If I was a pokemon NPC I would definitely be in some corner of a library doing Pokemon based historical research on ghost types. Like can you get your stupid Bulbasaur out of here I have a deadline.

Yeah yeah I have a spiritomb. I bought a stupid book in a library overflow bin that HAPPENED to be haunted, and now I have to take care of this thing. It screams and knocks shit over unless I feed it wisdom, yeah turns out these things eat wisdom.

Yeah it doesn't really understand physical reality so it can only have play dates with other ghost types. I tried taking it to the park and it nearly hurled some lady's Flareon into traffic. So I had to buy a mismagius off Pokebook marketplace so it wouldn't get anxious and give me nightmares about my dad killing me.

My apartment is full of increasingly improbably ghost types that were offloaded onto me. Don't go in the closet. Yeah there a cofagrigus in there. But hey stand back check this out [I open the door really fast, the cofagrigus rips apart the rotisserie unfezant i got at the grocery store]

who cares if you don't fully "get" the weird postmodernist novel on your first read, or if the experimental arthouse film is opaque to you on your first viewing? you are not being graded. you are not being scored. there is value in the attempt. every time i've read House of Leaves or watched Blue Velvet, I've gotten something new from it. the idea that you might not "get" something and therefore shouldn't bother with it is so silly to me

i think if you have a crush on someone that isnt into you the same way you should be able to throw up horrible black goo for about 10 minutes to make the crush go away

What’s a hyper specific fear of yours? Mine is when celestial bodies appear too close to earth. Bonus points if it’s a planets that SHOULDNT be anywhere near ours

So like the Super Moon freaks me out a lil

My bad photoshop job showing what I mean. I have a fear of space in general but this is an absolute nightmare to me

*Putting my photography nerd hat on* The moon is actually technically at its furthest from you when it looks biggest! It's an optical illusion that happens when the moon is close to the horizon (so you're looking at it across a bit of extra distance instead of seeing it directly above you in the sky).

The intense size difference you see in some photographs is caused by lens compression, a neat trick with telephoto lenses that makes background objects look larger and closer to a foreground object. The photo is actually taken at a distance from the foreground object, but with a powerful enough zoom lens, you can create the illusion that the photographer was standing right in front of that object and an absolutely massive moon is looming over it.

That's also why the moon looks so tiny when you photograph it with your phone camera, even if it feels huge when you're looking at it in person--that wide-angle fixed lens on your phone makes things that are far away look smaller.

*Taking off my photography nerd hat* I also have nightmares about big scary space objects crashing into earth.

liquid metals in your blood

"Um," said the fairy. "Choose something else."

Rosamund hesitated. It was, she had to admit, the first time she had ever been given a wish, so she wasn't an expert with this sort of thing, but she felt that this was not part of the typical script. "Sorry," she said. "Is that not allowed?"

The fairy grimaced. When it spoke, its voice came out pained and stressed. "Y-y-y-e-e-e-no," it sighed at last, dragonfly wings sagging. "No, technically no, it's not not allowed, but-" It suddenly brightened. "How about gold? Can't go wrong with gold. Gold's a good wish."

Rosamund frowned. This was really not going the way she expected at all. "Excuse me-"

"Beauty, that's a good one too, beauty's always popular," it went on. "And if there's a ball nearby tonight I can probably-"

"Excuse me!"

The wand was twiddled in chitinous fingers. "Right," the fairy said, sounding scolded. "Sorry, it's just..." Its voice trailed off.

Her grandmother's clock chimed midnight from the mantelpiece.

Then - "I'm sorry," it said, not daring to look up, "I know it's not fair, but - you know what I am. You know what we do to wishes. If you wished for wealth I'd have to turn your hair into silver, so you’d have to tear every strand out of your head before you could spend it. We can't help it. It's what we do. The cost of a wish is that you get what you want, but you don't get it the easy way.

"So if you wish for a child, it'll be - strange. Twisted, somehow. Made of pine or marzipan or have the head of a hedgehog. That's the cost of a wish-child; you'll get the child you wished for, but it'll never be - right."

Rosamund waited to see if there was anything else. She felt a sting to her pride when she realized there wasn't. "Is that all?" she said. "I wouldn't care what I got-"

"You all say that," the fairy said. "You all say you wouldn't care what you got. You all say it, and you really believe it, until the neighbours sneer at you and your hedgehog child for too long, or your back aches because your thumb-high child can't help you in the fields, or your pine child kicks and bites and won't obey, and then you think, 'This isn't the way it was supposed to be,' and then..."

The fairy stopped and looked into Rosamund’s eyes. It was a beautiful thing, all glittering carapace and iridescent wings, but just for an instant it looked terribly, terribly old.

"I'm sorry," it said. "But I'm tired of making unloved children."

"I will give my life for this child," she replies in one world. "By my love or by my flesh and blood."

"So be it," the fairy replies. "You will keep your word."

And in one version of that world, she proves the fairy's fears wrong. She loves her hedgehog, thumb-high, surly pine child with all her heart. The child grows knowing it is wanted and loved. It grows knowing it always has a home, that it belongs.

In another version of that world, Rosamund fails. On the evening she gives up, the fairy finds her. "You promised," it says. In that world, the fairy takes her flesh and blood for the child, crafts it a body that will belong. And Rosamund becomes a soft pine doll, waiting to be loved, waiting to be real.

In this world, in either version, the child grows up happy and belonging.

In another world, the fairy's ancient grief stabs Rosamund deeper than her pride. "Where are these children?" she asks, horrified.

"Many are long-dead," the fairy replies.

"But not all. Take me to them."

"Is that your wish?" the fairy asks.

"If it must be."

In one version of this world, the fairy brings her to a household with a prickly, hedgehog daughter. The girl's mother cries, "How can I love her if I cannot hold her?"

"You were given a gift!" Rosamund roars in this world. "Give her to me if you are too cowardly to love her."

Rosamund takes the daughter and gently holds the girl's hands. "You deserve so much more than you've received."

"Are there more?" Rosamund asks the fairy once the girl has fallen asleep.

"Yes."

"Take me to them."

"You haven't even had this child for one night."

"How can I let those children wait? None of them deserve such pain."

In another version of this world, the fairy refuses. "You do not know what you ask."

"And you don't know what you've begun," Rosamund replies. She leads a crusade to find the fae children, to save them.

She lavishes the children with praise and love, but the story becomes twisted. Such brave children they are, daring to live despite such odd lives.

The thumb-high child will never find a spouse, and yet he remains so cheerful. What an inspiration he is.

In another world, Rosamund says, "Let me prove it to you."

"How?" the fairy challenges.

Rosamund does not hesitate. "Marry me. Let me prove I can love the strange and fae. Let me prove my love is stronger than daydreams and gossip. When you believe me, we will make a child together however you wish."

In one version of this world, the fae says, "No. Choose another wish."

"No," Rosamund replies. And the two remain locked in stalemate and the story never ends.

In another version of this world, the fae sighs. "Is that your wish?"

"No. My wish is unchanged, but I am willing to wait for your approval. I wait for bread to rise and rain to fall. Waiting on you for a child will be no hardship."

"And if I never approve?"

"You will."

And in this version, Rosamund and the fae are wed. Rosamund's friends and family harry her with concern. Her meager wealth dwindles as fewer are willing to buy the bread she bakes for fear of her spouse's enchantments.

"Do you regret this yet?" the fairy asks.

"When I was cold last week, you draped a cloak of cobwebs around my shoulders and I stopped shivering. How could I regret such kindness?"

After a long period without rain and the village drives them both out, the fairy asks again, "do you regret this yet?"

"When we had too little to drink, you collected the dew from every blade of grass around our home so we did not thirst. How could I regret such clever diligence?"

And when Rosamund falls deeply ill after too many nights sleeping exposed to every chilled breeze, the fairy presses its cool brow to her burning one and asks, "how do you not regret this yet?"

Rosamund weakly brushes her fingertips along the fairy's cheek. "You're crying for me. How can I possibly regret being loved by you? I told you my love is greater than hardship."

"This is not how these stories go," the fairy argues.

"I'm human," Rosamund says with a cough. "I twisted it."

In one version of this world where the fairy said "yes" to Rosamund's proposal, she dies, and the fairy collects another regret.

In another version, it carries Rosamund home beneath the hill and heals her. Then, together, they make and raise a child.

And that child is deeply, unconditionally loved.

I recite this to myself every time I refrain from making a stupid purchase

here comes mononykus

i have received ... feedback that some people would like more of roseade (she/her), my royal knight commander turned farmer :) 🌹🗡️

”we’ve been trying to reach you”

GET in line

didn't realize this post got any notes because you know what i'm also not checking? my activity feed.

babby