#try her

[starfieldcanvas]

So if it's not Paladin of Souls, which is the Lois McMaster Bujold book you talked about in your notes? I'm curious 😊

The Sharing Knife! It's a four-book fantasy series in a setting based on the Great Lakes region. I was clueless enough the first time around (and so heavily used to vague-medieval-renaissance-Europe-expy fantasy settings) I didn't realize it the first time I read the series, but it's very obvious once you think about it at all, and sometime in the last two years my library updated the audiobook covers from the original "beautiful high-effort romance novel painting where they're both white" style to the "expressionless racially ambiguous cutouts that make the setting explicit" style:

(These are the same book.)

It's a story about fantasy Native Americans ("Lakewalkers") and fantasy white settlers ("farmers"). The actual cosmology and history of the fantasy world is very different from our own—everyone is native to the same continent, and have been living in roughly the same area for at least a few hundred years—so the politics of settler vs. native don't actually apply in the same way. However, the tension of "people who share the land" vs "people who parcel off the land to sell" is still very present, as is the tension of quasi-nomadic groups with seasonal camp rotations vs. people who stay in place and build large towns with industrial capacity.

And then, of course, there's the magic. The Lakewalkers have limited hereditary magic powers, plus magic monsters they're sworn to fight; the farmers have no magic and no defense against it either. Farmers tend to mistrust Lakewalkers and misunderstand Lakewalker magic; Lakewalkers keep the secrets of their powers under wraps and often look down on farmers as a kind of invasive pest species. As I mentioned in my tags, Lakewalkers' most important magical tools involve someone choosing the time of their death—though typically only when already dying of terminal illness, old age, or a mortal wound.

If you love the movie Ever After like I do, you may remember the part where Danielle says to Leonardo, "A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where would they live?" The Sharing Knife is a series about a bird (Lakewalker) and a fish (farmer) that get engaged halfway through the first book and then spend the next three and a half books figuring out where the hell they're going to live...and slowly realizing they may have to remake society in order to find their place in it.

Even the book where they first get together is not really what you'd call a romance novel, but every book in the series is a lot more focused on a central romantic relationship than most fantasy adventure books, so it's interesting from a genre perspective. "Established relationship" is normally my second-least favorite AO3 (my least favorite being major character death) but the political and magical worldbuilding, and the family dynamics on both sides, kept me very invested even with the amount of meandering domesticity on display throughout the books.

There are some potential triggers to ask about if you have common trauma triggers, and the main romance has a pretty big age gap, which I know is a turn-off for some. But if you ever found yourself asking "why is the Wizarding World's excuse for keeping muggles in the dark so fucking flimsy?" or "how the hell does Wei Wuxian stand living in the Cloud Recesses when most of Lan Wangji's sect hates him?" or "why aren't more fantasy authors as obsessed with craft skills as Tamora Pierce" or "why aren't there more permanently disabled fantasy protagonists who actually have to cope with the limitations created by their disability?" or "why aren't there more fantasy protagonists who genuinely lack magical powers?" then this may be the book series for you.

[fanfabled]

rip keiko you would have loved tasers

[ryathenaughtykitsune]

@heavens-sin

@sukunarp

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[hoaxghost]

Girl failed the med school exam like 8 times I dont think she'd do all too well when faced with the burnt crisp of her captain

[blorbopolis]

im cooking

[soundwavefucker69]

bastille has done more for the queer community by just making all of their love songs about "you" instead of specifying a gender than taylor swift has in all of her discography. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[gongyussy]

i'll let phie-san say it:

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[stealingpotatoes]

tried to tell my faithful eunuch Tucker that he was basically tumblr famous, but he was too focused on defending the homestead to care

[wildbasil]

things haven't been great but i think they will be. eventually 🌻🌼🩷

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push the heel of my palm into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[themouthwashes]

Could you draw Anya getting angry at daisuke over their game. I think she deserves being more than just sad or scared

I bet Daisuke won with probably the worst card i can think of.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[batfam-stuff-posts-0]

[mydairpercabeth]

just saw the most heartbreaking annabeth take from ep 3