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Today's Public Domain Character: "Thrifty Saver" Duck

This character is from a Donald Duck short called the Spirit of '43. This was a WW2 propaganda short about paying your taxes to support the war effort at the time.

The character here isn't really named but has a Scottish accent and is on the side of saving your money and paying taxes.

The character was designed by Carl Barks and is the prototype for what would become Scrooge McDuck.

Because this short was commissioned by the US government it was automatically public domain upon release.

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Random parts from my dream:

Part.....2?

The mom: Oh, yeah, I've known who your soulmate was since you were 13, lol, you just didn't notice the message written in the clouds.

[the person who's just met their soulmate for the first time paraphrasded in the ether: and you didn't bother to tell me???]

The husband, cheerfully: Yeah, I think he'll have something to tell you that I forgot.

[the person who just met their soulmate paraphrased in the ether: Why aren't you upset about this????]

[the husband paraphrased in the ether: because we chose to get married and I know we actually love eachother. a soulmate bond can't even try to compete with that.]

It was a world where soulmates were a thing and forever ago before written history people had figured out that you could easily break a soulmate bond by just. aborting the baby it produced. and then the Magic Eugenics God™ would go ewwwwwwwwww you had a misscariage you're unfit to be in my breeding program get outta here!!!

and then in the future they invented medicine you could just take to simulate an abortion/miscarriage so no one actually had to get pregnant. If you found your soulmate you could just take the meds and instantly break the bond before any bullshit happened.

___

then there was stuff about Flatland I mostly forget...I think A Sphere and A Square went on a picnic...

___

Part...1?

there were 3 rings that were used to create portals to three other worlds. One was called White As Death and had a symbol of a bone. It opened a portal to The Death Zone. Another one was...okay I just forgot what it was called but it was red and had a symbol of a cloud. It went to The Twilight Realm. The last one I didn't learn the name, but it was green and had a symbol of a snake that looked like the number 2. I have no clue where it went.

The Death Zone was where ghosts and other souls of the living went after death. The Twilight Realm was I think an endless dungeon thing. if you ever found the sky it was always pink and purple and cloudy which is where it got its name.

To open a portal, you had to have all three rings, worn by three different people, and you had to use them to trace the same shape in the air that would become the portal. Whichever ring you used last would determine your destination.

The portal making thing wasn't going well because the people were failing to communicate properly and the first time thy made the portal too small for anyone to actually fit through. Then they got in a tent and made the portal by tracing along the doorway. Then they all grabbed the tent and ran through the portal, which flipped it inside out and....successfully closed the portal behind them???

very weird.

___

And then there was this guy, Riowolf, or to his friends, Rioruff. A trans man who was kidnapped by the government and experimented on in a secret evil lab into a partially-transformed werecatwolf (the government wanted 'the best traits of cats and wolves combined with Human Intellect™') before they tossed him back out onto the street. A common problem in this setting, with varying results. The government has not suceeded in making a full werecatwolf (or werecat, or werewolf) yet but they don't care how many people they have to torture to make one.

being bitten by one does not let you become one. yet.

His ear normally stands fully upright but I made the canvas too short. this is supposed to be expressionless since it's just a character reference.

[ID: A simple digital drawing of an original character. In the center top of the image is his face, in the lower left and right are a very simply drawn version of his full body, flipped to show his front and back. The left half of his face (which is on his right) is light pink, with darker red-pink burn marks on his forehead, over his eye, and his mouth, with this eye closed, drooping to the left. His mouth also droops to the left. The other half of his face is covered in black fur, with a tall pointed ear, a grey nose, and whiskers. His eye on this side has dark sclera, a large round pupil, and a red iris. The black fur continues down half of his body and includes a long tail, with a red double-spike at the end. On his wrists and ankles are grey, red, and grey stripes. He wears no clothes,and the human half of his body is simple pink blobs in the shape of an arm and leg. On the werecatwolf side, he has a digitigrade leg and a paw, both with sharp claws. End ID.]

with extra text and also his clothes

[ID: The same drawing above, but now Riowolf is wearing a red short-sleeved shirt under a denim jacket with tattered edges, and grey jeans with ripped edges. On the werecatwolf side, the jeans have been cut at the knee. The front of the jacket is covered in many small black pins, with text reading, "assorted other pins", "he/him pronoun pin (trans man). On the back is a black symbold of scratches left by claws. An arrow points at his closed eye, labeling it, "blind in this eye". Smaller text above his angled ear on the face closeup reads, "not mad the canvas is just too short". In the upper left corner, text reads, "July 22 2024, public domain, Riowolf or to friends Rioruff". End ID.]

He's a punk anarchist. He lives in a time when there's either nuclear winter, or just on a completely separate planet where there's constant cloud cover making it "permenant night". Cities are enclosed and kept heated by some sort of thing with wind. certain parts of the city would always have lights on for visitors from other cities, others would switch on and off to simulate day and night cycles.

Here's what the end of his tail looks like. Not really sure what you call this shape.

[ID: an MS Paint scribble of Riowolf's tail, which is solid black except for the end, where there is a large red double-spike, like a flattened bolt of lightning, or the letter N mirrored onto itself. End ID.]

I think they were transforming people by dunking them into giant chemical vats. It wasn't very clear though.

You can see the speedpaint of me drawing him, as long as the HD versions of the art above to download here on the Internet Archive:

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Sir Lancelot from Arthurian legend has maladaptive daydreaming!

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contextless public domain illustration and characters because I haven't read it yet

I'm gonna hope and pretend all these disabled characters are treated with respect.

[Image description start: A black and white illustration showing three characters in the foreground. One of them has no body, only a bald head atop a metal cyllinder, in a wheelchair made up of three wheels, with two on the back larger, and the front smaller. Sitting nearby is a character in long skirt or dress and bra or croptop, sitting on what appears to be stairs, partly attached to a machine as they look over at the first character. Behind them is a third, seemingly sitting up from within a large machine, with what looks like stitches or scars crisscrossing their bare chest. A fourth character is in the background, walking away from the camera and seeming to lean on a cane, with a bare torso and their back to the camera. End Image description.]

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ahahaha

The Spasm by Guy de Maupassant

The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places. The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second time. The old bathers, the habitues, whose season was almost over, glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new faces might appear.

This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think. We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself, and sociability is the order of the day.

We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly, after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.

Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in return.

And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.

Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the appearance of strange faces.

Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a woman —father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm, the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims of fate. The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly white hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy; and there was in his bearing and in his person that austerity peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was also very thin, very pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude. We meet people like this from time to time, who seem too weak for the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to walk, to do all that we do every day. She was rather pretty; with a transparent, spiritual beauty. And she ate with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of moving her arms.

It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.

They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.

Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside my head in order not to see it.

I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her left hand.

After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of Chatel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from which flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of extinct volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct craters lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain chain. For Chatel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of mountain domes.

Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again the region of precipitous summits.

The “Puy de Dome” is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these mountain heights.

It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady path, listening to the opening, strains of the Casino band, which was playing on an elevation overlooking the park.

And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my direction. I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering place; and the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:

“Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short, pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?”

I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall, craggy, wooded slopes.

They gladly accepted my offer.

And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.

“Oh,” he said, “my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack, is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad.”

Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:

“But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves somewhat affected?”

He replied calmly:

“Mine? Oh, no-my nerves have always been very steady.”

Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:

“Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried alive!”

I could only utter, “Ah!” so great were my astonishment and emotion.

He continued:

“Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.

“One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated in the very heart of Lorraine.

“I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces, rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her first ball dress.

“You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home. She was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years. I found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition, utterly exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity to think or the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a suffering, vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.

“My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the room noiselessly, and asked:

“'Does monsieur want anything?'

“I merely shook my head in reply.

“'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would monsieur like me to put him to bed?'

“I answered: 'No, let me alone!'

“And he left the room.

“I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a regular, sinister noise against the windows.

“How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless, crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp, inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great doorbell, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.

“I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?

“And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without doubt, were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the stairs. I was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'

“Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure, standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.

“I recoiled petrified with horror, faltering:

“'Who-who-who are you?'

“A voice replied:

“'It is I, father.'

“It was my daughter.

“I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,' as if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have noticed—that gesture which has remained with me ever since.

“'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead. Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood began to flow, and that restored me to life.'

“And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.

“I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my throat.

“Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still so bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that had befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit dawn in my easy-chair; then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle the fire and to bring some wine, and to summon assistance.

“The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.

“It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by me, as I trusted him absolutely.

“You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people.”

He was silent.

The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.

I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I only murmured:

“What a horrible thing!”

Then, after a minute's silence, I added:

“Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool.”

And we made our way back to the hotel.

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If you do not stand with Palestine, leave this blog.

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Neopronouns in Action #066: Dirt Nap

Based on the newest event in me playing Wolf Quest Anniversary Edition.

Neopronouns: skull/skulls/skullself which follow the same rules as it/its/itself for this example.

Replace it with skull Replace its with skulls Replace itself with skullself

EX:

"It is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as it gets a fence set up around its yard so the puppy can go outside without it having to walk it. Its uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he's letting it use, since it lost its. It's going to buy toys and train the puppy itself."

Becomes:

"Skull is going to adopt a new puppy soon, as soon as skull gets a fence set up around skulls yard so the puppy can go outside without skull having to walk it. Skulls uncle is going to help set up the fence, since he has a set of power tools he's letting skull use, since skull lost skulls. Skull's going to buy toys and train the puppy skullself."

____

Skull sank to the ground with a happy sigh as soon as skull was far enough from the entrance to the den not to block the way for skulls siblings, and immediately rolled onto skulls back to let the sun warm skulls belly.

"Lazybones!" Bark yapped as she bounded past, then spun around and play-bowed in the gras near skulls head, "Come play with me! Come on!"

But Skull had already closed skulls eyes, and responded without opening them, "No! I'm napping!"

"But you're always napping!" Bark whined, "Come on! Play with me!" She suddenly dove forward and grabbed skulls tail in his teeth and yanked on it, but Skull didn't even bother to react.

"Hey!" Came the warning growl from their grey parent overhead, as Skull felt a cool shadow fall over skull as skulls parent blocked the sunlight, scolding Bark with, "Be gentle, Skull is clearly tired. You'll hurt someone likr that if you're not careful! Why don't you go play with Fox or Persimmon?"

Grumbling discontented, Bark released Skull's tail and ran off to terrorize her other siblings.

Skull thumped skulls tail against the ground a few times in gratitude once he was gone, still feeling the cold shadow of skulls grey parent on skull.

Cracking one lazy eye open, Skull peered up into the face of the sandy grey wolf that was one of skulls parents, looking down with a sad, concerned expression.

Skull closed skulls eye again, and thumped the ground with skulls tail a few more times in reassurance, then added, "It's okay."

Skull heard a quiet sigh, then the short rush of air and a thud as skulls grey parent flopped down on the ground next to skull, letting the bright, boiling sun finally warm skull's cold fur again.

"You're not going to make it to the fawn festival, are you?" Skulls parent asked in a soft voice.

"No." Skull replied simply. "I don't want to." There were a lot if things skull could say, but didn't feel like mustering the energy.

Skull's spirit had been born again too soon. It was too early. Skull didn't want to be here, in the crisp morning air and the warming sun, skull wanted to be back underground in the warm earth where skulls last bones had been buried. The worms and trees hadn't finished breaking them down yet. Skull still had a long time to go before skulls spirit would be ready to inhabit a new body.

This one was still small, still light enough to be carried around in this life's parent's mouths. But it was too big to fill with the small parts of Skull's spirit that floated freely. The fur was thin, the muscles undeveloped. Skull could never seem to get warm, even when curled up inside the den with the whole family around skull, except for when skull was allowed to lounge in the sun, the same sun that would someday bleach these weak bones white.

Skull sighed out a breath, enjoying the blessed, baking warmth, imagining that skull was safely nestled underground again as what remained of skulls bones, buried in the collapse of the den of skulls last time alive.

Skull listened to the sounds of skulls grey parent's breathing, the yaps and play-growls of skulls siblings running and playing, and in the distance, the howls of another wolf pack.

Skull felt, then heard skulls grey parent tilt their head back to respond, raising a clear, steady howl into the morning air. Bark, Persimmim, Fox, and Antler all stopped playing long enough to frantically attempt to join in, their squeaky, uncertain but enthusiastic howls making Skull wag skulls tail again, though skull made no move to join in.

Skull was ready to go back to being dead until it was the right time for skull to be born again, and until Skull could take a proper dirt nap again, skull would settle for a normal nap in the warm spring sun.

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Skull the sleepy little ghost wolf who just wants to take a dirt nap until its actually time to be alive again.

[Image description start. A very simple, flat color, lineless digital drawing showing a gray wolf cub from the shoulders up sitting and looking towards the camera.

Rather than a normal wolf's face, the eyes and nose are black, like empty sockets on a skull, with black lines separating the ears from the rest of the head.

A white skull shape is in the center of the face framing the eyes and nose, when gray lines at the bottom to mark teeth. Inside the black eye sockets float orange lights with curves at the bottom to show happiness.

The face is medium gray, with lighter gray circles at the top of the head like a little crown, and a matching gray body with a lighter belly.

Image description end.]

Skull's pronouns are skull/skulls/skullself.

Public domain because I said so :)

You can use the tag "Skull the ghost wolf"

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Alexandre, by Guy de Maupassant

At four o'clock that day, as on every other day, Alexandre rolled the three-wheeled chair for cripples up to the door of the little house; then, in obedience to the doctor's orders, he would push his old and infirm mistress about until six o'clock.

When he had placed the light vehicle against the step, just at the place where the old lady could most easily enter it, he went into the house; and soon a furious, hoarse old soldier's voice was heard cursing inside the house: it issued from the master, the retired ex-captain of infantry, Joseph Maramballe.

Then could be heard the noise of doors being slammed, chairs being pushed about, and hasty footsteps; then nothing more. After a few seconds, Alexandre reappeared on the threshold, supporting with all his strength Madame Maramballe, who was exhausted from the exertion of descending the stairs. When she was at last settled in the rolling chair, Alexandre passed behind it, grasped the handle, and set out toward the river.

Thus they crossed the little town every day amid the respectful greeting, of all. These bows were perhaps meant as much for the servant as for the mistress, for if she was loved and esteemed by all, this old trooper, with his long, white, patriarchal beard, was considered a model domestic.

The July sun was beating down unmercifully on the street, bathing the low houses in its crude and burning light. Dogs were sleeping on the sidewalk in the shade of the houses, and Alexandre, a little out of breath, hastened his footsteps in order sooner to arrive at the avenue which leads to the water.

Madame Maramballe was already slumbering under her white parasol, the point of which sometimes grazed along the man's impassive face. As soon as they had reached the Allee des Tilleuls, she awoke in the shade of the trees, and she said in a kindly voice: “Go more slowly, my poor boy; you will kill yourself in this heat.”

Along this path, completely covered by arched linden trees, the Mavettek flowed in its winding bed bordered by willows.

The gurgling of the eddies and the splashing of the little waves against the rocks lent to the walk the charming music of babbling water and the freshness of damp air. Madame Maramballe inhaled with deep delight the humid charm of this spot and then murmured: “Ah! I feel better now! But he wasn't in a good humor to-day.”

Alexandre answered: “No, madame.”

For thirty-five years he had been in the service of this couple, first as officer's orderly, then as simple valet who did not wish to leave his masters; and for the last six years, every afternoon, he had been wheeling his mistress about through the narrow streets of the town. From this long and devoted service, and then from this daily tete-a-tete, a kind of familiarity arose between the old lady and the devoted servant, affectionate on her part, deferential on his.

They talked over the affairs of the house exactly as if they were equals. Their principal subject of conversation and of worry was the bad disposition of the captain, soured by a long career which had begun with promise, run along without promotion, end ended without glory.

Madame Maramballe continued: “He certainly was not in a good humor today. This happens too often since he has left the service.”

And Alexandre, with a sigh, completed his mistress's thoughts, “Oh, madame might say that it happens every day and that it also happened before leaving the army.”

“That is true. But the poor man has been so unfortunate. He began with a brave deed, which obtained for him the Legion of Honor at the age of twenty; and then from twenty to fifty he was not able to rise higher than captain, whereas at the beginning he expected to retire with at least the rank of colonel.”

“Madame might also admit that it was his fault. If he had not always been as cutting as a whip, his superiors would have loved and protected him better. Harshness is of no use; one should try to please if one wishes to advance. As far as his treatment of us is concerned, it is also our fault, since we are willing to remain with him, but with others it's different.”

Madame Maramballe was thinking. Oh, for how many years had she thus been thinking of the brutality of her husband, whom she had married long ago because he was a handsome officer, decorated quite young, and full of promise, so they said! What mistakes one makes in life!

She murmured: “Let us stop a while, my poor Alexandre, and you rest on that bench:”

It was a little worm-eaten bench, placed at a turn in the alley. Every time they came in this direction Alexandre was accustomed to making a short pause on this seat.

He sat down and with a proud and familiar gesture he took his beautiful white beard in his hand, and, closing his, fingers over it, ran them down to the point, which he held for a minute at the pit of his stomach, as if once more to verify the length of this growth.

Madame Maramballe continued: “I married him; it is only just and natural that I should bear his injustice; but what I do not understand is why you also should have supported it, my good Alexandre!”

He merely shrugged his shoulders and answered: “Oh! I—madame.”

She added: “Really. I have often wondered. When I married him you were his orderly and you could hardly do otherwise than endure him. But why did you remain with us, who pay you so little and who treat you so badly, when you could have done as every one else does, settle down, marry, have a family?”

He answered: “Oh, madame! with me it's different.”

Then he was silent; but he kept pulling his beard as if he were ringing a bell within him, as if he were trying to pull it out, and he rolled his eyes like a man who is greatly embarrassed.

Madame Maramballe was following her own train of thought: “You are not a peasant. You have an education—”

He interrupted her proudly: “I studied surveying, madame.”

“Then why did you stay with us, and blast your prospects?”

He stammered: “That's it! that's it! it's the fault of my dispositton.”

“How so, of your disposition?”

“Yes, when I become attached to a person I become attached to him, that's all.”

She began to laugh: “You are not going to try to tell me that Maramballe's sweet disposition caused you to become attached to him for life.”

He was fidgeting about on his bench visibly embarrassed, and he muttered behind his long beard:

“It was not he, it was you!”

The old lady, who had a sweet face, with a snowy line of curly white hair between her forehead and her bonnet, turned around in her chair and observed her servant with a surprised look, exclaiming: “I, my poor Alexandre! How so?”

He began to look up in the air, then to one side, then toward the distance, turning his head as do timid people when forced to admit shameful secrets. At last he exclaimed, with the courage of a trooper who is ordered to the line of fire: “You see, it's this way—the first time I brought a letter to mademoiselle from the lieutenant, mademoiselle gave me a franc and a smile, and that settled it.”

Not understanding well, she questioned him “Explain yourself.”

Then he cried out, like a malefactor who is admitting a fatal crime: “I had a sentiment for madame! There!”

She answered nothing, stopped looking at him, hung her head, and thought. She was good, full of justice, gentleness, reason, and tenderness. In a second she saw the immense devotion of this poor creature, who had given up everything in order to live beside her, without saying anything. And she felt as if she could cry. Then, with a sad but not angry expression, she said: “Let us return home.”

He rose and began to push the wheeled chair.

As they approached the village they saw Captain Maramballe coming toward them. As soon as he joined them he asked his wife, with a visible desire of getting angry: “What have we for dinner?”

“Some chicken with flageolets.”

He lost his temper: “Chicken! chicken! always chicken! By all that's holy, I've had enough chicken! Have you no ideas in your head, that you make me eat chicken every day?”

She answered, in a resigned tone: “But, my dear, you know that the doctor has ordered it for you. It's the best thing for your stomach. If your stomach were well, I could give you many things which I do not dare set before you now.”

Then, exasperated, he planted himself in front of Alexandre, exclaiming: “Well, if my stomach is out of order it's the fault of that brute. For thirty-five years he has been poisoning me with his abominable cooking.”

Madame Maramballe suddenly turned about completely, in order to see the old domestic. Their eyes met, and in this single glance they both said “Thank you!” to each other

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Public domain disabled characters:

The Cripple, by Guy de Maupassant

The following adventure happened to me about 1882. I had just taken the train and settled down in a corner, hoping that I should be left alone, when the door suddenly opened again and I heard a voice say: “Take care, monsieur, we are just at a crossing; the step is very high.”

Another voice answered: “That's all right, Laurent, I have a firm hold on the handle.”

Then a head appeared, and two hands seized the leather straps hanging on either side of the door and slowly pulled up an enormous body, whose feet striking on the step, sounded like two canes. When the man had hoisted his torso into the compartment I noticed, at the loose edge of his trousers, the end of a wooden leg, which was soon followed by its mate. A head appeared behind this traveller and asked; “Are you all right, monsieur?”

“Yes, my boy.”

“Then here are your packages and crutches.”

And a servant, who looked like an old soldier, climbed in, carrying in his arms a stack of bundles wrapped in black and yellow papers and carefully tied; he placed one after the other in the net over his master's head. Then he said: “There, monsieur, that is all. There are five of them—the candy, the doll the drum, the gun, and the pate de foies gras.”

“Very well, my boy.”

“Thank you, Laurent; good health!”

The man closed the door and walked away, and I looked at my neighbor. He was about thirty-five, although his hair was almost white; he wore the ribbon of the Legion of Honor; he had a heavy mustache and was quite stout, with the stoutness of a strong and active man who is kept motionless on account of some infirmity. He wiped his brow, sighed, and, looking me full in the face, he asked: “Does smoking annoy you, monsieur?”

“No, monsieur.”

Surely I knew that eye, that voice, that face. But when and where had I seen them? I had certainly met that man, spoken to him, shaken his hand. That was a long, long time ago. It was lost in the haze wherein the mind seems to feel around blindly for memories and pursues them like fleeing phantoms without being able to seize them. He, too, was observing me, staring me out of countenance, with the persistence of a man who remembers slightly but not completely. Our eyes, embarrassed by this persistent contact, turned away; then, after a few minutes, drawn together again by the obscure and tenacious will of working memory, they met once more, and I said: “Monsieur, instead of staring at each other for an hour or so, would it not be better to try to discover where we have known each other?”

My neighbor answered graciously: “You are quite right, monsieur.”

I named myself: “I am Henri Bonclair, a magistrate.”

He hesitated for a few minutes; then, with the vague look and voice which accompany great mental tension, he said: “Oh, I remember perfectly. I met you twelve years ago, before the war, at the Poincels!”

“Yes, monsieur. Ah! Ah! You are Lieutenant Revaliere?”

“Yes. I was Captain Revaliere even up to the time when I lost my feet —both of them together from one cannon ball.”

Now that we knew each other's identity we looked at each other again. I remembered perfectly the handsome, slender youth who led the cotillons with such frenzied agility and gracefulness that he had been nicknamed “the fury.” Going back into the dim, distant past, I recalled a story which I had heard and forgotten, one of those stories to which one listens but forgets, and which leave but a faint impression upon the memory.

There was something about love in it. Little by little the shadows cleared up, and the face of a young girl appeared before my eyes. Then her name struck me with the force of an explosion: Mademoiselle de Mandel. I remembered everything now. It was indeed a love story, but quite commonplace. The young girl loved this young man, and when I had met them there was already talk of the approaching wedding. The youth seemed to be very much in love, very happy.

I raised my eye to the net, where all the packages which had been brought in by the servant were trembling from the motion of the train, and the voice of the servant came back to me, as if he had just finished speaking. He had said: “There, monsieur, that is all. There are five of them: the candy, the doll, the drum, the gun, and the pate de foies gras.”

Then, in a second, a whole romance unfolded itself in my head. It was like all those which I had already read, where the young lady married notwithstanding the catastrophe, whether physical or financial; therefore, this officer who had been maimed in the war had returned, after the campaign, to the young girl who had given him her promise, and she had kept her word.

I considered that very beautiful, but simple, just as one, considers simple all devotions and climaxes in books or in plays. It always seems, when one reads or listens to these stories of magnanimity, that one could sacrifice one's self with enthusiastic pleasure and overwhelming joy. But the following day, when an unfortunate friend comes to borrow some money, there is a strange revulsion of feeling.

But, suddenly, another supposition, less poetic and more realistic, replaced the first one. Perhaps he had married before the war, before this frightful accident, and she, in despair and resignation, had been forced to receive, care for, cheer, and support this husband, who had departed, a handsome man, and had returned without his feet, a frightful wreck, forced into immobility, powerless anger, and fatal obesity.

Was he happy or in torture? I was seized with an irresistible desire to know his story, or, at least, the principal points, which would permit me to guess that which he could not or would not tell me. Still thinking the matter over, I began talking to him. We had exchanged a few commonplace words; and I raised my eyes to the net, and thought: “He must have three children: the bonbons are for his wife, the doll for his little girl, the drum and the gun for his sons, and this pate de foies gras for himself.”

Suddenly I asked him: “Are you a father, monsieur?”

He answered: “No, monsieur.”

I suddenly felt confused, as if I had been guilty of some breach of etiquette, and I continued: “I beg your pardon. I had thought that you were when I heard your servant speaking about the toys. One listens and draws conclusions unconsciously.”

He smiled and then murmured: “No, I am not even married. I am still at the preliminary stage.”

I pretended suddenly to remember, and said:

“Oh! that's true! When I knew you, you were engaged to Mademoiselle de Mandel, I believe.”

“Yes, monsieur, your memory is excellent.”

I grew very bold and added: “I also seem to remember hearing that Mademoiselle de Mandel married Monsieur—Monsieur—”

He calmly mentioned the name: “Monsieur de Fleurel.”

“Yes, that's it! I remember it was on that occasion that I heard of your wound.”

I looked him full in the face, and he blushed. His full face, which was already red from the oversupply of blood, turned crimson. He answered quickly, with a sudden ardor of a man who is pleading a cause which is lost in his mind and in his heart, but which he does not wish to admit.

“It is wrong, monsieur, to couple my name with that of Madame de Fleurel. When I returned from the war-without my feet, alas! I never would have permitted her to become my wife. Was it possible? When one marries, monsieur, it is not in order to parade one's generosity; it is in order to live every day, every hour, every minute, every second beside a man; and if this man is disfigured, as I am, it is a death sentence to marry him! Oh, I understand, I admire all sacrifices and devotions when they have a limit, but I do not admit that a woman should give up her whole life, all joy, all her dreams, in order to satisfy the admiration of the gallery. When I hear, on the floor of my room, the tapping of my wooden legs and of my crutches, I grow angry enough to strangle my servant. Do you think that I would permit a woman to do what I myself am unable to tolerate? And, then, do you think that my stumps are pretty?”

He was silent. What could I say? He certainly was right. Could I blame her, hold her in contempt, even say that she was wrong? No. However, the end which conformed to the rule, to the truth, did not satisfy my poetic appetite. These heroic deeds demand a beautiful sacrifice, which seemed to be lacking, and I felt a certain disappointment. I suddenly asked: “Has Madame de Fleurel any children?”

“Yes, one girl and two boys. It is for them that I am bringing these toys. She and her husband are very kind to me.”

The train was going up the incline to Saint-Germain. It passed through the tunnels, entered the station, and stopped. I was about to offer my arm to the wounded officer, in order to help him descend, when two hands were stretched up to him through the open door.

“Hello! my dear Revaliere!”

“Ah! Hello, Fleurel!”

Standing behind the man, the woman, still beautiful, was smiling and waving her hands to him. A little girl, standing beside her, was jumping for joy, and two young boys were eagerly watching the drum and the gun, which were passing from the car into their father's hands.

When the cripple was on the ground, all the children kissed him. Then they set off, the little girl holding in her hand the small varnished rung of a crutch, just as she might walk beside her big friend and hold his thumb.

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Jean des Barrets from Guy de Maupassant's short story, "Waiter, a 'bock'", has PTSD, depression, and alcoholism.

Description:

I glanced round to find a place that was not too crowded, and went and sat down by the side of a man who seemed to me to be old, and who was smoking a two-sous clay pipe, which was as black as coal. From six to eight glasses piled up on the table in front of him indicated the number of “bocks” he had already absorbed.

At a glance I recognized a “regular,” one of those frequenters of beer houses who come in the morning when the place opens, and do not leave till evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald on top of his head, with a fringe of iron-gray hair falling on the collar of his frock coat. His clothes, much too large for him, appeared to have been made for him at a time when he was corpulent.

One could guess that he did not wear suspenders, for he could not take ten steps without having to stop to pull up his trousers. Did he wear a vest? The mere thought of his boots and of that which they covered filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs were perfectly black at the edges, as were his nails.

-

'What age are you?”

“I am thirty, but I look forty-five, at least.”

I looked him straight in the face. His wrinkled, ill-shaven face gave one the impression that he was an old man. On the top of his head a few long hairs waved over a skin of doubtful cleanliness. He had enormous eyelashes, a heavy mustache, and a thick beard. Suddenly I had a kind of vision, I know not why, of a basin filled with dirty water in which all that hair had been washed. I said to him:

“You certainly look older than your age. You surely must have experienced some great sorrow.”

[publicdomaindisabledcharacters]

"Sounds rough, buddy"

[ID: A digital drawing of Skippy Superpounce, and Oswald Rabbit, against a white background. Skippy is a colorful cartoon cat, Oswald is a black and white cartoon rabbit. Skippy is a pink and purple cat with a striped purple and blue shirt, and gold shorts, with a purple cane. It arm and tail are pink, striped with purple and yellow, and its face is purple. It looks over with an eyebrow raised in dismay, saying, "Wow. That sucks." Oswald is a rabbit with blck fur, and a white face and overalls with one diagonal shoulder strap. On his chest are two top surgery scars. He is standing gesturing angrily at the sky with one hand and shaking his black and white cane in the air with the other, with zigzag and scribbled lines around him to show how angry he is, labled, "ranting about Disney's bullshit". End ID.]

only now do I go "hmm...but rabbits would have more than two nipples so really their top surgery scars should be long vertical scars instead..."

Edit: also fun fact the font for Oswald is a font I just happened to have called Oswald which is why I picked it. And I just used Comic Sans for Skippy cuz I couldn't think of anything funny.

[publicdomaindisabledcharacters]

Neopronouns in Action #065

Wi/vyr/vyrn

Short written from my phone.

___

Wi was getting old, and the pains wi'd been dealing with since the accident seemed to get worse every year. Vyr hair was almost completely gone now, and what remained was either stark white, or the colors of the stormclouds.

Wi was a Taazmarli, one of the people native to the planet that didn't have a name yet. Wi was a monocular triped, with feathers that had once been bright, shining green, but were now faded and greyed with age, vyr once stark yellow stripes now indistinguishable from the rest. Vyr beak, though, was still as glossy as ever, and had been painstakingly dyed black when wi'd been an adoles. Wi was very proud of how dark it was still, after all these turns of the sun.

Vyr band had skilled hunters and good luck, so wi was always eating well, and had a good layer of fat over vyr bones, helping wi to stay warm when the sun fell and the chill of the night rose into the air to greet the stars and the moons.

Wi wore the same sorts of clothes as most of the rest of vyr band -- leather dyed red from the rocks, supplemented with fur for extra warmth, and beads of bone, sap amber, some shells, and certain kinds of seeds. Only Ecli, who'd come from the far south, wore otherwise, and slowly the original clothes were being traded out for local garb as the years passed and they wore out. She had taught them her original people turned the shells they could find in rivers into jewelry.

Wi could no longer assist in the hunting, or crafts jobs, so wi taught the children everything wi knew, from how to pick the weakest animal in a herd, to how to help the best fruit trees to spread, to instructions on how to weave baskets.

That night the band stopped in one of their favorite caves, after making sure no other predators had moved in since their last visit. It was deep enough to keep out the rain, but still helped trap heat from the fire. The tools they'd left behind the last time were still here, so they quickly put them to use, stewing the day's kills over the fire, with generous chunks of the root vegetable that grew abundantly in the area this time of year.

Wi sat close to the fire with the other elders and disas, and Saffi showed them all the new trick he'd thought of for making thread.

Wi laid down to sleep next to Gimzi, vyr favorite person of all the band since they'd met as adols, and, with the crackling of the fire to lull wi to sleep, wi dreamed of the stars, and the life that lived among them.

[publicdomaindisabledcharacters]

The real question...

Image description start. White text on a black background reads, "Would furry top surgery scars look like... this... or this?" Below are two almost symmetrical digital drawings of Oswald rabbit, a black and white cartoon rabbit with white shorts and a white cane. He has black fur except for on his face and on his two scars on his torso.

On the 1st, the scars go up and down and are as long as his torso.

In the second, they are shorter and go side to side, where the top surgery scars would be on a human.

Image description end.]

[publicdomaindisabledcharacters]

if you want to make a gif of a character blinking you only need two frames:

one with their eyes open, another with their eyes closed.

This

[ID: A simple digital drawing of Skippy Superpounce, a purple cartoon cat in front of a gold background, staring off to the left with its mouth open in shock and its eye wide. Its shirt has purple and blue stripes, and its nose and insides of its ears are pink. End ID.]

Plus this

[ID: The same image as above, now with the eye shut as just a black line. End ID.]

and ezgif.com, with the first frame duplicated a few times to create a pause

(Please tell me other ways to turn images into gifs, I'm a noob)

equals this

[ID: A gif version of the two images above, with Skippy blinking repeatedly in wordless shock, with a short pause between each blink. End ID.]

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[ID: Three digital drawings of a bipedal, pink and purple cartoon cat. It is standing facing mostly forward, looking to the side with a smile. It has one hand on its hip, and the other holding a cane. Its face and neck are purple, and its other limbs are pink with purple rings. Its shirt is blue and purple striped, and its shorts are solid gold. Its cane is the same blue and purple as its shirt, with a gold wrist strap. Its long tail is curled behind it. Circles of color over its head on the blank white background show each color used in the drawing. In the first panel, someone off-screen is calling, with a green speech bubble, "Skippy!" while the cat looks over, a purple questionmark next to its head while it smiles. In the second, the off-screen continues, "Say 'cheese'!" indicating the other person wants the cat to smile for a picture. The cat now has a smiley face emoticon next to its face. "=)" In the last panel, blocks of light and "*click*" have been added to the side of the image to indicate a camera flash, and the cat has its eyes closed and its tongue stuck out, with an emoticon doing the same. "=P", and "*blep*", the onomatopoeia for sticking the tongue out.

End ID.]

[publicdomaindisabledcharacters]

Skippy is Public Domain because it's my character and I said so :)

More web archive links:

Skippy Superpounce art dump.

The HD Versions of these references

A blank template so you can draw your own cat character.

A probably failed attempt to make Skippy in Blender before I gave up

Nakey reference of Skippy. Also while making this I decided it gets yellow stripes too because yellow and purple is the best combination ever.

You can download the template I made for this from the web archive here. I'm also making a separate post with a tutorial on how to make your own like this :)

[ID: Three drawings of a bipedal cartoon cat posing with its arms held out to the sides. The background is light grey, with black text labeling different parts of the drawing.

The first drawing shows the front of the character, the second shows the back, with the labels for front and back in the top Right corner.

The character is named "Skippy Superpounce", and uses "it/its pronouns only".

Skippy is 3 foot 3 inches tall, or 100 centimeters. It is missing a whisker on the left side of its face, with the right side having all three, arranged so the center whisker is slightly longer than the outer two.

Smaller text reads, "Btw: This font is called 'Makertone'" with a link below that reads, "https://www.1001fonts.com/makertone-font.html".

Skippy has mostly pink fur, but a purple face, with more purple on its torso and leading down to its tail in a stripe that curves slightly on the front. It has three purple stripes on each arm and leg around the elbow joint, with two pale yellow stripes between each purple one.

It has purple paw pads on its hands and the bottom of its feet, with five fingers on its hands and three toes on its feet.

Its large, thick tail has many purple stripes, with two sets of yellow stripes spaced evenly along. There are three thin pale yellow stripes on the purple on its chest below its neck almost like a necklace.

Its eyes are white with black pupils, currently in the form of crescent shapes to show it is smiling with its eyes closed. Its nose is pink, as are its small round eyebrows, and the insides of its pointed ears.

On the back of its head are two tall pink ovals that look like blank eyes, and text next to them reads, "eyespots on back of head to scare away predators. Terrifying implications, indeed." More text opposite this continues, "Bright colors and stripes to show it's toxic to most life forms.". The third version of the drawing has the cat as a dark grey silhouette, with only a cane and rollator in color in front of it, with their handles reaching up to about the cats waist. The cane is grey-blue with a light blue handle, and gold and blue rubber stopper on the bottom. The rollator's frame is gold, with blue and pale purple handles, pink wheels, and a dark purple and pink seat and bag.

End ID.]