#IT All Ends

[petrovna-zamo]

[purplemoonabove]

7 Days…

Approximately seven days left.

A week from this first day of April…

Until the reason I bought this shirt—

—will complete their journey…

🥺

I DON’T WANT IT TO END!

😭💔

[succubus-interactivefiction]

A Monsters Final Thoughts

Just a short story that popped into my head earlier that I had to write down for some reason. A world devouring monster reflects on its life as it watches the one it loves sleep.

I stare up at the star which gave life to this world, a world that had been filled with an unknowable number of species, some sentient, some not, all simply trying to live their lives. Lives which I long ago snuffed from the face of the expanse of the universe. Now there is only me, her, and this small glade I left untouched at her request. Deep down in my memory, a memory that spans eons and galaxies I know this will not work much longer and someday soon she will either realize her hatred for me, or my hunger will overwhelm me and I will feast on the last living being on this world besides me, her.

As I stare down at her sleeping form through the eyes of my avatar, her head resting on the mimics thighs, I feel myself smile, my entire mass quivering in delight as I brush a stray hair from her soft face and I dive back through my memories to the day I first saw her, a day so long ago, centuries by her reckoning.

I had been so small back then, barely as large as a fingernail, and I had been very scared as I lay quivering in that cursed specimen jar that had been my prison for so many years. They had poked me, prodded me, experimented with fire, and ice, and electricity, and in the end concluded that I was not sentient, offered nothing of value, and so they stored me away in a dark closet to be forgotten. Until she found me.

I don’t know how long I lay in the dark but then there was a blinding light and she entered the room carrying a strange device. I watched as she cataloged everything that had been thrown away with me over the decades I was trapped, but when she came to me she stopped and I realized I had pressed myself to the glass of my vessel as I observed her. I retreated in fear as she pressed her finger to the glass of my jar in curiosity, realizing I had nowhere to go I froze as my terror washed over me, memories of the torture I had experienced returning. At the time I did not understand what she had been saying, but now I understand.

“Oh, I’m sorry little one, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She had said with a smile as she looked down at her device and frowned. “Well this can’t be right, they have you listed as an unintelligent biomass of unknown origins, with no scientific value. Well that can’t be true since I seem to have startled you.” She looked back up at me and smiled sadly, pressing her hand back to my prison. “Have you been alone in the dark all this time? You poor thing.”

Something about her tone made me settle, and feeling the warmth of her hand bleeding through the glass had me pressing myself back against the glass in search of the comfort it brought. Seeing this she smiled happily and plucked my prison from its place on the shelf carrying me into the light. “You are obviously not what they thought you were. But then that was a long time ago and scientists could barely call themselves such back then. At least not compared to our standards nowadays. Come on little one, let’s see what you are.”

Years passed then and I slowly grew. I was the size of a small canine when she came bursting into my room one morning, a look of panic on her face. “We have to go baby, they are saying that you are a threat and want me to dispose of you.” She scrambled around the room and I had to tap the glass to get her attention long enough to sign. “Why?” She came to her knees in front of me and pressed her hand to the barrier separating us, one of my pseudopods doing the same as I felt the fraction of warmth through the glass.

“It’s because of how you grow, how you absorb biomass and make it part of yourself. They found out I had been hiding the results of our testing from them and when they learned that there was no limit to how large you could grow, provided you have enough food, they called you a threat to the planet. But I know you sweetie. We have been together every day since I found you and I know you would never do what they are saying.”

I know now that back then I had lied to her and agreed that I would never do such a thing. I hate that I had done so, but I had been a child at the time and didn’t fully understand. A year later when I had grown much larger and she learned that all the neighborhood pets had vanished she never questioned me and again we ran. Five years after that, even as the crime rate in our neighborhood dropped and rumors of a formless monster eating criminals spread she pretended to not care, but she still made us run.

Finally twenty years later as I lay curled into the massive barn on our property she came to me, sitting in front of me with a gentle smile and something in her eyes told me everything I needed to know about why she was there. She had always known what I had been doing, she knew that it was instinctual. I had to grow to survive, and to grow I had to feast. By now I had grown large enough I knew that I had come from the stars. It is how we propagate, once we consume a world we begin traveling through the stars and when we find a world which we can devour we hurl our spores towards it, our children flung through the dark of space, and we simply pray that at least one will survive to take root.

She had squealed in fright and attempted to flee when I separated a piece of myself and formed it into a facsimile of her species, but her scientific mind had taken over and we sat speaking for the first time using my own voice. After that our relationship had again changed. Until then she had treated me as a child, helping me to learn and grow, but as the years passed with my avatar being at her side it was different. I was different.

It started slow at first, a small smile here, a gentle brush of her hand along the mimics shoulder there. The day she kissed me my greater mass entered a dormant state as I grew content with what I had, her. We lived our lives together and we came to realize that our coupling had unintended consequences as she seemed to stop aging. Her injuries began to heal at the same rate mine would. At times she could hear my thoughts. Part of myself had mixed with her cells and DNA in an unconscious attempt to keep her with me forever.

Fifty years later, as the world around us was embroiled in a war while the planet itself began to die, we still stayed together, happy, content. Until they found us. The ones who had found me, who had locked me away, who told her to kill me had found us. They came at us with tanks, bombs, and fire, and I was forced to wake my greater self in order to save her, at the time I had no idea I would never be able to stop after that.

Feasting on our attackers after waking from such a long sleep woke the ravenous hunger in me and my instinctual need to grow, to reproduce took over. Still she stayed by my side at each step. Even as I spread across the surface of the world she stayed. She convinced herself that no matter what I did, no matter how many of her kind I devoured, I was not evil, it was simply something I could not control and still she looked at me with those shimmering eyes, eyes filled with love only for me.

Now she lays here, in the last unspoiled place on the planet, a place she had always wanted to visit. I had finally come out of my feeding state just before I absorbed this place and realizing what I had done I stopped. I promised her that this last place would always be here just for her. Her world is dead, and there is only me. The oceans long ago became my blood, the land my flesh, and even now I am preparing. I will rip myself from the orbit of this star and fly out into the cosmos in an attempt to spread my species. She knows this.

But even now I can feel the hunger growing again. I can feel myself slowly intruding into her sanctuary, my tendrils burrowing into roots, and dirt. I try to stop myself but I can only slow my progress.

Someday soon it will happen. She will either finally accept her hatred of me, the hatred I can feel buried deep, deep down in her psyche, or, or I will lose control and devour the last living thing on this world. The woman I love. It has happened before, so many times. I have all the knowledge of those who came before and I know I am not the first to love a being that is nothing more than our food. Each time it ends the same.

Even now, as I watch her sleep, softly snoring, a faint smile on her lips, I feel the hunger. I feel it along with the pain, and the hatred I have for myself as my maw opens, one last time.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[kavaleyre]

• The Hanged Man •

“Compared to what Falin went through? This is nothing.”

[trudlejack]

(+part 2)

[liquidstar]

If my mom sees a significant amount of blood she gets lightheaded, and has fainted on some occasions. Once it happened when we were kids, I wasn't there to witness it but I heard the story from my dad. Basically my brothers, around 7 or 8 at the time, were playing outside while my mom was making their lunch, and she accidentally cut her finger. It wasn't anything serious, but it drew a fair bit of blood and she passed out. My dad saw this and rushed over, but he didn't really know what to do so he just sort of started slapping her to wake her up (not recommended, but he had no idea and panicked)

At that exact moment my brothers both came in from playing, and all they saw was our mom unconscious on the floor and our dad slapping her. So, like, without even saying a word to each other they both just INSTANTLY start whaling on him, like, full blown attack mode to defend our mom. Which obviously didn't help the situation, but she did wake up and everything was fine.

Now our dad says that he's actually really glad they attacked him over what they thought was going on, because it means he raised good boys. And I still think that's true, they're very good boys.

[brian-kinney-apologist]

I had to do this guys

[petrovna-zamo]

How I feel about tour ending:

[indigonite]

There’s a lot you can learn about it, trust me

[the-dragon-girl-27]

It is the middle of a Sunday afternoon. You have nothing on, and aren't expecting visitors, deliveries or post.

Unexpectedly, there is a knock at the door.

you are greeted by...... her

[bilal-salah0]

PLEASE CONSIDER

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[kiisaes]

teenage rite of passage: bad haircut

[runawaymarbles]

The thing I keep coming back to, with all the *gestures expansively* is that real life doesn't have peaceful epilogues.

Every single win has to be defended. Forever. I'm sorry. It sucks. The Nazis lost until they stopped losing. The US had abortion rights, and then 50 years later it didn't. Empires fall, and then they invade other countries again. Oppressive regimes are overthrown and replaced with other oppressive regimes. You will never finish the work etc etc etc. Which is why it's so fucking important to be able to acknowledge and celebrate progress, when it happens. The people who came before you didn't put in all that work for nothing, and you aren't, either. You can't save it all for the Ultimate Victory because there is never going to be an Ultimate Victory. There's no such thing as a time when everything is good, and ours shall not be the commune of Heaven.

[birdemic]

we have to stop letting the usa have such control/influence over international politics