#these aren't particularly good or anything

[syoddeye]

xylaria polymorpha

You pick him. He picks you back. cw: entomophobia, earachnophobia, vomit mention (not depicted), mild body horror, abduction, buried alive (sort of), nonconsensual kiss a/n: AO3

The woods, no matter where you roam, have always felt like a refuge. An escape from your day job and your cramped flat. Far from emails and bills.

The air is cool, laced with the scent of wildflowers and damp earth. As you walk, you name the flora around you, half-whispering, half-thinking. Dog's mercury. Lesser celandine. Bursts of foxglove.

The woods are loud in a quiet way. Alive. Wood pigeons cooing, squirrels chittering, a fox slipping through the brush in a blur. You take it all in, breathe it in deeply.

This peace is why you come here. Or part of it, anyway.

Your foraging bag swings at your side, weighted with what you've already found. Oyster mushrooms, chicken of the woods, a single giant puffball. Two dryad's saddles stacked atop one another. Your parents taught you how to hunt and how to identify your finds. You were barely knee-high the first time they took you, holding your hand as you nervously poked at leaves and logs. It's a valuable skill, one you're grateful to have honed. The shelves in your kitchen are full because of it, and on weekends, you sell the excess at the market.

The trees grow taller as you walk, their trunks thick and gnarled. It's darker and colder here, the light barely piercing the canopy. You don't mind, and merely zip your jacket to your chin. The good stuff's always further in.

A few hedgehogs and puffballs later, you see them.

They rise from around the body of a rotting log, black and knotted, their shape unmistakable. You kneel, your heart fluttering with the discovery. You've read about them in books, seen photos online: xylaria polymorpha. Dead man's fingers.

They're inedible, nor are they particularly pleasant to look at, but you reach for your notebook anyway. A sketch and then a picture on your phone. Something to send the parents. But your gaze catches on something else.

In the rear of the cluster, there are five paler growths, different from the others. They stand out, almost glowing against the dark soil. You've never seen anything like them. A mutation, perhaps. Or some kind of bacteria or mold. You edge closer, leaning in, fascinated, and without thinking, you reach out to touch one.

The moment your fingers brush the surface, it moves. And it doesn't just twitch or shift—it grabs.

A cold, wet pressure wraps around your hand. It knocks a violent gasp from your throat, and immediately, you try to pull back, but the grip tightens. Your bag falls, spilling as you twist and yank. The mushrooms clinging to your hands aren't mushrooms anymore. They're fingers—long, sinewy fingers. Pale and filthy, their nails cracked and dark with soil.

You freeze, a scream catching in your chest as the fingers pull harder, dragging your hand downward. Then you see it. The arm . Rising from the earth, covered in moss and mud, thick and muscular. Panic surges up from your belly, burning your throat with its acid. Stomach churning your breakfast as the rest of it emerges. Piece by piece as though being assembled by the woods themselves.

A man. 

And from your knees, he looks enormous.

The body is tall, broad-shouldered, with skin that appears almost translucent in places under the layers of muck and decay. The chest is scarred, torn up, and sewn back together with thin vines and stems. Pocked with keloids and other protrusions that look less natural. Dozens of insects crawl over his skin, falling to the ground or disappearing into the folds of moss that cling to bits of him. One of his ears is a swollen, misshapen thing, his hair shoddily cropped, bits of it stringy and wet, but his eyes lock onto yours—dark, intense, and unblinking.

You can't move. His hand wraps around yours like a root. He towers over you, filling your view, banishing whatever notion of peace you had.

"A woman." He rasps through cracked lips, hoarse. "Were you gonna pick me?"

You try to speak, to say anything, but the words won't come. You're not even sure this is actually happening.

He tilts his head, studying. He squeezes a little, hinting at how he could crush your hand without a thought. Crack you open like a walnut.

The image snaps you back to yourself, your mind clearing with a rush of instinct. You pull, but before you can make any progress, he yanks you forward, then up, like it's nothing. He holds your hand high above your head, and you watch, transfixed, as a spider squeezes itself through the mess of his ear.

You finally find your voice, though you swallow some sick to free it. "What…What are you?"

He doesn't answer right away. His gaze drifts down, then back up again, slow, deliberate. He looks at the overturned bag, his brow twitching just slightly, then returns to your eyes. His free hand lifts, and as it moves, a sludgy drip of mud falls, plopping softly onto the ground. You flinch as he drags two fingers over the curve of your cheek, smearing the mud over your skin.

"These woods belong to me. Everything you've stolen? Mine." His fingers graze you again, feeling the hammering pulse at your neck. "You followin'?"

"I didn't mean to—"

"But you did." His mouth curves slightly. "You touched me. You chose. You thought you were gonna carry me off."

The once-familiar sounds of the forest warp. The birdsong sounds wrong. Off-key and more frantic. The forest closes in. Shadows stretch longer in the periphery.

His hold is what keeps you from collapsing in shock when the ground starts to give way. Slowly, beneath your boots, the earth begins to eat you. Your toes, your ankles, your calves. You pull at his arm, desperate to break his grip, to push yourself free, but he's unmoving, rooted. Then you realize he's sinking with you.

His other hand touches your chin, rough fingers tilting your face toward him. You flinch as his thumb brushes your lower lip, leaving behind the tang of damp soil. The taste makes you gag, and you twist harder, but his hold is unrelenting.

"This is 'ow it works," There is no malice. He speaks as though this is fact. "You don't take without givin' back. Not 'ere, not from me."

The ground rises faster, the earth climbing your thighs. Your breath catches, panic surging. You try to wrest free, but no amount of struggling helps. You're sinking, and he's sinking with you.

"You picked me. This. Made your choice." He repeats, softer this time. 

It's up to your chest. Dozens of tiny legs move beneath the surface, exploring your skin, inspecting you. Welcoming you. Tears blur your vision and slip down your face.

He lets go of your arm now that you're trapped, immobile, and holds either side of your face. He tips your head back up, and just as the world swallows you whole, he plants his mouth over yours.

A week later, the authorities will find your foraging bag beside the log. Its treasures withered to black. They'll call your name and search until dusk, but they won't find you.

You'll be far below them by then, cradled in roots and arms as thick as tree branches, breathing in the forest in a different way. Far beyond their reach, but alive. Thriving. Growing.

[wehaveagathering]

Grav's Favorite Play of the Night: 9.13.24 PHI v NYR, rookie game 4-3 NYR shootout win

1. Spencer Gill takes extreme offense to a Ranger in the Flyers' zone. 2. A second Ranger gets the puck; turns it over to Matvei Michkov, who 3. passes something gorgeous straight to where Emil Andrae's stick is going to be. Andrae makes Desnoyers work for it, but Desnoyers gets the puck and checks a Rag, who checks him back, and 4. he goes down. Andrae runs smack into a Ranger trying to get to the loose puck, and knocks it free to Michkov, who — honestly, I don't know what the fuck he does here, I barely know how to describe it. He ghostwalks straight through the defender and gets a shot on goal through another defenseman. Then he 5. gets the puck BACK in order to get it to Oliver Bonk, who gets off another shot on goal. By the grace of their goalie go the Rangers rookies.

[2boldlyqueer]

Listen, I know we're all exhausted, but we gotta get better about adding image descriptions to disability related stuff. Everyone should be IDing everything anyways, but there's a particularly cruel irony in disability related stuff not being accessible to folks with low/no vision.

[makiswirl]

can i just say. and this is probably a niche hill to die on. that i am so gobsmacked every time someone vaguely hints at the idea that jotaro doesn't care meaningfully for the other crusaders, usually particularly kakyoin and joseph, when those two actually tend to be the ones he reacts to being hurt the hardest

like he cares for his loved ones!!!! that literally plays into his character motives in every single part he shows up in!!! stop lying to me!!!!!!!

[mwolf0epsilon]

Ahsoka meeting Bean Rex for the very first time.

It takes a while for the clones to feel comfortable enough with the Jedi to share the existence of the Trooper Beans, but some had their suspicions that there was more to their troops than met the eye. Mostly because the Trooper Beans got up to shenanigans that left evidence of "unseen pests" on board.

When you have a living extension of yourself (that embodies both your emotions and personality) hanging about, it's not too unusual that you'd feel a little apprehensive about sharing their existence. Especially when these curious little beings are more often than not, the only remnant you may have of vode you've lost in the past.

Most Jedi don't take the initial lack of trust too hard.

[katierosefun]

hm maybe i’m going to get flack for this, but i genuinely don’t understand how some self-claimed fic lovers can be the same people who a) pressure and harass writers into producing more and more stories, regardless of their current health or personal lives, b) pressure writers when they aren’t updating fast enough, again, regardless of their current health or personal lives, and c) now, apparently, feed their supposedly beloved writers’ stories into ai bots. it’s becoming incredibly disheartening and clear that some folks don’t care so much about writers and really care exclusively about feeding whatever greedy need they have to just consume.

[cementcornfield]

some surprising stats about the matchup today

like some stuff is certainly what i expected, but we're fairly evenly matched in other spots that i wasn't.... i knew our run defense is better than the eye test, like we aren't necessarily allowing explosive runs like we did last year. (run blocking is, as expected, atrocious lol.) the fact that we're technically better at tackling than the nfl's number 1 defense is shocking though! logan and germaine are doing A LOT of heavy lifting there, and they haven't necessarily been consistent (hence still being 20th lol). i'm also surprised we have a better rushing score, but that just speaks to those flashes where chase has been good, he's been really good!

i genuinely have no idea how this game is gonna go basically!

[elytrafemme]

okay i just put them away so doing this by memory but my lovely suitemate got some pkmn cards in a white elephant gift exchange and offered me some so i now have physical pkmn cards!!! the ones i currently have are: garganacl ex, electivire, mienshao, salazzle (most likely going to give away to friend from home), mow rotom, pangoro (YAY!!!!), and eevee :D

the negative effect this has is that between this and the pkmn trading card app i am now like in the mentality of wanting to buy pokemon cards and packs. cards isn't so bad because those aren't always expensive like i COULD just buy a chandelure card online et cetera. but packs are more expensive + i'm ngl i do not know if i want to risk subsequent disappointment. this being said... maybe as like. a way in the future birthday gift. or something.

[leatherbookmark]

i love how passionate and emotional fic seongjoong is when irl they're like... an arranged marriage... lol

[knittinglizards]

poking around looking at people's general feelings about the recent trek series and I have to say im pretty deeply irritated by criticism that starts and stops at the idea that stories going further in depth into starfleet as an imperial power and the violence inherent to that are against the spirit of the original. like if you consider the idealism/hope for a better world/realization of a brotherhood of man sort of themes to BE the spirit of it, i would think engaging critically with elements of domination presented by the original is more productive (possibly even more faithful) towards that spirit than just pretending they don't exist

[undead-moth]

Because this is such an excellent post I'm going to try to keep my infodump here brief but I can't pass it up:

Whether or not something that happens within a story is "realistic" is determined by an agreement made between the writer and the audience in the premise.

The writer establishes the rules of the world and promises not to break them as long as you, the audience, promise to believe anything that happens without breaking them is real even if they aren't plausible or possible (re: realistic) in real life.

This is where the term "suspension of disbelief" comes from. If the writer asks you to suspend your disbelief higher than they initially promised in the premise, that means they broke one of the rules, and something has happened that goes against what you agreed to believe is plausible or possible for the purposes of immersing yourself in the story. If a story asks you to suspend your disbelief too high from the outset, that means something about this story is just too implausible or impossible as a premise for you to immerse yourself in personally.

When something "unrealistic" happens within a story, it very specifically refers to what shouldn't be plausible or possible within the story's universe -

It does not refer to what is implausible or impossible in real life.

This is why criticism of tragedies, horror, and musicals are often missing the point, and don't offer productive analysis. It doesn't matter if someone in real life would "wait a few minutes" to see if Juliet wakes up. It doesn't matter if losing cell service is "convenient." It doesn't matter if no one "bursts into song" in real life. None of these genres have the same rules as real life and they're not meant to.

If these genres are asking you to suspend your disbelief higher than you're able to, it's fair to not be a fan of them. It's not fair to insist all of these genres actually suck just because they don't conform to the specific height at which you personally prefer a story to suspend your disbelief.

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[kandicon]

I need to get more jobs so I can commission artists more often (flawless logic that has never once failed me)

[cuomophobe]

The weirdest thing about working as a cleaner is that sometimes I come home reeking of the chemicals™️

[kurokoros]

I heard that they used AI for screenwriting on the latest Bridgerton season (I have not found a credible source only reddit), but tbh I can believe it. Even tho they had the strike last year with AI as a huge concerning factor, ultimately, the greed will win. They already implemented it in movies and threw the gaming industry under the bus. Entertainment is a dying art because they don't care about it being good anymore. It has to be fast and cheap. It's not about quality but quantity, and it's making me sad.

well that's some absolute bullshit if they did, but with some of the god awful dialogue I've heard in a lot of recent media I wouldn't be surprised if it was AI (even in an unofficial capacity where the screenwriter/teleplay writer used AI as a base). I never even finished S1 of Bridgerton, so I can't comment personally on whether or not AI was used, but, again, it's bullshit if it was.

also you're so right about entertainment being a dying art. it's absolutely tragic. there are so many people with amazing, fresh ideas that can't even get in the door. or absolutely amazing shows that get cut short because 'no one watched them' but really it's because they saw zero promotional material (here's looking at you, Netflix). the only ways the film (and music tbh) industry is going to recover are if 1) they actually start paying the people that act as the backbone of the industry (writers and crew members and all of the background actors that bring the set to life), and 2) they stop giving mediocre people jobs because of who their parents are and start bringing in some fresh talent.

hollywood is cannibalizing itself.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David Tennant interview at the British LGBT Awards, June 2024 (x)

Int: You being an ally to the community isn't something new. You've been doing it, but recently you've obviously really stepped up for trans and non-binary people in a time that's so, so needed. What made you do that?

David: I don't know that I feel like I've done anything that I wouldn't just sort of be normally doing. I mean, it's for me it's just common sense that there's there should be any suggestion that people aren't allowed to live the life they want to live and and to be who they want to be with and to express themselves wholeheartedly. I mean, as long as you aren't hurting anybody else, everybody else just needs to fucking butt out. I don't really understand why...

Int: ...it's controversial.

David: Yeah, there is and the thing... the thing, if there's something that's particularly sobering and depressing, it's that certain debates are being weaponized by certain elements of the political class, often for no... it seems it's not ideological so much as opportunistic. And I just think that's pretty disgusting, really.

Int: I couldn't agree more. What message would you like to send out to trans youth?

David: Please don't feel like you're not loved and that you're not accepted and that you're not... you know, most people in the world are good and kind and just want you to be able to be who you are. Most people in the world don't really care. I mean... you know what I mean?

Int: We're all narcissistic.

David: Exactly. Everyone's so self obsessed that really, the sort of noise that comes from a certain area of the press and of the political class is... it's a minority. It really is. And please don't let that make you feel diminished or dissuaded or discouraged, because, you know, you just... you have to be allowed to be yourself, and you are, and you are yourself and you must thrive and flourish, and we're all here for it.

Int: Amazing. I think, yeah, it's so important .I think sometimes it feels like there's so many people, but it is a minority. It's such a minority.

David: It's a tiny bunch of little whinging fuckers that are on the wrong side of history and they'll all go away soon.

Int: Like what happened with gay people 20 years ago.

David: When I was a kid, when I was a kid, exactly. You know, I was at school when Clause 28 came in and it all felt like being gay was something to be terrified of. And gay men in particular were demonised as paedophiles and now that just feels historic and ludicrous and, I mean, I don't see all those... all those battles aren't won, but we're in a very, very different place. And I feel like.I feel like history is on a progressive trajectory and it might get knocked sideways now and again by people for all sorts of reasons, which are often quite selfish and quite, as I say, not coming from a place of any sort of genuine belief system, but other than a place of opportunism. And that's something that we... I hope that in 20 years time, we're talking about, you know, these culture wars as something of the past.

Int: I believe we will. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan, so.

David: Oh, good, me too!

Int: You are my Doctor.

David: Oh, thank you very much.

Int: But recently, obviously, you came back for the 60th anniversary and you got to work with Yasmin Finney.

David: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Int: What was it like working with her?

David: Oh, she's brilliant. She's fantastic. Yeah. And she's in the show again now, she's back in it, so that's fantastic to see. She's lovely, talented, cool as a cucumber, articulate, brilliant. I learned a lot from her as an actor and also as someone who, you know, who's become a sort of de facto activist just because of who she is and where she is, and she becomes a sort of symbol of hope, and she's wonderful.

[the-stove-is-divorced]

Does your version of Bruce self-harm? How and why, if yes. Why not and what are his other coping mechanisms, if no.

Interesting question!! Oh, for sure! I think Bruce can be an incredibly self-destructive character at times, personally. Not self inflicted wounds, but I do think he would cause general injury through neglect. Like neglecting fresh wounds, patrolling obsessively every single night, not taking care of older wounds, and actively refusing much needed pain meds.

I think, otherwise, if he’s feeling particularly guilty and full of self loathing, he’d neglect company work, never stop for a break and, again, be working nonstop on patrols. Neglect taking any pain meds for injuries or headaches no matter how bad it feels. The cowl is practically glued on. Bruce "Brucie" Wayne stops appearing in public eye. He lives in the Bat Cave. He’ll work himself to the bone and consider any discomfort as somehow deserving. Communication grinds to a halt. Starts to isolate. Pushes people away if they prod or show concern. But I also think having someone to keep himself together for, something he has to take care of (other than Gotham as a whole), some person he has coherent and active for, sorta helps but it's a band aid on the larger issue.

TYSM for the ask!!