"Contemplating regicide is, in its own way, practically a form of patriotism in Archades, but with Vayne it has always been something to savor."
- a conspiracy of cartographers, twigcollins.




“It's always colder in the room when he smiles. The air tastes of smoke, thick and dark. It's wood smoke and tobacco and incense (but Xiao doesn't smoke, and no fires are lit). The cloud curls into his clothes and skin and mouth without origin, without end. It's choking, heavy, the top two feet of his room. Yet when he moves, he is the bow cutting the wave, the knife slicing the skin. Uninterrupted. Fluid. Graceful.”
- off-kilter; balance, thinkingCAPSLOCK




“When your party stays at the Inn overnight, what do they eat?

If you ever catch yourself wondering that, then you know you've formed an attachment to your characters.”
- How to Use Your Imagination, Kazuya Niinou




“Johnny ain’t the kind to be sappy.

Johnny is running fast. Johnny likes fast. This world is a shithole, sure, but Johnny doesn’t care. Johnny just sees it as more reason to shred tire at the speed of light.

He runs from settlement to settlement. Settlement on the ridge is doin’ okay; Robo and that new bot, pink bow – they’ve got some seeds growin’. Wasn’t much there but hope at first, but Johnny’s got some wheat in his bag now, and Doan still knows how to make bread.

They ain’t dead yet.

Johnny clutches his goods and races home fast.”
- Post-Apocalypse, AceQueenKing



 “And like the first snow it comes to him then, a bright blue moment of clarity: his tutor was right, the tome was written in past tense; the creature that stalks the pages is a monster called metaphor; language has more purpose than enunciating demands. For all its promises of making and unmaking, Brynhildr is a storybook.”

- House of Leaves, Kanthia




 “She is the second of the mysterious trio that showed up at Castle Krakenburg, and the only girl of the group. Vivacious, snappy, and competitive, she snaps, “I deserve the best,” and Garon sits back and gives her Princess Camilla of Nohr.”

- these kind of things can’t be done alone, shadowdance


 “The draft maneuvered through a small galaxy of spare change under the couch, which was lumpier than Undyne’s mashed potatoes. This was impressive, as Undyne mashed her potatoes entirely with headbutts. Her head often wound up with more lumps than the potatoes. Undyne insisted that this improved the flavor. She emphatically denied the concussion had anything to do with it, often just before having a couple of aspirin and a nice lie down.”

- One by One, CourierNew





“Within twenty minutes of conversation he's got an idea of the relationship between himself and Rachel Berry: they're both the sort of people who've probably highlighted the same passages in How to Win Friends and Influence People, the difference being that for him they've worked.”

- say it with flowcharts, nthcoincident



He gave Catherine a reason to actually pay attention to something as she lazed around on the couch at the very back, at least. Hard to see him too well all the way back there but that's what watching other people watching him was for.

Didn’t have to watch by proxy for long - he was moving like he owned the place and more-or-less in her direction.

He was tall, easy enough to tell that - not Teddy tall, who was, but tall. Wore a lot of green, hair almost as silly as Teddy or Blaise’s, but also not quite. Blonde, green eyes, strong profile - and, under the air of confidence he wore like a suit, there was a vague... something. Worry, maybe.

Catherine decided that she very much didn't like strangers with a chip on their shoulders and confidence that they might just actually have earned.

--


“Calem keeps his hair short this time around, and the thought of it shocks her more than it should. He is still the same person – they always are, forever unchanging.
The first time a thousand years had passed she met Calem by accident. She cried and had thrown herself into his arms, and while he had patted her back in comfort, she knew he remembered nothing.

After that she tried to find the reawakened gods to set things right, but could not find her way back to Geosenge. After five cycles, she gave up.

“You’re new here?”

She smiles sadly.”
One Hundred, delcatty



“The less than terrified expression on your face must be noticeable, because he puts a hand on his hip and is possibly glaring at you (not that you could tell with those sunglasses). “Listen up! We’re the fashionable team whose very name has people trembling in fear. Team Flare!”

Team flair sounds like those fashion critics for award shows. Or maybe it’s Team Flare, like fire? That makes more sense, actually, but what does fire have to fashion?

“Team Flare’s goal is to make it so we’re the only ones who are happy. We don’t care one bit about what happens to trainers or Pokémon. Get out of here, kid. Don’t you know not to play with fire?”

Wow. What an asshole. You look forward to beating the shit out of his Pokemon team.”

Don’t You Know Not to Play With Fire?, blarfkey



“A neverending stream of thought cross his mind as he waits for the performance to begin. He feels apprehension humming beneath his skin, mingling with pure excitement of being so out of character. Him, Nezha, at a concert like this, on a Friday night, when everyone expects him to go home and look over financial reports or something.

Please, he scoffs mentally, that’s a Sunday activity.”
the litany for ancestral spirits, pistolgrip

“When the plague came, and her brothers fell one by one, their tutors became her tutors. She learned land management, battle tactics, the intricacies of water rights, and the history and weight of law, as well as dances from a dozen cultures and social niceties. When she protested these, her etiquette tutor told her that she needed to know it so that her insults would be intentional, not unwitting, and so that she would recognize both sorts coming from another.

After that, Princess Ashelia was quick to master even the soft arts.”
Coronation, Lassarina



“Draco snorted. “Come along, then, if you need a demonstration,” he said, and leaned over and took Harry’s favorite Ball Roller out of his satchel.

He took Harry on a bizarre progress through four different wood-paneled sitting rooms where he picked out a perfectly random witch or wizard in each one, nobody Harry even knew, and struck up a conversation. After five minutes of chit-chat he’d say, “Harry’s been showing me this new kind of pen Muggles have invented, the poor creatures. Have you seen it? A simple Inexhaustible Ink charm, and it would really be quite usable. You’ve been wanting to make a switch at the Aurors’ Office, Potter, haven’t you?” Then he’d scribble a bit with it and hand it over for examination, and five minutes later he’d make an excuse and they’d move onward to the next random victim.

“Did something happen that I’m missing?” Harry said after the fourth one, when Draco headed for the cloakroom with the demonstration apparently over.

“Infinitudes, apparently,” Draco said, swinging his cloak back over his shoulders. “If that wasn’t obvious enough, you’ll just have to wait for it, Potter, I haven’t time to explain tonight. I’ll drop in at the office later this week: perhaps you’ll have worked it out by then.”

---

Wednesday morning Harry pretended to himself he was shaving both ways just because he liked it, no other reason whatsoever, and he was distracted at work because he was waiting for Malfoy to come and tell him how the first round of repairs to the portal had gone, and he wasn’t looking at the clock or—

He came straight up in his chair at the knock on the door, but when he cleared his throat and called, “Alohomora!” it only swung open to reveal Raymond Gurley from the postroom with four fat padded envelopes for him, along with a faintly lavender-scented envelope in creamy heavy stock. “Special delivery or something, Harry?” he said, dropping them on the desk.

“Er, I suppose,” Harry said, baffled. “I didn’t order anything.” He didn’t recognize any of the return addresses, either.

“Did all four of them manage an entry?” Draco said, and Harry’s head jerked up involuntarily as he came in, exchanging places with Gurley’s cart. He came over and perched on the edge of Harry’s desk, peering over at the envelopes. “It’s nice to know initiative is alive and well in the Empire.”

“Wait, what are these?” Harry said. “Did you order them?”

“No, Potter, you did,” Draco said, ripping the largest of them open and dumping a double handful of faintly glittering ink pens on Harry’s desk, along with a letter from the chairman of Quinchley Quills, Ltd., So lovely to see you at Old Whissing the other day, Auror Potter. I wonder if you would care to try this new product and let us know your thoughts. We take our responsibility in supplying the Department of Magical Enforcement with the finest writing implements available most seriously, and going on a while in that vein.

“They were all quill manufacturers?” Harry said, looking through all the letters. There were a dozen different sorts of pens in the lot, some closer to the Rollerball than others, and there were varied special features trumpeted in each.

Malfoy sighed noisily. “Potter, when you wanted ink pens, I suppose you asked the Ministry to bang in an order with Amazonia or whatever the thing is called? And nevermind the loss of business to wizarding companies that pay tax to the Ministry and buy lunches for senior Ministry officials, et cetera?”

“Er,” Harry said.

“Well, Quinchley et al will be delighted to slap a cheap charm onto an even cheaper bit of Muggle junk for you, if that’s what you like,” Draco said, flipping a pink pen across at him with a twist of his fingers. “And the Ministry will be delighted to buy them for you when the manufacturers offer them at half the price of hand-cut quills plucked from wild geese. Still care to go on at me about the uselessness of cultivating the right people? You could stand to do a little of it yourself.”

Reparatio, astolat



“There is fire in his blood. A city’s Music poured into his veins, his heart maintaining tempo as his every movement flows with the melody. His eyes are radiant, they glow like every light in Shibuya is shining out of them, from the nightlights to neon signs.

The beat is what pulls you in, draws you close. It’s a whirlwind of electrifying sound, a black hole and you are closing in on the event horizon. There is still time to turn back, but the temptation to see what’s beyond is too strong.

There are days when you laze around in his apartment, watching tin pin and trying to capture the curls of his hair, the specific shade of violet that is his eyes, to keep on the pages in your sketchbook. You end up leaning against him, and you can feel the pulse of the city beneath his skin, the power just beneath the surface. The symphony that fills your ears at this contact promises creation, beauty in the form of your art flooding Shibuya, if you offer yourself up to the city in return.

Joshua is quick to pull away on those days, when the temptation fills your head. He taps you on the nose and says that you don’t want to do that, you don’t need to make that deal.”

Event Horizon, ComposerEgg



“Slow your breath; unclench your fist. Even in sleep you are ready for war.”
The Golden Wing



“Suddenly you’re 21 and you’re screaming along in your car to all the songs you used to listen to when you were sad in middle school and everything is different but everything is good.”

The Heat of the South

“They’re looking,” she says, quiet in his ear, though she sounds more amused than anything.

“Course they’re fucking looking,” he fires back, side of the mouth like he’s James Cagney, or alternatively like he’s just been to the dentist and half his face is solid rubber. “Do you know how pretty I am?”

Sadly, she’s right, they really are. It’s not even the usual paranoid shiver of intrusion most everyone gets in these situations. Heads genuinely are turning, conversations are faltering, remarks are being poorly concealed behind hands or napkins. His favourite option is (a): hot damn, check out that guy in the shades, motherfucker’s so swag he put me off my filet mignon. He’d settle for (b), because Rose Lalonde is nineteen and perfect, big violet eyes and a little dress to match, skin like cream and a tiny smile that says you can touch me if you like, but you will almost certainly die; she’s got one hand on his sleeve, white on crushed crimson like a shitty vampire paperback, and right now he could punch a speeding train and come off best.

“Table for two, sir?” says the maître d’, and Dave valiantly resists the urge to say nah brah, the rest of the team’s right behind us, because tonight that’s not the point; tonight he is taking it seriously.

--



“The demon first emerges from the self-help aisle, somewhere between the dating for dummies and diet books with cakes on the cover. John is running the register at the time, and the lady in the pink track suit insists she’s buying used books and used books should cost less, but no, ma’am, the bargain bins have a flat price, but they’re used ma’am please. By the time she leaves, running shoes squeaking over the floor, John can’t think why this handsome boy wouldn’t be a demon.

Dave appears in a clean red suit, and he is slim and handsome. His tie flicks out like a snake’s tongue, and his shoes have black buttons on the sides. He wears sunglasses, even inside the bookstore, and John would think he didn’t have eyes. But he does. John can barely see them through the shades. They’re big, and wide, and full of hope, and John thinks that’s why he hides them.
“So why are you here?” John rings up the cash register. It’s a hollow sound.
“Seven sins. Four horsemen. Take your pick, doesn’t matter. My lips are locked tighter than your mother’s panties drawer.” Dave drops his elbows against the counter. He’s close enough that John can see the suit stretched taut along his back. He can smell him, a singed scent, smoldering and tannic.
“Are you one of the seven sins?”

“Everybody sins, dipstick. And I’m not one of those sin personified, that’s cheesy shit. But if you’re asking for my biggest one, you nosey little shit, it’s lust. In Latin, it’s luxuria, and I know that because all demons know Latin. We’re old as balls. I’m talking old man balls, hanging and sagging and all wrinkly, stuffed in ratty scratch-and-sniff boxers.”

Dave drops his head, fingers idly weaving a pattern against the cool countertop. John studies the top of his head, where the light hair mingles over darker strands. He wonders if sorrow is a sin, and if it would be Dave’s sin, but he doesn’t say this out loud. He doesn’t like being called a dipstick. So he makes tea in the backroom, and serves two.”

Blasphemy, inheritor




“I’m getting married,” she says aloud, delicate as a dragonfly’s wings, as a gossamer veil, all white.”

You’re always hoping that we make it, berryhibiscuit



“The air is heavy with the weight of summer ahead, and Maki doesn’t know what to make of it.”

Limbo, roserade




They're lying on the floor, lazy with the heat; there's a small desk fan and a tall one on rotate and an expensive looking one they dug out of Cynthia's garage. The white noise is soothing, or it would be if Owain wasn't shoving Inigo's character sheet in his face.

It always seems like a good idea to go paddling in the fountain, idolaters




“Come with me,” the Hunter asks afterwards. “Death can wait. Come with me.”

Tasting ash in his mouth, Alfred goes.

Breathe For Me, jeza_red





 “I’ve decided this will be the one,” Kaworu says with a smile. His eyes glow like heated blood in the amber sunlight streaming through the window. “I have a plan this time.”

“Implying that you haven’t had a plan all those times before?” Homura accepts the can of coffee from him and primly pops off the tab. “I’ve seen your sketches and notes on the walls. You’ve had many plans.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic for me,” Kaworu says, but there’s a laugh in his words that makes them ring soft and pleasant. “And besides, those were faulty plans. This one isn’t.”


Graduation Day, phollie