#tw: scrapping mention

[littlesolarcelestial]

Nova pokes their head around over the couch trying to see Sun but stops hearing Teek’s comment and turning just their head so fast they are actually a bit dizzy to give Teek a confused look.

-✨Nova

....Oh, that's right, not many people know...

Teek sets Solar down on the floor, only for Solar to cling onto them.

Mm?

I just need to tell them a little bit of backstory because they likely don't know about any of it, Solar.

...Oooooh....kay. I go nap in my 'oom then.

Solar picks up the pumpkin print blanket from off the floor and wobbles off to his room, leaving Teek with Nova.

Well...now that Solar is distracted, I can tell you this. I was the original DCA for the Superstar Daycare before Sun and Moon showed up. Now I had a lot of issues with bugs, viruses, and glitches constantly getting into my systems because Fazbear didn't want to pay import tax on my medication. The worst of it was effecting my "nap time" mode for when the lights went out. Let's just say there was an incident on August 16th with an employee and me in my heavily glitch, bug, and virus influenced state...

Teek's gaze turns downwards as they sit next to Nova on the couch.

I was scheduled to be scrapped the day of Sun and Moon's arrival, and I only had so much time before then. So I isolated myself and hid myself away, and that's when they sent Dazzle's old body down to do the job since Sun and Moon were scheduled to come soon. Me in my very unstable state harmed Dazzle's old body and yet they still consider me a best friend....

Teek is trying to keep things together and safe enough so that in case a kid came in, they wouldn't get completely traumatized.

At that point I went into deeper hiding, went completely nuts from the pain and the viruses, bugs, and glitches to where I tapped into my dark star magic even more and even made my own dark star that I absorbed and became all powerful and nearly corrupted from if it weren't for Soliel kicking me hard in the spine and making me puke up the dark star. And then of course Nexus pretty much flushed everything bad in my systems out and installed an anti-virus software that has, for the most part, kept my systems clear...I still suffer from chronic and joint pains, but I think I'll be okay now...and Nexus, before they went all crazy, gave me these dark star magic limiter bracelets to help keep it stable since without them, while powerful, my magic is pretty unstable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Also DNI SolarNexus/SolarMoon/Celestialcest/Proshippers]

[Also also, credit to @/ssunshinebabyy for the original banner]

[saeyoungchoismaid]

Kaeya presses up close behind you, bringing his arms up to place them under yours. “Hold it steady…” he says softly into your ear. You feel a shiver go down your spine, your eyes rolling back the tiniest bit. “That’s it…” he purrs.

“Bang,” he whispers into the shell of your ear as you pretend to shoot your target, your gun jumping in your hand a bit as it fires nothing out.

His hands go light as you pull the gun back to cock it, reloading the weapon with an imaginary bullet before going back into your original state. “Well done,” he mumbles—in what you swear is a sensual tone—right below your ear against your jawline. “You’re such a fast learner,” he praises.

[sleep-deprived-mf]

I WANT DRUGS 😛

[weirdowithaquill]

ok question how and why was the scrapping of sentence vhecials even allowed in the first place I mean sure irl this isn't that bad but in ttte the mass scrapping of steam engines in the 60s in Britain might as well be considered a genocide did Brittish railways use every loophole and excuse in the book to do this and every other country for that matter

Thank you for your ask! And wow does it open up some cans of worms...

But before we get to in-canon reasons for why BR was able to mass-scrap steam engines, we should probably consider the author's intent behind writing this in - after all, the Reverend W. Awdry was writing a children's book series and went "ah yes, I want this to be a picture children see":

So why does Awdry allow for scrap to happen? Because it happened in real life. Awdry was a massive steam engine fan - he grew up on the Great Western mainline near Box Tunnel listening to engines working up and down the grade, his father was a steam fan, and he himself volunteered on various heritage railways (most notably the Talyllyn in Wales) - this is a man who loves his railways and his steam engines. But in the era he was writing - the 1950s and 1960s - the engines were rapidly withdrawn and scrapped as part of BR's Modernisation Plan. Awdry hated this - Britain was scrapping completely useful engines who had served the country through two global wars for untested, faulty diesels that smelt. If you read through the Forewards from Four Little Engines onwards, you can sometimes find that he is quietly advertising heritage railways by crediting them and telling his audience where the real-live versions of the steam engines in his books are. He does this for the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, the Dartmouth Railway, the Ffestiniog Railway and of course: the Talyllyn and Bluebell Railways.

Awdry's books were as much a love letter to steam as they were a series of children's stories, and he wanted to make a real point about how he disagreed with BR and try to promote heritage railways to help keep steam alive.

Rev. W. Awdry was also a notorious perfectionist. Remember, this is a man who said that Dalby's illustrations of Percy looked like "a green caterpillar with red stripes" (ouch!).

This perfectionism carried over to the books: Awdry is very famous for his views on realism in Thomas - he quite famously disliked the Season 3 episode 'Henry's Forest' because it both broke Rule 55 - which states that engineers need to notify the signalman that their trains are at a stand in order to avoid an accident - and the fact that the trees were too close to the line, which could have caused a fire from sparks from the engine in real life. He placed real railway practice and its constraints at the forefront of his stories, and it shows.

Mixed together, these two parts of Awdry created the situation where he wrote about the scrapping of engines and the existential danger that it posed to steam engines and their livelihoods. This is the authorial reasoning behind scrap and the mass-scrapping of steam engines being so prevalent in his works - and it is prevalent, from as early as the first story where Edward is bullied by the bigger engines for being used so little and the implicit likelihood that he could be withdrawn and cut up.

With the authorial reasons for the mass-scrapping of steam engines having been answered, it is now a question of how to drill down into canon and explain what these views and decisions made by Awdry translate into.

Firstly, we need to separate two things: sentience, and human. Vehicles are not people in this series - they are very much the closest thing in terms of intelligence and speech ability, but they are not human. They are built out of minerals pulled from in the ground and powered by more rocks dug up from underground. Whether or not you see this as making this a society that enslaves the engines or not, the reality is that they are machines and the property of their human owners. This is a lot like horses - horses love us, even though we own them, and we often love them back. But not always. Horses were and are, after all, animals used for jobs - in their heyday, they were the car, bus, tram and train of society. We bought and sold them, and when they were no longer useful, people often put them down. Which is extremely morbid, yes - but it's an unfortunately necessary fact of that era and their lives.

Now translate it over to locomotives - the iron horses.

Locomotives are built to serve a purpose, and they must be capable of fulfilling their role. They are taking on the position of the horse from the above analogy - and when they are no longer useful, they can either be sold or scrapped. Worse yet, they are the industrial evolution to the horse - the capitalist's beast of burden.

And now I can finally move to answer the question of why the mass-scrapping of engines was legal: there was never any laws to stop them. From the moment the first engine rolled out of the shop, their owners argued loudly and publicly that they were simply an evolution of the horse. If people didn't give horses rights, why give engines rights? They are not human; they are iron beasts of burden. And in the rigid and very xenophobic society of the Victorian era, this worked incredibly well. Engines were trained using the Railway Rulebook to fulfill their job in much the same way you trained anyone and anything to be good at their job, and their culture was dismissed in the same way that Victorians dismissed any non-European culture.

Now, don't misunderstand me - this is not a good thing. This is a laissez-faire system of caring for vehicle rights developed by capitalism to make it cheaper, easier and less objectionable to discard old stock when needed. The government never intervened because doing so would place all the vehicles under their control under scrutiny. Can't have military lorries and tanks suddenly wondering whether or not their roles in war are legal, after all. And it's that worry that led to no nation really looking into vehicle laws until after World War Two - and even then, it was haphazard at best and downright discriminatory at worst. Even today, there are still no solid laws in place to cover the vast majority of vehicles - only those held in museums owned by the government or 'considered to be of cultural or historic importance' are afforded any rights at all - Thomas, Flying Scotsman, Stephenson's Rocket - those engines.

It's not because the engines themselves don't care, but because they simply have no real option to change this. Engines cannot move themselves - the worst they can do is force themselves to break down, and there will almost always be another engine to take their place.

Sorry for how morbid that got, but I hope it helped explain why I think engines were allowed to be mass-scrapped by BR!

[ms-paint-rodger]

Found an old website for that kid's show Dandy's World and managed to get some games to work somehow. Got a couple screenshots of it.

Game was called "Goob's Friend Crafter", had you put parts together with Goob to make a friend.

Came with accessories in the box below the shapes. The arrows made little sounds. Goob even talked sometimes but I couldn't get any photos of that.

Lets you name it and print it when you're done as well.

Came with a filter, apparently. Tried putting this in a joke.

Also tried to see if Goob's name had anything and....

What the fuck?

Why is this in the game?

[toons-and-doom]

Okay now I’m just craving craft siblings angst😭

OH MY GOD THIS IS SO EVIL I LOVE IT

Ask I may try to provide

So many ways you can go about it

Put under read for me a whole lot of angst + yapping + death mention + ichor / blood mention?… idk rather be safe than sorry

1. It’s clear from dialogue alone that scraps means a lot Goob. Let’s have scraps die! :D! The toons are running to reach the elevator. They are down to five seconds. Goob is in the elevator. Scraps is making the finale stretch towards the elevator. It’s clear she isn’t gonna make it. Desperate, goob uses his arms to grab scraps. He misses- wildly so. His arms return to him. The doors close before scraps can made it inside. At first there is silence. Then goob wails- he rarely ever cries-. But the elevator continues downward, not caring scraps is now alone on that floor with all those monsters, uncaring the two will likely never see eachother again. (Alternatively, the craft siblings were the only two left and now goob is TRUELY alone)

2. Based on Scrap’s dialogue, she feels some sort of protectiveness to goob. The two are extracting ichor machines and gathering research when one or both of them accidentally set off Twisted Rodger. It’s hard to get out of his line of sight with slowness- especially since both of them are on their last heart- but scraps manages to get out of sight, she reaches to grab Goob. She didn’t process the beam- she only processed the explosive of ichor that was once Goob. She is frozen. So many things are happening in her head at once. Most importantly, it’s that she failed she failed she failed she failed goob is dead and it’s all her fault

3. Goob is slowly turning into a twisted and it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to have goob around the other toons because he’s getting increasingly violent. But he will never hurt scrap. After a long discussion which goon was asleep for, it is concluded Goob needs to be left behind or else they will eventually all die. Scraps is left with the task of getting rid of Goob since she is the only one he will listen to. So she leads him off into a quiet, safe room. She tries to explain what has to happen as calmly as she can- her voice is horse. Goob… doesn’t understand at first, he’s scared, he doesn’t want to be alone! For a moment, he finds himself angry at the other toons… but that anger slowly fades. Acceptance comes over Goob. He understands. He knows the others are scared of him now and this is for the better. But it still hurts, he’s still scared- of what he’s becoming. They’re honestly both scared. But it’s not fair both of them die. I’d imagine the two share a good long cry and hug- maybe even scraps prepares a little crafted necklace for Goob to remember her by!! When it’s time to leave, Goob is still deeply hurt but he tries to be happy for the others for one nice goodbye- scraps is shaking. Part of her wants to run out of the elevator. A toons puts a hand on her shoulder, comforting her as the elevator shuts.

Several floors later… a twisted goob can be seen wandering about, a poorly constructed necklace around its neck.

4. Alternatively, scraps is slowly getting twisted but she knows what’s ultimately going to happen.so when the elavator opens she’s like ‘ you need to go ‘ and goob is all like ‘ not without you’ then the two get into a argument because scraps knows she won’t be able to hold herself back when she gets fully twisted about goob doesn’t want to leave her alone, which culminates in scraps accidentally lashing out and goob running off in fear- and thus never get a proper goodbye

5. On a lighter note, when scraps has nightmares about losing Goob she wakes up and goes looking for him. When she sees he’s still asleep she is relived and then goes to try and go back to sleep.

6. The two of them are twisted and see eachother. They want to go hug eachother but they can’t control their bodies anymore :3

That’s all I can think of at the moment :D!!!

[funpuddle]

[mini-assassin-osiris]

HEWO!

My name is Osiris! I’m dis many years old *holds up 8 fingers* I like making smoke bombs and other gadgets, collecting things, I’m a boy(he/him/it) and I’ve killed a man-

Okay cutting you off there, Osiris.

DANG IT! >:[

!First off warnings!

This blog will have topics of child abuse(physical and verbal) and neglect, trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, alcoholism, gore, and such. Osiris also swears a lot, but it is often spelt wrong because of his lisp. keep in mind they hang around the suitors too.

If anything like that is uncomfortable I kindly recommend you do not interact.

Rules so far

no NFSW or suggestive stuff. Also no flirting or ships; this is a child character, I will not allow any of that stuff.

That should be it for now-

Fine. You can talk now, Osiris.

The people I know! :]

Dis is my μπαμπάς: @sonofpolybus

My aunt: @eurydiceofsparta

My next victim- I mean. Aunt’s boyfriend: @the-epic-amphinomus

da little boy I met: @ceixion-of-ithaca

Da girl who tried to kidnap me/my auntie: @penelope-is-waiting

My majesty!!: @carousel-anon-aka-alexander

Da cook and my friend: @roselio-and-the-thorn

Andddd dis is what I look like!

Ooc: Osiris speaks in red. Ooc is normal or like this. All character art is by me. The dagger divider is from @saradika-graphics

Sadly I don’t know who to credit for the rose one. If anyone who is added to the list of people he knows would like to be taken off just tell me 👍

Here are the tags

Smokebomb: Asks

Rosewater: Reblogs

Rotting roses: Anything related to childhood trauma

Poison and plants: Anything related to alcohol and or drugs.

Gas mask/ooc: out of character

Boom!: Posts

Scribbles and scraps: Any drawings posted here

Mini assassin: anything family related

[kakashihasibs]

I am so glad emergency vets are a thing

[atherflame-theconcubus]

Fun fact about scrapped moon that you might not know; the metal plate screwed onto his mouth is because he bit the worker trying to restrain him when he was brought down to parts and services, so they fastened it on as a kind of muzzle. By now it’s been so long since it’s been attached that it’s unclear if it even can be removed without ripping off a chunk of his face

....

I’m going to bite the person who did that to moon

[emolgabrine]

Getting pulled into Ace Attorney so new au.

-

Kazuki was a lawyer and killed by Giovanni, leaving Hibiki and Ken as suspects.

Red is an ex lawyer, and Blue is an ex prosecutor. Still trying to figure out everything else along with Leaf's role and a future role for Blue.

Hibiki is a lawyer who trained with his father, wanting to be like him, and gets mentored by Red after Kazuki died. Ken is just trying to be a baker or electrician but gets accused of murder.

Silver and Galena were forced to be prosecutors by Giovanni and went with it to be better than him. Silver takes the role of defense when Hibiki is unable to, and with his sister, they land Giovanni in jail. Galena also raised Silver, so he's nicer but still very sassy.

Lyra and Krystal are spirit mediums and have the unfortunate fate of Dolos being their brother in this au. Dolos gets his ass landed in prison, too. Yes, this means Ken ate glass here.

-

The plot is different but still very alike to that in Ace Attorney. The differences come from the character's personalities and roles not quite matching those in the games to a T.

Silver and Hibiki are childhood friends, too. They met during one of the times Silver and Galena sneaked out of the house. Can't have gay lawyer au without gay lawyers.

-

Also, I've been working on this au with my friend @0erpro :3

[bloodyrxpley]

now would normally be a really good time for a drink.

[purupurple]

hourly comics day, 6pm and 7pm. the gloves are simple cotton gloves, and its more effective to wear them overnight but they're useful for not smearing lotion all over everything you touch when you're a bit dry during the day

[moonfromearth]

Chen Huan for @jazzytrait's Motive Trials!

Age: YA Pronouns: She/They Aspiration: Bodybuilder Traits: Loyal, Paranoid, Athletic Likes: Fitness & Handiness Dislikes: Comedy Specialization Skill: Handiness

Backstory: Of the sims I've made in my time Huan is just about the one with the most chance of success in the Motive Trials. She's a renowned monster/occult hunter who's faced off against ghosts, werewolves, and more all while living to tell the tale. Both fit and handy, they spend their free time working on their athleticism to stay in top condition for whatever might come their way. Some would say they're paranoid, but they're insist they're simply being cautious. Despite her athleticism being her dominating trait, her strongest skill is in handiness, a vital skill in her line of work when it's required to craft traps and the like to ensure victory as a human facing off against all kinds of occults.

No one knows much about them beyond their monster hunting ventures, a mysterious figure appearing only when there's a roaming occult to track down.

It's only natural that she'd subject herself to The Motive Trials, always looking for ways to improve upon their skills, even if that means risking death (not like it's the first time 😉 ).

-download link (cc included)-

[curiousascuriouscanbe]

Of Apples and Their Trees

After the death of his father, Evelyn Hatter (The Mad Hatter) falls into a depressive state. He doesn't leave home, he doesn't tidy, and he ran out of clean teacups. And, he desperately wishes someone would come visit him. Suddenly, he feels the familiar fur of Cesar Castillo (The Cheshire Cat) under his nose.

Characters are 17-19, story takes place 40+ years before the book.

It had been an untracked amount of days since the funeral.  But, the inside of the hat shop looked as if it had been devoured by the ravenous, neglectful clutches of at least a century.  Every cup escaped from the cupboards; free to roam throughout the living areas.  Some upright and well with soured tea in their ceramic bellies.  Others long tipped over; their contents stained on the precious wood floors.

Amongst a mountain of scrap fabrics and ribbons that had found themselves a bed, Evelyn laid motionless.  An outsider may as well have assumed he was a corpse, save for the occasional twitch or blink of his eyes.  He had gotten into a routine of sorts.  One not of productivity or passion.  But, simply enough to keep himself alive.  Nothing more, nothing less; as the weight of his loss was too horrid to do much more than that.

He would get up from his makeshift bed on the couch.  Some fabrics and ribbons would fall to his feet - cursed to stay where they landed indefinitely.  Then he would drag his feet to the pantry where he would proceed to stare blankly at the dwindling supply of food; he used to put the water on for tea, but no longer had the cups to do so.  Eventually, he would pick out whatever was least stale and peck a few nibbles at it.  Then would put it away and lay back down in his bed to stare and mumble nonsense to himself.

And, as it was, he was at the end of this routine.  With his eyes planted on the ceiling - surely with nonsense getting brewed up in his skull.  Evelyn sighed and took a rare moment to roll on his side to get a look at his front door.  

A few times since the funeral, people had knocked to no avail.  Time came first, but realized Evelyn needed quite much more of him.  So, he had wandered off to gather more of himself long before Evelyn could even think to get off the couch.  Rayburn had knocked a few times, but always had somewhere to be quite soon after (With the new job, wife, and so forth).  The list became less personal the further it went down.  Mailmen stuck letters and packages in piles on the porch.  And perhaps, but Evelyn wasn't quite sure, a footman had sat himself on the porch for a day or so before getting collected by a friend.

Nobody knocked on this day.  Not yet, Evelyn thought, But, I really wish somebody would.

“I have become rather lonely,”

His words spilled from inside to out.

“Funny how when I want to be left alone, everyone knocks, but the day I need someone to talk to, no one does.”

And, to not jinx himself, he added.

“Not yet.”

He stopped his muttering to stare more at the door.  Soon, he felt a tickle under his nose.  Evelyn scrunched it up with the assumption a ribbon was trying to find its way up a nostril.  Though, the tickle remained even after, so he tried again.  The hatter resigned himself to look at what had found itself so cozy against his face.  And he found, from the chin up, he was getting buried in the purple and white fur of some creature’s tail.

At this discovery, Evelyn knew to look up a bit.  Expectedly, he spied his friend, Cesar (Readers will know him better by the moniker of Cheshire Cat) lounged on the back of his couch.  The cat gave a wave of his clawed hand.  Evelyn stared at him; his brow slightly furrowed.

“Your mustache is smudged.”  He remarked.  His eyes widened to a degree that his ears rose and he covered his mouth; an apologetic shimmer in his eye.

Cesar raised his eyebrows and laughed without fully meaning to, “It’s good to see you too, Evelyn.”  He lifted his tail away from the other’s neck and sat upright.  “You’ve been gone for quite a while.  My mind tortured me endlessly with the thought of an ill fate befalling you, you know.”

“Pardon?”  Evelyn blinked, partially still distracted by the smudged eyeliner above Cesar’s lip.  The other side was so perfectly penciled on into a cute little curly-q - and it caused his mind to torture itself thinking about Cesar being laughed away by strangers.

“What I mean is,” Cesar put a gentle hand on Evelyn’s head, “I’ve been worried about you,”

Evelyn took one good last look at the mustache before he looked aside.  (He usually looked at people’s noses, as he wasn’t quite fond of meeting people in the eyes.  There was a strange pain that formed in the bridge of his nose when he tried, so he gave up years ago.)

“Oh.��� He said.

“Are you alright?  You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Cesar ran his fingers over a chunk of Evelyn’s hair.  It had grown quite a lot since the two had last seen each other, and Evelyn hadn’t put hair care in his routine, so it was quite unkempt.  Cesar would’ve thought it funny in any other circumstance, but he spied a hallowed look in Evelyn’s general demeanor that soured the humor.

Evelyn turned his head away.  He gazed at the dust floating in the small bit of sunlight that shone between the curtains.  He opened his eyes very wide, speaking as if possessed, “What does the apple do once the tree is cut?  Is the spot it fell where it will lay a predetermined grave?  Will he rot away into the earth, raisined by the sun without the guidance of where it came from?”

“I take that as you’re not okay?” Cesar’s tail twitched.  He tilted his head to the side.

“Take it however you please,”  Evelyn returned to his back.  His gaze once again fell on the ceiling.  “My words have become as meaningless as anything else that I could speak Shakespeare and sound like a fool,"

“What happened?”  After this, the two stewed in a hauntingly long silence.  Cesar watched as Evelyn’s eyes never parted their destination.  Eventually, the cat hopped off the couch and began picking up various cups.  

The ceramic clinked together enough to call Evelyn up to his elbows.  “My tree was cut down, you see.  That is what I meant,”

“Tree…” Cesar pursed his lips in thought.  His ears flattened against his head.  “I’m sorry to hear that.  When did he-”

“Does it matter?  He’s dead all the same.”  Evelyn snipped Cesar’s question like a pair of scissors.  He rubbed his eyes with the base of his palms.  Cesar looked at him with raised eyebrows as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen.  The hatter peeked out from behind his hand.  Then hid again.  He took a deep breath in and then let it out.  “I’m sorry.  My anger is not for you.  It’s for… who knows what.”

“It’s quite alright, I understand… to a degree,” Cesar resumed his path to the kitchen table.  He set his armful of cups down before he returned to the doorway.  Evelyn sat up fully; his legs now swung over so his feet could touch the floor.

“Do you?”

“I do,” The cat continued on his way.  He picked up the rest of the cups.  From his chest, he hummed a small tune.  “I don’t have my trees anymore - though they still stand - they’ve effectively been cut down for me.  That's why I’m here in Wonderland at all.”

“Is it?”

“It is,” The realization this was a conversation he shouldn’t walk away from, Cesar popped off his tail and set the cups amidst the fur.  He popped it on the end closest to him and let it float into the kitchen.  He sat himself next to Evelyn.  “It’s not much to tell.  Just the woes of a… fruit born on an oak tree, I suppose.  If we want to keep the metaphor going, that is.”  Cesar looked at Evelyn and the two of them shook their heads at each other.  “What I mean is - I understand your feelings, partially.  It’s hard to lose any family member, no matter the circumstance.  So, be angry, my friend, I don’t mind,”

Evelyn went silent for a moment.  He scanned his brain in that time, then asked, “I thought your move to Wonderland was for the arts,”

“That’s still true - two things can be true at once you know,” Cesar poked Evelyn’s nose.  His tail floated back over to the two of them; emptied of its burden of dirty dishes.  The cat stuck it back into place and did a turn around to check if it was on correctly.  He turned a few times until it felt right.  (He had lost his tail before due to it being too loose and had formed the habit of checking at least three times that it was in tight since.)

“I suppose so,” Evelyn nodded slightly - a furrow in his brow formed as he dug deeper into his mind.  And, while Cesar turned to pick up the broom, he continued to speak.

“But, let me not get beside the point,” The cat swept a bit of dust into the kitchen.  Then leaned on the stick to continue talking to his friend.  “I came here to check on your well-being - not depress you with my tales of woe,”

The hatter had moved to sit on the edge of the couch cushion.  He started to straighten out some of the fabrics and ribbons from behind himself.  “I think it helped, actually,”

“Oh?” One of Cesar’s ears perked upwards, “How so?”

Evelyn tried to flatten out a particularly wrinkled square of baby blue tartan fabric - a few of the wrinkles continued to bounce back even after two strong presses.  “I can’t explain it,” He held the fabric in both hands and tugged on it, “I felt, well… Eh… stupid?”

“Eh… stupid?” Cesar repeated - he watched Evelyn’s face to make sure he heard it right.  He leaned the broom on the arm of the couch and sat back down to instead fold fabrics with Evelyn - as it seemed the other was more concerned with them than the floorboards, and he wanted to be as helpful as he could.  When Evelyn nodded, he continued, “Why do you think you were stupid?”

“Everyone made me feel that way - Not on purpose, I don’t think,” Evelyn had begun to spool a ribbon around his right pointer finger, “But, I couldn’t quite handle myself after the… death, you know.  I didn’t know who to call and then by the time I figured out they told me I should’ve called sooner.  But, I called everyone I could think of.  I even called out my window, just in case.”

He tucked the ribbon in on itself.   It held for a moment before it sprung back out.  Evelyn started to wrap it around his finger again and he mumbled, “And how then, is the shrill laughter of ravens like the ground the apple falls upon,”

“It bruises?”  Cesar suggested.

“Do you mean that?” Evelyn looked at Cesar.  He paused the looping of the ribbon - hesitant to try to fix it again.  “Or, are you just showing pity for my odd mannerisms?”

“I mean it,” Cesar reassured, now with a stack of folded fabrics in front of him.  The top layers were quite neat.  Though, the bottom layer had a wrinkle that pushed upwards.  It warped the foundation up to the middle.  “My care does not end where strangeness begins.  If it did, I wouldn’t be able to care about anybody,”

“Strange how it’s normal to be strange,” Evelyn finally tried to tighten the ribbon again.  He squinted in fear of it exploding again - but, when it didn’t, he set it on the table with a sigh.  “That’s a bit of… a stupid bison?”

“Stu…” Cesar looked at Evelyn with a confused glance.  “What?”  (Surely, he thought, I couldn’t have heard that right.)

But, Evelyn continued to speak as if he had said nothing wrong.  “Anyways, because of that, I found myself shaking like a leaf at the funeral home.  I may have lost my shoes on the way, because they made me talk to them from the porch,”  He had picked up a particularly large piece of fabric.  One so vast it could've swallowed him up in a very lovely hug.  His hands treated the velvety red fabric tenderly - careful not to tear the golden straw embroidered into it.  “And, since I was shaking, I couldn't quite speak right.  They didn't say a word - but I could see in their eyes they wanted to call my manners poor.  Then after my tre-”  

Evelyn paused - his eyes widened.  He held the folded fabric near his face.  Cesar stopped his movement.  His paw outstretched, but not fully reaching the other.  Evelyn breathed in.  He met Cesar's paw in the middle.

“This fabric smells like daffodils.” The hatter's voice was muffled by the velvet.  He lifted his face out of it - his eyes looked pleadingly at Cesar.

“Take your time, Evelyn,” Cesar gently pet his friend's hair.  Evelyn looked down at the fabric.  He eased himself by tracing the straw on the folded fabric in his lap and the aid of Cesar's fingers brushing slowly against his scalp.

“Then after my dad's funeral.  All my family left for their homes again.  They came to say they're sorry - what for?  But, whatever it was, they charted off on their boats and horses before I could hear it,” Evelyn realized he had finished folding everything around him and stood up.  His hands moved to mimic the various forms of travel as he went to pick up the broom.  “And it doesn’t make any sense, but the first thing I wanted to do when I got home was to ask my dad… What do I do now?  Even though he obviously wasn’t there to answer.  But…”

He picked up the sweeping from where Cesar had left it.  A small pile of dust and debris gathered at the entrance to the kitchen.  “I suppose all that running around on my own made me realize just how much I depended on him to figure out… anything.  And then those thoughts started to eat themselves from tail to tip until I began to… rot away in a coffin of my own devising.”  By this point, Cesar had stood back up.  He gathered the fabrics in his arms and dropped them off a basket by Evelyn’s work desk.  With a quiet nod, he let his friend continue.  “I felt trapped in my own stupidity.  I still do, but… now, with what you told me.  I think I might be okay,”

“Why’s that?”  Cesar asked.

“I don’t quite know,”  Evelyn scrunched his nose up.  He rubbed the underside of it, “I suppose… I don’t feel as alone.  And, if you can end up so pleasant, then maybe I can too,”

Cesar smiled quite genuinely;  He proceeded to tease the other, “Aaw, you find me pleasant, I’m charmed,”  Then, for the first time in a while, Evelyn laughed.

“Oh, shut it,” Evelyn swatted the broom at his feet, but purposely missed.  The two of them snickered together.  “One more remark like that and I’ll forget to be grateful for how you’ve helped tidy up in here,” the hatter playfully jeered.

Paws raised up in defeat, Cesar sighed (he was trying his best not to smile, but couldn’t help it), “Such a horror that I want to see my friend laugh - oh what a monster I am,”  He leaned against Evelyn in a show of false drama, “I certainly deserve no thanks after that one,”

His friend took the end of the broomstick and lightly poked it into his back, “I wonder when that application for court jester I submitted in your name will be responded to,” 

“Now, you know I’d never want to work for the Queen, even in a joking manner,” Cesar glared at Evelyn.  He took his hand and bapped his nose; this action made the two of them laugh even more.  And, in a fit of giggles and chortles, the act of finishing tidying seemed quite natural and went by much quicker than if they weren’t so jovial.

Eventually, as they wound back down to a comfortable pleasantness; Evelyn found himself propped on a stool with wet hair and draped in a blanket.  He had made a passing remark about how his hair felt against his neck while they were washing the last of the tea cups.  And, even though it was for different reasons, Cesar knew how horrible going without a haircut could be and insisted on cutting it.  

The cat slowly pulled the curtains apart to let some more light in, then approached Evelyn.  He picked a few of the now auburnish strands off the other’s forehead.  A small smile graced his face as he saw Evelyn look at him - also grinning.  (And, the hatter hoped his grin looked like the words “Thank you”)

They went on in silence as Cesar trimmed his friend’s bangs back to the length at which they formed a little heart on his forehead.  Once he moved to Evelyn’s right side; the other began to speak.  “I have a question,”

“I might have an answer,” Cesar hummed.

“How did you… No,” Evelyn clicked his tongue.  He went back to being quiet for a moment longer with the realization he hadn’t found the words.  Then, after a big breath in, he forced the first mish mash out he could.  “I’m scared about the hat shop,”

“Why’s that?” Cesar said as he tilted Evelyn’s head forward so he could cut the underside of his hair off.

“I don’t feel ready to run it,” Evelyn admitted.  He watched as his hair fell to the ground in piles.  “I haven’t finished learning from my family’s book - and that nagging voice about my stupidity won’t let the idea of ruining it go.”

“I’ve seen your work, Evelyn,” Cesar finished getting most of the big chunks of hair cut off.  He started to trim it down in smaller sections.  “I’m sure you’ll do splendidly,”

“But, what if there’s something in that book that I haven’t read yet that’s the big trick to everything?”  Evelyn tried to gesticulate, but quickly put his hands back in his lap after he realized Cesar had to pause the scissors.

“Well, then I suppose, you finish reading the book,” Cesar tapped above Evelyn’s ear.  He pushed it aside to tidy the hairs behind it.

“But, I should reopen the shop soon.  It’s been so long-” Evelyn protested - a spike in anxiety at both the thought and the scissors so near his precious ear.  He held his breath.

“Easy… easy,” Cesar purred with a soft trace of one of his knuckles against Evelyn’s temple.  The other remembered to breathe.  “There you go.  Now, my suggestion to you, would be to do what you know while you finish the book.  As I said, seeing your work, you will be alright.  And, if something truly bad does happen, you can call me,”

“Can I?” Evelyn asked.

“You can,”  Cesar nodded.  He stood back to look at his handiwork on Evelyn’s head before helping him stand up.  His paws worked to dust off stray hairs as they walked to one of the mirrors by the work desk.  Cesar pressed his cheek to Evelyn’s and grinned ear to ear, “Now, get a look at that - sharp, isn’t it?”

Evelyn looked at himself and tilted his head around to try and see it all.  He smiled and resettled his cheek against Cesar’s.  He perked up a bit before he said, “Oxymoron!”

“What?” Cesar looked at him sideways.

“That’s what the stupid bison was,”

And to that, Cesar gave Evelyn a light shove and the two of them worked back up into a chuckle fest until the evening; where the two had to part ways.  Thankfully both were now in good spirits.

[the-one-and-only-moldy-cheese]

Im homosexuality yes

extra tw ver/ no censorship 👻

Why I do this