#song: rainy days

[libraryofzeglyth]

tiktok by vrubyjn | posted Aug 11, 2023

[rowenarium]

"you can connect any song to a blorbo" is a lovely sentiment, but have you considered: "you can connect any song to a version of yourself?"

[wedarkacademia]

"She's my kind of rain. Like love in a drunken sky. She's confetti falling down all night."

- Tim McGraw, She's My Kind of Rain

[werentloyaltome]

paint it over.

[kpop-bbg]

[kindahoping4forever]

AshtonIrwin: Have you ever seen a professional musician in the studio? 😂 “THANK YOU CLEVELAND!!!”

[cassinova24]

The whole Resident Evil fandom acts like every time Leon appears, it’s a different guy, so what if we just make a spin-off called “Leon Kennedy: Into the Kennedy Verse”

[darkacademiaarchivist]

YOU ARE SO LOVED

YOU ARE SO LOVED

YOU ARE SO LOVED

YOU ARE SO LOVED

YOU ARE SO LOVED

[lunarwildrose]

🎼 Music Game 🎶

I’m interested in seeing what my musically inclined friends and family come up with on this one! 🎼🎶

OK music lovers — here are the rules:

Answer each category with a SONG. No repeats and don’t use the internet (it's tempting but try not to).

Go with the first song that comes to mind, and change the answers to your own (can’t steal mine).

Be sure to put it on YOUR page, not mine.

Place – "Vienna" by Billy Joel Animal – "The Crow and the Butterfly" by Shinedown Number – "1999" by Prince Color – "Misty Blue" by BUCK-TICK A Girl’s Name – "Absolutely Sweet Marie" by Bob Dylan A Boy’s Name – "Danny" by Tiffany Day of the week – "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure Weather – "Rainy Day Man" by Makoto Kino aka Sailor Jupiter

I nabbed this from my surrogate sis, Karen 💜

[libraryofzeglyth]

tweet by thvdiaries | posted Aug 24, 2023

[bestgaslighter]

Song of the day:

Rainy days - V

[shivunin]

14 / 38 / 48 for the Florence asks! ✨

Oooh, thank you so much! I will answer one here and do the other(s) in separate posts c: This gave me a push to finally finish fleshing out an idea that's been sitting for over a year, so double thank you for that! 💗

(Florence + the Machine Writing Prompts)

Hold Me Down

Summary: In the aftermath of Here Lies the Abyss, Cullen finds the Inquisitor alone at the edge of the camp.

(Elowen Lavellan/Cullen | 1,206 Words | CW: Blood, descriptions of shock/panic attack)

“Hold me down, I'm so tired now Aim your arrow at the sky Take me down, I'm too tired now Leave me where I lie.” —Florence + the Machine, “Sky Full of Song”

“—foremost priority should be seeking out and destroying any remaining demons who might have escaped the battle,” Cullen was saying to a scout as they walked, “take a group and scour the fortress for any signs, and then relay the information to Commander Rylen. He’s kept a troop in reserve for cleanup duty.”

“Yes, Commander,” the scout said, peeling off. Cullen paused as he saw an odd shape tucked between two tents and a stack of crates. 

He knew the shape of that staff. 

“Inquisitor?” he called, peering over the stack of crates. The shape shifted, turned slightly, and lifted its head. 

Behind the cowl, her face was still spattered with blood; it was almost enough to obscure the pale lines of her vallaslin entirely, and what the blood didn’t smear was peppered with ash and dust. Her hands were set on her lap, just as filthy as her face, half-curled and limp. And her eyes…

“Lavellan?” he said, and she blinked, blood-clogged eyelashes sticking for a moment to her cheek. Her eyes did not come into focus. 

Ah—he’d seen this before. 

Cullen sidestepped the crates and crouched several inches away, leaving her room on the other side to get away from him if necessary. 

“Can you hear me, Inquisitor?” he murmured quietly, and her bitten lips cracked open. 

“I am fine.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder when he heard movement in the camp. Just a pair of sentries wandering past. He returned his attention to the Inquisitor, whose attention remained fixed somewhere over Cullen’s left shoulder. 

“Can you hear me?” he asked. “Do you know what I am saying?”

There was a long pause. He noted the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the way her blood-soaked hands trembled in her lap. 

“...yes,” she said at last, her voice faint and flat. 

“What do you hear?” 

A soft gasp and her hands twitched in her lap. 

“You.” 

“And what else?” 

She was still breathing too quickly. Cullen eased himself down until he was kneeling between her and the rest of the camp. If nothing else, he could shield her from their speculation. A meager enough offering, but it was one he would give her without hesitation.

“The…the tents in the wind.”

“And?” 

“Metal on stone. People talking.”

“Good. What do you see?”

A frown collected between her brows and she slowly glanced at him to frown. That was good, too. 

“Sand. Tents. The stars.”

“And?” 

“Why?”

“Answer the question.”

She sighed, but her breath had slowed slightly. 

“The crates. My…my hands,” her voice shook on the last word. “You.”

“Alright,” he paused, “Are you with me?”

“Yes, I…yes,” she moved to set her face in her hands and flinched when she saw them clearly. “I—it was…The Fade was…”

“We needn’t discuss it,” Cullen murmured, shifting onto his knees to tug the tail end of his cloak loose. “You don’t have to say anything now. May I see your hand?”

Lavellan extended one hand silently and Cullen pulled the cork from his waterskin to wet the crimson fabric of his cloak. He could not properly clean her skin here; he hadn’t carried soap with him, and the cloth of the cloak was not especially absorbent. Maker, he was covered in his fair share of grime after the battle. Even so, he could get the worst of the blood off. He knew all too well what it meant to have to deal with such aftereffects of a fight. 

To be confronted with the concrete proof of what had happened. 

Her hands shook in his grip, and they were cold even through the barrier of leather. Cullen pressed his lips together, trying to decide if he ought to offer his gloves. Would she take them from him? He could not guess either way. 

“Is that any better?” he asked when he was done. Lavellan took her hand from him and peered at it in the flickering torchlight of the camp, curling and uncurling her fingers. 

“Yes, I—thank you,” she said. She lifted the other hand slightly and froze with it there, hung halfway into the air. Cullen carefully reached out to take it, selecting a different section of fabric to clean the skin with. 

Someone ought to be helping her properly. Someone needed to make sure she found a bath, food, somewhere soft to lay her head. After all he had seen of her, all he knew she had done, Cullen knew better than to think she was fragile. Even so—it tugged at him, to see her so shattered now. 

“It had so many legs,” she whispered hoarsely after a moment. “Too many. I—I couldn’t—I should have—”

Her voice broke at the end, and when the Commander glanced at her he saw that tears had begun to clear some of the muck from her cheeks in clear, straight lines. They dripped from her cheeks black and red-brown, leaving tiny, damp circles on her coat. 

“You’re here now,” he told her, holding her hand for a moment longer than necessary once it was clean. “You aren’t there anymore. It is done.”

“I let him die,” she said quietly, searching his eyes. “I—I told him to stay behind. It’s my fault. And the Divine—it’s my fault, Commander. All of it is.”

Cullen waited for her to continue, but she didn’t go on. She bit her lip again, staring at him. Ah—but what could he say to her now? There was nothing to be done about one’s past mistakes. He knew better than most what it meant to live with regret at one’s back. What to say? All he had was the words he gave his own soldiers when they’d made a mistake, and the words seemed ill-fitting here.  

“Whatever has happened,” he told her, “I’ve no doubt that you made the best decision you could with the resources available to you.”

Lavellan withdrew her hand. Cullen let it go without protest. 

“I…” slowly, the Inquisitor pulled her cowl down and away from her face. She ran her hands over the relatively clean plait beneath. “Thank you.”

It was recognition, but a dismissal as well. Not “thank you for thinking so,” but “please go away.”

Cullen tucked the soiled end of the cloak away and stood, careful not to move too close. 

“If there is anything you need, Inquisitor,” he said softly. “Please—do not hesitate to ask.”

Lavellan inclined her head, but she’d turned away to stare out at the vastness of the dunes and stars beyond. Cullen exhaled slowly and moved to step around the crates. He halted when she spoke again. 

“Cullen?” Elowen said; not Commander, for once, but his name. He turned to look at her and found her eyes, full of tears but clear and focused on his. “Thank you. Really.”

 “Of course,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It was…my honor.” 

Her eyes slipped away again, but her hands were clasped softly in her lap. Cullen straightened, gathered himself, and strode back into the camp beyond.

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Berlin Street with Cabs in Rain – Lesser Ury // ceilings – Lizzy McAlpine

[kpop-bbg]

[jomiddlemarch]

Come with me and escape

“…If you like piña coladas,/ And getting’ caught in the rain,” Joel half-sang, half-muttered as they trudged through the woods, getting steadily wetter with every mile. Joel’s boots were better than Grace’s, so he wasn’t already dealing with wool socks going from damp to soaking, but he didn’t have a hood. His greying hair was nearly black, plastered to his forehead and neck. 

It was about thirty-five degrees, just warm enough to have the rain stay a miserable, cold torture, instead of a transient winter wonderland of drifting snowflakes dusting his shoulders. Landing on the tip of her tongue, the clean water sweeter than sugar.

Yeah, Grace could do with a freaking piña colada or really, just the rum. Like a full pitcher of rum. Maybe heated with a poker. 

Maybe poured straight down her throat.

“You like getting caught in the rain?” she asked. There had been a time, within recent memory, when this had seemed like not just a good idea but a nice one. A scouting salvage trip in an area that had a low risk of clickers, the destination an abandoned cabin that had been established as a Jackson safehouse after its owners took refuge in the commune. It had seemed like it could be romantic, good for their relationship, which wasn’t exactly falling apart but let’s face it, raising a teenager together wouldn’t have been easy Before, when there were family therapists, ample supplies of coffee and ibuprofen, and her best friend Lauren and Lauren’s complete collection of The Thin Man DVDs, to provide the ideal variations of respite. Now, when Joel had his past to deal with and Grace had hers, Ellie had a mouth on her like a bear-trap, and they lived in a two bedroom house with one bathroom and mediocre water pressure, making something more than a series of hook-ups and hang-outs sometimes seemed impossible, even when she factored in Joel’s dark eyes and his hands strumming his guitar. And what it felt like to open the door for him and have him walk in, whether it was the clinic or the canteen or the bedroom with the overly rustic bedframe.

(Seriously, the original inhabitants of Jackson had never met a log they didn’t fashion into a piece of clunky furniture. Sometimes, Grace actually felt a physical longing for her college futon.)

This trip had seemed like a good idea and it might have kept on seeming that way until the clouds had seized up on the horizon and turned a livid shade that meant an icy rain and plenty of it. She’d tried to ask the question without sounding snarky and had only ended up just this side of phony naiveté. For a women well north of forty who’d survived FEDRA, there was no innocence left, let alone naiveté.

“Fuck no, I don’t like getting’ caught in the rain,” Joel said. “I wasn’t real fond of long walks in the rain or long walks on the beach or any of that personal ad shit back in the day.”

“You read personal ads?” Grace said. Sports page, police blotter, hell, she could even envision Joel thumbing through the real estate section of the Sunday paper, but the idea that he’d read personals was a surprise.

“Yeah,” he said.

Grace took another step and felt the squelch within her boot. She’d be lucky not to get frostbite or trench foot before they got to the cabin. She frowned and Joel noticed.

“I didn’t answer any of ‘em, in case you’re wonderin’ that,” he said. “Tommy nagged me for a while, when Sarah was about eight, said I needed to get off my ass and get laid. And that if I hadn’t found anyone willin’ in the PTA already, I wasn’t likely to. But it felt fake and anyway, I was busy working.”

Grace took a particularly graceless step and wobbled a little. Joel reached out and took hold her her elbow, steadying her without altering his own gait. There’d been nothing grabby about his hand, despite the suddenness of the gesture, and it felt both comforting and erotic, his warmth and strength at her disposal, guiding her.

“Guy like you would never need a personal ad. If you wanted someone, you would’ve had her just like that,” she said, attempting to snap her fingers.

Joel smiled.

“Just like that, huh? Just like right now?” he said.

“I mean, talk to me once we’re inside the cabin and you’ve managed to light a fire that doesn’t fill the place with smoke,” she said.

A drop of rain rolled down her nose.

“I feel like a drowned rat,” she said, grimacing. 

“I’ve seen you look worse,” he said.

She glared at him as much as she could with the rain spitting into her face and Joel grinning back at her.

“I take it back. Seven out of ten women would’ve walked out of the bar and left you high and dry. They’d say your ad was a scam and you were a jackass,” she said.

“High I can’t manage, but dry sounds good, Gracie,” he replied. He squinted, which should have been unattractive but wasn’t (unfair! her inner monologue complained and dead-Lauren rolled her eyes), and pointed. “Cabin’s another five-ten minutes west. I’ll make you a fire and we’ll settle in for the night. Brought some of Ted’s goulash, you won’t have to get by with crackers and canned peaches.”

“Fine. I revise my estimate. Six out of ten, unless you met them after you played a set. Then only one walks,” Grace said.

“That one you?” he said. He was teasing but she heard the uncertainty underneath. Joel wasn’t used to being loved by a woman. What he and Tess had had together was something else, and he’d hardly ever spoken of Sarah’s mother. Ellie’s affection he could accept and even Tommy and Maria’s, but he didn’t trust Grace wanted him all the time, all the ways.

“No. If you played ‘Walkin’ After Midnight,’ I would’ve said let’s skip the drinks and go home,” she said. 

“Woulda been your place,” Joel said. “I didn’t bring home strange women where Sarah might see ‘em.”

“Good. I’d have liked being a strange woman for a while,” Grace said. They were finally at the cabin. She let Joel handle unlocking the door and focused on getting in and getting her boots and wet socks off. Once she was barefoot, she couldn’t exactly sigh in relief, because the cabin was frigid and her hair was damp, Joel cursing softly while he laid the fire, but she made a sound of quasi-contentment and sat down on the old sofa to root around in her pack for fresh socks.

They were bound to be all the way at the bottom.

“What a fucking miserable night,” Joel said, the wood having caught, the firelight painting his face with gold, his wet hair still black. The rain had turned heavier and the wind started blowing it against the windows.

“It’s okay. Now we’re inside,” she said, pulling on mismatched striped socks that reached her knees. Joel glanced at them and laughed.

“You’re leanin’ into the strange woman thing, yeah?” he said.

“Ellie raided my sock drawer. I didn’t take laundry day into account. Beggars can’t be choosers,” Grace said. “Once it warms up in here, I can take them off—”

“Don’t. Leave ‘em on,” Joel said. “Once it warms up in here, I’ll take off everything else.”

Perhaps, under certain very specific circumstances, which did not require Ted’s goulash, Joel did like getting caught in the rain. That was all Grace could surmise a few hours later, eating the last of the goulash while Joel lay back against the headboard, his bare chest against her back, his hand keeping the bowl steady on her lap.

He was humming the song and she could hear the smile on his face, a clear bright note against the counterpoint of the still falling rain.

Tagging @tessa-quayle because she's my number one Grace Yang fan.