#whew anyway

[two-crabs]

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord—?

The ship’s  surgeon told them of the myth two weeks after the first whale was caught and strung up. 

Maudlin, delirious with sleeplessness and hysterical with grief, stumbled down the steps into Dudko’s office in search of some relief, and found him there mending a rip in his trousers. Their hands were still raw from rope burn, and they shook as they scanned the little room for the vials they knew Dudko kept for emergencies.

“Oh,” Dudko stood, and reached out towards them. “Wh—Maudlin?”

“I need it,” they rasped, and when Maudlin turned their eyes to him, they were bloodshot and terrified. “I saw you administer it to Franklin—when his leg healed wrong, and you had to break it again.” They only ever spoke Tyvian in this room anymore, and it fell out of their mouth in a rush. “The medicine that knocks people out—please, Dudko, I won’t survive another night—” Maudlin heaved a deep breath and let it out, raw and ragged, before turning to the cabinet and throwing its doors open. 

“It won’t—” Dudko put his hand on their shoulder, and was batted violently away, as Maudlin grabbed at random jars. “I don’t have any—”

Brown beakers  and metal canisters and clear vials were shoved aside and knocked over, as Maudlin pawed through them, barely reading labels before tossing them aside. Pills were strewn across the table and floor; corks were popped and not replaced as Maudlin sniffed bottles, not sure what they were smelling for. When a slick yellowish liquid spilled down their fingers, they licked it off hoping for some effect, then gagged and retched when the turpentine hit the back of their throat 

“Maudlin, stop this!” And Dudko wrapped his thick arm around their chest, pinning Maudlin’s arms to their sides, dragging them away from the cabinet and back toward the cot. Like a sack of potatoes, he threw Maudlin down, and held them there by the shoulders. They didn’t fight, just twitched their tremorous hands in the air, failing to remove the lid from a small glass jar. “And give me that!” Dudko swiped it from their hands, and Maudlin crumpled in on themself. “I only brought so much ink with me! This isn’t part of the standard restock, you know?” And he tucked it in his breast pocket. 

When Dudko looked down, Maudlin was curled in a ball, their knees pulled  to their chin, their ribs shuddering. Their hands were pressed to their face, their hair in an untidy knot at the back of their neck.

“I can’t—I can’t sleep, Dudko, please—and when I do, he—he—I see him—“ Every breath rattled in Maudlin’s throat. “At night—the liquor—on this fucking boat—” They swallowed hard, and coughed. “It—it won’t work, it—it makes me sick—“ 

Dudko’s heart, long hardened by the tragedy every whaler knew well, cracked just a bit, and he placed his warm palm on top of Maudlin’s head, and stroked their hair. 

“It’s alright, little krill. Hush, now. Breathe, breathe.” Dudko petted them, and rubbed at their shoulder, and shushed them softly, and slowly Maudlin’s gnashing  subsided into quiet, keening cries. “I don’t have what you’re looking for. Someone stole it. Franklin, maybe. But the last supply ship had none, so you’re stuck with that Gristoli swill if you…need it.” 

Maudlin gasped and wiped at their nose. “I need something, anything. To…to quiet my mind, to…make it stop…”

Dudko sat on the corner of the cot and patted Maudlin’s hip. He chewed on the inside of his lip, and thought for a moment. “I have no drug for you,” he said, and Maudlin’s body shook under his hand. “But I know what happened. We all see it, our first time out. It will get better, I promise you this. It will fade.”

Maudlin was panting, curled so tightly around themself that, in the sickly blue light of the oil lamp, Dudko could count the nobs of their spine through their shirt. He rubbed a hand over his mustache and stared at his ruined cabinet. 

“He wears his mask, right? When he visits?” And at Dudko’s words, Maudlin froze under his hand. “But the eyes are blank? Like there’s smoke behind them?” 

Maudlin lifted their head, tears and snot dripping down their chin, stray hair plastered to their face. “How…” They rubbed their eyes with their knuckles. “How did you—”

“Listen to me when I tell you this…” Dudko offered them a hand, and helped haul them into a cross-legged seat. “Look at me,” and he grabbed them by their wet chin. “That was not your man, Maudlin.” Immediately, their eyes welled up again, and they tried to turn away, but Dudko held them, one big hand on either side of their face. “Look at me! Every whaler loses someone to the hunt, okay? All of us. And the ghost of that loss visits us, and—”

“He told me to jump…” 

“You must—”

“So we could—together—” Maudlin hiccupped. 

“Maudlin…” Dudko smoothed their hair again, then let go of their face, and let them fall back onto the cot. Maudlin stared up at the ceiling, tears streaming silently down their cheeks. “It wasn’t him. Just like it wasn’t my mate Eamon who came to me after the fever took him. It’s just…I don’t know.” He sighed, then stood and crossed the room, to a small box he kept stashed under his desk. “Pious folks say it’s the Outsider, but it’s not him either.” He turned the dial on his lamp, and the light in the room grew brighter. “My first captain said it was the ghost of the whales, trying to get back at us. But I think they’re too good for that, don’t you?” 

Maudlin was breathing slowly, their jaw slack and their eyes just barely following him around the room. “I want…” Their voice was hoarse. “I want to jump, sometimes.” They licked their lips and blinked at Dudko. “I want to follow him…off the back of the ship…”

“I think, personally…” and Dudko took his tools out of the box and unwrapped the paper he kept around them. “The first whaler who ever died in the trade…he cursed us. All of us.” Then he removed the bottle he had confiscated from Maudlin out of his pocket, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. “Good thing for you, I know how to ward you from such darkness.” 

Half-asleep and half-alive, Maudlin turned their head to watch Dudko select a long silver needle from a paper envelope. Then, smiling a little, he pulled the neck of his shirt down his chest, exposing the sparrow that rested there, just below his collarbone. And below it, in curly Morlian script: Eamon.

“It won’t work automatically. You will have to keep being strong. And I won’t promise that it will go away forever, but…it will fade.” Dudko tapped a finger to the bird. “And this never will.” 

Maudlin fell asleep that night, despite the pain, listening to Dudko humming Ode of Wynnedown as he carved two crossed anchors into their arm. 

[perenians]

hi do you have any Kyle comic recs?

sure do! i’m not sure if you’ve seen this list that i made a bit ago for bunn, but if you want some more, i recommend:

- rann-thanagar war (2005) (all of it. it should be collected in a single volume, but if you need a list of specific issues you can find it online)

- hal jordan and the green lantern corps (2017)

there are crossovers, but as someone who can’t be assed, i don’t read those very often. the only ones i can think of for kyle are:

- rise of the third army (2013)

- lights out (2015? or maybe 2014)

- godhead (2015)

- three of a kind (god knows when. but it’s kyle along with wally & connor)

hope this helps <3

[lehguru]

after a bit of inner thinking i might be ace as well

[chipthekeeper]

Am i just a salty McLaren fan or is it weird that DTS completely ignored Oscar having a super successful rookie season?

[sandflakedraws]

hug time 🌺

[bed-of-ashes]

as an aroace person who sees other aspec people get frustrated with the lack of nonromantic relationships being represented as anything other than sibling, I grant you: hermit relationships

Grian & Pearl: siblings, actually

Pearl & Scott: platonic

Cleo & Scott: queerplatonic

Jimmy & Tango: romantic

Grian & Scar: sexual but like they turned Complicated pretty fast lets be real

Pearl & Gem: ????)?),?

Etho & Joel: probably a disorder really

Martyn & Ren: theater kids.

[creekfiend]

Tom Bombadil should be an aspirational character for everyone with issues setting boundaries actually bc he's just like Wow that sounds hard. Absolutely not my circus though. Enjoy a song and some bread. Anyway bye

[kittysawat]

if you cant get an organic s2 wedding, then store bought is just fine!!!!!!!!

[dilutedbeanibeans]

hey I redesigned them again

close ups under the cut

boy why are you so eyelash

[wrenkos]

perfect crime trio goes on an outing

[sabreurs]

okay i think i've got it. instead of running from his role, aang feels like he's failing at his role. no decision he makes is the right decision. the decision to take a break on appa meant that he wasn't there to help the air nomads. the decision to research on kyoshi island brought the fire nation there. the decision to be close to his friends got them stuck in the spirit world. he looks at the ruins of the northern water tribe and says "i did this." everything he does feels like a failure bc of the first failure. so aang has to let go of his past failures so he can start succeeding in the future. his journey isn't learning how to stand his ground, it's how to let go.

[toodrunktofindaurl]

silent caretaker

[esprei]

Emmet month - Day 4: Memories

though Ingo may be gone, he'll never be forgotten

[basilone]

MASTERS OF THE AIR - in every episode: the sky

[everysongineverykey]

to elaborate on the fnaf movie: the animatronics looked awesome. they played talking in your sleep by the romantics which rules. none of the characters were particularly gripping or well-developed but matthew lillard looked like he was having a TON of fun as william afton and who can blame him. yes i clapped and cheered when matpat said "it's just a theory". yes i clapped and cheered when afton said "i always come back". yes i clapped and cheered when they played the living tombstone's seminal masterpiece in the end credits. i had so so much fun. absolutely recommend if you just wanna see fun robot murder with cool animatronics and occasional hijinx. god i wanna see it again now

[thunderboltfire]

The complete base BG2 party roster in Darkest Dungeon style!

Some of them were used in this scene

I thought that the stylisation is way too fun to limit it to my in-game party (and besides, I sometimes switch party members anyway).

The models (sans my Charname, and including background with Athkatla sewers and Othyugh) are downloadable and usable under CC BY-NC-SA.

download via st.ash and via google disk (maybe I'll find a way to host in somewhere else later). Enjoy!