#gray havens

[angelabowermicelli]

4, 13, 47, 88, 101

Hello 💕 thank you for the ask! Let me know what you think! ;)

4.

13.

47.

88.

101.

I thought it was just top 100 it’s so fun they give you 101!!

[wretchie]

god and i don't really talk anymore but the gray havens album ghost of a king still fucks severely !!!

[countesspetofi]

[shepherds-of-haven]

if the shepherds survive (please survive!) to an older age, how do they feel when they spot their first few gray hairs?

Blade: I think at first he wouldn't register/care about it too much, but then one day his knee would creak more than usual and he'd suddenly be like, "❗️" ...But it'd be a momentary blip, he doesn't care about the appearances part of it at all but the thought of aging to the point of having to retire from active duty is so galling that his brain just goes "no" and he carries on stubbornly as if nothing had happened...

Trouble: he'd go running to MC, like "!! I'm turning into a silver fox... Do you find me more or less attractive now" As long as MC isn't bothered by it, he isn't, either! He'll turn it into a rueful joke and take it with good grace soon enough!

Tallys: not applicable really, I don't think Elves get gray hairs until they're like insanely old, if at all... and at that point, she's past the point of worrying about anything like that 😂

Shery: at first she would just sort of brush it off, but after a few days the existential dread would start to set in, like, "oh my god... am I old?? Is it happening already?? 😭😭" Basically it would be silent panic that no one would ever know about, followed by resigned acceptance, lol

Riel: I'm going to be real, he spotted his first gray hair when he was like 17, so he just doesn't acknowledge it anymore... (outside of plucking the pesky little strand out). It's going to be a bad time when they become so numerous that he can't pluck them out anymore, though! (Not really. I imagine he'll age with indefatigable grace)

Chase: he'll be glib about it! He'd probably point to his first cluster and tell MC: "see these? you did this. this is your fault. if you can't love me because I'm an old geezer now, you have only yourself to blame"

Red: ".....ah." Frankly, he's surprised he didn't get them sooner, considering all of the bullshit he gets put through/does to himself

Ayla: "ugh, wtf?" staring at the end of her braid like it briefly transformed into a snake's head and she's waiting for it to do it again... She'd probably be in a low-key bad mood for a few days without telling anyone why, and then would probably resign herself/accept it once the next big thing to make her forget about it came along!

Briony: wailing, tears, outright screaming: "noooooooooooooooooo!!! 😭😭😭" She'd be quite morose and melodramatic for a day or so and have an aging crisis, melting on the floor like "am I growing old? will I soon be too old to do [x youthful thing]? Will you still love me when I'm a hag?" 🥺🫠

Lavinet: brisk and smiling denial. she didn't see anything, and neither did you. :) a gray hair? on her head? not since the earl of murtaghon's old cat jumped on her shoulder at his birthday party! what do you mean, you see it right there? :) it must be a trick of the light... 🔫 :)

Halek: Hunters don't get gray hair!

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Thursday:

"Responsible Adults", the sequel: Jak tries to do a regular Jak Stunt and is shocked that it doesn't go over well

(Roughly a week after this one ends. Long post warning, as most of these are lol)

Night terrors were not an uncommon experience for Jak. They may not have been his nightly companions anymore, but when he did have them, they were intense. He woke up in a corner of his room, wedged beneath the sink. There was a vague sense that he was taking cover from something, or someone.

Blessedly, he remembered no details of the nightmare. But the terror still sent his guts quivering the way they had in the prison. Huddled under the cot both for warmth and silently praying the boots wouldn't stop at his door. That he wouldn't end up Tyber's new punching bag when he got bored of the old man in the cell above Jak's.

Tyber is dead. Errol is dead. Praxis is dead. I watched them die.

Jak repeated the words like a mantra until he could move his limbs again. He crawled out from beneath the sink, but the lingering fear made his room feel claustrophobic. Smaller than it really was.

At least he hadn't woken Daxter this time.

Jak put on his boots, but didn't bother getting fully dressed. He didn't even know what time it was. Why bother if the doctor and the king guy were just going to nag him about being sleep-deprived anyway?

It must have been early morning, before dawn; the moon had vanished and people were outside doing repair work on houses and fog-catchers.

Early morning was the best time to get any outdoor work done in Spargus. A small girl led a flock of caprids out of the stables and towards one of the other districts to graze on the cactus there, and a gang of trainees only a little older than Jak were taking advantage of the temperature to do an endurance run around the city.

Personally, Jak didn't see the good of such things. You learned to be fast enough or smart enough to escape your enemies, or you didn't. He'd learned through life and death experience, not a footrace with no winners.

"Easy with the straps there!" A stocky man backed into Jak, calling up to a team of three people.

"Ope-! Scuse me there, pipsqueak." The Wastelander stepped to the side as if Jak was barely worth noticing.

"Howland, that thing ain't cinched tight enough!"

They seemed to be trying to remove a corroded beam from the supports of one of the multi dwelling houses. It was already leaning at a precarious angle, as big around as a grown man. If that beam came down the wrong way, it would take a lot of the adobe structure -- and probably a lot of people -- with it.

"It's fine, Daru!" Howland complained, "I just cinched it!"

"Well cinch it again! That sucker’s leanin'!"

Jak frowned, but let his curiosity wash away the dregs of the night terrors.

"What's wrong with it?"

The unofficial foreman tugged at a bushy red mustache and shook his head. "Don't rightly know yet. Could just be age. Sand storms and salt air will do a number on this kind of metal after a while."

Jak wondered if that had anything to do with Sandover using wood and stone almost exclusively. He was about to ask why it had been anchored to a mud wall when there was a loud metallic clang. The last bracket holding the beam snapped under the weight, and the straps weren't enough to hold it.

Jak didn't remember moving. But then he was there, with the beam on his shoulders and the foreman on the ground, having narrowly avoided being crushed to death. Cold metal dug into his hands, pressed down against his head, and Jak knew that by rights he should've been dead.

There was a thrill of revulsion in his chest when he reluctantly acknowledged that the only reason he was standing right now was that the dark eco experiments had lengthened his muscle strands to twice the size of a normal hu'men's. It wasn't just in his dark form. That element of...unnatural...was just with him. Every moment.

"Frith! Oh my- HOWLAND! GET DOWN HERE!" Daru roared, "YOU COULDA KILLED SOMEBODY!"

"I got it," Jak said through gritted teeth. "Is there a place to put this thing down?"

"Not yet," Howland admitted as he shimmied down a ladder.

"We were going to cut it into pieces once it was secure, transport it that way to be recycled."

Jak craned his neck, but the motion jarred the beam. Hastily, he adjusted his grip.

"What's- What's around me?"

"Too much," said Daru grimly. "Just- Hold on, kid."

He winced at the boy's flat stare.

"Er...no pun intended. We're gonna, gonna get you out from under there, I promise!"

"Get it cut up first," Jak grunted, "And you won't have to worry about getting me out."

"And what if your hands get sweaty, huh?" Daru demanded, "Fat chance, little man! We're going to find something to hold this up!"

The other two men hurried down from the roof with saws in hand.

Oh gods. Handsaws. This was going to take a while.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Honestly, Damas should have been expecting trouble when he didn't start his day with a free heart attack after seeing eyeshine in the kitchen. The kid was diametrically opposed to the concept of sleep, so he wouldn't have been in bed. If he was off his routine -- and by now Damas had learned to dread something interrupting the kid's self-imposed routine -- then there was probably going to be trouble later.

When he refilled the fuel in the Beacon, fed the birds, and actually had a cup of coffee uninterrupted, he was suspicious.

When the sun rose and there were no echoes of truncated curses in the halls from guards running into Jak, he started to wonder if the kid had decided to work outside. Unusual, but as long as he didn't do anything that would make Dr. Petros yell at them both, more power to him.

But when the talking ottsel showed up in the throne room about an hour after dawn, frantically demanding to know where Jak was, Damas was concerned.

Those two were attached at the hip! Jak wouldn't have gone to look for work without Daxter.

There was a small crowd forming by the time Damas stepped outside. People were shouting encouragements, or conflicting advice about pulleys and snatchblocks. Had something fallen? Damas hadn't heard any impacts. As he began to pick his way through the crowd, the shouts took on new meaning.

"He's slipping! Somebody get under there!"

"How many more hands do you want? There's ten people holding the beam up!"

"Why won't he just let go?!"

"Standing this long, maybe his arms locked up-?"

A beam? People holding a beam-?

An accident. There'd been an accident and night watch hadn't caught it.

Thoughts of crushed citizens and mangled houses circled Damas’s imagination as he pushed through the rest of the crowd, close enough to hear the rasp of handsaws and the buzz of a lone angle grinder.

"Get the cart back in!" Someone yelled, "Next piece is almost off!"

From the looks of things, a crew of four had reduced a two-story high support beam by a third.

Ten Wastelanders were beneath the colossal pole, hands and shoulders braced against the metal as it shrieked and groaned. If even one of them slipped-!

Damas threw down his staff without thinking to join them, racing to catch the end beginning to slide.

"What happened?" he demanded, straining with the others to keep it from crushing the houses and themselves.

"Tie straps broke!" a man three people down called back, "If it weren't for the kid, it woulda come down right through the roofs of a couple houses!"

Kid?

Oh gods don't tell me...

Jak was standing in the very center of the line. His arms trembled, and sweat poured down his face. He didn't seem to hear anything happening around him, too focused on keeping his grip. He was beginning to pale.

"What's he doing here?!"

"Dunno!" A woman to the left answered. "He was already there when me and the girls showed up, but that was two hours ago."

"Hours?!"

Jak had been out here for hours, trapped, and Damas had been none the wiser?

"Why hasn't anyone gotten him out yet?!"

"We tried! The poor kid froze up!"

Damas gritted his teeth and pushed away images of the kid standing alone under that crushing weight for hours until help had woken up.

"Get a truck and winch out of the pit!" He ordered, "Forget damage to the streets, we'll fix it later! I want this thing taken care of now."

It took a full twenty minutes to get the Dozer through the narrow streets of the tower district. By that time, those who had been holding the beam first had cycled out for fresh arms to allow for water and eco. All except Jak. He'd accepted some water that someone poured into his mouth earlier, but still seemed to be unable to let go. He was at the fulcrum point, he insisted, and he wasn't going to let it tip. (Not that he thought he'd actually be able to move at this point.)

Fifteen people attached pulleys and cables to the beam from above, careful not to dislodge the hands of those below. When the cables had all been hooked to the Dozer's winch, the weight began, at last, to lessen.

There was a ragged cheer from the assembled Wastelanders as the end of the beam tipped up and the rescuers eased the other end to the ground. There would be extensive damage to infrastructure to deal with. But nobody had died, and there were no major injuries, and Damas would count that as a victory. Shaking out aching arms, he hurried to the center of the line, where someone was physically holding Jak upright. Damas took hold of the boy's stiff arms carefully.

"It's gone," he said, easing the limbs down, "It's gone, let go, Jak. Come on, you're done."

The kid made a sound, a soft rasping whine that might’ve been words. Then he collapsed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

When the world drifted back into focus, Jak didn't know where he was. The smell of eco lingered around him, confusing the other scents that could have identified his location. He couldn't move his arms. Why couldn't he move his arms?!

It took a massive effort just to pry his eyelids up. Jak’s breath caught harshly between his teeth as he forced himself onto his side.

Well, that explained the lack of mobility in his arms. He ached like he'd been fighting beyond his limits again. The injection sites would be agitated again, he knew without looking. The pain radiated from his shoulders to his fingertips, skin, muscle, and bone.

The room was a blur. Brown and yellow slowly settled into more colors, ending in something either white or pale blue in front of his nose. The longer he stared at it, the more detail he could see. Pills of thread, clinging to loosely woven fabric. The texture and shape of the warp and weft shifted as he tried to move his hand.

He hissed in pain.

"Well that's what happens when you try to make a career as a load-bearing wall."

Jak tensed. Not alone. Not with Daxter.

Biting down on the pain, he dug his fingers into the pallet beneath him and forced himself upright.

This wasn't the hospital -- small blessings -- but it wasn't his room either. There was a low wooden bedframe on a wall a few feet away, on the other side of some kind of half partition full of plants.

"Where...?"

"Well you're about to think of it as prison," Damas answered from the opposite direction.

He was sitting at a table, hunched over a cup of coffee. The empty pot beside him was a story of its own.

"By the way, you're grounded."

"What?!" Jak sputtered. He started to get up, but fell back onto the pallet with a grunt of pain.

"Like rot!"

Damas glanced back over his shoulder. "Take it up with the doctor. He put you on bedrest, not me. Better yet, blame your own self! You could've let go at any time once the rest of the district turned up to help!"

"The whole...district?"

Jak blinked.

"I don't...remember that..."

Damas sighed and peered into into his mug.

"You've been sleeping most of the day, I'm not surprised. Even with the eco you'll probably be sore for a while."

"How -- ow! -- long was I out there?"

Jak cringed at the look in Damas’s eyes when the man turned around fully.

"Four. Hours. Four hours! Why didn't you let go when others arrived?!"

Was this a trick question? It had to be a trick question.

"Be...cause...I'm not supposed to let other people get hurt?" Jak answered with slow confusion.

Damas stared in complete silence for several seconds. Then,

"You're insane. My foster-son is insane. That's insane! In what world is "throw the youngest under the pillar" a rational solution?!"

"Uh. Haven?" Jak muttered peevishly. He tried to sit up again. "Look, just. Tell me which way my room is and I'll get out of your hair."

Damas pushed his chair back with a scraping sound.

"Mn. No. What part of "bed rest" didn't you hear?"

In brusque motions, he knelt and pulled the blanket back over Jak.

"You are not to do anything even mildly strenuous, or Petros will strangle me. And since I apparently can't trust you not to willingly walk into harm's way unsupervised, you get to camp out in here, and I get to work from home for the next few days to make sure you don't go try to lift a car or something!"

Jak was appalled. "You can't do that!"

Dry as dust, Damas retorted, "First of all, I'm king. Secondly, I'm your legal guardian. Yes I can."

Jak groaned in frustration.

"Where's Daxter?"

"Not grounded."

"Oh come on!"

[undercoverossifrage]

Endless Summer

I don't do that much art for narnia but Endless Summer by the Gray Havens puts me in the mind for it! Its such a beautiful tune and it reminds me of the contrast between the Endless winter of the white witch and the Endless summer of Aslan's County.

[thebirdandhersong]

Also: I would LOVE to know what songs you associate with longing for heaven hours!

[dimsilver]

🙏🏻

[bumblingbabooshka]

People do not portray Janeway as flirting weird enough in fics bc in canon she's saying shit like "Well be a good little rat and find us the cheese" and goading the guy she likes into arm wrestling with her.

[intertexts]

dreadful little polycule wakes up to a thunderstorming morning & r miserable about it (virion pressure change migraines)(dakota's knees & hips unionizing against him)(wibby massive getting ripped apart and put back together scarring aches badly)(ashe everything):& r cozy n warm & dont get out of bed and sleep all day together. ashe orders delivery for them all at like 2pm. dakota puts their phones on silent so nobody from the prt can bother them into coming in or something. nothing else happens they're just sleepy & find comfort in each other.

[nana-bird]

Alika's new costume~

[takemetodragonstone]

me collapsing onto the floor after changing the sheets on my bed and washing the dishes

[artist-issues]

What kind of music/which artists do you like?

This is going to be a long answer! Twenty One Pilots is the only band I can definitively say is my favorite. They're in a different league than all the other bands or artists rattling around in my brain, close to the same way C.S. Lewis is in a league of his own in my brain when it comes to storytellers. Theres another ask I answered on my blog where I talked about why and how—I've loved them for twelve years. I'll put a whole ramble about them under the cut if you want to hear more about that.

I love Kings Kaleidoscope. Same types of topics as Twenty One Pilots, but with more overt Christianity and worship. So much as I prefer and love TøP, I'll always recommend Kings first.

I also love the Gray Havens for all the allegories and Lewisian imagery. And Sarah Sparks' Into the Lantern Wastes, for the same reason! Some of my favorite songs right now are by Gable Price and Friends. My easy listening is Needtobreathe and The Oh Hellos!

I love that Twenty One Pilots' music is super genuine. And I don't mean it like everyone else seems to when they talk about, like, NF singing about his grief and anger or Taylor Swift singing about her femininity in the genre, or whatever. I mean, if you look at Tyler Joseph's background and then look at the specific way he chooses to word things, you realize he's not just being genuine about the way he feels. He's being genuine about the way he thinks, and how those two things connect—and how wrong he often is. And how silly our culture's patterns of thought are, too.

That's harder to do. Because essentially what NF and Swift and artists like them are doing is they're just sharing with you. They're telling you about themselves. And sure, there is a type of vulnerability to that. But it's one thing to make a statement about yourself—it's another thing to use a statement about yourself to make a larger, more important point. That's a type of self-sacrifice and honesty that actually helps others, instead of just shines a spotlight on you and how relatable or raw or great you are.

I mean, obviously, you can't have "a larger, more important point" without also having "a genuine statement about yourself"—because if the people you're talking to don't trust you or relate to you or feel like you understand them, on some level, then they don't want to hear your "larger, more important point." But the fact is, with Twenty One Pilots, it's not all about them. They're uncomfortably honest about themselves because they want you to be I comfortably honest with yourself, about yourself, to lead you OUTSIDE of yourself.

And to God. I believe to God.

Anyway. Examples of what I'm talking about from their work below, in case you care, and haven't heard them, and just thought they were the latest indie-emo My Chemical Romance or that I just like them for the teen-angst-nostalgia of it all—

"Hello, I've been traveling in the desert of my mind," (which is from Addict With a Pen, a song about doubt and a crisis of faith and apathy, and my unmatched favorite) is such a smart way to talk about what it's like in the human brain. And how morbid and dry and lifeless it actually is in there, when you keep turning to yourself and looking inward for answers.

It's a desert in here. The water/Truth you need to survive comes from outside of your brain—and you have to constantly be reminded of the Truth/water from the outside, because the more you keep it in your head and analyze it, the more prone you are to only analyzing it as a form of control over it, when all its power to help you in the first place actually came from the fact that the Truth is outside you, bigger than you, beyond your control. Once you measure Truth by what you can understand/control, you've stripped it of its authority over you, and its authority over you was what was helping you. It was where faith came in. So then it "drains." And you have to shake yourself out of your brain and go back to looking outside of yourself, humbly, for answers. Asking God to wash you, give you a feeling and a faith that you can't produce by willing yourself to have it or thinking as hard as you can about it.

Or, "Mindless zombies walking around with a limp and an hunch, saying stuff like 'you only live once.'" (Thats from Heavydirtysoul.) That's such a smart way to say that. Mindless zombies—zombies literally feed on living brains, they're happy to consume other people's thoughts, but they don't have any of their own—they're "walking around with a limp and a hunch," so first off, they're moving, but it's slowly, and haltingly, because they're dead. Not really going anywhere, just going through the motions of living. And then "with a hunch" not only adds to that visual of them going through decaying, useless motion, but "hunch" can also just mean a gut impulse, an idea that's not fully thought out. The zombies need to quit talking like they're "seizing the day" while they are actually just going through the motions of life, never thinking seriously about why they do what they do, or what they believe.

He says some of the same idea in Car Radio, which is all about the good and the bad of thinking, and he claims he "will try to come across like I am dying to let you know you need to try to think." But then at the same time, there are repeated themes through songs like Trapdoor and Migraine that "nothing kills a man faster than his own head," or "sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind." And back to Addict With a Pen.

Basically what I'm saying is Twenty One Pilots is so genuine that they get to a place where they say, "it's important to pay attention to why you think what you think and feel how you feel —but never to let your thoughts or feelings control you. You control them. Let your thoughts and feelings lead you to what's true—which is that you're broken, and so are those thoughts and feelings—so what are you going to believe in, instead of them?"

At least, that's the core of what I love about them. And they used to seem much clearer, in their own way, about what they thought everyone should believe in: God. Who else knows your own head and feelings better than you do—but is still 100% more trustworthy as a compass than you are?

Nowadays it feels a little like they've fallen in love with analyzing the thoughts and feelings. Like that figure focusing so hard on the little drop of truth in his hand in Addict With a Pen, when what he really needs to do is realize he can't hold onto it and needs the Water to hold onto him. But that's okay. I mean, as long as they don't stay there.

[marril96]

Criminal Minds 6.05 | Safe Haven

[always-a-king-or-queen]

For you Narnia fans... a few Narnia themed songs by one of my favorite bands ;) Many of them incorporate actual quotes from the books!

Silver: themed off of The Silver Chair

When the voices fell they broke the spell That tied us to our silver chairs

Endless Summer: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

They say we're in for an endless winter 'Til we're gone But when I search that sunrise Feels like I belong To an endless summer

Pale Moonlight: The Silver Chair

But maybe I’ve been sold a lie I can’t find a light Tell me how many go down and never return To the sunlit lands, heaven please Have I lost 'em for good

Tread the Dawn: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (obviously XD )

Had a dragon heart Chasin' foolish gold I met eyes like lion's They tore me apart I hit the water cold Like an endless summer now

Music From a Garden: The Magician's Nephew (creation of Narnia)

Back when they danced outside of time Before the stars would rule the night There was a Dove flew o'er the deep, deep water And that's when he heard The voice of the Lion start to speak And then there was light

Have You Heard: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Can you remember The seagull’s cry Oh, have you heard it Where the waves break

Rhythm of the East: It's not confirmed, but I think it's probably an allusion to the Utter East, or Aslan's Country :)

I heard a summer song, if I get it wrong you can find it in the east

[glorf1ndel]

Got to do a music poll for everyone’s favorite stressed but determined ginger elf. 🧡 Would recommend all of these songs! 🎶