Latest Posts by artsyarsonist - Page 2

There is a man down the street from your house. You must approach him. This is not optional.

Once you get close, he will turn to you and ask what you would like for dinner. You will tell him that you are not hungry. He will insist you eat something.

You will think for a moment. It is important that you actually think, visualize. Conjure in your minds eye the food that you love the most. Whatever will bring you the most joy when the time comes.

The man will smile and pat your head gently. He will take a few steps and disappear into the fog. You will see him again, in your own time.

Safe travels,

Rigel M.

Fox by Ilya Popov

Travelers, please DO NOT interact with any fortune-telling machines in unusual places. There has been an increase in reports of these carnival animatronics escaping into the wild to feast on the futures of the unassuming public. If you see one, contact your local fairground, where the machine will be safely transported and returned to its healthy diet of pocket change from local tourists.

Safe Travels,

Rigel M.

Ghost of You

Thank you moonzy for doing ranboos hair and eyeliner 🙏

@thenightfolknetwork

Travelers, please DO NOT interact with any fortune-telling machines in unusual places. There has been an increase in reports of these carnival animatronics escaping into the wild to feast on the futures of the unassuming public. If you see one, contact your local fairground, where the machine will be safely transported and returned to its healthy diet of pocket change from local tourists.

Safe Travels,

Rigel M.

hi. im rod serling. not to spoil anything, but these guys are fucked

This was the last episode of the first season of The Twilight Zone and they never dared to do anything as fucking funny as this again.

@thenightfolknetwork

Ever since I was young, I was raised to be a total blank slate. No interests, no aesthetics, nothing. I was meant to be the vessel to L’Gogamet, the Hallowed One. So, that meant I had to fully give myself over to Them.

The only problem is: They never bothered to show up. I sat there, on my eighteenth birthday, waiting for Them to rend my soul from my flesh, only to receive a burning blaze of light reading “sorry, can’t make it, save the next one for me.”

My family wasn’t exactly thrilled. They were under the impression that I had done something wrong, though for the life of me I have no clue what it was. And now, I’m all alone. I have no clue what I’m meant to do.

I have a small apartment and a roommate. I’ve tried to get interested in the same stuff she likes, but it honestly just doesn’t appeal to me. But I have no clue what there is that I do like. Apparently, outside of my family, there isn’t exactly a “L’Gogamet fanbase”, and that was the only thing I was allowed to be interested in for my whole life.

I’ve gone to support groups, but sitting in a circle with other blank slates doesn’t exactly feel helpful. And then when someone does find something interesting, I’m like “wow! good for you! time to go back to doing nothing with my life.”

Worst of all are the modifications. My family took it upon themselves to alter me in a few ways, various piercings and tattoos that They should have loved. Only now, I’m stuck with them. And most of them are cursed to never be removed. I’ve been called out a few times, told that they’re “appropriative for a Sapio like me to have.” That hurt more than most comments, because I guess that’s all I am now. A Sapio, with nothing special about me except the disgusting markings all over me.

Your show came up in one of the support group meetings. I thought maybe you would have some advice? How do I find my interests and my self when I’ve been raised to be a nobody?

I'm so sorry your family have treated you with such unkindness – and I don't only mean their failure to support you after their plans went awry. It was profoundly unkind of them to raise you the way they did, as if you were nothing but a vessel for their hopes and aspirations and not your own person.

Their treatment of your body is particularly upsetting. I am certainly not going to try and tell you that your markings aren't “disgusting”, or to tell you how you ought to feel about your own body. I do encourage you to take whatever steps you feel appropriate in reclaiming your body, however.

Part of this reclamation might involve covering or removing the marks inflicted on you by your family. But I encourage you to experiment with other ways of changing your appearance, too. Play around with your clothing, hairstyles, hair colour, make-up – whatever you can think of.

The point isn't to find a style that you love, but rather to demonstrate actively to yourself that this body is yours, your own, and that finally, you are in charge of how it looks.

Of course, this process does bump up against your initial question rather. How are you supposed to know what sort of choices you want to make when you've never been allowed to make that kind of choice before?

The answer may seem obvious: you need to try as many things as you can, and expose yourself to as many new experiences as possible. But for the time being, I want you try and set aside your concerns about finding what you “really” like.

That is a huge amount of pressure to put on yourself, especially when you're starting from scratch, like you are. Instead, go into these activities with no more pressure on yourself than a sense of open curiosity.

You're not on some great quest to discover your True Self – you're just popping into the local book club to see what it's like, or borrowing some knitting needles from a friend and giving it a go. You can check what clubs and events are running at your local library, and make a game of trying as many as you can fit into your schedule.

Give yourself time. Imagine your personality as a plant that has been left in a dark, cold room with nothing to feed it and no light to help it grow. Against all odds, it has survived – pale and stunted, but alive. Now imagine you bring that plant into a warm, bright room, you feed it and water it, and above all you give it the space it needs. Who knows what kind of beautiful thing it might blossom into?

Finally, a word on your identity. Reader, you absolutely don't have to identify as sapio if you don't want to. There are plenty of people who consider themselves to be people of the night based on their magical practice, their religious background, or their occupations. You personal experiences more than qualify you to do the same.

As I've said many times before, liminality is defined by the people who claim it. There isn't an external, objective standard of “strangeness” that you have to meet in order to be a member of the community. Anyone who says otherwise is at best dangerously ignorant and at worst, wilfully so.

I LOVE EMILY CARROLL YOU SHOULD LOVE EMILY CARROLL WE LIVE FOR EMILY CARROLL

Emily Carroll

Reblog to kill it faster

just got back from the far side of eternity turns out the universe is shaped like a cube that's also a torus

Greetings and salutations! Most people writing in say that it’s their first time doing so. I admit, that isn’t quite the case for me. I sent in a letter back in 1942, asking about whether or not I should medically transition—though of course the terminology was a bit different then.

I admit, I don’t remember the specifics of your response, but whatever it was, within twelve months I was taking testosterone pills. And I’ve been on HRT since then! It’ll be eighty years come January. I suppose I’m what you might call an elder in the community, though I certainly don’t look it.

That’s sort of why that I’m writing to you again. As you know, most genuses age getting older, but some age getting younger. My genus, whatever it is, does a combination of the two. I aged normally from when I was born til when I was 73. At that point, I died, spent about a day and a half decomposing, a day and a half un-decomposing, and then popped up out of my casket! My relatives were… surprised, to say the least. I think we all were. Regardless, I grew younger at the same rate until I was seven years and four months old, and then boomeranged and started growing older again. I’m currently in my third repeat of this cycle, putting me at about 375.

I don’t mind it, honestly. I know that a lot of folks who grow younger tend to dislike it, for very understandable reasons—being patronized by someone a fifteenth of your age is quite an experience. But aside from the condescension and not always being able to reach the top shelf, I think it’s pretty fun! Nothing beats hide-and-seek as a nine year old, and when I’m in the de-aging half of life, it’s always a relief to get my 30-year-old knees back.

There is another aspect to it, though. However my body ages, it de-ages in the exact same way, no more and no less. For example, let’s say I get a tattoo when I’m 27 years and two days old, while aging up. I’ll have that tattoo through when I die, and all the way back down to when I’m 27 years and 3 days old. It’ll disappear sometime during the following day, and by the time I’m 27 years and one day old, it’ll be like I never got it done. It’ll pop up again the next time I’m that age, but for those 40-ish years, I just won’t have it.

And attempts to change by body while I’m growing younger all vanish after the day—I’ve become very well-versed in wigs for this reason. I can change my body while aging up again (I don’t choose the tattoo example lightly; someday I’ll figure out a system that prevents me from getting overlapping ones), but it's a rather long wait.

Still, it’s primarily just a nuisance. I’ve had plenty of time to figure out workarounds and roundabouts. However. I’m almost 34 right now, and have about 14 months until I hit the date I first took testosterone. My boy-thday, if you will. Ahem. Anyway. For the past few years, I’ve been slowly but surely getting a body closer to the one I had when I started medically transitioning.

I’ve tried continuing to take T, consulting with other people who grow younger, even contracting time travelers to see what they could do, all to no avail. When these 14 months are up, I’ll have a form indistinguishable from the one I was so desperate to escape. From then, it’ll be about 20 years until I’ll have even a little-kid sort of androgyny again.

I have lived through this period in my life before. I’ve lived through it on five separate occasions. I will be alright. But every time, it hurts. Quite a lot. And I fear that these upcoming two decades will hurt even more, since I’ll know what it’s like to live without that underlying sense of constant pain.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m asking here, maybe you can tell me what my question is, but, um. Do you have any advice?

Thank you so much for writing in, reader. It's always lovely to hear from people who have found my advice helpful in the past, and I hope I can offer you the same comfort and support you felt in 1942.

An important thing to remember here is that, no matter what stage of life your body is at, it is still your body. To be clear: a trans body. Your physical appearance may seem to be resetting, but your life experience is not wiped out by each new cycle. You carry with you all your past experiences, and all your current perspectives.

You may or may not consider yourself to have been male during your first adolescence. The way we frame our own histories naturally varies from person to person, and not everyone retroactively identifies their younger self in the same way they identify in the present.

But regardless of how you perceive that earlier self, your current self is undoubtedly transgender. That doesn't change just because your body does. When your dysphoria starts to rear its head, hold onto that. Your body does not define your gender, and your identity is valid no matter what you look like.

Of course, you still need to find ways to manage that dysphoria when it happens. I'm sure you're well aware of your options for temporary, daily management of your appearance through wigs, gender affirming clothing, and so on. You might also consider applying a glamour to yourself to help your outward appearance more closely match your inner self.

If you're not a practitioner yourself, you can either use ready-made glamours or hire a practitioner to craft one to your own specifications. Even off-the-rack glamours can be expensive, however, so you may want to save this option for special occasions rather than daily use.

Beyond that, your best defences against the anguish of gender dysphoria are good mental and emotional health, and a supportive community. Be sure to practise regular self-care (real self-care, not the type invented to sell face masks and scented candles) and lean on your loved ones as much as you need to during this difficult period.

Finally, remember: your body is not the enemy here. You deserve to be treated with gentleness, love and kindness, and this extends to your physical self, too. Try to develop a practice of mindfulness and active gratitude, checking in with your body regularly and taking note of all the joys you can experience as a physical being, from enjoying the cold wind on your cheeks or the smell of clean bedding, to the delights of good sex, delicious food, or a hot shower after a long day.

This is a difficult time of your life, and you have my sympathy. But I don't believe it has to be a source of “constant pain”. Treat yourself kindly, let others support you, and know that no matter what the world perceives, you know who you are, and nobody can take that away from you.

um, hello. sorry, i’m a bit new to this “writing-in” thing, hopefully this isn’t too much of a mess.

you see, about a week ago, i met with my brother for the first time in… a while. about ten years to be exact. i was turned fairly young, when i was about 16, and my brother was only around 5 at the time. thing was, when i was first turned, i didn’t tell my parents. they would have hated the idea of me becoming a creature of the night, let alone a hematophage.

i didn’t quite understand how feeding worked at the time, or the sudden hunger that would strike me if i didn’t eat regularly. so, not quite sure how to handle myself yet, i nearly starved. i blacked out. and i bit my brother.

i didn’t mean to, i promise. my parents took him to the hospital almost immediately. they asked to keep him from turning, and told me to stay away. so i did. for about two weeks i would leave and come back to the hospital, only to be turned away by a family member or nurse refusing to let me see my brother. i would go home, only to find my parents had put in iron and silver all around, burning me whenever i tried to enter.

so i left. there wasn’t much i could do. i grew up staying with friends, other people of my genus, never staying to long in one place. i settled down fairly recently, got myself a home and a new boyfriend. and a job at a small shop downtown. one day, as i’m walking up to get inside, i see my brother. he’s looking in the window at some new posters we had gotten. i was so happy. i ran up to him, perhaps coming on a bit too strong, and introduced myself.

i understand that i hurt him in the past. i know i scared him. i hate that i ran away, and left him. but to see my own brother, staring up at me, terrified, holding a silver stake? it was a new kind of pain.

i see him almost every day now, but i keep my distance. he made his message clear. he works next door, apparently. sometimes i leave notes, apologies that i find crumpled in the gutter between our stores.

please. i miss my brother. but he hates me now, and he refuses to speak. i’d rather he renounce me, scream that he hates me, or do something, anything other than staring at me with his hand on his belt ready to pull out that damn stake. what do i do?

The first thing that strikes me in reading this letter is the ages of everyone involved. You say you were “fairly young” when you were turned. Reader, you were a child. You were a child, going through a change that is frightening and difficult even for adults who have freely chosen this path.

You were a child, and you were failed, utterly, by the adults responsible for keeping you safe. They failed to provide a supportive environment for you, so that you felt the need to keep this transformation a secret. In so doing, they failed to protect both you and your brother from the obvious, foreseeable consequences of that secrecy.

You didn't “run away” or abandon your brother. You were driven away – again, as a child. You had no agency in this situation, no chance to choose how you wanted to act. Please, be a little kinder to yourself.

I am also struck by your brother's age. He's not an adult man choosing to cut you out of his life – he's a 15 year old boy, already muddling through the slings and arrows of adolescence, suddenly confronted by the reappearance of his estranged sibling.

I'm afraid, reader, you may be asking too much of him. You have no idea what your brother has been told about you.

You don't know what he's been told about the events preceding your departure from the family home, or how your parents have raised him to think about the creature community in general. (Though, if he habitually carries a silver stake in his belt, we can certainly make some inferences.)

His reaction to you speaks more of shock and confusion than outright hatred and anger. It might be that he just needs time to process your reappearance, and to decide how he wants to proceed. Give him that time.

I recommend approaching him one more time, in as calm and neutral a manner as you can manage. Let him know you aren't going to push this – that you'd like to spend some time with him, perhaps get a cup of tea and chat a little, but that it's entirely up to him. Give him an easy way to contact you, and then, reader – walk away.

I hope your brother has a better support system around him than you did at his age. I hope there are adults in his life who can help him through this difficult process and reach a decision that feels right for him.

But that's not something you can control. All you can control is how you treat him – with respect and dignity, taking an adult's share of the emotional burden so it does not fall entirely on his young shoulders.

And by that, I do mean you need to take responsibility for your own emotional well-being here. Whether you find support from your friends or seek out professional help, you need to work through your grief and trauma around your parents' behaviour towards you.

At the risk of sounding patronising, I urge you to remember that you are also still very young, both by sapio standards and even more so by the standards of other, more long-lived genuses.

Your youth does not undermine your right to safety or happiness, or your right to have your grief taken seriously. But it does mean that there is time for this situation to change.

In time, your brother may grow out of the narrow view of the world in which your parents have raised him. I hope so. And by working on yourself and your own emotional health, you will be ready to be better sibling to him if and when he does choose to have you in his life.

No, because people keep acting like Grace Chastity being consumed with a lust for the power that Lords in Black provided her doesn't count as a world ending Cataclysm - but it very much does. Not only has she shown little to no empathy for others throughout the entire show and only ever felt bad for lying to authority figures and being horny - but the final song of the Musical is essentially a reprise of Max's Murder Song/Manifesto which places her as a parallel to Max. Max sings about how he's going to kill ALL the Nerdy Prudes and not once but twice tells the audience that it doesn't matter if someone is actually a Nerdy Prude because he makes the rules and gets to decide who is or isn't a nerd etc etc. Grace's take is that she is going to kill all the Dirty Dudes but she's literally singing it to a guy who has, throughout the entire musical, done nothing to indicate he's a pervy/dirty dude and only kissed her after she asked him too. Like Max, Grace Chastity doesn't actually care if someone genuinely fits the framework of her stated victimology, because she has the power so she gets to make the rules.

Honestly it's like some people didn't think about the implications.

he looks like scrappy doo

hammer-headed bats are the only thing you should be thinking about

Yknow how Paul looks like this at beanies in NPMD?

Jon’s got wet hair because he just took out all the green from being Wiggly.

BUT

It’s hilarious to just think Paul is so fucking anxious about giving Emma his number he’s just, standing their sweating his fucking ass off.

EDIT: I FUCKED UP. THE SUMMONING HASN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET. HE JUST LOOK LIKE THAT Y’ALL

Me remembering Undertale

🐯toraleistripestan Follow

Every full moon I leave an open can of tuna in front of me so that the beast within can have a tasty little treat 🧡

🧛🏻‍♂️olderbloood-remade Follow

“Tasty little treat” godddd no wonder nobody takes werecats seriously yall are so corny 😭 go back to the zoo

🐯toraleistripestan Follow

The beast within fucked you mom to make her a better son

🐯 toraleistripestan Follow

LMAO he blocked me

🎶 yowlmusix Follow

why is it always the Victorian vampires who say shit like this. what compels them to say this sort of crap about other monsters on tomblr dot com

🫀 ghool Follow

Racism turned with them

an extract from an actual real-life email I got. @monstrousproductions

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE EMILY CARROLL COMICS

Halloween is the perfect time to read the incredible works of Emily Carroll, my absolute favorite horror cartoonist and storyteller. You can read many of her works free on her website!

I especially love His Face All Red, The Groom, The Hole the Fox Did Make, and Out of Skin.

I cannot over-recommend Carroll’s short story collection Through the Woods, which is one of the best works of fiction (horror or otherwise) I’ve ever read. If you can, get a copy from your local library or bookstore!

Got to go, it’s Halloween and I’m spending my evening sitting in the dark, drinking hot chocolate, re-reading these spooky comics while the wind rattles at the windows.

Puki will you leave tumblr because everyone’s acting like it’s dead now :(

oh yeah its SO dead.

1000 notes this post. Now

Hi. Sorry this is a bit long, but I could really use the help.

I guess I should start with who I am. I’m a member of the Creature Community, as you probably could have already surmised, but I don’t exactly look the part. You see, my genus looks rather similar to humans. That is, upon death. Our “ghosts” are almost indistinguishable from living sapios, at least for the first few years.

Now, I’ve recently died. Contrary to what many expect, it honestly hasn’t affected me too much. Sure, it takes some getting used to, and I have gone to therapy to work through the event itself, but it’s no more rattling than a particularly violent metamorphosis.

I’m lucky enough to still have some friends from before my death. One such friend, let’s call her “Amy”, has been very kind to me. She’s helped me work through this transformation, and even set up a small altar for me in her house.

The other day, Amy invited me over to her parent’s house for dinner. I was quite excited, after all, Amy had been one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, so it would only make sense her parents would be just as kind, right?

Goodness, was I wrong. Ever since my death, I can’t exactly consume food in the usual way. I was under the impression that this was conveyed to Amy’s parents, but I was mistaken. Upon sitting down at the table, I was served the same as everyone else. I assumed there’d been some kind of misunderstanding, and attempted to explain that I couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t on an altar or otherwise spiritually offered to me. Her mother seemed a bit irked, and said something along the lines of “there’s no need to be so picky.”

I tried to explain to them that I wasn’t being picky, but that I physically couldn’t eat it. It was around then I realized that Amy had never told them I wasn’t sapio, least of all that I was dead. Still, I did my best to try to explain it too them without it being seen as offensive. The food they had made did look and smell delicious, but that didn’t make it any more possible for me to eat.

That was when her father chipped in. He said, and I quote, “Well, you don’t look dead.”

I know that technically, to him, he’s right. To most humans who saw me, I did not look dead. But for some reason, what he said really upset me. I mean, what did he want me to look like, Slimer from Ghostbusters? A Haunted Mansion animatronic?!

I left pretty quickly after that, though I’ll admit I said some pretty harsh things before I went. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve already tried to apologize to Amy, but she won’t answer any of my texts or calls. I know that I was wrong for yelling at them, but I can’t help but feel that maybe they’re not all the way in the right either. How can I fix this without letting them hold onto those biases? Or should I just let it go?

I think you're being really rather hard on yourself here, reader. I don't see that this mess is yours to fix at all. First, you were put in a very awkward situation because of your friend's lack of forethought. Then you were apparently left to fend for yourself in that awkwardness, with no support from the friend in question.

You were subjected to casual sapiocentrism in a place where you might have expected to be treated more kindly. You say that, “for some reason”, you were hurt by Amy's father's comments – as if they weren't immediately, obviously insulting comments and dismissive of the variety of forms post-life vitality might take.

Finally, after being subjected to a mounting pile of microaggressions, you removed yourself from the situation. Perhaps this removal was a little less graceful than you might prefer, looking at it in retrospect. But given the givens, I think you did very well to be as polite as you were, for as long as you were.

You have even gone so far as to try to apologise for the unpleasantness of the situation – despite said unpleasantness being almost entirely the fault of other people's rudeness, ignorance, and inconsideration. But those attempts have fallen on ears that as not so much deaf as willingly plugged.

I don't think you need to worry about making amends with Amy's parents. You were their guest and they treated you poorly, with no indication that they have any interest in learning from the experience. Even if they did want to do better, you aren't their guinea pig. You have no responsibility to teach them the error of their ways, and the relationship isn't one you need to maintain.

Your friendship with Amy, however, does need some work. Amy has clearly demonstrated that she loves and cares about you. Her treatment of you following your revitalisation shows this. But sadly, love and care are not always enough to prevent harm.

I recommend offering to meet up in person to talk about the evening in question. You can certainly tell her that you want to make amends, but it's important you also make it clear that this is not a one-sided apology. Tell her you want to talk about some of the ways she could have supported you better as a person of the night in that situation, with a view to strengthening your friendship.

If she agrees to meet, remember to stay calm and be clear about the particular behaviours you want to address. This isn't about making Amy feel punished or blamed. It's about helping her to love you better. You have certain needs as a recently revived individual, and if she is going to invite you to an event, she has to make sure those needs will be met.

She also needs to understand that, while she may not see your post-death vitality as anything to write home about, that doesn't mean other people feel the same. It is unkind of her to put you into a situation where you will be expected to defend your identity or bite your tongue in the face of anti-liminal sentiments.

I sincerely hope Amy proves herself willing and able to listen to you and learn from this. Her previous behaviour suggests its certainly possible. But if she can't, please understand – this is not on you.

Sadly, some people are only interested in being kind so long as they can also be comfortable. You are better off keeping them at arm's length and keeping your more intimate feelings for those who can be trusted with them.

Are you lost in the woulds? Perhaps stuck between thens and theres? Worry not, weary traveler, for we will guide you.

Liminal Lodestar is a blog dedicated to those stuck in less-than-desirable spaces between realities. Be that a time traveler with each of their twelve eyes in a different century, or an Unremarkable Joseph that’s found his way into a never-ending office building where all the desks are actually other people named Joseph, we are here to help.

(Please note: Liminal Lodestar is not a place for real-world issues. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone trusted such as a friend, family member, or therapist. We are also not associated with any established liminal horror based franchises such as SCP, The Backrooms, etc. Do not expect answers to always fall in line with the established lore of those franchises.)

Good luck, travelers. We look forward to helping you on your journey.

I'm not going to lie to you the terrors of this world really do fuck me up sometimes

Podcast of the Day: Monstrous Agonies

Monstrous Agonies by H.R. Owen

The Hook: From werewolves in the doghouse to new ghouls at work, there's no problem too strange for this weekly advice segment, from the UK's only dedicated radio service for the creature community.

Favourite Line: When I referenced 'bridezilla' in the introduction to one of our letters, I spoke unthinkingly, and caused distress and hurt to our listeners in the kaiju community. I sincerely apologise, and take full responsibility for my careless perpetuation of this harmful stereotype. Thank you to everyone who got in touch to bring this to my attention. - Episode 3

Thoughts: Monstrous Agonies is very relaxing listen. H.R. Owens as the Presenter has one of the smoothest voices in the podsphere that's always a joy to hear. They have a brilliant talent for giving the distinctive voices to those writing in for advice.

The show is about people from the creature community writing in for advice about love, relationships, and awkward situations that apply to their unique situations that come from being supernatural beings. Lots of the advice given is very good advice that might cross over to human listeners tuning into the podcast as well.

Episodes are bite-sized with two letters per episode and it's a very easy podcast to fall into for a few hours, especially if you're looking for something positive and soothing.

Transcripts Available: Yes

Patreon: Yes

Lupines, Ghouls, Banshees, Trolls, Questing-Beasts, Apparitions (LGBTQA) Characters: Yes

If You Liked: Solutions to Problems, Murray Mysteries, Love and Luck, or Neighbourly you might like Monstrous Agonies

Enjoying Monstrous Agonies? Please reblog and spread the word. Podcasts are usually passion projects and need the support of their listeners to get the word out. Catch you later!

Haha babe ur so sexy~

Read more Crow Time @ crow-time.com 💙