#but if often rhymes

[phoenixcatch7]

I get that calling white lotus lbh a sticky little 'sheep' is a canon translation and stuck in the fandom now anyway, but I do feel the intended spirit of the original word wasn't the sheeple/dumb herd animal that's more common in the western world, but instead something actually conveying sweetness, innocence, purity and youth - lamb.

Famous for being utterly adorable and following around their mothers, gambolling in sunny meadows, curly white wool shining.

And NOW we can talk about black sheep/wolf in sheep's clothing metaphors.

[lunarin64art]

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

[tumbly-s]

Trigun body horror week day 3 — LUNGS

[strawberrytalia]

not to sound like an annoying gen z (i am one), but duke is literally the type to say the most wild out of pocket blunt uncalled for shit, and then add “respectfully” to the end as if that makes it better lmfao

[its-short-for-jackalope]

*feel free to replace this with the title of any sort of spellcaster you are likely to piss off

remember, you're voting for whichever option would annoy you the most! for fun, you can also put in the tags whichever one you would find most tolerable. :)

[raayllum]

Viren and Rayla parallels: 1/?

[beannoss]

For Twilight week from @twiyorbase! For the prompt "blood", Twilight x Yor flash fic 😅 Established relationship; post-reveals; hurt/comfort & emotional hurt/comfort & caretaking; cw grief

Injury

He couldn't find the source of the blood. The tear in Yor's long sleeve had shifted such that the actual wound itself was hidden: somewhere awkward, high on her tricep. It would be substantially easier if they weren't squeezed, hiding out in a tiny closet: Twilight had his back against the wall, the back of Yor's legs pressed tight to his as she twisted and leaned forward to give him better access to her arm. He considered again the prospect of returning home to tend to it but... for all it didn't seem to be a bad injury, it was bleeding steadily. Twilight shook his head; best not to risk a blood trail. He banged his elbow, biting back a curse, moving to carefully roll her sleeve further, hoping to finally reveal where the bullet had clipped her.

"It hurts it hurts it hurts!" Yor whispered.

Twilight stared at the back of Yor's head. Yor had once given him an astonishing list of injuries she'd sustained in the course of her work (and some from her attempts at cookery). She'd told him idly, offhandedly, as though it were a passing curiosity; the incongruity striking as they'd walked hand-in-hand around the park on a date. He'd sought and found evidence of some of them later that same evening, hadn't quite known why it was important to him or what to think about each mark, though Yor had liked when he feathered kisses to them. As the weeks passed and their intimacy deepened, he uncovered more and more of them, until Twilight was fairly certain he had now mapped them all, kissed them all, and knew quite well what injuries Yor had recovered from.

So how someone who had survived that number and diversity of injury could also have such low pain tolerance —

"Ouuuuch!"

Twilight bit his cheek. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to find —" he guided his hand carefully under her sleeve, higher up her arm, following the slick trail of blood. "I really don't understand why it's so difficult to find."

Yor sucked in a sharp breath. "I think you're nearly there."

"Mm." Rolling her sleeve further, Twilight murmured apology when she squeaked as he finally found the spot. "Can you reach the first aid pack in my jacket pocket?"

"Is it on the right side?" Yor asked nervously — her uninjured side.

Twilight swallowed a huff. "Yes, it is."

"Oh, thank goodness," and she sighed with such relief that she did end up jolting her arm and then whimpering, and Twilight didn't quite stop himself making an incredulous noise.

Yor gasped, “Are you laughing?”

“No! No.” Twilight blew out a long breath. “I wasn't laughing. It’s just that... Yor, you're Ostania’s best assassin and you can't stop telling me that this hurts.”

“But it does hurt,” Yor said, as though this were explanation enough. Reaching backwards, her hand stole unerringly into his jacket pocket. She glanced at him as she passed the small kit over her shoulder. “What do you do when something hurts?”

Twilight paused. What do I do? Using his teeth, he tore open an antiseptic wipe packet (courtesy of Franky) before gently passing the wipe over her wound as he considered.

What do I do when I'm injured...? Treat it. Grit my teeth. Tend to it, if it's a longer term injury.

And otherwise...

Ignore it ignore it ignore it.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, shaking out a bandage and carefully lifting her arm to avoid jostling her as he wrapped it. “I do my best to ignore it.”

Yor looked over her shoulder at him. “But doesn’t it hurt?”

Twilight met her eyes. Studied her confounded expression. The way her eyes softened the longer they looked at one another, softened into something… something…

Twilight dropped his gaze to the bandage. “Yes,” he finally admitted quietly as he secured the wrap. “It hurts.”

“Hmm,” Yor murmured thoughtfully. Then, “Are you done?”

“Oh. Yes.”

She carefully worked her sleeve over the bandaging, tugging it down to her wrist. “Thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes again. Yor learned back into his chest for just a moment, a beat of affection. Then hesitated, biting her lip as she moved away again. “You know,” she tried gently, still looking over her shoulder. “It’s okay to say when something hurts. It won’t make you any less good at your work.” Twilight stared at her. Saw the moment her self-doubt crept in and she said worriedly, “Unless — unless you do think it’s made me worse — I don’t think so but maybe you’ve noticed something I’ve mis—”

“No, Yor,” Twilight interrupted. “You’re just as good as you’ve ever been. Better even, than when we first started working together.”

Yor’s tension melted away in her relieved sigh. She smiled warmly at him. “In that case — maybe say something, next time you’re hurt.”

"... We'll see." Say something? No. Vocalising a weakness is far too great a risk. Yor frowned, but Twilight took brief, firm hold of her hips, dropping a kiss to her shoulder. "If you're ready," he said off her small sigh. "Let's finish this mission and go home."

---

Yor's arm healed for a couple of weeks, she swung her bag cheerfully before plunking it down on the entryway table. Anya was at Becky’s for a sleepover for the night, and for Yor and Twilight… well, it was date night. Which, for the first time, Yor had planned! She’d been yo-yoing between excited and nervous all day until finally Camilla kicked her out of the office, ordering her to go home early. Strictly speaking, Yor didn't think Camilla had that authority but it wasn't like her job would be at risk if she left early on one day, was it?

She’d planned to use the extra time getting ready — except the apartment was feeling odd. Not an alarming or threatening sort of odd… perhaps… gloomy? The door to Twilight’s room — no, their room, now. They shared it — and isn’t that still wonderful, and still strange? The door to their room was ajar, which was somewhat out of the ordinary, though still not cause for alarm.

Yor approached slowly nonetheless. Listened for a moment before slowly pushing the door open.

Twilight was sitting on the floor beside the bed.

“Loid!” Yor rushed into the room. “Are you all right?! Are you injured?! Where are you hurt?”

Twilight passed his hand over his solar plexus almost absently, then looked up at her. Oh. She hadn’t seen this expression in some time. The one that was almost void of emotion — a mask, hiding himself away.

She dropped to her knees beside him, reached out and ran her hands over the arm nearest to her. Finding no wounds, she reached for his other arm next but Twilight caught her hands and held them away from him.

“I’m not injured. Sorry — Yor, I’ll. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be fine.”

Yor pulled back just enough to be able to study him. No... No, this wasn’t how he looked when he was injured. He was barely raising his head — drugged? But no, his movements otherwise were still easy, precise, as they always were. Is he just avoiding my eyes...? That was unusual; Twilight liked to observe everything. Yor leaned forward and ducked her face so she could see his again. His mouth was still in that emotionless line, but under the shadow of his fringe, his eyes were —

“Twilight…” she said softly. Hesitated, then brushed his fringe from his forehead. “What happened?”

After a long pause, he said reluctantly, “I’m not sure. I came home from work. And… and for some reason I remembered it would have been my mother’s 55th birthday. On the Tuesday just passed.” Yor swallowed a soft gasp. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time. But once I'd started, I kept thinking how young fifty-five is. A handful of my colleagues are around that age; several of my patients... And I also realised that I’m older now, than she was when she died. By… a number of years. And that.” He stopped. Drew a breath. His voice was without inflection when he said, “That’s tragic. Isn’t it.”

“Yes,” Yor whispered. Twilight hummed quietly in response, almost as though to himself. Yor bit her lip. What do I do, what do I do?

Slowly, she slid to snuggle in behind him. She brushed her hand over his head, turning her cheek to press against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing tight to his back. "It is tragic, Twilight," she murmured.

He took a breath — so measured, and controlled, but Yor knew him better now. She could hear the very slight shake to his inhale. She hugged him closer — then prepared to withdraw when he shifted, in case it was too much for him. But Twilight only passed his hands over her arms around him. He took one of Yor's hands, drawing it up, pressing it to his solar plexus, the same spot he'd rubbed earlier. So softly, a low resonance through her ear pressed still to his back, Twilight confessed, "It hurts."

Yor didn't say anything. She tightened her hold briefly, and then she simply held him, listening to his heart beat.

Twilight was true to his word. Only a few minutes passed before he roused himself, tightening his hands over hers still wrapped around him. “Thank you, Yor,” he said, then pulled away to stand, holding a hand out to help her to her feet. “We should get ready,” he said, smiling.

Yor studied him. He did seem to be better, mostly back to normal. There was still some tightness to his eyes but… “We don’t have to go,” she told him. “We can just stay home tonight if you… if you want more time.”

But Twilight shook his head, that small smile still in place. “I’m fine. You worked hard planning our date. I want to know what you’ve arranged.”

Unable to help herself, Yor did bounce a little on the balls of her feet. Truthfully, she wanted to know what he’d think of her plans, too. “If you’re sure…”

“I am.”

Twilight met her when she rose to her toes to kiss him — he was a little hungrier in his kiss, than she’d have anticipated, a little more urgent, a sign he wasn’t quite as fine as he’d told her. She didn’t say anything though; he wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead, all she did was raise her hand to tousle his hair, kiss his forehead when he bowed his head in response. “Then,” she said cheerfully, moving towards the closet to get changed, “I hope you’re ready to have fun!”

[nikoisme]

I was looking through my notes/drafts and I found this and I have no idea what I was on when I wrote this

as you can see I never finished whatever this was supposed to be lmao

[wolfwillowisp]

God I love this setting in the same way that I love Monster Hunter. It’s saying that animals are well… animals. You can’t get inside the head of any animal. And tamed wild animals in particular are unpredictable. Settings that treat their animals like they are animals are so good because it’s how the real world works. Those wolves didn’t kill your lamb because they’re evil monsters, they did it because they’re wolves, and a baby domesticated animal is a safer bet to kill than a full grown elk. The only difference between a basilisk and a chicken is that one of them is seen as a monster, for no fault of its own. These monsters aren’t monsters at all. They’re animals. But I have to wonder….. what does that mean about the real monsters here….

[heathened]

it was so often in service of the bit or buddhism so it can be easy to forget but genuinely, mca had one of the flows of all time

[truecorvid]

my petty #badleftist take for today is that i actually fully hate the chants that seem to inevitably start at any given protest/demonstration these days. stop coming up with twee rhyming couplets i don't wanna be here anymore

[myparentssurplus720]

"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

-Solas, to Rook who botched his ritual

[cookinguptales]

By the way, if any of you really want to read and learn about Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, Columbia University has a free web course about it.

If you click that link, they have free versions of the text (in the original Italian but also both the Mandelbaum and Longfellow translations) that you can use to follow along with the lectures. They also have pretty extensive commentary on the text as well as galleries and audio recordings to help you understand things better.

It's a really excellent free resource!

[boxwinebaddie]

tfw u write A Silly Fake Song for Your Silly Fake Fanfic, but feel so intensely passionate abt it and it’s relevance to The Silly Fake Plot that you could go back to school..

— And Write An Entire College THESIS On It?!

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Whenever i read yugioh fanfic and it used all this random clunky japanese I found that pretty cringe and sometimes I would think to myself "i bet native japanese speakers who read these think its cringe and sounds really bad too" and while i obviously cant speak for them, as a native german speaker whos now read english tanz fanfics where they insert random clunky german sometimes, I actually find it delightful please keep doing it