#THEY UNHINGE ME DO YOU UNDERSTAND

[nyxofdemons]

still not over this. never going to be over this. what the fuck

[inkskinned]

i'm still trying to piece together the truth of it. when you left, you said: feel free to spin this narrative however you want. i have no idea if you were being cruel or if you just genuinely don't remember what you've done to me.

it's hard because i'd done so much of the work for you. i had seen the parts that flaked off, the rust underneath. i started separating you into two people - the one i loved, and the one who hurt me. i had this fantasy version of you - my partner - and then i had this stranger, a third person who would show up randomly to shatter me. i am deliriously glad i'm no longer with "the stranger". i miss the gentle (unreal?) "other" you terribly.

at first, i was so strict about my boundaries. i remember telling you to get the fuck out of my house if you were going to talk to me like that. by the end: i would justify your behavior for you, accepting even your mistreatment as "my fault" in the grand scheme. i look back on the person i was before you - smart, independent, confident - and i feel a strange sense of detachment. i don't even recognize me.

even in one of our last conversations, you said: if you want a partner that always talks warmly to you, find someone else. there was a time that a comment like that would have made me leave. and instead, somehow, i just placidly accepted that kind of thing. you were literally telling me that i wasn't allowed to have a reaction to your cruelty - and i just took it, because you'd so fully turned things around on me.

when people are faced with irrationality, a rational brain tries to make sense of it. this is the trap. they're lovely in the morning, gentle and blue-eyed and sweet. like nothing even happened, they breeze around the house and kiss you on the mouth. but at night; who is that? they snap almost randomly; flying into an impotent rage about just-about-anything. it just doesn't make sense. so the problem must be me, and my brain, and how i think.

the traumatized brain just wants peace. so maybe i'm misremembering. maybe you were just having a bad day. maybe it's actually me.

you eventually would fully turn on me and start implying that i am the bad actor in our relationship. that's what happens, right? that's literally in the playbook. you went to therapy for all of a month, told her a half-truth, co-opted therapyspeak. you figured out how to reframe your actions as "seeking peace." any time i stood my ground, i was "gaslighting." when i asked you to be more gentle, you said i was "tone policing." you said, randomly, i had emotionally manipulated you - i still have no idea what that's even specifically referring to. maybe my consistent requests for calmness and empathy?

and while i literally know better, and i'm sitting here, trained by you, thinking: wait, fuck. was i actually the person you made me out to be?

and the thing that scares me is that i literally do not know if you ever actually saw what you were doing to me. when you'd tell me how you remember arguments, you'd always summarize them in a way where you come off as gentle and easy: "i was trying to set an important boundary." what had actually happened was 15 minutes of you shouting at me i know you did something shady, just admit it already. eventually you'd say my reaction to your shouting (when i finally reacted, which usually happened around hour three) was inevitably "disappointing" and "another way i'm silencing your feelings."

how many times did i ask you - beg you - to just take accountability? looking back, i don't think i ever heard you say: you're right. the way i talked to you was wrong of me.

i am trying to tie together the two people into a full version of you in my head. yes, you made my coffee and made me laugh and spent hours on the phone with me. and yes - you would scream at me until i had to run away and hide behind something.

i wish i did have a narrative i could pull out and shape to my whim. i wish i did have some semblance of reality. instead i just stand here, strange and vibrating, wondering: what the fuck just happened?

[nelyoslegalteam]

so @potatoobsessed999 and i finished our reread of the hobbit last night and i’m now fully and completely convinced that

arkenstone’s a silmaril

arkenstone is maedhros’ silmaril specifically

and this COULD be a post about how the arkenstone is described exactly the same as the silmarils are, or how thorin talks about it in the exact same way that the feanorians do, but for the moment i am skipping all of that because listen to me. just for a second here accept this as canon into your hearts because if this is so then that would mean.

that bard, a king who had his home destroyed by a great evil from the north and was willing to hold the glowing beautiful stone ransom to protect his people, willingly laid maedhros’ silmaril to rest with thorin, a king who had his home destroyed by a great evil from the north and who sought to retrieve the glowing beautiful stone that was the last remaining thing he had of his father.

and i just think that’s such a potent ending for the damn thing. there is the peace that was never achieved in the silmarillion. there is the sympathy that was never achieved in the silmarillion. the silmarils cannot come home to the feanorians, but they can come home to durin’s folk. they can find their home with a different people of aule. with a different people who have faced horror and death in their own home. with a different son who has lost his father who had lost his father, left to hold his people together. and it can do that because instead of being fought over, it was in the end given up freely.

and i just think that’s nice, actually.

[gideonisms]

This is such a small problem when you compare it to problems anyone else has or even previous problems I personally have had but I am bummed out by the lack of weird too online genderweird dykes in my real life. I have to pretend to be normal so much. Soooooo much. Do you know how many normal sentences I come up with daily? It's so many. And I am like I can't keep doing this by myself. where are my fellow freaks

[basket-of-radiants]

scholarship.

[wonderjinx]

[suddencolds]

insatiable appetite [1/?]

sooo... this is one of the thirstiest things i have written—and also one of the only times i've written a character with the kink, ever T.T warnings in advance for mess, character getting sneezed on, implied contagion, possible ooc-ness, & me writing this entirely with my d instead of my head

ivan and till are from al//ien sta//ge (a very fun watch which will only take 30 mins out of your life; i really recommend it!!). that said, this fic takes place in a modern au setting, so feel free to read it without any prior context :)

special thanks to @6pmsoup for sending me a very cute alnst doodle of these two which altered my brain chemistry permanently

—

Summary: Till shows up to a dinner outing with a brewing cold. Ivan suffers. (est. relationship, kink!Ivan, ~2k words)

—

For all Till tries to hide it, Ivan can tell immediately.

There’s this: Ivan has been paying attention to Till for most of his life. A full decade before they’d gotten together officially, and some more—this is how long Ivan has had to observe his tells. Always from the sidelines, always with a detached air of indifference that, in reality, was anything but.

All the signs are there the night before. Till, turning up the thermostat a couple degrees higher than he usually keeps it. Spending a little too long in the shower and using up almost all of the hot water. Clearing his throat one too many times in the morning before Ivan leaves for work, his smile distracted, the rasp of his voice nearly indistinguishable—but only nearly.

Now, Till is here for dinner—it’s a dinner they’ve had plans for a couple weeks now, at one of the nicer restaurants downtown, in celebration of Till’s recent promotion. Ivan had booked the reservation a couple weeks in advance.

When Till arrives, stepping out of a taxi cab, he’s wearing a scarf, even though the weather is too warm for it. Ivan steps up to meet him. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Till says. “Traffic here was the worst I’ve ever seen it, swear to god.”

“Was it cold outside today?” Ivan asks, a little pointedly, tilting his head towards his scarf.

Till looks at him, his expression unreadable. Then he nods. “Colder than usual, for this time of year.”

“Strange,” Ivan says, just to be difficult. “But the weather forecast says it’s the same temperature today as yesterday.” 

“It’s probably just windier today,” Till says, readjusting his scarf around his neck. His face is a little flushed.

“Your voice sounds a little off, though.”

Till clears his throat with a scowl. “You must be imagining it,” he says. “It always sounds like this.”

No admission, then. That’s fine. Ivan will get the truth out of him at some point. He lets Till guide him into the restaurant.

It’s a nice restaurant—worth the hassle of the reservation, Ivan thinks. Each table is set with flowers arranged tastefully in long glass vases, empty wine glasses turned on their heads. The server—who leads them to their table in a small, private booth—is wearing a suit.

It’s a shame, really. Ivan has a feeling that he won’t be able to pay attention to any of that tonight.

They sit. Ivan looks down at the menu, picks out something at random in a matter of seconds. Truthfully, he can hardly think of anything less worth his attention right now. He turns his attention to Till instead—Till, who’s seated directly across from him, the scarf still around his neck, obscuring the lower half of his face. 

Till sniffles, reaching down to turn the page, and oh. The sniffle is terribly liquid—has he been sniffling like that all afternoon? Perhaps it’s a good thing that they work at different offices—Till at a law firm, Ivan as a senior manager at a consulting company—because Ivan certainly doesn’t think he’d be able to get any work done with Till sniffling like that. 

It’s not two minutes later that Till is reaching up to wipe his nose against the back of one knuckle. All in all, it’s discreet. Just a quick brush of the fingers against his nose, which is still hidden under the scarf. Though, the look of sheer ticklishness that passes over his features for a brief moment there is...

“What are you thinking of ordering?” Ivan asks.

“I can’t decide,” Till answers. He turns the page again. “It’s between the ribeye steak and the… snf! The pork belly. Is this the kind of place that skimps on the portion sizes?”

“Not from their Yelp reviews,” Ivan says. “You know, if you really can’t decide, I can flip a coin.”

“I’ll pick,” Till says. “Why? Hungry already?”

He looks up, now. His eyes are a little watery. There’s a faint flush over the bridge of his nose. Ivan thinks that if he reached out and touched him, he’d probably be running warm. The thought is almost unbearable.

“Your taxi did take forever to arrive,” Ivan says, by way of explanation. 

“Did you really wait that long?”

He looks uncertain, for a moment. Ivan says, “Not at all. But you know, I’m always impatient when it comes to you.”

Till rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. “There was a meeting that ran late. I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Is that also a part of your new position?” “I guess so, yeah.”

“I can see why they were eager to promote you, then,” Ivan says. “How productive can late afternoon meetings be, anyways?”

Till snorts. “Not that important. It definitely could have been an email instead. I was about ready to doze off.”

He sniffles again. “Okay. I think I know what I want.” The way he says know betrays the slightest hint of congestion. 

“At long last,” Ivan says, just to be a little bit of an ass. “I’ll call over the waiter.”

He flags their waiter down, waits for Till to order first.

“A spiced apple cider,” Till adds on, at the end, with the slightest of coughs. “Hot, if you can.”

That’s new, too. Till seldom orders hot drinks at restaurants, though he’ll drink tea without complaint if it’s offered. Perhaps his throat hurts, then, from the cold that has clearly started to settle in his system. Subtle, still, but Ivan is familiar with colds like this. He knows it will probably only be a few hours before this deceptively “small” cold turns into…

Ivan orders, too, and thanks the waiter, who leaves with a curt nod. When he looks back over to Till, there’s a… strange something to Till’s expression, a slight distractedness. Irritation.

Ivan swallows hard. He should look away. 

He should, but then, Till’s breath hitches. He pulls the scarf higher over his face preemptively, as if he anticipates having something to have to cover for. The sharp intake of breath that follows is breathy, though Ivan can hear Till’s voice in it. He should really look away.

Instead, he takes the scene in, painstakingly, little by little, as Till’s shoulders jerk forwards. As Till presses a hand to the scarf, presses the fabric closer to his face, to muffle a sneeze into his fingertips:

“hhH-Ih!! hiHH-’IESCHH-eew-!”

God. It sounds utterly miserable, the harsh release of it scraping against his throat, the spray tearing into his scarf. It’s the kind of cold sneeze that is undeniably telling: this is going to be one hell of a cold. It’s not very quiet, either, even muffled into the fabric.

For more reasons than one, Ivan is glad they’re in a private corner of the restaurant, not somewhere more public.

“Bless you,” he offers, once he can trust himself to speak. It’s a good thing that Till is too distracted to look up at him right now. Ivan isn’t sure he can keep what he’s feeling off of his face.

Truthfully, he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to endure a whole night of this.

The problem here is that Till—Till, of all people; Till, who Ivan has been pathetically in love with for almost as long as he can remember—has no idea about Ivan’s… relatively niche interests. That is to say, he has no idea what effect it has on Ivan when he does that.

“Thanks,” Till says, a little stuffily. He sniffles again, lowering his hand. 

Ivan can’t help it. He knows he shouldn’t pursue this line of questioning, but he can feel his self-control dwindling by the second. “Don’t you think it would be better to take off your scarf, now that we’re inside?”

Till freezes. “Y-You know what,” he says evasively. “It’s pretty cold in here.”

Ivan tilts his head in question. “And just how do you plan on eating like that?”

“I’ll take it off when our food comes.”

“I can ask the waiter to turn the temperature up, if it’s a problem,” Ivan says. 

“It’s not a problem.”

Ivan rises from his seat. Till watches him, perplexed, as he heads to the opposite side of the table, where Till is seated.

When he gets there, he stops. Stands, unmoving, so he can study Till from above. 

“What are you—”

Ivan reaches out, settles his palm across Till’s forehead. As expected, it’s warm. Not quite feverish, which is a good sign, but warm enough to be notable. 

“Just how long were you intending to hide this?”

Till stares back at him, wide-eyed. “Hide what?”

Shouldn’t it be obvious? “The fact that you have a cold.”

“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” Till says, slowly.

“Hmm.” Ivan drops his hand to his side. He is a little concerned, now. “We could’ve called a rain check.”

This time Till really does roll his eyes. “For the reservation we planned weeks ahead?” he sniffles again. “That just sounds completely and utterly unnecessary. Are you the type of person to call things off just over a little cold?” 

Ivan leans over, tugs down the edge of Till’s scarf. Till bats his hand away just a moment too late, cups his other hand over his face to shield his face from view. For a moment, he looks faintly mortified.

Then his expression settles into something more disgruntled. “What are you doing?” he hisses.

So uncooperative. “Let me see,” Ivan says. Slowly, gently, he pries Till’s hands away from his face, and then—because the restaurant is dimly lit—tilts Till’s face up slightly so that it catches more of the overhead light. 

Till’s nose is redder than usual. He’s probably been rubbing it all afternoon, if the redness that percolates into his cheeks is any indication. There’s  a damp, liquid sheen on the underside of his nose.

“What’s there to see?” Till says, a little crossly.

“Your face, since you’ve been so intent on hiding it under that scarf,” Ivan says, leaning in to get a better look.

Till scowls at him, but there’s no heat to it. “You see my face every day.”

“On the contrary, I don’t see it nearly enough,” Ivan says. “And you hardly ever get sick. Is it so wrong for me to be concerned?”

Without looking, he reaches behind him with one hand to grab a couple cocktail napkins. The other hand he keeps held up to Till’s cheek. 

But then, Till’s breath hitches. “Wait,” he says. Panic flashes through his face. “Ivan, move, I—”

Oh. Well, seeing as there’s no way he’ll be able to get the napkins over in time, it looks like he’ll have to improvise. If Till wants to cover, Ivan can help with that. He moves his hand to cup it loosely over Till’s mouth. Not a second too late, it seems. Till jerks forward unceremoniously, his nose twitching, his eyes squeezing shut.

“hHheh-! HHh’EIITShHh’yYiew!” he gasps sharply. Two? “Hh-! hHiiH’DSSCSSHh-IIew!”  

The jolt of the sneezes is practically electrifying—all of that force, brought to an abrupt halt behind Ivan’s waiting palm. He feels the expulsion of air against his skin, the warmth of Till’s breath, feels the slight dampness behind his hand as the spray mists over his fingertips.

Ivan swallows, hard. Thank god it’s so dark here, otherwise Till might notice what this is doing to him. 

“Bless you,” he says, withdrawing his hand at last to wipe it on one of the cloth napkins. It comes out slightly raspier than he intends it to, though perhaps it’s a miracle that he’s still able to talk at all. “Some cold, hmm?” Belatedly, he hands Till the stack of napkins.

Till practically snatches them from him, turns aside to blow his nose wetly into the top few. The way he sniffles afterwards suggests that his nose is still very much running. 

“Do you have no self preservation? It’s as if you want to catch this,” Till says, drawing back with another sniffle.

Oh, Ivan thinks, fighting back a shiver. That would be far from the worst thing.

[lucabyte]

Purrgatorio Update

[whentherewerebicycles]

there are a million things I find challenging about this workplace dynamic but I think the one that bothers me most is that I don’t like the feeling of contempt and this dynamic makes me have to experience it all the time. I don’t like being the subject of someone else’s contempt and I really don’t like feeling contempt for another person. I think both are so spiritually corrosive!! but if someone treats you with barely concealed disdain and dislike, or acts like your work is worthless and they expect to be disappointed by you before you’ve even done anything, it’s SO hard to not react in kind. woof!!!

[milfbrainrot]

.

I feel like in the past the mix of this site being used for both activism and fandom helped contribute to a lot of unhinged politicized fandom discourse where yeah ofc there's a political tie to media but ppl used it as... a form of activism where it was given disproportionate importance compared to other activism discussions? Whereas now we're swinging to the opposite site of How Dare You Care About Meaningless TV Shows When Politics.

Like... we can have a mix of realizing there's more important stuff to focus on than shipping discourse in the world at large without also minimizing the insane doxxing and death threats behavior going on in fandom that people in fandom have to take into consideration to be able to do their hobby, esp given how those attitudes stem from irl political climates at times in ways that are telling to study. Hobbies are kinda how we prevent activism burnout also. Crazey how that works.

[ettadunham]

>>opens an old crpg game in "normal" mode

>>gets fucking obliterated

>>changes difficulty to "easy"

>>gets fucking obliterated

>>opens a door

>>game crashes

[starbuck]

to the person in the tag who just said “I fear I'm giving you all a very skewed idea of what ravenous 1999 is like,” we may not know each other, but we are brothers in spirit

[dragonairice]

WARNING FOR THIS POST- CHARACTER SHOWN AS VERY OBVIOUSLY AFAB AND TRANS AND VAGUE DYSPHORIA SO IF THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE PLEASE AVOID THIS POST

I wasn't going to post this but I blame @dirk-menace for being a terrible influence and a great friend (/aff)

[writingjourney]

hannigram to durgetash pipeline has to be real

[whimsical-laboratory-tragedy]

Me: hmm I know absolutely nothing about this type of science, and I need to figure out at least some type of theory if I’m going to write about it, let me do some research

*clicks on an academic article*

Scientists: what is this phenomenon? Well, all I can tell you is that it exists. Idk what it is but it makes up most of the universe so beware. The experiments are just getting stranger. It might not be real, it might have already happened, it may never happened, it may be happening right now. Please don’t ask any more questions, as you might destroy the entire known universe.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

getting invested in your own au is so dangerous because sometimes you'll start wanting to make an au of your au, and you'll come to a tough split point decision where you have to decide if you do that Or if you just make your idea canon to the first au, because no one can stop you

anyways. i need to be physically restrained from touching lucky jumbo right now