#normal events

[horsewiferikai]

Drawings at Fumiya’s Cupsleeve Event

[spellsparkler]

22 :)

22: "It's like they always say..."

“Disgusting,” Wyll repeats – the point as accurate as it is unnecessary – and Row, staring up through dappled leaves, gestures lazily at him. They blink, careful. It doesn’t feel tender; their eyelid doesn’t stick. They kind of thought they’d be able to feel it more, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

“Your feedback is noted,” Row tells him, and lets their arm drop back into the dirt.

They’re lying on their back in the scrubby grass, the stuff lurid-green and itchy against whatever of their bare skin it can reach – hands, neck, lower back where their jack is riding up. The tree branches rustle up above, sending leaves drifting down around their head. Past that, the sky gleams, blue as cobalt pigment and utterly cloudless. It’s hot. They’re sweating something horrendous in their one dear shirt. Even the jack is probably beginning to smell.

Wyll is pacing around somewhere to their left. He’s got ridiculous amounts of energy – comes of spending years on the road, maybe, but it just makes him seem like a farmland dog. He seems like the sort of man that would need to be walked daily before he could get anything done. But he’s staying with them, kindly enough, because the others went ahead – nominally to scout a path, and actually because they looked justifiably disgusted almost to the point of illness, and Lae’zel in particular looked like she wanted to enact violence on something. Row suspected the thing would be them. They can’t even really blame her. But Wyll stayed, when the rest went off to do something else down the little dirt track, to make sure that Row doesn’t drop suddenly, startlingly dead or explode into a mass of tentacles. It’s very sweet of him.

(Nothing is happening. It doesn’t feel different. They might be able to see a little more, or a little clearer, but it’s hard to really tell; they aren’t dying, though, and their number of limbs remains steady. They’ve got the very barest edge of a headache, but that’s as much from staring into the sun for ten minutes as anything else.)

“Ugh,” Wyll says again – his revulsion is beginning to feel a tad performative – and he skims the edge of their field of view as he turns around, they think, to look at them. “How are you feeling?”

“Two eyes, all my hair, no beak,” Row reports. “I think we’re good.”

There’s a pause; Wyll’s horns come properly into their vision, followed by a vague peripheral smudge of his face. “Yes,” he says, “but how are you feeling? Did it – do anything?”

Row squints up at the quivering leaves.

“It didn’t kill me, or anything,” they say, because that had been their main concern – and not a very big one, seeing as they still did it. “Didn’t really hurt. It doesn’t feel any more crowded, back there – I’m not sure how that works. It doesn’t feel that different, yet.” (It doesn’t; it all feels a little sharper, the things the first tadpole gave them taken a little closer to the bone, but it isn’t as changed as it feels like it could be. Should be.) “But it will. I’m certain of it.”

Wyll thinks about this, if the slow tipping of the horns is any indication; “All right,” he says, and then he appears much more distinctly in view, face silhouetted against green leaves and blue sky. “Disgusting. Why?”

“You don’t need to keep saying that,” Row says, squinting at him.

Wyll twists his lips, wry. “You said you didn’t trust our nighttime caller,” he says. “So why in Balduran’s name would you put that in your eye?”

Row scrunches up their face. “Don’t sound judgemental,” they complain, largely facetious; “What, you’ve never gotten curious?”

Wind rustles its merry way through the leaves, sending one dried-out brown one fluttering down between Wyll’s horns. He raises a brow. “I’ve done many stupid things out of curiosity, but voluntarily housing an illithid parasite? That would be a first.”

Barely even a headache, and two tadpoles swimming around their orbital nerve; Row presses a finger to the hard-curved bone of their eye socket. Wyll’s brow furrows. He says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you stupid.”

That makes them snort. “You can,” they say, and shove themself up to sitting. “It was.”

After a moment, Wyll sits down in the dirt next to them. “Then why?” he asks – and why, indeed?

(Why would Row do such a thing? What reason would be consistent?)

(They know why they did it, of course – for the sixth sense the worm bestowed upon them the first time, garishly colourful and bitter-sweet on the tongue, the spider’s web of links between them all and the easy paths to follow down. Wyll’s body sits next to them, blood-warm and sticky with sweat, and Wyll sits next to them, and they can feel him there, all open spaces and effort. And disgust, right now, which is still fair enough. It feels tangible and present in a way that people so often aren’t; like his mind is a plum in their hands, the skin thin and smooth and yielding under the callused pads of their fingers. He would notice if they dug their nails in to reach the flesh, which is why they don’t, right now, but they could. It’s there. And the surface is mapped out, simple as anything, in the space behind their right eye.)

(It’s been, what, a week since the crash, and with all these new colours to watch – new cartography with every new face, charting what they want, what they don’t, how it all pins together – Row hasn’t slipped up once. Not with any significance, anyway. They’re a social person, but it’s never been this easy.)

(They look at Wyll, and they could crack him open like a walnut shell and make a home in the feast of his organs, and if they play it right then he would want them to.)

But no-one likes it when they say it like that, so they shrug, carefree, and say, “Honestly, I don’t know. I saw it crawling out and – I don’t know, Wyll, it just seemed friendly.”

“The tadpole,” Wyll says. “The parasite.”

“Yes!” It was friendly – very excited to see them, and quite desperate to make itself at home somewhere less exposed than the open air and a cooling corpse. It was mapped out, clear as their companions. “I’m not saying I thought it through. But I got curious, and it would be dangerous to just let it roam free, and surely two tadpoles isn’t much worse than one as far as removal is concerned.” It had been a snap second decision; perhaps they should have thought about it more, but Row’s never been good at worrying about consequences – never been able to fear anything other than imminent death, and that didn’t seem likely. They might be doomed for all eternity, but eternity comes later. “If it’s bad, at least now we know. And if it can help, we need all the help we can get. It’s like they say, you know – a tadpole in the head is worth two in the jar, or whatever.”

“Perhaps,” Wyll says drily, “that’s a newer Baldurian idiom that I’ve missed in my time away.”

There is a pause; some sparrows twitter in the distance.

“I understand some of that impulse,” Wyll starts, and Row tips their head to look at him. “But unknowable powers come with unknowable consequences. We would be rash, to take anything we’re offered until we know what it will cost.”

There’s hair in Row’s face, its curl dragged-down and greasy. Wyll is a better sport about himself than some of the others, they’ve learned; there’s a line they don’t want to cross, but he takes jibes easier than most, and he likes banter. “That’s good advice,” they say, considering, and they crane their neck, flicking their gaze just above his eyes. “Do you follow it?”

He smiles, lips droll, and leans over to jostle their shoulder with his elbow. “As I say,” he says, “not as I do. Do you think we can catch up, now, or should we give Lae’zel more time to cool off?”

[lastoneout]

Actually am still kinda pissed that my fiancé's psychatrist evaluated him for anxiety and said he didn't have it but then was like "in the future I'd like to see you make enough progress with your anxiety that you feel comfortable taking your mask(N95 not neurodivergent mask) off" and didn't seem to care when he explained that his fiancé(me) has several severe chronic illnesses and immune issues so we both do what we can to ensure I don't get sick with any illness, not just covid. Like does he have anxiety or not?? You can't have it both ways buddy!! And like it or not protecting a vulnerable person from getting sick is logical, YOU'RE the one being irrational here.

Like this is why I get pissed about mask(N95) stuff, people have legit fallen into some kind of thought-terminating cliché about covid and all other contagious diseases not being a problem anymore to the point that they think even sick people and their loved ones taking reasonable precautions to protect their health is a sign of anxiety and paranoia. I truly do not get it. Like it's one thing if you personally don't want to wear a mask(N95) but at least leave people who do alone, but legit acting like people like me are insane for doing something that makes perfect sense is turning me into the Joker. It doesn't even work to say "oh I have asthma and allergies and the air quality is bad today" or "I'm having an important surgery soon and need to make sure I don't get sick" like they think wearing a mask(N95) AT ALL in any circumstance for any reason means you've legit lost your mind.

I genuinely feel like the government suddenly started hiding all the national car crash statistics and insisted in tons of press conferences that crashing your car is actually perfectly fine and not a big deal at all and wearing a seatbelt isn't something healthy people need to worry about, so now everyone thinks it's silly to wear one and every time I do I have to deal with people implying or outright stating that I'm legitimately mentally ill and need an intervention.

[kenchann]

ive been meaning to draw this www 🎃👻

[soapyakships]

zukizukizuki zukizukizuki zukizukizuki ZUKIZUKI zukizukizuki zukizukizuki ZUKI ZUKI ZUKI

[caemidraws]

[Swan Song Dream 2/2]

[onefey]

kids these days just don't think 27 is as shockingly young as they used to...

bonus:

[haliaiii]

reading up on argenti’s lore

[hayden-christensen]

OBI-WAN KENOBI (2022) Cinematography by Chung-Hoon Chung

@pscentral event 26: minimalism

[gabichanwrites]

I think that way too many people gloss over the reason why exactly those 6 men were such a big deal and a last straw for the crew and Eurylychous. Up to this point Odysseus made mistakes, yes, and people died because of them but never before has Odysseus made such a deliberate sacrifice.

Before this, he was still their Capitan - a bit arrogant, too prone to playing into Gods' Games and with a damnation right on his heels - but still on their side. Not to mention that this saga happens SO soon after Circe Saga, where he CAME BACK for them, put himself in grave danger and risked his return home to save THEM. Since the wind bag fuck up, this crew must have regained so much trust in him, Eurylychous must have felt so indebted and plagued by his own guilt because of his actions in Ocean Saga and Circe Saga. Because despite their doubts and question of How Much Longer Till His Luck Runs Out, their Capitan still came and saved them.

And then the Different Beast happens and it's ruthless and cruel but it's against their enemies, it feels like protection, no doubt. It's their Capitan making sure that they can make it home, that no other monster will follow them and make it impossible.

But then the Scylla happens and it never has been more clearer than there. Eurylychous would not be that furious if he didn't realize and he IS a second-in-command, he is not stupid. Six men who held the torches died and it was by Odysseus' order. This is no longer slaying every foe on the way home, this is Odysseus willing to sacrifice even them. Is it the same capitan who came back for them on Circe's island, is the same who always did everything he could to make sure they all made it back? How Are They Supposed To Trust Him Now?

This situation is so fucked and both sides have their point, I'm so sick of seeing posts putting the full blame on either side. They are all human and stressed and they don't know what to trust, what to do to come back home - and the worst part of it all, they probably never stood a chance.

After all, Zeus has already said they The Blood On Your Hands Is Something You Can't Lose, All You Can Choose Is Whose.

[whinychimera13]

"Pose for the fans!"

I hate this rabbit I cannot get enough of him. Smug-ass grin oh my god. Look at him eating up the fanfare. Disgusting.

TADC Boxer AU by @burrotello once again JDJSJDJK

[clearlydusty]

Just disappear.

[electoons]

I love the college of winterhold. everyone there is casually deranged and there's like an alarming number of students and staff who threaten you immediately when they meet you. it's always one of the first questlines I do. which makes it even funnier when you get made the arch-mage of the college. I'm level 12 and got through this questline knowing exactly 3 spells. what do you mean you want me to lead the college. this school CANNOT be an accredited institution

[olympiangods]

literally no point in calling 111 they can't help me and im not sure anyone can i just wanna know why i feel so awful i took my fucking meds like for real. where is the serotonin. i am suffering.

[qifreyplushie]

freaks of natureee ... very icky, no good

[lilliancdoodles]

No fit streams this week but he did give us some QSMP meet up photos.

(fit's alt text below the cut)

Quackity stole my glasses

Jaiden taking my phone in Brazil

The icons

Foolish 🦈