#as you can see we are very normal human beings

[ghoul-slime]

Mushy May Day 7 - Better Now That You're Here

Once again very, very late with this entry! Thank you again @forlorn-crows for putting Mushy May together!

Summary: Dew injures himself on stage, Aether does whatever it takes to help him. 1,820 words.

Tags: Hurt/comfort, mild injury, fluff, established relationship, light angst, Aether is the boyfriend of all time

Read here on Ao3

Divider by @ghuleh-recs

Aether is lounging in bed, waiting for his nightly post-ritual call from Dew, when there’s a knock at his door. Right away he knows something is wrong, the hairs on his arms stand on end and his blood goes cold, his mind instinctually turning to the safety of his mate away on tour. His fears are only confirmed when he opens the door to see a nervous looking Frater Imperator on the other side.

Frater assures him Dew is safe before he breaks the news that he’d been injured during tonight's ritual. A fall offstage had left his mate with two broken bones in his foot and a bruised ego - but otherwise fine. Physically speaking, at least. But at only four shows in, Perpetua had expressed concerns over the fire ghoul being able to continue the tour. Human doctors could only do so much for an injured ghoul and Phantom, though talented, was still working on his quintessence healing abilities.

When he finally gets a hold of Dew on the phone, he sounds terrible. 

“Aeth, I…,” Dew trails off, voice shaky. Aether can tell he’s barely holding it together and the thought alone makes him want to cry sympathetic tears. “I fucked up real bad this time, Aeth. It’s only the fourth ritual and I can barely stand up. I… I’m afraid he wants to send me home,” Dew’s voice cracks and he goes quiet. Aether knows him well enough that he’s trying his hardest to fight back tears of frustration and disappointment.

Aether’s heart breaks. If Dew is admitting to being this hurt then it must be bad. Normally he’d brush an injury off and insist he was fine. Aether thinks back to the tour where he’d injured his shoulder, how he’d played night after night in pain before his body finally gave out, too stubborn to admit defeat until he couldn’t go on any longer. If Dew was admitting he was down for the count, then he truly had to be scared and hurting.

“Nobody’s sending you home,” Aether bristles at the idea of the new guy sending Dew back over an injury. “You belong on stage, Dew. You love performing more than anything. And besides, our pack needs you there.”

On the other end of the line, he hears Dew sniffle.

“Nobody’s sending you home,” Aether repeats, resolved. “I won’t let them. I’ll come there and fix you up myself. Just like last time.”

“Aether, what - no,” Dew sounds taken aback, ready to argue. “They’ll never let you-”

“I’m already on my way to the airport,” Aether cuts him off before he can spiral any further. Papa - I mean Frater, booked me the earliest flight we could find. I’ll be there in a few hours.”

He hears Dew exhale a shaky breath, but otherwise he remains quiet.

“Just get some rest for now. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay,” Dew answers, still uncharacteristically quiet. The exhaustion in his voice is apparent. Then he adds, ��Love you, Aeth.”

“I love you too, Dew. More than anything,” Aether answers. “I’ll be with you soon, my love.” And then reluctantly he hangs up the phone.

He lands early, before the sun is even up, and makes his way through the nearly empty airport to the car waiting for him. The drive to the hotel is quiet, and Aether is beyond exhausted. He’s been awake for almost twenty-four hours now, but the only thing on his mind is getting to Dew.

Once they make it to the hotel, Aether sprints to the elevators, making his way to the room he’d been told Dew was staying in. When he knocks, Swiss opens the door and they hug immediately. Aether takes comfort in the familiar almost-too-tight squeeze of a hug from Swiss. 

“How is he?” he whispers as soon as they part. Swiss steps to the side and motions Aether towards the bed.

“He insisted on waiting up for you,” Swiss chuckles quietly, “but the doctors gave him lots of painkillers. He tried his best, but he finally knocked out around two hours ago.”

Dew is sleeping quietly in the center of the hotel bed, his brow furrowed. His foot is propped up on several pillows and there are discarded towels and ice packs at the foot of the bed. Aether frowns at how swollen it looks even from where he stands across the room. His heart aches when he thinks about how much pain Dew must have been in when it happened and how uncomfortable he must have been for the entire night, even with the human pain-killers he’d been given.

In his sleep, Dew’s nose twitches, catching the scent of his mate nearby, and he stirs immediately.

“Aether, s’that you?” he calls out, voice raspy and words slurred from a mix of sleep and pain meds. He rubs his bleary eyes as he struggles to prop himself up on his elbows and locate his mate in the dim early-morning light of the hotel room.

Aether crosses the room in two strides to be by his side, kneeling carefully on the bed to kiss the little ghoul on the lips. Dew grabs for him, pulls him in by the fabric of his shirt and holds him close as they kiss.

Swiss takes that as his cue to slip out the door, giving the reunited ghouls their privacy.

They kiss for a moment longer, and when Aether pulls away, Dew reluctantly lets him go with a disappointed whimper.

Aether sits beside him on the bed, mindful of Dew’s injured foot. He cards his fingers through Dew’s sleep-tousled hair, scratching at his scalp lightly.

“How’re you feeling, baby?” he asks, despite knowing Dew can’t possibly be feeling very good at all.

“Mm, better now that you’re here,” he answers. Aether leans down to plant another kiss to the crown of Dew’s head, and the little ghoul smiles wearily up at him in response. Dew must be exhausted, in so much pain, and nervous about the future of the tour, but Aether can tell that his mood already seems to be lifting from the darkness of the night before.

Aether helps Dew sit up, piling pillows up behind him to prop himself up on. He moves to the end of the bed to carefully look over Dew’s injured foot as he tells him all about everything that happened the night before. How he’d forgotten about that new set of stairs behind Mountain’s drum kit. About the horrified look on the crewmembers’ faces when Dew had fallen completely off of the stage and into the tech areas below the decking. He tells Aether how Phantom and Rain had helped him work his pedals for the rest of the night. And he tells him about the human emergency room he’d been whisked away to as soon as the ritual had ended, and how difficult he’d found it to uphold his glamour between his frazzled nerves and the pain in his foot as the doctors looked him over. 

Right away Aether hits Dew with a pulse of quintessence, just enough to dull whatever pain the human medicines weren’t enough to handle. Between that, and being able to unpack the events of the night before, Dew is already starting to relax under Aether’s touch.

“Swiss threatened to put me in the cone of shame if I didn’t behave for the doctor,” Dew says with a frown on his pretty face. Aether barks out a laugh and Dew swats at him for it, laughing along with him as his mood is lifted by Aether’s calming presence.

Aether finishes his assessment of Dew’s foot, confirming that yes, there are broken bones, and that without quint-accelerated healing, it could take months for it to heal on its own. Unfortunately, Aether tells him that the break is bad enough that even with the help of his quintessence, it could take weeks to fully fix, and Dew would have to continue to wear his medical boot onstage in the meantime.

Dew frowns at the thought, but acquiesces. 

As the morning light grows brighter through the hotel room curtains, exhaustion begins to set in for both ghouls. Dew lets out a giant yawn, settling himself back down into the pile of pillows as his eyelids grow heavy once again between the pain medication and the quintessence. Aether yawns as well, adrenaline finally wearing off. He’d been on high alert since the moment Frater Imperator had knocked on his door the night before and he could tell his body was ready to crash.

Aether stifles another yawn, but plants himself at the foot of the bed again nonetheless.

“Lemme just get one quick round of healing in while I’m still awake,” he insists, despite the need for rest clawing at him.

“Uh uh,” Dew shakes his head with a frown, reaching for Aether with grabby little fingers. “Naptime first. You said yourself before that you’re of no use when you’re this tired.” 

Aether wants to argue, to insist that he’s good for another hour or so just to get a headstart on the healing process, but of course Dew is right. He needs proper rest to be of any use to either of them. So he lets Dew pull him to his side. He carefully helps Dew scoot over on the bed, just enough that Aether can gently lay himself at Dew’s side, ever mindful of Dew’s hurt foot.

As he finally drifts off to sleep, he feels Dew thread their fingers together, hears Dew turn his head towards him and whisper,

“Thank you, for always taking care of me.”

Later that day, after a restful nap and an initial round of healing from Aether, all the arrangements have been made. Aether will travel with the band for the next few weeks, helping to heal Dew in between tour stops. If they’re lucky it should only be a couple of weeks. Frater gives Aether his blessing and Perpetua seems pleased to be able to retain his star lead guitar player. He’d even been willing to give Aether and Dew his (much larger) bunk on his private tour bus while Aether worked on his mate’s health.

A week later, with Dew well on the mend, Aether and Dew lounge in Perpetua’s luxurious bunk after the night’s quintessence session. Dew rests his head on Aether’s chest, ready to fall asleep.

“You know, Aeth,” he says, looking up at his mate with a toothy little grin, “if you would have told me all I’d have to do was break a few bones to get you back out on tour with us, I would have done it a long time ago.” He laughs, pleased with himself.

Aether looks down at his little mate incredulously, and he can’t help but laugh along with him. He leans in for a kiss.

“Try it again and I’ll put you in the cone of shame myself.”

[akin2u]

﹫targeted-freak ℳarvel Phase ℱive Friday Callahan

○ targeted-freak June 13 ong chat. when i come back from this fucking bullet in my knee you KNOW i'm gonna fuck up that mfing trader like he's LIZARD MEAT #txt #fuck chicago omfg #targetblogging #im cooking up with some more bombs too so sorry in advance

FORMER TENNIS PLAYER FRIDAY CALLAHAN SPOTTED WITH PLAYBOY BILLIONAIRE TONY STARK

Friday Callahan has played in competitions such as the Wimbledon and the French Open. Though, he has been seen in other sports like MotoGP for a few years before moving full-time to being a tennis player. He unexpectedly quit before he could play for the 2015 Wimbledon. Months later, he's seen hand-in-hand with IronMan

  "smoooooth operato—" "clear comms"   "smooooooooooth operator"

From the very beginning, Friday Callahan was a mutant. He honed the ability of regeneration and perfect reflexes. Despite that, he lived a normal life. Of course, aside from the fact he has to use specialized lenses to dampen his vision as to not overstimulate his brain. The perfect reflexes of his can be too much especially with sports like MotoGP, which was why he quit in the first place.

  "five floors up, callahan"   "i see you. target locked."

  "was that supposed to happen?"   "sorry guys. threw the wrong tennis ball."

  " THE BET " Tony Stark had a bet on who was the human being, aside from known superheroes, with near-perfect reflexes. He won the bet after he counted on Friday Callahan. Yet, he lost quickly after Clint Barton found that Friday was a mutant. That, caught the Avengers' attention. When Friday was offered a spot, he refused. Though, he did not turn down the chance to work for Stark Industries until Tony's eventual death after the Blip.

CHICAGO'S BIGGEST TARGET HAS DISAPPEARED AND EVEN THE MOB IS MISSING HIM. WHERE IS HE NOW? (SCRIBBLED BELOW THE NEWSPAPER) okay, leaving a message for one lucky newspaper reading crazy man. i'm on the way to a new job offer. said they needed my kind of expertise. get ready for a new me folks

THUNDERBOLTS* NEW AVENGERS

ensnared in a death trap, yelena belova , bucky barnes, red guardian, ghost, taskmaster, john walker, and target — embarks on a dangerous mission that forces them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts except, of course, target is almost traumaless. the time he almost shat himself in a tacobell.

  dear clit ( :D )

i'm in the avengers tower again. except it's way too empty. really. it feels weird. i also had to fight that cutie bob. it's all good. we discovered he's just a bit depressed and that's okay.

if tony can see me now, he'd be a bitch about it. he always wanted me to join. i know you'd advise me to stop, to let this go. but, uh, i can't. i guess. i kinda like these guys.

don't worry. i know what i'm doing, and what can be the consequences. i have a feeling that it's gonna end well.

  xoxo, gossip girl

compilation of my portraits

　　　━━ feel free to send me asks for me to answer ic !

[bandtrees]

Random Dialtown Society Headcanons

a handful of decades ago there was a big boom in parents who saw mobile phones as the future giving their kids heads of things like mobile phones and computers. this fizzled out as mobile phones and computers became integrated as everyday objects and became generally agreed upon to be kind of hard to actually live with. so there's an entire generation of sad millennials whose parents had both the money and ambition to give their kids these heads - this is how we get randy. presently, mobile phone heads often carry the stereotype of a hipster at best and a depressed young neet at worst

faux-retro phones also have a hipstery connotation, and specifically the idea that your parents were trying too hard. heads like these are the equivalent of naming your kid something like Oakleigh (joke courtesy of friend fig)

"apple head" as a phrase means the opposite of what it does in real life - flat and small, as in an apple product

smartphone heads carry the connotation of a soulless influencer, youtube family channels and their kids with cocomelon on their smartphone heads are the topic of many a video essay by pretentious blackberryheads about the downfall of society

there are some batshit insane parents out there like Oh my beautiful baby cares not for societal norms which is why i have given them a tuba head and that poor person is just baby tubahead forever

having a screen on your head a decade ago carried the connotation that you were smart and well-read - think our society's equivalent of glasses - now, though, they tend to be associated with vapidness/dumbness with the connotation that you need to see things on a screen to understand them

the less common/higher society equivalent to mobile phones to phoneheads is computers for typewriters. furthermore the act of having a keyboard is perceived as somewhat feminine and if you dig deeper there are a subset of individuals who will call you gay if your head has buttons on it

the difference between an incel and a chad is a few millimeters of bone (this is about the height of your rotary phonehead)

teen protagonists in movies, especially teen dramas, tend have mobile phone and laptop heads so you know they’re immature and out of touch with the values of their parents. This is almost always a visual shorthand thing and despite being a known stereotype no attention is ever drawn to the fact the parents would have chosen to give them those heads

typewriters were not gendered until after the dialup - think the equivalent of pink not being seen as a girly color until recently

there exist tech giant corporations in the dialtown universe who co-opt the story of callum crown to justify changing their heads to their new products as advertisement. whether or not this is a moral thing to do always becomes a topic of discussion all over the internet for like a month and then is promptly forgotten about, and then the next month they're back to having normal heads

having the same head as an animal is basically telling the world either you're a furry or your parents really wanted you to be a furry. it's a common shorthand for animal motifs in fiction to the point where it's seen as on-the-nose

there are semifrequent controversies about celebrities giving their children gimmicky objectheads

having toy heads ie little billy is relatively common in children, having them as an adult, depending on the crowd, can make you come off as either fun and whimsical or somewhat stunted

hospitals come stocked with very basic objecthead shells for sudden deliveries

in art, objectheads drawn with facial features is a relatively common thing in works for very small children but is seen as deeply uncanny in anything more

collecting phones/typewriters/other objects is seen as somewhat macabre or shlocky but not an outright red flag. however there have been scandals that come from people customizing them to be the size of human heads

[riverstyxsarts]

Hi hi hiii :) super long rambling murderbot episode 1 + 2 episode thoughts under the cut ⬇️ it’s unlikely that anyone who follows me on here is into murderbot BUT! if you are please hit my line so we can discuss 🙏

I had surgery about a week ago and have had a really rough recovery from it (like. real bad.) so i have been SUPER looking forward to seeing the murderbot show and it definitely delivers!!!

First off I wanna say I loveeee sec units armor in the show. it’s definitely different than how it’s described in the books/art but i feel like that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. to me it makes perfect sense that MB would be absolutely COVERED in the companys logo and i think helps convey the specific kind of weird a sec unit is. like imagine if YOU 🫵 were a space communist scientist and you were forced to bring a robot with you on your mission that you dont want and it was absolutely covered in tesla and amazon logos? also it has guns. also its ALWAYS listening. and according to your beliefs it is the same as a human being. would be … creepy. also i think it helps hammer in the point of how MB is JUST considered a product its RIGHT THERE in your face every. single. time. you see its helmet.

the costuming in general is just really great :) i like how real everything feels and it just LOOKS GOOD like its made of real fabrics and not that cheep weird fabrics im seeing so much off in most tv shows and movies nowadays

The performance given by MBs actor is sooo good!!! i wasn’t convinced that fully convinced that the would be able to fully capture how autistic MB is. but I was wrong!!! and like. this is the most repented ive ever felt by a piece of media . this is of course largely how i felt about the book series already but the performance given really added to that. the way that MB speaks when it talks outloud is just!!! like i do a lot of the time!!!! especially when im uncomfortable or scared!!! the sort of awkward staggering sentences!!! the “weird” tone. I DO THAT!!! WE HAVE ALMOST THE SAME CADENCE !!! AND THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS!!!!!!!! MB not being able to control its facial expressions is something thats mentioned a lot and very relatable but like!!! the actor is pulling the same faces as i do regularly!!!!-!-!-$718272 ITS JUST LIKE ME FR 😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️ as well as its body language!!!! oh my god!!!!! all the acting is sooo so good so far :)) everyone is doing such a good job yayy 😁😁😁

Things that a bit worried about: in the books several of the characters of multiple partners and its a casual normal thing but it seems like. they might be changing this a little for drama?

in the books dr mensah is mentioned to having multiple life partners as well as several kids while in the show they ONLY mention the kids which by itself is doesn’t matter but with everything else makes me go…hrm. first off the way the present pin-lee and arada (? i get the humans named mixed up a lot so apologies if i do that here) as specifically being MARRIED instead of life partners is an interesting choice? combined with their conversation about not having a “contract” with an unnamed ex-third who pin-lee calls crazy while they discuss asking ratthi followed immediately by pin-lee going “if shes happy…im happy…” when arada leaves??? ermmm??? and then actually having ratthi sign a contract before getting together??? its not really a big deal because MB hates romance so it only briefly talks about it a few times and tbh i do nawttt remember really any romance stuff i also have a tendency to skip those parts. so maybe im misrepresenting it but i thought a society were it was normal and extremely common for people to have multiple relationships really interesting!!

they added a scene were MB gets interrogated by gurathin which wasn’t in the book if i remember right and i REALLYYYY enjoyed that. MB saying “i dont know what its like not to be me so i cant say what its like” when asked what its like to be a sec unit oh my god. oh my god. banger. this robot is AUTISTIC! also i love how they added mensah having panic attacks! i absolutely adore her and i think showing her struggling with mental health issues but still being such a strong and great leader is really cool and a good addition .

i loved EVERY scene with sanctuary moon!!! its so funny and campy and i love the star trek references ehhehehe i love the crazy crazy hair on that one guy. over all its really solid!!! and im excited for more! i just REALLYYYY hope they dont add an unnecessary jealousy plotline

[donaviolet]

I was at school break today and one of my friends was playing Honkai Star Rail on her phone instead of talking to us and we started joking that she was being controlled by the Evil Brick of Globalization (her phone) full of Homosexual Cowboys (Boothill) and that the Church (us) was against it

Then I simply said ✨I cast Divine Punishment✨ while making magic-like gestures and one of her characters died at the exact same moment

[trauma-bot]

patron saint of never growing old

[lyxchen]

Okay so I've heard this said a bunch of times and I'm gonna admit I thought like that too for a while but no, Gi-hun did not win the games because he was lucky. A lot of people think that's how he won because he never killed anybody but that's really not the point. Gi-hun won the games because a) he's smart and is able to look at things from a different angle, b) because he is a good and kind person who also believes in others and c) because of the goodness and care get got back from other people.

In the first game he survived because Ali saved him and that wasn't luck, that was Ali being a good person and helping somebody not get killed. Ali could've not caught him, let him die, he didn't even know Gi-hun at all at that point and he put himself in more danger too by having to hold on to a person while standing completely still but he still saved Gi-hun because Ali is a good person.

In the Dalgona game he quite literally Was Not Lucky. He decided to go with the umbrella which is the worst shape to pick and he probably would have died if he hadn't looked at the game in a different way and decided to change his strategy. Gi-hun is smart. He is also optimistic and so he tried something new and found a different way to beat that game.

In the third game he survived because he was smart and kind enough to listen to Il-nam. The other people in their group dismissed him as just an old man speaking but Gi-hun didn't and that way they had a good strategy to beat the other team. The same goes for him listening to Sang-woo's idea of running three steps and then stopping, which ultimately was what saved them. His group also chose him as their leader (who, as Il-nam said, needs to not seem weak or loose hope because then the whole team is doomed). His team trusted in him and his optimism and they were right to do so.

In the marbles game he won because he was once again kind and decided to team up with Il-nam and also because in the end Il-nam decided to "sacrifice himself" for Gi-hun because he showed him kindness before. Yes Il-nam didn't actually die but he also knew that Gi-hun had cheated and still let him continue on to the next game, probably because Gi-hun had been good and kind and caring towards him before, even though he really didn't have to be. Gi-hun also didn't know this but by teaming up with Il-nam he inadvertently ensured that Il-nam had a lot more fun in the games than he would have had, had everybody just ignored to "old, fragile man". Gi-hun was good to Il-nam throughout all the games and it ended up saving him in the marbles game.

In the fifth game it's only some small moments as Gi-hun isn't really involved in the game because he's the last number but still it wasn't just luck. First of all he was kind enough to give the number 1 to the player that asked him for it. Yes, that number was bad but he didn't know that and had he been selfish enough to say no to that other player he wouldn't have survived. Being the last to play in any game can end up being bad for you, still he decided to give up the number he picked because the other player asked him to. Secondly he also survived that game because Sae-byeok was kind enough to remind him of which glass tile to step on after he had forgotten which one it was. It's only small but she didn't have to tell him and still she did. Sae-byeok btw is also good to him because before that he was good to her and protected her (even though he was angry at her at first) and that way he was able to gain her trust.

Lastly he won the Squid Game because Gi-hun was kind to Sang-woo and because Sang-woo deep down was still a good person. There were probably many reasons as to why Sang-woo decided to kill himself in the end but part of it, I'm sure, was also because Gi-hun was a good friend to him. I mean Gi-hun was even willing to give up all the money and go back home with nothing gained if it meant that Sang-woo didn't have to die and would be able to come home with him. Gi-hun deserved that win and that money and in the end Sang-woo knew that. He also knew that Gi-hun would make sure to take care of Sang-woo's mother and that he wouldn't just take all the money for himself because Sang-woo knew that Gi-hun is a good person. (Gi-hun technically also won the Squid Game because he was good at it which is also him being smart)

So in conclusion and I hope y'all haven't stopped reading yet: Gi-hun didn't win the games because he was lucky. He didn't just sit around doing nothing and won anyways. He won because he was smart but even more importantly he won because of the kindness and goodness that exists in humans and that is especially present in him. He won because he had empathy, because people trusted him, because he got back from them what he gave to them first. He never killed anyone and we can clearly see that he Could Never kill anyone in those games but that's not his weakness. Just because he didn't let himself get corrupted and turned into what the games wanted him to turn into doesn't mean he won because of luck. Him not playing by those subtle, hidden rules that are made to force him to be bad, to not care about others and to give up his kindness actually means he was better than the games. He won because he didn't let them turn him into a monster. They tried really hard and they failed and that's how he won!! But also on top of that he also won because he isn't the only good person in this show. He also won because other people helped him, were kind to him and gave a shit about him. Each and every person that helped Gi-hun didn't have to do that. They all could have not helped him, Ali could have not caught him, Sae-byeok could have not told him which one was the correct glass tile, hell, she could have Lied to him about it and the only difference it would have made for the other players would have been them being one more dead person closer to winning all that money. But that's really not how humans are and act which is why all these people helped Gi-hun, helped each other in small or big ways and in the end his own kindness and the kindness that exists in other people is what lead to Gi-hun winning. That's not luck. That humans being good

[alxastrx]

When you're one of the most selfish mc who only saves people because it's part of a job you never wanted and did not get to chose or you would've died, who took your co-workers' morals and ideals because you didn't have any and desperately wanted to fit in somewhere, be it with the heroes or the villains, who's activelly haunted by one the most tragic past to have been created and suffer from a psychosis so bad (dare I say schizophrenia) that even your enemies acknowledged that you are mentally ill and objectively flawed in your judgement, never hesitated to try to kill anyone and has the most egoistic reason to be a good person but the fandom still thinks you're just a kind crybaby "I don't know what a gun is" homosexual twink.

[jessamine-rose]

*lovingly tackles Aine*

Read my Yandere! Pierro longfics first ♪( ´▽｀)

Last week, my beloved mutual @ainescribe surprised me with Savior! Darling fan art and AHAI9232@2-!/! CRYING SCREAMING I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS ART AND WORSHIP YOUR VERSION OF SAVIOR THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BLESSING ME WITH YOUR ART—

*clears throat* Anyway, now that I finally have the time to properly sit down and comment on the fan art, I’ll do just that. Feedback will be in the tags and it will be unhinged. Once again, thank you so much to Aine for drawing this <3

[prismbearer]

Idk why there's disbelief over Mark S/Helly in terms of motivation. Helly is just as capable of cruelty and selfishness as Helena. They are at the core of it, the same person with different memories/experiences. They can be two perspectives worthy of indulging their own dreams and desires and also be the same person. Narratively here especially, this isn't about morality, it's about human nature.

Helly was never cruel, sure, of course. Helly felt like she was the same as the other people in MDR. But Helly has something right now that she never even achieved as Helena. Someone who loves her. Someone who is choosing her. Helly is Winning over Helena here.

Jame Eagen wanders down just to be a freak and reinforces the reality of it. Helly is "More" than Helena, hasn't been worn down by the weight of experience and the world (and their cult and corporate bullshit). She still has, in some way, the innocence of youth and lack of experience with the world. She doesn't have the same fears and burdens or triggers as Helena in her conscious experience. She still has the ability to express her passions and outrage and defend herself. And to love and not feel sorry for it.

Severance gave Helena a chance to exist without the learned perspectives and burdens of the Eagens and she is able to be free with herself and her passions and desires-- whereas Helena was likely drained of any dreams for potential beyond a strictly guided future decades ago.

Of course Helly is feeling a rush of joy and satisfaction over Mark loving her. Mark choosing her. She tried to do the "right thing" by being logical with Mark. "I'm her." Even outside of Lumon, if they bring it all down, there's no hope for an Eagen and an ex-severed employee in reality. In the Real World they will never be together. Mark couldn't love Helena, how could anyone love an Eagen? (Poor Helly really with like, the enemy is within etc, but that's kinda the situation framed by Lumon for everyone by setting the stage with your Innie isn't human kinda rhetoric.) (This was also reinforced by Helena trying to get close to Mark to see if he still had feelings or chemistry with her and finding out they were not going to work outside Lumon.)

What if the equator is a building that could be a continent? Can be their whole world? They're choosing to live Now. Together in the present despite knowing that with their half lives, they could be brought to an end at any moment. It's very willful young love of them. And why wouldn't it be? This is their First Love. They haven't even been "alive" that long or have any memory of romance beyond their current infatuation. They don't know the world or it's places, and maybe that's okay, maybe they can exist in this space so long as they have love and the others.

It's completely human for Helly to accept Mark choosing her. To run to him just to see him for maybe the last time. It's human for Mark S to run to Helly. It's human for poor Gemma, who doesn't even know her fucking husband is severed, to be pounding on the door.

But this is their Final Day to Mark and Helly. Maybe the very end of their world. It's Judgement Day. Of course they'd have them holding hands and running back to the unknown to face the end together. To die together.

There is also zero fucking chance Mark Scout would risk his life and brain continuing reintegration once his wife is back. Mark Scout is going to choose his wife. Mark is choosing Love on both sides here.

All of it is reasonable.

[cowboy-robooty]

In what you based your vision of italy and/or itager?

People like italy does even exist?

I think fundamentally speaking the world of hetalia does not work like ours. this is obvious because of mf countries being humans but i mean also on philosophical level too like i think if ghouls were real then tokyo ghoul could probably happen. if countries cultures were humanized hetalia would still not be able to occur. Unless we completely deconstructed our sensibilities and reshaped them from the ground up, looney tunes would never be real and something around the same can be said for hetalia. Although I think hetalia is slightly more leaning towards being able to be real compared to looney tunes; it's a sliding scale and hetalia is around where the muppets are at in terms of their sensibilities working in real life. Actually the more I think about it the more I do believe that people with hetalia-like sensibilities do exist, but they're incredibly rare and fucking crazy. Since I dont live hetalia life but i have lived always sunny in philadelphia in real life which is arguably even more implausible of happening. Like bro have you ever read the wikipedia page for the guy who holds the guiness world record for being struck my lightning the most times. that shit is fucking crazy i genuinely believe he was being hunted down a malovelent force and i dont believe in god or anything like that tbh but if i had to then i would say that is probably the second biggest red flag i have ever seen of a higher entity being real. So anyways I think if the bullshit he endured happened then someone having the same disposition and sensibilities as hetalia italy isn't that far out there actually. our world is magical and wonderful isnt it!! :D

Taking this into account, my vision of Itager plays by these rules (warped sensibilities). I think that if someone like Italy is real, then he is not going to be meeting anybody who likes Hetalia because Italy would not be into this gay shit. And i don't think italy could be considered himself anymore if we put him in the same mindset as a normal person in our society; he actually has to genuinely be like the person he is in the show. It's a tall order, but i do think that is reasonable and something that could feasibly happen with how many crazy and insane things that can happen on his planet, you just need to seek these things out! I'm sorry if this is hard to understand with my wording because I also started writing this long ago and kept forgetting to finish. BUT THANK YOU FOR SENDING AN ASK LIKE THIS I REALLY LOVE IT. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THINGS LIKE THIS IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY YOU CARE! <3

[cathymee]

we're all wasting our time the earth should just explode soon <3

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[drdemonprince]

if sex is no big deal and just a normal thing like having dinner with someone, how do you square that with the belief that children can't consent to sex? Like idk this whole thing of "sex is a normal act like any other and we shouldn't treat it differently" makes me soo uncomfortable because i feel like it's really obviously not in a lot of situations? Otherwise what's the difference between being told by my boss to have lunch with one of our prospective clients being told by my boss to blow one of our prospective clients? :/

let's take your dinner example to its logical conclusion, because you are on to something here, but I don't think quite in the way that you think.

children are forced to eat food that they this really dislike (due to sensory issues, allergies, or just run of the mill unfamiliarity) quite regularly by their caregivers. they are also sometimes denied the right to eat because they didn't behave the way their caretakers liked, and sent to bed hungry, or barred from eating food that they can handle, and instead left to go hungry because they won't eat food they can't handle.

treatment like this causes a lot of food issues and trauma to children. It exacerbates eating disorders and erodes a child's sense of their own body autonomy. It can also cause children to have nutritional issues and a scarcity mentality around food that can be really damaging to them.

similarly, people are forced to share meals with people who they are viscerally uncomfortable around all the time too, often to extreme negative effects. employees are forced to sit down with clients who debase them or harass them. Young people in particular are forced into sharing tables with relatives who have crossed their boundaries, insulted them, abused them, bullied them, and whom they want nothing to do with. people in recovery from eating disorders are surrounded by co-workers, family members, or friends at meal times who speak about calories and weight loss and comment on their own bodies and other people's bodies in incredibly invasive and triggering ways that often make them feel way worse, and make taking care of their own bodies far more difficult.

when a powerful institution wants to exert control over other people, they also often do so using food. prisoners are given almost no control over the kind of food they eat, and are often given very low quality food that is in a disgusting condition, or that violates their own nutritional requirements or religious beliefs. patients in hospitals and in mental institutions are also subjected to such treatment, and people in poverty are expected to eat anything that they are given without complaint. It is an extension of their dehumanization to control and limit the kinds of food they're allowed to access, and how and when they are permitted to eat.

each of these experiences surrounding food can be incredibly violating and harmful. food is quite frequently a tool of control and abuse. yet it is not because there is some magical quality to food or to dinners that make them uniquely fraught with the potential for trauma. these experiences are traumatic because they involve a violation of a person's body autonomy, and a lack of social power.

sex isn't any different from dinner. we just have a series of cultural beliefs surrounding it that make the pressure involving sex something that's both a lot more acknowledged, and mostly encountered in the private realm.

Sex is treated as an almost magical thing, at once both sinister and sacrosanct, and so people are primed to see the potential for harm in it, and it is frequently used as a tool for harming people because it is so loaded, but that doesn't mean there aren't abuses involving every other mundane human activity that we simply are conditioned to ignore because doing so is so normal.

People's body autonomy surrounding food is violated traumatically all the fucking time. unfortunately because we consider dinner to be a neutral activity and sex to be this incredibly fraught and almost magical one, we ignore the massive amounts of coercion, pressure, and violation surrounding food.

your boss shouldn't be able to force you to get dinner with someone. and people are uncomfortable with discussions about body autonomy that neutralize sex, because it forces them to confront how little freedom we actually have in every facet of our lives.

[cherrypikkins]

@dimiclaudeblaigan asked for a tutorial on how to begin drawing. Good news! If you can draw a funky looking stick man, you have already started!

I think that stick people are a great starting point for artists because of the things you can learn from them that will be important later on.

If you are able to draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can easily put together a stick person.

Congratulations! You have started to draw. :)

A stick person is a very minimal artistic representation of a real life person. It is simple yet recognizable, and is widely used in art, media, and signage.

But what can a stick person teach us about drawing people that look more like… well, people? Lets have a look!

By simply adding a few more lines, we can add a pair of eyes and a mouth. Maybe even a little triangle nose! Or half circles for ears. We can now draw a face, which provides a basis for all sorts of expressions.

These simple additions can allow us to explore the wide range of human emotion and individuality.

This may seem like the basics of the basics. But that is what we want! In order to get to the point where we are able to draw complex, elaborate representations of humans and objects, we will need to start with simple shapes like lines and circles and build our understanding from there.

For instance, lets give our stick person some cool new features, such as hands and feet. I chose little squiggly circles to represent hands, and triangles to represent feet.

We can go a step further and modify the body of the stick person to include shoulders, hips, elbows and knees. These parts of the human body are quite complex in real life But here, all we need to do is add a few simple lines and dots to our stick person.

The lines provide some additional structural elements to our stick person's body, which are the shoulders and the hips. The dots indicate the points of articulation - elbows and knees, the places where the arms and legs bend!

Now we can use our stick person to show us an even wider range of human movement, action, and expression.

Our little drawing of a human being is evolving! All it took was adding a few more lines and shapes here and there.

By elongating some of the existing lines and making the head an oval instead of a circle, we can give our stick person proportions that resemble that of a real life human.

By this point, we have managed to add more complexity to our stick person simply by using our ability to draw lines, circles, and other basic shapes!

These basic ideas are the building blocks that will enable us to create more complex shapes.

The next part may be a considerable step up if you are absolutely new to drawing, but I have decided to include it in order to show you how complex objects like the human body can be built from shapes that are a bit more complex than circles and lines.

For example. Two ovals and a rectangle can be combined to create a cylinder.

Six squares can be combined to create a cube, or a box. Here, each square is distorted slightly depending on which way the cube is facing.

Note that the back faces of the cube and the bottom of the cylinder are hidden. These shapes allow us to visualize that which should not normally visible.

A sphere from all perspectives can be represented by a circle. But we can make it more like a sphere by adding lighting and shadow if we so desire.

Cubes, cylinders, and spheres are examples of 'solid shapes' because they consist of 3 dimensions.

Lets see how these solid shapes can be used to compose the human body.

By stacking three cylindrical objects, we can create a torso. Two spheres have been added to form shoulders, while a smaller cylinder forms the neck.

An arm is an alternating sequence of spheres and cylinders connected together. Note that the hand has been simplified for this example.

We can apply these solid shapes to the rest of the body to give us a more recognizable representation of the human form. It doesn't even have to be perfect. And just like that, our stick figure now has a silhouette that is unmistakably a person!

In the above examples, notice that we kept the stick person at the beginning while building up the shapes and solids around it. This is because the stick person serves as a guide for positioning the body and its various parts -> also known as posing.

You can do the same thing to everyday objects! Here, I drew a wine glass by stacking these three dimensional solid shapes.

The cup and its contents are two ovoid shapes that were cut in half. The stem is a very thin cylinder shape. The base is a cylinder with a slightly wider bottom.

Solid shapes help inform us how objects and parts of the human body may appear from different perspectives.

For example, a sphere can be used to demonstrate how the human head appears when looking up or down, turned to the side, or tilted at an angle.

With these examples, I hope I have managed to convinced you that if you can draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can draw a person! You just have to train your eye to recognize the simple shapes within complex objects. Try it with everyday objects as well! Or even your favourite media! A drawing subject can be as simple or as complex as you envision it to be.

Once you have mastered that, there are many aspects of drawing you can explore from here that may require you to seek additional resources or a fellow artist's advice.

Last of all, remember that drawing is an iterative process. Even if you draw something correct the first time, you will need to draw it again and again to get it right all times! And by making small changes like the ones we explored in this tutorial, your drawings will gradually transform!

I hope what I've demonstrated here are enough to provide the basics of how to get started with drawing objects and people, and also to help refresh more experienced artists. :) Hopefully I didn't go too off topic with what was requested, and let me know if there are any more questions I can answer.

Cheers :3