#it still feels kind of empty

[hassianlovebot]

how my maji gazebo is going :)

[yeonjune]

Yeonjun about the strain he felt while preparing for his debut solo project ✙ "GGUM" MAKING FILM

[agentlove]

Then finally, after what seemed like forever, a stupid, arrogant, little man cut the webs and set the monster free.

[patchworkcuddlebug]

Little Lullaby

A Winding Lullaby story.

The witch sets her tool aside with a huff, wiping her face with her hand. That was the last touch the doll needed. She leans forward on her desk, hovering over the inanimate toy that lays limp on her work desk. She placed her finger on the doll's face, small enough to be encompassed entirely by her fingerprint. She closes her eyes and focuses, channelling just enough magic to animate it, but not enough to overwhelm and destroy the toy.

With conviction and willpower from lifetimes of experience, the witch remains calm and focused and the magic starts to flow. She can feel it, the doll an extension of herself, slowly becoming.

Like waking up from a nap, the doll opens its eyes.

"Hello? Is it you, can you hear me?

The doll looked up. "Miss! Very big!"

The witch leaned back in her chair and exhaled. "You work. That's good, at least. Now..." The witch's disposition changes from exasperated relief to a deadly seriousness. "Do you remember anything? What's your name, what happened?

The doll put a finger on its chin. "Hmm… Lullaby. Fell, and... broken. Miss helped!"

"Oh, it is you!" The witch scooped the doll off of her desk with two hands, cradling it with her palms. She pressed it against her cheek, snuggling it close. "Oh, I missed you so much! I've been so lonely without you!"

Lullaby hugs back, pressing both arms against her Miss's cheeks. "Happy, Miss…"

it raised its head up, curious as a realization slowly dawns. "Lonely?"

"Oh... here, let me show you." The witch picks up her doll, swivelling around in her work chair to show it... itself. There laid Lullaby, face down just where it first unwound, with the plating of its back removed and its inner workings exposed. Many pieces are missing, including its core.

"Fixing you is taking just a little longer than I thought it would." The witch's tone is caring and compassionate, careful not to lose her grip as the doll in her hands leans for a closer look. "I started thinking about talking to you again, and then I started looking into auxiliary core use in my off time, and... well, here you are, Little Lullaby."

The doll peered over the witch's fingers, gawking at its large body. "Weird..." it says to itself. Its eyes are drawn to the empty space where its core should be. "Miss? Core?"

"It's right here, sweetheart." The witch turns again, careful to swivel slowly enough not to rattle to poor thing. She gently sets Little Lullaby down onto the desk it was made on, where it sits on the spine of a closed book. The witch retrieves a small golden chest, which she opens and tilts forward just enough to show her doll what keeps it as close to alive as a doll can be.

Little Lullaby looked on in awe, slowly approaching the box. It places its hands on the rim, standing on its tip-toes to peer inside. It feels just a little uneasy, overwhelmed by the sheer mass of its inner workings, and seeing it outside of itself for the first time.

It takes a second to be still, enjoying the ticking as the key embedded on top slowly turned in a familiar rhythm. Tick, tick, tick...

. . . . .

"Miss!" The doll was stirred from its stillness as its witch entered the workshop.

"Little Lullaby!" The witch playfully chimed back as she took her seat. "Sorry I was gone so long, it took a while to find the right gear I needed."

"Okay Miss. Here now!" The doll beamed, swaying from side to side and kicking its feet over the edge of the desk. "Sorry this can't help. Small and close..." it looks back at its box, pouting just a little.

"Don't apologize, the proximity requirement isn't your fault." The doll looked pensive as it spoke, trying to process its witch's words before she used a single single to pet its hair. "Plus, there's still a little something that you can help with~"

"Help!" Little Lullaby eagerly sprang to its feet. "Thanks Miss! Please!"

The witch reached into her bag, setting toy after toy onto the table. A 3D maze with a metal ball trapped in a plastic shell, a wooden sculpture made of many interlocking parts, and an empty wooden frame with a set of tetraminos meant to fit inside in a certain way.

The doll was already enamoured, first drawn to the maze. It picked it up with both hands, flipping it onto its sides and watching how the ball moves inside. "Those puzzles are a little too tricky for me. Could you be a doll and solve them?"

"Yes! Yes Miss, yes! Thanks Miss!" the doll's voice was ecstatic, turning its attention away from its tasks just long enough to thank its Miss before getting to work.

The witch smiled with pride, before turning back to Lullaby and getting to work.

. . . . .

Little Lullaby resisted the urge to flinch as the dollop of hot glue landed on its back.

"There. Remember, you'll have to be still for a moment while the glue settles, but after that you'll be just like you were normal sized."

The pocket-doll began to kick its feet in excitement, still careful to keep itself still. Norae was careful to match, holding her breath to steady her hand as she lowered the key into place. Like a kiss, it gently presses down, perfectly replicating its placement on the doll's proper body.

"Did you know keys are a symbol of Hecate?" She said with a casual tone as she pulled her hand away, letting the decorative key harden into place. It was the handle of an old metal key for a lock that had long been discarded. It had been cut perfectly to fit the mini-doll's back, with a perfectly rehearsed cleaving spell. "It's a sign that all is possible for magic; to a mistress, nothing shall be locked away."

The doll slowly pushed itself up from its prone position. As it sat up, politely letting its hands rest on its lap, a smile spreads across its face. It gently, experimentally, let its body sway to one side, holding itself in place for only a moment. Then, just a bit faster, it swayed the other way. It beamed, giggling and kicking its feet in time with its movements. "Eheheh, Miss! Miss, key! Miss!!"

Norae couldn't help but smile as she watched her doll sway with delight. "Remember, don't try to turn it. You'll have your real key back soon enough."

Keeping her smile, she turned around to face the ever-still body she's been tending to. Its core was already back where it should be. Now all that remained was hooking up the clockwork system to spin in time with it, and... keeping Little Lullaby happy, of course.

. . . . .

With a deep exhale, the witch pulled herself away from Lullaby. For just a moment, she rested, proud of her work.

She slowly swivelled around, greeting Little Lullaby with a smile. "Guess who's about to be big again!"

The toy looked away from its puzzle, intuitively stopping just before its turning around would've caused its key to smack against the structure. Its face slowly lit up as it processed its miss's words, breaking into a smile as it gasped. "This one? This one?!"

"That one!" Norae held out her hands invitingly, and he doll quickly scrambled on. Carefully, she swivelled around, showing off the fully repaired key sticking out from Lullaby's proper body. "All we have to do is wind you back up, and you'll be yourself again. Would you like to watch?"

The little doll could barely keep its grip on Norae's fingers as it bounced on its heels. "Wind! Please, Miss, key!"

"Yes, of course." The witch take on a gentle and encouraging tone, only barely hiding her excitement. "Watch carefully, now~" she says almost boastfully as she leans forward, turning the key around and around with both arms. After more rotations than Little Lullaby can count, although that isn't saying much, there's a delicate click of resistance as the key is fully wound.

Norae leans back, watching with rapt attention as the key begins to turn. Slowly, Lullaby's body raised its head. It blinked slowly, looking as if it could pass back out at any moment. "Mn, is... is this one big, Miss?"

Little Lullaby lazily plopped its body down on Miss's lap, speaking nearly in unison with its other self as it followed its gaze to look until both looked at the witch. "Big... Miss?"

All it took was a single double-take for such a well-trained witch to understand. "Oh! Your core is split between two bodies my apologies." She returns her hands to her lap, which begin to faintly glow. "Allow me, this will only-"

Lullaby quickly propped itself up on its elbows. "Please, wait!" Little Lullaby held its arms out, waving them for attention. "Wait!"

Norae paused, retracting her arms before they could even begin to glow. She looked between the dolls, unsure which to give her full attention.

The doll's gazes started to drift downward, away from Norae's face, until they stared at each other. For a moment, that's all they did.

Lullaby reached its arm out, palm outstretched. Little Lullaby stood itself up and walked forward on its Miss's lap, until it stepped onto its bigger self's fingers. It steadied itself in that hand, careful as it was slowly pulled closer to its face, Lullaby's face.

"This one would like to be little... for just a bit longer, Miss." "Please, Miss, little longer..."

A quiet, endeared gasp fell from Norae's mouth as it saw Lullaby tend to its other body so carefully. "Oh, of course, take as much time as you'd like."

As it spoke, Little Lullaby was held in both of Lullaby's hands, pulled in tight to its chest, just over its core.

"Thank you very much, Miss." "Thanks, Miss..."

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i’m so glad you brought up that bit in excalibur where magneto’s ideal prison is him getting to be a husband and father again, because it’s so relevant to the idea that the house of m reality isn’t actually everyone’s ideal life, but just wanda’s idea of what everyone’s ideal life would be. all the time i see x-fans condemn magneto for house of m because his ideal world is him becoming exactly like his oppressors, but house of m isn’t actually the life magnus wants! any time magnus gets to become a political leader, he hates it. he hated ruling genosha. he hated ruling krakoa. deep down, he doesn’t want to be superior. he just wants to live in peace with the family he lost.

also, shoutout to magda and anya, who never get to be anything other than magneto’s women in refrigerators. i wish they got to be more important than that. i love it every time we see them in comics, but it’s so rare. and shoutout to magda in particular since she’s been almost completely erased from the narrative by the maximoff retcon. really hope we get a reveal that natalya maximoff was magda all along when we inevitably make wanda and pietro magneto’s mutant children again.

i honestly didnt know excalibur was a predecessor to HoM when i heard about both runs so when i saw that set of panels for the first time it really had me reconsider HoM and the 'ideal reality' bit, im surprised i dont see it mentioned more often

i really wish there were more appearances of mags, magda, and anya; if there are stories focused on them i barely see them talked about... ive heard magda is mags' best-written partner from some but i also very rarely see stories that feature her directly named, so i never get to see her beyond the few fleeting instances i just so happen to catch her. id very much like to see more of her and mags' domestic life....

i think if we find out that natalya was magda all along i'll howl: this family really Can get more complicated contrary to popular belief 💀

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage

[blobbei-art]

Theresia's been in WIP hell for a long time but this is the first time I genuinely got excited over her design again! A cool hydra! Hope it works out.

[solstrix]

Another piece I originally made for Monster High March! I’ve always been amused by the fact that Frankie’s room is like, a bizarre amalgamation of a teen’s bedroom and a mad scientist lab.

[v-arbellanaris]

in an attempt to recover from a bad depressive slump, im doing both a kotor 2 playthrough (i have not played the first game. u can blame @scrollofgrease for telling me to play the second game first) and an evadne playthrough. will update with blorbo details as soon as possible. and screenshots of evadne because she's so cute what the hell. i couldn't get the heterochromia mod to work </3 but she still looks good.

[taz-writes]

here's a hot take for today

the narrative function of sex is the same as the narrative function of fight scenes is the same as the narrative function of songs in a musical

no i will not explain

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm a big fan of the way that Gabriel Urbina often includes details within the Wolf 359 scripts that can't be directly translated into audio, for example: the "tears silently streaming down [Minkowski's] face" in Ep31 Securité; Eiffel being "wrapped up in a blanket" when telling Lovelace about his traumatic experience of feeling like he was turning into Minkowski in Ep32 Controlled Demolition; the way "Hera and Eiffel stand together, his arm around her shoulder" when confronting Pryce in the finale; the idea that Eiffel "salutes" Minkowski after his speech to her before the memory wipe... These details make reading the scripts an even more rewarding experience. 

But I do think there's an interesting question here about to what extent these details are canon. After all, when changes have been made in the dialogue between the script and the final recording, I only consider the dialogue that actually ended up in the episode to be canon, although the version in the script might still provide interesting insights. But with details in the scripts that are inherently not audible - and therefore never intended to be literally included in the episode itself - should we consider them to be canon, or bonus content, or Word of God, or simply a tool used in the recording process? 

I know that it is possible to have an entirely full experience of the show without ever reading a single bit of the scripts. The scripts are placed in the 'Extras' area of the show website. 

Obviously the primary purpose of the non-auditory script details is to inform the actors in their performances, and perhaps provide some considerations for sound design. When I read the scripts, I can often feel how the non-auditory script directions are reflected in the feel of the voice acting. 

But once I've noticed these script directions, I also can't help having them feed into my experience of the scene when listening, in a way that enriches the experience beyond purely the audio, and informs my understanding of these moments. The script directions tell us more about what the writer was envisioning for a scene.

I love sharing the script directions that feel significant to me, and when I do so, I feel like I'm sharing something more significant than a behind-the-scenes tidbit. I feel like I'm sharing further knowledge of what happened in that scene. The script directions feel like a true part of the show to me, more so than the comments the writers and actors have made in Q&As. To me, these non-auditory bits of the scripts feel like canon, but a slightly lesser form of canon than the episodes themselves. But I don't know if I can fully justify this view. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts.

[dent-de-leon]

keep listening to Coral Crown again and,, “Gods and witches cannot tame me, curses are my endless muse,” is just such a Lucien line to me.

Mollymauk is Taliesin’s interpretation of a mermaid. What if...Lucien became an eldritch horror siren of the Astral Sea. Sending the most tempting dreams and haunting nightmares to lost souls, luring them back to a city forever hungry—

[lunavagans]

Crazy how finding out about a plan I‘m not allowed to pass on less than two hours before it goes into effect ruins my entire plans and thus day and subsequently my entire family‘s and I‘ll be blamed for it.

[feliciadraws]

*WANDERSONG SPOILERS*

Okay excuse me while I scream for a bit Man oh MAN there is so much to unpack here;

I'm currently in the Crater in Mohabumi (I think it's called) in the kingdom of Chaandesh, and this is one of the most simultaneously interesting and heartbreaking moments of the game I think, not least after seeing and hearing about the war between Chaandesh and Rulle from both sides and how this war is affecting the people of Chaandesh, who it seems have actually been needlessly vilified by Rulle to the point where Hala ended up running away and getting herself KILLED because she wanted the war to stop and no-one would listen to her- Okay so- Miriam and the Bard talking and dancing in the Crater about themselves and how Miriam's been on a semi-existential, soul-searching journey of her own while the Bard's been on his own quest, and how she admitted that she actually admires the Bard's positivity in spite of not being the hero and his happiness and sureness with himself, but the Bard admitted to her that he himself actually tries hard to be positive despite feeling immense sadness in himself over not being the hero (as evidenced with his depressive spell in the aftermath of his discovery of the truth and mission to shut down the toy factory in Chismest Town) and that how the so-called hero herself is still running around killing Overseers and how nothing he does or will do will matter in the long run, but nevertheless he still pushes on and keeps trying... And how Miriam admitted to him that she admires that about him, against the weight of the uncertainty she feels within herself...

This is...I'm losing my freaking mind over here and my heart hurts and I've got the game running in the background as I'm typing this and I'm in both my thoughts and my feels as the Crater theme plays in my headphones...

The Crater theme is an actual banger by the way, great to have a mini existential mulling to.

[marrfixated]

(More thoughts and drafting! Some weird formatting I know but it was all one block in my notes)

Emma is doing just fine. Average. It’s really not so bad.

She’s just been dealing with a lot of change. And with too many things not changing.

Which is… an odd thing to struggle with.

Because she likes change. Daunting challenges. The unpredictable. Doing new things every day and never being scared of them. And she likes independence.

She had thought so, at least.

After the show, she had been hit in the face with just how… isolated she was. She had only had two friends before the first season, but she had left them behind. Her mother wasn’t doing the best, and she didn’t have any nearby family.

She found herself laying in her bed in the middle of the day most of the time, scrolling through her contacts and old conversations.

Or scrolling through her comments on TikTok.

A few weeks ago, she had tried some stunt involving a motorcycle and an inflatable pool. She probably wouldn’t have messed it up if her hands weren’t trembling.

(She had forgot to check the breaks, and wasn’t sure if they were working.)

(They were.)

The blood dripping down her face and the gash in her lip didn’t sting as much as it did watching the video.

She looked ridiculous, and she probably always did. It was better when she had someone else to do it with. Maybe she was losing her touch.

She didn’t post the video.

She turned back to dancing instead, which did feel less embarassing, despite the constant mocking feedback. Sure, the jokes were “funny”, but she didn’t care about any of it. She didn’t feel the rush, she wasn’t planning every day, and she wasn’t known or loved for anything.

Except for what she lost.

And, the show, to an extent.

-Ugh, she misses the show. She shouldn’t, but as stupid as it sounds, she really did. She missed doing crazy things and talking to people. Having a chance of winning. Beating everyone. Being cheered on. It wasn’t always great, but at least it was something. She misses doing something.

And she really misses Bowie. She missed Bowie, but she knows better than anyone that she can’t go back to that. They just- have better things to do now. He probably does.

He’s got Raj- which is great! And she’s happy for him! She’s happy for everyone. For Wayne, however he’s doing, for Julia, despite everything.

And Caleb. For having Priya.

Emma is jealous that Bowie gets to have someone.

Emma is jealous that everyone else gets to have someone.

Emma is jealous that, unlike everyone else, winning the show probably wouldn’t have made her any happier.

She isn’t sure what would.

[celfish]

hm. i dont think i will put my ENA fic in the same series as the rest of my fics. i will make a new series..... i post as an anon on ao3, so i have to use a series by the way. to organize my fics in one place. stay tuned for whenever i make the new series i guess.

wait HOLD ON WHEN DID I GET 40 BOOKMARKS 😭 niceys to me. well now i really have to write something....

^for those who dont know of my previous fic writing activities. i wrote 4 fics! Not exactly prolific but thats ok 👍 i am not a fast writer unless i become rapidly obsessed with something ^_^ and even then i am not a fast writer.