blightsmanor

[blightsmanor]

finally put to paper how i imagine them

[blightsmanor]

Everyone in the Capitol: Peeta is so romantic!

Peeta, trauma-painting the arena floor with blood and flowers: I’m weaponizing love as a form of resistance, but go off.

[blightsmanor]

this is just so helpful and freeing to think about

doing the best you can AND trying to do better

taking care of yourself AND needing care from others too

[blightsmanor]

you're not quite an emergency, is the thing. you're just having a bad spell. so what if you can't ever really catch your breath. can't ever really feel at ease. a buzzing, terrible feeling.

but emergencies are loud, and passionate, and hit the floor. you are not a lion or a hurricane, you just live in a pretty okay apartment and your back hurts. you wake up and drag yourself out of bed and banish what if i was dead thoughts like cobwebs. you pick out your clothes and try to stay active. you apply for jobs on the internet.

the anxiety is a wave, and the depression is a spiral. the other stuff keeps things "colorful." you mitigate your symptoms and take your meds when you have them and you try to hang out with friends. you go home and your head is full of riverwater. no matter how much you sleep, you still stay tired. you journal and practice gratitude and build from the bottom upwards. and still, the haunting.

you're not a 911 call or a shriek. you're just staring up at the ceiling and feeling the house settle into your bones. you feel you are playacting as a wolf when you're only a sheep. not quite dry and not quite drowning.

over and over, you slog through the creek.

[blightsmanor]

The Oracle

[blightsmanor]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64328758/chapters/169075822#workskin

Chapter 2 of the fic answering the question, 'why does everyone in Midnight Burger say snails?'

Leif and Ava both integrate 'snails' into their vocabulary for very different reasons. Caspar feels normal about it.

[blightsmanor]

Had to work out my Caspar design because he's my favorite. I'm going to explain in far too much detail my thought process behind each one now.

His season 1 design has darker colors because he's miserable. He's got red and blue all over cause he's miserable (anger and sadness). The only bright color is yellow (happiness), which is his midnight burger apron because he doesn't know it yet but that diner and the people in it are the brightest point in his life. His glasses are readers so he doesn't always need them.

S2 is when he was galavanting across the triad to get back to the diner with Ex and Even-Older Leif. So he probably wouldn't just have one set of clothes. In chapter 15 we learn that he and Ex are both wearing suits to fit into their Wild West environment. So I gave him an outfit that seems like a combination of things that Even-Older Leif would've had on his ship and things they could have picked up across the triad. Alien and still kinda familiar. And the blue has gotten brighter, because he's changing and generally happier. And the red has dimmed, because he's becoming less angry.

Season 3, he's back at the diner, They're chasing Clementine around. Whatever. His base outfit is lighter, because he's lighter. But it's still Terran. He kept the jacket though, because he's starting to fully accept the diner as his home and life.

In Pasadena, he's traded out the alien jacket for a new flannel, to fit in better. He's keeping the new teal though, and the cropped style (it's just easier to wear. It doesn't get in the way of his pockets or tied into his apron). He'w wearing his readers because he has to take more orders and because he's starting to settle into life here.

In S4 we just go back to his S3 look, but maybe with the readers this time. Spending time in Pasadena meant he was aging for eight months. It's possible his eyesight got a little worse and he needs them more often now.

Anyway, Ava is next :)

[blightsmanor]

harlivy being girlfriends ✿ batcat... sponsored by Sinners (highly recommend it if you haven't seen it!)

[blightsmanor]

[grabs your shirt] listen. listen to me. the practical is holy. the everyday is sacred. the simple act of surviving is divine. do you get it? sanctity begins at home, in the hands that build and the lives we live and the deaths we die and the worms that eat our bodies. if making something by hand is not worthy of veneration then nothing is.

[blightsmanor]

i actually get so much satisfaction out of mending and repairing my stuff. like yeah it's a chore but also it's almost a religious ritual: bending my head gritting my teeth squinting my eyes at the thing i'm fixing all the while chanting fuck you capitalism fuck you consumerism fuck you i ain't buying jack shit

[blightsmanor]

I feel so soft and gentle and loved. Also it’s late spring so I’ve changed over from my vanilla gourmand/smoke scents for winter, to my spring summer stuff.

Right now, I’m very into smelling like lemons. The zest. Yuzu, bright and astringent, a little like lemon bars more than lemonade.

It was hard to find a lemon perfume that doesn’t just smell like cleaning supplies, but I actually found two.

Monotheme Venezia Boccioli di Limone, an Italian perfume. And Kerosene Unknown Pleasures

Monotheme Venezia Boccioli di Limone smells like pure zest, so disparate from the juice that it’s almost herbal. It’s stunningly inexpensive, but doesn’t have long lasting power. Good silage though, I’ve been asked about it 3 times out in the world. You can get it for as low as $13 and it tends to cap out around $36

Kerosene Unknown Pleasures smells like Boccioli di Limone, but with notes of caramel and earl grey. Moderate silage significant lasting power. It is also unfortunately $150, so though I have smelled it in person it’s still on my to buy list. I might ask Kyle for it—he likes doing treats.

I do like to pair bath stuff with my perfumes because I feel like it reduces the likelihood of smell clashing. So for my lemon days I’m reliant on the delightful, under appreciated lemon custard body wash/lotion from philosophy. It is definitely more food-y and smells like lemon loaf from Starbucks, but at least it doesn’t bring other scent elements into the lemon sugar profile I’m building.

Anyway, I usually keep doing lemon/apple skin/pear skin type scents for spring, then shift into balmy florals for summer. Rose and orange blossom, etc.

I’m still sort of getting into scents, I’ve only been playing with them for a year or so. But I think I’m getting to a pint where I can finally build a solid collection.

I do think if I had to select a signature scent, though, it would be By Rosie Jane’s Leila Lou, which smells like clover flowers, sweet grass and the skin of unripe green pear.

[blightsmanor]

5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

It could get good, even.

[blightsmanor]

thinking about the sirens in suits/suit adjacent clothes plus a little genderswap moment... ;-; just for me

[blightsmanor]

Great Ares, lord of the battlefield, I stand before you, faithful and true, In this moment of uncertainty and fear, I call upon your might to see me through.

With each breath, I summon your power, Filling my heart with the fire of your will, Guide me as I prepare for the fight, Equip me with courage, resolve, and skill.

Hear my call in this hour of need, Guide my steps with wisdom, and plant the seed. In the chaos of conflict, let clarity reign, Help me discern the path through the pain.

O Mighty Ares, guardian fierce and bold, In the shadows of battle, your courage unfolds. Shield us with strength, through trials we face, With your relentless spirit, grant us your grace.

When danger encircles, may your power ignite, Guide our hands, and bless our fight. With your sword held high, let fear take flight, Wrap us in valor, O God of Might.

With the fires of passion, direct my intent, Teach me to wield both strength and consent. Show me the balance of fury and peace, In your presence, may my fears cease.

In your honor, I vow to be brave, With your eternal strength, my path I will find. So mote it be.

From Prayers To Lord Ares by Dawn Silver

[blightsmanor]

I thought it was fairly normal to feel empathy for bad people.

I thought it was common, even.

But after my Elon/Grimes post... now I'm wondering if I was mistaken about that.

I wrote a post about Trump being traumatized after his assassination attempt and a post about his poor adaptation to aging. I expressed sympathy for him in both cases. But I still maintain my white hot hatred of him and wish for him to face consequences.

Elon was abused by his father. Some of the stories are incredibly tragic. Hearing those stories triggers an involuntary response in my emotional systems that I can't stop no matter how much I despise present-day Elon. I also wonder if that abuse never occurred maybe we wouldn't be dealing with this current clusterfuck.

I have never held so much anger towards a single person as I do my brother. But I also see him as a victim of abuse. I know he was once a really good person and he was slowly corrupted. I feel sorry for him. I mourn the amazing person he used to be. And I still love him.

But that doesn't make me any less angry.

[blightsmanor]

— Gillian Anderson, answering "what's your favourite smell?" (via lunamonchtuna)

[blightsmanor]

Thinking about how Odysseus carved the wedding bed out of an olive tree, which means the bed is rooted in the ground.

Thinking about the line “You don’t think I know my own palace? I built it!”.

Thinking about the fact that Odysseus built his entire palace around that olive tree, his and Penelope’s wedding bed, a symbol of their love.

Odysseus’ world is literally built around his love for Penelope.

…..i’m not crying, i just have an odypen in my eye.