frantic romance with the mightiest queen in the entire continent. I can see and feel it. I can sense it. This isn't good. Lloyd could see himself in the queen's pockets, like a scaredy cat in the presence of a ferocious lioness. -ch 390

Lloyd became speechless, even though he desperately wanted to call it an absolute abuse of power, tyranny, and dictatorship. But I'm kind of excited and glad... except what kind of marriage proposal is this threatening...?! But Lloyd couldn't bring it out in words, as his queen had already taken him by his hand. It was rough, yet warm. He could feel every heartbeat that was clearly pounding faster than usual. Ugh. There goes my dream of ordinary living. Lloyd quickly wiped off the tear that was about to fall from his eyes at the thought of the frightening romance. -ch 393

does this sound like someone in love???? like?? genuinely?? is this really what the main character should feel about his love interest???

i'm not even saying that the way lloyd feels about javier is inherently romantic, him feeling perfectly comfortable and hopeful about spending the rest of their life together is perfectly explicable by their close friendship.

but why make your protagonist sound so terrified of the idea of marrying what is supposed to be the love of his life?? when you never did that when writing about his other close relationship??

it's just. it's frustrating. to me lmao

#i talk a lot <3 #tged #the greatest estate developer #lloyd frontera #alicia magentano #anti alloyd #<- i hate having an anti tag but i think i should start tagging my critical posts because. i'm being very mean about it ajkshjkdsf #anyway. how insane is it that bk moon wrote the perfect romance by accident and didn't realize because he wrote it for two male characters #it grates in my bones whenever he writes characters being afraid of their wives #like. god. whenever he mentions wives nagging i feel murderous. #the only exception is maybe berkis. who actually loves when his wife nags at him. and deliberately does stuff that will make her nag. #but even that is on thin ice

[clowningaroundmars]

punkflower hcs bc i need to see more of them being cute teen boys together.... like, playful and creative and stuff

looong long wall of text under the cut (no nsfw)

♡ miles and hobie definitely exchange art often, even collabing on some punk zines and graffiti pieces occasionally. hobie also makes mixtapes on cassettes and slaps a million stickers on them just for his bf. miles appreciates the kind gesture but reminds hobie that he doesnt have a cassette player. "yet," hobie tells him with a wink :)

♡ miles draws a million little doodles for hobie on scrap paper, post it notes, hobie's gear, hobie himself. ofc hobie loves them all, esp when he gets to go home with his arms and chest covered in stars, cartoons, graffiti, and hearts

♡ miles is a lot more shy about dancing in public than hobie is, but whenever they manage to have any downtime at all hobie will wrap his arms around miles and sway them around. if music is playing anywhere, hobie will bop to it and get miles to join in

♡ hobie's love language? touch. any kind, anytime, anywhere, for any reason. words of affirmation come next

♡ miles' love language? quality time, and he's big on kissing. hobie isnt much of a kisser but loves his sunflower just the same, and does not complain at all when miles places little kisses on his hands, ears or his back

♡ sometimes hobie will be a lil mean to miles just as a flirty thing. just usual teenage boy stuff like kicking miles' sneakers, manspreading to get into his space if they're sitting anywhere together, using his height to bully miles into a corner away from everyone so they can flirt some more, crashing into miles on purpose just to be annoying

♡ anytime they get to go on multiverse missions together they somehow manage to get into the craziest shenanigans. breaking into a zoo to stop a villain from mutating the animals, saving a group of schoolkids on a field trip from a killer robot (?), one time hobie even drove a runaway car to stop it from crashing right into jamaica bay and miles was scarred for life

hobie tries to control the car as he haphazardly swerves it around pedestrians and barely manages to miss a group of elderly people.

miles clings onto his seat for dear life. "HOBIE!! you're gonna kill us man, where'd you get your license from!?" he yells.

hobie scoffs. "license?! i said i could drive, mate, i aint mention nuthin' 'bout no license!"

♡ hobie's universe is set in the 1970's and living in a dystopian police-state means it's too risky to bring back a phone with him, so he's often left out of spiderkid groupchats. miles still tries to keep him up to date on the latest memes and inside jokes though. they also have their own inside jokes too

♡ hobie wouldn't bring a smartphone with him anyways since he's so mistrusting of tech in general. video games, laptops, and "smart" tech mystify him, and smart watches? forget about it. when miles gets one for christmas one time, hobie clowned on his bf so hard the watch was never seen again

♡ that being said, they love exchanging music often so the only piece of technology hobie ever brings back to his dimension is an ancient half-busted ipod (it was probably rio's at one point) filled with music miles managed to download for him that week. spiderman-ing and living as a homeless teen means hobie doesn't get much time to explore genres outside of the UK punk scene and listening to brand new genres is often a trip! hobie finds out he loves drum n bass, grindcore, industrial techno, UK drill, deep house and 90's hip hop

♡ hobie gets miles to make him cool posters for whatever venue he plans on (or doesnt plan lbr) playing at every now and then

♡ rio LOVES hobie. hobie is the perfect gentleman (gentlespider?) around her and often tries to help her around the house when he can. miles... does not enjoy how much his mom favors his partner. jeff is also not so crazy about this smart-mouthed punk

♡ miles and hobie absolutely swap clothing as often as possible, with hobie "borrowing" miles' clothes more often. miles' parents keep commenting on how much of a rockero he looks with all the punk stuff and hobie never returns clothes without having altered them in some way (pins n bits everywhere, a mysterious rip or two here n there, pinned-up sleeves, etc)

♡ miles is absolutely horrible at cooking and feels left out when he sees hobie helping his mom in the kitchen. he desperately tries to learn, but it's a wonder how he hasnt sliced his fingers off yet trying to peel and cut platanos so they can make tostones

♡ for a person who's built like a lamppost, hobie is shockingly graceful with his movements. he always slips around a room like a cat and miles is so jealous of that. long gangly limbs should be a deterrent from moving like That and yet here he is, practically pirouetting around miles for fun

♡ which is a total TRIP when they go out swinging around a city. once the mask is on, every movement hobie makes is chaotic, frantic and unpredictable. spiderpunk and hobie are very different people sometimes

♡ rio often points out hobie's thinness as a typical hispanic mom does ("jóven, pero tu 'ta tan flaco, hobie honey come eat! i have leftovers here!") and miles also agrees that hobie could eat a lil more too. he is always sneaking bits of food into hobie's pockets or bags, saving fries and last slices for his partner. sometimes hobie brings home armfuls of tupperware filled with caribbean food back to his boat

♡ in return, hobie is like a magpie and brings back shiny gifts for them, some handmade stuff too. miles' drawers and nightstand are filled with jewelry, bottles, knickknacks, and other handmade accessories. his walls are filled with collages and zines hobie makes for him and rio bought frames for some of the pieces he makes her

♡ the first person to say "i love you" was miles, but by accident. after realizing it, he was nervous as hell worrying that hobie would clown him to death since he didnt seem like a big romantic. instead, hobie went nuts about it in his own hobie way, writing lyrics about miles' face when he said it, doodling them together more often, teasing miles about it often but lightheartedly. he flaunts miles' love whenever he can

♡ miles has a lethal puppydog face and he KNOWS it! one 🥺 look and hobie immediately folds and gives miles whatever he wants. but not before hemming and hawing about it first, playing up his hesitation just to make miles laugh

♡ speaking of laughter, hobie does Thee Most just to see his bf laugh or smile. he will always goof off in the bg, crack jokes every 2 secs and pretend to get hurt sometimes. hobie is naturally sarcastic and goofs off in general anyways but around miles he dials it up to 200

♡ hobie tries to get miles in on the whole anarchism thing but 1. the texts and manifestos from his dimension are different than miles' and 2. miles is a teen boy. he doesn't know anything about the theory of alienation or effective mutual aid and won't really care at the moment. "mm, you'll learn all 'bout it soon enough, though... eventually," hobie muses

♡ miles is not as big on pet names as hobie is. hobie has like 24984 nicknames for miles but miles mostly sticks to just calling his partner by his name. one day during history class tho a lightbulb moment happens, and when they meet up again miles is excited

"hobie!! guess what, i really got it this time. i have a nickname that i know you're gonna love!"

"spill," hobie says as he throws an arm over miles' shoulders.

"so you always call me sunflower all the time, right? and your name is ho... bee. get it? so i was thinkin' i'm gonna call you 'honey bee' now. y'know, you're not the only one who's got corny ass nicknames! it's good, right?"

hobie has to fight not to grin like a jackass

♡ hobie's sleep schedule is atrocious so whenever miles can manage it, he tries to wrestle his partner into any bed and tucks him in. hobie is touched that his sunflower cares so much about him ♡

♡ miles almost never gets permission to sleep over other friends' houses but on the rare occasions he does, he leaps into portals and goes to visit hobie in his dimension. his fave part of New London is hobie's boat, bc they set up a big hammock for them to lay in, feeling the sway of the boat and letting it lull them to sleep. not to mention that the boat itself is totally badass, and hobie more often than not encourages miles to cover it in graffiti

♡ hobie lowkey (but highkey) loves when miles gets a little bossy, forceful or stern. he loves ribbing miles about it (the "ill do it, but not cuz you told me to" line in mumbattan was a total joke from hobie btw LOL) and saying corny shit in response to a demand, but he loves seeing miles being confident and calling the shots every once in a while. it makes him proud

♡ if they can, miles and hobie try to gather up as much food as they can and take it over to the F.E.A.S.T. that's in hobie's dimension. miles meets hobie's "family" there and gets to know the community, which feels so much more tight-knit and welcoming than Visions. once miles gets over the major jarring differences between his world and hobie's, he finds he LOVES New London

♡ miles and hobie teach each other slang from their countries and time periods, you can't change my mind. miles walks around saying shit like "bloody 'ell" and "septic" all the time. the one time hobie said "deadass" completely unironically, all of the spiderkids DIED laughing

♡ miles learns that EVERY spider is a total dweeb in some way shape or form. even hobie! hobie's awkwardness comes out when theyre in big groups of people. hobie is oddly comfy with performing in front of crowds but when he's invited to parties and tries mingling, it's so... sooo awkward. miles secretly rejoices when he finds out hobie's weakness

♡ i'm an adhd hobie truther and i hc that miles buys hobie the weirdest fidget toys he can get his hands on. along with his switchblade, jewelry, and whatever he stole that day, hobie carries various different fidget toys in his vest to keep boredom at bay

♡ hobie definitely writes songs for miles but takes a very very very long time to actually admit it. miles finally finds out when one of hobie's songwriting notebooks falls open when hanging out in his boat, and hobie comes clean about it. with miles' encouragement tho, hobie makes the decision to add some of those songs into the usual setlist his band performs

♡ if miles ever has time, he tries to attend whatever gig hobie and his band has going on. he loves to see hobie perform on stage, his energy and stage presence is always electrifying

#mine #across the spiderverse #punkflower #miles morales #hobie brown #stupid ass tumblr posted my 1st draft completely randomly while i was in the middle of writing this #so uh if theres any mistakes its cuz i had to rewrite ALLLL of this in my notes app #hope yall enjoy tho ♡ #i am relatively new to this fandom.... kinda? well specifically punkflower #so if these hcs are basically fanon i wouldn't know lol i just skimmed the tag on tumblr recently #im going purely off of Vibes and movie/comic canon #ive seen some good takes in the tags as well and those inspired me too!! #so ye hehehe #these 2 are giving me brainworms my god i havent even written hcs for my other OTP #i should.... probably get started on that since i kinda had fun writing this! #and uh if theres mistakes you noticed at all i also wrote most of these while.... zooted as well. so. yeah lol #spiderverse

[prince-liest]

On Alastor calling Vox “lover”, i thought it was the complete reverse - that he said it with only malicious intent in the wire play fic (to satisfy his own itch to hurt vox), and in the latest one it’s just “i’m being sarcastic” (but i don’t feel well and i need a stepping stone at this very moment tho i’ll never admit it) but i guess i misunderstood? tho i suppose this only shows how well u write alastor’s character because he is not easy to decipher

Alastor is a character that lies a lot, both to himself about his feelings and to others, and his narration is pretty unreliable! I do try to insert, like, the hints, context, and behaviors that point to what his true feelings actually are, but a lot of it is through implication and so there's a lot of room for different interpretation in how I write him!

That said, you're not the first person to think he was being genuinely malicious and nothing but in the wireplay fic, so... death of the author and all that, but if you are interested in my take on how it was originally intended:

Alastor is so incredibly fucking fond of Vox in that scene in S6E66, Now Rerunning: The Hentai Episode! He says some absolutely heinous shit, but his tone is fond, and warm, and condescending, and it is very, very obvious to him that Vox enjoys being humiliated and at Alastor's whims. He compliments Vox's distress, he makes a little winking joke about the "rut" comment because they both know that was Alastor just the other day, and he unequivocally denies any implication that he's rejecting Vox's love.

He's a total narcissist on a power trip, and Vox being so into his little menacing routine that he drops the I think I'm in love with you is basically heroin to Alastor's ego. But he's also just been growing increasingly fond of Vox over the course of their relationship - there's a reason that the very next installment is one where Alastor is in fact really fucking upset to have been ghosted, even though a lot of the cause of that ghosting is that neither of them are open communicators that do things like properly check in a la, "Hey, we just did a really undernegotiated scene where I mocked your very sincere emotions, where are we on that?" because they've been flying by the seat of their pants and expect mutual understanding where there isn't necessarily enough of it and getting away with it. Until that point, at least.

So he says "lover" because he's making fun of Vox, yes, but he's making fun of Vox because he enjoys and is genuinely fond of Vox when he's pathetic and obsessive, and also because he knows that Vox enjoys it, too. Safe, sane, and consensual? No. But not genuinely malicious in intent, either!

He doesn't want to hurt Vox for the sadistic hell of it (to quote Alastor himself: "If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already!"), he wants to hurt Vox because the fact that Vox is so in love that he will let him (and ask for more) is acutely and inordinately pleasing to Alastor. A lot of his dialogue echoes that: he tells Vox to ask for it, then tells him to beg, then makes fun of him for not asking Alastor to stop.

And afterward: Well, he's not very good at actually being reassuring, but he makes a few genuine efforts at it, to the extent that his own ego will allow him to. If he didn't actually give a shit, he very much would have dumped Vox on the floor after having his fun and just left. But he cares enough to make sure Vox is at least remotely alright, and he's even fond enough to suffer through some skin-to-skin until his squick meter taps him out.

In contrast, in Network 0666: No Signal, Alastor is once again mocking Vox for claiming to love him - but he's doing it while struggling his way through a panic attack that has sent him spiraling under the assumption that Vox's alleged "love" is just possessiveness that led him to try to leash Alastor to his own power. He says "lover" and immediately follows it by describing the ways in which he thinks Vox is a traitor who is bastardizing the very word. He's not, at that moment, even using it as a weapon against Vox - why would it hurt Vox, after all, if he doesn't really love Alastor - but rather as a way of mocking himself for actually falling for the ruse. He doesn't genuinely break out of it until he reaches to touch the chain again and finds that it's been gone since Vox reached out to help him.

Anyway, I hope that helped or at least was an interesting read! Alastor is a very unreliable narrator and it makes him a great deal of fun.

#ask #personal #Anonymous #nsft #my writing #hazbin hotel #radiostatic #long post #I should have a tag for this fic series specifically klxjhcfg #is it too late to start one? #666 live on air #I'll go back and add some other posts to it later hopefully

[4lph4kidz]

i was thinking about your dirk and hal poll and i want to mention that i think your concept for ink and iron where dirk creates hal from his reflection by enchanting a mirror is so cool 😌

thank you! hal's predicament and purpose within the canon narrative is so fascinating and i felt it was really important to find a way to explore what i find most interesting with him. i can't take full credit for the concept though i took inspiration from a few placees (one of my friends pitched the idea of the mirror accidentally dumping him onto jake's doorstop for example) but overall i think the idea is very fun and i'm really excited to write more hal stuff!!! also i'm going to take the opportunity to share this oldish doodle i found:

the mispelling of angel as angle was NOT intentional (<- dyslexia haver) but it probably explains a lot. he's pointy

#obviously an AU is going to be different from canon #but i like AUs specifically *because* i have a lot of fun trying to translate canon ideas into another setting or genre in general #in this case its a riff on the fairy tale magic mirror #hal is still an experiment gone wrong/artificial being created to serve a purpose trapped in a non-physical form and denied personhood #as well as being an extension of dirk's selfhood and very literal expression of his self image #this time with extra gender problems as per my original intentions for the fic. which now feel more than a bit heavy handed but whatever #point is hal gets to play up the trapped demon/spirit/almost genie-esque angle isntead of the artificial intelligence schtick in canon #which i am having a lot of fun writing! #he is also a very important plot device. multitalented 💕 #for anyone wondering i&i is NOT an abandoned project its just huge and whipping it into shape is slow going #i've taken breaks to work on other stuff too #ink and iron #i guess that's a tag i should start using #even though i'm not too happy with the title still. lmao

[zukkaoru]

🌱 alive & free (look at me!) 🌱

The man is wrapped in a blanket that was likely white at one point but is now smeared with dirt and grass stains. His hair, too, is dirty. Like he’s been sleeping on the ground for more than just one night. Kenji tiptoes over to him. He rolls his shoulder, then kneels down beside the man and pokes him. “Um, sir, are you okay?” The man doesn’t respond. Kenji pokes him harder, putting a little extra strength into it with the help of his ability. The man rolls from his side over onto his stomach, groaning. Kenji breathes out a sigh of relief. That means he’s not dead, at least. “Are you—” he whistles. “Are you hurt?” “Twelve seconds,” the man responds, still facedown in the dirt. “Then, I’m going kill you.”

after the decay of angels incident, kenji makes a new friend and nikolai starts to heal

🌱 22.4k words || kenji & nikolai || post-doa arc 🌱 written for corey @that-was-anticlimactic <3

#kenji miyazawa #nikolai gogol #bsd #bungou stray dogs #nikolai #fyonikonathan #<- there's enough in there it counts i'm tagging it here #anyway. um. oh my god i can't believe i wrote this #my longest oneshot in just over two years. my longest bsd fic to date. #and it's about two characters i have STRUGGLED with getting down #like nikolai i was pretty confident with when i started this. but kenji????? #man i jumped into this blind with him and i somehow found him along the way #anyway not to toot my own horn but i went off with this fic. it's a banger. you all should read it #grace's writing tag

[tickle-bugs]

Pre-Flight Checks

@allytheally: hi :) here's a prompt: you reblogged this thing a while ago about the seatbelts on aircraft (one on the shoulder, waist, and individual ones for the thighs) (https://www.tumblr.com/tickle-bugs/715247149506609152/hey-there-i-work-with-fighter-jets-super-hornets?source=share) and I think it'd be great if you wrote something incorporating this idea... like maybe lee!hangman and ler!rooster or lee!mav and ler!iceman and/or ler!slider? honestly any pairing would be cool

“Gooooood mornin’, Rooster.” The heavy impacts of boots on the stepladder send Bradley’s eye twitching. Hangman’s presence has a volume the way bright light slowly wears on the eyes.

“What do you want?” 

“Me? I just came over to help with your pre-flight checks.” Hangman grins, cocksure. A sliver of sunshine lights up his eyes over the edge of his aviators. 

“I’m clear, but thanks.” Bradley gives a little ‘shoo’ motion with his hands. 

“Lemme give it a second opinion.” Hangman hoists himself up to get a better view of the cockpit. He makes a big show of scanning over the switches and buttons and humming in thought. 

“Knock yourself out.” Bradley snorts and turns away. Hangman’s indecipherable muttering falls easily away under the buzz of his brain. He double and triple checks everything, noting the feel of each switch and knob under his practiced hands. Finding the rhythm of his plane is half the ritual.

Wiggling fingers fit suddenly into the curve of Bradley’s waist and he barks out a laugh, knees jerking against the straps holding him. 

He blinks at Hangman. Hangman grins at him. 

“Don’t--” Bradley dives to grab his hands, but the seatbelts, ever-dutiful, wrench him back into place. 

“Oh, now that sounds like you’ve got somethin’ loose. No pilot should be making that noise.” Hangman tuts, but he doesn’t stop, just lets his stupid hands do their stupid crawl across his stupidly sensitive stomach. Bradley lets out a giggly shriek and tries to fold in half. 

“Oh, Mav wasn’t kidding. This is my lucky day.”

“Youuuu--” Whatever half-baked insult Bradley was aiming for is smothered by his own laughter. 

“Meeeee. Say, are you ticklish anywhere else? Gotta catalogue this for future use. Scream once for yes or twice for no.” Hangman tazes his sides and Bradley’s voice cracks around his laughter.

He’s going to die in this plane. He better die in this plane, otherwise he’s going to gut Hangman like a fish.

…No, he won’t. 

Bradley manages to plant his hand square on Hangman’s face and start pushing, and the ultimatum between continuing the torment or falling onto concrete makes Hangman finally, blessedly let go. 

“Seems like everything’s in order. Pleasant skies, Rooster.” Hangman pats his shoulder and hops down out of sight. 

In his mind’s eye, he’s shaking Hangman by the shoulders until his brain falls out of his ears. In practice, he’s turning his burning face and shy half-smile back towards the controls with hopes of killing both.

…

“Mornin’, Bradshaw.” Hangman pops up like a gopher. Bradley jumps and nearly flips his lounge chair. 

“Seresin.” He exhales tightly through his nose. He stays very still—maybe he can still salvage the last throes of the sun-warmed nap he was finding his way towards. 

“You seem tense.” Hangman cocks his head in something that passes for concern. The rushing ocean suddenly sounds more like an omen. 

“There’s no one else around for you to bother right now?” Bradley leans up on his elbows to search for the other Daggers. He can hear Fanboy laughing somewhere, he thinks, but Hangman’s giant head blotting out the sun is the only thing he can see. 

“Nope!” Hangman makes a big show of cracking his knuckles and stretching his fingers. Bradley’s eyes widen. 

“Don’t you dare.” 

“You’ll have to be more specific. Don’t what?” The expression that Hangman generates overshoots innocence by a country mile. 

“Tickle me, you asshole.” Bradley winds an arm around his torso and scrambles up in his lounge chair. The fluttery kick of anticipation slaps a smile straight across his face. 

“I can’t believe you fell for that.”

“Fell for--”

Bradley pauses as it dawns on him. Watching it dawn on Hangman is worse--his entire face brightens with mischief. 

Bradley starts stammering through a protest and giggling through another, but Hangman’s kneeling over him before any of it becomes coherent. He flails hard enough to send them both tumbling into the sand. Never in his life has he been more grateful to be alone, if only to keep the pitch of his laughter between him and the menace causing it.

He makes a note to keep his shirt on at the beach. 

…

Maybe a week or so of this puts Bradley in a…strange headspace. Distracted. 

Touch is nice, but there’s more of it lately, enough to make him notice and crave its absence in a way he hadn’t before. When Phoenix leans into his side or Fanboy claps his shoulder, he misses the warmth of their touch after. Even Hangman’s utter nonsense sets a gentle buzz into his chest. It’s dizzying. 

He’s so lost in the ache of it that Mav catches on, and it kicks solidly into that tangle of ‘complicated shit’ between them that he keeps putting away for increasingly rainer days. He’d gotten so used to Mav tiptoeing around him as if he were fragile that the first gentle touch on the shoulder almost shatters him. 

The Daggers meet for a barbecue at Mav’s and Bradley shows up early with a bottle of Ice’s favorite Pinot. Things may be complicated, but the mushy smiles on Ice and Mav’s faces are not. It’s nice, putting ‘complicated’ in motion towards being something else. Something lighter. 

Later into the night, Bradley’s got his feet kicked up on the couch in the hangar and the radio crooning slowly in his ear. 

He watches Mav and Ice dance--more of a sway, really, as they banter. Mav’s got a playful tilt to his smile, one that suggests he’s being as much a menace as he’s visibly in love. Bradley smiles and hums along, halfheartedly wondering what Mav might be pestering Ice with.

“This seat taken?” Not waiting for an answer, Hangman picks up his ankles and takes their spot. Bradley brings his heels down hard on his thigh. He gets a swat on the ankle for his trouble. Still, the weight of Hangman’s arm on his legs is comforting. Solid. 

A room full of people to bother, yet Hangman finds him. Hm. 

“Why’re you so obsessed with me lately?” Bradley nudges him with his ankle. Hangman’s eyebrows raise.

Well. He’d meant to say that with a bit more tact but it’s out there now, between them. 

Hangman snorts softly and passes Bradley a beer. He pops the caps on both and pockets them. Probably donations for Coyote’s collection. 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Bradshaw.” Hangman gives him an utterly complex and unreadable look before taking a swig of his beer. ‘Complex’ and ‘unreadable’ are not words that belong anywhere near him. 

“You didn’t answer the question.” Bradley frowns. 

“It’s a stupid question.” 

“Seresin.” Bradley leans forward to smack his shoulder. 

“Alright, fine.” Hangman exhales tightly. “You’ve been moping around like a dark fuckin’ cloud these past few weeks and we couldn’t figure out how to get you out of it. We ran out of ideas and eventually Mav realized he couldn’t hide from us anymore, so he coughed up a solution. Something he said we could try, and I quote, ‘at risk of your lives’. Never thought he’d suggest tickling, but--”

“You went to Mav?”  

“Yeah, and Mav—“ Hangman imitates the way Bradley’s voice cracks— “told Phoenix to try it if all else failed, she told Bob, Bob told me, and now we’re here. And it worked.”

Bradley’s brain stalls out. He sits up, bracing his elbows on his knees. He drops his face into his hands. 

“Oh my god. So everyone knows?” He peeks through his fingers. Hangman shrugs.

“Well, I don’t think Fanboy was paying much attention.” He scratches idly at his jaw. 

“Mav said if all else failed. I didn’t—you guys didn’t try anything else.” Bradley fiddles with the label on the bottle. 

Hangman raises his eyebrow in the precise shape of ‘oh really?’. 

“Remember when Bob tried to buy you soup? Or when Payback made a fool of himself trying to sing Great Balls of Fire? Or when Fanboy tried to introduce you to Star Trek? Or—“

Oh. 

For maybe the only time in his life, Hangman snaps his jaw shut. Bradley furrows his brow. 

“Look…point is, you keep making that exact face you’ve got right now, and concerned parties asked me to investigate.” Hangman swirls his finger around Bradley’s face. He swats it away on habit, but fondness bubbles in the base of his throat. 

“Concerned parties?” A smile sneaks under his mustache.

“Yeah, Phoenix and the rest of them were worried. Not me though.” Hangman takes a long, incriminating swig from his bottle. 

“Not you?” Bradley tilts his head teasingly.

“Nope. I’m a neutral party. Like Sweden.”

“It’s Switzerland, dumbass.” Bradley knocks shoulders with him. Something about Hangman’s smile tells him he already knew that.

“Sure. Whatever.” Hangman throws his arm across the back of the couch. His fingers brush Bradley’s arm. The fondness settles into a resonant hum deep in Bradley’s chest.

“You’ve got your shit with Mav and your past. I get it. But some of us would like to see you smile more than twice a week.” Hangman gestures with his bottle. His movements are loose in the practiced Seresin way, but the care on his face is stunningly plain. 

“Some of us?” Bradley grins. Hangman narrows his eyes. 

“Concerned parties.” His cheeks grow rosy even as he scowls. 

“You are obsessed with me and I’m telling Phoenix.” Bradley pats his shoulder and makes a break for it. A fist grabs a handful of his collar. 

“Like hell you are!” 

The (thankfully empty) bottles clatter to the floor as Hangman wrestles an already-laughing Bradley back down to the couch. He tries not to think too hard about hearing Mav cheer in the background. 

…

Bradley does not start fights. He does not. He finishes them.

He slips past Phoenix and Bob, nodding in passing, and ducks up to Hangman’s Super Hornet. He can feel their eyes on him--especially Bob, he’s got a killer stare for someone so quiet--but he ignores it. 

It’s not a fight, not really, but if he thinks about what he’s doing too hard he’s going to lock himself in a supply closet somewhere. 

Bradley hops up the steps alongside the cockpit. 

“Rooster! To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing your ugly mug?” Hangman grins and bats his eyelashes. 

“I heard you were challenging Mav. Wanted to get a good look at you before you spend the rest of the evening with your face to the tarmac.” Rooster holds up his fingers like a picture frame. 

“Try not to miss me too much.” Hangman winks, insufferable as always. 

“Miss you? Every second you’re not buzzing around down here is a second of peace.” Bradley reaches up and knocks on his helmet. 

“Would you kindly get the fuck off my plane?” Hangman swats lazily at him. Bradley bats his hands away. 

“Before you go, just thought I’d see how your pre-flight checks are going?”

Hangman goes rigid. Bradley grins evilly at him.

“Bradshaw, don’t you fuckin’—“ 

Bradley fumbles with Hangman’s hands and flight equipment until he can jam his fingers right into the soft parts of his side. Hangman yelps and nearly jumps out of his skin. The seatbelts ensure there’s nowhere for him to go, and the clacking of the buckles only spurs Bradley on.

“I thought you’d put up more of a fight than this, Hangman.” Bradley tuts and shakes his head, worming his fingers up under straps to get at his ribs. Hangman well and truly shrieks.

“I am g-going to kill you!” Hangman shakes with the force of his laughter, folded awkwardly into his seatbelts. He shoves uselessly at Bradley’s chest. 

“And I’m never gonna let this go. Think I could get you to do that again, or are you a one hit wonder?” Bradley squeezes quickly at Hangman’s thigh. His hands slap down hard on top of Bradley’s and he starts cackling his way to incoherency. 

Bradley raises his eyebrow and times the squeezes to every escape attempt. It’s incredibly entertaining to listen to Hangman reinvent the squeal. He wonders if the other Daggers know about this yet. 

The sound of a throat clearing nearly sends Bradley toppling backwards off the plane. Strong hands heave him upright and he turns--Maverick’s eyes crinkle around the edges of his sunglasses. 

“Appreciate you getting a head start on destroying him, Rooster, but I believe that’s my job.” Mav pats him on the shoulder. Bradley goes to duck away, but Hangman makes a swipe for his sides, and he can’t let that stand. He leans back into the cockpit and tickles Hangman’s ribs until he’s screeching between hiccups and an interesting shade of red. 

“Aren’t you ssssupposed to help me?” Hangman crumples in around Bradley’s hands, wriggling like a worm on a hook. 

“Help you? No. Teach you? Sure. Wheels up in two minutes. Hopefully you’ll learn a thing or two about getting your ass handed to you.” Mav pulls Bradley back by the shoulder. He lets it happen. Hangman thunks his head back against his seat, chest heaving. 

“Bold words, Pops. We’ll see who comes out on top.” He clicks his tongue and winks. Insufferable bastard. 

“See you in the skies, Hangman.” Mav pokes Hangman’s stomach. 

…

The lounge at Top Gun hums with quiet chatter through the evening as the Daggers share drinks. Bradley’s tucked against the wall with Phoenix and Bob under his arms. He’s half watching Fanboy and Payback fumble through a game of pool, half listening to a story Phoenix is telling, and fully content to lose himself in the sound of her voice. 

The door slams open, welcoming a sweaty and disgruntled Hangman to the room. Scattered laughter and teasing applause kicks up among the other Daggers. He gives the entire room the finger. 

“Yeah, laugh it up. I was off my game.” He pushes his hair out of his eyes. Coyote offers him a pity beer. He takes it. 

“I wonder why.” Bradley chuckles. Phoenix swats his chest. Hangman locks eyes with him, absolutely feral. Bradley goes to make a run for it, but Phoenix hooks her arms under his. He could break her grip if he really tried, but…

When Hangman barrels towards him and tackles him over the back of the couch, Bradley can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.

#ok this was supposed to be mostly lee!hangman but i started thinking about bradley and blacked out #hope you still like it tho!! hangman still gets got as he should #idc if you tag this as ship btw #background icemav bc they are married #special thanks to chock who reminded me that writing is fun and i like to do it <3 #my fics #top gun maverick #ticklish!rooster #ticklish!hangman #bradley 'rooster' bradshaw #jake 'hangman' seresin #not tagging the other daggers they're barely here <3 #idk how I feel about this fic still but it was fun to write

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

#followers!! I know my demographic #I know that most of y'all are Tragic Queer Romance Enjoyers #and if that describes you. you should read this post #come learn about a truly wild piece of manga history #I bring you the gift of discovering Yulma without having to read almost 200 chapters of shonen manga for context #don't pass this up <3 #dgm #d.gray-man #yu kanda #yulma #alma karma #invasion of the frogs #also I really hope that at least one of the besties reads this and has a Realization about who/what my queue tag is a reference to #maybe I flatter myself to think that anyone remembers what my queue tag is. but I just think it would be funny <3 #also also. I really did not intend for this post to turn into an entire essay when I started writing it #so uh. whoops #ID in alt text #anon #ask

[rosenbergamot]

Something about a bottle of vodka that (almost) jogs your memory

“Scar…” Grian’s exasperated voice rings through monopoly mountain. He quickly peeks down into the first level. His friend is holding the bottle of vodka he had managed to find ages ago. “Where on earth did you find this. How on earth did you find this. What even are you doing with this.” 

None of his ‘questions’ are actually questions; his inflection does not go up, as Grian is not actually curious as to where he got the alcohol, rather he is tired of his shenanigans and trying desperately not to lose his mind. Scar kicks his feet and giggles, his hair leaking over and dangling in the air. 

“Why, I got it from the village, of course! Before I burnt down that house— you remember the one, don’t you, Grian? It seems those pesky villagers knew how to distill alcohol. Have you ever seen that before, Grian? Distilling alcohol? In a village? It’s madness!” 

Grian’s beady little eyes glare up at him from the ground floor. “Scar, I don’t think either of us have seen villagers before we got here. There’s not much we’ve seen.” 

Of course they have. They’ve had to. It was only natural— he knows it in his heart. But they can’t remember this fact. When Scar tries to hold onto the memory, it floats away from him. Things he should know dissolve between his fingers. Things he shouldn’t know linger on the back of his neck. 

He picks up his cane and walks downstairs. The slats of the window are tiny but if one squints and tilts their head in the right direction, then they can see the entire desert and forest sprawled out in front of them. The sands sometimes hold their footprints until the wind blows them away, covers the paths they’ve taken. They’re still working on building up a cactus wall as defense. 

The sandstone awards them a bit of coolness in the day. At night it becomes unbearable, as they both flock upstairs to try and conserve as much heat as possible. There’s always a careful distance they keep from each other in the day, but during the night it becomes impossible to do so. When Grian grumbles and pushes his nest towards Scar’s sleeping bag, curls up right next to him and nudges at his arms until they open and he can be enveloped by him, that’s when Scar truly feels like he’s back to being a person again. 

If they could mend the self inflicted rift that exists in the daytime… well, maybe Scar wouldn’t feel so prone to drinking. As it stands, though, Grian’s found his bottle of alcohol and he is not looking impressed.

“Say, have you ever had a drink before?” He asks as he peels the bottle out of Grian’s hand. He smells like the sun. He’s been out all day. 

Grian scoffs, his pretty features twisting a bit as he obviously thinks about it. “Of course I have! I-- well, I haven’t had one here, but I can only imagine I have before. In another life.”

In another life. If only they got to have that. Another life seems like an intangible dream. 

He hums thoughtfully. He’s only had a few drinks from this bottle. Just enough to stave off the gnawing anxiety and bloodlust that grows underneath his skin everyday. 

He starts to toss the bottle from hand to hand, watching the way the liquid inside jostles. “The taste was at least a little bit familiar to me when I tried some. I’ve definitely had it before! No clue when. I wonder what I liked to drink before I got here? That guy… the other me. I wonder what he was like.” 

He laughs but it doesn’t have much humour. 

And Grian’s eyes look softer when he finally peels his stare away from the droplets racing down the bottle. “Yeah, it would seem that bits of our past bled through into this life. Like, I can’t resist pressing a button or flicking a lever no matter how dangerous it may be. Other me must’ve been a right moron, don’t know how I lived to be… here.” A hum. “And redstone makes me… sad. As if I’ve lost something close to me. Something really important." His face falls. “I don’t get it.” 

Normally Grian only gets like this when the sun falls. Normally he’s guarded, witty, sharp; and Scar is much the same, each of them trying so desperately to preserve what little bits of dignity they have left here. Prideful people. Pride is such a sin, he can see it now. 

He sits down, stares at the swirling shapes of the sandstone on the wall. “Sometimes I can feel my brain try to remember my memories. Things important to me. People important to me. But it’s like there’s a… a block.” 

A strange warble comes from Grian. He makes those sounds sometimes-- bird sounds, that is, which makes a lot of sense given that he is a hybrid, but they only happen in specific circumstances. They’re different each time, from chirps to melodies to whistles to clicks. It happens when he’s bored, when he snuggles up next to Scar at night, when he accidentally hurts himself, when Pizza is being extra cute.

This sound is sad. It rings in his chest. 

“I’ve tried to ignore it.” Is what he admits after a few minutes. “I, um… grabbing this gave me one of those feelings like you described. It was as if I’d done this before. Not just with anyone. With you...” His voice gets real quiet at the end. 

Scar fights to keep his voice even as he responds. “Do… do you think we knew each other before?” Before we got thrown into hell. 

For Scar, the answer to that question is obvious: yes. He felt it as soon as he saw all of them. He felt something deep in his chest when he saw Grian, flashes of memories trying to bubble up to the surface but unable to. When Bdubs first spoke to him, he felt an immediate instinct to comment on his height-- which would have been very rude of him! They’d just met, after all!

Except they hadn’t. They’d known each other before. An election. A moon. A home. What even is he trying to remember? 

“I…” Another sound worms its way out of Grian. It’s more desperate, uncomfortable. He laughs it off awkwardly. “Can I try a sip of that alcohol? I think I suddenly need it.”

For the first time since they began talking, Scar really looks at Grian. His face is tight with stress, eyes shiny, nose flaring. His feathers are all fanned out, his ears twitching. In another life, Scar thinks maybe he also had wings. He can feel an absence on his back, like something has been missing all along, a vital piece of him.

Grian’s wings don’t work. None of the avians have actual working wings that can sustain them for a long period above the ground; they can all flutter, sure, but it’s as if their bodies aren’t made for it anymore despite them having these traits. 

He tries to make his smile as gentle as possible as he passes him the bottle. “Of course, of course! Would be downright cruel of me to make you handle this while sober!” He aims for a humorous tone, but the situation is so fucked up and strange that it falls flat. His smile is pulling painfully at the edges. 

Grian unscrews the bottle, smells it. He makes a face. He looks at him.

“I recommend not smelling it.” 

He rolls his eyes, then takes a swig of it. The face immediately turns to disgust. He swallows it, gagging, coughing, pounding his fist onto the table. It looks just like he did when he tried for the first time. It makes him start to laugh. 

“Scar!” He wails. “It tastes horrible!” 

“It does.” He swipes it from Grian, steeling himself before taking a sip. He only flinches a little bit this time. He looks to see if it impressed Grian, but the avian is flapping his hands, eyes screwed shut. Dangit. “It’s not supposed to taste nice, Grian! Because then you would drink all of it and it would be horrible. It’s the alcohol’s defense mechanism, y’see? It makes itself so bitter when you first take a sip that you run away immediately! That way you don’t drink it all right up and end up gettin’ yourself killed! But it doesn’t work on me.” 

For better or for worse.

Peeling his face off the table, Grian turns to glare at him. “Well, it could stand to taste a little less like… that. Maybe then it would hurt less people.” 

“I guess.” He studies the way the bottle glints in the diminishing daylight. “So… are you gonna have anymore?”

“Are you kidding me?” He scoffs. “Of course I am. Pass it here.”

#yeah . heres a little drabble #desert duo #scarian #hermitshipping #its not like. apparent or anything but theyre always pining after each other in my brain #so yeah <3 peace and love #hermitfic #my fic #i shoulld start using that tag HEHE #rosie writing #theres talk ab drinking and they Do sip vodka so. be aware #should i post this on ao3??? idk if its like. worthi t? ?? #lmk. peace and love. and plants #also i DONT know how the inside of monopoly mountain looks im just writing based off of vibes #trafficblr #trafficshipping #i literally forgot that this is technically not hermitcraft LMAO

[princncess]

I’m curled up in my cage holding onto a pillow. I’ve been here for a long time and have pretty much gotten used to it.

I hear your footsteps approach and the door open, and instinctively press myself back against the wall side of the cage, holding my pillow tighter and lightly shaking from time to time as I tend to do in your presence. I look up at you with a little bit of fear, but most of what used to be behind my eyes is gone now anyway. You tell me in a calm voice that you’re just bringing me my food, nothing to worry about. I stay pressed against the wall as you open the door and place my bowl and water cup down, and only relax once you leave. You even gave me a utensil this time, how nice. I would have thanked you, but you cut out my tongue a long time ago.

I eat my food and finish my water, placing the bowl and plastic cup by the cage door and returning to my original position: blankly staring off as I hold onto my pillow. You come in again to get the dishes, and I press back against the wall as usual. My gaze remains empty and unfocused; shrinking away from you is an automatic, rote response at this point. You take the dishes and leave the room.

You come back after a few minutes and lie down next to me; the cage is roomy enough to accommodate us both laying down. The wall and I are once more acquainted, you our matchmaker. You smile at me.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, tone indicating no displeasure of your own, but still an awareness of my circumstance. I softly shrug at you, coming loose from the wall a bit but still mostly hidden by a blanket and the pillow held tight to me.

“Well do you feel good?” I softly shake my head. I’ve learned that you don’t tend to get mad at me if I tell you I feel bad. Maybe you care how I feel, viewing me as a loved pet, or maybe you just like hearing that I’m hurting. No way for me to know.

“What can I do to make you feel better?” I shrug again, sunken eyes finally dragged from the floor to meet yours.

“There must be something.” Lots of things would make me feel better. Let me go, hurt me less, kill me, give me sweets. I don’t ask for any of these things, either because I already know you’d refuse or because of difficulty in communication. Instead of asking for any of those, I settle on the one thing I can think of that would make me feel better (stop steadily feeling worse) at the moment. I pull my arm out from under the blanket and point off into the distance behind you.

You look back where I pointed. “Hmm? You want something over there?” I sigh. “Mm-mm.” “What is it then?” I point at you, then point back to the distance. Your tone drops to a slightly raised dull monotone as you realize what I’m saying. “Me, go away. That’s what you want.”

Your tone scares me, makes me think I’ve upset you. My breathing quickens. I hide behind my blanket and raise my arm to cover my eyes, softly whimpering.

You sigh and return your tone to normal. “I’m not mad at you. Come on out.” You softly pull at my wrist, I let you take my arm from my face- I know better than to resist you. “I’m not upset. I’m not going away like you want, but I’m not mad at you.” You wait for a few moments while I calm down.

“Is there anything else you want, something I’m willing to do for you?” I stare at you for a while. Finally, I hold my arm out in your direction, palm facing up. You can see the scar along my wrist from the time I tried to free myself from you. That’s why I get plastic cups now. You infer that I need your hand to finish communicating, and place it in mine. I move my hand up to hold your wrist.

I gently guide your hand to the side of my head, and holding your wrist, stroke my own hair a couple times. I let go and you continue stroking my head as I put my arm back under the blanket. I bury the lower half of my face in my pillow and close my eyes. My breathing is slow, and tears trail sideways over my nose until they soak into the pillow. I keep softly shaking as you pet me.

#long term kidnapping auuuugkgghhbnm #i should start tagging my longer stories #princncess writing #that’ll do for now