#anyway i'm having a normal one. can you tell.

[yourcutelittlegayfriend]

LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHING! LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHING!!

*grabs your shirt and pulls you close*

DC/Batfamily x Witwicky! Reader x Transformers (Completely Platonic only)

where reader gets sent to Gotham when they're still a baby for their safety as a last resort (which is fckn crazy like cuz pick which one is worse Joker or Megatron) by their Witwicky relatives because of Optimus orders so they can distract the decepticons first and find them again when it's safe (Sam may or may not exist in this au).

First origin After that Reader grew up in an orphanage but became a prodigy because of their high IQ and fascinating inventions due to inheriting their -unknowingly- great great grandfather Archibald Amundsen Witwicky's intelligence (idk im just winging this) then becoming the youngest engineer/mechanic in the gotham (world idk) that caught the attention of Batman when they accidentally hacked the batcomputer something they kind of jokingly bet to their professor so they don't have to do their thesis but was peer pressured in the end.

Batcomputer : *Starts glitching*

Batfam: *slightly tensed but wants to figure out who's the insane dummy that tries to hack THE Batcomputer*

Screen:

Reader: Heeeeeyyyyy it's meeeeee a hard working college student that needs proof that I actually hacked your computer, so Imma just take a lil pic and we'll just go back to our regular programming okie? Okay! *takes a selfie with the whole ass batfamily in their screen*

Reader: Thanks Batman! keep up the good work now to destroy evidence of the crime scene (still on the screen) *Shuts their laptop and proceeds to throw it out the window after*

*Gets adopted by Bruce Wayne anyway because a 13 year old kid in college needs money -preferably in cash- support and a Billionaire with the history of adopting wacky kids wants them for funsies*

Reader : *sits in the batcave with the hacking video on repeat in the batcomputer, surrounded and outnumbered by the batfam* Fuuuucccckkkk

Or 2nd you were sent instead by Edmund Burton, Alfred was the best option to protect and take care of the last descendant of Merlin and youngest member of the Order of Witwiccans, you grew up under Bruce Wayne but used the last name Pennyworth as a disguise to hide your true lineage, you still end up becoming a prodigy and the sort of mechanic of the family (you literally 80-90% engineered and build the Batmobile and most of Batman's gadgets) you didn't end up becoming a vigilante/hero because you stive to be the normal one or The civilian member in the family, You're either a nephew/niece to Bruce or the living in Cousin to the kids, you bet your ass you're either partner in crimes with Tim/Barbara or you kept -humbly- beating their asses over being the smart ass in the family.

Tim: *Best at hacking, Tech and gadgetry, the more smart robin and on the line to become the Wayne inc CEO* I'm not bragging or anything.

(All robins are smart he's just abit on top)

Reader: *looks at their name in all of the blueprints of gadgets, weapons, suits, transportations, the batcomputer, the batmobile, the watchtower, the JL headquarters security/bldg and the upgraded batcave system* That's great Timmy! you really are the smartest! *side eye the stacked up and approved projects for Gotham Structural proposals as well as the contract papers for the new in line brand of Tech you're making and quickly hiding the shiny nameplate 'CEO of the most famous electronics brand' with your name engraved on it*

It can also be x Neglected Reader as well where any of the 2 is your origin but you barely get noticed by your family other than your inventions and because you really don't like being into the family business due to not having the physical advantage of literally punching someone in the face without breaking your hands first.

so you just exist and try to finish college and live away to find your other family/ Find Edmund or just travel the world.

Origins aside

The reason why you are so important is the location of the all spark that was supposed to be imprinted to Archie's glasses was transferred to his brain instead become wired inside and somehow passed down to you that's why Optimus needed you safe until they can send the Decepticons away and find you.

I can imagine it going down like this

The world was under a new threat either by Megatron, the decepticons, Unicorn or even The Quintessons no one yet knows other than J'onn J'onzz /Martian Manhunter and Hal or the whole Green Lantern Corps who were close or worked with the Autobots before were alerted by them to ask for help.

Optimus and the rest of the growing Autobots that were left in the planet as well as Edmund met up with the Justice League to have a discussion about the new threat and was surprised that they only need someone instead.

Batman: Why do you specifically need this someone?

Edmund: I have sent orders to the Witwicky family to send their child here in your city for their safety due to the facts they have the location of the all spark also being the last and youngest member of the Order of Witwiccans.

Zatanna: Wait The Witwiccans? the one Merlin founded?

Edmund: Precisely my dear but should also add that they are the last living descendant of Merlin

Constantine who drops his lit cigarette: Fuckin hell and here I thought that man died a virgin HA!

Superman: And what is the all spark?

Optimus Prime: The All spark is a very powerful and ancient artifact from our old planet Cybertron, it has been documented by our people that it has the essence of our creator Primus himself.

Justice League looks more concerned:

Batman: And what danger does it bring to earth?

Optimus and the rest file them in about the years of war between the Autobots and decepticons, the destruction of Cybertron, they're arrival to Earth and explaining why the All Spark must never land in the hands of someone like Megatron or anything one with evil intentions.

Superman: Then as a fellow Alien that has took refuge and promise to protect Earth, We will help you but you must promise not to endanger the life of this Witwicky kid.

Batman: Now the only problem we need to solve is their whereabouts.

Edmund: Oh don't bother with that I had Hot Rod and Bumblebee fetch them earlier this morning.

Cue in a racing expensive red Lamborghini and yellow Chevrolet Camaro before transforming in the air and lands with You in Bumblebee's hand.

Reader: Hi! I don't know what's happening I didn't do it if you think I'm the suspect, I won't tell you anything till I get my lawyer.

The rest are in shock to see tiny you while Edmund greets you and distracts you from the rest.

The batfam and the rest of the league looks at Batman for an explanation

The younger heroes and sidekicks are amaze when they got a proper introduction from who you are.

Not Neglected Reader part:

Batfam are more proud about you but a bit worried because of the large problem you now have to carry on your shoulders but is happy you got tons of literal giant robot aliens to protect you along with the other heroes.

Neglected Reader part:

Batfam are shock to know the real you and what amazing things you've been hiding from your family, not only are you this legendary person that can locate and has the power to use a life giving artifact you've also been hiding your true self from them as they watch you interact with the Autobots and how you become comfortable and be expressive to them, you might be small and just a kid to their eyes but to the Autobots it's like you're their world.

----

THAT'S ALL I GOT FOLKS!

Tell me if ya like it I might make this after I finish or laid down NMC! this doesn't have to be Yandere btw

[luvrodite]

ok wait i need to say something about the dick grayson thought i've been turning over in my head for a bit.

i unfortunately do like readers that are a bit tragic and don't get a happy ending. it's like poking at a bruise idk it's cathartic in its own way. anyway. i know the age difference between dick and jason isn't really that big but i think it's big enough for this to work?

anyway i'm thinking about the relationship you have with dick when he moves out of the manor. you guys fuck, sure, and sometimes you go out, but you're not his girlfriend. not really. it's casual, except it isn't at the same time because dick comes with a plethora of his own issues and for some reason you can't quite fathom, he's decided you're the only one that gets to see that side of him.

you see him like nobody else does. you get the good, the bad and the ugly. you hold him through his nightmares. you brush his hair back from his forehead when he stares at his phone a little too long. you come by when it's been a few weeks and you haven't heard from him.

somehow you kind of end up playing intermediary between him and the kid brother his dad/guardian/mentor/older brother picked up along the way. jason is sweet. and you can tell he longs for a relationship with dick but he's got so much going on. it doesn't matter. jason takes what he can get.

you wonder when you started getting involved in your hookups' lives. but then it feels reductive to call it that. what the two of you have spans beyond that. it's so much more than that. dick touches the lives of all that he meets and you aren't special for it, but you feel it. maybe to the others he knows, in their weird, dysfunctional world, it's normal.

but you're a regular citizen. you go to work. you come home and do the dishes. you cook, you clean, you curse out your landlord when he puts off fixing the heating for the nth time. dysfunctional relationships are alien to you – the weight of all dick gives you, it has to mean something. fuck the forehead kisses, it stopped being casual when he held your hand through a doctor's visit and the fibers in your pillowcase swallowed his tears after a run in with bruce.

you play intermediary. jason sees more and more of you than you think he should, but he doesn't complain. you even grow used to the little bugger. you don't have much in the way of your own family, and he becomes something like the kid brother you never had. you grow used to the inappropriate humour that shocked you the first time it came out of his mouth, blue eyes shining up at you mischievously.

his height gives off the impression he's more youthful than he is and sometimes you end up babying him a little more for it. sometimes, he lets you. you brush a hand over his curls like you do his brother and keep a hand on his shoulder when you go to the corner store. you tell him to pick out whatever he wants, and that it's on you. he looks up at you like you got him the moon when you toss him a copy of his favourite book after a while of not seeing him – yours is all beat up, kid, pretty soon you won't be able to read it anymore.

you don't know how to deal with it when he dies, not long after you and dick break things off.

15. only a baby.

it's violent. you get the news from the papers and the picture of the blast zone makes you stop breathing. dick doesn't pick up the phone – why would he? and you're not even sure if you're allowed to reach out.

the last you'd heard, he'd been pretty cosied up with a new co-worker of some sort. red hair, pretty eyes. more than you'd ever gotten from him. sure, you'd known dick – you knew him. you were the closest he'd ever been to anyone, but it had simply been because there was nothing to lose with you.

you hold his grief, hold his heart in your hands, but you are nobody and you will not ask for more because he sleeps in your bed and sometimes, he holds your hand in public when you're walking through a crowded street. you guys have good days and it's something.

but he’ll is not yours – will never be yours, not fully, not like he belongs to bruce and gotham and the titans and his team. you’re a girl who he comes to because you’re safe.

but his brother dies and he's gone and you're left with not only the heartbreak of losing something never named, but the grief of a real tangible friendship, the death of a brother.

you are nobody and nothing – you're not the one that gets the guy and you are not the one that gets to mourn. you see him at his lowest and love him at his worst but he is not yours, and neither is the little boy that dies much too young, alone and scared.

you fall between the cracks. nobody stops to think about the girl who'd sometimes been mentioned in passing at the dinner table, on the rare occasion dick ventured back home to the manor. how can they? not when bruce is driven near mad with grief, not when dick is god knows where and it's all that alfred pennyworth can do to keep his charge and himself together.

i don't know. i just think about how it takes you months to muster up the energy and courage to visit your friend's grave – because jason was your friend, too. the baby brother you'd never had, a kid you'd felt responsible for, like he was your own. the visit leaves you exhausted and it's of course then, that on your way out, you bump into the second half of your troubles.

dick stares at you like he's seen a ghost and all that happened between you lingers in the air, the weight of it oppressive in the cold winter air. frost in the air, frost clinging to your lashes, heartbreak colouring you blue.

you look at him and think of it – how much you had put up with from him. how dearly you'd loved him. stupid, to catch feelings, but you'd gone ahead and done it. worst of all, he'd known it, too.

there'd been a time, not so long ago, when you would have let him do anything he pleased. lay me down, strike me, hurt me, i will bear it because it is at your hand. and he'd known.

he'd known it was wrong but he was hurting and it’d been easy with you because you didn't ask for more than he’d give but you did hope. and he could see it in your eyes that you hoped he’d give himself wholly over to you but he just wasn't there. perhaps he never would be. and you deserved better but he couldn't let you go. his regret, one amongst many, is that he had not done it sooner. shielded you from more pain at his hand.

once, dick had something of a god to you. now he stands before you and you see him as he is, a mere man. a tired, grief-stricken, man.

the only mercy he grants you now, is to let you walk away.

blank blogs dni. minors dni. have your age in your bio otherwise you will be blocked!

[quesocheeso]

Sorry if you got asked this before. But in this AU how did Xiaotian get his fear of spiders?

Actually haven't gotten this ask before,,, but I do have an actual answer💃

Okay for those who've only watched lmk, y'know Spider Queen? Yeah so in jttw there's 8 spider sisters, they get defeated by the pilgrims at some point

BUT since my AU doesn't have the journey or at least it isn't exactly the same, just assume the spider sisters are ok, and instead have entered into treaties with Wukong's court.

In one of those meeting one of the spider sisters brings their kid, who is around MK's age maybe (I don't have these characters fleshed out since they're not that important) and being a small kid the kid is like I gotta make the imperial Prince like me🤔🤔 and they're like I gotta be cool,,, and what do they decide to do? Terrify MK with a horror story they heard from their older sibling😭😭😭 it's kinda normal to tell scary stories in their village

Baby spider was like he'll think I'm so cool and mature😎 Meanwhile MK's in the corner like "what do you meAN SPIDERS CAN CRAWL INTO ME AND LAY EGGS??!😭😭😭 (aliens style✨)

Anyways MK lives in fear until Mac and Wukong call up spider lady and they're like "yo can you bring your kid over here to tell our kid the story was fake cause he won't believe us", they're not actually mad, kids can be intense, and once the spider kid is there he's apologizing to both MK and Shadowpeach like "I'm sorry I just wanted to be cool and be friends🥺😭😭" and they're like it's cool

Spider kid then proceeds to actually help MK get over his fear of spiders by introducing him to some of them and giving him fun lectures about them. MK ends up thinking they're cool by the end of it.

(Both kids are like 7)

[cer-rata]

Cerata's 2024 End of Year Artist shoutouts! (part 1)

Okay so this year was the first time I'd really participated in fandom in over a decade, but I'm truly glad I did because I met a ton of great people, and even got to work on projects with some of them. So I wanted to put all of the cool visual art that I've received last year, whether it be art trade, commission, part of an event, or...fanart? Because that happened somehow?

Anyway, there are a number of other people that I worked with last year, but a bunch of that art started near the end of the year, and as such is not finished yet, hence why this post will be two parts, one now, and the second when everyone else finishes up.

No particular order, all of these artists are great, and lovely people, so do go check out the rest of their work and tell them how cool they are, yeah? Also, some are currently open for commissions, so keep an eye out for that.

(Also, this is my first time trying to do ID text, so bear with me if they're a little rough, despite being a writer, I hate words?)

So first we have @fiyaharts with a lovely illustration of a number of the my favorite Krypton and Krypton-adjacent children. Shadi is lovely to work with and fast to the point where it spooked me a little bit, go off girl.

Next we have two pieces from my favorite Evil Woman Apologist, @vivictory-draws, one of a divorced Barbara and Kara being totally normal about it, and the other of my child and blorbo that haunts my waking hours, Conrad. Love N to death, which is why I haunt her with threats of commissioning Joker/Desaad Yaoi.

...Maybe for the next list, who knows...

So next we have the art created for the last @womenincomicsminibang (which is going to be returning with a reverse bang in a few months, keep an eye out on that.)

The lovely and evocative cover was done by the talented @breakingthespacetimewall, and the scenes of Cassie trying and failing to get her life together were done by the wonderful @soop-jpg

Working with them was a pleasure and honor, and their dedication and kindness really helped me through finishing that fic, and I remain incredibly grateful for that.

The first person I worked with this last year, and the one who really helped solidify the core of a lot of my projects, @nicodrawings drew a glorious cover for my mania-induced first longfic, and also a character reference for the aformentioned disordered young man who haunts my waking hours. She's a professional through-and-through, with wonderful instincts and great communication. She's also working on a fan-comic project of her own that I think is wonderful and am excited to see continue.

I lucked out and was paired with the super chill, super talented @byeara on my first fan project ever, and they hooked me up with this super fun and detailed cover for the fic I wrote for that one kon-centric minibang. I loved working with them, and would love to do so again, logistics willing.

This jerk @vnekey made me cry by drawing really sweet, totally unexpected fanart for that mania-fic I wrote. I'm still a little speechless really, I'd never gotten fanart of any sort for any reason before, and to receive something so lovely as the first thing really touched me deeply, and honestly kept me writing through some rough patches.

...Fight me!

My first ever art trade! Kind of! @spider-jaysart is super sweet and supportive and made my...second biblically (is there a Source bible? Are there religious Coluans?) cursed son and his hapless, frankly narratively cursed best buddy look so precious that they ALSO made me cry, can we stop that actually--

Speaking of my cursed son and his narratively cursed Kryptonian, @spicy-apple-pie created this really pretty piece that's...a number of weird deep cuts smushed together into something really specific, but neat if you have the context, which nobody does :3

She was so wonderful and patient and I really enjoyed seeing her run with her inspiration, the Kryptonian mural is super neat and not something I would have ever come up with on my own.

@mediaraiz Is really stylistically flexible, and their "Blob" style really scratched that itch I had for something cute and playful, and they were so game in taking on a larger project, and then went above and beyond in making my lanterns looks truly special.

Finally (for now), @riverdeansart drew a sweet little scene of two horrifyingly stressed totally fine spacebros chilling and chatting about how everything is completely okay!

I was super vague about this one and Dean did a great job getting the vibes right anyway, and with haste.

...So yeah, that's if for now! I'll circle back in a bit when I'm forced to let more artists out of my basement everything else is done!

[oli-ribbun-ver]

EP 4 RAMBLE PART 3 FINAL!!

(ft the other episodes! but mainly ep 4!)

okay actually i think this is more of a gangle ramble now but thats fine

part 1

part 2

CONTINUATION OF THE GANGLE PEOPLE-PLEASER PART OF THE RAMBLE FROM PART 2!

lets see... where did i leave off... RIGHT!!

There are a lot of parts in ALL episodes where she doesn't want to cause problems for people. Which is typically normal for everyone, HOWEVER. Her idea of 'causing problems' is her opening up to people about how she truly feels, or even voicing her feelings in general if they're about someone.

I've already gone over the Pomni conversation and the bit where she has a mini breakdown, and I said I'd include even more of the other episodes in this, so! Let's begin at Ep 1!

Let's talk about what I've observed in episode one.

YES THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Notice how it's emphasized she says it quietly? (I know it's for comedic effect, but EVERYTHING seems to be important for every character, like how the darkness from the bucket on Kinger's head in Ep 2 helped him remember something about Ragatha before immediately forgetting it and then the reason he only remembers things in the darkness is explained! Seems like a minor detail that means nothing, turns out to be HUGE.

She doesn't want to cause a problem. In this case, the 'problem' would be her fully interrupting the conversation because she's worried about her friend. In the mind of a people pleaser, even if it helps someone out, you feel a sense of pressure on you when mentioning someone needs help to others, because "What if I cause a problem or make them mad? I don't wanna do that!", those thoughts are pretty normal, ESPECIALLY for people-pleasers.

"Wait, what about Zooble?" Is said so quietly, you can barely hear it. She either doesn't want her voice to be heard, or she DOES but is too scared to say it more loudly because of some version of the thoughts I described.

not as important but I'd like to note how she literally says NOTHING. like. nothing. i just think its kinda funny but also she just. doesnt give her opinion at all? she wasnt even asked if she wanted to go with them to check on kaufmo they just dgaf about her 😭

ANYWAY

This is the only time she gives her opinion and its not even an opinion HELP

Also I'm trying to save space so I don't have to make a part 4 so shortly into this, since I know I'll have to make one anyway, but I wanna mention how she hides behind her broken mask to protect herself after he screams which kinda hits different now that we know more about her mask.

But anyway, I'll make a seperate little portion of this ramble for that!

I'd like to mention too, anytime she is shoved, has something mean said to her, or has her comedy mask broken, she doesn't complain or say anything about it except for maybe an "ow". I find that interesting, because I think the reason for this is that she doesn't want anyone worrying about her. AKA, she doesn't want to cause a 'problem'.

She wants to please. One does not please by being a 'problem', right? That's probably how she thinks, anyway.

When Jax tells her to do something she doesn't want to do, whether he pressured her like that or not, it wouldn't have made a difference, because she can't bring herself to say 'no.'

In my opinion, from what it sounds like when she says "I don't think we—" she probably would've ended up saying yes regardless. Hell, if he'd just followed it up with "do it," I don't see a world in which she wouldn't, although she'd probably be more hesitant.

also why does his back bend like that he looks like hes gonna become an old man any second now HELP 😭

Also, when Jax threatens her by saying "Do it, or I'll tell Ragatha about the figurine thing," I think that really does something to her.

Every time she's either built up the confidence to say no, or someone has tried to help her say no, she's kicked down in one way or another INSTANTLY.

Episode 4 did not help with that. I believe in the next few episodes, she will not be better about saying no. She might even be worse off, knowing Ragatha thinks her being happy is annoying.

People-pleasers are in different worlds. Being the type of people-pleaser Gangle is, it's an entirely different world from others. It carries a lot of what I can only describe as delusion to it.

If Pomni had not stepped up when Gangle thought she was alone after work hours, Gangle would have abstracted. I am a firm believer in that. She was breaking. Losing her mind.

Gangle tells herself to stop trying to achieve her dream while breaking down over the fact her efforts to achieve her dream might not be enough.

So let's go there, and get a

Closer look at Gangle's mental state.

(and why she's most likely the least unwell character)

Gangle is mentally ill. Everyone knows that already, but to what extent?

I'm not sure if we'll ever know.

But what we do know is this.

More likely than not, Gangle almost abstracted in Ep 4. And out of everyone who has EVER vented so far, Gangle has shared relatively nothing. Even after the Spudsy's adventure, what we've seen so far is her never mentioning her feelings except that she feels like she messed everything up.

Gangle doesn't know how to help herself. Zooble can make her feel better, but not for long, because Gangle doesn't think she can get better.

When she was about to vent to Pomni, she stopped as soon as she felt like her feelings were REALLY about to come loose, put her new happy mask back on, said she had no time to talk about her feelings, and fled.

What I think is that Gangle thinks everyone is more important than her, so when she FINALLY got to be important she was happy. Really, truly happy.

The worst thing you can do is make someone think they're not wanted or loved.

Something that makes me sad is that Gangle does not feel wanted or loved.

Gangle was almost gone in Episode 4.

We almost lost Gangle. Had Gangle abstracted, she'd die without ever feeling like people cared about her.

For all we know, she could be the first person to abstract after Kaufmo.

I personally believe that.

The end of Episode 4 was a su¡cide attempt. (is that word allowed? im not sure..l ill censor it anyway)

I saw someone say this in the comment section of either the episode itself or a reaction video, and I completely agree.

They say before people commit su¡cide, they have a sudden boost of joy. Everything will be over soon. Why not enjoy that fact?

I think it was a subconscious su¡cide, at the very least.

She was happy. For the first time without a happy mask to hide how she feels deep down, she was happy.

She had a sudden boost of happiness, and then stepped backwards into oncoming traffic. When someone experiences a near-death situation by their own hand, there's a moment of regret before they are gone. I've experienced it myself, and it is horrid. That feeling is one I will never be able to forget. Even if I never so much as blacked out, I felt faint, and I will NEVER forget that fear, that horror, dread, regret.

The shock. Wondering if it was truly me who did it.

And I think. That is what Gangle experienced.

And then, that feeling was brushed off by Caine, whether she knew he doesn't understand the feeling of wanting to disappear or not, she was quick to blame herself for it all. Both about her performance to Caine, and alone, to nobody but herself.

"I guess I just... cracked under the pressure I suppose."

And maybe, just maybe.

That crack will never heal.

Thank you for listening and reading my ramble, everyone!! I appreciate it more than you know!

Bye bye for now, friends! Have a lovely day!

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 0

Okay so I know the way I framed it makes it seem like I discovered this last second, but uhhh nah I found this months ago during I the making of the Music Video. So let’s tell a little story before I start getting weird with it.

So like. I couldn’t tell you what sent me down this path, but I was looking through a flashdrive with very old files on it, like, two or three whole laptops old. Actually probably only two. Anyway, on this old flashdrive I found a page of sketches from 2020. How do I know it was from 2020? It had villagers from my first island in Animal Crossing New Horizons on it. There was also a really rough looking sketch of what I can only assume was Mukuro and Sayaka. And in the bottom right corner, was this image. What might be the oldest piece of Junkan art I have, period. 

Okay that’s not technically accurate. I mentioned it offhandedly before but the first ever Junkan piece I drew was basically a joke. Because at the time the idea of Junkan being a healthy relationship was just a joke between me and my friends.

Four panels, and the joke is basically “Junko scraps her entire tragedy plan because Mikan’s hot and she wants to bang her.” I could easily find it, and I won’t act like I didn’t consider doing so to put it at the very bottom of this post purely for historical/archival purposes. But I kinda just get irrationally angry looking at it so I think I’m fine just, leaving it behind. And god knows it ain’t getting its own post.

So even if it’s not the true first junkan I ever drew, it’s the first one I drew where I gave a shit. That I can say for sure.

I wish I remembered drawing it though. 

Yeah i just, have no recollection of this. I don’t know why I drew it, what it is, anything. I have theories of course. My strongest one is that I read the first two chapters of Smile, and in my blacked out state of mine I drew this to get something out of my system? But that might not line up with the timeline. But I’ve no way of confirming what caused this to come into existence.

I have another theory unrelated to why it exists but for a certain aspect. I noticed as I was putting this together that Junko's got a Rabbit Clip in her hair (despite also having a bear clip but hey I wasn't exactly memorizing the designs by this point). That either means 2 things. I fucked up and didn't realize Junko doesn't wear the same outfit as disguised mukuro. Oooor, because I was so paranoid, and I'm pretty sure I sent this to at least a few friends at the time if not a slightly more public area (by my standards), I might have drawn it like that so worst case scenario I could write it off as Mukuro in Junko's outfit.

It kinda scared me at first when I looked at this? Like, this just exists and because of the time between now and when I allegedly drew this, there’s just this disconnect. Like, I don’t feel like I made this. I was so different back in 2020, I had less baggage, but also I kinda just felt isolated from a lot of people. I had like, 2 people I talked too pretty consistently, I had acquaintances but it wasn’t till later after my ex that I started actually talking to people more. 

Normally when I look at old art, it’s just that, looking at old art. But that’s because I can remember those pieces usually, this is something so old and obscure it couldn’t even become a memory, it’s uncanny. 

Now that I’ve had it sitting in my files that sense of unease is a lot less prominent. Now I can just look at it as old art like normal. 

I don’t really know what the point of this was? I guess I just wanted to provide one more treat, even if we jumped way down the scale of quality from Day 100. But hey it kind of being like, a relic makes up for it probably? I dunno. So this is the proper end of the project! It’s been nice! Even if I’ll see ya back for Junkan Week, and then way later The Month of Junkan, it definitely won’t feel the exact same. I’m gonna miss these daily posts, but I guess that’s why I’m gonna just have to make even more Junkan to keep it up! Though I don’t know if I’ll ramble as much as I did across these posts. Glad ya’ll liked em though! I always felt worried about being overboard with my commentary but it seems like that was just a bit more baseless paranoia on my part~

Look forward to the coming months! Because I sure am! 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[xiii-e]

[ECHO.EXE RUNNING]

◂▸ ... hey Sally. You're right yeah, I know the basic gist I think. You take care of yourself kiddo, I can handle this.

◂▸ Alright. I'm going to go over this with as little personal input as I can manage, please just- assume at any given point that I think what happened was fucked and miserable and never should have come to pass. It's an HA black op. If I make an aside every time I experience abject horror on the subject, I wouldn't get through the report. I'm just... going to talk about this stuff, the way I found it on file.

◂▸ No I am not supposed to have access to these files. I am also not supposed to be talking to any of you so just- don't worry about it.

◂▸ So. A couple decades ago, the HA Purview incorperates a new world it will come to call Port Mariut. It goes... pretty normal, for an incorperation. Despotic leader gets ousted by military force, there's a honeymoon period where people are cheering, then reality sets in that "naturalisation" is a nice word for conformity. The usual process. And, the usual process leaves the usual folks by the wayside. There's an influx of orphans who are now wards of the state, because their families went missing on either side of the "liberation" war.

◂▸ There's a few things that usually happen to war orphans, running the spectrum between humanitarian and fucked. This one was... bad. Military commander put into a position of power over the planet is one Captain James Maverick. He has a particular interest in the old Enkidu projects, has been looking for an excuse to revive them. He sees... an oppertunity, in the orphans of his new holdings.

◂▸ Justification on paper is that, as wards of the state, these orphans are subject to military service same as any prospective citizen of the Armory. Service guarentees citizenship, and all that. So, the Sekhmet project gets initialised. Couldn't tell you who rubberstamped it, that stuff was way heavier in encryption. Possible it didn't get rubberstamped at all, with the kind of guy Maverick seemed to be from the back reports.

◂▸ So, they press some McCarthy guy who's local to the planet into being their chem specialist for the op, they pick out the most promising candidates from the children they had to work with, and they start working to revive the Enkidu program. It's- I don't think details on what they did to these kids are necessary here. Lot of them are obscured anyway. Suffice to say, it involved a lot of real strenuous training, bio-mods of dubious ethical standards, and chems from a young age.

◂▸ There was a high flunk rate when the program kicked off about a decade into it. Lots of... failures. Kids whose bodies or minds didn't stand up to the machinary they were being thrown into. Time the project stabalised there was only one of the original subjects left. According to all records I could find, it drove the Captain nuts trying to figure out why that specific pilot made it through, while other more promising candidates flunked. So he got stupid.

◂▸ Ordered an op with bad odds, as a testing ground. Made a real stupid call regarding stims. Predictably, things went badly and... well, that pilot went awol. Far as the top brass were concerned, it was time to write the whole thing off. Union started poking around in the whole business not long after this op went bad to boot so... it got scrubbed. They love doing that, with embarrasments.

◂▸ ... that's about it for the story. Best I know, the Captain and most of the researchers involved got shipped out to a state prison. Don't know if they're still being put to work or not, nothing of the date from out there gets onto the main databases. But, well- they're pretty behind bars already, Veta. Don't know if there are many skulls left to crack on this one.

◂▸ Xie's still... they're not back yet. Sounds like the eggheads wanted to take a detour through a spaceport or something. I'll tell them when they get back, if you don't mind Sally. If... if they'll let me. Sometimes they don't want to know about the kind of stuff I poke around in during my own time, they get worried about getting us both into trouble. I think they might give a little on this one though. They care about you, a lot. I think if I mention you said you wanted to share, they might cave.

◂▸ Alright. Hope you're doing okay kiddo

[ HELIOS-8 ]

//

Maybe I’m just stupid, but…

Why? Why would you put yourself in an Enkidu, of all frames? You talk about how it’s a choice, but I can’t understand why anyone would make that choice. Can you explain? I’m genuinely curious.

//Ashlyn

well thats the thing. i didnt. i gott forced.

when i finaly gott free i stayed in SLAG KITTY cause shes all ive ever nown. shes part of me. i NEED her. i cant change that part of me.

if u wanna know y some1 with a CHOICE would wanna pilot 1, ask sharko or slaggy. some peopl r born 4 it...

[mcbitchtits]

a reenactment of me scrolling through all the Indiana Jones announcements today

it ends exactly the way you think it does:

[cluescorner]

The Council of Optimuses: Pleasant, generally positive, they exiled Bayverse a while ago but they still check in once in a while to make sure he's ok/out of curiosity, Earthspark enables One's 'I can fix him' delusion to the point that Prime is falling into it too, IDW does NOT want to add to the delusion pile so he shuts up, Cyberverse kinda doesn't want to be at this meeting it feels too much like a party, IDW keeps making calls to somebody but he won't tell anyone who, they used to have 'bring your Bumblebee to work day' but Skybound had a breakdown over it so they can't do that anymore, everybody is suspicious of Skybound's new arm but the only person who actually brought it up was Bayverse whose solution was 'kill him' so now everybody thinks they are getting paranoid and should maybe start seeing a therapist (they should start seeing therapists, but they ARE right about the arm).

The Council of Megatrons: They are having a great time even if it looks horrible from the outside looking in, Prime constantly wants to fight IDW for his spot as the strongest Megatron but IDW is not about that, they tried to kick out Earthspark but he somehow keeps getting in (IDW leaves the door open), One has like 5 devils on his shoulder telling him to escalate and two fallen angels who are desperately trying to get across that maybe total destruction isn't the move, IDW is trying to hide his redemption arc in order to keep the situation under control (only Earthspark is aware of it, though Skybound has his suspicions), Cyberverse always tries to kill the others to take over their universes and it's the highlight of everybody's month, Bayverse is mocked for being killed by Optimus but secretly everybody is kinda jealous about it (Prime especially), one time an unidentified Starscream (it was Animated) broke in and it was on sight (he got away because every Megatron wanted to be the one who killed him and they fought each other over it), IDW keeps taking calls from somebody but he won't tell anyone who, Skybound can listen in on his Optimus's meetings due to being his arm and reports back, there is an ongoing debate about whether Galvatrons should be included.

Inspired by @jyang030107 's art of ES and IDW Megs advising their One counterpart.

[arc852]

Gosh, I have no idea how I'm going to put this into words but I'm gonna try my best.

I have a lot of feelings about Jimmy's canary status and such.

For four seasons he has been the first out, he's the canary. He signals the start of the end and for four seasons that was very true. And Jimmy hated it. He hated being out first everytime. Everyone around him either pitied him or made fun of him for being out first and Jimmy started to hate himself for how bad he was at the game.

And then came Secret Life.

As we all know, he wasn't the first out. And he was ecstatic. Even after dying second not ten minutes later, he cared more about the fact that he wasn't out first. He claimed the curse was broken and now we continue to see this into Wild Life.

Now, where am I going with this?

I think the Watchers are doing this on purpose.

There has always been something about Jimmy that the Watchers have clung on to. And up until this point, I thought the Watchers despised him. I mean, being the one cursed to always be out first, to be the one that warns your friends of their deaths, that's not fun. That's straight up torture.

But now, I don't think they despise him. I think they see to use him.

Think about it! The Watchers, for four seasons, have pummeled Jimmy's self confidence into the ground. Has made everyone see him as a loser. He started getting hopeless, started feeling like nothing was ever going to change.

And then it did change, in Secret Life, and he wasn't out first. Now, being out second is really not any better but it wasn't about that. Jimmy was starting to feel like, maybe he could actually do this! Maybe he could even win.

And then session 3 of Wild Life happened.

The Watchers did this on purpose. They gave him hope by not being out first in Secret Life and then let things get crazy in session 3 of Wild Life for Jimmy. Jimmy had it pretty bad in session 3 and I know a lot of us didn't have a lot of hope for him after that. Of course, session 4 went a different way than we were all expecting but again, that kind of plays into things.

The Watchers have torn Jimmy down, given him a little hope, and then tore him down again. And they did this to get Jimmy right where they wanted him.

Because Jimmy, before session 5, prayed to the Watchers. He asked them, begged them to please not let him be out first. To please let the canary curse well and truly die.

And they answered.

And Jimmy wasn't out first.

And now Jimmy is putty in their hands.

[qapsiel]

                           SAM RETURNS, but he doesn't bring help, no, he brings a fresh wave of panic that squeezes Castiel's throat shut because there's no signal, no first responder coming to their aid. Dean will die here. Castiel can feel it. They can't pull him off the rebar because he'd bleed out even quicker, but if he stays here without medical attention, he'll die, too. It's hopeless. He will die.

                            "I'm trying, I'm trying to heal him," Castiel whispers in despair. Can't Sam see that? Doesn't Sam know that there's no lick of grace in Castiel anymore? It's not working. No matter how hard he tries to gather a shred of divinity he might still have somewhere, it's not working. Dean's dying, and Castiel can't do anything but pray to a son who promised never to meddle.

                            And who breaks his promise?

                            Castiel gasps when he hears his name. Feels an unbelievable sense of calm and peace wash over him. He looks over his shoulder and blinks the tears away that cloud his vision. It really is him. Castiel doesn't doubt it for a second because he can practically taste the holiness spilling from Jack's every pore. He's here, he came; he isn't a cruel God watching from afar, gleefully taking in all the drama that's happening to his favorite characters. He's better than Chuck. Always has been.

                            "Jack," he murmurs, voice rough. There's only a short hesitation; then his hands slip off Dean's chest and face and he turns to look properly at his son. Hope blooms in his chest, raw and painful, because if that one gets crushed, he doesn't think he'll ever come back from it. 

                            Castiel understands what Jack is offering at once. He won't break the promise he gave the brothers, but he's ready to give back what the Empty took from Castiel. Make him whole again. Will he accept it? His second time as a human has taught him a lot. He enjoyed being with Dean in a way he can't be when he's an angel. Have normal worries, normal problems. But he also missed his wings, his son, his grace. And if he doesn't heal Dean now, there's nothing to live for as a human, anyway.

                            Castiel's hands land on Jack's shoulders, fingers digging into the impossibly soft fabric of his jacket. Mouth opened, he breathes in divinity and holiness, the raw force of unbelievable power. It tastes of lava and ice and supernovae. Every cell of his body is consumed and remade at the same time, a constant shifting between life and death. Blue pupils disappear behind blinding gold as a new grace, a better grace, floods through his whole being. He can feel his wings unfurl behind him, unseen by the human eye: whole, unbroken, perfect yet again. His eyes, all 393.5 of them, open and look. See the world how he always saw it. See Jack in more than his flesh body. 

                            When it's over, the barn seems as dark as the Empty. Thank you, is all Castiel can tell Jack. One hand briefly cups his son's cheek in gratitude and love before Castiel turns around again to push Sam away and get more room. One shoulder wedged under Dean's armpit, Castiel wraps his arm around him and pulls him off the rebar. Blood gushes over his fingers as he presses his palm to the deep wound, sending a sharp thrill of grace, more powerful than ever before, into Dean — healing not only that injury but every scrape, every bruise, every mosquito bite. "Dean," he murmurs as he gently, effortlessly, lays him out on the floor, propping him up with one hand.

apologies and tears. affirmations of love and choking on blood. it's not how any of this was supposed to go. how tonight was supposed to end. how he was supposed to end! they got a re-write! didn't they? when they stepped away (as away as a fucking job too close to home gets them!) and started to build something solid. something stable. something that's home! theirs! a life that's theirs. because they are a THEIRS. something dean never thought he'd have. something that he cherishes.

home. he wants to go home. where he's digging through volunteer firefighter forms as a side gig to keep helping people. they're still spread out on the desk! where the bar's waiting for another coat of polish cause dean doesn't think it's just right enough when the light hits it a certain way.

where there's smiles and warmth and nights spent tangled up with the person he's let himself love. want in ways he lied for so many years didn't exist. cas's expression as he registers what's happening. as reality sinks in is the worst torture he's ever known. worse than hell. worse than every breath that's sheer agony. the burning heat of adrenaline threatens to take over. swallow up the pain and turn it numb. he swears he's drowning in a sea of crimson as matching hues start to swallow up the corners of his vision. his hand desperately reaches for and rests upon an extended forearm as his head falls into the hand holding it up. "m'tryin.." dean manages a barely there bloodied smile.

crimson streaks brown underneath castiel's thumb as it moves over stained skin made damp by tears and sweat. he hears him pleading for him to hang on. that sam's calling someone that can fix this and dean groans as his knee gives once and a new shock of fucking horrible rips through his chest. every fiber of his being is telling him the opposite. to let go. sink into a peace he feels is just past cas's shoulder. somewhere beyond these walls. a fresh bubble of red pools at the corner of his mouth before it falls down his chin. a solid hand still rests upon his sternum and murky thoughts tell him cas is trying to do anything to bring him back. sam's voice is coming closer. did he just say he couldn't get anything? who was he screaming to? the phone to work. he was screaming for the son of a bitch to WORK.

sam's cell hits the ground with the sound of plastic and glass shattering when the younger winchester comes to stand near his brother. red eyes have a steady stream of tears falling from them. he's begging cas to help when he knows he can't. his whole expression pleads as he swallows the words because dean's murmuring his name and cas is praying to jack and sam is so fucking overwhelmed with panic and desperation that he's drawn in by dean's free hand effortlessly even as that sam hand falls to hang limp at dean's side, unable to be supported by the hunter. they're speaking to one another underneath their breath. as if their connection, sam's forehead to the side of dean's temple is all that's needed for them to hear one another. sam's begging him to not go, dean's slipping off into unconsciousness and jerks his attention up to cas cause he can't lift his head. it’s just too heavy. he’s too heavy. it could all sink into nothing so easy. no, no. fight’s not over. could be. but it’s NOT.

'castiel,' the voice comes golden and warm and from everywhere all at once. as if the source of it appearing behind the man fills the air all around them with the gentle sound. his son. jack. pale hand reaches forward to grip castiel's shoulder. sam gasps and dean falls silent drifting off into the dark. golden eyes take in the sight of the hunter falling away. light spills from his touch to castiel's shoulder he drags dean's soul soul back from the edge--he won't let death take him but castiel? castiel's made his choice. made his plea. and who is he to deny the person he loves most his eleventh hour? he won't meddle. but he will give him this.. his free will. where the god that once ruled his soldiers would've done the opposite if he wanted on a whim.

yellow gold light dances across his skin. seeps from the corners of his eyes. tendrils that shift in their hues from yellow to white. brilliantly bright and only increasing in their glory. jack regrets taking castiel from dean but his touch curls around the former angel's chin--turns his head just enough that he can steal a glance towards the hunter and then fix it upon castiel's tearful blue eyes. 'i will never take away your will. i will never ask anything of you other than to keep them safe. walk with me..' his grace shines like the sun. seeps into every corner of the dusty, dirty room. and as he feels dean slip away yet again, jack hurriedly grips the back of castiel's neck. fingers curl lightly into dark strands of hair. lips part and that same light crests over the top of them. power and heaven. all there for castiel to breathe in. to take for his own.

'hurry. decide,' jack insists, 'he's--'' once again saved as sam's voice cracks.

"dean, dean stay with us. jack's here. stay! damn it. don't--don't do this.!" sam sounds broken as jack's hand comes to rest upon castiel's cheek.

'never again a soldier. my father. never again a weapon. my equal. my angel. i listened for you. for them. please..,' comes the desperate whisper. he won't break his promise. he'll give castiel everything he needs to make those decisions on his own. to save dean. to keep them alive and healthy and safe. it's all there for him to take. oh, he should've done this before leaving. before walking the earth and falling in love with the smallest stone, the tallest mountain, the most forlorn and wary souls. he can't abandon the ones who love him. his FAMILY. what sort've god would he be of if the three people he loves most were left to suffer this end..? never a god that is deserving of FAMILY. and that's what this is about. FAMILY. it's what every up and down and sideways has always been about. salvation awaits. coiling around them inside grace crafted out of unconditional-LOVE. castiel’s rebirth and a bond that will never be broken. all castiel needs to do is breathe. it’s as easy as pie.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[the-dye-stained-socialite]

Josie Pinup for @thedeafprophet ;) (full nudity below the cut)

i think october wants her cloak back josie 🤭

(based on this:)

[masonscig]

okay i kind of need to go insane about this rebecca line from book one because it's got me riled up LMAO

so, my f-mancer, flor, has the lowest stats with rebecca, at a whopping 5% so any biting dialogue option at their mom's expense is immediately smashed

to tell your mother pretty plainly "i'm good. i don't need you. you were never there for me, " and for her to say "that's not true. i've always loved you," is so? indicative of her character imo?

she doesn't listen to the detective even when they're being straight up direct with her – for me, this interaction negates any of the good rebecca's been trying to do, whether or not she thinks she's coming across as genuine in making amends. how are you going to tell your own child that they're wrong? that what they experienced (a childhood full of loneliness, loss, and forced independence) isn't the full story (your mother loved you from afar but never made the conscious effort to show it)?

it doesn't matter if rebecca was out fighting hand-to-hand combat against supernaturals that were trying to take over the world, she was *not* there for the detective. she chose to be an absent mother! that's a fact! no matter the "good" she was doing for mankind

this whole exchange bothers me so much – maybe the writing doesn't exactly line up (that happens with choice based games sometimes, so i get it) but either way it's poor timing, and adds yet another layer to the complexity of rebecca's relationship with the detective

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

And one more.

Edinburgh, best parts, continued

- The Air B&B

Before I arrived in Scotland, I told myself repeatedly that I have to remember, it isn't a magical fairyland. I know I've been romanticizing Scotland since I was friendless ten-year-old who became an obsessive Harry Potter fan for several years, where the plot is that you can be whisked away from your friendless life and go somewhere cool and magic, by getting on a train that takes you to Scotland. This has definitely skewed my perception, along with all the folk songs about their magical Wild Mountain Thyme. But you have to remember it's just going to be a place like any other. My Air B&B is in a suburb a 50-minute walk away from the Edinburgh city centre (because, you know, money - I got it for quite cheap), and suburbs are boring no matter where you go, so be disappointed when you're staying a normal boring suburb that's just like any other place. Okay?

That's what I told myself. Then I woke up on that first morning in the Air B&B, looked out my bedroom window, and took this picture of the back garden:

Even their boring suburb is a magical fairyland. My Air B&B was lovely, the woman who ran it was very nice, that was great.

- Canal walk

I did get stuck staying a 50-minute walk from the city centre, because I couldn't afford accommodation any nearer than that. But it was quite nice. Every morning, I left around 7 or 8 AM, and walked into town. Arrived by 8 or 9 AM. Explored the city until noon or so, when my schedule of shows would start. It was a nice schedule.

But even the walk into town was pretty. The whole walk was on a path that ran along a canal, with bridges and old buildings, and I listened to a lot of Bobby Watt along the way, because in Edinburgh, even the boring suburbs are nice:

- The city in general

Holy fucking God. I saw a lot of Edinburgh on Google Earth before I visited there in person (I spent way too much time on Google Earth in Edinburgh, over the several years that I spent planning this trip), and I saw that the place looked really cool. Like, and I'm sorry I keep saying it, a fantasy novel. The old buildings, the cobblestone streets. I kept telling myself that while anything can look cool on the internet, I have to expect it to seem more mundane in person. Everything seems like just a part of everyday life, when you're there.

But when I got there, it was far, far more amazing than it seemed online. No amount of comedy routines about "tourists think Edinburgh is some beautiful thing, when actually it's full of alcoholics vomiting in the street" could take away the magic of it. It's my favourite city I've ever seen.

I mostly walked everywhere I needed to go in Edinburgh, and one day I took a bus down to the ocean, but when I had to go uphill in pouring rain to get back from the shore - and I was worried that if I walked or waited for buses I wouldn't get there early enough for David O'Doherty, to be first in line for best seats - I got an Uber. I asked my Uber driver if he hates living in Edinburgh during August because all the tourists ruin his city, and he said no, he likes the extra business (I realize I shouldn't take his answer as representative of most Edinburgh locals - their answer is probably different if their income doesn't depend on tourists who will pay a premium to get to sit slightly closer to David O'Doherty).

He asked me if I'm American, based on my accent and I said no, Canadian. He was extremely apologetic, as he (correctly) assumed that it's highly insulting for a Canadian to be labelled an American. I told him not to worry about it, as I've been known to make a hobby of horrifically offending Kiwis by telling them they sound Australian.

Anyway, after that conversation, as I had established a rapport with this friendly local, I told him that I'm sorry to ask such a tourist-y question that he must hear all the time, but I'm curious - do you get used to it when you live there? The beauty of the city, the hills and the castle and the limestone buildings; the fact that they have buildings older than (the colonized version of) my country that are owned by Starbucks or whatever, because they have so many historic buildings that even their shitty chain stores are using them. Does that seem beautiful to people who are used to it too?

He said that stuff does seem normal when you live there, and that he finds it interesting to see it through tourists' eyes every August, and remember that most places are not like that. But that sometimes when he's walking by the castle, he'll look at it and think "Damn, this is a beautiful city." And I think that's cool.

Well, I've abandoned this post's one-picture-per-bullet-point policy some time ago. Here are a whole bunch of them.

- The Royal Mile

This had all the cool stuff about the rest of the city - beautiful sandstone buildings, stone streets, amazing views. But it was also the centre of the comedy festival, so it had all this other magic going on there too. And I don't mean the magicians. The magicians were annoying. I like whimsical, metaphorical, vibe-based magic, like a city that feels like it's straight out of a fantasy novel, where the amazing art that I've fallen in love with for years - the art that usually just lived on my screens and in my headphones and felt like messages from a far-off land across the shining sea - on this street, that art is all around us to the point where it's thick in the air. I like that kind of magic. Not the kind of magic where someone stands in an already unfeasibly-crowded street and plays irritating music from a speaker while waving fire around. There was some of that on the Royal Mile, and I realize that is part of the art we're supposed to be celebrating, but when I say that it's cool to be surrounded by the art I fell in love with, I mean British stand-up comedy. The kind where one person stands behind a microphone and tells tenuously interconnected stories of increasing thematic depth, as God intended. Maybe I can let in a sketch or character piece or two, if they're very good. But I'm never going to come around to wanting to see magicians.

Anyway. If you ignore how doubt my previous paragraph will cast on this claim, I do mean it when I say I found the whole "art festival" thing fucking cool. I'm not an artsy person. I was an athlete in high school. I was an athlete in university. I was a coach ever since. Almost all my friends in real life are athletes and coaches. I'm used to being the one nerd in a friend group, and the fact that I'm into any kind of remotely non-mainstream media or live performance, makes me a bit of an oddball among the people I know. On the other hand, when I go to online places that celebrate the nerdy stuff I like, I immediately become self-conscious about how I feel like a jock who has no business being here, because I don't have the theatre kid background to what clowning is or why clowning is, and I don't want anything to do with magicians. Or puppets. Puppets creep me out.

So being in that weird in-between, the Edinburgh Festival was a rare chance for me to be somewhere in person that's entirely dedicated to the nerdy stuff I love. It definitely made me feel like a Philistine jock, by comparison to all the artsy people around me. But I loved it. I loved seeing where all this stuff comes from, having proof around me that this does exist in the real world. Feeling immersed in it.

The Edinburgh Festival is incredibly immersive, and I think that's what made otherwise-annoying things seem fun to me. Except the magicians who got in everyone's way in the middle of the street - they were still annoying. But besides them, I liked it all, even stuff I otherwise hate. Crowds. I was warned about the crowds, I was braced for the crowds because I hate crowds (see: my review of London), but on the Royal Mile, I loved it. I just kept marvelling at how many people were there for the same thing, all these cool people who love this cool stuff, gathered in one place. Also, it helped that even when the streets were packed, the Royal Mile was closed to vehicular traffic, so there was enough space for the crowds to spread out a bit. There were no areas where I felt like I couldn't stop walking, unlike in central London.

Also, it was cool to think of the history of that place. The real-life history was cool in all of Edinburgh, but the Royal Mile had history of all those old comedy stories, that comedians tell about what happened at festivals-gone-by, or my favourite comedy shows that got recorded (officially or... otherwise) at festivals gone by. It was all there. How cool is that?

I got lots of time to explore that area, luckily. On a few different mornings, I walked all the way from Arthur's Seat to the castle - the whole length of the Royal Mile. Which hopefully made up, physical health-wise, for spending 7 or 8 hours of the afternoon/evening/night sitting down watching shows. Luckily my blisters had healed by then.

- Ceilidh dancing

I said I was going to write about the best parts of my trip to Edinburgh that were not covered in the spreadsheet with the list of shows I saw. The one event I attended that did not get into that spreadsheet was Ceilidh dancing, because it wasn't a show, it was a participatory event.

I very nearly didn't go. It was such an out-of-character thing to sign up for. I mean, I've loved listening to traditional Celtic folk music since I was a kid, and I love watching people do that type of dancing. I've never been to a Ceilidh before, but I've seen plenty of people do impressive traditional dancing at folk festivals, and it's great fun to watch. To watch. I don't actually do that stuff. Like I said, I am not artsy. It's not my thing.

When I booked my Edinburgh events, I figured it's not like I'll get another chance to do something like a Ceilidh dance, and at least there's no chance of running into anyone I know, who would see how awful I am at dancing, so I may as well try something unusual and see if it's fun. I thought that while buying the ticket months in advance, but when the actual night arrived, I began to panic at the thought that I have no artistic ability whatsoever, and that extends to the art of dance, and I should just go to a pub instead.

But I went, and I'm so glad I did. First of all, I got more than my fill of an interior Harry Potter building, in the room where the evening took place:

I'm pretty sure they held Hogwarts balls in there. Anyway, then we spent two hours trying to follow instructions from a guy shouting at us about dance moves, and none of the tourists knew what they were doing, and I had a fantastic time. It was all these different people from all over the world. Will go back this year.

- Posters

This goes back to what I said about the Edinburgh Festival being immersive. I know I shouldn't put this on the "best parts" list, because I'm sure it has an awful environmental impact, in addition to being probably a bad sign, in terms of the festival's integrity. That it's supposed to be a cool offbeat fringe festival, but instead it's become all about PR and advertisement, including bigger and bigger posters that are surely contrary to the spirit of an artistic collective.

On the other hand. It was pretty fucking cool to walk all over the city through that. It really did feel like one giant theme park, dedicated to stand-up comedy (apologies to the many people who live in the city and might not want it turned into a theme park for 1/12 of the year). It was everywhere.

I'd heard before about the Edinburgh posters, of course. I'd heard comedians talk about planning their posters, getting them printed, having them put up, deciding how many to get. There were also, of course, stories of having their posters defaced or torn down, of seeing this happen together comedians.

I'd been a bit confused by this before, but I'd been picturing pieces of paper taped to lamp posts and things like that. It seemed like a lot of fuss over some pieces of paper. If someone tears down your poster, just print another one and tape it back up, right? And by "print another one", I mean "hook up your laptop to a printer somewhere and press CTRL+P".

Nope, it turns out we're dealing with something far bigger than that. Giant cardboard things that fill entire walls, entire tunnels. And sometimes, they just grow out of the ground where there's no wall at all:

I hate to turn this post into even more parts, but Tumblr has just informed me that I've hit the 30-image limit for a post. So I'm going to post this, and I'll add one more part later, as that will reset the image allotment.

I’m planning my 2025 UK (and, this time, Ireland) trip, and I’m really really excited about it. But as 2024’s come to an end and we all do retrospectives, I thought it would be interesting for me to look back on my 2024 UK trip now, and see what, with a few months of hindsight, still stands out as the best and worst parts.

Reasons why I’m making this list: 1) it’ll be helpful, when planning for next year’s trip, to know what cool things I want to repeat, and what uncool things I want to try to avoid, and 2) I miss my trip and want to mentally re-live it by making a list and looking at the pictures again.

My 2024 trip was divided into three overall parts. Part 1 was five days in London. Part 2 was taking trains – London to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Glasgow, Glasgow to Fort William, stayed overnight in Fort William, then Fort William to Mallaig, Mallaig to Glasgow, Glasgow to Edinburgh. Then Part 3 was five days in Edinburgh for the festival.

Part 1: London

Best parts of London, listed in whatever order they occur to me

- Trains: There were so many trains. The stations were cool. The tracks were cool. The seats were cool. The vehicles were cool. The speed with which you could get around the city was cool. The “Mind the Gap” voice was cool.

I joked before I left on this trip that this is like the stereotype that says all autistic people are 8-year-old white boys obsessed with trains, and then there's a cute/inspiration porn story in the local paper about the little autistic boy who's all excited to meet a train conductor. I said I'll be like that when I go to Edinburgh and see all those comedy shows, because in this simile, I am an 8-year-old white boy and these are my trains.

Then, once I actually got there, I remembered that trains are also my trains. Some autistic stereotypes exist for a reason. For example, I am a 34-year-old autistic white woman, and I fucking love trains.

- Highgate Cemetery

So beautiful. I wandered around it for nearly an hour, just appreciating all the history. And it was really cool to see Douglas Adams' grave - I left two pens, from my dad and I, as we used to read his books together. I went there mainly because I was interested in Douglas Adams, but was amazed by how lovely the whole place was.

- Taskmaster house

Obviously that was cool as fuck. I also went on a walk by the river to where they have the bandstands where they did location tasks for the first few seasons. I took this picture by holding my phone up over a fence:

- Really good non-shawarma on park bench

A couple of years ago, I heard Nish Kumar recommend a specific Montreal shawarma place on The Bugle, because he performs in Montreal sometimes. I'd never been to that place, but I was a bit skeptical of his recommendation, because I've tried shawarma outside my own city, even in other big cities, and it's always terrible. My city has a lot of shawarma places, due to various factors that mean we have a high Arab immigrant population, so I've gotten used to quite a high standard of shawarma. I know several people who've grown up in Middle Eastern countries where shawarmas actually originated, and told me that our city has their favourite shawarmas in the world.

So, I wasn't sure about Nish Kumar's recommendation. Not because I thought there could be no good shawarma in Montreal (that's not where I live, but it's a big enough city so it'll have some good stuff, better than Toronto), but because I was not sure if I should trust someone from England to know how shawarma is meant to taste. I hear British people talk about kebabs a lot, but they never mentioned shawarmas, so I figured they don't really have shawarma there. Just kebabs, which are not the same thing.

Having said this, when I went to Montreal to see some Just For Laughs shows in 2023, I tried the shawarma place that Nish had recommended, and it tasted amazing. So I had to admit that maybe he does know what he's talking about. I told all this to my friend who lives in London, and when he went to a Nish Kumar gig long before my UK trip, he went up to Nish after the show, and asked what his favourite shawarma place in London is. Nish said some place called Kebab Kid, and I put that on my list of places to visit, to see if England does have good shawarma after all.

So I made a special trip out there. I traveled pretty far out of my way to get there. I took some trains, and then I walked about forty-five minutes, across quite a lovely neighbourhood, enjoying how pretty London is. I arrived at the restaurant, and became a touch concerned that the place I was using to prove to England does have shawarmas and not just kebabs, was called Kebab Kid. But when I went inside, they did have shawarmas on the menu. I ordered one.

The guy behind the counter asked me if I wanted chili sauce or barbeque sauce. I said no, because... obviously. Obviously you don't put those on a shawarma. He said, "So no sauce, then?", and I realized those weren't optional extras, they were the only sauce on offer. No garlic sauce, no hummus. I said... okay, barbeque then. He put misc. salad in there instead of pickles and turnips. It was so clearly not a shawarma. It came with fries, even though fries obviously do not go with shawarma.

Skeptically, I took it down the road and sat down on a park bench to eat. And God, was it ever delicious. It wasn't a shawarma. That's absolutely not what a shawarma is. But it was a very, very good chicken sandwich. A guy sat down next to me and chatted to me for a while. He asked what I was eating, I said a shawarma, and he said he's from Turkey and they don't have proper shawarmas here, not like at home. I said yes, I can see that. They absolutely don't.

But it was a really really good chicken sandwich and I ate it in a really pretty park, surrounded by pigeons, and had a genuinely nice chat with a random stranger, and it felt sweet and peaceful, and I liked it a lot.

I told myself I was going to keep each item on this list pretty short, just a couple of quick sentences to explain them. I did not expect the first list item to make me break that rule would be a shawarma place. I'm going back to the rule now.

- Sunday roast

I flew all Saturday night. I arrived at 8:30 AM. My wonderful hosts picked me up at the airport, I showered and changed and dropped my stuff off at their place, and then, while fuelled entirely by adrenaline and no sleep, I accompanied my friend from a British comedy message board, whom I'd just met in person for the first time, to a pub with a Sunday roast.

I've been informed that he chose this pub specifically because it has a great Sunday roast, they're not all as good as this one. But this one was very, very good. I had horseraddish for the first time. I had Yorkshire pudding for the first time. I was very surprised that this things called pudding was just bread, until I tasted it, and I decided that anything that delicious can call itself whatever it wants. It was the perfect way to start a trip.

- My wonderful hosts

It's weird to write this part because he'll probably read it. But I stayed in the spare room of a guy I'd met two years earlier on a comedy message board, as I've said many times, I cannot believe lucky I got in messaging a guy because I just wanted a few old comedy recordings, and ending up with a wonderful new friend (and more comedy recordings that I could have imagined, that's cool too). We spoke regularly for a couple of years before my trip to the UK, which is relevant because, as my dad pointed out, it's inadvisable to stay with a man from the internet you've not met in person, but if he's been talking to you most days for two years, that's a lot of work to put in just to lure someone to your house to murder them. There are easier ways to murder someone. So it's probably fine.

He did not murder me. He has a wife whom I'd not spoken to before but she was so incredibly nice; I'd been slightly concerned that she might be put out by having to play host to some woman from Canada whom she didn't know, but it wasn't like that at all, she was so friendly and welcoming, and so was her husband of course, it was super cool to meet him in person and spend time with both of them, it was great. And they had three cats who were the absolute best cats in the world. I won't post a picture of the cats here, because, you know, those are other people's private cats. But they were excellent cats.

- The Bill Murray, Nish Kumar

Many, many hours of my favourite comedy I've of my favourite comedy I've ever heard was recorded at The Bill Murray pub, for Angel Comedy. I was so excited to see the venue in person, and I was not disappointed. I saw a Nish Kumar WIP there just before he went to Edinburgh, and holy God, it was one of the best evenings of my life. I arrived at the pub an hour before the show, partly so I could awkwardly hang around the door to the comedy room and get the best seats (I achieved this, of course), and partly because I wanted to spend time in that building, to take in the history.

And it was full of history. The walls were covered in pictures of great comedians who've performed there. There were murals with drawings of comedy legends. And the actual comedy room was perfect - small and intimate, definitely good at those technical things that I don't have enough expertise to know how they work but I know good ones when I experience them (sight lines, acoustics, comedy-conducive lighting). And I watched Nish Kumar perform an absolutely fantastic version of one of my favourite stand-up hours ever. It was a perfect night.

- Crystal Palace

I spent one morning in Crystal Palace. I ate breakfast. It's a very very pretty neighbourhood with cool little buildings and a sense of history and everything that I romanticize, when I romanticize the UK. It had a big beautiful park with dinosaur statues. I went into a cool independent bookstore, which has hosted performances by some of my favourite comedians ever, and I bought a beautiful children's book to donate to the autism centre where I worked at the time. If I'm honest, those hours were the ones I most enjoyed in London, aside from the time at actual comedy shows/venues. I just wanted to have a look.

Pictured below: not a tourist attraction (according to Elis James, who is wrong), but some cool dinosaurs

- Cambridge

On one of my days in London, I got trains to Cambridge and back. At first I was pretty disappointed in the place, because it had so many tourists that I couldn't really appreciate anything. But then I paid about 10 pounds to get into the grounds of St. John's College, which had an entry fee because it was one of the extra beautiful colleges. It was also Douglas Adams' college, so I'd wanted to see it anyway for Britcom tourism reasons. But holy God, was it ever gorgeous. I felt like I was in some sort of unnamed British fantasy novel.

The gardens. The old buildings. The history. The picturesque rooftops, the river with boats punting by like a postcard. The stained glass in the chapel. The courtyards that seemed from another world. The pillars. This was exactly what I wanted when I said I wanted to go to the UK and see "Harry Potter buildings". Not filming locations from the movies, I don't care about that. Magestic buildings with fantasy novel vibes. Also, you know, all the genuine history there. Douglas Adams, and I hear the history of Cambridge University might even go back slightly further than the 1970s.

I also ate lunch at a pub called The Eagle, because it was called the oldest pub in Cambridge, and I think that's even true (as in, I didn't just wander into any pub that had a sign saying "oldest pub in Cambridge" outside, I looked this up beforehand). Because I like history. The pub was so cool on the inside, and yes I'm aware that that's probably not even because it's several hundred years old, it's because they made it look that way so they can trade off tourists like me. I know that - that any pub that's several hundred years old is a Theseus' Ship situation. I don't care, the pub was beautiful. And I had an amazingly delicious lunch there.

- Regent's Park

One of the first places I went when I got to London. So much amazing comedy history there. Pretty park, I enjoyed walking around the pretty park. But I mainly enjoyed looking at the theatre, even though we couldn't go in, and standing on the spot of some of my favourite nights in comedy history, it was fucking cool.

- ABC Comedy, Romesh Ranganathan

This is another very cool comedy club in London, where a lot of really really awesome comedy has happened over the years, I've gotten to experience a lot of it from Canada via the magic of technology but was so excited to be there in person. And I saw Romesh do an hour-long WIP there (I think it was less WIP, and more just messing around and saying whatever came up), which was really funny and a great time. Weird to see someone so famous in person. He was taller than I expected. His reputation is for the grumpy thing, but he's so funny when he says something silly and then gives the crowd a huge grin. It was loose and great fun.

And thought I'd been told before that it's a small room, I was amazed to see in person, and confirm how very small it is, giving how regular it is for big names to perform there (Romesh Ranganathan, for a start). Just like the Bill Murray.

- All the big pretty buildings in the Parliament area, and St. James' Park

I spent a few hours wandering around the big pretty buildings in the Parliament area and St. James' park. It was old and nice and impressive. I kept walking by Big Ben and saying "There's Big Ben!" like in that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

- Square Mile neighbourhood and Leadenhall Market

Another time, I spent an afternoon wandering around a neighbourhood that I believe is called Square Mile. It had a lot of little alleyways, and I'm a sucker for little alleyways. It had big and impressive buildings that I enjoyed looking at. I went into a pub that had chandeliers.

That neighbourhood had Leadenhall Market in it, which is an exception to me not caring about places where the Harry Potter movies were filmed, because it's not just where they happened to film Diagon Alley the movie, it looks like how I pictured Diagon Alley in my head from the books. There were a bunch of little market areas like this in London, which I liked. But this one was my favourite:

- Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub

I spent nearly three hours in this pub. I ordered several alcohol-free Guinesses, because I was trying to stay away from alcohol throughout the trip. I was there by myself. So why did I spent three hours in a pub, if not for the alcohol or the company? It was just one of the coolest buildings I'd been in and I wanted to be in there for longer. I was in a basement room where I couldn't even get internet, so I couldn't even browse on my phone. I just sat there, for hours, alone in the room, and it was fantastic.

The pub had several different rooms, as you move downstairs, and one of the rooms was totally empty so I sat down there. This definitely sated my desire to see the other type of Harry Potter building - rather than the big and majestic ones that could be a wizard castle, this was a dimly lit basement that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1600s, which is apparently when this pub was built. Knockturn Alley. Okay I'm done with the Harry Potter references (to be clear I did not, and would not, do any official Harry Potter stuff that could generate profit for the author because fuck her - I didn't even do any unofficial Harry Potter stuff like the Edinburgh tours or pictures with that Kings Cross cart - I just wanted to sit around in old buildings and feel like I was in a fantasy novel).

This gave me the thing I wanted to find in tourist attractions, but didn't. I visited some large old cathedrals, and wanted to feel a sense of history and magic and the gravity of a place like that, but it was packed with other tourists taking pictures, so I couldn't get into it. I sat in St. Paul's Cathedral trying to feel magic, and finally said to myself, "Yeah, God's not here" and left (metaphorical God, I'm not religious, but I'm often impressed with the weight of human wonder that goes into religious architecture). I found the Cheshire Cheese just after that, sat down in that old building, and felt all the stuff that I'd wanted to feel in the church but failed.

I'm genuinely glad there was no internet signal down there, because I took out my phone, and did write a whole big Tumblr post in my notes app, figuring I'd post it when I got back upstairs (okay, I didn't just stare at the wall for three hours). That magic of the building overtook me. That post was so incredibly cheesy, even for me. It contained the line "I didn't find God in a church, but then I found God in a pub," because apparently I thought I was John Robins now. And that's one of the less cheesy lines, since I'm willing to share it now. I think there were a bunch of reflections in there about struggling with my drinking problem, but written in ways that only made sense while sitting in that room. The rest of the post will be thankfully lost because I got upstairs, returned to the real word, said "this is bullshit" and deleted it. But I hope that this year, I can go back to the magical pub where the real world doesn't exist.

- Other pubs

I didn't drink at all in the UK (okay, I had one beer in a pub by the ocean on my last day in Edinburgh, but literally only one pint), and it wasn't the first time in my adult life that I've gone two whole weeks without alcohol, but it was the first time I've done that and found it easy, because things were going so well that I didn't even miss it. I did, however, drink a lot of alcohol-free Guinesses. Because I sat in a lot of pubs and wanted something that at least made me feel like I was drinking.

The worst part of London was the heat and the crowds and the fact that everyone moves so fast that you're not allowed to stand still for half a second without people getting angry at you for blocking the sidewalk, and there weren't a lot of options for refuge from that. A lot of the restaurants seemed to be takeaway-only, or just a few tables, and were always packed. So a lot of times, I found myself ducking into pubs to get out of the heat and the crowds. The pubs were old and nice and quiet and comforting, and I enjoyed sitting in them a lot.

- Egg Sluts

Okay, I'm going to change the tone a bit from the darker, drinking problem-based stuff. I had a fucking excellent breakfast sandwich in a place called Egg Sluts. I did not take a picture, but it was so good that I have to go back there in 2025. I'm a big fan of the egg + meat-based breakfast sandwich, and that was probably the best one I'd ever had.

- Sausage rolls

The first time I ordered a sausage roll from Gregg's, I did it while giggling about how I feel like a character in a story that was told on a panel show. The WILTY people are always making up stuff about Gregg's and sausage rolls. What a cute British thing to do. I'm going to eat a sausage roll on a train. This is so British.

The second, through, by my best estimation, 504th time that I ordered a sausage roll in Britain, I thought, "Fucking hell, am I ever glad we don't have these in Canada. I don't think I'd have lived to this age if I had the option to order them all the time. Sausage... in bread... it's brilliant. Why didn't we think of this in Canada? We must never think of this in Canada. This needs to remain a treat abroad."

- Lamb being a common food there

Here, it's a delicacy, often not available in places that serve the more common meats like chicken, pork, and beef. Some places offer it, but for a higher price than the same dish with another meat. Britain just puts lamb in everything.

- On a similar note, one day I went up to the roof of a high building and ate a lamb kebab while looking out at the entire city, and that was very nice:

- The Soho Theatre

Same deal as the other comedy venues - cool place full of comedy history, I've heard so much stuff from there and loved getting to see it in person and physically be in that space. Also, the walls were full of posters from shows that had performed there over the years.

- The London Underground when it was not packed with people

Fun stuff. Sometimes it was all dark and felt like a sci-fi movie. The cars made fun noises and went fast.

- I saw Daniel Kitson live twice, a couple of nights apart. One of the times, I met him after the show. My brain shut down and I forgot all the words in the English language and he stood there looking at me and I couldn't speak to him. He performed what I think is one of the best shows he's ever done, and I got to see it live, and that was cool as fuck. So incredibly cool. But oh my God, I felt terrible later that night (and the next day, and the next few days) when I realized how badly I'd Got It Wrong when I met him.

It's okay though, because I did eventually manage to look at the pictures my friend took, and those pictures confirmed that he at least found the situation amusing (I could not confirm that at the time as I was physically unable to look at him):

Worst parts of London, listed in whatever order they occur to me

- The British Library

It might be unfair to call this one of the worst parts of my trip to London, because it was still pretty cool. But most of London was good, so by the standards of that, this was… weird. I went on the day I arrived, right after the Sunday roast, when I’d flown all night and not slept in well over 24 hours by then, so that definitely did not help. I took a guided tour of the place, and the tour was super weird. Our guide was obsessed with telling us that the government had secretly killed Alan Turing. Every part of the tour was basically a way for him to bring it back to that subject. Which almost sounds like a gimmick, but the guy seemed quite serious about it. He also told us several facts that other people on the tour pointed out were incorrect (not just the conspiracy theory thing, but factual stuff like confidently mis-labelling what language certain books were in). The whole thing was just weird, and the fact that I was reaching “asleep on my feet” territory made it feel like a weird drug trip.

- The heat

I realized a few months before the trip that this would be taking place in the middle of summer, and I need to factor in how much I cannot stand being outside in the middle of summer. I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. My body cannot stand excessive heat. I am meant to live in Arctic temperatures. Where I live now, the weather has been mostly between -10 and -20 degrees Celcius for the last few weeks, and that's about where I feel comfortable. As soon as it starts going above 0, I don't like it.

London in the summer was well above 0. To be fair, it was slightly less hot there than it was at home. I was told that I was there during one of their heat waves, but even their heat wave temperatures were not quite as hot as what I get at home on a regular mid-summer week. So that would normally be nice. But at home, I'm not usually walking outside all day, for several days in a row, in the middle of summer. I'm usually hiding in my house with a fan blowing directly on me and cold wash clothes draped all over my body, telling myself that autumn will come soon.

So. Summer tourism might not be the best call for me. I got very miserable being in the heat for so long, and that made everything else harder to deal with. The crowds. The blisters on my feet. I could stand them all more easily if my body were not in horrible pain from the elevated temperatures, dealing with the sensory nightmare of sweat everywhere. Not to get too graphic or anything.

- The crowds

Oh my God, the crowds in London. I already covered most of this when I wrote about crowds before, but fucking hell, it was bad. The whole sidewalk. I'd often been surprised when I saw people on panel shows talk about how much they hate people who stop walking on a sidewalk ("pavement"). "Why don't you just go around them?" I wondered. Well now I know why - you can't! You can't go around them. There is no area of foot traffic that's not full of people. I think it was the lack of ability to stop moving that bothered me even more than just the proximity to so many people, but both were bad. And worse in the heat.

- I got awful blisters all over the bottoms of both feet on my first day there, and they didn't start to heal until after I'd left London

I still don't know why this happened. I mean, obviously it was because I was walking around all day as a tourist. But I had a job at the time where I was on my feet all day, so it's not like I wasn't used to some of that. I had good shoes. New enough to still be good, old enough to be broken in. I think I'm maybe just not used to walking on paved surfaces for so long. They were hard on my feet.

The blisters started to get better when I spent a couple of days on the trains to and around Scotland - got off my feet for nearly two straight days, just sitting in the train seats. Also, at the Edinburgh train station, I "bought some plasters from Boots", which I found to be an amusingly British thing to do. Those helped. So it wasn't such a problem when I was walking all around Edinburgh.

But for those five days in London, I couldn't put weight on either foot without it being in terrible pain, and obviously that's not ideal for an holiday where I walk around a city all day. The worst was in Cambridge, as I walked around that utterly beautiful St. John's College, and kept thinking... I wish I could be here without it causing excruciating pain to the bottoms of my feet. Then I could enjoy it more.

I need to look up good preventative blister stuff before I got back in 2025. At the very least, I'll bring some Band-Aids ("plasters") with me this time and put them on when it first starts.

On the best-of list, I put pictures of each bullet point. Be grateful that I'm not doing that here. Because I did take a picture of them one day, so I could have a record of how bad they got (seriously - the ran all the way across). But I'll spare the public that.

- Covent Gardens

Oh my God, I hated that place. I planned to spend a few hours there because there was so much touristy stuff that I figured I should see, but it was awful, for the reasons I've already outlined. Heat, and no escape from it. Giant crowds. Blisters on the bottoms of my feet. Walking around this busy square.

I went to get a something from my UK trip pictures folder to put here, but it turns out I didn't take any pictures in Covent Gardens. I was so miserable that at no point did I think "I want to save this for posterity". I'm not doing that place again.

- Buckingham Palace guard changing

The palace itself was cool to look at, but if I went back there again, it wouldn't be when they change the guard. It turns out the Buckingham Palace guard are just Mounties. We have Mounties at home. It was a bunch of guys dressed as Mounties doing the guard-changing routine that the Mounties in Canada do, but with fucking thousands of people gathered all over the square and the streets so you couldn't get anywhere near it to actually see. It might have been cool if I'd been able to get near it - I enjoy watching the Mounties do their thing sometimes. But I'd rather just go look at the pretty Palace sometime when it's not so full of people.

- St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral

I was looking forward to this stuff because as I've said, I like that kind of architecture. But the number of tourists meant that vibe-wise, it felt more like a very fancy shopping mall than the site of centuries worth of humans trying to connect to the Divine.

- The London Underground when it was packed with people

Extremely uncomfortable, do not recommend.

- The show I saw at the Soho Theatre

It wasn't very good.

I was going to add parts 2 and 3 of my trip on the end here, but this post has got too long, and I know Tumblr has a limit to the number of pictures you're allowed to add in one post. So I'll just post this one now, and then I'll add the other parts in a reblog later. This has been a fun exercise in remembering stuff.

[reborrowing]

snake tank (part one maybe?)

little snake lady can have a borrower. as a treat. ~2100 words cw: captivity, dehumanization, neglect, cruelty, violence, fear, pet…treatment? - I don’t want to call it pet trope because that implies sentient pets are normalized and this is weird and awful in-universe as well. not actually vore! idc if you interact from that side of tumblr, but you'll be disappointed if that's what you're hoping for

Poe

I threw myself against the glass one last, futile time as I heard the door on the far side of the study creak open. My fingers nearly brushed the lip of the prison I’d been placed in, nearly caught onto that ledge that might let me pry open the lid and make an escape. I was still in the air when I felt his eyes land on me. My fur stiffened as his heavy footsteps approached. His towering form blocked out what sunlight had filtered through the closed window as he sat at his desk.

“You quit that, now. You know you aren’t getting out. Unless you’d like to try speaking with me again?”

I turned to face him rather than wait for him to spin the jar I was sitting in. I slunk to the floor, drawing up my knees as if they could shield me from his . He looked annoyed this time, rather than intrigued. I shook my head and stared at my hands. It wasn’t as if I would want him to dump me into his cold hands even if he wasn’t upset. I was bruised enough.

“I don’t have anything else to say. Sir,” I said.

He rolled his eyes.

“There's no one else!" I insisted. “It’s just me, the others ran away months ago, I’m the only one left.”

It wasn’t the truth, though by now it was close. The Copper family had moved out after Mellie reported that the master of the house was now collecting dangerous, exotic pets in his showroom. It was just the most stubborn of us left, or the most foolish.

“What to do with you, then?” the master of the house hummed.

He tapped a finger on the glass thoughtfully, right behind my head, in case I needed the reminder that my skull was no larger than the tip of his finger. I grimaced and looked back up at his face, where his wide lips twisted into a grotesque smirk. I closed my eyes as they curled back and revealed his teeth. My stomach twisted as he kept talking.

“My …friends tell me your kind is more trouble than you’re worth. But perhaps I could get some entertainment out of you?”

“Let me go, please. I’ll leave. I won’t bother you again,” I begged.

“Oh, but I do believe you owe me, little thief. How long have you been squatting here, hm?”

I slumped and curled in on myself. I had thought maybe, just maybe, if this guy cared for a zoo of strange animals, he might have a thread of compassion hiding in his oversized heartstrings. I’d—god, I had bet my life on it, hadn’t I? And now I was going to pay up.

Entertainment.

~

Hecate

A hand lifted away the log that I’d been curled up under.

I flinched awkwardly at the sudden light, then rolled to face the front of my enclosure. The man liked it when I “looked” at him. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was blind or not. All my eyes told me was that there was a large, blurry shadow standing over the tank. It could’ve been a tree, for all my eyes could understand.

I knew it was him though. I could sense his blazing warmth through other means. More importantly, I could smell him.

The hands. The nice hands. The man. Hugh Morton.

I smelled something else, too, something new. Another person, maybe? I listened intently for another heartbeat, another guest. I didn’t want to be shown off right now. I wanted to go back to sleep.

His hand reached back down to ruffle my hair, then run a rough finger across my scales. He rumbled something about feeding and I slumped back down to crawl back to bed. I wasn't hungry enough to want to fight and for all the good these hands did, they never killed my meals for me like the last ones did.

"Don't be so fussy, Hecate, I’m giving you a treat,” he chided. The ground shook as he flicked a finger against the glass wall. “You must get bored lying around in there all night.”

I huffed and and backed into a better position, against the side of one of my ceramic caves. I was still nursing a bite on my flank from my last dinner. 

I licked the air as Hugh slid open one half of the wall. I frowned. The prey was not a creature I knew. Hugh’s hands dangled a warm shadow by a long tail, then flicked it into the soil and the prey squeaked as it landed. It didn’t smell like a rat or any other rodent I’d encountered before. It did smell afraid.

It already understood it was being hunted. I didn’t like that. Scared meals fought back. I had scars to prove it.

Hugh scoffed in annoyance as the creature scrambled towards the opening in the glass. He knocked it back into the enclosure several times while I waited for a chance to strike.

“Don't make me break your legs," Hugh sighed.

The creature stopped moving. Strange. Its little heart was hot and hammering. Was it trained? Why would anyone take the time to train food?

Maybe it was afraid of Hugh’s voice. 

I took advantage of its stillness and lunged. It turned to run in the split-second before we collided. It slammed into one of my open arms. I fumbled as it flailed, then got myself curled around it anyway.

It felt strange against my scales. Not furry. Not naked. Synthetic. Was it wrapped? Humans wrapped their food, but not mine. They used those crinkling papers. This was wrapped in something soft.

Was it clothed?

I hesitated in my confusion and the prey bit back. Something long and sharp stabbed in between two ventral scales. I flinched, hissing, and the prey slipped away. It left the sharp thing behind, but it didn’t bleed. I put a hand on the sharp thing and realized it wasn’t a tooth. It had some kind of handle. Plastic. The point was metal. Some kind of tiny knife? I swayed uncertainly and let the little creature run.

What was he feeding me?

~

Poe

It had never occurred to me that there might be peoples other than humans and my own kind living in this world. I wish I had the time to found out.

The caged creature I had been placed with was, as most things were, comparatively massive. Its front was that of a vaguely humanoid woman, small, but still at least twice the size of my own top half. Her eyes were vacant and unfocussed. She was pale, fat, and lined with scars that told me she had much more experience than myself in fighting. 

The bulk of her body was what truly scared me. She was a python that trailed lazily across the near half of the terrarium. She was coiled, so I could only guess at her true length, but her girth was easy to make out. I regularly crawled through tunnels narrower than this snake, making it all too easy to understand what would happen to me. That the master of the house had returned my thumbtack seemed like a joke. I had no prayer here. This would be a cruel combination of all the worst deaths I'd been taught to fear—caught, crushed, and consumed.

Entertainment!

I wanted to refuse him the satisfaction. I let myself lie down and cry as the master of the house threw me back into the dirt with an unambiguous threat. I might as well. No one else would know to mourn me for weeks, even months.

It would turn out that my inborn will to survive was stronger than my desire to spite the host I'd lived under for so many years. I rolled out of the way, only a split second two late, as the snake woman pounced. She caught me in the crook of her elbow then shoved me into a wall of scaled muscle. The python whipped around me before I could take a breath. I barely had the space to think, never mind resist. It was sheer luck that wedged my thumbtack between two plates of her underbelly.

And it was enough. She spasmed and let go of me.

I fell forward into the dirt, coughing to refill my aching lungs. I don’t think she had left any part of me unbruised, though didn’t waste time taking inventory of my injuries.

“Hey, don’t let it get away now, girl, get up!"

I scowled up at the master of the house as I pushed onto my feet. There was nowhere for me to get away to, not while he was leering over the open door.

I didn't understand him.

I didn't understand how a thinking creature such as himself, with all his power and all his resources, would resort to blood sport for entertainment. The study I'd spent my life beneath had a beautiful library. Page after page told of the world's endless mysteries, of beauty and majesty and life for him to go out and pursue. And he would choose to spend his time watching some monster eat me alive.

I saw the snake-woman moving out of the corner of my eye. My stomach twisted at the utter silence of her movement over the dirt even before she started sliding towards me, and then it was like a switch went off in my head. Gone was higher thought, blown away by the sheer force of the ancient instinct to run.

The terrarium was full and well-decorated, with plenty of greenery both faux and alive as well as several dark spaces to hide. I doubted any would shelter me, this place had been built for her. 

I had nowhere to go and I ran and I ran and I hit the glass and I ran and there was a branch so I climbed it and I reached the ceiling and there was more glass and I turned around and there she was crawling after me and I jumped and her hand brushed my leg and I kicked and she fell  around me like an avalanche and it was over.

Her long body surrounded me and as soon as I moved, she struck. Walls of scales encased me again and this time, no tack would save me. Everything went dark.

Several seconds passed. She loosed her grip. I heard the master’s muffled voice droning through her flank. I took a breath and shuddered. Long minutes of silence passed and the knot she’d wrapped me in fell away. 

I admit I didn’t know much about snakes, but she didn’t seem to be very good at this.

I sprung to my feet, desperate to get at least a few inches between us again, but her hand wrapped around my face. She grabbed the back of my shirt’s neckline with her other hand and I thrashed as she pulled me off the ground.

Slowly, her palm pulled away from my face. She rubbed two fingers over my eyes, traced the curve of my nose, and drew a thumb across my lips. I bit down as hard as I could. She barely flinched, just wiped a little blood off on the side of my face.

“Beb?” she croaked.

Her blank eyes narrowed in concentration as her tongue flicked out of her mouth and brushed against my nose. Tasting me. Her lips twitched. I felt cold.

“No, please! Please, please, please, kill me first, please,” I cried.

She tilted her head to the side. Her tongue flickered twice more and both times I flinched. She babbled something in a tortured voice. 

“Please,” I begged. “If you can even understand me, please, just kill me before you eat me. I don’t want to suffer.” 

She frowned and hissed several times. My blood trembled through my veins. She slowly shaped her tongue around some word I did not know. She patted my head and sighed, then set me gently on the dirt beside her and slithered away.

~

Hecate

The prey had the face of a person.

The little thing was clever enough to talk, but not smart enough to understand me. They were small like a hatchling. They ran on legs like a bird. 

They screamed and cried so I let the little one have some space, whatever they were.

I hoped they would come back to me. They were very warm. Like the sun, but in a person. Like food. Like Hugh.

Like this lovely little cave in the back of the tank. I curled up and burrowed into myself for a cozy rest.

I hoped they wouldn’t try to kill me.