As If On Cue, Andrew Appeared In The Doorway With A Bottle Of Whiskey In One Hand And Kevin At His Back.

moments before the end of the world

This is a gift

good content

The Reluctant Victor, inspired by The Reluctant Bride by Auguste Toulmouche - I just thought that this painting was SO perfect for Katniss and I had to draw it!

Hunger Games didn’t really eat holes in my brain the way that it did for some other people but god the opening lines. The opening lines. Katniss wakes up in bed and immediately, instinctively reaches beside her, only to find the bed empty and cold. Before we even know her name – before we know literally anything about her or this world or her place in that world – we know that she loves someone. We know that she is reaching for where Prim should be, sleeping safe and warm beside her, but Prim is not there. She is not there, and her half of the bed is cold and empty. People talk about characters being “doomed by the narrative” when most of the time the character was literally just a well-foreshadowed death, but Prim WAS doomed by the narrative. It’s the very first thing we learned. It’s the most key, integral, important piece of information we’re given about everything that is about to happen: Every single choice Katniss makes is to protect her little sister, and it isn’t enough. In the end, Prim still dies. Prim was dead before the story even started. Katniss, reaching. Prim’s side of the bed was cold and empty. There is no version of this story where Prim could have been saved. Katniss, reaching. The very first thing she does in the series. She wakes, and she reaches, but Prim is already gone. THAT is how you do Doomed By The Narrative. Edit: Also it is key that there was literally nothing Katniss could have done differently. If she had not acted to save Prim, Prim would not have survived the Hunger Games. But by acting to save Prim, Katniss accidentally kicked off an entire rebellion and ultimately massively increased the amount of danger Prim was actually in. The key is that this is irrelevant. If Katniss had done literally anything differently, Prim still would have died. If Katniss had faltered or changed course at any point, Prim still would have died. There was never a point where Katniss could have changed Prim’s fate. There’s no version of this story where Prim lives to see the end of it. She’s dead before the story begins. That’s doomed by the narrative.

(A spin off of this post. It is very highly recommended to read it first if you haven't already)

@alls-well-that-ends-weird

*cackles*

Bruce sat at his desk, his hands sternly folded in front of his face. Damian sat in the chair in front of him, staring defiantly.

“Damian… We need to talk about the kids. And the animals.”

Damian stuck his nose in the air arrogantly with the manner of a man who knew he could not lose. Normally an admirable feat against Bruce “Brucie” “Batman” Wayne, but this was Damian Wayne, formerly Al Ghul. What he wanted, he usually ended up getting—with or without permission.

“I don’t know what you're talking about, Father.”

Bruce stared at him, just a few degrees shy of his batglare. “Damian. In the past three months, you have acquired twenty-three toddlers, seventy two cats, fifty dogs, an uncountable number of fish, another cow, three deer, and a random assortment of other animals. Not only that, you adopted Colin, and gained partial guardianship over Jon.” Bruce started full on glaring. “I don't know how. I don't want to know—actually, I do, if only I can stop you from doing more. But that's not the point.” Bruce leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “No more. Send them back where they came from. They need to go. Now.”

Damian examined his fingernails delicately. “No.”

“Damian—”

Damian grinned evilly. Bruce tensed in anticipation as Damian opened his mouth and spoke in an overly loud and dramatic voice.

“BUT FATHER YOU CAN'T MAKE THEM LEAVE—”

Bruce's beautiful, original mahogany wood doors burst open, shattering against the walls.

“NO!”

It was the children. And the animals. God, so many animals. They were all screaming at him in their shrill little voices and all their noises like a demented chorus. Was this his punishment? He knew he wasn't the best father in the world, but surely he didn't deserve this?

“NO!”

“THAT'S OUR BABA!”

“WE WANNA STAY!”

“I WAN’ BABA!”

“Yeah Mr. Wayne,” a horrifyingly familiar voice said over the waves of small beings, quieting them to whimper and sobs, “Don't take us away from ‘Baba’.”

There, walking into his office with stupidly big devious grins on their faces—the exact same one as Damian’s, the little snots—were Colin and Jon, both clearly enjoying this entirely too much.

They walked up behind a smug Damian (who was drowning in cute animals and tiny orphan children—no! Stay strong Bruce!) and wrapped their arms around him, pouting.

“Gosh, Gramps,” Bruce felt a stab in the chest as Colin sniffed in mock distress, “I just got a big family, you can't take them from me now! Baba promised we'd all have a loving and comfortable life.”

“Yeah Grandpapa!” Jon pouted, his eyes tearing up in his deadliest puppy dog eyes. Bruce felt another stab in the chest. “I've got such a big family now, and I can't let my new siblings down now, you know? Baba promised we could all stay together!” All the children nodded along with him, eyes teary and noses sniffing with puppy eyes they clearly learned from Jon.

That little—

“Well Father?” Damian smirked. “You wouldn't make me a liar now, would you? Not to my precious family?”

Bruce had the sinking feeling that this would not be the last conversation about this. He also had the sneaking suspicion that he would win exactly none of them.

Bruce dropped his head in his hands and groaned.

God, what would he tell Clark?

the witcher but with britney spears music (heavily inspired by @paper-records)

I just can never get enough of Shen Wei’s wavering control when it comes to Zhao Yunlan

(I got Zhen Hun vol 1 and I read it in three hours I was so excited)

Like, Shen Wei is so obviously obsessed. He stares at Yunlan constantly (as long as Yunlan is not looking). He can’t help but to look back when he leaves Yunlan. Yunlan is sick and Shen Wei helps him home, basically tucks him into bed, and cleans his entire apartment. Shen Wei is absolutely the type of person to smell Yunlan’s clothes-

But my favourite scene is definitely when Shen Wei helps Yunlan drink. Because he does very well! He and Yunlan drink an alcoholic under the table, and Yunlan is really only tipsy, meaning either Shen Wei did all the heavy lifting or Yunlan’s liver is inhumanly quick.

And with being drunk comes Shen Wei completely losing his last threads of sanity. He is a being born from darkness whose hunger can never be sated, and good golly it shows. Him basically trying to eat Yunlan has always been a highlight. The moment Yunlan shows resistance (full resistance instead of just hesitance), Shen Wei full on unpossesses his own body.

I’m fully convinced (I wasn’t on my first two reads, but I am now) that Shen Wei unpossessed himself. He is so talented. His entire body shuts down, Yunlan of course fucking panics, and Yunlan takes three tries to literally summon Shen Wei’s soul back. Man just unpossessed his own body. The body that he is attached to. Shen Wei has never stolen a body, this one is just his, and he manages to unpossess it.

It’s so great. Yunlan told him to stop and, like, he did. He really, really did. He stopped his heart beating and himself breathing and literally being in his own body. 10/10, Shen Wei is so good at following directions.

Yunlan, upon realizing that Shen Wei is the super intimidating, ominously cloaked figure who literally everyone on his team is fucking terrified of and who has worked with him for years and has only been sort of (very) obsessive over Zhao Yunlan: “I should probably stop flirting with him, because it’s a bit awkward.”

Yunlan, approximately five seconds later: “You threw yourself at me while you were drunk. I never knew how much you favoured me.”

Zhao Yunlan is the best character ever. A hot professor acts really weird and is so obviously attracted to him and Yunlan is super into it. Shen Wei treats him like precious glass that cannot be allowed to even get dirty and also like he will die if Yunlan looks at him for too long. Shen Wei tries not to touch him but revels in the warmth left behind. Shen Wei bit him like thirty times because of his conflicting desires to both eat or fuck him. Zhao Yunlan is so fucking confused.

Zhu Hong suggests that Yunlan could sleep with her in lieu of payment and Yunlan is like “Okay :)” (because he thinks it would be nice to not need to have to pay her). Yunlan is openly bi to the point that him flirting with a hot professor surprises literally none of his coworkers (they just tease him because it’s funny).

Yunlan is positive that Shen Wei is attracted to him, because obviously Shen Wei is? Yunlan isn’t being vain or overly confident, Shen Wei literally caught him while he was falling off of the school roof and tended to his light scrape like it was Yunlan’s arm coming off. Shen Wei is so obviously attracted to Yunlan, but at the same time tries desperately not to show it. Zhao Yunlan is so confused. He is bummed when Shen Wei declines to meet with him and even more bummed when Shen Wei tells him he doesn’t want to go out with him and he is also baffled because he woke up to find Shen Wei literally watching him sleep less than a week later.

If I was Zhao Yunlan, I would also be confused.

Zhao Yunlan also is great because he’s the world’s best detective who comes up with half-baked theories and tricks people (well, mostly Shen Wei and Da Qing) into admitting he’s right. He cannot stand how useless Guo Changcheng is, but Guo Changcheng is his little good luck charm and he will be bringing him everywhere. Wang Zheng tries to die and he berates her like a little kid. The Emissary sends a spooky little guy to keep Yunlan from continuing forward, and Yunlan can’t bring himself to knock it aside, so he just steps over it. When it follows him, he eventually just picks it up. When it gets scared, he lets it hide in Clarity (his watch). He is disrespectful to the very idea of gods. He is unintimidated by the Emissary who literally everyone else is terrified of. He burns incense for the little messenger even though he didn’t have to.

There were some (a lot of) parts I didn’t really get, even during my second read. However, this translation makes a lot of sense! The underworld folk are fucking terrified of Shen Wei. Shen Wei is overpowered and answers to nobody and his very presence as the Emissary is enough to make most ghosts run and hide. They are so scared. Shen Wei is getting worse. If Shen Wei goes rogue, literally nobody can stop him.

Man, if only that mountain god, the one being in the entirety of history that Shen Wei was willing to listen to, was still around.

(They decide to get that mountain god back.)

Honestly, them wanting Yunlan to remember makes a lot more sense than whatever I thought they were doing the first two times I read it. They just need someone to hold Shen Wei’s leash, and they couldn’t have known that Zhao Yunlan is literally the worst possible choice for that.

(Zhao Yunlan doesn’t even care when Shen Wei tears his shirt (apparently with fucking claws) or bites him and he really doesn’t care what the Emissary does as long as Shen Wei lets him get his baby Wang Zheng back first. The mountain god, from what I recall, was more amused by Shen Wei’s darker tendencies than anything else. There is no one worse to hope will control Shen Wei, because there is no one else who is as willing as Zhao Yunlan is to sleep with the most powerful, uncontrollable being in metaphorical Hell.)

I’ll give them points for trying, but really, they didn’t do a very good job picking. I mean, there was literally no other option, but still. Shen Wei who retains some degree of his self control vs Shen Wei who is feral over Yunlan is a pretty obvious choice.

All in all, I love Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei. Yunlan thinks he might be coming on too strong, meanwhile Shen Wei would probably collect Yunlan’s hair if he thought he could get away with it. Shen Wei knows where Yunlan lives and lives nearby, he works in the same city, and he has stalked seen Yunlan on cases before, meanwhile Yunlan’s worst crime is sullying the professor in his head. I love them. They’re perfect for each other.

Gotham villains: yeah I was traumatized so now I'm evil

The batfam, have more trauma in their pinky finger than they've experienced in their entire lives, largely due to being heroes and are still heroes: :/

percy watching the minotaur walk around new rome in business casual after nico & his dumbass boyfriend decided to fight for monster reform or something. idk