- 26- she/her - bisexual - You can call me Flaming or Tal - i make and play videos game! - multifandom blog, memes, basically anything I’m interested in at the moment! I’m also flamingthespian on twitch
Peeling off the broken breastplate of a stoic knight who only fights and never speaks, just to realize there’s nothing in there. Not metaphorically—the armor is literally empty. It doesn’t appear to affect him. If the armor stays mostly in the shape of a knight, he just gets back up to keep fighting. But with the chest plate off he just sits there, equally impervious to curiosity as I reach up into the cavity where his body might’ve gone. Stubbornly, no answers are found anywhere in there.
So I forge him a new breastplate and on the inside, because I know he has plenty of room, I put a little pocket. Not big enough to hold anything functional of course. Just a little extra piece to see what he’ll do with it.
He comes back next time with some grievous injury to his nothing, presumably from the massive shredded gash across his thigh plates. He sits and waits. I fix it for him. He is still nothing in there. I decide to add a drawing on the inside, of the type of beast I imagine could rend metal into scraps with a single blow. He puts it back on. He no longer moves as if he is injured.
Over time the interior of the knight becomes decorated with whatever odds and ends I could think to attach to the inside of a guy who’s got room to carry it. What really gets me is that he never removes any of it. Never requests a change. Not even when I installed a curtain rod for a small tapestry, or a bud vase to carry roses for his beloved, or an accordion folder for letters. He didn’t say a word for any of the many, many drawings of mythical beasts that now fight forever inside of his shell.
There are plenty of other forges. I’m not entirely sure why he keeps coming back here anyway. We’re pretty popular, but he could get his armor fixed a lot quicker (and with fewer ridiculous modifications) literally anywhere else. I asked him if I could get a look at his nothing again. He flipped up his visor and nodded his head so I could take a look. It was the same as it had been, filled with drawings and trinkets and weird little fixtures I’d put in there. I asked if he was annoyed by it, or liked it, or felt anything at all, but he literally only ever says nothing, so I’m not sure why I asked.
There’s not much room left in his nothing now. When he comes back for repairs I’ve had to fix my own foolish additions. Some of these pieces are intricate and irritating to repair, but I fix them anyway. It feels wrong to take any of it away from him now, even though I’ve been rudely encroaching on his nothingness to the point where it’s barely even there. How he squeezes his nothing back into a body so full, I’ll never understand. But it’s a game to me now, finding a spot not yet filled and putting something there. A dark part of me wonders if he ever gets filled up completely, if whatever sorcery holds the nothing-knight together may break, and it will all clatter unceremoniously to the floor.
When he hands me his breastplate yet again, it is so shockingly disfigured that I wonder if being made of nothing has somehow kept him alive. No ordinary knight could sustain such injuries. So I fix it. And he waits, unmoving, in a quiet corner of the forge. It’s like he’s watching, even though I know the reading glasses I put inside his helmet were just for fun. I’m careful to put it all back exactly the way it was when he last left. There’s no room to add more this time.
He examines the breastplate, and pauses before putting it back on, like he’s looking for something. Is he worried about the fit? But it suits him just as it always did. He calmly points to a little space, about an inch, between a miniature shelf and one of many pockets. There’s nothing there. I ask him what’s wrong, and again he points. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him, and it’s barely anything at all. I take it to mean he wants something there.
I spend some time engraving a little snail in the gap. He watches, as much as nothing can watch. When I’m finished he holds the breastplate, but he doesn’t put it on right away. I ask him if something’s still wrong. He says nothing, and puts it on. I tell him I can’t add anything else. Even if he could ask, there’s no room left.
Next time he comes back, there’s nothing wrong with his armor—he lets me check to make sure. I ask him what he’s doing here. Out from one of many pockets, he retrieves a tiny rusted knife. It’s in miserable condition, barely worth saving. I tell him I could make him a nice new one, but I’ll fix it if he likes. He puts it away and reaches around to find something else, a needle and thread. Better condition, but I’m not a sewist and I tell him as much. He puts them away. He then retrieves a little twisted piece of wax paper. I open it. It’s candy. I ask if I can eat it. He says nothing. I eat it. It’s flavored with cinnamon. I’m surprised he let me take it.
He keeps bringing me candy now. His armor is the most laborious to repair out of every client my forge serves, but it’s my own fault so I can’t complain. Sometimes he keeps me company while I work. I wonder if he is trying to tell me something when he hands me mints. I wonder again at the lemon lozenges. He stares at me when I eat, as much as nothing can stare.
One day he brings me a little jar of honey. I thank him, I tell him I’ll save it for dinner. He watches me work, he puts his repaired armor back on, and he stays. My shift passes slowly, and when I finally pack up to leave it’s dark outside. He follows me out of the forge. I ask him where he’s going. He points to the jar in my hand. I ask him if he wants to watch me eat it. He says nothing, but the nothing-knight clearly wants something, so I open the lid and dunk my finger in the honey. I try not to get any on my chin. He stands there, inches away, watching me try to consume this jar of honey without a utensil. It tastes like clovers. About half the jar is left when I’ve finally had enough of pretending to be a bear, but he doesn’t move to leave.
I ask if he’s going to follow me home. He says nothing. I tell him he can if he wants to. Again, nothing. I start walking, and he follows at my side. I know he’s not going to say anything ever, so I fill the silence. I tell him I’m grateful for the sweets, I tell him about how his various components are made, I tell him I’ve never met anyone made of nothing before. I tell him it’s a rare opportunity for a smith to work so much on the inside of something. He says nothing. I tell him again how much I like the candy.
It occurs to me that maybe filling me with sugar is as close as he can get to filling someone else’s empty armor with trinkets. I’m not sure if that’s really why he does it. I tell him I don’t have room to be filled with anything on the inside, not like him. I’m not a container for much besides food. He offers me another piece of candy. Maybe he likes containing something, the way I like to feel full. Maybe it’s nothing at all.
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I didn’t edit this even a little bit. Thanks for reading!
thank you SO MUCH for reminding me about [feature of patriarchy] and [problem caused by lack of kids' sex ed] random tumblr user in the notes! louder for those in the back!
SZA receiving an autism diagnosis is going to be healing to so many undiagnosed girls, but especially for a group of girls who are even MORE unlikely to be diagnosed—black girls! I am so beyond proud of SZA for getting evaluated and sharing this update with us because its going to change so many lives. I barely know any celebrities who have been open about having an autism diagnosis. I havent seen anyone on tumblr post about SZA’s post which could be a problem with my curation of who i follow but i wanted to share this awesome news with my followers!
One of the funniest things about Mormonism is that I’m sure Joseph Smith never believed any of the bullshit he said. There are some religions and cults where you have faith the original prophet actually thought they were talking to angels or believed the set of principles they laid out for their followers were for the greater good. Joseph Smith was a dumbass but like PT Barnum he realized a sucker was born every day and he was one step above the average 1830s sucker. He went from making people pay him to look at a rock in a top hat and ‘locate buried treasure’ to receiving lost bits of scripture, through the rock and top hat method. His wife caught him cheating and he said an angel visited him and told him men should be allowed multiple wives and not obeying that would send her to hell. I’m fairly convinced that dude was an atheist. He was on that hustler grindset. Brigham Young might have actually believed some of the shit he said but I don’t think Joseph Smith genuinely had faith in Mormonism or gave a fuck about humanity in the slightest.
Few people hustle and scam so hard that they’re considered a martyr and a prophet 200 years later and their fanfiction is considered serious lost biblical scripture even though they stole lines from Shakespeare.
I'll throw in the wonderful Eizin Suzuki into this ring too, a man whose work just breathes light without actually using dynamic lighting in the usual way. It's no surprise both Nagai and Suzuki are both considered prolific in art pertaining to the city pop genre because they're able to paint these kinds of scenes with a delicate touch.
This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.
And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.
And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.
I don't think I even need to say anything more, Suzuki's a massive influence in how he even places colours so warmly in such unorthodox manner. It's a naturally sunkissed talent~ 🌊
Finally a hand sewing tutorial on a hemline that isn't just the ladder stitch! the ladder stitch disappears when you tighten it, but it's not meant for hemlines because it breaks really easily! The overlock stitch is more stable, so it holds much longer, and it won't pucker or warp the fabric!
Human Is is a 1955 Philip K. Dick sci-fi short story where a guy goes to another planet for work and when he comes back to Earth his personality has flipped from an asshole to a sweet, kind, considerate man. Everyone's immediately convinced that an alien has taken over his body, this goes all the way to court, and in court his wife testifies that she's noticed no changes at all and so the charges are dropped.
And then there's a bit right at the end of the story as the wife and the husband are walking out of court:
Jill turned abruptly. "What is your name? Your real name."
The man's gray eyes flickered. He smiled a little, kind, gentle smile. "I'm afraid you would not be able to pronounce it. The sounds cannot be formed..."
Jill was silent as they walked along, deep in thought. The city lights were coming on all around them. Bright yellow spots in the gloom. "What are you thinking?" the man asked.
"I was thinking perhaps I will still call you Lester," Jill said. "If you don't mind."
"I don't mind," the man said. He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him. He gazed down tenderly as they walked through the thickening darkness, between the yellow candles of light that marked the way. "Anything you wish. Whatever will make you happy."
And I. God. There's something there. A soupcon of monsterfuckery. To tell your partner in a moment of intimacy that yes, you're something so inhuman that the lips you're stealing can't speak your actual name. You're a parasite that not only had the ability to burrow under this man's skin and take over his life, but you were so desperate to escape a dead, dry, blasted planet that you did.
And for your partner to then turn around and go "I know, I've always known, and I love you" is just. God I know it's not a great Dick story but something about it is making me lose my mind
Also it's explicitly stated that the guy's consciousness is still alive and preserved on the alien planet. Jill is told this and then proceeds to defend the alien anyways, ensuring that her husband's brain is stuck in a jar on a desert planet. You love to see it
germansingergirl
areudirty
ellievsbear
theartofmadeline
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baratheonpilled
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romaincrisis
