#it’s true it happened to me

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[mythicalcoolkid]

You don't wish your disability was worse or more visible, you wish your disability was taken seriously. Please stop confusing the two, I guarantee you would not get the support you need JUST by being more severe or more visible. Please listen to visibly disabled people when we tell you it isn't better on our side

[macaronirats]

Happy danger days birthday

[ryanhugh]

One of my fave stories ^

Also, Hugh constantly mentions living at Ryan’s house so he genuinely might as well have been there, who knows lmao

[vaguely-concerned]

the more I play the more I think lucanis basically knows it's illario who betrayed him right from the beginning (he's had a year in the ossuary to think. not that many people knew where he was going. when you ask him 'did Illario know you'd be on that ship' his only answer is the hardest flattest 'yes' you ever heard). so it's not so much about figuring out who the traitor is (because that's ludicrous. we all know. immediately. they didn't really bother to hide it lmao) as about methodically closing off every single avenue of denial lucanis has clung to that whole time with as much or little gentleness as you might prefer until he has no choice but to admit it. because the moment he has to admit it, he'll have to do something -- feel something -- about it. and that's such a catastrophic event in lucanis' inner landscape (he has had TWO people in this whole entire world up until now and will do anything to hold on to them with a heartbreaking child-like desperation, even at and especially through the detriment of his own self) that he'd rather just. not. what if we quite simply. didn't. what if we just stayed here in the emptiness where we can both pretend you didn't hurt me in a way I should never forgive. I have so much practice in that with caterina already it's always worked out great for everyone so far. (press x to fucking doubt but that's trauma logic for you lol)

after everything illario did, so much of the storm of lucanis' emotions around it is 'what the FUCK did you get yourself tangled up in this time and how do I get you out of this mess safely'. what's worse: the fact that your brother murdered you, or that he put himself in horrible danger doing so and thus exposed you to the risk of losing him forever. lucanis' heart certainly has an opinion here and it's fucking unhinged (affectionate)

the themes of dissociation in lucanis' character in general makes me feel nuts. allllll these contradictory messy things he needs to cut off from each other because they can't coexist or be easily reconciled inside him. but all remain stubbornly true separately anyway and will have their due one day. love and resentment. tenderness and fear and rage. terror and longing. love and freedom don't coexist. the burned out golden child anthem is playing in the background. he was always caterina's favourite and he has to keep striving to deserve that dubious honour with every breath he takes and then, presumably, mercifully, some day he will die and be excused and can rest. and until now he's suppressed all the -- natural, healthy, protective! -- negative feelings that threaten the few attachment relationships he actually has, at the cost of ever actually having his needs for connection and safety met and leaving his core self imprisoned and compromised. and spite goes 'what. no. that's dumb fuck that' (*spite voice* I do not understand that and even if I did I would not respect it) and does not allow him to fall back into that, which I think is what saves his life, ultimately. it took being possessed by a demon for lucanis to even contemplate telling anyone he loves 'no' in any way, but hey. whatever gets you there right lol

lucanis is dealing with the freeze response allll the way down baby. and he was even before the ossuary, that just turbo powered it and brought it to a breaking point way before it could happen naturally. but something was going to break eventually no matter what, and I'm just glad that in the end, through the power of friendship and also pure spite, it doesn't have to be him

[azuronel]

my predictions for the end of book 7

EDIT: part two here

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm not going back to Gusu with you.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[theartingace]

so I've been OBSESSED with Murderbot

I've already largely changed my mind on it's design like 3 times but Vico Ortiz remains my ultimate inspiration

[trans-axolotl]

i just think intersex kids and trans kids and especially trans&intersex kids deserve so much better and i would burn everything down to make that happen

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[egophiliac]

EGO EFO EGO OVERBLOT SSR ANNOUNCED OVERBLOTS SSR ANNOUNCED MALLEUS' HAS BEEN SHOWN BANGS POTS AND PANS EGOOOOOO

OH NO

[jagalart]

Hue 16

[nanihirunkits]

เจ้าความรัก (Hurt Me Please) Ost.THE HEART KILLERS เขาจ้างให้ผมจีบนักฆ่า JOONG ARCHEN

[reunitedinterlude]

phil’s sci-fi project forever in my heart (1, 2)

[shoko-ism]

Knight Caleb with Princess!Reader who has been given away to the heir of the foreign kingdom and he has to accompany his only friend, his only love on the journey to said kingdom and it haunts him that a stranger gets the privilege of marrying you and not him. That a man who barely knows what fruits you like(if you ask him the same, he'd say it is you that tempts him the most - his forbidden apple) or what scandalous books you read and giggle at(romances and erotica that make you swoon and wonder how marital bliss would look on you, and he almost swears that he can surpass all the fantasies your sweet mind has conjured up) - all because he was born a royal. Caleb who resents the fact that he wasn’t born royalty; sometimes he wishes on a shooting star, even though he knows they do not make anyone's wishes come true, that when he wakes up tomorrow, you are no longer shackled by the chains of duties and responsibilities anymore - that you are just a common girl, free to live and he’s just a boy who’s madly in love with you.

Knight Caleb whose blood boils at the thought of that undeserving man touching you, kissing you, making love to you when all Caleb had wanted was to be by your side - no matter what. He'd be your friend, your lover, your protector - as long as it is you who commands it. Caleb who feels goosebumps raise on his skin when your fingers play with his hair, when your fingertips brush against his as you pass him by in a flurry of gentle wind, leaving behind the soft aroma of jasmine and roses behind. Caleb who has been your closest confidant all your life (your childhood friend, the only man who has ever made your heart beat violently out of your chest whenever he looks at you like you’re the sun, the moon and his entire galaxy)- who is tormented by you every night when you cry yourself to sleep, scared and alone in a foreign land with no one to rely on. Caleb who wants nothing more than to rush to your side and hold you - who wants to be your first kiss, first love, first fuck.

Knight Caleb who wants to feel your heated skin flushed against his body as he marks up your pristine skin with red bites, who stakes his claim on you by kissing your lips raw and making you lose your breath. Caleb who holds your hand as he talks you through it; murmuring praises into your neck as he whispers vows of eternal devotion - all for you. [But he knows you value your virtue, and he respects you too much to do anything that would tarnish your name, ever.]

Caleb who knows that you love him all the same, but your responsibilities surpasses any feelings you have for him. Caleb who won't stop you from performing your duty, but who will ensure he is able to complete his duty to you and your happiness - even if it means ensuring that your betrothed does not see the light of the day tomorrow.

[cl0wnzzy]

guys when i said i wanted it to be a danger days summer i didn't mean it like THIS.