#i've had this scheduled for a while now

[evostrashbin]

the curse of immortality (spoiler: Kiran is also on this picture 👍)

[eggsistential-breakdown]

Ian and the twice-divorced gray-eyesed rift Ian from the first chapter of @reblogincarnation-blues's fic!

anyways the closest experience I've had to the the feeling of reading the second chapter is taking my roommate to the ER for four hours for suspected appendicitis only to come back with a UTI diagnosis and an antibiotic prescription. and it breaks your one year streak of roommates getting appendicitis. in a good way.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

@tes-summer-fest day 1: breath

---

Under the water it’s very quiet, is mostly what she notices. She moves slower, and it’s quiet. The water pulls at her arm when she drags it in front of herself, trailing tingly little bubbles, her skinny fingers held apart and curled like claws. Her hair floats in front of her eyes—she gets a little giddy every time she’s reminded it’s long enough to get in the way—and she laughs. The sound is nothing; the bubbles from her mouth tickle across her nose something awful.

She did it just like it said, in the book she peeked at in the guildhall when she went for Ma’s scale tonic (she’s pretty sure, anyway, because she does get her letters switched around sometimes, but she made Dar-Ma and Dexion go read it too, because even though Dexion’s stupid with magic and Dar-Ma just doesn’t bother with it so much, both their letters always stay in the right order at least, and they both said it matched what she thought it did, so she’s got to have it right).

Still: she has a hard time trying to get herself to take an inhale. Now that she’s laughed out her air she needs it back, and she did it right, but her lungs are scared, because they don’t know they’re supposed to be alright.

Up. Up. Up. Get to air, they’re telling her, or we’ll burn up. We’re going to die down here.

Won’t either, she tells them back, and makes herself hold onto the big rock sticking up out of the pond floor. She tells herself on the count of three, and then three comes and goes and she’s still holding her breath. Her whole body disbelieves her that this once it’s not wrong, that this once the water won’t hurt to let in.

Her lungs keep burning, and she can feel her eyes stinging (from not the pondwater this time), and she thinks how it’s always easier doing things fast before you can change your mind about it, and she opens her mouth and breathes in.

Her lungs scream.

---

You know you really don’t have to, says Neht, his arms crossed where he’s standing atop the water. Look at this. It’s not exactly clean.

“It’s not so bad.” Haldryn sits on the edge of the canal to pull her boots off. “Probably it looks worse than it is because it’s dark in here. I’ve never been a pilgrim before, and now I’m here where they are I should get to show I mean it. Right?”

Neht only arches a brow. She knows what he thinks.

She rolls her trousers up to her knees. It probably won’t do anything, really, but it makes her feel better about it. Like a kid again, playing by the pond. Belt and bag and scarf by her boots. She thinks a moment before going to take out her earrings too. Just in case. One by one: she folds the six little hoops into her scarf and pushes everything back further from the edge. “‘Breathe the waters,’” she mumbles aloud. “Alright. And then I’ll just—know, I guess, when ‘the way is made clear’?”

Her palms are sweating, the waterbreathing scroll from her bag creasing under her fingers. (Ajira made it, and demonstrated the quality of her own work by bravely dunking her head in a washbasin, despite the distaste of her ears flat against her head. “See,” she had said upon reemerging some few minutes later, tail fluffed, whiskers bristling and dripping, “Ajira knows what she is doing. You are reassured?”

“Yes,” Haldryn had nodded, and bitten back a laugh at the way she put her face in the towel with a huff. “But I might need a second demonstration just to be—”

“You may do it yourself, friend Hallie,” proclaimed Ajira, wetly, “and this one will not even charge you extra for teasing.”)

But it’s good, so she puts her fingertips to the sigil and fists her other hand in her shirt over her heart. The shift in her lungs judders down from her throat with her next inhale; she stays still until the air feels soupy thick to breathe before rolling up the used scroll and tossing it behind her with the rest of her things. “Here goes nothing,” she says aloud, her voice sounding strange and froggy.

Neht, still standing over the water, says, Don’t stay down there too long. I would hope courtesy extends to the pilgrim, too.

She pushes off the edge. The dark water closes over her head, in her ears and in her nose. The first breath is the hardest, still. Something tight in her chest that she tells herself is the pressure of the water.

Haldryn sits on the bottom of the canal and closes her eyes. (Llaalam’s voice drifts through her thoughts, the flicker of shadow in the water flourishing like one of his grand gestures: I see now that you are unarmed, said Lord Vivec, presenting their own fine silver sword to the nearest of Dagon’s empty hands; use this blade and I will best you then, for a fight against an unarmed opponent is merely an execution…)

And, breathing water, she waits.

And she waits—

---

It’s not easy—it doesn’t feel like breathing at all—she feels like she’s choking, but the urge to cough only makes it worse and her whole body is seizing with terror—but she did it right, she did, she knows she did—didn’t she—

Didn’t she—

---

Somebody snatches her by the shirt collar.

---

Somebody’s cold sturdy arm firm around her middle.

---

Up. Up.

---

The first thing she hears when the water breaks apart into air around her is her own ugly coughing. The pondwater feels sharp and prickly coming out her nose, her mouth, and Ma has her mouth open too, hissing like she can’t breathe either. “Haldryn,” she says, her bright sunny eyes gone a little wild, wide as the moons.

She can’t talk, coughing too hard, spitting out water. She wants to say—I didn’t mean to scare you, I thought I got it right—but even when there’s no more water coming out she can’t stop coughing, her throat and nose scratchy, her cheeks fresh-wet with tears. Her nose is probably gross too.

Ma puts a towel tight around her shoulders and hits her back a few times. Not enough to hurt, but it jolts her, makes her spit more water. “Say my name,” she demands. “Haldryn. Please.”

“Ma,” she croaks out, finally, and scrubs at her face with the heels of her hands, which doesn’t help because all of her is soaked, but it sort of makes her feel better to not be looking at her. “M’go—” She coughs again, gags on the taste of mucus and pondwater. “M’good!”

And then she’s being crushed in a hug, Ma’s heart knocking even harder than her own on her chest. “Hallie,” says Ma, shaky and thin, “Hallie, Hallie, Hallie—what were you doing? You are not—you cannot—”

She’s getting her pond-face gunk on Ma’s shoulder, on her favorite blue dress. She wipes at her nose with her own sleeve, embarrassed. “I did waterbreathing first,” she sniffs. “I thought I got it right, I cast it just like it said—”

Ma’s voice is solid ice. “What said?”

---

Haldryn can breathe just fine, which is the worst part. Shuddering and shaking driplets in her wake, and she’s not even really hurt, just trying to knock away the scared part of herself that’s clung along inside her (fine! breathing!) lungs. She staggers against the wall to mash her forehead on it, use the rough surface to focus on something besides the memory-fear. Water from her hair’s making puddles on the cold floor below.

Neht can’t touch her, but he puts a hand out by her shoulder anyway. She can almost pretend it’s warm. You’re alright?

She clamps a hand over her nose and mouth, to make herself feel her hand instead of water. “I’m alright,” she says aloud. She’s thinking of eight years ago, of Ma looking like a dragon, tall and proud and tearing into the bewildered steward of the guildhall for not watching their spellbooks better. Of being pulled out back into the world, and the way water couldn’t trade for air fast enough.

Pulled. Someone—

“Who got me out?” Haldryn twists to look at him. “Someone pulled me.”

No one else is here, he says. His face is cut glass, is sharpened stone, is angled gold and lying again.

“I felt it,” she insists. “Someone pulled me.”

His expression is unreadable. No one else is here, Neht says again, in the deliberate hard tone of an answer. Haldryn stares back at him, jaw set. It’s not any more of an answer than he ever gives. He holds her gaze for a moment before turning back to the shrine, a set of stairs that wasn’t there before. This is important to you.

“It is.” She takes a deep breath, unhindered, and pushes off from the wall to gather her things. Nearly there. Nearly there.

I am tired, he says—quiet enough she almost misses it—of the games gods play.

[cold-neon-ocean]

why did love put a gun in my hand?  was it for redemption, was it for revenge? was it for the thrill of pushing my hope to the edge?

[llondonfog]

twst (horror) tober — day 7 (shock)

➤ Day 7: Shock | “You look like a deer caught in the headlights.”

"What have you done?" Lilia-shi all but croaks, and Idia automatically cringes away from his side, hands smoothing uselessly down the front of the Styx uniform. The fabric ripples beneath his fingers, long and cool and dark— like a burial shroud, and he might have laughed at the irony if he did not fear for his life in the next instant.

The fae remains torn in a limbo of horror and a wretched, burning kind of yearning that Idia knows all too intimately, hovering in front of the glass separating the observation deck from the room just beyond with a wild expression upon his face as if he can't quite decide whether to tear through the dividing panel with his bare claws or turn them onto Idia himself.

A near hysteric part of his mind dares to be indignant at the whole situation— he'd rather not be sheared limb from limb after months of labor followed by the agonizing ordeal of discovering Lilia-shi's new whereabouts, an imposing task that had meant engaging with the imposing might of the Draconia family. Luckily, he had Ortho handle that particular bit— his brother seemed to carry such an odd affection for the brash straight-forwardness of the freshman guard.

So really, this reaction is not what he had entirely envisioned in his mind upon the grand reveal, and it takes several attempts to weakly clear his throat, nearly cowering in place as those broken crimson eyes pin him down with a madness verging on the edge of a precipice.

Had it only been a semester ago when those eyes were bright with laughter, sparkling with wicked mischief?

He understands, and he wishes Lilia-shi would pause and remember that before he does anything rash— he understands the cost of death and the price to remain among the living.

"He— he was your s-son," Idia stutters, and hadn't that been a shock, just one more blow to a reeling school as they had watched Lilia-shi clutch at that still body, so small and fragile looking as it lay crumpled in his arms, and scream.

He wishes Lilia-shi would remember that he can taste that scream on the back of his tongue too.

"You . . . you l-loved him." His fingers clench together, and instead of fabric, he can feel grooved metal slide between them. "And—"

And Lilia-shi had been, quite frankly, his only friend. Not that they had known it for most of their time gaming together, but he had come to care for the faceless "Muscle Red" in a way he hadn't since Ortho. It was senseless, foolish, illogical— and this was the result of caving to such emotions.

The fae lets out a low, inhuman sound that could have been easily mistaken for the monstrous creatures caged in the levels below, and Idia's knees tremble as he watches Lilia-shi's eyes slide away from him and stare with a devastated intensity through the glass where a boy lies as if asleep on a simple cot on the other side. A boy with silver hair made from the finest synthetic fibers that shimmer beneath the cold lighting, smooth silicone features free of imperfections and nearly pillowy to touch, sculpted limbs and digits accurate to the smallest degree of precision. A boy, one of the finest of Idia's technomantic creations, waiting for his father to wake him up and take him home.

"Lilia-shi, w-where are you going— Lilia-shi!"

[tj-crochets]

Good news: after a lot of weeks, my air conditioner is fixed!! Also good news: I caught an error in the software at work that was impacting both contractor pay and customer invoicing! Bad news: going through large amounts of data loosely falls under the purview of the department I am now sort of in charge of, which meant my department (which is me and two other people) had to individually open every single order from [specific subset of customers] since the beginning of the year to manually check if either error had occurred. Hundreds of orders, even with a few different criteria we could use to narrow it down. It's done though! I mean the error is not fixed but previous instances of it causing problems are caught and now that we know it exists we can catch future problems before they are invoiced/paid out I have done zero crafting today and I honestly doubt I will get any done lol

[minnow-doodle-doo]

This week has been so long and hard. I knew what I signed up for at my new job, I just don't remember being so tired all the time from it.

[flightybuttlass]

my mom, for the last 10 years, has been obsessed with the folk pop band formed by the sons of our local pediatricians, but gaur-an-teed they earn similar money to me and she doesn't realize that they're probably costing off their parents's wealth in the way she accused me of doing

[nyan-bynary]

Life sure finds a way to keep fuckin happenin huh

[the-physicality]

c*thy and chr*stie are the same in that they will both get labeled "successful" for what happened under their "leadership" but at the end of the day all the good things that happened happened in spite of them.

[on-stolen-sunbeams]

.

[honey-skulls]

HUGE VENT

I'm sorry but i need to get this out, just please don't worry too much or take anything personally/gen

My routine these last two weeeks has been:

-Wake up at my 10 am alarm and spend the whole day in bed, mentally and physically exhausted, brain fog and no motivation for anything, only getting up to eat, having to wait for the "food time" hours to roll around that my therapist gave me because I'm not allowed to eat outside of those hours and if I'm hungry but missed the last food time then too bad, struggling to stay awake because again I'm not allowed to sleep out of the "sleep hours" she gave me and that includes naps, excitedly waiting for 21h30/22h to roll around so i can finally sleep

-Spend the evening mentally screaming in my mind because, while my body is still just as physically exhausted, my mind is suddenly sharp and full of ideas and motivation, but i'm still too tired to get up and draw

-Then spend midnight and onward rolling around in bed, hot and bored out of my mind because my physical tiredness also vanished, but i'm not allowed to get up and draw because it's "sleep hours" and i need to reschedule my body, and end up falling asleep at around 5 am

I'm totally not slowly loosing my mind 😃👍

Edit: Oh also the constant noise in my ears has gotten worse, i don't know what silence is anymore

Silence is actually worse than loud rooms

It's driving me insane

It's so loud

[novadreii]

I honestly don't think there is greater shonen anime in existence than My Hero Academia seasons 1 & 2. The breakneck speed of the pacing, the MUSIC, the animation, the pure unbridled excitement, the realistic development of everyone's powers especially Izuku's, the emotionality. Shonen is not even my genre typically, but when I think of an anime that captures everything that I think the genre is supposed be I can't think of anything that does it better.

[nexus-nebulae]

god sometimes i wish the whole "you wouldn't say/do that to a physically disabled person" lie that certain mentally ill people say was true bc i fucking WISH i could use "I'm in a wheelchair" as a gotcha for people being ableist against me. unfortunately,

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

girlies I'm losing my mind.

[4lph4kidz]

idk maybe talking about my writing seems conceited for who hasn't published much of anything and hasn't finished anything as of yet, or maybe all this hand wringing is annoying, but i've written a lot of bits and pieces over the years and it's enough for me to be reasonably comfortable with the basics, you know? but working on something this long is presenting a whole other world of trouble for me and i think i accidentally put a hell of a lot more of myself into it than i meant to. so i'm feeling particularly vulnerable about it being out there and existing. it means a lot to me and that's scary!