#I actually don't know what to tag this with tbh

[dailyloopdeloop]

loop and mirabelle. That's it that's the ask

DAY 84: enrolled in the gossip wars

[uzukali]

Hello roshambo

[torchickentacos]

The fact that Brock hates Drew is sooo funny to me but understandable tbh. Imagine being Brock. You've questionably made it your life goal to woo every woman you come across, and it goes poorly despite all of your best (and worst) attempts. and then some random bratty green 10/11 year old with a pet houseplant has more game than you and gets a canon-adjacent ship in like a sixth of the time it took you to accomplish nothing at all. like yeah I'd be fucking pissed too. what's even the point anymore. how do you survive that.

[sadkachow]

THE (CATHOLIC) SCHOOL I (UNWILLINGLY) GO TO HAD AN ASSEMBLY ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH TODAY AND??? THEY SHOWED A VIDEO OF MARKIPLIER???

THE SPEAKER DOING THE PRESENTATION CLICKED TO THE SLIDE WITH THE VIDEO ON IT AND MY BRAIN JUST BUFFERED

SHE WAS LIKE "Have any of you ever heard of Markiplier before?" AND I WAS LIKE ???????????

[nostalgia-tblr]

"are people not into that?" i ask, after posting my weird niche shit to the internet, despite knowing it to be weird niche shit.

[straight-to-the-pain]

I don't know if anyone else in the whump community has read 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' by Anthony Marra but it is genuinely a really good book and also has some of the best depictions of torture and its aftermath that I have read in fiction.

I wanted to share some of my favourite quotes, hopefully without too many spoilers as it is out of context, but maybe skip this post if you don't want to know anything at all going in.

To give a brief summary, the book centres around the lives of people in Chechnya during the first and second war between the Russian government (Feds) and the separatist rebels. The main story focuses on a man (Akhmed) who is trying to save his neighbour's daughter from being killed by the Feds after her father is taken away in the middle of the night. He does this by taking her to a hospital where he then volunteers. One of the people in his village (Ramzan) becomes an informer for the Feds after being tortured, and this is explored in the excerpts below.

‘Information the Feds would torture them for was written here on the walls for all to see. It was well understood among the men that the Feds had as much sense as two bricks smashed together. It was also understood that pain, rather than information, was the true purpose of interrogation.'

'During his first detention in the landfill, in 1995, in the first war, he had refused to inform. They had wrestled down his trousers, shown him the bolt cutters, and still he had said no. Screaming, thrashing, with his manhood half severed, he had said no. He had done that, and now he was ready to start saying yes.'

'He would have confessed everything, but they didn't ask, weren't interested, threatened to cut out his tongue and put pliers to his teeth if he spoke one more fucking word. Electric wires were wound around his fingers. A car battery was drained into his bones. God might have been watching, but it wasn't God's finger on the battery switch. The interrogating officers didn't speak. Instead he was an instrument they played, performing a duet, and in their own way they conversed through his sobs. They both wore very shiny shoes. That was all he would remember.'

'He had trouble walking, He had forgotten torture could be so exhausting. The new interrogator, the one with less shiny shoes, held him upright, using his whole body as a crutch, and helped him walk. He carefully wiped Ramzan's forehead with a handkerchief before opening the door to the next room.'

'The interrogator with less shiny shoes crouched behind him. His hands were wet. Ramzan promised everything, and the interrogator, like the parent of a child too old to believe in ghosts, watched him with disappointment, his clear eyes saddened by Ramzan's sincerity. The interrogator took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, laid the live wires on Ramzan's chest and mapped the border of their shared humanity. Ramzan offered his soul. He begged to be enslaved. The known universe contracted to the limits of the cement floor, and on it, the interrogator was both man and deity, prophet and god. By ten o'clock the interrogator with less shiny shoes asked his first question. By eleven the electrical wires were unwound from Ramzan's fingers. By noon he was allowed to dress. By one he was on the FSB payroll. He kept thanking the interrogator with less shiny shoes.'

‘Greed didn’t motivate his informing, at least not primarily; primarily he informed by necessity, to survive, for his love and hate and above all awe of the power wielded by the interrogating officer with less shiny shoes.'

'That was his greatest fear. Could he stay silent? Could he withstand what awaited him? He told himself that his love for the girl should fortify him against any torture, but this, like so much of what he told himself, was a lie. After all, he was squeamish at the sight of blood, what would he say when lying in a puddle of his own? But he saw no other way. He would pray for the strength to stay silent, for a quick heart attack, and leave the rest to God.' (This is Akhmed POV)

'When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing, Akhmed. When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing. When they threatened to electrocute me, I said nothing. When they threatened to castrate me, I said nothing. I said nothing, Akhmed. Whatever you think of me, you remember that once I said nothing when a wiser man would have sung. And the interrogators, they couldn't believe it. They called in others to examine me. I was there on the floor, and above their faces were dark ovals silhouetted by the ceiling lights. They had beaten me hard and I couldn't hear right, but I kept saying no, with every breath I had. The main reason they let me go, the only reason they didn't shoot me right there was out of perverse respect, some sort of professional courtesy. But I wish they had shot me, Akhmed, because the good part of me died there, and all this, everything since, has been an afterlife I'm trying to escape.'

‘I knew what was coming. I knew it never stops. They put a shame inside you that goes on like a bridge with no end, the humiliation, the fucking humiliation of knowing that you are not a human being but a bundle of screaming nerve endings, that the torture goes on even when the physical hurt quietens. People treated me differently when I came back the first time.'

[invinciblerodent]

going slightly feral today for characters who don't think of themselves as being "~into~" touch and physical intimacy suddenly discovering that they actually are, in like an embarrassingly huge way

"oh fine, I'll indulge you, but I'll have you know that I'm not exactly cuddly, darling. 🙄" (proceeds to wrap themselves around their partner in their sleep like a boa constrictor) (yes this becomes a regular occurrence)

"no dear, I don't like hugs" (does, in fact, melt into each embrace with a soft sigh and eyes sliding shut, all gooey inside like a person-shaped fudge brownie)

"how juvenile. I'm not ticklish, I'm not a child. 😒" (starts convulsing with stifled laughter if their partner as much as wiggles their fingers in their general direction) (no they are very cool I promise)

"don't touch me 😒" (secretly pouts when their explicit wish is respected. no wait come back i didn't mean don't as in don't, i meant it as try harder. yes i know that's counterintuitive. no you should read my mind exactly. how is that even hard--)

"*makes a longing 🥺 face every time their partner is doing something just out of their reach, wanting to touch them but not wanting to come off as ~needy~*" (scoffs and turns away when asked if they want a hug) ((that means "yes please"))

"ugh, fine, but if you ruin my hair--" (all but tears up at having their scalp gently scratched. finds that they do not give a solitary shit about their hair now, actually.) (yes, they will now regularly plop their head in their partner's lap as a silent request for scritches. they're not cuddly, though.)

will not hold hands. will, however, knock shoulders while walking. (it means try again. it means please never stop trying.)

[punkstylerecovery]

One of my major (minor) brain issues is that my brain lies to me. Sometimes its easy to ignore, especially since it's generally obvious, but when I don't have something else to concentrate on or I'm really anxious, its like trying to ignore a fire alarm going off when you're sitting right beside it. Impossible, at least for me.

See, its one thing to ignore my brain saying "you're an evil person" when I'm in the middle of a book. Its another to ignore my brain claiming I didn't lock the bathroom door (and someone Will come in) when I'm in the shower. But its quite another thing to ignore my brain screaming someone is in my bedroom and they're going to kill me when its the dead of night and I'm trying to sleep.

You might think the logical solution would be to look around my bedroom, put the fears to rest, and go to sleep. But no. You see, my brain wants me to look. But it also never believes I've looked properly.

I can look around and five seconds later, my brain will ask, 'but are you sure you looked right? Look again. If you missed something, you're going to die!" Sometimes I can't remember if I looked or not. Perhaps I did miss something. It doesn't matter. My brain wouldn't be satisfied if I slept with my eyes open (which is what it tries to convince me I will do if I want to stay alive).

Its always something I've struggled with, some times more than others. Its not always as extreme as "you're going to die", but its always extreme in some way, whether its the panic or the amount of times I check something to shut my brain up. And its ridiculous, because its not like I don't know my brain is a liar. Its not like I don't know it likes to fuck with me.

But I also don't really know what else to do. Its not like people go around offering advice for things like that; its not a common dinner conversation. Its not even a common experience, apparently. Some people's brains don't lie to them all the time and they don't have a million panic attacks trying to go to sleep because their brain isn't telling them they're about to die.

I don't know what the fuck I'd advise people like that. Sleep tight, maybe. But I wish there was some kind of guidebook for people with brains like mine. I'm getting kinda tired of winging it.

[sisterdivinium]

You know, the reason why I'm sceptical over communities on Tumblr is because I think the issue is not how it was lacking in a community feature but how there seems to be a lack of a community mindframe for a lot of the userbase. There's only so much you can do when a lot of people have devolved into only ever using likes rather than actually getting in touch with others -- and there's only so much conversation you can withstand when every new addition equates to reblogging a post in full and potentially annoying your followers with "walls of text" (since, let's be real, this isn't a text-forward website)...

[itslilacmoon]

will you guys still love me if i make the occasional lunter shitpost

[manic-sapphic]

reposting my catradora spotify playlist (w some that are just for catra tbh cause that's muh gurl lol)

i've added quite a bit to it since last shared. i pull a lotta my amv's from these/their vibes. honestly tho, there's a wide variety of energies that might make what comes on next if you shuffle it a tad surprising and/or jarring lmao but hey - who couldn't use roughly half a day's worth of catradora-coded (imo) tunes? (approaching 12 hours of tracks- i ain't kidding lol)

:) 💕

[casket-girlie]

I took these btw

[unfortunatelycake]

Old enough to be nostalgic for the late 90s when around this time of year all manner of little booklets would start to arrive in the post from companies selling Really Useful Gifts and Cool Stocking Fillers and you'd go through one and find stuff to pester Mum to buy for you to give different family members and the other to find stuff to pester Mum that you wanted and that's basically how Dad ended up with a new wallet every year even if he didn't need one and you ended up writing 'SPACE PEN' on your Xmas list every year because you were definitely going to be an astronaut one day

[organized-chaotic-disaster]

Alright everyone, I've done it

I made a tally of Dan vs. Phil that delves into the truth of ALL OR NOTHING— what kind of difference did it make? Who suggested it more? Who is the true winner of Dan vs. Phil?

What you find may not be what you expect, but I promise you that the truth is there, waiting for you to discover it

[storfulsten]

my silly viera wol alt bc reasons uwu

[anchorandrope]

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