#he's windstille for me

[sad-sad-detective]

Windstille: I had a lot of standards.

Windstille: And yet somehow, this idiot-

Windstille: gestures to Ifrit

Windstille: -managed to drop-kick them out of a window and take their place.

[beholdenning]

Lukas couldn't help but feel left out whenever he saw the others communicate with Denning with hand gestures. Despite all the people who travel through the Valley Approach, the culture itself has always been on the conservative side, never quick to accept new ideas or ways of being. Signs were used in patrols, not casual conversation. Anyone who couldn't use their words would easily find themselves left behind and forgotten...

Lukas waves Denning over. He refuses to let the language barrier come between him and someone who's proven themselves to be a steadfast, reliable ally. His grasp on signs is rough, just cobbled together from what he's observed from the others, but he still tries.

"You did very well, Denning. Thank you for all of your help." His hands don't quite capture the message, 'You were good. Very strong. Thank you.' "I hope it's not too much to ask, but... would you be able to teach me about your sign language?" 'Help. Teach me to speak with hands.' "I teach speech classes. How to talk to other people and communicate what you want to say. I think this sort of thing would be valuable for the other students to learn." 'Teach my talking class. They need help and they are happy to be taught.

If anything, Lukas hopes the genuine smile on his face conveys how grateful he is for Denning's help in these battles.

Many of his kin are unthinking, unspeaking; There is no need for either when they all know the same strategies, have the same directives, when they are all bound so by their duty. One falls into step where the other has fallen, marching forth like clockwork, as soldiers that only exist as ideals, as simulated pieces upon a board.

Humanity is a double-edged blade, in that way. It is both the weakness and strength they noticed in the students, the failings and the surprising points where they excelled, struggling against impossible odds. Perhaps it was merely the miracle of their stage. Perhaps...

... He would have to fight by them more often to be sure. But when the man with hair of russet-red waves him over, Denning is sure of one thing; That this man had not escaped their scrutiny for want of competence or skill, but because those who are most skilled, most steady, most integral to the group, oft do not fall into notice until they are struck down. Each time, their scattering formation was due to this man's fall.

Yes, he is steady and true, like a rock, like arrow-flight on a windstill day. The morph trots to him after a brief pause, hands by his sides, not expecting three of their number to know sign; And is surprised when he does, even if it is halting, uncertain not like one taught or one remembering, but one who is improvising. Golden eyes widen the barest of fractions, before Denning's hands come up to rest in idle, ready to give a reply...

The compliments roll of him like water from swan-feathers, though the smile is noted, but the request surprises him; Not only to teach one, but teach many...? The morph, knight, Instructor, as Nanna had dubbed him, had tried to fulfill that role once, and though the girl was, is satisfied, he is not. Teaching when he is meant to learn; It is an experience not unlike telling a cat to sit and roll over, or a dog to leap from height and land unharmed.

Still, it is hardly a contemplation. Would you and Teach are at odds — One a request, the other a command. Still, both ring the same to the morph's mind, and the word need is a potent one, indeed, so they nod in affirmative, moving their hands slowly that he may parse;

'if you wish it, i will.' Then, a pause. 'you know my name. may i know yours?'

[wanderella-w]

Rosas last day (day 41)

Today was a good day to be Rosa's last day! It was a beautiful 19km walk through woods and along beaches and cliffs. It was Monday, so it was not busy at all. Actually, because it was also mostly windstill, it was often really quiet which was nice.

We did meet some other hikers though, one SWCP hiker (doing a four-day stretch) who was faster than everyone but also stopped and talked with everyone he would meet, and one older man who asked us if we were the two girls doing the whole path, who was member of the South West Coast Path association. He had also completed the whole path.

We also filtered some water again:

We found a wild camp spot pretty much where we predicted (6km before Brixham) and went for a swim at the beach that was five minutes away. After that we relaxed in the sun by a bench, had tea and biscuits and then dinner, before we moved to our camping spot and set up our tent. It is nice that it stays light for so long because now there is no rush with setting up the tent anymore. It was again warm and we stayed outside for quite a bit. Oh and we performed a small operation on my ring finger to get out a splinter from two weeks ago when I fell into a a goarse bush. It went successfully 👍.

Rosa will walk with me until lunch before she goes to Leeds where she will meet her boyfriend. Together they will do another trail, the coast-to-coast path.

My plan was to start with the Pennine Way soon but I've decided I rather want to finish the South West Coast Path first and then maybe still do a part of the Pennine Way, but not all of it. I will walk alone until Friday, and from then on I will be joined by Roger:))

[delicatefury]

Random thoughts during Lent

Pretty sure I’m getting sick. Or my allergies have decided this is the year they kill me. Either or.

Found out yesterday that Methodists have a tabernacle candle in their sanctuaries but not a tabernacle. I was very confused about the purpose of the candle then, but every attempt to google it led me back to the Catholic tradition (which I know). Thankfully, a friend was able to explain it to me. Kinda.

2 of 3 cats escaped yesterday. Terrapin returned himself soon after we started looking. Telly was found under the neighbor’s bushes. At 11 PM. I was starting to get concerned about them calling the cops on us for sneaking around their front yard with flashlights.

My parents’ puppy (German Shepherd, 7 months old, already bigger than Major, all indications are that he will be a beast when full grown) starts his play fights with Major by grabbing his collar and trying to wrestle him to the ground. I’d feel bad for Major except this is the exact same way he plays with Lags, so I feel it’s only karma.

(Of course I’d intervene if Major OR Lags was in distress when they play like this. But every time I catch them in the act they act more like it’s a younger sibling yanking the back of their hoodie to get their attention. Not pleasant, but not going to do any lasting harm.)

We ordered 3 more trees for the orchard. They should arrive this week. 2 pears and a cherry. The cherry is self-pollinating. I’ve staked out their locations and Dad and I will dig the holes and plant them once they get to the farm. So that’s 4 trees now.

I’m not worried about pollination. If my sister’s flower garden is any indication, there is a healthy population of honeybees either living in our woods or visiting from a neighbor’s apiary. I’m sure they’ll love the orchard blossoms too.

The apple tree (two varieties grafted together so technically self-pollinating) has powdery mildew. I am now committed to spraying neem oil after church for the foreseeable future.

Spraying fruit trees in the Midwest is an experience. It’ll be perfectly windstill until you hit the trigger, then the wind will suddenly be blowing right in your face.

I’m gonna ask my dad for a face shield next week.

Farm supply store has chicks. Pretty sure my older sister is getting my dad a nice little chicken coop for his birthday whether he wants it or not. Dad owes my eldest niece a pet chicken after all. (Our flock will be one pet chicken and 20 laying hens/idiot roosters).

Do not try to upsell me a store credit card after I swallow my pride, ask about where to find cat food and puppy food, and you tell me it’s all sold out. Saving 10% means nothing to me when I can’t find the things I’m there to buy. All you have accomplished is multiplying my reasons to be upset.

Rune Factory 5 will be here Tuesday. My week will be compromised after that. I am fully aware of the absurdity of a farm kid enjoying farm sims as much as I do. My dad’s been pointing it out since I was 10.

I’ve also been pointing out since I was 10 that i’ve never gotten severe sunburn or been nearly run down by a hog while playing a farm sim. It’s an “agree to disagree” situation.

I’ve been invited to go caving next weekend. My desire to get out of my comfort zone is in a pitched battle with my claustrophobia and general unease at the idea of being underground. Doesn’t help that the cave I’ve been invited to is the same one where I discovered said issues. Expand my horizons is winning. But barely. I expect a few nightmares about it this week.

I discovered this week that there is a Lush store literally 5 minutes from work. At like the nicest mall in the entire city. This is an unfair temptation that I failed utterly to resist this week.

There’s a new local yarn shop that opened up in a slightly newer location down the street. I went to find some lace weight yarn and inadvertently was the deciding factor for the owner to order cashmere yarn. Which won’t be here for at least a week or two after she orders it. So I bought a lot of cotton yarn for my spring pi-shawl. Thankfully i mainly need it to keep my shoulders covered during Mass.

Between the LYS and Lush, my commitment to being debt free within the year (not counting student loans) is going to be severely tested.

BTW, I love doing lace work in the round. I’m so friggin excited about this shawl. My impossible goal is to finish it by Easter. Not gonna happen, but I’m gonna try!

I CAN’T WAIT ANOTHER WEEK FOR ONE PIECE CHAPTER 1044! I APPRECIATE YOU LOOKING OUT FOR YOUR HEALTH ODA-SAN, (You have to survive sir. Too many great creators have died before finishing their amazing projects, please don’t join them) BUT THAT CLIFFHANGER WAS CRUEL!

I am so friggin exhausted. I’m probably going to pass out soon after posting this. See y’all next week.

[nevaryadl]

Kuai Liang/Hanzo Hasashi

“Plum sake.”

Kuai Liang looked at him, cocking an eyebrow.

The tournament that they had discussed their last visit, was still in the works. All participants were excited, including Cage and team, as well as both their students. Location and time was currently the main issue, the earthrealm team currently busy doing ops and the students always getting drilled with lesson after lesson. And a neutral third platform to host it was also posing a slight problem, as it seemed that with the numerous fighting that they all did, most everyone knew any good places intimately.

Right now they were enjoying another visit, Hanzo in Kuai’s temple. He had brought the bottle, something that he had purchased because he had no idea how to make sake on his own and did not want to make a homebrew that blinded his friend.

Kuai took the bottle as Hanzo sat next to him, their knees brushing. Kuai had been sitting on a windstill, enjoying the cloudy and gentle snow falling outside. Hanzo assumed that if it was snowing, then they would be seeing the sunset. This would do. Hanzo had been growing to admire the beauty of snow and cold lately.

“What is the occasion?” Kuai Liang asked.

“Does it need an occasion?” Hanzo asked back with a lot more bite then he wanted, hiding his embarrassment by digging two sake cups out of his belt pouch and holding one out for Kuai Liang to take. Thankfully, Kuai Liang did not appear too fazed by his snippy tone.

“Hmm… maybe not… you do seem agitated though,” Kuai Liang said, taking the cup and pouring them both a drink before sipping his carefully.

“A… bit… I have been thinking, pondering... overthinking and over-pondering most definitely,” Hanzo sighed unhappily before he sipped his drink. “About the future, about the present…”

Kuai Liang cocked an eyebrow again.

Hanzo sighed loudly, trying to put his hectic thoughts and feelings into words that made sense. Truthfully he had not come here with a plan other then ‘drink with new friend’ and now that he wanted to do more, that plan was falling apart and Hanzo was burning with shame underneath his skin.

“About building and growing after so long after destroying and fighting. Defend instead of attack. Friends and allies over a world of enemies,” Hanzo rattled off. “Healing over revenge.”

Kuai Liang hummed thoughtfully.

“Looking around instead of being single minded,” Hanzo finished lamely.

“The future is new and open and you’re trying to adapt to how new it is? The options rather then the lonely road?” Kuai Liang said for him.

“Yes,” Hanzo admitted and then laughed at himself. “And truthfully? Visiting you is nice but I am reminded of all the times I lashed out unjustly at you. Or attacked you. Or greatly harmed you. I am reminded of that past that is slowly coming to haunt me.”

“Most of the time you had good reason at least,” Kuai Liang smirked.

“And some of those times, I did not,” Hanzo shot back.

“But we shall move on. I forgive you for your previous actions and believe that you wish to change and move forward,” Kuai Liang smiled softly, setting some of Hanzo’s agitated nerves to ease. A heavy and cold hand softly grabbed onto his shoulder and squeezed. “I suppose all that remains is that you forgive yourself?”

“You say it like it such an easy thing,” Hanzo chuckled sadly.

“I never said it would be easy. What matters is that you try,” Kuai Liang smirked. That cold and comforting hand was still on his shoulder. Hanzo shrugged casually before taking that hand in his.

“Let’s speak of something lighter. Can you ice beat my fire?”

“We should see!” Kuai Liang smirked.

Hot and cold, fire and ice, the difference easily started making a quickly thickening stream of steam rise from their hands. The pale blue tint to Kuai Liang’s hands grew more vibrant and more blue as the flesh of Hanzo’s arm grew first pink and then darkening and startling shade of red. Ice shards started to grow from Kuai’s skin as the ice grew more intense and colder. Patches of his skin started to glow with heat and he could almost taste the fire on his tongue.

Fire and ice and yet they managed.

They had to stop when the room started to fill up with too much steam and a worried students happened to be in the hallway and saw the excess leaking out. They laughed at their childish behavior. Levity in the face of the momentary heaviness.

They returned to the bottle and spoke of lighter things, smiles still dancing on their lips with the taste of plum sake.

[sad-sad-detective]

Windstille suffers from arthritis in his hands. Ifrit often holds his hands to warm them and ease the pain.

That's it, that's the whole post.

[sad-sad-detective]

@ktoto-franny-side, answering your questions!

How ghouls look in general:

My ideas about ghouls' appearance are pretty general, tbh, inspired by classic depictions of evil spirits like chorti or biesy in Slavic folklore. As a species, ghouls are humanoid creatures with grey skin, pointy ears, horns of various shape and tails. Their body types are different, though quintessence and fire ghouls tend to be bigger and stronger while air and water ghouls are more ectomorphic. Fire ghouls also have darker skin on their hands and tails, like they are covered in soot. Dew, being a fire hybrid, has such markings too, but they are only sligthly darker than his skin color (I always forget to draw them, shame on me!). Their faces are human-like too, though I like to imagine them somehow animalistic. For example, Alpha's features remind of a tiger, especially when he's enraged or disgusted. Yeah, big cats from Hell. Ghouls have either paws or hooves, I hc that it depends of their habitat rather than their element. You can guess what part of Hell a certain ghoul comes from by the shape of their feet. Among the ghouls mentioned in "Rainbow", Windstille and Mountain have hooves. Mountain also has antlers, and Windstille has European mouflon horns (same goes for Ifrit). As for the shape of horns, this feature is similar to eye color and depends only on the genetics. As for wings, I don't think ghouls have them. It is more of angel feature.

I really really want to draw all ghouls from "Rainbow" and make character sheets for the band ghouls! Maybe, someday…

"Rainbow": "Rainbow"'s main focus remains on Dew and Aeth. I wanted to write their story from the moment I joined Ghost fandom. But "Rainbow" is a part of a bigger story, of a verse, if I can say so. But I try to give all important characters their share of "screen time", and some of them tend to steal the spotlight! Like Ifrit did, and Swiss will (yeah, expect to meet Swiss in the upcoming chapter).

[sad-sad-detective]

Alright, some time ago I mentioned that I turned Windstille into a DnD character. Four sessions later I finally decided to draw the old ram for my Roll20 profile.

Somehow he reminds me of Bela Lugosi now...

[sad-sad-detective]

Hello about that one fic with guitar tech dewdrop I was wondering what amusement park ride would the memebers of that fic be would they be rollercoasters or chill rides

Hello!

Well, they can split up! The band ghouls would go for rollercoasters, even Mist. And believe me, she'd enjoy every minute of it, laughing and yelling, while Omega would hold on to Alpha for dear life.

Aether would go to the ferris wheel and take Dew with him, and Dew is afraid of height, but he just cannot say no to Aether. He'd sit very still and try to enjoy the view. Later Aether would buy him a big cotton candy to soothe his nerves.

Ifrit would go to a rollercoaster too, but he'd get sick.

Mountain isn't a big fan of amusement rides but he'd stuff his face with candy apples and maybe try to win some prizes in the games.

Echo would prefer merry-go-rounds, old-fashioned ones, with horses. Ignis would say he's too old for a merry-go-round, so he'd just wait outside and watch Echo enjoy themselves.

Windstille would probably go to the ferris wheel too.

And after that they all would team up again and go to the haunted house (if this particular amusement park has one). I hope they'd have mercy on the actors who work there.

[sad-sad-detective]

Windstille has grandchildren if so what age are they and what is the genders if you don't mind me asking as I saw something saying he had grandchildren

Hello!

Technically they are not his grandchildren - they are his apprentices, but Windstille treats them as if they were his own flesh and blood. They call him Grandfather as a sign of respect.

They are a small pack of Air ghouls, and they all are organists too. Windstille taught them to play and repair the church organs.

There are six of them: Talwind (he/him, the oldest of them), Khamsin (he/him), Gregale (he/him), Meltemia (she/her), Breeze (she/her, an OC of my friend), Levant (he/him, the youngest).

(They all are named after different types of winds)