#{{I MEAN ITS ACCURATE

[activate-shadow-of-the-window]

Okay so this is a little project I started just a few days ago and I’m not done yet, but I’m so pleased with the results so far that I just had to share them! These are five of the fifteen banners of the hermit civilizations of my Horizon to Horizon au, fully designed and colored by yours truly! It’s been way too long since I attempted colored digital art, and since the fantasy bug has me properly infected, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to change that. From right to left, we have the banners of:

Climbing Spires, Cub’s sleek redstone-powered nation of horse-riders and former nomads in a badlands biome built on the sandstone ruins of ages long past

The Maw, Doc’s subterranean industrial powerhouse of miners and machines beneath a rare and treacherous ice spikes biome

Umbra, False’s wooden cyberpunk country of reclusive faeries and outcasts under the shade of a roofed forest

The Watering Hole, Jevin’s neoclassical trading hub of refugee fish-folk and artisans who can’t stand the cold of the north around a freshwater lake

Elsewhere, Joe’s confusing mishmash of anyone and everything seemingly held together by sheer force of will and charisma in the middle of a prairie

Part 1 (this one) | Part 2 | Part 3 | More to come? I will be doing my empires designs eventually, but when is the more important question…

In game banner patterns below the cut

[itrustmydiscoverweekly]

Time for more music opinions on artists that I've never heard of!

This week I listened to The Woodlands by Wim Tapley!

⭐⭐⭐.5 (3.5 out of 5 stars) (annoying there's not a half star emoji 🙄)

Ok! I had a gerat time with this album. This man can SING dear loRd. Funny thing, my process for this whole project is listen twice, pick my favorites, and then listen a whole lot more thoughout the week, and piick final favorites, and this album, 2/3 of my favorites are not the same as from the start of this week.

This was another discover weekly album, hadn't heard of this band before, but i love their sound and was slightly sad they weren't hitting my city on their tour :/

it got a 3.5 because the album is not exactly my style personally, but the parts I'm not the biggest fan of get totally shoved out by the moments I ADORE.

It was discover weekly recommended because of Noah Kahan and yep, ifyou like Noah Kahan, you'll definitely like this guy, more Americana Alt Folk, brillliant Genre that I'm quickly falling in love with.

Opinion time!!!! (again, sorted by album order not my ranked order)

"Chokehold" I guess you could say this song has a chokehold on me ha ha ha... What a way to start an album, this song is just gorgeous, the drums are so good, Wim's voice aghh and the way the lines "God forbid I fall to alcohol/ The pills, or worse, the worship of myself" Augh the way it flows beautifully into the next lyrics, mmmm if you listen to a song off this album, give that your time and I didn't even mention the dreamy guitar

"All We've Got Is Love" Gorgeous, I'm such a whore for fingerstyle guitar. This dude has such a way of delivering lyrics and using big word so seamlessly augh love the lyricism of this song and the guitar. 👍 AND NOT TO MENTION THIS GUY WRITES HIS OWN LYRICS-

and finally, last but not least, "Double Dutch". This was the 1/3 that was picked as a favorite at the start of this week. I loveeee the instrumentation on this song, gorgeous, no notes. Big fan of the bass line on this song too!

and because this post wasn't long enough yet, HONORABLE MENTIONS DOOT DOOT DOOT 🥳

"Run With It" LOVEE the guitar on this track and drums and his singing, wait how isn't this top 3... the lyrics in unison with a guitar augh, great song

"Wonderfully Made" again, instrumentation mwah

"Nashville" one of the more memorable tracks imo, very good

"Other Side" big fan of the drums on this one and chorus is very good

"Sometimes" Augh a jazz track, this one is so good, the chords are absolutely nasty/pos and Wim's SINGING dear lord

"The Woodlands" such a good song to be the namsake of the album, good keyboard 👍

[aphel1on]

AURGH auwarghh the autistic parental trauma... the epi was wacky hijinks then dropped this on us out of nowhere... (sobs) laios... laiiiiooooos

[potatobugz]

objects loving objects baby!!!!

[chawliekin]

and if I said that dennis’ insistence on being the breadwinner/provider despite literally being a pampered princess who dgaf about traditional roles of masculinity in every other regard (aside from ego) is because his mom only stayed with/chose frank for his wealth and dennis is highly aware that he’s difficult to love and unable to show his emotions openly so he has to be contributing something to the relationship materially in order to feel like he’s worth staying for… and mac grew up with parents who were extremely ambivalent to him and eachother so he has to overcompensate by proving his worth at every given moment and seeking praise/validation from people (and religious icons) who will never demonstrate the same amount of dedication to him but he has no idea how else to desperately keep himself close to those he loves other than by eroding himself into something they’ll approve of… dear god they’re both exactly what the other needs — someone who can’t and won’t leave them even if they try — and they don’t even see it…

[arson-09]

Have been seeing some discussion again about tamlin being a good High Lord or not and I just have to remind everyone of one of the best little facts from acotar I never really seen mentioned.

Acotar, Chapter 25 Page 221

She [Alis] simply said, "Summer Solstice. The main celebration used to be at the Summer Court, but... Things are different. So now we have one here, too. You're going."

"so now we have one here too..." Because of amarantha and Tamlin being just a good person he allowed anyfae from any court to come to spring. And because no one could really go back to their courts for their respective solstice celebrations, Tamlin made sure Spring Celebrated all of them

I just think that's such a cool fucking thing. That Tamlin cared for the people coming to spring for safety, and he made changes to help everyone feel comfortable and at home. He cares about the people who live in Spring, he cares so damn much :(((

[peachetteprice]

Hi!! I have a request

I have had this idea of singing/hummjng Simon “Ghost” Riley back to sleep after he has had a nightmare or can’t relax enough to fall asleep.

Reader can carry a tune; maybe not a grammy nominee but Simon loves it when they do sing.

Simon doesn’t ask them himself to hum or sing to him, it sort of just happens. No one knows how to calm him down like they do and the way Reader hums/sings one of his favorite songs and gently rubs his back works better than he thought it would.

Thank you 😊💖‼️

Hello! I took some creative liberties with the prompt given. It is only slightly different from what you gave me, but I hope I did it justice! Please let me know your thoughts. @skrubob

(Note: influenced by a sleep disorder my dad has. I don't know, I thought I could relate a bit more with that idea!)

Strangers in the Night

Simon "Ghost" Riley - 1.9K words

It happened again.

It happened again like it happened most nights: without much warning, and for no particular reason.

It wasn't a spectacular night. There was nothing distinct about the moon and its size, neither the thickness of its crescent nor the depth of its craters. It wasn't a notable day for the planets and their stars. Nobody had wished on a comet. Nothing, in fact, nothing had gone on in the day to warrant such an odd happening.

Like every day, whenever Simon was off-deployment, he woke up at 0615. No sooner and no later than the sun rose, did he clambour from the bedsheets with a tired groan and a stretch - only occasionally might he have triggered his shoulder blades to seize up, though, thankfully, today was not one of those days - make his careful way downstairs so as to not wake you, flick the kettle on for a brew and stare out of the kitchen window until its rolling boil turned to a simmer, and it clicked itself off.

The cuppa was perfect.

There wasn't a single thing wrong with it.

In fact, if he could have sampled a half-pint of it, dried it into a powder, dusted it onto a canvas and hung it up on the wall in the bedroom - so that he could have something of a reminder of the most well-balanced cup of tea he'd ever made - then he just might have. Though, that wasn't to say that it was anything extraordinary. Not at all. It was a simple, bog-standard cuppa with a dash of milk, a humped teaspoon of white cane sugar, and all he did at the end, when he pulled the teabag out, was make sure not to pinch the sides of it on the rim; that was all there was to it.

And that was all to re-iterate that nothing at all about Simon Riley's day was unusual.

To insist on that point, as you readied yourself to work, and he gave you your cuppa for the morning - two sugars, a whiff of milk, exactly how you liked it - he made sure to give you a kiss on your lips just as your palm neared the door handle. It lasted exactly three seconds, and there was nothing overtly obscene about the smack that followed or the light tap he gave the rear of your thigh as you left.

When you were gone, he did the laundry. The washing machine finished at nine, so he put the tumble dryer on, too. That finished at eleven-thirty, and everything else was put on the line in the garden, which dried until three. Between then and three, if only to keep himself occupied, he fixed one of the dining chairs that you had leant too far back on and splintered the wooden bar at the lumbar region, for which he had to pop to B&Q to grab another bottle of wood glue, which, by and by, was also nothing peculiar in the slightest.

Once that was fixed, and the washing was dry, he collected, folded - even ironed, if the crinkles needed a spot of flattening, in which case it was one of your work blouses or a pair of his fatigues - then sorted them into the chest of drawers in your bedroom.

And, of course, once that was put away, he had his second brew of the day. Equally as plain. Equally as perfect.

By 1800 hours, you were home, and he gave your lips another kiss. Six seconds, this time, double the length of the one from the morning, with a little more vigour, and unlike the previous, you gave his left buttock a little clench, then a pat, and off you went to check the fridge for dinner.

Spag-bol. Spaghetti bolognese. With parmesan, too. The only thing that could've been somewhat abnormal was the addition of cut-up Cumberland sausages that desperately needed eating up, though it was hardly the monumental incident required to be the reason behind it happening again. It was nice. Dinner. Not your finest work, but then again, weekday meals, especially when Simon was home and you had to cook for two again, never were.

After washing up, you gave him a peck on the cheek, and he held you for a moment against the cabinets, just relishing in the body heat that he missed that morning. And when that was over, you popped the TV on - something completely ordinary in genre, motif, and drama - and fell asleep against him on the sofa.

Perhaps it was why you didn't notice so much. Perhaps if you'd stayed awake, you would have known when, why, or how it came to be.

An hour or two - or some duration of time in between - of light sleep passed, and you woke to the sound of his electric toothbrush whirring away. You joined him in the bathroom to brush your teeth, he slung an arm about your waist and drew circles into your stomach, though you were still some variable of dazed by the sudden jolt from being asleep to awake, but it was all alright, truly, because within two minutes, you were dead asleep again.

It was uncertain how much time had passed between falling asleep and being awake again. That was the terrible thing with sleep. Sleep blurs the lines between seconds and hours. What could have been five minutes could have easily been five hours, and what could have been ten hours often felt no longer than ten seconds. Time becomes an illusion, much like the theory in which, on one planet, it is equally plausible that thirty seconds in passing may equal three days in another, and yet, both planets cohabit the same space, the same universe, mere light years apart.

When you did manage to fall asleep again after brushing your teeth, and when it did happen again, it was a mere three seconds.

There was shouting. Some rambling. It bled into your unconsciousness until, with a rather heavy dip in the sheets, a bolt from the blue, you were left wide-awake.

"Simon?" You said into the void. There wasn't much to be seen at night.

"Where? Where is it? There's a--"

--You were awake now. That was for definite. Three seconds had passed, and Simon was awake, too. There was something odd about the frenzy in his eyes. If it wasn't for his blown pupils, you would have been convinced there was an intruder somewhere in the house. But he looked delirious. Three seconds had passed, and he hadn't slept a wink for something more like three days. But in the same breath, he was barely awake.

He was somewhere in between, mumbling under his breath about a spider and how it was somewhere here, in the bedroom, and it wanted him.

He wasn't making any sense - Simon Riley was not afraid of a bloody spider.

Twenty-two hours, eighteen minutes, and three seconds had passed. Nothing pertubing had happened prior, and yet, it was happening again.

"Simon, love, go back to sleep." You enveloped the shadow of his waist and pressed him back to the mattress - luckily, he hadn't left the bed yet. He was in and out of it, then. Ever-mumbling, eyelids still bursting wide every few seconds with the type of fear that should have only been present in somebody murdered. "It's alright."

It didn't happen often.

A few times since you'd been together, all countable on one hand, which, at this point, was years. He'd told you it might happen the first night you'd slept together in the same bed. Not the first time you'd slept together, full stop, but when he moved in and co-opted the king-sized bed in the bedroom. It was real, then. The relationship.

He never remembered it in the morning. Never did. Never will. You know he never did - he would have apologised if he did. Never asks if it's happened, but he's sure it has, because he notices the way your eyes never leave him the morning after, as if you're worried he might start yelling obscenities again and you have to hold him.

You always have to hold him. Like his mother did. One arm along his belly, stroking his stomach, and the other around the curve of his head, petting his hair like he's a little lamb. He would never be embarrassed about it, what you have to do to calm him, but if he were to ever ask if he'd ever woken up in a state, looking half as scared as a little boy in the dark - you wouldn't tell him. No. It's only a memory for you, and you'd rather like to keep it that way.

"It's alright." You cooed.

Sometimes, you sing to him. If he needs it. You sung that night, actually. He needed it that night. God, you must have sounded awful. Part of you was pleased at the fact that he never remembers it once he wakes up, because you'd quite like to avoid the conversation about how you can only just about hold a tune, and not with much fluidity.

It was Etta James' I'd Rather Go Blind.

The DJs on Smooth Radio played it during crawl traffic on the M60, rattled on about how incredible of a voice she had, they did, which was salt in the wound, really - there was an accident that morning on the hard shoulder, it took all of fifteen minutes to clear - and it was all that was stuck in your head at work, on the toilet, in the break-room and in the car on the way home.

It was the only song that came to mind as you started singing. A few wobbly notes here and there, nothing but of jumble of lyrics where it was certain you'd said more than one of the pre-chorus lines in favour of getting to the chorus itself, and you could hardly stop yourself from whispering some notes that you knew you wouldn't be able to reach at a murmur.

Simon settled a little at that. You were sure there wasn't much cognition behind those eyes - he was nothing but a walking zombie whenever it happened - but his hands clasped the one on his stomach, his pupils pinched back to normal, and by the second chorus, he was calm again.

You held him for a while. A long while. Until daybreak came in. Just to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

And at 0615, when the sun crept in to cast its shadow along the foot of the bed - and it would still be another hour until you rose - Simon awoke, stretched out his shoulder blades - though, this time, they did seize up - and faced your conked-out body.

Simon did notice something peculiar, then.

Your arms wrapped around his torso - which were often the other way around - should have been clutching the covers. There never meant to be a kink in your brow. Never was. Never should have been. Only on the mornings when you looked at him with too much empathy - when something had happened the night before that you never wished to talk about, was there ever such concern knotted into them.

And, in that moment, Simon knew. He leant a kiss to your lips, later joined them at your earlobe, too, before whispering;

"Thank you, love."

And there actually was something anomalous about that day, irreverent of the last. For some reason, whether because of the stars, the moon, or the planets, Simon had an Etta James song stuck in his head. How bloody weird.

| Masterlist |

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[bugtoast]

Here’s some WIP concepts of the mercs,,,,

Ballista is my blorbo bleebus <3

[l1-b1]

Doing this trend was fun so I did a Kai version as well

[stellar-jay]

keeping tryst

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

[duskerot]

i disappear inside myself / my friends don't know it can't be helped

[Pure You - Nothing But Thieves]

[vigilskeep]

i really enjoy that they gave illario a funny little shirt with a bit of flash. and a bit of colour at the belt. he would be the one guy in the room who can’t abide by the blue-black colour scheme to save his life. and only buttoning it halfway basically goes without saying

[p4ranormaluv]

jake is written as a super hot experienced fuck boy but turns good for the reader but like realistically i feel like hes more of an extremely horny loser who WANTS to be in control and dominant and kinky but he can barely control himself so when he fucks his gf i bet he ends up apologizing over and over again bc he cant control the pace hes going at... but its still so hot and he is still very much dom but in a pathetic loser way

COULDN’T AGREE MORE NONNIE, IM HERE WITH YOU 100%

like, jake just NEEDS to cum, and he needs it all the time. he doesn’t really have the brain capacity to think about anything else. like he’ll take control of you, bend you in all sorts of positions so he can slip inside you, but he’s whining and desperate the entire time. all his rizz goes right out the window and there’s only horny boi thoughts left. he’ll hump into you desperately like he has no experience— but it feels so good. sometimes he’ll even accidentally slip out from your pussy with how erratic his hips are moving, and he’s almost too fucked out to figure out what’s happened.

but he’ll pin you down and use you almost like a toy, he’ll constantly apologize but he’ll never stop until he’s done. he’ll use you exactly how he wants you.

[todayisafridaynight]