#so no shippy bits

[dry-yellow-marker]

every day i loose my mind a little bit more thinking about rengoku kyojuro so here's an analysis of "where is your rider" by the oh hellos and how i relate it to his character

these lyrics could refer to rengoku upholding his father's legacy and the times where people mistake him for his father. there are two big instances of this that i know of: the elderly woman in mugen train and the former lower rank two demon from rengoku's spinoff chapter*.

in the genius annotation of this song, the line "but i know that wicked shape to your smile" is a reference to the previous song in the album, "pale white horse", and the crooked smile of death. this line could also relate to rengoku realizing that he is unlikely to survive the battle with akaza-- as a demon slayer and a hashira, he is very familiar with death and might know when it is coming. if you REALLY wanted to get into specifics, you could also argue that the line above it, "see, your face wasn't quite as i remember" could refer to the sickness and death of his mother-- with that context, this would mean that rengoku saw death up close in the form of watching his mother pass and now recognizes that it is coming for him.

*i haven't been able to get my hands on this myself so this info comes from the kny wiki

rengoku's self-sacrificial and selfless nature!! this is so him!! "so bury me as it pleases you lover / at sea, or deep within the catacomb" could be the uncertainty of a demon slayer's life and the constant threat of death that they face. rengoku worked tirelessly as a slayer and was well aware that he was likely going to die on the job, likely somewhere out of his control and far away from his home.

"but these bones never rested while living" is literally every hashira idk what to tell you just trust me this is the most rengoku lyric to ever lyric

if you wanted, you could also see the last line as akaza calling for rengoku to become a demon and not squander his potential; instead of "languishing in repose" (becoming weaker with time) he should preserve his strength. it could also be akaza asking rengoku directly, "how can you stand becoming weaker with age/time when you have so much strength?"

the first line is again a reference to "pale white horse", which establishes "the cavalry" as death. if we continue with our previous metaphor for death being akaza, this section of the song can be focused on akaza and rengoku's battle and their warring philosophies.

i like to wrap the first and second lines ("he has thrown down the cavalry as gravel sinks / and as the stone founders underneath the sundered sea of red and reed") into general "ooo big fight", but i'd be really interested to see if anyone had anything to add to these lyrics!!

finally, "the shadow of hades is fading / for he has cast down leviathan, the tyrant, and the horse and rider". the song originally contains this segment to emphasize jesus christ's defeat of death through his resurrection with the "horse and rider" referring to death again. however, for rengoku (who did NOT beat death smh) i think that this instead refers to his life & purpose fighting demons. "the shadow of hades is fading" is about his FEAR of death fading because he knows that saving the lives of the people around him is more important.

"For he has cast down Leviathan, the tyrant, and the horse and rider" could be some of his past achievements as a demon slayer if you stretch it a bit! this section of the song is the hardest for me to explain, so i apologize if it's a little iffy compared to the rest

"he will hold with all of his might the armies of night" is his battle with akaza (akaza, as an upper moon, being the "armies of night"). following that, "still as boulders laid to the side 'til we pass by" could be his motivation to defeat akaza-- protecting the train passengers and tanjiro, zenitsu, & inosuke.

an alternative perspective (because i have a lot of those apparently) is that the "armies of night" are demons as a whole and this refers to his career as a demon slayer overall. he neutralizes demons, rendering them "still as boulders" so that others can go about their lives without fear (pass by).

finally, i see this chunk as relating to rengoku's legacy and his impact on the main cast (mainly tanjiro).

"he has hoisted out of the mire every child" is him saving not only saving the passengers of the mugen train but also guiding and mentoring tanjiro, inosuke, and zenitsu throughout the mugen train arc. ("every child" being the main trio-- not as much nezuko unfortunately but i still love her).

"so lift your voice with timbrel and lyre" represents tanjiro's growth as a person and as a demon slayer following rengoku's mentorship and death. he promises to honor rengoku's sacrifice and legacy by "lifting his voice" to become a better and more dedicated protector.

"we will abide, we will abide, we will abide" is tanjiro specifically promising to carry rengoku's final words with him, literally abiding by his final words: set your heart ablaze.

in conclusion,

[batbabydamian]

hihi! i’m the anon that asked what your damijon looked like! AND THEY WERE SO CUTE OMGMG, but i’d also like to ask what your super sons damijon looks like as well? 🥹 tyty 🙏

hii thank you for that ask, and i'm glad you liked it!! here's a super sons ^^

[sleepsi]

Something I drew in the @daycarefriendpickup ‘s magma! Also I don’t think I’ve spent so long drawing in one day before, this one took a longgggg time.

[mephoj]

late night chat

[mxmarsbars]

“I keep tallies, I keep score

I’m a petty thing on a high, high horse.”

-

more impulsive clock duo art everybody say “thank you mxmarsbars”

anyways this is THEIR song and their song ONLY literally argue with the wall (that is a joke to each their own) but I WILL write a personal essay to anybody about it and how it fits them so so so well like it’s concerning /j

see if you can find all the lil details :3 (they’re nothing crazy just little things)

(also this was so unprompted and impulsive so I’ll probs redraw it again at some point with loads more planning and better poses and stuff I’m sorry if this disappoints anyone because it’s disappointing me kinda but I spent way too long on it just for it to never see the light of day)

[h-didanart]

I could try to make this a whole comic, but I don’t have the patience to. So….

Bloodmoon giggled to himself as he scurried away. It wasn’t always that he could get such a good glance at the Daycare idiot’s daily routine, but when he did, boy was it a blast.

Some odd creature emerged from the portal and some confrontation took place, he was excluded from it, having been up in the rafters and all, so he had been in a perfect position to see the absolute frustration in the Sun-Man’s face as the creature toppled over his precious barrel towers, and then, and then— he snorted just remembering— and then the Sun-Man chased around the creature screaming every single swear word that could ever be said.

He had almost fallen off the rafters from laughing too hard, which had sadly gotten him spotted by the computer, which meant he had to leave. But still, it had been very amusing, so now he was on his way to the place he and the little Pumpkin Sprout usually met at— the theatre basement, with its infinite food supply and stuff— and he was going to talk to them about it, because they had to know.

He entered the space, bouncing in place at seeing the pumpkin bot already there, and he approached them.

Hmm, Little Sprout didn’t usually go for knives that quickly. Nor did they usually tackle him that quickly, nor would they aim for his eye, nor would they be the ones to start a sneak fight, nor— okay this was just not how Jack normally acted. Which meant…

[1-marigold-1]

you're mad about xisuma and wels... so welsuma maybe? :>

this is purely platonic since I don't do romantic ships with Xisuma (he's aroace in my heart <3) but yeah! They seem like dudes that just meet up sometimes and talk about stuff, they both have pretty chill vibes

[billwasnot]

Happy

Birthday

Till

Imagine this: right after Round 6, Till, shell-shocked, is back in his living quarters. He needs something to distract him, anything. He looks through his Anact album. He finds his birthday photo.

Back then, he was so surprised that his friends decided to celebrate it with him, that they got him something, even. The cake was messy, but it's rare for Till to even have any, so he won't complain.

(Ivan got it. Snatched it from one of the fancy dinner parties he attended. It had to be secretly stored for a week, and him, Mizi and Sua had to make it look somewhat presentable again.)

Till didn't know where to look. He had his present, of course, but Mizi was right there hugging him, her head on his shoulder. He could die from happiness right this moment.

(The celebration was Ivan's idea, of course. He remembered Till's birthday without any reminders, so he had a bit of a headstart on gift preparations. He convinced Mizi to help. That was easy, she adored celebrations. Sua tagged along with Mizi, like she always did.)

Till looks at the photo. All of them are so young, so happy. His friends are smiling. His friends are alive.

Before he knows it, he breaks down crying.

The ink on the hand-written congratulations is ruined.

[starflungwaddledee]

For 💖🎀, what about Marx? Little cute creature concealing incredible magic and uncanny features! I think he could be so mean to her ❤️

oh... anon you are very big brained for this one. he could unfortunately be so so mean to her.... and he has such pretty pretty wings! she would be enraptured instantly.

bonus eye-anim version (cw eyes/flashing gif):

[colfy-wolfy]

lilypad(Moon×Sig)? 🥺

is it obvious that this one's my favorite ?

although I hc that sig is a dude-ish (demi maybe?) and moon is gorl, I also hc moon being bi and sig being trans plus bi so it still counts as queer !

Reminder that I won't be doing ragequit or anything involving inv! nothing against these ships, I just personally don't feel comfortable with them

[spicyraeman]

Happy Pride!

[tblsomedoodles]

Just me back on my rvb bullshit in the form of some rare pair cuddles.

I drew Simmons being clingy last time, so now it was wash's turn. and i was actually brave enough to start posting the fic for these two as well, so have that link too.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

So nice to see Blue and Adam be friends.

“I get it. It’s simplifying.” They first liked each other because they thought they were both *different* in the same way, now they can recognize that they’re different from each other but their different personhoods come from a similar place. Also I just love that Blue explains why she was mad at that guy to Adam not in a she owed him an explanation way because she doesn’t, but just because she cares about him and wants him to understand as much as possible. And she’s very blunt about it while also reaching for that connection it’s a nice progression from their fights last book

[dandelion-wings]

for whumptober: jean or lisa for “magic with a cost”? thank you!!

Thank you for the prompt! :> I was going to just go with Lisa because I've done less whump for her, but somewhere along the development process I went, "why not both?" Which made twisting Lisa's arm (c.f. yesterday's post) that extra bit harder, but it was fun to do! I hope you enjoy it too.

---

Even an illustrious member of the Hexenzirkel can make mistakes at times.

Lisa hadn't been thrilled when Alice co-opted the doors to the restricted section to install a passage to her Theater Lobby. The guests passing in and out of the library are not always quiet, and it makes entering the actual restricted section *much* more difficult. The one advantage is that now, everyone who's poked and prodded her over the years as to what may be down there now believes that it was Alice's little play-place the whole time. Only a handful of people know otherwise.

Unfortunately, the restricted section doesn't just hold books. Not everything there has dealt well with having such strong, otherworldly magic nearby, and Alice... well, Lisa has long known that Alice doesn't bother to cleanly seal her spells. Klee isn't a patch on her mother when it comes to collateral damage.

Though that seems a bit too understated a term for what they're looking at.

"What *is* it?" Jean asks, her voice hushed with horror. "Something of the Abyss?"

"No," Lisa tells her. "I'm not impressed with the Hexenzirkel right now, but I must admit they're very good about keeping Abyssal influences out of any space they decide to meddle with. They would never take the easy way out when making a new domain."

Not that Jean likely knows that partitioning off a space where the leylines touch the more malleable space of the Abyss *is* the easiest way to make a domain. Jean isn't here for her expertise, but because she had been the first one Klee had found to report that there was "something funny" behind the door. In the real space behind the door, not Alice's portal.

Jean is also the only other person currently present in Mondstadt who's actually allowed into the restricted section, or to know what everything in it *is*. She, like Varka, has a general understanding of the tomes and artifacts kept here; unlike Varka, she's put effort into learning which ones are most dangerous and why instead of just asking Lisa to keep an eye on them all. Lisa can sure she's trying desperately to match this sprawling mass, glittering tendrils of elemental energy creeping out of the room it's in to dig into the walls and floor and ceiling, with her own mental inventory of the place.

For her own part, Lisa feels almost preternaturally calm. When they had rounded the corner and seen this glittering maelstrom bulging out of the room it had been in, door torn down and mostly subsumed into the mass--it is, after all, mostly Dendro--she had been terrified for one hot, awful second, the taste of metal all down her throat. Lisa can't think of any better way to have a Nail hammered into the city than to let an unauthorized branch of Irminsul, laden with the forbidden knowledge concealed beneath the Ordo, arise within its walls.

Then she had remembered Jean behind her, and Klee waiting anxiously up in the library, and Sucrose in the lab next door, and Noelle dusting upstairs. All the knights in and around this building. All the people of Mondstadt, going calmly about their daily lives. That was when the calm had fallen. She doesn't know how long it will last, but she'll make every second count.

"*This* actually comes from one of the restricted books themselves. The Lawrences collected many books about magic in their attempts to more and more strictly control Mondstadt. A few thought they could somehow become the next Decarabian. But, well, when you're collecting books about foul magics, sometimes the book *is* the foul magic. This one was written in elementally-charged ink on paper woven in part out of Petrified Trees. Which is a very foolish thing to do. All you need is some resin... which I'm sure Alice used in her own work."

"So when Alice designed her Theater, there was enough resin in it for this to revitalize? Like a tree in a Domain?" Jean asks.

"Yes," Lisa says, proud as she would be of any student making a connection between what they've been told and what they already know, "very good. Not in the same way, of course. But once it woke, it started to take root and seek for leylines. That takes elemental energy, so it's consuming all it can from the environment. You can see how it's going after the Geo in the walls now. There was Dendro in the other books in there, so I suppose they've all been lost."

She sighs in regret. The knowledge they'd held might not have been forbidden, but there was a reason the Librarians of the Ordo had spent generations keeping those books hidden underground, safe from Celestia's gaze. What was in there might have had value, someday, in helping defend Mondstadt against threats the gods would rather they not even know exist.

"All right." Jean's voice is stronger now that she feels she has a handle on the situation. "What can we do about it?"

Her eyes shadowed with worry, but her hand flexes with eager impatience on her sword's hilt. Through the fear and false calm, Lisa almost smiles. Of course it was *'we'*, even though Jean has no idea what she faces or what to do. She won't abandon this to Lisa's expertise.

Perhaps it's unfair to let Jean participate, young and unknowing as she is. Lisa knows what taking control of this situation will cost anyone involved in it. She has paid that fee before, for a much more foolish cause. It would be kinder to tell Jean to step aside and tell her there's nothing she, unskilled in magic, could do. Jean is full of the kind of potential that Lisa has long since burnt out; isn't it waste to risk burning that, too, when Lisa could in theory bear the full cost? But she's too selfish to refuse.

"We'll need a seal. A very strong one. Luckily, that's something I'm very good at. Unluckily... making it will be very dangerous for us both."

Two years of helping Cyrus seal Hermanubis, over and over, until it stopped breaking through to overwhelm Cyno and he could develop his own control. She'd done a great deal of research in those two years. Along with all the other learning she'd been doing at the Akademiya, of course.

She had left her notes for them when she left the Akademiya, and Cyrus and Cyno far surpass her now. But this thing is taking root far too fast. There's no time to send for either. There's only what Lisa knows, from all that research and from one painful trial, about containing anything that feeds on elemental energy. It has to be blocked off before it *does* reach the leylines. There are no emergent outcroppings in the city, or close around it, thank Barbatos (quite literally, Lisa suspects), but if the roots continue to lengthen, they'll eventually reach deeper flows.

"What will we need?" Jean asks, as if Lisa hadn't said a word about danger. She's so charmingly reliable in moments like these.

"That adorable book Alice gave Klee as her catalyst," Lisa tells her, not without regret. "And two more catalysts from the armory. If we have a copy of the 'Skyward Atlas', I would prefer that, but I know we have copies of 'Sacrificial Fragments' and 'The Widsith,' and both of those would work. I already have my Favonius Codex," she adds tapping the familiar tome, passed down from one Ordo Librarian to another over the centuries.

It, like Klee's book, will be a shame to sacrifice, but she's written out copies of what it contains, just as her predecessors have before her. Those are locked away down here too. Binding a new copy in the requisite metals for magical channeling is simple enough.

Jean nods, salutes her, and turns to rush back up the hall to the stairs.

That leaves Lisa to begin designing the seal. This is going to have to be a strong one. *Very* strong, to lock this would-be leyline tree in. Fortunately, it doesn't have to literally encompass the sprouting mess in front of her; it just needs to do so symbolically. Otherwise, Cyno would have had to stand in the middle of a seal diagram for most of his childhood. Such seals rely on the caster's will to give that symbol force.

Will, and magical energy. If Lisa was relying on her Vision, that would be enough for this--the elemental strength she can bring to bear with it, reinforced in this case by Celestia's magic locking the energy that flows through Visions into a rigid and obedient course, would do the job, though it might cost her Vision to do so. That's a price Lisa, ambivalent about that very power, would be willing to pay alone. But an elementally-fueled seal would only serve as more sustenance for this sprout. This one has to rely on another source.

Very little magic in the modern era doesn't rely on the elements. Even when scholars speak of "old techniques," they're talking about herbalism, which still involves the elemental affinities of certain plants, or tapping the leylines, which remains an occasional if dangerous recourse for those without Visions but had been much more common before the Cataclysm. But there are even older techniques from before the establishment of the Thrones, some still practiced in various cultures under the guise of traditional healing, or martial arts, or superstitious rituals, that draw on another source entirely.

Her own lifeforce isn't a price Lisa *wishes* to pay. Neither if Jean's, whether or not she's willing--which of course she is, as a Gunnhildr, even if she doesn't fully understand the danger Lisa had mentioned. The danger Lisa isn't willing to explain, too close to old memory, too likely to rouse the fear that she's barely holding back.

Lisa draws her seal slowly, carefully, refusing to let that fear, however bitter in her throat, impede her work. She does use her Vision to crack two blocks in the walls, creating niches where she can set the catalysts she'll use as anchor-points. Her Codex she goes ahead and sets on the floor beneath one niche before drawing the appropriate lines around it.

Sumeran seals tend to use threes, Liyue prefers sevens, and Inazuma likes fives. Khaenri'ah was emphatically locked into pairs, and Fontaine has a terrible, unstable tendency to use just one anchor-point that Lisa hopes will change now that it's nearly wiped them out. Mondstadt doesn't have a sealing tradition in the first place as far as the Akademiya is concerned, but Lisa knows better. What else are the Four Winds and their Temples?

"I have them," Jean says, appearing behind her with her arms full of books.

The armory did have a Skyward Atlas; Lisa places it above the Codex, and Klee's book in the other niche. She hesitates between the small stack of copies of Sacrificial Fragments (ones Lisa had very precisely copied herself, each blurred and illegible line, while demanding exact replicas from Wagner for the binding) and the single copy of The Widsth before choosing one of the first. It may matter that it's in her own hand.

"It's growing fast," Jean says, audibly unnerved.

Lisa had been deliberately keeping her eyes averted as she worked. Now she looks. The tendrils have grown thicker, plunging deep into the stone--not breaking it, but absorbing it as they go. The door is gone, and the mass is taking on the distinct shape of a trunk. There are at least three questing taproots.

"We'll take care of *that*," Lisa tells her. She reaches up to undo her Vision from her throat, passing it back to Jean. "Our Visions will only get in the way. Set them by the exit, please. Mine will reinforce the wards on that door nicely, just in case."

She feels naked without her Vision. Even with all her suspicions about what it is, what it means, the cost of using it, it's still a part of her, and a well-worn and familiar tool. Which is why she can't risk drawing upon it in a panic.

Facing the burgeoning growth before her, Lisa breathes in deeply, tasting more bile bitter and metallic in her throat. By the time Jean returns, she has the shape of what they need in her mind.

"We need to extend this seal to encompass the whole root, and block it off," Lisa tells her, and holds out her hand. "Put your right hand within the circle on the wall, and your right foot within that one on the floor. Good." Lisa follows suit on the left. "Now, look with your Elemental Sight. Can you see the seal?"

"The square closing off the hall? It has no elemental signature...."

"If it hadn't already started eating the walls and Albedo wasn't up on Dragonspine, Geo might have worked. Though with that much Dendro, I doubt it. The technique we're using does have a physical cost," Lisa adds, because it wouldn't be fair not to warn her. "We both may end up incapacitated, or worse, when it's over, but we have to put up with it until the end unless we want this to go *very* badly."

Jean squares her shoulders and straightens her spine. "If that is so, place as much of the burden onto me as you can. I am the better suited. Though I mean no offense."

The fond affection that warms Lisa at that so-characteristic declaration is tinged with guilt. "None taken, cutie. Now, focus on the right-hand corners of the square, and imagine them pushing outward, into the corners of a box. Try to do so as you imagine the dandelions of your breeze," she adds, aware of Jean's personal mnemonics, "so that it will manifest in your Sight."

Jean nods and sets her jaw, and Lisa feels the seal start to shift. Lisa has to moderate her own efforts to match Jean's pace and not deform the spell. Already Lisa can feel energy starting to siphon out of her, a gradual lethargy like an afternoon slump, not yet the torrent she knows will come.

The far corners of the box slide past the trunk, laying out the dimensions of a boundary not yet formed. "Stop," Lisa says, and Jean stops pushing, holding steady, maintaining position with a warrior's rather than a mage's discipline. It's good enough. "Now the walls of the box. This will be the hard part. That tree is aware enough to resist."

"We won't let it pass," Jean vows.

Already, the tendrils are reaching further, closer to the intended boundary. "Jean, *now.*"

Walls shimmer into existence in their Elemental Sight. For a moment they simply glow, clear and white, not yet fully solid, but drawing more and more strength. Lisa blinks against the growing lethargy of it. Then a creeping tendril brushes against one forming barrier.

Confused, curious, more tendrils react out, seeking along the boundaries of its confinement for a way through. They pause for a considering moment as they determine there is none. And then the roots *erupt*.

The tendrils lash against the barrier of the seal, and Lisa hears Jean cry out. Her side holds steady, though, even against such onslaught. Lisa's waver as she feels her skin ripping open, as if she herself had borne the lash. She gasps, tasting iron, and steadies them by force of will.

"This will harden them," she manages to say, "but it will get worse," and then she starts to recite the verbal seal.

More tendrils slam against the walls of the box, and more open welts bloom with them. Lisa's voice falters. Ripples appear, on her side, where the tendrils rake the seal.

She can feel Jean reaching out within their joint working, the visualization that's far closer to what Jean has trained in before, and take hold of Lisa's half of the box. Taking more of the burden, as she'd asked. With guilty relief, Lisa lets the brunt of that go and focuses on the chant.

Her fingertips and toes are beginning to tingle. Fatigue, not merely lethargy, creeps into her bones. Jean's fingers tighten on hers in a way that suggests she can feel the numbness, too, while welts continue to split her flesh. Lisa adjusts her grip to hold her wrist. They can't lose this connection.

The walls are holding strong by the force of a Gunnhildr's will. Word by word, Lisa hardens them further. They begin to take solid form, almost, *almost* visible without Sight as well as through it. The tendrils beat harder against them, those three thick taproots trying to bore through. Jean sets her jaw, only a low moan escaping through gritted teeth. Her breath hitches, then steadies.

Under Lisa's tingling fingertips, her pulse hitches, too. Hitches, steadies, then hitches again, beating too-fast and uneven, fluttering and frantic with more than just the palpitations of fear and fatigue. Lisa tastes iron again, and this time the terror isn't for herself.

"Jean, let go," she says, between verses of the chant. "I can finish this alone."

Jean's grip tightens around her wrist. "I will not fall before this is done."

Lisa feels the walls soften and takes up another round of the spell, but she dares a sideways look at Jean as she does. She's white-faced where her cheeks haven't cracked bloodily open, and her lips are going blue. The clumsiness of her grip says that the numbness must be all through her hands, and she has the wide-legged stance of the unsteady.

She is the stronger of them, it's true. Physically, she has more stamina. But she runs close to her limits all the time, no days at peace, no time to recover. Lisa hoards her strength and barely ever expends it. She has more reserves than Jean has endurance.

Twisting her arm free, she slams her elbow into Jean, pushing her backwards. Jean stumbles, crying out in fear and horror as her foot leaves its circle, and her hand slips from the niche. Lisa steps into them, spread-eagle, and seizes all four points of the seal.

For a moment the box's corners weaken. Sensing weakness, the tendrils lash out again. Lisa feels her skin split, raw and red, and doesn't try to hold back her scream. Then she launches shakily back into the spell. One more chorus--two more, maybe, with the interruption--and it *will* take permanent form.

Numbness crawls up her arms, up her legs, tingling at her joints and beginning to tighten her scalp and turn her face to rubber. It's worse than the welts, though at least she can't feel them in the spots where it touches. The fatigue crushes downward; she can feel the drop through her body as it tries to crash into unconsciousness, jerks her head up against it, and feels her heart hammer with adrenaline as fear and fury buy her the time to recite the last line of the last round of the spell.

The Skyward Atlas and Klee's Dodoco Tales are gone from beneath her hands, the Favonius Codex and Sacrificial Fragments no longer at her feet. Barriers shimmer into place between the eight anchor-points of a Hypostasis-perfect cube. The tendrils flail wildly and the remaining chunks of wall within the box melt into pure Geo, the sprout consuming the last dregs of elemental energy it can touch. Then, its taproots having failed to set, it starts to dissolve.

"Give it a few hours, and we can take that back down. Though we'll have to do something about that hole it's left behind," Lisa says, and then the drop hits again and this time takes her with it, right into Jean's arms.

She's only fully out for a moment, though she's groggy and fuzzy-headed as Jean hauls her up to the section door, lays her down, and summons up a breeze from her Vision. The scent of dandelions revives her. The open welts still burn, tender and raw, but the breeze has at least stopped their bleeding. Her limbs and face and scalp are still numb.

As are Jean's. Lisa can see her, breathing steadily and easily now, pinching her own fingers. "Is this permanent?" she asks with all the worry of a knight who depends upon her body's skills.

"No, cutie," Lisa assures her, heady enough with relief to give her an indulgent smile. "It may last a few weeks, though, so you'll just have to take a break until it fades." She tries to reach out and take Jean's pulse, but she can't feel it, either; she'll have to trust in the color coming back to her face, and insist they follow up with Barbara as soon as they're able to leave. "I do mean you'll *have to*. If you don't rest and recover now, you may pay for it for the rest of your life. I have some experience on the subject."

"You do? That would explain.... Is this why you're so often tired?" Jean looks at her with too-keen eyes.

Lisa smiles up at her. "One of the reasons. Don't worry, Jean. The last time I did something like this, I was all alone. There's much less risk when working together."

"I am grateful you allowed me to take it on at your side, for so long as I could," Jean says, reaching out to clumsily grasp Lisa's hand.

She squeezes it, the pressure dull and distant through layers of nerveless skin. Lisa squeezes back as best she can.

"I couldn't have done it without you," Lisa tells her, and feels the truth of that, the relief of that, humming in her chest.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Blood Over Bright Haven

high fantasy set in a walled city that protects its citizens from the deadly Blight outside

a woman who’s become the first ever female highmage in a sexist environment, is competing with her new peers to discover a way to source a spell allowing them to extend the border walls

she’s mocked and given only a janitor as an assistant - a man from the nomadic indigenous groups outside the walls, who came to the city as a last resort and lives as a second class citizen

when they discover the horrifying secret behind what powers their magic, she’s forced to question everything she knows, and put aside her own goals in pursuit of the truth

a magic system like programming

[windydrawallday]

There's a raging fire in my heart tonight Growin' higher and higher in my soul! There's a raging fire in the sky tonight I wanna ride on the silver dove far until the night.

I have had this concept cover art for quite a while... was for a comic idea showing Starscream alongside Predaking having an aerial race, an excuse to draw more backgrounds, and especially cloudy vistas.

Never got past this stage but I hope when I get my creative energies back (I'm only using them for a commission I need to finish right now) to find myself tackling this idea again!