#when I realized I have to go to work

[inkskinned]

i'm a little afraid to go to pride this year. many of us are, a little. sitting around our tapas and video games, the silence that hangs over the discord server. it feels different, we say.

we're privileged. the community that came before us laid the groundwork so i could be raised in a different world, and i will never forget their sacrifices and dedication. they gave us this: a pride that feels like community and celebration and joy. i remember the first few times i went to a queer event - i'd been raised so catholic. feeling safe like that, for the first time... it saved my life. i go to pride to celebrate that feeling - my people, laughing. out in the sun, the way we couldn't have been even 25 years ago. that feeling: no wonder we call it "pride."

who am i to be afraid anyway. there are parts of the world where people are doing much better work than i am. but it's just: i felt at home there, you know? and this year feels different. we are waiting on the dam to break. last year, at boston pride, there was a whole gaggle of sign-holders shouting about jesus. you walk around them and try not to let it get to you.

this year, i'm going to DC's pride with my girlfriend. google sends me concerns about if it's safe to exist in trump's america, if World Pride is a bigass target on all of us. every article uses the words "safety concerns" many, many times. three days ago i witnessed a shooting.

even straight people keep telling me - people are weird lately. sometimes we blame it on Covid and sometimes we blame it on the full moon. but i do remember a time before this, right. it's not just that people are more comfortable being rude. it's this strange, outwards violence. a comfort in being cruel.

it's a big hole to fall down anyway. it's not like they're going to do anything to make pride safe, not really. i don't want a police presence as the solution. and what if this is just fearmongering! what if this is just to get us to stop attending our own events! what if everything is actually fine, and i'm just freaked out by the stated intentions of our president!

and what if i'm just listening to things that are being said. what if i'm weighing the shape and size of this america accurately.

my mother calls me. she's been getting the articles too. i assure her i'll be careful, but i put the phone down and stare at it. i'm going to go to pride. other people made it safe for me, it is my duty and my honor to show up for my community. the only thing we've ever had was each other. it was always an act of bravery. being ourselves is brave.

but i am afraid. i lay out my outfit and i kiss my girlfriend. i cut my nails and clean up my undercut. i hold her hand and hang the sunset flag. the sound of this america feels different. like a volcano trembling. i will love her and i will love being queer and i will sing over the noise of it.

but ... still. in the back of my mind. that feeling, like something terrible has been shifted. like somewhere in the night - they remembered we're different.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm not going back to Gusu with you.

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[xxplastic-cubexx]

They got divorced again

[suntails]

muse

[tempo-takoyaki]

ur comics are very fun :3

I saw that almost tgcf is gonna get a second season/part

Is that outdated or will we get more almost tgcf comics?

Also good luck with the shop!

Thank you so much!! :D About season 2: the plan was to have it ready for... for this month (April), but I recently realized that I might have to delay it (again) because I've been informed that working at a library, taking care of a shop, and working on a webcomic with an editor are actually three separate jobs and not just me fucking around /srs. So, I've actually done all the sketches for season 2, but I'm still currently into the inking stage and going at it very slowly.

But since it's been 2 years sinc season 1, I think you guys deserve a treat, so here's a little snippet of it:

[wandixx]

I've seen a lot of different takes on Fear Toxin/other fear causing stuff (Yellow Lanterns Ring or something)(later just called Fear Toxin cause I'm lazy) but here is another one.

Danny seems like he isn't affected by Fear Toxin because his biggest fear is that his accident changed him so much he is no longer human, he can no longer truly experience human things.

So when he gets lungful of fear Toxin, he feels normal. He was antsy before, because c'mon, it's a rogue attack but it's not worse. Or so he thought. Because the anxiety lingers. Not enough to register as abnormal just this slight hypervigilance that makes you see things about yourself and your surroundings that you'd never realize otherwise. He'd realize he doesn't blink as often. He'd realize that if he doesn't consciously focus, he sometimes seems to not touch the ground. Forgets to breathe. He can't feel his own pulse at time. He'd realize people will miss him when he's walking down the street as if he was invisible (people just don't care about everyone they pass by). When he'd look straight into his reflection, he'd look slightly to the left. Not enough to actually name anything that was wrong but just stretched enough to fall on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. If he just caught his reflection in the peripheral vision, it'd be vaguely shadowy creature with glowing green eyes and white smoke instead of hair. Overall he'd be just wrong enough to be distinctly not human.

For everyone else, he'd be just a dude. Literally couldn't find more normal dude than this dude. Will pass as absolutely normal human unless someone is specifically looking for ecto-ghost stuff. Even most magic users wouldn't clock him at the glance

Tldr: Fear Toxin makes Danny perceive himself as some sort of eldritch horror but not enough to make him believe he'd actually be affected, while from outside perspective he's Just A Dude™

[evercelle]

2024 art summary! it sure has been a year

[linterteatime]

All (or most) of Zim's costumes/outfits/alternative universe versions/whatever (1/3)

(Group 2 here, Group 3 here)

[backpackingspace]

Odysseus: demanding Athena take off whatever enchantment she put on him the second the situation ends.

Odysseus: who constantly reminds Athena that he has great plans to grow old and die with his wife so don't even think about getting any ideas.

Odysseus: side eye diomedes who has started fucking glowing he has so many enchantments on him: bro you should talk to Athena about getting those removed. You're going to end up immortal or some shit

Diomedes: who has been a solider since he was 5 who has intersting thoughts about his own personhood who has a much more traditional relationship with Athena and would rather literally stab his own eye out with a rusted sword than speak out of turn: I don't know what you're talking about

[ewwww-what]

Her baby boy.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Valentine's Day! (and this blog's first post anniversary!)

[recent-rose]

hey i dont go here but jayce's speech about viktor in s2e9 isn't him saying 'u should never have tried to heal yourself, you were perfect the way u were x3' it was him saying that viktor's physical health never made him any less beautiful, never made him any less important, never made him any LESS, period. he wasn't saying viktor didn't need to pursue a cure for his ills like come on his motivation to invent hextech was to help people. to cure disease. viktor's first and foremost among them.

he said what he said because it was the thing viktor craved to hear most in his life, and that is why those were the words that punched through his defences even as the machine herald: jayce loved him wholly and unconditionally, healthy or ill, good or bad, human or inhuman. he would always be loved just the same.

[cradle-of-darkness]

What have you done?

based on an idea @username8746489 had where sylvie discovered nightmare fuel for the first time on accident while getting bullied by some older kids (and pushing him further into social isolation now that he's known as "that scary kid who could summon someone's worst fear")

[merelyafacade]

Found this BG3 indie animation vid that blew my mind. An example of magnificent story telling. It crushed my soul and made me Fully Invested in a character I’d never met before.

Absolutely stellar.

This amazing video is by @ritzeldraws! This is the YouTube link. They’re also on tumblr under the same name. Check them out! Their art is absolutely amazing!

[cloversnstrawberries]

platonic!yandere!alastor & 1950s!teen!gn!reader ! ! [chap. one]

series masterlist !

description; You know where you were, and there was no kidding yourself on it. After taking in your surroundings, you stood from where you'd woken up and headed out of the patch of stinging nettle. You didn't know what your plan was, but it definitely wasn't to get stalked and subsequently chased by a very tall, inhuman deer-man.

additional notes; woo!! this chapter introduces alastor, but it's pretty much just at the end. reader does not have a good time. have you ever been stung by a stinging nettle? i haven't, but i saw my brother get stung on his leg by one and. and it's such a funny yet terrifying sight to see a 6'1 20 y/o scream like a banshee and run around like a mad man because he brushed up against a plant. it's not fun (he told me so himself). i hope you enjoy, i, once again, had a lot of fun writing this!! there might be typos to begin with, but i'm usually much better at catching them after publishing fics (i don't know how it works D:) so i'll probably be coming in and out to fix them :]]

warnings; general terror, anxiety, isolation, lots of religious references (enough to be tagged)/mentions of sunday school, mentions of death + death of friends, grief, reader is terrified for their life, gratuitous use of symbolism done by yours truly, being 'hunted', Alastor is referred to an 'it' (this will change in the next chapter when he introduces himself), and let me know if i missed any major ones !! :D

w/c; 3.0k

You just sat there for a while, looking around. There was no trace of whatever had killed you, whether you’d succumbed to the blood or the unspecified brain injury you definitely sustained-- there was no lingering lightheadedness or nausea.

Physically, you felt… fine. Your mouth felt crowded to the point of discomfort, your hands felt quite heavy because of the claws now adorning the ends of them--

And you’re pretty sure you’d landed on your tail. Yes, you have a tail. At first, you couldn't believe, that you'd fall down into hell and suddenly gain a tail; but you’d shifted around and pulled the large, furry mass from where it’d been pinned underneath you.

There was no beating around the bush with it, you had a tail now; and you were pretty damn accepting of it.

…Or you were just too tired to care. Not physically so, but mentally. You could hardly believe it, that in such a short amount of time, so much had changed.

One moment, you’d been happily hanging out with your friends, and the next you were in a car accident, hunted down the spoiled brat that caused it (because God knows he would’ve gotten away with it on account of his filthy rich folks) and slaughtered him.

With that in mind, you completely understood why exactly you were in hell, surrounded by a bunch of stinging nettles-- you looked down to your left, having felt something brush against your hand. It didn’t feel like stinging nettle at all.

When you looked down, you saw a small patch of 4 Zinnias. One was yellow, another orange, then a hot pink, and the last a bright cherry red.

You don’t know what it was about those flowers, but something stirred deep in your in response. Those were their colors, you’d realized. And maybe it was just one big coincidence, a fluke that the yellow was the exact shame shade of the cardigan Lorraine had been wearing. Or that the orange reminded you of Rudy’s carrot-top hair, or that the hot pink was exactly the color of Marnie’s cat eye-framed glasses—

Or that the red was awfully too close to the color of Matty’s Chevy convertible that he’d so lovingly named “Sheila”.

It was silly that spotting the flowers was what got you to stand, to finally get off your ass and leave the field you’d woken up in. But no matter how silly the reasoning was, at least you finally stood, right?

You considered being slow with it-- it'd be leagues safer then just yanking yourself upright and immediately heading out. But you weren't really thinking clearly on that end-- you just wanted away from the flowers.

It was stupid. It was stupid, the unease you felt because of those-- but something in the back of your mind reminded you about unit you'd done in home economics the year prior.

You don't know why it was required by the curriculum to learn how to pick just the right flowers for a gift (in the case of the boys in the class), or to decorate your home with (regarding the girls, which you thought was ridiculous that there was a separation between the two, but you could do nothing about it). You thought it was a little silly, but your teacher at least tried to make it entertaining.

She included a mini-history lesson, something that brought back some of the history parts of the etiquette unit done the previous semester. The Victorian language of flowers,

You couldn't remember what zinnia's represented, but you don't remember it being anything good. You think it's something relating to grief, and at that point you put a hard stop to anymore prying into the subject.

When you stood, you stumbled a bit. For a split second, fear shot through you-- were you still affected by the brain injury? did that carry over, and you just hadn't noticed until you stood suddenly?-- but those fears were replaced with annoyance at what you figured out to be the actual cause.

Weight distribution and whatnot, you weren't used to your ears being on top of your head instead of the sides-- so that messed with your balance just as much (or perhaps even more) than having to readjust for the added weight of your tail.

Luckily, you caught yourself before tripping face first into the stinging nettle right next to you. You'd put your foot down quick, just a hair away from brushing up against the plant.

"Shit!" You tried not to swear too often, but you felt like it was appropriate for the situation. You were quick to take a few steps back, relieved that you hadn't touched the plant.

One time, when you and your friends had been at sleepaway camp right before the start of freshman year, you and your friends had came across a patch of stinging nettle, smaller than the one you stood in now-- but still pretty sizable.

Rudy, ever the class clown, said he bet 10 bucks that he would jump into the nettle. Matty tried to discourage him, and Marnie had already preemptively turned her gaze away and covered her ears, readying for when he'd start screaming his head off (and boy, did he scream).

Lorraine was always the smartest, most level headed of the group. Though, at that point, she wasn't as used to Rudy's antics as the rest of you were; she took him up on the bet, thinking it'd make her an easy 10 dollars. That Rudy would chicken out.

He took off his shirt and jumped into the patch. It was awful, he'd jumped up almost immediately and started running like a bat out of hell-- he screamed so loud and so blood-curdlingly that camp counselors barreled to where your group was, afraid that someone had broken a leg or something of the sort.

When they got one look at the angry red welts on Rudy's back, they rolled their eyes-- you're sure they'd encountered more than a few risk takers that'd done close to same thing as Rudy had.

Rudy was always one to play up things for the laughs-- but that was one of the few times you were absolutely certain he wasn't doing anything to make it seem worse. It looked awful.

You weren't too keen on trying it for yourself, thank you very much. Eyeing the plant wearily, you made sure to steer as clear as possible of it as much as possible.

While you'd been sitting, you'd noticed a path right near where your head had been laying. You turned that way, and looked at it-- real closely, this time around.

It was pretty narrow, all things considered, but it was doable. It stretched on pretty far, but-- and this might be perspective, but it didn't seem that way-- it looked like it gradually widened about half a mile down.

Sure, it wasn't ideal, but this was hell, after all. You'd take what you could get, and you really didn't want to stay in this patch for any longer. You didn't know if hell had a day/night cycle, but if it did, and it turned to night-- you're sure that wouldn't spell anything but trouble for you.

Honestly, you could've probably walked straight forward-- like a normal person-- but for some reason, that still felt too close for comfort.

You felt something brush against your leg, and it didn't hurt-- but you didn't know how fast a nettle's sting settles in, so you snapped your head down and--

Huh.

Your tail-- which, you knew that, realistically speaking, it would move. Considering it's just another limb-- was swinging in agitation, and you hadn't meant to do it.

With a frown, you came up with a quick solution. You scooped it up with one arm and held it close to your chest with both. Then, not wanting to waste another second in this open field, you turned sideways and started cautiously making your way down the path, being painfully careful as to where you put your feet, or if you felt even a teensy bit off balance.

By the time you got to where the path widened-- thank God, you thought; even though He definitely had nothing to do with this strike of unexpected luck-- you took a chance and turned, no longer feeling the need to move sideways.

Most of the time, your eyes were focused whole-heartedly on the ground. Tracking where your feet were, if the path started narrowing again-- all of that fun stuff. But you made sure to look up a couple times, and look behind you as well. Just to be careful.

You don't know how long you'd been walking for. It must've been a while, probably a couple miles-- the sky was getting darker (and you mentally noted that hell did in fact have a day/night cycle. isn't that just swell?) and your feet were starting to hurt.

It felt like a miracle, that right as you started to get a little reckless with your footing-- hunger, exhaustion, and discomfort being one of the main sources of you being less and less cautious as the trek through the field wore on and on and on-- the end of the path was within sight,

However, it was a forest. Not a smart idea to go into-- even if it was day, the large trees would probably block any light from filtering through the leaves. You were certain it'd be awful in the dark, and all you had was the clothes on your back.

It was getting cold-- which surprised you. The temperature before was far from pleasant, it was what you'd expect from hell more or less. Scorching, to put it lightly; but it didn't affect you too badly-- maybe on account of your new biology made to better suit Hell's climate--

But it was cooling down, and it was cooling down fast. A shiver ran up your spine, a soft breeze turning into raging, cold wind that seemed to blast you from every which way.

In Sunday school, they didn't talk about hell much; it scared the kids, the idea that them, or a loved one, could go to such an awful place. It was a necessary evil when it came to discussing anything relating to God, however.

This... hell, it had to be hell-- felt worse then what you'd learn about. You've been here for hours, and have encountered not one person. Not one thing, nothing but plants and the fear of expectation.

This can't be all there is, rang out in your mind. It was terrifying, that hell seemed so similar to your time alive. A day/night cycle, temperatures that changed (even if it was from uncomfortably hot to uncomfortably cold).

As you thought about it more, you decided that maybe this was hell, your own personal one. You'd lived your life as someone who held friends and family in high regard-- you much preferred a night in than out, always opting for a cinema over a drive-in movie; but bending to your friend's wills if they so demanded.

To be stuck out here, in an unfamiliar field where there was no sign of someone-- something else, no trace that there had ever really been anyone else-- with by far one of your least favorite-- if not the least favorite-- plant being all your eye could see.

When you made it to the edge of the forest-- a nice little 'peace zone' between the nettles behind you and the foreboding, dark forest ahead of you, where there was just grass. Nothing more, nothing less-- you contemplated not going in.

Maybe... Maybe instead of a one-size fits all fire-and-brimstone, closed in with a bleeding stone ceiling and chains hanging down, the sound of screaming, tormented and damned souls being the only thing you could hear-- it was much more... personalized.

That seemed so, so much scarier than anything you learned in Sunday school. If you got a choice, you think you'd pick the other, only because it'd be predictable. You'd know what to expect.

And now, and you stand in front of the daunting forest ahead-- you find yourself torn between two worlds. On one hand, you can just stay here in this field. It's safer, if only by a little-- because you've been here for the past however-many hours, and not much had happened (save for a few close calls with the nettles you were carefully skirting around),

Still, staying out in the open didn't bode well in your mind. Going into the forest wasn't any better, it was just as scary as the nettle patch-- except for the fact that it was far more unfamiliar.

You must've stood there for at least 10, maybe even 20, minutes before finally making your decision. It was getting colder and colder-- you looked behind you, and despite how freezing it'd become, there was no frost covering the plants behind you.

Right. So, no 'hell freezing over' kind of situation. The temperature was just always set 100, whether that be in one direction or the other. Fine-- that's fine, i can deal with that you told yourself, crossing your arms over your chest to try and conserve what warmth you can,

Before stepping into the forest. The path had let right to an opening, a trail leading through the woods as well. You had full intention to follow it the whole way through, not wanting to stray off if possible.

You kept looking behind you, seeing the dim moonlight coming from the entrance growing further and further away-- when it was no longer visible, you swallowed hard and focused your gaze ahead.

This was fine.

You can deal with this.

This is just dandy, swell-- amazing! You're fine, you're okay. You aren't hurt, there's nothing behind you, there's nothing watching you, nothing hunting you despite what the deep-seeded prey drive in the back of your head tried to tell you--!

Snap!

You tried your best to not look back, but it was getting harder and harder as the moments went by. There no other noise, save for crickets chirping, and fireflies buzzing by (though, they didn't look like any fireflies you'd seen before, not while alive), and your own footsteps and shallow breathing.

Then, you stopped dead in your tracks. There was a fork in the path-- one leading down a steep hill, the other turning sharply into a more densely populated part of the forest. It was impossible to see all the way down the hill, or through the trees.

You stalled, not a smart choice, but... you didn't know what to do. The hairs on the back of your neck stood straight up, posture becoming more hunched as the cold feeling of dread curled in your gut and refused to leave you alone.

It went quiet.

Entirely so.

No crickets chirping, no fireflies buzzing, no wind rustling the trees-- nothing. Your ears began to ring oh-so suddenly, and you flinched. Clapping your hands over your ears, childishly hoping that'd fix-- or at least help-- the ringing in your ears, that was getting so loud you felt your brain starting to rattle in your skull,

You squeezed your eyes shut, pushing and pushing and pushing your hands harder and harder against your ears, and at some point, it seemed like you were trying to crush your skull into pieces out of pure desperation. Desperation for the ringing to just stop already!

Just when you felt your head was about to explode-- or implode, maybe; considering how much pressure you were putting on it-- the ringing stopped.

A hand was on your shoulder, but you didn't feel it settle there. You don't know long it'd been there-- it's a hand, you know that much. It was large, and clawed, and bony-- it didn't feel like a person's hand, so much as it felt like the hand of a monster. The kind that you'd ask your mom to check under your bed for as a small child,

Before you could properly react, besides the way your blood seemed to turn to solid ice in that second of realization and your eyes flying open, another hand-- just like the one on your shoulder, grabbed one of your wrists-- delicately, almost gentle, but a hidden threat lied beneath it-- and pulled it from your ear.

"Hello, my dea--!"

You turned around, and all you needed to get you rushing past the- the creature, the man(?) that stood before you was to realize just how tall it was, the antlers adorning it's head, it's red eyes that seemed to glow all on their own--

and oh.

oh god, those teeth, bared in what you assume was meant to be a friendly smile, but got horribly twisted upon execution-- it's mouth could be considered more of a maw then anything,

Before it could get another word, before it could even finish its damn sentence, you ripped your hand from it's grip-- it was loose, easy to pull your wrist from its clawed hands--

And swerved around it, taking off the way you came. You didn't dare look back, your tail trashed wildly with anxiety-- surely getting sticks and leaves and burrs stuck in it all the while, but you didn't care about that right now,

All you cared about was getting away from whatever the hell had just approached you.

A foolish, almost naive part of you assumed it wouldn't follow you. That it wasn't that interested in you, or that it'd already got its fun from spooking you like a flighty rabbit.

The laugh that seemed to trail after you, seemed to worm into your very head and make itself a nice, cozy little home right in the back of your mind-- told you otherwise.

It dawned on you, maybe a little too late, that this was probably its intention. To get you to run, run like a rabbit being chased by a hunter-- knowing that if it turned around, if it looked back for even a second; it'd be staring down the barrel of a shotgun, one held by a man with a trigger finger when it came to things like rabbits.

You were being hunted.

Pretty fitting for your first night in hell, isn't it?

tag list !

@diffidentphantom

[please comment or DM me if you'd liked to be added to the tag list! ^^]

[zylphiacrowley]

Love.

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