#and the size. the whimsy

[botanyshitposts]

today i found a plant growing in an alleyway downtown that gave me this delightful little seed pod that looks like a little banana about an inch long but it splits down the front to reveal hundreds of flat little seeds with little papery wings seed wings and theyre all stuffed into neat rows in a way that makes the pod look like an overfull expanding file and if you run your finger over it seeds fall out. the plant had like 6 of them going overhanging this one sidewalk and some of them were huge, like multiple inches long. anyway plants are still just making stuff outside it seems

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

+3 friendship with Jin Ling: He actively tries to dissuade you from further embroiling yourself in the homosexual allegations.

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[goodold-fashioned-killerqueen]

born to draw block people making out... force to draw houses....

[birbwell]

happy late birthday to the game that changed my brain chemistry, Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth (2017) ! click for quality :]

[worm-on-a-blog]

How many worms on strings must it take to fill a trench coat so they are able to buy a movie ticket?

spectacular question.

first we need to know the average volume of a standard worm. keeping in mind that a worm is generally less than a gram in weight, that volume could be really small if you sincerely compressed it—so for these measurements, we are assuming that none of our worms in the trench coat are compressed. we're not packing them in there like straw, they're all standing on each other's heads to puppet the trench coat.

assuming this, then, i divided up a single worm into eight segments that could each be approximated to be about the shape of a uniform cylinder, calculated the volume of each of those cylinders, and then added the total volume up. in all, our uncompressed worm came out to about 38.27 cm^3. diagram below:

(a string was used to take the circumference at the midpoint of each segment, and these were then used to calculate the diameter of each segment for the volume calculation.)

okay. we're going to say that the worms are occupying your average adult male-fit trench coat. they would be looking to fill about 80kg worth of space there, 80,000 cm^3. (1 kg = 1,000 cm^3 at human body density). but we need to subtract the legs, because they are most certainly going to have the trench coat drag on the ground. so:

one total leg would come out to about 13.488 kg of your body. double that, and we are subtracting 26.976 kg from our estimated weight. they also would not fill out the hands, so we're taking off a tiny bit more in the form of 1.04 kg. we're leaving the head in the calculation, because i presume they will be filling out an inconspicuous hat too.

put together, this gives us a volume of about 51,984 cm^3, or a final answer of 1,358.35 worms to fill a trench coat!

this also means that you're able to calculate how many worms you are total so long as you know how many kg you are. take your weight in kg, convert it to cm^3 by multiplying it by 1,000, and then divide that number by 38.27. all together, i am approximately 1,306.50 worms large.

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

anyway here’s my cornley polytechnic drama society into the woods fancast because I think it’s the perfect sort of show for them to fuck up 👍

jonathan plays the baker, alongside sandra as the baker’s wife. I imagine this is shortly enough after peter pan that they’re still very bitter at one another. said bitterness absolutely shows onstage, but it fits the characters perfectly and the audience ends up thinking that they’ve just finally gotten good at acting. jonathan brings a homemade “medieval feast” to celebrate opening night and it poisons the entire cast

annie plays the witch. this was the only casting decision that was unanimously regarded as good until chris let it slip that he’d ultimately done it because she was “the loudest singer.” robert took great offense at this and, despite having no interest in the part before, began campaigning to play the witch instead. it did not work. annie’s witch costume has two layers to make the quickchange at the end of act 1 easier, but the top layer keeps falling off before the reveal is supposed to happen. her magic staff is supposed to emit a smoke effect but it keeps malfunctioning, and at a certain point she just gives up and tapes lit cigarettes (stolen from trevor) to it. this goes about as well as you’d think

dennis plays the narrator. everyone had assumed it’d be an easy role for him since he could just read all of his lines off his book prop, but this is proven wrong near instantly when he starts genuinely reading the book instead. when dennis actually does start reading from the script, it becomes immediately clear that he somehow has the director’s copy and the entirety of the rehearsal notes are read out loud, including several deeply personal things that chris has written in his script for convenience

dennis also plays the mysterious man, but he keeps forgetting which way he’s supposed to be related to the baker. over the course of the show he goes from father, to son, to brother, to father again, to distant cousin, to grandmother

chris plays cinderella’s prince, alongside robert as rapunzel’s prince. they spend the entire show trying to out-act one another, and it goes without saying that this ends up a complete disaster. robert makes any moment into an unplanned duet to try and prove that he could have succeeded in seducing the baker’s wife. chris shows up at rapunzel’s tower and attempts to choke robert out with her wig. they get in an opt-up battle at the end of agony (reprise) that ends with robert singing a note so high it shatters a stage light

in accordance with typical into the woods casting, chris also plays the wolf. he orders a very expensive “wolf suit” online from someone he thinks is a bespoke costume artist. it doesn’t arrive until opening day, and it becomes immediately clear that what chris has actually bought is a full on fursuit. it’s very hard to see in and he keeps running into the fake trees

robert is double cast as milky white. there is no practical reason for this whatsoever, as milky white could’ve just as easily been a puppet or some kind of cutout on wheels, and it’s very obvious the whole thing is just a power move on chris’ part. during the scene where milky white is meant to “eat” the props, vanessa misunderstands and literally feeds them to him. he chips a tooth on cinderella’s shoe

due to a lack of numbers, vanessa is playing both cinderella and rapunzel. her costume is split down the middle, and due to this she can only face in one direction as each part. this means that half of the time she’s facing away from whoever she’s talking to, and that she frequently has to walk/run backwards without turning her head at all. whenever cinderella and rapunzel talk to each other she faces straight forward. the break-off mechanism in rapunzel’s side of the wig doesn’t work (sandra ends up stealing a single, barely visible hair), so she’s also constantly tripping on her hair

max, being in a new relationship with sandra, desperately wanted to play alongside her as the baker so that they could kiss onstage. unfortunately for him, he is playing jack instead. although this is maybe the single most-fitting role he’s ever been cast in and he’s genuinely giving a great performance, the opportunity is ruined by his having to do every scene accompanied by robert’s milky white

lucy was supposed to play little red, but was pulled from the production the day before opening by her parents, who have banned her from performing with “robert’s troupe” after what happened in peter pan

consequently, little red is now being played by trevor, who is wearing a costume far, far too small for him. trevor manages to get away with reading his lines off papers pinned to the inside of his cloak, but he doesn’t know any of the songs, so sandra has to sing them offstage for him while he lipsyncs

all of the ensemble characters are played by a celebrity “guest” frantically switching between various comically large hats. chris tried to get francis back for this part but after some careful deliberation he determined that it would genuinely be easier to kidnap a famous person than to get francis to come back after the disaster that was peter pan. the tension is only worsened when, via a botched music cue, it’s revealed that francis is now an active member of trevor’s metal band

the giant was supposed to have been played by trevor via voiceover from the sound booth, but now that he’s onstage playing little red the part is left to approximately four members of the run crew who are desperately trying and failing to say the lines in unison. lucy breaks into the theatre sometime during the baker’s wife search sequence and takes over the giant’s part the next time she’s on, much to trevor’s dismay

the worst fuck-up award goes to annie, for accidentally knocking the supports out from under dennis’ narrator platform during last midnight and triggering a chain reaction in which every fake tree onstage topples each other one by one like some terrible, life-threatening game of dominos. honorable mention goes to chris for spending $6000 of max’s inheritance on a custom costume without actually seeing it at any point during the process

the worst injury award goes to max, for getting his circulation cut off and almost losing a hand after his arm got stuck inside the golden hen puppet midway through act 2. honorable mention goes once again to chris, who got stabbed with a bunch of glass shards when robert broke that stage light

[muppetsnoopy]

little kids clothes fuck so hard. just saw this dude wearing a t-shirt that had a complete diagram of the water cycle on it. I want that shirt what the fuck

[pawbeanies]

I WROTE YIPPEE ON A TABLE I SENT TO MY MANAGER FOR APPROVAL AND FORGOT TO REMOVE THE YIPEEEE

[mouseratz]

also TMI but cis guys with penis size insecurity are so funny to me. you think YOU'VE got a tiny dick? man.....you oughta see mine......dick measuring contest but whoever is the smallest wins

[whimsyprinx]

a new attempt at me trying to sketch out ideas for my porcelain (faerie) royalty outfit that I’m putting together, all I have so far is the shirt, earring (it’s not even finished) and bracelet

[dreamyprinx]

I made dumb jewelry like things sometimes

[not-a-space-alien]

All Creatures Great and Small Chapter 2: Doxxed

There's a good reason why you're not supposed to feed the trolls...

As always thanks to my collaborator @static-stars and my beta/sensitivity reader @appelsiinilight! <3 And special thanks to @ratcatcher0325 for some beta reading as well!!

Story masterpost

AO3 link

P.S. To stave off the inevitable tidal wave of references to this I'm sure is coming: Yes, Mr. Crocker from Fairly Odd Parents exists, hahahaha hilarious

Thistle’s phone sat in the center of the table, with Marcy, Teddy, and Colin sitting at the chairs on three sides.  Thistle sat at the fourth place, sitting on the table with his wings folded close to his body, shoulders hunched.  His leg bounced nervously.

Marcy had a stormy look on her face, hands clasped in front of her.

“Okay, so he doesn’t know exactly where we live,” said Colin.  “Right?”

“I don’t think so,” said Marcy.  “But the incident at the electronics store was so nearby, it’s–”

“I’m sorry,” said Thistle, for the millionth time.

Marcy held her hand out.  He shut his mouth.

“What were you thinking?” said Teddy.

Thistle found his shoes very interesting.  “I–I don’t know.  I’m sorry.  I guess–It just made me nervous to see–that he was telling everyone, and–and I guess I thought I could get him to take it down–”

“All right,” said Colin.  “It’s already happened, so now we just have to deal with it.”

Marcy said, “We deleted all his comments, and we combed through everything on all his profiles on every site for identifying information.”

“We deleted a lot,” said Thistle shame-facedly.  “I never posted anything about my location though.  I swear.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, but who knows what those computer people can do these days.”  He stroked his chin as though he’d said something particularly insightful.

“Who is this guy?” said Teddy.  “You said the employee who saw Thistle was being interviewed?”

“He’s a conspiracy theorist of some kind,” said Marcy.  She’d watched a few of his videos, but had to stop because it felt like her brain was melting.  She picked Thistle's phone up, scrolling.  “It’s all bullshit, but there’s no way this is satire or a joke.  He’s too committed to it.  But I don’t know how anyone believes it.  I mean, look at this stuff.”

“Oh god,” said Teddy, “he has multiple videos about how Trump won the 2020 election.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Colin, “What was that about–stem cells from abortions being used in–”

“That’s antisemitism,” said Teddy, pointing to a video Marcy nearly scrolled past.  “That’s a dog whistle in the title.”

“That’s what most of it is like,” said Marcy, taking the phone back.  “But he has a few videos about the ‘truth’ being hidden from the public on supernatural creatures.  Mostly it’s about demons, but there’s some other stuff too.  This is his first video about fairies. Or more specifically, 'tiny people in the walls.'"

“What was that?” said Colin.  “The thumbnail was a snake skeleton.”

Marcy rolled her eyes.  “He claims to have a naga skeleton.”  She brought up the clip and paused it, zooming in.  “How are there so many people eating this dumb shit up?  This is clearly some sort of monkey skeleton put onto a ball python.  There was a fake mermaid in the Barnum museum made the same way.”

“Actually,” said Thistle, very quietly, “Those are real.”

All three giants looked down at him incredulously.

“Once when I was young, a snake monster found our nest and ate two of my older siblings.  We were able to drive it off, but we had to just up and move to a new tree miles away to get away from it.  That’s what it looked like.  Torso like ours.  Snake instead of legs.  They’re about that size, too.”

Teddy burst into nervous laughter.  “Oh great.  Great.  Some batshit insane conspiracy theorist happens to be right about our particular slice of the unbelievable.”

“We don’t know that he’s going to come here,” said Marcy hopefully.

“He was here,” said Teddy, almost hysterical.  “Look, he’s in the shopping center in this video.”

Colin put an arm around her.  “It’s all right, Teddy bear, don’t freak out. We can deal with this.”

“There’s no way he could get our address,” said Marcy.  “Right?  Unless…”

“It’s on your mobile account,” said Teddy.  “The one you added Thistle to, right?  Does the employee he interviewed have access to it?”

“He–he’s surely not supposed to give that information out,” said Marcy.

“That doesn’t mean he won’t.”

They all grimaced.

“Well… his branding is good, I’ll give him that,” said Teddy.

His logo was a cartoon alligator with a magnifying glass, with the word InvestiGator underneath of it.  It was so ridiculous that Marcy couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

“This is fucking stupid,” she said.  “I can’t believe this.”

“Aaaaand of course he’s into cryptocurrency,” said Teddy with a scowl.

“It’s–it’s called fucking—” Marcy was having trouble getting words out between peals of overwhelmed laughter.  “Fucking–TruthCoin, and–and he’s selling alligator NFTs.”

“How did someone so wrong about everything else get this one specific thing so exactly right?” said Teddy.

“I don’t like this one bit,” said Colin.  “This guy is nothing but trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” said Thistle, voice wobbly.  

The laughter stopped at his serious tone, and all three giants looked down at him again.

“If–if–if–if it’ll fix this, I’ll leave if–if you want me to.”

Marcy's looming hand reached over to Thistle.  He shrunk back a little.  She picked him up by the back of his shirt and plopped him into her outstretched hand.  “I think you're a little too eager to sacrifice yourself at every opportunity.”

“But I made–but I put everyone in danger.”

Colin rolled his eyes.  He got up and walked over to the front door, pulling it open.  “Well, go on, then.  Leave.”

Thistle's face crumpled.

“I'm kicking you out.  We hate you now, and we think you deserve to get eaten by the neighbor's annoying dog.”

Thistle stared at him, baffled, eyes glazed over.  “You–are you being serious?”

“Of course not!”  He slammed the door shut.  “Does that sound like something any of us would say?  No?  So stop treating us like we're heartless monsters.  You’re our little buddy.  We’re not going to kick you out.”

Thistle wiped his eyes and looked down.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” said Teddy gently.  “...Even if it’s a stupid mistake, it doesn’t mean you deserve to be abandoned.”  

Marcy brought her other hand over and folded it over him, giving him a reassuring squeeze.  “It isn’t the end of the world, Ardo.  We’ll deal with whatever happens together, okay?”

He grabbed her pointer finger, giving it a squeeze back.

***

“Shut up!  Shut up!”

Marcy tried to ignore Colin’s increasingly annoyed shouts from upstairs as the neighbor’s dog continued to bark intermittently.  “I get one day off to sleep in with my girlfriend and you wake me up!  Shut up!!”

Marcy laced her shoes up, looking down at Thistle, parked by her ankle.

“Okay,” she said.  “Teddy and Colin are both home today, so if anything happens they can deal with it.  Okay?”

He nodded.  “Right.  I…I think I’m going to go upstairs to their bedroom until they get up for the day.”

“Good thinking.”  She brushed his jaw delicately with one finger.  “There might not even be anything to worry about, okay?”

He nodded.

Marcy reached over and held Thistle’s phone up.  “Now do you want me to leave this here today?”

He wrung his hands.  “Uh…No, I think–I think you take it with you again.”

“Okay.”  She slipped it into her bag.  “Have Colin and Teddy text me occasionally to check in, then.”

“I will.”

There came a holler from upstairs: “Marcy, when you go out, drag that stupid dog back to Kristi’s house.”

“Okay, Colin!”  She leaned over and plucked Thistle off her pant leg, where he’d started to climb up.  She gave him a kiss on the top of his head.  “Have a good day.”

“You too!”

She set him on the bannister, and he scrabbled up it into Teddy and Colin’s bedroom.  She watched him go, then turned and opened the front door.

There was a man with a white van parked nearby their driveway–just enough that he was still technically on public property.  The neighbor’s dog was standing in front of him, tail wagging, occasionally barking.

Marcy stood frozen in the doorway.  Oh God.  The beard.  The stupid beard.  It’s–

“Hey!” said the man, giving a friendly wave.  “Is this your dog?”

Marcy stepped out onto the porch and slammed the door behind her, locking it.  She saw that the adjacent window was open, so she quickly stepped over and shut it, too.

“He’s cute!” said the newcomer as the dog stood with paws on his thighs, jumping up on him.

Feeling numb, Marcy drew near.  “Uh–No–No, he’s–he belongs to the neighbor.”

“What’s his name?”

“B…Buster…”

“Cute.  He’s cute.”  The man lifted the dog gently and plopped him onto the ground.  “Ahem, ah, are you Marcella Lester?”

“Uh…”  Marcy broke into a cold sweat.  “I’m sorry, have we met?”

He put a hand to his chest, smirking.  “Not formally.  My name is Robert, I host a show on YouTube where I go on fact-finding missions.  Can I ask you some questions?”

Marcy decided that the distance she’d already walked was close enough, and stopped.  “What–What kinds of questions?”

“What’s the stuff in this truck bed?  This yours?”  He tapped Colin’s truck with his foot, nodding towards the grass-stained equipment in the back.

“That’s–That’s Colin’s, he works in landscaping.”

“Really?  That’s cool.  A likely story.  It’s interesting that you’re both at home and not at work at 9AM on a Monday.  Courtesy of the taxpayers, I’m sure.  Will you tell me about your work?”

Marcy’s heart started to pound.  “Uh, mine?”

“Yeah!  Unless you have something to hide about it?”  He leaned in.  “Do you?”

Marcy’s voice squeaked despite her best attempts to not be intimidated.  “Excuse me for one moment I need to go to go I’llberightbackstayrightthere.”

She sprinted back to the porch, jamming her key into the door and whirling back inside.  She did up the deadbolt, then walked over and locked the window and pulled the curtain shut.  “Colin!” she yelled, moving to the living room and locking the windows there.  “Colin!  Teddy!  Help!”

Colin appeared on the stairs in a flash.  Marcy turned back around when she saw he was only in his boxers, hairy chest fully out.  “Woah!” she said, covering her eyes.

“Dammit Marcy, don’t yell like that unless someone is actively attacking you.”  Colin darted back upstairs.  “I’ll be right there.”

Thistle’s face appeared at the top of the stairs, peering over the top step.

“Go hide in the sock drawer,” said Marcy.  “Don’t come out until I come get you.  Don’t look outside.  Don’t come out.  Don’t make a sound.”

He darted away, zigzagging to avoid Teddy’s feet as she came out next.  “What is it?” she said, drawing her robe around herself.

“He’s here,” said Marcy.  “YouTube guy.  Crocodile guy.  Fucking guy.”

Teddy’s eyes boggled.  “Well, tell him to leave!”

“But how?”

“Just go outside and say ‘Please leave!’”

“But what if he gets mad?”

Colin reappeared on the stairs, this time in pants.  “What did he do so far?”

Marcy started to drape the blanket from the couch onto Thistle’s little house and his craft station in the living room, to hide them.  “He just kinda asked me to talk.”

“Well, why don’t you go talk to him?”

“Are you crazy?” said Teddy.  “No, nope. Talking with those kinds of people always backfires.  Just politely tell him to leave.  Ah!”

This last exclamation was prompted by the appearance of the newcomer’s face in the little window at the top of the front door.  Marcy whipped around, suddenly worrying if she’d shouted at Thistle to go hide loudly enough that he could hear.

“Just tell him whatever it takes to get him to go away,” said Colin.  “Go on.”

Marcy bit her lip.  “Uh.  Okay.”

Drawn by the commotion, Mochi was stretching in the entryway when Marcy walked back over.  She picked Mochi up to stop her from darting out, then opened the door a crack.

“Woah, cute cat!” said Robert.  He extended a finger and rubbed Mochi’s head.  Mochi leaned into it, eyes squinting.  Traitor.

“All right,” said Marcy.  “Look, I’m sorry but I’m really busy, I was just on my way to work–”

“It won’t take long.”  Robert put his hands in his pockets.  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any of my videos?”

“Uh…”

“Well, I’m just putting together a follow-up to an interview I had recently in this area.  It was pretty closeby to where I live, so I figured it could pop over for some fact-finding.”  

“I don’t think I can–”

“Sure you can!”

“But-”

“What exactly do you study at your job?  You work for the government, don’t you?”

Marcy rubbed the back of her head.  “Look, I’m not really comfortable answering that.”

Robert nodded, tongue in his cheek.  “Mm-hmm.  You have an NDA?”

“A–A what?  An ND–No, I don’t have one.  Look, can you, can you please leave?”

“Sure, I’ll be out of your hair fast enough.  Have you seen anything unusual in this area recently?  Have you ever seen–”

“For God’s sake!”  Colin’s shout echoed distantly.  Marcy felt him before she saw him, shoving past Marcy to lean into the doorframe.  “Get off my porch!”

Robert’s hand came from out of his pocket where it had been resting, holding a phone that was already recording. 

Oh of course.  Of course.  Now he starts recording.

“Sir, I’m just asking questions,” said Robert.  “What���s wrong with that?  You don’t think freedom of speech should be–”

“Go speak freely on someone else’s porch,” Marcy snapped.  “Leave me alone.”

“Aha!” said Robert.  “You seeing this?  This government scientist refusing to answer my questions, avoiding the issue, harassing me, threatening me, covering up the truth.  I’m getting this all on film.  You’re being filmed.”

“This is private property,” said Marcy.  “Please leave.  I’m not saying you can’t ask questions, but–”

“I am,” said Colin.  “Get off my property.”

“Call the police then,” said Robert.  “We’ll have a nice discussion with them, I’m sure.”

“If you don’t get off my fucking porch soon you’ll wish I’d called the police instead of what I’m about to do to you,” Colin hissed with shocking venom, getting right up into Robert’s face.

“I got this all on video, you see this?  Threatening me over just looking for the truth.”  He said this with the same amount of bravado, but he’d begun to slowly back down the front steps off the porch. 

Colin grabbed Marcy’s arm and pulled her inside, slamming the door and locking it.  “Jesus Christ,” he said, rubbing his temples.  “What part of ‘tell him to go away’ didn’t you understand?”

“I did!  He didn’t listen!”

“Whatever.”  In the ensuing pause, Robert could be heard talking to his camera, but his voice was gradually getting further away as he presumably moved back towards his van.  That was a relief, at least.

“Sorry,” said Marcy awkwardly.

Colin sighed.  “Okay.  Whatever.  Teddy?”

“Yeah?”  She was still standing at the top of the stairs.  “Didn’t I tell you?”

“You’re right as always, dear.  Is T okay?”

“He hasn’t come out.”

“I’ll go get him,” said Marcy.

Teddy padded down the stairs to stand next to Colin, who was watching out the window through parted blinds.  Marcy paused to peek out the upstairs window; the interloper was sitting in his parked van, still talking to the camera.  Overwhelming, irrationally intense hatred boiled over inside her immediately.  She walked forward and closed that curtain.

She made double sure that her bedroom blinds were closed and closed her door before doing anything.  “Thistle, it’s me, it’s safe to come out.”

When she got no response, she extended a hand and gently rolled her sock drawer open.  Thistle was hard to spot, but there was one particular pile of socks that quivered slightly.  She reached down and touched it gently, and it jumped.  “Are you okay?”

Thistle rose up from under the pile.  His face was splotchy, his cheeks streaked with tears, ugly-crying with snot running down from his nose.  “N-no.”

Marcy gave a tsk and scooped him up.  He balled up in her hand, shaking.  “It’s okay,” she said.  “We got him to leave.”

“Please don’t kick me out,” said Thistle.  He was in the throes of a panic attack like he hadn’t had in a long time, imagining how much easier it would be for Marcy to just open the door and toss him out to face the consequences of his own actions than it would be to try and untangle the mess he’d made.  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry–”

“Hey, hey, hey, relax.”  She wiped his cheek with the pad of her thumb.  “I’m not going to kick you out.”

“But-but I–I f–I led a predator back to the nest.”

It suddenly snapped into place for Marcy–Thistle’s seemingly overeager offer to sacrifice himself by leaving, the paranoid hysteria over being kicked out.  It was the same reason he staunchly refused to let any human, even one he trusted, near his family.  Leading a predator back to the nest was one of the worst offenses possible in his mind.  Putting others in danger by being careless was a fatal mistake.  He expected to suffer new consequences on par with not being able to go back to his original home, the exile he’d been enduring, and was waiting for the hammer to drop.

Marcy sat down on the bed with him cupped to her chest.  She did something that she’d discovered often calmed him down once they’d established the requisite level of trust: being careful of his wings, she squished him between her hands, pressing down carefully with enough force to act like a weighted blanket, but not enough to hurt him.  His lithe frame trembled, warm and vibrating against her skin.

She lifted her hand, to see him splayed limply out in her palm, facedown.  She felt a slick spot where his face met her skin.  “Better?”

“I’m sorry,” said his muffled voice.

“We already went over this.  You made a mistake, but we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you because of it.  We’ll deal with this together, okay?”

“Okay.”

She rubbed his shoulder blades with her finger.  “You think we’d kick you out?  Is that what your family would have done?  I know you love your family, but….they sound so cruel.  They would just kick you out of the nest for making a mistake like that?”

Thistle pushed himself up to kneeling.  “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t.  That’s what I’m saying.  Would they really abandon you?  They wouldn’t want you to return?”

Thistle wiped his face.  “Of course they would want me to come back if it was safe.  They love me.  You make them sound so mean.”

“I’m not trying to, I just…”

“It’s different.  It’s different for us.  We have so much we need to be careful of.  It’s not a matter of what you deserve, or what you want…it’s a matter of what you have to do to make sure your family survives.  The world is so much more dangerous for me than it is for you.”

Marcy put him down on her lap.  “Is it really that hard out there for you guys?”

“Marcy,” said Thistle, voice breaking, “do you not remember what I said about the snake monster that ate some of my family?”

“Well, yeah but…”

“If the entire group risked itself for the sake of one individual every time we were in danger, our nest would have been wiped out a long time ago.  We are not humans.  We have a different way of thinking.  We all understand that it is not cruelty.  It is being careful, and if you fail to be careful, you have to put the family’s best interest first at whatever cost to yourself.”

“You make yourself sound so disposable,” said Marcy coldly.

“They would do anything for me, and I would do anything for them.  If any of them were in the same situation, I know they would do the same to keep me safe.  That is what family means for a pixie.”

“And yet you started this by begging me to not do what you think is best for the group.”

Thistle raised himself up to all fours, still facedown.  His arms trembled, and tears rolled down his cheeks.  “I–I–I know it’s selfish, but, but, but, I just can’t–”

Thistle looked up and was shocked to see that Marcy was crying too.  “Well, you’re not with a family of pixies anymore,” Marcy said.  “You’re with a family of humans now, and we don’t need you to do that.  Please be selfish.  Please.  Please.”

Selfish.  It was one of the worst things a pixie could be.  A selfish pixie was what caused hives to be destroyed in one fell swoop.  He still had the image embedded in his mind, of his older brother wrapped in the coils of a snake monster, fighting it with all his might as the rest of the family escaped.  How could a hive even function if its members were selfish?  Thistle had been struggling ever since he got here to have a sense of self outside his hive, his identity as an individual and not part of a group.

Marcy wordlessly tilted his head up to make eye contact.  “I promise we can handle it.”

But that’s right.  He was part of a group.  He wasn’t alone.

“Thank you,” Thistle wept.  “Thank you.  Thank you, Marcy.  I do think I want to go back in the sock drawer now, though.”

She smiled at him sadly.  “Okay.  Whatever will make you feel better before I leave.”

***

Despite Marcy’s reassurances that the guy in the van was gone, Thistle stayed hidden in the sock drawer for the rest of the day, until she came home from work and discovered him there with a sad gasp.  He mostly just wallowed.

He had people in his corner, he had a group, it was true.  But everything was still such a struggle.  All it took was little mistakes here and there to bring on such terror.  He was operating completely in Marcy’s world, one he still didn’t fully understand and had few ways to interact safely with.

He didn’t even miss his phone or talking to Sierra.  He’d been staving off loneliness by supplementing his friendship with Marcy and Teddy and Colin with online socialization, but that had all just turned sour in his mouth.  All he could think of was how disastrous it would be if he ever actually met any of the people he’d been talking to online.  None of them could ever know the simple truth of what kinds of microscopic fingers typed those messages, or just how close he had to stand to the mic when he voice chatted to sound normal-sized.

He thought of Sierra’s pictures of her holding kittens and cats and small bugs, and the way she would certainly gasp with delight upon seeing his real person, and imagined her enormous fist closing around him.  They talked as though they were equals, but if they actually met, she could do whatever she wanted to him and he couldn’t do anything to stop her except ask Marcy for help.

He would never be a person to any of the humans.  It had taken ages to establish any sort of rapport with the three humans that were on his side now, after a period of terrifying uncertainty and danger, and he’d only done that was because he was forced to.  It seemed like an impossible task imagining all the effort it would take to meet anyone else new.  He was just some particularly interesting animal to them, to the other 7,999,997 billion humans he shared the planet with.

And maybe he was just some animal.  Humans didn’t spend all their time worrying about being eaten.  They didn’t hide in a sock drawer all day, powerless to defend themselves.  They didn’t have anxiety about being stepped on or squished or grabbed or avoid meeting new people because they were afraid of being put in a jar.  They didn’t revolve every waking decision around the risk that it would expose them to predators.  They didn’t skitter away reflexively at loud noises or sudden movements.  They didn’t worry about coming home to find that their entire family had been eaten.  They didn’t conduct themselves like a neurotic prey animal, safe from all manner of garden-variety monsters by virtue of their sheer size.  They didn’t have nightmares nearly every night about being tortured and gutted by their friends.

They didn’t have nightmares about being eaten by a snake, which was a nightmare Thistle hadn’t suffered since childhood, but which had resurfaced to come torment him that night.

It was a snake with a human face, which made it even more disturbing when it unhinged its jaw to swallow Thistle.  Thistle scrambled backwards to try and escape, but it felt like he was moving through molasses, his limbs sluggish.  By the time the muscular coils encircled him, squeezing him, his pleas for mercy had already been exhausted.

He woke up crying, relieved that the horrible situation disappeared into the blackness of Marcy’s bedroom.  The feeling of skin pressing in on him remained though, but after a moment he realized it was because Marcy’s hand was on top of him, pinning him to the pillow where he’d fallen when she rolled over.

Even with Thistle having to occasionally wake up and shift positions to avoid being squished as Marcy moved restlessly in her sleep, he still consistently slept better in bed with her than he did alone.  It was the swarming instinct.  He’d never slept alone in the hive, not once since he was born.  They were safe in a group, the more the better.

But he was alone now.  A lone pixie was basically a dead man walking.  They rarely survived for very long after getting separated from their hive.  Despite Marcy’s presence, he still had nightmares.

Thistle shifted under Marcy’s hand, pathetically trying to imagine the warmth radiating from her was coming from fellow pixies sleeping peacefully next to him.  He buried his face in the pillow, squeezing taut fistfulls of the fabric beneath him.

Wait a minute.  He’d just gone over this.  Thistle wasn’t a lone pixie… He was alone as a pixie, but he wasn’t alone.  

For the first time out of all the times he’d had nightmares, it occurred to Thistle that he should wake Marcy up.

He scooted out from under Marcy’s hand, which plopped limply down behind him.  Marcy let out a snoring breath.  Hugging his arms around himself, Thistle wiped his face on the back of his hand, sniffling, and leaned over, shaking her hand.  “Marcy.”

No response.  He raised his voice and shook a bit harder.  “Marcy?”

She jerked slightly, eyes just barely cracking open, voice heavy with sleep.  “Hm?  Mhmmmmwha?  What is it?”

He suddenly felt very silly and self-conscious.  What did he really expect her to do?  “I, um…”

She blinked sleep out of her eyes.  “Is everything okay?”

“I…I had a bad dream.”

She made a sympathetic sound and curled her hand around him.  “I’m sorry.  Do you want to talk about it?”

Thistle leaned into her hand, hiding his face.  “I got eaten by a predator.”

“Oh, sweetheart…”  Marcy gathered him up, curling her fingers around him to form a protective wall.  “That’s not going to happen.”

He hugged his arms around himself and gave a little tremble.

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

“I–”  His voice cracked.  “I don’t think so…  It’s just…”

“Are you scared of that guy?”

“I’m scared–I’m scared of every guy.  Every human.  They’re–”  He broke eye contact, looking down.  “It’s–it’s stupid.”

“It isn’t stupid.”

“I…I’ll never be able to–to just meet new people like you do.”  That was definitely wholly inadequate to describe his entire train of thought, but it was what he managed to choke out.

Marcy rubbed his hand with her pointer finger.  “Do you want your phone back now?”

He shook his head.  “No.  I…I don’t think I want it back.”

Marcy frowned.  Thistle wiped his eyes again.

Marcy reached over and retrieved Thistle’s device from where it sat charging on the end table.  She held it up to him.  “Unlock it, please.”

He swiped in the passcode unenthusiastically.  Marcy lifted it up and away from him, scrolling and pressing buttons.

She looked at him, then held the phone up.  He sniffled and examined what she was showing him.

It was his DM with Sierra.

Is everything okay?

When you get the chance, can you let me know you’re okay?  I’m starting to get a bit worried about you.

Please don’t ghost me.  I really like talking to you.  I know you’re busy.  I’d just like to know you’re okay.

Do you want to voice call?

Thistle looked down, lip wobbling.  “Marcy, you know I can’t actually be friends with someone like her for real.”

“Why not?  You’re friends with me.”

Thistle squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his hands around his knees.  “You know why!”

Marcy removed the phone.  “Have you ever voice chatted with her?”

“Once or twice.”

Marcy pressed some buttons, then set the phone down.  To his horror, he saw the phone was ringing.  “You can’t call her!”

But after a few shuffling noises, a woman’s voice crackled out through his phone speaker.  “Hello?  Hey, Thistle?  Can you hear me?”

“Hey, this is Marcy.”

Sierra’s voice ratcheted up with excitement.  “Marcy!  Hi!  Oh my gosh, the famed Marcy!”

Privately, Marcy thought Sierra had the voice of a particular kind of young adult who was very, very annoying, and would leave her out of inside jokes in college.  She tactfully set the thought aside.  “Sierra?”

“Yes!  Thistle’s told me about you!  I’m so happy to finally meet you!”

Thistle had folded himself up on Marcy’s thigh, hiding his face, wings vibrating.  Marcy said, “All good things, I hope.”

“Yes!  Is–is he there?  Is everything okay?”

Marcy slid the phone over to Thistle, putting the mic right next to his head.  He looked up at her with watery eyes, face stretched taut with anguish.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Thistle choked out.

“Hey!  You sound so upset!  You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“There’s…Everything isn’t okay.”

“Oh no!”

“But Marcy is helping me.”

“I wish I could help.”

“Sierra,” said Marcy, sliding the phone back over.

“Woah,” she said, “for some reason you’re so much louder than he is, can you lean away or something?  Sorry!”

Marcy gave a small smirk and pushed the phone back towards Thistle.  “Sierra, Thistle is upset thinking he has no friends.”

Thistle hid his face, going red, ears pinned to his head.  “M-Marcy.”

“What!” said Sierra.  “I don’t count?”

Thistle started to sob, shoulders wracking.

“So, so Sierra.  Thistle hasn’t sent you any pictures of himself because he thinks you’d treat him differently if you knew what he looked like.”

Thistle let out a choked gasp, absolutely mortified.

“What?!” said Sierra.  “No, of course not!  I–Why would I?  I’m not shallow like that!  You’re my friend!”

Thistle slammed his whole hand down on the end call button.  He looked at Marcy with angry tears in his eyes.  “Marcy, you know she thinks you mean I’m ugly or something!  You know what’s going on here!  It’s pathetic!  I’m pathetic!”  

“You aren’t pathetic.”

“I can’t ever actually meet her,” said Thistle.  “What’s the point?  I have to hide behind a phone and a screen, no one can ever get more than just my voice, and even then I have to stand right next to the mic to make sure they don’t hear that I’m five inches tall!”  Tears streaked down his cheeks.

The call icon lit up again, indicating Sierra was calling again, but he ignored it.  “I can’t ever meet anyone else!  The whole process of meeting you, and Colin and Teddy, it nearly killed me!  I can’t do anything!  I can’t go back to my family, I can’t meet new humans, there aren’t any other pixies around…  I can’t–I can’t go outside and explore–and I’m not the kind of guy who always wants to be leaving the nest–I–I’m okay with staying inside most of the time, but I–it feels so so bad to–to know that no one will ever see me as a person–because even you didn’t at first, and…”

He trailed off as Marcy’s hand made comforting circles on his back.  “Thistle, listen.  Listen to me.”

His ears twitched.

“The way we met, and the way you and Teddy and Colin met.  First of all, that was my fault completely.”

“But–but that’s probably what everyone else would do, too!”

“Listen, let me finish.  I promise you–I promise–you will never have to go through that awful experience again.  You’re braver than when we first met.  You learned how to shout.  You know how to tell others what you need.  You can introduce yourself now.  And you have me to help you.  You can do anything you want to.”

Thistle sniffled.  Marcy had used her fingers to hold his hands, so they were trapped.

“You’ve powered through some extremely scary stuff way, way better than I could have.”

“But–But, but you’re not afraid of anything.”

Thistle was jostled slightly as Marcy laughed.  “Thistle, you haven’t seen me be scared of anything you’re scared of because that stuff isn’t scary for me.  If I were your size, I would be terrified of everything you’ve been dealing with.  I wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“...really?”

“Really.  I did a study abroad in Germany in undergrad, and I didn’t speak a word of German.  On my first day I got lost on the way home, took the wrong bus, and ended up on the other side of the city.  I had to call my host family to come rescue me at like 10PM.  It was one of the scariest things in my life.  And everyone else was the same size as me!  There weren’t monsters prowling around that wanted to eat me!  You’ve gone way further out of your comfort zone than I have.”

Thistle flittered his wings.  “Well, when you put it like that…”

“I know you can handle anything this big wide world can throw at you.”

Thistle blushed, squirming. 

The call icon lit up on the phone again.  Marcy gave him a reassuring pat.  “Now…Do you want to try this again?”

He gave a tearful smile and answered the call.

———————————–

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@cheeseybeans8

[sysig]

Whimsy Dragon ride (Patreon)

[katnissgirlsmakedo]

i. LOVE. this movie….

[plasmaniac]

the only 2 things i know i love so much that it's unconditional are mushrooms and the humble jester clown. as in ive yet to see a mushroom or jester i don't like in some way.

[muppetsnoopy]

little kids clothes fuck so hard. just saw this dude wearing a t-shirt that had a complete diagram of the water cycle on it. I want that shirt what the fuck