#Based on that sad as fuck poem

[inkskinned]

i don't mean to sound ungrateful, but as a content creator on this site, there's a part of me that's like. they absolutely just stole my work.

i'm not, like, unaware that tumblr has been shuffling downhill for years now. sometimes i play with the idea of switching platforms, turning myself into the shark. i often get tens of thousands of notes - i could be "doing numbers" on a platform that actually pays me to do so. i could have statistics that i could use to sell myself, i could rebrand and make content pay-to-play and make brand deals. i could have the other life, i mean.

but i don't want to. i like the quiet nature of tumblr. i like that it still feels like i'm writing poetry, not like i'm fulfilling ad spots. i like the community, and that i can sometimes still take someone by surprise and write something that really speaks to them. i like the tags and reading things like oh of course it's fucking inkskinned i love you inkskinned you gay mess. my girlfriend recently told me that people tag things "inkskinned" because they assume it is similar to tagging "creative writing". that's wild. i made this word up when i was 19, and have always assumed people tag me in things so i read it (and i often do). i have nothing but love and gratitude for you all, for this tiny scoop of family.

and i haven't made any money off it. i had opportunities, and i turned them down. i could have sold this thing like a thousand times. i thought about moving my work elsewhere - over and over and over i thought about it. i weighed each option specifically. but my tumblr felt like ... it's for you guys, only. if you're still here and reading this, you deserve to do it for free.

tumblr has now, most likely, skimmed my work (and yours) in order to make money. i will never see a single cent for that violation. something about landlords, i guess - my work pays their rent.

i just lost my job on valentine's day, and am working on scrambling for solutions. i am writing this to a blog that they will probably scrape with AI. and like, what number to do you think it was? do you think it was only a couple hundred thousand? no way it was close to a million, right? my time, effort, energy - it belongs to someone else now. how many silver pieces for them to completely sell out their user base.

and it's kind of like - funny? when it isn't very-sad. because i personally don't know what to do, ya know? i might as well move to a different platform, where my efforts are ai-scraped but could eventually pay me. where i know my privacy is the cost - but it could result in actual money. anyway. i need to figure out how i'm paying for meds. i need to email like six people about COBRA benefits.

my work is powering someone else's AI. it will be a beautiful fabricated poem, made from words i've already said.

[hottpinkpenguin]

Letting Someone Go - Part 1

Benny Cross X Reader A/n: saw Bikeriders yesterday, needless to say I have a new Austin Butler character to obsess over <3 no better soundtrack to Benny Cross breakin' hearts than Zach Bryan. *the poem in this is lyrics from his song 'Letting Someone Go' Word Count: 2253 Warnings: cursing, alcohol use, Benny breaking hearts, angst, unhappy ending

What you had done to deserve Benny was beyond you. After all, you’d always tried to be a good person. Tried to do the right thing, to treat other people well. So who had you wronged so mightily as to deserve the torture that was Benny Cross?

“Hey. Hey! I’m talkin’ here!”

Sheila snapped at you, wrenching you out of your own miserable head. You dragged your gaze off of Benny, playing pool in the corner, and back to your friend. 

“Sorry, Sheils,” you mumbled. She rolled her eyes at you as you took a deep gulp from your Budweiser. 

“You’re still draggin’ ass about that man, aren’t ya?” She nodded unabashedly towards Benny, raising an eyebrow at you in question. You wanted to sink into the dirty floorboards beneath you, just get swept away in the sewer pipes or water table or whatever the fuck was below this personal hell you’d found yourself in. 

You shrugged, gulping down more beer in the hopes that it might dull the ache in your chest. 

“He ain’t worth it, hunnie.” 

You fixed Sheila with a hard stare. She shook off your glare, lighting her cigarette and blowing a plume of smoke up into the rafters. 

“I’m just sayin’, there’s plenty of guys ‘round here for you to shack up with. Benny’s just a loose cannon is all, who cares if he’s off ya.” 

You drank until your beer was empty. Your head was beginning to swim, but unfortunately the booze wasn’t touching the sadness that had sent you to the bottle in the first place. You stood up from your chair, pushing back from the table with a loud and clumsy clatter. No one really noticed over the thumping bass of the jukebox or the din of the crowd. You walked over to the bar, trading in your two empty bottles for two fresh ones. Zipco eyed you curiously from his usual seat at the back corner of the bar, but you refused to acknowledge him. Last thing you needed was another friend trying to cajole you out of your heartbreak. 

By the time you came back to Sheila, Wahoo and Corky had plunked down on either side of her. Probably trying to get her into bed, you thought darkly. And they’d likely succeed, based on how she was batting her eyes up at them. Usually, you welcomed the company of the Vandals, but tonight you found you could hardly stand them. Not necessarily that you wanted to be alone, just left alone. Sitting by yourself and knocking back an obscene amount of beer as you stared daggers into the back of Benny’s head was all you were really game for tonight. 

Rather than join the others, you swerved and walked towards the back of the bar, past where Johnny was sitting with Brucie, Gail, and Cal. The light was broken back here, and the shadows suited your dark mood quite nicely. You settled into a chair, tucking your legs up underneath you as you cracked open one of the new bottles and gulped down another greedy mouthful. Finally by yourself for the moment, you let your mind run wild over the last few weeks.

Where had it gone wrong? What did she have that you didn’t? And why the hell did you care so much, while Benny clearly cared so little? 

After all, it’s not like you and Benny were anything. You’d been sleeping together for a couple months, sure; but that was just the lifestyle. You’d been raised up on the back of your daddy’s bike. He was a founding member of the Red Devils of Hamilton, Ontario; so that made you practically royalty in the MC world. You knew what it was to be a Vandal before they’d even existed as an idea in Johnny Davis’ head. Hell, you practically taught Johnny everything you knew about how to run a successful club. 

That was probably why Benny hurt so damn much, you realized. You’d never admit it out loud, but this whole thing was ass backwards. You were the one that was supposed to run around and break the biker boys’ hearts. You were the one that wasn’t supposed to get attached, the one who would cut bait and run at the first sign of feelings. You were definitely not the kind of girl who’d get hung up on some loser just because he rode a nice chopper. 

But instead, Benny Cross had gone and played you at your own game. When you’d come back to Chicago to check on Johnny Davis’ pet project, you hadn’t planned to stay more than a few days, maybe a week. You had your sights set on California, on a small rancher high up in the mountains outside Crescent City. 

But then you’d met Benny. Benny with those piercing blue eyes, that gentle pillow talky voice, and the most gorgeous set of lips you’d ever kissed. He’d had you panting after him like a puppy dog within three days. A few days had turned into a few weeks, which had stretched into a few months. Now, you were still here, looking to spend your second Christmas in the cold. And unlike the last one, this Christmas would be a lonely one.

You’d been tangled up in Benny for the better part of a year now. He still drove you just as wild as that first time you’d seen him. Even from this far away, you could hardly stand to look at him without squirming. 

The first eight or nine months had been good. Maybe not great, but damn good. You’d wanted it to be fucking terrific, Lord knows you wanted that more than anything. But something in Benny just wouldn’t thaw for you. He was exactly the type of man that every other hard biker tried to be. He didn’t care about much, except his club. Didn’t show feelings for the simple fact that he didn’t have many, at least not the deep kind that you were desperate for. He was a detached, unbothered person. At first, you’d mistaken that for easy-going. It certainly made getting to know him nice and easy. But after nine or ten months, the edges of your relationship had started to turn brittle. While you were lying awake at night, daydreaming about getting a house together and getting married and maybe a baby or two, Benny was out doing the same old shit. Drinking, fighting. Generally avoiding anything that required commitment or persistence. Just livin’ life in the breeze.

But things had really taken a turn when she showed up. You could remember the night so clearly. It had been late fall, maybe two months ago. She’d come in looking like a misfit, all prim and proper in her white jeans and pink sweater, with her hair done up like Jackie Kennedy and her perfect eyeliner. Way too shiny and sweet for this kind of crowd. The guys had, predictably, gobbled her up with their eyes. No one more so than Benny.

The moment was seared in your memory: she was looking at the door, Benny was looking at her, and you were looking at Benny. Next thing you knew, Benny was gone, racing after her into the November air. You’d watched from the foggy window as she’d climbed on the back of his bike and they’d rode off down the street, all the while the club was cheering like it was fucking homecoming or something. Never mind that you were literally gutted, your heart trampled and lying like a used up bag on the floor of the bar. 

Benny had come back the next night, all hang-dog and apologies. All “I’m sorry baby, that was wrong” and “I dunno what came over me” and “I promise, it was nothing”. Both of you knew those were all lies, but only one of you really wanted to believe them. You were clinging on tight to the fading dream that was Benjamin Cross, meanwhile he was racing headfirst into the future that was Kathy Bauer. 

She kept coming around after that. That’s how you really knew that you were going to lose him. If that pretty little minx had kept her distance, then maybe Benny would have really been able to close that door. But she couldn’t. And, as much as you hated her for it, you couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t blind. She saw the same things in Benny that you did, you could tell just from looking at her expression when he was around. She had stars in her eyes, same as you. 

At first, Benny had put on a pretty good show of sticking by you. Even though the two of you weren’t officially anything, there was a code in the club. Fellas stuck by their gals, and vice versa. And, just by virtue of how long you and Benny had been, well, how long you’d been you and Benny, you were owed some measure of loyalty. 

But after a week or two, Benny was straying. Kathy would come into the bar and Benny would get this tiny smile. He’d find excuses to sit near her. Then it turned into talking to her. Then it turned into talking with her alone. 

Then he’d finally said the words you’d been dreading. 

“Baby, we gotta talk.”

No no no no no, you were screaming inside as you calmly sat down at the kitchen table of the small apartment you'd set yourself up in. Your hands were shaking, so you’d played with the nearest coffee mug until you’d chipped your nails. 

“Listen, darlin’, I… well, I’m not too good at this sorta thing.”

One tear had slipped out. You’d practically smacked yourself in a hurry to get rid of it. You couldn’t stand how upset he had you. 

“Just say it, Benny.”

Benny had tried to grab your hands from across the table - for what purpose, you couldn’t imagine. But you’d pulled away from him, your eyes burning. 

“I didn’t… I wasn’t trying to find someone else, baby. I swear. I just… it just… happened.”

Too many tears to wipe away now. You were squeezing the coffee mug so tightly in your palms that it was a wonder it didn’t shatter.

“It’s Kathy, isn’t it?”

Benny hadn’t said anything, just nodded. 

“And you’re moving in with her, aren’t ya?” 

To add insult to injury, before Benny even had the guts to properly break things off with you, he’d adopted a bad habit of sleeping on the back of his bike in front of her house. At least, that was what Cal told you. After you’d practically threatened to cut his throat with your blade. Not that you were much of a threat, but Cal had a soft spot for you and you knew it. You weren’t afraid to press on the soft spots when needed. 

Another single nod from Benny. You couldn’t tell if he was looking at you or not.

“So… you’re done with me then, yea? Is that what you’re saying?”

Another. Fucking. Nod.

And so, that was the end of it. A fitting ending, all things considered. Benny, quiet as the grave, just nodding away the entire future you’d dreamt up for yourself at his side. 

Unable to figure out what to say or how to feel, you just shrugged and let the tears slip off your jaw and plunk down onto the plastic checkerboard tablecloth. 

“Aight then, Benny, you best get your stuff and get out, then.”

You wished you’d have added some harsher words at the end, leave a little sting on him, but you didn’t trust your voice not to crack. So it had been your turn to stay quiet while Benny packed up his things - a shockingly small amount, you realized, as it took him less than three minutes to shove them all into a pillowcase. 

The final dagger had been when he’d hesitated at the door, looking back over his shoulder at you. You were exactly where he’d left you: sitting at the kitchen table, crying, that coffee mug turning over and over in your shaking palms. He’d turned back and walked over to lay a soft, sweet kiss on your forehead. The most affection that man had ever shown you had been in the goodbye that he’d made you say for him. It was an irony that you didn’t think you’d ever get over. 

As you sat in that dark, lightless corner of the bar, watching Benny shoot pool with Big Jack and Cockroach, Kathy leaning against a high-top table a few feet away and beaming at him, you thought about some ridiculous poem you’d heard once. If someone had put a pistol to your head, you wouldn’t have been able to tell them where you heard it or who wrote it or even what the rest of the poem was about. Just one line came floating back to you out of the back of your mind:

One thing I’ve come to know, nothing kills you slower than letting someone go.

**Read part 2 here! **Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

[igetthedisneybox]

Addams Family/ Wednesday OC's for Halloween

When I was a kid, I always just kind of...assumed that Wednesday had cousins named after the other days of the week.

So here are some OC's based on the poem that Wednesday's name is from. (I gave them different names than the days)

Belladonna Carmilla Angelo Addams

She is based on the first line, "Monday's Child is Fair of Face"

Her face claim is TajFaerie (linked to her instagram)

Her name means "beautiful woman" and is the name of a toxic plant

Her aesthetic is Victorian Goth

Her favorite color is blood red

She is a year older than Wednesday

She loves fashion, and expressing herself through said fashion

She is a hopeless romantic, especially for tragic love stories

She's very over dramatic, and treats personal matters with great importance

She'll sometimes speak in French of Italian, just so nobody else can understand her

She can be jaded at times, especially when it comes to holding grudges

She likes classical music, love ballads, alternative pop, and pop punk

One of her mothers is a vampire, so while she isn't one, she participates in vampire culture, such as drinking animal blood, avoiding sunlight and garlic, etc etc

She fell in love with Bianca Barclay at first sight

She's related to Wednesday on Gomez's side.

Odile Lilith Frump

She is based on the second line, "Tuesday's Child is Full of Grace"

Her face claim is Elle Fanning

Her name means "heritage" and is the name of the black swan in Swan Lake

Her aesthetic is a mix of Circus Freak and Dark Ballerina

Her favorite color is vomit yellow

She is the same age as Wednesday

She's run away to join the circus twelve times, and they send her back every time

She has joint hypermobility, which means she can move like a horror movie ghost. Which she does. To freak people out

She's a prankster, and just loves to fuck with people

She's very family-oriented. You fuck with one Addams, you fuck with them all

She likes alternative music, music box covers, circus music, and classical ballet pieces

Her passion is dancing, but she also enjoys knife throwing, tightrope walking, and other acrobatics

She's a fan of revenge and punishment, just like her cousin

She's related to Wednesday on Morticia's side.

Victoria "Ick" Elvira Addams

She is based on the fourth line, "Thursday's Child Has Far to Go"

Her face claim is Mackenzie Foy

Her full name means "victory," but the shortened form (her preferred name) is a sound of disgust

Her aesthetic is Punk Rock

Her favorite color is ooze green

She is the same age as Wednesday

She has a band with her brothers and sister, where she's the lead guitarist and singer

She's very level-headed, calm, and just generally chill to be around

She takes matters of social justice very seriously, and has a police record (she has it framed in her dorm)

She likes punk music (duh) but also dabbles in rock, heavy metal, 80's, 90's, and alternative

She's aromantic, but not asexual

She was adopted by the Addams when she was six. She wandered into their house one day and just...never left

She butts heads with Wednesday the most out of all the cousins

She's related to Wednesday on Gomez's side.

Briar Winter Addams

She is based on the fifth line, "Friday's Child is Loving and Giving"

Her face claim is Isabela Merced

Her name means "thorn," and is a reference to the Sleeping Beauty fairytale

Her aesthetic is Dark Fairytale

Her favorite color is dusk purple

She is a year younger than Wednesday

She has narcolepsy, and suffers from excessive sleepiness, fainting spells, and muscle weakness

She likes to brew antidotes for venom and poisonous plants, just in case

She likes to see the best in almost everyone, and those she can't, she poisons (mostly non-fatally. Mostly)

Like Bella, she's a hopeless romantic, and dreams of a knight in shining armor who will sweep her off of her feet

She likes creepy lullabies and alternative pop

She gives dried and dead flowers to people when they're sad

She loves moths

She's asexual, but not aromantic

She has a crush on Xavier Thorpe

She's related to Wednesday on Gomez's side.

Shelly Frump

She is based on the sixth line, "Saturday's Child Works Hard for a Living."

Her face claim is Yasmin Finney

Her name means "clearing," and is a reference to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein

Her aesthetic is Dark Academia

Her favorite color is midnight blue

She is a year younger than Wednesday

She's part giant, and is almost six feet tall

She takes her schooling very seriously, and refuses to miss a day of class

She's a living factoid machine, and knows a little bit about everything

She feels like her parents prefer her older sister, Mary, and so is very insecure

She likes lo-fi beats to study too, classical music, and 80's and 90's alternative

She's very shy, and doesn't like talking or interacting with people much

She is very good at mind games. She can fuck you up mentally

She and Eugene Ottinger are a little too close to be regular friends

She's related to Wednesday on Morticia's side.

Zander Adams

He is based on the seventh line, "But the Child Born on the Sabbath Day, Is Blithe and Bonny and Good and Gay."

His face claim is Omar Rudberg

Her name means "defender," and is the name of an actual Addams Family member, mentioned in the animated movie

His aesthetic is Grunge

His favorite color is fire orange

He is a year younger than Wednesday

His mother changed their last name from 'Addams' to 'Adams' to differentiate themselves from the family

He was raised as a normie, and any outcast (or autistic) traits he showed were punished

He and Briar were very close as small children, as their fathers were blood brothers

He starts off disliking his cousins and the other outcasts, but realizes that they are more welcoming and understanding than his mother

He likes alternative, 80's, 90's, and punk

He ends up having a thing for Tyler Galpin

He's related to Wednesday on Gomez's side.

[nohoperadio]

My A level poetry teacher was a memorably obnoxious man who had very obviously based his teaching persona on Robin Williams's character in Dead Poets Society (I suspected this from the very beginning and I felt vindicated when he gushed about the film to us one day). He liked giving impassioned histrionic speeches about the importance of free original thought and creative passion and similar topics. This didn't work out the way it does in Dead Poets Society, both because he wasn't nearly as charismatic or interesting as he thought he was and also because most of the class didn't actually care about poetry that much. I remember one of his inspiring speeches collapsing due to no one in class being responsive enough to the energy he was trying to convey, and it turned into a weird sad tirade about how none of us would ever be geniuses because we're too conformist. This class was pretty embarrassing to be a part of a lot of the time.

Sometimes people who didn't want to do any work would exploit his readiness to go into long digressions when asked questions about whatever random shit, thus eating up class time. I remember him talking about his girlfriend and showing us pictures of her once, that was kinda weird. He was a published poet himself and sometimes he'd talk about his own poems. The only one I remember was about his experience of going to his father's funeral and being distracted from his mourning by looking at the cleavage of a girl sat near him. Which I mean sure those kind of moments can make for good art but he didn't actually recite or show us the poem or anything, he just told us that it happened and he wrote a poem about it. So like. That's not really being a poetry teacher right that's just him telling us that story, about himself. Why did he do that.

He also just was pretty stupid about poetry by the way like it happened a LOT of times that he would go down this long enthusiastic train of thought analyzing a line from a poem that was entirely based on him thinking a word meant something completely different from what it actually means or just blatantly misreading something, which made the whole vibe extra awkward/frustrating.

But the thing that made me lose my patience the most was when I googled his name to see if I could find any of his poetry and instead I found an article he'd written for a tabloid about how he saw a woman breastfeeding on the train and it grossed him out and he thinks it shouldn't be allowed. Like come on you're not living up to your own dumb bohemian freethinker shtick at even the most basic level of competence, what! Robin Williams would not fucking say that!

[meraki-yao]

RWRB Movie Analysis: The Kensington Confrontation, on life, love and patience

Some things happened in my personal life and I had an epiphany on certain stuff, and subsequently, I started to see this scene in a different, clearer light.

“My life is the crown, and yours is politics, and I will not trade one prison for another.”

From Henry’s point of view, there is no changing, no escaping the life he’s in. He has his family, and the country’s adoration (considering he’s called the prince of England’s hearts, he might be the most popular royal in universe), and that’s all he knows, that’s all his has. He can’t straight up come out, the country will reject him, the king will berate him, he’ll be left with everything he had and knows taken away from him, he’ll be left with nothing, and he knows love can’t solve everything. If he comes out, gets more or less banished by his country and stay with Alex, with Alex’s ambitions of becoming a politician who has to be frequently judged and scrutinized by the public, as his partner he will be subjected to that too, which he doesn’t want, especially in such a case that he’s not even trained for.

To him, at that moment, there is literally, no possibility of him being true and happy. There is no way out.

“We can figure out a way to love each other on our own terms, no one else’s.”

Alex doesn’t see this as a binary choice. Henry doesn’t have to come out now. They can wait, and love each other while waiting. They can find a balance. Henry can push for smaller changes, like choosing to do charity projects on LGBT+ communities to test the water on how the public might react to a royal getting involved in the community as well as make the crown’s image more LGBT friendly so if he comes out later, there’s at least a portion of the public that will be supportive. (I am completely confused about how the royal family in RWRB works, but for the irl primary royal family members, besides some mandatory monarchy stuff, they can choose which topics to focus on, like Kate Middleton with early childhood development and Prince William with environmental conservation) Alex can find his footing in the political scene in the US and gain his own relatively stable standing before coming out, and with already established political work that hopefully will gain him a supporter base, later revealing his relationship won’t be as big as a hit.

Either way, in Alex’s perspective, and honestly, in reality, they don’t need to make a decision between two definitive choices. If the pre-set road doesn’t work, they’ll carve their own way out.

It’s just, that will be hard, and scary because that means breaking out of the space Henry’s in now. That space doesn’t suit him, and he’s fairly miserable stuck in that space, but it’s also all he knows. In that space, he knows what to do, he can predict outcomes, because that’s all he’s ever known.

Breaking out, carving a new path, means doing something no one’s done before. He’ll be alone in navigating the new life, he can’t predict outcomes, and there will be no one to guide him. (Alex will of course, still love and support him, but support and guidance are two very different things.) He might risk everything and only end in a big mistake.

“That is simply not possible, and you know it.”

That sentence isn’t true. But Henry is so fully-encompassed by the life he has now that he doesn’t dare to even think about a potential alternative.

“Fine. I’ll leave. And you can live in your tower and protect your heart for the rest of your life and nothing will ever happen to you.”

“But Henry.”

“Nothing will ever happen to you.”

I, without fail, always tear up at this line, and just sob through the rest of the scene.

Here’s the line in the book:

“Tell me you’re done with me. I’ll get back on the plane. That’s it. And you can live here in your tower and be miserable forever, write a whole book of sad fucking poems about it. Whatever. Just say it.”

Honestly, I kind of like the movie line better for two main reasons: 1, using the same line with distinctly, painfully different meanings is such clever dialogue writing, 2, just like the book line, it’s insinuating what Henry would be losing, but the first time Alex says it, it also insinuates what Henry thinks he’ll be saving, and the contrast between the two makes the lost more evident and painful.

The first “Nothing will ever happen to you” is about what Henry’s keeping by giving up his relationship and Alex. You can live in your tower like Rapunzel, stay in your cage like a trapped bird, you can maintain the status quo, the royal life you’ve been living for so long. You can protect your heart for the rest of your life because if you never allow yourself to fall in love, if you never give your heart away, no one will lose it, and no one will break it. Nothing will change from the life you’re living, for better or for worse. Nothing will change. Nothing bad, nothing dangerous, nothing new will ever happen to you.

The second “Nothing will ever happen to you”, is all the things Henry will be giving up by staying where he is, staying in the same space that the crown drew for him. Never changing, never breaking out, living day by day on orders and demands, never taking initiative. You don’t have the burdens and pressures of making choices, but you don’t get the freedom to make the choices you want either.

Most devastatingly, never getting to be honest about your sexuality, about your personality and thoughts. Never getting to date, laugh, kiss, have sex, fall in love with a man who truly loves and cherishes you, the man standing right behind you, who flew across an ocean and stormed a fucking castle to tell you he loves you.

All the unbridled joy you felt when you were with Alex, you will never get that again.

Yes, you might never get your heart broken again afterwards.

But you’ll also never get your heart to beat as wildly, as happily and as loudly as it did when you were with him, ever again.

Nothing will change.

Nothing new will ever happen to you.

But by refusing to change, nothing good will ever happen to you either, darling.

Nothing truly good, truly happy will ever happen to you either.

You will never, be truly happy again.

And hearing Alex’s ultimatum, makes Henry actually think.

Alex leaves, and he keeps this life. Never truly getting his heart broken after tonight, no soul-deep agony, but a constant heartache and discomfort he will carry for the rest of his life.

This exchange isn’t worth it.

There are a bunch of details that Henry hasn’t worked out, and is still scared to work out, but first and foremost, giving up the love of his life in exchange for a life that doesn’t suit him, it doesn’t feel like it’s worth it.

I originally thought the transition from the Kensington confrontation to going to the V&A was a bit too sharp and sudden, but I have another understanding of it now.

Henry needs to think. He also needs reassurance that if he chooses to do something, Alex will stay. He needs to be sure that Alex is it for him. That Alex is worth him taking risks, worth him upturning and changing his whole life.

Henry said it himself; he’s been dreaming about dancing with his love in V&A since he was young, this is what he imagined the peak of his own brand of romance would be. When he allows himself to dream of love, this is what he dreams of.

If he takes Alex to the V&A, and whatever happens there is everything he’s ever dreamt of, then this is it for him. Alex is it for him. He can’t let Alex go anymore.

And Alex, sweet, loving Alex, does fulfil his dreams of dancing with him, and it’s everything he’s ever dreamt of and more, and Henry has his primary answer.

I want him.

I want to keep being with him.

I love him.

He’s worth it.

They need to figure out what it means to keep being together and committed with the life they have. Henry is still scared about carving his own path in life for the first time. He needs time. He needs patience. He needs to be brave.

So he says:

“Please be patient with me, and I promise I will try and be brave for us.”

And of course, Alex, says yes.

“I love you.”

“I’ll be as patient as you need.”

[aujbabeyy]

i'm crying over the detail that was put into the mage tower in the underdark.

it's an absolutely tragic love story.

lenore de hurst is a cleric of mystra living in the mage tower. before you ascend to the roof, you can find and read four important books and papers. two, the threadbare book and the roads to darkness, are plays (rather, excerpts from plays). the other two are poems, one on a 'torn-out paper' and the other on a 'patched parchment'. quotes from these works earn you items or actions when you respond to bernard correctly with them.

based on the somber themes of the written works you encounter in the tower and how bernard responds to you (healing potion, a hug, "remember: you are loved, lenore. so much. you're doing great. and everyone will be so proud of you, as i already am.") you'll likely realize that lenore is... pretty lonely. two letters give more context to lenore's loneliness: the letter from amarith, found near some of the other works, and the letter to yrre, found outside the tower near the first arcane cannon.

the letter from amarith reveals that lenore's dog, myrna, passed away. after the death of her dog, lenore attempted to tame befriend a bulette (yes, the one you can use 'speak with animals' to talk with from the deep hole by the myconid colony). very "i'm lonely" behavior if you ask me. the letter to yrre reveals that lenore was, at one point, not alone in the tower, that her and her partner (yrre) split up for some reason, and that she wants to reconcile. I'm assuming that yrre left lenore some time (weeks? months? a year?) before myrna passed and that lenore wrote her letter to yrre some months (a year, maybe?) afterwards. i'm not sure which time-frame would make this story less tragic, but whichever it is... i hope it's that one.

also this... this is fucking sad, man. more magic was used than necessary to create this tombstone, out of nothing but sheer love for the creature buried there. oh my god my heart hurts.

the last bit about lenore that makes me want to sob: lenore and yrre, most likely, would have reconciled. yrre wrote back on the letter written for them to say that they waited, that they would always wait, and that lenore didn't come. the diary entry found in the basement of the mage tower indicates that lenore fully intended to return. lenore meant to come back to her research, to come back in hopes yrre would be there waiting for her, but something happened to her.

what happened?

one theory could be that the sussur flower and lenore's use of it was seen as a threat to mystra (it's noted in lenore's treatise that even those unattuned to the weave feel the anti-magic effect of the sussur flower) and she was punished for it. these events would have occurred nearly a decade before the events of bg3 (as noted in the diary). within the last year of game-time, mystra punished her chosen for attempting to reunite her with what he thought was part of her weave, lost to karsus' folly–without even telling him the orb's truthful origins. it would not be out-of-character for mystra to have punished a follower of hers for researching something that threatens her power. none of this is for sure, though, it's just a theory a game theory.

i honestly have no idea what happened to lenore and it pains my heart to not know. and what about yrre? they return to the tower to reconcile with their ex, only to find a note asking them to wait for her, that she'll be home soon. she never returns. where did yrre go? what did they do afterwards? i haven't finished the game yet but i really hope i end up finding some more lore on these two in act 3.

[habizuh-studios]

every single fic that you’ve ever written in order from ur personal fav to least fav?

i spent way too long on this help... also this is subject to change and based on what i feel soo yk (top -> bottom = most fav -> least fav)

How Can I Protect You, When I Don't Feel Alright? (TGCF)

Feng Xin goes on a mission sent by His Majesty, himself. It is expected to be top priority and dangerous. But what he doesn't expect is the hallucinations, the intrusive thoughts, the blood, the- OR: How Feng Xin received Fengshen.

I'm at My Highest Peak (TGCF)

"Did you know? General Nan Yang, the martial god of the Southeast, ascended via pure martial might! He didn't cultivate at all, no. He slayed the children-eating beast who lurked in Zhubei forest!" OR: Feng Xin ascends.

No Longer Alone (TGCF)

“Banyue,” a gentle voice above her says, “Banyue, it’s okay. You're safe. You’re here. It’s okay.” And still, she lets out a sob. But she is not a sad child- how could she be, with General Hua beside her? OR: General Hua and Banyue fluff and comfort for the soul...

I've Held My Heart Close All These Years (TGCF)

Since the day he woke up here and again, and again, and again, he has never felt happiness. Until there is a light, and he's set free. A word rings in his head: Ascension. Out of the coffin after ninety-six years, however, can change a lot. Especially if there were countless people to see it. OR: Xie Lian ascends from the coffin and chaos ensues :)

To Bring Back the Flame (TGCF)

Mu Qing is a fucking traitor. A selfish, uncaring motherfucker who can't afford to love the same way Feng Xin does. Or at least he thinks so, until when he blows up and takes a step, he's met with someone different. OR: Book 4! Feng Xin travels to the future.

It's Colder on Your Own (GENSHIN IMPACT)

There are days when the blank pages aren’t a source of inspiration or a canvas to be painted, but rather a representation of him. He draws a line but it’s not right, he stares at the blank page for hours and nothing comes to mind besides a vague idea and an aching wrist. He will erase, draw, and erase again, because nothing looks right, and eventually, he’ll rip the page and throw it away like the rest. So he lays down in his room, aching. Until Alhaitham walks in. OR: Hurt/Comfort with Haikaveh!!

Call if if Our Time is Through (TGCF)

On a mission from Hua Cheng, Yin Yu gets cursed to live in a time loop from a vengeful ghost. That would've been fine... if only Quan Yizhen hadn't gotten involved. OR: Yin Yu has to see Quan Yizhen die, over and over again.

Had I the Heavens' Embroidered Cloths (GENSHIN IMPACT)

Kaveh thinks that if he had the power, he could do more. But he doesn't. OR: A fic based on the poem "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by W. B. Yeats!!

Can't Stop Thinking of You (TGCF)

Feng Xin thinks of His Highness, because even after all of these years, he remembers- and ends up coming to a few realizations. OR: Feng Xin's first love.

Though You Embrace it, I Can't Face It (TGCF)

I love him, Feng Xin thinks one day as he stares at the ceiling of his apartment, thinking about his roommate. It’s no surprise that when Feng Xin shoots up, feeling his lungs constrict and grow weak as he shakes with coughs, that a singular flower petal comes out onto his hand. He stares at it. Because, despite the implications, despite how he is willing to die and could die from the pure, unbridled love he holds within his chest, Feng Xin knows that Mu Qing will never love him back. OR: Modern!AU in which Feng Xin has hanahaki.

My World is Bright (TGCF)

Pei Xiu doesn't hold too much respect or adoration for the gods in Heaven. One of the few exceptions is Lang Qianqiu, who is bright, heroic, competent, brave, noble, and handsome. Although Pei Xiu sometimes wishes he could kiss the worried expression off his face- wait. What? OR: The QianXiu fluff fic that someone asked for! :)

Take Care of Me (TGCF)

Feng Xin is not sick. And if he is, it doesn't matter! Mu Qing doesn't know what he's talking about at all! OR: Feng Xin is most definitely sick, don't listen to him. Oh, and Mu Qing takes care of him.

It's Easier to Sleep When it's Warm (TGCF)

Mu Qing tries pulling an all-nighter, but fails and falls asleep at around two in the morning. Luckily, Feng Xin is also awake, and wraps a blanket over his shoulders. Mu Qing looks so at peace... he wishes the man could look like this more often. OR: Medical Student! Mu Qing falls asleep, and Feng Xin puts a blanket over him :)

Revenge is Sweet, Literally (TGCF)

He Xuan had been writing in his diary. He was still planning the perfect revenge plot for the Shi brothers. He’s considered murder more times than not, but something is stopping him. Whether it be fate or Hua Cheng's nagging (he only said it once, but still), he considered other options. With the knowledge that Shi Qingxuan knows nothing of the fate swap, he doesn’t have anything better to do. Then Hua Cheng called him via the spiritual communication array. Zoning back in, He Xuan hears Hua Cheng say something that he normally wouldn’t care for. “... Of course, I wouldn’t dare defile His Highness, but to think…” He Xuan doesn’t care for that- Heaven, he doesn’t even know the context or what he says after, but he suddenly stands up and slams his hands on the table so hard that his bonefish look back at him. And then, he writes. OR: He Xuan, after some thinking, comes up with the perfect revenge plan to anger Shi Wudu.

What Suits You Best (TGCF)

Xie Lian has always had a soft spot for weaponry and martial arts, even at the age of thirteen. Which is why it's only natural that he decides which weapon best suits his bodyguard, Feng Xin! OR: How Feng Xin figured out that archery was his strong suit.

How You Make Me Sway (The Outsiders)

I was bored out of my mind, and there was nothing to do in the church. Unless you count for the radio in the corner. I turned it on, not expecting a slow song to play. Of course, when Johnny extended a hand out towards me, I didn’t think he’d say, “Wanna dance, Pony?” OR: In which the boys are bored at the church and Ponyboy decides to dance with Johnny. :) ... Chapter 1 can be read as a one-shot, chapter 2 is a bonus chapter.

Under the Moon Where Blood Spread (The Outsiders)

Darry wasted no time, throwing open the front door. “Ponyboy, please! I didn’t mean to!” Soda looked back at him, snapping out of his trance. “Darry, are we gonna run after him?” He asked. In another universe, Darry would have shook his head- after all, Ponyboy was a track star. He could run hard and fast- no one would be able to catch up, and no one in their right mind would attempt to try. But Darry was not in his right mind. OR: In which Darry runs after Ponyboy when he slaps him.

Delineating Danger (The Outsiders)

Ponyboy likes to draw Dally when he's in a "dangerous" mood. OR: In the book it mentions that Ponyboy likes drawing Dally in a dangerous mood, and I thought, huh. What would that be like? Which was also strengthened by this random Tumblr post I found wondering the exact same thing..! Though there will be multiple chapters, you can read this as a one-shot if you want.

[ghostoffuturespast]

What’d I miss what’s the thing with the clair de lune piano? 👀 gotta know the backstory

Hehehe I'm so glad you asked :>

I jokingly refer to the Clair de Lune piano (the piano in the Peralez's apartment for anyone reading this) as my arch nemesis, but it's actually one of my favorite pieces of foreshadowing in CP2077. Like it's just one of those things you'd never know, unless you took the time to get to know, and there's just so much of that in this game. A mind-boggling amount of it. It makes my brain very happy and it's one of the many reasons why I love this game so goddamn much. It's just layer upon layer upon layer. The cake that keeps on giving!

Now, there is a possibility that this wasn't intended as foreshadowing, but given how many music and poetry references there are in the game, I'm really hard pressed to believe that the inclusion of Clair de Lune wasn't intentional.

(Heck, look up the other classical song that is referenced in the game Nocturnes, Op. 55, Frederic Chopin, and Jane Stirling. You may see some similarities in situation between Chopin and Stirling, and V and Hanako. Two diseased dying virtuosos and their two wealthy financial sponsors crutching them along.)

We as players can encounter Clair de Lune piano twice in the game. First at the end of the quest I Fought the Law and then a second time at the beginning of Dream On. Both instances, in the Peralez's apartment on a self-playing piano. The melody drifting disembodied through the air...

At first listen, the fact that this song is playing, may not have even registered. (It certainly didn't for me the first several times I played.) Just a classical song being listened to by a couple of rich people for atmosphere. Dig a little deeper, you may have noticed the moon motif based on the title of the song. There's a lot of moon and space motifs in this game too. But the true meaning of this song requires you to know a little bit of music history.

Clair de Lune is the third movement of a piano suite called Suite bergamasque that was composed by Claude Debussy. That third movement got its inspiration and name from a poem written by Paul Verlaine.

Clair de Lune is a fucking poem.

A poem about a masquerade dance underneath the moonlight where all the dancers are living a fantasy life. Very much in the same way that we find out in the conclusion of Dream On that Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez are living their own fantasy life...

Foreshadowing.

Clair de Lune by Paul Verlaine Your soul is like a landscape fantasy, Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise, Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise. Singing in minor mode of life’s largesse And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite Reluctant to believe their happiness, And their song mingles with the pale moonlight, The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming, Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees, And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming – Slender jet-fountains – sob their ecstasies.

And remember...

Nothing comes before Night City.

[sad-trash-pigeon]

2023 appreciation post :)

i hope everyone has amazing health and experiences all kinds of love in the new year. i just hope this new year is absolutely incredible for everyone. y'all deserve only the best in 2024 <33

@swiftieannah you're so sweet and amazing and literally the funniest person ever like oml. i love hanging out with you and you're the best friend ever i'm so happy i met you. ily bbg 😍😍

@brokenmiirror ahagshabga you're amazing and have been such a cool person to talk to. it's lovely having writer mutuals, especially ones who love the outsiders. you're actually so cool like oml you just give off the best vibes <3

@melancholymelomaniac you scare me ngl. like how do you always find every sad post i make?? you seem really chill and just give off the best vibes. like you're spooky, but also really fucking cool <3

@if-i-could-give-u-the-moon you were one of my first mutuals which is like super cool. you're amazing and i love the playlist you made me :)

@skilletthescarletspaghet i love your blog so muchh <3 and your current theme is amazing. you're so cool and sweet and ahhh

@ray-of-midnight-storm you are one of the nicest people i have ever talked to on tumblr. like ahsvshba how are you so sweet and amazing and??? ilysm <33

@lost-in-reveriie your blog is absolute stunning. like oml. your introduction post is so prettyy :) you're absolutely amazing and i'm so happy to have you as one of my mutuals <3 you give off the best vibes

@kirireyn for a long time i thought your two blogs were two separate people.. like an embarrassingly long time. you're amazing and i love your (now only??) blog <33

@just-sarah-xx ahh you're absolutely incredible <33 libras are some of my favorite people, ngl. you're an amazing person and ilyy

@rosees3ray you're a really cool person in general, but also i love your art <33 i need to follow your art blogg

@gently-decaying-flowers you're so sweet and amazing and ilyy <3 we've been mutuals for awhile and you're just always incredible. i love your different blog names, you always choose the best ones!!

@sleepy-vix ahh you're one of my favorite solitaire mutuals <33 i love your blog, it gives the vibe of messy poetry. like poems written in fits of inspiration on anything that's close, like a napkin or table. and like in a good way

@sleepinginmygrave your blog theme is absolutely amazing oml. you give off the coolest most poetic vibes <3 like thinking about poetry and looking at rain by candlelight, if that makes sense

@a-beautiful-fool you're actually so fucking cool. i loved talking about poetry and the outsiders and stuff with you :) stay gold, lou <3

@nellysview i think you were one of my first mutuals !! i love your blog and you just seem so genuinely cool <3

@nothing-is-black-and-white you were one of my first mutuals and ilyy <33

@ast3ria-blue you were one of my first ever mutuals and one of the people that got me onto solitaire tumblr :)

@chlorine1 we've been mutuals for awhile and have talked a bit :)) you seem like a really cool person <3

@ava-taylors-version i love your poetry so much, oml <3 when i got poetry through asks from you it was the highlight of my day <33 ily and happy new years :)

@wib-was-here you seem so cool. like you play base and have a snake?? that's fucking awesome. idk you just give off immaculate vibes

@itsbitter we don't interact much but i absolutely adore your blog <3 you're one of those people that just gives off insanely cool vibes, yk?

@stranglingfigs you were one of my first mutuals 6 months ago when i started this blog :)) ily and i love your blog so much. i also really appreciate your use of y'all in your introduction post :)

this is in no particular order and i love you all!! i'm sorry if i forgot some people, i just woke up lmao

[dontcryminecraft]

I saw people sharing thier favorite animatics related to November 16th/cwilbur, so I'd join in!

SO, in no particular order-

WOLFY WILL BE APPEARING AGAIN AND AGAIN! WOLFY NEVER MISSES WOOOO! The lyrics are wonderful and i love the blind in one eye look, it's so cool! watching cwilbur spiral in limbo as they reassess everything matches really well with song!!!!

I LOVEEEEE knp!!!'s art style and the moments they add line up PERFECTLY! Every chorus going "i miss you" at a different point in cwilbur's life as the song follows him through his story!

this circulates in my brain about three times a week MINIMUM i know i keep saying but i won't ever stop screaming about the LYRICS FITTING THIS SO WELLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!11!!!!!1 He didn't have it in himself to go with grace!! *points over and over again* And he can go anywhere he wants! ANYWHERE HE WANTS! Just Not Home! *curls up and sobs* and cphil!!!! "YOU HAD TO KILL ME BUT IT KILLED YOU JUST THE SAME ... YOU TURNED INTO YOUR WORST FEARS" MY LORD ROZU

i said Wolfy would be back and here it ISSSS!!! i ADORE explorations of cfundy's rocky relationship with cwilbur 'cause THAT'S HIS DAD *cries* and then switch to CPHIL and the CTOMMY, ommmmmgggg *holds gently* the family dynamics. yet it focuses on cfundy and i think we as a fandom neglect that part of the canon family or at least i can never get enoughhhhh

So this is ABOUT Revivedbur, and features a lot of flashbacks from the l'manberg eras as it changes alongside cwilbur. It's ctommy talking to cfoolish about cwilbur and i think about this conversation so often it's wonderful to see it in an animatic! it really highlights ctommy's philosophy and relationship with c!wilbur! ToKtopus

oh this one is so heavy but also so beautiful and i love it so much. This is where I adapted the headcanon into my brain that cwilbur had a l'manburg flag sewn on the inside of his jacket, over his heart, at all times. the silent monologue of ghostbur until the line at the end about everything around him being alive, except him.

sometimes i think wilbur and tommy listened to two bird right before starting the pogtopia arc and went "hey we should base our ENTIRE dynamic this arc on this" and then went live lol. I love this artsyle it's so cute and fits each character so well! I love the eyes in particular!

O to the Z to the Y to the MANDIUS wooo!!!! this changed MY brain chemistry and this changed the FANDOM's brain chemistry! if you are new here watch to change YOUR brain chemistry! and then go watch the rest of sad-ist they were one of the animators who popularized and showcased the lore of the dsmp arcs! Wilbur connects this poem to his character and it's so awesome seeing it read out and put to an animatic!

The mix of stream quotes with music is a SAD-ist staple and one of my favorite parts of their animations it just makes everything so hype! This just showcases the pogtopia arc up until right before the final battle so well! i love it every frame is a screenshot *chefs kiss*

And the odd-ball choice! Not cwilbur or ghostbur or l'manburg related, but instead it's that Oncelor song about the SCHLATT ADMINISTRATION! There is a eye strain warning in the title that gets cut off in the link, so I'm letting you know here! this is a really fun video and the colors are very saturated and fun! It has great humor and i laughed multiple times all while being very foreboding about what's going on in the Manberg era.

annnnndd there is a ten video limit so instead I'm going to link the last two:

knp!!!'s animatic "Not Your Fault" which is about cphil and his feelings after killing his son, going through the guilt and blame and all that good stuff. The chorus of "it was not your fault but mine, it was your heart on the line. i really fucked it up this time, didn't i, my dear?" just KILLS me every time!

The follow-up to SAD-ist's animatic above is "Dawn of 16th" and is amazing as always for balancing the music with the dialogue to create and wonderful narrative about that day!

[pseudowho]

Hellloo Haitch! I hope you had a relaxing weekend

<33

Onto the questions—

1) From the JJK villains, who would you trust enough to save them as your speed dial/ emergency contact?

2) What type of drunk are you? (The sad drunk, happy, affectionate, angry etc) Do you have any Drunken habits? What type of drunk do you think Mr. Haitch is? Does he have any drunken habits?

3)Any memory of yours that you find embarrassing but others recall as hilarious?

4) Favorite Seventeen songs? (mine are Falling flower and Happy Ending (Korean ver)

5) Any antics of your kids that you find adorable? (Recently my little cousin turned one. And she has learnt how to debate lmao. It’s so fun to see her shaking her finger, slamming her hands on the table, and yell around in gibberish, arguing with her parents. She even “walks out” of those arguments and slumps to the floor with her milk bottle, giving her parents judgey looks and mean side eyes. I love her, she’s so sassy XD)

6) Your favorite poem(s) of all time? (Mine are Raven and Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe and Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost)

Thank you as always for your time

Much love xoxo

Hellooooo! Mostly relaxing. But I ate too much, eirghhhhh. Now my tummy is ouchie.

Assuming they're on my speed dial because we at least like each other...Hanami. I don't think they'd say anything over the phone, but I think the love that I give me houseplants would at least endear them to me a little bit.

The handsy drunk. Drunk!Nanami is in fact based on me, not Mr.Haitch, who is a gentleman. Mostly.

I tried to frogleap a bollard in a pencil skirt when I was at school. I went at it at great speed, and flipped over at great speed. I fucked up my shoulder, but it's earned me a nickname which follows me even now.

Falling Flower is also my favourite! Twinnies.

Our eldest pulls his trousers/shorts all the way up to his nipples, and walks around bow-legged with a gurning face. Our middle one pretends to be a cat, to great accuracy. Our baby plays 'dentist' and tries to inspect our teeth, with two whole chonky baby hands in our mouths.

jfc. My favourite of all time, is Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost 🥲 and An Arundel Tomb by Phillip Larkin.

Very much love, thank you for your patience ❣️

Love,

-- Haitch xxx

[triflesandparsnips]

So yesterday, I learned about the Seikilos epitaph.

Per Wikipedia and this much longer article from Antigone Journal, the Seikilos epitaph is a complete four-line Greek lyric poem. It was carved into a short marble stele sometime in maybe the 1st century CE, maybe the 2nd. The stele was then set, and later discovered, near the city of Tralles (close to modern-day Aydin, in Turkey).

Before the poem is a two-line couplet that can be translated as:

I am an image and a stone; Seikilos sets me up here As a long-lasting sign of undying memory.

--and then following the poem the name of the artist/author, either "Seikilos to Euterpe" or "Seikilos, son of Euterpres". In between those two points, though, is the poem itself, which I fucking love. A translation of it might read:

While you live, shine! Have no grief at all. Life exists only for a short while and Time demands his due.

--which tbh would be fabulous enough, but...

carved above the words

is musical notation.

The Seikilos epitaph is the record of a two-thousand-year-old song.

And like anything that's That Old, there's of course a fair bit of academic infighting regarding:

whether the stele is really a gravemarker or just the work of a silly lil guy going big with publishing his masterpiece;

whether it was really written as early (or as late) as people think, based on what seems to be Ye Olde Handwriting Analysis;

and even what the actual song would have actually sounded like, because the notation only tells us the pitch, duration, and movement of the sung line, and not, like, what's emphasized/stressed, the rhythm, the modulations, the scale--

But.

Unlike a lot of ancient music... we do have all the melody. And we have all the words. And so there are people out there who have come up with reconstructions and interpretations-- many of them sad, most of them sweet, all of them fitting for a tombstone...

And then there's this one. A live performance by YK Band, sung as a duet and played on a Tartessian lyre and frame drum. It starts with the simple melody as written on the stele, and then transitions to their version of how the song could, with just as much evidence as any other interpretation, have been sung...

And it's joyous.

I love this. It reminds me that history is amazing. People are amazing. Two thousand years later, and because of the time someone put in to writing these words, the craft of the worker who made the stele, the historians and the musicians and the linguists and the teachers who constantly search and test and try to understand what came before so that we can understand where we came from, who we once were and who we might be again, and put what they learn back out into the world--

Because of all of them, I can sit here, alone and quiet at my computer, and hear someone very, very far away call out a laughing reminder to the dark unknown:

while you live, shine!

[fractured-shield]

Five lines tag

Thanks @honeybewrites for the tag!

Rules: Find five lines based on the prompts you are given, then change ONE of the prompts at the end.

Lines are either from my current FS draft, or from the random scenes jumbled together in my notes that *might* be in FS eventually

A line about food (pov you're too stressed to have an appetite and your friend isn't going to let you pass out in a meeting)

He sighed as they stopped before the door to their room. “It’s always the same. The young ones are afraid of me, and anyone else treats me like I’ll break, or as if I already have.” “Well, Aestarn said that you aren’t frightening, to be fair, only that you look like it at first. So it seems they’ve figured out that you’re too nice for your own good, and exactly as threatening as a mouse. And not even the kind of mouse we have in Tarnuvin, those little skittish field mice they have here in Rhorn. …Oh, you stubborn bastard, you never even finished your fucking soup, did you?” In spite of himself, Idhren found himself laughing at the absurdity of Hal's question. “I'm sorry, I don't think I did.”

A sad line

"I couldn’t blame him, I couldn’t ask for more, but I… We parted ways on good terms, and then the war ended…and then he died. …That’s a story for another time,” he ended weakly. “Oh,” she said quietly, looking up from where she was trying to untangle the tarnished chain. He wasn’t quite happy with how much of himself he saw in her, but she had always had her mother’s way of understanding people in an instant. She looked at him like she knew so much more than he’d said. “Oh, you loved him. Didn’t you?” “I did,” he answered, so much more easily than he’d expected. “...I still do. And your mother, and every friend I shouldn’t have outlived, and…” “Don’t put it that way.” She spoke with surprising conviction, without any of the stumbling hesitation he was learning to expect from her awkward teenage years. “You’re right, I’m sorry.” He took a slow, measured breath. “My point is that you don’t stop loving people when you go your separate ways, or just because they die.”

A line about a book/reading

"Besides, thinking you’re good at something has nothing to do with whether or not you actually are. I don't know how it is for your parents, but I’ve never once felt like I was good at any of the council work.” He smiled just a little, like he was telling her some great secret. “Wait—really? Aren’t you Tarnuvin’s senior councillor or something?” “The title doesn’t mean much,” Idhren admitted. “It’s all an act, really. I’m terribly shy, I always feel like I’m less qualified than the people I speak with, like I’m afraid they’ll find out.” Waith looked away. She wasn't used to adults being honest about that sort of thing. She wasn't sure what to do with it. "I…it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels unsure, when Therien and Oenith the rest always seem like they know exactly what to do.” “Just one day at a time, if that’s what you need, alright?" Waith looked at her book, running her thumb along the edge of the pages idly. “Is that Fairalmin poetry?” He leaned closer, just a little “I can’t really speak it, I can only read it. So far.” She shrugged. “That’s right, you’re from Fairalme, aren’t you?” “I am. If you want more practice, we’ll have plenty of time on the way north. Therien’s halfway fluent, herself. Ah, I always liked this one,” he read the poem’s title. “Where did you ever find a book of old Fairalmin poetry?” “Someone gave it to my parents. My mother says it's not a very useful language to know anymore, but you know how she is.”

A line about the weather

The plains below were bare, stretching out northward from the city gate. The brisk wind tossed the dry grass in waves, empty of any passers-by. Even the farmers and hunters coming for the market from Durnthain’s outlying plains had all arrived by now. “What’re you looking at?” She heard Condel’s voice behind her. “The regional council starts today.” Oenith joined her at the wall. “You know how she gets.” Therien kept looking into the distance, as if a cluster of riders would materialize out of thin air, grey banners snapping in the wind and guards’ armor catching the glint of the sun, if only she looked hard enough.  “The weather's nice today—it's the perfect weather for this kind of thing, don’t you think? It was a little cold when I was putting out Ealrid's laundry this morning, but the wind fills out the banners when everyone gets here, and they're so nice to look at.” They didn’t answer. She could feel them staring at her. “Therien, who the hell has an opinion about what kind of weather is best for a council meeting?” Oenith gave her a teasing jab with her elbow. She rolled her eyes and didn’t dignify it with an answer. It made perfect sense to her, after all, so what was the use in explaining it?

A fun line (not sure if it counts as fun but it's got Malin in it and he's always fun to write)

“Gods, it’s been ages, hasn’t it?” he called out in a friendly tone that seemed to Therien much too casual for the current situation. The sun glinted against the gold scrollwork on the breastplate of his armor and he raised a gloved hand in greeting. “What are you doing here, Idhren?” Her papa gave a slight smile, answering more quietly. “The trade council just ended. We were leaving, until we ran into the hunting party. What about you?” “Oh, you know how it is,” he shrugged, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword, ornate and polished until it sparkled. Therien didn’t know how it was, actually. “I’m just keeping an eye on the Lochieru. It’s not like they’re going to declare war on Vailra, are they? They’ve enough enemies, with the whole alliance at their throats, they won’t risk adding another—and a city of mages at that.” Therien looked at him. “You don’t look much like a mage.” A moment later she realized her mistake. “Sorry—I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just—” “Gods, no,” Malin laughed easily. “I’m only a swordsman. The only magic I know is how to light a candle, and it took me near a decade to learn.” He looked closer at her. “...Therien? Last I heard you were toddling around with a wooden sword and starting fights with your playmates. We’ve never met, have we—how old are you now?” “Seventeen,” she flushed timidly at the amiable attention, realizing already what her papa had meant, how everyone Malin met was treated as a friend.

Tagging: @ryderwritings @leahnardo-da-veggie @just-emis-blog and anyone else who wants to join, for the following prompts:

A line about music

A sad line

A line about a book/reading

A line about the weather

A fun line

Tag list: @just-emis-blog @orions-quill @honeybewrites @leahnardo-da-veggie @robin-the-blind-sniper-rifle

[dkniade]

On the topic of how much Kaeya and The Rain & Cryo Vision part of his backstory (and a bit of Diluc, Stormterror/Dvalin, Albedo & Dragonspine OSTs, Mondstadt & Venti’s history) means to me personally. Here are some quotes from poems I’ve written, to show the slow improvement and healing.

Warning: PTSD / trauma, death ideation, blood, self-deprecation, swearing (It gets from angst to bittersweet, which is a major improvement for me.)

“In learning to associate snow not with sadness and emptiness, but rather with Kaeya himself, it’s helped greatly. This is the first winter I’ve spent with Kaeya, and many more to come, I’m sure, with each year’s storm hurting a little less.”

—“part v”, To a Certain Cavalry Captain, March 2021 (when I first started playing game)

.

“And so I wish to wither away beneath the touches of orange leaves. Yet I don’t want to die.”

—“part ii”, Elegy of a Vibrant Orange Death, September 2021/March 2022 (relapse)

.

“A certain vision. A certain Vision.

Beyond the dark. From here, depart.

That night. The future. That knight. The future.

To see that dawn, I’ll keep living on.

.

Until next time, towards that night

I say farewell. Goodbye, this spell.”

—“Epilogue”, Snowstorm Nocturne: Act I, September 2021 (major breakthrough, started to write about it seriously through Snowstorm Nocturne)

.

“In truth, I should thank you kindly. Your Vision, in spite of everything that you’ve gone through, still glows with such fervour, like a beacon of hope in a dark, stormy night. And indeed, you’ve been like a lighthouse for me, so I just thank you for all that you are. / To me, you’re the North Star.”

—“part ii”, Today is a Day Worth Celebrating, November 30, 2021 (in-character self-insert letter to Kaeya on his birthday)

.

“You want to pick a fight? Oh, I’ll give you

a fucking fight. My poetry, my sword.

My seek for answer, my lust for victory.

And you—

loneliness, ugly name, solitude, fatal voice,

I will dance your dance no longer!”

—“x. Poet’s Riposte”, Snowstorm Nocturne — Act III: Into the Storm, My Love!, December 11, 2021. (major breakthrough, misguided but more confident)

.

“My reputation.

I care not, my friend,

if it shall be that of a bloodstained swordsman,

covered in powder and glaring with flames.”

—“xi. Forsaken child and his terror of storms”, Snowstorm Nocturne — Act III: Into the Storm, My Love!, December 11, 2021. (major breakthrough, misguided but more confident. Named after the Stormterror’s Lair OST “Forsaken Child of Archaic Winds” and Stormterror himself)

.

“The storm may seize our breath and yet

This song shall ne’er be put to rest.”

—“Oath of Ancient Freedom”, January 2023 (based on first poem in the sword Freedom-Sworn’s Chinese lore)

.

“If someone attempts to deprive you of song,

The freedom you seek, saying ‘Here you belong.’

.

Then raise your voice above the winds,

And fight back. For Mondstadt, forever.”

—“Eve of Ancient Freedom”, January 2023 (based on second poem in the sword Freedom-Sworn’s Chinese lore)

.

“‘a white alchemist.’”

“‘Those yellow flowers imitate the sun’s brilliance, you know.’”

.

“‘Last time you said, Into the storm, my love!

This time I urge you: In the pursuit of truth,

know that as a flame, it can warm you, it can burn,

so choose your distance carefully.

Lest you hurt yourself again.’”

—“Taraxacum Officinale: Pursuing True Spring Days”, June 12, 2023 (alludes to Albedo’s Solar Isotoma, and Diluc as a Pyro user)

.

“没想到是因为凯亚而踏到这一步…多谢。这家伙…的确配得上‘冰风剑士’之名。”

—caption of a 2021/2023 Kaeya art improvement post, July 6, 2023 (not really a poem. Practically sounds like his Ascension: Conclusion Voiceline in Chinese)

[notasapleasure]

Stupidly long playlist to go with the stupidly long fic. In short, it follows a kind of meandering path from Icelandic youth to swaggering mercenary behaviour on the continent, to service in the Varangian guard in Constantinople. It is very much in an order I chose, and should be listened to in order. I designed it to have them coming closer together and parting ways at various points, and it follows a very rough outline I have for three 'books'' worth of adventures.

Bit more info about each track under the cut, but basically it's Weird FolkTM, Icelandic rock, a smattering of prog, and some entirely self-indulgent pop picks.

Sumer is icumen in - you may know from Wicker Man soundtrack? Everyone's go to creepy folk song because it's one of the oldest. Included because of cuckoo theme. Kólbítur - Icelandic term for 'coal-biter', a character type in medieval stories and folk tales. Usually a lazy boy who rolls around in the hearth ashes as a child getting in the way of the women. After some trauma he is usually revealed to be a great hero, who just needed a bit of goading on. Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu well known Icelandic ballad, full of longing and intertwined personhood: 'mine was yours and yours was mine'. Nitlayokoya - kind of a spoiler for the fic, but Cassian isn't actually a 'skraeling' (Norse name for the American peoples encountered around Newfoundland), he's from...way further south. This song has the same title as poem by Nezahualcoyotl, meaning 'I am Sad', though this wasn't composed until the fifteenth century. Get Out of My House is based on The Shining, so there's the link to Native American land, and there's shapeshifting in the song too. Seems a good angry bb Cassian song. Filthy Game a stranger and a good man gets drawn into the locals' 'filthy game'. The Devil & the Huntsman mainly for the Sam Lee, but also a rollicking banger from the King Arthur soundtrack. Vibes. The Dark general foreshadowing and vibes. Don't Say No - there's a lot of Patrick Wolf on there, this is early Patrick Wolf urging us to run with our instincts :)) and teeth. Shapeshifter there's also a lot of Richard Dawson in various iterations on here because he does Weird Folk like no one else. Shapeshifter so impressive he's even handing out potatos pre-Colombian exchange. Pagan Poetry best fucked up Björk song everrrr. 'He makes me want to hurt myself'. To Try for the Sun just boys being lads, sharing coats and hanging out on the streets, nothing to see here. Teardrop this is how you do a cover. Theseus 'A black sail billows, the sun hits your blade / And you are hungry, you are hungry for you'. Jolly Bold Robber I love the way Nic Jones sings this. A 'jolly bold robber' attacks a young sailor who's just come ashore with his earnings and they fight - moral is don't fight a desperate sailor who wants to spend his shore leave well. But the way Nic Jones sings 'like lambkins they've stripped' sure is something. And the apology in the sailor's voice for killing his attacker. Feels very Cassian. Two Brothers - any folksong 'and they were brothers' me: 'what if they were ""brothers""?' Here with wrestling matches, bruised egos, pocket-knife stabbings and regret. The Best Excuse in the World I remember seeing this live and David Rotheray explained it as being about a gay man realising he has 'the best excuse in the world' for not loving his wife, but the way Jim Causley sings it erases any of the triteness of that, it's gorgeous. Go Your Way classic 'I love you so much I'm letting you go' folk song. Nonantzin another Nezahualcoyotl poem, this one asking mother to cry for her child when he dies. Crown Shyness is just one of my Brassian songs. Growing up together but not quite being brave enough to reach out to each other. Raincatchers ditto, also shut up I love it.

We used to be the raincatchers And we couldn't see what we were running from You made me feel like Nothing really matters Here in my dreams, we're raincatchers Come back to me like it was before You made me feel like Nothing really matters, nothing really matters If we let this run Caught on a river Everything that we left unspoken Will never be said Revenge of the Bear instrumental, for the title mainly. Who could it refer to, you ask? Animalia whaaaat it's from the soundtrack to my favourite film, also fucked up love and animal imagery. Daring Highwayman getting into the Norwegian/continental mercenary/troublemaking part of their careers now, Cassian definitely makes robery seem cool. Hare Spell he also makes shapeshifting seem cool. Because it is. Stendur æva is about nine minutes long but it's essential I'm afraid. Played on a glockenspiel made from Icelandic rock, I usually LOATHE your man from Sigur Rós and his squeaky voice, but he sort of sounds like a seagull in this, and it features the then head of the Icelandic folk singing club, who has a lovely voice. It's all bullshit medievalism about 'Odin magic' but it sounds fucking amazing. VIBES I SAY. Trøllabundin this is tumblr, you all know about Eivør Pálsdóttir here, right? Ogre more Richard Dawson! But this time the community is not so happy with the outsider figure on its edges. Twa Corbies is a pan-European folk song with pretty old roots. Pov: you are a corvid observing the body of a dead knight. Villon Song high medieval roots for this poem about all the cool things you can do to break the law. Bwganod Richard Dawson AND FRIENDS this time. The title is Welsh for 'scarecrow', which doesn't really have any bearing on things, but the following lines are just relevant, ok Always jokey-woking ‘Til the shit hits the fan Spray my face in fertiliser Grow a mos-toosh Hairy pits Super fit Built like a brick shit Wearing leopard-print Fishnet underpants

I’m on the run, Barely began Gathering sun, but I’ll take my time I’m overrun The damage is done Everyone’s gonna sink into the slime Hellismanna kvæði for the 1990s girl rock!! Also it's an outlaw song. Strákarnir á Borginni means 'the boys on the town' and is a camp tango about the hypocrisy of 1980s homophobic farmers in Iceland. I've posted it here before, it's iconique. Fin Cop a more tragic outlaw song. Nobody loves a troll. Escape oh just for the Vibes, because Plunkett & Macleane has the energy I want my outlaw saga to have. The Night Safari much more recent Patrick Wolf about love not being enough to stop self-destructive tendencies. Also shapeshifters. Excuse me While I shift shape The ocelot Slips the bowline knot But soon falls to prey As a boy I worshipеd the thunder Now it's just a sky under I wait for to fall No why only whеn Still Too Soon to Know yes yes blorbo got on the playlist. Pleasingly few pronouns in this. After all they've been through, surely Brasso would know? Á Sprengisandi is a jolly Icelandic folk song about riding across the highland interior on the main path. There's unclean spirits! Outlaws! Elves! All those fun guys. Ten Thousand Miles just another nice travelling song :)) Oh come ye back My own true love And stay a while with me If I had a friend On this Earth You've been a friend to me Dodona more recent Patrick Wolf going through it. Night Ride Across the Caucasus I'm not sure yet precisely what route they'll be taking by this stage but you've gotta have some Loreena on a medievalish playlist. Anyone But Me what pining would be complete without some jealous misunderstandings? This is such a sinister and sexy song of obsession and it's a fave. Ivy to go with the general move towards the cradle of ancient civilisationTM this is more Richard Dawson (and DIFFERENT friends, these ones Finnish metalheads) this time telling Dionysus's story. Hey Matt if you can take me at my best you can take me at my Darren Hayes-est, gay angstiest: Hey Matt The water carried all my secrets Sifting through the muck I saw my dirty little grievances And the memories I killed All the shameful feelings spilled Lay bare on the asphalt Broken parts I thought I'd drowned real good Oops! I Did it Again it's a Cassian song, ok? Nikitoa last of the songs with a title matching a poem by Nezahualcoyotl, this one about the transience of all things :)) Móðir mín í kví kví what if we made this lullaby into a girl screamo track? Vibes, I say again. Feet of Clay more on the topic of not being able to make a move despite wanting to. Whispering Light the version with Willy Mason. Distance, mark of distance Your burden is your brilliance There's a vessel A hiddеn vessel in the stonе Difference, not indifference Your passion marks you different And you wrestle And how you'll wrestle to come to know The Gates of Istanbul more Loreena! Constantinople, but, well, I don't need to quote They Might Be Giants. Shim El Yasmine It might not be Istanbul but let's get some Arabic language angst about leaving your boyfriend behind in anyway. Last Polar Bear it's about the long overdue proliferation of contemporary queer folk singers actually. Also bears. From the north. Make you think of anyone? The Moon Shone on my Bed Last Night sneaking some more Sam Lee in for the 'muckle ballad' about being with your lad no matter what. Stál og hnífur this is what happens when you leave the pronouns out, Bubbi! Steel and knife is my symbol, the symbol of travelling workers. Yours was mine and mine was yours while I lived among men. Fire Light soothing. Good vibes. Hopefuly. Probably a happy ending, through I'm a long way from knowing how I'll achieve it yet. What is the medieval equivalent of a Death Star? Over Again haha is it all a flat circle? Or once free to be together to they just go out robbing and causing trouble again? :)

[banthacakes]

Please understand that I want everyone to love Hera Lindsay Bird as much as I love Hera Lindsay Bird. To that end, please find transcribed below a poem that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it:

Monica (you can read more poems by Hera Lindsay Bird, and also Hera Lindsay Bird's incredible advice column, at the Spinoff) (what do we call people who get into NZ because of the locked tomb? not me obviously, as an Australian it's not possible for me to 'get into' NZ, but like - kiwiboos? anyway -)

Monica

Monica

Monica

Monica

Monica Geller off popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Is one of the worst characters in the history of television

She makes me want to wash my hands with hand sanitizer

She makes me want to stand in an abandoned Ukrainian parking lot

And scream her name at a bunch of dead crows

Nobody liked her, except for Chandler

He married her, and that brings me to my second point

What kind of a name for a show was F.R.I.E.N.D.S

When two of them were related

And the rest of them just fucked for ten seasons?

Maybe their fucking was secondary to their friendship

Or they all had enough emotional equilibrium

To be able to maintain a constant state of mutual-respect

Despite the fucking

Or conspicuous nonfucking

That was occurring in their lives

But I have to say

It just doesn’t seem emotionally realistic

Especially considering that

They were not the most self-aware of people

And to be able to maintain a friendship

Through the various complications of heterosexual monogamy

Is enormously difficult

Especially when you take into consideration

What cunts they all were

I fell in love with a friend once

And we liked to congratulate each other what good friends we were

And how it was great that we could be such good friends, and still fuck

Until we stopped fucking

And then we weren’t such good friends anymore

I had a dream the other night

About this friend, and how we were walking

Through sunlight, many years ago

Dragged up from the vaults, like

Old military propaganda

You know the kind; young women leaving a factory

Arm in arm, while their fiancées

Are being handsomely shot to death in Prague

And even though this friend doesn’t love me anymore

And I don’t love them

At least, not in a romantic sense

The memory of what it had been like not to want

To strap concrete blocks to my head

And drown myself in a public fountain rather than spend another day

With them not talking to me

Came back, and I remembered the world

For a moment, as it had been

When we had just met, and love seemed possible

And neither of us resented the other one

And it made me sad

Not just because things ended badly

But more broadly

Because my sadness had less to do with the emotional specifics of that situation

And more to do with the transitory nature of romantic love

Which is becoming relevant to me once again

Because I just met someone new

And this dream reminded me

That, although I believe that there are ways that love can endure

It’s just that statistically, or

Based on personal experience

It’s unlikely that things are going to go well for long

There is such a narrow window

For happiness in this life

And if the past is anything to go by

Everything is about to go slowly but inevitably wrong

In a non-confrontational, but ultimately disappointing way

Monica

Monica

Monica

Monica

Monica Geller from popular sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Was the favourite character of the Uber driver

Who drove me home the other day

And is the main reason for this poem

Because I remember thinking Monica???

Maybe he doesn’t remember who she is

Because when I asked him specifically

Which character he liked best off F.R.I.E.N.D.S

He said ‘the woman’

And when I listed their names for him

Phoebe, Rachel and Monica

He said Monica

But he said it with a kind of question mark at the end

Like……. Monica?

Which led me to believe

Either, he was ashamed of liking her

Or he didn’t know who he was talking about

And had got her confused with one of the other

Less objectively terrible characters.

I think the driver meant to say Phoebe

Because Phoebe is everyone’s favourite

She once stabbed a police officer

She once gave birth to her brother’s triplets

She doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks about her

Monica gives a shit what everyone thinks about her

Monica’s parents didn’t treat her very well

And that’s probably where a lot of her underlying insecurities come from

That have since manifested themselves in controlling

And manipulative behaviour

It’s not that I think Monica is unredeemable

I can recognize that her personality has been shaped

By a desire to succeed

And that even when she did succeed, it was never enough

Particularly for her mother, who made her feel like her dreams were stupid

And a waste of time

And that kind of constant belittlement can do fucked up things to a person

So maybe, getting really upset when people don’t use coasters

Is an understandable, or at least comparatively sane response

To the psychic baggage

Of your parents never having believed in you

Often I look at the world

And I am dumbfounded that anyone can function at all

Given the kind of violence that

So many people have inherited from the past

But that’s still no excuse to throw

A dinner plate at your friends, during a quiet game of Pictionary

And even if that was an isolated incident

And she was able to move on from it

It still doesn’t make me want to watch her on TV

I am falling in love and I don’t know what to do about it

Throw me in a haunted wheelbarrow and set me on fire

And don’t even get me started on Ross