#YOU'RE GOING TO CRY

[thepaintedlady00]

Burden Chapter 11 Sneak Peek!

Y'all picked the shortest one (don't shoot the messenger!) But enjoy anyway!

🕊

You awoke in a meadow of moss and tufts of grass. The sky above you was shrouded in thick mist and covered by a canopy of vivid green leaves. As you sat up, looking at your hands and the pale hair that ran through your fingers you realized you should have felt afraid, but you didn't. You knew this place… You were one with it.

Walking through the thicket of trees, whose roots moved and curled out of your path, you could hear them speak. Their voices were soft, full of joy and pain and life. Every tree was different, some with darker trunks and others with lighter leaves, but all had faces. Faces that you knew… Ones you'd seen before somewhere. You could feel every living thing, all of it connected to you, all of it a part of you - an extension of yourself. But… Who were you?

This body of soft flesh and silken hair felt foreign. You knew it and it knew you, but the details were blurry. A sound, soft and strange echoed around you. Hoo. Your eyes lifted to one of the branches of the trees you walked beneath and there sitting perched upon it sat a strange-looking beast. A bird. An owl. Its feathers swirled with frost and chilled winds of mist as it beat its wings down at you.  Hoo. Hoo. 

As you took another step forward it swooped down, washing cold over you as it curved in the air and flew off into the distance. You felt a pull, a voice yours but not telling you to follow after it. How? You thought. It's flown so far now, I cannot see it. Looking up at the covered canopy of trees you sighed. How you wished you’d had wings. Then you could soar high above the treetops and mist and find your way. Mist curled around your legs and before you could do much more than look down at it you were transformed… no longer a soft body of skin and hair but a small thing of feathers and talons.

Hopping on your shorter, thinner legs, you peered down at your reflection in a small pool of nearby water. A long thin beak glimmered in the water as the pale eyes of a white raven stared back at you. For a moment you just stood there, admiring the agile wings and thick feathers, when eventually your eyes were drawn to a small black tuft hiding in the white above your heart. You looked familiar. More familiar than simple memories of birds, something personal and important lingered within the small patch of black, but you couldn’t quite place it. 

The water rippled as the misty breeze began to grow stronger, lifting you by the wings and telling you to fly. And fly you did. Shooting through the leaves of the trees like a star you soared high above the woods of mist looking down at the endless plain of trees that stretched far beyond your eyes could see. Mountains and great lakes and waterfalls split up the landscape and further revealed the beauty of this world that lay before you. The wind beneath your feathers made you feel free as you continued forward, weightless.

Hoo! The noise came again as the owl dove down from above, flying directly into your path and continuing forward, wanting you to follow. As you did the pull you felt grew, tighter and tighter until the figure of a tall white trunk came into view and the sparkling silver leaves glistened in the misty sky like stars. The Great Tree… Images flashed before your eyes, memory filling your being as you dove down and slammed against the earth, you again. You stood, eyes gazing up at the intricately carved wood of the trunk, words and symbols you knew but had never seen with these eyes before. The pale roots groaned as they shifted beneath the earth, lifting up to curl against your cheeks and through your hair. Welcome home, the tree seemed to say. 

“My lady…” A host of voices echoed through the trees behind you, each one familiar, filled with so much love and sorrow and you.

[psychologeek]

Fic recs:

So, self promotion. Bc I actually wrote this fic :)

It's h/c, the start heavy on the H, the end slowly sliding into Crack.

It's a Cass-centric fic, since being a weapon used by Cain. All the way through street life, finding and losing and gaining Family.

(a research in names).

Ft. Latino Jason (Yucatán, mexico), Mayan influence, many misunderstandings, identity porn, tears and laugh.

(and love. So much love.)

With no more ado -

Who Am I? (to disappear) By PsycholoGeek.

Official summary:

A stand-alone/prequel (of a kind) to the "Sweet Dreams" series Of miscommunication, lost and found family, and being named (over and over again). "Names are like selkie-skins, often carelessly attended, left in view of those who would misuse them. Utilized incorrectly, though, they can kill a man, can turn a girl to a thing of teeth and dead eyes, an appetite to devour worlds; can make infernos of maidens, phoenixes of bones who have been asleep for so long they've forgotten the shape of rage. Names have so much power." - Cassandra Khaw, The Salt Grows Heavy ~ Ft. Living and surviving, hurt and healing, the power of names and stories. "Every name is real. That's the nature of names.” ― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl Notes: Inspired by Some of them (want you) by PsycholoGeek Inspired by Witwat and the Jin by PsycholoGeek Inspired by Just short of a fairy tale (I told myself that I wouldn't be scared) by PsycholoGeek A prequel to "Sweet Dreams" and "Some of Them (Want You)", in the main world (good!bats) Started as I tried to write Cass's chapter for SoT and started building her background. It also has similar themes to "WatJ" and "just short of a ft".

One thing to notice - the first chapter can be a little hard to understand, as it involves pre-verbal Cass. For this Cass, ASL and Spoken English would always be second and third languages, but the first chapter takes place Before. (I'm working on an extended version, with explanations.)

Cass, pointing at Jason: we're twins

Tim:

Jason: *6'3" 200 lbs of Latino rage and muscle*

Cass: *5'1" 120 lbs of Chinese murder and love*

Tim:

Tim: you're just not

Cass, patting his shoulder: it's okay. easy mistake. we're fraternal twins

Jason, holding up a gun: yep. twins.

Tim: ... good for you

Cass: :D

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.

[somewhereincairparavel]

To the people saying "Jason wouldn't have jumped into tartarus for Piper, like Percy did for Annabeth" as a way to demean him. Jason, plunged into the sky from the grand canyon to catch Piper in the first few pages of the lost hero without even knowing who she was, and without the knowledge that he could fly. so he basically jumped to his death attempting to catch her. In the first few pages of his journey, he didn't mind dying to save Piper, and ironically, that's also what he did in the last few pages of his journey. Y'all just be making the most out of pocket claims abt jason fr

[idliketobeatree]

btw when you're being mean to aziraphale this is who you're being mean to. hope this helps

[antonymziie]

and so he did...

(text transcription under cut)

ford: "bill..." "do you think we'll together forever?"

bill: "depends..." "how far are you willing to go for me?"

ford: "there's a simple answer." "to the ends of the universe"

[butyouaremymess]

Colin + his (many) love confessions for Penelope

[annebrontesrequiem]

The beautiful word minunthadios, 'short-lived,' is used of both Achilles and Hector, and applies to all of us. We die too soon, and there is no adequate recompense for the terrible, inevitable loss of life. Yet through poetry, the words, actions, and feelings of some long-ago brief lives may be remembered even three thousand years later.

The Iliad, trans. Emily Wilson

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[chalkrub]

identity-stealing newt found dead in miami - very sad, very canon

say mean things on my art celebrating an underappreciated book series by an illustrator i love and i WILL badly draw your favourite character in the family guy death pose

[thequeenofsastiel]

"You faced the monster inside of you, and you fought back."

That quote always brings me to tears. Because it's so true. It's an acknowledgement that Soulless Spike was more than just the demon that possessed him when he died. William remained. Suppressed and controlled by the vampire soul inside of him, but still there. And when that trace of who he had been as a human fell in love with Buffy, it grew stronger and stronger and stronger. And being surrounded by good people increased it even more. Especially the love he grew to have for Dawn as well, because I absolutely believe that he loved her too, and the fact that it was a paternal love rather than a romantic love was, I think, helpful on an even deeper level. Spike was surrounded by love, and that bit of William that remained was bolstered so much by that love that it grew stronger than his vampire soul. He faced the monster inside of him, and he fought back. And he fucking won.

[declamationark]

Between Danny’s constant sleep deprivation, school stress, and his villains’ differing levels of goofiness, I’m surprised he didn’t try just.. crying, like there’s a reasonable chance they immediately regret making this kid cry

like dude, you get catharsis and your enemies get Guilted into awkwardly going "there there buddy (help??? how to stop crying??? do I just pat the kid's head????)" and giving you gifts

[starcurtain]

One thing I wish I'd see more of among Ratio fans is some thought about how he views himself as a teacher.

Like yes, of course he refuses to compromise on the quality and rigor of the education he imparts, and he would find it unforgivably unethical to lower his standards in order to pass more students who had not genuinely learned the material. This is core to his character.

However, as someone who is a teacher IRL, I know the absolutely miserable feeling setting that kind of standard can cause. There's the obvious disheartening sense of disappointment ("Are students these days really not capable of doing the work correctly? Is our future in danger, if this is the highest level of understanding our current generation of students can achieve?"), but even worse than that is the self-doubt.

"Is this somehow my fault? Am I not teaching this material in the right ways for the students to learn? Is there something I could have done differently to get through to these students? Would a better teacher have a higher passing rate?"

We know that Ratio does (or at least did) struggle with feeling inferior to the Genius Society, so I think it is also likely, as much as he absolutely will not budge on his academic standards, that he has doubts about his teaching ability as well.

This is the man who wants to educate the entire world to cure the disease of ignorance, and yet only 3% of his actual students are able to get there. How can someone who gets so few of his direct students to a state of enlightenment hope to enlighten the whole universe? If so few students are successfully learning the material of a given class, doesn't that mean the teacher is doing something wrong?Would a better teacher--would a genius, maybe--not be able to impart their knowledge more efficiently and educate even the most challenging of students?

As someone constantly struggling with that balance between keeping academic standards high while also meeting the needs of today's students, I think the passing rates of his courses must affect Dr. Ratio much more deeply than I've seen fans discuss. I think he would question himself harshly over his class success rates, and I think he must be constantly trying to push himself to become the best teacher he possibly can be.

tl;dr: I hope one day the HSR fandom will stop sleeping on the fact that Ratio is an actual practicing professor who probably has astronomical levels of teacher angst. 😂

[shotmrmiller]

graduating student reader is now post grad!reader who cries to Simon about how she can’t find a real job and he just tells her not to worry her pretty little head while he makes his way between her thighs to distract her

won't tell you that he had already planned to keep you (in every sense of the word) because you'd fight him on it and honestly, while he is willing to compromise on a lot of things, providing anything and everything for you is not one of them.

he pulls you to his lap, strong hands readily maneuvering you so that you're straddling him instead, feeling him give the space between your shoulder blades a couple of awkward pats. doesn't say much neither, not like he could squeeze in anything in between your slurred words and sharp hiccups.

"s'alrigh'," he murmurs, "we'll figure it out." as if he hasn't had a game plan set since the moment you didn't let him buy you a drink that one night long ago.

the only thing you'll be figuring out is how many babies do you want to give him and what degree do you want to have so it can collect dust in the closet because you're this 🤏🏽 close to being his trophy wife.

and him shamelessly bucking his hips up while you're still sniffling and wiping your tears is something he can't help you're just the best thing he's ever had :(

it makes you kinda irritated because can you stop being horny for a second, simon but at least you're not crying anymore.

he's not fucking you til you've had three orgasms minimum and crying from overstimulation.

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

(Not sure if this idea has been floated already, I'm relatively new to tumblr)

I'm convinced the finale is going to have plenty of callbacks to the Bad Batch's intro story in TCW (I mean, we've already gotten a few callbacks).

So...

Since Tech was the one who directly helped Rex find and retrieve Echo, and then carried Echo through the shafts...

What if Echo is the one to find Tech and carry him out of Tantiss???