#i feel like ive just been rotting away these last two weeks

[smute]

not to be dramatic but this weather is ruining my life

[ssluggishh]

english 101. the self esteem killer

[kalcifers-blog]

IRIS FILES - ROBBIE THE ZOMBIE

CW - Physical/Mental Deterioration, Derealization, Rotting Alive, Zombification, Bugs/Insects, Medical Horror

Word Count: 994

Character Count: 4,271

CLASSIFICATION: ALTR 181502

ALTR AGE: 24 YRS OLD

ALTR HEIGHT: 5 “5

ALTR SEX: X

ALTR STATUS: UNSTABLE

ALTR INFO: 18152 contracted an unknown illness after an encounter with ALTR 114209. He was advised to keep track of his symptoms in the form of a journal; IRIS Researchers have secured the journal to track 18152's both physical and mental development.

08/09/2016

“Not been great lately, I've had cold or flu symptoms for the past two weeks, really has been messing with my focus, not great for when I'm trying to study or play as well as I usually can but I've been pushing through it!

I'm still a bit shaken up from that creepy ass guy from last month- it messed with me. I'm glad IRIS is here to help out with my case tho, hopefully they catch the freak. I keep getting all fidgety and anxious whenever I'm out in public. I mean I guess that's normal after something like that but still, doesn't make it easier. I would hang out with friends to make me feel safer but I don't wanna get them sick, hopefully this'll pass

-R”

15/09/2016

“God my head will not stop pounding, I got my headache about 2 days ago, it started off only occasionally but god it just keeps flaring up and more often. My flu hasn't gotten any better. It makes it hard to do anything, I keep getting by, slowly but surely.

-R”

22/09/2016

“Been bed ridden this week- I thought rest would probably help but, every time I sleep I keep dreaming of that guy- I don't remember it fully and it's probably just some weird trauma thing but he keeps.. I don't really know how to describe it? He keeps warping. I don't know its probably just some dream shit”

29/09/2016

“haven't been able to eat properly.. keep feeling this itch on my neck, its not bad just annoying mostly. My phone hurts my eyes. Keep dreaming of creeper.im sure he didn't actually look like that. Sorry for the bad handwriting, I'm so tired nd my hands hurt. Might try sleeping again”

30/09/2016

“woke up and puked, pretty badly too- dreaming of that guy hurts my head”

05/10/2016

“Really should call a doctor I think. I did call IRIS, I'm sure I did, they said they'd send someone over. No one came- my body hurts, everywhere it's just this dull ache. I might try

and shower or something. I don't know what to do at this point- no ones coming I've waited and waited and no one showed. The itching got worse, I don't know what's wrong with me I just need someone to come help”

“Why is no one answering my calls???”

12/10/2016

“Tried to shower, clumps of my hair just- came out. I just cried something is wrong with me I called IRIS again I told them it was urgent and I need help. The creeper answered me. It couldn't have been real- but it made me throw my phone accidentally. It broke and I can't get it to work again. I can't keep going on like this. The itching keeps spreading too- it now feels like things are crawling in my organs. I can't scratch there”

“Threw up again, mostly blood- it was clumpy, I think it was bits of my throat. It hurts my throat to breathe let alone talk”

16/10/2016

“The man in my room can't be here- I didn't let anyone in, he shouldn't be here”

23/10/2016

“I found out why I feel like there things crawling in me. I threw up a dead bug. The itching keeps going. I think I need to leave”

“I left my apartment. The air stung and I felt everyone's eyes on me. I don't care i just need help”

“IRIS won't let me in. Or near anyone.”

30/10/2016

“They're keeping me here. They keep giving me things. They poked IVs in me- the skin just teared away. It hurt so much, it feels good to actually be given medication. It's not kicked in yet but I think it should soon. The nurse gave me a funny look when I described my creep to him. I don't know, I just wanna sleep”

IRIS Supplemental:

ALTR 181502, previously known as Robert “Robbie” James, was announced as clinically dead to the public on 05/11/2016. Within the IRIS Foundation however it should be known that ALTR 181502, while maintaining a “corpse-like” appearance, is very much alive. IRIS researchers and medics have been working on a plausible theory on the rapid and alarming decline in ATLR 181502’s health after an apparent encounter with ALTR 114209. This variation of effects with 114209 seems to be an outlier. But until a working theory has been confirmed, the containment is highly necessary for both ALTR 181502 and for the wider public. Some IRIS staff have left due to unknown illnesses after contact with ALTR 181502. Their symptoms are yet to be examined but they are all in highly secure quarantine zones until they are confirmed to not be carrying a “Zombie Virus” as the research staff seem to be calling it.

As for ALTR 181502- exact details of his initial encounter with ALTR 114209 are documented in his original report to IRIS. His condition remains unpleasant. And it seems the best we can hope for is to keep him in containment until we understand what's going on.

The journal, as well as the remainder of ALTR 181502's belongings have been quarantined or burned. We managed to digitise his IRIS issued journal for the research sake. In said journal we believe the figure he describes is ALTR 114209- as it is within it's behaviour to torment it's victims while they are in mental distress.

It was discovered, by one such medic, after attempting an autopsy on ALTR 181502, that he is very much no longer human. If the hive of moth larvae that has eaten away at all of his organs have anything to say about it at least. How he still is living, albeit not pleasantly, is about as good a guess as yours as it is mine.

End Supplemental.

[peachesofteal]

RAAAAAAAAH CHAPTER 13 BRO!!!!!

as always, i read it like a rabid animal, and then reread the prev 4 chapters and then reread this again HAHA

your work ages like fine wine, and i read and treasure every word of it, especially on rereads when i can make myself slow down to really take it all in <3

"He takes it all away. Every time." made me WEEP!!!!! its what she DESERVES!!!! the dependability and the escape into him and simon (simon takes charge obvs, but johnny is just as much an outlet. sweet sweet boy)

i think he also realizes that she's seeing it as escapism and starts to fall away a bit, bc of how he stops her and asks to check in. it makes me curious abt his and simon's early relationship, if he's recognizing the same pattern of behavior and comparing them.

going on with that, when she was showing them her scars, AUUUUUUGH. that hit so hard man. the “No but… they’re hideous.”

“No.” Simon croaks, voice thick. “There isn’t a single part of you that isn’t perfect.”

SIMOOOOOOOON he sees so much of himself in her. its gotta be heartbreaking, knowing she's where he used to be. he gets it fr. i cant imagine two people more suited for her, someone who's been where she is and got out, and the person who's helped get that someone out of that pit. fuck dude. you're so good at this HAHAHA

im not gonna say nothin abt the good girl stuff…. but heehee!

also also "I'm not a little human nurse" made me laugh so hard LMAO pure arizona from grey's. ive been watching it lately (started right before you started posting simple math actually) reading the hospital bits of SM, you do a really good job of capturing the same energy and stakes and work dynamics that you get watching grey's. im honestly still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the stupid attending marshall, there's always something that a shitty attending can mess up down the road lmao

the ending on this chap killed me though. they knew she was flighty, and that she's smart and capable, but its gotta be so hard to get the relief of her coming back after the day out without answering the phone, only to find the papers the next morning. in bunny's defense though, she mentioned in chapters before moving in (i think before graves hurt her?) with them that she had to start looking at outs, and these papers aren't a 2-day turnaround; she probably bought them weeks ago and only now picked them up. i could be wrong though! i think its unfortunate timing, but she also probably just wants the relief knowing that she's got the backup plan accessible. as much as she loves the boys and penny, she's still not used to having the dependability. the safety scares her, or at least gives her the idea of a false sense of security, since she's been on edge for so so long.

i give her big smooch. poor bun. poor boys, and poor penny. manifesting the worst for graves, truly, rot in hell you idiot american

i hope you're feeling better, its lovely to read your works but even better when you're doing well yourself ❤️❤️❤️

I loved reading this! I adore you.

I love how you noticed that Johnny does stop to check in. He has a very firm grip on her mental and emotional state, (it’s not his first rodeo) and he knows just how to bring her back.

The two of them + Bunny is really a dream come true even if she doesn’t realize it yet (they do) and it will take a lot of time and work on everyone’s part.

I think your notes in your last paragraph are pretty spot on, too. Bunny will talk about it more in the next two chapters but- getting a new identity is not a two day turnaround.

Also yeah, I was channeling Arizona with that line 💀 I was hoping someone would catch it!

10/10 I love your breakdowns, no notes, perfection, they always make me smile.

[wewontdieunbloomed]

i am back! (maybe) its been a long long time — i think since my A levels in 2022. anyway its been a year of uni, two good and fun semesters and while rotting away in my summer break i’ve just decided that ive gotten a little sick of myself and all this lazing and rotting. my first year in uni has been so much fun but i think its time to take my work a bit more seriously: i want to gain more fulfilment and satisfaction from my studies, beyond just dojng the bare minimum (which, was itself not easy but im hoping itll be better next semester..)

so im hopin to brng back some of my accountability and intentionality of previous years with this. coming back to my roots of sorts. this year its 4 years of me creating this blog and id like to kot forget all that ive learnt from this time. and in some ways i hope to come back to myself, i feel like ive lost some shards of my former self(s) along the way and there are some parts that id like to bring back, like my responsibility and sense of drive and keepig to my personal goals like fitness and enrichment.

i dont have a lot left of summer break: my main goal this summer was to read the unfinished readings from the previous semester and start prereading next semesters readings — i still have 4 readings left for one of my courses that i want to finish. theres still some more minor ones from two semesters ago but i wont focus on those as much. meanwhile i also want to make the focus of the last 2ish weeks fo summer break i have left to read as much of the books i have as possible. been reading a little life and its kind of testing my attention span but god knows i need that , i could feel my crumbling attention span throughout the sem as i went through lecture videos .

19.07.2024

[charlieslowartsies]

the reason why my August vacation is so important...

This is a long, kinda emotional for me journal <3

As I mentioned a while ago, I was splitting my usual two weeks in June of debauchery (sleeping & laying in the sun & hiking in the woods outback lol) into one week last month and then saved the last week for the end of August.

I also wanted to explain the significance of this trip! Less about having to justify my time off and more about 'eeee excite omg!' and wanted to share with y'all!

SO a long time ago when I was a wee Charlie, from age 0 up to 21, I was incredibly close to my grandparents on my mom's side. My nana died when I was 15, and while that took a huge toll on me, I was fortunate enough to have my grandpa till 21. These two people were absolutely second parents. My parents did a good enough job raising me, but they had huge fights and my father had anger issues and it caused a lot of wounds. These were the people I could always rely on, when I couldn't rely on my folks.

They lived 2 hours away on a wonderful lake in a lil tiny trailer over looking it. I spent weeks at a time there, even the occasional month. I learned to swim in that lake, which in hindsight prolly wasn't the safest idea due to its depth, and grew up to be obsessed with swimming. Learned how to sail, ski, fish. Learned how to bake, tend a garden, how a fresh bowl of fruit in the morning should be before breakfast.

We'd swim 3x a day, sometimes just to float and cool down before bed, since there was no a/c and the summer nights were hot. Laid on our backs and counted stars like the Lion King. Fried trout on the grill after we'd caught them, had watermelon seed spittin' contests. My grandpa grew pumpkins and carved my name into one, so that the writing grew bigger and bigger over the months. I had one pumpkin live from September to April.

My handprint is on the last cement step leading down to the beach. It was eroded when we scattered my grandpa's ashes in 2014, but I remember where it was, how to place my palm to compare.

I guess I'd say I had a mixed childhood of various great, good, bad, and horrible things. Like most people, yanno? But those golden summer days on the lake were 100% a part of who I am today, and where my many of my happiest memories come from.

Due to me being in college, cost to heat the place in winter when they had no intention of living there, my family sold the property on the lake to an investor who planned to rent it out.

This was 2014. The same year he died, the same year my horse died (within 2 months of each other) and one of my father's many health issues landed him in the hospital from Oct to Dec, so that he spent xmas on an iv stand. With everything going on, we had no time or money for a big dinner, or presents that year.

I guess that was the first year I realized childhood was truly and officially over, and it was time to grow up. Many of us have that marked moment on our life.

Time passed. I finished college, went back home after turning down a few out of state jobs to spend time with my dad, who I had a feeling didn't have much time left. Turned out I was right, as I came home in 2015 and he died in 2022. There was an accident in '16 where he almost bled to death on our kitchen floor, but I was able to provide pressure/medical care and give him some more years.

Shortly after we moved in 17, I was notified that the house on the lake had been rented to someone who unfortunately had a lot of issues mental health wise, and they had eventually abandoned the property. It sat, rotting, and got so covered on the inside in black mold the county leveled the place and destroyed it.

We had left it fully furnished due to the buyer's urging. Ancient, stunning mid century and older furniture from my great-great grandparents time. My nana's organ player. The rocker my mom and I sat in. And, frankly, to quote one of those popular songs, the house that built me was just gone.

I figured that was the end of it, and cried and got angry/sad and then moved on and just tried surviving as covid hit later on in the years.

Turns out, the man who rented it decided that wasn't going to happen again. He put a new trailer on the property, and rented it out for vacationing due to it's location. We didn't know this until I stumbled across it while daydreaming about a vacation on the lake that I missed it was a relative, one I could at least go back to for a few days. My heart skipped so many beats when I saw the address and paused, thinking there had to be come mistake. It wasn't.

Not only can I spend time on that property again (in a new house which honestly might be for the best) But turns out, for whatever reason, they kept the furniture separate and placed a few pieces into the new house. There's a photo of the rocker in the layout photos. The two level lamp they had is still intact and functioning. I booked the place for a week immediately.

It's expensive for me, but my girlfriend and I will make it work. (Certainly not like we have far to travel.) We're going to be there smack dab in the middle of my Grandfather's birthday. I haven't had a true, just-for-me vacation since 2015 when we went to a camping ground. The excitement I have for this is immeasurable.

The dock my Dad and Grandpa put in themselves is fixed up. The crumbled little cement step is still there with a tiny indent, where my 4 yr old hand was pressed. I am going back to this place, and going back in time for just a short while, to heal and have fun and be a whole mess of emotions. I never got to say good bye to my Nana or Grandpa.

But I can say goodbye to them now, and say 'hello again, old friend' to the lake, and the new little house that sits before it.

That is why i am so excited about august. I know I don't share personal things on here a ton, but I wanted to share this. Thank you for reading this far if you have, I appreciate it.

I hope you have a wonderful day and remember how important you are <3 And as always stay hydrated! -Charlie

[lemmetreatya]

In Words I struggle to Express — Bassists!Onyankopon x Singer!fem Reader

➡️ synopsis: the launch party went absolutely great and the after partys going to be even better! but somehow, it was a certain someone’s presence you were banking on in order for the night to truly be a success.

➡️ word count: 2.3k

➡️ content: no warnings

➡️ author’s note: fuck. okay. this is…very very self indulgent and basically based off our silly little mmbcu (dont ask) so ive tried to take out all the stuff that needs context so everyone can read it without too much issue. however for clarities sake: reader is in a girl group (called MMB) whilst reiner (drummer), zeke (vocalist), jean (vocals/guitar) and onyankopon (bassist) are in a band. at this point of time, Ony and reader aren’t in an established relationship.

if anything, id like to thank @pisspope for coming up with this specific idea earlier this week. i hope you know it’s rotted my brain ever since. thanks.

It was a success.

After months of constant tweaking, track ditching, debating lineups and self-doubt in your artistry — at final last: You had performed your album in full for your ceiling-packed launch party of family, friends and industry names alike.

Despite the shortcomings that came along with it, you hope the album lands well as it goes public tomorrow. Your band members have done their best in assuring you of it’s legendary status (“It literally serves cunt, you’ll be fine.”) and so there was only room for you to have faith that it’d do numbers — even if it was a diversion from your usual group's musical sound.

But even now, as the dregs of adrenaline still coarse through your veins, it’s just you left alone in the green room. You were only in the process of changing outfits, silk pink gown snuggly sat on your frame, but it was the creepinks of wallowing unfulfillment that somehow found its way into your heart.

Your band members and their other halves have graciously said that they’d set forwards on to the afterparty. Something about being ready to welcome you when you eventually do enter the venue where the after party was being held. You were okay with that — and thankful that they were thinking of you in that regard — but since it now left you alone with your own thoughts and own reflection in the mirror, you could feel your performing high start to come down and realisation kick in. That ultimately, despite the many wins you’ve received tonight, you were still alone.

“Can I come in?”

Rather than it being the knock, it was the steady voice you were oh so used to that reeled you out of your trance, your eyes finally locking back into focus. As you turn your head away from your reflection and into his direction, you could automatically feel your heart pick up pace.

“Well, doors open and you’re already halfway in so…”

A breathy excuse of a laugh leaves your throat — a sorry attempt at making yourself seem more pious for him than you actually were — but it was absolutely no help at all. Within his presence, you only ever felt more anxious than you should.

Onyankopon tries his best to force a laugh back but it doesn’t translate well. It seemed pained, even more forced than yours, and so you had to avert your eyes —  Save yourself from reading into something you didn’t want to.

You had to do that more for you than for him anyways. Because it’s been iffy with Onyankopon these past few months and with how he’s been treating you.

Not that you were complaining; He was a man who treated you to nice things and valued your opinion. A man who understood when you needed to be handled or when you could handle your own. A man who also understood your craft and was more than happy to aid his own. It was all well and good between the both of you and he was a gentleman wrapped in one. Only issue is that Onyankopon has never clarified what the fuck you two were.

Which, in itself, was off-putting. But concerning he had so much creative process on your album? (Actually, most of his band did, but since you possibly liked him just a tad bit better, his efforts were well more noticed) And considering you had to stick so many unsolicited hard hours alongside him? And keeping in mind how you were practically eye fucking him from the stage half the time you were performing your album — the sultry songs all directed at him?! You figured he’d somehow get the hint that you were open, willing, waiting for him to make a move.

As he cautiously took further steps into the room, you wonder if your requested audience would result in pushing him to make that move.

“I won’t take up too much of your time.” He hums with one arm suspiciously behind his back. 

He attempts to clear his throat yet he’s unable to do so the first time. It takes him several goes, a cough and a bat at his chest, before he’s able to achieve his goal. By now he just feels stupid, fumbling something as simple as this in front of you but he chooses to champion on.

You however, can’t help but find it endearing.

“No, you’re good. Still got a few minutes till we’re heading to the Ritz for the after party.”

You turn around in your chair, silk gown that crosses over the intersection of your chest one tug away from being labelled ‘provocative’. Unintentionally, but definitely welcomed.

“You coming, right?”

And you know you’ve tempted him — far more than you should be — because Onyankopon’s eyes automatically wander to the exposed skin of your chest. Stare locked on for several seconds before he’s forced to recognise his error and flick his eyes back up to meet yours.

“I…not this time.” He clears his throat again. “Which is mainly why I wanted to come see you now since I won’t see you after this.”

“Oh…”

You try your best not to look disappointed; for your shoulders not to sag and your bottom lip to stay free of being snagged between your teeth but it’s inevitable to stop the way your heart sinks halfway down your chest and your gut wretches inwards.

Right, of course. He was a busy man.

In your head, you know he probably had good reason to skip out on this big night of yours, but you can’t help the small teasing voice that reminds you that every one of his bandmates found a way to clear their schedules in order to make the party tonight. Everyone but him.

Subconsciously you tug the material of your gown over your chest.

“Maybe next time then.” You feign. Suddenly you don’t feel enthusiastic for your own event.

Onyankopon knows he’s fucked up your mood and he’s mentally kicking himself for doing so. Personally, he wasn’t going to say anything— just not show up and let you enjoy your time without him. But it’s Reiner, the drummer of their band, who nudged him to at least apologise for not coming.

Actually, Reiner nudged him to say a lot more than just his apologies for not being able to make the after party. He had berated Onyankopon in wisdolic manner about asking you out properly as opposed to keeping you exclusively on his arm. A proverb about ‘hope deferred making the heart sick’, “And you don’t want her to be sick because of you, do you?” He warned. 

In all honesty, he didn’t hate what Reiner was saying. He really did want to make a move on you! And he genuinely had the intention to as well. He also thought it’d be ideal to ask you out considering he was very much planning on taking you to go meet his parents soon but…

It just wasn’t the right time.

“It’s never the right time, is it?” Says a more nihilistic voice in his head, but he ignores it for sanity’s sake.

Onyankopon shuffles his footing.

“I’m sorry. Something really important popped up and you know I’d usually be there and…Look, I just wanted to come see you and mention you were really great out there. I know we, well, more you, worked really hard on this album and all but I genuinely just want to say that I’m really, really, proud of you.”

There’s a twitch of recognition on your face but the man’s rambled words did nothing to lighten your mood. You only turn your head back to your reflection in the mirror.

“Thank you, Onyankpon.”

Okay, you’re using his full name. That’s how he knows you’re upset at him.

Now he’s regretting even coming here. Onyankopon doesn’t want to go round blaming Reiner for your lack of reaction to him but deep down, he knows that’s all him. He knows that either way, mentioned or not, his absence would have upset you. He doesn’t want to now give you even more reason to be upset so he guesses he should start wrapping this up. 

“Congratulations on the album launch. That was the main thing I wanted to say. I should have started with that first…”

With an outstretched arm from behind his back, Onyankopon offers you a box of luxury chocolates and a freshly picked bouquet he could fit all in one hand. In all honesty, he would have definitely gotten you something bigger, better than you could have ever imagined! 

But, he just didn’t have the time. 

“You never have the time—“ “Shut up. I know.” The voice in his head is cut short. 

However, contrary to the heart felt gift, it seems your attention can no longer be brought. Despite his presentation, your expression is fixed and occupied on your reflection. Onyankopon suddenly wonders whether you were always this down when he wasn’t around. 

You sniff once but not because any tears were about to grace your face. 

“Thanks.” You say without looking back at him. “You can put ‘em over there with the others.”

Onyankopon’s gaze follows where your eye line draws to within the mirror. 

Sure enough, towards the side of the room there's a table where a mountain of gifts, flowers and congratulatory efforts lay. Onyankopon takes two steps towards it before sheepishly laying down his now rather measly looking present within the only sliver of table available. 

If he didn’t feel so out of depth with you, he would have dryly laughed at how low effort his offering was in contrast to Jean’s, his band’s guitarist. 

As he could see, the man had brought you an expensive bag bouquet — a gift extravagant enough to take up half the wall behind it. There was even a large bottle of champagne and a D’usse that tagged along with it and a card that had your stage name curved in beautiful calligraphy. 

You and Jean didn’t share a relationship anywhere as near as efficient as you and Onyankopon’s to warrant this type of gift, but he guesses his bandmate took great pride in the help he had on your album. Onyankopon even feels a sense of irate jealousy as he remembers how the two of you danced back-to-back on stage as Jean played his guitar solo during your final song. 

His throat runs dry at memory recall of the performative sight. Surely, all of that was to provoke him. 

“Sorry.” You suddenly blurt out and Onyankopon’s attention is instantly brought back to you — the physical you. 

“I kinda need to get ready now. Vans almost in front.” You drastically avoid his eye contact. “If I could just have these last few minutes alone that’d be great.”

With your last sentence mumbled and your hands playing at your gown, he knows you’re not telling the whole truth but he was honestly out of his depth here. All Onyankopon could do was fulfil your wishes. 

“O-oh! Oh, sure! Sure, yeah I’ll let you…I’ll let you get to it.”

With almost bashful demeanour, Onyankopon backs away from the table and makes a beeline towards the door. 

But it feels wrong. It feels incomplete. 

It’s not like he wanted to force himself against your boundaries but he just knows that if he leaves now without saying anything — he might just wound your ebbing relationship beyond repair. 

In some sort of divine intervention, Reiner’s words about not being the ‘hope deferred’ that resulted in making you sick, kicked in. As soon as the phrase comes to him, a looped smile starts to grow onto his face. 

“Now's the time!” His inner head voice says and for once, he lets it speak. 

Stopping in his tracks, Onyankopon mentally gears his courage up before turning on his heels and blurting out the first thing that came up his throat.  

“Hey, uh…look, I really do feel bad about not being able to make tonight. I wanna make it up to you so how’s your availability for the day after tomorrow?”

You’re surprised by his offer but you don’t wholly show it. It’s the way you pretend that his preposition didn’t excite you that made Onyankopon want to burst out in laughter. You were so cute when you were trying to be aloof. 

“Depends.” You shrug as your eyes actively avoid his. “I have an early morning promo interview for the album and my evenings fully booked.”

Onyankopon enthusiastically nods. 

It made sense you were busy concerning the work needed to be done for your album drop but Onyankopon was determined. Onyankopon wanted to make this work! 

“Okay, that’s fine. How’s lunch time for you?”

There is a look of ponder on your face and a sparkle in your eye. You roll your lips in contemplation before quote mark nonchalantly, shrugging your shoulders. 

“Relatively free.” You quip. 

Yes!

“Great! Leave it open for me. I’ll take you out on a date.”

Onyankopon is pumped enough that he’s already heading out the green room and so you get up from your chair to shout after him.

“Wait— Ony, to where?”

The man turns round to face you, a ghost of a smile gracing his lips. Not the most infectious smile but it’s his and so automatically, you’re drawn to it. 

“Don’t worry about that. Just dress comfortably. I’ll pick you up from whatever studio you’re recording at.” He says before making his way out. 

With a huff of disbelief, you sag back down into the chair. 

It wasn’t unbelievable that within the spur of the moment, Onyankopon had thought up a date to take you to. He was like that — It was kinda his thing — but there was something about this particular mystery date that you found yourself looking forward to. 

The same smile from before grew larger on your face and your reflection in the mirror relayed the same message. 

Suddenly, you didn’t feel so down anymore.  

[the-whispers-of-death]

anyways. red string soulmate au :) wink wink nudge nudge :)

something something the damn fucking imagery of stone staring at the string as it leads into the ocean, horrified at the implications of where it leads.

or maybe in a different timeline, he's with kali there, one of his soulmates he had already found, and both of them come to the conclusion that their 3rd halves are across the pond and them unanimously deciding that *yes* theyre *getting* over the fucking oversized puddle no matter what. they already have each other, yes, but they cant leave their soulmates hanging either.

idk i am a huge sucker for the red string au, but i think ive made it clear with how much my brain rots over it.

take this either as a request or just a general idea. idk, its been a while since ive sent in fic reqs (like. over 2 years at LEAST lmao)

Red String AU, Red String AU!

Chose to have Kali and Stone also be soulmates in this AU, because it's fun like that.

This is just the start, so they might not even meet Sylvester and Butcher (I'm assuming we're adding Butcher into this AU).

A little lore tidbit because it's only kinda explained near the end: Red strings are invisible, but people can feel them around their wrists and can feel the distance between soulmates.

Wordcount: 1,281 words

Vikram stood on his porch, his hands resting on the railing as he looked up at the stars. The stars looked so beautiful and so far away, and he wanted to know what knowledge lay in the stars, how many aeons they had seen over the course of their life, knowing that most of the stars he saw in the night sky were either planets or stars that were so many lightyears away that they were already dead.

"Have I ever told you how breathtaking you look when you gaze up at the stars, baby?" Vikram's boyfriend, Ashok, whispered into his ear as he wrapped his arms around Vikram's burly waist. Ashok leaned down slightly, hunching his shoulders so he could comfortably rest his chin on Vikram's shoulder.

"You have indeed, but you can say it again," Vikram replied, his lips twitching until they eventually pulled into a small smile.

A rumble expressing his satisfaction spread throughout Vikram's chest, melting against Ashok as his soulmate held him. As he kept his hands on the railing of the porch, he could feel the red string on his left hand that connected him to Ashok, and he could feel the other red string on his right hand which spanned across the ocean, his other soulmate being so far away.

Both Ashok and Vikram had two soulmates, one of whom was obviously each other, and both of their other soulmates' red strings went across the ocean. They wanted so desperately to go and find their soulmates, but the only times they were across the ocean were when they were on deployments and had no time to go find their soulmates because they were on duty. They tried to find time to go when they were both not on deployments, but deployments came suddenly sometimes and as soon as they started thinking about booking flights to try and find their soulmates, they'd get deployed.

Like how last week, Vikram and Ashok were talking about trying to find their soulmates and then they both got orders that they were going on deployment this week. It was like the universe knew it wasn't their time to find their other soulmates.

Ashok brought Vikram back to the present, pressing a gentle kiss to the taller man's neck. "What are you thinking about, my sun?" he asked, gently rubbed circles on Vikram's waist. "You've been so silent ever since you got your orders."

"I'm usually silent," Vikram grumbled, turning his head to the side to nuzzle his cheek against Ashok's. He sighed at the touch, his soul feeling less empty than it would be if he hadn't found Ashok, but his soul still wasn't complete. "Thinking about how our plans to find our other soulmates keep getting delayed. It's so frustrating."

"I know, baby. I feel the same way, but it's the way it is right now. That's not a comforting thought, I know. But you believe in fate, so believe that fate is waiting until the right moment to bring our soulmates to us."

Vikram took in those words, not really liking them but he knew Ashok was just doing his best. He rested his hands on Ashok's hands that were still on his waist, intertwining their fingers. "When did you get so wise?" he murmured, leaning down slightly to kiss Ashok's lips.

Their kiss was short, but sweet, the two of them letting the kiss calm their frustrations down. When they pulled apart, they rested their foreheads together despite the uncomfortableness in the position they had twisted themself in.

"I'm not wise, as people love to tell me," Ashok said, chuckling. He squeezed Vikram's hands in his, loving the way his boyfriend's larger hands engulfed his. "But I know you well enough to calm you down, even if it had taken twelve years just to break down your walls and learn all of your quirks. I wouldn't change a single second for the world, though, my sun. And I know I'll feel the same way once we meet our soulmates, it's only a matter of time."

Their conversation died down after that, the two enjoying looking up at the stars. After a while, Ashok pulled back and tugged Vikram inside, murmuring about how they should go to sleep.

Vikram looked back up at the starry night sky before he went inside, as if he could use the stars to decipher the coordinates to where his other soulmate was.

He hoped Ashok was right, that they'd meet their other soulmates soon. He didn't know how long he could wait.

Besides, he'd be on deployment soon, which would keep his mind off the search for his other soulmate.

*************************************************************

Vikram sighed as he drove into base, having been on deployment for a week already and he was missing Ashok big time. As he drove to a parking spot and parked his car, he hoped his soulmate was having a better time at his own deployment.

He knew he shouldn't complain, he was fortunate to be placed as the Corpsman of a really friendly squad who didn't care that Vikram refused to tell them any truly personal information, not even his actual name.

Most squads hated how cagey he was, hated the way he relied on his stoicism to protect himself from allowing himself to get attached to any of them. But this squad only cared if he was a good Corpsman, which he was.

He had gotten lucky at that, and he had also gotten lucky at Ashok being deployed nearby.

Ashok was at another base, but at least they were placed in the same housing base, able to see each other regularly if they weren't away on missions. It made long, stressful days better when he could go over to the house the military had set up for Ashok and to be in the presence of his soulmate.

The thought of his soulmate made him look down at his wrists, feeling the invisible red strings that connected him to his soulmates. The right red string felt shorter, since he had gone overseas for the deployment, but still farther than where Ashok was.

His other soulmate was in the city, but he couldn't tell where. And he had no time to go searching still. But at least he was closer than he had ever been.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car, locking it once he was out. He made his way to the main building, needing to sign in before he could go to the training center to find his squamates.

Vikram merely grunted in response when the receptionist greeted him, simply picking up the pen to sign in. He was about to leave when the receptionist called out for him.

"Stone!" she called out, using his callsign since that's what most people only knew him by. When he turned back around to face her, she continued, "Captain Karev told me that when I saw you, I should tell you that the entire squad is being debriefed soon. They're in Conference Room 220."

Vikram nodded to signify that he heard her, turning slightly to go down the long hallways until he reached where the conference room. Thankfully, they hadn't started until he got there, so he sat down and waited for the captain to tell everyone what their new mission was.

He tried to listen, he really did, but all of a sudden, the red string on his right wrist gave a little tug. He would've sat up straight if he wasn't already doing so, his excitement giving way and flooding his brain.

A tug meant his other soulmate was here. On base.

Finally, they'd meet.

*********************************************

Hehe, and I'm going to end it there. Just Stone's luck that he'd feel Sylvester in the same base just as he was about to go on a mission.

[whump-captain]

it's been like 10 years since i posted any writing and this isn't even whump lol. but ive been rotating Joy in my head for weeks now and had to give her something to do. this is part of Fruit of the Glass Tree, so the earliest story with these guys

---

CN: animal death (not shown but bodies described in detail), descriptions of animal waste, mentions of death and injury, fear.

---

On the fifth floor, Joy finally finds some walls.

The rest of what she's seen of the building has been stripped of the dignity of an interior. Only lines of chipped plaster have remained on the floors of the previous levels, outlining where the rooms were before the whole tower has fallen into disrepair.

What greets her behind the creaking door of the stairway is a broad, L-shaped corridor, angling left after three pairs of evenly spaced doors. The walls themselves look as bare and fragile as all the others, with rectangular white patches left in the wake of ripped off wallpaper and a single, shallow inset guarded by the fangs of snapped hinges. The windows are no longer exposed. It barely takes two steps for the scant moonlight from the stairway to lag behind Joy, leaving her in cold, powdery darkness.

She clicks the torch on. There's nothing to cast shadows and all that the light manages to bring out is the horrid brownish shade that the carpet has turned over the years. The doors are all missing their handles.

Joy pushes the closest one and finds it locked. Relief blooms in her chest but then the varnished plywood creaks and she starts. Her heart picks up the pace. Something compels her to turn around, like a hand on her shoulder, pulling. The beam of her torch again finds nothing. No movement, no silhouette. One of the doors is slightly ajar, revealing a thin wedge of absolute darkness. Something else creaks somewhere.

She's on edge. She ignores the open door and tries the next one. The lock gives with a click and her arm shakes as she swipes it down in front of her before stepping in. The room is as empty as every other part of the building. The window lets in enough light to catch the dust floating in the air and Joy fights the urge to fix her facemask. She's checked it thoroughly, no need to fiddle. Her fingers pick at the hem of her jacket.

She rests her hand on the radio clipped to her belt. She wants a human voice to dispel this unsteady, oppressive silence. But she also wants her ears open for when the next sound is not innocuous.

She leaves the empty room. If she does radio Cutter, he'll probably just go on about ghosts again and that's the last thing her fraying nerves need. Another door turns out closed and this one leaves behind a residue of something tacky on her glove. A bare metal bolt sticks out of where the handle used to be.

Another empty room, gutted but for a concrete column in the middle. Another creak somewhere, a dry rattle of debris. There's a crack across the wall, exposing lines of rebar like tendons. A stench of rot hangs in the air and Joy's stomach turns when her boot swipes across a rough surface. Dry patches of hardened bird excrement stain the carpet in disgusting off-white.

She leaves the door open and the smell follows her. It grows stronger as she crosses the corridor and more white blotches make the floor look like moulding bread. It feels the same underfoot.

Joy looks up at the ceiling. It's flat and the paint has long since peeled. When she stomps the floor to check it, the air remains still.

When she opens the next door, she almost retches. The backdraft of the stench sends her staggering back and coughing. Torchlight flits frantically across bare walls. Joy pulls her scarf over her face, ignoring the shift of her facemask, and blinks to clear away tears.

This room does have furniture in it - low-backed chairs, desks, half-collapsed filing cabinets with no shelves. They’re barely recognizable, their outlines blurred by inch-thick, lumpy layers of excrement, streaking in grey rivulets down every flat surface. The carpet looks like it's corroded. Everything is congealed into a horrid, nauseating monochrome.

Joy slams the door shut, face hidden in the crook of her elbow. It barely helps. The whole corridor now reeks more than anything she’s ever smelled and she doubles back to the first room. The cracked window lets in blissfully fresh air and she stands there for a long moment, waiting for the smell to stop clinging to her skin.

Her breathing, muffled by the facemask’s filter, sounds like howling wind in her ears. Everything else is deadly still, not even an echo of her footsteps remaining of the commotion she’s made. Not on this floor, not on any others.

A part of her is grateful for it. No sound, no movement - no danger. No other life here besides her.

The empty room feels like a bare ribcage, picked clean by scavengers and maggots. The silence sticks to her more than the stench did. She grabs her radio.

"Cutter, come in,” she whispers into the microphone.

No echo again. For a moment, there is no sound but her heartbeat. It almost deafens her at the thought that she might not get an answer.

But then static cracks and a cheerful voice comes through:

"Home base receiving."

Joy breathes out. She pushes away the scenario that her mind has already half-knitted: silence, tension, a long way back, and a corpse under the rubble. But she's okay. She’s not alone in this wretched building just yet.

“Any news?” Cutter asks through the radio as if they’re discussing the weather.

"I found pigeon poop. Whole room of it.”

There’s a short pause. "That's disgusting."

"Yeah.” She doesn’t even consider laughing. Her mind adds up the sights, the sounds, and everything else she has seen on this floor. The equation doesn't resolve. “But where are the pigeons?"

The static dies out. The stillness stretches. Joy feels the facemask stick to her cheeks and the dust to her hair. Despite all the noise she’s caused, not a single pair of wings has fluttered anywhere in the building. No other life.

“I haven’t seen any,” Cutter says.

“Me neither. Nothing flying, nothing- scared away.” She looks at the window, straining to see into the night through the dirt and graffiti stains. “I’d hear them by now.” She can’t keep the shake out of her voice. “Or they’d hear me.”

Cutter laughs and it comes through the radio as a clipped buzzing sound. “I definitely heard you. Do you have something against that floor, with the way you’re stomping on it? I thought it was gonna give out.”

The sudden joke gives Joy whiplash but she defends herself: “It’s called safe movement. It’s so that when it does give out, I am not standing on it.”

“Ouch, too soon.”

She closes her mouth, realising. “I didn’t-” she stutters, then sighs in defeat. “I don’t mean-”

“I know, I know. Just kidding.” Cutter laughs again. Then he asks: “Are you okay up there?”

Joy takes her thumb off of the push-to-talk button. There’s still some apparitional hand tugging her shoulder, bidding her to turn around. The corners of the room, coveting their shadows like veils, whisper threats. There could be anything in the darkness. Or there could be more stale, suffocating, plasterboard nothing.

“I’m fine,” she says to the radio. “I’m gonna search the rest of the floor. Going quiet.”

“Copy that, over and out.”

She lets herself breathe the clear air a little while longer, as if trying to commit it to memory. The corridor looks less imposing the second time she faces it; one more door is closed, another leads to one more empty room. She holds her breath stepping over the bird waste but her eyes still water at the smell. With her shoulder to the wall, she sweeps her torchlight around the corner. There are two more doors, larger this time, and chips of brick mix with old dust on the floor between them.

Ahead, the hallway opens up into a chamber. Windowless dark sticks to the heavy forms of two square columns on either side, visible past the wide entrance which is missing a two-winged door. Stiff sheets of plasterboard overlap into a choppy surface on the floor and bare concrete shows on the walls that they’ve been ripped from. An empty picture frame leans against the wall - the first item Joy has found in the building. The metallic plating has come off of its corners and the glass is shattered into a spiderweb pattern.

There are more off-white stains there, less visible on the white debris and more spaced out. Joy grimaces. She stomps the floor and something snaps under her boot. Though she flinches back, nothing collapses. It will be difficult to tell the state of the floor when it's covered like this.

The light of her torch infects the walls with a sickly blue tint. The flakes of paint and crumbling bricks give the shadows peaks and valleys to play in and their skittering movement follows Joy’s as she drags the light up and down the right side, floor to ceiling. It doesn't reach all the way but it's clear there are no more doors; no way through.

On the left, the light refracts into glittering lines. Another picture frame lies abandoned among the mess. Its long shadow stretches forward to the far wall and just before it, it meets a row of columns. They're thin, unevenly spaced, and as they climb, they grow even thinner. Then they spit the light out behind them in a rain of dancing colours.

They're solid glass, smooth and bulging like knotted bark. There are swirls of cloudy pink dulling them from the inside; faint here, completely opaque elsewhere. On the tip of each of them, like the jewel on a sceptre, hangs an exquisite glass sculpture of a bird.

Joy steps forward and glitter light showers her, reflected from the outstretched, frozen wings; from the pinhead domes of eyes. The sculptures are half-opaque too, muddled with dark patches under the iridescent surface.

They split into colours as she approaches and she recognizes red; then black, then grey. Then white, in curved streaks of exposed, splintered ribs. Then more red, cloudy and swirling all the way down the glass spikes from the skewered corpses of pigeons, encased in translucent prisons.

Joy covers her mouth. Her stomach twists and her knees wobble. Her body refuses to move. She can't pull her eyes away from the decomposing birds and she feels them etch into her memory, burning like sunlight. One of the pigeons stares back with its single remaining eye, distorted by the curve of the bare socket it's leaking out of. There are still feathers sticking out of one of its wings; the other is a dark crimson pulp of half-melted muscle and blood seeping out into the glass.

When Joy's legs finally move, they carry her mercilessly forward. Her hand leads, pulled by the rein of dancing reflections. The glass is warm to the touch, even through her gloves. With a quiet scrape the bird tips back and snaps away from its stalk.

It shatters like a bottle of wine and red liquid explodes onto the floor. Joy shouts and jerks back. She almost loses balance, clutching her hand to her chest as if she's been burned. A single red drop stains the tip of her boot and she can feel it through the fabric like shrapnel. Her mind doesn't even register the stench of decay; nor the grinding sound that comes from the broken statue. Everything drowns in the single tone of terror that fills her ears as she watches the glass spike twitch and then grow in a nauseating, slithering motion. It climbs the inches it has lost with the bird's body and then falls still again.

The silence locks around her. The dead birds demand she stops breathing as well, they steal the oxygen out of the room. She yanks the radio off of her belt, grips it with both hands and chokes out:

"I found the birds." Her fingers slip, she has to press the button again. A horrible buzz from the speaker drowns out her words: "They're all dead."

The radio drops and hangs on the cord attaching it to her belt loop. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to breathe. The buzz means two people have sent at once. Joy uses the moment of wait to force herself to stop shaking.

"Repeat that?" Cutter says on a click of static.

"The birds." Some of her control returns but now she can't find the words. Her gaze keeps dragging back up from the radio's blinking light. "Bodies," she manages. "I'll- I'll show you. I'm coming back."

There's a moment of silence and then, "Okay." Joy senses he wants to say more and is grateful that he doesn't.

Eyes still down, she retrieves her pocket camera. The lens extends with a laboured whirr and the display greets her with a half-full battery icon. Relief pours over her and melts some of the ice in her stomach. Whatever anomaly has drained her phone is slower to claim the old-fashioned double-As, it seems. The dim glow of the familiar screen is like a lighthouse in a storm.

She trains her eyes on it as she takes several photos of the pigeons; the ones suspended and the one splattered on the floor. As if seeing them through layers of lenses and pixels could disconnect her from the sight. She gets the close-ups with digital zoom. The macabre display's horrible beauty invites her closer. She squeezes the camera's button so hard, the shutter clicks three times in a row.

She backs away to the corridor; it's out of the question to turn her back on the bodies. Only when they disappear into the dark does she dare to turn around. The hallway looks foreign, the empty walls seem to gain a new, alien shade of white. The floor creaks. Joy sweeps her foot in an arc in front of her, shifting the dust. Then she stomps. Then she swipes her hand down through the air.

Nothing collapses, no hanging wires get caught on her glove. She knows that already. She’s checked the hallway, checked every inch of the floor. But the ritual of safety grounds her, brings her mind back into focus. Sweep, stomp, swipe; it’s a rhythm. A clear, simple action she can take to protect herself. From some things, at least.

She reaches the stairway in a trance. Sweep, stomp, swipe. Over and over, taking up all her thoughts. Right until the radio cracks and Cutter’s voice comes through:

"Are you doing your safe movements now?"

"Yeah,” she says. She opens the door, checks across the doorstep. Then she stops. “Why?"

"Just worrying you'll bring more of the building down on me,” he answers.

But she doesn’t miss the tiny pause, the barely audible false note in his light tone.

"Why are you asking?"

There’s silence. It stretches into an eternity in which the blurred moonlight outside the window seems to take a cloudy pink hue.

"I think I heard something else walking."

[fandom-trauma]

Hello hello! Ive been gone a while. Lots of things have happened, and I'm still in the thick of my final year project, but it's (mostly) coming to an end mid-Feb! Thought Id do a little post (mainly for me and the 4 followers I have) on my current WIPs Ive picked up, and what I plan to be doing. Personal update under the Read More.

First of all, I have like a million art and fic WIPs related to Immortal Desires and Perfect Match 2. No biggie, I just have... lots and lots of thoughts about Poly!PM MC and Poly!ID MC. Yes, this means I do have a fix-it fic about how that end of book confession goes... maybe even a rewrite of the entire last chapter... but hold that thought!

Now that I'm a little bit more versed in Twinery (see second point below for why), I'm a little bit tempted to make my rewrite interactive as well. Just text tho lol, but either way, an ending rewrite is a ways away, and also I kinda wanna wait till Bk2 is released to really start working on it. (I didn't realise ID was GOC so you bet I binged it within three fuckin days when I did. It's a bloody amazing book. I also finally finished my playthrough of PM2, so that explains why these books are giving me immense brainrot.)

SECONDLY, 'A Date with Bryce Lahela' is about halfway done! I'm not exactly sure if I've ever shared the idea publicly to the fandom, but this is the basic gist of it: Date is an attempt on my end of trying to recreate those TF Date Specials, but with the one and only Bryce Lahela. Cool, right? Unfortunately, it's only in text format, bc I'm learning Twinery Harlowe.

What's left of Date? When can I play it/a demo? Pronoun choices, smut scenes and equipment variations, a whole activity is uncoded, trackable achievements, load/save functionality, and after that it's just making sure the whole damn thing works. As for a demo... ;) .. ... Joking. The entire predicted gameplay is short enough to not really need a demo, so there won't be a public one. I aim to have this done by, god, hopefully end of the year? This damn thing's been sitting in my WIPs for two whole years, so I would really like it done and over with, haha, but it's a lot of work for one person.

THIRD, I have a 1.2k word rewrite of Foreign Affairs Ch12 Tatum diamond scene that has been in the making, and rotting away in my WIPs, since 2 April 2021. Honest to god, it's a little bit of a vent fic, and I've been slowly chipping away at it whenever I've been stressed. The rewrite isn't because I see the scene as bad, but I do wish there was a liiiiiittle more hurt/comfort in it lol.

FOURTH, well... I have a few Bryce x M!MC smut fics that, uh, really should be finished and see the light of day. Or, at least escape the WIP folder and experience the cool damp corner of my tumblr blog.

So, that's my WIPs so far! Personal stuff under the read more.

----- ----- ----- -----

My 3D animation final year project wraps up a couple of weeks before my graduation. I knew the workload was going to be larger than what I've had with my previous 2D animation projects, but boy it really hits different when you're actually working on it. I won't go into it too detailed, but if you're curious, feel free to ask about it!

My 2023 started off as a... mixed bag. Low lows and high highs, I guess. Won't go into it, but yeah, not great.

Me having Date in semi-working condition is purely because of a NYE group gift exchange and my hubris at making a working product within 2 weeks. It was... yeah, no, I've been humbled, but man was the result such an endorphin rush.

I've also got really into making custom content for The Sims 4, so that's where the bulk of my free time went, really. I'm active in a few TS4 discord servers, so if you see mothy-simmie, say hi :P

[deltaofthepack]

Okay so im putting a cut on this for the pretty heavy topic of pet death, so theres that.

my cat passed away last week and I think im still working through the grief.

but currently im tryping this up while sitting at my desk at work.

Im mostly stable but it hurts so much. He died in my arms, and even though he was old, and a little sickly, I still loved him with everything I have. I love him even now.

Everytime I pass by his grave I feel the urge to run my hand through his fur, and feel him butt up against my hip, or meow up at me in his silly little way.

I miss him like a limb. I dont think anything will feel the way it did before, and I have to get used to this new normal without him, but I dont really want to.

On the other hand. My grandmother passed over the weekend. She and I were never close. And while i worry for my dad and am sad that shes gone, Im not turn apart, hell i didnt even really cry.

Its not like either was truly unexpected, weve known my grnadmother was going to pass sometime soon for a few months, and Jerry wasnt exactly a kitten anymore.

But I cant even begin to compare the two. He was the most consistent family Ive had in the last 4 years, aside from my s/o.

Someone jokingly asked if i was getting a new cat the other day and I burst into tears, but Im probably not even going to the memorial for my grandmother.

I know grief is different for everyone, and that pets are important. But seeing it layed out this way, and having so many people validate that experience of hysteric crying while i hold him one last time?

The only way i can describe it is carving away rot to allow the wound to heal.

Ive been struggling so much with self blame about the whole thing, drowning in what ifs, and struggling how little I seem to care about a person, so this helps.

But I wish i had more time. More time with him, more time to process, more time between the two tragedies.

But life goes on. And im at work.

Im making mistakes and zoning out and all but the most essential parts of my job have fallen to the wayside, but im a warm body taking the place of the cog within the machine.

I just wish i didnt have to, sometimes.

[syngonivm]

made my first wetstick prop box tonight :3 i microwaved the moss in hot water yesterday in preparation just to make sure it sterile beforehand cause i had a prop rot in some of it once and i was worried it left bacteria/fungus on the moss </3

the large sticks are a syngonium albo that i got as one cutting with a beautiful leaf a few weeks back but the roots it had got stunted for some reason and the leaf died :( so as a last resort i cut it up and made a prop box for it

this was her pretty leaf rip

decided to throw in some other stuff i had no luck rooting so far either. two regular ol scindapsus even tho i have more than enough lol it just feels like a waste throwing them </3 theyre from a second vine of my plant i got last summer that i recently repotted and gave a moss pole. it Literally grew itself into a knot?? so when i repotted i decided to cut it but i've jut not had any luck so far with propping them 😩 ive had them in water ive had them in moss, they rotted, i tossed the rotted ones and put the healthy ones back in water along with more cuttings hoping they'll trigger root growth in each other but nothing!!

hard to see but theres two very very tiny scindapsus silvery ann. mine died mysteriously early this year? or late last year and ive been trying to root the little i could save since :( this ones been stunted and its leaf finally died too so i cut it up and stuck it in. i hope i can save it 😩 rn i got two more cuttings in soil.

i miss the plant dearly i was always so excited to see the new leaf pattern and it grew sm and fast but then suddenly its leafs curled and it never recovered. tried not to overwater even tho the leafs were obviously thirsty and eventually found out the bottom part of its stem is all dried up. the big rootsystem and the rest of the plant were fine but i had to cut it :( and the curled leafs didnt even recover after putting them in water. the roots i end up tossing cause i had it in water and forgot by the time i remembered it was rotting </3

tho today i saw one of the water cuttings did finally push a new leaf. at least i think it was a silvery ann. i took some before the plant died so it could get bushier and it's been like over half a year but finally roots. i planted it so fingers crossed

anyways theres also one white butterfly syngonium cutting in there. i got a big old one in semihydro for only 5€ a little while ago and i made 3 cuttings. one i gifted away, one is still happily rooting in water (the head one) and this ones leaf just died and the roots it had suddenly rotted off 😭 i cleaned it up and hopefully can give it a second chance in the prop box. weirdly the eye under its leaf wasnt sleeping it was already bulging u can see it on the photo bottom right first pic.

i wanna make backup copies of the plant in soil jic the whole hydro stuff doesnt work out. i got 0 experience with it and finding info on this stuffs so hard most i find is for growing veggies in pure hydro and growing weed in semihydro :/ both pretty useless to me atm

anyways. fingers crossed <3 i read mixed info on wether or not i need to air the box out so uh ill wing it

I'm so excited to see new growth tho ik it'll take long 😔

today i also planted a rooted cutting i was gifted :3 im not sure what type of syngonium it is tho. looks like it could be either a juvenile batik or a white butterfly? but it's stems are red 🤔 fingers crossed it'll quickly adjust. theres some new growth on of the stems already.

[mapleshmaple]

hiya

[missmeinyourbones]

just read your drabble about gojo not having eaten this whole time, and i’m so glad i wasn’t the only one thinking of that 😭😭

i wonder what kind of thoughts he’s having :’(

the urge to spoon feed him only the best food in the world is so strong :’

as sad as it makes me think, i also like to think about the reunion 😋 hehe what do you think a reunion with unsealed gojo would be like?

aaaahhhh thank u for asking this!!! ive been thinking about it lol T-T that drabble makes me so sad, so i've been wanting to elaborate on it regarding the reunion (super rough and not proofread or edited but enjoy the crumbs <3)

a/n: part two of this, spoilers of shibuya arc, not proofread or edited

…

you weren’t there when it happened. 

when he was released, you were home. truthfully, you didn’t leave home often anymore. there was no want for it, no need—besides checking in on megumi and the rest of jujutsu high, you stayed inside. 

the apartment remained untouched for weeks. satoru’s dirty laundry that still smelt of him stayed sitting in the hamper. the bedsheets, unwashed since he last slept spread across them. the meal you’d made, the one he never got to try, remains packed away in tupperware in the back of the fridge. 

it all happened so fast. 

after being released he was immediately taken to the school. he was quickly checked out by shoko for any damage or harm. he was debriefed on everything that happened, of all the carnage and wreckage. it didn't feel real to him. he couldn't think straight, couldn't sit still, couldn't do anything. until he was back home, with you. there was no phone call, no warning or update. suddenly, he was just there.

teleporting into your living room within a split second, he stands shaking above the couch where you sleep. he admires you—skin sickly pale, under eyes dark from lack of sleep and constant tears, body frail from not eating, not taking care of yourself. 

and still, as satoru whimpers and sobs admiring your sleeping state, he thinks you look as beautiful as you did the day he first met you. 

his sniffles and ragged breaths are what wake you, and you think you're dreaming. hallucinating. because he’s here, in front of you, when it shouldn't be possible. when he should be in that box, rotting away like a forgotten memory. 

"satoru," you call out, but it’s more of a question, one of is it really you? or am i imagining this?

and his voice weakly falling from your lips is all it takes for him to be smothering you, gripping you as tightly as he can. he cradles your head and feels your arms, hands, neck, any piece of you he can grab. he feels for your breathing, forgetting his own as he gasps and shudders through tears. 

"i'm here, oh my god you're here, i'm here. i'm sorry, i love you. i'm so fucking sorry," he babbles and cries, kissing you, touching you, desperate and pathetic as he needs to know that this is real. not a cruel trick from the seal or an everlasting purgatory. 

"we're here, we're okay. i love you, we're okay," you shakily reassure him. you feel his hair tickle your fingers like it used to. you feel his teeth graze your ear like they used to. it’s him, undeniably and in the flesh. 

"oh my god, i'm so sorry—”

"why are you apologizing?"

"i'm so sorry, i'm sorry, i'm so so sorry," the apologizes rush from his lips like a river flowing downstream. he can’t stop himself, he’s out of breath, sobbing and shaking as he continues. 

"hey, satoru, look at me," you hold his face in your palms, but his eyes are insatiable. scanning over your frame manically as he continues to pant and hyperventilate. 

you try again, "there is nothing to be sorry for, satoru, none of what happened was your fault."

"i'm sorry i—" he pauses, finally looking into your eyes, "i didn't get to eat dinner with you, didn't get to taste it—"

"i'll remake it.” you assert, desperate to calm his fears in any way you can, “i'll make it again, okay?" he tries to follow along, taking a slow and shaky inhale as he watches the way your lips enunciate the words, "are you hungry?"

satoru looks at you, drinking all of you in, as if his eyes can’t move over your frame quick enough. as if he’s searching every freckle, scar, blemish, scab, to see if there’s anything new. to see if he’s missed anything. if you’re the same you. 

with tears silently spilling from his eyes and down his cheeks, into the crevices of his neck and your fingers, he nods. 

"m'fucking starving."

his response has you laughing through your own tears, and then suddenly, he’s laughing—because you’re laughing. and the two of you stand in your home, holding onto one another for dear life as you cry out of far too many emotions—grief, comfort, want, need. 

"okay," you nod, drinking in the blue of his eyes, "we can eat," you promise. "can you help me make it?" you ask, and it’s a simple question, one that’s supposed to ground him, distract him from his uneven breathing and the heavy mourning that is soon to set in with reality. 

"okay." he’s quick to nod his head at your words, "here,” he clarifies, as if he’s reminding, convincing himself that yes, he’s here, with you. he kisses you once more, it’s shaky and wet and yet there is so much love in it that you think you might suffocate, 

“yeah, okay," he breathes life into your lungs. he’s here, with you. 

[arodabi]

okay, i’m finally getting around to writing this, and uhh ill say its for aro week too. this is written as an aro person directed at alloromantic people. when i refer to writing, i’m kind of using it as a general term for creative works. Here’s me throwing my hat in on the question:

Can you ship aromantic characters?

and my answer is,,,,, actually a question. Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? 

I want alloros to realize that for a lot of aros, we do not get to see ourselves represented often. I can actually count on like one hand how many popular canon aro characters there are, and on the whole, none of their identities are respected. people constantly try to weasel their way out of actually writing aro characters, or they just ignore or deny their identity outright. fandom spaces (hell creative spaces in general) are at best not welcoming to aros, and at worst actively hostile towards us. So when the first question brought up when a character gets canonically confirmed as aro is “okay cool but can i ship them???” or “that’s nice but how can i still write about my fave ship that involves them??” i want to fucking scream. its a slap to the face and it shows that people really do not give a shit about aros. you say stuff like that and all i hear is “my fictional ship is so much more important than representing your marginalized minority identity” so instead of me just sitting here and saying “yes you can totally ship aro characters, as long as you’re respectful!!!” i’m saying “can you stop and think why you want to shove an aro character into a romantic relationship at the first chance you get?? maybe you have some arophobia you haven’t worked on?? maybe since we live in an amatonormative world, you’re letting that influence your views??” because that question being the first thing out of your mouth when you see a character you like confirmed as aro? that’s already disrespectful towards aros in my book.

So back to my question, Why do you want to ship aromantic characters? is it because you can’t write characters without them being in romantic relationships? or because you think a character without a romantic relationship is boring? Because if so, that’s a bad reason and it sounds like amatonormativity is rotting your brain. 

Is it because you just really like a ship with the aro character? Because you can write two characters with a strong relationship without writing them as a couple. A strong friendship can hold just as much power as a romantic relationship.

Is it because fuck aros, i will write what I wanna write and I don't wanna write this character with their canon identity? because then you’re just an arophobic asshole that needs to work on your shitty opinions. aro representation is just as important as any other lgbtqia+ representation.

Now if you’re reading this and thinking “well i heard aros can be in queerplatonic relationships!” I want you to think for a second. Are you writing a qpr or are you writing a romantic relationship with the serial numbers filed off? Have you talked to aro people or read stuff actually written by us? because, yes, some qprs can look a lot like a romantic relationship from the outside, but that’s just it, you’re looking at it from the outside. qprs are more than just “romantic relationship with extra steps”, and i think it’s really telling how many times i see alloromantic people saying they’re depicting an aro character in a qpr, not a romantic relationship, but then they never ever make any effort to distinguish the qpr from any other romantic relationship they write or draw. It just feels like qprs are getting used by alloros as a gatcha any time an aro person objects to how they depict (or don’t depict) aromanticism. if you want to write a character in a qpr then go for it! but you need to actually do research, talk to aros, get multiple opinions and not just take the first opinion that agrees with you and run with it.

“But what about headcanoning a character as arospec?” now i will say before i go into this, i am aro, not arospec, so if an arospec person wants to come in and correct me at any part here im happy to listen. but my problem when alloros bring up arospec identities is a very similar problem to how qprs are often depicted. I remember when Peridot Stevenuniverse got confirmed aro (she did, do not argue this with me) people were jumping over themselves to assure everyone that “a character getting confirmed as aro just means they are any arospec identity” which,, uhh,, not true? i mean if an arospec person wants to see a canon aro character as, say, aroflux, i’ve got no problem, aro and arospec people can do what they want really. but, i do have a problem with all the alloro fans who were spreading this. because, do you really see the character as demiromantic? or are you using that identity to deflect criticism from erasing aro identities? are you actually trying to write a good depiction of a demiro person? or are you just writing normal ship stuff and slapping a “uwu ive never felt romantic attraction until i met you! and now i will act exactly like any alloromantic person!” at the beginning? being in fandom spaces, i do see the occasional fic actually depicting an aspec identity (i say aspec her because aro is so rare that most of these examples i’ve seen have been acespec identities rather than arospec) but like 99% of the time, that’s written by someone who actually shares the identity. before you use our terms and identities to cover your ass when you erase us, consider not fucking doing that. consider listening to all aros and getting our thoughts and input. 

And last here is “but what about romance positive aros?” now i think most of what i’ve said previously can be applied here. the only thing i wanna add is, i think its very interesting that almost every time i see non aros depict aros, they always write them as very into romance, very open to be in romantic relationships, and very quiet about their aro identity. despite the character in canon not showing any of these traits. romance positive aros are good and important, but not every aro is romance positive. there’s quite a few of us that are romance repulsed, and alloros only depicting aros as super romance positive no matter what is suspicious to say the least. if an aro character is shown to be open to participating in romantic activities in canon then of course write them that way. but if an aro character is shown to be uninterested in, or even actively against romantic activities then respect that too.

so, to wrap up my thoughts in this ramble: please ask yourself why you want to ship aro characters so bad, because if the only reason is that amatonormativity has brainwashed you into not being able to write, or draw, or do anything with a character without them being in a romantic relationship, then you uhhh need to work on that, that’s honestly a writing/creative flaw imo. if you like the relationship dynamic between an aro character and another character, consider making them friends. friendship is not less powerful than romantic relationships. nobody is ever too old for the power of friendship trope. If you’re erasing an aro character’s identity because fuck aros, then fuck off somewhere far away from me and work on your bullshit. qprs, arospec identities, and romance positive aros are all very real, very important parts of the aro community, but please talk to other aros about them and actually make an effort to understand how these things work, dont just assume. And also don’t use these things as a way to erase aro identities and cover your ass if get called out. its disrespectful towards all aros.

The most important thing to do before writing or creating work with aro characters is to talk to aros, and not just the aros that agree with you. look up what a qpr actually is, learn how aros experience their arospec identities, talk to aros with multiple outlooks on romance. and if you can’t bring yourself to reach out, at least read through our own writings, whether that’s fiction, or informational posts, fuck, look through our memes if u wanna. Just please actually make an effort.

So, Can you ship aro characters? its complicated. look at trends in your fandom, question why you want to, and do research. Be an aro ally, listen to us. That’s really the most important thing.

[keilemlucent]

Oh Salem, the panicked Keigo idea just speaks to my mean little gremlin heart. I want to see the guy trained to keep calm and cool lose his shit over losing his s/o. RIP his handlers if they try to slow him down. I want to see the relief when he finds them and the reckoning for the people dumb enough to try. This. This is my bedtime snack.

so this is less of reckoning, more relief. soft. ive been thinking about this a LOT and i feel like <3 poor keigo would be ruined:

heres a wittle drabble for your thoughts 

warnings: kidnapped reader, descriptions that may trigger claustrophobia (light, just a cave setting), insults in a not fun way, hurt/comfort baby

You were so cold.

The ‘cell’ you were in was more of a hovel, a small hole dug into the elaborate cave system you found yourself trapped in.

You weren’t sure for how long. There was no sun, only a guard that came and went with your meager meals and stale bottle of water. He and the other villains that had captured you spit vitriol and profanity like it was their duty to grind their verbal heels against your fragile psyche.

You tried to block them out, curling up in a tight ball against the rough back wall of your cell. Ignorance was better than hearing their profanities. 

The worst part was that you weren’t really sure what was going on. Other than that it had something to do with Keigo, considering you were exclusively referred to as “the number 2′s brain-rotted whore”.

Once again, you tried not to listen. 

...

You awoke to the sounds of chaos. 

Shouting, crashes, explosions--

The walls of your prison shook as you scramble to stand, smashing your head into the low ceiling as you did.

Your vision spun as your staggered to the rusty bars, bracing yourself and hopelessly tugging as you had so many times before.

There was a crash particularly close, bits of debris falling from stone tunnels, frail support beams falling.

No. 

Your blood ran so cold, you couldn’t move. Your body went completely still at the bars as you switched between panic and rage. It wasn’t fair, none of it was, you didn’t even get to say fucking goodbye to him. No last words, you’d been plucked from the street on your commute however long ago.

Keigo had left early that morning too, letting you sleep in with a kiss to the forehead instead of his normal heapings of sleepy, dawn-time affections. You’d been clinging to those sleepy, half-memories as anchor over the days in the cramped caves.

And, in the end, that was all you would have. Cloudy recollections of Keigo’s raspy morning voice as the caves around you began to shift and crumble.

Tears rolled down your cheeks as you tugged at the bars, trying fruitlessly to get past them. Frustration made your hands sweat and fear made them shake as they became littered with small cuts. 

With the next crash, just as close, a vibrant blur of red whizzed past your cell. The shock and gust from its speed sent you jolting back, a hand clasping over your heart.

“... Keigo?” 

You hadn’t even realized you said it aloud. 

Not until the blur, feathers, a bundle of a maybe thirty returned, hovered and spun in front of the bars.

“Keigo?”

The feathers shuddered.

It felt like you were dreaming.

“KEIGO!” 

You practically screamed, jolting against the bars. Though it wasn’t him, not really, he’d hear you through the feathers. One of them spilled through the bars, pressing to your chest and pushing you away as the rest of the warm sharpened and began to beat on the thick padlock.

Something about your bodily state must’ve changed, as the feather at your face moved to under your chin, sweeping over your jaw in a small motions. 

...

Even from afar, Keigo was trying to comfort you.

When he’d felt you on the end of one of the feather swarms he’d sent into the caves, he thought he’d imagined it. The quiet hesitance with which you practically gasped his name was so fucking soft, he almost missed it.

But, he didn’t, thank fucking god.

The villains had been smart, corralling their captives (beyond just you, unsurprisingly. The string of disappearances over the weeks prior had all been linked. There were at least a dozen other lovers and family members of heroes tucked away into the mountain side with you.) 

Hence, it was a whole operation to retrieve you all, with some of the most pissed off, downright enraged heroes leading the charge and preceding investigation.

And Keigo?

He’d been at the front of it. 

HIs PA had to convince him to get a few solid hours of sleep every few days, in an actual bed, rather than on the floor of his office, or one of the many conference rooms the rescue team was occupying. 

He’d been wasting away, quietly, but he hardly noticed. Food was secondary, drinking was a burden, and his other bodily needs were just holding him back. He had a singular goal--

To find you.

He’d torn up the skies and the earth for just a trace of you, after you’d been taken. And finally, he found it, in the side of a fucking mountain, and an operation was launched to get all of the taken back.

Problem was it was a fucking mountain. A cobbled together base for the villains made of old mine tunnels and shafts, and organic caves.

And infuriatingly, Keigo and his wings were too damn big to properly navigate them. So, even if you were found, he wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t be there to tell you that everything was okay.

He couldn’t guarantee your safety by his own hands, and it fucking hurt. 

That being said, his feathers had done a good enough job. 

He could feel your heart hammering as you neared the entrance.

And then Keigo saw you.

...

You stumbled from the blown out opening, a flurry of feathers on either side. The brawl was somewhere else in the cave, shut out from your mind as you followed the tugs and touches of the plumes.

And as you felt the rays of setting sun hit your cheeks, you caught sight of Keigo.

Before you could even open your mouth, and breath the sigh of relief you needed to, or cried his name like you wanted to, Keigo was on you, scooping you up and away from the shuddering caves. 

His grip was so tight, it hurt, but neither of you cared. Your arms had looped behind his head, burying themselves in his greasy hair as you hid your face in his neck. Keigo’s hands were shaking as they held you close to him, not wavering even when you returned to the stable, safe ground below. It teemed with heroes and medics, but no one dared to interrupt or get between the two of you.

They’d all seen how wrecked Hawks had become in pursuit of finding his partner.

Keigo lowered the two of you to the ground, all feathers returning and making his feathers thick and broad once more. They rose and curled around the two of you, sealing the world away.

Your mouth felt too dry as you tried to sit up, but Keigo wouldn’t let you. He kept a firm hand on your hip as he tore off one of his gloves with his teeth, keeping you in place in front him. 

When you tried to shift, he gathered you by your waist and crushed you to him. HIs chest shuddered and his shoulders quaked with the force he was wrapping you, and you returned it all, as much as you could.

“P-please,” Keigo’s voice broke. “I just gotta hold you for awhile, o-okay, Dove? You’re s-safe now. I’ve got you.”

And he did.

You pressed your cracked lips to his cheeks, lungs going tight as you wrestled for one of his clammy hands to hold.

“I-I know,” You sniffled, tears squished between your cheeks. You pressed your interlocked fingers to your lips, choking on a sob of pure relief. Whatever kisses you had planned to grace his knuckles with were swallowed elsewhere.

Keigo pulled your face to his, hands and mouth hungry as he desperately kissed you, finally, nothing like the fleeting ones you both clung to while cruelly apart. It was messy, sloppy, but ringing with sweetness as Keigo sputtered and nipped at your lips.

“’M sorry,” He breathed, barely pulling away before slotting your lips together once more. 

As much as you wanted to reply, remind him that this wasn’t his fault, you words were too gummy and jumbled for anything meaningful.

So, you both settled for touch.

You stroked over each other’s sunken in eyes and dark circles. Keigo nipped at your dry lips, while you tasted the staleness of his breath. His bare hands braced against your back from just under the hem of your shirt,  feeling the deep chill in your skin and the residual dirt and grime.

You finally mustered up some words, the mix of so many needs and desires that needed sating.

“K-Keigo?” You lingered as close as you could, craving the heat and mingling of your breaths. “I-I want to go home.”

His breath caught and his grip got tighter still.

“Can we go home?” You asked, soft and breaking as you fell into the safety of his arms.

“Y-yeah,” Keigo pressed his teary cheeks to the top of your head, letting out a final shaking breath of relief. Keeping his words firm as firm as his touch, he put every ounce of ease that he could offer into his words:

“Let’s go home, dove.”