#i dont know if ive made a writing tag.......

[katabay]

L'APPEL DU VIDE

okay so. jack! jack. what a collection of guys. the overlap between jack and the beanstalk and jack the giant killer, though. that sure is something! sometimes king arthur is there, which always takes me by surprise.

this. specifically. is an idea I've been kicking around. jack and the beanstalk is not a story I've ever enjoyed, as a kid it was probably my least favorite to read. as an adult, I was INTENSELY fascinated by reading j.g. ballard's the drowned giant. I think about it frequently, and somewhere during a re read of it, I ended up revisiting jack.

combining different versions of jack into one character is not a new concept, but it IS a fun one! the version I've been assembling together plays less with the fun elements of a jack story (and adjacent folklore stories), and focuses more on the potential for tragic elements with the addition of the usual grim and jagged narrative edges that I personally enjoy.

jack with the backstory of the devil and the three golden hairs, only jack doesn't find love, he's TIRED, all he wants to do is go home, but there isn't a home to go back to. what is the point of being born lucky if this is what it gets you? jack the giant killer, only he doesn't want to kill giants, jack who saw a body of a giant when he was a small child and cannot bring himself to do as a king commands. jack, who climbs up the beanstalk and stops halfway to look down. etc.

to go back to the drowned giant real quick, both to set the tone about jack seeing the body of a giant as a youth, and also because I've been haunted and obsessed with this excerpt of it ever since I read it:

J. G. Ballard, The Drowned Giant

anyway! this was originally like, a two illustration concept to get out of my system. however. I'm halfway through outlining a narrative. so. maybe it will also be several illustrations and also comic.

[unsat-and-strange]

at some point i heard the idea (folklore maybe?) that a human becomes a vampire through an exchange, both drinking the others blood, and the idea stuck so fuck it we ball here it is (beneath a cut cause 1600 words give or take)

All she wanted was a hot meal and a place to sleep away from the rain. It had been pouring since the last town she passed through, around midmorning, and she was soaked to the bone and absolutely freezing. The people she had talked to then said there was a hotel or something a few miles away and it would be the best place to stay until the next town. It had probably been close to ten miles since then, the sun was starting to go down behind the smooth blanket of gray, and lo and behold, no hotel in sight. She was out of her cells service range, no cars had passed her on the road, and she really REALLY didn't want to have to pitch her tent by the side of the road but it was starting to look like shed have to do so anyway. Until she saw light in the distance.

A pinprick of warm yellow light against a smudge that could be a house, black against the rapidly darkening sky. She flicked soaked curls out of her eyes and picked up the pace.

It was a house, a small one, light in a living room window and wilted flowers by the door. She ignored the whispers of social anxiety in favor of ringing the doorbell with chilled fingers. There was no sound of movement inside, no footsteps or anything, but the sliver of light beneath the door flickered as someone came close to answer the door.

It opened to show a...... person. They didn't appear to be particularly masculine or feminine, not notably old or young, no superlatives could really be applied. They were pale, that was one. Tall, too. Very dark eyes, dark hair twisted up into a messy bun, a sweater and baggy pants obscuring most about their body. She could almost call them pretty, the face at least. Good bone structure or something. They cocked their head to the side as they took in her undoubtedly pathetic wet cat appearance.

"I'm sorry," (why did she so often start conversations with an apology) "But i was told there was a hotel somewhere nearby, and do you maybe know where it might be?"

They gave a friendly smile. "Oh dear, whoever told you that must have assumed a different mode of transportation! Did you walk here?"

"Yes, i did, but then it started raining and my phone has no service and i really thought the hotel would be close and at this point its too late to try and go back to town and i don't want to have to put my tent up in this weather like its an all weather tent but that doesn't mean its comfortable and i-" She cut off her own rambling. "I'm sorry."

"Oh please, its fine, ill drive you there," The stranger said. "But first you must stay for dinner. I was just trying to decide if I was hungry."

She hesitated. A deep-ingrained fear of imposing rose up but was squashed down by just how warm it looked inside. They ushered her in with a smile as she stepped through the door. She toed off her soaked sneakers as they shut the door behind them. The click of the door shutting was loud in the quiet house.

It smelled dusty inside. There was a fire gently crackling in the fireplace and candles on the table, a mug of steaming tea set on a desk in the corner, but she wouldn't have known by the air. It just smelled stale. The living room was a bit cluttered, but there was a layer of dust like no one had moved anything in a bit. She hung up her coat on a hook beside a black jacket and her host breezed past to the small kitchen. She heard the clank of dishes being shifted in the cupboards.

"Do you want something to drink?" They asked from the next room as she looked around. "I want you to feel at home before I start dinner."

"No thank you," She murmured. She was debating asking if they could just drive her over now, dinner be damned. Something seemed off and she hadn't been raised to ignore these gut feelings. She was about to ask when they swept back into the entryway, urging her into the kitchen and to a chair. They quickly busied themself getting out pots and spoons and turning on the stove but they hadn't gotten out any food yet, not even put water in the pot to boil and she wasn't sure what they were planning to make, especially after a split second glimpse into the pantry as they shut the cracked door showed bare shelves. She wasn't sure what she had gotten into but it was getting too strange for comfort. It was time she left. She stood and they paused, looking over curiously.

"I appreciate your hospitality, but I need to go," She said, not bothering to try and think of an excuse.

"Oh but you said you'd stay for dinner?" They protested as she went to the entryway. They made no move to stop her. She grabbed her coat and bag and stooped to get her shoes when she noticed the door. She could have sworn it was somewhat normal, a knob and a deadbolt, but now there was another lock, a heavy coppery looking padlock securing the door. They hadn't locked that when she came in, she definitely would have noticed, but they hadn't been back to the front door. They were still gently smiling at her but they were not in the kitchen anymore. They were in the living room. When had they moved, she hadn't heard them move but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't genuinely unnerved now.

The world seemed frozen for a moment. Then she blinked and they were right in front of her, hands reaching for her, and she shoved them and ran towards the hall past the kitchen. It was a small house surely there was a back door or something. They were chuckling behind her as she raced down the hall. Hardwood was slick under still-wet socks and this hall hadn't looked this long when she first looked down it. She took a sharp turn hard, bouncing into the faded wallpaper, seeing just more of the same hall, not even any doors, and they were laughing now. She had nearly reached the next turn -good lord how big was this house it had looked tiny from outside- when they apparently tired of toying with her.

They were laughing behind her and when she turned the corner they were ahead of her, somehow taller than they used to be, hunched to avoid hitting the ceiling, spindly hands stretching out towards her. She nearly slipped trying to turn around in time and one hand had her right wrist and the other her left arm and those hands were so dry and cold and strong, iron grip pulling her back towards the rest of the house. She fought, clawed and kicked and shouted and finally bit. They paused at that, dropping her wrist to look closer at the blood smeared across their hand, a strangely satisfied smile crossing their barely human face. She yanked free of their grip and sprinted for the body of the house again, she could have sworn there was a window in the living room, and then she realized the blood. Her lips had cracked from the cold enough times for her to know what blood tasted like and this was wrong. This was bitter and sooty and sweet and burned the longer it sat coating her teeth and her tongue and the burning was spreading, down her throat, through her veins. She staggered to a stop and spat but it was too late it was in her blood now, the poison that sat in whatever lived in this awful isolated too big house. The pain grew and spread and between two choked out breaths she could no longer stand and two more and she could barely see the thing coming close and god she could feel every vein and artery and capillary searing into her flesh and her vision was going dark at the edges. She couldn't feel her legs against the cold floor or her hand still clutching her jacket past the pain.

She could feel them coming close though. Some part of her seemed attuned to them even with the burning molten glass pain inside. Or maybe that was what payed attention, the false blood they carried. She felt their cold hand rustle through her curls as it cupped her head. Their cold hand brush against her jaw as they tilted her head back. Their cold breath whisper an apology or a prayer against her skin before sinking too sharp too sharp too sharp teeth into her neck and drinking down her poisoned blood and the pain doubled tripled went up by tens and hundreds as the burning was now battling paralyzing cold which was quickly winning. The cold was even worse than the heat and she could feel her bones crack and shift where the two met. The last thing she could pick out aside from the pain before darkness closed over the freezing and the burning alike was cold arms picking her up and cradling her close to a cold body murmuring repentance and a song.

does anyone want a 1600 ish word ramble about vampires

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[becauseplot]

Penciled Lines

(Cross-posted on ao3, if you prefer to read it there. Reblogs still appreciated!)

Missa wakes up, and he thinks he might be doomed. This doesn’t scare him nearly as much as it should.

Missa is awake early—by his own metric, anyway. His nocturnal nature causes “early” for him to mean “early night” and not “early morning.” Regardless, “early” means that Philza is not asleep yet, still going through his nightly rituals. “Early” means that Philza is sitting up in (his? their?) the bed, pillows propped up behind him, notebook in his lap, sketching away.

And when Missa wakes up to the soft scritch-scratch of a charcoal pencil on textured paper, his forehead just so happens to be brushing Philza’s hip.

Missa can hardly breathe.

Oh no.

He knows that if he gives any indication that he is awake, Philza will stop sketching, close his notebook, shift himself over until he is politely seated on his side of the bed, and greet Missa with a friendly smile. Philza has done it before, when Missa wakes up early. That’s how Missa knows he’ll do it again.

Thus, Missa can hardly breathe—his breaths have to be the slow in-out of sleep. He can’t so much as twitch, either. He has to keep quiet and play dead or else he’ll be found out. Seen. Caught living the lie.

“Husband,” Philza calls him. They’re not married. They share a bed. They’re hardly ever in it at the same time. They have a son and a daughter. Neither of them know Missa very well. Philza has had an extra set of armor and a skull on his backpack for months, waiting for Missa. Missa doesn’t even know Philza’s last name.

Philza is a good man and a good friend—and Missa doesn't deserve him. Still, he takes what he can get. Curls around it. Hoarding every innocent kindness Philza extends like a starving creature: the generosity of a backpack fully stocked with equipment; the trust Philza places in Missa to watch the kids when he’s asleep; and now, the courtesy of not moving his hip from Missa’s forehead to ensure his “sleeping” isn’t disturbed. Missa clutches all of these little offerings in his greedy claws and hugs them into his chest, even as the guilt eats away at him.

Because, regardless of the lack of mutual feeling, he loves Philza. He loves him so, so much, and that is why he is doomed. He can’t afford to lose what little he has. He can’t cross that line. 

So Missa lies beside Philza, forehead pressed against Philza’s hip, pretending to sleep so he can imagine that they’re not just lying in bed together, but lying in bed, together; and later, when Missa truly wakes, he will sit on his side of the bed and look at Philza’s face soft with sleep and think about how lucky he is that he still has a side-of-the-bed to begin with.

Missa doesn’t mean to drift off. When it starts to happen, he’s hopelessly torn between shaking himself awake and thus giving himself away, or remaining how he is, silently fending off the inevitable. In the end, Missa clings to that scritch-scratch sound of Philza’s pencil on the paper for as long as he can before the fog at last pulls him under. 

Eventually, he dreams. In fact, he dreams of the calloused fingers he dreams of every night, hands like his own, an artist of Death, cradling and shading the contours of his face—a softness dashing charcoal across his jaw, and over his cheekbones, and perhaps on his lips, too, if he’s lucky. Defining every edge of him.

~*~

A deep sigh. Phil stops sketching as Missa shifts in his sleep. He tilts his head up so that the tip of his nose is now just nearly brushing against Phil’s hip. The motion disturbs the wild splay of his dark hair, revealing more of his face: eyelashes, cheeks, warmth. Tender blush of something Stygian and otherworldly. New.

Phil’s lips tilt upwards. He turns to a fresh page, and he starts again.

[b4kuch1n]

crumbs in your bed

transcript

[lemongogo]

[mrtreesnek]

When people think about wasps, they tend to think violent and aggressive. That's not entirely their fault, the general media and their friend's accounts usually paint the same picture.

I've come to see them quite differently though.

Like with most insects, they're more scared of humans than we ever could be of them. Humans are such big creatures that could crush them and their hive in an instant. The worst a wasp could do to a human is sting them, or cause an allergic reaction if they're unlucky.

It's important to understand that the wasp is only defending, it can't understand the difference between getting close because of fascination, or because of hunger.

Wasps think differently than humans, they have a more prominent expression of fight or flight, life or death. Because they still have predators, they have to.

This is commonly misinterpreted. It's hard to not think of wasps as constantly hostile when across all planes of communication they're being demonized.

I believe a key to making sense of their actions is understanding their viewpoint.

In the wild, a solitary wasp sits on her carefully constructed nest. She doesn't understand why she's brightly colored, yellows allowing sharp contrast to black, she just knows it works.

The warning colors keep some predators away from her fragile hive where her young will soon grow.

When a perceived predator ignores the warning, when they get too close, she springs into action with her world renowned stinger. She can't afford to lose her hive. Of course she could always make a new one, but that would take precious time and resources, and her larvae need that time.

When she's successfully driven the attacker away, she returns to her hive. She has protected it.

She doesn't understand when the hive begins shaking, why it resents and shames her. They were trying to hurt the hive, why does it now defend their actions?

She won, why does it shake and sob?

Her hive expresses its sadness in how she defends, how it wishes they weren't alone anymore. How could she not have noticed? The defense of her hive was only hurting it more.

The isolation, she realized, forcing people away when they get too close; she was falsely identifying dangers.

Of course, she still needed help identifying who to attack and who not to, she learned to recognize threats from attempts at friendship..

As they focus less on defense, and more on the hives daily life, she realizes there's more than just life and death, predator and prey.

When she steps down and lets her hive express itself—himself—she learns more about him, about friendship and how proud she feels defending others from genuine threats. Together, they both grow and find happiness.

She understands how much easier it is for him to focus on his learning, how much he enjoys it now.

^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°

its too direct, and incorrect to say i am the wasp.

i am like her hive, the wasp is my subconscious,my illness ,my disorder, she wont be going away, so i have to work with her. She wont abandon her hive, but she can defend him properly.

^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°

I'm not diagnosed, and im not going to fight about having this disorder,

but I can say my favorite phrase. "If the coping mechanisms help, then it doesnt matter if you're diagnosed or not" i dont remember where it came from 😭.

^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°

i also have this metaphor i found from Nerium-Lemontree

the leashed dog, angry and misunderstanding.. i think they both make a lot of sense,

^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°

sharing my midnight chant about this too.

through stigmatism and shame, hardship and relapse, i will persevere

i will succeed.

through breakups and fading friends, splitting and coping,

ill be okay, because of my will to stay alive, my will to keep going, to spite everyone around me, because i love to explore, because i love to understand.

(thats why i love star trek so much)

i can walk away, i can hide, but i wont back down,

it is hard to remember when im in the depths of it. but things that stick in my mind i will always remember

things my best friend says to me,

"i do care about you, I don’t hate you, I like talking it out and being able to understand you”

^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°^°

[nerosdayinanime]

"Im worried what people would think of you then, that you're just a personal whore or something- i don't want to ruin your reputation.."

"Are you kidding? 'My dick was so good i got promoted-' Thats the biggest flex i can think of!"

"Well, you're certaintly enthusiastic about this."

[motherforthefamicom]

redownloaded an old art program

[lostxmelody]

ah yes. right on time for pride month - what do you mean it's almost over?

my apologizes for the delay again but as you may find, it is quite long. 40k words long, to be exact. please take your time reading as i will now hibernate for the rest of the year (/j)

happy ch.3 !!!

[evil-mcytblrconfessions]

sobbing rn thinking of the friends ive made through mcyts.....i love you all whether we're talking right now or havent talked in years.....you all have a special place in my heart......we may have met through liking cubitos but we grew well beyond that....sorry im having thoughts

.

[ghostlyschizophrenic]

fingers crossed but it looks like i'm starting to stabilize. i had a relatively normal day yesterday, and while i still had more drastic mood swings than i would have at baseline, i wasn't overly manic and i also didn't feel suicidal when going to bed so i was able to fall asleep pretty quickly and without music at full volume in my headphones. i woke up naturally this morning around 8am instead of 4am or sleeping until someone wakes me up to tell me it's already noon and i feel pretty rested and able to focus. i'm almost caught up on my quantitative reasoning homework assignments and i'll be back up to being ahead of the class content wise.

i see my psychiatrist in a week so i'm going to keep monitoring it and let the new dosage adjust to my system but maybe, just maybe, my bipolar 1 is starting to recede!

[trash-bin-ary]

:( both of my phone chargers hardly work, please charger how do i need to hold you to start the charging up

[hacksawboy]

fun fact, the way leigh whannel describes shit is absolutely insane! i say this because adam is described as a drowned rat from the tub in the official script and i think thats fucking hilarious

[arvoze]

the power i will receive in a matter of days will be astounding. watch out

[thatonealternativecat]

every day i have a daily routine i like to follow for my tumblr and that is to go to my askbox, look at THAT one ask, and continue one with my life knowing that the world is probably going to revolve around skibidi toilet and gay porn in 4 months

deleting later, unless you listen