#regrettably

[traggalicious]

@zen-llama

over and over again

[astronomodome]

a mother ethoslab nursing its litter + the runt (will not survive the winter)

[cawsmik]

this is what happened right

[corvidcentral]

I say a lot of things are the worst thing I’ve ever made, but I think this takes the cake actually

[4-man]

[greatunironic]

it’s 2024, and on christmas day dustin’s eldest daughter hands him a stack of records. they’re used; he’d only asked for a new record player that year but dee wanted to do something more special than that.

“can you guess who they’re from?” she asks. dustin unties to bow, flips through the first couple records: waylon jennings, black sabbath, loretta lynn, springsteen, metallica. it’s a weird mix.

he shakes his head.

“they’re eddie’s,” says dee.

dustin feels his face go hot, his eyes prickle. he presses the records to his chest. el asks, “how did you get those?”

“uncle wayne,” says dee. “he’d saved all of them after the earthquake. he said he’s got a lot, wants to give them to you each christmas, if you’d like.”

“i would,” says dustin, hoarse. the records smell like paper and plastic, like a thrift store. he imagines he can smell a little smoke, a little weed.

later, he takes them and the record player to his office. he puts on a townes van zandt record and just stands there, listening. “close your eyes, i’ll be there in the morning,” he sings. dustin closes his eyes, wishes. it hurts less, after all these years, but it still hurts.

el comes in after a while, wraps her arms around his waist. “dee is worried you did not like her gift.”

“i loved it,” he says. “i love it. i just —“

“yes,” says el. they’re both quiet for a while. dustin had never been good at sitting in silence, until el, and she got better at liking noise. “i spoke to max; she says we should go visit him tomorrow. make a day of it, she says.”

“yeah,” he says. “that’d be nice, babe.”

el kisses him on the temple. “don’t stay up too late.”

“i won’t,” he tells her. “i’ll come to bed soon, just — a little longer. i might call steve, he’ll still be awake, i think.”

“yes,” she says again. its a good bet: west coast time zone, and severe insomnia, steve’s always good for a late night call. “i love you,” she says.

“love you,” says dustin, and goes and sits at his desk, presses his fingers along the line of his bat tattoo. he calls steve, thanks him for the kids’ present, his own. he asks about the guy steve’s been seeing, finds out they broke up a month ago after four years because the guy finally admitted he didn’t want kids. a deal breaker, for steve; dustin hates that he keeps ending up with these assholes.

eventually, he tells him about the springsteen record in eddie’s collection, makes fun of it, because he’d once had to sit through a rant about springsteen’s performative working class liberalism that he didn’t get then, and doesn’t get now either, to be honest. steve’s very quiet for a while. he says, “i think, uh. you sure that’s not wayne’s?”

“wayne gave it to me,” he says. “said it was his.”

steve makes a noncommittal noise. “well.”

“yeah,” he says.

“which one is it?”

dustin looks. “nebraska? that’s the sad one, right?”

“yeah,” says steve now. “i mean, it’s springsteen they’re all sad if you listen hard enough. or about unions. anyway. hey, bud, shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“i’m fifty two steve,” he said flatly.

he snorts, and a little of the weird tone in his voice slips away. “yeah, well, it’s still late there. go get in bed with your wife.”

“i love you,” he says, when they hang up. steve says it back, a little quieter, but he says it.

dustin changes the record. nebraska, now. he listens to bruce for a while, touches his tattoo again. then, he takes the needle off the record and goes to bed.

[sistersavelorn]

a land on the

[tenowls]

but my soul knows otherwise

[poseidonsseaglass]

don't feed me after midnight or you get shit like this

i'm so done with myself ☠️☠️

[snow-lavender]

"i'll get the data summary out before the new year :)" she said. like a FOOL

anyway there's still a week left to fill out the fable fandom survey, if you want to extend my time in data hell /lh

[clever-name-change]

remembering that time someone told me that my aesthetic was “repressed gay man from the 70s” and felt the need to clarify “like the type that is fully married to a woman and has a kid but dreams about kissing men”

soo…am I Marvin Falsettos, or what?!

[specsthesecond]

Not the original small monster lover BUT if I may weigh in:

Tiny monster, who can hide in your pockets and you can take everywhere

I'm personally a bug fan so if they're bug like it's a plus, but the feeling of them crawling on your skin, a bit ticklish but still so soft

Being able to hold them in my hands. Then hugging your hand or a finger with their body, like how ppl hug trees.

Have them comfortably rest on your body, you're so warm and soft and they r so tiny and need a nap

They can also hide in your hair (optionally)

These are mainly cute things, a lot of more sexual things tend to go (for me at least) into vore- ish direction with small/tiny monster partners and that's not everyone's cup of tea.

I see I see 🧐

I've read some size difference stuff with little fairy guys before and thats super cute.

I feel like if the monster was bug looking I would squish it by mistake purely on instinct 🫢🫢

But if it was a pretty bug like a butterfly or beetle looking thing ig that's different.

I would put them in the jar 🫶

[aseriesofunfortunatetexts]

asoue + reductress

[autismguy55]

My J-word playlist is now public on Spotify. I’ve been curating this playlist for a over a year and it is organized based on a vague timeline + how the songs themselves sound. This playlist is like my baby… it would mean the world if you listened and gave feedback 🌹

[foxglovefaun]

havent had an illustration idea in months, but then an all-nighter happened to me and i found one :) and looks like i found one of those concepts that's gonna take a couple days to finish. c ya when we climb out of trash mountain

[prettyflyshyguy]