#how my sinusitis feels

[fearandhatred]

Good omens, “feather”, for the writing ask meme! -goodoldfashionednightingale

bestie!!! thank u for this lovely word, have some post-final fifteen crowley pov angst

our minds don't work like human minds; it's not a fact that's hard for anyone to comprehend. the humans know it too, they write it in their stories. but our minds aren't separate entities from theirs altogether, just… different. for example, our minds can store more information than all mortals in the world combined and then some, both in breadth and depth. we have faster cognitive abilities, recognition that comes faster than the shortest unit of time humanly invented. we can replay memories in our heads as vividly as they happened.

it takes a thousand years to forget.

i'll plead guilty to some of it: even as the years passed, years and then decades, even when the image of your face behind my eyelids started to grow spots of mould and permanent sunlight—even then, i thought you'd return. it wasn't unlike you to change your mind, not unlike you to come back to me. and so when i finally had the sense that maybe i should be preserving some things of you, all the photos turned to ash under my touch. that was a hundred years in.

i found your feather in a drawer, a month after you left. i don't know why it was there, why you kept it, but a hundred years in, i was grateful. you'd taken the polaroid with you. in memory of me, perhaps. maybe you thought i wouldn't want or need it. or maybe you weren't thinking of what i wanted or needed at all, because two hundred years after you left, you were still gone.

i don't know when exactly it dawned on me that when you said you were leaving, you meant it. every time i try to remember, i remember an earlier time. five hundred years in, two hundred, twenty years, six months, a week. sometimes i think i'd known the moment you said it.

it's a february afternoon, with biting wind and rain that felt like snow, when i finally lose you. it's cold all the time now. the whole street is gone, bare land with not even a shadow where the bookshop used to be. trees don't bloom like they used to, and i've lost you. i'd never paid attention before to how a memory looked in my head; i'd never wanted to keep a memory as pristinely clean and spotless as it was before, until you left. but after all the papers disintegrated in my hands—the photos of you, the drawings of me—i started to take notice.

it wasn't all that dissimilar to how movies looked back then, when we watched them together: the memories started to flicker and pale, black spots like dust flecks in front of projector lights. then they lost all sound and colour, your speech wordless and mouth moving like a mute ventriloquist's puppet. and then they got blurry, smoothened, the lines of your face ironed out until you were featureless.

when i try to think of you now, the film strips jam and shred in the reel, and the screen remains black. all i have now are the words i used to describe you with in my head, ones i no longer remember the truth of—that and this yellowing feather, once a shade of white your wings might have been.

[cern1cal0]

who even are these guys

[bonesandthebees]

guys help seasonal allergies are kicking my ass right now

[sneezysubbyboi]

yall ever sneeze just twice (2) and just the feeling of those sneezes makes you go: "...yeah this is gonna be a problem" as you proceed to take your antihistamines?

it's crazy how I was fine one moment and when those sneezes came it immediately changed my fragile sinus ecosystem

[mustlovewillgrahamsdogs]

what i wouldn't give to have a scene where hannibal mentions the whole murder husbands thing to will 😩he's just never gonna bring that up? yeah right

[rileys-battlecats]

its like my body can sense when I'm about to be productive and then specifically starts breaking down in order to counteract my efforts

[minglana]

sunday scaries are exacerbated today by me being sick as fuck all weekend.... yay......

[constantvariations]

I remember someone saying "there's no such thing as a good racism allegory" and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I'm someone who typically thinks anything can work if given the right circumstances, but then I really started thinking about it and I believe they're right

Because if you want to talk about racism, you should just talk about racism

(This is unpolished and ramble-y, so strap yourselves in)

Racism is deeply ingrained into our society, no matter where you live. Imperialism and colonialism has ensured that no corner of Earth has been left untouched. Choices from hundreds of years ago are still being felt today. There's practically no end to the discussion of its effects on the world and its people

So, why should anyone feel the need to dress it up in cat ears?

I've consumed a lot of media where writers have consciously echoed in part some aspect of racism in their fantasy story: Bright 2017, Dragon Age, RWBY, the MCU, Harry Potter, Detroit: Become Human, etc. The biggest thing they have in common is that the narrative is told to side with the victims, but it somehow always ends up against them

It always sides with the status quo

It's confusing, maddening even, because the narrative oft goes out of its way to show how horrible the system is and how these folk don't deserve their treatment, so why are we going back to normal as if it's a good thing? Why are the people actively working to improve the system decried as annoying at best and monstrous at worst?

Then you look at the people who write these storylines. The beliefs they hold, the people they vote for, which charities and organizations they give to, and it all makes sense. Centrists (at best) trying to look progressive are the ones who need to dress racism up in cat ears and rainbow freckles. They set aside the long, brutal histories and crushing systemic realities to play pretend that racism is Not That Bad and is only done by Those Bad Individuals

That's why Velvet's ears are tugged instead of culled. That's why the Mantle drunkards say mean things to Blake instead of attempting to assault her. That's why everything surrounding the SDC's labor practices is so vague as to be useless while the biggest evidence of their malice is hand-waved away by a writer who says the victim "had it coming" as if someone can deserve being branded by being too much of a brat

These stories aren't meant to make the audience question why our society works off the bloodied backs of the exploited or demands we take good, hard looks at ourselves and how we've been duped into believing so much garbage about entire swathes of people. They're meant to satisfy the people who only feel bad that these things are happening because they (white folk) look like the bad guys. It's a self-congratulatory wank about how "I'm not like THOSE guys, therefore I'm a good person!"

And then there's the characters meant to convey this story in the first place: always inoffensive, mostly aimless, "not like the other girl" types that pander to that delicate palate. Blake - a conventionally attractive, pale skinned girl in fashionable clothes - used to be passionate about equality but only in the right way, and demonizes anyone who does not conform to this mindset despite having no reasoning to back it up while never once demanding better of the privileged people around her even when they do racially insensitive things

The biggest downfall of these racial allegories, be they about cat girls or orcs or elves or robots, is that they do something that marginalized folk have been forced to endure since the dawn of time: literal dehumanization. There are tangible differences between humans and whatever the allegory is, which undermines the very fundamental fact that black/asian/queer/neurodivergent/disabled/whatever folk are unapologetically, undeniably, exceedingly human. By dressing up their plights in cat ears or spottled blue skin, you're creating theater not for the people who actually live through these struggles as a means of connecting with them and providing them a safe outlet for their feelings, but giving the people who benefit from passively allowing the system to enforce said struggles a pat on the head for not being the grand wizard

I don't really know where I'm going or how to end this, so I'll just sign off with if you're going to talk about racism, just talk about racism

[sapphireraeburn]

It’s funny how memories work.

I grew up near a mill, and the smell permeated EVERYTHING.

I haven’t been there in at least a decade.

Anyway, I’m watching a YT video and they grab a bag of flour with that mill.

That familiar logo.

Then suddenly - I can SMELL THAT MILL. I CAN TASTE IT.

Side note: Did you know that ‘smell’ is usually the easiest memory to recall?

[mediterraneanstar]

My current situation… I feel you Kai 🤣

I have a strong immune system, thanks to my teaching years, but when it gets me… it hits me like a train, and I’m not someone who can lay in bed all day.

EXTRA CHAPTER

Sniff!

Benito: “mh! Don’t worry, you just have a low fever. Today you will stay at home and rest”

Benito: “at least… I'd like it to be that way”

Akeboshi: “Hey! What’s with those glares?”

Akeboshi: “Don’t worry! I'll look after the kid!”

K/B/K: That's exactly what worries us

Kurogane -> must help Benito with the groceries

Benito -> will go buy the medicines

Kou -> has to deliver some documents in the city

Akeboshi: “Shoo! Go do what you have to!”

Benito: “Ok, don’t push! Kai hang in there! We’ll be back as soon as possibleeee!”

Akeboshi: (super fired up!) “To the two of us Kai! I'll prepare white rice for you!” “It’s important that he doesn't lose his appetite!”

Akeboshi: “Three bowls of rice are of no use in understanding whether he has appetite or not…” (usually he eats at least five…)

Kai: “Very goo… achoo!”

Akeboshi: “Good! Now stay covered and get a good sleep!”

Akeboshi: “I must say, caring for a sick person is very tiring...”

Kai: “Akeboshi…”

Akeboshi: “Y-yes, tell me! What do you need?” (I knew it! He must be still hungry!)

Kai: “I have a favour to ask…”

Benito: “Kai! Akeboshi! We’re back! Let's hope… everything… went well-?”

Akeboshi: “Yo! Benito”

Benito: “Akeboshi, what are you doing?”

Akeboshi: “Kai asked me to polish some stones”

Benito: “Polish?”

Akeboshi: “His mother was a (stone) polisher by profession… Kai says that noise helps him sleep...”

Benito: “I see…”

The next day

PERFECTLY HEALED

OMG THIS IS SO ADORABLEEEE 💖💖💖

[qhazomb]

i am sick :(

[allalrightagain]

Woke up feeling like death this morning, started mentally going through plague checks and meds I have to take, only to realize it was just snowing

[amplexadversary]

I'm watching EXU and just

Does Gilmore exclusively hire the most horny people in Aabria's version of the setting?

Between Gilmore himself, the very CHA based party and this poor employee this episode has a degree of horny audacity and casual favors coming from just about every direction that's actually giving my boring ass some intense secondhand embarrassment at the thought of even asking for some of the things that are happening here.

My assumption would be that Gilmore would want to hire a bunch of hardasses to make up for the discounts he gives to people who will flirt with him (which. he does employ Sherri so that's one hardass.)?

I guess if he's important enough to get funding from the government for taking care of things like the ash-hole he can afford to be more lax with discounts. And haggling is more commonplace in Exandria's setting than ''X thing costs Y amount, it just does," that we have. But the degree to which these characters are successfully going above and beyond their budget does not slide in easily with the expectations inside of my brain.

[ali3nboyfriend]

i am very covid

[dominaxnoctis]

// I thought I was going to be able to do the inbox call but I somehow ended up having a little mini coma and slept all day 🧍