#struggle is apart of life

[pumpkin-the-girlie-girl-vixen]

Breaking Free from Codependency: A Journey of Self-Discovery

I'll never forget the day I finally found the courage to leave my emotionally neglectful and physically abusive partner. It took me eight long years to realize that love wasn't enough to keep me trapped in a toxic relationship. I had to learn the hard way that being dependent on someone else was one of the worst positions to be in.

At first, I was scared to be on my own. I worried about affording my own place, keeping my phone on, and taking care of myself. I had become comfortable in my discomfort, and the thought of starting over was daunting. But I knew I had to take control of my life and break free from the chains of codependency.

It wasn't easy, and I struggled financially for a while. There were times when I doubted myself and wondered if I had made a mistake. But I refused to give up. I worked hard every day, committed to building a better future for myself. And slowly but surely, my financial stability began to improve.

Looking back, I realize that I was living in a state of toxic dependence. I had given up my power and autonomy, relying on someone else to take care of me. But I've learned that true happiness comes from within. It's not about what someone else can provide for us, but about what we can create for ourselves.

To all the women out there who are struggling to break free from codependent relationships, I see you. I root for you. It's not going to be easy, but it's worth it. You deserve to be happy, and you deserve to be in control of your own life.

Don't be afraid to take the leap and start over. It may be scary, but it's also liberating. You'll learn to rely on yourself, to trust yourself, and to love yourself. And when you do, you'll realize that you're capable of so much more than you ever thought possible.

So, to all the girls who are busting their asses to create a better life for themselves, I salute you. You're not alone, and you're not crazy for wanting more. You're strong, you're capable, and you're deserving of happiness. Keep pushing forward, and know that you're doing the best you can. And that's something to be proud of.

[pluvionpc]

anidala as…

Homecoming by Hans Adolf Bühler, 1939

(disclaimer: not meant to reference or support original artist’s views or intent)

“‘No.’ He laid a gentle finger on her lips, smiling down at her. ‘No buts. No worries. You worry too much as is.’

‘I have to,’ she said, smiling through the tears in her eyes. ‘Because you never worry at all.’”

— Matthew Stover, Revenge of the Sith Novelization

[ original + rambles under the cut ]

sometimes i think about the realness of anidala’s stories. boys much too young sent off to war; their lovers taking on the emotional burden of being their relief. i think about how padmé, as a senator, would have her own struggles and worries to face alongside stressing that her teenage husband wasn’t going to return from the frontlines. i wonder if she was able to talk about it when they met up, the same way we see her constantly listening to his ongoing turmoil— especially during the latter half of the war. or, maybe, they just sat together. two people charging head-first into different types of battles because they felt they had no other options. i have to do this.

[i-find-the-beauty-in-chaos]

dex imprinting on matt as his 'north star' but it just turns into psychosexual obsession yeah...

[luxaofhesperides]

For ghostlights: baby Ellie + tired Danny + Duke the baby whisperer?

He has no idea how his parents did it. 

Babies are exhausting. Toddlers more so. Any infants in the strange stage in-between? Doubly so. 

Ellie is wonderful and sweet and cute and such a terror that Danny genuinely has no idea how his parents managed to raise not one, but two kids. For all their eccentricities and absent-mindedness, he and Jazz turned out pretty well. Ignoring the whole halfa thing because that’s more his fault than theirs even if Jazz says they shouldn’t have created the dangerous environment in the first place.

That environment is exactly why Danny refuses to let Ellie go to his house in Amity Park. His parents say they’ve disabled all the weapons and ecto-sensors since he’s had to reveal himself as Phantom, but he knows that things slip their minds and if they can’t guarantee that the house is safe, then Ellie isn’t going in there. Simple as that. 

This means that they live somewhere else now. Danny had thought about it, during the hours Ellie was asleep and he was awake, exhausted and worn down to his bones, and took Jazz’s advice to accept Vlad’s offer of buying a house for him. Except he argued Vlad down to an apartment in a city of his choosing where he wouldn’t stand out too much and he would be safe, or as safe as he can be, from anyone trying to hunt down ghosts. 

So here they are. Standing in the empty living room of their new apartment in Gotham. 

Gotham may not be very safe as a city, but it’s good for two ghosts trying to pass as normal. 

Danny sighs yet again, and looks at the space he’ll need to fill. At least Vlad is footing the bill. It’s the least he can do for creating Ellie. Frostbite was the one who was able to stabilize her, though it was almost too late and resulted in her reforming as a baby, just one and a half years old. Jazz is the one who’s choosing most of the furniture, thankfully, so it’s something that Danny doesn’t need to worry about it.

It’s a new start to their lives and it feels so empty. So overwhelming. How did his parents do it? How do any parents do it?

Ellie smacks a small palm against his cheek and babbles lightly.

“I know, Ellie,” Danny says, giving her a tired smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll have this place looking good in no time.”

He adjusts her in his arms, then heads towards the bedroom. It’s the only room that has any furniture, and all that’s there is a bed, a crib, and a bookcase. There are a few boxes on the floor, labeled ‘bedroom’ and ‘clothing’ and ‘books’. Most of it came from his bedroom in Amity Park, but he’s pretty sure he caught Jazz sneaking a few things in before they closed the boxes and loaded them up into the car. 

“Can you be good for five minutes?” he asks Ellie. 

She babbles again and smacks his shoulder.

“I’m taking that as an agreement. Just let me open these boxes and start unpacking before you start causing trouble, okay?”

Ellie makes another sound, but it seems agreeable so Danny carefully lays her down in the crib and gets to peeling off the tape on the boxes. The opens the one labeled ‘bedroom’ first, finding blankets and sheets folded and stacked in vacuum sealed bags. One of them is his old childhood blanket, the one he carried around everywhere that was faded with age, barely blue, with white bunnies decorating it. 

He was so small when he had this. It makes him oddly emotional to unpack it and pass it on to Ellie, draping it over her so her pudgy little hands can grab at it. 

This is no time to cry, though! He forces himself to focus and makes his own bed, shaking out the sheets and fluffing up the pillows. He’ll worry about washing everything later; Vlad made sure to get an apartment with an in-unit washer and dryer, which means he was actually sensible while apartment hunting for Danny. 

He doesn’t mean to flop onto the bed once it’s made, but he ends up there anyways. He’s barely gotten a full six hours of uninterrupted sleep since Frostbite deemed Ellie healthy enough to leave his care. The drive up to Gotham was long and wore him down to his bones.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does, drifting off as he wonders, distantly, when Jazz will be back from getting them dinner.

Ellie wakes him up at dawn with a loud cry. Danny jolts awake, heart pounding in his chest as he panics because Ellie isn’t here, she’s supposed to be in his arms, where is she? And then he sees the crib, where Ellie is staring at him through the bars, and he nearly collapses with relief. 

“Morning, El,” he says, voice rough from sleep, as he picks her up. She just stares up at him, then leans forward and rests her head against his shoulder.

It’s quiet moments like these that make his heart melt. Ellie’s had a hard life already; he wants to give her a better one, this time around. 

A quick check of the time on his nearly dead phone shows that it’s barely past six in the morning, and Jazz texted him a few times. All about furniture, saying that she didn’t want to wake them and that food is in the fridge. 

It’s only the mention of food that makes him realize how ravenous he’s feeling. Danny makes a beeline for the kitchen, ignoring everything else, and pulls out the boxes of take-out Jazz left stacked in the fridge. He devours it like he’s been starving for weeks, then gives Ellie her Ecto-Jello, the only food she’s allowed to eat until Frostbite gives the okay for solid, human food. 

Once he’s got her burped and cleaned up, Danny looks out of the kitchen and realizes that Jazz was very productive while he was asleep. The living room isn’t empty anymore; a dark green couch is against the wall, a low, rectangular coffee table made of dark wood in front of it. Two armchairs are on both sides of the couch, and a television has been installed, fixed into the wall. 

Jazz is asleep on the couch. Her legs hang off an armrest and she’s drooling slightly. 

Her phone is charging on the floor, so Danny takes it and snaps a picture of her for later teasing, then sends it to himself and writes a note to her that he’s going out with Ellie to explore the neighborhood.

He’s finally feeling more settled, energized from sleep and food.

In the warm dawn light spilling in through the windows, Danny looks down at Ellie and thinks that they’ll be just fine after all. 

. . .

Four months ago, Danny had hope. He was optimistic. 

Gotham was a fresh start, a new lease of life for Ellie. It is Danny’s attempt to be a single parent, sacrificing college for Ellie, and he’s planning to go out and beat the gangs black and blue if they start anymore shootouts in the next year.

He had just gotten Ellie to sleep. She was actually peacefully taking a nap.

And then a drive by shooter raced down the street, gunshots echoing down the road, and Ellie work up crying. She still hasn’t stopped, despite how Danny rocked her, soothing her as best he could.

They had been outside when Ellie fell asleep, her head on his shoulder. He had been catching up with Sam and Tucker when the car drove by, people ducking and crying out to avoid the bullets. Danny instinctively covered Ellie and made them both intangible, saving them from any stray bullets, but they ruined her nap and he needs to make them pay for that. 

“Shh,” he soothes, “You’re okay. We’re both fine. It’s okay, El, it’s okay.” 

Her little hands clutch at his back, twisting the fabric of his shirt, and she lets out a heartbreaking wail. He pats her back, hurrying down the street to get back to his apartment building, ignoring the looks people were giving them as they passed by. 

“I know it was scary, but you’re alright. You’re always safe with me, El.”

Ellie’s cries down down a little, but they don’t stop. She whimpers, burying her face against his shoulder as he finally reaches their apartment building.

The door’s locked, which wouldn’t be a problem except Danny can’t get his keys from his pocket. He knows he has them! But his pocket refuses to relinquish them and he has to stop every few seconds to pat Ellie’s back, trying in vain to calm her down. 

“We’ll be inside in a second,” he tells her, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice, “as soon as I can get these freaking keys!”

“Hey, you alright?”

Danny startles, whirling around so fast it makes Ellie go quiet, clinging to him so she doesn’t get flung into the air. There’s a guy standing before him in a gray hoodie, looking at him with clear concern. It speaks to Danny’s level of constant exhaustion that he hadn’t clocked someone sneaking up behind him. 

The guy offers an awkward smile. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you or anything. Um, do you need me to open to door? I live here too.”

Danny wonders for a moment if this someone dangerous, someone hoping to hurt Ellie, but she starts to cry again and he steps to the side. “Please. I can’t get my keys.”

“I’m Duke, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

“Danny,” he replies, watching as Duke pulls out a large key ring, jangling with the amount of keychains on it, and easily opens the door. “I’ve been here a few months, but I’m usually inside. Or walking around in the mornings with this little monster.”

“That would explain it,” Duke says as he holds the door open, letting Danny in first. “I’m usually in classes at GCU, but I decided to take a mental health day after my lab, so here I am.”

Danny walks in and waits for Duke to follow, making sure the door closes properly behind them. “Thanks. How is GCU? What do you study? I was thinking of going there myself once she gets a little older and can go to school.”

“Oh, I’m majoring in English and Human Services.” He goes to say more, but Ellie wails again and Danny winces.

“I’m so sorry. That drive by woke her up and it’s really rattled her.”

“Hey, no need to apologize. I get it, Gotham is rough to kids.”

Danny tries rocking her back and forth, but it doesn’t help. He resigns himself to another hour of her crying before she exhausts herself, and makes for the stairs, going up to the fourth floor. Duke holds open the door again, then follows after them. It makes Danny wonder if Duke is planning to do something to them, then decides he can beat Duke in a fight, so it’s fine.

Duke doesn’t try to hurt them or steal Ellie away. He opens the door to their floor and stops before they do. “I’m in here,” he says, “If you ever need me to open more doors.”

“Thanks. Um, actually, I might need help opening mine?”

Duke just smiles and makes his way back to them, following them farther into the hall until Danny stops in front of his apartment. 

“If I could just get my keys,” he starts.

“Here, let me hold her for a second so you can get them,” Duke offers. Danny wants to insist that it’s fine, but Ellie cries directly into his ear and Danny, at the end of his rope, passes her over. 

Like magic, Ellie settles as soon as she’s in Duke’s arms. She sniffles and hides her face away, clutching to Duke’s hoodie, but she stops crying. They both go still, surprised, and stare down at her. 

“Seriously?” Danny says as he finally pulls out his keys, “Are you trying to say that I’m the problem?”

Ellie babbles lightly, and Duke turns his head to futilely hide his grin.

He grumbles as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. Ellie is acting as if she’s never been upset before a day in her life, making herself at home in Duke’s arms. 

“I can’t believe this. Betrayed by my own blood.”

Duke laughs as he follows Danny into his apartment, lightly patting Ellie’s back. “It’s always the smallest, cutest ones that do this.”

“Yeah? Do you work with a lot of kids or something? Used to being betrayed by the little ones?”

“I don’t work with kids per se,” Duke says, “But my foster family is a hot mess and the youngest of them likes to keep us all on our toes.”

“Family,” Danny says in a tired, fond tone.

“Family,” Duke agrees.

With his door open and Ellie calm, Danny’s ready to just lay face down on the floor for the rest of the day and not deal with anything else. He moves to take Ellie back, holding his arms out, and Duke tries to pass her over.

The key word being tries. 

Ellie tightens her grip and kicks at Danny. She refuses to be taken away from Duke, making him awkwardly try to pry her off his hoodie. Danny really hopes Duke doesn’t notice how she goes slightly intangible to make his hands fall through her arms and legs. It shouldn’t be noticeable, but it’s hard to focus on anything but a kid that clings to you, so Danny holds out for Duke’s goodwill and silence.

“As nice as it is to meet you, you need to go back to your… parent?” Danny nods when Duke looks at him in askance. “You need to go back to your parent. Okay? Come on, kid, he’s waiting for you.”

Ellie shakes her head, makes a frustrated noise, and then turns and reaches out a grabby hand towards Danny. 

She still refuses to be taken from Duke when Danny tries to pick her up again, so he settles with just letting her hold two of his fingers. 

“I’m so sorry about this,” he says to Duke, face burning. This is why he hasn’t been going out and being social since he moved in; Ellie is a handful even on the best days, and Danny doesn’t want someone to judge him as unfit to parent her and have her taken away.

Duke shakes his head, stepping closer. “It’s all good, man. I don’t mind. It’s not like I had any plans today. I’m already skipping my classes, might as well spend it with you two than sleep all day.”

“Are you sure? I’d be happy to invite you in, but I know Ellie can be a lot and not everyone wants to spend their day off with a baby.”

“I’m sure. Besides, I’d just be down the hall anyways. It’s no skin off my back, man.”

“Well,” Danny says, stepping to the side to give Duke full access to his open doorway, “Come on in, then.”

Ellie keeps them connected, one hand in Duke’s hoodie and the other holding Danny’s fingers, and though her cheeks are still red from how hard she had been crying, she’s calm now with her eyes shining with mischief. 

As the door closes behind them, Danny realizes that this is the first time someone he’s not related to has been inside his apartment. Not even Vlad has come in, always choosing to invite Danny and Ellie out for lunch instead. 

It should make him nervous, but Duke is calm and easy going and kind. 

He’s making silly faces at Ellie to make her laugh, completely at ease with her in his arms, as if he’s done this a thousand times before. 

Gotham is a second chance at life for Ellie. It’s a sacrifice for Danny, to be alone and without friends or family around. He’d been ready to give up everything for Ellie, to focus solely on raising her, but with Duke filling his apartment with laughter, he thinks that he can make a life here too.

All he needs to do is take that first step, reach his hand out, ask Duke to stick around.

He can do this.

[palossssssand]

Quick vent/rant post on art

Maaan I know that art output has no bearing on my “worth” as an artist but I wish I could be putting out more original stuff. It’s like the art juice has run out. But more specifically, it’s that all of the recent stuff I’ve been drawing has been commissions and I feel like it’s been affecting my drive to make art for myself. More and more lately, I’ve been seeing my old art ideas as a chore to do because I’ve been putting them off to do once my commissions finish. Unfortunately, I kind of have commissions open all the time because I’m unemployed and still looking, and I will take what I can get. It sucks getting into this slump, especially when my output was really high at the “peak” of getting into Splatoon, and I know this is a familiar pattern but it really sucks to consciously feel like “Oh no! It’s happening again! I’m losing my touch!!”

This is probably the sign for me to try to do stuff like studies where the pressure isn’t on me to come up with original art ideas. It’s been really difficult to force myself to do art because I keep having the nagging feeling that I “should” be doing something “more important” so instead I do neither and open up The Sims

[zehl0w]

Very messy scribble of a comic because they were on my mind (I doubt I’ll ever clean it up so I’m just posting it now so it doesn’t rot in my procreate files LOL)

[aipurjopa]

to be honest every time i watch the spoke uus2 episodes i always find myself circling back to the ending of the big wormhole vid.

something about how he questions why he did any of that, and more specifically: why he followed the rules of his challenge. something about how the 100 days format is a challenge, how spoke refuses to leave until those 100 days are up, and how power hungry he’s been getting i think is what makes me always end up thinking about that clip again.

he doesn’t know why he’s doing this, only that he needs power, he needs to be at the top, to call himself the most powerful. and only when he’s at the bottom does he understand why he needed to do it in the first place… like he’s blinded by the pursuit to be the best and doesn’t stop to think. and it’s so similar to what he says at the end of that wormhole video.

and tangentially:

it’s like it’s the more childish part of him that just needs to be up there, does anything to climb up there, who doesn’t know when to stop and who doesn’t know what the boundaries are… everything is apart of this game everything is apart of this challenge; i will trample whoever i need to get to where i want.

it’s like he’s detached from everything, and that’s where i think the editing choices come in. the more “childish” music and style, the narration, it’s all showing this sense of detachment and disassociation from the people in the server and his actions. it’s just a game. it’s just a challenge. it’s something that he has to win no matter what.

he doesn’t regard himself as a “villain” because isn’t this what everyone wants? to be the most powerful? he’s not a villain because everyone wants this.

[qoldenskies]

Hey, you're the donnie guy

Thoughts on kendratello?

i genuinely do not understand the weird vitriol some people have for it

[turnedpalefromlackofsun]

[gifti3]

sometimes i kinda forget about the yandere aspect of ray and then ill remember he killed blaze cause he flirted too hard at the mc

[croded]

yknow the more I think about it the more it connects -

Link Click is like Geometry Dash

now you might be thinking "hey what the fuck does this mean"

hear me out

so Geometry Dash is a side-scrolling platformer/rhythm game of a sort. You control a cube and go through a platformer-esque level, which progresses linearly most of the time. You can't stop the cube nor can you control the speed in which the cube travels through the level, but you can make it jump, and throughout the level you have to jump over and avoid deadly obstacles like spikes or lava/water or chomping monsters. Now here's the kicker about this game - there are no checkpoints. You die, you go aaaaaaall the way back to the beginning. Doesn't matter whether your progress was 10% or 60% or even 99% - you die, you go all the way to the start. To 0%.

Yeah it's a rage game as well (a game of many talents). Don't you feel enraged already? It gets better! Whenever you start a level, there will be an attempt counter at the very beginning of it. You start off with attempt 1, and with each death it restarts and an attempt is added to the counter. (I've seen mine get to attempt 300+ before it's so infuriating) Now, the gimmick here is actually testing your memory as well - mental memory and muscle memory both. Sometimes the level design will be so motherfucker that you need to remember the placement of the spikes, the timing of events (eg spikes suddenly popping out of the flat ground in front of you. at progress 90%. what the fuck level designer), the correct timing of jumps to get through tight spaces, etc. When you play the same level enough times, this starts to become muscle memory. With each restart, each spike, each event, each jump gets engraved deeper into your memory until soon you're executing jumps without even thinking about it. (Sometimes the cube changes form too - there's ship form, where you hold the screen to make it go up and release to make it go down in a gentle sine-wave like arc; wave form, where you hold the screen for up and release for down as well, but it moves in a jagged zigzag line instead of a soft curve; UFO form, where it's literally just flappy bird; robot form, where you hold to control how high you jump; ball form, where each tap of the screen changes the gravity of your cube/ball. There are also a bunch of other stuff like gravity portals, size portals, speed portals, pads, rings, pick-ups etc. But that's a little too much to delve into, so I'll settle for the basics here.)

"So how does this connect in any way to link click?"

Now, replace the player with Lu Guang. Replace the cube with Cheng Xiaoshi. Imagine the spike placements and random events and jump times as the major nodes in time, and the hazards like spikes and pits and monsters as the factors/people who endanger Cheng Xiaoshi's life.

Doesn't the situation seem kinda familiar?

Lu Guang, going through countless attempts to keep Cheng Xiaoshi alive, trying his best to guide him through danger and carving all the major time nodes into his memory so that he can steer Cheng Xiaoshi away from the ones that will result in disaster. The linear progression of the timeline, no randomly turning around or taking a small step back to recuperate, just a relentless forward march. How Lu Guang has to restart all the way from the beginning every time he fails. How Lu Guang doesn't have full control of Cheng Xiaoshi either, he can only slightly tweak the direction he's heading towards.

oh my god link click is geometry dash <-me randomly in the middle of a quiz, many hours after making that song analysis about lull and "the necessary line that Lu Guang has doomed himself to travel" and "the end of the line being Cheng Xiaoshi living" and "are you with me till the end of the line?"="will you stay alive with me?"

[preciouslandmermaid]

spencer/reader + southern gothic aesthetic "I'm just a child, but I'm not above violence My mama raised me better than that..."

the mosquitoes and frogs sing their discordant symphony above the rustling oak leaves and Spanish moss that drape over branches like abandoned wedding veils. you push your toes on the damp floorboards and the rocking chair tilts backward, and your stomach lurches as you sway forward. the old book on your lap with yellowed pages and a musty scent lays open like a vivisected hare. a gnat lands on the corner of the page and you try to flick it away. you accidentally killed it and your brows furrow softly. the hinges on the screen door squeak and you break your monotonous rhythm, the rocking chair sway cut short. "garcia says we're lucky we have cell service," spencer says, with his hands in his pockets, before his eyes flick to your lap, "what're you reading?" "mm." you nod. "nice of the chief to let us use his house." you close the book and self-consciously wipe the title with your hand (the one that killed the gnat). "did you know that franz kafka didn't want bugs on the cover of his book?" "you're reading 'the metamorphosis'," he guesses. "it's a comfort read," you say, shrugging, your toes pushing the floorboards again. spencer slowly sits in the rocking chair beside you and you silently return to the symphonies of the moist, summer night. at least - you do until spencer starts talking about his interpretation of the novel and you listen, your eyes focused on the harsh, slice of darkness where the porch light doesn't reach.

[mayomkun]

So tired from work today I forgot who I am for a moment walking out of the office then come home to severence mark scout's work is just work right

[chompmon]

I was so fascinated with Yo too. Standard shonen protag that keeps slipping up and sayin wierd shit- this push and pull between these angry frustrated impulses and the instant regret and understanding that he can't act like that. He's stressed and doesnt really know himself and the only 2 people that do know him either hate his guts or are lying to him about it- not that he has time to dwell on it, since he's been made lead of this entire game, and he has to be the one making all the decisions- all the right decisions.

But he can't! He's an amnesiac speedrunning all kinds of trauma, easily swayed and just wants the pain to stop- at the first opportunity, or rather promise, to stop fighting, he latched onto it so strongly.... I didnt care for Yo but as the story progressed i was starting to get really invested and was really lookin forward to more of his development. Sad!

[sluckythewizard]

[PUT INTO PLACE, TIED DOWN AND ARRANGED, AND IS NEVER THE SAME, AGAIN.]<-listen to my favorite songs. VAMPIRES ARE WONDERFUL ARENT THEY. THE FLESH IS SO MUCH MORE DURABLE. SO MUCH STRETCHIER THAN HUMANS. THE STRESS DOESNT KILL A VAMPIRE THE SAME WAY IT DOES A HUMAN. YOU CAN TAKE THEM APART THREAD BY THREAD AND LEAVE THEM WIDE AWAKE WITHOUT WORRY OF THE BRAINMATTER SPOILING UNDER VINEGARY AGONY.

[tiny-tardis]

Scavenger Hunt Item #30

Well, it looks more like a well than a tower, but still, as indicated in scavenger hunt #30, I killed some time and tidied up my desk.. sorting out my gel and fountain pens..

(and realizing that I actually have about 12 different pens with different tones of purple ink and five with green ink...and also that there are only two regular blue pens💀)