we all know adult humans dont get enough enrichment but the other day i was walkin home past an empty playground and impulsively ran over to spin myself on this zipline merry-go-round contraption for a few minutes and it really did feel like it unlocked some neglected part of my brain. like damn we really should all go outside and play more. fuck. they werent kidding with this play time thing. have you guys heard about play time. it could be huge.
she is a princess and you are a dragon. she will be married tonight. do not keep standing outside of her room like that, go inside. go get her. that is what proper dragons do.
not that you have ever been a good or proper dragon. when you hatched out of your egg, your eggtooth was too smooth. the other dragons were rough with you, put little holes in your wings.
you were not bold. you were odd. you liked rippling water and the shine of chitin when bugs scuttle and of course the movement of the stars. those were all acceptable interests albeit maybe not traditional. perhaps you had inherited these through some great-great-uncle or something. certainly a dragon may be wise, or clever, if they are not bold.
yes, you have been a great deal of a puzzle to the other dragons. your body is smaller and rather more soft than it ought to be. so speed should have been yours, perhaps - your mother said it would be like fighting a shadow. if a dragon is not aggressive, it may instead be cruel, sly; a backstab. but alas your scales - so iridescent that they almost shine like the moon at night, a glow from within - you are not a shadow, you are a beacon like the flash of a knight's blade. your father has said at least you would make a fine egglayer, a nice mate to a good male. a dragon like you may still be a good mother perhaps; and that is a fine thing to be; although of course it would have been better if you'd been a trove-hoarder instead.
what a dragon must not be is kind.
you have watched her now for six moons. what a good and proper dragon would do is to go inside and to snatch her. a very proper dragon would have kidnapped her many times over, but you will be the delight of your brood to princess-snatch even at all. when you catch her in your jaws and bring her home, they will love you, then. they don't think you're capable of it, but you are, because you're a proper dragon. you can show them that. if you go in, now, right now.
you are rather too glossy to hide in the shadows, so instead you have learned how to appear flat and round, a puddle of light. (how your siblings would mock you! a dragon should be matte, to blend with the night). you dapple your flank with mud. you perch in odd angles atop of trees, scuttle like the bugs you love - hither, tither, frantic.
what you must not do is fly with your wings full-out. alight, you will be limned by the moon's corona. you will be a beacon. you must remember this when (not if) you snatch her.
____
you found her because of the lake. this lake in particular was your favorite - nestled deep in the woods, between two mountains. it is very quiet; there is nothing to horde there so no other dragon bothers you. a gentle waterfall spills over into a deep cove, and there are many mossy caves you've spent your afternoons napping in. while it is not proper for a dragon to prefer such things, you like to lay in rolling tenure just under the water. you have become excellent at holding your breath, can do it for hours. it is the easiest way to appear as a patch of sunlight.
she was not sunlight. she was the night's joy. the dark press of water. her face at first concealed by many diaphanous layers. her breathing quick and quiet.
she had pulled them back to drink from her water flask. and there she had been: a princess. your first very-real princess. right there, only the reach of a single talon from you. if you had simply lunged then, you would have been able to take her easily, in one single movement.
but you did not take her.
she had startled you a bit; you'd been daydreaming about music, which you'd just discovered, and rather liked. you'd heard it from a little house while you snuck in and stole their sheep.
but you knew the sound of fear, of being followed. you'd been chased too many times, you knew what it looked like. the rapid jolt of fear.
you smelled her then; cinnamon and onyx, and perhaps that was what had blinded you. perhaps your mouth was just watering. whatever the case, you waited until she had fled back into the forest; and then you waited a bit longer. in her wake, a garrison of men, their hands rough.
oh. so they were not knights. they were just men chasing a young woman through the woods. perhaps they did not even know a real princess had been running from them. well, that was a relief. you are not good at fighting with knights, who have swords instead of cudgels. these were just men, so you rose from the water in the quiet way you'd learned from the fish. they did not hear you coming.
and besides. proper dragons do violence so well.
___
once you had smelled her you could find her, although such things have always been easier for you than for the others. you spend a great deal of time studying things - it allows you to analyze them. you have tried to explain to the other dragons that sometimes it is best to slow down, but of course no dragon should be slow.
at first you did not understand the confusion of the people's umwelt. they relied so much on their communication (only words and actions!) and what they could see with their eyes. you and the other dragons did not use these as much; but you liked prying out the little sonic differences between hello that means "i like you" and hello that means "i don't like you."
so it took you a while to learn that you were responsible for what had happened to her. men had gone missing, and even bad men going missing makes a big fuss. (you know that if it had been girls missing, it would be okay. many proper dragons steal girls because it will not bring a knight to their door). for a while she had been trapped on the palace grounds. it was determined that it was no longer safe for her to be just a princess, she must undergo some human transformation and become a wife.
even so. you had gone looking for her (only to study, of course, so you may know how to snatch her best). but that night you saw her descending from the window of a castle, quick and agile, moving like a whisper, clad almost entirely in black. you could see her quite well of course, although you were not seeing her; but instead her heat and her smell and her sound and all the other sensory noise all humans give off.
you followed her, keeping yourself in a cloud so you appeared as if mist. she stole off into the woods. you were interested in that, and watched her scuttle - although of course you could have taken her then, you wanted to study your prey as best as you could. she did not seem to do much in the woods, only run around cry into her little hands.
she appeared to be looking for something. she did not get far that first night; scurried back to her bed. over and over this happened - she would run as far as she could, only to go back again. it seemed rather boring to you, but of course you had been free your whole life.
and then one night - finally, she arrived at the lake. she sank to her knees then, her hands pressing into the water. her head tilted to the sky. her dark hair spilling in a caught breath behind her.
this is how you heard her voice for the first time. when she came again the next night, she did so more quickly, more assured. straight to the lake, as if it had called her.
she had skipped a pebble over the surface of the water. this action was dangerous, because it almost hit the sail of your wing. you had structured yourself very finely to look like a rockslide.
"three months." her voice was like her: it was deep and smooth and dark, a low violin string. "they want me to marry that bastard in three months."
and then she cried into her hands again, and the sound of it almost broke you.
you followed her maybe more than a proper dragon should, after this. more than just back to the castle and her bed. you hid along her daily walks and watched her in the throne room and saw her out riding horses. she was good with dogs and nice to her people and very much a proper princess, although you had heard it said a proper princess ought not to slip out at night and run around barefoot through the woods.
you discovered she is terrible with directions. you have often had to make a path more clear so she could get home again. she cannot hunt better than an egg; you have had to kill fish and push them subtly up to the shore.
but she appears to love the lake as much as you do. you have seen her read by candlelight (how foolish. the entire woods saw her each time). you have seen her build little paper boats to float along the surface. you have seen her strip her many layers and dive in, have seen her lay with her belly to the sky, floating like she is suspended by the hands of darkness itself.
oh. so she loves the stars, as well, then.
__
you must go in. she will be married tonight. that is a human thing, but you have since learned what it has meant. she will go to somewhere else, and you will not see her again, maybe ever. and then how will you be a proper dragon? go!
you have made yourself in the form of a gargoyle, hiding in the white stone. you can see into her room; and the tapestries that seem unlike her. everything in her room is very bright, which is bad for a proper dragon. there are many knights in the hallways and in their rooms, and their smell is itchy and repugnant to you.
her dress is white, which does not seem like her. you have only seen her wear black. she is sitting at some kind of desk, and she is crying again. she smells of cinnamon still, but moreso of grief. you can feel the heartbreak in her as if it was inside of you.
you cannot watch her cry anymore. you have watched too often without moving. that is shameful.
you nose the door open. you can move quiet, because you are not very big. she is within a cave of you, then a wingtip, and then she is standing up, looking into your eyes.
"it's you." her hand on your jaw is warm. "i thought i was imagining you, you know. i turned around that day. i saw what you did to those men. i have been looking for you since. i told everyone that i had an angel to protect me. they locked me in here anyway."
you are not an angel, you are a dragon. you have to keep your wings locked tight or you would explode the walls of this place. it makes you feel big, suddenly. you are not used to that sensation. you do not like to be locked in a tower. you believe maybe the princess does not like to be locked in a tower either.
you take her in your jaws. she is very small, and does not resist you. although you are not a strong flyer, you must take off in a single push. any other movement would be too slow. you must also hold your breath so you do not smell her, the clove and cinnamon and little bird of hope. your mouth would water and you would drop her.
against the full moon, you do the thing that is impossible. you stretch yourself out all the way, a bold and beaming arrow, and you fly. you can hear them cry about you now, loudly. a banner that would strike pride even into your father: dragon. dragon. dragon.
on the eve of her wedding, you snatch the princess from her tower.
an arrow whisks for you, and then dozens, and then hundreds. you are not afraid of pain. you have learned long ago how to fly with holes in your wings. you hold her very gently still, and you push past the smell of your blood.
in the night you are a star. someone somewhere could look up and see you and make a wish.
there will be another lake, you decide. you can find another lake. somewhere very, very far from here. however long you must fly, however long you must hold your breath: you will take her home, because you are a proper dragon.
___
sometimes they come for her, your treasure. you have built her a little castle here, deep in the forests off the map. and of course for you: a silver round lake like the shift of her iris. you bring her books and she brings you bugs to study. you let her saddle you, and together you ride through the clouds and fog banks. she is a shadow on your back; a warm and velvet thing. she makes you music and lives the way she should; free in the night like a promise.
but they do come. you have stolen a real princess, and they do not want her to be a princess. they want to make her into a brood mother, or into bait, or into prey. they always look into the caves first; into the places proper dragons stay. they are real knights, not just men with sticks. they are loud and their smell still makes you itch.
but she has made you brave now, and cunning. if a dragon is not big, it should be cunning. and since you are a proper dragon, and since your treasure is your most precious thing, you lay in wait.
let them come. you will let the light drip off of you, and then you will pour through them.
afterwards, your princess will tell you a story around the fire. she will patch your wounds as she did that first time. she will sing to you.
and in that moment, neither of you will be a title nor a story. she will just be herself, and you will just be you.
Hello there. Guess how much money I made last year? $28. I’m an investment banking analyst at a boutique firm, in M&A. I have my undergrad from the University of Chicago, one of the top schools in the country. With bonuses, sometimes I make even more. Are you jealous of that? Most people on Tumblr are usually jobless or they decided to major in the humanities and are poor.
auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"
happy pride month to trans men!
happy pride month to nonbinary men!
happy pride month to male-aligned nonbinary people!
happy pride month to intersex men!
happy pride month to queer men!
happy pride month to disabled men!
happy pride month to men of color!
happy pride month to indigenous men!
happy pride month to filipino men!
happy pride month to romani men!
happy pride month to men with ptsd!
happy pride month to men with scoliosis!
happy pride month to men with alzheimers!
happy pride month to men with mental health issues!
happy pride month to men that were mentioned multiple times on this list!
happy pride month to trans and/or nonbinary masculine people who instead prefer more neutral language for themselves or prefer "boy" or "guy" over "man" or "male"
happy pride month to trans and/or nonbinary masculine people who instead prefer more feminine language while also identifying as masculine or "man"-aligned so they don't identify with the words "man" or "male"
happy pride month to trans and/or nonbinary masculine people who as well as being called a man also like to be called more feminine terms like woman or girl. never let being a boy/man stop you from being a girl/woman
Also check in on your friends, the world is a scary place for trans people in general right now, but trans guys especially often fear taking up space in talking about these things, so go offer your friends a shoulder, it is our duty to be there for eachother and encourage eachother to open up and talk about the shit that's getting us down, we are stronger together
Honestly, as much as older generations like to shit on younger generations, kids these days are so good. They're so smart and funny and creative and they're trying SO hard despite the absolute disaster of a world they're growing up in.
Love and kindness and patience for all the babies growing up in this dumpster fire ❤
regardless of you being queer or not, did your parents ever gave you the "if you turn out to be gay it would be fine" talk, before you ever had the chance to say anything on your own about that?
gen z, yes
gen z, no
millenial, yes
millenial, no
gen x, yes
gen X, no
baby boomer, yes
baby boomer, no
Remaining time: 2 days 17 hours
because it happened to me and im wondering if this was a product of the ongoing cultural change around gay issues. before i ever had the chance to say to my parents "i am this" my mom was already sitting me aside to tell me "if there is anything you want to tell me, i want you to know ill accept you no matter what"
the legally blonde mentality isnt just for law students. u can bring that attitude with you into every field of work. be the whimsical force of positive change. wear that neon outfit. snaps for us all.
this post was inspired by my boss telling me she couldnt "take me seriously" in a pair of dinosaur print overalls. sorry i have two degrees and a dope wardrobe. you dont need to take me seriously but You Will Take Me.
btw if youre young and scared of doing adult things without your parents ive learned that like 90% of the time you can just tell the doctors office or the dmv "haha sorry ive never done this without help before... can you show me how to do this?" the employee will not care. if that means anything to you
literally walked up to a desk in the courthouse, said "is this where I register a car or is it the next one?" and she said it was the next one. and the lady at the next desk helped me. it feels embarrassing but I promise you can just ask
One of the most important lessons I learned in customer service is that no matter how much help you need, as long as you're nice about it, you won't even crack the top five of worst customers they've had to deal with that day. I will walk an old lady through every step on that pin pad with a smile as long as she's polite, because two calls ago I had to deal with someone screaming about politics for 45 fucking minutes because I wasn't allowed to hang up on him.
Everyone has their first time doing something, everyone makes mistakes, everyone has dumb moments, and as long as you're choosing kindness I'll just laugh it off and help out. Because no matter how dumb you think you are, there was already someone who was just as dumb but was determined to ruin my day over it.
Being extremely polite when you're also a little bit clueless and lost is how I got a free hotel room while stranded in Denver in my 20s. I'd been reading a book while waiting for my connecting flight, and it was a GOOD book, so I completely missed the PA announcement that said flight had been cancelled.
I hit the end of a particularly exciting scene and looked up to check the time and the flight board and see how much longer it would be, and realized that the flight board was blank, and I was THE only person now in the waiting area, even though boarding definitely hadn't happened, wtf?
There were still two gate attendants there, so I went over, looking bewildered, and asked what had happened. They explained about the cancellation, and that we'd all been rebooked onto a flight going out tomorrow. I thanked them for letting me know, and I was starting to turn over what spending the night at the airport would look like in my mind, when one of them said, "Do you have a place to stay here?" (I'm sure my expression had dropped noticeably when they'd given me the news.) I said no, but it was fine, I was a college student, I'd pulled plenty of all-nighters, so hanging out at the airport wasn't the worst thing. I'd better go drop by the bookshop before it closes to get another book...
And the lady said that actually, since it was the airline's fault, she could comp me a room at the hotel the airline staff was at.
I was one lone regular passenger on a shuttle bus full of flight attendants and pilots, lol, so I was definitely the only passenger who got that treatment.
But anyway, people are nearly always happy to help, and sometimes even go the extra mile! I imagine having me be polite (and young, and definitely a little sad and lost) after no doubt dealing with MANY loud and angry passengers incensed at being stuck overnight in Denver, of all places, made the very kind lady want to do a little extra.
It is HILARIOUS that they're censoring fuck. Let's not offend any delicate sensibilities by dropping a complete f-bomb in the middle of explaining the rules of the monster fucking 💦💦💦 game.
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