#BUT STILL!

[narumi-gens]

why does life slumber? yandere!sunday x gn!reader

minors, ageless, blank blogs dni

"dove, what are you doing?"

there's something dark in sunday's tone that signals danger. but right now, you're too focused on trying to keep your balance as you crouch on top of the balcony's railing to pick up on it. the metal is narrow enough that it only just fits the width of one foot and so you have them arranged toe to heel.

this high up, the wind is as strong as it is cold. the only thing keeping you from slipping from the railing is the death grip that you have on it.

"dove, come down from there."

you quickly glance over at him to see the cautious hand that he's extending out to you before looking over the balcony's edge, only to immediately feel dizzy. you shut your eyes as your hold on the railing grows tighter.

"it's just a dream. it's just a dream," you tell yourself, forcing yourself to ease your grip and steady your stance.

"dove! this isn't the dreamscape!"

the wind must have carried your voice because there's suddenly a frantic note in his tone that you've never heard before. it's enough to catch you by surprise and make you hesitate, tightening your hold on the railing and opening your eyes.

"this isn't the dreamscape," he repeats, slower this time but no less excited. "you're awake. this is reality."

you look at him from the corner of your eye and see that he's moved a few inches closer, his hand still outstretched towards you. he sounds so sure that it has you doubting yourself.

you're positive that this is a dream. you're positive that you learned the difference between when he puts you under into the dreamscape and when he wakes you up back into reality.

but...what if he took you out of the dreamscape without you regaining consciousness? what if he had woken you up, but then somehow removed the memory? what if the bedroom you awoke in was the real one and not the exact mirror he created for you in the dreamscape?

what if jumping from this balcony doesn't wake you from a dream but instead ends it all in reality?

"n-no. this is a dream," you assure yourself and him, but both your voice and certainty waver. you take a deep breath for courage and force the confidence back into your words. "this is a dream!"

slowly, you let go of the railing and stretch your arms to the sides for balance, wobbling as you carefully begin to stand up. your heart races in your chest. your stomach drops. you can feel how sweaty your palms are.

"dove, you're awake!" his pleas fall on deaf ears. this is a dream. this is a dream.

you repeat the mantra over and over in your head as you carefully turn out toward what you're certain are the glittering streets of the golden hour far, far beneath your cage. you close your eyes, assuring yourself one final time that this is a dream and when you hit the ground, you'll wake up with precious moments to spare to try and escape before sunday wakes to stop you.

you take a single step off the railing, balancing for a moment on the one remaining foot, and then your world spins.

only, instead of falling forward, you've fallen backward into a firm chest and with a heavy arm tightly wound around your middle.

it takes a minute for the realization that he's caught you just as you were about to jump to sink in.

the adrenaline and fear are still pumping through your veins. your pounding heartbeat is loud in your ears, drowning out the relieved murmurings he breathes against your temple as he wraps his other arm around you to hold you close.

you're in such a state of shock, that you only notice you're shivering from the cold after he's carted you inside. once he has you seated, he shrugs off his jacket and gently places his blazer over your shoulders. your trembling fingers wrap it tighter around your frame, instinctively seeking the warmth it holds from his body heat.

"oh, dove," he softly sighs from where he kneels before you. his expression is colored with a mixture of sadness, concern, and relief. you flinch when he brings his hands up and cups your cheeks, but he doesn't let you shake him off. "what were you thinking?"

the question is dripping with condescension and pity, making you feel small. your gaze drops to your lap and when you notice how blurry your vision is, you realize that you're crying.

"I-I wanted to wake from the dream," you whisper, your voice so soft that he only hears you because of how close he keeps you.

there must be something in your words that affects him because he rests his forehead against yours. when your eyes briefly dart up to see him, you find that his own eyes are closed.

"even if this were a dream, it wouldn't matter. you'll always be by my side. haven't you realized that yet?" in response, you can only break down in sobs.

it's only much later that night, in the brief moment that sunday has his back to you, that you're able to quickly peek over the edge of your bed and look at the bottom of the bedside table. and there, so faint that you can see it only because you know to look for it, is the small D that you scratched into the wood weeks ago.

the knowledge that you are in fact in the dreamscape should relieve you as it means that you can still tell the difference between dreams and reality. instead, you find yourself wishing you hadn't looked because there's nothing that you can do about it.

even that small movement has caused the thick chain connecting the collar around your neck to the rung bolted into the wall to softly rattle, drawing sunday's attention back to you. you merely close your eyes and try to make peace with the fact that it doesn't matter if you're dreaming or awake. you're trapped in a nightmare regardless.

[moonieee]

I'm suuuuuper late to this 😭 life has been hectic lately but happy birthday, shizun! 🎉

[ineedlelittlespace]

I think it's very telling that as of right now (System Collapse), every single Rogue Secunit we've met has not only not attacked anyone, but has immediately gone "yes, I'm going to help, actually." No matter how much even Murderbot itself frets about the dangers of Rogue units to its humans, the only place that danger seems to come from is corporate propaganda.

[critterbitter]

Do you have an ao3/plan on uploading your work there?

(Does a lil jig) I have no work on ao3 but I have been drabbling together some stuff! It’s a long term project though haha, and I’m not likely to post because I’m still job hunting. (Shakes my little hat) but i can be convinced! Some stray dollars for lunch mmmight motivate me. Ehe.

For people curious what I WANT to write, if i have time:

Hisui Horizon Event — (alternate version of Canon but flavored with my war crimes.)

Ingo is sent to Hisui with no name and no memories. He copes.

Without her anchor, Chandelure fades. (Elesa and Emmet, mourning the loss of their third, will not let her slip gently into the grave.)

Salvaging the Ship of Theseus — (definitely canon divergence because, well.)

Emmet and Eelektross fall into Hisui seventeen months after Ingo’s disappearance and a month before PLA.

May I introduce: Shitty merchant Emmet, who’s definitely not fluent in Hisui flavored Kantonese. One concerned Eelektross, who’s about to change the landscape of pokemon-human relations forever. Warden Ingo, who is attempting to retire wardenship to go looking at the rift bubbles. Lady Sneasler, who’s using Ingo as a babysitter for her three rascally sneaslets.

And a very angry Elesa, armed with an extra pissed Chandelure, as they hunt down Sinnohian legends to get their favorite muppets back.

(HERE’S A DRABBLE. I have a lot of thoughts for Salvaging the Ship of Theseus. So many thoughts. Help. HELP.)

(Sigh. I have so many outline ideas. But writing is hard so yall. Art or fics, I’m not powerful enough to do both.)

But also interest check? Intwest chweck? WAH (gets swatted at with a broom))

[javelinbk]

Ringo Starr tries on his Sgt Pepper costume as part of promotion for his book Beats & Threads, November 2023

[sceletaflores]

•｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅ wip wednesday!

thanks for the tag @guiltyasdave <3

wip #1 • SINK IN MY WITH YOUR DOG TEETH!

there's something off with logan...

this is the feral!logan fic that won the last poll i posted. i'm almost done with it, literally all i need to do is finish up the smut but it's been kicking my ass every single time i try and sit down to actually finish it :))) which is so great and fun for me :)))

The energy in the room crackles like a storm about to break, and you feel it in your bones, in the way your skin prickles under his gaze. "I was only gone for an hour," you say, your voice measured, careful. "You were still asleep when I left, I didn’t want to wake you."  You chance a glance over your shoulder, and the sight of him steals the air from your lungs. Logan hasn’t moved an inch from his perch on the edge of the bed, but the sheer force of his presence keeps you rooted in place, heart hammering in your chest. “Hmm, that’s real sweet, baby,” he drawls, sitting up straighter now, leaning forward. The motion makes him seem larger somehow, shoulders broad and imposing in the dim light. His tongue drags slowly across his bottom lip, and the way his gaze rakes over you feels like a physical touch, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. Your fingers still in the drawer, fabric slipping from your grasp as your pulse pounds in your ears. You can’t bring yourself to look away from him, caught in the snare of his sharp, predatory focus. You turn slowly, arms falling to hang limply at your sides. "I wasn't gone long." Logan tilts his head, a low, amused sound rumbling in his chest as he rises to his feet with a fluid, deliberate ease that makes your stomach flip. “Didn’t feel that way to me, darlin’.” His voice is a low, gravelly purr, sending a shiver down your spine. “Felt like forever.” His eyes never leave yours as he crosses the room, the green completely swallowed by the dark black of his pupils as they seep into the color like oil spilling out over the surface of a lake. You’ve never seen him like this before, so hungry. "Logan," you say slowly, back pressed tightly against your dresser. "You're really starting to freak me out."  Logan hums idly, head cocked to the side as he watches you. "I can hear your heartbeat."  His tone is calmer now, but there’s still a dangerous edge to it, like a knife pressed just lightly enough against the skin not to break it. Your pulse races, heat simmering in your stomach despite the slight edge of fear clawing its way through your chest. He stops in front of you, close enough that his scent invades your senses strong enough to make your knees feel like they’re about to buckle beneath you. “There’s nothin’ to be scared of baby,” he mutters quietly, thick arms coming up to cage you against the dresser. 

wip #2 • ALL THAT GLITTERS...

a billionaire walks into your job, and then into your apartment…

omg...a bruce wayne fic? yeah i don't know either...i just got way too into the dc universe by accident and had one (1) single idea that i thought fit his character too well to not write it. will i actually ever post this? i don't know. am i having fun with it anyway? yes, maybe a little too much fun. don't read into it i'm just throwing this at the wall because it's plagued my mind for days.

You snort, shaking your head as you walk down the hall, but you can't help the way your mind starts wandering. Maybe Rachel is right, was that your big moment? The story you'd pass down to your grandchildren once you got old enough that your filter had gone? "Yes, it's true, grandma had one crazy night with the Bruce Wayne." You shake your head, dispelling all thoughts of what might have happened had you not spent the whole lunch nervously poking at a way too overpriced plate of pasta and shoving your own foot in your mouth. Bruce—Mr. Wayne—clearly felt some kind of pity towards you that day. He was known for his charitableness, helping you score that holiday bonus and taking you out was just that—charity. You had to admit it was good press, a good headline to splash across the magazines he frequented. You could see it so clearly in your mind. BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY BRUCE WAYNE CHARMS BUMBLING SALES GIRL WITH LUXURY LUNCH! HEART OF GOLD, OR JUST ANOTHER PR STUNT? You sigh, the memory of his perfectly polite smile gnawing at you. He didn’t look uncomfortable, though. If anything, he seemed...amused. Not in the cruel, condescending way you feared, but in the same way someone might look at a puppy struggling to climb a too-tall staircase. Endearing, maybe, but ultimately a fleeting novelty. It wasn’t like the Bruce—Mr. Wayne—was secretly harboring some deep, hidden interest in you. He’d paid for lunch, helped you out with a well-placed favor, and probably forgot about you the moment he left the restaurant. A man like him doesn't chase after someone like you. He chases after pretty trust fund babies, A-list actresses, supermodels. Not women working commission at Harrow & Bloom that live in broken down apartment complexes where there's only one elevator that's been out of order since you moved in. And honestly? That was fine. Better, even. You didn't need that kind of stress in your life, the stress of being thrown off the deep end and into the public eye all because you were photographed on your solemn walk of shame out of Wayne Manor. You were over it. Completely over it. That's what you tell yourself as your wrench the door open with a little more force than necessary and— And Bruce Wayne is on the other side, standing in the hallway of your shitty apartment complex in a perfectly pressed suit looking extremely out of place. Bruce Wayne is on the other side of your door. The door that you slam right back shut directly in his face just as he opens his mouth to speak. What the fuck?

kisses!

i know it's not wednesday anymore...but i'll tag some beloved mutuals anyway! sorry if you've been tagged already <3

no pressure tags! @ebodebo @artemis-b-writes @elflutter @eupheme @javier-pena @raeinyourdreams @moonlight-prose @silverskyeline @superhoeva

[wistfulpoltergeist]

♫Isabel LaRosa - Pretty Boy♫

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

It’s Tolkien Meta Week, and today is LOTR Day. I’d never really describe any of my own random musings as formal “meta” (and certainly not like the brilliant stuff other people think up!). Nevertheless, I do muse away, and so I’ll just blather it all out here informally. Read below, if you are so inclined, for more of my obsession with incredibly obscure characters and Tolkien’s obsession with forcing Gondorian supremacy on everyone!

We know Tolkien loved to set up really distinct narrative parallels between pairs of Gondorians and Rohirrim (think Denethor/Théoden, Boromir/Théodred, Háma/Beregond) so that the ways that they are both similar and different can teach us specific things about the characters as individuals and about their kingdoms and cultures as a whole. And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the life experiences of a much older pair — Valacar of Gondor and Thengel of Rohan — and what Tolkien was trying to communicate with the undeniable connections he drew between these two very different characters who were separated by ~ 1,500 years of history.

First, since these are lesser known characters who exist largely in the appendices, let’s start with the basics:

Valacar was the heir to the throne of Gondor when he was sent to live as an ambassador of sorts among the Northmen of Rhovanion (the people who would go on to become the éothéod and then the Rohirrim). He was meant to learn their language, manners and customs, but he did more than that — he fell in love with the culture, married a local woman (a princess of the Northmen named Vidumavi) and had a son, Vinitharya. Eventually, his time in Rhovanion came to an end and he went back to Gondor, where he met almost nothing but grief. A substantial part of the Gondorian ruling class rejected his wife as being of lesser blood than the Númenórean lines of Gondor, and they certainly rejected his half-Northman son, who they did not want as king when his time came. Despite the fact that Valacar and his family showed only loyalty to Gondor and, in fact, tried repeatedly to bend in the direction of the Gondorian hardliners (for example, they changed Vinitharya’s name to Eldacar to make him sound less “foreign” to the Gondorians), those same hardliners staged a coup against Eldacar, killed his own son, and started a civil war that only ended after much death and destruction.

Thengel was the heir to the throne of Rohan when he left to live in Gondor, by implication because he wanted out from under the rule of his father, Fengel, who was described as greedy, difficult, and often at odds with everyone around him. Thengel threw himself into Gondorian life, learning their languages, joining the military, and serving their steward. He also married a local woman, Morwen, with whom he had 5 children, 3 of which were born in Gondor, including his son. When Fengel finally died, Thengel returned to Rohan and took the throne, where he had a successful reign despite the fact that he had been very resistant to the idea of returning and spent the rest of his life still clinging to elements of Gondorian culture (like holding onto Sindarin as the language of his rule rather than using Rohirric as one would expect). Still, he ruled well and passed the throne on seamlessly to his son, Théoden. 

So. BIG SAME on major elements of their stories — a prince of Gondor who went to live in proto-Rohan and a prince of Rohan who went to live in Gondor. They each embraced those foreign lands, married locally and had sons of mixed heritage before returning to their kingdoms to rule and pass on the throne to those sons. But the paths couldn’t be more different once they got home again. Valacar, who left Gondor as part of a duty to his land and returned willingly, had his wife and son met only with discrimination, resistance and eventually full-on insurrection despite repeated attempts to ingratiate themselves with the Gondorians. Thengel, who left Rohan of his own accord and only came back against his will, had his wife and son welcomed and honored by the Rohirrim despite the fact that Thengel himself continued to show some, shall we say, divided loyalty when he was there.

In terms of outcomes, the text of the appendices seems to come down hard on the people who opposed Valacar, Vidumavi and Vinitharya/Eldacar, because their effort backfired spectacularly. The civil war so thoroughly depleted the ranks of the Gondorian nobility that Eldacar, once he’d won the throne back, had to encourage significant immigration from Rhovanion to replenish Gondorian society. Plus, that depletion and the lingering fear of *another* civil war prevented the Gondorians from resolving a thorny succession crisis years later — lacking any heir whose claim to the kingship would be accepted by everyone, the line of kings in Gondor just came to an abrupt end instead. It’s hard to imagine a bigger karmic smackdown than to have your coup, which was meant to protect the alleged sanctity of the Gondorian monarchy from “lesser” influences, instead result in an influx of those “lesser” influences into your society and eventually the total loss of the monarchy itself! 

On the opposite side of the ledger, the Rohirrim were narratively rewarded for their more open minded approach. Thengel proved to be a decent king and gave them the line that produced Théoden (another good king, one small period of manipulation aside) as well as Théodred, Éomer, and Éowyn, all of whom had critical roles to play in the fight against Sauron, the preservation of freedom in Middle Earth and the survival of Rohan as an independent kingdom. All good things!

So this seems like a clear situation where Gondor did wrong and was punished, and Rohan did right and was rewarded. And so the moral of the story would be to Be Like Rohan, at least in this respect. AND YET,  I’m not entirely sure that’s what Tolkien is really saying because the Gondorians don’t actually seem to have learned their lesson. And that’s fine — what are humans if not bad at learning the lessons of history? — except that the meta narrative of LOTR itself seems to agree with them. 

For starters, the carping of the Gondorian hardliners about the tainting of pure Gondorian blood turns out to be true. Introducing “lesser” bloodlines into Gondor *does* eventually shorten their unusually long lifespans, which had always been the sign of the divine favor that was bestowed on them as a people. So the book buys into the notion that there are real and significant differences of quality between the high Men of Gondor and those from other parts of Middle Earth that have nothing to do with their actions and intentions but come only from genetics. That’s a big ick, but the book definitely validates the hardliners’ position.

For that reason, it’s unsurprising, I guess, that the Gondorians are still invested in these ideas of blood purity — they can see the proof of its effects in their own bodies. Yes, they are more accepting of outsiders marrying into the upper echelons of their society by the late Third Age, but I don’t think their embrace of either Éowyn (who has some Gondorian heritage and, anyway, was not marrying the king!) or Arwen (who is from a race that is fetishized as higher and nobler than the others and that has been present in the Gondorian royal line as far back as the very first king of Númenor) can be offered as proof that they would have similarly accepted a queen from a “lesser” community of Men. Indeed, they still explicitly endorse the same beliefs about the inherent inferiority of other humans, with no less than Faramir himself repeating the idea that there is a hierarchy of Men in high, middle and low tiers (with the Rohirrim only qualifying as “middle”) based on their perceived difference from the gold standard of a descendant of Númenor.

I think it’s significant that it’s Faramir who says this, because he is Tolkien’s self-described Author Insert, and he’s also someone who is established as the very pinnacle of wisdom and judgment. If Faramir believes something to be true, we, as readers, are generally meant to believe that it IS true, as pretty much every other thing he says in any other context is proven out by the narrative. So, again, the book is telling us that not all Men are equal in Middle Earth.

So what are we to make of this? If Tolkien truly meant the Valacar/Thengel parallel to be a cautionary tale that would warn against a mindset of looking down on other Men as inherently inferior — and I really don’t know how else you can read it given how sympathetic the text is to Valacar and his family, how catastrophic the kinstrife in Gondor proves to be, and how Thengel shows us what it looks like to handle a similar situation very differently — why does the story still seem to want us to embrace the very same ideas that nearly brought down Valacar’s family and caused untold suffering in Gondor and elsewhere? Why does the introduction of Northmen heritage into the royal line cause its degradation? Why does The Author’s Favored Character still espouse the Gondorian insurrectionists’ rhetoric about lesser Men? Why is it that the whole world can only be saved by the return to Gondor of a king who has that pure “blood of Westernesse” that the Gondorian nobles of Valacar’s day cared so much about? They were wrong to hold Eldacar’s mixed heritage against him and yet it’s also true that the world can only be set right when someone of “pure” heritage like Aragorn is put back in charge? It seems like a mixed message for sure.

Personally, I think Tolkien got trapped by the allure of a particular religious/moral idea, namely that you can earn divine favor through service to god. That might have been a very appealing concept to someone looking at the world through his particular religious lens, but when he allowed that divine favor to pass down through generations such that people were benefitting from it purely through inheritance and not from independent effort, it becomes a real problem. The Gondorians have to be better than everyone else because they come from the Númenóreans, and the Númenóreans have to be better because they come from the houses of the edain that fought alongside the Valar in the war of wrath and received that divine blessing in the form of longer life *for them and their ancestors.* And now you’ve got to square the implications of that with the otherwise obvious truth that no Man is inherently better or more ennobled than another simply because of where/when they’re born. And you really can’t. It forces you to have Men — in the form of the Rohirrim, most notably — who are acting only in good and noble ways but still have to be subordinated to the glory of Gondor for reasons that have fuck all to do with the behavior or intentions of either group. I think Tolkien recognized this problem, which is why the story feints at the idea that Gondor is wrong, but ultimately he couldn’t let it go and the story ends up bearing out their beliefs. And so here I am, all these years later, finding it infuriating!

[yuhi-san]

i just realized that the gävle goat is not as famous outside of tumblr as i thought.

my friend and i are doing this new fantasy rpg which is already fn because the biggest issue our adventurer party has so far is, in fact, bureacracy (and the fact that half of them are extreamly picky eaters).

but i mentioned that my character Failynn (who is a siren but prone to accidental arson) would 'probably set the gävle goat on fire without meaning to'

and my friend went: the wat?

me: you know, the giant swedish straw goat they build in december but usually gets burned down by arsonist before christmas, its like a whole thing almost like a contest. except for last year where a bunch of birds picked it appart.

her: what the fuck kind of string of words is that

[allastoredeer]

Me: Keep it simple. Keep it easy. You don’t have to get too detailed, it’s fine

Me a minute later:

FFFFUUUUCK this is why it takes me forever to post things 😤

[thatonesimp-e]

guys

GUYS!!!!

I was messing around on loadout.tf and

and I just realized you could pose them and

THE CROUCH LOSER POSE????

DUDE PLEASE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE TRYING TO RIZZ UP ENGINEER AND HE'S NOT PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO YOU HELP??

[starryjaybird]

eeeeeeee!

[ofthebrownajah]

Oh??? 👀

[as-you-think]

I think I only wanna wear booty shorts from now on

[re-dracula]

I'm so happy people like the sound design in today's episode because it fully took 10 hours to do.