#and our long awaited

[thewitchoftheweed]

“I imagine I’ll be sweeping streets for an eternity,” Leshy says, resuming his work. Prior to this, he held pieces of a fence in place for Kevin to secure. Prior to that, he carted barrels of manure to the compost station. The odor was stunningly putrid. “The Lamb has restraint now, but that will change in time.” “Be silent,” Bathin says, voice suddenly hushed. She steps closer. “They are looking for an excuse to kill you again. Do not give them one.” Leshy stops sweeping. “And what do you suggest I do?” “Conform.” Bathin says bluntly. “It’s a decent life. If the Lamb is happy, everyone is happy.”

[seoulmatez]

𝒸𝓇𝒾𝓂𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝓁𝒾𝓅𝓈, 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝓂𝒶𝓃

boothill x f!reader. 1.5k wc. sfw. fluff. wild west au. outlaw!boothill. saloon performer!reader. first encounters ♡

a/n: self-indulgent :3 like, selfship fic disguised as an x reader fic self-indulgent :3 pls feel free to ignore lawlz

Outlaws have been a normal occurrence in town for as long as you could walk. That is to say, you aren’t entirely surprised when you find that yet another poster has been pinned up all over town, large bolded letters spelling out “WANTED” along the top pleading for the capture of another criminal—dead or alive. There’s something distinctly different about this one though, and you can tell because instead of passing the wanted poster with a brief glimpse and the mental note to steer clear of the man illustrated on it, you linger at the notice board, eyes glued to the parchment.

There’s no name printed on it and the asking price is fairly hefty—bigger than any bounty you’ve taken notice of in the past—but the one aspect of the poster that truly catches your eye is the drawing. He—or the artist’s rendition of him—is… handsome, you find yourself silently admitting. Contrasting light and dark hair is cut off by the frame—it makes you wonder how long it really is. Some of the shorter pieces hang loosely in front of his right eye, though the left is visible—enough so that you can see two moles right beneath the outer corner. A bullet stylized as jewelry dangles from his ear, metal cuffs hugging his helix.

What sticks with you the most is his sharp, crooked smile. It’s smug and should be off-putting but, for some reason unbeknownst to you, it makes your heart skip a beat.

You can’t put your finger on how long you stand staring at the poster but you don’t make a move to tear your eyes away until you hear someone calling your name from afar.

And even then, you can’t get that man’s face out of your head.

• • •

You’re getting ready in a room too small to accommodate the number of girls in it. It’s typical to fight over a mirror, to bump shoulders every now and then. Curiously, the dressing room feels oddly spacious tonight. As you paint rouge on your lips, you glance around to take a headcount—if anyone is missing, you’ll have more work on your plate this shift.

You count three including yourself sitting on the stools and the rest at the door, practically falling over each other to take a peek outside of the room. They’re whispering about something, their hushed voices only rising loud enough that you can pick out a few words. No way, my goodness, unreal. The gossip makes you frown and rise from your seat. You’re missing out on something, you know it. This isn’t you being nosey, just cautious—if something is happening, it’s best to be informed, you tell yourself as you join the ladies at the door.

“What’s going on?” You don’t bother trying to squeeze your way through—you think it might be even more difficult than trying to take a mirror for yourself.

Your voice, much louder than their faint whispers, is enough to catch their attention. You’re met with wide eyes and even wider smiles looking back at you. Nothing bad, then, not if everyone is grinning like this. You raise your eyebrows in a silent question, waiting almost impatiently for an answer. A couple of them move aside. “Take a look for yourself.”

You accept the invitation, carefully navigating the tight path made for you. Your fingers grasp the frame of the door and you slowly poke your head out, gazing in the direction the girls had been just moments ago. You scan the crowd deliberately in search of anything out of the ordinary but nothing looks unusual. You spot a few regulars as your eyes carry over every face in the place. They stop at the bar where you catch sight of the bartender. He’s pouring something for a patron, one whose head is down and whose face is shadowed by his hat.

You squint as if it’ll help you see better. It’s no use but, as if he could tell you were itching to get a look, he tips his head back, a glass halfway full of an amber-colored liquid touching his lips. You recognize that hair under the lights of the saloon—black and white, two-toned just like in the poster. You suck in a tiny gasp, one that’s inaudible given all the chatter, but you can’t seem to pull your eyes away.

He drinks his liquor leisurely, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down with each gulp. The glass is empty quickly and you’re sure you would have heard it hit the counter if it weren’t so loud. One of the man’s forearms rests beside the glass on the counter, his other hand busy wiping his mouth. His thumb swipes away the lingering moisture on his lower lip and as his finger moves, so does his head, slowly turning in your very direction.

Eyes grey like gravel lock onto yours. Your heart skips a beat, just like it had before—and, just like then, you’re frozen, unable to move. Despite having been caught staring, an inkling of happiness sprouts in your chest at the chance to see him head-on, in all his glory.  It’s all there—the two moles, the earrings, and soon enough, that sharp, crooked smile.

He winks at you and the quick movement is all the acknowledgement you need to finally draw back. You do so aggressively, like you had been holding your hand over a fire and the flame finally touched your palm. It’s almost enough for you to knock into the pile of girls you had forgotten were stationed behind you.

They look at you expectantly, not bothering to hide their giddy satisfaction at your reaction. “Cute, ain’t he?” one of them asks.

And a ton of other things—dangerous, off-limits, utterly enticing, just to name a few. You don’t say any of that, though. You just nod and hope your voice doesn’t betray you. “I suppose.”

You seldom find yourself nervous for performances but knowing he’s out in the crowd has your heart racing for the rest of the night.

Time flows strangely during your shift—feeling like it’s crawling at a snail’s pace one moment and flying as quickly as a rocket the next. You feel like you can breathe easier when you’re dismissed for the night, even more so when you leave the suffocating building and are met with a cool breeze outside.

Your relief is short-lived. A voice speaks up from beside you.

“Evenin’, little lady.” 

“Oh!” Your hands shoot up to cover your heart. You debate running—that seems like the best idea given your situation—an unknown man waiting to catch you alone. You take a step away, ready to bolt if necessary.

To your surprise, he doesn’t reach for you.

“Apologies—” he raises his hands in mock surrender, “didn’t mean to scare ya.”

Your eyes have adjusted to the darkness now and a face you weren’t expecting to see becomes visible. The town’s newest outlaw, here, speaking to you. Maybe you should have run—maybe you still should. Though, for some reason, his raised hands feel like a show of good faith. You’re sure if he had bad intentions, he wouldn’t waste time trying to make you comfortable. “Um, that’s alright.”

“It felt rude not to thank ya for the performance.” He was watching, then. You’ve made a habit of limiting eye contact with your spectators and that much held up tonight. Something was telling you that if you caught a glimpse of him looking at you again, you would end up tripping over your feet and making a fool of yourself. “Would have watched ya all night if they gave ya the stage.”

That grin is back but, now that you think about it, of the very few times you’ve seen him, he’s always wearing it. Almost like it never leaves. Despite that, being on the receiving end of it has an undeniable effect on you. Your heart won’t stop jumping for him. You can’t let him know that. “Yeah, well, everyone’s gotta have their time to shine.”

“Ain’t that a shame…” he drawls. And it sounds like he really means it. “Guess I’ll have to stay long enough to see ya up there again.”

You can’t have heard that right. No singing or dancing could be—should be—enough to make a man risk staying in a town where his wanted poster is plastered all over the place. It’s a decision that toes the line between confidence and stupidity but it flatters you all the same. Your cheeks feel like they're on fire as you hold his gaze. 

“You’d really stay for that?” you ask, but the question in your head is more like; you’d really stay for me?

He takes a step forward toward you and you're surprised that you don’t counter by taking a step back. His hand comes up to hover by your cheek, close enough that you can feel its warmth but far enough that his skin doesn’t touch yours. As quickly as it came, it’s gone. “See ya around, little lady.”

And with that, he leaves.

You lose track of how long you stand outside wondering if that was a yes.

[alwayzraven]

KARDESLERIM | 1.132 — Ayber's long awaited kiss scene ❤️

[southern--downpour]

another spring in the south another night our meteorologists do NOT get to sleep

[destreza-draws]

Morning Baxter

Hes a mess...but hes our mess <3

[wildsaltair]

We sound like two wives of antiquity that find each other in the river shore to do laundry and pridefully comment about their mighty warrior husbands that are temporally absent for war.

Isn't that sweet? Matching delusions lol 💕💕

This is THE CUTEST mental image, friend!!! I love it so much <3 This is us on this website every single day. You listen to me prattle on about Maximus and I listen to you loving on Achilles. I will forever think of you as my river-laundry buddy 💕

[landfilloftrash]

accidentally made Eno obsessed with shrimp. how did we get here.

[heldgirl]

@linament . . . it's jimbocassie with the steel chair!

what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is. cassie can't believe the students that surround her now are the same population of people she was rubbing elbows and doing shots with over the weekend. it all feels so fake, the drunken squeals of delight that turn to side - eyes up and down the hall, late bells ringing overhead for extra clarity. being a party princess doesn't really mean shit when class is in session. cassie shakes out her pom - poms [ their captain had insisted they used their free period to practice an upcoming routine, ] with as little enthusiasm as possible . . . and tries not to roll her eyes into the back of her skull at the thought of spending the next hour or so in algebra. she is entirely zombified, slow - beating heart not invested in anything except . . .

god, how is she expected to care about anything when jimbo has been sitting against a locker down the hall this entire time ? it's no secret that he doesn't exactly have roots here . . . and would make like a tree and leave the second he felt the desire to. cassie wants it to be true; she wants to believe it's because of her. she wants to believe the time they spent together was real, and that it won't cease to mean anything just because the haze of the moon is gone.

and so, even though it makes her feel like she may be sick, cassie breaks away from the rest of the cheer squad [ not even bothering to drop off her pom - poms, ] and speed walks in his direction.

❛   —  i googled who howard the duck is. ❜ she blurts. it feels wrong, him sat at her feet, but a comment like that can't just be left to linger. ❛   i didn't know, like, what you were talking about when you called me that. so i looked it up, and he's . . . he's really freaky looking, honestly.  ❜

cool. where the fuck does she go from there ? should she mention that she still has the leftover pizza from his spot in her fridge ? should she keep mentioning stuff from their nighttime rendezvous so desperately it makes it obvious she's hoping he hasn't forgotten it entirely ?

she ultimately decides on the ever - neutral : ❛   i didn't know if you'd be here today. ❜

[iniziare]

She's finally here. Tag drop: Arlecchino. These aren't finished, but I'm trying to teach myself that the more 'custom' tags like the dynamics, and verses don't need to be in this post. So here we go— I'm in love with the things they use for her, which I then get to use. Thank you MHY, you did magnificently with her.

[biomic]

average tcg player interaction

[chaiaurchaandni]

free palestine! <3

freedom is not a matter of 'if,' but 'when'

[lieutenant-amuel]

I have such ambitious plans for the new year.

I want to write at least one more chapter of WBTL.

[adara-writer]

A Comparison of Kudos Over Time on AO3 on Two Fics

I'm a big numbers nerd, and one thing I like to do is to track how many kudos each of my fics get per day, via the daily emails ao3 sends. For my two fics in the Six of Crows Fandom, I've been fully tracking them since posting. Today, I went through and updated the spreadsheet where I collect and graph all of this data (although the emails aren't perfect, they are very helpful for being able to deal with the data later).

First, here are the graphs for both the kudos over time and the kudos gathered each day for my multi-chaptered, fairly popular fic:

So there's a few interesting thing to note here. There's an obvious spike in kudos when a new chapter is posted, likely from the fic being bumped back up to the top of the search results. The bump from finally being finished lasted two days (with the second day actually being slightly higher than the date I actually posted the final chapter). This double bump probably comes from readers who only read complete fics, but could not finish the 40k word fic in one day. Additionally, the kudos have slowly tapered off since the final chapter has been posted, but they seemed to have roughly stabilized with 1-7 kudos per day. Additionally, the fic has received kudo every day, except for when ao3 went dark, and that might be an error with the email system going down.

And now for the one shot that was less popular:

These graphs are also not surprising, although perhaps disappointing from an author's perspective. There was one large spike when the fic was posted, which quickly trailed off. There are no additional kudos bumps from posting new chapters, and there are far fewer new kudos each day. This fic was also posted after the multi-chapter fic was finished posting and it was posted for an event, but it trailed off faster. This could also be because it was much shorter (1.4k vs 40k words), or that that subjects were less interesting to readers in this fandom.

I am going to start posting the sequel to the long fic this weekend, so I look forward to charting that as well. I also may at some point compare guest vs registered users kudos, as I have all of that data as well, but I'm not sure what to do with that yet. And if you made it this far or have any thoughts, please let me know!

[collecting--stardust]

all the what ifs aside SO PROUD OF HIMM 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

[rhalgrsrightfist]

ᴛᴀɢ ᴅᴜᴍᴘ 𝟏

☀⊱••• ⸺ dys an sohm in，rohs an kyn ala na! ⧼ ooc ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ bow down，overdweller! ⧼ submission ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ (hear) answer (look) answer (think) answer together. ⧼ answered asks ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ children of the land，answer this: ⧼ ask prompt ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ gobbies gonna rise up，boom like thunder! ⧼ promo ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ broken，faded，how long have i waited. ⧼ queue ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ come and play，for the night is bright and you can sleep when you're DEAD! ⧼ dash games ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ we are the dreamers. ⧼ dash commentary ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ pa-paya，paya pa-paya paya pa-paya! ⧼ crack ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ rise with me，rise with me，rise with me (RISE UP!) ⧼ self-promo ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ i'll be your idol，your only one. ⧼ video ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ o wide open midnight sky，please carry my voice aloft. ⧼ my art ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ oh i have awaited you patiently all this time; past every fate. ⧼ closed starter ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ foward and back and then forward and back and then go forward and back，then put one foot forward! ⧼ thread ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ for this journey's end is but one step forward to tomorrow. ⧼ thread end ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ flee from what you do not see. ⧼ dni ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ our song of hope，she dances on the wind higher，oh higher! ⧼ music ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ one brings shadow，one brings light; one more chapter we've yet to write. ⧼ wip ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ in monochrome melodies，our tears are painted in red. ⧼ art ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ come play with me，darling; you'll bе surprised! ⧼ open starter ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ deep inside we're nothing more than scions and sinners. ⧼ introspection ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ authors of our fates orchestrate our fall from grace. ⧼ one-shot ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ thou must live，die，and know. ⧼ psa ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ well come and well met，my brave little spark. ⧼ pinned ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ good king moogle mog，good king mog! ⧼ meme ⧽ ☀⊱••• ⸺ silent steel breathing，breathing. memory writing，reading. ⧼ saved ⧽

[saritawolff]

Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.

I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!

Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:

🐈 “Breed” and “species” are not synonyms! Breeds are specific to domesticated animals. A Bengal Tiger is a species of tiger. A Siamese is a breed of domestic cat.

🐀 Different colors are also not what makes a breed. A breed is determined by having genetics that are unique to that breed. So a “bluenose pitbull” is not a different breed from a “rednose pitbull”, but an American Pitbull Terrier is a different breed from an American Bully! Animals that have been domesticated for longer tend to have more seperate breeds as these differing genetics have had time to develop.

🐕 It takes hundreds of generations for an animal to become domesticated. While the “domesticated fox experiment” had interesting results, there were not enough generations involved for the foxes to become truly domesticated and their differences from wild foxes were more due to epigenetics (heritable traits that do not change the DNA sequence but rather activate or deactivate parts of it; owed to the specific circumstances of its parents’ behavior and environment.)

🐎 Wild animals that are raised in human care are not domesticated, but they can be considered “tamed.” This means that they still have all their wild instincts, but are less inclined to attack or be frightened of humans. A wild animal that lives in the wild but near human settlements and is less afraid of humans is considered “habituated.” Tamed and habituated animals are not any less dangerous than wild animals, and should still be treated with the same respect. Foxes, otters, raccoons, servals, caracals, bush babies, opossums, owls, monkeys, alligators, and other wild animals can be tamed or habituated, but they have not undergone hundreds of generations of domestication, so they are not domesticated animals.

🐄 Also, as seen above, these animals have all been domesticated for a reason, be it food, transport, pest control, or otherwise, at a time when less practical options existed. There is no benefit to domesticating other species in the modern day, so if you’ve got a hankering for keeping a wild animal as a pet, instead try to find the domestic equivalent of that wild animal! There are several dog breeds that look and behave like wolves or foxes, pigeons and chickens can make great pet birds and have hundreds of colorful fancy breeds, rats can be just as intelligent and social as a small monkey (and less expensive and dangerous to boot,) and ferrets are pretty darn close to minks and otters! There’s no need to keep a wolf in a house when our ancestors have already spent 20,000+ years to make them house-compatible.

🐖 This was stated in the infographic, but I feel like I must again reiterate that domestic animals do not belong in the wild, and often become invasive when feral. Their genetics have been specifically altered in such a way that they depend on humans for optimal health. We are their habitat. This is why you only really see feral pigeons in cities, and feral cats around settlements. They are specifically adapted to live with humans, so they stay even when unwanted. However, this does not mean they should live in a way that doesn’t put their health and comfort as a top priority! If we are their world, it is our duty to make it as good as possible. Please research any pet you get before bringing them home!