chaos-and-damnation

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when you’ve honed the fine art of perfectly-timed reblogging of something aimed at one specific mutual and they immediately like it

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okay so I've been playing a bunch of No Man's Sky, a game whose main unique feature is its mind-bogglingly huge universe of procedurally generated planets, most of which have still never been encountered by human players. when you make first contact with an undiscovered planet, it starts out with a random name. just today I've discovered Snesfin, Inkiew, and Roranbu-Anuki. but a minute ago I landed on a planet with, and I must stress this again, the randomly-generated name of:

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steps into a big pot of bubbling oil and sits there like its a hot tub and i snile at you so nicely that you step in after me and youre immediately boiled til theres nothing left

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Is a half or more of the clothes you own black? (No need to count it, just visually)

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Simon Harsent - White Water, 2013

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So do people realize that we aren't building new train tracks when we expand the amteak network, I have multiple times seen people say that we shouldn't expand the network because it would destroy protected lands, which would be a fair criticism but Amtrak doesn't build new tracks, we use existing tracks. We are not destroying protected lands, we are using land that has already been clear for a century

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My taste in romance has less to do with how romantic the relationship actually is (though that is a bonus) and more to do with how interesting I find the dynamic between the couple. Which is why fluffy vanilla romance usually bores the hell out of me. I want to see how these characters dramatically affect each other and fundamentally change each other and their individual understandings of the world!!! I want to see a beautiful tie-in between the romance and the themes + messages of the story and how it all builds to a climax!!!

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Free Palestine graffiti seen in Minneapolis, Minnesota

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why bother caring about the environment when 1. It’s so obviously a lost cause and 2. There’s definitely going to be a nuclear war?

And what are you doing about it Anon? Learn about ecological restoration or get out of my way.

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Being anti-death penalty is literally the easiest stance ever. People just say "but should the state kill THIS type of person?" and you just say "no". Not killing people is so fucking easy actually

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Some authors travel widely to research their books; some find themselves in Peru or crewing a tall ship; some take up armoured combat or try out a sport; some write from a lifetime's experience of music or theatre or dance... but me? Me, I'm doing fibre crafts, apparently. And also a PhD in medieval Irish literature. Can't forget that part.

It's a shame I don't think you can apply for SoA grants to buy a loom 🤔

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“Diversity reading where you pick books solely based on the minority demographics to which the author belongs very often comes across as self-congratulatory and somewhat insulting towards the authors” and “Some people really need to read a book written by someone from a different demographic than their own” are statements that can coexist

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The Dead Are the Dead Are the Dead Are the Dead

Written for this week's @flashfictionfridayofficial theme, "Lead the Way!"

Fiction type: Original story

Word count: 1,000

--

Her eyes flutter open like the butterflies that used to rest upon her grave, and she's blinded by light like she hasn't seen in fifteen months.

He's looking at her expectantly, crouched down like a servant at her feet, his hands holding hers upon her lap. They feel warm, even through the thickness of his gloves, and it sends a shiver through her where their palms meet.

"Lyssa," he breathes, with a widening, frenzied grin. "Welcome back, my love."

He leaps up, pulling her to her feet, and whirls her through the air like a doll. She's about as limp as one, too, her mind searching for its limbs as if it forgot where they were. She seems to have forgotten a lot of things — where she is, how she got here, what the strange pain in her chest is.

Her name is Lyssa, she supposes. His name is...

"Vasik?"

"You remember," he beams at her. He sets her gently back down on her feet without letting go, as if he knows she needs some time to recall how to stand first. Once she's steadied herself, he takes her hands again, eyes shining.

But the moment, and her balance, are abruptly broken by a fit of coughs.

He's quick to catch her, with a handkerchief at the ready.

"Take your time," he tells her gently. "Take all the time you need. We have plenty of it."

—

Vasik tours her around, clearly happy even as his words come out stilted, as if reciting a well-practiced spiel. She wonders if perhaps he's practicied in anticipation of showing her this place. She lets him lead the way; she doesn't quite recognize this house, even as other memories return to her.

The walking is slow, frustratingly slow. She remembers running and waltzing and twirling with abandon, but her legs feel so stiff beneath her. Her shoes aren't helping, either, and it's then that she realizes in fact how strangely she's dressed — delicate crystal-heeled slippers and a dozen layers of white lace tulle and silk, wrapped all together in some kind of erratically stitched gown. She thinks she wore a dress like this in another life, but the seams are in all the wrong places, haphazardly folded all over her form. There's too much of the dress, twice as much fabric as it feels like there should be.

He speaks of the house as their home. She does recall many a happy evening spent in his company, but not here, which puzzles her. It's beautiful, though, and feels almost familiar, like a fantasy she might have imagined once. There are clean white curtains fluttering on a dream-like breeze through white wood windows that open out to the clearest blue sea. And there's no smog — she remembers smog, but there's none in sight, only salt in the air and an infinite horizon of blue meeting blue.

He points out where her favorite book rests upon a shelf, though she does not remember the small stain of red at the corner of the cover. There's a portrait of her mother, which she remembers hanging over a different mantleplace, somewhere in her home that was not this one. She follows dutifully behind as he directs her attention to the kitchen, though he assures her that he of course does not expect her to cook in her condition. They have a maid to help with that, but she has been dismissed for the day — so as not to draw the girl's attention to her return, he says, though Lyssa is still not quite sure where she's returning from, exactly.

The cough won't quite go away, either. There's a bloodstain forming on the handkerchief he gave her, though he seems both unsurprised and unconcerned.

"It's the consumption — but the sea air, it does you good for that," he explains.

She remembers that. She remembers how her father used to send her away to the seaside in the summers too, as a child, though she recalls that place being colder than it is here. Here, it's her own hands that feel cold, and everything else which feels warm.

—

A few weeks pass by, peaceably enough. He guides her back and forth through the house, from bed to a fainting couch to a chair and back to bed. Everything seems perfectly positioned for her comfort, which is helpful, because the coughing fits are only worsening.

Vasik's smile stiffens, but he waits patiently for it to pass each time.

She gives him a weak smile, as more memories return to her — months of him fussing and worrying, back in the place she used to know as home, and the guilt she'd always felt over it. They'd had money troubles back then, but he doesn't seem to have any concerns about such matters now, despite this lovely house that they surely couldn't have afforded. In fact, his only concerns seem to surround her health, and even when he is working in another room, he rushes over at the first sign of a cough.

"I'm sorry to pull you away from your work again like this," she says with a bitter laugh, bedridden again. "You're always looking after me."

"I wouldn't do anything less, my love. I know I haven't always been so present for you, but I'll not make that mistake again, not ever again. I'll care for you until my dying day."

There's something dark in his eyes as he says it, something he's telling her without telling her. But the fatigue of her illness closes her eyes before she can ask about it. She sleeps.

—

She wakes upright in a chair, eyes fluttering open. He's kneeling at her feet, hands holding her hands in her lap.

There's a pain in her chest — what is that? And where is this place?

"Lyssa." He kisses her palm and looks up at her, eyes bright. "Welcome back, my love."

She searches her mind, trying to remember through a muggy fog. "...Vasik?"

"You remember," he beams.

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a comment a day keeps the insanity at bay