#i will be dedicated and love dramatically

[hedreamtofthemoon]

You know what bugs me about Jegulus? I’m fine with them, I like them and I have read a multitude of fics about them and this is NOT hate, but my heart will always belong to Wolfstar, and Jegulus feels like they are just constantly upstaging Wolfstar just the smallest amount. They are the slightly more unlikely couple, the slightly more forbidden, slightly more secretive, slightly more unexpected, slightly more dedicated, slightly more dramatic, slightly more in love, slightly more kinky, slightly more exhibitionist, slightly more special… I know it’s petty but that #1 spot just belongs to Wolfstar in my head and however much I enjoy reading Jegulus they are always written as slightly better than Wolfstar. I just don’t want to deal with that most of the time.

[mt-oe]

𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘴…—𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘻𝘶

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Hey dears!

Here's a fic that I hope I post just in time for Valentine's day. I am currently writing this inebriated out of my shit. My cheeks are so hot and my world is spinning like I'm a dishrag in a bucket of water. I pray that my quality of writing doesn't plummet because all of you deserve so many good things and the world, and none of you deserve a shitty fanfic.

Every one of you deserves to be loved as softly as you need to be and as rough as you want to be.

I hope everyone will enjoy and I hope that everyone continued to love Mizu this day dedicated to love <3 Mwa mwa :*

warning/s: not proofread, i do not know, she/her for mizu, implied afab reader

What is love?

Even way back then, when you were still young, you've always wondered about what love is. You've heard it all over the teen magazines you bought monthly, on the newest romance film, and even in your parent's old film cassettes. Yet, still, you couldn't figure it out.

Your curiosity even reached a point when you'd pester your next door neighbor about it. The image of Mizu, your best friend, frowning at you as if you were asking her some kind of dumb insignificant shit would never fail to make you laugh.

"Could you stop pestering me about this and just go on," her annoyed voice would growl through the call. You distinctly remember her putting you on 'deafen' every time you started talking about it while the two of you were on Discord. But honestly, who could blame her? You were teens. Still kids. All she wanted was her LP and a new rank this season, not to hear you ask her what the hell love was.

There would be times when you'd ask your parents. But honestly, asking your parents about something that can give you incredibly subjective answers is never a good thing. You'd always be greeted with a ' just focus on your studied first' or a very vague try-hard-to-be-poetic-or-sentimental answer. They're answers were always either so lacking or so dramatic that it never quite hit the spot.

Searching on the internet was also an option. Your teen self would sit in front of your computer, searching and reading articles about love. Honestly, the answer varied so much it didn't satisfy you at all. More feel-y types of articles would tell you that it was a 'once in a lifetime special feeling that made you absolutely the happiest you'll ever be' while more logical sites would tell you that it was a chemical reaction in your brain.

You could remember Mizu scoff at them. Both of you were hanging in your house while her mother was getting high in their living room again. She walked up to your house one night with a small frown, tired from the smell of drugs and smoke.

Now, she had something else to be tired about. And that was you showing her all these articles were all the same level of ridiculous to her.

For the nth time that night, she rolled her eyes as you read out the contents of the article, both of you under the blanket with only the dim light from your phone illuminating your room. "We're almost done with high school and you're still hooked on this?" she asked, a rough huff leaving her throat. "Isn't this for kids?"

You immediately shook your head and let out a small whine, moving closer until your shoulders touched. "Oh c'mon, Mizu! Have a little curiosity in your life!" you grumbled, refreshing the website when the pictures wont load.

"I could think a hundred things more significant and worthwhile learning," she replied, hands adjusting the blanket, pulling it closer and making sure the chilly night breeze couldn't reach you. "This is nonsense."

"Reasonable nonsense, that is," you said with a slight smile. Her sapphire orbs scanned over your face, tracing over the excitement on your face and the twinkling in your eyes. A little part of her brain was filled with some sort of mushy happy feeling the more she stared. And before these feelings could take over, she rolled her eyes again, annoyance clear in the way she sighed.

"Whatever. It's your phone anyway," she grumbled, looking away. You giggled softly and shifted your weight further against her side, fully leaning against her shoulder. Mizu would never have admitted this during her teens, but your warmth, the feeling of your weight against her, and mutual feeling of comfort definitely made her heart beat faster than it ever did or could during fencing training.

Each article the two of you read together caused your curiosity to grow. Maybe, somewhere along the way, so did Mizu's.

What is love?

Love is a mystery, you thought to yourself.

In college, the two of you were still inseparable, attached by the hip as they say. Thankfully, both of you had decided to go to the same university under different programs. While you were buried in student debt, unsurprisingly, your best friend had managed to acquire a scholarship.

Everything was going well between the two of you. Both of you still hung out and still caught up with each other weekly or over a few games online. The frustrations and moments of joy mended your bond with each other every time. Each hour that passed the clock was worth the grogginess you'll inevitably feel for staying up too late. It felt like nothing could get in between the two of you.

That was until...

Some time during your sophomore year, Mizu's mother had waltzed her way into your lives. With her, she brought an arranged relationship for Mizu and another man. He was apparently an alumni of the same scholarship program Mizu was under and was pretty wealthy.

Both of you knew this was some ploy for her to get money, but whenever your best friend confronted her mother, she'd be greeted with excuses saying this was the best for her dearest daughter and how she knows what's best for her. You could only scoff at her words, knowing she never really cared for her past her childhood.

And for a time, Mizu believed you. She detested the idea of being forced into a relationship for money. Relationships in general were a waste of time for her. You thought everything was going to go well, that she'd still be by your side, that the fun would never stop.

But, somewhere along the way, your weekly gaming sessions turned into nights of doing your projects alone. Your best friend was apparently invited by her boyfriend, Mikio, to some new restaurant.

It didn't matter.

The weekly hangout sessions in either one of your dorms turned into a solo trip to the library to finish something or to mooch off of the campus wi-fi you paid for from your tuition anyway. Mizu was apparently going to go with the old geezer to some movie.

It didn't matter.

Your bot-support duo turned into you playing top or raging in jungle alone. He was apparently inviting her to play duo and she'd play with you some other time.

It didn't matter. It didn't hurt.

Just a pinch.

It was college anyway, people are bound to lose friends, right? Maybe you could go back to finding out what love is. Maybe the deeper academic pursuits in college and the wider range of educational materials could grant you a more extensive selection of literature regarding the matter.

You could drown yourself in writings from the library, books you've never even heard off, more knowledgeable goons trying so hard to explain love through neurotransmitters and electrical signals in the brain. Maybe the pursuit of this knowledge would allow you to move on from the person of your affection.

Affection? What a stupid word.

It was college and you've made new friends along the way. You'd get invited to parties and merriments and meet more people. Maybe this night, you'd take a shot more than the usual, a cig more than the usual, and you'd repeat that to yourself until the squeezing tightening feeling in your throat retches over to the toilet.

One more shot. One more cigarette. Rinse and repeat.

Over and over until you were in Akemi's arms crying about your blue-eyed best friend who she already seemed to dislike. Apparently, they'd known each other and Mizu had apparently wiped the floor with Akemi's boyfriend. A soft bitter chuckle left your throat.

"Yeah, that's definitely something she would do," you whispered, voice rough from vomiting the intoxication out.

One more shot. One more cigarette. Rinse and repeat.

Over and over until Akemi was starting to feel like comforting you was her own Sisyphus. You'd go on about how you were there first and how cruel the world was for making you realize your affection a bit too late.

"Affection? That's a stupid way of putting it. I think you're in love," Akemi would say, cringing as you buried your tear-stricken face against her hair.

Is love supposed to hurt?

You could not accept it.

Love tastes like pure coffee beans without any cream or sugar. Strong, bitter, almost tasteless, gives you migraines, could send you into palpitations, and can kill you. Slow and unknowingly.

Maybe it was the time to stop pursuing love. Maybe those old people in journals and books with a hundred million different titles from all the licenses they have were right. That it was all just neurotransmitters and electrical signals going the synapses in your neurons that'll inevitably deteriorate with age. It'll go away.

Is this really what love is?

What was love?

Love is a kind of bitterness that aches, you thought to yourself.

Semesters passed and you never got to bond with your best friend again—if you would still call her that.

The ache made you grow cold, but you preferred to call it mature. You continued on with your life, her name sounding like a distant song whenever the winds whispered. Every blue in your life felt like a strike of undescribed nostalgia. A memory that could have been a novel but ended a bit too early.

You weren't a god but you sure had the ability to summon a personal raincloud over your own moments of happiness. It wasn't bitterness. It was called choosing practicality over emotion, you said.

And maybe, that's how life works. Maybe you should just go on and be like those old geezers with a shit ton of masters degrees and doctorates who'd tell you that love was just hormones and your brain going overdrive.

Maybe you should grow old and into a boring life, not affected by the blue eyes that were staring back at your with a sad old smile.

Maybe you can be Ms. Practicality again and ignore how beautiful she was when she walked towards you.

Maybe you can finally control the electrical signals in your brain so your heart could stop beating so fast as she greeted you, placing a hand on your shoulder, feeling the warmth you missed so damn much. Her long hair against her shoulder and the cold aura of her eyes warming as her eyes squinted with that precious smile of hers.

Maybe the hundred million academic titles you planned to pursuit would give you an early lesson and tell you that you'd know what love was some day.

And maybe...that some day was today.

Maybe the crazy romance books and magazine articles were right. That love would waltz into your life one day and maybe love had already waltzed into your life from the very start.

You'd soon find out that your best friend had some how made a reputation for herself, getting into a fight with her ex over some betrayal. She didn't really want to talk about it since the wounds were still fresh. Rumors of her violent tendencies grew and now she was trying to lay low again.

They'd call her a dangerous fellow

Well...they were neither right nor wrong. This fellow was dangerous indeed.

Dangerously sweet.

Dangerously funny.

Dangerously understanding.

Dangerously charming.

Dangerously lovely.

After decades of asking the question, "What is love?", you'd finally get your question. The bells of heaven can finally ring now because your lifelong journey of finding out what this mystery was can finally end.

Love wears orange-tinted glasses. A gift she got from you before both of you went to college together. The sight and the knowledge of it being her favorite tugging your heart strings and warming your cheeks.

Love continued her fencing training and was somehow better than the instructors in uni. She'd be so cocky and call their techniques trash, so much so that they think of her more as a competition than a student.

Love doesn't laugh a lot but when she does, it sounds like what an angel would sound like. She thinks you're exaggerating but you could honestly drown in the honeyed sound.

Love incurs the wrath of her professors by passing projects late, but her work is so good, they could never give her a fail.

Love is called so many horrible things. They'd call her a demon, an onryo. You'd ask her if she was okay and she'd just look at you with a soft smile and tell you that she didn't mind.

Love was lying. She definitely minded and you could never figure out why she'd always act okay while she smile so genuinely at you.

Love always puts her hair in a bun and is lowkey ticked off about it going allover the place when she takes it out.

Love is always mistaken as a man. If she was a man, she'd be the prettiest man you've ever fallen in love with.

Love secretly likes stuffed animals but would never buy one for herself. Love likes to playfully rough house and lowkey beat the shit out of her friends.

Love wakes up before the sunrises and goes to the gym. All the equipment were available and it was quiet. She loves the peace.

But love also feels guilty whenever she accidentally wakes you up. Your groggy whine would make her heart beat faster and make her suddenly feel hesitant to go.

Love would get into arguments with you, but she'd still try her best to be understanding. Her patience wasn't big when it comes to anger and negative emotions, but for you, nothing was impossible.

Love was incredible. Love was all-pursuing.

Love made you realize that love wasn't a 'what' but a 'who'.

What is love?

Love is a person.

[kwillow]

Not to yoink last Anon’s ask gushing about your stylization and each individual dynamics at play within depiction of their lineage but they’re 100% so right, god, it’s faBulously well done and you are BALLER at it LMAOO

Your tag joke about Theo failing to live up to the lineage ™️ made me wanna ask.

Outside of her motherly adoration (and the rose-tinted codependency glasses) while alive what actually were Jocosa’s thoughts on Theo’s contributions and long term lineage goals for him, say, in comparison to what her mother or father’s were for her?

Any previously living relatives distant or otherwise Theo might have somewhat cognizant memory of cohorting with at any point like the grandparents?

tickled by the thought Jocosa might’ve been at some point obliged by tradition/social responsibilities to have hosted a sort of public home mansion soiree dedicated to a teen Theo’s ‘coming of age’ presentation and having to somewhat laboriously nudge the stubborn teen into at least pretending he has the capacity to stand being in same room as his father or god forbid some other ceremonial father-son type ritual borne of patriarchal society.

ie: Well wishes handshake, Father-Son group attendance game hunting, Father publicly gifting the ‘new’ man a required acknowledgment item as show of mutual respect, etc…

Legacy and Expectations

In theory, what was expected of Jocosa and Theo by their parents was much the same. Be raised with lessons in history, etiquette and magic to maintain the family land and position, enter an arranged marriage, produce heirs to the lineage, etcetera. The difference is in how well that was accomplished.

Jocosa was raised with no illusions that she was anything other than a load-bearing branch on the family tree, primped and educated and trained to make her equipped to beget more branches and maintain the estate until the next generation would take over. She was married off almost as soon as she came of age and set to work on producing heirs. Obeisance was the primary trait expected of her and she learned very quickly to be silent, do as commanded and bide her time until she was the one who wore the crown.

Ideally, Jocosa wanted her son to follow in her footsteps. Uphold the family legacy, have children with a woman of her choosing, act in accord with tradition and continue to elevate the family name to its rightful position of dignity and power. Her love for him told her that he could do anything he set his brilliant mind to, and that is what she would insist to him. But she always knew he had issues.

Despite her genuine affection for him and respect for his intelligence, Jocosa understood that Theo was not the ideal heir. Beyond his physical problems, he was fast-tempered, terrible at diplomacy, ill-equipped to handle courtship, prone to fits of nerves and paranoia, and needed to be watched like a hawk around sharp objects. But perhaps with more of her guidance, more time, he'd be ready. Of course, she didn't get more time. Her health declined dramatically and Theo directed all of his attention towards helping her and trying to get her well again.

Some part of her saw how he took charge of her care, taking on the responsibility as readily as a knight at arms and thought here's the man I always knew you were. But she still had doubts, and a persistent fear that she was leaving him too soon, worried about what he'd do without her. She just had to hope he'd manage without her.

Well. That didn't work out as she hoped.

Theo's Immediate Family

His maternal grandparents were alive and living in the manor when he was a small child. They both passed away when he was still quite young, so his memories of them are vague. He has the (accurate) impression that they were not fond of him.

Theo's paternal grandparents, aunts and uncles are still around, but he never met them and wouldn't recognize them if he did (only hearing their last name would make him realize they were related).

"Coming-of-Age"

As for a coming-of-age presentation, even if his parents had planned on such a thing, being ejected from his school following The Incident put the kibosh on any public appearances for long while. After he was expelled from education, he spent the rest of his teenage years hiding in his room, unable to bear the humiliation of his failure and stress of social interaction. Jocosa didn't press him to leave the house out of concern for his wellbeing and a desire to let the scandal blow over before he showed his face in polite society again, while Leonard was content to just to try and forget about him for a while (if he had it his way, he would have sent Theo to an institution for some kind of treatment or just to be rid of him for a while, but the lady of the house refused that).

He only started leaving the house again in his twenties, to accompany his mother and father on their trips to the city and social events in an attempt to learn how to manage their business and affairs on his own once that became his responsibility (so much for that). So he did not have a grand "coming out," he just gradually started to become more and more of an unwelcome presence in the social scenes his parents were involved in as an adult. And then he disappeared from society again in his mid-twenties. Nobody missed him.

[mbilmey]

I need to be loved like a late 2000s, early 2010s hip hop/pop song

[hinamie]

sidelong

[irellia]

vi is so fucking fascinating to me, I am studying her like a bug in a jar

she was a CHILD putting on her father's gauntlets in spite of the fear gathered in her little body, in spite of just witnessing someone she's known all her life die in a HORRIFIC way (benzo), still she rises, still she says I HAVE TO DO THIS still she takes on men three times her size and fucks them up so bad that silco has to send his shimmered up fucked up monster to try to stop her and STILL she persists, indifferent to the worst happening because she’s survived the worst already. furious and unstoppable and determined to do whatever she has to survive and ensure those she loves survive, no matter the cost.

vi under all that debris, bruised, bleeding, screaming, watching her family die, staring at the monkey head in shock and crying because this can't be happening, they were so close...

sobbing in pain until her father saves her just to watch helpless as he dies protecting her. they were so SO CLOSE to surviving, so close to escaping and everything gets ripped away in a second

vi trapped in that prison cell for years and years on end with the ghosts of her family and her guilt for company, drowning in guilt, wondering if her sister's still alive, no doubt thinking about how she LET her slip right through her fingers

the last thing vander said to her was "take care of powder"

she's let the man who's her FATHER and loves more than anything down.

"whatever happens is on you" / "protect the family" / "take care of powder" .... but she can't, not anymore, she's fucked it up and let everyone down (re "I should have been there for you, for everyone") all she can do is sit in that shitty prison cell, on that freezing floor, hungry, bloody, counting the hours until she can somehow rescue powder

Vi is piercings and tats that no doubt got infected, she's a child becoming a woman too fast, she is a danger-zone high-risk disaster area and won't back down, won't give up.

Vi is soft!! self-sacrificing, protective, supportive. ("You wanna talk about today?", "We've all had bad days, but we learn, and we stick together") brave, SMART, witty. she's got a tongue sharp as her fists and a barbed, delicious sense of humour. she gives people nicknames (cupcake, pow pow, pretty boy) and fights with everything that she's got to protect what she loves!!!! she is her father's daughter!!!

she is idealistic and expects the world to see her reason, look at things through her eyes and wanna make a change ( "This is how things are, how they've always been. I was so stupid to think it could change. / "oil and water that's all there is" )

and yes! vi is not flawless. she's obsessive (re sevika. to her eyes she is the last thing standing between her and silco/getting to silco and saving jinx) and complicated, morally ambivalent because she makes mistakes, flies off the handle like a comet crashing through everything in her way, makes reckless choices because she has to. she is selfish when it comes to jinx and would do anything to keep her safe.

also

look at the way she hugs the people she cares about!!!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Last Hour Between Worlds

fantasy locked room murder mystery

set in a world with alternate universes that bleed into it that get increasingly more eldritch as they go down, following a woman able to step between them

she’s on leave to take care of her newborn, but decides to attend a new years’ party to give herself a short break to socialise

but when everyone is murdered - only to suddenly be alive again, but with the whole building shifted one echo down, she realises she’s caught in a dangerous looping game and will have to find a way to stop them from dying permanently…. with the help of her rival slash almost-ex

very lightly demi-coded bi MC, f/f

[agnesandhilda]

fuck it can we get loki backstory. I want to know what the one seventeen year old coach has going on. he seems too normal I don't trust it

[wow-an-unfunny-joke]

I want to make skk art but I’m soooooo bad at drawing Chuuya (and drawing in general tbh) I’m gonna screeeeeam

[milksnake-tea]

hes actually so beautiful what the fuck

[urbestestwindgod]

every fucking time someone says “poor odysseus trapped on an island with a beautiful woman who wants him” or anything positive about calypso an angel is taken by the thinning hair and bent over metal hot from raging flames beside it used for mercy by cauterization as a large gloved hand grips at where divine flesh meets avian appendage at the base of glittering wings white in purity taken into fists that close upon them like a vise and pulled at with audible rippage as fragments of wing is left behind and fragments of flesh and meat are taken with the action, blood spills over the previously angelic body, weak from every positive utterance for that wretch, the nerves sit in anguish as the capillaries spout out their life’s nectar, the angel writhes as the wings are tossed to the side to rot into maggot meal and by force then is the servant thought to be of god sent to sit in the great below until the wounds close or more likely birth infection and a spread of disease through the forsaken body. surrounded by agony of all those before it, the angelium who writhe here are all demoted to scapegoats, no better than the animal sent out to hungry wolf and man to cleanse all who walk above their heads of their crime. i hate calypso btw if u cant tell

[sweetcitrusboi]

Watching gaming dudebros have full-on heart attacks and stroking out over tasm2 not winning or any of their basic ass shooting games and running around talking about how “nobody played Alan Wake 2 or BG3” when in fact a shitload of people did play both games and yall refuse to branch out and play other games and yall live in a bubble of just Fortnite, Cod, and other games just like it, and now you’re going out of your way to be unhinged individuals online about it instead of showing good sportsmanship and congratulating the amazing games and teams behind them that did win an award.

[networkunsupported]

you get 1 (one) artfight repost from me lads

partially because compressing this down into all the animation software nerfed the quality but also because it gives me another chance to go rahh look at @elizabelle881 s ocs they're the coolest fuckin guys ever and i love them so much!!!!

[ravenwolfie97]

is it a controversial opinion to have that abridged series can actually be a work of art in and of themselves

[oflights]

At Melville's Tomb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath An embassy. Their numbers as he watched, Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells, The calyx of death’s bounty giving back A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph, The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil, Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled, Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars; And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive No farther tides … High in the azure steeps Monody shall not wake the mariner. This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

Hart Crane

[tattooyeol]

Dan-ho and Mo-eun is genuinely the cutest couple in any K-drama I've ever seen I could cry 😭😭