#Reality 2

[grrlmusic]

Keith Rankin

[meditite]

Love Alive – death's dynamic shroud

[the-sleepwalker-503]

- You aren't smiling.

You aren't smiling, but you don't look upset.

It's dim, and your eyelids are drooping, but you yawn and you press your cheek into your palm, and you keep your eyes closed while you talk.

Your lips move, but you can't make out the words.

Someone mumbles back.

Your nose crinkles when you groan, and you rub at your eyes. The crease in your eyebrows doesn't stay for too long.

It might be Saturday.

It feels like Saturday.

It's quiet and fuzzy and light.

When's the last time you've felt like this? -

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

The Bronx Zoo has just released Flaco's necropsy results.

He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of "freedom" claimed.

He was poisoned.

He was sick.

He was suffering.

"Freedom" would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.

"Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy. Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building. The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.   No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed. Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting."

The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a "free, wild, pure life" cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it's "better" for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.

Flaco's life didn't have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.

Flaco's death didn't have to be tragic.

But once the idea of "freedom" entered the chat, Flaco's fate was unavoidable.

[hinamie]

new official illust of them with puppies healed something in me

[into-the-pit]

Time: July 2025.

Place: Dashcon 2

Two forces of personality are colliding.

Noodle strikes noodle, thwack!

Sweat pours down Strange, beads trickle past her iconic hexagonal glasses.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Three direct hits to her legs, she feels herself buckling.

On the verge of collapse.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

She can’t handle much more, Joker is unrelenting.

With her last bit of strength Strange stares deep into Joker’s eyes.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

Time: July 2024.

Place: Deep within Strange’s mind.

“Prepare for my Muppet Face and Joker Smile, Strange. You will taste my blade. And my hooves I mean feet for when I kick you into orbit. I accept your Ballpit Duel…”

Ceaseless diabolical chuckling…

-----

Part 1 - The Duel (You are here)

Part 2 - Within Our Mind

Part 3 - Reality

Part 4 - Deja Vu

[azfellschild]

Good and Evil wrestling, with Evil triumphing

bit different from my latest work but something in me told me i needed to draw this

[xray-vex]

finding out that Ed's fancy party updo also has butterflies in it is exactly the sort of joy & magic i fucking needed in my life today 🥰🦋

[halorvic]

Wear a fucking mask!

[aziraphalalala]

I am not entirely certain what will happen once the actors & writers strike ends, but I'm pretty sure Michael Sheen will break the sound barrier with how fast he will go feral on the internets about how Aziraphale wants to eat Crowley's ox rib

[romanticwrld]

[orange-coloredsky]

a development team that looks like this could not possibly have any preconceived biases against Black people. noooo way. its just a mistake that all of the Black people in fo4 are slaves or named after fascist colonizers or murdered or stereotypical conspiracy freaks. there is no way that the reality of this team is reflected in the art they create over and over and over and over and over and over and

[ID 1: A photo of the Fallout 4 development team taken from above and forward, showing a large crowd smiling at the camera, made up apparently entirely by white people, and almost entirely by white men. End ID.]

[anne-is-confused]

Captain Francis Crozier, at Furthest North.

[ciderjacks]

that one night they spent in those trees on the second level

Original !

[98chao]

spire of deceit & truth: soul revue

[turtleblogatlast]

So I’ve been thinking about the boys combining their powers recently and I ended up really wondering about what would happen if a supercharged Mikey (time/dimensional powers) mixed his abilities with a supercharged Leo’s (space powers) and all I could think of was: