#i broke my back carrying my money mountain

[lurkeryan]

Leaning over to my date while we're watching Brokeback Mountain and whispering to her "that happened to me too true story"

[recurring-polynya]

Izakaya Kamenoya, part 2

Last week, I did a post on the Izakaya Kamenoya, the favorite watering hole of the Gotei-13 middle management, and I promised you a follow-up with interior shots for everyone who, like me, immediately wanted to incorporate it into their fanfic.

So, here's the entrance!

It appears to have a big main room, with a bar on one side, and tables lined up in a row on the other.

Note: I am obsessed with the shihakushou-wearing bartender. Is the Seireitei a Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano scenario, where you need to get a degree in soul-reaping just to tend bar? Is this an officer's bar, staffed by unseated people (which sort of defeats the point of separate bars where you can get get drunk and talk smack about your subordinates) Or is the bar a co-op of some sort, and this guy just pulled mixologist duty this week?

Ahem!

There are also private rooms! Kyouraku and Amagai get one in 172, and then they seem to have the same one when they come back with Ukitake in 179. I think it's kind funny that they don't have sword racks or something? Kyouraku's got his propped against the wall, and Amagai's are on the floor. I think Ukitake left his at home. More evidence that you are, in fact, allowed to carry your zanpakutou in the court as long as you don't draw it, in times without a wartime exemption.

Kira and Hisagi seem to have a very similar, if not the same room in episode 305, although theirs is plastered with ads. I wonder if this is like the "Kindle with Special Offers" where it's cheaper if you take the room with flyers and Kira and Hisagi are nothing if not broke.

The lady lieutenants get a private room for their zanpakutou spirit going-away party, as well. I can't really tell if their room is bigger, or if Amagai and Kyouraku just have a lot more space in theirs. I imagine they probably have a couple different sizes of private rooms at different cost levels.

Speaking of cost levels! Rukia and Renji appear to have an entirely different private room in Episode 355! It's got cool patterned paper in the fusuma (or maybe those are supposed to be paintings of mountains?) They've got a much fancier live-edge table. If you go by counting tatami, this room does seem to be a little bigger. The shouji has a solid panel at the bottom-- Wikipedia tells me that this is called a kōshi, and is to protect against the door getting wet or kicked, so I almost wonder if this opens to the outside. Does Izakaya Kamenoya have a garden? Outdoor drinking for the summer? Also, I think it's notable that most people tend to show up in their work clothes, but Rukia and Renji have clearly dressed up for their Private Room at the Chili's Date.

The question is: is this Kamenoya's Deluxe Room for People with Kuchiki Money, or did they upscale sometime in the 17-month timeskip? Does...does the Seireitei have gentrification?

Fortunately, Izakaya Kamenoya makes one more appearance in the my favorite fanfic, the end credits to Episode 366, proving that, thank goodness, it is still an affordable drinks location where you can go get ripped and sob about your boss.

[bones-barlow]

I Made Battery Acid Spaghetti (Don't Make Battery Acid Spaghetti)

A thing to know about me is that I have a very strong, very regrettable weakness for awful hybrid junk food. Icee-flavored Oreos, Sour Patch Kids ice cream, Cheetos macaroni and cheese, the list goes on. Combine this with a slight contrarian streak, and perhaps it was inevitable that I would eventually try "Battery Acid Spaghetti".

You've probably seen the post. Sour rainbow gummy candy, peeled into long thin strings and submerged in cheap energy drink to create a vile little concoction, invariably followed by a crowd of people saying "don't do this". Ever since the original post broke containment and started to circulate on Reddit, there was always a little voice in the back of my head telling me to try it. However, the mere mixture of gummy candy and energy drink was never enough to push me over the edge.

No, the real kicker was when the post re-circulated through r/CuratedTumblr last week, and one user commented:

Now THIS got my mind working. I don't like Mountain Dew, but the grocery store where I do my shopping carries a variety of energy drinks in a variety of flavors, including a brand called "Ghost". Ghost in particular has several flavors that taste like types of candy: Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, and, most relevant to this post, Warheads. Unable to resist the siren song of garbage food-adjacent-substances that are bad for me, I made a few purchases and concocted the infamous little brew. For science, you understand.

After peeling some Airheads Xtremes into strips and pouring a Sour-Green-Apple-Warheads-Flavored-Energy-Drink over the top, the thing I immediately noticed was that the drink did, in fact, slightly solidify. Through some chemical reaction, a thin white film formed on top of the 'broth' almost immediately, and it was solid enough to fish out bits of it with a fork. There was no going back from here. I wasn't going to back down or let my hard-earned money go to waste. Chow time.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect in terms of flavor. Airheads Xtremes and Warheads are both sour, of course, but there's sweetness to both, and Ghost mimics their candy flavors nigh perfectly. The combination should probably be similar, right? Well, yes and no. The candy itself retained most of its sweetness, the sour crystals having washed off and dissolved into the Ghost. The drink was where most of the sourness went. These were expected. What wasn't expected was a third flavor: bitterness. The sourness of the candy and the drink was diluted through the sugarfree liquid and made something that was honestly kind of unpleasant to taste. What was more, once most of the candy had been finished, the liquid left had acquired a noticeable tint:

The Ghost wasn't quite colorless, but there was only a slight amount of coloration to it. With the candy having soaked in it for a bit, it had turned a sickly, cloudy shade of yellow. This did not help the flavor, and I only drank about half of what was in this picture and ended up pouring the rest of it down the drain, along with the remainder of the can of Ghost (totaling about half of the drink). From creation to completion, it took about 20 minutes.

Even this wasn't the end. The whole thing left a distinct stickiness in my mouth, and even after rinsing and gargling with warm water and eating some actual real food, it still isn't quite gone. This, when combined with my generally low tolerance for caffeine, has left me in an unpleasant and headachey funk.

So, what can I say I learned from this experience? Well, I may have set my expectations a bit too high. The perils of hyping oneself up, I suppose. I was not in terrible pain, my teeth didn't rot out of my head, and I certainly don't think I'd be able to use this stuff to mimic an actual battery. Nevertheless, I have come to the following conclusion:

Don't do this.

[realbeeing]

some reflections from a time past

for several months during the pandemic i was literally doing nothing. like no career, hardly seeing other people, just straight up flaneur type idleness. i was living in Peru for most of 2020 (and years prior as well). we were stranded there because they shut down all the airports. before the news broke we had already wanted to leave, but now we were stuck there. there was nothing to do. i had some freelance writing work i would do online, but i had no job in Peru except occasional volunteering to teach kids art, but of course that had to be halted. i also gradually stopped responding to writing assignments for some reason. i was listless. and now we couldn't move freely around, we couldn't get a mototaxi into town, we couldn't go to a cafe and meet up with the few friends we had. we lived several miles from the main town, and probably 1 or 2 miles from a tiny village with like 2 stores that sold only laundry detergent and chips and fruit. we lived up on a mountain. every day i would check facebook groups to see if maybe the borders would reopen. i was trying to scheme all sorts of ways to get out and back to NY, maybe rent a car and drive all the way back. problem is there is no way of passing between South and Central America by road. then i fantasized about taking a random bus to some other Peruvian city. just to get out of this valley, i literally felt like i was caged by mountains. maybe the jungle could be nice, maybe down south in the plains. but in reality i was already in one of the more touristy centers of Peru, why would i go somewhere even more remote and lacking in Western comforts. which we had very little of already. not comforts like sushi restaurants and nail salons, more like good drinking water and health clinics. i did crave real cheese and trader joes chocolate peanut butter cups, but that was obviously out of the question.

the Peruvian government allowed one day for shopping a week and for some reason men had to be separated from women. so i had to walk all the way into town (a few miles each way) by myself. it was something to do at least. when you reached the market, a security guard made you spin around as they sprayed you with something, maybe bleach? a mode of disinfecting i suppose. they had a list of all the foreigners' names and kept track of when we would leave and go into town. i had to load up my bags with as much stuff as i could carry back, resting many times along the way. it was so eerily quiet everywhere.

anyway i had an idea i would write a book. so every day after breakfast i would climb up the steep mountainside behind our house, which had corn fields that belonged to someone who never seemed to come around. i'd just hunker down there with a huge bag of coca leaves which i was addicted to at this point, but didnt realize it. i actually didnt know for a time that coca was the basis for cocaine. i just thought they were nice leaves. i would chew coca with llipta and write manically in my notebook. eventually it did get typed up into a word doc but when i read it back i'm not sure it makes much sense. it was a strange time. i was in between worlds. i had already left the peruvian ayahuasca cult i'd been in for 2 years, and now lived on my own with my partner. but i had no idea what was next. i was so resistant to go back to the "real world" which i saw as oppressive and fake. i didnt know what i wanted to do or who i wanted to be. besides the fact that i wanted to be a rebel or free spirit. but i didn't feel that free, i had no money and no future vision and was scraping by on a flimsy ideal. rent was only like $400 which was great. we had spent months getting legal residence and were now able to live in the country, potentially forever if we wanted to. but i didn't want to anymore, even after all that effort, and i felt despondent. my digestive system had never fully adjusted to a third world country. my lungs struggled with the altitude. my partner and i were sick a lot. we still lived down the road from the cult. it had been a baby step in the right direction to get our own place but i needed a drastic change. i needed to escape out of this country, but couldn't. and even if i could, i had no idea what to do.

so instead i would wander through the mountains for hours, the winding dirt roads which seemed to keep going up and up into the beautiful clouds, passing the Mamitas who were carrying their verduras in a blanket on their backs or kids playing in the dusty chacras. our two dogs, who we had found on these same roads, would always follow along and sometimes other neighborhood dogs would join us, sometimes i was strolling with 8 dogs by my side. and when i was done and tired, i would just lay in any grassy patch i could find in the dry terrain and pull tarot cards over and over and write down the messages and smoke this potent Bolivian tobacco mix with calendula in it and scribble about art and philosophy until my hand went numb, with thick wads of leaves in my cheek. i never had a cavity before living in Peru and after i think i had to get like 6 filled.

when they opened up the airports again we immediately booked whatever ticket we could, which was to Panama, and then got a connecting flight there. we had to stay in Lima our last few days and i chewed my last few leaves in the hotel but i was already sick of it. i happily threw the rest to the wind, on a foggy rocky beach. with time to kill in Lima we got to see some old pyramids and i learned that it almost never rains there. the restaurants in Lima were the first ones where i saw QR codes on menus. that was so weird to me. we had arranged a convoluted travel itinerary for our dogs. i gained like 10 pounds immediately after getting back to America, it was like making up for lost time through ravioli. eventually i did figure out what to do, well that's kind of a lie, but thank God i don't feel listless like that anymore, trapped between worlds, i mostly feel in the flow of my commitments, with not enough time to get too existential about any of it

[3mutantsinatrenchcoat]

It takes a village to raise a family part 5

Part 4 , part 6

IM COMING TO GET YOU @angelpuns

Rural au made by the LOVELY lovely angel puns above-

I broke your heart once I'll do IT AGAIN WATCH ME-

Shrieking filled the air, the ground rumbled with the force of a thousand feet. A monsterous beast rose above the mountains and-

"AAHAHA!" Little Leo took off running as I chased him, Mikey screams as Leo tries to use him as a human shield.

"I'm going to eat ya!! Raaa!!!" I stomped towards them, hands held in the sky like a ferocious beast. Raph gets in front of them, legs shaking but a face of determination.

"you dare challenge the DESTRUCTOR-"

"no- no! Wrong name!" Mikey squeaks, cheeks puffed.

"oh uh-" I drop my arms trying to figure out the right name.

"you are da uh...da uh..." He looks around, spotting a few things.

"uh...wood-...grass...cloud-...Donnie!!" He lights up "the wood grass cloud Donnie!!"

Donnie from the porch screech's a little, wrapped in a blanket on a chair, dropping his book. "Why me!?"

"because you didn't share!" Mikey sticks his tongue out before shrieking as I ran towards them, the three kids taking off around the yard much faster than I can even walk.

I laugh evilly and roar out as best as my old voice could speak. "I'm coming to get you!! I am the terrible wood grass cloud Donnie and I shall have my revenge!!"

There were few days I had like this, the stall prices have gotten higher, so has everything. I hate being couped up in the house all day, sure I have my husband but lately he has been at work more and more.

------

"darlin," he told me, face turned to the window, wrapping cloth around his hands. "I'll be busier now, but do not worry, I don't need you to stress"

I looked up from my tea, setting the cup down as I turned to look at him "..may I ask why..?"

"...it doesn't concern you but, I've been asked to patrol the outside of the village" he looks over. "It will make double the money, it will be sent to you ever 10 days." He turned towards me, while he gave me a smile with not a single bit of worry..he is my husband. I could see the fear in his eyes, the way his ears went flat against his head.

"...promise me, you are not going to be in danger?" I turned towards him, letting his hands rest on either side of my face.

"you won't have to work another day my dear, if it means you will not stress.." he smiles, but he dodged my question...

----

It had been several weeks since that conversation, to keep my mind busy I've spent more time with the Turtle boys than at my own home. It was rare my husband would come back home, letters about animals and people he has met, about people he calls his brothers..."uhhh...Mr Flint?" Leo was about 2 feet in front of me, Mikey and Raph slowly approaching from both sides. The worry on their faces, they didn't understand.

I smiled at them, putting on a big smile "it's okay, don't worry, I was uh... trying to figure out how to be uh... scary?"

They didn't believe it.

"you are a terrible liar, Flint" Splinter approached us from the village, carrying a few paper wrapped items.

The kids shouted and gathered around him, smiling and giggling. I couldn't help but smile at them, taking a step forward before I saw the look on his face. It sent a rotted pit into the bottom of my stomach.

It was the face of a man who had more on his mind, like when he would space out...like when he was listening to his thoughts that were only talking for him. Taunting him.

Something... something is very wrong.

[arrow-gt-ace]

A Day At the Park

whoa what me actually writing a thing ?? this is a companion piece to this art I did a few days ago. i just had such a clear scenario in my head that this sorta just wrote itself asdfghk not much plot, just a bunch of scenes in the same setting strung together. _

“I would like to purchase a balloon, please.”

The poor vendor stared up at me, eyes wide. I had done my best to make myself seem smaller, crouching down and keeping my voice in a soft volume as I greeted him with a smile, but I suppose I was still rather intimidating from the small folk’s perspective. Despite the fact I had lowered myself to make conversation with the balloon seller easier, I still loomed far above the crowds. They moved like gentle waves at the beach, though they parted to allow myself space in a small radius. Whether this action was done out of respect or fear (or perhaps both) I cannot say for certain, but I could see out of the corner of my eye their gazes upon me as they passed.

For a moment the vendor of the cart was silent, before then asking in a somewhat trembling voice “Wh-what colour, sir?” “Hm…” I briefly mulled over my options, observing the colourful little floating bundle attached to the cart. Then, I pointed to my choice. “Pink, please. It’s such a lovely shade after all, almost like a flower.” The balloon seller took the lead of my chosen balloon off from the main bunch and I held out my hand with the money to him. “Sorry, these coins and bank notes are too small for me to separate them properly” I explained, “Please, take the amount you need.” He looked at me, then at my hand, then finally moved to take the fee. Then he held the balloon out and I carefully took the string between my forefinger and thumb. I thanked the man, and stood up. As I stood up, I deposited the remaining money into one of my pockets. I would need to determine a more suitable method of carrying it, given how minuscule and easy to lose track it was. Perhaps it would be better to swap its place with the money I had brought from home in my coin purse, though that would be done later. Seeing the little floating rose-colored toy I had just bought and the happy little park before me brought me great joy. Though I out-sized everything around me, the charm of the miniature amusement park spoke to my more carefree inclinations. And so I stayed in place for a moment, taking it in. I soon noticed that some of the small folk’s children had apparently began to think of me as part of the park itself. One girl had climbed up onto my shoe, shouting joyfully to her family as if she had triumphantly scaled a mountain. The child was then promptly ushered away by her concerned parents. A while later, another group and their young children had come. In much the same manner, the children broke away from their guardians and began to jump and run around at my feet. I chuckled and lowered myself towards them, setting my briefcase down beside myself. “Would it be all right if I let the children have a ride on my hand?” I asked the adults of their group. They agreed, and so I lowered my free hand to the young ones. They were quite excited, and shouted happily as I slowly raised my hand a responsible amount off the ground with the three of them on it. I then found myself surrounded by even more curious children and families. I gladly entertained them, allowing my hand to become a tunnel to hide in, or something to wrestle with. I raised and lowered my hand back and forth with them as cargo, and gently poked at them. Eventually, after some time, the small crowd that had gathered around me was satisfied and I sent off the last of them with a wave good-bye. Next, I picked my briefcase back up and decided to observe some of the more “grand” structures in the park. I slightly raised my heel to signal to the crowds to “please make way”, and when they did so, I stepped very carefully into the spot they had cleared for me, apologising to them for the inconvenience I had caused. I made my way through the crowd like this for a short bit, until I came up to what I had my sights set on.

An observation wheel, with a diameter that made it about as tall as I was, lazily rotated and gave the small folk onboard an opportunity to view the world at a level that must have been on par with my own. I stood by to watch it go through its rotation, and I believe I saw a few of the people inside its cabins wave at me as they reached its peak. “Hello, little people,” I said in return, smiling. Something else had caught my attention after a few moments. It was a roller coaster, speeding by on its tracks and completing a loop, much to the excitement of its passengers. I observed it for a few laps, quite mesmerized by the movement. I felt somewhat wistful at the fact that I wouldn’t be able to join the small folk on these rides, but observing was enough fun in its own right, given my own relatively unique perspective in this miniature world I found myself in. Then the ride came to a halt. It was mid-way through the loop this time, leaving its occupants in a rather uncomfortable position. I was very nearly convinced that this was just part of its routine somehow, but after a few minutes I felt the smallest of tugs at the leg of my trousers. When I looked down to see what had caused it, I saw someone who I assumed to be an operator of the ride, judging by her uniform. She seemed to be pleading with me, gesturing towards the roller coaster and perhaps saying something I couldn’t quite catch. It then became clear to me that the coaster stopping like that was unplanned, a malfunction of some sort apparently. Realising that I was capable of helping, I set down my briefcase and handed over my balloon to the ride operator to watch over while I dealt with it. I walked over to where the train had stopped and began to assess the situation. The most obvious solution to me at the time was to just take the entire train off the tracks. And so I began to do just that. The metal squeaked and popped as I started at one end of the train, twisting and pulling each cart until I felt each attachment point give. I spoke occasional reassurances to the passengers, apologising if I happened to jostle them a bit too much while I worked. As the train was gradually freed, I supported it with my unoccupied hand, and eventually the entirety of it came off the track. A celebration of cheers and clapping erupted from those onboard and on the ground as I righted the coaster train in my hands. I smiled down at them, and carefully placed the vehicle on the ground next to where the recently-arrived emergency response team was. I entrusted the rest to them, and after retrieving my items, I went on my way to enjoy the rest of the park.

I had spent the rest of the day simply people watching and enjoying the atmosphere around me from then on. With the rest of the tiny currency I had on me, I chose to sample the food offerings of the park stands. Though I would have liked to have had enough to fill up on, I wasn’t very fond of the idea of being a big greedy ruffian who takes everything from those smaller than himself and so I made do with just sampling.

The sun was beginning to set and I found that I had quite the enjoyable day. Though I may not have been able to partake in activities in the same way I would have back home, I enjoyed the time I spent nevertheless. And so, with my balloon in hand, I left the park.

[petitmonde]

Part of that Dragon Sasha x Dancer Anetra idea I talked about yesterday. Thank you so much @sweetlikesunflowersandhoney for entertaining the madness.

TW blood and a smidge of gore.

Into the Heart

Light danced across blades of green, dew drops glistening as the sun welcomed the day on the cold mountain, warming it with its gentle embrace. The forest awoke once more from its slumber, birds chirping and insects buzzing.

Dawn was Sasha's favourite time to take a walk through her domain, on two legs rather than four. Even as a dragon, Sasha enjoyed the mobility her humanoid form gave her. The animals left her alone, and it suited her just fine.

The greenery had grown back from the last time a human army had trudged through her forest to get to her castle. They were all the same, money hungry bastards after her gold. Weak of mind, and weak of body, she burnt them all for their disrespect of the mountain passes.

Small trees jutted up from the once muddied soil, all traces of the intruders gone. A few wildflowers dared set root in the clearing, hopeful of staying in bloom to the end of time. Yellows, whites, and reds proudly stand in defiance of what once was and what was to come.

If Sasha had been an elf, maybe she would have settled to make a flower crown of the cornucopia of wealth. She plucked a red flower and put it in her black hair to saviour that thought. There was no one to see her act like a fool, save for the birds and the bees.

Sasha went on her way, walking past the caves leading to the heart of the mountain, past the waterfalls all the way to the heart of the forest.

The Grand Tree of the Inner Sanctum reached into the sky and shone the brightest amongst all of the trees. Sasha put her hand on the trunk to feel the heartbeat of the mountain pass. Sasha gave it power in exchange for information, just enough to get a feel of everything in her domain. She may have the power of flight to see from above, but she did not possess the many eyes and ears of the Grand Tree, nor the memory of everything past, present, or future.

Sasha retracted her hand, burnt by power unknown. Someone was in her forest, and they were close by. Someone who had power, unlike anything she had ever felt.

Not good. Not good at all.

She had to leave the Inner Sanctum. If these intruders found the Grand Tree, there was no telling what they would do to it.

Sasha rushed into the direction of the intruders, weaving through the dense branches and treacherous terrain.

Chatter broke through the forest, stopping Sasha in her tracks to observe. She was far enough from anything important to engage in combat without a worry that she would destroy it.

There were five people in total. A knight, an archer, a mage, a rogue, and a gunslinger. All of them carrying weapons emitting a strange type of glow only sung about in legends.

Must be enhanced by some type of divine magic, Sasha thought. Her initial feeling of dread upon feeling them through the Tree was right. These people were dangerous and not likely to understand what power they were wielding.

An excellent addition to her hoard. And at the cost of five skulls, that was too good of a bargain to pass up.

They hadn't spotted her yet. Perfect. Sasha inched closer, keeping her footsteps light. The intruders had settled in quite nicely, tents still put up and the flickers of an ember licking up the last few scraps of firewood. Sat on the ground, they were vulnerable.

It would be so easy to turn into herself and burn them all to a crisp, but Sasha was honour bound to face them in proper combat.

"Look what we have here, a band of thieves stealing from the gods to parade through my domain." Sasha's sharp voice startled the group to stand against her, weapons raised. "Now, be good kids and drop your weapons and get the hell out. You're not welcome here."

Her presence alone should have been enough to make even the strongest warrior falter. Her appearance alone a tale of nightmares.

Slitted purple eyes that looked directly into your soul, eating at it until there was nothing left but pure obedience. Five horns jutting out of her skull, two from her jaw, one in her forehead, two at the back and two on the side curling to frame her face, all adorned by gold and precious stone. Sharp claws at the end of each hand, sharper than any man made object. Scales protected her most vital parts, covering her throat and her stomach, continuing down to her spiked tail. Two sets of wings protruded from her back, capable of creating strong gusts of wind.

Truly, these people were idiots.

"There it is, this is the monster I was telling you about," the knight yelled out, voice breaking at the word monster. His sword was pointed in Sasha's direction.

"What do we do? I wasn't prepared for this," the archer croaked out.

Sasha let the scene play out. If they wanted to bicker amongst themselves before they attempted to fight her, they could go right ahead. Nothing she hadn't seen before.

The gunslinger moved their finger to the trigger of their handgun, ready to fire at a moment's notice. "Isn't that obvious? We fight!"

Points for enthusiasm, that one.

"I'll back you up!" The mage proclaimed enthusiastically, the gem on their staff glowing.

That one was Sasha's biggest concern. A mage could potentially turn the situation dire, and as such, needed to be taken out first.

The rogue didn't say a word. Wise. Sasha had to respect that.

"Foul beast, I will claim your head for all of the lives you have taken." The knight had the gall to come up with ludicrous accusations.

It was time.

Sasha's eyes glowed, taking in every minute detail of what she could observe. Trees lined the clearing of the settlement, plenty of flat ground with a few stones that could serve as cover. The knight front and centre, the archer at the far back with the mage, gunslinger, and rogue on the second line.

"Foolish humans." Sasha played along with their little roleplay of big bad dragon versus innocent little humans. "Such insolence. I shall burn you on the very ground you stand on."

The first shot barely missed Sasha's head, too quick to dodge out of the way with four other assailants on the way.

"Divine protection!" The mage's first spell enveloped the knight, who is running headfirst at Sasha.

The rogue disappeared from her sight into the greenery to hide. The archer pulled back, letting the first set of arrows loose.

With one flap of her wings, Sasha was airborne, away from any immediate threat. Heat gathered in her throat, spilling out of her mouth in a sea of flames. None of her assailants were hit, saved by the mage in the back.

She had to go.

Sasha swung her tail at the mage, shattering the shield the mage had put up to protect herself. An arrow hit one of her wings as she swung her tail once again. Shield after shield broke on impact, the mage forced to retreat a couple steps every time, until she couldn't anymore. Back against a tree, Sasha's tail cut through her stomach, severing her in half.

Her party members must be horrified, Sasha laughed to herself. They wanted a monster, and here she was. Their screams were static to Sasha's ears, their words muffled by the bloodlust that had awakened in her.

The arrows and bullets were immune to the whirlwind she created with her wings, breaking through the scales. A smart choice to take away her ability to fly, she had to give them that. The knight stood in the middle of the clearing, too shocked to move as his team members frantically tried to kill Sasha.

Not satisfied with how things were going, Sasha morphed into her true form. With sheer size and power on her side, it would be a manner of seconds until she stood victorious.

Sasha hurled fireballs at the gunslinger and archer to stop their attacks, setting the ground ablaze. They had nowhere to run from a hell of their own creation. The small tears in her wings hindered Sasha's ability to fly straight, but that didn't matter. With one flap, the two of them crashed into the rocks with a hard thud.

Leaving only the knight and the rogue.

The knight had earned himself to be the victim of her teeth. He just stood there, transfixed. Fool. Sasha made her move, leaping at him, only to be stopped by invisible chains. No matter how much she willed her limbs to move, they defied her as the restraints got tighter. The knight disappeared as panic took over.

She couldn't move. But how?

That was a question Sasha had had to ponder for several decades, as a blade struck her heart, locking her in time and place.

[duamuteffe]

Stream of consciousness getting everything out below the cut.

This past week has been the damndest yoyo. I finally got all my books in storage (aka my folks' basement)

There's 83 boxes of them, plus the four I'm taking with. We wanted to leave by the end of April but that's coming faster and faster and there's still so much to pack. I can't get Fi's strangles vaccination until the 27th unless I want to pay an extra hundred dollars for the farm call. My mother and uncle are selling the land I spent half my life on and love more than any other place on earth because none of us have the money for the property taxes. I was gutted. I've bellowed and sobbed. I've read Pema Chodron endlessly until I stopped thinking about jumping off roofs. (Mine still needs a coat of tar before we can sell. We need three days without rain to do it. How are we ever going to get out of here by the end of April if we can't get it ready to sell?)

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

I'm finding comfort in the oddest places. The Allegheny Mountains are older than the rings of Saturn. They were the height of the Himalayas before the evolution of bones. Losing access to 92 (beloved precious) acres on the top of one mountain won't alter the power of a chain of hills 480 million years old. It's everywhere down there. I can follow the river and feel it everywhere (maybe someday we'll have the money for a little camp past Nebraska Bridge so I can smell the trees and earth and not have to be close enough to the Farm that my heart threatens to break again) Every inch of the place is inscribed in my memory in full 3d and surround sound

I will carry the place for the rest of my existence. And then my mother says there was a rifle stashed away for me - eight years since my grandfather's collection went to auction because my grandmother's sanity broke down in the wake of his sudden death and all of us kids were left without the (antique, carefully selected) rememberances I knew he'd wanted us to have. For eight years I had thought them all gone, just the memories of shooting skeet with my grandmother's 20 gauge (should have gone to Suz, they loved her as their grandchild as soon as I brought her home, and man was she good at tagging clay pigeons with it, there's photos of her at my wedding in her pretty dress showing how it's done) and plinking at soda bottles full of water with lever action Winchesters that were carried on saddles in the Old West (the boys should have gotten one each, the heaviest for Pat, the middle for the Doc, and the lightest for my amiable ex) They were all gone, I was told, but someone stashed one away for me. She's had my step-cousin-in-law bring it up so I could have it. The oldest one, and the most beautiful; 1760's or thereabouts, stock made of solid tiger maple from back when the trees were four feet across. Barrel forged by a patient smith. Carried to hunt for food when this country was still a colony. Too fragile by far to fire but one of Pappap's favorites; I remember how tickled he was when I told him the one I saw in the Royal Armouries wasn't nearly as nice.

I asked if the same step-cousin-in-law could be asked to bring Pappap's canoe up to my folks, and if my mother could grab a few small items from the house and she said yes, so I don't have to go there to the house where Bummy and Pappap aren't and haven't been for a few years now, and walk around in the places they're not, and have to deliberately choose a last time to stand in the field and then leave forever. The last time I was there it was a good day. It was sunny and spring and the leaves were just out, and a good friend and I were clipping small new branches from the apple trees for her to try and root (those 150 year old apple trees, will the new owners keep them? The one tree still gives the best pie apples ever grown and the russet tree gives crisp tart apples that are best after a hard frost. They could live another hundred years if tended.) I can live a lot easier with that having been inadvertently my last visit. I don't think I can go there ever again now, knowing it's the last time.

We're going to another farm to try and keep it going, I remind myself. If I can't keep my own best place I can do my damndest to help friend-family keep theirs. It's so beautiful there. There's so much to do. I'll have meaningful work again. No more retail hell. A garden. A couple of goats. Some bees. Two dozen horses to help care for. My mare, with all the turnout her little feral heart desires. Maybe she'll recover enough from the fractured hip by Fall for me to ride her again. I saw Mrs. Edwards in a dream and asked her and she smiled at me. I'm taking it as a good sign. There is so much awaiting us once we get unstuck from here. The Doc can hunt in the Fall. We can fish all summer in spare moments (Pappap said he was going to teach me to use the old spincasting rods he had from his father; they run differently from modern ones, and we didn't end up having time but I can learn online.) Unless my brother contests we're getting Pappap's canoe, and we'll haul it up with us and put it on the lake. It's sturdy enough to go fishing from. There's so much yet to do.

"When you see the Southern Cross for the first time/You understand now why you came this way/'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small/But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day"

We're going to be okay. I repeat it a lot. We're going to be okay. "Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

It's falling apart. It's coming together. There's so many moving parts, so many ducks not in a row. But we're going to be okay.

(Knock on wood)

[abbygamata]

The Mountain

In a place they called mountain of fears, there lived a couple who were living peacefully yet they feel incomplete because they can not bear a child. There were days that they feel happy on their own, but sometimes, they wonder what would they feel if they have kids running around their home.

One night, Randy woke up to the sound of Sansa crying. "What is wrong, my wife?," he asked. Randy's atten tion drew on their wooden wall and saw the silhouette of his wife. "I really want to have a child…" she said and wiped her tears. Randy's heart broke because he knew he is the reason why they can't have one. He hushed her and tucked her wife to sleep.

"I'll be back later, my wife. Caloy just needs help in his butchery, and I have to be there in exchange of our debt," said Randy to her sleepy wife. The only thing that you can hear during that time is the sound of the crickets and owls.

Randy is used to walking from the top of the mountain up to the city. During times like these, he sings songs through whistling to fight his fear. Even though they've been living in the mountain for a few years now, he still gets lost. The last time he got lost, he found himself on the other side of the mountain. The couple has heard many stories about the mythical creatures that live on the mountain. His parents also used to tell him that but he shrugged it off. "Oh," Randy murmured when he realized that he's not on his way down the mountain. He scratched his head like a kid. He remembered what his father used to tell him, "When you get lost, you turn your clothes over."

Minutes later, he finally saw the way down. "Ah! How I wish the way is cemented from our house down to the road," he said and turned off his flashlight because the sun is finally showing up.

When he arrived at his cousin's house, the pigs were already butchered. He apologized and explained to Caloy what happened. "Why don't you just go back to your parents' house? I'm sure they will be glad to have you back," Caloy said nonchalantly while drinking his beer.

Randy shook his head. His parents do not like Sansa because they thought she's the reason why they can't have a child. What makes them hate Sansa even more is the fact that they eloped when she knew that Randy is an only child. Randy's parents were furious that time but when they saw how happy Randy is when he's with her, they just accepted it. However, they still despise her. When Randy felt the alcohol kicking in, he went home.

Sansa on the other hand is watering their vegetable plants. They have a wide farm which is the source of their money and food. The farm is not totally exposed to the sun, just enough for the crops to grow healthy.

"Where's the water coming from?" Sansa felt like her soul left her body for a second. "Jesus!" she shouted. It's a woman who looks like she’s in her 50s carrying firewoods in her back. The old woman smiled and apologized. "Do you also live here?" Sansa asked.

"Yes, but I live at the foot of this mountain, and I came here to get some of these," she said while pointing the firewoods. Sansa moved the hose to the corn crops. She wiped the beads of sweat in her forehead using the towel on her shoulder and went towards the old woman. “That looks heavy,” Sansa said and helped the old woman place the woods on the ground. “Do you need anything? Water? I think I have some left,” she said while searching the water bottle in her woven basket. Sansa gave it to the old woman and the latter took it in one shot. “Thank you, pretty girl. My name’s Emily,” the woman said. Sansa introduced herself and they both sat in the grassy field. “Really? My daughter’s name is Sansa, too! Well… it’s Sunshine but we call her Sansa,” Emily said while smiling. She then noticed that Sansa became quiet immediately so she asked why. “I wanted to have a daughter, too… or a son, I’d do anything to have one,” Sansa said in a low voice. Sansa felt comfortable immediately. She grew up without her parents, only her grandma, that’s why. Before the sun sets, Sansa told Emily the direction of her house before both bid their goodbyes.

Randy is humming while carrying the cooked pig’s head that Caloy gave before he went home. She then saw Emily walking. Randy felt something weird because this is the first time he saw a different person aside from his wife in his years here in the mountain. His thoughts were interrupted when he felt something itchy in his feet, he stepped on a colony of ants! He removed the big red ants on his feet and when he looked up, Emily isn’t there anymore. He just shrugged and continued walking. “Sansa! I brought you something for dinner!” he said upon entering the door. He saw Sansa preparing food in the kitchen. That night, Sansa told Randy about Emily. “She seems like a good person,” Sansa said when Randy told her not to talk to Emily anymore because she might be a witch or some scary creature pretending to be a human. Sansa rolled her eyes. “There he goes again,” she thought. One day, the couple is back in their farm watering their crops. “Hi, Sansa!” it’s Emily! Sansa waved back and run immediately towards her. Randy shook his head. He followed his wife and tried to stop her. “No, that woman is a witch!” Randy shouted. “What is wrong with you?” Sansa shouted back. “Honey, it’s okay…I’ll just head home,” Emily said in a calm voice.

“That was so rude, Randy!” Sansa said and followed Emily.

“I’m so sorry about that. He grew up hearing stories about witches and stuff,” Sansa said. “Do you believe him?” Emily asked and raised her brows. “W-well…at first, but I haven’t seen one yet,” Sansa answered. They continued walking until they reached Sansa’s home.

Sansa gave Emily cooked sweet potatoes for her to eat something on her way down. “Bless you, sweet heart. You have a pure soul, I wish you get pregnant in no time,” Emily said while holding Sansa’s belly.

The next morning, the couple was eating breakfast but they were not talking to each other. Sansa is still mad about Randy’s rude behavior. Sansa then felt like her throwing up so she immediately rushed outside their home. “What’s wrong?” Randy followed her. "I don't know, I felt sudden dizziness and my stomach feels like it's turning over," she said in a low voice. Randy caressed his wife's back. "Can it be?" Randy thought. "Maybe because I had too much sweet potatoes yesterday, " Sansa continued.

"I wonder what happened to that nice aunt," Sansa said while munching on her food. "Let me guess, maybe she got caught when her body was divided into two and the person who caught her put huge amount of salt in her lower body?" Randy said and laughed after. Sansa narrowed her eyes on him, "What?" Randy said, trying to be innocent. "It's been 3 months, you know. Should we visit her? I remember her telling me she lives at the foot of this mountain," she said excitedly. She made a face when Randy said no.

"How are you there, boy?" Randy said while holding Sansa's stomach. "You're crazy, he or she can't hear you yet…" Sansa turned out to be pregnant. Emily was the one who told them that when she visited Sansa three months ago. At first, they can not believe it, but imagine their joy when they saw Sansa's belly getting big as days go by. The joy they felt when they found it out was so out of the world. Randy thought maybe it's a miracle, but there's part of him that says there's something wrong. However, when he saw how happy her wife is, those second thoughts left his mind. "If it's a boy, we'll name him Lucio, if it's a girl, we'll name her Lucy," Sansa said dreamily. Randy smiled and said he loves it. Months passed by and Sansa is now on her eighth month. Anytime soon, she is going to deliver her first child. Randy's parents already knew that, they were happy but they do not want to visit Sansa. They said they will only visit once she gives birth. "You know what? Never mind, do not bother visiting us anymore, " Randy got angry to his parents because of their attitude. He left their home and promised himself not to go back there anymore.

It was three o'clock in the morning, Sansa's scream blends with the sound of the crickets and owls in the mountain. They didn't expect that she'll give birth very soon that's why Randy had no choice but to help Sansa deliver their baby. "Just a little more, push…" Randy said while holding the head of their baby. One last scream and their boy is finally in his arms. Randy let a lone tear as he looked at his son. "Lucio…" he said happily. Sansa felt so weak that she immediately fell asleep without seeing her son.

The aroma of ginger and the sound of rooster woke Sansa. She is in deep pain but when she saw her son beside her, the pain was replaced with joy. "Finally…" she whispered.

"SANSA! RANDY! LET ME SEE MY SON!" her attention drew to the voice outside their home. Is that Emily? Despite being weak, she tried to get up from the bed to see who's shouting and to her shock, it was really Emily! But, wait, son? What shocks her most is Emily's appearance-- dark under eyes, messy hair, dark lips and bloody clothes.

"Emily, what is happening? Why do you look like that?" Randy asked. He is holding a knife with blood on its blade. "I want to see my son, Lucio!”

“He’s not your grandson!” Randy shouted back. Sansa had goosebumps when she saw Emily smiled and it showed her black teeth. Emily laughed crazily. “Sansa, you are a good person, but your husband isn’t…” Sansa’s brows furrowed. “I haven’t done anything to you, Randy, but you have always been so rude to me, that’s why I asked my depraved husband to grant you something in return, and guess what? It’s Lucio, but na-uh, I know you’re wondering why Sansa got pregnant when you knew yourself you can’t give her that, ” Emily laughed again, this time, you can see lightning and hear thunders on the sky. Randy threw his knife towards Emily and it hit her shoulder, but the couple’s eyes grew big when Emily just removed it and licked the blade with her black tongue. “Please, Emily, stop this,” Sansa pleaded but Emily just continued laughing.

“Sansa, my dear, come with me and I will spare your husband’s life…” Emily tried to reach Sansa but the latter stepped back. “No, no, no! Please!”

“Aha, you don’t want to be with me?” she said in a thin voice while playing with her long black nails. “Then just let me see you child…” “You think I’ll let you?!” Randy said and threw salt to Emily. Emily then acted like she is in pain even when she isn’t. Sansa ran inside their house and immediately grabbed her son. She heard her husband shouted so she went outside while carrying Lucio. Sansa saw her husband getting surrounded by black smoke, so she ran towards Emily and pushed her. “Please stop this!” the crying and shaking Sansa said. “I’ll come with you…” Emily smiled wickedly, “Oh no, I’ve changed my mind. I want something else…” Emily looked at Lucio and before Sansa could speak, Lucio’s eyes turned black.

[moondonky]

Broke bitches

How the government always fucking broke,, they just had more money than the last 80 years combined,, like why, where's there audit,, and they take 40% of everyone else's money, inflation is controlled just a hidden tax, where the fuk is it all going , why do they keep raising the debt ceiling,, they suck at money, look around there not fixing anything, there not really building anything,, they toll everything make u pay for parking,, idk if it's just me but things seem dirtier.. like we just pulled out of a war that costed billions daily,, shouldn't we have more money, thy keep printing it I don't see a mountain of money... 30 trillion what are they buying,, is there even enough things to buy, would u b able to buy every single thing on this planet,,, thats alot of fucking money, where is it? U could buy all the gold in existence twice with that much money.. maybe not Ugandas recent discovery of like 13 trillion dollars worth of gold,, thats the other thing wouldn't the price of gold be declining,, didn't the supply just double... this is why I say everything is rigged and imaginary,, they don't really need money, there just keeping people poor at this point,, like people are peasants and they are bloodline royalty... isn't that like the opposite of why America became America,, or did I miss something studying history,, was it all bs where they lying, were they teaching us a bs story.. wasn't our money suppose to b backed by silver.. wasn't that in the constitution... everything happening,, did we vote for any of this, I'm pretty sure our founding fathers would yell treason... where the fuk is all the money... Money is worthless now why even keep working, they don't why should i, I ain't touching there cars rn.. lets see them do it.. let's see them do anything.. its there luxurious world thats burning, how we serve them is what's degrading, in no way are they a majority, they are there own tiny useless community..

I'm just gonna float,, I feel like I can tread longer.. I'll watch it I'm in the water, I'll watch it all burn down I'm not firefighter, even they are too busy fighting overdoses.. I don't think cops give af either, and that might be that people at the top arnt doing there job, they made things dangerous, they made things impossible, i wouldnt get in plane with those new pilots.. if ur gonna sit on the pot u better b fucking shitting,, if u gonna manage u better b good at it,, unlike the rest of the world,, u do not let the American people catching u fucking slacking,, if ur gonna be important show that your important that shits annoying... I really feel the world would be better off without them,, I honestly think it would immediately improve actually.. where the fuk is the money... and I know, I'm not stupid, I'm just stubbornly asking.. I already followed the money,, they were suppose to pay off the debt, they were suppose to balance the deficit... instead they put in there pockets they gave themselves bigger pensions, not to mention all the frivolous bs lawsuits that we end up paying for, they even took half of everyone's retirements,, that people worked thirty forty fifty fucking years for, they worked there entire lives for... I'm srry I'm not fucking doing that,, I'd rather live in a cave like wtf is that,, who tf does that, what a waste...

Effin millenial I'm urked,, I'm disappointed af,, when my grandma died I wasn't even allowed to go to the funeral, because of covid, because of liberal division,, even in my own family, I didn't know they were so weak,, I had to pray to pay respects.. I had to grieve by myself, that changed me, all that shit was for money, I ain't putting up with no fake shit no more,, I'm glad it's collapsing i hope it all dissapears... its all an illusion that's not gonna affect me.. I hope all that money melts like wax and I hope they get stuck in it.. I wanna see them work, I eanna see them struggle, I wanna see them sweat, i wanna see them carry shit, i wanna see them skip meals, I wanna see what they look like when there fatigued and exhausted, I wanna see them with sum dirty hands,, I wanna see them do what I've been doing for the last twenty years.. and I wanna see if they can keep a smile on there fuckin ugly faces. They look like demons, they act like demons, they think like demons, they do shit demons do.. so to me they fit the definition, they are demons

[firstofmay23]

ICELAND!!!

When I stepped off the plane, my ear was immediately hit by the cold wind. Seemed like it was raining not long before I arrived. Quite a welcome for a tropical island girl. Luckily, my luggage made it all the way to Reykjavík.

Immigration through the border was very easy. When the officer asked me how long I'm going to stay, I said, "Until the 28th of June"

She looked up at me and say, "You?"

I grinned and replied, "Yes"

As a visual guide. Imagine a tiny girl carrying a huge mountain backpack and huge jumpers, possibly underdressed, and saying that she's going to stay here for two months. After checking my visa, she stamped my passport and let me through.

After getting my luggage, I hurried to the shuttle bus stall to get to the main terminal in Reykjavík. First mistake. I should've waited until at least the sun went up to leave. Reason number one: I forgot to exchange my cash so I'm left with a small amount of money I have in my card to survive for at least until the end of the week. Reason number two: the main bus terminal is freaking closed!!! I thought the bus terminal is supposed to be open 24/7 but no. So, like any other good tourist, I waited outside in the middle of the night in 5° weather. As a reminder, this is the first time I have ever been in any place lower than 15° so you can imagine the silent freak-out I was having. I saw a car stopped by, he's been coming in and out of the staff door of the terminal. After half an hour of making weird eye contact with each other, I braced myself and asked about the terminal opening hours. He didn't seem to understand my question, only told me that the bus station is closed, smiled at me, said "bye" and left. Well, that's informative.

First picture of Iceland that I took. You can see the famous church in the background

After an hour of waiting (and pacing in and out of the terminal), I decided to walk around the building and find someone who might have a little more authority to help me out. And I found someone, he was on the other side of the station. At first, he suggested that I walk to a hotel nearby and get some rest there. When I went to fetch my luggage, somebody opened the terminal door for me! And he let me stay inside to wait until my 8am bus, which was 6 hours away. And there I waited.....

I remember I fell asleep with my head on my luggage and when I woke up I realized I broke one of the luggage feet. The sun went up but it was still a couple hours before I was able to catch the early bus at the station nearby. And that's when I realized I was unable to purchase my ticket. How was I supposed to buy my ticket if I can't authorize my card? I was panic-calling some people back in Bali and was about to give up when suddenly I heard my name called. I thought I was hallucinating, as people who are sleep deprived and out in the cold usually do. But then it was getting louder and when I looked to my right, I saw my friend! What are the chances of people I know ending up at the same bus station 12,000 km away from home????

After some jumping around and Instagram posting, I asked to borrow his card to purchase a ticket. It worked, so that's one problem sorted out. Moments like this made me believe that I have angels watching me, it's always at the right time. Except for love, my angels do NOT give a fuck about my love life. But we're not talking about that now

Thanks to a random dude who offered to carry my luggage up the stairs to the bus stop, I managed to get on the right bus at the right time. And I switched buses to go out of the capital, managed to have a couple hours of sleep, awake just in time to not miss my stop, and grabbed a sandwich at one of the gas stations. As well as admiring the view and gasping at the sight of unmelted ice along the way

The bus number you have to take to get to Blönduós

Not long after, we arrived at Blönduós. And there was another artist that was on the same bus as me! Soon as we got off the bus, somebody greeted me. Turned out someone was already waiting for us. So me and Jess hopped on Sigrun's car and was taken to our place. She also gave us a short introduction about the town and our place as well. Soon after that me and Jess had a little trip to the supermarket nearby to get something to eat later for dinner. When I finally got into bed, it was 3pm and I didn't care if it was very bright outside. I want my bed. I got my bed.

[bipolaretherealthoughts]

Carnival Rides

I just broke someones heart, and the karma that I will get for that, well someone will tell me I have a red flag 

yet I am not the same as that person that I told this to

There will be the fire to create the ashes I am to  arise out of, like a phoenix 

I left on a plane the last day of October. You said here's the link to buy a ticket to my carnival.

We can go once your back.

Looking at the videos and picture on this link, I saw my favorite rides and games.

The  ones that my adrenaline that would pump through my veins like a junky getting their next high.

And when I got done with this album, I text:

I don’t want to buy a ticket. I don’t want to wait for the lines to codependency, suffocation, control, and my favorite ride.

The one who is always broken.

I skipped the high of a broken seatbelt, for the one who clamps together

I skipped the thrill of knowing I would bend over backwards to fulfill the spot that he once left

I said good bye to the stuffed animals that I would become.

I knew I could become a fish in a bowl, swimming aimlessly around waiting for the next bit of food.

Because I did that with you, 

I swam around the currents of my mind waiting to describe what it is like to feel sorrow.

And you couldn’t comprehend there are thousands more ways to describe what is it like to stare at a blank wall.

I know I said I was interested first, I know that.

You said you knew it would take someone great to want me to stop wandering the dark streets.

You said I should wonder the streets when they are light.

I said I don’t want to wander them light

I want to know what it is like let my imagination wonder about the bushes and what lies within.

I want to guess up until the moment I am faced with the snout of an animal that snarled at me. We are both part of the vast unknown.

I don’t want to be surround with the lights of a park where the end comes after the second turn.

I don’t want to sit in the places where people scream the same scream at the same god damn spot 

I want to scream at the edge of my own ledge.

 I want to scream at the mountains that I miss someone I’ve never met.

I want to cry under the pale moon light on the nights were the world is too heavy to carry on and the suicidal thoughts linger my mind

I want to feel the breeze of taking off my clothes to skinny dip as the cold air causes my hairs to stand on edge. 

I want to feel the jolt of the metal when master pulls me to the right because I refuse to listen.

I don’t to live off of funnel cakes and fried donuts,

I want to live off of delicacies of life only the deepest adventures have to offer.

If I could tell you that I realized I didn’t not want watch the satin fall off your skin when I walked into  that shop, I would have.

Yet, when I am not to speak, my words are throw up.

You wanted to skip the feeling of butterflies on the warm spring day.

You wanted to skip what is it like to feel the warm sun shinning in your window one a  cold snow day.

I wanted to fall into the unknown with someone.

i knew you’d ask, how many tickets do you want?

And I would say none; your rides don’t interest me.

You said, I spent 200 dollars building this for you, and you don’t want it.

I said no. I don’t want to go I don’t want to ride. I don’t want to jump. I don’t want to waste another moment on being urged to jump. I want to fall naturally.

He said, "Well next time someone doesn’t want listen, speak, or read the pages of the book you are going to write, think about this moment.

You are too much, you will never find someone to care about the next page or the last. No one will ever care for the title of misfortune that you have poured into a book.

We both had three dots, you stopped and i pushed the up arrow sending this,  

Can I donate to your growth of this carnival?  Maybe help buy some things to make this place better? 

He pushed the up arrow back,  No, I don’t want your money. No I don’t want to ever see the waste of space I once actually loved.

He asked me again, "let’s buy tickets to the best time of your life".

And I screamed as my voice cracked, 

I DONT WANT YOUR FUCKING TICKET

[louve-garoue]

And here I am again :D. Ok before starting where I left I would like to say that it hit me yesterday that since Bulma (and thus her whole family) is an alien here, there is no Capsule or Capsule Corps on Earth yet. I decided about that a long time ago but I just now realized that it meant no capsule in Og DB either lol.

So I'm correcting that now. You can now imagine Vegeta traveling in a multi-pupose vehicule (like that Airplane/Submarine Bulma, Krillin and Goku take in the Red Ribbon Arc) which is carrying behind a big ass luxury caravan or something (which I also imagine are all floating since it would make them fit for all landscape which would be Vegeta priority).

Anyway back to the story :D

So our duo, and their stalker Raditz, arrive in a village where the Dragon Ball is supposed to be. At first glance the village seems to be abandoned. Until ChiChi does pretty much what Goku did in the manga. AkA she smelled that the villager were still here and just broke into a random house.

What's interesting here is that I think Goku and ChiChi both do this out of ignorance on how that action could be harmful to someone, but that ignorance come from 2 different places. For Goku it was because of his utter isolation in the mountain. And for ChiChi it's because her Dad has been raiding people's homes for her whole life on Earth, so she's so used to it that she never questioned the morality of it all. She doesn't think it's good or righteous, she just never took the time (or had the idea) to question it.

Don't get me wrong ChiChi is pure of heart and she could ride Kint'un/Flying Nimbus but I truly believe that empathy/compassion/sympathy (or even simply consideration for the people you don't know) do not come naturally to the Saiyans. That's just not how their brain work. They of course can learn to do it, which make a saiyan who decide to show consideration for a stranger even more powerful in my eyes, because it's something, someone they put effort to become, not just something they were born with. But point is, to learn something you generally need to be taught. And when it comes to compassion well... Ox-king really wasn't the best teacher (at least up until that point in time).

Where I'm going with all this is that ChiChi is a good girl... A good girl that sometimes do evil things due to her upbringing xD.

Like right now in our story, where she trespassed into terrified villagers's home, got an axe in the head for her trouble and then had to be hold back by Vegeta to beat up those villager as retribution xDD. She'll learn eventually of course but it's not for right now.

For now Vegeta barely managed to stop her from going on her rampage. Granted the villager actually apologized for the axes so ChiChi stopped her assault but she was still in a bad mood. She will not be of help for anybody. Which means that Vegeta is alone into the negotiations to get the Dragon Ball. It shouldn't have been a problem really because the villager don't really care about the orange shiny orb that is somewhere around one of their house, and someone did nearly murder a girl. But still this task require the bare minimum of courtesy to achieve. Vegeta has negative points in courtesy.

Normally that wouldn't be an unsolvable problem for him coz he has money and do not hesitate to buy people into tolerating his rudeness with it. But here it doesn't really work out because it turns out that the village is frequently getting blackmailed and robbed by the same guy over and over again. So if they accepted the money it would be gone by the end of the day anyway.

The villagers do want a deal, and it would be for ChiChi to defeat him if possible. The situation has gotten so bad, they are afraid they're going to starve if this go on. ChiChi still in a bad mood and still resentful is having none of it. Vegeta is having none of it either. Asking such a task from a young princess just after trying to take her life does NOT sit right with him.

And so screaming match ensues.

Ok this is getting long so I'm gonna cut it there but I am not done for today ! Next part of the Oolong species swap AU coming soon !

Hello would you like a rant about one of those :

_An AU I have where Goku is an earthling and ChiChi a saiyan (Og DB version and/or DBZ version)

_An AU where Vegeta was sent to Earth instead of Goku, but Goku is still very much the Main Character (beside I hyperfocus a lot on the Son Family so the Au is mainly on how, against all odds, this family still managed to find each other)

_About a song that I think would fit GoChi pretty well :D (the song in question being "Je te Donne" by Jean-Jacques Goldman but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't know it since most of it is in french and it is pretty old :(, I'll do a translation if you do want to hear about it :) )

_About how Goku was a smart kid, it's not his fault confused "stupid" and "was taught very little basic knowledge" :((

_About how, while I like the first telefilm on Bardock and prefer the personality they gave him, I largely prefer DB Minus as the story on how Goku got sent to Earth and my frustration with the telefilm being mostly used as the reference (though I can downplay that last part if you want). As a bonus I can also expand on how and why I also prefer the manga version of DB Minus over what they did in the DB Super Broly movie

?

I just discovered your blog and I love it :DDD. I am also very glad to found another person who like Og Dragon Ball more than Dbz :DD. You're amazing and I hope you're having a good day/night :]

Yes but I’m bad at making choices so any one you want lol

[azrielhours]

Pawn for Pawn

Azriel x Reader

Word count: 2.6k

Synopsis: Reader just arrived at Velaris w Feyre. She feels burdensome and broke, so she pawns off her jewelry for money. Azriel finds out about this and intervenes to get her jewelry back.  

AN: I’m v new to this and I would love to receive feedback / criticism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being new to Velaris was a far more pleasant experience than I anticipated. I’ve come here recently with Feyre and Lucien when the Illyrian warriors rescued us from Lucien’s brothers in Autumn court. Feyre is one of my closest friends, even more dear to me now since I’ve tasted the bitterness of missing her while she went to break Amarantha’s curse Under the Mountain. We’ve only been here a day now, all of it happening so quickly that I’ve still been processing it. All I remember was fighting off Lucien’s brothers one minute, then being carried off by an intimidatingly handsome warrior with glowing blue siphons the next. I had clung to him for dear life as we shot across the sky, not letting up my hold around his neck until he gently informed me that we had landed, and I was safe now. I remember looking at him in shock to realize we were on solid ground, but he held nothing in his eyes but patience and kindness despite my disorientation. Rhysand, Feyre’s mate, had been kind enough to accommodate us all since then, and it was a matter of adjusting myself to this new court and Feyre’s friends.

“[Y/N], you’ve barely touched your food,” the beautiful blonde named Mor smiled kindly, pulling me out of my thoughts. We were all having dinner at the House of Wind, but my thoughts preoccupied me. This has been the case since we landed here yesterday, something about the way the warrior had regarded me with such patience and attentiveness had me replaying the memory over and over in my mind. Azriel. I looked over to find him observing me, and I averted my gaze as if he could read my mind and find himself at the forefront of my distracted thoughts. “I hope you’re not having a hard time with the adjustment,” Mor continued. I would follow Feyre to the ends of the earth if I had to, and nothing could rival how hard it was to be separated from her.

“No, it’s been good actually, Velaris is absolutely beautiful.” I smiled back reassuringly. That was the truth, the city of starlight indeed. I can see why Feyre was so much more relaxed and contented here compared to Spring. “Thank you all for being so accommodating and kind,” I said shyly but genuinely. And what a difference in government, indeed. The relaxed, organic leadership of this High Lord certainly made him pleasant, to say the least. It didn’t hurt that he and his brothers looked like they were hand-sculpted by the Creator either. I saw Rhys’s mouth twitch into a small smile then, and I blushed knowing he likely heard that thought.

“Feyre told us lots about you before, we’re happy to have you here this time around.” The red-siphoned warrior, Cassian, said. They were all charming, though I suspected that this accommodation had a lot to do with my friendship with Feyre. Part of me wondered how long I had before I had to find my sense of security, both in gathering my wits about myself as well as financially. The last thing I’d want is for any of these friends of Feyre’s to feel burdened by my presence here. 

When we left with Feyre, it was a very last-minute decision, and we had nothing with us but the clothes on our backs. I had come up with a plan since then to get back on my feet. I was going to find a pawn shop nearby and sell the jewelry I had on me to at least have some of my own money for now, not wanting to ask Feyre or her friends for any more than they’ve provided me with. As I replayed the plan in my mind, I examined the few rings I had on my fingers and absent-mindedly touched my necklace. 

I looked up and caught Azriel’s gaze once again as he thoughtfully studied me. The way he often looked at me made me wonder if he had the same Daemati powers as his High Lord. Actually, I wondered quite a bit more about him than I cared to admit. During these two days, one would think that there would be more pressing matters on my mind, all things considered; instead, I would keep going back to the feeling of being held in his arms again and again. How easy it was for him to support me, his body heat, his large hands… I shook my head and deigned to glance at Rhys, hoping he didn’t know I’m being so girlishly distracted by his Spymaster not even a day into my stay. He gave nothing away, but I knew better.

After dinner, I found Cerridwen in the kitchen, trusting that as a non-IC member, she would perhaps grant me some discretion. “I was wondering if you knew of any pawn shops nearby that I could go to tomorrow?” I kept my voice down. She smiled at me and gave me directions to one near the town square. 

~

The next day, I set about my plan, spending much of the morning making my way there. When I made it to the shop, I took the jewelry I could bear to part with off and traded it for a handsome sum of gold coins. I tried not to think about it, being attached to much of my jewelry. There were more pressing matters at hand. I didn’t know if Rhys held Tithes here the way they did in Spring, and I would never want to be unprepared like that, especially after his generosity. Upon exiting the pawnshop, I began making my way back. I was stopped suddenly by an elder Fae male, he looked downtrodden.

“Excuse me, miss. Sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if you had some coins to spare. I need to support my granddaughter if you may.” He spoke softly, not wanting to draw attention to himself. My heart ached a bit at that. I thought of my beloved jewelry and how I had just parted with it for this new coin of mine, but also thought of why I felt the need to obtain it in the first place. This male clearly needed it more than me. I smiled at him, opening the purse, and handing him a handful of gold coins. He thanked me profusely and I bid him farewell.

~

Hours after dinner, I was in the library reading a book, still giving Feyre space to reunite with her family. Truthfully, I also felt a bit out of place here, but I was sure that would pass. I started a little when I heard a male clear his throat. I looked up to find Azriel at the doorway, making his presence known. I quickly sat up and closed my book.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he began making his way over, his shadows following suit in the space. I held his gaze, curious. “Do you mind if I join you?” He asked gently, his voice incredibly deep and smooth. I nodded shyly and he offered a smile in return. He sat in the armchair across from me. I hope Rhys didn’t tell him about my little crush on him, though Azriel’s noticeable perceptiveness probably diminished any need to hear Rhys’s input on the matter. I schooled my features, not knowing where this could possibly go.

“I didn’t get the chance to say thank you for rescuing us back there,” I began. His gaze was thoughtful, and he looked down smiling.

“Oh, no problem, don’t mention it.” I didn’t quite know what else to say, noticing a slight tension in the atmosphere between us now that neither of us spoke. I looked at him expectantly, waiting.

“Is… was there something you needed from me?” I said softly. Damn. Conversation was not usually uneasy for me, but there was just something different with him. Different compared to Mor and Cassian in the brief time I’ve known Feyre’s friends. He cleared his throat again.

“Yes, I have something of yours.” I didn’t know what I was expecting to hear, but it wasn’t that.

“Oh.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at me again. “As you know, I’m the spymaster here. You know the female you spoke to in the kitchen today?”

“Cerridwen?”

“Yes, well she’s one of my spies.” Here I was thinking I chose an external source to help me out.

“Was I… not supposed to speak with her?” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but this felt weirdly confrontational.

“No, nothing like that,” he reassured. Though I was still confused, I couldn’t deny how he managed to keep his presence comfortable. His tone stayed gentle, which contrasted his otherwise hulking figure and sharp features. “She informed me that you were going to the pawnshop in the town square.” He paused and I nodded in confirmation. “I was curious about why you did that, so I had one of my other spies approach you. That older fae male? He works for me.” He continued to look at me to gauge my reaction. My brows rose in surprise, but I waited for him to continue. “You see, I just wanted him to possibly find out why you were pawning off your jewelry so soon after arriving, especially without telling anyone of your plans, but instead of telling him why you couldn’t give him any coin, you gave him 23 gold pieces.” I felt my cheeks warm, feeling exposed. Azriel smiled deeply and reached into his pocket. “Here’s your money.” He handed me a pouch full of coins that I took from him.

“Thank you,” I said, still feeling a bit tentative.

He nodded but continued. “So, why exactly were you pawning off your jewelry?”

“I just didn’t know how long I had until… well, I don’t know what’s going to happen, you know, with where I’m going to stay and all that,” I tucked some hair behind my ear. I figured truth was the best course of action, especially because he was being direct with his inquiry. “You’ve all been very kind, but I didn’t want to be a burden or anything.” To my surprise, his brows raised in shock.

“[Y/N],” he began. My heart stupidly skipped a beat at hearing him say my name for the first time. He smiled again. “What could possibly have given you the impression that you’d be burdensome?” I shifted a bit in my seat, not knowing how to respond.

“It’s just precautionary,” I offered weakly. He shook his head, still smiling. He was terribly handsome in his resting state, but he absolutely glowed with beauty as he smiled. So different from the seriousness he showed during meals. I felt something pulse in my chest.

“You don’t have to worry about anything like that while you’re here, I promise you that. Any friend of Feyre’s is a friend of mine.” Mine. Not ours. Interesting word choice. I liked how certain he sounded, as well as his kind smile as he gave me the chance to take him up on that offer.

I smiled back, relaxing at the idea of it. “That would be nice,” I said honestly.

“How did you like the city?”

“It’s very beautiful, though that walk to the town square was no joke.” The thousand steps had left me winded, to say the least. He laughed openly at that, relaxing back into his seat.

“Did your legs cramp on your way up?” His eyes twinkled.

“Yes, but worse than leg cramps is this weird feeling in my chest,” I told him, absently rubbing the spot above my heart. His smile faded a bit, but the light remained in his eyes.

“What kind of feeling?” He asked softly, eyes tracking my hand above my heart.

“I don’t know, it felt like a pinch… like a weird snap, I guess. You’d think it would be gone by now.” Especially since the cramping in my legs went away hours ago. He continued to study me.

“This began during your ascension?”

“Well, it began during our flight here from Autumn actually, but I didn’t think much of it, you know, given the ambush and all.” He continued to study me, though I didn’t mind feeling his gaze on me. It wasn’t scrutinizing; I just felt seen.

“Interesting,” he said softly, and I nodded. “Well,” he said, with a slight shake of his head, “next time you want to pawn off your valuables, let me know. I know a thing or two about where to go.”

“I should hope so, what with your big fancy bedazzled hands and chest,” I smiled sweetly, testing the waters. He was taken aback for a second before he laughed loudly.

“Guess I can’t argue there.”

“I might take you up on the opportunity though, not for pawning but to avoid the stairs,” I said, gesturing to his wings.

“It would be my pleasure. I can show you the city if you’d like,” he offered.

“If you wanted to show me the city, you could’ve just asked, you know. There was no need to orchestrate a third-party intervention.” I shook the pouch of coins dramatically. He tipped his head back slightly and laughed again, and I savoured the sweetness of the exchange. The boldness came more naturally to me than usual, but he seemed to like it. Blush coloured my cheeks once more.

“You’re right. And to make it up to you for all my scheming, there’s one more thing I can offer you.” He reached into his pocket again and pulled out another pouch and handed it to me, our fingers brushing as I took it from him. He sat back in his seat and continued to watch me as I opened the pouch and dumped the contents of it into my other hand, and couldn’t withhold my shocked gasp as my jewelry tumbled out. The jewelry I pawned off today. I look up at him without hiding my shock, at a loss for words. He just smiled again.

“Azriel,” I breathed. “How—I didn’t… You got this back?” I began reaching for the pouch of gold I had to give him, but he immediately reached over and covered my hand with his before I could extend it. His hand was as warm and gentle as it had been when he got us from Autumn. I stilled.

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you going and giving away your stuff like that. Besides, if you don’t have your jewels, who’s going to match with me?” he tapped at his siphons.

“Azriel, let me repay you for this,” I began again. He shook his head smiling.

“Maybe I’ll let you make it up to me eventually, but no, I don’t want the money.” I shook my head, not knowing what Feyre would think of this. “Just this once,” he offered. “Trust me, I’m being generously compensated for this by our dear High Lord.”

“Azriel, I can’t.”

“Alright, I’ll think about it. On one condition.” I looked at him expectantly. I didn’t think the mighty warrior who slammed into the ice in Autumn would have such a mischievous spirit, such light in his eyes. “You’ll have to humour me and take me up on the offer to see Velaris.”

He was certainly charming, I’ll give him that. I guess that couldn’t hurt. I pretended to contemplate the decision at hand, making a show of furrowing my brows and tapping my foot. “Alright, I’ll have to allow it then.”

He let out a sarcastic exhale. “Fine.”

“Fine,” I bit back. He chuckled again, getting up from his seat.

“Then I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, merchant.”

I laughed again. “See you, Shadowsinger.”  

Part 2

[myrandomfandomramblings]

Past, Present and Future - a Wildmoore fanfic

Ryan sits at her old desk at Wayne tower. It’s the first time she’s been back  since they broke in to access the bat cave and she’s surprised that it looks just like it had her last day as acting CEO. Her back is to the large picture window, framing Gotham which is aglow with exquisite orange and pinks of the sunset. Ryan however, hasn’t noticed the view, her eyes are fixed on the piece of paper in front of her as her pen hovers over the signature line. 

“Want to talk about?” Sophie asks stepping behind Ryan and wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s shoulders. “I can practically hear the wheels in your head turning,” she adds bending slightly so her face is level with Ryan’s.

Ryan takes a pause before answering as she once again scans the document in front of her. It’s a contract, re-instating her as acting CEO. It had been written by the Jets and the best lawyers money could buy, once Marquis’ sociopathic tendencies had been dealt with. It essentially reverts all of Wayne’s operations to the way they were prior to Marquis’ interventions. All she had to do was sign it. Jada had already taken it upon herself to create a media blitz, excusing Ryan from any role in the embezzlement of the “bat budget.” However, her pen continues to hover above the dotted line.

“I don’t know, Soph,” she exhales as she finally rips her eyes from the paper and leans back into her grounding force. “I feel like I just came within an inch of being crushed under a mountain of responsibilities, I didn’t ask for. I just don’t know if I can carry anymore weight, especially right now when my figurative arms still feel like noodles.”

Ryan’s eyes are closed but she can feel the hot tears escaping her eyelids and starting to slide down her cheeks. They don’t make it far before they’re being wiped away by Sophie. 

“You don’t have to carry the weight of the world all by yourself, you know,” Sophie answers and Ryan can feel her moving beside her. When she opens her eyes Sophie is sitting on the desk in front of her and the offending document is out of sight. 

“You’re not alone anymore, Ryan,” Sophie says as she uses her feet to pull Ryan towards her. “The bat team, Mary and Luke, will always have your back. Your’re family now.” Ryan lets out a short snuffle as she finally looks up to meet Sophie’s eyes. 

“And I am here for anything you need, no matter what,” Sophie adds as she leans forward to grab Ryan’s wrists. “besides, I don’t mean to brag but I’m kinda of badass,” she finishes flipping the tone from sentiment to playful and earning a chuckle and an eye roll from Ryan.

“Hard to argue with that,” Ryan replies standing up so she’s eye to eye with Sophie. “So what do you think? Should I do it? I mean Ryan Wilder, ex-con, bartender, manager, superhero, CEO, does have a nice ring to it.”

“Are you trying to rub in the fact that you currently have four jobs well I’m still woefully unemployed?” Sophie teases, “Or haven’t you heard?” 

“Oh I’ve heard,” Ryan smirks, “I heard you quit your job for a girl.”

Sophie’s jaw drops as Ryan comes to sit on the desk beside her still fixing her with the most mischievous look.

“I quit my job to fight systemic injustice,” she finally chokes out.

Ryan laughs. “I know. But seriously, I’d happily give you one of my jobs, take your pick.” Sophie’s just about to reply when Ryan jumps back in. “Except the superhero one, I’ll be keeping that.”

“Too bad,” Sophie flirts, “I’d look great in that suit.”

Ryan rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you’d look just as good in a Hold Up tank or a CEO pant suit.”

“Wait. Are you really offering me a job?” Sophie asks suddenly self-conscious.

“I mean why not?” Ryan asks, “I get one less thing on my plate and will no longer have to listen to you complain about your employment status. It’s a win win.”

“Ha ha,” Sophie replies humourlessly as her face twists in thought, “I don’t know.”

“ I’m not trying to push you to do something you don’t want to. But think about. It would take a huge burden off of me and it would allow you to stay part of the bat team. You wouldn’t have to worry about disappearing from work for bat duties,” Ryan takes a pause before continuing, “You know now that I’ve said it out loud it sounds pretty selfish.”

Sophie laughs. “I don’t think you’re capable of being selfish. In fact, I was worried you were just offering me a position because you felt bad for me.”

“You think I orchestrated this whole things, tears in all, just so I could give you a job without making it seem like a handout?” She asks quirking a brow.

“Well, when you say it like that. It makes me sound crazy.”

“Woman, the fact that you don’t see that any company would be lucky to have you is crazy. Maybe even crazier then Alice.”

“Hold up. When did this switch to you comforting me. I’m supposed to be the one comforting you,” Sophie deadpanned.

Ryan shrugs before leaning over to rest her head on Sophie’s shoulder. “Consider me comforted.”

There is a moment of silence well they both take in the last of the sunset before the colours outside fade.

“So tell me about these jobs. I want to know what I’m signing up for.” Sophie finally says breaking the peaceful silence.

“Well the bartender gigs pretty sweet. You make drinks. It’s a pretty good crowd, rarely any fights to break up, lots of good stories. There was this one chick who was hooking up with all the regulars and damaging the walls, but I hear she has a new girlfriend and is completely whipped, so she shouldn’t be a problem,” Ryan teases earning a playful shove from Sophie. “The manager job is just lots of administrative work. Finances. Inventory. Scheduling. Marketing. Honestly, If I had more time I think I could really grow the place, but lately I’ve just been doing the bare minimal to keep it functional.”

“When you say it like that it sounds like you’ve been slaking instead of saving the city multiple times,” Sophie says matter of factly. 

“What can I say I’m driven. Some may even say stubborn. I’m sure you know a thing or two about that,” Ryan replies lifting her head from Sophie’s shoulder so she can direct her smirk directly at her.

“Hey, you’re glad I gave you the little push you needed.”

“Of course,” Ryan says leaning over to give Sophie a quick kiss.

There’s another beat of silence before Ryan breaks it. “As far as the CEO position goes, like I said before I was really just a name on the letterhead until everything spiralled out of control. Anything that did come up before then Luke always knew the answer to.”

“So my options are make small talk with strangers and probably spill drinks on myself, administrative work or ask Luke?”

“Ya pretty much,” Ryan confirms.

“So why isn’t Luke just CEO if everything just goes through him anyway?”

Ryan goes to answer then stops. “I honestly have no idea. When Kate left she just put my name as acting CEO. I never thought to question it.”

“Is there any reason he shouldn’t have the job?”

“Not that I’m aware of. He knows everything about Wayne. Guaranteed he’d be 1000x better at it than either of us. No offence.”

“None taken. It would be another thing off your plate? You’d have more time to spend,” Sophie pauses locking eyes with Ryan, “doing things you enjoy,” she finishes with a smirk.

“Tempting,” Ryan teases, “so you think I should offer him the job?”

“I mean… are you even allowed to do that. I feel like we probably have to run it by Kate. Legally speaking. I don’t think she’ll have any problem with it.”

Ryan groans as she stands up from the desk to stretch, “I guess I could call her tomorrow,” she cringes.

“Do you really still have a problem with Kate?” Sophie asks reaching out for Ryan’s hand and turning her around to face her.

“I don’t have a problem with Kate. I just…I don’t know… feel bad I guess. That I benefited so greatly from her misfortune. And part of me’s still terrified she’ll just show up one day and want it all back. Wayne, The Hold Up, the loft, the suit, her friends and-“ she trails off suddenly shy as she looks down at their intertwined hands.

“Me?” Sophie breathes barely above a whisper. Ryan just nods, still unable to meet Sophie’s eyes. “Okay, first of all,” she starts freeing one of her hands from Ryan’s so she can use it to lift Ryan’s chin and meet her eyes. “You’ve proven yourself to everyone in Gotham. You’ve made a difference, left a mark that can’t be erased. You’ve fought for and earned everything good in your life and nobody can take any of that away from you. Not even Kate.”

Instead of replying Ryan closes the distance between them, capturing Sophie’s lips with her own as she tries to communicate her gratitude through their kiss. After a few seconds, minutes, hours? Who knows. They reluctantly pull apart. Ryan sits back down on the desk chair before pulling Sophie off the desk to sit on her lap. Once they’re settled Sophie picks the conversation back up right where they had left off.

Plus,” she starts, “Kate was only back in Gotham for about a year before she disappeared so you’ve actually had these roles for longer than she did.”

“I never thought about that,” Ryan chuckles running her hand up and down Sophie’s leg. A pause then “Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything,” Sophie replies nestling into Ryan’s neck.

“You said Kate was the love of your life,” Ryan states, matter-of-factly.

“What’s the question?” Sophie asks hesitantly.

“Do you still feel that way?”

Sophie shakes her head before closing her eyes and leaning back to collect her thoughts. 

“I believed that at the time,” she finally says to the ceiling. She fights the urge to continue, to share her entire stream of consciousness. She wants to say that what she felt for Kate pales in comparison to her feelings for Ryan. That she had never felt anything remotely like the safety, the joy, the heat, and the love she felt as she got to know Ryan and continues to feel each and every day she’s with her. That she’s never felt so whole, so seen, so happy in her entire life as she does with Ryan. That she wants to spend her whole life trying to make Ryan even a fraction of how happy she makes her. That she’s not even sure she really knew what love felt like until she fell head over heels for her. But she doesn’t say any of that. After all, they’ve barely been together one month. It’d be way too much way too fast. So she goes a different direction.

“Kate was the only person I was out to for years,” Sophie explains, “the only person that knew the real me, and she not only accepted me, she cared about me, loved me, the whole me . I guess it was kind of addicting, being seen even if I wasn’t fully understood. It felt like love then and finding anything remotely similar felt impossible, for so long.” 

Sophie finishes then finally looks down at Ryan, whose eyes are twinkling as they fix on Sophie’s.

“I get it,” she says pulling Sophie tighter into her side, “Angelique was my whole life, my entire world growing up. I had no one else, not until Mama Cora. It’s easy to convince yourself something’s meant to be when you don’t have any other options.”

“Exactly,” Sophie says, “but it hits different when you choose somebody not because they are your whole life but because they make your life whole.

Ryan doesn’t reply just pulls Sophie closer as she spins them around to watch as the first stars appear over the Gotham skyline.

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

A Deafened Bard (Stephen Strange x Female!Reader)

I can explain. 

Please don't come at me for starting a new project before finishing Cult Girl Doctorate. I hit a wall and needed to take a break. I am trying not to let this one take up too much time.

Y/n is a sorceress-in-training who’s known for being hard to teach. Sensing her potential, Doctor Strange takes her on as an apprentice. 

You firmly believed that shattering the urn of Fei-Amie was the best thing that ever happened to you. 

It happened a year ago, but it still replayed in your head over and over again. You made a conscious effort to remember it vividly. 

Sure, it was terrifying, Stephen Strange's initial look of anger when he heard the ceramic shatter. It softened when he saw that the culprit was just a clumsy sorceress-in-training who looked on the verge of tears with remorse. Still, it was a face you never wanted to see again: his teeth bared, his already sharp features accentuated under the constraints of anger. 

It diluted into silent, simmering frustration that revealed itself to you in short sarcastic jabs and body language. 

"Just, stop." He cut you off after a string of profuse sorries. With no disarming smile in sight, you could tell he was tense. "Artifacts get broken all the time. Don't cry. It was an accident." 

His tone indicated that he was trying to convince himself more than he was you. You were a closed-off person and could hardly stand the idea that anyone out there didn't like you. The idea of the Sorcerer Supreme being mad at you, personally, made you briefly consider ritual suicide. You lowered your head. "Yes, Master Strange."

"Hey, butterfingers." He called out after you as you tried to make a painless exit. You looked back at him and he gestured to the pile of broken ceramic pieces. "You gonna fix what you broke?"

It hadn't dawned on you that an ancient relic could be fixed. Especially one that once contained the ashes of the ancient necromancer Fei-Amie. You were embarrassed to say that your knowledge of manipulating time was surface-level at best, and couldn't think of any other solution. 

You wordlessly gathered the pieces up in your skirt and carried them off, striking out any plans to go into town that evening. Instead, you poured through book after book for any instruction whatsoever on repairing broken artifacts. You ran out of desk space, so books were just floating in the air, suspended on pages that briefly mentioned relic breakage. 

You started to believe you were given an impossible task. Or perhaps all the resources you needed, he was withholding. Even so, you didn't want to go back to him empty-handed. You changed into your street clothes and opened a portal to the local craft store.

You returned with two types of extra-strong superglue and got to work. First, you made all the pieces come together and had them hover over the desk. Unconsciously, you began to sing as you pieced the urn back together. 

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

"Haven't heard that song in years." 

You dropped the tube of glue and the few remaining pieces fell back to the desk. "Master Strange!" 

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He said, though his apology was undercut by his smug tone. "Carry on." 

You picked up a piece and began to line the edges with glue. 

"Aren't you going to finish the song?" 

You looked up to see that he hadn't been just passing by. He was leaning against the threshold, watching you. 

"I don't usually sing for an audience." You laughed, uncomfortably. "Just me." 

"A man and his sentient cape should not count as an audience," he scoffed. "But, if you insist, I guess I'll have to just listen to Julie Andrews instead." 

"What's wrong with her?" You raised your eyebrows in surprise. 

"Oh, nothing. She's a treasure." He put his hands up. "But everyone gets to hear her sing. And I take it that only a very select few get to hear your rendition of my favorite things. I just have to be one of them." 

You blushed, suddenly forgetting all the words to my favorite things. 

"Girls in white dresses..." he offered, an impatient edge to it.

You swallowed. "Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes-"

"Hey, butterfingers." He interrupted again. Before you could object, he pointed to the way that the pieces floated gracefully overhead at the sound of your voice. 

"I'd like to see Julie Andrews do that." He said with a wink.

"Looks alright," Master Strange said, running his finger along the tight seams that showed where cracks once were. 

"Will it still work?" You asked. That was really all you were worried about. 

"Beats the hell out of me." He shrugged. "I didn't know how to use it to begin with." 

"What?!" You spat back. "Are you kidding?" 

"I'm afraid not." He said, taking the urn and placing it back on its pedestal. "Don't worry, you did a good job. I'm not mad at you anymore." 

That was really all you needed to hear. "Thank you, sir." 

"You're an apprentice, right?" He asked. 

"I'm..." Your voice trailed off in embarrassment. "Between masters right now."

He raised an eyebrow. "If I were to ask around, would I receive glowing reviews from your last masters?" 

You admitted it point-blank. "No." 

"Let me guess," he folded his arms. "Something didn't make sense to you and instead of giving you the space to question it, they insisted you follow blindly." 

You wanted to throw your head back and shout in relief; finally, someone understood! 

"Bingo, bullseye." You put your hands up in surrender after being read so easily. "Right on the money."

"I see." He said, tucking that thought away for later. "Could I trouble you for one more odd job before you go?" 

"That depends." You folded your arms. "What is it?" 

He looked over his shoulder at his cape. "How are you with sewing?"

‘Sewing' was not the verb you would use to describe repairing the tears in the Cloak of Levitation. It was taller and stronger than you and it did not want to be repaired. It was closer to performing surgery on a fully grown mountain lion that could rip your head off at any minute. 

"Like putting eyeshadow on a cat," Master Strange said. It flicked its edge contemptuously, while still clinging to his shoulders for dear life. "I'm a licensed surgeon and it won't let me within 20 feet of it with a needle." 

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." You said, thoroughly discouraged. All he'd given you to work with was a spool of thread and a pack of needles. 

He tried with sincere force to remove the cloak, but it wouldn't budge. "Of course, now it knows you're coming at it with the sewing kit and it won't leave my shoulders." 

"Maybe I can work with that?" You shrugged. You threaded the needle and hid it in your hand. 

You approached the cloak, only for it to shove Master Strange in your way like a human shield. 

"Listen, you naughty little blanket." He scolded, turning around to face it as if it were a puppy that had just wrecked the living room. "If you don't let her fix you, you're going in the washing machine. Extra spin." 

It shuddered, and, for a moment, you thought it was going to comply. You slowly took a step forward, only for it to dart as soon as your foot hit the ground. It made its escape with a large crash through the heavy wooden doors of the library. 

"Hey!" You shouted, chasing after it. "Get back here!" 

You caught a glimpse of it headed towards the relic room, so, without thinking, you opened a portal to make it there first. You reached it only seconds before the cloak breached the threshold, with only enough time to grab it by the edge. 

"Come here!" You exclaimed, giving it a full force tug. It tugged back, overpowering you to the tenth degree. It dragged you across the room and into the foyer. You yanked on it, only for it to escape from your grip and send you flying back into the wall. You wondered for a second how such a sturdy piece of fabric could possibly be in need of maintenance. 

"Bastard." You mumbled, rubbing the spot where your head collided with the wall. The pain didn't stop you, though. You were on your feet within seconds, pursuing the naughty blanket all over again. 

You heard the words of one of your many, many masters ringing in your ears; "never outrun what you can outsmart". Or maybe that was from a Garfield comic. Either way, whether or not you could outsmart the cloak was still unknown, but you had to at least try. 

You took a second to catch your breath and tried to remember where you saw it heading next. Downstairs, you thought. To the laundry room. The one place you would never look. 

You slowly but deliberately descended the stairs to the basement where the laundry was. You turned the light on and saw overturned baskets of towels, clothes, and sheets everywhere. And then a washing machine door slammed shut. You turned your head and saw a twinge of dark red hiding in the washing machine. 

You removed your shoes and socks to minimize noise, then picked up a fitted sheet that had been thrown on the ground. You mounted the washing machine and affixed the sheet to the front. The cloak would have to come shooting out the door, and you would ambush it. 

You forced the door open with your heel, holding the sheet like a giant net. As predicted, the cloak shot out like a bullet from a gun, getting caught in the sheet. It thrashed around aimlessly, trying to escape, but you had a tight grip and it wasn't going anywhere. 

"It's curtains for you!" You said, then laughed at your own joke. "Stop struggling!" 

It flailed and fought, but eventually ran out of energy and sunk to the ground. Not trusting it quite yet, you pinned it down with your whole body weight before releasing it from the sheet. As expected, it tried to fly away, but couldn't get anywhere.

"The less you fight, the faster this will go." You said, examining the fabric for any visible tears. The rip presented itself right away. About as long as your hand, right in the center. 

"What did Strange do to you?" You asked, pulling the threaded needle from your pocket. "Hold still, I'm going to fix it." 

Once the needle hit fabric, the cloak stopped trying to fly away and instead writhed about on the floor like it was about to die. You fixed the tear with as many stitches as you could make, then pulled it shut. Once you knew the thread was secure, you rolled off the cloak and let it fly free. 

It shot up, but froze, noticing something was different. It swished itself around, unaccustomed to the feeling of air not blowing right through its center. 

"You're welcome." You said with a shrug. "It's not like I had to chase you all around the sanctum to make it happen." 

Without any warning, the cloak scooped you up and squeezed you. Your initial reaction was that this was its revenge and you were taking your final breaths, but you could tell it was gratitude by the way it gently set you down on the ground. 

"Happy to help." You gasped for air. "Just remember this feeling if I ever have to do this again." 

"Not bad, butterfingers." Master Strange told you, though the tone of his voice conveyed he was impressed beyond a simple 'not bad'. 

"Not bad?" You protested. "I absolutely crushed it." 

He ran his finger down the uneven but sturdy stitching. When his face met yours again, he was smiling with genuine enthusiasm that managed to eek through his dry, sarcastic exterior. It came out as an admittedly very handsome sideways smirk as his eyes scanned you up and down. 

“If you don’t need anything else, I’ll get out of your hair now.” You said, heading towards the open doors. 

“Wait.” The doors slammed shut before you could reach them. You turned around to see Master Strange still examining the stitching. "You wouldn't leave without tea, would you?"

A pot of chai tea sat between you, filling the air with an aroma of spicy vanilla. You held the teacup in both hands, determined to never give him a reason to reinforce the "butterfingers" nickname he'd become so fond of. 

"Chai is my favorite." You said, letting the scent waft into your nose. "Yerba mate used to be my favorite, but if I drink more than two pots of it I get sick." 

"Yeah, definitely don't do that." He chuckled, bobbing his teabag up and down in the cup. "Out of curiosity, are you wondering at all why I invited you to tea?" 

"Oh, definitely." You nodded. "I was just wondering about that." 

"Would you believe it's just because I find you interesting?" He raised an eyebrow. "Good company, perhaps?" 

"Interesting? Absolutely." You agreed. "Good company is debatable." 

"I can't believe I never thought to trap the cloak in the washing machine." He rested his chin in his hand. "It seems so obvious now." 

"If it makes you feel any better," you shrugged. "It was mostly dumb luck and reckless disregard for my own life, considering it almost threw me off the balcony.” 

He glared at the cloak. “What did I tell you about trying to kill our guests?” 

It lowered its collar shamefully in his direction. 

“Don’t apologize to me!” He scolded. “Apologize to her.” 

It turned to face you and repeated the somber motion. 

“It’s okay.” You shrugged. “My family adopted a retired army German Shepherd growing up. I’m used to high-strung creatures that could end my life at any second.” 

“Well, rest assured, butterfingers,” He said, leaning back in his chair. “This will never happen again.”

“I, uh-” You opened your mouth before you could even really pick up on the implication he was putting down. “Wasn’t aware that there would be a chance for it to happen again?” 

“I suppose we should get down to brass tax, then.” He folded his hands in his lap. “How would you like to stay here?”

“Well-” You said, not wanting to come off as too enthusiastic, which you certainly were. “Not if it’s going to kill me-”

“If I could promise you that your life won’t be in constant danger, I would.” He cut you off. “But if you wanted safety, you wouldn’t have started studying the Mystic Arts.”

“Got me there.” You conceded, your made-up objection withering away. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” He shook his head. “I’ll help you train and in return, you help me preserve the integrity of the sanctum.” 

“So an apprenticeship?” Your eyes widened. "Are you saying you want to take me on as an apprentice?" 

“I know you’ve got bad associations with that title, but yes.” He answered. “If it brings back memories of your previous masters treating you like garbage, we can call it a ‘partnership’, if you’d like.” 

Partners with the Sorcerer Supreme? You thought, butterflies materializing in your stomach. 

"That sounds great, but-" You broke eye contact and fidgeted with your fingers. "I feel like I should disclose that it wasn't really all that one-sided. I am… notoriously hard to teach."

"And who told you that?" He tilted his head. "The ones who refused to teach you?" 

You hadn't thought about it that way. "I guess."

"The way I see it, you've repaid your debt and are free to leave," he began. "But seeing how dutifully you reassembled that urn, wrangled my favorite piece of defiant outerwear, and how desperately this place is in need of some life, it might be a good idea to keep you around." 

You put your hand over your chest to still your heart. "It would be an honor." 

"Excellent." He nodded. "That saves me the trouble of having to convince you."

He brought you to a small but comfortable room with a bed and connected bathroom. 

"There's plenty of closet space for all your clothes." He said, gesturing to an antique looking bureau set. 

You dumped your duffel bag out on the bed, revealing the extent of your possessions. "Thanks, but this is all I've got." 

"Travel light, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah, I moved around a lot growing up." You admitted. "Got no real roots and all that jazz." 

"That changes now." He told you. "This is your home now so I want it to feel like it. Make the space your own."

“I don’t know how I can thank you for this.” You lowered your head, still feeling undeserving. 

“Don’t thank me yet, butterfingers.” He chuckled. “I’ve been told I tend to be a little on the egotistical side. That I don’t work well with others.”

"It's actually [F/N], if you were curious." You said, sitting on the bed and folding your hands in your lap. 

"Okay, [F/N]." he smiled. "You've been in and out of enough apprenticeships to know the drill. Early mornings, late nights. And I've got a laundry list of odd jobs for you that I'm too important to do." 

"Naturally." You nodded. His dry self-awareness inspired a little confidence that he wouldn't be a complete tyrant. 

"You did a good job today." He said, bluntly. "Thank you for your help. Keep it up and you'll make an invaluable addition to the sanctum."

You smiled downwards. "Thank you." 

"Do you often sing when you're trying to focus?" He posited. "Just, as an aside." 

You could tell the gears in his neurosurgeon's head were turning, undoubtedly trying to pin some kind of diagnosis on you as doctors were known to do. 

“I guess it’s just a force of habit.” You admitted. “I used to play piano, so when I’m working with my hands, it just kind of happens. My last master was not happy about that.” 

"Oh, screw him." He waved his hand dismissively. "He pissed away an opportunity to nurture a sorceress with a special gift for the sake of tradition. That's a mistake I won't make."

Special gift? You thought. Nobody who practiced the Mystic Arts had ever referred to anything you'd ever done as a 'gift'. Annoyance? sure. A symptom of ADHD? All the time. But 'gift'? That made it sound useful.