#I just take her out sometimes for enrichment

[preservationofnormalcy]

Definitely nontraditional, but here's my family yarn.

My grandma had this old thing, from when my dad was a kid. Cardboard book of the Nutcracker story. Thing is, she used it as one! Put a black walnut in the middle and crushed it inside the book with her hands mid story. You can see from my actual submission how busted up the book is after two generations of annual use!

After she passed, we would occasionally hear rustling from the attic. Found a dead mouse once and figured it was just a colony staying warm for the winter. Then we found one... crushed. Turns out the book was shuffling around up there looking for anything hard and round it could break: mice skulls, tree ornaments, etc.

We've been bringing it out and feeding it for six years now, but your comments about what not to give these things makes me thing it's probably best to send to the professionals. Hopefully you guys can give it better enrichment than us. (I recommend walnut ball cookies, if you have the time to make them. Otherwise, get some big gumballs or jawbreakers to keep it busy.)

Wow! What a creative way of keeping this occupied! Sometimes objects pick up...habits, you could say. With so much energy devoted to them - two generations of a....very unique tradition - they want to continue in the only way they know.

Sometimes we need to balance keeping these things happy with how much they disrupt our lives.

We may come take a look, but if it seems to be happy, you're probably okay. Just remember - no human bones!

Thank you so much! I'll print out a copy of this.

[kittymeiga]

🌱🐈‍⬛ Meiga exploring the great outdoors!

[bekolxeram]

I'm usually very block happy, but sometimes a couple of hot takes from the opposite side of the fandom manage to slip through. I'm no saint, I admit I do get quite worked up at first, but after some time, I realize they give me new perspectives to scenes I've watched countless times and discover things I didn't pick up before. So this one is for all of you, staunch Tommy haters, thank you for enriching my viewing experience.

In 7x04, when Tommy goes to Buck's loft to talk things out, this line gives some people the ick, because it echoes what Taylor said in 5x05. In that episode, Buck thought his team was off because they blamed him for Chimney leaving. He talked to Taylor about it, she shared her own experience with her boss being sulky around her, and it turned out her boss was just in a lot of physical pain, she ended the conversation with "maybe not everything is about you". While what she said was absolutely right, and she made an effort to make Buck feel appreciated at the end of the episode, but I can also see Buck not feeling supported emotionally at the time the conversation occurred. In a fashion true to her profession, Taylor delivered it in a very blunt, direct and advisory way. Her being right did not cancel out Buck feeling insecure about everyone acting weird around him and him not knowing why.

What Tommy says here though, is in a a completely different context.

Before all of this, Tommy has already reassured Buck that he's not trying to replace him, that his place in Eddie and Christopher's life is irreplaceable.

Look at Buck's smile, he's apparently in a better mood than before. It's like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

So going in this next part, Buck is more receptive to what he frankly needs to hear: Eddie isn't hanging out with Tommy because Buck did something wrong, he just enjoys Tommy's company.

We've witnessed Buck's growth over 7 seasons, now he can recognize that getting jealous easily is one of his character flaws, he tends to overthink and make other's action personal when he's feeling insecure in a relationship. He's telling Tommy this probably to signal that he understands he messed up and he understands what he did wrong. He never expected Tommy to validate his feelings.

But Tommy does empathize with his predicament.

Buck doesn't understand what Tommy, the cool, confident (and hot) pilot would be jealous over. And he almost can't believe Tommy gets what he's been feeling.

Tommy tells Buck that he's envious of the ride-or-die familial bonds within the 118 nowadays, as if he didn't also put his career and life in danger just to save Athena and Bobby (probably Hen's career as well), after one phone call from Chimney.

Now it's Buck's turn to reassure Tommy.

Another hot take I've seen from the other side goes like "if Tommy was nicer to Hen and Chimney back in the days, he wouldn't have to be jealous over what the 118 has now". You know what? Judging by Tommy's face here, he probably would agree. This is not the face of a man who is proud of what he did. This is the face of a man who is burdened by guilt and regret, this is a man haunted by his past, this is a man who doesn't think he deserves the praise.

Buck even cites fake mouth static as an example of Tommy's effort in aiding the 118's clandestine rescue mission, and they naturally fall into a flirty dynamic. I have no explanation for that, except, your honor, this is exhibit A against the "no chemistry" allegation.

Buck then spells it all out for Tommy that he also put everything on the line just for the 118, without hesitation. Tommy looks like he still has a hard time accepting it as an act worthy of redemption for his past behavior.

We've all made mistakes, and we all know we can't go back to the past and change what we did, so the best way forward is to change ourselves and be better. Judging by Tommy's "and [Gerrard] didn't make me a better person" line in 7x10, he quite possibly reflected on this a lot. Yet, sometimes you still can't help but doubt yourself over if you've learned enough from your past, if you're a good enough person now. I can't imagine how good it feels hearing Buck say out loud that he actually likes the person Tommy is now.

Apparently Buck likes Tommy so much that he came up with excuses just to hang out with him and get to know him.

Tommy is pleasantly surprised, because he did tell Buck to call him when he wants to go up. In fact, Buck can call him for whatever reason, Tommy accepted the Harbor tour request, there's nothing indicating that he would feel weird just hanging out with Buck. Tommy just doesn't know how much of a overthinker and bi disaster Buck truly is yet, but that's the story for another time.

Buck and Tommy really don't know much, if anything, about each other at this stage, as you can see in 7x05, but they're already validating each other's feelings. We've seen Buck get his feelings ignored, hurt, dismissed and kind of fetishized for 6 seasons, now this is something he's been looking for the whole time, for someone to understand what he's going through. At the same time, this interaction must also be quite freeing for Tommy, who's been haunted by demons from his own past.

[br-uwu-cewayne]

Other cities’ “Scared Straight” programs are just… field trips to a Gotham school/museum

complete with any non-fully murderous villain robbing the place that night realizing what’s happening and full on jumping into the role, being extra EXTRA over the top to sell the point just like the inmates in the show XD

the batman will even linger a bit before making the bust, to help both the kids AND villains (“It provides enrichment for them,” Bruce shrugs one night after finally intervening after Harvey and Two-Face worked together brought some poor girl who thought she was tough shit to tears, via an incredibly thorough and frightening lay out of the legal battles she was going to face in the ten years if she kept this up and every argument the prosecution would use and exactly how fucked she was if she didn’t learn to stop running her mouth and bragging and ESPECIALLY not talk to FUCKIGN COPS. “It’s nice to see them taking an interest in actually bettering these kids lives, in their own way.”)

Red Hood even plays villain again for it sometimes.

Meanwhile, Gotham “scared straight” programs are just. Making Gotham darling and beloved wayward-problematic-pill-popping-party-animal-playboy-turned-pillar-of-the-community-philanthropist-and-loving-father Brucie Wayne go through their public social media like the Celebrities Read Mean/Thirst Tweets series with a sad/disappointed 🥺 “You know, it’s really hard to see you all struggling with stuff like this, it really reminds me of a lot I went through. It’s never to late to turn it all around, I promise.”

[foone]

Now I'm imagining a totally different version of that mini-story shitpost (I'd call it a ficlet if it was more serious), where it's a story about a floret elaborately planning an escape, but with a twist.

(mini-hdg fic follows. No sex, but this an inherently dubcon/noncon setting and there are some very minor references to that)

They figured out how to bypass some restrictions on the matter compiler by asking for things with components that could be reused. They've hidden tools inside some of their plushies, pushed to the back so their owner won't accidentally notice them.

Finally, it's time. The door to her quarters falls quickly from the acid attack (she's been doing hidden chemistry for Weeks). The ion storm will blind some of the sensors, so they only need a little extra help to not notice a DIY escape pod falling out of an auxiliary cargo bay.

The escape pod soft-lands (well, mostly. It hit a few tree branches on the way down) on the nearby habitable planet, and the door pops up. A floret in some brightly colored doll clothes resewn into hiking gear pops out. She holds up a sensor with a little screen on it, and it shows one big blue dot. Suddenly the dot grows, the screen's image is swamped out, and then it returns: nothing. No dots. The Cembroides has jumped out of the system. She's free without anyone noticing. She tosses aside the sensor she rigged out of a hair cutting machine, grabs some supplies from the pod, and hikes north.

A few kilometers later she finds a clearing with a small log cabin recently built in it. She opens the door without knocking, and says "Did you miss me?"

Her owner puts aside her book. "Of course I did little one! I was worried when your pod came down in the dense forest, but I see you made it safely here."

The floret smiles. "I wasn't worried! I used some hoverunits from an old medi-bed design, so my pod was slowed down enough that I just got jostled a bit. The real trick was figuring out how I could make the pod smart enough to land me near the cabin but not so smart that it'll discover what I'm doing and alert the Cembroides AI... I ended up with a nano-computer out of a dining tray wired into the thrusters. It thinks it's keeping my lunch warm, not flying a spaceship!"

Her owner beams an expression of leafy pride at her. "That's all very interesting, and I look forward to reading your report on it. But for now, come cuddle with mommy, and drink up. You've been hiking through the forest, you need hydration and nutrients now, little one."

The floret jumps into her vines, literally, and buries her face in the leaves of her owner. "it was a lot of fun! I've got some great ideas for the next time, too". She yawns, and cuddles closer, her eyes slowly closing. "But for now I think I'll rest..."

A distance away in the alien jungle, a small creature scurries out of the abandoned escape pod, as the discarded sensor loudly beeps an alert as one of the Cembroides' shuttles makes an FTL jump back into the system.

Back at the cabin, the Affini gently pats the head of their floret. You gotta make sure your pets have plenty of enrichment, you know? And sometimes that means letting them "escape", just so they can have the enjoyment of figuring out their escape plan.

The shuttle sets down besides the cabin, and the Affini carries her sleeping pet out to it, pausing only to activate a system to reclaim the cabin back into biomass for the forest to use. The shuttle takes off silently, and the sound of birds and other forest wildlife slowly returns, as the cabin slowly melts like a sand castle at high tide.

That sensor by the pod beeps again as the shuttle jumps out to meet up with the Cembroides, and something not entirely unlike a deer darts off into the denser forest in fright.

[monimccoythings]

Human!Alastor x Daughter!Reader: Devotion

These are all part of the same AU, I suppose, or not. But I like to think they are all part of the same AU, sometimes I forget what I write. Now this are just some deranged feelings and thoughts of Alive!Alastor.

Reminder: Alastor is in hell for a reason.

Tw: obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, mentions of blood, implied murder, manipulation.

tags: @anonymousewrites, @nonetheartist, @littledolly2345, @sunnyx07, @ouroborostheunholy, @mo-0-o, @sydneyyyya @lbcreations-blog

Alastor had never been a sentimental man. Of course he loved his mama, she was a wonderful woman and her death had definitely caused him a great amount of grief.

And then you came along.

Your soft skin, your chubby hands that tried to grasp his larger fingers to no avail, your wide unfocused eyes that darted everywhere, taking notice of everything. How delicate you felt in his arms, you fit perfectly, like you were made to be there.

How easily he could break you, he ponders. One little snap and there would be no more of you. It would be so quick and simple. There was only one little thing.

He adored you.

Your quiet little coos, your incomprehensible babbling that sounded like you were trying to carry an adult conversation with him, the way you squealed with joy whenever one of your favorite songs started playing on the radio. You were delightful, and provided him with more enrichment than any of the bumbling fools he usually associated himself with could provide.

As years passed by, you started to get bigger, your world expanding, your knowledge growing. And with it, came the risk of having you slip away from him.

He had modeled you to be his perfect little angel, his little fawn. His obedient child. He would not allow anyone to take you away from him. He was your guardian, your protector. Some asshole looked at you the wrong way while you two were going on a walk? He was never heard of again. Some low-paid teacher was becoming some sort of role model to you? Ooops! Accidents happen!

He found that his reasoning for protecting you was also a good excuse to indulge in his darkest desires. A way to calm the itch that was always nagging at the back of his head.

Alastor did it for you. He was making the world a safer place for you. No matter how much fun and enjoyment he got out of it. None of those buffoons would ever taint your innocence with their dirty souls. Not even himself.

He would take his secrets to the grave, always hidden behind a wide smile. he would be the good father, the charming radio host, the modelic citizen. The blood in his hands, as delicious as it tasted, would never stain your clothes.

No one would keep you two apart, he would make sure of that. He was all that you could possibly ever need. Your world started and ended with him, as it should be. Let him be the barrier between your purity and the rotten society that lurked outside.

He suffered everytime you were forced to spend time apart of each other. Couldn't you see it? Did you feel it too? Whenever you were in school or he was working, it was complete suffering for him! His fingers drumming impatiently on the surface of the table, counting the seconds until he was back at home with you. Only the mental stimulation that took directing, writing and starrring in his own radio show for which he held great passion and the delightful hunt his side job provided were enough distraction to cope with his sorrow.

When did he become so emotional? He should be feeling embarrassed of himself or at least be very thankful that his mask of sanity wasn't cracking with all those feelings. Instead, he found himself embracing them. He embraced the painful worry about your wellbeing and his influence over you, the obssessive and twisted love he felt, the need for control, to ensure you remained his innocent and good child, and the bitter despair at your absence that sunk into his heart like a knife. Only his little baby could give him such a rush.

He was sure that not even death would be able to take you from his hands. He would personally fight God, the Devil, and anybody who got in his way. Alastor would tear the fabric of reality apart just to get to you.

You would never run away from him. There was no reason to, as he had made you as devoted of him as he was of you. Or at least he hoped so.

Having you leave him would surely break his heart, as it would mean to Alastor that you had chosen to do things the hard way. But maybe, after a very detailed and complex planification on his part and some casualties orchestrated by him, Alastor might be able to convince you to return back home, with a grim reminder about the dangers of the outside world.

For there is no safer place on Earth than in your father's embrace.

[sky-scribbles]

Today I decided to take out the Bhaalist cultists on the top floor of Felogyr's Fireworks. I'd attempted this a couple of times only to be thwarted by game crashes, so I wasn't about to beat around the bush. I detach Astarion from the party and cast Greater Invisibility and Pass Without Trace on him. Then, like any responsible vampire spawn owner, I send him upstairs to his most enriching environment: a room full of oblivious cultists whom he can murderise with impunity.

As the bodies begin hitting the floor, the various guards and staff decide that the three adventurers loitering suspiciously on their landing are the source of the problem, and engage them in combat. As long as I remain focused on Astarion, however, who is upstairs gleefully stabbing cultists, the guards can do nothing but glower at my party, weapons drawn, in Faerun's most awkward staring contest.

At last, one of the cultists rolls high enough to see through Astarion's invisibility, and Astarion gets shunted into the initiative order with everyone else. At this point, Avery the fireworks boss comes running upstairs, sees his staff brawling with us, and decides the only way to save his business is Explosions.

He casts Fireball. Gale fails to Counterspell. My screen fills with fire and 'Object took 74 fire damage!' notifications. Grimly, I look to the party portraits to see who needs healing, and... no one has lost a single hit point. Bewildered, I swap to Astarion to see what's happening on the top floor, and everything begins to make sense.

BG3, I have noticed, gets a little confused if anyone casts an AOE spell in an area that has two overlapping elevations. Such as the landing and top floor of a fireworks shop. Sometimes, it will ignore the conveniently clustered trio of adventurers that were clearly Mr Fireworks' target and sail impossibly over their heads to strike the upper floor of his shop.

The only PC up there is Astarion. Astarion, the rogue with Evasion, who can negate all damage from explosions by succeeding a Dex save.

The upper floor is the fireworks laboratory.

As the camera focuses and the smoke clears from the chain reaction of detonating firework crates, Astarion stands untouched and triumphant amid a pile of smouldering corpses. The remaining cultists burn feebly at his feet. So do the few unlucky guards who had made it upstairs. Avery, understandably stricken at the realisation that he has murdered his own staff and is winning worst boss of the year, runs into the corner and stands facing the wall.

We take out the few remaining employees, and I instruct Astarion to begin looting bodies. Immediately, a Flaming Fist guard sprints through the door to the shop, dashes past the multiple lightning-struck, radiant-flame-scorched, elemental-fist-pulverised corpses now lining the stairs, past the blood-covered adventurers on the landing, and attempts to arrest Astarion for theft.

Astarion, with a dozen bodies crumbling to cinders behind him, insists that the vial of deadly poison he's clutching was his to begin with, and that he wouldn't have had to steal it back if the guard would just get better at her job. He rolls a natural 20 on deception. Chastened, the guard relents.

We exit the firework shop. Not a single hit point has been lost.

[tare-otome]

Kotallo's Salutes - Updated!

"May the Ten walk with you..."

Something Kotallo does that i love is how he salutes Aloy. I've never seen this salute and now i want to do it all the time.

What i like about the first one is the swooping hand motion, a flourish on top of the standard one we're used to in present time. To me it imitates the flight of the metal flying machines their mythology of the Ten is based upon, and i love that spin on a salute that just further enriches the lore of this world.

--Update!

"May the Ten guide your way..."

^ I randomly saw this one and it further solidifies my headcanon! It takes more effort to swoop your hand out like this than do a regular salute, so it must be intentional! Idk why i'm so obsessed with this idea lol😅😵‍💫

I can just see the old fighter jets that now litter the lawn of Memorial Grove, in their prime.😍 Or the flight of any Glinthawk, Stormbird or Sunwing!

Extras!

"We walk the warrior's path..."

Also i love how he looks at her. And his blinks haha. He's so sincere and respectful...sometimes lol.

"And keep an eye on the sky."

"Strike true as the Ten."

"I'll see you back at base."

-- I love how solid that one is.

She even starts mirroring his salutes ♥️

[writing-relatedactivities]

A Very Ask A Manager Thanksgiving

So I love advice blogs (I maintain that comment sections on advice blogs are the best free tool for writers to explore different viewpoints, which really enriches your characterization), and for a few years now, I have had this idea that I want to do a do an Ask A Manager themed dinner, purely to delight myself. Meant to do it as a cookout this summer, but timing never worked out, so I broached the idea of doing it for Thanksgiving. My partner, who is also a nerd and therefore very supportive of my advice blog love even though it is not one of their interests, was down, with their only condition being that I should still make my cider bread with maple butter.

The menu:

Appetizers

Chips with:

Guacamole in honor of Guacamole Bob, of "ordering extra guacamole is wasteful of member dues” fame. (This being on the menu may also have been a factor in Partner being willing to have our holiday take on an Ask A Manager theme, as I once took a community education course on grilling that taught me nothing about its ostensible subject matter but did teach me to make a bomb-ass guacamole. The secret is that your first step should be to pulverize an entire head of garlic into a paste in your mocajete.)

Three store bought salsas, where the trick is to "fold" the salsa to get the best flavor

A bottle of hot sauce so we can get fired after a coworker steals our spicy food

Main Course

"Duck club" sandwiches in honor of the secret office sex club where you get points for sex in different locations, and quacking is involved. (These were very decadent and if anyone's interested in a great duck recipe, I used the Duck with Lemon recipe from A Feast of Ice and Fire.)

Sides

Cheap-ass rolls that I definitely deliberately brought to upstage you, yes you, the person who signed up to bring Hawaiian rolls! It's definitely not an overreaction on your part to declare that "they can all take Santa and stick it up their ass!" You're definitely not getting fired for being wildly hostile! (These are actually homemade rolls, but I weighed "buy actually cheap rolls and be done" or "spend a couple hours adapting a corgi butt roll recipe to a human butt roll," and chose in favor of the pun.)

Dessert

Bribery cupcakes, from that time a letter writer brought some cupcakes over to chat with her neighbor, the son of the Chief of Police, about a disruptive noise issue in her workplace and some commenters decided this constituted bribing a public servant. (The recipe is in the comments on that link; I made the carrot cake version. However, I realized halfway through that I was somehow low on vanilla despite obsessively buying fancy vanilla extract every time I am in a spice shop, along with a bunch of other things I don't need because buying cool spices makes me feel like a wizard. Anyway, half of these had vanilla in the filling/icing, and the other half had cardamom extract.)

A birthday cake that somehow crosses boundaries by...being too fancy? Being paid for a staff person? Not involving the wife in the planning? Anyway, the real answer to the letter writer's question is, "Eh, I don't think it's a big deal" because different offices have different norms around birthdays and it's whatever, but sometimes a low-stakes office norms question hits just right and you get 630 comments of people debating The One True Way to Do Office Birthdays, and whether or not buying a cake means you're angling for an affair. (Okay, not all the comments are about that particular letter. Anyway, I picked up this fancy-ass cake at Marc Heu Patisserie, and appropriately enough, the guy ahead of me in line was picking up a cake for his boss.)

And of course, what Ask A Manager column would be complete without chocolate teapots?

Beverages

Mudslides, because "girls love chocolate." And magic tricks. And being played "You're So Vain" on the piano with a mournful stare. Partner and I are both notorious lightweights but I had been snacking all day as I cooked so I was mostly immune. Partner took one sip of this drink and immediately began loudly telling me how their one colleague doesn't sing enough to his Pre-K students, and "this classroom will do anything if you sing to them!" After dinner, they lay down on the floor and sang the Slippery Fish song.

The full spread:

[darkdemeter]

Hey hey, could i please have a request?

So imagine that the reader is traveling with death to restore the humanity and they get along so well and are kind of flirty and the reader is falling for him. One day they meet Vulgrim and she out of curiosity falls into his serpent hole and is transported to the past to meet the young and unruly death, who we know was a menace when younger. And then they have their interactions the reader goes back to the current version of death. How do you think that would go?

Have a lovely day and thank you for your work!

EVEN DEATH WAS ONCE YOUNG

◤✘DARKSIDERS COLUMN | Death x Female Reader

NOTES: ↳ OH. MY. GOSH. ANON! Writing this was the bomb!! Interesting concept, a wonderful opportunity to explore pre-horseman "younger" Death. I tried to keep a balance between his more mature personality while also having some fun with giving him a bit of spunk -- I couldn't stop giggling! WARNINGS! ↳ Just death being a bit of a young menace, but he kinda cute doing it sooo.... but like there's also fluff/hurt stuff?

✎5.4k ────────────────

When people used to say: “I wish I could meet the younger version of you.” They don’t actually know what they’re asking for. Because who in their right mind would want to meet Death in the prime of his bloodlust? 

The thought struck a fancy with you after your encounter with the demoness, Lilith. Her presence exotic and threatening without explicitly doing anything remotely violent. It was the sensual octave that carried her words like a lullaby you had found forbidding to hear, yet you fall prey to the temptation to hear just one more word.

That didn’t stop you from hiding behind Death, his back rigid to the point the knocks of his spine straightened slightly when her hand lingered a little too close to brush a stray framing of hair out from your face. 

But it was what she recounted that piqued your curiosity. Her children. Enriching lore of a species most loathed from long ago, a bloody crusade where they met their end by Death’s hands. From her retelling and the mystical pulse of life that beats in the embedded shards in his chest, even speaking of them appeared to pain him both physically and mentally. A burden you could never carry for him nor tell him to abandon. 

For a human, whose patience often wanes at the smallest of inconvenience, you show a lot of compassion and understanding for the weight on his shoulders. And never would you know exactly how thankful Death has become for your company. At times almost yearning for it whenever you are but a few feet away, or the thought crosses his mind to take you back to the Tri-Forge and leave you in the Maker’s care. Your fragility means more to him now than it has before, sometimes just looking at you eases just a fraction of that guilt he pushes deeper down. 

You’d both formed far too much of a bond so unnatural to the opinion of others, yet it fell into some assortment of right for you. 

You can’t possibly imagine being left behind, not now. Not after how far you have come all this way together. 

But yes, that saying. Did people ever realise what it was they were saying? 

“Meeting the mother-in-law already, baby albums and all.” Your voice crackles on the hot, muggy wind that travels through this slice of inferno, sky a spiral of darkness and hellfire smog. “Dare I say it, I wish I could meet the younger—”

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence,” he warns with a low and thorough rasp that rattled in his chest. 

You cannot help but spare him a teasing wrinkle of your nose and puckering your tongue out between your teeth, body twisting from side to side innocently.

You can’t help but chuckle with a slight bounce in your step. “Sounds like you were quite the bad boy.”

You merely roll your eyes as he gruffly replies with a huff, “Your perception cannot possibly begin to fathom the prime of my youth… or handle it.”

Despite his attempt of coming off cool and collected, you could hear the bitter coil of something else underline his words. 

Oh, how mystical and dark and brooding he always was and portrayed himself to be. You’re sure that there is something a little less grim beneath that rough exterior. Hell — and that saying excludes your current locale — you have witnessed it before in the engagements of fun conversation that go back and forth to the point that a victor who gets the last say is indeterminable sometimes. So he’s not completely a lost cause of being impenetrable, he’s entertained you before with quite a few situations that you classified as flirting. Who knew that Death himself could make you blush bright and red?

He was close to claiming that title of victory this time, until you pad along to stop right in the middle of his tracks, his chest barely able to stop from bumping into you and causing your balance off kilter for a moment. 

“Come on, Death, at this point of travelling together, I can handle anything.”

He looks past your nonchalant grin and over your shoulder, seeming to cock a brow beneath the greying bone of his mask.

“Really now?” he hums, “Duck.”

“Wh—” you dare not finish to question him as you immediately take to assuming position, ducking low to the ground in preparation of an oncoming ambush unseen by you.

But it never comes. You hear a gravelly rumble of a chuckle emit from the reaper before you, his shoulders jostling a little with the motion. Your lips purse together and you scowl at him with everything you can muster to no avail of affecting him.

“Oh, ha ha. Very funny,” you snark back, walking alongside him as he continues to set your traversing pace. 

Noticing that he was heading back the way you came, you jutt a thumb to point behind you “Aren’t we meant to be going that way?” 

“Your sense of direction has improved astonishingly, girl,” Death snickers dryly, the slur of flirty endearment almost lost in his words. He continues, “We’re paying a visit to Vulgrim.” 

Ugh, even saying that name brings a ghoulish, slimy chill to climb your spine uncomfortably. 

“Horseman,” The greenish bulbs of his eyes shrink behind a wrinkling brow of pale, craggily skin. Then his eyes see you and the form in which they almost bulge from their sockets sickens you. “And your little human companion! Your scent is just as… lovely as ever, my dear.” 

The gaping maw of his lipless mouth twists into a creeping grin so unnerving it causes knots of fear to tie in your gut. 

“Uh, no,” you say with an adamant shake of your head. No way in this life or the next would you trade your soul to Vulgrim of all fiends. Death had warned you to just keep your soul to yourself in general if offered to sell it for a little something in return. 

“Your dealings are with me, Vulgrim.” Death is clear and quick to establish your presence before the serpent hole. The demon trader, sighing grimly with a black, slimy tongue ringing over his cracked and deformed fangs, addresses Death. 

“Very well. Let us see what I have to offer… and what you can afford.”

Vulgrim usually dances about his serpent hole but never ventured too far if he can help it, usually to usher you away from it with a warning, “If you know what is best for your longevity, stay away from there.” 

And most of the time, Death kept a watchful eye on you to keep you from falling face first into the next trap of trouble. However, this time around, the pool of green mist is left surprisingly unguarded. With a curious tilt of your head and scrunch of your nose, your boots pad on over as you walk towards it. 

You can’t make out a bottom through the wafting cloud of mist that rises from the hole. Still you arch your body to peer over the edge and down into it as though you’d find something soon enough if you just inch that little bit—

“Human!” Death bellows as he rushes to you, only just seeing your form stumble and fall forward. A yelp of surprise turns into a blood-curdling scream as you sink into the smoggy abyss. The green haze around you fades into a darker shade until all around you is black nothingness. Your voice throws over into a thousand echoes that follow you. You’re still falling. At least it feels that way and for a moment you think you’ve closed your eyes; it’s hard to tell with the inky black around you.

A bright tone paints onto the surface of your closed eyes and you fall onto ground, dusty and hard, small rocks jab and scrape as you land. The brunt of the fall knocks the wind from you and you take a moment to recover your bearings, soon to rise to your feet and brush off the smears of dirt on your clothes.

“Okay. Duly noted: do not go anywhere near serpent holes,” you affirm strongly with newfound belief, only to be met by silence.

No scolding words that apprehend your actions. Not the familiar grasp of a cold, large hand that strangely warms you and causes your heart rate to pick up a little faster. No, you turn and shift on your heel to scan all directions about you. 

“Uhm… Death? Vulgrim?” You’ve spun yourself into a circle a million times over by now. “Anyone? Hello?”

For certain this is not the same slice of hell you had accompanied Death to and no serpent hole was in sight. Instead, you're in some cavernous valley of dust land and patches of grass and foliage, in the distance stands the mounds of high reaching cliff sides. 

Where exactly are you? 

As a human evidently from earth, you had never once had the ability to traverse any realm unfamiliar. In fact, you never knew of the possible existence of them. And after meeting Death, you were strictly told to stay close. Realms harboured dangers of their own, a breed of some civilisation that undoubtedly hurt you if you ran off by yourself. 

And now you’re beginning to feel that seeping dread of despair dawn within you. That sulking hopelessness that you have cast yourself to some unknown corner of the cosmos, and Death has no idea where you dropped off to. 

“Death?” You ask aloud again. Were you lost forever? 

You begin to head off in a direction, putting the sun to your left as you look around for ideally any serpent holes that can hopefully drop you back where you belong. With Death. Without him here, you feel like a newborn fawn stumbling on its legs. He always made you feel safe, always ensured he was between you and whatever threat that tried to get you, even if he got hurt because of it. 

You continue to call out to the wind that sweeps over you, the sun beating down hard. You brush aside a flurry of hair from your face, your pace slowing exponentially as you practically stumble through this unknown territory.

That’s when that sixth sense kicks in. You’re not sure if you had been ignoring the signs before or if the feeling just came, but all the same you feel that you’re being watched.

You’ve barely dived out of the way before something large crashes behind you, the scraping of claws digging into the crusty soil and the shifting balance of weight kicks up a cloud of dust behind the force of the leaping attack. Turning to face whatever it was, you grimace at the sight of a mangy looking hound that dwarfs you. Its skin is a burnt hue of reddish pink like it suffered constant exposure to the sun, what matted fur that lined its spine and cuffed around its ribs was a dark, sandy brown with dark, faded stripes. Its ears twitch as a high pitched wheeze passes through its open jaw that pries open like a snake. Rows of black teeth are coated in an oily surface of dripping saliva. 

You see another grapple down the cliff face to join the first, this one notably smaller, but not by much. Then another of the same size joins the second, each one stalking closer to corner you in. 

A piercing sharpness fills your chest and your hand grasps at the handle of your dagger. A simple form of defence, highly unlikely to fend off the predators easily, but better than nothing. 

Right about now, that favourable reaper of yours would be excellent company. There were so many things you wished you had said, times you procrastinated moving that bit closer to his side by the evening campfire meant for your safety and sanity. You fear that this is your end. For your quest in restoring humanity, one more human will be lost today, and Death will have to bear that burden. It saddens you in a way. That the guilt would eat away at him. 

One of the smaller hounds takes no more than a few steps forward, just about ready to pounce at you before a humming force sings through the air and with a meaty crunch of bone and mushed brain, an all familiar scythe fatally sheathed in its skull. 

You fall back on your arse, a relieved grin digs deep into your cheeks as you think Death has somehow found you. 

You look around, eager to see him, barely catching something fast cut through the corner of your vision. The next thing you know, the head of the second smaller hound rolls over, its tongue hanging loosely between its jaws, the decapitated appendage just resting at the heel of your boots. The sight makes you grumble in dull disgust.

However, you are brought into the shadow of the larger creature that now towers above you, caught with a gulp in your throat. By your lucky stars, its attention diverts from you and to your rescuer and dives forward. 

You only just turn your head when a pained shriek howls through the air and a severed limb flies some distance away. Followed by another and then a third limb, leaving the defeated creature to begin crawling away with a distorted whine. 

His silhouette bathed in the scorching sun is a sight of relief, though his attire had changed. Not the draping tabard of violet tied about his waist or the deep purple scarf hung over his shoulders. Mostly an assortment of bandages wrapped and woven around his arms, clad in iron fittings. He steps after the beast, following along the weeping trail of blood smeared into the dirt, scythes coming together as the long staff of Harvester and placed to his back. 

Your face contorts in response to the sheer brutality before you, visage twitching in your frazzled comprehension. Yes, Death had a very violent tendency to be dangerously savage, but he was well versed in being precise, but never at this level. Seeing him utilise naught but his inhuman strength at his disposal and his hands, he rips the hound’s upper jaw clean off until sheets of sinew and muscle were reduced to hair-thin threads. 

He drops the unhinged part to his feet with a wet, clumpy thump. Even you have to internally argue that Death may have lost himself a little there. When his head turns over his shoulder, the flicker of an amber glow catching you in his sights, you cannot help the reaction to freeze as you roll onto your belly. 

Something unfamiliar resides in his gaze like he’s seeing you for the first time. But rather than the confusion of an older entity seeing one of the many souls still alive, there is a frenzy of anger – adrenaline running a high river through him, driving him bloodmad. 

His upper body then begins to turn only to halt when you utter his name, form rigid in his study of you. Again, you try, “Death? Hey, it’s me.”

Immediately you’re met by the unsheathed blade of Harvester aimed against you and you skitter back with a hiss as the massive blade knicks your cheek. 

“Hey! Careful with that— what’s gotten into you?”

“Who are you?” 

Your face scrunches, a morphed complaint of your confusion. He only attempts to raise his scythe to your neck with a threat to render you headless at his whim. 

“I-it’s me, hello!” you laugh with bitter nervousness, “you know me. Y/N, the human you’ve been travelling with.”

He gives no form of recollection. Not that he’s easy to read with that mask of his, hiding all but the expression in his eyes. Or the way he narrows them upon hearing one word: Human. Call it intuition, a gut feeling, a divine touch; you feel that that word held some powerful trigger to the Horseman before you. And none that you had seen in him before. Almost a zeal of intense excitement flourishes in the furnace heart of his eyes. 

“A human?” Harvester balances in his grasp to lean against his shoulder, a curious tilt of his head somehow influences you to mimic the action with an affirmative hum.

“Uh-huh. We were on our way to restore humanity. We went extinct, remember?” 

“Really now?” 

When he begins to stalk closer and inching the gap between you shorter, you find yourself taking a few steps back. Something was… off. Death isn’t like his usual self. The concept of humans didn’t really phase him in such a way before. He just thought of humanity and their restoration as a mere key to gaining his brother’s freedom. Somehow integral to the balance but never once serving importance to him. But now, before your very eyes, he appears with a dark excitement as he looks you over. Like your very existence piques him. 

Was he flirting with his leash ten yards behind him? 

Now that’s very unlike your old reaper—

There’s a thought: he is not… that old. Sure, old by some standard in the scheme of time, but compared to when you were travelling together, you come to realise how noticeably younger he is. And still, he advances towards you until his shadow overthrows you, drowning you in it. 

Even if you wanted to chalk up your thoughts to some conspiracy, you also notice that there is a sore lack of soul-cursed shards embedded into the taut muscle of his chest. 

Alright. Now you’re beginning to put the pieces of this puzzle together. You have somehow landed in the great, great past.

It’s like your wish became a manifested reality. 

Bathed in the sunless dark of his shadow, your feet intend to shuffle back, only for his arm that handles his massive scythe extends forth, the pole of it acting as some guard that keeps you from moving any further away. 

You mumble to yourself then, resigning in your compliance to remain where you stand. He may not be trying to directly hurt you now, but if given the motivation, you could yet stand corrected. 

He continues to stare at you, long and hard pressing, you feel like an ant under the heated blink of a glass scope that is threatened to burn. A matter of curiosity is all you can surmise it to the way his neck extends forward, bending down until the bone form of his masked nose hovers over you, near deathly silent but still largely inhaling your scent.

The act is enough for that heated flush to deep into your skin. 

“Hey—hey, easy there, big guy,” you warn, voice wavering from the way he merely tilts his head before leaning in again. “No, I said n-no! Stop that—no, that tickles!” 

Upon you practically beating him away with the ferocity of your mitten gloves, he then circles you like a predatory beast. 

“How is this possible? Humanity’s creation has not yet come,” he inquisitively says. 

You give a shrug, choosing to be a little more careful of your words. Would anything you do or say alter time itself and affect your supposed present? 

Just with you being here would be enough to do just that if Death’s claim that humans weren’t born yet is true. 

“Uh, well… it’s not so simple to explain. You see, I er—”

Shit this was getting more and more difficult to explain with the growing anxiety dangerously lurking over you like a foreboding cloud. 

“I’m not from here.”

You can almost see his brow curve upward under the mask. “Evidently,” he drawls deeply in response. 

With a roll of your eyes you try again. 

“All I know is that I somehow fell through some serpent hole and got transported back in time. Now, I gotta find a way back.” 

“You mean to leave?” 

Already turning your back on him – unaware of such a grave mistake – you only nod in response, your eyes last to leave him. Who knows how much longer you will have to endure here before Death finds and rescues you from his younger self. 

But that just isn’t in your stack of cards. Again you’re almost blown to the four winds and land on the cushion of your arse, grumbling in pain as you stare up at him, standing right in the way of your path.

Your lips purse tightly together, you hiss, “Death!” 

He crouches in front of you, ignoring the way you attempt to pry him and push him away as he moves a hand forward. He holds your wrist at bay before you can land a firm push to his mask to shove him away, his amber eyes dance with a certain level of intrigue and his head tilting to the side leaves his raven hair to saddle alongside the motion. 

He peels the grubby article off your hand to reveal the bareness of your skin and you find yourself holding your own breath. 

His own hand measures yours, palm to palm and you feel the roughened contour of his skin. His body radiates with an off-centred heat, not entirely cold as he is in the present with you but the morph of warmth isn’t so smothering unlike some infernal realm you know. You almost see the softness that crosses his features beneath the boney helm of his mask, like the cracks of emotion are being revealed without your exact know-how. 

But you’ve known Death for some time now. You’ve been in his company. If this is some revelation of a breakthrough, then you see it before your very eyes. 

Each finger lines to one another. A curtain of silence falls over the both of you until your eyes meet. A smile creeps over your lips then. 

“Must you truly go?” he’s sudden to ask beneath the gravel baritone of his chords. With a sigh, you only nod your head. 

His eyes harden at this, something distraught lines his concealed face only to be betrayed by the levelled glow of his eyes, but nevertheless he stands, no longer keeping you from running off. As you make your way to stand on your own two feet, brushing off the particles of dirt off your clothes, you notice Death’s prolonged stare. 

“What is it?” 

He only shakes his head, a gruff response of, “Nothing.” 

Though his reply is suspiciously vague, you both venture off into the great unknown, however much you believe that Death is more accustomed to the land than you. 

Hours pass as the sun begins to ride your backs and no sight of any serpent holes, leaving you with a feeling of exhausted anguish. As the night creeps in as a shadowy blanket over the sky and turns the humid air colder, you pull your shawl over your body as a chill licks your spine. 

Death — no not your Death, the younger one — takes notice, eying you from the side of his vision. 

“What’s wrong?” 

You jerk your head in his direction with eyes wide in your perked alertness. “Hm? Oh, I’m just cold is all. Usually I’d have a fire set up by now to rest…”

Would it be wise to add that it was him — older him — beside you and ensuring you settle into your makeshift camp? Unsure, you keep that to yourself. 

When he places an overly large hand to your shoulder, you stumble on your heel and pause, watching Death’s head scan the horizon and the upper cliff faces until he stops. You turn your head and notice just in the crevice of shadow and fading sunlight the blackened mouth of a cave. 

Your eyes light up at the thought of rest despite your circumstances and you already begin your trek towards the rocky climb, though you now see the rather steep slope it resides to reach the haven. With a grumble, your determination steers you to climb anyways, your feet stumbling and causing small pebbles to scatter down the face. 

Hands then grab hold of you and before you’re able to fight or protest, Death scuttles up in a matter of seconds with you hanging on for dear life. After he sets you down, you huff out, “Thanks.” 

He gives a gruff sound in response with a curt nod, then turns to scour the new site of camp. It wasn’t so much as a cave as you thought, moreso of a sheltered crop in the rocks, providing enough area to protect you from the elements but also invites the cool winds to breeze on past. 

Making a fire was a challenge than it usually was, making due with what you had on hand, and Death sets Harvester to his side, leaning it against the wall. He doesn’t think you pose that much of a threat to warrant its persistent sheath. 

He however finds some interest in how you kindle the birth of flames, crafting it from almost nothing. 

Looking up at him from your position, you laugh softly to yourself. “Yeah, I know. Humans are so weak and strange. But it’s what we do. How we were made, I guess.”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Death says with a clearly risen brow. His answer does bring you surprise. After all, Death had many times sighed and chuffed about how humans did the most silly of things – things that were key to your survival, keeping that in mind. 

“Well… you will. Someday.”

“How is it that you know me?” he asks, crouching on the fire’s opposite side, facing you. As much as you think it unwise to share anymore knowledge, you cannot deny that you feel almost safe around him, no matter the fact that he’s younger. In the prime of his bloodlust. 

But he hasn’t killed me yet. Tried to, but hasn’t. 

“It’s going to sound strange but… I’m from the future. And in that future, we are travelling together.”

“Because you said something of Humanity’s demise.” 

He’s Death alright. A keen observant to detail. You nod in reply before continuing, “and as I said, I fell through some sort of timeline and landed here in the past. The way, way past. So far that humans aren’t even created yet, as you’ve said.”

To this, he nods in turn and it brings you to smile. You feel as though he silently applauds your own recollection for detail. 

“Death, how old are you?” 

Yes, it is indeed perhaps a very stupid decision to ask his age, but the nature of curiosity humans are notoriously known for gets the better of you. His eyes flicker with momentary stutter, taken aback by such a question, but one he doesn’t ultimately deny in answering. 

“Today is my day of creation… I’m a thousand-and-one—”

Your eyes go wide and you shoot up to your feet with a cheer. “What? Happy Birthday!” 

Your voice is a loud noise to the shell of his hearing and it spurns him to the defence, beckoning Harvester to fly to his hand within an instant. You’re quickly covering your mouth, uttering your apologies at spooking him. 

Settling back down, this time to his side, you flash him a shy, toothy grin. “But that’s exciting!”

“What is a ‘birthday’?”

You gasp at the shocking revelation. “It’s a celebration. When humans are born on a certain day, it’s a tradition to celebrate it every year.”

Then it pops into your mind, again sending the nephilim beside you to flinch at your motion, you stir up a fuss of plucking a twig from the flames before it’s entirely devoured. Holding it, single flame slow to eat away the kindle, you beam as you stare at Death with large, doe-like eyes. 

“Make a wish!”

“A what?” He scoffs, only to see you dramatically roll your eyes until they’re nearly rolling out of their sockets. “A wish. You make a wish, something you really want, and then blow out the flame. Another tradition on your birthday.”

His eyes narrow to thin points, sceptical that perhaps you were using something to your advantage. When he sees that you don’t have any ill intent to deceive him, he shuffles in his spot slightly to face you, body arching ever so over yours; his height even at this level towers over you. 

You whisper softly, “Like this.” 

Making the motion of blowing out the makeshift candle with your mouth, the campfire casting an orange hue to your skin paints you in a fine detail that the nephilim cannot help but study closely until a there’s a skip in his chest.

His hand raises to his mask but stops and you see the hesitance to continue any further. Understanding that it very well could be because of your presence, you tilt your chin down and squeeze your eyes shut. 

A gust beats across your face, skirting the wisps of hair away and then just as promptly as he’d lifted his mask, he’d lowered it just in time for you to peel your eyes open. Again, you smile. 

He’s the first to crack through the veil of tension between you both, standing on his feet. 

“Get some rest, girl.”

The next day, you finally see in the distance the familiar halo of green and sick looking mists, but it is your ticket home nonetheless. You skip ahead and towards it, laughing at the thought of reuniting with Death and telling him of your adventure.

But then you stop. Not another skip in your step. You turn around to see Death, body rigid but his chin is aimed down and his eyes don’t exactly meet yours. Approaching him cautiously, you halt a few feet before him, hands pinned behind you. 

“I guess this is goodbye…”

You don’t very much like the eternal sound to your farewell. Like you’re losing him forever. 

He drawls out, low and lessened of any sort of emotion, but you swear you note a hint of sadness in his tone. “My wish didn’t come true.”

“What was your wish?”

His eyes rise to meet yours and you feel your heart splinter. Why did it feel so wrong to want to go back to Death in the future? Why did everything that wasn’t with him feel so, so wrong?

“I wish that you would stay here.”

“I can’t stay. I’m not from this time.” Your words do little to ease that which internally troubles him. Your hands coax his jaw to lift upwards until he stands, prouder and much taller over you that you have to balance on the toes of your feet. Then, you sweep your arms around him. His body is stiff to meet your hug but you care little in that regard. He’s always been one less evident of his affections, a tendency you’re completely fine with. 

“But I promise that we will meet again in the future. After all, that’s who I’m going back to through the serpent hole. To you.”

There it is, that flicker in his eyes that reveals in them a shiny glow of fire that you feel warms your heart in many ways. Pressing a chaste kiss to the toughened chin of his mask, you offer one last smile and bid your farewells with a wave, promising that you will see each other again before you jump into the serpent hole, disappearing into the green mists. 

You yelp as the void sends you crashing yet again and you fear that you have stumbled into yet another realm in another time. But for the first time, you find yourself relieved to hear Vulgrim’s slimy voice announce your arrival. 

“Ah! And there she is, the curious little mouse who doesn’t keep away from serpent holes,” he snides with a raspy coil like a snake getting ready to strike. 

“Vulgrim,” you poke your tongue out, brushing your hair from your face and you look to see Death charging his way to you. 

“There you are,” he says almost wistfully, hands pressed to your shoulders. A tender action even with the glare clear in his gaze. “What were you thinking? What happened to you?”

You know that beneath the roughness of his callous tone, he means well. He was worried and the look upon his younger self’s face as you left, you find yourself pulling yourself into him and embracing him. 

“I promised you that we’d meet again.”

His arms weave themselves around your waist, holding you to bear you closer in his embrace. “Yes, you did.”

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

The Whale Sanctuary Project have their sights set on Wikie and Keijo and they want to accelerate their plans and make a bay pen to put them into.

This "revolutionary plan" is exactly like what these whales already have - round the clock vet care, med pools, gated pools, slide outs - but with more stressors and uncontrollable variables than before.

These ~natural elements~ is just the naturalism fallacy being used as a marketing ploy. These whales don't understand this "natural life." You might as well be plucking them out and throwing them on a different planet.

Now, if you haven't worked on and around the ocean before, let me shed some light as someone who had to take a boat out to the Pacific Ocean to work with dolphins every day.

The ocean doesn't take kindly to man-made structures.

It will wear things down, ocean winds will rip your pontoons out and shred them, storm surges don't care about the weighted blocks you put down to stop your net lifting out. The animals will need to be fed in hurricane force winds that pull you off your feet. The net will need to be checked by divers and maintained no matter the season.

Your animals will have to fight daily with currents and tides that tug them around - sometimes those tides can pull them into nets. Wild marine life will harass them for their fish and naive animals will spook and shy away from coral and fish and anything that they haven't seen before (so good luck getting stationing for feeding when there's a weird looking fish around). You have to scoop out trash, cigarette butts and plastic bags and hope to whatever god you have that your retrieval training is enough to stop your animals from eating them. Your animals will very likely eat leaves, sticks, pebbles, anything they can get their mouths on.

(Since the sanctuary doesn't like training, I wonder if they'd even train a retrieval behaviour since it's "unnatural".)

A sea sanctuary is just captivity with a fun little animal rights activist spin on it. It is still captivity, no matter how big you make it. Wikie has been in human care for over 20 years. She has adapted to her current environment and throwing her into a bay pen is going to be stressful for her. She won't know anything about this new environment and there will be only a flood of new stimuli with nowhere to retreat from it.

The beluga Little Grey got stomach ulcers within only a few days of being out in the smaller acclimation bay pens. Little Grey and Little White have only been in human care for a bit over 5 years and they are struggling, even with the chance to decompress in their indoor pool.

Why are we planning this? What is this serving? We have no evidence that a sea pen is an inherently better housing situation for cetaceans.

We started with sea pens when orcas were first being captured! And orcas died there too.

Namu was one of the first captured killer whales and he died in a sea pen. The sea pen doesn't magically fix welfare issues caused by poor management.

"But that wasn't a REAL sanctuary!"

Okay then if sea pens are so inherently enriching and fix all welfare issues, why was Keiko logging for hours in his bay pen? Why did he become overweight and sluggish and sexually fixated on a giant red ball until someone who actually knew what they were doing started a proper training plan for him?

Why did Nami die with 180 lbs of stones in her stomach that she had ingested while living in a sea pen? Aren't sea pens so inherently enriching and stimulating that they don't need enrichment or training sessions? As Lori Marino put it in a bizarre webinar last year: "they'll be enriched by the flora and fauna; they won't need trainer relationships."

Anyway stop falling for these scammers and advocate for actual animal welfare that has science to back it up.

[choccy-milky]

Their kids are so cute omg i'm gonna dir of adorableness

lewis: then die LMFAOO NO BUT FRR THANK UU IM GLAD U THINK SO🥹🥹💖💖💖all the love for them (esp lewis) gave me the idea to draw him deflecting all the attention so ty for giving me the excuse to post it....we luv our aloof distant boi🥰

its funny bc i was JUST talking about this recently, but i dont like pet names at all BAHAH, hence why seb and clora dont call each other anything, not even nicknames.... seb calls her the light/princess/a bird sometimes as playful and teasing jokes, but doesnt actually address her like that. and clora always calls sebastian by his full name as well, bc i was basing her dialogue/my writing off the game dialogue...bc for as close as anne and ominis are to seb, both of THEM call him sebastian in full, so maybe it was a victorian thing that nicknames werent really common? plus clora's so proper that it just feels like its in her personality to always call seb "sebastian"... i feel like if she ever DID call him "seb" he'd do a double take and be like ...HUH? who are you???......are you polyjuiced? LMAO. i do imagine seb calling clora "love" when they get older tho (not in hogwarts) bc i like how simple it is, and imagining him saying stuff like 'careful, love' makes me🫠🫠🫠🫠

aw TYY💖💖 honestly i didnt give the victorian setting TOO much thought, other than making clora more modest/not used to wearing trousers etc. like the actual victorian courting process was that youd ALWAYS be chaperoned by at least 1 other person and you wouldnt be able to kiss or anything, so the fact that our mcs are in a co-ed school with free reign already ruins that, so i wouldnt worry too much about it. a lot of it you can just wave off with the excuse that wizard society is more advanced than muggle society, which is true anyway LOL. i just kept the parts that i thought were fun/made it feel victorian ENOUGH but got rid of the stuff that was too annoying (one big example being the amount of clothing they wear....i said it in the notes for one of my chapters, but i wasnt about to make seb go through like 5 different layers just to touch cloras titty LMFAO) and no i didnt have 1 specific website i used, id just google "blank in victorian times" and look through all the articles and resources i could on that subject, and take little bits of it. SO YEA i wouldnt worry about it too much, just take what you want if you think it could enrich your story, and leave stuff out if its annoying to deal with BHAHA. and GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR WRITING!!💖💖

BAHAHA yeah sebs bark was defs bigger than his bite when it came to actually having kids/getting clora pregnant LOL. he defs loves the pregnancy part, but i feel like seeing her go through the actual labour was super hard on him/made him feel guilty bc he hates to see her in pain, let alone bc of HIM. not to mention that i imagine he would still work even once they have kids, so to leave clora with like 6 kids by herself isnt something he would have wanted to do LOL. once both lewis and celeste are in hogwarts tho i actually imagine seb and clora still doing curse breaking as well (albeit less dangerous jobs/not as far away) BUT YES having a third kid that looks like seb and is sassy like anne would be SO CUTEEE...a happy accident is a good idea too, tho i kinda like the idea of it being cloras idea.....like, she gets baby fever again now that the kids are kinda growing up and sebs like no i dont wanna put u through that again... but obvs seb wouldnt be able to resist if clora was begging seb to put a baby in her LMFAOOO its already as good as done at that point😇😇 AND THANK YOU, and im glad you liked it!!!🥹💖💖💖

@the-kcm-muggleborn AWWW ur right thats so pretty.....ty for showing me!!🥹and im glad it make you think of clora...SHE WOULD APPROVE OF THESE STUDIES👌⭐🌙

[iwillnotdieamonster]

"This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date. I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this.

It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life that keeps us feeling terrified & alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona"

Credit goes to the respective owners.

[river-gale]

jane eyre and fairy tale references in the mars house by natasha pulley

Let's talk about folklore! TMH references it near-constantly. This post was originally just going to be me chatting about individual references for fun and enrichment, but now I want to talk about what purpose they serve.

A few of them are to describe situations or scenery:

This one is a Sleeping Beauty reference, used to describe what happens when the internet goes out. Sleeping Beauty is also a ballet with music by Tchaikovsky, completed in 1899; a lot of ballets are based on fairy tales, so it makes sense that these are the stories the narrator picks. The story is from January's perspective, and he's a former ballet principal—it's a neat bit of characterization.

He also uses them to talk to and about Gale:

(If you know a specific Tang dynasty novel this is referencing, please tell me, I will give you my hand in marriage.)

This is the plot of Bluebeard!

The second one here is Selene and Endymion. The first one is Jane Eyre, which is not technically a folk tale—it's a novel, a work of Gothic literature by Charlotte Brontë—but, like TMH, it follows the same archetypal plot of plenty of folk tales. A vulnerable person, usually a young woman and sometimes poor, has to marry someone powerful and monstrous—an animal, a dragon, an invisible god, a serial murderer, a nobleman who's keeping his ex-wife locked in the attic, or in the case of TMH, a CEO who is also a xenophobic demagogue who may or may not have murdered their last spouse. This is why January references Bluebeard. He's in the exact same type of story.

There's an equivalent feminine archetype of the Monster Bridegroom—the Swan Maiden and related tales—but the allusions in TMH tend towards the Monster Bridegroom version, just because it works better for the themes of power dynamics and different kinds of power.

The thing that makes TMH interesting, though, is that it isn't just an Monster Bridegroom folktale from January's perspective. It's also one from River's. January is marrying an incredibly wealthy and influential politician who wants people like him permanently disabled; River is marrying someone with superhuman strength who belongs to the same group as the person who recently ripped off their leg. If we take "monstrous" to mean alien, powerful, and potentially dangerous, then that's exactly what they are to each other—and what the animal spouses in Monster Bridegroom myths are.

And the allusions in the book reflect that, because they're also used to describe January.

Could be a lot of things—many different cultures have Things In Ponds That Eat You, and that's beautiful—but my first thought is kelpies.

A generic one.

January's Swan King thing! (And then they kiss about it!!)

I don't have a quote for this one, but Earthstrongers—and January in particular—are often compared to polar bears. (He's got polar-bear-colored hair.) It's very East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

The double fairy tale plot of this book is super cool—they're each the same fairy tale archetype to each other—but possibly even cooler is that Jane Eyre does a really similar thing with its fairy tale allusions!

The first speaker is Rochester, and the second is Jane. He's her monster bridegroom (due to the attic wife situation), but he frequently alludes to changeling and fairy stories when speaking about her. It adds some depth to the Jane Eyre reference in TMH!

It also recalls this passage from TMH:

Because at their hearts, Jane Eyre and TMH are both stories about class boundaries and power dynamics being transcended by the ability to match someone's freak.

[lavleyart]

Are you willing to share some Vaalumi relationship headcanons?

omg I'D LOVE TO! Thank you SO much for asking!!!

● Lumina grew up in a small town, being an apprentice for domestic magic. She dreams of looking beyond her horizon though so she volonteers to be Vaatis apprentice someday (she has grey morals).

● At first Vaati sees her more as a pawn. He is in a power fight with Ganon (era between FS and FSA but Vaati is a shapeshifter between his human and monster form) so any enrichment to his army is welcome

● Them getting together is a sloooowww burn. So damn slow. By working together they get more and more used to each other. Until after several years they have become so comfortable around another... The only difference between that and a relationship is a kiss.

More headcanons (+ art) below the cut:

● Both need therapy since yesterday. Lumina tends to overthink herself into oblivion. Vaati is more dramatic and with a fragile ego. But they are a team anyways. Healing together.

●They are not afraid to gently scold each other. Vaati "bonks" Lumina for over- and black-and-white thinking, Lumina "bonks" Vaati for being greedy and impulsive.

● I wouldn't say they are clingy or overly jealous. They both are independant, free spirits. They know each other inside and out and trust each other blindly. They also know to not take each other for granted

● Outside of the relationship with Vaati Lumina meets up with a mages circle sometimes. Her best friends are some of Vaatis high up mages and scholars. Vaati himself is too paranoid to truly have friends but his mind is occupied 24/7 with whatever fixation he has atm (for example how to win against Ganons threats)

● Personality-wise Lumina is a mix of being chatty and outgoing and being introverted and calm. She is a contradiction in herself. Though her outgoing self is a mask she is putting on. And she prides herself in having that mask. (Even though it exhausts her).

● Lumina also acts as Vaatis propaganda minister. So she needs an extensive network and good presentation skills. Also when Vaati is busy she oversees his army and trains some of the mages - after she finished her apprenticeship under Vaati himself.

● Vaati admires Luminas bravery, curiosity and determination. Lumina also loves Vaatis determination, his willpower and sheer self-confidence. He might have complexes but he always believes in his goals.

● Lumina wants to see the world, Vaati wants to conquer it. Either way they go and travel a lot. One can see AND conquer it at the same time after all.

● They call themselves "Lord Vaati and Lady Lumina" but none of them comes from actual nobility. Vaati just likes the Lord title. And a Lady is the female counterpart of a Lord so essentially Lumina has been lady-fied just for funsies 🤣

● Lumina keeps Vaatis villain behaviour in check with logic. After all being too vile has a lot of cons and burns bridges he might need in the future. A leader can't just impulsively wreck havoc even when he's really really feeling it!

● Vaati reminds Lumina to not get struck in unneccessary thinking cycles. "Focus on the goal, not the pebbles on the road to glory" he would say, immensively helping Lumina out of her spirals.

I could ramble a lot LOT more but for now I leave it at that. Please feel free to ask more questions! My goal is to depict a healthy and rich relationship even with those two chaots. 😂 and every question helps me to flesh out their world and dynamics!

(art by: me, me, reycupcake, yerin, neid.art, alustrations, me again)

[bugcatcherkit]

very curious about your thoughts on a tome teru ritsu shou friendship. you are one million percent correct but i am also extremely curious what you think her individual dynamics would be with everyone in the group, how she starts hanging out with them, and the general vibes of their private minecraft server

oh my god thank you hfhhehvhe i lovee having space to ramble about my interpretations !!!!!! I am trying so hard to make this short and coherent (I didn't sleep at all last night) so bear with me ok. This got long sooo ...

Tome and Teru bond first by virtue of being work besties turned regular friends. Well, work besties as in Teru hangs out there and helps out a lot but would never officially take the job. Anyway they get along great because they can match each other's weird and eccentric vibe while also having an underlying bit of Understanding between them due to the whole "tried to rationalize their isolation with specific escapist fantasies that indulged it instead of addressed it" thing. I think they help each other bridge whatever gap remains from their difficulties in connecting the supernatural/extraterrestrial/super-powered world and experiences with the regular/normal/ordinary world. like theyre a good balance for each other. Theyre both So Much that it kind of cancels out. I just like to think they help ground each other. This is very important for their enrichment.

Some of their enrichment activities include: Tome trying to get Teru to fucking Relax For Once by introducing him to video games like pokemon but it kind of backfires when he gets Way Too Into It (this is where minecraft comes in also). Making a super expansive OC world and continually referencing it to each other much to everyone else's confusion. Trying to cure their intense boredom by hanging out together but never really knowing what to do, so they're just bored together. Their text messages are mostly funny images they found, not actual conversations. Their solidarity with each other is almost unmatched. They have a warriors bond.

Anyway. ANYWAY. I think Tome is just kind of absorbed into the Teru-Ritsu-Shou friend group mostly because of Teru, and partly because sometimes, very occasionally, Shou will be at S&S because of Ritsu, who is usually there only as a favour. Ritsu and Teru do the exorcism stuff and Tome and Shou have to sort the filing cabinets for the 5 millionth time because Reigen is running out of things that Tome can do. Shou does not mind these tasks. I think Teru and Shou both like having little menial tasks to do whereas Tome doesn’t. For Ritsu is depends on the task and who it’s for a think. But ANYWAY. Anyway they just grow closer from there probably unless I think of something better.

I like to think of the Tome and Shou dynamic for similar reasons as the Teru-Tome dynamic (character comparison reasons). Shou craved normalcy and decided to chase it post-canon. Tome wanted the complete opposite. So I don't think they would exactly see eye-to-eye immediately (why would she want to give up that normalcy vs why would he want mundane normalcy). I think Shou might even find her View of Things a little bit annoying, mostly because I think he'd be high-strung post canon and she is just not helping that, as opposed to him actually disliking anything about her. But because they are both quite considerate of other people, they work through these things and become bros. He actually probably really appreciates her Severe Genuineness and (mostly) unwavering will regarding her passions/beliefs. She probably likes his appreciation for simple normalcy and relaxation because it hammers in again that doing stuff like that isn't a waste. They love doing so much Nothing together because they both like to take it easy. I think they would enjoy parallel playing.

When they hang out they have to stop EVERYTHING they're doing to watch an ant carry something 4x its size across the sidewalk because it is so exciting to them. Shou is in on the OC world by the way. Tome and Teru and Shou develop it like they're in the writers room of a high-budget TV show. He updates her on every little thing his hamsters do.

For some reason I found the Ritsu and Tome dynamic like the most difficult to think about out of all of them. They're probably the least close? Ritsu treats Tome as Mob's friend in the same way that Mob treats Shou as Ritsu's friend -- with immense care and consideration, but not a lot of close contact outside of a group. He tries to be sooo polite with her but she Does Not match his energy. So after a certain point Ritsu just kind of gives it up. Then they start annoying the shit out of each other. I do think that Ritsu looks up to Tome based on what he knew about her in middle school and how he knows her post-canon. Because she never conformed to people’s expectations in the way that he did, and she is committed to a Fun and Meaningful Existence in similar ways that he wants to be. My ideal dynamic is a Ritsu who gets Weirder and a bit more childish around her, because he deserves it I think. I know I said they wouldn't be close but this is how they can bond more.

I HAVENT EVEN GOTTEN TO THEIR MINECRAFT SERVER YET. Tome and Teru are the powerhouses of the server because they are so cracked at the game. the only difference is Teru takes it so damn seriously and Tome actually likes fucking around. She's putting herobrine portals around and convincing Ritsu he's on the server. Teru is doing it all he's farming he's mining he's building elaborate builds he's setting up economies because probably has the most consistent resource supply. Where's that post where it describes him and Ritsu as "they keep making more elaborate redstone powered industrial farms" I swear I saw something like that. That is them.

I wouldn't say Shou sucks at survival mode but he probably isn't terribly good at it either. He seems like a "load in a flat world and build stupid things and spawn in the max number of mobs allowed in any given range." He's always asking people for stuff because he keeps dying and losing his. Or he gets lost frequently. He's followed by at least 7 tamed wolves at a time and every time he loses one he makes everybody stop whatever they're doing to come to the funeral he puts.

The only thing stopping Ritsu from basically speedrunning the game is the fact that he is scared of the cave noises/the monsters/the nether. Also him and Mob have to share an account so sometimes he'll load in with nothing because Mob got them killed last time he was on. Tome and Teru both suck at bringing beds with them when they go out on in-game days long adventures and everyone else is soo mad at them. Is this too elaborate. I could probably go on I just haven't played minecraft in a while.