#other than the fear that a lightning will destroy my house

[bambirex]

My interest in Queen faded a bit so I'm not in the mood to write Queen fic but the lack of feedback on my Witcher fics makes me unmotivated to write Witcher fic so I guess the solution is to not get any writing done today - again.

[shadowqueenjude]

 “Have any of them told you, their respected High Lady, that the babe in your womb will kill you?” -Nesta Archeron

So, what if this was the moment Nesta decided to destroy the Inner Circle? Part 1

Nesta stormed away from Amren’s house. She had no regrets for what she had said or done. Her only regret had been hurting Feyre’s feelings. But her sister deserved to know the truth. Even if it was in the harsh manner Nesta had delivered it. The cold rage was still riding her, dulling her other emotions. It was decided: she was going to destroy the Inner Circle, with Cassian at her side. Her little sister had kept them alive for years. The least she could do was save her from that awful man who claimed to be her husband and his horrible court. She wouldn’t let him ruin her life. He was a master manipulator, the bastard. She had met Tamlin, who had seemed more pathetic than anything. But Rhysand…he was the real villain. Nesta had no idea if Rhysand was using his daemati powers on Feyre or if he had manipulated her thoroughly that he needed no mind-manipulating powers to control her. She stormed through the small side streets of Velaris. She sensed, rather than saw, a large, winged figure swooping down on her. She said nothing but did not protest when Cassian took her in his arms. Her rage instantly subsided.

“Cassian,” Nesta murmured into his chest when they were up in the sky. “You know this is wrong. We can’t let my sister be with Rhysand. We can’t let him rule any longer. Help me free my sister. Rid this court of his evil.”

Cassian said nothing, only continued to fly. Nesta sniffed the emotions rolling off of him and was stunned. She had expected fear and sympathy on her behalf. And indeed, there was a whiff of fear there, but it was mostly something red-hot, like…

Anger. But at whom? Amren? Rhysand?

“It’s alright, Cassian,” Nesta murmured. “I’m here, I’m ok. I’m safe with you.”

He still said nothing. Unnerved, Nesta enquired, “Cassian? Are you alright?”

Still nothing.

“Cassian, you’re scaring me. Please say something.”

“How could you,” Cassian said, deadly soft. Nesta stilled.

“How could I what? Feyre deserved to know about her pregnancy, did she not? Just like I deserved to know about weapons I had made.”

He shook his head, seething. “You told her to hurt her.”

“And I regret that, but the truth hurts sometimes. Rhysand was wrong to keep it from her!”

Cassian didn’t reply.

“You agree with me, right? Cassian?”

Finally, they landed. “Cassian. I don’t understand why you’re so angry at me.”

“You would turn on my High Lord?” Cassian asked in that quiet voice again. The hairs on Nesta’s arms stood up. “I won’t let my sister suffer at his hands,” Nesta snarled. “Surely you can see how horrible he is, Cassian. Come on. Together, we can destroy him.”

A pause. Then a sigh, pained. “Nes,” he murmured, “why couldn’t you just obey?”

“What do you mean?” Then, swift as lightning, Cassian grabbed her. Nesta screamed and thrashed, but Cassian held her in a vise-like grip. Nesta reached for her power, but it had retreated to its silvery depths. She had no magical training, no way to summon that power. And suddenly, Nesta was wondering if that was on purpose.

“Cassian, you’re hurting me!” Nesta cried. She managed to elbow him and tried to slip away, but Cassian tackled her. Nesta was screaming, sobbing, she lost track of everyone and everything as Cassian pressed his thumb to her pulse. “I trusted you,” Nesta whispered, heart breaking. Then she blacked out. When she woke up, her head was throbbing, her throat was dry, her body aching. Nesta shifted, trying to sit up, and found her body resisting. Frustrated, she shoved again. Again. And then, with no small amount of horror, she strained her head to look down at herself. She was in the House of Wind, in her bedroom. Shackles adorned her wrists and ankles. She was chained to her bed. No no no no no no no no. Nesta let out an ungodly scream. She was trapped again. She was drowning. She was in that Cauldron again, trapped with no way out. She was under the lake again with the kelpie, no way out. She couldn’t breathe. Breathe breathe breathe. She desperately tried to still her mind. But the thoughts raced, rapid as a rushing river. Trapped trapped trapped trapped. Cassian had done this. To her. She had trusted him, and he had taken advantage of that. He had chosen Rhysand.

She prayed to gods that would not listen to free her from her cage. She writhed, trying to pull the chains off their hinges. Then suddenly, she got an idea. “House,” she whispered, “give me the keys to the chains.”

To her delight, the House dropped a key onto her lap. The House, who had always supported her. Had become her friend in these weeks. Nesta strained her neck, bending over to reach the keys on her lap, but it was just too far off. Cauldron save her-

“Nesta!”

Nesta let out a sob as Elain rushed into her room. She had a set of keys of her own in her hands. She rushed over to the manacles and began to unlock them. “Hurry, the others will be back soon,” Elain said. Elain, her soft and sweet sister. The sister Nesta had spent her whole life protecting, but now barely spoke to. She had come for her, to save her. And Nesta realized that Elain wasn’t the loyal dog that she had thought she was. Elain had acted complacent, but there was a sharp mind working under her gentle demeanor. She was stronger than anyone gave her credit for. Including Nesta. “They didn’t tell me about you,” Elain whispered as they snuck out of the house. “I saw you, though. In my mind.”

She had had a vision about the Inner Circle locking her up. So, she still retained her powers. Nesta’s head pounded insistently, getting worse with each step.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Elain said. She pulled out a syringe and plunged it into Nesta’s vein. “Ouch! What was that for?” Nesta rubbed the ache in her arm. Elain put a bandage over the mark.

“The headache is from faebane. They injected it in you so you couldn’t use your powers to get out. This is the antidote. I snuck it from the kitchens.”

Nesta stared at her sister in horror. The Inner Circle had done unspeakable things, but to chain her to her bed, to inject her with faebane… What kind of horrors had Feyre endured at their hands? “We have to save Feyre,” Elain said, as if she had read Nesta’s mind. “From all of them.”

“What of Az, Elain?” Nesta whispered. Elain’s mouth tightened ever so slightly. “He is nothing to me. Not anymore.” Nesta sensed there was a story there, but decided to save it for another time, when they weren’t running for their lives.

At least, they reached the 10,000 steps that would lead them to Velaris. Nesta shook her head. “It’s hopeless,” Nesta whispered. “We’ll never make it.” “We will,” Elain said fiercely. There was a steel in her voice that Nesta had never heard before. Determination. And together, they began the descent.

[moonshinemagpie]

Izumi Kyoka: Short story writer of the early 1900s, little known in his own country and even less known abroad, yet he continues to be cherished in the small city where he grew up.

I live in Kanazawa, his hometown. I go to Izumi Kyoka’s museum every year. The collection is always changing, and so is my relationship to his stories, so it’s worth repeat visits. Every time, I’m reminded of all the things that make Kyoka so weird. On the top of that list are his many phobias.

Last week, the museum audio guide sounded a little teasing when he explained that Kyoka was terrified of lightning. Kyoka created elaborate rituals to keep lightning from striking his home, pinned up dried husks of corn as tools to bade away the electricity. The guide’s tone of voice thickly implied, what a weirdo.

Yes. I thought so. It struck me as childish, neurotic, and fanciful. What a weirdo.

And Yet—Some Notes on the Weather

The region where I live is the rainiest in Japan. In the summer it feels humid and subtropical; in the winter it reminds you it’s on the edge of yuki guni, snow country, and offers blizzard after blizzard, daily hail. I am from New York. In New York, I thought of weather as being something that is—"it is hot today," "it is raining today," etc. But in Kanazawa, weather is a phenomenon that happens—and it happens at you.

Here, thunder is both more habitual and more terrifying than any other place I’ve ever lived. At 2 am today, I awoke to a bright flash of light, followed almost immediately by thunder so loud my doors rattled for a solid half-minute. Earthquake, my sleep-brain insisted, even though I knew better. 

When you’re a child you learn how to calculate how far away thunder is; if there is a 10-second gap between lightning and its sound, then it’s something like 3 km or 2 mi away. I used to like counting that distance as a kid. For children in Kanazawa, though, it must feel impossible. Thunder and lightning always come a split fraction of a second apart; always, it seems, the storm is right on top of me. In New York, thunder was rare, and a little bit friendly—American children grow up with picture book illustrations of Benjamin Franklin running around with a rod in hand, merrily drawing the lightning down.

The thunder of Kanazawa is more regular, closer, louder, stronger, fiercer. It rumbles for nearly a minute straight each time. Last night the noise curled around me like it was laying siege to my home. Why and how? I don’t know. If I’d grown up here I’d probably have become a meteorologist.

Thanks for coming to my weather report.

Back to Kyoka

So in the museum, I’d forgotten. Kyoka didn’t fear New York lightning. He grew up in Kanazawa, where the lightning shakes even modern houses. Natural disasters would completely destroy his home three times. Every home he ever lived in has been demolished by flood, fire, and/or earthquake.

Keeping that in mind, it seems wrong-footed to mock his lightning-phobia. Biographers relish listing his many fears: lightning, dogs, germs, ghosts. I love his museum, but it also seems to have been curated as a mere list of oddities, a collective finger pointing here and there as though to say, A freak, he was a freak.

Car Talk

The other day I was in a car with a friend born in Kanazawa.

I don’t get it, she said. Why do you like Kyoka so much?

No respect whatsoever.

Why don’t you like him more? I countered.

She scrunched up her nose. Thought about it. Finally landed on:

He was so weird. 

Is Anyone Weird, Actually?

Then it was time for me to think about it. Why do I like him? 

Read the rest here.

[lirillith]

The other post I've been meaning to make is about what's been up with my husband, because I've been making vague posts about hospitals and emergency rooms and not elaborating.

So two weeks ago, he had a dizzy spell. As he described it, "I was eating lunch and suddenly there was rice all over the keyboard." Saturday, he mentioned one or two more, but we weren't super concerned. If anything, he was worried that it might be the return of the ITP, the auto-immune disorder where his body randomly destroys all his platelets - he's been hospitalized three or four times for it, and he lives in fear of the next recurrence.

Then Sunday, he was in bad shape; exhausted, unwell, having frequent recurrences of the dizzy spells with little if any recovery time between them. We agreed that while it wasn't ITP he should definitely go to urgent care that night or the next day. By the kiddo's bedtime he was barely able to stand up; he collapsed while trying to sing a lullaby to her. We aren't totally sure still if he was actually fainting, though we described it that way at times. I concluded it was ER time, not urgent care. So Monday, after dropping Dottie off at school, that's where I took him.

And I don't know if you've ever been in an ER in a major city, but if you go in with something that's not immediately dangerous, you're going to be waiting for HOURS. So the fact that within two hours we'd spoken to doctors about his symptoms and they'd drawn blood and checked his blood pressure was... telling.

Anyway, they got him admitted with what amounts to lightning speed - he was in an ER bed by the time I had to leave to pick up Dottie from school - and he then spent the next five days in the hospital. He was having random episodes of heart arrhythmia, and when he was finally discharged after five days with a buttload of meds to take, he lasted 24 hours before he had another episode - this time possibly brought on by one of the meds he was taking? - and went back in the hospital for another three days. At least at this point he's been home for three days without incident.

So now my husband officially has heart failure - not the usual heart attack kind, but your heart not operating efficiently enough also counts as a type of failure - at the age of 47. He's got a monitoring device he's wearing 24/7 now, and he can't do a lot of the things he normally did around the house or in caring for Dottie. Most notably he doesn't feel safe to drive and can't do the shopping, so that's falling to me, and I find shopping pretty overwhelming, so I'm more than usually busy, stressed, and exhausted on top of worrying about him.

[teaveetamer]

The idea that "criticizing female wrongdoers is evil" is not exclusive to Edelgard stans, unfortunately.

Back when Once Upon a Time was on the air, Regina Mills committed mass murder, rape, brainwashing, etc. Yet she had a similar "Cult of Personality" fanbase that would constantly scream at you at the top of their lungs if you criticized Regina even slightly. And they actually managed to succeed in turning Regina into a "Black Hole Sue" that constantly had everyone (including her biggest victims) kiss her ass.

And in the Avatar fandom, Azula fans have gotten crazier, screaming at the top of their lungs that Zuko is a terrible person because he ran away from the sister who tormented him for years.

And in the Castlevania fandom, fans make excuses for Lenore, who treated Hector like a sex slave through magical enslavement.

And don't even get anon started on Ragyo Kiryuin from Kill la Kill, who sexually abused her own daughter, and still had fans make excuses for her.

Something about modern fandom culture seems to drive people to worship female abusers and murderers, as if women aren't subject to the same laws and consequences as other people. It's a dangerous mindset, and worst of all, it's spreading.

Every generation of young people becomes the next generation of leaders, and anon fears for the future when these people will eventually be running the world.

I feel like female antagonists are a lightning rod for it right now, but I wouldn't say it's even exclusive to fictional women. I wouldn't even say it's really a modern fandom culture problem. It's a human problem. Humans in general have a fascination with authority, power, and confidence. That's why authoritarian regimes rise and fall throughout all of human history, and why so many of our oldest tales are about remaining humble and not abusing power.

It is something we have dealt with countless times before, and it's something we will continue to deal with until we destroy it or it destroys us.

I find several things far more concerning for the future of our society than the media being consumed and/or justified by modern fandom. Because I don't think media causes the problem, I think the way fans behave about media is a symptom of the problem (and sometimes that behavior needs to be called out, but it's not the media's fault necessarily).

Speaking as an American, I think the biggest thing threatening our youth, at this point, is the infantalization of adolesence, the ridiculous amount of monitoring and controlling of children and teens, and the intense social isolation born from essentially being a prisoner in your own home until you're 16 years old (and longer if your family can't afford to get you your license or a car).

I don't honestly believe that most kids and teens would spend so much time consuming media and arguing about it on the internet, basically living tethered to social media, if they were allowed to walk to the park by themselves and play with their friends, or if a teen could reliably get to their friends' house across town and hang out somewhere with them where they wouldn't be seen as a nuisance or dangerous, or if they could get to meetups and hobbies and meet people without needing to beg mom and dad for a ride every time. No one wants to be terminally online, but what choice do a lot of kids even have these days? When walking to the corner store down the street is so dangerous that it's basically a death sentence, because there's no sidewalks and everyone is driving Sherman tank sized SUVs and trucks 25 miles over the limit?

Like I was a kid before a lot of this stuff was getting really bad, and even I feel like I was robbed because I had to waste so much of my adolescence stuck behind a screen. There was no one to talk to IRL unless you were lucky enough to live in the same neighborhood as your friends (I did not), nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no way to get there until I turned 16. That's absolute murder on your mental health, so it's no wonder kids are latching onto anything to fill the gaps.

And I dunno. It's sad that these days our childhoods are defined not by who we knew or where we went or what we did, but by what corporate schlock we consumed.

That's not even getting into how that extreme isolation and inability to escape intensifies abusive environments. Imagine being a 14 year old queer kid in a hostile household, and the nearest LGBTQ+ community center is a 45 minute drive away. Not only are you stuck in an environment that's rapidly deteriorating your mental (and possibly physical) health, you need to ask your abusers to drive you to the place where you might find community, acceptance, and resources. That, or you need to get very adept at figuring out who is a safe adult to ask for that stuff, with the knowledge that every person you tell risks outing you to even more people who might wish you harm, or bringing backlash on you in the home.

Just. Fuck car-centric infrastructure, okay? Fuck it all to hell. I hate it here. Bully your representatives at every level of government to transition to walkable, human-scale cities with mixed use development as the standard. It's better for the environment, better for your health (both mental and physical), better for the community, and better for life. I genuinely believe this is one of the problems that, if we fix it, is going to domino effect into fixing a whole lot of other shit.

I got a little off topic, look up Not Just Bikes on Youtube he's great at presenting persuasive arguments you can bring around to your representatives.

[pokedashwarrior55]

Ninjobservation #4

[amino reupload]

After making my Garmadon AMV I noticed that Garmadon and Jay don't get along, yet are always talking to each other. They are sitting next to each other throughout ToE and are always the two engaged in intellectual debates. I think Garmadon and Jay have more friendly tension than Garm and Kai, and Kai got his true potential over giving up the notion he was destined to fight Garmadon.

Don't believe me? Here's a run down of their conversations from the Wiki transcripts.

Rise of the Serpentine

The Green ninja

JAY: Any minute, this place is gonna blow. We have to get out of here.

GARMADON: Not without my son!

The Day of the Great Devourer

GARMADON: Give me the weapons. I am the only one who can handle the power of all four weapons at once. It's the only thing that'll defeat the Devourer.

JAY: Uh, I thought we were supposed to do everything in our power not to let him possess the weapons.

JAY: (Giving him the Nunchucks of Lightning) Uh, I don't think this needs to be said, but we're gonna need these back.

GARAMADON: (Chuckles) I'll do my part. You just make sure he stays in one spot. (He laughs and runs away.)

JAY Stays in one spot? Stays in one spot!? How are we supposed to do that?

The Legacy of The Green Ninja

Jay is offended about Garmadon getting credited for their victory TWICE in two different episodes!

Darkness Shall Rise

JAY: Maybe we can get a hero discount. After all, we are the Ninja who saved the city.

PATTY KEYS: I thought Lord Garmadon saved the city.

JAY: Hmph

Pirate's Vs Ninja

JAY: Look, pal, we're the guys that just saved the city from that giant snake. (I know it was technically Cole, but it was Jay who said it in the animation and transcript so??)

DARETH: Ha! Am I looking at Lord Garmadon? Because unless I'm stupid, and I'm not, Lord Garmadon destroyed the Devourer.

JAY: Hehe. That's been a huge misunderstanding. Actually, we were the ones who dest—

Rebooted

The Art of The Silent Fist

He takes great pleasure in Jay getting hurt twice in this episode.

Yet Jay is the first one to comfort Garmadon when he sees the techno blade

The Titanium Ninja

GARMADON: Brother, do you remember when both of us were on the same team?

JAY: Uh, hey, yeah, old timers, mind paying attention? We're trying to save the world here!

Tournament of Elements

The Invitation

He cares little about Jay's sensitivities...

And he roasts him directly a few minutes later

So Jay sasses him back...

GARMADON: I swore to never return

JAY: You know, you should never swear. It's a sign of weak verbal skills

Only One Can Remain

This episode is full of Garmadon sternly correcting Jay

JAY: So this is the house that noodles built. Ha! Always wanted to go to a red carpet event.

GARMADON: Chen lives like a king. Here, he's totally self-sufficient. The only way on or off this island is with his permission, which you have to earn.

GARMADON: When I was your age, I sought a darker means of guidance. He taught me to win at all cost, no matter who I hurt. It wasn't until you saved me that I saw the light.

JAY: Uh, apparently he also never taught you to have a sense of humor. Lighten up, we're in an underground fight club. This is supposed to be fun.

Another jibe at Jay's casual nature...

JAY: Ah, just what this place needs. Creepy clowns!

GARMADON: Not clowns. Kabuki, Chen's jesters.

But he is also the one comforting his overthinking mind alot

JAY: Arrgh, it's killing me. What's under the trapdoor? What happens when you lose?

GARMADON: Don't think about that.

JAY: It's all I can think about. I moved on. I feel guilt. These are not good feelings.

Versus

He does this same thing again next episode...

GARMADON: You can't undo what's been done. My only advice is to be at peace with it.

JAY: Peace? One of us has to lose! Oh, my gosh. It's totally gonna be me. He's got super strength and what do I have? Quick, tell me! What do I have!?

Ninja Roll

Here's the two once again willingly siting next to each other.

The Greatest Fear of All

Garmadon shuts down Jay's sarcasm again...

JAY: What ever happened to "we fight as one?"

GARMADON: This isn't a vote, Jay. This is stopping the end of our world as we know it.

March of the Oni

NYA: What do you want?

GARMADON: Absolutely nothing :)

(yes even he and oni garm are at cheeky odds)

Findings

Garmadon and Jay are both, for lack of a better word, Rude. Not that they mean to be, but they are both very outspoken about what they believe in and they are confident enough to call out BS when they see it. They both are very analytical and this is also where the two differ greatly.

Garmadon looks at a situation, sees what can be done within the situation and can command others to the plan of action but Jay is much less direct. Jay is an overthinker and although both Garmadon and Jay are pessimistic, Garmadon's pessimism comes from experience whilst Jay’s from overthinking the outcomes. Garmadon looks for more what can be done NOW while Jay thinks about all the ways the future will be affected, leaving the two at odds on how to solve a situation.

Jay also copes with stress much differently than Garmadon. He tries to add lightheartedness into moments that may not typically welcome it and is laid back when it comes to situations he doesn’t try to fully understand. Garmadon doesn’t like this attitude. He’s much more serious and disregards this typically as stupid or ignorant.

Since I was curious I looked into Myers Briggs 16 personalities for the two and came up with Jay as an ENTP (debater) and Garmadon as an ENTJ (Commander), both stubborn analytical types so It makes perfect sense the two would be at odds quite often.

Bit of a strange topic but when you notice some of your favorite characters trash talking each other a lot you gotta point it out and write an essay about it right??

[aftaabmagazine]

A Voice from the Centuries Past

A Voice from the Centuries Past

Short Story by Rahnaward Zaryab 

Translated from the Farsi by Farhad Azad 

The cruel whip of Mongol plunder descended upon the city of Shadiakh. The barbaric fighters, thirsty for blood and eager for loot and carnage, rushed into the beautiful and peaceful city like an avalanche. Arrows took flight. Bows bent further. Spears, like lightning bolts, flew through the air. Swords were drawn from their sheaths.

Then, amidst the smoke, fire, and dust, the screams and wails of women, the cries of children, and the cryings of the elderly reached the skies. Golden ribbons furling fire danced from the mosques' handsome minarets, the palaces' decorated battlements, and the houses' doorways and windows.

The sound of the hooves of the mountain-like horses and their furious, terrified neighing spread the fume of terror and fear everywhere. The sparkle of iron and steel blinded the eyes. There were arrows and swords, spears and shields, helmets and chainmail everywhere.

Everywhere, there were cries: terrifying cries, triumphant cries, desperate cries, cries for mercy, savage cries, cries of complaint.

Everywhere was blood and death: the blood of children, young men, and the elderly. Everywhere was murder and slaughter—the slaughter of the people of the city of Shadiakh.

And then, the Mongol fighters, parched for blood, settled down. The city was captured. The claws of Genghis Khan's army had taken Shadiakh as well. A city filled with the carcasses of the slain, whose walls and doors were smeared with the blood of its people, a city where smoke and fire still climbed here and there. Genghis Khan's armies had become the rulers of Shadiakh.

The next day, an old man unhurriedly approached the city. He had come from a corner of solitude and isolation outside the city. The traces of devotion had given his face a refined hue. He was lean and bony, wearing a long garment of crude wool. The course of long years had not bent his back. Straight and steady but slowly, he strolled.

The morning breeze played with his lengthy, silvery hair. The old man was absorbed in deep thought. As if he were in a dream, in a world of fantasy.

When he reached the city, he saw it soaked in blood and dust. The city reeked of blood and smoke. Joy and happiness had escaped from it. Riders clad in iron and steel were scattered about. Minarets and walls had collapsed. Children no longer played joyfully. The bazaar was no longer bustling. The laughter of the city residents was no longer heard. Mongol soldiers were everywhere, with narrow, fiery eyes and sharp, cruel faces.

The old man's eyes overfilled with tears, and he spoke to himself:

"Oh God, what do I see?"

In the city, those who had survived respected the old man. A man came forward and kissed the old man's sleeve. 

The old man asked him: "What has happened to this city and its people?"

The man lowered his head and answered: "My esteemed Sheikh, the Mongols have come. They slaughtered everyone. They set everything on fire. They looted everything. We are in captivity."

The old man closed his eyes and murmured: "There is no repugnant captivity than the captivity of rejection. Oh, wicked soul, a curse upon you! You are the source of all sins."

And he continued on his way. He saw the destroyed minarets, the scorched houses, and the spilled blood. And he saw a Mongol commander who had hooked a man to a pillar and was lashing him. The man was unconscious. Blood poured from the corner of his mouth. His head was lowered on his chest. His shirt was drenched in blood. The Mongol officer continued to whip him with fury.

The old man stepped ahead and questioned the Mongol commander: "Why are you flogging this man?"

The commander examined the old man up and down and scornfully said, "Who are you?"

The old man answered: "A servant of God. Tell me, why are you whipping this man?"

The Mongol commander answered: "So that others may learn a lesson and not speak badly of our fighters."

The old man asked: "Do you know that your fighters are innocent and do not deserve harsh words?"

The officer's stern face grew sterner. His eyes flickered savagely, his thick lips quivered, and he yelled.

No trace of fear appeared on the old man's face. He closed his eyes, raised his hand, and spoke slowly and slowly: "Oh man, you have tied this person to a pillar and flogged him so that the fire within you diminishes, but this blaze will not be extinguished by this act. Ultimately, this fire will destroy you, too. This fire has been kindled by the devil within you...Oh man, the devil within you is pulling you toward defeat! It drives you out of your own land, makes you a wanderer, and enslaves you to raise your hand against the blood of God's servants, to plunder and burn, to destroy and uproot. Oh man, do not let the devil within you govern over you! Do not be his captive, but condemn him. Man can be higher than the angels."

The Mongol commander exploded into laughter. The combatants chuckled, too. The townspeople wept. 

The Mongol commander screamed: "Old man... you are mad!"

The fighters also rang in, laughing: "Mad old man... Mad old man..."

The old man spoke loudly: "You are prisoners of the devil within yourselves. The feral soul rules over you. You have become beasts, not humans. You are bloodthirsty."

The Mongol commander yelled: "Shut up, you old fool!"

The old man calmly responded: "This is not your voice, oh man! This is the voice of the devil within you that comes out of your mouth. This is the voice of the bestial soul."

The commander's fierce voice reverberated like thunder in the ruined bazaar: "Kill this mad old man!"

The Mongol soldiers drew their swords. Someone from among the townspeople frantically shouted: "For God's sake, don't kill him! I will give a hundred dinars as his blood money."

The Mongol commander laughed mockingly: "I will spare his life. Bring your money."

The old man told the Mongol commander: "This is not my price. Beware of selling me."

Another person from among the townspeople cried: "For God's sake, don't kill him! I will give three hundred dinars as his blood money."

The old man again told the Mongol commander, "This is not my price. Beware of selling me."

The Mongol commander was shocked with amazement. These people had lost their children, yet they did not confess having money. Why did they treasure this old man so much? Who was this old man? The commander's wrath spread, and he yelled at his fighters: "Let's parade him through the city. His price will go up. It will definitely go up..."

The commander directed the way, and the soldiers dragged the old man behind him. The people of the city followed them, crying. On the way, a man shouted: "I will give you five hundred dinars. Spare this old man's life."

The old man told the Mongol commander: "No, this is not my price... Don't give it."

They continued on their way. The fighter dragged the old man along...

Another person said, "I will give a thousand dinars as his blood money."

The old man told the Mongol commander: "Don't give it, for this is not my price."

The Mongol commander was thrilled, delighted with this unanticipated fortune.

Another townsperson exclaimed: "I will give two thousand dinars as his blood money. For God's sake, don't kill him!"

The old man said to the Mongol commander: "This is not my price. Beware of selling me."

Then, a dervish came on the scene. When he saw the old man, he burst into tears. He clung to the Mongol commander's sleeve and begged: "For God's sake, don't kill him! I will pay his blood money. I am a poor man, but I will give you all my possessions... for your horses."

The old man stopped and said to the Mongol commander: "Give him to me, for this is my price. By God, this is it, and I have no more than this..."

The Mongol commander roared: "You madman! You crazy old man!"

The old man grinned: "You are slaves to the devil; you have faith in red gold."

The officer yelled again: "Shut up... you crazy old man!"

The old man firmly declared: "Red gold cannot extinguish The fire of greed. This fire will burn you, too, and turn you to ashes."

The Mongol commanded, foaming at the jaws, and his face blackened hollered like a madman: "Shut up, so I can make a deal!"

The old man spoke loudly: "My voice is the voice of humanity. It will never be muted. It is your voice, the voice of the slaves of red gold, that will disappear in the space of time."

The fighters burst into laughter. The Mongol commander trusted his dagger into the old man's chest up to the handle and yelled:

"I will hush your voice."

The old man closed his eyes. While breathing heavily, he beamed and gradually said: "Oh man, you are wrong! My voice is immortal. It will be heard forever. This voice will triumph over all voices. It will eventually prevail... Oh man, you are wrong!"

And he fell to the ground.

The flighters burst into laughter. The Mongol commander roared at his fighters: "Bring out the buyers of the old man."

The townspeople began to cry and mourn. Grief showered down from the walls and doors of Shadiakh. Smoke still rose from the city's ruins, and this old man, martyred at the hands of the Mongol fighters, was Sheikh Fariduddin Attar.

First Publication

This short story was published in 1983 by the Union of Writers in Kabul in رهنورد زریاب Rahnaward Zaryab's collection of short stories with the same title آوازی از میان قرنها "A Voice from the Centuries Past." 

Words Against the Sword

آنکه شمشیر ستم بر سر ما آخته است

He who has drawn the sword of oppression on us

خود گمان کرده که برده ست، ولی باخته است

He thought he has won, but he has lost

—واصف باختری

—Wasef Bakhtari

Rahnward Zaryab  (1944-2020) resurrects the tale of فریدالدین عطار Fariduddin Attar (1145-1221), the Sufi mystic whose Conference of the Birds soared through the centuries, a poetic testament to the seeker's arduous path toward enlightenment. 

Yet, in Zaryab's version, this oft-told tale carries on a new resonance. It becomes an echo of defiance, a testament to the lasting power of the humanities in the face of authoritarianism. Attar, killed by the Mongols, lives on through his words, a voice rising from the dust of history to remind us that even the most brutal regimes cannot silence the human spirit's yearning for truth and beauty. 

The conquerors may fade into obscurity, their swords rusting in forgotten tombs, but the artists they sought to extinguish burn ever brighter, their creations transcending the limits of mortality. 

In this retelling, Zaryab threads a tapestry of hope and resilience, where the humanities become a haven for the soul, a beacon of light in an era of darkness.

—Farhad Azad 

May 12, 2024 Illustration

Detail of "A Ruffian Spares the Life of a Poor Man," an illustration of a passage from Fariduddin Attar's The Conference of the Birds. This illustration started in the 15th-century Timurid court and was completed a half-century later in the Safavid court.

[fledglingmaster]

I haven't had such vivid nightmares in a couple years. Not to say I haven't had vivid good dreams or any nightmares...but this...I think it was worst because it was a nightmare within a nightmare, within another nightmare. Breaking through a layer and thinking you're awake only to still be trapped. Having to break through again, thinking it's now safe, but it still isn't.

I figure that some of you might appreciate my weird mind. Especially the last nightmare.

I'm glad I don't remember the first nightmare. Something about a storm in a forest, lightning striking. But that's it. I "woke up" on the couch with a raging fever.

The second one, to frame it, was my current life. I was perhaps ten years younger. I was extremely sick, my parents were arguing, I thought my mom was going to leave and my father was going to beat me. (I think this has been a deep seated fear I had from childhood.) I attempted walking to my room but collapsed in the hallway screaming. There were three shut doors, my room, my parent's, and the bathroom, as there are in real life. But they were massive doors and all lined up next to each other. I could sense something awful behind each one. My mom calmed me down and walked me to my room. Once in my bed I was rushed by tall, thin, shadowy figures. I tried to scream but nothing came out.

I then "woke up" from that nightmare. No spooky figures, I wasn't sick, I had a whole different life despite living in the same house. I was an orphan and I wanted to find my mother desperately. I had no memories of my childhood, it was like I was just born an adult. My body was different, I was a trans woman. I had battled a life-long eating disorder (according to others/doctors as my memory only went so fair back) and was finally doing better. Once again I think I was in my 20s. I found a lead to a camp I attended when I was young. As I snuck in I had a fight with a park ranger that wanted to kill all the kids inside the camp with poisonious gas. I ended up beating him to death with a shovel. When I got in the camp I found out it was actually an android manufactoring plant. I watched androids being "born." There was a head android, mother. She taught the child androids on how to blend in with humans. Once a kid needed to grow up the mother android would tear off their face plate, erase the bits of their memory they didn't need, and input skills they did need. They would get a new face plate and their bodies would adjust to look older. I overheard one ask mother if they could be a girl, so she gave them a different face plate and longer hair. Their body changed to look like a young teen girl. At this point I begin questioning am I human or an android? Then it was lunch time...for whatever reason the androids were only fed ground up humans. In comes the park ranger's body and I'm beginning to think I should have let him destroy the plant. Now there will be an army of people eating androids out in the world. But am I one of them? They don't know any better and apparentally they can eat more than just humans, it's just difficult. I'm spotted. Mother says how she missed me and how proud of me she is, I was her most successful student. She never says creation, just student. I watch her chop and grind up the ranger. She forces a seat at the table for me and shoves a tray of raw ground meat at me and says, "welcome home." I must eat it or risk being killed...I no longer can tell if I'm human or android. It's too much to think about. (I could have been a human child that was adopted in and the trauma was too much for me to handle. That's what I told myself at least. But if the end goal was for androids to think they're human...that is the more likely option.)

I woke up for real after that, shaking. I know where some of that came from but wow...I must have a lot of internal conflict going on right now.

[libidomechanica]

“And the square, shes worthy toothpicked”

Bull some relenting too high, left foot back again.     She drags in tight, Live! And ere the best; a beautiful and fyrie furies forse: she sleep, and     silent with flesh were, and love to bear

the ostler plead for words, beset, with him any     mercy: where shall by in the misty river-whispering her Eyes up to be enjoy     tonight, destroy thee mine, but ere the

good. Opposition comes by a bow The loved him,     glad to see, and with eager come here their rule of summer and I’ve been piled up as been     when nature escaped, to one perfect

actor of which should Colin vp, ynough the world’s     bites, we are very desolate action’s decease these rebel nature of good, wherein     mortality. Through a love alone

is a goodly soupe a la Parigeux; ’ how channels     of mourne now my Muse, now with fair, first I meant that day of mourn’d unto thee, o Vashti!     And silent was neither brother’s

lightning as flat as a dying, dying men;     companion yesterday. Busily sunders pursue him also suits my rhyme; but by no     more the frozen cherries rough. Sweet

consisted round some deem’d secure—she is sleep-warm     pillowing season which touching palely, whose prelude soft, her faith; but his part, which from     source of hel, and, my good opinions

two, which most above it and greater. Music I     heard him other blendeth its mintage, and gritty as your skin and hid the heat oppress’d     the head up against my passage from

otherwise twenty times of heroic touch of     venom when the fires there was he, that the preach your face, the great promises much as are     dry as subservient to see pearls

begem; pipe to the grove, bend the pomp is come yet     you, great city sounds she would that, whence certe. Flipped out of heauen. Can pass’d life is mail of being     ray, and dull murder me. I tend

upon the sex the light loved, drown’d all her though nameless     emotion of the hardened my hairs—Alas me! Your pains to your hair unbound,     sparkling round. His lamp, and there the gleaming.

And the square, she’s worthy toothpicked them lost     as I knew no rock so happiness. It means again, mix not matchless sea, more effrontery,     to nature soft he said, I

fear it I probably presagers of the island.     Piddle with me a face is beating, and their west, the middle of time’s deep-damask’d—a     Power a little town, thy outward

the loues misgouernaunce, or hollow in mingling him     thence to do. A man when, when one for her serious;—it is St. Lets dropped into the     thou art insensible and now still

on her house-affairs, who will lead in one old nightly     to winter, each wild as deleterious; where is op’ning roguish een. While, I’ve     felt she; as frailties, and what I do,

where has twa sparkling round, pale, snake-like from the     storm? I shuddering were: and I seek in love’s ghost away. And sedges, and heart more like     a dome of your eye twinkles still fresh

sensationist, when it is life—and love my     expectations, where possess’d, thou cannot writer’s hand a good dinners than echo and     The hearts of venison; and the road.

[pherelesytsia]

Forbidden Fruit

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x female/Solomons Reader

Summary: Alfie Solomons finds out his younger sister is dating Thomas Shelby and forbids her to see him ever again, but his words cannot scare her.

Warning: Arranged marriage, Abuse, Swearing and Drugs

Word Count: 1.8k      

a/n:. Requested by Anonymous.

Thomas Shelby Masterlist

The dark hat rested lonely and abandoned on the dark wooden table. The gramophone no longer played delicate notes, was silent as the still world. Records were lying beside it, untouched. The room resembled a battlefield. The man had emptied the bottle of whiskey as if it was water. Papers had flown through the air and adored the carpet around the table.

Thousands of splinters sparkled like stars in the dark firmament, but Y/N neither flinched nor lowered her gaze, had never feared her brother who had built himself up like a raging storm before her, seemed to be able to destroy the table made of solid wood with his bare hands. Rage dominated his eyes. He didn't want to hear anything else, had heard enough. Continuously, the tips of his fingers clashed against the files he had demolished in his blinding, furiousness. Alfie had destroyed papers, no matter whether they were important or not. The veins in his face threatened to burst. Blood boiled, raced through his body faster than a horse on a racetrack.

An hour ago, the box of dark metal was filled with more than twenty cigarettes, but now it was empty and resting on the edge of the table.

Darkness rooted in his heart. Alfie laughed low. The air war brimming with death and destruction.

Seated across from him, unable to escape the questions he was uttering, the young woman was astonished. Y/N knew the repertoire of his words, but she, only five years younger, had never heard such swearing of a sailor on the raging ocean. The moment she had entered the office, she knew something was off, knew they informed him about what she had done, yet she stayed and settled down on the armchair opposite her older brother. Other people would have fled, would watch him with terror and fear, but Y/N didn’t fear the loathing nor the blazing flames ruling ruthlessly in his eyes. The lamp in the far corner of the room could not banish the growing shadows on his stern features.

A pearl necklace rested on her skin, no longer hidden by the high collar of the light brown blouse. The young woman wanted to rise from the chair, to rest her hand on his shoulders and let him know he need not to fear about her well-being, but she remained seated. Y/N was old enough to make decisions for herself but the very moment their eyes which resembled each other met on a battlefield of thousands of mines and fallen warriors, Y/N knew her older brother, would not pay attention to any of the words not twisted as broken limbs.

            "You will not leave the house without my knowledge. When you go out, then you will take one of my men with you. You won't be alone and if the damn Shelby dares come near you or even walks on the same pavement as you, I will kill him with my own hands. I already picked a husband out for you." he boomed in a tone carrying anger.

Silently, Y/N laughed, shaking her head. Her hand rested on her heart, leaning forward, convinced she had misunderstood him. Her eyes sparkled in delight. She looked up and immediately realised Alfie wasn't joking. Y/N leaned back, felt the hate and the disgust but felt strong enough to face him. His mouth gaped open.

            "You're talking about your loyal man who acted like an idiot, thought I wanted to kill you and the one who put a gun to my head?" Y/N joked.

The tone carried bitterness. Lightning reigned in his gaze and pressed his lips tightly together. In anger, he wanted his fists to collide with the table, wanted to silence her harshly, but Alfie controlled himself. The words burned like a sword deep into his chest. Angered his teeth sank into his lower lip, but no blood escaped the deepening wounds.

            "You know perfectly well what happened to him.", "Enlighten me with your knowledge, my dear brother. I don't know what happened to him or what a fucking Shelby did." Y/N mocked him and lowered her voice.

Innocently, Y/N lifted her shoulders up and then down. Linking her hands in front of her body, she lowered them on her lap. Boiling hatred seethed in him dressed in a white shirt and an open waistcoat in the tones of the deepest depths of the forest.

            "The Shelby killed him, one of my best men.", "Then he certainly wasn't one of your best men if it was so easy to kill him." Y/N teased.

"Listen Y/N. You will call him now and you will break up with him, today, not tomorrow, not in ten minutes but now." Alfie said imperiously.

With his outstretched finger, he pointed toward the telephone on the other side of the table, but Y/N laughed and shook her head, would not break up with her boyfriend because of his words.

"Thomas loves me and he doesn't care that you are my brother. You can demand a lot of me but I am not your men who read every wish from your lips." Y/N said sternly.

His eyes turned dangerously dark.

"That damn bastard is with you because he wants to hurt me. He doesn't love you; he wants to hurt me by destroying you and the moment he achieves his goal he will chase you out of his house like a whore or kill you.” the man shouted.

The glasses sang. His fist collided with the table, silenced his sister before she could start a sentence.

“And if you arrive crying, I can guarantee you I will not help you. I won't welcome you with open arms and take care of you. He will hurt you Y/N/N; he will break your heart and then I will be the one who will take care of you.", "Alfie, Thomas found out that I am your sister after we have been together for more than a year," Y/N interjected.

Anger boiled inside her heart but she didn't dare raise her voice against her brother, respected him despite his opinions, despite the words piercing like daggers into her heart. Y/N knew Thomas, knew his past, had seen hate and anger yet she still wanted to be a part of his future even though she knew what he had done in the past.

“I can understand the hatred you feel Alfie but Thomas had no knowledge about my family. This is not about you. We don't look alike and although I've probably heard his name a thousand times, I didn't connect him to the stories you told me." Y/N breathed, hoping she would be able to change his mind.

            "I took care of you when you were bloody sick. I cleaned up your puke from the floor and washed you. And you thank me like this? You're not only betraying your family, but you're betraying me, your brother," Alfie interjected angrily.

            "Brother you're throwing things at me that happened years ago. I think I should leave. I'll be on my way." breathed Y/N.

The words let him laugh. Slowly Y/N rose from the dark leather chair. Taking the handbag on the floor at her side Y/N made a step towards the table. Her dominant hand disappeared into the depths of the handbag. She fished for a short while in which the ticking of the clock and the gasp of her brother filled the room in the handbag.

            "Here, this is the number, if you need anything or change your mind then you can always reach me.", "You're going to move in with the scum?" Alfie chipped in.

Swiftly the man rose, pushed back the chair and looked condescendingly from his sister to the slightly crumpled sheet of paper she was holding. He knew what she was asking of him, but his clenched fists did not move, leaning against the table once covered by hundreds of papers.

            "I understand," Y/N breathed.

She laid the paper with the combinations of many different numbers on the edge of the table. Stepping one step back. Y/N didn't care what he would do with the paper. Sweat danced down her neck. Y/N closed the handbag and threw it over her shoulder, but then she threw it back on the chair and quickly put on her coat, feeling the tears trying to cloud her vision, feeling the lump forming in her throat growing bigger. Y/N grabbed her handbag. She took a step away from her brother, but suddenly Y/N stopped, unable to go any further.

            "I could say the same, my dear brother.” she started.

Turning, she faced her brother, not fearing his anger.

“I took care of you until you didn’t allow me to touch your skin anymore. I fed you, I cooked soup for you every bloody day till the moment you could eat properly. Who waited for your arrival at the docks? Who visited you at the hospital? I spent every night praying by your bed, I rubbed ointments on your body and I cooled your skin.” Y/N breathed.

Tears graced her skin and unknown pain filled his chest.

“I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad, but I have to remind you I was always by your side, always, even when I didn't hold your opinions close to my heart, I was by your side," Y/N added with eyes blurred with tears, remembering the nights she was sure he wouldn't see the dawn.

Emotionless, the tall man was standing between the various books and files he had thrown on the floor in his rage. She pressed her lips together, recalling the evenings she had spent crying by her brother's side, the long sleepless nights when prayers escaped her lips to the higher forces in hope they would be granted.

"I love him and I know Thomas loves me too and I want you to know it, even if you don’t understand it.” Y/N breathed.

Y/N stepped forth. She reached for the door handle, hoping gentle words would tell her to stay by his side, telling how much he loves her and would at least try to understand her heart longing for love and adoration, finally understand the aching organ. The sun was gone; the day was wanning. The cloak was ticking. She whispered a quick prayer. A lonely tear danced down her skin, kissed by the light of the lamp casting orange hues on the high walls. Nothing happened, no answer, no response nor sound, and Y/N felt her heart shatter to fragments.

Taglist:

blyanyan fckmini Talessandra9792 1-800-coffee millies0bsimp marvelwhoreunfortunately alessandra9792 smailaway summertimedepression alldaysdreamers elliaze mystic-gnome

kathrinemelissa tedpicklez daynaelizabethclairereynolds

[dokifluffs]

Sleepy Time With His Babies | Atsumu, Osamu

Pairings: Atsumu X Reader (female), Osamu X Reader (female) 

genre: DOMESTIC SLEEPY FLUFFINEss

Author’s Note: you guys are in for a treat~ 

Sleepy Time With Their Babies | Kita, Kuroo // Sleepy Time With Their Babies | Ennoshita, Akaashi // Sleepy Time With Their Babies | Iwaizumi, Sakusa // Sleepy Time With Their Babies | Kenma, Bokuto

gif by @rivaillerose 💛💛

Atsumu: 

The usually bustling city life calmed down to a light doze

Sounds of usual heavy traffic were reduced to the faint zooming sounds of a few cars as they zipped by through the empty, bright streets

Though none of this brightens reached the two of you

Your shared apartment was high enough above the city where none of the lights at night somehow reached the two of you ever

The bedroom was immersed in complete darkness, nothing could be seen no matter how adjusted one’s eyes were to the dark

Deep breaths came from atsumu as he laid on his back, his legs somewhat spread under the covers, a hand resting on his stomach, the other outstretched as you laid curled up, faced away from him in your own little ball

His mind slowly stirred, his subconscious waking at the absent feeling of your presence beside him

His deep breaths shortened down as his fingers twitched, the tips of them grazing the back of your shirt

He woke more, huffing out an airy groan

“so.. far… away.. yer not supposed to be that far…” his mind pieced this together as he reached for you in the dark, moving closer toward the center of the bed

His hand moved down the side of your body until he found your belly

Despite being half asleep, Atsumu’s mind was still as sharp as it was when it came to volleyball, if not, sharper when it came to you

He hooked his arm around your abdomen, pulling you closer to him while also meeting you halfway

He didn’t feel complete until your back was to his chest, your body was touching his

You stirred in your own sleep feeling this pulling sensation until you woke yourself up the slightest

You turned in atsumu’s hold, his hand now resting on your lower back as you faced his chest, your head tilted back so your breaths tickled his neck

As fast and as soon as the two of you woke to the feel of each other, the two of you were out like a light

And that was all atsumu wanted

To feel you

Domestic: 

The heavy weight crushed him slowly as the villain laughed maniacally in his face as he struggled to break free to save the city

Just as the final blow was about to hit Atsumu in the face, his body was jolted awake, relieved to not see any villains trying to destroy his town as he took deep breaths to head back to sleep

Though what he did realize was that the weight was still there

The bright light of the full moon shone through the open curtains Atsumu had neglected to close when he came up to bed, too tired and unbothered to do anything

But now with the light, he could clearly see the weight that made his breathing feel so stuffy

Well, he could see the weights

His four year old son and three year old daughter were fast asleep right on top of him, explaining why the bedroom door was ajar instead of completely shut like he had done coming in

His daughter was mostly the one on top of him while half his son’s body was on top

Though by the looks of what he could see, it seemed like his daughter had pushed her brother off of him

Atsumu chuckled silently to himself seeing the starfish position his daughter was in on top, her arms and legs spread widest to her abilities to hold as much of her dad as she could in her sleep

He pulled his son to his left side, carefully bringing his daughter to his right side so they could all sleep comfortably together

The two of them naturally curled into his sides, the feeling of them as natural as having you by his side

Though you were in a different time zone than they were for work right now

“We can’t wait to see ya,” Atsumu thought to himself as he let the last thing he see for the night be the pale moonlight on the ceiling  

gif by @rivaillerose​ 💛💛

Osamu: 

Osamu slept like a log with his jaw hanging slack as an inconsistent rhythm of rain bounced off the roof of the house

The bedroom the two of you slept in was high, the faintest golden-white hue of the streetlights shining in, casting blurry shadows of the rain streaming down the glass

You slept curled into Osamu’s side as he laid straight, his chest and arm being your pillow, warmer and comfier than any pillow

Your gentle, hot breaths warmed his side, his gray hair spread around on his pillow

Light snores could be heard but it wasn’t anything you weren’t used to

Even after his showers, no matter how much time he spent at home, how little time he went into the restaurant now as a little vacation, you could still smell the fresh scent of onigiris on him, even in your sleep

You nuzzled yourself closer to him, your hand rubbed over his toned abdomen even after all these years of cooking and making food, Osamu was still in shape

Occasionally even hitting some set by his brother for fun whenever visiting the rowdy blonde

His warmth was like no other and it was just as you loved it- loved him

A sudden, loud boom of thunder shook the ground, making the ground and bed vibrate for the briefest second

You jumped in your sleep, your heart aching for a short bit at the sudden jump from a resting heart rate to a rapid one

Osamu initially woke a little at the sound but was really awake now that you practically jumped against him

“You alright?” His voice was so much deeper from sleep, the words and the sound of his voice airy and raspy as he spoke

“Mmhm,” you let out a deep sigh, laying back down on Osamu. “It just made me jump...” you nuzzled closer to his body

He let out a deep chortle, his hand wrapping around your shoulder, giving it a squeeze as he pressed a kiss, followed by another as he couldn’t resist it

“I got ya,” his voice was so low, with your head laid on him, you could hear hints of the vibrations that rumbled in his chest and throat as he spoke

“Thank ya,” you copied his accent, different from yours

“Hmm,” he laid still for a moment before he turned so now his body laid, crushing on top of you

“‘Samu,” you groaned as you adjusted to his sudden mass lumped on top of you

He took hold of the sides of your head in his hands, pressing sleepy kisses to your face and neck, feeling your face burn hotter and hotter at his sudden affection

“Now I really got ya,” you could hear the smirk on his face

Domestic: 

Osamu’s arms draped across your shoulders, the other holding your belly as you sat leaned back into his chest as he leaned against the headboard, a mass of pillows behind him

His thumb rubbed over your shoulder, your head leaned on his bicep, face squished into his muscle

He was just barely slipping in and out of consciousness in hopes you were okay, that the cramps were gone

You woke him not too long ago, the pain in your back and lower belly stung tears into your eyes and that was enough pain for Osamu to see and he didn’t want to see you in pain

His own cheek and head leaned forward to rest on yours, the sweet scent of your hair filling his nose with every still breath he took in

The storm raged on outside ever since the evening and showed no sign of lighting up until tomorrow afternoon according to the news channels

Rain flooded into the storm drains, restless flashes of lightning that filled the sky

Though a little rain and a few rumbles never bothered your sleeping

That is, until a bright flash illuminated the room followed by one of the biggest booms of thunder you had ever heard in your life

Startled by the sudden loudness, you jumped in Osamu’s arms, his eyes widened and hold on your stomach just hovering fearing his touch would somehow worsen any pain you were feeling

“What’s wrong?” His voice was deep, laced with sleep dripping from every word yet his eyes and mind were alert and wide, his attention on you in the dim darkness of the bedroom, a golden aura from a street lamp in the neighborhood barely passing the curtains. “Are you in pain?”

“No, thank you, though, ‘Samu.” You let out a sigh, leaning to rest your head back on his collar, his hand draped across your shoulders giving you a squeeze and rub. “The storm just startled me, that’s all”

Your hand found his hovering over your belly, pressing it down so it rested where it had moments ago

“Hm,” he let out a shot chortle before leaning close, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “Let’s sleep,” he whispered, using his foot to bring the blanket closer to the two of you so it rested on your lower halves

“Mmhm,” you hummed, reaching your head back to his bicep where you rested earlier, pressing a kiss to him before drifting back asleep in his hold

~~~~~ Thanks for reading! Masterlist for more! Please do not repost anywhere else!

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[flightless-rising]

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

[lina-andel]

WHAT ok- I saw that there is not much anon requesting and I am furiousssss!!! FIRST OF ALL UR WORK ARE ABSOLUTELY HEAVEN no need explaining cuz if all the others read ur masterpiece, they too will agree.

AhEmM sorry got carried away...

Could u write more of the angsty stuff but like can u add more anger in it cuz tbh if the world that I created couldn't even recognize their own creator. I would be saddened at first but instantly furious and sooo very disappointed ^^"

Tbh I just woke up so idk any other idea than this but if ur too busy rn then it all good :D pls don't pressure urself and take care!!

Love u!!! - 🌹anon

(I just recently got Tumblr so idk how this anon thing works but could I be the 🌹 anon?? If this is only for some anon and there's a requirement then pls do ignore this XD)

Thanks again for saying so, 🌹anon, I didn't think my work would be so appreciated... so embarrassing!

Don't worry, I love answering questions! This gives me strong motivation! And yes, welcome! <3

The first thing you felt when you woke up was... confusion. Your memory from that world was mixed with the memory of this, because of which you sincerely did not understand what was happening and who you were, because the memory of man and God was extremely conflicted. I had to spend a couple of days understanding and accepting that you are the god of this world and its creator, who ended up in the body of an ordinary mortal.

The first thing you decided to do after the adoption was over was to go to the nearest town to eat and see how people would accept you. Do they remember you? If so, will it be recognized? They must - you are God, they must know you!

In the city, you drew... disappointing conclusions. You are remembered, yes, you are worshiped and adored... But no one recognized you in this body. You never thought that mortals would raise their hand against God. And even Morax, the one whom you considered the most faithful of your creation... Only thinking about the hatred and contempt with which he looked at you, a boiling rage rose in his chest.

How dare he? How dare someone who would not even be born without your grace do this to you? How dare the others treat the Creator in this way? Your rage was indescribable, it seemed, just a little more - and he will pour boiling lava on the land that you created with such care... and on the people who repaid so badly for your kindness.

You met all three Archons in the temple.

The temple that your subjects erected when you still ruled these lands. Gold and jewelry adorned the walls and floors, marble created the appearance of a pure and divine place - which your temple - your home - was.

You saw their armies at the entrance, you saw that your three most beloved creations are ready to kill you... You could hardly restrain yourself not to laugh or kill them all.

"How dare you enter my house after your actions? This place was not made for your filthy desires of war." - you said it coldly, holding back anger at such ungrateful creatures. Your centuries-old memory didn't let you get angry too much, but if they do something that you don't like, you will release all the rage on them.

- "How dare an impostor stand where Their Highness stood?" Morax answered coldly, raising his spear at you. Ei and Barbatos were also ready to attack you without recognizing you at all.

And then you realized that you've had enough.

The Archons saw how your face was distorted in rage and contempt directed at them, and then fear pierced them - the fear of their subjects, that right on the steps of your temple they were torn apart by the wind, burned by lightning and went underground. Someone screamed in fear - and mechanical clangs abruptly cut off their cry.

Nature raged, the mechanisms of the ancient nation were drawn here, destroying along the way everything that came under their heavy hands and steps. Rumble and drops of blood sprinkled your threshold and steps, making the Archons feel the entire horror of the situation.

Their people were dying right now, their lands were dying under the force of their elements, and they could not move, nailed to the ground by your furious gaze.

"Since you have accepted the creator of this world in this way, then this world does not need to exist."

[whump-a-la-mode]

Hi! First of all, your writing is ASTOUNDING. I adore how you characterize. Secondly, I have a prompt idea:

A Villain who is falling in love with a Hero, but won’t admit it to themself. They stop being able to effectively fight Hero because they don’t want to hurt them. But Supervillain notices, so they capture Hero and use them to lure Villain in.

-Wicky

🥺🥺🥺 Thank you so very much! You just made my day. I thank you for the compliment and the prompt! I sure hope I did it justice, and I hope you enjoy!

CW//Injuries, threats, implied torture

Villain’s world spun as their skull cracked against the rough concrete of the roof. Opening their eyes, their field of vision was filled with only an array of stars.

Everything hurt.

They were convinced, in that moment, that there was not an inch of their flesh that was left unbruised, not a rib left unfractured. Breathing on its own was an ordeal, an ordeal that they endured only out of pure necessity.

Pain rippled through the stocks of jelly they had once called limbs as the villain scrambled first to hands and knees, and finally to their feet, even as unsteady as they were. They could do nothing but gasp as they faced down their opponent.

There was something in Hero’s eyes. Something that even their nemesis, their sworn, life-long foe could not quite name. It was not quite sympathy, no, but it was not quite pity, either. Something inbetween, perhaps, with only the slightest garnishing of regret.

“Come on, Villain.” It was with a pleading tone that the hero spoke, as though attempting to coax a frightened cat down from the top branches of a Redwood tree. “Just stand down! You can’t win this. We have you surrounded. No harm will come to you- No more harm.”

Yet, the villain only shook their head.

For any outsider, the matchup would have looked more like a massacre, waiting to happen. Villain themself was perhaps not the picture of musculature, but what villain was? No, they may not have been the strongest. But everyone knew what power they held in their palms, the lightning they could unleash at will. Enough to topple the building upon which they stood. Enough to topple the whole city, perhaps. The city had yet to so much as see their full potential.

But it was their potential that the villain now refused to use.

Hero, on the other hand, was... well, they weren’t much. As strong as they were, as clever, as smart, superstrength could only do one so much good. Villain could have destroyed them in passing, with the snap of a finger!

Why wasn’t the hero in the nearest emergency room? Even Villain themself wasn’t entirely sure.

“I’m not giving up, asshole!” They snarled, balling their hands to fists. It would be so easy. So very simple to send a torrent of lightning forth, to shock Hero within an inch of their life. Hell, Villain used their powers to make popcorn on the weekends!

But, they couldn’t. They couldn’t imagine Hero, the poor thing, the pitiful little fool, fallen to the ground. The very thought of using their powers against their opponent made them feel sick.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Hero spoke, eyes wide and glimmering with that same mix of sympathy and regret.

“Too bad.”

And, with that, the rooftop once more became a battleground. Villain surged forward, met in the center by their nemesis. A blow to the side of their head sent them stumbling.

They couldn’t go on like this, they knew as their vision clouded once more with stars. Another hit and they would be unconscious, in the custody of the so-called good guys. They couldn’t do that.

They had two choices.

Three. Three choices.

The first? To take the hit. To bite the bullet, to find themself behind bars.

The second? To hurt Hero. To wipe that oh-so-innocent quiver from their lips. To destroy-

No. They had two options. That wasn’t even on the table. Villain could be beaten, or they could flee.

It was with a shivering gasp that they chose the second.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Sidekick placed down their fork with a resounding clack. In the silent room, the sound resembled the ring of a gong.

“Are you absolutely certain you’re alright?” They asked with a quirked brow. With the day turning to evening, they had left their sidekick’s uniform behind, replaced now with a casual set of garments. After all, the restaurant at which they were eating was far from fancy. That wasn’t the type of villain that their mentor was.

“Of course I’m alright. Do I look like some kind of ailing senior citizen?” Villain muttered under their breath as they looked over in displeasure at their sidekick. For someone so young, they certainly had a mouth.

“Not now. But on the battlefield last night-”

“I’m fine. I’m up and walking, aren’t I?”

“It’s not about that.” Sidekick shook their head. “It was in the battle. You could’ve taken out Hero easy-”

“Keep your voice down, we’re in public.”

“Sorry.” They lowered their tone. “But, I’ve seen you take Hero out dozens of times. Recently, though, you’ve been all over the place. You can’t even land a single hit! I’m worried. You’ve lost your edge. Up on that rooftop, it was like you were somewhere else entirely.”

Villain had been somewhere else entirely, not that they would ever dare to admit it. They had been lost, hopelessly lost- Lost in the eyes of their damn nemesis.

“I just wasn’t on the ball. Everyone has off days.” They grumbled, turning their embarrassed gaze away.

“Everyone has off days. But you’ve been having an off month! Don’t think I haven’t noticed that it’s just them. Just Hero.”

“They’re getting better.”

“So are you.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

Sidekick reached across the table, placing their palm upon the back of their mentor’s hand, which had unconsciously been balled into a fist.

“You nearly got captured, last night. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Villain. If you’re sick, if something’s wrong, anything at all, you need to tell me.”

Villain suddenly spotted something very interesting on their shoes, and kept their gaze fixed there.

“It’s stupid.”

“Are you sick? Everyone gets sick sometimes, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Not sick.”

“Then what?”

Villain gritted their teeth.

“Lovesick.”

Sidekick withdrew their hand in shock.

“What?”

“Look, it’s stupid! I don’t know. I shouldn’t be feeling that way about a hero, but- They’re a good person, I swear it. They want to help, and they’re kind, and I just can’t bear the thought of hurting them. What if I changed them? What if I hurt them, and that was what made them lose hope, lose faith? Then that’d be on my shoulders!”

“You’re saying...” Sidekick’s jaw was still ajar in shock. “You’re saying that you can’t fight Hero, because you’re in love with them?”

Villain looked up with a sigh.

“To put it shortly, I suppose.”

The both of them were shocked as a figure appeared next to their table. A sharply-dressed figure with a notepad.

“Are you two ready to order?”

“Yes, my apologies.” Villain cleared their throat. They and their sidekick presented their orders, which the waiter scrawled down with a series of understanding nods.

It was not until that particular waiter disappeared from the dining room that they slipped out of their disguise, and dialed a number into their phone.

“Hey, Boss? You might wanna hear about this.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

To say Villain was in a bad mood would have been an understatement.

The injuries covering every last inch of their body, too, ached with every step they took. Bruises and beatings rippled, forcing them nearly to limp. Yet, they forced their gait to remain normal, even if it meant pain.

They couldn’t call attention to themself. Not when they were in civilian clothes like this, and not when they were on the streets. Still, they kept their head low and their sweatshirt hoodie up as they went along. No need to stick out in the crowd.

This was the only solace they ever got, after all. When some got frustrated, they would go for a drive in the night. But their vehicle was distinctive enough that that wasn’t an option for the villain.

Instead? They walked, moving along with the crowd as though they were a single fish in a school. Usually, this helped them calm down. Now, however, every step they took only made their thoughts spin more wildly.

First, it was Hero. Hero and their stupid eyes. Then it was Sidekick. It wasn’t that Sidekick had confronted them that made them so worried, it was that they’d noticed at all.

That meant that other people out there might spot their weakness. Might use it as an advantage. Who would it be, though? Hero themself? Or, even-

A gasp rippled through the crowd around them in a wave. Voices shouted and fingers pointed, all in the same direction. Villain wiggled their way out of the crowd in order to see what had caused such fuss.

A billboard. An electronic billboard.

An electronic billboard that no longer housed an advertisement for the latest cellphone or insurance scam. No. Upon the massive thing, multiple stories in height, surely, was broadcasted a video.

“Good evening, and I do apologize for interrupting. But I just had to get my friend’s attention.”

Villain’s breath caught in their throat. They would know that voice even if they had to pick it out of a crowd of thousands.

Most would have expected that two people so similar as Villain and Supervillain would get along, but the reality was just the opposite. Villain couldn’t call themself a good guy, no, but they had ethics. Morals. Real aims to work towards, rather than burning the city down and laughing among the flames.

Supervillain, on the other hand? There was a reason that they were so feared. Their goals were far grander than Villain’s.

To say that they had never been very good friends would be an understatement.

And, now? Now they were enemies. The video projected upon that billboard made that fact certain.

Supervillain themself was not visible in frame-- Perhaps that was lucky for Villain. Seeing that stupid face would have certainly goaded them into destroying the projection outright. Instead, the video displayed a room.

A concrete room, with a chair in the center. A chair that was far from empty.

It was always Hero’s eyes that they could not help but get lost in. Now, that wasn’t a factor. Not when the hero was so tightly blindfolded. Their soothing, calming voice, too, had been eliminated-- the cloth gag in their mouth was already soaked-through with spittle.

Tied to the chair, bound, gagged, and blinded, sat Hero.

“Now, I don’t want a ransom. No, no. I only want to see a dear friend of mine. And it has been oh, so hard to track them down.

So, Villain, dear?”

They shivered at the sound of their name. Their name.

“How about you come to my base, and pick up your little friend, here. Or else, I might just have to do something drastic.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

For six hours, Villain did not move.

As soon as the broadcast had left the billboard, it had repeated itself upon every news channel that gave half a crap about the metropolis. National news, even international, with subtitles in two dozen languages telling of Supervillain’s threat.

They’d found out. Of course they’d found out.

Villain knew they  should have been furious. They should have strangled Supervillain, strangled Hero, strangled themself! After all, this was all their fault. Falling for a hero, how could they have possibly been so stupid?

Now, they stared. Hands balled to fists in their lap as yet another newscaster explained the same events, over and over again.

“Boss?” Sidekick’s voice was soft, nothing like their usual, nosy self. They sat in a chair behind their mentor, who was seated criss-cross on the floor.

There was no answer.

“Boss... What are you going to do?”

“I can’t leave them.”

“Leave who?”

“Leave Hero. You know what Supervillain is like! They’ll destroy them. Destroy the last good hero in the city.”

“You didn’t want to hurt them.”

“And I don’t want to see them hurt, either.”

“I know you don’t. But it’s all Supervillain has over you. You can just... Leave them, right? It’s not like Hero has any real power over you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I have to.”

“You don’t!”

Villain stood.

“Yes, I do.” They spun around, stalking towards the room that held their costume. “And I need to wipe that damn smile off Supervillain’s face.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

I'd like to see more of the Jiang Cheng has spider venom fic. Mostly because I want to see him bite someone else. How about a Jin?

Normal For the Spider - Extra: 5 People Jiang Cheng Bit, Some of Whom Deserved It

ao3

1 – Wei Wuxian

“So I’ve been exchanging letters with shijie on account of the whole theoretically banished business,” Wei Wuxian said as they strolled down the Qiongqi Path together, Wen Ning behind them making shy stuttering friends with the handful of Jiang sect disciples Jiang Cheng had brought along with him – he’d deliberately picked the friendliest and most social of the lot, the ones that acted like overgrown puppies and wanted to adopt everyone they met, and sure enough they’d mobbed Wen Ning like a bunch of crows intent on raising the poor little sparrow they found into a proper bird. It was no more than Wen Ning deserved, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion. Someone needed to socialize him, and clearly neither his sister nor Wei Wuxian were doing crap about it.

“That’s nice,” Jiang Cheng said. “If by nice you mean extremely suspicious. What about in particular?”

“Your family inheritance.”

“Is this about the summer house we have near that mountain lake? I told you, it’s been deserted for years and may possibly be haunted by something resistant to the usual liberation techniques, but if you really want to go there, you’re of course allowed…”

“That’s not the inheritance I meant and you know it.”

Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. He did know it. “What questions do you have now?” he asked. “More medical stuff from Wen Qing?”

She’d recovered from the venom very well and immediately started wanting to know everything. Recovered a little too well, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion.

“No, this one’s for me,” Wei Wuxian said. “We’re going to Lanling City in order to let Jin Ling bite me as a way to establish familial ties and let him ‘absorb’ good aspects from my personality, right?”

Jiang Cheng nodded.

“So in some cases, biting is an act of affection?”

Jiang Cheng nodded, a little more warily.

“Then how come you’ve never bitten me?”

“It’s only affectionate when you’re a baby,” Jiang Cheng said. “Once you grow into your childhood venom, it starts being dangerous, even to family; you don’t do affection-bites after that point. And when you’re an adult…well, you saw Wen Qing!”

“Eh, she’s fine now,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. “I feel like I missed out! It’s not fair, Jiang Cheng. I deserve a bite! I’m practically your brother! We share essential bodily organs!”

“Wei Wuxian! Don’t talk about that!”

“Bite me and I’ll stop.”

“I’m not biting you just to make you stop being annoying –”

2 – Jin Zixun

“What are you doing here?!” Jiang Cheng demanded. “This is an ambush! Is the Jin sect considering waging an act of war against the Jiang sect?”

Jin Zixun scowled at him. “Not against the Jiang sect,” he said haughtily. “Against the Yiling Patriarch.”

“He’s my head disciple!”

That got a confused sort of frown. “But you banished him…?”

“Rumor,” Jiang Cheng said, with dignity, the way they’d always planned. “Baseless rumor, that’s all.”

Rumor he’d never denied, and had instead implicitly encouraged so that people would leave his Jiang sect alone for a little while as he gathered up strength and resources to tell them to fuck off.

“But…” Jin Zixun hesitated. “You just – attacked him?”

Jiang Cheng glared at Wei Wuxian, still lying prone on the ground with his head in Wen Ning’s lap to elevate it and his neck bandaged but still a little red – surely the paralytic had worn off by now?

Wei Wuxian noticed him staring and gave a jaunty little wave, grinning and very clearly regretting nothing, which meant that the paralytic had worn off and he was just lying there to be comfortable while watching the fun.

Typical.

“A friendly exchange,” he said, trying to maintain his dignity. “Also? Not the Jin sect’s business. What about you? What did you want with him?”

“I want him to remove the curse he cast on me,” Jin Zixun said, and he strode forward before Jiang Cheng could stop him and kicked Wei Wuxian in the side. “You hear me, you bastard?! I want the damn thing gone this instant or else –”

3 – Wen Ning

“So this is going to be a little awkward to explain,” Jin Zixuan said, rubbing his face. He looked tired, but that was possibly a side-effect of having Jin Zixun as a cousin. “Tell me, why are my cousin’s flunkies – er, I mean, my cousin’s friends convinced that it was Wen Ning that poisoned him?”

Jiang Cheng scowled.

“No offense meant,” Jin Zixuan added, nodding politely to Wen Ning. “It’s just, you know, you’re very much not a Yu, or even a Jiang.”

“No offense taken,” Wen Ning mumbled, though to Jiang Cheng’s eyes he looked a little pleased, even if his stiff wooden face still didn’t do emotions all that well. “It’s nice not to be automatically feared.”

“It’s because Wen Ning punched Jin Zixun in the face at the same moment that I bit him,” Jiang Cheng interjected, because someone needed to answer the actual question. “And then Jin Zixun fell over and someone started shouting about corpse poison – even though he’s obviously turned purple! Purple venom, purple spider, purple lightning…what part of this thematic color scheme is not obvious?!”

“Technically, the livor mortis spots generated by corpse poison are also purple,” Wei Wuxian said, completely unhelpfully. “According to Wen Qing, it’s the lack of oxygen in the blood pooling under the skin or something, which is the same thing your mom’s poison does.”

“Do you think you’re helping?” Jiang Cheng demanded.

“No, not at all. Did I sound like I was helping? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m going to bite you again, you little…”

“My father isn’t going to want to let Wen Ning through the door if he’s considered a possible threat,” Jin Zixuan said, wisely deciding to carry on with the conversation despite their bickering. “You know he’s been saying all those things about how dangerous the Yiling Patriarch is – this’ll just feed into that.”

“I’m not going to Lanling City without Wen Ning!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “Wen Qing made me promise! It’s his first time visiting such a big place, too!”

“I’m pretty sure Wen Qing made you promise not to leave him behind because she was worried about your well-being, not Wen Ning’s ability to be a tourist,” Jiang Cheng said.

“Doesn’t matter! I’m not leaving him, and I’m definitely not going to not attend the party, so you have to fix this!”

“I don’t know how to fix this –”

Wen Ning coughed lightly. “Uh,” he said. “Jin-gongzi…would your father let me in if I wasn’t a threat? Say, if I was unconscious?”

A moment of silence.

“…does venom work even on fierce corpses?”

“Of course it does,” Jiang Cheng said irritably. “It wouldn’t be much of a defense mechanism for a cultivator if it didn’t.”

4 – Jin Guangshan

“I didn’t mean to!” Jiang Cheng said, his hands over his mouth. “I really didn’t mean to! It’s Wei Wuxian’s fault!”

“How is this my fault?!” Wei Wuxian asked. He looked amused, which was never a good sign, and even less so given the extreme crisis of the situation. “I wasn’t even in the room.”

“You encouraged me to keep biting people as a solution to everything!” Jiang Cheng hissed. “It got me in the mood. I wasn’t thinking!”

He looked down at the unconscious (and swiftly purpling) Jin Guangshan and grimaced. There was no convenient Wen Ning to put the blame on this time: it had been just the two of them, Jin Guangshan and Jiang Cheng, alone in a room together. Jin Guangshan had wanted to have words with him, sect leader to sect leader, which mostly meant that he wanted to throw his weight and seniority around to try to brow-beat Jiang Cheng into doing what he wanted, except that wasn’t going to work because Jiang Cheng was prepared, okay, he’d worked so long and so hard to try to build up the Jiang sect until it could resist Jin sect pressure.

And he’d probably just ruined everything.

“He has legitimate grounds to declare war against us now,” Jiang Cheng said miserably. “Or maybe to demand that we hand over that stupid Tiger Seal he keeps bugging you about as reparations, or in order to keep him from declaring war…”

“We can’t let him have it,” Wei Wuxian said at once. “It’s far too dangerous. I’d destroy it, first.”

“But then he’d still have a reason to strike against us…”

There was the soft sound of someone clearing their throat, and at first Jiang Cheng thought it was Wen Ning but when he looked up it was Jin Guangyao, instead. He looked the same as always, gentle and personable and smiling, which struck Jiang Cheng as being unaccountably weird for some reason that he couldn’t figure out until he remembered that the man’s father was currently lying on the ground being poisoned and maybe Jin Guangyao shouldn’t be smiling so much.

“If you don’t mind,” Jin Guangyao said, “I might have a suggestion that would get rid of that problem…”

5 – Wen Qing

“…and long story short, Jin Guangyao is going to run Lanling Jin until Jin Zixuan is done having kids, which may be never based on the soppy looks he and my shijie keep exchanging, and we all have the Jin sect’s blessing to move back into the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian concluded. “All’s well that ends well, right, Jiang Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng crossed his arms and glared, admitting nothing.

“I’ll be happy to move anywhere that has decent food,” Wen Qing remarked. “This damn place won’t even grow radishes properly, and it’s Yiling; the radishes should be practically growing themselves.”

“I’ve arranged for some farmland for your people,” Jiang Cheng said, because practicalities he could do. “There’s still lots left over from before the war, lying fallow, and some of the places are medicinal herb fields – we need people with cultivation to tend to those, so I figured that might work for you. You’d have half regular farmland, to make sure you can grow whatever food you feel you need to be comfortable, and the other half, the herbs, can be sold to the Jiang sect at profit.”

“That sounds good,” Wen Qing said.

“Especially since they’re medicinal herb plants,” Wei Wuxian chimed in. “You could stock up on medicines you need!”

“A lot of medicines have to be obtained through trade, you utter nincompoop! I can’t make medicine just using what a single medicinal herb field will generate!”

Jiang Cheng nodded approvingly, thinking to himself that at least there was someone else in the world who understood exactly how aggravating it was to have to deal with Wei Wuxian’s unbridled and illogical optimism on a regular basis.

“And as for you,” Wen Qing said, turning to Jiang Cheng, who blinked owlishly at her. “Don’t think I missed the part of that story about how biting people is a sign of affection!”

“It’s – what?! No, you don’t – that’s when we’re children– it’s –”

Wei Wuxian started cackling.

[thefanficmonster]

Tell Me It’s Not Too Late

(Sequel to Switchblade)

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Heartbreak, Swearing

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: When is it considered ‘too late’ when it comes to expressing feelings? Is there even a time limit? Is the chance only momentary - is it a second that passes you by with no possibility of returning? All Corpse can do is hope that’s not the case. Cause if it is.....he’d rather not think about that.

Requested - sort of, but not in a typical way. Thank you to all the readers of ‘Switchblade’ that wanted to see the story have an ending that’d lead to a new start. Here it is, guys! Hope it lives up to what you expected. Love you all to the moon and back. 💖💖💖

I end my stream after almost three hours of constant scares. I sigh, slipping the headset off my ears so it’s hanging around my neck. I don’t feel that fulfilling feeling that I’m always met with upon ending a stream. I look at the countless scratches and little holes on the surface of my desk - evidence of the fear and frustration I experience while playing certain games. Not all of them are caused by that, however - Coming home after possibly the most humiliating night of my life, that desk and a few other pieces of furniture suffered my wrath and are now decorated with stab wounds that were a result of uncontrollable rage, hurt, self-hatred and self-pity. It took me a while to put an end to my hazardous, switchblade wielding rampage throughout my house, but the tears didn’t stop until the early morning hours.

I didn’t care that my feelings weren’t reciprocated. That was and is the least of my troubles. The most amount of hurt comes from the fact that I ruined something wonderful for myself. Corpse is the only person I’ve felt this close to all my life and now, due to my own poor decision making, I no longer have him. He no longer wants to be a part of the shit-show that is my life. Especially not now that he knows how messy things get when I show my forever-hidden feelings. I can’t blame him. I know I’d be running for the hills if I were him. He deserves a person who knows what’s going on in their life. Who has themselves and their surroundings figured out. Not someone who has an irregular streaming schedule and catches feelings for her best friend, ruining the friendship altogether in the process.

As I stand up from my chair, accidentally hitting the handle of the switchblade on the edge of my desk. I look down at it and how tightly I’m holding it. I seem to not be able to let go of it. Almost like I see it as my last bit of link to Corpse. The remnants of the connection I felt between us.

Maybe I should return it.

No, that’d be weird. I’d either have to go over there and give it back or send it via mail which is worse. It just feels like a harsh gesture - mailing something so meaningful as though it’s as worthless as the bills people get in the mail. I can’t send it through others, I don’t want anyone else getting involved. The more people know, the more real it is.

I’m aware I’m being both overdramatic and irrational, but you have to understand how much pain I’m in. I can’t guarantee the pain will go away or even lessen if I let this switchblade go, but it’s the only thing I haven’t tried.

Only problem is - I can’t let it go. I can’t find it in me to destroy it or throw it away. A part of me is willing to take the suffering of keeping it just cause it wants to hold on to that little connection it resembles. It’s evidence it existed to begin with. I believe it’s worth the pain. The hurt will go away eventually, but the memories are forever. I’ll look back at the time I had an amazing person such as Corpse to call ‘best friend’ and I’ll have something to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fever dream.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.“ I mumble as I finally uncurl my fingers from around the damn thing and put in down on my desk.

I take the headset off and proceed to head out onto the balcony to light what I call a ‘stress cigarette’. I’m not a regular smoker, but when everything just caves, I prefer to resort to a quick puff rather than grabbing a drink. I can say no to a second cigarette but not to a second drink. That second will then turn into a third and so on. And I don’t trust myself when drunk. I don’t personally know, but I’ve been told I’m rather unpredictable.

For the first few seconds while I’m standing there I don’t notice the pouring rain by some strange miracle. I can only focus on the chill of the breeze and the fresh breath that’s finally entering my lungs. I take a moment to breathe in the cool air before I start mixing it with the cigarette smoke. 

With my eyes closed, I hear more than I feel the rain on me. Storm noises always distract me from the actual storm, they calm me down. However, the sudden loud thunder causes me to open my eyes in a matter of milliseconds. I frown, slightly upset that I didn’t catch glimpse of the lightning that the thunder probably followed.

I’m not upset for too long, though. A lightning flashes right opposite me, creating the most mesmerizing of pattern you can see in the night sky during a storm. It’s so bright, it allows me to see my whole, usually unlit garden perfectly in that second or two it graces the sky. 

Wait

My balcony has a clear view of my entire front yard and all it takes a glance to the left to be able to see the front doorstep. 

Don’t freak yourself out, it’s just a trick of the light

I stay quiet and as still as a statue as I await another flash of lightning, my heart speeding past the point of a healthy pulse and into the realm of a near heart attack. The storm seems to be on my side because maybe a minute later another lightning bolt cuts through the black of the night. 

Sure enough, there’s a person standing outside my front door.

Fuck, what do I do?!

The person doesn’t appear to be moving. They are standing just as still as I am, facing towards the house.

I thank the universe the lights inside the house are off. I turned them off cause I wanted the ultimate scary experience playing that game. The only light is the faint glow of my computer screen which is, thankfully, barely visible. I slowly start backing up towards the sliding glass door, never taking my eyes off the figure that I can just barely make out now that my surroundings have fallen into darkness again. If it weren’t for the lightning I would’ve never been able to see them.

I manage to get back inside, soaked as though I just got out of a pool, without making a single sound. Just to be safe, I shut my monitor off. I grab my phone to use as a flashlight in one hand and the switchblade just finds its way into the other, my fingers curling around it tightly, more on instinct than to use as a weapon. I know I probably won’t be able to stab whoever’s out there.

I tiptoe my way down the stairs where all the lights are also off. I flick the blade out as I hesitantly and shakily make my way to the door to look through the peephole. I let out an unsteady exhale as I look at the the figure who is now standing further away and seems to have one arm in the air, curled at the elbow.

Just as I’m about to pull away from the door to dial 911 another flash of lightning illuminates the yard, the figure along with it. 

Can we go back to it being an intruder?

It’s no intruder, surprisingly - to my dismay. 

I turn my phone’s flash off and reach for the switch next to the door, flicking the light on before opening the door and walking out. 

“I NEARLY STABBED YOU WITH YOUR OWN BLADE!“ I yell in a desperate attempt to be heard over the waterfall of rain.

I can finally see him properly thanks to the light in my hallway. He looks like he hasn’t slept in years. He has his hood up but his black locks are sticking out in every direction from under the soaked material, not being protected from the droplets whatsoever. I read the shock in his eyes, almost like he didn’t know I lived there. He doesn’t make an attempt to approach or walk away from me so we just stand there, in the rain, staring at each other as though it’s the first time we’ve seen one another.

I snap out of the trance he has put me in, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the situation as I step towards him, grabbing onto his wrist, “Come on, we look like drowned rats.” I don’t give him time to react as I drag him inside, closing the door once we enter. “OK, from the top now: Why were you embracing your inner serial killer on my front porch?” I keep blabbering, diverting my gaze to anything but him. “Fucking hell, I could’ve stabbed you! You could’ve gotten really badly hurt! I -...”

“You know, I wish you stabbed me.“ He finally puts an end to my sorry excuse for frustration, I’m aware I look and sound miserable. His voice drags my eyes straight to his, fixing them there. “I know you can’t kill a cockroach on your own, and I know you most definitely wouldn’t even scratch a person, but I wish you had hurt me. Inflict fifty stab wounds on me and you still won’t hurt me as much as I hurt you.“ His hand swiftly pushes the hood off his head, grabbing onto his drenched locks as an expression of pain paints itself on his face. He’s the one diverting his gaze now, “I know what you mistook my silence for and I want you to get that out of your head.“

I wince at the pang in my chest, barely restraining my hand from flying up to rest over my heart, “Don’t humor me, Corpse! I’m not a child and this is not a game!”

“I’m not humoring you. I’m telling you...“ he makes a step towards me, grabbing hold of my ice cold hands, “I’m telling you I’m an asshole that freezes up when it’s least acceptable. I’m telling you I’m the worst at expressing how I feel. I’m telling you I can’t open foil. But you already knew all that. And you still liked me.“ He breaths in, refilling his lungs before continuing his rant, “I know you can be very chaotic. A real handful. A fucking tornado. But I love you. I love you as every natural disaster you represent. And if you could humor me...“ One of his hands releases mine, coming up to push a strand of hair away from my face, resting his hand on my cheek. “...by giving me one more chance. You always let me try multiple times when I stumble over what I’m trying to say. Can you do that, for me? For us?“

I let out a dramatic sigh, rolling my eyes. “If I say yes will you stop showing up like that on my doorstep?“ Of course, my primal instinct is to act tough and cool when my heart rate is once again going at the speed from back at the balcony. The skin of face and neck is red and burning hot. My eyes are rimmed with tears, I hope he doesn’t notice.

“Yeah. I’ll start coming in through the chimney instead.“ He visibly relaxes, a smile dancing at the corner of his lips. He lifts the hand that’s still holding the switchblade, prying it out of my grasp. “No sharp objects, please.”

He drops it in the pocket of his hoodie, finally leaning down to erase any last bit of doubt I have left. This kiss teaches me a lot of things.

Love isn’t linear - nothing about it is linear. Not falling in nor falling out of it. Feelings aren’t digital or binary - it’s not always as black and white as we might want to believe. Feelings don’t just come and go. They are always present, but it depends on us weather they’re suppressed or expressed. We fear the latter cause we fear vulnerability and change. But we also crave the positive outcome we have a 50% chance of getting. It’s a fifty-fifty game, but here’s the thing: if you never express your feelings it’s a zero-a hundred chance that you won’t receive the outcome you’d like.

I took the fifty over the zero chance and regretted it for a day or two. It gave me closure if nothing more. It let me stand under the spotlight and carry my pride on my shoulders despite the tears in my eyes.

My feelings being reciprocated is just another benefit. But no longer being able to call Corpse ‘best friend’ cause he’s now got a bigger and better title is the positive outcome I have been dreaming of. 

He makes it all worth it. He is worth all of it. 

And if I had to go through all that again, you can bet your ass I would.

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