#also: spoilers below ->

[david-box]

Watched Nosferatu. I liked the nods to the black and white silent film, and I'll commend them for making a very well made movie with nice choices in fabrics and styles for the western European characters (if only because they seem right enough in my amateur opinion, and I don't know enough about eastern European fashion at that era, but I did notice the foot wraps on the one guy and embroidered headdress on the old woman) and very well executing the concept of not only making the sexual subtext in dracula or versions et al but also really investigating what that would mean for a character but I did not really care about the plot until the last act. I feel like the pacing was a little weird and some scenes were not meant to be funny but fundamentally were. Not a huge fan of the extended shots of what's his face husband guy just, like, standing there. Some key scenes felt very stilted? Wrong word but like.... Everything was still. Like with husband guy and his boss at first it's just very... Stand In One Spot type of work. Or when what's her face was freaking out in act 3 at her husband and he was like. In the corner. Nothing against the actor - everyone acted their ass off in this and lily rose depp really shone tbh, but it was a weird choice. Also I expected more work with the rats. Good movie, won't watch again, couldn't stay engaged with the plot.

[everyones-least-favorite-bard]

(based on the Fool from the Rider-Waite tarot deck)

[floralstorms]

“WELL WELL WELL BEING”

huh

[bara-izu]

[ The best remedy ]

[mebis-art-dump]

Iterator's puppet arm is like a tail to me

[cissa-calls]

"CONGRATULATIONS MY LOVE - I'm sorry I didn't have a ribbon for you to run through."

No matter your thoughts on the shift in dynamic between Agatha and Rio in this last battle, you CANNOT deny this line. It is so laced with bitterness and yearning, it brings me to tears caught between hilarity and absurbness, and grief and sorrow over change. THIS is how you write the complicated twist of passion that never died, what it warps and turns into and finally bursts out as. An eruption left in the wake of wanton waiting that says: If I cannot have you, you will have to notice me, remember me. You WILL remember me.

[o3o-lapd-o3o]

spoilers for the future ithaca saga?

can you really spoil a work based on a ancient poem?

[asklesbianonceler]

The Dear Fingers Looked After Their Mother

I was musing about how you find Cherishing Fingers only at the grave stone after you rest and it made me feel a type of way.

It isn't a drop from Ymir when you kill him. It also isn't in his bell bearing which it easily could have been if it was truly so impersonal and false, as it's literally described as "one of his spells"

But we find it after resting and then going to Yuri's grave meaning this happens not when but after he dies. The prompt isn't him leaving the grave nor him losing our fight. Its after. So my two equally depressing headcanons/theories on it are:

He spent his last moments after the fight at Yuri's grave. Dying by his child's side. Leaving behind a final spell to remember his son by.

Or, though this was one of his spells, it is Yuri no longer needing to protect his mother. A final parting gift as they can both move on now. Yuri's soul no longer being tied to rebirth and able to leave something behind at his body.

I know the description on that spell is odd and let's you read into doubt but the fingercreeper ashes, to me, negate it. As does how this spell is received. It's not needed anymore. We get it from the grave of a fingercreeper after his mother dies.

Anyways, here's my miserable art of Ymir dying at Yuri's grave 🥲

[snowpetrichor]

Reunited at Last

I’ve written my own fanfics over the years, but I’ve never had the guts to post anything… I’ve finally decided to change that! This is a snippet from a DAV rewrite I'm working on. The scene is supposed to be in act 3 so I wouldn't have written it for a while, but I found myself daydreaming about it and I had to get it out of my system with a drabble.

I figured I’d take a chance and share it with my fellow solavellans. :)

Word count: 754

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Ellana reached out a hand to wipe away the tears that had already begun to fall down his cheeks. The caress was feather-light, but waves of emotion shone in her eyes, and Solas felt something in him snap. He surged forward to catch her waist and held onto her like a drowning man might grasp a buoy. The strength of his love for her always seemed to send him reeling. Ellana stiffened, a surprised noise escaping her, but soon enough her hand came to rest on the back of his head.

Even in their years apart, whenever he caught a hint of lavender on the wind or tasted honey on his tongue, he was reminded of the fragrance she wore – spring flowers distilled to a sugar-sweet perfume. The Dalish had to make do with the tidings that nature offered them, so Ellana had learned to craft the scent herself. It was soft and fresh and so unique to her. Now, that sweetness seemed as if it would overtake him. His world narrowed to her touch, her warmth, and her heartbeat. Solas twined his fingers with hers and quietly wept for all that they had endured.

From the outside, the whole thing would have looked rather awkward – even sitting on the bed, Solas was still much taller than his heart, and he bowed to hold her in his arms. But there was nobody there to judge, and he wouldn’t have cared much anyway. He whispered her name over and over, uttering endearments like a prayer.

Vhenan, my heart, my love.

Ellana, Ellana, Ellana.

Oh. He almost never used her given name. She had first been Inquisitor, later vhenan, but never Ellana. Its soft syllables had only fallen from his lips once, and that thought brought a rush of unbidden memories. On her knees in front of a mirror, his desperate eyes searching hers before that final goodbye. One last kiss to give her strength for the years to come. She strongly suspected that he lost himself to grief in those moments after he went through the eluvian, and it tortured her to know that he shouldered such a burden alone for so long. Ellana lowered herself to sit by his side, wrapping her arms around him as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. A moment passed in gentle silence.

“Ir abelas, vhenan,” he sighed. “Despite everything, that you still stand by my side is…” Solas trailed off, seemingly lost for words as his gaze grew downcast. Ellana pulled back to study him. She cupped his cheek in her palm, turning his face back towards her.

“Emma lath, you remember my promise, don’t you? Var lath vir suledin.” She tried for a smile even as her voice wobbled; she tasted the salt of her own tears on her lips and realized absently that she had started to cry.

“You are my home, Solas. You have been since the very first moment I met you.” Ellana guided his hand to her breast, holding it softly against her heart. “So long as my heart beats, I will stand by your side.”

His chest was tight with emotion. There was pain – the pain of realizing that he could have spent the last decade in her arms if he so chose, the pain of living with a lifetime of sins, and the pain that came as he acknowledged how alone he had truly been. But there was also love. So, so much love. He was finally free to live as himself – as Solas – and there were no words to express the torrent of feelings that danced within him. He wanted to weave stories in her ears and share the wisdom that he knew would enrapture her. He wanted to take her in his arms, tangling their forms together until time fell away. He wanted to bare himself to her, to show her his soul, his spirit, and witness hers in turn.

He wanted to give her the world, but the world was no longer his to give.

So instead, Solas pulled her down to lie by his side. They breathed together and wiped away each other’s tears. Ellana pressed her forehead to his and he weaved a hand into her hair, cradling each other as they let the tides of the Fade take them. There would be plenty of time for more passionate embraces down the line, but for now, it was enough for two tired souls to exist as one, reunited at last.

[lemongogo]

[smoozie]

Scar and Martyn doing the worst they've ever done during Wild Life 😔

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 61

Chapter; Highlights (okay the entire chapter is a highlight)🤣

As requested @mysterylilycheeta I NEED TO SQUEAL IN WYVERN FANGIRL WITH YOU NOW CAUSE OH M GOODNESS THIS CHAPTER ON SO MANY LEVELS I JUST AHAKWIHUHFEJLZXBKEKA

Agony was a song in Lorcan's blood, his bones, his breath.

Every step of the horse, every leap she made over body and debris, sent it ringing afresh. There was no end, no mercy from it. It was all he could do to keep in the saddle, to cling to consciousness.

To keep his arm around Elide.

She had come for him. Had found him, somehow, on this endless battlefield.

His name on her lips had been a summons he could never deny, even when death had held him so gently, nestled beneath all those he'd felled, I, and waited for his last breaths.

And now, charging toward that too-distant keep, so far behind the droves of soldiers and riders racing for the gates, he wondered if these minutes would be his last. Her last.

She had come for him.

Lorcan managed to glance toward the dam on their right. Toward the ruk rider signaling that it was only a matter of minutes until it unleashed hell over the plain.

He didn't know how it had become weakened. Didn't care.

Still Elide kept urging the horse onward, kept them on as straight a path toward the distant keep as possible.

No ruk would come to sweep them up. No, his luck had been spent in surviving this long, in her finding him. His power would do nothing against that water.

The farthest lines of panicked soldiers appeared, and Farasha charged past them.

Elide let out a sob, and he followed the line of her sight.

To the keep gate, still open.

"Faster, Farasha!" She didn't hide the raw terror in her voice, the desperation.

Once the dam broke, it would take less than a minute for the tidal wave to reach them.

She had come for him. She had found him.

The world went quiet. The pain in his body faded into nothing. Into something secondary.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, "You have to let me go."

Each word was gravelly, his voice strained nearly to the point of uselessness.

Elide didn't shift her focus from the keep ahead. "No."

That gentle quiet flowed around him, clearing the fog of pain and battle. "You have to. You have to, Elide. I'm too heavy-and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time."

"No." The salt of her tears filled his nose.

Lorcan brushed his mouth over her damp cheek, ignoring the roaring pain in his body. The horse galloped and galloped, as if she might outrace death itself.

"I love you," he whispered in Elide's ear. "I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken." Her tears flowed past him in the wind. "And I will be with you ..." His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. "I will be with you always."

He was not frightened of what would come for him once he tumbled off the horse. He was not frightened at all, if it meant her reaching the keep.

So Lorcan kissed Elide's cheek again, allowed himself to breathe in her scent one last time. "I love you," he repeated, and began to withdraw his arms from around her waist.

Elide slapped a hand onto his forearm. Dug in her nails, right into his skin, fierce as any ruk.

"No."

There were no tears in her voice. Nothing but solid, unwavering steel.

"No," she said again. The voice of the Lady of Perranth.

Lorcan tried to move his arm, but her grip would not be dislodged.

If he tumbled off the horse, she would go with him.

Together. They would either outrun this or die together.

"Elide-"

But Elide slammed her heels into the horse's sides.

Slammed her heels into the dark flank and screamed, "FLY, FARASHA." She cracked the reins. "FLY, FLY, FLY!"

And gods help her, that horse did.

As if the god that had crafted her filled the mare's lungs with his own breath, Farasha gave a surge of speed.

Faster than the wind. Faster than death.

Farasha cleared the first of the fleeing Darghan cavalry. Passed desperate horses and riders at an all-out gallop for the gates.

Her mighty heart did not falter, even when Lorcan knew it was raging to the point of bursting.

Less than a mile stood between them and the keep.

But a thunderous, groaning crack cleaved the world, echoing off the lake, the mountains.

There was nothing he could do, nothing that brave, unfaltering horse could do, as the dam ruptured.

Rowan made himself stand there, to watch the last moments of the Lady of Perranth and his former commander. It was all he could offer: witnessing their deaths, so he might tell the story to those he encountered. So they would not be forgotten.

The roaring of the oncoming wave became deafening, even from miles away.

Still Elide and Lorcan raced, Farasha passing horse after horse after horse.

Even up here, would they escape the wave's reach? Rowan dared to survey the battlements, to assess if he needed to get the others, needed to get Aelin, to higher ground.

But Aelin was not at his side.

She was not on the battlement at all.

Rowan's heart halted. Simply stopped beating as a ruddy-brown ruk dropped from the skies, spearing for the center of the plain.

Arcas, Borte's ruk. A golden-haired woman dangling from his talons.

Aelin. Aelin was—

Arcas neared the earth, talons splaying.

Aelin hit the ground, rolling, rolling, until she uncoiled to her feet.

Right in the path of that wave.

"Oh gods," Fenrys breathed, seeing her, too.

They all saw her.

The queen on the plain.

The endless wall of water surging for her.

The keep stones began shuddering. Rowan threw out a hand to brace himself, fear like nothing he had known ripping through him as Aelin lifted her arms above her head.

A pillar of fire shot up around her, lifting her hair with it.

The wave roared and roared for her, for the army behind her.

The shaking in the keep was not from the wave.

It was not from that wall of water at all.

Cracks formed in the earth, splintering across it. Spiderwebbing from Aelin.

"The hot springs," Chaol breathed. "The valley floor is full of veins into the earth itself."

Into the burning heart of the world.

The keep shook, more violently this time.

The pillar of fire sucked back into Aelin.

She held out a hand before her, her fist closed.

As if it would halt the wave in its tracks.

He knew then. Either as her mate or carranam, he knew.

"Three months," Rowan breathed.

The others stilled.

"Three months," he said again, his knees wobbling. "She's been making the descent into her power for three months."

Every day she had been with Maeve, bound in iron, she had gone deeper. And she had not tapped too far into that power since they'd freed her because she had kept making the plunge.

To gather up the full might of her magic.

Not for the Lock, not for Erawan.

But for Maeve's death blow.

A few weeks of descent had taken her powers to devastating levels. Three months of it

…

Holy gods. Holy rutting gods.

And when her fire hit the wall of water now towering over her, when they collided —

"GET DOWN!" Rowan bellowed, over the screaming waters. "GET DOWN NOW!"

His companions dropped to the stones, any within earshot doing the same.

Rowan plummeted into his power. Plummeted into it fast and hard, ripping out any remaining shred of magic.

Elide and Lorcan were still too far from the gates. Thousands of soldiers were still too far from the gates as the wave crested above them.

As Aelin opened her hand toward it.

Fire erupted.

Cobalt fire. The raging soul of a flame.

A tidal wave of it.

Taller than the raging waters, it blasted from her, flaring wide.

The wave slammed into it. And where water met a wall of fire, where a thousand years of confinement met three months of it, the world exploded.

Blistering steam, capable of melting flesh from bone, shot across the plain.

With a roar, Rowan threw all that remained of his magic toward the onslaught of steam, a wall of wind that shoved it toward the lake, the mountains.

Still the waters came, breaking against the flames that did not so much as yield an inch.

Maeve's death blow. Spent here, to save the army that might mean Terrasen's salvation. To spare the lives on the plain.

Rowan gritted his teeth, panting against his fraying power. A burnout lurked, deadly close.

The raging wave threw itself over and over and over into the wall of flame.

Rowan didn't see if Elide and Lorcan made it into the keep. If the other soldiers and riders on the plain stopped to gape.

Princess Hasar said, rising beside him, "That power is no blessing."

"Tell that to your soldiers," Fenrys snarled, standing, too.

"I did not mean it that way," Hasar snipped, and awe was indeed stark on her face.

Rowan leaned against the battlements, panting hard as he fought to keep the lethal steam from flowing toward the army. As he cooled and sent it whisking away.

Solid hands slid under his arms, and then Fenrys and Gavriel were there, propping him up between them.

A minute passed. Then another.

The wave began to lower. Still the fire burned.

Rowan's head pounded, his mouth going dry.

Time slipped from him. A coppery tang filled his mouth.

The wave lowered farther, raging waters quieting. Then roaring turned to lapping, rapids into eddies.

Until the wall of flame began to lower, too. Tracking the waters down and down and down. Letting them seep into the cracks of the earth.

Rowan's knees buckled, but he held on to his magic long enough for the steam to lessen.

For it, too, to be calmed.

It filled the plain, turning the world into drifting mist. Blocking the view of the queen in its center.

Then silence. Utter silence.

Fire flickered through the mist, blue turning to gold and red. A muted, throbbing glow.

Rowan spat blood onto the battlement stones, his breath like shards of glass in his throat.

The glowing flames shrank, steam rippling past. Until there was only a slim pillar of fire, veiled in the mist-shrouded plain.

Not a pillar of fire.

But Aelin.

Glowing white-hot. As if she had given herself so wholly to the flame that she had become fire herself.

The Fire-Bringer someone whispered down the battlements.

The mist rippled and billowed, casting her into nothing but a glowing effigy.

The silence turned reverent.

A gentle wind from the north swept down. The veil of mist pulled back, and there she was.

She glowed from within. Glowed golden, tendrils of her hair floating on a phantom wind.

"Mala's Heir," Yrene breathed.

Down on the plain, Elide and Lorcan had halted.

The wind pushed away more of the drifting mist, clearing the land beyond Aelin.

And where that mighty, lethal wave had loomed, where death had charged toward them, nothing remained at all.

For three months, she had sung to the darkness and the flame, and they had sung back.

For three months, she had burrowed so deep inside her power that she had plundered undiscovered depths. While Maeve and Cairn had worked on her, she had delved. Never letting them know what she mined, what she gathered to her, day by day by day.

A death blow. One to wipe a dark queen from the earth forever.

She'd kept that power coiled in herself even after she'd been freed from the irons. Had struggled to keep it down these weeks, the strain enormous. Some days, it had been easier to barely speak. Some days, swaggering arrogance had been her key to ignoring it.

Yet when she had seen that wave, when she had seen Elide and Lorcan choosing death together, when she had seen the army that might save Terrasen, she'd known. She'd felt the fire sleeping under this city, and knew they had come here for a reason.

She had come here for this reason.

A river still flowed from the dam, harmless and small, wending toward the lake.

Nothing more.

Aelin lifted a glowing hand before her as blessed, cooling emptiness filled her at last.

Slowly, starting from her fingertips, the glow faded.

As if she were forged anew, forged back into her body.

Back into Aelin.

Clarity, sharp and crystal clear, filled its wake. As if she could see again, breathe again.

Inch by inch, the golden glow faded into skin and bone. Into a woman once more.

Already, a white-tailed hawk launched skyward.

But as the last of the glow faded, disappearing out through her toes, Aelin fell to her knees.

Fell to her knees in the utter silence of the world, and curled onto her side.

She had the vague sense of strong, familiar arms scooping her up. Of being carried onto a broad feathery back, still in those arms.

Of soaring through the skies, the last of the mist rippling away into the afternoon sun.

And then sweet darkness.

[ebbpettier]

what do you mean with your hc that simon was always a dragon?

okay so this is one of my deepest most self indulgent headcanons because i'm gay and i think he deserves more and sharper teeth but it's extrapolated from a bunch of different details in the series: 1. we don't know what kind of blood davy used in the ritual. lucy couldn't identify it, but it almost definitely wasn't human. killing a dragon is one of the worst things you can do in the WoM and i really think davy isn't above that, at this point. (in terms of what i think the ritual entailed, i don't think he would have killed an adult dragon, either. a son for a son.) 2. simon's false feather wings dissolved in a bloody mess, but his dragon wings did not. iirc, he also had to wish for them, and penelope pointed out that this is fundamentally Not How Magic Works 3. penny also theorized that simon was actually turning INTO a dragon at the moment he got his wings, unless i'm misremembering again? its been a while since my last reread of the series and i have a memory disorder bear with me 4. "you don't kill a dragon unless you're trying to open a portal to hell" davy what did you do. DAVY, WHAT DID YOU DO. 5. once magic stops working on simon at all/after he loses his magic, the wings don't disappear, which makes me think they weren't powered by magic in the first place; they were just a part of his body. 6. margaret almost immediately (probably falsely but still) identifies him as a Kitten. she straight up thinks he's a baby dragon. maybe he smells like one, or feels like one, but i feel like she would be the most qualified to like ... tell? simon insists he isn't, but she seems confused and even a little put off when he tries to say he isn't just a lost dragon-kit. 7. when he's going off his magic is described as very blistery and prickly and black and red, and he glows and smokes and smells like a forest fire. dragon coded as fuuuuck 8. i think it would fucking rule I've never quite decided if i want it to be dragon ancestry, or if he's some kind of changeling via the ritual*, or something else, but the reason i draw the sword of mages with a fancy hilt shaped like a dragon is because i also headcanon that it looks different for everyone who wields it. (in my Baz Is The Heir AU: he summons it as a spada da lato, light as a feather with a handguard that curls like fire in a windstorm, inset with little sapphires) and simon's just ALWAYS been that dragony. i want him to grow more teeth, and they keep growing so he either has to accept them or have them pulled. i want his nails to be hard and sturdy as iron and he just never notices because he's always used them as tools, and he thought everyone's were like that. he bites them off because they break clippers. i want the red scales around the second set of deltoids (the ones on his wings) to start slowly creeping down his back and over his shoulders over time. because i think it would fucking rule. *i subscribe to this one the most, tho. makes sense. also i feel like the mage WouldTM.

[camthecatchameleon]

So carry me from these walls, brother of mine, Show me the world outside. It has to be true, I'm counting on you To be my wings and my eyes.

Fish in a Birdcage - Rule #4, Fish Inside a Birdcage (2022)

Image ID:

First image - A messy, sketchy quality drawing of Ol' Jericho Sticks from Legends of Avantris: Edge of Midnight. Well, technically this is Virgil in Jericho's body. He stands at the far left side of the canvas, with his back to the camera and his head turned over his shoulder to stare a beady four-pointed eye at the audience. Their arms hang loosely at their sides. Four massive black wings sprout from Jericho/Virgil's shoulderblades and from below his "ribcage," the two farther from the camera extending over the rest of the canvas. The two in proximity to the camera curve over Jericho/Virgil's body, obscuring parts of them, and framing emphasis around their eye. Seven orange eyes with four-pointed star pupils, drawn even more messily than the figure, float in space and stare out at the audience from between the feathers of the extended wings. Scribbles in jagged strokes frame the piece and reach towards the figure. The whole piece is in a duotone greyish/orange color scheme. Words, the lyrics to Fish in a Birdcage's Rule #4 - Fish Inside a Birdcage, are written messily, following the contours of the eyes and the wings. The words write: "YOU GAVE ME MORE THAN I COULD ASK FOR... INDISTINGUISHABILITY"

Second Image - A zoomed in version of the first image, to give a more detailed view of Jericho/Virgil's face and body. Only the figure, the two closest wings, and a quarter of the other two wings are shown. No words are in view, but two of the eyes are visible.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Fukuzawa: Listen close, follow my instructions.

Bram: There is no time for introductions.

Gozen: He was the one that made us.

Kunikida: You’ll be the one to save us.

Mori: Underground, welcome to the Circus. Power down, are you feeling nervous?

Dazai: His voice means to deceive you.

Fyodor: My voice just wants to lead you.

Atsushi: Below the surface. Built without purpose. Did we deserve this?

[muninnhuginn]

Thinking about "your weakness is how you always want to be the hero" and how the series returns to this at the end

Li Lianhua hated how he acted as Li Xiangyi and spent years trying to distance himself from it, but ultimately he still fell back into the similar patterns, for all his added experience

His main priority was always to "do the right thing" regardless of how that would impact on those around him. And it *did* impact those around him. From Qiao Wanmian and Shan Gudao as Li Xiangyi to Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng as Li Lianhua

Giving the Styx flower to the emperor so he could use it as leverage to guarantee Fang Duobing and his family's safety. Using the last of his power to save Yun Biqiu. Constantly putting others above himself whilst actively refusing to recognise that his self-sacrificial nature would hurt those he cared about most

And sure, he thinks he's going to die anyway. They're going to be hurt regardless and he can't do anything about that. His odds are low of the Styx flower even working. But ultimately, he refuses to even consider trying. Li Xiangyi has been dead a long time and Li Lianhua is just there to tide things over. What value is the life of a ghost

To the end, he lives and dies a hero. To the end, he refuses to live for himself.