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thanks to them callback to separate tides

You've heard of Grond but have you heard of MANWE'S LIGHTNING SWORD?

(From the War of the Jewels, The Lay of the Children of Hurin, and Morgoth's Ring)

Where did you swim in the open ocean? And how scary was it?

i grew up by the sea

Going buckwild at the way Hilda The Series portrays adulthood and loneliness. Kaisa has no one to go to to ask for help getting the due book back, even though all it would take was someone she could minimally ask to knock on an elderly lady’s door and ask for a favour; she’s in the library after hours, is shown to have no allies aside from the woman who raised her and who she lost contact with. Johanna is only ever seen working or caring for Hilda, and her lack of a life aside from those two activities is pointed out by her own daughter when she thinks that this is going so far as to affect their relationship. The bell keeper lives alone in a small cabin on the edge of town, barely within city limits and away from everyone, a house barely even inhabitable and clearly only a place to sleep and eat. He works a solitary job and he’s the only one in the town still working it, meaning he’s probably overworked and forced to pull inhumanly long shifts. Victoria hyperfocused so hard on her projects that whatever friends she had before - and she must have had some from college time at least - lost contact with her, and she never made any other connections in Trolberg, anything that would tie her to the city and it’s inhabitants and make it so it wasn’t worth it to live by herself at the top of a hill. Even when that was over, she still chose to isolate herself somewhere abandoned and keep what was essentially another machine she’d built as her source of company, something she could understand and control instead of an unpredictable human being. Gerda works a job she likes but is shown to be disregarded by the person she works the most around, her abilities and intellect thrown aside for the good of someone she has to bear because of a hierarchy she was forced to accept in order to keep working. She’s appreciated by the town, but other than the main characters, we don’t see anyone paying her any mind when they don’t need something from her.

Meanwhile no kid has ever been alone in Trolberg. The mean kids are a group, the good kids are a group, even the gloomy teenage girls are a group. One of nightmare inducing entities, but a group nonetheless. All children in that world seem to operate on a ‘no man left behind’ code, looking out for each other even if they aren’t exactly fans of one another, helping even grown ups without asking why and working together. And this logic seems to extend to the adults who work around children too; especially the Raven Leader, who we see that through the children works as a vital part of the community and a way through which it comes together.

This isn’t very articulate but do you see the point? Do you see how clever that is? That a show about growing up has these themes? You can be magical, kind, strong, intelligent, competent, but none of that will make you truly happy if you don’t keep the most important thing from childhood? If you don’t keep your friendships, your bonds, something to tie you down to your reality and your community? The adults in the show all made their choices, and it’s okay to want to be alone, we all need it and some more than others (this is coming from someone who needs it a lot), but isolating yourself completely is the one thing that will make growing pains truly painful. I’m just so emotional over it. It’s so subtle and so clever considering the whole Mountain King plot that Hilda is willing to change species because she feels detached from her main relationships and surroundings. I love this show so much.

TRAINING ARC: START!! BOTHER YOUR GUARDIAN AND EXHIBIT ISSUES. NOW SOLVE THOSE ISSUES BY BOTHERING GUARDIANS. I HAVE FULL FAITH IN OUR HEROS!

Im soo sick to my stomach over ylfa n pinocchio shes still little and small and stumbling but she puts herself in front of mother tim to protect him. Shes his body guard. Pinocchio is shaking and scared but he still reaches deep into his mothers magic and hex's the fairy. Because he needs to. Because they need him.

I just opened utb to read the latest chapter and saw your notes- before I go any further I wanted to say I’m sorry to hear about your latest medical news. I know you’ve been living with these kind of conditions for a while but I’m sure it’s still difficult and I hope you can find some respite between things. If it’s any comfort, your writing always brings me a lot of joy x

Hi anon,

Thank you so much <3

Unfortunately it never gets easier, and a lot of the time it gets harder. I've gone onto 3 new prescription medications this year, putting me up to about 9-10 daily prescription medicines (not including supplements). They don't always play nice with each other, and it's tough kind of balancing it all.

I'm also just tired of seeing specialists and paying for them. Australia has some socialised welfare, but then otherwise it's all full price and I have no medical insurance (a lot of people here don't, because workplaces don't offer it, and it's not standard). In some cases, I have to choose to see a specialist privately and pay $350 for an appointment, so that I'm not waiting 6-9 months to see a specialist for something urgent, and get the scans publicly, which means the scans and tests are free. And while I'm lucky to have that, I've had to see a lot of specialists this year, and I'm like...the most financially broke I've been in over a decade, and it's not about to end any time soon. :(

Next year, among other things, I'll have to see a pulmonary/lung specialist and attend a respiratory clinic, and I'll be finding out if I have pulmonary hypertension on top of COPD (which I was diagnosed with this week). I need to still get head/neck MRIs for my tumours. Blood tests on a regular basis. I need an iron infusion because I'm anemic again. I need a knee MRI. I need a triphasic hepatic CT scan. My doctor doesn't want to give me many more tests with radiation because I've had 6 weeks of head/neck radiotherapy in the past, as well as multiple PET, CT scans and X-rays, and I'm very much at the 'the tests we're giving you will give you cancer' stage.

But anyway, not only is it difficult, it becomes more and more difficult the more illnesses there are. I've been diagnosed with two more progressive and incurable diseases on top of everything else this week, and have to get a scan to rule out possible liver cancer (I'm hoping it's not that, but my head/neck tumours can metastasise at any point, so it...could be that).

2022 has been an extremely unkind year, and at this rate, 2023 isn't shaping up to be any kinder. :(

I'm glad I can do the writing, but actually, this month I am not really pressuring myself to write at all, and haven't written anything yet. Y'all are just really lucky that I wrote some chapters in advance and can keep up a steady pace for December. But I have nothing for January, lol. x.x

» @maquiscursed asked [ AWAY ]: the sender, using their fingertips, tenderly sweeps a few strands of hair out of the receiver’s face so as to see them more clearly. (from neuvi to dain bc i'm drowning in thesis for a couple more hours BUT the long haired dain you sent me still lives rent free in my mind)

It is said that when one predict themselves to be in a vulnerable state in the foreseeable future, they will choose any place that could mildly do its job at providing them protection until they are back to health. While this statement may work for Dáinsleif at times, self-awareness of the circumstances that follow him— seek him to bring him down to his knees and submit. Reason why under special needs he must take special precautions.

Reason why he chose the depths of Érinnyes Forest as his place of momentary repose, just enough to let the deluge come to pass and all the people be brought to safety. Whenever Twilight treads these grounds, a sense of nostalgia and melancholy fills his chest, pleading him for warm home's respite. For someone like him that long ago has lost his home, this would be unconceivable, a result of delirium that comes from centuries of activity without ever stopping once to consider his own necessities. Not because he lacks them— he, as any other creature of celestial origins or otherwise, harbors his own yearnings.

Then why, one might ask, his soul and the word home combined tug at his heartstrings whenever he walks nearby this area? It is because none other than the willow amidst the lake deeper within the forest. Although different than the Axis Mundi that had compassion for his shattering soul, its Bough Keeper can recognize any manifestations of it on the overworld even when distance is so bold to stay between them.

Vulnerable and exposed as he is did the lunarescent seraph make his way to the top of the rock that serves as a base to the seemingly floating tree and sits there. Like a mother would to her child, leaves of blue react in providing soothing warmth through azure glow, branches extend even farther down near the grass as if to conceal him, lakelight lilies emit luminescent motes to further hide him in a protective maze only for select chosen ones with sufficient authority and recognition of a benevolent soul to be allowed pass to the now fleeting core of the tree.

And yet, even with this kind protection the Bough Keeper isn't entirely safe: for there are those who would gnaw at its roots just to have a way towards him. Like moths that rather than being attracted to light to bask in it, seek to destroy it so it won't bring more harm to them than it already had. I am sorry. One last thought crosses luminary's mind before he enters into a slumber, guilt forming within him as sentience of this tree's beginning of pain registers in his mind— and a promise to soothe its pain soon.

Look at you, all pitiful and weak for falling for that old dragon's enchantment. As it is customary, that nagging voice that would cause terrors to anyone unaccustomed to otherworldly presence connected to their soul returns with the coming of a tide of darkness when Ley Lines are disrupted, and thus the protection She grants to him against the advancement of the corruption dwindles. Once again you would act against your heart's desires. Do you not think you deserve better than to be used as a tool for saving someone else when you need saving the most?

I thought you would know better by now, after centuries of sowing torment within me— that I deserve nothing. Abyss' chaos is tempting, intoxicating as many who have fallen to its will would describe it. It knows what to whisper in one's ear, to beckon them to do the final jump into a pit of desolation and never ending darkness impossible to escape from once within. If there is one good thing unending guilt and endless self-loathing has, is that he cannot fall as easily to desires tainted with defilement.

And yet you would fall for his affections and sweetened words professing love for you. Isn't you who believes that love should heal, not hurt? Then, why would he seek to harm you at the expense of his selfish desire to put those sinners before you?

Fair eyebrows react, knitting in a frown. Coexisting with a man's will brings consequences such as baring his heart to him without intending to do so. This— this is the most dangerous of all in being too weak to repress his voice and presence. That he knows him all too well, even past his own fronts of negativity towards himself. No matter how many layers would call for an irremediable cause, he would know that deep down... his heart still longs for someone to be with him. Someone that filled with awareness of his own circumstances and self-imposed duties won't run away. Someone to share burdens with... someone to spark a light in this dark world of his.

Intimidating draconic pupils quiver within iridescent depths in the face of an adversity that has an immediate fix, and even then he would be afflicted with struggle at the knowledge of what this will cause to him. The frown in his eye combined with a tremble of lips, unmistakeable. ◜I know it must be done... but has there not been enough suffering, without me having to drag you into the storm?◞

He will never forget the shock that caused his words, immensely touching as the vastness of the seas he possesses authority over— so in line with a heart of gold filled with compassion for someone no bigger than a sinner or an archenemy if one were to think about the endless strife betwixt their kin. Nor he will ever forget the tenderness of his touch, an anticipated balm to his soul for the incoming pain he would come to experience.

◜I will find you when the storm in here and in the Ley Lines has passed.◞

For being someone full of confidence in being well-versed in my heart's grievances and desires, you have lost sight of the most important of all. Yes, I am a firm believer that love should not bring pain and yes, my longing to encounter someone meant for me isn't any less existent. However... his fight is my fight. It is in proving that humanity will rise against the divine injustice and an even more unfair order over this world that gives me strength to continue, that there is hope to defy this world and re-weave all threads of fate... This pain is but a small price to pay for everything grand that this world will achieve.

A spark of light makes itself manifest in the boundless darkness within his mind and so the voice fades to nothingness. Sensing the presence of another when he should be alone, albescent lashes flutter open in time to see Neuvillette's face close to his, his fingers gentle and loving to sweep away pale strands of hair. Exhaustion borne eyes crinkle at the edges in a smile that one day may remember its way to roseate lips, weary heart light all of a sudden as if a great weight has been lifted.

◜You came.◞ Though nonexistent of a command, luminescent branches retreat to their initial position as if by one, deeming their protection no longer necessary. Gloved hands reach out to cup his beloved's face tenderly just as he did before they had to part ways moments prior to the deluge. He is here. He kept his promise. Glacial sapphires soften as he brings his face closer to press their foreheads together, to feel his breathing as the ultimate proof that no amount of illusions born from the darkness of his heart could fake this. ◜Worry not. I am alright.◞ Alright wouldn't be precisely the best descriptor to explain his current condition, granted that he had an uncomfortable conversation with an unwelcome presence in his mind and this was filled with even more unpleasant thoughts whose magnitude doesn't match with unavoidable sentiments— for even if he may think that what that man said doesn't reflect his own thoughts, the Abyss never draws something out of thin air. It is born, without a doubt, from preexistent feelings of his heart mixed with darkness he's shrouded in about his person.

A soft sigh is released after calming himself in the soothing presence of the sovereign, then a gentle nod follows as his hands withdraw and drop to the grass to help himself stand. ◜It is not over yet.◞ Weakened as he may currently be, he extends a hand to help Neuvillette stand too— in the back of his mind, cruel laughter resonates coupled with a forced reminder that he, too, needs saving. But it doesn't have to be now, nor it is like it will never come— no. Long ago has it made itself present in his soul... the moment he chose him. ◜There is one more thing to do. The willow... it is weeping.◞

Thank you for protecting me. Now, allow me to return the favor and alleviate your pain.

Yknow I've got to take my hat off to those fili X Sigrid shippers bc they did what people usually do with gay pairings which is to pick two people who stood next to each other at one point and then go absolutely insane over them. We love to see it.

hogh i was just clicking around etsy and came across this artist with an anthro furry style that catapulted me back to my deviantart days, the kind of art i would stare at for hours being like 'thats what i want to draw like. this person GETS it'. like a sense memory more vivid than anything i've felt in years. nostalgia disney fucking wishes it could capitalize on

and then i saw a comment on their profile that this person has been posting art for decades and also has a DA page, so it's entirely possible that i also stumbled across her stuff 15+ years ago and had the same awed reaction i had just now

ngl i was so confused for the last few mins of the episode. like what was going on?

oh same anon same. like i wasn’t particularly mad or disappointed about how anything went plot-wise, that was fine. I guess i was just expecting the climax to be… bigger?? they set up this grand conspiracy for the whole show just for it to end like that?? it’s not that i think the resolution is anticlimactic either, just delivered in a weird way. like if thua had his whole moment and it wasn’t all brushed away as some ‘student film stunt’ and then we actually got to see the characters deal with the fall out, bc we kinda did with akk having his emotional moments and ayan getting it all out in front of chadok, i more mean thua dealing with any consequences of what he did. he did all this stuff and then 10 seconds later they’re all… fine??? playing happy families making a film???? idk it just seems weird that kan and wat were so conformational with akk for what he did and then they just apparently let that go, then no one stays mad at thua, nor does anyone have anything to say about namo, when people finding out the truth was built up to be such a huge thing this whole time. and that’s what i wanna see, I wanna see the fallout and anger and them reconciling, even if it is rushed, i still wanna see it. characters can’t act like this and then be fine in the next scene, it just ruins continuity more than anything. plus i feel like the whole outing thing was just… not right?? im not mad that they did it, but for a universe that clearly has homophobia and in an environment where all this conformist shit is so clear, it’s not that i want to see that, it’s more i would’ve liked to have seen akk having to deal with that. being outed when you yourself are not 100% comfortable with your sexuality is a big and difficult thing and it would’ve been so interesting to see akk deal with that. but no, it’s like they said actually we’ve done enough character growth we’re ending here it was nice while it lasted. so yeah, the ep just had this weird vibe. no part of the resolution felt like it resolved anything and yes i fucking love seeing them all happy and being sweet but it still doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t feel right. it really does feel like i missed half an ep and yet when i go back to find it, it just isn’t there.

oceans is like if my entire self was a song.

A coworker and I were just talking about mental and spiritual challenges, and she patted my shoulder very gently and said in a kindly manner, "You know, I look at you and I really have to hand it to you for showing up every day!" and now I'm not sure whether I should be glad, mad, sad, or scared. Am I that much or that blatantly impaired?

honestly im convinced the best of me is the worst of me.......

Charlie Brooker did a very good news satire show called newsipe before he focused more on black mirror. He also said one reason he stopped was because current events were becoming to absurd and depressing to make decent satire of, especially around 2016.

Even his pessimistic and grim predictions turned out to be overly optimistic compared to what's actually been happening the past few years.

Grim doesn't begin to cover it.