#also this took forever to do. not kidding

[bidaryl]

need u to know that while i've written various words about this in my google docs, i woke up the other morning needing a slight break but also wanting the same world, and so naturally my brain was like.

oh. daryl wakes up at the start of the end. again.

for the second time.

and his first thought is fuck no. we're not doing this again.

but then he actually takes stock of the situation, using all his senses and his insticts that have grown so sharp over the years, and realises, it's different this time.

this time; his throats fucked, forever hoarse, after that run he went on that turned out to be an ambush, and denise and hershel told him he was lucky he could still talk, that he was lucky he even survived, after how deep the wire cut.

he's still got the scar on his hand from the fight with the claimers, when they stumbled upon him in that house in the woods and had him at knifepoint, and he's sure if he was to check, he'd have the scar of his back from them, too.

his entire body aches, feeling every bit of his fifty four years, and then some, and, his hair's long, a complete mess falling in his eyes.

finally stretches his awareness to the rest of the tent and realises–he's not alone. that there's an entire body basically on top of him, weighing him down, except it's a breathing pattern he knows and a heartbeat he takes comfort in, something so familiar and so ingrained into his body and brain–his heart–that he doesn't even think to register it as danger.

looks down at his daughter asleep on his chest and curls his arms around her protectively, breathing her in.

as long as she's in his arms, she's safe. he'll die making sure thats certain.

focuses back on the tent–the shitty, measly, bullshit tent that he pitched all the way back at the start–and thinks, fuck.

anyway! just the idea of the first time daryl woke up in the apocalypse, it was after losing almost everything, after he had so little left; that when he woke up, he looked around and saw it for the second chance it was, and took it.

that he never, not once, tried to go back.

like, sure, there was the occasional thought, especially at the start, when he was missing judith and rj. dog. the few other pieces of his family that had survived alongside him, that he'd left behind. but when it came down to it, he never put any real effort into trying to find out why he was there or how to get back. never figured out why him and carol and maggie and a few others got to start again, with all their memories still intact.

they just took it for what it was and used every memory to their advantage. built every bit of their future with the knowledge they had, and created something.

and it was good.

not perfect, some smaller disasters getting lost in the chaos of the wars, but for the most part, it worked.

it was as close to perfect as they were ever gonna get.

they saved so many of their nearest and dearest, and their family lived.

not just survived–lived.

the second chance was everything they needed to thrive.

except now, he's here, in his stupid fucking tent–again–and he's lived a hundred different lifetimes, or at least two more than he ever thought he would, and his daughter–his daughter–is in his arms, and he needs to go back.

needs to go back to before.

he doesn't want a third chance.

they got it right the second time.

he doesn't want to build everything from scratch again, lay the foundations of their future brick by brick just so he can hopefully, eventually, maybe, one day, get his family back.

doesn't want to have to fight and claw and beg and wait for his future, doesn't know if he could live through it all again.

just wants to wrap his kid up tight and take her home, where their family is alive and happy and thriving, their community so fucking warm and full, everyone having a job to do and everyone having a place to call home.

thinks, not for the first time, time travel is fucking bullshit.

time travel fix it au's are done to death in this fandom but also they're my favourite thing in the world so au where the entire show happens as is and it's heartbreaking and inspiring etc but then. restart button. waking back up at the start of the end except only the people that lived remember

wanna think about what would happen when daryl and carol wake up at camp, remembering everything that happened; carol stronger, knowing in her gut that everything that she remembers is real, and daryl fucking terrified, because if everything in his head actually happened, then what the fuck is this

wanna think about a rick dragging a hostile merle and a wide-eyed glenn back to camp, memories completely intact, and running to reunite with his family. not letting daryl go and hugging carol so so so tight, collapsing to the ground with carl in his arms

wanna think about them dragging the atlanta group to the farm, maggie leaving the front porch light on for them, and everyone reuniting. rick seeing hershel again, daryl seeing beth, carol pulling sophia close, and maggie being unable to even breath, looking at glenn

wanna think about them tossing up whether to even go to the prison, but they met important people there, and alexandria's a long way, and if they're gonna survive this time–if they're gonna live–they're gonna do it right

so they go to the prison so they can figure out their next step, and michonne's there and waiting, andre on her hip, and they deal with the governor before the governor deals with them, and sasha and tyresse finally show up, they find the prisoners, and then one day they get a knock on the front gate, and it's negan

negan showing up, no baseball bat in hand but his leather jacket still in place, a sick but alive lucille by his side, laura and doctor franklin behind him, and all he's got to say is at the end of the world, i know which side i wanna be on

the fallout of that, of maggie being against it, of rick never having gotten to see negan at the end, not knowing the choices he made, the good and the bad. daryl and carol looking at glenn, seeing him alive and in love and having no memory of his last moments, and never wanting anything to ruin that, but negan saved judiths life, helped save all their lives. he chose, in the end, and now it's their turn

wanna think about a future where beth doesn't die, but they go on a rescue mission to get noah anyway. a future where tara turns up with her niece, led by eugene with abraham and rosita following right behind him

wanna think about how they'd handle terminus, how they'd handle the claimers. wanna think about them trying to find father gabriel, except gabe made it the first time around, and he wasn't wasting his second chance. he saved his flock, and he led them to alexandria, and he's waiting

wanna think of connie's group searching for hilltop. not finding maggie, or alden, but finding jesus. wanna think about lydia, being a fucking child, and watching her mother kill her dad, and remembering aaron telling her how loved she was

wanna think of the growing pains of them being able to save so many more family members this time, but god, a larger group is harder to keep alive

daryl trying to run interference with merle and everyone else, getting the jack of it one day and telling him he's already mourned him once, and he won't again. if merle wants to stay–to live–then it's up to him. daryl's not gonna babysit him anymore

rick trying to find his footing between lori and shane and judith, with carl, with michonne and andre. michonne looking at a weak but alive lori grimes holding a screaming and crying newborn in her arms, and knowing that she's never gonna be her daughter the way she was before, but knowing she'll always be something to her

carol struggling to be the mother sophia needs her to be, emotions too sharp and constantly fucking terrified. doesn't know how to hold onto someone like that anymore, either gripping too tight or not at all

maggie trying to exist in a world where she has everyone she's ever loved back, so close and so fucking dear, except it cost her her son. not knowing if she'll ever get him back at all. doesn't know how to live with the grief of losing someone she never technically had in this world

they make it to alexandria and it's aaron opening the gate for them, waiting to welcome them home

[cadere-art]

A sample of common crops of Uanlikri, with a focus on crops grown on the Ojame archipelago.

More information under the cut.

Grains

Several types of grains and grain-like crops are cultivated in Uanlikri. Of these, the four major types are millet, sand rice, swamp rice, and amaranth (not depicted).

Millet and sand rice are heat-loving and drought tolerant, with sand rice requiring especially good soil drainage but being more cold hardy. They are the main staples north of the Kantishian Mountains. Millet is favoured in the wetter Basin region, and sand rice in the dryer, more mountainous western regions, and both are grown equally in the continent's hot and arid northern desert.

Swamp rice is another important staple of the Basin region: though cultivation is complexified by its extremely heavy water requirements (swamp rice only grows in marshes or riverbanks), the complex river deltas leading to the Basin's inner seas are ideal for its cultivation and have been heavily modified to create artificial wetlands where swamp rice can be grown. Some strains of swamp rice have good cold hardiness allowing them to be grown south of the Kantishian Mountains. Swamp rice has also been selected for salt resistance: it is an especially important crop in the cold brackish marshes of the Cianji river and in the hot saltwater marshes of the Ojame Archipelago.

Amaranth is primarily cultivated in southern regions of Uanlikri. In the southern Basin region, they are a supplemental crop, but up in the mountains and in the cold lands south of the Kantishian, amaranth is the main staple. Mountain amaranth is especially frost resistant and able to survive nightly summer frosts in the Kantishian's high plateaus.

Red oats, known in the Ojame archipelago as uciwici, is a locally important crop grown in eastern coastal regions. Red oats is sensitive to extreme temperatures and does poorly in continental climates, but its extremely high salt resistance and ability to grow in poor soils make it a crucial crop by allowing cultivation to extend to otherwise marginal areas such as sandbars, coastal dunes, and other poor, rocky and sandy soils. It is appreciated for its purple grains with a naturally slightly salty taste, and for its decorative red foliage which retains some of its colour when dried, making it useful for basketry.

Ferns

Other grain-like crops grown in Uanlikri are seed ferns. Seed ferns are distantly related to true ferns and cycads. Two species are cultivated in Uanlikri: a climbing seed fern grown South of the Kantishian and which produces large numbers of small orange seeds attached to the underside of its fronds, and a caytoniale tree fern which produces modified fronds with large, round yellow seeds instead of leaves and is grown in the Upper Basin and Great Lakes region.

Climbing seed ferns are extremely prolific with a seasonal harvest on par with grain fields and well-keeping seeds with high nutritional value. The seeds are bitter with a taste somewhat reminiscent of burnt almonds and citrus peel, and are usually parboiled before cooking to remove some of the bitterness.

Caytoniale seed ferns are less prolific but are perennials. The seed envelope is also quite bitter, but the seed flesh has a pleasant neutral flavour and a crunchy, sticky texture not unlike that of meringue. Seeds keep well on the tree, but go bad quickly once harvested unless they are properly processed: seeds meant to be kept are parboiled, smoked, and ground into flour, while seeds meant for short-term consumption are either hulled and ground into flour, or hulled and grilled, often to be eaten as snacks alongside grilled insects.

True ferns are commonly consumed as greens, especially young fern shoots (fiddle-heads) and equisetum (horsetail) ferns. Antioles are less sensitive to the toxins in ferns, and parboiling of fiddleheads is often done but not strictly necessary unless consumed in great quantities.

Legumes

Legumes grown for food are historically rather rare in Uanlikri prior to the conquest of the Western Peninsula by the Senq Ha Empire. There are only two important legume crops in Uanlikri which are native to the continent: the grosbean, and the wax pea.

Grosbean is a vine which produces short, rectangular pods containing two to three large beans. The beans are exceptionally large, very colourful, and have a somewhat chalky texture. They used to be a staple in the Basin region, but have been mostly displaced by more palatable varieties introduced by Senq Ha colonists, though they are still grown for jewellery.

The wax pea is short, somewhat vine-like plant producing smooth pods containing a single unpalatable, extremely waxy pea. Though they are edible under duress, wax peas have never been grown as a food crop. They are instead highly valued for the wax which can be obtained by boiling the peas in a slightly acidic solution.

Other legumes (not depicted) have grown in popularity in the two centuries since and are now commonly eaten in most regions.

Roots and fruits

There is a great regional variation in the crops grown for their greens, roots, and fruits. This section should be treated as a sample of a sample, focused more closely on crops grown in the Ojame Archipelago.

Fruits

There are several species of ginkgo in Uanlikri, all of which produce elegant foliage and edible nuts. The nuts stink and their skin can cause rashes, so they are to be manipulated with caution, but their creamy flesh is much appreciated for its strong cheese-like flavour, which confers a pungent taste to salty and sweet dishes alike.

Bird cherries are small, cherry-like fruits that grow on trees and bushes. Most bird cherries are tart and astringent and are used for a touch of tartness or in jams and other preserves. Some cultivars produce very sweet cherries. The seeds of most birdcherries are mildly toxic to antioles.

The arils of a few yew species are eaten by antioles, especially as a gooey prepared delicacy or in jams. All other parts of the yew plant are extremely toxic to antioles, and the arils must be consumed with extreme caution. Because of this, it is illegal to plant yews on the Ojame Archipelago and especially in Ranai, but due to the extreme longevity of these trees, there are several ancient yews in the city of Ranai which are important landmarks and sources of yew arils.

Various citrus are grown and used throughout the Northern parts of the continent: most are acidic and bitter, though there are also sweet varieties. In the citruses of Uanlikri, green is associated with sweetness, yellow with bitterness, and orange with acidity.

Sumac is an important culinary crop in the Ojame Archipelago: sumac fruits are processed for the production of malic acid, a popular flavoring and crucial ingredient in the traditional Ojame ceviches.

Mothberries are named after their pale blue flowers in the shape of a butterfly. It is a drought resistant plant originating from the northern regions of the continent and cultivated for multiple uses: its tuber and leaves are aromatic and medicinal and its fruit is very sweet.

Roots

Root vegetables of all kinds make up an important portion of non-staple crops throughout Uanlikri.

Fur yams are floury and sweet, with edible and prolific leaves with a distinctly "green" taste.

Gourd roots, named after their shape, are crunchy, aromatic and sweet, with leaves used as culinary herbs.

Reeds are an all-around essential plants, with young shoots eaten as greens, roots eaten as a staple by coastal and marshland peoples, and its dried leaves and stems essential materials in basketry.

Orange onions are one of the many varieties of alliums cultivated in Uanlikri. They are the most popular alliums in Ranai. They are potently sulfuric and milden considerably with cooking.

Sweet and pearl radishes (are not radishes) are different cultivars of the Uanlikri radish (not a radish) with crunchy, fresh-tasting and slightly bitter leaves and small starchy tubers which produce very fine starches.

Spindleaf yams are plants with strangely shaped, aromatic and medicinal leaves somewhat reminiscient of sage and a juicy, crunchy tuber with a slight, mustard-like bite.

These are just a sample of grains, ferns, legumes, greens, roots and fruits eaten in Ranai and elsewhere on the continent of Uanlikri. Many of these plants have a large number of regional cultivars, and each region has a variety of local plants they grow or gather which are not broadly eaten elsewhere.

[keferon]

Isn’t Vortex a fucking torture freak tho? 👀👀👀

Yep. He is. He is a lot of things actually. The more you learn about him the more fucked up it gets

[seven-stars-in-his-palm]

the thing i love about bill cipher is that even after i've learned all of this stuff about him, seen him at the most vulnerable he'll ever get, seen him at his most innocent, i still can't give a flying fuck about trying to justify his actions. yes he's traumatized, yes he was twisted into what we know today, and while it gives a semblance of context to why he did what he did, it doesn't matter. he still ruined ford's life. he still drove and baited multiple humans to suicide. he still tormented every human he saw as his ticket out of the consequences of his own actions. he still took delight in his actions. he was willing to commit genocide for fuck's sake!!! (freezing all of the humans into statues). trying to explain away what he did does not get rid of what he did, but it certainly puts it in perspective. you won't be catching me being a bill apologist any time soon <3

[guinevereslancelot]

applied to a bunch of jobs! 😅🙏

[shierak-inavva]

[insert mom & dad joke]

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

the higher-ups (and Yaga) immediately trying to leverage Gojo & Ieri's absence to put Yuuta on the roster??? God that's such a stark moment. Thank god Nanami and Gojo saw through that one immediately, because Yuuta wants to justify his own survival so badly he would've fallen straight into it.

That whole scene, with Yuuta immediately jumping on the opportunity to help people even though something is Extremely Wrong with him and he's on the brink of physical collapse--this boy is selfless to the point of self destruction and I am chewing the drywall about it. I love him so much.

If only he was able to summon his newly found homicidal rage in defense of himself, the higher-ups would no longer be a problem. Alas, this boy is Extremely Unwell.

(Sea Glass Gardens is absolutely incredible and i am obsessed with it in a way that is totally and 100% normal. I'm so normal about it, trust me <3 )

The thing about Yuuta is that he really is prime to be taken advantage of right now and the higher ups know it. They had him try to kill himself for them--they know that there's a window of opportunity that they can use to get him under their thumb and avoid The Problem of Gojo, which is, namely, having a human weapon who you cannot fully control. Gojo nailed it from the beginning: they want a magic gatling gun with no personality or free will. They learned their lesson with Gojo and are trying to rob Yuuta of his agency before he learns how to protect himself.

And Yaga's part in that scene really was meant to kind of emphasize how, even with the best intention's, he just doesn't work to protect the kids. Like. everything he said was technically true, and he meant it with the best of intentions. He's the guy who has to think of everyone's needs. he has to manage this crisis. he's got a lot of people hurt badly who just came out of a war, and a lot of people going into fights with some very aggravated curses spawning without sufficient manpower to address the danger and no healer to save them if they cut it a little too close. He didn't have the intention of manipulating or sacrificing Yuuta, but he was aware that it would come to his detriment and risk.

The issue is the higher ups. They don't give a shit about the people in their workforce. They should be the ones doing whatever it takes to solve this crisis and save their people--and if that means giving up on their machinations? They should have already done it. It's their responsibility.

They just don't care. They want Okkotsu Yuuta under their thumb, and their society hemorrhaging is treated like an opportunity, not a dire problem to be solved. They don't care if half a dozen of their own people need to die to do it. Hell, it's better if they do die--they can put it straight on Okkotsu for not being willing to sacrifice himself, when they should have been making whatever promises they had to in order to make this work.

Gojo's done this before, is the thing. He was Yuuta, a long time ago. Nanami was right there watching it happen. They both know what the higher ups do: They let society get to a crisis level and put all the responsibility on you to save it. they let you maneuver yourself into a vulnerable position as a result, and then they use it as leverage to put their goddamn boot on your neck.

The thing is that Gojo adopting megumi all those years ago really did put them into a crisis state. the zenin pitched the mother of all bitch fits trying to secure his unconditional return, and they were a huge percentage of jujutsu society's labor force and resource pools. instead of the higher ups managing the problem at all, they took advantage of the situation and shoved more and more of its weight and responsibility onto gojo, until he was dropping off his own kid at his abusers' compound thinking it was the only compromise that could resolve things. megumi paid the price for gojo not calling bullshit, and right now, with him in a hospital bed? gojo's less willing to repeat mistakes than ever.

he knows that they're going to use the safety and suffering of everyone else as the leverage against him, and he knows that as terrible as it is, he cannot blink first. He's played this game before, and he knows that the only way to get the higher ups to back off on something like this is to dig in your heels.

I think what happened to Megumi all those years ago and how bad it got before they put a stop to it is something that haunts all three of them. When they first started raising him, they were very young, and they were very broken, and they loved him very, very much. He was their little boy, and he was never the same after the Zenin. They were supposed to protect him, and they didn't, and not a single one of them has forgiven themselves for that.

Megumi was sort of sacrificed for the greater good when he was a kid. None of them thought that that was what they were doing when it happened, but that's what happened. His happiness, safety, and wellbeing were sacrificed to pacify the Zenin and make it easier on everyone else.

Megumi and Tsumiki had to become their non-negotiables after. They had to become the things they refused to compromise on. The Zenin would take miles and miles if you gave them a millimeter, let alone an inch.

Gojo didn't think he was compromising them when he left them on their own to deal with Geto's war. They were disgustingly self-sufficient kids. They had been alone for longer stretches of time when they were practically toddlers--they should have been fine on their own for a couple of weeks.

But they were still his kids, and he still left them alone for everyone else's sake, and now his kid is blind and half dead in a hospital bed. It's like being punched in the face by old mistakes.

So they're off the roster completely, all of them. And they're not compromising an inch on what their focus is, and they're not letting anything happen to any of the other kids in their care.

It's terrible that their coworkers are suffering, but it wouldn't be happening if the Zenin hadn't fucked with Gojo Satoru's kid, of all the goddamn people. It wouldn't be happening if the higher ups would actually do their job and start managing shit.

And if they use Yuuta as an anxiety riddled bandaid on the bullet hole in their society? Then they'd be sacrificing him the way they sacrificed Megumi all those years ago. And they have never been less willing to do that.

I'm so so glad you like the story! Thank you for talking with me!

[malleleothreesome]

YOUR MALLEUS POST IS JUST!!!!! AGDKFFLSVFL!!!! WHO KNOWS HOW MANY TIMES I RE-READ THAT THING BUT IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!!!! 😫😭👌🖤💚

I'm so late to this but thank you so much Knight!! 🖤💚🖤💚 I'm so happy you enjoyed Blindfolded Malleus... I was so excited for you to read it, and I'm very happy it lived up to the hype and anticipation!!! Truly, I am so honored and grateful that you would re-read something so long 🥹 it amazes me how supportive you are!! I hope I can continue to write things that you enjoy! One day in the [regretfully] far future I swear to you that I will put out an Idia fic just for you hehehe. I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of things I am excited to write, but I guess that is a wonderful problem to have! I only wish I had more time in the day to write, but alas, such is life. Why the fUCk am I writing so formal right now daiohssadoi;hdSAO not me saying BUT ALAS. SUCH IS LIFE????? It is so.

I'm actually taking a TWELVE DAY vacation from work starting on the 22nd so I might actually do a little request event where people can send me like kink prompts or something. I think that'll be fun!

Okay and FINE I'll do some fluff prompts too for the fluff people but please don't judge my fluff too harshly, I'm still learning!!! For some reason smut just comes naturally dhaDSAHIDDASijdsan I'll start gathering some prompts and we will do a little ask game or something.

📣 By the way FELLOW HONEST THIGH RIDING ANON if you SEE this first of all, ONCE AGAIN: I wish to express my undying devotion to you and your exceptional thought process. I am positively frothing at the mouth over your request and I am PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE I am finally making good progress and it WILL be out soon. We WILL make him cum in his pants. We WILL make him cry, whimper, and moan.

[flovverworks]

(person whos exhausted and thought of chloe a second too long) u know how im 70% sure chloe has an area convo where akira says something nice and chloe goes "is this what its like to have a big sibling?!?!", i need rustica to date someone n chloe to go "is this what its like to have (loving) parents?!?!?"

[blizzardfluffykpop]

recently reminded myself how much i loved day6 and i've just been having sm fun rediscovering old favorites and listening to new songs and just falling in love with them all over again-

[dreamcast-official]

huh.

[zukkaoru]

adding hopeful and happy love songs to my itfs playlist because i love dramatic irony and also crying

[felidthing]

i Need to go to more art exhibits. i can understand and appreciate so much more art now. let me in

[countess-of-edessa]

baked a cake from scratch, fed the dogs and the father, cleaned the kitchen, wrapped christmas presents. wearing a beige sweaterdress and black ballet flats, hair in bun. reading a profile on hilaria baldwin…the cottagecore tradwife in me is winning i fear

[infizero]

a single mom raising a family of four 💪😥💗