#there is more to this story

[spirit-pyrite]

The Tiger Cage

It is 8:20 in the morning, and the sky is pressing down like the tired choke of omen. Grey and dim as fall threatens to slip into winter, the sun hidden by the horizon and a thick blanket of foggy clouds. A chill sits on the air.

The children, waiting, do not feel it. In twenty minutes, the bell will ring and their day will begin in earnest. The playground monitor will blow her shrill whistle and they will form into narrow lines, march into the brick building, and disappear into the mist of being. But for now, they remain floating suspended in the early morning light, hanging, grasping desperately at what little is left to hold.

The game they are playing is called “Tiger Cage”. It’s the only game they play on the dome: a geometric mesh of bars bolted into triangles, attached into pentagons, molded into a half sphere. Other games take place around the dome, or through it: tag where the chased are cornered against it, play pretend where the dome can be a castle, a cave, or a prison, but only Tiger Cage is possessed by the dome. A game that exists only here, only now- before the playground monitor has power enough to stop them, to tell them it isn’t safe and scatter them about. Tiger Cage is part of the dream, part of the blur before school, of waiting for the bell to ring. It is a fervor, as many children’s games are. So consuming as to mold you into character, enrapture you into a new being. The children are caught. The game is being played.

More than twenty of them weigh down onto the creaking metal bars, writhing as they clamor to the top. Twisting in and out of the triangular openings, hanging by tiny fingers, pushing over each other and the whole structure sways under the pressure of them all. They wait to see who will drop first, who will start.

Eventually, unspoken, someone slips. They tumble down onto the wood chips, and the game begins. He is the Tiger now, and the cage presses in. The Tiger in its blue jacket snarls, twisting away from the grasping hands. The other side of the cage shutters and hands become arms, the Tiger bears its teeth and pulls back. Surrounded on all sides, the cage becomes impenetrable, a wall of writhing, reaching hands, desperate to hold it, snatch it. The cage is sanctuary, and only so safe as it can curl right within its center, thrashing as their hands lash though the air, wanting, wanting, wanting. It finds the middle of the dome eventually, crouching out of reach. The cage waits, performs the perfunctory strain of failure for a moment, before the second act begins. One of the hands at the side, perhaps midway up the dome, starts the show. In one smooth motion, hand becomes arm becomes shoulder, then a whole body breeches the boundaries of the cage, half suspended by an aching little arm twisted backwards, balanced on the thin metal as the Tiger’s safety is lanced through. The body swipes down and out, and the Tiger must throw itself backwards, then roll on its feet to the center again, away from the hungry walls as the body rebalances from the attempt, then retreats. But it is too slow, and as it jumps back to safety a pale hand snatches at it. Too late, too slow: so he is no longer the Tiger. His blue jacket scrambles back onto the dome, pulling up and disappearing into the roiling web of hands and bodies and reaching.

The next Tiger drops into the pit on bright red sneakers, crunch-crushing the wood chips as his weight becomes predator, as he arches forward into its four-legged growling snarling anger. The cage does not wait long before they begins to swing down, death-defying dives as they clamor to consume it. It snarls and spins and grows and roars and twists into its own dives avoiding. But the cage is all blood and air, swooping like taloned birds bereft of weight, and it is only mortal, rolling into splinter-soil till it is heavy with it. A body from the center top, nearly the perilous center ring, pulls him back out of the cage.

And then the next, a girl in a green knit cap. Then next, a boy in a black jacket. It is movement, it is trial. They are children, and children are becoming things. So they are becoming: Predators trapped, all consuming grasp, a silent dance of death on the cold autumn morning. They don’t speak, not really. Just act.

A girl drops into the cage- or what was thought to be a girl, before this. She is wearing a brown canvas jacket. But there is no girl in the cage, there never was. Only the Tiger. It is warmer here, caught in cloying heat as the sky becomes skin, reaches in, for the kill. It roars, spins. Pacing becomes panting, anguished dancing running as it twists. The hands grab in-in-in. Its eyes wide, gold- rimmed, slitting into beastly adrenaline. A body falls, it flips. Pushes with its hind claws as it amends. Another lunges and it tucks, ducking, hackles raised. Howls back away, hitches forward to avoid a graze. Whirls back from a close miss, panting heavy. Its ribs swell like prey-kin, and there is fear. But it is a Tiger, and tigers have teeth, not armor. And it has teeth. Spitting as it yowls upwards, and suddenly it is done: the grandest feat. A body at the very top, all in visceral strength, plummets to the center of the cage, caught only by the legs. And the Tiger roars, stomach exposed as it’s thrown, deep into the shrapnel at its back. Belly up as it stares into the eyes of the cage, double-dozen-thousand staring pin point as the Tiger’s teeth bear down into sharp fangs, fingers made paws bloom white claws, and then-

The bell rings. For a moment, the children stay perfectly still. The girl who hangs from the top of the dome, inches away, doesn’t blink. Then the recess monitor’s shrill whistle screams, and they all slowly pull away. Shuffling just slow enough that by the next blink, the girl in the brown canvas jacket has human eyes.

#fool's writing #writing #short fiction #short story #story #childhood #playground games #Tiger Cage #the Tiger Cage #games #there is more to this story #but whether I write more? #more fickle than a leaf on the wind

[chongoblog]

Me, after forgetting to cut the top off an onion before dicing it: “Aw dammit”

The Gordon Ramsey that lives in my head: “Don’t worry there, this mistake isn’t going to ruin anything. No need to be too hard on yourself”

Me: “Wow, that’s…not what I was expecting”

Gordon: “Of course, you ought to know by now that I don’t shout at cooks just to do so. I do it because the people in hit television show Kitchen Nightmares are putting their services out into the public and claim to be good enough to have the title of head chef. You’re just some guy in your twenties making beef stroganoff for yourself and your roommate. I’m kind of a dick, yeah, but I’m not gonna scream at you for a minor mistake like this”

Me: “Oh….well…thanks”

Gordon: “You’re welcome…cunt…”

#based on a true story #im cooking more which is super cool

[aholefilledwithtwigs]

I once had a landlord offhandedly mention that his mother had set this house on fire before. He and his wife lived on the first floor, and i rented the third.

Apparently his mom didn’t like his wife. So she set their house on fire. The house i was living in.

He assured me that everything was fine now and that this was years ago, just kinda laughed, smiled, and said ‘You know how moms are’

Yes. I know how moms are. I know how fucked up moms are as well. I have known many fucked up moms and fellow children of fucked up moms.

Attempted murder through arson is not typical mom behavior, even for a fucked up abusive mom

Oh, and his mother lived next door 🙃

#story time with sair #i might follow up with more #that was a wild living situation even for me #family owned #two neighboring houses of six units total #all of them one family/lived there decades #except the one unit rented out to me

[gatorinator]

“Walrus on your doorstop” this “fairy’s more unrealistic” that my professor just uttered the sentence “there was one day I found a real octopus in my backyard” this man hasn’t left Utah his entire life. How was there an octopus in his backyard in Utah. He then said “I do not have time to elaborate we need to cover a lot today in class” GIRL WHAT DO YOU MEEAN

#al speaks #we are fifteen minutes into class and still haven’t had any class cuz he was telling a story. wdym you don’t have time for the octopus story #stop class I want to know everything. I guess he would say he would be more surprised to see a fairy than a walrus #walrus or fairy

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

#space #space history #venus #NASA #Venera #spost #I will talk all day about venus #ask me about venus floating sky cities #unpopular opinion venus > mars #this is probably my favorite space history story #the surface of venus is made of lens caps #don't try to tell me the universe doesn't have a sense of humor #well #I guess its more that people have a sense of humor and we happen to live in the universe

[steelsuit]

Vampire Spawn 🩸🦇

#Astarion #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #vampire #baldur's gate 3 #poster #pic #Astarion my beloved #his story means a lot to me so wanted to do something more detailed with him..

[jakeperalta]

letting celebrities think they can and should "use their platform" to speak on all current events and political issues regardless of how educated they are on them was a grave mistake

#i honestly think that's why half of these celebrities are just sharing around these same few wishy washy unhelpful statements #at this point it's a relief when i open an instagram story and it's just a celebrity posting about their regular stuff #like good thank you feel free to just be quiet #or just share some fundraising links if you feel a need to be helpful #but like ultimately if you have a platform of many thousands/millions #then frankly it is your responsibility to make sure what you are sharing is accurate and useful #and not just posting for the sake of posting #but instead somehow we're at the point where the more followers you have the more you are expected to just post something anything #talking

[teaboot]

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

#I know this is old news but Jesus #Every day I hear more about school book bans and I feels less real #Restriction of information is restriction of freedom #People need stories #Even bad stories #Even tragic or problematic ones #We need to set purity culture on fire I'm not kidding #Abuse mention #Abuse tw

[lesspopped]

good morning to everyone but especially the gay whales

#good for them! good for them #very few news stories that could be more relevant to my interests tbh #whales #news

[inkskinned]

no, actually, where is the whimsy?

my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?

we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.

earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.

i stared at my ex. he stared at me.

his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!

it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.

and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.

my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.

which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.

but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.

the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being naïve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.

so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.

and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.

where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.

it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.

this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.

#spilled ink #writeblr #this is a real story lol #looking back i liked larry as a person SO much more than my ex hollyyyyy shitttt #compulsory heterosexuality will do you DIRTY #edit to correct effies name my apologies to effie and effies family

[qiinamii]

five guardian yakshas vs one huge rat

bonus:

huge rat:

#qiiarts #xiao #yakshas #bosacius #bonanus #indarias #menogias #ok but more story i have such bad humor not being able to resist laughing from linearting every sketch #this is also literally the first time i draw the other yakshas and its them being terrified for their lives worse than slaughter and karma #which is very relatable amen #morax #zhongli #guizhong #madame ping #streetward rambler #venti #barbatos #genshin impact

[nerdpoe]

It's Danny's first time doing his taxes, and he's reaching out to an online friend to help him. This is how he discovers that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Amity Park is a barely contained zombie outbreak.

He'd made an online friend, Bart, and they played video games a lot.

Danny's fulltime job is inventing alongside his parents, and as that makes him self-employed (he doesn't work for his parents just next to them), this makes his taxes a little...scary. And it's his first tax season.

He reaches out to Bart, and asks if he knows anyone who files as self employed and if they'd be able to give him some guidance.

He can't ask his parents because, apparently, they've just been throwing random numbers on the papers and have no interest in actually doing them. Danny would like to do this properly.

Also he would like to know how his parents haven't been arrested? Questions for later.

So he shoots a message to Bart, who's apparently in the middle of some sort of sleepover with all of his old friends. Bart assures him that it's fine, and they'll all pitch in to help.

They just need to know his city and state so that the nerd of the group, some guy named Tim, can look up local state and city tax law.

When he tells them he's from Amity Park, there's no response for a good ten minutes.

What follows is a barely legible request for a phone number to call, and a group of people on the other side shouting and asking how he's avoided dying in the hellscape zombie apocalypse that is Amity Park.

Danny has no idea what the other shit means, but he's not about to dodge a chance to make a dead joke when he has one.

"I mean. If you wanna get technical, I didn't. Is...that something that'll effect my taxes?"

OR: The GIW has been lying to keep the Justice League and Justice League Dark out of Amity Park by declaring it a Disaster Zone, stating that not only is there massive pollutants in the air and soil, but that the undead run rampant and are barely contained. The wording they use, however, is a little weird upon closer inspection. It never specifies zombie, and it never says what pollutants. Danny's not super interested about that, though; he just wants to pay his taxes so that the IRS doesn't kill him in his sleep.

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc #dc x dp #phanfic #story prompt #tim absolutely digs into whether or not being dead effects his taxes #kon starts questioning whether he should be paying them? #is he even a legal resident of the usa? #tim should he get naturalized? #bart wants to go to amity #because talking and sentient zombies are cool as fuck #cassie is not super on board with going to amity park #she has a few more questions before agreeing to a field trip to go there #and there will be a field trip to amity park #a city of technically undead due to ecto contamination functioning perfectly normal? #fuck yeah they wanna see this twilight zone bullshit

[egophiliac]

roll out the red carpet guys we're going to the SHAFTLANDS

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #tapis rouge #i have nothing else right now i'm sorry i just got excited by that vil hairstyle #(and i got REALLY excited for a second because i thought red carpet = movie premiere and i always love it when vil gets to be an ~acteur~) #(but 'luxe couture' makes me think fashion show instead. ah well.) #anyway it's time for the vil hometown event!!!! or...travel event at least? #are we gonna get to meet eric or is it gonna be someone else 👀 👀 👀 #like i would love to see eric but i kind of think it won't be him since he had that little main story cameo #(as portrayed by Generic Man Silhouette with some hair drawn on) #but feel free to prove me wrong twst! show us how much more glorious his hair has gotten in the last ten-ish years

[outofcontextbokumono]

#bokumono #bokujou monogatari #out of context #harvest moon #story of seasons #mod fav #hm fomt #harvest moon more friends of mineral town #harvest moon fomt #harvest moon friends of mineral town

[saewokhrisz]

2/2 "gift"

#happy 2/2 people enjoy #[shuts off my phone and opens p3r] #albeit im posting this according to japanese time because im too excited to sit on it more... #this is actually based on a real story i bought a pomegranate two weeks ago and found out it was rotten when i tried to peel it i was so sa #shuake #ren amamiya #goro akechi #persona 5 #persona #fanart #my art #comic

[amu-says-hav-says]

I can’t believe I went through all of Season 2 assuming Nina was the stand-in for Crowley when you actually pay attention it’s so CLEAR that she’s Aziraphale. I was tricked by her spiky, sarcastic, cynical outer shell and lulled into a false sense of security by Maggie’s bubbly optimism and wholesome goodness, because on the surface they reflect the ineffable husbands perfectly, in their personalities, their aesthetics, even many of their actions and morals. but not, and this is the real key, when it comes to their “relationship”. but those first impressions really had me damn fooled. 

I missed the blatantness of Nina’s “we’re just friends. actually we’re not friends. we barely know each other.” the same thing Aziraphale said in season 1.  the way he still struggles to quantify their friendship when Nina asks. Nina’s sarcasm when Crowley asks about rain and awnings because it worked for him (we all know it LMAO). hell, that whole convo the girls have in the rain is so AziraCrow (“I know. I’m not your type” “...You have no idea” hits so much harder the second time, help meeeee.) “Lindsay” maybe being symbolic of Heaven and Aziraphale’s toxic relationship with them and their abuse? (the handwritten text messages in red pen make me think of angry notes on paperwork, anyone else?) because Crowley has never actually cared about what Hell thinks of him, just not getting into trouble (or him or Aziraphale getting hurt). Maggie is always chasing Nina. NINA NEVER GOES IN THE RECORD STORE. Just like Crowley always goes to the bookstore, to Aziraphale, Zira NEVER WENT TO THE FLAT (apart from The Swap but that doesn’t count imo). Crowley has always chased Zira, not the other way around. Always there to rescue him, always going to him for company, always relying on their shared connection, always US. OUR SIDE. All through season one, he comes to Zira every time to work together, never trying to work alongside Hell in any way that isn’t to save their skins or Earth, while Zira hides things from Crowley because he STILL thinks Heaven is ultimately good and will do the right thing if he can just show them. fix it from the inside. 

Maggie working up the courage to finally say something, to put herself out there, while Nina is utterly oblivious and then when she does realise Maggie has feelings, becoming standoffish, putting up that barrier, fighting it, denying it, ITS SO CROWLEY AND AZIRAPHALE IN THAT ORDER. the way I was fooled into thinking Nina’s trust issues are Crowley because he does have trust issues ofc he does BUT Crowley has ALWAYS TRUSTED AZIRAPHALE. has always relied on him. has always been hurt when Aziraphale doesn’t immediately reciprocate the way he expects (the holy water request, the bandstand, the “off in the stars” etc). he’s always the one putting himself forward. Aziraphale has always been the one to second guess everything, to fight their connection, their similarities, their friendship. the girls really made me think it was going to be okay when they sat Crowley down, even as my inner sirens were going haywire about Metatron interfering, they were telling Crowley he just needs to open up and it’ll all work out BUT HE’S ALREADY AT THAT POINT. he may not say it, and by gosh is that part of their damn problem, but he’s always SHOWN IT. he’s not Nina who needs time to heal and recover from her broken trust, he’s always been Maggie believing it doesn’t matter, they’ll end up together in the end anyway AND I WALKED RIGHT INTO THE TRAP THAT THIS MEANT THEY WERE GOING TO BE OKAYYYYYYYYYYY

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens 2 #GO2 #GO2 spoilers #ineffable husbands #not me going to my basically unused sideblog that isn't GO related because I NEED TO YELL THIS SOMEWHERE #I mean outside of the relationship thing there are so many ways #that Nina and Crowley line up and Zira and Maggie #but the girls story isn't about them as people #it's about this relationship the boys are tryna push on them and what that relationship reflects about the boys #anyway I'm on my first rewatch for all the clue I missed #so I imagine I'll only spot more clues to berate myself about as I go #HOW DID I FALL FOR ITTTTTT #I can't believe I was so blind #OFC the Disaster Puppy Lesbian was Crowley #and OFC the Emotionally Abused Tortoise was Aziraphale