#cap lock poetry | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shiyorin · 8 months

Note

What do you think it would be like if primarchs used social media?

Lion El'Jonson:

Private account, doesn't accept follower requests

Rarely posts, usually just sunset or forest photos

Uses emojis sarcastically in replies

Has 20 followers but thinks it's way too many

Fulgrim:

Aesthetic pictures pose artfully depict exotic hobbies and runway couture

Filters all photos to perfection

Constantly debates high art vs pop culture

Thirst traps cause monthly massacres

"Like for a follow back 🔥"

Perturabo:

Photos are exclusively poorly-lit fortress blueprints

Bio is 25000 character treatise on siege tactics

Follows exactly 12 history scholars

Hates everyone and everything on the site

Actually ran some incisive political commentary bots before being banned

Jaghatai Khan:

Only posts the sickest motocross and extreme sports clips

Videos have insane views but no captions

Fans think he's a cryptid until rare livestreams

Hijacks Fulgrim's comments to hype rad stunts

Leman Russ:

Changed his name to 'Wolf Daddy 🐺'

Shirtless hunting/drinking photos get 10K likes

Roasts everyone in comments but they love it

Followers think he's a viking hipster meme page

Follows biker gangs, sled dog accts, scholars of old Terra

Rogal Dorn:

Only posts are architectural blueprints and records of fortifications

Gets into epic debates about structural principles in comments

No one knows if he actually loads new content or just archives old

Somehow gains tons of followers thirsting for DILF

Konrad Curze:

Pure darkness and screams in hazy JPEGs

3 followers and they're all bots

Posts disturbing ‘prophecies’ and murder puzzles

Under investigation for doxxing

Sanguinius:

Angelic selfies bring all the followers to his page

Flowing locks and golden abs get 20K likes instantly

Quotes poetry in every reply but no one understands

Only follows animal shelter and children's hospital accounts

Ferrus Manus:

Only follows engineering/robotics pages

Posts heavily filtered machine shop mini-documentaries

Photos of custom machines that make engineers weep

Comments are unintelligible techno-babble

Somehow gains huge gym bro following thirsting for muscle

Angron:

Gets banned monthly for graphic content and abuse

Posts angry rants about society in broken caps

Got suspended after sending death threats to Guilliman

Only follower is Khârn who comments 'THIS' on everything

Roboute Guilliman:

Shares updates on the latest Codexes

Only follows serious history/philosophy lecture pages

Posts long analyses of governance strategies

Constantly lectures others in comments

Has blocked half his followers for trolling

Mortarion:

Aesthetic is grimy gas mask selfies in back alleys

ONLY reposts plague doctor memes from 2003

Bio is endless copypasta about essential oils

Gains cult following of goths, metal heads and preppers

Magnus:

Endless livestreams talking about theoretical magic at 3AM with 2 viewers.

Tries making TikToks explaining sorcery but the videos are an hour long each.

Overexplains memes and emojis in long-winded threads

Memes and facts threads blow up as the most esoteric

Horus Lupercal:

Selfies showing off abs get him 50K followers in a week

Posts stunning photos from across the Imperium with #blessed captions

Fan club is half the mankind

DMs from people asking for selfies blow up his notifications

Lorgar Aurelian:

Aesthetic is dark robes and candlelit monasteries

Constantly reposting zealot sermons out of context

Accidentally starts wars of faith whenever he livestreams

Got suspended for uploading hardcore Slaneeshi hymns

Still has 10 alt accounts all named Brother [REDACTED]

Vulkan:

Only follows puppy accounts and craft bloggers

Posts Happy Holiday baking tutorials and dad jokes

Likes and comments positivity on everyone's posts

Followers think he's the nicest DILF ever online

Secretly the biggest wholesome meme page

Corvus Corax:

Only darkness, shadow puppets and cryptic poems

No one knows if he's real or a myth on the deep web

Internet detectives can’t trace his true identity

Only sends encrypted coordinates in mysterious DMs

No one has any idea what he's trying to say

1 follower is Alpharius who only replies 'No, I'm Alpharius'

Alpharius/Omegon:

Constantly pretending to be other online

No one knows their true forms or agenda

Takeovers of government sites spark conspiracies

Leaves clues implicating everyone else’s schemes

#warhammer 40k #wh40crack #primarch #lol #warhammer 40000

225 notes · View notes

kalcium-yippee · 3 months

Text

BSD texting Head-Canons !!

Atsushi: Unironically uses 😁😊🤣😥. Loves abbreviations like 'ur', 'thx', 'ily', and 'omg', but always fully types out 'talk to you later'. Once said 'rawr XD' unironically to Aku and Aku put him on blast in the PM gc and Chuuya sent it to Dazai and Dazai put him on blast in the ADA gc.

Akutagawa: Doesn't realize the skull emoji is a laughing emoji and once sent 'I think I killed Atsu☠️' to Dazai. Always tries to type grammatically correct sentences but messes up you're and your and they're, their, and there.

Dazai: The most ungodly spelling. Ever. Sent 'I furcng hstw u slyt butvh' to Chuuya and he put him on blast in the PM gc. Overused the skull emoji severely. A victim to putting 'lol' after every text. Sent 'I lost Ranpo on the train lol' to Kunikida and got the good 'ol Kunikida beating.

Chuuya: ALL CAPS FOR NO REASON LIKE CALM DOWN. Can't spell the same set of words including 'Realize' 'resource' 'homosexual' and 'British'. Speaking of British- he occasionally gets those 'change keyboard to British English spelling setting' buttons after spelling things like color and favorite in British English. Messages in small texts. Like 1/3 a sentence per individual text bubble.

Kunikida: Never uses the exclamation mark. Over-uses commas. THIS IS NOT A POETRY CONTEST WHY ARE YOU TYPING WITH 7 ADJECTIVES AND 4 ADVERBS.

Ranpo: Grammar? Couldn't be me. He always spells things correctly though and never uses abbreviations except for 'ily'. Called Poe 'Pookie' in DMs and Poe sent it to the Guild GC bragging that someone liked him, but they all made fun of him for getting called pookie by someone.

Poe: Everything is grammatically correct, correctly spelled, and properly punctuated and capitalized. When he started texting, he would put 'sincerely, Edgar' at the end of every text until Ranpo sent screenshots to the Guild gc (he hacked his way in). Karl has a contact on his phone. The only contacts on his phone are Ranpo, Karl, and Francis. The rest of the Guild gc is just the numbers he memorized who they belonged to.

Nikolai: Fyodor's name on his contacts is 'demon-pooks😡'. He texts like one word per text bubble. Live love laugh caps lock. Sends 'tee hee' 'yippee' and 'hooray' unironically. Emoji god.

Fyodor: Types in FAT paragraphs. Like Abe Lincoln level speeches each text. Ends each one with "-Dostoyevsky'. Started a DOA gc thinking it would cause drama he could watch but it turned into everyone trauma dumping and connecting on a deep level. They all hated each other still but at least they could therapize each other.

Sigma: Messages once in a blue moon. Never a capital letters and he makes sure to turn the automatic caps at the beginning of sentences off. He puts emojis by everyone's names in contacts. For example: "Fyodor😖" "Nikolai🤡".

Lmk if you want more x

68 notes · View notes

prettyboybillyhargrove · 1 year

Text

Dacre Montgomery is ready to work

There’s a famous audition tape of Dacre Montgomery’s online. Maybe you’ve seen it; some 18 million people have. And it’s captivating to watch, not just because of Montgomery’s intensity, but because of the clear control that he has at such a young age. That steady ferocity cuts right through the screen, even though he’s just ‘running lines’ against a plain blue backdrop. It also cut through the sea of other actors gunning for a role in Stranger Things and made him Billy Hargrove, the resident bad guy on the sci-fi drama that broke Netflix viewership records on its way to becoming one of the biggest shows in TV history.

It’s been almost six years since that audition made Montgomery a global star, but the man sitting in front of me has lost none of that vigour. Reclining in a side room at a studio in Sydney before the photoshoot accompanying this article, the now 28-year-old looks casual. He’s wearing a plain black T-shirt, white shorts and one of those non-descript navy caps movie stars wear when they want to be incognito. The outfit is a simple one, designed to avoid attention—a far cry from the red carpet fashion that Montgomery favours. But as he starts talking about the thing he loves most—movies and the process of making them—that same intensity takes over; a passion that has him on the edge of his seat.

“When I was in my early teens, all I did was stay in my room and watch movies. And I fell in love with everything,” he says. The reverence, the obsession, is what drives Montgomery, and not just when it comes to acting. On set for today’s shoot, Montgomery—who was recently named the face of Politix’s new autumn/winter “The Gentle Man” campaign—is completely locked in. Unlike some who see an ambassador role as an opportunity to make a quick buck, Montgomery has signed on because he’s excited about the brand’s refreshed look and new chapter. “I don't just rock up on time. I rock up 10 minutes early,” he told me, “I don't just give one idea, I give 10 ideas because I don't engage with anything unless I'm authentically interested in it.”

He’s not kidding. After each burst of shots, he pores over them like he’s the creative director, rather than the subject—not out of vanity, but to see if the images are challenging enough. At one point, he grabs a mirror from the corner of the room. “Let’s just try it”, he tells the crew, and proceeds to work it straight into the shoot.

This dedication to perfection hasn’t always been easy for him or the people around him. After Stranger Things, the search for the next perfect role was almost paralysing. “Before I felt like, ‘look, I'm not going to take anything unless I'm 150 per cent invested’,” he says, and eventually, that attitude led to Montgomery parting ways with his team—his management, agents, everyone.

During that period, which he describes as a creative hole, Montgomery tried anything and everything. He wrote poetry (which was released as a book by publisher Andrews McMeel under the title DKMH and turned into a spoken word podcast of the same name), made short films, and dedicated himself to learning the arts of cinematography and screenwriting—at some points, he was watching three films a day, “morning, noon, night”, just like he did as a teenager.

Part of the fear that drove him into that lull was the looming presence of being typecast. When there are roles being offered to you left, right and centre, which one is the ‘perfect’ next step to take? This year, he has started climbing out of that hole, engaging more filmmakers as well as taking on roles like the one with Politix. But, there is still a sense of wariness.

For example, as news broke that Hugh Jackman wouldn’t be returning as Wolverine—a decision that he has since reversed—rumours swirled that Montgomery might step into the role. But for him, it’s about the filmmakers rather than any big-name character. “It’s just finding filmmakers that I'm really interested in working with and going from there as opposed to it being like, ‘oh, I've always wantedto play Wolverine or Bane’,” he says, “but also, I’m feeling a little bit of Marvel fatigue. I’m not really interested in it in the same way that I was.”

Montgomery isn’t alone in his ‘Marvel fatigue’, plenty of moviegoers aren’t as interested as they once were—just look at the recent box office figures—but it’s another example of how he’s a film fan first, and an actor second. He can thank his parents for that.

“My dad started taking me to films that I shouldn't have been seeing when I was a kid,” Montgomery says, “but he worked in the film industry and he would explain to me the process of everything.” From the very beginning, he was exposed to not just the definitive films of the time, but also how they were made. His mother and father would take him to the sets they were working on and show him the ins and outs. “It was like, ‘here’s the unadulterated version of the world and the industry and here are all the ins and the outs of how movies are made.”

For some actors, fame, as much as the films that inspire them, is a driver. And it’s only if they reach a level of success that they really see how the sausage is made—which is not always pretty, especially if they aren’t backed by a huge studio. Thanks to his parents, Montgomery is a rare actor who has always known about the gritty reality of making low-budget films—the long days, the repetition, the egos—but that’s what he fell in love with. “I'm not here for money or notoriety or anything like that,” he says, “I really care about the work and that's what I'm there for.”

But it’s that moment when he actually steps in front of the camera and it’s time to perform that has always had Montgomery hooked. “When you’re on set, I don't try to take up too much space and I wait until it’s my time to go in front of the camera and do my little thing. But when I do that… It's ecstasy. There’s nothing but that moment, do you know what I mean?”

Though it’s been a few years since Montgomery has had those moments and shared them with the world—Elvis, in which he was a scene-stealer, was largely filmed in 2020—he’s getting back to work. “I am climbing out of that [hole] and what that looks like is me engaging with more filmmakers,” he says. Of the three filmmakers he has agreed to work with—at least publicly—one thing is clear: they aren’t interested in making simple, sugar-coated work.

The first film we are likely to see in Montgomery’s next chapter is Spider & Jesse, directed by Dan Kay, which dives into the far-reaching consequences of addiction. “It’s about two girls that find their mother dead in the first scene and they bury her in the backyard so they don't have to go into the foster care system,” Montgomery explains, “I play the mum’s ex-boyfriend that was dealing her the drugs.”

It’s an unglamorous role with limited screen time, but that didn’t bother Montgomery because it was clear the film, and the people behind it, had something vital to say. “I realised they were on a mission to give insight into the people that are affected by addiction—family, friends, and people they're associated with rather than shedding light on the addicts themselves.”

Filming on Spider & Jesse, which took place in Florida, has already wrapped, but Montgomery’s other two projects are yet to begin production. Both are ambitious, and both defy simple explanation. The first, titled Went Up That Hill, comes from Samuel Van Grinsven, a New Zealand-born, Sydney-based director who became a festival circuit favourite with his feature debut Sequin in a Blue Room.

In essence, Montgomery says the film is an assessment of abuse and how trauma lingers from our childhoods. Beyond the message of the film though, it’s the challenging acting work—he’s heading to Berlin to work with co-star Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Old), Van Grinsven and a movement coach to prepare for the complex role—that has attracted him.

The same goes for Faces of Death, the other project Montgomery has been linked to, which is a remake of a 1978 American mondo horror film notoriously banned for years in countries across the world, including Australia, due to its graphic depictions of death. “I have a really interesting co-star [Euphoria’s Barbie Ferreira] who I love, and the character is a serial killer, and for me, it was like, ‘what’s the thing that’s going to scare me so much about creating this character?’” he says of the film, “So I rang the director and I was like, ‘I want to go visit a serial killer in a state penitentiary in the state of California when I'm back because it scares the shit out of me’.”

After these films wrap up, Montgomery plans to start his journey into directing. “I want to direct my first movie and right now I'm in the process of working on the script with my writer and then I'm going to go on the process of trying to put the movie together,” he says, and he won’t give much more than that away, but if there’s anything we’d wager on, it’s that the movie will be challenging—both to make and in concept.

If these types of films don’t sound like they’ll be box office smashes or Oscar bait, Montgomery isn’t worried. “To me, the success of the movie is in the making of the movie,” he says. “And the outcome of the movie looks like a cathartic experience making [it], as opposed to some other thing like, ‘Oh, I want to get into this film festival and I want the film to have a 4.0 on Letterboxd.’ That's not what I'm doing it for.”

The same attitude goes for his partnership with Politix. Beyond filmmaking, Montgomery is passionate about the way that fashion allows him to control his direct experience. “I suffer from incredibly bad OCD,” he shares, “And I have always found comfort in controlling my surroundings, and that is fabric. My mood is very affected by what I have on my skin and what I have in my space and what I can smell and all that sort of stuff bleeds into my personal life aside from fashion.”

As with his project selection in cinema, the aesthetics are one thing, but for Montgomery to come on board he has to believe in the direction of the project.

“I'm interested in [Politix’s] reworking of the company and what they’re doing to reshape it for 2023 and onwards. But what I was genuinely interested in is that sensitivity of masculinity because that really is me. I am a very sensitive person. I'm very sensitive to my space and to interactions in my life. And I think this whole campaign is really about unpacking what is that.”

Once Montgomery signed on with Politix to become its new face, as with his films, he was all in. From the campaign direction to the execution of the advertising, Montgomery has been instrumental. He’s not just arriving, taking some photos and leaving—as with the photoshoot accompanying this shoot, he’s trying to make it the best he can.

“I want the product to be good, just as good as they want the product to be and not hopefully from a narcissistic point of view, from a point of view of I want it to be good,” he says, “That's more important to me than the paycheck or how many people see it or how successful the campaign is. That's the through line for me.”

It’s this sheer dedication to craft and passion for the work that has seen Montgomery through to where he is today. It’s what made that Stranger Things audition tape so arresting and, if he pulls off his big swings, may just make him one of the most memorable actors Australia has produced. Whether those ambitious punches land or not, there’s no doubt about one thing: Montgomery is ready to do the work.

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

Words by Charlie Calver

Photography by Jesse Lizotte

Styling by Miguel Urbina Tan

Fashion assisting by Isabella Mamas

Grooming by Joel Foreman

Production by Jade Carp

Dacre Montgomery wears Politix throughout; politix.com.au

#dacre montgomery #billy hargrove #stranger things #gq #gq australia #politix #spider & jesse #went up that hill #faces of death

263 notes · View notes

scotianostra · 8 months

Text

On September 5th 1750, the poet Robert Fergusson was born in the Canongate in Edinburgh.

He may have only lived for 24 years, the last of which was traumatic, but those short years not only inspired Scotland’s best-known bard Robert Burns and the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, it also paved the way for better treatment of people with mental health conditions thanks to the work of Doctor Andrew Duncan.

Robert Fergusson was born of Aberdeenshire parents in Cap-and-Feather Close, in Edinburgh’s Old Town, on 5 September, 1750. The street has since disappeared, having been demolished during Fergusson’s lifetime to make way for the North Bridge, many of you will have walked over where Cap-and-Feather Close, it is said to have been where the junction at the Tron Church is, the road that now takes you over North Bridge towards Princes Street.

After primary education in Edinburgh, Fergusson entered the city’s High School in 1758, attaining a bursary to attend the Grammar School in Dundee in 1762. Two years later, he enrolled in St. Andrews University. As a student, Fergusson became infamous for his pranks, having once come close to expulsion. Despite this riotous reputation, the poet’s education stayed with him, he moved back to Edinburgh to support his mother, after the death of his father.

He got a job as a copyist for the Commissary Office main concern was, of course, poetry, and on 7 February, 1771 he anonymously published the first of a trio of pastorals in Ruddiman’s Weekly Magazine. Originally he wrote in English but by 1772 he had started to use the Scottish dialect in the standard Habbie verse form - a form which would later be copied and made famous by Robert Burns, indeed this style is now called the Burns stanza, perhaps it should be The Fergusson Stanza?

Fergusson’s own muse was Allan Ramsay and, like the be-turbaned Ramsey, followed a bit of a bohemian lifestyle in Edinburgh, which was then at the height of an intellectual and cultural tumult as the nerve centre of the Scottish Enlightenment. He wrote a total of fifty poems in Scottish English and thirty-three in the Scots language, but it is for his remarkable exploits in the latter genre that he should be acknowledged and acclaimed. His poetic subject matter paints vivid accounts of the life and characters of ‘Auld Reekie’ and drunken encounters with the notorious Edinburgh City Guard of Captain Porteous, the ‘Black Banditti’ of ‘The Daft Days’.

Fergusson began to suffer from depression in 1773, biographers have described his condition as ‘religious melancholia’, but regardless of whether or not that was the case, he gave up his job, stopped writing, withdrew completely from his riotous social life, and spent his time reading the Bible. He had heard about an Irish poet, John Cunningham, who had died in an asylum in Newcastle. That inspired ‘Poem to the Memory of John Cunningham’, and Fergusson became terribly afraid that the same thing was going to happen to him. Tragically, his dark prediction came true. In August, 1774, Fergusson fell down a flight of stairs and received a bad head injury, after which he was deemed ‘insensible’. His friend, the good doctor Andrew Duncan, had no choice but to admit him to Darien House “hospital”, Bedlam.

Doctor Andrew Duncan, the name might be familiar to those from Edinburgh, on finding Fergusson before being admitted to the “hospital” described him as being in a “state of furious insanity” he saw no choice but to have Fergusson taken to the city’s Bedlam madhouse. Conditions at the Bedlam, which was attached to the Edinburgh Charity Workhouse behind modern-day Teviot Place, were notoriously awful. Patients were treated as inmates, locked in cold stone-flagged cells, with only straw for bedding. The young poet was only there for a matter of weeks when he suddenly died. He had only just turned 24.

Fergusson was buried in an unmarked plot in The Canongate Kirkyard. On visiting Edinburgh in 1787, Burns paid for a headstone over his long-neglected grave, commemorating Fergusson as ‘Scotia’s Poet. I have taken many friends to visit Fergusson’s last resting place over the years, mainly down to my late mother’s love of Burns, but also because I love showing people around my hometown.

The first picture shows the statue of Robert Fergusson outside the Canongate Church, with my very own Saltire attached to it, if passing go pay your respects to the man, who inspired Rabbie Burns, who, under different circumstances might have been lauded as our National Bard, if you like a wee whisky perhaps raise a glass tonight on what might have been “Fergusson’s Night”

The pics are my own, I drop into Canongate Kirkyard almost every time I am in the area.

#scotland #scottish #history #edinburgh #my pics #Poet #Makar #Canongate

20 notes · View notes

everyones-least-favorite-bard · 10 months

Text

at the behest of some fellow orvies and western au truthers ive written a quick little snippet thats a combination of the jdj divorce arc and the divorce arc reunion

fic under the cut!

He’s trying to fit a seventh jacket into the suitcase when there’s the telltale rattle of a lock being picked and the creaky whine of his apartment door opening.

Heeled boots echo strangely through the little parlor area towards the front of the flat—he’s already packed away the dahlia-patterned rug he brought from out East. He almost can’t tell if it’s more foreign to hear the clicking of heel on wood or more foreign that he finds the sound discomfiting. It’s perhaps worst of all that he knows these boots, the way there’s a slight drag on one side from where the owner allowed the left sole to fall into disrepair, the slight rasp of beaded tassels flicking against leather.

He ignores it of course. The damnable jacket finally relents enough to allow him to shut the suitcase and he lets out an exhausted sigh.

“You finished fightin’ that carpet bag?”

The flippant casualty of the voice, coupled with the picking of the lock, and the tassels, and the boots, the goddamned boots incites a wave of rage so intense he has to stand in place for a couple seconds unmoving to let it pass. He exhales slowly and closes the latches on his suitcase.

“Ignorin’ a guest is real childish, Captain. Not even gonna offer me some water? I came all this way just to see you—I’m still an invalid you know. Gave your lady Doc the slip just to come see little ol’ you.”

He can’t turn around. He can’t turn around; his hands are clenched so tight around his stupid suitcase handle the scabs spider-webbed across his knuckles are cracking, thin lines of red pushing up from under flat pads of dried blood. There’s poetry there, something about how they seem unable to do anything but tear open old wounds. He feels sick.

He closes his eyes. “What do you want.”

“So demanding! You’ll never catch a wife talkin’ like that, Cap.”

“I don’t have all day.”

“Can’t a guy just visit a friend? Or companion as you say.”

And it’s something about the way Star’s voice curls around the word, the way he turns the three syllables into something trivial, chaff in the wind, when it felt like spitting glass shards the first time he said it. He’s felt raw ever since, skin peeled back, muscle and sinew torn aside. He’s been nothing but bones since, an echo waiting for its creator to call back. It’s something about Star’s consistent irony, it’s something about the blood starting to collect on his knuckles, about red crusted under his fingernails, the red lining his eyes, it’s something about Star’s insistence on brevity, on light-heartedness until he feels like he’s drowning in cotton, he’s drifting in the margins of a story only Star knows and he’s sick of it.

“You don’t get it. You—” and now he turns, now he spins on his heel, blood running down towards his fingertips.

Star’s hands immediately fly up in a placative gesture, his eyes wide under the cotton of his mask.

“Whoa, now, steady there, pal. You’re not still mad about Tuesday, are ya? I’m back! Shouldn’t that be enough?”

And they’re standing in his bedroom, some five or six feet apart, they’re standing in the bedroom of his one-room apartment, the dresser empty, the wardrobe empty, the walls somehow barer than they were before even though he hasn’t touched them and, and—

He almost wants to cry, is the stupid part. He hasn’t cried since he was nine years old and fell out of the big oak tree in the front yard of his parents house but he’s clenching his fists tighter and tighter and there’s something miserable and ugly coiled behind his sternum, clawing out the marrow of his bones from the inside and the only thing stopping him from crying is he’s tired. He’s so tired of it all.

Star is watching him, silent for once. Mouth a thin line. “Isn’t it?”

He turns back around and grabs his suitcase. “Go home, Star,” he says.

“No.”

“...What?”

“I said no.”

“What do you mean no?”

Star gnaws at his lower lip, sucks in a hissing breath before speaking. “I’m not leaving.” His arms have come back down to rest at his sides, one hand picking at the seam of his chaps.

He wants to throw something. He wants to scream, he wants to be nine years old, crying at the base of a wide, wide tree, he wants to cut the coiling mass of misery out of the center of his chest and throw it at Star’s feet.

He doesn’t do any of it. “Fine. I’m not arguing with you.” He strides across the room, closes the five-odd feet and shoulders Star out of the way, grabbing the other two bags by the door to his room on his way.

“You—Captain!” Star unfreezes from his place and follows. “Captain, wait—”

He sets the bags down by the front door, grabs his coat off the rack on the wall.

“Captain, y’know I didn’t have a choice right? Croft had me backed in a corner; she’d almost figured me out and—well, you’re a professional, you know sometimes we don’t get to choose the easy way out—”

He can almost feel the empty space by his hip where the pocket watch used to be. He pulls a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and dabs at the blood on his knuckles.

“—come on, Cap, you threw your fit, I said my sorry, can we just move on—”

“Shut up, Star!” The words are out, cutting through his throat before he can stop them. “Would it kill you to be honest?”

And he does shut up, his mouth flattens into that awful line, the bottom half of his face going white.

“It’s like this is a game to you. It’s like none of this is real for you. Are you having fun? I damn well hope you are because at least one of us will be.” He’s turned on a dime, he’s never been less tired in his life, there’s blood on his knuckles, there’s the weight of a gun on his hip, there’s a heaving mass of misery, of festering rage and grief and want all coiled in an awful Gordian knot and he’s shredding it with his bare fucking hands.

Star’s voice is small. That’s not right, he thinks distantly, that’s not right.

“I didn’t like fakin’ my death. I didn’t like keepin’ all these secrets from you but I had to since, well,” he cracks a tentative, sheepish smile, “we both know you can’t act for shit, Captain.”

“I held your body.” He’s shaking all over, he’s trembling, pulled tight around himself like a spring. “I had to hold your—I held your fucking body, I told your daughter you’d—I took her to visit your goddamned grave.”

Star is silent again, eyes focused intently on a spot on the floor.

He takes a shaking breath, grabs his hat from the rack. There’s been so many bloodstains on the old thing he can’t quite bring himself to care about the red dribbling over his fingers.

“Is there—” and he hates how his voice breaks, “—is there anything real about you? About this?”

There’s no answer. He wants to say he expected it, but he wants to cry more than he wants to be right. He crams the hat onto his head and picks up his bags once more.

A tugging on his sleeve.

“J–Joonghyuk, wait.”

He’d like to say it was the tone of Star’s voice. He’d like to say he could hear the regret, he could hear some sort of repentance he could absolve, some unnameable timbre of penance he could supernaturally detect, but it wasn’t. It was as simple as Star saying his name, his real name. He closes his eyes.

“What more is there to say?”

He can hear Star breathing, these awful, rattling breaths. He can’t tell if they’re from the wound at his side or from something else, some great emotional weight hanging in his larynx. He can’t tell which one he wants more.

He watches with something between horror and hope as Star reaches up and takes off his hat. Clutches it with a faintly trembling hand at his side. His other hand is still holding onto his sleeve, and without the hat he seems smaller now. Frail.

Star looks up and he’s smiling, that same crooked curl of lips over teeth, dimpling one cheek but there’s something so distinctly sad about it, and he can’t quite tell if it’s something new or something that’s always been there, a weight always tugging on one side of Star’s smile, keeping him from completion, semi-colon in lieu of a period.

“My name—my real name.” Star takes a shuddery breath that seems to rip through him. “I’m Kim Dokja. Twenty-eight. Only really did the deeds for half my bounties. You asked. You asked if any of this was real.” Star—Dokja—swallows. He drops his hat and reaches up slow behind his head, tugs at the knot holding his mask in place.

It loosens and it falls and he’s suddenly looking in the eyes of a man he’s been following for months, a man he’s been chasing after for what feels like years, and oh, he’s still filled with broken glass, he’s still choking on the shape of Dokja’s name in his mouth but god, he’s beautiful.

“You asked if any of this was real. I’m tellin’ you now that this is.” Dokja lets go of his sleeve but slides down to his hand. He presses the mask into it, rough fingers running gentle over the raw, bloodied edges of his knuckles, wraps it around the opened sores. A balm come too late, a suture for a wound already gaping, already bleeding out on hardwood floor and, and, oh, he’s nine years old again, two decades since he last cried and Dokja’s closing his hand around the mask, his eyes are dark and wet and they’re maybe a foot a part, maybe they can cross that distance, maybe, maybe—

But he remembers gunpowder. Gunpowder and blood not his own running through his hands like sifting sands. He remembers scrubbing for hours, scouring his hands with hot water, with lye soap, peeling at layers upon layers of skin, peeling back his muscle, back his sinew, back to the bone and he’s hollowed out now. Nothing but marrow. He’s crying and he’s twenty-eight and he’s nine and he and Kim Dokja are more alike than he’d ever care to admit because he holds Dokja’s hands tight around his own for as long as he can stand to but at three o’clock sharp that afternoon Yoo Joonghyuk is on a train back to oak trees and dahlias out East and he doesn’t look back.

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient reader #kim dokja #kdj #yjh #yoo joonghyuk #orv western au #yeah this ones a real misery time #lore masterpost coming one day i swear

49 notes · View notes

cornwalltotheball · 3 months

Note

TBP HC about what their secret hobbies are because I need some TBP content. Thanks

Silly secret hobbies for the boys!

Griffin - Besides his hobby of picking up rocks or hanging in random places? He secretly enjoys scrapbooking. Nature scrapbooking to be exact. Never talks about it though because everyone knows him to be actively wandering around instead of sitting down and focusing all his time on something

Finney - He builds a lot of things besides rockets. Get him some Legos and he made a working vending machine. Only Robin really knows about this so technically it's both a secret and not

Bruce - Bruce writes poetry in his off time. He has a journal that comes with a tiny lock on it and the key is in the tongue of some sweaty shoes. The poetry is pretty good, but nobody has ever read it except for Vance.

Robin - Robin secretly knows how to play a little bit of viola. Not enough to be considered good, but enough that he could pop out a Mary had a Little Lamb without much trouble. He plays it at random to cheer up his mum by pretending he's in a mariachi band

Vance - He collects bottle caps and they all stay in a shoebox underneath his bed. Some of them are pretty enough to just be there, and the other half is eaten (Mostly the more common ones). He'll steal the caps from other kids or off the ground

Billy - Billy seems the type of kid to have a hobby of woodworking. Just whittling away at some chunk of wood or making birdhouses. He's made Harper's doghouse by scratch and is darn proud of that

Gwen - Kicking bully butts. I'm joking she sews for fun and also so she can mend whatever rips

#the black phone #vance hopper #finney blake #robin arellano #gwen blake #bruce yamada #billy showalter #griffin stagg #tbp vance #tbp finney #tbp gwen #tbp griffin #tbp robin #tbp billy #tbp bruce #i made these up on the fly mostly but in relation to how i personally view them #imagine if bruce had tried to cheer himself up in the basement by telling himself poetry he memorised #gwen learnt it from school and possibly her mama but i don't know how old she was when her mum died #but if she was a few years old she may at least have seen her do it #finney is always a fan of robin's minimal viola playing #robin doesn't practise like ever he does it when he's bored #he doesn't go to competitions and the viola was taken from a garage sale its light and non-serious #vance has read bruce's journal only because he read it over bruce's shoulder once #ask and ye shall receive

14 notes · View notes

cyclesprefectpress · 11 months

Text

[image description: 8 photos of a letterpress broadside printed from handset type and a linoleum block illustration. the poem is titled The Secrets of Magic, written by a young poet for the 2023 edition of Words of Courage. it describes the magic powers of a world with mermaids, dragons, wizards, and magical animals, and a game the creatures play. The text is set in Goudy Oldstyle in a justified block in the center, with a red drop-cap and red fleurons to mark the line breaks. the linoleum block is a wide border illustrating a magical flying dog on the left, a witch or wizard in flowing dress on the right, parts of a fishy tail and dragon claws and crashing waves across the bottom, and the light rays of the magic staff and the dog's halo of power intersecting across the top. full text under the cut. end description.]

🎉🎉 weekend activities: delivering my part of the edition for this year's Words of Courage publication :)) 🎉🎉

WoC is a yearly publication of poetry broadsides written by patients at Seattle Children's Hospital, and designed, printed, and handbound into portfolios by local letterpress & book artists. this year's whole edition will be scanned and posted there in a couple weeks & previous years are always there to see!

i've been trying not to overthink it when we do the poetry assignment step—if i have a single design Thought the first time i read a poem, it goes on my list to fight for. i read this one and thought yes 1930s illustrated fairy tales, y e a h hefty border and one (1) spot color, y e h Beardsley's Le Morte D'Arthur, John Austen's Hamlet—a dream assignment :)) just wanted to make their story as cool and dramatic as it could be—an excerpt of a larger work, part of an Artifact.

i have meandered off historical accuracy firstly by uh using linoleum instead of wood and the line quality is markedly different for it and, also, i warmed it up from a classic black key plate BUT at least one person did look at it and immediately say sure sure turn of the century book illustration i get you, so i will judge it a success. very fun to carve. i left the spellcaster's clothes for last because i knew i would enjoy that the most. title in Devinne, body set in Goudy; both of those cases are pretty worn but that's not necessarily bad in this instance and also i needed a pretty full case to get the body done in one go!!

I will call it a misjudgement to have done the text as a red underprinter/brown overprinter as i did—unlocking and re-locking the forme without the cap & fleurons went fine, but there are instances of mis-alignment in the type between the two passes that from sheet to sheet don't look to me like a registration issue. They're not consistent with torque of the sheet, they shift around the forme a bit; i have a suspicion that i shouldn't have done this with a letter-spaced forme, which is pretty spongy with brasses and coppers and may have made small expansions and returns as the run went on. hubris comes for all, lesson learned, etc.

full poem text: "We all have regular animals. — But in the deepest, deepest part of the world — there are magical animals —like talking animals, unicorns, and dragons. — All animals have a good owner. — Regular people have regular animals. — But magical animals have wizards, and witches, and mermaids. — I talk to animals, but I don't understand them. — I would like to have a talking dog that has magic (like Louis). — All magical animals have their own magic: — like moving things around with telekinesis, — and mind reading, — turning objects into different objects, — forming into an object or person (very powerful) — flying, — or turning invisible. — One of my pet dogs will have talking ability, — because she likes to talk a lot and bark. — And another one will have teleporting ability; — she likes to sneak up on people. — And another dog I know — will have mind reading. — Together we'll make a game out of all our powers. — We'll hide around 30 objects. — And the dogs will use their powers to find the things, — and whoever has the most objects at the end — will get a prize of a big bowl of sandwich meat, — but because they're magical they'll get colorful meat!"

#letterpress #letterpress printing #linoleum cut #linoleum block #handset type #lead type #metal type #finished works #long post #gonna put together some carving compilation uuuh #later.#ive been at a desk doing computer things too much today :/

32 notes · View notes

moonlightsmasquerade · 6 months

Note

Silly ask : the (non-friendly) MiM beasties get Tumblr , what is their aesthetic / name gonna be?

Oh this sounds silly hell yeah

Submandela AltCesar is gonna have an all ocean themed blog and posts about the ocean, occasionally writing "poetry" about it, sometimes makes reference to mysterious deaths around the county. Wouldn't put any numbers in their URL probably just something like bytheseaside

Submandela AltThatcher doesn't even change his icon he leaves the default and comments weird shit on reblogs. Like you could post about Mac n cheese and he writes comments like I think you should jump in the nearest lake. Everyone thinks he's some weirdo. Sends anon "hate" that's incomprehensible. Reblogs deep sea fish and comments "literally me" actually I just realized how funny it would be if his URL was something like reallieutenantdavis, which would be so funny

Submandela Preacher's comments all have typos because she doesn't care fix them. her blog icon and banner are blurry photos of the beach and her title is something like AA LL WILL JOIIN US I THWATBER SOMDAUY and everyone thinks she's doing a bit pretending to be a cryptid, she also left caps lock on. her URL would just be a keysmash like aspeowixjwkxmlwmdkw

Submandela Gabriel would have the normalest blog, also ocean themed, posts only photos of fish with no comments, got a URL like theoceanismysavior

And just for the funny how about Submandela N, who also posts blurry photos of himself and the ocean. Everyone thinks he's doing a bit too. His URL is like nnnnnnnnnnn because he doesn't know how keyboards work. Answers asks with pictures of himself or fish he sees

#theyre silly dont give them tumblr #six is a lurker hed get mercilessly bullied on tumblr if he had it #oh my god should i make submandela bps official tumblr canon #jonah can run it #tmc submandelaphobia au

10 notes · View notes

birdenjoyer · 6 months

Text

Our solar system is rife with poetry holy shit

When it was still forming, another planet crashed into Earth, creating Luna. Luna shares Earth's flesh. Earth trusts Luna to control its precious and rare liquid water through the tides. Luna reflects their sun's light so the life on Earth can always see. As of today, Luna is the perfect distance from Earth to perfectly match the sun's silhouette, giving us our solar eclipses. If there is another planet out there with a similar eclipse, humanity will almost certainly never find it.

Luna is ever so slowly drifting away from Earth. One day, Earth will no longer be special with its one moon, and it will be like the many others with none.

Mars is Earth's lesser twin. It is the second most hospitable planet in our solar system, but has probably never harboured life.

Mars has ice caps on its poles like Earth.

Mars has mountains and valleys like Earth. In fact, they're much more impressive.

It has sand like Earth, it has iron for haemoglobin, it has moons to control the tides, it has seasons like Earth, it's in the goldilocks zone like Earth...

Mars does not have an atmosphere like Earth's. Mars' atmosphere is 1% oxygen, and it has no ozone layer. It's far too small for that.

Mars does not have nearly as many minerals as Earth.

Mars can never harbour life of its own.

Jupiter is a gas giant, and thus absolutely massive. It's the biggest planet in our solar system by a long shot.

Due to its mass, it has a very strong gravitational pull, which has gathered near one hundred moons and many more smaller satellites.

Many of these were once asteroids, lost and lonely. Many of these asteroids were headed straight for Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

Earth harbours precious and fragile life. A big enough asteroid could make it all extinct.

Mercury is about as big as Luna. A big enough asteroid could turn it into dust.

Jupiter is made of gas. If a human somehow took a step on it, disregarding the storms and atmosphere and cold, that human would likely fall into its core. Jupiter is completely inhospitable, yet it's a home for wandering bodies and a protector of its brethren.

Charon is classified as Pluto's moon, although its gravity is enough for Pluto to be its.

Pluto has other moons, but from it and Charon's surfaces, they blend in seamlessly with the stars. The sun itself, in fact, is only about twice the size of Phobos on Mars, and as bright as Luna on Earth.

Charon and Pluto can see nothing but stars, save for each other. And they are dancing through the cosmos, locked in step.

#Space #Poetry #i guess??#Earth #the moon #Mars #Planets #outer space #Jupiter #charon #Pluto

11 notes · View notes

king0fcrows · 11 months

Text

The defensiveness on this website over ever the mere existence of art critique is exhausting

I just saw an old post that called out another user over a list of “amateur” poetry trends/tropes—and yeah it was a bit snide but it was also *right* in that all those trends are currently super common and over saturated (aka “amateur”)

And what more, they seemed to be just making a point on their own blog

(didn’t reference any specific works or link to anything—that I could tell—just seemed to be a general critique of current popular trends)

But someone was loosing their goddamn *mind* in a massive reblog about it, just caps lock yelling “fuck you all, not everyone has the same skill or education level, let people enjoy things and let people be bad at stuff, how dare you try to make people feel bad”

And it’s old but the sentiment is obviously still going strong because it’s still circulating, with people heartily agreeing with the reblogger—

To the point that there’s a bunch of comments about OP trying to “gatekeep poetry”

…for having a somewhat snide opinion on art that none of them agree with?

Look, if a person wants no criticism in their own space and/or is fine never honing a craft beyond the basics they start with because that level is all that’s necessary for personal satisfaction—awesome! Enjoy!

(Genuinely—not facetiously. They are absolutely correct that it’s okay to do things simply for pleasure without the intent to excel.)

BUT

a huge swath of people ARE interested in actively developing their personal crafts beyond just what the average person can produce

And/or

are only interested in engaging with art that meets personal standards of what they feel is “quality”

And they’re not wrong for being dissatisfied with, unimpressed by, or just straight up not liking art that doesn’t meet those standards

And most *importantly*:

they are not wrong and not actively attacking you for sharing their opinions—even negative ones—in a public forum

(If they’re coming to you directly to rain negative opinions uninvited on your parade—then yes, they’re out of line

Which ironically, the person doing all the caps-screaming was kind of doing by reblogging OP’s post just to scream at them

They could have easily made their own post)

And it’s not gatekeeping to disagree with you on that matter

And to all the people who are echoing the “well their negative opinions are discouraging my desire to create” because your own creations resemble what another person says they don’t think is good/quality

you’re not owed positivity from strangers

Other people don’t exist to just prop up your internal emotional landscape—

They don’t have to lie about their thoughts and feelings to ensure you never feel negative emotions

#I was EXTREMELY put off by that post

10 notes · View notes

paliampelo · 5 months

Text

namgi drabble • superhero au • 3k

part one.

Namjoon’s been thinking about love lately.

It’s not his fault. It’s not like he woke up one day and yearned—external factors contributed heavily. Of course it affected him, seeing Jungkook fall for Jimin in front of his goddamn eyes, easy and real and deep. Of course it made something rattle inside him. And when Jimin liked Jungkook back and they got locked in their little dance around each other, it all just…made him question.

There was this space inside him, suddenly. He didn’t realise it was there before, but now it’s gapingly empty, and out of nowhere, he wants that kind of love. He wants it, and he doesn't know how to get it or how to even begin trying.

It’s always on his mind these days—so naturally, a few drinks in, it comes rambling out. Jin and Yoongi are the unsuspecting victims, a couple beers in them already too.

Namjoon has a lot to say.

“It's just, did you see—it's going to sound so cheesy, hyung, but did you see how Jungkook fuckin— lights up when Jimin comes into a room? His whole being just recalibrates towards Jimin, like a— like a sunflower to the sun or some shit—”

Jin snorts. “Such a poet, Namjoon-ah.”

“I'm serious! it's like. It's goddamn beautiful, okay. It really—I don't know, it inspired me—”

“Should we expect your debut poetry collection out soon?” Yoongi mumbles around the rim of his bottle. He’s got his legs up on Jin’s chair, tucked under his thighs. He runs cold, but he’s in a t-shirt now, the lettering on the front almost completely faded. He's smiling a little, and he looks so comfortable and settled and Namjoon's caught looking at that smile for a second too long, and wow, he's well on his way to drunk right now. When did that even happen?

“Specifically about Jungkook's sunflower love, otherwise i'm not endorsing it,” Jin says, sticking his finger up in the air. “And you need my endorsement. I'm very famous, you know.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. Namjoon snatches the beer Jin was reaching for and makes a face at him. “Always like to remind us of that when it suits you, but never when we need it.”

Jin huffs. “Obviously! My momma didn’t raise a fool.”

The beer cap is just not coming off, is it? Namjoon tries to twist it, one direction, then the other, but for some reason it's not happening. And he has to convince them. About this love thing. They need to be on the same page. It’s important for the team.

“But don't you think it's sweet, how pure it is?” he says, still struggling with the beer cap. Yoongi takes the bottle from him. His hands liberated now, Namjoon gestures. Maybe gestures will add to his argument. “How like—loud? Isn't that what being in love is supposed to be like?”

“Not always,” Yoongi says, handing Namjoon back his beer bottle, open.

Namjoon shakes his head. How can he explain? “I just— I think for me, it would be. I think it would be everywhere in me. So much that it would, like. Burst out of me.”

Yoongi looks thoughtful, expression delicate as he looks out into the lights of the city, so Namjoon thinks he almost got somewhere—until Jin scrunches his face. “Gross. And easy on the beer. Don't pass out again. I don't want to carry your enormous body back to bed.”

Namjoon slumps back into his chair. Not a lick of romance anywhere in them, is there? “You'll just make Jungkook do it.”

“What if he comes home at 5 in the morning? Do you want to sleep on this tiny table until then?”

The night passes with some more bickering, a lot more drinking. Namjoon stumbles back to bed with an arm around his waist and Jin's voice behind him complaining about being stuck on clean up again, the clink clink clink of the beer bottles highlighting his whine.

part two.

Life moves along at ridiculous speeds. They're busy, always. Who knew there was so much work for a crime-fighting team? Namjoon’s still finding his footing, trying to make sure none of his members overwork themselves.

And there’s that love thing. It’s still prickling somewhere in the back of his brain. He still feels fidgety, like something's missing. Something's out of place, and he thinks it's that. Jungkook and Jimin are together now, and he's caught Jin coming out of Hobi's room in the morning one too many times for it to mean nothing.

Taehyung’s happy with his plants, but Namjoon? Fucking restless.

“Do you think they're—you know,” he thinks at Yoongi really pointedly once, when a giggle that is very much not Hobi's comes from the bathroom where he said he was going for a shower.

Yoongi shrugs.

Yoongi raises an eyebrow. Namjoon rolls his eyes, the what are you, blind? practically audible, even though Yoongi didn’t speak it.

"Like, for real. Do you think they're together?"

Wait a second. “Hyung. have they told you?”

Yoongi shrugs harder. He’s avoiding Namjoon’s eyes, which is as good as a duh.

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“Not for me to tell,” he says, his voice scratchy and low.

“What?” Jungkook's head snaps up from the other side of the kitchen table. He’d been pouting, cheek squeezed into his palm as he killed time on his phone waiting for Jimin to come home. “What's not for you to tell?”

“Nothing, Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi says, terribly unconvincingly.

Jungkook frowns. “You promised you wouldn't do the telepathy thing when there's other people in the room.”

“We weren't,” Yoongi lies. He does it so casually. It sounds so effortless, so real. If Yoongi wanted to double cross them, they wouldn’t stand a fucking chance.

But Namjoon likes to think he’d be able to tell, somehow.

Jungkook squints at him, then at Namjoon. His trust in them is clearly battling it out with his instincts here, and the latter is winning.

He opens his mouth to say something, but then a shout of 'Jungkook-ah!' comes from the balcony and his whole body just answers the call.

Sunflower love, Yoongi whispers in Namjoon’s head, and it makes him chuckle.

Jimin's back from evening patrol, floating outside the balcony with a smile that’s all Jungkook’s. Poor kid barely manages to not collide with the glass balcony door on his way out. “Hyung!”

He leaps at Jimin and Jimin laughs and twists away, and off they go, flying quickly out of sight. Namjoon can hear them laughing still, even when they've flown away. Loud, loud love filing up the skies.

Turning back to Yoongi, he finds him already looking. They lock eyes for a moment, and Namjoon almost expects something else to come in, some other whispered thought.

But Yoongi just gets up, picking up his and Namjoon's now empty plates from the table. He shuffles off to the kitchen, the drag of his feet on the carpet as familiar to Namjoon as his own breathing.

part three.

It goes south way too early.

The city had said it was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission. It had rang alarm bells in Namjoon’s brain since the beginning, the fact that they needed all seven in something that was meant to be that easy, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

He should have said something. They’d have been better prepared, at least.

They were separated almost immediately. Always bad news. It's the middle of the night. Namjoon's practically lost track of Jin. Hobi must have been separated from Tae and Jimin inside the building, because Namjoon's picking up that very specific kind of panic that only happens when he's on his own. He can see Jungkook, but he's way more erratic than usual, trying to fend people off left and right.

Yoongi's up in the top of this 30 goddamn story building, so he's farther than Namjoon would like.

Namjoon’s stuck on the ground, trying to help Jungkook the best he can, subdue the back up people that keep coming at them. He's managing, but only just. He's taken a couple punches that he's going to definitely feel later, and there was a kick to the ribs that made him lose his breath. Yoongi was in his head immediately, calming him down.

Worried doesn’t begin to describe the tight feeling in Namjoon’s stomach right now. The others have been in there for too long. What if they were taken? What if something happened and they're passed out? He can't hear anything like that from them, but honestly, that kick got him good, so if it happened then, he wouldn't know—

Another kick, to his back this time, and now he's sprawled on the floor, on his stomach, and someone's keeping him down with a knee to his back. Ow ow fucking ow. He doesn't have time for this, he needs to go inside and look for the others—and shit, okay, it's getting harder to breathe with all this weight on his back. Yoongi's in his head, telling him what to do, but Namjoon can't really move right now.

Namjoon, answer me.

He can’t. He’s getting more lightheaded, his head heavy, heavy…

From one second to the next, the weight is off his back and he's being hoisted up in Jungkook's arms, and then flown up and up and up. His head spins and spins, but Jungkook holds him tightly, so he knows he’s safe.

Namjoon’s feet touch the ground, and he almost crumples. It’s only when he hears Yoongi’s voice, his real, soothing voice, telling Jungkook something, he realises he’s on the rooftop of the building.

He’s being gently laid down to the floor, Jungkook cupping the back of his head to make sure he’s not hurt. “See you soon, hyung,” he says with an encouraging smile, despite the dirt all over his clothes, the evidence of a punch to his cheek. He squeezes Namjoon's shoulder once and then he's off, flying off the roof and down.

“Where's he going?' Namjoon manages, between a cough that rattles his whole ribcage. The doctor's going to yell at him again.

“To find them, obviously. Don't move.”

“By himself? Hyung, there were so many people—”

“I know where there are people and where not. I said, don't move. I need to concentrate.”

Namjoon pays attention then, and Yoongi looks just as much of a wreck as Namjoon feels. His heart is beating too fast, he's clenching his jaw. He's sitting on the floor, eyes closed, communicating with one or more of their people, hopefully, but it's taking a lot out of him.

Namjoon gets up, walks a few steps away, and carefully looks over the ledge. There's still people down there, but he can't see Jungkook anywhere. It feels like his blood is boiling. He's nervous all over. If he breathes too deep, it hurts. He walks to the other side of the roof and paces, trying to keep out of Yoongi’s way.

Clearly, he’s not successful.

“How is that not moving. I was clear.”

“Sorry. I’m stressing.”

“Stop it then.”

“That does not help.”

Yoongi lets out a sigh that Namjoon’s only ever heard from him at the utmost heights of frustration. He feels scolded, shrinking back into the concrete wall.

“Come here.”

Namjoon frowns. Didn’t he say to stay away? To not break his concentration? He walks and stands in front of Yoongi, unsure.

Yoongi opens his eyes, looks up at him. His hair is flying wildly around his face with all the wind up here, and Namjoon suddenly wants to hold it back for him. Yoongi grabs his hand and pulls him down. Namjoon goes, a bit inelegantly.

“Now what?”

Yoongi takes his hands, threads their fingers together.

“Now I show you how to calm down, so you can let me do my fucking job,” he says, but there's no bite to it, just exhausted stress.

He closes his eyes and focuses on Yoongi’s voice. The feeling of his hands grasping at Namjoon’s. He follows Yoongi's instructions, empties his mind and forgets about anything else but the little circle of them, hands joined and knees touching.

Even when Namjoon’s breathing goes back to normal, they don’t pull away. Yoongi's not letting go, so Namjoon's not about to either. Maybe it helps Yoongi. Grounds him, something. Namjoon's useless otherwise right now, so he's going to do all he can.

Yoongi's eyes are closed again, head slightly bowed. Occasionally, he'll mumble something aloud. Namjoon watches him. on the ground, it was all a fight, but up here it feels so still. He could almost forget what's going on below.

For them to go.

This feels familiar. They’ve been here before. Namjoon often gets overwhelmed with the sheer noise of the others, and his feet take him straight to Yoongi’s room. The door is always already cracked open, and Yoongi doesn't need more than a simple could you? before nodding and holding his hands out for Namjoon's. So similar to how they're sitting now, to make a quiet, peaceful little mind place for him to go.

The wind’s settled into a breeze, and it ruffles Yoongi's hair.

Namjoon stares.

The mumbling is coming more frequently now. He's probably giving the others directions, but Namjoon's not hearing the words. He's stuck on the sound, the soft low sound of Yoongi's voice. His memories are filled with it, but he’s brought back to early mornings, before the rest of them had woken up. Yoongi's hunched shoulders next to the coffee maker, like being close to it would make the coffee brew faster, his scratchy voice as he told Namjoon what he filled his night with when sleep just wasn't on the table.

He always talked whenever possible instead of just directly thinking at Namjoon, even though it was easier for him. Namjoon told him once it felt too much like his mind isn't his when Yoongi did that, and Yoongi always remembered it, even in the early mornings, after two hours of miserable tortured sleep.

Yoongi opens his eyes, and lightning strikes through Namjoon.

“They should be on their way out.” He gets up, hands slipping away.

Namjoon brings himself back to reality. He follows him up. Yoongi's biting at the inside of his cheek, looking over the ledge Jungkook jumped off.

“You can't hear them?”

Yoongi shakes his head. "It was too much. I couldn't keep it going anymore.”

He's tapping his foot on the ground nervously, leaning heavily onto the wall. He’s unbalanced, worry the only thing keeping him upright. He looked so collected just a second ago, but now that he can’t help them anymore, he’s small again.

Namjoon knows this, too.

It’s his turn.

Namjoon steps next to him, takes his hand again. “Can you hear me, if I do this?”

Yoongi looks at him, confused. When Namjoon intertwines their fingers, his eyes flicked down, watching. “Yeah.”

Namjoon nods. “Okay. Listen.”

He concentrates. He finds the five heartbeats he could pick out of thousands. It’s easier now that he’s calmer himself, that he doesn’t feel like he’s about to faint. He focuses hard, hard, until the sound of them fills his head, until his own and Yoongi's blend into it together, until they feel it down to their toes.

Namjoon's trying not to think too much about the tiny life changing thing that he just realized a minute ago and had no time to process—not when he's got an even more direct link than usual to the person it concerns directly. Some of that holding back must show though, because Yoongi squeezes his hand and says, softly, “Namjoon-ah.”

Namjoon looks, and it's truly insane he never noticed the way his chest goes tight at the sight of Yoongi looking back. It's happened to him a lot, he remembers it now—he just…didn't notice.

It was just always there. A subtle, ever present hey.

Yoongi moves a little bit closer, frowning a little, and Namjoon has just enough time to think yes, to want Yoongi much closer, when Jungkook shoots up into sight and lands in front of them.

“HYUNG! We did it!” His smile is huge and relieved, his hair is wild, his eyes are bright.

Yoongi's shoulders relax, his fingers tightening around Namjoon’s.

In a flash, Jungkook's up and ready to go down again, too quick for Namjoon to react.

“Jungkook-ah!” Yoongi yells from next to him, in a voice way too loud for his disheveled, exhausted appearance. “Get us down!”

“I'm coming back! I need to go make sure the others made it back to headquarters. I just saw them drive away. You're safe up here for a bit. Oh, here!” He tosses a tiny packet of trail mix to them. Namjoon barely manages to catch it, saving it from free-falling down thirty floors. “Have it while you wait. I'll be back in a flash, okay?”

Yoongi lets out a surprised laugh. “You carry fucking trail mix in your uniform?”

Jungkook's already on the way down. “I get snacky!”

Namjoon's eyes are wide, and he's holding on to the tiny packet. “He gets snacky,” Namjoon mumbles with a slightly shocked nod, and Yoongi just…loses it.

He doesn't think he's ever seen Yoongi laugh this hard. His shoulders are shaking, pressed into Namjoon's side. He’s ducked down, so Namjoon can’t see his face, but he can feel him all over.

He smiles helplessly, throws an arm around Yoongi's shoulders and chuckles along with him, trail mix clutched tightly in his other hand. Yoongi almost calms down, but then he catches sight of it again and off he goes back into chuckletown, gripping Namjoon's shirt.

Namjoon just watches until Yoongi's settled a little, riding out a last wave of giggles. Namjoon cannot look the fuck away. They're on the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in the city, an ocean of lights underneath them, and Namjoon hasn't even glanced at it once.

And this…this feels loud.

“Hyung,” Namjoon says. He lets the packet fall to the floor as he turns to face him properly.

Yoongi looks up, eyebrows up in question, smile still lingering all pretty in the corners of his mouth. Namjoon pulls him close, and kisses him.

It's hard, as intense as his relief—the mission is done, they're all safe, Yoongi laughed against him, held his hand—it's all happened before, but not like this. It feels like he's gained another sense entirely. Like he’d just been blind his whole life and simply hadn’t noticed until his world exploded with color.

He never stopped to wonder what Yoongi might kiss like, but here it is: a small gasp, fingers in his shirt pulling him closer at first, instinctive, like his body isn’t even in control anymore. He normally only gets Yoongi’s voice through the link, but right now Namjoon can almost discern a feeling, something soft and yielding and surprised.

Yoongi pulls back with confused, furrowed brows, but eyes full of quiet hope.

“Namjoon-ah.” Just that. Just his name.

Namjoon smiles and looks back at him, quiet and steady. Had it been anyone else, he might be embarrassed. The way he just did it like that, so dramatic, so out of the blue—but it’s Yoongi. Yoongi knows him inside and out.

Yoongi darts his tongue out to his lower lip, and Namjoon knows, because he knows Yoongi inside and out too, that it’s an invitation.

Namjoon leans back in, slower this time. Giving Yoongi time to pull away, just in case he’s wrong.

He’s not. They kiss again, and it's soft and deliberate and goddamn fucking precious, and Namjoon was right, he does feel like he's bursting with it.

A smile slowly grows on Yoongi's face, one of those shy ones that make him look so young. He's looking down somewhere, but his hands are fisted tight in Namjoon's shirt.

Namjoon draws Yoongi in again and again with a hand on his nape, gripping. Kisses his neck once, waits to see if it's okay. Gets a small, pleased exhale. Does it again.

“Your heart’s beating fast,” Namjoon whispers, voice rough.

“I’ve been through a lot in the past half hour,” Yoongi responds, voice almost normal--but Namjoon can hear the jittery feeling bubbling underneath, the little smile that can’t quite be held back.

He drops a kiss to Yoongi’s head, his beautiful, exhausted brain that saved them all. “It’s okay, hyung,” he whispers. “You can rest now.”

Yoongi lets out a shuddery exhale, a sound that Namjoon’s becoming rapidly addicted to. He puts his arms around Namjoon's waist, drops his head on Namjoon's shoulder. They breathe together, and Namjoon finds himself holding on tighter. He curls into him, trying to keep him safe from the rising wind up here. Someone’s shaking—Namjoon can’t tell who.

That's how Jungkook finds them later. He taps them on the shoulder to separate them and just smiles at them, like nothing's different.

Namjoon thinks maybe he was the last to know.

#my works #drabble #namgi #namgi au #kim namjoon/min yoongi #namgi fic

2 notes · View notes

iviarellereads · 1 year

Text

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 10

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one!)

(Slashed Fifth House icon) In which Harrow finds that her insanity followed her to this alternate Canaan House reboot.

"Then Nonius spake full wroth; thunder'd his voice as the black sea roars on the tomb-gate of Algol, "Blazing his eyes with the fell light thrown from the Emperor's corpse-fires; answer he gave, and he told them--" "Stop," said Harrowhark, from behind.

She and Nigenad are in the library at Canaan House with Magnus and Abigail, the Fifth pair. Ortus was reciting from his poetry, to Magnus's delight. Harrow's embarrassed that he would recite it aloud to anyone, having heard so much of it herself because, she knows, Ortus hopes that one day she will be so moved that she will release him from his duty as cav prime and let him be a Ninth House bone skald.(1) They make mention of a dirty magazine, of sorts, that Magnus found in the gents' washroom, and Harrow wants to flee.

Before she can, Abigail intercedes and asks if Harrow is interested in study about the Lyctors. Harrow says she will not reveal if her House has any information about them, but Abigail says no, silly, the library is positively stuffed with information.(2) She even punctuates it with "phwoar"(3) which nearly pushes Harrow past her limits of tolerance for vulgarity. Only, she can recognize that an offer is being made, and decides to take it.

Abigail shows Harrow a particularly interesting passage she found on a page of flimsy: a recipe.

After that cut into cubes, fry in the butter or oil, turn it occasionally until it is crispy. Cut up the pickle so there are no big chunks and mix it into the pan before taking off the heat. M told us yesterday that Nigella "eats like a child," so I

Harrow thinks it's useless, but Abigail thinks she can call the writer's ghost with it, and uses "phwoar" again. She reckons it's by a Lyctor, and discusses at some length the process and problems with potentially calling a Lyctor back from the River, if they're even dead to be called. Ortus says he admires her dedication, and Magnus tells Ortus to stop flirting with his (Magnus's) wife, though he quickly clarifies that it was a joke, he knows it wasn't intended.

Abigail gives Harrow another piece of paper, asking Harrow to examine it with her skills. To the side, Magnus is asking Ortus about the epic poem, and how long it takes for Matthias Nonius to defeat the foe. Harrow answers with snark. Magnus looks at her, his eyes "of a colour suddenly hard to define", and he asks "Is this really how it happens?" Harrow is confused.

Abigail, by way of distraction from the strange question, asks if it's traditional for Harrow's spiritual energy to be so diverse. She can sense at least 150 signatures contributing to Harrow, that many souls manipulated to leave a mark on her… Harrow nearly kills her on the spot, but runs instead, knowing that Abigail is far more than she seems. Nigenad follows, and she commands him that they avoid the Fifth at all costs now. He agrees.

Harrow slips into an alcove and looks at the paper Abigail gave her, which reads (though, all in caps, which I'm not replicating here because I don't feel like yelling)

The eggs you gave me all died and you lied to me so I did the implantation myself you self-serving zombie and you still sent him after me and I would have had him if I hadn't been compromised and he took pity on me! He took pity on me! He saw me and he took pity on me And for that I'll make you both suffer until you no longer understand the meaning of that goddamned word(4)

Harrow asks Nigenad what the paper says, and he says it reads "If you come to my room, I will make you the potato dish you liked". He asks how they should interpret potato. Harrow suggests "your closest vegetable relative", and Nigenad says he's always admired a quick wit. He often only thinks of a perfect response to things hours later, laying in bed, and besides which he hates conflict of all kinds. Harrow says he should be ashamed to admit that last, and says she needs a cavalier with backbone. Nigenad says she always did, and he's glad he never became that cavalier. Hours later, laying in bed, Harrow wonders what the hell he meant by that.

=====

(1) Skald - a composer of Norse skaldic poetry. In this case, a composer of bone poetry for the bone house. (2) Another massive change from the original run of this story. (3) "phwoar" is a sound-expression used to indicate sexual attraction to someone. Or in this case, something. Abigail Pent has it bad for these books. I can relate. (4) There is so much to unpack here and nothing I can say without spoilers except to suggest that if you're reading for the first time, bookmark this to come back to later, you'll probably know when.

#the locked tomb #tlt #harrow the ninth #htn #harrow the ninth spoilers #htn spoilers #harrowhark nonagesimus #ortus nigenad #magnus quinn #abigail pent

3 notes · View notes