#fallen nest

[nature-scares-me]

[michael-massa-micon]

Fallen Nest - October 2024 It is fall. The birds have flown south. The nests so carefully created and tended now dry out and fall from the trees making way for new nests next year. Such an abandoned nest speaks loudly of the cycle of life. MWM

[crudlynaturephotos]

[aroaessidhe]

aro & ace books: fantasy/supernatural horror

following on from my sci-fi-ish horror post, this is fantasy/supernatural/paranormal/etc horror - or at least with horror elements, it's sometimes hard to make a distinction between what crosses the line from spooky to horror and what doesn't lol (esp in YA)

The Spider and Her Demons - YA, aroacespec coded girl MC

Fallen Thorns - aroace boy MC

Small Gods of Calamity - ace man MC

Don't Let The Forest In - YA, ace boy MC

Not Even Bones - YA trilogy, aroace coded girl MC & boy SC

Sawkill Girls - YA, ace girl MC (1/3)

Someone You Can Build A Nest In - ace woman MC & LI

In The Jaws of an Oak - aro woman MC

The Book Eaters - ace man SC

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

info included here is brief! please see my database for full details of the books

[shazzbaa]

Nest in the Eaves was a WILD Exceptional Story for a Light Fingers player for dIFFERENT REASONS, THAN I EXPECTED,

tfw you wanna learn about the Starved Men and instead get scammed into joining a bug cult...... anyway if you let them shape you it doesn't SAY that you get a weird mouth alteration but I just feel like thats the only explanation for Samuel not screaming like he's figured out soylent green as soon as he realised what the "nectar" is

[thegreatyin]

little fucking creatures,,, eepchures even,,,

additional hybrid design diagram because it's very important. to me.

[whatiswhump]

The Nestling

july 2025

“Let’s go, Finch. Get a move on—”

Alfie looked up, startled, at the orderly towering over his chair in the sun-filled day room.

“You’re holding up the whole group,” Hugh added, yanking him up by the arm and shuffling the confused young man toward a small knot of patients waiting near the gated doors at the far end of the room.

They’d made the announcement for the daily walk a few minutes earlier, but Alfie had tuned it out, same as always. Walks on the grounds were reserved for Level 3 patients and above—the “trusted” ones, those who’d earned their privileges or never lost them in the first place.

From time to time over the years, he’d been allowed out under supervision, but that hadn’t happened in... a long while. Maybe a year. Maybe longer. He couldn’t say.

“I’m allowed to—?”

“You’re on the list,” Hugh cut in, giving him a nudge. “But I’ll make sure you’re off it tomorrow if you piss me off today.”

They always expected him to know what was on their papers. Not once, in all his years here, had anyone ever let him see more than a glimpse of the endless charts—not unless they dropped one by mistake. And even then, just a snatch of a line. He was always the last to know and they acted like it was his fault.

But he of course would never comment on this outloud. Like just about every other thought in his head, he dutifully kept it to himself, storing it away in his faulty vault where that thought would get mismanaged and lost like every other one.

It was June. he knew by the fully unfurled leaves on the mammoth trees covering the grounds. A nurse once told him that the hospital had been founded in the 1850s but the trees on the endless acres had been here long before.

Once in the group, he was surprised how easily he kept pace. Most of the others shuffled, slowed by age, illness, or the daily flood of addling pills.

They moved together in single file silence, most familiar with the path: down the halls, through locked doors, past the great hall, out to be scanned briefly for contraband, then released into the sunlight.

Alfie followed the man ahead of him, head down, unwilling to risking anything that might get him struck from the list again. And he would have the whole mile long walk if a new admittee didn’t have a break down as they turned to loop back to the ward building.

He was used to this, of course, he usually kept his eyes down and tried not watch. The safest recourse was to look the other way and hope it wouldn’t be you in a day or two.

So when the new man threw himself onto the ground, refusing to lift himself from his spot, Alfie stiffly and habitually, averted his attention to anything but the staff converging on him. 

He didn’t look. He didn’t need to. He knew how it would go: two orderlies, someone crying, a needle. That was the pattern. That was how it always ended.

He turned his eyes to the base of a tree instead. A very large, very old oak. They never had trees as big as these in the city but he remembered impressive walnuts and maples from the farms he worked on when he was younger. Some boys used to climb them.

He had always relished the shade they provided in the winter and the wind they broke in the winter. 

Something chirped. Close.

He glanced upward, expecting to see a teenage robin watching him—nothing. Then he looked down.

There, writhing faintly in the grass, was a baby bird. Pink, raw, blind. Its feather-spikes stood like needles across its frail little body.

It opened its mouth and screamed again—thin, pitiful, louder than it should’ve been capable of.

Alfie looked back up into the canopy. The nest had to be impossibly high. How had it survived the fall?

It couldn’t be more than a week old.

The man, what was his name Jermaine? Had begun to wail loudly as two orderlies were lifting him. The group was beginning to move again. 

Alfie, feeling a bit panicked, looked down at the bird, heart clenching.

It wouldn’t last long here. The parents wouldn’t retrieve it … in fact, it was more likely a fox would come by in the next few hours to eat it.

Before he realized he’d made the decision, he bent, scooped the tiny thing up, and slipped it into the threadbare pocket of his robe.

The warmth of his body quieted it. The screaming softened to a weak, rhythmic peeping.

He held his breath during the final inspection. No one checked too carefully. Just a glance, a nod. A command to move along.

In the day room, he didn’t dare remove it. Instead sneaking furtive peeks into the robe. He could feel the hatchling breathing—slow, steady. Maybe even asleep.

He felt its fluttering warmth against him like a secret.

He kept it there all afternoon devising a strategy to feed it with well chewed bites from dinner. If he was careful enough-

But it woke too soon-

It woke hungry. It began to cry.

A sharp, repetitive chirping, louder now. Insistent. Frantic. Alfie felt his chest twist with fear. 

“Why are you chirping?” Another patient asked, his voice high and suspicious. Frank maybe- he was always watching people sideways, eyes too round.

Alfie blinked, caught off guard. He didn’t have a lie ready.

“I hear it too!” another patient shouted. Heads turned. Faces lifted.

Frank and another man started toward him. The manic patients never stayed still for long. New stimuli was always a magnet.

“I don’t—know.” Alfie tried. His voice didn’t sound convincing even to him.

“No, I heard it again! It’s you!” someone called.

They closed in. Alfie stood suddenly, backing up toward the far wall, shielding the lump in his robe.

“What do you have? What is it?” Frank demanded.

Just then, the charge nurse stepped in. “What’s going on here? Mr. Hilliard? Mr. Finch?”

The hatchling chirped again as if feeling his panic and needing to agree.

Frank pointed. “It’s in his pocket!”

The nurse sighed. “Mr. Finch, show me what you’ve got.”

His face flushed hot. He hesitated—just a moment—then gently pulled the hatchling out.

“It—it fell out of its nest,” Alfie stammered. “It wasn’t going to survive—”

She let out a short laugh. Not mocking, exactly. More surprised. Amused by the childish contraband. Her 7 year old had done something similar recently.

“Finch’s finch!” someone in the back shrieked, laughing wildly.

“Mr. Finch,” The nurse repeated, more firmly now.

Alfie stepped back again. He didn’t want Frank—or anyone—to touch it. It was too fragile-

Another orderly stepped in. “Hand it over. It needs to go back outside.”

Alfie clutched it to his chest. “It’ll die out there.”

“And what’ll happen to it in here?” the orderly countered, already holding out his hand.

“Can we keep it?” someone cried. “Please!”

Others joined in, their voices hopeful, chaotic.

Alfie looked around the room, defensive, panicked.

“A wild bird is not a pet,” the orderly said flatly, stepping forward.

“But-” Alfie croaked. “I’ll put it back where you found it,” the man added. “Let nature take its course.”

He took the hatchling from Alfie’s palm. The tiny creature shrieked in protest as it was carried away.

Alfie didn’t resist. But his chest ached.

“Alfred, you should have known better,” The nurse said without cruelty, but without patience either, “You need to wash your hands-”

An orderly forcefully guided him after the young lady. At the tap in the hall she took each of his hands and vigorously lathered them in soap like he was a child. 

Alfie returned to the window just in time to watch the orderly appear outside and toss it carelessly under the first tree.

It was a grackle, he thought to himself. Not a finch.

The next day, miraculously, his privileges remained. Still on the walk list. Still Level 3.

But “Finch’s Finch” had become a refrain. A mocking nickname. Staff said it. Patients repeated it. Everyone enjoyed the repetitive turn of phrase to tease him, how foolish he had been, how very stupid.

Alfie said nothing.

Dread collected in his chest as they walked. He knew they would pass the side entrance where he had watched the orderly cast the little nestling off.

He told himself it should be gone, should have died. But a terrible part of him hoped foolishly that it might have been left alone to live another day until its feathers filled out and it could fly away.

And when he saw it—

Stiff. Curled in on itself. Feet and head tucked like it had tried to disappear—… a horrifying numbness seeped over. He forgot where he was and stopped, standing still while the rest of the group trudged on.

Eventually a set of hands took him by the shoulders guiding him forward.

No one else noticed. No one else cared.What he’d hoped for had been foolish. Irrational.

No one was ever going to save that little life. Least of all him.

@cursedscribbles @voidwhump @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @aliceinwhumperland @whump-it @professional-idiocy @ziptiewhump @angrystudentgoopfire @jaxonjekkels @clubbem @simplygrimly @whole-and-apart-and-between @bumpthumpwhump @rosesareviolentlyread @whumpasaurus101 @hurting-fictional-people @burtlederp @thelittlegirlwithcurlyhair @crystalquartzwhump @rotfern @sentientpileofmoss @tea4valencia

[themadmanofbloomington]

Part 2! This part was significantly harder to do because some of these nerds don't want to stand on carpet. Ironically the fallen was the easiest to get to stand.

[themostefficientwaywithwater]

There's a sparrow chick on my lemon tree and it's mama it's coming to feed him so cuuute

[alexander-the-greatest1987]

[grimm-the-tiger]

I love how Nesting Guide will scold you for going behind the counter.

[mrkestis]

I never noticed while playing the game, but these annoying fuckers from jedi fallen order have creepy tentacle eyes.

[kanene-yaaay]

Random life update let's go!

So, in my house we have an aread w a dinning table outside, next to our yard, and in this place there is ou beloved celling fan that we haven't used in years because it was too weak and the warmth here needed a strong mechanism to dealt with it

Those last months, we notices that a couple of birds we're making a nest on the... idk the name to be honest but its like a small metal bowl right above the fan and we were quite amazed because :D even tho we do have some trees on the yard it's been years since I saw a nest

S o

Recently they hatched.

How did we discovered it?

Because a small baby bird FELL ON THE TABLE OUT OF NOWHERE

Now we're making plans to place a safety nest somewhere below the fan because the ground is very, very hard (pure concrete) and the nest is very small for the two babies (that I've seen until now) and the mother bird. Oh gosh ajvahwvwvsvwjw good morning to all of us I guess

[templeofvengeance]

(Sorry this is ooc but what does //shot mean?)

[Oh uhhh very old habit I picked up from an old friend, it's basically just action astrixes (*glomps you*) but for the end of a sentence after saying something cringe/a joke. ("I think Khonshu would glomp Marc-- //slapped //shot //pelted with tomatoes")

Arguably sort of morbid and maybe I should stop doing it or at least not use 'shot' specifically but eh]

[parsapuff]

Who put the entire charmony dove copypasta in my poll come out rn

[thelastspeecher]

This has not been a good week for my wasp phobia.

I only just got able to handle wasps chilling in my vicinity.

I was not ready for wasps to actively chase after me or fly up from the floorboards right under me.