#nora u are cruel

[fairylwt]

andrew asking “who fears the monster that knows the taste of a whip?” goes in my top three reasons to cry about every day

[inky-duchess]

Hello!

Have you read shatter me series?if yes,do u recommend it?I'm on chapter 76 and I think it's okay till now but some ppl say that that it gets bad in later books.

either way.

Do u have YA Book recommendations?

I usually read fantasy romance ones . And I stay away from any spice whatsoever.

I haven't read it but I am interested in reading it one day. My Recs are:

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Gracia

All for the Game by Nora Savavick

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Anything by Rick Riordan

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (the Prequel is my favourite)

[time-is-restored]

more whinging bc i got negative hours of sleep last night and i need to stay awake somehow lol

cw: discussions of misogyny + abuse

god the more i think abt it the more exhausted i get by the gender politics of ted lasso.

like god i do genuinely think that rebecca's arc in s1 is one of the best depictions of a mean + cruel woman ive ever seen on TV specifically bc it manages to thread the needle so well? like they never tilt her balance too much and doom her to being either totally fucked up + evil OR totally soft and sweet and harmless. and ted's 'divorce makes u crazy' response to her apology STILL makes me crazy wrt the sheer. understanding and empathy there, and she's just. given so much more depth than ive come to expect, especially for an ensemble cast sitcom w a (then) p short run time.

but my fucking god. we literally don't learn a fucking thing about michelle. im pretty sure the one (1) concrete thing we know about her comes in the fucking finale, and it's that she's a teacher for... something. the two most important people in ted's life and we don't know anything abt them! they're literally just empty symbols representing the importance of Family™, and that vacancy does nothing but weigh ted's storyline down!

like, i liked michelle's episode/storyline in s1, bc the blinding novelty of a woman instigating a divorce not being the Actual Devil, as well as a just. generally very empathetic + nuanced take on how divorce shakes out between two ppl who really care for each other, was so 'WAIT TV CAN DO THIS??' that i felt satisfied with that being Her Arc™. divorce happens, life happens, people fall out of love, and it hurts but its ultimately okay. the show, at the time, was ultimately abt a football club and how caring abt that football club helped everyone around it.

but then the show sticks around, and her continued absence just... raises a lot of questions? how did the conversation abt ted going overseas happen? what conversations did they have abt henry? how long term was it intended to be? did money really not factor into it all? like it's one thing for a character's backstory to be vague when it's not really the focus of attention (s1 was ultimately rebecca's story before anyone else's), but when it's the load bearing stone of their '''''''arc''''''' in s3...????

like. god. and then it fucking infects every other woman on the show!

sassy + nora? well sure we'll give you a softball - you can have one (1) scene where a woman is able to resolutely and firmly reject a man asking her out without immediately being seen as cruel or gameplayey (not that the audience will see it that way! she's already a lecherous temptress for them!), but neither of them will ever be able to speak to rebecca onscreen again, even after the heart-wrenching scenes in s1 CLEARLY establishing them as a beating heart of rebecca's arc.

shandy? nope, don't even think abt her motivations/drives, just forget her. simi? LMAOOO imagine a black woman getting a personality beyond righteous anger. jack? three-four episodes, and we learn so little abt her that her conflict with keeley - which SHOULD'VE have been a huge emotional beat - just feels like a kick in the teeth (and while, yes, i absolutely agree that in a real world context, jack's rejection of keeley would be largely motivated by class, in Ted Lasso Land™ rebecca is just as rich - if not richer? - and we're never once encouraged to interrogate her priorities).

barbara's the one that really makes me miserable, bc i feel like on a show with less run time, she could've played REALLY well. she's a great contrast to keeley, has an amazing delivery, and the scene where keeley + her first discuss the snowglobes shows that she has the potential for some really moving vulnerability + pathos. but instead they give SO many of keeley's scenes to characters who ultimately get written out, so when barbara stays it's like... okay? sure? like, i was so stoked that barbara survived the Mass Exodus of side characters that i didn't wanna look the gift horse in the mouth but... wasn't the last thing we saw of her and keeley's relationship like. general resentment + distrust abt the shandy debacle? when did that improve? how???

i don't think i'll ever have enough mental real estate to explain how disappointed keeley + rebecca's 'arcs' in s3 made me, and at least there's the saving grace that. virtually no one other than jamie got a coherent arc this season, so at least it was on some levels an egalitarian screw up. but fuck dude. keeley was just forced to react to bad things that were happening to her, and we got to see her do her job (which, unbelievably, does actually involve things other than being an awkward manager!) precisely one (1) time.

i even like rebecca's arc on paper - i think it's really cool to see a character backslide so intensely in terms of obsessing over and struggling to come to terms w a past relationship, especially an abusive one, bc like. yeah! that shit sticks with you for longer than a season! and beyond that, seeing her regain her sense of self and what SHE actually gives a shit about was oftentimes just as sweet as s1. but her scenes were poorly connected, and she had to carry WAY too much of a burden as the Resident Speech Giver for any of her internal characterisation to make sense. like, sorry, but it's kind of hard to believe a character's Going Through It™ when they have to spent near 100% of their screen time giving Take It From Me, Kid, speeches. and then she's not even given a real opportunity TO fuck up + sabotage her relationships, even when she starts getting really weird w ted! it's all just so meaningless and like nothing that she does is ever going to matter. she never speaks to zava again, we don't get to see her interact w bex or kate, her pleas to ted get COMPLETELY shut down...

but the thing that REALLY makes me sick is this complete lack of interiority absolutely butchers the characters of jade + jane, who are otherwise RIFE with potential. like, jade is a completely unflinching, unapologetic asshole to nate + his family, and that's never interrogated. even in Sitcom Land™, it's more than reasonable to view jade's actions as racist, especially when she doesn't give the same treatment to others (at least not as i recall? honestly i usually watch the taste of athens scenes while peeking out behind my hands, so i could 100% be wrong here). and yet, suddenly, and completely inexplicably, she's charmed by nate. she wants to give him the time of day. she finds him attractive, and wants to date him, and generally take control of his life and force him into a decision that is literally the exact opposite of what he expressed wanting to do. except even that LAST thing isn't allowed to be interrogated, bc god FORBID a woman is enough of a fully realised creation to actually be culpable of the terrible shit they do!

and fucking jane??? beard's so head-over-heels for this woman that the emotional abuse + extremely controlling tendencies don't even make him bat an eye, and we don't get to know anything about her? she's literally just the suggestion of an alluring woman! good at sex! good at chess! fuck you if you wanna know more, even though the show ENDLESSLY hits you over the head with how painful their relationship is for beard - beard who is given virtually no other storyline. like, i literally can't read brendan's refusal to label jane as abusive as anything other than like. that bio-essentialism shit where ppl 'women are better than men <3' so hard that they end up genuinely and wholeheartedly arguing that someone's sex defines their morals - or worse, that their sex is a deciding factor in determining whether someone's actions are good or bad. not context, but a legitimate 'add points if woman, take away points if man' variable.

like that's so feminism 101 it's legitimately almost worse than nothing. that's like getting as far as 'hey so you know how we're all inundated with both implicit + explicit messaging abt what is Valued and Good for women vs men to-' before shoving ur earplugs in and going 'if you are oppressed by society we'll automatically stamp a 'good person' label on ur head and now we don't have to think abt any of our biases + internalised beliefs ever again <333'. the most useless and fucking pointless stand against the patriarchy ever, especially coming from the same show that ENDLESSLY slots characters into the 'loving gf/wife' archetype and then give them Literally Nothing Else. my comrades you have literally just done madonna/whore 2: oops all madonnas! this is not liberation!!!! this is a miserable cage!!!!!!!!!

im just. higgins' wife. mae. trent's daughter and anonymous 'her'. the women at the hotel and the restaurants and the firm and the fucking physios, fuck - dani's gfs! who are they? what do they want? where do they go when the camera stops rolling? can anyone hear me?? hello??? hello???? brendan hunt i am OUTSIDE YOUR HOUUUUUUSE

[roamwithahungryheart]

Hi! After this episode, what do u think it will happen to tedbecca in the next and last episode of the season? I'm trying really hard to be hopeful bc I seriously have no idea where they are going with the narrative lmao

Hi!

I feel ya, it was so cruel of them to pull a cut to black on us when we've been waiting all this time for the final truth bomb!

Buckle up, buttercup, because I'm about to get back in the Nora Ephron Zone!!!

From the moment Rebecca set foot on the boat with the Dutch guy, I started thinking about Sleepless in Seattle. We're pretty much working through the Nora Ephron cinematic universe here, and now that Ted has out-and-out said Sleepless is 'the superior film' twice I'm fully expecting a third and final reference of some sort.

Things S3 shares with Sleepless:

Boats

Airports

Single father

Second chances

Dr. Fieldstone

The Wizard of Oz references tie into You've Got Mail, and it feels like we've wrapped up the YGM parallels now with the pinball machine moment. The focus on the word 'rainbow' on the pinball machine is obviously to do with Somewhere Over The Rainbow, HOWEVER, Annie has a dinner date with Walter (aka the wrong guy) at The Rainbow Room in Sleepless in Seattle before she meets Sam.

What have we heard this season? ‘Point is, a lot of times the right idea is just sitting behind a couple of the wrong ones.’

We've seen Rebecca texting Rupert, her phone blocking out Sam's matchbook, Ted's biscuits and matchbox soldier the only things visible. That's no coincidence.

Putting my rom-communism hat firmly back on and bobby pinning it to my hair because I feel deep in my soul that we're going to get a third act rom-com ending. Think about the ending of Sleepless in Seattle and the idea of Rebecca becoming a mother. She could end up having a Meg Ryan moment seeing Ted & Henry one last time. A subtle reference to the deep, unspoken thing between Rebecca & Ted.

I don't want to wait a whole week to find out, though! I want to know NOW!!! x

[zombinary]

Nora: "Boris, don't touch anything!" Nora, turning to Boris: "Bo-" Boris: -touching multiple things- ":-0" Nora, rarely aggravated: "Ooooo-kay...!"

Boris is one of the very few ppl that can actually push nora's buttons. it's bc theyre siblings but also bc theyre both different in such specific ways.

i like to think when adults when talking theyre very loud and cheery and laughing, like I've said before….OR theyre bickering over something sososo silly and small. Nora: "No! U don't fold the blankets like that!" Boris: "Y Not?" Nora: "Because it will get wrinkles." Boris: "But eye can always iron et?" Nora: "U are a barbarian." Boris: "CRUEL TO ME??"

[suwunnysideup]

ok last one :3c 58, 67, 69

last one okay i believe u [lying]

58. what do they think their role in the party is? what is their role in actuality?

belladonna thinks she’s a wall, a stalwart sentinel interposed between their friends and the hurt in the world. whether that means healing and bringing them back from the brink or sundering all those intent on harming. truly, they are a healer at heart (she hopes), seeking to mend what never should’ve been broken, stretching like gauze to wrap around all the wounds they can manage. who knows when that tautness will snap

67. what makes them laugh?

truly the littlest things. someone making an incredibly cheesy joke, a silly-looking bird, a poorly-made wanted poster.

69. how would they describe their party members?

ooo inch resting!

ruewen: simply pure, strong shoulders, fate-touched

nora: firecracker, quick on her feet, cunning but not cruel

seraphina: quiet but sturdy, sharper than any old blade, kin of another kind

morgan: bright and determined, bluntly poignant and straightforward, cold fury

delilah: little spark, big heart and brave soul, wings too-big but still with room to grow

[chrancecriber]

Antenne Vorarlberg Chillout Lounge (August 02, 2023)

23:59 Passenger 10 - Serving The World 23:53 Röyksopp Feat. Susanne Sundførd - Oh, Lover 23:50 Lost Frequencies Feat. James Blunt - Melody 23:47 Klangperlenspiel - Fraction Of Your Love 23:42 2raumwohnung - 2 Von Millionen Von Sternen 23:39 Jean-Michel Jarre - Equinoxe, Pt. 5 23:34 Bolier & Leandro Da Silva - Floripa (Extended) 23:29 Under Pressure - Near The Ocean 23:25 Mandala Dreams - Mirror Lake 23:22 Majestic & Boney M. - Rasputin 23:18 Aural Float - Be As You Are 23:15 Nore En Pure - In Your Eyes 23:12 Nto (Fr) Feat. Sofiane Pamart - Invisible (Piano Version) 23:09 Nora En Pure - Homebound 23:04 Schiller Feat. Jael - Tired (Live) 23:01 Magnofield - Lupino 22:55 Joachim Pastor - Joda (Worakls Remix) 22:50 Two Lanes - Pièces Froides: Ii. Danses De Travers 22:46 Leslie, Ben E, Falki - Help Myself (Original Mix) 22:43 Tinlicker & Helsloot - Because You Move Me 22:39 Shaun Frank & Takis Feat. Shells - Don't Say I Love You 22:36 Bob Marley - Sun Is Shining 22:31 Lstn - Undecided 22:28 Above & Beyond Feat. Justine Suissa - Little Something 22:23 Bob Marley - Is This Love (Montmartre Remix) 22:20 Lost Frequencies & Mathieu Koss - Don't Leave Me 22:14 Beyhude - Rüzgar 22:08 The Swan And The Lake - Port D'andratx (Part 2 - Rain) 22:04 Blank & Jones - Into The Sun 22:01 Klingande, Wrabel - Big Love 21:55 Uttara Kuru - Neyuki 21:49 Rìfìs Du Sol - On My Knees (Oliver Schories Remix) 21:44 Schiller - Rubinrot 21:38 Shakedown - At Night (Afterlife Remix) 21:35 Shapov & Avian Grays Feat. Kifi - Light Up The World 21:29 Guenter Haas - Look Inside Yourself 21:26 Dj Antoine & Flip Capella Feat. Evelyn - Dark Love 21:23 Alex Zind Feat. Lisa Schwab - Cruel Summer 21:20 Patchy - Friend (Original Mix) 21:13 Hraach - After Dark 21:07 Exstra - Comet (Extended Mix) 21:04 Hailee Steinfeld - Capital Letters 20:59 Three Drives On A Vinyl - Greece 2000 (Sebastian Davidson & Melosense Remix) 20:55 Blank & Jones - Alone In This Rhythm 20:51 Dead Composers - Starlight 20:47 Sofi Tukker X Mahmut Orhan - Forgive Me 20:44 Feder Feat. Lyse - Goodbye 20:41 Glockenbach Ft. Clockclock - Brooklyn 20:38 Kamrad - I Believe 20:34 Chris Coco - Cape Clear 20:31 Parov Stelar - Fire 20:28 Hagen Feetly - Cry 20:24 Waldeck - Defenceless (Mushroom Dive ) 20:21 Kush Kush & Sickmellow Feat. Kazhi - Blacklight 20:18 Nora En Pure - All I Need 20:14 Jamiroquai - Love Foolosophy 20:09 Passenger 10 - The Lonely Boy Who Wanted To Make Friends 20:05 Blank & Jones Feat. Zoe Durrant - Adios Ayer 20:02 Mhe - The Sounds Of Silence 19:58 Klingande & Bright Sparks - Messiah 19:55 Kungs Feat. R I T U A L - You Remain 19:50 Schiller - White Nights (Don't Let Me Go) 19:48 Felix Jaehn, Cheat Codes Feat. Bow Anderson - I Just Wanna 19:41 Jazzanova - Bohemian Sunset 19:36 Kid Massive, Yuji Ono, Dtale - Pray (Wolf Krew Remix) 19:34 Meduza Feat. Goodboys - Piece Of Your Heart 19:30 Robin Schulz Feat. Graham Candy - 4 Life (Original Mix) 19:27 Felix Jaehn Feat. Zoe Wees - Do It Better 19:25 Dante Klein & Jordiz Feat. Megan Brands - Life 19:19 Beanfield - Planetary Deadlock 19:14 Tinlicker Feat. Roos Jonker - Come Back Home 19:08 Tebra - Istok 19:03 Melloton - See You Again (Extended Mix) 19:00 Gamper & Dadoni - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! 18:53 Fc Kahuna - Hayling 18:50 Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd - Lost In The Fire 18:47 Daniel Portman - Vulnerable 18:42 Monolink - Swallow 18:38 Klangperlenspiel & Puzzls - Kyoto (Wish You'd Move On) 18:36 Christopher Von Deylen - She Never Told Him Her Name 18:33 Robin Schulz Feat. Harloe - All This Love 18:30 Eelke Kleijn - Midnight Affair (Samaha Slow Edit) 18:27 Italobrothers - Stay 18:21 Gary B - Love Rain Down 18:15 Hraach & Armen Miran - Nowhere 18:09 Twocolors - Together 18:05 Motorcycle - As The Rush Comes 18:03 Above & Beyond - Quieter Is Louder (Original Mix) 17:58 Channel 2 Feat. Tanya - Space Cowboy 17:56 Nora Van Elken - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) 17:53 Lucas Estrada & Henri Purnell & Neimy - In My Fantasy 17:48 Fluff - Late Night Session 17:46 Sons Of Maria - A Kiss Like This 17:43 Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - The Riddle Anthem Rework 17:37 Aware - En Busca Del Sol 17:34 Shallour & Riah - Lie 17:31 York - On The Beach (Kryder & Jenjammin Sax Edit) 17:26 Fonzerelli - Moonlight Party (Touch & Go Laidback Mix) 17:20 Joachim Pastor & Signum - Something You Need (Extended Mix) 17:17 George Geccoo Feat. Maik Pinto - Dolce Vita 17:12 Nora En Pure Feat. Ashibah - We Found Love 17:09 Tom Novy & Dan Le Blonde - Let's Dance (Tom Novy Remix) 17:05 Blank & Jones - Nuits Blanches 17:00 Ac Venture - Penang Waltz (Roberto Sol Remix) 16:57 Stepha Schweiger - When I Was A Bird 16:52 Dj Skillmaster, Deep Dive Duo - Hey Little Girl (Slow Motion Mix) 16:49 Neptunica & Lunax - We Don't Even Talk Anymore 16:45 Ambyion - Motion 16:43 Dennis Lloyd - Nevermind 16:40 Alok & James Arthur - Work With My Love 16:37 Kygo & Sasha Sloan - I'll Wait 16:30 Hot Natured - Planet Us 16:27 Matoma Feat. Jonah Kagen - Summer Feeling 16:25 Steve Forest, Te Pai - Never Gonna Give You Up 16:20 Stephane De Lucia - Trippin 16:15 Goa Foundation - (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight 16:12 Nimus - Wasted Heart 16:09 Moby - My Only Love 16:06 Arty Feat. Cimo Fränkel - Daydreams (Sultan Shepard Echoes) 16:02 Air - You Make It Easy 15:58 Tinlicker Feat. Nathan Nicholson - Be Here And Now 15:54 Nora En Pure - Enchantment 15:49 Fous De La Mer - Conmigo 15:47 Reece Lemonius, Munich Monstrs - Miss You 15:43 Hein Klein & Cheyenne - Every Breath You Take 15:36 Cinematic - Airflow (Chillhouse Mix) 15:33 Duboss - Losing My Religion 15:31 Nathan Evans - Wellerman (220 Kid X Billen Ted Remix) 15:27 De-phazz - True North 15:23 Audax Feat. Ron Caroll - Falling For You 15:19 Flamingo Star - Lost In Music 15:15 Avira & Kiko Franco Feat. Nathan Nicholson) - Ocean 15:10 Gardenstate & Bien - The Best Part 15:02 Deep Dive Corp. - Django 14:55 Le Roy - See The Light Ahead (Extended Mix) 14:52 Glockenbach - Dirty Dancing 14:47 Nardis - Sunrise 14:43 Nora En Pure - Dry Sobbing 14:39 David Guetta, Robin Schulz, Cheat Codes - Shed A Light (Blank & Jones Remix) 14:36 Julian Perretta - Miracle 14:33 Avian Grays & Azteck - Endlessly 14:29 Tinlicker Feat. Hero Baldwin - Rebirth 14:26 Mike Posner - I Took A Pill In Ibiza (Seeb Remix) 14:22 Olga Scheps - How Much Is The Fish? 14:17 Moby - Everything That Rises 14:15 Chris Avedon - The Letter 14:12 Loud Luxury And Frank Walker Feat. Stephen Puth - Like Gold 14:08 Armin Van Buuren Feat. Josh Cumbee - Sunny Days (Original Mix) 14:03 Dreamerproject - Horizons (Glenn Main Remix) 13:59 Eelke Kleijn Feat. Diana Miro - You (Frankey & Sandrino Remix) 13:53 Massive Attack - Spying Glass 13:49 Blank & Jones - Sunshines Better (Feat. Mick Roach) 13:46 Lika Morgan - Ding Dong 13:42 Atb With Enigma - Enigmatic Encounter 13:38 Kryder & Natalie Shay - Rapture 13:36 Edx - Ecletric (Mixed) 13:28 Solar Fields - Landform (Origin 2005) 13:22 Nora En Pure - Thermal (Extended Mix) 13:15 Wd2n - Sultans Of Swing (Original Mix) 13:13 Deepend & Graham Candy - Belong (Deepend Edit) 13:09 Paul Oakenfold, Bolier, Luis Fonsi - The World Can Wait (Bolier Remix) 13:06 Alle Farben - Berlin 13:01 Rìfìs Du Sol - Next To Me 12:57 Cats On Bricks Feat. Zach Alwin - Planes Over Ushuaia 12:52 Schiller - Der Tag...du Bist Erwacht (Mit Jette Von Roth) 12:47 Beyhude - Terso 12:43 Moli - Cloud No9 (Montmartre Remix) 12:39 Junge Junge Feat. Kyle Pearce - Run Run Run 12:36 Blank & Jones Feat. Mick Roach - Magnolia 12:34 L'imperatrice - Peur Des Filles (Montmartre Remix) 12:27 Project Blue Sun - Sunrise (Planet Chill Mix) 12:24 Alle Farben & Fools Garden - Lemon Tree 12:17 Plus Minus - Meeting Of The Worlds 12:13 Nora En Pure - Fibonacci 12:11 Srtw & Mave Feat. Sønlille - Last Train Home 12:07 Aromabar - Winter Pageant 12:05 Jerome & Neptunica - High On Music 11:58 Edx - Conundrum 11:55 Tokkoi - 45 Minutes (Original Mix) 11:48 Valeron - Jamal 11:45 Schiller - Midnight In Shiraz 11:40 The Weeknd Feat. Daft Punk - Starboy (Kygo Remix) 11:33 Hraach Feat. Iveta Mukuchyan - Sarer Jan 11:29 The Ocean Piano - Piano Mi Camino (Blue Wave Mix) 11:24 Gary B. - Lead Me Home 11:20 Above & Beyond Feat. Zoe Johnston - We're All We Need 11:12 Burudu - Sun Theory (Original Mix) 11:06 Christopher Von Deylen - Euphoria 11:03 Hbz, Anna Grey & Agent Zed - Aloha Hey 10:59 Zero 7 - In The Waiting Line 10:54 Schiller & Tricia Mcteague - Guardian Angel 10:51 Vize & Alan Walker Feat. Leony, Edward Artemyev - Space Melody (Edward Artemyev) 10:47 Kate The Cat - I Was Made For Lovin You 10:39 Avira & Diana Miro - The Worship (Mark Knight Extended) 10:35 Claptone Feat. Dizzy - Queen Of Ice Queen Of Ice 10:29 Leftfield - Original 10:25 The Hitmen - Turn Off The Lights 10:22 Alex Breitling - Lilie 10:18 Schiller - Sommerregen 10:15 Tiscore - Fire To Smoke 10:11 Ganga - The Wind 10:05 Jens Buchert - Cocoon 10:02 Carstn & Ten Tonne Skeleton - Safety Dance 09:59 Sia - Alive 09:56 Gibbs & Code X - Close To Your Heart 09:53 Cotone - Faded Glory 09:47 Groovecatcher - Never Alone In New York 09:45 Dj Antoine Feat. Ablai - My Corazon (Dj Antoine Vs Mad Mark 2k21 Mix) 09:37 Kygo - Freeze 09:32 Hazy J - Our Way 09:29 Nora Van Elken - Let It Go 09:26 Lstn - Sïstër 09:17 After Sunrise - Deep Breath (Extended Mix) 09:14 Edx & Amba Shepherd - Off The Grid 09:06 Framewerk - Electric Religion 09:01 Rìfìs Du Sol - Alive (Anyma Remix) 08:54 Consolidation Feat. Moguai - Ode To Joy 08:51 Unclubbed, Zoe Durrant - Need To Feel Loved (Original Mix) 08:48 Kungs Feat. Jhart - Dopamine 08:44 Pretty Pink Feat. Mark V - Don't Dance 08:41 Tim Plvnk - Just Tonight (Extended Mix) 08:36 Blank & Jones - Twilight Moon 08:33 Nora En Pure & Lika Morgan - In The Air Tonight (Sons Of Maria Remix) 08:27 Bliss - End Titles 08:22 Victoriya - Nothing Remains 08:19 Nora En Pure - Life On Hold 08:12 Nova June - More 08:09 Colorblast - Message In A Bottle (Colorblast Version) 08:06 Rag'n'bone Man - Human 08:02 Thomas Lemmer & Andreas Bach - Deep Ocean 07:58 Filatov & Karas - Au Au 07:54 Alphawezen - Into The Stars 07:51 Jelly & Fish - Appreciation 07:45 Airstream - Your Tears (Del Mar Mix) 07:38 Soukie & Windish - Oak & Whiskey (Canson Remix) 07:30 Maxim Lany - Riding The Wave (Extended Mix) 07:27 Tiësto - The Motto 07:22 Bacaro - Under Presure 07:19 Ck West - Aldebaran 2021 07:15 Klangkarussel & Poppy Baskcomb - This Love 07:12 Ennio Morricone - L'estasi Dell' Oro 07:08 Robin Schulz Feat. Alida - In Your Eyes 07:01 Blüchel & Von Deylen - Etoile Polaire 06:59 Yves V X Bashkar - Halfway (Feat. Twan Ray) 06:56 Riva Starr Feat. Imaginary - Ride This Sound 06:49 Relaxraum - Endless Horizons 06:44 Atb & Anova - Route 66 06:37 Blond:ish Feat. Shawni - Wizard Of Love 06:35 Braaten - Enjoy The Silence 06:29 Deep Dive Corp. & Setsuna - Transatlantic 06:25 Jean-michel Jarre - Oxygene, Pt. 4 06:20 Ilo - Soleil D'hiver 06:17 Avaion, Paulwetz, Nu Aspect Feat. Yuma - Sleepless 06:15 Iossa, Ken Holland - The Seed Feat. Iossa (Original Mix) 06:10 Moby - The Sky Is Broken 06:08 Gil Glaze Feat. Dante Thomas - West La 06:03 Kyau Vs. Albert - Velvet Morning 06:00 Max Johann & Layrz - Tell It To My Heart 05:57 Nora En Pure - Sign Of The Times 05:49 Edx - We Can't Give Up 05:46 Brando - Don't Call Me (Galantis Remix) 05:42 Above & Beyond - Out Of Time (Original Mix) 05:38 Jan Blomqvist, Elena Pitoulis - More (Original Mix) 05:35 Trinix - Vision Deluxe 05:31 Lstn - Thoughts 05:27 Fine Young Cannibals - Johnny Come Home (Mousse T. Cocktail Mix) 05:20 Worakls - By The Brook 05:11 Blank & Jones - California Sunset 05:06 Channel 2 Feat. Tanya - Soulout 05:04 Alok & Timmy Trumpet - Underwater Love (La Vision Remix) 04:59 Tosca - Natural High 04:53 Anrey - Lost Lands (Extended Mix) 04:49 Brendon Moeller - Emerging 04:46 Discover. - Lost In Music 04:43 Vize & Tom Gregory - Never Let Me Down 04:40 Mike Candys - Sky (Club Mix) 04:36 Benjamin Francis Leftwich - Shine (Kygo Remix) 04:29 John Kah - Carina (Enui Remix) 04:22 True & Berger - Imprint Of Pleasure 04:17 Nick Sinckler, Lukas Termena - Get Up (Original Mix) 04:14 Nora En Pure - Branches 04:12 Lunax - I Like 04:06 Melounge - Too Much Sugar 04:03 Alok Feat. John Martin - Wherever You Go 04:00 Crying Robot, Abi F. Jones - Different Sides 03:58 Bernward Koch - Lonely Dream (Solo Piano) 03:55 Vievie - Blue Island 03:51 Trentemoller - Miss You 03:47 Clément Leroux - Memories 03:44 Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground 03:41 Trinix - Rodeo 03:37 Scotty & Wilcox - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (Wilcox Extended) 03:31 Sirius & Nyla - Infinity (Remastered Remix) 03:26 Jazzamor - Je T'aime 03:22 Fritz Kalkbrenner - Daylight Is Falling 03:20 Rene Rodrigezz & Tristan Henry - Let Me Go 03:13 Geonis & Wallmers - Stand On Our Own (Mier Remix) 03:10 Chicane Feat. Bryan Adams - Don't Give Up 03:06 Loungertrip - Brighter Day 03:01 Mike Candys & Jack Holiday - La Serenissima 02:54 Rodriguez Jr. Feat. Liset Alea - What Is Real 02:49 Index Id - Nautik 02:46 Swedish House Mafia & The Weeknd - Moth To A Flame 02:43 Milk & Sugar Feat. John Paul Young - Love Is In The Air 02:39 Coldplay - Everglow 02:31 Garlington - Falling To Pieces (Extended Mix) 02:28 Sans Souci - Fenton 02:25 Regard - Ride It 02:23 Mila Feat. Uwe Worlitzer - Teil Von Mir 02:19 Fritz Kalkbrenner - Good Things 02:14 Espresso Del Lago - Come On 02:11 Lost Frequencies X James Arthur - Questions 02:07 Deep Chills Feat Emma Carn - Blinded 02:04 2raumwohnung - Wir Werden Sehen (Paul Kalkbrenner Remix) 02:00 Sono - Keep Control (Artbat Remix Edit) 01:55 Vargo - The Moment 01:50 Lamb - Wonder 01:44 Tinlicker Feat. Nathan Nicholson - Always Will 01:41 Meduza & Becky Hill X Goodboys - Lose Control 01:38 Alex Breitling - Faith 01:31 Monolink - Don't Hold Back 01:26 Alejandro De Pinedo - Cancer 01:23 Dizkodude & Dj Antoine - Your Eyes (Dj Antoine Vs Mad Mark 2k21 Summer Mix) 01:20 Wave Wave Feat. Lena Sue - Repeating 01:16 Kygo Feat. Ella Henderson - Here For You 01:09 Soul Button - Circadian Rhythm (Hraach Remix) 01:01 Cabeiri - Plants Telling 01:00 Christopher Von Deylen - Arco Iris 00:53 Shkoon Feat. Fruiterama - Napauken 00:48 Fous De La Mer - Waiting For The Sun 00:45 R3hab & Marnik - Candyman 00:41 Filous - Let It Snow (Original Mix) 00:37 Paul Kalkbrenner - Part Eight 00:34 Viva La Panda & Finding Molly - Bring It On (La La La) 00:26 Armen Miran Feat. Jivan Gasp - Lost Memories 00:22 Evadez - Caught In The Crowd (Original Mix) 00:19 Vize & Leony - Dolly Song (Devil's Cup) 00:16 Winona Oak & Robin Schulz - Oxygen 00:08 Schiller & Tricia Mcteague - Universe 00:03 Good Guy Mikesh Feat. Filburt - Place Of Love (Mp Edit)

[the-world-unseen]

Fic Writer Interview

@kurikaesu-haru tagged me! fun!!!

name: theworldunseen on Ao3

fandoms i write for: basically just jb, but i keep playing with writing a little Rebecca/Keeley Ted Lasso fic...

one-shot: Cruel Summer is the fan favorite oneshot, but obvious reasons. Send your thanks to Taylor Swift. I'm also fond of the Gilmore Girls-inspired Christmas one.

two-shot: the only two-shot i have is from 2017, when i wasn't even really in fandom! it's not ground breaking lol

most popular multi-chapter: far and away it is All Choked Up, which...I am grateful to this fic as the thing that got me into fandom and convinced me that I could write fiction and people would enjoy it! But I would change a lot of things now, and I'm sure it's only as popular as it is because I was updating while season eight aired.

actual worst part of writing: describing actions?? if i could, every fic would be a nora ephron movie of people eating dinner and discussing their feelings.

how you choose your chapter titles: almost always songs that i was listening to when writing. I Owe It All To You they were from the songs they danced to in the chapter.

do you outline: very vaguely?? like i might write the beats down as: "arguing, kissing, more arguing, break up, sad convo" or something, but not in any detail

ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: will i ever finish my survivor au? u will not believe how close to done it is lol

callouts @ me: there was that one person who was pissed i wrote a fic where brienne had an abortion but everyone came to my defense which was very nice. and they were wrong so. who cares!

best writing traits: little quips! dialogue!

spicy tangential opinion(s):

too many people are obsessed with writing/reading a very flat, easily evil cersei. i'd rather not include her or barely include her instead of making her very comically and transparently mean

brienne is not confident about the way she looks but she is VERY confident about other things and i hate when that's not true in fic

i don't think brienne would be sexually dominant unless she and jaime had been in a relationship an extremely long time and gotten comfortable!!

Tagging: idk who did this already but if u didn't, do it!!

[sokkalore]

hello @dickpuncher420 tagged me to answer some #questions !! thank u ambre ily

1. name/nickname: haley, haley625, fruitysokka, all are good and funny

2. gender: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ can i get back to you on that

3. star sign: cancer sun, pisces moon, sagittarius rising. i am these two emojis combined 😔🤪

4. height: 5′5”

5. time: 7:00 pm

6. birthday: june 25

7. favorite bands/groups: i mean you all know i listen to taylor 90% of the time but 😭 ok i also enjoy the mowgli’s, of monsters and men, wallows, ABBA, HAIM, and i will be real y’all i still pretty regularly listen to 1D

8. favorite solo artist: as a shock to no one, miss taylor swift. am also pretty consistently listening to: maggie rogers, phoebe bridgers, rihanna, clairo, H.E.R. and kacey musgraves

9. song stuck in my head: right where you left me by taylor swift (y’all should stream it reminds me of at least 7 different zukka fics right now)

10. last movie: i don’t watch enough movies i literally can’t think of the last movie i watched .... pretty sure it was a christmas movie with my mom.. maybe elf?

11. last show: started watching the new season of disenchantment

12. when did i create this blog: in 2011...... i don’t want to talk about it

13. what do i post: right now mostly atla (and mostly zukka) but also whatever i want <3

14. last thing i googled: casey frey’s birthday

15. other blogs: everything i am exists right here

16. do i get asks: yes and i love u all

17. why did i choose this url:

18. following: 490

19. followers: 16,287 and like .... thank u but why (but also most of these are just because i have been here . for 10 years.)

20. average hours of sleep: next question please

21. lucky number: 21. ironically.

22. instruments: piano but like not very well

23. what am i wearing: ,.... a cruel summer t shirt 😔

24. dream job: like. a writer truly. we’ll see.

25. dream trip: i don’t care at this point i just wanna go SOMEWHERE

26. favorite food: hmmmm very basic but i will truly devour any kind of taco i love a taco

27. nationality: american

28. favorite song: shockingly it is cruel summer by taylor swift who could’ve guessed

29. last book read: i am Almost done with rise of kyoshi so i’m putting that

30. three fictional universes you’d like to live in: ATLA, duh; unfortunately the h*rry p*tter universe; and tbh the red white & royal blue universe so that i could be bullied for unironically stanning alex, june, and nora

i will tag @zukkau, @goldrushzukka , @zukkaclawthorne , @tysukis and whomever else wants to do this <333

[winterstarling]

Nora Holleran as things my friends and I have said

(aka, chaos incarnate)

“gosh I miss doing yoga to arctic monkeys’ favourite worst nightmare during quarantine”

“and here I thought I was an affectionate boyfriend. stop breaking my heart, you cruel bitch”

“he radiates big law school himbo energy”

“i’m sorry for u if good taste in men means weird english singers who wear pirate blouses and pink flower suits or frankenstein looking actors”

“i’m halfway between a vans lesbian and a power bottom lesbian right now”

“will you be my sugar daddy, babe?”

“drug, orgy, depression. in other words, we’re here for a fun time, not a long time”

“I HAVE THE BRAIN CAPACITY OF A TADPOLE SINCE THE FIRST ELECTORAL DEBATE, I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL ANYMORE”

“what does it taste like then, a harry fucking styles song?”

“fuckity fuck you”

[stunfiskz]

zoey headcanons bc fuck you i care her

nora is her older sister, that’s how she got the job at beanies

she’s a badass bi bitch

she doesn’t know that sam is married

she struggles a lot with not feeling like she’s ahead enough in life and not feeling mature enough, thats part of why she’s dating sam

sam uh also kind of threatened her when he asked her out so she felt like she never really had a choice

in an au where the meteor never hit, she finds out that sam is married about a couple weeks after tgwdlm is set and dumps him

she ends up feeling so shitty about it

she really wants to end up as a professional actress but her parents never really supported her in that

she has undiagnosed adhd

her parents weren’t exactly abusive or cruel but they were always kind of distant

in an au where the meteor never crashed, she and emma actually ended up becoming pretty good friends, with a pretty sister like relationship

zoey 100% teases emma ab dating paul

“oh by the way ur weedy little nerd boy was asking about u earlier”

her fav color is mint green

despite working at a coffee shop, she doesn’t really like coffee all that much

[phanlight]

Twin Flame

 .                                       ✧                   ✵                  ✧                                      .    ✴      .                    ✦               .                        .                 ✦                  .     ✴ 

thank u so much to anyone and everyone who’s stuck by over the years had it not been for ur constant support i would not be doing this rn not in a billion years also i hope i still remember how to write

this is gonna be v slow burn [like a big ol sage sticc] so I apologise for the steady pacing for a first chapter but I wanna set sufficient enough ~ foundations~ so things will pick up soon i promise lol

I digress ANYWAY have some magic

I literally don’t know what to describe this as I guess artist/mage/psychic!dan (if that isn’t a thing i’m making it one), bamf!phil (gotta stay tru to the roots), enemies-to-lovers, semi-surrealism, ethereal-surrealism (I s2g this is gonna be about 5 diff genres wtf am I doing)

✴      .                    ✦               .                        .                ✦                            ✴

summary:

Dan isn't lost anymore. He's finally okay with being an explorer, not a seeker. Content with being a wanderer rather than a wonderer. His checkered luck often leads him to almost hear the laughter of Fate ringing in the sky, but he puts it down to entering the world on the Thirteenth night of June; a Friday full with the Moon. A time where forces higher than usual ripple through the atmosphere, through the night. But he’s okay with that. He’s become okay with that. He’ll look for the light in life, live for the sparkle on summer tides. He’ll find answers at the end of paint tubes and poetry books; get by on his own moral philosophies rather than those of a shattered system. But when he falls into a realm in even further ruins than his own, he himself shatters – and suddenly the cycle begins again. Seeking, wondering – lost down to the soul. But with destruction comes construction. With darkness comes light. With bad comes good. And to exist, they must co-exist.

✴      .                    ✦               .                        .                ✦                       .     ✴ 

actual plot bc that said nothing about what acc happens: 

dan’s a lonely ass painter who loves crystals and one day finds a passage in an abandoned lighthouse that transports him into a spirit realm where he meets someone more lost than him. they don’t get on but for reasons they’ll have to.

.            ✴.                                  .                                .                 .✴              .     

.✴     .                    ✴               .          ✯            .                ✴                      .     ✴.

opposing forces, they attract;

yin won’t exist without its yang.

a sunless moon, a silent act;

in idleness it hangs.

galactic compounds in the skin,

harbour chemicals and cells,

particles, atomic, sub-

vibrate with polar spells.

the grounding force attraction

it ties every single bond.

becomes the gravity,

of life; existence as One.

.✴     .  - Love                                                                                               .     

                                                                                          ✴               .          ✯            .                ✴

                                                  ✴[AO3 LINK]✴

Dan stares at the pale tornado swirling inside the china. Seagulls cackle outside, as if in response to the disgusting abundance of milk.

Fuck this.

The ruined tea goes down the sink with a steamy slosh, and he chokes on the eruption of vapour that partially enters his lungs. Great. The universe has now given him enough to decipher exactly what type of day today will be.

He calls them his Horseshoe Days. He’d had one once – a gift from his grandmother. At the time it seemed something strange to give to a seven-year-old. He was at the age where he wouldn’t know what a horseshoe meant if one came hurtling down from above, bonking the top of his skull.

And it did once – well, nearly. It was only while dodging the thing falling from the shelf, only milliseconds away from meeting his forehead, he realised they might actually be as lucky as she’d promised.

That was, until perhaps, he placed it back on the shelf upside-down. His parents were both blissfully none-the-wiser when it came to anything outside the ordinary – the superstition veining back to his occult-practicing grandmother on his mother’s side (and skipping generation in the process, it seems). They saw a horseshoe as nothing more than a crescent of iron that for some reason sits in the kitchen, whichever way up. It was only once events later that day began to unravel in an unfamiliar manner did a bubbling suspicion of a correlation arise. Dan had vaguely remembered something about the blacksmith Dunstan and how a shoe upturn drains its ‘powers’, but it was only a crashed bike, scraped knee and flattened football later did he actually pay any attention to why his day might have been going so badly.

Well, eventually.  

The entire exchange sits still at the forefront of his psyche, each detail in sparkling clarity. He sees it now, even hears the voices.

“That’s why!” he’d burst out over dinner.

His parents had jumped in unison, and his stepfather elbowed over a glass. The table shone with a thin spread of water, trickling across the mahogany.

The hardness of Gerald’s voice is still nailed into the back of his memory. He used to hate it when he shouted.

“Jesus!” he’d have yelled, scrabbling around the table with a napkin. Dan remembers the kitchen towel surrendering immediately, from sheets to soggy mulch in seconds. He’d then have followed with a favourite catchphrase of his; “Do you have to yell like that?”

It was nothing they weren’t used to. He had a habit of sneaking up on everyone. ‘Feather-Feet’, his grandmother used to call him.

Dan remembers ignoring him, stretching up out of his seat and reaching for the overhead shelf. He doesn’t reckon an upturned horseshoe has ever made anyone this happy but he remembers feeling nothing but delight. It’s a bit of a backward attitude. “I knew I wasn’t just naturally unlucky!”

Being born on Friday the thirteenth certainly doesn’t help, despite giving every single birthday wish to a promise of better luck.

His grandmother used to say it was a good omen. Actually lucky; despite its reputation in amongst the ladders and scaffolding and cracked pavement tiles. The Thirteenth night of June, a Friday full with the moon, she used to muse, eyes bright with love. He misses her.

“What are you doing?” his mother had narrowed her eyes, watching her son reach for the horseshoe. When his elbow disturbed a spherical paperweight in the process and it began a bloodcurdlingly slow descent off the shelf, they flew open wider. “Careful! Mind my-“

He was already ahead of her, he remembers. Fingers clasped around the iron and flipped upright in a fraction of a second. In the other he outstretches his hand, feeling the paperweight plop into his palm in one piece instead of millions more. He‘ll never forget the sigh of relief from somewhere behind him.

He remembers the feeling. The weight of the crystal. The coolness of the cast iron. Saved antique in one hand, upright horseshoe in the other. The absolute thrum of electricity through his bloodstream. He remembers smiling and looking up. “See?”

“See what, exactly?” Gerald had then snapped, masking his panic with anything other than fear. “You nearly ruining our wedding present? A repeat performance of Aunt Nora’s teapot?”

He glanced to his mother, still completely ivory with shock. Her eyes are fixed on the swirled quartz as if it were seconds away from leaping off of his palm again by itself; under its own magic.  

“Did you not see that?” Confusion begins to seep into his initial delight. Were they even concentrating at all?

“I saw you being idiotic,” his stepfather had spat. Dan winces like he did fifteen years ago. The word still holds its weight, even now. He doesn’t know why.

“The horseshoe,” he’d tried to explain. “It wa-“

“I don’t give a shit about the bloody horseshoe!” he’d suddenly exploded. Both Dan and his mother jumped back in their seats.

“Gerald,” he remembers the softness of his mother’s tone, a diametric opposition of the echoes of steel his stepfather had the nerve to call an indoor voice.

“No, I’m sick of it!” he’s erupting now. Bubbling over the surface. A temper like a needle to an overfilled balloon. “He’s always flailing about. Knocking things over. Your mother told me about the vase, by the way,” he spat aside.

Dan’s stomach had dropped. She’d sworn not to say a word. She’d promised.

“You never know what the boy’s next move is going to be,” he continues. “I’m sick of it,” he repeats again, as if repetition be the highest form of emphasis. He snatched the paperweight but ignored the horseshoe, and Dan remembers how it had looked in his grip – the glass probably having more chance of shattering inside his big burly palm than the solid stone floor.

He vanishes and reappears two seconds later, marching back with a face of beetroot and a brow of iron, pressing a daggered glare into the back of Dan’s head. He could feel the warmth burning the nape of his neck, the stare scalding the skin.

“He’s not to be trusted,” he announced as if there were thousands of other ears also listening.

A delicate frown threaded its way across his mother’s brow.

“Wh-“

“Leave it, Penelope,” he’d cut her off before she’d even had a chance to finish the word, let alone the sentence. Dan used to hate the way he spoke to her. “If the boy wants to behave like a child, he’ll get treated like one. No more ornaments in the kitchen.”

Dan remembers thinking then it would kind-of be nice being addressed by name. Just once. Maybe. Gerald’s also about the only person capable of criticizing a seven-year-old for behaving like a child. Make it make sense, Gerald, he doesn’t say. And my name’s Dan, but you’ve probably forgotten that.

She’d thrown her son a quick sapphire glance; a gleaming silent apology. Dan’s heart had lurched at the glint of panic in her eye.

It lurches now. That absolute demon must have given her hell. He’d never been more thankful to see his mother out of a marriage. He was horrible.

And he couldn’t fucking cook. He even remembers what they were eating on the night because it was so inedible. He’s always detested mashed potato, and he’s certain Gerald knew this. He remembers stabbing the offending white lump on his plate during the sacred three seconds of silence His Lordship could manage before that cruel mouth of his opened again.

“Bloody cold, now,” he’d grumbled.

Dan remembers holding back a smirk. As if any amount of heat could make this cement any less torturous to ingest.

He’d briefly wondered if suffocation was in his hidden agenda all along. It wouldn’t surprise him. Death by potato has an interesting ring to it.

Anyway, the whole situation could have been history in under ten seconds. He could have had the horseshoe upright and the paperweight saved in three of those. Job done, panic over, back to dinner in the remaining seven. He imagines Gerald’s reaction had he spoken his mind at the time.

That was fifteen years ago, of course. Being seven, someone could have told him the sky was pink and he’d eventually believe it (maybe if it happened to be during a sunset). From that point onward he hadn’t exactly lapped up old wives’ tales, myths spinning into each other like silver silk, but his superstition remained a conscious glow in the back of his mind; going no further than avoiding three drains and ladders and watching black cats slink across his path with his breath held. Sometimes even whispering a quick wish when eleven lines up the clock (most days he misses, though).

He vowed from that very moment to save anything considered slightly out-of-the-ordinary for those who actually want to hear about it. Those who understand.

He looks at the horseshoe. It’s the same one – it always has been. Seeing three new house-changes and a hell of a lot of life, it sits, still – tightly nailed to the overhead beam of the kitchen. There’s no way it could slip now.

His eyes travel down from the horseshoe at the dazzling abundance of crystals lining and clustering every free available space surrounding the entire kitchen. He figures Gerald’s little ‘no ornaments in the kitchen’ law wouldn’t bode too well here. He’d scream in fear of the raw amethysts by the kettle. Sob at the sight of the glittering chunks of hematite by the sink. Shield his eyes from offending lines of onyx near the spice rack and the little malachite cluster by Rosa (one of many house plants). And as for the great big slabs of rose quartz and Himalayan salt on the windowsill, the glow of sunrise warming the atmosphere each morning; kissing the space with shadowy peaches and dusty pinks – well, his face would be an absolute picture. Priceless. He grins whenever he dusts, love bursting in his heart for each one and humming through every vein in his body. They make him feel like a proud father.

A short, sharp buzz on the countertop interrupts his thoughts. His consciousness snaps back into reality. Shit, how long has it been? Once he gets thinking about Gerald and everything he put his mother through he gets angry, and then half the day disappears and he finds he’s done little else other than stare at a drawer or a wall for the majority of it. It’s easy to get carried away. It happens when he thinks about crystals too.

You okay?

It’s Zema. Part-time housemate, full-time soulmate. It’s almost like he’d heard his thoughts; the voices so powerful they resonate externally. Part of Dan wouldn’t be surprised if he had – Gerald was certainly shouting loud enough in there.

Been better, he answers truthfully. Just made the worst cup of tea known to mankind

I wondered what all that clanking was

There’s a pause, followed by another quick buzz.

HSD?

Dan grins at the screen. Horseshoe day. He’d even remembered their abbreviation.

“H – S – D,” he’d once said. “It’s like LSD. But shitter.”

Dan had snorted. Zema’s about the only person who would compare having ‘one of those days’ to a psychedelic trip.

“Exactly,” Zema had said once Dan had told him this. “It’s not. That’s why it’s shitter.”

Dan hadn’t exactly agreed with him. He didn’t even think it was worth mentioning Horseshoe is actually all one word, but he’d gone along with it because HSD is a lot less effort to type and sometimes it’s good to have a code. Zema’s about the only person who knows about this. He doesn’t trust anyone else enough not to judge him when he tells them he’s basically superstitious, however blanket that definition may be. It’s probably not the correct term, but he doesn’t know how else to describe it. Drawn to the unknown? Like it matters either way. It’s not as if he’s particularly vocal about it. A twenty-three-year-old male, unusually innate occult-esque interests and a static, stagnant society don’t exactly fit together with jigsaw-like ease. Dan doesn’t know why. Dan doesn’t see what the harm is in allowing others to gravitate towards their own pleasures when the concept alone of interests and hobbies is entirely subjective. That’s the beauty of it, he finds. No two beings have exactly the same range, however similar.

Maybe the harm is that there’s no harm at all, and that scares him. The lust for destruction scares him. This planet scares him.

Something like that, he taps back, before pocketing the conversation. 

He gives up with tea involving milk and unlatches the wooden box neighbouring the kettle. It’s stuffed to the brim with teabags of spanning across the entire flavour spectrum.

He picks one up and presses it to his nose, inhaling. Ah, Jasmine.

He picks up another. Camomile and- something. He frowns. Lemon?

He puts it back. Can’t be. He finished the lemon last week.

He picks it up again and sniffs. Ginger, that’s it.

Nah, he tosses it back in for a second time. He only touches the ginger when he’s feeling jaded the morning after a night involving too much wine and not enough water (they happen more often than not).

He picks up another, inhaling the rich, fruity aroma. Red berries. It even smells like the colour red.

He puts it back nonetheless. Strawberries and- well, just about everything else with –berry tagged onto the end – just wouldn’t cut it right now. Ambitious Ribena, that’s what Zema calls it. It hasn’t really tasted the same since he said that.

He picks up another. Jasmine again, he rolls his eyes. He’s seldom ever in a ‘Jasmine’ mood. He doesn’t even know why they have so many – Zema barely touches it either.

He finally settles for a plain green tea. A bit of simplicity wouldn’t go amiss right now.

His phone buzzes again.

Don’t think I can’t hear that kettle. I’ll have a ginseng pls x

Dan huffs out a laugh. Cover blown.

We’re all out of ginseng.

Look under the sink.

Dan rolls his eyes and yanks open the door below him. Six boxes of the stuff stare back at him.

Six??? he taps with one hand, grabbing a box and tearing the cardboard open with another. Really?

Didn’t wanna run out is all that follows.

He shakes his head, but lets the grin tug his lips.

Panic-buying tea now, are we?

Don’t start. You bought six crystals the other day

Ok that’s different. Mercury is in retrograde right now and we’re not taking any chances

What does that even mean

It means u need to stop buying so much tea

I’ll stop buying tea when u stop buying crystals

Dan smirks. He’ll be waiting a while, then.

He assigns Zema the age-old High School Musical mug. It was a gift from Axel one or two Christmases ago, and he imagines the Disney franchise probably didn’t have temperamental dishwashers in mind during the manufacturing process – the boiling steam had left the majority of the characters eyeless and Troy Bolton completely nose-less. He leaves it next to the kettle with texted instructions for Zema to leave the duvet cave immediately before it turns cold, but for what it’s worth, the other boy isn’t exactly famous for his pro-activity early in the mornings. He wouldn’t be surprised if it reached stone temperature before passing his lips. Judging by the lack of audible movement, he’d be safe in assuming he’s probably fallen back asleep.

He pads into the lounge with a steaming mug and a bookmarked copy of Le Fleur Du Mal; completely falling to bits and half of the pages contemplating a permanent escape. Despite his attempts, even the strongest duct tape couldn’t keep this copy together.

There’s something about a parallel translation that fascinates him. How meaning can so flawlessly transcend dialect. He wonders if Baudelaire had this in mind. Whether he knew his works would one day be read in languages far from his mother tongue. Did he know his own craft to be so acute, so fine, that whichever order, whichever laws of letters they’re under – the same meaning shines through? The same rhythm, the same senses, colours, emotions rippling through each sign and symbol? That’s poetry.

His eyes scan the neighbouring verse. Learning a bit more French would definitely help, that’s for sure. His own skill is rusted from years of neglect; having abandoned all hopes of igniting his love for such a beautiful dialogue after school had strode into his life and seeped all the joy and passion out of just about everything he once loved. He’s glad to have reignited that. It was years until he picked up a paintbrush again.

He’s only three words in before he’s interrupted by an all-too-familiar sound.

He rolls his eyes, peering over the edge of the pages. “What now?”

Two eyes wait for him. One emerald, the other azure.

“No,” Dan immediately answers.

The reply is longer, louder.

“Ugh,” his glance scours the ceiling for a second. “It’s literally been an hour, Vee. Where are you storing it all?”

The eyes answer with an innocent glitter, but Dan knows better. His eyes flicker back to the page:

What will you say tonight, poor lonely soul,

What will you say old withered heart of mine,

To the most beautiful, the best, most dear,

Whose heavenly regards bring back your bloom?

We will assign our pride to sing her praise:

Nothing excels the sweetness of her will;

Her holy-

Then there’s a gentle chirrup. He feels his heart turn to jelly. She knows exactly what that sound does to him.

“Venus,” he groans in defeat, elongating the ‘u’. He plops the book down next to him and hauling himself up from the sofa. “Only one, okay? No more.”

She slinks down from the stool, her stool – only about fifty years old and fraying at every single edge. What was once a delicate floral tapestry now existing as aged blobs in various shades of pastel. All four legs, previously smooth mahogany, are now a splintered beige from years of busy carving. He doesn’t understand how such soft paws bear such ceramic claws.

They’d tried everything. From cardboard and cereal boxes to actual climbing towers she would barely look at, let alone touch. Beds she ignored; choosing only Dan’s favourite satin pillow. And she’ll only ever drink water out of a specific pint glass.

“We’ve adopted a human, not a cat,” Zema had once said.

“It’s like she owns us,” Dan had agreed.

She’s trotting along the kitchen floorboards now, her tail high. She stops once she reaches the drawer under the crystal cabinet, throwing her human a demure glance.

“Alright, alright,” Dan catches her up, grabbing the bronze key. He’s thankful cats don’t have the power of thumbs. The world is already chaotic enough. 

He ends up giving her three. It’s those eyes, he tells himself in a small bout of self-justification. Those fucking eyes.

“Venus flytrap,” he mutters, running his fingertips along her silky back. “What are you like, eh? Where do you put it all?”

“Hollow legs,” a voice appears from behind him.

He almost leaves his own skin.

“Jesus!” he clutches at his chest. “What happened to the No-Giving-Dan-Cardiac-Arrest-Before-Noon rule?"

He whirls around to find Zema sat cross-legged on the marble surface just beside the sink, all silken robes and bed-beaten hair. A smirk gets bitten back under his teeth.

“I texted you."

Dan can’t quite believe the twenty-first century has come to this. Texting those who not only live in the same property, but are on the same floor.

They’re not actually too dissimilar in appearance – his head also home to a gigantic mass of thick brown waves, although in a darker shade to Dan’s own hair. His eyes stare back at him in a shade of gentle grey. Chameleon Eyes, Dan calls them; for they reflect their surroundings. He remembers how they looked when they’d first met that day at the beach – bright turquoise; matching the sky and the sea. He remembers how perplexed he been the second time they’d met and his eyes were suddenly a shining shamrock; sharing the glow of the grass. Then a gentle grey on the street under overcast clouds.  He’s always wanted to go into one of those rooms covered completely ground-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, in mirrors. His eyes would probably boast galaxies.

He’s shorter than Dan (a rare occurrence among his friends) and about fifty times as agile – something he and Venus have in common is their blatant disregard for actual furniture. Even she sits on a stool more often than he does. Zema the Lemur, he calls him.

“Because chairs don’t exist,” Dan mutters now, his tone soaked with sarcasm. “Christ, you’re worse than her,” he nods down towards their little family member, still fixated on the drawer.

She trots up to Zema, seizing the opportunity.

“Are you hungry, honeybear?” Zema coos, his eyes sparkling. He gets an emphatic ‘mew’ in response.

“Don’t be fooled,” Dan interjects quickly. “She’s had a bowl and two treats already today.”

“Those eyes,” Zema grins knowingly. Green flashes in his direction. They’ve noticed she responds to ‘eyes’ faster than her own name.

“Those fucking eyes,” Dan shakes his head in agreement. The eyes in question now dart towards him. Whenever ‘eyes’ happen to crop up in conversation between the two, she looks as though she’s watching a tennis match. Dan’s abdomen still aches at the memory of the night they’d made the revelation; both curled up either side of the room in tears of laughter at her light-like response. “How’s the tea, by the way? Not too cold, I hope?”

“It’s lovely,” he sips appreciatively. “Good mug choice. Always better when it’s from Troy Bolton’s brain. It’s like I can taste his thoughts.”

“I didn’t know Gabriella tasted like ginseng,” Dan says. “Cut her open and she bleeds the stuff.”

Zema smirks. He holds the mug up, examining the worn surface in all its glory. “Looks like someone already has. God, this thing’s falling apart,” he thinks aloud, bringing himself ear-to-lip with the partially eroded character. “What happened to your nose babe, eh? Did it fall off during basketball?”

“Troy Boldemort,” Dan mutters immediately. Zema all but chokes, droplets showering the countertop.

He loves mornings like these, mornings where neither of them have any prior academic engagements and they can just sit and talk for hours about – well, anything, really. The final year of University boasts a monumental amount of focus and preparation and just a general resounding ‘oh-shit-this-is-actually-real’ feeling that apparently never really goes away; not even after you graduate, according to one of his cousins.

For Dan, nothing has really felt real since he was about fifteen, so it’s not something that particularly bothers him. He could just do without that ten-tonne workload.

“So what are you up to today, then?” Zema swings his legs over the edge, giggling as Venus begins an attack on his slipper. “Anything exciting?”

“Not much,” he sips thoughtfully. What can he do today? It’s been so long since he’s had a free day he’s forgotten how he spends time on his own terms. “Might get another painting done.”

“Paint me,” Zema beams, carding a hand through his fringe.

“Oh yeah?” Dan raises an eyebrow. “How the fuck would I go about painting your eyes?”

“Paint me in a field,” Zema continues. “And a beach. I wanna see-…” he hesitates. “We need to go to, like, a strawberry field or something. I wanna see if my eyes would go red.”

“Just smoke some pot. Then you’ll be halfway there.” Dan says, before hesitating. “Anyway, if we went to a strawberry field it’ll be mostly green. The strawberries are only the berries.”

“A poppy field, then,” Zema says.

He literally has an answer to everything. Dan rolls his eyes.

“One day,” he finally affirms, and the other boy grins. “In Spring.”

“I’m glad you’re painting again,” Zema says. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you do anything creative.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles, taking another sip although the tea’s losing its heat. It’s always the case when talking to Zema – the rapid, quick-fire pace of every conversation leaves barely enough interval to drink (that is, of course, unless it’s alcohol). “It’s been so long I doubt I even remember how to paint.”

“I highly doubt that,” Zema fires back, gulping more tea and placing the ghostly mug beside him.

“How about you, then?” Dan gulps down the remaining liquid before it has a chance to grow any colder. “What are you doing with yourself today?”

“I’m off out,” Zema stretches, his voice slightly strained. “Need to be at Eddie’s by ten. We’re doing the bass today.”

They’re two of a wide circle of musicians playing in each-other’s orbit. Zema’s never anywhere without his guitar, Axel the same with his saxophone (Saxel, he’s often referred to as), and Eddie would be the same, he imagines, had he not chosen the piano as his instrument of choice. He bites back a smirk, picturing him struggling with a rope, trying to drag his enormous Bösendorfer Grand onto a train for a gig. Thank almighty Yamaha for the existence of keyboards.

Dan winces, his eyes flickering to the clock. “You’re cutting it a bit fine, then.”

Zema’s own eyes flash towards the time. “Oh, shit,” the remaining tea gets swallowed in seconds and the ghostly mug falls into the sink with a steely clatter. “I’d better go.”

“Nothing they’re not used to I imagine.” Dan smirks.

“Don’t,” Zema cringes, grabbing his bag and shooting down the corridor into his own room. “They brought up my punctuality only the other day,” his voice continues. “Fuck, Dan. Why do I do this to myself?”

“Alarms exist.” Dan calls after him. 

“It wasn’t even that,” he reappears holding a handful of guitar picks and a capo, shoving them into the front pocket of his case. “I decided to stop off on the way. Never in my life have I seen such a queue for the drive-through. It was ridiculous.”

“At least they got a couple of fries out of it.”

Zema stares at him. His expression speaks for itself.

“Okay. Well at least you got a couple of fries out of it.”

“Cold fries. And a melted McFlurry,” he mourns, hauling his guitar over his shoulder and looking Dan dead in the eye. “Word of advice, Dan. Never try eating ice cream while you’re driving. It doesn’t work. There’s a time limit.”

“There go my plans for the day,” Dan scoffs. “I don’t even drive.”

“And it’s about time you learnt, eh?” Zema grins. “Give your bestie a break from all that parallel parking. It’s doing my head in.”

“If it means getting you to places on time, I’m more than happy to,” his eyes flicker to the clock. “You have nine minutes, Zee.”

“Fuck’s sake!” Zema groans. “I’m doing it again. I’m going, I’m going-” he flusters around, filling both arms up with various belongings.  “Can you grab my keys for me? They’re on the plate.”

The Plate, Dan smirks to himself. Keeping vital belongings within reaching distance of the door, it’s the porcelain base to everything – keys; both car and house, cards; both debit and SD, alongside an ocean of lighters, loose change, semi-important receipts, and a Pizza Hut flier that had been there when they moved in. He remembers the delight they’d both shared upon discovering the possibility of five-pound large pizzas – crushed immediately by disappointment upon realizing the flier was from 2006.

It’s filled now to the brim with such a pile had it not been for Zema’s obnoxiously large keyring collection it would have taken him an age to locate them. He grabs them by the ‘Amsterdam’ pipe-shaped bottle opener.

“There,” he thrusts them into his hands with a jingle. “Now go.”

“Lifesaver,” Zema clutches them, slipping out of the door. “I’ll see you around five, yeah?”

“See you,” Dan grins, watching him jog to his vehicle. “Safe journey. Don’t drive through anything this time.”

The look he receives tells him all he needs to know. He watches the smaller figure amble up the road to his car; a battered blue thing with a collage of stickers plastering the rear. It was a seventeenth birthday gift; four metallic walls capturing four years of freedom. Despite having known Zema for only two of those four years, they’d already ridden up and down the country in it; halfway back home they’d had to make an impromptu visit to a tiny town somewhere along the south coast due to a faulty tire, but that ended up being one of the best decisions of their lives.

Because had they not set foot into the first tavern they’d walked past whilst the car was being repaired somewhere up the road; a crooked, old thing with bookshelves for walls and a resident cat asleep on the stool, they would never have been served by a bartender with a nose ring and hair the colour of moss (Dan remembers wondering how someone can suit such surroundings whilst simultaneously looking so out of place). They would never have stuck up a conversation about the clock on the wall and discovered it was an original nineteenth-century piece passed down from Germany, and the bartender would never have noticed Zema’s obsidian pendant and asked him about its origins. They wouldn’t have spent the remains of the afternoon sunk into the floral upholstery, swigging ale-upon-ale with this vibrant character as the sky loses the light before reality dawns and they realise they came here with a car that needs attending to.

He still can’t believe this was how they met Axel. All three of them have evolved so much since then, all grown in each other’s orbit.

(The rapid blossom of the butterfly effect has never failed to astound him. It never will.)

The fade of the engine introduces a silence he hasn’t heard since seven a.m. His smile seemed to have travelled along with the car; with Zema. Shit, has it always been this deadened without him? The quietness cuts into his eardrums, growing sharper and sharper the more he strains; searching for something, anything – a whisper of a tree, a yelp of a dog, a-

He paces away from the front door, finding comfort in the soft pad of his own footsteps. The floorboards groan with every movement, and he’s thankful for the noise.

He can never find his way back to sleep upon awakening on a Horseshoe day. It’s the tell-tale sign for him – if he claws his way out of a biting nightmare bathed in sweat, scrabbling around the duvet until his fingers touch cool amethyst, rough and raw, he knows there are challenges waiting for him.

He doesn’t know why it happens. Or how. He’s only ever tried to explain the whole thing to Zema a handful of times and even then he doesn’t really get it, doesn’t really understand how he can just know something’s about to happen before it does, just feels the flames underneath his ribcage, anticipation burning the embers red.

“You ought to get on those Beta-blockers,” he’d once told him through a mouthful of raw bagel. Several crumbs fell to the floor, something Dan viewed as a skill if not anything; uncooked bagels are near impossible to eat that messily. “They helped me when I started getting those anxiety attacks. No way would I have survived college without them,” as he took another bite, more crumbs parted ways.

“I don’t think the buckets of coffee every morning particularly helped,” replied Dan, before adding, “and every evening.” He’d stopped then, frowning. “And wherever else in the day you can- okay, that’s not the point. It’s not the same as anxiety,” he paused, the corners of his mind struggling to describe something so utterly inexplicable. “It’s-… different. It’s never constant, it’s not like that.”

As he reminisces, he feels the jolt.

Something’s going to happen tonight. Today. Sometime.

That is all he’s absolutely certain of. That an event is around the corner, and that it’ll happen sometime within the frame of the day. Good or bad, positive or negative, it’s the same spike in his gut, the same blade of intuition cutting into his senses. Such a skill sits somewhere on the fence between a blessing and a curse.

He makes every effort to swallow the feeling down, place it anywhere but the absolute forefront of his psyche, and treads upstairs. If there’s one thing he’s learnt during the years of having to contend with this (whatever ‘this’ is), it’s not to dwell on it, not to feel it too much. Whatever happens, will happen. No amount of thinking, feeling, sensing, will change that.

As far as superpowers go, it’s a pretty shit one to have, he thinks. Enemy, up ahead. Wait, it might be a friend actually. How close are they? Fuck knows. We might be waiting a while, but it could be any minute now. I know they’re coming though, trust me.

It would be useless.

He reaches straight for the art supplies as soon as he opens his bedroom door, grabbing as many paints as the laws of physics operating his satchel bag will allow. He relies on oil for today’s medium, seizing handfuls of small foil tubes spanning the entire visible colour spectrum, all thoroughly crinkled with use. A couple of sponges leap into the leather (stained, but he doesn’t have the capacity to start his cleaning ritual right now. Cleaning one art supply leads to another, and another, and then ‘just one more’ until the day sits partially behind him and all he’d have to show for himself is an empty canvas and two very wet sleeves), along with a healthy selection of paintbrushes, and the remaining dregs of his paint thinner (he really ought to get some more. He keeps forgetting.).

He releases a breath he didn’t know was taking up his chest. He’s actually ready for once. Wow.

Breakfast is crunched in seconds, accompanied by two planet eyes and a mass of black fur.

“Vee,” he mews through a mouthful of toast, his eyes rolling. “I’ve barely even started mine.”

Her expression doesn’t falter, her gaze only glittering more. He lasts two more bites before caving in and heading to the cupboard. Her paws are feathers; silent little things, but he doesn’t need to hear her (or even see her, for that matter) to sense she’s trotting along behind him – tail in the air and eyes to the sky. He awards her a third treat, internally self-justified by his forthcoming absence for the rest of the day, and watches as her nose delicately pokes the pea-sized thing before accepting it with much grace.

“What is it about you, eh?” he scratches the very top of her head, loving the way her eyes close in response and a deep purr begins rolling. “How do you do it?” his tone is weirdly devoid of rhetoricism. “All you domestic cats do is sleep and ask for food.”

He hesitates.

“I mean, that’s not all you do. You knock stuff over. Both solid and liquid. And scratch things up. And sleep on important documents. And make me late for things sometimes,” she purrs louder – almost solid confirmation cats can understand humans. Of course that would please her. “Yet we love you unconditionally,” his fingertips travel behind her ears and she leans into his touch. “All you have to do is exist.”

If only that were the case for humans.

His toast is cold by the time he returns to it, but he doesn’t care. He wasn’t particularly hungry to begin with – he doesn’t have Venus’s appetite. They should have named her Jupiter instead.

Binning the remains, he slings his art supplies onto his back and reads the weather through the net curtains. It looks fairly promising; the sky slightly overcast but showing no immediate threat of rain – they’d fallen victims to a heatwave not long ago and then a raging storm the following week.

September is often precarious; not quite summer, but not yet autumn. The sun smiles at him but he makes a mental note to pack an umbrella just in case.

✵

His concept of ‘perfect beach weather’ is a bit weird.

His perfect beach weather welcomes a threat of rain. Embraces stronger breezes. He doesn’t care if there’s a cloud bigger than the sky heading in his direction. As long as it’s comfortable enough to sit and paint without the wind claiming just about everything he arrived with, he’s happy.

When he looks out of his window towards beams of warmth, that’s forest weather. That’s lay-in-sunlight-pools-and-read-the-tree-trunks weather. When whites and greys cut the sky, that’s when it’s time for the beach.

This beach is his home. His sanctuary. The only surroundings that actually manage to cut through the thickening tar of anxiety coating his soul, the sound alone of the hissing waves setting him free of any spikes of fretful darkness still latching onto him.

Here he can think.

Feel.

Be.

His eyes match the horizon. Solitary. Still. He doesn’t understand how an element moving so fierce can appear as nothing but a perfectly straight line.

Then again; Jupiter’s a raging mass of storms and still the perfect sphere remains. As for Saturn.

He whips out his sketchbook, the A1 pages immediately making friends with the breeze. He eventually claws the pages into a surface at least half-sketchable, the paper sheets cutting through his gentle grasp as he tries to wrestle with giant flaps of paper, great white veils. The definitive opposite of a bat, he concludes decidedly. He’s probably a good ten minutes into this whole endeavour before the thought of whipping anything colourful out crosses his mind. His hands hurt now.

He starts with the greens. He always does. Touches of evergreen, of shamrock and a blue-tinged teal make their way onto the palette first. He takes a tiny amount of the brightest and begins creating a dusty emerald sky, the bristles massaging the canvas with gentle strokes. He’s never seen a green sky before. He’s seen skies spamming across the entire palette of the planet’s warmth, all rubies and vermillions and even violets. But never green. Green seems to stay on land, he finds. Maybe the trees will be blue.

The trees end up purple. He’s painting what he can see right now; a thick smatter of bushes lining the top of the cliffside. The forest. His forest, he secretly calls it, already hearing ‘you can’t own a forest, Bezos’ from a mini Zema somewhere in his mind.

He’s painted this view, this vast stretch ahead of him, so many times he found the shades to be somewhat restricting despite the sun making all the difference – indigo in the rain and a glittering turquoise in the summer light. So he’d swapped the cool palette for warmth one day, and fell in love with the idea of a ruby ocean. The sands had become a dusty lilac; something that had later appeared in a dream of his. The sky he’d kept to its natural shade that day – a gentle grey; accentuating the heightened colour of the other two.

It was like a fuse had exploded inside him after that. He’d come home from the beach with armfuls of half-damp paper; all thoroughly watercoloured at first – before experimenting with the oils and the pastilles upon realisation that soluble paints and rain-threatened skies do not mix. He’d branched out; grasping at all ends of the visible colour spectrum; knocking on every door, pushing every possible boundary. Rockpools became crystals, the shores began to sparkle – really sparkle; once he figured out how to paint with glitter correctly, - and colours began to multiply. Soon there were three colours in the sky – the gradient fading one into the other and often bearing complete contrasts; reds eloped with greens and purples entangling golds.

He’d combined just about every colour; primary, secondary; tertiary – but never attempts to create the same shade twice. It’s more fun that way, he decides.

He reads the horizon. The line of beach huts are still just as colourful in reality as on paper, so he’d taken to embellishing each door with swirls of gold using his thinnest brush. The shadow of the overhanging clouds looks to have deepened the ocean’s bed, and he wonders just how far the floor of sand slopes down. How many miles of ink until he reaches the earth. He’d swum countless times (some while drunk, thanks to a team effort involving Zema’s persuasion and his own impulsive nature), but never dared to venture anywhere past the Lighthouse a stretch of metres away from the shore.

Dan doesn’t quite know when it became derelict. How long it’s been since a beacon pierced the night with neon light; guiding the lost and the found, the leavers and returners. There are no windows; only wooden squares where light once seeped through – but the Widow’s Walkway still remains weirdly open in the air, the iron cates curling up at the top.

Some say it’s been months. Others longer. Having only lived in this town for the generous part of two years, he has no real clue himself – but every new crack on the surface, every new splinter of wood or peeled paint, doesn’t go unnoticed. However long it’s been, it’s definitely no longer in use.

It’s taken many forms on his papers, behaving slightly different with each medium. He once even took to disregarding colour altogether and using only black ink and silver glitter; each curve, dot and line finely constructed. That one, he must admit, was a personal favourite. He’d turned every crack into a vein, pumping midnight blood into every inch of the tower. Every chip of paint revealed a crystallised surface underneath – its inner beauty begging to see the light.

He adds colour today – but always acknowledges its signs of time. If it’s cracked up there, it’s cracked on the page. If he strolls by one day and there’s a chunk of brick missing; a gaping hole in the surface, he wont lie to the paper.

He’ll just cram a million stars into the space.

His eyes sink back into his own page. The violet trees have a teal cliff to sit upon, and today the sea is a concrete grey – not too many shades off exactly what he’s seeing right now.

It’s another different combination of colours; a new one, but there’s something missing. He reads the page, eyes darting between his creation and his surroundings.

He looks up, bending his neck and staring at the clouds until his eyes water. They glide over him, over them, over everything, like glaciers in the sky. The beautiful thing about just a slight threat of rain, is the sheer metamorphosis they seem to undergo a priori. He sees one turn from Yoshi into an ice cream. One that starts off as a squashed Darth Vader before growing a tail and turning into a seahorse. Another that begins as a boot, considers turning into a palm tree, before finally joining up with another and becoming the Cheshire Cat. A couple that look like skyships. And one that looks exactly like Appa, much to his absolute delight. Even down to the horns.

An idea grips him with such force he jumps, elbowing his paint water into the sand. Punished by Karma for being creative. Great.

He grabs his lightest pastels and reads the emerald sky again.

One sweeping motion, and there’s now a moon; a glowing crescent against the green hemisphere.

Two soft strokes, and there’s a surrounding haze. He softens it with the very tip of his finger, and feels something flood through him. Yes.

Three quick dots of white, and a belt sits in the sky. After another dozen more, a shield. Then a bow joins.

He’s grinning now, inspiration thrumming through his veins like a current.

After seven more, there’s a plough (Trough? He can never remember which one it is. More like the fucking saucepan. Or square with a tail.).

Completing painting after painting in colour after colour, how has this idea never occurred to him before? He should even include a couple of planets, he thinks as his pencil scrapes in a suggestion of Saturn.

Two moons later he grins at the page, sparkling with new celestial life. He throws his eyes up to the sky, wondering how inhabitable the earth would be had his interpretation somehow become scientifically correct overnight one day.

He tries to imagine a sky with three moons. Scarily large asteroids. Comet trails scarring the atmosphere.

Then his smile vanishes and his eyes return back down to this A1 universe beneath him. Tries to chow down the growing realisation that inhabitability is probably inevitable anyway with the way things are headed, and that the problem is down here, not up there – and he dabs in a small Pleiades. Up there is safe. Under the watchful eye of the Seven Sisters; that’s protection.

Aliens are probably avoiding us on purpose. Who can blame them?

[fiddleabout]

10 and 17 for the salty ask meme (also do 17 for star wars pplease!)

10. Most disliked arc? Why? 

jaune :|

but also i mean in seriousness... i don’t know that i would call it a specific arc but i’ve been generally frustrated around how rwby’s handled the faunus of it all throughout the show.  mostly the fact that most of what we’ve seen or heard about the discrimination of the faunus has been from, y’know, characters like adam, who went for violent retribution, or bits like back at beacon where you just saw cardin bullying velvet.  it’s created a nice neat binary of “good humans are nice to the faunus” and “bad humans are cruel to the faunus” and leaves no room for the vast array of human nature in between it-- specifically that a lot of good people can be and are still racist or prejudiced.  it’s also infuriating that there’s been so little of it in the atlas arc so far, given that atlas has been so heavily implied to be the worst offender of racism against the faunus; there was the bit early in v7 with the drunk guy in mantle, and the crotchety racist grandma in v8, but aside from that it’s just been throwaway bits.  add in the fact that both of those bits have been more about weiss and yang, respectively, than blake, the actual faunus on the team, and...yeah.  the whole faunus situation in the storytelling hits very much like a series of whiffs for me.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

for rwby hmmmmm.  v4′s adventures of team rnjr frustrated me because in a lot of ways it supplanted ruby as a main character with jaune, and in a lot of ways put ruby’s trauma related to pyrrha’s death in the backseat to jaune’s lost not-girlfriend, and also because in general it seemed to prioritize jaune and ren over ruby and nora.  both ruby and jaune’s survivor’s guilt and trauma surrounding pyrrha are equally valid stories, but it seemed like it focused more on jaune than ruby, which frustrated me.  similarly, v4 was where we got the groundwork for ren being a shithead in v7-8, and in a lot of ways treated nora as a prop for his storyline than her own character. 

also like-- and i acknowledge that this is probably generally colored by opinion of how ruby and jaune were handled in the volume-- v4 had a lot more dudes ~saving~ girls in it than i ever like.  qrow showing up to save ruby from tyrian-- because honestly, that really did read more like a ruby fight than a team fight-- and flashback!ren saving nora with his semblance and sun helping/saving blake from locking herself away and tai helping/saving yang with her trauma.  individually each of those stories worked well, but all of them happening in the same volume was like. no thank u.

for star wars: there’s a really great post somewhere that i’m too lazy to find that’s like instead of making anakin basically a war machine when they took him in, the jedi should have made him a crechemaster; if his inability to sever human connections is the worry, then make him connect with a lot of humans and leverage that as a strength instead of a weakness.  rigidly sticking to the dogma of connections = bad and forcing anakin, a traumatized former child slave who loves deeply and without reservation, into being a weapon who’s constantly told he’s forbidden from loving other people, is a recipe for disaster with a dessert of stupidity.  yes, i realize this would mean there’s no epic space opera story to tell and no, i do not mind.

also like.  the entire sequel trilogy tbh.  finn getting a lightsaber and being a jedi just like rey because didn’t they learn in the original war that p much wiped out the jedi that working as a team is better than alone. poe not being a plot punching bag.  rey not being palpatine’s grandkid because what the fuck.  the way they really took the worst part of the og trilogies-- aka that the whole galaxy suffers because of the stupidity of one or two families of people-- and doubled down hard on it and leaned even more into the idea that people are only viable heroes if they have the right bloodline.  i am Not A Fan.

[omercilessmoon]

𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔰

I’m mildly unhinged so I decided to raise reading goal at the beginning of december.  my goal went from 30 to 50.......and somehow I’m finishing with 53 books :0 (kinda...because I also added ss/novellas.)  with that in mind, here is a list of my fave reads this year!

the folk of the air series by holly black (the cruel prince, the wicked king, the queen of nothing)

enemies to lovers in a fantasy world and the girl is excellent with a sword?? this was my favourite series to read this year!

all for the game trilogy by nora sakavic (the foxhole court, the raven king, the king’s men)

I thought this was going to be a fantasy because I just chose the book based on the title and it was not a fantasy....but it did not disappoint.  I love sports books so much I love reading about dumb kids who just love their sport so much

the hating game by sally thorne

@y’all thank u for recommending this!  josh and lucy haste each other....but do they really?  (enemies to lovers with all the best tropes!)

uprooted by naomi novik

I love agnieszka and how she’s like “I’m u but better” @ the the dragon :’)  but really, this such such a rich fantasy world I loved the magic so much.  the final conflict was *chef’s kiss* so good

the darkest powers trilogy by kelley armstrong (the summoning, the awakening, the reckoning)

chloe can’t stop seeing ghost and they won’t stop bothering her.  I love this series so much the kids are so teenager-y and so endearing.  [reread]

things you save in a fire by katherine center

cassie is better than literally all the men she works with but she’s still a women and therefore is still lesser (typical.)  but oh gosh this was so heartfelt.  cassie learning how to forgive and how to let people into her life again.  I cried while reading this.

graceling by kristin cashore

I cried a lot while reading this it is so good I’m so happy that the books got the new covers they deserve.

rebel belle by rachel hawkins

harper gets kissed by a janitor, gets magic powers and is now her david’s bodyguard?  david who writes mean articles about her in the newspaper?  the poor girl just wants to attend her cotillion and graduate high school.  (this is my favourite book.  harper and david have such good chemistry; it’s all tension.  enemies to lovers is the best trope sorry I don’t make the rules.)  [reread]

and if you’re interested, here are all the books I read in 2020!

[snapdraqons]

Ok real talk I think its really important to say that while i am sad about clover’s death and personally would not have killed him off, it definitely wasn’t queerbaiting.

tdlr: FairGame isn’t queerbaiting but people’s (especially mlms’) anger is still understandable.

Queerbaiting is when a show (or other piece of media) hypes up or constantly hints towards lgbt representation and relationships, usually to attract more viewers and discussion surrounding it, only to not carry through with it or have it be negative representation, like just making them the butt of the joke or pulling a ‘bury your gays’. Essentially, it’s a promise of representation that intentionally falls short.

I can see why mlm are upset about Clover’s death- RWBY’s only confirmed mlm character so far was a side character that was announced as gay in the manga, Scarlet David (which, while canon, is not something that all fans- especially casual fans- reads or necessarily knows about). Qrow and Clover’s potential relationship not only made sense with the dynamic they have, but would also be a big step forward in terms of RWBY’s lgbt representation. It would also add two more characters to RWBY’s pretty short list of explicit in-show representation (Coco, Scarlet and May are never explicitly stated as lgbt in the show itself, leaving us with Ilia and the Cotta-Arcs) plus many LGBT fans can relate to some of Qrow’s experiences with mental illness and addiction.

I’m not saying that FairGame wasn’t a good ship or didn’t have canon potential. Personally I really like it. I’m just saying it was not queer-baiting.

I will, however, say that some members of crwby should be criticized (not hated or  sent cruel messages or fucking death threats) for actively creating hype for a mlm relationship that they knew ended in death- and I’m pretty sure that this is what people are referring to when they say that FairGame was queerbaiting. However, most of what I saw (often on twitter) was made in response to fan content and theories- what I think is almost definitely just appreciation for fans of the show. This isn’t what queerbaiting is. If FairGame were queerbaited, there would have been more promises from CRWBY of a canon ship, more mentions of it from senior members of the team. If FairGame were queerbaited, we would’ve had more content of it in official promotional material. If FairGame were queerbaited we likely would’ve had far more explicitly romantic and/or sexual tension between the two characters in-show to make the potential for their relationship more clear because queerbaiting is intentional. Coding is often unintentional (though sometimes looks similar to baiting) and I think this is what people mean to say when they call FairGame queerbaiting.

It’s also worth mentioning that CRWBY seems to have a pretty good track record and attitude towards LGBT characters. We have three canon, healthy representations of lgbt in the main show as well as three canon healthy representations elsewhere in RWBY. Bumblby is- at this point- extremely likely, what with Nora stating she thinks Blake and Yang are more than friends and the ship being used in official promotional material for the show + rooster teeth (if they weren’t to come through with Bumblby at this point THAT WOULD BE QUEERBAITING). Plus it’s worth mentioning that initially the pilot that helped Weiss escape from the Schnee manor was originally supposed to be gay, but that idea was scrapped bc CRWBY felt it was too ‘bury your gays’-ish.

I’ll also say now that almost every video and article I’ve seen on this have specifically spun the story in a way that makes anyone mildly upset about FairGame into a ‘triggered sjw!!1!!!1′ which is also. Not Good. From what I’ve seen most ppl annoyed about this are younger mlm who just wanted some representation. Maybe don’t demonise them mr-straight-dudebro-rwby-youtuber.

ok ok im done. yes i still ship fair game before u ask.

[panicfast]

character traits

tagged by @lydiaalin​ THANK U ilyy!! tagging NOBODY bc im fashionably late per the norm 

italics: applies sometimes  bold: applies most times/always

NORA BERRY

FLAWS

moody | short-tempered | emotionally unstable | whiny | controlling | conceited | possessive | paranoid | lies | impatient | cowardly | bitter | selfish | power-hungry | greedy | lazy | judgmental | forgetful | impulsive | spiteful | stubborn | sadistic | masochistic | petty | unlucky | absent-minded | abusive | addict | aggressive | childish | callous | clingy | delusional | cocky | competitive | corrupt | cynical | cruel | depressed | deranged | egotistical | envious | insecure | insensitive | lustful | delinquent | guilt complex | reclusive | reckless | nervous | oversensitive | rebellious

STRENGTHS

honest | trustworthy | thoughtful | caring | brave | patient | selfless | ambitious | tolerant | lucky | intelligent | confident | focused | humble | generous | merciful | observant | wise | clever | charming | cheerful | optimistic | decisive | adaptive | calm | protective | proud | diligent | considerate | compassionate | good sportsmanship | friendly | empathetic | passionate | reliable | resourceful | sensible | sincere | witty | funny

SKILLS & HOBBIES

art | acting | astronomy | animals | archery | sports | baking | beachcombing | belly dancing | bird watching | blacksmithing | boating | calligraphy | camping | candle making | casino gambling | ceramics | racing | chess | music | cooking | crochet | weaving | exercise | swordplay | fishing | gardening | ghost hunting | ice skating | magic | engineering | building | inventing | leather-working | martial arts | meditation | origami | parkour | people watching | swimming | puppetry | pyrotechnics | quilting | reading | collecting | shopping | socializing | storytelling | writing | traveling | exotic dancing | minor potion brewing | tricks & trinkets | crow keeping