#was there anything lovely for you today?

[strxnged]

JUNE MY BELOVED HOW ARE YOU DOING

OH ELLIE!! MY DEAR!!! i'm doing so well. today was a special day and i do hope you won't mind my rambling.

up here in canada we've been having a dreadfully strange winter, and i've been yearning for rain and spring. after three months of snow and huge temperature fluctuations, finally, today, we got rain. and i hadn't even seen it in the forecast, but my boyfriend and i were leaving the bookstore we had visited (for the sheer enjoyment of the pretty displays and public piano) and he said he thought it was going to rain.

i asked him if he was okay with a detour. he seemed intrigued, and i assured him that it was not going to be a pretty detour, but a detour nonetheless. he agreed and voiced his curiosity. we drove for a few minutes to a park on the outskirts of town—neither of us grew up in this city, and so it was new to him and hard to remember directions to for me. we pulled in and stepped out into the slush of the parking lot.

we had only just made it to the entrance to the path when we noticed the rain had begun. i turned to him, and asked him if he wanted to turn back. he shook his head. we kept on.

my makeup ran, and our coats were soaked, and our feet grew cold. our hands, too—but we held onto each other. as we reached the halfway point of the loop, we slowed to admire the rain and the slush and the naked trees and birdsong and each other. i took my (wet) glasses off, tilted my face back, and let the rain swallow my sensation. after a few moments, my boyfriend kissed me, and we kept on.

i've never been kissed in the rain before. maybe i've been kissed when it's been sprinkling, and i've dreamt about it plenty of times. all i can think is that the little, hopeless, sophomore june, three years ago, would have had weak knees at the experience, no different than i.

i've often thought that my truest self has rain careening over their face. right there, in that moment—i was freezing, damp, uncomfortable, oh-so-alive. and there, not alone for a change, i was admired as myself.

no, it really was not a pretty detour. not unless you find beauty in grey skies, in wet socks, in running mascara and cold lips and aching grip. not unless you find beauty in keeping on when the rain comes.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[clarisse-doodles]

inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is

[triona-tribblescore]

I WANNA DRAAWW!! RAHHHGG!! Absolutely swamped with college work, im so tired TT (hence whatever tf this is lmao)

[panstarry]

my final from last semester that i made into a zine. cooked this one up in a couple hours before the critique (the ink was still wet!), so it's very raw and kind of sloppy but the sentiment is there. i love you trans people of color. we are the backbone of this community 🌟

[rice-enjoyer]

[xxplastic-cubexx]

[right to left]

finally finished This Wip from Ever ago and so now i ask you ever look into another dudes eyes and suddenly want to do whatever he wants

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[christakisbang]

[enii]

Us💕

[marshmallowgoop]

no thoughts just Heiji Hattori (HD)

[thatsnotbeautiful]

so a dunmeshi fan on Twitter pointed this out and even if it might have been meant jokingly, it started making me think a lil

first let’s open these images fully…

sure, you could argue that he flips out more with Mithrun bc they’re trapped alone in a lower level of the dungeon with more dangerous monsters waiting to be rescued, and i’m sure that’s part of it lol, but

it also made me think abt this moment from earlier when Kabru is fighting the sea serpent, that has stuck in my mind since

why can't Kabru let himself panic? why does Kabru "have to handle it"? like OK i think the rest of his party had wiped again and it was up to him to save everyone. but beyond that...

Kabru is his party's leader, simply enough, but i can also imagine him feeling responsible for them bc the "prevent another Utaya" mission is his, and he recruited them to come along with him and help. we've also seen how they mostly defer to his decisions, think he's the best person to rule over the dungeon, etc, and with that trust comes weight and the potential to let those who trust in you down.

i'm not saying they blindly follow him or aren't competent adventurers, but there's a leader <-> follower dynamic there.

thinking back to earlier in the story, we don't really see Kabru outwardly flipping out, even when he's possibly about to get killed (like he is here). we see him smiling and keeping a cheery, approachable front around his party generally, but i think his mask extends to keeping a brave face in front of danger so the others don't get (more) alarmed, too.

as others have pointed out though, while waiting for rescue, kabumisu depend on each other to have each other's back, as equals. beyond Kabru knowing Mithrun doesn't have any desires, Kabru also doesn't have to be a leader and keep morale up in the ways he usually would.

but, yeah, we see Kabru losing it in his internal narration earlier on in the story sometimes, but not outwardly, i don't think. it's quite something to imagine that he might've been screaming internally the whole time but simply setting it aside for the good of his party members

[breadmecoshy]

A cancerous tumor named Kokichi Oma took over my brain when I passed the fifth chapter of Darganronpa V3 a year ago

Yesterday he finally beat me

I bought an acrylic keychain with Kokichi and now I am lost to society

[skrunksthatwunk]

GIRLFRIENDS POST-UHAUL (uhaul the second, i guess)

[myokk]

💘

[overtake]

Trying to do something resembling coping after Singapore. Have some Max/Daniel hurt/comfort (1.3k). Also on ao3 if you prefer.

The press of a button freezes Max’s watery blue eyes, the space between them bifurcated by the crease in his forehead.

“Is now really a moment to remember?” Max asks in a raspy voice. His throat isn’t clogged by tears, but there’s almost a decades worth of race starts together sitting uncomfortably in there and congesting each word.

His hand hasn’t strayed from Daniel since he found him after the race. It’s somewhere on some part of him every time he’s close enough to touch.

Normally he’s halfway home by this point, Air Max somewhere over the circuit skies and headed back toward home.

He’s stayed, this time, in case this is it. In case this is his last chance to neatly fold Daniel’s clothes into his bag, even though his own are always wrinkled under pairs of stained shoes and dirty briefs. In case this is the last time they both exit the paddock as drivers. In case this is the final chance Max has to trace the shape of Daniel’s jawline and tell him, “Good race.”

Daniel’s mum is giving them a last minute alone. She’s standing guarding outside the door and leaving them be for now. Daniel knows, though, that when they stand, she’ll hug Daniel close, wishing he was little enough to hide in the crook of her neck while she covers all his gaping wounds with plasters and a kiss on each one to ease the ache. 

Despite his complaints about the camera, Max still moves from where he’s crouched in front of Daniel to collapse into his side and observe the photo. He wraps one arm around Daniel’s back to tug him impossibly closer and rests his mouth on the top of Daniel’s shoulder in an exhausted kind of kiss.

“I look like shit,” he says, statement muffled by the fabric of Daniel’s shirt. He sounds like he wants to poke fun at himself until he makes Daniel laugh, but they’re both too hollowed out to muster up the energy. Instead, Max reaches out and turns off the display.

For a second, their fingers linger together on the camera’s body, until Daniel lets the camera drop back against his chest so he can entangle their hands instead.

“It’s not a nice memory,” Daniel agrees. Unlike Max, his voice right now can all be attributed to tears. “But in December, no matter what happens after today, I’ll get a retake on the farm. I’ll be happy, and we’ll be together, and life will go on from now.”

Daniel feels the dampness on his shoulder when a single tear breaks containment, then another, and a shuddering breath, until Max rights himself and pointedly looks away from the tiny patch soaked in cotton.

“It’s not fair,” he says tightly. For a second, he sounds every bit the bullish teenager with a black and white view on the way the world ought to work and bitter frustration that sometimes reality dapples in nuance. It’s the first thing to get Daniel anywhere within city limits of smiling since he set the lap record and gave himself a final moment in the car to reflect on everything this sport had given him, and that he had given this sport.

“Yeah,” he agrees hoarsely. “It’s not fucking fair.”

He’s done with excuses and niceties and dancing on the Red Bull puppet strings in hopes that playing their game might finally net him a seat he’d killed himself to earn. It’s not fair. It’s callous and cruel, the way they’ve strung him and everyone who loves him along for a race they aren’t even brave enough to tell him is his last.

They’re silent for another moment. Daniel closes his eyes and soaks it in: the tendrils of freshly washed hair still trailing water down his spine. The din of dog-tired employees breaking down the paddock, to be quickly vanished away as if it was never here. The ragged in-and-out of Max’s lungs as he tries to coax both of their breaths into something resembling normal.

“Thank you, by the way,” Max says softly. “And congratulations on your lap record.”

“You owe me a really nice Christmas present.”

Max presses a whisper of a kiss over Daniel’s drying curls. “You always deserve the nicest presents.”

Daniel’s mum slips in then, gently shutting the door behind her. Unlike Max, she’s made no secret of her tears. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but she musters up enough of a smile when Daniel heaves himself up into her arms.

“Come here, Max,” he hears his mum scold. A second later, Max is in an awkward three-person hug. Grace’s short arms struggle to embrace them both, but smelling her vanilla perfume and knowing she’s there is enough to surround him in all the ways that matter.

She whispers in turn to each of them, but they’re all so tightly wound, they can all hear every word.

“Thank you for being here every time I couldn’t be,” she tells Max. He murmurs something back, but he manages to keep it quiet enough that Daniel can’t make out all his words. It’s something about thanking her for trusting him with Daniel, but the rest is lost. All he knows is that his mum’s tears start flowing again.

When it’s his turn, she can barely choke out the words. “I’m so proud of you. For your career, of course, but for who you’ve grown into. I couldn’t have asked for a better son.”

“I love you,” is all Daniel manages. He buries the nose shaped like hers into the brown curls that his genes copy-pasted and soaks in gratitude that he has both her face and her endless capacity to love.

Daniel walks into humid night air with his head held high and a career most drivers would kill for, surrounded by people who love him for more than that list of achievements, and knows that he’ll survive whatever comes next.

“That’s a terrible photo,” Max complains three months later. His eyes are scrunched up all cute in it, framed by long lashes and sun-soaked freckles that are almost hidden by the streaks of dirt on his face. He’s smiling, both in the picture and right now, so Daniel knows he doesn’t actually mind.

Two weeks of busy Australian summer have left Max various shades of pink and tan. He'd somewhat learned how to use the grill that Daniel was too scared to touch and now had matching grill aprons with Daniel's dad. He christened the new baby cow the wholly uncreative name ‘Lilly’, because god forbid any animal in his vicinity not be named after Monaco nightlife. He’d also 100% taken to the dirt bikes as easily as everyone would assume and had absolutely, definitely not sworn Daniel to secrecy about where he got that giant bruise on his side after their first go.

When Daniel transfers the photos to his computer later, his finger pauses on the photo captured in a melancholic driver’s room. In it, Max’s eyes are dull and weary, but they’re looking at Daniel with the same unblinking love from today’s picture.

It’s proof, memorialized in expensive pixels, that Daniel’s life did not end on the streets of Singapore; that his worth to the world never depended on his points or podiums.

He closes the lid of his laptop and joins the gathering in the living room. Max is pouring fake tea for Isabella’s dolls. Isaac is politely sipping an empty teacup, one pinky in the air. Isabella is nowhere to be found, probably busy dragging Daniel’s poor parents to see Lilly the cow for the fifth time today.

“Daniel!” Max says, in the sweet, distinct way his mouth always forms the name. His face brightens when Daniel walks in. When Max smiles like that, it’s as if the sun has come through the roof and taken human form in broad shoulders and rumpled t-shirts.

“Max!” Daniel says back, matching his enthusiastic tone. He sits cross-legged in Isabella’s empty spot and slides his fingers between Max’s.

The tea party continues, and life moves forward.