I think it's so adorable that early humans took wild gourds - a tiny fruit that hollows out as it dries, making it float - and decided to make something out of it

they thought the tiny fruit was so good that they bred it for thousands of years, making it larger to form into bowls and cups, and different shapes to become bottles and spoons

and musical instruments

And then, people took the hollow gourds they farmed, and they turned them into houses for birds. We adapted them into the perfect houses for birds, and now there are specific breeds of birdhouse gourd just for making into birdhouses

And humans dedicated gardening space and time and thousands of years of breeding to make the gourds so absolutely perfect for birds, that there is a species of bird that lives almost exclusively in them

If Harry’s tragedy is that he can’t go on like this but he has to, Kim’s tragedy is that he doesn’t have to go on like this but he will.

crow collection

shop

with the release of a certain bird adeptus approaching i cannot stop thinking about Foul Legacy befriending an adeptus

you're one of the younger adepti, a solitary, curious bird hidden away in some distant mountain that rarely ever receives visitors, even from the most determined of humans- most mortals are unaware of your existence entirely, but you don't particularly mind. you've never been one to demand worship and total respect, even if living alone on your little mountain can get very quiet from time to time. Cloud Retainer- or Xianyun as she's going by nowadays- and her two daughters occasionally visit, but that's all the traffic your home ever receives. it's fine- you're content tending to your garden and practicing your magic and making little packets of herbs for Xianyun to distribute amongst your fellow adepti.

you're fine. you're not lonely at all.

the other adepti have told you bits and rumors about the ground splitting open, leaking dark, stellar energy from its roots, but you don't quite believe them until you get to witness it for yourself, wings flapping open in surprise when there's a crack and a rumble and suddenly a beast twice your height emerges from the earth- your plants are utterly ruined, and you let out a cry of despair. the monster shakes its head to dislodge the dust and dirt, before turning its one-eyed gaze towards you- but it doesn't attack or even act threatening in the slightest, merely approaching slowly and sniffing the air around you. it suddenly notices the plants and the distressed look in your eyes, and the beast sits back on its haunches, letting out a low, apologetic whine. you're not a vengeful adeptus, though, and silently allow the creature to stay as you tidy up the garden.

his name, as you learn, is Foul Legacy.

in a way you're both oddities, him with his Abyssal traits and you with your incomplete human disguise, feathers standing out on your cheeks and a tiny pair of wings still on your back- it's one of the main reasons you don't venture into the city, along with your hatred of large crowds. one day of company turns to two, then to three, then a week and a month until Foul Legacy is essentially living with you, following you around and helping you with your daily chores. needless to say Xianyun is... not happy when she finds out, but she begrudgingly allows it, saying something along the lines of "one's third child needs to make more friends anyways". and when the eventual time comes that Foul Legacy does depart, he leaves you with a lick on your cheek and a purr, his way of promising to see you again.

so it's by no coincidence when you finally perfect your shapeshifting skills and step foot into the Harbor for the first time, that you meet a man with ginger hair and a playful grin that you've never seen before, but looks so familiar all the same

Leave wildlife alone. He probably bites.

 [First] Prev <–-> Next

something i’m just realizing about the “dick is damian’s parent” fics is that they often point out that after bruce came back, dick left for bludhaven immediately. but i just realized that’s not quite true.

bruce came back, and there were briefly two batmans (batmen?) at the same time. and then bruce left the country to go set up batman inc, for some weird reason, and dick stayed as batman to resolve some final issues. so yeah dick and damian kept being batman and robin for a good bit of time after bruce returned. do with that information what you will

Looking Glasses Page 72

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Don't worry, they're half skeleton (on their mother's side). Next page Monday, February 5th. It's a good one. @bleakoutlo has cooked up a super cool feature exclusively for the website! Go check out Page 60 and then click through to Page 61 and watch what happens!

terrarium gang

i’m doing some lowkey research for my ‘tmnt anniversary post’ tomorrow and ended up rewatching a random episode on yt with slovenian dub and i realized that they translated the word ‘lair’ into ‘gnezdo’ which is slovenian for ‘nest’ and that just made me so soft. They live in A NEST.

FUNGUARY 2024 — Week 2: Demonic Silver Leaf Fungus with Lilac Bonnet & Bird’s Nest Fungus Spirit of the forest.

something something sansa “little bird” stark is going to warg “little birds” to control a spy network like Varys’s theory + sansa just descended from the eyrie, aka her aerie, a bird of prey’s nest (so perhaps the little bird was not a little dove like cersei called her but has left the nest as something far fiercer) + the men around her having nicknames like “robin” and “young falcon” and “mockingbird” and “winged knights” while the men at the wall are “crows” and we’ve even got a “raven” out there somewhere… like perhaps the foreshadowing isn’t merely that she is going to control literal birds but also. a variety of Figurative birds

Jasmine's little book of birds: Peter poses. Fabio flaps. Shani stands. Lin looks. Polly pecks. Walter walks. Percy perches. Dave dreams.

Their birds are born in a nest of pain

One thing I loved with BO is the constant parallels and the mirror playing between Éile and Jaskier. And there is one sequence that I found great that came back in my mind recently. It held a parallel I didn't think of before.

When Éile is trapped in her memory, in the mist, we saw what created the Lark in the first place. Hence the bird she extracts from her entrails after seing her younger self committed atrocities for her clan. She used music as a fugue state. And later she became bard when she couldn't bear it anymore.

The Lark is the name she gave herself to cut with her traumatic past but it's born from it.

As for Jaskier... He became The Sandpiper after the traumatic events of The Seat of Friendship. We still don't know what he saw nor how he survived. But when he spoke about it briefly to Yennefer, his eyes couldn't lie. And his voice slightly broke when he referred to the endless circle of hate and the horrors that will touch anyone that would be seen as the other...

Éile's bird made her a bard. Jaskier's bird made him a protector. They rose out from their pain and trauma to make them grow.

Little Bird Starts Nesting

Chapter 3: Morning after

Tags etc for this chapter: no warnings, domestic Harringrove, mentions of pregnancy

Author notes: Can you believe it: a new chapter after almost 8 months?! I didn't abandon this story (or any of the others), I was just hit by a burnout last year and I've just started to get better over the last few months. So, I guess there was that to be figured out first than continuing fics... But I'm more than excited to get back on track with the longer ones now! I know the chapter is short, hope you don't mind. I'll get to longer ones, just you wait 💜 Moodboard by the lovely @a-redharlequin 💜

Summary: Even though there's the weight of the news from the night before, Billy takes solace in the morning routines.

Read in full on AO3 >>

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Billy's eyes snapped open at the assault of his alarm clock's relentless blaring, a sound that seemed to drill straight into his skull. "Fucking thing," he muttered, flinging an arm out to slap it off with more force than was probably necessary. He stretched languidly, tendons stretching and joints popping in protest. Suddenly, he hoped he wouldn't hurt himself while stretching. God, I'm getting old when I worry about that, he thought, chuckling.

He reached out his hand on Steve's side to run his fingers through Steve's hair and wake him up by kissing him silly, but found nothing but an empty pillow there.

He sat up, raking fingers through his hair, and scanned the confines of their room for signs of what Steve was up to. The room was under the gentle chaos of lived-in space, but Billy could tell from small signs a lot. Steve's clothes from yesterday weren't in the laundry basket, but in a pile on the chair next to the closet. His watch was still on the dresser and Steve never forgot to put it on unless he had something else in his mind.

The news from yesterday raced back to his mind, which immediately explained why Steve was up already. He couldn't sleep whenever something was bothering him and the situation they were in surely would keep him awake.

Shit.

The weight of worry settled on Billy's shoulders as he dragged himself out of bed. He needed yet another kid related issue to stress about like a hole in the head but there it was, whether or not he liked it.

Continue reading on AO3 >>

birding in forest park, St. Louis, MO 4/4/2024

waylon feeding pigeons with a bit of bagel that he's found but he's actually doing it to lure them close enough that he can eat them.