#but they take care of you and give you food

[maskedbyghost]

where you left me (part 2)

part 1

You don’t sleep that night.

The bed feels wrong as you lie flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, while his voice keeps echoing in your head.

Being with you was a mistake.

You know he’s lying. You know it. You saw the way he froze when you said his name. Still, it doesn’t stop the hurt. You can’t shake the hollow ache in your chest.

By morning, you don’t bother pretending to sleep anymore. You get up early, earlier than you need to, and go through the motions. Shower. Uniform. Boots laced tight. No one says anything when you sit quietly in the mess with untouched food. Soap gives you a nod but doesn’t push. Gaz tries to get you to take his coffee again, like clockwork. This time, you hold it in both hands and keep it close to your chest even though you still don’t drink it.

You keep busy with training, cleaning, or running laps. You volunteer for everything, take the worst shifts, anything that keeps you moving. Anything that keeps you from thinking.

But no matter what you do, he’s still everywhere.

You catch him in the reflection of a window once, his mask back on, and for a second, you forget how to breathe. It’s cruel how easily your body still reacts to him. Like it doesn’t care what your mind knows. Like it’s still waiting for him.

The first few days, you waited. You told yourself he just needed space. That he’d come back when he’d thought things through. You even left your phone on loud, in case he texted or called in the middle of the night. He never did.

After a week, you stopped checking your phone as much. After two, you started leaving it in another room so you wouldn’t obsess every time a notification popped up. After a month, you stopped bringing him up in conversations. Not because you were over it, but because it hurt too much to explain something you didn’t even understand.

You tried to move on. You really did. You started sleeping on both sides of the bed. Started deleting pictures slowly, one by one, until your phone felt less like a trap and more like yours again. You even stopped wearing his hoodie when you were alone.

And then, on a completely normal Tuesday, someone asked you out.

He wasn’t special. Just some guy you knew from a mutual friend. He was decent looking, funny enough. And when he asked if you wanted to grab a drink sometime, you didn’t hesitate. You said yes. It felt easy. Light. Like maybe you really could move on.

Until Simon fucking Riley somehow overheard.

You didn’t even know he was there. But a few hours later, your phone buzzed, and you saw his name pop up for the first time in weeks.

Simon: If you go out with him I’ll kill him.

You stared at the message. Read it twice, three times, because there was no way he just said that.

You: Fuck you, Simon. We broke up, and I can do whatever the fuck I want.

Simon: Come tonight. Need to talk. Somewhere private.

You didn’t answer right away. You stared at the screen for a long time, your stomach twisting. You told yourself you should ignore it. That if he wanted to talk, he should’ve done it a long time ago. But you knew you were going.

Even as you typed out “ok” and threw your phone on the bed with a groan, you were already halfway through planning what you were going to say. What you were going to scream, really. You were going to punch his stupid, beautiful face the second you saw him.

You met him at his place. You hadn’t been there since the breakup, but everything was still the same. Same lights. Same scent. Same fucking shoes by the door that made your chest hurt.

He opened the door before you even knocked, like a dog waiting at the window. If you weren’t so mad, you’d laugh, but instead, you stared him down.

"You look pissed," he said.

"I'm not here to fucking smile at you," you shot back, walking past him.

"Fair enough."

You turned to face him, arms crossed. "Well? You dragged me here to say something, so say it."

He looked at you for a long second. Then, "I don’t want you dating other people."

You blinked, then laughed. "Wow. That’s rich. You broke up with me, and now you get jealous the second someone else looks at me? That’s really fucking mature, Simon."

He didn’t say anything.

"What the fuck do you even want from me?" you snapped. "You didn’t want to be with me, but I can’t be with anyone else either? What is that?"

He muttered something under his breath.

"What?"

He glanced away, jaw tight. "I said, preferably, I want to keep you in a fucking glass cage."

There was a beat of silence. Long enough for you to blink, tilt your head, and reconsider every life choice that had brought you to this exact moment. Because he hadn’t just said that. He couldn’t have.

You narrowed your eyes. "Hello, Joe from You? Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Simon sighed. "I'm not joking. I can't fucking bear to lose you again."

You scoffed, stepping back. "Right. That’s why you broke up with me. Because it was too good, huh?"

"I was scared. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault."

"No, it wasn’t. But you made it mine anyway. You made me think I fucked something up. You made me sit with that for months."

He took a step closer. "I could’ve done more. I should’ve done more. I didn’t know how to handle what I felt for you, and I’m sorry."

"You should be," you said, voice quieter now, angrier in a different way. "Because I was all in. And you walked away."

Simon nodded slowly. "I know. And it kills me. You think I didn’t want to call you? You think I didn’t stare at my phone every night thinking about it? I didn’t think I deserved you. But now… I don’t care. I’ll be selfish. I want you back. I want you with me. Not him. Not anyone else. Me."

You stared at him for a moment. Everything about him made your chest ache. Your fists clenched. "You don’t get to do this unless you mean it."

"I mean it. All of it. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll do it. Just… don’t shut the door on me. Not yet."

Your voice was shaking now, but you didn’t look away. "I want to hit you."

"Go ahead."

"I want to scream at you for making me feel disposable."

"You weren’t. You aren’t. You never will be."

You paused, eyes burning. "You better fucking grovel. I'm not making this easy."

"Wouldn’t expect anything less."

You finally let out a shaky breath. Your shoulders dropped just a little, and your voice was low when you said, "I’m not dating him."

"Good. Because I was serious. I would’ve killed him."

"You're an idiot."

"But I'm your idiot. If you'll have me."

You didn’t say anything, just stared at him, still trying to decide if you wanted to punch him or kiss him. Maybe both.

Simon stepped closer, his eyes softening a little. Without a word, he reached up and gently brushed a stray hair behind your ear. Then, before you could react, his lips touched yours, and you didn’t pull away. Instead, you let yourself lean in, closing the space between you.

When you finally broke apart, he smiled, a little shy now. “Still want to punch me?”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t stop the small smile creeping up. “Maybe just a little.”

----------------------------------------------

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212 @farylfordaryl @rafaelacallinybbay @akkahelenaa @lovelovelovelovelove987654321 @wraith-bravo6 @tessakate @xocandyy @nightfwn @robinfeldt98 @xiisblogs @mad-die45 @readingthingy @actualpoppy @amongthe141 @whore4romance @thatghostlykid @syofrelief @avgdestitute @sheepdogchick3 @echo9821 @imalapdog @foxintheferns @trulovekay @preeyas-world

[potatoplace]

Rewatching some older wendigoon videos tonight and had a thought-

Backrooms x acotar

Reader falls through into the backrooms and is stalked for days by the entities, and is caught once she is weakened enough by the atmosphere of the backrooms.

It's Rhys and Feyre

She's their wifey now

Yes pls

Maybe becomes the group wifey with Cassian and Azriel too

Idk my brain is rotted today, I can come up with ideas but not string a sentence together for actual writing 😫

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[prazardous]

if you. are making a video. you're sitting down to talk to the camera and make a video. shortform video. vertical video. less than a minute. tiktok instagram reel whatever. i have full confidence that you do not fucking need to eat right now. do not start your sentence and then shove an apple slice in your face two words in and keep talking through your apple slice. you're making yourself look so obnoxious and hateable. really truly i know you can put the apple slices to one side for the amount of time it takes to get your sentence out. i believe in you. why don't you believe in yourself

[mariatesstruther]

okay but a version of events in which tommy takes ellie to the fireflies, but NEITHER of them come back. and maria joel have to work together to get them back

[jamiebluewind]

Today has been one of those "Sorry! I couldn't hear you over the texture of my socks" days.

[naamahdarling]

Augh

[caliginous-is-confused]

My gaming routine rn:

Pathologic 2

Ff14 for when I need dopamine because there is none to be found in the steppe bc I have a gaggle of children who all wanna run head first into the plague to help.

[snatcher-no-snatching]

I am curious. Do you think that regular Bob would be similar about the whole "have you eaten yet" thing, except meat flavor?

honestly yeah! I think Bob (both of them) is the kind of guy to put a lot of value in food, and making sure someone is well fed is one of his primary ways of showing care.

Bob Prime ofc tends to offer up meat dishes most of the time. within a month of knowing him you'll have eaten more burgers than you ever had in your life previously

[sphacelating]

As someone who loves Andrew as a character and doesn’t hate on Ashley and recognize both of their flaws unlike most people, I feel like the fandom coddles and sympathizes Andrew even more after Chapter 3 because of his backstory.

Ashley’s behavior is largely a result of her parents’ neglect and lack of effort in raising her. They never made her go to therapy or address her issues, instead enabling her behavior and shifting the blame onto her brother. She never had birthdays celebrated, and her fake friends only used her to get closer to Andy. As a result, no one really supports her, and she never learned how to behave in a healthy way. So, it makes sense why she’d become so dependent on Andy when he’s the only one who’s actually tried to care for her and make her happy.

What people often overlook is that Ashley grew up in the same toxic, abusive environment as Andrew, but instead of being labeled as “evil” or “manipulative,” she’s simply a product of the neglect and lack of guidance she experienced. She craves unconditional love, doesn’t understand relationships, and wears her emotions on her sleeve. Meanwhile, Andrew sees through it, lets her behavior slide, and ends up blaming her for his own actions.

There’s a lot of sympathy for Andrew, to the point where people overlook some of his less admirable qualities—like how he treats Ashley, Julia, Nina, and others. But when it comes to Ashley, she’s dismissed just because her personality is harder for people to like. She grew up in the same neglectful and abusive environment as Andrew, but their personalities turned out differently because she was completely neglected, while Andrew was suppressed. This explains why Ashley tends to act out and demand attention, while Andrew keeps things bottled up. Yet people forget this, and only see Ashley as a product of the same toxic environment that worsened Andrew, without considering that there was nothing in that environment that could’ve helped her improve. She doesn’t know how to initiate positive, prosocial behavior because she wasn’t taught how to.

In many ways, Andrew’s behavior is just as problematic—he rarely does anything genuinely prosocial and sometimes behaves horribly toward people who care about him, like Julia. But because he’s more inward in his attitude and has a more fleshed-out backstory, people tend to accept him more easily. Ashley, on the other hand, hasn’t been given the same explanation or “justification” for her actions.

Ashley is clearly wrong for abusing and raping Andrew, and it's understandable that people sympathize with him because of it. However, let’s not pretend Andrew is some “innocent” person. He’s spied on his sister while she was changing, emotionally manipulated others, used Julia to vent his sexual frustrations about Ashley, cared more about the consequences of his actions than the lives he took, faked nightmares to sleep next to his sister, and continues to engage in inappropriate touching or flirting with her.

In the Shots and Such ending, Andrew wanted Ashley to get drunk with him so they could have "accidental" sex, and he ended up assaulting her while she was intoxicated, trying to repeat what he considered the best sex he ever had. In the Cliffhanger ending, it is implied that Andrew intended to assault his imaginary sister.

In the story, Andrew makes many sexual comments to Ashley but later takes back his consent. Despite this, Ashley continues to press him, which leads to the conclusion that this is rape.

Then Andrew has sex with a wasted Ashley. When she finds out, she has a breakdown. Andrew argues that she "wanted it," suggesting it wasn't rape?

Andrew violently beats Ashley and then becomes drunk. Ashley forces him to have sex with her. Later, Andrew admits he likes to get Ashley drunk to have sex with her and has been trying to recreate it over and over again.

Both individuals are terrible, but it frustrates me that Andrew is not held accountable for anything.

Ashley and Andrew both have difficult personalities shaped by their neglectful upbringing. Ashley seeks attention and is often criticized for her behavior, while Andrew is more reserved and people overlook his flaws. The key point is that both are shaped by their environment and should not be labeled as simply a "monster" or a "victim. "

If you feel sympathy for one sibling, you should show the same sympathy to the other. Similarly, if you dislike one sibling, you should also have the same feelings toward the other.

i don’t know what world you live in where people are sympathizing with andrew after decay and refusing to hold him accountable, nor why you’re dropping all these paragraphs in my inbox to tell me how much andrew sucks and ashley should be coddled more like i’m one of those people.

not a fan of anything you said on the topic of rape, either. mentioning it in passing only to bring up examples of andrew disregarding ashley’s lack of genuine consent after he was raped by ashley and she forced him into a sexual relationship as if to show that andrew is a worse rapist, even comparing his deeply repressed thoughts in cliffhanger to the act of rape by claiming thoughts = intent to act, all of that strongly comes off as trying to justify what was done to him and i am not here for it.

and making sexual comments does not in any way equal consent to sex, so andrew didn’t withdraw consent that he’s never given when ashley raped him. you’re definitely in “andrew wanted it so the rape wasn’t that bad” territory here and it’s extremely uncomfortable.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

i think the most annoying part of dog food discourse is how many people will act as though proplan/hill’s/Royal canin diets aren’t extremely and prohibitively expensive and that THAT is the reason so many people look into healthy alternatives.

People complain about corn being in the first five ingredients on most of those feeds because, regardless of other factors here, that is not an expensive ingredient. But it makes up a large chunk of the dry food. So the dry food should be fairly affordable, right?

Oh… with tax you’re spending about $100 for one 45lb bag of food where the third ingredient is wheat and the fourth and fifth ingredients are corn.

Oh… well! It’s slightly cheaper! But the second ingredient is rice, third is wheat, fourth is corn, and then fifth is poultry byproduct. None of those are very expensive so this just must be the low end cost of dog food unfortunately. The vets recommend it so surely that means prices aren’t inflated, right?

Oh? This one has similar ingredients with the only real difference being no corn? And it’s half the price?? Well surely that’s just a fluke.

Oh. Oh no.

This one even has CORN in it and it’s $20 cheaper?? Wow!

Like listen at some point I don’t care if your dog food has the ichor of the gods in it, I’m not spending $100 every five days if there are cheaper options with just as many “good” ingredients in it. If you think I’m a dog abuser because I can’t afford this overpriced garbage, that’s too bad. I don’t care. My dogs are perfectly healthy with the food I give them. Great weight and great coat. People giving dog food recommendations that aren’t those top three hyper-expensive dog foods aren’t trying to epic own those dastardly vets half the time, but I really don’t blame the ones who do lose trust in vets when the only heartworm protection they recommend lately are expensive triple-action brands like Simparica Trio that costs $120+ as opposed to the other heartworm protections that are only about $40-$60 on average, which is still cheaper even if you add on a $20-$40 flea and tick protection separately, and only recommend dog food that costs $85+ a bag even if your dog doesn’t have specialized dietary needs.

Those top three foods are GREAT at making competent prescription diets, I don’t deny that. I do still have to criticize the pricing of those prescription diets though because I have spoken to DOZENS of people who had to pull their pets off of a prescription diet and struggle to find something comparable because they couldn’t afford the food, and that’s terrible! These are not poor companies! Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill’s can ABSOLUTELY afford to lower their prices to make their food accessible to people who need it for their animals but they don’t. They probably never will. Because at the core they are run by greedy corporations. It doesn’t matter how many good nutritionists are on board if the company is run by people who put profits over customers and make the food impossible for people to afford.

[roseofcards90]

God I am fucking sick of this

[safety-pin-punk]

yall Im so fucking tired. This month has been exhausting. I promise Im alive, just barely functional atm.

[ookaookaooka]

i just spent ages looking for the post, i swear i posted about it when i broke my beloved fish plate like a year ago, but now he's finally back together! i just have to wait a week or so for the resin to cure , and then i can go in and wipe away the excess gold. even though the process was frustrating and VERY time-consuming and i lost motivation halfway through and let it sit on the shelf unfinished for like 14 months, i'm glad i went to the trouble of learning how to actually kintsugi it with resin and gold instead of rushing it with epoxy and mica powder.

the before pics (freshly broken and after the initial gluing):

[mars-ipan]

some postgame doodles for pride month