#what is an ending i don't know her

[materassassino]

For the prompt ask: hoodie for Joe/Nicky 😉

This one got a bit long, actually... It works though.

One word prompts!

---

Somewhere in the Altai Mountains, 1402

They are travelling east again, weary of the never-ending woes of the Mediterranean and Europe, and because Quynh wants to eat what she calls ��proper food’ again – there is only so much Nicolò can do with imported spices that have lost their potency from travel (when they can afford them). Why they chose this accursed northern route instead of some sensible ship from Jeddah Yusuf will never understand, but Andromache mistrusts the sea in general, and Quynh will go where she goes, which means Yusuf and Nicolò have little choice. She also wants to show them Karakorum, which they have yet to see.

Winter is not close, but there is a chill on the air, especially now evening is falling and the shadows lengthen. Andromache scouts them a place she deems worthy for camp that night (though she is rarely very discerning, and Yusuf would swear she could sleep on a bed of gravel with no complaint), and they settle. Yusuf joins Quynh to fetch water, Andromache tends to the horses and Nicolò starts their fire and starts to prepare their food. It is a well-worn, familiar routine, each night in the wilderness the same as the one before.

Quynh is busy telling him about the time Andromache got herself in a spot of bother with some Gauls in Armorica when they get back to camp, and Yusuf is trying very hard not to trip over he chokes on his own laughter. Andromache scowls, and if the light were better, Yusuf would wager he saw the slightest embarrassed flush on her stoic cheeks.

“Not that one again,” she grumbles, removing her horse’s saddle and blanket. Quynh grins, something sharp-fanged and delightfully wicked.

“You just hate it because it ends with you in a pig sty!” she says. Yusuf wheezes helplessly.

That is when Nicolò sneezes.

Yusuf stops laughing immediately, sets down their filled waterskins and puts his hands on his hips.

“I told you to wear your cloak!” he grumbles. Nicolò has the cheek to roll his eyes, even as he wipes his nose on the back of his hand.

“I am fine,” he retorts, turning back to the fire. He sneezes again.

“God give me strength,” Yusuf mutters, raises his eyes to the heavens and waving his hands beseechingly. He stomps over to their pile of saddlebags and begins rummaging, but he soon stops.

“Nicolò,” he asks, “where is your cloak?”

They all see the way Nicolò’s shoulders tense, creeping up guiltily by his ears.

“Come to think of it,” Quynh says, pursing her lips, “I have not seen it since the village we passed through two days ago.”

Yusuf levels Nicolò with a long glare. “Nico?”

Nicolò rubs the back of his neck. “I think… I think I forgot it. At the inn.”

Andromache guffaws. Yusuf groans. Nicolò is usually so meticulous, but in fairness they had beaten a rather hasty retreat after Andromache got into a fight with a merchant over the treatment of his horses, so it is entirely likely it was simply lost in the whirlwind madness.

“We might not see another settlement until Karakorum itself,” Andromache says, drumming her fingers on her knee. “And it will only get colder the further up we go.”

Yusuf sighs, getting to his feet and fumbling with the clasp of his own cloak. He throws it over Nicolò’s shoulders and sits heavily beside him.

“Do not be stupid, Yusuf,” Nicolò says, shrugging the cloak off. “You need it!”

Yusuf waves him away, dismissive. That causes Nicolò to scowl.

“Well, if neither of you wants it…” says Quynh edging around the fire with a sly look.

“Leave it!” the two men snap in unison, and she darts back, hands raised defensively even as she laughs.

“Share it, you idiots,” Andromache snaps, shaking her head. “We’ll turn one of the spare blankets into a new cloak tomorrow.”

Yusuf and Nicolò both look at her, and then at each other.

“That… seems wise,” Nicolò concedes, and Yusuf muffles a snort of laughter.

They end the evening beneath the same cloak, huddled close together. There is, Yusuf muses archly, little difference with the night before.

--

Geneva, August 2022

The clouds roll in from almost nowhere, spilling down from the mountains. They don’t herald rain, but they cover the sun and an uncharacteristic chill shrouds the city. They’ve been scouting out potential new safehouses – it’s good to add to the rotation, and it’s time Nile got a few under any of her various shiny new aliases. The prices are eye-watering, but there’s always something to be found somewhere, especially further outside the city.

There’s a slight bite to the air now, just enough to cause some goosebumps. Nile tugs on the cardigan she’d draped over her shoulders that morning, covering her bare arms. Andy does absolutely nothing, because she refuses to let the whims of Mother Nature bother her overmuch. Nicky untie the hoodie from around his waist – unfashionable, as always – and zips it up, sticking his hands in its pockets.

Joe sneezes.

Nicky looks at him, in his optimistic breezy linen shirt and shorts, and raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t even need to say anything as Joe scowls at him.

“It was sunny until a moment ago!” he protests the unspoken accusation.

“Yeah, but the weather lady said it would get cloudy!” Nile pipes up, withering slightly under Joe’s glare.

“Should’ve paid more attention,” is all Andy says with a flippant smirk.

Joe simply folds his arms petulantly and stomps on ahead, attempting to brave the sudden chill. He doesn’t last long before he’s rubbing his arms, and the walk back to the hotel is thirty minutes.

Nicky sighs, and unzips his hoodie again. He drapes it over Joe’s shoulders, completely ignoring Joe’s pout.

“I don’t need it!” he says, about to shrug it off and hand it back like a stubborn fool. Nicky levels him with another long, hard look, and Joe meekly puts it on properly. He allows Nicky to adjust it fastidiously and zip it up, his resigned façade cracking entirely when Nicky plants the most fleeting of kisses on the tip of his nose.

“Oh my God,” Nile says. “That’s so adorable it’s disgusting.”

[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.

[knightofleo]

Angela Orosco Silent Hill 2

[vaguely-concerned]

sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go

[edorazzi]

Page 18 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which Felix brutally debunks whatever Adrien heard from Bri about their 'fairytale relationship' (she was trying to be nice! 🥲), and outlines how their Miraculous' powers of Fortune worked! 🪄🏰

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[ministarfruit]

day 28: made you smile ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[conundrumoftime]

One of the fun things about shipping Haladriel and about Galadriel's story in Rings of Power, for me, is that we know exactly where this is going to end up. And I wanted to babble for a bit about where that place is because I have seen so many people view it as "she is retired to some woods to be a passive wife-and-mother who can do magic but in a mystical New Age-y way", and: no! No.

So a quick overview of where she will end up by LOTR:

Very much not removed from the war against Sauron.

She is constantly mind-battling against Sauron: One of the lines that inspired McKay and Payne's whole show was her talking about this: "I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought." In one of the versions of the Annatar story in Unfinished Tales, Sauron immediately realises she will be his 'chief adversary', and has apparently not changed that assessment 3500 years later.

She co-ordinates joint efforts against Sauron: The White Council that Elrond talks about in LOTR, the combined force of Ring-bearers, wizards and elf-lords that first drives Sauron out of Dol Guldur - she's not just on that, she founded it.

She gets Gandalf back after Moria and the Balrog: Galadriel learns what's happened to Gandalf from the Fellowship when they arrive in Lothlórien. The the Fellowship are sad; the elves of Lothlórien mourn; Celeborn loses it a bit and says Gandalf 'fell into folly'; but Galadriel sends Gwaihir the eagle to get him, returns him to health, updates him on the situation with Boromir, gives him some messages to take to the others, and sends him back on his way.

She is possibly in Lothlórien because of its position of strategic importance: from Unfinished Tales here, she 'saw that Lórien would be a stronghold and point of power to prevent the Shadow from crossing the Anduin in the war that must inevitably come' and that's why she and Celeborn go there. (There are other versions as with almost everything else in Tolkien, but this is one of them.) She's not there to hide away from Events.

2. Calmer than in TROP, but not all-wise and all-sweet and still pretty scary.

She is still tempted by power and world domination: "I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired to ask what you offer [...] In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morning and the night!"

And, she doesn't just turn down the One Ring because it's abstractly eeeevil. She turns it down because she knows what she, specifically, would do with it. Sam sees a vision of the Shire, and tells her "I wish you'd take his Ring. You'd put things to rights. You'd stop them digging up the Gaffer and turning him adrift. You'd make some folk pay for their dirty work," to which she says that yes, she would: "That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it."

And saying she wants to rule the world here is not me joking about! This is Tolkien describing that moment in LOTR:

It was not until two long ages more had passed, when at last all that she had desired in her youth came to her hand, the Ring of Power and the dominion of Middle-earth of which she had dreamed, that her wisdom was full-grown and she rejected it

People are scared of her: The only scary moment we directly see is the Ring temptation, but she does other unsettling things. When she meets the Fellowship she tests them by reading their minds and offering something they really want to see if it would make them "turn aside from the road and leave the Quest and the war against Sauron to others." (She offers Sam a garden; the One Ring later on tempts him with the same thing.) Even the hobbits are a bit disturbed by this and Boromir, who's already said he doesn't want to go into Lothlórien because people who do that never leave again, absolutely does not trust her.

Éomer, a few chapters later:

'Then there is a Lady in the Golden Wood, as old tales tell!' he said. 'Few escape her nets, they say. These are strange days! But if you have her favour, then you are also net-weavers and sorcerers, maybe.'

She's scary! She's ancient and powerful and people are scared of her.

3. Married, but not in the character-limiting way the nerdbros want it to be and would have you believe it is.

I am not telling anyone they should ship Galadriel/Celeborn or even find it interesting just because I do, but, the angry nerdbros fancasting Celeborn as Henry Cavill and talking about how he'll come back to tame her and tidy her neatly out of the narrative are writing their own little AU headcanons because that is not what's in the text.

She's the more powerful one. Partly because she's one of the 'High Elves' - she's Noldor and has lived in Valinor seen the light of the Trees - which for various reasons about the way Tolkien's elves work just makes her more powerful, partly because she has a Ring of Power and Celeborn doesn't. It's her Mirror; she's the one reading people's minds; she's the one locked in endless mental battles with Sauron; she's the one the Rohirrim (whose lands border Lothlorien's) tell each other scary stories about. Celeborn at no point ever seems to have an issue with this, and calls her his 'treasure'.

They work together. Even in a big-action-sequences sense: after Sauron's defeat, Celeborn 'led the host of Lorien over Anduin in many boats' to Dol Guldur, where Galadriel 'threw down its walls and laid bare its pits'. But the rest of the time, too: she says of him that 'together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat'.

You really get the sense that they have been married for a loooooong time. An actual sequence of events in LOTR, somewhat condensed:

The Fellowship reveal there's a Balrog in Moria;

Celeborn goes "!!!!", complains about dwarves waking it up and says he'd never have let Gimli into Lothlorien if he'd known that;

Galadriel smacks Celeborn down for being rude to their guest;

Celeborn apologises to Gimli;

Galadriel tells the Fellowship that Celeborn is accounted the wisest of elves;

Boromir says something about "old wives' tales";

Celeborn, whose wife is one of the oldest beings in Middle-earth, tells Boromir not to be so dismissive because "old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know";

Galadriel hands Celeborn a drink.

Whatever is going on here is clearly something that works for them, is what I'm saying! And you don't have to find their marriage interesting just because I do, of course; but what it's not is some trad fantasy of domestic subservient-wife anything.

So where her TROP story ends up is ultimately with LOTR Galadriel: powerful, important, tempted to rule the world, a bit calmer than in TROP, a bit happier than in TROP, co-ordinating big strategic efforts in the war, married to someone who's got her back and adores her and they fall out a bit sometimes but generally work pretty well together, and still having Sauron constantly trying to get into her head. I am fine with this! I am more than fine with this.

[scoriarose]

She came up with a new activity

[pairingbrainrot]

!!!!!

(Clip starts at 3:10)

[dailyloopdeloop]

loop and mirabelle. That's it that's the ask

DAY 84: enrolled in the gossip wars

[ryllen]

You know I am surprise Sebek that is never jealous to anyone who is close to Yuu. It is a boys school and I can imagine some have crushes on her.

[canisalbus]

I imagine Vasco and Ludovica have a big painting (portrait but with two people) in Vasco's house (probably his father insisted of getting one of these, people used to do it in the old days, especially wealthy ones). While it's very serious and formal, in the way all these portraits were, it is also very intimate (at least it's implications). I imagine Machete just staring at it sometimes, feeling small while looking at the big painting. And sad, maybe jealous but I don't think he'd resent Ludovica. He, most of all, understands.

.

[regina-del-cielo]

Maybe it's a 'study finds water is wet' type of thought, but

considering it's an action movie whose overall plot is "immortal warriors Fuck Shit Up™️", I think it's significant that in The Old Guard the thing that makes Copley pull red strings through his Murder Conspiracy Board and say "[Merrick] doesn't care what [Andy]'s done with [her immortality]" is the people they save, not the ones they kill

Most of the Conspiracy Board is him circling random newspaper headlines and faces on old photographs to (more or less realistically) follow the immortals' treck through the world and big historical events. Which is, in-canon, not much different than putting portraits from different centuries next to a picture of Keanu Reeves and saying "they look the same, clearly Reeves is an immortal!"

But then there are the connections. A little girl holding Joe's hand in WW1 becoming the youngest (and first) woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine (suck it, Kozak). Or the grandchild of a family that Andy saved from [something] helping people escape from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.

They are warriors. They have fought and been in the midst of countless wars, major or minor, throughout history. They must have killed as many people as they saved... and yet.

It's not them taking out a random warlord or dictator or rabidly hateful politician that has tangible repercussions in history. It's the children and families they get out of war zones, save from accidents, protect from natural disasters. People to whom they give a second chance at life, and grow to change the world (or even just their own world), like a mysterious stranger once changed theirs just by holding out a hand or patching a wound.

I don't know I just think it's particularly neat

[bonefall]

Do you have anything concrete for Jayclaw in BB? Curious about him since we never really learn how he dies. We don't really know much about him, besides the fact he's reasonable, fast and had a physical fight with his brother over a small mess.

Funny enough I have had a crystal clear image in my head of who Jayclaw is for years, and have not had to change it at all. He's a total background character but for some reason I just know what this dude's about.

Jayclaw was a dancer, a FANTASTIC one. He played Jingleshells, which are a full-body instrument made of netting and percussive beads. His performances were playful and dramatic, and he reveled in pulling off impressive movements while still keeping rythmn with his chimes.

His friend group was essentially a little band. His brother Owlnose played drums, his friend Podlight sang, and that connection was how he was introduced to Curlfeather. It was impossible to resist his charms once he started courting her-- he was fun-loving, romantic, and absolutely captivating.

Curlfeather loved him so much that sometimes it was hard to look at him. "I can't be seeing you right now, you're going to make me grin like a fool."

"Like it would be so terrible for you to brighten my day, gorgeous?"

Losing him was sudden, unexpected, and heartbreaking. I don't know what it was specifically, but I do know it was a freak accident and quite violent. He left camp one day in the prime of his life, and came back dead.

I don't think his passing planted any seeds in Curl's mind that weren't already there, but the combined stress of grief and the loss of her emotional "rock" was the catalyst.

In fact, at first, believing Frostpaw's bad dream had been a vision was probably something Curlfeather actually believed, or otherwise was something she came up with for non-nefarious reasons. Like maybe Frostpaw believing her vision "killed her mi," and Curlfeather meant to soothe her by explaining that visions simply predict the future and that his death wasn't something she caused.

In any case, after his death, Curlfeather was driven towards acting on her ambition. That's Jayclaw! Trophy husband who died ��️

[eveningrainstorm]

not what they used to be

[carlyraejepsans]

One thing I think people forget is that sans probably wouldn’t talk about missing his home and never being able to go back and giving up unless he absolutely felt he had to

with frisk he’s pretty sure that’s the time traveler that could very well end the entire world. He’s trying to reason with em as a someone he’s hoping could be a friend at that point because he’d really rather not have that happen

In geno is IS the end of the world and he’s hoping you’ll realize this is stupid and cruel and reset. It’s not like he’d have this conversation on a random Tuesday with papyrus

yeah agreed, sans goes out of his way to not talk to/with papyrus about their life before the underground. remember the newsletter q&a? (this is more a theory, but judging from their behavior i personally think papyrus is an amnesiac/sans thinks he is, and he's trying to spare him the grief of remembering).

his memories and mementos are stored behind his house for a reason, he's had his realization that he'll never go back already: there's no sense in reopening that wound again if he has an option to avoid the topic.