#I promise Nothing on quality

[aro-kai]

There is something in the crack between my door and the wall.

I watch it at night, watch the darkness breathe. It's a trick of the light, perhaps, of tired eyes and a mind too inclined to see the eerie in every corner. But I watch it, and it breathes, and I think I can see it growing, creeping outwards and up, a darker shade of grey. It's grown almost comforting, perhaps, and I tell myself that if it existed, if it wished me harm, it would've struck by now. All these long nights, it's still breathing, or my eyes are shifting as I'm breathing, and we lay here together.

I roll over and close my eyes to sleep. My spine is prickling. I roll back and stare at it some more.

Perhaps it is pulsing with my breath, I think, a question I have wondered many times before. It certainly appears to be, a calm companionship marbled with uncertain fear. I hold my breath, change the rhythm. In in out, in in out.

It continues the old pattern for a moment, that slightly too fast breath before sleep, before matching mine again. In in out, in in out. Pulse pulse fade, pulse pulse fade. I drop back consciously to slow, deep breaths, and with the customary hesitant lag, it joins me.

It's my brain playing tricks, I'm pretty sure. I can't be positive. The mind does strange things right before sleep, and that lag may only be what I've expected. It's just barely too fast to rely on with certainty, just barely too slow to dismiss.

The thing in the crack of the door rests there, following the slow deep breaths I'm working myself back towards. There's a kinship in it, that mimicry of breath, that life-sustaining essence. It's calming and strangely intimate, the two of us together in this dark and empty room, eyeing each other, breathing in time. It's how I would imagine a partner, snuggled close, shifting the blankets above as one being, one breath. I pretend a moment longer, ignoring the instinctive twining shiver of fear, that we are companions and it means me no harm.

And that it exists, of course.

I close my eyes and sleep, face to the door.

My dreams are strange and liquid as they have often been of late. A shivering darkness, a fear buried deep. It's stress from work, I think. That's the most logical theory when I'm awake, combined with an overactive imagination for the shadow in the crack of my door.

When I wake each morning, I hardly glance at it, brushing past for clothes and shoes and a strong cup of tea. I hardly think of it, mostly, except for when I do, and then it's so vivid I can touch it. At my desk, I imagine dipping my hand into the darkness of the drawer and feeling something reach up to hold it, creeping past my fingers and up along my arm. I can taste it, nearly, cool metal and liquid silk and ozone and bile and blood and something I can't name, something that burns like whiskey and sparkles like the fizz in a soda water. I wonder if I want it, a shiver of fear and a blessed apathy, a hope clinging to myself and a fear for the rest of my life, a life that feels meaningless if what it means is this.

I don't touch the drawer. Except, of course, when I do.

I am dreaming and I am breathing, and there is a great wave which is not a wave. It shimmers dark and iridescent, like some terrible thing. It's vivid and surreal and I think it is breathing, towering above me. We are breathing in time, the wave and me. It is larger than any building I have ever seen. It blots out the sun, the stars, the clouds, and I'm not sure if any of them were in the sky to begin with. I look closer and I think I see things inside, blurred figures that weep and sing and cry out, a symphony of feeling that is overwhelming, overpowering. I am shivering, and I suddenly feel that I am naked. It looks above me like a great eye, and the wave that is not a wave is moving, a great shuddering gasp that curls closer, tugs at my fingers as it closes in at my sides. It is taller now, and I am nearly encased. I stop trying to crane my head back. It's now too high to see the surface, and its shape is too close. I'm sprayed in seafoam that is not seafoam and gasping in fear, though even as I do I'm not sure what for. The singing is everywhere, and now that I can hear it closer I know that it and the weeping are the same, and there is an answering scream in my own chest. I am yearning, and something within me wants to tear my heart from my chest and plunge it deep into the wave. But I am so afraid.

I can't feel my chest enough to breathe, the screaming and yearning harsh behind my lungs. My hands are shaking and trembling and I can hardly stand up, would already have collapsed if the wave were not so close. I think if I knelt, if I tilted my head forward, it would be encased in the great and terrible wave which was not a wave, and the howl in my chest would join the chorus, and there is nothing I have ever wanted less and more.

The wave cries out in rage and sorrow, and my body shivers like I've been overtaken, overwhelmed, like a mimic of the resonance between two tuning forks. A scream finally forces its way out through my throat, and I howl in answer as it collapses around me.

Consciousness rushes violently upon me in the early dawn, my body and mind still trembling. I can hear my pulse in my fingertips, see sparks behind my eyes, feel a crackling along my veins. It's overwhelming, it's unbearable. There is a wailing in my chest, unheard, no longer able to force itself out past my clenched jaw. I am blinded, I am blazing, and with the corner of my mind that retains thought I think that I could never get over this, never brush past it. I think that I am forever changed, that perhaps this will be what pushes life back into mine.

By the time I reach work that morning, exhausted and fuzzy, my blood still fizzing, I wonder if I dreamt that too.

I collapse into bed that night spent and exhausted, hating my job, my life, my brain. I don't even bother to look at the crack in the door, fearing that I'll see it empty. I don't know what it would take to convince me it's real. I don't know what it would take to convince me of anything.

I have dark liquid dreams, a balm against my soul. But now I can hear an answering howl to the one in my chest, buried deep within the calming swirl. I'm shivering and afraid and struck by an awful awe, a burning. I wake up wishing to fall back into it.

My work day passes as a dream. After yesterday, nothing feels real. I lay in bed again, and close my eyes. I breathe, and imagine the door is breathing, and I feel or imagine I feel it brushing through my hair. I feel or imagine I feel it shifting my pillow, pressing a blinding shiver against my temples. I think I sob, pressing closer. The hairs on my neck are standing as my pillow moves again, or I think it moves. I feel overwhelming fear, but I want it more. I don't move except to breathe deeper the smell of cool metal, ozone, bile, blood, liquid silk. I shiver with the fizz of whiskey and soda in my brain, along my skin. My chest is howling, and I press closer to the real or imagined caress along my neck.

I feel it all around me in my dreams. I'm breathing it in, shaking, shivering. I feel myself as a speck in a towering wave, screaming from the inside for a brief taste before falling back out.

I can't make myself dive in again, no matter how I try, but I howl willingly this time, matching my voice to the chorus inside. I want it, and I am afraid.

I open my eyes to my room and see the thing in the corner. I'm overwhelmed--relief, fear, pain, and an all consuming wave of an emotion I can't name, one that shivers and screams and wails and yearns. It's bleeding out into the room, curling along the walls, and I think of the day before, and the day before that, and I never want to wake up and go to work again, to daydream of sliding my hand into the desk drawer when I have the thing I want here, in ozone and blood and cool metal and bile and silk. The shadow is solid and opening like arms, like the folds of a forbidden flower, and I have never been more afraid and I have never wanted anything more.

I want to feel my own scream in chorus, to have it torn out and suspended, to never have to pretend to my mockery of a life. I think that the thing in the shadow is perhaps the real life, that there’s nothing closer to living than the moments we share paralyzed in the dark.

It's pressed close against my bed now, inches from my nose. I'm trembling and gasping, feeling as naked as I had before the dream wave which was not a wave. I pull myself to a shaky kneel, eyes never leaving the thing before me. My skin is alight, and now that it's close I can see within, details I could never make out in dream. There are impressions of faces floating within it, howling grief and rage and hope. I can feel it watching me, gaze heavy, though I see no eyes.

I know suddenly that it won't force me, that to be subsumed takes my own consent. I could never take it back. I would never again be myself. But I think that I don't care. I think that I could endure anything for this, a chorus for the wild howling in my soul.

It shimmers around me, and I don't look at the bed below, at my human hands, at the room beyond.

I bow in, and I am alive.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

(loosely) that scene from potc... its so Them i think...

[sxxlol]

YES CYNO we say in unison

[eerna]

guuuysssss.... does anyone know where to find digital ARCs of books that may or may not have been dropped by their publishers bc of drama reasons........ asking for a friend............

[slice-of-magenta]

Err if ppl want to, I could draw stuff. Im doing a smol art challenge rn (certain color palettes challenge) bc why not. I will continue to choose for myself, but it doesnt hurt to ask if anyone else is interested in asking me. Im open to it (especially if its sciles).

Pick any number from the link below, and a ship (throuples count), or a platonic pair of your choice and I can get to that. When I can. Crack ships like truetree and scott/mute is an immediate yes lol. And honestly? Idk if I can go through everthing but more than one request/ask is okay!<3

( ive been kinda uncomfy with drawing derek, liam, peter and the sheriff recently. I know 😅. But every other character, I can see what i can do. Peter and Scott, I can consider as an exception tho.)

The art challenge link Im using:

[impostorsshow]

Sam. I hate sam's mouth

[hiddenfolk]

How's your day going? I have a question for your AU, as you mentioned the 13 crowns are the same, and I presume that includes Baal, how old is Kiriwo? Is he still the same age as canon and just... Obsessed with a teacher now, or is he an adult. And if he is, did he ever get infatuated with Iruma as he did or did they not interact and he just continued on in the 6 fingers?

Hope you are well!

Kalego the Misfit AU.

Sorry for the late reply, hope your day is/went well! As for Kirio well,,,

I dont think he's interacted with iruma enough to develop an obsession alas (or not alas, thats good news probably)

[peppermintspider]

I hate baby talk so much!!!!! Children don’t even talk wike dis. Yeah some of them can slur words a bit, or have a lisp, but mostly they just veer off into random tangents or onto different topics from another topic without bridging them first. Like that’s literally how they talk it’s not "Iwe am swo swo swad iwe cawnt pway wis my twoys wite noww:(((((" it’s "I really really really liked all those sharks I really wanted to get that shark why can we just play with the sharks why do they have to be all locked up. Jellyfish’s!!! I love jellyfish. I wonder if they smell bad" *stuffs cheerio in face hole and proceeds to wander off completely unconcerned with the one sided conversation* (read mumbled, change the speed that you’re reading in various increments, and the k’s soft).

If you shits really want to write small child characters then you need to show their age through their actions and words, not how they speak you annoying ass lazy ass motherfucker. Fucking hate baby talk. Makes me violently mad. Fuck.

Read the tags.

[fromaliminalspace]

been quite a while since i last posted anything so here's a humble offering in the form of a hint towards the next gifset to come (which i actually started months ago, i'm just not happy with how the blending turns out so far and haven't really gotten around to fixing it). kinda wondering whether any mutuals/followers/passersby would recognize the song

[iconsumeheadcanons]

WHY ARE PHONE CALLS SO FUCKING QUIET??? I HAVE MY PHONE AT FULL VOLUME EVERYTIME AND ITS RIGHT NEXT TO MY EAR AND I STILL Can't FUCKING HEAR THE PERSON I'm TALKING TO OR THE SHITTY ASS HOLD MUSIC I HAVE TO LISTEN TO FOR HALF AN HOUR EVERYDAY

[candescentkpop]

Dann

Kingdom: Karma

Kingdom Part 27 / ?

[terrified-spider]

BUG BUG BUG

[bredforloyalty]

i have to use tumblr less some of you are becoming like healthy stable fully realized people (or always have been) and i'm happy for you and cheering you on and acknowledging the pieces of advice that appear on my dash but tbh it makes me feel.. not good. due to my headspace these last few weeks or months or years

[pathetic-gamer]

What language do you play Genshin in? I play it in English and I guess I'm in the minority, at least among the others I've talked to

I play in the original Chinese! I switched away from English bc I main Fischl but her voicelines were annoying me and SOMETHING had to be done, so I figured as long as I wasn't going to be able to understand the voice-over, I might as well go with the original language and get the ~intended experience~

[ocdhuacheng]

You shouldn’t paywall fan-translations come the fuck on

[vagueiish]

paraphrasing like hell, but there's that post that's like 'writers/artists, you're doing great by virtue of creating something from nothing; your unrealistic standards for yourself don't dictate your worth, etc etc' i've seen a few times, and there are other posts with the same sentiment i've seen. and it's all very lovely and i hope other artists find them helpful and good

but like. boy, would those people change their fuckin tune if they were to see the crap i vomit out, lmao