#au: summer in the city

[shih-coulda-had-it]

ok one more deaged at dagobah doodle

Torino: WHAT DID I TELL YOU BOYS ABOUT CHASING LEADS ON YOUR OWN?!

Izuku: Sorry, Torino-san.

Toshinori: We won’t get caught next time.

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

motorcycle sketch featuring cross!! >:)

[xxcloudyskiezxx]

Newest Sonic oc of mine.. Rosa Flora the European Polecat! Hope you like her ❣️

[bruhstation]

I've been thinking about the setting of my TUGS au, the prequel to casa tidmouth, and by extention I began thinking about the show TUGS itself.

it's kind of depressing to know that TUGS is most likely set during the years RIGHT before world war 2. I remember watching a TUGS iceberg video a long time ago, maybe last year-ish. after a series of callbacks and alludes to the little environmental details right at the end of the video, the creator said that the show is possibly not set during the 1920s, but the 1930s, nearing another war period, and that's why I've changed the era of what this AU is set in many months ago.

mitton and cardona claimed that the show is set during the "booming era" of the 1920s, but I can't help but think that maybe the 1920s isn't the most fitting era with how the tone of the show is.

the 1930s setting really does make sense though -- the atmosphere in TUGS is much more, I dunno how to exactly say it, gloomy? serious? it's still a mostly lighthearted kids show, but, to quote some things indirectly from the iceberg video; what's with the munitions? the flammable barges? johnny cuba? the constant mention of broken ships? characters dying right on the screen in such a macabre fashion? burke and blair's whole job? then my mind thought about the star tugs and z-stacks, their relationship and purpose and how it ties to the pre-ww2 feeling of the story.

the conflict between the star tugs and z-stacks isn't fueled by personal grudge against each other. I apologize for comparing TUGS to ttte, but in comparison to its sister series where the engines of sodor have personal banter against each other selfishly, still manage to fool around during their jobs, get into accidents due to their own hubris, and end the day where they learned their lesson, TUGS is much different. they're just there to work and carry through their contracts. they still banter with each other but they know their priorities. they are also driven by their conscience and rationale, not just some "oh he made fun of me so I'm not gonna help him out. I'm bigger and more important so I refuse to do this job and go back to my berth".

zorran dislikes the star tugs but knows that the contracts are much more important and he is willing to work with them if it means the job will be done. top hat, despite his personal distaste for anything smelly, QUICKLY changes his mind about lord stinker and works with him to save the goods engine. zebedee is a character more driven by his personal view on what's good or bad -- he helped the star tugs push princess alice back into place and showed concern when ten cents was pushing the oil barge to the sea, but there's a part of him that's definitely concerned for his own well being.

they have their personal opinions on both their teammates and their rival company's tugboats, but they know better than to let those feelings get in the way. not working means their presence as tugboats will be jeopardized.

these points, added to the very high possibility that TUGS is set during the late 1930s, creates another layer to the overall murkier feeling of the show. the characters know the times are dire. the characters know that they have contracts to go through. they know that something big is coming. they've went through world war 1! with how bluenose and the navy inserted their presence in bigg city port, there's also an idea that there's gotta be at least one character with a sense of foreboding amidst the business.

I also reckon they've grown some kind of fondness (???) for their rival company? it's like when there's a kid at school who keeps annoying you, but next day they're not there and you got a bit worried on where they might be. the two factions don't necessarily like each other, but their rival has formed a place in their normalcy that to get rid of them entirely is not going to do any good, really.

so yeah. that's all I have in mind right now.

[dreaming-of-the-end]

middles, endings, and other things that start at the beginning

A/N: Happy Kotlc Pride Month! thanks to @kotlcpridemonth now we have June 24: Fairytale. Hekster! I tried something new :] if this doesn’t make sense, good! you’re reading it correctly.

[ao3]

Summary: "Go away," Sophie whispers to her hopes and dreams. Perhaps they are of freedom, but no one in this godforsaken town has experienced the fulfillment of a wish in over a century. This is not something to reach for. "You're making this so much worse."

TW: there’s blood mentions, and mentions of violence and such but nothing serious

Taglist: @steppingonshatteredglass @sunset-telepath @melanie-schmelanie  @stardustanddaffodils  @song-tam @turquoise-skyyyy @skylilac @wu-marcy  @saintashes  @rune-and-rising @lavender-and-rainy-days @confusedamphibian @hellomyfriends @cadence-talle @callas-starkflower-stew @a-harmless-poison  @professionalwhalewatcher @theogony @gay-otlc  @confuzzled-fox @almostfullnerd @athenswrites @synonymroll648 @squishmallow36 @xanadaus

(the storybooks predicted this. they begin, 'once upon a time,' an end that has already occurred. can you feel it? feel the change coming? feel the end becoming a beginning again? it begins with once upon a time. dream the story. feel it drifting around you and form it into names, lives, loves. what is her name?)

Her name is Sophie.

(what's next?)

Sophie Foster unsheathes her sword.

(and...?)

Sophie Foster unsheathes her sword and hacks into the vines spreading from their thicket into the grassy field. It is a defensive war, one she has been fighting since the beginning. Every year, a new crop of soldiers are handed swords and assigned to vine duty.

Stop them from spreading, read their instructions, and nothing else.

By now, she can probably be called a veteran, which means the days are all the same and she's begun to name the vines just for something to do. Steven, Nancy, and Reynaldo are her current least favorites.

(do you get it? the vines are the stories. the thorns are the words. she must stop the end before it begins. you see it, now?)

The sun attacks the back of her neck like it's bored of today, too. The soldiers don't need armor for this job, so at least it beats guard duty. That's the only positive, though, with this task that is simultaneously mind-numbing and incredibly dangerous.

All they do, day in and day out, is drive their blade into the hungry plants that creep forward, greedily snatching for ankles. Sophie thinks jealously of how Fitz is a teacher instead of a soldier, which means he gets to wrangle children instead of hyperactive flora.

Not that it seems like a more enjoyable option. It's not like he can stab them if they're too annoying.

Sophie stomps on another mischievous vine and beheads it.

(by framing the task in this way, she pretends she is important. she pretends she is beheading a dragon.)

"Aha!" shouts the triumphant hero. In this moment, she is transformed. The sun is no longer a bored foe but cresting her head to light up her golden-streaked hair. Her loose white shirt becomes a silken cape flowing in the breeze, the sheath on her waist holding a sword so polished and intricate it would be a pity to use in battle. A streak of blood slides down her cheek from a close call with the dragon's razor-sharp talons. Her arms do not ache to lift anymore, and standing is not a chore.

Heroes, after all, do not tire, or flag, or want more.

(if she wants to go blind, this is a good idea. she does it, however, not to go blind, but to tell the time. it's not exactly counting down the minutes, but it will do.)

And then she is Sophie again, letting the tip of her blade sink into the soft soil, even though she knows that will dull it. She swipes sweat from her forehead and feels the premature wrinkles formed there from squinting into the sun so many times every day.

She doesn't know, exactly, where the vines come from. Sophie was born into a world where the vines were there, and a previous generation of soldiers were the ones keeping them back. She learned and trained to fight as a soldier in whatever wars were necessary, and instead she's here. Because there aren't any other foes, aren't any other wars.

She is a wall in a battle where the enemies are made to find cracks and slip through them. That may, in fact, be their only purpose.

Being a nuisance, that is. That's their purpose. They're like if Keefe Sencen was condensed into a long, green, skinny plant and lost the ability to speak.

"Heel!" Sophie orders the vines. They shoot forward twice as fast, and she's forced to take evasive maneuvers to swipe them away before they wrap around her calves and engulf her completely.

(in this story, the plants are the predators. the plants are the story. get it? she is the prey of the story. she has to fight back, to end the end before it finds itself back at the beginning. don't ask for clarity. she certainly doesn't understand the metaphor, and she's the protagonist.)

"You should be trained, somehow," she says helplessly, and the vines seem to laugh at her. "It's not funny."

She's gotten into this habit, talking to herself. Weaving stories out of nothing to pass the time. It's not counting minutes, but it'll have to do. The plants don't care, and they definitely can't hear her, but they certainly feel sentient. Sometimes they seem more animal than anything else.

Sophie cuts a few more vines away before they can spread further, then wonders for the millionth time why a more permanent solution hasn't been found yet. Like fire. "You guys are flammable, aren't you?" Perhaps they (as in, the leaders of the village) figure they need something to foster a steady fear and paranoia in the villagers, since the outside world sure can't be accessed around the thicket that surrounds them.

The thicket means no access to the outside world. If it were gone, there would be new enemies to fight. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

She's heard that sometimes, soldiers become too impatient, too angry, and cut too far in. But as soon as they take a step too far, they fall asleep. And then the vines devour them. The witnesses spreading those stories didn't dare try to rescue them.

Taking that risk sounds more and more appealing with each hour spent under the baking sun. Sophie's uniform is a billowing white (although it's more gray now) blouse tucked into black pants. Long sleeves, even though it's light material. It's sweltering. Heat stroke inducing. Sometimes the thirst is so bad she has to physically pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth with soiled fingers.

(as we approach a turning point in the story, pay close attention. when is the moment she makes her decision? why does she make it? she does not know, but perhaps you can.)

Sophie feels that tug in her stomach again. The tug of wanting, she's begun calling it.

"Go away," she whispers to her hopes and dreams. Perhaps they are of freedom, but no one in this godforsaken town has experienced the fulfillment of a wish in over a century. This is not something to reach for. "You're making this so much worse."

She squints up at the sun. (does it burn her? this is for you to decide, not her. it is never her decision.) It's hidden behind gray clouds, but the heat prickling up her skin doesn't fade. If she gets a sunburn again, she's quitting her job (as if that's an option).

Maybe she should have become a teacher like Fitz, or a healer like Keefe, or a dancer like Linh—even though that last one would have been impossible with Sophie's two left feet. Even Dex seems to have it figured out, brewing his potions and inventing new miracle devices that never make a dent in the thicket. He has a goal, at least, even if it is entirely unattainable.

The thing is, this wanting has only gotten stronger over the past few years. The closer she gets to the vines, the tighter it pulls. Wherever she goes, she can find her way back to the edge of town with her eyes closed.

At twenty years old, Sophie is running out of time to make a decision.

The decision is this: to have her dreams or to follow them. To find freedom in death or lose herself in boredom.

She's certain she'd like to continue living, but the urge to go into the vines and find what thorns are there to prick her strengthens until, honestly, she doesn't see the point of killing more of them. They will return. She will be engulfed.

(here it is. the turning point. but also the beginning, a return.)

So Sophie Foster hacks into the vines spreading from the thicket into the grassy plain and takes too many steps for safety.

Sleep drags at her eyes, but it's not nearly as bad as night shifts are (and the dark circles under her eyes have been spreading steadily lower in the last few months anyway) so she keeps walking. Hacking away at the vines. They whisper around her. She answers them.

(entering and killing the story at the same time. letting herself be stung by the thorns. letting herself be scraped and battered by the beginning itself. she would not understand this metaphor because she is living in it.)

Soon, her arms ache too much to continue slicing at the vines. She drops her sword on the ground and lets the thicket swallow it. But she keeps walking, and discovers that as soon as she stops fighting them, the vines part to let her pass.

Even so, thorns scrape lines across her face, stinging her palms and ripping through her sleeves and pants.

Crunches sound beneath her feet, and without looking, she knows they're bones. Maybe animals unfortunate enough to brave the thorns, only to be trapped. Maybe they're people like her, who felt the thread of wanting and didn't trust themselves to stay awake.

Maybe that is the difference between them and her. The willingness to never sleep. To traverse time like an ocean.

(a crucial part of the hero's journey is the struggles it takes to reach a destination. what is her destination? the ending, or the beginning? has she found the struggle, the toil, the challenge yet?)

Sophie's breaths come in pants. It feels like she's been walking for days, but when she squints up at the sky, only a few hours have passed.

"Stop laughing at me," she mumbles. "Fucking... wants. Vines. I hate both of you."

(she does not yet know that these two things are the same. The roadblock and the motivation. The cause and the effect. The instigator and the anchor.)

"You want to see me fail. I bet I'm gonna emerge from this oversized bush and be back where I started. Some kind of sick joke is what this is. I can't believe the world hates me. The world hates me so much that it forced me to go into the fucking death plants that also hate me, and now they're just prolonging my misery. Thanks, guys. I guess I still haven't learned my lesson, since I'm still walking. It might be spite driving me. (perhaps.) Doesn't matter. You're still just as annoying..."

Her voice trails off as she quite suddenly plunges out of the thicket and into a clearing, almost stumbling with the sudden change from vines trailing across her shoes and tripping her up to empty air.

"Oh." The small sound is swallowed in the expanse of the image in front of her.

(another turning point. did you see this one coming? the point of a beginning is to not know the end— unless, of course, that's where it starts.)

Sophie wipes at a trickle of blood on her forearm, suddenly aware of similar wounds all over her body. The truce of the plants wasn't true, then. She turns to scowl at them, and finds that there is a clear-cut line of where they begin and end.

It's a border, a wall, formed perfectly. The one back home was in disarray, uneven, messy, half-chopped and half-expanding. She hopes someone has been sent to take her place as a soldier. Maybe one day they'll follow her path. Maybe they will become bones crunching under the feet of the next person to reach this place.

This... castle.

It's a deep blue, spangled with stars. It glimmers in the bright sun, a brilliant gray up on the turrets. Purples glisten near the bottom, wreathed with clouds that are down instead of up. Sophie looks at the sun and doesn't squint. Birds circle one tower in an endless circle—hundreds of them. She can barely make out a window through flashes of lavender stone.

It's a night sky during the day. It's impossibility. It shouldn't exist. It is, perhaps, magic.

(it is a story, and she has escaped it. now this is real. why has it become real as soon as the magic becomes clear? again, there is no answer. if there was, you could not find it.)

Sophie moves forward, and the drawbridge lowers to allow her to cross a moat that rings the castle. When she peers down, the water is crystal clear and run through with bright blue. Brightly colored fish dart from one patch of sunlight to the next, scales flashing in a practiced pattern.

Sophie frowns, feels the wrinkles come from constant stress and constant sun deepen. But she keeps walking.

The gigantic double doors open before her.

(it's about the journey, dear. what's the destination?)

Still, she keeps walking.

She doesn't bother calling out to anyone inside. She knows where she will find them: asleep, slumped over whatever they were doing when whatever magic this is came to be.

She knows where she will find the wanting, too.

(for once, Sophie understands what will happen. she knows the ending but not how she will get there. you know the beginning. she knows the end. all that's left is the rest of the journey: first motivation, inciting incident, then turning point, then struggle, and another turning point. what is left?)

And there she is: a woman wasting the days, the decades, away. She's dancing on the table when Sophie finds her, twisting back and forth with an invisible partner, not caring whether her feet land on polished wood or air.

Around the table are chairs occupied with the sleeping members of the castle. Some snore gently, but most sleep in silence, like the dead.

Sophie watches her miss the table and step directly into open air. But she doesn't fall, instead stepping further into the air and resuming her dance in a hover. She wears a pink dress, and it floats around her legs just as surely as its owner.

The woman doesn't notice her. Sophie clears her throat.

There's a beat, a pause, and the woman's magic stumbles. She tumbles to the floor with an oof, hands cast out wildly to break her fall. "Holy shit," the woman breathes.

The wanting is so strong Sophie thinks her heart will be pulled out of her chest and torn open right in front of her.

(here it is: the culmination. the destination. the purpose. the pull.)

She looks up, and Sophie is there with a hand outstretched, mouth pressed tight together to keep from blurting out something stupid like a marriage proposal.

The woman takes her hand. Her fingers wrap firmly around Sophie's wrist and let her pull her onto her feet. Her eyes are a blue so deep it almost crosses to purple, and freckles trace her cheeks and the top of her pink mouth. Her hair explodes from her scalp in a shower of brown curls, softening the sharp edges of her face.

"Who are you?" the princess (this is what she must be) asks.

"My name is Sophie. Sophie Foster," she adds, as if it matters. Dumbly, "What's yours?"

The princess pulls her hand away (loss) and ignores her question. "Did you wake up?" Desperate hope threads through her eyes, trembles in the veins of her hands. Her fists clench, flex. She casts a glance toward the comatose assembly around the table. Two of the adults seated near the head wear crowns. They are, Sophie assumes, her parents. The king and queen.

"I was never asleep," Sophie answers. Although this, of course, isn't true. She didn't know it before (possibly she had never truly known anything until this moment) but she was sleepwalking through life. Only with this castle of night does she feel alert, like she's in less of a dream and more of a life.

(what has she discovered? does this mean this is the end? is this a story or a dream? if she wakes up, is the story over?)

The princess deflates. The light goes from her eyes. She steals another glance at the table, and then back to Sophie. "I'm Stina, then. Don't bother with any titles. I haven't had to use those in one hundred years."

Sophie blinks. Perhaps this is a dream. She pinches the inside of her arm, but nothing changes. "One hundred years?"

Stina's lips twist to the side. "I look good for my age, don't I." She sighs and slumps to the floor, her dress expanding around her. Sophie is conscious of her torn and bloody uniform as she sits next to her. "That's when the curse was placed. A century ago, almost exactly."

"Curse?" Sophie decides she hates magic. But also loves it. She's never quite been certain of her feelings on anything, and this is no different.

(take note of this indecision. what choices are easier for her to make? which are impossible?)

"Indefinite sleep if I prick my finger on a spinning wheel," Stina explains glumly. "Except she missed. And it got everyone except me, but now I'm stuck at twenty years old forever."

"Can't curses be broken?" Sophie considers age gaps a very inconsequential thing. Perhaps she was traveling through those vines for a century. It certainly seemed that way. That would make them the same age, and therefore if she looks too long at the other woman's lips, it can hardly be a problem if they are both centuries trapped in decades' bodies.

"Sure. Only, the fairy who did it didn't mention how to fix mine." Stina snorts. "Typical. Fairies are always difficult like that."

Sophie nods in agreement, even if her only encounters with magic thus far have been the vines, and now the woman in front of her. Fairies. What assholes.

(Sophie is finding new perspectives on life. namely, homosexuality. is this a new story? or is she still on a journey?)

"But you're awake," Stina remarks, quirking an eyebrow. She picks at the lace on her skirt. "How are you doing that?"

Sophie shrugs. "I don't sleep well. Insomnia."

Stina, to her surprise, laughs. It's a harsh sound, sudden, and it breaks apart the silence. One of the endlessly circling birds caws, and Sophie wonders if it's been trying to escape the tower for a full century, or if it only recently got caught. "Neither do I," the immortal princess says.

(is this something they should be finding in common? did the fairy miss, or was Stina simply too stubborn to fall asleep? she is stubborn, although it may not be clear from this interaction. this is a moment stretching time, holding dreams in its palm.)

"Or..." Sophie considers, tilting her head to the side. "I could be immune to magic." Her hair has fallen out of its tight braid by now. Wisps and locks of wheat-blonde hair fall around her face in a short bob, and she brushes them impatiently from her eyes.

"That's not possible," Stina tells her. "Magic isn't a disease. It's not something you can be immune to. It just... is."

(what is it? what else "just is" and how do we know it can't spread? perhaps more things are diseases than we think. perhaps magic is a sickness. perhaps it is the cure.)

"Have you ever tried to leave the castle?" Sophie asks. Her eyes sting in phantom pain of the sun. There must be a new soldier at her post by now. Maybe they will find her sword in the thicket someday.

Stina hesitates. "Yes. Of course."

"So you've seen the vines. Have they let you through?"

She scuffs her fingernail along the ground. "No."

"They let me through," she says. "And I'm awake. And I'm not in a vortex."

"Vortex?"

"The birds."

"Oh, them." Stina sighs. "It seems we're all caught in cycles these days, doesn't it?"

(just a bit of humor. come back to the beginning, why don't you?)

Her name is Sophie.

(what's next?)

Sophie Foster unsheathes her sword.

(no, that was another joke. she doesn't have her sword. continuity is important in stories that don't have beginnings and ends, because even if no one is supposed to understand them—especially not those living them—there still must be something to fall back on. like empty hands. and magic. tropes and cliches are especially helpful.)

"It does," Sophie says, and remembers how it once felt to sleep. It now occurs to her that she hasn't slept in one hundred years, and she also was born twenty years ago.

Perhaps she isn't immune to magic. This place might be driving her batty.

"Yes. Maybe. Well, I couldn't tell you. But it's worth a try, isn't it?"

"So you're immune," Stina says, and she might be sarcastic (it's never been very easy for Sophie to tell) but there's a hint of something different. Something interested. Something sincere. Something desperate. "To magic."

"What is?"

Sophie's eyes widen. "I thought I already said it. Maybe I can break your curse, is what I'm saying."

(what is she saying? that she has a resolution to the conflict? maybe she still has to decide whether the conflict is the curse, her wanting, or something else entirely. maybe she's one of the ravens in the vortex. maybe this is a daydream, and she's still standing in front of those vines playing make believe. but that's just not realistic— in the village, Sophie was still fighting stories, not making her own.)

Stina's face drops, and she twists to look at the figures around the table. "Don't make jokes. It's been a century. Do you know how many books I've had to read just to be absolutely sure there's no way to break it? I've boiled rat blood and painted it on the highest point of the castle. I've plucked hairs from bats' wings. I collected the bone-dust from the lowermost dungeon and buried it in the garden. There's nothing, not even you."

"I'm incredibly funny," Sophie says, "but I don't think jokes are meant to give you false hope."

"Are you a joke?"

"I'm feeling a lot of hope right now, and I really don't want to." Stina takes her hand anyway. The pressure of her fingers is soothing, but also terrifying. Suddenly, it feels like expectation, and Sophie regrets suggesting anything at all. Softer, resigned: "I'm touching you, and my parents are still sleeping."

"Are you laughing?" Sophie searches Stina's eyes for something that she can't name. "I think the wanting knew I could help you. I think it led. Mr here for a reason."

Stina looks at her like she doesn't have to ask what the wanting is because she feels it too.

"I think, maybe, I'm just guessing, that we have to... I don't know, I've read a few books. Not many lately, haven't had time, but I know that these things work because of... you know, this whole place is magic, so maybe it goes by fairy tale logic anyway, and I never believed in fairy tales before I met you anyway but we're here now and we might as well try, so—"

"What," Stina asks in exasperation, "are you talking about?"

"I think we have to kiss?" Sophie says timidly, lifting her palms in an exaggerated shrug.

Stina stills. Her gaze flicks down to her lips, then back up. Like she hadn't considered it before, but now she can't do anything but consider it. Sophie would know, because now all she can think about is kissing her.

(resolution, perhaps, can only occur when the conflict is clear. here, we have another issue of motivation. why does Sophie suggest this? to save her? to break the curse? or just because, well, she traveled all this way and she'd like a little kiss for her efforts?)

(maybe Stina is just really fucking hot.)

"Okay," Stina says.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

They sit there. Sophie shifts to sit on her knees and discovers that upright, she's still the same height as Stina on her butt. Height, she has learned throughout her life, intimidates her. So she's left rocking back and forth in front of her, hesitating. She's always hesitating.

"Just fucking kiss me, man," Stina says, and grabs Sophie's cheeks to bring her closer. Her thumb traces the underside of her chin and trails down her neck. Sophie gulps.

(think back to that first turning point. why did Sophie consider staying in the village? why did she want to stop walking and let the vines engulf her? maybe because she's scared. maybe because she doesn't want the change goodness would bring. she doesn't want the story to end, and therefore to begin again.)

"Maybe this isn't a good idea," Sophie says, and Stina moves her head back an inch. Is that disappointment? No more reaching for dreams, for wantings, even if this desire sits heavy in her stomach like a stone on fire. Think things through. Don't just go into the vines. "What if you lose all your magic? The... hovering. The immortality. Maybe you'll start aging, or it'll all speed up and you'll be one hundred years old in body, too."

Stina laughs, and her breath is warm on Sophie's lips. "Shit, Foster. I find that after one hundred years, I don't care. I want to see my mom and dad awake. That's what this is for. The magic... it can be a nuisance anyway."

Like the vines. Like Keefe, Sophie thinks wildly.

(see how the story is circling back in on itself? the words twist together into a tangle. into a thicket. we are back in the vines. the vines are the castle. the castle is the story. sophie is the story, but she doesn't know she's telling it, and she doesn't know she's being told. don't think too hard, and you should be fine. that's what Keefe does, and he turned out great!)

"Okay," Sophie says.

"Oh, we're not doing that shit again," Stina says. She kisses her.

(this is where Sophie finds the wanting.)

(she finds the story, in other words.)

Stina's lips find her greedy, coming too close, hands bracing themselves on her jawline, noses bumping, fingers tracing cheeks and necks and shoulders. She hasn't interacted with another conscious person in a century, hasn't been kissed in that time, hasn't wanted to.

Sophie takes the greed, the hunger, and absorbs it. She feels awake for the first time in years. Stina kisses her like Sophie is the curse and she's trying to break it. She probably wouldn't mind being broken by someone like her.

A bell clangs from somewhere deep in the castle. Grunts and delayed snores sound from the table, and a single plate clatters to the floor as the attendees of the dinner jerk to consciousness. There are murmurs, then shouts of confusion.

Stina doesn't pull away.

So this is how her parents see their daughter after a century-long nap: making out with a random girl in torn and bloodied peasant clothes on the floor of their great hall, center of thousands of political battles, marriage ceremonies (decidedly between men and women), and even the occasional war or pissing contest. Perhaps this would be offensive or disrespectful if the king and queen had not had their first kiss in the same room, possibly even more scandalously.

"Stina?" the king asks, his crown askew on his head.

They break apart. Stina's cheeks are flushed, her lips slightly swollen and reddened, hair even messier than before the kiss. Sophie is sure she must be in a similar state. Hastily, she stands and bends into an awkward curtsy, almost tripping as she backs away.

Stina, however, doesn't look embarrassed. Instead, tears spill down her cheeks as she launches herself at her father, landing in an embrace that is sure to last another century.

(This is the end, the culmination. The beginning: a name, a woman, a sword. The ending: a kiss, an awakening, a reunion. And another beginning: more kisses, a rose, maybe a crown. The wanting, the begging, the dreaming, the freedom. Sophie holds it in her hand and swings it like a sword, hacks into the vines spreading from their thicket into the grassy field. It has been a battle since the beginning, no matter where you start the story.)

(Call this a story or call it a dream. It finds the same ending, the same awakening no matter the name, no matter who tells it. Sophie finds herself in a fairytale that she has been a part of since the beginning of the battle, of the war. What was the enemy? Maybe it was herself, or the vines, or the magic. Maybe it was the goddamned birds and the cycles we find impossible to break.)

(Maybe Stina is just really fucking hot, and Sophie needed to kiss her.)

(That's probably truer than any of those other things.)

Once Upon A Time,

the end.

[synonymroll648]

thinking about sokeefitz with antennae is great. especially when you interpret the criteria for getting antennae to be the elf in question having queer thoughts OR mind reading. the three of them could be chilling together and fitz’s antennae could be up and dark and keefe wouldn’t be able to tell if it was fitz having a conversation w/ sophie telepathically or him being queer for keefe. emotional readings wouldn’t help either since it’s like. yeah that’s romantic attraction. but for who? supremely hilarious pre-relationship concept if you ask me. someone go write a 5+1 fic about it or something. (only half joking when i say that which scares me)

[rabbitcruiser]

Anthony Bourdain was born on June 25, 1956, in New York City.  

Bourdain Day  

The life, legacy, and birthday of world-traveling culinarian and  storyteller Anthony Bourdain is celebrated today. Created by José Andrés  and Eric Ripert, fellow chefs and friends of Bourdain, who announced it  with a video, Bourdain Day is celebrated with the sharing of tributes and memories of Anthony Bourdain.

Bourdain achieved rockstar status—a rare feat for a cook—and his  suicide in 2018 devastated his fans, who felt a strong connection to  him. He traveled the world and ate food in just about any location  possible. In the process, he demonstrated the power of a shared meal to  bring people together, the diversity of cuisines and cultures, and also,  in contrast, that no matter where people are from, they very much are  alike. He was a storyteller and explorer of the human condition who used  food as his landscape. His ethos, which drew so many to him, can be  summed up with his own words: "If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to  move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply  across the river. Walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their  food. It's a plus for everybody."

Anthony Bourdain grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, and began working in kitchens at the age of 13. He later said he learned the most important  lessons of his life as a dishwasher. But addiction took hold of him when  he was in his twenties, and he became hooked on heroin for a time. He  went to Vassar College in New York State for two years before dropping  out and enrolling in culinary school. He then worked as a line cook and  sous chef at a number of restaurants in the Northeast, before becoming  the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan.

In 1999, after publishing two suspense novels, Bourdain's article "Don't Eat Before Reading This" appeared in The New Yorker,  garnering him some attention. In it he captured kitchen life and the  characters of the underbelly he came across while working there, saying,  "In America, the professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit.  It's a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family." The  article set the groundwork for and led to the book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, released the following year, which was a best-seller and brought Bourdain widespread fame. Bourdain followed it up with A Cook's Tour: In Search of a Perfect Meal.

Then came television. Four shows over sixteen years brought viewers  to the far corners of the world, where food and conversation underpinned  an exploration of culture. Bourdain's first show, A Cook's Tour, was adapted from his book and aired on the Food Network in 2002 and 2003. Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations debuted on the Travel Channel in 2005. It received over a dozen Emmy Award nominations and had two wins over its nine seasons. The Layover, also on the Travel Channel, aired from 2011 to 2013.

In 2013, Bourdain moved to CNN with Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.  It won five Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award for "expanding our palates  and horizons in equal measure." Tragically, Bourdain died of suicide on  June 8, 2018, while in France working on an upcoming episode of Parts Unknown. He was 61. Although he is no longer with us, his life and legacy live on in his robust body of work and with Bourdain Day.

How to Observe Bourdain Day

Share  a tribute or memory of Anthony Bourdain along with the hashtag  #BourdainDay. Then you could celebrate his life, legacy, and birthday in  a number of ways:

Read one of his books, such as Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, A Cook's Tour: In Search of a Perfect Meal, or No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach.

Read "Don't Eat Before Reading This," the New Yorker article that set him on a path to fame.

Read a book about him.

Watch Remembering Anthony Bourdain.

Watch Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.

Watch episodes of A Cook's Tour, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, The Layover, or Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

Read remembrances of Bourdain from his fans.

Eat at a place he ate. Visit a place he visited. Read some of his quotes. Above all, move—"As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river."

Source

[hide-in-imagination]

I can be just minding my own business and then all of a sudden ideas for an Omegaverse Simbar AU strike my head. Ugghh, I would love to write that so baaddddd 😩😩😩

[palmview]

PALMVIEW GROVE, FL.

mango bay, sunny shores, seaglass heights, or coral cove ? where will you decide to go ? the choice is all up to you ! welcome to palmview grove ! we're a 21+ muns and muses based rp group. where the characters will all have a counterpart based on some of your favorite shows and movies in media !

WELCOME  TO  PALMVIEW  GROVE  !

𓇼  🌊  🐚  𝙿𝙰𝙻𝙼𝚅𝙸𝙴𝚆.

[kpforpresident]

How do ny clexa celebrate their first summer vacation together?

They take Lexa's beat up old "antique" (a rust bucket, as Clarke affectionately calls it) blue short bed Ford out to go camping for the week after they're both out of school for the summer, Lexa finally finished her first year of Law school and Clarke having some time off before starting her final internship of art school.

They drive up to the Catskills, Lexa managing to call in a favor from Anya's old schoolmate to let them borrow their cabin for the weekend.

They spend the weekend reading and lazing in the sunshine, drinking in the free time and each other and the quiet stillness of nature.

When they get back to the city, they carve out pockets of time for each other between Clarke's internship and Lexa's part time job at the local hardware shop (where she works as a favor to Gus). It includes lots of popscicles in front of their fridge in their underwear when their little AC unit breaks, and happy hour cocktails with Clarke's art buddies Wells and Emory on the cute little patio in Brooklyn that they know and love.

Sharing a headphone on the subway line, staggering home tipsily to wait at the cheap, so-greasy-your-fingers-will-shine-but-so-good one dollar slices that exist beside the bodega beneath their apartment.

It's a summer of love and nature and silly giggles and memories.

[calsvoid]

can my brain stop braining why am i thinking of another seblaine fic idea i literally never write

[kyouka-supremacy]

everytime i think of sskk i think of you so i felt the need to to share my dream with you. it was akutagawa but he was also doctor octopus so this fucker had the tentacle things as roshomon and he was called doctor octugawa

also i’m sorry if this is incomprehensible my phone is barely functioning right now . :)

The emotions that reading this ask evoked in me are impossible to describe thank you so much for sharing

[texeoghea]

when youve changed so much from your origins as to be nearly unrecognizable

[wearelondonhq]

Can I please reserve belly conklin for Anna??

belly conklin (the summer i turned pretty) is on reserve for anna for the next 24 hours!

[dowhatteverer]

I was rewatching Bee's birthday music box scene from Bee and puppy cat and I thought: that but with Yang and Summer recording a poem for her.

It may or may not be my little headcannon that Summer was really into poetry as a hobby and used to write poems to read to Yang and Ruby when they were little, and she would record them so that when she was out late on a mission, the girls would still be able to listen to them.

[dreaming-of-the-end]

in which god sweeps across a canvas the same way a heartbeat becomes a song

A/N: Happy Kam Week everyone! they are so bestie but do you know what's better? comments and reblogs! Kam Week 2023 Day 6: Artist/Musician

Find it on ao3

Summary: As someone whose parents have kept more of the appearance of liking God rather than truly caring about it, art has become a religion to Keefe. / Tam places his steps in the footprints of music he's listened to a hundred times. The notes are not a religion, but they are a heartbeat.

TW: religious metaphor, flashback to starvation/malnourishment (no eds)

Tags: @steppingonshatteredglass @sunset-telepath @stardustanddaffodils @song-tam @turquoise-skyyyy @skylilac @wu-marcy @saintashes @rune-and-rising @lavender-and-rainy-days @confusedamphibian @hellomyfriends @callas-starkflower-stew @a-harmless-poison @professionalwhalewatcher @theogony @gay-otlc @confuzzled-fox @almostfullnerd @athenswrites @synonymroll648 @squishmallow36 @xanadaus @honey-the-dinosaur-ate-our-kid @kamweek2023

As someone whose parents have kept more of the appearance of liking God rather than truly caring about it, art has become a religion to Keefe.

He's heard that there are those who live to serve, who dedicate each breath and heartbeat to a deity, pouring their soul into the cupped hands of a higher being and fervently studying the delicate precision with which it pools into human-like wrinkles.

It is not as though art is a physical being, or a way to make decisions, but rather when Keefe paints, it is his soul that coats the canvas, his blood tracing hard lines and tears feathering light details. His senses, his sight and hearing and touch, are the highlights, contouring out a hard jawline with joy and flicking freckles across lips with fury and sacrifice pouring bloodred from torn skin.

Blessings come when he looks outside and sees the colors and thinks of which paints to mix to achieve that shade of perfection, studying how light becomes shapes becomes darkness becomes beauty. The lazy confidence of a gray-lavender shadow as it stretches itself to meet the sun, the elegant curl of a emerald-green leaf, the pink-orange of the sky resting its weary eyes as night rises.

Keefe prays to his deity to find inspiration. He shoves his hands into the grass and grips the blades tightly enough that they snap, his nails digging into his palms deeply enough to sting, soft soil making its way into the lines of his palm like a worshipper's soul flooding their God's weary eyes.

In essence: art is religion because he gives everything he has to worship it. Art is religion because it is where he finds himself. Who he is has never been an easy question for him to answer, but he discovers it in the way his fingers grip the charcoal or paintbrush or pencil or oils.

Keefe's dreams splatter across his canvas and he covers them over with white paint to start again. They peek through in oily streaks when he scratches at the canvas. Color flakes away. The paper shreds. The pencil snaps in his fingers. A dark streak smears the cheek of his mother's depiction as a Hera-like statue in an empty temple. He thought it was symbolic. Now it feels like a very slight overbite— uncomfortable, right and wrong, something that fits perfectly but not quite right at the same time.

Who he is becomes clear when it's all out there on paper.

Who is he?

...

Tam believes in the strength of a body. Of flesh and blood. Of muscles and bones and teeth and the way blinking sometimes scrapes a layer of disguise from your eyes so you have to cry no matter how much you don't want to.

His flesh was the shield between Linh and the cold on the worst of those nights, the ones where they couldn't see their faces in the darkness, the black so thick Tam thought he was swimming in it, drowning in it, a soft sort of death that smothered him in velvet. They shook with cold, with tears, with pain, with hunger, with the knowledge that they weren't alone even though often Tam wished he was so that Linh didn't have to go through this with him.

His blood pumped fear through his body, the fear that honed his hungry body and let him steal when it had been two days since fresh food and Linh reached a dangerously weak hand to his cheek. He would bite his cheek and taste it, taste the adrenaline in the blood that flooded his mouth, and know that they could not go on this way.

He could not go on this way.

It was only a few more months from that day until they met Sophie. One more month where the darkness lasted too long, so long that the shadows he loves so much it hurts began to leach strength from his cold, aching body.

Now, he sits in a warm home and lets music be his shield. Not instead of flesh, but a part of it, the way the dark would melt into his skin if he sat still enough, like a wild beast that was only looking for a little warmth. Melody sinks into his body and becomes him, becomes Tam, putting pink back into his blue fingers and depth back into his eyes.

Tam places his steps in the footprints of music he's listened to a hundred times. The notes are not a religion, but they are a heartbeat. They are a lifeblood. They are a dream of safety and a recognition of luck, fingers pressed into guitar strings too quickly, too often, summoning red irritation to the surface as a reminder that he doesn't have to be numb anymore.

He's allowed to let out a breath that is not for the purpose of letting Linh inhale. They breathe separately now. Sometimes she sits in the room while he plays and lets the music trickle down her arms like she's fresh back from swim practice,  damp silver tips of her hair sticking to her neck. She's a painting, flesh and blood. 

He gives her form with his guitar, with the grand piano in the living room, with the lyrics he doesn't show her but still scribbles down into whatever notebook Tiergan buys him.

The music lets Tam become himself. It tells him that he is a heartbeat, a held breath. It does not need to be concrete. It's all right there. Who he is.

Who is he?

...

Keefe paints him over and over again.

But it doesn't start that way. It starts as sketches, simple renderings. He rehearses what he'd say if anyone realized who he was looking at: he's a good model. Unique, clear-cut, (and the unmentionable "hot as shit" description that waits at the tip of his tongue) interesting. Silver bangs cut dangerously across the gentle slope of his forehead. Keefe presses the shape of his nose into the paper so hard the tip of his pencil breaks.

It's just sketches, until he breaks out the watercolors at home, and sort of curses his photographic memory for remembering him so well but also knows it was the result of staring at him for too long. He gives the boy a pink flush in his cheeks even though it wasn't there before.

But that was only the first painting. The first day.

The next day, Keefe learns his name.

Tam and Linh Song are new students, the teacher tells them. Treat them with as much respect as you would any other classmate. Sophie twists to glare at him as if to say, That means you, Keefe, don't tease the new kids before they know you're just joking around all the time, and he smirks at her as if to say, What, you want me to change? What happened to loving me for who I am?

And, really, he wasn't planning on teasing them— not even him. He's content with the creepy sneaking-peaks-across-the-classroom-all-period he's got going on, and he isn't a bully.

But Tam is in his next hour, and Sophie isn't there to chide him for anything, so he slides into the desk next to him and says, "Yo, new kid, I hope you know that I'm basically in charge of this school, and there's a penalty for doing anything better than me."

Tam turns to meet his eyes, and Keefe suddenly finds a detail he didn't catch in yesterday's prayer (painting). His eyes are a dangerous sort of gray, nearly black when his eyes narrow and a blue-silver when the light catches them, and he has teeth straight enough to draw a line. "No need to worry about that," he says, his voice rough and unpolished. "I'm sure I couldn't possibly beat your... what? C+ average?"

Keefe's mouth drops open for a moment, and Sophie's words echo in his head as he's forced, for the first time in his class clown history, to wonder whether or not this kid is joking. Then his lips spread into a wide smile as he finds it doesn't matter. "No one in this hellhole of a school ever managed better grades than a C- before I came along, so that's a nice try. But I'm a record-setter here."

Tam regards him in a way that sends his eyebrows twitching up. Keefe wonders what he sees. "Luckily, I'm not a competitive person. Because if I were, I'd point out that there's no way someone hasn't done at least their hair better than you."

Keefe's nostrils flare. He ruffles his hair and says, snippily, "Lucky you aren't competitive, then, because I'd have to point out that bangs haven't been in since my grandmother was born."

His lips press together into a tight line, eyes narrowing. Tam turns back to face the front of the classroom, his back ramrod straight despite the way Keefe's arm is draped over the back of his chair, foot propped up on the desk. "I must have a four-leaf fucking clover, then."

Keefe is kind of obsessed with him. He hopes it doesn't show.

...

Tam was aware that being the new kid would invite a few questions, but he expected more of "Where did you go before?" or "Is it true you're adopted?" instead of an instant pissing contest with a boy who has ink splattered messily on his hands and scribbled all over the thighs of his jeans.

Not that he thinks Keefe is uninteresting. Definitely, certainly full of himself, and absolutely hiding something under that mop of bleached blond hair, but perhaps someone Tam would have liked to know, if only to see what motivated him to strike up a conversation.

Neither of them have spoken in the last few minutes, but Keefe's still moving, still shifting his weight back and forth, running his fingertips across the desk, scuffing his expensive shoes along the ground, and worst of all, messing with his pen. click. click. click.

Tam doesn't bother twisting to look at him as he says, "Could you... stop that? Please?"

He hears a snort. The clicking stops, and then Keefe's breath is on his cheeks as he leans over so far his chair tips to the side. He has the grin of an understimulated panther, and he lounges across Tam's desk like he's method acting as one for the school play.

"What are you trying to pay so much attention to, anyway? Can't be the lesson. No one listens to those."

If Tam were a liar, he'd say that Keefe has an annoying fucking voice. Unfortunately, he is not, and his voice is smooth and soft and has a practiced sort of velvet that makes him think this is a boy who is consistently excused for his mistakes. Maybe he can sing. He seems like he'd either be terrible or completely perfect at it.

"I'm listening to it. It's better than the alternative." Tam cuts his gaze to catch Keefe's reaction, finding the other's mouth falling open. All four chair legs land back on the ground as he retreats to a socially acceptable distance.

"I have never before been called worse than school."

"Must be both of our lucky days, then," Tam snipes. The notes spill out in his head, and he finds himself tapping a beat out onto the desk. "You don't seem all that interesting to me." Maybe he is a liar. New schools are meant for reinventing yourself, right?

"Oh, I've been called a lot of things," Keefe begins.

"Full of yourself? Dangerously overconfident? Terribly irritating?" Tam supplies.

Keefe glares at him. "I've been called a lot of things. But believe me..." He leans closer, a mischievous spark leaping from his icy eyes. His voice lowers like he's sharing a secret, even though speaking at normal volume hasn't prompted any reaction from the teacher so far. "Uninteresting has never been one of them."

...

Weeks pass, then months.

Keefe learns that Tam and Linh are adopted, that they were homeless for over a year before Tiergan took them in. In return, they learn that his parents don't particularly like him, that he acts out for attention, and the full depth of his hatred for his father. He views it as equal exchange, a secret for a secret.

As they spend more time with the group, they learn about what Fitz and Biana's brother did to their family. They learn about Sophie's adoption, about Dex's years of being bullied, about Marella's mom and Jensi's school struggles and the various other aches and pains that come from being alive. Secrets for secrets, piled up in snowdrifts until it's not an exchange anymore.

He shows all of them the smaller paintings, the landscapes, group portraits. He captures Linh's rosy cheeks after the snowball fight they had at the Dizznee's that winter, pressing a pink tint over her nose. He masters Dex's freckles, then the contrast of Fitz's hand in his, then Biana's grin that wrinkles her nose and squints her eyes and makes her jawline disappear. He draws the curls at the end of Sophie's hair and then adds gold highlights and gives it to her for her birthday.

And he draws him. Over and over again.

Pressing his likeness between the pages of his sketchbook, the faint dimples that form whenever he smiles (more and more often, he's been able to squeeze some amusement out of him), the way the silver in his hair catches light, the thick knuckles working delicately with fingertips to pluck the strings of his guitar. 

It's with reverence that he paints him, sculpting the softness of his jaw like some ancient artists designed their gods. It's not enough.

He wants him to see them, but also, he would rather die.

Keefe asks Tam to model with a nonchalance that could almost be called a lie if you cared about that sort of thing, which Keefe decidedly does not. He says, "I've been looking for a muse." He says, "It must be your dream to have me staring at you for a few hours." He says, "Please?"

Tam looks at him like he's considering an art piece himself. Then he looks at him like he's rolling an insult, a refusal, a mockery around on his tongue. Then he looks away like he started imagining how Keefe's lips would taste on his (or possibly that was just wishful thinking). Then, slowly, carefully, he says: "Okay."

...

Tam stretches out on the couch and thinks, draw me like one of your french girls but doesn't say it because it's far too easy and his humor is supposed to be elevated, the kind of jokes that he can watch Keefe flail and jump at from far below.

Instead he says, "You want me to pose?"

"Only if it's a cute one." Keefe is distracted, setting up his paints, adjusting the curtains so the light falls correctly, twisting the canvas stand back and forth as he tries to get a good angle. Also, he's dropping things more than he usually does.

He snorts and turns onto his stomach, resting the side of his face on his clasped hands as he waits for Keefe to finish. The couch is a worn forest green, parts of it peeling, and he wonders if it will be included in the portrait. He closes his eyes and lets the sound of the room swallow him and thinks about a song made from only Keefe's curses as he drops another paintbrush.

"That's good, actually," Keefe says suddenly, and Tam's eyes pop open to find his face barely a foot away, studying his face. Instinctively, he starts to rise on his hands, but a hand presses onto his head and forces him back down with an oomph— hey! "Sorry. I want you to stay there, though."

"What, like I'm sleeping?"

"Yeah." Keefe has freckles so light that it's impossible to catch unless he's this close. While Tam is noticing this, he also notices that he has the longest eyelashes he's ever seen, and also that pink is blooming across his cheeks as if he's noticing very similar things about him. Keefe lurches back onto his heels, then stands, the pink fading as if it was only in his imagination.

Tam smirks. Then he sets his cheek back down on his laced fingers and lets out a deep breath.

"Perfect," Keefe says. He hovers above him like there's something more to say, even though there really isn't, before saying it anyway: "I mean, for the shot. For the painting. The angle, I mean." Then his face closes into what Tam would call "determined embarrassment" and he retreats to the safety of his canvas and paints.

The process takes hours. 

Tam barely blinks, content to watch the way Keefe lives in his element. In school, there's always a sort of uncomfortable tension in the way he moves, like a caged animal. Here, his eyes go squinty as he checks details, paint splattering on his already stained jeans, scratching his cheek with a paintbrush and smudging his skin with pinks as he tries to rub it off.

It's endearing. Tam is so surprised that it's endearing. He hates it a little bit (he isn't often surprised, but he supposes that rule has never applied to Keefe anyway).

A song weaves around the back of his mind. He hums a few lines, the melody sinking into the ratty couch cushions until they become the forest floor, a peaceful night where it was just the wind and the sky and the two of them, his eyes fluttering between the waking and dreaming world.

It's an in-between. A fresh start, one that's less fear and hunger and more... peace. Breakfast in the mornings and pictures pinned up to the walls until no one can tell where he came from or who he was.

Who he is.

...

Keefe knows that many of the ancient artists were trying to preserve what they perceived as divine in their work.

A call and answer, maybe. When religion and creation are the same thing, he supposes inspiration can be a shout from whatever form of god they worshipped, hoarse and torn with the desire to be immortalized.

Painters would paint their lovers, parents, children, friends, and call it divinity. They'd paint a field of sunflowers, a bowl of fruit, messy bedsheets, castles with countless towers, and summon a piece of their god to live on the canvas. Keefe supposes that's as close to the definition as anyone could ever find.

He finds it here: studying the way light dapples Tam's side, the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders, the creases of his shirt as it rides up his side.

He finds it here: the way shadows deepen his cheekbones into something sharp and dangerous and alluring, the way his eyes cut over quickly like they're sharing some private joke, the way his lips quirk up when he smiles like he needs to get it over with and return to his usual scowl.

God, he finds his divinity. He finds his religion.