Inside the Tree Trunk

Just an old lady (in her 40s 😭) learning how to Tumblr. Don't mind me.

[hagiomoto]

Okay, if you are tired then you won't be able to read. There I say it. No one else want to say it. It is strange. If you are tired, if you cannot finish a book that's a given. That's why you need to read...at work. You need to steal your reading time from your employers.

[interestingmistakes]

Reblogging this manually. Op doesn't want credit for fear of being terminated.

[lycorogue]

[ID:

Image of the progressive pride flag. The triangle that normally includes the intersex flag, the trans flag, and the brown and black bands has been replaced by tumblr's removed-image alert. The alert is a blue background and says, "This content has been removed for violating Tumblr's Community Guidelines."

/end ID]

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[smadsel]

would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.

[smadsel]

that’s not the whole flag, now is it

[manuciruja]

hey staff what the fuck

[lycorogue]

I personally love the "mature content" warning. (sarcasm)

@staff DO. BETTER.

[moghedien]

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

[moghedien]

Here he is, the Aldi Cowboy

[bronzeagecrafts]

There's two commercials, if you wanna watch them XD

[gloriousclio]

Luke Skywalker put away his targeting computer to destroy the Death Star so I don't need AI to help me write an email.

[sraithpics]

I meant to make this meme ages ago when pride month was still on but yeah gé (pronounced gay) is the Irish for a goose.

[sraithpics]

IT’S FINALLY PRIDE MONTH, TIME TO REBLOG THIS AGAIN.

[lycorogue]

[ID:

Screenshot from Untitled Goose Game. It's a close-up of just the goose player character running around and carrying a knife in its mouth. The handle of the knife has been colored with rainbow stripes. In the bottom corner of the image is the caption "BE GÉ DO CRIMES"

/end ID]

[writing-prompt-s]

There is a forbidden type of magic out there. It isn’t forbidden because it’s inherently evil, or forces you to lose your humanity, or requires human sacrifices - it’s just forbidden because it’s annoying as heck to fight against.

[hestia-and-the-court]

“Ma’am, I really must insist that you pay for the room and board I’ve been giving you! It’s been a week!”

“Fine, fine,” I grumble. “I have a few options for payment: I could give you paper money, cheap gaudy jewelry, chocolate coins, spiders, some pretty seashells-”

“Spiders????” he repeats, baffled.

“Spiders it is, then,” I agree equitably, and with a wave of my hand the bed I’ve been sleeping in for the last week turns into a writhing mass of various spiders.

Worth it.

—

“Stop right there! You’re under arrest for fraud, destruction of property, and-!”

I yawn. “Didn’t ask, don’t care.” A few gestures, and the guards’ swords are all transmuted into spiders, and then they’re too busy to worry about little ol’ me.

—

“You have insulted my honor and humiliated me in front of my children! I demand satisfaction! I demand a wizard’s duel!”

Shrugging, I say, “Sure, okay, whatever. Right here and now okay?”

The pompous wizard-noble blinks. “I- you don’t want to prepare? Get your wizard’s staff or anything?”

“Nah, I’m pretty good with somatic gestures.”

“Well, if you’re sure… here and now then! Have at you!” He slams his staff down on the ground dramatically, a small shockwave of fire radiating out from the impact.

So of course, I turn his staff into spiders.

“AHHHH WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK”

“So if you’re too busy screaming to cast spells, does that mean I win?”

“AUGH ONE OF THEM BIT ME”

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

—

After that, they start coming at me in waves, with cheap wands and staves and swords and bows bought in bulk, hoping to exhaust my magical reserves so they can get close enough to put a magic inhibitor on me.

They did not expect my reserves to be as vast as they were, not did they expect me to be able to transmute the inhibitors themselves into spiders.

“Didn’t you take Magic Basics in wizard college?” I yell at the panicking mages. “Inhibitors aren’t immune to magic until the moment they activate! Serious weak point in the design, tell your magitechnicians to fix that!”

—

So of course they try assassins next.

Poison fails, because I transmute any food and drink I get into spiders and then transmute them back. Pretty easy way to get rid of poison.

So then they try knives in dark alleys. The knives bruise through my full-body spider-silk outfit, but do not penetrate, and they only get one shot before they have bigger problems.

Next is killing me in my sleep. None live to report back that the human-shaped lump under the blankets is actually a mass of highly venomous spiders.

The kingdom throws everything it has at me, and I continue to walk away, heralded by the chittering of spiders and the screams of everyone else.

—

Finally, I stand before the king himself in his overly opulent throne room, and by now he is a broken shell of a man in the face of my unorthodox tactics.

Good.

“What do you want?” he practically sobs. “You’ve singlehandedly redirected the entire crown’s budget for the next three years into replacing every weapon you’ve turned into spiders. Much more and we’ll be invaded by our neighbors! We wouldn’t be able to resist being annexed! So what can I give you to make you stop doing this?!”

I pause and pretend to consider, tapping a finger against my chin thoughtfully. “You know, you sent my brother off to war a few years back. That conflict with the Yughs up north, I believe. He didn’t want to go, so your guards forced him at spearpoint. I haven’t seen him since.”

He seizes on that, as I expected. “Yes, yes, I’ll have him returned right away! Tell me his name and I’ll honorably release him from duty and have him escorted safely home!”

“Oh?” I raise one sardonic eyebrow. “Are you able to bring back the dead now, oh wise and glorious king?”

He pales, and it’s the most satisfying thing I’ve seen in years.

“You have nothing I want,” I growl, letting the anger slip through for the first time in years. “You cannot bring him back, you cannot make up for my loss with all the riches in your kingdom. The only thing I want is to take everything from you, the way you did to me. Your kingdom will bleed out of resources, one of the neighboring countries you’ve been trying to conquer for decades now will take advantage and annex this place, and you will either be executed or forced to work for a living for the first time in your life.”

I glare at him, and he refuses to meet my eyes. “You will lose everything you ever cared about in your life. One spider at a time.”

I transmute his throne and crown into spiders (non-deadly; he doesn’t get to escape my wrath that easily), then turn and walk away, ignoring his screams and sobs.

—

And that’s why, when the Yughs finally annexed the kingdom I grew up in, they preemptively made Transarachnomancy a forbidden magical art. Not sure how they intend to enforce that, mind, but I’m not looking to challenge that. I’ve gotten what I wanted; if some other aspiring mage wants to try and follow in my footsteps, that’s not my problem.

Besides, in terms of magical skill, I’ve always been an outlier anyway. Most mages would be lucky to turn just one knife into a spider at a time; I can turn ten thousand with a few gestures. I doubt anyone will outdo my legacy.

But hey, if you want to try and surpass Georgia of the Spiders? Feel free. I’ll welcome the competition.

[werechicken-deactivated20241121]

IM

[sniperct]

[lycorogue]

[above image description:

A four-panel comic using screenshots of Tom the cat from Tom and Jerry. The 1st panel is of Tom intensely reading a piece of paper. The 2nd panel is a close up of the paper from Tom's POV. The paper is captioned "Really cool story about magic and spiders." The 3rd panel has Tom excitedly look up from the paper and to something out of frame to his left. He has a big grin on his face. The final panel is of Tom getting a pie launched into his face. The force is so much it throws his head back with the pie's momentum. The pie is labeled "That last bit"

/end ID]

I loved this story so much I read it aloud to my husband. I then showed him the above meme of Tom getting pied in the face. He nodded and then asked me if it took that long to figure out it was a spiders georg reference. I admitted that I was just engrossed in the story and it wasn't until the words "outlier" and "ten thousand" showed up did my radar ping.

His response? "It's TUMBLR! The second I heard the word 'spiders' I knew what the payoff would be."

XD

[ID:

Screenshot from The Princess Bride. The Grandfather is sitting beside his sick grandson's bed. He has the book he's reading aloud in hand, and is glancing over his bifocals at his grandson. The image is captioned with The Grandfather's dialogue: "Yes, you're very smart. Shut up."

/end ID]

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

happy pride to everyone in the community!! happy pride to those who are out, those who are not, those who aren’t sure of their identity yet, those who don’t use labels, those who don’t feel seen, etc, etc. stay safe and don’t be ashamed to be yourself.

[theshewriter]

Being a writer is more about googling words to make sure they absolutely mean what you always assumed they meant than simply writing.

[lycorogue]

Hi, Tumblr. I figured you would appreciate my little level of weird.

So this is Rascal (yes, I crocheted him a little scarf).

[ID: Photo of a small (roughly 8" tall) gray raccoon plushie. It is wearing a blue and white striped crocheted scarf. Its fur is matted from age and snuggles. Its right eye is covered by the matted fur. Its eyes are large, embroidered, green, and looking up almost pleadingly. The raccoon also has a stitched on smile. /end ID]

About a decade ago, my husband found Rascal (the name on the plushie's tag) discarded among the candy rack at check-out of our local grocery store. Rascal was soft and cute and "abandoned" by a previous customer that decided last-second they didn't want the plushie (maybe a kid snuck it into the cart and the parent caught it last second).

Anyhoo, Hubby decided that the little guy needed to come home with us.

Now, we're the type of people who not only name and love on our plushies (adulthood be damned), but we also give them personalities.

Somehow, some way, Hubby decided that Rascal there was obsessed with ducks.

Rascal loves The Duck Song on Youtube. He was obsessed with the 2017 reboot of DuckTales. Whenever Hubby or I find a picture of a duck, we send it to the other noting, "For Rascal."

Which leads me to the beginning of this month: May 2026.

Hubby and I were walking the mall while on a date (as a Millennial couple does). While walking the mall, I noticed this teeeeeeny tiny little thing on the floor. This yellow object not much bigger than a jelly bean.

I got close enough to get a better look and... it was a widdle plastic duck! No one else was around. No one seemed to be looking for it. "For Rascal" I said as I scooped it off the ground, showed my husband, and then shoved it in my pocket until I could find a bathroom to wash it and my hands.

[ID: Photo of the duck described above. It is barely wider than my finger. It's solid, hard plastic, but designed to look like a rubber duckie. It's yellow with an open orange beak and black dots for eyes. It has a flat bottom so it can sit upright. /end ID]

Since this little duck is so tiny, and we have a large floor grate for our natural gas heating, I was nervous about just placing the duck on a surface in our living room and calling it a day. Since Hubby and I hadn't cleaned up from our last D&D session, the duck lived within the confines of my husband's dice tray.

But then our next D&D session came around. The little ducky couldn't stay in the dice tray. I did have some spare food containers from the Dollar Tree, so I shifted the duck into one of those.

Rascal continued enjoying watching over his ducky in the new container.

Then, two weeks ago (so, roughly 2 weeks after discovering the yellow duck at the mall), while grocery shopping, I discovered another little surprise hidden on a shelf among the pocky.

[ID: Photo of another tiny, hard plastic duck. It is identical to the previous one, except this one is pink instead of yellow, and its open beak is red instead of orange. /end ID]

That's right! I found my second plastic ducky! Now Rascal can have TWO!

For the most part, Rascal and his ducks have been living on the card table between D&D sessions. However, this past week, while Hubby was moving Rascal and his ducks out of the way, he noted that the ducks - if they are living permanently in the Dollar Tree container - should have a proper environment and asked if we had any felt.

I did not, but I had crafting foam!

He set to work with cutting out a pond with a grassy coast for Rascal's ducks. It was a simple and quick project, but Hubby seemed to have fun, and the end result is cute enough.

[ID: Photo of the Dollar Tree food container - about 3" in diameter - with blue crafting foam superglued to the bottom of the container. A purposefully uneven crescent moon shape was cut out of green foam and glued onto the blue foam to create a shoreline. The "grass" takes up a little less than half the container. The pink and yellow ducks are placed on the blue foam, making it look like they're swimming in a pond. /end ID]

All-in-all, Rascal seems contented with his ducks and their new enclosure. Especially since we can put the lid on the container whenever we need to move the ducks; keeping them safe while in transport.

Maybe Rascal will one day be able to break away from his new pets long enough for snuggles from us again.

[ID: Photo of Rascal sat next to the newly decorated container so he looks like he's watching his ducks. The pink and yellow plastic ducks are on different parts of the blue foam, as if they were swimming in the pond. The pink duck is facing Rascal. /end ID]

[natnormalatall]

roald dahl was antisemitic and misogynistic. george orwell was openly homophobic. edgar allan poe married his 13 year old cousin. dr seuss cheated on his wife (and was racist as well as antisemitic!). hp lovecraft was racist as fuck. anyways they’re fucking dead it’s not like you’re enabling their behaviors in the afterlife or something. then again I think they bleed into the books so uh keep an eye out for that

the difference between these old white guys and jk rowling is that the former group is all dead. jk rowling is alive and using your money to oppress trans people

[technoturian]

Back in the day you couldn't just say "no cell signal" or cut the phone lines, you had to raid the victims' luggage and wardrobe for their paper and envelopes, their notes, their memoranda, and their letter of credit! Uphill, both ways!

[keeferonies-art]

May 31: Oh he is Going through it

[lycorogue]

[ID:

Drawing of Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Jonathan is in a basic white, button-up shirt, dark waistcoat, dress slacks and shoes. He's sat in a simple wooden armed chair. His head is in his hands, and he's bent over in despair. Dark, vertical lines follow the curve of his back and head in a stylized depressive shadow.

/end ID]

[random-user753]

"Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle."

Dracula is really a master of psychological abuse - on the one hand he reinforces the bars of his prison, on the other hand he lets Jonathan feel his power even more because he dared to fight and so his hopes get crushed in a most cruel way.

Once again, this day by day-approach makes this entry bone-chilling.

[lycorogue]

The fact that the man waited TWO DAYS after Jonathan's attempt to send out cries for help behind Dracula's back.

Don't know if it's just that Dracula stewed for two days before deciding "ya know what? Yeah, the man's paper privileges are revoked" or if Dracula purposefully waited so it seemed less retaliatory. Make Jonathan worry for those two days, wondering what his punishment might be, only to finally strike in the most innocuous way after Jonathan MAYBE thought there wouldn't be any ramifications.

[hurremology]

Jonathan awakening to realise that anything that could be useful in an escape attempt had been taken by the Count is actually horrifying

[reallyconfusedaboutthisthing]

I never realized how long the gaps were between Jonathan's entries. Of course, that's because when you're reading it, you're reading it like it's already happened, not on going. The next entry is always RIGHT THERE.

With the letters from Mina and Lucy in between Jonathan's Journal entries, and the space DraculaDaily gives each moment, I'm really starting to worry about our good friend Jonathan in a way I never really have before!

[steelblaidd]

It does make it even more ominous when you realize how long he is siting there knowing he is in trouble and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[lycorogue]

I love the structure of Dracula Daily for this exact reason. It adds so much suspense. You FEEL how long Jonathan is locked away in that castle. Even if you know the story, you still actually worry for Jonathan's well being whenever you either (a) get an entry that ISN'T from his journal or (b) don't get an update at all.

The man is so distraught that he doesn't bother to even vent to his journal FOR OVER A WEEK (May 19 - May 28)! And that's after his first mental break where he was radio silent for FOUR DAYS after discovering that he's a prisoner (May 8 - May 12)

It just adds so much more suspense. It really helps you delve further into the characters' mental states and empathize with them.

Plus, I adore the dramatic irony that forms from Jonathan's horror story being interrupted with the juxtaposition of Lucy's RomCom. Just Lucy and Mina chatting about boys and Jonathan's safe return, without a CLUE of the trauma he's suffering. Just, "Oh, Mina! I feel so bad for the men I had to reject. They must be so hurt! To inflict so much pain on someone is so cruel!"

Meanwhile.... Jon is rocking himself in the corner of an ancient castle room....

It just adds so much!