You find a girl crying next to a grave. “What’s wrong?” You ask. She cries harder. “Nobody came to my funeral.”

Night watchman at a cemetary isn’t the kind of job most people want. I’ve always liked it, though. It’s pretty peaceful, most of the time, which is nice. Sometimes I get to chase off teenagers or would-be occultists or obnoxious drunks, which is fun. There’s a lot of entertainment in a good chase, at least for me, and scaring the crap out of them is fun too.

Sometimes it gets sad, though.

It was my first walkthrough of the night when I saw the girl weeping beside the grave. It happens sometimes, and I never chase them. The cemetary is for the dead and the grieving. They’re always welcome here.

I went over to her, careful to keep the grave between us so I wouldn’t scare her. “What’s the matter?” I asked gently. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head, still weeping. “No-one came to my funeral,” she sobbed. “No-one at all.”

I checked the stone. She’d been about seventeen. An age of strong emotions and fierce resentments. “I’m sorry,” I told her, and meant it. “That’s… always hard.”

“If they cared about me, they would have come,” she wept. “This means nobody cared at all.”

“Not always,” I told her gently. “Sometimes it means that something else happened. If you like, I can try to find out.”

“Really?” She wiped her eyes. “I’d… I’d appreciate that. I’m Lucy.”

“Stanley.” She couldn’t shake hands, so I gave her a friendly nod. “Come with me, Lucy. I’ve got a laptop in the watchman’s hut.”

She followed me, drifting silently, back to the hut. I brought her in, and made two cups of tea, offering her one. “I’m not solid,” she said, her lip quivering. “I can’t -“

I showed her how to take it, the ghostly echo of the solid cup, and told her I’d learned it from the day attendant over at the columbarium. She’s Korean, and knows a lot about hungry ghosts. She sipped her tea while I opened the laptop and ran the usual searches.

I do this a lot.

Sure enough, there’d been three major car accidents between the area she’d lived in and the cemetary. There’s almost always at least one - there’s this one intersection that no exorcism, ritual purification or cleansing spell has ever worked on - and it usually helps. A lot of spirits want to know why someone they loved didn’t come.

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After 200,000 years, the alien generation ship arrived to our solar system. She has the fire power to vaporize a few planets, but the handful of survivors only ask for some hot soup and a few other surprisingly reasonable demands.

The Statues That Do Not Weather

For Sas, another story about helping.

There is a statue on the cliffs overlooking the harbour, of a man shading his eyes with one hand and looking out over the sea.

They say that when invaders came, a man went up to the cliffs, and prayed to the gods. He offered them his own life to save his people. The gods accepted his sacrifice, and a great fire burned across the water, sinking all the ships. The man became stone, and ever since then he has stood on the cliffs, looking out at ships that sank long ago.

There is a statue that stands in the center of the town, of an old woman with both hands held up before her, palm out.

They say that when invaders came again, a woman stood in the middle of the square, and ordered them to halt. She reminded them of the great fire that sank the ships years before, and called on the gods to strike down any man who took one more step, though it cost her life. The gods accepted her sacrifice, and the invaders who stepped forward became water, running back down the hill towards the sea and soaking the boots of the men behind them. The survivors fled in fear, and the woman became stone, her feet set among the cobbles, her hands raised to stop invaders long gone.

There is a statue that stands by the road that runs past our village, of a young woman holding a basket.

They say that when brigands came upon the village in the teeth of a hard winter, starving and desperate, a woman saw them coming and offered them the food in her basket. They mocked her, saying that so little would not feed them for a day. She, too, called on the gods, and she, too, was answered. She made a bargain with their leader, that every man would turn back when he had all the food he could carry. From that one basket, she filled every bandit’s hands and sacks with food until he could carry no more. When she had filled even the leader’s hands, she bowed her head and became stone, her basket empty at last. The bandits kept to their bargain, and never troubled the village again.

We all know these stories. We all know why those people became stone, stone that does not weather.

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Wonderfully well written! Bravo!!!

The Avatar is still being reborn to this day, but if the Government finds them they will be killed before they can liberate society. The handful of benders left are few & far between, and you, an introverted EarthBender, just froze the liquid in your tea.

Our good friend @quietpinetrees has brought his microfiction to tumblr and it is achingly beautiful.

oh this is gorgeous

Wow...😯

It is difficult to trigger the true Wrath of a demon, given their nature of being inherently angry. As you look at your scarred, malnourished and broken young summoner, a familiar red mist begins to descend over your mind.

The Mother Of Monsters

I am a power of darkness. Demon, I am called, or monster, or spirit. And because my name is known in the mortal realms, I am summoned sometimes.

Many summoners, too weak or too ignorant to hold me, I have devoured. Others I have corrupted, or misled. I do not like to be summoned, and I make those who call on me pay.

When the new summons comes, weak and faltering, I am annoyed. I do not like to be drawn from my own realm, without my will or my choice. I wreath my form in flame and shadow, then just as I am drawn through, I hear something I have not heard before. “Please,” the voice begs. “Please come, Mother of Monsters. Please.”

I let the fire and the shadows slip away. Instead, I step through clothed in an appearance closer to my true self, which I allow none to see. Crimson scales cover my skin, and claws are on my hands and feet, and great horns rise from my skull… and yet I am formed not so differently from a human being, with two arms, and two legs, two eyes in my face, and a mouth capable of speech. This is the form I wear when I do not wish to intimidate… too much.

The summoner is kneeling in front of the circle. “Great Erisidinae! Mother of Monsters! I beg you to answer my petition!” he implored, staring up at me with wide eyes. “Please… please, I know my offerings are poor, but just a little…”

The offerings are indeed poor. No cow or horse slain for me, not even a goat or fowl. A squirrel, tiny on the offering stone. Beside it, a handful of nuts, a little scrap of honeycomb discoloured with age, a wooden cup half-filled with milk, a few shiny pebbles. And yet the power of the sacrifice is great, far greater than it should be, greater than many I have been offered.

I look again at the summoner, leaning toward the edge of the circle that contains me, reaching out with my senses. And I see him.

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Wow...i...have no words. Just...WOW...

i hope i think of this video in the last moments before i die

I am reblogging this solely for how derpy that crab looks to me...especially when he folds his eye stalks over when he falls. Reminds me of a little kid, for some reason.

If your suit watch is correct, you should have ran out of air… three weeks ago? The stars drift past and you’re forgetting how you got out here, but your practiced cognitive self-tests tell you that you’re sane. Reality seems to be dissolving the further you drift into space. And now.. music?

(After the bittersweet tragedy of the Last Contact, I really had to write a First Contact to cheer myself up.)

She drifted. Cognitive dissonance had set in some time ago, she was aware of that. It passed the time.

However, she was still capable of lucidity. In one of her lucid spells, she ran through the exercises that she had been taught during training. (She wasn’t sure how long ago training had been, but she remembered it had happened) So far as she was able to tell, she was sane. 

The suit was in low power mode now. It had shifted into low power mode after the air ran out. Which had been, according to the timer that was still running, three weeks ago. (It had been one week last time she looked. Odd.) The timer was attached to the tiny distress beacon which existed to identify the suit’s location for searchers, as well as telling them whether or not the drifting suit still held a live person, how long the person had been dead, and the last known location.

She should have died when the air ran out. If the suit had thought she was out of air before she really was, she should have frozen to death within a few minutes of entering low power mode. 

Instead, she was still drifting, in empty space. She couldn’t even see her own ship, let alone any searchers. Not even debris. She had rotated on every axis multiple times, looking all around herself. Nothing. Only the stars, drifting past. 

Which…. wasn’t right. None of this was right. None of this was possible.

And yet here she was, drifting.

She had mastered lucid dreaming years ago - most astronauts did, as a way of alleviating the boredom and sameness of space-travel. She closed her eyes, relaxing into that mindset. If this was a long, strange dream - and it could be - she could at least make it more interesting. 

But she couldn’t so much as conjure a distant ship, or some soft music. This was not, then, a dream. 

It was not reality.

It was not a dream.

What other options were there?

She closed her eyes, then opened them again. For the first time since she found herself adrift - and she did not, now, remember how that had happened - she spoke aloud. 

“Is this a test?”

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AU where instead of Arthur Watts, Salem has picked up Heinz Doofenschmirtz for her inner circle.

Doof is scared of a lot of things but, somehow, Salem isn’t one of them. He’ll ramble on in his usual way while talking to her, and she accepts it because somehow he manages to always produce just the right invention at just the right time and doesn’t see any problem handing it off to her.

And, also, when nobody else is around, they trade stories about their exes. Salem finally gets to unload everything she’s been feeling about Ozma all these years, Heinz gets to talk about how his wife doesn’t really get his lifestyle, it’s all very mutual and stuff.

He’s offered to Science her immortality, but she’s refused.

#he shows Vanessa’s baby pictures to Hazel via @maxiemumdamage

Vanessa is actually on Cinder’s Beacon Infiltration Team instead of Neo. Not that Neo’s not part of the program, just that Vanessa is the number four. And she’s actually really good at fitting in and being a teenager, and also at handling Cinder. And Emerald. And Mercury, actually. She becomes the ‘big sis’ of the infiltration team, which is strange since she’s the youngest one there–but she’s also the only one with anything resembling a normal childhood.

Her and Neo have an intense fashion-based rivalry.

Doof: A teenage boy?

Oscar: *Draws his cane.*

Doof: Ozpin the teenage boy?!

The Doofenschmirtz Evil Incorporated building is, of course, in Atlas.

Right there, for anybody to see.

Vanessa outright states her dad runs the place, and that he is Evil.

James Ironwood ignores it, because nobody would be that stupid.

Like Arthur, Doof joined Salem because Ironwood snubbed him. But unlike Arthur, he doesn’t blame Pietro at all–in fact he’s honestly pretty impressed with the whole robot girl thing, and makes a robot man. He doesn’t want to carve out his own aura, though, so he decides to make this giant metal man run on squirrel power instead.

Norm doesn’t learn about Penny until after the Vytal tournament, but when he does he decides she’s his cousin and, when she’s rebuilt, they totally go on robot playdates. Norm also tries to give Penny dating advice regarding Ruby. It is universally bad. Somehow, it still works.

“We need to sow discord in Mantle,” Salem tells him one day. “In order to get Atlas ready for my arrival, you see.”

“I’ve got an idea!” Doof says.

Two weeks later, the Happy Huntresses are wondering how the vending machines all became sapient, why they’re terrorizing the populace, and how that strange platypus keeps cropping up to help them just in the nick of time.

Heinz gets it into his head that they need to celebrate Cinder’s birthday, and so he decides to poke around to figure out when her birthday actually is (he’s the head of Evil Incorporated, a little espionage isn’t out of the question). He gets to her adoption papers, looks up her adopted family… learns about the mysterious murder, does some investigating. And while there aren’t many pictures of Baby Cinder, Heinz is nothing if not determined.

Remember, this is the guy who was temporarily raised by Ocelots. He knows what starvation looks like, what child abuse looks like.

So obviously he can’t undo what’s been done (he’s tried before) but, with a little more research he comes up with a plan. And on her birthday, Cinder finds Heinz outside her door with a cake and a promise that he’s whipped up a real good surprise, one she’ll absolutely love, promise! Cinder’s annoyed that he came all the way to Beacon for this but Vanessa’s like ‘Dad’s not going to take no for an answer’ so Cinder grumbles and follows him out to his airship.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Heinz replies with a knowing grin.

They land, Cinder steps out, and she freezes. There, right there, is the barn she was raised in.

“So I’ve already cleared out all the innocent orphans,” Heinz explains as she stares, “which was really hard to do without waking up the matron. I think she’s still the same one she was back then. Oh!” He snaps his fingers, reaching into the airship. “I brought a few of my old inators, in case you want to use them.”

Cinder blinks, looking at the tools in his hands. She looks up into his eyes, and sees understanding.

“Go nuts kid,” he says. “You’ve earned it.”

A few hours later and they’re headed back to Vale, leaving behind a fireblasted land. Heinz offers her another slice of Dunkelberry cake. Cinder takes it with a smile.

You never thought your imaginary friend was weird until you heard other kids describe theirs. None of them had a dark, dripping silhouette that lurked along the walls. Years later, all of your childhood friends have stopped having imaginary friends. Yours is still there.

You’re not afraid of her, though some part of you thinks you should be. You don’t know why you think she’s a “she.” It might be in the way she flits around you, almost like she’s investigating each object in your vicinity. It might be the way she walks, toe to heel, toe to heel.

It might be one of those secrets she used to whisper to you while standing at the foot of your bed, leaving only a small pool of inky, black fluid behind as evidence in the morning.

Whatever it is, you know she’s a “she” and that she’s not imaginary.

You’re in junior high now, thirteen and ready for high school. The other kids have, for the most part, forgotten that you’re the one who kept talking about imaginary friends last year, that you’re the one who still talked about such childish things, but you think leaving junior high behind you will be the final nail in the coffin. Next school year you’ll be free of your past mistakes, you’ll keep your mouth shut, and, most importantly, you’ll be able to make at least one friend.

Yeah, that’s right. You, the kid with a not-so-imaginary friend, has no real friends. That’s why you walk home alone everyday with only the steady drips of her following you.

You don’t mind the walk back from school, really. It’s just long and boring and there aren’t any cool shops or restaurants to stop in on the way home. Instead, it’s through the industrial district where large, squat office building huddle together and adults mill around, just totally devoid of life. You don’t really pay attention when you walk through, preferring to keep your nose in your phone and earbuds in your ears so you don’t hear the drip, drip, drip of your imaginary friend.

That’s probably why you don’t notice when he starts following you. But when you do notice, you can’t stop.

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Very awesome! Cheers for @caffeinewitchcraft !

Image prompt

I somehow feel like this was written either by Stanford Pines, or Cave Johnson... something about how they speak just calls to me...

Me, clapping my hands: SUPPORT COURSE IZUKU! SUPPORT COURSE IZUKU!! …WITH A PROSTHETIC!!

I’m sure people have had this idea before but I wanted to put my own spin on it!! And now for the info:

-Izuku’s been fascinated with heroes since a young age. However, after finding out he was quirkless, he refused to give up, and switched gears to start investing in the support field. He figured if he couldn’t be a pro hero he could at least do his best to help them and be a hero in his own way.

-Izuku’s an absolute GENIUS when it comes to inventing–he’s on par with Hatsume. However, Hatsume focuses more on support items that break convention and are very innovative and unique. Izuku’s focus is more on items that actually help heroes on the field and support their bodies, and items that also allow them to use their quirks to their full extent while still being able to control them properly. (Basically, Izuku’s gadgets act as a control stick for heroes that go all out i.e. Toshi.) He also makes a lot of gadgets that support disabled heroes, because–

-Izuku has a prosthetic arm! It’s his right one. This was the result of a villain attack that he got involved in after meeting All Might. Toshi blames himself for what happened to Izuku because he couldn’t get there in time. He and Izuku are very close–Izuku knows the secret behind Toshi’s appearance and he knows about One For All. Mirio is the one to inherit OFA in this AU–so Izuku’s very close to him as well! Izuku makes support items for both Toshi and Mirio, to support their quirks. Izuku’s gadgets have saved Toshi in a pinch a hundred times over, and are designed to support him when he needs that extra push when he’s already reached his limit.

There is more ahead~

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Love this idea!

behold…. a Bastard

Cat OS running on mouse hardware.

they also howl! 

Wolf OS running on mouse hardware.

I’m glad you all love this tiny rodentious bastard mammal, but I can see we’re going to need to have the conversation about hiding things in the tags

It also metabolises scorpion venom as a painkiller

The most awesome little bastard!

“You- you were supposed to stop me.” The villain sobbed as they cradled the lifeless, limp body of the hero, “You were meant to save the day! You could’ve stopped me. So easily.”

“So why? Why am I here? Why am I breathing? ” The villain choked as tears started to stream down their cheeks like waterfalls.

“Please,” the villain’s voice trembled, “please wake up. ”

Legend says that the hero and villain are fated to die by each other’s hands. So they both decide not to be the hero and villain, and become best friends instead.

You die and appear in an endless ghost town, and no one can be seen anywhere, only you and some animals wandering around. One day, you meet God– and he tells you you’re the only person in Heaven.

Whenever people see an intelligent animal with a witch, there is a common assumption that it is the witches familiar. And while true, many of them are simply magical animal helpers… 

Others are actually young witch babies.

Since witches have no womb and are a byproduct of wild magic, whenever a witch wishes for a child they might one day find a young animal lingering around the house, much like receiving a familiar. An easy way to tell the difference between a youngling and a familiar, however, is that once bonded a familiar will soon begin speaking thereafter. Younglings will not develop speech until much later in their development.

The 2 year mark is when familiar and youngling dimorphism begins. While familiars will simply grow into an adult animal, younglings will enter into a “troll” stage, in which they will develop traits that separate them from ordinary creatures but do not yet resemble a human. It is towards the end of this stage that they will begin saying words, and simple sentences. Minor jinx magic is to be expected.

The “troll” stage will last for ~5 years, and the next stage can happen anytime within the next 3-6 following years. They will encounter a sudden “growth spurt,” where they will suddenly come into distinctly human shapes, while still retaining vestigial traits from their troll years. This transformation can happen overnight, or take over a year to complete. They can begin practicing simple spell magic at this point.

Finally, usually around the 18 year mark, they will fully shed any last vestigial traits, and appear as any other mature witch.

While some claim that the animal a youngling starts off as influences how they look as an adult, that’s largely been debunked. Witch children actually tend to generally resemble their parent(s).

Because names are of great importance to witches, some traditional households will follow the custom of waiting for the youngling to arrive at speaking age to let them choose their own name. Until then, often they refer to the child as their animal: Kitty, Crow, Frog etc.

If a witch parent posts a pic of their troll kid and anyone comments “cursed,” that’s an INSTA-BLOCK.

@no-mi-torta

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!

Give a bored human a screwdriver and you’ll find a pile of scrap where your ship used to be, with a proud looking human sitting nearby. 

“Boredom is a dangerous thing to a human.” 

“I don’t understand,” Chuul’s mandibles clicked nervously, “why not simply take the tool from the human.” 

Minxx’s antennae stood straight up, a sign of shock, fear, or surprise, “You don’t simply take something from a human. If you do they will either turn the ship upside down trying to find it again, or they will replace it with something else that will lead to more destruction.

“I speak quite literally by the way. Human-Mark used to have a tool he called an “Hex Key” he used it to remove the doors to the clothing storage areas in his quarters because he was bored. When he lost it he literally turned the ship upside down by reversing the gravity.” 

Chuul’s tentacles curled up defensively, “Gravity controls are locked, how-”

“No one knows how.” Minxx shook her small wings as the memory of suddenly falling upwards returned to her. “but his reasoning was that the tool would fall out of whatever hiding place it had come to rest within. He had not considered that all tables, chairs, equipment, and personnel, would also fall. It took weeks to clean.” 

To be fair to the human, Mark had only intended to reverse the gravity in his own quarters but had, quote, “pushed the wrong button.” A sentence which would send fear through any intelligent creature in the known galaxy. To be completely unfair to the human, there were still stains on the ceiling in almost every room of the ship from dropped food, chemicals, various other liquids, and even a couple of empty bowels. Some races just didn’t find the idea of resting comfortably in their sleeping quarters, only to be suddenly awakened as they fell ten feet toward a ceiling which had now become a floor. Mark was no longer allowed near environmental controls. 

Minxx continued, “He did not find this “Hex Key.” However, he did find the screwdriver and it seemed to please him when an owner was not located. The captain let him keep it since it seemed that it would keep him from doing any more strange things to locate his original lost tool. We did not consider-” she trailed off as her wings quivered again. 

There was silence between them for a few moments, Minxx was almost unwilling to continue and Chuul was almost too afraid to press for more details. Slowly, but surely, Minxx calmed herself enough to speak again. “we did not consider what he may be able to do when armed with a leverage optimiser.” 

“We were given shore leave while the ship was being fixed after the gravity incident. Thank goodness the captain took out act’s-of-human insurance or it would have cost the profits from our next five cargo hauls.” The premiums were high, but it was worth it. “After 14 rotations, human-Mark began to complain over the lack of stimulation, he called it “bored.” On the 15th rotation he disappeared for some time and he had hoped he had found some new activity to occupy his time.” 

Chuul did, but at the same time didn’t, want to know, “Had he?” 

Minxx waved her antennae in confirmation, “he had. He was located in one of the cargo holds, using the screwdriver to dismantle one of the mining probes. To, quote “see how it worked.” It was almost 90% deconstructed.” 

Mark had claimed it was almost 10% REconstructed, as he was trying to put it back together again, but couldn’t quite remember where all the parts went. In Mark’s words, the captain was a “glass half-empty kinda guy” (whatever that meant) and wrote DEconstructed on the claim form for a replacement probe. 

Chuul’s natural camouflage kicked in and they took on the colour of the chair they were sitting on. “Those probes have no screws for the leverage optimiser to use, how did he-” 

Minxx’s wings shivered again, “no one knows how. He just did.” 

Chuul was silent for a moment. He’d never served on a ship with a human before. He’d heard they made things “interesting” and if you ever got into trouble, a human was the very best thing to ever have on your side. It was why they were so many job opportunities for humans in the alliance. All the same…the thought of a human causing such damage and destruction just because of a lack of mental, or physical, stimulation was a more than a little frightening. What if the human wanted to see how the engines worked, or the weapons?!!  “Maybe I should transfer to another ship.” 

Minxx’s antennae curled, a smile to her race. “You are safe. The captain has found a way to occupy our humans free time. During our last stopover, he commissioned a shiny orb be constructed.” 

Chuul coked their head, “what is a shiny orb?” 

Minxx’s curled antennae moved up an down; a sign of mild laughter. “It is nothing. A sphere made of shiny metals, humans do like shiny things, roughly two feet diameter made of a collection of gears, levers, screws and switches which appear complex and should have a function, but do entirely nothing. The captain handed it to Human-Mark and stated: “see if you can fix this.” and Mark has been “tinkering” with it during his off-duty hours for almost 24 rotations now. He can take it apart and rebuild it as many times as he likes, but it will never perform any task.”

Chuul was just thinking about how their captain must be a genius, when the door to the mess hall opened and Human-Mark entered. He was carrying the shiny orb under one arm, and his screwdriver in the other hand. He looked around, seemingly not noticing any of the crew members. He smiled when he spotted an empty liquid container and sat down at the table with the cup. 

Chuul and Minxx watched curiously as Mark set the orb on the table in front of the cup. He used the screwdriver to tighten one small screw and flipped a switch. At once there was a whirring and clicking of clockwork, a blinking of lights hidden in the depths of the machine and even a TING from a small bell. Then a small funnel-shaped piece of metal opened up in the side of the machine and poured a small amount of hot, black, liquid into the cup.

Mark jumped to his feet, pumping the air and yelling loudly enough to send Chuul’s camouflage reflex off again. He grabbed the orb, abandoning the cup of steaming hot liquid, and moved to the door. 

Minxx stared after them, “Human-Mark?” 

Mark only paused for a second in the doorway. He was prominently displaying his predatory teeth. Chuul had read about these “smiles” but it was still disturbing to see. “Can’t stop Minxy. I gotta let the captain know I fixed his coffee maker.” 

With that, he left. Leaving Chuul and Minxx frozen in place, dumbfounded. 

Wherever Chuul was going to transfer to, Minxx began to hope she could get a posting on the same ship. 

Absolutely, unequivocally fantastic!

It’s your first day as a gravedigger, but before you can start your shift, the boss pulls you to the side and hands you a shotgun. “Listen close, new hire, because I don’t like repeating myself. I don’t know what you’ve heard about the job, so I’m going to set the record straight. Yes, you’re going to be dealing with zombies and skeletons, but they’re easy to put down; but if you see any wildlife, run.”

My rainy days are getting to be a lot more fun...

Everyone who’s been talking to me knows i’ve been working on this comic about wlws and cats for a while and i’m so so happy it’s finally here!!! :D

idea stolen from this post :’3

Awesome comic!