#....like that would stop him

[threepandas]

Bad End: Hoarding Dragons

To have your hair cut is the ultimate insult. Not just a spitting in the face of one's parents; but a defacement of their gift. One they worked so hard, for so long, to give you. Yet... so MUCH can be done. With just a single strand of hair.

Power. The likes of which? Most could not imagine. This is because, it is the sacrifice of "Body". A part of your metaphorical, if not technical, "flesh" as it were. Counted just as valid as any finger or toe. Yes, perhaps, not as POWERFUL as blood and bone, but... then again...

It is only a single hair.

So, what, one must ask? Would happen... Could happen... could one be GIFTED? From... MORE?

Not just one hair. But hand fulls. Chunks. A whole head of long thick locks? Hundreds and hundreds, thousands of strands? So very, very much of your "Body"? What power could you call upon? What sort of gods? Heavenly beasts and world shaking powers? Dragons, perhaps?

Shixiong bent the world to it's knees. Gods bowing, mountains shaking, as heavenly dragons came upon his command. Power so great it burst the spiritual veins of lesser cultivars. Qi thick as molten earth, golden as sunlight through honey. It was... transcendent.

The strands twisted into great and heavenly forms. Night turning to day. His array, a thing of intricate, thousand folding beauty! As a craftsman? A maker of mere talismans and toys? How could I not be... be... breathless? Bewitched? Entranced. Even there, in the midst of battle? It... gods... it was so BEAUTIFUL.

How can I ever hope to match it? Will I ever match it? I was certainly inspired. My mind, filled with visions of white and gold. Dances of fury and light, trapped within me.

I honestly haven't been able to stop.

That... that deadly dance. Righteous gold and light, heavenly dragons and flashing blades... Against the rolling, calamitous, storm of the heavenly demons. Darkly beautiful and delighting in their slaughter. Bloodlust singing as fatal claws clash against righteous blade. Rougish, flamboyant. Cracking along the edges of their masks to reveal the monsters just inside.

Our sect did not fall. But we were lucky... weren't we? And so many were not. Lesser Sects and mortal villages. Traveling cultivators, caught unaware. Temples and holy places. Defended, valiant, but overwhelmed in the end. None were strong enough. None came close.

And so I work.

Work and work and WORK.

I can fix this. I... I know I can! Surely. Maybe. H-hopefully? Or else what is it all FOR? This second chance? This knowledge I got to keep? If I wasn't meant to use it. Take bits and pieces, of stories I had read and watched, and make them real? Rain made of swords and blossoms, vast arrays bend space and time, the blending of science and fiction!

What, is my peak? If not the home of the Artificer? The Crafter? Maker of things? Talismans, yes. But we do so much MORE. I...I can do so much more.

I just need TIME.

Lifting my tool, I let the frustration wash over me. Careful. So very, very careful. Not to let my emotions ruin my work. One moment's tantrum, after all, can lead to months wasted. And... and I can't afford that. Not if I'm to help.

Because, ultimately? I will never be a martial cultivator. My sword is all be decorative. More a focal for meditation then a weapon. I use it more in class then... well... Too be honest? I have only used it in class. At best? I can defend myself. Hopefully.

(It is not something I ever wish to test. That theory.)

My reaction times are too slow. I hesitate. Am far too absorbed in crafting and meditation, then I am training and the physical world. Shizun half expects me to move to a hidden world, once my training is complete. And... well... I am considering it.

Perhaps I am a coward.

Another pinprick letter carved. One more in the endless stream, stretching in a flowing wave around the wooden sword. The REAL pain? Is going to be carving the spiritually rich stones, precious and otherwise, as well as shaping the metals, that will fit in each of these thousand of tiny indents. Making it smooth. Again, not hard, just... tedious.

I imagine that's why no one does it. Dispite the strength it results in. Each letter lending its power. Doing something. It will age well, I think. Grow powerful. Might even become a Treasure. Something worth some famous naming, in a century or so.

They never do see to appreciate that. How long it takes. To make the wonders and treasures they throw around like trash. Keep like trophies. If it does not shine and spit rainbows, with tassels and fire to impress? Can it really be called a sword? Forget what it DOES! How HARD it was to MAKE! The love and skill that went into it!! Is it SHINY? A thousand years and covered in jewels?

I pull my tool back again to sigh, aggravated. I have got to stop doing that. Being slower then my peers is not a failing, I remind myself. My strength is not in waving a sword. It is MAKING them. Treasures and wonders. Creation takes TIME to be done well. Cheap and fast costs lives. Remember your training.

A quite creak of floor boards and the knocking of knuckles against a door frame. Soft but deliberate, to announce a presence. When no one responds to the noise, I glance up in confusion. Huh. The workshop is empty. Going by the light outside? Unsurprising. It's... later then I thought it was. Guess they let me work.

"Shemei? May this one intrude?"

Ah. Shit, right!

Carefully putting my tools to the side, I bid... whomever, enter. I can't see them yet. They have a nice voice though. Low and smooth. I rattle off the standard "don't touch this or that, you'll loose fingers. If you break anything, this peak, collectively, will break you." Shpeal. (Shizun makes us memorize it.)

Glancing up as I put my project back on it's stand, I choke on my tounge. Wut. How?! HI?!!? Shixiong!!!! WHAT!?

"This one hopes he is not intruding upon your valuable working time." He mummers, fan coming up to cover the lower half of his face.

He looks... amused? Charmed? No there's something different there. Fuck, I'm out of practice with the Non-crafters crowd. Brain says "like he saw a cute squeaky animal he wants to bite(maybe suggestive?)" but that's not right. Thanks brain! Very USEFUL! Glad I can count on you, in these trying times! Shit. Uuuuuuuhh.....

"I hope you will forgive this Shixiong, but I asked around to find you." What. "You are that make of this fan, yes?"

From his sleeve, he pulls out a very familiar work. Battered to absolute hell, but unmistakable. Defiance!? My BABY! What have you DONE to them!? The battle fan, MEANT to be a magnificent white and gold, is blood stained and bent. Burned! Nicked! ARE THOSE ACID HOLES!?

The sound I make is unholy. My boy fan! Look at what they've done to my boy fan!

YOU BASTARD!

Thats it! Crush over! Dead man walking! I snatch the fan back so hard I'm surprised I don't snap fingers. Granted, I get the impression he let's me take it from him. But that's probably because he sees the MURDER in my eyes! FUCKER! What did you even DO to this poor fan!? Beat it against ROCK!? Acid, knive covered ROCKS!?

"Ah. No." His voice comes out shaking, just ever so slightly. His shoulders match. From the curve of his eyes? It can only be restrained laughter. "This one is afraid that it was the demons who so disrespect your masterful work."

Oh? OH?! This is FUNNY to you? Is it?! My baby! My beloved, Defiance! Mangled! MAIMED! And you LAUGH!? Bastard! Scoundrel! Fuck you!! How DARE-!!!

He can no longer contain it. Doubling over in a roar of laughter as I curse him out. My hands never leaving the fan I am carefully repairing. Yanking open drawers and slamming them. Stomping past him to get what I need. I should keep it! Never give it back! If you can't take care of-!

"Oh but Shemei, I take excellent can of all my things."

Clearly NOT! Defiance is a MESS and-! I pause. My brain catching up with my ears. Alarm bells ringing in my head as red flags flap. The workroom feels... off, suddenly. What was that tone? Excuse me? What, exactly, was that tone? Glancing down, I see one of Shizun's projects. Freshly completed. The glue is dry under my fingers as I, oh so casually, brush over it.

The little knife fits neatly in my palm. I turn. Not fully, but enough. Do not move back to my workstation. Because you know what? Suddenly I feel a bit more comfortable over here... by the project drying racks. Where all the weapons are. I'm sure you don't minds, do you? Shixiong?

"Oh dear, I've made you nervous." He says, handsome face charming, eye alight with laughter. But that tone. I don't like that tone. "Surely Shemei doesn't think this Shixiong would do anything suspicious or untoward? This one is an honorable man."

It's said so mockingly. Through gently smiling teeth. As though the very concept of an honorable man is absurd. And the shift? From polite to informal language? Cracks in a mask? Or a deliberate peek? The way he pulls himself up from his doubled over state, leaning braced as he had laughed himself sick...

Slow and deliberate. Nearly lazy. As though trying to say "there, there, see? No threat here~! Calm, calm." Yet... all I truely see? Is the spectacular control of his own body. An awareness of how he appears. And the unmistakable grace of a predator pretending they're NOT. He fools no one.

He seems delighted.

"You make such beautiful things, Shemei. Such clever hands. Such a clever mind." His voice is soft, almost obscene in the near silence of the workroom. I don't like how he's looking at me. "I had wondered. Surely not, right? Dreams can only ever disappoint. And yet..."

His eyes flit over me. Like the brush of covetous hands, drinking in something they could not yet have. Hungry. Dangerous. I drew closer to the shelves. Edged towards the door. Those were not the eyes of a righteous cultivator. Demonic influence? Qi deviation? Poisoning? I couldn't tell. Didn't CARE. Something wasn't right and I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Poor Shemei~. Stuck with this big, scary Shixiong. So nervous~ your poor maidens heart!" He laughed, like a cat with a cornered mouse. Half delighted. Half hungry for something I wasn't certain I wanted to name. "Going to run from me? Ah, but what if I chase you, Shemei? What will you do then?"

I was close enough, I decided. Fuck this! Keeping him in sight, I gave up all pretense. And stiffly walked for the door. Prepared to bolt.

"You are!" He didn't move to chase me. Just looked delighted. Grin showing more and more teeth the closer I got to the door. "Good, good~ that's right, Shemei. You're a special girl. Shixiong needs to earn your love. But don't worry~"

Driving for the door, I run. The last thing I hear chilling down my spine.

"I will~♡"

[eddiegayass]

We're on track for an all timer of a day on twitter dot com

[is-that-sand-in-my-waffles]

There's "committing to the bit" and then there's whatever the fuck Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster were doing on television every week from 2006-2014

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

hes not taking the divorce well

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

Actually, I know damn well Darcy never sat down and thought about marrying Lizzie. If he had, it would have been a week before he was rounding up Bingley, sitting him down, and looking him in the eye like he was about to propose high treason and going, "Jane. You still down bad for her?"

Coin toss whether Bingley would actually get to answer before Darcy turned around and flipped over a whiteboard like

and launched right into the most detailed migration pattern known to Regency England to keep the extraneous Bennets as contained as humanly possible by rotating them between various Bingley/Darcy estates. Like, we're talking about trading them off for minor holidays a decade out kind of detailed.

"If you and Jane take them for Lady Day ten years hence, Elizabeth and I will take them for Michaelmas. We'll all be together for Christmas and Midsummer, so we'll divide the responsibility individually on those days."

This would be followed by thirteen different spreadsheets projecting joint expenditures so Bingley knows what sort of financial commitment he'll be shouldering and how to minimize it, what proportion Darcy will take care of, what the estate plans are in case Darcy predeceases anybody, when they should probably roll out various stages to keep it from affecting their respective sisters' ability to maximize their own husband-hunting--whole nine yards.

Darcy does not know that he'll probably be murdered when the Bingley sisters find out why he asked for their social calendars. He'd be marginally fine with that at this point, because the fucking Napoleonic War campaigns were not as meticulously planned as his roadmap to getting the other three Bennets satisfactorily married, and Darcy feels about as able as if he'd spent the last year on Elba.

It takes Bingley a few minutes to realize why this is happening, then he's like

"You proposed to Elizabeth?! Congratulations!"

Darcy... knew there was something he was forgetting.

That man would have kicked the Collins's door open with four binders tucked under each arm, dumped them in a pile in front of Elizabeth, and loudly announced that if they get married tomorrow he can have her entire family except for Jane extraordinary renditioned to the Scottish moors by Sunday and then been like

"Why are you yelling at me?! I promise you, it will work! You'll never see anyone in your family except for Jane again, I swear it!" when she starts yelling at him.

[leafyeyes417]

Summoning fix it

Danny accepted being Ghost King when he was 20. Why 20? Because at that point his human half was looking more fae than human. At least he got that growth spurt and reached 6 foot 5. But the pointed ears, catlike eyes that glowed, fangs, and glowing freckles along with his height made him stand out.

Sam and Tucker, the two most liminal humans up till that point, were only better in that their eyes only glowed when emotional and that they didn’t have freckles. The trio had decided that they were more infinite realm denizens than living and they moved in to Danny’s new castle.

Accepting the throne was chaos. Especially with the observants constantly trying to butt in after he cut their power. They tried many things to keep him busy, including trying to bury him in centuries of old paperwork. Unfortunately for them Danny was not going to put up with that.

He sent out a message looking for any ghosts whose obsession was being a secretary. And there were more than he expected. After screening he chose a few and let the rejected ones know that he would set something up to help them later, but first he needed to straighten things out.

During all this Danny ended up summoned. He was annoyed that any regular old joe could just summon him. He was the Ghost King! He had more important things to do (even if it was just playing video games) than answer every summon request at other people’s whims. There were a multitude of dimensions out there, who knew how often he could be summoned?!

The trio quickly got to work and created a summon circle that first, allowed him to send someone in his stead, and second, prevented forced summoning if he declined answering.

Calling on more ghosts, he found one that grants wishes, and unlike Desiree, has no horrible consequences as long as a price of equal payment is made. He then wished all summoning circles to summon the ghost king from the point in time of his ascension be switched with his new one.

After that, he assigned one of the secretaries to be the one to answer the summons. He made a list of things to outright decline, and if they were unsure they were to call him and ask.

That’s how the Justice League ended up finding out that there was a new Ghost King. Constantine was particularly annoyed when he realized the switch with the summoning instructions. Luckily they weren’t on such a time crunch that they didn’t have the time to get the new materials needed.

Upon completion of the summoning, a female humanoid in a professional suit floated, and spoke “I am Penny, secretary of Ghost King Phantom. What is the subject of your summons?”

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[t-thingbiterrrrrrr]

"That's a good boy" please please please please please please can I suck you off cna you fuck me stupid fuck me full of you ? please please please please please please please please please please please please please please i'll be so good please plea

op is t4t mlm

[vrailaru]

take a step into my mind palace

[soursoppi]

spiffed up a doodle from work

I like to think protecting pretty Lan didis is an instinctual reflex... don't ask me why I drew this lol

[princescar]

she was probably the worst middle schooler ever

ft. matsuda who was also the worst version of himself

[ro-bee]

part one of a little thing i was doing like idk 2 months ago? i forgot... anyway

Jovan first bishop kill aftermath was a bit complicated to deal with

maybe i'll finish this one day but i have so much stuff in my head is hard to think

[bootleg-grandpa]

Nautica gets the Favourite Child™ privileges

Kind of related to this post

[mao-likes-2-draw]

can we get this Fucking Twink off of the screen please

[katebeckets]

how to say "I love you" in x-files [122/?] ⤷ 1.17 — “E.B.E.”

[technically-human]

How do you think robotnik would respond to a truly angry stone? (either to him or someone else?) Your stone is always shooting beams of love to him, I feel like it would be jarring for Robotnik to realize he's not always like that lol

I actually have a little comic planned about the first time Stone got angry at Robotnik, but I never considered Stone angry at someone else. I figure it would be...

Scary!