#this is definitely a good solution!

[townofcadence]

Artair was busy wiping at his nose, when he felt something. And within seconds, someone had made their way between the trees. The intentions were clear by the words alone, but he could feel the hot thread of poisonous hatred levied towards this place as well. Towards him, where he sat. And then a gun is lifted.

His heart thuds heavy in his chest. A scar throbs in sudden recollection at seeing the barrel. He sees the body of something in his hand, but it's hard to look away. You only aimed at what you intended to kill, that was what he knew of guns. But between the hunting rifle, the vitriol burning at his lungs, and something else, he freezes.

The chain of events seems to cascade almost too fast to follow. The safety isn't on, the gun is raised, and the crow flies. He expects it to fluttter away out of fear, but then it dives, and the feathers seem to shed a few at a time and then all at once, almost like a coat being shed. Pale skin and dark hair breach them, following a hand that reaches outward the same color as the deepest ink.

He hardly has time to even acknowledge any of these facts. With scarce but a touch, the man is--- gone. All those feelings filling him like an empty vessel from him snuffed as entirely as his body had been, in an instant.

He stares at the body, lifeless in the grass, and then upwards towards who had protected him. His lungs are tight, but not out of fear. He isn't sure what the tangled thing is, but the scattering of bird-like sounds drag him back away from it. The question is said, and he nods, a small thing that feels so very delicate.

"I think so...." He manages, looking back at the body. He wonders if he could've... been faster, said the right thing, or at least been smart enough not to be so indiscreet about what he was doing. He doesn't even really feel bad, that someone died, but something about that feels worse. He chews on his lip.

"Thank you. For-- helping me. You could've just left, but... you didn't." He adds, shaking his head. The hunter had already killed something, some kind of two-headed wolf, and the Heart made the rules clear when he'd entered the wood himself. He didn't know what he planned to do to him, but likely it was something just as bad as becoming a pelt, if not worse with the way he spoke. The way he felt.

It was already done too. And while the idea of someone dying for him was...hard to swallow, he couldn't deny he was glad whatever the hunter planned fell through. "I... owe you one. Not a fan of getting shot." He attempts a weak laugh. "Didn't expect the bird I'd been talking at to uh. Turn into a guy and swoop in to the rescue, that's for sure."

It's all new to the crow. Sure, the Heart is capable of using magic, the entire forest is kept alive through this magic alone, and he too was made with this magic, and yet this is completely different and utterly fascinating. He may not understand what purpose these plants serve, but from the ritual around it, he imagines they must serve one.

The sensation is vaguely unpleasant. Perhaps it's the fact that he is already made of magic, and this magic is now being forced to make way for this strange, new magic. Perhaps it's just how this is supposed to feel. He isn't sure. He hasn't been hurt all that many times before, even with the forest being dangerous.

Even the most dangerous creatures know to stay clear of him.

He's grateful to the visitor. He can tell the other is doing... not as well as he was doing before he cast the spell. It cost him something, seems to have harmed him in some way. Before the crow has any time to dwell on this thought, however, there is the sound of approaching footsteps and a strange voice.

"Another one of these magical freaks, huh? I'm sure we can make use of ya."

A gruff-looking man enters the clearing, dragging a wolf with two heads, a Daubenblaid, behind him. It's alarming. The Daubenblaid were little more than mindless creatures made to guard this place, but if someone got past them, that usually meant trouble.

As soon as the hunter approaches, everything seems to happen very fast. The hunter raises a rifle and points it at Artair, then the crow, in turn, flies closer and seems to disappear into a flurry of black feathers.

From the feathers emerges a man. He's pale, except for his hands and forearms, which are the color of a cloudless night sky. He does still have some feathers jutting out of his arms, neck, and framing his face, but besides that, he looks surprisingly human.

The crow, now a man, lunges for the hunter, his fingers only grazing the hunter's arm, but oddly, this seems to be enough. That touch, small as it might be, causes the life to leave the hunter instantly. As the hunter collapses onto the forest floor, the crow turns to look at Artair. He caws a few times, until the sound that he makes almost sounds like a word.

"okay?"

[lady-raziel]

hilarious that with each new day that passes a new bit of dirt from JD Vance's past gets discovered and plastered over the internet...it's almost as if this is why presidential campaigns have always announced their running mates well before the convention...so that if glaring issues with a candidate came to light quickly there would be time to replace them on the ticket before they were officially locked in...it's almost as if certain things in political campaigns were done for a reason, donald...because the very same critical failures had happened before...but no i'm sure you and your guys attempt to recreate a fantasy version of history while ignoring all the reasons that history was a disaster will work this time...because you are built different and the 10000th time trying fascism will work like a charm...

[zhongrin]

✼ー hello, my dear patrons.

i have an important announcement to make.

for my own mental health and reinforcing my boundaries, i will be implementing changes on how i interact in this blog. the general rules (shop etiquette) and taglist rules (membership) have been updated to reflect this.

to give a short summary of the changes, moving forward, i will fully cease interactions with minors or ageless blogs. the same goes for my taglist, which i have purged. more details can be found in the two links above. feel free to drop by my askbox if you need any clarifications.

i'm sorry to my mutuals / friends / followers, who are minors / uncomfortable in disclosing their age, but have been following the rules and respecting my boundaries. i'm truly sorry it had to come to this, but i have had enough. the nature of my content will stay the same but if these changes doesn't sit well with you, please feel free to unfollow or block.

lastly, if you have been following my rules, genuinely, thank you so, so much for respecting the human being behind the handle name 'zhongrin'. you are a blessing to humanity and i hope good things will come your way soon.

ps. i will be reblogging this post for about a week or so, just so people can see it.

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[meownotgood]

a lot of the time and I mean like once per week I somewhat wish that I wrote ship fics like a normal person instead of x reader. the problem is. I am not normal

[askblueandviolet]

Ejem, dear macaque...DID YOU REALLY THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?!!

Baihe, dear, what do You think of your first training session? And Your new mentor, they are not the best but they aren't the worst, right? :D

MASTER POST

Asks Start 💙💜🩷

Previous 💙💜🩷

Next 💙🩷

[cloudbends]

The psychological torture of loving media that is both relatively obscure and the small audience it does have doesn't get it whatsoever. I need normal people to get into shoushimin or ill be alone in the appreciation corner for eternity

[dead-salmon]

amazing how in the span of like a month you could see 3 different liberal democracies almost collapse in on themselves: germany's coalition broke apart bc one of the partys decided that a coup attempt with a paper called d-day would work wonders for their polls, france's parliament is trying to get rid of it's shitty prime minister so hard the left and right are cooperating, south korea's president decided to try a military coup as choice of tantrum-response to likely getting impeached

but no, there definitely isn't some issue in the current political system

[bonefall]

wait, why can’t a decent amount of the members in proto-thunderclan not hunt?

A lot of them have serious physical disabilities! It's enough that it poses a logistical problem, which they are committed to overcoming together.

Thunder Storm's three legs makes him slower than his companions. He's ferociously powerful, but like a male lion, he has to rely on his "lionesses" to slow a large animal.

Bright Storm has asthma from her heroics trying to save SkyClan cats from a fire. She's taking that from Gray Wing, who is famously the first major death now. Like her son, she has a difficult time with chasing prey.

Bumble is dyspraxic. She's a terrible hunter and fighter and struggles with self-worth because OTHERS used it to dehumanize her, and continues to, even after an entire society forms out of love of her.

Sunlit Frost has permanent nerve damage in his arm from the fire, and ends up working so hard that it makes his disability worse. A bite on the good paw from Snake becomes infected after he refuses to sit out from digging graves after the First Battle; I am planning a chunky B-plot about Sunlit coming to terms with the fact he has to retire early.

That's FOUR major members of a small group with physical disabilities that make hunting hard or impossible. They have a lot of logistical problems that I will actually be exploring solutions to.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

To Shape A Dragon’s Breath

YA fantasy

a young Indigenous girl finds & bonds with a dragon hatchling - the first time in many generations for her people - and is required to go to the coloniser’s dragon academy in their mainland city, to learn how to raise her dragon and the science of its magic

historical inspired setting on the cusp of industrial revolution with steampunk vibes

bi polyamorous MC, Black lesbian SC, nonverbal autistic SC

[birdyverdie]

The other day I had such a bad breakdown where I was wandering mindlessly around campus like some feral beast. Nah.. perhaps I was more akin to a hunted rabbit. But regardless, a thing about me is that I was born and raised catholic, by my Hispanic parents, so for the first 14 years of my life all I ever knew were the endless cycles of Spanish prayers and mass. You say the words "Padre nuestro" and the next lines of prayer fall out of my mouth unbitted, unwilling. Say "Santa maria" and I'll be staring blankly in space, spewing the same words I said every day as I was driven to school, to church, to some random outing at the whims of my parents. Anyways, I haven't gone to church in over 7 years. but man, what a bad break it was, if I ran head-first to the chapel on campus, and cried at the feet of some random priest who didnt even know my name

[whitmore]

really actually kind of enjoy how the big lore moments are sort of quiet on a singular stream (or a small group!) instead of the events solely being the lore; i think there would be this hesitation to develop anything solo if the server reinforced this idea that Big Lore could only happen during scheduled events and days. instead the more narrative-progressing moments (take the baghera hybrid experiments revelation or the philza birdnapping for recent example) are very low-key and almost unhyped up— there’s no expectation for that kind of lore necessarily at the time which makes it more rewarding to experience as a viewer. big fan of how they do the events as player bonding time rather than serious narrative progression because it allows all the players (especially the ones who don’t engage in the rp side that much) to participate and get to know each another more; it’s very neat it’s really smart it’s nicely executed

[msburgundy]

i am fighting for my life, i am so tired of my neck trying to destroy me lol

[cumulo-stratus]

Max r u okay😰

yeth

everything just sucks rn

my sister is gone (at college she's not dead) so i'm dealing with that and the house feeling empty, and school is starting soon, and my mom is at a new job, and there's gonna be a ton of new students at school who i don't know, and idk my brain isn't built for this

i got overwhelmed tn but luckily i ended up being okay with minimal crying 🥇🥇

and i called my sister so i got to talk to her!!

[penins]

Is it too much to ask for a jontim fic that isn't either jonmartim or just them having sex. Or both. I'm actually begging. The jmart fics out there are heartwrenching and sweet and complicated but the same cannot be said for jon and tim. Drives me mad

[lord-squiggletits]

NGL I think one of my least favorite "gotchas" that I see/get while critiquing stories is "so how would you fix it? oh so you don't have an idea of how to rewrite the story to make it better? oh so basically you're just complaining that you don't like it and don't have actual critique."

Buddy.

Sometimes the reason I don't have a "solution" to how the author should've rewritten their story to be better, is because I'm not privy to the author's thought process, what their alternate story ideas were, what they talked about with their editor, what they might've been forced to do by deadlines, or even what they might've thought they were writing towards at first but then later changed the trajectory of their story to be about something else.

It's all well and good for me to say something like, idk, "I think Character A should've gotten more narrative focus because their story could have helped fix XYZ Plot Hole," but it could very well be that the author never intended for Character A to be a prominent character (just a secondary or tertiary character). Maybe using Character A to solve one Plot Hole would've gone against the writer's plans because then it would open up a different plot hole for something else they had planned later in the story. If it's an ongoing story, maybe something I see as a "plot hole" is actually a deliberate mystery that the creator left open to write about later-- or maybe the plot hole is because there was a deadline crunch and the author had to drop a certain character/plot point/etc because they couldn't fit it into the story any more. Maybe having Character A be a more prominent part of the story is just based on MY personal tastes and what I would want to write in MY version of the story, but completely clashes with the characters/conflicts the author wanted to focus on.

Because yes, there are some story critiques that are as simple as "part A doesn't make sense, you could just fix it by doing B", but there are also some story critiques where suggesting a viable "solution" would require BEING the author or someone involved in the production of the story to understand what limitations or plans were involved in the selection of that flawed plot point. There are also some story critiques where even if there is a "problem" and my critique offers a "solution," there could be another "solution" or even dozens that do just as good of a job fixing the issue, but involve vastly different characters, plot ideas, so on and so forth.

Being a good critic isn't (just) about going "the story would've been better if X happened" because the story is ultimately in control of the author and their vision, and without knowing what the author's vision was (something that you almost exclusively know if you're 1. the author or 2. their beta reader), it's impossible to definitively say "this plot point should've been cut/[completely different thing] should've happened instead" because THAT is the point at which you're complaining, not critiquing. I would argue that in some cases, trying to "fix" a story yourself actually makes your critique worse, not better, because it ends up being a case of you simply imposing your artistic vision over the author's to say "I think it would've been better this way."

At least if you just say "this part of the story was flawed because XYZ" without saying "it should have been ABC instead", then you're stating your grievances with the story without being presumptuous enough to assume that YOUR version of the story would fit the author's original vision, or the constraints they were working under, or the other versions of the story that they were debating over at the time before ultimately settling on one version (even if flawed).

There's a point at which "this plot is flawed, that should've happened instead" is just fix-it fan fiction and not actual critique that could help the writer write their story in a way that fits their vision.