#but instead I'm scrolling

[timothyslucy]

i have this headcanon that like nancy in stranger things, lucy has an annual dinner with the west family every month since jackon's passing, and one day she's gonna show up with tim at her side, but this time they'll be bringing an extra guest to introduce to the party, *cough cough* their newborn baby.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

i think fandom spaces would become much more enjoyable across the board if people stopped flipping their pancakes over other fans enjoying characters that they don't like. or, god forbid, like them but in 'the wrong way.'

[communist-hatsunemiku]

so little update, my plan to regulate my adderall use and actually use my prescription as prescribed is going well and my time locking box has worked wonders. A side effect of me being actually properly medicated with stimulants means scrolling on tumblr like just my dashboard is actually so incredibly boring and really just makes me feel like im doing less than nothing. im like wasting precious brain processing power on stupid tumblr bullshit. Most discourse posts and all that shit is just irritating to read

[miskatonicuniversityalumnus]

Drew Kibi and his wretched family <3

[pocketgalaxies]

my board exam is tomorrow. everybody pray for me

[incorrectskyrimquotes]

I also have a loooot of thoughts about Eryn and Serana. Specifically how Eryn truly understands the confusion of waking up in a changed world that has to be explained to you. Eryn has no memory from before Helgen, and had to have everything explained to her. To such a point that she didn't know dragons aren't supposed to be there until someone said as much.

So when Serana is confused about the empire, about the world, about how much everything has changed, Eryn knows just how to handle that.

[unrealisticsunovabish]

I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not getting sucked back into the tadc fandom I am not-

[ehlnofay]

Efri knocks on the door, which she doesn’t normally do. It’s so ridiculously loud it feels counterintuitive – she takes a full minute and a fair bit of banging around to shove it open, so he can already hear her, no need for anything else. But this time she knocks.

This time is different. This time is a bit weird, because the Archmage invited her to visit.

Normally, she just barges in when she feels like it, whenever she’s got an hour or so to spare. To look at his magic-grown garden, mostly; it’s a good garden, bright and beautiful and impossible without whatever weird spellcraft set it in place, all kinds of plants with all different needs. Grapes that only grow in the Eastmarch Aalto, mushrooms that only grow in the belly of the earth, flowers that only grow in snow and lichen that only grow in swamps. It shouldn’t be able to all grow together, and yet it does. It’s fascinating. And nice to look at.

So Efri comes to look at it. And sometimes – when the Archmage isn’t being too withdrawn and sulky – he tells her about it, about the care each plant needs, how he has to prune the bushes and pull the fjell’s weave out before it sprawls to take up all the space in the soil. He has gardening gloves, not soft wool like hers but dark leather with dirt streaking the seams. She’s seen him wear them three times.

Sometimes he’s not in the mood, and she looks in silence, and he pretends like she’s not there, and she pretends like he’s doing a good job at that. (He often looks over at her – she can feel his bleeding-red eyes on her back – and sighs, like the weird tired old man he is. She doesn’t acknowledge it.)

But this time he asked for her. Which, unless he’s got a new plant (unlikely) she can’t think of any reason for him to do. It isn’t as though they ever talk about anything else. But Mirabelle found her in the laundry room, pressing soap through Sissel’s favourite blanket because they’d used it for long enough it had started to smell funny, and she told her that Archmage Aren wanted to see her, and she wasn’t going to say no. She was curious. And besides, they’re a sort of friends, she thinks – even if he’s weird and sullen and almost two hundred years old, he still lets her wander into his room when she’s at a loose end, rifling through his things like a careless wind and peering wide-eyed at his garden. He still sits down and talks to her about it, sometimes. So Efri knocks, and waits, uncomfortably, to hear a response.

There’s a faint, “Mirabelle?” through the heavy wooden door. Efri sighs, because she knows he can’t hear her.

“Efri,” she calls back.

A pause. Then, “Ah,” a little louder, and he’s pulling the door open, which is a nice change. That thing is enormous. Hurts her arms to shove at.

Still weird, though.

The Archmage stands, a hand on the door’s fancy-looking knob, wearing his hood again. There’s no rhyme or reason as to when and where he wears that thing, it seems. He took it off on the ramparts, out in Winterhold’s eternal blizzard; he’s put it on now, in his own too-lavish room, where he sits and reads and looks at his plants.

He doesn’t say hello.

“Hi,” Efri says, because she is polite; she ducks under his arm and stands in his little entrance hall, on his nice smooth blue rug. “What did you want?”

“What did I –” the Archmage says; there’s a brief flash of the eyes as he turns, the glow of the mage-lit sconces reflecting off his irises. “Ah. Nothing in particular. Do you mind if I go tend to the garden?”

Efri squints at him. (He’s being strange. In a different way to usual.) Suspiciously, she replies, “All right.”

So he turns and goes. His quarters – spacious and lavish like a jarl’s longhouse – don’t punch the breath out of her like they did the first few times she saw them, but they’re still a lot. The magic lights, the near-glow of the threads of the rugs, the smooth beautiful wood of the furniture. It’s more’n two times the size of Efri’s old house, and that’s before the dragon burnt it down. It’s all full of books and knick-knacks in a way that makes her almost envious. And of course it has the garden; there’s not words for how wonderful the garden is.

The Archmage crosses the floor with neat, steady steps, one hand tugging on the hood of his mantle. His gardening gloves lay creased on a little red-wood desk; he pulls them on and marches over to the garden without so much of a glance.

He shakes, a little, as he crouches down on the edge of the stone steps so he can reach the dirt. Maybe he’s a bit cold – it’s never quite warm in here no matter how the fire burns. Or maybe his knees are aching and weak. Efri understands that old people get that, sometimes.

(She still doesn’t know why he called her here; doesn’t know why he’s not telling her. She doesn’t believe it’s nothing; he’s never done it before, usually seems vaguely put out by her presence, even if it’s in a way she can tell isn’t entirely genuine. If it was something silly, like wanting someone to talk to about a problem with the plants, he’d either wait for her to visit on her own time or just say so.)

(But she often doesn’t understand quite why he does the things he does. So she doesn’t know.)

He stays quiet, and Efri thinks she recognises this quiet – if she talked at all right now, he wouldn’t hear it. Lost inside his own head. She squints at him for a moment, looks around the room; her eyes fall, after a moment, on the polished surface of the desk. It’s cluttered with inkpots and paper and all manner of little mage things; laying open is a book.

Efri takes a step off the rug and onto the stone with a leather-booted foot. She isn’t quiet about it; the Archmage doesn’t notice.

She goes to look at the book.

It’s quite old, she thinks, though not as old as some of the texts in the Arcaeneum; the pages yellowed and wrinkled with time, the leather she can see of the cover soft and supple. The page it’s opened to is covered over with sparse text; handwritten, too, and rather messily. It takes some effort but Efri is able to make out a few words.

Only because they’re familiar, though; only because she’s spent the last few days peering over Sissel’s shoulder as she pores over volumes that might give them the information they need (while still being succinct enough as to be comprehensible). Chapters of histories of the magical institutions of the world with only the vaguest descriptions of the ideas and practices of the Psijic Order; old College record-books that say nothing about an Augur.

On this wrinkled page Efri’s eyes, skimming over the small collections of words in a crisp, crabbed hand, lock onto the familiar shapes of Artaeum – of Psijic – of Winterhold. There are a few other capitalised words that look like names, though none of them mean much of anything to her. Deneth. Antilion.

Efri glances back at the Archmage, who is still crouching on the edge of the garden patch. His arms are limp by his sides, hands spread out on the stone.

She takes the book. (It might be relevant! She’ll give it back later!) She’s got no pockets big enough to put it in, so she hurries back over to the little entrance area and slips it under a dresser. She’ll take it out on her way out – have Sissel help her look through it for anything about the Augur they’re supposed to find or the strange mages they’ve been contacted by – and bring it back, later. No harm done.

The Archmage is still staring at the garden like it’s telling him secrets. She pads over to him on her toes, quiet as a mouse. Even when she’s standing over him, practically looming, her skirt definitely in position to be within the edges of his vision, he doesn’t turn. He’s like this, sometimes. Makes it easier to look through all his stuff without him complaining; makes it harder to talk, if Efri’s in a chatty mood, or to figure out what it is he wants.

Efri waits a few seconds – just to make sure – before she nudges him with her foot.

He startles, whole body twitching under the loose grey cloth of his robe. He looks up.

Efri says, “Are you going to tend the plants?”

The Archmage blinks. “Of course,” he says; his tone is somewhere between curt and bemused. “I was waiting for you to come over here.”

His eyes are fixed on some point on the ceiling, or on the shift of Efri’s mantle. Efri eyes him askance. “Well, I’m here now,” she tells him, like it’s not obvious, and kicks him gently one more time for good measure.

“Don’t,” he says. He doesn’t snap – still talks soft. Efri looks at him even more askance, but he’s already looking away, over his mage-lit bed of plants. They look good, as neat and cared-for as ever, though one of the hardy little bushes is growing more arms than it really needs and the gnarling rock-roots are beginning to drown out the little flowers – the ones that look like goatweed. A garden like this – miraculous, impossible, meddling – takes a lot of maintenance, especially when you’re not a plant-wizard, which, Efri has learned, is a real thing; there’s a surprising amount of plant-based spells, and in Morrowind the wizards actually grow big mushrooms to live in. But neither she nor the Archmage are much good at plant-spells; they have to do it all manual.

Mostly manual. The Archmage raises a hand; Efri watches as ice gathers in the air before his fingers, glittering in the magelight like a sharp-cut diamond (or like the ink-print drawings of them; Efri’s never seen one in real life). With a flick of his wrist he sends it scattering in jewel-bright drops over the patch.

(Efri would have had to get a watering can. Or rig up some complex irrigation scheme. Doing it with magic feels like cheating.)

But it is pretty. “Pretty,” she comments, because if she doesn’t, she is mostly sure the Archmage will forget she’s there.

His fingers curl. “Thank you,” he says. Frost begins creeping over his palm, piling itself on like a gentle drift of snow. After several seconds of him casting in silence and her watching in silence, he speaks again. “That was… a strange incident, the other day. Very strange indeed.”

Ah. The incident.

(The unfamiliar mage that appeared out of nowhere – offering no explanations, would speak to nobody – demanding to see the College’s youngest, newest member. A mage from some important society, no less; magical societies are hardly Efri’s area of expertise, but from the way that both the Archmage and his Advisor were falling over themselves to accommodate his bizarre requests it must be really important. And then they’d messed it all up by insisting that Efri and Kazari go as well as Sissel, even though he only asked for Sissel; and then he stopped time to talk to them and vanished into thin air as soon as he was done. And Kazari said they shouldn’t tell anyone about it.)

(That incident.)

“Mm,” Efri says in vague agreement. (Kazari said she shouldn’t tell anyone about it. And they made fair points. If the not-ghost had wanted the Archmage to know he would have brought him into the fold; Efri and her friends don’t even know what they’re doing, much less who they can trust about it.)

“Very strange,” the Archmage repeats. He curls his hand into a fist and the gathered snow seeps out of it. “And after all these years – he just leaves.” He looks back, the lines of his face stark in the glow of the magelight and the shadow of his hood, his eyes apple-red, and asks, “Do you think we offended him?”

Normally, the Archmage talks kind of blank. Dispassionate. Borderline lofty, borderline lordly, sometimes. This is not that.

(Efri can’t place what it is instead, but it’s not that. She bites the inside of her cheek.)

Affecting a shrug, Efri says, “How should I know? I didn’t talk to him.”

“Hm,” the Archmage replies, and turns back to the garden, a grey silhouette against the colourful shock of the plants.

“He seemed weird,” Efri offers, which is true. (Both versions of events make him seem weird: his cryptic warnings and his cryptic-er silence.)

The Archmage, shoulders slumped, repeats, “Hm.” There is a quiet moment. He says, “Would you like me to show you how to prune the canis root?”

Efri says, “Sure.”

So the Archmage steps into the garden, bare-footed on the sparse patches of free, damp soil. His toes must be very cold. He crouches down, knees clicking as he does – moves to the side of the plant growing sharp and sprawling out of the rock so Efri can see what he’s doing – and unsheathes a wicked little blade that winks in the magelight. He sets a hand on one of the dry, quavering roots (no, Efri notices – the root is still, it’s his hand that trembles) and positions the knife.

A quick, neat slice, right below the bud, to keep the root small and contained, else it might crawl over the rocks and strangle out everything else in the garden. The pruned-off root rests in the Archmage’s palm. He curls his fingers around it; Efri can see the leather of his gloves crease.

“Efri,” he says, sudden. Magelight runs like waterfall rapids down the grey wool of his back, the heavy fold of his hood. “Be careful.”

She’s not the one with the knife. She doesn’t know what he means. But the tremor in his hand is rattling his whole arm up to the shoulder, now, and he still sounds strange. A hundred years younger, maybe. Or much, much older.

“I know you think you’re on the edge of something great,” he goes on, that strange quality to his voice. He sounds like the pruning knife, like ocean storms, like old stone. “You’re curious. You want to know.”

Oh.

“You want to know, too,” Efri says, hand fisting in the pilling warm wool of her skirt. She feels defensive, though she’s not entirely sure of what. “And it’s important. It –”

His shape against the blossoming garden shifts. “Maybe,” he says. “Maybe it is. Maybe you are.”

He turns, then; his face stark blue-grey as the ancient stones, and Efri is suddenly, deeply certain that he has been in the College for aeons. He has never left this room. For a moment, all its luxury feels gossamer-frail; the air is heavy as ash and she is choking on it. She can make out nothing in the lines of the Archmage’s face. “Your great discovery,” he says, and it’s like a recitation. “Think about what it’s worth. Think about what it isn’t.”

In the main hall of the College, far below, the Eye of Magnus rests atop a streaming blue-light font. It spins, and spins, and spins.

“You’re being weird,” Efri tells the Archmage of Winterhold, and his lips flatten.

“Think about it,” he repeats with the distant finality of a bell’s toll, and he slices through another grown-out root, sap sticking bloodily to his blade.

[jenhoneys]

so so tired of the debate of "powder would have been better off with vi as a caregiver" "no silco was better for her" like, no no! any way it goes, ALL of them loose -- there is no winning in this situation especially for power. this is the point! they are lower class people fighting to survive within a system that hates them and the result of that is rage and fighting that means everyone experiences loss; there is no vi/silco is better for powder, they would have both been detrimental to her growing up because of the elements around them -- without their traumas, outside environment, etc, yes they would be better and loving, but the fact is that they are both incredibly complex characters that work through their issues in flawed ways.

you don't think vi would have tried to fight the enforcers/silco post-warehouse? by this time, she is a tween, she's just lost her family, and she is so extremely full of rage. killing is a cycle, and at this point, vi hasn't learnt to control her rage the way vander does -- both vi and vander are full of love and full of anger, but vander only realises it needs to stop when it hurts someone he loves/he hurts someone he loves. and even though she did hurt powder, because vi is so young, I don't think she'd learn that so quickly -- she's just a child, she isn't equipt to deal with caregiving 24/7, no matter how good she seems at it, she's not equipt to deal with powder's episodes (which I believe would still occur -- more on that later) alongside dealing with her own anger towards silco/sevika/enforcers. plus, she'd be forced to take the adult role in that relationship, more than she already did, and it would be detrimental to them both, especially after experiencing such a trauma.

speaking of, I also think people blaming silco fully for jinx's mental state is assigning him too much credit -- he very much feeds into it by encouraging her paranoia (though I don't believe he does it intentionally, because he doesn't seem to be aware of the voices or taking inventory/staying updated with them as he does other things), but he isn't the cause. she isn't depicted using shimmer, and the same animation effect is already used when she was younger, before she lost her family, the loss of her family (and the realisation that she did it) just worsens her condition.

and with silco, though he loves her more than anything, he is an enabler, and he is also riddled with his own trauma. he maps his trauma onto her, and she inherits a kind of pseudo generational trauam by default. he is paranoid of people, of trusting, of lies, because of how he was hurt by vander, and so jinx has the same mentality. he believes he only has jinx in the world, and so jinx believes the same. he is not equipt to deal with a child, either, and yet he does because she is a child of someone he loved -- and while he seems to have done a good job in the other universe, the main difference is that vander is there, and vander is forgiven. he has worked through his trauma, assumably, with another adult, and he hasn't given it to jinx. he also doesn't seem to be co-dependent with her, because he seems to have other people he trusts in his life (mostly, from the scene in 2×7, vander).

[memento-morri-writes]

TBR Tag Game

I'm hopping on an open tag from @tc-doherty to share 9 books I read this year, and 9 books I'm hoping to read next year.

Read This Year:

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (also read the first book)

The Spirit Well by R.K. Ashwick (@ashen-crest)

The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

Snowblooded by Emma Sterner-Radley

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune

The first 5 were my favorites of the year (in no particular order), and the rest were honorable mentions.

Hoping to Read Next Year:

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

A Captured Cauldron by R.K. Ashwick (@ashen-crest)

Voyage of the Damned by France White

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Strictly No Heroics by B.L. Radley (@radley-writes)

The Quicksilver Court by Melissa Caruso

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

I don't have a 9th I'm super excited about, despite having more in my TBR, so 8 will have to do. I'm most eager to read the top row, but I'm excited about all of them!! I do really want to re-read the Gentleman Bastards series, though... I need to read about the original Idiot Bastard Man (affectionate).

Tagging @transmasc-wizard @space-writes @writeouswriter @cryptid-s-wips @emrowene @talesofsorrowandofruin

[call-me-copycat]

I find out BNHA is trending through a Disco Elysium post... -⁠ᄒ⁠ᴥ⁠ᄒ⁠-

[the-party-of-losers]

hey so. can people tag these AI generated Byler kisses with an AI-related tag please? even if you're just reblogging them?

I'm genuinely so so SO glad that so many people seem to be getting much joy from these creations, but AI generated videos in general make me PHYSICALLY uncomfortable. I'm honestly not sure why, I'm guessing it's an uncanny valley thing or possibly a sensory thing (I have the 'tism), but it truly doesn't even matter if it's my favourite boys kissing, I literally feel nauseous when I see uncanny videos like this, and I've been seeing them a fair bit recently for obvious reasons

to be 100% clear, I'm not asking anybody to stop making them or sharing them, I am sincerely so glad that they can bring people happiness! I only ask, if you see this, to tag them with some kind of AI-related tag so I don't see them from now on

[jackabbot]

mutuals who put shows i've never heard of on my dash i love you <3

[humlase]

Being a little over halfway through the golden raven I've now started a fun new game called 'will opening this spoilered post show me some fun commentary about a scene I've read or will it shoot me 7 times?' Part of this game is seeing if I can scroll away fast enough once I realize it's the latter. Weirdly high success rate so far.

[blinkees]

guy lapointe anon from previous ask here i am SOOOOOO sorry for the text wall but I felt like "guy lapointe monolgue transcript" was too vague.

[junkyardisles]

actually change of pace, doodle reqs closed but i am a character design guy and @/redsea8me's design prompts got my brain cogs going a bit so i'm plagiarising the og post that i'm plagiarising u gotta open a new tab baby!! (go rb the designs they made while ur at it)