#And if you’re going back to school

[some0newithapen]

Prayer Request

Dear Catholic Tumblr, please pray for all those who will be returning to school this year. Pray that they might have a good year and use the opportunity they’ve been given to learn and grow as people through studying and working.

[catofoldstones]

I love how in every chapter since asos sansa and arya both say “I’m a woman grown” or “I’m 11, a woman now” or “I’m a woman flowered”. Like you’re both severe minors, haven’t even broken the eggshells of the eggs from which you’re yet to hatch 😭😭 calm down there, buckos

[oxymoronicdumbass]

sometimes i think i’ll be doing fine and then someone will say something that’s just a little too mean and all of a sudden i’m in 7th grade again, struggling to distinguish which comments are out of genuine kindness and which are being intentionally condescending

[seilon]

aughgsgghhhh you’re telling me. in his final moments. in what would otherwise be complete agony and loneliness until the bitter end. charles succumbed to his injuries peacefully falling asleep to the sound of edwin’s voice reading him a story. you’re telling me. oh god. oh fuck

[denieddegen]

Dad, I got into a fight at school with my bully... I got my ass kicked. Could you teach me how to fight? 🥺

Listen kiddo I’m not sure I’m the best man to ask that. You sure your older brother couldn’t help you out? Dad might be a little rough with you, I honestly might not be able to hold myself back. I’ll make sure to patch you up afterwards though.

[beckybarnes]

I think people who make fun of or mock ‘quiet kids’ should be punched in the nose but idk that might just be me

[compacflt]

what are bradley’s earliest memories of ice and mav? the bits of his perspective on them that you’ve written are so fascinating

fairly unsurprising answer but: ice: when he came to see Carole to apologize for killing goose in ch 2 of wwgattai (sets the tone of their relationship)

mav: something very benign like mav doing magic tricks for him as a little little kid. you know how your earliest memories are always a little fuzzy and always afternoon sunshine? imagine a desaturated maverick sitting crosslegged in the grass in pale afternoon southern california sunshine showing Bradley how he can detach his thumb from his hand and then put it back again. no blood, no bone, no pain, and he’s got this daredevil grin like he’s enjoying separating his thumb from his hand. can’t see his eyes behind his aviators. the best magicians are the ones who can make even their pain disappear. or, playing “got your nose,” holding Bradley’s nose up so he can see it right in front of his very eyes, NO PAIN!, and then making it disappear. “where’d your nose go, Gosling? oh, my gosh, I lost your nose!! how’re you gonna smell? i bet you’re gonna smell bad. get it? get it? —here it is, i found it, don’t worry, it’s all good!” and putting his nose back so everything’s ok. that’s Bradley’s earliest memory of mav.

[figofswords]

anybody remember the stephanie brown essay I was working on under a research grant fully last summer? yeah it’s not done yet it super needs to be done and I’ve been avoiding working on it for weeks. someone tell me to just do it already

[sapphicsnzs]

i hate having fevers they make me literally incapable of controlling my emotions

[timechange]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 — playing hooky.

MARCH 8, 1983

“Hi Doc, sorry I’m late.”

The fourteen-year-old greets @doctorbrown as usual, sliding the key under the mat and leaving his skateboard by the door. Einstein immediately bounds over, tail wagging, and Marty scratches him behind the ears.

“What’s on the list for today?” the boy continues, completely oblivious to or deliberately ignoring the fact that it’s Tuesday at 12:03 PM and he should most definitely be in Mr. Johnston’s fourth period geometry class right now. “More welding, maybe some circuitry? Dreamin’ up some new schematics?”

As if sensing his best friend’s discontentment and knowing he’s been found out, he groans, flopping onto Einstein to give the canine an impromptu hug. The sheepdog, pleased at the attention, thumps his tail more vigorously and licks the teenager’s face.

“C’mon, Doc,” Marty wheedles. “Linda’s skipping today too! It’s not like I got any tests or anything. Anyway, I learn more from you. You know that.”

What he’s pretty sure the scientist also knows is that, other than Doc himself, nobody actually gives a shit if he’s at school or not. Not his parents, especially not after last night. They probably don’t even realize, and sure as hell don’t care, that he’s gone.

[thebluestbluewords]

Teeth are overrated anyway

+

"Congrats." Mal says quietly. She does, in fact, know how to have some tact, sometimes. "Heard you made the team." 

Carlos rolls his head to the side so he can talk to something that's not the tightly curled space between his own knees. "I punched a kid so hard he threw up." he says softly. Like it's a confession. 

"And? I bet that fucker deserved it." 

"Not really."

In Mal’s expert opinion, they all deserve it. Every kid who shoulder checks them in the hall just because they're there, every girl who won't look at Evie while she crushes their test scores, everyone who comes to Mal when they want something and ices her out when they don't, they all deserve it. Every kid who's ever taken a sharpie to their doors to tell them how worthless they are, they deserve it tenfold, and if one of them took a punch to the gut while wearing practice armor, it's nothing compared to what Mal would do to them given half the chance. 

"I promise you, they really did," Mal says. "You punched one kid. I've punched how many now?" 

Carlos laughs. It's not funny.  "Fourteen." 

Right. Out of all the ways their families fucked them up, he got the obsessive kind of guilt tracking. Preventative evidence, because the adults who want them gone will totally listen to a timestamped, cross-referenced spreadsheet of all the times they've actually fucked up, instead of whatever imagined crimes they're actually going to get sent back over. The spreadsheet's very existence is incriminating, and it could be bad if it gets into the wrong hands, but anybody who's able to get into three layers of password-protected sub-folders deserves the hex they'll get for snooping, and will probably feel too guilty (hopefully) to use it properly against them anyway. It won’t matter. The adults who care about them won't be able to override the ones who fabricate crimes they didn't even do, and one spreadsheet, even with locked timestamps for every edit, won't do much against a royal word. 

Whatever. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms. 

"Fourteen," Mal echoes back. "That's a lot fucking more than one, and I'm still here." 

His head makes a solid noise against the wood. "You're different. People like you." 

Mal can't stop the scornful noise she makes at that one, but she can pick her next words wisely. 

Tread carefully, fearless leader. There's no coming back from this one. 

"I think," she says slowly, inching her way closer. "That you are severely overestimating how much people like me, fleabrain." 

Carlos makes a soft noise. He's listening, which is score one for Mal. 

"I'm not some perfect princess who never does anything wrong. Obviously." Fourteen classmates with black eyes and bloody noses. Fourteen people who won't speak ill of her crew again.  "I just keep trying, and I guess the Auradonians here are too stupid to realize that we're a bunch of lost causes. Their mistake, right?" 

"Right," Carlos whispers. "They're the ones who keep making mistakes." 

Hm. It's the right energy, but maybe not quite the right words.

"We deserve better than their scraps," Mal says, low and serious and warming to her cause now. "We deserve at least as much as they give their own stupid children, and if their noble-born brats can keep fucking up over and over, then we deserve at least as many chances as they get. We deserve our place here, and if they haven't kicked me out after punching fourteen people. they're sure as shit not going to kick you out over punching one." 

"Right." 

Mal can feel the heat of Carlos's body next to hers now, so close they could be touching. "Of course I'm right. And besides, why would they let you on the team if they're going to kick you off right after? It'd be a drain on their time and resources, and they're not gonna waste energy on us if they don't need to. You're stuck on that team whether you like it or not, dumbass." 

Carlos laughs. It's not exactly a happy sound, but it's closer than before. "I didn't want to join. I fuckin' hate organized sports." 

"Ah, like how I didn't want to join the equestrian club, and Evie dragged me to the meeting under false premises and wouldn't let me leave without petting a horse?" 

"Like that," he agrees, and finally tips his head onto Mal's shoulder. "I didn't want to do the second round of tryouts, but they're down a man since Aza broke his ankle, so Coach called everyone on the backup rotation in for a test scrimmage." 

"Let me guess, some shithead tried to pull shit because you're tiny, and you rage slammed him into the fuckin' dust?" 

Mal can feel the warm gust of his sigh on her neck this time, and it feels like what home must be for other people. "Yup. Pretty much." 

Weird. 

“I thought coach was all about controlling your power," Mal says, thinking out loud from a half-remembered conversation she’d had with Jay a few nights ago. “Guess he's some sort of filthy hypocrite who only means that for the big guys, huh." 

Carlos shakes his head. His hair is a soft, static-y mess that sticks to her cheek from the friction. She's going to be pulling handfuls out of her mouth later, but it's fine for now.  "Nah. He wants people who aren't afraid of full contact. Apparently he's playing some sort of psych-out game with one of the other teams, and he's pretty sure I'm unassuming enough that they'll never see it coming." 

"So he wants you to punch more people?" Mal asks incredulously. She may be bad at teams, and organized sports, and anything that involves running for more than a few minutes at a time, but a school-sanctioned chance to punch people might be worth making a stink about starting a girl's team over. "Sounds like a fuckin' sweet deal to me." 

“I—“ Carlos starts. 

Somebody pounds on the closet door, and his mouth snaps shut so fast Mal can hear the click. 

"Hey, if you two are done having a heart-to-heart in there, some of us wanna get to dinner on time!" Jay calls through the door. "Toss me out some shoes if you're skipping and I'll tell Verne you're both sick." 

Mal shoves open the door without waiting, and is rewarded with a satisfying 'oof' as the handle hits Jay in the stomach. "We were almost done, dumbass. You can't wait five minutes for us to strategize the best way for me to get in on this school-sanctioned hitting people shit?" 

Jay grins down at her, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Nope." he says brightly, popping the 'p'. "Dinner waits for no man, and I'm not missing out on bread just cause you two decided it was the right time to have a gossip sesh in my closet."

"Ow," Mal grumbles, unfolding herself from the floor. "Fuck you, who told you that gossip sesh was a word people actually use?" 

Jay steps back to let her out, still grinning infuriatingly. "Lonnie." 

Mal's going to sneak into that girl's room and dye all her clothes pink. 

No, she'd probably like that. Purple, then. An unflattering purple. One of those periwinkles that's so blue it doesn't deserve to share a name with the perfect purples that Mal herself wears. Perfect. 

"I'm going to make you both suffer," Mal informs him. "I'll dye all your clothes black." 

"Ooh, you think I'd look hot goth?" Jay shoots back, reaching past Mal to give Carlos a hand up. "Do your worst, killer. I already bribed your girlfriend. She said I'm her favorite model now." 

"You did not." 

"Did so." 

"Nobody bribed me with anything!" Evie calls from the boy's bathroom. "Jay's a better model than you because he knows how to hold still, M." 

"Nobody ever asks me to model," Carlos grumbles. Unlike Mal, he looks like he's comfortable standing upright, which is deeply unfair. "I'd be great at it." 

Evie sticks her head out of the bathroom. She's holding a hot curling wand to her hair, but her makeup is already on and impeccable for their teacher-student dinner tonight. "That's because you're already my favorite, baby. No matter how many people you've punched." 

Carlos flashes her a tiny, blink-and-you've-missed-it smile. It’s worth it. All the time in the world would be worth it to see that smile again. “Thanks, E." 

"Yeah, for nothing," Mal grumbles, twisting back and forth until her back pops. "What am I, moldy fish heads? I just spent half an hour twisted up in a closet, I want good girlfriend credit too." 

Evie laughs. "The fact that you call it girlfriend credit means you could never really stay in that closet, babe. You get all the girlfriend points." 

[danielnelsen]

there’s so much i wanna do this week/month/etc but i’m just too sick, i have no energy, i can’t sleep, i’m constantly nauseous and headachey and on the verge of a migraine, i’m stressed and irritable and impatient and panicky…….how tf did i survive nearly 5 years of high school untreated if i can’t even manage this when i don’t have any major obligations rn

[gothsuguru]

let it be known…. bestie!sukuna does a killer winged eyeliner

[zouisalmightie]

i had a training at a different school today and i was walking up the stairwell and the stairs didn’t have that lil strip thing to put grip on the step and my foot slipped and i fell down the stairs and my whole right side has just been throbbing all day. idk if its cuz i fell super hard or if its cuz im 32 now but jeaus fuck i ache :/

[mercuria1]

Calls to action to save America by voting and running for local office are so funny. Read the room

[astral-catastrophe]

me and the generic extra strong Tylenol and the pure rage in my system