#all the girls think about here is you

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Flower Empowered.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[taxinealkaloids]

i love the tower princes. i love that there’s absolutely no way in hell that this friendship is even remotely good for either of them. love that they assuredly are making each other SO much worse with every second they spend together. 

[arundolyn]

"Oh, this? Don't be ridiculous! It's not a marriage certificate! Look closely, okay? Throw away all your hangups, and simply do what you feel. Aren't you just dying to sign it? Won't it feel good? 3... 2... 1... sign!"

[anna-scribbles]

they should've been at the club(infertility treatment centers)

[otaku553]

Quite frankly still obsessed with the three of them

A little procrastination doodle

[apnourry]

it was hot at work, i was hot at work, i forget the rest

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 169

this is it, the dynamic

[yashley]

imogen & fearne in c3e94

[edorazzi]

More Thunderbirds Are Go! With an idea I couldn't shake; Kayo being the only one qualified to escort Penny to society events and "discourage" potential suitors (while shamelessly stealing Gordon's girl)! 🌸🗡️

The boys are all cute but Scott will have half a drink then idly drop some unhinged traumatic experience into polite conversation; Virgil will start lowkey stalking the unvaccinated guests; John hasn't come out of hiding since the Charity Auction Incident™; Gordon will free the buffet crabs into the ocean before showing off "cool" x-rays from the time he broke every bone in his body; and Alan will eat too many desserts, feel ill, then end up hiding under the table to play video games. Kayo is Penny's only hope of preserving any dignity! 😮‍💨

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡

[myokk]

fast sketch of ominis & fast intro to the ominis longfic I'm working on!! This is going to be the most self-indulgent pride and prejudice ripoff that ever existed, 100% based on the ominis of my oneshot💘

I am just OBSESSED with exploring the idea that he’s a natural legilimens & OBSESSED with the thought that he thinks too much for his own good🫶🫶🫶

Ominis Gaunt has always suspected he is cold-blooded.

It makes sense, really.

He always seems to be cold: frigid, long fingers that are often stiff and difficult to move; goosebumps raising the skin of his arms and the back of his neck any time he walks through the drafty halls of the dungeons; even his eyes, he has been told, are reminiscent of ice. They are apparently quite unsettling. The only time he feels comfortable in his body is when he basks in the heat of the sun.

His earliest memory is of the cold. It went like this: he was four years old: his older brother, Marvolo, had led him outside as a joke, he swore up and down that it was just a small joke, and how was he supposed to know that poor, blind Ominis would not be able to find his way back home? When his parents had finally found him, his frail mother sobbing and holding his tiny, blue, hypothermic body to her chest, Ominis remembers feeling quite perturbed at the disturbance. Couldn’t he just be left alone, in the silent soft snow?

He does not know if he has ever felt warm since.

As he strides through the dungeons, the copious amount of warming charms he casts on himself do not seem to be enough, but he keeps casting them anyways and also: wrapping his wool scarf more tightly around his neck, quickening his pace in the hopes that blood flows more easily through his limbs, wishing that he had remembered his gloves. Winter is always a terrible time of year (this winter more terrible than usual), and every breath of warm air leaves his lips reluctantly. How he wishes that he could just hold on to it a bit longer and yet the warmth leaves him precisely fifteen traitorous times a minute, the frigid air gleefully entering and burning its way down his throat in response. Maybe it’s a punishment of some sort.

His whole life has been defined by punishments and sometimes he preoccupies himself with the thought that it is the only way he can view the world. Most of the punishments are manifested in curses inherited from his family. (His parents and Marvolo insist that they are gifts, but Ominis begs to differ.)

First, his blindness: the only true punishment-curse that even his family rejects: caused by inbreeding, no doubt. He did not cry after his birth and his mother cradled his tiny body in silent arms, lovingly whispering nonsense-evil-Parseltongue to him but when he opened his eyes and she saw a brilliant celestine blue with no iris, she screamed in horror and shattered the frigid peace of the room. His parents tried everything to fix him, make him whole, throwing money at various possible solutions to no avail. Magically induced disabilities are not, apparently, curable by magic.

Ominis is not sure that he hates being blind, although he suspects everyone thinks that he should. It is as much a part of him as his fifteen-breaths-per-minute, and he thinks that vision is not all it’s cracked up to be. He is always terrified at the thought that his tenuous hold on sanity is only due to the fact that he cannot see, until he realizes he shouldn’t be terrified of hypothetical situations that cannot come to pass. He consoles himself with the thought that maybe, if he has had to give up his vision for his sanity, it is a small price to pay. Although, he also thinks sometimes that it would be nice to live a life without any morality holding him back.

He is entirely too introspective, after all.

It is precisely this introspection that is his downfall in this moment (and his cold blood). Ominis is so busy casting warming charms on himself and thinking in circles that he cannot use his wand to help him sense his environment and so he should not be surprised when he crashes into her.

And yet he is. Terribly surprised.

Maybe if he were not so caught up in his own thoughts he could have paid more attention to his surroundings. Instead, he spent too much time ruminating on his reptilian heritage and has now barreled head first into his arch-nemesis.

Rosalie Harris.

The girl who has stolen his oldest friend from him.

The girl who is currently making angry noises as she clambers to her feet and is picking up the things that he has crashed everywhere. Even if he could see, Ominis is not sure he would help her. Helping her would be akin to betraying himself, after all.

“Hey! Watch where you’re - oh, hello, Ominis.”

“Rosalie,” he says shortly, nodding his head where he thinks she might be standing and stepping to the side. He tightens his grip around his wand, feeling the texture of the wood change from rough to smooth as he runs his thumb down it. Smooth where he always seems to worry it, rough where the wood refuses to yield to the brushes of his thumb.

He surreptitiously casts the spell - he has at least done it so many times he no longer needs to say it out loud - and his surroundings light up. Or, he supposes that is the most apt description, considering he cannot actually differentiate between light and dark. He senses Rosalie’s silhouette to his left - she is standing with her arms crossed and her foot taps impatiently as she waits for him.

Waiting for what? he thinks, slightly irritated. She never seems to leave him alone and he wracks his brain trying to think of something, anything he can say to get rid of her.

Maybe if he speaks in Parseltongue, she would finally be scared away for good. He does not really want that second reminder of his family’s curse, though.

His family preferred speaking in Parseltongue with each other, believing the ability made them morally superior to everyone else and Ominis had not even realized until he had arrived at Hogwarts that no, it was not normal. When his name had been called at the Sorting, furious whispers had erupted amongst all the students, and his every step (terrified, confused, unsure - he had still been getting used to using his wand to navigate his surroundings) to the stool at the front of the Great Hall was plagued with a susurration reminiscent of snakes. Except these whispers, sneaking their way into his mind, had been unkind and overwhelming.

(He had not realized in that moment that he was also hearing their thoughts.)

Maybe now, with Rosalie standing in front of him and just annoyingly waiting for Merlin-knows-what, Ominis should use his Legilimency to find out what Rosalie wants. (He hates it, though.) It would not be difficult. (The thought makes him shiver in horror because he doesn’t want to abuse the ability.) He can feel the edges of her mind, her magic, and all he has to do is reach out - she is right there, and -

��Ominis?”

Her arms are crossed, he hears an impatient huff.

Why hasn’t she left him alone yet?

Hadn’t the Hogwarts Express already left the station, bringing all of the students home for the winter holiday? Ominis had thought he would be one of the only students left in the castle, and if he is being honest with himself, he had been looking quite forward to having the place to himself.

Ominis’s winter has just gotten infinitely worse.

Going to Gaunt Manor for the holidays is out of the question (he will not think about the nightmares that have been plaguing him ever since he received the owl demanding he go home), and Ominis does not want to be more of a burden to the Sallows. They already do enough for him over the summer, and Sebastian and Anne have convinced him to go to Hogsmeade with them at least twice over the next two weeks. Besides, with Anne’s curse progressing, Ominis does not want to be in the way.

“Why are you still here?” Ominis asks. He knows his voice comes across as cold as his blood, blunt, but he cannot help himself. Ever since Rosalie arrived - her entrance to Hogwarts also causing quite the stir - Ominis has been intensely annoyed by her presence. She is too happy. Too carefree. Too…well, everything he is not.

And, she does not seem to leave him alone.

Rosalie is always there, always hanging around Sebastian. (Taking Sebastian away.) He even showed her the Undercroft, which had almost caused a rift in their relationship. Ominis could not believe that Sebastian would be so careless, showing someone who for all intents and purposes is crashing her way into their lives, forcing them to pay attention to her. They barely even knew her, and yet Sebastian thought it was a good idea to show her such a sacred place?

(It does not help that she is intelligent, and Ominis has caught himself on more than one occasion about to ask her about her opinion on something before he catches himself.)

“I was looking for you.”

Ominis tilts his head at that and fiddles with his ring. He considers walking away, leaving -

“I mean…Sebastian said that you were also going to be here over the holidays and since everyone else just left I thought -”

“Thought what?” Internally, Ominis winces at the biting tone to his voice. It came out harsher than he intended, his voice loud and echoing through his mind, bouncing off the cold, stone walls surrounding them.

[lunarharp]

idle leftovers...i drew the dream from my last post

[heartorbit]

a mob of emus for an artstyle game on twt! ^_^

[numbuh424]

death note the good place AU where Light is welcomed for all the "good" his work as Kira did for the world. he's eating it up, until they go outside and Light sees L sadly eating some frozen yogurt. Light's immediately like, "yeah, this definitely isn't the good place."