#small things to a giant

[panthermouthh]

“You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin… the minutest description of my odious and loathesome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read.”

[illmoraineakoi]

Just noticed something I thought was very interesting:

Victim depicts the Cursor as being giant in comparison to himself

When in reality this just wasn't true.

Victim's fear and trauma has caused him to re-imagine the Cursor into a much bigger monster than it ever was, something huge and horrible and capable of crushing him like a bug. A scale and strength fitting of how terrifying Victim considers it to be.

As opposed to the little thing barely bigger than his own head.

Except, those drawings look a little familiar...

This is literally Victim's worst nightmares made real.

Something tells me things aren't going to go very well, if the Cursor does end up being summoned into Rocket Corp...

[tj-crochets]

The giant ant is complete, and it turned out so much better than I’d even imagined! It’s also surprisingly easy to comfortably carry around, which I did not expect

[ipilokko]

YEAH okay reblogging these panels because i spent all my time on these and i love them 🤭

Now I’ll go back to my cave 🤭

That is from this page!

[treviso-nights]

it's so hard to take criticisms of veilguard at face value in regard to 'straying from the concept art'. like. i work in the marketing department for a state university. i report to our director of marketing and team up with our artists and project manager everyday. our brainstorming sessions are ridiculous. they're incredibly chaotic. i throw out ideas left and right and most of them are stupid. our project manager gets overexcited and chimes in. then our social media manager responds at the actual speed of light. our artist fights the bodily urge to flee from the fucking room. none of it makes sense. we have another brainstorming session, and another after that. we start to organize the ideas three weeks later. our director daydreams about chugging vodka during every meeting. eventually our ideas make it onto our project management software and things start to come together. at some point in the *spongebob voice* distant future, we begin to formulate the actual product. i work in marketing and i literally do not know how we manage to push out consistent, high-quality products, but we do. but for those who are still confused about why ideas from the concept art were abandoned, it's because 80% of them are not actually appropriate for what the product will turn out to be. art is messy. and glorious. and it takes a team to push out something amazing, and i think that's what we got with veilguard

[charbon69]

Hold Larvesta.

[greenerteacups]

What do you think of jkr as a writer? I for one has always felt like she didn’t treat her female characters well. It felt strange, being critical of her when she was god queen of the earth, and also being 10

I think most of the problems in her books can be chalked up to genre hopping. Books 1-3 are perfectly good and serviceable children's books — great children's books, even! They have compelling, relatable characters and juicy mystery plots. They have problems, sure, but for the first three books someone's ever written — especially someone with little or no background in creative writing — they're really fucking good. So: there's her flowers.

The last four books pivot sharply into much more emotionally complicated and sociopolitically loaded territory, because they're describing a war. And it's hard to write children's books about war. I would venture you can't really do it, at least without dramatically misrepresenting what war is! And so Rowling makes the executive decision somewhere during the writing of Book 4 that she's not going to flinch away from that, she's going to go for dramatic realism, and she kills Cedric Diggory to let us know. People had died in Harry Potter before, of course — Quirrell gets sent to the fucking shadow realm, for example. But children haven't. (It also gives parents who are reading these books with their children a warning shot: shit is about to get significantly more real, think twice before you buy the next one of these for your 10-year-old.) After that, Rowling starts leaning much more into dramatic realism, and the fast-paced mystery-novel plotting of the first few books is replaced by a slow, simmering political conflict that unfurls over the course of about a million words.

The problem — besides the fact that she's picking one of the hardest things to write about, like, in all of literature, war is really insanely complicated and emotionally intense and hard to portray well — is that she's now trying to use characters, plot points, and technologies she developed for a children's series to enact a sprawling war drama among teenagers and adults. So Hermione, who was a reasonably precocious snobby eleven-year-old, becomes this sort of encyclopedic all-knowing savant of the wizarding world, who somehow remains functional and mostly even-headed despite her identity being the chief target of a prolifically murderous terrorist group. Draco Malfoy, a schoolyard bully whose primary tools included 1. namecalling and 2. telling teacher, JOINS said terrorist group (and admittedly does react reasonably, i.e., has a total crashout and takes to sobbing in a girls' bathroom whenever he gets a free minute). Dumbledore, who starts out as "whimsical friendly winky-wink trustworthy grandfather type", ends up being Magical Winston Churchill in a violent game of spycraft and espionage, eventually revealing he's only been keeping Harry at all these seven years because he wants to KILL him! And like, maybe really good technical writing could smooth out these transitions and make the first-order dramatic choices seem more natural, but Rowling is like, a Fine Writer, technically speaking. meaning she's reasonably consistent in characterization, her plotting is well-paced and believable, she has a clear authorial voice, and her prose is readable. personally, that's not enough to get me to buy into some of the changes that happen in the later books, and because she stuffs these things so full with new elements every installment, a lot of stuff ends up getting glossed over.

And like, I still love the books. I think they're wonderful, and they taught me how to read. but i can say that and also say that Rowling probably did herself a disservice by trying to write four giant war novels as sequels to her first three mystery children's books.

[gtzel]

Give me GT artists to make fanart for!!

Been feeling uninspired as of late and wanna hear yall share some of your favorite gt artists in the community, please comment/reblog and tag your favorite artists so i can draw fanart for em!!

[moeblob]

Me, too, Blade. Me. Too.

(I am taking donations to buy a gigantic $250 stuffed cheeseburger. It's giant. I want it. I will never obtain it. I saw it in a shop window and..... wow. Big.)

[elizaditton]

Too Small To Be Afraid (Chapter 20)

Cover / Master Post / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter (Coming Soon!)

- - - - -

I snatch my bookbag as I hurry out of my bedroom and down the hall. If I want to avoid having this conversation, I've got to make my rush look convincing!

"Hey, sweetheart," Dad says when he sees me enter the living room. "What's the big hurry? You've got plenty of time before school starts!"

"Y-yeah, I know," I say, trying the handle to the front door of our apartment. It's locked. "I just wanted to get there early to catch up some more with Brittney."

Dad chuckles. "Well, if you leave this early, you're still going to be waiting for the school to open when you get there!"

"Not a problem! I'm fine with that," I say as I turn the lock on the door and open it.

"Kaylin, come now. It's far too early to be leaving for school. You haven't even had— Aah!" he flinches when two golden brown slices of bread arise from the toaster with a sudden pop.

I can't help but smile. Dad's generally pretty fearless, often to the point of being reckless. Seeing him get scared by some toast is so out of character that I can't help but laugh.

Dad clears his throat and pushes up his glasses. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," he says, eyeing the toast, "you haven't even had any breakfast. Come on, I'll make you some toast."

I look between Dad and the door. If I stay, he's sure to want to pick up where we left off last night. Talking about school is the last thing I want to do! Yet the more I stand here, the more the emptiness in my gut begs me to eat something. Heaving a sigh, I set down my bookbag and close the door.

"So," Dad begins in a tone that can only begin to hint at all the questions he must have for me. "How are you feeling about school?"

"It's... okay," I say as I sit myself down at the kitchen table, trying to bury any complex feelings I have about the whole 'being completely blindsided by your own dad and sent to a school full of the very people you live in fear of' thing.

"Just okay?" he asks, looking back at me as he butters the toast. "You seemed pretty eager to head out the door just a second ago."

"Yeah, well... it's complicated." I say, turning my eyes to the table. "There's things I like, and... things I don't."

Dad hums in response, smothering an already buttery slice of toast with what looks to be enough raspberry jam for two separate slices. "Well, what sorts of things do you like about school?"

I move my jaw from side to side, growing more frustrated the harder I try to think of something about Pacific that I actually like that won't result in Dad bombarding me with more and more questions. I like talking with Brittney, and in spite of my fear I actually somewhat like being Derrick's deskmate— although I'd rather not be surrounded by other pertheans at school. Whenever a perthean student speaks up or even coughs in class, it sends shivers down my spine! And I really like being friends with Derrick, but I can't help but wish he was human. If he were human, I wouldn't be so terrified of him. I hate that I'm still scared of him, because I really do value the friendship we've been developing over the past few weeks.

"How about your friends?" Dad asks, setting a plate of toast in front of me. "Didn't you say you'd been hanging out with your deskmate?"

A knot forms in my core. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

"Y-yeah," I say, hoping he'll drop the topic if I respond.

Dad pulls up a chair across from me. "Why don't you tell me about your deskmate? Darren, right?"

"D-Derrick," I correct him.

"Right. Why don't you tell me about him? What's he like?" Dad asks, propping his head onto his hands like a teenage girl at a slumber party waiting to hear the latest gossip.

I try to keep a straight face, but a chuckle escapes me. Dad never ceases to surprise me!

"U-um, well, he's... nice," I start. "We both like Aven Gem games like Flower Town, and we both have FlexPads."

Dad nods, encouraging me to continue.

"He likes to study languages, and he's really good at Koronian," I say. "I think he wants to teach English in North Eris one day."

"That's nice. He sounds like a good kid," Dad says. "So what do the two of you usually do together?"

My heart sinks, and blood drains from my face. How am I supposed to answer that? Should I tell him Derrick is helping me with my fear? No, that'll be a huge win for him for sure!

I don't know why, but when I think about Dad hearing positive things about my experience at Pacific, I can't help but imagine him giving himself a huge pat on the back. I can't let him win this one, not when he lied to me about the move and completely blindsided me by enrolling me in this school. Even if I got lucky with Derrick, sending me to Pacific was still a terrible idea, and I'm not about to let Dad take the credit for what Derrick and I have been accomplishing.

"Well, we've studied together. We also just... um... talk," I say.

"Hm. And what sorts of things do you talk about?" Dad asks.

"Uh... j-just about anything! School, video games, movies..."

"And does he know about your fear?"

Why is he cornering me like this? Why is he so desperate to pry into this area of my life?

"Does it matter?" I retort, turning my attention to the toast in front of me and taking a bite. There's too much jam, but it tastes good mixed with the butter, so I don't mind.

Dad leans back in his chair. "Whether or not you tell him about your fear is up to you, but I think it would benefit the two of you to be on the same page."

I remain silent, taking another bite of toast.

"Do you plan on telling him?" Dad asks.

My insides twist as I look down, searching for the right thing to say. I come up empty.

Dad leans forward. "Does he already know?"

"Dad, I... I don't want to talk about this anymore." I manage, setting down my toast and clenching my jaw. Why is he doing this?

Dad sighs. "I get it, I do. Being at this school isn't easy for you. But I want you to know that you can talk to me about it, okay?"

"But you don't get it, Dad!" I hiss, standing up and planting my hands on the table. "You've never had a fear like mine! That's why you thought you could just send me to a school like Pacific and make me get over it!"

"That's not true," Dad says, crossing his arms.

"You want a quick fix for something that's plagued me all my life, but I can't get over my fear if I'm drowning in it," I utter, my voice cracking. "If you really cared, you'd leave me alone instead of throwing me to the wolves!"

Eyes glazing over, I turn and march toward the front door, leaving Dad behind at the kitchen table.

"Kaylin," Dad says, his tone growing more serious. "I don't want a quick fix for you or to throw you to the wolves. It's because I care about you that I want you to grow!"

"Forcing me to be around pertheans isn't going to undo what I saw!" I yell, slamming the door behind me as I exit the apartment.

My vision blurs as I head down the hall, and I blink away the tears that try to form. Dad's ignorance about my fear drives me up the wall! He knows what I saw and what I had to go through because of it, and he still thinks I can just get over it like an old habit!

The elevator door opens when I press the call button, and I sigh as I step inside. What am I going to do?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I let out a yawn as I wander down Seren Avenue, my eyelids still drooping from a lack of sleep. Why did I have to get up so early?

I gaze at the skylights above me, hoping the undercity's artificial lighting will be enough to help keep me awake. The screens display flowering trees reaching up towards a cloudy sky. Back in Maedri, the skylights displayed cherry blossoms during the springtime. Although the trees on these skylights do have some flowers, they're mostly filled with green leaves that pale in comparison to the beautiful shades of pink I'm used to seeing at the start of each year. I miss those old skylights. I miss Maedri.

I amble through the undercity, eyes fixed on the nature scene above. That's when something bumps into me from behind.

"Ah—! I'm sorry!" the boy behind me utters. His black hair and wide green eyes are all too familiar, and I immediately recognize the green blazer he's wearing as being from Pacific.

"Oh," he says, his eyes suddenly narrowing as his voice deepens. "It's just you."

"Y-yeah. Sam, right?" I ask.

He nods.

"This is the second time you've bumped into me. Don't you usually wear glasses?" I ask. "You'd be able to see where you're going with them on."

Sam's face reddens as he turns his gaze to the floor. "I... I look cooler without them."

"You should at least wear contacts so you can—" I start, only to be cut off by Sam weaving around me and running off. "Hey!"

I run after him, and am nearly out of breath by the time I catch up with him.

"Can I help you?" he asks flatly.

"Can I ask you something?"

He sighs, not even stopping or turning to face me. "I guess."

"Why are you always speeding off? Did I do something wrong?" I ask.

"That's two questions," he states, annoyed.

"Sorry."

"Look," he says, finally turning his head back to address me. "I'm not great with people, okay? I prefer to be alone."

"Is that why you're at Pacific?" I ask, my curiosity growing.

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean—" he stumbles over his words before letting out another sigh. "I have my own reasons for going."

I suppose Pacific looks good on university applications, being a private school and all.

"Is that why you're at Pacific?" he turns the question back to me.

"I-I... well, sort of. My dad made me go."

"Ugh. My parents made me go, too."

"I thought you had your own reasons for going," I say, raising an eyebrow.

"I—! I do! It's just... since we moved here from Erimathea, they wanted to make sure I was... adjusting."

"Adjusting?" I ask.

"You know, to the whole... different sizes thing," he states.

"I guess it's sort of the same for me," I say. "I've lived most of my life in the undercity, so I've never really been around pertheans. It's... a difficult adjustment."

"It can be hard," Sam says, focusing on the path ahead of us. "And on top of that, I can't really talk to anyone about it without looking like I have something against pertheans."

"Tell me about it," I huff. "And the weirdest part is that other humans get so defensive when you tell them you're afraid of pertheans. They act like we're making us all look bad or something."

Sam stops dead in his tracks, nearly causing me to bump into him. "What did you just say?" he asks, turning around slowly.

Wait, what did I just say?! Did I let myself carelessly spill my biggest secret to some near stranger?!

"Uh—! I—!" I stutter, backing up from the boy in front of me.

"Did you just say you have—"

"I have to go!" I blurt out before darting around Sam and continuing toward the school.

"Wait!"

Something in me gives in, and I come to a slow stop a few yards in front of Sam. What am I doing? He's just going to tell me off!

A moment of silence passes us by. It dares me to turn around and face the boy behind me, but I can't.

"I... I thought I was the only one," he finally says.

I spin around. "W-what?" I ask, confusion setting in as I ponder what he could possibly mean. "The only one who...?"

"The only one who had... a fear," he finishes.

My eyes widen, and I take a few steps toward Sam. "You mean... you have a fear, too?"

He sighs, looking off to the side before returning his gaze to me. "Didn't I just say that?"

"I've never met anyone else with a fear of pertheans," I whisper as questions begin to flood my mind.

"Neither have I," he says, shifting in place.

"Have you ever told anyone?" I ask.

Sam cranes his neck back and stares at the skylights. "My parents know... and that only resulted in some pretty useless therapy."

"Useless, huh?" I say as we continue our walk.

"Yeah, all they really tell you in therapy is to expose yourself to your fears and hope things improve."

"I guess I had the same experience. My dad always says things will improve with exposure and time. I think he stole that line from my old therapist. I was too young to remember most of what she taught me," I say, rubbing one arm.

"So you struggled as a kid?"

"Yeah... when they started mixing humans and pertheans back in stage two, I would often have panic attacks at school," I cringe as my mind fills with unwanted memories. "The others would call me 'Kaylin Flinch,' or 'Flinching Finch.'"

"Kids can be brutal," Sam sighs.

"Yeah. If you don't mind me asking, how long have you had a fear?"

Sam narrows his eyes. "Since around the time I moved here, right before stage four. I tried a few different schools to see if exposure could help. Some were mixed, some were not. But no amount of exposure ever really helped."

I shift my gaze to the floor. What if Dad is wrong? Not that I want him to have something he can gloat about, but what if exposure and time aren't the keys to getting over my fear of pertheans? What if all the time I'm spending with Derrick after school isn't going to help me after all?

Sam stops, so I stop too. I look up, and above us is the sign for Pacific, dimly lit and weathered as usual. It's odd how something can decay like that when it's underground, completely unexposed to the elements of the surface world.

I look at Sam, and immediately, something feels off. The softness in his eyes has all but disappeared, and his posture is oddly stiff. I can't quite explain it, but there seems to be some kind of odd, dark energy emanating from him. I take a step back.

"Sam?" I try.

He opens the door to the school's lobby. "I have to go," he mumbles.

"So soon? We can at least walk out to the pick-up balcony together—"

"No," he interrupts, clutching the strap of his bookbag. "I-I'll... I'll see you later."

With that, he scurries off across the room and up a creepy old stairwell. Those stairs lead to the school's human hallways just like the elevators do, but I've never seen anyone take them. I sigh and enter an opening elevator with some other students. Will I ever understand this guy?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Taking a deep breath, I close my locker and adjust the strap of my bookbag. I haven't seen Sam since he managed to scurry off again, and something tells me I'm not going to for a while, no matter how curious I am about what's going on in his head. I thought it'd be nice to have a friend who understands what having a fear is like, but I don't imagine this guy really wants anything to do with me.

The balcony is crowded as usual, and I'm surprised when I see Derrick standing beside it. Usually, I have to search for a while to pick him out of the perthean crowd. Kevin is standing beside him with Brittney on his shoulder. A smile spreads across my face, and I hurry over to the group.

"It's good that you came back in spite of all that," Kevin says to Derrick.

"I'll still never forgive that jerk for what he did to you, though!" Brittney huffs.

I stop. What are they talking about? My heart races as I look around me for some place to hide. I decide to hide at the end of the balcony, where there's a perthean-sized plant of some kind, with long green leaves that are tall enough to keep me hidden. I just hope nobody peers around the plant and sees me!

"I'm sure he didn't withdraw just to hurt me," Derrick whispers. "It was complicated."

Wait, is he talking about his previous deskmate? The one he said had moved away?

"Well, whatever the reason, he had no right to just abandon you," Brittney says. "You two were the talk of the school for weeks after you both left!"

Derrick shuffles. "I know, but—"

"And now that you're back, people are starting to wonder if something's going to happen to Kaylin," Brittney says.

People are talking about Derrick and I? Whatever for?! What could possibly happen to me that would cause me to withdraw?

What did Derrick do to his old deskmate?!

Before I have much of a chance to think, something pulls me up into the air by the back of my blazer! My gut twists and churns, and what little breakfast I managed to get down threatens to reappear. The room spins as I kick and scream, hoping to get away from whoever snatched me up without so much as a warning.

I gaze beside me and realize my mistake when I see that Derrick, Brittney, and Kevin are all looking in my direction with wide eyes, just like everyone else in the room.

"Cherryn! Calm down! It's just me!" bellows a deep feminine voice above me as I'm placed onto a warm, leathery surface. "Look, I'm sorry I freaked you out! I won't do it again!"

My heart pounds a thousand times a minute as I look up into a pair of soft brown eyes. They widen when they meet my gaze.

"O-oh my gosh...! You're not Cherryn! I'm so sorry!" the girl apologizes as the hand beneath me begins to shake.

"Kaylin!" calls a familiar voice.

I turn around, arms glued to my trembling frame, and breathe a sigh of relief to see my deskmate approaching.

Wait, Derrick?! What if he realizes I was eavesdropping? Won't he be mad at me?

I quake like a leaf in a windstorm as I'm transferred from one pair of cupped hands to another, the muffled voices overhead conversing as I continue to worry about so many things at once. What's going to happen to me? Can I really trust Derrick?

"Hey," Derrick whispers, bringing the cupped hands I'm in closer to his face. "Are you alright?"

I stare into his eyes with uncertainty. I was starting to feel so sure around Derrick, but now? What am I supposed to think?

"I-I..." I start, reaching up to my face as warm tears begin to fall. "I don't know."

Derrick's brows turn upward, and his eyes soften. "Don't worry. You will be," he says, gently stroking my shoulder with his thumb. "Come on, let's go to class."

[c4ts4ndstuff]

no one:

absolutely no one:

ten year old me: what if me and several other kids were kidnapped by an alien and he experimented on us and turned us into mermaids. then shrunk us so we would fit in his aquarium, because he really wanted mermaids in his aquarium. i daydream variations of this story to go to sleep almost every night

[asterwild]

all the otters!

[shortshifter]

I can’t help but get ideas wandering down the “miniatures” isle in craft stores

Any borrower I knew would be set for life, let me tell you

[lion-buddy]

looking at bunny rabbit plushies to make me feel better

i appreciate when they make breed specific plushies. we got an english lop, mini rex and a cottontail. hooray

[burntpink]