#the thing is they're in love

[fandomsnstuff]

I really like this one, it's a classic

@taznovembercelebration Remember or forget

-

Dirt crunches underfoot as Lup and her new friend Barry walk along in silence. It's strange, she thinks, how easy it is with him. Her whole life she's fended for herself, never allowing anyone too near, but then she ran into this fumbling, mediocre fighter. He's a little gruff and a bit of a jackass sometimes, but she can't find it in herself to ditch him. He asked her to go on some quest that he said "might be super dangerous," and she didn't even hesitate to say yes. The fact that he's handsome might have swayed her a little bit.

Conversation with him was like they'd known each other forever, falling into a comfortable rhythm. They talked about their pasts, not that either of them had much to talk about, they talked about magic, about their travels. Barry even confessed to her that he had no idea what this quest was actually for, he was just following instructions he never remembered leaving for himself. Lup felt compelled to be vulnerable with him, despite rejecting vulnerability whenever it tries to rear it's terrifying head. She told him about her aunt, being on the run, surviving by herself, she even told him about how it always felt like she was forgetting something. As if she'd left her oven on before going out, but a hundred times more intense. She was surprised to find out he had a similar feeling.

Then the conversation settled some, and now they walk in a comfortable silence. She feels an urge to reach out and take his hand, and she kicks herself mentally. That's too much. What would they do then? Swing their arms like a couple on their honeymoon? Weird. Gross. Get it together.

They come to the mouth of a cave, and Barry checks his map. "Alright, uh, I think- I think this is it."

"And you have no idea what we're looking for in here?"

"Well, it's- the instructions said that it's some sort of treasure keep, hoard, thing, and it might have... whatever I'm looking for. And I'm supposed to know it when I see it?"

"Great, so we run in head first? No plan?"

"The plan is don't die."

"Love it. This'll be easy."

It is not, in fact, easy. They manage to get through the first few sets of bandits guarding what must be a treasure trove hidden deep in the cave, but round three is proving itself to be difficult. Lup's running low on spells, Barry's running out of stamina, and they're both pretty beat up. They've taken out one bandit, so now they're each one-on-one with another. Lup's got the ranger, and Barry's got the fighter.

The ranger, evidently, has a bit of multiclassing up their sleeve when he turns invisible. Lup scans the room, hoping to spot a shadow or a ripple against the wall, anything to give away their position. Unfortunately, what she spots is an arrow, sailing straight towards Barry. She doesn't have time to scream before it lodges itself in his back, right through to where she knows his heart is.

He collapses unceremoniously, and Lup just knows he's dead. Her heart races, and she wills away tears that prick at her eyes. She's upset that he died, of course, but she still has a fight to win. And she's not even, like, that sad. It sucks that he died, it's upsetting, but it's fine.

The fighter bandit praises the ranger, and then starts to advance on Lup. She brandishes her wand, and tries to brace herself as the fighter gears up to charge her, when the cavern fills with red light. A spectre all in red floats above Barry's body. Lup grins, and starts laughing, almost manically. The two bandits turn to see what she's looking at and get struck down instantly by two streaks of red lightning.

"What the fuck!" Lup says, still laughing.

"Lup-" the spectre has Barry's voice- "holy shit, you- you're alive! You're here! With me! Where have you been?"

Lup brushes some tears off her cheeks and catches her breath. "Didn't I tell you my whole life story on the way up here? The fuck do you mean where have you been? "

"Right..." he says, sinking a little closer to the ground, mimicking his normal height. He seems pensive for a few moments, looking at her, then says, "Lup, I'm wicked sorry about this."

Her vision fills with red before she can even ask what he means.

[typewriter-worries]

The New York Times did a piece titled 100 Small Acts of Love and these are some of my favorites 💕

[s0up1ta]

"so grunkle ford how do you know bill?"

"... that's not important."

[softestaries]

Lady Danbury: is something going on between you and my brother?

Violet: remember that time you fucked my dad?

[hollis-art]

they can be best friends. they can be lovers. whatever they are, i am rooting for them

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[horsegirlhob]

Alex has a lot of strong opinions on the height of their characters.

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Liam was a boy, and then a man, who suffered so much trauma and pain. He was bullied as a child and then lived a nightmare that I think none of us can really imagine of having that triggering experience replicated on a literally global public scale. He became a man who inflicted trauma on others. He was an addict who was unable to find a way out of that disease, and now never will, but who was open and vulnerable about his struggles. He was an incredibly talented musician and artist and an absolutely integral part of one of the most important bands of a generation; his voice and songwriting and skill in the studio shaped every aspect of what One Direction became at their best. He loved that band and being a part of that experience with his whole being and would never have stopped celebrating what they meant to us and to the world. He had problems and did bad things; that doesn't mean he was a bad person who didn't deserve to be loved and helped to heal- everyone deserves that- and the fact that that's not something that can ever happen now is devastating. I was very distressed by many of his actions; and I cared deeply about this man I didn't know and wished for better for him than this outcome.

I'm so deeply, deeply SAD tonight. I'm sad for Liam, who will never now have the chance to look back on this hard time and reflect on how far he's come, and for Liam's family, for his parents and his sisters who loved and supported him so much, and for everyone in the 1D band family and circles. And I'm sad for us. It feels like nothing will ever be quite the same, and that's hard and sad and shocking. It's a special kind of doubled grief, to mourn the loss of the person, and also of what he meant to us in this strange world of parasocial fanning, for the real him and also for the version of him that we made up and attached so much meaning to and for the escape that brought us. For him, and also for the easy uncomplicated joy of listening to those beautiful songs from happier times, which might never feel the same again. For the other boys, who we love so much and wish we could shield from suffering and loss and pain. For our fellow fans, who we also worry about the impact of this on. Everything about this is terrible, and I am sending so much love out to all of you. We are not alone, and it's okay to feel complicated emotions and it's okay to mourn and it's okay to care about how it effects you and your life, whatever you're feeling- it's okay. We are here with you. We are 1D family.

[ministarfruit]

"...why would I become a monster?"

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[llamahearted]

two people will go through similar things & learn to cope in different ways

print ♥︎ song

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[the-ominous-owl]

agatha harkness and jennifer kale, two grown up and very mature witches

[cuntylouis]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[egophiliac]

What do you like about the Diasomnia boys if I may ask?

I always love hearing about the different reasons people enjoy characters.

I mean, c'mon. he has split custody over Sebek okay

also, Lilia in particular has maybe the best timeskip character development of all time

[lilybug-02]

highly doubt they would ever meet but I'm curious what The Hunter would write about Dewi

Dewi

A human child, the largest living creature in Hallownest. His skin is soft, but strength lurks behind his stride.

༻━━━━━━━━━━༻✧༺━━━━━━━━━━༺

Legends tell of immense godly creatures who strode through clouds and walked across the plane in times of old. Perhaps such fantastical stories are not as unthinkable as they once were...

....

A strange mountainous creature. Though he seeks the thrill of the hunt, he does not close in for the kill. Us mere bugs seem to be easy prey. To be truly hunted by a creature so vast is a bewitching thought.

༻━━━━━━━━━━༻✧༺━━━━━━━━━━༺

I absolutely love The Hunter, so of course he'd make a visit to see the beast everyone in Hallownest has been whispering about (and when I say everyone I mean like 10 people).