#i will say i compare my whump art here to the old art on my g/t blog when i had just started digital art and goddamn | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starpuncher · 9 months

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so i've been doing some yaoi archaeology recently regarding mid 2010s homestuck fandom. presumably we've all been there and the audience is still with me.

what's striking to me about perusing these ancient cave drawings is how differently i experience them in the present compared to my impression of them in the past, at 12-15, which i felt at the time was significantly younger than both homestuck's target audience and the fandom population at large. my memory of homestuck fandom is that it was this bottomless cornucopia of incredible fanart; i've said to friends in conversation that i didn't think i would ever see a fandom with artistic output like that again in my lifetime. on reflection, though. on reflection, by which i mean a series of blog crawls through fanart archives going back over a decade, i may have been somewhat mistaken, and also thirteen years old. it turns out that to an untrained eye all fanart is equally incredible; there are pieces i remember as masterpieces that i now view (fondly!) as... kinda bad. this isn't a flex, it's just weird to realize that i surpassed 90% of my 13 year old art idols back in college. even as the eye improves, memory preserves amateur yaoi as comparable to an enlightenment masterpiece. then again, my memory sucks.* modern trigun fandom's output is probably more artistically on par with what i remember homestuck being, and even then not quite there.

due to tumblr's salted earth policy towards tits i can't say how much of the pervert aspect of homestuck fandom was true to my teenage recollection, but what scraps remain aren't super far off. based on limited records it SEEMS to have been both hornier and at once less (broad gesture towards the western slash hentai flavor of nonconsent)(a different beast entirely than yaoi nonconsent trust me there are different artistic movements at play here, influencing one another asymmetrically) than i remember. the layers of secondhand midwestern christianity continue to peel. i wouldn't describe my teenage self as being scared of sex/averse to internet porn as a rule, and yet interpreting what seems to have been a generally sex-positive fanart as notably debauched has a distinctive aroma of that mild psychosis. while the, uh, choices in ships were, hm, certainly more varied (the coward's description), the particulars of the fanart were fairly in line with modern fandom ship content (note: on several blogs, even what's been wiped retains hints in the tags applied to what are now blank images) (additional note: the author is considering the output of twitter fujoshis as constituting a broader slice of 'modern fandom ship content' than may be accurate).

whump, like actual no bullshit whump, is what i most notice as present in past fandom, now extinct beyond its most watered-down subtypes. think diary comics about depression. trigun volume 10 and the fanart it's spawned hurt, yeah, but that's a tragedy. that's a narrative. maybe (MAYBE) it's a positive indicator for the health of the larger organism that i don't see fanart of anime boy self-harm anymore. but i doubt it. i think gore fanartists still exist, in theory? gore as a focus is to me a different category than fanart with gore as an artistic inclusion. guts mean different things spilling out of what is essentially a blank canvas than they do when they belong to, i dunno, that pink bitch from jujutsu kaisen. what the fuck was his name. jujutsu kaisen is one of several recent shounen serializations that reflect a trend towards more overt gore/body horror/aesthetic grimdarkness in the mainstream, occurring parallel to the broader fandom retreat from similar visceral pain (and blood and guts and all that). i'm off topic. gore is itself different from whump, and you can still find gore if you look for it. gore is about flesh (as metaphor, but flesh regardless), whump is about suffering. there is frequently no metaphor to be had, or what is there is diaphanous and possibly accidental. i've seen several posts to the effect of 'we've lost weird sex in fandom' but i've seen what people do to vash's pussy on twitter. i think we've lost something else entirely. the weird sex remains, however cloistered by the architecture of a failing website inherently hostile to search and archival functions. the naked edginess (rawness? (is this a joke about flesh)) of whump is, for better or worse, not really a current part of the fandom ecosystem. i cannot remember the last time i saw an anime boy cut himself.

and again, maybe that's a good thing, but again, i doubt it. shockingly, i would not describe the broader internet populace as 'more mentally and emotionally healthy than 2014'. the word i would use is probably 'worse'. just worse. just like so much worse that any attempt at a similarly overlong retrospective on that sea change would be eligible for a hugo nomination by wordcount. discourse around the state of the very online public's comfort with discomfort focuses primarily on depictions of sexuality (for what i think are valid reasons, see blood knife's epochal 'everyone is beautiful and no one is horny') and, yes, that is often a proxy for other, parallel critiques, but, but, but. but is that the only place where boundaries on acceptable expression have narrowed? or just the one with enough intracommunity disagreement to be notable? there was for a period of time a lot of talk about hostility towards 'ugly' mental illness, the ways it often manifests not as easily-digested inaction but as violence, self-inflicted, omnidirectional, destructive. i don't really see that talk anymore. the parameters of what is acceptable in depictions of mental illness have been quietly agreed on. ask yourself, 'could you put this in a buzzfeed listicle?' and there you go.

returning to modern trigun fandom as a counterexample to heyday homestuck trends, i think of the way vash's near explicit suicidal depression (manifested as alcoholism, avoidance, a tendency to self-sabotage, a general late-series vibe of being unsafe to bring near a bridge) is generally ignored, or alluded to only in contexts where his yaoi wife can kiss it all better. the combination of suicidal depression and physical mutilation leads in a straight line to a door with nothing behind it, a vacuum left unfilled. i think of being 15 and scrolling past an mspaint comic about the minutiae of dave strider's abusive home life, at the time only implicitly canon, through a reading that much of the fandom still rejected as ooc. a picture of bro holding dave as a child, blood on the frame. bruises. straight red lines on #FFFFFF. let me remind the homestuck newcomer that this guy wasn't an explicit abuse victim in 2014. these agonies were whole-cloth inventions. do we still do that? we still invent new shapes for alien dicks (the trigun/homestuck comparison serves me again) and apply questionable interpretations of bdsm dynamics to whatever m/m is in fashion.

zooming out from my adolescent focus on dave fanart (yeah yeah i know i know he was everyone's favorite whaddya want), i wonder if commercialization plays a role, because it always does. that question is never answered in the negative. you weren't allowed to sell homestuck merch at cons. no one was making money off homestuck fandom. is that why it was like that? i don't know. i have laundry that i should be doing.

#txt #diary #hm this went down some weird roads. how do i tag this #homestuck tag for tag blockers #suicide discussed //////////#self harm discussed ///////#gore discussed ////////#fandom retrospective thru lens of current morays

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emcscared-whumps · 2 years

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For the whump writer asks: 8, 9 and 10 for you, and 1 and 10 for Pete.

It's a lot of questions. Don't feel any pressure to answer them all if you don't want to!

- @pigeonwhumps

From this post!

Hello!! ty for the ask, there's a lot of fun stuff here :))

FOR THE WRITER:

8 - Favourite Kind of Whumpee?

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE

Okay, so I loooooooove a pathetic, wet sock of a whumpee. Defiant and stoic whumpees aren't my jam unless they get mushed up unti bloody little puddles that beg, plead, and are resigned :)

I love them small and frail, scared looking, easily spooked, and try very hard to please people just to get concerned looks because That Is Not Normal.

I also like pet whump, captivity whump, and nonhuman whump (particularly of mer and vampires :3 usually I prefer the very human ones like Pete and Kane, but honestly, @whump-cravings 's Xhaqo is also so fucking cute, my lord

9 - Favourite Kind of Whumper?

I'm honestly flexible, I don't obsess over whumpers much at all, and a lot of the fun I have is derived from circumstance, and other equally traumatised characters' bad emotional reactions etc. etc. lol, there's just a lot to it. Lady whumpers are fun though... The Girl Boss ones are so fun I think, I love the aesthetic of this art I recently rb'ed where she had some guy by his tie, and had her foot against his chest, she was wearing red stilettos <3<3<3

I also love human whumpers, since I prefer to have nonhuman whumpees, I like giving power over a "superior" whumpee to an "inferior" whumper if i have one :3

Those are like, my only preferences ever lmao, as I said, circumstances, old injuries flaring up, active treatment, and things going wrong are more than half my fun :3 but that's juuuuust the beginning ^-^

10 - Favourite Kind of Caretaker?

Honestly, I'm really really flexible. Sometimes I like a caretaker that is good and sweet and lovely and perfect (with a side of conflict bourne of Strong Feelings(tm) bc there's a lot of trauma and pain and shit happening, sometimes I like one that will unintentionally hurt/scare a whumpee, a resemblence to a whumper is fun too, but I dont even always need a caretaker :) I love making a whumpee face most things alone because they're scared of trusting anyone enough to let them caretake them :)

I don't really find I care much for a carewhumper though, a whumpee that caretakes isn't something I personally find appealing, but it's still good and vid :3 Just not my taste lol

FOR THE WHUMPEE:

1 - How old are you?

"I-I'm nn-ninet-teen," he says. "I was... was midway th-through uh... m-my c-c-c-c-c--", his voice breaks, he can't make the sound, "the ones be-fore university

((he's either 18 or 19, he's on the cusp pretty much, he was 18 when he got yote, he probably turned 19 soon after))

10 - When was your first punishment? How bad was it compared to what's happened since?

"I think-k-k it was th-the-- the wh--," he chokes, "the wh-whip, j-- just-- once though... O-or maybe, maybe he sl-slapp-pped me b--before... I'm-- I-- I'm n-not sure... It w-was a long-- it's... a b-bit hard t-to think ab-bout, or... or uh... remember..."

He falls silent for a while before continuing, voice small, "It-- it g-g-g-ot worse... A lot worse..."

#emc answers asks #ask #ask game #answered ask #whump ask game #Pete Spencer

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stark-tony · 3 years

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today is my 22nd birthday so i’m celebrating by reccing 22 of my favorite fics and giving my general thoughts about them.

atla

i'm still here by owedbetter (77.7, T, zutara) "You see me."And somehow, that makes all the difference.

thoughts: One of the first zutara fics i ever read and it’s still one of my absolute favorites. The characterization of all of the characters is superb and the gradual development of zuko and katara’s relationship is amazing.

such selfish prayers by andromeda3116 (47.6k, T, zutara) Katara's ambition, so long set aside for the good of others, breaks free and sets fire to her soul. Or, Katara has a vision of her canon future, casts it aside, and becomes a world-changing politician instead.

thoughts: while this fic is a zutara fic, the majority of this fic is centered on katara and her helping rebuild the world after the war and it does an astounding job of portraying just that. and honestly this probably has my favorite characterization of katara i’ve ever read in a fic.

Southern Lights by colourwhirled (501.8k, M, zutara) A world where the Avatar has disappeared from memory. Where Sozin’s Conquest was successful. Where the unsteady order of the empire is threatened as members of the royal family are picked off one by one and lines are slowly drawn in the sand.One last chance for peace forces an unlikely alliance between a homesick waterbender, a carefree Air Nomad, a runaway Earth Kingdom heiress, and the fire lord's inscrutable son. Together they must learn to shed old enmities and become the balance they seek to restore to the world.OR:The avatar has four heads.x[[Chapter 4: "And always, his eyes, cautiously watching her. Even when he thinks she isn’t looking. It drives her mad"]]

thoughts: when i say i was unable to put this fic down i genuinely mean that. like i’m pretty sure i was hooked from the very first chapter and i never looked back.

bnha

stickers and stars by aloneintherain (1.9k, G, gen) “Aizawa, are you sure I’m the best person for this job? There are a lot more qualified people on campus. People who have been teachers for years, and—”As All Might spoke, Midoriya Izuku crawled the length of the couch, ducked under All Might’s arm, and made himself comfortable on his lap. All Might’s hands rose into the air, as though unsure of what to with his arms now that he had a toddler curled against his stomach like a cat seeking the warmth of its owner.“Um,” All Might said.

thoughts: is it not enough to say ‘baby deku’ and leave it at that?

Butterfly by aconstantstateofbladerunner (198.8k, T, gen) The first over-night trip off campus since the training camp was supposed to be a fun break from more intense work back home. But between a bleak introduction to chaos theory, a chilly reception from the locals, and the looming threat of a villain attack, Izuku has too much on his mind to properly enjoy the fresh air. But those worries are a light breeze compared to the hurricane that accompanies what he finds on the outskirts of town.Or rather, what finds him.

thoughts: it’s incredibly well written and the horror aspect is so good. also the dad might in it is top tier.

villain eradication plan 5C: let them attack budding heroes mothers, wait appropriate time for mother to defeat them (3.4k, G, toshinko) Targetting the civilian families of hero students should be cakewalk. Pity they decided to go with Inko first.Or the one where Inko accidentally defeats the League of Villains.

thoughts: this fic is basically inko accidentally being a badass and it’s as hilarious and awesome as it sounds

see it all in bloom by aloneintherain (57.2k, T, tododeku, kiribaku, momojirou, bullying) Midoriya looked over the occupants of the room with butter soft eyes. “We should do this again. Seeing everyone in one place … it’s like we’re back in school again.”Todoroki said, “It feels like a family reunion.”(Social media fic, counting down the five months to Class 1-A's ten year reunion.)

thoughts: this series deals with social media + the lives of class 1a after they become pro heroes and it is amazing.

remember from here on in by aloneintherain (8.1k, G, gen) Aizawa glances from All Might to Midoriya quickly. It sounds impossible—he’s never heard of a quirk that can be handed down like a family heirloom—but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Midoriya’s inability to use his quirk at the start of the year. The strange, familial relationship between All Might and Midoriya. The slow malnourishment of All Might’s body, like his power was being siphoned away.“You’re …” Aizawa begins.“I’m All Might’s successor.” Midoriya’s proud but shaky voice rings clearly down the empty corridor.Aizawa finds out about One for All.

thoughts: this fic deals with one for all being revealed to aizawa + midoriya getting more quirks and it is amazing

could i but teach the hundredth part by terra_incognita (5.2k, G, gen) Ito Matsu knows three things about her neighbor, Mr. Yagi: he's very skinny, he's very kind, and he has enough children to overthrow the Japanese government.Or:All Might is retired, but his former students keep coming up with reasons to visit.

thoughts: this fic is so lovely and i adore it so much

mcu

the talk by parkrstark (3.1k, pepperony) “Wait, man, what’re you doin’?” Rhodey asked, leaning forward.“Giving the kid his talk before he goes off to college.” Duh.Rhodey blinked. “At 3am when you’re probably too drunk to even spell your name, months before he actually has to leave?”“Yeah.”Rhodey blinked again. “Okay.”

thoughts: this fic is absolutely hilarious and poor peter is suffering throughout all of it

call you home by Madelinedear (19k, G, pepperony) sometimes family is who you're born with.and sometimes family is a spider boy, a rich not-dad, and a kickass aunt.(or; tony, may, and peter find a place in each other's lives)

thoughts: to me, this fic is the tony may co-parenting fic. like i honestly don’t think that anything can ever top it

I Never Lived 'Til I Lived In Your Light by losingmymindtonight (38.4k, T, pepperony, character death) As the world shifts to make space for Morgan Stark, everyone around her shifts, too. (As it turns out, this also includes Peter Parker's sleep schedule.)

thoughts: this fic is both fluffy goodness and heartwrenching angst and it handles both beautifully.

Lazarus, come forth by iron_spider (47.9k, T, pepperony) Tony's mind is a chaotic mess but he remembers the moment—remembers his death, remembers the red hot pain and Peter screaming, Rhodey rushing to his side. How he knew he’d never see Pepper again—but they’d fixed it. They’d fixed the world, erased the lost time, set things right—and the kid was back. The kid was crying, the kid hated him for doing what he did, but he was back. He was alive.Tony Stark was dead. But now he’s breathing again, trying to think, gasping, hands tracing the box surrounding him, covering him, suffocating him.He’s in a coffin. He’s under the ground. He’s under the fucking ground.(Tony Stark dies defeating Thanos. But then he comes back to life. He has to find out how, why, and how to live again. And how to deal with the changes in the people he's coming back to.)

thoughts: although this fic was written and finished pre-endgame but to me this fic is the fix-it fic for film.

Identity Saga by KitCat992 (400.7k, T, pepperony) An organically developed, platonic slow-burn of Avengers-fam dynamic with a heavy hand of Irondad & Spiderson. Throw in an overdose of whump, a couple of cunning villains and a big-bad hiding in the shadows, and you got yourself this hot mess.

thoughts: i just love the avengers dynamic in this series and the whump is medically accurate which is amazing.

college applications: the biggest meme by sagemb (3.3k, T, pepperony) Tony covered his face with both hands and screamed very gently. “Can I just bribe the school to let Peter in?"

thoughts: this series is absolutely hilarious and i love it

The Changeling + Armistice Series by Annerb (586.6k, M, hinny, rape) Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

thoughts: this fic is absolutely golden and i adore it so so much. the characters are so well written and the worldbuilding in this fic is fantastic and it actually has an original aspect of hogwarts (aka the parlor) that i practially consider to be canon at this point. also the depiction of slytherin house + house unity in this fic is just *chef’s kiss*

boy with a scar by dirgewithoutmusic (208.7k, T, hinny, romione, jily) A series of "what if" rewrites of Harry Potter, books 1-7. Cross-posted from tumblr (ink-splotch).

thoughts: every single one of these fics are exquisitely written and i wish that i could experience the beauty of this series again for the very first time.

Hogwarts, to welcome you home by gedsparrowhawk (FaceChanger) (11.1k, G, ginny) “You understand, Professor,” Harry began, after a moment, “that I don’t have my N.E.W.T.s. I never even finished seventh year. Between everything, I never had a chance the first time around, and then afterwards there didn’t seem to be much point. Hermione argued for it, of course, but I was so tired of Britain. So technically, I am completely unqualified for the position.”“Quite a way to begin an interview, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said, dryly.Or, three years after the war, Harry Potter becomes Hogwarts' newest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

thoughts: this is my favorite harry as dada professor i’ve ever read. no doubt about it

And the Unethical Binding Contract by justafandomfollower (14.6k, G, gen) AU. What if the Triwizard Tournament took place in Harry's first year, not his fourth?

thoughts: this fic is beautifully written and i love the relationship that forms between harry, cedric, krum, and fleur.

Regulus Black and the Way Things Changed: A Not!Fic by imaginary_golux (8.8k, T, wolfstar) What if Regulus Black, and not Severus Snape, ended up being the turncoat Potions Master of Hogwarts?A not!fic written in bullet points, ignoring the Deathly Hallows entirely because they annoy me.Beta by my immensely patient Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw, and by the delightful starbirdrampant.

thoughts: this fic may be ooc at some points but it’s so funny that that makes up for it

spn

Broadway Musical by Griftings (12.5k, M, destiel) This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle.The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at.Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

thoughts: this fic is quite possibly the single most funniest thing i have ever read. like i was straight up cackling when i was reading some of the scenes.

Down to Agincourt by seperis (1 million+, E, destiel) There is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to war.The outcome's known. Why try? Return your rusty sword to battered sheath, bow your head and bend your stubborn knee. Why take the field when you cannot win the war? But Harry -- he went down to Agincourt.

--Harry Takes the Field by bratfarrar (AO3 link here.)

thoughts: this fic is an absolute work of art. the characterization dean and cas and all of the ocs is astounding the world building is immaculate and the writing is so detailed and in depth. a fair warning though to the first time reader as this fic can get very confusing at times but trust me it is worth it.

#mcu recs #atla recs #hp recs #bnha recs #spn recs #my fic recs #bullying tw #rape tw

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hawopro · 4 years

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Thoughts of a rare soul who enjoyed DMBJ’s Time Raiders 2016 adaptation (1/2)

[SPOILERS]

So I got into DMBJ bc of Reboot Zhu Yilong’s Wu Xie, I’ve been comparing all the Wu Xie, and came to check out Luhan’s. I just didn’t expect to fall in love with Jing Boran’s ZQL/MYP and catch feels for Pingxie?? Once again falling into niche fandom life??

Apparently within the niche DMBJ fandom, there’s a tinier, almost nonexistent niche for Time Raiders, so I have to rant about it.

Incredibly long post, so here’s a summary:

Action, A-Ning’s insole blade

My favorite Wu Xie adaptation

MYP whump and his damned smiles

A-Ning & PangZi + Badass tomb-raiding crews

Questionables things, prop & plot

Pingxie + 2/2

Foremost, this is an action movie. The action sequences are very nice, even with the occasional flying/floating people/objects in cdrama. As an action movie nerd, I approved and gave it 6.5/10 (and my standard is The Old Guard okay.) There’s everything--swords, guns, grenades, A-Ning’s insole blade. I particularly enjoyed ZQL vs Da Kui & Pan Zi, and ZQL vs A-Ning cut.

Characters are pretty fleshed out for a movie, motives and development are clearly established.

I really like this Wu Xie, personally I think he came closest to what I imagined to be novel’s WX. He is inexperienced, incredibly curious, and daring, but knowledgeable, he thinks outside the box and pulls his own weight, even aiding the crew. He’s BABY, naive, kind, and cheeky af. Refer to How to make friends--a guide by Wu Xie.

But by the end, you know that he matured, he’d seen deaths, hell, he broke his promise to take care of MYP, he grew up. STILL, he made me so protective over him, I finally understand how the entire Reboot casts feel about ZYL’s WX now.

Zhang Qiling/Men You Ping is still mysterious, indifferent; he’s very lost in life, has a goal but almost no will to live. Still OP af, but the WHUMP--so much ZQL whumps with bloody mouth, self-sacrificing tendency and everything. But he appreciates his experience more after knowing WX, like even without shipper eyes, you can tell he cares for WX--the first person who insisted to be his friend, who told him ‘I’d take care of you.’

I like drama MYP but, I completely fell in love with this angsty boy who needs some good sleep. Also probably bc of HIS DAMNED SMILES!! I’m a sucker for poker-face characters who can smile/laugh naturally. Bonus that he only did so with WX! Refer to ZQL smiling at Wu Xie.

I also dedicated an entire gifset on him because uhh I accidentally got attached?? LOOK AT HIM HE’S BEAUTIFUL

ANYWAY

Here is our favorite forced-to-cooperate gang again. Sadly, the Iron Triangle dynamic isn’t developed in here at all.

A-Ning has a bigger role than Pangzi, she’s still freaking competent, badass af, almost equal to ZQL. She is not so heartless at the end, obviously cares for her men, somewhat for WX. Seems to have a mild connection with ZQL over their fighting prowess LOL, and somehow bonds with PZ.

Pangzi is still comedic relief, unfortunately, has little motives and developments. His interactions with WX are hilarious though. They’re dorks together. Although, I found an easter egg: PZ wearing pot on his head again.

I appreciate the side characters in this movie a lot (especially Pan Zi with his kickass martial art). I think they made very badass tomb-raiding crews, both San Shu’s and A-Ning’s; it's clear that (some of) these men know what they were doing, and they aren’t afraid to die.

Also the props in here, holy cow, elaborated af. CGI is better than drama, but can always be improved...

BUT the time period is confusing as hell? This looks like old-school vibes, but they had incredibly high tech, drones and holograms? Uhh okay. Xie Yu Hua’s people used drones in The Lost Tomb 2, but this is a whole new level of sci-fi blue-screen computer stuff. And it’s probably very historically inaccurate, bc what queen back in the day had steampunk technology installed in her tomb?? The coiled machinery-ness bothers me. Ignore it if you can.

English is only better than The Lost Tomb 2’s English hahaha, but not so unbearable that I had to give up the movie. What hit me out of the left field is WX’s flute ability?? LMAO he pulled a Wei Wuxian bc what the heck? How does that even work? But I let it slide.

The plot is very basic: heroes go on quest, heroes face typical mastermind villain and powerful endgame monster. Featuring not-immoral-enough-to-destroy-humanity Hendrix, also known as, can’t-say-no-to-WX-baby-face Hendrix. And final boss: worms-queen with armors and tentacles and everything.

There are plot holes, but it’s an action movie, come on, nobody watches action movies for the plot.

But if you're a shipper, you should watch this movie for the SOFT AND WHOLESOME Pingxie content!

I didn’t expect it. I honestly didn’t watch the movie for Pingxie because I didn’t even ship Pingxie prior to this. I knew it existed, I liked the idea of it and I would read fic of it, but I didn’t feel a lot for it until now.

And then BAM, pokerface MYP with a very visible soft spot for WX? Hell yes. Worried and protective MYP who will catch WX when he falls? Also there.

MYP telling WX about his existential crisis of forgetting who he is? “If I totally lost myself one day, there’s still someone who would remember me.” WX insisting on being MYP's friends, and walking around recording memories for him with his little camera?“You won’t be lost.” YEP.

MYP and WX saving each other? “I said I’d take care of you.” Oh, for sure. Not to forget my standard for (b)romance: prolonged eye contact, smiles, so much smiles, and HANDS! They're all there!

Now, there are even more subtle things that told Pingxie’s story on a deeper level, which I talked about in continuation post 2/2 here.

Anyway, I know Time Raiders isn’t related to the main story aside from the characters and certain tropes. BUT as someone who just dipped their toes in DMBJ, out of everything I’ve seen--Lost Tomb 1, 2, Reboot, I’m in the middle of reading Book 3-- this installment is my favorite, barely beat out Lost Tomb 2 and only below the novel.

#dmbj #time raiders 2016 #the lost tomb reboot #the lost tomb 2 #pingxie #movie review #text post #long post #ranting bc i need to talk about this new obsession #mine #tr16 stuff #dmbj stuff

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 4 years

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Episode 11: Alone Time

Prodigal Son. Come for the plot line. Stay for the whump. Let’s dive into this episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

0:06 - Look at poor baby Malcolm’s black eye. :( Do you think the bullies are why he got into martial arts - because he wanted to defend himself?

0:59 - Malcolm is chained to the ground. At this point he can’t escape. Can someone please explain to me why Watkins decided to take Malcolm’s shoes and socks? I mean - no shoes makes it harder to run away but he’s chained to the ground so why bother?!? Furthermore, where is Malcolm’s tie and suit jacket? Why take those? ...he also took Malcolm’s watch but at least that one makes sense.

1:10 - This is Not Good. Malcolm looks scared and a little confused. Does he have a concussion?

1:45 - This is Gil terrified and determined to find his missing kid. My heart is breaking just looking at him.

1:50 - Why was this speech necessary 12 hours after the kidnapping and murder? Why to the whole precinct? Why does Colette get to make it instead of Gil? The precinct respects Gil. They don’t respect Colette.

2:03 - JT looks sad and scared. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him look this upset. Malcolm’s wormed his way into JT’s heart. It’s sweet.

2:08 - Dani looks concerned and scared too - but that’s not a surprise given the amount of screen time that’s been given to Dani and Malcolm’s brewing friendship.

2:10 - Gil looks pissed when he’s staring at the floor. I don’t blame him Colette is suggesting that his kid might already be dead. He’s probably blaming himself. Is he side-eying Colette - for making an insensitive speech 12 hours late? Or Dani and JT because he wants them to ignore Colette and go and find Bright?

2:24 - JT isn’t acting out of line here. I’ve watched enough Criminal Minds to know that sometimes locals PD officers/detectives get upset and take things personally when the FBI get involved. BUT Colette is acting like a real piece of work. She’s disrespecting JT on purpose. She clearly hates men. What is her deal?

2:31 - Dani is great here. She totally diffuses the fight that was about to break out at JT (rightfully) lost his mind on this woman. It makes me wonder if Dani was bullied as a kid. Colette is acting like a high school queen B. Dani doesn’t seem like the type to be a queen B so I wonder if she was tormented by one as a kid?

3:00 - Honestly, I’m pissed about this. Yes - Jessica shouldn’t have had that press conference. BUT it’s downright criminal to avoid telling a mother that her child was kidnaped. Just more proof that Colette is a controlling, b**ch. Gil looks like he’s using all of his self-control not to lose it on Colette - which is a shame because I would pay good money to watch that outburst.

3:15 - Colette clearly thinks that Gil and Jessica are in a relationship since she caught them standing so closely in Gil’s office. It’s kind of funny but also such an inappropriate thing for her to focus on right now.

4:10 - So Gil does have a history of church attendance. The past tense there makes me assume that he stopped going when he became and adult and moved out of his parent’s house.

4:15 - This is the closest to a Gil outburst we’ve gotten so far. I’m obsessed with it. Look at his face. He’s furious. He’s scared. ALSO - please tell me that Matilda gets jail time for being an accomplice.

5:40 - When Jessica is on the phone she really reminds me of Ainsley. They both have this certain inflection in their voices when their determined and having a conversation with someone.

5:46 - Oh no. Gil does not want to do this. He does not want to tell Jessica that he didn’t protect Malcolm well enough. Look at how wrecked he is. He looks close to tears.

6:24 - “It’s about Malcolm.” Jessica’s face. She immediately goes from playful and determined to serious and terrified. This woman adores her son.

6:38 - I love this whole conversation between Gil and Jessica. I love that Gil calls her Jess. It suggests that at one point in time they were good friends. Believe me - my name is Jessica. If you introduce yourself as Jessica to everyone only your close friends/family (and douchebags trying to get in your pants after knowing you for 2 minutes) will start casually start calling you Jess. Furthermore, they both look scared. I love that Gil tries to reassure Jessica that it’s not her fault - partially because he knows it isn’t - but partially because he believes it’s his fault for not keeping a better eye on Malcolm.

6:55 - It’s interesting to me that the writers keep suggesting that there’s the potential for a romantic relationship between Gil and Jessica but then they also show Gil wearing his wedding ring. I find this interesting because Gil is a dude with a iron-clad moral standard. He would never cheat on his wife. The fact that he’s still wearing that ring suggests that he would never do anything with Jessica because he still considers himself married to his deceased wife.

7:04 - I love how determined Gil is to find Malcolm. How desperate Jessica is to help.

7:24 - Oh hell yes. This is such a great exchange. Gil is going to visit Martin Whitly and Jessica pretty much gives Gil permission to murder him. Gil and Jessica are both so desperate to find Malcolm and it’s precious.

8:08 - I do not like the way Malcolm is smiling here. He looks drugged and delirious. I’m really worried about that head wound and the fact that he’s probably missed doses of his mood stabilizers. *sigh* I want to hug him.

9:18 - Ok. This is great. Watkins wants Malcolm to become his murder partner. He just thinks that Malcolm needs to “go through the trials”. Hasn’t Malcolm already “gone through the trials”? I mean, his dad is in prison, he’s been bullied his whole life, he has a nasty list of diagnoses that plague him, and he has so much trauma. We shouldn’t compare trauma but Malcolm’s probably had more severe trauma than John’s “my mommy left me with abusive grandparents who locked me in a wardrobe”. What happened to John was criminal but also he’s killing people.

9:31 - I love that Malcolm openly states that he’s not a killer. How many times do you think he’s had to say that to people throughout his life? People who judge him when they find out who his father is. How many times do you think he’s said it to himself in the middle of a panic attack? Makes me wonder at what age he changed his last name.

10:02 - Aww Dani. Girl, you’re breaking my heart. You look so worried about Malcolm. ALSO love the determined teamwork we’re getting from Dani and JT here. So sweet.

11:00 - When do you think Martin last saw Gil? Murder trial? When Malcolm was a teenager? More recently? I’m really curious.

11:20 - Look at the pure hatred in Gil’s face. Man. Gil is an absolute A+ guy but I genuinely believe he’s capable of murdering Martin Whitly without guilt.

11:30 - Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how incredible Michael Sheen is in this scene? He’s always good but this scene is just....wow. *chef’s kiss* Martin’s eyes. Martin’s panic attack. The way Martin squints due to light sensitivity. The hysterical laugh. Ugh. So. Good.

12:18 - Gil’s face when Martin is laughing hysterically. The look he’s giving Martin is fantastic. It’s a look of anger and disgust. Watch as Gil crosses his arms and avoids eye contact with Martin a few seconds later. It’s as though Gil is physically restraining himself from crossing that red line and using physical force to get the answers that he needs from Martin.

13:16 - Anyone else hate it when Martin calls Malcolm “my boy”? It really drives home the fact that Martin is a psychopath for me. A normal man who refer to Malcolm as “my son”. The fact that Martin refers to Malcolm as “my boy” implies that he views Malcolm as an object that he possesses. It makes me feel sick.

13:30 - Amazing. Check out this look that Martin and Gil share. For a split second Martin has Gil convinced that he cares about Malcolm. Martin’s eyes are conveying fear for Malcolm. So are Gil’s. I’m sure Gil wasn’t intending on telling Martin that Malcolm is missing but Gil’s desperate. His emotional walls are crumbling and Martin has succeeded at manipulating him into telling him about Malcolm.

13:50 - Martin’s panic attack is really interesting to me. First of all I’m an engineering student - not a doctor or a psychologist, BUT I’ve always thought that psychopaths can’t feel empathy or anxiety. Therefore, I thought psychopaths were literally incapable of having a panic attack (a quick google search suggests that my assumptions might be wrong). Secondly, why is Martin having a panic attack? Is it truly because he’s worried about his son? I don’t think so. I think it’s because he’s afraid of what Malcolm might find out from Watkins. I think he’s afraid that the NYPD and Malcolm might discover that Martin has done more crime than has been previously thought.

14:03 - Martin you are lucky Gil needs you conscious. If he didn’t he would’ve probably let you suffocate to death simply for traumatizing Malcolm.

15:05 - Look at the way Malcolm physically recoils when Watkins starts screaming. Huh. I never noticed that before.

15:27 - Malcolm is too good for this world. Seriously, the guy is chained up, bloody, and in pain yet he’s empathizing with his captor. It’s not even Stockholm, Malcolm does this to every serial killer. It’s almost as if he’s trying to help them because he wishes someone would’ve helped his Dad. Or that he wishes that he could help Martin - but he can’t so he uses other serial killers as a substitute for Martin. Kind of concerning behaviour actually.

16:30 - This whole stabbing scene is perfect. Malcolm looks terrified and confused when he finds out about Watkin’s old stab wound. Then Watkins stabs him and Malcolm descends into silent, painful, shock. My whump heart is beating so fast. I have so many feelings.

19:06 - Anyone else find the way that Gabrielle says “You need to stay alive kiddo.” is super creepy?!? Just me? Ok.

19:55 - You know, it’s really impressive that Malcolm is so self-aware when he’s hallucinating and/or having a nightmare.

20:11 - This is heartbreaking. Malcolm looks so lost and scared. He doesn’t care about his life anymore - just answers.

21:21 - I’m so offended that Colette is chilling at Gil’s desk like it belongs to her. This woman is on thin ice with me.

21:30 - Look how desperate/scared JT and Dani are. These. Are. The. Friends. That. Malcolm. Deserves.

22:00 - Of course. Colette isn’t coming because she’s concerned about Bright. She’s coming because 1) she doesn’t trust Dani and JT and 2) she wants credit for the arrest of John Watkins.

22:46 - “It’s over.” Is Martin referring to his son’s life or the very comfortable prison life that he’s established for himself. I genuinely think that Martin is afraid of what the NYPD will find out when they find Malcolm’s body (because Martin assumes Malcolm is dead).

22:48 - Martin and Gil fighting over being Malcolm’s Dad is everything. My heart is so full. Gil is getting soooo pissed. I’m in love. This scene might just be my absolute favourite of the whole season thus far (April 16,2020).

25:35 - More suggestions that something is going on romantically between Jessica and Gil. Check out the look in Gil’s eyes there. He’s upset. Is it because he likes Jessica and he thinks he’s not worthy of her. OR is it because Martin is wasting time and he thinks that Malcolm is dying?

25:50 - Malcolm doesn’t look surprised here. He looks confused and a little scared. Huh. Did he previously suspect that Martin had been planning on killing him?

26:40 - You know, everyone reacts to trauma and bad news differently. However, Ainsley doesn’t seem nearly upset enough about the fact that her only brother has been kidnaped by a serial killer. Even when she’s trying to comfort Jessica - she looks concerned for her mom. Not for her brother.

28:34 - Malcolm looks angry here. He’s desperately trying to convince himself that Martin loves him. That Martin would never try to kill him.

29:10 - This is the most broken I have ever seen Malcolm’s eyes. Holy crap. His lip is twitching. It’s like his brain just completely dissociated. He’s terrified and he thinks his family is in danger.

29:42 - Now Ainsley looks scared. Is it because she thinks a serial killer (other than her dad) gave her gifts as a child? Or is it a delayed reaction to Malcolm’s kidnapping. Kind of like a 5 stages of grief but for a kidnapping? She hit the disbelief and anger stages before the fear stage?

30:50 - Why does Colette feel the need to restate that she’s the primary on this case? It seems redundant and demeaning to JT and Dani. Ugh I hate this woman.

30:59 - I love that Malcolm suddenly snaps out of his dissociative state the second that Watkins tells Malcolm that he is going to kill Jessica and Ainsley. He becomes desperate and even more terrified than before. Look how fast he’s moving despite his injuries. That’s love.

31:50 - “Damn it Bright. You’re skinny ass better still be alive.” Gold. Just pure gold. JT loves Malcolm like a brother and he is so annoyed that he cares about Bright. This line is everything.

32:00 - Malcolm looks so close to tears here. He’s completely terrified. My heart is shattering. BUT my whump heart is also really happy. Because I’m a monster.

33:06 - I love how angry Dani gets on the phone with Gil. It suggests that Gil took a nasty tone of disbelief with her when she told him they didn’t find Malcolm.

33:30 - Malcolm tries to run after John despite being chained up. My heart is so full. This boy adores his mother and sister.

34:05 - They’re putting Martin back into solitary. Huh. Why didn’t they just have Gil question him in solitary? It was an emergency. Why go to the trouble of moving Martin through the hospital?

34:20 - Gil is definitely not supposed to be that close to Martin. That’s how scared Gil is - he just physically held a serial killer in a sort of comforting way to try and save Malcolm. This man deserves an award for Dad of the Year.

34:55 - So did Jessica not know about the tunnels under the house? I feel like that’s something she would’ve told the police about when Martin was arrested. Or at least something the police would’ve found when Martin was arrested. WHY DID NO ONE THINK TO CHECK THERE WHEN MALCOLM WENT MISSING?!?

35:05 - Jessica Whitly is my queen. Running for her life. Terrified to death. She still has time to make sarcastic, sassy remarks to her daughter. I stan this woman.

36:00 - Look at Malcolm. He’s completely lost the will to live. He’s given up. Until the hallucination of Martin makes him angry enough to keep living.

39:00 - “I have never counted on a man to save us and I don’t need to now.” Again. Jessica Whitly is a perfect woman.

39:20 - Watching Malcolm break his own hand is utterly heart wrenching. What a total badass. He is bleeding out from a stab wound. He probably has a concussion. He is terrified, off his meds, and in extraordinary pain. Yet, he breaks his own hand in a desperate attempt to save his family. That is love. Also...how did no one hear Malcolm screaming in pain when he broke his hand? How did no one hear Watkins screaming at Malcolm earlier?

40:04 - Jessica going at Watkins with a pair of scissors is both hilarious and just vicious. I love it. She is clearly terrified but if she’s going to die she is intending to die fighting. This woman is a treasure.

40:46 - Jessica regains a sense of power when she hears Malcolm’s voice. Her eyes look less scared and more angry.

41:20 - For continuity reasons I’m going to assume that Watkins is hallucinating that trunk and Malcolm just knocked him out onto the carpet. Also protective!Malcolm is very attractive.

42:32 - This ending scene is awesome. That family hug. The fear in Jessica’s eyes when she asks Malcolm if Watkins is dead. The relief in her eyes when she sees Malcolm. The pain in Malcolm’s eyes.

This episode is so so so good. Thanks for hanging out.

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quirkykayleetam · 4 years

Text

Broken Pieces Superhero AU

@ashintheairlikesnow and @whump-tr0pes joined their characters together in a beautiful Daniel Michealson/Honor Bound AU. It inspired me and @burtlederp to get in on the fun! So, here is what might happen if our beautiful Broken Pieces characters were transposed into her Superhero universe. We hope you all enjoy!

Chapter 1: No One Suspects a Thing

The nine-year-old girl behind Jay on the plane had a Batter-Up Build-a-Bear. The likeness was uncanny. Despite the plush ears, the stuffed animal looked just like the down-to-earth superhero from her blonde ponytail and baseball uniform to the ball of elemental energy in her hand and the pink hint of bubble gum peeking from her mouth.

Jay remembered being surprised when he first met Batter-Up out of costume to hear her valley-girl accent instead of her perfectly cultured superhero voice, but she was confident and kind and showed him around when he started working tech for the League of Superheroes out of graduate school. It was one of the reasons they could never give her up, never reveal that her name was actually…

No. They couldn’t, wouldn’t even think it. Even if they were out of that horrible cell, they didn’t know who was watching, waiting in the shadows. Immediately, Jay put up all their trained psychic defenses. They counted their heartbeats, clearing their mind of anything and everything but their breaths and the steady, steady numbers.

“Race you!” a too-bright voice said, dropping into the seat beside Jay and sliding a ClearJet magazine into their lap.

Jay stared at Beth, the 38-year-old art history secretary who had somehow become his closest friend in the world. Didn’t she understand? He had to concentrate? He had to keep the villains out, keep them from knowing…

“Jay-bird, we are 36,000 miles in the air. There are no known supers, either hero or villain, who can fly AND read minds and you know what happened last time someone tried a ride-along at this speed and height.

“Meanwhile, airplane magazines are famous for having the most creative but easy crosswords in the world. We have exactly 5 hours and 32 minutes of time to spare and I have two copies while you have more writing implements than any person would ever need to see in their entire life.”

Okay, maybe that got Jay to smile just a little.

“I propose that we start solving at the same time, first one done gets to pick where we eat tonight.”

“We’re eating out?” Jay met Beth’s gaze with wide blue eyes and a slight tremble to their lips that Beth saw even as Jay tried to hide it. She threw up her hands in defeat.

“Fine! Winner gets to decide what we make for dinner tonight. Daniel has been ‘staking out’ the house which you know means that he’s stocked the pantry with everything your little heart could ever desire. I’m drawing the line at S’mores Poptarts for supper.”

“Not if I win,” Jay said, their pencil already scratching away at the airline paper, despite the tremors in the 26-year-old’s hands.

Beth was glad that they’d gotten Jay to stop pulling the sleeves of their long gray sweater over their scars and quavering fingers long enough to learn how to write again after their ordeal.

“Cheater!” she shot back, turning to her own crossword. The sooner they were in Qanniq, Alaska, away from those memories, and in whatever passed for the League’s version of protective custody, the better. She would certainly breathe easier, and she would bet that Jay would too.

Marcelo watched the small plane come sailing in, landing as smooth as it possibly could on the old airstrip and slowing quickly. It was the kind of airstrip that was more comparable to a gravel lot, but Ed, the pilot, was accustomed to it and knew how to land without kicking up too much debris or make the ride too bumpy. Before long, the plane was pulling up in front of the mayor, his wife, and the intimidating figure of the Rogue, who stood next to Marcelo.

"Welcome to the little town of Qinniq!" He spread his arms wide as the door to the plane opened, the ladder had been lowered, and its occupants were exiting.

Beth stepped out of the plane first. She tried to comb her hair into some semblance of civility, but soon gave up. She waited at the end of the stairs for Jay who, despite the warm weather, wore a worn green sweater. They pulled at the sleeves as they walked, their blue eyes taking everything in even as they defaulted to the ground.

The Rouge moved swiftly to Beth’s side. They were a tall Superhero, though few had heard of them. They lived their life shrouded in mystery, only really appearing in major events for serious team-ups when explosive personalities were involved. Marcelo figured that it fitted the super’s enigmatic apparel. They seemed to take Carmen Sandeigo as a fashion icon with tall red boots disappearing beneath a scarlet trench coat, thick red gloves and an expansive hat and scarf combination that completely hid their face from the public. The Rouge was old school, one of the few supers left to use a voice modulator so no one knew who they were, or even if they were male or female.

As Rogue approached the plane, both Beth and Jay noticeably relaxed.

“Who won the puzzle game?” the Rouge asked quietly, leaning down to brush a strand of hair away from Beth’s ear.

“Who do you think?”

“Poptarts it is!” they chortled and somehow Marcelo felt like he was intruding on something familial. Finally, the trio broke away from each other.

“May I introduce Marcelo, the mayor of our lovely new home and its closest League contact, as well as his wife, Cynthia.” the Rogue said. “They’ve been briefed on our circumstances and are here to help.”

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Marcelo smiled warmly, holding out his hand in greeting. "Welcome to our little town, we're happy to have you!"

"You came at a perfect time of year! Besides the mosquitoes, the weather doesn't get any better than this!" Cynthia smiled brightly, stepping around them to go help Ed, the pilot of the plane, take bags out of the plane's cargo hold.

“D...Don’t touch that!” Jay said suddenly, lurching to the side to clutch at a small black bag Cynthia was unloading. “I’m sorry. It’s just...important?”

"Oh, of course, my apologies," She dipped her head in acknowledgement, seemingly unperturbed.

“Thank you so much for everything: the red carpet welcome, your plane. Hell, just letting us come here when we’re a bit of a security risk!” Beth said. She stole a glance at Jay who was holding their bag close, rocking slightly, and counting under their breath. “I just hope you won’t be insulted if we make a bit of a break for it. We’re a little...fragile at the moment and could use some time settling into our new home.”

"Don't worry yourself at all about it, I understand your situation and it's no problem. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. You're welcome to use any of my cabins, my summer homes, whatever you'd like," Marcelo said warmly, opening the door of the large, black SUV for Beth and gesturing inside.

“You ready for those Poptarts, Jay-bird?” Beth whispered. Jay shook their head. They’d come here. They could do this. They took a deep breath and handed their case to Beth before approaching Marcelo.

“Thank you,” they said as steadily as they could, grasping the mayor’s hand and looking him squarely in the eye. I’ll be worth this, they thought silently. All the fuss and bother, I’ll be worth it, I will be. “I hope to see you again on a less...less stressful day.”

"Of course! Name the day, I'll make time for you." Marcelo nodded, his grip as firm as Jay's was weak. "It's an honor to have you three here, I hope you enjoy it as much as the rest of us."

Beth and Jay climbed carefully into the SUV as Ed finished loading their bags in the back and Rogue stepped into the driver’s seat. Marcelo watched them go before he got into his own vehicle, Cynthia getting in the passenger seat.

"Damn airstrip is garbage. Downright embarrassing, having people land on that glorified gravel road! How often do we use it? Would it be worth getting it repaved?" He glanced at Cynthia, who was typing something on her phone.

"Honey, I think you worry too much," she replied evenly, finishing her message and lowering her phone. "We ought to have them for dinner sometime."

"Dammit! I should have invited them to dinner tonight!" Marcelo frowned, slapping the steering wheel. "Guhhh I screwed it up, didn't I?"

"Again, I think you worry too much. Jay seemed rather agitated, and they both seemed very focused on them, so I don't think they suspected anything. You did fine, honey, don't worry." She scoffed, laying a hand on his, and he smiled sheepishly.

"You're right, as always." There was a brief silence, both thinking. "...I'll call them tomorrow, ask when would be best to have them over."

"Just give me a day's warning, I'd be happy to cook for them."

Meanwhile, a very different conversation transpired in the black SUV:

“You okay, Jay-bird?” Beth asked as the doors closed.

“My scars…” Jay said quietly. “Marcelo… I know he could feel them, on my hands I mean, but he didn’t...he didn’t say anything about it. He just treated me like a person.”

Jay looked at Beth and smiled.

“I think here is going to turn out okay.”

Tag List (I’m including those of you who enjoyed the original Broken Pieces story, but if you want to be taken off, please just let me know!): @stoic-whumpee, @whatwasmyprevioususername, @whumpty-dumpty-fell-off-the-wall, @straight-to-the-pain, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @0idril0, @fallingstormphoenix, @whump-fantasies, @imagination1reality0, @whumpback-wail, @whump-tr0pes, @untilthepainstarts, @captivity-whump, @burtlederp, @redwingedwhump, @whumpiary, @captivity-whump, @blue-flare10

#Whump #Past Trauma #Scars #Superheros #Recovery #Guilt #Broken Pieces #Jay #Beth #Rogue #Daniel Wei #(You saw him right?)#Marcelo #Cynthia #Collab #Crosswords as a coping mechanism #Found Family #quirkykayleetam writes

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matchstickforyourmuse · 6 years

Note

A fantasy prompt for 'green' plz?

Certainly! What a delightful request!(Only now, going back up to add this little response, do I realize that you asked for ‘a prompt’, and not a million. Oops.)I hope you like these. They’re a bit wordy- I got carried away. But they’re prompts nonetheless! If you would like some shorter, more to-the-point prompts without as much context-content, or whatever you want to call the lengthy bits of writing, pray tell! Or, if you just want more/less of one kind of prompt (more dialogue, less setting, etc.), or if you just want more prompts in general, I’d be happy to write you up a dozen more.

________

- - -‘Blood of Tree’, they called it. A swirling mass in a jar that bowed and dipped and swayed to some silent waltz, luminescent with some brilliant, strange force. It gushed about in oozy rivulets one moment, and then kept aloft the next in a foggy murmur of a cloud, and then it would sit on the bottom of the glass in shattered fractals, jagged and wickedly sharp. I always thought the name was silly. It deserved its own name. It didn’t need to be compared to anything. Heck, it couldn’t be compared to anything.

- - -“They aren’t pixies,” the troll whispered. Fear fluttered over his eyes like some maddened moth. “Just keep your trap shut, and we’ll get out of this alive.” And it was then that I saw one of the shrieking creatures. Wee claws curling around the stone corner, a hissing warble, followed by another mind-stabbing scream. Verdant scales and the coiled muscles of an adder, lanced through with voidish black, the intensity matched only by their eyes. Oh, the eyes….

- - -The dull thrum that came from the marsh was deafening for some, but a lullaby to others. I used to tell my kids that it was the tupelo trees singing. That, if they listened closely enough, they could hear the crickets and the frogs harmonizing to try to brighten their sepulchral melody, but to no avail. They mourned for the slow world, the one full of moss and jewelish dragonflies and sweet dreams. The one that had been replaced with smoke and spilled business and the bustle of aching feet. I told them that they just didn’t understand the change. And I told them that that was okay. Because none of us did, really. We just didn’t talk about it quite as often nor quite as loudly as they did.

- - -The elf’s sigh was explanation enough. But he clarified anyways. “Here, they can’t get us.” I looked around at the mismatched tables and chairs. The threadbare rugs mixed with the plush carpets and the faux-fur bathmats that had been shoved under stools so they wouldn’t scratch up the floors. The walls, covered in paintings and claw scores and hand-drawn pictures and toddler scribbles and one or two scorch marks from when they still had stoves. And then I looked at the people. Despite the circumstances, they were smiling. Despite what was out there, they looked…. They looked happy. Even the kids weren’t crying, despite the bandages being wrapped around their wounds, despite the acrid smell of the old candles. These…. These people. They were far from home. And, heck, they were with other species that, on any other given day, they probably would’ve been trying to rip the heads off of. But no. It was calm. And it was…. It was good. “Here,” he continued, with a trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “we can heal.”

- - - “The creature will be the death of me,” the Lady sighed, delicately placing her elbow unto the table so she could properly lean her chin upon it. “He’s a genie, m'Lady,” a servant reminded, her voice choked with giggles. “He can’t kill.”They both turned their heads to the gaudy spirit, festooned in a garb of eye-straining greens and polished emeralds and parrot-feathers, his cape whirling as he turned on his heel to accept yet another noble’s quail-eating challenge. (They both had to duck to avoid being clobbered with his stein of ale.)“I know. I just wish I could kill him.” She cocked an eyebrow as she watched the grease and ginger-sauce in his beard simply whuhff away the moment it drizzled down. “He knows perfectly well what I wished for. But he’s just finding one loophole after another. I have half a mind to dismiss him.”“You wouldn’t…! I mean…. With all due respect, m'Lady! The genie is… an animal, surely. Riddled with crudity and a vile tongue. But what he’s brought to the courts surely outweighs the burden, m'Lady?”

- - -“You’re telling me you’ve never heard of Dragon’s Grog?” The vampire grinned, leaning against the wall as plumes of smoke lazed upwards to meet the haze of the city air. The neon sign above us flicked colorful shadows over his face. “Man, that’s not right. It’s perfect for everything. A night on the town. Weddings. Funerals. Parties. Any day that ends in a Y.” Somewhere in the distance, a Quik-O-Rail buzzed on its tracks. A single vwooiiiiif, and it was gone. He flashed his fangs once more before he slipped his headphones from around his neck up and over his ears. It seemed as though I could hear the blare of his electric, upbeat jam before he even hit ‘play’.

- - -“I’ll always remember the story of when the sea switched places with the moorlands,” my grandmother hummed, wiping her knife on the edge of the tablecloth. “Back when the pheasants and the rabbits slipped through the heather like fingers through hair. The breeze would tussle the grasses, and the flowers would dance reels with the mighty winds.” As she said this, she flipped the fish over and began cleaning the other side. I winced at the stench. “But sometimes, it was still. Absolutely, perfectly still. No rippling, no swaying, no nothing. Just… solace. Butterflies playing their strange little games, and sunbeams embracing the Earth. Birdsong was the only thing that broke the silence.”I smiled, and looked out the window. A chuckle escaped. The fields were roiling again, moving up and down as they swelled with the force of the Earth-tide. Even within the safety of the house, I could hear rocks grinding and turf ripping and mending itself back together, mounds of soil cascading and ebbing away until they were replaced with the dusky emerald of the surface-moor. Rabbits and pheasants running on that? And silence? It was a surreal notion. Now she was probably going to say that fish, somehow, swam on the ocean. I laughed again.

- - - It was more of a slime, now. Probably. She didn’t dare turn on the light, for the fear that it would bear some semblance to the moon… What a silly thought. Was she going mad? It didn’t work like that, it didn’t-…. No. No, there was no risking anything. She dipped the glass stirring-rod in the sludge again. Fizzing. Popping. But no shattering. Good, good. She picked up the flask, and squinted hard- had she used too much silver? It was more metallic than anything. It was supposed to be green. Venom-green. That’s what… That’s what it was supposed to be. Darn it all, she didn’t have the time for this! How late was it? She couldn’t just remake the whole bloody thing! A cure was a cure. It wasn’t art. It wasn’t supposed to be pretty. It was just supposed to work. This was it. This was what she had been waiting for. The consequences of impurity be cursed! Oh, Lycaon almighty! THIS WAS IT! Slamming her fist on the cold table, she threw her head back, and began to drink.

- - - The butterfly was made of pale, thin pieces of interlocked jade. Stiff wings clinked against one another as it fluttered clumsily about the office. But then freaking Steven just had to see it. Without missing a beat, he grabbed his miniature stapler, and lobbed it over his cubicle’s wall, hitting his target dead-on. Upon impact, the insect shattered, and a fine, glittering dust arose, only to be sucked up by the ceiling vents. “You’re a jerk,” someone cried from halfway across the room.

- - -The dinghy lurched upwards again. We could hear the cringe-worthy scrapes of her spines on the bottom of our boat, each moment annunciated by a sharp whump as one ended and the other started. Unbroken scales began rising to one side, and then the other… a terrible, sickening shade of seafoam that reminded me a little bit too much of home. “It’s been too long.” My old voice took a chance to appear before I could catch it.“You heard our call. You heard it thrice. And only now, seven years adrift, do you come to our aid.” Whatever the meaning behind the distorted shrieks that issued from the spray there was, I did not listen. I was far too gone to have cared. “Leave. Your excuses harbor nothing.”

- - - “What part of ‘He’s sleeping’ don’t you understand?” The little dryad looked up at her with a tearful snort. “You can’t… For goodness’ sakes. You can’t wake up a non-magical tree. It’s nothing to cry about. He’s not dead, he’s not ignoring you. He’s just sleeping.” Apparently, the explanation didn’t do much in terms of making things better. The creature rubbed vigorously at her eyes with a downturned wrist before leaping forward to wrap her short arms (the best she could) around the slender trunk of the birch tree. The racking sobs came a moment later. The woman sighed. “For the love of…. Just stop, okay? You’re being ridiculous.”

- - -The air was close here. Stitches of silence had been sewn into his tongue, and he dared not disturb the resting realm. The pines, as vigilant as ever, kissed the clouds with their crowns- or, rather, the other way around. He could not see their end. He could, however, see the clouds. The height of their trunks seemed to rival the length of a giant’s sprint. (The only that kept him from believing that he had fallen to the stature of a dormouse was the trace amount of ferns that crouched about the heaps of root. And even then….) After another mile had passed, the man sat down, swept his cloak about his legs, and slumped against his satchel. The daylight had taken a rather unexpected leave. With a twitch of his lips, he felt agog as he turned his eyes above. The man’s breath came slow and swift all at once. This was what he came for. To see this.The slate clouds had gone, replaced by a great, coarse mass of charcoal brown. It fell and rose in time, before it began away, the Earth trembling as it made for the horizon. Ever-so-slowly, day returned, slipping around the belly of the beast like water over a bowl. Less than ten feet away, the bone-shaking step of an ebony hoof fell. (It had to be twice as large as any inn he’d ever seen.) Of all of his years, this marked only the second time that he had seen one of the elk of the Foraoise Mhór.

#green #matchstick for your muse #matchstickforyourmuse #writing #writing prompts #inspiration #custom prompts #fantasy #magic realism #modern fantasy #medieval fantasy #creatures #monsters

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

Reconstruction: Karen Renford’s Boys

CW: Depictions of stitches and semi-graphic description of wounds, dehumanizing language (used in a positive context? Kind of?), pet whump. But I promise this is uplifting! Sort of!

Takes place directly after Insecurity by @spiffythespook. Read that and Dismantled for context.

Henry and Wright Farling (referenced) belong to @spiffythespook

“He needs a doctor,” Henry hissed, glancing sidelong at the door to the kitchen. He was fiddling nervously with the shock implants along his collarbone with one hand, the other tapping fingernails in a staccato rhythm on the table. “Not us. We don’t know what we’re doing.”

“You are not helping me with my confidence,” Sebastian murmured in a slow even tone, his eyes focused with total concentration on the tiny needle he was currently trying to thread with the supplies from Karen’s first aid kit. Next to him was a small tablet, flat on the table, playing a tutorial video on how to give stitches.

“I just don’t understand why she won’t get him medical help,” Henry said, looking hesitantly at the oldest of them. "WRU has a clinic, an on-site hospital…" He shuddered at the memory of waking up in one of those rooms, Karen sitting next to his bed with that slight, coldly satisfied smile on her lips as she pressed into the newly-implanted circles over his collarbone and watched him fight back the sound of pain.

Then that gross scientist or whatever came in all bright smiles, ruffling his hair, and the other one with her stupid flat eyes...

"He needs someone who… who's at least done this before," Henry gestured at the tall man in the chair next to him.

Dex had had to be all but carried down the stairs by Sebastian and Peter, and he looked wrecked. His face had been totally torn open - Henry could barely stand to look at the wet pinkish tissue visible now that Sebastian had carefully cleaned away the fresh and dried blood.

Dex was covered in still-bleeding welts and bruises. His light brown eyes stared blankly off into space, but thankfully he didn’t seem to be… to be hallucinating any longer, like when they first tried to help him up and he flinched away from the corners of the room, panicked and lost trying to hide from things only he could see.

Kept trying to sign with broken fingers and letting out awful little cries of pain when his broken fingers couldn’t move the way he wanted.

“Look at him,” Sebastian said, without raising or changing the tone of his voice. “If we take him out, they’ll know she lost her temper. Can’t have that.” Sebastian’s mouth twisted, bitterly, as the thread finally went through the needle's eye. “Can’t have anyone knowing the ice queen nearly beat her perfect pet to death.”

Dex shivered, the only sign he could hear them, and blinked slowly. Henry had never seen anyone look as totally… destroyed… as Dex did, right now.

“So… so what? So you’re just going to sew up his face? With your experience of, of fucking cooking?”

Sebastian paused and looked over at him. His eyes were gentle, and understanding. “Henry. He’s going to be okay. I promise. I’ll get him sewn up, this is the only one bad enough to need stitches. If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.”

“But-... but she could have killed him!”

“She still might,” Sebastian said calmly. “I don’t know what happened up there, but-”

“I… I do. She said he loves someone and he’s not allowed to. When sh-she… when she told m-me to clean him uh-up…” Henry’s voice began to tremble and waver. His throat closed around the words he wanted to say.

Peter scraped his chair across the floor, pulling closer to Henry, sliding his arms around him just below his shoulders. Henry hated being touched, but in the moment, with Peter, he leaned into it and turned his head to press his forehead into Peter’s neck, clenching his eyes shut to force back the tears that threatened to come out. “She did that to him because he cared about somebody else that wasn’t her!”

Over his head, Peter and Seb looked at each other.

Dex mouthed something - it looked like his lips pushed together and then apart, one syllable - but no sound came out of his mouth. He didn’t look at any of them - he had focused his vision on a spot on the cream-colored wall and stuck there.

“Why does he look like that?” Henry asked, and his voice was caught in his throat, it kept coming out too high, too young.

“Facility stare,” Seb said flatly, with false casual ease. “We all get it. Coping mechanism."

“It lets you go away in your head,” Peter said reassuringly. “When it's so bad you can't keep going any longer. He’ll come back after a while. It’s just… it’s just something we all learn how to do in training. Trust me, Henry, he’ll come back. He’s… he’s been doing this a really long time.”

It was only at that second that Henry really realized that Dex was old enough to be his father. He could see the hints of lines in his face, the spread of stubble along his jaw, and yet… he still looked so young, too. Especially now, blank and empty, battered and bleeding and broken.

“All he d-did was have a f-feeling for someone,” Henry whispered, burying himself against Peter, who tightened the arms around him. It was a feeble hint of defense against the evil that had trapped them in this house… in Henry’s case, literally.

He pushed his palm into the little circles, the fucking-... the fucking things she’d put in him that went off if he got within five feet of the stupid fucking wall that circled her property. Trapped here until he could be trusted.

Until he was as broken as the others.

Sebastian sighed, turning back to his work. “It was really a matter of time,” He said softly to Peter. “He’s lucky she didn’t notice before. I kind of wondered… but honestly, I thought, who could care about that stupid creep? I figured he just, you know… wanted sex so badly he’d even take it from... him.”

A strange expression passed over Peter’s face, and he cleared his throat, swallowing. “Yeah… I thought so, too. I, I guess… I guess maybe it was more than that…”

“Clearly. She beat the fucking shit out of him. She’s been sending him to see that, that bastard since way before I ever came home… Jesus, Dex.” Seb looked up at him. Dex showed no indication he could hear. “You got yourself in deep shit, huh?”

Dex blinked once.

“I can’t believe he’d get himself this wrecked over that fucking creep,” Sebastian muttered. “That asshole thinks it’s art, what Karen does to us. He’ll probably think it’s funny when she tells him she beat Dex up like this.”

The weird expression passed over Peter’s face again, and he just shrugged. “Maybe. Doubt it, though.”

Henry had found himself staring at Dex again, thinking about the older man, that he’d been here for decades and he was forty and Karen still beat him up… and he just had to sit there and take it. Henry’s life would look just like that, now. If she found out Peter was so nice to him, that he cared about Peter more than he did anybody else - except she knew, didn’t she, she’d said he was making moon eyes…

“Oh, god,” Henry said softly. “Oh my god, this is it, isn’t it, this is… this is it… this is my whole future."

“It’s okay,” Peter said, rocking back and forth, his mouth moving lightly against Henry's hair. “It’s okay, Henry.”

“No, it’s not,” Henry half-whined into Peter’s neck. “It’s not okay and it’s never going to be okay again. All he did was care about someone!”

“Sssshhhh, she’ll hear you.” Peter rested his chin on top of Henry’s head and held him, and slowly Henry raised one hand to grasp onto his arm, breathing in shaky shallow gasps as he tried to calm himself down. “Don’t let her hear, Henry. It’s just us down here, let’s keep it just us.”

Henry nodded against Peter’s skin, trying not to think about the way she’d sounded, so perfectly calm with little spots of Dex’s blood on her face, telling him that if he didn’t learn to care more for her than Peter that she’d take everything away, just like she’d done to Dex.

He thought of Dex’s broken fingers, bent all out of shape, and the awful sound of him screaming in that strange inhuman hoarse voice, like an animal's scream, and shuddered.

There was a soft hiss, and Henry blinked back tears to turn his head and look. Dex was still staring at that spot on the wall as Sebastian carefully, slowly stitched up his face.

The only way to even know that he felt it was by the soft, constant hissing sound he made each time the needle slid into his skin and back out again. In and out, in and out, and Henry’s stomach lurched. He had to close his eyes and stop watching or he’d throw up all over the kitchen table.

“Wright Farling’s not fucking worth this,” Sebastian muttered. “Why, Dex? Huh?”

Dex didn’t even look in his direction. He just kept staring at the wall.

“So, what do we do next?” Peter asked, softly, nearly a whisper. “What comes next, Seb?”

“We have to splint his fingers. I’ll… I’ll find a video for that, too.” Sebastian sighed, pausing to carefully tie off the end of the thread, clipping it as close to the skin as he could, sitting back to look over his work. Stitches ran from just above Dex's jaw on the left side nearly to his ear, looking nearly fake, like they'd been painted on, compared to his sun-starved pale skin.

Seb's face was ash-white and greenish around the edges, but he did not waver, did not shake, did not cry.

“If we’re careful, we can set them right, and he’ll be able to sign once they heal up.”

“I’ll set his fingers,” Peter said, almost too quickly. “You and Henry go… go, uh. Clean, clean up her office. Get her clothes out of the hamper and soak them. I’ll set his fingers. I… need a minute alone with him.”

“What?” Henry pulled back, looking at Peter’s face, the hint of curl to his dark hair.

Peter shook his head “Just… go with it, Henry. Seb knows how to clean blood. Just go with him and do what he tells you. I’ll set Dex’s fingers.”

Dex’s broken hand twitched, as though he were listening, wherever he had gone deep inside his mind. He hissed, again.

“But why do you need to be alone-”

“Henry.” Peter turned, biting down on his lower lip, looking pained. “Please. Just trust me that it’s important, okay? Just trust me.”

He and Sebastian looked at each other, and Henry wondered how long he would live here before he had all those unspoken communications like they did, until he and Peter could have whole conversations without saying a word.

“Okay,” Sebastian said softly. “We’ll head upstairs, and leave you two alone. Just… don’t fuck up the splints, okay, Peter? Please. He needs his hands to talk. He can’t-... don’t let her take that away from him, too.”

Peter nodded, slowly, seriously. His jaw was set, his eyes sparkling. He looked like a man on a mission, and Henry thought it felt like there was more to that mission than just fixing his hand, but he couldn’t think of what.

Dex never moved, even though Henry knew he had to hurt so, so badly. He held himself very still and stayed blank and empty while Henry took out the supplies to splint his fingers. He carefully laid each item out on the table, trying not to think about the fact that Karen had supplies for this just lying around the house, ready. Finally, he couldn’t stop himself. “Has she broken your hands before?”

Sebastian, in the process of pulling up the tutorial video for Peter, shrugged. “Not mine. A cook without working hands isn’t much use, and she’s not about to start cooking for herself again.”

“She’s broken mine,” Peter said quietly. “Early on. These are probably all still here from then. But not in a long time, and mine healed up well enough. All right, I’m going to watch the tutorial a couple of times and then I’ll do this.”

“Okay.” Henry hesitated, not quite willing to leave Peter, not entirely sure why. Finally, Sebastian stood and jerked his head in the direction of the stairs, and Henry swallowed hard, nodding. “Peter…”

“You’re okay,” Peter said softly, soothingly, looking up at him from where he sat next to Dex. “She’s not going to hurt anyone else today. We’ll be okay.”

“But he’s not okay,” Henry said. “And… he won’t be, will he?”

Once more, that look that Henry couldn’t quite read between the other two. Peter looked over at Dex, and licked his lips, thinking. “He’ll be okay,” he said finally. “You’ll see. Now go on.”

Henry followed Seb out of the kitchen, but paused just on the other side of the doorway.

“Dex, are you listening?” He heard Peter say, in a low voice. “Please. I need you to be here with me. I know it hurts, but I need you to come back. This is important.”

There was a soft sound, not quite a grunt. Some kind of acknowledgement.

“Good.” Henry could hear Peter’s deep inhale from where he stood. “Okay. While she was… while…” He paused. Henry swallowed back an urge to go back in there and help, somehow.

At the stairs, Sebastian paused and turned when he realized Henry wasn’t following him. Henry put a finger to his mouth, hoping Seb would take the hint and be silent. Seb rolled his eyes, but… after a second he came back and stood next to Henry.

“While you were still upstairs,” Peter said softly, voice shaking a little, “Do you remember when the phone rang?”

There was a soft sound of assent.

“Okay, good. So… so the phone call… was, um, was from… Wright Farling.”

The sound that came from Dex’s throat was a nearly inhuman, despairing wail.

Henry felt his knees buckle under the weight of it.

“N-no, Dex, please, be quiet and don’t get her attention-” The sound cut off and then changed into more hoarse sobbing like Henry had heard coming from upstairs when she was hurting the older man, when the sobs had been punctuated by the thwak of her cane against Dex's skin.

Henry's eyes welled up with tears again and he jammed the palms of his hands against them to force the tears back.

Dex sounded so fucking gone.

This is what the rest of your life looks like, Henry.

Peter's voice became insistent. “Dex, please don’t try to sign, you’ll only hurt yourself-... Can you please-... Dex, god damn it, stop signing-”

There were new sounds Henry didn’t understand at first, rustling and scraping of the chairs. He managed to peek around the doorframe without being seen, and caught a glimpse of Peter holding Dex, the taller man slumped against him, weeping with his teeth ground together so he wouldn't move and tear open the new stitches while Peter petted gently through his dark hair, shushing, whispering into his ear.

"Please, Dex, you're all right, you're good, we're good boys, you're a good boy…"

Henry felt a lick of disgust down his spine, but realized Dex had visibly started to calm at the words. Henry wondered - not for the first time - if he really should feel grateful to Karen that he hadn't been forced to learn the way the others had, at the Facility, dehumanized until good boy - something you said to dogs - meant more than nearly any other kind of reassurance.

Henry turned to look and next to him, tears were running freely down Sebastian’s face even as he had a hand over his own mouth to keep himself silent. Seb caught Peter looking at him and shook his head. “He’s been here so long,” Seb whispered behind his hand. “She's taken his voice and his whole life. He felt something she didn’t like and she took that, too. What else is left for her to fucking take?”

The answer hung unspoken between them.

She would take anything.

She would take everything.

Dex’s sobs finally quieted back down, as Peter continued to murmur soft good boys to him. Henry's heart beat in his throat.

“Dex, listen to me,” Peter said softly. “Wright Farling didn’t call for her. Okay? He called to give me a… a secret message for you.”

Dex went perfectly, utterly silent.

Holding his breath.

“He said to tell you he called,” Peter all but whispered. “He wanted you to know.” The sound barely carried to the two men eavesdropping in the hall. “He said… he said to tell you he’s sorry, for this. For what she did.”

There was a pause, and then Dex began to cry again, but this time the sound was different in some way Henry couldn’t have defined but understood instinctively. It wasn’t despair, now, in Dex's tears - it was something like a fragile, barely-there hope.

Sebastian grabbed his arm and pointed towards the stairs. Whatever else Peter said to Dex, Henry didn't hear it, as he let Sebastian lead him away.

Halfway up the stairs, Henry said quietly, “Does that mean-”

“Sssshhhh,” Sebastian whispered, but the tears in his eyes had changed, too.

Hope.

For Dex, if no one else.

“Give Dex a minute with Peter,” Sebastian said softly. “Let’s… let’s go clean up her mess.”

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