So here we are, standing in a dark alley—filthy surroundings, trash everywhere, the black of night, a truly romantic atmosphere. We stare at each other. I’m feverishly thinking, “Okay, what the hell do I do now?” Judging by her expression, Petra is lost in similar thoughts. Not that I’m too worried—I have no intention of hurting her, so her spider-sense shouldn’t be screaming bloody murder. Besides, she’s a decent person and unlikely to start throwing punches without good reas...
2025-01-14 19:19:46 +0000 UTC
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“No Sandevistan, no Kerenzikov,” Smasher announced. “Otherwise, it’s too fucking easy. But no other limits. Feet, elbows, knives, teeth—use it all. Last one standing wins!”
The Maelstrom crowd went wild with hoots and applause.
“Fuck me…” Vic and Jackie murmured in nearly perfect sync.
David didn’t even look at the onlookers. He just stood there, drilling his eyes into Logan. Seemed like Garcia was hesitating. He looked up, searching the “stands” for ...
2025-01-14 19:12:09 +0000 UTC
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I am back!
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Stories:
Castling the Long Way
Mad Tiger
“The tradition of magical duels in Britain has largely fallen out of favor during the latter half of the twentieth century, yet it continues to be practiced—unlike in various European countries that have abandoned this custom in favor of settling disputes exclusively in court.
“The rules for issuing a challenge… the rules for conducting a duel… the conditions… permissible weapons are solely a mystic code, that is, a wand or, far more rarely, a staff. Firearms are not e...
2025-01-13 22:54:26 +0000 UTC
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“Here we are, kid. Whittington, the Blockbuster store.”
“Thank you,” Kayneth replied tonelessly as he climbed out of the taxi, paying the fare. Since ordinary people were virtually unaware of the “Leaky Cauldron,” he had given the address of some film rental across the road. The magus remembered it from nearly a month ago, when he’d wandered the area in circles trying to locate the barrier entrance, precisely because of its utterly banal and obvious name.
Focusing an...
2025-01-13 22:53:07 +0000 UTC
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“For the first time in a year, she actually looks like my Eve again—not her ghost,” Summers said quietly, approaching the magus with his wife in his arms. He moved cautiously—after the lamps had gone out, the room was lit only by the faint glow of dawn struggling to filter through the cracks in the windows. He nodded toward the guard and the bloodstains on the floor.
“But was that really necessary?”
“There was no choice. Armilla,” Kayneth commanded...
2025-01-13 22:51:35 +0000 UTC
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With all the new knowledge and impressions swirling in his mind, Kayneth made his way back. Not to the orphanage, of course, but to Whittington Hospital, where he convincingly collapsed in a hallway near a familiar ward. The performance barely required any acting—after all, he had walked seven miles both ways, not to mention the endless pacing as he circled the neighborhood and trailed behind Tonks. This body, utterly unfit for such exertion, protested at every step. A feeble reinforc...
2025-01-13 22:50:05 +0000 UTC
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Nice job, Sasuke-kun. As they say, grab yourself a cookie off the shelf! And since there are no cookies… well, I’m even better: warm, fluffy, soft, and oh-so-dashing.
“Wait, how’d you figure it out? I mean… about the chakra?” Naruto asked, eyes darting between me and Sasuke. He also scooched a little closer to the Uchiha, probably feeling a wee bit jealous of me bonding with him. But you know what? When they’re both petting me—four hands at once—that’s next-level bli...
2025-01-13 22:22:13 +0000 UTC
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Morning came, as it always does, no matter how late I’d gone to bed. I woke early anyway, unable to shake my restless thoughts—wondering if I’d done the right thing by starting all this... But what was done was done.
Before breakfast, I brought the promised Basilisk skin to the shaman and had a chat with Charlie. He suggested that after selling the venom, we should arrange Portkeys for everyone, as a fallback. That’s what I liked about him—he was genuinely decent. He insisted ...
2025-01-13 22:13:35 +0000 UTC
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Life is Good
Hydrargyrum
2025-01-12 01:50:00 +0000 UTC
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Work in the lab with McCoy dragged on until evening, with Jennifer eventually joining us. Once Banner caught up with what we were doing, she suggested adding an air filtration system to my mask. She pointed out that relying solely on holding breath to avoid poisons wasn’t exactly foolproof; besides, there are toxins that can work just by touching your skin. So yeah, better safe than sorry. Beast promised to cram the necessary filters into my mask, and then we got back to experimenting with ...
2025-01-12 01:49:03 +0000 UTC
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Of course, it wasn’t that easy. As Kayneth wandered along the street near London’s largest leyline intersection, he immediately sensed the concentrated magic saturating the air. Layered barriers, powerful and complex, surrounded the area. There might have even been folded spaces concealed within the enchantments, but in his current, weakened state, he couldn’t be sure.
He walked two wide loops around the city streets, studying the protected perimeter that spanned several blocks. A...
2025-01-12 01:46:46 +0000 UTC
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Gwen Stacy.
The cute blonde lay on her bed, glancing at her phone from time to time. Not that she was waiting for a call… but a girl could dream, right? Lately, her life had taken some pretty sharp turns. Her mom had become a police captain, and before transferring precincts, they’d moved to a new place. With the new home came a new school. She was surrounded by unfamiliar faces now, and it was harder to make it to band practice with the girls. Thankfu...
2025-01-09 23:52:16 +0000 UTC
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Stories
Life is Good
Sneak Peeks
Hydrargyrum (Fate/Zero x Harry Potter)
That was how the watchman found him the next morning—sitting at the bottom of a pit, filthy from head to toe, frozen stiff, and with his hands scraped raw and bleeding. More adults arrived, shouting something he barely registered. Some even struck him a few times, but Kayneth remained indifferent, locked in stupor.
The memories of the war—where he had lost everything he held dear, including the only person he had ever truly loved—came crashing down on him. His death at the hands o...
2025-01-07 19:48:34 +0000 UTC
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“So now the geas binds you…” leadingly said the paralyzed former magus, sitting in a wheelchair, clutching a wounded girl tightly against his chest.
“Yes, it is sealed. I can no longer kill you or Sola-Ui…” the tall man replied emotionlessly. He wore a trench coat over a rumpled dark suit and held a submachine gun loosely in his hands, its barrel pointed at the ground. After a brief pause, he added with the same indifference, “I can’t but…”
From the far side, a...
2025-01-07 19:46:23 +0000 UTC
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Returning to the mansion didn’t exactly feel triumphant—no welcoming committee, no fanfare, no red carpet. We just parked the car. Yuriko dismissed me to catch up on sleep, adding that I was responsible for suit maintenance and would get instructions from McCoy tomorrow. Already half-asleep, I trudged to my room. The adrenaline rush from earlier had long since faded, and the hallways were empty—weekend vibes. Even the early risers weren’t out for their jog yet. Winter mornings, still ...
2025-01-07 19:43:12 +0000 UTC
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As horrifying as it might sound to any self-respecting (and, at times, deeply self-loathing) Soulslike player, farming spots were becoming fewer and farther between.
At some point, almost every player realizes that leveling up further becomes difficult. The reasons vary: losing hundreds of thousands, even millions of runes to foolish deaths, or having a poorly optimized build that makes it impossible to survive in areas rich with potential runes due to overly strong enemies.
Kosta...
2025-01-05 02:08:11 +0000 UTC
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"Good evening, Miss Oyama," I said slowly, still half-asleep and trying to shake off the ‘dream’. "Hey, uh, my eyes aren’t red, and my pupils didn’t turn white, right?"
She clearly expected a different kind of question, judging by the way her eyebrow shot up. Still, she leaned in for a closer look as I did my best to bug out my eyes like a cartoon character. After a couple of seconds, Yuriko straightened up and shook her head.
Before I could shift into my usual repertoire ...
2025-01-05 02:05:20 +0000 UTC
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Triple Xtreme Gym looked like a giant red box. The paint was peeling, and the metal beneath had rusted under the brutal California sun and unfriendly acid rain.
"They drag out a stiff from here every month or two," Jackie said as he got off his bike. "It’s more slaughterhouse than gym."
"Yeah, no shit. Shady place," Cesar Diego Ruiz agreed, stepping out of Falco’s car. "My old man used to say, ‘Jamàs te rindas, pase lo que pase.’ Never give up. But here? A r...
2025-01-05 02:02:11 +0000 UTC
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Castling the Long Way
Mad Tiger
The conversation with the shaman lingered in my mind for a long time, making me question the choices I’d made.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand you,” I asked, bewildered. “What consequences?”
“Do you know what true wisdom is, Achehar?” he countered instead of answering. “It’s carrying the weight of your decisions alone. Accept it—and you’ll no longer have the right to blame others. Every life and death will rest on your hands and be your responsibility...
2025-01-03 20:42:08 +0000 UTC
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I found Sasuke sitting by the pond. That classic blank stare. Dark circles under his eyes. His skin looked so pale it was almost translucent. Apparently, he’d been “sick” and skipped that class trip too—though in his case, he stayed home instead of tagging along with Naruto’s misery squad.
Ever since I regained my memory, I’d been chewing over the finer details of this world’s timeline. During the anime, I never paid much attention to the gossip, but now it hit me—those ...
2025-01-03 20:38:24 +0000 UTC
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No matter how much Ranni longed to rest—she would always awaken. The cautious demigoddess never let her guard down entirely, even now.
More than that, she never stopped her vigilance.
The Three Sisters. A region cloaked in magical wards, difficult to find, let alone enter. Even if someone managed to break through the enchantments, the projection of her loyal Royal Knight would meet any intruder with a raised scythe. If that wasn’t enough, the descendant of the ancient dragons,...
2025-01-02 23:19:15 +0000 UTC
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After coming back, everything was surprisingly… ordinary. Exams, training sessions, experiments with McCoy—now joined by Banner. The latter, however, had completely immersed herself in work, which was… mildly annoying. She’d returned my stuff, thanked me warmly, and then proceeded to act like nothing had ever happened. It was a bit insulting, honestly. All my life, I’d heard how special guys were supposed to be, how every girl dreams of them and yada yada. And here I was, a certifie...
2025-01-02 23:15:42 +0000 UTC
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"Good thing we took out that bastard. Mink, you okay? We need to get moving," the Voodoo priestess said in a serious tone.
"I... I feel like I got skullfucked between the hemispheres without lube," the second runner groaned, his virtual avatar flickering and trembling. "Give me a minute. My thoughts are all tangled, and it’s so, so fucking scary. Don’t take me, Le Guinea!"
The runner slumped onto the ruins of the virtual constructs, clutching his intangible head in his hands.<...
2025-01-02 23:12:36 +0000 UTC
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Castling the Long Way
Mad Tiger:
After breakfast, the portal transported us to the settlement. I was curious to see how other wizards lived and to meet an actual shaman.
To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. The only time I'd seen anything close to a shaman was in a past life, when a round-faced Yakut or Buryat in traditional furs performed a dance at a cultural festival I attended during a class trip.
This community, though, reminded me more of a Romani camp. Dark-eyed, dark-haired, always smiling, with mi...
2025-01-01 22:02:34 +0000 UTC
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