if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"
I know the popular theory is that Sera is Andruil/possessed by Andruil but I just can’t see how Andruil would get there
But there’s definitely something up and I think the answer is that she’s a spirit who became real, like Cole, but so long ago she’s forgotten
Her memories about where she comes from are vague, she can wield a bow without training, and Solas refers to her as though they are part of the same people (which he pointedly does not do with any other elf), that people being spirits who took physical form
Also her name is a word in the elven language, like Solas’ name which is the word for pride. We don’t know what it means, just that it is in a phrase one would use to excuse oneself (Ara seranna ma). I bet it translates to a type of spirit or demon name
Okay but Caine and Pomni are giving me Megamind and Roxanne vibes rn like
Caine constantly offering the evil queen title to his damsel whos so sick of his shit/seen it all already theyve been doing this so long now. Bubble in a mech suit! Gummigoo Metroman!!!!! Everyone thinks Pomni and Gummi are A Thing but they're Just Good Friends Okay but then there's the added 'okay i guess we fake date to get everyone off our backs' potential
BUT Caine out of the loop believes it but keeps kidnapping the super smart reporter who calls him on his shit because well. He can't help himself
But yeah gotta get ready for work anyone wanna add to this idea
Tbh I think Caine being asked to be a service top would Fix Him(tm)
Im thinking Showtime wise personally. Probably established relationship office au. Pomni being beyond stressed and saying 'I want to be tied up and taken care of and this is how I want you to do it'
Caine being given parameters to work within, told what the goal is, and given permission to use creative liberties on how to get there? There also being guidance, gentle correction, and then constant, enthusiastic praise when he gets it right? Yeah, no, that man is living between Pomni's legs for the foreseeable future
“you’re such a ray of sunshine!” thanks! one day i chose to act happy and then i kept choosing it over and over and over and over until the neurological pathways formed like desire paths in the thicket. i dug and clawed my nails into the grooves of my brain and carved out joy. i retouch it every day.
Shout-out to @ms-demeanor for putting these on my dash again, I’d like to add this exceptional interview question “answer guide” that explains traps and “the best” way to answer over 64 common questions. I don’t know who to attribute it to, but here it is: PDF from tri valley one-stop career center.
I just read a tag somewhere that went something like "My flavour of ace is whore in theory and celibate in practice" and I have never felt so seen happy pride month besties
Office au Caine being so cripplingly claustrophobic its not even funny. Jax thinking it'd be hilarious to lock both Caine and Pomni in the supply closet during an office Christmas party
Pomni screaming and pounding on the door, threatening Jax' life in some very colourful ways that HR doesn't even want to touch with a ten foot pole. Caine going deathly silent, curling in on himself, shutting down in the exact same way he used to as a child, when he would be put in The Room
Pomni being completely oblivious, making even more noise to try and be heard over the din of yet another rendition of 'All I Want For Christmas'. It's not until she's exhausted herself and every known avenue of escape that she finally turns to regard her fellow prisoner.
"Why aren't you helpi--?"
But then she sees the way he's sat next to the mop buckets, the handles crossing over his ducked head and hitting the wall like a tent, like a cage. She goes closer, crouches down to his level. His hands are clutching his knees to his head so hard they're trembling. Red and white curls usually so perfectly placed a tangled mess. She's silent for a moment, taking a seat in the only place she can, right in front of him, back to the adjacent wall. And that seems to be the thing to finally get him to look up at her, her boots touching his dress shoes.
"You're okay, Caine," she breathes. "We're okay."
She'd known about this part of him in the theoretical sense, but seeing it is something else. His odd eyes wide and watery and scared in a way she's never seen before. Never thought the showman capable of.
"I need you to breathe with me, okay? In--" she takes an exaggerated breath, holding it until he does the same. "And out--"
His exhale shakes out of him, but he does get it out, which is a win.
"Good," Pomni says, offering a hand that goes ignored for a moment, then he blinks, looks down at it, and shakes his head. She's nods once and taps his foot with hers instead. Contact is good. Contact grounds. If she were to move his hands right now he might spiral apart.
"Keep doing that, Caine. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
Its been about three singalongs and six more christmas songs she's sick to death of hearing when he finally releases his vice like grip on his knees. Fingers getting some blood back into them as his legs slowly uncoil from his torso.
She offers her hand again, upturned on the threadbare carpet. She leaves it there, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. God, there's a hell of a migraine brewing behind her eyes.
She feels warmth settle next to her. He's shimmied around to lean on the same wall as her, hand forgotten in favour of just. Wrapping an arm around hers. It reminded her of skipping arm in arm as a kid.
"Thank you," he grits out. His voice weak and barely there.
SCP Wintersberg AU Idea I Can't Remember If I've Mentioned Before (but found the wip of in my writing app)
They're both SCPs but Ethan is fairly new to the facility (being given up to them by Mia as soon as his corpse she was burying started to regrow it's head) and is in class euclid because whenever he gets tested he accidentally gumifies and spores the personnel.
Karl is also technically euclid but he's been there forever and has special roaming privileges because he's a pet project of one of the top researchers (mother dearest (derogatory)). He knows of Ethan by name but not much else, him being mother dearest's new favourite pin cushion. It gives him time to scheme.)
But yeah, Karl wants out. He orchestrated the containment breach in a way to cause the most manageable chaos that is useful to himself. In theory, at least. But he's had enough. The testing, the prodding, the being paraded around like some walking failure that might still be useful one day.
There's a slight hitch in his plan, though. All of his security stuff is declined, all of his pass codes, his key cards, everything he had lined up for his escape falls apart because something or someone has fucked with the system.
Enter Ethan Not-A-Fucking-Again Winters.
He can't help but think Lucas would have a field day working on the security team here. The electric gates and the layered card system, the many, many, many things that want to kill him... He's just certain that psycho would love having all these things at his disposal for his games.
It's all a big puzzle, and Ethan was fairly okay at those. He gets on pretty well finding all the information on the other SCPs and cataloguing them on his clipboard. He's even found a digital map and some playing cards.
Don't judge him for his inventory management. He's spent years in a plain cell in this clinical shithole. He wants the damn cards.
Karl though, he is clever. Not the same sort of patient clever, but just enough to make it to the other side of the facility.
And that's where they both meet the crying man.
(Also Karl's got that mannequin just. Following him now. He's gotten used to it.)
Karl isn't that familiar with this side of the facility. He didn't think to brush up since his original plans A through E were pretty linear. He didn't expect to need to go this far in to get back out.
Ethan though, Ethan has been doing his homework and knows deep in his bones as soon as he hears the faint sobs that this is something dangerous. Knows to stay calm and just look down, just keep looking down-
But then he hears booted footsteps and panics because shit he does not want to be getting caught by security personnel when he's not supposed to be out of his cell. Security personnel during a breach probably means guns and shooting before questioning shit what should he do-
"A class D? You're a long way from home, aren't you?"
D?? Oh. Oh yeah he forgot about the jumpsuit he morphed. He thought it'd be better if he saw any other inmates to look like them and not... someone else. Someone they'd hold a grudge against. Or fear. He's so, so tired of being feared.
Ethan glances up and huh. That's not personnel uniform. Not nearly clean enough to be one of the more eccentric doctors either.
But he's looking around like he doesn't have a damn clue what is wailing just beyond those bloodied windows. And then he bangs his fist against the glass like a fucking madman what the f-
"Quit your goddamned whining," he screams and who the fuck does he think he is? Does he think he has a chance against something that could tear an entire platoon of fully armed men apart in a few breaths?
"Are you insane?" Ethan screeches from his crouched position across the hall, his fingers gripping the grating under his feet.
"Debatable," the man casually replies, gloved pinky in his ear. "Depends who you ask."
Great. Fantastic. A lunatic with a sense of humour.
"Get. Down," Ethan hisses.
"Why? It's just some walking corpse crying for sympathy."
"A walking corpse with the ability to put you on a census somewhere if you don't shut the fuck u-"
That cold tingle down his spine, the overwhelming sense of dread and everything else going still. That big concrete baby was behind him oh fuck-
"Move towards me," the man with the obnoxious hat said, his unblinking eyes looking beyond Ethan and not moving.
Well. No argument from him. He keeps his eyes down and does as he's told for once. The fear of his spine being snapped or flesh being shredded doing wonders for his discipline. He needs to survive. He needs to find Rose. And it's that need that spurs him on past the open door, past what he knows to be a sorry looking man sobbing into his own bloodied hands.
Karl on the other hand, is now reconsidering his position here. He felt confident dealing with one SCP alone if needed. But with two in front of him, one behind him, and big boy Larry close on his heels, he doesn't quite feel as confident. He's not completely stupid with pride, after all, despite what many assumed. And another set of eyes to keep the baby from being a nuisance would probably help a lot...
"Okay, blondie. I need to blink. Think you can stand?"
Ethan, who had been crawling over with one hand while shielding his eyes with the other, simply nods. He takes the man's offered hand, strong and steady under the leather gloves, and immediately feels the tiniest bit of relief trickle into a little pool in his mind. He breathes, calms his heart and head to something less likely to lean into his fight or flight response, and stands. He blinks a few times, and then turns to look at SCP-173.
It still looks just as unassuming. Rebar and concrete as solid and unmoving as ever. But Ethan knows better. They both do, it seems, with the way his new... companion? Acquaintance? Kept looking even after Ethan stood and slowly spun around.
"Got it," Ethan says, and the man makes his way backwards, still with Ethan's hand in tow.
"Blinking," says the man, pulling him along to the door at the end of the hall. He hears him press the button and carefully walks backwards through the open door. Ethan fishes out his S-Nav from one of his pockets as a reference point for where they can go from here and before he thinks better of it he passes it over to the one leading them both forward. Or backwards, in his case.
"Gonna blink," he says, and his partner is already switching places with him, passing back the S-Nav as if he wasn't just given an invaluable resource he could have just made off with, leaving him there as a distraction for 173.
"On it," Ethan says, quickly palming the device and plotting their way around, avoiding the problem areas through learned practice.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Door after door, corner after corner, card swipe after card swipe, they manage to get away, hand in hand and alive.
"Sooo," Ethan starts when the adrenaline finally subsides. "You gonna tell me your role in all this or...?"
Their hands part as Dr Helsing stomps down the hallway, checking each door in turn with a frustrated tension about him.
"Nope."
Ethan laughs as he watches him, hearing the low bleeps of denial from each door he tries his own card on. "Fair."
"What about you?" He asks as Ethan tosses over his own spare level 3 card. He's been unusually lucky in finding those. It skids along the floor to where Helsing can see it, and he eyes it sceptically before he stoops down to scoop it up.
"You're doing pretty well for yourself." A bleep of acceptance. "All things considered."
"You mean I'm not dead or worse yet," Ethan sighs, leaning against the railing, the cool metal bar against his back a welcome sensation. "Right now, I'm just trying to stay alive."
"Right now?" He parrots back, and Ethan curses his own slip of the tongue.
But the way this man was holding himself, the way he made easy conversation like none of the other personnel ever did, Ethan was starting to suspect he was something a little different. In the same way that he was a little different. Definitely not security. And definitely not a d-class. He wasn't nearly scared enough or as cruelly self serving as one of the more... twisted inmates.
Still, couldn't be too careful. He's not actively trying to kill him, though, so that's an improvement on his current circle of non-existent friends.
He bites the bullet.
"You telling me that -with all these deadly fuckers walking around- if the opportunity for escape should present itself, you wouldn't take it?"
He stays out in the hall while the dude explores, knowing that the only things in that room were either already gone or useless. He's waiting for LA Noir to come join him again when only his head pops back out around the door frame, a look of amused approval arching his brows high under the rim of his ridiculous hat.
"Maybe you do have a decent head on your shoulders, D class."
Okay. That's got to stop. He's had enough of people referring to him as a string of numbers or 'Mushroom Man'.
"Ethan," he starts, righting himself and offering out his hand to his new acquaintance. "Name's Ethan."
The man exits the side room fully and looks at his hand with a quirked brow, this time it's just amusement that curves his lip. He takes the offered hand, his grip just as strong and certain as before. "Karl."
"Karl," he tries, seeing how the long syllable works on his curling tongue. "Alright, Karl, what's your plan from here? Or is this where we part ways and die horrifically, finding eachothers corpses in an hour or two?"
"Speak for yourself, buttercup--"
"Ethan."
"I've got plans, Blondie, and I don't need--"
"E-than."
He huffs a laugh and Ethan can feel the vein on his forehead throb.
"Sweetheart."
"I hate you."
"They all do eventually," he says with an easily forced smile, something about the way he says it feels jagged, though. Like if Ethan were to look too closely he'd prick his skin on the edges.
"Come on, E-than," he drawls, making his way down the corridor again. "Getting out of here isn't gonna be easy. But I'm not fucking dying here."
"That we can agree on, at least."
-_-_-
"Hey, Helsing!"
Karl turns his head from the terminal on instinct, only realizing what he'd responded to the moment after he caught sight of Ethan coming back up the stairs. He mouths out the word in pure confusion as several files and note pages were laid out in front of him.
"I found those papers you were asking about. The ones on new security protocols."
"Danke," he says, taking a sip of his shitty coffee that went south of cold a good thirty minutes ago. He amicably offers Ethan the pot anyway. "Any trouble out there?"
"No sign of One-Seven-Three," he says, taking a pencil mug and repurposing it for its original purpose, the rainbow of pens making Karl's brow twitch until Ethan swiped them off his meticulously laid plans. "And One-Zero-Six has been surprisingly merciful given how long we've been in here now."
"Yeah, Larry's a dick, but at least he doesn't discriminate too much. Lots of pathetic whelps to choose from."
"Anyone's fair game for the pocket dimension, huh." Ethan takes a sip and barely tastes the drink itself, his senses picking up more of an afterthought of it than anything else. Everything had started to taste less a few months into his containment, and instead of panicking about it he just sort of got used to it. He thought it might have been a trauma response, but then there was the Spore Incident and...
He didn't like thinking about it.
"Mm-hm," his companion hums his agreement, pouring over the screens in front of him, the bomb site of a desk behind him carefully layered and categorised. Probably by some unknown factors, Ethan was sure. He didn't understand the process, but Karl had told him he needed information. Building plans, passcodes, personnel changes, that sort of thing.
Ethan had given up on the why of things a long time ago, and yet, here he was, helping to piece together a puzzle yet a-fucking-gain so that Karl can figure out their path out of here.
And also, mainly, because he just couldn't help himself. He'd been a software engineer, for God's sake. He needed something to do with his head and hands. Speaking of...
"God fucking damn it," Karl bites out as the screen flashes red with denial for a third time in the last five minutes. "Piece of shit modernized prick stained firewalled CUNT--"
"Ohhh-kay, hotshot," he carefully wheels away the fuming mass of adult tantrum so that he can get to the keyboard. He goes surprisingly easy given the explosive temper.
"Let me take a look."
"Sure. Sure! Be my fucking guest--"
Karl fucking hated software. With its updates and security protocols and- and-
Why not just a good old fashioned filing cabinet with a locking mechanism? He hated dealing with things he couldn't control physically himself, with his hands or telekinetic ability. There were no paths to follow, no wires, no solid boundaries, no fucking metal with a high enough density to be useful-
"There we are," his D-class companion says, standing up with a healthy crack of his back and neck. "That should do it. At least it shouldn't tell you 'no' so harshly anymore-"
He looks to the screen, to the green lights and clearly outlined boxes of text of exactly the shit he'd been looking for holy shit--
"Son of a bitch," he mutters, quickly rolling his way back over in the chair and practically slamming into Ethan's side in the process. The man grunts and folds over, close enough for Karl to clap his hands over his shoulders and shake.
"Son. Of. A. Bitch!" He howls. "Ethan, you beautiful bastard! Look at that!"
The approval does something to Ethan. Makes him feel lighter all of a sudden.
"Don't mention it," he mumbles. "Just didn't want to see two hours of work squandered when you threw the thing down the stairs."
That statement is met with mock indignation, a gloved hand over his heart. "I would never do such a thing--"
"Yeah, okay, and I'm employee of the month."
"Do they even have that system here?" A few clicks, and Ethan finds himself just as curious, leaning in to listen to the verdict.
"Ah. They did," Karl says. "Then they changed it to weekly because of uh. Problems. With inconsistent personnel."
Ethan lets out a humourless laugh. "Makes sense. Can't say I've seen more than one face twice since I've been here."
"Hm. And how long is that?"
"Since I've been here?" Ethan stretches his arms above his head until he feels something pop. "I... don't actually know? Time is weird here."
Karl grunts in agreement.
"How long have you been here?"
A shadow falls over the man's eyes. "Feels like forever," he admits. "So might as well be."
-_-_-
"Right. Now, if I manually release the lockdown from here, we can make it through to the-- and then we can recontain Larry here with the Recall Protocol if he doesn't get too--" a hand gesture that had Ethan smiling despite the subject matter. "And then we can head to--"
His S-Nav beeps on the desk, right where they can both see it.
"Oh, fuck off," Ethan laments, inadvertently leaning into his companion. "Just one more hour of not dying or being hunted for sport. That's all I fucking ask."
"Which is it?" Karl asks, gathering up his paper notes into his own file and shoving the thing into the back of his waistband.
"I... I don't know," Ethan says, squinting at the device. "SCP-"
They both spin around at the sound of normal footsteps. Normal footsteps were bad fucking news as a rule, and when they see a tall figure clad in nothing but black robes and a plague doctor's mask turning ominously towards them, that rule seems pretty solid.
Then the figure holds out it's hand in a vaguely threatening gesture and Ethan decides he's had enough of waiting around. He grabs Karl by the hand and drags him in a ring-around-the-rosey game with the advancing plague doctor. The presence of them feeling like an omen. A really fucking bad one.
They're taking the steps back down to the hallway two at a time when karl makes some randy comment about just wanting to get to second base. Ethan has to physically restrain himself from letting go of his hand and kicking a leg out to use him as a distraction.
one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid™ is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.
DO THINGS HALFWAY. NOW YOU’RE 100% BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE BEFORE.
One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.
But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting. Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible. Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.
You must understand that perfectionism isn’t striving for excellence, it’s a crippling fear of being flawed and therefore worth abandonment or punishment. It’s a kind of psychological avoidance. You’re avoiding fear and failure , not embracing the thing you want to do bc if it was about the thing you want to do you’d be fine with partial victory.
sovereign was a much cooler reaper than harbinger. harbinger kind of had kai leng vibes with how helplessly angry and obsessed it was with shepard. sovereign just said cool shit and stayed aloof.
you can watch me struggle for 30 seconds :) I started with gray scale cuz I didn’t know what color palette I was going for. And I love greyscale it’s helps a lot with values 🙂↕️ but i struggled a lot with her face it’s not my fav angle to draw….
The circus is sinking. I'd say its being swallowed but that would imply that it was Going Somewhere Else. But its not. It's dying the only way Fae wilds can, by becoming Nothing.
So yeah, the sole fae creature in the circus needs to pay a tithe or the Nothing will take everything. He needs a human exhibiting Strong Feelings of pure, unadulterated love. Not lust. Not dependence. It needs to be deep, and honest, and selfless, and Caine is quickly learning that not just any human is capable of this feeling.
It doesn't even need to be for him specifically! He'd rather it wasn't! It just needs to be in them! For something! They can have an unfathomable love for popcorn for all he cares, he just needs a fleshy meatbag that feels so strongly he can feed it to the Nothing and keep his home!
But each human that's come has uh. Not. Been able to do that. They were messy. No clean cut feelings, so to speak.
So he gave up. And now the humans just sort of, putter around. They have roles in the circus but they dont particularly want to play into them, its more of a compulsion than anything else. It's what the circus does to you, or maybe its the proximity to the ringmaster himself? He's not even too sure about that
Anyway, yeah, now he's biding his time, making sure his humans are entertained before their inevitable ends
