#Grape Tree How To Grow

[arolesbianism]

Man oni can't do this to me I'm supposed to be preparing for artfight but all I can think abt is Them™ from the second I wake up to the moment I go to bed how am I supposed to prepare in these circumstances 😔

[faaun]

.

[headspace-hotel]

by the way (i sadly cant share this document cause it was sent to me personally and i dont think its online) i've been reading a compilation of earliest writings by European settlers about Kentucky and its fucking wild

the main thing they mention is the river cane, everywhere. Cane cane cane cane cane on every page. Canebrakes stretching for miles and miles, dark woodlands of massive trees spaced wide apart with canebrake as the understory

But also they talk a lot about: Huge fields of strawberries that seem to turn red in spring with all the strawberries getting ripe. Raspberries. Groves of American plums, even some AN ACRE big just a huge patch of plum trees. Cherry trees. Huge grape vines growing up one in every four trees. Persimmons and pawpaws. Walnut trees. Hickory trees. Oak trees. And sugar maples. EVERYWHERE. And the canebrakes absolutely TEEMING with turkeys, passenger pigeons and quails

Reading the descriptions of looking out into a valley and seeing herds of 200-300 bison frolicking in the clover and river cane almost makes me want to cry...

It's crazy how much they talk about plum trees because plum trees are so rare now!

Really it's wild seeing how abundant the edible woody plant species and berries just-so-happened to be when Europeans first came. Right?

To me it seems like obvious pieces of evidence that indigenous people were actively cultivating this land. It was a landscape scale agriculture fully integrated with the ecosystem.

Even more so because it started to collapse very soon after settlers came. The sugar maple trees were mostly killed by settlers hacking indiscriminately into them with hatchets for maple syrup making without caring about the trees survival, the livestock running loose destroyed the native clover and cane causing invasive grass to grow back, and the bison...reading about the bison is so sad!

The wasteful slaughter of bison began very early. Lots of writers talk about other settlers killing bison just to say they killed one, or killing several of them and barely taking one horse load of meat from them, or seeing traders killing bison by the hundreds just to take the most valuable parts and leave the body to rot...And the writers knew it was wrong! but they couldn't stop the others from doing it. So bison were basically gone from around Lexington before 1800 :(

Settlers even killed the bison for wool--this was fascinating to me, they described making their cloth out of nettle bast fiber and bison wool. Native Americans also used bison wool for textiles, but as far as I know they didn't kill them for it (tho i reckon they might have used the wool on a bison they killed)...the wool peels right off in big clumps in the spring. Same thing with mountain goats, indigenous peoples would just gather the mountain goat wool when it naturally shed. But the settlers were killing bison to shave the wool off and it said only the young ones had good wool so if they killed a bison that didn't have good wool on it they would just kill another one.

They destroyed the river cane not knowing that bamboo was strong and useful for practically everything. Destroyed the native pastures of buffalo clover, Kentucky clover, running buffalo clover and God knows what other extinct or undiscovered clovers. And now wild strawberries and raspberries are hard to find, American plums very rare, persimmons rare...

The settlers didn't understand this land, didn't try to understand it, they were full of greed and just tried to force their idea of agriculture and their idea of society onto it, and watched in bafflement as the natural abundance and beauty of the land around them fell into decay and ruin from their abuse.

[st4rbwrry]

   𝐾𝐼𝑆𝑆 𝑀𝐸 𝑇𝐼𝐿𝐿 𝐼’𝑀 𝐵𝐿𝑈𝐸.

꒰ armin takes his pretty girlfriend on a picnic in an enchanted forest.꒱

𐀔 . . . 1.4k. fem!reader, lowercase intended, established relationship, sub / dom, profanity, pet names, unprotected penetrative sex, we’re in luvvv, outside indecency, love bites, praise, kinda shy reader, smoking, kreampie, minors aren’t welcomed ! reblogs + comments are appreciated! <3

꒰ 𝑚𝑜𝑐ℎ𝑎’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒 ꒱ . . . this been in the drafts since 2022 y’all. a lil sum.

a pastel baby blue dress clings tight to your smooth skin, looking like the prettiest cottage core girl. frills on the shoulders and bust sitting low to accentuate your perky chest. love handles and tummy pudge swallowed by the soft material. armin couldn't keep his eyes, or hands, to himself. rubbing all up on you throughout your entire picnic date. fresh air blows through the trees and the bright views of sunlight beam across the blue lake where pure white doves swam in silence. armin had found this mythical location by driving around one day. it's quiet and reserved, deep into an enchanted forest.

the two of you sat on a blanket sprawled out on the grass, enjoying the food armin neatly packed. lots of fruits because you loved them. strawberries, raspberries, pomegranates, green grapes, apricots, and peaches . . . you name it. overdoing it just a bit, but he knows it’ll be eaten by this week. this was breakfast, the time now around eleven in the morning, so while you got ready he prepped the food. heart shaped pancakes, waffles, turkey bacon, pork sausage, scrambled cheese eggs and of course never forgetting your orange juice.

to make it cuter he brought a glass vase and filled it with water and multicolor roses he bought from the flower shop. you ate so much food your stomach bloated, unable to eat anymore. armin lays on his back with you to stare up at the sky and watch the trees blow, the weather perfect for the occasion. the sun hitting your skin serenely. you rest your head on armin’s chest, listening to his heartbeat as he massages your back in gentle circles, nearly falling asleep because you’re so at peace.

“i’m so glad we did this,” a yawn escapes as you smile sweetly at him, rubbing his stomach over his white tee.

armin presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, lingering it before mumbling, “me too.” soon, digging into his jean pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. tapping the plastic box to release a stick. your body moves with the forearm he brings together to light his cig, flicking the lighter twice and satiating his need.

“i needed a break from life. so, thank you, love.” the softness in your voice makes the man's heart beat twice as fast. he smiles at you after turning his head the opposite way to blow out smoke, knowing you hated it in your face. being at close proximity right now was less irritating since you're elated at the moment. you could care less because he's comfortable, and it makes you feel the same. you could never get him to quit no matter how hard you tried. never argued with him about it. minor debates but he gave valid points so you laid off it.

“i figured it'd be nice to escape for the day. it's upsetting we have to return to reality tomorrow. but when i'm with you, it always feels . . . free.”

armin brushes a curved knuckle over your cheekbone, your eyes glued to his own.

“i feel the same way.”

“i say i love you all the time. but do you really understand it? how deep it is?”

you curl your lips inward, pondering on his question. more like a statement.

“i know you love me. you show it more ways than one. i think that's meaningful overall.”

fluffy blond hair with gold hues covers his angelic baby blue eyes, reaching up to tuck some of the wavy ringlets behind his ear.

“tell me you love me, then gimme a kiss.”

your face grows hot from his demand, growing nervous. you sit up briefly to grab a peach to bite into and distract yourself, more like hide your face because you were smiling so hard. this happens to be the second time since he's first told you he loved you. it makes you shy even still, the rush of heat coming to your cheeks from the intense glare he gives you, waiting for you to say it. you don't know why it felt so hard to utter. it's clear you love him, but maybe it was the large commitment of the word . . . the vulnerability, the devotion, the forever tie that scared you.

"tell me you love me, or i'll make you say it, ꒰♡꒱ ."

and make you he does.

his breath is warm on your neck, tongue following to lick a bold stripe over your skin with his fingers indented into the flesh of your cheeks and jaw. your face is upturned, head resting on his shoulder, back to his chest as you rely on his body for your balance. your thighs are spread wide, holding yourself open with your unoccupied hand, gripping under the bend of your knees, whimpering in the breezy air as his hips interact with the round of your ass, fucking you from the side fervidly. his moans are light, dancing in your ear while you claw into the picnic blanket beneath you two, clutching the grass and dirt in the wake. tuning into the lewd interaction of his heavy dick pounding into you, tits bouncing out of the enclosure of your dress.

“i can’t hear you, ꒰♡꒱,” armin grits his teeth, his lips on your jaw now, kissing away and grunting as he raises his hips to fuck you deeper, thrusts steady but rough. you’re feeling dizzy, whining from the baritone of his voice. “i didn’t make myself clear enough?”

“n-no. . . ar—min. mmph,” while denying, there’s a crack in your voice as you try your best to speak, moans rumbling in your throat, your tummy jiggling from his harsh pace.

“then tell me, tell me,” armin’s voice is a whispered plead, his jeans to his knees and his shirt pulled up to his midsection, skin scorching against your own.

you’re soft, and small. his big hand with veins protruding goes from your face to your chest, tweaking your nipples that spilled out of it’s cups alluringly, before spanking them with the pads of his fingers. tweak, spank, tweak, spank. it’s a notion that has you drooling, and sobbing pathetically. he’s trying to upkeep his composure, trying not to bottom out and lose his sanity. you’re too cute.

“i love youuu,” you finally cry out, ragged moans falling out in shorts gasps, tears coaxing and the pressure in your tummy building.

“fuck, there you go, sweetie,” his excitement shows through the way his dick slips out of you, both of you gasping from the loss until he slaps your clit with his dick, your juices sputtering out of you with each wet pat pat pat. armin draws his hips back slightly before sliding back inside easily, digging his fingers into the back of your thigh you held up and rolled his waist to fuck you harder.

each pound is harder than the previous, his jaw widening as he chokes on his moans and catches your throat with his mouth, tongue lolling out occasionally and his teeth following suit. your head is tossed back entirely, his arm going around your shoulder to cradle you, falling back on the ground. your thighs press tightly together, and you hold onto his arm while his middle and ring fingers thrum intricately over your puffy clit to watch her squirt.

armin hisses with skaken moan. “say it again, ꒰♡꒱.”

“i love you, armin.”

“again,” he’s biting at your neck again, your mouth agape from the combination of that and the head of his dick kissing your sweet spot.

“b-baby, g-god. i love you.”

“ooh, shit,” armin then pushes your left thigh flat to the ground, your body twisted as he goes to level himself above you in push up form, dropping his dick into you with steady, hard pounds. his voice grows weak, moans whiny as he cums deep inside of you, and you follow not long after, squeaking and clutching onto his wrist planted by your head. the softness of your ass bouncing back onto his hips is entrancing. his ass flexing when he grinds into your pussy.

“oh my god,” those pretty strands of blond sway in front of his face, giggling and lowering his body to rest his chest on your side. repeatedly leaving kisses to your flushed cheeks, neck, even your forehead. unable to move at all.

“i really love you, i swear,” the pads of your fingers brush over his pink lips, overly sensitive at the moment so you definitely felt like crying. a high pitched hiccup interrupts the moment, and that only makes armin roll his lips inward before bursting out a laugh.

“you’re so cute,” he gives you an eskimo kiss before smooching your lips. “i know you do.”

© 𝒮𝒯𝟦𝑅𝐵𝒲𝑅𝑅𝒴! all rights reserved. please do not repost, steal, or modify my work simply because it is mine. stealing isn't cute. i'll ruin your life. 🫧🍓

[hometoursandotherstuff]

2010 Earthship in Tres Piedras, NM still not selling. Relisted and on the market 107 days. 3bds, 2ba, 2,000sqft. It's one of the nicer ones, too. $685k.

Earthships always have this atrium area along the side where they grow plants. This one is very nice.

The main living area and bedrooms usually enter from the atrium. This earthship is nicely done. Some that we've seen were very DIY and sloppy. Look at how nice the bottle wall looks, and the door looks professionally done.

Very well done. Look at the log ceiling.

It has a proper kitchen with nice cabinetry and a tile backsplash. The island is lovely- look at the carving.

The floor is professionally done, also.

Nice living room area next to the kitchen.

Look at how nice their plants are. Lemon and fig trees, banana, blueberries, kitchen herbs, coffee, grapes, exotic flowers and vegetables can be grown all year round.

Here you can see how the bedrooms are off the atrium.

There's a nice large closet area.

Bath #1 is very colorful.

Bedroom #2 is also very nice. The view of the atrium from the bedrooms is lovely.

Bedroom #3 is used as a sitting room.

Bath #2 has a regular tub. Usually they have tubs made from the wall material.

This looks like a grape vine.

There's an outdoor garden that includes fruit trees, plus a deck.

A wood stockade fence surrounds the house, but there's not a thing for miles in this direction.

Someone's walking. She's not going to the store or a neighbor's so I don't know why they put this picture up, instead of the deck.

I wish I could say that the rainbow looks beautiful, but it kind of looks like it's over a junkyard from here. This property is 100% off the grid.

1.83 acre lot. There are some neighbors around on this side.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

I think I like food forests more rather than the current monoculture farming and would rather create a food forest because it feels more like gardening than farming to me. You know?

I much prefer them personally

As long as people are around, we are going to have paths of some kind, and if we want to stay with streets as we currently have them why not line them with food?

Canopies to provide shade and color, with vines like ivy or grapes or beans growing up the sides.

Espalied fruit trees as fences and shrubs so you can grab bassket full of fruit and a handful of berries on the way to the park or neighbors house.

Root crops and ground cover filling in the gaps. Compost bins where we have garbage bins now.

Not only does it sound pretty, it also would be more efficent for food harvesting and distribution. Plus think of how much lower the heat of any given street would be!

So yea, I def dream of food forest streets.

[seilahdiaries]

𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗪𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗠𝗬 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘 𝗕𝗘𝗚𝗜𝗡 ?

in which ❝ . your their rapunzel girl . ❞

۪ ֹ ᮫ warnings . . . none? strict household maybe. and fluff જ⁀➴ ⋮ ⌗ 𝓯! reader x the outsiders !

🌞 idk why i randomly thought of a rapunzel coded reader but i did lmao. should i do like a belle or aurora one ??

now playing . . . something that i want - grace potter

𝗣𝗢𝗡𝗬𝗕𝗢𝗬 𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦 .

you’re not really allowed to go out, so he comes over after school with you with his book and lays on the floor reading them outloud to you. so cute!

you’re obsessed with reading and poetry like him, so you always ask what pony thinks a line means. and then he starts yapping while you listen ☺️.

you guys draw stars on the ceiling of your room together.

eventually, after proving he’s a “good kid,” your parents start getting looser and start letting you go out— only with him.

but he never— ever. minds being stuck inside with you.

the curtains flutter. you’re lying on your bed, fingers dangling off the edge. and he’s looking through your book shelf, flipping through a paperback.

“hey. doesn’t it get boring? being stuck here with me?”

he glanced at you. then smiles softly.

“nah, not if i’m stuck here with you.”

𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗔𝗣𝗢𝗣 𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦 .

you’re always painting— the room is covered in canvases and you paint on non-traditional things too. you even have one of him which is totally not giving creep but okay!

whenever he visits you, he brings little things for you to paint. like flowers, matchboxes or shiny wrappers😭.

“i saw this and thought of you,” he says, holding up a wrapper proudly.

you raise a brow. “that’s from a grape candy.”

“yeah but,” he grins, “look at the color, it’s you. you could make it pretty.”

you roll your eyes with a smile, but take it anyway.

you kiss him with paint on your hands, smudging it on his cheeks and jaw.

he always makes sure everytime he visits— its memorable. like he’ll slow dance with you in the middle of your room, literally cry when he saw the portrait you made of him. crash all of your canvases tryna show of his aerobatics.

and then you’re stuck putting a bandaid on his temple and still inside 😒.

𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡𝗡𝗬 𝗖𝗔𝗗𝗘 .

you guys definitely fill pots and leave them on your porch, watching little plants grow.

you always keep a tiny light on, maybe a candle, in your room— “just in case you pass by.”

he carves yalls initial into a tree you can see from your window with his blade, for sure. like I KNOW he would.

whenever you’re not allowed to go outside, he’s nearby the window and talking to you from below. like a literal fairytale.

“you’re not suppose to be here,” you whisper. johnny grins up at you, hands in his pocket. “yeah. but i missed you.”

“you’re gonna get a knot in your neck if you keep showing up like this,” you call softly, leaning your elbows on the sill.

“worth it.”

“you say that now,” you hum, “but when you can’t look side to side, don’t blame me.”

“i’ll just look up, then. that’s where you are, ain’t it?”

you’re guys’s love is so quiet and cute it almost feels made up. i need that.

𝗗𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗦 𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗡 .

you’ve never kissed anyone before him and it’s all he can think about.

he pulls back just barely, breath still warm against your lips, his hand resting at your jaw like he’s keeping you steady.

“sweet little lips,” he mutters out.

he grins, crooked and slow, mouth brushing against yours again—

“you keep kissin’ me like that, i’m gonna think you like me or somethin’.” he teases.

he teases you a lot for being a “sweet little thing,” but he always shows up when the lights go out.

you write his name over and over in the margins of your journal, book, recipe books, etc.

he steals you a red lipstick and tells you to wear it for some reason😭.

for sure teaches you how to sneak out.

but you teach him how to care.

𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗬 𝗖𝗨𝗥𝗧𝗜𝗦 .

you iron his shirts in the living room and sway to old music on the radio.

i could totally see him building you a bookshelf with his own hands.

but you always do small hobbies that he loves. like when you embroider pillowcases with his and yours initials. always brushing and braiding your hair. or strumming a guitar.

“twenty minutes,” you murmur, stepping back from the dough and reaching for your brush.

you sit by the window, sunlight warm on your cheek as you work through tangles, braiding over your shoulder. you glance at the door like— maybe this time he’ll get off work early today.

the smell of fresh bread soon fills the room.

𝗧𝗪𝗢-𝗕𝗜𝗧 𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗪𝗦 .

you write your dreams in a lilac pen and let him read them sometimes. he usually ends up poking fun at them but it’s fine😣.

he always climbs the side of your house instead of the front door to deliver snacks and a singular rose he stole from a yard. IM A FIRM BELIEVER ALMOST ALL THE GANG WOULD STEAL FLOWERS TO GIVE TO YOU.

he always puts on his favorite songs to show you, and the first time he did it was elvis rock-n-roll. you were flabbergasted.

he lets you put ribbons and bows on his hair, sometimes even braids. “as long as you promise to laugh.” he always says.

𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗩𝗘 𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗗𝗟𝗘 .

watching him work on his car through the window and waves with a smirk when he catches you.

he lowk teaches you how to steal stuff to “feel alive.” 😭

he also would fix you up a bike so you could go visit him too when you were allowed.

he leaves his jacket for you, either in your room or on the porch railing whenever it rains. idk why but he does!

you print out tiny photos of him and tape them to your mirror, or even just having a page in your scrapbook about him..

“didn’t know i looked good enough for a scrapbook.”

“you look good enough for a hundred,” you murmur back, and he goes quiet.

eyes scanning the page, this time he’s got nothing cocky to say— just stands with a crooked smile and pretending like his heart isn’t doing backflips.

he also keeps something of yours in his glove compartment, like a nail polish or a ring. which is special considering he only has a random wrench and old cigarette boxes in there!

[gingerdusk]

Trying to figure out TP Link's diet based on his environment.

Livestock-wise, we've got cuccos and goats. That means

Eggs

Milk

Butter

Cheese

Potentially meat, but I don't think they get eaten unless they're old. Too valuable otherwise | EDIT: Oh yeah you need to breed goats every couple years to get milk. Add in cabrito veal!

And we know for a fact that Ordon Goat Cheese specifically is a thing. Stamped wheel and everything.

There's also fish

And bees/hornets(? It's called bee larva, but the enemy is a Hylian Hornet)

Useful for bait, but Link can eat them.

Did some more research, and apparently in Japan they eat wasp larvae? Specifically in Kushihara. So I'm counting it.

Then plants-wise we have pumpkins

And...corn. Somehow. I've never seen corn growing, but Link has some hanging in his house, so it exists.

I'm choosing to believe it comes from these plants that grow in patches around Ordon.

That gives us a lot. We've got

Cornstarch

Cornmeal

Corn oil

Corn shoots

Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkin seed oil

Pumpkin flour

Pumpkin blossoms

No source of sugar, but depending on how the pumpkins in Ordon taste, they could be naturally sweet. Like pie pumpkins. Also corn syrup is a thing if it's a sweet corn. So corn syrup needs cream of tartar which comes from grapes and apples and such. It's a byproduct of wine. No corn syrup.

Edit: Malt sugar, though!

Now for hypothetical foods.

Ordon is surrounded by pine trees, so that adds pine needle tea and pine nuts to the mix. I was a little worried about species, but apparently there are a lot of pine trees that make edible seeds, so on the list it goes.

Then there are frogs near Rusl and Uli's house, wild songbirds on cliffs, and a squirrel that talks to Link directly, so those are huntable sources of meat.

Is horse grass a cattail? Maybe? Initially, I thought it was—the ends look like cattail seedpuffs, but the leaves are completely different.

I want to treat them like cattails. Cattails that also are probably the main food source for Epona and the goats.

If we do that, that means, on top of all the other uses cattails have like stuffing and tinder and antiseptic, we get

Roots

Shoots

Ground seeds

Can't find a good match for hawk grass though. Concluding that that's not edible. Equivalent exchange and all.

Side note, how do you think horse grass spreads? It's almost always in groups of two or more plants, so that suggests rhizomes, but the image of Link picking one up to blow and stuffing flying out the end of the horseshoe is hilarious to me.

Up next, there are ferns, primarily near trees. After very careful and way-too-deep analysis of a pixelated fern's leaves, I think it's bracken fern.

Which is mildly poisonous.

And also edible.

On the list it goes!

Then finally, Sera has some kind of herb hanging in her shop.

I don't know what it is. I'm calling it Ordon Spice. Congratulations, Ordon Pumpkin Spice is now a thing.

[palettepainter]

Snare (Mer Ratchet x Reader)

We are back again and I offer more stuff with my fish husband, based off this ask on muletia's blog

This merformer AU belongs to @muletia, who you should all go and check out btw cuz they're really cool and their writing is delicious, Mer Ratchet's design based off this

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s concerning just how quickly you adjust to the hollow ache in your stomach 

Seven days. Seven days stuck on the island. Seven days too many

Seven long, grueling days where the island continued to mock you and your inexperience in survival: from tripping over stubborn roots hiding in plain sight, or a rude wake up call from one of the dozens of exoctic arachnids that got far too close for your comfort level, to narrowly avoiding being clobbered by falling coconuts 

You’d always liked to think of yourself as adaptable

Life outside of the four, comforting walls of your family home, exposed to the ruthless nature of city life, you had grown to overcome many of the everyday perolas dangers thrown at you: traffic that moved to a painful crawl in the rush hour, rowdy drunks lurking on street corners till the stupid hours of the morning (or until some unfortunate officer was tasked with moving them), catcallers, and worst of all, the horrors of working retail

Even now, in your delirious, thirsty, near starved state, you can still oh so clearly remember the latest interaction you’d had with one of your regulars before becoming marooned. A large chap, unkempt beard and seemingly always wore socks and sandals when he decided to generously grace the store with his presence 

He’d always have something to complain about, it’d become a somewhat inside joke between you and some co-workers to guess what the new topic of interest he’d want to discuss with the cashier, and just who would be the sad sap stuck to listen to it - of course it would have been you, just another thing life wanted to throw in your face 

Thinking back on the occasion you groaned without thinking. Wine, he’d come in to complain about wine

He wanted a refund, saying it tasted “off”

Oh your wine tasted off you say? It’s grape juice that burnt how the FUCK could it taste off?!

Still, if the stars and planets aligned and washed that thick skulled yapper onto the very shoreline you’d washed up on, you’d probably kiss him. Heck, you’d probably kiss the wine bottle, and you weren’t even a big fan of alcohol

A sharp, sudden stinging sensation stabbing your midsection abruptly derails your train of thought

The whine that leaves you is entirely involuntary, and is followed by your stomach trying to further digest itself to your growing discomfort. Arms snake around your midsection where you hug yourself tightly, leaning forward on yourself with weary eyes tightly shut. Maybe if you hugged yourself tight enough, you could squeeze the pain away..

Your attempts are as effective as holding water with a siv. You groan, but press on spitefully 

The only blessing the day seemed to bring you was the weather, which for now, was calm

If it’s just down to bad luck or the whereabouts of where the island you were stuck on lied, but not only were the islands (in your opinion) far too many species of creepy crawlies plotting to give you a heart attack from how often they seemingly materialised out of nowhere, but the weather had also actively been trying to kill you

Even if you’d spent the majority of your life residing in cities, you weren’t totally unaware of how dangerous the natural elements were, how they could flip on a dime. All things considered, only dealing with torrential downpour in the city on occasion, you were privileged

Just two nights ago the wind had been raging, furiously searching for unassuming small trees to batter about, and poor unassuming you had almost gotten crushed when the wind did find a branch to unleash its fury on 

Looking back, you liked to believe you handled the situation gracefully: you’d only cursed aloud seven times and told the branch to go fuck itself once 

To say the experience had rattled you would be a gentle way of phrasing it, but you could only go so long eating papaya and french kissing rain water out of cupped leafs before your body craved for something better, anything that wasn’t fruit 

On your second day on the island you’d had a brief explore of the coastline, and thankfully the island was far from short in its collection of natural rock pools, the perfect, temporary fridge that would gift you a platter of the oceans delicacies 

If only there weren’t other residents lurking in the waters that were just as hungry as you

As the very statement crossed your mind, you went rigid, throwing your gaze to the water. It was still and peaceful, some distance for you to travel to meet it, but nothing for the colossal arms of a creature you’d half convinced yourself was a figment of dehydration to pull themselves out of 

It’s like the ocean was teasing your paranoia with how tranquilly it rests beneath the sun, glimmering and crystal clear

No finned head appears, no massive tail slaps the surface, no face of teeth growling and hissing jumps out at you. Nothing. Not even a gull flies down to settle 

It was hard to keep your persistent hunger and your urge to rush before you attracted company in check as you easily hoisted yourself up onto a horizontal slab of ashy coloured stone that stretched for miles ahead of you, covering the gap between the treeline and the gentle sea that lapped at the rocks edges 

In your state, near crazed with the craving for something made of meat, you begin pleading under your breath while carefully traversing the rock slab “Please be fish please be fish!..” 

Every tiny ripple or shimmer in the rockpools that are littered about at random have your hopes skyrocketing, but what life you find swimming in the enclosed pockets of water are too small fish and shrimps. Agile creatures you know you won’t have a hope of catching, creatures you know won’t quell your hunger 

You needed something bigger, hopefully, something big enough you could easily grab, something that couldn’t slip into a nice safe crack to hide from your grabby hands 

Maybe a crab

‘I’d eat the SHIT out of a crab right now..’

Your mouth becomes an embarrassing pool of saliva that makes you cringe only slightly before you resume your searching, periodically throwing cautious glances to the water to be sure you are alone, safe

Pool after pool after pool turns up lackluster results, only small clusters of shrimp which are eager to dart away as your shadow swallows their rockpool and a handful of fish that blend in with the sandy bottom greet you, nothing that will substitute as even a snack, nothing you want

Your stomach voiced its impatience, and you aim a harsh look down at it  “I’m working on it alright?!”

Given how you have bigger problems to tackle, you’re nowhere near as concerned as one should be at the fact it hadn’t even taken a full day for you to start talking to yourself. It was one of the few things you had left, a constant, the sound of your own voice trying to quell your own panicking. Something the island couldn’t dangle in front of you on a stick and then rip away

Being your own company was better than no company you figured 

Your not so lost to your own increasingly growing urge to feed that you’ve forgotten you don’t necessarily possess the tools to actually cook anything you catch, you are however just famished enough that the notion of consuming a fish raw right out of your bare hands no longer sounds so disgusting 

Worse case scenario, you get food poisoning, but given how the other option was dying from starvation (or dehydration, or infection from a wound, or even a bite from some exoctic, poisonous creature), you’re willing to take your chances

Ten minutes of time trickle by painfully slowly, a lone sea slug lounging in the barely submerged sandflat is the only thing you debate on eating. It doesn’t sound especially appetising, the idea of eating something with the word slug in its name, but you can’t afford to be picky…still, you note the creature down as a last resort if you find nothing else, the soles of your worn shoes softly padding on the sand as you move off the rocks

Time had lost all of it’s meaning since your phone had become a victim to the sea, so you’d been relying purely on your gut and general knowledge to wager when the tide would come in and out 

Your gut however probably looked like a shrivelled up raisin from how dehydrated you felt, so you take a pause to glance back to the line of the water drawn far back along the beach

It’s not clear if it’ll get further out, but it’s far enough out that even if it was coming in, you’d have more than enough time to move inland. Moving further away from your resting place at the lagoon doesn’t give you any peace of mind though, even if the island was small, you’d learnt it was extremely easy to get lost 

And when you were lost, it was easier to let yourself spiral, where the gravity of your situation hit you at its hardest..

Your stomach churned painfully, and not just because you were hungry

You could feel your awareness stretching to the rest of the island around you, the possibility of getting cut off because you were too distracted and having to navigate through the dense undergrowth, becoming the centre of attention to it’s deadly and venomous tennants 

Your mind fuzzed over and looped the horrific scenario till you were forced to rapidly shake your head. Your downward tumbling thoughts were dashed to the furthest corners of your mind, though not enough to entirely relieve you of your anxiety

“Just find a fish! Y-Yeah, just-...just find some food, and go back” you throw a final look up to the waterline, exactly where it was the last time you looked, before slowly moving on 

The slab of rock you’d previously been moving across gradually broke into clusters of rocks surrounded by sand, you opt to trace the sandy paths weaving around them, before climbing the rocks to inspect any rock pools. 

The results continued to disappoint, aside from one particularly large shrimp that was about the size of your thumb, your selection of meal choices were distressingly slim

You were starting to feel like you were fighting a losing battle, your fate already sealed: another evening spent gnawing the flesh off a papaya skin

“Come on! Is it so much to ask for one lousy FISH?!” you announce irritably to the island, your only reply is the soft rustle of palm leaves in the breeze

You groan

“Someone up there must really hate me..” your head slumped, tense shoulders sagging under an intense weight that had been cramped the muscles around your neck from stress. Your shoes leave dragged indents in the sand behind you, emphasising your sulkiness

“Some people might get lost trying to navigate an airport or wait at the wrong bus stop. But nooo not me! I managed to get stuck on a freaking deserted ISLAND-”

The end of your foot caught on something unexpectedly and you stumbled, your look of annoyance swapping for instant panic and regret as you clumsily wobble to catch yourself, which you manage to do with minimal grace

Turning, your expression once again swapped for a new one, confusion sweeping in to take hold of your features as you try to find what culprit tripped you

When you find it, sticking up obviously from the sand, you do a double take and blink: it’s a chain. A thick, rusted one

You’re no marine biologist, but you know that metal chains aren’t naturally occurring, which meant that if this chain was here then..something man made had to be 

Hunger and annoyance are doused in an instant and a warm, welcomed sensation blooms in the centre of your chest, a feeling that you had been longing for, a feeling you’d almost forgotten - hope. Soothing, real hope 

There’s no way it can be people, your logical side barely manages to speak above the surge that pushed you to pick up your feet and follow the chain, if it was more people surely you would have run into them by now 

But still, if the chain was here, it could lead to a boat. Maybe you could salvage something, maybe it’d have tools, or could work as a new shelter - or better yet - honest to good food 

What you would do if it meant you’d find a chocolate bar 

It’s not clear how long you run for, or when exactly it was your jog had shifted to a break neck speed, but by the time you reach the end of the chain, you have to lean against a rock to catch your breath, though you don’t once avert your focus from the vessel before you 

It’s a boat

It’s large, clearly not your average watercraft, and more notably, it’s weathered and damaged far beyond your skill set to be repaired. More so, it was made from metal, so the chances of you being able to restore it to its former glory are next to none.

Dismayed, but undeterred, once your heart settled within your ribcage you push yourself to stand and approach the broken boat 

Even at a distance the extent of the damage is obvious

There's an enormous tear in the side of the hull where a large rock has wedged itself, likely what had caused the harm to begin with. No matter where you look, every area of metal is either rusted a heavy bronze or littered with greedy clumps of barnacles, which say just how long the hunk of metal must have been rotting there. The chain guide that had led you there trailed along the sand, until it climbed up into a small hole along the side, perhaps it used to be some kind of anchor system??

It’s too small to be a cruise ship and too big to be a common purchase for the majority of people. Suppose it doesn’t matter, you reason, approaching the gaping mouth in the side of the boat to better inspect it 

The tear is as large as the boat is rusted, judging the width, it looked like you could easily stretch out your arms and touch either side of metal walls without struggle, but you don’t want to risk a puncture wound, so your arms remain locked steadily at your sides as you carefully lean through the gap 

The inside of the boat arguably looked worse than the outside, everything was covered in barnacles, sand or seaweed, and the lingering stench of salt water slugged you across the jaw with such force you almost retreated back.

Blinking away the tears that had formed in the corners of your eyes from the sting of the odor, you suck in a breath, inflating your chest, before leaning back in 

Immediately to your right is what you assume to be the shabby remains of the engine, now covered from head to toe in kelp and dustings of sand. Even someone as non educated on mechanics as you can safely say it won’t be up and running anytime soon

It’s a disheartening realisation, even if you had been silently bracing for it

Deciding you want a better look, you venture further inside the slightly lopsided vessel and brush your focus across the interior, which aside from the engine, there wasn’t a great deal you could assign a label too. Directly to your left, is some kind of container unit. It has old writing on it, but it’s too faded for you to clearly decipher, and honestly, you doubted it would be hugely helpful information anyway. You also see a ladder on the furthest side of the boat, just as rusted as everything else, but still fastened to the wall of the ship

From where you stand you can tell the ladder leads topside, a pool of golden light from the sun bathing down through the roof and spreading into a puddle at the last foot rung 

Approaching, you give it a sturdy kick, and shrink at the resounding clang that echoes around you. No retaliation in the form of metal finally giving way with a groan comes to mock you, even when you land a second, more sure kick, to its side. The ladder stays still as a rock 

You give it enough thought, enough time to build up a nervous sweat before you anxiously move your foot onto the lowest rung, lifting your other foot off the floor while your hands keep you steady

A second passes…another second…you don’t hear anything aside from the distant cry of seagulls

Every step is climbed with the utmost care, anticipating the dreaded sound of creaking and for the world to tilt sideways, where the moist, cold sand would race up harshly to greet you. Even when you reach the top of the ladder and are in the middle of pulling yourself up onto the surface of the ship, you don’t let yourself sigh in relief until you are supported steadily on both feet 

Given the way the lower deck of the ship was, you’re not surprised to see the main deck was in a similar condition, discoloured with what had to be years of corrosion and speckles of dried bird poop

Just as you did with the interior, you study your new surroundings, noting a small structure to your right which must have been where the steering wheel was located, and some sort of winch like system seated at the far end

Aside from random piles of old nets, upturned empty barrels and the still very present waft of fish, there isn’t a great deal for you to take in. Whatever event caused the ship to become marooned like you must have stolen the majority of equipment that wasn’t vassened down

Although the former details combined with the smell makes it pretty clear you were standing on the deteriorating remains of some kind of fishing boat. THAT, at least, is promising information 

“Maybe they’ll be some kind of fishing rod” you say as you turn your attention towards the steering quarters fist

You reason that, if there was to be any kind of salvageable equipment on this boat, it’d be kept with the controls. You could only pray whoever had been the captain of this ship stored his tools sensibly 

Hanging by a single hinge, the door swung with a pitiful squeak after you gently knocked it forward. You’re half surprised the thing doesn’t crumble to splinters, it looked one gentle gust of wind away from collapsing entirely

Unlike the door, protected from the onslaught of downpours and howling gails, the steering room - all things considered - looked pretty damn well off. Even the two identical seats, positioned side by side across the dozens of controls and blank monitor screens, were arguably in better shape than yourself 

The temptation to collapse into one, into something cushioned and soft, something not made of a pile of leafs you’d sulkily assembled, but something honest and real and man made, to catch just even ten minutes of undisturbed sleep was so bad you could practically clutch the wish in your hands 

But you’re smart enough to know that it wouldn’t be just ten minutes

If you fell asleep in one of the chairs, you might not ever get up, you’d simply rot there until you had molded to its very frame. So, with great restraint, you turn yourself away and start to inspect the rest of the small cabin 

You don’t even bother checking the controls, they wouldn’t do you any good if the engine was busted, so your focus shifts instead to a set of miniature cabinets secured to the wall next to the door frame. 

The wood it smooth and varnished, unlike the rotting door, and the lack of a lock securing it closed grants you a welcomed, soothing wave that decreases the knot of distress that had been lingering in your stomach for a while 

The cabinet doors swing open with ease, and it feels like you’ve hit the motherload once you recognise what the contents staring back at you are

A small first aid kit, looking completely untouched, sits in the top corner, alongside a torch and a packet of opened batteries. On the last shelf is a pair of sunglasses which won’t be useful to you, but the items besides it cause your already growing smile to beam, your face aching from the sheer intensity as it stretched from ear to ear:

To the opposite side of the storage unit was a genuine, real, unopened duo of energy bars

You weren’t even aware your body could move so fast, snatching up one of the bars with lightning speed, practically tearing into the wrapper with your bare teeth where you then snarf it down in nanoseconds. It’s dry, not bursting with flavour as you’d hoped, but there is a faint taste of honey which almost has you collapsing to your knees

God it was good to eat something that didn’t fall out of a tree!

You're left licking every crumb up from your hands, your tongue dipping into the gaps between your fingers and sucking on each one while you stuff the other bar into your pocket. The first bar had not satisfied your hunger, it had only muffled it for the time being, but it would be wiser to save the second bar for later incase you didn’t find any fish 

Two items remained in the cabinet, a spool of twine - looked like the kind you’d find on fishing rods - and a matching knife, probably a means to cut it. The knife looked professional and extremely solid, curious of its weight you wrap your hand around the handle and lift it up, mindful to not cut yourself 

It had some weight to it, but it’s not unbearably heavy. It could definitely be useful, that's for sure, that first aid kit even more so! You really wished you hadn’t lost your hand luggage in the storm, you could have carried all this easily with your backpack

To make matters more complicated, you don’t see anything on the shelves that resembled a case for the blade, so you have no idea how in the world you’re going to carry it around safely 

“....Well” you eye the first aid kit “Lets see what you have inside you huh?” you decide, tugging it down from the shelf along

A very brief look inside shows you it’s reasonably supplied, with a decent roll of bandages left, some unopened disinfectant wipes, a hand cloth, plasters and even a needle and thread, which you really hope you won’t have to use

Still, it’s something, and the peace of mind knowing you have the proper tools to dress an injury if you get a bad one is enough for you

You stuff the twine into the case, the torch goes into your other pocket and then you meticulously wrap the blade up in the cloth. It’s not the best handiwork you’ve done, and it’s not the smartest solution (calling it smart at all seemed like a stretch), but it was all you could think of as a temporary solution. Better that then you unintentionally stabbing yourself

Giving the room one last look over for anything else that might prove useful, you exit the steering room five minutes later with blade in one hand and medical kit in the other, a newfound vigor pumping through your being 

“Tide is still pretty far out”

Hand settling above your brow you squint at the blue, horizontal line drawn back across the mudflat

The sun hung high in the sky, a strong indicator it must have been the early beginnings of the afternoon, that gives you reason to believe you had, at the very least, a few hours before the sea came back in 

With the shipwreck explored, you see no further reason to linger. You hadn’t forgotten your original objective that had urged you to crawl your way out from the lagoon and to the beach, rather than fester in a depressed lump on the floor. 

Still, if you were leaving anyway, you might as well appease your curiosity of what lies at the far end of the ship. Two birds with one stone and all that 

Crossing the space between you and the end of the ship, aside from the evident winch centred in the middle and the twisted coils of rope knotted inside the feeding system, there’s not a great deal. While you are still no more knowledge on boats than you were before you’d stumbled across the wreck, you wonder if a malfunction with the winch was in anyway related to why it was beached

The immense length of netting feeding out from the winches mouth was a disorderly mess of thick, inky black string. It looked like it had gotten jammed, whoever had been steering the boat prior to its crash hadn’t even ordered for their team to draw the netting back in, leaving it to trail off down the rear of the boat and onto the sand 

Still, whatever reason caused the boat to crash, you knew it had happened a long time ago, and you could only hope that however big the crew was, that they didn’t suffer too badly

Did any of them even survive being washed up on the island, or would you stumble across their naked, skeletal remains. Or worse, did those creatures get to them before they got to the shore, you wonder morbidly-

You shake your head so quickly it practically becomes a blur, your windswept hair tossing back and forth across your shoulders

‘No no!! Lets not think about that!’

Hoping to outrace your own thoughts you make a beeline back to the ladder

The first aid kit is the first to take the descent down, you opt to let it drop to the floor and collect it later rather than risk climbing with it in hand. Thankfully, it lands with a harmlessly thud in the sand, and once your feet land on the ground you find it undamaged after inspecting it 

Exiting back through the tear you take a minute to brush yourself and the first aid kit off, before you round the side of the boat to scavenge any remaining pools. The netting from the boat has been carried over to the side from the insistent pull of the ocean, and idly, you brush your hand along the taut rope like it’s a makeshift safety railing before it droops too low for your hand to follow

If you were completely honest, you were beginning to doubt you’d find anything given your string of luck so far. But with a fresh medical kit, new tools and even an energy bar on hand, you find yourself not nearly as frustrated as you could have been

“This will make getting fruit off the papaya skins easier at least” you say while turning the knife about in your palm “Maybe even help crack open some coconuts” you add more as an afterthought through a hum 

A knife was a game changer

Not only did the idea of harvesting fruit from trees no longer bring forth as much annoyance, but potentially, you might be able to start an actual fire. 

So far, you’d been keeping warm as best you could with the very clothes on your person, your old jacket you’d had since college, and any intact palm tree leaves. It was helpful that whatever continent you’d washed up in seemed to be one of a warmer climate, so the nights weren’t terribly chilly. 

The idea of being watched by sets of hungry eyes in the shrubbery was what kept you lying awake rather than the cold . Even if you didn’t want to entertain the idea of potentially having to use the knife in self defence against an animal, an animal that was just trying to survive like you, knowing you had the means to defend yourself was as reassuring as it was uncomfortable 

At the thought of having to actually fight back against a predator, your eyes unconsciously turn to the sea, pace slowing to an anxious crawl. You’re all too aware of your own fragility all at once, your head swinging on a pivot, feeling the need to rescan your surroundings for danger 

Fidgeting to move, your walking speed shifted to something with more oomph to it, hurriedly shuffling along while being mindful of the space between the edge of the treeline, yourself, and the water

The weight of being ambushed now pushed on your mind like a sack of bricks, fueling your internal panic

Attempting to calm down, you inhaled a greedy lungful of air, sighing loudly “Easy, you're okay..nothings happened yet”

You tried to apply logic to soothe the monkey part of your brain, the part that is the reason for why you’ve lost so many hours of sleep and also the part that’s helped you adapt so far. Your attempts are only half affective, leaving you somewhat calmed, but the anxiety still bubbles within you

“You’re far away from the water, and a creature that big wouldn’t swim into shallow waters anyway unless it needed to” 

The rocks start to form a small incline, and with your hands full holding the med kit and knife, you turn to walk around it rather than scale it, practising calm breathing as you do so

“If I feel scared, I can just run into the trees. There's no way it would follow me inland!” the reminder that the treeline was less than ten feet to your side is seemingly a needed one, your shoulders hunched forward from stress beginning to gradually ease 

“I’m perfectly safe” you breathe, your voice carrying finality to it that has you nodding in agreement with yourself. 

Yes, you are safe, you’re well out of the line of danger from any giant, logic defying creatures that make you question all information humanity holds of the sea. The tide is far out and the temperature high, the further thing from ideal conditions for any animal of the sea

All evidence pointed to you being well and truly safe

You aren’t prepared for the sight that greets you once you have cleared the side of the rock 

There's a body resting against the mudflat, taller and thicker than you by bounds, a tipped up head with a face that’s about as similar to a human as you’d hoped to find on the small area of land. Netting is wrapped around and around its body, pinning its arms down sharply and twisting around it’s lower half adorned by fins, at an awkward angel that has to be uncomfortable

He’s there, trapped before you, a terrifying, unimaginable creature not of your world

Just as you begin to think what you were seeing can’t possibly be real, the damn things chest moves. It’s breathing. It’s alive

With a cry, you throw yourself backwards, tumbling clumsily into the sand where your arms and legs work overtime to propel you away, scrambling to conceal yourself behind the rocks 

Hurriedly shuffling onto your rear, you shove yourself backwards, spine pressed back against the cold surface of the rock where you get a moment to collect yourself, desperately gulping down air that was never enough to fill your lungs

It seemed however, your less than graceful announcement of your presence had stirred the beast from its slumber 

It bellows a loud, haunting croon that launched a heavy rock straight into your stomach that has it bottoming out, and in fear of alerting it further to your presence, you slap your hands tightly over your mouth 

You hear movement, the ground shaking as the gargantuan body of muscle shifted and flexed out of sight just beyond the rocks. The sound of rope stretching to its limits has you casting a cautious glance to the thick, twisted vine of netting nearby that is pulled firmly across the mineral formation supporting you

It loosens by a millimetre, then tightens with a strained snap noise. A distressing, quiet rumble sounds into the air, and then silence. You dare not breath in fear it will discover you’re still lingering, still within attacking range

You brace yourself for something, any kind of sound that would indicate the creature was going to attack you, to find the strength to rip apart its bindings and devour you whole in one bite

The treeline isn’t so far away you couldn’t make a run for it, but that would mean revealing yourself, that would mean turning your vulnerable back and nape of your neck to the creature. Two things you are NOT planning to do

In the very next second, not entirely sure if your panic made you imagine it, you hear a whuff of an exhale, and a low, lamenting croon. It almost sounded…hopeless 

Your panic subsides, just a little

It takes you a minute, to gather what scarce remains of courage you possessed to move out from your hiding spot, carefully peaking out your head to eye the limp body of the beast on the sand 

Despite the terror it’s very presence strikes into your being, its head lolled unsteadily on its shoulders, almost drunkenly. Its tail shifted weakly in the netting, before falling completely still.

Now that you were taking a moment to get a proper look, you can see how the twine had cruelly scraped away the outer layer of its thick pearly white and orange skin, rubbing parts of its sensitive stomach and sides raw from it’s fruitless struggling, revealing the soft, pink flesh underneath 

Despite your fear, you wince at the sight, a ghost of sympathy crossing your face. That looked…really painful

Its breaths are shallow, it’s chest rising only by a few inches with each laboured breath, before deflating with flared nostrils

You make the mistake of letting your eyes travel up further, and you frown at the sight of one particular part of the net that digs into the valley between the bottom of the creature's neck and shoulder blade

The area surrounding the twine already looked decently red, and you can’t begin to imagine the hot irritation it was causing

Your attention moved higher, distantly noting the jagged scratch lines dragged in the sand from the beings claws, and the imprint its head left in the damp sand…an imprint..-

Every single thought in your mind evaporates as you decide to snap your eyes towards the eldritch mers head, where you find its hazy focus angled in your direction. You freeze, ice shooting down your veins and scratching goose bumps along your back

The mer doesn’t move, so much as twitch to your presence, studying you warily, black iris’s thin, threatening lines against turquoise pupils. Lips peel back over teeth that instinctively has you recoiling with a whimper, your monkey brain ready to catapult you into the safety of the forest while a threatening growl ruptures from the mers throat

But then something peculiar happens, something which makes you blink at the mer, your brows furrowing  

His growling fizzles away, his pupils go fuzzy, unfocused, blinking just barely cracked open eyes out of sync. The fins on either side of it’s head droop simultaneously to the wheezing sound of him exhaling, he suddenly looked…exhausted

The tension lifts from your shoulders, not fully sure if the mer is completely aware of your presence or not anymore. Looking at his face, and the notably distant quality to his gaze, it was like he was peering through you. When pale lips seal back over his teeth, you curiously find yourself not feeling any peace of mind

You failed to suppress a flinch when the creature allowed it’s head to flop heavily into the sand

How long had he been beached??..

Beating down from its place hung in the sky, you squint up at the sun, throwing up your hand to try and shield your eyes from stinging too much. It’s sweltering, and despite the slim collection of layers you were wearing - that consisted of a slightly dirtied plain top and a pair of trousers - you’re sweating buckets

In the time you’ve spent on the island, you’d lost what had to have been at least a stone in weight through sweat alone 

It’s too hot out.

The direness of the situation hits you in an instant, causing you to throw your head back towards the mer who was laying unnaturally still, but then a rumbling whine wrenches you out of your thoughts with a visceral jolt 

You have to shake yourself to refocus, something that you feel is becoming second nature, before you eye the rest of the rocks just beyond the mers body. 

With the beast restrained, you could continue safely. You could slip by him, if you were careful enough, perhaps undetected

You needed to find more food

Tightening your jaw, snorting out a breath, you work fluidly to collect up your first aid kit and the knife which you had dropped in your fumble to get away, before hauling yourself up.

Your legs buzz, pins and needles tickling the bottoms of your feet and thighs from how long you had remained sitting. You ignore the pain, pushing off to meet the rest of the rocks

It’s hard to maintain a calm walking pace for your tingling legs while you keep your eyes locked onto the massive body of the mer. Even if they were restrained, you were not about to risk the chance of those rows of teeth biting through the netting and launching at you, but even so every subtle shift of it’s tail has a lump further lodging itself in your throat 

When the rocks are within five feet you practically jump for them, quickly throwing yourself behind the largest one that could hide your body, releasing a breath your body had been holding hostage

You fear you might cry from the way your body runs cold with a potent mix of weariness and immense relief of not being caught, so you clamp your eyes shut, craning your head until the back of your skull softly bumps against the rock 

Somewhere behind you, you can just about hear the frail wheezing of the creatures lungs fighting to intake air, which you promptly ignore 

You owe the beast nothing. Just find more food and go back to the lagoon

Standing to your feet you waste no time in marching ahead, eyes narrowed and intense, busy searching for more pools, maybe if you honed enough of your attention on the task 

at hand you’d forget all about the encounter that just transpired

Alas, despite the wishes of your mind, something within you compels you to turn your eyes to the far off sea still drawn out from the beach 

Unlike yourself, the tide is in no rush to gravitate back towards the soft sand that formed the surrounding beach of the island. Neither is the sun pressured to lower any faster in the sky, not even a passing cloud for it to duck behind even temporarily 

A sinking feeling that causes your stomach to bottom out returns, but for an entirely different set of reasons

Your feet grow restless with the sensation of pins and needles sparking under the flesh 

Reluctantly, knowing it's a bad idea, you turn your head over your shoulder. You can’t see the mer too well from your current position, but to your dismay, you clearly hear the sound of it’s wounded cry that carries through the air

It doesn’t want to be trapped…

…The lump returns in your throat as you peer down to the ground

You can’t believe it, that you’re even considering turning back 

It’s moronic, utterly insane! What were you expecting the mer to do once it was freed? Shake your hand and thank you and then let you walk away?! 

“It’s not my problem” you speak, pressing the ball of your hands into your eyes, muttering the mantra over and over, yet the way your voice carries doesn’t pair with the fact your fighting to re-enforce

‘Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. DON’T get involved!..’

…..You turn your head skyward with a sigh

Placing your first aid kit back down by the rock you’d been hiding behind, shaking all the way, you retrace your steps back to the stranded mer

He’s right where he was before, body just barely shifting under the movement of his weak breathing. Your grip on your knife grows tighter, knuckles turning weight, threatening to crush the handle as you unhurriedly remove the cloth covered the blade

You have no doubt in your mind the knife would be able to cut through that netting, getting close to it was were things were going to get interesting

With every bit of caution you could muster, not daring to even blink for one second, like the mer was going to turn on you and reveal his weakened state to be a trick to play at your little human heartstrings, you begin to close the narrowing space of distance between you

You don’t even pay any mind to the fact you can’t so much as hear your heartbeat in your ears as you do feel it galloping a mile per minute, it’s the massive, tangerine dipped body of the mer, that has your full attention 

It continued to huff for air, and when you are so close you could touch him - well within the creatures throttling distance - do you see how it’s eyes have gradually closed

Must have drained itself of energy in its efforts to free itself, your chest ached in pity at the thought

Tightening your lip, swallowing painfully, the up close, personal look you get of the damage caused by the netting only makes your stomach feel hollow

The flesh of his body goes as stiff as a log with each inhale that inflates his chest, pushing back against the netting which only further worsens the pressure on his skin. A broken whimper tumbles from his mouth, face twisting despite how his eyes stay closed 

You HAD to get this netting off him

There’s a tremble to your hand which you are acutely aware of as you timidly reach your tiny little human appendage towards the mer. Without warning, he inhales sharply, and like you’ve been scorched your hand retreats to safely curl by your chest

The prominent fin atop his back tried to raise with his breathing, but only manages to pathetically twitch beneath the two lines of netting restraining it

You wait, still as a mountain - you didn’t know it was possible for the human body to become so still - before the behemoth's body deflates. Every rational cell in your body was screaming at you to bail, but one look back to the firm netting wound about the mers body, and you know backing out isn’t an option 

Cutting down on the rope wouldn’t work, you might nick more skin, and you don’t fancy having your flesh becoming acquainted with the creature's teeth if you unintentionally stab them. You’d need to cut upward 

A thin sheen of sweat along your forehead reminds you of the sun's intensity, and that time is still not on your side. The longer you hesitate, the more pain the creature would be in, you needed to act 

Forcing your body into motion, careful motion, you lay your hand onto the creature's side. His skin was smooth, and what has your worry tripling, near bone dry. The fact that the mer doesn’t seem to react to your touch is something you decide is a good thing, it’s deleria playing to your advantage, and offering you the needed push to begin cutting 

Wiggling your hand under the first line of netting that wrapped over and around the mers stomach, you manoeuvre the flat side of your blade beneath it and begin to cut. Every fibre that breaks away has you sending quick, observing glances to the mers head, which remained laying sideways in the sand 

The piece of netting you’d been sawing at cracks apart with a sharp SNAP, falling away from the beast's body. Precious little inches are returned, allowing the muscles of his lower body to expand without restraint, yet it still managed to carve an angry indent across its scales

You don’t know what it was that possessed your hand, reaching out until you softly brush your fingers over the mark in some innately human attempt at comfort

‘It’ll be a while before this mark fades’ -  you think sadly, your thumb now brushing back and forth against it -  ‘But at least there isn’t any blood, seemed it didn’t cut too far into-’

At once aware of the sensation of your hand brushing its sensitive skin, the mers eyes snap open. Enlarged pupils shrink to glinting slits, lips drawing back into a snarl with a thundering shriek 

It’s thrashing throws up wet clumps of sand and water that flicks speckles across your face and legs, yet somehow you don’t loosen your grip on your cutting knife in spite of the fear that explodes across your senses

“H-HEY HEY! Woah!- Easy! I-I’m trying to help!-” the monstrous creature reared to the best of its ability, not caring for your explanations, somehow summoning the strength to lift its upper body where it then crashed back into the sand

Panicking, you back peddle and just barely avoid getting your legs crushed

Heart attacking feeling imminent, you launch yourself to the next piece of rope before your body can overpower your mind. A startling shrill threatened to deafen you as another section of netting broke in half with a CRACK, another red line indented in its place. That time, you don’t waste a second to feel sad over it 

Each frantic smack of their tail has your heart threatening to jump out of your throat, every muscle, internal organ and blood cell itching to sprint to the safety of the trees. Each new snap of netting breaking away earns you a blood chilling roar which slices a year off your lifespan, and yet, your body move swiftly without your control 

When you get to the trail, you don’t even think about how it would have been smarter to leave the tail for last so you wouldn’t get battered, or how using your own small, delicate human body as a weight to hold it down was not your best example of improvising 

“Don’t worry!! I’m gonna get you out! J-Just a little bit longer okay?” Why you’re still speaking you don’t know, it’s clear the mer can’t understand you, though maybe you’re trying to reassure yourself more than him

Pinning the very end of his tail down with one hand, the muscle just thin enough for your palm to easily circle it, you start with the parts of netting that have coiled themselves far too tightly around its bottom fins. They’re scrunched up in a way that, if left, you’re positive will leave long lasting scarring

The down side? Given how badly tangled the rope was, you’d have to take your time to cut the netting away 

The body of the mer still thrashed even as you begin the meticulous task of slicing away the net as meticulously and quickly as you can, each gruelling snap as the material frays against the edge of your blade and every warning cry from the head of the creature has you feeling nauseous from the pressure weighing on you

Pushing more onto your knees, one leg either side of the mers tail to steady yourself, you suppress the urge to stress vomit. Barely.

More snaps and cracks of the rope free more and more skin, allowing the tail fins room to breathe and uncurl to their full glory, slapping the sand angrily at your persistent closeness “E-Easy big guy, almost done! Just gotta-”

You jerk your arms back as another piece of the netting breaks apart violently. The reaction from the mer comes sooner than you expected 

The moment it falls to the sand, the tail under you is torn from beneath you. There was still some netting tying it down, and you feel your heart plummeting when in a powerful yank, the mer recoiled and the netting broke in half with the sound of a cracking whip 

As soon as it registered its tail was free it reared upward, arms tearing downward on the last remainder of rope upon its chest that broke as though it was threading. It spasmed wildly, truly like a fish out of water, and before you can come to the sinking realisation your luck might have just run dry, you are hurled away

You were sent flying, cutting off your yelp of terror just in time before you land face first into the sand. You aren’t left laying dazed against the sand for more than a second though before your reliable instinct of flight springs you back to reality. Scrambling back on your arms you heave, searching eyes locating the beast some distance from you, swaying and huffing 

Numbly, you clench your hand, and pale when you don’t clasp around plastic. You must have lost your knife in the tumble, but you’re nowhere near confident enough to shift even a miniscule slither of your attention away from the very awake, free mer

The mer stumbles, propped upward on trembling arms as if it was a struggle to do so, head swinging unevenly, blinking owlishly as if he was trying to refocus. Strenuous breaths are gulped down into his shaking lungs through an open mouth, were just barely, you catch a peek of razor incisors 

Your breathing quickens, chest rising and falling beneath the flimsy fabric of your shirt which feels like your only means of armour protecting your flimsy human skin, and when those peacock blue pupils and thinned, wary slit eyes hone onto you - as though the mer had remembered your presence - fear crashed into you with the force of a meteorite 

This was it

Visions of a sandy grave flash across your mind as you wonder, will you be painstakingly torn limb from limb, or will this beast elect to grant you mercy and put you out of your misery before consuming your flesh. Would it use your bones as toothpicks? Keep your skull as some souvenir??

You want to yelp, to throw your arms over yourself in some meager defence, but you find yourself unable. So you sit there, paralysed from hysterical fear, eyes wide as plates, dreading the moment the mer will explode into motion and lunge at you

….Why wasn’t he moving??

You almost leap out of your skin when the creature unexpectedly clicks, observing you through narrowed eyes, the fins decorating the side of its face raising, but you don’t pay those details much mind. How could you? When the creature has its entire attention solely on you

What the hell was it doing?? Weighing the pros and cons of if you’d make a satisfactory meal??

Somehow, someway, you find the power to pull trembling words from your throat, just barely managing to speak them clearly “W-What?..” you ask, and the mers tail shifted along the sand, flicking upward once. It doesn’t avert its eyes

It moved. It’s body glided slowly yet calculatedly towards you

You panic, resuming your mad scrambling in a desperate attempt to keep yourself within a bubble of safety. For every inch you slide back, the mer covers several with ease, until your hand slips against the damp sand and you fall back onto your elbows with a grunt

The mer is practically on top of you before you can blink, lips thankfully only parted slightly, but that’s still too much, you can see the outline of their teeth

Claustrophobia and megalophobia simultaneously wrap around your chest like a great boa constrictor, pleading for the flesh of the earth to swallow you

Powerless, and utterly small against the creature caging you, you clamp your eyes shut - moisture still leaked from them regardless -  and bite on your gums, whining pathetically. If the worse was to come you didn’t want to witness it 

Sniffing

You feel strands of hair along your scalp wafting, then a blast of hot air blasts over your face, sending them back. What in the actual hell was it DOING?! Was it going to eat you or not?!

You don’t want to look, incapacitated by the overwhelming fear you’ll be annihilated if you so much as twitched. But you must, you need to see what it’s doing, need to see with your own eyes how hard it was contemplating it’s next actions, the actions that decided if you lived or became slowly digested

Shaking like a chihuahua, your eyelids peel back

The mer had leaned back considerably, but seemed shocked at the sight of your pupils staring back at him. It’s not obvious what emotion was on his face nor what he was thinking, but the wave of his fins and the trill that gurgles in the back of his throat portrayed something mildly inquisitive 

…You tilted your head, and to your perplexed shock, the creature cautiously mimicked

“Uhm-” your voice abruptly cutts itself of when you catch the mers pupils contract once again, you try to retract your head into your shoulders like a tortoise 

It leaned forward, eyes narrowed, fins pinned back to the sides of its head giving it the impression of an overly large, annoyed house cat. A house cat with predatory claws and teeth, a very scary, predatory house cat

You swallow, unable to look away

….It uttered a single, pitched chirp in your face, before quick as a flash, it jumps off you and makes a mad dash towards the retracted oceanline

As if recalling you needed air to function, you gasp, chest inflating to its fullest before you exhale, though it sounded more like a poorly disguised wheeze. Everything felt heavy, your body drained of its energy reserves leaving you running on fumes that gradually, if sluggishly, pushed you to sit up

The body of the mer bounding towards the sea on its stomach is a safe enough distance away that you felt it was fine to stand, your legs wobble beneath you, your centre of balance skewed alongside how winded you felt.

Heaving for air that never seemed to satisfy your burning lungs, you watch as the dot of the mer becomes smaller and smaller in the distance, until its shape disappeared beneath the blue of the sea and slipped out of view beneath the waves 

You’re…alive

You’re not bleeding chunks in the bottom of the creature's stomach

To double check, you press two fingers to the side of your neck, where the rapid thump of your pulse races below 

You were alive. Shaken, terrified, perhaps even traumatised, but alive

….Your legs buckled with a weak groan as you collapsed to the ground again, you needed a minute

[artechoceneexplorer]

I don't think I have shown this here, but I've been working on a drawing of one of my favourite creatures (?) from Dungeon Meshi, the Dryads. Also kind of making my own version of it by adding details specifically on their internal workings, and making them feel more like a fake puppet of a human grown from a flower.

The original dryad design vs Full Piece of mine (WIP)

I used several plants that have hinges and moving parts as a reference, mainly the hammer orchids (Drakaea sp.) for the internal joints and snapdragons (Antirrhinum sp.) for the external joints of the petal limbs. For the muscles used for more fast movement rather than structure, I used the curling tendrils that many climbing plants, especially in the cucurbit and grape families used for climbing, and can contract and extend pretty easily like springs. They don't use the same mechanism as normal tendrils though, as these move not by growing, but by hydraulics like other movable parts in plants like Mimosa, Drosera or the venus fly trap. For the general texture of the petal skin and sepal hair, I used mainly Hibiscus flowers for no particular reason other than I just love Hibiscus color diversity and petal texture.

Closeup of nearly finished Female flower

I Really enjoyed designing the face of the dryads, making them much more articulated and doll-like than the original designs. This facial petal had two moving parts: the mouth, which can open to allow pollination, which is partially inspired by orchids and snapdragons, with similar contraptions to access the pollen or stigmas; and the eyes, which are inspired by the retractable leaves of Mimosa plants, which can contract and relax via internal hydraulics to open the dryad's eyes.

Closeup of the facial petal of the female flower

I might add some text detailing some additional information once I finish the rest of the piece, but it depends on how good or cluttered it makes the piece feel, but I would like to add it. By the way for anyone wondering, the scientific name is a modification of the Greek name for dryads and other nymphs, which are usually named by adding -aie and similar suffixes to the plant they're associated with (greek dryads were named after oak trees). As these are more more flowers than trees, the genus name uses the prefix "Antho-" which is derived from the word for flower. The species name is much more simple as it means false (-oides) human (anthrop-).

Closeup of the male flower with additional information.

I hope you enjoyed this different kind of post where I go a bit in depth into my creative process, see you in the next one :>

[leona-florianova]

Although his intimacy with Stephen Maturin did not allow him to ask questions that might be judged impertinent, it was of such a rare kind that he could ask for money without the least hesitation. 'Have you any money, Stephen?' he said, the Marine having vanished in the trees. 'How I hope you have. I shall have to borrow the Marine's guinea from you, and a great deal more besides, if his message is what I dearly trust. My half-pay is not due until the month after next, and we are living on credit.' 'Money, is it?' said Stephen, who had been thinking about lemurs. There were lemurs in Madagascar: might there not be lemurs on Réunion? Lemurs concealed among the forests and the mountains of the interior? 'Money? Oh, yes, I have money galore.' He felt in his pockets. 'The question is, where is it?' He felt again, patted his bosom, and brought out a couple of greasy two pound notes on a country bank. 'That is not it,' he muttered, going through his pockets again. 'Yet I was sure—was it in my other coat? did I perhaps leave it in London?—you are growing old, Maturin—ah, you dog, there you are!' he cried triumphantly, returning to the first pocket and drawing forth a neat roll, tied with tape. 'There. I had confused it with my lancet-case. It was Mrs Broad of the Grapes that did it up, finding it in a Bank of England wrapper that I had—that I had neglected. A most ingenious way of carrying money, calculated to deceive the pick-pocket. I hope it will suffice.' 'How much is it?' asked Jack. 'Sixty or seventy pound, I dare say.' 'But, Stephen, the top note is a fifty, and so is the next. I do not believe you ever counted them.' 'Well, never mind, never mind,' said Stephen testily. 'I meant a hundred and sixty. Indeed, I said as much, only you did not attend.'

--The Mauritius Command

[seiwas]

hihi sel!! for your blurb game... hawks + nose + slow burn

thanks for sending this prompt bitti!! 💗

hawks + nose + slow burn

contains: non-canon au, commercial model!hawks, childhood best friends to lovers, pining, hawks gets drunk, reader dates a guy at some point, kinda cliche but i am a sucker for that

keigo's nose twitches when he lies.

it's a tell you've known well all your life.

when he was 5, he used to climb up a tree to practice how to "fly". it was really just him trying to parachute down using his bedsheets, but you watched every attempt―cheered him on whether it was a success or failure.

and when his mother's voice echoed down the park, you watched as he answered, "no," when she asked if he was trying to launch himself up to the sky.

you first noticed it then, the delayed reaction a few seconds after he had just covered up the truth: his nose twitched twice, a quick crinkling of his nose bridge. you didn't think much of it until it happened the second, third, and fourth time.

at first, you'd felt betrayed, being pulled by your ankles down into the swimming pool when he promised you he wouldn't. at 10 years old, you held these things like an oath―

"i promise! won't even go near you. see?" he swims away from the ledge you remain hesitant of approaching, hands raised up in surrender as he laughs.

―compelling; believable. trustworthy. water weighs down his otherwise bird's nest hair, taming it slack against his forehead. with his eyes forming into crescents when he smiles, he looks like the very image of a good kid down the block.

you get better at spotting it as you grow up together, and soon enough, you realize, it suits keigo to be a liar. he's charming above all, drips down sweet words like honey to anyone gullible enough to believe it. they're empty promises most of the time, but a lot of people fall for it, you notice. you included.

"i’m not interested anyway," he tells you at 18, right after graduation. one of the girls in your class was brave enough to confess to him and you’re curious how he feels about it, if anything.

being keigo's longest and arguably even best friend means that you know him better than anyone else. you were there when he was ugly, puberty catching up to him slowly. you’ve witnessed him just woken up, groggy from a full night of studying, because despite the nonchalance he often displays, he does care about his grades more than he lets on.

you know when he’s happy, when he talks about his dreams; the excitement he felt when he was scouted as a commercial model for a prestigious agency. you know his heart, beneath all his playfulness, how he keeps the people he values close to his chest and cares about them more than anything.

(you remember every single time keigo has lied on your behalf, nose twitch after nose twitch—that time you spilled grape juice all over your carpet and keigo told your mother that it was all his fault; when you forgot a book for one of your classes and keigo gave you his, taking the consequence of detention in your stead.)

you know keigo well because you love all the parts of him.

so when his nose twitches after he tells you he doesn't care much for relationships, your heart breaks just a little bit. you begin to wonder if keigo has a type, and if that girl fits right into it.

.

getting over keigo while still being his best friend is a herculean, if not impossible, task.

his career skyrockets and you go to university; your schedules are always in conflict but he still happens to be everywhere you look―ads on your instagram feed, wallpapers on your classmates' phones. there are shorts of his interviews constantly recommended on your youtube homepage and the feeling is both weird and comforting watching someone you know so well be so accessible yet difficult to meet.

you could reach out, sure, but you know he's busy enough as is. you don't think it's his priority to―

"come over soon," he texts you one thursday night.

your heart hammers against your chest, fingers numbing as you nearly drop your phone. it's embarrassing how quickly you type out, "when?"

but keigo is a fast texter, somehow always beating you to your replies first.

"this sat?" he double messages.

and you're about to reply "down" when he chats again, his words leaving an ache in your chest that you can't help but feel guilty for.

"haven't seen u in ages i think i'm starting to hallucinate hearing ur voice or smth."

.

spending more weekends together makes it harder for you to get over him, sitting on his couch as you both eat takeout; earlier today, you'd stumbled upon some stupid tiktok gossiping about all the dating scandals he's been embroiled in this past year.

you stuff chow mein down your throat, swallow it in big gulps as you glance at your best friend across you; he remains lax and unbothered as his legs cross in front of him, eyes on the the movie you're currently watching. it's a slow and painful process trying to get yourself to be just as uncaring about the entire thing, but with how often keigo lies, you find it hard to distinguish whether his "playboy" image is real or just for marketing.

curiosity gets the better of you when the question slips out, awkward and clearly fabricated.

"one of my friends is asking if i can introduce you."

you avoid eye contact in fear that he'll be able to tell you're making it up. no one from university knows you're keigo's best friend; he's kept you a secret just as much as you've kept him one.

"tell them sorry, too busy to date," he shoves a handful of popcorn straight into his mouth, chewing exaggeratedly to conceal the fact that his nose is twitching. his arm is slung over the back of the couch as you nestle yourself on the other end of it.

the topic is sensitive for the both of you; keigo always shoots down any opportunity to talk about his love life and you're always conscious of the fact that you might seem too eager to want to know what the real score is between him and the girl at the bar, at the photoshoot, at the gala, at the―

"am sure uni doesn't give you much time either, right?"

he changes the subject.

.

keigo is linked to a lot of people in the industry; it's a consequence of the job, as they say. rumors are neither confirmed nor denied and you're just as clueless as the public is despite the fact that you've known him your whole life and spend your weekends eating greasy takeout on his expensive couch.

you should move on, you tell yourself.

it doesn't mean anything that the throw blanket on his bed is the one you crocheted for him when he turned 21. the picture that sits on his entryway isn't anything more than a memento of youth with his best friend. sure, he makes time for you despite his busy schedule, but that's what all good friends do.

.

so, you start seeing someone. and when you tell keigo, things change.

it only makes sense that you hang out with him less, but he changes more than the circumstances do and you don't think that's fair at all.

he's started replying to you late, which has never happened before. and he's begun cancelling plans with you at the last minute, only for you to find leaked pictures of him at some bar with a bunch of people hanging by his arms.

keigo hangs around alcohol, but he rarely ever indulges, so having him call you shit-faced drunk right after he cancelled hanging out on the same weekend is definitely something new.

you’re in rare form driving his car to pick him up, hoisting him onto the passenger seat as he passes out to sleep. it’s only when you get to his apartment that he groggily wakes.

the elevator ride has him clinging to the side railings, his groans filling the tiny space. an empty plastic bag is ready in your hand in case he needs to hurl—which he doesn’t, thankfully—but he crashes on the couch as soon as he walks in the door.

you ready a glass of water and painkillers on the coffee table in front of him before grabbing the throw blanket from his bedroom. when you return, he's tucked into himself like a baby, knees curled up and arms crossed around torso in an embrace.

it both endears you and aches; you'd hug him if you could. if only your feelings could handle being closer to him than you should be.

instead, you settle for tucking him in, draping the crochet blanket over him as he snuggles into it.

admittedly, you're still kind of pissed; he did flake on your plans after all. but when he mumbles your name in his sleep, you find all of that anger flushed down the drain immediately.

.

the first time keigo meets the guy you've been seeing, you don't expect the hostility.

your best friend is your best friend for a reason—he's the warmest, friendliest person you know. even the media portrays him that way: charming and a little too flirty for his own good.

"quit it," you tell him when your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend goes to the restroom. you're pretty sure keigo's the reason he needed to go in the first place.

keigo sips his tea, doing a complete switch-up when he smiles at you and asks, "quit what?"

you roll your eyes, "i'm pretty sure he pissed himself because of you."

he snorts, shrugging his shoulders, "not my fault."

it is completely his fault.

from the moment your not-yet-boyfriend shook keigo's hand, your best friend has done nothing but stare him down―a piercing glare like that of hawk’s hunting its prey. you'd liken his grip to talons digging into skin if you could.

"you're such an asshole," you shake your head resignedly, chuckling. the horrible thing about this is that you kind of liked seeing keigo make him squirm.

"it's my job," he lifts his cup up to cheers.

(you find out later on that this is when your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend realized it would never work out.)

.

you're not crying when you tell keigo about the kind-of-break-up. you don't even think you feel that sad about it.

"sorry things had to end that way..." keigo says beside you, legs crossed under half of the crocheted blanket on his couch.

you give him a side-eye and notice his nose twitch. you'd know that fake sad tone anywhere.

"i was starting to warm up to him, you know..."

another nose twitch. you kick his shin under the blanket, the half on top of you rustling on top of your lap, "yeah right, nose-twitcher."

"ouch, that burned," he pretends to be hurt for the theatrics and you roll your eyes, chuckling in return.

everything about this moment is everything it should not be―it's too comfortable, too familiar, too easy. your relationship with keigo is everything you want but can't have and times like this remind you especially of that fact.

he's your best friend―

"why'd he break up with you anyway?"

―and is the reason why you can't seem to make it work with anyone else.

"i don't want to get in the way," your kind-of-ex started. you looked at him, confused.

"you have feelings for him," he further explained, "and it looks like he feels the same."

your kind-of-not-yet boyfriend said he'd caught that moment at the coffee shop as soon as he got out of the restroom―you and keigo laughing as you clinked cups.

you blink away the memory, shrugging, "don't know, just said it wasn't working out or something."

keigo hums, a beat of silence passing between the two of you before he speaks up again.

"well, it's his loss."

you turn to look at him and find sincerity; you're sure he means it, just not in the way you want him to, an awkward "thanks" mumbled under your breath.

.

things with keigo go back to the way things were, but not exactly.

his schedule miraculously clears up on the weekdays too, and he begins visiting your apartment to take you out for brunch whenever he finds the time.

he also stops going to bars and a whole year passes for him without any dating scandal, except for when he attended your graduation.

you try not to feel too happy about it, but when he's asked about the nature of your relationship, he says that you're important to him. the answer is still vague, but it's infinitely better than the way he used to evade all the previous ones.

"i'm rebranding," he tells you when you mention something about how you haven't seen any gossip tiktoks about him lately.

you push down the hope that fizzes in your chest, even when the biggest change of all is the fact that you think he's gotten clingy.

"wanna stay over again?" he asks you on a tuesday night as you're having dinner, on the table this time. you've already been here for the past two days.

you eye him suspiciously, "are you scared of your apartment or something?"

"no."

"so why?" you take a sip of water.

"no reason," he copies you, bringing his cup up higher to hide his nose; it twitches before you can catch a look.

"well, i have an early day at work tomorrow," you check your phone, "so you have to give me a better reason."

you stare at each other for a while, the silence suddenly turning a touch heavy, like suspense building up to an important scene.

he blinks. you blink.

you watch him intently, see every thought that crosses behind golden irises. he juts his lips out slightly, as if contemplating what he should say next, if he even should. it's unlike any expression you've seen on his face before, and you'd say he almost looks nervous if you only had a reference of how that emotion translates on him.

then he takes a small breath, closing his eyes half a second longer than a blink before opening them again, directing his gaze at you.

"it's better when you're around."

oh.

you don't exactly know how to respond to that; you know you shouldn't read into it too much, but then he continues―

"and i miss you when you're gone."

your breath is on hold, a measly "oh," drawn from you. time feels suspended at this dinner table, your brain finding words to say.

keigo doesn't let go of his gaze and his nose has not twitched.

you try to push it further.

"i'm," you start, already stuttering, "i'm sure you'll survive a day without your best friend."

the chuckle that escapes you gives him an option to downplay this entire thing—to turn it into a joke and make it clear once and for all that you stand no chance feeling the way you do.

except, he doesn't return your laugh. his gaze softens as he holds his stare, the corners of his lips curling into a small smile.

"and if you're more to me than just my best friend?"

you search for any sign that this is some cruel trick keigo's playing on you, that he's lying to get some kind of reaction again. but there's nothing—his nose completely still as he awaits your answer.

a/n: mostly unedited, this is so long help. at some point i started envisioning gojo ngl 😭 anyway this is my first time writing hawks! i'm not so sure if i got his character right because he's complicated but!! i enjoyed writing this (clearly with how long it is 😭😭). he knows that his nose twitch is his tell (reader told him at some point), that's why he tries to hide it sometimes! also he never truly dated anyone haha man is unfortunately very non-committal 🥹 i think getting to this point with reader is a big step! he had feelings for reader early on too but i think he's very careful with it (which is also why it took him this long to do something about it!)

hope you like this bitti! 💗

[love-that-we-were-in]

pretty as a vine (sweet as a grape)

pairing: luke castellan x reader summary: luke castellan might be everyone's favorite councilor over the summer. he might be a little too sweet for you in the fall. word count: 1.7k warnings: none

authors note: thank you to @wlntrsldler for letting me steal this concept from you even if making luke a real tried and true loser was a struggle. hope y'all enjoy!!

It was rare to see Camp Half-Blood’s golden boy without his signature smile on his face; always ready to help, always ready to please. 

You’d only had a handful of conversations with Luke Castellan, passing words in the height of hectic summer heat. Most of them in the middle of the night, when all the campers should be tucked away in the cabins, but you’d take the brief moments of quiet to wander the grounds with a lit cigarette hanging off your lips. 

Luke would approach you every time, always the same way, a pink flush on his cheeks and a quiet, timid voice telling you that he had to enforce the rules, that he had to send you back to your cabin because it was past curfew.

You’d roll your eyes, lick your lips, wave the smoke obscuring your view of him away playfully and promise to head back after this one. He’d nod and walk away, and you’d pretend not to notice his silhouette hidden behind one of the trees, not quite obscured enough by the lack of lighting to go wholly unnoticed, waiting for you to make your way back to where you’re supposed to be. 

He was sweet, too sweet, sometimes. Making sure you were safe, that nothing bad would happen to you even after taking his supposed leave. It was cute, really, how he acted around you underneath the starlight, always so nervous and flustered, like he’d never seen a woman before. You supposed, confined to the parameters of camp for so many years, he really hadn’t seen many of them.

It’s something you carry with you this year, watching as summer fades into fall, how camp suddenly empties. You’re not sure what to make of it, how still everything seems now, how the usual noise dampens into almost nothing and you itch for the hurriedness of July to return. 

You’re lucky, really, to have spent so long exploring the world beyond camp, seeing what growing up had to offer as if it were normal. A lot of the kids you see now, they haven’t experienced a half of what you have, trading high school for battling dragons at someone else’s request, and it shows each year like clockwork. 

If you’re honest, hidden behind the treeline near the lake, camp makes you uneasy like this. Less busy, less extreme - walking the thin line between a place to train and a place to live - and it has you more on edge than before. It could be that you’ve grown accustomed to the bustle of the Boston streets. It might just be that Luke has been hiding just beyond view since you lit your cigarette.

“I know, I know,” you say when he finally approaches. He stumbles, familiar flush blotching the skin of his neck, climbing the tips of his ears. “Just let me finish this one.” 

He nods and you wait for him to walk away, follow his usual path back into the forest. He doesn’t, standing on the damp grass nearby without saying a word, and you look at him again. 

You’re used to seeing Luke Castellan in different forms - it’s part of how he lives. Nervous and unsure and so confident with a sword that it’s a little insane that he’s the same person during training as is standing in front of you now. 

He’s got this little dip to his shoulders, fingers tapping against his own thigh as you stare at him. His curls are slightly longer than when summer started, curling around his ears and resting just above his brows. He’s got a sweatshirt on, dark green and oversized, and his teeth sink into his bottom lip the longer you take to look away. 

“You can head back,” you say eventually, flicking ash to the ground at your feet. “I promise to be good and go straight to bed.” 

It’s not meant to be anything, merely an assurance. But there’s this way Luke reacts to it, how his fingers stop tapping in favor of clenching his first, how he breathes deeper for a few breaths, how he swallows around nothing, that ignites something under your skin. Makes you want to push that little bit further. 

“You really need to stop coming out after curfew,” he mumbles in the end, tucking his hands into the front pocket of his sweater. It’s soft and a little warm and you wonder if it’s the humidity or Luke himself that’s responsible. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You’re sweet, Castellan,” you crush the butt of your cigarette out, brushing past him to start the trek back to your cabin. “It’s kind of adorable.” 

You hear him suck in a breath. You don’t hear his footsteps directly behind you as you walk through the foliage. You kind of wish you’d turned around to see the blush rise on his cheeks. 

Maybe you will next time.

*

Next time doesn’t come for weeks. It gives you space to observe Luke now, when he’s being pulled in fewer directions, when there’s lower expectations. You learn that neither of those things exist where Luke is concerned; that he has this inability to not be helpful, to not put himself forward when no one else will. He somehow takes up more responsibilities as fall gets underway, smiling wide when you know you’d be stretched thin. 

It’s admirable, to a point, and you want to know how he does it.

A few years ago, you convinced yourself Luke was only on when the sun shone brightest. Watching him demonstrate a throw to a young Athena kid, you think he might be the sun itself. 

“Nice arm,” is what you greet him with when the little girl runs off, ball in hand. He pauses his hands where they rest on the fabric of his pants, still slightly bent at the knees from helping and lips parted as he glances up at you. “She seemed happy.” 

“She just needed some help with the technique.”

He shrugs and stands to actually face you. 

Mid-afternoon at camp has never really sat well with you. Always slower, sun burning and campers left to fill their own time before dinner. You’ve never really known what to do with it; Luke squints at the grounds before you as if he’s searching for who needs him next.

“Do you ever take a break?” Is what you say when the silence drags on for too long. 

Luke blinks, lips parting. A group of Hephaestus kids laugh from down by the lake. You wait. 

“I go to bed at midnight.”

“And what time do you wake up?” You kick at the grass below your feet, taking in how Luke stumbles for an answer, brown eyes darting each way as if it’ll fall from the sky. 

“The apollo kids really love watching the sunrise,” he chokes out in the end, digging his hands into his pockets. You wonder if he thinks it makes his nerves less obvious. “It’s a really nice sunrise.” 

“Come watch it with me tomorrow.”

You say it partly for the reaction itself. That same quick breath Luke takes each time you say something that shocks him, the red tint to his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the harsh movement of his adams’ apple. You kind of also really want to see how Luke Castellan changes between day and night - if it’s a version of him you just haven’t read yet. 

You don’t mention that you’ll have to force yourself out of bed, unused to early rising. 

He nods, three quick nods like he thinks you’ll take it back if he’s not enthusiastic enough. 

You smile then. “I’ll see you later, Luke.”

*

He meets you where he usually does, further north than anyone tends to go at any hour, let alone this early. There’s less hesitation to his steps than a few nights ago, your invitation dangling between you both something like a promise. 

“I’m not gonna bite,” you say when he stops just short of the rock you’ve claimed. You glance over at where he’s just feet away, bright orange camp tee peeking out from his grey hoodie. “It’s too early for that.”

“Oh.” 

There’s some shuffling before Luke is perching himself on the stone next to you. He’s close enough to touch from here, the makeshift seat just barely big enough for two people to share, and you take in how he tucks his hands into his pockets, makes himself take up as little room as possible. 

Outside of his swordsmanship, you’ve never seen Luke take up much space at all.

“This is nice,” he says eventually, the sun starting to peer over the lake. 

There’s something almost beautiful about what the sunrise does for him, you realise. Neither of you have moved, Luke’s gaze still locked on the horizon, but you’ve transferred your attention to him. You’ve seen the lake enough times. You’ve never seen Luke Castellan’s chest rising and falling with each steady breath, or the way his eyes turn a little gold when the sun hits them just right. How he relaxes in the autumn chill.

“You’re really pretty, Luke.”

It slips past your lips before it fully forms in your mind. His head snaps to the side, cheeks flushing and lips parted. You hadn’t meant to say it, too caught up in the slow start to the morning, but it’s out there and you don’t want to take it back.

“Such a pretty boy,” you mutter, shaking your head. 

“I-“ Luke starts, before clearing his throat. You see his hands twitch in his pockets. “What?” 

You twist on the rock underneath you, lifting your legs so they’re crossed, knees brushing the edge of Luke’s thigh. His eyes drop at the movement.

This should feel weird at camp. You’d fallen into the habit of flirting back in Boston, something to fill the gaps and score you a cigarette when you really needed help to get them. Never like this though - like the moment was delicate and its shattering was solely in your hands. 

The ability to shatter Luke Castellan, Camp Half-Blood’s golden boy, rests on your shoulders in an early sunrise.

When his breath hitches as you push yourself closer, you think you’d like to watch him shatter in the sunlight. 

Pretty doesn’t even come close when it happens.

[myfootyrthroat]

I thought the "The Resnicks control 60% of California's water" claims were... dubious, but didn't have a good source. Not that it stopped the people making the claim, but...

They apparently own a little under 60% of one water bank, not the entire state's water supply, which has very little to do with the problems related to water delivery for this fire.

An alternate place that the 60% could have been misapplied from is that 60% of California's water usage is for irrigation (all irrigation uses: crop, pasture, landscape, etc). Again, this is for all irrigation use in the whole state, not directly tied to the Resnicks' companies.

Also, the focus on pistachios and almonds and lack of talk about animal agriculture is always a little weird. Irrigating orchards takes a lot of water, but way less water than growing alllll the annual crops that cows need to eat to produce milk. (I also have a few quibbles with how the agricultural water use is broken down in that last link. "Trees and vines" are one category, which includes nuts, citrus, grapes, etc... but "corn" and "grain" are separated. Looks like cooking some numbers to me!)

The weird focus on this one couple, who are part of a larger problem to be sure, at the expense of... you know, actually focusing on the larger problem, is a bit weird. And speaking of the larger problem, when it comes to landowners in California, they aren't even in the top 5. The largest landowners are all timber industry, which has a much more direct connection with fire, so it's odd that we aren't seeing more about them!

And again, most of this doesn't actually have anything to do with firefighting anyway. The problems with water delivery to the fires aren't from a shortage of water, but because urban water infrastructure isn't made to deliver water at the volumes necessary for fighting wildfires.

It can be cathartic to spread posts that are the "right kind" of inflammatory, but people looking to spread misinformation are very aware of that and good at crafting the kind of messages that will make people just mad enough to share without checking. None of this is defending the messed up water rights/usage system in the US, but important problems are worth addressing with correct information.

[theovermanln]

More Vintner art

Ive been making characters based off of things i see irl that fit a certain aesthetic and the vintner so far has been the best example of this. Hes an oc that acts as an outlet for me to make fun art and i love it. As for the story that he does have, he works in a massive upscale restaurant where he mans the bar and occasionally acts as a waiter. His main schtick is making wine (shocker) where beneath the restaurant he operates a massive winery. Pressing grapes into juice, fermenting it into wine, storing it in barrels and such. Cleaning bottles, storing them, etc. He also presses other stuff, like olives into olive oil. He gives this oil to be used in the kitchen and sometimes makes mayo and fancy aoilis with ingriedients given to him from other characters. The other characters are a character who lives in the woods who makes animal products, killing animals and selling their meat, taxidermying their fur, pinning bugs, etc., as well as chewing down trees for wood to sell, and a gardener type character i call the Herbalist who runs a greenhouse which grows various herbs, some of which she dries in a furnace into other spices. The forestry man is an introvert who mainly sticks to the forest but the herbalist is in kahoots with the vintner. They arent official but definitley are flirty with eachother. The drawing of the forestry man isnt finished yet but whateva we get there when we get there

The vintner is also more connected with these two than i gave credit for. The forestry man lives in a forest, the herbalist in her garden, but both have plots of land that the vintner uses to grow plants for the restaurant. Namely, behind the restaurant is an outside seating area with plenty of greenery. Grape vines and olive trees. The olive trees were a gift from the forest man and the grape vines are actively being maintained and harvested by the herbalist and vintner together. The grapes naturally supply the wine making and olives to the other olive derivative products. This little world im building has more characters that i havent talked about here, such as a distributor character, florist, the other waiter and the chefs for the restaurant, but those characters are less developed so ill show them off a different time. This world is mainly themed on ideas of cuisine and botany. How plants and food and nature and rich living all blend together to make this very interesting aesthetic. Like the herbalist was a character created by the color palette of a pair of my girlfriends shoes, the florist a character based off of a bath bomb i saw at a Lush store. Needless to say ive had a lot of fun with these designs. Taking these specific color palettes and aesthetics i see in my daily life and making them into characters to connect with other characters of a similar aesthetic and theme, im having a lot of fun with these designs.

Sneak peeks of some other characters, namely the waiter, distributor, and florist

[minhosimthings]

imagine … feeding jake grapes while on a picnic together … or maybe just watching a movie, snuggled up at home… you bring up smth about how you used to peel grapes with your teeth growing up and challenge him to see who can do it the best. but someway somehow, things get heated, and he starts teasing abt you having an oral fixation after you peeled the grape better than him, ofc ;), and he decides to prove you wrong by showing you just how skilled his mouth can really be- 🧎‍♀️

This has been marinating in my asks for so long istg (i think since 2023), so i wrote this extremely quickly, and im so sorry i couldnt make it a full fic annonie! But, as always, enjoy this quick dumb blurb on mine (i know its really short BUT BEAR WITH ME)

Warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI 18+, oral (f receiving), mention of food (grapes), swearing, use of nickname 'doll' NOT PROOFREAD (forgive me)

“Now that—” Jake slumped back against the tree, “—is definitely something you learnt at Hogwarts, you beautiful witch.”

You threw your head back as your entire body convulsed with laughter, bringing a goofy smile to Jake’s face as he realized how stupid his silly joke was. The sun was still peeking out from the horizon, bathing the skies in a shampoo of oranges and pinks. The soft spring breeze pushed Jake's hair back, prompting his body to relax into the soft grass which he sat upon. The checkered blanket which you had brought was sitting peacefully on a side, as you had decided that the grass was far more comfy. In front of you lay a basket filled with cotton-candy grapes.

“How are you even getting them to stay in your hands?” Jake whined, picking up a grape which happily slipped out his finger. You stifled a giggle.

“Just watch and learn babe.” You said with the air of a sensei, “watch and learn.”

You picked up a nicely rounded grape from the basket, pretending to observe its dimensions like a professor before you brought it to your mouth. Jake watched in pure awe as your teeth easily managed to pull off the slimy green outer layer, leaving the fresh fruit behind. You peeled one end, then the other, and the last strip went onto your tongue as you proudly showed off the skin-less grape to your boyfriend. 

“Yep.” Jake sighed, “Witch material.”

“But the hot kind right?” You laughed, popping the grape into your mouth, “You’re just jealous I could peel more grapes than you could.”

“Well, you practice it throughout your childhood!” Jake defended himself. You rolled your eyes playfully.

“It’s alright baby.” You put on a cheeky smile, before checking your watch. The sun was now fully below the horizon and nighttime was falling, “Some of us just weren't born for grape peeling.” You laughed at Jake's scowl.

“Home then?” You said, picking up the basket.

“Yep.” Jake replied with a pop of his lips, before helping you pack up.

……………………………………………………………………

"Ohh Jake, more–please I need you," you whisper hazily, hand reaching back to grab his head desperate to have his tongue buried as deep as possible. Apparently, the bragging rights of the grape-peeling competition didn't sit well with him, especially when you looked so sexy, peeling them. He had you pushed against the bedroom door as soon as you had changed into your pajamas, and now—he was devouring you like a starved man.

He took his time, savoring the taste of you, the feel of your body responding to his touch. His hands slid under your hips, pulling you closer, his tongue delving deeper into your depths. Your fingers tightened on his hair and his lips stopped coordinating with your pulsing cunt. Jake pulled away to look up at you and smirk.

He was glistening with a light sheen of sweat, his hair sticking to his damp forehead, the buttons of his shirt—once done up to near his neck, now trailing open to the middle of his chest, exposing the warm glow of his skin underneath.

“Do I win the competition now, doll?” The lowered tone of voice Jake was using sent you swimming in a pool of insanity. And it wasn't like it was any different for him. Your willing pussy throbbing for his tongue and touch were driving him to the limits of his self-control.

Before you could respond to his words however, his face disappeared between your legs. You couldn't take the tension anymore and you threw your head back with a moan. Just the feeling of his breath and the knowledge of how close he was to your pussy was driving you crazy. 

You couldn’t help but rithe under his touch, bucking your hips at his face–on instinct, overwhelmed by the way Jake was relentlessly drinking you up, his fingers gripping tighter to the meat of your thighs to hold you in place as you could feel the tingle beginning to build at the base of your spine, your back arching in desperate anticipation.

A sort of whimpering scream escaped you as you began to gasp for air, far too fucked out, just by Jake’s persistent tongue. Everything was getting hazy, and soon, your eyes were rolling to the back of your skull. Instinctively, you clenched your fists tightly on the sheets and tried to move your hips out of his reach, but his hands on your waist effectively stopped your movements.

“Oh shit- fuck, fuck, Jake, I’m so close oh f-fuck, I’m–” Just like that, you were falling over the brink of collapse, your orgasm crashing through you like a tidal wave, pleasure flowing through every inch of your veins as you met your high. His lips completely wrapped as he suckles and continues to flick where you’re most sensitive, working you through your orgasm.

More arousal poured from you, and Jake was quick to lap it up. You grabbed his hair tighter, driving your hips into his face at a ravenous pace—practically fucking his face—and then it hit you again. Eyes rolled to the back of your head as your back arched in an awkward angle, your orgasm hits you hard. It’s without warning, heart-pounding, with a certain addiction—as sweet as cotton candy grapes.

Dividers by the talented @drizztdohurtin