A snake story, based on an experience I had while I was in Florida.

Love it ! ❤️

Text: My mother leaves me six large black feathers, to plant in the ground if I’m ever in danger, and water daily with a drop of my blood. It must be my blood, or the contract won’t work.

Text: The polar desert is impossible to cross without a Firebreather from the Northern Colonies. I watch as ours blows blue flames gently across my palm, until they engulf my entire body.

Text: The heist will need one last member. I head to a planet cast in constant shadows to recruit, whose inhabitants have developed camouflage, blending and blurring naturally into the dark.

Text: Past the valley, you can’t trust the horizon. Mountains roll across the land like slow motion waves, breaking up otherwise clear skylines as they approach.

Text: An assassin for hire, I often make deals with the devil, who is so impressed by my lack of morals he’s been bragging about me to god. This is not good.

Keep Your Enemies Close (Ginta, Kurenai, Sagara, Shibata, Oita, Danzou, Kuroda, Gousuke) — Consequences come for Danzou.

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We've been rather silent the past few months at ANBU Legacy, as various family, personal, and health situations badly knocked us out. But we're finally back at it today! And it's sunny! So.... Have fun, kids. :D

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Oh. Poor Ginta.😢

But I'm happy for what's happening to Danzo 😁

Text: My uncle was a ranch witch with two familiars: a chupacabra and a shotgun. The gun was alive in its own way, always warm to the touch, unwilling to shoot at anyone it knew and trusted. *

Text: The kingdom by the sea is cruel. A captured mermaid being carried through the castle gates briefly caught the eye of a harpy in a cage above, a glance full of rage and compassion.

I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.

Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”.  The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults. She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role. It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA. 

The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”. The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining society”. The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.

There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.

Really loving all the Chilchuck AMVs. To help us remember our roots I'm submitting this classical arangement for approval. Edit: Did the whole dang thing. Happy Chilchuck Chuesday

(Spoilers up to Episode 11)

You are a supervillain with healing powers. The only reason you are labelled a supervillain because the American healthcare system is intimidated by you.

Deep Water Prompt #3238

When I was young, my mother told me stories of the little people who lived in the walls. She said that they were only made up, but little did she know, the little people told me tales as well.

Submission by: Anonymous

Text: My family has prophetic blood. Anything we write or paint with it is set in motion. Blood prophecies draw power from our lives, so the only real way to end one is to kill the artist.

Deep Water Prompt #3232

Fae clubs are horribly tricky for a human to enter, equally as difficult to leave. Bring your own booze, a fake ID, and pray the bouncer doesn’t like your face. 

Slowly turning into a werewolf after being bitten by one, you were terrified of losing your mind, and hurting your wife or daughter. Turns out, there wasn’t any need for worry, since wolves are extremely loyal to their mate and their children. Life changes in unexpected but fun ways.

Text: The Fae run the subway, the blue line making one enormous fairy ring. Skipping your fare or staring too long through the dark train windows are sure ways to catch their attention.