#dont get my hopes up book

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Wait what the fuck do you mean they made a Rainbow Magic Fairy based on King Tampon-

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[galacticlamps]

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

[obsob]

do you make enough money from selling prints in etsy to sustain your life? how are you able to afford this beautiful house and time to crochet and go on walks and all of that? i’m not asking for nosiness but because i’m trying to figure out what i would need to do in order to make my life financially sustainable… is art an option… etc

short answer i mooch off my bf <333333333333333

[matcha-gh0st]

I made inspirational SpongeBob doodles and turned them into a free coloring sheet and individual lineart pngs. Feel free to color them and add on or do whatever! I made a PDF version of both this and a clean version for those without sailor mouths. Thought a bit of escapism right now would be extra needed!

[lightbulb-warning]

so has anyone figured out WHY there is the Need To Share our Artworks™ or is it just the vibes and our Soul apparently

[kevinsdsy]

this lil thing the apple books app does is so sexc to me

[apollokids]

Thoughts about tsats, trauma, and the cocoa puffs

Nico’s personality in tsats feels most reminiscent of what he was like in The Titans Curse which (imo) is a sign that he is slowly healing and living with his trauma.

The Sun and the Star emphasizes that trauma and PTSD can make it feel like one’s past life events happened to a completely different person, and it mentions that Nico relates to this feeling. This distancing of oneself from past memories, experiences, and personality can result in feeling disconnected for a while, taking on new personality traits, feeling like a chameleon mimicking others, or just feeling empty.

For some people (maybe, depending on when trauma occurs), healing can be about reconnecting with our childhood selves. Depending on what someone was like before trauma, like maybe Nico for example, that can mean becoming more emotional, being more playful, indulging in your childhood interests (eg. mythomagic cards). And Nico’s progression practically mirrored mine exactly through the years, and the ways I changed in ED treatment.

It's hard to let go of a disorder when in some cases it feels like the only thing that’s stayed stable in our lives. Suffering is touted as the pinnacle of art-- we see its romanticization everywhere. It sounds weird to say that I miss being sick, or I miss my suffering, when I'm actively trying to make my life better, but those thoughts do come up. And when it comes to characters I project that misery on to? Well, if I’m suffering, then they have to suffer with me! (After all, they’re just characters, it’s not that deep, right?) Except I found that the more I made my characters suffer, and focused on the ‘beauty’ of suffering, the harder it was for me to heal from my own. Whenever my health was in decline, I characterized my favorite characters the same way. It was just as hard to allow those characters to heal as it was to allow myself to heal. (Other people might not feel the same, though.)

I think Nico choosing to accept the physical manifestations of his demons (while also setting them free, and allowing them to exist as they please) mirrors the suggestion I was given in treatment when I struggled with the idea of ‘giving up’ my eating disorder– because to me, it was always either defeat the disorder or be consumed by it, and defeating it sounded like killing a part of me or erasing a part of my past or my home. Approaching treatment from the standpoint of killing my eating disorder scared me too much. I knew my disorder had caused problems for me, but many of the habits and behaviors I’d developed had served as my coping mechanism and they helped me survive. 

So, my therapist told me: “You don’t have to shun your disorder, kill it, or say goodbye. Instead, you can acknowledge that it served a purpose during a point in your life in which you used it to survive, but you no longer need to hold on to it and that’s okay — you’re setting it free. Maybe even instead of saying goodbye, you can say ‘thank you, I’m alright now.’”

And that’s pretty much… exactly what Nico did with the demons. Bob, too, acknowledged that he was a titan, and that was part of his past, and that’s okay — but he’s allowed to change. And Nico is too.

I just found that really really wonderful because I related to it so heavily. He didn’t want to conquer his trauma in battle. He wanted it to just… be acknowledged, and set free. And it followed him, but he can have a better relationship with his past now. He’s not consumed by it. It’s just there, it’s a part of him, and he can continue to live his life. And I think reading this book (while trying to maintain and navigate post-treatment life) was exactly what I needed to remind myself why I’m doing this.

[the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see]

finally caved and started reading all for the game. two chapters into the foxhole court and what kind of gay fucking shit is this! also did not know there were sports in here

[nighty-night-nh]

Should've expected something to go wrong today, it is the ides of March, but I did not expect to spend 8 hours in a power cut. Thanks for that one Ceasar.

In other news, I read the entirety of Alex Rider - Skelton Key today! Great 3rd entry but also wtf do you mean their putting this 14 year old through the Unimaginable Horrors for 11 more books??? He's already had to deal with a nuke in this one??? Hello??? Alan Blunt I'm going to strangle you???

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i only just found your au and i need everyone to have a happy ending so badly im gonna cry ;-; sally is gonna be so freakin upset when she wakes up for real and sees she decimated barnaby.

oh, Barnaby already has his arm stitched back on when she wakes up! and really, even if he didn't, that'd be the Least of her worries. she wakes up into a Real nightmare - partially of her (unintentional) making

[electricpurrs]

in the last two days or so i was able to actually properly take my meds at night, sleep, and wake up fully rested in the morning, had actual filling meals, and i just did those simple exercises in the video i reblogged and they werent super hard or time consuming like daily exercises usually are for me. so now.. im feeling actually pretty optimistic? maybe i can make my life a little healthier. thatd be pretty nice

[puppyeared]

adhd comix

[supurman]

this is here i rp if you guys were wondering.

[sai-haras]

(grabs you by the shoulders) listen. LISTEN. the point of v3's end is not that you get there and ask the question "well was shirogane lying about danganronpa and everything else?" the point is that whichever story was true, it mattered, because fiction can change the world. the game WANTS you to be uncomfortable and uncertain about who was right in the end because the game is ABOUT the complete subjectivity of truth and the failure of neat, linear reality from the word go. it also doesn't automatically mean the ending is "bad" because it leaves itself open to interpretation bcos that's the POINT the fact that you don't know and that you will never know is literally the POINT OF THE WHOLE GAME! this is true for every postmodern story btw

[the-stove-is-divorced]

Day 1483943 of being cursed with Batman brainrot so snippet of young ghoul!Bruce wip, that may or may become a oneshot one day.

Bruce wants to vomit.

His heart, a stupid sluggish thing, which beats far too slow to sink into the bounds of normal, truly begins to pound furiously now, desperately, ready to yank free from the cages of bone and fatty tissues, the too dark blood and pale skin. Bitter bile begs to be released as he trembles, helplessly trying to keep the blood from his mother’s side, where it's staining the ground in spite of his efforts, so terribly warm and worse yet—a horribly sweet.

It actually smells sweet.

Bruce wants to vomit.

His heart, a stupid sluggish thing, which beats far too slow to sink into the bounds of normal, truly begins to pound furiously now, desperately, ready to yank free from the cages of bone and fatty tissues, the too dark blood and pale skin. Bitter bile begs to be released as he trembles, helplessly trying to keep the blood from his mother’s side, where it's staining the ground in spite of his efforts, so terribly warm and worse yet—a horribly sweet.

It actually smells sweet.

Sweet like candies do, soft and delicate like cotton candy, like cakes fresh from the oven, caramels carefully salted, but its blood. His stomach, this stupid body, is panicked and horrible and hungry, because the blood is fresh and warm upon his hands, the scent thick and nearly choking upon his nose, and he’s never wanted to throw up more. His vision blurs, swimming, details cast aside as body deforms into dark, bloody shapes, stiff and still, frozen in horror. 

He knows their hearts cannot beat anymore, the familiar pitter patter like rain against a windowsill, the pleasant hum like the fridge in the kitchens, like the distant buzz of a hive at work, is cut. Finished. Struck and left rot, stagnant. 

And still, in spite of him, in some horrible, awful might of the wretched, this wretched body, the smell is sickeningly sweet, fresh and truthfully, insidiously, delicious. His parents, the bodies, are ripe like fruit, sickeningly fresh, coating the back of his throat with the slow trickle of hunger, the stench of buttery baked goods, a touch of saltiness, an overwhelming soft sweetness, just begging for just a single, tiny, bite. Their bodies fell like the too fat fruit hung from the property’s trees, blood splatter like bruises across their skin from the impact. 

If Bruce closes his eyes, stunning backward and hitting the wall, ignoring the rattling breath and horrible hiccups, he’s been shoved into a shop, goodies and treats to be devoured, the very touch of a perfectly soft, heavy cake desperate for his teeth to sink in and finally chew. 

 As the roar of the sirens grow closer, the red ooze coats his trembling hands like syrup, Bruce’s stomach growls, cruelly, and his mouth, betraying, is filled with drool. 

The wretched stain of hunger paints the memory still. 

———

“Master Bruce? Are you hungry?”

No, he thinks, he won’t be ever again. He scarcely even turned his head, rooted to his parent’s bed and wishing it would just swallow him whole, spare him the mercy of existing, the prickling pain of hunger, the choking memory of blood at the back of his throat, oh so sickeningly sweet. 

The funeral was a blur of tears, muddled blurring tones of weary speeches, cousins he didn’t care for, food he didn’t—couldn’t eat, and others he couldn’t make himself swallow. Again, his stomach squirms in the discomfort of hollowness, to be empty, but Bruce doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to do anything. He tries to sleep, but mockingly, it doesn’t come, exhaustion perched right beside him, filling his limbs with concrete, but blissful unconsciousness avoids him like the plague. 

Alfred lingers by the door. Warm, yellow light spills in from around his looming shadow, but it does nothing to curb his vision, darkness and light nothing but a blur, a matter of taste and not a dive into blindness, because his eyes are different, his body is monstrous, and yet he still survived. Untouched the rain of bullets, the spray by blood.

“Not even a snack?” Alfred tries. He can hear the trying smile.

A short sniff, and the speckle of animal blood lingers in Alfred’s fingers, finely chopped chunks of meat arranged in simple shapes, triangles, circles, barely cooked and raw. Savory, juicy, and bursting with flavor to make saliva pool in his mouth. Disgusting, foul, wretched, that makes him squirm. 

But Bruce just buried his head underneath a pillow that still carries his father’s cologne, and trembles. One day it will fade and Bruce will bath it in bottles of cologne to make it stay. He’ll buy the whole company just for a single, fluffed pillow. 

Alfred steps closer. A specific spot along the floorboards creak, announcing the distance, but Bruce can’t make himself care. He just aches.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to inhale cologne over blood. He tries to ignore how his stomach feels like a knife trying to carve him open, despairingly empty. It hurts. As he sinks into the sensation, clawing and desperate, a gloved hand finds itself in his hair, incredibly gentle, so horribly soothing, undeserved, and he begins to crumble. He is held, gently rocked and whispered meaningless promises, lies of getting better, and they loved you, and I’m sorry’s, but the ache inside him is blooming, swelling, overrides his senses and brings him to tears, clinging onto the touch, starving. 

When he wakes in his parents bed hours later, there is a meal, warm, sitting by the nightstand and a small cup of blood, cool, beside it. His body is a weak thing, shaky and oh so cold. The blankets upon him are thick, suffocatingly warm, windows shut and curtains drawn, but he’s chilled to the bone. His stomach wants.

And it’s right there. 

He brings it to his lips, hands shaking ever so lightly, grabbing bare with his own palms and sees the blood coat it, syrupy. He wants to lick it. He wants to throw up. The body wants to eat. He feels so weak, and his body, this body, it demands and screams and aches. He puts it in his mouth. He wants it to taste like ash and rot, he wants it to taste like chewing molding wood and inhaling dirt, he wants to taste like dirty sewer water, putrid and foul. 

It doesn’t. It’s incredible. 

It’s undeserved.