#some days we SUFFER okay

[thebluestbluewords]

S’more gimme s’more

A dishrag goes flying past Mal’s head.

It’s not a bad throw. 

“You’re so annoying,” Mal laughs, snagging it out of the air before it can hit the floor.

She’s not annoyed, not really. Not when she’s got Jay beside her. She feels almost giddy with now not-annoyed she is. They’re really here, in a house that nobody can take away from them, that Evie bought for them to live in together, and they’re been invited to a party. Actually invited, as wanted guests. Not just as tag-along plus ones or the begrudgingly accepted party crashers that they were back home. She can’t be annoyed when she’s all hyped up on the feeling of being wanted. “I should start toasting all the shit you throw at me.” 

Jay throws a plastic spoon at her from across the kitchen. “Ayy, you should. I’ll start throwing marshmallows. Get some s’mores in here.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

Jay’s eyes go bright in the way that means he wants to smile, but also wants to hide it. “Bet.” 

There’s—oh no, this was a mistake, there’s a bag of marshmallows out on the counter, leftover from the fire they’d made last night, slowly going stale in the bottom of their sticky plastic bag. 

Mal could lunge for the bag, but Jay is taller and faster and starts moving first. 

The first marshmallow hits Mal’s shoulder in a sticky puff of sugar. 

“No, Jay— Jay!” Mal squeals, throwing her hands up in front of her face. “Stop it!” 

“Make me, killer.” 

“Oh, I’ll make you stop.” 

Jay grins, hand already cocked back with another marshmallow ready to fly. “Do it.” 

“I will!” Mal says, grinning back despite herself. She’s too happy to hold on to any real annoyance. “I’ll toast you and the marshmallow, and you’ll have to go to the party with your eyebrows burnt off, and everyone’s going to think you’re repeating chemistry again.” 

“Dude, it’s way too late in the year for that. I’m telling everyone you did it.”

“And I am a proper lady now, and I would never stoop so low as to pull some horrible prank and burn my dear friend’s eyebrows off.” Mal says, grinning. She’s already burned her own eyebrows off once, and the only reason they’re not still crispy is because she found a counter-spell before anyone saw. “It’s slander. You could be hanged for saying something like that about a lady of Auradon.” 

“Yeah, who’re you fooling with that one? Face it, killer. You’re not scaring anybody.” 

Mal opens her mouth just the tiniest bit, and lets the flames she’s been slowly building up with her magic lick their way out. 

“I’ll see what Jane thinks of your blasphemy tomorrow,” she says, teasing just the slightest bit of the fire in her voice. “She’s still scared of me, you know. She thinks we’re just the most wicked, awful people ever.” 

“And that’s why we’re invited to her party?” 

“Shut up. Let me have this.” 

“Sure. You’re awful and scary and horrible, and if I don’t stop throwing marshmallows at you, you’ll what, burn me to a crisp?” 

“Something like that,” Mal manages, but between the fire she’s keeping in her mouth and the way Jay is backing her into the counter, it comes out breathier than she intended. “I mean, I’m the hot one, right?” 

Jay laughs. “I’m the hot one, baby dragon. Evie’s the smart one, C’s the nerdy one, and you’re the dangerous one.” 

Mal tips her chin up to meet his eyes. Stupid boys, growing taller than her. It shouldn’t be such a delight to know that he’s taller now because he’s off the isle, and Auradon has given them all the chance to grow. “You think I’m hot.” 

Jay grins. “I think you’re dangerous.” 

“I think you should stop backing me against the counter and let me get up on it again.” 

Jay moves back a barely-preceptable half of a step, just enough for Mal to get her hands on the counter behind her and use her arms and core to pull herself up to sit on the edge. It’s been hot outside, but here in the kitchen the cold stone of the counter is smooth and shockingly chilly against the bare backs of her thighs. The little lavender tennis skirt Evie told her to wear today is cute, but it’s too short to protect her from the chill. It’s so sort she’s practically exposed already, just sitting up here like this. 

Maybe that’s the point. 

Jay leans forward again, now that Mal is safely on her perch. “You need the high ground to feel strong?” he asks her, teasing. “Little baby dragon wants to feel tall again?” 

“As if,” Mal scoffs. As if she is a dragon, and she could fly anywhere in the world if she wanted to, and it’s just a coincidence that she’s still here in the kitchen. “I just like the view from up here.” 

Jay is so close, and so warm, and so very inside her personal space. “The view, huh?” 

“And maybe the leverage,” Mal admits. From up here she’s able to cup Jay’s face between her palms, her thumbs on the sharp planes of his cheekbones and the heels of her hands at the edge of his jaw. She’s not wearing gloves right now, and the warmth of his bare skin against her own is startling. “You wanna do something about it?” 

Jay leans in, crowding her further against the counter until he’s pressed right into the hollow between her legs, where she’s hot and getting hotter, and plants his hands firmly, one on the counter and one on the curve of Mal’s hip. “I wouldn’t want to disturb the dragon.” 

[shattered-earth]

I am OBSSESSED with GIRL MATH

I just realized this is what me and my friends have been doing when we need help making a purchase that we deserve but have too much of a money lizard to do. I love that we can chant GIRL MATH GIRL MATH GIRL MATH before doing it now. (it's basically FREE!)

Sources: x x x

[unproduciblesmackdown]

billions also comedy gold presenting winston as a scapegoat for abuse culture fans when it's like but hey it can't be actual scapegoating if you Enjoy It or consider it Justified or experience Reassurance from Its Opportunity For A Group Cohesion Substitute For A Cohesion Based On An Inherent Equal Degree Of Belonging, The Absence Of Which Allows For, Encourages, Reinforces, & Rewards Scapegoating

it can't be Bullying if someone's Weird or you Just Don't Personally Like Them or Nobody's Actually Stopping You, Maybe At Least If They Don't See Too Much Of It, Maybe Others Are Supporting It

it can't be Abuse if you're just doing things Normally or are Following Rules or Aren't Feeling Malicious And Aren't Getting Divine Revelations Otherwise and probably it's just that a lot of abnormal people are being whiny &/or unfair &/or the Real malicious ones. kinda just like how that scapegoat is the real person ruining everything and really just forcing you to treat them like this

[tleeaves]

Reclining on a fainting couch, hands laced together and resting over my stomach as I stare up at the ceiling. Why the fuck do I so frequently end up caught between being attracted to mean guys (and gals) but also the wife material guys? Duality of man is falling for both all the time, apparently, and never knowing which I actually genuinely like better.

I wrote out a whole theory about why I like mean people before I realised the logic no longer applied to my current circumstances/character and now I'm back at square one. Perhaps the real answer is as lame as: because I like a challenge and the idea that someone treats me Extra Special compared to how they treat others.

At the end of the day, idk.

[chirpsythismorning]

Thinking about how when I joined Tumblr last summer I became mutuals with another byler from the tag and we hit it off, sharing theories and evidence w/ each other. Only for them to switch up at the end of the year, deactivating and starting a new account, making a post about how bylers are setting themselves up for disappointment, with their main evidence being that Mike’s monologue ‘clearly’ inspired El & because Finn said in a panel ‘we all know how Mike feels about El’…

[totallyawesome123]

rediscovering I have empathy? craaaazyyyyy

[keeps-ache]

so Apparently a game i was running on my computer (without a cooler thing for a good minute there, because i guess i thought i was invulnerable to heat) may or may not have burnt out some parts of my machine. and it's been a couple months since i've played it bc it just stopped working one day and i just had to accept that lmao- but anyway i'm booting the game up again today, Surely this will go differently :3

[kenonade]

you guys have no idea how much it amuses me that the ender’s game tag is practically 90% me. you’re all trapped in this room with me and you will have to endure my peterposting. there is no escape.

[thatoneluckybee]

I'm about to start throwing things

:3

[floral-hex]

Can’t tell if I’m so anxious because of drug withdrawal or it’s just because I have a bad brain 😓

[glassrunner]

.

[wolf-skins]

nvm the americans in the notes going “i live in america you don’t want privatized healthcare” are normies and fine it’s the fucking americans going LISTEN HERE YOU FUCKS

americans stop pretending you’re the main characters in the story and eat my entire ass

[vaspider]

Tonight, the night before Election Day 2024 in the US, I am thinking about my stepkid.

I am thinking about the phone call they made to us earlier this year, the one where they told us they'd gone to the hospital thinking they had appendicitis and found out, instead, that a zygote - a tiny splodge of cells - had taken up residence not in their uterus but in a fallopian tube. The one where our kid said they were waiting for their partner to arrive, hoped that said partner would get there before the docs took our kid back to terminate that pregnancy, & assured us that they'd be okay.

After all, our kid lives in a state with choice measures embedded in state law. That pea-sized blot of tissue doesn't have more right to their health than they do. Nobody is standing between them and their doctors. They made a decision, and that was that.

In this tiny tragedy, the kind that plays out dozens of times a day at minimum across the country, we only had to worry about the small risk of surgery complications. We didn't have to worry about Ken Paxton threatening to charge their doctors with felonies. We didn't have to think, "What if the hospital's legal team doesn't think an ectopic pregnancy - which is never ever viable and must be terminated before it kills our kid - is really that big of a deal?" We didn't have to worry that they live in a state where ob-gyns are fleeing, leaving few experts behind, as has happened in Idaho.

We didn't have to watch our kid vomit up black blood before dying the day after their baby shower the way Neveah's mom did. We didn't have to pray in a waiting room (while doctors took our kid apart until their heart stopped because the doctors waited too long out of fear of anti-choice laws) until a doctor came to tell us we'd have to bury them the way that Amber's mom did. We aren't having to pick up our lives after fully treatable miscarriage-related sepsis took them from us the way that Josseli's husband and daughter must.

I could go on for far, far too long.

Listen. If you are a single-issue non-voter and have already decided that "both parties are the same" or whatever other thing you've told yourself so you can sleep at night, smug and secure, then I can't reach you and I can't help you. But if you genuinely think that your votes don't matter, if you're just suffering from a bout of overwhelm or apathy, if you're too young to remember the 2000 election and can't see that Dobbs is a direct result of that election and every one that's followed, please, I am fucking begging you.

I didn't really talk about this when it happened. I mentioned something briefly, maybe. The posts I've started writing about it are still in my drafts. It was too fresh, too frightening. It's not any less frightening now, honestly - because if this week doesn't end with President Kamala Harris, we're headed for a national abortion ban, at the minimum - but it's not about how fucking frightened I was or how sad and bewildered I was to realize that my kid was going through this crisis in a nation more hostile to them than when I needed a D&C for an abortion at 21, in 1998.

It's about stopping this chapter of this fucking bullshit and at least finding some new fucking bullshit.

Vote, dammit.

Do the other work on Wednesday. Tomorrow, the work is to vote.

[pomefioredove]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ snuggles for hire

summary: first years try helping you out with your touch-starved problem type of post: short fics (blurbs?) characters: leona, floyd, jade, vil additional info: romantic or platonic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu

"Really? That's it?" Ace scoffs.

"So, they haven't been hugged in a while. Okay? Neither has Deuce,"

Deuce glares. It's almost menacing. "That's not true, and you know it! I get lots of hugs every time I visit home!"

"I do, too. But that's just the thing, though, ain't it?" Epel says. "They don't have no home to get hugs from."

The huddle of first years goes quiet. Some days, you become such a part of their world, they forget you're really not from it.

"...Okay, point taken," Ace sighs. "But they have Grim! And he only stinks like, half the time!"

"If memory serves, Grim usually sleeps on the floor..." Epel says. "Poor prefect, all lonely. Now even their sleep is suffering 'cause of it!"

Jack rubs the back of his neck. "It must be tough, not having anything to look forward to,"

Another melancholy silence. Finally, Ace stands, hands on his hips.

"Well, let's do something about it, then. There are tons of boys at this school- one of them should be willing to help,"

It's eight in the morning after another disappointing attempt at rest, and now you can't even sleep in. Damn visitors.

You throw open the front door.

"What? What could you possibly- wh- Leona?"

The housewarden smirks. He looks a little too proud of himself for this early in the morning...

"A little wolfie told me you weren't sleeping well. Lucky for you, that's my specialty. Now, are you gonna let me in, or what?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, letting himself in and making himself comfortable on the couch in the foyer.

He pats the spot next to him.

"Listen..." you say. "I don't know what you heard, but I'm fine."

"Don't be proud. I don't pity you, I just... owe you. Now get your butt over here, yeah?"

Leona isn't so scary when he's asleep. He's more like... the world's largest pillow. Of course, you're at risk of being smothered until you crawl into a better position, but once you're on top, he's surprisingly warm and comfortable.

You can tell you're being watched before you hear anything.

And you think you might just know wh-

"Shrimpyyy!"

For two boys so tall, the tweels are awfully quiet. Especially when it comes to "surprising" you in random places. This time: the hall.

Floyd pulls you into a bone-crushing hug while Jade watches from behind, smiling subtly.

When he finally lets you down, you're dizzy. (Though, at this point, you'll take whatever physical touch you can get).

"Shrimpyyy, why didn't you tell us you were lonely? We had to squeeze it outta Spade," Floyd pouts.

"His face makes fascinating expressions when he's afraid," Jade says, merrily.

Before you can answer, Floyd's already got you under his arm (seriously? Where do they find the strength?) and is heading straight towards the hall of mirrors.

You already know there's no getting out of this one...

Floyd is, unsurprisingly, all over, from leaning his whole body weight against you to lying across your lap, to biting your shoulder (in his sleep...?) Oh, and he drools, too.

Jade sits on your other side, one hand holding yours, the other leafing through an almanac from twenty years ago.

You're almost hesitant to admit just how nice it really is.

"And nothing else has worked?" Vil says, throwing open the door to your bedroom with no regard for a "hello" or, "how are you?"

You blink. "...Hello to you, too. May I ask what you're talking about?"

He storms inside, standing over you with his hands on his hips.

"Just that I overheard Epel Felmier asking my vice housewarden if he would be willing to satisfy your need for physical affection. You've been struggling? With sleep? And you didn't think to come to me, first?"

He almost sounds... offended that you didn't.

"...Well... I wasn't making a big deal about it,"

"So, no teas, no vitamins, no pills- nothing has helped?"

You shake your head. He sighs.

"Perhaps it is purely psychological... very well. Get up. I hope you don't toss and turn much, I'm a light sleeper,"

Vil is completely still when he sleeps. No tossing, no turning, no drooling, no snoring. He also insists on sleeping on his back, you, clinging to his side, and a single arm around you. Just as elegant as when he's awake. He'd be a true sleeping beauty if not for the mumbles of nonsense that come from him every few minutes. You swear you can make out your own name, once or twice or three times...

He is warm nonetheless, and his mumbles and idle stroking of his fingers on your waist is enough to satisfy you for a night of good sleep.

[i-know-its-meow]

Your cousin???? Why

My new years fortune cookie did not tell me if be answering asks this year about newfound parent hood.

Uuuh how about a tl;dr?

Op, being in a bad situation previously and recently got out with sib, realized cousin was in similar bad situation and about half a year ago got custody of them.

There's been a bunch of challenges but what else can you expect?

Also parent-teacher conferences on this side of things are just as bad. Especially when the teachers say hey I need you for this time and I'm like Is there a way we can contact each other when im not at work???? (I work second shift, until February where my boss said that I can switch) And their like no choose from this paper or else.

Luckily my boss let me come in late that day.

[florallychaotic]

Dark funny story in the tags feel free to skip lol