#goodbye for the moment!

[blackbutlercharacterpoll2023]

At last, it's time for the final awards to be doled out to those who deserve them more than anyone! It's our

As you may imagine, the Most Adored awards go to characters who received the most "Like" and "Love" votes combined. Let's start with our 10th, 9th, 8th, and 7th most adored characters first!

10th place - Tanaka (293 votes) 9th place - Ronald Knox (318 votes) 8th place - Sebastian Michaelis (321 votes) 7th place - Bitter Rabbit (337 votes)

And now...

6th place - Soma Asman Kadar (343 votes) 5th place - Finnian / Finny (355 votes) 4th place - Mey-Rin (374 votes)

And proving that Tumblr really treasures animal characters, our third place is the one Sebastian would have put in first if he could:

3rd place - "Her" (394 votes)

Next is the one who ended up not changing from Yana's Devil's Six, the sonboy of all time, the oister boyster, it's-

2nd place - "Ciel" Phantomhive / O!Ciel / Our Ciel (454 votes)

And finally... You know her... You love her... or at least the majority of you do... She needs no introduction but she'll always deserve one, just like she deserves her own cover... It's our first place winner-

-with 539 votes! For her, I'll bring out my shitty editing skills - I'm only sorry I couldn't do better, because she surely deserves to wear this ribbon. You're the lady of our hearts, Grelle! We can't wait until you come back in the manga and we can see you in all your glory again. Congratulations on being this poll's favorite Kuro character!

And thank you again to everyone who participated in the voting! This took more than two months to plan and execute and it's amazing to finish it up, but it never could've happened without you. Happy 200th chapter! Let's keep going strong, Kuro fandom!

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Soup solves everything.

[theorangepdf]

the feeling when you’ve gotten used to a lyric or a quote or a poem but then you read it again one random day and suddenly it focuses and then explodes into meaning

[byfulcrums]

Most straight relationships in media: “Even though there's no development and no chemistry and we don't look like we love each other that much we'll date because we're straight and that's what we're supposed to do. Right??”

Most queer relationships in media: ���If saving you is a sin, I'll gladly become a sinner.” — “Dying together also included a ‘together’.” — “You changed my destiny from the moment we touched.” — “I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” — “The hero and the warrior were like the sun and the moon...”

[dirtgrubber]

there were bugs in the vents again…

from the lovely @morningstarwrites amazing fic Of Saints And Sinners

[traf-gorbaf]

And for a fortnight there we were together….

[reunitedinterlude]

we all knew it wasn't a hiatus

happy one year since dapg returning <3

[justsomedumbstuff]

“He’s just like me fr” taken to catastrophically unhealthy levels.

[ruporas]

kiss the pain away

[dokjaism]

“Akira... why am i the only one talking?”

[tedlebred]

i'm so sorry

[katerinaaqu]

Isn't it freaking adorable how both Odysseus and Penelope could remember down to exact detail what clothing she had packed for Odysseus before he left for war even 20 years later?!

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

And she packed them herself. She didn't use the help of any servant or slave to do it. She wanted to prepare her husband herself. What is even more is that all the clothes were of vibrant colors which had me thinking;

What if Penelope deliberately prepared vibrant colored clothes for Odysseus solely so that she could see him from afar for as long as possible?! And man I can so imagine her doing the same! Like standing on the top of the hill where the palace is, wearing a vibrant dress that floats in the wind, holding baby Telemachus in her arms and watch Odysseus's bright tunic on the ship and Odysseus turning his head to look up at that aetherial figure on the hill almost leaning over the ship to see her JUST FOR A LITTLE LONGER until he cannot see her anymore and this is where he keeps looking at his island becoming smaller and smaller to the horizon, shedding tears of goodbye

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Man ninjas are cutting onions around me again!!!

[solarisfortuneia]

— 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬.

and the smell of camphor dancing in the wind.

✦ info: he didn't know he'd lose you so soon. (come back, please. even if it is just for five more minutes.)

✦ featuring: alhaitham.

✦ warnings: angst, character death (reader), heartache, 1.2k words, somewhat proof-read.

✦ notes: i cried so goddamn hard writing this. why is my first work after hiatus pain. why did i pick up the angst wip. but!! i'm writing again, so that's good. (more notes at the end.)

he didn’t know that it was your last day together. 

he didn’t know that the smile you gave him that afternoon, your eyes sparkling like sunlight upon the serene waves of the ocean, would be the last he’d ever see. that the playful light in your gaze would fade so very soon, slipping through his fingers like sand.

he didn’t know that last night would be the last time he held you close while you drifted off to sleep. he didn’t know that today would be the last time he’d wake up with you.

he didn’t think he’d lose you like this. 

he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to save you from that blow. 

“please, please,”  he begs, both to you and to whatever force that is just barely holding you together. “just stay with me for five more minutes, please. until i can get you somewhere.” 

the rain soaks him to the bone, clothes and hair sticking to his skin. your lips stay motionless, eyes shut.

“wake up, please,”  he bargains. “you can have all the five minutes of extra sleep you want later, i promise. just—”  his vision blurs, and something shines on the ground before it is gone, swallowed by damp earth, lost amidst drops of falling rain. 

desperately, he tears off parts of his traveling cloak to staunch the bleeding. deep inside, he knows it is futile. he knows your wound is too great. he knows what lies ahead. but he cannot help but press the cloths to your wound and pray. 

please, please tell me it’ll be okay. 

please stay with me, beloved. i’ll read you all the books in the world. i’ll sleep in with you everyday, even if we end up whiling away our time. 

please. stay. stay with me. i can’t lose you yet.  

“— just wake up, beloved.” 

by some miracle, your eye flutters. just a bit. just enough to set hope ablaze, just enough for the grip on his heart to loosen a tiny bit. he buries his face in your shoulder, resting his head against your neck, uncaring of the blood that stains his clothes. your blood. on his clothes. his hands. everywhere. 

no. no. this can’t be happening.

he feels you strain beneath him, your unwounded arm gently, weakly brushing his back. he jolts upright, eyes trained on your face. you send a frail smile his way. he clasps your face softly as you nuzzle into his palm.

“alhaitham—” 

his full name. archons, how long has it been since you called him that?  

“— take good care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, chest heaving, your fingertips touching a tear on his cheeks. “i love you. so much.” 

those are the last words he hears fall from your lips. he presses a kiss to your forehead, to your eyelids, and to your cheeks and to your lips, over and over and over until he feels your breath slow, hoping they’ll say what he knows he cannot manage to choke out.

i love you. 

he stays there next to you for who knows how long, holding you until the rain slows and a faint rainbow smiles in the sky.

until he can’t smell camphor anymore.

—

every person has their curiosities. 

they’re just the little traits that set them apart from others, the things that make them tick just a little bit differently, the things that make them, them.

for instance, someone may be obsessed with collecting tiny furniture, while another eats the crusts off their sandwich before actually consuming it. someone may have an affinity for the most niche aspects of linguistics, while another can accurately predict the next raindrop that slides down a window pane.

after all, no two people are exactly alike, are they?

alhaitham knows he’s got his fair share of these curiosities himself. his aversion to soup and all things that resemble it, to name one. and with you, he’d noticed two things. 

number one: the scent of camphor that seems to linger on every inch of your person. 

he’d caught whiff of it almost immediately the first time you met. you were but one of his juniors in the akademiya, filled with bright-eyed curiosity and anxiety to match. you had tripped over a stair and bumped into his table in the library, bringing the mountain of books in your arms crashing down.

and with subsequent coincidental meetings, he learnt that the subtle scent of camphor dancing in the air meant you weren’t far away. 

you were, unfortunately, one of the poor souls who seemed to be cursed with constantly recurring minor illnesses, and almost always walked about with a stuffy nose. and so, you always carried a small disc of camphor in a handkerchief, as well as in your pocket.

you swore up and down, left, right and center that sniffing the vapors helped make breathing easier.

‘it’s my grandmother’s remedy, alhaitham! camphor always works wonders. well, that and eucalyptus oil.”

alhaitham may not know the validity of your claim or the legitimacy of the cure, but he knew to never, ever question a grandmother’s remedy. that, and he’d much rather refrain from starting a back-and-forth about something so small.

and number two: your neverending pleas of different variations of ‘just five more minutes!’ 

“five more minutes, ‘haitham. please.” you’d whine grumpily when he woke you up to start your day. “let me sleep in for five more minutes.” 

“five more minutes, habibi,” you’d ask when he put down the story you’d requested he read out to you before bedtime. “read me the part where she finds the music box?”

“five more minutes, baby,” is what you’d tell him when he asks how much longer you’d take getting ready. “you can’t rush perfection!”

those five more minutes were never five minutes long. 

but he’d always, always indulged you and those pleading eyes of yours. as stoic as he appeared to be, you lived in his heart. of course he could never deny you anything under the sun.

—

alhaitham remembers that silly little song you sang over and over, the one you’d learnt from a kid in the bazaar. he’d taken you to see one of nilou’s performances, and, friendly soul that you were, you’d struck up a conversation with some of the eager audience members before the play. 

“oh, how i wish i was a bird flying free,

i’d see the world, every mountain and every sea!

oh, how i wish i was a cloud in the sky,

wouldn’t you like to wave to me as i pass by?”

you’d hum that rhyme on every idle afternoon.

loss is inevitable. he knows that, with how logical and rational and straightforward he is. he’d lost his parents, but he was far too young to remember. he’d lost his grandmother, but she passed in her sleep of old age, serene and wise.

but you? he didn’t think you’d leave him this soon. a singular wish sits in his soul, making its home in his bones. 

a wish that you’d come back, somehow. 

he wishes you gave him five more minutes, just as he always did.  but he knows that you could’ve given him five more hours, five more days, five more years and five more decades and it would still not be enough time spent with you. 

a blue feathered bird comes to perch on his shoulder, interrupting his musings just as he raises his face to the sky. he sees the heart shaped cloud that floats idly above sumeru city.

 he thinks of the rhyme again, and something in him tells him to wave. and so he does. a scent so familiar lingers, faintly brushing his nose in the wind that picks up.

“alhaitham, it's time to go.”  kaveh calls his name softly.

 alhaitham doesn't move. “five more minutes,”  he says, echoing your favorite phrase. “i smell camphor in the breeze.” 

✦ extra notes: my alhaitham characterization for this fic stems from how i believe that when alhaitham is attached, he's attached. so i focused more on that, and less of all that rationality and whatnot. this one loves deeply, yk?

that camphor thing is a real grandma remedy in our household (my mom would tie some in a hanky and put some under my pillow and still to this day reminds me to do it when i'm sick) which is what originally sparked the idea for this

when i'd initially started this wip, i didn't expect it go this way. usually i write with my brain, but i think i wrote this one with my fingers working faster than i can think hsjhsj so sorry if it's kinda out of place lmao but yk what? i'm happy with it still even though i feel like it doesn't have my usual quality.

thanks for reading.

[emmaziadarcy]

When you draw the Three of Cups, you will see three women lifting their cups up in the air in a celebration of some sort. Good times are in the air, for the three ladies have wreaths made of flowers in their hair. Wreaths are often associated with success and victory, so their happiness is well deserved.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo: No no no, Pac– Ok, listen… Have you ever heard of a game called City Skylines? It will change what it means to feel joy.

Pac: Wait wait wait wait– oh my god, you like City Skyline?

Tubbo: Holy sht, I love City Skylines! Have you played City Skylines?

Fit:

Tubbo reminds Pac you don't need drugs to be happy – all you need is City Skylines 2 (and a friend to nerd out with 😅)