#but damn it if i won't try

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

growing up with a perpetually anxious primary caregiver is such a mindfuck. that shit will rewire your nervous system

[atlantablack]

Okay okay, if you're up for it, for the micro story ask, what about "don't leave"?

I feel like the real challenge here is - can I keep this micro - brevity is not my friend but let's see

Bilbo is already half-way to Dale -- his pack heavy on his back, Gandalf a steady presence at his side -- when he hears the sound of hooves behind them.

When he turns, worried that something has managed to go wrong in the hours since they left Erebor, he finds Thorin barreling towards him on a pony, closely followed by Dwalin, Kili, & Fili.

All he can really do is stare, open mouthed, as the group speeds toward him. What could have possibly happened? A traitorous part of his heart whispers, he's come to ask you to stay, but he knows that's a lie. He'd been in Erebor for an entire season and Thorin had never once given him any indication that he wanted Bilbo to stay past the winter.

Bilbo knows it's a lie and so it makes no sense to him at all when Thorin swings himself off of the pony, strides forward, and the first words to come out of his mouth are, "Don't leave. Amrâlimê. I do not have the right to ask this of you but do not leave."

Thorin's eyes are very blue and Bilbo's heart is beating very loud. He dimly recognizes that his walking stick has slipped from his fingers but it seems rather unimportant in the face of Thorin's earnest words.

"I don't understand," he says, clinging to his composure by his fingertips. "Why would I stay?" What he doesn't say is, how could I not, when it's you asking, how could I not?

Thorin flinches but resolutely takes another step forward to grab his hand. Bilbo lets him, unwilling to deny Thorin anything even now.

"I do not have the right but I will ask regardless," Thorin says so quietly his words are in danger of being whipped away by the wind. "I would ask that you stay by my side so that I may court you. So that I would not have to know the bleakness of days spent without you by my side."

Bilbo stares. And stares. Oh, he thinks, wondering if this is what it feels like to fall in love all over again. It's a rock slide and a flood. It's the anxious twist of Thorin's mouth, the way the midday sun hits the blue of Thorin's eyes and leaves them dazzling.

"Oh," he says out loud. And then again. A wet sounding laugh bubbles up and out of his mouth. "Oh, of course you stupid, stupid dwarf. All you had to do was ask me."

Fili and Kili break out into cheers but Bilbo doesn't have eyes for anyone except Thorin and the smile that breaks across his face. When Thorin kisses him it's a thousand shades of summer and fresh spring rain, which is to say, it's home.

[pharawee]

[ratcandy]

collection of moth things i never posted all of varying quality and age

[hearts-hunger]

not enough wife on the dash

[moregraceful]

the thing is this blog and the cuda blog go far and wide in terms on interest but i am at all times one hurtful interview from having a meltdown about mario ferraro...he was so excited to be here...BRENT BURBS WAS HIS MENTOR...slowly everyone he loved or was mentored by got traded...then he had to do it alone while cooch was gone!!! um with mikael granlund and luke kunin. but he was alone!! today ouagh "we owe them better after the last five years" MARIO YOU HAVE ONLY BEEN HERE FIVE YEARS!! DOES IT HURT TO BE THE ONE WHO WAS CHOSEN TO BEAR WITNESS TO THE END OF ONE DYNASTY AND THE HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF AN NEW AGE!! all these damn ass prospects and young guys talking about how excited they are, how they've never felt this way about the beginning of a season how they're gonna do it for the city the fans they're gonna bring back hockey to san jose.....mario do you feel that same sense of wonder and promise!! mario is there somewhere within you the echo of the young kid who took his best friend to the top of a mountain in marin on a off day during the covid season to say look at the bay area: it's ours......????

[bardengarde]

There is something about making an oc and accidentally recognizing some traits you've given them are traits you can relate to

Not even trying to make a self insert and I've done those before, but seeing parts of yourself and things you struggle with and coming to a halt because I Didn't Mean To Do That. Where Do I Go From Here? Do I Continue To Develop This? There's Issues Here I'm Not Ready To Deal With Myself With.

[bichambered-reservoir]

guess who discovered they don't rock with 90% of their art!!!!! this isn't even a vent post, i wouldn't post vents, this is a ramble and an unnecessary announcement that i will be posting more, and posting cringe.

A lot of the art i post on there, i will not deny, it was extremely fun to make. i will not doubt that for a Moment. I have created so much neon, eyebleeding D,J,M,M v,ore paraphernalia and knowing the amount i have ruthlessly inflicted upon the world brings me much joy. However: i have realized that most of these do nothing for me.

How is it that with all this D,J,M,M v,ore, barely any of it feeds the purple, glowing, gaping maw in my soul? . I've just been making shit for this blog because i need to draw d,j,m,m v,ore to maintain my internal reputation of d,j,m,m v,ore guy. I think it looks good, but that's not the point, the point was making my heart flutter and i have FAILED. It's probably why I've only been posting like, once a month now. (that and bc of h,omo mousike)

Comet and Fritz are back on my mind with their weird explicitly v,orey bullshit along with them, and I am going to draw it. It's going to be dimly lit, neon-colored, and be about the exact same thing like I'm a broken record and only i will like it

[council-of-beetroot]

Why continue?

[impishtubist]

More midnight thoughts from @soloorganaas : "Remus and Sirius can't get married until Harry breaks up with his terrible boyfriend Draco, because they don't want to have to invite anyone to their wedding that they don't like."

[crimeronan]

thinking about this little ficlet i wrote back in february for the worst timeline sans vee -- basic premise being luz escapes belos in the human realm and is reunited with camila, hunter survives his execution and finds her months later, luz is Very Happy to have her best friend back from the dead. (thereby making it not really the worst timeline at all anymore.)

mainly today i'm thinking about camila having no idea what The Fuck is going on. in the ficlet she assumes hunter is a human with an odd case of stahl's ear and oculocutaneous albinism & she's trying to match him to early-aughts missing children's cases. and not having any luck there. for obvious reasons

so i started picturing a slightly more fraught conversation between her and luz.... camila being just as careful and loving as she always is, but also being like. I Really Do Need To Know Who This Specific Boy Is. and luz being like. i am not even Remotely well enough to explain my whole nightmare fantasy princess deal. even if you would believe me. which you Absolutely would not.

so camila is like. i've been trying to find his family but i'm having trouble....

and then when luz Freezes, she's like.

....he wasn't kidnapped, was he?

by which she means "if he's your captor's son then he's less likely to have been reported missing when locked with you in a torture basement. this has no impact on my feelings about him as a person but Does affect what kind of phone calls i need to make"

but what luz THINKS she means is "he was Clearly in on the abuse and i am Going to throw him out. and/or get him hurt by the human police."

and. to say luz would not respond well to this would be.... well. an understatement!

[cdroloisms]

I think Dream in prison was always going to go poorly because it would require Sam to be as infallible as Pandora's Vault itself, and he's not. He has way too much personal stake in what Dream is doing, and in trying to force himself to be an emotionless machine that abides only the protocol he became a hypocritical wreck that only indulged his vindictive emotions and spiraled out of control trying to keep the situation steady. That's not even addressing how keeping someone in the prison would never be ethical because it's a psychological torture box designed by the psychological torture guy

I mean, I can see the argument that it would've been hard to like. Not make Pandora's Vault unethical, considering the size of the server and the fact that he was the only prisoner etc leading to a situation where yeah, he would've been left alone for long stretches of time no matter what, solitary was kinda inevitable, etc. Like I can see an argument for that. But on principle I feel like the influence that protocol had on the prison arc and on c!Sam specifically tends to be heavily overstated...because a significant portion of the prison arc, honestly, is making the point that the protocol was entirely based on what c!Sam determined.

Like, sure, the prison was always going to suck. c!Dream was never going to come out from it entirely unscathed. But there's a huge fucking difference between what he was prepared for (isolation + shitty food for an unspecified amount of time) and what situation he ended up in (his life at the mercy of two people that showed absolutely no damn qualms about literally torturing him). I think it's very fair to say that yeah, c!Sam was far from an unbiased party, and he was very much emotionally affected to his detriment during the prison arc. But...ultimately? I feel like we really don't see c!Sam struggling to maintain protocol over the course of months only to slowly break down. I don't think we see him "snap" and "lose control." necessarily, in the way that people often act is the case. (The strongest argument, in my opinion, in favor of c!Sam being greatly affected by some stressor that then has him turn to extreme cruelty has little to nothing to do with the prison itself and more to do with his brief stint with the Egg, but with so little attention drawn to that as a cause in the story of the prison itself, I feel like this mostly remains in the realm of speculation.)

Like, if we look at the facts, c!Sam's behavior day one was already weirding people out. Day one and c!Dream is already throwing himself in lava and c!Sam does not seem to give a damn. Of course, both of their behaviors had a myriad of reasons behind them, but it's important to note that there's like literally never been a single moment in the prison arc where c!Sam hasn't been, like, off.

We never see any of c!Ranboo's actual prison visits, but we know these happened very very early in c!Dream's imprisonment and that they were terminated quite early as well, once c!Sam discovered c!Ranboo writing in ender in the prison contracts. However, considering how the inside of the prison was the same between his dream and the real world, it is reasonable to say that c!Sam's behavior in the dream could've also been taken from reality, and "he knows what happens [when he disobeys]" is a hell of a statement to make.

c!Bad's prison visit is when things seem to be seriously off. Even if you consider c!Dream's behavior in this stream as entirely an act, c!Sam is noticeably tense after the prison visit and very demanding about what c!Dream said once c!Bad leaves the cell. c!Dream commenting on food being withheld is consistent with what we know happened in the prison arc later on. c!Sam says that c!Dream has been tossing himself in lava for attention. Several comments are made about "behaving" and "behavior," c!Sam is looking into the installation of an automatic feeder, and visitation is facing restrictions.

Pretty crucially, we see that c!Sam is very comfortable with making changes to the prison. Major changes to the prison, even. Installing an automatic feeder isn't exactly an easy process? And it obviously wasn't outlined in any kind of preexisting protocol. But c!Sam is perfectly willing to change this, just as he's perfectly willing to make all kinds of rules on visitation and limiting visitation because of c!Dream's behavior, etc, (which can reasonably be inferred as not being preexisting rules because that would mean that c!Dream, who allegedly helped with the creation of all of these rules, would be intentionally sabotaging his chances of visitation...when he very evidently wanted people to visit? like sorry but that doesn't make any sense) because he's the Warden and therefore the sole authority of Pandora's Vault and allowed to do literally anything he damn well pleases.

Further, sure, c!Dream might be acting in all the prison visits. Sure, he might be acting In General during this time, etc. But despite disobedience (disobedience with the explicit expressed purpose of trying to get c!Sam to spend more time with him...?) I would hardly characterize almost anything he does during these early days as being anything for c!Sam to be reasonably vindictive over. Even if you consider hopping into the lava (something c!Sam could've solved literally as easily as just raising the netherite barrier), tossing the clock into the lava (also preventable if c!Dream can't access the fucking lava????), and a couple alleged escape attempts (the only one that we know of being him trying to use the lectern to create a nether portal, something hardly easy to do and an attempt that c!Sam very evidently put down quite easily)--like. I can understand him being angry because of what c!Dream had done in the past, and obviously being angry because of c!Dream telling him about exile, but c!Dream early on in the prison arc hardly behaves badly. (Not that bad behavior would justify abuse, but you know.)

By the time of c!Sapnap's prison visit, c!Dream isn't the only one acting weird. c!Sam is strange in ways that are never fully explained and uh heavily imply shady shit??? He's not abiding by protocol when he suddenly interrupts the process of helping a visitor out of the prison by forcing c!Sapnap to respawn in order to check on c!Dream for Some Reason. He's once again very persistent about the question of whether or not c!Dream "said anything" and then reacts strangely when c!Sapnap was able to get him to say a word. He's replaced like a quarter of the obsidian in the cell with crying obsidian, which again, is an instance of c!Sam making BIG changes to the prison without protocol or anything dictating his actions. At most you can maybe make the argument that he's being moved by the spirit of the protocol, that being security should be prioritized over everything (hence potatoes instead of steak, hence no courtyard, hence--in this case--crying obsidian to make the escape attempt ineffective) but it's clearly nothing that they explicitly wrote down.

Also, around this time (I forget the exact date) he explicitly bans c!Ranboo from visiting. Also something we can reasonably assume isn't something that was included in any protocol that c!Dream wrote considering his uh, vested interests in continuing to have an informant.

c!Tommy's visit and that ensuing debacle, of course, is one of the first times we see c!Sam clearly, explicitly acting AGAINST the protocol that was established. The protocol outlines that c!Tommy should have stayed in there for at most a week, and c!Sam explicitly denies him from leaving when the time comes??? Even if you argue that he's doing it "for security", he's doing it in a manner that is going directly against the letter of the law of the protocol that he created with c!Dream. This is a clear demonstration that c!Sam sees himself, and acts as if he is above the law of Pandora's Vault, because, of course, he is the law. He is the Sole Authority. He is the Warden, and he answers to no one but himself. c!Tommy's death obviously ensues in quite the emotional fallout for him, and wanting revenge on c!Dream for this matter motivates his actions later on in the arc...but it's important to consider that mistreatment beyond the scope of what c!Dream expected long preceded this point. c!Sam, immediately after c!Tommy dies, describes himself as thinking that c!Dream's will was too broken to do anything like that. Describes himself as having punished c!Dream in every manner that he could think of. He doesn't go in to feed c!Dream for WEEKS after c!Tommy's death, directly leading to c!Tommy himself being isolated and starved post-revival. He bans visitation. All of these matters hardly seem like matters that c!Dream would have included in the prison protocol that he created when he was planning to be put in that prison, where he specifically had a vested interest in keeping himself (and the book) safe + having, like, FOOD + being able to have visitors in a safe manner + NOT being abused?

And even if we dismiss all of this as c!Sam acting in the best interests of security because c!Dream told him that the security of the prison is more important than anything else (which, even though we know that c!Dream did have this perspective to some degree, still doesn't eliminate c!Sam's responsibility as the one carrying out the existing protocol and making all of these Big Decisions and Big Changes etc to the prison) -- the decision to let c!Quackity into the prison stomps on all of that. That decision completely goes against not only the letter of the damn law that they established together, but the spirit of what the prison was ever meant to be in the first place. He compromises the security of the prisoner and the prison on the DAILY by letting in someone in full gear! With items! And plays a game with chance with c!Dream's life (and the revive book) every damn day. He hardly had enough of a system in place to keep c!Quackity from taking c!Dream's life, and he was certainly unable to stop c!Quackity from landing what would've been a killing blow on c!Techno before he got tp-ed out, like. He completely fucks over EVERYTHING that Pandora's Vault was meant to be, and that was...entirely his decision. Sure, c!Quackity manipulated him, true, but he was not beholden by any protocol or any element of his duty when he made this choice.

This isn't to say that c!Sam wasn't very much emotionally affected and making clouded judgements--he was! Especially if you factor in the stress of other events such as the Egg, etc. But I hesitate to ascribe any element of c!Sam's...c!Samness in the prison arc as him "cracking under the pressure," so to speak. The implications of mistreatment just start too early and are too calculated for me to say that he was simply reacting badly to stressors. I think he was absolutely trying his best to keep the situation "steady," in a sense, but keeping it steady never meant simply being an emotionless guardian to an impenetrable prison who couldn't cope as everything began piling up--keeping things steady, as early as that first month, meant breaking c!Dream into something docile. That was intentional. That was something he was making an active effort to do. Nor do I think that the claim that c!Sam was simply abiding by protocol holds any water, as I outline above: c!Sam has always acted above the protocol established in the prison to the point where even from the first time we see him acting as Warden during that first damn questionaire a specific point is made that he is the ultimate authority on the grounds of the Vault and his word is law. He acted within protocol when convenient to him and trampled over it when convenient to him, and I feel that people can overemphasize the role that protocol played in the decisions he made the same way that he himself did when he was shifting the blame of his own abusive actions onto c!Dream when he had the power, and always had the power, to amend the protocol established in any way he damn well pleased.

Of course, this isn't to say that the protocol was good. It, uh, wasn't--and plenty of people have criticized c!Dream for them even though the prison, as it ended up being used for his plans, was never anything more than a place for him to put himself because of the danger that the rest of the server presented, a base for him to hide in after the prison arc because of its security measures, and a "just-in-case" measure for them to hold their enemies if need be (which he never actually does, even when given golden opportunities to do so: inconsolable differences and the finale come to mind. Even if we're talking about his saw trap in the finale, the plan was to kill one and let the other go free (????????) while also giving them the exact items that could've easily been the keys to their escapes. after c!Tommy and c!Tubbo kill him. but I digress). But c!Sam goes so damn far beyond the protocol established by the "psychological torture guy" that he literally wasn't even beholden to when he was the Warden of the Vault on account of said guy being his prisoner. I don't really see any arguments about c!Sam's behavior having to do with him being too fallible of a man for the job he was given--he does exactly what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, using the job that gives him the power to do so. It's just that "what he wants to do" is not exactly what c!Dream had in mind when he and c!Sam were coming up with the plans for the prison and the protocol that they worked together to create because what he wants to do is, apparently, own a guy and keep him in his hell box. You know?

(i hope this didn't read too aggressively!)

[attleboy]

my dad just looked over my shoulder at my current drawing and described it as ''a dragon and a potato with a pink hat'' 10 points if you can guess who he was talking about

if you guessed gangle and zooble [somehow] you'd be correct??? points can be redeemed in the giftshop that doesn't exist... anyway sneak peek

[vergess]

Oh my god they want trump to win I know this sounds conspiratorial but why do it like this if not to ensure trump fucking wins

[hl-obsessed]

for @luckyagain who's tags kicked my ass to work 💕

[click for better quality as always]

[synonymroll648]

"And she [Sophie] couldn't help noticing how good he [Keefe] smelled—like wind and salt air and something a little citrusy."

hey guys remember when on page 646 of stellarlune shannon confirmed that keefe is a bit fruity (/hj)