#AP SA

[exmotranny]

the green carpet scratches at your pink heels. bile rises in your throat.

they talk about womanhood- but it’s not quite right. there is the pink and compliments and talk of boys

i am a beloved daughter

but there is also something else. it digs at your flesh, it feasts on your skin. your mother motions at your chest, bigger than hers and you're not even done growing yet! how lucky.

of heavenly parents

you pray to a man every night, finish it in another’s name. on your knees. you were sent a shady link as a kid. the woman on her knees, tears streaming out of her eyes, i don't want this, she said

with a divine nature and eternal destiny

blood on the inside of your underwear. you were told this meant you were a woman now. you were ten years old. what the fuck did you know about being a woman? your mom said you weren’t allowed to touch between your legs, but it's normal to want to. you didn't know what that meant, either.

as a disciple of jesus christ,

you wanted to be desired. you daydreamed of being the trophy for boys around you, of claiming that role one day as a wife. you came from a long line of women married young. you don’t know their names, but you were taught about their husbands in church.

i strive to become like him.

pressing your breasts down as much as possible, trying to give the illusion of a flat chest. badly cropped jpgs of jesus photoshopped to have top surgery scars are the secret currency you pay to get past the hours of church. you hold them like diamonds.

i seek and act upon personal revelation

you thought god was talking to you. you almost threw away everything you owned. you thought you were a prophet. total fuckin’ ego death! holy shit! god speaks through me!

and minister to others in his holy name

and then the next morning. when your faith crashed, when moroni abandoned you, did it feel unreal to you too, joseph?

i will stand as a witness of god

oh god, no. please. i don’t know what’s real anymore.

at all times

leg hair peeking from under your pretty sunday dress. they all stare. you ignore them and open up to D&C 132.

and in all things

emma, did you love him to the end? i don’t think you wanted him. did you watch as he married a 14 year old? did you tell him you burned the commandment? did you cry when he died for the church that he loved more than he loved you?

and in all places.

blood on the floor of carthage jail. this martyr will be remembered forever. do they talk about you, emma? or are you just joseph’s wife?

as i strive to qualify for exaltation,

when i marry, my husband will be a god, and i shall cleave onto him. when i marry, i will go to his universe and bear more of his children.

i cherish the gift of repentance

heads bowed low as the sacrament is passed. my hands clutch onto the bottom of my skirt. pleasure outside celestial marriage is forbidden. i apologize for loving the wrong way.

and seek to improve each day

i tried to kill myself, last time i got home from girl’s camp. i got home and cried and found the pills and shoved them into my mouth until i cried more and more until i was gagging. i hunched over the toilet. my hands on the grimy floor.

with faith, i will

forced to sing in front of the congregation. my head spun from anxiety. my stomach turned with nausea.

strengthen my home and family,

loving wife beautiful kids loyal husband church once a week work weekdays weekend mom monthly round on the business end of his cock forever and the vomit threatens to make an appearance.

make and keep sacred covenants,

an old man is in a room alone with me. he asks me if i masturbate.

and receive the ordinances and blessings

i tell the man no. i receive a card so i can be ordained.

of the holy temple.

that's just how it goes, isn't it?

all around are paintings of god and jesus. we learned about heavenly mother. why don’t i see her in paintings? did god have plural marriages? did heavenly mother make us? why don’t we pray to her? did she watch god marry a 14 year old? did she cover her eyes? when she saw blood on her underwear, was she told she was a woman? did she touch between her legs? did she ever believe herself better than god? does she cry when she cant talk to us? why do i cry? was heavenly mother scared of singing in public and did she press her chest flat and did she cry when god forced himself into her mouth? did she burn his doctrine too?

i am given flowers on mother’s day. i will be one eventually, after all. and i vomit in the church bathroom quietly like the perfect woman i am supposed to be.

[witchteethinternational]

hello tumblr here is a painting i made :]

[cloudyfacewithjam]

Small contribution for "SAS: Rogue Heroes" fandom (and Paddy & Eoin ship) YouTube link

[versacethotty]

plane jane reading katya for blood holy moly!

[cedrickjuans]

favorite historical figures

haii anon i'm not sure if you mean local or foreign so i'm answering both lmaooo

LOCAL: nieves fernandez, teresa magbanua, trinidad tecson, and ramon magsaysay i guess

FOREIGN: rosa parks, joan of arc, and napoleon

[ace-malarky]

Golden Years

It's a writing share Thursday I have decided so have some of the Feral family and Llinos being a Whole Badass bc I wanted to explore some Fun lineage powers

~~

 The building was a burnt-out husk, but Tamhas could imagine what it might have looked like in its heyday.

 He almost remembered it, actually.

 “This feels familiar, doesn’t it?” Tadg asked, echoing Tamhas’ thought.

 “Like a memory,” Tamhas agreed. “But I don’t…” He stiffened, ears twitching as he heard something.

 Tadg stopped a second later, tilting his head towards the old building.

 There was someone in there.

 They exchanged a glance and tightened their respective grips on their weapons.

 “Hello?” Tadg called out.

 “Ah, boys, you came!” Tilde stepped out through what once would have been the building’s main doors. “How delightful.”

 “Where is she?” Tamhas asked. “Where’s Llinos?”

 The human smiled. “All in good time, boys. Let me show you around first. It has been a long time since you stepped foot in here, isn’t it?” She looked back up at the ruin.

 Tamhas looked up at the structure, taking in the skeletal remains of the upper floors, the roof beyond them gone. It would have been grand, once.

 “This is our home?” Tadg asked. “I remember… burning. Maybe.” He glanced at Tamhas.

 Tamhas shrugged. They followed Tilde inside the burnt walls.

 “That was a nasty business. All in search of a legend.”

 “What do you know of it?” Tamhas trailed behind Tadg, keeping a careful distance from Tilde.

 The walls were scorched black and bare, and the ceiling was broken through in places, letting the stars shine through. There was nothing left but ash. Either everything had burnt or been stolen.

 “All in good time,” Tilde repeated. She led them without pausing through the corridors towards the back of the building. Of the mansion.

 There was a door that had not burned. It wasn’t even marked.

 Tilde knocked at it, and the door swung open. She turned to the twins and beckoned them to enter first.

 “Is Llinos in there?” Tamhas asked. He sniffed at the air, but all he could smell was ash, somehow. Still, after all these years.

 “All your questions will be answered,” Tilde replied. “But please, enter.”

 Tamhas fought to keep his ears from going back. His tail twitched against his legs.

 “Don’t keep him waiting.”

 He pressed up against Tadg’s side.

 The room beyond the door was large, opening up far more than either of them expected. There weren’t any windows, and the ceiling was intact. There were paintings along the walls, of people both human and fox-bonded. Some of them looked familiar, in that they shared features with each other. With Tamhas and Llinos and Tadg, more so the ones that were simply human. Tamhas saw his eyes, saw Llinos’ courtesy smile, saw Tadg’s grin.

The floor was polished wood, and a rug had been pushed to the side to reveal an inset block of white marble. Beyond it was a desk, and against the desk leant a cloaked figure.

 “My, you’ve certainly grown since I last saw you. Such is the passage of time, I suppose.”

 “Who are you?” Tamhas asked.

 “And where’s Llinos?” Tadg scanned the room, leaning as if to see around the figure.

 “I remember this place in its golden years,” the figure said, ignoring their questions. “Or – well, I remember the stories of it. They were failing already when I was young, and when you two were boys – well.” He shrugged, spreading his gloved hands wide. “But you can help me restore all that. I just need one thing from you.”

 Tadg pulled free his short sword. “Where is our sister?”

 He laughed. “You know, I have no idea. I really thought she’d be here by now!” He stood up. “I hope she hasn’t been too badly waylaid. Otherwise, this really isn’t the family reunion I had thought it might be.”

 “What are you talking about? The rest of our family’s… dead.”

 “Open the vault, boys.” The figure touched a foot to the marble. “One of you should be able to. Then we’ll see about that claim of yours.”

 Tamhas stared at his foot. It was more of a paw, really, covered in white fur. “You’re – like us?”

 “Open the vault, boys.”

 Tamhas let out a strangled yelp as Tilde grabbed his arm, twisting it back and pulling him off-kilter before he could do anything.

 Tadg whirled to face her, short sword raised, but she had a dagger at Tamhas’ throat.

 “Do as he says,” Tilde says, her voice silky in Tamhas’ ear.

 “Alright, alright!” Tadg set his sword on the ground, crouching to examine the slab of stone.

 There were no markings on it.

 Tadg pressed a hand to it, trying to find a seam. Nothing. “I… I don’t know how.”

 “How many tails have you?” The figure stalked forward.

 “What? Just the one.” Tadg looked up at him.

 The figure was wearing a mask under the hood of his cloak, but his eyes glittered faintly red through it.

 “Useless.” He kicked Tadg in the side, the force sending him tumbling across the floor until he fetched up against the wall. “You.” He pointed at Tamhas. “Open it.”

 Tilde let go of him.

 “Tadg–” Tamhas started towards his brother.

 “The vault first.” The figure latched his hand about Tamhas’ wrist.

 He was smaller, but as Tamhas took another look at Tadg – he was still conscious, trying to push himself up to sitting, hand at his ribs – the figure forcibly yanked him onto the marble.

 “Fine!” Tamhas dropped to his knees.

 He pressed both hands into the stone. There was nothing to it. It was a block of stone, nothing more. Barely even an edge where the wood stopped around it.

 “Come on,” Tamhas hissed at it.

 “Step away from my brother.” Her voice was a hoarse snarl, something animal and furious in it.

 Tilde gasped behind him.

 “Well, well, well… you finally made it.”

 Tamhas chanced a glance over his shoulder.

 Llinos had bonded since the last time he’d seen her. Her fur was more of a russet than her hair had been, her throat creamy white against the battered brown of her leather armour. Her armour was scarred and smeared with blood, but she was standing steady. Her ears were flattened back, her teeth bared in a snarl, and she had an arrow trained on the cloaked man’s chest.

 “I mean it. Step away.”

 Kaua and Jasper stepped into the room around her. Jasper went straight to Tadg, while Kaua stayed near Llinos, eyes on Tilde.

 The figure put his food down on Tamhas’ hand, pinning him there. “Or what, Llinos?” He applied pressure and Tamhas hissed out a curse, wrapping his other hand about his ankle. “You’re hardly going to kill–”

 Llinos shifted her hand minutely and fired. “Get fucked.”

 He stumbled back, not quite reaching the desk before he fell to the ground.

 Kaua charged to meet Tilde before she could turn on Tamhas, sweeping up her sword in a vicious attack.

 “Tamhas?” Llinos took another arrow from the quiver strapped to her leg. “You alright?”

 Tamhas flexed his hand. “Yes. But Tadg–” He twisted to look over at his twin.

 Jasper had him sitting upright, carefully feeling for injuries. Tadg gave Tamhas a thumbs up, even as he winced.

 Llinos stalked forward.

 Tamhas got to his feet, falling in beside her. “They said they had you, that if we didn’t come out here, they’d hurt you.”

 The figure was struggling, one hand on the arrow sticking out of his shoulder. “You missed,” he said.

 “I never miss,” Llinos pushed back his hood, pulling off his mask.

 He was another fox feral, mostly white with black ears and black markings around his eyes, which were dark blue with an encroaching red rim. There were fainter black markings across his head, disappearing under the collar of his cloak.

 “Uncle Domhnall?” Llinos froze.

 “Hello, niece.” He smiled. “How nice to see you again.”

 “We have – I thought everyone else was dead? They all died?” Tamhas looked at Llinos.

 “I thought so too.” She threw his mask away. “What the fuck.”

 “The family was fading, you wouldn’t understand. The power, the influence they used to have–”

 “So you burnt them all?” Llinos placed a foot on his stomach, keeping him on the floor.

 “I was trying to get into the vault.”

 “It’s locked to us for a reason,” Llinos snarled.

 Tamhas felt his fur reacting like static. It felt like there was a thunderstorm coming, but there were just Llinos beside him.

 As he watched, her single tail unfurled. Eight more formed like crackling spectres.

 “Llinos?”

 “You can open it!” Domhnall said, his eyes wide. “Bring back the golden years for us, Llinos!”

 The light in the room went.

 Kaua swore.

 Llinos was lined with lightning, her spectral tails like a banner behind her. She leant down to place a hand on the arrow sticking out of Domhnall’s shoulder.

 Tamhas reached out to her, unsure what he could even do to stop her. Unsure if he very much wanted to.

 “Those years are gone, uncle. They’re in the ground with the rest of our family.”

 A spark ran down the arrow. Domhnall cried out and went limp.

 Llinos’ spectral tails vanished, and they were left in darkness.

 “Fuck that was hot,” Kaua muttered.

 Tadg snorted and then hissed at the pain.

 “You really had to take out the light,” Jasper said, sighing.

 “Bite me, catboy, you have night vision.”

 “I don’t,” Kaua said. “I don’t think our friend here does, either.”

 There was a groan from Tilde.

 “He’s not… dead, is he?” Tamhas asked.

 Fire flared up from the edge of the room as Jasper lit a torch.

 Domhnall was lying limp at their feet.

 “No, he’ll be fine.” Llinos checked his pulse. “He’ll just be out for a while, that’s all.”

 “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” said Tadg as Jasper helped him over.

 “God, you’re all still taller, this is ridiculous.”

 “I told you there wasn’t any height difference.” Jasper laughed at her.

 Tamhas stepped around to stand on Tadg’s other side, putting some space between himself and Llinos.

 “What about this one?” Kaua asked.

 Tilde was on her knees in front of Kaua, sporting a swelling bruise about one eye and clutching at her wrist.

 “She was the one that’s been in contact with us. She said you were in danger,” Tamhas said.

 “Probably been spying on us for a while.”

 Jasper frowned at her, tilting his head almost as if trying to remember her.

 “Oh, she’ll have some answers for us as well then.” Llinos smiled, all teeth and hard eyes.

 “Fuck I’m going to marry you some day.”

 “You still haven’t?”

 Jasper groaned. “I’m trying.”

 “Try harder.” Tadg elbowed him and smirked.

 “Do you know what he meant by the golden years?” Tamhas asked. He tried not to stare at the space where Llinos’ spectral tails had been.

 Llinos shrugged. “Old and rich family. It’s always better for them in the Old Days. Before anyone alive remembers.”

 Tamhas looked down at the stone. “We’re not opening that, are we?”

 Llinos snorted. “I wouldn’t know how. Probably best left locked.”

 “Come on.” Kaua hefted the unconscious woman. “You can take him.”

 Tamhas glanced at Tadg, who was only slightly leaning on Jasper, and stooped to pick up their… their uncle. Llinos ducked under his other arm and offered Tamhas a slight smile.

 Tamhas glanced back once at the vault. Yeah. Probably better not.

[redpool]

I wish more people knew about Jacob McCarthy.

[sobredunia]

NOW ITS TIME TO WRITE A FIC ABOUT THE RECOVERY PROCESS OF THE MUSHROOM HANAHKI SHIT

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO THE SLUTS ARE HEALINGGGG

also hear me out:

hanahaki -> fungahaki

[techalertr]

Color Selection in Video editing 🔥 in just 1second #techalert #shorts #videoediting https://youtube.com/shorts/B1kzvhTf3fs Agar ap ek video me particular kisi 1 color ko highlight karna chahte hai to ye chota sa video apke liye hai.

[ciochinaflorin]

160 I 2024. LIPSA DE ȘTIINȚĂ (DE LUMINĂ INTERIOARĂ) ESTE O PAGUBĂ [Proverbe 19.1-2] 8 Iunie 2024

160 I 2024. LIPSA DE ȘTIINȚĂ (DE LUMINĂ INTERIOARĂ) ESTE O PAGUBĂ I Podcast I Pasaj Biblic : Proverbe 19 : 1 – 2 I Meditaţii din Cuvânt I Cezareea I Reşiţa I 8 Iunie 2024 I Lipsa de știință (de lumină interioară) este o pagubă. Ne referim aici din nou la a ști cât este de important mai întâi să fim și abia apoi să avem. Continue reading 160 I 2024. LIPSA DE ȘTIINȚĂ (DE LUMINĂ INTERIOARĂ) ESTE O…

[hiyapandanurse]

Cw: sexual assault

One of the shittiest things about my sexual frustration is that one of the only times I recieved the treatment I want to recieve in the bedroom, I was drunk as fuck and told them I didn't want to do it. And its not even like rough or cnc shit or anything like that. It was gentle, it was attentive, it was so good. I just knew it shouldn't be happening when I was that drunk and I told them that and it happened anyway. It was the right thing at the wrong time, whereas virtually every consentual sexual experience I've had has been the wrong thing at the right time.

[swordandscytheandpen]

Imagine breaking into a detention camp to try and release soldiers because you believe even more strongly in their right to rape prisoners than your military high command. I mean, when Abu Ghraib broke, the U.S. didn't see apologism quite at this scale, and that was the U.S., during the Iraq War's spike in islamophobia. The Israeli political current is in a deep, deep fucking pit.

Tw: rape

[CONT] affiliated to the government

While you're reading all of this, you have to remember that Israel has kidnapped thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children who are currently being tortured in various camps around the occupied territories

[mr-kriiingle]

TANGINA BAGSAK LAHAT

[ace-malarky]

Hey those are *my* siblings back off

I woke to a message from my friend this morning that went off into headcanons about my travelling band of chaotic feral mages that then spawned this piece of writing and ok it's probably rough and yes I did just write it in the two hours after midnight but hey

you know what

I kinda fucken like it

(in which Jasper might get pissed off by his siblings but no one else is allowed to even think about hurting them)

~~~~

The laughter – good natured as it is – grates at him like the screech of a badly timed parry.

Jasper clamps his sword in his hand and flattens his ears against his skull, snapping to his feet and turning on his heel in one smooth movement.

“Hey, Jas–” Llinos starts, falling out of stance even before the music halts.

“Don’t,” he replies, barely making the word not a snarl. “Just – don’t.”

Kaua and Tadhg stop playing. Tamhas is on his front, getting to his feet.

“Sorry,” Llinos says.

“Yeah.” Jasper stalks out of the clearing they’d made their camp in, leaves them all behind.

He walks far enough that he can’t see the play of their campfire, can’t hear them pick up the halting threads of a conversation he’d been part of when they’d sat down.

It’s nights like this when Kallyin feels closest to the surface, when the fire burns under his fingertips, when everything feels just a little more… a little more.

He won’t stay away long. Just long enough to soothe out his scorched nerves. Just short enough that they won’t bother to send someone out after him, because he doesn’t think he wants to find out who they’d send to talk him down first.

Even if he knows it will always be Llinos; they’ve known each other out here too long for her to send anyone else in her stead.

Jasper lets a little fire escape on his breath, siphoning off a little of his anger. Not anger. Annoyance. He remembers the way Kallyin would prowl, ears twitching, teeth bared in a quiet snarl. She’d always held his anger, and now he held hers.

 It isn’t too much later when he turns back to the forest he’s left them in. There’s nothing out here but the plains before the mountains, and he can only see them as a distant void against the night sky.

 He’s stepped too well to leave much of a trail, but he follows his nose back in along the faint promise of smoke, ears twitching to catch the faint sound of conversation.

 Jasper’s far closer than he ought to be before he realises that something is wrong, that he should have heard something of their conversation now, however faint. They wouldn’t have all fallen asleep without him there.

 He slows to a prowl and flicks his sword partially free of its sheathe, dropping into a crouch.

 The second thing he notices is that the fire is brighter than he’d left it. More spread out.

 The third thing is the charm that’s been painted onto a tree, still fresh and stinking of iron. He doesn’t recognise its design, but he knows it’s been painted in blood.

 A low growl slips past his teeth.

 Shapes in the clearing sharpen as his eyes adjust. Tamhas and Tadhg, back to back and slumped forward, noses almost to their knees. Kaua, gagged and tied up, struggling furiously under the watch of a man holding her down with the blunt end of a spear. She’s oddly muffled even for the gag, and that must be what the charm does, some kind of silencing.

 Llinos, flat out on her front like she’d been dropped, arms tied behind her, her bow in the grass beside her and dangerously close to the fire. There’s a scattering of arrows in the scuffed grass, Kaua’s sword, and another two figures watching them. They’re gesturing with their swords – little more than machetes, maybe, more suited for cutting through plants than people – and seem to be arguing. He can’t hear what they’re saying.

 He doesn’t care what they’re saying.

 No sign of Rhydderch, and Jasper hopes – he can’t see Llinos well enough to tell. He doesn’t think she’s bonded, he thinks that if she had they wouldn’t be caught like this, he thinks there would be more damage to their surroundings (he remembers bonding with Kallyin, the panic and the fire and the yowling pain that had nearly split his senses apart on the path).

 Rhydderch must be free, he thinks fiercely, not looking too closely at the pile of their belongings. It would kill Llinos for it to be any other way.

 He’s still growling. That’s his family down there.

 Fire slides between his jaws, eyes sharpening to slits as he places a hand on the hilt of his sword.

 Llinos hasn’t moved.

 The sound of it drawing rasps in the night, amongst the creak of branches and the rustle of leaves. There isn’t any wildlife nearby.

They haven’t heard; their charm works both ways.

One of the boys – he thinks Tamhas, the fire turning his sandy coat umber – groans and lists sideways, ears flicking up.

 Jasper bares his teeth and lunges from the treeline.

 Sound rushes back in; the fire, the argument, the fire, Kaua’s indignant muffled curses that are half shrieks, the fire.

 “You let that damned fox get away–”

 “It’s just a fox, what does it matter, some dumb animal–”

 Jasper slams into the two arguing men before they’ve realised he’s there; chops into one as he shoulder-barges the other to the ground, barely stumbling as he digs a foot into the ground and rips his claws through the dirt as he turns, holding his sword out.

 A screech pierces the night, a rolling alarm that isn’t any of them.

 The one he’d hit with his sword reels back with a cry, almost dropping his machete. He takes one look at Jasper and tries to run.

 Jasper snarls and fire tips his teeth and he doesn’t let him run. He throws his sword’s sheathe between his legs and brings him down, kicking the other in the face as he turns again, towards Kaua.

 The fire’s between them. It’s not as tall as he’d thought, but it’s more spread out. They’d added to it, made it more of a bonfire, a signal.

 The fire under Jasper’s fingers wants to answer it. Kallyin purrs in his chest, ready to play.

 The man levels his spear at Jasper, kicking Kaua away. She curses him again, digging her talons into the grass, flicking her head to try and dislodge the gag.

 Something screams in the forest beyond the clearing.

 Jasper’s grin sharpens as he recognises Rhydderch’s call. “You made a mistake,” he says, and his voice is barely recognisable, all low snarl and rasping threat.

“You’re surrounded,” the man replies, and keeps the fire between them.

One of the other men, coughing, sets off a flare that shatters against the sky, blinding the stars.

 “You think we didn’t come prepared?”

 “I think you’d like to think you did,” Jasper replies, and feints to his other side just to see him flinch. He turns his sword in his hand.

 There are other people in the forest, coming closer. Now that he’s broken the barrier, he can hear them. They’re not quiet.

 Llinos still isn’t moving.

 “If you’ve hurt my sister,” Jasper says, “Nothing will save you.”

 “Jasper,” says Tadhg, tailing off with a groan.

 “There’s more of them.” Tamhas sounds a little more alert. “Mages.”

 His opponent tries to take an opportunity, thinking him distracted as his ears flick in their direction, and stabs at him through the fire.

 Jasper twists sideways and slaps the spear away with his sword.

 The fire gutters under the draft of their weapons.

 Jasper breathes in.

 The fire dips some more. Shadows grow through the clearing. The flare dies above them, the stars reappearing.

 Jasper blinks, his eyes adjusting to the dim light.

 His opponent catches his breath, hands tightening on his spear.

 Jasper lunges forward, through what’s left of the fire, and sweeps his sword up to catch on the spear’s haft, smacking it out of the way. There’s little finesse in his attack and they go tumbling as he lands, over and over until Jasper is on top and their weapons have been left behind.

He manages to punch Jasper. He hits Jasper’s cheek, splitting his lip against his fangs, snapping his head to the side.

 Jasper snarls – he’s been growling almost the whole time, but it erupts now, fire licking out between his jaws – and catches his hands, slamming them into the ground. “No one touches my family.”

Several things happen.

A group of men charge into the clearing with their weapons drawn. Rhydderch dashes in, another man on his tail. Tamhas breaks free and throws himself at one of the men Jasper had already downed, just as he got to his feet.

 Kaua spits the gag from her beak.

 Jasper throws himself sideways just before an arrow whistles through the space he had been. He rolls, steadies himself, lunges forward without really getting to his feet. He grabs his sword on the way, and charges into the group as the fire blazes back up in his wake.

 Kaua takes a breath and shrieks. There’s no melody to it; there are barely words. It rends the night, cuts through the clash of metal, slices the growl that buzzes in Jasper’s chest.

 Two of the men stumble, go ashen, fall to their knees and scramble backwards to the tree line. Several more turn and run, disappearing amongst the trees with Rhydderch on their tail.

 Jasper ducks a wild blow and twists his sword into two from the handle, palming one into his off hand. He wreaks havoc, surrounded as he is, and every slice finds its mark.

 Somewhere, Rhydderch barks. Somewhere, someone screams.

 “And fucking get gone!” Someone – Tadhg, he thinks – yells.

 There’s only one of them still standing, and that’s either because he’s stayed out of the way or because he’s actually good.

 Jasper’s keen to find out which. He could do with a challenge.

 This man has a curved sword and a buckler and a taunting smirk that he levels at Jasper as he backs to a clear space.

 Kaua has stopped shrieking.

 Jasper steps over one of his opponents and can’t find it in himself to care whether or not he’s dead. He bares his teeth in a facsimile of a grin, eyes dancing with fire.

 There’s a soft moan behind him – Llinos, finally awake.

 Rhydderch appears amongst the trees, stands tall and still for a moment, and then races towards her.

 Jasper’s family is safe, but they almost weren’t.

 Their swords meet in a discordant clash, his second screeching against his opponent’s shield.

 If Jasper cared, maybe he’d taunt him. Maybe he’d ask for information, find out if anyone hired them or if they were just being opportunistic.

 Jasper doesn’t care. Not really. His family was hurt and he hadn’t been there, but he’d got back in time.

 He locks the hilts of their swords together and pulls to the side.

 His opponent slams his buckler into Jasper’s chest and attempts to yank his sword back.

 Jasper stumbles backwards and coughs fire, staining his opponent bright with its warmth. His sword slips from his grasp and his opponent smirks, slowly repositioning as if he has the time to gloat.

 Jasper swings his other sword in and under his buckler, punching through his armour and between his ribs.

 His opponent has the audacity to look surprised, as if Jasper hadn’t been toying with him the whole time.

 Jasper steps back, yanking his sword free.

 The man staggers backwards, lifting a trembling hand to his chest. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something.

 Jasper tilts his head, lifting his sword to let the blood run off it and drip into the fire, where it sizzles.

 The man falls and slowly – finally – stops moving.

 One of the twins whistles.

 “Maybe we shouldn’t get on Jasper’s bad side,” said Tamhas.

 Kaua snorts.

 “Hey.” Llinos is partially leaning on Kaua, her bow in her hands with an arrow on the string, though she didn’t look like she’d tried to pull it at any point. “Thanks.”

 “Yeah,” Jasper says, and wipes his sword clean.

[nkonson]

General News : A$AP Rocky says being a dad has given him ‘another’ creative ‘perspective’

[fairuzfan]

“For years, CCR and others have been warning of the abuse of broad ‘material support’ laws to shrink the space for Palestinian rights,” said Diala Shamas, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The group represented another Palestinian rights organization in what Shamas said was “years-long, meritless litigation” brought by the Jewish National Fund, a group that funds Israeli settlements.

“The law’s provision of civil damages means that private actors — including those with seemingly endless resources — can bog you down in costly and distracting litigation,” Shamas said. “This means that Palestinians and those who support their rights become ‘high risk’ — and those who they rely on — charities, funders, banks or social media companies — are chilled from further engagement. The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”