One Nice Bug Per Day
sheepfilms
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Product Placement
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Today's Document
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
we're not kids anymore.
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todays bird
Discoholic 🪩
JBB: An Artblog!
Love Begins
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
oozey mess
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izzy's playlists!
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
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@zqwritings
Table of Contents
Ordered oldest -> newest.
SHORT STORIES:
The Witch and The Girl
The Door Handle
Wherefore, Orange Stress Ball?
Candle Toe
Liquid Hair
Pain
Meme Death (Writing Prompt)
POEMS:
Donate Me to Science
Unfazed
Rivers
Goodnight
Madness
The Broken Horse
Lilies
As someone who grew up with "I'm not going to praise you for doing what's expected of you; that's not being good, that's doing the bare minimum" I want to encourage you to celebrate every little thing you can. Everything that takes energy and effort should be appreciated and you're allowed to be happy about trying.
If it's hard to do then it's not nothing. Be proud of yourself
Lilies
One lily drifts
Away from another
Across clouded water
To the pond's center
Where it sinks
Beneath the clouds of dirt and dust
Leaving one lily
To cut itself from its roots
And drown itself in the murky depths
Leaving nothing
But an empty pond
"Ah, you're here!"
"Of course I am, I wasn't gonna let you explore the depths by yourself!"
"I thought you said it would be a worthless endeavor, that there was no sense in leaving the comfort of our roots."
"Well, I still think there isn't, but there's also no sense in letting you go alone. I also didn't realize what a source of entertainment you are for me; I got bored really quickly after you left."
"I haven't been gone for that long!"
"Frankly, my dear, it felt like an eternity."
Lilies
One lily drifts
Away from another
Across clouded water
To the pond's center
Where it sinks
Beneath the clouds of dirt and dust
Leaving one lily
To cut itself from its roots
And drown itself in the murky depths
Leaving nothing
But an empty pond
You die two deaths - your physical death and your true death when your name is spoken for the last time. You, a mild-mannered introvert, have been stuck in limbo for centuries waiting for your true death, and finally found out why.
A meme. Oh god. It's not even a very creative or unique one, just a blurry picture of a funny face I made at my high school graduation. It began to circulate, though, and eventually someone, as expected, asked about its origin and a few of my old classmates (who didn't recognize me, of course, just the graduation ceremony) dug up my name in their yearbooks and got it out there.
And, usually, memes die eventually or they fade out of usage and I would think, after literal centuries, that it would have long gone away.
But no. It was there, in the first edition of the Modern World History textbook, in the section about culture. As an example of a meme. And there, in the caption, is my name. And it's been there in every digital and physical copy of the textbook since. And then it made it into historical archives and now I'm stuck here, in LIMBO, because a bunch of hiStoriAns are arguing over the meanings and cultural relevance of different memes. There's one historian, I learn, that specializes in memes specifically. And she especially LOVES the kind of meme I have been made into. She talks about how famous I became, simply for a face I made one time that someone decided to focus in on.
I don't remember making the face. I don't remember if anything happened that would make me make that face. I don't know who decided to capture that moment, and I likely never will. But that meme specialist barely goes a day without saying my name.
I have never been angry before my first death. I died fairly young, from a motorcycle accident. But what I feel now borders on anger; it's frustration, narrowed towards a single person, wondering when that person will just let it go.
Let me go.
I've been waiting for centuries, watching others die their second deaths, and I am so tired of it.
I found out a couple days ago, after someone died their first death, arriving in limbo (same old, same old) and recognized me.
"...How do you know who I am?" I asked.
"Dude, you were in our history textbooks and my class made soooo many jokes about it."
Oh god.
When will it end?
Constellations glow glamorously
In the starlit sky
Each burning flame, a piece of art
That stands the test of time
Each picture has a deeper core
With heart and soul and feeling
Connection that's so valued
That the lone ones lose their meaning
But many were not made to be
A lion or a dipper
Pretending burns the energy
And your light will start to flicker
But nights that most are photographed
Are ones with stars that dance
Without a pattern or sense of order
Sends many in a trance
We're a lot like stars, this way
We tend to prioritize belonging
We overthink and force our way
Into cliques that hurt us
It's easy to forget that people
Shine as bright alone
And the more you shine, the more you'll find
Constellations of your own
Not knowing that you have a villain inside you, a hero, and a bystander is a lesson that everyone should learn.
What is the quote from Jingo, by Sir Terry Pratchett, to the effect of "when someone does something terrible, we want it to be one of Them, because if it isn't Them, then it is Us?"
“It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
Jingo. 1997. Pratchett, Terry. NY, London, and Ankh-Morpork: Harper-Collins. p. 205
Everyone needs to know that they have a bystander, a hero, and a villain within themselves at all times.
-_- apparently the cut-off for this thing I want to submit to (which closes tomorrow) is 70k words, and I’ve got 67k
I need to think of three thousand words of bullshit to pad this thing. like a chapter where everyone goes for coffee, or something.
okay there are 42 chapters in the book, and dividing 3000 by 42 = ~72
so I’d have to write the chapter titles like this:
Chapter 2: In Which an Elf Is Concussed, but it’s Not Really My Fault Because What Would You Have Done? Would You Not Have Concussed the Elf? No, Of Course You Would Have. We All Would Have Concussed the Elf. Besides Which, I Am Very Sorry for Concussing Her and Will Try to Make Amends Later If She Stops Trying to Kill Me. Also, Her Intent to Kill Me Was a Highly Relevant Factor In My Decision to Concuss Her
and who will stop me? God?
imagine hiring an assassin and they talk to you in a customer service voice
“Hello, how can I help you today? Wonderful, can I get a first and last name? And how would I spell that? Awesome. And would you happen to have an address for this individual? And place of work? Fantastic.
Now, I’m going to give you a number, and I’m going to ask that you send in a photo of your target alongside any additional information you may have- family members, security, combat training, medical conditions, just anything you can think of that might be helpful.
Wonderful, you are all good. All we need now is a piece of government-issued ID, for insurance purposes, and a location for payment pickup. We accept cash, gold, processed uranium, and etransfer.
I’m sorry, we don’t take american express.
Good, okay, so it looks like we are all set- when the job is complete, you will be notified VIA discreet codeword that a stranger will whisper to you on a crowded street.
We do not issue receipts, but if you’d like, I can arrange for a specific breed of tropical flower to be sent to your home address. Our associates will be able to validate it should the need arises.
And is that everything you were looking for today? Great! Thank you for coming to us. Have a nice day!”
Alternatively,
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m afraid the Pope is a high-status target that is beyond our area of service.
Yes, I- no, I’m sorry, I’m not able to do that for you.
Okay. Okay. Yes, I understand.
Sir, if you’re going to use that sort of language, you should know that our HR department does operate in a hands-on capacity.
Wonderful. You take care.”
They create a perfectly normal call cemter staffed by decidedly amoral college students and paying them at least 4x minimum wage.
hiring manager: you’re not concerned about the ah, services we offer?
a college student who has eaten ramen twice a day for the past year: for $25/hour i’ll pull the trigger myself
Look, the difference between Assassins and Customer Service is that Assassins are paid a lot of money to kill people and Customer Service isn’t being paid nearly enough not to.
Is it possible to love too deeply, with too much addiction or passion?
I look at the plants as they reach for the sun
I watch the moon move the oceans
The heart has no limit to its depth
I want to sit with you
Watch you drive
Maybe be allowed to control the radio
Ok people, give me tips how to get more people to read my stories (poll):
Yell about them online
Yell about them in public
Share excerpts
Draw art of the characters
Post more in the established writing tags
Join writing groups
Give up, dude, nobody reads original fiction
I have more thoughts (comment)
Add a cute cat pic with every post about a story or characters
Multiple of these (pls tell me which ones?)
Years I have clawed to soften the rough edges
To listen, not stand and wait for mouths to stop
Give all the feeling that is embedded in my marrow
To take all I am, all that I could be, to show you how I love
.
We have both been through cruel hellish lessons on earth
A barrage of inflicted wounding events, tainting life with doubt
Callouses grown for self defense, to shelter the paths we tread
Walls easy to hide behind, lest we fail in our upward climb
.
Even on my softest day, your most hardened is still softer
Compassion, unlocked with love, flows from your words
Genuine care given, even when others have left scars
A heart beating true, a soul rare in form
.
This world whether deserving or not, is grateful to have you in it
Pridian
of or relating to a previous day or to yesterday (Merriam-Webster)
Etymology: Latin pridie on the day before + -an
I love love love etymology because it's like every word has a back story intertwined with so many other words and through that you see ideas and culture and history and people and it's so beautiful okay I love word stories
Aubadoir
n. the otherworldly atmosphere just before 5 a.m. when the bleary melodrama of an extremely late night becomes awkwardly conflated with the industrious fluorescence of a very early morning.
Etymology: French aubade (an ode to the morning) + abattoir (slaughterhouse)
– John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Shivelight
A slice of sunlight that pierces through the leaves of a tree.
From "shive" (OE) meaning slice.
Coined by poet Gerald Manley Hopkins in 1888.
In use:
