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thetarttfuldickhead · 7 months

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Fic: Roy & Jamie & and that time when Jamie was NOT in a car crash

With ten minutes left until training officially began and still no sign of Jamie, there were a few raised eyebrows and murmurs and Isaac telling Will to put the player down for a 100 quid fine, but no one thought to be worried. People ran late, sometimes. Not usually Jamie, no, but Colin figured there was a first time for everything. Besides, he was busy listening to Bumbercatch explain the intricacies of post-Brexit labour shortages and the way it served to reproduce notions of capitalist realism, none of which Colin understood, but Bumbercatch was at his fittest when he was passionate and mysterious so Colin hung on to his every word all the same.

When Roy stepped into the dressing room a little while later and noticed the distinct lack of number 9 and rang Jamie to demand where the hell he was only to receive no answer, a slight sense of unease settled over the room, though Colin suspected that had more to to with the sinister look on Coach’s face rather than any real fear that Jamie might be in danger (at least not until he showed up and had to deal with Coach anyway).

And then they heard about the car crash.

---

It was Sam who – always eager to play peacemaker, bless him – checked his phone to see if Jamie had left any messages in the group chat to explain his absence, and Sam who went very quiet and stared at his screen in silence for so long that everyone else fell silent too and turned to stare at him. Never a good sign, that sort of silence in the dressing room.

“Yo, bruv, he write something?” Isaac asked when it became apparent that Sam was not going to volunteer whatever information he had found.

“No, nothing,” Sam said. “But… “

“But fucking what?” Roy demanded, words sharp and jagged like broken glass.

“There’s been a car crash,” Sam’s voice was quiet and slow and reluctant. “A big one, not far from Jamie’s house. At least two people are dead, and several injured. It doesn’t say anything about Jamie,” he quickly added into the collective intake of horrified breath. “I’m sure he’s perfectly fine.”

“Yeah,” Thierry agreed quickly. “He probably just got delayed because it caused a traffic jam or something.”

Eager nods around room, and Colin found himself nodding along because of course that was the most reasonable explanation, of course Jamie hadn’t— he wasn’t—

“But then why didn’t he pick up his phone?” Bumbercatch asked. “Or call to say he’d be late?”

A relevant question, and as with most of Moe’s questions, without a ready answer.

“We would have heard, wouldn’t we?” Nate suggested uneasily. “I mean, they would have called, if— “

He didn’t finish the sentence. No one else spoke.

Trying to distract himself from the quickly growing pit in his stomach, Colin turned his gaze on Roy, who had gone so still that he didn’t even seem to be breathing. His face was a blank mask, utterly devoid of any emotion, but his fists were clenched so tight that Colin’s own hands twinged in sympathy.

“I’ll go talk to Higgins,” Beard said abruptly, breaking the fraught silence.

“Yeah, no, that’s a great idea,” Nate quickly chimed in. Like Colin, he’d been eyeing Roy nervously. “He’ll know what—“

The door slammed open. Jamie rushed inside. “Sorry, sorry I’m late,” he called as he dumped his bag on the bench by his cubby and started pulling his vest off, “been this massive car accident, was stuck for ages and then the road was closed off so I had to go round and— Eh?“

Cockburn, by virtue of being closest, had pulled Jamie into a tight hug, and the rest of the players immediately closed in to follow suit, Colin among them. In his relief he wasn’t sure whether to kiss Jamie or smack him on the head for worrying them, and in the end he settled for briefly squeezing his neck. Jamie grinned at him, at all of them, looking a little bemused but very much delighted by the attention.

“Fucking hell, lads,” he laughed. “Thought I’d be getting a fine, not a fucking group hug. Realized how dull training would be without me, huh?”

“You are getting a fine,” Isaac told him, even as he put his arm around Jamie’s shoulder and shook him gently. “But we’re fucking happy you’re here, yeah?”

“We thought you had died in the car crash,” Jan explained.

“Sí, amigo, we were so worried for you!”

“Oh! Yeah, no, I’m fine, I’m fine. Not fucking Colin, am I? I don’t get into any car crashes.” He caught Colin’s eye and winked, sticking his tongue out like the utter tosser he was and Colin rolled his eyes and was so, so stupidly happy the idiot was there to be annoying.

Eventually, after everyone had gotten to hug Jamie or pat him on the back or ruffle his hair (to his loud but clearly half-hearted protests), the team drifted back to their own cubbies, happily chatting amongst themselves—

— leaving Roy standing on the middle of the floor, staring at Jamie with a look on his face that had Colin take an involuntary step backwards. Their gaffer did not look relieved. In fact, he looked absolutely murderous.

“Why the fuck,” he intoned, emphasizing each word, “did you not fucking call to say you were fucking late? And why the fuck did you not answer your fucking phone?”

The tone of voice would have had anyone with even an ounce of self-preservation running for cover if directed at them, but Jamie just blinked. “Oh, er, left it at home, didn’t I? Already had it in me black bag, right, only I realized the tan one went better with this outfit so I grabbed that instead, but I forgot about the phone ‘cause I was in a bit of a rush, yeah?” He shrugged a little sheepishly. “It was stupid. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, you’re sorry about that, are you? Do you have any fucking idea—“ Taking a step closer, getting right up into Jamie’s face, Roy launched into a dressing-down of such volume and viciousness Colin was convinced it had the walls vibrating. Even by Roy Kent’s considerable standards, it was a lot and it lasted for well over a minute until Roy growled, “If you’re not out on the pitch running laps in two minutes you won’t have to worry about getting into any car crashes going home ‘cause you’ll be here all night, running ‘til you fucking drop in your own puke, got it?”

Initially, Jamie had seemed slightly taken aback by Roy’s furious remonstration, but then something that looked strangely like understanding passed over his face and he settled into a determined stoicism, neither talking back nor looking cowed. By the end of it, though, there was definitively barely suppressed anger glinting in his gray eyes, leaving Colin worried he might snap and then they’d have a full-on brawl on their hands, just like back in the bad old days when Roy and Jamie well and truly hated each others’ guts and wouldn’t that be exactly the sort of fun they all wanted on a Tuesday?

He gave a sigh of relief (and could hear Richard do the same just next to him) when Jamie just offered a curt, “yes, Coach,” and set to getting changed at an appropriately hurried speed.

“And fucking apologize to your teammates for delaying training!” Roy barked.

“We’d be out there already if you hadn’t spent the last hour shouting at me,” Jamie muttered to the boot he was tying.

“The fuck did you say?”

“Nothing, Coach. Sorry, everyone.” He looked up. “Really am,” he added, sounding quite sincere about it. “Didn’t mean to hold you up or, you know, worry you or nothing.”

---

Training was an awkward and quietly tense affair. Once Jamie had finished his laps and was allowed to join the rest of them, Roy pointedly and resolutely ignored him, refusing to so much as spare him a glance while the team muddled through the day’s exercises and scrimmage.

Jamie, for his part, seemed utterly determined not to give a shit. He went through the drills as diligently as ever, dribbled and passed and shot with his usual flair, shouting encouragements and slapping Colin’s butt after a particularly good free kick. For all intents and purposes, it was just another day at the job for Jamie Tartt – but Colin saw the looks he kept shooting Roy when he thought no one was watching, and he noticed how Jamie didn’t just play well but played brilliantly, stubbornly lining up one little footie miracle after another on the pitch. He wasn’t being a prick about it either, prompting Colin to mutter to Isaac: “Looks like Jamie’s trying to get back on Roy’s good side by going for player of the year.”

Isaac glanced over at Jamie, then shook his head in dismissal. “Nah, bruv,” he said. “He ain’t trying to appease the gaffer. Sticking it to him, innit.”

“Oh. Okay.” Colin frowned. That… didn’t make a lot of sense, really, but Isaac usually knew what he was talking about, and it wasn’t like Colin begrudged Jamie a little bit of pushback, not after the way Roy had chewed him out in front of everyone. It was just that, if this escalated and the two of them got into it properly, the way they used to back when Roy was still the captain rather than the coach… Well. It’d be a shit time for everyone. Colin could do without it. They could all do without it.

Not that that sort of consideration had ever stopped either Roy or Jamie before.

On the other side of the pitch, Jamie threw himself down in a bicycle kick that saw the ball soar right past two defender’s and Thierry’s outstretched hands.

“Whistle,” Roy snapped. “Training’s fucking over.”

---

“Oi! Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

Colin, with Dani, Jeff and Jamie in tow, had almost made it out of the dressing room, freshly showered and changed and very ready to put the training session behind them, when Roy’s bark brought them to abrupt heel. Dani stopped so suddenly that Jeff almost walked straight into him, and Colin himself accidentally elbowed Jamie when he startled at the sudden roar.

You’d think they’d be more than used to Roy’s yelling by now, Colin thought. Then again, he supposed it’d been a strange day and they were all a little on edge. Jumpy.

“We’re going to my place, Coach,” he quickly offered, hoping to stave off another round of shouting. “To play some FIFA.” He briefly considered inviting Roy to join them, it would only be polite, right, and could be good for morale maybe, but he was held back by the notion that the gaffer might say yes.

“Tartt isn’t,” Roy informed him curtly.

Jamie cocked his head to the side. “I’m not?” Definitively a hint of challenge in his tone, and Jesus, this was all going to go straight to hell, wasn’t it? And after they’d almost made it out of here, too.

Roy was unmoved; unyielding as stone. “No, you’re coming with me so I can keep an eye on you since you’re too much of a fucking child to be trusted on your own.”

For a moment, the two men simply stared at each other, both faces shadowed by stubborn scowls. Colin realized he was holding his breath, and glanced over at Isaac getting ready for dinner with his parents in front of the mirror to check if he, as captain, was maybe planning to step in and deescalate the situation. How he was going to do that Colin had no idea; he wasn’t the captain.

Isaac said nothing, though, just watched the exchange with an unreadable expression. Figures, Colin thought a little sourly; his friend was utter shit at keeping secrets but could pull inscrutable like nobody’s business when it suited him.

“Fine.” In the end, Jamie relented with an exaggerated sigh. “But I’m taking me own car, which I have, what with me not actually being in a car crash today and all.”

Roy looked furious at that, as if Jamie’s lack of fiery death in a burning inferno was somehow a personal insult to him, but then he pressed his lips together and jerked his head in a sharp t nod. “Fine.”

He spun around and stalked away, leaving Jamie rolling his eyes and muttering Jesus fucking Christ you overdramatic grumpy fuck under his breath. Then he turned to the rest of them and shrugged. “Sorry, lads. Another time, yeah?”

Dani made a small, unhappy sound. Colin exchanged a look with Jeff, who looked about as unsure and uncomfortable as Colin felt. Over on the other side of the room, Isaac was still quiet, potentially a sign to the others to keep out of it as well, but in spite of that Colin found himself compelled to ask: “Boyo, do you want us to… talk to Coach?”

It was a mildly terrifying idea, and it very much went against the unspoken agreement that nobody interfere with the continued absurdity that was Roy and Jamie’s relationship these days. But, today had been weird in a way that seemed to have little enough to do with training, extracurricular or otherwise. A particular kind of weird, even for these two. Besides, his whole idea of an impromptu game night had been, at least in part, a bid to cheer Jamie up after all that, and it seemed a shame that he’d miss it for more of the same.

Jamie, however, waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, mate, it’s fine.”

He looked like he meant it, too. There was a frown on his face, sure, but as far as Colin could tell it spoke more of mild annoyance than actual upset or worry.

“But forgetting your phone was a simple mistake, and it is not your fault you were late. It’s not right that Coach should keep punishing you for it.” Sam, who had declined FIFA in favour of being a responsible restaurant owner (“and bad fucking flirt, it’s been almost a year mate, why haven’t you asked her out yet?”), had walked over from his locker and was eyeing Jamie with customarily earnest concern.

Jamie just shrugged.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and off their worried stares added, “He’s not going to do anything bad or anything. It’s just, I fucking scared him, right, and he’s being a twat about it ‘cause he’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to have feelings properly and he’s only been in therapy for like three months and it’ll probably take a year for anything Dr. Sharon says to go through his big stupid head, yeah? That’s all.”

Which. Okay. Colin could see how the prospect of Jamie actually dying might scare even Roy, but on the other hand… it was Roy. Roy Kent. And besides—

“I don’t know, man, he didn’t seem scared,” Jeff ventured.

“No, amigo, he seemed like he wanted to rip your head off,” Dani helpfully filled in. “And maybe use it as a football.”

“Yeah, because he’s a twat,” Jamie said. “But it’ll be fine, I promise. Probably just wants to make me dinner or something.”

Colin blinked. That… was a leap. Even by Jamie’s particular kind of logic, that was definitively a leap.

“He’s right.” Oh, so now Isaac decided to speak up. “Roy’s not mad at Jamie, he’s mad because he was frightened.”

Jamie raised his eyebrows meaningfully and pointed at their captain. “Yeah, that. So don’t worry.” Adjusting his cap he shot Colin a cheeky wink. “Whoever plays me better score a fuckton of goals tonight, yeah? See you tomorrow, lads.”

And he was out the door, fucking humming as he went. Doing that Jamie Tartt thing of untouchable and unshakeable confidence and you think you can get to me? Nothing ever gets to me and even now that Colin knew Jamie wasn’t quite as invulnerable as all that, some of the old awe and jealousy stirred, mixed with concerned incredulity.

“Is it just me,” he asked after a protracted moment, “or are those two getting even weirder?”

“It’s not just you,” Jeff muttered.

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Dani promised brightly, “I will play Richmond tonight and score a fuckton of goals and I will crush you for the sake of our amigo Jamie.”

Colin sighed. “Fantastic.”

At least he’d have the comfort of knowing that getting trashed by Dani Rojas was still far, far better than whatever cruel and unusual punishment Roy had planned for Jamie.

---

Jamie leaned back against Roy’s surprisingly comfortable couch and let out a small sigh of contentment. He wondered whether he ought to be still annoyed with Roy for being a massive wanker or pleased with himself for how utterly he’d called this. He settled for alternating between the two; he was complex like that. People didn’t know it, but he had depths.

Roy hadn’t tried to make him run a marathon or do a million burpees or whatever Colin and the rest had imagined. He hadn’t yelled. Hadn’t said much at all, really, since Jamie stepped through the front door without knocking; mostly he’d glared and grunted and used those funny little head jerks to communicate that Jamie should sit down and be quiet and drink the water Roy put in front of him.

Jamie had sat down and drunk the water. He had not been quiet. He’d watched the Spurs game on the telly last night and he had opinions relevant to their upcoming match against them, which by rights should interest the gaffer and if it didn’t, too fucking bad.

Roy hadn’t told him to shut up.

Instead, he’d made them dinner (fucking called it), a nutritionist approved salmon pasta with saffron and fennel that Jamie was particularly fond of, and then sent Jamie off to the couch while he did the washing up. He hadn’t said a word about Jamie’s choice of entertainment either, when he appeared a little while later with two steaming cups of tea and found the telly turned on to an old episode of Doctor Who. The show had been a staple of Jamie’s early teens and remained a nostalgic comfort; just a bit of silly fun, really, and so naturally something Roy fucking loathed, sad old fuck that he was.

Normally even the suggestion of watching it (or anything else even halfway interesting) would have been met with foul-mouthed refusal and something about Roy’s house, Roy’s rules, but tonight Roy just put the tea down wordlessly and sat down next to Jamie, as on the screen Martha, Jack and the Tenth Doctor (fittest of them all, although Jamie had a soft spot for Eleven) narrowly escaped an exploding flat.

Jamie smiled to himself. For all Roy was utter shit at saying stuff, he could be fucking transparent at times.

It had been dead obvious when Roy’s anger finally and fully faded, and guilt started trickling in to fill the void. It was right there in the way Roy went all the way quiet and started shooting him little looks out of the corner of his eye when he thought Jamie wouldn’t notice throughout dinner; there in the way he sat down far closer to Jamie than he normally would on the couch now, their legs all but touching.

It was as blatant an invitation as you could ever expect from Roy Kent, and tempting, but Jamie stubbornly held himself to himself, upright and with his arms crossed over his chest. Roy had been a right proper arsehole today and he hadn’t even said sorry so if he wanted a cuddle he could fucking ask for one, or he could wait until Jamie felt inclined to indulge him.

Eventually, though, after what Jamie deemed an appropriate amount of time (which may or may not have amounted to two whole minutes), he relented and allowed himself to lean against Roy, casual like, and tipping his head to rest Roy’s shoulder.

He smirked at how Roy not only failed to ask what the fuck he thought he was doing but also was very quick to put a tentative arm around his shoulders, the grip growing firmer when Jamie didn’t shrug him off or ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing.

For a while there was only that; the warmth of Roy’s body pressed into his; the sounds of the television. I love it when you say my name, the Master declared.

“I’m sorry about today,” Roy said suddenly. The words came haltingly, reluctantly. Still, he pressed on. “I … fucking overreacted.”

Jamie snorted. “Little bit, yeah.” Then he added, not bothering to conceal his smugness, “All the lads think you were dead mean to me.”

He glanced up at Roy who was determinedly staring at the telly while his eyebrows were doing something complicated and seemingly painful. “I think that… maybe… I got a bit… fucking worried, when we thought you’d been in that car crash.”

He offered like it was some great admission, a grand fucking reveal, and Jamie rolled his eyes. “Uh, yeah, mate, I know.”

Roy’s eyes snapped to his face at that, all disbelieving like, so Jamie rolled his eyes again, even harder. “Come on, man. Pretty obvious, that.”

For a long moment, Roy didn’t respond. He looked away from Jamie again. Then finally, “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

And the thing was, Roy sounded so fucking unhappy about it that Jamie clamped his mouth shut around a reflexive no, but you’re an idiot.

“Maybe something for Dr. Sharon, yeah,” he suggested instead, noting with some satisfaction that he was being really mature about all of this.

He’d have liked pointing that out to Roy, too, but had a feeling that maybe that would take away from the maturity a little. He’d mention it to Keeley later instead.

“Yeah,” Roy said after a moment of looking like he’d rather let Isaac kick a football straight at his head. “I’ll talk to her.”

“And maybe fucking apologize to my teammates for delaying training,” Jamie added innocently, feeling a smirk tug at his lips and then blossom into a full-fledged grin when Roy pulled back a little to stare at him, seemingly trying to gauge whether he was serious or not.

“You’re a prick,” Roy said eventually, relaxing again and sounding right fond about it.

“Mmmhm,” Jamie agreed happily, pulling his feet up on the couch and curling up closer to Roy. It was nice, this. Worth all that, maybe. “And here you are, fucking glad I’m not dead and all.”

Roy sighed. His arm around Jamie’s shoulder was warm and solid.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly enough that they might both pretend it wasn’t meant for Jamie’s ears at all. “I am.”

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coco0milkshake · 9 months

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Redraw to that one post

#welcome home #welcome home fanart #welcome home puppet show #welcome home wally #welcome home eddie #wally darling #eddie dear #wally x barnaby #kinda #wow look how much I improved on drawing eddie #forgot I had art tags oops #ibispaintx #digital art #artwork

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the-one-who-lambs · 2 months

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Lamb design be upon ye. Some Lambert outfits for The Risen Lamb and the Fallen God: standard outfit, casual fleece, and wedding outfit.

#hannah's rambles #cult of the lamb #Hannah draws #there's.... a definite gap between where my writing skills are at and where my digital art skills are lkjdfsglkfjdssfkds #I'm still very much in “playing around and see what works” mode so constructive criticism is welcome!#bc even though i take digital art much less seriously than writing i'm always open to improvement of course

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supercantaloupe · 1 year

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What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

#sasha answers #anon #unsleeping city #the unsleeping city #long post #sorry for not putting this under a read more but i think people ought to see this. or at least #if two people felt the need to ask me about it then at least they would want to see the full thing uncovered #also fwiw i do think that they tried to address this to some extent when they made tuc2 #with more scenes with willy (and incorporating more golem folklore with the animating word in his mouth -- nice touch!)#the jewish immigrant family in the photo flashback encounter (even if the hanukkiah in the picture isn't exactly kosher lol)#and ESPECIALLY rabbi mike. i ADORE rabbi mike. i think he's a WONDERFUL addition #i do still wish he was a more important/prominent character. cause again he isn't in it all that much.#(and he's still like. the only new jewish human character in the campaign.)#but i recognize what he represents and i am happy about it #i do think brennan & the d20 crew tried to improve after tuc1. i do. i see their efforts and i applaud them for it #but still to my knowledge they haven't ever directly addressed the errors made in season 1 #and it's extremely rare that i even see other fans mention it #and like. sorry but i am tired. i am. we deserve better. we deserve portrayals in media that show us as People #not just as evil monsters #anyway you're welcome to rb this but be cool in the notes esp if you're a goy #other jews are welcome to (respectfully) disagree with me if they want #also if you so much as mention the word israel on this post you're getting blocked end of

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l0ganberry · 8 months

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I never shown this to anyone else except for those close to me but here's a thing I did for my first time drawing all the neighbors in WH (Welcome Home) in my comfort art style. This is one of my favorites that helped me be more comfortable with WH itself. (And to practice on how to draw them in general.)

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w2nv · 5 months

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Redrew my first ever Cecil design!

I don’t think the old ones bad! He works great! But I was too inspired by my beastfriend’s design for him I think (@/beastwhimsy) that it didn’t really feel mine, in fact I only drew him once? Anyways, pretty happy with my proportions in the new one!

#art tag #don’t think I improved A LOT but the proportions looks better!#wtnv #welcome to night vale #welcome to nightvale #wtnv podcast #cecil gershwin palmer #Cecil palmer #don’t wanna tag much cause #it’s just a lil redraw really

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thatrandombystander · 1 year

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Trigun '98 says Ace!Vash rights!

From an ad intermission card

[ID: Screenshot from Trigun (1998) of Vash sitting, the colour palette is black, white, grey and purple-pink, somewhat like the ace flag.]

#trigun #trigun 98 #vash the stampede #vash #ace!vash #vash is ace this is canon. (source: me. who is always correct.)#ramblings of a bystander #don't have too much experience writing image descriptions suggestions for improvement welcome

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novelconcepts · 2 months

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The fucking choking noise I made when I tuned into a podcast for my run and heard a recent favorite actor go, “I’m still on Tumblr, don’t tell anyone.”

#me frantically looking at the date:#‘right this was 2021. what are the odds they still are? I mean. 14 years for MY gay ass. so. soooo.’#'do you look at your own tags? at your character? at your ship? SURELY Not. but i would. so could i even blame you? welcome? sorry? help.'#I’m honestly so much less alarmed at the idea of favorite actors finding me NOW vs the truly horrendous idea #that they might have found me back in like 2011-2015 #like. I hate that person. the person who ran my blog back then suuuuucked #which is great cuz it means I’ve grown and matured and experienced life enough to improve #but also like. imagine your favorite actor knowing your tumblr blog from Before #and just loooooathing you #finding out you’re the one writing a ton of fic for their character now and being like ‘THAT one? really?’#'i've had your URL blacklisted since the GLEE DAYS' fucking imagine #anyway. all of this is moot certainly. like there is just no way. it's all good.#but it did make me make the most unholy noise mid-run so thanks for THAT

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dreamlogic · 20 days

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musing in the tags about the view two years out from my hysterectomy and the shifting nature of neuropathy. i asked my PT for recommendations/resources pertaining to pain science and that's been a very helpful lenses to have. i'm still not back to normal, will never be unmarked by this experience or return to my pre-op self, but my baseline has been gradually increasing over the last few months, and it feels good to look back on the last two years and say "i have no idea how i managed to function while living with that, but i did!"

#meatsuit renno #chronic blogging #ctxt #at first post-hysto pain was a deep burning ache #and eventually that lessened on my left side and settled in for the long haul on the right #after a couple weeks it had started to feel like a small carnivorous creature scrabbling and gnawing at the inside of my abdomen #nestled into the hollow of my pelvis and reaching up with its raking claws #about 6 months in and the creature still chewed occasionally but had shrunk to the size of a tennis ball under my right incision site #it clamped its jaws down and went to sleep and i perpetually felt like someone had pinched a fold of my insides with a large binder clip #this constant awful twisting tug every time i moved that kept me from straightening up or breathing fully #this is about a year into recovery and my original surgeon has blown off my requests for follow-up treatment three times now #i carried on as best i could. fatigue and brainfog getting worse & worse as the pain wore on unrelentingly #about a year and a half into recovery it worsened again. searing lancing pain like i'd been impaled on a piece of white hot rebar #couldn't hardly move. couldn't think straight. couldn't sleep #finally checked myself into urgent care & then the ER just to try to get someone anyone to take me seriously and help me #finally got a referral to a new surgeon who immediately pinned it as extreme neuropathy #started gabapentin end of december last year and the relief was immediately #i never thought i would welcome the gritted teeth vice grip of my little feral pain creature #but when i felt the molten spike slide out to be replaced once more by its worrying jaws #the intermittent spark and fizzle of that pinching squirming pain was a dramatic improvement #then i started PT in march and slowly so slowly the creature's hungry grip is loosening #it still clamps down occasionally. maybe once every week or two i'll have a day when i just accept #that there will be a horrible little creature chewing on my right side from the inside #but nowadays with the gabapentin doing as much as it can and an exercise routine i must stick to religiously to supplement PT #the pain is more of a little pearl of dark matter shifting around under my skin #it's incredibly dense. the heart of a black hole of disabling agony. all that white hot fury condensed into a slick heavy marble #as i recover some of my strength and energy i can feel my body coating it in nacreous layers to minimize its influence #my hysterectomy was 2 years and 4 days ago today and i feel like i can finally finally say i'm beginning to truly heal #i suspect i'll always carry this pearl in my side like shrapnel. product of damaged nerve tissue that went untreated for far too long #i wish my original surgeon had been more competent more attentive less lazy & indifferent to my pain. but i still don't have any regrets.

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all-thestories-aretrue · 4 months

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Today is my last day at this job!!

Hopefully I am not making a huge mistake!!

#p #i have 7 weeks until i leave #and i actually picked up a freelance gig to give me some more money which was wholly unexpected but welcome #its a little wild but i feel wayyyy less trapped than i did before i made this decision #less trapped less anxious less sense of impending doom less mood swings #less urge to [redacted]#my mental health has improved so much #this is your sign lol #if you are contemplating quitting your job and moving out of the country #do it!!

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jazzzzzzhands · 10 months

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I so often forget how fun practice sheets are!

Often, I get too excited to draw a character, that I just start drawing them without even being comfortable with drawing them! (Which is why a lot of my old Wally art looks so different)

Anyways, I want to really get cozy with how I draw them and the little touches I add.

#his mouth is very George Jetson to me!!! and i love that!!#its so much fun that im still improving and learning!#howdy pillar #welcome home #whps #jazzsketches

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syncrovoid-presents · 11 months

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New art new art!

#welcome home #wally darling #syncrovoid.art #syncrovoid.txt #technically it is still a WIP because uhhh there is still much i would try to fix but i do not wish to work on it for any longer @:P #hfaceless hands of those beyond laying claim on your visage and fame #where is the horror in that? surely being a being that is aware of the audience without knowing who wat or why they watch would be so normal #nothing is wrong nothing is wrong. everything is so normal for a silly little guy like him #also it took SO long yo figure out how to draw his face until i settled on this.. i really need to practice expressions #but hey i was practicing different digital painting styles and i think i found one i like (as seen with the hands haha)#i am still learning!!#that is why it may look a little rough but i think im improving!!#anywho i have been busy so new fic update might take a while but yeah!#i hope you (collective you) are having a lovely day/night! dont forget to drink some water and have a snack #@:)

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confetti-cat · 1 year

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Each, All, Everything

Words: 6.5k

Rating: PG

Themes: Friendship, Self-Giving Love, Romantic Love

(Written for the Four Loves Fairytale Retelling challenge over at the @inklings-challenge! A retelling of Nix, Nought, Nothing.)

The giant’s daughter weeps, and remembers.

—

She remembers the day her father first brought him home.

It was a bit like the times he’d brought home creatures to amuse her while he was on his journeys, away on something he called “business” but she knew was “gathering whatever good of the land he wanted”. Her father had brought back a beautiful pony, once—a small one he could nearly carry in one huge hand. One for her, and not another for his collection of horses he kept in the long stables. She wasn’t as tall as the hills and broad as the cliffs like he was, so she couldn’t carry it easily, but she heaved it up in both arms and tried nonetheless. (And—she thought this was important—stopped trying when it showed fear.) She was gentle to it, and in time, she would only need speak to it and it would come eat from her hand like a tame bird. She’d never been happier.

(The pony had grown fearful of her father. Her father grew angry with anything that wasted his time by cowering or trying to flee him. There was a terrible commotion in the stables one day, and when she sought her pony afterward, she couldn’t find him. Her father told her it was gone, back to the forest, and he’d hear no more of it if she didn’t want beaten.)

(There was a sinking little pit in her stomach that knew. But when she didn’t look for the best in her father, it angered him and saddened her, so she made herself believe him.)

The final little creature he brought one day was so peculiar. It was a human boy, small as the bushes she would sometime uproot for paintbrushes, dressed in fine green like the trees and gold like her mother’s vine-ring she wore. He seemed young, like her. His tuft of brown hair was mussed by the wind, and his dark eyes watched everything around him, wide and unsure and curious.

When he first looked at her from his perch on her father’s shoulder, he stared for a long moment—then lifted a tiny hand in a wave. Suddenly overwhelmed with hope and possibilities (a friend! Surely her father had blessed her with a small friend they could keep and not just a pet!), she lifted her own hand in a little wave and tried to smile welcomingly.

The boy stared for another long moment, then seemed to try a hesitant smile back.

“This,” boomed her father, stooping down in the mist of the morning as he waved away a low cloud with one hand, “is what I rightly bargained for. A prince, very valuable. The King of the South—curse his deceitful aims!—promised him to me.”

“He looks very fancy,” she’d said, eyes wide in wonder. “How did the king come to give him to you, Father?”

“How indeed!” the giant growled, so loud it sent leaves rattling and birds rushing to fly from their trees. He slowly lowered himself to be seated on the weathered cliff behind him and picked up his spark-stone, tossing a few felled trees into their fire-basin and beginning to work at lighting them. “Through lies and deceit from him. When he asked me to carry him across the waters I asked him for Nix, Nought, Nothing in return.”

The little boy shifted, clearly uncomfortable but afraid to move much. Her father scowled, though he meant it as a smile, and bared his yellowed teeth as he laughed.

“Imagine his countenance when he returned to find the son he’d not known he’d had was called Nix, Nought, Nothing! He tried to send servant boys, but I am too keen for such trickery. Their blood is on the hands of the liar who sent them to me.”

Such talk from her father had always unsettled her, even if he said it so forcefully she couldn’t imagine just how it wasn’t right. Judging from the way the boy curled in on himself a little, clinging meekly to her father’s tattered shirt-shoulder, he thought similarly.

“Nix, Nought, Nothing?” She observed the small prince, unsure why disappointment arose in her at the way he seemed hesitant to look at her now. “That is a strange name.”

Her father struck the rocks, the sound of it so loud it echoed down the valley in an odd, uneven manner. He shook his head as he worked, a stained tooth poking out of his lips as he struck it again and again until large sparks began alighting on the wood.

“His mother tarried christening him until the father returned, calling him such instead.” He huffed a chuckle that sounded more like a sneer, seeming to opt to ignore the creature on his shoulder for the time being. “You know the feeling, eh, Bonny girl?”

The boy tentatively looked up at her again.

The fire crackled and began to eat away at the bark and dry pine needles. A soft orange glow began to creep over it, leaving black char as it went. With a sudden, sharp breath by her father, a large flame leapt into the air.

“It is good that she did so. He is Nix, Nought, Nothing—and that he will remain.”

—

Nix Nought Nothing grew to be a fine boy. Her father treated him as well as he did the prized horses he’d taken from knights and heroes—which was to say that the boy was given decent food and a dry place to sleep and the richest-looking clothes a tailor could be terrified into giving them, which was as well as her father treated anything.

Never a day went by that she was not thankful and with joy in her heart at having a friend so near.

They spent many days while her father was away exploring the forest—Nix would collect small rocks and unusual leaves and robin’s-eggs and butterflies, and she would lift him into high trees to look for nests, and sometimes stand in the rivers and splash the waterfalls at him just to laugh brightly at his gawking and laughing and sputtering.

Some days she wished she was more of a proper giant. She wasn’t large enough for it to be very comfortable giving him rides on her shoulder once he’d grown. She was hesitant to look any less strong, however, so she braided her golden curls to keep them from brushing him off and simply kept her head tilted away from him as they walked through the forests together.

He could sit quite easily and talk by her ear as they adventured. Perhaps she would never admit it, but she liked that. Most of the time.

“I’m getting your shoulder wet,” he protested, still sopping wet from the waterfall. He kept shifting around, trying to sit differently and avoid blotching her blue dress with more water than he already had. “I hope you’re noticing this inconveniences you too?”

“Yes,” Bonny laughed. “You’re right. I hope there’s still enough sun to dry us along the way back. Father won’t be pleased otherwise.”

“Exactly. Perhaps you should have thought that through before drenching me!” he huffed, but she could hear the grin in his tone even if she couldn’t quite turn her head to see it. He flicked his arm toward her and sent little droplets of water scattering across the side of her face.

Her shoulders jerked up involuntarily as the eye closest to him shut and she tried to crane her neck even further away, chuckling. Nix made a noise like he’d swallowed whatever words were on his tongue, clutching to her shoulder and hair to steady himself.

“You’d probably be best not trying to get me while I’m giving you a ride?” Bonny suggested, unable to help a wry smile.

“Yes. Agreed. Apologies.” His words came so stilted and readily that she had to purse her lips to keep in a laugh. As soon as he relaxed, his voice grew a tad incredulous. “Though—wait, I can’t exactly do anything once I’m down. Are you trying to escape my well-earned retaliation?”

“I would never,” she assured him, no longer trying to hide her smile. “I’ll put you in a tree when we get back and you can splash me all you like.”

Somehow, his voice was amused and skeptical and unimpressed by the notion all at once.

“Really? You’d do that?” he asked, sounding as if he were stifling a smirk.

She shrugged—gently, of course, but with a little inward sense of mischievousness—and he yelped again at the movement.

“Well, it would take a lot of water to get a giant wet,” she reasoned. “I doubt you’ll do much. But yes, for you, I would brave it.”

He chuckled, and she ventured a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Bonny and brave,” he said, looking up at her with a little smile and those dark eyes glimmering with light. “You are a marvel.”

It would probably be very noticeable to him if she swallowed awkwardly and glanced away a bit in embarrassment. She tried not to do that, and instead gave him a crooked little smile in return.

“Hm,” was all she could say. “And what about you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Nothing.” The jest was terrible, and would still be terrible even if she hadn’t heard it numerous times. “But you are truly a gem among girls.”

If by gem he meant a giantess who still had to enlist his help disentangling birds from her hair, then perhaps. She snorted.

“I don’t know how you would know. You don’t know any other girls.”

“Why would I need to?” His face was innocent, but his eyes were sparkling with mirth and mischief. “You’re the size of forty of them.”

The noise that erupted from her was so abrupt and embarrassingly like a snort it sent the branches trembling. She plucked him off her shoulder and set him gently on the ground so she could swat at him as gently as she could—careful not to strike him with the leaf-motifs on her ring—though it still knocked him off his feet and into the grass. He was laughing too hard to seem to mind, and she couldn’t stifle her laughs either.

“Well, you are really something,” she teased, unable to help her wide smile as she tried futilely to cast him a disapproving look.

That quieted him. He pushed himself to sit upright in the grass, and looked out at the woods ahead for a long moment.

“You think?” Nix asked quietly.

She smiled down at him.

“Yes,” she laughed softly. “Of course.” When he looked up at her, brown eyes curious, she held his gaze and hoped he could see just how glad she was to know him. “Everything, even.”

A small smile grew on his own face, lopsided and warm. He ducked his head a bit and looked away from her again, and embarrassment started to fill her—but it was worth it.

It often weighed on her heart to say that more than she did. She supposed she was the type of person who liked to show such things rather than say them.

She had a cramp in one of her shoulders from trying to carry him smoothly, but the weight on the other one—and on his—seemed far lighter.

—

She remembered the day her father came home livid.

She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Had he been wounded? Insulted? Tricked? He wouldn’t say.

He just raged. The trees bent under his wrath as he stamped them down, carving a new path through the forest. He picked up boulders and flung them at cliffsides, the noise of the impacts like thunder as showers of shattered stone flew in all directions.

She was tending to the garden a ways off—huge vines and stalks entwined their ways up poles and hill-high arbors made from towering pines, where she liked to work and admire how the sunset made the leaves glow gold—and suddenly had a sharp, sinking feeling.

Nix was still at his little shelter-house at their encampment. Her father was there.

Dread washed over her.

“Riddle me this, boy,” her father boomed, in the voice he only used when he wanted an excuse to strike something. “What is thick like glass and thin as air, cold but warm, ugly but fair? Fills the air yet never fills it, never exists but that all things will it?”

There was silence for a long moment.

...Silence. The answer was silence. Her father was trying to trick him into speaking.

Her hands curled around the bucket handle so weakly it was a surprise she didn’t drop it. Her father could crush him if he felt he had the slightest excuse.

Hush, hush, hush, her mind pleaded. Her hands shook. For your life and mine, hush—

There continued to be silence for a moment—and then, Nix must have answered. (Perhaps in jest. He tended to joke when uncertain. That would have been a mistake.)

There came the indescribable sound of a tree being ripped from its roots, and the deafening thunder of it being thrown and smashing down trees and structures.

Her whole body tensed horribly, and all she could see in her mind’s eye was nightmares.

No, she thought weakly.

Her father kept shouting. But not just shouting, addressing. Asking scathing rhetorical questions. She felt faint with relief, because her father had never wasted words on the dead.

I should have brought him with me. The thought flooded her body and left room for nothing else but dread and regret. I could have prevented this.

The stables were long and broad and old. Once, they had housed armies’ steeds and chariots. Now, they were run-down and reinforced so nothing could escape out the doors. The roof was broken off like a lid on hinges at intervals so her father could reach in to arrange and feed his horses.

Her father had seen no reason to keep the stalls clean. When one was so packed with bedding it had decomposed to soil at the floor level, the horse was moved to the next unused stall. There were so many stalls that she barely remembered, sometimes, that there were other ways of addressing the problem.

“The stable has not been cleaned in seven years,” her father boomed. “You will clean it tomorrow, or I will eat you in my stew.”

She couldn’t hear Nix’s response, but she could feel his dread.

Her father stormed away, more violently than any storm, and slowly, after the echoes of his steps faded, silence again began to hang in the air.

That night, it was hard to sleep. The next morning, it was hard to think.

She did the only thing she could think to do in such a nervous state. She brought her friend breakfast. His favorite breakfast—a roast leg of venison and a little knife he could use to cut off what he wanted of it, and fried turkey-eggs, and a modest chunk of soft brown bread.

When she arrived with it, he was still mucking out the first stall. There were hundreds ahead of him. He was only halfway to the floor of the first.

“I can’t eat,” Nix murmured, almost too quietly to hear and with too much misery to bear. “I can’t stop. But thank you.”

The pile outside the door he’d opened up was already growing too large. Of every pitchfork-full he threw out, some began to tumble back in. He was growing frustrated, and out of breath.

Why would her father raise a boy, a prince, only to eat him now? Her father was cunning; surely he’d had other plans for him. Or perhaps he really was kept like the horses, as a trophy or prize taken from the human kingdoms that giants so hated.

Was this his fate? Worked beyond reason, only to be killed?

Pity—or something stronger, perhaps, that she couldn’t name—stirred in her heart. A heat filled her veins, burning with sadness and a desire to set right. Would the world be worthwhile without this one small person in it?

No.

This wouldn’t end this way.

She called to the birds of the air and all the creatures of the forest. Her heart-song was sad and pure—so when she pleaded with them, to please hear, please come and carry away straw and earth and care for what has been neglected, they listened.

The stable was clean by the time the first stars appeared. When she set Nix gently on her shoulder afterward, he hugged the side of her head and laughed in weary relief for a long while.

—

She remembered the lake, and the tree.

“Shame on the wit who helped you,” her father had boomed. He’d inspected the stable by the light of his torch—a ship’s mast he’d wrapped the sails around the top of and drenched in oil—and found every last piece of dirt and straw gone. Had he known it was her, that she could do such a thing? She couldn’t tell. “But I have a worse task for you tomorrow.”

The lake nearest them was miles long, and miles wide, and so deep that even her father could not ford it.

“You will drain it dry by nightfall, or I will have you in my stew.”

The next morning, soon as her father had gone away past the hills, she came to the edge of the lake. She could hear the splashing before she saw it.

Nix stood knee-deep in the water, a large wooden bucket in his hands, struggling to heave the water out and into a trench he’d dug beside the shore.

When she neared him and knelt down in the sand, scanning the water and the trench and the distant, distant shoreline opposite them, Nix fell still for a moment. She looked at him, hoping he could see the apology in her eyes.

“Can I help?” she asked.

He shook his head miserably.

“Thank you. But even if we both worked all day, we couldn’t get it dry before nightfall.” He gave her a wry, sad smile, full of pain. “The birds and the creatures can’t carry buckets, I’m afraid.”

It was true. They could not take away the water.

But perhaps other things could.

She stood and drew a deep breath, and called to the fish of the rivers and lake, and to the deep places of the earth to please hear, please open your mouths and drain the lake dry.

With a tumult that shook the earth beneath them all, they did. The chasm it left in the land was great and terrible, but it was dry.

Her father was livid to see it.

“I’ve a worse job for you tomorrow,” he’d thundered at Nix as the twilight began to darken. “There is a tree that has grown from before your kind walked this land. It is many miles high, with no branches until you reach the top. Fetch me the seven eggs from the bird’s nest in its boughs, and break none, or I will eat you before the day is out.”

She found Nix at dawn the next day at the foot of the tree, staring up it with an expression more wearied than she’d ever seen before. She looked up the tree as well. It seemed to stretch up nearly to the clouds, its trunk wide and strong with not a foothold in sight. At the top, its leaves shone a faint gold in the sunlight.

“He is wrong to ask you these things,” Bonny said softly. Her words hung in the air like the sunbeams seemed to hang about the tree. There was something special about this place, some old power with roots that ran deep. “I’m very sorry for it.”

“You needn’t be,” Nix assured her. His countenance was grey, but he tried to smile. “But thank you. You’re very kind.”

She looked up the tree again. Uncertainty filled her, because this was an old tree—a strong one. Even if it could hear her, it had no obligation to listen. “Will you try?”

He laughed humorlessly. “What choice do I have?”

None. He had none.

He could not escape for long on his own—he could not be gone fast enough or hide safely enough for her father not to sniff him out. The destruction that would follow him would be far more than he would wish on the forests and villages and cities about them.

She, however, bit her lip.

She slipped the gold vine-ring off her hand, and rolled it so that it spiraled between her fingers. It was finely crafted, made to look like it was a young vine wrapping its way partly up her finger.

“This is all I have of my mother,” she said quietly. “But it will serve you better.”

Before he could speak—she knew him well enough to know that he would bid her to stop, to not lose something precious on his account (as if he weren’t?)—she whispered a birdlike song, and pleaded with the gold and the tree and the old good in the world to help them.

When she tossed the ring at the base of the tree (was it shameful that she had to quell a sadness that tried to creep into her heart?), it writhed. One end of it rooted into the ground, and suddenly it was no longer gold, but yellow-green—and the vine grew, and grew, curling around the tree as it stretched upward until it was nearly out of sight.

Nix stared at her with wide eyes and an emotion she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, it made her ears warm.

She smiled slightly and stepped back, tilting her head at the vine.

“Well?” she said. He was still staring at her with that look—some mix of awestruck and like he was trying to draw together words—and it made her fold her arms lightly and smile as she looked away. She quickly looked back to him, hoping faintly that her embarrassment wasn’t obvious. “You’d best hurry. That’s still a long way up.”

He seemed to give up finding words for the moment. Nix glanced up the tree, now decked with a spiral of thick, knobby vine that looked nearby like uneven stairs.

“Give me a boost?” he asked with a bright grin. “To speed it up.”

She laughed and gently scooped him up in both hands. “A boost, or just a boost?”

He beamed at her. “As high as you can get me,” he declared, waving an arm dramatically.

She laughed and shook her head. ”Absolutely not. Ready?”

Nix nodded, and she smiled thinly and poured all her focus into a spot a good distance up the tree. With a very gentle but swift motion, she tossed him upward a bit—and he landed on his feet on the vine, one shoulder against the bark, clutching to the tree for support as he laughed.

“A marvel!” he shouted down to her as he climbed. “Never forget that!”

The sun was nearly setting when he descended with the eggs bundled in his handkerchief. He was glowing.

He triumphantly hopped down the last few feet to the ground.

A moment after he landed, a soft crack sounded. He froze.

Slowly, he drew the bundle more securely into his arms against him and looked down. There, by his foot, was a little speckled egg, half-broken in the grass.

She put a hand over her mouth. Nix clutched the rest and stared.

A grievous pain and numbness slowly filled her heart, and she knew it was filling his too.

His shoulders began to shake, and his eyes were glassy.

“Well,” he laughed weakly. ”...That’s it. That’s... that was my chance.” The distress that overtook him was like a dark wave, and it threatened to cover her too. He only shook his head. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for—for helping me.”

For everything, she didn’t give him a chance to add. He was looking at her with the eyes of one who might say that. She couldn’t afford to be overcome with the notion of saying goodbye now.

“No,” she said. Her voice was quiet, at first, but it grew more resolute. “It won’t end this way.”

He blinked up at her, still clutching the other eggs to his chest. She looked down at him, then across the stretch of forest to their home.

Without a word, she gently picked him up and set him on her shoulder. Her jaw tensed as she strode quickly through well-worn paths of the forest, walking as fast as a horse could run.

Once home, she set him down. He was still looking at her questioningly. Her heart beat faster in her chest, and she hoped he couldn’t see the anxiousness rising in her and battling with the excitement.

“I will not let him have you,” she announced firmly. The trees and hills all around were witness to her promise. “Grab what you need. We’ll leave together in the hour.”

—

She‘d barely had time to fix her hair, grab her water flask, and decide it would be best this time of year to go south.

Her father’s footsteps boomed closer across the land.

—

They fled.

They ran, and ran, and struggled and strove, and she called for the help of anything she could think of that would have mercy on them.

Her comb grew into thorns, her hairpin into a hedge of jagged spires. Neither stopped him. Her dress’s hem was in tatters and sweat poured from her brow when they were finally safe.

Her flask lay behind them, cast down and broken, its magic used up.

Her father—her father—lay stretched out motionless in the flooded plain behind them, never to rise again.

—

There was a tiny spark of hope they had that they clung to. A hope of a future, of restoration, of amending the past and pursuing peace—of a life worth living, perhaps far, far away from things worth leaving behind.

(“I’ll go to the castle,” he’d said, his voice brimming with nerves and hope and uncertainty and sadness and an eager warmth. It made her heart try to mirror all those emotions alongside him. “I can tell my mother and father who I am. I’d still recognize them, even if they don’t know me. They’ll take us in, I’m sure of it.”)

He set out into the maze of village streets, assuring her he’d ask for directions and be back promptly. She stayed back by the well at the edge of the town so not to alarm anyone, too exhausted to go another step, but full of hope for him. She would wait until he returned.

(And wait. And wait. And wait and wait and wait and dread—)

The castle gardener came to draw water, and—as if she weren’t as tall as the small trees under the huge one she sat against—struck up a conversation with her about the mysterious boy who’d fallen unconscious across the threshold of the castle, asleep as if cursed to never wake up.

(The spark didn’t last long.)

—

She remembered when he could move.

“Please,” she whispered, as soft as her voice would go. “Please, if you can hear me. Wake up.”

(“Oh, dearest,” the gardener’s frail wife had murmured to her when the kind gardener brought her home to partake of a bit of supper. “I’m afraid they won’t let you in as you are. Would you let me sing you a catch as you eat?”)

The gardener’s wife was frailer by the end of it, but her heart-song could change things, like her own. Instead of towering at the heights of the houses, she was now six feet tall by human reckoning, and still thankful the castle had high halls and tall doors.

(Their daughter, a fair maiden with a shadow about her, had watched from the doorway.)

Nix Nought Nothing lay nearly motionless in the cushioned chair the castle servants had placed him in. His chest rose and fell slowly, like he was in a deep sleep.

He was still smaller than she was, but not by much. He seemed so large, or close. She could see details she’d never noticed before—his freckles, the definition of his eyelashes, the scuffs and loose threads in his tunic.

The way his head hung as if he could no longer support it.

She held him gently—oddly, now, with both her hands so small on his arms and an uncertainty of what to do now—and wept over him. She sung through her tears, her heart pleading with his very soul, but to no avail. He did not wake up.

He didn’t hear her—likely couldn’t hear her. All around him, the air was sharp and still and dead. Cursed.

Still, her heart pleaded with her, now. Try, try. Don’t stop speaking to him. Remember? He never stopped trying.

“You joke that you are nothing," she said, with every drop of earnestness in her being. "But I tell you, you are all I had, and all I had ever wished for.”

There was power in names. She knew that. But was his even a proper name? It really wasn’t—though it was all he had.

It was all she had as well. She had exhausted everything else close to her. There was nothing left to call on, to plead with, but him.

“Nix Nought Nothing,” she said softly. “Awaken, please.”

Her voice, no longer so resonant and deep with giant’s-breath, sounded foreign in her ears. It was mournful and soft like the doves of the rocks, and grieved like the groan of the earth when it split.

“I cleaned the stable, I lave the lake, and clomb the tree, all for the love of thee,” she said, her voice thickening with tears. A drop of saltwater fell and landed on his tunic, creating another of many small blotches. “And will you not awaken and speak to me?”

Nothing.

—

She didn’t remember being shown out of the room. Her vision was too blurred, and her mind was too distraught and overwhelmed. The next thing she could focus on enough to recall was that she was now seated on a stiff chair in the hall. Someone had been kind enough to set a cup of water on the little table beside her.

The towering doors creaked softly behind her, and at last, someone new entered. She looked over her shoulder, barely able to see through the dry burning left behind by her tears.

A man and a woman stood in the door. They were dressed in fine robes, and looked like nobles.

"What is the matter, dear?" the woman asked, looking over her appearance with eyes soft with pity. She came close, and her presence was like cool balm, gentle and comforting. "Why do you weep?"

The gold roses woven in the green of the woman's dress swam in her vision as she dropped her gaze, unsure what to say. These people seemed kind. But were they? Would they send her out from here, unable to return to him?

They would be right to do so. She was a stranger here, and Nix could not vouch for her like he'd planned.

"No matter what I do," she finally said softly, "I cannot get Nix Nought Nothing to awaken and speak to me."

In one moment, only the woman stood there—in the next, the man was beside her. The air was suddenly still and heavy like glass, and it felt as though there was a thread drawn taut between them all for a moment.

"Nix Nought Nothing?" they asked in unison, their voices full of something tense and heavy and sharp. When she looked up, nearly fearful at the sudden change in their tone, their faces were slack and pale.

Something stirred in her heart. Look. What do you see?

Green and gold. Their wide eyes were a familiar warm brown.

—

Now, things are changing.

According to the servant who'd been keeping an eye on him, all from the kingdom had been offered reward if they could wake the sleeping stranger, and the the gardener's daughter had succeeded. It was a mystery how it had happened—by whom had he been cursed? Her father? Then why could she not wake him, but a maiden from the castle-town here could?—but now, with the King and Queen hovering beside her and unable to stay still for anticipation, no one cared.

The gardener's daughter was fetched, and bid to sing the unspelling catch for the prince. (Prince. He was a prince, while she was a ruffian's daughter. She kept forgetting, when she was with him.) It was a haunting one that grated on her ears, as selfishly-written magics often did—and as if bitterness still crept at the girl's heart at the sight of all who were here, she left as soon as it was finished.

Nix Nought Nothing awoke—he awoke! He opened his eyes and sat up and looked at her as if seeing the sunrise after a year of darkness, and how her heart leaps high into her throat at the sight—and true to form, only blinks a few times at her as he seems to take her in before coming to terms with it.

"You look a bit different," he remarks, tilting his head slightly. "Or did I grow?"

She chokes on a snort.

"Hush," is all she can say. What had been an attempt at an unimpressed expression melts into a wavering smile. "Are you done napping now?"

He opens his mouth to retort, but a grin creeps onto his face before he can. He snickers. "Have I slept that long?"

"Nigh a week," the Queen says—and when Nix turns his head and sees her, his eyes grow wide. The Queen's smile grows broad and wavers with emotion, and the King's eyes are crinkled at the edges, and shining. "It has been a long time."

Her own father had never shown love like this—like the way Nix tries to leap from his chair at the same moment his parents rush to hold him, all of them laughing and sobbing and shouting exclamations of love and excitement and I-thought-I-would-never-see-you-agains. So much joy rolls off of them that she thinks she could have stood there watching forever and been content.

The first thing he does, after the first surge of this, is turn and introduce her to his parents, who had barely finished hugging him and kissing him and calling him their own dear son.

"This is the one who helped me," Nix says, already gesturing to her in excitement as he looks from her to his parents. "She sacrificed much to save me from the giant. Her kindness is brilliant and she blesses all who know her."

She tries not to look embarrassed at the glowing praise as Nix comes and stands beside her as he recounts their blur of a tale to his parents.

"Ah! She is bonny and brave," says the King. By the end of Nix's stories of their escapes, they're smiling warmly at her with such pride that she dips her head and smiles.

Nix Nought Nothing glances sideways up at her and raises a brow, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips.

"I've tried to tell her that," he agrees. "I don't think she's ever believed me."

She purses her lips and glances down at him. "I'll believe it the day you believe you are not nothing."

"Alright." Simple as that, he folds his arms and raises a brow at her. "I believe it. Fair trade?"

"Fair enough," she decides, with a crooked little smile. He beams, as if she's done something worth being proud of, and looks to his parents, who indeed look proud of them both.

"We would welcome you as our daughter," the King declares heartily, and both the Queen and Nix brighten, which makes her too embarrassedly fixated on the thought of family? Starting anew? to register what comes next. "Surely, you should be married!"

Nix looks at her, arms still folded, his eyes twinkling. There's something hopeful in his eyes that makes her certain this diminutive new heart of hers has skipped a few beats.

"Should we? Surely?" he asks, as if this is a normal thing to be discussing.

She works her jaw and swallows a few times, unable to help how obviously awkward she still likely looks. A flush tickles her face, and the queen seems to put a hand over her mouth to smile behind it.

"I... don't... suppose... I would mind," she manages, and—with those bright eyes so affectionate, and on her—Nix starts snickering at her expression. It's rude, but so, so warm she can't mind. She only discovers how broadly she's smiling when she tries to purse her lips and glare at him but is unable to. "Oh, go back to sleep!" she chides, too gleeful inside to truly mind, even as she makes a motion as if throwing one of the chair-cushions at him.

"Never!" he declares, pretending to dodge the invisible pillow. He makes broad gestures that she presumes are meant to emphasize how serious he is about this. When he stands straight and tall and sets his shoulders, she thinks that the boy she's explored the forest with really does look like a prince. "I have my family and my love all together in safety at last. We have much to speak of, and much time yet to spend with each other." He's a prince, but of course, he's also still himself. He immediately gets a mischievous glimmer in his eyes and puts a hand to his chest nobly as he does what he's done for as long as she's known him—jokes, when his emotions rise. "I shall never adhere to a bedtime as long as I live!"

My love, her heart still repeats every time it beats—as payback, likely, for her calling it diminutive. My love, my love, my love.

She doesn't let it out, for she doesn't know what it will do. But the words weave a song within her, so vibrant and effervescent and strong, brighter and clearer than any she's had before.

"I am glad to see you are certainly still my dear son," the Queen says, her own eyes twinkling. "I'm certain you both need fed well after such a journey. Come, perhaps you both can tell us more of it as supper is prepared."

They fall into an easy tumble of conversation and rejoicing and genial planning, and her heart is so light she thinks it must be plotting to escape her chest.

On the week's end from when she brought him here, Nix Nought Nothing and his family welcomes her into their home. It feels natural. It feels warm, and homey, and so pleasant and right that she often has to stop tears of weary joy from welling up as she considers it all.

Once upon a time, she thought she'd known happiness well enough without him. She had known what it was like to be without a friend, and without love.

Now, it’s hard to remember it.

#inklingschallenge #four loves fairy tale retelling challenge #each all everything #theme: philia #theme: eros #story: complete #Nix Nought Nothing #fairy tale retelling #And there we have it!! A THING that is now FINISHED #Some changes have been made from the original fairytale #such as: no one’s losing their toes like that on my watch!!#please note that having everyone keep their toes actually improves the story #by letting the characters be happier thanks to having toes #you’re welcome #edit: I forgot it was fingers AND toes #oof??#this is an extremities-safe zone #Bonny and Nix #There are some parts of this I’m not sure are the best they could be BUT it’s FINISHED and that was my main goal!#(I don't finish things I start writing near often enough; so whoo! Small victory!)#wait a minute did I include all four types of love??#I DID #that's hilarious that was not intentional #at the discretion of the contest runner to include; as doing all four sounds a bit extra:#theme: storge #theme: agape #This was supposed to be a friendship/romantic love combination that would surprise no one who has read my writing #imagine my own (retrospectively unwarranted) surprise when it turned into an excuse for me to write all the kinds of love??#Anyway this was so much fun to write! I hope you enjoy! <3 #salt and light

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