#anyway happy to be breathing again :)

[casualavocados]

You should stay away from me. I'm no longer with the gang. I didn't agree. Our boss already agreed four years ago. Pull over and let me out of the car. I'm your boss!

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 01 / Ep. 09

[orangechickenpillow]

Not to be parasocial but I am glad that the watcher boys seem to be handling everything well. Obviously with their response and listening to the fans, but I'm also glad that the severity of the backlash hasn't completely killed their excitement for their projects and the future of watcher.

This whole situation was a lot for everyone, and I know it's left a bad taste in some people's mouths, but I'm happy that Shane, Ryan and Steven have had level-headed responses to it (at least, public responses)

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Ok y'all it's time to join the party (very late) on my latest deep obsession, which THIS TIME I am going to allow myself to pursue instead of killing the joy (because of how intense it can get) and share with you!!

And that obsession is Epic: The Musical.

Holy smokes man this thing has remolded my brain, it just somehow hits all of those things which I desperately love in media

Firstly. The music is absolutely exquisite. And not even in the ways you'd normally think! Like--there's such wonderfully detailed soundscaping! The musical follows Odysseus on his journey home, and the songs themselves contain beautifully done effects that basically make the listening experience into a movie in your head. Monsters, crashing oceans, the underworld itself--and not only is this included in non-muscial sound design, it's incorporated into the music itself. The realm of the wind gods uses flutes as the main instrument--because it's a WIND instrument I'm losing my mind

PLUS there's the additional elements of musical "Easter eggs," thematic connections, leitmotifs, instrumentation identification, musical callbacks and even foreshadowing like come ONNNNN it's so well done

All of this with the added bonus that the songs, while cohesive, do not all sound the same, and do not feel like normal musical theater songs. They are the perfect mix between modern music, orchestral arrangements, and a musical theater jam, because they are 1. SUPER great to belt along to, 2. Very much linked together (as explained above) and 3. Very unlike the standard, vocal-focused empty pop sound we're used to (theater) while keeping the innovative, ear-wormy, modern (pop) beat that often feels out of place in theater!

And lyrically this musical is super strong. I spent a ton more time on the music (and will likely write more at length later) because that is what got me obsessed with it, but there's also much to praise lyrically! Unlike most modern "non-theater" musicals, while you can tell at places that it has been influenced by (the ever-present) Lin-Manuel Miranda, it feels authentically unique and independent. So many songs have genuinely profound lines (check out Just a Man, the second song in the saga) and the pop elements never lend themselves to empty repetition. Everything sung or said has a purpose, which I am obsessed with. Yes king go off give us everything

Finally (for now) there's just the genuine love that the creator(s) have for this musical. Jay Rivera-Herrans is the brain behind it (he wrote the entire musical over several years) and like...just look at what he shares about it on his Instagram. He gets so EXCITED!! And not like PR excitement, this is like legit "I'm making silly noises because I can't contain myself" excitement!!! He reminds me of me in that sense because he has SO much love and passion for what he does and the nuance in it and the people who enjoy his work, and he shares that in an unfiltered, real, authentic way, and we need to see more of that in the world.

Anyway, if you haven't heard of it and are now interested, it's pretty easy to catch up--there are 5 of the 9 sagas out right now, but only half of the songs, and Spotify has a playlist or two that has them all in order. It's only an hour and eight minutes worth of listening and I have just listened to it through twice in two days; it really does not get old. And then if you go to Jay's Instagram the rabbit hole is deep!! And he explains a lot of the lore and symbolism and intentionality/Easter eggs in the musical!! I went through all of the content he posted, pretty much...

So there's my official hawking of Epic (if only I had gotten in on this earlier!! The "Get in the Water" song that was trending a while ago?? That's from this!!) and you should go listen to it!!!!

[opikiquu]

hhahhehehehahgeehshdgshheehehh HAHAHAHAHAH so i did the story

[girlthativealwaysbeen]

i think growing up is just life repeatedly sucker punching you and saying bitch you thought things were gonna better lmao no you're so naive and stupid for having hope in 20 years the world will be flaming bag of garbage and no matter how hard you work you'll get eliminated at some point

[recitedemise]

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗿𝗯 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗼𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗲'𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆. And it is excruciating. On his chest, one can trace its ugly mark, the brand less discoloration and more, unfortunately, a deep-grooved scar. It is unavoidable and impossible to ever miss. Similarly, the way it eats at him is obvious, too. Gale, especially at the start, when his condition, fresh and disorienting, was still abundantly new, the effects of the orb were frighteningly worse. At that time, he little knew how to quell it, that feeding off the Weave would balm the pain, and so for all those days and weeks of panic, he rotted and ached at a terrible pace. He had decayed. And he had bled. Gale's body oozed black, skin, especially at his casting arm, rupturing like cracks in terracotta. He tasted filth always, the bitterness of wasting flesh thick in his throat, nose perpetually leaking with the ink-dark of bleeding. He'd labored to breathe, a feeling like devouring maggots pulsing in his chest. In fact, at the lowest point by then, wallowing and stuck in his tower, Gale began to lose hair, his nails loose and cracking as he scrabbled at the floorboards, knees weak and pain bolting when he collapsed to the floor. He was a pitiful sight. And a worrying one. And even now, with the consumption of magical artefacts, one can still see the way he bows to the blight, heaving for breath when it takes his chest again, sweat at his temples and mouth gone dry. It's all-encompassing. The agony is chronic. It feels like being eaten, being hollowed to his barest self right from the inside. He's a vessel of magic, and the orb means to consume him down to his every last molecule, teeth bared, hackles raised, and appetite crushing. It's like--dying, stolen away to be but swallowed down whole, surrendering to the suck of a hungering vortex. He's unsightly. As well, too, as a burden, he thinks, to the very naked of his bones. But when someone hangs back, touches him despite his rot, he thinks, you shouldn't have to handle something like this. This mere shamble of a graveyard--he's so sorry to dirty their hands.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

hmmmm having angsty Lights Out thoughts

[teamhawkeye]

great news, lads!

Stringer had his first check up with the vet following his bloat. they said he's looking good and they're very pleased with his progress and behavior! his incision site is healed very well and they removed all his stitches - he got put on another week of antibiotics, just to be safe and clean up any lingering chances at infection on his belly, but otherwise, he's getting an all clear in about 5 days!

poor guy has been through so much! just so happy and grateful to still have him here with us!

i feel like every pic i share is of him has him looking sad and lethargic, but he's always been a lazy dog who likes to nap, lol. here's one from last night when he was begging for my dessert

many thanks for those keeping him in your thoughts and sending well wishes! means the world to me ❤️❤️❤️

[thecatspasta]

Do you think the corporations will realise that we will care about their straight ships if they're not a girl fawning over the first guy she sees and getting married within the year and it being treated like a good thing or is this thought process too advanced for them to handle right now.

[kiri-chu]

It feels really nice not being on social media rn (aside from here, Snapchat and Discord). I deleted my apps after an anxiety attack yesterday and won't be going on for a little. Just seeing art and not worrying about anything is great :^D

[acourtofquestions]

"I didn't break," she said quietly. His heart cracked at the words. "I didn't tell them anything."

She didn't say it for praise, to boast. But rather to tell him, her consort, of where they stood in this war. What their enemies might know.

"I knew you wouldn't," he managed to say.

"She ... she tried to convince me that this was the bad dream. When Cairn was done with me, or during it, I don't know, she'd try to worm her way into my mind." She glanced around the cave, as if she could see the world beyond it. "She spun fantasies that felt so real..." She bobbed under the surface. Perhaps she'd needed the cooling water of the lake to be able to hear her own voice again; perhaps she needed the distance between them so she could speak these words. She emerged, slicking back her hair with a hand. "They felt like this."

Half of him didn't want to know, but he asked, "What sort of illusions?"

A long pause. "It doesn't matter now."

Too soon to push—if ever.

Then she asked softly, "How long?"

It took the entirety of his three centuries of training to keep the devastation, the agony for her, from his face. "Two months, three days, and seven hours."

Her mouth tightened, either at the length of time, or the fact that he'd counted every single one of those hours apart.

She ran her fingers through her hair, its strands floating around her in the water. Still too long for two months to have passed. "They healed me after each ... session. So that I stopped knowing what had been done and what was in my mind and where the truth lay." Erase her scars, and Maeve stood a better chance at convincing her none of this was real. "But the healers couldn't remember how long my hair was, or Maeve wanted to confuse me further, so they grew it out." Her eyes darkened at the memory of why, perhaps, they had needed to regrow her hair in the first place.

"Do you want me to cut it back to the length it was when I last saw you?" His words were near-guttural.

"No." Ripples shivered around her. "I want it so I can remember."

What had been done to her, what she'd survived and what she had protected.

Even if the woman treading water before him didn't seem to have vengeance on her mind. Not so much as a hint of the burning rage that fueled her.

He didn't blame her. Knew it would take time, time and distance, to heal the internal wounds. If they could ever really heal at all.

But he'd work with her, help in whatever way he could. And if she never returned to who she had been before this, he would not love her any less.

Aelin dunked her head, and when she emerged, she said, "Maeve was about to put a Valg collar around my neck. She left to retrieve it." The scent of her lingering fear drifted toward him, and Rowan lurched a step closer to the water's edge. "It's why I—why I got away. She had me moved to the army camp for safekeeping, and I ..." Her voice stalled, yet she met his stare. Let him read the words she could not say, in that silent way they'd always been able to communicate. Escape wasn't my intention.

"No, Fireheart," he breathed, shaking his head, horror creeping over him. "There ... there was no collar."

She blinked, head angling. "That was a dream, too?"

His heart cracked as he struggled for the words. Made himself voice them. "No—it was real. Or Maeve thought it was. But the collars, the Valg presence ... It was a lie that we crafted. To draw Maeve out, hopefully away from you and Doranelle."

Only the faint lapping of water sounded. "There was no collar?"

Rowan lowered himself to his knees and shook his head. "I—Aelin, if I'd known what she'd do with the knowledge, what you'd decide to do-"

He might have lost her. Not from Maeve or the gods or the Lock, but from his own damned choices. The lie he'd spun.

Aelin drifted beneath the surface again. So deep that when the flare happened, it was little more than a flutter. The light burst from her, rippling across the lake, illumining the stones, the slick ceiling above. A silent eruption. His breathing turned ragged. But she swam toward the surface again, light streaming off her body like tendrils of clouds. It had nearly vanished when she emerged.

"I'm sorry," he managed to say. Again, that angle of the head. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He did, though. He'd added to her terror, her desperation. He'd— "If you had not planted that lie for Maeve, if she had not told me, I don't think we'd be here right now," she said.

He tried to rein in the twisting in his gut, the urge to reach for her, to beg for her forgiveness. Tried and tried.

She only asked, "What of the others?" She didn't know-couldn't know how and why and where they'd all parted ways. So Rowan told her, as succinctly and calmly as he could.

When he finished, Aelin was quiet for long minutes.

She stared out into the blackness, the rippling of her treading water the only sound. Her body had nearly lost that freshly forged glow.

Then she pivoted back toward him. "Maeve said you and the others were in the North. That you'd been spotted by her spies there. Did you plant that deception for her, too?"

He shook his head. "Lysandra has been thorough, it seems."

Aelin's throat bobbed. "I believed her." It sounded like a confession, somehow.

So Rowan found himself saying, "I told you once that even if death separated us, I would rip apart every world until I found you." He gave her a slash of a smile. "Did you really believe this would stop me?'

She pursed her mouth, and at last, those agonizing emotions began to surface in her eyes. "You were supposed to save Terrasen."

"Considering that the sun shines, I'd say Erawan hasn't won yet. So we'll save it together."

He didn't let himself think of the final cost of destroying Erawan. And Aelin seemed in no hurry to discuss it, either, as she said, "You should have gone to Terrasen. It needs you."

"I need you more." He didn't balk from the stark honesty roughening his voice. "And Terrasen will need you, too. Not Lysandra masquerading as you, but you."

A shallow nod. "Maeve raised her army. I doubt it was only to guard me while she was away."

He'd put the thought aside, to consider later. "It might just be to shore up her defenses, should Erawan win across the sea."

"Do you truly think that's what she plans to do with it?"

"No," he admitted. "I don't."

And if Maeve meant to bring that army to Terrasen, to either unite with Erawan or simply be another force battering their kingdom, to strike when they were weakest, they had to hurry. Had to get back. Immediately. His mate's eyes shone with the same understanding and dread.

Aelin's throat bobbed as she whispered, "I'm so tired, Rowan."

His heart strained again. "I know, Fireheart."

He opened his mouth to say more, to coax her onto land so he might at least hold her if words couldn't ease her burden, but that's when he saw it.

A boat, ancient and every inch of it carved, drifted out of the gloom.

"Get back to shore." The boat wasn't drifting—it was being tugged. He could just barely make out two dark forms slithering beneath the surface.

Aelin didn't hesitate, yet her strokes remained steady as she swam for him. She didn’t balk at the hand he extended, and he wrapped his cloak around her while the boat ambled past.

But Aelin turned toward them, hair dripping onto the stone at her bare feet. Half a thought from her could have had her dry, yet she made no move to do so. "We're being hunted."

"We know that," Lorcan shot back, and were it not for the fact that Aelin was currently allowing him to rest a hand upon her shoulder, Rowan would have thrown the male into the lake.

But Aelin's features didn't shift from that graveness, that unruffled calm. "The only way to the sea is through these caves." It was an outrageous claim.

"And I suppose they told you that?" Lorcan's face was hard as granite.

"Watch it," Rowan snarled. Fenrys indeed bared his teeth at the dark-haired warrior, fur bristling. But Aelin said simply, "Yes." Her chin didn't dip an inch. "The land above is crawling with soldiers and spies. Going beneath them is the only way."

Elide stepped forward. "I will go." She cut a cold glance toward Lorcan. "You can take your chances above, if you're so disbelieving." Lorcan's jaw tightened, and a small part of Rowan relished seeing the delicate Lady of Perranth fillet the centuries-hardened warrior with a few words. "Considering the potential pitfalls of the situation is wise."

"We don't have time to consider," Rowan cut in before Elide could voice the retort on her tongue. "We need to keep moving. Gavriel stalked forward to study the moored boat and what seemed to be bundles of supplies on its sturdy planks. "How will we navigate our way, though?"

"We'll be escorted," Aelin answered.

"And if they abandon us?" Lorcan challenged. Aelin leveled unfazed eyes upon him.

"Then you'll have to find a way out, I suppose." A hint-just a spark-of temper belied those calm words. There was nothing else to debate after that.

And they had little to pack. The others gave Aelin privacy to dress by the fire while they inspected the boat, and when his mate emerged again, clad in boots, pants, and various layers beneath her gray surcoat, the sight of her in clothes from Mistward was enough to make his gut clench.

No longer a naked, escaped captive. Yet none of that wickedness, that joy and unchecked wildness illuminated her face.

The rest of their party waited on the boat, seated on the benches built into its high-lipped sides. Fenrys and Elide both sat as seemingly far from Lorcan as they could get, Gavriel a golden, long-suffering buffer between them.

Rowan lingered at the shore's edge, a hand extended for Aelin while she approached. Each of her steps seemed considered—as if she still marveled at being able to move freely. As if still adjusting to her legs without the burden of chains.

"Why?" Lorcan mused aloud, more to himself. "Why go to these lengths for us?"

He got his answer—they all did—a heartbeat later. Aelin halted a few feet away from the boat and Rowan's outstretched hand. She turned back toward the cave itself. The Little Folk peeked from those birch branches, from the rocks, from behind stalagmites. Slowly, deeply, Aelin bowed to them. Rowan could have sworn all those tiny heads lowered in answer.

A pair of bony grayish hands rose above a nearby rock, something glittering held between them, and set the object on the stone.

Rowan went still. A crown of silver and pearl and diamond gleamed there, fashioned into upswept swan's wings

"The Crown of Mab," Gavriel breathed. But Fenrys looked away, toward the looming dark, his tail curling around him.

Aelin staggered a step closer to the crown. "It—it fell into the river."

Rowan didn't want to know how she'd encountered it, why she'd seen it fall into a river. Maeve had kept her sisters' two crowns under constant guard, only bringing them out to be displayed in her throne room on state occasions. In memory of her siblings, she'd intoned. Rowan had sometimes wondered if it was a reminder that she had outlasted them, had kept the throne for herself in the end.

The grayish hand slipped over the rock's edge again and nudged the crown in silent gesture. Take it.

"You want to know why?" Gavriel softly asked Lorcan as Aelin strode for the rock. Nothing but solemn reverence on her face. "Because she is not only Brannon's Heir, but Mab's, too."

A throwback to her great-great-grandmother, Maeve had taunted her. Who had inherited her strength, her immortal lifespan.

Aelin's fingers closed around the crown, lifting it gently. It sparkled like living moonlight between her hands.

My sister Mab's line ran true, Elide claimed Maeve had said on the beach. In every way, it seemed.

But Aelin made no move to don the crown while she approached him once more, her gait steadier this time. Trying not to dwell on the unbearable smoothness of her hand as it wrapped around his, Rowan helped her aboard, then climbed in himself before freeing the ropes tethering them to the shore.

Gavriel went on, awe in every word, "And that makes her their queen, too."

Aelin met Gavriel's gaze, the crown near-glowing in her hands. "Yes," was all she said as the boat sailed into the darkness.

[redysetdare]

I think the invader zim fandom had the right idea in the tags it used because it literally separated romance dynamics and friendship dynamics. Like for examples: ZADR means it's zim and dib romance. Easy to block and quick way to know the intensions of a piece. Then you have ZADF which is Zim and Dib Friendship. Fantasic, emmaculate, makes things 10x easier for me. But it doesn't stop there because then you have ZADE which is Zim and Dib Enemies. LIKE NO OTHER FANDOM USES TAGS LIKE THIS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE BIG BRAIN CAPACITY OF THIS KIND OF TAGGING IN FANDOM? Super easy to understand the intent of the art, makes it easy to avoid what you don't want to see, and allows you to easily search for what you do want to see.

Idk in a time where people don't exactly tag other relationships and will sometimes not tag shipping either it's just nice to look back on the IZ fandom and see such a robust tagging system used by basically the entire fandom.

[star-kovs]

Noooo one more episode left… don’t make me wait another season to see more of them @ netflix. Episode 7 was great even if it sucked seeing Colin so hurt but I enjoyed how they stayed true to how strongly he feels his emotions and the complexity of him coming to terms with the betrayal and processing it along with how much he loves Pen. And now we only get one more episode of them actually together while they’re the main focus 😭

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: May 19

"Big Deal” by LeAnn Rimes

[hyacinth--girl]

Had the most harrowing weekend after getting my hair dyed at a salon for the very first time and it being genuinely HORRENDOUS and then spending today just fucking yoloing it and buying box dye (also for the very first time) to try and fix it myself. Currently drying so we shall see if I’ve ruined my life further or saved it (I think it’s looking hopeful so far tho!!)

[carbonateddelusion]

on a show of hands who here remembers how possession works in the 80s universe it was SO long ago I'm assuming none of you do