#just awful awful

[willelworld]

i think the most upsetting detail of the mike and el fight in s4v1 is that, when mike tells el that she’s a superhero, she physically isn’t. and yes, this is stated in the scene, she says it herself. “not anymore.”

but i don’t know if many viewers sit back and visualize what that means for her, in terms of her identity and life purpose.

imagine: you are a weapon. your purpose in life is to do whatever the adults in white clothes tell you to. you are built to search and to inflict pain.

you escape and finally start using your powers for good - to protect people. you are lauded as the savior of another child, and of a small group of people who are kept to secrecy.

then, just as you begin to explore your individual identity for the very first time— you lose your power, the thing your life has revolved around since you started forming memories. the thing you are praised for, loved for. it must feel like cutting off an arm or losing an entire sensory system. you have to relearn how to exist both physically and mentally, now with part of your being locked away.

you start your social life anew and have a fresh slate to try out this whole identity thing. you are immediately pointed out as the other, an outcast, someone who is different and talks weird and does unpredictable things. you try your best to be nice, but nothing works. you have all this anger built up inside you because, again, you were built this way, to fuel your power on rage and to destroy.

you cannot find who you want to be, because they have already decided it for you. you are a freak in their eyes. you are an easy target. you may be taller now, nothing like the child you were in the lab, but you are weaker than ever.

and with all of that pain, you look to your boyfriend—someone you love, the first person your age to treat you with care— for support. but he has also decided for you. he says you are a superhero.

you had to learn to close doors with your hands, after using your mind for years. every time you lift your hand to do something, to reach for your power, you are reminded that you are no longer a superhero.

what if you are neither? none of the above? is that even possible? to be someone outside of how you are perceived?

and then, you are given the opportunity to get them back. no, you need to get them back, your friends’ lives depend on it. so you do, and it’s incredibly painful, and you learn more awful things about your past, like watching yourself act our someone else’s memories.

and after all of that. your boyfriend is finally there for you, telling you he loves you for who you are, like you even know who you are, fully. he calls you his superhero.

but you do not save the day, your best friend dies in front of you and the town you vowed to save over and over— by virtue of your birth and the fact that no one else physically can— is destroyed. your powers are back, but you do not feel like a superhero, and hearing it from someone you love makes it somehow sound even faker.

it’s so upsetting. god. it breaks my heart. using the word superhero just. what a choice.

[ef-1]

For those not tapped into Australian politics, King Charles is in Australia to conduct his "historic first tour to the commonwealth realm" i.e visting countries that King Charles is supposedly a monarch to.

Indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe had requested an audience with King Charles for weeks prior to this visit, she wrote countless letters to speak to him. Unlike other commonwealth nations and other former Brisitish colonies, a treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia was never formed. Their land was never ceded to the British Crown. After being denied and ignored, Lidia Thorpe, draped in a traditional possum skin cloak, stormed in the Great Hall during the reception for Charles at Parliament House in the capital shouting the following:

I literally can't even look at these photos without getting goosebumps.

[beaft]

do genuinely find it fascinating how indeed.com is like the biggest job-hunting website out there and yet manages to be profoundly useless in every possible way

[bagool-the-wizard]

Somebody ate a hole in the flour.

Any idea who it could be?

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[planefood]

rules for thee and not for me

[ahotknife]

the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

[oliviawebsite]

(after misunderstanding what someone said and embarrassing myself) oh great now they hate me and want to kill me with rocks

[belovedgamers]

Doc is fighting the good fight on Twitter (calling out people who hate his rainbow beacon) and idk I thought this was very sweet

[chloesimaginationthings]

The FNAF Vanessas meet their younger selves..

[pidgydraws]

🤎 never let go 🤎

[hinamie]

make it vicious, take a stab

[fear-is-truth]

rafe cameron was in love.

not the casual, summer fling kind of love that flared hot and burned out. no, this was the deep, ridiculous, i’ll-put-up-with-anything kind of love.

and it was all because of you.

you were perched on his counter, legs swinging, a small bowl of strawberries balanced precariously in your lap. the sweet juice clung to your fingers and glossed your lips as you popped another into your mouth. rafe stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching.

“you’re gonna drop that bowl,” he deadpanned. you shrugged, not breaking eye contact as you picked up a particularly plump strawberry and lobbed it at him. it struck him square in the chest, just above where his heart was. it left a faint red streak on the white polo shirt like a misplaced mark of affection.

“seriously?” rafe said with an air of incredulity, looking down at the stain and then back at you.

“oops,”

“oh, you’re done for,” he muttered, striding toward you. you squealed, trying to scramble off the counter, but he was too fast. his hands caught your waist, pulling you back before you could make your escape. you clutched the bowl protectively to your chest, laughing so hard you could barely breathe. “you’re cleaning this shirt,” his face was so close you could see the tiny flecks of gold in his blue eyes.

“sure, sure,” you managed between giggles. “right after you apologise for looking like the perfect target.” he rolled his eyes, but his grip on you softened, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over your hip. “you’re so fucking weird.”

“but i’m cute,”

he tilted his head, pretending to consider. “debatable.”

you gasped, leaning in close like you were about to kiss him, and he did the same, his lips puckering just slightly. but before your lips made contact, you blew a sharp puff of air into his mouth. rafe jerked back, blinking in confusion. “what the f—what is wrong with you?” he spluttered, though the corners of his mouth twitched.

“nothing. you just make it too easy.”

shaking his head, rafe grabbed the bowl of strawberries from you and set it on the counter. before you could protest, he cupped your face in his hands, smearing a bit of sticky juice from your cheek onto his thumb.

“you weirdo,” he said softly, his voice low and warm.

“your weirdo,”

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[pencilmint]

Sunset in Shinjuku

[n4rval]

i lied. here's a bonus.