Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
Emotional Damage - Blog Posts
Me: *playing minecraft with my friends*
Friend: Hey OP, where are you at? (on the map)
Me: *still reeling from the fact that TK and Carlos were both drugged and assaulted in their own home AGAIN* I'm at my fucking limit
Friend: ...
Friend: ok
"I will sing no requiem tonight."
I know the song as a whole doesn't fit but fuck bro. oh my god. he needs a blanket. he needs to cry. he needs to mourn. he killed his father. he killed his father to honour his mother and by honouring his mother he has dishonoured her wishes and no mother will ever wish for their child to kill their own father, god, oh my god. thanks a lot to this edit by gemmyemmie
A year ago someone told me i stand like a roblox character and i think ive just taken permanent psychic damage from that
Do you also hate it when you go to a new school after getting emotional damage and probably some kind of trauma, and wishing to have a god relationship with the kids in the class, but because of all the damage from your old school you end up not talking to anyone and then the kids pick on you, and you just want to finish all the time you have to be with them and then not seeing them ever again? No? Just me
[RUINING THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT REAL] i am playing. With my touys
“Could you do me a favor, and describe what your husband looked like in life?” 😱😰
Fishing Buddy (2022)
This was my first attempt at characterizing Gabbro! And their relationship with Feldspar. I believe Feldspar, in their last times before disappearing, enjoyed spending time with Gabbro. Not only because by the time, Gabbro was a new astronaut and could replace them for campfire storytime, but also because Gabbro is one of the rare Hearthian that doesn't expect anything from Feldspar. I also wanted to give Gabbro some emotions without being over-the-top about it. I believe Gabbro shows emotions, just not as much as other Hearthians. I think, since they grew up during the beginnings of Outer Wilds Ventures, they kinda always got prepared that something bad might happen one day. Also, first appearance of Chert in my comics as well! I love them, but I never really know what to do with them, aside from making them the reasonable one in the Ventures. And first interactions between the current astronauts! Even though Riebeck was still in training back then...
HIMS
he is my life now
I gave NEVS a pap, and I’m losing my mind over him (note: this is not his final design, his new shiny look will be posted fairly soon)
あなたに微笑む
Title: Smile at you Pairing: Ereri (implied) Author: 雅軌 | Translation: kanekism Notes: Uh…this one’s sad. Like really sad. It’s set after the titans have been defeated. Pro tip: listen to this for maximized sadness
Trend over on TikTok
Presenting Hermit-a-Day-May #1: Impulse!
This is a page from Skizz's notes on the Hermits, from mine and @enkays-den's Lils Universe. Explanations under the cut from me and Enkay! There's a lot of lore and worldbuilding going on >:)
Hello! Welcome to a special edition of Hermit A Day May! We’ll be posting little bios that Skizz has made of all the Hermits in our Lils Universe story. The entries you see are a few weeks ahead of where the story is at the moment, but we don’t care, we just want to share these awesome designs and give you a taste for what’s to come! Walleye did the art and some writing, Enkay did a big chunk of the writing and all the page layouts, as well as the doodles of @hybbart's Tamacrafters designs, or Lils as they’re called in our story! (though, Skizz calls them soul sprites)
This is technically a sneak peek into the world building we’ve been creating for the past few months, which is honestly one of the reasons that our projects have been kinda inactive lately. Each journal page has Skizz's notes on the Hermit and their Lil, part of a photo, and some secret text written in Galactic. The full photo will be released after all the people in it have had their day
If you want to see these as they come out, follow Walleye, as all the posts will be on their account! Also, GET READING!!!!!
And if you want to speculate on the content of these pages, please do so in Walleye's inbox, and we’ll get back to you! As long as they’re not super major all time big big BIG spoilers ;) Any interaction is welcome, be it questions, ramblings, theories, or even your thoughts on the ✨secret text✨ if you have any!!
Anyways, gotta go, we’re DESPERATELY trying to assemble all of these pages so that they’re released in time! Each has taken quite a while, so we hope you enjoy them :D
Here's our link to the series on ao3 and @hermitadaymay for the event
That's what I call an emotional damage.
five minutes later…
I need to stop looking at Blyla art tonight. Sadness. Goodbye.
quick thing before i go back to doing homework 💪‼️
my boyfriend mentioned that anakin trained ahsoka like that because he probably had visions of her being shot at by clone troops and i simply haven’t recovered since
Bakugo messed up big this time 🫡 😞
This is me until season 5 airs. I will hold onto this theory with my LIFE!
So my week is going very bad. I’m calling it my “emotionally damaged week”.
On Monday I rewatched Squid Game and was emotionally damaged by Ali and Sae-Byeok’s deaths.
Then on Tuesday I’m more than excited for the Better Call Saul’s episode and I am utterly destroyed by Nacho’s final stand. That broke me and I’m crying for the rest of the day.
But for Wednesday, I was expecting laughs from Moon Knight especially how Ep 4 finished. Then … Steven 😖.
I’m emotionally damaged and I’m only halfway through the week!😭 How can things get any worse?
Yeah, I decided to do an edit to help with the emotional damage 😭
˗ˏˋ❝Afterglow❞ˎˊ˗
Mark Grayson x Med!Reader♡ྀི
.….ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨.ـ.. .
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
⛨ summary: you’re not obsessed with him. you’re not. but the world clearly is. strange articles. sneaky algorithms. and a voice in your head that won’t shut up. meanwhile, invincible’s got his own problem: he can’t find the girl who called him out like a scrub tech on a bad day.
⛨ contains: sfw. nurse carla’s mischief. media-induced annoyance. early emotional foreshadowing. reader in denial. mark being haunted by words and mystery. parallel narration. bonus scene chaos.
⛨ warnings: mild language. internet stalking (light). stubbornness. minor delusion. no real threats—just a very determined destiny.
⛨ wc: 2146
prologue, part one, part two
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌a/n: fun fact—i lost half of this chapter mid-edit because my wifi decided to flatline like a soap opera character. dramatic gasp, hospital monitor beep, the whole deal. one second i’m tweaking a paragraph, the next i’m staring at the void where 800 words used to be. i almost fought my router. bare-fisted. anyway, here it is—risen from the ashes, caffeinated, and slightly more unhinged than originally planned. enjoy my suffering.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
The universe has a sick sense of humor.
You know this. You’ve always known this.
You work twelve-hour shifts surrounded by people coughing on your scrubs and trying to die inconveniently. You’ve stitched up knife wounds caused by things described as “accidents,” told grown men they’re not, in fact, dying from a sore throat, and once had to remove a Lego from a place no Lego should ever be.
But lately, it feels personal.
There’s been a shift. A pattern. A very specific, very annoying theme threading itself through your life like the world’s most persistent pop-up ad.
It’s not love. It’s not fate.
It’s him.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
You tap your phone’s screen with more passive aggression than necessary, holding it to your ear even though you know your (only) friend won’t pick up.
Beep.
“Okay, listen—I’m not spiraling. I’m not.”
(Pause. Sip. Another pause.)
“But if one more news article, thirst edit, or random merch featuring that man—shows up in my general vicinity, I will commit a felony. Probably a creative one.”
(Beat.)
“And no—before you say it—it’s not a crush. I don’t have time for crushes. I have sleep deprivation and a spine held together by caffeine.”
(Silence.)
“He’s not even that hot.”
You hang up.
Regret it. Immediately.
And that’s when it hits you—
You’re not obsessed with him.
You’re not.
You’ve been into people before—celebrities, coworkers, a random guy who pronounced your name right on the first try—but this isn’t that. You’re not delusional. You’re tired. You have a full-time job, a chaotic sleep schedule, and at least two stress migraines scheduled for the week.
You’re not obsessed.
The entire world, on the other hand, clearly is.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
It starts with a newspaper.
A real one. Paper and ink and everything. You’re halfway through your first sip of coffee (not bad, not cursed) when you spot it, splayed open on the front counter like it tripped and fell into your line of sight.
’Invincible saves subway commuters in mid-derailment battle.’
There’s a photo. Midair. Bloodied knuckles. Hero pose. That obnoxious blue-yellow suit.
You blink at it once. Twice. The espresso tastes more bitter somehow.
“…Carla,” you call out, slowly.
A soft shuffle from the break room. “Mhm?”
You tilt your head toward the paper. “Is that yours?”
“Nope,” she chirps, far too quickly.
You squint.
Carla reappears moments later with a tea mug that says ’I am the storm’ in passive-aggressive font and absolutely does not make eye contact as she walks past you.
She hums.
The kind of hum that implies dark intentions.
You stare at the paper like it personally insulted your scrubs.
That’s strike one.
Strike two comes via TikTok. Or… Instagram Reels. Or whatever godforsaken app the algorithm has you trapped in.
You’re lying on your couch on your one night off, a warm takeout container on your lap, the lights dimmed just enough to make it feel like self-care. You open your phone to zone out. Maybe scroll through food mukbangs. A few raccoon videos. Rewatch that one clip from ’The Bear’ for the emotional damage.
Instead, the second video to pop up is a slow-motion fan edit of Invincible. Set to a remix of a 2000s ballad.
You stare at your phone in silence as the hero who bloodied his way through your afternoon is now being thirsted after by teenagers in the comments.
You swipe up fast enough to sprain something.
Then another pops up.
And another.
And—oh, good god. This one’s tagged #invincibae.
You throw your phone facedown on your stomach like it’s contagious.
You’re not angry. You’re not even annoyed.
You’re just trying to have one singular crumb of peace in this godless world, and the masked himbo you verbally body-checked in the middle of a disaster won’t stop invading your downtime.
You eventually find a rerun of ’House MD’ and watch a patient nearly die from licking envelopes, which feels more comforting than it should.
You’re not obsessed.
(But maybe you do glare at a passing bus with his face on the side. Just a little.)
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
By the end of the week, it gets worse.
You’re at the pharmacy grabbing gauze, extra gloves, and the least offensive granola bar in existence when you see the merch.
Merch.
A corner display stacked with shirts and water bottles and pins. There’s a plushie. A plushie. Of him.
You pause, granola bar halfway to your basket.
A kid next to you picks up the Invincible water bottle and turns to his mom. “Do you think he drinks from this too?”
You visibly clench your jaw.
At that exact moment, your phone dings.
You pull it out with the practiced grace of someone who lives and dies by their calendar app—only to find a suggested article on your lock screen.
’Why Invincible Might Be the Most Relatable Hero Yet!’
You could scream.
Instead, you mutter, “I patched up his concussion while inhaling drywall dust. He was seeing double and still arguing with me.”
The cashier stares at you.
You move on.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
The final straw?
A patient brings him up.
Middle of a wound check, nothing dramatic. A few stitches, topical numbing, your hands moving on autopilot. You’re explaining aftercare, bandage changes, when the patient—maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen—smiles at you and says:
“You kinda remind me of Invincible, y’know? Like, you’re calm under pressure and.. kind of badass.”
You blink.
Smile politely. “Cool.”
Inside, your soul shrivels.
You are not him.
You don’t throw punches. You don’t fly. You don’t have a theme song or fan cams or merchandise.
You have an overtime shift on Sunday and a stress knot in your shoulder that’s starting to feel like a second spine.
But the universe doesn’t care.
You’re not obsessed.
You just can’t escape.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
Mark doesn’t remember your face.
Not clearly, anyway.
The smoke had blurred the details, painted you in silhouettes and urgency. You weren’t the loudest voice in the chaos—just the sharpest. Crisp, cutting, sure of yourself in a way that made his head spin more than the actual concussion.
But your voice?
He remembers that like it’s stitched into the inside of his skull.
Low. Stern. Half-sarcastic and half-soothing. It sounded like someone who didn’t have time for bullshit, which—given the circumstances—made sense.
He was bleeding from the ribs. The city was literally burning.
Still, the memory echoes:
“Don’t say fine.”
“You’re favoring your left.”
“You shouldn’t be flying.”
Mark exhales hard, slumping deeper into the worn couch. The TV’s on but silent. Some old action movie flickers in the corner of his vision. It’s supposed to be background noise.
But nothing is loud enough to drown you out.
He doesn’t know your name.
Doesn’t know what you do, where you’re from, if you even survived the aftermath unscathed.
All he knows is that you made him feel—briefly, dangerously—human.
Not a symbol. Not a name in headlines. Just a guy who was bleeding too much and doing too little.
And he can’t stop hearing you.
“You’re zoning out again,” Debbie says from the kitchen.
Mark flinches, barely registering the sound of the fridge opening.
“Sorry. Just tired.”
Debbie hums skeptically and tosses him a cold can of soda. “You’ve said that every day this week.”
“I am tired.”
“You’re also muttering to yourself like a haunted Victorian widow. Anything I should know?”
Mark cracks the can open with unnecessary force.
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares ahead like the wall is going to give him divine guidance.
“I met someone,” he says finally.
Debbie doesn’t react. Just leans against the counter, raising a perfectly arched brow. “Okay. And?”
“She yelled at me.”
Still silence.
“And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.”
There it is.
Debbie snorts into her cup. “That’s it? That’s what’s got you acting like a sad poet?”
He shifts. “It’s not just that. She—she saw right through me. In like, five seconds. Called out every injury I hadn’t processed yet. Told me I wasn’t fine before I could even lie about it.”
“And this was… romantic?”
“No!” Mark frowns. “I don’t even know what it was. I don’t know anything about her. I couldn’t even see her face.”
“Okay, now it’s giving Victorian ghost story.”
“She saved a kid.”
Debbie blinks.
“In the middle of it all. Ran straight into debris and smoke. People tried to stop her and she looked at me like I was the liability.”
He doesn’t mention the way your hands shook but never stopped moving. Or the way you lied—beautifully, horribly—just to keep that child alive a few seconds longer.
He doesn’t mention how it made something in his chest ache.
“She sounds amazing,” Debbie says, more gently now.
“She was,” he mutters. “And now she’s just… gone.”
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
The thing is, Mark’s not usually like this.
He gets hit, he gets up. He saves people, and he moves on. Faces blur. Names fade. It’s how he copes.
But this? This isn’t fading.
It’s getting worse.
He’ll be flying over the city and see a flash of hair that looks vaguely like yours—and he’ll nearly crash into a billboard turning to check. His neck has started clicking. He’s going to need chiropractic help and therapy.
He doesn’t even know you, but he’s half-convinced he’ll know when he sees you again.
He’s waiting for it.
And that thought alone is ridiculous.
Because he doesn’t wait. Not for danger. Not for hope. Not for anyone.
Except now, apparently, for you.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
More than once, he’s hovered outside hospitals and urgent care clinics on patrol. Just a few seconds. Just in case.
He makes excuses for it, of course:
• You never know when you might be needed.
• Some med centers don’t have enough security.
• Maybe he’s being responsible.
But then he hears a nurse’s laugh and it isn’t yours.
And he flies off like a coward.
Not even a few minutes later there’s a robbery in Midtown.
Small-time. Two guys. One has a crowbar. The other trips over his shoelace trying to run.
Mark’s on it in sixty seconds flat.
It’s easy—should be, anyway—but his timing’s off. He lands too hard, shoulder twinges wrong. The guy gets one good swing in before Mark sends him flying (not too far).
It’s done in under a minute.
And still—he’s breathless. Not from the fight, but from the feeling.
The missing.
The what if you’d seen that and thought I was sloppy kind of missing.
He doesn’t say anything as he lifts the guy’s dropped phone and hands it off to the store clerk. They thank him. He nods.
Flies away.
He doesn’t go far.
Just lands on some apartment roof, crouches by the ledge, and lets his hands tangle in his hair for a minute.
The city stretches below him, loud and alive.
But all he wants to find is a blur in the chaos that isn’t there.
٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____
Later that night, he lies in bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling like it might offer closure.
It doesn’t.
It’s just drywall and shadows and everything you saw through.
His notebook lies half-open next to him—not forgotten, just untouched, like a question he doesn’t know how to answer yet.
It’s not a journal—he doesn’t do feelings that way—but sometimes, when his head’s too loud and his hands need something to do, he sketches. Nothing fancy. Just lines. Shapes. Impressions.
Tonight, it’s you.
Or, what he remembers of you. Which isn’t much.
Your face is a blur. Hair? A vague impression. Maybe dark. Maybe not. But your hands—he remembers those. Quick, steady, smudged with ash. Your posture. How you stood slightly in front of the child like a shield, chin up, like fear was something for other people.
He’s drawn the same half-profile six times now. None of them are right.
He sighs, drags a hand through his hair, and flips the page over.
Maybe he’s not trying to get it right.
Maybe he just doesn’t want to forget.
He closes his eyes.
But the voice stays with him.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
⋆ ˚｡⋆ ˖⁺‧₊˚❤️🔥˚₊‧⁺˖ ⋆ ˚｡⋆
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌Clinic break room. You. Tired.
You sneeze—violently.
Again.
You rub your nose with the heel of your palm, the tip of it already reddish from overuse, and a dramatic groan leaves your throat as you sink into the unforgiving plastic chair.
“This is some kind of karmic punishment,” you mutter to no one in particular. “Like, I must’ve offended a witch. Or touched something cursed.”
“Maybe you’re getting sick,” offers a random nurse from across the room.
You glare at her. “I’m immune to sickness.”
Then of course, Carla appears behind you, perfectly timed as always.
“Maybe someone’s thinking about you,” she says, casual as rain, not even glancing your way before walking off.
You blink. Deadpan.
Then sneeze again.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
taglist sign up: 𓉘here𓉝
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌With Love, @alive-gh0st