@withgrief: a highly private canon multi-muse, written by xm (21+, they/he). please do not follow first unless we know each other.
roster.

pixel skylines
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
i don't do bad sauce passes

★

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Three Goblin Art

Kaledo Art
DEAR READER
Cosimo Galluzzi

roma★
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
tumblr dot com

Janaina Medeiros
🪼
Stranger Things
Misplaced Lens Cap
Claire Keane

Origami Around
taylor price
art blog(derogatory)

seen from France

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Türkiye

seen from United States
seen from Brazil

seen from Singapore

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Afghanistan
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom

seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
@withgrief
@withgrief: a highly private canon multi-muse, written by xm (21+, they/he). please do not follow first unless we know each other.
roster.
The sky is clear and vibrant, a dazzling blue that seems to stretch on forever. Sunlight streams down into the city, bouncing off the glass skyscrapers and scattering onto the streets below. Outside a quaint bakery, a familiar face steps outside through the door, his exhaustion writ plain on his features. Bitterly—and briefly, Geto wonders how @aicidos could even manage to stomach a life like this, among non-sorcerers who earn their keep by living as leeches.
"Nanami-kun!"
The plain, frivolous smile remains on Geto's face as he waves for Nanami's attention, his arm outstretched in the air—overtly friendly, and in its own way, derisive.
"You look exhausted."
"Thanaaaaa —" From the doorway, the unmistakable wail of a man made aware of how pathetic he is, if only for a brief moment. Date runs into the living room, sniffling clearly-fake tears, shrieking mostly for the theatric effect, and throws himself onto the couch where @vtriol sits. "Aiba is threatening to kill me again! Save me!" He, of course, omits why.
For a while, Mei Changsu doesn’t look away from the brazier, passive as he listens to Lie Zhanying’s hurried apology. His smile twitches imperceptibly as Lie Zhanying’s words change subjects, and the curl of his lips grows closer to that of a grimace for but a brief moment. He was unrelated to you. Mei Changsu exhales softly, another quiet laugh—or perhaps, a stifled cough, instead. His silence lingers as he struggles to steady his breath, extending a hand as if to insist that he’s fine.
As he recovers, Mei Changsu lifts his face toward Lie Zhanying, smoothing his smile until it is pleasant and controlled. Despite this, his gaze is neither cold nor warm, but distant, far-away, ever-drifting—
“General Lie, I appreciate your concern and your gratitude.” He adjusts his mask: the face of a cruel-hearted strategist; it had slipped loose by mistake. It is true: to the infamous Mei Changsu of Jinling, Wei Zheng is a nobody.
“…We serve the same Lord. It is only natural that I utilized all that I could to accomplish what His Highness required of me.” There is no need for indebtedness.
Mei Changsu turns his hand over, above the brazier, curling his fingers inward to stretch them outward again. His skin has dried from the heat, and for now, the inescapable cold that plagues him feels kept at bay. But it is his cruelty that he wants to burn out of his body, a cruelty that has seeped into his bones—burrowed too deep—past the painted veneer of his mask.
“You did not need to apologize for an observation. But I will ask you: does anyone show their whole self to the world?” Can anyone? Can you?
@yeshens / continued from here.
things you said I wouldn’t understand + foxford 🙄
Snow outside, deep and unremitting. Idly, Mulder watches the window. The pane is ice - crusted and mosaic with cold; the view is bleary like an event on the verge of being remembered.
Mulder closes his eyes, reminding himself that it wouldn't matter if the ice melted away. There is nothing to see. He and Ford had boarded the windows months and months ago.
Slumping deeper into the couch, he lets his chin melt waxishly onto his chest. When he opens his eyes again, somnolent and slow, it's Ford that he looks for. He finds him scowling at something out of sight, tinkering with it by the fireplace's light.
The fire, red - gold, cracks and flickers as if to wink, dance, and cackle at Ford, who glowers down at whatever he was failing to achieve. He is wearing Mulder's jacket. Not for the first time, Mulder thinks that he looks sort of stupid in it. Leather looks a bit absurd on Ford, like a cartoon character's idea of disguise. He's wearing it over a cross - knit sweater.
In a great demonstration of sage maturity and restraint, Mulder keeps his remarks to himself. Filching a warm little smile, he closes his eyes again.
[ . . . ]
The better part of two hours wane away with the moon. Mulder has shifted; he now sits by the mantle with Ford. Together, in the small grail of twilight, they've talked about everything and nothing.
A dispute over the taxonomic classification of the Loveland Frog turns into a philosophic discourse about whether classification of anything was even truly possible. There is no one to scoff or interject. They are alone, together. Mulder never enjoys Ford's company more than when he's debating a point, even if an incorrect one.
After a while, the conversation turns. Because he's comfortable, because he has faith in Ford, he gives his soul in confidence:
“ I'd give anything to tell her I'm sorry. . . . My sister, I mean. ” Humiliated by his honesty, he averts his eyes. “ For the night of her abduction, but for a thousand other things too. For everything. ” He watches the fire. “ It's like — - I can remember everything I ever said to her. Every childish argument we ever had. If I could . . . If I had the chance to reach her, even just for a moment, I'd apologize. For everything. . . . And if I could do it all again, I'd listen to her. I'd take her side, even when she was wrong. ”
He leans his head back and looks for patterns in the ceiling's texture. “ I wish it had been me instead. I don't — - I don't really mean that in a morbid way, I just . . . wish we could trade places. She'd have been better at this than me. Life. She'd have friends. A day - job. Food in the fridge. ”
“ . . . I'd choose her before myself every time. ”
— things you said, @unisolate
@vtriol, starter. | ❛ pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜
between the two of them, the chasm of history —
solas’ hand stills momentarily, holding the brush a hair’s breadth away from the wall. briefly distracted from the half-finished fresco in front of him, his gaze flicks downward — acknowledging the inquisitor’s words without turning to face them. meticulously, he adjusts his fingers, applying thin pressure to the gray plaster, lengthening a block of color.
solas remains completely silent as he does this. the only sounds in the rotunda — his slow breathing, the stir of his brush’s bristles, the inquisitor’s quietly-echoing words.
the arc of his moving arm comes to an end. with abrupt precision, he pulls his hand back from the wall. turning to the side, he drags his brush through the same color, gathering another coat of paint.
❛ how aphoristic. ❜
solas smiles a little — a private smile. it bleeds into his voice as an amused lilt.
❛ are you confessing that you’ve begun to genuinely believe you are andraste’s chosen? ❜
the stage underneath their feet is wide as the universe. upon it, they rehearse lines that don’t belong to them, enact stage directions that don’t have meaning to them—even now, alone, solas is only half-honest with the inquisitor, with thanatos:
❛ or, are you suggesting that you no longer suspect my allegiance to be a charade? ❜
a soft, monosyllabic laugh—like wind passing through leaves. if only the inquisitor had such good will.
@yeshens, starter. | ❛ i have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜
the soft flames of the brazier crackle quietly, like small twigs snapping underfoot in the dense silence of a battlefield’s aftermath.
❛ oh? ❜
with an amused exhale, mei changsu looks up from the mesmerizing glow of the flames, briefly pulling his hands away from the brazier’s warmth. as he meets lie zhangying’s gaze, his eyes crinkle, alight with pleasantness. every move he makes is languid, yet deliberate.
he lets a steep silence follow zhanying’s words, lets it swell with time & interpretive meaning. still, within it, there is no tension, no sense of evasion. then, as if bashful, he dips his head downward & breaks eye contact, as if withdrawing into himself in contemplation. as he watches the flames again, mei changsu quirks his lips, finding it all a little funny —
❛ & what do you make of this feeling, general lie? ❜
+
he knows, beyond here, there is only greenery. farther: the cruel slopes of the mountains, the gentle dip of the valleys. he knows. before his shades, there is density, thermal and heightened: rain, like many things, inspires despair. where there’s despair, there’s negativity. it’s an old story, and he knows it best by the colors and frequencies his eyes perceive.
he likes to pretend he doesn’t notice nanami’s hesitation, or his staring. except, the scarcity of cursed energy from his part makes him turn his way, inevitably.
for a moment, the droplets can’t reach him. for a moment, he thinks nanami means his chastisement. he’s surprised, then, to see nanami has the heart to render the umbrella useless. the mouth opens wider than the eyes, which eventually all turn to crescents: a laugh, but only one. it disturbs the air like he wants it to, and he blinks the waterdrops off his eyes, wipes his mouth. “ gone soft on me ? ” he asks, as though nanami hadn’t known him for three years already⸺ no. that wasn’t right, either.
he had noticed nanami kento’s compassion long before.
he wondered, too, where he made space for it in a place like this. the questions felt much too vital, revealing less about nanami and more about gojo. what he opts for seems, ultimately, unrelated: “ i’m graduating this year. ” there are things nanami knows that gojo couldn’t hope to understand, much less teach. above his capability for detachment, gojo doubted nanami’s commitment. the commitment to stay, or the drive to leave. “ i think i’ll do some travelling before i return and work here. ” when the rain relents, he plucks the round shades from his nose bridge, pockets them.
“ ne, nanami, ” glancing at him with a sight unobstructed, he asks, “ will i see you around ? ”
it’s strange. how easily & quickly the weather changes its whims, the once-dark clouds vanishing into an idyllic, motionless sky—
the fresh air almost stings. the gentle wind lingers: a sweet coolness. still, if you looked, you could find traces of its past anguish: the puddles coalescing in the dips of the streets, the glistening grass & the scattered tree leaves, the soaked clothes of those fateful enough to be caught outside without an umbrella —
nanami meets gojo’s gaze carefully. his voice isn’t anything in particular, plainspoken & without grief, like a fact being stated:
❛ no, probably not. ❜
he exhales slowly, as if relieved that he has said it. the sunlight feels nice on his face, & for a moment, the distance between them seems as vast as the universe, their lives as disparate as two ends of a line — cascading toward opposite infinities:
gojo plans to come back, & that doesn’t surprise him at all. but nanami can’t conceive of a world where he would ever come back once he’s left —
❛ after i graduate next year, i plan to leave jujutsu behind. i’ll probably find a decent paying job & work a few years to save up. then, i’ll just move somewhere cheaper to live than here & retire. ❜
he surprises himself with how much he says, as if this fleeting moment of peace is the only moment in his life when he can confront everything inside him —
for a long time, after he realized he wanted nothing to do with the world of jujutsu anymore, nanami wondered if it was cowardice — if haibara would think he was making the wrong choice.
it was agonizing; it still is.
❛ it sounds selfish, & i know it is, but — ... ❜
i’m not like you, gojo, & i can’t stay in a world that demands i accept that people will die for me. he avoids saying that; it wouldn’t make any difference.
the mild wind blows past them, chilling. nanami shivers.
❛ ... let’s go inside. before we actually get sick. ❜
@jahrtausend, starter. | ❛ we all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜
❛ eh? hime-chan, i didn’t know you were a philosopher. though, i guess it’s not that surprising. ❜
gojo smiles, teasing. still, there’s an intent look to his gaze. he wonders if anyone else has paid enough attention to notice — if anyone else even has the eyes to see tsuruhime yachiyo for what she is.
it’s like a game for him: trying to get her to admit it. but she has been stubbornly good at evading his efforts, a skill that only makes him more & more certain of his intuition.
❛ wittgenstein said something to that effect, right? — “we are asleep. ... our life is like a dream. but in our better hours we wake up just enough to realize that we are dreaming.” from one of his letters to engelmann. ❜
he leans closer to tsuruhime with a suddenly serious expression, letting his round shades slip down his nose-bridge just a little. for a boundless moment, his eyes stare into hers, & then he laughs, smiling again. in the details, a crueler smile — self-assured, holding the world like a plaything in his hands.
❛ have you woken up? ❜
he grins — a sharp curve showing teeth. the clear, blue sky above them darkens, & an artificial tension expands from the center of his presence:
❛ — or have you just been pretending to be asleep this whole time? ❜
then, as if carelessly, gojo half-prances away, twirling on his feet for the sake of it, shifting from one world to another. he pushes his shades back up. the field of his antagonism dissipates as quickly as it came.
❛ ha! say, hime-chan, if we’re all in a dream, what kind of dream am i in? ❜
@insolot, starter. | ❛ there are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜
❛ haha-ha — a snap inside...? ❜
satoru laughs: it isn’t a kind laugh. his face hurts. he tosses his head back, staring up at the ceiling through his bandages — not wanting to look at vincent, not wanting to see what expression vincent is making.
his laugh goes on longer than he intended. as it builds, each laugh sounds more & more like a sob. by the end, he’s half-breathless, each wheezing noise he makes — a full-body mutilation, shuddering through his heaving chest.
satoru drags a hand down the left side of his face, holding his burning cheek. his fingers brush the bandaged corner of his eye & come away damp.
❛ hey ... vincent, did you know? i still haven’t felt it. i didn’t feel it when he left, & i don’t feel it, even now — even after i — ❜
even after i killed him.
his voice pretends to be blank — emotionless. to anyone else, it would’ve been a seamless performance, but the only occupied seat in the audience is the only person left who can see through it.
his voice is trembling.
❛ ... i used to think that i wouldn’t do it, that i couldn’t — ❜
he laughs again, as if his body doesn’t know what to do with his grief, with the ache, with the tears struggling & refusing to spill out —
❛ haha ... vincent — ❜
he smiles weakly at the ceiling, looking at nothing:
❛ do you hate me? ❜
@aicidos, starter. | ❛ it’s been so long since i felt the rain. or wind—the caress of wind. ❜
rain bears down on the city, the mangled clouds obscuring the day-lit sky. the water murmurs along the gutters outlining the streets, forming swathes of puddles, their surfaces rippling —
nanami watches gojo stand in the downpour, just a little more than an arm’s length away. the cacophonous erraticism of raindrops hitting his own umbrella drowns out only part of the world. his hand remains partially extended, the umbrella not quite sheltering either of them —
the remnant of a half-aborted motion, upon hearing gojo’s words.
❛ . . . ❜
nanami adjusts his grip on the handle of his umbrella. the back of his clothes is inevitably drenched, clinging to his skin. he steps toward gojo, ignoring the way his shoes splash in the growing puddles & are consequently soaked through.
there are many things about gojo that nanami does not understand. the worlds that they live in may overlap, but there are both gifts & burdens that nanami is fortunate enough to never have —
❛ you’ll get sick. ❜
nanami finally says, standing beside gojo. he adjusts his wrist to angle the umbrella’s coverage toward the other man, a tentative movement. then, he tilts his wrist again, bends his arm, & closes the umbrella carefully.
the rain engulfs them both. despite everything — the violence of nature, the cold & trembling wind — nanami feels it, too:
a rare sense of peace, always fleeting.
+
it wasn’t intentional. really, it wasn’t—yet, an inkling of frustration seeped into his near-indestructible facet of self control. it’s a rare occurrence, rarer than the most precious gemstones in the world; his mask, cracking. the bandages over his fissured heart falling loose.
it’s more frequent around gojo, he notices. his frustration attached by a yoke to love; not annoyance, not hatred, not chagrin, but hopelessness, and dejection, and at the brink of it all a silhouette in the shape of fear. he knows loss like no other, tasted its sweet poison on his tongue: they both have. it was unearned and scalding. its shadow still haunts them in the halls of empty buildings, his shadow, a love now reduced to a burning memory.
they share an illness. together, they make a wound in the earth. vincent feels as if he was the only half capable of seeing the roads of blood that trail in their wake; but in the end, he tries to understand. with all his heart, all his soul, everything in between he tries to understand—a part of him does, he knows, the other has long since failed. perhaps it is the latter that still believes satoru can be saved.
vincent’s gaze hovers over satoru’s face for a second too long—then falls, suddenly skittish and embarrassed as he wraps his arms around his torso. “ ah, i..” he begins something, weighs his words. he doesn’t want it to turn ugly. not today. the sky overhead grows heavy, distant clouds hang pregnant with rain—as if they, too, were mourning— “ i’m sorry, gojo—i have no right—i don’t know what i’m talking about. it’s—” he stops himself there, gulps. “ …let’s just forget it. ”
it’s no matter. his words may have been unintentional but he knows, hopes they were needed. one at a time, perhaps, until he can break through the wall. vincent knows not what true love looks like—had not tasted it, before—and so he hopes this, this is enough, hopes that the hoping is enough.
“ are you also cold…? ” he looks back up, offering a gentle smile. not a single crack shows itself across his mask, now. “ we should start heading back, i think. the sky is close to tears. ”
wound-makers: the world of blood, opening. in the face of it, satoru does nothing. he listens to the coalescing rainclouds in vincent’s voice, one after the other — a sequence of self-undoing — then their sudden dispersal: the sunlight of forgetfulness.
satoru says nothing, listening to vincent’s quiet breathing, to how the wound is dressed with gauze. a mask. & at the heart of it, gojo satoru is a coward. afraid of the antiseptic & the pain that comes with it — paralyzed, satoru will forever watch the wound ooze blood.
wound-dresser, your hands are red, and your love is the same unbearable color: synonymous with vulnerable, symbolic of pain. it’s easier to pretend forgetfulness; it’s easier to look away —
satoru looks up at the sky, the churning clouds ripe with promise: the world of sorrow, opening. the imminent tears are obvious even to him, a glass-land of shards too brittle to touch.
❛ i’m not cold. here, take my jacket. ❜
he turns back toward vincent with a proffered hand, inelegantly contorting his body to shed the jacket. he drapes it around vincent’s shoulders. wound-dresser, accept me — deep inside, all i could find was this:
love? i have no courage for it.
satoru glances back up at the quickening sky. he laughs a little, inane, like usual — to hide away the idyllic, un-belonging softness of his beating heart.
❛ do you think we’ll make it before the rain comes down? damn, i should’ve brought an umbrella. ❜
@unmonarch, continuation.
❛ you’re afraid. ❜
muzan states plainly, the same way a child plucks a blooming flower from a neighbor’s garden only to toss it away in the wind — without lasting interest, or malice. only a kind of glee in seeing what can be seen.
despite the glacial smile in his voice, he does not gloat. he does not linger.
but it is charming, he thinks, to watch odet wear her masks. there must be so many of them that he has yet to see —
a meager darkness travels through his heart, from the world & into the world. he wonders what she might think of it. he unearths from his pocket a small velvet box, waving it a little in the air.
❛ apparently, one of your husband’s subordinates has been rather bold with their indiscretions. ❜
he makes an offering of the delicate box. it sits innocently at the center of his palm.
❛ open it, will you? ❜
@willwant, starter. | ❛ the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again & again & expecting different results. ❜
half-dying, daniil is feverish. a burning flame thrums in his skull, aching. the world is a blur of colors & sounds, & he has almost no sense of self left. he feels a groove split down his parched throat, a mark for a surgical incision —
there’s a voice from somewhere: it patronizes. his skin crawls — from the voice, from the sand pest, from both —
❛ shut up. ❜
he croaks. the sound of it is barely audible: a whisper, a wheeze. he speaks the voice of a dead man, even if the lines he speaks are mismatched, for now.
then, without preamble, he can see her, too — clear as morphine, poignant as antiseptic. he has never seen this woman before, but her golden hair reminds him of eva yan — foolish eva, who is now dead.
daniil thinks, inexplicably, of an engorged syringe — then, a beetle, a fly, an empty cocoon with its silk frayed —
the question: how many times has he done the same thing again & again, expecting a different result? the answer: unspeakably many.
the room of his death has faded, & appearing in its place is somewhere else. backstage, dim lighting. he has a new script in his hands, the papers already wrinkled from the tightness of his grip.
he stumbles backward. the theater of cruelty regards him coldly.
❛ who are you? ❜
@yeshens, starter | ❛ thinking hasn’t gotten me anywhere so far. ❜
delicately, banruo takes prince yu’s empty tea cup & refills it. diffusing her silence, the tea-water gurgles as it tumbles out of the kettle's mouth & splashes into itself. it’s soothing, she thinks. then, gently, she sets the full cup of tea back down, in front of prince yu.
❛ what has my lord been thinking about? ❜
the subtle, red curve of her lips is a smile. above all, she has his trust like no other: a painstakingly cultivated thing. to hear it in his voice, to see it in his face — it is delightful, refreshing the same way a meal is exquisite, after an exhausting day.
banruo folds her hands in her lap.
❛ perhaps i can offer a different perspective. ❜
@insolot, starter. | ❛ you cannot keep bumping your head against reality & saying it is not there. ❜
vincent’s voice is clear like spring water. for a brief & eternal moment, gojo satoru’s expression is frozen between panic & inanity. it is an idiotic expression — a half-fulfilled smile at the moment of its crumbling.
❛ eh? ❜
the world — his world threatens to cave in on itself. cracks form, like raindrops running across car windows. he knows, intuitively, what vincent means.
satoru turns away — from himself, from vincent’s pitying gaze. if he cannot see it, it does not exist. he crouches down on the sidewalk, picking up a broken stick nested inside a crack in the concrete. he twirls it between his fingertips, standing back up, & holds the stick toward the pleasant sun.
he watches an ant crawl from one end to the other, then start over, repeating itself again, again—
playfully, satoru glances back at vincent. he acts dumb, pretending it isn’t a deflection he has used countless times before & will use countless times again:
❛ vincent, what are you talking about? ❜
@unmonarch, starter. | ❛ the dream drains away like water. the memory, really. i try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜
❛ well, that is how dreams are supposed to work — the more you move after waking up, the faster the dream fades from memory. a necessary mechanism, really — otherwise, our brains would be stuffed full of false memories. we'd find ourselves unable to tell the difference between dreams & reality. ❜
daniil sets down his pen like a bookmark, gently closing the book he was annotating. even as he speaks, he realizes that odet’s words can’t be as simple as they sound. he regrets his dismissive explanation. surely, a scientist like herself would’ve already known.
he contorts himself briefly in the armchair, his back curving against the soft cushion underneath him. uncrossing & crossing his legs, he manages to disentangle himself from himself, & straightens.
❛ have you tried keeping a dream journal? if you keep a pen & some paper on your nightstand, you could try to jot it down first thing in the morning. ❜