Lyle Thompson 📹

Prompt: "Let me see you."

"Please," Danhausen whispers. It's almost like he's afraid to pitch his voice any louder, afraid of what it might mean; afraid of shattering whatever has swelled between them, the strange, twisting sensations that Hook's been trying to swallow back for weeks. One hand rises, the pads of his fingers touching Hook's forehead. "Please let Danhausen kiss you."

Hook's been waiting for this since that day in the ring, since he'd stormed out to chase off Nese and Sterling like dogs, since he'd agreed to be partners. He's waited. He's wanted. He just couldn't find the courage to be the one to ask. Embarrassment coils in his chest, but it's true.

He opens his mouth, ready to agree, and then shuts it again. His teeth snap together. This is the start of something, something big. Before they do this, before Hook carves his heart open completely—he can't be the only one laid bare.

He lifts his own hand and trails two fingers down Danhausen's cheek, getting little smudges of the paint along his skin. "Let me see you." A request. A vulnerable, terrifying, unsteady request. "Let me see you first."

He's not sure if this is allowed, really. He's equally unsure if Danhausen will react negatively, but it's too late to bite the words back. He waits, afraid to breathe, while the meaning sinks in. And then Danhausen smiles, lips stretching wide. He slides off the bed and disappears in the bathroom, emerging a few moments later with a wet washcloth.

When he hands it to Hook, presses it into Hook's palm, Hook is aware he's being given something extremely precious. Danhausen settles back in front of him, hands in his lap, trembling against his thighs. Hook inhales, and it burns.

He sweeps the cloth across Danhausen's forehead, down his cheeks; flips it over to the clean side to do the opposite and curve down around the man's chin. He cups it between his fingers to slide the cloth over Danhausen's nose. He leaves his mouth for last, almost hesitant. Almost.

By the end, the washcloth is coated with a layer of gray, the paint mixed and murky. Danhausen bites down on his lip as though he's nervous, now; nervous at how he's perceived without the shield, the defenses.

Hook tosses the washcloth onto the floor, taking Danhausen's face in his hands. Drags his thumbs down Danhausen's cheeks.

And then he kisses him, delighting in the way Danhausen's mouth opens up immediately for him, reveling in the way the man loops his arms possessively around Hook's shoulders and tugs him in tighter, because it's just this, just them. Partners. Partners.

As Hook climbs up with their mouths still fused, a somewhat uncoordinated jumble of limbs deposited in Danhausen's lap, fingers gripping Danhausen's ears, he's got just enough awareness to think that he's well and truly, hopelessly, gone on this man.

CAN HE NOT THOUGH?!

He literally kills me on a daily basis already and then they drop this trailer on a random Thursday before work and expect me to be OKAY?!

Me. I am Girls.

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN as ANAKIN SKYWALKER in STAR WARS: EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH

give credits when using these gifs <3

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

Absolutely sending me that vasco sleeps butt fucking naked with his weird little Victorian doll boyfriend

Different strokes for different folks.

Vasco finds sleepwear kind of unnecessary and restricting. He doesn't insist on sleeping nude and can go to bed decently dressed if the situation calls for it, but if it's up to him and he's comfortable and in trusted company, he prefers wearing very little.

Machete gets cold easily and has weird body image issues, not being properly covered tends to distress him. Plus he has a thing for high guality garments and wants to look pretty or at least passably presentable even in bed.

I've decided to do myself what the cowards at Aston won't. Behold.

Vox can understand Velvette just fine. They don't necessarily need to get along all the time, but they have a mutually beneficial contract that guarantees her support in the most efficient way possible, just how they both like it, short and strict and to the point. Vox does not understand Valentino. It drives him unimaginably, disgustingly insane. He knows how to handle him, make no mistake. Valentino is a never-ending powerhouse that wrangles out content from his employees like there's no tomorrow. He's proven himself to be Vox's most lucrative investment yet. He is resourceful, well-connected and most importantly predictable enough to rein in. Because he listens to you, because he needs you.

He is also, undeniably, out of his goddamn mind. Yet you've already invested too much in the corporate empire you've built together and there is no point turning back now that you have him so close to your side. It's OK however! He couldn't possibly be stupid enough to throw away the best partnership deal he's ever had just for the sake of something petty cause -oh, wait - he genuinely might just be that stupid and you never would've guessed because he's so cocksure of his bullshit that 80% of the time it ends up working in his favor anyway.

Fuck his life indeed. The kicker for this of course is that Valentino, genuinely does believe he has struck gold with Vox. Valentino is a clingy, possessive, immature, perverted, sadistic, egotistical man-child with severe rage issues and zero impulse control. No he is not aware of this at all. No he does not know why nobody is able to tolerate him and why every single person he gets close to hates his guts with every inch of their burning rotting souls. All he knows is that hell has now given him a flat faced prince in shining liquid crystal armour, riding on a cash filled horse with promises of power and luxury, who's practically handing him success on a silver platter. Doesn't mean that Val trusts him, doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy seeing him lose his shit. But at the end of the day vox has his back, and as long as Val keeps calling for him, he'll eventually turn up and make everything better. Cause hey if Vox hasn't left him yet for this long he must be doing something right. Right?

does anyone wanna talk about how the fandom has hyper projected onto shen yuan and went the mile with at least a leap of interruptation of one line yet turn a blind eye to the rest of canon?

specifically I'm talkin about the broke american college studentification of shen yuan coupled with the fanon that he's chronically ill. these are two beasts of their own and should be tackled differently so I will.

I personally and strongly disagree with how a lot of fanon portrays shen yuan with messy hair, a large hoodie, disgustin room, and general I guess losercore aesthetics lmao. and now I'm even wondering if he was explicitly a college student or if it was just fanon based on that he's at least 20 years old. I feel this is a mental image constructed not from canon, but the idea of what kind of person would be his age and show his behaviour online... from a western perspective.

I believe that he would be far more put together, especially as he is a rich pretty boy in modern china. the difference in acceptable levels of casual, especially for a son of a very wealthy family, are much different between america and china. honestly I do find it a bit sad I wear a slightly frilly button up shirt and a short skirt and suddenly I'm a model in my area but I digress. I definitely think that shen yuan would probably even be actively into street fashion, give how well he seems to take to shen qingqiu's own pretty boy life. I also have a hard time believin that such a low life style person would readily take to the upkeep and demands of life as an immortal master with specialty in the fine arts.

there's also something to say about his resemblance to shen qingqiu (re: mushroom body), as well as I've seen some people claim that shen yuan was tall due to his lack of reaction nor stumbling with his new towering height. while the two adaptions I know if depict him with short hair, I think he could have readily had longer hair as well, maybe shoulder or so length. if "not reacting" is grounds to stand on (which is also used for the chronically ill headcanon), one could reasonably point out he doesn't seem to have any trouble with his now waist length locks. even slowly growing out my hair I'm having shocks to what the life entails, so I can't imagine being fully chill with sudden long hair. however, with the it's modern china argument for fashion, it is most reasonable he'd have short hair.

and yet, despite all this evidence in favour of a distinguished shen yuan ignored, the fandom took his pretty boy waiting to die line and ran with it, hard. I have been told this was due to a fan translation note implying that it could have hinted to chronic illness, and it was instead warped as fact of what the line was trying to say. I've also seen the lack of reaction claim used on him supposedly adjusting very well to living with without a cure, often paralleled to some people's chronic illnesses. this is a fair headcanon and is not really a problem on it's own. I just want to speak my thoughts on it, especially in contrast to the other popular fanon arising from ignoring a fair bit of canon implications and then taking one that most likely was not even in that direction as gospel.

first and foremost, as a disabled person myself, I find a lot of fandom depiction of chronic illness to be very divorced from reality, used to play into the losercore vibe, often just thrown in there with feelin like the creator forgot they gave him a disability only to suddenly write a single sentence goin "look! he's disabled!", and worse of all as if it could be his only justification for wasting his life away on the internet.

I once read a fanfic that seemed to just list a bunch of things he had or did because of his disability in a very list-like way, but a believable combination enough to presume they at least knew someone disabled, only to leave his cane at home after establishing his unamed illness with 50 symptoms could suddenly k.o. him at any time. not only did nothing happen while he was out, I question why someone of his status yet so severely disabled would not have an ambulatory wheelchair.

I also question the lack of mental illness present in many fanfics. this is not only due to that chronic illness does not really exist independently of mental illness, but I feel that shen yuan is canonically very mentally ill. not only is he wasting his life away with no purpose, heavily implied to be neglected, but he immediately accepts and welcomes a foreign life with no consideration of going back. many people write fanfics of shen yuan pressed about his identity and wishing to be seen for him, but as I've noticed and have pointed out to me by others, that's just not the case. there is no canon reveal because there is no identity conflict. he may divorce himself from shen jiu adamantly, but he marries himself quite well to shen qingqiu, readily switchin how to refer to himself near instantly.

I also feel there's something to say about how he's not only welcoming a foreign world, but one with severe danger that he has to face. and what does he do? dissociates like hell. it takes him a couple books before he even sees those around him as people! I also feel that him not even recognizin that he was cryin from literally ripping a chunk of his own leg out until binghe pointed it out speaks volumes. he let binghe rawdog him in a craze with excruciatin pain that literally killed him and was like "yea this is fine ah what do you mean there's a chance binghe might be dead when I get back noo". could even make an argument that his ignorance to his harem is more than just comphet, but also believin that he wouldn't have value to others in that way. his value is his status: a status he didn't earn and has never earned.

I don't know. I feel there's a lot more to shen yuan than the fandom looks at or rather the fandom digs into things that aren't even there as if it's the penacle of his character. I wanna see more exploration of shen yuan as he is rather than what the fandom wants him to be. or at least to me, his pretty rich boy complex feels far more interestin than the hundredth "oh yea he's chronically ill" shoved in for little to no reason other than they can't comprehend his behaviour without it. as if to say "well if only he could physically do other things, he would. he's not like those losers who can't get a grip of themselves." completely ignorin the depths of mental illness they could explore. it feels both saneist and ableist, in different directions. he's only so pathetic because he's physically disabled. that he can't be any other way, otherwise he's just not likeable.

like give him a couple personality disorders to explore his behaviour with or something! show how he's actually so used to playing pretty composed rich boy in public and that's why he so easily slipped into his idea of shen qingqiu! something!! anything!!!

everyone talks about corroded coffin and eddie being a rockstar, but no one talks about the robin-steve-jonathan-argyle 90's ska band like??? the disrespect

after attempting to commission art of boba fett without his helmet, i am forced to consider that a good number of artists, subconsciously or not, cannot accept that temuera morrison has always been hot despite his lack of european features, and honestly this explains a lot about the fucking travesty that is every single clone's face in TCW and TBB

surprise! here's some Ex-Aid!

deliberately not saving this for either holiday, because...that feels like it would be weird? let's pour one out for Poppy and Dan and their bizarro mobius strip of a family dynamic. 🫗

✨Why so pretty!!!✨

What a plot twist you were. [x]

The plaid jacket.