#breaking the pattern

[nutnoce]

I've been laying down the lines again

[sarsaratihawa]

[lonesomenecromancer]

havent posted anything isat related in a while. have this

[larkiethings]

LET THE CROSS STITCH HIT THE FLOOR

[xtrablak674]

History Repeating

Being our third or fourth video call in like a week, I was aware that we were in a new spot. Albeit the diminished energy was still present, mind you these kids dad had just passed I got a strong intuition that this was their baseline and if this was homeostasis, these kids were depressed. Fourteen to twenty the energy should have been more kinetic but it wasn't it was dulled and I don't think this was just the marijuana.

The most disappointing thing for me was the environment a solid colored room with a single bar light bulb on the ceiling, the kind of lighting I wouldn't even consider yet this was their norm. The few glimpses of the room I could see things were placed in a very incidental way with no clear intention. This was familiar, not to my own upbringings but my being in my father's house particularly the one he shared with my brother's mom.

I had to point out to my Floridian nephew that I had never lived in anyone's ghetto. I think my mom was only making a bit above the poverty level and there were roaches in our house, but they never felt oppressive and ever present. The house was relatively clean having three single digit little boys ripping about and tearing around. There were no random piles of indistinguishable items. A place for everything and everything in its place. My god-grandmother's house was worn but still tidy.

My brother's children were living in squalor as far as I was concerned not that different than what you would find in a developing country. This made my nieces blurted out statement, 'its so orderly there' stand out even more starkly. She had only knew disorder her entire life, even in her younger brother's home it wasn't that different. I turned my camera around showing them one wall of my apartment where my Ms. Pac-Man game is also arranged. I told them it was very surprising to me that they had so many bare walls, not even a taped up poster.

This was eye opening, horrifying, upsetting and depressing to me. I could understand why their energy was so diminished their homes literally reflected their disenfranchised disempowered and diminished existence. And not one adult around them knew any better so here they were in this space that said bare necessities, no dreams, no mood boards, no fantasies, no future. It makes it so much clearer that my nephew felt the need to be high all day, when your life seems so bleak there is no where better to escape then into a cloud of smoke...

Things in my head were clicking a bit more, I was so disappointed in their parents when about fifteen years ago I Trading Spaces their studio apartment from just a bed bureau and TV to a full house of furniture, actual decorative aspects and lighting making the space so much more inviting. In my ignorance I thought I could undo decades of oppression, mental health issue compounded by living in destitute situations that didn't need to be so destitute. I was trying to fight a battle that had long been lost before I even existed.

Black people throughout time have had little, but a common theme amongst those of us who had little is that we care for the little we had. You could go into most of these Black households and not find an ounce of dirt. Furniture and clothes may have been worn and thread-bare, but were always clean! That wasn't the case in my nieces and nephews grandmother's house. She had been mentally checked out for decades and basic things like keeping a clean house had passed along the wayside a long time ago.

I had witnessed this personally as a child when I would sit up on the bed in the living room and hear the mice scurrying about on the floor after the sun set. Their grandmother at the time, my father's girlfriend didn't seem in the least bit upset or disturbed by what kind of filth the house must contain to have not only roaches but rodents all throughout the house. I remember even as a child being disgusted by the extreme poverty, blackened floors, holes in ceilings and walls and a general sense of filthiness.

In my own apartment in Peekskill the refrigerator was usually a space free from any pest. But in my dad's fridge bugs were in everything, the butter, milk, juice, fruits and you were probably eating them in the breakfast cereal. As much as I enjoyed spending time with my father, I didn't enjoy having my food tainted with the dead or partially living bodies of pest. This was disgusting!

But you live in squalor long enough this becomes the default. Normally I show off my apartment to those around me, and found myself deliberately holding back sharing the entire thing with these kids. I felt like it would have been inappropriate showing them how well I was living while they lived in squalor, sheet-less beds, dirty floors, bare walls, rooms lit by a single bulb, piles of clothing and random items with no rhyme or reason. It bought me so much cognitive dissonance and such sadness that I wanted so much more for these children still, and how much the adults in their lives had failed them. I am sure they were doing the best they could, but these kids deserved so much better than what they were getting...

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[otaku553]

Save me yi nine sols

(You should play nine sols it’s very very fun)

[taigarrryen]

Jimmy Solidarity is a man of mystery to me. The more I learn about him the more it's the case. He's not a nerd, he's very much into sports, yet he studied graphic design and plays games for a living. He could've been a football player if not for youtube. He had worked with kids. It kinda shows. He's musical and artistic, has a nice singing voice. He's both the cool kid and the butt of every joke. He is the personification of an energizer battery but, like, so chill. Wha.. Wh.. Huh??

[chitinleg]

got him off-balance!

[vickyyrose]

finaly gave in to watching breaking bad currently on season 2 anyways got inspired to draw this loser so here u go.

[corvus-frugilegus]

Illario's grab for power is so emotionally complicated I can't stop thinking about it.

Like there's the favouritism and the loneliness and the need for love and connection that I think the title has come to represent. Because favour is maybe as close as the Dellamortes come to talking about love.

(Love is still there, it's fucked up and twisted in a lot of ways but it's there. It's hard for any of the Dellamortes to acknowledge this. But they're family and that means something to all three of them. Family is important to them).

But also for so much of his life Illario hasn't had very much power or agency either. He doesn't get to make big decisions for himself much like Lucanis, he doesn't have a lot of influence on the trajectory of his life because of Caterina's influence. Lucanis is the favourite. In that family dynamic Illario probably has the least power of the three of them.

So taking the reins of his own life and cutting that deal with Zara? The cost of losing Lucanis breaks his heart, but for the first time he's the one deciding the terms in which he lives his life in a big and meaningful way. It's not just small rebellions. It's reaching for what he wants and for once in his life feeling like he's the one in control. He's the one with the power.

And honestly? I can't fault him for wanting that. For not wanting to feel like he's at the bottom of the Dellamorte barrel anymore. For wanting his life to mean something, if only to himself. He isn't wrong to reach for power. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change the imbalance he's lived in.

It's the hubris of it that sets him up to fall into Elgar'nan's hands. Lucanis is back. But Illario can't go back. Illario can't give up what he's sacrificed so much for. Can't go back to being Dellamorte the lesser with no say in his own future. So, of course he doubles down, kidnaps Caterina, and makes a deal with Elgar'nan- the way he sees it he's backed into a corner and has no one but himself. And at this point in the story he's not wrong. He has no idea what Lucanis has become (Other than not dead! Which was the plan!)

It's interesting to me how what I think is Illario's own desire to live on his own terms is... In a very horrible way the thing that ultimately leads to Lucanis also beginning to ask what it means to live on his own terms too.

Having Lucanis killed was heartbreaking and terrible. But it's also the very thing that breaks the cycle the three Dellamortes are living in. Illario is the one who, in a way, decides that what the three of them are doing is unacceptable and starts them on a new path for the first time in roughly 30 years.

Illario having the ambition to reach for what he wants, is what sets both cousins free from a long-standing cycle of abuse. It's just also a profoundly twisted and cruel process.

[xxthunderthedragonxx]

the orange idiots have gone to the pool (no nsfw interactions on this post pleach)

also gonna edit this post rq because it got more notes than i thought: hazel (squirrel, left) uses she/her and rory (angel fox, right) uses he/him !

[musubiki]

danmarch 🐉💎

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

TRENT CRIMM INTRODUCING HIMSELF (AGAIN) WHEN TED CALLS ON HIM (AGAIN)

↳ bonus: he still introduces himself when sam calls on him

[muirneach]

the sunset star quilt 🌟🌄💛 pattern by me, both machine and hand pieced, and machine quilted.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

hey. hey. you there. religious jew who wants to do so well because you truly do love g-d and you see His presence everywhere and you have faith in Him and He gives you everything. yes, you. if you're not a religious jew you can read this too this just isn't geared towards you.

ok now that i have your attention read this: g-d knows you. He made your body and your soul and He understands it fully. there's gonna be some times where you can't commit to something, where you can't fulfill that mitzvah. maybe you've got an amazing new job that will pay the rent and the bills youve been struggling with for months but you need to work shabbat. maybe you cant say prayers or blessings in public bc you dont feel safe to speak hebrew outside of your own home. maybe you struggle to keep up a routine and have a hard time with daily mitzvot. whatever it is i promise Hashem does not hate you and does not see you as a failure.

i definitely understand being a perfectionist and wanting to go all out. to show that you are fully devoted and that you appreciate Him at every point in your life. also lets be real sometimes you just wanna prove to yourself that you can do all these little things and that you have the discipline to do it. or you wanna impress someone else you admire. that's completely normal and those emotions are part of what makes us human (however those can be signs of underlying mental health issues so pls talk to someone if you need!). anyway, Hashem doesnt mind that we can't do it all all the time. sometimes we can't do it all ever. He knows that something is always better than nothing. we were given the gift of life, of food, of being jewish, of the torah, of everything else by g-d and we can express our gratefulness for that in so many ways and they are all important.

g-d is not that shitty teacher you had in middle school who judged you in front of the class every time your essay wasnt an A+. He created everything and gave us the joy of life and is here to guide us through us. He made us human with all of our possible emotions because that is what we are meant to be. we are meant to be flawed and without that we wouldnt even be people anymore. you're gonna have shitty days, weeks, months, even years and He understands that and even if you can only do tiny things it still matters.

[copypastus]

So that hofas bonus Ember chapter huh.

I wish Tamlin and Nesta built a casual friendship.

It's such a missed opportunity! They were both assigned penance eternal by the IC over their relationships with Feyre with no road to redemption. In acosf they were both on a shame spiral. You'd think this would be a like calls to like moment! Opportunity to recognise that just coz Rhys's friends hate you doesn't make you a bad person!