#I swear school will be the death of me

[wherethewaterstarts-andyouend]

.

[lesbiradshaw]

& who asked you two to stand so close???

[calamitoustide]

Are Lily and Marlene aware of their feelings towards each other or does it take a while for them to realize it

They take a long time for them to realize their feelings, sometimes too late, sometimes not at all. They're best friends who promise to move in together when they're older. They say they'll get an apartment and a bunch of cats, maybe some plants. They say they'll move to the city and away from their boring small town. They won't need anyone else as long as they have each other. Their dreams are just dreams, and they never move in together like they swore they would. Marlene is the maid of honor at Lily's wedding, and she somehow convinces herself of the tears in her eyes as Lily walks down the aisle are only because of how beautiful she looks. She's so happy for her best friend's happy ending, nothing more. Lily convinces herself that she's not getting cold feet when she hesitates in her dressing room and only answers Marlene when people ask what's wrong; she says she's scared of her childhood going away, but she's not scared that she's not marrying the right person. Never.

Maybe they do get it together. They could. It could be beautiful and sweet, but I feel like they're destined to only miss each other by a little bit. Their first kiss is only in the face of death when they realize they refuse to die without the feeling of the other's lips on theirs. Their love is a dusty photo album that rests on the shelf, a beautiful life not explored, a path resting on a fork in the road that's never taken.

[mashitaaa]

misa misaaAA

[thelavenderprince]

How am I supposed to live my academic rivals to lovers story when I suck this much at school

[longagoitwastuesday]

*reading a thesis about the evolution of the concept of infinity in China with a large amount of tabs open with diverse articles or word combinations to further look for information, all the while seething, blood boiling* I wish Satoru Gojo would fucking cease to exist

[sysig]

Some more Just Desserts pets, and thinking about Candy Mers again (Patreon)

Also ft. the pigeon study I did, what a cute bird!

[cartoonghosts]

tw unintentional vent post I'm just pissed at the culture surrounding bullying with younger children and bring up my experiences as reference

doing a unit on bullying in health and not only is it incredibly triggering jts also just. Wrong. Like no, bullies don't need an emotional response to keep going, if you don't react they get more intense and start making fun of you for not reacting. Also, you can't expect children to not react to people punching them, pinning them against a wall, telling them they're worthless and cutting them off from their friends. If kids use the responses adults have decided are the correct way to avoid bullying (show no emotion, call them out or ignore them), it only ever gets worse. A lot of the time, adults don't even try to help if a child reports this stuff because the child is pretty socially rejec4ed and 'weird' (in my case, undiagnosed autism and social isolation for the entirety of elementary school). Also, bullying is NOT always one-sided. A lot of the time, when a child is attacked for years and years on end and has their childhood ripped away, they're gonna get angry and they're going to lash out. I was labeled a 'bad kid' and a troublemaker because I cried easily, yelled at people who were mean to me, and retaliated physically because there was literally no other option. With that record, adults who I went to for help would tend to blame me, and other kids would use that to their advantage because they has the capacity and power to be more subtle about it than i ever could. I know that bullying in high school is different than in elementary school, but this is the exact same stuff I've been told all my life. If you're an adult working with kids and someone comes to you and says that they're being bullied, fucking listen to them. Change their classes. Keep them safe. If you don't, you could be actively participating in a kid's trauma.

(As a side note what I'm talking about is elementary and younger bullying, the only stuff I've experiences at older ages than that is transphobia)

[juvederm]

i know everyone makes fun of the "intrusive thoughts won (dyes hair)" people but if my intrusive thoughts won i think everyone around me would be dead

[mememan93]

killing and biting and killing and biting

[theythemmer]

for years my friends have tried to get me back into minecraft and idk how to explain to them that after tosoth the game will never be the same . it’s been A DECADE and this fic still rules over my brain

[cepheusgalaxy]

Nex Benedict was murdered in a stupid bathroom because of a stupid fucking bill and Palestine and Sudan and I don't know how many more places are under tons of shit and now the fucking KOSA and Im frraking out

[hylianengineer]

I need my family friends to stop dying please.

[melon-flowers]

Guys I think I’m really getting into my depression era

[that-girl-glader]

I wish I were neurotypical because tell me why it's my 2nd week of school, and I already had a meltdown and I'm already burnt out. Ugh, my head Hurts so bad because I've been trying to do my work for the past few hours, and I've accomplished literally nothing, and tears are streaming out my eyes. And I'm so done. I SUCK. I SUCK. UGH. Why can't my brain just let me do the work. And all my dopamine is definetely like gone, and my serotonin levels are very low at the moment. Lol, fun week.

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.