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me: alright time to get Back(tm) into the roleplay scene

me: but first⸻

let me reconstruct all of these characters from scratch

⸻which is to say, i've been agonizing & going through the 5 stages of Death multiple times and finally coming to peace with the fact that as much as i want to write this group, i can't do it while literally rebuilding them from the ground up. i'm finally making an official post about it cause i'm tired of hating myself and wallowing in guilt over it

my sincerest apologies to everyone i approached with plot ideas, unfortunately i'm still a disaster

until next time . . .

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@ivakir │ тʜɪѕ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ɪѕ ɑ ѕтɑɢᴇ

It's odd, remembering death. Even after the dream filter of childhood fades, becomes worn enough for real memories to fragment together, it's still never going to really seem real, is it? Lack of experience, maybe. If witches are real, perhaps one can tell him.

The bus grumbles quietly as he descends its wizened steps. He's the only passenger, and the doors don't hesitate but slowly close behind him; no other travelers wait at the edge of Chukhlinka. The only evidence that there's a bus stop at all is the squat metal beast now trundling away. His grip tightens, loosens, tightens on the handles of his duffle bag, shoulders shift to adjust his backpack. The village is small, almost oppressively so, and he doubts anyone would recognize the face of rising star Isaiah Daniau. Doubts anyone would notice him even if he was Leonardo DiCaprio, aside from the fact that he's a stranger here. Part of him relaxes at that, and he takes a moment to appreciate being anonymous before refocusing on his goal at hand.

It doesn't take long to get directions to where the witch lives. In fact the first person he asks tells him right away, and he's taken aback by how easy it is, how normal it seems to be. True, he probably would have come here on baseless rumors anyway (although the things he's heard from sources he trusts have him hopeful), but he'd been expecting at least another day of digging for information. Instead, he reaches the witch's home before the day is fully over.

It's not as though he has any expectations for what a witch's dwelling looks like—moreso that what greets him seems to be fitting, or at least not too outlandish. For a witch, that is. Knuckles rap against the door in quick succession, thrice, the pause of a breath before a fourth knock. He takes a measured step back to give the door a respectful amount of space. And, as he's been doing since he started his search, he waits.

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finally got my grUBBY MITTS on a functioning laptop so here’s a bunch of stuff i’ve been too lazy to post about:

1. i’ve been wanting to write and not much else, so i’m active again but selectively. also only on mobile (might change one day but for now). fortunately now there won’t be any icons for me to procrastinate with! unfortunately, i can’t do any formatting either and i’m taking it harder than i thought i would :( i also can’t trim threads how i like, boo

3. i’m probably gonna throw some more characters on here even as i continue to shake them up, which is to say the ‘co’ page is no longer accurate, i don’t have the time or energy to update it so i’m just gonna delete it and make new posts for them individually

4. speaking of time and energy i’ve got really bad timing with this but what’s new? if i am reaching out to write with you, i want to write with you. i might not respond quickly to messages, i probably won’t talk about much besides the plot, and thread response time will vary a lot, but please i really want our characters to interact please. i know for a fact that i am not alone in my dwindling reserves of time and energy, nor my undying desire to write something, anything, please-brain-why-won’t-you-cooperate, so know that there is no pressure from me to be or do anything more than you can manage at a time. take care of yourself.

alright i just edited some of the pages so they’ll stop haunting my brain while i don’t have a computer, so it looks messier and more slapdash but really i’m more focused than ever

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"but i don't want to go into too much detail" i said about the au, proceeding to get into way too much detail in the au....... and then proceeding to make (minor) edits to isayah's actual backstory based on things in the au

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i can't believe i forgot peace's email account

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He wakes with blood in his mouth.

When Isayah finishes dry-heaving spit and bile that is not salt or coppery rust, he thinks he might actually be awake. His body is sluggish, shaking, head heavy and muzzy and stomach almost as gnawing as the hollowness lurking behind his sternum; he knows he's gone too far. Sleep, however long it lasted, did him no good and therefore might as well have not happened. Didn't. Therefore, whatever unremembered dreams that might have happened will never exist. There.

A child's voice sings softly of bright, silent nights.

Dragging himself upright, Isayah recalls a time when all it took to move him was spite, an endless lightning strike lancing through his body, thunder roaring hot in his veins. Now even all his self-loathing is just another layer of wet ash clinging to his bones, swallowing slowly into the tireless exhaustion that wants nothing from him. At least the mountains don't long for him, either—for now. The silence is deafening. He cannot go home.

Fingertips light on the back of his hand; their touch is warm.

Whether the streets are familiar to him or not is inconsequential. He carries on, breathing mechanical, thoughts drifting past aimless and half-formed. The few people he's aware of peripherally give him a wide berth; they are without sound, and he would rather believe they don't exist. Time is lost to him once more until he stumbles, ears ringing. His need for food is undeniable and he no longer cares enough to ignore it. The first door that smells of food and seems to have not much clamor behind it, he pushes through. His eyes won't adjust—no, they won't open—no—now he is sitting alone at a remote booth, an attentive presence hovering nearby. Waiting. The thought of food makes him sick. The thought that he will see someone he recognizes instead of a stranger is more than he can bear. He does not look.

"Water. Coffee. Black." Low and rough and cracked, the words are more than he has to spare. He closes his eyes. Opens them. There's a window, looking onto a grey sidewalk. He looks.

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He realizes his second mistake only after the woman begins to shout and hurl the entire basket at him—it's not normal to run around naked, either. At her demand that he take what he wants, just cover himself, his semi-panicked brain siezes on the basket now lying amongst its scattered contents as just the thing. Stooping to grab it he automatically starts to pick up the mushrooms as well, his thoughts racing and chasing and crashing together. Survival instincts not entirely his own demand he get out while he can; with his luck she'll start throwing spells now that she's out of physical ammo, or whatever it is witches do in real life. Logic says that if he's made this bad of a first impression, she's probably more likely to want him out of the forest, right? And considering how she keeps missing him, she either doesn't actually want to hit him, or she has really bad aim. Either way it's in his favor.

(The slow growing ache that gnaws constantly in the space behind his ribs longs to know if she's met a woman who calls herself Noël, if she's ever encountered a being made of winter's raw and frozen heart itself.)

Before he can get too tangled in his snarl of thoughts, however, he's derailed by her next comment. A scowl reflexively settles upon his brow, deepening as he realizes that he can't honestly or even plausibly argue with her—as with nudity, bathing had ceased to be a problem the moment he abandoned living in proximity to other people. Or rather, humans. Now they seem like inane and foreign problems to him, but if it gets her to stop yelling and throwing things... Basket and bounty gathered together, he straightens, holding it at a strategic level so as to provide what modesty it can.

"I wasn't sneaking—and you're not too polite yourself," he replies bluntly, though he manages to bite back the temptation to make some rude comments of his own. No sense in making petty enemies with a witch in the middle of an unhospitable forest. His voice rasps slightly from disuse as he continues, "I don't want to be here either, you know. There's someone I need to find. She..."

He hesitates. Would she have kept her human form, now that they've been separated? Would she continue to use the name he gave her? She wouldn't give up on him, would she? No. A short, sharp shake of his head; he won't start doubting her, not when she's the only one who's accepted him for who he is. What he's become. "Her name is Noël. She's...not human. I don't think she's here, but...what's wrong with this place? Why can't I find a way out?"

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        When the wolf suddenly decided that the bony witch was not such a tasty prey, and disappeared into the bushes, Ivakir breathed a sigh of relief and began to descend to the ground. Probably, her secret mushroom technique was able to scare away this terrible beast. But as soon as in the bushes, where the wolf ran away, something rustled and completely different sounds began to occur, which you would not expect to hear in the forest, Ivakir quickly climbed the tree again.

      “Ahhh! Naked teen!” when a wolf didn’t appear from behind the bushes, as she had expected, but a very naked and very young man, Ivakir immediately covered her eyes with her hand. Teenagers. Much worse than wolves. They scream, they argue, they always want to seem smart and they had that weird thing which called “youthful maximalism”. Honestly, Ivakir would feel more comfortable if there was a pack of wolves. “Here! Take what you want, just for the sake of all that is holy, cover yourself!”

      The basket of mushrooms flew in the direction of the young man, but missed. What the hell was going on? Did she accidentally got into a forest where wolves and nudists lived? And, no, wait, even the damn squirrels didn’t live in this forest. Ivakir removed her hands from her face and looked at the stranger with such a look, as if she was accusing him of a crime.

      “You’re that wolf, are you, eh? You smell like a fog. I can even feel it from here.”

      The witch deftly descended to the ground. Putting her thumbs on her belt, she, however, kept aloof, as if she was afraid that the young man would immediately turned into a wolf again and attack her.

      Of course, you will not eat me, the witch thought, I will punch you in the teeth and you will eat soups until your last days.

      “What are you talking about? Not what, but who! My name is Ivakir, and I am a witch- actually, I’m just picking up mushrooms,” the witch answered confidently. At three in the morning. It’s just a hobby. “And we are in the forest, as you can see. Trees, grass - everything is like in the forest. And what are you doing here? You know, you should not be here at all. And you also shouldn’t have sneaked behing my back. It’s not polite!”

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which muse is the most problematic towards other muses?

how many years has it been — the inbox is a ravenous maw

it's definitely sabian, but on this blog i wanna say,,,,,probably siv tbh? don't get me wrong, isayah is a Problem(tm) alright, but he's not likely to make himself someone else's problem unless they make him their problem first. tho when he's younger halwinfjd yeah he's definitely out to be a problem

on the other hand, athene can be problematic in her own fun way! nobody's business is private and her morals are far less important than her insatiable hunger for knowledge

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       If he was going to leave, then he should have the first time she lied. Shouldn't have waited to find out that she was all but killing herself to get back to someone who just didn't care, who might end up doing it for her. He knows, knows how this goes and he should know better by now, DOES, damn him, he's learned this lesson over and over that they are safer without you and you cannot fix anything when—

       But if he just leaves—

       A memory consumes him for a long and heavy heartbeat. Roaming through the decaying end of summer, conscious of his vision accommodating twilight's arrival; boots scuffing softly on the sidewalk and, faintly, the scent of frozen strawberries, warm blankets, something fizzy that had become more pronounced as Lucasta honed her powers. The way her shoulders curled inward, so tired of fighting to be strong and never being enough. A broken, desperate, wracking pain—I can't! I can't...I can't hate him...—how she only ever looked for love.

       "There's a bed and breakfast," he hears himself saying in a strangely distant voice, feels his hand rise to gesture back the way he's come, the way she's been walking, "not much farther. Get some sleep, at least. It'll be..." Stops himself from lying, easier in the morning. Fails to quite stop himself, "You should—"

       Words cut short like a bitten tongue. She should what? Take this opportunity to get away, stop waiting for him, stop going back? He's seen how relationships can twist around and around until you're bound so suffocatingly it takes all you have to just keep breathing, experienced himself how far monsters will go to keep what they want trapped in nothing but corners. How they find ways to control what you want. What you need.

       She doesn't even have a coat.

       Mutely, Isayah takes his wallet from his pocket and pulls out a wad of bills, not bothering to count any, extending them to her. She looks ready to collapse, to simply lie down and cease to move. His hand does not shake.

       "Please." His voice is quiet and does not betray the howling mass that tears as him inside. He cannot look at her, cannot look away.

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       Answers spring to mind and fall back pointlessly, unable to pass the hard line of his lips though it’s far too late to not say anything. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need it. Hasn’t needed one since he was 12, and wouldn’t that be something to explain? He wears the coat from habit, remembers to because Malachi always complains that it’s not fair he doesn’t have to wear one; because Luca always needs to borrow it; because on his way out Bis smiled at him and told him to be careful not to catch a cold. Incessant caring. Unnecessary. Even this woman—what about him? What about him. She’s the one who’s been walking around without one for who the fuck knows how long, because her boyfriend left her, that way, but he’ll be looking for her, huh. Knows exactly where to look, at least.

       Disgust tastes the same no matter what inspires it and he’s too restless to let it rest. 

       “…I’m good.” The words are flat across his tongue, useless. His teeth scrape for more, trying to force the restlessness into something coherent, to purge it from his gut and chest and throat. I’m fine but you, can I, is there something… 

       “Do you—” need help, and that’s the last thing he wants to ask, damn it, he needs to leave, “—need anything else.”   

“Something else?” echoing back the words with uncertainty plaguing her tone, Jochebed struggles to find the words to convey just how okay she truly was. They were horrible, fake words, pointless to utter but more often than not it proved to be just enough. Most people didn’t dig past the surface, they didn’t want to. Ignorance is bliss and if people did not know what was going on then they could go on without their lives without thinking about the sad existence of one Jochebed Birdsworth.

A part of her blamed herself, she truly thought that this was her fault. She should make more noise! If she did the world would know and they would have no choice but to act. The problem was: she didn’t want anyone to worry. This was her life and to involve anyone just wouldn’t be fair.

“No…thank you,” the no is too quick and the ‘thank you’ had been tacked on as an instinctual after-thought. The want to be polite even though she couldn’t feel her legs and her head felt as though it was about to explode. Her entire body shudders as she allows her head to slump forward, “I should stay here awhile. I keep moving. How can he find me if I just keep moving?”

Words are falling off kilter, she’s so tired. It’s so hard to fake being okay when she’s so tired.

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The feral woman is extremely hungry for something soulful,

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from  “Women who Run with the Wolves,” c. 1992 (via violentwavesofemotion)

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[-314] anything for love

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I would like to curl up and become a small thing. About this big. And still. Very still. Have you ever become so melancholy, that you wanted to fit in the palm of your beloved’s hand? And lie there, for fortnights, or decades, or the length of time between stars? In complete silence?

Sarah Ruhl (via mylittlebookofquotes)

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Some paint and paint water aesthetic

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hir·aeth

/‘hir,āeth/

noun a homesickness for a home you can not return to or a home that never was.

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