Hellooooo yes! Absolutely! The first half was in my drafts from febuwhump so this has been worked on in the last few months so wooooo! I forgot about this and the heretic series but now I’m like oh hon hon hon anyway, enjoy!!!!
*~*~*~*~*
“There,” said the Mayor to Hero as he walked into his office. “We did everything you asked, look, even the rug is gone to be dry cleaned. So do you wanna tell me why we had to go through this big song and dance for you, Princess?”
Hero blinked, staring out the Mayor’s window into the street below, back turned to the Mayor. “You didn’t do it for me,” they said, eyes fixing on the sky, blue cast in streaks of orange and reds.
“Then who did I do it for? Myself?” Mayor asked with a scoff. “Jesus fucking Christ. You heroes and your drama. I need a drink. You want one? Whiskey okay?”
“I’m still on the clock, sir.”
“Me too, which means we’re getting paid to drink. Isn’t that wonderful? I love politics.”
Hero rolled their eyes. “I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself,” Mayor said as he crossed his office to a small table in the corner where his decanter of whiskey sat waiting beside two crystal clean glasses. Mayor lifted the stopper with a soft clink as he poured two fingers of the honey coloured liquid. “So how did you know that showing the kid his shadowed brains was going to work?”
Hero turned to face Mayor slowly, and shrugged. “I hoped.”
Mayor let out a bark of laughter, brown eyes meeting Hero’s. “You hoped? Come on. You gotta do better than that, Hero.”
Hero pinched their lips together looking for a better answer to give to Mayor, but honestly? Hero just hoped it would be enough to stop the compulsion or whatever was done to the boy.
Mayor nodded his head to the two leather arm chairs to the right of the window and Hero obliged his request, settling into the one opposite Mayor.
“I think because he said he had to blow his brains out in front of you,” Hero continued, brown furrowing as their thoughts processed. “It’s not a clear objective. How would they know if their brains were splattered all over your wall if they couldn’t see it for themselves?”
Mayor nodded, swirling the liquid in his glass as Hero spoke. He was far better than the last Mayor the city had, Hero thought, observing him then. He wasn’t an idiot, he was shrewd and smart. He saw things from a different perspective but you didn’t have to spell everything out for him. He could put two and two together just fine.
“So you acted on instinct, then?”
“Yes sir.”
Mayor chuckled to himself, bringing the glass to his lips. “I should give you a medal,” he said before taking a sip.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Hero lightly. “Besides, that kid’s death wasn’t what the intended murderer wanted.”
Mayor’s eyes narrowed slightly. “No, I was thinking the same thing.”
“If they wanted to send you a message, or me for that matter,” said Hero, eyes darkening. “Then they could be more organised than I initially imagined.”
It was Mayor’s turn to study Hero’s face as they fell into a silence. After a beat Mayor said: “you think it has something to do with your missing Vigilante?”
This came about as a result of the Choose Your Own Whump poll! The winners were:
secret underground facility
whumpee who is traumatized and hiding it badly
creepily intimate whumper
the corruption was infecting their thoughts, turning them against their allies
tw: restraints, beatings, physical and emotional abuse, drugging, needles, poison, truth serum, mind control
One year after the city's second-most notorious villain, the technomancer Morgan, was taken in by the hero team for medical treatment...
Morgan cracked his eyes open and immediately had to shut them again, blinded by obnoxiously bright lights.
He was woozy, barely awake, and his entire body hurt -- especially his right hand, which was throbbing with pain. It almost felt like some of his fingers had been broken, but he knew from experience that that would hurt far worse than this, unless...
The dreamlike haze slowing down his mind confirmed it. He was on some pretty strong painkillers. It was the sort of thing that would have sent him into a blind panic before, terrified of being incapacitated, but lately he'd been getting used to it. When he'd worked for Salcedo, the city's nastiest supervillain, he never received any form of painkillers, his boss far preferring to use his painful, torturous healing ability to re-injure Morgan and heal him back wrong again and again. A punishment for meeting his defeat at the hands of heroes, or looking at Salcedo wrong, or anything else the boss dreamed up.
That had all changed since he'd officially switched sides. No matter how badly he screwed up, no matter how much he irritated the shit out of the heroes, they always provided him with proper medical care, complete with ample medication. The feel of a hospital bed underneath him confirmed it: he must be in the heroes' infirmary, and that meant he could actually relax.
He'd have to deal with Arthur, the team leader, and his unwanted concern and pity later, of course. That was absolutely a thorn in his side. He was definitely not looking forward to it.
Morgan shifted slightly, his wrists sore, and realized that he couldn't. He was restrained? And not with soft, comfortable restraints either, but hard metal ones.
Villain curled up in the alley, next to a dumpster. A half-opened bag of trash spilled out onto the ground. They toed aside a plastic bottle, watching it roll into the middle of the alley.
They watched a boot stop it from rolling any farther.
Villain drew back, instinctively covering their head with torn hands—still unhealed, still throbbing.
The wearer of the boots came closer, kicking aside the trash to grab Villain’s wrist.
“Please, please, you can’t—not again” Villain slipped back into begging as if it were a reflex. As if they had never been gone. As if the past two days of freedom had been nothing.
Supervillain hauled Villain to their feet. “Don’t worry. You’ve simply forgotten your training.” They tightened chains around Villain’s wrists and slapped their shoulder in an almost friendly way. “I’ll remind you.”
Ok now THIS is the stuff I wanted when I followed the Julius Caesar tag and I don’t even get it from there?? Am upset by this betrayal of the tumblr system
"I would kill for you. I would die for you" would you take a break for me? Would you sit down and rest? For a day, a week, a year? Would you let others take care of your needs for me? Would you let yourself be held for me? By me?
why does this have 32k notes? it’s just a picture of a knife in a ranch bottle, is there some unspoken joke that 32 thousand people share? what is going on here, i dont get it. it’s just a fucking picture of a knife in a ranch bottle. is there some spiritual connection people have to this picture? is there some ominous and mystical reasoning that this has 32 thousand notes? do people reblog this because it makes them look like some indie blogger? or is there just something funny to this? someone please explain
I think we need to keep these types of things in mind when ppl have a defeatist attitude about species/habitat loss due to climate change. Nature finds a way and we should all feel joy at the possibility that one day we could find/save many of the plants and animals we thought were gone completely.
What's everyone's favourite flowers that aren't like. The normal ones. Like everyone's a fan of roses and sunflowers what's a more niche one. One you don't get in gift sets. Mine's sweet peas
AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.
WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.
I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.
Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.
Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.
Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.
Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.
Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.
Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.
Reblog if you think KOSA is unfair and shouldn't be anyone's problem -- including the adults ALL OVER THE DAMN EARTH forced to face the mass censorship it causes because "think of the American Children!".
Reblog if you support internet activism and Palestine.
Reblog if you hate fascism or censorship, and don't want actually serious and helpful conversations censored on the internet.
Reblog if you value the internet in any way at all whatsoever.
CHECK THIS PETITION, TOO! https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-kosa?recruiter=1331807538&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&recruited_by_id=57368c40-d0fd-11ee-98f7-2175430f819f&share_bandit_exp=initial-36809664-en-US
(Also, please reblog with at least "stop kosa" as a tag and not "kosa". I made the mistake of not adding just "kosa" as a tag...)
We won't let this stand any longer. Let's start a riot and get this trending.
A character desperately trying to explain something to their companions through the throes of: hypothermic shivering; feverish delirium; bone-deep exhaustion; aftereffects of near-strangulation; laryngitis lost voice; hyperventilating; frantic sobbing; drugging/sedation; a mouthful of blood- or any combination of the above, whether it's physically difficult to get the words out, their tongue won't connect with their brain, they can't marshal the thoughts coherently, but they're desperate for what they're trying to say to be understood by their companions.
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