#just something personal i guess

[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."

[heynhay]

mercy, are you still with me?

[from where the apple falls by europa_report]

[violent138]

It would be hilarious if Dick (recently dumped) and Jason (perpetually uninterested) were discussing their lack of dating prospects and Tim asks what they're talking about and Dick explains before going, "High five Timmy" and Tim's like "Yeah no thanks, I've got [bitches]." And both Jason and Dick are stunned.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[lazylittledragon]

i'm in one of those phases where i really wish i believed in manifesting and spellcasting and things like that bc you know when you want something so bad you're literally praying for the universe to let it happen

[egophiliac]

OMG EGO HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOOK 7 CATER CARD YET

80s britpunk Cater is such an incredible direction to take. his Sid Vicious jacket! his little british police cap! I wouldn't have anticipated that going full-on Sex Pistols would be his alternate self but it is SO fitting actually. 😭

(also th-the crown symbol?! the gavel?! is housewarden Cater real because I will TRANSCEND --)

[fascinationstreetmp3]

something i thought would be interesting... the 'lestat call' from 2.05 but with the main audio channel isolated so you can't hear lestat's voice. so what it was like from louis' POV really

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that irving canonically survives through the end of asunder to be at wynne's funeral is so fucking funny to me. nothing but love and respect for MY unstoppable cockroach morally grey machiavellian mage dad!!! he's survived in his position through multiple attempted rites of annulment and blood mage plots popping up left right and center around him. the chantry keeps trying to stamp him out but his dodge game is simply out of this world, divine. civil wars, political machinations and minefields, chantry atrocities, this wily old motherfucker is dodging and weaving his way through it all, not-quite-no-hits-taken-running-it-but-honestly-close-enough-under-the-circumstances style. if solas does succeed in tearing down the veil I would fully believe that one of the like three people still alive at the end of it all would be a very weary 90 year old first enchanter irving going 'oh this shit again huh'. the maker has cursed him for his hubris and his paperwork is never finished (affectionate, it's fine he canonically loves paperwork)

[technically-human]

Hi i'm absolutely in love with the reverse au!!

I want to know, in this verse does edwin still confesses to charles? if so how is it different? i feel if he did he would end it by apologizing, you know, religious guilt and all

There’s a train that goes through Hell.

Its journey starts in Wrath, and it departs already full of souls. It took Charles far too many years to realize that there were separate, more spacious wagons that demons could board. Not that he could understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t.

Actually, Charles couldn’t recall ever boarding the train. As far as he could tell, he just appeared there one day, and had spent the next tortuous decades trying to get out. It was part of the torture. Getting out was entirely possible. More than that, it was necessary.

The train had no regular schedule that he could discern (not at first, though he had always been good at finding patterns, and was eventually able to crack it) but it would make quite a few stops before finally returning to the Wrath ring. Souls inside the train were already angry and far too close to each other (close, so close not even air could squeeze in) but when they got really violent was when the train made a stop.

Getting out didn’t mean you were free, no matter where you managed it, be it Sloth or Gluttony, Pride or Lust. No, as soon as the train finished its journey, you would appear back inside, in Wrath where you belonged, suffocating once again, getting ready to claw your way out for the millionth time.

Because if you didn’t get out, The Conductor would get you.

If he thought about it calmly, Charles could probably say that he got out of the train more times than not. Still, being caught by The Conductor once was bad enough, as there was no coal in Hell, and something had to serve as combustible. Souls could not burn to death, and the whole journey always felt longer than eternity when he was caught. Once it was over, he would be inside again, and fight with more desperation than before, not caring who stayed inside so long as it wasn’t him.

He couldn’t understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t. But as the souls pushed and bit and clawed and punched their way out, Edwin boarded the train. And that wasn’t even the most groundbreaking revelation Charles had that day.

ko-fi

[hootgrowlbears]

The experience of being singled out by a teacher as unexceptional since day one. Trying something new and getting endlessly questioned about the why, the how. For months, going to class and giving up on doing well because it's not like this teacher ever cared about you anyway. Being berated in front of your whole class for your slipping grades and not knowing what to do about it.

And then the flip. In the middle of the year apparently something you did was impressive. Your teacher is friendly with you in a way they never were, and your sudden success was all a part of their plan, their method. "This is what I was trying to tell you, and you finally got it!".

You convince yourself of that too, grudgingly. It all worked out. That teacher really did know best after all. All that stuff at the beginning of the year, all that stuff for the two years before that, that was fine. It was all part of the plan. The humiliation and the stress and the nights spent wondering "What am I not getting about this?", were all necessary.

It's time for teacher evaluations. All fives.

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[laurellala-comics]

A Shakespearean comedy of errors

bonus:

[marypsue]

Man, it's cool and all if you see a metaphor for marginalisation in the monstrous, and if you want the power fantasy of 'what if you could just eat anybody who threatened you/pissed you off'. Me too.

However, as soon as you start saying 'no, these monsters are a 1:1 on Specific Marginalised Group, and you have to treat them in the fiction like they are directly representative of real human members of the marginalised group', BUT you also, in the fiction, make them hurt/kill/eat humans? And then try to shame me, your audience, for noticing or engaging with the bit where they kill people, because you made them directly representative of a real-world marginalised group? You have lost me, and also, I think, the plot.

[payasita]

GOD so i hear my brother freaking out in the living room like "MANDO WHAT HAPPENED??? ARE YOU OKAY???" and i run out and there is what looks like a GIANT red gash down the dog's forehead and snout

bro goes what do we do and i direct him to hold onto mando and clean the gash off with a wet towel while i look for some neosporin but the thing is. this dog is scared of Everything. he is 55 lbs of Run From Scary Plastic Bag Noise instinct and nothing else, and so i thought hed be freaking out more, or that we'd have at least heard SOME commotion when he gouged himself. but no he's just sitting there chilling out while bro wipes gunk off his face

so i just kinda. squint. "are we sure it's blood"

bro goes "i dunno?" and so i just like. turn on some lights, and we confirm whatever it is sure does Look like it's just sitting on top of the fur. so i lean in for a sniff.

it's salsa. from my carne asada fries

[theresa-draws]

the moment that piqued his curiosity + more veilguard-flavoured yearning

hey why can't rook immediately run back to the lighthouse and yell at solas, why must i carry these secrets i will explode

[arcanewebs]

amazing episode EASILY one of my most favorite battle episodes of all time. How Ever is it insane of me to wish it went Just a little bit worse than it did. for the plot