#or so i believe

[lastfairdealgonedown]

a sky of scattered tears, a thousand years apart

summary – like the warmth of spring, your time with him, too, was fleeting. so now, all you must do is accept that all good things come to an end. even with an overwhelming impending doom digging its thorns into your pulsing heart, burying themselves deeper and deeper with every beat. -> dan feng x fem!reader, dan heng x fem!reader if you squint

includes – lore inaccurate due to the fact that the reader & df are both aware of his impeding rebirth punishment, possibly ooc dan feng, not beta-read

a/n – ffxvi's 'my star' HAS to be one of the most gut-wrenching songs to ever come out of a game. anyway, thank you to my best friend for listening to me bitch about df for the past,, what? two years?? or so???

“You needn't be so stiff, you know. It's just me here.” Your gentle voice interrupts Dan Feng's rapidly deprecating thoughts, fading back into reality and blinking once, then twice.

He sees you leaning forward slightly, bent at the waist as you sit before him, his head on your lap, under a tree by the lake, with one of your hands resting on his cheek and the other brushing your fingers through his hair. Like clockwork, his eyes find yours, only to be met with concern; For just how long was he thinking? Is he acting that strange? Surely, he hasn't let any grievances make themselves evident, has he?

Communication is of utmost importance in all things marriages, but please do forgive him if he does not wish to externalize his thoughts; He'd loath to dampen your mood, especially when you're supposed to be enjoying the last of your precious time to the fullest.

So, with a questioning frown weighing the inner corners of his eyebrows, he only offers a brief question and a tilt of his head, “Stiff..? I am by no means anxious—”

“Are you certain, honey? I can feel your shoulders on my thighs and they are.. quite tense.”

He sighs, eyelashes fluttering shut and trying to get himself to relax, to no avail, “Only a bit.” In the meantime, you drag your thumb over the skin of his cheek, smiling to yourself at how he seems a bit warmer than usual, which is evident in the subtle redness there. 'Definitely the sake', you muse to yourself in your head, briefly glancing at the bottle of sake along with two shallow cups abandoned next to you. It's dark outside, and anyone else would've probably missed a thing as meagre as a blush, but.. not you. After so long together, you've come to recognize every small detail of his face, with terrifying accuracy.

You wonder if you will forget once his punishment is carried through. Will you forget the color of his eyes? The sound of his voice? The way his eyebrows lightly raise when he smiles at you? How the stars shine in his eyes for you, and you alone? Immortality is an unpardonable sin, and you will gladly be a sinner if it means that he, in his entirety, lives on; Maybe in song, or in art, or maybe in tellings of heroic deeds.

..As if anyone would speak of him as a hero. You certainly would. But that matters very little; In fact, it matters not at all, for along with the honor of your husband, you are certain that your honor will be stained in sin, for now and for the many years to come. You can't blame the masses, for not wanting to hear songs of deeds sung by a sinner, for a sinner.

Frankly, it is a curse you are willing to bear. That, too, is a way to immortalize him; A way to prove he once existed. That your husband once upon a time drew breath, his feet struck the earth with no mercy neither for the soil, nor for the path he took, and left endless trails of blood in his wake; but, above all, he gently cradled you with the self-same hands that he used to tear right through those who opposed him.

You speculate that mayhaps, that duality is precisely one of the many things that you adore about him. He was not an innocent man by any means, but nor were you for remaining at his side.

However, as you gaze down at him, the moon bestows its blessing of light upon his face, but upon your subconscious dilemma, as well, offering you clarity: Nay, there is not a thing you would change about him.

Raising your head to gaze up at the moon, you cradle his head a bit closer to you on your lap, almost protectively. The present can't hurt him, but the future surely will; So why are you hiding him from the moon? You don't know either, frankly. “Is this.. truly the last time we'll enjoy the moon together?”

He doesn't miss the unbridled pain in your voice, tilting his head up on your lap to look at you, as you gaze at the moon; You are beautiful, beyond all comprehension. His saving grace, his treasure and his guiding star. “I believe so,” he responds, tone melancholic, “But, I promise you this.”

He pauses, gently tearing your protective hands from around his face, sitting up and shuffling to face you, both of you at the mercy of the night sky, “We existed in this life, and we will in the next- I won't dare forget you, from the moment I am shackled, to the moment I crawl out of the egg.” He places your hand on his lap, releasing your wrist and instead raising his hand to brush against your cheek, “I will come back for you, I promise.”

All you can do is vehemently nod, pursing your lips and deciding to not trust your voice for the time being, lest it cracks and betrays you. You know your husband didn't want to upset you, but how could you not be, knowing he'd be taken from you?

Even if yours and his night is over, he shall always remain within you; All you must do, is bear the pain, and brace yourself for impact.

“You promise?”

“Yes. On anything and everything you'd have me swear to.”

Tearing his way through the binding ribbons of fate will be everything but easy; But love was never an easy thing, was it? He will repay you for all you have done for him.

Dan Heng doesn't know what it is that leads him through the cherry blossoms. All he knows is the chain he was given before leaving with the Astral Express, a ring hanging from it; A ring could never have significant physical weight, but there is something about this one that makes him want to crumble to the ground whenever he holds it in his grip.

So, when he next sets his foot on the Xianzhou Luofu, he decides to indulge the itch in the back of his mind, and the ring's call. The petals of the cherry blossoms get stuck in his hair as he maneuvers through them, waving them away and shielding his eyes with his head tilted up; He almost feels as if the moon is mocking him for even daring to show his face, boring her eyes into him in pity.

Clenching his jaw, he huffs through his nose and stumbles a bit upon finally exiting the seemingly endless barrage of petals, looking out into the vast area. That's when his eyes land upon you, and suddenly everything goes quiet; The moon softens her gaze, the ring in his hand finally halts its yelling and lessens its weight.

When your eyes meet his, all he can do is hold up the chain from a distance and gently shake it, as if to gesture to the wiggling ring held by it, “Is this yours?”

Your eyes soften upon meeting him in the distance, slowly placing your cup of sake down and pushing yourself up with a groan. Every anniversary night of your wedding since his punishment, you'd come here and drink sake in his honor. One such night, was today. He is here just in time. “Nay, it was yours.”

He doesn't need explanations to know who you are. He had seen flashes of memories, phantom pain in his subconscious; He turns in the direction of anyone who remotely looks like you, and he didn't understand why till he laid eyes on you. “You're aware I'm not him, right?” His eyes squint, slowly lowering his hand with the chain. “I'm not the same man who made that promise.”

“Aye, I'm aware.” Your eyes briefly meet the moon, stars in your eyes for the first time in a while, “But I have no problem doing it all over again, if it is him you once were.” Forcefully, you tear your eyes off the moon, looking at him from a distance with the light kissing the side of your face, gentle breeze brushing into the locks of your hair, “Welcome back, whoever you may be now. Consider your promise fulfilled.”

[linterteatime]

All (or most) of Zim's costumes/outfits/alternative universe versions/whatever (3/3)

(Group 1 here, group 2 here)

[freddiesflowercrown]

not to talk about the final fifteen again but the difference in aziraphale's expression when he is telling crowley about the metatron's offer and the one on the flashback where we see the metatron making the offer is huge lmao. In the bookshop aziraphale seems excited ? happy ? but when he is talking with the metatron he looks the exact opposite ? a bit anxious ?

[doodles-with-noodles]

The missing son and the wyvern

This is one of my original characters Mathildis! Please be nice to him.

[silverloreley]

Does anyone else remember a movie that was like The Little Mermaid but in our time (well, the 90s or early 2000) and no sea witch? The mermaid made a deal with her father so she could explore the human world but she had to find love in uh, a week or so, or he'd call her back into the sea forever.

The best bit is that she goes to the ground and makes friends with two girls who try to help her get a boyfriend but, in the end, she doesn't make it, so her father casts a spell to drag her back to the sea, hence she and the two friends have this very dramatic scene holding hands in a whirlpool and "I'll never forget you, I love you" "We love you too" which, obviously, lead the father to admit defeat because love is love, he didn't specify she had to get a boy, only prove that humans were capable of good feelings towards merfolk.

So, I'd like to rewatch it, does anyone know the title?

[cienie-isengardu]

@nereiix said to Jango Fett and Walon Vau: Age Difference and Childhood Trauma:

Interesting, as always. I just noticed one minor mistake: Vau was not depressive on Kamino. I can't find where it's said in the books, but it's near the passage where we learn Mird hunted and killed a Kaminoan.

Thank you 🙂

As for Vau, I assume you mean this paragraph from True Colors:

Vau hadn't actually disliked Tipoca in the eight years he'd been cooped up there. Inside the pristine stilt-city, it could have been any urban environment; he didn't miss shopping and entertainment, so it was largely indistinguishable from Coruscant, although the lack of hunting troubled Mird. The strill stalked Kaminoans instead. It even caught one once, but its prey was just the blue-eyed variety, the lowest genetic caste of Kamino, and the gray-eyed elite seemed only annoyed at the loss of a menial.     Yes, that was probably the day Vau's ambivalence toward Kaminoans evaporated, and he joined Skirata in thinking of them as aiwha-bait.

Of course this is up to personal interpretation, but for me Vau is solely making a point about Tipoca City as a place of his and Mird living (and why his ambivalence toward Kaminoans changed). He doesn’t need to hate Kamino (planet) to be depressed about seeing two(four) years old, tiny kids bred for war so Republic citizens won’t dirty their hands and bleed for whatever cause Jedi had in mind when commissioning a clone army.

It is hard to tell if Vau was truly depressed about that at any given point - especially when there is Kal to compare - but I wouldn’t cross out this possibility as the books pointed out quite often that the training took its emotional toll on both clones and their instructors. And sure, Kal is the main example of that as he is generally speaking an extrovert whose emotional state is hard to miss but though Walon was always presented as the most detached character, even he wasn’t immune to seeing his tiny cadets for the first time - something he admitted himself in the same book. He said he already had a “midlife crisis”[1] - that from my calculation fits the year of starting commando training - which may as well mean he had  an indefinite depressive period of time that could last few days, weeks or months but in contrast to Kal, Vau had better grip (control) of his emotion and did not let them interference with what he was paid to do. 

At the end of the day, it all comes down to people’s individual feeling toward Vau - I personally give him benefit of doubt because the series showed he cared more than he let himself show and when things take emotional toll on him (the news of Sev being MIA), he is more prone to shut down to the point it may look like he doesn’t care at all while in fact he is deeply affected.

[1] midlife crisis sounds as something easier to admit for Vau than depression that could be also influenced by his guilt about Galidraan but in all fairness I don’t trust RC book series when it comes to characters’ mental illness, depression or broadly understood (lack of) mental health nor the characters' approach to it.

[myoldiaries]

one day it’ll be over and the suffering will make sense

[chenopodiumlang]

whatever happens I'll be spending the next month on my silly little research and my silly little languages and my silly little self improvement and my silly little workouts and everything will somehow be ok in the end

[housederiva]

My housemate's cat came into my room while my dictation was on...

[danlous]

Ignoring the real possibility he intentionally let himself be caught from the little we know so far Luigi Mangione's case is a fascinating combination of astonishing brilliance and confusing stupidity. This young man plans and executes his assassination and escape with such a meticulous care and calmness that it's suspected that he's a professional hitman. He comes up with Riddler-sque moves like writing his manifesto poetically on the bullets and leaving his backpack behind full of Monopoly money. He carefully wears a mask to avoid being identified but removes it because a woman who was checking him into the hostel was flirting with him and wanted to see his smile. He still manages to escape the most surveilled city in the country in the midst of ongoing national manhunt only to get caught in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Pennsylvania while eating at the McDonalds. Because for some reason he had the same clothes and mask as in New York and was carrying the same gun and suppressor. And when the cops detained him he showed them the same fake id he used in New York. And oh yeah he's a frat bro gym rat who has a masters degree in computer science from Penn but reads stupid self-help books about being on the grind and is 'anti-woke' while being bisexual suffering from anxiety and wanting to end oppressive capitalism. Not even god himself could invent a person like this

[windwenn]

‘You were my new dream’ or however the fuck that scene went

[icedgin]

☀️

[doctorsiren]

More on that AU where Ford takes Stanley with him to Gravity Falls…I realized they’re kind of like the Winchesters if one of the Winchesters was autistic about cryptids

[kedreeva]

Following the author of The Last Unicorn on Facebook is the only thing that makes being on that site worthwhile.

(source)

[lesbxdyke]

I could think of no better way to share the news than this!

So when I was 17, my cat went missing and I'd given up hope of ever seeing him again.

Until on Monday, 27th of May, 2024, my friend sent me a FB post asking 'isn't that your mother?' about the person named on the microchip.

Here he is! 16 years old, and found safe, twelve whole years after he went missing!

Yesterday (Tuesday the 28th of May, 2024) I went to the rescue that had him, and I reclaimed my boy, renaming him Artie! (He'd originally been called 'Cat' because my mother and I couldn't decide on a name)

He's home safe with me now, currently inhabiting my bathroom and purring up a storm every time someone goes in there!

I'll be doing slow introductions between him and my current cat to give them the best possible chance of living in harmony!

Here's some pictures of Artie once we let him out of the carrier:

[ratsonfire]

I never thought a Honda Odyssey could be so homoerotic