#it feels so LONG???

[heavensinhell]

bad influence.

sophiana drabble, angst, human au.

tw; slight substance abuse, mentions of substance abuse, suggestive.

word count: 2597

——————

it wasn’t always like this. she didn’t want it to end like this. hell, she did everything to avoid it ending like this.

but fate catches up, just as how the rain did, dripping down their skins, merging with their tears. they held each other in their arms, sobbing more than they’d did ever in their life — or maybe it was just her. maybe she was the only one shaking, the only one sobbing. but when sophie held on tight, arms wrapped around her waist, she knew; it isn’t just me.

——————

biana always hung out with sophie now, with their school’s anniversary week over and both of them free to do anything.

it was amazing, really. a week ago, she’d just find out there’s someone else in her grade living in the same suburbs as her — at the same block too! her new friend, sophie foster’s, house was literally just behind hers, and even remembered that she’d always passed, playing with the barking dogs in their small yard. now they’d spent early evenings walking one of the said dogs around the neighbourhood.

she’d met sophie during dance practice for their presentation in the intramurals, but she wasn’t joining; apparently, she was the one representing her class for the pageant, and rightfully so. she was beautiful.

blonde hair in soft curls, tiny ringlets. gold flecked brown eyes that feel like the earth has opened up before you and is offering up their treasures for you to adore. soft, matte red lips. she had asked her for her lipstick ones, but she looked at her confused and said she didn’t have any. her confusion — crinkled eyebrows, narrowed eyes, and lips half a frown, half a pout. how can she be so simply beautiful?

not that biana herself wasn’t a sight to behold. she truly was; her evening’s sweetheart award during their prom night proved that.

sophie nudged her, head tilted. “i don’t think i’ve ever asked, but you have a flare of confidence.” there it was again, crinkled brows, narrowed eyes, and cute, oh-so cute lips, evidence of her curiosity and confusion. “why didn’t you join the pageant?”

biana raised her brows, lips twitching in a smile. “because you would’ve lost.”

the blonde nudged her, now her nose crinkled, too. “i’m serious!”

the brunette had only laughed in turn, but sat down on the grass, letting opera nuzzle into her knees.

it was half past six, the moon and the stars illuminating the soft, early night. soon, the sun rays would disappear entirely, leaving the moon to glow in all its glory. soon, in the turn on the next block, she’d have to drop off her best friend at home. so, she’d tell her short tale seated in the grass in front of an unoccupied house. there were perks in being one of the last phases in their subdivision; no one liked being last. many of the houses are empty, be in because they’re un-bought, or their real owners only bought them to spend their summers. houses too beautiful to be called home, maybe.

“so?”

now it was biana’s nose crinkling, looking over at her friend. “so.”

“so why didn’t you join the pageant!”

the blonde pouted, gently picking her dog back. it made biana giggle. they both liked animals, so when one wouldn’t share, the other would take back what was theirs. whether it was a stuffed, teddy animal or a real one.

“i wasn’t home, remember.”

she’d told the story before — leaving the country a month before, therefore missing so much stuff, like the general practice for their prom.

the blonde laid her head against the other’s shoulder, nose crinkled. “but the auditions for the pageant was wayyy after prom.”

biana snorted, head shaking. “there was also our english project to think about. i was one of the writers, which was a stupid decision,” kicking away a pebble, a pout formed in her lips. “like, i just got home! they were pressuring me to write while my grandparents were telling me to fix more documents. like, wasn’t that why you sent us out the country in the first place? like—“

anger shrouded her aura, her vibes so she gently pushed sophie’s head off, covering her face with her hands. “basically, i didn’t audition because i was too pressured. if i joined, i’d have to win. ‘you’re gonna join, so you gotta win. if you don’t that’s okay, you tried you best — but knowing you, your best would have you winning’ like, gee! no pressure!”

sophie had wrapped her hands around her shoulder, her other hand snaking in to hold hers.

and her heart fluttered with butterflies.

that was one of the things that were so painful about sophie. she’s loving, she’s sweet, and she’s friends with a lot of people. so she’s caring — loving, even — to a lot of people. and it was ok! you’re supposed to love your friends. she was amazing for that. but sometimes, she’s so stupidly oblivious. sophie would hold their hand, cup their cheeks; like now. people trust her a lot, vent to her a lot. and she doesn’t mind it, doesn’t mind comforting people. she treats people right, the way you should. a basic human with basic human decency and basic human sympathy. but that was rare. so people end up mistaking their platonic feelings for romantic, and biana was no lesser a victim.

but still she melted into the hug, crying into her friend’s shoulder, her hands fisted, fingers entangled with the other.

a cough had made the brunette jump, moving far from her friend. if her fear was right and true, it would be sophie’s overprotective father. but no, it was way worst — her boyfriend.

vien had flirted with biana once, and, of course, being a stupid 13 year old, she’d let him. it was the beginning of her mental decline. how someone like him had pulled sophie was beyond her.

maruca stood beside him, looking far, far away from her. obvious that the both had them had been looking for her together, or, if biana was being really, really honest, vien was pulling some shady shit. not that she hasn’t warned sophie about it. she’d been crinkle brow’ed then, when she found out sophie and vien were classmates in the eighth, and started spitting insults left and right, slipping multiple times and calling him some things. warned her, “he’s a cheating, lying fuck. oh, and guess what? he smokes! he drinks! i do, too — but i don’t overdo it!” sophie had agreed, but somehow, to her horror, they’d ended up together.

the ravenette, eyes narrowed, had his distance. horridly scared of dogs, he was. but when sophie met her eyes, head tilted, her lips twisted into a soft, pleading smile, she sighed and took the leash, walked it home, sophie’s home, and came back, an eye’s distance away, maruca leaning against the car, smoke escaping her lips, her breath hitched. biana shook her head, opening her palm, before taking a puff of the vape for herself.

“gonna kill it again?” the blue-streaked brunette muttered, slipping to her knees, head against the others legs, breathing slow.

“gonna kill him, matter of fact.” she hissed, watching him bury his head in her neck, arms tight around her waist.

he demonised her: gave her a short temper, horribly emotional overall, and made her do impulsive things. him and his horrible friends, maybe that’s why they’d kept preying on her.

she hated it, but it was no more a horrible situation than what she felt earlier for sophie. a mere human, with humane needs, sophie gave her love, and those blasted boys gave her attention. poor biana vacker, with the poor life choices, teenage hormones, and human needs. wow.

she’d taken another hit when maruca stood up, leaning towards her, inhaling the smoke that left the brunettes lips. her breath hitched, the brunette gently laying her head against the other’s chest.

“let’s go, bia,” the girl whispered, hands slowly wrapping around her waist, as if she was scared. scared she’ll shatter. “she knows how to go home safely.”

she hated that, but she hated watching them even more. it made her sick, genuinely.

maruca had dragged her back to her house, head bowed as she greeted her parents. “lord and lady vacker,” with the slightest amusement in her voice.

it was kinda embarrassing, really. being the daughter of royals. or maybe that was because she was raised in a simple life, the way her parents wanted. look at how pressured she was when her grandparents got involved, the reasons they left the country, the reason they were practically royalty. thank the gods for her parents.

they hanged out in her room a lot, but the air was awkward. biana knew maruca longer, loved her longer, but never once did she cry to her, opened up to her. it was obvious she was hurt by that, but she wasn’t gonna bring it up. the darker girl gave her a cheek kiss, their way of goodbyes, and left for home.

and biana stood there. wondering how she’d ever work out her feelings.

maybe she stood for hours, because it was dark out, and that’s when jolie, sophie’s elder sister, had knocked on their door, looking for sophie.

“sorry,” biana frowned, slipping into their living room, staring at her sleepy eyes. “ but i’ve not seen her since noon, ms ruewen.”

but jolie pulled her for a hug, how edaline had, when they’d met. and despite being adopted, sophie hugs like the two of them. she would’ve melted if she wasn’t so embarrassed, but not to fret; jolie had let her go, smiling and thanking her, “i’ll let you know when we find her,” her smile was so genuine, she couldn’t believe she lied. she gave a respectful bow, and left.

she’d kissed her mom’s cheeks in a daze and gave her dad a hug, before slipping back into her room. sophie was missing. oh my gods. what did they do?

it was friday — three days before she could go to school. not that it mattered, honestly. but if something had happened, oh no. she couldn’t stop worrying, sitting in her bed — how did i even get here? — worried, worrying. the running-hands-through-hair-when-stressed? apparently she got that gene, too, because by the time she’d fallen asleep, she’d had a tangle of brown for hair. and those three days made her sick. jolie never came, never chatted. she was left worrying, worrying, worrying. and worst, she’d blamed herself.

if she didn’t leave them alone, would sophie be missing still? if she didn’t let maruca whisk her away, would she still be in her room, pacing, worried? no one messaged her about it, too, god, now her mind was running faster than her family’s cars. what would she do, what could she have done? oh god, oh gods —

and it was monday. the weekend passed like a blur of her worrying, waiting, being ignored. fuck, did something happen?

she was scared. she didn’t want to go and see, so she listened to music in her classroom, hidden under her hoodies, stressed, so stressed, what the heck.

but somehow, her other friends were able to coo her into the canteen, and vien, fucking vien, was okay, cackling with his friends. it took all of her will power not to jump at him, claw at him, where’s my best friend—when she’d noticed a head of blonde hair, ruffling brunette. sophie and amy. or… keefe and amy? either way, there was sophie’s other sister.

coming closer, she’d stopped dead in her tracks. there, back facing her, was sophie foster, hair cut short, her curls embracing her ears, jumping lightly as she laughed that heaven-given laugh. amy’s eyes had met hers, and the soft green turned steel, and when sophie turned, heaven, oh heaven, she was still so beautiful. the brunette wanted to break down, cry, hug her — she was alright, it was alright.

but when her eyes weren’t glowing with happiness, they were scared, in despair, before giving off the same steel gaze her little sister did, and the foster sisters walked away without another word.

old biana would’ve thrown a tantrum, eyebrows creased, nose crinkled, an expression of “who does she think she is, defying me?” but this biana, this new biana, just stared at where she stood, before regaining her posture, ignoring the gazes on her back, staring at her, what the hell just happened? she left, eyes on the floor, unblinking. she knew if she did, they’d know there had been tears.

it went like that for days — how many, she didn’t know — seeing sophie in the halls, the cafeteria, the streets. and that sophie was ignoring her, giving her sad eyes. she blamed her, too, biana decided. to her, it was her fault. and now, maybe, just maybe, maybe it was her fault. maybe she was to blame. maybe that was how their friendship would end.

the girl kicked the poor, innocent rock in front of her. it’s been weeks — maybe two, fuck it, she didn’t care. and it was so painfully obvious. dragging herself out of bed, rat tails less of tails, more of bird’s nest, tangled under her puffed hair. clothes messy and mismatched, unlike the trendsetter she knew herself to be. maybe in the future, she’d be horrified to see herself in this state, that she had let herself go to that hole. really, it was bound to happen. her life went to shit when she landed from that airplane — god, i wish it just crashed. it was selfish, wishing a group death, so she wouldn’t be all alone in her misery, but that’s what she’s become, it seems.

the rain had gotten stronger, sprinkling her uncovered skin. just as when she didn’t bring a goddamn umbrella, it was bound to storm for hours on end. as if things could get any worst.

and it did. damn you, universe.

there, blonde beauty herself, had run into the bus station. how silly, fate was, stringing them together, just the two of them, under a storm.

she looked at her phone. half past six. oh, nostalgia! oh, universe! oh, fucking destiny!

biana had an oversized hoodie in her bag, she just remembered. how amazing, the human mind was. when the self had been hurt, it cared not. i’ve been through this a lot, it’s okay! but upon the sight of another, the other being someone it cared about, it remembered something, something that could’ve helped the self as well. maybe it was proof that the self lacked care for itself.

she took it out of her back, awkwardly walking closer. sophie looked up at her, but biana had looked away, focusing on putting the hoodie on the other girl.

“biana.” she said it so simply it hurt, like the weeks of hanging out didn’t mean anything. like the weeks without each other was nothing.

“biana,” her voice hitched now, locking her hands in the other’s, but she quickly pulled it back, still looking down.

“biana, my gods,” she’d moved closer, and biana felt her cup her cheeks, tilting her head up to meet her eyes.

there were tears dripping down her cheeks — or was it the rain? no, they fell from her own eyes. biana was crying, too. the tears falling in silent grief, but when sophie pulled her close, running her fingers through her tangled hair, whispering softly, i missed you, i’m sorry, i love you so, so much. she broke, holding on tight, broken, breathless sobs leaving her lips.

stay with me, i don’t want you to leave.

she’d thought it, maybe whispered it, sophie holding her close, dear to her heart. the storm raged around them, and she could feel herself getting wet.

she’d gone with no explanation, but that didn’t matter — she was here now, she was in her arms now, they’d fix this. they’ll talk it out, like they always do.

but right now, all biana wanted was to suffocate in her embrace, drown in her affection. god, she gave the best hugs.

[itsscaredycat]

so ok yeah fine i watched gravity falls again and read the book of bill

[magpie-to-the-morning]

I don’t WANT a career. I want to cuddle and sleep and eat and read and create and love and be loved.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[kitskiis]

What I am gathering from current fandom discussion

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[datcravat]

DANDADAN

[sergle]

ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE, people dropping mad mad sums of money on gfms and charities and stuff are extremely impressive but that DOES NOT MEAN that putting like $5 towards someone's fund or any good cause is any less valuable, a lot of crowdfunding is about momentum and those single digits add up super fast, you do not need to be Rolling In The Dough to make someone's day!! moving the dial at all is extremely positive!!

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[me-beef]

@strangeravatar made a great point

i was gonna focus on the spike-hotboxing-celestia aspect but i got distracted somewhere along the way and i think i forgot what joke i was trying to make

but dont you think its interesting how many guards of the exact same color/body type she's managed to accrue?? i do

ooohh you want to go look at our stickers so bad

[stellarphileistic]

“Vétkesek közt cinkos, aki néma”

from the book “Jónás könyve” by Babits Mihály. Although the phrase itself cannot be directly translated, it is what best fits this topic in my opinion. Vaguely this sentence means that someone who chooses to stay silent in a situation is still at fault. Curly, who enabled Jimmy’s behaviour and actions towards Anya is guilty as well, however he did not deserve any of the things he had gone through after the crash.