#hopefully this post is coherent in the morning

[ariadne-mouse]

Sean telling Marion he's more than what happened to him, more than what people want to exploit from him: that he deserves better. It was an impassioned speech and I believe he genuinely meant it. But he also still betrays Marion to people who would quite directly exploit him, because he has a conflicting objective and he's well practiced in how to hurt people who don't deserve it. Even knowing that if he's successful in his blindside, Marion would be denied all the good things Sean wished for him. Originally I was looking forward to a more direct confrontation between Sean and Marion at the end there so it could get even more deliciously painful, brother against brother, but in a way I think its absence is its own cherry on top of how things fell so beautifully, awfully apart, and how Sean's and Marion's choices and paths diverged (and then merged again in their deaths). But then again, I think at the end of Sean's speech he said something like "I hope you get to pick *you*" and that was indeed Marion's final act: having the opportunity to do what he wanted with his own soul. And while he gave it to someone else, it was still a selfish choice (in a neutral sense) in that Jean wouldn't have wanted him to do it. He did it for himself. He got do what Sean wished for him.

[cj-the-random-artist]

sorry if you've answered this before, but how do you draw/proportion bodies? The way you draw poses is so nice and fluid and I'd love to see how you do it! Your art is always such an inspiration to me, thank you for posting it

Hello! So first of all, that's a huge compliment and I really really appreciate it! I don't have the words, just. Dang. I really appreciate that so so much.

As for how I draw / proportion bodies, I don't really have a fully set process or anything, because almost all of what I do has been a result of me messing around and finding out for several years. That said, I'll try to go over some of my general process here and if clarification is needed for any part of this my askbox is always open and I'm happy to try and answer.

So I generally try to start with a rough gesture-ish shape for the torso that kind of establishes where I want the torso to sit and at what angle I want the hips / shoulders to be at. It helps for a pose to look a little more natural if there's a little bit of asymmetry and if the hips and shoulders aren't exactly at the same angle. Once I have that initial shape set up, I like to add the legs on, so I can get a feel for the weight distribution.

Also notably, I have a little marker for the head on there so I know roughly where that will be placed.

Generally after this stage I'll go in and add arms, and when I do that I'll usually make clear note of the hands, then the shoulders, then connect them at the elbow. I'll also draw on the head at this point, and for that I like to mark where the collar bone would be. There's a muscle on both sides of the neck that starts at the collar bone and ends right below the ears so that's generally a good reference point. After that I'll draw on the jawline and start marking down the head shape and where the face will go.

After this point I'll start adding on stuff like face, clothes, etc. (This ended up being a Bdubs)

A few things to try and keep in mind for anatomy is rough skeletal and muscle structure. I find it helpful if I'm struggling with a pose to think about where the ribcage, pelvis, and joints would reasonably be, and usually that will help me deal with most issues I might have. Additionally, thinking about muscle structure and body fat helps better establish the external shapes of the character, so I try to think of those too while I'm drawing.

This isn't super detailed, but I also marked here where rough skeletal points are and what the angles of the hips and shoulders are.

That said, that's not the only way I think about posing when I do start on a drawing. When I'm drawing something at a more intense angle, I prefer to start with whatever part of the body is closest to the camera and work my way back. When doing a more action- oriented pose, I tend to focus more on the line of action first so that I can do more with the gesture.

If it's not completely evident from this page, though, not every pose I draw will work out. It's fairly common for me to end up with stiff poses or ones with weird, warped proportions, especially when I'm doing more action oriented or foreshortened poses. (But of course, I don't post all the stuff I make.)

I guess to give a few closing notes, I've found that taking in information about anatomy and posing from a lot of different sources has helped me improve at it. I took a life drawing class recently that taught a very traditional manner of drawing the human figure that had a lot of emphasis on accuracy, and I took an anatomy and physiology class a couple years ago, which helped me gain an understanding of the human figure on a more scientific level, which I found very helpful. That said, I've found that YouTubers like LavenderTowne have a lot of useful information on drawing stylized anatomy and fluid poses, and her Do This, Not That videos are very informative, so I recommend looking into those a little bit for more stuff.

And a few more closing notes, that I've found work well for me personally, I highly suggest sketching loosely and lightly, and being okay with not drawing perfect poses every time. I've found, for myself, that not committing to lines right away allows me more space to find that sweet spot, so to speak, where things just work. I've found myself erasing the same lines over and over again so many times. Heck I'll draw the same post multiple times to get it to look right. It might not always look right on the first try and that's absolutely fine. Quite honestly it doesn't have to look right on the first try. For every pose I draw that turns out nice I have probably an average of 15 that have been erased or scratched out. So, like... don't get too hung up on stuff being perfect. And another small bit! Exaggerate stuff! It's fun! But it also helps capture the feeling and energy in the pose more than anatomical accuracy does, and I'd argue that especially when it comes to stylized work, it's important to push stuff to be a little bit "more" than it "realistically" would be, because I've found that can also help with fluidity. Besides, if it's been pushed too much, it's a little easier to pull it back.

I hope that long winded spiel was at least a little bit helpful, and again if any of this needs clarification, lmk! And have a fantastic day :D

[gelatinous-globster]

Somebody in the tags mentioned a scene i considered including in the original post, but elected to save for later for its own spotlight because i love it so much;

THIS scene, where Globby dumps Krei off on the top of the skyscraper in "Big Roommates 2".

The shot does a fantastic job of establishing how Krei sees him and what draws his attention the most—the neurotransmitter. The outsider perspective also serves to demonstrate how unnerving Globby is/can be; he doesn't realize it or have much of a grasp on the extent of his powers, but despite how goofy he is, he's still capable of being a threat.

He appears a lot less... well, put together, in his debut episode, as he doesn't have a handle on his abilities yet. As the series progresses his design becomes more consistently humanoid, or at least less creature-esque by default. I have a soft spot for how off-kilter his earlier appearances are.

big fan of these frames where the animators omit Globby's mouth

[familyvideostevie]

steel drum weight of me

joel miller x fem!reader, 18+ mdni

summary: joel comes back from his wall shift with hands in need of some serious tlc. but why stop there? | 3.2k

warnings: fem!reader, fluff turned to smut, a tender blowjob, p in v sex, unprotected sex, riding, creampie

a/n: this could be in the same universe as come care about me and watching you with wonder but who knows. what matters is it's a post-part i jackson au and all is well. this is my first fic in a while and i hammered it out today so hopefully it's coherent. <3 series masterlist here.

__

Jackson looks its best in the winter.

You've always thought so with its endless skies gone white, blending in with the grey clouds carrying the constant threat of snow. The peaks you never tire of, such ethereal beauty in a world otherwise gone to shit, looming over town with a steadfastness that you can fool yourself into thinking means protection, means safety. In reality, they're just something nice to look at when you have a free moment.

It's also fucking cold.

But you can deal with that. You've spent more winters in the last twenty years than you'd like to remember mostly outside, freezing your ass off, fingers so numb you could barely pull the trigger. But when it counted, you did.

Winter now means a town full of children laughing and having snowball fights. It means big pots of stew and your pick of hats, scarves, and a good pair of boots. It means a warm house to go back to every night, a bed to crawl into, and a man you love to hold you.

Things could be worse.

You're home first today. Joel and Ellie are on the wall and have been since mid-morning. The light is already going, the sun dipping behind the Tetons, sky that winter mix of purple and pink that makes the breath catch in your throat no matter how many times you see it. There's a flu going around and taking people out for a few days at most but it means fewer bodies free for the wall and for patrol. You're pulling a double tomorrow and you're already looking forward to the hot bath you'll take after.

Today, though, you change from your work clothes to something softer, a sweater that travels between your drawer and Joel's, thick socks Dina gave you for your birthday last year. It's hard to heat houses like yours the way you used to but it works well enough to fight the chill so long as you layer. That's the name of the game these days: adapting.

You set the kettle to boil and forgo thinking about dinner for a few hours. Joel won't drink tea with you but if Ellie stops by she'll have some. Maybe you can convince her to watch the movie you pulled from the library this week. You love him, but Joel just doesn't appreciate comedies.

The front door creaks, the bell you have hanging from the doorknob jingling.

"S'me," Joel calls into the house. "You home?"

"Making tea." The kettle isn't steaming yet so you lean against the counter and wait.

The sounds of his return are familiar even though you can't see him. He locks the door with a click, shrugs his jacket off with a sigh. He sits down on the bench you put in the entryway so he can take his boots off. The thunk of one and then the other. He'll tuck them next to yours under the coat rack. When the weather is bad you try to come in the back door so not as to track snow through the house but you don't want his back to get any worse so a bench in front makes sense.

The kettle screams. You pull it off quick and pour the water into your mug -- a chipped green one with a dinosaur holding a cookie that you find endlessly amusing -- and leave it to steep. The floor creaks under your socked feet as you make your way into the hall. Joel still sits on the bench digging into the meat of one palm with his thumb like he's working the feeling back into them.

He looks up and his jaw softens a little. His cheeks are rosy from the cold and his hair a mess from the wind. "Evenin," he says.

"How was the wall?"

"Fine." He stops messing with his hands and rolls his shoulders back with a grunt. "Ellie swears she saw a moose on her last patrol. Said to tell you. I think she's fuckin' with me. How was your shift?"

"Fine," you echo. "Is she coming for dinner?"

He shakes his head. "Game night at Jesse's."

You cross the remaining distance between you and he parts his legs automatically so you can stand between his knees. You run a hand through his hair, pushing the greying fringe back from his eyes. He looks up at you and finally smiles, just a little. You drag your hand down the side of his face and enjoy the feel of his beard on your skin.

"Maybe she did see a moose." He rolls his eyes and brings a hand up to cover yours. You lean down to kiss him but something catches your eye and you pull back, tugging your hand from beneath his to circle his wrist.

"Jesus, Joel." He makes a surprised sound.

"Hey now, what --"

You pull his other hand from his knee and hold them both close to your face, turning them over in the light of the entryway. "You didn't wear gloves, did you?"

He just shrugs. That means someone else on the wall -- probably Ellie -- forgot theirs and he handed his own over.

The skin of his knuckles is dry and cracked, the rest of his palm dry and cold to the touch. You've seen them bloody, broken and bruised, and compared to that, this is tame. Welcome, almost. But you know he won't do a damn thing about it, let himself bleed rather than take a second to make things better.

And you've never minded this part. Taking care of him, making him slow down and rest for even just a little bit. You both know you'd get your hands dirty or worse for him and he for you, but this is the part he has trouble with. So you take the reigns.

It's part of how you fit together -- part of how you look after each other.

"We've got something for this." Joel looks unamused. You press a light kiss to one of his knuckles and his nostrils flare. "Go sit on the couch," you say.

"I'm fine --"

"Joel, they'll bleed if you don't let me --"

"I said I'm --"

"Hey," you say. He hears the finality of your tone and lets you have it, sighing your name in one long breath.

"Alright," he says. "Move, then."

You press a quick kiss to his lips and release his hands to step back. He stands with his usual grunt and you have to stop yourself from leaning into the width of him, from wrapping your arms around him and slotting your nose in his neck and never letting go.

"It's that salve Dina brought over last week," you tell him. "The new one for the winter. Smells nice. Good for this kind of stuff."

Joel makes his way to the couch and you fetch the tin from the kitchen.

"What's it made of?"

"Uh -- oil? And some flowers, I think? Wax, maybe."

He's settled into the cushions when you return, smirking. "It's okay to say you don't fuckin' know."

You sit next to him and unscrew the top, folding your legs so you're facing him. "Well then, I don't fuckin' know." You're sure to imitate his drawl.

"Cute."

"Gimme those hands, big guy."

The salve smells faintly of lavender and it's cold on your fingertips. Joel extends his right hand and you work it into his skin slowly, extra careful around where it's cracked and split. You feel his eyes on you but you let him look.

"Feels good, huh?" He hums. "If you'd wear your gloves then --"

"What was I gonna do, let her freeze?" So it was Ellie, then. You flick your gaze up and find his brow furrowed. If you have a free hand you'd smooth the crease with your thumb.

"No," you say. "Guess it's a damn good thing you have me here, then."

He chuckles, a throaty, rusty sound. "Guess so."

You finish the first hand and motion for his second. He gives it to you and you dig your thumbs into the meat of his palm. Joel lets you touch him whenever you like, for the most part. Pressing into his side when you walk down the street in town, trailing your lips down his neck until he whines just a little in your bedroom. You've worked knots out of his shoulders and cleaned blood from surface wounds. You can never get enough of him, of his warmth, the expanse of his tanned skin all yours for the taking.

And, boy, he touches you back.

So you take your time. You rub the salve between his fingers, over the ridges of knuckles split so many times you don't even know about. His hands are rough even when they're not dry and cracking, callused from years of hard work. From years of violence and playing guitar, shooting a gun and holding the people he loves. Dotted with scars and nicks, hands that have touched every part of you.

Joel's slightly slimy finger taps your chin. "You okay?" You've been stroking the same bit of his hand for who knows how long.

"Yeah," you say and mean it. You rub your own hands together to soak in some of the salve before putting the lid back on the tin and standing. "Need to let it soak in."

"Feels soaked in already," he grumbles.

"Stay there." He purses his lips. "I mean it, Joel."

"Bossy today," he says. "There's wood that needs choppin'." You ignore him since he's just being annoying. The salve goes back in the kitchen and his voice trails after you. "And I told Tommy I'd --"

You turn on the tap. "You gotta let that soak in," you say again from the sink.

"What? Can't hear over the water."

You turn off the tap and dry your hands. Joel is still on the couch when you return. "Sorry," you say. You run your hand through his hair again and settle back down next to him. "I said be patient."

"Don't think that's what you said."

"It's what I meant."

And he looks at you in that way that always makes your face feel hot. Like he's seeing right to the bone of you, like he's laying you bare on the floor in his mind. Like he never wants to stop looking at you, next to him on the couch, leg pressed to yours. Like he loves you.

"Alright," he says.

You get an idea, the flames licking at your belly and your hands itching to touch him again, to touch him differently than before. That idea has you grabbing a pillow and tossing it to the floor, has you getting up and drawing the curtains before you sink to your knees before him.

Joel only looks mildly surprised, eyebrows raised, mouth tugging up at the corner. "Now, I ain't gonna complain but --"

"Then don't," you say. You tug his shirt from his waistband and start working on his belt. "Gotta pass the time somehow. And I don't know what we're doing for dinner yet, so maybe I'm just stalling."

"Hell of a way to stall." He reaches for you to touch your face, maybe, or help you with his belt, when you click your tongue. "We can just go to the community hall--"

"Don't touch," you remind him. "You have to let it--"

"Soak, Jesus, yeah, yeah." Joel tips his head back along the sofa and takes one deep breath. If he really wanted to he could ignore you and you'd let him get away with it, but if there's one thing you and Joel have solidified, it's trust. He trusts you to take care of him, to handle him with hands that love him.

So you do. He lifts his hips just a little so you can tug his jeans down, zipper undone and button popped. You pull out his cock, already half-hard at the promise of what's to come. You spit into your palm and stroke him once root to tip and he hisses. More blood flows and he stiffens in your hand.

"You just gonna look at it?"

You give him a squeeze for being a shit. He laughs but it sounds punched out, on the edge. Frankly it's an effort not to take him in your mouth right away. You've always loved this -- the exchange of power, the trust. You're the one on your knees but you're calling the shots. And he's mouthwatering. The way his cock curves a little, the vein that runs along the underside. The mushroom head a little pinker than the rest, the wiry hair at his base. The hefty weight of his balls in your hand, on your tongue. You know how to make it good for him and it's good for you, too.

Joel opens his mouth to no doubt say something else annoying so you finally drag your tongue along the vein, swirling a little at the top before taking just the tip of him in your mouth. His precome is salty. You work your hand along the rest of him as you start to suck in earnest, hollowing your cheeks and taking a little more each time.

"Look so pretty, baby," Joel says. His voice is gravely, broken in his throat. You manage to take almost all of him and you swallow, just once. Your reward is your name spilling from his mouth in a groan.

It's messy. Spit beads at the corner of your mouth and drips a little as you work him, breathing through your nose when you take him all the way. So good, takin' all of me, keep goin'.

Joel has clearly forgotten your directive as he winds one hand in your hair and pulls just a little, just enough to make you moan around him. You don't scold him for it, instead keeping your eyes on his face. His head is tipped back just a little, lips parted at he gazes down at you. His other arm is stretched along the length of the couch, his fingers digging into the fabric as you bob on his cock.

You know he's close. You can feel how he's trying hard to keep his hips down, trying not to fuck your throat cause usually he asks first. So it's only a little surprising when he pulls you off him, eyes a little glazed and some color high on his cheeks.

He wipes spit from the corner of your mouth with the pad of his thumb. "Why don't you c'mere?" he says. "Let me fill you up."

"Joel." This was supposed to be about making him feel good. You know even if he comes in your mouth he'll ask you let him touch you, so frankly you don't mind if he fucks you or not.

He smirks, presses his fingers into the side of your neck a little. You swallow so he can feel it. "We both know you can take it," he drawls, eyes dark. "Always gets you goin', my cock in your mouth."

You can feel the heat between your legs, the arousal pooling in your gut. He's right but he's also an asshole. "You're annoying," you tell him.

"So is that a no?"

You drag the flat of your tongue up his shaft one last time as punishment before standing, using his knees as leverage to get off your own. He shucks off his jeans the rest of the way as you drag down your pants, letting them pool with your underwear at your feet before stepping out. Joel holds out a hand for you to balance on and you take it, putting your other on his shoulder.

"Feels softer already," you mutter. Joel snickers and you straddle him. He uses one hand to drag his fingers through your cunt and you fail to swallow a gasp.

"Well, look at that," he says. "I was right." He pushes two fingers into you and they go easily, your hips jerking as he pumps them in and out once, twice, and then you're empty again.

"Smug bastard," you manage. He brings his hand to his mouth and takes a long lick before surging forward to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue and it makes you even wetter.

Joel licks into your mouth and you kiss him back sloppily, desperately, in the way you know he likes. You're so busy with that hands on his face, his beard scratching your skin deliciously, that you don't notice what else he's doing. His hand presses into the bare skin of your back under your shirt and you lift up a little on instinct and then --

The head of his cock nudges at your entrance and his hand presses again and you meet the movement of his hips with your own and he fills you with just one stroke.

You moan in unison, Joel's arm wrapping around your back as you curl yours around his neck, mouths not so much pressed together as hovering as you pant, as you adjust. Even with how wet you are Joel is a stretch, a welcome one, but a stretch regardless. You shift your hips, roll them back and forth a little.

"Go on, then," you tell him. "Fuck me."

He laughs.

His lips leave yours and trail down your chin, sucking spots onto your neck and on that spot that makes you keen as he does what you ask. He goes slow at first, letting you meet him thrust for thrust. One hand snakes up your shirt, thumbs at your nipple when he finds no bra in the way. You wing your fingers in his hair and tug, tug until he picks up the pace, until all you can hear is the smack of his flesh against yours.

"Joel -- Joel -- right there --"

"M'not gonna -- I -- fuck --"

"Said you were gonna fill me up, didn't you?" you pant, managing to find a bit of cheek in the haze of your fucking. "C'mon, Miller. Don't keep a lady wait--"

His hips pick up the pace, his hands pressing into you hard enough to bruise. You give up trying to tease him and hang on for dear life, managing to snake a hand between your legs to rub at your clit as he pounds into you. The only thing you can say is his name over and over as you feel the hook pull taught, feel the head of his cock brush against and then pound that spot that makes your vision blur.

Joel comes just before you do, his thrusts stuttering and his name on your lips. You feel it, the heat inside you and it's enough to send you over the edge, your cunt squeezing him as he empties inside you.

You press your forehead to his and catch your breath. He palms your neck, your jaw, slides his thumb lazily under your eye and kisses the corner of your mouth.

"Hell of a salve," he manages.

You slot your lips over his. "Wear your damn gloves." Joel laughs and it shifts him inside you. Even softening it makes you both hiss a little. "Just gimme a second."

His hand drags up and down your back, pressing into your spine. "Take your time," he says. "M'clearly not goin' anywhere."

"You never stop, do you?"

Joel kisses you again. "'fraid not."

You laugh into his neck. "Good."

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here!

[verdantlights]

Thoughts/Analysis Part 2 (but its coherent)

OKay so i slept (finally) after staying up since wednesday morning and only getting roughly 5 hours of sleep in total?? until I finally managed to get decent hours of sleep last night. anyways. i am still not normal in the slightest over round 7 but i have many more thoughts, am a lot more coherent, and have had it swimming in my head for a while.

TW for mentions of drug use. I'm gonna start with Luka. I've stated in the edit I made of the original post as well as in a few reblogs, but Luka is a victim. A lot of people are Luka haters, and that's valid! I am also, to an extent, a Luka hater.... even if I have a thing for blonde twinks with issues. But his character is also incredibly interesting. If you are familiar with Honkai: Star Rail, then you might understand what I'm saying when I think Luka is a combination of both Sunday AND Robin. He has the trapped bird in a cage mentality from Robin with the need for order and control mentality from Sunday. Order and control referring to winning being the only thing keeping his sanity in check.

Luka, as a human pet, is aware that he is playing a losing game. He needs to win, but he knows that winning Season 50 is not the end. He may have won against Till, but now the segyein are going to put him against Hyuna, considering Hyuna and Mizi were referred to as special guests. The way he looked at Hyuna in that last scene was part of him realizing this. It's the face you pull when you realize something horrible, but you need to keep face/keep your composure.

Their ear pieces are similar to their collars in that they show the emotions of the wearer. We can clearly see Till's earpiece glowing red the entire time (up until Mizi appears), and Luka's is constantly glowing green. Luka was seen in hysterics pretty much the entire time like the one frame where he's holding in his laughter.

Luka was drugged on something that makes him euphoric and lose his sense of control, like weed or cocaine. He found fucking with Till to be the funniest thing ever, but it's not normal for Luka to be so outwardly expressive of his elation. We know he enjoyed fucking with Mizi, even if it let to getting his ass beat, but even then, he wasn't as expressive then as he was with Till. That leads me to believe that he has something in his system to heighten his emotional output as well as some sort of adrenaline drug like what Till was most likely given.

What bugs me is that they don't show us what color his earpiece is as he looks at Hyuna. We see Till's earpiece turn green at Mizi, but does Luka's stay green as he looks at Hyuna? I feel it was orange, but that's just me.

Luka now knows what's about to happen, which is also why Hyuna tries to stop Mizi. Hyuna knew the whole time that if they were to save Till, they'd be walking straight into the trap. Mizi's heart is too kind and she's desperate to save Till.

Thankfully, what Hyuna had gone there for originally seems to be completed. Whatever files she was downloading was complete before she went after Mizi, and I think that's where were gonna see Issac and Dewey again. I think she might've been uploading those files to them so that they can take the lead from there. This leads me to my prediction for the next episode. (ill get to till last, hes my little meow meow and im not normal about him)

I don't think Blink Gone is done. I believe there is a part two to the Finals, and that round 7 wasn't even the final round. I've already stated that the most likely thing to happen next is Luka v Hyuna, but then I also talked about Issac and Dewey.

Hyuna could have gotten her hands on high profile data regarding Alien Stage. She sends the data to Dewssac, and they shut down the stage from the inside, allowing the resistance to come in and do a massive sweep, hopefully before either Hyuna, Luka, or Mizi dies.

Now, as for Mizi. We know Mizi is the main character, and there are people who are saying Till's death boosts her hero arc. Now there are two ways I see this happening, either:

Vivinos keeps up their streak of tragedy and kills off everyone, leaving Mizi isolated entirely.

Or someone (dewssac, hyuna, mizi, maybe even luka) pull through and live to save more people.

If it's the first one, Till is dead dead. If the second, Till has a chance at being alive.

There are many reasons why Till is most likely alive, and as a hopeful feeler... I also am clinging onto the more hopeful ending (the second option). Not just because "Haha guys I need Till to be alive, he's my bias" but also because seeing Mizi completely isolated and forced to fake a smile and perform would absolutely fucking destroy me and I don't think I'd ever be the same after that, honestly. Like that genuinely scares me.

There's the narrative of ALNST and vivimeng's beautiful storytelling. That is my number one hopeful reasoning for Till being alive. If Till dies here, it would be utterly nonsensical and it would ruin the narrative. It would completely void all of Ivan's character, for starters. I was just talking about this with @rockwgooglyeyes and Vant (idt they wanna be tagged here), but Ivan's character is static. He is not dynamic or fluid, but he is extraordinarily complex which makes up for it. He never really had an arc of his own unless you count what happened in his past during/before being bought by Unsha. His death is meant to haunt the narrative, meant to haunt Till. So why would he die, only for Till to die a few hours later? It would completely ruin what he was meant for and it would be so unsatisfying and bitter.

However, there's also the thematics of ALNST. Rock called out @pwippy for this already, but I'm gonna call them out too because fuck you plip (/j i love you plipster). Rock put it really well in these two excerpts I took from his post:

"Alien Stage is a universe full of suffering and pain for humans, forced to perform until they literally die on stage, all for the entertainment of the audience. It's not even meant as a way of exerting control or oppressing them, though it serves that purpose, because why would the seygein bother to oppress something that can't even fight back? Why go to the trouble of controlling something that is just a pet, whose cries are the fuel for a new age?"

Once again mentioning the Hunger Games because I genuinely can't help myself I love THG way too much, but that's the key difference between ALNST and THG: the human pets aren't being forced to do this because of a past rebellion and are being punished by the oppressing government... They're being thrown into this for fun. Full credit to @alien-til-i-stage who said this as a joke, but it is really fucking real, but the segyein bringing their human pets to watch ALNST in the audience are like people bringing dogs to a dog fight in real life. And that, I fear, puts into perspective as to just how much of a pet the humans are to the segyein. They are only there for entertainment. The resistance is mostly a thorn in their side as of right now (dewey and issac better change that next episode or istg) and killing these humans is simply just fun for them. They know humans can be hostile, just like dogs, but they tame them and make them docile and obedient, only to make them kill each other in the end, even if it's through a singing competition rather than an all out teeth and claws brawl. (except for round 5, that doesnt count)

"In this world of pain and suffering, perhaps death is a mercy. If Till is truly dead, then he no longer a tool for his oppressors, he is free of their control. For Ivan and Sua both of their deaths were mercies to them- Ivan was able to die for the one he loved, as was Sua, and neither of them were forced to live in a world without their beloved."

(thank you rock i love you pookie snookie)

He also mentions that it's not in character for Till to die, which I completely agree with. Till's persona is that of someone who wants to win, but not in the same way Luka needs to win. Till wants to win to live and survive with those he loves, he wants to win to beat the system, but considering how dystopian of a world this is, as much as he wants to win and save Mizi, he craves death as a freedom.

That out of the way, another thing that @junebluues actually got me to think about was this:

The bomb has Till's eyes and is crying as it knows it's going to die (assuming it's a sentient alien like Freddie). And the comparison here honestly opened my eyes a little bit and got me thinking.

Was Till a catalyst? Because that was a smoke bomb. I ended up thinking about it for a minute and came up with three possibilities where Till is a bomb/smoke bomb:

Mizi is using Till to hide her feelings

Till is the bomb that sets off a chain of events

Till is used to hide/cover up the real plan for either the segyein or for the resistance

I don't think it's the first one, I feel like it'd be closer to the other two, but any three of those could work. Because Mizi's feelings of despair over her situation can be hidden behind the hope as she reached out for Till. But as the smoke clears (Till dies) she remembers that it was, in fact, a bomb.

EDIT: Also, the lyric that plays during the smoke bomb scene is "No, don't look back now" which also kinda leads me to believe that Till is the start of a chain/domino effect. Once you knock the first domino, you can't go back.

I think someone somewhere had also talked about Till being forced to be used as a catalyst/bait again considering how well it worked here. There's a good chance Urak might have supplied the drugs to Till and also paid out or WAS paid out by another person to use Till as bait. Urak wouldn't want his pet that he is grossly possessive over to die that easily without every ounce of use being wrung out of him,,, something something Till being a Trojan Horse of sorts (thanks rock for that one, too).

EDIT: I also remembered that during the sequence in the song where the audience is singing the chorus and we see Ivan on the screens, is when Till looks like he's about to pass out. What gets me here is the fact that it is quite literally a chorus of vultures. The audience singing the chorus with images of Ivan surrounding him and seeing Luka mimic Ivan made Till realize that he was surrounded and that's when he started losing hope. It's why his reaction to Mizi is so prominent, because it's like she was there to save him from the vultures. The audience singing is my favorite and also least favorite part of the video/song because the feeling of being surrounded and cornered with everyone against you and their voices echoing in your head... really does it for me. I really want to animate this sequence from up close in Till's POV.

Anyways the 4th reason i had for the bomb theory was that Till is smoking hot (sorry). okay im done now i think,,,,,, i might actually come back with more because i think i forgot something... but i cant remember..... i forgor.....

other tags: @shakingparadigm @aakaneeee @ivanttakethis @k9punkout @crustyfloor @apriciticreveries @bluemoonscape @tsukacchako @nottoonedin @paperstarry

side note that i genuinely put more effort into my analyses than i have ever put into any school essay ever

edit: FUCK I WAS SUPPOSED TO ANALYZE THE LYRICS AGAIN GOD DAMNIT i dont feel like doing that anymore ill just do it later maybe

[silvyysthings]

Morning ( at least my side of the world)

Love waking up to the Armie love..and might I just say..Totally agree with the anons!

I NEVER pay attention to celeb scandals. But based on Armie's performance alone, I took the time to research him. You can't watch his interviews objectively and come out believing half the stuff you read. Unless you just want to hate on him. He embodied everything about Oliver because he IS Oliver. No one could have done it better. You see the intelligence and depth behind his eyes when he drops his guard. There is so much more to him than his looks. I'm not gonna lie, it's embarrassing, but I would watch some of his interviews and want to cry thinking what he went through. I will never understand why they went after him so hard..other than jealousy and people's love to tear others down. They are doing it to Timothee now. No wonder he hides so much.

Anyway. Armie is Oliver and he deserved way more recognition for his performance than he recieved but hopefully we will get a chance to see him at his best again. Judging by the reaction everytime he posts something, we are not alone in anxiously waiting his return to the screen.

Okay. Now, gonna go get coffee.I hope this is even coherent...can't function without my caffeine.🥰

My dear @lordfarquadsexwife thank you for this beautiful ask.

This touched me " He embodied everything about Oliver because he IS Oliver. No one could have done it better. "

It's true.💙

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

good morning! it:s orsday sabbath, the eighth day of the week if you follow the eighth day calendar; this weeks programming is posted and readable right here -- the topic this day ended up involving archangel:nemesis, hopefully incorporated coherently.

have a nice day!

[ellalalala]

Snippet from a Dottore x Reader fic that I'm working on! Hopefully posting this will motivate me to work harder on it.

Zandik stepped closer. “I won’t let you die. I will save you.”  Spoken with a confidence undeserved, his words served to soothe you, but only temporarily. You looked up at him with wide eyes, as if hoping to find an answer in his unreadable expression, while Zandik, to his credit, stood calm and motionless.  “Why?” you asked. His jaw clenched. What could he say to that?   Because you are my patient, and it is my duty as a physician to help you. Because you are a friend – my only friend. Because you are the only person to treat me like someone worthy of respect, and it shouldn’t mean much- and yet.  He couldn’t tell you. What was the point? After what happened to Sohreh... There was no longer any use in trying to connect with people – no use in trying to reconnect with you.    “Helping my patients is the least that I can do,” Zandik lied. He averted his gaze so as to not see the miserable look on your face – he couldn’t bear it. Something inside him ached when he saw the tears rolling down your cheeks.  To his relief, you said nothing as he slipped through the curtains surrounding your bed. Come morning, you’d refuse to speak to him. Your mental coherence would deteriorate faster than that of the other specimens, and only three weeks later, you would die.  Zandik thought it utterly ridiculous. You weren’t supposed to pass. He’d promised to help you – and it hadn’t been out of the goodness of his heart, no, there could be no such thing as a good heart, not in his case – he simply felt that it was something that had to be done. You were his only companion. When the sages chased him out of the Akademiya, you had been the only person to not scowl at him like he was something disgusting.  And Zandik failed you.  Why were you more susceptible to the symptoms of Eleazar than the others? Why did you pass so soon? He was just figuring out how to stabilize the effects of the Withering on the human body. Zandik could have helped you.   He was pensive as he gazed at you. Zandik wished you had been anything but human – he wished you had been a machine. A mechanical life form of some sort that could transcend the earthly boundaries placed upon you by fate. Oh, what a cruel, wretched thing it was; he despised it, despised Celestia. They took you away from him twice. Both times, he had been too weak to defy fate. Zandik closed his eyes, willing himself to remain calm. Self-loathing wormed its way into his chest, as if it had never left.

the main idea of the story summed up in one sentence: Dottore creates a segment of his deceased friend due to some very complicated feelings that he never properly handled, but unfortunately for him, things go a bit awry.

I'm hoping to post this sometime soon. :)

[darl-ingfics]

Sunday Morning

Fandom: Seventeen

Sickie: Joshua (cold)

Caregiver(s): Seungkwan (with some Jeonghan and Mingyu)

Word Count: 1,518

Notes: I was waiting to post this, but the state of my country makes me sad, so imma just post now for the extra endorphins.

Rain spattered softly against the window as Seungkwan very gently pushed open the door. His heart melted instantly at the sight before him. Joshua was fast asleep, curled up on his left side under the blankets, left hand tucked against the pillow beneath his cheek. His right hand was held firmly in Jeonghan’s. The older vocalist was asleep as well, head pillowed against his arm, ass firmly sat in the dining room chair he’d muscled into the room. Jeonghan was wearing a mask, two actually; it had been one of the only coherent requests Joshua had made in the past 24 hours. 

In theory, this trip was supposed to be a blast. In reality, though, everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. It had been raining since they’d arrived, meaning all thirteen of them plus managers and staff and film crew, had either been stuck inside together or forced to make their planned games work out in the muddy, wet yard, neither of which had gone quite as planned. They’d had a great time filming, but things just kept going wrong, a series of funny inconveniences that would make for laughable memories after the fact.

But then Joshua had gotten sick. He’d woken up with a cold out of nowhere on their second day there, and, since he hadn’t expected it, hadn’t brought any medicine along with him. The only one who had brought anything was Seungcheol in the group’s designated ‘first aid kit,’ but it was soon discovered that the cold medicine in there was significantly expired. And, since the weather was so bad and they had minimal staff with them on the trip and Joshua had assured everyone that he was absolutely fine and could power through on ibuprofen and copious amounts of water, so one had gone to get more. 

And now, two days later, Seungkwan wasn’t quite sure how his hyung had made it as long as he did without collapsing. Especially given how many of their activities had taken place outside in the drizzly, windy, gloomy late fall weather. Especially when what had started as a simple cold quickly became something much more vicious. 

To Carats, Joshua’s behavior on camera would, hopefully, seem totally normal. Their sweet, soft, gentleman Shua, calmed by the quiet seclusion of the woods, at ease in the presence of his members. It wasn’t wholly unusual for him to sink into the background, to watch and laugh along at the younger members’ shenanigans. Sure, he’d become much more vocal and energetic the last few years, but he could be subdued when he wanted. The fans would assume that the peace of the forest had relaxed his crazier side, had brought back the sweet, soft Joshua of old. 

The members, though, saw right through him. Joshua was quiet cause his throat hurt and his voice was audibly congested. He was sitting to the sides because he didn’t want to get anyone else sick. When he did cuddle closer to his members if they initiated contact, (and as long as one or both parties was wearing a mask), it was because he was a shivery mess. He’d fallen asleep on the couch because he was exhausted. His members knew he was struggling. But they also knew he could handle himself, and would tell them if he needed a break. 

Which Joshua did do, but only after he’d spiked a fever Saturday afternoon. He’d fallen asleep on the couch between two scheduled filming times, and when Wonwoo went to wake him, Joshua had been so disoriented and delirious he’d almost immediately broken into a panic attack. It also hadn’t been helpful that his…

Which was why no one had woken Joshua up today. Why the camera crew had been asked to leave him alone, to cut the feed from the cameras already set up in his room. Why they’d set up the rotation of members sitting with him; first to stop any attempts to sneak footage of their ailing member, but also because of how terrifying it had been to see him so disoriented after waking up on the couch. The members never wanted to see their brother like that; they couldn’t imagine Carats would appreciate the view either. 

And Jeonghan had specifically requested to be with Joshua overnight, hence, the dining room chair. 

Seungkwan tiptoed forward, placing a gentle hand on Jeonghan’s shoulder to rouse him. Jeonghan woke with a sharp inhale, looking around nervously. “It’s just me, hyung,” Seungkwan whispered. Jeonghan instantly relaxed, glad he wasn’t immediately needed. “Let me swap in for a bit. You go sleep in my bed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You need rest, too.” Jeonghan sighed, nodding at the logic of his dongsaeng’s statement. “How is he?”

Jeonghan ran a hand over his face. “I think we finally got the fever down. But I don’t… know for sure.” The elder vocalist paused, running his finger down Joshua’s flushed cheek. “He’s so sick, Kwannie.” Seungkwan frowned as Jeonghan took hold of Joshua’s hand again. “He kept tossing and turning all night. Waking up in a panic, not with it enough to tell me what was wrong… there was a lot of English ramblings I couldn’t follow. I thought about waking Sollie, but I couldn’t leave him. I almost called his mom, too…”

Seungkwan’s hand latched onto Jeonghan’s shoulder, squeezed reassuringly. “You did great, hyung.” Jeonghan leaned back in his chair, tired eyes smiling up at Seugnkwan. The younger man leaned forward, kissing the elder’s forehead softly. “Go rest. I got him.”

“I know you do.”

Jeonghan stood up slowly, stretching his back until he heard a satisfying pop. He then quietly left the room, only turning back once with searching eyes to check if Seungkwan was serious. The younger man shooed him out before settling into the dining room chair. He caressed Joshua’s hand once, twice, assessing his sleeping form. Then, content that the elder man was still fast asleep, Seungkwan cracked open the door on the side table, ready to wait to be needed…

He wasn’t sure how long it had been when a quiet whimper from the bed caught his attention. Seungkwan watched the lump under the covers shudder with a raspy inhale, limbs slowly shifting around. Joshua’s head curved forward, face disappearing beneath the hem of the comforter. Seungkwan thought he’d fallen back asleep when a muffled cough shook the blanketed form. 

Seungkwan grinned, reaching out a hand and ruffling Joshua’s still visible hair. “Good morning, sleeping beauty.” 

Joshua’s face peeked back out from the blankets, squinting against eyelids still heavy with sleep. “H-hannie?” His voice was hoarse, drained, so terribly small. 

“It’s Seungkwan.” The younger man carded his fingers through Joshua’s hair again. “I let Hannie-hyung go sleep a bit, and took his place so you wouldn’t wake up alone.”

“Oh. Thank you, Kwannie.” He coughed again, his whole body contracting with the force of it as he hid his face in the blankets once more. Seungkwan flinched sympathetically, squeezing Joshua’s shoulder until the fit subsided. 

“Here.” Joshua peeked out again as Seungkwan offered him the reusable water bottle from the bedside table. “You good to sit up?” Joshua nodded, but didn’t make any move to do so. Seungkwan, nodding himself, reached forward, easing Joshua up and back the headboard before handing him the water bottle. 

Seungkwan sighed, biting his lip as he watched his friend drink listless from the built in straw. Joshua had been so sick the whole time they’d been at the cabin, and he absolutely hated seeing his dear friend so unwell. 

An idea popped into his head, and Seungkwan found himself acting on it without thinking. “Sunday morning, rain is falling,” he sang softly, a smile spreading on his lips. Joshua smiled in return. “I don’t know the rest of the words,” he continued to sing, still in tune. Joshua laughed, and even though the sound was hopelessly weak and congested, Seungkwan’s heart leapt at the sign of life. “Ba ba ba-da ba ba ba baaaa…” He started a slight shimmy of his shoulders to increase the comedy. “And somethin’ else ‘bout you again~” Joshua’s smile could’ve rivaled the sun as Seungkwan launched into the chorus of the song. He reached out his hand, and Seungkwan grabbed it, squeezing as he swayed along to his own version of the song. 

His song was cut off when Mingyu’s head poked around the door. His lips broke into a smile at the sight of Joshua awake. “Hyung, I brought you lunch if you’re up for it!” 

“It’s already lunch time?” Seungkwan asked in disbelief. 

Mingyu shrugged. “Not really. But the last meal Shua-hyung actually had was breakfast a few days ago, so this is kinda like… the spiritual successor to that.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Seungkwan shook his head. 

“It does to me.”

“I love you, guys,” Joshua said softly. Seungkwan and Mingyu shared a look before turning back to their Shua. They didn’t need to say it back; Joshua already felt their love just like waking up on a rainy Sunday morning. 

[penvisions]

return the favor {chapter 21}

Pairing: Post-Outbreak! Joel Miller x Smuggler! Reader

Summary: After an explosive fight the night before, your trio gets ready to depart from Jackson. Finding yourself back on outside the gates, everything seems different. But then again so are you, so are your circumstances.

Word Count: 5k

Warnings: canon typical language, canon typical angst, canon typical violence, use of weapons, use of guns, use of machete, fighting, violence, reference to previous injuries, reference to past traumas, ptsd symptoms in both joel and bean, self-depreciation, super fucking sad moment in scene two of this one, MAJOR ANGST, yelling, conflict, emotional baggage, talk of outbreak day, medical jargon, reader has a lot of thoughts on a cure for the virus, existentialism

A/N: inspiration for this chapter was 'let it burn' by shaboozy. these two have grabbed a hold of my thoughts and i am writing pages like a mad woman. bean and joel mean so so much to me. hopefully it's all coherent, please let me know what y'all are thinking! i know it's a mess for these two right now an the content is angsty and may be triggering in this part of the story. my inbox is always open, love y'all ♡

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

The morning came quickly, no sleep having been found under the cover of night.

You couldn’t have dosed off for more than a few minutes at a time, an hour at the most spent on the cusp of awareness. That in-between state where you were immobile, and your mind tried it’s hardest to let you slip under but just shy of lying about. It was warm, that was the only consolation of the house offered to you for the night. It wasn’t another night sleeping on the frozen ground and hoping the temperature didn’t drop or the windchill robbed you of breath and feeling. Of constantly waking to check if the other sleeping bags were still rising and falling with the even breaths of those inside.

Sighing, you reached out across the empty bed to stretch out your arms from the curled up position you had adopted. But you sat up suddenly when the spot your hand had reached was warm. As if someone had been sitting on the edge of the bed. As you did so, a thick blanket you didn’t recall seeing when pulling the covers back pooled around your waist.

You heard the front door open and close, but no footsteps came further into the house. Not Tommy coming over to begin the day, but his brother departing on his own.

He must’ve returned after you hid away for the night, biding his time until things calmed down enough for him to enter the house undisturbed. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you pictured him laying the blanket over you, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching as you slept.

Of him setting on the edge of his own bed, consumed by his thoughts and feelings that had to be so overwhelming he had decided to self-destruct and tear everything around him down in the process.

It hurt. It hurt to picture him alone by his own creation, but still feeling the desire to make sure you were comfortable in wake of that.

 But it didn’t mean anything, it couldn’t. He had made it his mission to find the words that would hurt you the most and use them against you. To use your own insecurities against you, point them out and use them as a way to rationalize this course of action. Rationalize abandoning you, you and Ellie.  

Joel.

Joel was standing beside one of the horses, the stall gate open as he fastened a saddle to the tall creature, tightening the buckle to make sure it was secure. The horse snickered, signaling to him that you were approaching if your footsteps hadn’t reached him quite yet. When he turned to look over his shoulder, you felt your body twitch, fight or flight activated in a visceral way.

You immediately dropped Ellie’s hand. She reached for it even as her own emotions fluttered up and became overwhelming. But you stepped away, nearly knocking into Tommy in the process.

When he looked up from his task completely, his eyes met yours and you turned on your feet and walked away without a second thought. Your name followed, but you didn’t turn back. A chorus of your name sounded all around as you fled the stables on shaky legs, face hot and heart thudding painfully hard in your chest. Head dizzy with the brief encounter of a man who you hadn’t expected to see ever again too much after a fitful night.

A hand closed around your arm and you thrashed against it, whipping around and landing a punch on whoever it was right in the middle of their chest.

“Get off of me!” Terror colored the air, the pure feeling of being trapped. Of being touched by someone who you didn’t give permission to. But the person moved toward you, grunting from the force of the hit you had landed on them, breath being drawn back in to recover. Their arms came around you, cradling you to their chest and hands holding the back of your head as you lost the feeling in your limbs. Body going slack in a last-ditch effort of self-preservation.

The person didn’t expect that, and they lost their footing, knees hitting the ground hard when you jostled along with them. But they tried their best to not let you land on your own numb limbs. You could barely hear anything over the sound of your blood rushing in your ears, your own name being called out softly not breaking through. Eye blinking rapidly, you tried to clear your blurring vision, though it wasn’t from tears. You had exhausted all of those last night.

“We gotta stop, darlin’.” Joel’s somber tone finally broke through, his voice thick with tears he wasn’t letting fall. They were a shine in his beautiful eyes when you looked up at him with an unfocused gaze. Vision blurring and sharpening in a rapid succession. His own softening when he realized you were barely there, barely present under the direct attention he was giving to you now. You watched the wrinkles around his brow furrow, deepening as he tried to coax something, anything out of you.

But you were unable to comply, unable to give him anything else. He had taken everything already, burned down what he didn’t like with vicious words that had festered all night. Taken ahold of you and ruined the rest. You had nothing for him anymore.

“I-I can’t keep feeling like my chest is gonna cave in every time I lose sight of you.” He murmured into your hair, leaning down to speak only to you. Distantly, you were aware of the watching eyes of Ellie and Tommy, just inside the threshold of the stables. Both uncertain of what to do, if they should separate you from each other or let this play out. Joel was holding you with such care, such caution and it made them both pause. “My breathing gets stuck, it hurts, darlin’. Feels like knives when you get hurt, spreads all over my body, it numbs me. When I can’t help you, when I can’t see you or reach you, call you back to the present. And that’s not good, we both know that.”

“Joel…” You cautiously treaded, voice sounding foreign and so unlike your own even to your own ears as they steadily cleared. Unsure why he was doing this. Now, of all times. He had already made his case, tore you down as he self-destructed. But he was trying to explain now the reason he had done so in such a catastrophic way. Just like how he was trying to make amends with Ellie, giving her the choice he had so selfishly stolen from her on the same path of destruction just the night before.

“It’s not…it’s not easy. And the further we’ve traveled, the more time we spend out here. It’s just…it’s not something that can last. And for that, I am sorry. I-I didn’t mean any of the bullshit I fired at you yesterday, you have to know that was all projection. You are strong, you are capable, you are so god damn smart, darlin’. But…it’s not…” His gloved hands were strong on the back of your head, on the small of your back despite the way they ached in the cold of the early morning. One last hold on you before he let you go. You knew him, you could read him, and it was too real of an understanding that he was trying to spell out for you now, even through the fog taken over your entire being.

You had known, deep down. That the feelings didn’t mean anything, even if you acknowledged them. They didn’t change anything, didn’t alter the dynamic, only gave it a depth that was dangerous.

“I’m the one who isn’t strong enough, can’t move fast enough. Can’t keep up with everything thrown our way to get here or what’s to come. But I would try until my last breath, darlin’, please believe that. And that’s the problem.”

“Because you do feel something for me.” You didn’t argue, didn’t try to call him out. You simply wanted to understand, the hurt of his words still rooted deep in your mind and heart.

“…yes.” He finally admitted, finally decided to be honest with you about what had begun to develop over the journey here. But it didn’t bring you any joy now, to know that the man felt for you the way you had begun to felt for him. It was damnation, he had been correct in his description. Because you both knew that clinging to that spark was far more dangerous than trying to cultivate it into a fully grown tangible thing. It would prompt the most resilient of things from you both, violent in their tendencies and ugly in the worst ways if picked up upon by others. Leverage to use against one or both of you, something that would bring about death.

“Okay.” Was all you could say, face calm despite the storm raging inside of you. It was breaking, beginning to wane and soon it would disappear. It would leave you empty, a gaping hole in the thick plaster you had slathered and smoothed over yourself in order to make it in the world as it was today. Having already been torn down once by a man with careful words and hands, capable of helping you to create something when nothing seemed to matter.

He had given you hope, but the man standing in front of you now was different. Joel wasn’t feeding into the same notion, instead adding his own layer of solution over the walls he had stumbled through in clumsy motions. He wouldn’t be helping you to dismantle it, too afraid of what it would mean. Too afraid of what it would symbolize in this world. So unlike the man before him, but so similar in the ways that he had nestled himself into the confines of your heart.

Your arms didn’t feel like your own as they reached up and snaked around his neck, your legs didn’t feel like your own as they moved to straddle one of his own and give you purchase to embrace him back. Your lips didn’t feel like your own as they met his in a chaste kiss. A goodbye that wasn’t bittersweet, but venomous. His tears finally fell, dampening the skin of your neck.

Overcoming the disastrous events of yesterday would take time, something of a luxury neither of you had. He was trying to make amends, trying to make you understand. That’s all he could do, was try. And all you could do in return was take the heavy stones he had tied around his limbs and loosen them. Let them fall away and take them on yourself so he wouldn’t have to carry them. You had before and you could do it again.

“I can’t go with you.” You whispered, lips brushing against his as the words sprouted from you. The truth too painful to admit at full volume, too painful to say at all. But you had to. You had to tell him you understood it was the right thing, that he understood it was the right thing. Distance. Perhaps long-lasting separation that turned into only once knowing each other.

“I know.” 

He helped you to stand back up, putting distance between you both as he walked back into the stables. Tommy trailed after him, both men giving you a moment with a confused and concerned Ellie. She was too young to understand that despite the apology, the bridge had been burned and it was only one of you who would take her to where she needed to go.

You turned to her, not wanting to do this, not wanting her to see how hurt you were but knowing that whatever she did glimpse, it was absolutely not aimed at her. “I’m not mad at you, Ellie. I just…I’m not good enough to get you where you need to go if he’s there. And he’s not good enough to do it if I’m there. He made it clear as crystal he has one care he’s allowing himself in the world and it’s you.”

“You’re being selfish! I know he’s an ass. He yelled at me too, but look! I’m trying, I’m giving him a second chance. Why can’t you?” Her words were sharp, cutting into you like the blade you wielded and you took each one without a grimace.

"Ellie, that man is your future. He will protect you until his last breath. But we can’t all travel together again.” Your eyes moved from her deep frown and her hands gripped tight on the second bag that dangled by her legs to the figure of Joel leading a singular horse out of the stables. “I have so much care and love for you, but it’s not a good fit. All three of us, it was always supposed to be him, Ellie.

I’m not able to protect you, I’ve been out of it most of our trip, unable to do anything without his help. He’s the one who can get you there, he’s the one who is capable. I’m so sorry for making you feel like you could count on me, I’m not the one to place your bets on. He is.”

"So what, it all meant nothing? The whole fucking journey here didn't mean anything to you?"

"Ellie, please listen to me and hear me, it meant everything to me. but it's past and there are some things I have to take care of."

“You’re just gonna leave me? Like he tried to, like he regrets trying to do. But you’re actually gonna fucking do it, huh? You’re a real piece of work. So much for sticking with me. Fucking liar.” She stalked off, refusing to hear anything else you had to say. “Go, get the fuck away from me! I never want to see you again!”

Joel’s hand curling around her shoulder as she crossed the threshold of the stables made them the perfect wounded pair and you turned your back on them as they began to walk away, hoping that this was all for the best. That you were making the right move.

You were still at the stables when Tommy returned, his pack still over his shoulders but his rifle was missing. He was silent as he entered the stall you were readying a horse in. It was a beautiful animal, with white and brown patches all over. You figured the coloring would help you to blend into the landscape easily, having a long journey ahead of you.

“Where will you go?” Tone so unlike his brother, though the twang of a Texan accent curled around his words all the same.

“Home.” You grunted as you tightened a bag to hang from the saddle, the pack holding a small collection of camp kitchen supplies. Maria had tried to give you as much to work with as possible, not wanting you to starve or be without a source of heat should more storms greet you outside the gates.

“And where is that?”

“California. Should’ve gone back a long time ago, but…things never worked out.” You could sense the curiosity in him, so unlike his brother who hid his emotions. He had been nothing but kind to you, even if you hadn’t directly interacted with him. But if he was related to Joel, he was a good man. Indulging him, you found yourself opening up to him with more directness than you had with anyone before. Wanting a lifeline here in Jackson should you find your way back here. “Tennessee was home when the Outbreak happened, stuck around there for a while….then found myself in Boston. I remember catching glimpses of you with Joel, every so often. And then suddenly you disappeared. Wasn’t ever sure what happened, but I figured a loss is a loss.”

“Yesterday was such a hectic day. With falling on your arm and everything…will you be okay?” He followed you out of the stall, out of the stables, the horse letting you lead it leisurely along. Two shadows waiting close by, a horse already saddled and ready beside them.

“I hope so.” You offered him a soft smile, grateful for his concern.

“Will you be okay?” His inflection changed, eyes looking between both of your own as he moved closer and placed a hand on your shoulder. You sighed, trying to shake the thoughts of what happened today from your mind, knowing they would be revisited tonight when you try to rest.

“I’ve done pretty good so far, think I can manage to get over your big brother.” You knocked his shoulder with your own. His arms suddenly came around you in a hug, his chin hooking over one of them and nearly knocking your hat from atop your head. But you didn’t flinch, too worn out to fight against comfort if someone wanted to offer it to you. With warmth blossoming in your chest, you let your head lean into his own and closed your eyes.

“Thank you.” His low voice was strong, emotions strong as you hesitantly returned the sudden embrace. “Thank you for helping get him here.”

“Thank you for being alive,” You whispered back, the worry of how this all could’ve turned out weighing heavily on you even in of luck and chance. Of the sheer determination Tommy must’ve exhibited to not only leave with the Fireflies all those years ago, but to actually leave the organization and not find himself on a hit list. That he found refuge here in Jackson, a life here in Jackson, it was all so overwhelmingly wonderful. For a man who had been down so many wrong paths to find a good one to travel on after so long. That it allowed him to not only survive but live, given him the opportunity to reconnect with his brother.

Given him the chance to make something out of the wreckage of this world that would last.

“You have a home here.” He leaned back, arms still around you as he looked down at you, trying to find the right words for a goodbye that wouldn’t add weight to the events since arriving. “Maria likes you, sees you. I like ya just based on the fact that you’re not afraid to holler back if someone comes at ya. Can throw a hell of a right hook too. We’ll be here for you, whenever you decide to return.”

You nodded once, allowing him to help you mount the horse and followed that morning’s patrol through the town and toward the gate.

The railroad was easiest, so you stuck close to it when you could. The open land setting your nerves on high alert, there was no coverage out here on the plains. But you were hoping that the advantage of having a horse now would allow you a good head start if someone tried you, the rifle on your shoulder too. Maria did well, giving you everything you might need. More help than you could have ever hoped for, including the map you had found in the pocket of your new coat, detailing the route Joel and Ellie would be taking.

You had stood still for a long while, beside the horse you had let loose to get a drink from a small creek. The map tight in your gloved hand as you stared out toward the expanse of Colorado. The state line between Wyoming and Idaho close by, only a few minutes travel. Torn between moving in the opposite direction of them, worried for them and the possible threats that awaited them. But they were strong, stronger without you. They would be okay, you had to hope they would be okay. Tucking the map back into your pocket, you clicked your tongue to get the horse to come back to you.

Mounting it easily, you made your way west and crossed the state line.

Night fell and with it you hunkered down in the mild protection of the woods. The horse laying down and allowing you to lean up against their warm body, one blanket thrown over his neck to help stave off some of the cold. You had your sleeping bag curled over your shoulders, unzipped to make a small shield against the biting chill, but even with all the supplies and advice and kind words Maria had offered you, you were still utterly and completely alone. The fire crackling in front of you did nothing to warm the cold that had taken root in your chest, not born of the weather. It would only defrost with the snickering laughter of a sarcastic teenager, in the rumbling chuckle of a stoic man, in the lightness they both inspired in you despite the endless circumstances that decided to rain down upon you all.

Your heart ached for the gruff grunts Joel would make when settling down for the night, either in front of the fire for an imitation of a family dinner or for the attempt at getting some sleep for the evening. But it was a thing of the past, something you wouldn’t hear again. Alone. Completely and wholly alone. A sentence of your own making, a reality brought on by your foolish naivety that you were now subject to. Journey now shrouded in the selfish need to seek answers to questions that had plagued you for far too long.  No longer intertwined with that of a brooding older man who had space in his heart enough for a girl who hid her pain behind terrible jokes. No longer a part of that dynamic, unsure if you ever were supposed to even be a part of it in the first place but having forced yourself into the fold when faced with returning behind the walls of the quarantine zone.

Spit back out in such a damning way.

Sighing, you stretched a boot out to stamp the small fire out. Shrugging tighter against the horse behind you, prompting them to turn their head and snuff against your hat in a teasing way. He was a good animal, easy to direct, willing to follow, gentle. But still, you were alone. Surrounded only by the bare trees of the wilderness you had to cross.

It was the fifth day after departing from Jackson when the universe decided you were ready for it to pick back up the punches. Tracking your progress on the map as you tried to calculate how many hours or steps it would take to trek through the dense woods that would get you through the state of Idaho and into the desert landscape of Nevada. It had been a discussion, between you and Maria, which route would be the most logical.

Either to gear up impossibly so in order to endure the remaining time of winter through the pacific northwest and make your way south through the long state of California to your hometown. Or to put up with the snow and ice for the duration of traveling through a corner of one state before finding relative refuge in the desert landscape that made up most of the south west part of the country. It would mean more exposure through the desert, but it would also mean lesser chances of running into people or Infected. More reliance on supplies and rationing.

After admitting that you weren’t very fond of the cold, of winter in general, maps of different states had been brought out from where they were collected in the council’s meeting place. She had allowed you to look them over, wanting to give you the best chance she could at accomplishing what you were set out to do. To help you, to help you find what you needed to in order to move on and begin to heal on your own terms. A journey she did not envy, but one she would do whatever she could to give you the best chance of returning to Jackson someday.

She liked you, came her admittance over a cup of coffee. You had sought her out in the early morning before Tommy had awoken to ready himself for the task his brother had desperately asked him to take over. Maria had been awake, her kitchen light visible from the house you were in across the street. Not having the courage to bother her otherwise in the wake of being torn down so completely by someone who you thought had accepted you. Hesitant to reach out and force a connection with the woman who had a literal commune’s worth of worries on her shoulder, paired with the ups and downs of pregnancy in a time where every aspect of it was washed in uncertainty.

But she saw you. Most likely told of the disastrous confrontation that had happened by her husband. Perhaps seeing you more then than she had previously.

You had initially planned to take Ellie to where she needed to go, staying with her for however long it would require hearing the Fireflies out. To apply logic and statistics to their case of proposed action with Ellie now in their hands. With her blood and tissue at their relative disposal in order to run tests, to assuage that she truly was immune in tests and medical procedures that would warrant a solid base to work off of. You weren’t being honest though, with either Joel or Ellie. You didn’t think it was possible. You didn’t think the creation of something so expansive that it would eradicate the very real and adaptive being of cordyceps would be easy, if at all possible. In this lifetime or the next.

The world had shifted. And there was no way to turn back the hand of time on something so complete and expansive. The world had decided what the new order was, the best way to endure it was to adapt. Alter ways of thinking to align with it, accept it. Hell, cordyceps had found a way to adapt in a relatively short twenty years. Evolution almost fast tracking in order to preserve itself for a longer duration. Another thing to consider when thinking about overcoming it. Adaptability meant survival, and if it was fast acting then surely it would find a way to take on elements of a vaccine or cure and circumvent the attempt.

The issue didn’t lie solely in the science and medical proficiency of the staff, but in the resources that it would take to even jumpstart such research. Ellie was only one person, so young and developed into her own mindset, she would’ve listened to them. Turned to you for your opinion, your guidance.

And you would’ve been honest with her then. In the face of whatever plan the Fireflies had concocted up while playing the waiting game. Playing the hoping game. That she would have to most likely remain at their facilities, if they even had any up and operating on the level they would require for such an egotistical task of altering the shift the world had deemed to make. That she would have to give herself over wholly to them, to their ministrations. That she could weaken her immune system in the process, fall victim to some other illness or virus in the efforts to find one for the outbreak. That it would be a shadow of a life, with no guarantee that it would make a difference, let alone a universal one.

That you believed it was hopeless.

And then you would’ve told her of your hometown, beginning the journey in that direction with the determination to show her the other coastline. To help her find another meaning for her life to have worth. Even if it was simply being alive. It meant so much these days, to simply be alive.

Though your thoughts were zoned out on an endless play of ‘what if’ ‘then what’ that didn’t matter anymore, you were on alert as you continued on. The sun trying to break through the cloud coverage in the last dredges of the day.

Just as your foot came down in another, countless step you swooped down to cloak yourself behind the fallen trunk of a pine tree. Ears straining and chest hurting with the effort to quiet your breathing, you could hear the distant sound of branches crunching, people walking among the wooded area just like you were. One voice sounded feminine, the other masculine. It was an easy conversation between them, a simple request to gather kindling for a fire since night would fall within the hour.

They weren’t speaking English, as least not completely, the voices sounding in a mixture of it and Spanish. Familiar but yet so wedged into the crevices of your mind after years of not using your household language. Such a tantalizing siren song that would allow for easier connection with the people you otherwise knew nothing about. Closing your eyes, you felt more than the pull of a weak desire to announce yourself, take a risk of introducing yourself in much the same way.

As soon as their voices seemed to move away, you pushed yourself up from where you were hidden and turned the other way. Not wanting to be around people after the disastrous attempt of connecting with someone so fresh and painful, a weight that you’re not sure would ever lift from your mind and heart. Resigned to be a singular soul wandering around the desolate landscape of what was once the world.

You were about to turn away when you heard a shuffle far too close for comfort. Followed by the hesitant call of something you hadn’t heard in over two decades. Your name. Your full name.

Head jerking around, rifle aimed at the ready; you gazed into a pair of eyes so similar to your own.

previous chapter || next chapter

dividers by the lovely @saradika-graphics

taglist: @sawymredfox @ayamenimthiriel @bookloverkat @rosaaeles @narcissa-anastasia @littlemisspascal @oscarissac2099 @ghostwritesthings @76bookworm76

[aro-with-bad-aim]

I love how almost everything is connected in will woods music so I’m gonna ramble about it (hopefully coherently) to spare people who know me in real life.

Firstly (I’ve already mentioned this on another post about this band), going all the way back to a verbal equinox, the character of dr sunshine shows up again in self- ish in dr sunshine is dead. Also the line “I’m far too weird to live, but I ain’t too weird to die” is reworked to “too weird to love, too scared to die” in outliars and hyppocrites.

Going to EIAL, the phrase “draw a line in the sand” from chemical overreaction is also seen in Marsha thankk you for the dialectics. And omg destroy to enjoy is pretty much just a reference to self- ish. The line “glory be satori but it’s all hallucinatory…” is in 2012, also with a reference to “mahaprajnaparimita” which also is mentioned in 2012.

Self- ish is pretty much all connected, with the first and last songs, self and ish, basically being one song split into two. Dr sunshine is dead, cotards solution and mr capgras are all connected musically, and also interestingly capgras and cotards are both mental illnesses, specially delusions, which makes their connection to dr sunshine make more sense (that might be a bit of a stretch though). The song with five names and hand me my shovel I’m going in are perfect parallels, and the repeated lyrics less tune of “gotta get to the bottom of this” playing in the second verse of the song with five names can also kinda be heard in wealth and hellness by human zoo in the bit will wood sings in. There’s also the reference to hand me my shovel I’m going in during half decade hangover. The song had come out in 2016, which was just over half a decade before icimi came out. 2012 is interestingly the only one without much of a connection. Not sure why yet, might just be for the sake of it.

The normal album. I love the normal album. Suburbia overture references the other songs so much and I love it. (There’s only one other album that I know does this: enter a beginners guide to faking your death by jhraiah- go listen to it). The first reference to another song is the line “myers briggs, okultra” which is a reference to Blackboxwarrior okultra. It’s also kinda interesting that it’s referenced alongside a “psychology” term as the song is full of psychology references. The second reference is “everybody knows that, nobody knows that, everybody’s all up in my- everybody’s all up in my- everybody’s all up in my business” which is a reference to …well better than the alternative. During the spoke part of vampire culture, the backing music is from Blackboxwarrior. The line “you pull out your roscharch like a paint by numbers treasure map” could be a reference to outliars and hyppocrates, in the line “prints of your fingers in the roscharch jigsaw say you saw a treasure map”. Finally and obviously, love me normally is referenced in the title of the song, and the end of the song is the beginning to love me normally. I don’t know if this is a stretch/ coincidence, but a part of good morning campers from chnt (or welcome to camp here and there, l can’t remember) kind of sounds like the part of outliars and hyppocrates: “who’s wanna be human anyways, i mean what do people do”.

I can’t find any connections that I haven’t already mentioned in icimi because I haven’t been listening to it as much (most songs make me cry), but its still a good album :D

[fools-task-force]

It's half past midnight but I can't stop thinking about Fyolai and the kinda tragic beauty of it

Fyodor, who has been alive for God only knows how long, who has lived more lifetimes than perhaps even he knows. He's bored of humanity by now, no one is truly surprising to him. He purely uses people, but who is it he seems closest to? The one who is humanity in its purest form

Nikolai is flawed, sure, of course. But he's so overwhelmingly human, and isn't that why he's flawed? He's comedy and tragedy, loyal but supposedly wanting to kill Fyodor, simultaneously seemingly utterly insane and fully aware of and in tune with himself. He's unpredictable

Sure, Fyodor and Dazai parallels are there and are beautiful and I hope to make a post about them when I can form coherent thought, but Nikolai represents something Fyodor lost touch with. Let's not ignore the religious symbolism either, let me pull up my Catholic childhood to point this out

Fyodor sees himself as a Jesus figure, can we all agree on that? From his ability literally allowing him to rise from the grave to his goal being to free man from sin. Nikolai is his closest "friend" (in quotes either because they're homosexuals or because Fyodor doesn't have friends, reader's choice), and speaks about wanting to kill Fyodor. A friend and betrayer. Judas, anyone?

Also the color symbolism, and this actually goes beyond Nikolai to like every man Fyodor has worked with except Dazai (if you can consider whatever the fuck Dead Apple was to be working together, and even then Dazai wore white), but white is a color of purity. Fyodor surrounds himself with people with white hair, but the only one in all white except for ability dragon dude whose name I def didn't forget is Nikolai - white hair, white clothes, white accessories. Bram wears black (and is a vampire which is like inherently impure), Sigma has half purple hair (don't get me started on Signs), Fukuchi wears green/red.. actually now that I'm thinking about it Ivan was mostly in white too but Ivan is dead so he doesn't matter now. But Nikolai is color wise the most pure of anyone Fyodor surrounds himself with, which is going to be something that's really important to someone focused on freeing mankind from sin

Anyway it's nearing one in the morning and I fear I'm making less sense as I go on, I fully accept I may and probably have misread/misremembered things and that my points are probably half baked, mayhaps I will make another post when I get a decent amount of sleep. Perchance. I look forward to hopefully seeing some debate about this that I can sit out of and just watch people be smarter than me or maybe I'll delete this when I look back and remember my dumbass made this

[digenerate-trash]

For the picker wheel thing I got Niki with online and Wren with hurt

Online stalker-

Niki GN | PC GN

Stalking | kidnapping | implied past rape

It's been a while since Niki has seen something as perfect as you. It makes them squirm in ways they can't really comprehend.

It's their job to recognize beauty though and when they lean out the side of the car to confront you and ask if you'd be their model you don't answer. Instead stepping back and starting to run...

Not the answer they were looking for but what can they do?

Well what can they do... you're the prettiest thing they've ever seen. Desperate to get ahold of you again.

Back at the studio, they look you up. Without a name, you're hard to find but you were wearing a school uniform.

Slowly he combs through the images on the school site it's almost midnight when he finds you.

You. Pared with a name. An ID number and with a little more prying an address. He's not usually the stalker type but for Niki, this is a great find.

Quickly they find out every little detail about your life. There are countless images of you online. Mostly posted without your knowledge but they don't mind too much. It's just perfect to see that others have noticed your beauty as well.

Niki thinks about where they'll put you once they can get a hold of you for real. Maybe you'll stay in the studio full-time. Like a priceless piece of art. Or maybe they'll keep you tied to their bed at all times.

Maybe he'll even take a lock of your hair and tie it around his wrist just so they'll have you around all the time.

Niki is almost giddy with the idea as they scroll over every image of you.

Niki wants to recreate these images. Using them as reference. The ones where your nose is bloodied and you're lying helpless on the ground are the ones that are the most eager to recreate. Hopefully, with your help, they'll finally have the perfect muse. They'll become the artist they were meant to be.

After school, they wait in their car. Clorphorm ready their hands tapping on the steering wheel. Their eyes are fixed on you through the review mirror as you step closer and closer

•···········································•✦•···········································•

Job security

HE/HIM Wren | GN PC

kidnapping | injury | helplessness | Mentions of murder

Deep down Wren knows he isn't a perfect person. He's not even an okay guy. defiantly not destined for the pearly gates. But he is pretty sure you are...

you're perfect. more perfect than anything he's ever seen. you toil away every day just to make things easier for the people around you. he has no idea how you balance your little life and Bailey's legendary ridiculous rent.

but Remy hates you- and it's not without cause. you've been causing a lot of trouble for his little cattle ranch and as Remy's right-hand man. of course he's saddled with 'taking care' of you. it's not something Wren took lightly though.

but he'd feel so much better if it didn't end up like this.

"Morning," Wren says as he opens up the shed. your Berley coherent as he leans over and looks over at your broken leg. not his best work. but it did manage to stop you from causing any more trouble.

you let out a groggy sound as wren leans down and pets your head.

"rough night?" he laughs a bit as he moves away from you. grabbing a hay bail and slicing the cord off it with a sturdy knife. he grabs fistfuls of it and drops the hay into a loose crate spreading it around as you squirm on the floor.

"I wouldn't move around too much if I were you-" Wren warns "Not only will it attract attention but you're pretty hurt as well."

wren watches you from the corner of his eye as he works. eventually, he pulls a hammer down from the shelf.

you move away from him. it's weak but he assumes it’s as fast as you can go. you're looking up at him with fear in your eyes as you realize your old poker buddy is now standing over you with a weapon. but Wren looks relaxed. not even phased by your panic.

he picks you up carefully before he drops you into the crate lined with hay. you yelp in pain your leg crushed under you but Wren quickly grips your face covering your mouth.

"Gotta be quiet now. my boss thinks you're dead." Wren says before he winks at you. "and if you wanna stay alive you'll be quiet."

you feel sick as he pulls away grabbing the crate lid and pulling it over your head sealing you in. 'Wren the smuggler' doesn't seem like such a misnomer anymore...

[hunto-kar]

Let’s Be Mutuals!!✨

Hi!! Online you can call me Juniper. I think it would be cool snd funky and fresh if I had some mutuals on here to interact with and send posts and memes to. If you take the time to read all of this you are so cool and I appreciate you. I’m writing this at 2 in the morning so hopefully this is coherent.

About Me:

22, she/her/hers, queer ace with that attention deficit high definition disorder

If I don’t respond right away to something it’s nothing about you I just literally forgot to check my phone

I love playing video games, watching youtube, reading, listening to podcasts, and more. (this feels like i’m writing a dating bio which is do ironic for me)(i just want slay tumblr friends)

Here are some of the things you can find me blogging about!

Pokémon

Vocaloid

Splatoon

Anime (demon slayer, soul eater, sailor moon, haikyuu)

Bluey

Cookie Run

Five Nights at Freddy’s (insert the jack black dancing and singing meme)

Welcome to Nightvale

Legend of Zelda

Junji Ito

The one singular K-pop group I’ve liked for the past decade - Exo

Overwatch (my one red flag)(but I’m a support main so it makes up for it)

Gorillaz

Avatar The Last Airbender

Animal Crossing

Undertale/Deltarune

Katamari Damacy

Minecraft 🤓

Super Mario (Primarily Galaxy and anything Rosalina related)

Queer stuff

Various memes that make me chuckle

Cool art of little guys and creatures that I find

If you got this far you deserve financial compensation and I hope we can be moots :)

[fachefaucheux]

WriteFest! // Day 1 + Goals

It’s that magical time of year again! You know, the one where amateur writers all across the internet take on stupidly ambitious word count goals and drive themselves batty trying to reach them. I am no exception.

I’ve been doing word count goal challenges during the last two months of the year off and on since 2001 (really dating myself here, eh?). And despite all the terrible business that’s been going on with the most infamous one, I’m not going to quit a two-decade long habit just because other people are asshats. 

The OG Word Count Challenge helped me write my first “novel” Way Back In the Day, actually. That story was a bizarre fever dream about a guy who found a nuclear warhead in the supply closet of the care home he was working in…and getting rid of it required him to go undercover as vicar and infiltrate MI6??? Obviously, that didn’t end up going anywhere. But you can see glimmers of the same tried-and-true plot devices in it that I’ve been using ever since: a mix of action and humor, the fantastic and bizarre, shady con men pretending to be religious authority figures. (I don’t know why fake priests seem to be a running theme across my stories. I blame Catholic grade school and an overactive imagination.)

Since I tend to favor quantity over quality, I’ve escalated over the years to usually setting my word count goal for November at the 100k mark. But this year, I’ve been confronted with a challenge too insane for me to resist! I do a lot of my drafting on a website called 4thewords that I discovered nearly two years ago (great site, tbh, I highly recommend it to anyone who is more productive when they gamify their life), and this year, they’ve raised the challenge bar to a whole other level. For this year’s WriteFest, the top goal is to write 250k in 44 days. That’s roughly 5,700 words a day, for those of you who don’t feel like whipping out your calculator app.

So, of course, I had to do it.

Is this a good idea? Probably not. Am I still going to try my hardest? You’re goddamn right.

But I am cheating juuuuuust a little. I’m not doing it all on one WIP. This year, I’ll be working on completing Mushroom Picking Season (maybe 20k left? hopefully), the first volume of Canticle (if there’s more than 200k left on that, I’m totally cooked), and making a pitiful attempt at pushing my dissertation to the 25k mark, which is about halfway. (Yes! I do stuff other than write gay shit! My dissertation contains no gay lunatics, sadly. But it does contain an overabundance of (yugo)slavs.) Tally all those up, and you’ve got the 250k, with some wiggle room for just writing some unhinged smut to pad the total when I’m too tired to write anything semi-coherent.

As tradition dictates, I started on November 1st. Not at midnight, because I’m old and decrepit. But at six in the morning. And the results are in!

Day one, done and dusted. Total words: 8,226. For a brief moment, I’m ahead! Only 241,774 to go!

Of course, it’s the second now that I’m posting this. Once again, at six in the morning. I think I’ll try to snag another couple hours of rest before charging into the breach once more. Today’s goal is at least 6,000 words. But probably more, since I owe ya’ll an installment of Niv/Yule hijinks on Sunday. If I get really ahead this weekend, maybe I can even take a very small breather sometime this coming week. (I’m going to need it. For Reasons.)

Stay tuned to see how fast this project goes off the rails! (And snag a sneak peak at some writing snippets, if I’m feeling ambitious.)

[the---hermit]

@serendistudy sent me the most beautiful wintery card, and yes I am still posting museum pics.

02|12|2023

I am cold and sleepy and I can hardly focus on my book during the day so I am glad I am still doing the relistening of the magnus archives, because it's keeping me company. I have been midly productive today with more low energy tasks, but I am happy I finished brain dumping everything I want to say in the lecture about my experience working on my thesis. I feel like the biggest part of the job is done, now I just have to figure out a way to structure my speech, and I might do that next week. I also realized that I am actively avoiding working for my English lit class because it gives me anxiety for some reason. Hopefully next week I'll be more energetic and manage to read some articles to finally write my paper. Another prority is going to be reading and writing notes on the book I have to study for my power practices class. I wanted to create a to do list with deadlines for myself but today I was too mentally tired to do that so I'll either do that tomorrow if I feel like it or on monday afternoon.

calm hobbit winter activities and productivity:

read first thing in the morning

finished fixing and highlighting the lecture notes of my power practices and men theories class

continued working on the material for the lecture i'll guest in at the end of the month (I am writing down a bunch of ideas that I will later organized in a somewhat coherent speech)

reorganized part of my stationary

made a very simple weekly spread on my bullet journal for next week

finished gathering ideas for the lecture I'll have to speak at before the holidays, so now I am only left with putting everything in a coherent order and figure out what I am going to say

Irish on duolingo

today's self care:

took my meds and supplements

low energy tasks

warm herbal tea with honey to help with my pains

📖:Bookshops And Bonedust by Travis Baldree