[datsme-alive]

MadaTobi Fic Recs

With Enemies Like These

After a serious and devastating attack, the Uchiha are in desperate need of a sealmaster. Unfortunately for them, the best candidate happens to be from the Senju clan. Fortunately for them, he doesn't seem all that inclined to act like an enemy.

Which is lucky because, as it turns out, there are plenty of other adversaries making moves in Fire Country - both the clans will need to make new friends to survive.

Madara would have been content if his new husband tolerated him and helped his clan stay safe. He doesn't quite know what to do with the fact that his husband doesn't stop there.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Demons Don't Like Children

Time slowed down as the wolf neared, its jaws opening, inches from Kagami.

Shikami shrieked.

Madara gathered chakra into his feet, knees bending to jump-

And a hand shot out from a crack in the rock wall behind Kagami and yanked him back into the crevice.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

To Love You Madly

Selfishly, Tobirama wonders if Madara will think of him, someday in the future.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

AITA for courting the guy my whole family repeatedly insulted?

“Your mother was a Hatake!?” Izuna shouted in disbelief, startling many of the Senju.

“Yes? I thought you knew?” Hashirama tilted his head, looking over to Tobirama who shrugged slightly.

“No, it seems like some of our intel was a bit outdated,” Madara sighed, pinching his brow. “Does this change anything else in the peace treaty? Any other culturally insensitive terms that need to be removed?”

Madara narrowed his eyes as Tobirama coughed, hiding his face for a moment. Did he just cover up a laugh?

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Accidentally Mine (Yours)

A manic smile curled his lips.

Fool him once, fool him twice but there would be no third time.

“You’re on borrowed time, pet. You will not escape from me,” he purred silkily.

Their breath hitched at his words, confidence visibly shaken at the weight of the words from one of the strongest men alive.

“Y-You…” they struggled, pinned under the intensity of having the full brunt of an Uchiha’s indefatigable attention on them.

Madara hears it really is quite an experience.

His grin widens, showing off gleaming fangs.

"Me," the alpha goaded hotly.

—

In which Tobirama accidentally adopts a child before covertly returning him and goes back to regular (miserable) life as the Senju’s White Demon. After all, a demon could never feel enough love to raise a child.

Or

In which Madara accidentally adopts a child after he's returned back to his clan and doesn’t even attempt to go back to regular life. He instead proceeds to hunt down the blessing who rescued his child to give them his dick the world.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[talesfromthecrypts]

“They said they wanted a vampire relationship with no age gap”

“No age gap??!?!?”

“And no non-con elements”

“NO NON CON?”

“And no coercion or otherwise manipulative behaviors”

“Joe they want a vampire with NOTHING”

[lightningfury13]

I can't say enough about the Argeneau series by Lynsay Sands.

Is there age gap yes.... But it's like 99 year old woman meets 120 year vampire and fall in love. And let me be clear here. She looks sounds and acts like a 99 year old woman. and they squeeze every ounce of time she has left together until she's on the edge of death before he gives her his blood to turn her because there's a chance the turn could fail and they want to take no chances with the time they have remaining. Same book her also 99 year old friend had accidentally ingested vampire blood a year before and reverted to a young woman but mentally, emotionally, psychologically she's still 99 when these two vamp enforcers come to invest the local phenomenon of an old woman turned young again and her 300 ish mate meets her and his 120 year old partner meets her friend.

Same series the 3,000 year old vamp who is tired TM meets a 45 year old divorcee and becomes completely twittpatted over her.

Same series has reunited lovers I forget how old he is maybe 700 something but she's 500ish, mother of several children, pillar of her community, unrepentant romantic.

Basically I can't remember any partnership where any partners were under the age of like 27 at the youngest. It IS mentioned in universe that unscrupulous vampires do take advantage of young naive partners and lead them on before dropping them.

[greelin]

anyone want to give me two million dollars for absolutely nothing in return

[nosongunsung11]

collection of posts for a very specific dynamic

[juizyya]

I figured out how to use VPN now!! (took me long enough lmao)

there you go my latest art~~🧡💚

[status-quo-hater]

I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.

He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense

[status-quo-hater]

Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM

[therollingstonys]

Heya folks, I am sad to say that due to this administration’s shitty policies I lost my job last week. I’m in a transition period and job searching, but if you like the writing I’ve done or the edits/moodboards I’ve made or are just feeling generous in general (say that three times fast lol) my KoFi is available if you’d like to make a little donation and help me pay some bills and buy groceries.

Be well y’all, and don’t forget to reach out to the people you love—these are hard times for everyone and we need community more than ever ♥️♥️♥️

[wherethelarksroam111]

As much as I love Coral Island (and similar games), I have to fully admit that I'd crash out if I was the farmer.

Cos what the fuck do you mean I came here after inheriting the farm to get away from my stressful office job in the big city and you continue to dump all your bullshit on me and only me?

I wanted to take it easy and become one with nature and now I'm suddenly a farming, bug catching, deep sea diving marine conservationist-fisher-miner-rancher-archaeologist that stocks the local museum and supplies the whole island with food.

[lightningfury13]

I like how it's implied the old farmer was also doing the most as well and that's one reason the town is run down because the farmer passed away or moved away and without the local farmer doing the most everything just gradually fell apart. In harvest moon it's usually like you as a child got lost at what is a resort town and of course the farmer finds you and takes care of you for the day until your parents find you and you become life long penpals until the farmer stops writing and you come visit to see if he's sick to find he died quietly in his sleep and the farm was worse than he mentioned in his letters.

That'd be a cool tutorial device. You find something new and pull out a letter where the farmer detailed building a chicken coop and how to care for them. Pieces of letter in the corner of the screen in the farmer's handwriting saying things like the cow make thing weird (?!) noise the morning you brush her before she has her calf.

You already know all the townsfolk in weird too much information ways because the farmer gossiped in his letter about how the chicken farm lady is a wine mom and how the blacksmith's son is probably gay.

Just the farmer's letter throughout your tutorial including his complaints like "I don't know why the mayor always asks me to help. Doesn't he know I'm busy? I see everyone else walking around town without a care in the world. Surely one of them has time to fix the mine elevator and reach the bottom. I mean I know I'm the strongest person in the village but surely the blacksmith should be doing something like this?"

Followed by his next letter "fixed the mine elevator I swear if I didn't do it no body would. This town is gonna fall apart when I die." And then it does.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

it really is fucking pathetic that a country with more guns than people can't hit one guy

[dragon-in-a-fez]

if this is how you found out there was an active shooter at the White House yesterday I'm sorry

[qwanderer]

Me: oh it's this post again. Wait. Why does it say "posted 37 minutes ago"

[sparassiss]

thinkin about soft married sterek again. they’re cuddled up together on the couch and stiles is on his back and derek is laying on his chest with his arms wrapped around stiles’ torso. his head is resting beneath stiles’ chin. derek’s wearing his maroon thumbhole sweater. they’re both breathing slowly and deeply and contentedly. they’re watching some documentary on tv while stiles rakes his fingers through derek’s hair. 

derek’s eyes start to drift shut and stiles leans down to kiss his forehead. he pulls a blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over them both, and derek snuggles even closer, tucking his head against stiles’ neck and burrowing in. stiles’ arms wrap tight around derek’s back and skull and he clutches his husband close. 

the night is quiet and the loft is silent except for the low sound of the tv and their soft breathing. stiles leans into derek, pulling him closer still and treasures the man in his arms and the comforting, warm weight on top of him. he doesn’t watch the tv anymore; his eyes are trained solely on the wolf and he can’t stop thinking about how perfect the night feels and how safe and content they are, how they’ve earned this, how he can give this to derek. 

he brushes derek’s cheek reverently with his thumb, stroking across his skin and his nose and his eyebrow and his lips and feels derek’s mouth spread into a small smile in his sleep, feeling and recognizing stiles’ touch against him, warm and familiar. he hugs stiles to him like a teddy bear and looks so peaceful and innocent as he lies there safe in stiles’ arms. 

stiles doesn’t close his eyes for fear of missing this, and just lays there, watching derek fondly, savoring the moment, utterly in love and so very grateful for the safety and security and peace they’ve finally been allowed. 

at long last he drifts off to sleep, completely content and happy with the love of his life resting in his arms.

[crystalis]

There was this woman poet in 4th century China called Su Hui (蘇蕙), a child genius who had reportedly mastered Chinese characters by age 3.

At 21 years old, heartbroken by her husband who left her for another woman, she decided to encode her feelings in a structure so intricate, so beautiful, so intellectually staggering that it still baffles scholars to this day.

Came to be known as the Xuanji Tu (璇璣圖) - the "Star Gauge" or "Map of the Armillary Sphere" - it's a 29 by 29 grid of 841 characters that can produce over 4,000 different poems.

Read it forward. Read it backward. Read it horizontally, vertically, diagonally. Read it spiraling outward from the center. Read it in circles around the outer edge. Each path through the grid produces a different poem - all of them coherent, all of them beautiful, all of them rhyming, all of them expressing variations on the same themes of longing, betrayal, regret, and undying love.

The outer ring of 112 characters forms a single circular poem - believed to be both the first and longest of its kind ever written. The interior grid produces 2,848 different four-line poems of seven characters each. In addition, there are hundreds of other smaller and longer poems, depending on the reading method.

At the center a single character she left implied but unwritten: 心 (xin) - "heart." Later copyists would add it explicitly, but in Su Hui's original the meaning was even more beautiful: 4,000 poems, all orbiting the space where her heart used to be.

Take for instance the outer red grid of the Star Gauge. Starting from the top right corner and reading down, you get this seven-character quatrain:

仁智懷德聖虞唐，

貞志篤終誓穹蒼，

欽所感想妄淫荒，

心憂增慕懷慘傷。

In pinyin, it is:

Rén zhì huái dé shèng yú táng,

zhēnzhì dǔ zhōng shì qióng cāng,

qīn suǒ gǎnxiǎng wàng yín huāng,

xīn yōu zēng mù huái cǎn shāng.

Notice how it rhymes? táng / cāng / huāng / shāng

The rough translation in English is: "The benevolent and wise cherish virtue, like the sage-kings Yao and Shun, With steadfast will I swear to the heavens above, What I revere and feel - how could it be wanton or dissolute? My heart's sorrow grows, longing brings only grief."

Now read it from the bottom to the top and you get this entirely different seven-character quatrain:

傷慘懷慕增憂心，

荒淫妄想感所欽，

蒼穹誓終篤志貞，

唐虞聖德懷智仁。

The pinyin:

Shāng cǎn huái mù zēng yōu xīn,

huāngyín wàngxiǎng gǎn suǒ qīn,

cāngqióng shì zhōng dǔzhì zhēn,

táng yúshèngdé huái zhì rén.

It rhymes too: xīn and qīn, zhēn and rén

And the meaning is just as beautiful and coherent: "Grief and sorrow, longing fills my worried heart, Wanton and dissolute fantasies - is that what you revere? I swear to the heavens my constancy is true, May we embody the sage-kings' virtue, wisdom, and benevolence."

That's just 2 poems out of the over 4,000 you can construct from the Xuanji Tu!

At the very center of the grid, the 8 red characters wrapped around the central heart, she "signed" her poem with a hidden message:

詩圖璇玑，始平蘇氏。 "The poem-picture of the Armillary Sphere, by Su of Shiping."

Or reversed:

蘇氏詩圖，璇玑始平。 "Su's poem-picture - the Armillary Sphere begins in peace."

Many scholars, and even emperors, throughout Chinese history have been completely obsessed by Su Hui's puzzle.

For instance, in the Ming dynasty, a scholar named Kang Wanmin (康萬民) devoted his entire life to the poems (kangshiw.com/contents/461/2…), ending up documenting twelve different reading methods - forward, backward, diagonal, radiating, corner-to-corner, spiraling - and extracting 4,206 poems. His book on the subject ("Reading Methods for the Xuanji Tu Poems", 璇璣圖詩讀法) runs to hundreds of pages.

Empress Wu Zetian herself, the legendary woman emperor of the Tang dynasty, wrote a preface to the Xuanji Tu around 692 CE (baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BB%87…).

Incredibly, there's even far more complexity to the Xuanji Tu than just the poems:

- The name 璇玑 (Xuanji) - Armillary Sphere - is astronomical in meaning and the way the poems can be read mirrors the way celestial bodies orbit around a fixed center. It's a model of the heavens.

- Her original work, with the characters woven on silk brocade, was in five colors (red, black, blue/green, purple, and yellow) which correspond to the Five Elements (五行) - the foundational Chinese philosophical system that explains how the universe operates. So it's also a model of the entire cosmic order according to ancient Chinese philosophy.

- It's also of course deeply mathematical with this 29 x 29 perfect square grid, with sub-squares, lines and rectangles, and a structure which allows for symmetrical reading patterns in all directions

- Last but not least, the content of the poems themselves contain multiple registers. On top of expressing her personal grief and longing for her husband, it's also filled with accusations against the concubine (Zhao Yangtai) he left her for, reflections on politics (with many references to sage-kings) and philosophical reflections.

So the Star Gauge is simultaneously:

- A love letter (expressing personal longing)

- A legal brief (arguing her case against her rival)

- A cosmological model (structured like the heavens)

- A Five Element diagram (encoding the fundamental structure of the world according to ancient Chinese philosophy)

- A mathematical construction with perfect symmetry and precision

And yet, for all this complexity, we should not forget this was all ultimately in service of the simplest human message imaginable: a 21-year-old woman asking the love of her life "come back to me".

Her husband did, eventually. According to what empress Wu Zetian herself wrote in her preface to the Xuanji Tu, when he received Su's brocade he was so "moved by its supreme beauty" that he sent away his concubine and returned to his wife. As the story goes, they lived together until old age.

The heart at the center was filled after all.

[homoquartz]

i’ve warmed up significantly towards the concept of small talk ever since i learned that its sole purpose is to make friendly noises.

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

i am motivated by wanting the other person to know i am friendly, so i have gotten pretty decent at small talk when i used to hate it.

[piratedgender]

[themisally]

[disasterhimbo]

Hey y’all, my friend @frivolousfuckery needs our help.

They lost their job this week, and they need money for rent, utilities, and living expenses. Luckily, a friend was able to loan them $55 to get their phone turned back on, so they can follow up on a promising job lead now, but they still have literally no money until they get the job and the paycheck.

Most urgently, they need about $200 for everyday living expenses (gas, food, wipes, diapers, baby Tylenol bc their baby is teething). The wifi bill ($70 to keep it on, $140 total) is due on May 3, rent ($1060) is due on May 7, and the power bill ($190 to keep it on, $483 total) is due on May 14. Less urgently, they will need pet food, and a new car seat and clothes for the baby.

Please help a disabled trans person with a 5mo baby stay fed and housed! Anything helps. Venmo and cashapp are preferred bc they can access the money immediately without having to pay a withdrawal fee that way.

PayPal: [email protected]

Venmo: @enbymickie

Cashapp: $enbymickie

Most immediate needs:

General living expenses: $75/$200

WiFi bill (May 3 deadline): $0/$70

Rent (May 7 deadline): $0/$1060

Power bill (May 14 deadline): $190/$190

[disasterhimbo]

I haven’t had spoons to make a new post, but they need to be caught up on rent by June 5 or they’ll be evicted. Please help.

[disasterhimbo]

My friend will be homeless with a baby in three weeks unless we can raise a lot of money. Please share or donate even just $5 if you possibly can.

[disasterhimbo]

We haven’t received any donations in 10 days, and their cat just ran away. They’re going through a really hard time. Please help.

$65/$1800 for rent (June 5 deadline)

$0/$600 for other bills/living expenses

[mumblesplash]

it’s so magical and beautiful that there are sprawling interconnected cave systems carved deep into the earth by various geological forces and you don’t have to go in them. there are miles and miles of stone passageways in total darkness that require you to exhale all the air out of your lungs to squeeze through parts of them and you don’t have to be there. some of these squeezes are underwater and require cave divers to take off their oxygen tanks and push them through ahead of them and me i am above ground looking at the sky as we speak. there are untold subterranean wonders no human has ever seen and i will not be the one to discover them #grateful #blessed

[mumblesplash]

cave divers when they are happily married with kids and beloved by their community but theres a crack in the bottom of a lake called The Devil’s Rotting Esophagus where 57 people have died

[avirael]

Bronze Lake

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV Jobs

I kinda want a point in the future expansions to have a moment where our Job Stones item description change (though I recognize from a technical standpoint that might never happen) from-

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspected crystal are carved the myriad deeds of heroes from eras past."

and,

"Unlike other soul crystals, the surface of this multi-aspected stone has yet to be carved with the record of past deeds."

To something like,

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspect crystal are the carved records of your deeds for those who will come after."

Just to show that we have basically taken each of the Jobs that are in FFXIV to pretty much the absolute apex they can be strength and versatility-wise. We started creating new techniques back in HEAVENSWARDS!

Really the WoL has created so many new techniques for future users of our Soul Crystal to use that it's impressive. Dragoons will get to utilize Nidhogg's power for good, Dark Knights slice blades of pure shadow with Shadowbringer, Black Mage created a new type of Flare, Flare Star. Flare is already in lore is a army killer. Scholars can BECOME SERAPHIMS! We might even be one of the last Summoners since we're so good at our job. For Blue Mage and Machinist we are the makers basically. (Soul crystal wise at least, really hope we meet the Whalaqee one day)

My favorite is that as an Astrologian, since we devise power from the Stars we managed to resonate with Etheirys itself since it's a 'Star' and therefore that's why we can remain in each sect and call upon the stars indefinitely without needing to see them/cut off from them. The quest NPC mentions that's impossible but we did it anyway.

Like whoever is going to inherit our Soul Crystal is going to have a hard time reaching our heights. (If they even need too!)

[daraoakwise]

150 years ago, a boy was born to my great-great grandmother. And that was the last time that happened anywhere on my maternal line until my son was born in 2016. This is a story about intersex people.

For 150 years, the women of my family kept having daughters, who either also had daughters, or they were oddly unable to have children. Strange quirk, we assumed. No boys.

In the late 1970s, my mother’s sister had a daughter with Down Syndrome. Genetic testing was done, and it was discovered that although she looked female, she actually possessed the male XY chromosome combination. Her sister was born three years later. And because of that genetic concern, her genes were checked. And she possessed … the XY chromosomes. A third daughter, born a few years later, possessed the usual XX.

Keeping in the tradition, my mother had two daughters. Because of our cousins’ genetic conditions, my sister and I were both checked. Both of us appeared typically XX. And so for more than thirty years, it was dismissed as a quirk, and no one said the word intersex because that wasn’t a thing in 1980.

In 2014 I had a son, breaking the chain of girls. It was an interesting story! I then had two daughters, and didn’t bother to do any genetic checking.

And then in 2020 my sister became pregnant. Early genetic testing said boy, XY. Twenty week anatomy scan said girl. Definitely 100% girl. Uhhh?! As expected, she*** was born genetically male, possessing only male gonads in the form of undescended testes, but female external genitalia.

It was Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a genetic mutation carried on the X chromosome. See, all bodies start female. Then, when the hormonal influence of the Y chromosome kicks in, instructions on the X are supposed to detect the testosterone and create male genitalia. Except a person with AIS is non-reactive to testosterone, and the body stays, at least superficially, female. Genetic check would say boy. Presence of testes says boy. Pants check says girl. Making the question of sex (sex. Gender is something else, ok?) distinctly complicated.

If someone has a mother who is a carrier of AIS, there are 4 possibilities. Unaffected XY, and so genetically and structurally male. Affected XY, and so intersex. Affected XX, and so a female carrier. Unaffected XX female and entirely unaffected.

My grandmother was a carrier. My aunt and mother are carriers. My sister is a carrier. When my niece was born, my single non-intersex cousin and I did genetic testing. And we are both carriers as well. My son is an unaffected XY male. My niece is affected XY intersex. Both my cousin and I also have 2 daughters each. And, because it is medically and psychologically relevant, we had them tested. All XX.****

And I was ready to check one more thing: are my daughters carriers? There is a 50/50 chance. And then I stopped, because they are preschoolers, and that is their reproductive decision. They know three intersex people. And if they care, someday they can check their genes and the odds that my grandchildren will be intersex. The intersex people they know will, I hope, be able to talk to them about the beauty of their lives as one of the wonderful variations of humanity.

[daraoakwise]

Reblogging today, for reasons

[justatumblinweed]

[ID: The Intersex flag, a purple circle on a yellow background.

/End ID.]