#writing again!!

[child-of-the-cosmos]

Part 1. > Here. Part 2. > Here. Part 3. > Here.

The daycare was shut down a long time ago, replaced by some... movie theater thing? Not that it matters to you, for all you know, the daycare itself could just be a rumor. One of those things that get made up into a story somebody tells the other person.

You tried searching something about it up on the web. Of course, you came up empty. But... those teens yesterday. They were talking about it- them?? Something about this big animatronic that used to watch over them as a kid. And you were sure they said something about a daycare.

But... maybe you were mistaken?

You sat down a semi heavy box in the storage room connected to the back of the theater, located in the plex.

It mostly just held old dvds (as if people still used them anymore, but you guessed it was better than paying those high subscriptions most companies had nowadays), and other stuff the theater might need. Including exrta cleanings supplies, and whatnot.

Just, the usual stuff you'd see in a place like this.

You thought back to the daycare. You don't know why, but something bothered you. A manic bot? But those teens were obviously recalling only good times with... whatever it was. Missing kids? You couldn't find anything about that. And... they just, removed a whole daycare???

You thought about how many people would kill for a good babysitter these days- most bots that are programed for that, well, that's all they're programmed to do. Maintain the health and safety of the child until their guardian came home. Something like that, at least.

But the bot those teens talked about? It- they?? Sounded... animated. More... involved with the caretaking.

...

You were really started to feel bad for just, listening to their conversation like that. But it was interesting! Who wouldn't be interested in something like that.

You could name quite a few people. But weren't one of them.

You stretched, looking around the dimly lit room. It was big. Spacious. Had a lot of boxes piled up. None of them named, though. You guessed the maintenance bots had something to do with that.

You pursed your lips, looking around again. This place... was once connected to the daycare, right?

You took a step deeper. No one was around... didn't see any cameras... geez, there was dust everywhere. The stuff in here had to be old.

You stretch one more time, before letting your arms fall to your sides. Yeah, you were definitely about to snoop.

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

It had been about a full tem minutes of snooping, which was a lot on work time. But, whoever was over you barely ever kept up with you... so... yeah.

You could hear some animated movie distantly playing in the background. Thin walls. They must have just quickly built something up to have somewhere to put the theater.

You sigh. You still hadn't found anything. Zip. Zero. You were losing hope. And fast.

You were about to leave, but then something catches your eye. Something shiny?

You walk over to a pile of boxes, much deeper in the storage room. They were stacked on top of each other, as most things were here. But that didn't matter to you. No, what mattered right now was the shiny bell hooked to some sort of red ribbon, hanging a little out of one of the boxes.

Definitely not something for the theater.

You smiled. Finally, something interesting.

You carefully removed the boxes on top, finding even more stuff. Shirts, cups, even glowing the dark wrist bands. All having the same sun or moon themed design. Oh, yeah. Jack pot.

As you took out the contents of each box, you were careful to put it back just the way it was. Gotta be discret. Or at least try. Finally, you get to the boxes with the ribbons.

You take one out, feeling it. "What is this? Silk? Some sort of satin?" You quietly mumbled to yourself, flipping the fabric in your hands.

You decide to take one with you, there were tons. One wouldn't hurt... maybe. Hopefully. If they take it out of your paycheck, it's fine. The little bell on the end made it worth it. You found yourself shaking it a little as you walked around, looking for more boxes like the ones you just went through.

Your eyes don't land on it at first, in fact, you miss it three times- far to absorbed in your little mission to find more cool or interesting stuff. I mean, a glow in the dark jacket?? That was nice. It was also themed like everything else you found so far.

But then, you see it. Something. On the farthest back wall. Laying haphazardly against some more boxes. Like it was just, thrown there at some point. One of its triangles??? On its head, had act poked through a box.

You wanted to run. To just turn around, pretend you didn't see anything. Go back to the theater, glance at the movie every now and then.

But you couldn't. You were in too deep now. You needed to see this thing up close.

You take out your flashlight that was hooked to your belt, and point it at it. It was too dark in the place they had set it in to get a good look at it without it.

Wow. Okay. Yeah. Creepy.

Tattered clothing, blank eyes, horrifying smile... you didn't get why any kid would want to get close to this thing. At all.

You walk closer, there was a crack on it's left eye. If you looked closer, you could pin point exactly where the impact-

You slip.

You reach for air as you fall, any box being too far away to grab.

Your head lands on it's chest with a loud bang.

You grab it in pain, failing stand from how much it hurt. Bone to metal definitely didn't mix.

When you had hit your head, you faintly remember hear some sort of... click. Almost like when you click a pin. It was quiet, but not quiet enough to be unnoticed.

You squint at it's chest. A button? Oh, it had more than one.

You sigh, beginning to stand back up, but freeze.

Your eyes lock with its. And it speaks.

"Who... are you? W-where... am I??"

[valleynix]

uwu what’s this

[wishfulsketching]

I have finally finished season 2 of Arcane and can now enjoy your art without fear!!! They should be happy together 🥺

I take it "they" means zaundads because that is what I've been drawing the most BUT, lets be honest, applies to like 98% of the characters in the show.

They should've been a big happy familyyyy

[valtsv]

im one of the angels assigned to guard god's throne and i keep shaving a piece of wood off one of the legs so it gets progressively thinner and weaker until one day it will snap like a matchstick and the big man will topple from his seat of power to grace the ground with his holy ass. of course he's omniscient so he already knows this and will have to banish me from heaven when it happens, but because of free will he has to give me the option to repent right until the very end. we both know i'm not going to do it but the rules that define our very being won't let us take any other course of action and besides he made me this way, so really the joke's on him no matter what.

[ginnyw-potter-archive]

Feel free to use, or message me for more banners

yes, I'm self-aware thank you

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[chiptrillino-art]

something stranger and more wonderful

(ID in ALT text)

my art for @faux-fires (ao3 Link) fic "something stranger and more wonderful"

beta red by @ranilla-bean (ao3 Link) for this years @zukkabigbang2024 event. its truly a beautiful fic. Keeping you on your toes while reading. making you worry about sokka exposed to the whims of nature and zuko, all alone.

big thank you to reikah and rana for all the handholding during this project! And stoping me form overthinking details.

[tender-traps]

ohhh we love a good “forced to torture your friend while undercover as a bad guy” don’t we

like. when you meet their eyes and you both know you have to do it and you have to do it well

[eridan-ampora]

i love it when characters are codependent. i love it when losing someone feels like losing a limb. i love it when two people "complete" each other so wholly and terribly that one can barely function without the other. i love it when the fear of losing the only person who understands them is so all-consuming they'll destroy anything to stay together, including themselves.

[heywriters]

If you want to write a dumb little story with a dumb little plot and ridiculously silly characters. No one's stopping you. Genuinely, no one should be allowed to stop you. Write that dumb story with your whole heart and don't hold back.

[honeyblackberries]

imagine jjk men who are so casual with their affection. sure they do the usual things like holding your hand and kissing you in public but...

nanami would fold down the collar of your shirt when it sticks up funny, all while continuing on with your conversation as if it was just second nature. 

geto would poke in between your brows when you're frowning and tease that your pretty face will get stuck like that. 

gojo would play with your hair when he's bored, tugging at it to annoy you like a bratty kid.

toji would wrap his arm around your waist to move you out of the way of people on the street. his hand lingering as he complains for you to watch where you’re going.

sukuna would bite you when your attention strays away from him for too long, he looks irritatingly pleased with himself when you tell him off.

[heritageposts]

🇵🇸 From BDS:

More than 300 Palestinian sports teams are calling to ban Israel from the Olympics over its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. [...] In Gaza, Israel has killed Palestinian Olympic Football coach Hani Al Masdar, destroyed the Palestinian Olympic Committee offices, and turned sports facilities into shameful mass detention and torture centers. We can’t sit back as the IOC allows Israel to use the Olympics to sportswash its genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime against Palestinians everywhere. Support the call from Palestinian teams. Join the campaign to #BanIsrael from the Olympics and peacefully disrupt the road to the Paris 2024 games. 

Global days of action planned for March 15-17:

Ahead of the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne Switzerland (March 19-21), take the call from Palestinian teams to your National Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations and Recognized Sports Federations. Organize protests, sit-ins, peaceful disruptions, or awareness raising events on Israeli attacks on Palestinian sports.

For more concrete information on how you can participate in the campaign, see the link above. You should also check in with your local BDS-affiliated organization(s) to see if they have anything planned for these dates (if they don't, consider bringing it up to them)

If you're not familiar with any BDS-affiliated organizations in your country (or state/city), then take a look at BDS's "Join a Campaign'"page.

There's also a petition you can sign.

[bluegiragi]

left on read.

--

last year i finally read "all that's said in the low light" by headlocket which i feel like has developed its own reputation by now, but just in case you don't know - it's kind of known in the fandom as a massive tearjerker. As promised, I cried buckets over it and it left an enormous impact on me.

I drew this comic (after getting permission from headlocket) as a what if on a situation in chapter 12, where Simon goes through a period of radio silence from Johnny after essentially giving him his blessing to date other people, the utter clown. We only see it from Johnny's side, who is really going through it, but the mental image of Simon staring at a slew of his own unread messages really stuck with me...did he think this was it? That that shitshow of a conversation he had with Johnny might've been the last they ever had? What if Johnny just never responded to him again? Did he regret giving him permission?

bonus - simon's forlorn and temporarily one-sided conversation:

[mywitchcultblr]

This is what happened when a fanfic site is profit driven. Wattpad sucks 😞

The email/DM from Wattpad is so condescending. Imagine pressuring writers to update and work while they are doing it for free and fun. Also, the discovery? Algorithm? Of Wattpad looks like a stressful popularity contest 😑

[futuretrain]

all stories are about time loops, except for time loops, which are about grief

[lazylittledragon]

if i had a nickel for every au spawned from twitter that i SWORE i was going to be normal about