#from the messenger pigeon

[solshii]

I love the ponies they’re so cute T^T please feed us some more please TvT

of course anon <333 sorry for the wait!

notes

[theriu]

The scene in Avatar: The Last Airbender where they are in the Fire Nation and Sokka has this messenger hawk, and he's like "Hey I'm gonna put a message on this hawk and send it back to these people I know!" and lets it go and everyone just accepts it like yeah of course it will get the message where it's supposed to go. That's what a messenger hawk is for. And I'm like. Do none of you understand the concept of a messenger pigeon and that they only fly back home. You are in the Fire Nation you got the bird in the Fire Nation it has never been outside the Fire Nation, How Did You Give It Directions.

[paskuda-lynx]

Fanart for Perseverance series, posted by GreenBean on ao3!

Featuring a Water Tribe albatross-pigeon and a Fire Nation messenger hawk crossing paths somewhere in the Earth Kingdom seas...

The series are good, by the way. If you're interested in the fate of war prisoners in Agna Qel'a after Siege of the North, including Lieutenant Jee and a certain unlucky royal, maybe you should give it a shot! (Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence)

[hearty-an0n]

having to go to hockey canada website/twitter to see what the roster is or what time the game is has got to be a form of torture

[hunnieknight]

Little Soul

A leyline abnormality has occured in the House of Hearth!

Gn!Reader, unspecified relationship status, SUBTLE power dynamic, OOC, bad grammar and no beta read, quick story, canon divergent?

~~

Being House of Hearth's best leyline researcher means you work outside a lot. Always be on the field, directly studying the leylines themselves.

Being the best also means that the Head of the House always rely on you whenever there is an abnormality. You and the Lady are quite close, in professional matter. Everything is mostly about documents and mission.

With few personal teacup party.

The very first tea party was a nervous wreck. The Lady herself request for your presence, only you, just you. Oh boy, despite the bad thoughts clouded your mind, you just hope you got a raise or promotion.

Thankfully, it was just her asking for a plan. A quite specific plan of a very specific leyline abnormalities. It was Clervie, one of House of Hearth's children in the past.

That's where you learnt more of the Head of House of Hearth's past. She doesn't tell much other than Clervie need to be gone as she isn't suppose to exist and wandering about. Putting a soul to rest, again.

After hours of talking, she settled with a plan, thanking you by promising a raise on the next salary. Somehow, knowing how she was in the past is a promotion itself for you, imposing into her life story where not a lot of people are lucky enough to know.

Knowing how a leyline can manifest, how a memory of the past can exist as a visible soul, how an innocent soul can stuck in time, how...Arlecchino was just a child.

Leylines, basically Tevyat's biggest hive network memories, everything that has happened in the world is recorded and remembered.

Including the very memory that Arlecchino wants to forget.

You always see the Lady herself is all calm and collected, barely anything makes her break a sweat. She often does things her own way, it is quick and precise.

Now imagine your shock and dread when a pigeon bird flies to you with a small note "S.O.S". You know this bird, in fact, this one particular pigeon is only assigned for you. A messenger pigeon, reserved only for you, only for emergency, only from the Lady Arlecchino.

Door slams open, all due respect but anxiety fills your body, there is no time for greetings and formalities, if the Lady herself sending urgent message there must be some-

Huh?

It took you a moment to realize another abnormality like Clervie happens again but..in..the appearance of..the Lady?!

The task is simple, RETURN PERUERE. Okay, it's not that dreadful but the fact the fact the Lady trusting you to do this task, you feel like she is testing your skill. Testing if you are truly her best researcher.

You nodded, agreed to keep Lil Peruere a secret, her small hand engulf by yours when you guide the little soul into your private research office.

The true challenge is not sending her back, the TRUE challenge is to not grow attachment to the soul. Yes, she is a bit unique but the way her little hands always wanting to help stacking books, papers and catching small spiders making you grow fond of the little one.

So this is how Arlecchino was when she was a child, huh?

Makes you wonder what would Arlecchino's child be like.

This challenge also creating a bridge, more personal bridge rather than professional. Often times you only meet Arlecchino if there is a task, it was professional and formal, over a teacup party.

When Little Peruere stays with you, Arlecchino always shows up before your research office, o'clock, with..basket of sweets?

It was nice, the atmosphere is less formal and more domestic casual. Conversation is not always about the research progress, sometimes it's about Arlecchino's upbringing, what Little Peruere likes to do, and your own trivial stuff. The intimate talk only be witnessed by the papers and whiteboards in the research office.

Weeks passed and with Arlecchino's power, Little Peruere passed on, same with Clervie, the warm sunlight enveloping the lost soul as the little one disappear into small glistening petals. Just like Clervie, Arlecchino accompany Little Peruere, but you also sits next to her. Arlecchino have asked you to stay in the research office as the night is cold, yet here you are...

Sitting next to her, leading the conversation as both Peruere and Arlecchino prefers to listening in. The dawn sky is beautiful, dark twilight-blue night sky slowly painted with yellow-orange lights. Peruere watching with fascination, yours watching the little one with adoration, and you felt a pair of eyes watching you from the side.

~~

Clicking, typing, rustling filled your research office. You need to make a report on the little soul, as formality of your works. Arlecchino was there to proofreading the report herself.

The Harbinger doesn't miss how you sighed a lot, recalling the little pitter-patter of Peruere's feet around your office, the small hands tidying up the papers around, and the small bug container-which always contain any bugs found in your office- in the corner is empty now that Peruere is not here.

Arlecchino thinks, you have gone this far to send the soul back. Perhaps she should give you something in return, it's only fair in transaction,right?

What is it? A day off? A vacation? A raise? A promotion? A kid of your own?

Well, it seems you have grown fond to the little Peruere, perhaps...another real Peruere would be a delight?

And what a delight it is~! The House of Hearth burst into happiness when the news of another member, from the Father herself , was announced when the children are eating dinner.

This raised the House's morale, everybody work and play safely, determined to go home in one piece looking forward when cries of an infant burst into the house. It would be hell to get used to but the House of Hearth is used to not cry for pain, no tears of loss and grief.

This is the only cry they would have, the only wail in the building, the only tears they would be happy to hear. The only tears in the House of Hearth....

Oh hey, The Tsaritsa send a baby care package~♡!

.

♡♡

.

.

.

Another one is in the oven

[astonmartinii]

it must be a sign | oscar piastri social media au

pairing: oscar piastri x fem deaf! red bull engineer!reader

when the two most unbothered people in the paddock combine their joint powers to be the it couple

request sent by the lovely @bibissparkles xx

author's note: heyyy so many of you won't know but i am actually deaf - i am 50% deaf in both ears and wear hearing aids so i love requests like this! (all i do most of this stuff as a deaf person, turning off your hearing aids >)

MASTERLIST | TIP JAR

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri and 302,446 others

yourusername: you can't complain about the dutch national anthem when you can just turn your hearing aids off

view all comments

user1: the way max's engineer is as sick of that damn song as us

user2: turning off her hearing aids makes how bored she looks during podiums make sense

yourusername: it was a banger during the mercedes dominance but would it kill someone to play the australian anthem

danielricciardo: i knew you missed me

yourusername: sure, jan.

user3: her and max signing slay to each other will always be so personal to me

maxverstappen1: gonna pretend you didn't just say that

yourusername: boo hoo babe, you gotta lose something sometimes

user4: babe? are the flowers from max?

maxverstappen1: would rather choke on my own spit and fall into a pit of snakes, hope this helps ❤️

yourusername: rude! i wouldn't want flowers from you either :(

user5: i swear we get into this argument every weekend, i think people will still assume they're together until their married to other people

liamlawson30: stop using me as a messenger pigeon please and thank you

yourusername: but i thought red bull gave you wings?

liamlawson30: do not use a pr answer against me 🤨

yourusername: no comment

liamlawson30: choke.

yourusername: idk what's going on in the red bull junior academy but spit in helmut's coffee not mine

user6: y/n consistently giving all the red bull guys shit is my favourite thing ever

user7: the amount of times the sky broadcast has caught her waving them off or taking her hearing aids out lol

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 782,309 others

oscarpiastri: switched four tyres for two this weekend

view all comments

user11: you can't distract us with your slutty bike pics WHO THE FUCK IS THAT

landonorris: A WOMAN? A WOMAN? IS THAT A WOMAN OSCAR JACK PIASTRI?

oscarpiastri: yeah i'm pretty sure

landonorris: don't play smart with me buster - why was i not informed?

oscarpiastri: i don't ask to be informed of every time you get rejected in the instagram dms

landonorris: FAKE NEWS

oscarpiastri: okay buddy

user12: i be seeing the sign language book, oscar you are so real for that

user13: that's my king, i need a oscar and y/n link up in the paddock - my unbothered queens

user14: she's in the likes !!!!!!

logansargent: oh we've entered the soft launch phase i see

oscarpiastri: and what?

logansargent: someone is feeling defensive this morning, dude i won't tell i've already kept it a secret for so long

landonorris: HE KNOWS? DOES BEING YOUR TEAMMATE MEAN NOTHING?

oscarpiastri: he's my childhood best friend?

logansargent: there's levels to this game norris

landonorris: @oscarpiastri consider yourself UNDER SURVEILLANCE

oscarpiastri: okay girly

user15: oscar has the patience of a saint, the mystery gal may want to rethink it before having to deal with them all

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo and 381,044 others

yourusername: unrelaxed, unbothered, moisturised ✨

view all comments

user18: queen SHIT THAT AIN'T SHIT

user19: but this mystery man IS

maxverstappen1: yeah sorry about that... but at least boyfy has made his instagram debut?

yourusername: about time, he's too sexy to gatekeep

maxverstappen1: well i'm not going to agree out of respect for you

yourusername: so you don't think he's sexy? i might not be able to hear but HE CAN MAX BE NICE

maxverstappen1: first of all it's a text, second of all i've been way too nice to him

yourusername: he beat you in padel fair and square you're just SHIT AT IT ❤️

maxverstappen1: you know that's a sore subject WHY WOULD YOU BRING IT UP

user20: my queen was really like you wanna tell me to fuck off? oh here's my sexy boyfriend

user21: jos verstappen really didn't know who he was tangling with that gal may be chill but she doesn't take shit

user22: she's like a female version of oscar lol

user23: i knew there was a reason i liked her

this comment was liked by yourusername

danielricciardo: why am i left out of everything these days?

yourusername: snooze you lose

danielricciardo: I AM AWAKE REPLY TO MY TEXTS

danielricciardo: I JUST SAW YOU PUT YOUR PHONE ON DO NOT DISTURB

yourusername: protecting my peace

danielricciardo: i'm on to you buster

oscarpiastri

liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername and 1,209,455 others

tagged: yourusername

oscarpiastri: overjoyed to get my first (proper) win in formula one and even more overjoyed to have my amazing girlfriend (and even better engineer) up on the podium with me

view all comments

user27: so this was the special occasion?

user28: so this is why she said she wanted the australian national anthem over the dutch one?

user29: this is now my roman empire

yourusername: babe is so fucking good and i'm so fucking proud

oscarpiastri: i'm so glad to have been able to share this moment with you

yourusername: you deserve this and more, i love you

oscarpiastri: i love you too xx

user30: wait so oscar knows so much more sign language than i thought

user31: he looked so excited and even mark knows some

logansargent: he forced (we were happy to do so) me, mark and his family to learn as soon as he secured the date lol

oscarpiastri: and now we're all so cool because of it

logansargent: cool and able to chat shit without people knowing what we're saying

yourusername: best bit about it tbf (everyone please learn, it's a beautiful language)

landonorris: I KNEW IT

oscarpiastri: no you didn't

landonorris: no i didn't :( i'm hurt

oscarpiastri: if it's any consolation, we didn't tell many people, max and logan are exceptions

landonorris: WHY WAS I NOT AN EXCEPTION???

yourusername: boo hoo

landonorris: i'm not gonna say anything back to that you kinda scare me

yourusername: good ❤️

yourusername

liked by fernandoalo_oficial, oscarpiastri and 529,778 others

tagged: maxverstappen1 & oscarpiastri

yourusername: me and a racewinner (and our world champion third wheel)

view all comments

user32: fave trio in the paddock no competition

logansargent: logan erasure

yourusername: we love you logan, sunday roast at mine this weekend ❤️

logansargent: SCORE

user33: every time you post there's a new plushie

yourusername: we usually get one to commemorate a big weekend and we both got one for osc's first win

user34: that's so FUCKING CUTE

oscarpiastri: it's all fun and games until you don't fit in the bed because y/n feels too bad to put any of them on the floor

yourusername: they have FEELINGS OSCAR

oscarpiastri: she cried one time when max set off the smoke alarm cooking breakfast and the bed alarm shook so bad that all of them were thrown to the floor

yourusername: it was HARROWING but it also did wake me up so at least we know it works

maxverstappen1: actually my favourite couple to third wheel, but enjoy it while it's here osc, i won't lose again

yourusername: yeah sorry osc it's actually my job to help max win so you're gonna have to wait for him to retire if i have anything to do with it

oscarpiastri: not even for me :(

yourusername: sorry not sorry (i'm really sorry, i love you so much)

oscarpiastri: i love you too even if you won't sabotage max for my race :(

maxverstappen1: okay i know i said you guys are cute but that's enough for today

yourusername: we ARE cute thank you

oscarpiastri: the CUTEST

fin.

note: heheheheh i hope you enjoyed this, i love requests like this xx also on the comment about the bed alarm i had one in uni halls and when the alarm went off that baby SHOOK it was kinda scary

[insomniac-dot-ink]

The Angel Wire

No one knows what to do with the angel tangled in the power lines. The poor thing’s body was wrapped around and around the sparking wires. A twisted-up ball of heavenly light. The face was obscured by a bent halo—a golden glow that sometimes oscillates like bad television signal. The wings float loosely in the air, all twelve feet of silken feathers, ragged and torn at the ends.

A storm had felled the trees and the poles and anything taller than a chicken coup in one swoop. Anyone who dared cross the puddles and debris had to risk being electrocuted by the live wires or blinded by the angel’s weakly pulsing light. Cooing sounds emerged from the angel, sad little calls for distant ears.

The creature would periodically make a break for it too—wings going taut and rising in a flurry of trumpets and frantic flapping. The electrical wires held fast, twisting against the angel’s soft flesh and pushing back. It fell, it always fell, back into the nest of wires and would make those weak cooing noises. I was an ornithologist before all this town, town, town and couldn’t help but think, pigeon.

The chaplain went first. He got down to pray under the angel’s bent body, close as he dared and in the mud. Everyone knew he wasn’t but a few weeks off the drink and his hands still shook when he lifted up the cross. The nun, she was retired but we still called her that, caught the 921 bus to the next town that same day.

Some said she was going to the next town over to get a proper priest. Others said she had crossed herself and high-tailed it out of there. What bad luck it was going to be to have a dead angel in our town electrical wires.

All this debris and only the birds can get close enough to it, flapping around the angel's head and perching on its mighty back. They call to each other.

Davie, who I had once loved, offered to fetch his shotgun and put it out of its misery. The youngest one there, a girl named Clara, cried so hard she had to be walked back and forth down the lane three times. We opted to put “shooting a messenger of above” on the back burner. We gathered up wire cutters, holy books, rubber boots, and a good tree-cutting ax from the mess of our homes and piled them up. We'd wait a day or so at least, watching the angel and all silently hoping it would make it out on its own. 

I wasn’t a praying woman anymore. My house was a testament to a lot of broken things before it was ever leveled by the storm. But I didn’t have any little ones to walk up and down the lane and my car had survived just fine and I owned the best pair of binoculars out of anyone. So, I kept vigil–it was the least I could do. 

I sat and watched and sometimes cooed back when the angel let out long melancholy ooo's. The relief trucks were late if they were even coming and I drank in small sips from my third water jug. The chaplain came at sundown and he passed me a better drink from his flask. I wasn’t a praying woman anymore so I took a long sip and passed it back.

“Think it’ll make it out?” I asked, nodding at the angel, and the chaplain took a longer drink. I gave him a small smile and elbowed the man. “Glad you stayed, at least.”

He nodded again and began to pray, never taking his eyes off the wires up above.

The girl came when the day tucked behind the trees into full dark. She was a darting, quiet thing and I nearly missed her rustling through the grass.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” I told her tiny form at the edge of the puddles. She drew her knees up under a big sweater.

“I have to make sure he doesn’t try anything . . .” she said and I knew she was talking about Davie, who I could no longer love.

 “Does your mama know you’re out here?”

She mumbles from inside her oversized hoodie, “I can’t let ‘em do it.”

I sighed. “He won’t, not with me here,” I said and waved her over. I made the little girl climb into my lap to stop her shivering and the chaplain gave us all a blanket to huddle under. The angel flapped those dirty wings and cooed.

“Can I see?”

I let the little girl use my binoculars to make out that bent halo and loose curls. She got fingerprints all over the lens and I tried to ignore it.

“I want to be a meteorologist one day,” Clara said, unprompted. “So I can warn people about stuff like this.”

I snorted. “And I want to be a poet.”

“Hush,” Markus says to me and then to the little girl, “I’m sure you’ll make a great weather lady one day, Clara.” The chaplain gave a punished smile and it made me want to make fun of him just enough to stop it. Clara frowned.

“Did you always want to be a chaplain?” she asked in return, a bit meanly, and the chaplain didn't answer.

I cleared my throat. “Do you think that’s what it was trying to do? Trying to warn us?” “Or maybe it was just unlucky,” Markus says, rubbing a hand down his long face.

I snorted. “A bad day at work.”

“Does god allow for bad luck?” asked the little girl and the question hung limp and loose like those wings.

“Why don’t we ask it?” I say, and we laugh, weakly. We call out to the angel–questions and praise and hopes for tomorrow that we’ll get it out. Or maybe we'd have to get the shotgun tomorrow. The glow of the creature is so weak. Near midnight, the girl suggests we go looking for its trumpet. If it had been there to warn us, it might have carried a horn, and if it had a horn, we might be able to summon help from its friends.

We search, feebly, avoiding the sparking wires and the upturned wood and metal. We go around in the mud on our hands and knees until we match the trapped creature. Though, we never do figure out what to do with the angel tangled in the power line. The night was long and bitter and we didn’t have anywhere else to be, the drunken chaplain and family-less woman of the birds and that little girl.

Before dawn, I am asleep, we are all asleep, dead to the world like the day will never come. And in the morning, the wires are loose on the ground and quiet. The angel is gone and a relief trucks have come. A part of me hopes the creature made it out. The birds after all peck at the wires on the ground. A part of me is relieved to see that Davie is here and he has all his supplies in the back. The trucks arrived and the power company remembered us enough to cut off the power.

I have nowhere to be, and walk the little girl home. Gloria is happy to see her and offers me a place to stay the night. I tell her my car is just fine. Still, she says, just a night.

The window in the guest room faces the electrical wires. They’ll rebuild them one day because you can’t waste the material all the way out here. Clara will go off to college one day. The chaplain will leave the drink for good, he will, and the church in the same breath. I will write a poem one day and it won’t be any good.

The poem will be about the electrical wires outside my windows. How I don’t know if the angel made it out, but the birds still perch there. They preen and sing and fluff. I count them one by one in the pre-dawn light. Some are flesh and blood. They clean the feathers of the ones that aren’t. Pearly blue jays sing, barely visible, and letting out forgotten songs from yesteryear, and there are fewer ones in the proper light. The angel wire they call it. Year after year, the birds return with their bodies or without them, to sit one by one in a line. Pearly outlines preen their living grandchildren and sing to lost mates and fluff invisible wings, and I close my eyes and listen to the ghosts.

------------

Pre-order my new book! 🧡 Newsletter

[odinsblog]

“I first started noticing the journalists dying on Instagram. I'm a journalist, I'm Arab, and I've reported on war. A big part of my community is other Arab journalists who do the same thing.

And when someone dies, news travels fast. Recently, I pulled up the list that the Committee to Protect Journalists has been keeping and looked at it for the first time. There are 95 journalists and media workers on it as of today.

Almost everyone on it is Palestinian. Scrolling through, I started to get angry. These were the people carrying the burden of documenting this whole war.

Israel is not allowing foreign journalists into Gaza, except on rare occasions with military escorts. These people's names are being buried in a giant list that keeps growing. What I want to do is lift some of them off the list for a moment and give you a glimpse of who they were and the work they made.

I'll start with Sadi Mansour. Sadi was the director of Al-Quds News Network, and he posted a 22-second video on November 18. That was a report from the war, but it also gave me a picture into his marriage.

Sadi's wearing his press vest and looks exhausted. He's explaining that cell service and the Internet keep getting cut off, and it's often impossible to text or call anyone, including his wife. So they've resorted to using handwritten letters to communicate while he's out reporting, sending them back and forth with neighbors or colleagues.

He ends the video with a picture of one of these letters from his wife. In it, she writes,

‘Me and the kids stayed up waiting for you until the morning, and you didn't come home. We were really sad.

I kept telling the kids, Look, he's coming. But you didn't show up. May God forgive you.

Come home tomorrow and eat with us. Do you want me to make you kebab or maybe kapse? Bring your friends with you, it's okay.

And give Azeez the battery to charge. What do you think about me sending you handwritten letters with messenger pigeons from now on? Ha ha ha.

I'm just kidding. I want to curse at you, but we're living in a war. Too bad.

Okay, I love you. Bye.’

A few hours after he shared that letter, Sadie and his co-worker Hassouna Saleem were at Sadie's home, when they were killed by an Israeli air strike that hit his house.

His wife and kids, who weren't there, survived.

Gaza is tiny, and the journalist community is really close. Reading the list, you can see all the connections between people. Like with Brahim Lafi.

Brahim was a photojournalist, one of the first journalists to die. He was killed while reporting on October 7. He was just 21, still new to journalism.

On his Instagram, you can see that in his posts just a few years ago, he was still practicing his photography, taking pictures of coffee cups and flowers. Then he started doing beautiful portraits and action shots. You can really feel him starting to become a journalist.

Clicking around on Instagram, I found a tribute post about Brahim from his co-worker Rushdie Sarraj. In this photo, Brahim staring intently at the back of a camera, his face lit up by the light from the viewfinder. He looks so young.

The caption reads, My assistant is gone. Brahim is gone. Rushdie himself was a beloved journalist and filmmaker.

And I know that because he's also on the list. He was killed just two weeks after Brahim. I read the tribute post to him too.

I saw this over and over again. Journalists posting tributes, who were then killed themselves soon after. And a tribute goes up for them.

And then the pattern continues.

Thank you.

Something else I saw over and over on the list, journalists later in the war who had become aware that they could be making their last reports. They'd say it at the beginning of their videos. And those were the hardest to watch, especially when it was true.

One video like that was posted by Ayat Hadduro. Ayat was a freelance journalist and video blogger. Her videos before the war covered a wide range from what I can tell, interviews about women in politics.

She even appeared in a commercial for ketchup-flavored chips. She clearly liked being in front of the camera. Once the war started, Ayat's pivoted to covering bombings and food shortages.

On November 20, she posted a video report from her home. You can hear the airstrikes hitting very close to where she is. It's scary.

‘This is likely my last video. Today, the occupation forces dropped phosphorus bombs on Beit Lahya area and frightening sound bombs. They dropped letters from the sky, ordering everyone to evacuate.

Everyone ran into the streets in the craziest way. No one knows where to go.

But everyone else has evacuated. They don't know where they're going. The situation is so scary.

What's happening is so tough, and may God have mercy on us.’

She was killed later that day.

Targeting journalists, in case you didn't know, is a war crime. So far, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that three of the journalists on the list were explicitly targeted by the IDF, the Israeli military. Investigations by the Washington Post and Reuters, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have also raised serious questions in these three cases.

And the Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating 10 other killings. When we reached out to the IDF for comments, they said, quote, the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists. That's the answer they always give in these situations.

Meanwhile, dozens of seasoned reporters have fled Gaza. Journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, Agence France-Presse. So many media offices were demolished in Israeli airstrikes that the Committee to Protect Journalists stopped counting.

It's not just individual lives that have been destroyed. It's an entire infrastructure.

Thank you.

The name on the list that was hardest for me to look at was Issam Abdullah, because I'd crossed paths with him once. Issam was a Lebanese journalist, a video journalist for Reuters for many, many years. He had just won an award for coverage of Ukraine.

I'm Lebanese and still report there sometimes, and I'd worked with Issam a couple of summers ago. He helped me film a sort of random story in Beirut. I was interviewing this entrepreneur who had started a sperm freezing company after an accident where he spilled a tray of hot coffee on his private area, burning himself.

I know, ridiculous. It was a really silly shoot. Right after we said cut and started to rap, Issam started this whole bit about being in his late 30s, reconsidering his own sperm quality and everything he now realized he was doing to hurt it, and no one could stop laughing.

It was a really good day that felt good to remember and to remember him that way. Issam was killed by the IDF on October 13. His death was one of the three that the Committee to Protect Journalists has identified as a targeted killing.

He was fired upon by an Israeli tank while standing in an empty field on the Lebanon-Israel border with a small group of other journalists. Everyone was wearing press vests with cameras out. They were covering the Hezbollah part of this war.

A few other journalists were injured in the attack, which was captured on video. The IDF says they were responding to firing from Hezbollah, not targeting the journalists. But multiple investigations, including by Reuters, the United Nations, Amnesty International and the AFP, found no evidence of any firing from the location of the journalists before the IDF shot at them.

The journalists in the group and video footage confirmed that there was no military activity near them. I had only met Issam once, barely knew him, but it affected me so much when he died. I know that he understood the risks of his job, but somehow it still felt so random and unfair that he would be struck down like that, following the rules, wearing his press vest and helmet, and a pack of reporters on a sunny day in an open field.

I find myself thinking about him all the time. His last Instagram post was commemorating another journalist, this iconic reporter Shereen Abou Aql who had been killed by the IDF. When I first saw that post in October, I thought how ironic because a week later, Isam also was killed by the IDF.

But then, after spending time reading the list, I realized how common this had become. I still haven't finished going through the list and looking up the people on it. I keep finding things that stick with me, like the funny way this one radio host would cut off a caller who was rambling on for too long.

A tweet from reporter Al-Abdallah that quoted Sylvia Plath. It read, What ceremony of wars can patch the havoc? I'm going to keep going down the list, even though this story is over now.

Just for myself. My own way of bearing witness. Which is, in the end, all that these journalists were trying to do.”

—DANA BALLOUT, The 95. Dana sifts through a very long list—the list of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war, and comes back with five small fragments of the lives of the people on it. Dana is a Lebanese-American, Emmy-nominated documentary producer.

[wordsofwhimsy]

⏱︎ 𝙊𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 ⏱︎

Pairing: Main!Mark Grayson x fem best friend!Reader

Warnings: None

Tags: Friends to lovers, Mark’s spittin mad game, fluff, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 1,822 

Synopsis: Mark comforts you after being stood up on a date.

a/n: i have it listed as a fem reader but i really did try to keep this more gender neutral!! i also have an idea for a 2nd part to this but idk i might just make that it’s own separate thing. we shall see

You used to joke that Mark Grayson was like gravity. Always nearby, always familiar. Something you didn’t have to think about.

He was your best friend.

The kind of best friend who sat on the floor of your bedroom, eating Hot Cheetos and watching you panic over homework. The kind who’d text you stupid memes at 3 a.m. just to make you laugh. The kind who, every now and then, looked at you like he wanted something more.

And before everything changed, maybe you would’ve let him have it.

Maybe you wanted to.

It was starting, back then. The soft kind of beginning. Lingering hands, long glances. You don’t remember who initiated the shift—but it was there. One of those stupid liminal phases, stuck between friendship and something else.

And then he got his powers, and the shift stopped all together.

He stopped being just Mark.

One day he was your dumbass best friend. The next, he was Invincible.

Suddenly he was gone half the time. Bleeding from places you couldn’t see. Showing up at your door with bruises he didn’t explain. Disappearing in the middle of conversations. Swallowing emotions like if he just didn’t talk about them, they weren’t actually real.

And still, he showed up.

Every single day.

He found you in parking lots. At work. On your stoop with takeout. Orbiting you like the earth was just a little too far and you were the only thing steady enough to keep him tethered.

He never said it. Not directly. But you could see it in his eyes—every time he showed up late with a smile, like he’d been lost but now finally found his way home.

But you wouldn’t let it breathe. Stepped on it before it could bloom. Told him he was sweet. That you loved him—just not like that.

Said things like, “We don’t make sense. You’re out saving the world. I’m… folding laundry and deciding if I’m ready to learn how to use a propane grill. I’m just not the kind of person that fits into a life like yours—not in that role.”

He’d just stand there. Quiet. Hurt. Letting you talk.

Letting you lie.

Because he knew the truth. He always had. You were the only person who could fill that role, and it would always stay an open position until the day you decided you were ready.

—

You hadn’t been on a date since... well, ever. Not really.

There was just Mark, and that almost-what-if stage that promptly collapsed under the weight of reality.

So when you finally downloaded the app, picked a stranger, and said yes to dinner, you told yourself it was progress.

You even styled your hair in a way that was new. Just for this moment.

You sat at the restaurant in an outfit that you swore felt like too much but talked yourself into anyways. Checked your phone a hundred times. Ordered a drink. Then another. Then realized slowly that you definitely had been stood up. This guy wasn’t coming.

No call. No message. Hell, you would’ve taken a messenger pigeon at that point. Some type of acknowledgement would’ve made it all feel just a little bit less… embarrassing.

You paid for your drinks and walked home in silence, feeling stupidly overdressed and like every person you passed knew about the wordless rejection you’d just faced.

Mark was already waiting on your stoop.

He didn’t ask where you’d been. Just handed you a bag of takeout and scooted over to make room.

You didn’t speak for a while. Just sat with your knees touching, paper bag warm between you, the hum of the streetlight buzzing faintly overhead.

 “Am I that bad?” you said abruptly without thinking.

Mark paused mid-chew, a fry half in his mouth. “Huh?” he mumbled, clearly confused.

You shook your head, eyes on the sidewalk. “Nothing. Just... I don’t know why I even tried.”

Mark swallowed. “Tried what?”

You gave a soft, bitter laugh. “The date.” His face changed instantly.

“Wait—you were on a date tonight?”

You scoffed, ripping the fry in your fingers in half. “If you could call it that. The guy didn’t even show up.”

You took the tiniest bite off one of the torn pieces, more so for the act of busying yourself than actually wanting to eat. “Guess I needed the reminder though. Like, of course he didn’t. Why would he?”

“Whoa, hey—” Mark leaned in, brows furrowed. “That’s not on you. That guy’s an idiot.”

You shrugged, but it was too stiff. “Or maybe he just looked at my picture a little too long and was like, y’know what, on second thought—”  

“C’mon, don’t do that,” he said, voice low, sincere. “That’s not fair.”

You laughed, like it was really starting to become funny (even though it wasn’t at all). “No no, seriously. The guy was probably showing his buddies my profile and they were all oof, you bagged a DOG—”

“Alright—unless the rest of that sentence is ‘a doggone beautiful creature’ I don’t wanna hear it.”

You choked back a laugh, bumping your shoulder into his. “God you’re so corny.”

Mark gave you a weak smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes before his lips fell back into a harder line. “I’m serious. You’re not a dog. You’re not—whatever it is you’re trying to say right now.”

You rolled your eyes, trying to reach back into the bag for more fries—for another physical means of distraction. But his grasp closed around the greasy brown paper, around your wrist, locking you finger-deep in the takeout.

“I fight bad guys for a living, [y/n]. It’s literally my job to like, curb stomp your inner demons.”

You couldn’t help the pfft that sputtered past your lips. “You might need to clock in for overtime ‘cause they’re kicking my ass tonight.”

Mark grinned, just a little too much mischief sparking behind his eyes. “I’m always in overtime. Job never ends.” He finally pulled your hand free of the bag. “Now let a man work.”

You were fighting back a smile of your own as he turned your wrist in his hand, eyes tracing every line like he was inspecting rare art. “These hands?” he said, tone suddenly reverent. “Adorable. Perfect. Nails always going crazy.”

You snorted an embarrassing sound, but he’d heard it a hundred times before. “They’re literally just French tips...”

He grinned wider, ignoring you completely as he kept going. His fingers found a lock of your [hair color] tresses, twirling it around his knuckle. “This hair? Should be in a Pantene commercial. Smells like a teenage boy’s dream.”

You laughed again, softer this time, trying to pull away—but he held on, gently. Then he leaned back just slightly, eyes raking over you with a grin that slowly began to fade as his gaze caught on everything else.

“I mean, you’re dropping jaws just walking around in jeans,” he murmured. “But this?” He gestured vaguely to your still-sorta-date-night look. “The man should be thanking God he didn’t show. ‘Cause I promise you would’ve ended his whole life.”

Your face went warm, lips furling inward in your nervous habit. You tried to play it off, bury your smile in another shake of your head, but it was already happening. The racing of your heart. The stuttering of your breaths.

And then his hand came up, brushing your cheek so soft and careful. “These lips…?” he whispered.

You were still as stone, eyes wide as you watched him. “What about them…?”

His thumb brushed across your lower lip, so gentle it made your chest ache. His gaze flicked up to your eyes, then back down again, like he couldn’t keep his stare away for longer than a moment. “If God ever needed to talk, I’m pretty sure your lips would be the vessel.”

You didn’t say anything.

You couldn’t.

The words had dried up somewhere between your lungs and your throat, stuck there trembling while your lips—those stupid, supposedly divine lips—parted just slightly under the pad of his thumb.

And then he was leaning in, chocolate eyes never leaving your mouth as if he was following them to his destiny. Maybe in another lifetime you would’ve stopped him. Told him again that this didn’t make sense, that you two could never work. Maybe in another dimension. Another version of reality. But there, in that moment, it was inevitable.

It was barely a touch at first. His lips ghosting over yours like he knew what you were thinking, knew that you were probably begging internally for him not to take it here. But you didn’t push him away, didn’t pull back, and he felt like he’d been gifted a second chance at life.

The kiss lasted only a second before he pulled back, his forehead resting against yours as eyes fluttered shut, stomachs tied tight in knots. “Tell me you felt that too,” he breathed, thumb stroking mindlessly over your jaw. You still couldn’t find your voice to answer, and instead tilted your head just enough to press another kiss to his lips. Then another. And by the third, it all began to unravel.

His hand slid to cup the back of your neck, locking you in as his free hand trembled against your hip. The manicured nails he just was praising now scratched lightly up his back, sending chills over his skin until one palm pressed flat between his shoulder blades and the other tangled in his hair.

Your mouth opened without thinking, and his tongue slipped in – no hesitation. You couldn’t believe you were tasting him like this. Couldn’t believe he was holding you like a lover, and not a friend. Couldn’t believe how utterly right it all felt.

What had you been denying yourself this whole time? How many other things in your life had you been so stupid over? Your thoughts could only spiral for so long before he broke away again, breathing hard – and not from lack of oxygen (the man could hold his breath for hours) – but from the sheer heat of it all.

“We should go inside,” he exhaled, his eyes glancing to a woman walking her dog past your front steps. Your pink cheeks burned cherry red, and all you could do was nod.

[milkbobatyun]

a fallen star

pairing: zhongli x reader

genre: angstober, events

summary: to spend an eternity with him, was something you could only hope fate was kind enough to grant you in your next life.

word count: 1.7k

a/n: i love archon zhongli smsm, im sorry to all the guizhong lovers for making her evil, but it's for plot purposes alr :( lwk ended up rewriting this like 3 times cus i didn't feel like it was good enough LMAO

when guizhong was there, morax barely spared a glance towards you. her beauty and skill easily outshone yours, rendering you a mere shadow in her presence. it made your heart ache with sadness. she was the sun, you were the moon, silently beautiful.

they were comfortable, guizhong laughing daintily at a joke morax made, hand placed on morax’s arm. she held his attention, like she always did.

“...what do you think, [name]?” the sudden question startled you from your thoughts as you blinked and smiled apologetically.

“sorry, i was lost in my thoughts.” your own voice sounded dull, not tinkling and pleasant on the ears like guizhong’s.

morax’s amber eyes swept over yours, picking up the dejection in your posture, how you seemed uncomfortable, every muscle tense, as though you were ready to flee at any moment.

“i was just considering some new activities we could introduce for the upcoming lantern rite.” guizhong piped up, cheerfulness lacing her tone.

morax nodded in agreement, “guizhong’s ideas were innovative, as expected from the goddess of dust.” he praised.

of course, guizhong would be praised for her brilliant ideas. she was the perfect goddess, flawless in every way. unlike you, whose body was adorned with imperfections, from battles with the enemies of war and your own inner demons.

standing next to her felt like standing next to the sun, bright and warm, while you were the moon, unnoticed, but trying your best. thinking back, you realised that it was a long time since morax glanced at you the same way he looked at guizhong.

to him, you were the reliable goddess of strategy, someone he could always trust to have his back. in his eyes, you were his world, the one who hung up the stars and kept the world turning.

like stone, his faith in you was immovable, he trusted your words and plans for the archon war, to train and teach xiao. but guizhong, she held a different type of beauty, her presence commanded attention, her creations and innovations new and intriguing. he found himself spending more time and attention on guizhong, pushing you aside.

like stone, he was dense. if he had known earlier, had accepted his own feelings and understood why, when he was lost in the sea of people at a festival, his eyes searched for you, how your touch sent sparks of electricity across his skin, then this, all this, could’ve been avoided.

poor cloud retainer. she pitied herself. how did she, the clever, unparalleled adepti, become chained down by two idiots for friends? it was clearer than day that the two of you harboured feelings for each other, but how did neither of you realise.

it was time for her to be the perfect wingwoman and start her matchmaking career earlier than anticipated, before she lost the chance.

the tea had been poisoned. from the faint curve of guizhong’s lips, her eyes, alert and watching as you downed the cup she had given you, it was so obvious a five-year old could guess.

but you were preoccupied, the slip of paper your messenger pigeon delivered sat on your desk, strewn about with papers on war strategies and your mind racing through all the reasons why he wrote that message.

‘come meet me at the pavilion balcony. xiao will come find you.’

xiao escorted you along the path, the two of you discussing his training, for morax had entrusted you, the goddess of strategy, to be his teacher.

the terrain to the pavilion was difficult, you found yourself panting for breath. halfway up the mountain, the path began to twist and turn under your feet, sweat beading on your forehead. you tripped, feet stumbling over the stones of the path, each step weighing down on your feet.

xiao reached out, brows furrowed in concern.

“is everything ok, shīfu?” xiao’s quiet voice cuts through the ringing in your ears.

you lean against the stone face, shaking your head.

“i must be too tired.” you assure him, though your voice was tight with pain. “you little rascal and morax, always keeping me on my toes, overloading my desk with work.” you jested, playfully poking xiao in the side. “let me rest for a bit and we can keep going.”

pausing, you take in several shaking breaths. xiao’s golden eyes remained fixed on you, concern reflecting in his amber eyes.

with an effort, you pushed yourself off the stone face, marching onwards. xiao crouched in front of you, offering to carry you on his back. you stubbornly disagreed.

“whoever heard of a disciple carrying their master?” you teased, though pain was etched in the lines of your forehead.

xiao hesitated, his eyes flickered between your pale face and the inclining path ahead, but he respected you. thus, he fell into step beside you, ever watchful.

shadows crawled into your vision, blurring the edges and twisting the view of the path. a sudden wave of lightheadedness forced you to your knees, the world spinning sideways. xiao’s quick reaction caught you, leaning you against his shoulder.

“shīfu,” his tone filled with a rare edge of worry and fear. “you’re in no condition to continue.”

you shook your head. “i can do it, it’s going to be fine.” you didn’t know if this was to reassure yourself or xiao, but the sentence repeated itself like a mantra in your head.

the sun slowly set, painting the surrounding mountains with stunning shades of orange and gold, before the deep velvet of night overtook it, stars twinkling in the sky, the moon a watchful guardian.

with xiao supporting your weight, you stumbled up the last few paces up to the pavilion, not noticing the tall figure already present.

your heartbeat raced in your chest at an uncomfortable pace. the hollow thuds rang in your ears, mixing into a clashing melody with the piercing ringing. it made you feel nauseous, bile rising in your throat. you clawed at your chest, hoping it would slow down.

with a heave and a wretch, you threw up, the scarlet liquid splattering on the pristine stone tiles underfoot.

startled by the noise, morax spun around, amber eyes falling upon your trembling figure. xiao’s golden gaze, usually so calm and steady, now radiated desperation a silent plea for help.

for a heartbeat, morax stood frozen with shock. then, without a second thought, his posture of elegance thrown to the wind, morax races towards you.

he dropped to his knees, sinking to the floor, gently cradling you in his arms, gloved fingers gently tapping against your cheek, desperate to keep you awake. his voice trembled as he chanted your name, praying to the stars you would stay with him.

“[name],” he murmured urgently. “wake up, look at me.”

through the fog of pain and exhaustion, you felt the warmth of his embrace radiating, a familiar voice cutting through the pain. his scent–earth, osmanthus and tea…no, the scent of home–wrapped around you like a hug. you squinted up at him, your body feeling impossibly heavy, darkness threatening to bring you under.

“morax,” you breathed, chest heaving as you fought for breath. “i came…to see you, as you asked.”

morax looked at you in confusion. “wasn’t it you who asked to see me?” he questioned.

confusion surfaced on your face, until you realised who the mastermind behind this meeting could’ve been. you chuckled, clear and bright, gave way to violent coughing, which left you gasping for air.

“it must’ve been cloud retainer then.” you wheezed, breath struggling. “sly crane,” you teased, voice devoid of malice or hate. “this is her way of meddling.” you manage a wry smile.

you don’t give morax a chance to reply before you’re speaking again, holding a finger to his lips as words gushed from yours like a fountain.

“you know, i’ve liked you for a long time,” you confessed, your words carrying the weight of years of longing. “so long. i’d always hoped that you would look at me the same way, but you never did. seeing you with guizhong all the time breaks my heart.”

your chest tightened painfully, each breath a battle, but you fought on. “you mean everything to me, but i dont mean anything to you. i see the way you look at her, i hope she brings you joy.”

you open your mouth to speak again, but cold droplets that land on your face interrupt you from speaking. with an effort, you tilt your head up, watching the tears cascade down morax’s face.

with a trembling hand, you reach up to wipe his tears. morax’s hand envelops yours, his warm hand contrasting against your cold, clammy skin.

morax’s breath hitched, as his amber eyes searched yours. you open your mouth to say something more, but morax interrupts you.

“no,” he breathed. “i do love you too, i think,,” he pleaded, “ if you give me some time, let me work this out slowly.”

“i want to,” you breathed out. “but i dont know if i have time left. i’m cold.” you snuggled deeper into morax’s embrace, uncertainty weighted in your heart. you could feel your life slipping away, the edges of darkness creeping closer.

“im tired.” you mumble, your voice barely a whisper. “i’ll just…sleep a little while…”

“shīfu,” xiao’s trembling voice broke through the silent night, “please, don’t leave me yet.”

you peel your eyes open, turning your head in xiao’s direction, motioning him to come closer. obediently, xiao approaches, tears streaming down his face like a waterfall.

“shǎháizi,” you breathed, voice light with teasing. “listen well to morax, he will be your new master from now on.” you instructed, hand reaching out to pet his head. “smile for me?” you mustered a weak smile that xiao reflected, his own sorrow mingled with hope.

a final bought of violent coughing tore through your body, each one sending pain sparking through your body. blood spilling from your lips. the metallic taste filled your mouth, mixing with the bitter taste of fear as darkness overtook you.

your eyes fluttered shut as the life left your body. in the distance, a star fell out of the sky, its tail trailing like a sorrowful goodbye.

“[name]?” morax whispered, voice raw with regret. “open your eyes, look at me.” his plea fell on deaf eyes. “you never heard my response, you can’t leave me yet.”

“i think…no, i know, that i do love you.”

fate was cruel, you had found your forever, but at the wrong time. someday, perhaps fate would grant us a second chance.

footnotes:

1. shīfu (师傅) — meaning master or teacher, this word is often used in chinese to express respect to someone who is skilled in a particular area or field.

2. shǎháizi (傻孩子) — "shǎ" meaning foolish (傻) and "háizi" meaning child (孩子), this word can be used as a term of endearment, meaning foolish child

taglist (open): @leehanscorydora

∧,,,∧ ( ̳• · • ̳)  © curated with love by milkbobatyun 2024 / づ ♡

[clockwayswrites]

City Pigeons Bleed Green Part 19

(I know I'm tech on a break this week, but I could use the serotonin.) masterpost

“He understands that I am coming over?” Damian asked as he inspected his pencil case to make sure he had everything he needed. Father would be picking him up from art class to fetch lunch.

“Yep, Danny knows we’re bringing lunch over,” Grayson answered. His thumb swiped idly across his phone.

Damian took a slow breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He loved Grayson, but it did not mean that the other was not an idiot sometimes. Sometimes family meant loving someone even though they were an idiot, Damian reminded himself.

In an attempt to start again, Damian stayed silent until he was sure that he had all of his supplies in his messenger bag. “I meant, does Danny understand that it is specifically me bringing the food? Does Danny understand who I am?”

“Oh, Dami baby, yeah,” Grayson said, voice softening in a way that made Damian bristle. At least Grayson finally set his phone down. “Jay talked to him about it and is still there at the apartment with Danny now. I’ll over over to give Jason a break and be there when you and Bruce come. Do you want me to double check with Danny before you arrive?”

Damian frowned as he adjusted the strap on his bag.

“Yes,” Damian answered after a pause and when he could meet Grayson’s eyes confidently. “I believe that the redundancy would not go amiss.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll be sure to double check before you and Bruce get there.”

“Acceptable,” Damian said and let to find Pennyworth for his ride to class.

Doing art calmed him. That knowledge had been a surprise at first. While Damian had, of course, learned about art as part of his cultural and historical training, actually being able to engage in art was was something entirely knew. Something that was available to Damian only because of his Father’s allowance.

No, that was not quite right. Father didn’t allow Damian to do art, Father simply wanted them to be happy and art is what made Damian… perhaps not happy, but at least more at peace.

Peace had been such a rare thing in Damian’s life.

He still didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Annoyingly, class that day didn’t quite manage to tamper the churning in Damian’s gut. He could (and would) ignore the feeling, of course, but that did not mean it wasn’t there.

Or that it didn’t grow as Damian was waiting for Father to pick him up for class.

“You have put in the order we discussed?” Damian asked as he buckled his seatbelt.

“Yes, it should be ready shortly after we get there,” Father answered. “You were out quickly today.”

“Tch,” Damian looked away from his father’s searching gaze and focused on the world outside the window. He hated to have tells, but in a family of detectives it was impossible not to. “If it unlikely to be ready, perhaps we should stop by the Turkish bakery that is near. Surely there are items there that are not too sweet for his diet.”

“That’s a nice idea,” Father agreed with a thoughtful hum. “He may have never had them before so we can get a little selection of what you think he needs to try.”

Damian worked not to physically freeze. That felt suddenly like a great deal of responsibility. Which was silly, it was simply food.

“That is a sound idea,” Damian said instead of trying to face his sudden worry.

It was even more overwhelming in the face of all the options. Damian certainly spent far too long making a selection, but Father doesn’t rush him, so Damian tries to allow himself the time. The food is easily acquired after. Far too quickly that they were in front of the safehouse door. Father rested one hand on the back of Damian’s back, a bracing presence, before he knocked.

“Coming!” Grayson called needlessly through the door a few moments before he it swung open. “Hey guys, come in. It’s all good.”

Damian resisted the urge to nod to that, took a breath, and crossed the threshold.

Danny sat on the couch. The fabled day saving blue bear was clutched in the boy’s lap; clutched too tightly. Damian shot Grayson an accusatory look. Clearly it wasn’t ‘all good’.

Grayson rolled his eyes and took the box of sweets from Damian to take to the kitchen with Father.

Damian was left alone with Danny.

At least it gave Damian time to properly study the other boy. Not blood son. Clone. Better and worse at once— a copy of Father. It was clear how much Danny looked like Bruce, a redundant thought now that they knew Danny was a clone, but it crossed Damian’s mind all the same. It was odd to see the still slightly sunken cheeks and too prominent collar bones on someone that looked so much like Father, so much more like Father than Damian did.

Idly, Damian wondered if Danny would ever reach Father’s stature, what with his past. Damian himself had started to grown into wild shoulders and broad chest that would someday be his body over the last year, but Danny had not.

Danny, at least a year older, was still far too slight.

But older.

The oldest blood.

Would he try to take Damian’s place now? It would only be just, with how poorly Damian had behaved when he first arrived, especially to Drake. And Damian’s brash attacks, Danny would have the right to his. He was oldest…

“Are… are you alright?”

Damian’s head snapped up at Danny’s words. When had he lost his focus?

“I do not know,” Damian said, too honest words tumbling across his tongue without his permission.

He didn’t know.

[solshii]

Hello! Are we allowed to draw your scumpony designs? :D i love them so much and i wanna draw fanart :)

If not, thats totally okay too! Have a nice day!

hello anon!!

of course you're allowed to draw them <333 my original intent was actually for their designs to be used by others hahaha it would make my day to see how my designs would be used

thank you so much for your love and interest, i cherish it all very much <33

here's background practice as a treat:)

[uramichi-mybeloved]

I love being an insane person because I can sit and think about Hobbits all day every day and never get tired of spinning those little dudes in my head.

-Personal headcanon that Hobbits in general are incredibly fond of spices and herbs and therefore each family has a signature blend that they use for their cooking. Big talking point at parties and gatherings trying to work out what they all are

-Also goes for things like sourdough bread starter and yeast cultures for ales, where some family have them as heirloom items

-It’s known that some from Buckland can swim and due to being less afraid of the water I think they’d be a big source of fish throughout the Shires through trading with woodland areas for different meat

-I love the idea of them using the “flower languages” and putting messages in their hair or on their clothing like that they’re looking for love, have interesting gossip, remembering a lost loved one on that day etc

-Zero context except for the movies being filmed in New Zealand but they would use kiwi birds like pigeons to be messenger/letter carriers

I know there’s definitely more I’ve thought about but forgot :)

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Reptilia - Columbiformes

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order of birds are the Columbiformes, containing birds commonly known as either “doves” or “pigeons”. It contains one family, Columbidae, with 51 genera divided into 353 species, one of the most diverse families of birds.

Columbiformes are stout-bodied birds with small heads, short legs, relatively short necks, slender bills, and often fleshy ceres. There is no scientific distinction between “doves” and “pigeons”; some columbiformes are simply commonly called “doves” while others are called “pigeons”. Most species have large wings and strong flight muscles, and are some of the strongest fliers of all birds. They are largely herbivorous, feeding on seeds, fruit, and/or foliage. A few species will also eat worms, snails, and insects. Species that feed on seeds tend to be dully colored, while species that feed on fruit are usually colorful. Columbiformes are distributed in almost every terrestrial habitat on Earth, except for the driest areas of the Sahara Desert, Antarctica and its surrounding islands, and the high Arctic.

Columbiformes are known for building rather flimsy nests, using sticks, vegetable matter, and other debris, which may be placed on trees, on rocky ledges, or on the ground, depending on species. The female may either build the nest, with material gathered by the male, or the male builds the nest by himself. A few species nest colonially, others nest in aggregations. Most lay a clutch of one or two white eggs at a time which take 11-30 days to hatch. Both parents care for the young, and both sexes produce "crop milk" to feed their young. This fluid is secreted by a sloughing of epithelial cells from the lining of the crop. Unfledged baby Columbiformes are called “squabs” and are generally able to fly by five weeks old. Fledglings are called “squeakers” once they are weaned, and leave the nest after 25–32 days.

Columbiformes has origins dating back to the Cretaceous, though they did not begin diversifying until after the K-Pg extinction event. Modern Columbids emerged in the Early Miocene.

Propaganda under the cut:

The Domestic Pigeon (Columba livia domestica) was domesticated from the Rock Dove (Columba livia) in the Mediterranean region at least 2000–5000 years ago. They were domesticated for food, ritual sacrifices, and as messengers. One breed, the Homing Pigeon (also known as the Carrier Pigeon), was especially used as a messenger as it was selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. Today, pigeon fanciers use Homing Pigeons for long-distance pigeon racing. Released or abandoned Homing Pigeons have turned into large feral populations all over the world, usually in large cities as the domestic birds still depend on humans for food. As the world’s oldest domesticated bird, they are still popular pets, and the bird species most suited for a pet lifestyle, with around 800 breeds in a variety of different shapes, colors, and sizes.

Cher Ami was a male Homing Pigeon known for his military service during World War I. The Domestic Pigeon was awarded a Croix de Guerre Medal, a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fanciers, and posthumously became the second recipient of the Animals in War & Peace Medal of Bravery. His last message saved 194 men who were caught between the Germans and a barrage of friendly fire. Like the two pigeons who had been released before him, Cher Ami was shot down by the Germans. But after several seconds, he managed to take flight again. Cher Ami made it 40 km (25 miles) back to his loft in just 25 minutes, with a gunshot wound through his breast, a blinded eye, and one leg hanging on by a tendon. The Lost Battalion was saved, while medics worked to save Cher Ami’s life. When he recovered enough to travel, the now one-legged bird was put on a boat to the United States, where he retired for two months before his death.

Some populations of European Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur) migrate over 5,000 km (3,107 miles) between northern Europe in the summer and tropical Africa in the winter.

The largest living pigeon is the turkey-sized Victoria Crowned Pigeon (Goura victoria) (see gif above) of New Guinea. It is typically 73 to 75 cm (2.4 to 2.5 ft) long, with an average weight of 2.39 kg (5.3 lb). Some specimens may exceed a length of 80 cm (2.6 ft) and a weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 lb).

Meanwhile, the Plain-breasted Ground Dove (Columbina minuta) is one of the smallest columbiformes, at 14.5–16 cm (5.5–6.5 in) long with a weight of 24–42 g (0.85–1.48 oz). The Dwarf Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus nainus) is heavier but shorter, with a total length of 13–15 centimetres (5.1–5.9 in).

Some extinct Columbiformes are some of the most famous recently extinct birds, and extinct animals in general…

The Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was a wild pigeon native only to North America. They were once considered the most numerous birds in North America, with pigeon meat commercialized as cheap food, resulting in mass hunting for decades. The Passenger Pigeon required large breeding flocks in order to reproduce, and as its numbers declined it could not reproduce effectively. Widespread deforestation in the 19th century also destroyed breeding habitat. Martha, considered to be the last Passenger Pigeon, died on September 1 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo. The closest living relatives of Passenger Pigeons are pigeons of the genus Patagioenas, such as the Ruddy Pigeon (Patagioenas subvinacea).

Another famous extinct columbiform is the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus). Dodos were large, flightless pigeons, adapted to the relative absence of predators on the island of Mauritius. It was first recorded by Dutch sailors in 1598, and its relative fearlessness subsequently made it an easy meal for sailors making a “pit stop” on the island. Despite this, the main cause of their extinction was likely the introduction of invasive animals (domestic pigs, macaques, domestic dogs, domestic cats, and rats) to the island, which would have plundered the Dodos’ nests, hunted the Dodos’ chicks, and/or hunted the Dodos themselves. At the same time, humans destroyed the forest habitat of the Dodos. The last widely accepted sighting of a Dodo was in 1662. Even though the rareness of the Dodo was reported already by the 17th century, its extinction was not recognised until the 19th century. This was partly because, for religious reasons, extinction was not believed possible until later proven by Georges Cuvier, and also because many scientists doubted that the Dodo had ever even existed. The bird was first used as an example of human-induced extinction in Penny Magazine in 1833, and has since been referred to as an "icon" of extinction. The Dodo’s closest relative was the also extinct, swan-sized, flightless Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), which shared a similar fate. Their closest living relative is the Nicobar Pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica), which is near threatened.

The Socorro Dove (Zenaida graysoni), which once lived on Socorro Island off the west coast of Mexico, has been extinct in the wild since 1972, with only around 156 existing in captivity. The primary reason for their extinction was the introduction of Domestic Cats to the island. Another reason was the establishment of a military base on the island, and overgrazing due to the introduction of Domestic Sheep. Efforts are underway to breed Socorro Doves for reintroduction into the wild, but the island must first be clear of Domestic Cats and Sheep. Almost all privately owned Socorro Doves, as well as several in the captive breeding program, are likely hybrids between Socorro Doves and Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura). Suspected hybrids are not used for the reintroduction breeding program.

[yetanotherexhaustedalchemist]

Yet more TWST HCs

Cater likes gossiping with the living paintings around campus. He tells them all the modern-day student tea and they tell him about the drama that went down two centuries ago in return. (He has acquired a surprising amount of blackmail material on the staff through this.)

If Lilia can't find Silver anywhere, the first place he checks is Scarabia. That's because whenever Kalim finds Silver asleep in a weird place, he gets Carpet to scoop Silver up and take him back for a nice place to nap.

Fellow/Ernesto is LUCKY that the event ended the way it did. If he actually succeeded in capturing everyone (and not imminently letting them go), he would have had some of the most powerful people and organizations in the world after him. (Is this even a headcanon? Idk)

Ace can do the splits. Idk why this makes sense to me. He's not very flexible besides that though, somehow

When he's particularly annoyed at Azul and Floyd, Jade leaves pebbles and gravel in hidden places that they'll only notice when they're going to use it (like in Floyd's shoes or in the jar for Azul's quill ink).

Yuu and Ruggie form a pact after Chapter 2 where they exchange chores and errands sometimes. Like if Yuu takes care of the laundry, Ruggie will do the shopping and drop Yuu's groceries off at Ramshackle. Later, Jamil joins the pact as well. (In return for a good dinner, they'll take care of Kalim for however long he needs for a break.)

Vil does a great job of making any trans/nonbinary students in Pomefiore feel welcome and at home. He offers haircuts, make up and fashion advice, voice training and more to anyone who asks.

Riddle is very sheltered when it comes to romance, even when it doesn't regard himself. Because of this, he has a tendency to assume a couple are just friends despite how close they are (like Vil and Rook) or think a duo is already a couple (Adeuce). This has led to many miscommunications and unintentionally funny situations.

Kalim actually does invite Malleus to a lot more events than he thinks, but the invitation always ends up getting lost due to improbable chains of errors.

Rook's family is from the Shaftlands nearby Fleur City, but they've lived in the Sunset Savannah for several generations.

Yuu's come up with a Fun Little Game for Friday game nights (usually with the first years but anyone who's interested is welcome) where Yuu tells them about a historical event from their world and everyone has to guess if it actually happened, or if Yuu's just making things up. Every time they think they've figured things out, Yuu hits them with a "the country that declared war on birds and lost is an actual thing that happened".

I don't think literally anything in-game suggests this, but. Hey. Memories from the 'lost in a book' events, while they vanish out of the books, carry over to other books. So when appearing in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Yuu, Riddle and Azul get all their memories from Stitch's Tropical Turbulence flooding back.

When Silver was young, there were a few occasions where he wanted to do something that was exclusive to rainy days (jumping in puddles, looking for frogs/worms or just listening to the rain, ect) but it was sunny with no chance of it raining. If he was ever particularly disappointed, Lilia would just so happen to mention the problem to Malleus. It could start raining minutes later. (Did he do it? Of course not, what a silly question.)

Ruggie usually avoids Jade (fair, he's terrifying), but they've had a few good conversations about common edible plants. It was surprisingly informative for them both. Jade now sometimes 'just so happens' to bump into Ruggie and continues the discussion, and Ruggie is smart enough to not bring up how convenient it all is.

Silver often helps pigeons build their nests. He's also unexpectedly passionate about messenger pigeons, and how messed up it is that they were bred to be messengers and then called dirty when they weren't useful anymore.

Yuu does this thing where they say the most insane, out-of-left-field things which baffle their friends, then when they're asked about it later, they swear they don't remember saying that. (It's usually something vaguely prophetic, exhausted and annoyed, or about The Mouse.)

[magnetothemagnificent]

Just had a shower idea about an alternative history where the Second Beit HaMikdash is still around in modern times....

-The field of dermatology is dominated by Cohanim because they're the only ones who can diagnose tzara'at and they want to be as educated as possible

-Airlines that fly to Israel are built to have livestock storage for people bringing korbanot

-Pigeons never became feral en masse, at least in Israel and in areas with a high population density of Jews, because dove-keeping stayed extremely prevalent due to their use in korbanot

-Price caps were enacted on transportation to and from Israel during the pilgrimage seasons

-The astronomical observatories in Israel are considered sacred sites because of their usage in determining the months.

-The old method of fires on high points to announce the new month is still used in Israel and some nearby regions because of tradition, but once Jews became established further and further across the globe, a communication center was established in the Temple compound. At first, it used messenger pigeons, horseback runners, and ships. It was upgraded once the telegram was invented, then again when audio radios were invented, again when telephones were invented, again when television was invented, and again when the Internet was invented.