#long post i think?

[hermits-that-craft]

Never Go Marching Home

A/N As promised, here is a finished WIP thats been sitting in my drafts! This will also be posted on AO3, and a link will be in the reblogs.

Grian’s world ends when he’s three years old.

Maybe the statement isn’t entirely true. The first six months are nothing but pleasant, according to his father. Nothing but smiles and revelry as his baby sister is brought into the world and introduced to the family. 

But then his mother got ill.

Her condition worsened over the year. Truly, his world does not end until a few months after he turns four. His mothers last breath within moment of his sisters first steps, toddling over to a mother who hasn’t had the strength to hold her since she was barely a few months old. 

She dies surrounded by family, a proud smile on her face.

The next few years pass in a blur. Grian and Pearl are watched by a rotating roster of neighbours, friends and family as their father works long hours in dirty businesses. 

First the mines, to pay off their debts to doctors who didn’t bother to treat their mother but were kept around anyways. Then the factory, when the mines were shut to build residentials on. Father would come home covered in soot and with little more than loose change, having been harangued by the funeral home for their mothers casket and grave costs on the way home. The paycheck never went far.

On Pearl’s 5th birthday, she is taken by Mother’s sister to live on the other continent. Grian is also grabbed, his bags packed while he was at school, but he runs back home before they can force him to board the blimp travelling to Canberra-Town.

Grian spends the next five years in a daze. Going from job to job as his father plunges further into debt to One Eye’d Jack, the only mobster rich enough to have more runners than sense, who runs the outer sectors of London-town. He’s barely old enough to attend a high school when his hands become stained red, stabbing someone to death in a rage he didn’t know he had.

The police ignore him, their pockets lined with Jack’s dirty cash. No crimes are committed in the outer slums, not officially anyways. Glorified runners and guns for hire, that's all the cops could be called, and a 13 year old with harrowed eyes and hollow cheeks is nothing to look twice at, even when another child lies dying beneath him. To arrest him is to go against Jack’s orders.

The runners bring Grian in for the kill.

He doesn’t remember much of what they said. Sam was a snotty nosed rich kid who told Grian he was his friend, but only enjoyed watching his pain, especially after Taurtis died of a treatable infection just days before. Honestly, Jack didn’t mind the killing. If Sam had any sense about him, he wouldn’t have taunted Grian with the vaccine for the infection, nor would he have boasted about owning the vaccine for months while Taurtis had withered away.

Grian got off lightly, beaten only to a pulp and not within an inch of his life. He doesn’t know if it’s because his father was favoured by Jack, or if there was some kind of sympathy in the heartless bastard anyways.

It was more likely that he knew Grian would do jobs for him if he was given some sort of favour. Grian didn’t want to think about what sort of jobs he would be given after killing some rich kid in warm blooded rage, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before they started to grab him off the streets to do them.

Three years passed in more of a daze, barely making eye contact with anyone and actively avoiding his father where possible. It’s not as though he doesn’t love the man, but seeing his father come home black and blue after loosing favour with Jack isn’t something he’d find particularly comforting, and Grian knows it wont be long before he looses him too.

It’s in this daze that he meets a few new friends.

Mumbo and Iskall are an odd folk. Between the way Iskall’s prosthetic eye glows even when the sun is brighter than it really ought to be, and the way the Mumbo seems to rust when it rains for more than three days in a row. He’d hesitate to call them the strangest of their bunch, as he’s seen the people they surround themselves with, but their nice enough and keep to their own trouble, and often times get him out of his.

He’s caught them with blood on their hands, hidden between broken street lights and maze like alleyways. Grian watches with curiosity as the duo kill people at random, with no clear rhyme of reason and never get questioned by anyone.

He almost convinces himself that they aren’t even real, but his father pales at the mention of them on one of the rare occasions that they actually speak to each other. That’s all the warning he needs to know these men are bad news, dangerous even. He doesn’t even have to pay attention to his father as hes told that the pair are worse than an oil fire, that they and their group will destroy everything.

Personally, Grian wouldn’t mind to see the old timbers of outer London go up in smoke. Fire and brimstone smell of something more than he could experience here. Of danger and excitement. His mother claimed he had an adventurous soul, and Jack calls him a devil in the making. He doesn’t know if proving Jack right would make his mother proud per se, but he sticks to Mumbo and Iskall like glue afterwards.

And when his father flees the city soon after Grian turns 18, leaving him an apartment on his own? Well, he just invites his new friends to live with him. Mumbo and Iskall come and go as they please, never using the front door if they can avoid it, and Grian’s family falls quickly from his mind as he surrounds himself with new friends and a life of relative ease, stealing from whomever he dared.

And when Iskall and Mumbo bring in the body of someone Grian had briefly met through them, asking him if he can watch the body for a few days while they dealt with the problem - Well, he agrees without too much hesitation.

And after a week of not seeing hide nor hair of Mumbo and Iskall as smoke covers the other side of the city and violence reigns in the hallowed halls of the ministers cabinets, the man awakes.

Grian wasn’t expecting the man who had a gaping hole in his chest to stand up and start walking after little less than a week, and all the bumbling man can do to make Grian stop shrieking is to slap a hand over Grian’s mouth until he looses his voice.

The man wears a gas mask of rusted brass and adorned with golden spikes, his eyes a hauntingly bright purple as he stares at Grian. Iskall and Mumbo enter through a window that Grian could just about reach and-

He does.

He races across the rooftops of the outer city, his mad dash closer to flying than it is to running as the pair who protected him now follow him, glowing purple eyes haunting his every step.

He doesn’t mean to kill Iskall.

He truly doesn’t.

But between the adrenaline wearing off and the slow horror that he fucked up severely, he lets Mumbo lead him back to his apartment, Iskall’s body thrown over the tall mans shoulder as though the corpse weighed nothing.

Grian can almost believe that the man is dead. Permanently. 

But even though the man has a slit throat and a strange, green fluid leaking out of him in place of blood, the man winks at him. No one else on the street seem to notice. People close their curtains, usher kids inside already cramped apartments. Someone gives a frightened shout. Another screams a curse at Mumbo. A prayer is muttered just loud enough for Grian to hear. None of these people know Grian.

All of them hate Mumbo and Iskall.

Grian is pushed into his apartment by Mumbo, and Xisuma sits at the head of his table. Iskall’s body disappears into a different room. Mumbo does not leave it. Xisuma watches him, a mug of something steaming in his hands. He gestures for Grian to sit. Grian complies, knowing when things have to come to an end.

Words are exchanged. A deal is brokered. Xisuma leaves the apartment, an ice cold drink that was never so much as sipped being the only thing that even indicates that the man was ever there. Mumbo presses something cold and metal into his hands, Iskall still slung over his shoulder. The corpse grins wickedly at Grian, and winks before settling down.

Grian hides in his apartment for a few days, getting used to the feeling of a gun in his hands. Somehow, it’s not as heavy as he expected it to be.

He lets himself get taken by One Eye’d Jack’s runners.

Jack talks to him, weaves a tale of unpaid debt and never completing deals. Grian knows who Jack wants him to kill. He knows what he has to do. He can’t leave this world with someone who will look for him still yet left behind, after all. Xisuma is a good man - relatively speaking of course, as good as anyone can be in the slums and outskirts - but he will not have crew who have people who could follow them.

And Grian’s seen what the mechanisation process can do to a man. He wants to fly.

So when the bullet lands square in his fathers chest, he bites back the guilt. HIs fathers forgiveness is nothing on his mothers disappointment, but she's dead, of course. And he has a new life to lead.

The ships doctor has given him a prescription to give to Jack. And when the half ounce of lead was injected directly into Jack’s brain, well. It was only natural that the rest of the bar get caught alight by the mad bastards cigar. It was only natural that the outskirts of the city catch soon afterwards, for damp timber may smolder but gasoline goes up well even while wet.

And if Grian dies in his exit?

Well, its all well and good that there were new wings made just in time for him to resurrect. The mechanisation process is painful, even while unconscious. All the drugs in the universe couldn’t dope you up enough to experience the molten metal seeping into your bones and blood. Best to be dead and hope the process actually works for a change.

After all, no one is missing him back in London-town, all those who remember him there are dead or dying, burnt beyond recognition.

Save for a younger sister, waiting for him on the opposite side of the planet, still feeling mighty betrayed that he did not save her when he fled off that blimp.

[christadeguchi]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[aesethewitch]

When I was a kid, we moved into a house that had a huge lilac tree out front. It was mostly rotten, and it needed to be taken down before it fell. It took a while, but eventually, it was gone.

Mostly. A couple years later, little lilac babies popped out of the ground in its place. My mom was determined to get rid of them, because she'd planted a beautiful flower garden there, and the lilac trees would overshadow and kill the whole garden. I insisted on saving at least a few saplings. She said fine, but I had to dig them out and put them in pots myself.

So, I did. I spent days digging little lilac bushes out of the ground and putting them into pots. Some couldn't be saved, but some could. When all was said and done, I had five brand-new lilac saplings. Seven or eight years old, and it was my absolute pride and joy.

Three died due to sun scorching, severe drought that no amount of watering could save, and perhaps just being moved from their place in the ground. But two survived, and I was awfully proud of them! I'd go out and talk to them every single day. I watered them by hand and made sure they were fertilized properly. I learned all about their favored environments, and I was determined to make sure they lived.

One of my mom's friends saw what I was doing with the lilacs. She asked if she could have one to put in her backyard, and I agreed on the condition that she take very, very good care of it.

It's now fucking enormous. I'm talking ten feet tall and bursting with beautiful purple flowers every spring. My mom still gets updates each year as they start to bloom, which she forwards to me. And all I can think is, "That's my friend! Thriving some twenty years on, there it is."

The other tree nearly died, too. It lived in a pot for far, far too long. I wanted to plant it somewhere in my parents' yard, but my mom was reluctant. Eventually, we agreed to put it in the far back garden. It grew okay for many years, despite the shade, but in all these years, it's never bloomed.

Last year, the massive tree casting massive shadows over the lilac and the garden cracked in half and fell. It tumbled into the garden, crushing part of the nearby shed and destroying a few plants beneath it.

It missed my lilac by inches.

The clean-up is long done. The rest of the tree has been cut down, and my lilac has full sunlight for the first time in fifteen years. It won't bloom this year, I know. But it's got new shoots up. It's taller than ever. I spent half an hour a few weeks ago praising it for surviving all this time, dreaming about its future and telling it how I believe it'll become the tall beauty it's always been meant to be.

I think next year, I'll see flowers.

[zanmor]

We are well beyond canary in the coalmine warning levels with the way trans people and particularly trans women are treated on this site.

Maybe you've heard the metaphor of allowing wolves and sheep to share the same space, welcoming everyone. You end up with just wolves because allowing them in that space makes it unsafe for any sheep. Or the story about how a nazi goes into a dive bar and is refused service. The bartender then explains to someone else at the bar that if you serve them once they tell their friends and before you know it you're the nazi bar they all go to and normal customers don't feel safe.

Terfs and other bigots are seeing these targeted harassment campaigns succeed against trans women and rejoicing. They see Tumblr ban them and officially stand by those decisions as endorsement for their harassment. It's a sign to bigots across the internet that Tumblr is a good place for them.

And what's more is that a lot of us probably don't realize just how much trans women contribute to Tumblr. The women banned recently were sources of site-wide memes and posts I wasn't even aware originated from them.any years old memes and references can be traced back to trans women on this site.

How many of these folks have to be removed before this is no longer a site you want to be a part of it? Sure you cultivate your own experience, but you can't follow or interact with people who aren't here. And if I wanted to interact with the nazis and terfs I'd go to reddit.

I encourage everyone to reblog this. Trans women shouldn't have to be the only ones speaking out against the bigotry they're experiencing. They shouldn't be the only ones risking their blogs being nuked by staff. We have to stand with them.

[lokh]

communication is key 💪

[eggwishing]

I ONCE TRIED TO WASH THAT SCUFFED OLD THING WHILE HE WAS TAKING ONE OF HIS NAPS, BUT WHEN I TOOK IT OFF HE WAS WEARING ANOTHER IDENTICAL ONE UNDERNEATH! AND ANOTHER! I GOT THROUGH TEN MORE LAYERS OF THE SAME THING BEFORE HE WOKE UP. I WAS SO FRUSTRATED! WHERE DID HE EVEN GET THOSE FROM? THEY ALL EVEN HAD THE SAME STAINS!!

[rachelfc-art]

By Your Side

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[spearxwind]

I think it's sad that most people always think of bottlenoses as the "classic dolphin" since its the one that's always used for shows, and always think of dolphins as just straight grey when in reality there's so many varieties with so many different amazing patterns

Look at the common dolphin! They have a gorgeous X pattern and even some dull yellow/gold!!

Hourglass dolphins have gorgeous white streaks

Spinner dolphins have really pretty banding as well, AND they have a really sleek cute silhouette!

The atlantic spotted dolphin!!! Theyre spotted!!!!!!

and the pantropical spotted too!!

Dusky dolphins have a gorgeous airbrush look going on like straight out of a 2000s fantasy illustration

Striped dolphins sure have stripes!! How cool!!

And these I've shown you aren't even all of them at all, there are so many of them:

There's so so so many different types of dolphins people dont know about this isnt even all of them and some are SO gorgeous and underrated because people just dont know they exist so I'm here to fix that

[thelostmoongazer]

Undivided attention

[tooquirkytolose]

~The Most Beautiful Woman in The World~

Download on itch.io for extra content!

[christadeguchi]

gritty both capturing the zeitgeist as usual AND educating me on the availability of free flow butter at american cinemas

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[factual-fantasy]

Ever since I posted my FNAF 10th Anniversary drawing, I've been thinking about drawing the OG gang in some incorrect quote prompts. Just for the fun of it! :0 I was bored and in some pain tonight so I thought hey, why not give it a go now? <XD

For context, this quote comes from a Sky: Children of the light play session with two friends of mine. Freddy and Foxy's lines are quotes from me. My phone isn't super great at picking up my speech-to-text.. 😅

[d-does-art]

Welcome to Punk Hazard!

Ace Lives Au part 1