silvermp

[silvermp]

When people talk about miracles and faith, I think of my friend Tiffany (not her real name) who, at 16, had discovered she had a tumor.

Doctors said it was growing - cancerous.

They began treatment immediately. Surgery to remove the main tumor mass, and targeted radiation therapy to treat the small cell clusters that had reached outward.

I knew those details because she was my good friend, and my mom had died of brain cancer a few years earlier. I knew how scary it was to live with. We occasionally hung out before or after her treatments to take her mind off it.

It was at least 1, possibly 2 or 3 months of treatment. My memory on the timeline is fuzzy.

What is Crystal fucking Clear in my memory is that she wanted to make the announcement that she was officially cancer-free at her Baptism.

You see, Tiffany was at that age where some Christian denominations believe one must choose to be a Christian, and choose to follow the faith with open (adult) eyes.

I was invited to watch, and sat with a cluster of friends as she approached a stadium in front of hundreds of other churchgoers, stepped into a lil tub, and got dunked by a minister.

I went in fully supportive, because Tiffany (still not her real name) was the epitome of what I thought a TRUE Christian ought to be like. Someone who walked the talk, so to speak. Honest, hard-working, humble, kind, and so earnestly joyful and positive and eager to help that it was really a delight to be in her company. If anyone had to represent Christianity, I thought she was a great candidate.

The minister quoted the Bible as she approached, and explained to the clergy what had inspired her faith to remain steadfast.

Tiffany had been diagnosed with cancer, the minister said.

Doctors had tried treating it, he said.

One day, she went in and the cancer cells had miraculously vanished, he said.

Tiffany got dunked.

God reached down and touched her life, performed a miracle, the minister cried - and so the Flock had a sign that they, too, would be watched over and Saved.

Tiffany stood and raised her hands and wetly praised God’s power, to the cheering of a faithful crowd.

When I turned to a friend next to me and asked why they didn’t mention the doctor’s treatments, the weeks of care and surgeries, that person just shrugged and said God must friend guided their hands and did His Work through the doctors. It was the same thing, basically.

That’s not what was said, though. It’s not the same at all.

-

Sometimes I think of another Christian friend who told me he had gone on a Ministry trip as a teen, to a South American country (cant remember which). He said they’d gone into a small, poor village, and were asked to attend someone there who was possessed by spirits.

When they arrived that person was speaking in tongues, snarling vile things, and “addressing our minister by name, even though they didn’t know we were coming, and they’d never met before.”

He says this is what makes him believe both in God, and the existence of other (dangerous) spirits.

The minister allegedly called upon God to drive the evil out of this person (with some fanfare and struggling), and it happened.

How, I wonder, would a group of homeschooled USAmerican teenagers end up in a small foreign village to spend the day if the people hosting and meeting with them didn’t even know they were coming? How’d they get into that person’s household, if no one who lived there knew who they were?

How convenient, that such evil spirits would reveal themselves right as this adolescent flock just happened to be in the area.

South America has loads of Christians in it. Lots of Catholicism. Why would they wait for some random minister from another country (who would bring his underage ducklings into the house with him to watch), instead of calling for a local priest to handle it privately?

I wonder if he internalized that cell phones and emails existed, even in 2006, and most folks living in South America also had access to that technology. That someone can know a man’s face and name, without ever having met them in person. That mailed letters and word-of-mouth exist, even if there was no electricity and no telephone lines.

Honestly, it was refreshing to be scolded for paganism by a Christian who fully believed I was reaching out to actual other spirits, and not that I was consorting with a reskinned Satan or goofing off for Blasphemy reasons.

—

It all reminds me of my spouse earnestly warning me to not mix shampoos, because one of their classmates claimed her hair lost all its color and became and brittle and fell out in chunks because she “mixed shampoos.”

And when I asked if that classmate ever bleached or colored her hair without supervision, and did her hair look bleached when she made this claim…. My spouse went on a Face Adventure as they realized their classmate probably lied to try to get out of trouble, and that two gentle soaps couldn’t be mixed to make a corrosive.

That classmate probably left some strong bleach in her hair, or maybe put bleach powder directly in the shampoo bottle to use, and was doubling down on a lie.

But my spouse had believed and repeated that “fact” adamantly for years, because they trusted their classmate’s honesty.

—

I’ve done that too. We all have, probably.

(Earnestly believing a lie, because we trusted.)

It must be terribly peaceful, to live believing that your religious leader and classmates and friends would never ever lie to you.

Not even to get out of trouble.

[silvermp]

Helios - Chapter 11

SUMMARY: He is, after all, the firstborn son of charcoal-sellers. A responsible and loving older brother, before anything else. (In which the Kamado family doesn't die, and 'I was turned into a demon' isn't a good enough reason for Tanjiro to leave them.)

--

The door of the Kamada residence sat open, morning sunlight slithering across dark floors and blood-wet footprints. Heavy breaths puffed into cold air, fogging and swirling with each exhale, even as the burnt smoke of charred skin wafted in a haze out onto the snow.  The smallest of them sniffled and hiccuped, full-blown crying slowly calming down into miserable hiccups.  “Tan- Tanjiro-” Rokuta pushed at his brother’s mouth, tried to pry teeth away from the arm they had crunched into. His own limbs were untouched - safe - Tanjiro had lashed out to bite like a feral dog - had interrupted it with his own arm.  The blood dripped fast enough that Tanjiro’s face seemed to grow pale, and panic began to thrum in Rokuta’s chest. 

READ CHAPTER 11

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SLEEPWALKER'S SYSTEM

A Calvin & Hobbes x Scum Villain Self-Saving System Crossover Fanfiction. (Treat 'Sleepwalker's Waltz' as a prologue to this fic!)

“That’s because I’m the protagonist.” Calvin said, with all the matter-of-fact confidence that Shen Yuan could only boggle at. “Obviously.” “Obviously….” Luo Binghe echoed, teenage puppy eyes wide and shining at the actual gods who had come down from the heavens to greet his shizun, specifically.

Read Chapter 1

[silvermp]

SLEEPWALKER'S WALTZ

A Calvin & Hobbes Fanfic, featuring some surrealist horror, suspense, adventure, memory/reality fuckery and fun dimension-hopping.

Summary:

When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides. It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. But no one thought to look behind the slides, because no one in his elementary class remembered that Tommy Chestnut ever existed.

Status: Complete

Words: 15,861

[silvermp]

FINISHED! Chapter 4 is up! (all 7,400 words lmaooo)

How many children were supposed to be in Calvin’s graduating class?  How many families moved to a suburban neighborhood surrounded by other young families, spent years listening to children playing on the sidewalks… only to wake up one morning with a spare room full of someone else’s trash; a stranger’s bedroom preserved until the day they couldn’t remember why it was so important to keep.  How many had photos on the wall with a face that their eyes skimmed past, until the photos were replaced because a new baby was on the way.  They always wanted a child, after all. The spare bedroom was already painted blue. 

READ CHAPTER 4

Sleepwalker's Waltz

When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides. 

It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. Tigers are quite large, and 6-year-old bullies are terribly small. 

And then no one in his elementary class remembered Tommy Chestnut, and no one remembered the boy’s mean comments about Calvin’s stuffed tiger.

Every once in a while, Calvin mentioned Tommy Chestnut by name, wondering if anyone would recognize it. Wondering if anyone noticed his seat was empty, or that he still had a handprint-flower with his name on it, taped beside the chalkboard. 

But no one did. 

The flower was never touched, even when everyone else’s seasonal projects were replaced with trees, then colorful turkeys. A single red flower, untouched in the corner of a sea of cut-paper snowflakes.

His classmate’s face never appeared in missing posters.

And Tommy Chestnut’s parents never came to pick him up that day, anyway.

READ MORE

[silvermp]

A quick Chapter 3 is up!

Gearing up for the final chapter, I'm so excited~

Sleepwalker's Waltz

When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides. 

It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. Tigers are quite large, and 6-year-old bullies are terribly small. 

And then no one in his elementary class remembered Tommy Chestnut, and no one remembered the boy’s mean comments about Calvin’s stuffed tiger.

Every once in a while, Calvin mentioned Tommy Chestnut by name, wondering if anyone would recognize it. Wondering if anyone noticed his seat was empty, or that he still had a handprint-flower with his name on it, taped beside the chalkboard. 

But no one did. 

The flower was never touched, even when everyone else’s seasonal projects were replaced with trees, then colorful turkeys. A single red flower, untouched in the corner of a sea of cut-paper snowflakes.

His classmate’s face never appeared in missing posters.

And Tommy Chestnut’s parents never came to pick him up that day, anyway.

READ MORE

[silvermp]

Chapter 2 is up!

He couldn’t articulate how, exactly , but the browns and greens were at wrong angles. Like a painting made by someone who was just a little colorblind, or had painted the shadows and highlights at different times of day. The sun was in the wrong place in the sky, and shadows splayed strangely.

Sleepwalker's Waltz

When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides. 

It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. Tigers are quite large, and 6-year-old bullies are terribly small. 

And then no one in his elementary class remembered Tommy Chestnut, and no one remembered the boy’s mean comments about Calvin’s stuffed tiger.

Every once in a while, Calvin mentioned Tommy Chestnut by name, wondering if anyone would recognize it. Wondering if anyone noticed his seat was empty, or that he still had a handprint-flower with his name on it, taped beside the chalkboard. 

But no one did. 

The flower was never touched, even when everyone else’s seasonal projects were replaced with trees, then colorful turkeys. A single red flower, untouched in the corner of a sea of cut-paper snowflakes.

His classmate’s face never appeared in missing posters.

And Tommy Chestnut’s parents never came to pick him up that day, anyway.

READ MORE

[silvermp]

Sleepwalker's Waltz

When Calvin was 6 years old, he watched a boy named Tommy Chestnut get eaten behind the slides. 

It didn’t take long, and the mess was easily hidden under the playground’s woodchips. Tigers are quite large, and 6-year-old bullies are terribly small. 

And then no one in his elementary class remembered Tommy Chestnut, and no one remembered the boy’s mean comments about Calvin’s stuffed tiger.

Every once in a while, Calvin mentioned Tommy Chestnut by name, wondering if anyone would recognize it. Wondering if anyone noticed his seat was empty, or that he still had a handprint-flower with his name on it, taped beside the chalkboard. 

But no one did. 

The flower was never touched, even when everyone else’s seasonal projects were replaced with trees, then colorful turkeys. A single red flower, untouched in the corner of a sea of cut-paper snowflakes.

His classmate’s face never appeared in missing posters.

And Tommy Chestnut’s parents never came to pick him up that day, anyway.

READ MORE

[silvermp]

History was written by those who remembered. Without memory, history was doomed to repeat itself.

Kass had etched these words into his heart as a child, moved by his mother’s storytelling and song. He dedicated his life to researching and preserving ancient stories and nearly-lost songs, memorizing and reciting them to any who would listen.

When Hyrule had fallen, so much knowledge had been lost. Libraries been left to rot and scholars had fled their homes or been slain by technology far beyond their ken.

For three years, Hylians had struggled to piece their scraps of history and knowledge back together before another surge of Malice had them scrambling back away from the castle and capitol city.

But even before that, another culture had lost nearly everything.

Whether it had been by Malice or by thoughtlessness, or unfortunate coincidence, the Gerudo had lost their cultural knowledge like water falling through cupped hands. Each vanishing drop of fading knowledge was a profound loss, with no convenient library to recover it from.

> Read more on AO3

[silvermp]

Danny finally coming clean.

"I'm sorry I tricked all of you but I'm not Melkor, I'm actually just from beyond your world's borders."

"So you're actually a Void creature?"

[silvermp]

Latest memes for Crown of Flame Imperishable, chaps 11-12.

[silvermp]

Chapter 11 and 12 is up! Durin's Bane has arrived!

Just a lil meme to hype myself up for the Crown of Flame Imperishable chap I’m trying to work on.

[silvermp]

❤️ LOL. I love when that happens to me, too. The surprise new chapter while reading thing.

GetGud

Chapters 11 and 12 are now up, for the Crown of Flame Imperishable.

Ferment, too, was a Dwarven specialty. Anything with sugar, they could turn it into a brew to celebrate. Meats and cheeses were cured with pet mold, old cider and wine bloomed into vinegar for the preservation of plants and seeds. Melkor created rot and decay , and the dwarves celebrated it with beer and mustard.

Dwarves thrived in the shadow, in the cold, in the crushing depths where starlight had never once touched.

They could have been great, together.

Had a loooot of fun w this one.

[silvermp]

Chapters 11 and 12 are now up, for the Crown of Flame Imperishable.

Ferment, too, was a Dwarven specialty. Anything with sugar, they could turn it into a brew to celebrate. Meats and cheeses were cured with pet mold, old cider and wine bloomed into vinegar for the preservation of plants and seeds. Melkor created rot and decay , and the dwarves celebrated it with beer and mustard.

Dwarves thrived in the shadow, in the cold, in the crushing depths where starlight had never once touched.

They could have been great, together.

Had a loooot of fun w this one.

[silvermp]

Tonight I’m practicing

[silvermp]

New chapter for A Song to Haunt By!

Two chapters, actually. Danny gets to fist fight a ghost, and the plot is officially SUPER Canon-Divergent!

He couldn’t stay here.

Danny wrapped invisibility like a shroud around his shoulders, gritting his teeth through the clawing hollow feeling that his core was creaking under. It felt like heartstrings being slowly drawn out, or needles scraping slowly in.

He couldn’t go back, surely the Lan guy had already noticed his disappearance

[silvermp]

Fun Fact: Sometimes you need to slap out a 700-word chapter and post it, no matter how shitty it feels to you, so your brain can agree to cough up some actual creativity

Source: Just slapped the keyboard until 700 words dropped out, and suddenly the creative juices are flowing like crazy. Hooray~