#I think it’s poetic

[colesabi]

I totally forgot to post this but @cerul-skyefrost, you were my 69th comment on my smutty chapter of ‘The After’ and yes, I am a child. Lol.

[heather-chandlers-weirder-cousin]

I am being dissected on an interrogation table.

[nouveausens]

“Empty in both hands, filled to brim with much, God I wish it was alcohol because atleast the burn would be explained as such.”

— Ananya Rai, on Friends & Foibles

[inkskinned]

i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.

most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.

it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.

and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).

i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.

grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.

[inbabylontheywept]

Soviet Birds.

The secret facility that I work in has holes in the ceiling. We don't know how to get them fixed.

We tried asking the government to fix it, once. We told them that the holes in the older parts of the facility had gotten large enough to fit birds through, and that birds were getting through, and that, perhaps, a Soviet Spy could fit through as well.

After all, it is well known that Soviet Spies and pigeons are approximately the same diameter.

Our hope was that that this vague and nonsensical threat would put a little fire under Uncle Sam's feet. If the fed couldn't be bothered to give a shit about the giant gaping holes in the roof of our facility, perhaps they could be persuaded to give a shit about... Soviet Spies.

This attempt at manipulation 100% blew up in our faces.

See, the government does not need to be persuaded to give a shit about Soviet Spies. It still wakes up most nights, drenched in cold sweat, terrified and confident that a Soviet Spy is hiding in their nightstand. If it sees a rock on the ground, it flips it over, pistol drawn, ready to shoot the Soviet Spy it fully expects to slither out from underneath. Which is to say: The government is crazy. So when we dropped those two words - inflitration risk - in the repair request, they came in guns-a-blazin'.

Does that mean that they fixed the roof? Of course not. Don't be stupid. No, instead of performing basic maintenance, they installed a state of the art alarm system throughout the facility - lasers, sonar, the works - and told us to always be on the guard. Because of the roof holes.

Then they left.

So now we had an extremely good alarm system... and birds. Which have combined in incredibly obvious and predictable ways to produce an unending fountain of problems.

For Example: About once a month, someone gets called in by the local airforce dispatch because AAAAAAAAAAA a Spy is in the Rad Lab! We're all gonna die! Except every time, it's a bird. And I get why we have to check, but every time, the dispatcher is panicked and the person going out has to be like listen, listen: It's a bird. It's always a bird. It's been a bird every month for the last fifteen years. It will be a bird next month. All this stress? Bad for your heart.

Second Example: Sometimes, birds get in while we're actually working. And when it's in the morning, you know, it's a nuisance, and it stops testing (we are not going to risk irradiating a bird) but it's not an all-hands-on-deck situation because it doesn't take ten hours to get a bird out. But surprisingly often, the bird gets in riiiiight at closing time, and in that situation, everyone goes feral because nobody can leave until the alarm is set, and we cannot set the alarm while the bird is there, because the bird would immediately trigger it and then we'd have to stay another 4 hours to confirm that it was not a Soviet Bird.

So in order to go home, everyone's top priority is Get That Bird. And we have a system for it.

Step 1: The test stands tend to be located in rooms with 30+ foot ceilings. We can't catch birds in places like that - so we have to lure the bird into the relatively low ceilinged (8 feet only) upper offices.

We do this by turning all the lights off in the test rooms, then putting floodlights by the exits. I don't know why this works - some kind of evolutionary brain fragment shared by both Bugs and Birds - but work it does. The birds almost always follow after the lights. From there, it’s just two guys moving the floodlight and a third guy to turn off the lights.

Step 2: Everyone else has been waiting for this step. There is this long stairway up from the basement level into the offices, and in the final stage, the floodlights are brought to the base of the stairwell to bring the bird up. At the top of the steps there will be a group of tennish people, waiting for the signal. The light guys will set up the final transfer, everyone will tense, and then, swish...a bird will flit up the stairs and into the offices.

It's like watching werewolves on a full moon. Before the bird cometh, we are engineers. Nerds. Pale and skinny things, trembling under the fluorescent lights. After the bird, we are beasts. Feral, gnawing things, glowing under the orange sunrise of the 70's halogen floodlights.

And like all beasts, we cannot help but give chase.

Step 3: The were-engineers begin the hunt. The goal at the start is not really to catch the bird - just exhaust it. So the pack simply does not relent. Because the stakes are going home on time, the group is basically given free reign to go anywhere in the building. If someone's door is open, and the bird goes inside, they're going to have to deal with ten sweaty panting maniacs leaping around their office. They don't get to say that they're busy, or remark on how all this movement is a terrible distraction. They are allowed to sit in silence during the chaos, and perhaps thank the war party for chasing the bird while they sat comfortably on their ass. This has been explained several times, and it will continue to be explained until cooperation is achieved.

Anyway.

The chase can go on for quite some time. Sometimes, the bird will get tired and find a crevice to hide in, where it can then be reached through standard cornered-bird catching techniques.

Other times, it will slow down enough that someone can actually yoink it out of the air. But this will go on until someone catches the bird and triggers Step 4.

Step 4: The Finale. This is the get-the-bird-out-of-the-building stage, and it requires someone to adopt a specific role: To Become the Sacrificial Vessel of Bird Removal.

This job is both coveted and feared. It's coveted, because holding a wild bird in one's hands is a precious thing. To feel how small, and fragile, and scared it is, only to free it from the building? That is what it's like to be a benevolent God. But the cost! Oh, the cost. The entire time the Vessel is in motion, the bird will be biting the hell out of their fingers. And I cannot emphasize enough just how painful bird bites are. Their entire face is a set of needle posed pliers, and they know tricks the even the cartels haven't figured out yet. So there's always a little hubbub about who shall be The Vessel while onlookers, stranded outside The Office of Bird Capture, can only look on. Quiet arguments and pleas are heard, little fragments of fear and pride and glory trickling out of room like the silver dust left behind in a bag of well shook quarters. The sound of concensus is silence, and the argument will go on until that's all that's left. And then, from the darkness of the final office, the chosen sacrifice will step forward: Hands gently cupped, tears streaming down their face, fingers trembling from the pain of the ongoing bird chomps.

And this scene is what organizes people. Not leadership, not truly. No one can think and coordinate a crowd while their fingers are being attacked with a combination nutcracker/ear piercer. But the crowd sees the suffering of their annointed, and it is driven to do everything poossible to make the process flow. People instinctively flair out, finding the fastest path outside. Doors are held open. Paths are cleared. Someone, somehow, always knows the way forward and can describe it to the sufferer. Left, left, forward. Corner closet. Yep, there's a hall in there. Forward. Two-hundred more feet man, you're doing great. Just hold it together a little longer. You're killing it.

Then the final door swings open, and the bird flees out into what remains of daylight. And yet, even here, the deed is not yet done. I cannot explain it in words, but the crowd that helped is never content until they can see and speak on the Bird Vessel's wounds. They all have to pull the fingers back and see what was given. Estimate the price: One day to get better - No, three - No, a week! Are you blind? Do you see that blood blister? -Yeah, that's not going away anytime soon - Damn, can you believe how feisty those things are? Like wolves without teeth.

(They cannot help but touch as they go. It has always been this way. Even Thomas was not content until he felt the wounds in Christ's hands.)

Only when the last of the helpers has seen, and commented, and commended, will the engineers scatter. It is their return from the underworld that announces to the sun living surface dwellers that they too can go home. (@somerunner tolja it needed to be a post.)

[acetier]

“Dead ahead. Don’t miss.”

((aka me realizing i’m still down bad for revalink at 3am : ^ ) when you call revali’s gale in the dark beast ganon fight so you can take the final shot together 👌 close up under cut!))

Edit: @ginneke​ wrote an amazing fic inspired by this piece here!

[mroddmod]

she’ll be alright because she had you.

[newttxt]

post-canon lulaw adventure!! (it could have been bepo’s but he was in the bathroom when luffy showed up)

[rasticore]

Angel is somehow Older, Younger, and the Same Age as Husk

Older in the sense that he died first, making him "older" with how long he's been in Hell

Younger in that Angel died younger at almost half Husk's age meaning they're both sorta "stuck" at those ages

Same in that they were both born in the 1910s meaning their living and dead "ages" are the same when combined

[theotherbuckley]

I am free

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Daddy, don't go.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[circuscountdowns]

I don’t think the crown works like this. added the full pages

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

My biggest fear when I was younger was forgiving those who have wronged me, because it meant I moved on.

[nouveausens]

It’s just me and my flavoured yoghurt against the world.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 187

Clockwork would openly admit that he couldn’t see Danny’s timelines. Not since the moment he stepped into that portal and became something more. A child of Infinity, of the very Realms itself. 

But he’ll also admit that it always meant that the child surprised him all the time. This just happened to be a startling surprise, and an admittedly amusing one, even if Danny was openly complaining about the situation. 

“It’s not fair! You have to be able to fix this, right? Right?!” the ghostling, quite literally now, practically yanked at his cloak. “Clockwork, I was going to graduate, I can’t be two! Please, you’re the master of Time, you can fix this right!?” 

No, no he could not, seeing as young Daniel was in fact, immune to timeline machinations, doubly so for his own. To the ghostling’s open distress, which he did his best to soothe. What he could do instead, was stop time in his home dimension, and instead let him age back up again. 

Which the young halfa wasn’t happy about, but it was the best thing they had, so Clockwork supposed he had a ghostling now. A tiny adorable ghostling who kept pouting each time his much younger body had any sort of effect on his behavior. 

He’d never exactly had a ghostling before, nevermind one who was part human, but he would admit he honestly was enjoying it. Most time was spent alone, something he hadn’t realized until Danny ended up crashing into his unlife. 

Honestly he would openly admit that he absolutely adored his little ghostling. Who was now around four, at least physically, and had gotten into the adorable habit of curling up in the pendulum in his chest. Which was honestly the safest spot in Long Now, he’d admit. 

The singular issue however, with this habit, was that when someone attempted to summon him, they got his ghostling as well. And well, normally he could very much control himself for these summonings that happened every few hundred or so years, but well. There was a reason why even the Observants had stopped popping in the moment they realized he had a ghostling. 

Nesting ghosts do not mess around should they feel one is messing with their very vulnerable child, and really it’s not his fault the mortal cultists woke up and startled Danny. Perhaps deleting them from the timeline was a bit too far, if the other mortals rapid paling was to go by, but oh well. 

[pencap]

the saddest universe

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you but you do not love me.

the saddest universe is not the one where i love you and you love me but the gravity of fate tugs us apart.

the saddest universe is not even this one where i love you and you love me and we lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

in the saddest universe we have never walked in the same place at the same time.

in the saddest universe i have never seen my eyes mirrored in yours and you have never felt your fingers brush against mine.

in all the infinite possibilities of time and space and fate this is a universe where i know the color of your eyes and the shape of your name on my lips and the echo of your voice in my bones.

and for that i am grateful to the kindness of this universe no matter how many times we must lose each other over and over and over and over and over again.

at least in this universe we have something to lose.

- by sylvie (j.p.)