#some habits are hard to break.

[lenaellsi]

realistically i know that if caleb is actually a ghost and not a goop-induced hallucination and hunter interacts with him in the finale it will be like. viscerally upsetting for everyone involved. but also. i want them to two spidermans

do u see the vision.

[valrayne-faeu]

*Counting brazenly* I see... hm.... one..two..three.. four... Nightmare do you have 4 pairs of wings? :3

"...Do not breathe a word of this to anyone." Nightmare refuses to humour this conversation. Leave and be silent, or face the consequences of your nosiness.

while they are no longer seen, as he hides them at all cost, Nightmare still has the wings he was born with. long-since wilted and atrophied, they sit under his new wings as a reminder of his past failures. he binds them and wears a cloak at all times to ensure there is no way they can be seen.

it has been something like a millennia since his original wings were last seen in their full splendour, and few fae remain that remember that he had different wings at all. during the war most fae assumed he hid them as a symbol; that he was no longer a Seasonal prince but the Winter King and that they were in a new era. only one other understood the true reason-- that he was ashamed.

when the war was winding down and there were whispers of a truce on the horizon, few were surprised when the Winter King began to appear with beautiful green wings tucked humbly under his cloak. but two other fae knew the truth. Dream, who could never forget what happened to his twin, and a simple fae who had made a deal with the King himself, so that they might live in the human realm without their cumbersome wings.

[timechange]

MCFLY JULY ‘24 — 24-hour scientific services.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1983

“Listen, Mrs. Springer, I’m fine. Promise.”

He knows his English teacher probably isn’t going to appreciate the ‘cross my heart’ gesture, but he feels it’s necessary to really convey how totally, completely, one hundred percent fine he is. 

“We’re almost to the office,” is all she says in response. Her expression is gentle, so’s her voice, but by her tone Marty recognizes that she means business. She almost looks… angry?

“Are you… mad at me?” he asks, eyes squinting to try to get a better look at her.

“What? Oh, honey, no,” she’s quick to reassure, and he feels so shitty that he almost doesn’t mind how she’s talking to him like he’s still in elementary school. “No, of course I’m not mad at you. You’re sick!”

That, he’s not going to argue with. 

“But, y’know, I-I can stay, really–” he tries to protest. He’s totally okay to just sit and listen to everyone talk about… whatever book they were reading. To Kill A Mockingbird, probably? Or Inherit the Wind. Something about some trial or whatever. Yeah, he was totally getting it, even if he did kind of almost fall trying to get up and use the pencil sharpener. But it was no big deal.  

“No, you’re going home to bed,” Mrs. Springer says definitively, sitting him down on a chair that’s in the hallway for some reason? No, they’re in the office now, he recognizes the big desk and the lady behind it. Mrs. Springer puts her hands on his shoulders. “Now, I have to go back to class, but Marjorie’s here and she’ll take good care of you. She’ll get someone to come and pick you up, okay? And if you need a ride, I can take you back home after school, but I don’t want you waiting that–”

“No, it’s… it’s okay, Mrs. S. Thanks.” He offers a half smile her way. It’s nice that she cares so much, but he’d be okay just to skate home, really. He didn’t want anybody to bother Mom and Dad or Dave but he also didn’t want them to freak out if he climbed into bed and didn’t climb back out for a solid two weeks.

Mrs. Springer and the desk lady– Marjorie, he guesses– exchange a look before Mrs. Springer goes back down the hall. Marjorie smiles at him. 

“Hang tight, Marty,” she assures, cheerfully, “let me just call home for you, okay?”

He nods, letting his eyes shut for just a second–

“--Hi, sweetheart.”

Marty starts. Since when was Marjorie right in front of him? 

“Nobody’s picking up at home,” she continues, “is there someone else we could try?”

He nods. 

“Can I do it?” he asks.

“Sure, honey, go ahead.”

He stands, scuffing his shoes on the floor the way Mom always hates. He doesn’t mean to do it, but he’s pretty sure somebody tied weights around his legs while he wasn’t looking. 

He squints again, trying to make sense of the jumble of letters, numbers, and squares. Eventually, he manages to punch in the right number, hearing @doctorbrown ‘s voice at the other end. 

“Yo, Doc,” Marty begins. “Wait… you’re not your answering machine, right?... You’re you?... ‘Cause I, um, I kinda need a favor…” He rubs the back of his neck, his hair damp, fighting for words to describe his situation that just aren’t coming. “... I don’t feel good,” he eventually settles on, barely registering a wince at how babyish it sounds.  “They’re sendin’ me home but Mom and Dad aren’t, uh, aren’t home, so is it okay if you pick me up?... I keep telling ‘em I’m cool and I’ll be good to skate back but…”

[deva-arts]

Does Noctis actually enjoy violence? is he a sadist? 🥸

He's a born assassin. That comes with its fair share of violence! He's not a good person at all.

Even then he doesn't revel in bloodshed. It's just work where he's great at acting unabashedly heartless. As an Umbra, he still needs to do their work if he wants to keep his tenebrous freedoms. That means a lot of mass murder, betrayal, deceit, manipulation, coercion, and a lot more machiavellian deeds in the name of the shadows. He's an enforcer of their will. As such he gets free reign...

If it were up to him, he'd rather avoid going through all of these missions and spend his life with women, luxury, liquor, parties, picked fights, mental abuse, toying with people, playing dirty, and a healthy heaping helping of Halcyon. Those are actually fun. Plus they make him feel.

When the party dies down though, and the high fades, the women leave and the pranks lose their humor... The same, clawing, aching soullessness returns, only ever lacquered over with shallow distractions. And he is alone, with only his thoughts and the red on his hands. He'll soon find that one can only last so far in this line of work before the weight of their actions makes life insufferable. No rest for the wicked, right?

[keeps-ache]

think this is funny. anyway. the Thoughts are back at it again

[scattered-winter]

anyone else up feeling utterly overwhelmed or nah

[jor-elsemissary]

What is a habit Lionel has, which they consider perfectly normal, but others think is weird?

“It’s not weird,” he says defensively and suddenly becomes self conscious of what he is doing right now. He resists the desperate need to appear in control and normal, and erase his progress. Instead Lionel purses his lips and writes down letters and numbers before tacking a screw with putty just underneath them.

He has a couple sheets of paper spread out already with similar parts tacked and cataloged. In front of him is a children’s toy, an RC controller truck that had seen better days and which he is clearly trying to repair.

“Look, it helps me keep parts organized and from scattering. See here,” he points to a short screw that has FMBPp2 written on it. “This is front, middle, back plate position two.” He holds up the back plate from another paper that also has an alphanumerical assignment. “It goes here.”

He huffs indignantly and goes back to his work. Frowns when he notices something wrong and looks back at the paper he had been using, “Now you’ve caused me to forget where I got this!”

[symphonicdemise]

🗣

Meme | Accepting

"I want you to trust me... I don't want you to be afraid of me. I'm not the monster I used to be."

[daz4i]

it may be obvious to others but i am genuinely surprised every time i go back to old writing and see that I've actually improved since. who knew practicing a craft makes you better in it. this has literally never happened to me before

[vvelegrin]

i don't know, i feel like lately i've been getting better at... doing things that are difficult? not to sound like a toddler, but it's so fucking hard to get myself to do things, even if i desperately want to do them, and like yeah i know that's Executive Dysfunction, it's just very hard for me to wrap my head around. putting under a readmore because i'm just shooting my mouth in multi-paragraph format.

i have lately been able to brute force Activities with much more success. stimulant is a help, not so much in terms of direct cognitive functioning as much as indirectly by making me less devastatingly tired at all times. i still have little control over the direction of my focus and get stuck doing things a lot, both enjoyable things and unenjoyable things. and things that were enjoyable and then they eventually become unenjoyable and i still can't stop. and et cetera. i jokingly say free will is a sham, because it has always felt on various levels that i have somehow, physically and metaphysically and whatever, not had access to the same level of free will as my peers. shoutout to that person who posted their 'tourette's and free will' thesis online and altered my vocabulary on that front forever lmao.

but like... i've been doing pretty consistent work on some translation, and when i finish this piece i'll submit it and hopefully i'll be able to build my portfolio with a volunteering opportunity with this organization that will post my occasional translations of articles with my name attached. i've been playing chess (not well, I'll say, but i've been studying and practicing). i've finished a couple art pieces (small drawings mostly, except for the camel i whittled over many days and weeks!). been practicing arabic almost every day, and reading on grammar on days that i'm not directly practicing vocab and such. i took a six week intensive stats class during the summer and i worked my ass off and got a B+ (note that i hadn't taken any math class since literally a decade ago). i've stuck this master gardener program class through to the end, and i just need to finish my volunteering hours within the next year (that will absolutely Not be a problem) and i'll be a proper master gardener in my county. i've spent most saturday mornings (early because i am the earliest timezone lmao) this past year since about april, with a couple months' break, playing a logh strategy board game. i moved out and have been handling it.

i think, and i don't want to exaggerate, but like. i have been deeply affected in the past by failure and having to drop out of things or simply not do things because of overwhelm and inability to keep up. i missed out on being definitely cast in a college theater production because of dumb shit on my end. i made it onto an international model united nations team that was going to go to the czech republic and poland to compete, but had to drop. i was going to double major, but couldn't swing it. i took six years to do a bachelor's degree that normally takes people three (four, if they double major), and did a summer language immersion program that i was burnt out so spectacularly by that i was paying for it for YEARS after. i spent all that time literally surviving that i learned approximately no arabic. definitely didn't go to jordan the year after that to study like literally everyone else in my program. all of the volunteer and internship opportunities i could not follow through upon because i simply COULD not, physically or mentally, do them.

i don't know, people are always like 'you've accomplished so much!' which like, yeah, i've definitely accomplished things, i never mean to discount the things i've done! but people have always said so as if it cancels out the devastation of being so close with these other things that i desperately wanted to do and almost did but then didn't because of various internal reasons. and then the feeling, simply out of habit, that, oh, why bother with this thing, you're not going to make it through. there's also a certain patronizing tone that people couch their words with when talking to me about, oh, sweaty, remember that you have your problems. you have SUCH a beautiful brain and i can tell how soooo smart you are as you struggle to communicate with your words. I'll Fucking Kill You With My Hands.

but. anyway. this is the first time i've ever felt like i've come close to actually thriving, despite some troubles with health that are going to come occasionally in inevitable waves, but i got through it. i supported myself financially, and i am living my life on this wretched and beautiful earth.

i changed the goalpost of this from 'doing immediately effortful things' and 'accomplishing goals' but honestly they're in the same enough vein that they occupy the same part of my heart, which is hopefully beginning to fuckin heal after the constant and pervasive disappointment in myself lmao. and some of that is learning to not be disappointed in myself, i guess. things happen, and there are people who have it worse than i've described above, certainly. i've been putting together some grad school apps, so here's to trying again at some shit because i am allowed to and because i probably have the ability to do it.

[starlit-mansion]

to be honest... i barely glanced at tumblr for the last 3 days and i'm only looking at it now because work is too boring to deal with without distracting myself, and i honestly did feel a lot better without it

[poisonouspastels]

actually im kind of thinking abt how all the main players in the AU are probably way more mentally Not Great than it may appear at first

[sleepy-bunbun-ace]

hanasato minori is the beloved cringefail of vivid bad squad. everyone who comes across her admires her passion for street music, but it wasn't always that way.

once upon a time, she wanted to become an idol, like kiritani haruka from ASRUN! she spent hours of her life training and perfecting herself to become the perfect idol, yet she kept getting rejected from company after company. after the 50th rejection, she gave up on her dream. what was the point if 50 companies didn't think she had the potential to be an idol?

one day she gets lost while taking samo-chan on a walk and ends up in a popular street performance area. there she sees the girl who helped her find a dream again, shiraishi an. that fateful day seals her fate in the story we know.

minori is glad about going on that walk. she would have never found her passion for music again if it weren't for samo-chan knocking over an a week later after they first met each other.

[fatuifucker]

im i spent money on clothes (which i need) and its making me feel financially insecure and i feel like i keep postponing the commission post bc i feel guilt for not working on sucker + my remaining requests 😭 like ik if im getting paid i will likely be more motivated and finish it bc then its an obligation, doing requests is just a silly little thing but AAAAAAA I FEEL BAD

[multiversegideons]

I need to stop speaking negatively about my body

[quinn-pop]

as excited as i am for tears of the kingdom i also realized...i still haven’t beaten breath of the wild...like i’ve crawled through every inch of the map, every shrine, korok, and even the catalogue but i always said “nahh, it’s just not the right moment”

sooo guess i’m gonna be busy may 11th