I Was Tame, I Was Gentle 'til The Circus Life Made Me Mean

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 33 - Blood Game

Snippet:

"Thanks for the tip," Vi says, rising to her feet. "I'd do the same for you, if I had any fucks left to give."

"Is that right?" Sevika's eyes glow, a pair of ashed-out cigarettes. "If I were you, sweetie, I'd save my fucks for a fight I can win."

"Funny. I seem to recall kicking your ass at least once before."

"Once. With the element of surprise." The glow hardens. "Not to mention an Uppside bitch playing back-up."

"You saying you'd beat me in a fair fight?"

"In a fair fight, Vi, you'd be a smear on the floor." Sevika's eyes cut her up and down. "I've had bigger and badder than little shit-kickers like you come to heel."

"That a fact?" Vi takes a step closer. She's a good head shorter, but doesn't miss the subtle flexing of Sevika's jaw. "'Cause I've got no problem taking a run at it."

They stand face-to-face. A breath away from collision.

The sun, blood-red, crests over the Aerie.

Vi swears she glimpses her sister's silhouette against the sky.

A crow readying for flight.

Sevika's right fist dry-gulches Vi—a nasty suckerpunch straight to her ribs. The blow would've laid Vi out flat. Except her reflexes have already kicked into gear. She rolls with the punch, torquing her hips at the last minute. Her uppercut, meeting Sevika's momentum, connects her knuckles solidly with the underside of Sevika's jaw.

Sevika's head snaps back. Blood and spittle spray. A split-second later, the shocked glaze fades from her eyes, and she lets loose a war-whoop that could rattle the joists of a steel-walled battleship. Then she's coming at Vi with a haymaker that collides straight into the gut. The blow drops Vi to her knees. Arctic spiders crawl up her sides; her insides are aflame.

Her stare connects with Sevika's. The older woman shrugs, and her mouth curls. A succinct two syllable taunt—

"Square up."

—And she kicks Vi hard enough to send her skidding across the courtyard.

The rest of the recruits, their game suspended, stare in stunned silence. Ran and Dustin, locked in a rowdy clinch, fall apart. Lock, sensing a real match in the offing, sensibly retreats from the fray. Others crowd in a loose circle. The betting begins in a hushed buzz of coins passing from hand to hand.

It's one thing to have the blackguard brass at each other's throats. It's another thing entirely to bear witness to a no-holds-barred showdown between Zaun's two most formidable combatants.

One: the daughter of the Wharfside Devil. The other: the whelp of the Hound of the Underground.

A grudge-match for the ages.

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

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Apparently, some companies now are labeling mass-produced crochet items with "machine crocheted" to justify selling an entire granny square vest for 14 bucks.

1. Machines cannot crochet.

2. Knitting machines, to my knowledge, cannot make granny squares.

3. Even if there was a machine that could crochet, 14 bucks for an entire fucking vest is still too low to be paying people a livable wage basically anywhere in the world.

4. It takes me, a very fast crocheter, about twenty minutes to make one granny square in a single color with five rows. Multi-color granny squares take more time. I'll say 30 minutes. Next time you see a granny square anything in a big box store, count one row of squares and multiply by 20 (for single color squares) or 30 (multicolor squares). Then consider that it's skilled labor which should have an hourly wage you can live on. Then look at the price tag. This is Victorian piece work poor shit going on.

I feel really uncomfortable in media when the Earth is just left behind. Interstellar, Elysium, Starfield, Lost in Space, Wall-E (which is kind of an exception) all just pretend this planet has the potential to lose all meaning for us. This place is full of history and life and culture and plants and animals. But as soon as we have the ability to leave, as soon as our tiny speck of green and blue in the universe coughs a little bit we leave it to become a planet of dust. There's not even an attempt to save anything that makes this place special. The animals and plants, who are our neighbours and roommates? They can all go extinct, who cares, as long as we survive. The buildings, the paintings, the architecture and art? It's all meaningless rubble, as long as we survive. I can't tell if everyone really thinks this planet is nothing to us except a place to infest, or it's just an unfortunate pattern in science fiction. I've never seen the movie but I watched the ending scene of Don't Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio. What a beautiful scene, I watch it a lot. This planet is everything.

Dream bedroom ~

and i’ve never been the same

Blumarine Fall/Wint 2021

Fic Commissions for Hurricane Relief

Hi friends! So, I've never done anything like this before, but I've seen plenty of fic writers/artists on Tumblr and beyond offer commissions and prompt-fills as a fundraising venture. Maybe no one will be interested, and that's totally fine! But if you've enjoyed any of my fics in the past and have (literally) a dollar to spare, I invite you to keep reading. :)

If you're not from the United States like I am, you might not have heard as much about it, but the southeastern U.S. was just hit with the deadliest mainland hurricane since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Given the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, I wanted to offer up my own fic-writing abilities for the cause. I personally donated to BeLoved Asheville, a local 501(c)(3) non-profit which was recommended to me by @carolinawrenn, a member of the fandom who's been personally affected by the Hurricane (e.g., literally has no running water at the moment, just like many thousands of others in the region). The American Red Cross is also taking donations for Hurricane Helene relief specifically.

If you're looking for a way to help out and receive some sweet sweet kanej content at the same time, here's what I'm proposing:

If you email me a receipt of your donation to BeLoved Asheville or the Red Cross, I'll write a Six of Crows drabble or fic of your choosing with the following minimum lengths (all dollar amounts in USD - I am happy to look up the conversion rates if you donate in another currency though, and I would round up to the nearest dollar in that case):

$1-5 donation: 100-word drabble

$6-20 donation: 500-word ficlet

$21-50 donation: 1,000-word fic

$51-99 donation: 2,000-word fic

$100+ donation: 3,000-word (or longer, who knows?) fic

If you've read any of my fics, you know that I primarily write kanej, but I'm willing to try my hand at any of the canon ships (e.g., wesper or helnik) and/or general, non-romance fic.

Please consider donating! I would be THRILLED if I got a bunch of $1 donations and had to write a bunch of 100-word drabbles. Every little bit counts. <3

If you're interested in participating, please submit to this form: https://forms.gle/kDG16K2Gr1TBEQFx6

And if you have ANY questions or concerns, feel free to reply below or message/ask me directly. :)

kaz showing inej the tunnel he dug under ketterdam to connect his club to his bestie’s house and inej going, no yeah babe it’s great really😐unrelated but do you want me to find you another life’s purpose now that you’ve gotten your revenge? nbd just wondering

the next time she comes back he greets her by popping out the end of another tunnel at fifth harbor and she realizes that maybe his life’s purpose is to create kerch’s first subway system

Marilyn Monroe