Hey!! You Followed Me So I Checked Out Your Blog And I Just Want To Say I Absolutely Love Your Writing!!

“Burn the witch! Burn the witch!” shouted the crowd, drowning out the distressed warnings of one person. “No, you fools! She can control the flames!”

"Alright," the stranger sighed, "what's with the orange peels?"

I was laying some fragments of orange peels out to dry for black gold and others near some potted carnivorous plants that needed to be fed.

"Black gold," I said as I pointed to the ones drying on the sunlit stone. "Plant food." I pointed to the other peels that were already attracting flies.

"I thought that those plants didn't like any nutrients in their soil," he remarked as he gracefully draped himself across a fallen log in the shadow of a large maple. "And I though that you hated potting plants."

"They don't. But they still need food, just not food like the others." I sat down not too far from him, in the shade too. "I don't like potting plants but a kid asked me for a plant that wasn't like any others."

"So, obviously, you chose..." he propped himself up, "what is that, anyway?"

"Dionaea. A fly trap." I cast my gaze back to the potted plant that just caught a decent size fly. "I had to do a lot of trading to get a hold of that plant."

"If it was such a hassle to get, why did you?"

"The kid was curious about the world outside our boarders." I looked him dead in the eyes and told him, "Tell me how I could have said 'no'." I settled in a position similar to his. "When I see the kid again, I plan on giving it to him as a gift."

After I said that, he settled back down on his log, lost in thought.

Doctor Evil is a campy Saturday morning supervillain and usually defeated by pre-teen heroes. Lesson included. He also once took down an entire alien armada by himself because they were ruining his fight with one of his pre-teen foes

don't give up

Great. I was on my way from the capital and one of those clockwork soldiers stopped me.

"Where are you going?" it asked as it stopped me from going any further.

I've been warned that there's still one functional at all times. I didn't know what time it was, so it might not be that one.

"What hour are you?" Every clockwork soldier works only during the hour it was named after. There are some that I think are either decoys or meant to scare people, since they never work.

"I am hour thirteen," it answered me, its empty eyes boring into mine.

This one, number thirteen, people have named the liar. No matter what it says, it is never true. I've met it once before and it said that it was going to snow in the middle of summer.

"I'm going home," I replied to the soldier. It's the law for citizens to answer human and clockwork soldiers.

There was a sound of clicking gears before it cocked its head off to the side and said, "Long live the King."

"Yeah," I muttered, walking by once he let me pass, "long live the King of the Day."

Its cold metal hand grabbed my wrist.

"Yes, long live the King of the Day. But I originally meant his brother."

The King's brother is a myth, a legend, something that never has and never will happen.

The clockwork soldier numbered thirteen let me go.

You are the first ever completely ethical vampire: you post the terms and conditions of trespassing, make it clear in the memo that said people are subject to be fed on… You can safely say that humanity’s stupidity has kept you alive for thousands of years.

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

time lapse of all the birds yesterday

"The day will be saved by it dying." - 13 hour clockwork soldier

As I walked out under the night sky, I muttered a prayer. It wasn't continuous but mainly when ever I saw something that caught my eye, I'd say a quick little thank you prayer for it being created.

When I'd get back from my walks, I always felt better and ever grateful.