#want to. love u sarah.

[fleshdyke]

I saw a deer rotting away on the side of the road, ribcage gaping open, sternum shattered, sagging leathery skin shedding coarse hair as decomposition sets in. Eyes and entrails long since pecked out by crows and vultures, the doe lay blind and empty, her cranium chewed open and cleaned out by reverent coyotes. Crawling with maggots and worms, she writhes.

Wildflowers bloomed tall around her, cushioning her corpse in a bed of milkweed and aster, wild lily and strawberry bursting through her drying skin and out through the cavernous hole in her body. Wasps and horseflies drink the nectar flavoured by her body, dripping sweet onto her ribcage.

A violent death unto peaceful sleep, bones crushed like brittle eggshell by steel alloy, whiplash and internal hemorrhaging as she stumbles forward and collapses into the cold ditch by the asphalt, gasping and twitching as her lungs filled with blood, shards of her ribcage puncturing her lungs, struggling to take a full breath as spots grew larger in her vision. Twin headlights barreled on, uninterrupted and uncaring as she lay dying in the ditch, the taillights of the departing vehicle bathing her in red light as it leaves. There are no other cars in the road.

Scavengers bowed their heads to her memory as they filled their stomachs with her body, gorging themselves on cold offal, worshipful as they licked congealed blood off the ground. A necessary sacrifice to the good of the many; her agony sustains them. They don't know anything else. She sleeps, quiet and alone, in the ditch by the road, as she decomposes. Her eyes, plucked from their sockets by hungry birds to be fed to their hungry chicks, no longer saw; she slept in peaceful darkness.

I wondered what she dreamed about. I wondered if she could still see, in her mind's eye, the life she dreamed of. I wondered if all she could see anymore was the wriggling of maggots in her skull.

I wondered if the deer on the side of the road left behind a herd, maybe a fawn, waiting patiently, nestled in tall grasses, for its mother to return. I wondered if it, too, had fallen prey to the great metal maw of a passing vehicle as it, hungry and cold, searched for its mother. I hoped not, but I know better; deer don't often practice crèches.

I felt kinship with her, in a way, a deer left for dead next to the country highway, carved out empty and left gaping. I saw myself in her in the way she died alone, ignored, rotting from the inside out as cars passed by, the way she was vulnerable, defenseless; she had no way to defend herself against her fate. The scales were tipped against her, the battle lost as soon as she took her first step onto cracked asphalt, doomed beyond her own comprehension and her killer's capacity to care. She had no antlers to defend herself. She didn't stand a chance.

A faceless figure in a nondescript truck, anonymous in the atrocity of death, with no witnesses and no guilt for what they had done. Perhaps I'd already passed them on the street. Perhaps I'd already wished them a good morning. Perhaps I'd done the same with others.

It was almost comforting, in a way, to see such a visceral and grotesque representation of myself, flayed open snd hollowed out and left to rot. It reminded me there were others like me, even if they were roadkilled deer. In the aftermath of catastrophe, I, too, lay broken and gasping, immobile as I watched the world pass me by, no one stopping to notice my agony. I supposed it wasn't quite as obvious as that of a deer, trembling and bleeding from the mouth, branded hot in the shape of a car's front grill. It was confusing, still. It certainly felt more than obvious.

I dreamed of coyote teeth tearing me apart, pulling out my organs as I watched, passive, of vultures picking at my skin, grunting in veneration as they ate me to the bone. I dreamed of crows eating the scraps left behind, pecking at my face and mouth, pulling out my eyes and tongue, rendering me blind and mute. I didn't mind; I hardly had use for them anyways. I dreamed of dandelion blooms crowding my airways, airborne seeds filling my lungs until I choked, and growing from my body again.

I dreamed of love, of prostration and black birds bowed in supplication, owing me their lives, surviving at the price of mine. I dreamed of love, of sickly sweet devotion, like the smell of decay. I dreamed of love, of poisonous butterflies drinking down the nectar of my body's wildflowers, of dangerous beauty. In my dream, I watched the jays snap up those sweet butterflies, bright wings crunching and shredding within the predator's beak, only for the eaten nymph to reappear as its bitter poison burns the jay's oesophagus, vomiting up the offensive prey. The butterfly is not saved. The butterfly is still dead, half-digested and broken in a small puddle of the bird's mucous, but the jay learns; the butterfly's death prevents others.

I dreamed of love, like the coyote and the badger that found my corpse one night, forty million years of evolution between the two, but perfect teamwork nonetheless. The two arrived together and left together after they'd had their fill of my lungs and heart. I wished them well on their journey and waited for the next scavenger to find me.

I hoped the deer on the side of the road found the same peace in death as I had. I hoped she found her closure in the scavengers who worshipped her. I hoped the faceless figure in that nondescript truck faced their retribution and I hoped the faceless figure in my hazy memories faced the Old Testament judgement I so wished.

As I accepted the deer into myself, let the shape of her rotting body brand itself on my mind (reminiscent, almost, of the brand of a car's front grill on her flank), I felt her dreams assimilate with my own. I felt, suddenly, the desire to walk along country highways in the dark, the desire to know what waits on the other side of the road, the desperation so strong that I couldn't stand to wait for the rumbling beast to pass. I felt the awe of staring into blinding light, larger than me and near incomprehensible. I understood why deer stopped in the middle of the road. I'm sure anyone else would, too. The first contact of the car's front grill to her (my) body felt something like love, like the embrace of the only one who could stand to have me.

I thought about the crows that picked off the smaller pieces of flesh missed by the larger scavengers. I thought about the sweet adoration between two black birds as they passed my eyeball to their mate, the pure devotion between them as they preened one another, beaks coated in congealed blood. Their love is a living thing, a separate entity, powerful and writhing. It occupies the crows entirely, not unlike parasitism. Their chicks will grow from my scavenged flesh, insatiable, fledging for the first time above my drying skeleton. To fly had always been a dream of mine, and now it is actualized by those young black birds, fulfilled as they hop unsteadily from branch to branch, their parents watching over them protectively. How lucky I am to witness this. How lucky I am to learn, firsthand, the depth of that love, the endlessness of life, how it begins again, and again, and again.

[akajustmerry]

i watch this clip 5 times a day for dopamine hits. sarah and kieran are so funny 🥰

[seekingthestars]

exhibiting some absolutely unhinged behavior and going on a mercari japan shopping spree was not exactly how i planned to spend my night but i'm not mad at it ⊙▽⊙

[campirebites]

Happy Indigenous Peoples day from Sarah Young Bear-Brown! Here’s how to sign “Indigenous” in ASL and a little bit of background about the sign! (x)

[repeatstuff]

good video essays on youtube are getting harder and harder to find and it’s not because of any inherent problem with the medium, but because so many otherwise talented creators continue to go for the low-hanging fruit of “tiktok trend bad”

[toadmancer]

[dj khaleed voice] anotha one (dragon wip)

in order to defend against the Giant Monsters that forced humanity to flee underground a Long Long Time Ago, humans created Giant Mecha (in the shape of dragons of course) to fight them. piloting a dragon involves a Metaphysical Connection with the artificial soul of the dragon, to which prolonged exposure causes the Physical Barriers btwn flesh human and mechanical dragon to blur and ultimately meld, resulting in what is colloquially known as "grafting," a fast and explosive growth of new flesh from the cockpit out that fuses pilot and dragon into one body and soul. bc of this, pilots only have a few years of service before being forced to retire and their dragons decommissioned, so there's always a need for new pilots.

(the group of pilots is known as the "steel wing corps," with each group divided into wings, eg "first wing," with the protagonist's group being fourth wing, so you can imagine im A Little Salty about the book that obviously broke into my google docs and stole the idea out from under me)

[nerefee]

yes im watching the new jeff davis werewolf teen show, no I will not take criticism for it at this time

[daydadahlias]

u and ur future wife on the beach ? i’m not on the beach rn wym

[rewrite-canon]

i literally watched the first episode of the last of us yesterday with my family and i could not shut the fuck up about what’s accurate or inaccurate to the game like i literally pointed at the clock in sarah’s room and legitimately said “that clock looks accurate to the game” and i got looks from all of them, my dad had to literally pause it and tell me to shut up at one point (fair enough)

[semercury]

I think a lot of it too is the fact I understand how fragile everything is and I'm willing to do anything to protect things even if it's irrational.

[titantower]

[seekingthestars]

got distracted, went on a quest to explore the royal hidden passageway 🎉

which is incredibly long and winding LOL and there are!! so many rocks, i went through so many weapons because i didn't wanna use all my bombs ahhh BUT

i explored and found the whole soldier's armor set all by myself! :D

[loving-jack-kelly]

🌹

— @ghostinacardboardbox

Why didn’t it feel like it? Why did the butterflies in her stomach when Jack smiled at her feel a lot more like anxiety and a lot less like infatuation?

[jullsisfangirling]

Why did Nesta became an alcoholic hermit off camera

I was liking Nesta and Archeron sisters in the third book is like they became a family (finally!) but then I read the fourth book and she is back on being so mean to the people who actually cares for her and Im back on hating her and I just want to erase forth book from my mind

[kethabali]

fuck the last of us every single black character either died or turned out to be a bad guy except for maria how are you gonna make a social commentary that is supposedly leftist and then make a white savior main character and kill all the black people youre fucking delusional if u think a white girl would be the face of a revolution or a cure or any bs it's ALWAYS people of color that do these things stupid fucking show fuck racism for ruining potential for a good idea

[reginaofdoctorwho]

watching the last of us like haha fatherhood be upon ye