#instruggle

[bigmammallama5]

19. Deep Dark

[revalito]

30 min Monday sketch with @mitchmotch go check theirs out!!!! as for me, I wanted to draw ginko chilling :]

[aldisobey]

I don’t even fucking go here and I’m ready to board this goddamn train. Every line is sinking its teeth into me deeper. The description of Rook boarding the train?!?! YOUR NEVE??? Holy fuck I am at your feet hello.

And this bit for some reason. There is so much food in alllll of this but I’m drawn to this.

She sits. Gives the small kettle two taps and waits, silent and patient, for the magic to do its work. Boiling water with no flame, no sound but the faint hiss as heat blooms. Cinnamon, ginger, clove; all ground fine and mixed. Good for headaches. For steadying the nerves. For softening the edges of thought. 

I dunno why. I couldn’t tell you. But it’s simmering inside. Dammit you’re gonna have me checking out Hadestown.

wip whenever

i was tagged by my baes @heylittleriotact @aldisobey @ollypopwrites so im tagging yall three back in turn and adding @thepalehorsevictoria @excited-hiss @jainydoe @rooks-leather-jumpsuit @caffeinatedmunchkin @xxnashiraxx @lavenderprose and everyone else

euh this is from that Hadestown Emmrook AU I drunkenly posted about yesterday. The brain rot is real. I'm putting Emmrich & Rook as Hades/Persephone and Bellara & Neve as Orpheus/Eurydice.

anyway lol

Excerpt from Emmrich’s Research Notes (Unfiled Addendum)

"The Veil is deteriorating at several key fault lines. Surface-level efforts remain inconsistent. Solas and I are in agreement: stabilization must occur from both sides. He holds the Fade. I hold the world. He tends the dreaming. I manage the dead. The Grand Necropolis must serve as a stabilizing anchor, its necromantic field designed to resist volatile Fade incursions at structurally compromised points. The city is not merely a sanctuary for the dead, but a mechanism of containment. Lichdom is not corruption, but crystallization. Ritual intention remains pure. Undeath becomes the framework through which purpose endures. Mortality introduces entropy; emotion distorts the weave. I am—by nature—too human. The living cannot bear this burden forever. The dead do not fray under repetition. She will not understand. Rook fears what does not grow. She believes stillness is stagnation. But stillness is the only reason the walls still hold."

The train to the Grand Necropolis has no windows. It unsettles her every time. She always hesitates, Rook notices. Always. One foot extended, the other still grounded, she teeters at the threshold, suspended between the platform, the train, and the void that lies between. 

But inevitably, as always, she boards. Time snaps back into motion. The whistle shrills, the wheels begin to turn. She almost loses her balance, lurches forward, arms flailing, takes three quick steps to steady herself. Behind her, the doors slide shut. 

It’s always the same: hesitate, glance down, step in, stumble, recover. 

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk. She hears the great machine; or maybe she feels it. It travels through her bones as much as through her ears, a pulse in the metal spine of the train as she walks the corridor toward her private cabin.

The one that needs a key. 

The key she wears on a chain around her neck. The key that rests cold between her breasts, always cold, no matter how long it lies pressed to her skin—and that is always. It never warms. It only leeches. 

She stops. Fumbles at the chain, trying to free it. It snags, scratches her collarbone. She tugs. Harder. The chain catches on the top button of her blouse and, with one sharp pull, it snaps. The key flies. 

“Motherfucker,” she mutters, dropping to one knee just as the train jolts beneath her. The key skitters away. 

A foot steps out from one of the cabins—a pointed boot catches it before it vanishes. Then the other foot follows, this one curved, elegant, and false: a gilded, dwarven-forged prosthetic that ends just below the knee. Its owner leans down, humming as she picks up the key, rolling it along her knuckles like a two-penny magician with a coin. A cheap trick. Still, impressive. 

“Thank you,” Rook says, brushing off her knees as the woman holds it out to her. 

“Think nothing of it,” the woman replies. 

Her smile is small. Kind. A touch reserved. 

As soon as Rook takes the key, the woman tilts her head and says, “It must be very important to you.” 

"Why do you say that?"

“For starters, you wear it tucked beneath your clothes, not over. You check for it with your fingers without even realizing it. Twice since you stepped on board. You flinched when it hit the ground. You swore when the chain broke, not because of the chain itself, but because the key was loose. You didn’t run after it; you dropped. Dropped fast. Knees first.” 

She spins the snapped bit of chain once around her finger before handing it over as well. “Also… you didn’t say ‘thank you’ right away. You looked at it first. Made sure it was intact. Still yours. Still there.” 

“Ah,” Rook says, folding the key into her palm. She closes her fingers around it, then covers it with her other hand. It probably looks ridiculous. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to lose it again. “Well, then.” 

“Take care, now.” 

The woman offers a small nod, then turns and walks back into her cabin, the one she shares with three others. None of them acknowledge her return. Each stares at something else entirely: the wall, the floor, the ceiling. Anywhere but her. 

She picks up a bound stack of papers, set aside, apparently, to catch her flying key. She licks her fingers, tugs the ribbon loose, and resumes reading. As her head dips, a loose strand of hair slips forward, veiling her face. 

“Just as important as those are to you,” Rook says, nodding toward the papers. 

She doesn’t know why she says it. The woman had clearly meant to end their encounter then and there. Rook should let it go. She doesn’t know why her mouth keeps moving. 

A pause. 

A soft, half-exasperated, half-fond huff. Then, “Yes... though it’d be better if someone hadn’t filled the margins with half-baked schematics.” She lifts a page and gives it a little shake—lines and diagrams scrawled at odd angles, layered between blocks of cramped handwriting. “They’re everywhere,” the woman mutters, more to herself now. “As if her thoughts were leaking sideways.” 

She never looks up. Never looks back. 

No one goes to the Grand Necropolis for fun. 

Rook stands in the hallway, fully aware she’s staring but unable to stop. She wonders who she forgot. Or what.  

The Veil has been faltering for a year now. Sizzling at the edges, breaking apart, only to re-knit itself moments later, as if nothing ever happened. Nothing, then everything. Collapse and recovery, over and over. 

Some whisper it’s better to be almost-dead, half-dead, very-nearly-dead—anything but truly dead. So they board the train. They go underground. They enter the Grand Necropolis.

No one is truly alive there, Rook thinks. 

Not even Emmrich. 

Eventually, she moves. Drifts. Leaves the hallway behind and slips into her cabin. 

The key turns in the lock without resistance, smooth as butter, as always. 

Inside, she presses her back to the door and inhales deeply. 

It never changes. Not really. The same every time. Familiar to the point of wrongness. So strange. So perfect. 

Rivaini spices from the box of loose teas on the table. The warm musk of amber clinging to the upholstery. A new bracelet—gold, always gold. Never silver, never steel. Only gold. The eternal metal. The one that still shines beneath the earth, even without the sun. 

For Gold and Glory, she thinks, or half-remembers. The words come hazy, distant. She’s fairly certain she once shouted them, leaping into a cave to plunder its depths.

She wonders which meaning they were meant to hold. The glory or the sun? 

Both belong to the past. 

One is hers. The other… isn’t.

It is a ritual. 

She sits. Gives the small kettle two taps and waits, silent and patient, for the magic to do its work. Boiling water with no flame, no sound but the faint hiss as heat blooms. Cinnamon, ginger, clove; all ground fine and mixed. Good for headaches. For steadying the nerves. For softening the edges of thought. 

She pours a cup, then reaches for the letter that brought her here. Again. 

Written in her own hand. 

A sigh escapes. A smile follows. And then the impulse, half-dramatic, half-genuine, to cover her face with her hands. As if the gesture might shield her from the absurd sweetness of it all. Something theatrical. Something borrowed. Something Emmrich, certainly. 

Not his voice, but hers, written out in a looping, slanted script. A ghost version of herself, leaving messages in the dark: come home, come home, come back down—look what you’ve made me do. I’ve written it in the mirror for you, the words seem to say, so you’ll catch it next time you look at your reflection.

Yes. That is the trick. Not a summons, this letter—a call, soft and strange. That is how Emmrich writes to her.

He constructs a tableau, precise in its staging, uncanny in its intimacy. He does not sign his name. He does not need to. The handwriting is hers—flawlessly imitated, down to the curl of the descenders, the pressure points in each curlicue—but the voice beneath it is unmistakably his.

It reads as if she is speaking to herself.

Or rather, as if he is speaking through her.

Or perhaps—as it once was—as if they are speaking together, inside the same sentence.

All she ever has to do is arrive. 

You once said you would return when the world cracked open. It is cracking, Rook. The Grand Necropolis hums still, but the rhythm falters. They say it moves souls like clockwork. I believe it only winds them tighter. They do not understand, of course. They were not here when it was soft, when it bloomed. I have missed you. In all the ways you expect, and in those you would not. In silences that shape themselves like your name. If you can come—come now.

And then, a ring. 

It arrives precisely as she finishes reading the letter for the umpteenth time, as if summoned by the final line. It does not fall so much as appear, condensing from the air. Another gift. Another gesture. Emmrich’s handwriting in mineral form. 

Because beneath the earth, it is always cold. And in the cold, there is pressure. There is rock. There are veins that glitter. Jewels curled like thoughts in the dark. There is gold. 

She catches it mid-air, instinctively. 

An emerald. Deep, green, and quiet. 

It matches the bracelet. 

It fits as though it had always been hers. 

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

****

Bellara’s Workshop Log—Personal Tinkering Notes (Filed: Messily, Unsorted)

"Prototype #227b failed. Resonance sync fractured mid-loop. Neve would say it’s because I didn’t test it long enough. I’d say she’s probably right. Again. She said I don’t finish anything. That I leap to the next idea before the first one even settles. I told her I can’t sit still, that I don’t want to. She didn’t laugh. The truth is, I was building something for her. I just never got to the part where it worked. She left before I could name it. Maybe that’s fair. Maybe I would have left me, too."

[leynaeithnea]

When you sit down to write something what is the kick starter that gives you the inspiration and what keeps you going while writing?

Heyo

Mmhmm, It sort of depends I think

For my originial stories (that i dont tend to be able to finish but lets ignore that for now) its usually a piece of dialogue, or an image popping up in my mind that i want to build a story around, rereading my intial notes and making pinterest boards; playlists etc etc usually helps me get interested and excited about the projects again (but instruggle with themes & worldbuilding for my og stories usually so I keep getting stuck)

However when it comes to fanfiction (which i just started again recently) its different

There I usually want to explore my favorite topics for writing (angst & hurt/comfort, dealing with trauma in some form)

And then look deeper into the characters minds

For example my Ody/Dio fic started out as simple "how does the trojan war affect ody?" As well as getting a bit inspired by the lyrics of Epic "all i hear are screams, everytime i dare to close my eyes", as well as some suggestions i got from some tumblr users (being so on edge from having to keep your guard up, that you draw a knife on a friend) and from there on it kind of developed on its own, with my only plan being there ending up being some spice for the fun of it (espeically for my iliad/odyssey fics rn like trying to stay as close to the sources as i can, within the framework of my story idea, eg. Its definitely not aligning with the iliad that dio and ody had an type of romantic/sexual relationship, but they have an interesting dynamic that is fun to explore, so in my story its not necessarily that its the type of "love" between them as would be expected today for people to have an intimate relationship like that, but its a twisted way of making it both the longing from being away from home, the shared weight of responsibility of a goddess attention on you and some more intense interpersonal feelings between them that are quite complex, i suppose i mixed odyssey odysseus and the more "emotional" odysseus we get in epic (that being said odyssey odysseus is not rly LESS emotional by any means (maybe contrary even), but theres more room for interpretation for whats going on in his head/his exact motivations for his actions are often something we can interpret, but not KNOW for sure

So i love exploring these interpretations and letting the parts i like from epic flow into them at times

So all of that kind of develops while writing and is something that then motivates me to carry on and explore another new aspect (first it was just "all i hear are screams" but in troy, then it was odysseus and diomedes "would-be" relationship, and by the end there was also a hint of "what it means to live up to the expectations of a goddess")

For my Ogygia story my desire was to have a retelling of the story that goes more into detail what happened during those 7 years that blends epic and the odyssey again (sticking more to the odyssey and adding in epic when it fits), because from the stories ive read there was always some lines in the odyssey that go unexplored or i dont like the interpretation on

For example "She pleased him no more", something that i probably adapted from your analysis on it iirc?, that initially she treated him nicely, but became more pushy over time only, or the emphasis in the odyssey that the reason ody couldnt leave was that he has no ship or crew (and calypso only helps him/gives her blessing for him to build his raft after Hermes told her so) as well as the lines between calyspo and hermes when she argues that the gods can keep themselves lovers but shes forced to give away hers, all of those (and a good bunch more) were aspects i wanted to explore there and kept motivating me to continue!

So its rly about exploring some aspects deeper through writing it, with giving them a bit of a personal flavor i suppose, those are rarely avoidable :)

Hope that answers the question and makes sense ^^"

[mochmint]

anyone have tips for world building and story building in writing?

[froggierboy]

the way i got constantly lowkey bullied for food in elementary and middle school and still grew up a binge eater....anyway

[lovenee]

eeeey @essentiallychaotic tagged me to spell out my url with song titles 🥰🥰 ty ily

let's get it

Moonwalk - WayV

Inconsolable - Backstreet Boys

Sit Down - NCT127

Say It - WayV

Karate - BABYMETAL

I Want You - SHINee

Confession - B.A.P

Kolibelnaya - Polina Gagarina

Irresistible - Jessica Simpson

Tearin' Up My Heart - N*Sync

im tagging 🤔🤔 @eatupbud @taikawhytiti @butts-of-the-barricade @nctkickit @paradisejaeyong @tytrack anddd anyone else that wants to 💕

[shrinkingheather]

Well, Hot Dang!

So, this happened today!

Completely didn’t expect it! I had to weigh in twice because I had to go get my phone for a picture, lol.

So, I did carnivore to break my stall for 5 days. It did get me lower, but I spent since then bouncing between 170-173. Not a true stall, it’s only been a few weeks there, but it was still a bit frustrating.

I prayed a lot, worked on my food combinations a good bit, prayed some more. And today, there it was!

I haven’t seen the 160’s in 12 years! I lost 101 lbs then, and when I hit the 160’s, hubby took me on a couples weekend to Niagara Falls to celebrate kid free. So, it’s exciting to get back to that point again, though no trips this time, lol. We have since she led out for college, homeschool my youngest and own a home now, lol. But, I can celebrate with friends at the Big Daddy Weave concert tomorrow night!

I find it interesting how different the body changes as I age. In my 20’s (when I “thought” I was fat at 150 lbs), I gained in my back side and thighs.

In my 30’s I carried my weight in my belly and thighs.

Now in my 40’s my legs got thin first, but Instruggle with everywhere from the hips up now, my belly and upper arms being the last place to shrink.

Just some interesting observations on how a body changes with age. But I will take it as it goes, because I have gone from a super tight 22 (let’s be honest, I should have been in a 24), to a loose 16 since March 2017. I can’t complain about that.

[kalabiz]

im so fucking terrfieif. i try not to think abt it often bc like itll only panic worse... but every weekend im here at my moms house taking my weekly dose and getting prayed over adn im so exhausted all the fucking time. my sleep scheduke cant STICK and my brain never . nevrr stops fucking hurting and i cant retain thoughts and instruggle looking at any screens for more than frw mingues at a time and im never hungry but i mkae myself eat bad food and im just. a fucking mess. and my fuckign leg NEVER STOS FUCKING HURTING and my brian still hasnt let me KNOW ANYTHING andfjdocjdicjudjc no cudkcmcmso oh my god next week the fucking open my head hopefukly if nothing worse comes yp in the scans . im so. im tirednif being a body.

AND THE MEDICAL BILLSIFISFKOSOFJSODKKFIKDKDKKFIDKFKFKDOFKSKFEKFISGISKFJSIFDJIFI

[noshirtnoblouse]

I dont want to seem crazy but instruggle so much in math too so I live in a desert town/city and my neighborhood is in a suburb in the outskirts of the town and lately I've just been driving 15 minutes south of my house until I'm inn the middle of nowhere and just have a breakdown until I get scared that a coyote will attack me so then I drive back home and continue with my hw it's so terrible I need to be saved

that doesn’t seem crazy to me at all tbh i’ve almost cried in class/the library like 3 separate times this past month school and math s u c k 

[dawasonfreeman]

I am sitting bull headed remembering the many battles we've fought to get her better. One power connected by the ocean we pack a punch. Indian and African. I remember the tears we've shed crossing each other for safety and a better position to strike. I remember. The Thunder Bird song was created between our bond. I remember. I remember. #instruggle #iampan #iamindigenous #iamafrican

[dawasonfreeman]

Swing from the hip before the tourists settle and cuts off your legs and your food supply. #irose #iampan #instruggle #indigenouslove #forest