nyalisa-landale

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I think Nyalisaie likes Gaia now...

It was debatable whether Nyalisaie would continue thinking Gaia was going to try to bully her or usurp her position, or whether she'd sigh and go, "It's another baby, I gotta take care of the baby," and it looks like the latter won out in the past few days.

Goodness knows she's very tired of The Boys Being Idiots, so hopefully this friendship continues to develop.

(I suspect there was also some, "A baby!! Let me see the baby!! OH GOD THAT'S TOO BIG FOR A BABY!! FLEE!!" but Nyalisaie's maternal line has always had a big maternal instinct, often wanting to stay with their kittens past weaning time or adopt other litters, so her breeder and I were hoping for this outcome.)

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what's funny about the ending of endwalker is that, depending on who you are, it CAN be the likely-intended all-out victory of saving the universe and how even if none of the people who started this conflict are still around, you evoke your own will to survive and you finish it because your lives are worthwhile and anything that can exist is worth saving.

or it can be about how there's never gonna be a sunset to ride off in, and how the fight is never going to end because it's baked into the fabric of existence, and how given time and distance another hermes will ask another question and another meteion will fall to the depths of hopelessness and another You will have to rise up and kill them and it's all such a fucking waste, isn't it? because eventually the other You is going to lose. and even though your friends are worth the fight, your enemies are worth the strained empathy, and everyone you've never met can fit in your heart, isn't it exhausting to hold them there?

especially with the context of the thirteenth story right after. this fugly-armor jackass is proof that no matter how final your victory seems, tomorrow someone is going to wake up and kill their neighbor and someone is going to wake up and start a war. it's never over. you never rest. there's never peace. and you have to believe that it's all worth it despite that, and you CAN believe that because you couldn't have killed the endsinger otherwise, but isn't it tiring? don't you want to rest?

or it can be about how the only person who could possibly have surmounted those trials has to breathe them like air in order to live. you've been desensitized to challenge so much that you can dance through a war and come out unscathed, and all it elicits from you is a sad sigh. your ability to produce serotonin has been limited exclusively to saving all life in the universe. everything else is dull. and you didn't even get to bury him this time.

or it can be about how no one should ever have shouldered all that, and how there's no other way to return except broken. the scions pray you back to life and you kind of wish they hadn't. and now there's a glint in your eye that you can't see in the mirror but you see reflected in the faces of everyone you know that says you're a hairsbreadth from snapping clean in two. you should be locked away, you're too strong and too close to the edge, but who's left to lock you up? you killed your masters and gods and then you killed the thing your gods couldn't kill. you're alone at the top of existence and who could possibly trust you with that summit? you don't want to, but one day, like a beaten mutt, you're going to bite a kid and they're going to have to put you down. you're just too close to the end of your rope.

or it can be about operating a colonizer's paradise on a private island full of robots. i guess.

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Bunny bath time

🐰🛁⏰

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i think you should be able to emoji react to MyChart lab results

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Warmth

For the @fluffbruary day 9 prompt: icy — Jayce/Viktor, fluff & knitwear as a metaphor for love | Ao3 link

Viktor’s hiding something from Jayce.

He’s not sure how long it’s been going on, but now that he’s noticed it, he can’t stop thinking about it. The way he’ll walk into the lab in the mornings or after he’s been out somewhere and Viktor will start rearranging papers to cover something, or shove whatever it is away in his desk or his bag.

Viktor’s absolute secrecy about it makes him itch. What could he possibly be doing that he can’t tell Jayce about? If it was their research, why would he hide it? And if it’s something personal…  Viktor’s his best friend. The person he’s closest to in the whole world. He tells Viktor everything. 

Why does Viktor feel like he can’t tell him about whatever this is?

It gnaws at him, as the weeks go on. Makes his stomach hurt with worry.

It doesn’t help that the weather’s getting progressively colder outside. Jayce doesn’t love the cold. Can’t be helped, but it isn’t improving his overall mood.

He tries dropping hints. Making a point of telling Viktor personal things, things he wouldn’t normally share, to get him to open up. Or at least so he’ll know he can.

You know you can tell me anything, right? gets exactly the blank look it deserves. He’s usually so good at talking to people. He’s usually good at talking to Viktor, which is its whole own thing. Not many people get very much out of him.

He’d always liked being the one who did. The one who knew Viktor’s secrets. Even the tiny ones that didn’t need to be a secret, little personal preferences, minor details about his life, the few things he did that weren’t work.

Having a secret like this between them was killing Jayce. He had to know.

But no matter how sneaky he was, he never managed to catch Viktor doing whatever he was doing.

Actually looking in his desk or his bag would be crossing a line that Jayce isn’t willing to. He wants Viktor to trust him. 

So there’s really only one option.

“Hey,” Jayce says, leaning against the desk beside Viktor. 

“Hello?” Viktor looks up at him, brows drawn together.

Great start Jayce. Gold star. Go to the top of the class.

“Is something wrong?” Jayce asks. Subtle hasn’t gotten him anywhere.

Viktor’s confused frown deepens.

“Aside from the usual? The physical laws of existence refusing to bend to my will, for example?”

“Aside from that,” Jayce says. He’d started out with stern, squared shoulders, but they slump now in the face of how worried he is, how badly he wants to be let in on whatever’s going on with Viktor. The thing is, he’s terrified. He’s terrified because he lo—

“Jayce?” Viktor prompts.

 “I know you’re hiding something from me,” Jayce continues. “You keep hiding it away when I walk into the room. I... you don’t have to tell me what it is, but I wish you would. And if not... tell me you’re okay? Or that you’re not okay, and what I can do to help, even if you won’t tell me why?”

Viktor’s expression softens.

He swivels on his chair and bends down, opening the drawer he’s been favouring for hiding his secret project, and pulls something out. Deep red.

... knitted?

Viktor holds whatever it is in both hands, a wry little smile turning up one corner of his lips. “I finished yesterday,” he says. “Then I got self-conscious. But,” he looks up at Jayce, and holds the bundle in his hands out to him. “It’s for you.”

Jayce accepts an armful of some of the softest, nicest fabric he’s ever touched in his life. He unfolds it, and then unfolds it again, until...

“A scarf?” he asks, looking between the slightly unevenly knit garment in his hands and Viktor’s face.

Viktor shrugs. “You told me how you first became interested in magic,” he says. “On the night we met.”

Jayce nods. He remembers. He remembers Viktor listening to him and not looking at him like he’d gone out of his mind, like most people did when he told that story. Like it was something he’d made up as a kid, or misunderstood.

“We are not quite at hextech heating,” Viktor says. “Although I did draw up some ideas. In the meantime, until magic can keep you warm...” Viktor trails off, gesturing at the scarf in Jayce’s hands.

“You will,” Jayce finishes for him, a warm wave of tenderness washing over him as he curls his fingers into the fabric. “You made this for me?”

Viktor nods. He’d said that, hadn’t he? 

Jayce hadn’t quite registered it. Could only barely believe it.

When had anyone last made him anything? His mother used to knit for him, but she’d stopped years ago. 

And Viktor made this. With his own hands. He’s touched every inch of it.

Because he didn’t want Jayce to be cold.

“Vik,” he says, voice breaking. “It... this is...”

“You don’t have to wear it,” Viktor says. “I will not be insulted.”

“Are you kidding?” Jayce loops the scarf around his neck, holding eye contact with Viktor the entire time. “I’m never taking it off and I’m telling everyone you made it for me.”

“You really don’t need—”

Jayce drops to his knees at Viktor’s feet, grabbing his hands to cut him off. “I really do,” he says. “You have no idea how scared I was that maybe something was wrong and I couldn’t help. And the whole time you were doing something to help me.”

“Oh,” Viktor says. “I did not mean to make you anxious.”

“It’s fine,” Jayce says, still holding Viktor’s hands. “I’m fine now.”

“No more surprises for you,” Viktor says, squeezing Jayce’s hands.

Jayce laughs, the relief bubbling up inside him finally breaking free. “I could probably take a surprise or two,” he says. “Keep things interesting.”

“Oh yes?” Viktor asks.

“Why, you got another one?”

Viktor glances away for a heartbeat, and then another.

Then he darts forward so fast Jayce almost doesn’t see him move. His lips are dry and a little cracked, but gentle, as they press against Jayce’s. It’s only a brush.

It’s not nearly enough.

“Was supposed to come with the scarf,” Viktor says, looking down at their still-joined hands. Blushing.

Oh wow is he pretty when he blushes.

Jayce laughs again, giddy, flying. 

“Think I like that even better,” he says, possibilities unfolding in his mind faster than he can follow them as he looks at Viktor.

Viktor, who made him a scarf. Viktor, who wants to keep him warm.

Jayce can think of one or two ways of sharing warmth even more effective than knitwear.

“Oh?” Viktor asks.

Jayce beams up at him. “Absolutely. Surprise me with one of those any time you like.”

Viktor kisses him a lot harder this time. 

It definitely warms things up.

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Catt Brannigan

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by Colson Woodard

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old shots I took of Krile 💖

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Anyone else feel like it’s been one of those days since 2019?

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Amazing pottery skills

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🧑‍🎨 James Lewis

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What's up jayvik nation

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just remembered i have free will

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emet-selch really is the character of all time. he's a queer-coded disney villain. he's an evil wizard. he tried to be a member of your party and got denied. he's a boomer. he has a tragic backstory involving a dead wife/husband/best friend. you're the reincarnated wife/husband/best friend. he's a tsundere. he saved your catgirl. he's a politician. he's fantasy caesar. his great-grandson is obsessed with you. his name means "yours truly" in hebrew. oh hes not queer coded he's actually gay. he has a dead husband that isn't you. he's like a grumpy old cat. he's the most popular character in ffxiv.