#hope i live my life in sediment

[yewoart]

Look at his face!! It's such a strong face!!

hi do y'all mind if i misuse this blog entirely for a second. idk why i'm asking i don't actually care they found a new snake it's a New Snake we didn't know about this snake before!!!!

[deus-ex-mona]

s. s ave me, meoto…

[alex-fictus]

Here’s my best stab at a stromatolite! There’s many forms of stromatolites and internal structure patterns, I hope I did them justice.

Stromatolites are more a sedimentation structure as a result of a living thing, rather than a living thing themself. Cyanobacteria traps sediment into layers over time, resulting in a banded structure. They’re among the first signs of life on our planet and you can still find them being created today!

For the moment, I have them in my ediacaran group. Otherwise, I would technically have to give them a spot in every era of time!

Stickers || Phone Wallpapers Masterlist

[papaver-decervicatus]

Cat/Mouse/Den: Pt. 4, Mus Urbanus

Fatal attraction is one thing but stuck on a stakeout, a certain little mouse decides to push her luck with the cat who's been chasing her... just how far is too far, and how much more can they take?

CW: Obsession, stalking, canon typical violence, intrusive thoughts, unsanitary wound care

Authors Note: Hahaha, remember how I said I was going to do shorter updates? Yeah well, I felt really bad for missing the previous week but I did have a lot of terrible IRL shit happen, so working through that was a priority. That being said, going back through all the amazing comments and everything everyone has written has been absolutely keeping me afloat! Thank you all so so so so so much, you will never know how much it all means to me.

There are a couple of Hannibal references in this part that, hopefully, will start to make sense by the last part of the story (which was, coincidentally, the first part written!) Not going to lie, I am just glad to publish this so I never have to think about this damned part again as I have been stuck on in for literal months. Also sorry if Soap's accent sucks, the only experience I have with anything remotely Scottish in the way of language tendency is my grandmother whose father was a Scottish immigrant and that's it.

Anyways, I hope you like agnst and interrogation scenes, because next week, König loses his faith in god and in mouse while tied to a chair! See you there!

❣️Cura ut Veleas ~ Caedis 🥀

PREV | Pt. 4 Mus Urbanus | 4.2k words | Mouse POV | NEXT

“Mouse?” A voice from in front of her calls out, but only after she deliberately drags her feet into the threshold of the neutral ground, alerting him of her presence. 

“Quiet as a.” She utters her usual response, stepping into the little flat in Buenos Aries, Argentina. She hears the smile as Soap sucks in a breath at her little joke. Her callback should be old by now, shouldn’t make him smile anymore, but he does anyway. He’s easy to get along with, something hard to come by in war. She crosses the minimal space between the two and takes stock of his little setup. 

For a mission, it’s luxurious. He’s sitting, in a chair might she add, with a scope poking barely out of an antique window on the 7th floor of an apartment building, looking into a busy market square. His arms rest on a table littered with little signs of life, a map of the area adorned with notes and coordinates in inexpensive ink, no less than 7 pens whose caps are chewed through (everyone’s got bad habits but this little sin of his drives poor Price up and down the goddamn wall), two disposable cups with sediment rings denoting how much instant coffee was drunk from them at a time before they returned to their places besides their drinker. Most notably, however, are two radios in a strange moment of near fornication– backs ripped open and wires crossed in an almost pornographic display of field ingenuity. 

Damn demolition specialists, she hears the echo of Gaz say in her head and she absentmindedly rubs the scabbed over cut on her left hand where the shrapnel of a certain someone’s frag grenade got her two weeks ago. She wants to be mad but-

“Hear any good ones, lately?” Soap turns to her, he’s disengaging from his post, changing his guard for her to take his spot, just as command ordered. He’s been in this little nest for about 6 hours and she can feel his desire to scuttle and tinker about radiating off of him. As he takes apart his gun, already aware and familiar that she refuses to use anyone’s but her own, his eyes shine to life. The color of sky blue permafrost, yet they radiate a certain lived-in warmth impossible to distance yourself from. Eyes almost like-

She bites her tongue at the thought. Bad time to be thinking about König… she mourns. But, speaking of the man.

“Yes, but it’s bad,” she offers, in fake warning as she sheds her outer jacket before moving to unhook the case that stands between her and the assembly of her gun. She knows the warning will only intrigue the poor pyrotechnic more. 

His smile is nothing short of sadistic as he raises an eyebrow.

“No, like, really bad,” she emphasizes, throwing a pleading look his way. His grin gets even more shit-eating-er if that sort of thing were even possible. “I mean it, MacTavish. Pass it along to your long-suffering Lieutenant, and you will be picking teeth out of your shit.” “I’m sure I’ve done worse to Ghost,” he supplies, rolling his shoulders. Yeah, I’m sure you have, she thinks but is much too self-preserving to say, especially aware that the Frankenstien’s monster of a radio he’s resurrected from two dead circuit boards is likely not secure enough to promise any real privacy. She would rather not alert Simon Riley that she’s become a dealer in his and Soap’s arm’s race of terrible jokes. He does not take prisoners, after all… 

“Alright, alright, just don’t tell him it’s from me,” she smiles, putting her hands up defensively in a quick jest. “Okay, play along with me now,” he nods along as he steps away from the perch and lets her take his spot at the table. 

“So, what's the difference between a piano, a fish, and a gluestick?”

“I know about two-thirds o’ this one.” 

Mouse trap baited. She smiles.

“Give it a go, then.” She wiggles in the chair, pressing her cheek to the crux of the sight and its metal holder. She sighs into the familiar feeling of control that settles into her bones as she hunches over.

“Can tuna piano but’cha can’t tuna fish?” He supplies, half teasing her already.

“Yep, but you’re forgetting something.” She sighs and goes to fiddle with the red-light optics extension, Command is confident enough in her abilities that she was specifically told to take it off for this one. She hears Soap whisper a quiet ‘oh shite’ behind her when he realizes he probably forgot to himself and she laughs a little. 

“What about the glue?”

Mouse trap set. Poor Soap, always getting himself into ambushes…

She smiles wide and hums remembering how excited her kitty-cat was to tell her this part. 

“See, I knew you’d get stuck on that one.” 

Mouse trap sprung. A moment of silence.

“Oh fuck me, that one is bad.” Soap chokes out a hearty laugh as he collects his discarded coffee cups from her side.

“No thanks,” she purrs as she finally sets herself into position. “Use it at your discretion, soldier.”

“Aye, that I will.” 

Soap goes to rummage through the kitchenette to her right and she takes the moment she lacks supervision to indulge herself. She does not move her sights to alert the man with her of the wandering of her eyes, instead, she scans windows and alleys without visual aid. The stale air threatens to choke her as she rakes over the golden-hued morning scene with desperate efficiency. 

After what feels like an eternity of stolen glances switching between her targeted area and anywhere he may be, she sees him. 

Technically, she has no way to know for certain that it’s König, she doesn’t have his usual wave or cheeky grin (affectionately referred to as a Cheshire Cat Smile in her own belabored heart) to alert her to his presence. That being considered, there is a masculine figure barely peeking out of a window into an alleyway who is just shy of 7 feet tall and his face is covered. Yeah, probably König. She smiles despite herself and her company. She wonders if he has radio access to her little hideout. 

(She remembers the seemingly endless weeks of his arrival to her perch. The early morning light hits the streets the same way it had hit the forest ground that day. Like a fairy tale prince, beseeching a princess on hand and knee, he would always somehow appear in her sights, nearly as though it was just meant to be! 

His form stands out tall and proud from its surroundings and she recounts every single reason he should not be here. By the third time their eyes caught she’d decided he was doing it on purpose, but she never let him get away with it without some acknowledgment on her side. She can only imagine that if she’s getting hunted for sport, her calling out his position will, at least temporarily, halt his advance. 

But by this rate, she’ll be in his mouth by the end of the year. 

His eyes are cold and bloodshot red. Painted tears lick their way down the hood she’s never seen him without, possibly a feeble attempt at impersonality? Maybe if he looks enough like a monster people will just trust their first assumption and leave him alone. But she’s never been one to judge a book by its cover…

“I see you, König.” She warns out to him. He stills among the foliage, bathed in sweet-honey-like warmth from the rising sun. He does not shy away from his imminent death on the business end of her rifle, of course not! Instead, he raises his chest proudly, seemingly aware that the loneliness in her yields to whatever greater magnetism the loneliness in him commands. He’s an enigma, it bothers her that of all the people to put the effort into finding her, it has to be him. Mostly she curses herself for promising him a next time all those encounters ago, if she’d known what sort of a game it would inspire in the predator stalking her like prey despite her flipping sniper rifle, she never would have said a thing. 

He may be in her scope, but he’s got her under a finer microscope to seek her out so faithfully. She wishes she got this sort of dizzying devotion from someone, anyone else. It is the third day this week he has found her.

What she expects to happen is what has happened for weeks now, 1) he hears her transmission, 2) he smiles at her as a predator smiles at pray, his eyes find hers and her hackles rise in utter terror, and 3) he hums to himself and turns away, self-satisfied enough to have won hide-and-seek for the time being.

That does not happen. 

Instead, König sits down, right where he is, and pulls out that monster of a knife he keeps strapped to himself. He throws it up and catches it without looking at it, instead his eyes are laser-focused on Mouse. This is, of course, despite the fact he should have no earthly idea where she is. He plays with his knife idly for what must be an hour, but she does not- no, can not- look away from him.

She remembers her trigger finger twitching with sinful power, she remembers choking back the insistence at killing another lonely person, devoid of their autonomy on a basic level when they signed up for a mercenary-issued ticket to hell.

She remembers hopelessness. She remembers refusal. She remembers the smile reaching his eyes when she played along with his joke. 

“Why don’t rats like cats?” Her radio labors out. 

She half forgot what his voice sounded like, surprisingly excitable and shrill for a man of his stature. Her brain stutters around the implication of the only words she’s heard him say to her since the fateful ravine that gained Mouse her own personal 6’10” shadow. 

She blinks a few times in surprise, genuinely pondering if her long hours hiking through the woods have made her susceptible to hallucination and general hysteria. She is not thinking when she timidly responds-

“Why?” 

“Because they are weapons of maus-destruction.” Konig replies like it’s not the stupidest thing she’s ever heard in her goddamn life. Perhaps it's pity at the memory of his discomfort around his comrades. Of the thought of the way he tries to make his body so small when around others (truly an impossible task he routinely fails.) Maybe it’s irrational fear, twofold and buried in her instinct to shoot despite the clear disadvantage on his behalf and her insistence that she does not do her damn job, or fear of the inhuman man in front of her stalking her through the woods. Or it could be discomfort, no one ever prepared her for dealing with whatever the fuck this is in basic training or field school. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what it is.

In the sparkling, decadent light of a sunrise, her heart hammers in her throat at the first joke he’d told her, in some strange and desperate attempt to fill the meters of silence between them.

She laughs. 

And he hears it.

And with his wide stance, his ghastly executioner’s hood in the place of a crown, and his knife back in its holster- his beautiful eyes seem to smile. Suddenly, his eyes look lived in, like someone has just put up new curtains in an abandoned house. His whole affect changes hinging on what was an irresponsible outburst on her behalf at best.

And for the first time, she does not fear a monster hunting her through the woods, silent and purposeful in his pursuit of prey. Instead, she wants to understand a man, whose eyes have lit up like a princess has just laughed when he kissed her hand.) 

Soap wanders back into her small perch with two cups of coffee and sets one down next to her. She takes a quick glance and hums with appreciation. He takes another sip out of his and she remembers that they’re supposed to share shift for about an hour before his rotation ends.

“You treat all your girls to coffee in the morning?” She quips.

“Only the pretty ones,” he returns with an effortless charisma and her breath catches.

Not because of Soap, but because in that alleyway, where she really shouldn’t be looking, she sees the uneasy rise of two massive shoulders and-

Oh my god, did König just… get jealous? 

The next idea she has is downright evil, really this is not the place or the time or any of that but-

Fuck it. She’s already flirting with the enemy, what more could this do? She’s already told the poor mountain of a man something dangerously adjacent to “God I really missed you when we didn’t talk to each other for three weeks like a horny teenager and by the way I love you desperately and think about you when I’ve got my hands down my pants,” and she probably imagined him tensing up, anyways. No harm, no foul. 

Maybe, it's dangerous, to wave a steak in front of a mountain lion, but what if she wants to get mauled?

“Hey Soap, what page are you on?” She says, putting her terrible plan into action. She sees him look up from his report, or more likely an idle sketch, on her periphery. 

“Ah, only the second chapter, did'ya move my bookmark?”

“Nope, the book’s in the leftmost pocket in my duffle.”

“Thank ya,” He says and moves from his spot to go fetch the book from it. She takes a quick sip of her coffee, delighted to realize he’s made it to her specifications as far as milk and sugar go, as he rummages around in her bag.

The impromptu book club started nearly eight months ago when Nova passed her copy of Emma by Jane Austen off to Gromsko to help him with his English. That turned into Mouse recommending the book Jane Eyre to Nova on the pure suspicion that she would hate it, which she did. Gromsko still needed to practice and enjoyed the spirited discussions so he joined the blossoming group with an English copy of The Doll by Aleksander Głowacki after he finished Jane Eyre. Never one to be left out, and surprisingly well-read when he wanted to be, Soap had pitched the idea of The Lord of the Flies (because to quote “Fucking Brits,” and he wanted to subject others to his high-school reading list.) If she remembered correctly, Farah and Reyes had also started sharing copies of books they enjoyed occasionally.

“Can’t believe it was Gromsko that put it in rotation.” Soap says, pulling out a well-worn copy of The Silence of the Lambs from the bag.

“He said he picked it up years ago in Polish thinking it was a cooking field guide.” She offers, as the man next to her idly thumbs through pages.

“Yer shitting me, yeah?”

She just shakes her head and smiles into her scope. Soap laughs and removes his homemade bookmark, a pencil sketch of a stake-out view somewhere in Mexico scribbled onto scrap paper. He keeps his thumb on the page and flips through to where hers is, much further along.

“Yer a right romantic, ain’cha Bonnie?” Soap laughs somewhere between the pages and somewhere behind her. “Hmm?” 

“This part, that’ya highlighted,” she hears a well-meaning sneer in his words. “The one you put the hearts by and everything…”

Mouse’s mouth tethers itself into a terse line and she attempts her best noncommittal shrug. 

Somewhere in her line of sight, a mountain shrugs himself chuckling lightly. She wonders what it would feel like, to lay on his broad, muscled chest as he laughs, how closely he would hold her, how she could rest entirely on top of his chest and not touch the ground beneath them and-

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” She lies through her teeth. Soap’s laugh behind her is loud and proud. Suddenly, his casual sadism isn’t so amusing when turned around on her. 

“Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up—“ he reads from the book, voice dripping in mock chivalry and breathless romanticism. “About how you would taste?"

She feels her cheeks and ears heat up as Soap loudly proclaims her funeral to all those who may care, and she doesn’t miss the way König leans a little too close to his radio as he goes about mocking her. His stance shifts as if he hangs on the very words like he’s found a secret buried deep in her subconscious. Technically, she has no way of knowing, but Mouse knows in her heart that König is smiling. At least someone is having fun. 

Once Soap comes down from his laughing fit he puts her bookmark back to its spot and talks at the back of her head. 

“With your pressed flower bookmark and everything. Oh, it would be sweet if he wasn’t Hannibal the Cannibal.” Soap hisses out. “I always figured you were…” he pauses searching for the right word, “adventurous from how Gromsko talks bout ya, but seriously cannibalism?”

If she’s not mistaken, König’s hand grips ever so slightly tighter on the radio attached to the best. Maybe the battle plan has to change, but she’s still got some ideas. 

Soap is completely oblivious to the electricity licking up the air between her perch and one man on the ground. He looks around frantically, seemingly desperate to find her, and look in her eyes. Mouse is a sniper, she really should hate the attention, but something fatalistic descends into her smile as she lets Soap continue his little outburst. 

“I swear. You and him, yer sure there’s nothing there? He’s even given you special field medicine lessons, no one gets treatment like that from Gromsko.”

“His name is Sobieslaw.” Notably, it is not a denial. Technically, everything that’s just been said is the truth. 

König’s shoulders rise. 

He looks right down her site. 

She smiles. 

Come and get me, kitty-cat. 

“See! That’s what I’m talking about. You’re the only person who calls him by his first name.”

“Because you never put in the effort to learn it.”

“That don’t mean a thing since I don’t have tits.” 

“You do, just not as good as mine.”

“Aye, off it. Gromsko is into you.” She can hear from the way Soap’s voice carries haphazardly around the room that he is pacing and talking with his hands. She doesn’t turn her back, gaze still fixated on the looming shadow in her sights. Soap continues, entirely unaware of the exact type of beast he is tempting. “He swaggers around you, never even bothers to fucking ask to pick up your boxes, he just does it. His voice gets all soft around ya, too, like he’s cooing at a goddamn pet animal or something. He nearly got into an actual pissing contest with Ghost the other day when he bitched about you beating him in poker. Face the facts, Bonnie, he wants you.” 

König’s eyes have focused with the ferocity of an apex predator and his chest labors out concentrated and sharp inhales and exhales. He resembles a recently sharpened knife, desperate for some carnage after a particular kind of attention. His body is crumpled in on itself not unlike a cat getting ready to pounce. His heels dig desperately into the cobblestones beneath his feet. His hand flicks out his beloved Glock field knife with all the reverence of a praying man.

In short, he looks every part like he does in immediate battle. He looks like he did the split second before he started sprinting for her in the snowy woods, the scene that occupies her lonely nights when she tries in complete vanity to recreate the feel of his hands cradling her sides.

Mouse should be scared of König.

Instead, she sees before her a scene of complete and hopeless adoration focused so intently on her alone that she should be afraid of. Realistically, she recognizes the clear and present danger of the moment. Is König upset at her? At Soap? At a potential adversarial suitor by way of Gromsko? She doesn’t quite know, but after a career of intentionally hiding like a coward, she basks infatuated by the calamitous captivation he exhibits.

He looks like he wants to maul something to death.

As keen as she is on getting him close enough to try to get over to her (and ideally, throw her under him,) in her infinite mercy, Mouse decides the teasing has gone on long enough.

“I like Gromsko just fine, but not like that.” Soap audibly scoffs and König’s entire form relaxes. Both men mutter something to themselves before an encore of gunfire breaks out. Mouse’s heart stutters to a stop when her radio comes in.

“Visual on Gaz, he’s hit!” Nova calls out, clearly alarmed. Soap grabs for the radio right next to Mouse and brings it to his face, holding onto a few loose wires as he does to ensure the amalgamation does not fall apart in his fingers.

“Where is he?”

“Two blocks from south from you, Gromsko is a click out.”

Soap looks at Mouse with his heart bobbing in his throat. The pain and worry on his face is palpable.

“Go.” She says. Soap looks around frantically at their supplies, seemingly taking a split second worth of inventory, making as many life-or-death decisions as he can in such little time.

“Soap, listen to me,” Mouse soothes. “I keep overwatch, you take my TAC vest and stabilize him until he can get a medic.”

“Mouse, I can’t just leave you-” “You can, and you will. Go.” She says with all the finality of a door slamming shut. Soap doesn’t look at her again as he gathers her supplies and nearly sprints downstairs. 

Soap leaves. Quickly. Quietly. He never looks back.

Her stomach settles into discomfort and she looks through the door he closed with the same sad nostalgia she looked through falling snow and monumentous trees. She can’t help but think she would not get the same priority in Gaz’s situation. Like some terrible premonition, she imagines bleeding out on the ground as Soap turns away, never once looking back.

Would König come for me? She ponders, before she smothers the paranoia-induced delusion with the memory of his large hands on her sides. She looks down at her shoelace, where she carved a cylindrical hole through his effigy to attach it. The birchwood mouse carving that sleeps at her right toe gives a silent reassurance: he never really left you, did he?

By the time she looks back into her scope, in between the all-too-familiar white noise of war that’s broken out around her, she sees a shadow dart out from the alleyway one down from where König is. The figure is cloaked in the specific type of military fatigue denoting his affiliation, one that is unluckily for him, kill on sight. It ducks behind the building to the right, where König is. It stalks out, lining itself up behind the hooded man, brandishing a drawn pistol.

König doesn’t have the time to react to the blood spray that litters across his back from the other man’s head once Mouse pulls the trigger on her gun, silently thankful (as awful as it is,) that Gaz getting hurt allowed her to take the shot without Soap inquiring into her actions. (But maybe it’s her fault in the first place that König was distracted enough to allow someone to get the drop on him…)

König looks back towards her and his head lulls to the side like a heavy flower bloom weighed down by morning dew. His eyes, somehow the softest she’s ever seen, are also carving a large chunk of her soul like a knife cuts through soft wood. When he lifts his hood to blow a kiss to her, she knows she will never get her traitorous heart back.

“Danke, mein Engel,” the radio on her table whispers in his voice.

“It’s only fair. I did owe you, after all.” She responds, all together unconcerned with whether or not he can hear her. She smiles, thankful she can see those bright eyes another day. 

When he turns away, she feels her entire heart walk away with him. With every step of his fleeting form, she feels less and less herself, as though someone had separated her shadow from where it meets her feet. Something has changed in the air between them, a sad resignation settles into her trigger finger when she releases it.

For the first time, she does not feel as though she wouldn’t run if he took her, but rather that some integral part of her is with him as he leaves. 

All is fair in love and war, but she’s not sure just how much longer she can stand to play cat and mouse.

taglist!

@kneelingshadowsalome @sprout-fics @bucca2 @dead-cipher @gallowsjoker @lostagoodcigar @berryjuicyy @haisebo @crowbird

And special thanks to @bucca2 and @ivymarquis for finally kicking my ass into gear to write this. Can't wait to read yall's WIPs!

[throughmindfog]

unfit

i claim to like art, but my imagination still doesn't go beyond small huts and sun rising from the mountain valleys only capable of replicating art, i still struggle to put on the paper what i see will i forever be trapped in the mind of the toddler i used to be i wonder if i'll ever amount to something bigger than me i feel so much but what good is it to feel i begin to write it all but forget wherever to take my pen's streak everything initiated with a dream, yet everything i started remains incomplete am i itching to reach beyond my capabilities? is this too much for a small human like me? will i remain in this loop, stuck as a dreamer who could never flee? over the years, "i must be unfit for this world" is what i perceived some days it is so hard to breathe, tell myself i can try again, and make peace with failure being my shadow as i approach my 30s my life feels futile and i simmer myself in pity perhaps i am not an artist after all, i just wanted to be growing up reading literature shouldn't have to give me literary expertise enjoying numbers needn't give me an understanding of infinity just as living through my teens didn't give me hope for my 20s

this predicament is never-ending in every field, i tread the same journeys so many ways i'm always lacking my results and i never agree maybe i'm not satisfied with anything, but there's things that i seek i never thought improvement to, one day, succeed would be that impossible a feat but i'll start again this week let this layer of my disheartened soul peel try again and struggle against the breeze, as the same pain sediments on top of me by the end of the next week

[kalevalakryze]

The Seeds We Sow

The fic + art collaboration Art completed by @mirandemia for the @ahsokaevents Wildflowers collab! Find it on AO3!

Sabine Wren + Ahsoka Tano The soil was warm under her hands; Freshly turned and clumpy where she uncovered it from the ashen tones of the earth. “Life finds a way.” Ahsoka had told her upon setting out on this task. The water source wasn’t too far away, a still pool with sediment floating in the murky water. 

“We can get this cleaned up, can’t we Asha?” She called to the howler, snuffling through a patch of stubbornly prevailing grass nearby. She did not receive any response from the peculiar creature, though it was nice to have her to bounce ideas off of. 

The Noti had given her the scraps from an older trawler, dragged each time they moved to limit waste, carrying broken vaporators, gears, and even old power packs to blasters that must have been acquired from Thrawn’s troopers. At least she didn’t need to lug it too much further than their current campsite to get it near the water supply.  “Let’s see what we can do,” The Mandalorian talked aloud, boots crunching over the crumbling outer layer of the planet’s crust. 

First, Sabine grabbed old pipes from blown cooling systems, using her hands to dig out four long rows in the dirt, exposing nutrient-rich soil to the sunlight above. “Bet you guys missed the sun just as much as I do,” She chuckled warmly to a squirming lifeform. “You kinda look like an exogorth. Can I call you Exo?” The pad of her thumb brushed along the sliminess of the creature's side, laughing warmly to herself when it squiggled away. “Alright, Exo. I’m sorry I gotta move you, but hey, you keep pests away from my seeds, and this can be a mutually beneficial arrangement, got it?” 

The creature was set inside of a pile of upturned dirt, where it happily burrowed itself to be rid of the humanoid that dared interrupt its rest. 

Building the irrigation system was nothing new to Sabine Wren; In fact, it was something she understood almost as well as mixing her explosive paints. Back when rebel holdouts needed crops, she was often the one counted on to help them get started, and it was always something that helped her feel useful. 

A Mandalorian could destroy, and conquer, and a million other destructive things, but she was put in this Galaxy for more than that. She created, and saved, she strived every day for as long as she could remember to embrace her Mandalorian heritage, to be everything her ancestors could have wanted, and then some. 

It was through her continued work every day that she honored the patron of her House, Tarre Vizsla, it was through her dedication to her people that honored her Clan and the lives they’d once lived, and it was her determination that honored the Rebellion she’d spent so long fighting for. Everything she did was for her family, and right now? That family was found in Ahsoka and the Noti. 

Her purification system was simple in design, and it required the sacrifice of a power pack from her blaster to generate enough of a spark to keep the miniature solar array working. She could return with a new source for it one day, for when the sun grew dim and the gears needed to turn. For now, the blaster she’d painted in the blues of reliability and royalty was dismantled under a caring hand and slotted into the home of the system. 

Clean water trickled slowly with a quiet whir of machinery, sucking the water through and filtering out sediment as it pushed along the rows of water she’d dug out. “Hey, we did it,” She called to Asha, now dozing lazily in her interesting patch of grass. “Thanks,” She laughed, bubbling like the carbonation in The Outlander Club’s specialty beverage, warmed by the lull of a punk tongue hanging lazily past yellowed canines. 

With dampened soil, Sabine was able to meticulously lay each seed; They were from her Galaxy, so there was no telling if they would take to their new home, but she had hope, and she’d learned long ago just how far a little hope could stretch. Then, the compost that had been saved up was spread evenly over the rows, pressed in lightly to allow for the sprouts to push past without much resistance, though would not risk being washed away when the drought on this side of the planet would end at last. 

“You’ve done well,” Ahsoka’s voice was warm; Lighter than she was used to, over the course of her previous apprenticeship, that is. 

“Yeah? You think so?” The Mandalorian questioned genuinely from her spot knelt in the dirt, mud caked her armor and her flight suit, and streaks painted her face and dirtied her hair. The purple-haired woman turned her head to watch as Ahsoka dismounted her howler, allowing it to trundle to Asha’s lazy form. “I do,” The hand on her shoulder was warm. Sabine allowed the offered strength to rise from her knelt position. “Lunch is ready back at camp, you look like you could use it,” The jab was light, bouncing off her armor with a light chuckle. 

“You’re tellin’ me… Think everything will be safe here?” 

Ahsoka’s gaze turned to the horizon, searching. When she shook her head in the affirmative, Sabine’s shoulders relaxed. “Do you think they’re okay…” She questioned after a moment. 

It didn’t take a genius to understand who she was asking after. “Shin will be alright, I’m sure of it. Baylan… worries me, he’s treading a dangerous path, one we will have to follow, sooner than later.” 

As the Master and Apprentice rode their howlers the short distance back to camp, Sabine’s fingers threaded through the thick, dark wool of Asha’s neck. “Thanks,” 

Ahsoka’s head bowed towards her. She could have kept the thoughts to herself, as she’d once had. But even Ahsoka Tano learned when it was time to truly be more than the people who’d trained you. Where Obi-Wan and Anakin may have kept themselves quiet, she was determined to break the cycle.  Shin Hati

Communication with the bandits was slow. Truly, Shin had heard of droids learning and adapting better than this sorry lot. All she received from them were grunts, either of indignation, or approval, she could only tell after they’d begun moving, either to follow her orders or to blatantly ignore them. 

The most recent act of ignorance from the clan found Shin stubbornly figuring out ways to feed them all. They’d seemed unbothered by the prospect that they could go hungry, as if they could pillage their way across Peridea; and maybe they could have, if not for the Jedi and Sabine protecting their favorite victims now. Shin knew better than to allow themselves to march into that camp, she knew what the Torguta and Mandalorian were capable of. 

Chasing away the nomads that had settled in this desolate canyon had been simple, natural, even. The moment they saw a blood-orange blade on the horizon, and saw the sun glinting off the worn paint of her bandit’s heads, most were intelligent enough to turn tail. It had even stocked them up with enough supplies to last until… well… Until what, Shin wasn’t sure yet, but they’d be damned if they didn’t figure it out soon. 

There was a water source nearby, old, rickety purifiers ran as they refilled the jugs as fast as her men could deplete them. They also noticed a raised bed of soil, something she didn’t see often in the wastes like this. There were no seeds nearby, though she could see plants sprouting from a host nearby. 

Eyes as dreary as their landscape peered around the supplies that had been left. This was new, but they had always been a resourceful student. If taking lives was so natural, then surely they would be able to sustain it, especially in the most non-sentient way life existed.

The soil had been freshly turned, Shin learned as their fingers delved into the raised garden bed. The travelers had been planning on making this place their home for the season as well. No matter, it was Shin’s people who were victorious in the end, and they would reap the profits of prior labors… and Shin’s own. 

Dirt spilled into the many tears in their gloves, worn from the months of use and with no true materials to repair them. The pebbles were harsh, though their skin was learning to grow harsher. Eventually, the tanned gorraslug material was set aside, resting precariously on a wooden support, allowing them to dig deeper, pushing grime up under their fingernails as they worked to bury the remains of the food supply. 

Plasto pails sat near the purifiers, and it was just Shin’s luck that the first pail they filled with water would crack under the unforgiving weight as it was filled to the brim. “Karabast!” They growled at the remains of the bucket, water soaking their boots and turning the ground at their feet into sloshing mud. 

The Force, a fickle ally, refused to answer their call in their growing frustrations; Even as they attempted to channel their annoyance into the pressure of water, thin plasto, and the space they wanted to create between it and the ground. 

Huffing and puffing, Shin found themselves resorting to other means; A spear was sent between the weak metal handles of the pail, allowing her the leverage to lift it, keeping it balanced on her shoulder with minimal spillage as she lugged it to the beds, cursing the whole way. 

By the time each sprout had a home in the dirt, Shin’s hands, tunic, and face were streaked with mud, sweat cutting tracks through the grime as they sat back against a boulder to admire their work. A bandit passed by them, Shin watched with narrowed eyes as they paused at her work. 

No words were spoken between them as they turned back to look at the filthy blonde, though Shin had felt the understanding in the nod of their head. A dented canteen was removed from their hip and passed nonchalantly to her on their way back to sorting through their treasures of the raid. 

The sinking of the sun was met with a wet nose sniffling at long-dry boots, a dirty white howler in search of food. With her fingers carding through the soft fur at its neck, Shin rose at last, acquiescent to find the poor beast something to eat, and with a rumbling of her own stomach, something for herself as well. 

Ezra Bridger Krownest had always been cold, but if there was anything Ezra Bridger had learned in his short experiences with Clan Wren, it was the planet's unique ability to nurture all kinds of life. 

This was why, as the Ghost touched down on a desolate surface, and no gruff voices came over their comms to demand clearance, Ezra felt the loss of those unique lives as distinctly as he had. The Jedi paused in the entryway, boot hovering just over the ramp. “Ezra?” Hera called, a gloved hand coming to rest on his shoulder. 

A deep breath and a warm smile recentered him as he used the familiar touch on his shoulder to ground himself. “I’m alright… It’s just hard not to notice…” 

Hera’s head dipped in understanding; She hadn’t made the venture yet, had been waiting on Sabine’s word to visit with the heir, the day had never come, until Ezra voiced his desire to do something for her family. “We’ll be right here with you,” She promised, glancing away from Ezra to peek down at Jacen, bundled up and standing by her side, with Chopper rolling just behind them once they began walking. 

The Wren stronghold was dark and untouched, mountains of snow coated the roof, while dangerous icicles hung dangerously along the large transparisteel windows. “Do you think it’ll grow here?” Jacen asked as the toe of his boot caught on a  patch of slippery ice. . 

“Yeah, ‘course,” Ezra mused out loud as he knelt near one of the windows. Peering through the dust, he could see the inside of the throne room, dark and desolate, with cobwebs hanging across each surface. The light that managed to cut through the grime still found a way to cast across the painting of the Matriarch of Clan Wren, lighting yellow and grey armor up in an effect that made them glow gold and silver. 

“Do you remember how it went?” Ezra questioned, unblinking from his sight against the glass, catching the barest reflection of his own eyes back at him. 

“Never did manage Mando’a,” Hera admitted, lowering herself into the snow beside him, allowing Jacen to tuck himself against her once more as she settled. He’d known Ursa, though Hera doubted he would have much memories of them, not with the separate wars they found themselves fighting as Sabine focused on finding Ezra. 

“Basic should be fine… It’s the memory that counts, right?” He tried to keep his tone light, tried to keep the calmness steady, though the emptiness seemed to echo the way his words caught around the tightness in his throat. Addam’s apple bobbing, he nodded his head towards the snow, beginning the process of clearing away the piles to the frozen earth underneath. 

They did not have every name of every warrior lost, and Ezra found himself regretting this, too naive and headstrong, too worried about the fight than the lives of the people he’d fought beside. He would return, when the seasons changed, when Sabine came out. She could tell them their names, and they would plant flowers for them as well, as a family again. 

The ground was frozen and solid, though after a while of digging and chipping away, he’d been successful in clearing three small holes. “Vormur can grow through anything,” He assured himself as he retrieved a small duracrete container, filled to the brim with dirt from Lothal, soft enough to cover the tops and hopefully prevent them from freezing over. “They’re Mandalorian, you know” A foreboding gaze was sent to the portain through the windows before he dropped a seed in each hole. Hera stayed silent, for him, for Sabine and Ahsoka, and for Clan Wren itself. 

“Jace, you wanna cover this up, for aunt ‘bine?” He offered, leaning back as he cleared his throat, hiding a sniffle as he wiped the rough nylon material of his sleeve under his nose. Small knees shuffled through the dirt as the boy inched closer, mittens sweeping through the uncovered dirt to start brushing it to the small array of flowers. “These smell really nice,” He commented as he worked, taking a big sniff as the dirt began to settle. “Aunt Sabine will really like this when she comes back-” The young Force-Sensitive boy paused then, fingers curling in his mittens as his brows drew together. “If she ever comes back…. Here, i mean.” He was quick to correct; No one aired their thoughts about the possibility of Sabine and Ahsoka’s return, not when Ezra himself had been gone so long. 

“Well, when she hears about all our hard work… I’m sure she will,” Hera’s hand brushed over Jacen’s head, pulling the wool hat on his head askew. Final preparations were made to keep the flowers healthy and strong from the climate. Just as the sun began to crest the mountains, pink and golden light splashing across the grey landscape of the frozen lake. Before they could leave, the Rebels settled back in one last time, peering through dust covered windows at the haunting silhouette of the Countess of Krownest one last time. “Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, Clan Wren.” Their Mando’a was rough and heavily accented, but the words seemed to release some of the weight on their shoulders, allowing them to return to their new war with a lighter conscience. 

[molecularhomosexual]

stray notes on transfeminine autonarrative

there was a piece i wrote almost 5 years ago now called "A Letter for Her"--i'd rather not link to the blog i wrote it on right now, but i want to talk about it. it was something i wrote addressed to myself while not being able to address it to myself as myself--needing to address myself in the third-person, to "her".

it starts off with a quote from Talia Bettcher, one of my favorite trans philosophers of trans philosophy:

Then, as I understand it, trans bodily dysphoria is an interpretive affair that pertains to social meanings attributed to body parts, rather than body parts taken as entirely independent of social meaning. While this might suggest that trans people would be better off trying to alter the meaning of their bodies rather than changing their bodies outright, it is also important […] to recognize that there are individual limits for trans people on how much reinterpretation is psychologically possible.

(“Trans Women and ‘Interpretive Intimacy’: Some Initial Reflections,” p. 56)

i was freshly coming off of a lot of introductory Deleuze at the point of writing this, lots of talk about the limits of bodies and how experimentation can push those limits--how to crack limits without cracking up, without destroying yourself in the process. so, i took to task that quote on the rest of my essay:

"There are some for whom hormonal transformations are not an available option for reorganization. We rely on reinterpretations in attempts to construct the lives we desire. [...] Let me try, gently, to push those individual limits, to talk about some warnings and guidelines for experimenting with our bodies, and to give those like me the hope and the strength to keep becoming trans."

notable here is the fact that, again, there is a third-person getting referred to here ("there are some who...")--it's true that there are others in that same situation where hormones aren't an option, but being able to speak of others here is also a way where i do not have to speak my feelings in my own name, with regard to my own body. i don't have to utter the far more horrifying thought, which is "hormonal transformations are not an available option for reorganization... for me. i feel this to be true."

much of the autonarrative i've written often displaces the narrative into someone else. this is why fiction was quite attractive to me: at the limit i could always say, "i'm not really talking about myself here!" similarly with philosophy, i do not have to speak in i-statements to get a point across; i could follow Deleuze's footsteps of writing obliquely and indirectly about things that push you in your own life, even if those events never get directly mentioned in the text of the writing itself. (this is still a compelling stylistic choice to me, but it seems to have certain uncomfortable limits for me specifically).

"...there are individual limits for trans people on how much reinterpretation is psychologically possible." how do those limits get set? how do they shift? interpretations of a body seem very obviously to me to invoke a surrounding, peopled world: there are social institutions under which being trans is legible in certain ways (for better and for worse), and there are bodies that both live in complex relationships with surrounding institutions (connecting-escaping) and are themselves in complex relations of forming-being formed to surrounding institutions. there's a whole cacophony of arrangements of lives, need-meeting machines, a rich social field within which bodies get organized and organize themselves. there is no interpretation that exists in a vacuum: transphobic interpretations invoke a series of transphobic institutions, attitudes, contexts, actions, tendencies that are already sedimented in the social field; trans-affirming interpretations invoke a series of trans-affirming institutions, attitudes, context, actions, tendencies that are already present in the social field, even if they're at risk of being annihilated.

the question that i had been asking before was something like: "if hormonal transformations aren't possible for someone, then how can they still build their body within loving, affirming, respectful interpretations that align with the embodiment they'd like to reach?" but here's the kind of question i'd be more interested in now: "hey, you said that you don't believe hormonal transformation is possible for you right now. what are the conditions in your social context, what are the conditions in your context of relationships with others and yourself, that necessitate you believing that hormonal transformation isn't possible for you right now?"

i keep crying reading this part of the essay, where i did manage to address myself, but i did it through the pretense of addressing the grammatical "second person":

"Who are you? The second person, always the second person. Some of us are afraid to begin addressing the second person. We aren’t ready; we are still in too much pain. Yet, you are loved. You lead all efforts at reorganization. It’s a harrowing task. So many times you have hit a brick wall, and so many times you have given up. You keep moving. You need to keep existing. You need to create your space for existence."

"You need to create your space for existence..." this has a bit too much an individualist bent in phrasing right now, but i think the notion of creating my space gets at an intuition i like: that the limits on an individual body's capacity to reorganize shift in connection with the context that individual body moves in, a context that already contains contesting interpretations and power-forces structuring and destructuring the statistical organization of any given body, of any given person.

i can read that passage now and finally feel addressed by myself, by a myself from the past. this was not the case when i actually wrote this: it felt like i was shooting off an arrow into the distance, Nietzsche style, just hoping that someone would find it much later and hold on to it, or pass it on, or respond however they wished. i had to fragment myself and get the monads to stop communicating with one another to survive the feeling of "i am not allowed hormonal transformations to reorganize the way i'd like"--because that feeling is a horrible, horrible feeling. it's no wonder that Kafka's "Before the Law" allegory is so compelling to me: you see somewhere that you want to go, and because you believe there's a prohibition to going towards it, you never go to it.

i feel quite cautious about writing too much, philosophically or fictionally, about myself in this moment, because i don't want to necessarily collapse the semiotics of my body to a fixed frame again--i don't want to risk another fragmentation. from a different perspective, who says that writing myself has to close my body off from its possibilities, even if, in ironic fashion, to preserve those possibilities for later? and what's wrong with fragmentation, if the monads that make me up are communicating with each other? (coefficient of transversality).

thank you, me, for writing about me so lovingly half a decade ago. we're still alive. we're still pushing.

[musicalsiphonophore]

Bunch of answers:

-The thing in the picture is a 𝘚𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘢, a kind of Xenophyophorean, which are specialized foraminiferans known for making funky tests (shells) out of sediments. It has no relationship to plants and can't photsynthesize, not sure where you gor that from :)

-SARS viruses have no relationship to the SAR clade. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome whereas (T)SAR is just the initials of its majour groups. The name similarity is a complete coincidence.

-S: Stramenopiles is a diverse group of organisms also called Heterokonts (greek for different flagella), as most have at one point of their life cycle 2 flagella, one with and one without "little hairs" on top of the flagellum and the length is also different. Some notable representatives:

• Oomycetes, also known as pseudofungi, which are organisms that look quite a bit like fungi (they form hyphae and micelia) but have no relationship at all. Some are saprophytes whereas others are parasites of plants and fish, including potato blight, the organism that caused the Irish Potato Famine

• Diatoms: Unicellular algae which form very beautifully patterned shells out of silica (so glass), and are very abundant.

• Brown algae: Brown algae have no relationship to plants or other algae. Unlike plants and red and green algae, which acquired their chloroplast from a primary endosymbiosis event with a cyanobacteria, brown algae and many other unicellular algae acquired their chloroplasts by undergoing endosymbiosis with 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 already existing alga. (look into endosymbiosis theory if u have no idea whats going on here)

-A: Alveolata are organisms which have a kind of sacs made of membrane under their main membrane called alveoli. They are also incredibly diverse. They include

• Dinoflagellates: A kind of algae which (in some cases) modified their alveoli to fill them up with cellulose and form a kind of shell. They have funky shapes and are often abundant in the sea. Some of them are known for causing massive blooms which turn the sea red (red tides) and can cause food poisoning if you eat seafood from where a bloom happened.

• Ciliates: Organisms known for having lots of cilia on their bodies, won't go into them because they're very diverse and different, but you can think of a 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘮 for a typical example of a ciliate.

• Apicomplexans: Mostly parasitic organisms which have a sort of "complex" on the tip of the cell which helps them inject themselves into other cells, this includes the organism which causes malaria, 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘶𝘮.

-R: Rhizaria are amoeboid organisms which often have long pseudopodia called filopodia and are, who would've guessed, also very diverse. The most well known of them are

•Formanifera: A group of mostly marine organisms which form single or multi-chambered shells which can get very complex and are abundant in the sea, so much so that if you know which foraminifera lived in which time periods, you can use their shells in marine sediments to assign a date to them.

• Radiolarians: Organisms which are known for making very intricate and beautiful shells which are very diverse in shape. Look up some of Ernst Haeckel's illustrations of Radiolarians.

-T: Regarding the Telonemia, very few species are described and they aren't very well known, but genetic analysis placed them close to the SAR clade so the acronym is sometimes extended to TSAR

Hope all this helps

THANK YOU SO MUCH MY DUDE THIS IS AN AMAZING ANSWER AHAHAHAHA

^this is why I thought they were related to plants, because both SAR and plants / plant-related things are in this clade, and it says most of the organisms which can photosynthesise are in this clade. But I misunderstood it, thinking it meant most of the organisms that are in this clade can photosynthesise. So, SAR can’t photosynthesise. Is this article wrong to say SAR and plants are related?

Ok so I found this article, which has this tree of life in it-

Which suggests plants and TSAR are very loosely related in that they’re closer than eg opisthokonts. And this was in 2020 so is probably fairly close to how things are modernly. (I haven’t fact checked this article. I hope it’s mostly true…)

ANYWAYS

If the xenophyophore makes itself a shell, is that what you can see in the photo? Is the organism itself smaller than the shell or does it fill it? The shell is made of sediment, is it the texture of sediment? All squishy? Or is it shell-ish?

What does saprophyte mean? (Nvm I googled it, it means something which munches upon dead things to survive)

OH DIATOMS SOUND SO COOL!! Kinda like glass sponges but tiny algae!!

oh wowwww they’re stunning! gorgeous! i love them! beautiful! new favourite organism!

i am thrilled by the fact that plants get their chloroplasts from cyanobacteria. I did not know that. Everything relies on cyanobacteria?!?! Where do cyanobacteria get their chloroplasts from btw?

do the alveoli contain the rest of the cell or are they just empty? what’s in the alveoli? Does that just depend on what specific alveolate it is or do most alveoli have a similar function?

[rainbow-scarab]

The Ancient Sea of Hallownest: Part 4

The Origins of the Void

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

<Theory Masterpost>

Void is a substance associated with death and regret.

Hunter’s Journal on the Shade: Echo of a previous life. Defeat it to retake its power and become whole. / Each of us leaves an imprint of something when we die. A stain on the world. I don't know how much longer this kingdom can bear the weight of so many past lives...

Several characters call the kingdom dark. Many call it dead, a corpse. And Hornet calls a certain vessel a Ghost. Jiji says:

First encounter: You see, sometimes we leave our regrets behind in the world, like black stains. If we don't deal with these regrets, hope starts to drain from us. Do you have regrets of your own, little one? Let me peer into you for a moment...

dreamnail: How long I must have slept. This land is so much darker now, so thick with the stains of regret. Even the air is murkier. If I sleep again, will the darkness creep in here and swallow me whole?

I’m not really intending to get too deep into it, mostly taking it as a given for this theory. I’m more concerned with the consequences of it coming from death.

Hallownest has seen much death. From the infection, from the many many children of the king and queen. The long histories of many peoples in the land. And the fact that almost every inch of it is covered in the shells of ancient creatures making up the very rock.

I think the void is very ancient—from before the rocks existed that make up Hallownest, from before there were fossils, from before it was land. I think it was there in the ocean itself.

Mossbag, in the same video linked in a previous part, points out that a basin is a geographical feature where water drains into (at 13:04). He wonders if void was being drained into the Abyss, either passively or actively (due to the structure as you descend into it possibly being like a well). As I do think the void is more ancient than the caves themselves, I think it was already there. However, void seems to be a fundamental product of life, just as living creatures produce dream essence and leave behind spirits. The caves have seen life and death in the time since they were formed so there must have been void formed in that time as well. Void may continually drain into the Basin and continue into the Abyss.

Abyss too is a word associated not just with darkness but with water. A word to describe the deep ocean, dark and fathomless, mysterious depths that may swallow you up from which you will never return.

Sea, basin, abyss. I think the void is as ancient as the ocean Hallownest used to be, but these words alone aren’t enough to say so. The void itself sits in liquid form in the Abyss, similar to a body of water. That alone may be enough to justify such phrasing. But with everything else, the fossilized marine life, the lighthouse imagery…to me it seems like a more real association and not just metaphor.

Now for something slightly silly, but that I hope illustrates something thematically.

In real life, ancient life may turn into rock, as I was speaking of previously. It also turns into oil. –Now, the void is…clearly not oil. It being oil was, admittedly, first just a joke I made to myself before I made this theory. But again all the random facts of high documentary consumption were swirling around in my head. From National Geographic:

Millions of years ago, algae and plants lived in shallow seas. After dying and sinking to the seafloor, the organic material mixed with other sediments and was buried. Over millions of years under high pressure and high temperature, the remains of these organisms transformed into what we know today as fossil fuels. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum are all fossil fuels that formed under similar conditions. Today, petroleum is found in vast underground reservoirs where ancient seas were located.

I find this process to be similar thematically. Both void and oil being the products of death. The rock itself in Hallownest is so chock full of the dead in the form of fossils.

The void is still not real oil (for instance, it lacks a smell). But I do wonder if the thoughts of real life oil formation could have influenced Team Cherry. They too may be casual documentary watchers or readers of random science articles. Or perhaps of more purposefully sought out info to find inspiration for the game. It’s not true to science, but again, it doesn’t have to be for inspiration.

(The fact that it's called...fossil fuel?????? --I'll be seeing myself out now)

I assume void is created instantaneously on death (or perhaps it is there in the creatures, and released on death, just as they contain dreams both when alive and dead). Jiji mentions the kingdom having grown darker in her sleep. We don’t know how long she slept, but it surely wasn’t on a geological timescale of millions of years.

Still, I wonder what happened to any void created by those creatures who became fossils. Did the void stay in place, and just sit in the rock? (Until perhaps being squeeze out like oil??? XD Okay I’m done with oil don’t worry). In game, there are commonly little black particles floating in the air. Could the void hang in the air like water vapor until it precipitates out like rain or condensation?

Long ago, could void have been there when an ocean environment was still thriving? Accumulating in the depths, perfect image of everything that Abyss means.

I’d like to change gears a bit. I am speaking about innumerable sea creatures dying and creating void, the start of the void sea. I’ve tried to show the evidence of the existence of the ocean life, and how that could have created void so long ago. But how about in reverse?

In other words, is there anything about the void that can suggest an origin from such ocean creatures? Beyond just words that suggest an ocean theme?

In its most raw form, you might say void is gaseous particles, or a liquid similar to water. We also have seen it manipulated into various forms, like the architecture of the Ancient Civilization, void gates, and constructs created by the Pale King.

But we do see it in other contexts. The void tendrils form all on their own, reacting to Ghost’s presence. And as Ghost becomes more powerful, attuning themself to the void, their form also changes.

If void has any form, it seems to have a tendency towards these tendrils (as well as having many eyes). Indeed, the most ancient evidence of the void is a large imprint of such a tendril.

Such form is in line with common imagery in fiction of ancient eldritch beings. And a very common source of imagery for eldritch beings is the deep sea, a dark and dangerous unknown full of monsters with writhing tentacles.

The Abyss is full of ammonite-like fossils. These ancient creatures were a type of cephalopod, like modern squid, octopi, cuttlefish, and nautiluses. Shelled creatures full of tentacles.

Artist renditions of ammonites:

It’s possible other cephalopods (similar to modern species) were alive in those ancient times too, though as squids and octopi lack those big shells, they are less likely to leave behind fossils.

The void seems to naturally take on cephalopod traits as far as I can tell. It doesn’t look exactly like cephalopods, no. But the void has very little you can call features in the first place, besides these tendrils. The vessels perhaps do have a distinct form, but that is influenced by their parentage, and their shades mostly take on the same form as their shells.

The Shade Lord’s form is certainly something. Its head does not look too much like the vessels’ anymore. This may be natively related to void, or it may still retain influence from the horns that Ghost and other vessels have; it’s hard to say.

(I have to wonder about the heads with horn's like Ghost's that are at the hot springs, or the horns coming up in the dream realm. But that's another topic)

All this to say, what seems most distinctly “void” is those tendrils and perhaps many eyes, other features a bit less certain due to influence from wyrm and root. And those tendrils do make me think of cephalopod tentacles.

I have to wonder if these ancient cephalopods were the predominant influence on the form the void takes. And possibly, if the void was around for a very long time in the ocean, the life there grew to live alongside it.

The Ancient Civilization worshipped void, and were adept in using it. I wonder if, perhaps, the ocean life went beyond that, with lifeforms made at least in part of void. Just as the snails seem to be in modern Hallownest.

Snails are another type of mollusk, after all, cousins to cephalopods. Snails may have been alive long ago, or changed form over the millennia to be what they are now. The snails as we see them have shells, even if in a bit different shape. And they look…not quite like real life snails, lacking things like eyestalks (and of course being more humanoid), but instead have simple black bodies similar to the vessels. That may not mean anything, as some like Lurien and Hornet have similarly simple black bodies, but still. We know, at least, two of the snails turn into void to be absorbed by Ghost. And they have those glowing white eyes…

And I have to wonder if perhaps that’s why the Ancient Civilization could shape those fossils into roads and buildings so easily. If those ancient shelled creatures were already in tune with void, perhaps the remains of their bodies would similarly be molded by those who can manipulate void.

If the ocean had void writhing around in it, the imprint of a giant void tendril may have been made long long ago, to be buried under fossils.

The snails may have lived all this time since such ancient days, or evolved into their current form from different, more aquatic mollusks.

And that’s it!

As Mask Maker says:

Truth in Hallownest is always buried deep. How many layers will it pry through?

Hallownest has existed for a very very long time. From ocean to land, from before the Ancient Civilization to the Pale King and beyond. Innumerable creatures living and dying, creating the void and living alongside it.

Thank you for reading 💖

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

<Theory Masterpost>

.

.

.

(What’s this? A meme reference to the event Twitch Plays Pokémon Red from 2014 to close us out? A game in which the participants came to call the helix fossil as a god? The fossil that could be revived into the so-called “Spiral Pokémon” Omanyte (like ammonite)? In a game that concerns itself with “evolution”? On a Hollow Knight theory post?

It’s more likely than you think!)

[doyou000me]

One more for the wip game because talking about writing is fun: Can you tell me more about Modern Witches and/or The Deal. Both sound very interesting!

@overthinkthis!! You managed to ask about two vastly different stories and I could not be happier to tell you about both of them!

Curious about what else is scrambling around in my head? Check out the WIP tag game right here!

Ah, Mordern Witches! Pumpkins and black cats!

This is a collection of short to short-ish stories of women being women doing the kind of things women do, like fall in love with each other while fixing the local dragon problem, planting the seeds of devastation to ruin a town of bigots and stealing away young girls from their oppressive homes, telling them that even the sturdiest of trees will rot in the wrong places. Sometimes they save people. Sometimes they curse them.

They walk barefoot, in sneakers and in red bottom heels . They wear leaves in their hair and pointy hats, long skirts and sharp suits with pinstripe dress pants. They live in old caravans and tall towers and fancy penthouse apartments with doors that open up to rolling hills and lush gardens.

And while I write women (because that was the intital premise) not all of them are actually going to be women. As one of them reminded me and her young nonbinary charge: why would gender matter, when witchery can litterally turn you into a frog?

The Deal: a gay mafia story with a throuple.

Sex and drugs and the metallic tang of blood. Cigarette smoke rising through the humid air of a dirty city. Too loud laughter in a night lit by neon signs. A wide river moving slowly, wrecked cars and bloated bodies half buried in the sediment on the bottom.

Shinwoo has never liked the gangs that run the city. He dreams of opening a restaurant somewhere quiet and live a peaceful life cooking for others. Of course, life isn't that easy. After a bunch of drunks destroyed his mother's food stand and everything went wrong overnight, he has been working for one of the gangs.

Now that the old boss has died, Shinwoo sees his chance to leave - but the tension grows between the gangs, and Shinwoo gets dragged into the conflict. With an insultingly light bag of money, he is sent to the rivalling gang to deliver a provocation dressed as an apology, and his only chance to survive is to strike a deal with Henry Park, the head of the Two Rivers gang.

Shinwoo hopes for a ticket out of the city. Instead, he is offered a very different deal: to stay with Park and his infamously flamboyant boyfriend - and become their lover.

[antihero-writings]

Waving Through the Veil (Ch 1)

Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen (Book and Musical)

Summary: Evan is haunted by Connor. No, literally haunted. His ghost shows up after hearing Evan's lie about the Orchard, and Evan can actually see him. But, as weird as this situation is, maybe this is how they can become real friends after all.

Note: The one thing I’ve always wanted to see from this franchise, ever since first watching the musical, but even more so after reading the book, is the ghost of Connor being able to have a relationship with Evan. So...I decided to write it! This is written in the style of the book, and will probably mostly follow the book, (I even include some passages from it), but I will probably draw from the musical at times too, depending on what portrayal of something I like best. For those of you who have read the book, the fic begins in the middle of the first scene of chapter 9. I hope you enjoy!! If you do, please don't hesitate to leave a comment to let me know!! It's your comments that fics like this going <3

Chapter 1: All we See Are Ghosts

I didn't bother turning the light on as I flopped down on the couch with the signature groan of a man who’s hit rock bottom. Well maybe not rockbottom, but sediment bottom at least. I think we learned about that in science class; it’s where the fossils are get stuck…That’s pretty much how I feel at the moment. 

I'm not sure why I keep reporting back to Jared after every new disaster. I never feel better after our chats. Jared has a way of highlighting my errors so they seem even worse than I first realized.

But I'm so lost right now, sitting alone on the couch in my dark living room. Jared is the only person in the entire world who has even the slightest appreciation for where I am.

I bring Jared up to speed with what happened at the Murphys. We end up texting for a while, and, at this point, my stomach is still churning from the conversation, especially the prospect of making fake emails. Fake emails...to continue the lie I didn't intend to start. 

What is wrong with me? Seriously. Why do I keep fooling myself into thinking that the worst that could happen has already happened? Things always get worse. It's guaranteed. That's how life works. You're born and you keep getting older and grayer and sicker, and no matter what effort you make to reverse the process, you die. Every single time To repeat: worse, worse, worse, and then death. I have a long way to go before the worst. This is only the beginning.

And these emails...I'd be giving them what they want—what they need. I'd be helping them.

It's tempting. It really is. But it's also...sick? I can't keep doing this, deceiving these poor people. I'm not cut out for it.

At one point tonight it felt like I was sweating from my eyes—that's how anxious I was. Had I perspired another drop, I might have mummified. I can't go on like this. I'm all drained out.

I turn my phone over so it's facedown. The light from the screen waves over my cast. The memory of the story I conjured up for the Murphys hits me anew. They were talking about the orchard, and I guess the way they were talking about it made me think of Ellison Park. And I can no longer think of Ellison Park without thinking of the tree, and my fall. Connor wasn’t there that day, of course. But I guess...he could've been. when I was telling the story…it was almost like he was. Suddenly thinking of him being there to come get me…everything felt okay. Or at least not not okay. And 'not okay' is how I usually feel. 

I’m considering going up to my room when I hear a voice speak:

“So you took my advice after all. It was a nice story, I’ll give you that. No racist-punching, but better than the truth at least.”

I fall off the couch and let out a scream that I’ll admit isn’t very manly. 

 I realize I probably should have turned on said light, because if I had, I might have noticed someone in the room. And that would have been scary, yes, but probably less scary than simply hearing a disembodied voice suddenly talking to me. 

 I’ve prepared—well, not so much prepared as worried, which masquerades remarkably well as preparation—for people breaking into my house longer than I’ve worried about the Murphys. Though, to be fair, I expected them to come with knives and/or guns and threats...not talking about advice and punching racists. (The people breaking in, not the Murphys).

The living room isn’t that far from the kitchen, I probably should be going for a knife. Instead I just try to scramble away on the couch and don’t make much distance.

“Who-Who are you?!” I demand, (or, at least, I try to demand, but it sounds more like a squeal), “Why are you in my house?!”

The perp makes a noise like a scoff. “So you can hear me. I thought you might have seen me the other day but I—“ He stops himself. 

I stop in my scrambling too, because it’s starting to hit me, like spice that takes a second to set your mouth on fire.

I know that voice. It isn’t the voice of a strange burglar or serial killer—or at least, I don’t think he is but I guess I can’t rule it out, because it’s— 

It’s a voice that can’t be speaking to me right now. Literally can't.

“Still,” He’s not disembodied after all, because his shadow walks over to the shelf. Despite the realization, or maybe because of it, I resume my scrambling, finally making it off the couch and onto my feet, (not without falling over first). “That’s some psychotic bullshit you barfed up. One moment you’re writing some creepy note about my sister, trying to make everyone to think I’m crazy, next thing I know you have dinner with my family, talking shit about how we were friends, telling stories about how we went to the orchard together. I’ve never been very good at math, tell me,” I can’t really see him but something tells me he’s turning to me with those blue death rays, “how does that add up?”

Somehow in my scrambling I’ve made it to the light switch, and my fingers clutch it like its a lifesaver thrown out to my pitifully struggling body at sea. 

I’m not quite sure I wouldn’t rather drown. 

I flick my finger, turning on the light.

I already knew I’d regret it before I turned it on, and, when I did, the regret hit me instantly and intensely, like the spice finally kicking in. 

Standing there in his thick boots, and ripped jeans, and long, messy hair, and eyes that analyze my soul is Connor Murphy. 

I cover my mouth, breath gaining about ten pounds, heart gaining a hundred, but still running anyways.

“Holy—Holy shit.” I say into my hand. “Holy fuck.”

Connor smirks. “At least someone has the decency to react.”

“You’re—but you—You’re alive?! You’ve been alive this whole time?!”

His eyes darken, dart away. “Not alive, no.”

“Well w-what else could you be?!” I stutter, reaching my tremoring hand into my pocket for my meds, my Ativen—maybe I’ll find my sanity in there if I dig far enough. He’s walking towards me and my heartbeat has gone past the hundred mile-per-hour mark to the speed of light. “I mean, dead people don’t just show up in people’s houses—!”

He leans forward and swipes his hand at me, and I tense, thinking he’s going to knock the pills out of my hand, but instead his fingers go right through me. 

I let myself look up at him, finally understanding. 

Up at the kid who I always tried to avoid. The kid whose sister I have a crush on. The kid who pushed me at lunch the other day. At the kid who took my letter in the computer lab. The kid I was terrified would ruin my life with that letter (well, more ruined than it already is). The kid who I'm pretending was my best friend. The kid who killed himself. 

At Connor Murphy’s ghost. 

“Excuse me for a moment.” 

The pills scatter on the couch before I have a chance to attempt to get even one down, and I scramble to the bathroom to empty what little of Cynthia’s dinner I actually ate into the toilet.

In between heaves I try to think, to wrap my brain around this, to just have a second to breathe, not really able to do or have any of the above. 

Step one: Connor Murphy steals my letter. The letter I wrote to myself. One that was more honest than it strictly should have been. 

Step two: Connor Murphy kills himself. 

Step three: Connor Murphy’s parents think my letter is his suicide note. 

Step four: I can’t bring myself to tell the truth, so I end up going to the wake, and going to dinner at the Murphys’ house, and fabricating some crazy story about us having a picturesque friendship, and planning on making secret emails—

Step five: Connor Murphy’s ghost appears to me in my room. 

Like an actual ghost. Yesterday I didn’t believe those existed. I think my mom does, and I always liked watching documentaries about haunted houses. But what I like about the documentaries is they often include a scientific explanation.

And aren’t ghosts supposed to be like…scary? I mean, don’t get me wrong this is scary, Connor is scary—he was scary before he died. But I always thought ghosts were supposed to be like something out of a horror movie, covered in rotting flesh, unable to do anything but moan and scream. Not the kid you happen to be pretending you were best friends with showing up in your room. 

No, no, actually, I think I know what’s going on here. Yeah. There’s no ghost. This isn’t happening. The stuff with the letter didn’t even happen either. There was actually a step zero in there: 

Step zero is I went insane. 

When I manage to get the courage to come back into the room. He’s disappeared. I’ll admit, I was kinda hoping for that. I’m half relieved—more like fifteen sixteenths. Perhaps he was a hallucination after all. All those skipped dinners getting to me, when I actually ate something my body couldn’t handle it. I do my best to clean up the scattered pills on the couch, and the scattered thoughts in my brain.

But then I walk upstairs to my room I find I was wrong.

“I’ve gotten a lot reactions over the years,” he remarks when I get back. “Can’t say I’ve ever had that one.”

“Sorry, I—It’s just—I just—you’re…you’re here.”

“Not because I want to be, believe me. I’d rather be practically anywhere else.” His hand passes through my shelf. 

“And you’re dead.”

“Come on.” He feigns offense. “A little respect for your dearly departed. I mean we were best friends, after all.”

“Oh god.” That’s right, the dinner. I'd tried to block out the fact that he mentioned my story earlier. “You really heard all that?!” 

“Didn’t intend to go back to my house. Died to be rid of it, after all. But I did, and I saw you there, and I couldn’t fathom why. And here you were spouting the most incredible fucking bullshit about how we were friends.”

“Yeah-Um-So-Well—“ I breathe out, trying to get my lungs to work properly. I thought the Murphy’s house felt hot earlier. This is a couple degrees hotter than the Sahara. 

I just want this day to end. What demon (if ghosts exist, those probably exist, after all) marked their calendar for Torment-Evan-Day? I mean, that’s kinda every day, but this is a specially-crafted brand of torture. 

“The-” I swallow. “The-The letter? You know, the one that you took from me?" Then, realizing that sounds accusatory, I add, "I-I’m sure you didn’t mean to.” I shake my head. I’m trying my best to tell the truth without making him upset. It feels like a futile endeavor. “Your parents think youwrote it. T-To me, I mean. They think it was your”—I don’t know how or why, but I manage to look him in the eye—“suicide note.”

His eyes widen, but they narrow quickly afterwards. “So you just sat there and fed them bullshit about how we were friends instead of correcting them?” 

“Well, no-They—they—” No, not the Sahara, I’m ninety percent sure I’m standing right in the sun. “I tried to tell them—” I swallow. “I promise I really did!” I wipe my sweaty hands on my shirt. “I mean technically I actually did tell them you didn’t write it—they were just…they didn’t understand. They wanted me—They were looking to me for help, for answers. I couldn’t—!“ 

Once again, I don’t know how I manage to look into those soul-sucking eyes. But once I do, I realize something. 

An hour ago, I thought of him as the dead kid. The kid who killed himself. He was a concept, a symbol, more than a person I knew. But before that, as little as we talked, I did know him. He was Connor Murphy. He was real.

And in the second it takes to realize that, I’m replaying our conversations, and I’m realizing that’s wrong too. This isn’t Connor Murphy, and this isn’t the kid who killed himself. This is Connor Murphy…who killed himself. That is to say, the symbol, and the real Connor I knew, coalesce into one. 

And I realize that those eyes aren’t analyzing my soul, or trying to suck it out, or hating me, or anything like that…they are so vastly, so perfectly—

“You...You didn’t give them anything else.” I don’t know how, where, I got this random shot of bravery. “I didn’t want to take away all they had of you, even if it was—“ I laugh a little, not because it’s funny, but because I can’t figure out what else to do. “Even if it was just some stupid letter I wrote to myself.”

His eyes widen. I think it’s because he’s surprised at, angered by, my boldness. I get ready to apologize, but he says: 

“You wrote that to yourself?” 

My eyes widen. 

That’s right…I didn’t exactly let that on last time. Didn't have the chance. He thought I was messing with him.

“Y-Yeah. It…” I sigh. There’s no use denying it, and, well, it's not like he can tell anyone, right? Dead men tell no tales, after all...Except for the fact that one is talking to me. Right now. “It was an assignment from my therapist.”

Besides, if anyone’s going to understand…it’s him.

And...that's when it hits me.

Along with the realization that this is Connor Murphy, who killed himself, I realize I’ve been focused on the wrong thing. 

I was worried—certain, really—that Connor would something terrible with it. All this time I was focused on covering my ass, I was focused on the fact that the letter was mine, not Connor’s.

This whole time, even after he was gone, it didn’t compute. I didn’t realize. The reason he took it. He didn’t take it because he wanted to use it against me. 

Was it possible he took it...because he felt the same way? 

“I bet he always brings things back to some shit that happened with your father.”

“Yeah…Yeah he does do that.” I laugh a little. 

“Mine liked to equate my drug use with suppressed sexual frustrations. I told him I didn’t think they were very suppressed.”

I laugh, but quickly stop myself, remembering what happened last time I laughed at something he said, but when I turn to him he’s actually smiling. A little, at least. 

“Into the Wild.” As far as abrupt subject changes go, that one might take the cake. He turns to my shelf. 

“I’m—I’m sorry?”

He runs his finger along the spine of a book...or maybe just tries to. Or pretends to.

“O-Oh! You’re talking about the book!”

“I have a copy of it too—had," he scoffs, then mutters, seemingly more to himself than to me: "It feels weird to talk about myself in the past tense."

I'm sure it does feel weird. 

I feel weird. 

This whole thing is weird. 

Even without the whole ghost thing, it feels weird to be in my room, talking about books with Connor Murphy. Like, to actually talk to him, as opposed to nervously and pitifully trying to defend myself, fearing I'll have a black eye in the morning.

“What were you and Zoe talking about?” He asks, changing the subject yet again, like that one hadn’t satisfied him enough.

“W-Oh, you saw us talking in the car. She—“ I grimace. “She wanted to know if we, uh, if we did drugs together.” 

He snorts. “Always a charmer, that Zoe. My biggest fan you could say. You said we were friends and her first assumption was that we did drugs together. Can’t say her suspicion is unfounded. At least on my end. Though something tells me you’re not the type.”

“No—No I’ve never—“ I swallow. "No."

"So." Yet another subject change, it sounds like. "I had a secret email account, huh? I used it to talk to you all the time?

I freeze.

Yup. Just when I think the worst has already happened, I'm reminded hell has nine circles, and I haven't even arrived at the lobby.

When he was dead, he was a symbol. And, really—as terrible as it sounds—I could say anything about a symbol. I mean he wasn’t going to hear me. But now that I know he’s not dead—well, he is dead, just…undead, as insane as that is to think—and real (as far as I can tell), and he very much canhear me, I remember, despite the sadness in his eyes, this is still Connor Murphy, the kid who thew a printer at Mrs. G in second grade. 

What the hell was I thinking? 

His eyes darken. “Like, what? Secret lovers?" He shook his head. "Why the fuck would you say that?”

“Oh god, yeah I….I did say that.” Somebody just end it. “It was the only thing that made sense.”

“What kind of fucking sense does that make?!” There's a curl to his fingers. 

Even though I know he can’t hurt me, my body doesn’t; it’s been trained to run away, and can’t help but stumble backwards like there’s a corporeal person in my room. 

“Well they wanted to know how we could be friends without them knowing it.”

He scoffs. “I took you for some kind of loser. But now I see.” He leans forward so his eyes are level with mine. "You’re a diabolical mastermind, Evan Hansen.”

“I’m really—really—not. I just—” I hit the wardrobe in my backing up. I can’t believe he really thinks I intended any of this. My head falls into my hands. “Everything’s so messed up.” 

“You saying I messed everything up?!” There’s a snarl in his voice.

“No—No!” I stand, waving my hands. “I didn’t say that! That’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying I messed everything up!”

I expect him to keep advancing, to try his best to punch me, but instead he stares at me, then sorta…falls onto bed (I’m both surprised he does this, and surprised he can) laying back, sighing. He puts his arm over his face and, to my even greater surprise, he begins to laugh. Not an actual happy laugh. I know this laugh: it’s the kind of laugh I laugh when my body doesn’t know what else to do. 

“Sure, people always ignoring me, always treating me like shit, like I had some disease, that was your fault.” 

“Well, I—“

“Me pushing you, that was your fault." 

“Well that’s—That’s not exactly what I meant.” 

"Me killing myself, leaving nothing but a letter you wrote to yourself…that’s totally your fault.”

I freeze again. I think hell might have frozen over.

He sighs. “You’re right about one thing: everything is truly fucked up.” 

I sit on the bed next to him and look at my hands. I’d like to say something. To do something. To offer some words of comfort. But I’m well acquainted with the fact that 'comforting' words (like 'Chin up! It'll get better!' or ‘It’s not the end of the world.’) really aren’t comforting at all. 

I’d like to at least say ‘It’ll be okay’ but…how can I say that? Maybe, for me, everything will work out in the end (…I think this is the first time that thought has ever crossed my mind) but he’s already dead. There’s nowhere for him to go. Except the afterlife. …If that even exists. 

The world’s already ended for him. 

I’d like to comfort him. To argue against him. To show him at least one nugget that has been unharmed in the fuckage that I could present to him. But I can’t disagree with him. Like…at all. 

Like I said. Things get worse and worse.

And then...you die.

I realize something.

It's not truly comforting, but it's a positive, at least.

I jerk my head up to look at him.

“Hey, maybe-maybe you could help me!”

“Help you?” He lifts his arm a little so he can raise an eyebrow at me. 

“Help me set things right! Help me tell your parents we weren’t really best friends! I’ve been wanting to tell them the truth this whole time I just—I can’t seem to get it out. You could help me figure out how to tell them!”

He sits up, studying me. “I could do that. I could help you set things right. Put an end to this charade.”

I nod profusely. 

“Help you tell my parents that the only thing they have of me is a letter you wrote to yourself. Dash all their hopes and dreams, make them miserable, you know, all that shit.”

It sounds bad when he puts it like that. Maybe the truth won't set you free after all. 

“Or.” His mouth curves into a smirk, and I smile back—not because I’m happy, not because it’s an actual happy smirk, rather because it’s the kind of smirk that makes me nervous as all hell, and when that happens my body picks from a wheel of stupid reactions. “I could watch you continue your little farce, watch you suffer as you invent more and more ridiculous ways to cover your ass.”

No, no, that sounds equally bad. Let’s not do that either. “Is there an option C?” My voice cracks. 

He considers it a moment, sits back on his hands. “I suppose we could compromise. In your little stories about me, it might be nice if you actually portrayed me accurately. I could help with that. Right now your impersonation is laughable. I don’t know how it fooled my parents.”

“I vote for option C.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“I mean…What do you want?” 

“Ohh you might just regret that.” He smirks again. 

“Wait, I wasn't agreeing to giving you anything you want! I was just asking—!“

“Too late.” He puts his finger to his lips. “The deal is sealed.”

I keep digging myself into a bigger ditch without even saying anything. Let alone when I open my mouth.

“So what’s the next step of our little game?”

“Well…” I swallow. “Jared told me he could write fake emails. You know because your parents will...probably want to see them.”

“Jared, huh? Kleinman?" (I’m guessing he hasn’t forgotten about the incident from the other day.) “Good thing I’m here. If I’d left you to your own devices I’d end sounding like a—”

“Did you eat already?” 

I nearly scream—well no, not nearly, I do let out a sort of strangled cry—at my mom’s voice. I had been so focused on all of…this craziness that I forgot she was heading home. 

“I didn’t think I was that scary.” She laughs to herself a little, then she looks around the room, brow furrowed. “Were you talking to someone?”

She can’t see him. Good. I don’t have to explain why a dead kid is sitting in my room. 

“N-Nope! Just uhh—Practicing.”

“Practicing? For what?” 

“Uhh, for a play,” I say because what else could I be practicing? I can hear Connor stifling a laugh behind me. 

She blinks in surprise. “Oh, Honey, you’re in the school play?” 

She’s going to say it’s a bad idea. Because it is a bad idea. Because it’s not true. 

“That’s fantastic!”

I blink. What?

“I always thought you hated public speaking. You know, from that time you fainted?”

“I do. That’s, uhh, that’s why I signed up!” I feel my face burning, I make a thumbs up with my casted arm. I know Connor can’t exactly use this against me, but him hearing me stumble through my lies to my mom in my own home isn’t something I signed up for today. Though, I didn’t sign up for any of this. Can I unsubscribe? “Yeah, I wanna get over that fear.”

“I’m so proud of you!” She clasps her hands together. “If you haven’t eaten yet, why don’t we have a celebratory meal?”

I’m shocked. Usually she’s the police on making sure I’ve eaten. 

“Oh…Darn,” I say a little over-emphatically. “I already ate.”

“Darn.” She repeats. 

“That was fun the other day, right?” She says. “Going out for breakfast?”

So much has happened since our breakfast it already feels like ages ago. “Yeah. Definitely. It was.”

“I was thinking, how about I bag one of my shifts this week. When’s the last time we did a taco night?”

I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure those tortillas in the freezer have turned by now. “Oh. You don’t have to.”

“No, I want to. Maybe we could even start brainstorming those essay questions together.”

The essays. Of course. Her face waits expectantly. “Sure,” I say. “That would be great.”

“Oh. That’s exciting,” she says looking victorious. “I’m excited now. Something to look forward to.”

“Yeah.”

“‘Practicing’?” Connor snorts after she leaves. “‘For a play’? You? You really need some coaching on this whole lying business. I thought you were a terrible liar with my parents but this is fucking priceless.” 

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I bite.

Something dark enters his eyes. “I think hell will wait for me.”

"Well that's not what I—Oh never mind."

[thepoeticbubble]

I say , my heart is a verb- always loving whatever hits the thorax with impact , i say it loud , that I'm not invoked by any other principle of grammar This litrature in which i drown , sways me but soon shall sweep me off to trash , sediment me like a wreckage, disown my words and forget me as if my hands never gripped its throat, that's how chain extends / decaying us in piles of garbage/under the weight of memories which exist as scavengers feeding on us slowly/like a family of vultures out on their way to decompose us /uninvited guests with impinging beaks/ that devour on us we hum prayers to grow teeth in defence but desire in abundance is a carnivore One that cannot be taken down once it's out for hunt.

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ -

Life is not our asset , it's a promised loss- my poems shall carry me either as rust or as vow of kindness , and i refuse to dissolve like any anode , If i must write I must be a deposition of hope to someones deforested garden

My grievances echo in my flesh , my heart must continue to live like a verb of love and affection and in my desire of expression to paste every beat of its work will ruin me , i will be torn down soon , the canines shall dig my deepest bone, i will be lost like all the nouns .

But there is never too late to seek forgiveness while one exists

-tabish.j

[nightmarist]

What are your ocs favourite seasons and why?

Sigurd's used to be Spring. He came from an agricultural village and he enjoyed helping on the fields, plowing, sowing, and tending to animals. Mostly wheat and grains, a few gourds and hearty vegetables in the harvest season later, but sowing and tending and growth are what he loved before he became what he is now. Now, he doesn't care for seasons. He doesn't remember seasons. Weeks, months, years can pass while he's in solitude, deep in the long-abandoned temples of old gods, lost in the depths of ancient books he's read a thousand times over trying and hoping to find at least one clue to resurrection.

Razvra's is also Spring. He prefers early spring when it's still slightly chilled, or monsoon and rainy season, but spring brings out the animals. As someone from the col mountains, it reminds him of home (though of course the biomes are still different), plus its just practical for both a bounty hunter for reward as well as an actual hunter for self-sustainment. Its also just very pretty.

Thomas would be summer. He gets extremely cold and is created for handling extreme heat. He hates cold to no end, and while he enjoyed his time becoming more like a human person in Russia, he is So glad to leave behind how cold some of those places were for the sake of his own personal survival. Heaters are nice but he can't exactly carry one with him when he goes prowling on the hunt.

I have my At Length Headcanon for seasons and a standardized calendar in Dragon Age also, so I'll kinda reference that w DA. tl;dr its basically just Ice/Winter, Rain, and Harvest season.

Dirthadin's favorite season would be closer to early winter, after harvest season. He like the slight chill and early frost, and it gives him an excuse to keep wearing big animal furs. It is not ideal, however, for archaeology. He prefers working in the early harvest season where things are softer, still damp from rain but warm enough to work in. Otherwise he generally hates the rainy season. Sopping wet is Not fun, animal fur doesnt feel or smell good in the rain, water can fuck up a good leather, and things are just difficult to properly dig, write, journal, transport, or otherwise study in the pouring rain by oneself.

Kasakos, Saarkadan, and Aribas all three tend to lean towards the middle of the rainy season, but still don't like Thedosian seasons as much. They prefer the humidity of Par Vollen and Rivaini shores, but living in Thedas and eventually Skyhold, they've gotten used to the temperamental weathers they have to travel in.

Valdyr, one of my Avvar OCs, really enjoys the Rain season. Rain feels good, the petrichor in the valley is a beautiful smell because of the lavenders and other flora, the rain brings by good water for animals and the people, Rams-Peak Hold has maintained good drainage so it doesn't over flood (but flood is still necessary to move dirt, sediment, etc). It's a time of change, and it's a blessing from the Lady of the Skies, tears of joy she weeps that bring life to all things on the floor.

Eiða, my other Avvar OC, while appreciates the rain blessings, prefers harvest season. There's work to be had during harvest season and, though she is a mage and apprentice augur which is its own labor, being with the people and helping them, as well as blessing the processes put into creating a large feast for everyone, and spirits become active during Avvarian holidays and feasts are always much more fun.

I'll think more about Camille and Philomené, I've been meaning to flesh them out more.

Thank you !! 🥺🥺

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Unrequited Love (3) Masterlist

part one, part two

All Signs Point to Us (ao3) - RyRyCaptain

Summary: When the queen and king gives birth to Daniel, they soon learn that their son is deaf. In order to let Dan express his opinions to those who haven't learned sign language, they find him a translator who happens to be the son of the King’s advisor, Phil. Soon enough, Phil starts to realize thAt he fallen in love with the younger boy.

And I want you close (ao3)- orphan_account

It's late. I can't sleep, guess the best thing to do is just writing my thoughts down

An Unwanted Guest (ao3)- Pilferingstarlight

The night of Phil's funeral, Dan receives an unwanted guest.

Black holes and revelations (ao3) - newtslittleniffler

Dan has a crush on Phil, but isn't even out as being gay. It's understandable that he'd get jealous when seeing countless girls flirting with the love of his life...

By the way, I adore you. (ao3) - lxzyfangirl

Summary: Dan is very sick, and the future is not looking too bright for him, thankfully, he has Phil, his best friend, to accompany him through it all. But is Dan satisfied with being just friends?

details of an asteroid (ao3) - dantiloquent

Summary: “If you think about it, aliens probably believe in us, too. We’ve got our own intergalactic cheerleaders.”

When Dan and Phil keep bumping into each other, they eventually give in to chance and start talking. Soon enough, Dan makes a home at the library Phil works at, and they talk about nothing and everything so often that there is no going back. The two survive the future just fine, until they learn the flaws of leaning the weight of your existence on someone else’s shoulders.

Die From A Broken Heart (ao3) - shrimpy_1924

Summary: “Mom, can you die from a broken heart?"

Fate Fell Short This Time (I Just Want To Be Your Only One) (ao3) - softsocks

Summary: Dan and Phil are friends with casual benefits. It's a habitual occurence that Dan knows is unhealthy, not something he should continue but also something he can't stop - because stopping would mean quitting his addiction, and Dan simply isn't strong enough for that.

Hidden Longings - bubblemist

I don't want to reveal anything here, but there is drama, sadness, and ultimately romance!

I Always Did Like Acting (ao3) - Analphancones

Summary: "He is as insatiable as he believes I am being by constantly chasing orgasm. I just want to look at him with love again. I want to not dream of what I could be missing in ditching my only real love so messily by publicly replacing him with Dan just so he’d see. I want to not run from the emotions for others I do manage to have in my heart just for someone I do not have feelings for."

The Idea of Us (ao3)- churchboy

OR.. "The five times Phil shut down the idea of a relationship and the one time he didn't."

I'm Not a Kid (ao3) - completelyuncreative2

Fourteen year old, Dan Howell just wants the house to himself while his parents are away for the weekend, but his parents don’t trust him to be alone. So, they hire a babysitter to keep an eye on him.

Incapable of Letting Things Go (ao3) - Merrydith

When you live with someone for as long as Dan and Phil had, every object retains sediment that can't be thrown away. Especially if you still feel some sort of way towards the memory or the thought the object represents. It pained Phil to watch Dan chuck things that still held so much sediment to him. Letters in green envelopes and CDs that contained songs like “Interrupted by Fireworks” and “Toxic”. Phil winced when Dan crumbled the drawing he had done for Dan when his Skype microphone broke that one time. He hoped Dan didn't notice his overly eager offer to take the trash out, solely to fish a few of these objects out. Pressing the objects to his chest, he'd sneak them away into a box of his own and call it a good deed. Saving the memories of their relationship because Dan wouldn't do it himself.

But what happens when Dan comes across this box and Phil feels like he's about to throw up?

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: "If I were the last person on Earth, would you kiss me?"

In which Phil has a hopeless crush on Dan and it's seemingly unrequited, much to his dismay. But it's okay because it's a fanfic and they work it all out in the end.

robot in the dorms (ao3) - itsmyusualphannie (itsmyusualweeb)

Summary: dan goes to university in florida and meets his roommate phil. after a few months, and despite dan's facade of disinterest, he begins to actually like phil and his nerdy ways. the robot that phil designs doesn't help.

or: another "oh my god they were roommates" fic but COOLER because robots

these violent delights of love (ao3) - cyanica

Summary: Dan is hopelessly in love, Phil’s seemingly oblivious and they’re on a world tour just to make things more chaotic.

And yet, the Gods, or the Ruler of the Universe, or whoever the hell was in charge decided Dan needed to die in the end, too. Currently, leaning over the porcelain throne of shit and piss was the Gods' human voodoo doll, throwing up the contents of his unfortunate Indian dinner – and significantly more alarming than that: black tulips. Fucking flowers. This wasn’t real life.

Though Kid You're Not Exactly A Dream Come True (ao3) - beware_phangirl (dantiloquent)

Summary: The moment Dan is told about his piano lessons, he hates the idea. And the plethora of dread and embarrassment takes the form of Phil Lester; fellow student and, now, arsehole teacher. The fact that Dan can’t control his fingers as they splatter across the keys just gives Phil more reason to spit out insults, and Dan just wants to get it right; maybe that’ll wipe the smirk off his face. And as the music starts to lead, Dan finds himself down paths he never thought possible.

Unrequited love? (ao3)- orphan_account

Dan and Phil are best friends and while both of them want to be more than just friends, neither are willing to risk the relationship they have by telling the other that they want to be more than they are. The truth ends up coming out when Phil finds a bunch of fluffy phanart on Dan's laptop.

You're stuck on my brain (ao3) - dizzydreamerphan

Summary: Dan and Phil aren't a couple. That's what Dan tries to convince himself. The drunken kisses in hotel rooms and the too intense confessions don't mean anything. Or does it?

Unrequited love, angst filled story. Loosely based around the lyrics of “Is there Somewhere” by Halsey.

[crowscadence]

Bohemian Rhapsody but I overcomplicated it Consider asking yourself if this is the true way of living. Maybe it is just a work of fiction. Unfortunately, I am caught in a natural disaster of falling rocks and sediment with no escape from the real world. Open your eyes, slightly tilt your head to the heavens, and observe.

I am just a boy with little to no financial stability, yet I require no sympathy. This is due to the fact that I care little about what happens in my day to day life despite the lows and highs that it brings. Of what direction the air moves, I care not.

Mother, I have recently taken the life of another man. I placed a firearm to his head and fired. He is now deceased. Mother, my life had just begun to hold meaning, yet through my actions I have discarded hope for that brighter future. O mother, my intent was not to make you weep. If I have not returned to this place by the next rising of the sun, please look past it and continue to live your life. I ask this of you because nothing holds any real meaning.

It is too late, for my time has come. It unnerves me and my body leaves me in pain often. Farewell, everyone, for I must take my leave. I must say adieu to all and confront the truth of the matter. O mother, I do not wish to die. However, on occasion I wish that I had not been born to begin with.

I believe that I am observing a silhouette of a small man. Scaramouch, Scaramouch, are you intending to dance the Fandango?

The visuals and sounds brought about by storms are very frightening indeed.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figafo. Magnifico!

I am but a boy without finances, and nobody deems me deserving of their affection. He is but a boy without finances from a similar family. Reject the idea of taking his life from this monstrosity.

I care little of what happens, will you release me?

Bismillah! We shall not release you!

Release him!

Bismillah! We shall not release him!

Release me!

We shall not release you!

Release me!

We shall never release you!

Release me!

We shall never release you! No, no, no, no, no!

O dear mother, release me!

The dark one Beelzebub has designated a specific devil for my passing.

So you believe that you are capable of halting me and spiting my dignity? So you believe that you are able to adore me before turning your back and leaving me to fend for myself? O, baby, you are unable to do this in good faith. I simply must leave this place.

It is evident that nothing holds real meaning. Nothing holds real meaning to me regardless of what direction the air moves in.

[fantasyideas1]

Aphorisms In different dimensions of philosophy, its own air, discharged by the paradoxes of the time of the chaos of the subconscious, exotic illusions as the basis for the transformation of the dimension, the mystery of the world in the sensitivity of empathy of intuition, from the lower reality of materialism to the higher reality of spiritual love, the stages of insight lead to unknown paths of insight, spatial temporal perception of the philosophical worldview depends on how they see the world, people are shameless because they see the world one-sidedly, if they saw the world from different video cameras, they would see them, but they are hindered by the glaucoma of selfishness, values erased in time that degenerate into parodies of temptations, and formalities, in self-deception, people parody themselves in the contradictions of their consciousnesses compressing in the web of endless ways of future development, In the voids of inevitability, we expect the end of the joke of life, in the valleys of inevitability, we learn the secrets of philosophical lessons, the gap of multibillion-dollar variations in the formation of personality, all the false paths of the ego, like toys of the subconscious, which are childhood traumas and complexes, in infantile degradation, a distortion of the worldview is formed, a karmic time loop, on which the last hope was hung, the city as a cluster of stars in a constellation, various designs of paradoxes of illusions, as dogmas of self-deception, dead twins of personality in the soul, as a reminder of past lives, and the soul as a graveyard of personalities, unfinished dreams of egoism, Poetry You are like a treasure chest of my love, passionate values, at the sight of you, the tongue automatically licks the lips, an orgasmic massage of delight all over the body, all over the nervous system that deposits in memory and subconsciousness only you alone as the most valuable eternally beautiful pleasure lasting in my memory for auto-repeat for all eternity, time strengthens my love for you, the blooming sweetness of the moments spent with you light up the stars in my soul, these are memories, you are like a tropical fever of passion, always hot and humid, perfect to the smallest detail, where absolutely all whims are taken into account, perfectionist a masterpiece of utopia of passion, sweet to my lips, tongue, eyes, hands to lawlessness, lustful gluttony with passion for you, You are my pornographic paradise, juicy sweetness, erection joy, your beauty is an arsonist of penises, like lighters and weaving at a rock concert, orgasmic aria of delight, I sing opera like love exploding your throat, your beauty hard excites, the brain liquefies, inspires the soul, helps to live , sadistic teases and excites, with such beauty you can torture a dick with the fact that you will never get such a beauty, I want you even in a state of sleepwalking, in any state of the brain, not a single hypnosis can make my subconscious love you, it is physically impossible, and morally wrong stop loving you, your beauty is the highest stage of orgasm of bliss of delight, an incredibly higher state of love, How I love your resort intimate places your body is like a vacation in Hawaii, my passion melts steel, love cannot be hotter, endless waterfalls of lust compliments in which you shower every day in the waters of my passion in the hot springs of lust as jacuzzis bubble from falling in love, I dissolve in the depths of love, to the state of supreme bliss, I feel only you, your body and soul, I will always feel and search for you subconsciously all my lives, you are an eternal sediment of love, with weather precipitation of passion, an eternal storm of crazy passionate love,

Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich