#go do farm work for the school

[sapphiclysexual]

Hi do you own boots and can we see low perspective shots of you in them? Asking for sapphic pervert reasons.

Oh I suppose you mean like this ? Of course I have boots. I'm an Agriculture Major.

Maybe you'd like to be a doll and help me polish them?

[benkaben]

I seriously can't stop thinking about it.

[jackdaniel69nice]

Inktober 12/2024 “Wish”

I reeeeally struggle with this prompt until I remembered another story (that has an au within it) I made. I always get unreasonably upset seeing aus where dark shadow simply doesn’t exist even when tokoyami is the focus. Taking dark shadow out of Tokoyami’s existence would completely change his upbringing and likewise his character, he wouldn’t even be tokoyami without knowing dark shadow. (You can compare it to bakugo being taken out of Midoriya’s story, but even worse). So this is sort of a vent story where I make tokoyami suffer and also see how his personality would differ.

Tw for suicidal ideation and other bad shit. This is not a nice story. It is slightly self indulgent and vent too so maybe my feeling are skewed about what is most likely to happen idk

This story is based off that episode in adventure time with prismo and the farm world. Our story starts with a girl (13yrs old) who has the power to grant wishes, reality bending wishes. Her quirk is so powerful a lot of people want to get their hands on her but she always manages to get away by making their wishes backfire on them. She is wanted by the hero’s to “keep her safe” so when Tsukuyomi (16-19yrs old) finds her and somehow manages to catch her gaseous form she offers him a wish for her freedom. There are the usual rules about wishing that you cannot kill, ask for love, excetra. She is based on a djinn or genie so the wisher gets 3 wishes (I guess she’s kinda based off Alluka from hunterxhunter). Tokoyami is smart enough to know that’s a bad idea, nor does he even have anything he wants to wish for. Dark shadow on the other hand…is more easily swayed. Their wish is such:

“I wish I never existed, and fumikage had a normal quirk that was easy to control.”

…

Yeash, self esteem issues much.

When shadow makes their wish they are sent to a sort of limbo or liminal space that is a large white void. The girl also joins them there and together they watch Dark Shadows alternate reality play out.

It becomes increasingly obvious that dark shadow’s intention to create a better life for fumikage is not working out the way they wanted. They thought he would have more friends without a scary shadow demon for a quirk but instead tokoyami is more reclusive and timid than ever. Tokoyami was always bullied for his interest in the darkness and when they were little dark shadow learned to defend him from those bullies. Without dark shadow he simply does not fight back because he wants to avoid getting in trouble. Which leads to the bullying getting worse and still being treated like a freak. For what little friends tokoyami had made, they were usually the result of dark shadows more outgoing personality. So they arnt around either. The obvious issue is without dark shadow tokoyami is alone and suffering.

Otherwise Tokoyami’s home life isn’t much better. His mother is too overbearing and putting stress on him to be perfect. He doesn’t have ds to help mitigate that stress through venting, reassurance, or even trying to tell her off. Even when dark shadow was sure his relationship with his father would be better, tokoyami has pulled away from him and become bitter since he won’t help with the struggles against his mother.

Eventually in middle school the bullying escalates to extreme assault that leave tokoyami in the hospital a few times. No one does anything to help, he is (once again) in this alone. Tokoyami eventually snaps, but instead of becoming violent…he tries to end his own life.

He survives but is put under suicide watch. Everyone finally seems to notice the decline of his mental state so he drops out of school and moves in with his aunt. She is the one who inherited Tokoyami’s grandfather’s homestead. So now he lives in the country more isolated than ever, at least his aunt seems to care for him well. He can’t help but wish there had been more to his life though…

This is about caught up to Tokoyami’s current age. so now dark shadow has been shown the error of their judgement. To top it all off the djinn girl shows how even though dark shadow was never able to directly hurt anyone in this timeline there were people who they never saved as well. From all the way back to shadow protecting other kids from bullies to people they saved in their hero career, more people ended up hurt by their absence. They are a blessing to this world, and don’t you forget it.

Dark Shadow tries to revoke their wish, which is perfectly successful in sending them back to their own timeline. They return to the exact moment they made their wish but unfortunately tokoyami still heard what they said and is very upset and panicked. They both end up crying a looooooot.

As for djinn girl she actually learned a lot about family who loves and supports you. She has a younger brother who has been searching for her but she had been avoiding him to keep him safe. Tokoyami lets her go and she goes home, the hero’s keep an eye on her from afar. They know they’re no match for her power.

But before she leaves Dark Shadow uses their third wish to get a sandwich :)

As for the fate of the alternate timeline, well…only time will tell ;) ;)

Was that too cheesy?? Sorry

[quietwingsinthesky]

the apartmentverse urge to make the assassins weird immortals due to interacting with the apple who all survive to the modern day and have to Deal with mundane things like public transport…

[zeddertop-bugster]

i almost posted this in doatkcord but i think i just got scared and ran away. I dont remember. but i did get scared. BUt some of you are here so i will offer this to the smaller...smaller audience on Tumble. thanks

[enbysiriusblack]

i bet you think about me is so regulily fr

[sunflowergirl522]

Just saw a Christmas vibes TikTok and it threw me into a breakdown 😙✌️

[badolmen]

‘Morning people’ who get up at like 6-8 are losers where’s my REAL morning people homies who get up at like 2-4 at?

[fallowfield]

had a very my little pony dream and it produced??? lore???? for the au im working on??????

[coyoteuugly]

my intense hatred of school vs my desire to be taken seriously as a scientist and have people be impressed by my credentials

[abowlofpetuniasandawhale]

Wait has anyone told the homestead fantasy tradwives about convents? Isn’t being left alone by an absent husband with nothing all day except chores and prayer exactly the life they’re after? Someone call the pope, if they make the habits a little cuter I really think we can sell this

[itsalwaysdark]

itis very funny i post so much abt myself but i dont actually post that much abt what goes on day to day . mainly bc there isnt much but like. u guys arent even aware of mine and lamps current music phase .. crazy

[timmydraker]

Tim begins to distance himself from his family after Damian becomes Robin.

It was obvious in the way he ran off to rescue Bruce, but that was more of a physical thing at the end of the day. He was desperate and had lost any kind of safety net and support he had after Dick threatened Arkham and how badly he hurt Alfred with his instance that Bruce was alive.

Either way he was going to get Bruce back, if not because he felt like he was an aimless, nothing human being without Batman then there was that he wanted to be believed.

Then Dick handed over Robin to Damian who at that point genuinely despised Tim, though there was also a level of jealously in the young Wayne’s mind at the intelligence and analytical Tim.

It was then that Tim decided he would bring Bruce back and then do his own thing, outside of Robin and outside of Batman.

He clearly had done his job hadn’t he? Sure Bruce was dead, but Dick was acting as Batman and that Batman had a Robin, so his reasoning for being Robin was extinguished.

Tim brings Bruce back and the older man praises and thanks him for several days and then, like everything else, the attention moves away. It goes to him connecting with Damian on a vigilante level and catching up on the last several months of him being ‘dead’. It goes to Jason who, now that he’s lost his foster father has decided that maybe he could try a little harder after all.

It goes to everyone and anyone other than Tim and this time? That’s actually the plan.

Tim isn’t as good of a hacker as Barbara, but she’s basically a god at it so compared to others he might as well be master level, just not against her. This he uses to shift around peoples schedules so Alfred has no choice but to let him go to school on his own (Tim may have also invented an early morning ‘club’ that was totally legit and not at all a fabrication). He makes it so when Dick is over or Jason takes the rare opportunity to visit he had to work at WE or DI, something important he can’t neglect.

He never has to walk Ace or Titus because he’s busy with his team mates.

Team mates who think he’s busy helping out Batman.

Tim still does work as a hero, but it’s entirely through his businesses after a while. A few times he has no choice but to go out in a boring black suit with a full face mask and hoodie. It’s got nothing on it, no symbols or gadgets. Nothing to connect him to anyone.

He starts with the homeless, dishing out vaccines like candy without even doing a campaign to showcase it.

Then he changes Bruce’s rather naive approach to orphanages and makes it so every single child who is put through is given a small amount of funding. He makes it so kids have more chance to stay with siblings, makes sure everyone who even so much as enters the ground of a orphanage have a real background check and sure the adoption rate drops, but so does the missing kids and DV cases.

Tim steals over fifty million from people like Luther and Penguin and all kinds of corrupt rich assholes for the majority of the funding and not even a cent of it is traced back to Wayne or Drake businesses. Whiles he’s digging into Lex be manages to get enough evidence to put a sizeable dent in his reputation, even if Lex manages to smooch a fair bit of it back.

He’s manages to take out a large sized trafficking ring and helps get the victims into a real recovery home that he hand picks out security for.

Later, as in a few days afterward, he discovers a dog meat farm and everyone medical veterinary student suddenly finds themself free of student loans and debt and with multiple work opportunities available and volunteer work being down right pleased for.

Tim knows he’s being noticed but given that he basically lives in his office in the heart of the city, he isn’t there to hear his old teammates and ‘family’ talk about the mysterious Dread.

Dread who was named that after a report came out about a theory of an unknown hacker or ‘cyber vigilante’ who was stealing money and information from rich folk and giving it to the poor, giving all of the 1% dread that he would hit them next.

The exact quote was ‘Those with money deeper than their pockets dread the hackers next moves. And they should feel that dread as a warning for this Robin Hood like legend seems to be getting braver.’

Dick was sure the hacker would have been called Robin if he hadn’t chosen that name already, to which Barbara responded with grumbles and growl because she couldn’t find anything other than holes and traps left by the hacker. It was like they knew her every move before she even made it!

Tim, obvious to his growing reputation until it fully took off, hadn’t even considered that his actions would be framed a threat by Batman. He would say it was because he didn’t think Bruce would ever really target him like that, but in actuality it’s because he knew Bruce was one of the few good rich folk. Surely he would be on the side of a secret vigilante hacker trying to use horrible people to do good? He embraced Dread quickly and was happy he make the rich squirm and brought a sense of hope to people, it was just like Robin but instead of them being safe and given light they were given a peace of mind in a mix of revenge and justice.

What Tim doesn’t know is that Bruce is still too far into his whole image of black and white, good and evil, that he tends to forget there’s grey areas.

At least Jason is on the side of Dread, even if he still thinks the myth of a story is just that, a myth.

It’s when Tim blows up a bank when everyone has gone home for the night just so people will find the underground money ring that and he visits the manner to get a few things that he hears them talking about it.

By that point it’s been around two years since he dropped Robin and as usual Dick always greets him with a look of a desperate puppy, “Tim! Hi, you’re here. I haven’t seen you in months, how have you been?”

Tim smiles at Dick even if he hasn’t gotten over his anger at his oldest brother and moves to sit at the breakfast table with everyone (Alfred, Bruce, Jason and Damian).

“Good. Busy, we’ve had a lot of donations lately.”

Jason snorts, “No shit. Isn’t Wayne Enterprise one of the few ones not hit by Dread?”

Bruce grumbles and shakes his head, “I wouldn’t say that. They’ve managed to get into our system and completely changed the Jason Project.”

Jason grins and laughs happily, “you mean improved! Crime Ally is doing great now. Not the best, but still a fuck of a lot better.”

Smiling at the man who once beat him to an inch of his life, Tim takes a sip of his tea and casually says, “You’re welcome.”

The whole table goes quiet as Tim continues to casually sip his tea.

The silence carries for a total minute before Bruce puts down his cup and leans forward with a slight growl in his voice, “Explain.”

“Explain what?”

Bruce stands over his son even from halfway down the table and very obviously tries to calm himself with a deep breath, “What do you mean ‘you’re welcome’?”

Tim makes an ‘oh’ expression before cocking his head to the side in confusion, “I was the one who fixed the Jason Project? Wait, did you guys not realise I’m Dread?”

Damian shouts out a ‘what?!’ That makes Titus jump and Tim laughs under his breath, “What did you think I was doing?”

“Running the business! Not stealing from people and black mailing politicians!”

It’s Tim’s turn to growl now and he stands up himself with a glare at Bruce that is as close as any of them have gotten to the famed Bat-Glare, “Are you fucking kidding me? Like are you a Tully kidding me with that horse shit?”

Bruce looks stunned and Alfred doesn’t even tell him not to swear.

Tim slams his chair into the table.

“What the fuck else would I be doing, Bruce? I’m not Robin, that was taken from me, so what else was I gonna do? I finished my job, not only keeping you from killing anyone but bringing you back, so I had do pick something else. I’m not stealing from the rich, I’m stealing from selfish cunts who ruin peoples lives for no reason and giving it to people like Jason. So, don’t you fucking yell at me and don’t try to make me feel bad for this, not when I’ve done more in two years than you ever have and- don’t you fucking speak Dick, not when you were the one who took my place here away from me! Now, I have a trafficking ring I need to expose so good. Fucking. Day.”

Jason is the only one who follows him.

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[yanderedrabbles]

Yandere Werewolf

There's something terrorising your town every full moon. And a stroke of bad luck has you running into it more than once.

There's something terrorising your town.

The chickens are turning up dead, torn apart with their feathers and blood clumped together all over the yard. The pigs spend every full moon squealing and running around their pens like they can smell a predator in the air. The hunters say there's strange tracks out in the deep woods, tracks bigger than any wolf they've ever seen.

And there's scratches on your door - deep, gouged out claw marks like something wants to dig its way into your house.

You try not to get worked up about it.

It's probably just a fox or a coyote, right? Everyone knows they steal a chicken now and then. And you've seen the six-packs of beer your dad takes when he goes hunting. Dog tracks look pretty damn big when you're drunk and it's dark out, don't they?

You try not to get worked up about it, but every full moon you double check your locks.

You're squinting at the local paper when your best friend comes up behind you and slings his arm across your shoulders. He plucks the paper out of your hand and scoffs at the headline.

"Chickens found dead at McKinnly farm? No one should be surprised by that. Old McKinnly doesn't even have the coop properly fenced in."

"Hey! I wasn't done reading that."

He balls the paper up and tosses it into the dustbin with a smooth overhead throw.

"You are now. C'mon y/n, don't tell me you're buying into all this werewolf business too?"

Your best friend towers over you, every inch of him well bred, football star muscle. You have to crane your neck to properly glare at him.

"Don't be ridiculous. It's just sensational nonsense."

"Oh yeah? So you ain't scared of a big bad wolf breaking into your bedroom one night?"

It's your turn to scoff. "That's a pervert, not a wolf. How's a wolf even supposed to open a window?"

The school bell rings before he can give you an answer.

He groans. "I've got extra practice again tonight. Will you come watch me? We can get pizza after."

You grin. "Breaking News! Star quarterback needs his favourite cheerleader around to make life bearable."

He flicks your forehead. "Damn right I do. So whatcha say?"

"Sure. Someone's gotta be around to keep you on your toes."

It's only when he's long out of sight that you remember - you're one night away from the full moon.

He destroys his team mates at practice. When he's pounding down the field, head down and his fingers curled like claws around the ball, he almost looks inhuman.

After practice, he catches you before you can scramble away and rubs his sweaty face all over you.

"Ewwww." You shove him at him unsuccessfully. "You do that every time! It's so gross!"

"Gotta be faster than that squirt," he laughs.

By the time he's done in the locker room, you've already ordered pizza for the both of you.

You head up to the overlook, his old Mustang growling down the highway.

The overlook is exactly what it sounds like - a hill high over town with a great view of the twinkling streets far below. It's a clear night, and the almost full moon casts a silvery shadow over everything.

He slings his arm across the back of your seat and complains when you pick the olives off your side of the pizza.

"God, I hope your taste in men is better than your taste in pizza."

"My taste in men and pizza are equally questionable, thank you very much."

He laughs, "At least you're self aware. Speaking of guys, I know Murrey from Algebra asked you to prom, and Dave from Homeroom."

You groan. "How did you even hear about that?"

"I've got ears like a wolf." He turns to face you. "What did you tell them?"

"I said no. You and I go together every year."

"Atta girl." He sounds pleased.

You offer him some of your discarded olives and he bites them straight out of your fingers.

"Y'know, lots of girls were awfully disappointed you didn't ask them. When are you gonna get yourself a girlfriend, mister star quarterback?"

He leans down and ruffles your hair. "I got you in my life, don't I? That's plenty."

Eventually, his arm finds it's way to your shoulder, and he pulls you against his side. He's warmer than you and when you curl up against him, he smirks and says that's what you get for being hopelessly under dressed.

There's an old love song on the radio and you fall asleep with your hand knotted in his jacket.

He drives home extra slow and when he shakes you awake, his hands linger on your waist.

You rub your eyes groggily. "Goodnight mister wolf."

You're already halfway up the driveway before he replies, his voice too soft to hear.

"Goodnight little lamb."

On the night of the full moon, you wake up to a cloudy sky and your dog scratching at your bedroom door to be let out.

You struggle into your slippers and mutter about better toilet training. When you open the back door, he slips past your legs and shoots off into the trees. Yawning, you rest your elbows on the porch railing and try not to fall asleep.

It's only when you hear him yelping that you come awake fully.

"Cruiser? What's wrong boy?"

The street lights reach all the way to the edge of your lawn but the trees beyond are black dark. You make you way down carefully, your sense of unease growing with every whistle he ignores.

Your dad left his old wind up torch near the shed and you grab it. It whirs to life with a dull flicker.

Cruiser is whimpering louder now. You follow the sound of it, ducking under branches and trying not to slip in your flimsy slippers.

The clouds clear and for a minute or two, the forest is bright enough that you barely need the torch. You find Crusier backed up against a tree, his tail tucked between his legs. He ignores you when you call him, staring out into the dark and whining like you've never heard before.

"What's wrong boy? What's out there?"

You can't help the fear you feel. Your dog is hard to scare and you've never seen him this frightened.

Twigs snap in the gloom and you swing your torch around wildly. You try and tell yourself that it might be a deer, wandering in from the deep forest. But all you can think about is the local paper.

"Chickens torn apart. Vet suspects large wolf on the prowl."

But it can't be here, right? You're practically on the main road. You reach down and grab Cruiser's collar, your heart racing. The dog barely acknowledges you when you tug on it.

"Heel Cruiser. C'mon boy."

You try and whisper, but your voice comes out high and nervous. His whimper changes into a low growl that vibrates through his collar.

That's when the moon comes out again. And you see the werewolf.

It's coat is dark and thick, and it's crouched halfway behind a tree. Less than twenty feet away.

How the hell did it get so close without you hearing it?! Adrenaline slams into you and your heart skips into overdrive. You turn on your heel and run.

The funny thing about adrenaline is the way your own body takes control. You duck under branches before your conscious mind even realises they're there. You run faster than you ever thought possible, trees streaking by in black blurs.

You hear footsteps behind you but you can't tell if it's Cruiser or the wolf. You don't bother checking. You just keep your head down and sprint like the Devil is on your heels. Hell, he might be.

The werewolf catches you just as you break out of the tree-line. It slams into you from the side and sends you sprawling.

As you scramble to your knees, you get your first good look at the terror of the town. It's bigger than any wolf you've ever seen. Closer to the size of a small grizzly, with the thick fur to match. It's down on all fours, but it's forelegs are unusually long. It's paws are strangely misshapen and for a second, they look almost like hands. It's body feels more ape than wolf.

Oh, but it's teeth are all canine. All sharp, curving fangs, shining with spit.

It sniffs the air and with a start you realise that you're bleeding. Your palms are sliced up from trying to cushion your fall. Blood, you think numbly. Blood is supposed to make carnivores more aggressive. Whett their appetite.

Staring up at its drooling maw and narrowed eyes, you find it hard to believe anything could be more bloodthirsty.

It lunges for your throat and if it weren't for Cruiser, you'd be dead.

The dog shoots out from the forest, barking loud enough to wake the neighbourhood. He jumps at the creature's back, sinking his teeth into the fleshy muscle where neck and shoulder meet.

The werewolf roars.

It reaches up and tears Cruiser off with one nasty yank. Your dog thuds into the ground with an ugly cracking sound.

You scream - half terror and half rage. Cruiser is trying to stand, but can't manage it. One paw hangs uselessly. Oh, your poor, brave dog.

You act without thinking.

You lunge forward and punch straight at the werewolf's nose. It's hard and wet, and your fist keeps going even after contact. His teeth leave shallow cuts on your knuckles.

The werewolf yelps. Like a kicked puppy.

It backs away a few steps before lowering it's head and snarling. It gears up for another pounce.

That's when your daddy shoots it. The blast from his shotgun knocks the werewolf right out of the air.

It crashes down and scrambles to its feet. Its head swings wildly between you and your father. It growls one final time before turning on its heel and bounding into the trees.

How the hell could it even stand after a blast like that? You shudder, your eyes fixed on the trees.

You can hear your dad on the phone, frantically reporting to the Sheriff's office. You sink to your knees next to Cruiser. He draws his eyes up to yours and whines.

"My brave boy..." You stroke his head with the back of your hand and accidentally stain his fur with blood. "I'm so sorry. I'm so damn sorry."

He cranes his neck and licks the tears off your cheek. Just like when he was a puppy. You laugh, high and hysterical. And once you start, you can't stop.

Somewhere in the forest, the wolf howls.

You can't sleep at all after that. And when the Deputies question you, it takes almost all night. They don't believe you entirely, but the tracks their dogs pick up are strange enough to garner a few nervous looks.

You're on the porch, clutching a warm drink and watching the sunrise, when your best friend finds you.

He sweeps you up in a crushing hug, his cheek pressed firmly against your hair.

"Are you okay? I came as soon as I heard."

You pull away, confused. He cups your face in his hand and gently twists it left and right, scanning for any cuts or bruises.

"What? Who told you?"

He cooks his head. "You did. A few minutes ago."

Did you? You don't remember calling him. But you're tired and frightened. Maybe you just can't remember everything.

He sits you down on the porch swing and carefully inspects your palms while you tell him what happened.

"It wasn't a wolf. You believe me right? I saw it clear as day."

"You were pumped up on adrenaline and fighting for your life. You can't be sure what you saw." He sighs, "Maybe it was a wolf or maybe it was a bear or maybe it was some exotic animal that we've never heard about. But really y/n, it sure as hell wasn't a werewolf."

"Yeah... but..."

In the daylight, werewolves and horror feel silly. Illogical. You aren't a kid anymore, you shouldn't be letting your imagination run wild. There's definitely a reasonable explanation.

But every time you think about it, the more sure you feel. That creature was nothing normal or logical at all. It was wrong. Anatomy all out of proportion, eyes too bright and aware, the smell of it more like human sweat than dog musk.

No, you didn't imagine any of it. It wasn't a wolf at all.

"How's Cruiser doing?"

You take a sip of your drink and try not to cry. "Not good. The emergency vet came by and rushed him to surgery. Multiple broken bones they say, maybe some internal bleeding."

He sucks in a breath. "Oh y/n, I'm so sorry."

He opens his arms and you curl up against him gratefully. His letterman jacket is soft against your skin and the smell of him envelopes you.

"I still remember the day you got him for me," you say.

He rubs soothing circles across your back.

"He was such a runt back then. All eyes and big floppy ears. When you pulled him out of your jacket, I didn't realise he was a puppy. I thought you got me some weird stuffed teddy."

He laughs. "I tried putting a bow on him y'know. But he kept tryna bite my fingers off."

You laugh too. "I could never figure out why he didn't like you."

"Jealousy I say. Didn't want me to steal you away."

You punch his arm, smiling. "You're the only guy who'll compete with a dog for my attention."

"If that's what it takes. Put a leash on me right now if you want."

You scoff and curl up closer against him. "I would but they don't come in your size big guy."

You're too tired to notice the bruise on your best friend's nose, or the way he flinches when you touch his side. For a little while, you make the awful mistake of forgetting about the beast.

Prom comes faster then you expect. Your dress gets measured and tailored and steamed. You spend days practicing different hair styles. Cruiser limps around behind you, whining for treats like he wasn't touch and go just a month ago. The moon grows thin and then round again.

When you pull up at your best friend's house, his parents are on their way to a party of their own. His mother gives you a peck on the cheek and says you look stunning and to not forget the keys when you leave.

You laugh and wave them off and almost forget about the full moon streaming through the trees.

The house is quiet and you make your way to his room, your heels hanging from your fingers.

"Hey princess!" You knock on his door. "Are you ready yet? I'm coming in!"

You open the door to an empty room, his tux still on its hanger.

"Oh. My. God. How are you still not done?"

You can hear the shower running and you pound at the door. "We're gonna be late! I swear I'm going to kill you when you get out of there."

No response.

"Hey! I know you can hear me!"

Still nothing.

You try the handle and the door swings open a crack. Steam billows out and you slap a hand over your eyes before you can see anything too revealing.

"Hurry it up! We're gonna miss all the good songs if you don't get dressed soon. Do you really wanna slow dance to something Mr Jared the gym teacher picks out?"

You hear the slap of footsteps on wet tile and breath a sigh of relief. "Did all that football practice knock your ears outta wack? I've been yelling at you since I got here."

Something growls, low and deep.

Your eyes shoot open and you step back. But you're still too slow to react and the werewolf leaps at you. Its heavier than a man and you tumble to the floor together, its paws pinning you down by the shoulders.

Its snout is right in front of your face, almost touching your nose. Lips curl away from awfully long fangs.

It growls almost like a man, almost like it's saying, "Mine."

You scream, kicking and tossing and failing to get away. It's claws prick holes in the satin of your dress and draw little beads of blood.

You scream your best friend's name, terrified that the beast got him too. You're going to die, you think desperately, you're going to die and your poor mother won't even be able to refund your prom dress. If you weren't screaming, you might have laughed.

But the monster doesn't kill you.

Instead, it licks the tears off your cheek. Just like Cruiser did a month ago. It growls again, but the sound is lighter. Pleased almost.

You grow still, confused and terrified of provoking it. Your best friend's room is cluttered with football gear - trophies and jerseys and signed helmets. The moon shines dully off all of it. And you're in the very centre, with a monster pinning you to the ground.

The moon dips behind a cloud and the werewolf changes right before your eyes. Hair and snout receding, his eyes darkening from wolf amber to warm brown.

It's only his teeth that stay the same. All sharp points that peak through his lips.

Your best friend is on top of you, totally naked and still warm from the shower.

"I didn't want to hurt you y/n, I swear."

His voice is lower somehow, like the wolf's growl is just under the surface.

You're too shocked to move. Too shocked to scream. This must be a dream. It's too surreal to be real.

He leans down and kisses you on the cheek. "I wanted to tell you. But it would have sounded crazy. I grow claws and teeth on the full moon? I heal faster than I used to? I can smell when you're ovulating and when you're on your period?"

He pulls back and tilts his head. "When we were kids, we promised we wouldn't keep secrets. And now you know."

"You...you were outside my house that night."

He laughs. "I'm outside your house every night dummy. That was just the night you caught me."

"Why?"

He shakes his head the way he always does when you say something dumb. "To keep you safe. To keep other animals away from you. To protect you, like I said I would."

His hands slip from your shoulders to your waist. "But now you know."

He grins, his teeth awfully sharp. "Now I can make you just like me."

He holds you down and kisses you and nips at your neck hard enough to draw blood. And when the clouds clear from the moon, you feel your teeth start to lengthen.

Something is terrorising your town. And you should have know better than to cross its path.

[zooophagous]

So why do you hate the advertising industry?

Hokay so.

Let me preface this with some personal history. It's not relevant to the sins of the advertising industry perse but it illustrates how I started to grow to hate it.

I wanted to be a veterinarian growing up, but to be a vet you basically have to be good enough to get into medical school. I do not have the math chops or discipline to make it in medical school. I went into art instead, and in a desperate attempt to find some commercial viability that didn't involve moving to California, I went into graphic design.

I've been a graphic designer for about seven or eight years now and I've worn a lot of hats. One of them was working in a print shop. Now, the print shop had a lot of corporate customers who had various ad campaigns. One of them was Gate City Bank, which had a bigass stack of postcards ordered every couple months to mail to their customers.

Now, paper comes from Dakota Paper, and they make their paper the usual way. Somewhere far, far from our treeless plain there is a forest of tall trees. These trees are cut down and put on big fossil fuel burning trucks and hauled to a paper mill that turns them into pulp while spewing the most fowl odors imaginable over the neighboring town and loads the pulp up with bleach to give it a nice white color.

Then the paper is put on yet another big truck and hauled off to the local paper depot, then put on another big truck and delivered to my print shop, where I turned the paper into postcards telling people to go even deeper into debt to buy a boat because it's almost summer. The inks used are a type of nasty heat sensitive plastic that is melted to the surface of the paper with heat. Then the postcards are put on yet ANOTHER truck and sent to the bank, which puts them on ANOTHER truck and finally into the hands of their customers, who open their mail and take one look at the post card and immediately discard it.

Heaps and heaps and literal hundreds of pounds of literal garbage created at the whim of the marketing team several times a year. And thats just one bank in one city.

I came to realize very quickly that graphic design was the delicate art of turning trees into junk mail.

And wouldn't you know it there are a TON of companies that basically only do junk mail. Many of them operate under the guise of a "charity," sending you pictures of suffering children or animals and begging for handouts and when they get those handouts the executives take a nice fat cut, give some small token amount to whatever cause they pay lip service to, and then put the rest of the cash right back into making more mailers. "Direct mail marketing" they call it.

Oh but maybe it's not so bad, you can advertise online after all. Now that there's decent ad blocker out there and better anti-virus ads usually don't destroy your computer anymore just by existing.

Except now when I search for the exact business I want on Google it's buried under three or four different "promoted search items" tricking me into clicking on them only to shoot themselves in the foot because I searched for the specific result I wanted for a reason and couldn't use those other websites even if I felt like it.

And now we have advertising on YouTube and on every streaming service, forcing more and more eyes onto the ad for the brand new Buick Envision that parks itself because you're too stupid to do it on your own.

Oh thats ok maybe I'll get Spotify premium and go ad free and listen to some podcasts- SIKE we have the hosts of your show doing the song and dance now. Are you depressed and paranoid from listening to my true crime podcast about murdered and mutilated teenagers? That's ok, my sponsor Better Help can keep you sane enough to stay alive and spend more money.

It's gotten so terrible that now you have content farms, huge hubs of shell companies that crank out video after video to get more and more precious clicks. Which if the videos were innocuous maybe that wouldn't be so awful except now you have cooking hacks that can actually burn your house down and craft hacks that can electrocute you being flung into your eyes at the speed of mach fuck so some slimy internet clickbait jockey doesn't need to get a real job.

It of course goes without saying that animals are also relentlessly exploited by clickbait companies that will put them in compromising situations on purpose to create a fake fishing hack video or even just straight up killing them for sport by feeding small animals to a pufferfish that rips them apart for the camera.

And all of this, ALL of this doesn't even touch how adveritising is the death of art in general. Queer topics, any kind of interesting art, any kind of sex or substance use topics are scrubbed clean and hidden at the behest of advertisers.

Sex education, a nude statue, topics such as racism or sexism or bigotry in general have tags purged or hidden from search, even life saving information about SDTs or drug use, because if someone saw that and complained then Verizon might sell fewer tablets and we can't fucking have that.

Conservative talking heads often bitch and moan that they're being censored on social media. The stupid part is, they're right! They are being censored! But it's not by a woke mob, it's by ATT and Coca Cola not wanting their adspace sharing screen time with their stupid fucking opinions.

However, they won't ever figure that out, because the talking heads they get their marching orders from like Tucker and Jones ALSO rely on the sweet milk flowing from the sponsorship teat and they aren't about to turn on their meal ticket so they have to come up with even stupider shit to say for the train to continue rolling.

I managed to rant this far without even getting into the ads I see for the beauty industry. The other day a botox ad described wrinkles as "moderate to severe crows feet" as if wrinkles are a symptom of a fucking serious disease! Like having a flaw in your skin is a medical problem that you need thousands of dollars of literal botulism toxin to fix! I was incandescent with anger.

Advertising is a polluting, censoring, anti educational and anti art industry at it's very core. It destroys human connections, suppresses human thought and makes us hate our own bodies. It ads no value, actively detracts from value, and serves no real purpose and I believe it should be almost if not entirely banned.