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#she don't talk at all
inkskinned · 3 months
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i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".
it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.
do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.
but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.
do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).
you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.
walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.
no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.
do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."
you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.
there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.
i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.
he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 2 months
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Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 3: Enveloping Feelings.
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 (soon))
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#lan wangji#Yungmeng Jiang training arc AU#I wanted to try out a different paneling style for this one - sorry I'm a day late! (there will still be a post tomorrow to keep on track)#The original 3 panel comic idea was fine but the point of this new schedule was to take time to push myself a bit more.#I was taking a look back through some comic artists I felt inspired by#and I really loved how Lynda Barry fills her gutters with patterns and doodles!#Obviously I'm not going as absolutely wild with it as she does but it was a great exercise!#I truly think the gutters are the most important and most overlooked part of any comic. There's lots going on in that space.#It's the same with timeskips. The implied movement between moments that we don't see changes depending on how wide that gap is#You're here for the funny tags so here's some that ties this time talk together:#I think LWJ was thinking about that second note from day 2 but it took him 7 days of hazing to commit it to paper.#I think he sends it a day later and immediately regrets it. Chasing down the messenger and everything.#You know if something actually happened to his brother he would never ever forgive himself for putting the bad vibes out there.#Third time skip was the hardest because there was so many possible flavours of jokes here. Day 8/9 was a personal favourite.#day 14 was also funny (week by week). I think the debate on 'how long does lwj take to catch feelings' is more or less:#'how long does it take for him to arrive at a particular stage of grief and yearning (and awareness of it all)#This is a symphony. There is an act by act structure. Every day he is fighting to keep his old sensibilities. He is losing so badly.#(I'll be returning to the main comic soon but there is more of this AU to come!)
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tanjir0se · 10 months
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Zelda having a secret room for when she "needs to concentrate" carries with it the implication that it's Link that makes it difficult to concentrate, since they pretty clearly lived together between BOTW and TOTK. A lesser zelink shipper would turn this into something romantic but I'm operating on a higher wavelength.
"Zelda Zelda Zelda look at this cool rock I found don't you think it looks like a frog? Hey Zelda do you think I could climb all the way to the ceiling without falling hey hey Zelda listen to this *makes horse noise* doesn't that sound just like Epona I'm really good at horse noises hey Zelda Zelda Ze-
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puppetmaster13u · 4 months
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Prompt 131
Okay, so first of all Dan would like to say it’s not his fault. Ellie was the one to bring some unknown object into the speeder and Jazz was the one driving. Or had Sam been driving- didn’t matter! It wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t the one shooting at them, he wasn’t the one to break whatever, he was not the one to open a stupid portal, and so it wasn’t his fault! 
So why is he now like, five years old, and why is the speeder crashed in some sort of corn field. Why is everyone- except for Jazz whose now like six- also like three at most?! And- oh fuck the door just opened and… okay that’s a kid. Like, nine at most. 
A kid and an adult, who he hadn’t noticed at first so again, it’s not his fault if he hissed at them and tried to hide his not-siblings behind him. It’s also not fair they’re apparently stuck to ghost speak for who knows how long, but at least they can understand the people. 
“Martha, get some blankets, it’s happened again!” 
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zivazivc · 5 months
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I saw like two people compliment my fem Casey design and I immediately drew this. The power of tags lol
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florencemtrash · 26 days
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The Shadowsinger & The Inkbird: Chapter Fifteen
Azriel x Day Court Librarian Reader
Summary: Y/n's clairvoyance is a gift from the Mother, but it feels more like a curse. With the power to gain knowledge through touch alone, Y/n holes herself up in The Alcove and hopes her powers and parentage will remain a secret. But things will change after the Summer Solstice ball and a chance encounter with a certain Shadowsinger.
Warnings: ANGST... that's about the only major warning I can think of
The Shadowsinger & The Inkbird: Masterlist
Masterlist of Masterlists
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Jurian and Vassa took the attic and became scarce, but when night and day slid into one another you still heard her painful screams, muffled as they were by the magic that encased their room. It was a feeling more than anything else. A tension that gripped the House until it seemed to be sobbing. At sunrise and sunset without fail, Vassa’s body broke and rearranged itself, flesh turning to feathers and feathers to flesh. Before it had been a painless process where her body came and went in its various forms, but no longer. Now she felt everything alongside an itch deep within her bones that couldn’t be satiated by food or drink or anything else. 
Go to the lake! Her body screamed. Go to Koschei! And then punished her when she didn’t comply. Like a beast had sunk its claws into her flesh, its waiting mouth only inches away from snapping. To stay away was a slow, agonizing march to death. To move close would be swift, but final, and somehow Vassa knew that if she gave into Koschei’s call, she would be lost forever.
You lingered at the base of the attic's staircase, your bare feet sinking into the soft rug until the sounds of cracking bones finally ceased. Three pairs of feet shuffled above your head and you heard Jurian’s faint whispers like a gentle push of air. When the door opened and Lucien emerged, you saw Vassa crumpled on the floor, now a bone-thin woman with dull, coppery hair and skin ravaged by scratches and pockmarks. 
“Shhhh. It’s ok.” Jurian whispered, encasing her in his arms. 
“I can’t,” her voice trembled. “It hurts. I-I-I’m burning.” 
“Y/n?” Lucien frowned. The door slammed shut with a bang and you jumped backwards. You clutched a velvet pouch close to your chest and then slowly held it out to Lucien. 
“It’s for Vassa,” you explained, trying to keep your eyes on his mismatched ones — one russet as river stones, one gold like the sun. He opened the bag and stared in confusion at the fine, white powder within, giving it a tentative sniff. “Morphine. Humans use it for pain.” 
“I know of it.” Lucien’s frown deepened. “They get addicted. Take too much and they die.” 
“She’s already addicted. That’s what’s happening isn’t it? Koschei’s drawing his power away to get her to return to the lake and every day that passes she’s dying.” Lucien tightened his fists around the bag, still skeptical. Vassa had endured enough. He didn’t want to have her endure this either. “The bag is enchanted and will never allow her to draw too much. Just enough to calm her hunger. If we’re lucky it might help her sleep too.” 
Lucien stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists from around the gold drawstring, waiting for Vassa’s cries to cease. But they never did. And there you were standing in front of him, unwavering and expectant. There was a glimmer of stubbornness in your gaze. A sign of the hours you’d spent researching Vassa’s condition and acquiring the strange human drug, and your disapproval if Lucien didn’t accept it. 
“Thank you, Y/n,” he whispered, “But please go. Vassa hates for anyone to see her like this. Even Jurian and I.” 
You swallowed thickly and nodded, disappearing down the stairs as quickly as you could. The next morning when the sun rose over the mountains and Vassa changed, you heard only the House’s usual breathings. 
The House buckled under the weight of the Inner Circle’s secrets and the sheer volume of history that had occurred within its walls and between its occupants. It utilized its magic in clever ways — your door opened with a creak that wasn’t there before so that Azriel would always hear your comings and goings. Lucien would suddenly find his door locked and the curtains drawn on the days when Helion made surprise visits to see Y/n. Nyx would find himself ushered around by a broomstick that swatted his ankles when the adults were discussing private matters. It was all a great deal of work. 
So it was a relief when Rhys and Feyre quietly moved their children to the House of Wind with Nesta and Cassian, and when Mor and Emerie took the final steps in emptying their rooms and went to hide out in their city apartment. It was even more of a relief when Helion returned to the Day Court, but not before throwing a heavy threat in Azriel’s face that if he should ever hurt his daughter again in any way, shape, or form, he’d strip the wings off his back. 
Meals at the House were tense, quiet affairs, something not even Feyre, Elain, and Nesta’s sisterly conversations or Cassian’s light-hearted humor could ease. Elain stayed close to Lucien’s side, one hand always on his arm or resting against his back or brushing against his, but that didn’t erase what the Blood Duel had done to his trust in Elain. He was kind, but guarded, especially when Azriel was in the room. But it was more than she could ask for because it was more than she’d ever given him in the beginning. 
You and Azriel were worse off.
You were speaking once more, but your words were always laced with a bit of apprehension and Azriel’s were always filled with sorrowful hope. Conversations were dull, short, and didn’t even begin to brush the surface of all the things you should have been talking about. You were terrified not of the Shadowsinger, but of his opinion of you. Did he want you so he could fix you? So that he could feel needed? So that you could be another one in a list of females he burned through? 
It never truly seemed like that was the case, but you also didn’t trust yourself when it came to your emotions. You had told him once that you couldn’t imagine having a love like Feyre and Rhysand’s, or Nesta and Cassian’s, and you still meant it. You were a matchstick and he was flint, and you didn’t know what would happen to you after he had lit you aflame. For all you knew, you were already burning and this wonderful thing you’d had with Azriel would live and die with nothing more than the memory of an embrace in Rhysand’s office to show for it. 
But oh how you ached to touch him again. To hold him like you had before and to have him return the gesture just as strongly. 
You stiffened when Azriel’s hand brushed your arm, warmth bursting out from the point of contact. 
“I’m sorry.” Azriel whispered, and he was talking about more than the wine he spilled when he reached over the table.
You spared him a glance, the first real look you’d given him in two weeks. The flagon slipped from his hands, and if it weren’t for his shadows catching it an inch above the floor, the room would have been doused in burgundy red. 
“Does Lucien know?” 
Rhysand looked up from his papers. Missives from the Darkbringer army and Illyrian troops up north clogged his desk, all begrudgingly accepting his orders to prepare for what could amount to another lengthy war. Letters thrown back and forth between the seven courts added to the chaos, all of them war-weary and desperate for a path that wouldn’t lead to bloodshed. 
You took up the center of his room and stood so quietly he hadn’t even noticed you until you spoke. It had been eating away at you for days since Lucien’s arrival. Every time you two saw one another or spoke, you tried to scrounge for clues that would reveal whether he knew he was Helion’s son and whether he might suspect you were Helion’s daughter as well. The other members of the Inner Circle had been tight-lipped about that secret, a skill you now knew they all possessed with alarming dexterity. 
“Does Lucien know he’s Helion’s son?”
Rhysand slumped back in his chair, rubbing his temples with one careful hand. Finally he said, “Yes.” 
The answer knocked the breath from your lungs. You’d been expecting the opposite. “Does he… does he know about me?” 
Rhys sighed and shook his head. You didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. 
“How long has he known?” 
“Six years. Feyre was the one to tell him. She was actually the first of us to recognize the similarity, believe it or not. But then, no one ever dared to give weight to the rumors surrounding Helion and Aurelia Vanserra while Beron was alive.”
You rocked back and forth on your feet, breath shaking as it entered your body. “Six years. Six years and you never thought to tell Helion that he has a son? I thought you two were friends?”
Rhysand tensed. “I’m Lucien’s friend as well and he begged us to never speak of it - to live as though we’d never learned that secret. And I keep my secrets. We all do.” 
“You and your family have made that very clear in the time that I’ve been here.” 
“If you mean Azriel—”
“Don’t play dumb, Rhys, you know I’m talking about him.” Tears pricked at your eyes, adding to the humiliation that had coated you like a film ever since you’d seen his memories about Mor, Elain, and Gwyn. “I don’t—” You swallowed thickly, “I can imagine how you must have all been whispering behind my back about Azriel and I. How you must have found it so pathetic the way he charmed me when I was really his fourth choice.”
“That’s not true.” Was what Rhysand was going to say. But he didn’t need to. Azriel said it for him. 
Your face lost all color, any bravado melting away at the feeling of Azriel’s shadows wrapping around your ankles like ribbons of silk. You could feel him in the room and that quiet darkness he carried around with him as inherently as if it were stitched onto his body. 
Azriel was shaking. Shaking. With anger, turmoil, or grief — you couldn’t name it. All you knew is that one moment you were standing in Rhysand’s office, all velvet upholstery and suave, expensive taste, and the next you were in Azriel’s room. 
Everything smelled like mountain air. Maybe it was the gothic windows that stretched into the vaulted ceilings, stained glass opening out onto a personal balcony with deep blue curtains fluttering in the breeze. But you were sure that even with the windows barred it would smell the same. It would smell like Azriel. If you threw open his wardrobe you’d come face to face with a wall of black. Lots and lots of black. Black suits he hardly ever wore. Black fighting leathers. Black leather jackets for everyday. Black trousers. Black boots on the floor. Very practical. Very Azriel. 
If you dug through his dresser drawers you’d find black boxers and socks to match and no shortage of knives and daggers hidden behind wooden planks or in leather sleeves nailed to the bottom of his desk. But at first glance you only saw three weapons in plain view — Truth Teller, blade down and stuck in the wood grain of his desk beside a pile of reports, and two obsidian blades hanging from the wall beside his midnight blue bed in the shape of an “x.” 
The smell — Azriel’s smell — calmed you, at least up to the point where you turned to find him standing less than six inches away, hazel eyes boring into yours. Then your pulse skyrocketed. You were certain that if he only looked down to your heart he’d see it pounding against your chest like a drum skin ready to burst. 
“That’s not true,” he repeated earnestly. “And don’t you dare believe it. Not even for a second.” 
His eyes jumped back and forth between yours and before he could stop himself, his hands were grasping yours in a gentle hold. The leather gloves were soft and supple beneath your fingertips. You wanted to rip them off so you could feel his scarred hands again. 
“You weren’t meant to hear that,” you whispered, suddenly feeling small. That angry humiliation went up in a puff of smoke and left you shy and uncertain. 
Azriel gripped your hands a little tighter and you watched as tendrils of shadow worked their way up your arms and got lost in your hair. “But I did,” he said breathlessly, “And I need you to know that it’s not true.” 
“Azriel—”
“I know—” he was shaking his head, “I know what Helion said and I won’t lie and tell you that I’m perfect or that I’ve made any smart decisions about love in the past — I’ve not make a single one — but… but Y/n you’re not a fourth choice. You’re not something broken that I’m trying to fix or some fantasy I’ve fallen for.”
His hands shook and despite the gloves his hands still felt sticky and wet. Slick with your blood. The burning scent of iron in his nose.
“You’re the most real thing in the world to me. You’re—” You’re my mate. The words crawled up his throat like acid and it just felt wrong. He would say those words to you. He would. But not now. Not like this. He came up with something else. “Y/n, please tell me you believe me. Please.”
And there you were. Falling all over again. Burning like a matchstick on fire. The flames slowly eating away at you bit by bit. You wondered what would happen when you finally hit the ground, or when you ran out of length. Would he still hold you like this? Would you still feel real to him? 
“How am I meant to know, Azriel?” 
You’d always been good at books. You knew the ways in which these stories worked where the themes and plot points had been preordained and written with the purpose of being tied up in a neat package by the final page. People were very different. They were unpredictable and chaotic and they could lie through the skin of their teeth and believe they were telling the truth. And that was the problem wasn’t it? Because you still believed every word that came out of Azriel’s mouth, and his hands still felt like they were keeping you tethered to this earth when sometimes your powers and the memories that came with them made you feel like a whisper on the wind. Weightless and at the mercy of something you couldn’t control. 
“You can trust me. You can know for yourself.” 
He pressed your hand against his cheek and you wanted to cry at the faint pricks of stubble beneath your skin and the sharp curve of his jaw. 
He wanted you to use your power on him. He wanted you to learn all the ways he wanted you. All the ways he loved you.  
But you couldn’t do it. 
Azriel panicked when you remained silent, staring at him and at his hands like you were frightened. All at once he was back on the streets of Velaris, cobblestones shaving away at the skin of his palms as he dragged his way up to you inch by bloody inch, fighting against a body that was too broken to move. 
He couldn’t remember what it felt like when he’d stabbed you through the chest and dropped you on the street. Everything between the moment he saw Andrian’s clear-cut eyes to the moment he saw Rhysand’s horrified gaze was fuzzy and dark. But that made it worse because now in his nightmares he could imagine all the ways he’d hurt you, each version teeming with the same level of horror and possibility as the previous one. 
He let you go and hated himself when you stepped back, your hand slipping away. 
“I won’t… I won’t hurt you again, Y/n. I swear on my life. I’ll-I’ll make a bargain, I don’t care. I would sooner die than let something like that happen again.” 
I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of love. If I’d be able to handle it. It might be too much for me.
“Y/n, please.”
 I am not broken. But I am afraid. 
You fled from his bedroom. 
The air had a bite to it now with winter descending. The snow line on the mountains dipped lower and lower each day, creeping like ivy down a brick wall. 
Elain never wore gloves. Not when she was gardening. It was something she and Ione had in common. She liked the feeling of her strong hands, the callouses on her palms and fingers that she’d earned all on her own. She grunted, slamming her shovel into the soil and feeling the microscopic chips of ice give way when she kicked down on the blade. It was too late in the season to be planting tulip bulbs. If she’d been in Velaris she would have done this four weeks ago. But it was alright with her. She knew the value of hard work, and she had enough hope for the future to believe that even though she was late, she’d have something beautiful to call hers come springtime. 
“It’s time for that conversation I was telling you about,” she said cryptically, as was her way. 
Lucien dropped the final basket beside where Elain now knelt in the dirt, her pale pink dress dirtied and littered with her own handprints. The brown bulbs rolled around like oversized chestnuts, the kind that he’d be roasting over a fire right now if he were still in Autumn Court. Instead he was here, lingering in a Court that had never felt like home. Then again… he’d never felt at home in Autumn, Spring, or the Human Lands either. 
He straightened up and wiped his hands clean on his trousers, golden and russet eyes trailing over the River House’s grounds for this mysterious person he was meant to speak to.
There. 
The faint swishing of black robes behind a dark green topiary tree. He should have known Elain had been talking about you. 
You cracked your knuckles and rehearsed the words you’d scribbled out earlier that day and then set to fire in a maddening loop. You’d been restless with the truth of Lucien’s parentage and you couldn’t believe that the others had held their tongues so readily. As it was, without Azriel’s company to help quiet your mind, you’d dug into this new piece of information like a starving animal and couldn’t let go.
Was this a good time to tell him? Would there ever be a good time to tell him? You had no idea. 
Somewhere in the attic, you knew Vassa was itching to take to the skies like the burning comet she was. Every night she shivered in Jurian’s arms, the morphine barely able to take the edge off the humming in her bones, and every morning she let him lock her away in her cage. It was getting worse and worse trying to keep her from succumbing to Koschei’s influence. Even now you thought you could hear her keen cries whistling from the attic like ten thousand arrows launched into the air. 
Somewhere else, in a secret, hidden place you knew nothing about, Andrian had finally been imprisoned. Andrian with his bent neck and silver, candy-floss hair and bloody little hands. 
You shivered and jumped back five feet when Lucien called your name, kind eyes narrowed in concern. His shirt was loose and open and the sweat on his body rose like mist off his skin. He was his mother’s son first, Helion’s child second, and fire still ran through his veins. The chill did not touch him. 
He tipped his head to the side, red hair spilling out from the messy way he’d tied it up and away from his face. A brutal scar ran through his eye like a fissure, starting at the center of his brow before clawing its way down his jaw like a lightning strike frozen in time. But for all the cruelty he’d been dealt with in life, his eyes were gentle, even the mechanical one that whirred and flashed in the sun. 
They were even kinder when he looked at you. You with your inquisitive gaze and curious nature, like a stray cat that couldn’t help but linger too long at doorways. One foot inside, one foot ready to run and hide. He’d caught you watching him at dinners, and he’d catch himself staring when you walked around the house with a book in your hand, so utterly absorbed that you would bump against doorways and bang your hips against sharp corners. 
“Elain told me about you. Did you know that?” 
You blinked in surprise. “What did she say?”
“Elain… Elain doesn’t always speak clearly. Much of what comes out of her mouth can feel eerie or discomforting. But, she told me before we left for the Night Court that I would be happy I came. That I would never regret the things I learned on my trip.” He tilted his head even further, looking more and more like a fox with each turn of his face. “And she mentioned a bird. A bird with ink-tipped wings and eyes like a crow.” 
You flexed your fingers, well aware that the tips were smudged with ink, the nails bitten down to the quick. 
“Someone clever and cautious who’d been hidden away their whole life and needed to see the sun.” 
You felt stripped bare. That strange vulnerability that comes with being summed up in so few words had you feeling airy. Like one sentence could be enough to carry the weight of the three centuries you’d lived and never buckle. 
“I know you’re Helion’s son. I recognized it the moment I saw you.” 
Lucien stepped back, scarlet brows shooting up into his hair with alarm.
You hesitated, then continued on cautiously. “I recognized it because I would know my father’s face anywhere.” 
<- Previous Chapter Next Chapter ->
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Author's Note:
I KNOW IT'S A CLIFFHANGER ENDING BUT I NEEDED TO BREAK EVERYTHING INTO CHAPTERS SOMEWHERE AND I'M GOING TO TRY AND GET CHAPTER 16 UP BY WEDNESDAY SO I DON'T LEAVE Y'ALL HANGING FOR TOO LONG. HAVE MERCY!!!
The good news is that Chapter 16 is already mostly written, I just need to edit it all to make sure things flow smoothly. Also, LUCIEN KNOWS NOW AHHHHHHHHHHHH
Sorry for the Azriel angst... but it's delicious, no?
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wistfulwatcher · 10 months
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#just a knight looking to her queen for approval
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maybe unpopular opinion but probably one of the least useful pieces of advice I've ever got as an auDHD person to the question of "how tf does one make friends" was to go and join clubs/groups that do hobbies I enjoy. Not only does this not actually answer the question of how to make friends (yknow, how to approach people, how to start a conversation, how to appear friendly enough that they don't immediately reject you for existing, how to actually keep them as friends later on, etc), but also the chance of me choosing to force myself into the discomfort of "making smalltalk with random strangers" is absolutely nonexistent when the alternative of engaging with a hyperfixation is not only socially acceptable but even encouraged
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some-pers0n · 1 month
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I think a lot of people mistake Sunny's resilience and hope in the face of a miserable and bleak scenario as childlike innocence and her not fully comprehending the danger of it all. Her optimism is a response to the pessimistic and nihilistic world around her. She truly believes in the prophecy. It has to work. That's what they've suffered all this time for. Everyone. There will be peace on Pyrrhia and it'll be delivered by her and her friends.
Her own arc in her book, about rising above the expectations placed on her and proving herself as dragon of worth, was foreshadowed a lot with how the DoD treated her. They themselves infantalized her despite being unaware of it. They believed Sunny to be weak and helpless. The little, tiny sister who needs to be protected.
Despite this, she's strong. She's smart, observant, and even Clay mentioned that she's a great fighter because she takes advantage of her small stature and people underestimating her. She isn't childish, but rather she believes that they'll pull through. That they'll bring peace. In the end? They do just that.
Sunny's optimism I feel is a nice breath of fresh air. A lot of protagonists like her go through hell and back and become a lot more jaded. Her? It's her hope for a better future that keeps her going. Even in the darkest of situations, when she should breakdown and succumb to the overwhelming misery of war and tragedy, she. keeps. going. She believes. Despite the cynicism of the DoD, even with Clay at times feeling despondent, she continues. She moves onward. She fights.
And...she wins. Peace is achieved on Pyrrhia. The prophecy came true.
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radiance1 · 3 months
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A castle mysteriously appears in Gotham one night.
Nobody who noticed it knows where it came from, nor how it got there as it seemingly appeared overnight. It wasn't anything big, as far as castle's were concerned, it seemed to be on the smaller side of things.
However, no one could truly estimate it's actual size. For there seemed to be an ever-present fog that never seemed to stray past the castle's gates.
Just like the fog, you always seemed to hear the cawing of crows and the flapping of bats whenever you step close enough. Yet their visibility was kept hidden in the fog.
Appearances aside, there did seem to be something... off, about the castle and not just because it appeared from thin air, no. It seemed to have a distinct aura of something... other.
No one knew how to explain it, but they could tell there was nothing natural about it. There was something fundamentally wrong with the castle, it wasn't the way it appeared out of nowhere, nor it's appearance.
===
When Sam finally became an adult, she didn't have to think twice about moving out. It was a bit difficult, with her parents not wanting to let her go just yet, but her grandmother managed to persuade them, thankfully.
When she was younger, Sam had always dreamed of owning a castle. Though its appearance did change in her mind when she grew older, from pretty and pink to one of darker colors and crows, which is why she never got one when she was younger, she realized.
But now that she was an adult, what was stopping her?
Nothing, that's what.
So, Sam buys one that matches her tastes and moves in. There was a lot of space, far more than she really ever thought about and now had to find a use for.
Magic.
Was something that enthralled Sam ever since she was young, that and the occult as a whole. So, for a few months after moving did she try and get her hands on things like magical tomes, items, scripts and learn it.
Surprisingly, she was strongly successful in her attempts of learning magic. It was surprising to be sure, but now that she compares it to the portal to the afterlife, having a half dead friend and having hunted down ghosts, she realizes that magic wouldn't be that much farfetched in the equation.
A fair bit of her time now was spent covering her castle in wards, sigils, and runes, ones that would strengthen themselves over time, various protection wards and multiple others that she found useful. Most of them were ones that she found through text, though others were ones she personally made.
After she finished the entirety of the castle, she studied thoroughly to gain more knowledge and power for herself, she even made a few spells of her own along with various potions. Unfortunately, she was interrupted in her studies by various other witches, because apparently having such a powerful fledgling witch on her lonesome was too tempting of an offer to pass up for the nearby covens.
So she had to... move, before they tried to force her to join them. As for how, well, she moved her entire castle! What better way to refuse, really?
Unfortunately, it was her first time using such large-scale teleportation magic and she messed it up. Not that her calculations on where the castle was supposed to be were wrong, but while in the midst of moving through space she was... thrown off kilter.
She didn't even know how or what caused her to mess up. But her castle both was and wasn't where she wanted it to be. Her original destination was coordinates near Amity Park, and while they were on said coordinates.
This wasn't Amity Park.
To say she worried was an understatement. She scrambled to find something about where she ended up, and realized not only was she thrown off kilter, but she was also thrown off so badly that she ended up in an entirely different dimension. Luckily, she managed to make the philosopher's stone.
To say making it was easy would be wrong, for even she didn't know how she created it. It was by accident and for a while she didn't even know she had made it, when she had and tried to do something with it the stone had, uh, well.
It fused into her skin.
It had placed itself right over her face, on her chest, and it granted her immortality it seemed. Though that wasn't the effect she was currently thankful for no, the effect of making gold would be valuable to her, she wouldn't have the Manson wealth, but she could at the very least sustain herself.
For now, though, she did have her studies to get back to.
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tzarrz · 6 months
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to all people who said PART 1 made them laugh - i lov u 💗 this is for u
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yardsards · 8 months
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do people who have listened to taz balance but not graduation Know that it was HEAVILY IMPLIED that lup and barry eventually adopted a lil sorcerer child who got disowned by his family for his natural necromancy magic, and they taught him how to use his powers for good and were overall great parents that he looks back on fondly
(and said child grew up to be a dimension-hopping lich, caretaker of the dead, and very sweet adoptive father of a major npc)
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ryllen · 4 months
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You know I am surprise Sebek that is never jealous to anyone who is close to Yuu. It is a boys school and I can imagine some have crushes on her.
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#jk jk it's a total tragedy for sebek if he ever loves the same person as the one malleus loves#i swear malleus just loves the company#or is he#he did give me a little heart throb at the masquerade but that's all just yet#i can't really imagine anyone else likes her#malleus draconia#because partly i really don't plan of shipping her in the first place#sebek was a total surprise development fhsdshdh#this question arose at the time she was being shoved to jack#i can see that jack is totally someone to be jealous at ha ha; he is a total hunk#but i feel like sebek see him as a solid trustable friend than a snatcher who would disrespect him#i did think of a scenario from how sebek is jealous of malleus drinking coffee with silver that goes like...#yuu talking to silver; sebek be like “WHAT WHY ARE U TALKING TO SILVER MORE”#and yuu be like “bcs silver whispers when he talks”#and stubborn as he is sebek be like “I CAN TALK IN WHISPER TOO”#and he sat there and tried so hard to whisper which pretty much end up as at the very least normal talking voice#and Sebek just “GRRR NGRHRHHRH!!!!!! YOU'LL SEE I'LL WHISPER PROPERLY ONE DAY!!!! AND U'LL HANG OOUT WITH ME MORE”#fjsdsdj#but i don't even know what would yuu talk with silver#i didn't even realize before that silver is actually in 2nd class#they look so same age#yuu be like - . - to everyone anyhow#she just keeps the guy act while brushing off the thought whether the others already know she is a girl or not#sebek zigvolt#twst yuu#twst mc#twisted wonderland#twst#fanart
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heartscrypt · 7 months
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get isekai'd, FREAK!
aka. yumi's incredibly unserious introduction to the world of twisted wonderland. tfw you get sent to magic private school hell world because your classmate purposefully hit you with their car (only a little bit on purpose though)
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laas-yahnir · 8 months
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currently brainrotting over: how She-Ra does such a good job conveying a true break from the abusive (and self-abusive) behaviors and patterns you were taught to perpetuate growing up, and it's because of how directly it interacts with and seeks to address the cause of those patterns
(hell yeah we're talking about Catra's arc again babeyyy)
this is what I think the dichotomous "explanation not an excuse" language often misses out on, even among those of us who like Catra and use that language favorably -- it's not just that Catra's bad behavior has an explanation, it's that it has a cause that can be treated, and that does get treated, that Catra comes to treat herself
it's not just identifiable, it's actionable, and the show is about her learning to take that action
we have it spelled out for us in Promise that she has grown up with a deeply-rooted core belief that she is worthless on her own, that her value hinges on Adora, and that she can never count on that value to be stable (because Adora is, in fact, her own person who can do as she pleases and who may one day decide that she doesn't like Catra anymore)
and the action she's taking until Season 5 is to lean into this core belief as hard as she can -- scramble for power and security because Adora being gone means she's vulnerable (which gets reinforced over and over again by both Shadow Weaver and Hordak), keep everyone else at a distance, lash out at Adora for leaving, and double down on the turmoil that comes from all this even after she figures out she doesn't actually want any of it
and it leaves her despondent on the ground, completely without friends or even allies, telling Sparkles to just fucking end it for her already
but then, the first few episodes of Season 5 happen... then, Corridors in particular happens... and Catra gets presented with the opportunity to take the action that is actually going to treat the cause of her bad behavior
she sits and talks (and laughs!) with Glimmer, trades stories with her of Adora thrashing around during sleepovers, listens to her express her regret for how she left things; she aligns this experience with her memory of Adora trying to get her to come back out and play nice with Lonnie too; she has it laid out for her in these parallel experiences that Adora truly didn't stop caring about her just because she made other friends
she looks her lack of trust in Adora in the face, and she decides to defy it -- she decides to be good to Adora in the spirit of the trust she is deciding to have, against her upbringing, against her patterns, in Adora's care for her
(and she decides to do it by saving Glimmer, this person who is so symbolic of so many of those insecurities to begin with by virtue of being the one Catra perceives Adora as having left her for)
and it brings Adora back to her.
it gets her what she wants the most.
and faced with the question of what to do with that trust going forward, Catra tries to rescind it at first, because trusting is unfamiliar and potentially unsafe in all the ways she's afraid of... but ultimately, she doesn't. she can't. she knows now, really knows, what everything will come to when she withholds that trust, and she can't live like that again
so she keeps trusting ("Adora, wait. Please. Stay.")
and it opens her up to healthily mitigating her anger, taking others' distrust of her on the chin without running from the guilt that causes, extending olive branches of her own accord, making genuinely friendly connections within the Rebellion, and finally, finally, breaking free of Shadow Weaver's hold on her
Catra at the end of the show has comprehensively rewritten the core belief she started with -- and that's different from consistently acting on the new belief, as any of us who are in therapy for that kind of thing will know (and as the show itself demonstrates by having her leave at the end of Failsafe), but the steps she has taken to rewrite the old belief are steps she can't go back on without serious effort
and I don't know if I'll ever really be able to express how powerful it is for people to have this narrative in their lives when they're like her, when they need to take the same steps, when they need to do that same work
whether or not everyone puts these words to that power (and who knows if these words are even the right words, they're just the words that feel right to me at the moment), they can feel it and understand it and use it to take action for themselves
and a whole lot of people are going to live a whole lot healthier lives because of it, which I think is pretty beautiful
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inkskinned · 1 year
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this is sort of pathetic, but when you were younger, you were sort of puzzled by the cartoon representations of fathers: how a kid would be outside with a mitt, waiting to play catch.
it's not that your father never played catch with you, but you also didn't like when he did. something about a hard ball coming quickly towards your face doesn't seem exciting. not that you'd ever say you don't trust him. you trust him, right?
it's not like he never tried to teach you anything. or never tried to parent. on rare days, a strange person would walk in your father's skin. bright, happy, magnificent. this version of your father was so cheerful and charismatic that you would do anything to keep him. and this is the version of your father that would laugh and gently coax you try again. this is the version of your father that would break down the small elements of a problem and point them out so you have an easier time with them.
as a kid, those days happened more often. but somewhere around 11, you started being too much of a person, and he was often cross about it. when he'd try to sit you down to learn something, you spent the whole time with your shoulders around your ears, nervous, uncertain. terrified because you didn't immediately understand how to navigate something. worried you will run out of his goodwill and then you will have the Other Father back, and you will have ruined a good day for your entire family. something about you being visibly afraid - it just made him angry. he would accuse you of not wanting to learn and storm away.
on tv, it's not like there's a lot of versions of men-who-are-mostly-fathers. they can be good dads, but usually their stories are not told in the household. so it's normal that your father is there, but he's never around. you know he was in the house, somewhere, it's just not that you guys ever... "hung out". he just seemed to get kind of bored of you, annoyed you weren't made in his perfect image. frustrated with how much energy it took to raise a kid. over time, you kind of adopt a bittersweet band around your throat - he knows nothing about me. he says at least i never abandoned my family.
and it's technically - technically - true. he was there for you. sometimes he even made an effort and made it to the big moments; the graduations and the dance recitals. he grins and tells everyone that he taught you. it almost erases the days in between, where he complains because you need a ride to school. the weeks that go by where he doesn't actually ever speak to you. the times you say i am struggling and he says figure it out on your own. i can't help you.
and that's fine! that's all fine. you can call him if you are having a problem with your car. or if you need a ride to the hospital. he loves playing hero, he just doesn't like the actual work that comes with being a father. and you've kind of made your peace with that; because you had to, because you don't want to live your life like he does; the whole world at a managed distance, a little rotating and controlled orb he can witness and take credit for but never truly love.
as an adult, you are rewatching some dumb cartoon - and again, the child standing in the rain, with a mitt, waiting for their father to come play catch. as an adult, there's this strange creeping dread - this little thing? this little thing, and their dad can't even show up for that? oh god, holyshit, it's not about the mitt, is it. oh god, holyshit, your father spent most of your life leaving you hanging.
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