#nobody can hear them thru the smoke. they have to breathe that shit to live. Im going to pass out now good night. have fun ok

[b4kuch1n]

in the video game pikmin four by nintenbo your player character has an option in ur menu that is "rewind time". positing this as a power that you have that nobody else seems to. at least to ur perception. this power is commonly how u achieve dandori beast status by getting practice in thru repeating dungeons. the other dandori supercharged character in the game is louie. he knows how to cook alien animals perfectly seemingly through repeated experiment. but he has not wiped out any species in a certain are yet . do you see my vision

[qobiin]

weekly fic rec hoard

here's what i've been enjoying reading (and re-reading) this past week for different fandoms across the board! this week features: atla, bnha, good omens, harry potter, marvel, naruto and stranger things  ♡ means: all-time fave, (m) means: 18+ themes 

avatar: the last airbender

♡ first rule of earth kingdom fight club... series by ohmygodwhy  zuko, his stubborn inability to die, and finding himself thru getting his ass kicked 

The Most Ragged Edges by twinfinite  In hindsight, Zuko really should have seen this conversation coming. He can almost hear Li and Lo chanting wickedly about the magic of Ember Island, about waves smoothing away rough edges… 

♡ ribs by ohmygodwhy  The first thing Zuko tells him during their first lesson after the whole Sun Warrior ruins ordeal, is “Fire comes from the breath.” a lesson in learning, and re-learning. 

♡ see your son rising at last by aloneintherain  When Zuko dashes into the sitting room, it is with the same wide-eyed panic that he ran from Azula’s smoking hands when he was a child. Iroh bites down on a smile. Zuko looks the same, even now, a decade later with a scar blossomed over one side of his face, green and brown robes replacing the solitary reds of his childhood. His hair is puffed up around his face. He looks like a very frightened, very windswept turtle-dove. Zuko dives behind Iroh just as Aang breezes to a stop in the doorway. Five times Zuko hid behind Iroh, plus one time Zuko stood proudly in front of him.

♡ the beginning of a new and brighter birth by aloneintherain  “I’m so proud of you, my nephew.” Uncle cups Zuko’s face in his lined hand. The gesture is so tender, his palm so warm, that Zuko has to take a fortifying breath against the sudden swell of emotion in his chest. “I want to be a good leader, Uncle,” Zuko says. “I want to look after my people.” “You will,” Uncle says. “You are, nephew.” In a new era of peace, Zuko works to be a very different Fire Lord than his forefathers.

boku no hero academia 

the stars are floating and we are flying by lunalou  Aizawa starts walking towards the exit, obviously expecting Shouto to follow him, but Shouto's feet are frozen in place. His eyes flicker from the distorted reflection of himself in the ice to where All Might is giving him a long look, eyes kinder than anything Todoroki has ever been deserving of, and he feels sick.  “Todoroki-kun,” Midoriya says gently, squeezing his arm in what Shouto presumes is meant to be a reassuring gesture. “It’s going to be okay.” He doesn’t think Midoriya is in any place to tell him what okay is, all things considered, but he chooses to keep quiet on the matter. 

♡ I’ll share this with you, so leave it behind by yabakuboi  For the sake of the story, All Might is never in need of a successor, and, when Izuku saves Katsuki from the sludge monster, encourages young Midoriya down a different path. Thus, Katsuki and Izuku part ways after junior high, as Katsuki enters U.A. and the Midoriyas move overseas. It’s later that Katsuki realizes that there’s something missing, that he drove that something away. Years after, Katsuki finds him in the last place he looks, in the cereal aisle at the local grocery store of their childhood neighborhood. 

Loose lips Sail ships by Yousayhun  Bakugou is at war with his own fucking mouth and everyone else just seems to be having the time of their lives. 

♡ flare guns go off in my head saying not to call you this late by youreanovelidea  Midoriya beams at him and Tokoyami is suddenly hit with the urge to look away. “So bright,” he mutters under his breath, low enough that Midoriya can’t hear him.  (or, Midoriya is a problem child who just really loves his friends) 

(m) The Devil Blues by iknewaman  The 78th precinct's police captain, Toshinori Yagi, has volunteerd his squad to help implement the mayor's wish of increasing the successful cooperation between the city police and active Pro-Heroes. Each detective is to be assigned a Pro-Hero who will shadow them for two weeks, and the operation has been dubbed the 'Station Cooperation Operation'. Although it is not well-received by those involved, Izuku Midoriya, current detective at the 78th precinct and loyal follower of captain Toshinori's ideals, believes that the operation will be a success. If his captain says it will succeed, there isn't a doubt in Izuku's mind that it will. That is until he meets his assigned Pro-Hero. 

♡ someone is wrong on the internet by rhenna  It’s been a long day. By all rights, Izuku should be falling into bed, half dead. But instead of sleeping, he’s hunched over his laptop at 2 in the morning writing a dissertation about why exactly Ground Zero’s pecs are the best pecs to ever pec, and how dare anyone insinuate that he should lose some of that muscle because don’t you even understand what kind of physique a quirk like that requires? Amateurs.  (Izuku has two jobs in this world: pro-hero and anonymous president of the Ground Zero fan club. What could possibly go wrong?) 

good omens

♡ Divine Intervention (aka God ships it) by TheLadyZepher  There’s a battle strategy devised by humans many millennia ago that's designed to overcome an adversary who is particularly well entrenched. Some walls are too tall and thick for a frontal assault, and must instead be bested through sheer dogged stubbornness. Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t know it, but they were about to be put under siege.  Fed up with an angel and a demon who are still avoiding any talk of Feelings, God starts to interfere. When it comes to the ineffable plan, sometimes things need a bit of a push. 

♡ Slow by write_away  It started like this: A boy with the ability to warp reality met an angel and a demon and he made assumptions.  You might say it started like this: An angel and a demon found a marriage contract hung on the wall of the angel's bookshop. They didn't question it. It also could have started like this: Once upon a time, the angel told the demon he went too fast. The demon took it to heart.  Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves somehow married. Crowley fears going too fast. Aziraphale forges ahead. Neither know how to ask questions of each other. 

♡ Eziraphael’s Gifts: A History of Queer Faith and Longing, by Natasha Marie Johnson (Beacon Press, 2019). by actualbat  "If Eziraphael has come to be known--in today's language--as the 'guardian angel of sad queers,' then it makes sense for him to have shown up more regularly in the past once that became a recognizable historical category." Natasha is really glad that she's given this talk enough times to be able to do it on autopilot, because those two funny-looking men in the back just made the most absurdly astonished faces. (Or: Not all historians ignore gay subtext, and not all immortal celestial beings have their shit together. Also, voodoo.) 

harry potter 

♡ Apple Slices and Cocoa by FeathersMcStrange  Harry Potter is an abused kid with not an adult in the world on his side when Molly Weasley meets him.  She decides right then and there that if nobody else is going to try and take care of this boy, then dammit, she's going to. 

hello goodbye (’twas nice to know you) by tamerofdarkstars  Draco Malfoy thinks he might know whose thoughts are scrawling themselves on his skin, but that's crazy. Impossible, even. It has to be a mistake.  -  Self-indulgent soulmate AU where the thoughts of your soulmate inscribe themselves on your skin in a shifting magic tattoo 

♡ (m) Men Who Love Dragons Too Much by fencer_x, IDoodleForNoodles  ‘Kill Albus Dumbledore’ is less a challenging task and more a suicide mission, so when Draco Malfoy is presented with the option to either dispatch his Headmaster or suffer an excruciating and most ignominious death of his own, along with his parents, he reaches deep into his black little Slytherin heart and manages to scrape together enough courage to go with option C instead: Spend Sixth Year secretly studying Animagecraft in the hopes he’ll turn into something sufficiently imposing even the Dark Lord himself won’t be able to keep Draco under his thumb. But just his luck, his Animagus form turns out to be a dragon, and a rather randy juvenile at that, intent on finding its mate: one Harry James Potter. 

marvel 

♡ Hard to Love by Gruoch  If someone had told May that Iron Man himself would one day occasionally show up uninvited to her quiet little apartment and intrude into her quiet little life, she would have laughed them out of the room. But then her life seems chock-full of unpleasant surprises these days.  Or, Tony Stark wants a bigger piece of the pie. May Parker learns to accept help. Peter just wants to keep the peace. 

♡ Mr. Parker Declined to Comment by apisdn  The events leading up to the embarrassing moments during the Doomed Field trip, and how Peter Parker accidentally ended up in charge of things. All the while the political machine moves on, the Avengers do not kiss and make up, and the future draws ever closer. 

Another No-Good Field Trip by Muimor  Peter Parker is not having a good day. AKA, Where Peter's decathlon team take a field trip to the Avengers Compound, Vision's a menace, and Peter really doesn't want to go.

naruto 

(m) Resonance by flailinginlove  After being hit by a missing-nin's jutsu, Kakashi's chakra is never the same again. 

♡ (m) What Otter Nonsense by DarkAuroran  “Is that an otter?” Iruka asks as large, sable eyes blink at him and a little whiskered nose twitches curiously. “That’s an otter. Why do you have an otter?”  “I can’t tell you,” Kakashi says with a great amount of dignity for a man cradling a baby otter in armoured gloves. “Classified Jounin mission business.”

♡ Learning Curve by ishiryoku  This is the life she chose: the path of the shinobi. It's either roll with the punches or be left behind by her team—and Sakura's not about to let them go off on their own. 

♡ Roots and Wings by ideaoforder  When Naruto is kidnapped from his orphanage at age three, Kakashi is so done with this shit. He gets Naruto back, tells the Hokage where to go (politely, because he isn't suicidal), and raises the boy himself. Or, you know, tries and is proud when there aren't too many explosions. Then everybody starts to copy him and it's a whole thing. 

stranger things

In Which Starcourt Is a Pun by asexual-fandom-queen (writeordietrying)  “Welcome to Scoops Ahoy. Do you know what you want?”  Nancy and Jonathan visit the Starcourt Mall and corner Steve at his place of work with their feelings, but in an awkward, this-is-still-the-1980s-so-we-can't-be-too-direct kind of way. 

♡ my father comes and he goes by mjolnirbreaker  So, for Max, he doesn’t punch Billy Fucking Hargrove. He just sits there in sweltering heat and listens to the C’s being announced, and when parents cheer for their kids he tries not to think about how his parents are currently in Colorado. 

♡ it’s a risk, it’s a gamble by nondz (pinkjook)  “I think we should pretend to date,” Robin says. "What?" Steve answers. 

one of those new wave boys by glorious_spoon  It probably should feel more awkward than it does. (Or: Steve and Robin go on a road-trip, drink, listen to music, and look after each other. And yeah, maybe there's some cuddling involved too.)

wanna rec me something? head over to my ask or submission boxes! message me even, i don't really mind (: 

and to all my fellow authors who may feel a little down about not getting onto rec lists, this is for you:

[anonymousabraxas-blog]

Snow drifts and Starbucks

Snow has a way of captivating the human imagination. It falls slowly, or quickly, in flurries, and in torrents wiping away everything underneath it in a clean blank sheet. I empathize with snowflakes- no not because I’m a millennial- because of its serenity. It comes down from what must, to the snowflake, seem to be chaos. It is brought into this world from water, condensed, frozen, and cast away from the womb of the snow cloud to drift alone through the sky. If I were a snowflake I would be terrified of the lonely fall down and I would be overjoyed upon the realization that waiting for me on the ground were a million others just like me.

               From the sightlines of a coffee shop the world seems a strange, busy, and almost predictable place- but from experience I can tell you that nothing is ever truly what it seems. It was Christmas eve of 2015 and I was enjoying a sight of snowdrifts from the drive thru window that I was working at. The occasional customer would drop in, order their favorite coffee, wish me a “Merry Christmas!” and go on their way leaving me with a strange pit in my stomach.

               My boss asked me what my plans were for Christmas and my only thought was “Try not to fall into an existential depression” but I told him I had no plans. There was no family for me to celebrate with, my few friends were out of town, and I was unsure as to what to say. I listened from the sidelines as people excitedly talked of presents and food, hopes, family, the typical Christmas bit. The young man in a Black Sabbath shirt wanted a new video game, his sister wanted an IPhone, and I am almost certain their mother simply wanted a vacation. I just wanted to make their coffee and end the conversation.

               The snow had subsided by the time our store had closed, the floors had been swept, the dishes cleaned, and we left for the night. “Merry Christmas!” my boss cried to me once again. I mumbled a vague reply that might have been somewhere between “You too!” and “Summer is my favorite season, holidays are depressing, and I am going back to an empty house tonight”. I turned on my car and waited for it to heat up, placed a bag in my backseat that was filled with otherwise wasted pastries, and turned on my music. I was not sad, to me it was just another day, but I was aware of my purposeful detachment to the merriment around me. If I remained aloof I could not be reminded that there might be something I was actually missing. You know the saying “It’s not about what you have, it’s about your attitude!” and all that jazz.

               My windows defrost, my coffee is still warm, my music is playing, and I leave the parking lot contently. Christmas Eve in the south means that nobody is outside- its family first and at night time you are not going to leave your family. So the roads were blissfully empty, the snow had been cleared from the roads mostly, and it seemed very quiet. It was 10 PM by the time I was almost home and I decided to pull into a 7/11 gas station and purchase a pack of cigarettes. I had heard a woman say once that cigarettes were the only thing that had never left her- I am inclined to believe her. I stepped back out into the an almost empty street and stared at a strange shadow which I quickly realized was a person. He had long unkempt hair, dirty skin, and his face was shoved into the backpack to stifle the sounds of his crying.

               I sat down next to the man, opened the pack of cigarettes, lit one, waited a few seconds, and then asked “Want a cigarette? It’s a bit cold out.” Choosing not to mention that he seemed like he could use it. The man’s sobbing came to a stop- which I was incredibly thankful for because I hate the way humans sound when they cry. He smoked his entire cigarette before saying a word.

               “You’re the first person to see me all day. Almost Christmas and not a single person even notices me. Can’t get a hold of my daughter in months, no phone to call her with, probably won’t even talk to me anyways, but it’s almost Christmas.” The man unloaded on me with a final breath of smoke.

               My mind flashed vaguely back to a speech from Neil Gaimans American Gods in which a certain god talks of how the week before Christmas is normally pretty empty in a mortuary. People tend to wait until after Christmas to die- just in case. I took a deep breath and asked “What’s your name?”

               “Mel.” The man replied, combing his hands through his hair and shivering.

               “Anything I can do for ya?” I asked, not quite sure what I meant but willing to go along with whatever happened.

               The man laughed and said “Not unless you feel like going on down to my daughter’s house. Lives forty minutes’ drive away- ain’t seen me since I been sober. Wish I wasn’t sober.”

               I thought about it for what might have been two seconds before saying “Yeah sure why not. Hop in the car.”

               Mel looked at me questioningly as I walked towards the car, unlocked the side door, turned on the heat, and waited. He began to scramble together all of his items which consisted of one tear stained backpack, three oversized jackets, two plastic bags of various items, and one white lighter- and placed them in the back of my car. He held his hands over the heat for a minute as he mumbled out his thanks. I asked him where his daughter lived and he gave me the address “Gotta memory for these things. People you care about. Numbers and things, you know?” He mumbled out.

               We began to talk on the drive down south, forty-five minutes south to be exact, and as he talked he asked about God. I told him that I believe in my heart that fundamentally if there is a being called God then we came from it- and are a part of it- and have never left it. If our identity is anything it must be that which we are made of- whether its stardust or consciousness. Mel nodded his head and said “On the streets we’re all the same, but I think they call people like you Angels they do. Christmas miracle.”

               Ignoring what I assumed was a compliment I stared out at the snow piling on the side of the road and smiled- knowing how everyone likes to think of snowflakes as unique. We were closing in on Mel’s daughter’s apartments, Mel was talking about Nam, and I was still thinking about snow. I pulled in through the front gates of the complex, followed Mel’s mumbled instructions, and parked. Mel stared blankly out from my window before turning to me and asking “Do you think she’ll be happy to see me?”

               While the inner monologue of my mind was screaming “Fuck me dude, how am I supposed to know?” I just told him what I knew he wanted to hear. A little bit of assurance “Of course! You’re her father!” a little bit of consolation “Besides you’re sober now!” and a pinch of Christmas cheer “Besides, what better of a gift could she receive than family?”. Though, let’s be honest, sometimes the last thing you want to see is family and I was nowhere near as positive of what I was saying as I led him to believe.

               He led me to the door of her apartment and he knocked. We waited. Mel knocked again. We waited, he tapped his feet. He knocked, we waited. Mel sat down on the cold ground and began to cry. Panicking at the sight of raw human emotion I quickly grabbed my phone and asked “What’s her number??”.

               After a minute or so his breathing calmed and he told me her number. We called- no one picked up. Mel took a deep breath and we called again- we had reached the voicemail box of….

               All around us were shimmering multicolored lights- dangling, draped, and glimmering in the night. The snow had begun to fall again and the air was getting colder. Mel began to tell me about how you could survive a cold night if you stayed in a dumpster- it was warm, enclosed, better than nothing, and certainly better than Nam. I smoked a cigarette to keep myself from wondering how I arrive in these situations.

               We had sat in the cold, silent, night for almost an hour as hope of his daughter having a Christmas reunion were fading. It was a little past midnight and it was officially Christmas though neither of us mentioned it. Mel told me about how beautiful his daughter was, how smart she was, how great of a person was and I thought of the fact that parents normally see their children through a rather unique perspective. Smoke still coiled out from my lungs, a testament to my remaining willpower as it also burned down to the core. I began to hope I had not driven this man out to the middle of nowhere just so that he could receive that final blow that sent him over the edge. I mean, shit, he had survived Nam but that might have been easier for him than spending Christmas alone in a dumpster.

               My phone rang and a panicked female voice answered it and asked “Hello? Mel! Father? I haven’t heard from you in months! Dad?”

               I awkwardly handed the phone over to Mel who began to cry and explain the situation, as he told her about how the snow hurt, as he explained that people don’t see you when you live on the street. She would be right home she told him- he had Grandkids to see, and of course he was welcome to stay with her. I began to think that maybe he had been right about his kid, she seemed kind.

               I never met his daughter, and I never replied to the text messaged “Thank you!” or voicemails she left. I left Mel with the bag of pastries I had brought from work, shook his hand, and drove away. I floated my way home, head wrapped in cold clouds, when my phone rang. I put it on speaker and heard my friend say “Merry Christmas!! Of course, you’re still up. I need some help!” I don’t even remember what it was that she needed but I think it had to do with a laptop. She needed a chord or something to play a movie, can’t remember now. I can remember pulling into her driveway, I remember handing her the chord, and I remember being thankful that regardless of what my intentions for Christmas had been this is where I ended up. She did not seem too surprised when I told her what I had been doing, said it seemed like something I would pull. So, I found myself having floated a long way from where I had been at the start of my journey home that night watching snowfall from the drive thru window. I’m still not a fan of the cold, a bit too thin for that,  but now when I think of snowflakes falling on their lonesome journeys I do not think of the freeze into being or the fall into loneliness- I think of the company of those waiting to catch me and I think of the beauty of melting back into the earth with those around me.

-AnonymousAbraxas