#import from twitter

[captain-bumble]

An Alternate Fate

Hualian - Calamity Xie Lian AU

Original Twitter Thread

A03 Link

Xie Lian became a calamity desiring to make his own justice in the world. His justice leads him to Hua Cheng.

2.5k Words, Completed

Rated M

TWs: Book 3-4 Spoilers, Suicide, Death, Depression and the word "rapist" (nothing more)

The story goes that once there was a prince who was beloved by all. He was beautiful, smart, funny, and the country’s best swordsman, but most of all he was kind. 

That is until civil war broke out. Then the plague came and his country was torn to shreds before him. The prince ascended into the heavens at 17, and fell again at 20. 

After he fell from the heavens, he was met with poverty, shame, and all of the misfortune of the world. He was bound by heaven’s shackles and could not practice cultivation anymore, and was bound by his own mortality again. They say that after many great arguments where he sank so low as to rob a merchant for money to feed his family, he was made to feel low, even by them.

Do you know how ghosts are made? One must have great resentment and will to live on this earth. After he heard his parents hanging corpses, he buried them in a flowering field and took up the same rope and hung himself as well.

It was General Xuan Zhen, Mu Qing who found his corpse after many days had passed. The story also says that his parents were dug up and placed in their ceremonial tomb to rest in peace for eternity, and the Prince was buried in that hole instead, amidst the flowers and sunshine.

A Year passed, and the world thought the tragic story of the royal family had passed. Another ten, and Mt. Tonglu opened and birthed the Calamity Crimson Rain Sought Flower.

But another odd thing happened that day. Another Calamity rose from his grave, wearing a mask of gold and snow white robes untouched by the earth. Flower petals fall from the sky when he is near with the faint sound of crying. You must take care to never cross paths with this Calamity. The Prince that was once so beloved turned his back to his people and took the cowards way out, but there's no knowing what Golden Flower Dancing Swords will do now.

The sound of pounding feet splashed through puddles, and gasping breath broke the silence of the rainfall. A man in bloody tattered robes ran for his life into certain death. The death that chased him, he knew, would be slow and painful. At least he can count on the death in front to be swift. 

He had been running for so long that his lungs were burning and he could taste iron in his mouth from his sharp panting. Just a little more! Just a little longer and he would be in Black Wolf’s territory. The cursed land that was ruled by a huge wolf that killed anyone who entered.

A swift death by a wolf’s jaws was better than- a white petal fell from the sky and landed on his robes. The man screamed and ran faster, breaching the boundary between the forest, and the barren wasteland where Black Wolf roamed.

He did it, he was finally free!

-SHINK-

The man looked down and saw a white, well crafted, and well loved sword piercing his chest. The puddle of blood seeping from around the wound. 

A sigh came from behind him, “I asked you not to run. To live up to your crime, and face justice, but instead you ran. Here of all places… Running from or running to death, it’s all the same in the end.” The voice was soft, and sweet, but numb and lacking tone shifts, as if there was no heart or spirit left.

The man saw as petals fell one by one, like tears, coating the barren ground in a mockery of life. This was the last thing he saw before his body sagged in death.

Prince Xie Lian- no, Golden Flower Dancing Swords lowered the lifeless body to the ground. Behind his polished golden mask, two rivers of blood dripped off the chin, “Senseless.“ Before Golden Flower could proceed, he heard a deep growl that shook the earth behind him.

Turning, with his sword lowered, he caught the eye of Black Wolf stalking close, “Forgive me, my lord. I had chased my prey onto your territory. What can I offer to make up for this rudeness?”

The wolf got closer and continued growling, “You can get out, or die here with him.” The beast was enormous: nine feet tall at the shoulders, with a missing right eye and the other a burning red, and fur as black as soot, gray fur mixed where scars lay under the heavy coat. Swords and spears, arrows and chains still embedded in his skin after long battles make his wolf very fearsome, but also pitiable. Golden Flower felt a tug where his heart used to be for the beast, but refrained from offering to help. If he wanted help he would ask, but this was not his place nor the time to offer. 

Golden Flower bowed low, must lower than he ever would as a Prince, showing the back of his neck, “My lord, please allow me to scatter the ashes of this lowly rapist trash and I will leave and never return.”

The wolf stood still. Golden flower could not see his face but heard a stiff, “very well. But be quick about it.”

Golden Flower didn’t smile, but felt gratitude in his heart when he said, “thank you, my lord.” If he so wished it, he could smite the creature and be on his way, but for what reason? And for what did humanity deserve that protection from him anymore? Not after everything.

He stood and turned back to the body before crushing it into dust with his heel with a swift movement. Picking up some ash, he whispered, “body in abyss, soul in paradise” and scattered them to the wind, never to be born again. The ritual he had performed for every scum of humanity that crossed his path. They didn’t deserve his words, but it wasn’t for them after all. 

A whimpering broke his thoughts as he turned. The wolf, who stood proud and tall before, was bowing and whimpering before his feet now, looking sad and potable like a child. “My lord?”

“It’s you…. It is you… Dianxia.”

Golden Flower raised the sword to the beast’s neck, “What?”

The creature, surprisingly, didn't move, and allowed the white sword to kiss his neck, keeping bowed in supplication, “Dianxia, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought Golden Flower Dancing Blades was a copy and bastardization of your name. I’m so happy that it’s really you, I thought you died and reincarnated so long ago.” Heavy bloody tears fell from his face and though the rain never seemed to touch either of them, it suddenly turned color and itself became red and filled the area with the smell of iron. Blood had begun raining down.

“No one has called me that in centuries…” Golden Flower didn’t know what to make of this and crept forward carefully.

The beast continued to bow and cry, “Dianxia, I would never forget you. I will never. As long as I exist in this realm, my greatest wish is to serve you. I failed the last time, but please allow this lowly beast to serve you again.”

Golden Flower tensed at this, “Who were you to me that served me and failed me. SPEAK.” He commanded, sword gently shaking.

“Dianxia, I cannot take the form that you would recognize. But… I am forever your most devout believer.”

The sword fell from the former prince’s hand into a wet bloody puddle. “Wu Ming?”

“Dianxia remembers this lowly one! I’m so humbled to be Dianxia’s memory.” The wolf’s head reached the prince’s waist, but he knelt in the blood muck anyway to cradle the head and look into his eye.

“It’s been 800 years, I thought you dispersed.” The bloody rain masked the tracks of blood flowing from behind the mask, but tears were heavy on his voice. “My last follower, how I used you and you still follow me?”

“I will always follow Dianxia. You may do whatever you like with this one and I will never mind.”

The former prince patted the giant head with a soft hand, unused to giving affection touches anymore, and the wolf sighed. When he reached for another stroke, he noticed a strange buzzing under the wolf’s skin. “You’ve been cursed.”

The wolf nodded a bit, finally settling down to lay down before the prince, “Yes. three hundred years ago I fought a cultivator who used a cursed blade. He has been long dead but still I cannot shake the curse from myself. I am bound to this land and have been unable to look for you, Dianxia. Forgive me, please.”

Golden Flower Dancing Swords shook his head slowly and petted the wolf once more, “and I avoided this area to be polite and not intrude on your marked territory thinking you were a vengeful wolf spirit.”

After a few more strokes, Dianxia rose to his feet and with a sweep of his hand the soil and blood from his robes vanished leaving him pristine once again. “Show me where the dagger is. I can also remove these old weapons while I’m here.”

“Dianxia doesn’t need to lower himself for one so lowly.”

“Nonsense. I offered, so I will.” and he did. One by one the arrows, swords, spears, katanas, sickles, and chains all fell away until only a black crude dagger was left embedded into the beast’s shoulder.

“This will probably hurt, but please try to be still.” Wu Ming nodded. He had been so quiet and still for the removal of the weapons, but the dagger’s removal tore a scream from him that sounded like a dying wolf’s cry.

It took more energy that Dianxia thought he would need to use, but with a sickening pop, the blade was free and a hiss of black smoke poured from the wound. The form below him shrunk with the release of the black smoke until a huddled form was left. 

Dianxia knelt down, but stood up with a shocked gasp. What was left over was not the large and imposing figure of Wu Ming, a young in black with a smiling mask, but a similar form in red with an eye patch over his right eye.

Wielding the dagger, “What is this?! Are you Crimson Rain?! How dare you trick me into releasing you! What have you done with Wu Ming.”

With a gasp and a groan, Crimson Rain Sought Flower rose to kneel once again, like Wu Ming did, “Dianxia, it is me.”

“What?” the dagger felt heavy in his hand, but he refused to lower it until he had answers, “Explain.”

“Dianxia, I have told you the truth. Since I failed you at Yong-An, I wanted so desperately to be of use to you. I was not strong enough to protect you and aid you so once I was back, I looked for a way to get stronger. I fought my way to Mt. Tonglu and came out a Calamity. With the power of being Crimson Rain Sought Flower, I would now be strong enough to be whoever you wanted me to be, and I swear I will be. If it pleases you, you may do whatever you wish with this lowly one. Kill me, enslave me, I would happily exist as Dianxia wishes of me.”

Golden Flower was stunned. To hear this come from such a person. He still had not seen Wu Ming’s face but the voice was the same, with newer conviction and resignation, the build was the same and he knew things that hadn't existed in 800 years. 

Golden Flower used the flat of the blade to raise his face to meet his eyes. “You swear yourself to me, forever and a day, to always be loyal and establish the trust we had once upon a time?”

“Yes Dianxia.” Wu Ming looked overjoyed and a tear of blood fell from his missing eye. “Always, Dianxia.”

“Then rise.” Golden Flower allowed the person who was once a boy to stand, as a man, before him. With a hand, Golden Flower removed his mask slowly and Xia Lian looked up at Crimson Rain with a fragile smile, bloody tear tracks staining his cheeks, “I missed you, Wu Ming. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you either. Please forgive this ghost and grant me the chance to protect you too for as long as I remain in this world?”

Crimson rain nodded frantically and they fell into each other’s arms. The bloody rain subsided to a gentle rain and a mixture of white petals joined them to cover the world in color.

“You want to know something ironic, Dianxia?” Xie Lian hummed an affirmative, “The cultivator used a cursed wolf blade on me, because my animal form is a Red Maned Wolf.” Xie Nodded from the crook of his neck, feeling quite content to never let go, “Which is a type of fox.”

Which would explain why he couldn’t break the curse on his own. It was the wrong cursed animal. Giggles broke out and took a while to die down again, “I’m so glad I ate him.”

“Wu Ming…” Xie Lian started.

“Dianxia, please. The world knows me as Hua Cheng now, but I would be honored if you called me San Lang.”

Xie Lian stepped back to look into his dark sparkling eye, “San Lang it is then.”

From that day forward, Golden Flower Dancing Swords and Crimson Rain Sought Flower were inseparable. The cultivation world shook at their power and feared every day that they would decide to wipe out the world, but it never came. Rumors of their defeat of Black Wolf rose, and where Black Wolf once prowled, Ghost City grew into a boisterous town.

Ghosts from all over came for the nightlife and fun, or to seek refuge and hide. The city was a vile den of corruption and greed, but always blossomed with flowers year-round. Once a year, the cultivation world was sent an invitation to come and fight Golden Flower Dancing Swords. If they would win, they would be given an unspeakable fortune and a wish granted by the pair of Calamities. No one has won so far, but that didn’t stop cultivators from training hard every year for the summer month to come.

After another century, Ghost City held a wedding celebration for the Calamities that shook the heavens. Many heavenly official’s protested and attempted to storm the city. Many heavenly official’s died, but two managed to retreat back to report to the Emperor of their failure. They also reported that the ceremony was quite lovely if you ignore the couple’s demonic status’.

It’s said that the two exchanged their ashes at the altar: one a sparkling diamond ring, and the other a white and golden sword tassel that E’Ming wears proudly. 

And if Mu Qing and Feng Xin failed to report that Golden Flower wasn’t weaning his mask for the ceremony: smiling gently at them as he passed. Then it was their business. 

The End.

[artsekey]

Thinking about the time I lost a game of Overwatch and I was so mad about it that I genuinely considered getting into shit with the other team in chat and then realized that it was a colossal waste of my living breathing Human Time and uninstalled Overwatch instead because it was only making me angry.

And then thought about the OTHER time when I was on TikTok and realized I was Not Enjoying Myself and was, in fact, seeing so many sad videos and fake influencer ads that I felt Truly Despondent and then just…Deleted it.

Imo I want my social media /general media experience to be a pleasant break from real world and I get to decide what I get to cull to make that a reality for myself. I highly reccomended it! Life has improved considerably!

[uncanny-tranny]

Not a day goes by where I do not think about the advent of medicine like PrEP and wonder just what the people - especially queer people - who passed from HIV/AIDs during the AIDs crisis would think

And then, I read this survivor's testimony and it just makes me emotional. I think this is the closest answer we have. HIV has changed, and we must always remember the people who didn't see that change before it happened.

[bladesoulmates]

Dean as a cat and Sam as a dog

[mahoutoons]

can i just appreciate how good sonic prime did amy?

rusty rose is an evil version of amy. from what little we know about her she was mechanically enhanced to survive. while i was a bit disappointed with how she joined team sonic, it only being temporary, and us not learning much more about her, she was still so good. she's cold, stoic, and heartless in contrast to prime amy. i really hope we learn more about her in the next few episodes.

thorn rose is SUCH an interesting take on how amy's love of nature could be taken to the extreme. she's not evil unlike rusty but she will choose nature over her friends. she thinks she's doing everything to protect nature so when sonic shows her what she's done she breaks down. thanks to him she's able to realize that she wasn't protecting the jungle and was able to talk things out with her friends.

black rose isn't fleshed out as much as the other amys but she's still cool.

also can we talk about black rose and rusty rose seeing each other?? and how rusty kinda malfunctioned shortly when she saw black rose? none of the other character's alternate counterparts saw their other selves. what are the prime writers cooking with amy in particular?? or is it me reading too deep into things again??

whatever it is i'm happy to see all different versions of my girl done justice

[sule-skerry]

this twitter thing is a circus, we can make lots of hellsite jokes, but also we're watching the world's richest man buy a communication platform used among other things by governments, scientists, and organizations to communicate with the public and each other (mostly the latter, governments should not be doing business with each other on twitter) and destroy it because nobody can tell him no, and that should terrify you.

[laurenfoxmakesthings]

ID: A thread of tweets by PinkRangerLB, a trans lawyer, that say the following.

"We in the LGBTQ+ community must understand that our dead were real people. Vital, awake, worlds unto themselves, like us. They didn’t live and die for the sake of our learning, but they have a lot to teach.

I want to tell you about Hart Island and hope in the darkness. /1

When I say they were real people I mean I do not believe they are necessary sacrifices, or that our dead paid a cost for us. They loved, they feared, they had favorite TV shows and candy bars. They were here and it will never ever ever be okay that they’re gone. /2

They’re not symbols or metaphors. They had books to write, vacations to take, meals to cook, and the world would be better with them still in it. We aren’t enriched by death, but we can stand in their shoes and see the future. /3

Hart Island, if you don’t know, is where New York City buries bodies that aren’t claimed by a licensed funeral director. At the height of the AIDS epidemic funeral homes were urged not to embalm AIDS fatalities. /4

In New York, as elsewhere, stigma toward the queer community was at a level that even now it can be difficult to remember. Many queer people who died of AIDS had been disowned by their birth family because of their identity, their HIV status, or both. /5

To make matters worse, their partners and found families had no rights to their medical care or their bodies after they passed. The hateful families that could claim them often didn’t, and the families that loved them were powerless to see to their wishes. /6

You can read more about all this at the memorial’s website, here:

hartisland.net/aids_initiative

/7

You can feel their weight, can’t you? The absence is heavy. And it’s important we understand that weight, because it’s a flat fact that current attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, trans rights especially, will kill people. There will be more absence, and it is not okay. /8

And when we say we have hope we are not saying it’s okay that they will be gone.

None of this ignores intersectionalism, higher rates of infection in targeted communities, death rates higher still. When I say things *can* get better I am not ignoring that improvement favors /9

the privileged.

Things got better. ACT UP and other activist groups organized and gained ground through community building, mutual aid, and grassroots action. Culturally, the tide began to turn. Federal action by Reagan and then Clinton contributed very little /10

(and in fact often caused harm). Direct action by activists galvanized AIDS research and the tide turned with very little government help.

In New York City, the death rate for HIV/AIDS patients fell by 62% from 2001 to 2012. So here’s what I’m saying. We’ve been seeing /11

an escalating backlash against LGBTQ people for years now. It gets very easy for us to come to expect the worst case scenario. Trump won, states are attacking trans kids, Roe was overturned. So now we say WHEN the Supreme Court overturns gay marriage, WHEN a national /12"

abortion ban passes, WHEN trans healthcare for adults gets criminalized.

And don’t get me wrong, those are all very real threats. We have to fight like hell. I am not pretending that times aren’t dark, that people won’t die, or that it will ever be okay that our people will /13

suffer and die. But things can, and do, get better when we fight, when we look after each other. The tide will not inevitably turn, but *we* can turn it. We can say that when the wall finally fell, our hands were there, pulling it down brick by brick. /14

And those we lost, if we remember them, honor them, we are their hands too. /15"

[theriverbeyond]

g1deon and pyrrha were t4t making pyrrha the empire's first mtftmtf

[butchsophiewalten]

Thought I had posted about this already whups. Martin made a really important twitter thread earlier:

[goodluckdetective]

The reason Tumblr is more hostile to Twitter folks than Reddit folks is because, in my observation, a lot of shitty people (think folks who fucked up so bad in such buckwild ways that there is at least a fanlore page on the subject) of Tumblr circa 2015-2018ish? A lot of them all migrated to Twitter after the porn ban.

The hostility has nothing to do with where folks are coming from and more a fear of old monsters returning to the hunting grounds when we thought we’d finally rebuilt.

[captain-bumble]

Camp Paradise

A MXTX crossover fic - Camp AU

Original Twitter Thread

A03 Link

Hua Cheng runs a summer camp to be close to his beloved, the camp nurse. Camp Counselor Wei Ying just wants to survive another year but has caught the attention of both Hua Chang and Park Ranger Lan Wangji. Too bad his kid Sizhui is such a delight. E'Ming and Ruoye join in on the summer fun too!

93K words, Completed

Rated E

TWs: Child endangerment, violence, mentions of child harm/abuse, bullying, explicit sex (adults only), everyone has secrets,

Too long to all put here, but highly recommend following those links! this is my most popular fic 🥰💖

[lotuslate]

he smile‼️‼️‼️

[citrus-soda]

I have yet to watch the Shurara Corps episodes, but there is something so so sweet about them unabashedly being kids' OCs. They have cool powers like being made of snow, controlling shadows, or turning people into stuffed animals. They are all part of this mysterious and elite squad of antagonists sent to defeat the main characters. Not to mention that their final designs in the anime are almost exactly the same - if not an exact replica of the designs their creators gave them.

This isn't the whole Corps, but look at these! Drawn in marker and crayon and colored pencil - most likely on whatever printer paper was in the house. They are all so creative, I just know the artists had fun making them.

And I'm sure these guys were more time-consuming to animate than the main cast. Look me in the eye and tell me Shurara WASN'T a total pain to color correctly. Not counting shading he's got at least 10 or 11 unique colors in his color scheme... and yet he's still there in all his asymmetrical glory, looking almost exactly the same as he does in the fanletter. They all do!

From a professional standpoint, he's a nightmare of a character design. But from a kid's standpoint? He's like the coolest villain imaginable. They're ALL cool.

To me, these guys are love letters to childhood creativity. I love that they exist and I'm so glad they didn't get simplified by the anime staff to save on time or production costs. I bet it made their creators happy to see them on screen.

[elkyralt]

PLEASE RESPECT ACAU'S BOUNDARIES!!

[troythecatfish]

This is the tweet that Ilhan Omar STILL has pinned at the top of her profile on X/ Twitter after all this time. THIS is what she has pinned to her profile.... Not the genocide in Gaza, not her condemning Israel for their war crimes, not a statement against anti-Zionism, but rather a tweet condemning H@m@s and their attack in October.

I don't understand why some leftists think "The Squad" is revolutionary.

[licollisa]

And this includes artists who made their AUs centered around a sans or papyrus.