hold me on a tight leash, but hold me, made for @mcytbattleship
sources: how to be a dog - andrew kane // silver touch - michelle jackson // kneeling knight at the well - fritz boehle // the white wolf asks the princess a question in the wood - henry justice ford // a knight being crowned with a laurel-wreath - frank bernard dicksee // i'm your man - mitski // hound dog - ian gregory // poppy - paul cummins
sources: Kemer Coast - Anastasia Trusova // Decoration interieure – galerie de Henri II ou salle des fetes, au palais de Fontainebleau - Auguste Racinet // What to do if Dance - @thatsbelievable // Butterfly Dance - Anastasia Trusova // Obelisk & Metronome - Ana Benlloch // malachite hearts // Ballroom with figures - Alfred Rudolph Waud // Plan Wheel - Doug Gonzalez // Rabbit Stencil - Typographic Dex // speech bubble - Alison Zai // Dancing to the Hours - Myles C. Poydras // Slow Dance by the Ocean - Linda Gregg // Sonnet 30 - William Shakespeare // A Softer World #946 - Emily Horne & Joey Comeau // Aurora Borealis Dance - Jody Larson // The Last Dance of Fall - Nancy Erickson // Aurora - Anastasia Trusova
glinting on the lake, a webweave inspired by this gorgeous art by @belovedgamers !! :D
this webweave was made for @mcytbattleship. if you like this little piece, do go and give the original art some love, it was the inspiration and the artist has made 69 AMAZING works in the space of this short event!!!
sources: Canticle of the Stars - Sarah Ann Smith // Migratory birds of Belgium #1 (recolored) - Anastasia Trusova // Close-up photo of water drops - Pawel Czerwinski // White cherry blossom in close up photography - Jei Lee // The Swan - Mary Oliver // The Wild Swans at Coole - William Butler Yeats // Bobbin Lace (Rose Lace) Edging of Points - Cleveland Museum of Art // miracles are often inconvenient - @belovedgamers
a different set of trees | arcs - magda portal | "the trying is what counts" | "how to tell if you've made a mess of it" | verbing venn diagram | russian doll - jhariah | a softer world #1008 | "you can never go back!" | lakeside - mia bergeron | i am panting - anna świrszczyńska (via tumblr) | "girl who is sitting in a chair quietly" | "no one ever understands me!" | pentimento - mag gabbert | the wrath and the dawn - renée ahdieh | how to be a dog - andrew kane | classroom - michael eastman | xkcd #1739 | gross - penelope scott | hate myself - dodie | american girl - mitski | needed a change of pace - jhariah | window - jessica lisse (via tumblr) | healing is a process - whitney hanson (via tumblr) | tea - leila chatti | the story i tell - aaron shurin | study of dante holding the hand of love - dante gabriel rossetti | "all i ask is to be seen" | a softer world #44 | of the shining underlight - carl phillips
sources: EAT YOUR FRIENDS - jhariah / to be alright - AURORA / near far never - charline von heyl / original post / fic / personal spreadsheet (gbc) / accidental original element
you'll fit so nicely - a devotions fic based on vio's lovely lovely art <3 (ty @willowsandwonders for betaing :D)
but ao3 is down so here's a copy for the tumblrinas!!
It’s been a long day.
When there’s a fight, time sweeps by like loud footsteps on wooden flooring. It’s all action, all movement and sound, a sort of chaos that feels restless and overwhelming right until they’re over. At least, in all of that, the hours seem to shrink away.
On those sorts of days, very often, Zam struggles to find time to rebuild. She’s too exhausted to even start — it’s tiresome to be a warrior, tiresome to get revenge. It leaves her little time to figure out who she is.
Then again, such days also leave her too exhausted to worry.
Today is the opposite of that. She’s had all of the sun’s slow staggering across the sky to consider all the ways she could get jumped; behind every shadow is the possibility of another shadow. It’s draining in an entirely different way, but this time without the satisfaction of having actually done something.
She doesn’t want to fight, to be clear. She’s still a pacifist, and she won’t be taking any hints or notes from everyone doubting that fact. The adrenaline would help, though, and she knows it.
At this point, the sun is three-quarters of the way down to the horizon again, and she’s long had enough of waiting around. And then, thank fuck, she finally has company.
Mapicc joined the game
<rekrap2> hiya
You whispered to Mapicc: come to spawn
Mapicc whispered to you: s there a fight?
You whispered to Mapicc: no just bored
Mapicc whispered to you: dude
<Mapicc> hi
Mapicc whispered to you: omw
She grins.
It’s not as though she wasn’t allied with him last season — there’s simply something different this time. It’s more comfortable, she likes to think, because it really has felt like just them against the world these last few weeks. More straightforwardly so, at least — previous seasons never felt so clear.
And he’s been listening to her, which is… nicer than she’d expected. She kind of likes that he’ll follow when she tugs on the leash, that he’ll carry her shield proudly, that he’ll stand one step to the side and two behind.
As she waits for him to arrive at spawn, she leans back against one of the pastel-pink walls of her house and turns her eyes to the sky. It’s a quiet day, as it has been every day that she hasn’t been attacked here. The sun is dipping just out of view from this position; if she still wants to catch its light before sunset, she’ll have to move.
Mapicc soars into view far above her, bright red trims flashing against the sky as he angles his flight path down to her, and her heart leaps.
Pushing off from the wall, she takes a few steps forward to wave him over — even though he’s coming anyway, really, but it’s important to remind them both that she does want him right next to her — and watches as he descends in a practiced arc towards her.
The urge to open her arms to catch him and envelope him in a hug briefly possesses her, and she’s halfway to readying herself to do just that when she remembers who they are. Instead she stays a respectful two feet away when he lands, snorting when he takes damage as he stumbles over his feet.
“Hey,” she greets, ignoring the scowl she gets for her laughter.
“I literally just got here, dude, you’re being an asshole for literally no reason at all.” His obligatory annoyed noises now being complete, Mapicc dusts himself off — even though there’s really nothing on him. “So what’s up?”
“I already told you,” Zam says with a shrug, “I’m just bored. There’s nothing to do today.”
“Right, says the pacifist,” Mapicc replies, eyes glinting. He jams his elytra into his chestplate and stretches, carrying on, “You can’t just actually be calling me to just, like—”
“I mean I kinda do just want to hang out.” The words come out in a bit of a rush. “I like hanging out with you, so.”
Immediately Mapicc’s brows raise, before he breaks eye contact and coughs. Zam’s sure she catches the corner of a flush around his ears as he goes to adjust his elytra.
“Alright, well,” he says. “I guess it’s good that nobody’s here blowing everything up.”
“Yep! Want to go inside?”
Mapicc’s hands still fiddle with the edge of his armour. “Why? It’s nice out.”
“You — uh.” Zam scrambles for a reason, before her eyes land on his chestplate, the elytra still slightly sticking out. “Your elytra looks like it’s not fitting in again properly, and I’m guessing you probably don’t want to take anything off out here.”
“I mean, I don’t really care,” Mapicc says, already slinging the offending chestplate off. He pauses to lift it over his face, then carries on, “If someone jumps us you can just hand it back.”
That’s a trust Zam doesn’t really know what to do with. She takes what she’s being given. “Alright. But it’s still safer inside.”
With a vague hum of agreement, Mapicc gestures to the door, and Zam leads the way in. She glances back for a moment to look at him as the door swings shut behind them; he looks lighter and oddly empty without his chestplate.
He freezes at her look. “What?”
“Nothing. Come, uh — come sit down or something.”
She nods to the bed at the corner of the room, thankfully safe from the watch of windows — which is maybe why Mapicc so readily agrees to sit there. He sprawls out casually like he owns the thing, then looks up at Zam and cocks his head.
“And I just, what, watch you fix my shit?”
“I don’t have a chair for you,” Zam replies. She sits maybe a foot away, and rests the chestplate and elytra on her lap, already surveying it for damage. “Sit tight.”
“Great,” Mapicc says dryly, then leans back on his palms to watch.
It should feel more difficult to work with his eyes on her, yet it’s more comfortable than it is anything else. She can’t find any big issues with the armour, so she opens up and re-closes the elytra, more carefully than Mapicc did. It seems to solve the main problem; the elytra is no longer sticking out, though she does take a few moments to turn it over in her lap and peer at all the joints. Mapicc is still watching her as she does — but they’re a team, so she doesn’t mind. They’re closer than a team, actually, so she’s glad for it.
“You’re being weird,” Mapicc declares suddenly. He doesn’t raise his voice and — oddly enough for him — it doesn’t sound like an accusation either. “Is there someone else staying here?”
“Why would there be?” Zam frowns, looking up. A loose lock of hair falls over her forehead and she tries to blow it away, but to no avail.
Instinctually, Zam reels back, the edges of the chestplate slipping through her fingers as it falls to her lap. As if his point’s been proven, Mapicc lets out a smug little hmph and goes back to sitting normally.
“See?” he says. Zam shrugs, trying to shake the interaction off, and turns back to the chestplate.
A few minutes pass, the long day settling into its most precious hours. Mapicc falls flat onto the bed at some point, turning his gaze to the ceiling instead of her, though he still stretches out a hand to play with the edge of her shirt.
He finally speaks up again. “Did someone say some shit to you?”
“Hm?” Zam pauses again to glance over.
“Or did I do something?”
“I really don’t see where you’re coming from with this.”
“Come on, man.” Mapicc’s eyes snap to hers, and she realises he looks upset more than angry. “You’re avoiding me. Did something happen before I arrived?”
Zam sighs. “Mapicc, we’re in here together, how could I be—?”
“Yeah, we’re hiding in here together. You’re sitting kinda far away. It feels like you’re mad at me, but I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Oh,” Zam says, and then promptly re-evaluates everything. He wants her to — okay. Okay, sure, what the hell. “Alright, get over here.”
She sets aside the chestplate and opens her arms in the same movement, and Mapicc perks up immediately. Like an actual dog, he pounces up and on top of her, in her grasp so suddenly and roughly she thumps onto the bed with a grunt. His tail flicks back and forth.
“Damn, you’re clingy today,” she teases, before second-guessing herself right away and wincing. She’s meant to not be making fun of things she explicitly wants.
“You’re my teammate,” Mapicc counters. There’s a smile clear in his voice even though he’s already buried himself into the crook of her neck. “I can do whatever I want with you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Mapicc pushes himself up so he’s towering over her, hands on either side of her neck. “I can do whatever I want.” He lowers himself slightly until their noses brush, gaze sharp. “Of course I can hug you. I could probably even kill you and get away with it.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Zam says, a little exasperated and a little flustered. “You’d give the heart back, anyway.”
“Exactly. This is what I’m saying, man.”
Just seeing him grin all stupidly has her rolling her eyes, and she pulls him back to her side. This time, he settles the two of them more securely, shuffling her up to the pillows and throwing an arm over her waist. He’s weirdly soft today, she thinks.
Unless, maybe, this is just their new normal.
She’ll be endlessly glad if this is their new normal.
They fall back into silence for a few minutes. Zam wraps her legs lightly around him. Nothing changes — there’s no reason it should, but it still feels like Zam’s world is all-spinning.
“What was it, really?” Mapicc asks eventually, quiet and muffled in her shirt.
“To be honest,” she replies, “I didn’t think you’d want anyone to know.”
“Know what?”
“That you care. That — I dunno.” She wraps her tail around his own, combs her left hand through the ends of his hair. “This, I guess.”
Mapicc hums.
They lie in comfortable silence for long enough that Zam starts to wonder if one of them might have fallen asleep. There’s no movement outside, nothing pinging their communicators. It’s peaceful in a way that doesn’t make her wish for violence — it’s everything Zam wants, really.
And she has Mapicc, so that really makes it everything.
“I think they already know,” he says, breaking through the quiet. She jumps slightly, and he seems to wrap around her a little tighter. “Even if they don’t, I don’t care if they do.”
“It’s not — I dunno, a sign of weakness or something?”
Mapicc snorts, peeking up at Zam. One of his ears flicks as he pulls her closer.
“We’re stronger as a unit,” he tells her, like that’s all there is to it.
And as he presses himself back into her chest and his breathing slows into sleep, it occurs to Zam that he might be right.
sources: green and white cardboard boxes - jack krzysik | justified true belief model of knowledge - dominic mayers | tumblr post by @/aropride | to be alright - aurora | risk, risk, risk! - jhariah | wrecking ball - mother mother | original post | personal spreadsheet (gbc)
sources: a not admitting of the wound - emily dickinson / studies in scale - jen bervin / water-lilies - claude monet / L’AMOUR DE MA VIE - billie eilish / original post
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
ellievsbear