#going through a lot rn

[alexjcrowley]

Sometimes I am okay and then I remember I genuinely related to the I hate most people monologue of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood

[malicedragoness]

….had to take out a loan in order to survive. I’m behind on so many bills from being sick last month.

[sparkbugs]

I think the last time I talked with my sister, I had given her a Hello Kitty build-a-bear I got her for her 17th birthday. I knew it wasn’t much, but she loved Sanrio characters, Hello Kitty mainly, and as soon as we got it in stock I thought of her. “This’ll make her smile.” I had thought as I bought it that day I was working, “this will give her a moment of happiness that she so desperately needs.”

She turned 17 on the 7th of July. While she was still a teen, her eyes held pain way beyond her years. I gave her the gift when she came to visit our aunt, gave her the biggest hug, said “I love you.” And she was gone.

I think that’s the last time I talked with her. She had texted me, asking if stuff came in the mail for her, but I had been sick so I didn’t respond as I didn’t check the mail stupid of me not to respond, I could’ve told her I loved her earlier and maybe it would’ve changed something. Probably not though, her mind was already made up.

She had written notes on Saturday. To her mother and this man who was “the best person in her life”, who she was staying with because her own mom would whore her out for drugs and alcohol, and then kick her out once she’s had her fill. The one to her mother, telling her that she loved her, even though she was never good enough to deserve love back. The one to the man, saying thanks for everything he did for her, allowing her to have a place to rest her head and to be taken care of.

They found her, two days later, after a missing persons report was closed because she “wasn’t in that location” and they stopped looking. They found her, two days later, after my aunt had called them, begging them to find her baby. They found her, two days later, face down in the marsh. Hand full of fentanyl, untouched.

She was 17, so young, but so hurt by the one she wanted the love and approval from most, that she felt she had to end her life.

I hold a lot of guilt as an older sibling, I feel as if I could have done something, anything, to prevent this. However, I also know that someone who doesn’t want help can’t be helped, though I did my best to provide her with as much love and support possible. I was just a kid when all of this started, I tried to say something, yet my voice wasn’t heard. It didn’t help that she lived two cities away, and I only ever saw her when my mom felt like driving over. “We don’t deal with goes on in that house” she had said once. Selfish of her, letting a child go through the abuse alone like that, knowing we could’ve helped. My sister didn’t want to come live with us, though. And since she was old enough to make that decision, we couldn’t force her to. Not that I would want to force her to do anything, I just wanted her to be safe and to know she had support, but. She didn’t want that with us. She wanted to stay with my aunt, and her alone, but with her being disabled and in need of a caretaker (the wait list being way too long-), she’d have to stay with the three of us, which wasn’t an option in her mind. (Which fair, my mother isn’t the best either, but is in no way, shape, or form like hers.)

It’s funny, how I had a therapy appointment this morning. I told my therapist about everything going on. How we couldn’t contact my sister. How I was worried she was already dead in a ditch somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s funny how she had told me “call me if things change and you need to talk” and I told her I would, yet scheduled our next appointment 3 weeks out. I don’t have any plans on calling her back and telling her now that it’s happened that we need to talk, as I still haven’t fully processed this information. As I still haven’t really cried over it all, about how my baby sister is dead.

I’ve only told one other person that she’s died, besides my family. My friends don’t know, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell them or how. It’s one of my friends birthdays today too, so I feel like that could probably dampen the mood. I’ve said that I’m going through a lot but I’m not ready to talk about it yet, and I don’t know how I would even talk about it. How do you talk about that? How do you bring up that your kid sister killed herself? That’s not necessarily a good conversation starter-

She had been diagnosed with a few things but refused to take medication for it. I totally understand that, when I was first diagnosed with my depression I didn’t want to take any form of medication. It made it more real and I despised that thought. I think she also felt that way, which is why she didn’t start any meds. She also refused therapy, she was recommended it by multiple people (I believe from outpatient and from rehab facilities), but I think that everything she was going through and she had went through was too much to talk about. I don’t blame her for not wanting to talk about it, from the things I heard it made me want to curl up into a hole and disappear from the world too.

I’m glad she’s at peace now, though. Despite it all. She deserved nothing but the best, and the world gave her the worst it had. She was a good kid, kind and wanted to make people smile. I’ve missed her for a month, and now I’ll miss her forever.

Love you, kid. Give uncle a big hug for me <3

[tevintersnakes]

back in the fallout pit, fortunately my art has improved since 2016 so I can draw doctors hanging out together somewhat effectively now

[valoale]

I needed to remind myself that this is a drarry blog

[oooocleo]

working on this months postcard… maybe the greyscale>colour girlies are onto something

patreon

[isobug]

I went on a HUGE wiki archival spree for the past 10 hours and I found two of my personal holy grail "lost flag media posts" and I feel like I just have to share these because IM SO EXCITED !!

Here are the original posts for these flags! The first one and the second one.

To my surprise these are NOT transfem / transmasc general flags. These are actually Trans girl / Trans guy flags! Both were made by the same anonymous user and submitted to pride-flags-for-us / pride-flags on the same date ( you can see this via Wayback Machine )

The meanings are also pretty close to what everyone assumed they were, with the outerstripe referencing assignment / assumption at birth and the inside stripes representing true identity. it's pretty cool to know their anniversary / birthday though! ( April 23rd, 2015 )

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

if you struggle with mental health, one piece of advice i would genuinely give you is learn to knit.

or crochet: something repetitive to do with your hands, assuming you're capable of it. if you're like me and learnt to knit as a kid but let it lie fallow for a long time, it may be that starting a large, simple project (for me it was a cloak, but a blanket could work too) gets you back into it. or maybe doing something smaller, idk. i personally found socks really hard for a while because they felt smaller than my cloak but weren't getting Done quick enough for me. as i've sped up i find it more interesting to knit socks.

regardless, a repetitive task is great for emotional regulation (also see: autistic stimming), and something that you can look at and go hey i've done something, unlike simply using a fidget toy, can also help to pick your mood up when the brain is being cruel.

it's also useful as a conversation starter or distracter if you don't know what to talk about. if you're wanting to talk to older people also you're more likely to reel them in with knitting (i work better with older people, and 99% of people who ask what i'm knitting are older than me). it also gives you the opportunity to not make eye contact because you're busy knitting, even if you're still carrying on a conversation. if you're absolutely stuck for conversation you can count your stitches and people might stop bothering you.

if you have trouble focusing without doing something with your hands, you can knit! i knit a lot in church, and it helps me to focus on what's being said.

i probably have more reasons you should pick up knitting, but i can't recall them right now, so yeah.

[andhumanslovedstories]

In what I think was 2006, I was interested in writing fanfiction, but wasn’t sure how to do it, so I found web pages with essays explaining how and I printed them out for study.

[t-hirstreview]

[casavanse]

Israel was never a country, die mad about it

... I have some bad news for yall

What, just this? No reasoning, no not-antisemitic-at-all link to some untrusted source? That's the best you can do? Come on. At least try a little harder next time.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: risk taking behavior / circumstantial self harm kinda / ignoring of injuries / self-depreciation / slight ooc-ness but for a reason! / ]

Post invasion, Leo is fine.

More than fine! He’s better than before, even. That is, if you don’t count the slightly cracked shell and still healing bones, but those are only a problem when the weather wants them to be!

Leo really is better in the ways that matter.

He’s not as cocky, not as self-centered, and overall just more heroic in general if he does say so himself.

Raph even said he was proud of Leo!

So obviously things are going well.

But.

It’s not enough.

Leo’s better, sure, but he’s still got work to do.

So - and here’s something that will probably make his brothers faint on the spot - he needs to train.

_____

His brothers do not faint, but it’s a near thing for Raph. Mikey has to fan the snapper’s face and Donnie almost brings out the smelling salts before Raph shoots back to his feet with an excited grin.

Leo’s big brother gets teary eyed soon after and envelops him in a bear hug, saying once again how proud he is that Leo is growing up.

Leo lets himself be hugged, even hugs back as fiercely as he can, because unbeknownst to Raph, this marks the end of Leo’s childhood.

He lets himself be hugged like a kid one last time, looking through the hole in Raph’s shell all the while.

_____

Leo only trains the regular way with his brothers and occasionally April and the Caseys, but most especially Raph.

But of course that’s not enough, it was never going to be.

So he goes through the motions of the stretches, the spars, the meditation, and then he leaves.

He makes sure to have his excuses ready, usually defaulting to Hueso as his go to since his brothers are easily bought off with the promise of pizza. Leo hasn’t yet found the tracker Donnie installed in him, but when he does that’ll be dealt with too! But for now, this should be good.

See, the invasion made him realize something.

It’s not about him, but it was his shortcomings that led to everything going to hell.

So he just…needs to get rid of those shortcomings.

He’s working on it, gaining fighting skill in training, but there’s more he needs to do, more skills he needs to train.

Leo watches intently as Repo Mantis swindles someone, he memorizes the sleight of hand that Hypno performs, he sneaks back into the Mystic Library and is so quiet the hush bats forget he’s there, he talks Big Mama into honing his manipulation, and he even sneaks into human hospitals and reptile veterinary clinics to get a clue on more serious injuries.

And after any of these, he heads to Run of the Mill to compete in the Maze of Death.

_____

This is his twelfth time going through the (newly remodeled and even more deadly) Maze of Death, and would be his fifth time winning. The first three times had him waking up in Hueso’s office, and each time he wakes his old persona shines through.

He always waves off Hueso’s annoyance and questions and insists on trying again next time before he steals some pizza and bails.

The skeleton actively tries to stop him from entering the Maze after the first time, but hey- mystics are allowed before you enter.

It’s easy enough to teleport on by.

Harder to meet Hueso’s - and later his brothers’ - eyes when he fails again.

When he first actually won, Hueso congratulates him in that typical deadpan tone of his.

“Ah, felicidades, Pepino. Now you can move on, sí?”

“Hm? Nah, boneman! That run was sloppy!”

And then Leo runs off before Hueso can stop him.

He doesn’t even look at his picture on the champion wall when he next comes around. It’s not much to look at anyway.

_____

His second win is much like the first, and only his third win is actually acceptable.

But he knows the field too much now. He needs a challenge.

When he attempts to go through it blindfolded, he’s quickly shown how much he doesn’t know the Maze. So, obviously, he loses again.

He got a bit more banged up that time around.

“Pepino, basta ya, you’ve already won. Where are your brothers?”

“I can’t stop yet, señor! This is for my brothers - no les digas, please.”

Even if Hueso wanted to tell Leo’s brothers, they haven’t been in enough for him to get to, and it’s not like Hueso has their number since Leo’s the one Hueso usually contacts. For now, Leo’s safe to continue as is.

Though his injuries are getting harder to hide, and there’s only so much his shell in particular can take.

So to speed things up, he incorporates the blindfold into his regular training.

His brothers question it, of course, but hey, he initially got the idea from seeing Lou Jitsu do it in the third best Lou Jitsu movie, so it comes as a great excuse now.

He’s only a little put off by how fast Mikey adapts to it when the others try.

“I dunno-“ Mikey shrugs when asked, “You guys shine so brightly anyway, a mask doesn’t do much.”

Seeing their mystic energies is pretty cool, Leo can admit.

He just wishes he could grasp that himself - and that it was useful for a death maze.

_____

Leo’s training pulls off eventually, and soon, after a few more losses, he wins a forth time. But it’s a near loss, and a near loss is the difference between someone living and dying.

He’s gotta go again.

Hueso’s more insistent than ever, though.

“You must stop, Pepino.”

“But I can do better-“

“You don’t have to! Your shell is bleeding - ¡por tu propio bien, poner fin a esto!”

“I told you, this is for their own good! For everyone’s own good!”

He forgets the pizzas when he leaves. He claims sickness when he hides under his covers.

He ignores how childish the act makes him feel.

_____

Leo’s getting better, and his reflexes and tact in training shows this. His other training of his subterfuge and medical skills also prove to be useful.

He’s pretty good at hiding injuries, now! Though not so good at hiding a pained shell. Even Donnie looks at him with blatant concern (and understanding) when Leo can’t help but take a sharp breath whenever he lands on his back.

It’s hard not to go right back into waving everything off with jokes like he used to. Deflections are easier when they’re annoying!

But- this is just another reason that he needs to get better, right? So his brothers won’t worry. He doesn’t need the spotlight anymore - he’s over that, thanks.

He squashes down the part of him that perks up when Splinter says he’s growing up. He actively kills the part of himself that cries at the same phrase.

_____

So. Yeah. This’ll be his twelfth time running the Maze. And, hopefully, his fifth win. Maybe he really will move on after this.

The Hidden City is pretty big! There’s probably a bigger challenge somewhere.

Maybe Big Mama has a more secret Nexus hidden away, out of the public eye.

Well, whatever. That’s a future problem for him to figure out, yeah? For now, he carries on like usual, teleporting to the entrance of the Maze and diving right in.

Even blindfolded, he works his way through, dodging and weaving and feeling as he goes. He even tries to evoke his inner Mikey and calls on his mystic energy. Not enough to cheat, but enough to feel.

Usually, when Leo teleports, he swears he feels every part of himself disperse into particles. Now, with energy thrumming under his scales, he can feel particles everywhere.

It’s not refined enough to tell him everything, and he gets a fun new burn and a nice whack to the back by getting distracted. Still, it gives him more than he had before. It makes him more aware of everything, like he licked a finger and held it in the air to feel the direction of wind, but every direction blew wind, all in different ways.

He makes it to the end with minimal injuries after that, and sure, his shell is screaming at him now, but he thinks he did a shell of a good job.

…Ah, he needs to cut that out, huh? Man. Maybe Donnie’s collar idea was a good call after all.

Leo needs to be a hero. Not a face man. Not a failure.

Not a kid.

_____

Leo doesn’t smile when the Minotaur takes his picture again for the champion wall, and he doesn’t listen when she tells him to “go home and never come back.”

He doesn’t plan to, anyway, yeesh.

He’s tired as he trudges out of the exit, and Hueso catches him when he stumbles.

Hueso doesn’t say anything. Leo doesn’t either.

Or, he doesn’t, until he feels a familiar large hand helping him up as well.

Leo’s face whips up as he flinches back, eyes wide as they meet with a worried (so, so worried) Raph’s.

“You told them?” Leo asks Hueso in betrayal, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

“Pepino…”

“Told us what?” Mikey pipes up from behind Raph, coming closer to get a better look at Leo, “Leo, what’s going on?”

“Your shell has been having pretty big setbacks on its healing, is this why?” Donnie demands, glaring fiercely as he motions toward the Maze.

Leo feels unmoored. “I-“

“Leo.” Raph interrupts, and no Leo doesn’t want to hear it- “Are you okay?”

And Leo wants to say “it’s not about me”. He wants to say anything that proved he learned his lesson, that he’s not a liability or worse, an active danger to his own family.

He wants Raph to continue being proud of him. He wants his brothers to trust him.

Instead, he passes out.

_____

The next time his eyes open, Leo’s on his side, staring at his blue lava lamp.

He knows without looking that his shell is re-bandaged. He knows his other injuries have been dealt with too.

And unless Leo learned how to do some pretty impressive medical sleepwalking, he knows he’s not getting away this time.

All three of his brothers being in his room prove that.

“What’s been going on, Leo?” Mikey asks, and his voice cracks partway through.

He’s looking at Leo like he’s searching for something, but Leo doesn’t have anything to show. Nothing’s hidden, he just did some light spring cleaning is all, throwing out all the parts he didn’t need.

All the parts they didn’t need.

And yet despite everything, he can feel himself falling back into old ways, a grin tugging at his beak and lackadaisical deflection on the tip of his tongue.

Maybe he should let that part of him show, just for once. It wouldn’t seem like too much of a setback would it? And he could really use a fun pun right about now-

No.

No it’s not about him. He needs to remember why he did all this in the first place.

“Okay- sorry, guys.” He smiles, softly, quietly, “I guess I got too caught up in training. I’ll work at it some more, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I see. Training. That’s all it was, huh? Training.” Donnie hisses more than says, nearly vibrating in anger.

“…yeah?” Leo nods slowly, because, uh, that’s literally the most honest thing he said. It was training.

“If it’s just “training” then why the secrecy, hm? Why in Curie’s good name did you prefer to sneak around rather than, oh, I don’t know, tell your family?”

Leo feels his shoulders rise at Donnie’s aggression, defensiveness welling up in him, “It was my training! Nothing went wrong, I’m getting better!”

“Better?” Raph asks incredulously, “Leo, you’re wasting away. A tap to the shell stuns you for minutes, you lost weight, and your dark circles are worse than Raph’s ever seen them! You aren’t getting better-!”

“YES I AM!”

The words rip out of Leo before he can stop them.

The room is silent as his brother look at him, all wearing expressions of hurt that Leo put there again.

“Yes I am.” Leo reiterates, shaking, “Because- if I’m not-“ He squeezes his eyes shut. “If I’m not-“

Then what was all this for?

Arms slowly wrap around him, and he knows now from the feel of the mystic that it’s Mikey.

“You’ve gotten faster, and sneakier.” Mikey says quietly. “When I accidentally cut my hand, you knew exactly how to take care of it.” His voice grows firm, and he backs out of the hug, “But those are your skills. You, though, you’ve been…you’ve been…”

“You’ve been dilapidating before our very eyes, and trying to hide it.” Donnie finishes, jaw tight. “You think we wouldn’t notice? After everything?” To Leo’s horror, Donnie’s voice is hoarse with tears, “You absolute dumb dumb.”

“I- but I need to train. The Maze is-“

“Leo, we don’t care that you ran through the Maze. We care you did it alone.” Raph says quietly. “We could have joined you, any time.”

“But- but I’m doing this for you-“

“Listen to your brothers, Blue.” They jump as a new voice joins the fray, heads turning to see Splinter make his way into the - frankly crowded - room.

“Dad, I-“ Leo begins, but trails off, suddenly more unsure than ever in the face of his father.

“It’s good you’re finally picking up training! Especially for your brothers’ sakes! But there’s such a thing as going overboard, you know.” Splinter pokes a sharp claw into Leo’s plastron, “Just because you’re dragging it out this time, doesn’t make this any less of a sacrifice. My son, you’ve taken after Karai an awful lot, haven’t you?”

Leo just looks at his father. At his brothers. Then, he looks down at his calloused hands, bandaged and scarred from overuse.

He swallows dryly. “Is that a bad thing?”

He feels his family crowd in around him, feels his father’s hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not wrong to want to be better, Leonardo.” Splinter says, softly and with so much grief and guilt that Leo can never begin to understand, “But you were never bad to begin with.”

Leo’s breath hitches.

“And-” Splinter’s hands rise up to frame Leo’s face. “You are much too young to ever consider sacrifice the best answer.”

“You got me to relax, Leo. So I’ll do the same for you.” Raph grins, eyes wet, “We’re still kids, right?”

And-

Leo smiles, watery but genuine. “Yeah, Raph. We are.”

[lucraven]

Queen never CRY 💜

[hereticcoyote]

hot take but a godless world is still worth living in

[muchmossymess]

uh oh guys, hot take alert:

i think revali may have invented hand held aerial archery HEAR ME OUT- (this is a long one boys)

okay. evidence one: why the fuck would a rito shoot like that. like, it makes nearly zero sense, it would be such a hindrance to their flight and their main stake is that they can be higher than you can shoot whilst still pinging you... which revali has overcome with his gale

evidence two: tulin and the concept arts. obviously rito style archery would be held in their talons. before totk came out idk if anyone had really thought about it too much, but the developers had, as you can see in concept art (from the creating a champion book). and like, its logical, powerful, and allows for peak maneuverability. also, when in flight revali (and teba) holds his bow in his talons before switching to his wings. surely its easier to keep it in your wing (obvi ignoring the effects to flight but hes doing that anyway firing the damn thing) rather than switch back and forth- unless you were taught that way, because why would you hold it elsewhere, you need it in your talons to shoot.

evidence three: we dont see any other rito do it (...kind of). throughout botw and totk, we never see another rito flying with a bow in their hands. in totk, its mostly tulin, who holds it in his talons, but in botw the big one is teba. during the medoh quest, he actually gives *link* his bow, and therefore does no shooting in the sky. teba and harth had both tried to take on medoh before, but we never see this, and while they holds their bows in their hands *on the ground,* we dont see it.

...except for aoc (uh, spoilers?). there are two times we see a rito other than revali hold their bow in their hand for aerial archery. but it is not with any rito soldiers, either during cutscenes (the bows are only on their backs) or gameplay (they swoop down, and then hand hold bows on ground. they arent seen flying at all but thats prolly for the same reasons as botw: its very hard to code that (and so they write the lore around that fact)). the first time we actually see another rito do this, we dont see it. Its teba, as he comes thru the portal, but all we see is the arrow shot, and then him freeze frame with the bow in one wing. we dont see the bow in his hand for the rest of the fight. the second time we actually see him fighting like this, it *is* in the air, but its noticeably different to revali.

hes a lot slower, it clearly takes a LOT more effort to shoot the bow, and he only pulls off one arrow at a time. its canon that revalis bow is heavier/harder to draw, and he manages to effortlessly stream arrows whilst fucking floating midair. i think teba, forever a revali fanboy, heard of how the champion mastered his own style of archery and sought to teach himself, but lacked one key thing: revalis mastery of wind.

evidence three point five: revali could easily use his powers to hold him in the air longer/slow his descent long enough for him to fire his shots. it makes sense, really. if he can use his gale to propel him, he can sit on the updraft for a hot sec, or even curve the path to carry him along while he lines up the shot. this would mean he wouldnt need to flap as much as other rito, who would obviously need to keep flying

evidence four: revalis fighting style and his needs. revali works with non rito, obviously. he needs to be able to communicate with them on the battlefield, and they wont understand the muffled chirps if he holds his string in his beak, so he needs his mouth free to speak hylian. also, revalis main tactic is fly up with gale, shoot, fall, either shoot more or use velocity and weight to knock around opponents, and then fly back up. he often needs both feet planted firmly on the ground to get a good hold of his gale, something that is harder to do if you have a bow in the way.

also, take for example the kick he delivers link in their fight (aoc). that would possibly damage the bow, or give the opponent a chance to grab his weapon, if he held it in his talons. and to switch from feet to back is a risky maneuver during freefall, and could lose precious seconds, and then when you get back in the air you need to get it off your back again. its much easier to keep the bow loosely in your wing the whole time, meaning your free to attack melee, land and rise all while not wasting a single moment getting your next shot lined up.

so yeah, i think the rito used the talon grip for aerial archery, and would often use the hand held method on the ground for a variety of reasons (more powerful shots?, easier in some situations like hunting), but revali was perhaps the first to use hand held aerial, another reason he was one of the greatest archers ever.

[krembearry]

on the topic of in mouthwashing, how much people are blaming curly... what would YOU have done? genuinely. how would you have handled it? what could you have done differently in the two days before jimmy acted out and crashed the ship?

my understanding of the relationship between those two is that they were friends. curly didn't know about what jimmy did. and then he finds out, and what do you do? you are the captain and you are in the most control that there can be about the situation. loyalty to your friend says cover for him, but he did something really terrible. loyalty to your crew says detain him, but how? what are you supposed to do with him? worst case scenario, do you kill him as soon as you find out? it was only two days before the crash. how fast could you process all of that information and act on it?

i get its a game, but i think its supposed to be this big thinkpiece on this scenario. i don't think the point is to shift the blame from jimmy to curly. i don't care that curly didn't do every single thing he possibly could've done in two days. i know i couldn't have. i would have felt trapped, and stuck, and overwhelmed. i would've had dinner that night with the crew and just been unable to wrap my head around the fact something terrible happened and i didn't know before this. i would've wanted to message my superiors for some sort of protocol, but the company is being dissolved. you are the final authority over four other living beings. genuinely, what the fuck do you even do?

the whole point is it's jimmy's fault. jimmy did it. jimmy is the one who should take some fucking responsibility. maybe curly didn't do the right things, but jimmy sure as FUCK did not.