#because. yeah.

[ryan1014n2]

Do you ever start a painting one day and then don't touch it for three and a half years and then randomly come back to it and finish it in two days? Acrylic on canvas.

[meyerlansky]

for wip title meme - Stalag shit pretty pls!

tagging @sluttyhenley and @redbelles since you guys asked about it to AND ALSO

bell you're getting called OUT 😈

sooo this is actually the first thing i started writing for mota and it was an unclog-the-pipe kind of idea and is self-indulgent with regards to wanting more bucky whump. i may actually never post it in totality for... a couple reasons, but i actually did a fuckton of research into how the stalags were run and kriegie culture inside of them, so it was a good exercise on a lot of levels even if it never sees the light of day. because it's sort of backburnered, that means i feel more comfortable posting BIG CHUNKS OF IT 🎉 but uh, that said, this one IS going under a cut because in addition to there being a lot of it, it's. dark.

cw noncon and psychological torture, you can probably guess where this is headed. the structure i settled into with this one is gale POV for the first part, wherein Something Is Wrong With Bucky:

Bucky shrugs, a quick, smooth shuffle of his shoulders that’s as big a lie as what’s coming out of his mouth. “Krauts get a little rough sometimes. Nothing anyone else didn't get.”

“They didn't do anything to me,” Gale says, every word feeling heavier than the last, pulling him down. “Just asked me some questions.”

Two things happen then. Something in Bucky’s face twitches, a flinch stealing over it so quick Gale barely catches it. But his shoulders drop, just a bit, some tension leaving him. Gale for the life of him can’t make sense of it.

“‘Course not, Buck,” Bucky says, light, easy, like Gale doesn't have a pit the size of the Atlantic opening up in his gut, cold flooding in. “Who'd wanna damage that pretty face of yours?”

From any of the boys, there might be some bitterness in it—it’s not like Gale doesn't know some of the goons cut him a break, ’cause of rank or coloring or whatever else. From John there’s just… relief. It feels wrong. The pit yawns wider, and the water gets higher. “Roughed yours up, though,” he says, the words feeling distant as he remembers the black eye John was sporting, that first day. The way John had grabbed his chin, tilted his head around, looking for something. Something like the beating he got, maybe.

That's what Gale had thought at the time. Now he’s not so sure that’s where it ended.

Bucky’s eyes go dark again, as distant and near-drowned as Gale feels, so he claws his way back. Tries, anyway. “Yeah, well,” John mutters, “better me than you.”

and what's wrong is not only was bucky sexually assaulted post-interrogation, but the guards told him they did the same to gale when he passed through the dulag, and he spends months beating himself up about not being there and being able to take it instead of gale, until he says something about it and gale's like ??? and bucky realizes it WAS instead but now gale KNOWS. second part's bucky's POV of the assault, so it's not chronological, and maybe it doesn't need to be shown/written at all but i wanted to because i like whump.

He’s got a headache the size of Texas, blood—his own, his own, not some kid in a cart’s, they let him wipe that off, so what's left is just his own, thank Christ—itching as it dries behind his ear, and a pit in his chest every time he thinks about Bremen and London and Russelheim and the way the woods smelled when he was running through them, clean and green and endless—

The door slams open, and Bucky gets two seconds to berate himself for jumping, for being so in his own head he didn't hear them coming, before one of the goons grabs his arm and yanks him up, spinning him to face the wall. Turns his head to the window on instinct, but the light spilling in catches him off guard and sends a new wave of pain spiking through his skull.

“Heya, fellas. Couldn't get enough, huh?” He shoots over his shoulder, hands up but grinning like nothing’s wrong, like he’s back at Thorpe Abbotts joking with the boys.

(Later on, he’ll wonder if that was what did it. If he’d just kept his eyes forward, his mouth shut, if they’d have—)

and the third part's gale POV again, after their little yard spat and is........ kind of recovery? inasmuch as one is capable of recovering while still stuck in a POW camp and going crazy with fear because no one takes your warnings about needing to get the fuck out seriously, and also your best friend punching you in the face is the most normal you've felt in almost a year:

“I’m sorry.”

The noise that comes out of Bucky’s bunk is barely human, a snarl more suited to Meatball, or the Kraut’s dogs. “You’re sorry,” Bucky snarls. “You are a real piece of work, Buck.”

He rolls over, kicks his legs out of the bunk, boots on, to glare up at Gale. “Saint Cleven,” he sneers, and he’s just pissed and it's nothing Gale hasn't heard before, but it still stings a bit. “I pick a fight and you’re the one who's sorry.” His eye’s already swelling up, purpling a bit at the edge. Again. Gale’s stomach roils looking at it. “It’s not bad enough that’s the first time you’ve treated me like normal—”

“Hittin’ you ain’t normal,” he bites out, before he can stop himself. He scrubs his hand over his eyes, just for a second, and when he looks back John's anger has dimmed a bit, banked coals instead of the inferno.

“It’s better than whatever the hell you’ve been doing the last few weeks.”

How’s that?” Gale says, sharper than he means to. Whatever he means, there’s nothing better in hurting Bucky. Not when he’s already had plenty more than his fair share.

“You won't touch me, Buck!” It’s hissed through John’s teeth but it hits him with all the force of a baseball bat to the face. It sits between them for a moment, heavy.

“That's not true,” he mutters, but there’s no strength in it, and John barely dignifies it with a scoff.

He tries again. “I didn't think you’d want…” He trails off, feeling stupid even as the words come out of his mouth. Bucky can't go ten minutes without slinging his arm around a pal’s neck, a clap on a shoulder, an elbow in someone’s side to get their attention. He couldn't, anyway. Before all this

“The hell d’you know about what I want,” Bucky snaps, like he doesn't wear every thought on his face clear as day. “I'm damaged goods, I get it, but I’m not some china doll—”

“You’re not damaged goods,” Gale shouts, the words bursting out of him like water from a burst pipe and loud enough to make John flinch back, shock all over his face.

sooo yeah! that's stalag shit! if i do ever get it done, i think it'll need some revisiting on the characterization, but honestly probably not that much. it is however the only purely-clegan wip i have, which means it would probably do better than alllllllll my other stuff even WITH the caveat that it's dark content. which is very funny to me in a bitter sort of way.

[scentedinksandwhackedseals]

julien’s voice… GOD. wow.

[thebluestbluewords]

"Stoppit. I'm not going in the piss pool." 

"You know you want to," Mal drawls, scooping up a handful of water. "It'll feel good once you're in it. Aren't you like, dying in that?" 

Carlos tugs the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head. "No. It's not that hot." 

"With the amount of chlorine in public pools, the percentage of actual piss to water is probably very low," Evie says helpfully. "Probably less than 1%, if we assume that the maximum number of children based on occupancy and general health data, say about thirty kids, are constantly pissing in the water in very small amounts." 

Carlos shudders. "You're really not helping." 

Oh, right. He’s got a selective thing about germs, courtesy of growing up around her hellish wickedness, the master of animal-related health code violations. Mal’s pretty sure that Cruella never did horrible things with animal piss, but she’s not willing to swear on it. The taxidermy eyeball hat she caught a glimpse of the one time she ended up inside Hell Hall while Carlos’s mother was in still haunts her nightmares sometimes.

"I'm not baking myself like a potato either," Evie points out. "If you're having a germ freakout, you can go stand under the sprinkler by the gift shops instead. I can't see where it's drawing water from, so it's probably not coming from the kiddie pools."  Huh. It would be weird if every attraction in the park drew water from the kiddie pools, but considering the wild shit they've seen in Auradon thus far, not actually that weird. They've seen cows with shoes on, and a giant metal crab left out on the side of the road, and more weird-ass grocery stores than they'd ever dreamed of back on the isle, including the one that sold bubble gum powder by the jug, so like, piss fountains? Totally a possibility. 

“Piss fountains,” Mal says out loud, just to try out the sound of it. “Auradonian piss fountains doesn’t sound very magical.”

“They banned magic.” Carlos says. His voice is so flat that it might as well be made of the gum Mal found on her shoes last night. “So like, if you’re trying to help, you’re fucking failing at it.”

“I wasn’t.”

[fullmoonfireball]

the facts:

Louie seems to have negative associations with the colour red, and as a result is unsettled by it

the Rescue Corps' canon/default uniform colour is red

conclusion:

?

[horaitos]

tell me anything at all about hamlet, what’s been on your mind recently? i don’t really know enough about it to ask a specific question but i love hearing about it

Thinking about horatio as usual lol

A thought just struck me, and I wanted to expand on it. The token best friend. You all know about it. The Black best friend, the disabled best friend, the poor best friend, the gay best friend. They are treated as an extension of the protagonist - usually not given an extensive backstory besides their marginalized identity, and important characters don’t usually talk to them other than to ask about something relating to the protagonist.

And I feel like, with the right characterization, horatio can be played into the trope - but in a self-aware and therefore exceedingly tragic way.

Think about it. Horatio is commonly seen as poor, or at least coming from a lower-class or middle-class family. He’s often portrayed as a person of color. He’s seen as gay by many people. The other characters don’t acknowledge him all that much, other than to order him to go after hamlet.

Hamlet is his protagonist, the white blonde rich kid with the tragic backstory who has to go on a ‘heroic’ journey and is given all of the spotlight, all of the characterization. Horatio is his shadow, the logical best friend who grounds him and is used to demonstrate hamlet’s loving side and show how he interacts around those he loves. Within the script, horatio isn’t given much more than that.

But. Horatio is a person. He has his own emotions, his own goals. He’s blunt but kind, loving but logical. And productions need to show that. They need to show how this loving person was absolutely broken. They need to show how he followed hamlet into the abyss and how he tried to drag both of them out of it.

Horatio is at his most interesting when he’s at his most morally complex. How much did he agree with hamlet’s methods? Did he hear about polonius’s death and why ophelia drowned, and if so, what did he think about it?

The scene where hamlet dies is also incredibly important for his characterization, because, again, he has been portrayed as someone whose only living connection is hamlet. His family is never mentioned, he doesn’t seem to have any other friends. What happens, then, when hamlet dies? How does he go on after hamlet forces him to drop the cup?

And, of course, his relationship with hamlet is vital. Hamlet adores him - he literally goes on an entire speech about how horatio is the greatest of men. Horatio is less passionate in his affection - and this can be attributed to their differing statuses. Hamlet, as a prince, can get away with more obvious declarations of love, the personal use of “thou”, while horatio knows he can’t get close to a prince without being under suspicion. Yet he stays by hamlet’s side nonetheless.

I don’t know how much of that made sense to you, but thank you for this ask!

[morethanfantasy]

not in the air. on the ground 🥲