#memestuff

Wild cat

Your daemon would take the form of a wild cat! Those who have wild cat daemons are proud and confident people who radiate strength. They aren’t necessarily the most talkative, but they have the largest presence in the room wherever they go. As natural leaders, the companions of these individuals know it’s their way or the highway. From the tiger to caracal to Pallas's cat

Extra

Serval

Your Result: Exhaustion. You have tried to be Atlas for far too long. your legs tremble and shoulders creak beneath the weight of the world you carry. every step forward is a battle, yet you soldier on... for what? when will you learn that you are allowed to lower your heavy burdens?

The Persephone Model is just a fic structure I overuse. Character A is stuck in an unsatisfactory place or situation. Character B enters their life, and explicitly or thematically offers a change to Character A. Character A has to struggle with either internal or external forces, but ultimately chooses to leave behind their old life to embrace a new one. Persephone, the pomegranate, the fallout, the eventual happy ending.

A Spark, A Flame, A Fire. pump your veins with gushing gold. chamomile, rose water, and other unlikely intoxicants. you can only take what you can carry to the edge of the sea. and of course we float before the sea at dusk.

F: Share a snippet from one of your favoritedialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

From TWYCC, chapter 8, the king of cups, reversed:

There are sacred geometries filling out the plane of soft skin, coming to a point at the knuckle of your elbow, where it was circled by the alchemic symbol for salt, the flat line perfectly bisecting the hard knot. Below, a starfield of constellations spread down to your wrist. His fingers press to each one in turn.

“Salt and stars,” he murmurs.

“You recognize them?” you ask quietly.

“Some… I think it’s from my bastardization of the Allspeak charm.” His hands lifts, and yours tightens in the sheets. He traces the mark at the top of your arm, the crown floating above the the chalice. “This one, I don’t know.”

“Probably because it’s more… personal. Most of my sleeves are symbology and rites. That one I…”

“What’s it for?”

His fingertips slip against the rim of the chalice, like trying to play a wine glass. You sigh out through your nose. “One of my first tattoos. When I was younger, I tried to get into an art school. Saved up my money, figured if I paid for all my classes upfront, they’d just take the coin and shut up. But I couldn’t get pass the placement test because there was a magical component they wouldn’t let me get around.”

Jake’s fingers still on your arm.

You swallow against the tightness in your throat. “I punched the dean in the throat and had to run for it. Skipped town. Spent some of my tuition on that tattoo. It’s… tarot? They’re these cards seers like to use. The King of Cups is supposed to have emotional balance and fortitude and shit.” Deep breath. Steady. “And it’s a crown. Sign of…” You shrug.

“Royalty. Nobility.” Jake shifts, and you feel his lips press against the tattoo. Your breath hitches. His hands sweep over you, like gentling an animal. “Dirk.”

I... really wallowed a lot in Dirk in TWYCC. There is a melancholy to him that feels an impenetrable wall, and I never wanted to come out and say exactly what had happened to him to make him that way. But the stories he tells in this passive, resigned way say a lot (I hope) of what life is like for him. You don’t have to know every step of his path; just enough to extrapolate.

The way Dirk has been ground down to dust by all the shit in his life, and how he takes his minor victories where he can, is something I think a lot of oppressed folk can understand.

Also, like every chapter of this fucking story touches on and reinforces Dirk’s motif: water. A uniquely troublesome element for mages, but his safety and his talisman. Cups is associated with water, and the King is meant to be a pinnacle of emotional intelligence and stability. Which, Dirk is not. But aspires to be.