d00m-d4ys

[d00m-d4ys]

We have to eliminate cringe once and for all, because the only way to be 100% sure that your book quote tattoo won't retroactively become nazi rhetoric is to tattoo a quote that you yourself wrote and I'm not going down with this ship alone

[d00m-d4ys]

I'm looking for a beta reader to give feedback on a finished work in regards to flow, plot, and characterization. The story is 75k words at the moment, which I know is a huge ask, but if you're interested in the pitch below feel free to reach out! If you'd like to do a work swap I can certainly do that, or something else to compensate you for your time and effort.

The pitch:

Mal is a young mother preparing to leave Earth behind, her only means of escaping the guilt for her best friend's death. Before she can start her new life and leave all of her regrets behins, there are loose ends to tie up: another close friend has gone missing, and just like always it falls to her to find him. Her search takes her into the welathy areas of the city, where old secrets are revealed and she's forced to reckon with why she desperately needs to flee Earth.

Genre: sci-fi, speculative.

Content warnings: death, war, gore, violence.

This is an original story and upon completion will be posted to my personal website, not sent to a publishing house (though circumstances may change).

If you're interested please reach out!

Edit: I have found a beta reader! Thank you to everyone who reached out, I'm looking forward to posting the story for everyone to read when the time comes.

[d00m-d4ys]

Nobody ask me how I'm doing, I'm in my fucked-up short story era

[d00m-d4ys]

introducing three original characters that I love dearly but holy hell was it a Decision to draw that French braid. click for better quality, because I can't figure out how to save them as images!

image ID; three digital sketches drawn semi-realistically. the first is a picture of Batari, a young humanoid drawn from the chest up. Batari is looking to something to her left, half-turned from his path forward, expression open and interested. Batari has long hair tied back in a thick French braid and wears a sectional hooded cloak, and her eyes are inverted, the pupil and iris white while the sclera is drawn black.

the second is a profile of Kore, an older mediterranean-african woman drawn from the chest up. They are looking up and forward at something offscreen, with a friendly expression and a sense of excited interest. Their coiled hair is loose and naturally sits a few inches over their scalp before falling to their chin. They carry something undefined in their arms, and they wear a hooded cloak.

the third is a profile of Leaf, an older, stocky Black person drawn from the torso up. Ae looks down with an expression of worry and has aer arms crossed over aer chest. Ae also has textured hair, but aer curl pattern has less volume and falls in natural spikes. Ae wears a tunic, and despite being human the eye that we can see is similar to batari's, where the pupil is white while the sclera is black. End ID

[d00m-d4ys]

Have more of the best writing you’ll ever get from me, instalment #17 of Stuff I Wanted to Write But I Got Bored And/Or Uninspired, Ready or Not edition. A bunch of loose scenes that i wrote while blacked out and less than in-control of my actions

It started because of Lan Zhan’s roommate.

No, that’s not the nicest way of putting things. It all started because of Lan Zhan’s roommate’s fucked-up family.

Wei Ying first met Wen Ning one summer’s night after a few too many beers and a lot of misplaced confidence. He’d stumbled from the bar and pointed himself in the direction he though Lan Zhan most likely to be, intent on confessing his feelings and then passing out in his strong, caring arms.

The door opened, and Wei Ying threw himself into Lan Zhan’s arms. “I—“ he hiccupped, and briefly had to will himself not to throw up. “Lan Zhan, I love you.”

His eyes — oh, his eyes, he could wax poetic about those eyes all day and all night — were less tired than he would have expected, having woken up so suddenly. “Wei Ying, you’re drunk.”

“But I love you.”

“I know. We’re dating.”

“Oh.” He felt sick again, and had enough sense to distance himself in case he had to vomit. “Then why am I here?”

He remembered. He just didn’t want to think about the photos Auntie Yu had sent, old albums of the days when she and his mom were best friends, before Uncle Jiang had even known her. He took after his dad, but his mother’s smile was a mirror of his own, and in one photo he could see how she rubbed her nose the same way he did.

Lan Zhan guided him to sit on the bed and handed him a bucket, murmuring that he would be back.

His sniffles were much louder in the silence, and after a moment he came to the conclusion that someone else must be just as sad as he was.

He stood and prodded the lump under the second bed’s blankets, kneeling down beside Lan Zhan’s roommate. “What’s wrong?”

The roommate sniffled and huddled lower under his blankets. “Nothing.”

“Nothing doesn’t make people cry.” He paused, turning that sentence over in his head. “Anyways, I can always guess. Are you missing someone?”

The boy shakily sighed. “A little.”

“Aw, me too. Is your person dead too?”

“What? No.” He sat up, drying his eyes and pushing his hair back. “JieJie is fine.”

“You miss your sister? I miss mine too.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on the bed. “Is she far away?”

“No. Just in bad company.”

He could understand that. “Bad company is very sad,” he said solemnly. “I hope she finds better company soon.”

He laughed, enough to stall his tears for a moment. “Me too.”

-

Wen Qing went white the moment the letter opened, hand quivering as she read its contents.

Wei Ying watched from the table, half-tensed in case he needed to save her from a dead faint. “Everything alright?”

She shoved the letter at him and sat down, breathing hard. “They know.”

“Who knows?” The letterhead was big and firm, Qishan-Wen Entertainment. “Woah, you’re those Wens?”

Her face pinched. “No. We’re not.”

“Then why are they sending you a save the date?” He looked harder. “Hold on, what’s with that? We’re supposed to be sending these out.”

“Fucking assholes.” She snatched the letter back from him and read through again. “How’d they even find out? I was so careful.”

“What’s the big deal? So they’re weirdly overbearing.” He leaned back over. “They chose our venue? And theme? I thought we were doing courthouse-chic.”

-

Lan Zhan was shamelessly eavesdropping.

He couldn’t help it. Planning for two weddings basically designed to game the student finance system was incredibly dull, even if slightly better accommodations and better loans were an excellent incentive.

His fiancee was in the other room, quietly shouting into her cellphone. “If you consult the family records, you’d see that the Dafan-Wens — my side of the family, if you couldn’t tell — split from Qishan ten years ago. No, sorry, not split: you all disowned us!”

He couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but clearly they failed to soothe her temper. “Do not tell me to calm down! We are having these nuptials at the courthouse, and you all are not invited!”

Her phone clattered as she threw it on the table in front of him. “They want the weddings to happen on the manor. They’ve promised to make mine and A-Ning’s lives very difficult if we don’t honour their wishes.”

“Would it hurt?” He’d never imagined a courthouse wedding for himself, when he dared to dream. It’d be nice at the very least to get married in a semi-formal venue.

“They want something else. The venue is just their way of getting it, and I need to know what it is.” She drummed her fingernails on the table. “God, I hate this.”

He reached across the table and touched her wrist, the most physical touch he was willing to supply. “We will protect you and Wen Ning from them. Having a real ceremony would legitimize the proceedings; letting them pay for it is just a means to an end.”

Her shoulders sagged.

-

The ceremony was beautiful, she had to admit. Her family was surprisingly subdued, although the decorations were overly expensive and clashed with her choice of gown.

As soon as they cleared the aisle, Wen Qing steered the four of them into a side room and made her stance clear. “Time to cut and run.”

“And miss the food?” Wei Ying somehow already had a handful of biscuits, sharing them with Wen Ning. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad, was it?”

Lan Zhan had a small frown on his face. “I didn’t like how religious the service was.”

“Don’t be ungrateful now.”

She whirled on the voice, the little old woman in the doorway not ringing any bells but threatening none the less. “Auntie. We apologize for offending.”

She harrumphed. “We are expecting you in the music room. Come along.”

Wei Wuxian switched places with Lan Wangji, leaning in to whisper as he walked, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” She chewed on her lip, watching as the double doors swung shut behind them. The music room was large and sprawling, most traditional instruments with a piano in the corner. Further on there was a second set of doors, into a room with a large table that looked like a poker table, but with no felt.

Wen Ruohan gestured for them to sit. “We are so happy to see two of our own bring such fine husbands into our family.”

Wen Ning squirmed uncomfortably, and she reached over to take his hand, noting that Wei Ying was doing the same with his other hand.

Lan Zhan took her other hand, paying rapt attention to the long-winded history of Qishan-Wen Entertainment. A box was placed in front of her, smaller than a shoebox but disproportionately heavy.

A moment of looking, and she passed it along to Lan Zhan. He seemed just as disconcerted, passing it along quickly.

“And upon the introduction of new family by marriage, we have always placed a blank card into the device. The device will print a random game on the card, and upon the game’s completion, you will officially be under the Wens’ wing.”

The box was passed back to Lan Zhan, a blank card already loaded. It started to tick with clockwork as soon as he touched it, spitting out a card that he lifted and read with impassive neutrality, “War.”

The game passed as War always did, with aggression and intensity and stuttered laughter. It ended with Wen Ruohan winning, after ten minutes.

The box was then passed to Wei Ying, who just looked excited. At his reading of the card his face lit up with a grin. “I’m the best at Hide and Seek, I’m gonna kick all of your asses.”

The mood of the room suddenly shifted, and she didn’t like it. “How exciting,” Wen Ruohan said, and her stomach felt like she’d swallowed ice.

[d00m-d4ys]

Disclaimer: i know this could be better (quality-of-story-wise) but it could also be a whole lot worse, so imo that absolves me of both editing and basic grammatical discipline. Please enjoy the latest instalment of my ‘the subplot of jiang fengmian possibly cheating on his wife was boring; yu ziyuan and cangse sanren should have been besties’ agenda.

Curfew is one of the many rules that chafe, and so she disregards it as often as she can. As undignified as it is to scales the walls of Cloud Recesses, she seethes, it could all be avoided if she was allowed spar with Zidian and teach the second heir of Lan not to look down his nose at her.

This moon is high by the time she returns, and she nearly topples to the ground as a voice calls, “Don’t fall.”

She steadies herself, telling her racing heart to calm itself. She looks to her left and sees the girl: a rogue cultivator, hair diligently unkempt and at odds with her pressed student’s robes.

“Don’t concern yourself with me,” she tells her sternly.

Cangse Sanren sits up, eyes wide. “I wasn’t concerned! Merely speaking aloud. Ignore me, honoured Violet Spider.”

“You mock me?” Zidian crackles in her hands.

“But of course. Jiangs fight best when they’re angry.” She comes to her feet like a puppet tugged along by its strings, lighter than air and undeniably coordinated.

Zidian hisses louder. “I am not Jiang, you insolent—“

Cangse Sanren moves almost too fast to track, and Ziyuan strikes on reflex, Zidian splitting a layer of roofing in half as Cangse dodges back, landing safely out of reach on top of the guard tower. She whistles, long and low. “So this is Zidian. Why do you hide her away?”

She curls her fingers around her ring protectively, unsure of what the girl means to do.

“Is that why? Afraid someone will steal it?” Cangse lights back down on the roof, confident in a way that Ziyuan hates, but not enough to risk using Zidian again. “I’m sorry for insulting you. What are you, if not a Jiang?”

The question catches her off-guard, and she answers before she can think better of it. “This one is Yu Ziyuan.”

“Yu Ziyuan, Yu Ziyuan— I can’t promise I’ll remember, but I’ll do my best.” She bows, again catching her by surprise. “This one is Cangse Sanren.”

She swallows. “I know.”

Cangse straightens up and grins at her, tucking her sword into the crook of her elbow. “I think we’ll be friends. Yes?”

She’s about to answer when the roofing beneath her feet turns slick as ice, sending her plummeting to the ground. Cangse lands mostly on top of her with her many bony appendages, and for a moment all Ziyuan can do is sit there and quietly groan.

It’s probably not a good sign that the clan leader himself had caught them sparring out of grounds and after curfew, but at least she isn’t alone.

-

After that, it was quite obvious that Cangse would continue to be a permanent pest.

“A-Yuan,” she begs, already reaching for Ziyuan’s bowl. “Cangse is so hungry, how can A-Yuan be so cruel?”

“Eat your own damn food,” she snaps, and learns not to regret it. Cangse sighs and returns to her own bowl, identical to hers excepting the absence of bamboo shoots.

Cangse seems to attract trouble: she can see across the room Jiang Fengmian making a beeline for her table, followed shortly after by a disciple whose name escapes her.

The usual niceties are as excruciating as always, and they find themselves seated across the table. Cangse drops her chopsticks and slams her hands down, earning them several dirty looks. “Young Master, I must know your name.”

There is a moment where Ziyuan can see disaster blooming. Both men look delighted at the attention, and both move to answer her question.

She dumps her bamboo shoots in Jiang Fengmian’s bowl, interrupting his train of thought and drawing his attention to her.

It’s a risky gamble: the bamboo shoots are inarguably the best thing in a Lan’s diet, and she doesn’t want to invite implication into her actions, but something so grand and distracting and (hopefully) confusing is enough to render him speechless.

Unfortunately, it also draws Cangse’s ire, though the servant — Wei Changze — is blissfully unaware of her blunders, still basking under Cangse’s attention.

Jiang Fengmian colours a bright pink that she privately thinks is very becoming, and she can only hope that his interest in Cangse is only infatuation. “Thank you, Lady Yu.”

-

The Jin arrive, finally, and so too does her friend from across the river. Hua Yufei is just as ladylike as she remembers, but her immediate taking-to of Cangse Sanren is concerning, to say the least.

“Is it difficult, being a rogue cultivator?”

“Perhaps it is, when comfort is a concern. I have often slept outdoors on nighthunts, when no inn would have me.”

Yufei shudders. “I could never,” she swears, hand daintily resting on her collarbone. “Ziyuan, did you hear the news, or shall I tell you?”

“What news?”

“Sect Leader Jin is in want of a match for his son. I have it on good authority that I am in the running, and that Jin Guangshan favours me.”

Her mother had sent word that her own marriage now had a wedding date, and it filled her with equal parts dread and relief.

Cangse bumps her shoulder, jolting her out of her daydreams. “Congratulate your sworn-sister, A-Yuan, for I have no earthly idea what any of you are talking about.”

Yufei gets far more excited than she should, and hurries to sit next to Cangse. “See that one there? The Jin with peonies on his sleeve? He is Jin Guangshan. If I am to marry him, I’ll be Madame of the second-richest sect in Xianxia.”

Cangse looks critically at him and evidently turns up little to compliment, to Ziyuan’s vindication. “He seems very . . . friendly.”

It’s a very kind way of noting his lecherous staring at the servant pouring his tea. “He will not give up his ways under marriage, Yufei.”

“What do I care if he galavants through every brothel in Lanling? I need only bear a son, and my wifely duties will be complete. I will have Koi Tower, and he shall have his fleeting pleasures. Let others take care of him.”

-

The lectures end, somewhat successfully: Lan Qiren’s facial hair had suffered Cangse’s vengeance, Hua Yufei had secured a tentative proposal from Jin Guangshan, and Jiang Fengmian no longer looked scared of her when she spoke to him.

Yufei hugs her tightly before dashing after the Jin delegation. Cangse stands by her as the Jiang sect prepares to leave, disiciples running about accomplishing what they should have several hours beforehand. “Is Yunmeng your home?”

“For now.” Her betrothal was entering into its vital stages, and it wouldn’t do to return to Meishan just yet. “And yours?”

She lifts one shoulder, staring out over the bustling Jiangs. “Wherever I’m needed.”

Ziyuan spots Wei Changze trying to look as though he’s not watching Cangse Sanren, fiddling with something in his hands. If they’re not careful, the Jiang sect will lose two fine cultivators. “Then you should come with us.”

-

Yu Ziyuan knows that something is wrong. She knows it as well as she knows that her daughter is six, that her son is three, that she has not seen her ill-gotten sworn-sister since before either of them were born.

She leaves without a word, away on her sword and letting her heart guide her.

The last of her steady letters had come from Yiling, paper smelling faintly of sulphur from the Burial Mounds. So west she steers herself, flying hard through the gathering storm and buffeting winds until she hears Cangse calling for her husband. She descends hard and almost falls, Zidian flaring out and cracking against the encroaching fierce corpses. Two fall back, weak enough to be banished, but four more advance in their place, and she seizes her sword for the task of disposing of them.

Cangse does not struggle with fierce corpses. She has a way with them, tames them like dogs under her immortal’s teachings. Ziyuan is almost afraid to turn around, sheathing her sword and searching the gloom and thicket for a trace of teal robes, a beaded jade hairpiece.

“A-Ze!”

Her voice is near. She can hear two sets of footprints, one surer, the other more cautious.

Something was wrong with this forest, if it had separated Cangse and Wei Changze. She feels as though she might crawl out of her skin, the resentful energy mounting with each second she remained. She rushes through thicket and brush, forcing her way through layers of the maze array with sheer force of will, far too angry to be waylaid by such child’s play.

The final layer stretches like rice cake before snapping, and it felt as though a layer of wet cotton had been ripped from her ears, the sounds of the world coming into sharp focus with painful suddenness.

Cangse is there to catch her, though she seems disoriented. “A-Yuan?”

Her voice shakes, and she hates it. “We have to leave.”

Cangse’s mouth sets. “Not without A-Ze.”

The maze array changes even as they speak, and Cangse is too dizzy to do anything but slow them down and ensure they remain trapped. She feels her mouth twist grimly as she wraps her hand around her wrist, dragging her to the edge of the array. “I will find him.”

-

She doesn’t regret finding Cangse first. How could she, for her own sworn-sister? She refuses to regret. She will not regret.

It’s difficult to muster that conviction when she lays Wei Changze’s body down on the ground, overtaken by the hole in his chest where his heart once was.

Cangse wails when she sees him, a keening, heartbroken sound Ziyuan has never heard a person make. The sound is pure pain, and for a moment all she can do is stand there and think about how devestated Jiang Fengmian will be, when he hears the news.

She kneels, wanting to at least close his eyes. Cangse’s wails abruptly peter off and she screams, “Get away from him!”

The suddenness of it startles her away, and Cangse throws herself over his body, protecting him. “Don’t touch him. I won’t let him be sullied by such hands.”

“Such hands?” Already, she is angry. “Say your meaning.”

“You always hated him,” she accuses. “You could have saved him. Why didn’t you save him?” She touched his cheeks, crying over his glossy, dead eyes. “Why didn’t you help him first?”

“And risk the same happening to you?” She doesn’t regret. She doesn’t.

“You should have! He’s the one who should live. It shouldn’t be me.”

She stands, too angry to say anything constructive at the moment. “Wei Ying will be in Yunmeng, while you grieve.”

She’ll never be sure if Cangse Sanren would have heard anything of the living world in that moment, her ear pressed to a dead man’s chest.

-

Jiang Fengmian is in his office, and she lets herself in. “Wei Changze is dead.”

The news is sudden, and horrible, and Fengmian spends a good few minutes unable to speak. “What happened?”

She meets his watery gaze. “A nighthunt. He was overpowered.”

“And Cangse?” He licks his lips. “Is she—“

“You are aware they have a child?” She feels so very angry, and it is easy to blame it on his apparently poor memory, instead of its true source. “You do know that? Or have you only read their letters to trace Cangse’s calligraphy? Are you so eager that you forget your duty?”

He has the decency to look ashamed, but not enough to muster a response.

She scoffed and left the room, making her way to her children’s’ quarters.

-

Cangse Sanren arrives just as Ziyuan’s lies to her son began to wear thin.

She lands softly in the training grounds, leaving stunned and gaping disciples in her wake. She strides to wear Ziyuan stands, supervising Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying as they spar.

“I want my son back.”

Ziyuan lifts her chin, crossing her arms. It hides her anxiety: Cangse is dressed in mourning white, and her eyes are sunken with lack of sleep. She is much paler than she used to be, and much angrier.

Cangse scowls at her, at her silence. “Wei Ying. Come here.”

Wei Ying looks up with a gleeful cry, and rushes to embrace his mother. For a moment, Cangse is her old self again, swinging him into her arms and kissing him on the cheek.

But it soon fades, and Cangse Sanren fixes her with a steely glare and utters perhaps the last words Yu Ziyuan will ever forget:

“Until we meet again, Madame Jiang.”

[d00m-d4ys]

i have 1 can of soup left and a couple caprisuns and would like to be able to eat tomorrow my cashapp is $casperpup and my venmo is @casper-pup thank u <3 rbs appreciated (05/30/21)

[d00m-d4ys]

now that the media has continued on their roll of being disgusting in regards to how they treat such devastating situations such as the 215 lost indigenous children found in kamloops this past week, i absolutely encourage all of my canadian and non-canadian people on here to really look into and read about the history of residential schools in canada. this is one mass grave found at 1 of 139 residential schools across the country, we don’t even know the half of what is still out there to be found. this is not just a ‘devastating part of our history’ the last one to close was in 1996, less than 30 years ago. this is our PRESENT, these children would have been elders in their community, guides, grandparents, this isn’t history. this was a genocide, and the government of canada still refuses to acknowledge that.

some resources to peak at

this website belongs to the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc community, and also provides a significant amount of important and informative resources.

the history of residential schools told from the perspective of indigenous people of canada - this website also provides other information in regards to the truth and reconciliation commission, as well as more information about how indigenous people’s are still fighting for the truth to come out.

st anne’s residential school in port albany, ontario was one of the worst of them all, and many of the indigenous children who were forced to attend are currently fighting for the entire truth to be revealed.

this entire website put out by UBC gives an informative and important look into the systematic racism that indigenous people’s in canada still suffer under

these are just four of thousands of resources you can find about the devastation that residential schools caused, but i would absolutely encourage each and every one of you to look into and read about these ‘schools’.

[d00m-d4ys]

um. fat people are allowed to be outside btw. fat people are allowed to wear clothes that do not completely flatter them. fat people are allowed to have their belly showing or wear clothes too small for them. fat people are allowed to exist in whatever they want and we dont have to constantly make ourselves look appealing + attractive. skinny people can wear lazy clothes and be called gorgeous but god forbid a fat person not put 100% into their fucking appearance every single day of their life

[d00m-d4ys]

some things that have happened since you stopped hearing about p/alestine after the “ceasefire” was declared

1,000+ palestinians were arrested in a mass-arrest campaign designed to, and i quote, “instill fear” - including children

al-aqsa mosque and worshippers were attacked and beaten

literal children, not even teens, children, were arrested and tried in a military court (this is not new, thousands of children have faced this terrorization over the years. Isr@el is the only country in the world that tries children in military courts. 500-700 children are prosecuted each year.)

a soldier deliberately ran over a child on a bike for having a pales/tinian flag on his bike. an adult man ran over a child with his car. on purpose. the child is 12. read that again.

sheikh jarrah was blockaded, illegally

whatsapp blocked the accounts of over 100 pal/estinian journalists

silwan, another pal/estinian neighborhood like sheikh j/arrah, is being violently ethnically cleansed to make way for more settlers

Isr@el has forced social media sites to censor the hashtags “free pal/estine” and “save sheikh ja/rrah” many posts and accounts have been deleted

25 pales/tinians have been murdered by the ID/F and settlers

in Jaffa, 300 arab families are under force expulsion orders to make way for more settlers. 300 families.

suicide rates in g/aza have risen to an all-time high due to PTSD and hopelessness

Pales/tinians in G/aza still do not have access to safe drinking water, electricity, medical care, and nutrition. families are still being displaced from their homes by settler colonialism. There is still an inability to mobilize freely, pursue a career, seek an education, or gain access to decent healthcare or mental health resources. The occupation, genocide, and ethnic cleansing continues whether you see on your feed or not.

[d00m-d4ys]

The Old Guard with hints of Good Place, part 2! Sorry for the wait, I am Anxious and writer’s block ‘got my leg,’ if you will. Part 1 here.

-

Quynh’s first death is at the hands of a home invader, and whatever she expected of her death, she did not consider that this would be a possibility.

At the moment, she does not know how to the describe the man sitting at the other end of the boat, does not understand him as a spiritual entity or as a fellow being of the living world. Later, she will meet others and decide that he is an angel, but for now he is just a man, with dark skin and a warm, comforting smile.

“It’s alright,” he tells her. He is steering the boat as it floats lazily down the river: she is perched on the prow, the water within arm’s reach. “Your time has come.”

The river is not one she recognizes, winding too closely up- and downstream to see what lies ahead or behind. The water is silvery, reflecting her countenance near perfectly. Her curiosity overtakes her and she leans down, carding her fingers through the water. It doesn’t bead like it should, doesn’t run down her hands; instead it pools into a globular shape and floats upward, toward the pale blue sky.

“Quynh?”

She ignores him, feeling the back of her head for the wound that brought her down. There is nothing to suggest that she had even bled, though she remembers her death rather vividly.

“It’s alright, if you need some time. Death is always a shock. But you needn’t worry: you’ve done well.”

Not for the first or the last time, she decides that she knows better. “No, I don’t think I have.” She jumps out of the boat before he can protest or move to stop her, and she resurfaces in the shallows of the river alongside her home. She can see the robber menacing her brother, and tears up the slope before the knife can touch his throat. The robber falls with a heavy thud at her feet, and she is barely out of breath.

It never feels lucky, none of it. She does not feel grateful that her father was killed and so could not demand to know how she could rise again. She does not feel grateful that her skin knits back together after each scrape and cut, often before she feels the pain. She does not feel grateful that her mother stares at her with fear and worry, that she does not protest when Quynh announces her plans to travel to defend the border.

It doesn’t feel like luck that her brother is grown and married by the time she comes home, a father twice over and Ông Nội to seven frolicking children. It doesn’t feel like luck when she never changes but the world around her always will.

He forgets her name — they all do. Soon enough, she is a lonely, clanless archer, roaming the east for battles to fight and new ways to die. Her second and hopefully final time crossing the Gobi Desert, she learns that she is not alone.

-

Quynh dies for the nth time at the bottom of sea, and she thinks that her angel may be losing patience with her.

“Why won’t you die for good?” The angel is begging, hands clasping her elbows and shaking her like she has any control over the situation. “Quynh, why can’t you just give in?”

She’s forgotten how to speak, she thinks. Every time she opens her mouth her brain tricks her, tasting brine and clamping her jaw shut until her teeth ache. She tries, and cannot even part her lips.

She knows that he only wants her suffering to end, but she is far too stubborn for that. Her angel is quiet, hands slackening, and when he looks up his eyes are filled with tears. “Please,” he begs. “Please let go. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear to watch this torture.”

She has no words, and chooses instead to touch his cheek. She has only a brief reprieve in between drownings, never as long as she’d like, and never consistently. Some days she will drown thousands of times before finding her way back to her angel, and some days they greet each other like old friends each time she succumbs.

By her thirty-six-million-and-twenty-first death, her angel is no longer begging. He tells her quietly that he won’t be alongside her anymore, and that he is sorry. She still has no words, and presses a kiss to his forehead, a reassurance and an apology. He takes her hand and holds it against his cheek. “It’s . . . complicated, but he’ll take care of you, Quynh. You’ll find your way out of this one day, I promise.”

She privately thinks that he should not make promises he can’t keep, but then she is free and the air feels so nice over her cheeks, and she is hungry for so many things that her mind spins. She’d very much like to try what Nile calls a hoagie.

Her next death is entirely by accident, and her new angel is an older European man, though he speaks funny, a little like Nile. She doesn’t understand why accents have to change so often, though it’s more gripe than anything else. She’s earned the right to gripe about things.

“Hello! We haven’t met, I’m Michael.” He holds out his hand, and she decides that this greeting ritual is beyond her at the moment. He doesn’t seem to mind when she disregards his hand and starts looking around. “How long do you usually stay, Quynh?”

She has to force herself to open her mouth, has to tell herself that her body’s currently resting on a piece of driftwood and not in a casket under the sea. Her mouth still burns with brine as she forces out: “Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.”

The afterlife is different, now. The walls are white, and she is dressed in strange clothes cotton clothes, the likes of which she has never seen before. “Where is my boat?” She liked the boat, floating lazily down the river. It reminded her of home.

“We redecorated recently, but the short answer is that you have been going to the Good Place until recently, and now you’re- well, it’s a little experiment we’ve got going on, you’re in a queue to live a year in a perfect vacuum to measure your character.”

Aiya, the afterlife sounds so boring. She turns to face him and nods. “I will be going now.”

He raises his hand to snap his fingers, but she beats him to it, weakly lifting her waterlogged head from the log. The sun is hot and bright on her back, her clothes having rotted away on the seafloor. By her estimate, she is somewhere in the Atlantic — they had sailed for a good long while before dropping her in the sea.

She kicks her legs. A full range of motion is enough to make her giggle, and she’s glad she still has that much. A sense of humour is important for such ugly work ahead.

[d00m-d4ys]

Huh, I’ve received a letter from my beloved! I wonder what flowers she has sent me today. Perhaps pink Camellias, for longing. Or a Christmas rose, for anxiety. I’m anxious for the baby to come as well, though my rose is more a worry that I won’t be much of a father—

Baby’s breath? That’s interesting, I wonder what she means by that. Maybe it has a special Hellenic meaning, I’ll have to consult my tomes.

. . .

. . .

. . .

EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WAY, MY BELOVED IS GIVING BIRTH AND IF I’M NOT THERE TO GREET MY FIRSTBORN I’LL THROW MYSELF OFF A BRIDGE—

[d00m-d4ys]

Váli: answer my text pls

Nike: gimme a minute i can’t find my phone

Váli: ok

Váli, ten minutes later: you are an awful child. you know you’re killing me. you’re killing your father Nike

[d00m-d4ys]

The Old Guard with hints of Good Place, part 2! Sorry for the wait, I am Anxious and writer’s block ‘got my leg,’ if you will. Part 1 here.

-

Quynh’s first death is at the hands of a home invader, and whatever she expected of her death, she did not consider that this would be a possibility.

At the moment, she does not know how to the describe the man sitting at the other end of the boat, does not understand him as a spiritual entity or as a fellow being of the living world. Later, she will meet others and decide that he is an angel, but for now he is just a man, with dark skin and a warm, comforting smile.

“It’s alright,” he tells her. He is steering the boat as it floats lazily down the river: she is perched on the prow, the water within arm’s reach. “Your time has come.”

The river is not one she recognizes, winding too closely up- and downstream to see what lies ahead or behind. The water is silvery, reflecting her countenance near perfectly. Her curiosity overtakes her and she leans down, carding her fingers through the water. It doesn’t bead like it should, doesn’t run down her hands; instead it pools into a globular shape and floats upward, toward the pale blue sky.

“Quynh?”

She ignores him, feeling the back of her head for the wound that brought her down. There is nothing to suggest that she had even bled, though she remembers her death rather vividly.

“It’s alright, if you need some time. Death is always a shock. But you needn’t worry: you’ve done well.”

Not for the first or the last time, she decides that she knows better. “No, I don’t think I have.” She jumps out of the boat before he can protest or move to stop her, and she resurfaces in the shallows of the river alongside her home. She can see the robber menacing her brother, and tears up the slope before the knife can touch his throat. The robber falls with a heavy thud at her feet, and she is barely out of breath.

It never feels lucky, none of it. She does not feel grateful that her father was killed and so could not demand to know how she could rise again. She does not feel grateful that her skin knits back together after each scrape and cut, often before she feels the pain. She does not feel grateful that her mother stares at her with fear and worry, that she does not protest when Quynh announces her plans to travel to defend the border.

It doesn’t feel like luck that her brother is grown and married by the time she comes home, a father twice over and Ông Nội to seven frolicking children. It doesn’t feel like luck when she never changes but the world around her always will.

He forgets her name — they all do. Soon enough, she is a lonely, clanless archer, roaming the east for battles to fight and new ways to die. Her second and hopefully final time crossing the Gobi Desert, she learns that she is not alone.

-

Quynh dies for the nth time at the bottom of sea, and she thinks that her angel may be losing patience with her.

“Why won’t you die for good?” The angel is begging, hands clasping her elbows and shaking her like she has any control over the situation. “Quynh, why can’t you just give in?”

She’s forgotten how to speak, she thinks. Every time she opens her mouth her brain tricks her, tasting brine and clamping her jaw shut until her teeth ache. She tries, and cannot even part her lips.

She knows that he only wants her suffering to end, but she is far too stubborn for that. Her angel is quiet, hands slackening, and when he looks up his eyes are filled with tears. “Please,” he begs. “Please let go. I can’t bear it, I can’t bear to watch this torture.”

She has no words, and chooses instead to touch his cheek. She has only a brief reprieve in between drownings, never as long as she’d like, and never consistently. Some days she will drown thousands of times before finding her way back to her angel, and some days they greet each other like old friends each time she succumbs.

By her thirty-six-million-and-twenty-first death, her angel is no longer begging. He tells her quietly that he won’t be alongside her anymore, and that he is sorry. She still has no words, and presses a kiss to his forehead, a reassurance and an apology. He takes her hand and holds it against his cheek. “It’s . . . complicated, but he’ll take care of you, Quynh. You’ll find your way out of this one day, I promise.”

She privately thinks that he should not make promises he can’t keep, but then she is free and the air feels so nice over her cheeks, and she is hungry for so many things that her mind spins. She’d very much like to try what Nile calls a hoagie.

Her next death is entirely by accident, and her new angel is an older European man, though he speaks funny, a little like Nile. She doesn’t understand why accents have to change so often, though it’s more gripe than anything else. She’s earned the right to gripe about things.

“Hello! We haven’t met, I’m Michael.” He holds out his hand, and she decides that this greeting ritual is beyond her at the moment. He doesn’t seem to mind when she disregards his hand and starts looking around. “How long do you usually stay, Quynh?”

She has to force herself to open her mouth, has to tell herself that her body’s currently resting on a piece of driftwood and not in a casket under the sea. Her mouth still burns with brine as she forces out: “Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.”

The afterlife is different, now. The walls are white, and she is dressed in strange clothes cotton clothes, the likes of which she has never seen before. “Where is my boat?” She liked the boat, floating lazily down the river. It reminded her of home.

“We redecorated recently, but the short answer is that you have been going to the Good Place until recently, and now you’re- well, it’s a little experiment we’ve got going on, you’re in a queue to live a year in a perfect vacuum to measure your character.”

Aiya, the afterlife sounds so boring. She turns to face him and nods. “I will be going now.”

He raises his hand to snap his fingers, but she beats him to it, weakly lifting her waterlogged head from the log. The sun is hot and bright on her back, her clothes having rotted away on the seafloor. By her estimate, she is somewhere in the Atlantic — they had sailed for a good long while before dropping her in the sea.

She kicks her legs. A full range of motion is enough to make her giggle, and she’s glad she still has that much. A sense of humour is important for such ugly work ahead.

[d00m-d4ys]

The Old Guard, may contain traces of the Good Place.

Disclaimer: I’ve only seen seasons 1-3 of The Good Place and I remember next to nothing about the minutia, but who cares! I’ve also only seen the movie, not the comics.

This is hopefully going to be a series, but I haven’t finished it yet so have the first installment featuring our favourite art geek Nile!

Update: Part 2 is now up!

-

Nile’s death is nothing like she wanted it to be, when the maudlin mood struck and she would think on how she wanted to die.

It is slow, it is terrifying, and worst of all: she’s awake for most of it. She always wanted to go in her sleep, or baring that with her family. Not here, miles and timezones away from her mom.

The room she wakes up in is the perfect temperature, and the walls are a soothing shade of eggshell. In green, painted in a pleasant font on the wall:

Welcome! Everything is fine.

That’s comforting. No, that sounds sarcastic, Mom hates it when I sound sarcastic.

Nile scrubs her palms over her thighs, too keyed up to sit around and stare at a wall even if it’s trying to be nice. There’s one door, three ferns of varying health. The couch is that kind of fabric that pills way too easily, though it does look nice with the room’s palette. She’s grateful for the distraction in wondering why every waiting room has the same furniture, or why everyone loves orchids so much.

A blond woman opens the door, and for some reason Nile thinks she might be from Arizona, though nothing about her conclusively proves the theory.

“Nile? I’m the architect, Eleanor. Come on in.”

The office is nice, with a portrait of a white guy on the wall, and Nile realizes that she’s not wearing her fatigues, but a pair of jeans and a blue hoodie that she distinctly remembers living in the back of her closet at home. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Eleanor looks surprised, and then suspicious. “Usually we have to tell people that,” she says, standing up. “What’s going on?”

Nile leans back in her seat as Eleanor rounds the table, wondering whether her training will transfer to the afterlife. “What makes you think I know?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Eleanor! This happens sometimes.” The voice comes from behind her, and she jumps.

“Mother-“ She twists in her seat, tensed for a confrontation. The man is tall, older, and sharply dressed, white-haired with a stylish set of glasses. “Please don’t do that. Wait, what?”

“Yeah, clear this up for me, Michael, I wasn’t expecting this curveball.” Eleanor sits on the edge of the desk, arms crossed and lips pursed.

Michael’s laugh sounds endearingly embarrassed. “We haven’t had one for over two hundred years, is the thing— you should have seen the last guy: he was French, and you know all the French are tortured with over-seasoning their food and forcing them to—“

“Get to it, boss man.”

“Anyways, Nile here is an immortal.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s not gonna stick around. Whenever she dies, she’ll show up here, like a mortal, but eventually she’ll go back to her body and revive herself.” Michael smiles at her like he hasn’t just dropped a bombshell of epic magnitude.

Nile’s head hurts, and there’s a halo growing in her left eye. “Son of a bench.” Her mouth wants to say bitch, but the syllables rearrange themselves in her mouth. “Why can’t I say bench?”

“It’s a terrible system. Guess it’s not your problem, so lucky you!”

-

Nile doesn’t remember the strange in-betweens until after she accidentally asphyxiates on the kitchen floor of their safehouse, calmly accepting that her rice will probably burn before she wakes up. She was looking forward to that rice.

When she does resurface, throat clear and suited to breathing normally, Nicky is busy rescuing her food.

“What was it this time?” How dare he sound so amused. Like he hasn’t died of a stupid reason before.

“You say that like I do it on purpose.” She’s rather grumpy that peanut butter is still enough to do her in. “Who’s Eleanor?”

“Oh, you see her too? Joe’s convinced that the communion wine has rotted my brain.” He turns off the element and turns around, still stirring the rice, tilting his head the way he does when he wants to compare notes. “I don’t know, is the short answer. She’s new, I think.”

“She called herself the Architect, whatever that means.” Nile sits up and glares some more at the peanut butter. Eleanor had been to-the-point this time, running through the script and waving goodbye as she returned to her body.

“Then I suppose she’s the Architect. It’s not our time to know exactly what that means.” He glances at where she’s directing her ire. “Ah. Allergies don’t clear up, I’m afraid. Joe’s of the opinion that ice cream is worth suffering for, though.”

She stands with a groan, dusting off her jeans. “Do we have any Reese’s Pieces?”

[d00m-d4ys]

[d00m-d4ys]

amazing double dance by hao ruoqi ( in blue)and wang xuerou(in red)