#also like genuinely please

[clyrnin10yearslater]

Sleep

"Before he knew what he was thinking, he scooped her sleeping form into his arms and promptly thought he might die all over again when she made a small sound, her head falling against his shoulder. Her heart continued its steady beat. He could feel it thrumming throughout his own body. Once she was in his arms he had no idea what he ought to do with her."

Myrnin had always struggled with finding a balance in his focus. As a boy he had received his fair share of beatings, too distracted by the stars to see wolves picking off the sheep. It hardly got better the older he got. So focused on the task at hand he often failed to recognize his own needs before hunger or exhaustion overwhelmed him. Or his attention would be drawn so rapidly from one idea to the next that nothing would get done properly. 

But worst of all was how often he neglected to notice things about those he cared for. Certainly, he had caught on that Claire was staying in the lab far later into the night than was typical, but it wasn’t until she smacked his hand away from her most recent project that he realized she no longer wore her engagement ring. His attempt to broach the subject made the smile drop from her sweet face so fast he hadn’t dared to mention it again in the following weeks. Judging by the fact that all pigmentation had returned to the band of skin around her finger he probably ought to have noticed far earlier than he did. 

If his focus hadn’t been so dominated by his own wasted shame for having missed something that obviously distressed the poor girl, then perhaps he would’ve noticed when her heartbeat began to slow and her tinkering came to a stop. 

They were working in a calm peaceful sort of silence, or at least as close to as one could get with a human. And yet only when the quiet became true silence, interrupted only by Claire’s soft shallow breaths and steady heartbeat did he risk looking at her and ruining the moment. 

When he saw her there, her head tucked against her arms, parchment, and opened books scattered across the table he thought his unbeating heart may burst. He had only ever seen the girl sleep a handful of times before and never once had she looked as though she were truly at peace. 

“Claire?” he called tentatively across the laboratory, making his way toward her. Could that position be comfortable for her? The way her neck lay crooked to keep her head in her arms, and the pen making indentations in her face made him think otherwise. Excuses. He knew. He knew he just wanted to be closer to her, in the rare opportunity when he could allow himself to be without fear of being deemed too close by her. He just wanted to be near her. Close, close, close. He wanted to hold her close.

He felt it, somewhere deep inside him, that sick, horrible, delightful urge to take advantage of the opportunity the girl provided for him, trusting him too much. Perhaps she wasn’t as smart smart smart as everyone gave her credit for after all, nobody with a modicum of intelligence would trust a monster let alone enough to find themselves asleep in the monster's lair,  any chance of defense or escape lost that vulnerable state. No, not so smart smart smart at all.  His fangs snapped down, the sweet, so sweet, scent of her overwhelming his senses as he continued his approach. 

And then he stopped, all at once realizing his intentions. He couldn’t help the flicker of relief that coursed through him. She really did make him better. There was just something about her that made him need to be better. If only she had come along long ago. Perhaps he never would have become a monster at all. He shook his head. That was hardly fair to her. What pressure to put on a single human, to fix generations of madness, centuries of his own insanity. 

Recently he’d let himself tell her a story of his childhood, his father in particular. (For someone who frequently protested her dislike of history, Claire was very curious.) His arm still tingled where her touch had lingered several moments longer than usual, her gaze filled with more sympathy than he, or his father, deserved. Her mouth had opened, in that way that had become so familiar to him, when she hesitated on what to say next. 

He’d been caught off guard by a strong rush of desire to kiss her. Kiss her before she could speak and rekindle any emotion he’d long since blocked off in regards to his childhood. Kiss her because her lips were warm and ever so inviting. Kiss her because he hadn’t done it right the first time. Kiss her because dear god he loved her. 

Coward and fool that he was, he’d rushed abruptly away from her, making some excuse that mere days later he couldn’t recall, all the while seething with self-hatred. For hours after she’d gone he wondered at what might have been. Not the kiss of course. He knew how that would have gone. Even though she avoided going home with increasing desperation he knew her decreased love for that boy would still never translate into love for him. He had never been quite so lucky. Had he kissed her then she would have rejected him. He could handle being her friend, boss even, so long as he never had to face such an intimate rejection from her. 

No, instead he wondered what might have been if she’d been there when he was but a boy. If they’d grown together. She would have saved him, of that he was certain. And in those moments, when she held more power over him than she ever knew, he was fairly certain she could have saved them all. His father, his wicked mother, even his sisters whose names flickered in out of memory like flames in the wind. Claire could have saved them all from themselves. How indescribably cruel of him to believe her capable of the impossible. 

Before he knew what he was thinking, he scooped her sleeping form into his arms and promptly thought he might die all over again when she made a small sound, her head falling against his shoulder. Her heart continued its steady beat. He could feel it thrumming throughout his own body. Once she was in his arms he had no idea what he ought to do with her. 

He could carry her back to her home, but he wasn’t certain how good an idea that would be. Myrnin knew that boy had always been… distrusting of their relationship, even when he himself believed his feelings towards her were merely professional. He didn’t know what was going on between the two, but the last thing he wanted was Claire blaming him for making it worse. 

For a moment he considered waking her, or at least putting her back where she’d been and letting her sleep without disturbance. But she was so warm and the stool she’d fallen asleep upon so cold and perhaps it was pure selfishness but he couldn’t fathom abandoning her to that. He held her tighter as her breath swirled against his cheek, wishing he could just hold her forever. But she’d be upset with him if she woke in his arms. He’d hurt her enough that she wouldn’t trust that his intentions were purely innocent. The silvery glint of the scars upon her neck served as a good reminder of the pain he caused when allowed to get too close. 

He didn’t use his bedroom very frequently. Even as a human, he’d preferred to stay awake, avoiding the darkness that came with the closing of his eyes. Nonetheless, the door swung open with nary a sound. Her scent, overpowering in the main areas of the lab as it was, still lingered in this space, though it had been years since she’d occupied it and he’d attempted to wash the smell of her out several times. 

He could not bring her home. He could not allow her to sleep in the cold discomfort of the lab. And he certainly could not hold her. But he could lay her here, in the bed he had used no more than twice since she’d last used it, hoping that it would be familiar enough for her to remain unfrightened upon waking. 

“Myrnin?” Claire’s voice called, groggy and thick with sleep. He moved to step back, having just finished tucking her under the threadbare covers — he ought to invest in better blankets, in case she ever needed to rest there again — but she caught his fingers before he could get away. 

“Hush now,” he murmured, stroking her hair out of her face with his free hand. “Go back to sleep, fy annwyl.” He didn’t know how awake she truly was, but when her grip on his hand tightened, tugging him gently toward the small bed, he wasn’t strong enough to pull away. And when she spoke, voice soft but insistent, he could do nothing less than oblige her request to stay. 

With Claire held safely in his arms, Myrnin found that for the first time in all the centuries that he’d been alive, the oppressive darkness of sleep brought no terrors to wake him.

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[andstuffsketches]

finally watched Reign of the Supermen

[avituses]

We are two sides of the same coin

[laurellala-comics]

Examples below:

[starryroe]

very few things sadder as a t4t transhet trans woman than seeing a transmasc post in the transhet tags about their love for trans women only to go on their account and see "transandrophobia isn't real" :(( like please don't make yourself smaller and sadder pretending that somehow transphobia doesn't apply to you please :( that's not gonna make women like you that's gonna make us very worried about your mental health if you say you don't believe in your own oppression

[inexplicably-spookified]

can you guess what i've been playing recently

[realian]

"Anthy being fought over like a piece of meat was really fun and good until the show revealed how it was trying to talk about such abuse and CRITICIZE the systems that objectify and victimize women! that's just YIKES!"

[robobrainrot]

Today on WILD fandom fashion;

Irregular Choice: Transformers Shoe collab

Drops Jan 26th. There are also purses. Images from their TikTok feed

PLEASE leave your opinions about these in the tags. I want to know what people think of them

[disaster-magician]

Imagine this takes place at the end of step 2 so they're close enough to joke around with each other lol

(Fake screenshots! These are fan made based on incorrect quotes and not in the game)

[egophiliac]

we were fucking ROBBED

[scamperin-shroom]

Classic Zelda games: "So Link doesn't talk because he's meant to resemble you the player 🥰"

Echoes of Wisdom: "Link doesn't talk because his ability to speak was physically taken from him by a dark force"

(edit: since I need people to understand Link can't talk at all. It was forced out of him. It's not a choice. That part of him was consumed)

[unhappy-sometimes]

here's a playlist of (mostly) historically accurate love songs that twiyor has most definitely danced to on vinyl: youtube, spotify, apple music

some fast, some slow, some made for dancing, others probably not (but i still like them so i included them anyway), i'll add songs as i think of them

[tubbytarchia]

I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

[clickety-clacker]

Been seeing so many cool Clickies on my dashboard since getting into GGG, I just had to take the time to draw a few of them- plus, it was a bit of a challenge to try new styles. A lot of these guys were also super influential to how I draw and even think about Click Clack on my own time, so you should definitely check them out! Names below the cut cus it got long heehoo

Top left: @malartsorte

Top middle (holding papers): @scribblelimbo

Top right: @wishgraanted

Leftmost middle: @beastwhimsy

Middle (peace sign!): @sootnuki

Rightmost middle: @molabuddy

Bottom left: @pespillo

Bottom middle: @artuurle

Bottom right: @modmad

I know I said it already, but all of yall are super cool and I had a lot of fun challenging myself to make this! Keep on being awesome 👍

[theokusgallery]

For the record the goal here was specifically "God Janus, any God, inhumanly pretty, could-kill-you-with-a-look Janus"

KtS(aWtG) AU by @greenninjagal-blog ! :)

I can't believe this is the first detailed Janus I draw and it's a glaringly obvious symptom of "obsessing over a character so much it barely looks like the original anymore" syndrome