#"Love" is a Sour Fruit

[academyoftheheartandmind]

What Else Can I Say? and Other Poems

By Esha Sury What Else Can I Say? This bone-tiredness to speak ended as pure reprieve. I dispose of my last pen and a surrendered dove, as remittance, gave its’ awareness to me in a dawn of non-talk. I wish plainly to cradle wordless breath, to unashamedly swallow the verse I could’ve written on a napkin somewhere. I chose not to walk the distance between tongue and cranium. Then between tongue…

[sereneres]

le sserafim’s 6th member – ln yn

📂 — MAIN PROFILE

name. — ln yn

birthdate. — xx/xx/2005

mbti. — entp

rep. emoji — 🐨

rep. gemstone — jade

📂 — MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

favorite foods. — fruits (except for pineapple), and prefers beef – any kind of meat, actually – rice, and noodles. if she’s hungry enough, though, she will eat anything.

nicknames made by the fimmies. — sleepy/sleepy head (yunjin), ynnie (used by all the members but mostly by eunchae + sakura), jagiya (chaewon, but very rarely.)

hobbies/things she generally likes doing. — sleeping, mindlessly scrolling on her phone, baking/cooking (she prefers baking over cooking, seeing as she is the only member who can do so without burning the finished product), shopping, collecting numbers from other idols (her contacts)

her playlist. — the weekend – bibi + 88rising / welcome to MY world – aespa ft. nævis / attitude – fromis_9 / sour grapes – le sserafim / daybreak – dreamcatcher

📂 — FUNFACTS

– she can speak korean and japanese, though she’s been struggling with the latter recently. her fellow member huh yunjin has attempted to teach her english but failed, quote unquote, “miserably”.

– she is, according to her fellow members huh yunjin and nakamura kazuha, like a “weighted blanket”. they have refused to elaborate on this.

– she speaks with a slight slur to her words that gets stronger the more tired and or annoyed she is.

– she can play the guitar and piano and there is a pre-debut clip of her playing both instruments at the same time.

– she is the clingiest member of the group.

– she is the only extrovert in the group. (nakamura kazuha was also an extrovert but became an introvert at some point during and or after their debut.)

– she is a gryffindor (yunjin’s fim-log)

❥ love language details

receiving — physical touch > words of affirmation = quality time > gift giving = acts of service

giving — physical touch > quality time = acts of service > words of affirmation = gift giving

updated — 12/08/23

[harfanfare]

Unique Kisses: Scarabia!

Heartslabyul || Savanaclaw || Octavinelle || Scarabia || Pomefiore || Ignihyde || Diasomnia || Rollo, Che'nya, Neige || Honest Fellow

Kalim A. A. (shut-up kisses)

You lost the thread ten minutes ago.

You are on the decorative veranda of the Scarabia. You occupy large pillows with hand-embroidered floral embroidery. In front of you is a tray with refreshing, sour drinks and plates of sliced fruit prepared by Jamil. Kalim scarcely touched them, for his story takes all his attention.

There is a chessboard with pawns on it. You were supposed to play another game with Kalim, but he had made his last move a good ten minutes ago. You want to finish this round. You are winning, but to beat your boyfriend again in this game you need his attention. And return his focus to very, very good placement of your pawns.

It is hard to stop him from talking. Kalim is too excited about today's event for you to easily shift the conversation to your board game.

You love listening to him chatter. He has an emphatic and effusive voice and describes everyday life with a happy, optimistic perspective.

Aside from his stubbornly focused attention on the conversation, the problem is that Kalim keeps changing the subject. His sentences are clusters of basic slogans, quotes, and exclamations, and that's...

Well, you'd like to learn how to read minds just to be more involved in his story.

When you try to get his attention, he apologizes and paraphrases the last part of his speech in no better form. After two sentences, he forgets about your note. The beam on his face makes you only nod at him as he gloats about the next part of his story.

“Kalim…”

“I didn't know what he was going to say then. But then he surprised me. Because, you know, they say that Octavinelle students are very hard to deal with, but that one seemed nice! I met him... when? Oh, I remember! Because the day before, Jamil and I went to get a cake on their new menu! It was wonderful! We can go there tonight so you can try it too. It tasted very much like the shortcake Jamil had prepared... like, two weeks ago, maybe?”

“Kalim.”

“Oh, I'm sorry! Back to the topic. After that meeting, I mean, the next day, when I asked Mr Crewell for help on this project, we went to the library to learn about this effect... what was the name...? De... De... Dea...? I don't remember! Ah! And on the way to the library, we met Rook, who-”

“Kalim.”

“Yes? Just listen to what he told me! He-”

You bite your cheek to keep yourself from sighing. If you want to finish your game, you must get his attention the other way.

You reached him, needing to come closer on two pillows. You touch his shoulder, and he pauses for one second. It takes two more before you press your lips to his. You can almost feel the words die on his tongue as he gasps softly.

He wants to say something. He opens his mouth, but you are the one in control. You silence him again by moving closer to him to occupy him with a kiss.

It only lasts three seconds.

Kalim lost the thread.

You drift away from him. And just before you is a rare sight of a wordless Kalim. A cheery smile slowly spreads across his face.

You tap the chessboard, and for the first time in an hour, you're sure that Kalim's attention is solely on you.

“Let's finish this round first, okay?”

Jamil V. (movie-like kisses)

“It's a truly beautiful sunset…”

The sky is already orange, with shades of red - and finally warm navy blue – that are beginning to appear in the further stripes of clouds. The colourful ombre of the sky pleased not only artists but also passers-by…

“There's no one here but us…”

…Two passers-by. Jamil tried to create such an atmosphere by putting Kalim in the hands of his family. As expected, he immediately suggested that Jamil should take a vacation, because the next party was being held in his large house and created for Al-Asim's closest family.

When Jamil knew he will be free for at least one night, he decided to go somewhere with you. One of the choices was the beach you are currently on, which you have strolled around for almost all day.

Time flies when talking to a loved one.

“The sea is heaving in the wind...” you add, squeezing his hand a little more. You feel Jamil's grip on your fingers tighten in response. You take a deep breath, taking in a lot of sea air in your lungs. "It seems too good to be true. Should we suspect that Floyd is about to jump out of the water or...?”

Jamil shakes his head. His other hand touches your cheek, and the tips of his fingers draw subtle, invisible marks on your skin. "Don't think about it. Focus on me. On us.”

He doesn't need to use hypnosis, and his wish gets granted anyway.

It was hard to think about that when his gaze and the way he covers your mouth are filled with attention and greed.

The purpose of this whole spectacle of emotions, which rage even more as his hand slowly trails down your back, is to make you want to take another step. And to make sure that he is in control and that he doesn't even need to use his magic on you. If you were hypnotized, you wouldn't know what command he uttered, but now you are fully aware of his every move. You don't even have the willpower to prevent it.

So you give in to it, even though you tell yourself that next time you will be the one in control of that kiss. You don't like the wicked smile on Jamil's face as you gas for air.

The Prince Charming's spell breaks as the corners of his mouth twist mischievously, though, in a few minutes, Jamil will still be playing nice guy when you will walk across the beach again... No, he won't be playing—he will put into the moment everything that he can give himself.

“Ach, weren't going to take pictures of the horizon?” Jamil asks and you wonder how he could change his tone of voice to this... normal tone, in seconds. You narrow your eyes at him. "Why are you looking at me like that? Should I help you take it? Your hands seem a little shaky... Ah, or would you rather admit that I've thrown you off balance, hm?”

[oswaldthatendswald]

For the fruit emoji ask game!!

🍈 and 🍇

Rad questions! I'll answer them in the order I think flows best.

🍇 Is there a particular scene/episode/book/etc that you want to just write a million fics about, over and over? Which one?

I mean, the obvious answer is Minion Island. That kind of haunts my Cora Lives AU (Then Somebody Out There Loves You). It's kind of the perfect tragedy, in that if one thing had gone differently, Cora might have survived-- or Law might have died. Plus, sacrifice is just so tasty. Absolutely ideal writing fodder. The secret bonus answer is Marineford, because you have no idea how many Marineford AUs I've plotted out but not written.

The rest of this is going to get SO long, so I'll put it under the cut.

🍒 What’s your favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)

I really enjoy writing about familial relationships, whether biological or found. More specifically (and I think this is pretty clear from my works on AO3) I'm compelled by dysfunctional sibling relationships. There's a famous bit from the play Antigone (by Sophocles) that I think about a lot (I am sorry I need to be pretentious just for a second). She says that if her husband died, she could marry another, if her child dies, she could bear another, but it is her brother that has died, and she can never have another. She's saying that sibling relationships are irreplaceable (I could go into details on this quote and why it sticks with me, but that'll get so long). I'm interested in what happens when those relationships sour. What do you do when the person you've grown up with, who should have known you best, becomes a stranger-- or worse, an enemy?

I also really like writing parent and child relationships, but that's because I saw X-Men with Hugh Jackman at a very formative age and it convinced me that the accidental father figure trope was incomparably sexy.

🍈 Who’s your blorbo and what are some of your favorite headcanons/ideas about them that repeatedly show up in your fics? Free pass to rant about blorbo opinions.

I mean. It's Cora. Rocinante is my favorite character in One Piece and also maybe anything ever? He's just so goddamn interesting. I could talk about him literally for hours. At this point I have written some 100 000 words of Cora-centric fic (or published words, I should say. There's a lot more in wips and fics I decided not to post). There's a lot of random headcanons I have for him that really only make sense in the context of my AU. I suppose I shall simply reveal my thought processes behind some of what's going on there!

This is going to be so long. I'm not sorry, you asked for this.

I tend to write Cora as suffering from a lot of guilt, and fairly self-destructive as a result. My favorite example is the long-standing coffee thing in my AU: he drinks his coffee sweet when he's in a good mood and bitter when he's feeling bad. The implication is that it's a very quiet self-harm behaviour (though that's meant to be very subtle in the fics-- but note that Law will add sugar to Cora's coffee on a bad day. He knows what's up). I also really... enjoy? Is that the right word? Anyway, writing self-sacrifice as a form of self-destruction. That's, uh. Foreshadowing for some of the themes in Cry Havoc. It might also give you some context for things that have already happened in the AU though!

I also really love playing with Cora's name. Different characters call him different things, and that's meant to reveal parts of how they see him. He calls himself Rocinante, and so does Sengoku. Law is the only character to call him Cora-san, of course. Penguin, Shachi, and Bepo (as well as the rest of the Hearts) call him Cora. Doflamingo calls him Roci in his internal perspective (as do their parents), even when he calls him Corazon in dialogue. Another bit of foreshadowing: we're coming up on the perspectives of some characters that will be calling him Corazon (and perhaps other names? Who knows!) (me. I know).

The hill upon which I will die is that Cora is not just competent, but a little bit scary (or terrifying, if you're on the wrong side). He might be a silly goofy guy, but he also spent six months burning down hospitals. The bit where he steals the Ope-Ope is SO good in the anime; it really struck me how powerful his Devil Fruit could be in the right hands (his). That weaponized silence is an idea that's only hinted at in canon, but the more I thought about it, the more I was like Oh Shit That's A Nightmare Actually. Besides that, he was undercover in a pirate crew for at least three years! He knows what he's doing! He's exceptionally good at his job. I do think sometimes I overcompensate; he is supposed to be goofy as well, and I don't always remember to incorporate that part. But it's not my fault! I just think he's so goddamn cool.

Thank you very much for the questions! I had a lot of fun answering them (obviously-- I think I went a little over the top)!

[traumaturgess]

"Like a single sour fruit we shared together in the dark. To this day, my love remains. You are my only shining star."

Painting practice with my recent OC/FanOC. Reminder that I have commissions open as well. The quote is from the song Lemon using David Toth's lyrics, the original is by Kenshi Yonezu and I used @qinni's art as a source of inspiration.

[greypetrel]

"There's a bonbon in every one of us!"

cit. Lady Inquisitor Aisling First-Thaw Lavellan, she who has at least two secret candy stashes in her room (for emergencies), a sweet-tooth.

Ali (@ndostairlyrium): This dog is so relatable, and it looks like my BonBon. Me: There's a bonbon in every one of us. Ali: That's something Aisling would say.

And so, below are the bonbon in every one of the Characters in Inquisition and some extra. There are a lot of Italian delicacies, but they're all explained. (Aisling is a sugary peach-flavoured gelatine, answer if you're a mutual and she'll assign your character one candy.)

Advisors:

Leliana: Sour rainbow belt. It's colourful, but it's frizzy and it's sour, it will mislead you in thinking it's something sweet and girly... It's not.

Josephine: Alpenliebe. It's very very very sweet and based on honey, very wholesome, also surprisingly hard.

Cullen: Rossana. You don't know how that candy ended up in your purse/pocket. It's there, you can rely on it, they never falter or disappear, it's not everyone taste and the ultimate grandma candy. But it just there for a snack when you need it.

Inner Circle:

Cassandra: Bacio Perugina. It's chocolate and it comes wrapped in a tiny leaflet with the sappiest quote you can think of, translated in four languages so everyone can participate in the sap. But it has a hard nut at the centre that will crack.

Solas: Galatina. It's very, very old-fashioned, in that way you either hate or love, no middle ground. It's condensed milk so it's good for calcium. Another grandma candy.

Varric: Gummy bear. It's reliable, it's the thing that everyone likes, you find it everywhere, everyone agrees that it's a wholesome, good candy even if for some it's a little too basic. The surprise is that Varric is a bowl of liquor-soaked gummy bears. It lied to you.

Dorian: Mon Cheri/any Boer chocolate. A chocolate filled with liquor, very fancy, very refined, it's not everyone's taste, but if it's yours it's suddenly screaming refined person. Sweet, but pungent.

Vivienne: After Eight. Again, it's something very very refined, but that you either hate to guts or love to bits. There's a stark contrast between how it appears and how it tastes, and again, it's something very, VERY fancy.

The Iron Bull: A Strawberry and cream gelèe. It's soft, it's sweet, it's pink, will be liked by a lot of people… And liked so much you won't realize it's giving you cavities for days and your dentist will love you for the amount of money you'll leave them.

Sera: Fudge. It's sweet af, but it's annoying and relentless. It sticks to your back teeth and it will go away when your dentist will forcibly scrape it away with a scalpel, cursing loudly.

Cole: Fruttini. It's basically sugar. A tiny ball of sugar with the faintest fruit flavour. It's a sugar cube? It's a fruit candy? It's a bit of both, you decide. It will melt in your mouth and be very very sweet.

Blackwall: Selz Soda. It looks like an innocent, wholesome hard candy. Very wholesome, it's fruity and sweet. And then BAM the hard shell cracks and there's selz inside and it burns and you're left there hissing at the surprise. Not everyone's favourite, and not a candy you should trust.

[beyondthegame]

hi hehe super random question but if mc were to make a care package for the ros, what would be in it? <3

I love random questions from you <3

Cypress; fruit basket, cinema tickets because it’s been ages since they went and got to watch a film that wasn’t a kid related one, another silver necklace so they can wear it along with their shield pendant one, flowers.

If you gave E a book bouquet they would get down on their knee(s) be complete! Shopping for E is probably the best but also the worst because people don’t realise how simple they are when it comes to gifts, they’re the person that says “you don’t have to get me anything”, and they mean it. But alsooo, make a playlist with all your favourite songs and give it to them and yeahh, they’re good. Ooo, and a handwritten note of some kind.

L; a discount voucher to get a new tattoo (they’ll even let you choose), nail polish, lip balm, cinnamon buns & red velvet cake, hair ties because their curly hair has a mind of its own, a bi flag :)

Milan; a disposable camera, Polaroid pictures of the two of you, a keyring, a packet of sour sweets are their favourite so those, a text reminder to wish on 11:11, Milan’s one of those people that look hot with sunglasses on their head and on their face so those too, a soft blanket.

N; coffee, a new mug, paint, paintbrushes, pencils, a sketchbook, a day out to the beach, a hug, probably trainers because they’re a sneaker whore, scented candles, a print with a pretty quote written in Arabic.

[noveldivergence]

Find THE WORD

Tagged by the fantastic @wiredhouse!

The words given were: Fire, metal, rose, and soul.

Since A Plague of Shadows is still so short, I instead dug into my various works for my horror series The Apostates! These all come from a work I haven't titled yet, but it's functionally a novella I love that has just stalled for awhile.

I'm sorry some of the pulled quotes are so big, but I like giving them with the full context and gravity. I actually cut some of this down LOL

Fire

“I often wonder, Doctor, if the powers that be simply do not view us with the same distant affection or disgust or disinterest as we view the worm. They see us writhing past them on the ground, in a struggle of our own naive creation, and they step on us or walk by and leave us to dry out in the sun.” “Or pick you up,” Adan half-whispered, and Alek smiled a small and wholly comprehending grin. “Or pick you up, and it is pain like you can never imagine as you move through space in new and incomprehensible ways, beholden to cosmic awe, before you are simply…” He gestured a dropping motion with his hand. “Pop. Back in the dirt, hoping you can one day perhaps understand what happened. Hoping that the pain for you was worth it. Hoping that the attention of the force that brought you to salvation through fire meant something, but ultimately ever so incapable of fully comprehending its whims.” “So you’re saying in the grand scheme of the universe, we’re worms?” “Oh no, Doctor,” Aleksander continued. “We are ever so much worse."

Metal

The soft sounds of Callie chewing on something in the living room interrupted his reverie. It sounded metallic. Adan set his coffee down quickly enough to spill it on himself, wiping his hand on his undershirt furiously as he rushed to prevent his chocolate lab from another very expensive vet visit. “Drop it! Callie, sweet girl, drop iiiitttt,” he pleaded, trying to gently prise the dog’s mouth open. A metallic clink pinged off the hardwood, and he sighed in relief. 

Rose

A Japanese robotics professor by the name of Masahiro Mori coined the term the Uncanny Valley in 1970. Though the concept was originally used to describe humanity’s discomfort with human likenesses used in robotics, it soon began to spread in use. Something about the image of a not quite human face caused an innate discomfort in the hindbrain of mankind. Some theorized that the discomfort rose from some internal undermining of human identity. Others imagined it had to do with a fear of death in the face of the non-living. Adan had generally found himself believing the “pathogen theory” of the Uncanny; the idea simply being that those small differences from humanity signaled something wrong, something unhealthy, some sort of interloper who would break the health of society or the social contract by poisoning it with disease.

Soul

Examining the table, his eyes fell onto an apple, a symbol of disobedience to God and access to forbidden knowledge in so much of the West. At the same time, it was something familiar, something safe. Something seen in different cultivars across U.S. grocery stores, created more as marketing experiments than scientific achievements. This one was a Golden Delicious. Occult wisdom tempted humanity once more to sell a soul, he thought wryly. He took the apple and raised it to his mouth. It gave way all too easily, and he expected to taste the moldering, mealy taste of an apple far past overripe. He didn’t. It was bright and unbearably acidic, pinching at his mouth like sour salt. When he looked down in his hand, the inside of the apple had the look of a typical one at first glance, but the more he stared at it, the more the trails of bitemarks broke off and spiralized into strange fractals, drawing him further into the flesh of the fruit until he couldn’t bear it anymore. As he felt himself slipping slowly into the madness of this chaos apple, it disintegrated in his hand before his mind went with it.

I put Adan through so much. Including listening to Aleksander ramble.

Anyway.

I shall now tag new hands to touch the beacon: @helperduck, @ryns-ramblings, @pixiedustandpetrichor, @winterandwords, @alnaperera

THE NEW WORDS ARE DARKNESS, LIGHT, MOON, AND WIND.

As usual if you do not want to or have time to do this, you are under no obligation! Also if I didn't tag you, then feel free to use this anyway and tag me in it.

[prapasara]

Som Tum: various types of delicious Thai papaya salad

Som Tum or Thai spicy papaya salad is a popular Thai dish originated from north eastern Thailand. The dish is famous for being rich in flavour i.e. a mix of sweet, spicy and sour. There are many types of Som Tum that you may find in Thailand, or at any Thai restaurant. Therefore, it is important to know your Som Tum before making any order! Also, you need to pay attention to some ingredients in Som Tum as it may contain ingredients like peanuts or shrimps which some people are allergic to). In this article, we will be covering different types of Som Tum and finish it off with whether the dish is vegetarian friendly.

Different types of Thai papaya salad

The main ingredient of som tum is the shredded green, raw papaya. Other common vegetables include tomatoes and green beans (sometimes carrots as well). The dish derives its taste from garlic, chili, tamarind, lime, fish sauce and a bit of sugar.

Som Tum Thai is the first variation of som tum that we will cover. It has unique ingredients including dried shrimp and peanut on top of your usual raw papaya, tomato and green beans. Som Tum Thai is common in central Thailand so you will be able to find it anywhere in Bangkok.

Som Tum Phu or crab Som Tum is a variation where either preserved sesarma crab or flower crab is added to Som Tum dish to enhance the flavor.

Som Tum Lao or Som Tum Pla Ra is characterized by a special ingredient called “Pla Ra” or fermented fish. This type of Som Tum with a small portion of fermented fish will have a stronger smell and flavor compared to other types of Som Tum. For those who enjoy the fermented fish enhancement, they will quote this is the best type of Som Tum. On the other hand, others who are not a fan will find the dish pungent. It is either you love or hate it.

Som Tum cucumber salad replaces shredded green papaya with refreshing sliced cucumber for its main ingredient. Some variation of the som tum cucumber salad also add Thai sausage, shrimp or grilled pork into the mix which make the dish interesting.

Som Tum with fruits uses fruits as the main ingredient instead of shredded raw papaya or cucumber. Common fruits you will find in this type of Som Tum include apple, guava, pomelo and corn (although corn is not exactly a fruit). Some recipes will also add dragon fruit, grape, kiwi, pineapple. Actually, you can add any fruit you like, but the rule of thumb is to avoid adding watery fruit like watermelon. The reason being is obvious, you do not want your Som Tum too watery.

How to enjoy a meal with Thai papaya salad

You can have Som Tum on its own, but usually Thai people enjoy Som Tum with a number of other dishes. The most common one is to have sticky rice or kanom jeen as carb companion for Som Tum. Other than that, you can add some protein source like grilled/fried chicken or pork neck (which go really well with Nam Jim Jaew dipping sauce). This is because the typical Som Tum does not have any meat inside. Som Tum is already quite rich with vegetables but usually there are other raw vegetables and herbs accompanying this dish. This can include cabbage, basil leaves, green beans and cucumbers.

Is Som Tum vegetarian friendly?

If you are a strict vegetarian then the answer might be no, as most Som Tum dishes contain fish sauce and Som Tum Thai contains dried shrimp. However, some shops offer vegetarian Som Tum, for example Som Tum Thai without dried shrimp. Otherwise Som Tum with cucumber or fruits are generally vegetarian friendly.

Find out more about the Thai papaya salad calories in our dedicated article!

[leohttbriar]

nog (valid) is like, "would someone please articulate what we're fighting for here and not in the naive verse of an imperialist?"

then julian is like, "well, see it was ironic. we're just putting on a show, like the poem puts on a show about the soldiers putting on a show for a nation nearing the height of their illusory myth-making."

then miles, after a pause in which nog digests the purpose of irony in the face of doom, quotes heaney (sincere): "Once off the bush / The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. / I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair / That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. / Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not."

and nog is sanguine.

[dprcailimait]

Iridescence (WIP)

I've been getting my ramblings together and as thus far. I have a solid idea of where to take my ideas.

TL;DR

Currently outlining a Berserk retelling spanning from the Golden Age Arc to Fantasia, focused on an AU where Griffith forcefully turns Guts into an immortal (Apostle).

For a frame of reference, I read the first chapter of the golden age arc, and this quote just summarizes perfectly what I want out of a Griffith/Guts post-Eclipse retelling. When I say retelling, I really mean a twisted, dark romance. They're fucked up courtship, where with every exchange, they mend a little piece of themselves they never dared bring up to anyone else.

Exploring Griffith’s psyche fascinates him, I’m debating where exactly in the Golden Age arc to start because I want to drill in the dread of loneliness into him. It’s gonna be subtle at first, but nonetheless there. I think it’d add on to the angst sandwich I want to make with this fic. Not just that but making Guts and Griffith blossoming lovers, not outwardly either to themselves or others but a blurred mix of the two.

I fleshed out my idea a little more clearly. Some plot points are very much lost in the word soup that is this fic lol.

Main Idea:

The turning point, where Griffith will turn Guts into an immortal, will be after they have fought.

Guts' primary motivation— his dream, and life’s purpose is Casca. He does not lose her, but he's trying to be a man worthy of Casca’s devotion. He needs to control his urge to chase Griffith, to not give into temptation but his inner demon coaxes his psyche into passivity— making him fall prey into thoughts, nightmare. Estranged lucid fantasies of his former commander.

It whispers of possibilities that ring bloody and sour to his sanity, but with the rusted aches comes an emotion rivaling even the sweetest kiss from his lover. And that terrifies him beyond all reason.

Guts dies while fighting Griffith, an entity he should know better than to challenge.

He knows defeat but the bitterness of an impending death comfortably sits on his tongue, soothing a pavlovian response in him to tear and thrash and glaze, endlessly enamored as a quick, seamless slash breaks his skin, muscles and bone.

The horrid, white-sear leaves him breathless— without the strength nor mind to scream or is it the sight before him. One of Griffith, his face ghosted with a smile he’s only known in far-off memories of a time long before his maturity. He’d be a fool to be scared of death but he’d be a liar to say it doesn’t cause him fright, losing Casca and the potential of being with her scares him,

But for now, for this singular moment of agony, he smiles. His mind wonders, fruitful in its fantasies and nightmares and for once, aimless in his struggle, he finds peace— as if being nurtured by the embrace of a mother, he’s satisfied. Seeing a glimpse, a crack in Griffith’s armor, lulls him.

While clashing, the past's excitement rekindles inside Griffith. His heart beats at his ears, singing of a long tattered wound. A scar left known in a far-off time beyond his conscious psyche, a deep seeded loneliness remembrance only pray tell him. The very one that clung to the man stumbling before him.

Then and there in the brief moment of their swords play, Griffith's blood runs cold as he watches the man he once grew to love and hate smile at him. His composure collapses with Guts’ dying breath, and, for the first time, in his immortal life, he processes the depths of his solitude.

In that moment, Griffith ruins his former friend once more by giving him the very thing he swore to take, his life.

[axelotyls]

but fr 17 74 95

17. something u dont mind spending ur money on

my friends, dog, and mom :3

74. fav candy

ough tough one but i rlly love like sour gummies, nerds, fruit roll ups, vizzio, airheads, pelo pelon rico, and dark chocolate

95. share ur fav quote

kinda basic but the entirety of the end poem u get when u complete minecraft, specifically, "and the universe said i love you because you are love."

[russilton]

What are your favorite candies and snacks?

Oh dude my one human flaw is that my autistic sensory issues mean that all chips, crisps, and similar sweet to salty crunchy things are my favourite thing in the world. I love any chocolate without fruit in it (raisins, currents and sultanas are the devil and you can quote me on that), and most types of clear gummy candy like haribo.

If I had to pick favourites tho? White chocolate Reese’s pieces, white fudge coated pretzels, and fruit pastilles for candies. For snacks, which I tend to prefer over candies by like, a margin thinner than a sheet of paper, Pringles, Doritos, or just CRISPS in general. Anything in cheese and onion, sour cream and chive or sweet chilli flavour is my jam, but there are very few flavours of crisps I won’t eat. They are my vice but also my reason for living

Also very specifically the best flavour of crisps and therefore the best snack in existence? CO-OP’s Christmas limited time ‘the ultimate roast potato’ flavour crisps. Garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, olive oil flavour. Sweet, salty, garlicky, flavour of the gods.

[awlwren-writes]

9 12 and 18 for Helen and Maria both :P

Thank you for supporting my OCs. I really do appreciate it. Even if this is very long.

9.favorite food? least favorite? are they a picky eater? do they have any dietary restrictions?

Helen: Helen will try most things (almost as a dare) but has her general favorites that she sticks to on her own. She is very fond of Galahdan curries and steamed veggies, cakes and pies both savory and sweet. She dislikes mushy food. Her very favorite food, though, is bread. Warm bread with butter, toast with nut, chocolate or fruit spreads, a warm roll with seeds or dried fruit and she is in heaven. She doesn't have any food restrictions she knows of.

Maria: Maria likes sweets, either as fruit or baked goods, though she's bad at making them. She eats most everything cheerfully, though, and is a good cook with a good taste for flavor combinations, even the weird ones. She dislikes sour things but has grown to love very challengingly hot spicy foods. She is allergic to almonds and bananas, unfortunately, but sometimes risks it anyway.

12.how long have they been around? do you know their birthday? is their birthday the day you made them or another day? what do they think of celebrating birthdays?

They've been around since I needed more rookies in Turn To to flesh out the glaives who had joined with Nyx, Libertus, Pelna, and Luche and decided to be the change I wanted to see and add more women. So...fifteen months? They were supposed to be kind of filler but gained their own personalities and backstories over time. People ask questions and I fill it in and slowly they are become more fleshed out.

So, no, I haven't thought of their birthdays. Let's randomly give them birthdays now. Helen's is March 19, for a festival for Minerva in Rome. That said, Insomnia doesn't really care about birthdays, and celebrates anniversaries of promotions and achievements instead. Age is generally reckoned at the start of each two-month "season", which puts her probably in Bahamut's section of late winter starvation and the first stirrings of war in early spring in my calendar, which fittingly corresponds with another associated Roman festival. This was probably seen as a good sign for her life.

Maria's can be July 22, which is the feast of Mary Magdalene, who certainly has enough ideas about her circulating to suit our complicated Maria. It's also apparently rat-catcher's day in an errounous celebration of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, which she would find an amusing mistake. There's interesting Napoleonic Wars history, too. Let's go with that. It's in Ifrit's season, but she's not Insomnian so she celebrates her birthday. It's the birthday girl's choice of food and she says cake. ^_^

18.their opinion on lying, stealing, and killing?

This gets long, and a little dark so I'm putting it under a cut. They are soldiers at war, after all.

Helen: Depends on who it is! Lying to busybodies and formal enemies is always okay. Lying to your direct superiors is almost never okay! Stealing from your formal enemies is okay (enemy combatants, that is, not enemy civilians or prisoners), stealing from the government/your job is very frowned upon, stealing from those who depend on you is the worst kind of evil. Stealing ideas is just good sense. If you don't know who she's citing/quoting, that's your fault. (This is culturally Insomnian as well)

Killing your formal enemies is almost always okay (if you are in a one-on-one situation and can work something else out, that's impressive and the better route, though), killing anyone or anything else...she's seen enough death. Definitely the person who takes spiders outside rather than killing them if she can. That said, had she been alive during the events of the movie, she would have killed any traitor glaives in a storm of righteous anger and then, if she survived, would have to be given enough important tasks that she can't deny she's more useful alive and helping in the guilt and depression that followed.

Insomnia is a city who worships a war god. The rules of war are very codified as to who is a formal enemy, and Helen generally chooses the strictest of those rules and is a bit horrified when not everyone does as well.

Maria: Lying to anyone who doesn't have a specific social contract of trust with you (your partners, the coworkers on your shift, children in your care, etc) as long as you aren't under oath is permitted. This is the cultural attitude she comes from. That said, she doesn't do it often; the truth is usually more interesting, and people learn to distrust you too easily if you lie to them too quickly. And it's too much effort to keep track of, usually. (and honestly, she doesn't like to be cruel, just has a very strong but broad in-group that she's protective of) She's iffy about the gods and swearing oaths before them, but she's worked through the idea enough to know that people need to know your actual word is good in cases like oaths, so she respects oaths.

Stealing anything that's necessary for someone's life is basically killing that person - water access, craftsmen's tools, staples, etc. (stealing it from abundance is a different story, with similar limits to the lying above) Anything you're clever enough to take from enemies is yours. Stealing minor things from friends they would give you if you asked for is friendship bonding.

Killing of people is to be avoided if possible was her ideal growing up, and she still thinks it should be. But war, invasion, and scourge has stretched the definition of "possible" a little for her. Niffs are fair game, even certain Niff civilians if they won't stop stealing necessities or are on military vessels that are going down (magic isn't precise). [Refugees were enlightened enough to leave (and had the resources and luck to do so), so she's good about not transferring hatred home very nearly always.] Killing of animals should be intentional and clean. Ideally human killing should follow that principle as well, though she's been known to make things messy when she's very mad or exhausted.

Well, that was a lovely end. Sorry?

[regulushair]

A bit of an eclectic list:

Trésor by Lancôme - wanted to try this one because it's a classic and I've heard it was reformulated to be completely unrecognizable (and not fitting the pyramid). Well, when you hear sweet peaches and powdery flowers that's definitely not what you imagine - it's green-ish - at some point I've even heard some seasoning herb (coriander/kinza - is there even a difference?). There might be some fruits, but almost no sweetness - like at the very end I can hallucinate imagine sour apricots but that's kind of it. Weird.

Cheap & Chic I Love Love by Moschino - wanted to try something simple and popular and got exactly what I expected. The most basic orange lollipops - nothing natural about it, but not unpleasant.

Un Jardin Sur Le Toit by Hermès - now this is nice, I'm yet again hearing some fresh herbs that aren't supposed to be there in the first place, but anyway the opening is indeed very fresh and green and grassy and at the bottom it's almost like fresh rose - which is lovely. I don't feel much of the apple though, but maybe it and the pear add some sweetness and fruitiness to the rose. Loved it.

H24 by Hermès - decent male fragrance. Basic? Yeah. Unpleasant? No. Do I feel the narcissus that I hoped for? Unfortunately also no.

Jeu d'Amour by Kenzo - this is actually surprisingly good. I've heard that this has nice tuberose in it and at first I didn't really believe it. Yes, at the top the tuberose barely shows itself from behind some pretty generic (but pleasant) fruits, but not more. At the bottom though it's very very nice very clean tuberose - sweet enough, fresh enough - loved it actually, will return to it.

L'Interdit Eau de Parfum Rouge by Givenchy - so I've seen this in countless quote-unquote "maneater perfume" lists and it yet again proves the belief that "the way to the man's heart is though his stomach" is still very much alive and not going anywhere. This smells like sweetened condensed milk. After a while there's some tuberose petals floating in it but it's still mostly sugar and lactose. (I'm guessing it's sandal and tuberose working together like that.) Is it good? No. Is it bad? No. It's sugar! Jokes aside, it's pretty pleasant, but I like sweetened condensed, so there's that. (The best sillage out of all fragrances today.)

Narciso Rodriguez for Him Bleu Noir Parfum by Narciso Rodriguez - returned to this and this is the first male Narciso Rodriguez fragrance that I tried on myself and I wasn't disappointed - it opened on me surprisingly less sweet than on the blotter (which is a little odd - usually everything on me is sweet) and it was usually balancing somewhere between sweet irises and more classical male perfume (vetiver, cedar etc.) - it was sort of turning from side to side. It was very nice (not wish-list worthy though...).

[yurious-george]

32 48 49

32. top five favorite vines?

I don't have a favorite vine BUT i love the "JUSTIIIN" "yes? :3" tiktok

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

Mango! They're my favorite. sweet, tropical, a little unusual, good both when a little sour/tart and super sweet.

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

Do no harm, take no shit, rule 2 overrides rule 1.