K.In the Bay

Art, love for the bay, and the many things I'm a fan of.

[mytearsrricochet]

[jame7t]

tumblr is like an abandoned space station & you all are the thing in the vents

[jame7t]

not me though. im girl with tanktop

[capablecapybara]

Hi my name is Ozy'mandias, King of Kings and I have two vast and trunkless legs of stone and a frown and wrinkled lip and a lot of people tell me I look like the Younger Memnon (a/n if you don't know who he is get da hell out of here!). I'm a statue but my visage is shattered and lies half sunk on the sand. I’m also a colossal wreck, and I stand in the desert of an antique land where I’ve been for a really long time (I’m ancient). I’m a lifeless thing (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly the passions the sculptor read and stamped on me, which yet survive. I love sculptors and I get all my expressions from there. For example today I was wearing a sneer of cold command and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was standing in the desert. The lone and level sands were boundless and bare, which I was very happy about. A lot of mighty looked upon my works and despaired. I put my middle finger up at them.

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

Alright tell me in the tags, what’s Your Poem? That poem you heard once and it has dwelt within you ever since?

[kinthebay]

The Confirmation

by Edwin Muir

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.

I in my mind had waited for this long,

Seeing the false and searching for the true,

Then found you as a traveller finds a place

Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong

Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,

What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,

A well of water in a country dry,

Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye

That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart,

Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,

The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,

The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea,

Not beautiful or rare in every part,

But like yourself, as they were meant to be

[hedgehog-moss]

Because I continue to overestimate my llamas' respect for informal agreements, I opened the pasture gate to let everyone graze a bit around the neighbour's barn. This area has a fence that can be jumped over pretty easily, but I was going to be sitting there watching them the whole time—well, watching them intermittently while reading a book, but if I glance up every 2 minutes, realistically how could four slow herbivores

😔

If you would like to join me on this long and patient llama hunt, I have prepared a crude map of the terrain so you can get your bearings. We are starting on the road right next to the neighbour's barn.

My first instinct was to resolve the situation through diplomacy. If the animals wanted to slightly broaden the grazing perimeter, well, okay; I could let them eat on the side of the road. Unfortunately, only Pirlouit supported this plan.

He kept trying to stop and eat, while the llamas had places to go.

So I followed them along the road for quite a while, patiently waiting to reach the wider stretch where I knew I could sprint ahead, overtake everyone and force them to turn around. Not yet a full victory but at least I'd feel like I was regaining some influence over events.

But Pampérigouste is familiar with my manoeuvres, and she turned around of her own initiative before we reached this spot, left the road, and led everyone into the woods for a bit (and almost managed to shake me off as I kept getting slowed down by brambles, being the only person in this situation who was wearing clothes); then she re-emerged on the road near the barn, and went into the neighbour's pasture. Which is quite vast, and goes all the way down to the torrent.

So naturally, Pampe went all the way down to the torrent—following a route of astonishingly unnecessary complexity and glancing back now and then to check that her followers had not lost faith.

The other animals clearly felt that once you've reached a vast and lush pasture, the logical next step is to stay and eat (while Pampe sees it as evidence that vaster and lusher pastures remain to be discovered.)

... that is, until we reached the torrent and I finally managed to turn everyone around, back in the direction of their pasture. At that exact moment, Pampe realised grazing was an urgent priority.

Once we finally reached the road, with Pampe bringing up the rear at an aggressively leisurely pace, I figured that if I got the rest of the herd back in their pasture, she would grudgingly follow.

I was wrong.

The other animals briefly hesitated (it was getting late; their pasture was right there; they don't like spending the night in unfamiliar places) before recommitting to Pampe.

We could have actually followed the road in this direction all the way back to my house, and therefore the other, upper gate to their pasture, bringing this expedition to a neat and peaceful conclusion. Pampe solved this problem by throwing herself into the woods.

At this stage I feel that my updated map will be more informative than human language.

(I made an attempt to restore coherence to our journey through the use of directional arrows.)

When we somehow ended up back in the neighbour's pasture after an exciting (not for me) chase through the woods, I admitted defeat, and texted my neighbour to let him know my animals would be spending the night in his pasture due to circumstances not meaningfully under my control, but I would be back on the case in the morning to get them home. Having met Pampe, he didn't ask any further questions.

I didn't really believe that the animals might magically return on their own during the night, but still I left the pasture gate open—but only the one near my house; the other gate by the neighbour's pasture remained closed because I just couldn't face the slope again.

And somehow, the next morning, when I opened my window, everyone was here.

I should add that my neighbour later found several tufts of llama wool caught on his fence in various places, allowing us to partially reconstruct the llamas' return journey (that's me in the background attempting to get a statement from his cow.)

I have therefore updated my map once more to illustrate (in green) the final stage of this expedition, based on physical evidence and on my partial understanding of Pampe's worldview.

But really the moral of this story is that giving up and going to bed works. Always give up!

[urgetocreate]

Steve Puttrich (American), The Woods, 2026, Oil - Love enters as light, threading the woods, becoming water underfoot.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Visiting family for the weekend, including my seven year old niece, who is obviously the most special and incredible child on the planet

Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.

Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly

Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?

And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn

And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it

And she was like, explain

So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.

She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.

So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.

It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.

We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.

At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.

Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.

And rolled a 20.

So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.

Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.

So far I've done a bank, a tavern, and an art gallery (it featured an exhibit that was just a room full of slippery banana skins). I'm going to do a pirate ship next

[squareallworthy]

Everyone will not just

If your solution to some problem relies on “If everyone would just…” then you do not have a solution. Everyone is not going to just. At not time in the history of the universe has everyone just, and they’re not going to start now.

[niqvassieart]

A little tiny microscopic dragon, rotifers passing by.

I've spent a lot of time peering down a microscope in the last few years, enjoying taking inspiration from the real tiny organisms to make one of my own.

[tomb-of-madeline]

Stories of Elf World

[yardsards]

but i stay silly! *←said in the most world-weary voice you ever did hear*

[fizzlepop-frog]

“but I stay silly!”

[sensiblereblogifposts]

Reblog you stay silly

[weaselle]

on it boss

[itsmissing]

ice cream truck blasting gymnopedie no. 1 while a bunch of really forlorn children chase after it

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

If I were an evil emperor in a fantasy world, I would have a an enormous aviary full of exotic birds that are exceptionally well cared for. They would be from a distant enough land that there would be very few people in my kingdom that knew much about them, they would be a friendly but not overly territorial species, and moderately intelligent. Like puffins. They would not, crucially, be able to imitate sounds and 'speak', but they would be very trainable and curious. Occasionally importing new birds for my aviary would be the Big Frivolous Indulgence that my political enemies make fun of.

I will also have a sorceror in my employ. When a hero or a renegade or a political rival is in a situation where I can safely kill them, they will instead be turned into a bird and added to my aviary. I would not brag about this; it would be a complete secret, known only to me and my sorceror. In situations where I capture multiple people working together, only one would go in the aviary;the others can be imprisoned or killed or whatever. If they escape and I reacquire them later, another one can go in the aviary. The point here is that nobody going in the aviary can safely assume that another bird in there is their teammate.

Because I would be trickling real birds in there, too. And I would train some of them to do 'intelligent' things like tap out prime numbers or scratch shapes into the dirt with their beaks. I would train some of them to pick at the locks and bars as if they were trying to escape. I would not train them all the same way, or train many of them at all.

Sometimes, a new bird goes into the aviary -- fellow revolutionary? Or just a bird? Is it trying to communicate to you that it's human, or just being friendly and imitating you because that's what smart friendly birds do? People would develop opinions and theories over time. They'd amass in a group of the smartest ones, pretty sure that they're closest four or five friends are humans, are using their invented little language of wing-flaps and trills with a human mind behind it... but can they ever really be sure?

Most people, when going into the aviary, would assume that all of the birds are captured enemies. So why are some of them hard to have ongoing communication with, to learn about, to plan with? Are these the natural communication barriers of someone in a bird body, or does being a bird make them stupider over time? Will that happen to them also?

Sometimes, if I capture a pair, I'll imprison them separately, then turn one into a bird and put them in the aviary at the same time as a real bird that's trained to have a couple of their partner's mannerisms.

When I interact with the birds, even in private, I won't secretly mock them or make clever veiled references to their past or act at all like I remember that they were once human. They are my birds, that I imported at great expense. And I've brought a treat for them; some fresh fruit, and another friend to share it with! A new bird!

Or is it?

[apparently-i-am-an-adult]

Hey Derin what the fuck

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#on tumblr thereso many 'if i were evil' ideas that aren't evil. and then there's this guy. 10/10 villainy. would scar an entire generation.#full villain approval

Look, Evil Emperor is a high bar. Empires are pretty evil by default so if you want to earn the title of Evil Emperor instead of Normal Emperor then you've really gotta put the work in. You can't just do normal greed and oppression and slavery and outright theft and then blame your victims for it, every empire does that, even the ones that pretend they aren't by calling the slavery and theft by some different name. If you wanna be an Evil Emperor then you have to get creative.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

If I were an evil empress then I would execute people via an esoteric mind blast power where I'd lead them into a room and burn away their personalities and memories until they were an empty vessel and then send them home to their families, newly innocent and pardoned, where they'd have to be taught who they were and how to live from the ground up like a baby. (Or abandoned, I suppose, depending on the family.) Except I wouldn't actually have any such powers. I'd have a shapeshifting power that I'd use to turn my enemies into a piece of furniture and turn that piece of furniture into them, then send home a polymorphed candlestick or whatever for their family to dote on while my enemy goes on the table to hold candles for the rest of their 'life'.

[falconwhitaker]

Derin, respectfully, what the actual fuck.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

People are always saying this to me

[idrawr16yt]

[lovecolibri]

Brennan: "How long does it take to make a town good." You're watching a little bit of...youth, and there's something really beautiful in youth in terms of your aspirations, but I think you can see in the aspirations of many of these young people, there is a single-minded focus on the personal ambitions of their own life. "I will go to where life is good and when I get there I will be deemed worthy and they will welcome me into the place where life is already good without me having to make it good....I don't want to get my hands in THIS place and make it work. It already works somewhere, and someone will open a door and let me in." WOOF, Brennan.

[papillenjolras]

Watching Zac sliently wheeze laugh for at least five minutes during the "You don't talk to Beth that way!" scene was maybe my favorite part of the entire episode.

[lelif]

on survival

-// @aridante // @orivu // @buzzkillgirls // ? // ? // richard siken// @cemeterything // moomin, tove jansson// @disenchanted-killjoy // isn't that enough, shawn mendes// @ prettytheyswag on twitter// @ coletyumuch on twitter// ? // ? // bird by bird, anne lamott// undertale// @strawberrycircuits