#idk why i never shared this one

[orpheuslament]

Where I End & You Begin, Dante Émile. Published in From Heart To Stomach vol. 1.

[crows-of-buckets]

Anders doodle that I could have put more effort into but I got lazy :P

Anyways this specifically is meant to take place after he patches up Hawke after the Arishok fight. I was writing it last night and went "hm I should draw that"

Bonus, shitty sketch I did at 2am when I had this idea and the writing segment that inspired it. It's so funny I talk about my writing a lot but I never share it cause it scares me lmao

[spookberry]

Baseball ghost

[quirkle2]

who wants zombie au writing. don't answer that ur getting it anyway (1.6k words)

His shoes knock against the old flooring of the house, wood creaking under rubber soles that slide over the woodgrain. He drags them a bit, lifts his limbs up no more than he strictly has to, and they lead him to the nearest sittable surface.

The couch is old and dusty and has likely gone untouched for months, much like everything else nowadays, so he watches the thin cloud of dust billow off the cushions largely with disinterest. He collapses into the fabric heavily, feels the whole thing scoot back an inch and hit the wall behind him. The sound echoes, carried by lifeless rooms, while he unceremoniously drops his backpack to the floor by his feet.

The breath he lets out is slow and methodical and born of pent up muscles, aimed at the ceiling where he rests his neck against the back of the couch and relaxes every limb one by one. It’s a process he forces himself through, if only to rid the constant ache beneath his skin.

Slow, sweeping footsteps meander around the room in front of him, and Ritsu angles his gaze down from his craned back position to look at his brother. He wanders, like he so often does—seemingly aimless, but there’s something procedural about it that he’s convinced he just hasn’t figured out yet.

Shigeo’s empty eyes crawl along the hearth of the fireplace, explosions of ash sprayed out across the red brick. His head tilts up to trace his attention around the angular lines of the television, hung on the wall and screen grey with dust. He flits back and forth between the roundness of the bricked mantle and the sharp edges of the screen, like he’s taking notes.

Shigeo paws the television. Four lines of muck are cleared. The zombie blinks, paws at it again with dusty, curious fingers. Ritsu watches him make a mess of the television screen in silence, blinking tiredly.

He almost closes his eyes, but he fights against the urge and moves his fingers down his lap to reach for his bag. His middle hooks around the loop at the top and he lugs it up and into his lap, where he unzips it and peers into the shadowy contents.

Ritsu fishes out the water bottles. He finds the one with the messy R scribbled along the cap in sharpie and takes a big swig of it. It’s warm going down, constantly insulated in a bag of old, sweaty clothes. He feels like he can taste the odor in it, but it clears the grain in his throat from stomping all over dirt roads today, so he’s still grateful.

He holds out the one labeled S to Shigeo. “Thirsty?”

Shigeo looks at him from where he’s crouched down to the floor now, inspecting the soot along the hearth. Unfortunately, he sees handprints in the black already, and when his brother reaches a hand out to take it, his palm is covered in soot.

He lets him have his fun and settles his own bottle back in the mess of tangled clothes and rolls of bandages. Ritsu rakes his fingers through their stock with no real purpose—he knows exactly what’s in here, and none of it is useful.

They’d been searching all day; Ritsu doesn’t really know how far they’d walked, but it had to be a lot of miles. In and out of stores, up and down empty houses, weaving between warehouses—they didn’t really stop for a break. Not when Ritsu can hear Shigeo’s stomach from here and he himself has shaking hands. They can’t afford a break.

Nothing, though. Not a single goddamn thing worth taking. A settlement must have come through here long ago and swept the highway. They’re in the countryside, where houses are spaced out acres from each other and there’s entire cow pastures between properties. And yet every house they’d seen and entered provided nothing.

Ritsu stares into the negative space in his bag where there should be supplies. His stomach cramps and if he smells another whiff of that godawful sweaty, bloody sweatshirt he still carries, he’s going to throw up bile.

He leans away from the open pouch, eyes wandering to his brother who draws… something into the soot of the hearth. His water bottle sits on the floor, abandoned and still unscrewed. Ritsu leans forward with great effort and a grunt, leaning over his bag to grab at the top of it.

It takes him two tries to get Shigeo’s attention, and one more for an answer on where the cap is. It’s then placed in his palm, covered in soot and also saliva. Ritsu swallows down the nausea that rolls up his throat and wipes it off with his frankly already disgusting sleeve, and screws it back on.

He leans back again, succumbing to the urge to let his eyes rest, and he listens to the very subtle swipe of his brother’s hands across brick. There’s birds outside, chirping, and even though it’s still very much a common occurrence, Ritsu cannot help but feel nostalgic about it.

If he ignores the awful hum of silence, and the distinct lack of an electric thrum throughout the walls, and the fact that this is a stranger’s couch and not his, he can almost imagine normalcy. He can almost say this feels like those quiet moments after school, when he settles on the couch and scrolls through his phone in a house that only holds him and his brother because their parents simply aren’t home yet.

He can almost hear the creak of wood from Shigeo walking around his room upstairs. He can almost tap his fingers on the couch cushions to the pattern of his brother making his way down the steps. He can almost hear the fridge opening, and the sound of milk being poured into glass.

Almost. But Ritsu listens to sharp silence instead, and he tries not to think too hard.

He drifts for a while, feels himself truly sink into the couch and let the cushions claim him, and he thinks about nothings because if he doesn’t, then he’ll lose it. He carefully sifts through the nothingness of his mind, through the passing thoughts that have no bearing, and he focuses on that, on the lack of substance. His head is too full of things that have too much substance.

He misses boredom. He tells himself he misses boredom—the complete insubstantiality of it—because if he lets himself think of what he really misses, it’ll drive him insane.

The cushions move, and Ritsu peels his eyes open and lets himself get pulled from liminal mindspace. The cotton in his head recedes, and he blinks, and then he’s swiveling his head to look at his brother who sits in the cushion right next to him.

His hands and the cuffs of his hoodie are smothered in black. Shigeo sits hunched, gaze still wandering even when there’s not much decoration in this house to look at. He studies the off-white walls, the chips in the paint, the holes drilled in where there maybe used to be photos hung.

Ritsu gazes at him quietly, chest instinctively rising and falling to match his brother’s rhythm. He watches the expansion there, under his hoodie, in the subtlety of the folds and the way they warp over the movement. It’s slightly quicker than what he’s used to, but Ritsu knows his brother’s heart rate is much slower. He’s felt it before. He’s listened to it before, with his ear against a chest.

Ritsu’s attention moves to his eyes, and the heavy bags underneath them, and the paleness of his pupils and the ghostlight of him underneath that. He stares into them, looks for stray, familiar thoughts that might enter his head. Looks for old memories that might shine through in the form of recognition when he sees furniture layouts, and candy wrappers, and ads for soda.

Ritsu looks for it all the time, that glint of familiarity. And he finds it, sometimes. And really, he thinks that’s keeping him going more than food ever will.

Shigeo turns his head, and looks at him. Sometimes, when his brother looks at him, there’s not much there. No substance, no anything. And Ritsu finds it a bit evil that he craves silence in his own head, and yet noise in Shigeo’s, and often times it is the other way around.

His brother looks at him now, though, with that comforting recognition. That growth of the pupils, that softening of the hard edges of his face where unknown stressors have gotten to him. Ritsu wonders what zombies get stressed out. He figures it’s the same deal with humans, considering they’re largely alike.

Ritsu wonders if Shigeo knows he’s sick. He wishes he could ask him. He wishes for a lot of things. Silence in his own head is one of them.

Ritsu swivels his head away and stares at the ceiling, if only to force the thoughts to pause. He studies the popcorn ridges above them, traces the peaks with his gaze. It calms him, gives him something to focus on. He looks for patterns in the shadows they make.

Shigeo shifts next to him. And then he shimmies down, settles into the cushions, and plops his head right down on Ritsu’s shoulder.

Static roars in his mind and his heart stammers. Ritsu swallows the lump in his throat but that just makes it bigger, so he clamps his mouth shut and breathes carefully through his nose.

The tears cut through the grime on his face. He plops his own head down against his brother’s, and lives in the noise.

[donnydamakkk]

unpopular opinion: there is no point in the show in which jeid would have made sense. jj never seemed interested in him, and his feelings always felt misconstrued and misplaced. they never had that kinda chemistry.

[hauntedjohnny]

why are people complaining about ana and maria looking the same like.... yeah i sure hope so....

[andrews-jort-loving-pipe-dream]

Andrew being called "Drew" makes my eye twitch... and I don't know why.

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

It's never going to happen bc I don't have the skill or the determination or the simple understanding to actually do it but lately I've been thinking about potential video essays on...I'm not even sure. Autistic joy? Trans joy? The sheer unique joy of being me and of being a human who thinks and feels and how that's different but the same as so many other people. Like I'll legit start plotting out scripts in my head for how I would explain it to people (which I do alot for special interests and such but rarely to explain Myself) and a big part of me would love to just. Talk. About how it feels to be Me. But I'm also very unlikely to do that lol

[roseofcards90]

I think definitely one of the things I want to keep in mind for next year is that I don’t want to have FOMO bother me so much 😭😭😭

[babacontainsmultitudes]

Not much has been shared yet for the Nicky day of the week which has me thinking that *I* wanna draw a Nicky to share but... That would require... Drawing and... Liking what I draw...

[eugeniedanglars]

[The negative reaction to "Beard After Hours"] echoes a common complaint about the show, that certain arcs are picked up and dropped, that the show meanders too much. To me, it felt like an example of what Ted Lasso dares do that most television doesn't, take precious time to do something weird and tonal (and hang a giant glowy moon in the sky). This episode also established what I think is the best way to watch the show, treating it more like an album than an episode-by-episode drama. Themes flow in and flow out. We get a strange storyline and then never see it again. But it’s the ideas that the show is introducing, the way those ideas pair with each other, that make it an interesting show to watch.

Really enjoyed this analysis of the show and thought it hit the nail on the head regarding a lot of the criticism of this season.

[afaramir]

finished bloodkeep rewatch. as always rotating leiland and markus in my mind. thinking about you don't have to deserve love it is freely given. thinking about love as fealty and the freedom of choice. to decide who it is you will swear yourself to. to decide who it is your heart might belong to. love as devotion but not like it used to be, not a weak little helpless thing, not a futile terrible ache, not chasing something you will never be granted. not as a thing you should be granted at all, not as a favour or a boon or a thing to be won, not as part of a transaction or a manipulation. not something that you have to be worthy of but something that you are given, out of free choice. something that you can give, out of your will and your heart. its about learning how to love its always being a little bit weird and intense and always giving 100% of yourself and learning that you're not going to be punished for it. that you're going to get what you want and the man who you might be falling in love with is someone who can love you back. who will, if you give him the chance. leiland guy of all time.

ALSO thinking about being a pirate mercenary for hire and wanting nothing else (after gold, maybe) than to go home but you can't, you can't, because they didn't even fucking look for you. you were lost at sea and they didn't even look for you, or at least they didn't find you, which when you think about it is basically the same thing. it's about finally meeting someone who has the closest to shared life experience as you've ever come, someone who tells you i know a thing or two about being forgotten royalty, and he's a little intense and a little pathetic and possibly a little too fixated on torturing people for all eternity but hey, who are you to judge. it's about spending the craziest day of your life watching him, watching him come into himself, giving him your kill just so he feels a little bit better about himself, and you don't want to save him, not necessarily. you're evil, you're not really in the business of saving people. you kind of want to fix him and you kind of want to just show him that goddamnit, look at what you could be if you just let people love you. markus also guy of all time.

[critterchitters-closedcaptions]

funny thing about attraction is that i am Not at all interested in cis guys. right.

except for the literal worst fictional men you've ever layed eyes on.

this character is horrible and *will* harm my general health?

comfort character babey.

occasionally theres the just Regular Ass Guy right, but 90% of the time its either women or the literal scum of the earth (or both. lady villains. aaough <3 yes please)

[andorerso]

Hey! I am finally watching Andor (yes, I’m very late to the party) and there’s something in the first episodes that I didn’t understand very well. The guy who saw the thing about Cassian being wanted (I think his name is Tim?) was the one who called the empire to go after him, right? But how did he know that Cassian was the ‘Kenari male’ they were looking for, since Maarva said it was a secret and everyone in the town thought he was from Fest?

Hi! I can't remember which episode exactly, but in two or three, it's revealed that Bix (who did know) was the one who told him. When she finds out what he did, she says "I told you that in confidence" or something along those lines. Don't know if you're there yet, but I guess it's not a huge spoiler to reveal. Why she would tell him, I have no idea (especially because their relationship didn't seem to be close?), but he knew from Bix.

[archduke-enver-gortash]

posting on here is like my sisyphean boulder i'm constantly rolling tbh

[bluewonderer]

🎶✨️when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)🎶✨️ I was tagged by @sheakastilllovesjungjihoon 💖

Well, this is according to Spotify's "On Repeat" so. Here we go with the weirdness:

SPECIALZ by King Gnu - JJK's current opening that I've listened to... well. Let's not talk about how much I've listened to it. But also have you seen the band's music video for it?? If not, please check it out it's so weird I love it so, so much I cannot get it out of my head.

It's Called: Freefall by Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Where the Watermelons Rot by Madelynne Whit - yeah, I've been sort of working on a darker piece of fanfic (for jjk), and this is an eerie Vibe, so it's been on repeat for a while now.

Ophelia by Natalie Merchant - I recently remembered just how gorgeous Natalie Merchant's voice is, and have been replaying this old favorite for over a week now.

I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters - Anyway, every time I hear this song I think of Doflamingo.

Honorable mentions that were pretty much tied for #5: The Dismemberment Song by Blue Kid - yeah, this is a vibe for the darker fanfic I've been churning in my head. But that's just an excuse, I listen to this one pretty often. My Sails Are Set by Sonya Bleousova, Giona Ostinelli, and AURORA - honestly haven't stopped listening to this since the One Piece Live Action came out. Promiseland by MIKA - It makes my ears happy. SAD (Clap Your Hands) by Young Rising Sons

Now for tagging! As always, you don't have to do this. But I'll read yours if you do!! (And also just... randomly tagging people and some of y'all I don't actually know, just my way of saying hey!) @ansimplegoose @anarchycox @motherhyrule @thychesters @tinyforestshark @saucepans @tuesdayinthedas AND I JUST GOT REALLY NERVOUS ABOUT TAGGING PEOPLE SO. If you see this and want to join please do and tag me so I can read it! 💖