lemonduckisnowawake

[lemonduckisnowawake]

....Is half a day too short of notice to suggest a new writing challenge?

The situation is this:

-I enjoyed the daily writing routine of National Poetry Writing Month and want to keep the momentum going

-Ever since I started the Inklings Challenge, I've vaguely wanted to have some kind of event marking Chesterton's birthday

-We have precedent for a single-Inklings-author-referencing writing challenge with the Four Loves Challenge

-Chesterton's birthday is in May

-Chesterton was an extremely prolific author, essayist, artist, poet, biographer, journalist, etc., etc., and it would be fun to have an event honoring that

Ergo, the idea that won't leave me alone is:

The Chesterton Challenge

Which would be an event on the Inklings Challenge blog throughout the month of May that challenges people to create something every day of May--be it a story, drawing, poem, doodle, meal, sculpture, sentence, puppet, essay, scribble, whatever. If it involves making something, it counts. Every day throughout May, there'd be a post on the blog with a completely optional prompt to inspire creative works. People could then reblog that post either showing us or telling us about what they created that day.

People could interact with as many or as few days as they like. So it would be less of a writing challenge and more of a community thing.

Am I crazy? Does anyone else want to be crazy with me? Should I make it a thing or leave everyone alone?

#wait this is a good idea.... #i want to do this and actually put stuff on tumblr #especially short stuff! #gotta get back into doing short stuff #honestly op if you have an actual blog for this do feel free to tag me #but now imma see if i can do this challenge now in may #i will probably immediately fail but LET'S DO THIS #for the words! #<-an actual battle cry now

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Everyone talks about how Roy killed Lust as a symbolic proof that he is devoted to actual love but no one talks about how Envy was outed by Riza almost immediately as a symbol of her always accepting what she has and even being content with it. Maybe love IS a narrative force and theme to be reckoned with (and rightly so!), but content when you have so many reasons not to be and when others sometimes have what you don't? That's super cool, too

#technically we can also talk about how greed was defeated by satisfaction #which was via the power of friend *mlp theme song starts playing* #and how pride was defeated when edward did not consider anything above the philosophy of don't take human lives #even if that soul was stolen....it was a life to edward enough. that IS humility actually #(humility. btw. does not exclude being glorified and raised above) #AND i will not forget to say that lan fan killed bradley as an example of how virtue does not exclude anger #but my hissiness about revenge narratives keep me from really tackling that. sorry lan fan #ANYWAY the point is riza has found contentment and acceptance despite everything #lemon duck quacks #fmab

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Reading a recent manga and it's really been a series of nice surprises. In short...

Blunt and Straightforward but sweet FL that sometimes does manifest as overly innocent/naive but also sometimes absolutely roasts the receiver????

Wait the kinda sprung up proposal is properly addressed instead of letting itself be hidden under the justifiable comedy tag?

Insane families of both leads that are still alive and good people???

Wait. Female friendships or female relationships/interactions? That are given equal genre weight (made to be ridiculous but fun to read about)?

Why does this fantasy world have an America in it? 💀

I can't believe this manga shows that womanizing has consequences and shouldn't be excused with a sad past. Again, they could have shoved that under comedy.

Not the shiftless corset trope again.....

Okay, sure. So they're just gonna throw in a maid that probably was an assassin and never address that beyond her being a criminal who is probably on her way to jail. That's fine.

Wait, that's all? Where's the rest (I PICKED UP AN ONGOING MANGA. PAIN.)

#stories told through art #yeah thats gonna have to be my general webtoons and comics and such tag #ill tag specific ones with the title but until then.... #lemon duck quacks

[lemonduckisnowawake]

You know. Sometimes in life you're gonna meet people and be like "wow, I love you as a person but I'd hate to meet you on the internet" and that's okay

#lemon duck quacks

[lemonduckisnowawake]

10 or 11 little ducks have been spotted crossing the dash board

#DUCKS #DUUUUUUCKS!!!!!!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

courtesy of sharing photos with a friend on discord, I got a nice lil collage of some of the photos I took on my walk today.

#this looks like an aesthetic board #tales from reality #friend things!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

still dying laughing over the fact that my darning kit from amazon had instructions that were clearly not translated correctly, and gave me instructions on how to dam my socks

#did does dam socks come from the hoover dam? #asking for a friend #yeah this is funny

[lemonduckisnowawake]

If you're a smoker, including someone who vapes, ask permission before smoking around others. Don't assume everyone around you is okay with it.

More people than you'd expect have severe asthma or allergies that cause strong adverse reactions to being around smoke. Assuming everyone around you is okay with it can cause someone's asthma or allergies to act up and harm them. Also, if someone doesn't want second hand smoke, because even second hand smoke can cause health problems, that's their right to not want to be exposed to second hand smoke.

But it's always more polite to smoke away from others and down wind rather than smoking close to others, especially if you don't know how they feel about someone smoking by them.

#*violently beats up some people i had to stand next to/walk past without being able to avoid doing so in the UK* #especially in bus stations #this also reminds me of the time i am pretty sure i stumbled upon a teen drug ring at a bus stop near midnight #fun times i had #had to wash my coat after that experience cause the stench was unbearable #or just hang it up outside #i have too many tags

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Legends and Lattes.

(Such a cozy book by @travisbaldree . I highly suggest it.)

#OH THIS IS ADORABLE! #i remember reading legends and lattes and just being so.....astounded by it #one of the few times i'd seen slice of life novelized so well #AND not to mention it's *fantasy/dnd* slice of life #which makes it like....1000 times better #also this art is just SO cute #evokes children's book illustrations #fandom art #legends and lattes #misc book tag

[lemonduckisnowawake]

I'm probably never, ever going to finish or edit this Considine fanfic I wrote during a retreat, so onto the trash can (this blog) it goes.

*add the scene about Jade teling Con it's okay to forget her here.*

.........

When Jade died - killed by old age, of all things - Considine was almost tempted to give up.

How was it that he'd forgotten his best friend's laugh but could still remember the pain of losing him? He might not remember it with his mind, but his body did.

So when he almost collapsed upon itself when it lost his One, it felt...too familiar.

During those moments blinded by grief, it did register in his mind that this physical reaction to Jade's death was partly the fault of the magic binding him to her. But another, smaller but immovable, part whispered to him that the grief and pain in his heart wasn't new.

Wildly, in the times where his grief was the most intense, he wondered if that's how it would always be. That he would care and love and pour his heart out to another, only for them to leave him empty of the only person who could fill that specific hole in his heart.

Then, someone burst into his room.

Considine jumped, startled by the noise, the haze clouding his sight clearing for a moment to see Orrin - white-haired, slightly wrinkled in the perfect way only a Fae could be, yet still as stubborn as ever - drawn immediately back by one of Killian's minions.

"No, let me IN. I don't care if he's unstable," the old Fae hissed, wrenching himself from - was that Celestina's? - grip.

Vaguely, Considine knew that Orrin would never have been able to break free from the strong vampire's grip if she hadn't let him go. Orrin, though his cagey willfulness had only grown, had not gotten stronger with age.

Then, Orrin was in front of him.

"Considine," Orrin greeted. The words held their own grief but contained, like a kettle before reaching boiling point.

Considine didn't even look up at the sliver of light Orrin's entrance brought, nor did he look at Celestina's figure hovering worriedly at the entrance.

That's all they were. Simply there.

And then...

"You know. I remember something Jade - "

"Don't say her name," Considine hissed, looking up. If he were anyone else, maybe his voice would have shaken, but he was a vampire elder. And he was Considine. All he sounded was angry.

"I remember something Jade told me," Orrin continued, unbothered. "She told me a few years back when we had that scare with her almost being killed in action to remind you of something."

Maybe it would have been against his will if Jade's words had been any less important to him. Maybe...but it wasn't against his will when his attention focused just a little bit.

"Remember that you are loved."

Considine straightened and looked at Orrin. For a moment, he saw a mirage of the Fae's younger self - *insert Orrin description* - before it blurred to the current picture of the aged Fae.

It was almost too much to bear, knowing that he would lose Orrin as well one day. (*note: can the vampire spittle work on Fae?*)

But the words cleared the fog in his mind. Jade's voice in her younger years, trapping his face between her hands and telling him that. Their slayer children repeating the words of their mother to him - "I love you, Dad!" or "You know we love you, right, Dad? Even if you do look younger than us now..." or even just "Love you! Bye!"

And then Jade. Her dying breath being one full of love as she told him the words Orrin had repeated to him. "Considine. Even if you forget me, remembered that you are loved."

The river of thoughts floods his mind in a single second, but he doesn't miss Orrin's near instant follow up.

"To be honest, I don't know if there's any special meaning to that, Considine," the Fae continues, sitting down with a slight thud on one of the chairs in the elaborate Drake Hall room. Orrin looks Considine dead in the eyes. "But she's right, you know? I love you, too. Don't forget that."

Considine blinks.

From the doorway, a voice speaks up.

"If I may, Elder Maledictus," Celestina says, voice calm with her natural confidence. "Perhaps I am bold to speak for my Family Elder, but he also loves you, as loath as he is sometimes to admit it."

The words from the two supernaturals overrun the torrent in his soul longing for Jade. It's still there, but it's like a dam has been raised with those words, keeping the water from destroying everything. Jade's memory won't be a flood of destruction but a peaceful lake surrounded by forest where the beautiful things always grow. It may wax and wane with the seasons, a fire may come and destroy it like it had when Ambrose had died, but it would flourish and never die as long as that lake full of the memory and reality of Jade's love survived.

Considine scoffs, and for the first time in weeks, he cracks one of his usual smiles that Kilkian once described as his "scheming smile." Jade had countered that it was his normal one that showed he was well.

"You both are saps," he informs the two.

At that, Orrin basically grins at him, looking as lofty and self-possessed as always. "Saps who can't lie, though," he reminds.

Right. Saps who can't lie.

............

"You know. Out of all of us, of course your Family would be your gaggle of slayers," Killian comments.

He and Considine watch as Considine's great great great grandkids, give or take a few greats, go through drills with the descendants of the O'Neils.

Considine gives Killian a magnanimous smile. "What can I say. Humans are more interesting than the stuffy immortals they can become."

One of the Jade slayers spots the two vampires and waves. He mouths something that Considine easily guesses is either, "Hello, Uncle Considine!" or "Get your lazy butts down here!"

Truly they are children after his own heart. Having slayer descendants - and named after his One, as per the unanimous decision of his grandchildren - was just as fun as he remembered predicting.

The joy of it dims sometimes when he feels a hand on his that isn't there. Or when he can see a serious critical eye ruthlessly correcting, criticizing, or complimenting the stances and drills, a sight that fades like colored perfume.

But right now, with Killian next to him also waving back at Considine's descendant, Considine can feel his heart growing in fullness.

It's ridiculous.

The gaps that Ambrose, Jade, Orrin, his teammates on the Special Task Force, and many others following never really has been filled. And yet, somehow, they've all become meadows and fields and buildings and paintings of their own.

Really, maybe Aristide was right about Considine getting poetic and soft in his old age.

"It's even more interesting, you know. I don't think I've met another slayer line where their vampire descendant has survived," Killian continues to muse, something like a smile and a smirk playing on his lips. "You're really too good at staying alive."

Considine snorts, his red eyes indolently scanning the field of slayers. "I have to be if I need to keep you Dracos brats alive."

"Hm," Killian says.

They both know what that means.

But it isn't often that Considine replies to the implication. 

"Yes, I suppose I've found that life is worth living even if things die."

So perhaps he was getting softer. A little bit.

.........

One day, Considine woke up and couldn't remember Jade's smile.

It was all right, he told himself. After all, he had videos of her laughing at something stupid he said. He had pictures of her wearing all sorts of expressions. He had recordings. He had made sure to keep up on the centuries of technological changes so these images could be preserved. He had -

The thought - or perhaps the lack of thought - was enough to make him cry. Almost.

At this point, Ambrose was but a faint name in his memories, recorded in a book of important names he'd decided to start making upon Jade's suggestion. At this point, he couldn't remember which was Orrin's face and which was Grove's without looking through his albums and committing them to his memory (why did Fae all have the same stupidly symmetrical looks?) alongside the hundreds of other people he had met.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Hazel said later that day when he confessed to her his growing problem with his memories.

Why couldn't he recall what was so clearly captured on camera? Why, instead of a face in the haze of his mind, did he recall more frequently the cold, laminated or digitalized, pictures that were terrifyingly...still?

"I can't remember Felix, Momoko, Leila, or some others either," Hazel continued easily when Considine said nothing. She laughed, though it lacked her usual humor. "I can barely remember the Paragon. You know, just the other day, I recalled he had a hideous cat, going through pictures. But I can't recall its name...or even that generation's Paragon's name."

Hazel sighed, then cleared her throat to catch the vampire's attention.

So Considine raised his head and an eyebrow at her. "What?"

The look she gave him with her now-red eyes (Considine couldn't recall on command what their original color was, but given her blonde head, it'd probably been blue) matched his caustic mood. 

"But you know something?" Hazel said, voice dripping with challenge. "I know that they were important to me. I remember that they loved me, and that I loved them. Love isn't something you can get rid of easily."

How familiar those words were.

"I believe that," Considine finally admitted after a pause. "But love doesn't exist without a lover and the loved, at least not the specific kind only two people can share. You think the love my One - my Jade - gave me and the love I had for her can still survive? That Ambrose's love and my love for him can continue? That specific love?"

Hazel said nothing.

Of course she didn't. Because while love can surpass death, it is still something alive. It surpasses death but does not live in it. It bevomes stagnant or one-sided.

"Well..." Hazel muttered.

"Tell me what you remember about Momoko and Felix," Considine suddenly spoke up. "You're not so old as me that people start blurring together, after all. And I don't think I knew them well."

Hazel blinked. "What? Momoko was Josh's wife, but she didn't opt for being turned. You knew her pretty well, at least."

They stared at each other for a spell before Considine broke the gaze to stare at the trees towering over Drake Hall.

Neither spoke up again.

...........

One of the Dracos kids wanting to snooze

.............

There are two rings that Considine wears. One is *insert description of Ambrose's ring*.

The other is a simple gold circlet with jade and diamonds embedded around it.

He doesn't take them off except when to shower, sometimes to sleep (though more often than not he keeps them on).

It feels wrong to take either off, and he knows they belonged to people important to him at one point in his thousands of year of life. He'll know if he goes through his portrait gallery.

But he has things to do, people to meet today.

He'll do that when he has time in the next week, maybe.

Considine fiddles with his rings as he waits for Amber - a wizard lady in her 40s he'd recently become acquainted with - and her two children at a bench in the park.

The rings are warm.

#lemon duck quacks #lemon duck tales #sheaverse #if you know the manga where i stole the book of names thing. you are my friend #and i will always be impressed

[lemonduckisnowawake]

WHAT AM I TO YOU?

u know the drill

#squishy soup is moldy my dear bacon.... #you are crazy frog and soup and also why #cool art but you are crazy insane and i love it #friend things!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

WHAT AM I TO YOU?

u know the drill

#soup #i mean. to be fair #i don't know you all that well but i want to squish you for some reason #star wars url i think is why #friend things!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

just saw a single piece of paper drift past 50 feet in the air over buildings like a beautiful white bird

#i have too many tags #wow that is so random and neat!

[lemonduckisnowawake]

has anybody seen my pet piece of paper. his name is walter he is very fragile but very adventurous. i should never have left the window open in my tenth story apartment

#hope you find him op #i have too many tags

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Hmmm....I think I need an Orpheus and Eurydice AU for Angelique and Evariste but I'm busy right now, so I'll get back to that later

#if i don't get back to this in a few days #then someone either yell at me on discord or something else #lemon duck quacks #sheaverse

[lemonduckisnowawake]

This is about the song Baby Shark

#honestly its also kind of disgusting as funny as it is impersonally #using a pretty innocent song to harass people #just goes to show you that humanity can really turn anything into a means of power signalling #but at the same time this is about the song BABY SHARK??? #what is it about kids media breaching containment and apparently breaching inmates?? #lemon duck quacks #music and poetry #if you ask me why i was looking at the wikipedia page for baby shark i will answer but the answer will be highly boring

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Hiya there *waves awkwardly*. So uh....one of my friends wants to go on a short terms missions trip and is wanting to raise some money for it. I aaked their permission and they were fine with me pasting their link to their GoFundMe page here.

Any donations or even just signal boosting/tagging people on this would be highly appreciated! And, if you want to donate and, I don't know, receive a perk of sorts, you can send money through this kofi with a doodle or writing prompt that I'll try to get to as soon as time lets me!

Thank you in advance from both of us!

#self reblog cause i really do want to help them out #lemon duck quacks