#THE DREAD

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[telestoapologist]

DESTINY 2 AS TUMBLR TEXT POSTS 💠💬✨

(31/?)

[gemkimart]

[karta-vacante]

Spoiled Omens

[spalshie]

theyre so swag...

[elili0000]

[rena-yume]

My main piece and a collab for the @brave-the-storm-r1999 zine! Working on this and getting to interact more with the community was so fun

[rogueofart]

female subjugators kept my mind busy today, THE BRAINROT IS REAL

poor clarice, im sorry to put you into that situation, gay warlock

[nananarc]

the dread ™

[odetojupiter]

i see everyone saying they’re so excited for tgr to come out. not me though, i’m actually filled with existential dread and it’s ruining my day to day life

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

ACCESS: RESTRICTED

DECRYPTION KEY: 3136664202-777

HIDDEN AGENT(S): [REDACTED]

RE: PYRAMID SPECIES SPEECH

They speak. These things we dread, they speak actual, intelligible language. We'd had reports from Neomuna and other sites of contact, but nothing verifiable until now. But this. This changes everything. Language implies history, culture. Thoughts and agency.

We thought them to be mindless constructs of the Witness, clones of Nezarec, mutated psions — Guardians love their speculation — but I'm not sure many of us considered that this could simply be the remnants of yet another alien civilization. Or perhaps something greater. Older.

Alert the Cryptarchs. Double check the archives. We must understand the threat we face. We must open our eyes to the possibility that it has been hiding in plain sight all along.

[telestoapologist]

can i offer you all an assortment of destiny memes i’ve made in these trying times (7/????)

[captainsaturnart]

“Shard of omen” more destiny fan art by me.

[rob321453]

Hi y'all ahead of Destiny 2 The Final Shape I felt like making some Disciples based on the Dread units who don't have a Disciple based on their base units. Also featuring a size comparison of all them.

So in order are as follows:

A Grim Disciple based on the Cenotaph helmet.

A Husk Disciple along with its Geist form.

And last but not least, Yirix! Leader of the Psion Conclave as a Disciple!

Thoughts?

[betweenblackberrybranches]

Well i had a dream tonight

Crashlanding with our school space ship on a water planet. Not being able to leave because the engines die and the ship slowly sinks under water. Luckily the ship was made to be able to work as a submarine. Finding ruins of a civilisation. More like alien research buildings and equipment left for millenia but still looking just like new. We find books about the structure and make up on the planet in one of the more intact buildings. Tethered and piled up in an entrance area. Its written in a language and lettering we cant read but there is many of the books. Everyone takes one to try to figue out whats up with this planet and why the other ones who build these structures left. People get more and more paranoid talking of seeing gostsly figures. One of my best friends is chosen to fly the only intact escape capsule off the planet to get help. As we all sit near 'the rift' (a very dark and deep ravine in the ocean ground) we all go through the books and then i realize. Someone drew and wrote into the latter half of the book and i stare in awe as i try to make sense of the drawings. There is a very well done sketch of a dead person, i can feel the pain of the person who made it. And i realize that this is an elf. An alien species that is very old powerfull and live very long. And the further i go the more of the scetches are of dead people. I think: " Elfs only die when the stars they were born with die. So why did all of these elfs die." And a foreign deep and soft voice in my head says: "we are trapped on this planet, as everyone who tries to leave dies within the next day"

And suddenly i feel dread as i get up to try to stop my good friend from going to get help, as more and more knowlege, about how the radiation of this planet changes the body and makes it impossible to survive without it, is transferred into me and i realize, i might not see the elfs, but in some capacity they are still lingering and so is their knowledge. But they never left. This planet is a death trap.

I wake up