I am in your house

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.”

“Lesson #2 endurance: persistent Hunting”

I headcanon that Eridians, tho fast sprinters, haven’t evolved to be long distance runners because of their cardiovascular system. So seeing a human run easily for more than a couple of minutes freaks them out.

Also Huge Thanks for all the love on my last post!! I’ll definitely be making this into a series!!

this genuinely makes me so mad. some of you really don’t deserve fanfics. at all.

comment like this, besides the ai witch hunt, is one of the reasons why fanfic writers don’t want to post their fics anymore.

we write for free. whenever we can. whenever we have time. whenever we’re not too exhausted by life and responsibilities. we write for our own enjoyment. as a hobby. not a job. we update whenever we can. whenever we want. we do not owe anybody anything.

one of my favorite fics was updated after literal 13 years. but the point is that fanfic writers do not owe you anything. whether a fic was abandoned forever or updated after a decade or two is not something you as a stranger has a say in.

stop being entitled. stop treating fanfic writer as a content farm or a machine that produces contents for your enjoyment.

Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”

And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.

Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.

“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”

They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”

And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.

And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.

I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.

nothing like their own dull feathers, roughened, and sparse, and set all wrong. tucked so close behind their back, barely moving apart from the occasional painful twitch or an involuntary spasm. whumper would punish whumpee if they moved them otherwise.

until they lost whatever control they had of their wings which didn't include bracing them tight and close to their torso, so they wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.

Whumpee is two seconds from turning tail and running, escaping before they can be rejected again, when they catch winged!caretaker’s eye, and their name rings out amongst the crowd.

“Hey you! You’re Whumpee, right?”

They freeze.

Here it comes. The mocking, the taunting, just like with Whumper—where they were both a freak for being themselves, and a freak for not being good at being themselves. What’s wrong with your wings? You look pathetic. You’re not good enough to be here.

But, they’ve been taught better than to ignore a direct address, so their spine straightens, they suffocate a wince when they wings spasm, and they face caretaker. “That- that would be me, yes,” they manage, bracing themselves.

“We heard you were new here,” caretaker says, coming over with two friends in tow. “Figured you could use a friend or two, right?”

Whumpee blinked. “Come again?”

“Some friends,” caretaker repeated easily. “Especially since it looks like you’re gonna start molting soon, and that’s not really easy to do by yourself.”

Whumpee’s heart gave a kickstart and started racing, the breath escaping their lungs a little. “M-molding?!”

Caretaker’s eyes went a little wider, hands up in placating. “No! No, sorry. I meant molting, the thing when your feathers fall out to make room for another coat, so you stay healthy.”

Whumpee stared at them for a moment.

There was a word for it? All this time, they thought it was just illness, their nature punishing them for being abnormal, like whumper always said when their feathers fell out. It always made room for plucked chicken jaunts.

“It’s hard to do it right by yourself,” one of caretaker’s friends jumped in, no less kind. “And there aren’t a lot of us outside of communities like this one, but now you’re with the rest of your kind, we’d be happy to help!”

Us.

We.

Your kind.

Whumpee swallowed heavily and tried not to look like they were about to cry. “You’re… offering?”

“Yeah!” The third one said. “Don’t want you to be feeling left out now, do we?”

he's a spotted turtle (clemmys guttata) !