#my dream home would have lots of it

[front-facing-pokemon]

[theaceace]

Hob is woken, not by the shrill cacophony of his alarm or the sunlight hitting his face where they'd forgotten to pull the curtains last night, or even the warmth of Morpheus' hands and mouth, but by the sudden dip in the mattress as another person flops onto the bed with them.

Several lifetimes' worth of instincts see him jolting awake in an instant, heart racing and sweat already beading on his back and brow. Hob may not be able to die, but he's been ambushed in his sleep more than enough times to be getting on with, ta very much, and he's not keen to do it again. Suddenly he's twenty-five, and exhausted after days of marching on Troyes, feet sore and heart sorer, waiting on a battle that never came. He's twenty-eight, and the knife that flashes in the darkness misses his throat only because Herry has ears like a bat and enough blind-foolish loyalty to leap on their attacker's back. He's seventy-three, and lying barely-conscious among the dead that need burying or burning, and he knows that he needs to rouse himself even with the arrow still in his chest, or he'll be burnt or buried with them. He's two-hundred and sixty-four, and they've come to the home he'd made for his family, to drag him from the bed he had shared with his wife some thirty years before, and haul him away as a witch.

He's gripped now by the same fear, and it has him up and moving, one hand fumbling at the bedside table for anything with enough heft to dent a skull before he realises that none of his attackers have ever smelt like peaches.

Beside him, Morpheus shifts just enough to free his face from the clutches of his pillow.

“That key was given to you for use in emergencies, my sibling,” he says, voice thick with sleep and the cotton pillowcase.

Desire stretches luxuriously between them and smiles, fox-sharp, at Morpheus. They roll their head to look at him – beneath the perfume and sweat and wet pavement smell of them, Hob catches a sour waft of alcohol.

“Oh but my dear brother, this is an emergency,” they say, and – look, Hob has been drunk enough to recognise the exquisitely deliberate care at the edges of their words. He huffs a little, pushes himself up so that he can slap a hand on the bedside lamp and blink furiously against the sudden light. It takes a few seconds for his vision to clear, and he rubs his hands over his face in a vain effort to convince himself that this is some new nightmare that Daniel is testing out, before he gives in to the inevitable and turns to examine their guest.

"And what could possibly be so pressing at –" Morpheus snatches Desire's wrist up to stare blearily at their watch "– two thirty-seven in the morning? That could not be expressed in a phone call or wait until a reasonable hour?"

"Do you know, brother mine, how many partners I found to dance with? Whose desire for me, once so integral as to be a given, I had to simply guess at? To read in the curve of a smile or the enticing lull of a question? I didn't know them, not a one, and can you guess, sweet Dream, how many of them took me to their beds?"

And Hob has heard quite enough of that. He stretches and tosses back the sheets, while Morpheus shoots him a filthy glower that softens immediately into a plea for respite with his sole visible eye. Desire either doesn't notice this silent communication, or doesn't care.

“None!” They crow gleefully, clasping their hands, and Morpheus scowls as he's jostled in place.

It's not that Hob wants to leave him to fend for himself against his sibling, only that he doesn’t fancy being in the firing line when Morpheus inevitably snaps and thumps Desire with a pillow.

Doing an admirable job of ignoring Morpheus' wounded expression, Hob groans and lurches himself in the vague direction of the kitchen. Might as well put the kettle on for this.

"Jasmine or apple tea, love?" He calls. No sense having any caffeine now. If they're lucky, Desire will wear themself out quickly and they'll be able to go back to sleep before the alarm goes off.

"Apple, if you would," Morpheus replies.

"Ooh, I'll have jasmine if you're making."

"Didn't ask you!" Hob shouts back, already adding a spoon of sugar to the third mug he'd fetched down for them. 

“Oh, so forceful! You know, if you ever get tired of my stick-in-the-mud brother here…” Desire trails off meaningfully, and Hob snorts, smiling a little to himself. They know full well it's not going to happen, however much or little they remember about his desires, and even if he were – impossibly – to change his mind about Morpheus, they'd get bored of him soon enough. 

He sets all three mugs on a tray, and grabs a pack of chocolate digestives while he's at it. Morpheus would never admit to being fond of them, but he doesn't need to. Hob's watched him absent-mindedly devour most of a packet while he pecks one-handed at the keyboard. Besides, Desire could probably do with something to line their stomach. 

“Is being human always this delightfully contradictory? So baffling and solid and… damp?” Desire asks, lifting their head just enough to peer at Hob as he re-enters the room. It's a moot question, of course. They've been human long enough now to know that the answer is, largely, yes. 

“Often. But do you know, my sibling, the very best part of being human?” Desire turns lazily to look at Morpheus, smiling wide. Their lipstick today is dark purple, and smudged at the corners of their mouth. 

“Mm, do tell. You know how much I crave your… wisdom,” they say, rolling the words indulgently over their tongue. Hob sighs and nudges Morpheus’ book to one side so he can set the tray down on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

“It is that it is no longer against the Old Laws for me to do this,” Morpheus says, planting one foot against their side and shoving hard enough that they topple off the bed with an outraged squawk and undignified thump. There's a blessed moment of stillness, the same kind of breathless anticipation that Hob remembers from the battlefield, before the charge and the mud and the pain. Then they pop back up over the side of the bed with a cry and launch themself at Morpheus. He'd be more worried if he couldn’t hear the laughter in their voice, nor see how their outstretched hands target Morpheus’ ribs and armpits, rather than his eyes.

Hob's sisters have been dead for centuries now, but he remembers this well enough.  Maybe if the Endless had ever been anything like children, they might have gotten all of the murderous posturing out of the way before they grew up enough for it to be a problem, he muses. Still. Better late than never.

He takes a sip of his own tea and grabs a biscuit. Lord knows he won't get a look in once Morpheus has finished trying to jam his elbow into Desire's stomach and realises they're there.

“It was never against the Old Laws for you to be a bastard, which is lucky because you always were one!” Desire gasps, writhing away from Morpheus’ pointy limbs. Hob's been at the receiving end of those elbows before, and even when Morpheus is being gentle, they're decently sharp. He wonders idly if either of them'll tire of this before their tea goes cold, and decides not to intervene either way. Serve them both right if they have to drink cold tea.

“You tried to kill me!”

“Don't tell me you're still hung up on that?”

“I am, because you tried to kill me!”

“Well it's not like it worked!”

Not really the point, Hob reckons, but then again he's had plenty of mates that have tried to kill him. 

“More by good fortune than good judgment,” Morpheus hisses.

“Oh, so you admit to your poor judgment?”

Hob snorts, and the wounded look Morpheus swings towards him would fell a lesser man. Hob takes another biscuit.

“Ha!” Desire takes advantage of his momentary distraction to lock their arms around his shoulders and blow a loud raspberry against his cheek. Hob doesn’t think he's entirely successful in hiding his smile. Morpheus doesn't even try to hide his look of disgust. 

Well, he had to learn the downsides of being an older brother at some point, Hob supposes. 

Judging that the worst of the scrapping is over, he perches on the edge of the bed and pats Morpheus’ flank idly. Desire, loose-limbed with alcohol and triumph, flops over him to reach for their tea. Morpheus magnanimously doesn't jab his fingers into their exposed side.

“Thank you, Robert darling,” Desire says, eyes half-lidded as they drink. It comes out far less coquettish than Hob imagines they intended; too genuinely content. Morpheus sighs, and frowns, and doesn't quite do a good enough job of hiding his own ease as he sits up and leans against Hob. 

“I suppose you intend to stay the night?” Morpheus asks. There's nothing of the dignified dreamlord about him now, with his hair flattened on one side and just a little lank, and pillow creases on his cheek. He peers at Desire, half of his weight still supported by Hob, who takes another slurp of tea and polishes off the last of his biscuit. It's still unbelievable, sometimes, that he may see his dour and distant old stranger like this. Something tangible, something grounded, something he can hold. Unbelievable, too, after the way they had almost parted, after the way Morpheus had almost –

Well. Doesn't bear thinking about, really.

“Mm, yes, if you'll have me.” Do they have to work to make everything they say sound like a double entendre,  Hob wonders, or does it come naturally? He's not entirely sure they even notice they're doing it. 

“You're always welcome,” Hob says. “Guest room's all made up, and there's a spare toothbrush under the sink you can have.”

“How very kind. Dream, dear, isn't your man kind?”

“Unreasonably so.”

“Ta, love,” Hob says, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Desire rolls their eyes theatrically, as though that might mask how their expression softens. “Now drink your tea, I'd like to get a few more hours’ sleep before I need to get up.”

Morpheus grumbles but straightens up, plucking his mug from the nightstand and cradling it in one hand while he reaches for a biscuit with the other. 

“Should we expect any of our other siblings to join us tonight?” He asks, managing somehow not to spray crumbs everywhere as he does so, which is a bit unfair. Hob has centuries more experience talking through mouthfuls of crumbly biscuits, and he still can't do as good a job of it. “I take it you did not venture out alone this night.”

“No I didn't, but don't worry,” Desire says, tilting their head back as they drain their mug, a neat ring of purple left behind on the ceramic. “My sweet twin is unlikely to make an appearance. I certainly hope, at least – she went home with that little exorcist friend of yours. If she comes here, then something’s gone dreadfully wrong.”

They grin, cat with the cream pleased at the expression on Morpheus’ face, and flick their hand in something like a wave. “Well, goodnight brother! Robert.”

They flounce away towards the spare room, and Hob presses his smile into the curve of Morpheus’ shoulder.

“I hate them,” Morpheus grumbles. Hob kisses the bony jut of skin where his t-shirt has slipped, once, twice.

“No you don't,” he says. Morpheus sighs, sets his mug down, and returns to hold Hob's face still for a proper kiss. Not that Hob would try to get out of it. 

“No,” he agrees softly, pulling Hob down with him for a cuddle onto pillows that still smell a little of peaches. “No. I do not.”

[reneesbooks]

9 lines 9 people

ok confession these games scare me bc tagging people still intimidates me but i'm being brave today here's some lines i wrote a while back from the dragons of kiltide. just fabin having a little teenage angst. also this is 9 (11 but shh the context!!) paragraphs bc i still don't know how to shut the fuck up. thank you @space-writes for the tag <3

the raedoran cycle

[Fabin] tilts his head, pressing his forehead to the window frame. “What are dreams like?” he asks quietly.

Emilia sits across from him, watching how his eyes stare through the window but see nothing. She thought he'd left that behind in the weeks and months after their parents were killed, thought the long silences were finally over. She tucks her arms against her sides. “They're...like memories. Only more vivid.”

His fingers close around the hilt of his sword. “What do you dream about?”

She rolls her shoulders. “Places I've never been. Things I've never seen.”

One of his hands presses against the glass. “Do you ever dream of...of humans?”

She studies him with a worried frown. “Is there something you want to talk about?”

He recoils, his expression twisting with anger before it closes off. “No. I'm fine. I don't have dreams.” He turns away from her. “Never mind.”

Emilia sighs. “I talked Muiris down. He doesn't want to kill you anymore.”

“Good for him.”

“You should apologize for breaking his foot.”

Fabin turns to face her again, his eyes wide. “I actually broke it?”

tagging @oh-no-another-idea @zmwrites @akindofmagictoo @writinglyra @k--havok @lyssa-ink @aether-wasteland-s @ink-flavored @avrablake to share 9 (or more or less or however many you feel like!) lines of writing <3

[mossterunderthebed]

[sysig]

Sweet dreams, for a time (Patreon)

[giantkillerjack]

I miss my shitty sisters so much. I am feeling the family trauma sharp and harsh today. I woke up from a long anxiety dream again. One of the ones where I'm eternally just trying to get a ride home, and my family just can't seem to give me that. There's always one more thing before I can be allowed to go home. My wife is never in these dreams for long because then she'd help me and the dream would no longer be about family anxiety.

This time, I had fallen asleep in real life with my CPAP machine mask on, so the dream was less severe and not about how I couldn't breathe. In fact, I even had nice moments with my family in this dream. Me and my sisters - especially my older sister who was horribly ableist and emotionally abusive to me - seemed to make up. She didn't apologize or anything, but in the dream, I gave in and invited her to hang out with me. And in a way, it was nice. We watched TV together again like we used to. All three of us. Like in some of my very happiest memories of home.

I think that's why waking up felt so painful to me. Because that comfort was ripped away and replaced with the reality that if I invited my sisters and I to have that again, then there is nothing to stop the same pattern of abuse from occurring for the hundredth time. I would become too depressed to eat, then I would become anemic and suicidal again. I refuse to be that hungry every again on their account. I have this eating disorder because of my sister's abuse, and I will not open myself up to undoing all my hard work on my partial recovery just because I miss her.

But gods, I miss her. I miss my little sister too. I miss having a family that feels whole. I miss my old house which is now sold and never to be the place of comfort it was again. I miss feeling like everything was okay between us.

But everything was never truly okay. So much of the extreme conflict we had was from me developing boundaries against bad treatment for the first time in my life. Of refusing to be treated in the ways they had always treated me.

I gave my big sister dozens of second chances, and she blew through all of them with the absolute confidence of a person who believes they will never stop receiving chances. I warned her that there was a limit, I told the rest of the family how much it hurt that they kept insisting I repair the relationship no matter how it affected me - no matter if it had me begging forgiveness for how I reacted to being abused. So much demand to apologize for making space for myself to be away from them so I could be safe or for - gods forbid - shouting about how their ableism endangered the lives of me and my wife. Shouting! How utterly evil to yell when one's life is threatened! Better to bear it with a smile and agree that actually you ARE just dramatic, right??? 🙄

I realized that there simply was no upper limit to the amount of emotional and ableist abuse I could receive from her, from my parents, or from my younger sister that would not result in the other members of the family insisting it is my responsibility to make myself available to repair the relationship. The wholeness of the family unit was more important than the wholeness of me.

So even if I miss them, even if I am sad how sad they are missing me, how sad my parents are that I won't speak to them, even though I still truly love them... I have an inner child inside of me that I will NOT allow them to make hungry and hurt and guilty and confused again! I deserve so much better than how they've treated me! My wife and my friends have proven that!

I am allowed to have grief and boundaries simultaneously. What I grieve is not my choice to make distance - I do not regret this decision, as it is the reason I have been slowly able to get healthier rather than sicker these past 2 years - I grieve that I was treated so poorly that I had no choice but to cut them off.

I grieve it truly and deeply and even in my sleep. I wailed in my bed this morning from the crushing weight of the waves of grief. I let them wash over me. And I let myself feel them. I survive, still breathing, and I continue to sail somewhere new.

[beverage-cowboy]

El scorcho by Weezer is such a good song if you ignore like the first minute and a half of it anyways

[texeoghea]

when youve changed so much from your origins as to be nearly unrecognizable

[stylishanachronism]

I wish I had the illustrative and writing skills that dream!me had goddamn

[duskythesomething]

very frustrating that there is a snake I want, I have a nice sized tank I can set up for it, I have had this snake saved for a month now and his price just dropped, and yet I still need to wait.

rambles in tags

[opens-up-4-nobody]

I wanna play with Legos right now :-[

[fightingdragonswithwho]

hate to be a hater on the main … but this season of ted lasso excels (once again) at team dynamic and the found family elements and i think the finale absolutely nailed that, i cried, i laughed, it was perfect on that. now as for the individual stories and relationships… yeah, let’s leave it at that

[lizardho]

Before I knew I was bisexual I was just insanely dramatic and weird around guys I liked. I had a crush on this guy in my ward - he was older than me, he played bagpipes and had a cheerful dog and an old Volkswagen bus that he worked on all the time. He also had nice scruff and unnaturally attractive hands and a good sense of humor, so I was like FULLY smitten.

I talked about him a lot and about how he was just so dang COOL, dang it, because he was so frickin’ cool. And I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and interesting and cool and fascinating and a bunch of other weird feelings I barely had the attention span to think about (I think my ADHD may have prevented me from coming out for a while tbh).

One day, I’m like 14-15, his dad is called to be my Sunday School teacher. His dad is this ex-military hardass with a chip on his shoulder for absolutely no reason and unattainable standards for his children. He spent most of Sunday School talking shit about his eldest boy and how he was rebellious and didn’t listen to him and how that was going to make him a bad adult and a bad son forever. How his son was too lazy and unmotivated to be successful because he didn’t listen to his advice on how to read the scriptures. He complained about how our generation was too weak to do things right and that our generation would surely be the one that brought the world’s downfall because of our laziness and sin.

And like, first of all, that guy can already go fuck himself for that. To clarify, that’s already stupid. BUT. He was talking about the man I had uncomfortable dreams about at least once a month. I couldn’t stand it. I’d get so mad I’d go home shaking sometimes because how fucking DARE he insult his hardworking stunning son by calling him lazy? For not reading the Bible the way his dad wants? When he’s already spending his time learning bagpipes? And fixing cars? And being cool? And cute? Who the fuck even cares if he uses the footnotes in the Book of Mormon? Who gives a rotten rat’s ass if he doesn’t use the scripture study manual his dad uses? He’s so cool he doesn’t even need it? So fuck off?

And eventually I got fucking Sick Of It and decided to mutiny. And by mutiny, I mean skip class. I’d just not go. And after a bit, adults started noticing and bugging me about it. At first, this was put off by small talk and excuses, but as my absence from Sunday School became more well-known, my excuses began to be rejected.

“Oh, Lizard, why aren’t you in class?” Uhm idk because my Sunday School teacher is mean to his kid and that makes me so mad wtf do you want from me? 🫠🤔

“Where’s your class, I’ll go with you!” Oh no ty I’d rather peel my own eyes than have my taste in men critiqued tyty 🩷

“Lizard, you should go to class, I’m sure they miss you!” And I miss the innocent days where my stomach didn’t hurt when a cool boy I knew was being belittled but unfortunately for us both those days are LONG gone and all that’s left is a budding psychosexual clusterfuck that will render me almost fully incapable of functioning for the better part of a decade so Bye Bye, sister Smith 🙂‍↕️

It had gotten to the point that ward leadership was involved. I was being approached by members of the Young Men’s presidency and the Bishopric to try and make me to back to class. They were telling me God had told them to find me and instruct me on my rebelliousness. This is where I implemented my secret weapon - women. Mormons are weird as hell about a lot of things, but especially about women. And I was GREAT with women. So to combat the leadership’s attention, I started helping women.

Our ward had a lot of new moms with babies who were, as babies tend to be, fussy. But for Mormon women the church is often their only social outlet, so they try to power through as long as they can even if it means enduring the exhausting ordeal of taking care of a fussy baby at church.

For what it’s worth, I have a lot of sway with babies. I got baby street cred. Me and babies have a rapport. I have always known this. I have always loved this. And in this crucial gay time in my faggot life my baby mind powers came in clutch - Every time I saw a member of the bishopric getting close, or a young men’s leader giving me side-eye, I’d start walking slowly towards class, passing by relief society. I’d wait until a mom’s baby had gotten too fussy and needed to leave the room, and I’d swoop in like a knight. “Oh, don’t you worry sister, I’ll bounce him a bit. You go back and hang out with your friends in class. You deserve a break.”

If it was a diaper change or something they’d tell me no. But if it was just some good old-fashioned baby fusses, I mean, they’d be moved almost to tears. They just got their social time back AND a free babysitter who is renowned as the Baby Whisperer. And because I was holding a baby as a favor for someone else, I of course could not reasonably be bothered to return to class.

So just like that, I was out of everyone’s sights. This went on for about a month before the straw that broke the camel’s back, which was that without my class participation the classes were quiet and awkward. I’d often take the brunt of Sunday school lectures by answering questions impulsively and over explaining myself enough that the clock could run out without anyone needing to do or say much. My absence meant everyone else was getting hit with the full unpleasantness of this guy’s bullshit. And so slowly, one-by-one, I had a group of about 8 kids on baby-holding duty. These new moms were so overjoyed, they and their husbands were both so actively in our corner that now chastising us was untenable. Now we had bargaining power. So the Bishopric approached us, confused beyond confused and uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable, and said,

“What’s it gonna take to get you back to class?”

The POWER I possessed in that moment was addictive. By being kind to the women of the ward and ignoring the Mormon de facto Rule of Law of following rules en-masse so the rule breakers feel left out, there were now so many people breaking ranks that we had effectively enacted a church boy labor strike. And they crumbled so fast it was almost like we had swayed God himself to our cause.

“I want brother assholedad gone. He sucks at teaching.”

I didn’t even have to say it. One of my rebels said it for me. I just nodded sagely and said “Yes, his class is not edifying. It’s better to not go and hold babies.”

And just like that, with a snap of my limp-wristed, Christ-wounding, bottom-brained fingers my faggot will was enacted. God’s revelation that brother shitdad was his chosen Sunday school teacher flipped on a dime. Suddenly brother shitdad was asked to be an usher and the fun dad of another one of my crushes was called in to teach us. I still stayed to hold babies a lot, but the rest of the class returned and all was well again.

Although I didn’t recognize it then, I think that was a formative moment for me in a lot of ways. I learned that being really persistently annoying will get me what I want from authority eventually. I learned that God’s will can be swayed by going in strike. I learned that ignoring men’s made up authority forces them to level with you as a person. I learned that caring for women, especially vulnerable women, can make a whole world happier. I learned that letting women rest can help them feel more love for the things that matter in their life. I learned that social bonds make everyone stronger and happier. And I learned that loving others in a gay way can change the world.

Be gayer. Read Terry Pratchett. I love y’all 💕

[erebus-luckycharm]

Guys I can't keep going to work

[imwritesometimes]

I really wish I could box up a treat and send it to people that leave cute comments or even just like the pics of the stuff I bake btw 💜

[dualitysdownfall]

I'm going to ramble here, I don't like to just add onto the thread with my personal stuff like this but I drafted it in the tags and I'm not done, I'll run out of tag slots at this rate.

As a kid I internalized the idea that school was the most important thing for my future. I took it to heart early on and excelled in school. Well, this is my final semester of college and still do not have many useful skills outside of school.

If you tell kids they'll only thrive if they do perfectly in school--and they believe it--they still won't thrive because they'll focus on that over all else, instead of things like socializing and learning basic adult independence.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to value your studies, not all of that information/experience is useless, etc. But my education has been essentially the sole focus of my life for as long as I can remember, and so far it has not paid off like I thought it would when I was a kid. I don't have much to show for myself other than my academic record.

Like... I know so strikingly little about finances and bills and home maintenance, basic things that an independent person would need to know, right? I didn't have time to learn that stuff when I was in 3 AP classes at once! (and of course, i have forgotten most of the content of those classes so how much did i really gain from sinking so much of my time into them?)

A couple months ago (I think), my dad told me we should get me a credit card, and I said I didn't understand credit cards because weren't they like xyz? And he said actually it's like abc and he explained to me how they worked so I understood. Which is good. But while he was talking I just started crying because I'm twenty-two whole ass years old and I didn't know this. No one ever told me. Years into the part of my life where I might be expected to already be using this knowledge.

It's things like these that convince me that I could never be independent, which is why I never have been. Admittedly, part of my problem is that I can't drive for reasons I can't really fix, but that's solely a me thing and not what I'm talking about. Even if I could drive, I still don't know a lot about getting jobs or getting housing or how any kind of insurance works. If the government or bureaucracy is involved, assume I don't understand it. Hell, I'm not even entirely sure how phone plans work.

I guess my point is that this world is unfathomably complicated and doesn't exactly look out for everyone, and they didn't bother to teach us how to live in it.

If you want us to succeed in this world, patiently teach us how to live in it, instead of dumping us in an algebra class where we'll forget everything within a month.

Even now, I've never sought out a little entry-level part time job or whatever, because being a full-time student I don't have the energy or time to expend on anything else. I even have to put off personal projects and things I enjoy to focus on my classes. Now, at this point, you can pin that on me, because I did technically choose to go to college. But I chose it because I felt I had to: the world had me convinced that I wouldn't get anywhere without a degree. And who planted that idea in my mind...?

I've been a student my whole life. A good student, even. Which is what they want, what they told me to be, right? It's not good for a struggling student to tell them the rest of their life depends on them getting it together. But being smart as a kid didn't make it easier for me. I gave it my all and didn't get much in return. Folks out there have gotten opportunities outside of school that led them to success without needing to try as hard in school as I did.

School is not the be-all end-all that everyone makes it out to be.

And all this is not to mention how much time on the things I'm actually passionate about that I sacrificed in favor of my education. If I cared just a bit less about the distinctions on my high school diploma (who cares about that?!), I could have had more electives in things I really love like choir and art. I gave up that opportunity for reasons that in retrospect just don't hold up, and I'll never get that back.

These days I'm studying art, my passion, and I still have to put off personal projects. There's just enough time in the week to be a student and then recharge from being a student, and not a second longer. No job. Just enough free time hobbies to keep from going insane. That's it.

In four months, I will graduate. It will be the first time in my entire memory that I will not be a student. I don't know who or what I am without school. And it will probably be difficult to find out. Because once I've taken enough time to recover my energy after finals, and to celebrate my graduation, and to work on personal things that have waited months or years for me to have the time for them... after all of that...

I will still have to learn how to be an adult before I get to actually be one.

I think that when we tell teenagers that their lives will be over if they don't have the most perfect possible trajectory through the education system, that this is, perhaps, if I may be bold, not good for them,