#i used to devour these books as a kid

[zippocreed501]

Art by Jeff Cummins

[cookinguptales]

just watched the dirty laundry ep where one of them talks about how he wrote a short story that worried his teacher and like

ohhh I had one of those when I was a kid. my parents still talk about it to this day.

when I was about 8yo, my teacher put a poster up on the blackboard and said, "I want you all to write me a story inspired by this scene." the scene was of a lush jungle that had animals hidden throughout.

"oh, okay," I said to myself. "I can do this."

see, what my teacher (and parents) didn't know was that my grandmother, knowing vaguely that I liked to read but knowing pretty much nothing else about children, had given me a stack of books that she got at a yard sale. these books were very nice quality and I was happy to get them. too bad that they were all alfred hitchcock presents!

for the uninitiated, AHP was a tv series and book series that collected short, scary stories. stories about murder, stories about ghosts, stories about monsters of all kind. you get stories like du maurier's the birds and blackwood's the wendigo and that fucked-up short story that roald dahl wrote about that guy who collected fingers or whatever.

all that is to say that I had been consuming wildly age-inappropriate atmospheric horror for months at this point and I was like, "yes, I know just what to write!"

I ended up turning in this story about an explorer who was lost in the jungle and he starts hearing this faraway howling sound, which he realizes is a howler monkey. and he keeps getting more and more lost and the howling keeps getting closer and closer and finally, as he is about ready to collapse with exhaustion, he hears the sound of howls all around him and the story ends with the implication that he got mauled to death by howler monkeys.

(I also, coincidentally enough, really enjoyed zoo books!)

lmao ~guess whose parents got a phone call~?

but it kind of backfired on my teacher, because my parents were fully delighted. they were like "WE DIDN'T KNOW SHE COULD WRITE LIKE THIS" and I did not get punished at all.

anyway, my parents still talk about "the howler" to this day when they want to embarrass me at dinner parties. :')

[hussyknee]

I think sometimes you just have to make peace with the fact that your actual hobby is collecting books. And that that's okay.

[sharkneto]

Hold on, wait a second - if I can read three more books this year I'll have read 50 books

[jorvikzelda]

I started reading Lord of the Rings (bought Fellowship of the Ring like… last spring but never got around to starting) and I’d just like to say. Holy fuck what a slow book. You mean to tell me I’m over a hundred pages in and this man is only just leaving the Shire? Sign me up for MORE I love this shit. Tolkien said “I will take exactly as much time as I want to describe things and you will like it”. AND I DO

[leondxs]

I’m ready to cry. Yesterday, I actually started and finished a book my friend wrote. I haven’t finished reading a book in literal years. I have such a hard time sitting still and focusing long enough to read much. This is such an improvement for me. 😭 I’ve already started another book too and have been able to read much farther than I have before.

[lupismaris]

my copy of Upstream arrived at 12:13pm this afternoon and I am already on page 130 of 175 (a few Post-It markers added on first pass through) I'm coming apart at the fuckin seams

[cerisely]

is there a maximum ride fandom on here

[kirbyddd]

[cranberrylane]

i miss reading for the sake of reading. these days i go for certain books just to live vicariously through the character(s) i relate to the most

[carebeardean]

Charles saying “you’re the smart one” and Edwin saying “he’s right I don’t always know what I’m doing” in the devlin house is so telling because like. Charles learned how to navigate a pocket universe! Charles comes up with using the lighthouse jar to trap the dandelion spirits! when they find the ghost devouring fungus, Charles is the one to identify it as the mushroom god!

Charles is smart! he just has a shitty dad in his head telling him otherwise!

Edwin memorizes information-the path out of hell, their books on supernatural creatures-as a coping mechanism. Books were probably a great comfort to him as a kid. Studying was the one thing he could control.

Schools tend to reward kids who memorize information, which is probably difficult when you’re dealing with, I don’t know, an abusive dad, and a whopping case of PTSD and the accompanying memory loss, AND likely some racist teachers who assumed he’s stupid or lazy and don’t care why he was having trouble reading (adhd) or why the kid in the back of class is falling asleep (dad screaming all night). I’m super normal and not protective of him btw. (lying)

[dragonsbluee]

I need everyone to acknowledge the fact that KRS!Cale is a MASSIVE bookworm. He's able to thrive in Birth of a hero because he read it and enjoyed it. (yesyes record helps him, but you can't ignore the fact that he knows the characters, not just the plot. That comes from liking the thing you're reading!)

Give me the young master spending his afternoons reading under the shade of a tree with a new book series and absolutely devouring it in one sitting. He's missed being able to read a whole series and not having to hunt for the next books through a destroyed city.

Give me Cale with a little notebook full of books he'd like to read, the titles collected from the people he talks to. He'll read anything or at least try it out, but fantasy remains his favourite genre.

He also writes little opinion blurbs for his favourtie books, or jots down quotes and favourite lines. Sure his record ability means that he doesn't really have to, but it's an old habit he enjoys.

Cale, who starts collecting books on his travels, just one or two from every place he visits. His friends and allies pick up on this and start bringing him books they think he'd like. Cale has a very speicifc and rare smile when someone gifts him a book. Its small, but it somehow takes over his entire face, and you can almost see his eyes sparkle in delight. It quickly becomes a smile everyone looks forward to.

Cale, who never turns down a book given as a gift, and so he starts picking up bits of knowledge from across the continent. He learns about the edible plants in the Jungle, the different variations of marble and stone throughout the Roan Kingdom, the fables and myths of the Dark Elves. He keeps them on a shelf in his room in the super rock villa, and every once in a while, the kids pick one to have read to them. When the shelf is full, Eruhaben pulls some out from his hoard as a gift to Cale. They're almost too gaudy, but Eruhaben enchants them to protect the books from dust, damage, and pests. Cale spends an entire day reorganizing his collection.

He never thought he would be able to build his own personal library, but here he is.

Cale loves to compare the books he has in this world and the ones he knew before. Sometime in the future, he sits down and uses record to copy out his favourite series. He gifts it to Choi Han so he can have a small piece of home he never got to experience.

It becomes known that the best way to get Cale to stop and actually take a break is to plop a kid on his lap and give him a book he's been looking forward to. One year for his birthday, Alberu gives Cale free rein to explore the palace's secret library. They find him curled up in a corner a couple hours later surrounded by stacks of books.

Cale is 100% the type of person to insist that more libraries should be available to the public so that he can read easily when travelling to different places. It's definetly not because he wants more kids to be able to learn how to read, and he was able to grow into loving books because of his local library.

[kitasgloves]

Zero idea if its been asked already but can you do a Dazai x innocent golden retriever gf, i just know that man has the biggest corruption kink

alright folks we're back at it again!

— ♬ NSFW

As I have stated previously in a drabble, I'd like to think DAZAI OSAMU can get sweetly sadistic with an innocent/golden retriever type of gf. He views your purity and naivety as a sweet little treat for him to feast on and devour. You have the most sparkling personality that rivals the sun. And Dazai is greedy, he likes to keep sucking in your warm innocence until you run dry.

He adores your enthusiasm and free thinking. You're like a breath of fresh air with the way you smile and cling to him. Dazai's ego inflates when you praise him for how clever and knowledgeable he is about various things. Sometimes, he'd treat you like a little kid and talk to you like you're a toddler, cooing about how you're too naive for the world.

This bitch would tease the fuck out of you. He likes to make you pout and hear you whine. He'd make fun of every little thing about you. Your massive height difference, the way you snort when you laugh, and every silly habit you have, he'd pick on it all. Dazai can get obsessive with tracking all your likes and dislikes. He probably keeps a little notebook with lists like your favorite flavors, most hated dating spots, the books you found interesting, the brands of your underwear, etc. This mf keeps track of everything and keeps receipts so it's impossible to keep a secret from him.

Speaking of secrets, Dazai knows every told and untold secret about you. He loves to get into your personal space. He wants to know what makes you laugh until you cry, what makes you blow a fuse, what makes you blush like a strawberry, and especially what makes you cry in pleasure. The brunette would gaslight himself into thinking he's not that cruel. No, he's a sweet and loving boyfriend who adores his bright girlfriend! Yep, he just wants to corrupt your innocence, it's not that cruel, right?

"Hghh—Oh—Osamu—"

"Stay still for me"

He whispers against your ear. Dazai leans back to admire your naked and sweaty figure on the bed, your hands gripping the sheets, your legs spread apart, and his limber fingers fucking deep into you. He chuckles as he watches you turn away with a flushed face as he fingerfucks your wet cunt. The squelching sound of his fingers curling in and out of your pussy filled the room. The way you were so reactive with every movement of his fingers made his pants tight.

"Look at you, sucking in my fingers like a greedy little whore"

"...I'm not—ah!"

You go crossed-eyed when he brushes against that special spot inside of you again. Dazai pulls his fingers out to hear you whimper. He's been at it for an hour now, fingerfucking you only to pull away when he can feel you coming close. Tears have been already rolling down your cheeks with how much you plead for him to make you cum already. Dazai smiles darkly as he goes to caress your breasts before delivering a sharp slap on your cunt.

You flinch and shuddered in pleasure when that delicious stinging sensation stimulates your clit. He slaps your pussy a couple of times until it turns puffy.

"Osamu, please!"

"Please what? Come on, use your words, honey"

"Please make me cum already!"

"Hmm, I don't know. Do you deserve it?"

A cruel smile spreads on your boyfriend's lips as more tears begin escaping your glassy eyes. You looked so precious and pathetic begging for him to make you cum that he almost loses his restraint. His hand goes to grab your jaw before sneering down at you.

"Does a slut like you deserve to cum?"

You sobbed and nodded frantically. He clicks his tongue.

"Answer me properly"

"Yes! Please, I'll be good!"

Fortunately, Dazai grants you mercy as he slips his fingers back inside of you again. You throw your head back and moan when he starts to rapidly finger you. Your vision goes blurry as you struggled to catch your breath with how deep and fast his skilled fingers was fucking you. The brunette watched you with unblinking eyes as he felt your juices trailing from his fingers down to his wrists. The way you clenched around his fingers as your moans went up into an octave signaled an overwhelming orgasm from you.

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Osamu—"

Dazai watched breathlessly as your release crashed down on you with you gushing around his fingers. He holds his breath as you squirt immensely during your orgasm. He tries to bring out more by rubbing your clit which makes you overstimulated as your eyes rolled back. The moment you regain your vision and catch your breath, you realize that you have stained the sheets and your boyfriend is staring at you hungrily.

The next thing you knew, Dazai was hastily slipping off his pants and aligning his cock with your wet entrance. You try to push him back, telling him you're too tired for another round but he dismisses you by shoving his cock inside your cunt. Dazai's eyes almost rolled back with how tight and wet you felt. Immediately, he grabs your hips and sets a brutal pace.

"Hah—sl-slow down! Shit, I can't—"

"Shut the fuck up and take my cock like the pathetic slut you are"

He grins devilishly when you are unable to reply with how your jaw is slack and how drool is seeping down your lips. Dazai keeps aiming his cock deep until it bruises your cervix, every thrust violently rips out the oxygen from your lungs. You looked perfectly fucked out. His sweet innocent girlfriend is fucked dumb by his cock. Your hair was tangled, your cheeks were flushed, and your eyes were glassy.

Your boyfriend keeps pounding into you, mindlessly reveling in his pleasure as he used you like a fucking sex toy. Eventually, you begin to clench around him again but he decides to slow down his pace. You stare at him wide-eyed before your lip begins to wobble.

"Aww, were you going to cum again?"

Dazai teases. You hiccuped as you started to sob.

"You have to make me cum first, slut"

The brunette switches the position with him lying down and you on top of him. He was ordering you to bounce on his dick and make him cum. Eager to please him and reach your release, your steadied your thighs and began bouncing on his cock.

"Hah! Fuck, you look like you're made to bounce on my cock"

He muses. Dazai watched as your ass slapped against his thighs. The tip of his dick kept kissing the deepest part within you. He watched with wicked amusement as your thighs began to shake with every bounce as your hands desperately clawed on his stomach. You began to grow tired as you abruptly stopped making him click his tongue.

"What a pathetic cockslut. Do I have to do everything myself, hm?"

"Please, Osamu, I can't—"

Suddenly, Dazai thrusts his hips upwards making you squeal and throw your head back. His hands fiercely grab your wrists as he continues to thrust upward into you. He laughs at how absolutely cockdrunk you were letting him use you. Sooner, Dazai's thrusts began to go sloppy as he gritted his teeth.

"Shit, gonna cum! You better take all of it like the cumslut you are"

With every moment the tip of Dazai's cock abuses your cervix, it brings you close to your peak. His grip on your wrists tightened and with a couple of hard thrusts, his seed spills inside of you. Your orgasm followed next as your eyes rolled back and your thighs quivered. You collapsed on top of Dazai as you tried to catch your breath. The exhaustion consumes you though as you fluttered your eyes shut.

"Looks like my cute little slut got tired"

Dazai brushes your hair back and pulls his cock out, he could see his excess cum dribbling out of your cunt as his eyes glimmered in delight. All he could think about as he watched you sleep was more ways to make you cry and beg for him to make you cum again.

[yupekosi]

dp x dc prompt again bc i am plagued with blorbo thoughts. should i make this a series?? anyway

so we all know that Jason 'Pride and Prejudice' Todd-Wayne is a nerd, right? no amount of muscle can hide that this fridge of a man was once the dorky little kid that was so excited to go to school he skipped out on Robin patrols to do homework.

I propose that Danny 'I Wanna Be an Astronaut' Fenton Phantom is also a fucking nerd. he gets good grades, when he's not having to juggle school, sleep, and secret ghost fighting, and he takes to engineering like a ghost to ectoplasm. he's also the exact kind of space-obsessed geeky kid that would absolutely devour every sci-fi show and book he could get, and I say that as someone who was that space-obsessed geeky kid.

so, as young teens, both boys spent a lot of time in online fandom spaces, and eventually become internet friends. Jason's into classic lit and Lord of the Rings while Danny's into comic books and Star Trek, but they get on surprisingly well. They're chatting on forums and beta-ing each other's fanfiction, that sort of thing... and then Jason vanishes.

he just stops responding to messages, he stops posting, all his accounts are abandoned. Danny is very concerned, of course, but this happens right around the time of his accident, so he has more city-destroying things to worry about than an online friend going MIA. and eventually, as he gets older, he sort of forgets about Jason, only occasionally thinking back to the kid he used to talk to, wondering whatever happened to him.

so time passes, and Danny, now a young adult, ends up meeting the Batfam for whatever reason. is he part of the Justice League? in Gotham for a Wayne Enterprises internship? superhero shenanigans? Ghost King Summoning? secret twin/son/clone bullshit? up to you!

any way, he's hitting it off with the Batkids, and at some point Jason subconsciously quotes something from one of his old, unpublished fanfics from his Tumblr days.

and Danny's jaw drops. the Batkids stare at him; you can see the gears turning in his head before he blurts out;

"You're WingingIt02???"

and something deep in Jason's brain, buried under layers of death-trauma and Pit Rage clicks.

"Holy shit, AstroloGhost??"

[once again, not planning to make this a fic, but feel free to run wild with the prompt! just give credit if you do, please! :3]

[thesiltverses]

The horror of Eric Carle

Becoming a dad has really been a reminder of all the half-forgotten books that got me interested in horror: the ones that I will definitely share with my kid (The Minpins) and the ones that I probably won't (Not Now, Bernard)

And then there's Eric Carle, and now it's all coming flooding back - the very first time in my life that I experienced terror. Seriously, what the fuck is this?

Carle's most famous book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is in its own way uneasy and strange (the caterpillar's voracious and growing hunger is presented ambiguously both as an unavoidable and natural process of change and something greedy and grotesque; the caterpillar appears to devour its own place-of-birth and then feels good about it) but it flies under the radar by being very unCarle-like. The caterpillar is largely tiny and cute, we get plenty of colourful close-ups of tasty-looking food, and there are only two pages and a cover which feature Carle's favourite preoccupation: giant animals with irregular, scissor-cut eyes staring unhappily at the reader as they threaten to grow larger than the page itself.

I genuinely remember feeling deeply unnerved by Carle's first major piece of illustration work, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, written with Bill Martin Jr., but only now do I understand why. Holy shit, I have so many questions.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I see a red bird looking at me.

Why is the rhyme-scheme so frantic and breathless, like it's being chanted out during an escalating ritual somewhere deep in the forests? Why are the animals - textured via collage as if half-carved from wood themselves - staring directly at us, the audience, before then revealing that they're actually looking behind us at something else which is staring back at them in turn? Why do so many of the animals look so fearful and haunted as they acknowledge the vast web of visibility which exists between them?

Why does the 'white dog' page - perhaps the only-genuinely-friendly-looking animal - briefly plunge us into night-time, creating the impression that these creatures are somehow watching each other across spans of time and space, when Carle is fully capable of just drawing an outline around the dog?

Why is the teacher's neck extending like a xenomorph's tongue as she glares with narrowed eyes down at the children (what horrible act have they caught her doing?) Why is the cover of follow-up Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear clearly depicting a Tuunbaq stalking the reader?

What seems remarkable and bizarre is that Carle, a talented artist, deliberately chooses to draw animals for infant readers which are neither cute nor charming but which consistently embody the internet joke about hares - feral wilderness prophets who've glimpsed the truth of the universe and gone mad - and has made a stunningly successful career out of doing so.

Carle's beasts know something terrible that they do not fully understand, and which they are incapable of sharing with us.

I'll avoid the crass temptation to draw serious biographical inferences here (Carle believed he had PTSD from an adolescence spent in Nazi Germany, and his works were inspired by his childhood walks with his father, who returned home psychologically shattered by his own experiences as a Soviet prisoner-of-war) and just say that there is something wonderful, awful and innocent in the fact that perhaps the most popular baby-book artist of all time, when asked to draw a goldfish, would respond with what is clearly a monstrous open-mouthed leviathan rising up from black depths to devour us all.

Look at this horrible fucking thing. It rocks.

[ryker-writes]

Hiiiii thanks for making my day your the best, I give you so many hug (or high fives if you don't want hugs!) If I may ask can you write a broken relationships with malleus pretty please with a cheery on top? ( Also can I be lizard anon please! 🦎)

I would gladly accept any and all hugs! And I will devour that cherry while I write this-

Malleus I feel would be one of the ones that actually would be a good sibling so it's difficult to think about how a broken sibling relationship with him would be lol

Note: I haven't read any of Chapter 7 yet

Request Rules and Masterlists

Broken Sibling relationships

Malleus as a sibling (Broken relationship)

To say that you and Malleus were different would've been an understatement.

Even as kids, you two were very different. He was always treated as the best and the golden child, seen with much love, and he was naturally talented at just about anything. He had no problems with magic, no threats, and no flaws. He was the perfect heir for the throne of Briar Valley

And you? You were his younger sibling.

Compared to Malleus, you were never anyone's priority

Of course, you had servants and knights helping you just like him, but anything Malleus needed always took priority

Your help could be taken away at any moment for the sake of Malleus getting help

In the beginning, it didn't bother you as much because you and Malleus were together a lot of the time! He would spend a lot of time with you, and the two of you had so much fun together

You two would spend hours together in the library, and Malleus would read to you books on magic and history, but he got really passionate when he read about gargoyles. The two of you even ran around the castle once, trying to identify each gargoyle, both of your laughter echoing through the halls for guards and servants to hear

But as the years went by, things changed. Malleus had to become more of the heir he's meant to be. He spent most of his time alone or surrounded by guards

You started to get used to being in Malleus' shadow and not taking priority. Your brother had helped you feel less alone and more equal in the past, but he was too busy for you now

everything only got worse once you two had gone to Night Raven College

Malleus was praised from the moment he got there of course. He was recognized as one of the greatest and best of everyone there. He even had knights in training with him here, and a personal greeting from the headmage. You however...

"Who are you?"

You weren't even recognized or known. Not to the headmage, not to anyone. Why would you be? You aren't the heir of Briar Valley. You aren't the great wizard that Malleus is. And you aren't nearly as important.

Even after explaining who you were, people would just go "Oh." and ask about Malleus

To them, you might as well not even have a name. You were barely noticed. Barely recognized. And even when you were, you were simply known as Malleus' sibling. Nothing more.

And to top it all off: You weren't even invited to things

If people couldn't remember to invite Malleus, there's no way they remembered you. They probably didn't even know you existed. You're just in the background

You saw all the games he played in, all the praise he got, heck one of his knights practically worshiped the ground he walked on, but not when it came to you

People avoided him, they didn't notice or ignored you

Eventually, your birthday came around, and of course, no one noticed. Malleus didn't even see you at all, and didn't say anything

Your own brother didn't remember your birthday...

Are you cursed or something? Cursed to never be seen? Cursed to forever live a life that no one will notice? It's so cruel...

It's not like you wanted anything grand. You didn't need some big fancy party for your birthday

You just wanted to be acknowledged. For one day.

But compared to Malleus, you might as well be insignificant. He shone too brightly for anyone to even see you, hidden in his shadow

Even on a day that should be dedicated to you, he was the one being praised and followed around. He was the one everyone adored. Malleus, the prince of Briar Valley...

You were insignificant, unimportant, ignored

At this point, you can't even help but wonder if even Malleus himself forgot about you completely

you had assumed that was the case

that is, until you opened the your door the next morning. Sitting outside was a neatly wrapped gift box, and inside, a small gargoyle statue