#heed my words

[artsy-cupid]

Things I would say to my younger self now that I’m turning 30

No one actually cares about what you do once you get out of school and, even then, no one cares enough to stop you.

People don’t hate you. Sure, they might not like you, but not everyone is going to like you. You’re gonna have to live with that. It’s not that bad a thing.

What you see online is a microcosm of the world. Your experience on the internet is your responsibility to curate and process, and it is a FRACTION of a reflection of the real world.

The awful shit you see in the news is bad and you should stay aware. But not everything is awful; there is still beauty and goodness in this world, there are still people who want to make it better.

Hating things doesn’t make you cool, it just makes you look like a miserable jerk. Enjoy things with your full chest. Cringe is dead, and you’re still breathing.

It’s better to assume ignorance over malice. Someone might not share your ideas because they’ve never been exposed to them before, and a question that may sound foolish may be coming from a place of curiosity and wishing to understand.

The world is a rough place. Don’t contribute to the pain. Put something beautiful into the world instead.

That thing you did all those years ago? That thing you’re embarrassed about still? No one remembers it or cares about it. If they do, fuck ‘em.

[that-homoerotic-blouse]

There is only one thing more devastating than the "I'm ready to go" that the Doctor might say as a farewell and it's Donna begging him "I don't want you to go"

[absentmoon]

redemption arcs are never inherently ooc its just about wrangling them into the right situation

[wrathfulrook]

Drunken hot tips: Blare Bubblegum Bitch while taking a fc5 outpost 🥰

[brainrotcharacters]

LISTEN. ERIK HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING SO HILARIOUS RIGHT NOW. HEAR ME

good night (me personally I want something traumatic to happen to Treasure so Porter can lose his shit and simultaneously be affectionate with them while Vincent and Sam at the side going

but that's just me)

[underscore-jude]

actually pomme having a proper coming out arc alongside the one parent who happens to be the Most Aromantic Being In Existence would’ve been the funniest shit fuck this gay earth

[toastydumpster]

new banner

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

A note to my future self

Some future Christmas i will find this little box of sealing wax and Christmas themed stamps, and i will think to myself

"didn't it look so good? using sealing wax stamps to attach the gift tags instead of tape? didn't the gold glittering wax really pop on the kraft paper wrapping and twine tags? "

I'm here to tell you yes, yes it's very pretty but you need to tag every item as you wrap because you forget what's in each package as soon as it's wrapped, it takes 5mins to heat and melt the wax each time, and then you haven't used the scissors in 10mins so obviously they've shifted to another dimension, on several occasions the wrapping paper has decided to join it, it is 1am and you are not halfway done, tonight was only one half of the family presents

It. Is. Not. Worth. It.

Use tape, seal the cards that have gifts inside them if you must, but DON'T USE IT FOR GIFT TAGS

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Riz has counted four casseroles this week alone. Five, if one goes by the method of cooking, but Yelen's scary when she's crossed, and calling her burek by its proper name is important to her, so Riz does her the courtesy and doesn't include it in his mental tally.

He holds the tupperware over his head to keep it out if the way as he takes careful steps over the piles of notes in his path. The dockman case just closed, relevant documentations handed over to relevant personnels, evidences dealt with as needed; all he has lying around now is just record of the process and traces of himself thinking through it. Unsurprisingly they still haven't invented a surface more convenient for people under five feet who like to pace to put pieces of paper on than the ground.

Actual records go into the case folder with the other documents. Anything else with at least one side still blank is going to the school kids in the block - they chew through an astounding amount of paper just learning arithmetic. The rest is for the recycling basket.

Later. It's his mandated lunch break right now.

Riz sits down in front of the corner file cabinet. In an office often overrun with papers and strings and sometimes even thumbtacks, he's never really managed to clutter up this exact square of surface like every other ones. Ever since the bottom drawer rattled for no discernible reason a day long past, his eyes have always just kinda decided to slide across the space without acknowledging it.

It's years out, now. Riz doesn't know why he thought it such a big deal anymore, back then. He wasn't scared, he doesn't think. Not anymore. Maybe just uncomfortable with the idea that certain things persist despite all efforts to change.

He opens the tupperware. Dame Carabelle's experiment greets him with enough spice in the aroma alone to knock out a small mammal. When he chopped the vegetables for this casserole he couldn't really imagine the eventual heft of it, evident even through just these few ladles' worth, maybe weighing heavier for being still warm. His folk eat more through the smell and the textures and the aftertastes than the taste itself. His folk's meal is really the cooking rather than the eating. The eating is the meal's end.

"Hey," he tells the file cabinet's bottom drawer. "Um."

It's the anniversary. Riz doesn't know the exact date of his dad's death; nobody currently alive does. He and Mom both use the date of the funeral, though as he moved out to Bastion and then got more directly involved with Interplanar he hasn't really been going to Dad's grave as much. Doesn't seem like very efficient use of his time, catching a train or borrowing a car or spending a whole spell slot on going somewhere he knows Dad isn't at. They're sorta coworkers now. They talk on and off every other week between missions. When he goes now, it's just to clean up the place, keeping the landmark tidy and respectable.

Without that work to mark the date he doesn't really know what it serves anymore. But he still remembers it. Still takes note, absently or not, when it comes around.

There's not really a good way to tell the drawer that. Riz looks for another way to start the... conversation, hopefully. The question at play, he'd guess, is why he's doing this. He's been pretty content ignoring all the rattlings and the knocks from inside and the times it sits slightly ajar without him ever opening it himself; hell, he still uses the three drawers on top of it. Space is fucking precious in Bastion.

Precious enough to finally fix this damn drawer so he gets his turn to use it? Riz asks himself. Is that what we're getting to? Then he dismisses the thought - he didn't manage to fix it the times he actually tried, let alone-- now. When he doesn't really care that much to.

That's probably a good place to start. "'s fine if you keep being in there, turns out," Riz says.

The lunch hours are quiet in the block, sleepy and bright with the brief window of sunlight that manages to break through roof overhangs and extended balconies and laundry lines and climbing vines. Riz's work isn't loud here (the loud parts happen away from his office, if everything goes right), but the fragment of early summer heat reflected in the steady warmth his meal still carries compels him to lower his voice even more. It makes the words feel intimate, in a way he's never been familiar with - if he says something he just says it. He doesn't whisper. If he gives his friends something, he gives it open-palm. He's found out, along the way, that people usually don't think of rituals and courtesies the way he does.

Small voice for a diminished monster. "You know why I think so?" Riz asks. "Because almost two decades ago you kidnapped me and almost killed me, and now you rattle a drawer in my office."

It doesn't sound as much like a taunt as Riz wanted it to; the drawer has made a lot of noises again this morning when he checked the calendar, and he was definitely annoyed at it. Now, though, facing it like this after cooking the whole morning with more grandparents and peers from the block than he can count on both hands to cater for a tenant union meeting, he thinks the annoyance has morphed. Changed shape.

It has the shades of something like pity. Riz is not prone to pity, and especially not at these kinda matters. It's slightly maddening that he coheres perfectly outside of this one spot. That he commands his spaces, except for a drawer.

He puts the tupperware onto the floor between himself and the cabinet. "I know we're aware it's the anniversary," he says at the drawer. "You do this every year. You make a ruckus every time I decide to go do my job instead of mooching off my friends' aircon, and every time I get an invitation to some stupid social thing I want to turn down, and every time one of the old people tries to introduce me to a child or a nibling, because being a bachelor over thirty is weird," he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I have three fucking jobs. I love doing my fucking jobs. I'm forcing funds into infrastructures. You're never leaving, are you."

The drawer vibrates lightly. It's a very, very mild acknowledgement, considering the history of reactions Riz has gotten from this thing. Riz thinks it's emanating joyous agreement, or satisfaction.

It only sharpens the pity. Riz doesn't like that, but it's how it is. That's, ultimately, the lesson he's been taught over and over and over again, just by existing as himself, turned every which way by space after space that don't see him eye-to-eye: it's not like he'd quit living over any of it. It's not like any of it can sand off these fundamental pieces of him.

He's outgrown a lot of things, he's found out. Again, and again, and again. A childhood home, a yearly trip, a monster.

"'s probably scary for you, huh?" He asks. "Because I left."

He thinks he hears joints creak that sound like you did. Probably the way a scorned lover would say it, in a movie or a yellowback. He has no more connection to the idea than he did as a kid. Less, because it doesn't even scare him.

"That's what it is, right? That it's the anniversary, and I'll never be like Dad." He raises a knee from the floor, pulls it back closer to him. Slings an arm over it. "You love to remind me. The thing is, Dad also left. He loved Mom and he loved me, and none of us wanted it to happen, but it still did. Because love does fuckall to make anyone stay on its own."

He's long past being bitter about it. It's just the facts. Once upon a time he looked into the future and the specter of his friends' happily-ever-after casted lightless, fathomless shadow over him. Love, marriage, that kind of devotion, to a fifteen-year-old with more solved cases than friends seemed so eternal. Final.

But you can only watch your friends build up apps' worth of jilted lovers for so long before getting over it.

"You know what I learned?" Riz tells the drawer. "Love doesn't make anyone stay. Project management does."

He stands up, and picks up the tupperware of Dame Carabelle's casserole, that he helped make, that he helped share with a block's worth of neighbors and members of a community he's at home with, and goes sit at his desk to eat. "Last chance to get any," he drops an offer over his shoulder as he walks away.

He doesn't eat all of his share in one go. What he's spared he leaves on the desk when going outside for a smoke break. Baron looks the exact same as when he saw them last, when he catches a glimpse; they haven't grown at all. They aren't there when he comes back inside, but the leftover has gone days-old cold, like someone's sucked the future out of it.

[foxgirlfriday]

do not trim your fluffy tail, foxgirls. keep that thing fluffed as much as possible.

Tail barbers

tail barbers that trim fluffy tails???

[hopesallwegotleft]

Chapter 21 — The Vault

[odetojupiter]

this is a surprise to no one but i’m thinking of the twins again. cause i don’t know whether we’re told when tilda developed her drug addiction but considering her erratic behaviour surrounding the twins birth im assuming she was already using prior to the twins arrival. and if she was using before, during, and after giving birth, that introduces so many heartbreaking possibilities for the twins.

this one ran away from me (they say, as tho they don’t always)

i see people saying they just couldn’t take andrew or aaron seriously because they’re five foot even cause that’s a funny height apparently and i just think: did u know a long term impact of prenatal drug use is impaired growth? add that to potential malnutrition and yeah suddenly it’s not that funny anymore. besides andrew being short probably made him seem like an easy target to his abusers which is what made it necessary for him to learn to defend himself in the first place sooo

other impacts of prenatal drug use: altered brain development, cognitive and behavioural issues, damaged communication/language development, newborns can be born addicted and subsequently go through withdrawals (called neonatal abstinence syndrome, which has a long list of symptoms and can cause newborns to be hospitalised or worse). in any context, this is a horribly traumatic thing for a baby to go through but then consider this:

andrew’s brain is already struggling to develop properly thanks to his mother’s drug abuse. and then you add on frequent repetitive abuse including but not limited to several occurrences of child sa. already a 7 year old brain is not wired to be able to cope with that. tie that in with his significant abandonment issues stemming from first his mother and then every subsequent family he stays with giving him up. his own narrative tries so hard to doom him, and he responds to that the only way he can: through anger. violence. how else was he supposed to respond? yes this is more andrew defence bc it seems there’s been a sudden influx of andrew hate and it boils my piss

that brings me to a new point: andrew as a newborn. and his foster family does not want to give him the extra attention he needs as a baby born through prenatal drug use. so they give him up. again and again. so

but to talk about aaron for a sec - not only could he have been born addicted, but being breastfed by a drug user (it’s up in arms whether tilda would breast feed) also has its symptoms - can make the baby sick, can ruin its sleep, cause later behavioural issues and even transfer the drug to the baby. aaron, living with tilda, was also doomed to follow the narrative.

[tabrisangel]

you will be forced to see my genius (SHE/HER FOR NORWAY SHE IS A WOMAN)

[horseonvhs]

Sicko Shock 2 is an audio drama that fully encapsulates much of what it feels like to be On The Computer These Days while also being funny as hell. listen to it if you like thinking about how the content-based, art-as-commodity mode the internet currently operates in influences our behavior and culture at large, and also if you want to hear a bunch of cyberpunks with names like Burt Harddrive and DDOS Gutenberg talk about a guy who goes to the bathroom wrong

Listen to Sicko Shock 2. It's like a great work of art It would whip ass if someone could write up like a review of this or something. or do a fanart. The fanart done so far was so goddamn cool, and I want more Furthermore, listen to Sicko Shock 2

[ctrl-alt-deleting-yr-face]

ik the last time the creator posted about this au was last year but @medicalunprofessional’s The Grudge au has been overtaking my brain again so whatever go my grudge

[shroomiethenerd]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ZELDA MOVIE PEOPLE

SIGN LANGUAGE

HAVE LINK USE SIGN LANGUAGE

DON'T HAVE HIM TALK

AHHHHHHHH

PLEASE