#sorry to people wanting to see the other stuff lol

[krikeymate]

you're the flame that keeps my soul alight

fire fic. it comes with art!!

- - -

Heat.

An acrid taste sticking to her tongue, her teeth, her lips.

Her throat is an arid wasteland.

Breathing becomes choking.

Eyes burn through closed lids.

The floor is hard and bruising beneath her bones.

She wants to move, tries to move, but there’s a stickiness coating her body, her hands, her face. It leaves her stuck to the floor. Her skin tingles, alight with a warning she can’t quite grasp. Her head is so heavy and there’s a voice in her head telling her it’s ok little one, you can rest now, you can sleep, I’ll watch over you.

But there’s something… wrong with it.

The voice in her head usually sounds a lot less like her mother and more like…

Sam.

Where’s Sam?

Find Sam. She’ll help.

Tara struggles to open her eyes; drowsiness had set its hooks in deep. But eventually, she does, and regrets it immediately.

Around her a fire rages, the room ablaze and coated with a fog of heavy smoke.

Well shit.

Not for the first time, Tara feels the urge to just lay down and die. Why not? I’m already more than halfway there, it would be so easy, she thinks, head rolling to the side.

Ah, that’s why.

Her vision narrows in on the shape of her sister through the smoky haze, slumped unconscious against a wall with her arms pulled upwards and tied at the wrists. Whatever would you do without me? Tara muses, rolling onto her stomach.

The effort of climbing to her hands and knees feels unattainable to achieve, but regardless, she persists, spurred on by the sight of her sister. If she doesn’t help her, who will? And Sam deserves a better death than this. Preferably one very far into the future, surrounded by people who love her as much as Tara does. A part of her hopes she isn’t around to see it, she doesn’t even want to think of a world without Sam Carpenter in it, let alone live it again.

The slow crawl forward feels eternal.

Breathing feels impossible, but she doesn’t have a choice. She has to breathe, to keep moving, to help her sister. She can’t focus on the thumping in her head or the tackiness of her hands as they cling to the floor with each step. Just think about Sam, focus on Sam.

3 meters feels like a marathon in the desert.

Despite the circumstances, Tara finds herself relaxing at the feeling of Sam under her hands; a reflex as inconvenient as it is a lifeline. She pushes herself upwards with what must be a bruising grip on Sam’s shoulders and reaches for the bound wrists.

Fuck.

The knot is unyielding between her clumsy fingers.

She doesn’t have time for this. The room is on fucking fire. They are choking to death.

FUCK.

Ok. Stay calm. Stay calm. Cut the rope. Find something to cut the rope.

She can barely see, barely think.

Propelled on by only the thought of her sister, Tara manages to survey the room for salvation.

The world must not be done with them yet, because she finds it.

A jagged piece of something, hot and sharp and perfect. She won’t risk Sam’s wrists, if the fresh blood flowing down her palm says anything about its suitability to the job. She saws at the rope tethering Sam to the ceiling pipe instead, cutting into her own skin all the while. It takes too long; her body slow with lethargy. She can’t stop coughing now; the blade slips through her fingers and clatters to the floor.

Sam’s arms fall and Tara barely manages to catch them. She lowers them gently and reaches for Sam’s shoulders to pull her away from the wall. Her sister’s stature is usually a comforting presence looming over her like a protective shadow, but right now it was nothing but a nuisance and a hindrance as Tara tries to drag her across the room. She doesn’t get very far, Sam slipping from her hands as she falls to her knees, unable to find the strength to carry on.

“Sam.”

Tara throws a lazy slap to her sister’s cheek with one hand, leaving a bloody handprint behind, and does her best to shake her with her other. “Wake the fuck up.”

No dice.

The flames feel closer. She can barely keep her eyes open.

It feels hopeless.

“Sam,” she cries. Her fingers lose their grip.

“Please.”She won’t wake up. Her knees buckle below her.

“I need you.” She’s so tired.

The last thing she recalls before the darkness takes her once again is the feeling of Sam beneath her.

- - -

Sam wakes up gasping.

A thump to her stomach had pushed the air from her lungs, it seems, if the weight across her abdomen and the sting in her chest were anything to go by.

There’s an old familiar fogginess in her head and a dryness to her throat, one she hasn’t missed. It’s been, what, 7 years, 8? Since before she ran away, anyway. The mixture of booze and pills certainly feel good at the time, but the comedown is always its own special brand of hell.

Sam wishes she could remember why she had relapsed. She’d been doing so well.

What was the last thing she remembered?

Tara.

She was smiling at her. They were… dinner? They’d ordered takeout, right? Celebrating?

Shit.

Why was this so hard. How can she think with the temperature this high? It’s always higher than Sam would like; Tara feels the cold so easily, but this is ridiculous. She knows her sister doesn’t want to waste their money on new clothes, but she’s going to have to draw a line. She’s going to buy her some new warmer threads whether Tara likes it or not.

It’s only when she tries to move that she remembers the weight pinning her.

It takes a surprising amount of effort to lift her head, and she just about recognises the figure of her sister sprawled out on top of her through her blurry eyes.

Oh. That’s right.

They had been celebrating Tara’s 3-months-of-therapy-versary. Her sister had rolled her eyes and told her she was being ridiculous, but the blush on her cheeks and the shy way Tara had avoided eye contact and fiddled with her hands told Sam she was doing the right thing by making a big deal out of it. She wanted Tara to know how proud she was of her, to know her efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed, to begin to make up for all of the achievements she knew had been unobserved and disregarded after she left.

How the hell did they end up like this?

A heavy cough escapes her lungs and Sam finds herself curling to the side from the harshness of it. Tara slips from her lap and that’s when Sam begins to realise that something is very wrong here. And not just because her hands are tied, although, that is a very concerning discovery.

Blood? There’s blood. On Tara’s hands, on her face, down her neck.

Sam scrambles to get up off the floor in her rush to put a hand on Tara’s chest.

Heart beating? Check.

Breathing? Check.

Thank fuck. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Later, she’ll wonder how it took her so long to notice the fire raging all around them.

Needless to say, the revelation is quite a shock.

The deafening popping from burning wood triggers Sam into action. She begins to pull at the rope around her wrists with her teeth. When that fails to budge the knot or fray the rope, she frantically scans the room instead. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just a whole lot of fire.

Fire.

She stares at the flames for a moment before glancing down at her wrists. Ah, fuck. She makes her decision. It’s not even a choice really, it’s the only option available if she wants to get out of here alive. Or, more importantly, if she wants to get Tara out of here alive.

Sam clambers to her feet and sidesteps her sister, heading towards the nearest flames – an on-fire couch. The heat is extraordinary, she feels like she’s burning alive just in its presence. Taking a deep breath – a mistake, she realises, as her lungs protest – and shoves her hands out towards the fire.

She bites her tongue as her jaw clenches from the pain, blood filling her mouth. With a scream, she rips her hands apart, the burning rope withering away as it drops to the floor. Fuck, let’s never do that again. Sam quickly spins on her heel, turning back to her sister and crouching down. She takes a moment to breathe through the pain, head bowed, before pulling the smaller girl into her arms.

With one hand under Tara’s legs, and the other cradling her back, Sam heaves herself upwards. Her hands throb where they hold her, skin red and wet and already swelling. She grips Tara tight regardless and pulls her in close. The way to the door is mostly clear, but she finds herself stumbling clumsily around alight furniture on the way. A misstep has her tripping, leading her too close to the flames. She barely has time to react, turning away to protect her sister. The move leaves her back burning in a way that can only be described as agonising. She doesn’t even try to hold back her tears.

Sam almost kicks the front door down before she remembers how much that could be a terrible idea. Bracing Tara against her, she reaches for the doorknob with the back of her hand and prays.

It’s hot.

But it’s not ‘there’s a fire on the other side of this door’ hot.

Probably.

Hopefully.

She wonders if she has time and somewhere safe to put Tara down before she opens the door, but the ceiling is beginning to collapse far too close to where they’re standing, and Sam knows she’s out of time.

Trust in your instincts. Her intrusive thoughts are beginning to sound a lot like Tara these days, and irritatingly affirmative. She wouldn’t have it any other way, her sister outshines her father in every way, even in her head.

Sam kicks the door open and steps out into the blissfully fire-free complex hallway.

She almost collapses in relief.

Free from the roaring of the fire, she can now hear the sound of sirens and raised voices from outside the building. She begins to carefully make her way down the steps, leaning heavily on the wall as she descends. Her breath catches in her throat at every movement.

She’s halfway down when she meets several firefighters on their way up. One tries to take Tara from her, and Sam lurches backwards, determined to stop them. The movement has her falling, back hitting the wall and sliding down. She finds her legs no longer want to cooperate, and her tongue feels too heavy to speak. She thinks she manages a “no.” They’re talking to her, maybe, but she can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s hard to hear anything over the white noise blaring in her ears, the pain in her back is excruciating.

Sam’s so tired it makes her feel delirious, she can feel laughter bubbling up inside of her. All she can think about is how Tara won’t be able to complain when Sam buys her new clothes now.

The last thing she feels before the darkness takes her is Tara’s hand slipping out of hers as the weight disappears.

- - -

Sam wakes up to the smell of antiseptic and soap. The hospital. She hates how familiar she’s becoming with this environment.

There’s a brief moment of panic where she remembers Tara being pulled from her arms, before she recognises the small hand cupping hers, and the familiar weight of a head against her legs.

The position can’t be comfortable, Sam notes. Tara’s leaning on her right arm, facing Sam, hunched in a way that gives Sam back pain just looking at her. Her right hand is bandaged – as is her head – and her left clings to Sam’s. An orange inhaler rests on the bed, nestled safely between their bodies.

Sam’s helpless to do anything but smile as Tara mumbles in her sleep, head nuzzling against her leg. She concentrates on that, on her sister being here with her, instead of the pulse from her wounds and the way the bandages itch against her sore and burning skin. She doesn’t think of their apartment, now destroyed, or of their lost possessions. Tara is here, and that’s the only thing that matters. She’ll lose anything else, everything else, so long as she still has her sister.

[serotonin-dose]

AsaDen x Metaphor Re:Fantazio

[napping-sapphic]

Ahh yes the new year or as i like to call it the annual animal crossing gripping me by the throat period😌

[frameconfessions]

What if the devs or just someone who works for Digital Extremes finds this blog and sends in a confession?

[fitzselfships]

It's almost midnight but idc. After the week I've had all I want to do is curl up on them and fall asleep lol

Proshippers/adjacent dni. 100000 shark attack 🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈🦈 also Zooble self ship doubles dni

[deoidesign]

just wanted to say that I absolutely LOVE your comic I am so inspired by it and it’s so lovely and I wanna buy the physical books (I’ve never done that before) I just AUGGHHH EVERYTHING ABOUT IT IS SO 💙💙💙

do you allow fanart? And is there anything not allowed? I wanna draw adam and steve so bad 😭

Of course it's allowed! Fanart fanfic fan music fan dubs whatever!

I like to think I'm sort of "building a playground" when I make a story, have fun on it! I made it for you!

In my general opinion, it's not my business what my "fandom" does... It's on you and also me to curate our own spaces! If you're inspired by my work in any way, that's the greatest honor I could imagine and I want you to feel fully free to explore that. If someone is being weird, I know where the block button is and they can keep being weird where I don't have to see it haha

Just don't like... sell it... it's messy legally with webtoon and I'm one person making the story and it's my whole income so the few sales I get are kind of huge for me ;_;

[rallazart]

Ah fine I'll post somethin. Experimenting with designs and shit is all I'm doin. Nothin new.

(Not posting the colored in versions yet. These are only concept sketches. Keep that in mind)...

The digital "version" of ^this^ is just some lazy color blocking I did. (Pay no mind to the weird light effects); But it does add a little clarity to the original sketch that might be helpful. Note: the values will change to some degree later.

Full body type idea ^here^. The tail is fan shaped from proper perspective.

The basic blocks of his design include an array of different animal features i.e. plucked feathers and skin, goat horns and eyes, coyote skull and body, and lizard scales. Idk if anyone was curious though;

if anyone asks for more detail in the design inspirations and lore I might share it. I just don't really feel the need to post every part of my process yk (especially if I'm not 100% happy with it)

[starryjkoo]

ARMYs are really just burnt out and I don’t think the rapid fire pace of releases has helped anything. It’s amazing as a fan to get all this music, but the expectation to chart everything I think is unrealistic and kind of overwhelming. People just don’t have that kind of time, energy, or money to go all out for every comeback when they happen every other month, sometimes several in a single month. It especially doesn’t help if ARMYs aren’t feeling the song, and I don’t think they’ve felt quite a bit of CH2 music.

I have longer thoughts on all this, but I just have so much annoyance towards some chart ARMYs and their unrealistic expectations and their refusal to acknowledge that the current organized fandom streaming power isn’t what they think it is. Another big wave of HL victimization (but sometimes TH is also included??) from ARMYs and it just opened the doors for so much resentment and hatred to be thrown towards jkk but especially Jimin. It was really disturbing to go and block these people & find I had 5-10+ moots following each time. It’s really out of control.

I’m just tired of this RL discourse while they ignore the twenty elephants in the room that explain why the streams are where they are (and no it’s not because “ARMYS hate RL”.). Instead they just throw these tantrums that further divide an already deteriorating and toxic fandom. I don’t know what it will take for them to understand that a fandom that doubled with Dynamite is going to prefer pop music, and that the majority of ARMYs are in fact not zombie streamers but fans who casually listen to the music that appeals to them. Not to mention the fact that a lot of ARMYs aren’t even active right now, so many of them have been dropping off and waiting for BTS to return as a group.

It really just keeps getting worse and worse in ARMY spaces. I’m pretty sure active ARMYs are about 90% diet solos at this point. It’s extremely messed up what a lot of them can get away with saying and not get canceled or called out for. It’s also just this hyper-fixation on drama, shooter accounts, NewJean’s, MHJ, raging against whatever fandom approved villain of the month, trending pointless hashtags for random reasons, and then being shady and resentful because of these arbitrary goals they set that are often influenced by using Jimin as a goalpost.

[widevibratobitch]

do i really want this relationship to continue tho if i genuinely feel worse after every interaction with her and she is in 89% responsible for my already precarious self esteem crashing and plummeting most severely in the span of just three years?

[jackass-jones]

Really into the episode of Ouran where this girl confesses her love to Mori but he doesn’t feel the same because he’s into Honey and the girl’s reaction is just like YIPPEE I LOVE YAOI THATS SO COOL FOR YOU YAY 🥰

[finniestoncrane]

one more flop post and i can see me giving this shit up lmao like i just realised i’ve spent a month writing something that won’t get more than 30 notes, only 2 of which will be reblogs, when i could have been writing my self-indulgent fallout fic thats just for me although i might just be in a downward mental spiral either way *click click wink wink*

[flamingothing]

tag ramble

[dandyshucks]

the difference btwn irl and online perspective on creativity is so funny to me and idk if I'll ever get used to the stark contrast of it all.

IRL when I mention that I draw and write, people act like I'm some super talented creative genius(???). they don't seem to understand the concept of OCs, and if I try to vaguely touch on my DL project they get visibly overwhelmed no matter how simple I make it for them, and eventually they settle on just insisting that I need to publish traditionally and monetize on it. they don't seem to have the ability to understand the concept of zines and immersive storytelling through non-traditional means.

but then i get online and I'm just another drop in the ocean and always a very mediocre drop at that LMAO, I constantly fight with myself to feel like there is any sort of value to my stories and art, and there's hundreds of people doing the sort of thing that I do but even better than I could ever dream of doing!

it's just so strange going from interacting with this online to IRL, I feel like I'm getting whiplash from being largely ignored or scoffed at online (which I'm fine with btw lol I grew up with that in my family and now I get nervous when I get too much attention) to people at the centre treating me like I'm some kind of artistic genius who cannot be understood because I'm too far above their level 😭

[fennthetalkingdog]

Oop, well it looks like my general Symptoms(TM) are messing with me doing Artfight again this year. But I kinda think it's interesting how they're doing it, in a way. I've already always had problems with not wanting to do anything forced on me, and since that also applies to things I force on myself, having only a month to do Artfight makes drawing feel like something I have to do and thus don't want to do anymore. But also I don't like change too, so going from drawing my own characters (which I know everything about and can draw without much thought) to drawing other people's (which I don't know as well) already requires a ton of motivation, PLUS the fact that I don't want to dishonor the characters I'm drawing makes it feel like I have to draw good art and makes me want to draw even less. And I've only just now realized this, but also constantly switching characters to draw once I've finished drawing one is a massive pain to my little brain because I want to get to know the character (and also switching takes energy out of me, go figure). And how did I figure this out? I gave myself the leeway to draw a character that seemed cool more than once and I felt better in a way that wasn't just "Awww, I made a bunch of cool drawings for this one character!" It felt like my brain wanted to be stuck on that little buddy, and for once instead of fighting the urge and feeling worse, I gave into it and actually let myself process the character more in general so that I can later "un-stick" myself and move on.

But luckily, it's seeming like it's not as hard as drawing was last year (since I got stuck on trying to make one drawing look "good" and ended up taking the whole month to finish it + procrastinate), so I'm feeling overall pretty good about this whole month! I've already drawn way more attacks than I did last year, which is already a win, but I'm also feeling more proud of my drawings than before too! And I'm also learning way more about how I work as a person just trying to do this! So I'm feeling really happy about my experiences this month in the future, if this is how I'm feeling just a week in! >:D

[boy-armageddon]

YES my username on yt is a blood bros reference :33 i need to go to crimes world again i know in my heart and soul that i love her but i seldom show her attention .. i need to care her more ..

HOOFRAY!!!! also pretty please do!!!!!!! for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!