#third eye for the end times

[strangelittlestories]

Here in the end times, it feels like everyone got a little weird.

That'll happen, you know? In a city of bondage rooftop pirates, predatory psychic business suits, and tacticool kindness cults; in a world where the sun's gone all high contrast, low brightness; in a time where isolation is a synonym for safety ... let's just say the 'Overton Window of Normality' has shifted.

Yep, when the light broke, we all got a bit strange.

All except for Simon, that is.

Simon is perfectly normal. Simon is swell. Simon still stops by Nero's for a coffee in the mornings and the Coffee Mafia *serve him* (I think just out of confusion).

Simon goes into his co-working space three days a week. Sometimes he works on his screenplay. Other times he goes through long-dead databases and de-duplicates records. If you ask him why, he'll just say that he gets tired of working from home all the time and needs a change of scenery.

Simon keeps a spreadsheet to track the good places for salvage in London-in-Darkness. He has different tabs for foodstuffs, fuel, clothes, makeshift weaponry, and a dozen other useful categories. He sorts them according to quality, abundance, known predators, level of contrast corruption, and convenience for his commute. Ask him to show you his v-lookups sometime.

If you haunt the high buildings like I do, then you'll see him sometimes, scuttling about in his scruffy converse, jeans and hoodie. If he sees you see him, he'll wave.

It's not that the various predators, gangs and high-contrast memetic hazards avoid him, exactly. They continue their usual routes; their patterns of search, destroy and throw-a-wobbly. But somehow they just ... miss him. He'll be overlooked or have a miraculous lucky escape. Occasionally, he'll get captured for a few days and spend the time working on his yoga routine, before the next localised burst of spectrum distortion gives him a chance to scarper.

You might be tempted, if you run across him, to join Simon.

You might hear him say things like: "Why don't we pool our resources" or "Let's catch up sometime" or "I've set up a mini golf course in the Tate Modern, if you fancy it" or "Do you want to listen to some Bruno Mars? I think I have one of the last unscratched CDs."

I urge you: do not listen to him.

He means you no ill will. Simon is *normal* and *nice*.

But nice is not kind. Normal is not benevolent. And sometimes, people overlook that the world will hurt those less lucky than them without really thinking about it. And it is *normal* to protect yourself in that way. It is *nice* to gloss over difficult things.

Simon lives a live that is orthogonal to the rest of us. His plane of existence is ever so slightly out of sync.

Yours isn't.

He is a last unchanging remnant of a world that was.

You aren't.

If you meet him, you will want to follow him. His is a world of order and predictability, of self-care days and flexi-time, of secret film screenings and hidden menus in bougie coffee shops. You will be enchanted by the way he talks about getting plenty of natural light, the way he complains about his commute, and how he still tips twelve percent.

But I beg you: do not heed his Simon song. For it is the song of Bruno Mars and you will be dashed on the funk rocks.

Don't go with him, the world that keeps him safe does not exist anymore.

And when I see Simon scuttling through the streets with a new friend, I am sometimes glad that it is gone.

[axoqiii]

another p5r art dump hiiiiieii 😢😢😢

[canisalbus]

doodle machete’s eyes (only his eyes cause I can’t draw t he rest of him) hope you like it :)

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[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Besties at first sight

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[starry-bi-sky]

'Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings' doodles, because Pathetic Wet Cat Danny is the best Danny to practice drawing young faces with (and expressions).

[whenthelightisrunninglow]

spent the last couple nights watching the handplates (<- @zarla-s if you’ve never read it) comic dub with a friend of mine :-]

gaster ^

[cosmicportal]

[goldensunset]

sora’s new roommate looks like a really nice and normal girl i wonder what her story is

[crazysnakey]

Something something about the Third Doctor and the fate of Tantalus. You're trapped in one place. Everything you want, that you once took for granted is right there in front of you, you can see it you can reach for it but you can never have it. You will never attain it on your own. Your fate is dependent on the mercy or cruelty of others and you hate it and you rage against it but you can’t do anything, your defiance is treated like nothing but a childish tantrum but you refuse to beg, you won’t get that desperate no matter how long you’re trapped here, no matter how low you’re brought down. You stand among humans and you look human but you’re not, you’re an animal in a cage with them and you’re the only one who can see the bars. Gnawing and hacking at them to no avail. And yet all you can do is wait and hope and try and fail in an endless loop until an outside force interferes to free you from your prison. The carrot and the stick. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

there's a high quality rip of deadpool and wolverine out there somewhere and you guys still haven't bestowed upon me a gifset of Disheveled Soot-Covered Tom From Succession. so like. what's that about

[edmunderson]

no theme this time for @gloomiegalaxie 's femboy friday, so i tried doing a empire records inspired one! tho it could also be (loosely) 90s theme too

[wtowingedtragicobsidian]

As a joke Gojo and Geto stated "dating" as a way to get couple deals from food places. Neither of them knows if the other is joking anymore.

[sforzesco]

poetry might not convince me to pay attention or care about the medici family beyond necessity, but you CAN convince me to turn the spotlights directly onto lorenzo de' medici with phrasing like this. intimately linked. even wedded, you say. and with galeazzo maria sforza's named mentioned. fascinating choice of words.

Magnifico: the Brilliant Life and Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Miles J. Unger

[vaguely-concerned]

first of all rye 'hello fellow kids' ingellvar there is nothing in this world or any other I wouldn't do for you. second of all, considering where this story ends... I'm going to die. this conversation -- and how much he genuinely believes what he's saying at this point -- held up against the fact that in a couple of months max he's going to get her killed (well. that's how he feels anyway) and then go against everything she believed in and stood for as a person in the end and have to live forever with knowing that's how he honoured her sacrifice. (and live with how easy it is to live with, the way he doesn't regret what he did at all. she'll haunt him from time to time, that's fine, he's a watcher he's loved many a ghost before and will again. but that won't.) 'no one is beyond help? oh lace I'm so so sorry, wherever you are now please forgive me for who I am, but after what he pulled and by the time I'm done with him on my watcher's oath he will be beyond help. I'll hold every hand in this world that reaches back but his'. and she'll still be gone.

'or none of this matters'. im so fucking sad I feel sick *through tears* this is great I love fiction I love this game (embarrassingly genuine as is my wont)

[starlight---starbrights]

Undertale yellow flowey embroidery

This took about 40 hours, give or take a few

[hauntingblue]

Oden's prophecy of young pirates coming to save wano becoming yamato's hope for his freedom.... and him becoming oden because of it.... it's just so good... on the other side luffy taking ace's spot for liberating yamato... I think I hauve covid