#Does any of this make sense 😭😭😭

[kyouka-supremacy]

Okay, but about this. I love this title. It's so perfectly explicative of everything bsd represents and for its core themes. First of all, you are faced with an apparent strong and definite dichotomy: there's an hero, and there's a criminal, and there's good and evil, and they're up against each other. But as soon as you try to figure out who's who, you realize how deeply elusive the categories are. Who fits the role of the hero? Who's the criminal, who's the villain? They both fit all three characters.

If this was placed earlier in the story events, it would have been easy to identify Atsushi as the hero and Akutagawa as the villain; and yet, the roles can't help but feel strikingly reversed now, as Akutagawa comes in to save Atsushi (underlining the “saving-others” bit, which is the most emblematic hero action of them all) while Atsushi is reduced to a terrorist, an outlaw. But Atsushi is still the hero, he's still trying to do what's best for the agency and the world, and Akutagawa is still a mafioso. And the same duality is reflected in Fukuchi: he's THE hero, he's the one who saved the earth countless times and he's the savior of humanity and the soldier and the martyr. It's important to note, in his mind Fukuchi is acting like a hero, he's still doing what he thinks is best for humanity. He regrets having to hurt Atsushi. But at the same time he's also the leader of the doa - the real terrorist organization -, the mastermind, and the executioner.

In the end, nothing other than this paradox of terms could be more representative of bsd's core spirit: of how the line between good and evil is blurry and undefined, how short the way from hero to villain is and how good and evil are often just a matter of perspective. When you think about it, it's everything Beast really is about, and here you find the theme once again presented in canon, where really, in the end, there's no good or evil but only people who fight for what they believe in: the people who “in the storm of accidental events who scream, run and spill blood” who end up driving the world.

Then in the title there's the “V” highlighted in blood red, a nod to V, five, the doa, as the next episode will make the audience understand just how much of a temible and undefeated opponent their leader is– and I completely lose my mind.

Next week's episode is titled "Hero Vs. Criminal" and I think the "hero" in this scenario is Akutagawa. For reasons pertaining to "dying to save Atsushi". And the confirmation that Akutagawa is Atsushi's hero is making my heart hurt

[sansainthesnow]

If I look back, I am lost. RHAENYRA TARGARYEN APPRECIATION WEEK 2024 DAY TWO | parallels → Rhaenyra + centred shots

[nekomim1]

Nona the ninth is like,

Imagine you are a girl, and you woke up sixth months ago and thats your earliest memory. You dont know who you are. Your name was chosen for you seemingly at random, because nobody else knows who you are either. All you know about yourself is this: you cannot let anyone see you injured, or they will kill you. You are inhabiting a body that the others recognize, but you dont. You are probably one of two people, but nobody knows which one. You dont know these people. You dont know yourself. And deep down maybe you know you're not either one of them.

You are happy anyway.

You live with three people, who love you and who you love back fiercely. One of them is inhabiting a body that doesnt belong to her. She understands you, but she also doesnt. The other two are sharing a body, so intertwined that you can never be sure which one is standing right in front of you, unless you study them closely and know them well enough to guess. They understand you, but they also dont. They expect you to be one of two people, but you arent and you dont know why. You dont know who (what) you are.

You are happy anyway.

The world is crumbling around you. Your life is on a time limit and your soul is trying to claw its way out of your (her) body. The people you love are in danger but you dont know why or how to stop it. You are in danger, and the people you love know how to save you. You dont belong in this body, everyone knows that now. You are too big, too much, and the rest of your essence is trying to claw its way into your mind, becoming whole again, but you cant let it. You cant let it because if you are whole then you will be different, you wont be Nona anymore and you will not be that girl who loves and who is loved. But there is no choice, you must go back or risk killing yourself and the girl whose body you inhabit. You may remember your time as Nona, or you may not, but either way you will never be the same again. You might not be loved anymore. You might not love.

But you are happy anyway.

Because at least you know this. You cannot take loved away.

[cloverrallover]

still thinking abt anya and how other ppl r characterizing her tbh… like I know it’s a regular ass fandom thing to take meek women and turn that dial up to ten but like… I genuinely do not believe that Anya is anything like how we see her thru jimmy’s ryes 😭 I don’t think her interactions with curly are even her being herself to the fullest extent, like, knowing he’s jimmy’s best buddy and whatever. in her last moments she’s self assured and confident, and of course u can argue that it’s because. yknow. but I believe that she was probably that way before the tulpar as well. likeeee she applied for med school 8 times. that reads imo as somebody who is sure they DESERVE to be there, who is stubborn and strong willed, unlike the way a lot of people portray her. she acts that way around jambalaya and curly because she knows the character she’s been typecasted as by them. I don’t think she’s like, this secret mastermind supervillain or anything, but I think she’s a very smart, capable woman who knows who she is and why she does the things she does

[dangerpronebuddie]

The way the door thing now extends to Christopher is making me super emotional.

The thing about the doors for them is there's always a purpose to show them. Because there are scenes where Buck or Eddie/ Chris are at each other's places without a scene of them showing up.

But we see Eddie bring Chris over after the tsunami, asking Buck to care for his heart again and to assure him he hasn't lost Eddie's trust.

We see Buck opening the door to Eddie's house when he brings him home after the shooting, bringing Eddie home to his heart after the will reveal.

We see Buck not only entering Eddie's house, but breaking down his door- his last defense- during the breakdown.

We see Buck choosing Eddie's space for solace after the lightning.

We see Buck choosing to ask to be let in through the kitchen door, the kitchen where so much love is stored, and Eddie being confused Buck even has to ask. Of course you can come in. You belong here. In my space. In my home. In my heart.

And there's more examples that convey the same message. One is asking to step inside with the other or, if they don't ask, then it shows they know they can step in. It depends on the circumstances.

But extending that to Christopher, and having Buck be the one to try and be let in, is beautiful. And Eddie himself is asking. His heart is locked away from him and he doesn't want to break down the door and get him back. He wants to give Chris whatever he needs, he just wants to know he'll be okay. And he's asking Buck to get that door open. Because he's done it before for Eddie.

[link7057]

Stupid little Moral Orel comic with Orel and Reverend Putty to express something

[extravagav]

AND WE JUST DONT TALK ABOUT THIS?!?!?!!????

[foolsocracy]

Whose Jean Paul Valley :•0? ~Canary

hes so wild

This will be the ultra abridged version, but basically he starts off as this com sci grad student and his dad (dressed liked a crusader and bleeding out) barges in to his dorm/shit apartment and is like... GO TO SWITZERLAND!! and dies

anyway in switzerland its revealed that he comes from a long line of guys that have been conditioned and trained to act as/be Azrael for the catholic(?) cult Order of St. Dumas. This whole training-conditioning thing is called The System, and it turns out Jean Paul has already been through that in his childhood and now that the previous Azrael is dead (his dad) it can be activated.

Its sort of like an alternate personality that is incredibly violent and 'righteous' and whatnot. And it turns out he was a test tube baby that got experimented on to give him physical enhancements. All this was repressed tho and he had no clue.

His debut got him involved w/ Batman and he takes up the mantel at one point after Bruce breaks his back. He does an awful job cause hes predisposed to being awful. Im p sure he was made batman in response to readers being like "batman should be dark, work alone, and be so mentally ill". And the writers went oh ill show you mental illness. He stops being batman and stuff but thats who he is at the way beginning. I'm still learning my Azrael/Jean Paul lore so I can't speak too much on it. Take this w a grain of salt

heres a random collection of panels/pages cause theyre fun:

[earthlyruins]

seeing people mischaracterize sanji will forever boil my blood but seeing people mischaracterize LUFFY and say that he only has sanji on his crew because he can cook actually has me wanting to kill someone HOW can you be that stupid. no genuinely how

[girlpog]

It just dawned on me that the only time Simon isn’t desperately trying to save Betty is when he’s the Ice King. The pain associated with her is so strong that he doesn’t feel like himself without it.

So his lines about ‘missing being ice king’ and Finn trying to ‘distract him’ is ultimately a ploy to stop himself from coming to the crushing realization that he has no sense of identity outside of Betty.

Maybe he hates the ice king so much because it means he isn’t remembering her, but at the same time he misses the freedom of existing without the pain.

I bet the series is going to try to synthesize these two points (or at least I fucking hope it does, I want this man to be happy) and give him a chance to truly start over and build a fulfilling life for himself in Ooo.

[flowercrowngods]

shattered on the cliff’s edge, trapped by the tides

part 1 / 7 | or: read on ao3

The fog rolls in like a heavy cloud that morning, leaving the city in eerie darkness as Steve hurries toward the heavy door to the steel manufactory, scarf wound tightly around his neck to keep out the cold so uncommon for late September.

“Thanks,” he mutters to the gruff, broad man who holds open the door for him. He sees him every morning but has never had the chance to ask about his name. The question is on the tip of his tongue when, with a nod and a touch to his sturdy-looking hat, the man walks down a different corridor than Steve.

Where outside the fog was so thick that all noise seemed dulled, like cotton in his ears, the manufactory is a cacophony of banging and clanging, hissing and whirring, and Steve needs a moment to breathe the polluted, heavy air that’s always just a tad too hot for his lungs.

He doesn’t mind the work, is good with his hands and enjoys the single-minded focus it provides on a good day, the deafening noise loud enough to drown out most of the comments the other workers throw his way; comments about his father, his upbringing, and his rather sudden downfall when Richard D. Harrington decided to disown his eldest son three years ago without rhyme or reason.

Steelwork, engineering, intricate cogs that work massive machinery — they fascinate him, they keep him busy fourteen hours a day, and they leave him dead to the world when the shift is over and graciously let him sleep through the dreams that have been haunting him ever since he can remember being haunted.

It’s always the same dream, in the fall more than in the spring. A lighthouse trapped in the sea, waves rolling and crashing, water rising so high that it might as well swallow the lighthouse whole. And through it all, a beacon. And through it all, a voice he cannot make out. And through it all, a ticking that echoes through his skull even long after he gasped awake with a lungful of water that Robin says might be Tuberculosis.

He blinks away the gloom that has laid over his heart like the fog over the city, shakes off the trancelike feeling that overtakes him every time he tries to think about the lighthouse when he is wide awake, and rubs away the headache that comes with sleep deprivation. It’s fall again, which means he spends his nights haunted by ghostly images of a lighthouse he’s not even sure exists, robbed of all chances at resting if he doesn’t work himself to the point of absolute exhaustion.

They are earlier this year, the night terrors. Everything is a little earlier this year.

A heavy hand lands on his shoulder as Emerson arrives behind him, leading him to their station with idle chatter about the weather and the horrible, horrible fog that Steve has not the patience to partake in today — which is just as well for Emerson and his sunny disposition, he’ll simply talk enough for the both of them. Steve is fond enough of him to let him be as he falls into the routine of working steel and breathing overheated, coal-stained air.

They work in unison until noon, the headache dull enough as long as he keeps busy, but almost blinding when he stops for even a second. A booming voice makes him look up from his station, though, as he is being summoned to the office.

It’s never a good sign, and Steve can feel the blood draining from his face, pulling the ache with it as it travels down his spine and settles in his centre in a pit of nausea.

“Oh no,” Emerson murmurs under his breath, even managing to sound genuine about it. “What did you do?”

Images assault his mind. Prison, if he’s lucky. Asylum and electroshock therapy if he’s not; if his father changed his mind about making it public that his eldest son and heir deserves punishment, or treatment for moral insanity. Steve tries not to think of that too often, tries not to look at men like that anymore — tries not to look at anyone anymore until the public forgets about him.

But every time he is reminded that he exists is another time of fear. Fear of being found out.

“I… have no idea,” Steve says after a while, looking up to where the door to the office looms above all of them, leaving them to feel like prisoners in a panopticon.

“Better not keep ‘em waiting, then. Probably too late to run, eh?”

“Probably,” Steve says, dazed, not really listening to Emerson as he kicks into motion and walks briskly up the stairs, pretending not to feel everyone’s eyes on his back.

It is out of a nervous habit that he pulls the watch from his pocket, its silver chain linked to his vest. It springs open in his hands as he takes the steps one by one, providing comfort for no reason other than it’s his. It doesn’t show the time, never has, but after losing everything at his father’s whim, the pocket watch stayed with him.

“Keep it,” Richard had sneered. “The blasted thing isn’t worth a penny!”

The fingers only ever moved incrementally over the years, and backwards, but still there is something about the watch that makes him keep it close at all times. Collecting himself, he closes his hand around the light metal and filigree ornaments and mentally counts to three before putting it back in his pocket and knocking on the door.

“Ah, Harrington,” the superior manager says, his voice sounding like gravel as per usual. The man has a habit of competing with the steel manufactory’s chimneys, only he smokes cigars instead of coal dust like his workers. Steve remembers the smell of fine cigars, and this office smells like the best among them.

It only helps to strengthen his disdain for the man.

Still he nods and aims for a pleasant smile. “You asked for me, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” the man says, leaning back in his thick leather chair and motioning for Steve to take a seat at the sturdy, delicately engraved mahogany desk. “Sit down, sit down, time is money and I give you more of that than you deserve anyway. I have a proposition for you and you are in no position to decline, yes?”

“Yes?” Steve says dumbly, taking his time to sit down just to spite him.

The man, however, is not as easily perturbed. “That’s what I want to hear, I have to admire your morale, Harrington. Here,” he turns and reaches for a cabinet, rummaging around for a minute before—

The blood in Steve’s veins freezes, leaving him cold and too hot all at once.

Underneath the beefy hand, he makes out a photograph — or possibly a postcard — showing a stark white lighthouse trapped in the sea, gigantic waves crashing into it, threatening to tear it down and carry it along to wherever the tides lead. The beacon of light is steadfast and stubborn, guiding and pointing at something that’s out of the frame, but what Steve can only assume is absolute nothingness out in the open sea.

He slides it over the table to lie in front of Steve, and he fights every urge to recoil, only gripping the arm rest far too tightly.

“See, we got a telegram earlier today that they’re having problems with the lighthouse up north. They say it’s something with the generator, not fit enough to last in the cold, where the air is made of saltwater more than oxygen.”

Steve nods, though he is only halfway listening, his heart hammering in his chest at the picture of the lighthouse, etched onto the paper like it has no idea it is also etched on the very forefront of Steve’s mind — has been, for almost three decades now.

“And since you’re the only one here traditionally educated in reading and writing,” the man continues, either unaware of Steve’s dizziness or delighting in it, “and you know your way around a machine or two, fixing the generator and handling the light shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

It’s not a question. It’s not even an offer.

Steve wonders if maybe he fell down the stairs and hit his head, if maybe the sleep deprivation is finally leading to hallucinations like Robin keeps warning him.

“You want me to fix the lighthouse?”

“That is precisely what I want, yes. Stay there a while, find out what seems to be the problem.”

He’s getting up, walking over to a cabinet, pulling out a half-empty bottle of what Steve can only assume is whisky. A biting, earthy smell floats through the room, thick enough to cling to his clothes if he stays here much longer.

“You’ll find yourself familiar with the equipment, as it is us who supply them. In fact, you have built generators and fixtures and engines like that. You’re a bright spark, Harrington, I can admit that. You’re the best fit. And I’m not asking.”

His jaw clicks shut, his hands clenched into fists beneath the table as he meets those dark eyes head-on.

“When do I leave?”

An ugly grin spreads the man’s face, gaining too much joy from other people’s powerlessness down the food chain.

“Tomorrow. If I remember correctly, and I usually do, you do not have much business to attend to, and even fewer things to pack. I trust you will find your place at the train station at five tomorrow morning. Emerson will know to fill your shoes in your absence.”

How long will I be gone? he wants to ask, but is too afraid that the answer will only be another cruel smirk and a sip of whisky.

He gets up, certain that he is being dismissed, and getting no sign that he’s wrong.

“Oh, and Harrington.” He stops with his hand on the door already. “Perhaps this is a good time to mention that the lighthouse is without a keeper. I have offered your services for the time being, seeing as you will already be there. The salary, of course, will be thrice as much as your usual.”

The daze is back, smelling of saltwater air and whisky, rushing in his ears like waves bursting on the cliffs.

“What happened to the old keepers?” he dares to ask.

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“Yes, it does. What happened to the old keepers?”

“I think you shall find out soon enough.” A beat of silence — horrible, tidal silence. Then, “You’re dismissed.”

***

The train ride is blessedly pleasant, the first class ticket providing the luxury of comfortable seating and relative silence, the wheels occasionally clicking along the railway loud enough to drown out the near-deafening rushing of the ocean in his ears — or perhaps it’s not the ocean, perhaps it is his own blood, pumped with fear and apprehension.

The only upside to all of this is the telegram he’s been gripping tightly all morning so as not to lose it, not to forget about it, not to think it was a dream. A childish, hopeless dream, a longing for company to battle the fear of the dark.

I’ll meet you there. 3 days.

Signed: Robin Buckley. She never took his name, said she did not want to be associated with Richard and the Harrington wealth that came with the Napoleonic wars — never mind that they happened almost a century ago.

Blood money isn’t wealth, Steven, she’d said to him on many occasions, and he loved her for it all the more.

Maybe it will be fine if Robin is there with him. Maybe they won’t end up succumbing to madness like people are wont to do, subjected to the endless loneliness of lighthouse keeping. Confronted with a darkness so deep it needs human invention to remain habitable. Maybe, he wonders idly and with shortness of breath, the world will end if all its lights are gone. Maybe all that will remain is nothingness and the ruthless sea — maybe, until the sun rises again and the light returns. But up north, the sun doesn’t stay all that long. Up north, they say the darkness is different. They say it’s sentient. They say—

A servant offers him some tea or coffee if he pleases, ripping hit out of his obsessive spiral of apprehension and fear.

“Yes, thank you,” he breathes, miming quiet politeness to cover up the lack of air in his lungs. The servant nods, not at all perturbed by Steve’s rather horrific disposition, and moves along.

The tea helps a little. It’s hard to think horrible thoughts when there is a steaming cup in your hands smelling comfortingly of herbs and just a hint at something spicy. It feels almost primal, his fear of the lighthouse — but just as primal is the comfort he finds in the warmth spreading from his hands all the way through his body. The shaking stops after a minute, and breath has returned to his lungs in a way that doesn’t leave him scared to let it out.

It will be fine. The sea will lose its terror, and so will darkness. He will read, and fix what needs to be fixed, and laugh at it all with Robin by his side, who will teach him about birds they will never see, about authors that don’t live anymore, and about the stars they get to watch.

It will be fine. He will be fine. Always, with Robin.

***

He arrives at the seaside town just before nightfall, and the first thing he notices is not the rushing of the ocean, but the crispness of the air that feels vastly different in his lungs to the grey and brown, polluted city air. It’s like he’s a babe taking his first breath in this world; and just like a babe, he is overcome with the urge to cry. He doesn’t, only pinches the bridge of his nose and grabs his bags — two of them, filled only with clothes and books to pass the time.

The walk to the next inn is a long one, and by the time he arrives there — guttural laughter coming even through closed doors and windows — he is frozen to his bones. If he’d thought that fall was quick to arrive in the city, he might as well have entered an arctic winter up here. The half suspects, though, that the cold comes from his empty stomach and the bitterness that replaced the fear just as well as the actual, biting cold.

And to think it’s only just early September.

He pushes the door open and finds it blissfully warm, a large fire roaring in the fireplace and in the hearth, leaving the food steaming on the plates. Silence settles almost immediately, and Steve freezes on the spot. Being perceived in a situation he has no control over has never been his strong suit, and he wonders just what these people have heard about him. If they heard anything at all.

“Come in or get out, but leave the cold out there,” a large lady says from behind the bar, an apron wrapped around her skirt and a towel in her hand as she eyes him with wary but not unkind eyes.

“Forgive me,” Steve says, stepping further into the inn and letting the heavy door fall shut behind him.

“Ahh,” someone says from where he’s sitting on a round table with six other, quite burly men. Fishermen, Steve assumes, or harbour workers, if their sun-tanned skin and general muscular build are any indication. He places his jug of beer on the table and eyes Steve rather closely. “You’re the boy they sent. Who will fix the lighthouse, aye?”

“Aye,” Steve says stupidly, internally cringing at himself. Then, turning towards the woman, “Have you a room to spare?”

“Have you money to spare?” she retorts, clearly mocking him for his odd choice of words — it’s hard, laying down his aristocratic upbringing, especially in a town auch as this.

“Of course,” he says. “For food, drink, and someone to bring me to the lighthouse in three days.”

Another man of the group snorts loudly, shaking his head and studying his ale like it would tell him the future.

“No way, boy. Ain’t no one gettin’ close to that thing.”

“She’s haunted. Has a mind and a life of her own, and she’s made it clear that no one is welcome to get too close. ‘S what lighthouses are for, eh? No getting too close. You get too close, you die. Simple as that.”

Steve takes it in, the pale faces of the men all nodding along, the thousand yard stares they all have in common — and his fear is back. But greater than his fear is his annoyance with men who insist on calling him boy and decide to speak in riddles instead of making sense.

“Haunted?” he asks, taking one of two spare seats at the table, nodding at the woman in thanks as she brings him an ale that only barely smells like piss. “How?”

“Haven’t you heard?” a fourth man, the oldest of them, speaks up. “There’s a curse on the lighthouse. No one gets out alive. We only ever bring her new stock, like cattle to the slaughterhouse. She takes. She takes and takes, boy.”

“So you do bring them,” Steve points out, far too tired and irritated to listen to a ghost story before he’s even had a proper, warm dinner.

The men still, and Steve places a tower of money in the centre of the table.

“It’s yours,” he says, looking at each of them, one after the other, “if you take us there in three days. Four, if the weather decides to play.”

“Us?”

“My wife,” Steve says.

“Fine,” one of them, the one who first spoke to him, grumbles, reaching for the money. “Now go. This table is for grownups, boy.”

With an eye-roll and an air of arrogance, Steve gets up and finds a seat at another table closer to the fireplace. Soon after, fresh stew is placed before him and he dives in.

***

The lighthouse towers on top of the cliffs and Steve watches, mesmerised, as he makes out its shape even in the pitch black darkness. It’s eerie, the power it emanates, the myths and legends that weave around it and its kind. Legends that would be fascinating learning about them in the safety of one’s bed, but which are horrifying to remember days before the nameless fates could be one’s own.

The darkness of the night really is endless here without the lights of the city, and he can only imagine how the lighthouse would help, how it would bring back hope and security, a promise of safe passage. It’s brings him a sort of peace; a purpose, imagining this town in the lighthouse’s beacon. Safe for the night, safe until the sun comes back.

Still it doesn’t ease his night terrors, filled with whispers as they are, growing in urgency and almost clear enough to make out.

Three days pass. Four. Five. There is no sign of Robin. Anxiety grows within him, because Steve knows Robin was going to take the seaside route from the Cunningham estate — well, one of them, at least.

She has a mind of her own. She takes and takes, boy. She’s haunted. Has a mind and a life of her own, and she’s made it clear that no one is welcome to get too close.

What if…

No. No, there is simply no way. Haunted lighthouses taking lives. There’s no— no way. He won’t fall for their ghost stories.

Unfortunately, however, they don’t fall for his charm either, and on the seventh day, when the sea is calm and the sun steady above them, the man who took they money — Old John, apparently — approaches him.

“We’re leaving now,” he says, shoving Steve ahead of him, deaf to his protest that they have to wait, they have to wait. “Your sweetheart ain’t coming, kid. Don’t think she’ll be coming anywhere ever again if she really took the ship. They talk of a ship that got lost in the storm, burst on the cliffs because there was no light. I’m sorry, kid, but I won’t risk waiting any longer.”

A ship lost in the storm?

But… No. No!

“No,” he whispers, letting himself be shoved onto a tiny boat and rocked this way and that, feeling nauseous for more reasons than one.

He’s wrong, Steve knows; feels it in his very soul. Robin is not dead. She’ll come.

She… She will come. She won’t leave him alone, all alone, in this place that has been haunting him for years and years.

She’ll come.

The lighthouse towers above them, perched on top of cliffs that make Steve understand why nobody wanted take him here. There’s no safe way of getting close, let alone climbing up the stairs carved into the cliffs, leading up to the door with no railing, no rope to hold onto. One large wave crashing into him, and he’d belong to the ocean.

He wants to cry again. Wants to curl in on himself and weep as the reality of everything begins to settle in the deepest, darkest places of his heart.

If he leaves the boat, he’ll be trapped with no way of getting out, no way of contacting the land they’ve left far, far behind. Supplies are said to last several months, he knows, he studied the file he got. Several months without human interaction unless Robin magically, wonderfully appears in a few days after all.

“Good luck, kid,” is the last thing he’ll ever hear of Old John as he pulls himself onto the cliffs, reaching for his bags from the old man’s hands. The sea is deafening here as waves crash and burst relentlessly, and he can’t hear what else Old John is saying, but he thanks him and salutes, which the seaman returns with an air of melancholy.

Steve climbs the stairs, soaked to the bones by the splashing water, but somehow — miraculously — malign his way up. As he turns around, fog is starting to gather above the water, but he can make out the tiny silhouette of the boat.

He watches, and it’s meant as a last goodbye, one last glance at his one way out. But terror fills him as he watches, helplessly, powerlessly, as Old John’s boat keels over and disappears. He keeps his eyes fixed to the spot, not daring to look away until there’s proof of life. But Old John doesn’t break the surface again.

And Steve is left filled with horror and the absolute certainty that he might not make it out if he sets foot inside the lighthouse.

Behind him, the door opens with a horrible, terrifying creak, and the beating of his heart is too loud for any other noise to exist in Steve’s world right now.

🌊 part 2 (coming 26 October)

tagging (trading tags for kindness): @klausinamarink @vampeddie @steviesummer @sharpbutsoft @auroraplume

[lady-harrowhark]

lol not me crying because someone from my program texted me to ask how i was doing and that they hadn't seen me around in a while

[neamhsmess]

Husk aka mister "I'm not the one trying to go to heaven" didn't understand that if he's not the next one to redeem himself then he's the one after

[miquella-everywhere]

Anyone else out there irritated by the fact that Miquella's whole journey throughout the Realm of Shadow is that he's abandoning his flesh and every part of his being and all that connects him to the Erdtree to create an Age where all are accepted and there is no strife and yet Retcon Man is the✨magical exception✨ despite the fact that the guy is a walking Godfrey simp and a fucking war monger

[quaranmine]

On Wednesday before I gave my presentation I confessed to a new employee that I was worried it would be too long and she brightly told me her life hack was to just let AI rewrite things for her. She said I should put in all my talking points and ask ChatGPT to give me a five minute exactly presentation. I was like....how is the most polite possible way (since this is a new colleague I shouldn't get off on the wrong foot with) that I can express that I will Not be taking this advice. Ever. I told her that I didn't think we were allowed to use ChatGPT at this job (we most certainly are not, it is a nightmare for any type of protected information) and also that I prefer to write all of my own work. Despite my best efforts the last part of that was still passive aggressive, lol.

Something about being a writer makes it so that it's almost offensive to me for someone to suggest I use AI to do my work instead? Like, the day I reach the point where I let AI write something for me is the day y'all need to be checking me for brain damage because clearly I'm losing it

[reestallized]

Girl why's your teammate like that