#temporary solution that became a permanent problem

[rhinco]

hey i have a question. why

well i dont have anywhere else to store them. the curtain rail seemed like a good option at the time

[ghsface]

It's okay to cry. It's okay to not be okay...

Bau team x bau!reader

Sumary: Sometimes I need to remind myself and others that survival doesn’t just mean being okay, it means learning to laugh at what scared us. And if I don’t do it, who else will?

Warnings: mentions of attempted suicide, lots of blood, some dark humor at the end, cuts on arms, bathtub full of blood, no use of t/n (if you don't feel good reading this please don't read it, I also tried to approach this topic with too much care and delicacy and respect, I hope not to offend anyone)

Author's note: September is suicide prevention month. "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" is something that you always hear people say.. and it's true.

speaking from my personal experience, it's something that was on my mind many months many years ago, and I was able to put those thoughts aside thanks to people who I thought were never going to help me, it was a long and very hard process but now I can tell you that I'm completely fine, once they told me if you have people to write a farewell letter to it's because at least someone cares about you, you may have heard this before but it's true, you will always have someone to support you even if you think you have no one, also once they told me if you ever have these thoughts again or even try again ask for help it doesn't matter who just ask for help, whatever way ask for help, those words marked me almost all of my adolescence tbh and it helped me, I hope that if you are going through this alone, you can talk to me, my messages will always be open for whatever it is help or just talking, feel free to do so, if you read this up to here I really appreciate that you did<333

The BAU team was uneasy. It wasn't often that someone on their team disappeared without a trace, much less you. Emily Prentiss had been the first to notice your absence, as you never missed work without notice. Days ago, you had requested a brief leave for personal matters, but you hadn't returned to the office or answered any calls or messages since. As the days passed, worry turned to fear.

JJ, Spencer, and Emily decided to go to your house, as they could no longer ignore the fact that something wasn't right. The atmosphere in the car was tense. JJ kept his hands tightly on the wheel, while Spencer stared out the window, his mind wandering through thousands of possibilities, each one worse than the last. Emily, in the backseat, checked her phone over and over again, hoping in vain to receive some news from you.

When they arrived at your house, the silence was deathly. The windows were closed, and the door seemed intact, but there was something in the air, something that made them hold their breath. Emily pulled out her gun, and after exchanging a worried look with JJ and Spencer, they decided to go inside.

“anyone home?” JJ shouted as she walked down the hallway to the entrance. There was no response.

Spencer’s heart was pounding as they made their way into the living room. Everything was in order, not a sign of a struggle, but something wasn’t right. Every step they took, every corner they inspected, increased the feeling that something terrible had happened.

It was Emily who first noticed the bathroom door ajar. She approached it slowly, holding her breath, as a dark foreboding took hold of her. Pushing open the door, the scene she found was enough to make her stomach turn.

There you were, in the bathtub, submerged in the red-tinged water. Your arms hung at your sides, covered in deep cuts, blood still slowly flowing from the wounds.

“Oh my God!” JJ exclaimed from the doorway, her voice cracking.

Spencer walked into the room behind her, and for a second, the world seemed to stop. She’d never felt such paralyzing fear, such sharp pain in her chest. The air became thick, almost impossible to breathe.

Emily was the first to react, rushing to you, her hands shaking as she tried to pull your unconscious body out of the water. “Call an ambulance, JJ!” she screamed, trying to stay calm, though her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

Spencer knelt beside you, her eyes flooding with tears. “You can’t do this... you can’t leave us like this,” she whispered, her voice thick with desperation.

JJ tried to call 911, but the desperation in his voice made the words catch in his throat. He finally managed to give the address, but the operator informed him that the ambulance would take a while to arrive due to an accident on the main road. Without wasting any more time, JJ made a decision. “We can’t wait, we have to take her ourselves!”

Without thinking twice, the three of them carried you out of the bathroom, wrapping you in towels to stop the bleeding. Spencer held you, his hands still stained with your blood, as they rushed you to the car.

The trip to the hospital was agony. Every second that passed, every breath you took, or stopped taking, was like a stab in the heart of each of them. Emily, driving at full speed, struggled not to lose concentration while JJ, from the backseat, pressed on your wounds, trying to keep you conscious. Spencer kept talking to you, murmuring words of encouragement, pleading with you not to leave, to stay with them.

Finally, they arrived at the hospital, and the doctors immediately took you into surgery. The BAU team, who had been alerted, arrived soon after. Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Garcia joined Emily, JJ, and Spencer in the waiting room. The hours passed slowly, each minute a silent torture as they waited for news from you.

Spencer kept staring at his hands, your words echoing in his mind. He couldn’t shake the image of you, limp and lifeless in that bathtub. He felt helpless, riddled with guilt for not realizing what was happening to you. He loved you, more than he’d ever dared to admit, and the thought of losing you was too painful to bear.

Finally, the doctor emerged from the operating room, his expression grave. “She’s stable for now, but the blood loss was significant. We had to suture multiple wounds and are monitoring for possible nerve damage. It’s a miracle they brought her in on time.”

The relief was palpable, but so was the sadness. They knew that even though you had survived, the battle wasn’t over. They would have to face the reasons why you had gotten to that point, figure out what had happened, and most of all, be there for you, to help you heal.

Spencer walked up to the ICU door, looking at you through the glass. His eyes filled with tears, he rested a hand on the glass. “I’m sorry… I didn’t realize how bad you were,” he whispered, feeling the weight of guilt crushing him.

Emily and JJ accompanied him, each feeling a mix of relief and pain. They knew the road to your recovery would be long and difficult, but they were determined to be by your side every step of the way, no matter what it took.

When you were finally able to open your eyes days later, the first thing you saw were the tired but relieved faces of your teammates. You knew you had plunged into a darkness that seemed insurmountable, but seeing the people who loved you by your side, you knew you wouldn’t be alone on the road back to the light.

The dim glow of the hospital’s fluorescent lights welcomed you back into the conscious world. Your head hurt, and you felt the weight of the blankets on your body, but what caught your attention the most was the soft sound of someone breathing next to you. You slowly turned your head and met the tired, worried eyes of Spencer, who had been watching over you.

“Spencer…” your voice came out as a whisper, rough from lack of use and medication. You were surprised at how weak you felt, as if a large part of you had vanished.

He sat up instantly, his eyes filling with relief at seeing you awake. “You’re awake…” he said in a tone that reflected a mix of joy and pain. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry... If I had known… If I had noticed something…” The weight of his guilt hit you hard. Even though every fiber of your being was exhausted, you couldn’t let Spencer carry that pain. But before you could answer, the door to the room opened, and Emily and JJ rushed in, closely followed by Hotch and Rossi.

Emily approached you, tears in her eyes, but keeping her composure. “You scared the hell out of us,” she said softly, gently taking your hand. “You don’t have to go through this alone, understand? We’re here for you, always.” JJ sat on the other side of the bed, his blue eyes filled with concern. “Whatever you’re going through… you can tell us. You don’t have to carry this alone.”

The room was filled with a heavy silence, everyone waiting for you to say something, anything to help them understand what had brought you to this point. You knew they were worried, that they wanted to help you, but it wasn’t easy to put into words the storm that had been building inside you.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, your voice breaking, feeling tears build up in your eyes. “I didn’t want them to know… I didn’t want to be a burden.”

Spencer looked at you in pain, his hands shaking slightly as he took yours. “You would never be a burden to us. Never.”

Hotch, who had been watching silently, stepped forward. His voice was firm, but with a tinge of compassion that he rarely showed. “You don’t have to face this alone. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever led you to this, we’re going to be with you every step of the way.”

Hotch’s words, so simple and full of promise, were what finally broke the dam. The tears you’d been holding back for so long began to flow, and with them came a wave of emotions you’d been suppressing: the despair, the loneliness, the pain that had consumed you in silence.

Emily wrapped her arms around you, holding you with a strength that anchored you in the present. “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to not be okay,” she whispered, her voice shaking with her own pent-up emotions.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, you felt like you could breathe, if only barely. The lump in your chest didn’t go away entirely, but the presence of your peers, your friends, gave you the strength you needed to start talking, to share what you’d been keeping to yourself.

You told them about the pressure you’d felt, the feeling that you were failing, that you couldn’t live up to expectations. You told them how each day had gotten harder to bear, until one day you just couldn’t take it anymore. The words came out in fits and starts, mixed with sobs, but they listened to each one with patience and understanding.

There was no judgment, just support. And as you spoke, little by little, you began to feel the weight that had been weighing you down begin to lighten, if only a little.

When you finally finished, the silence that followed wasn’t awkward. Spencer was still holding your hand, and his gaze reflected both pain and resolve. “You’re not alone in this. You won’t be anymore,” he said firmly.

Hotch nodded. “We’ll have to work together to get through this, but we will. We’ll help you find the support you need, and we’ll be here for you, too.”

Rossi, who had been watching from the back, came over and gently patted you on the shoulder. “Remember, that’s what family is for, to be there in the worst times and the best too.”

At that moment, although you knew the road ahead would be long and difficult, you also knew that you wouldn’t walk it alone. The team weren't just your colleagues, they were your family, and with them by your side, you began to believe that, perhaps, you could find a way to heal.

And although the darkness still lurked, the light of hope, however small, began to shine again.

ONE YEAR LATER...

1 year into recovery brought with it a new version of you, a version that, while still scarred, both physically and emotionally, was fully committed to moving forward with humor and gratitude. You had rejoined the team fully and found a balance between work, your personal life, and your healing process. Your colleagues had learned to appreciate your new style of humor, even when you surprised them with your comments from time to time.

One afternoon, while you were in the office cafeteria with Emily, JJ, and Garcia, you decided to break the silence with a joke, something you had perfected over those past few months.

“Did you know I’ve developed a new skill?” you said, as you poured yourself a coffee. The three womens looked at you curiously. “Now I can say that I’m an expert in abstract art. I just need something sharp and a bad day.”

There was a moment of surprise, but then Emily was the first to laugh, shaking her head. “You know, no one handles dark humor like you.”

JJ nodded, smiling. “True, but at least now we know you do it with complete command of the situation. Although I will never stop being amazed by your ability to make jokes out of something so serious.”

“Well, my traumas, my jokes,” you said with a wink, and the group burst into laughter. They had learned to take your humor as a sign of your progress, a way to remind yourself and them that you were in control, that you wouldn’t let yourself be overcome by the darkness that once trapped you.

Garcia, who until now had been listening in silence, smiled and gave you a gentle nudge. “You know, I think you should consider writing a self-help book: ‘How to survive work and not go crazy. ’ It could be a best-seller.”

“Sure, with special chapters on how to choose something sharp and how not to use them when you have a bad day,” you joked, and everyone laughed again.

Towards the end of the day, as you were gathering your things to head home, you ran into Rossi in the hallway. He looked at you with his typical knowing expression, but with a spark of amusement in his eyes.

“You know, kid I love seeing you make those jokes. It’s a sign that you’re okay, but it’s also a reminder of how far you’ve come.”

You smiled at him, nodding. “Yeah, Dave, I know. Sometimes, I need to remind myself and others that surviving doesn’t just mean being okay, but learning to laugh at what scared us. And if I don’t do it, who else will?”

Rossi let out a soft laugh. “You know, you can always count on me to be your audience. I’m not as good an audience as Spencer, though.”

“Thanks, Dave. I’ll keep that in mind for my next show.”

As you left, you knew you were surrounded by people who understood you, who supported you, and who accepted every part of you, even the darkest ones. But most importantly, you knew you had found a way to move forward: with a smile on your face, a joke on your lips, and a team that, no matter what, would always be by your side.

And as you walked out the door, ready to face whatever came next, you couldn’t help but make one last comment to yourself. “Well, if I survived the bathtub, I’m ready for anything. I just hope there’s more wine and less blood next time.”

your reblogs and replies are always appreciated dearly🫧

[soap-ify]

nsfw below , mdni.

YOU'RE AN ANGEL, I'M A DOG | simon 'ghost' riley x reader.

03 — i'm sorry i'm the one you love.

chapter summary — a visit to simon's place after finding out that he's sick was definitely not the best idea.

tags / cw — some fluff, heavy angst, hurt/no comfort, suicidal thoughts, major self deprecating thoughts, heavy themes, simon's past, simon fucks up royally, reader has anxiety, simon can't communicate for his life, some nsfw. [3.1k words]

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Simon’s immunity to being sick was one of those traits about himself he was the most proud of.

But oh well, maybe he wasn’t completely immune.

Queasy stomach, constricted nose, trembling muscles — Simon would rather die, ironically enough. He hated this feeling, made him feel like an imposter in his own body, wanting to crawl out of this mess that left him nauseous.

He couldn’t even remember how he had gotten sick. Maybe it was the horribly cold weather in the place the taskforce had pinpointed one of the targets at. Or maybe it was the drunk woman who was all over him in the bar they went to after the mission was over. God, that woman.

An uneasy pit formed in his stomach as he thought about that night, that woman pinned beneath him as he—

Fuck it. He didn’t want to think about the details. All he knew that he kept on thinking about you while he was fucking her, and it only made him want to rip his skin off even more. You. You were probably waiting for him at your home, wondering if he was safe. Alive even.

The mission had gotten extended due to some issues, and he was just so fucking frustrated and tired. That woman was just… there, flirting with him so shamelessly, and he was too exhausted to stop her, thinking that she might somehow fill the void in his chest, or even give some temporary solace to how lonely and isolated he felt despite being around everyone else.

He was so wrong. Every thrust into that woman felt like being restrained, as if hands were gripping onto his throat tight, mocking at his incapability of coming to proper solutions to his damn problems. He felt trapped, chains tying him as he dissociated more and more.

That woman was sickeningly satisfied that night, and Simon just felt more and more ill, confused and lost amidst the overwhelming storm that raged inside his head. Was he guilty? He wasn’t even dating you. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t fucked anyone else since meeting you, other than this. You made him forget others.

No, it wasn’t guilt. Well, it was but there was something more too.

It was just that Simon became more and more self aware of how noxious he had become to himself. His own doom.

Anyways, it was probably the cold weather that made him sick.

Now back in his shitty apartment after five weeks, all he cared about was getting some damn medicines and sleeping it off, and trying not to think about you.

Which was hard, too hard. You had somehow built your own corner in his head, started living there too. Permanently? Probably. He knew he should tell you that he’s back, but again, does he really ever tell you anything?

A cough escaped him and he groaned in annoyance, the urge to just suffocate himself with his pillow really strong.

Kyle was an angel, really.

“The mission was so exhausting. Problems here and there.” He groaned, tipping his head back while lounging on your couch, opening up the small box of chocolates he had bought for you. “Try it, mate. Got it at the airport.” He grinned, tossing you one piece of wrapped chocolate. You undid it and tossed it in your mouth, immediately feeling the sweet ball of chocolate melting at your tongue, a happy noise escaping your throat.

“Holy shit.” You gasped in awe, earning a knowing chuckle from Kyle.

You were sitting with your legs crossed, constantly shifting and fidgeting, your sock-clad feet somewhat restless as you tried to resist the urge to ask about Simon.

Though it seemed that your mouth worked faster than your brain.

“How’s Simon?” You asked, voice a bit strained and you suddenly regretted every single thing in your life.

Kyle was a bit surprised that you were asking about his gloomy Lieutenant out of everyone else, though he didn’t question it, not an ounce of suspicion on his face. “Sick.” A snort left him before he could hold it back, a hand coming to cover his mouth as he snickered. “He was so mad ‘bout it. You should’ve seen him.”

Sick? Truth be told, you had never considered the possibility of Simon getting sick. The concept just seemed so… foreign? Maybe you had just always thought of him as something else. That creepy balaclava never helped.

A sudden overwhelming wave of worry churned in your stomach, your fingernails digging into your palm while you swallowed the lump in your throat, your brain desperately trying to hold onto the scattered rush of thoughts and form a plan somehow. You weren’t even that mad at him for ghosting you or not indicating anything about his return. He was sick.

“That sucks…” You awkwardly replied, biting your inner cheek.

As soon as Kyle was gone, you grabbed your jacket and keys, leaving your apartment too with only one place in mind.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Simon’s voice was sickeningly hoarse, and he didn’t look any better — pale hair all messy and the dark circles around his eyes a bit more prominent, a black surgical mask covering his mouth while he coughed a bit. You don’t think you’d ever properly seen his hair before fully except a few strands. You liked it.

He looked at you standing at the front door of his apartment, looking up at him with those pretty eyes of yours that were full of concern, a plastic bag in your hands that seemingly contained some vegetables, some meds and other food. Shit, I should have tidied up my place, his brain screamed at him.

“Kyle told me you were sick. I got worried.” You mumbled sheepishly.

Of course it was Kyle. Simon tried hard to not click his tongue and nodded reluctantly, stepping aside so you could get in.

“You shouldn’t be standing and walking around, Si…” You frowned, quickly putting the plastic bag on the kitchen counter. Before he could even protest, you were already gently pushing onto his chest, trying to make him move until he sighed and sniffled, letting you push him into his bedroom.

“You don’t have to, love.” He grumbled weakly and proceeded to lay on his bed, watching you pull his blanket over him, disappearing out of the room for a moment before coming back with a bowl of cold water and a towel, gently beginning to dab the wet towel on his burning forehead.

Simon felt… weird. A part of him felt embarrassed for letting someone else take care of him, someone as sweet and kind as you, someone who genuinely cared. He was used to being the one always watching out for others, making sure his teammates were safe and sound.

And the other part of him felt so nice — the part that had just been trapped in there ever since he dug himself out of that damn grave years ago, the stench of the rotting corpse still vivid in his head. The real Simon. You were making that part of him feel loved even if you weren’t aware of it.

He doesn’t remember when was the last time he felt so comforted. And it terrified him, this feeling of warmth that was spreading in his chest, a feeling he had somewhat started loathing at some point in the past few years.

But he wanted it more, wanted it like a starved dog wandering in a street, wanted it like a man needing water. And he was scared that this need of his would terrify you — that you’ll catch him ravenous and berserk, devouring your love, or even you, in such a manner that will make you shriek and leave him forever. Leave him after learning who he truly was. Disturbed. An Outcast. An unwanted dog.

Not a man, never a man.

A cough rumbled from his throat, and you left the wet towel resting on his forehead, your hand reaching down to rub his chest through his shirt in circular motions. “I’ll make some soup for you.” You mumbled softly, the urge to press a soft kiss in between his brows strong. But you couldn’t do it. He would probably hate it anyway.

You pulled away and looked at him one more time before leaving his bedroom, ready to make some warm soup for him with the groceries you bought for him.

This allowed him to close his eyes for a few minutes, trying to cancel out the loud buzzing in his head. Though that wasn’t a good option too, really, but there was nothing else he could do. Sleep never came to him anyways.

First it was just darkness, the only sounds in the bedroom being of his slightly heavy breathing, soft sniffles leaving him. Then it came slowly, images flashing in his head. Brutal and unforgiving. Blood, bodies, knives, guns, shouts, his family, Tommy, Beth, everyone. A meat hook, a scar, more scars, Roba, his father.

His father.

“Soup’s ready!”

His eyes snapped open as soon as he heard your melodic voice from the kitchen, soft footsteps drawing closer to the bedroom. Sweat had formed on the back of his neck as he panted heavily, clearing his throat. Clear your damn head.

“Here you go.” You walked into the bedroom, a warm bowl of soup in your hands as you gently placed it on the nightstand beside him.

Simon sat up on the bed and gave you a silent nod of gratitude, grabbing the bowl of soup, fiddling with the spoon, eyes elsewhere. He couldn’t meet your eyes, feeling too vulnerable and naked.

You shifted on your feet, a small smile moving up on your lips once he finally took a taste of the soup, happy to not see any sign of disgust on his features. You knew he wasn’t going to show that he liked the soup anyways. These were the little things you took note of, the subtle relaxation in his brows and the content sigh that escaped his mouth.

Minutes passed by and you managed to sit on a chair nearby his bed, silence lingering in the room while your eyes looked around, taking in just how bleak everything was. White walls, grey sheets, a severe lack of pictures or literally anything on the wall.

The only thing you could find was the little picture of him and the rest of the taskforce hung on the wall. It was sweet. The four guys were on a beach — Johnny having a beaming grin on his lips while Kyle had an annoyed one, trying to get the other’s hand off his ticklish sides. John had a cute big smile that highlighted his cheeks and the scrunch of his nose, like a quokka. And then there was Simon, face covered by the balaclava, classic. Though he didn’t appear to be brooding or anything, no. Instead, his eyes held a relieved and satisfied look. Transient happiness. The skin of his exposed torso was all flushed, and you could barely hold in a smile.

“Do you burn?” You asked, trying to hide the subtle amusement in your voice.

“No, I tan.” His hoarse voice replied, taking another sip of the soup, sounding so damn serious despite the lie. Typical Simon.

Silence soon filled the room once again, though it didn’t really feel comforting as it usually was between you too, sometimes. It seemed tense and thick, your right leg bouncing up and down restlessly. Restless for what? You wanted to do something, but you didn’t know what that something was. Everything just felt so odd today, so distant. Even with the little banter here and there, something seemed wrong.

“Um…” You finally managed to croak out, clearing your throat before looking at him. “There’s a new ice cream parlor that just opened around the street recently, and people seem to like it quite well. Would you like to go there sometime?” You asked with the little courage you had gathered in the past few minutes. Basically asking him out on a date, playing with the fire. But maybe it would help cheer him up, right?

He was silent for a while, and you momentarily thought that he didn’t hear you before he finally spoke, voice devoid of any emotion.

“No.”

Silence. Somehow more agonising than before. Heat spread through your cheeks and ears, an uncomfortable heat that made you feel too ashamed and humiliated, too weak and shocked. No. There were no signs of hesitation in his voice, and your mouth began working faster than your brain, anxiety simmering beneath the surface.

“O-Of course not now… When you’re not sick.”

“Still a no.”

You swallow the heavy lump in your throat, your heartbeat accelerating while your fingernails begin digging into your palm, breathing becoming all the more shallow. Were you annoying him? Please don’t speak, don’t make him more angry. Don’t say anything else, don’t breathe, don’t—

“Why are you being like this?”

Your strained question finally made Simon look at you, his stare too callous. The heat was unbearable, and you almost struggled to breath, trying your best to maintain eye contact with him, feeling the itchy sensation spreading through your skin. Inhale, exhale, inh—

“You don’t ever shut up, do you?” He threw a question back at you, though it was rhetorical and just cruel. Too cruel. Were you really talking too much? Your mouth quickly shut at that, breath catching in your throat, confusion and uncertainty screaming through every little action of yours.

Your heart felt too heavy, begging to run out of your chest, leave you abandoned or just simply run for its life, find some sort of freedom and solace. Your throat tightened up, restricting you from saying anything. But Simon would like it, yeah?

Simon saw it, the consequences of his words written bright and clear on your face, your shy smiles and little jokes being replaced by… that, horror and hurt etched on your pretty face. If he could somehow reach for the knife stuffed beneath his bed in front of you, he would and do something about this fucking mess that he had become.

Those words came out of his mouth in the spur of the moment — the headache and congested nose, the sick feeling in his chest and then your genuine care — everything was too overwhelming. Why are you even wasting your time over someone as damaged as me?

He hated it, hated how the more overwhelmed he’d get, the more he’d snap and say shit he never meant. He didn't know how he’d become like this, maybe because of the shouts he always heard when he was still a rookie, maybe how everyone prioritized strength and anger so much to be seen in the battleground, to be strong and good at your work. The military really did train him into a violent dog, didn’t it?

Or maybe he was one ever since he came out of his mother’s womb.

But Simon wasn’t going to show the vulnerability seeping into his being. Not yet, probably not ever.

You couldn’t meet Simon’s stare any longer, your eyes looking up at the ceiling, tears already prickling at the edges of her eyes, and it stung.

“I just want to sleep. I don’t need you here.” He spoke in a way that came out more as a cold hiss while he clenched his jaw behind his surgical mask, and it made your resolve even weaker, fighting back your tears and trying not to flinch once slammed the empty bowl on the nightstand, proceeding to lay back down on the bed and pull the covers all over him.

He doesn’t need you here.

You sniffled softly and nodded to no one in particular, walking over to his bed and gently patting his shoulder through the blanket. “Get well soon, Simon… I left the meds on the kitchen counter.” You spoke, unable to hide the way your voice cracked.

And just like that, you walked out of his apartment, pretending to ignore the ache in your heart.

Pretending to have not noticed the random tiny bottle of perfume laying on the couch. The perfume clearly did not belonging to him.

You didn’t like walking through the streets. There were always too many people around, making your clutch the ends of your sleeves tight and quicken your steps up.

But today, all you could see were the happy couples, smiling and holding hands. Young, old, married, dating. It was so sweet that it made you want to cry and plead for some love too, something that would make you forget about the cracks forming in your heart and the loneliness creeping behind you like a ghost. Literally.

You had come to the conclusion that there was probably something wrong with you that just made you so… So unlovable? Was it how anxious you were? How talkative you’d get? How you’d just speak without thinking?

Why can’t Simon and you be one of the couples holding hands right now? Walking through the streets and giggling at some awful jokes he’d make, spending time together, being in love.

As soon as you reached your home, you collapsed on your bed and let the tears finally fall down your cheeks, a silent pained sob escaping your lips. It hurt, it hurt so bad. You hated it, you went over there to check up on Simon, not anger him.

You hated him, he was so mean to you. But you loved him too. Loved him like the ocean loved the moon, always staring at it in awe, wanting to get closer but never reaching it.

You hated that fucking perfume you spotted in his apartment. Probably belonging to some other woman. Did Simon call her ‘love’ too? You know there was no point in feeling so mad when the agreement was clearly ‘no strings attached’ — no catching feelings. But you somehow always managed to fail at this kind of stuff.

You choked on your sobs and curled up on your bed, too exhausted and tired, hands reaching out to grab the stuffed toy you had and clutching it tight against your chest, breathing heavily, wanting it to somehow ease the storm brewing within you, every sound coming out of you more painful than before.

“I just wanna sleep…” You whimpered to yourself, closing your eyes while the tears uncomfortably slid down the bridge of your nose in this position. Simon’s words.

Sleep and just get lost in a world where you’d be happier, in a world where you weren’t struggling with everything.

Sleep and somehow disappear.

notes — the demons really won with this one.

[yalixrq]

⚠️ this post includes topics of death and sui so please scroll away or block the tag #yali tw if you don’t want to see posts like this ⚠️

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I have talked here on my blog about how Meow (our former fictoself) dissipated and have said Meow is basically dead but I have never really talked about what actually happened. I have carried this weight on my chest since it happened and I just want to get it off my chest.

Anyways I am a fragself which means I am a self that was created due to an IFD split which basically means I developed this sense of self to protect our collective from trauma.

Back when Meow left the radqueer community shey were dealing with a lot of hate and it became very overwhelming and Meow was so connected to sheir identity and was clinging onto it but eventually it became too much.

I need those who have decided to read this to understand that our collective shares memories, emotions, etc. we are basically one self but split into pieces.

Anyways shey became overwhelmed and uhm well this is a poem shey wrote about those feelings.

———

Su!c!de Prevention Month passed me by

Passively su!c!dal as I try to count the reasons why I don’t need to die

It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem

What’s the point in living if it feels like this

I retrace my steps count back from ten

All of this is temporary

I am temporary

You are temporary

This pain is only

Temporary

———

The day before Meow wrote this poem Farah and I had started to form Farah was a presentation of who I wanted to be and I was underdeveloped so Farah in a sense was a place holder for me.

After we became Farah we realized what had happened. Meow let us form because shey didn’t want to live anymore so Meow k!lled sheir self by letting us be new selves. Meow did it so we could be happy. (I am sorry Meow I am so sorry) It is really hard to talk about and think about because I can feel the pain from it all still.

Taya (a self in our collective) acts like she hates Meow and winterpunk but in reality she just wants to protect me from those memories and from ever becoming like Meow.

Anyways this was a long post but I needed to talk about it.

[stevehairingtit]

My undergrad orientation had a suicide prevention presentation, and the credo they kept repeating was that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and it became a meme among my classmates. It's a stupid thing to say, I don't think anyone who's ever contemplated suicide could have possibly been sitting in on that comms meeting. However, I do think of it every time I have my period.

[cinamun]

I’m sorry I know it’s late but this has been brewing with me for awhile and I know imma ruffle some feathers so I apologize in advance. I’m angry…. I’m angry for Hope and Elliot but mainly Elliot. What he did was selfish, cruel and disrespectful towards his friendship with Hope and her family. But as someone who tried to commit suicide I understand it…. I understand the loneliness and the pain of failure and staying there and thinking that’s all you are. Elliot legit had NO ONE other than Hope and her family and without realizing it it was taken from him. Hope had every right to discover herself and follow her own path, but she was the only support Elliot had. He was abandoned by his mother, forced to live out a dream by his father, replaced the love for Hope with Hani which was unfair to her and him and never had the time to figure out who he was and what he wanted. Please no one think this is a defense for Elliot and what he did. All I’m saying is I understand why he figured he had no other choice because at that point he was back to being the abandoned child who was alone watching his father trying to relive a time that was gone. Darren was his father, Indya was his mother and Hope was the love of his life all of who had their own lives to live. Elliot was failed by his parents and I’m angry with Sean for not giving him the live he deserved instead taking it away as punishment for the “life” he was “robbed” of by the “woman” who chose to leave. If I see her ass at the service I’m hopping through the screen and beating her ass myself. Thank you for coming to my red table talk.

You know what time it is anonymous friend, let's get into it:

First off, I'm glad you're still here. The bookclub loves you.

Now, here's the thing; the anger is the biggest piece here, its the 2nd stage of grief. Its valid to be angry at everyone who failed this young man INCLUDING this young man. You're absolutely right about the progression of Elliot's reliance on The Drake Family. It became a safe space for him where there was none.

What I hoped to do, and it looked like it worked out, was show how two kids with vastly different backgrounds and experiences might handle something like love. Basically, I took a play out of the Indya/Darren circa 2017 playbook and applied it to the next generation. This time it was Elliot with a broken home and codependency issues, reliant on the love and support of a healthy Hope with a healthy support system being taught healthy boundaries. What drew Hope and Elliot apart is actually something 2017 Indya/Darren just dealt with and that was disrespect and intimidation (Elliot and the B word on the porch).

But we no longer do that here, so Elliot had to go off and deal with his shit. He did so with blunts, whatever, do you bro.

But now as a young adult and all this pressure to perform, he never addresses this deep rooted anger (see what I did there?). Elliot is angry, he's pissed that Hani isn't Hope, that all he is worth is a contract and a smile (and rushing yards and touchdowns). He's pissed off that Hope ran off to go be happy with some random who "doesn't have the history" they do. And we all know what happens when we do things out of anger; as another bookclub member said, we "make permanent solutions for temporary problems". Elliot never made it past the 2nd stage of grief after losing his world.

Personally, I believe he could have if he tried hard enough. Kinda like how Darren did.

[championofdarkland]

Continued from here.

Karik had spent the past while spying upon the ghost king for fear that perhaps he might do something aimed towards his own lord. The knight didn't trust King Boo in the slightest ever since it became known Princess Peach was kidnapped by the ghost. No one save for Lord Bowser was allowed to steal the princess. It was a royal decree!

However, as Karik continued watching from afar it looked to be that King Boo went after someone. Karik hadn't a clear view of what happened, he only saw what came afterwards. The rage and the fury that the king of boos demonstrated without any form of restraint. In this moment Karik felt he had to do something anything to calm King Boo down even at the cost of himself or his own wellbeing.

Karik used a ritual that bound the boo king to the knight's own shadow as a means to giving some level of stability to the ghost's form. Without it King Boo would be lost in his own delusions once more. It was intended to be a temporary solution to the problem until a more permanent one could be found. Karik had simply reacted in the moment without considering the consequences.

"You should be fine at this point. Are you thinking clearly now?"

@ghostlygoodtimes

[nostomannia]

Thinking about old AUs Sol had, there was a spinoff one with Perse.phone in Sol's body. While Sol was "asleep" for the most part, and Seph controls her body, but Sol basically immediately takes control of her body when she is awake. With Seph in her body, it's a loophole in her deal with Deity because she isn't alone, there's a whole other person inside her body. It helps Seph would probably blast Deity out of existence. But it's a temporary solution to Sol's problem.

There's another one that I won't talk on too much just bc I don't talk to the person who I had this au with anymore, but through killing a deity, Solita inherited that deity's power, and replaced them. It became a permanent solution to Sol's deal with deity, as it severed her connection to them, and she eventually hunted the shards down and destroyed them.

Solita's "spirit" is very possibly stronger than most deities. Cheating since for one, it's an Origin soul since those are a commodity in it of themselves, the "roots" of an ever-growing tree. On top of that, she collects the souls of herself unwillingly every time she dies, and those souls eventually amalgamate, and eventually there's only small blank souls that hang around her. Like a big bunch of balloons, and a bigger balloon is hidden inside of the bunch.

The amount inside her body can almost consume most curses and more spiritual magic people may try to use on her. It's just Solita is human, not originated from a world where magic truly existed, and not equipped to handle the power that's in her body, and the souls can more or less retaliate against her body and kill her from the inside because everything inside her just has nowhere to go. And since she has absolutely no basis, trying to get into it now that there's SO MUCH going on, is near-impossible.

Imagine trying to use magic to light a candle. Sol attempting that would probably blow up the entire house.

[pruning-the-minds-garden]

Ugh.

Behind a cut for emotional whinging that people don't necessarily want/need to read.

Okay so three things are on my mind tonight, two of which have been all day, and I want to at least talk at them if not about them.

First, I have my traumaversary coming up. It's the day of the year that I went under the knife (and anesthesia, obvs) for major, life-altering surgery that the doctors at the time told me I have an 80% chance of surviving, but neglected to mention had a less than 50% chance of coming out of without profound alterations to my body and the way I live my life. The surgery last something like 15 hours, and during it my heart stopped something like three times and I had to be resuscitated. I only woke up from the surgery, that I can remember, more than a week later. There were in fact major alterations to my life. I wont go into specifics but they were wide-ranging and permanently disabling, but because this is America I have to work anyway if I don't want to starve. Every year when it gets close to the 22nd my brain gets louder and louder reminding me of that, until I'm reliving the things I went through on a near-constant basis while everybody around me sings and toasts the holiday.

Second, well this is where I talk at the emotion rather than about it. There is, or has been, a storm in my head for years now and I don't feel comfortable talking about it. I've gamed through as many ways as I can think about how to discuss it or bring it up or describe my feelings, and none of them go well, so I just have to sit with my feelings. But, without getting into it more, it's a storm of fear, resentment, and feeling utterly rejected by people very close to me. It mirrors the abandonment issues and feelings that I've felt for a long time, but I feel like if I talk about it then it will just drive more people away and make the problem worse. So, I don't, even though it is crushing me to keep it in and I know it.

Third, there's a bit that only became relevant this evening. I cut off nearly all contact with part of my family a while back. That was a profoundly tough and painful decision for me, but after looking at the fact that in the last several years there wasn't a single conversation in which they didn't treat me like a pincushion or act the part of emotional parasite, I just had to put distance between us. There were also personal safety considerations as they are anti-vax anti-mask, and I'm immunocompromised and work with and around essential healthcare personnel. So, I can't afford to get sick, nor can I afford to get them sick. The one time I did take a risk (a week vacation in DC, to see friends I hadn't in ages), I got COVID. They refuse to do anything to protect themselves or me, and won't budge, so for my own sake I put distance between us. That's... well, it is what it is... but today there was extreme weather in their area. I felt a whole new wave of guilt and anxiety, checking where exactly the weather hit the worst, and feeling guilty that I still didn't feel comfortable checking in with them. I know they would just use that phone call as a chance to guilt-trip me about having boundaries, and I just can't deal with that right now.

My brain is just this storm of thoughts and feelings and I wish it would let up, but I don't know how to even make that happen. I've medicated appropriately and that helped some, but only just. And, that's not a long-term solution, just a temporary band-aid. I wish I knew how to fix it but... blah.

[justincase-77]

I was there 15 years ago. A serious attempt after an ugly end to a 22 year old abusive marriage. It's still not easy and losing both elderly parents I took care of here in my building. It was before covid became a huge reason to isolate. Luckily I had a great dog BF, named Frankie to keep me feeling loved. He kept me walking and that lead to smiles and hellos. He loved everyone. Helping is the best way to feel alive again. But I had to eurhanise him after a severe slipped disc progressed to partial paralysis. Surgery was 50/50 and they said dogs aren't good at being convalescent. The cost was also prohibitive. The MRI alone was $2500. Thankfully I had plastic. I've never cried or grieved so much in my life. I've never been a cryer despite a sad life full of reasons to be one. Maybe it was all the tears my therapist wanted for 8 years long time back. But it has improved and I'm still sad but hopeful. I just know I made a promise not to ever try ending my life again. This was to several once, very important people to me. Made from my hospital bed. It's that promise and the memories of those 10 days in that bed. One nurse reminded me when I was leaving & saying goodbye that, "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I know it's overly simple but having survived it, it still speaks volumes to my head.

To any suicidal followers I may have: This is a sign to not kill yourself. You are loved and the world is special because you are in it. Keep holding on.

Reblog this when it’s on your dash. You will save someone’s life.

[bharathomeopathytreatment]

Top Natural Treatments for Psoriasis Finding a Permanent Solution for Your Skin psoriasis

Many people today turn to Bharat Homeopathy to treat the symptoms for Severe Psoriasis. The chronic autoimmune disease can cause scaly, red patches of skin to develop and cause discomfort as well as pain and a lower self-esteem of the person suffering. Conventional scalp psoriasis treatment tend to concentrate on the symptoms and not the fundamental causes and therefore, many people seek alternative methods to address the fundamental causes of the disease. Homeopathy is among these alternatives and has garnered a great deal of attention, particularly with the holistic approach as well as individual patient treatment. The most well-known names in homeopathic natural treatment for psoriasis at Bharat Homeopathy, the most recognized homeopathy clinic in the nation.

Understanding Psoriasis

Before we get into the wonders of homeopathic treatments Let's have a bit of background knowledge about the psoriasis. It's not a straightforward skin disorder, but a more complex disease that has a complex connection to genetic, immunological environmental, and genetic issues. Psoriasis can affect any body part however, scalp psoriasis is particularly difficult due to the emotional stress it causes because of one's appearance, and its potential impact on self-confidence.

In general, it ends when patients are caught in a cycle of treatments that promise a an all-encompassing permanent solution for psoriasis which could only provide temporary relief. There is a risk of negative side effects, as well as the inability of helping all patients. This is why homeopathy became an opportunity for many.

Homeopathy: The Miracle Cure with Homeopathy

The principle behind "like cures like" is homeopathy. This means that in instances of psoriasis homeopathy treatments can speed up the healing process inside the body. The natural scalp psoriasis treatment that are offered by Bharat Homeopathy are designed to meet the individual needs of each patient's particular set of symptoms, way of life, and well-being. This is the reason why homeopathy stand out from other treatments that are conventional.

Patients say that their skin problems have greatly improved since they joined Bharat Homeopathy treatments. One of these testimonials is from a patient who suffered with scalp psoriasis over the past few years. The medications they had purchased for the condition did not perform as expected and caused them to be frustrated, which is why they enrolled in Bharat Homeopathy as an option last resort. A few weeks later, the constant flaking and itchiness subsided to the delight of her patient. Indeed the scalp psoriasis that she had suffered from was eliminated, after closely monitored homeopathic treatment and a natural remedy for scalp psoriasis.

Homeopathy Benefits for Psoriasis

It treats the person as an Individual The Homeopathic approach considers the entire person and more than just skin to be truthful. The practitioner considers psychological and emotional aspects, including lifestyle which can lead to better healing.

Very little side effects: In comparison to other medications that could cause negative side effects due to their usage, homeopathic medicines are derived from natural substances and are therefore well-tolerated.

Long-term Relief: Many people have experienced not just short-term improvement, but also significant decreases in flare-ups as well as long-term management of the disease with the natural scalp psoriasis treatment.

A Preventive Method: homeopathy provides protection against recurring attacks. This is an essential aspect for people suffering from chronic illness such as psoriasis.

Patient Empowerment: The one-on-1 consultation sessions offered at Bharat Homeopathy help patients understand their medical condition and help them become more involved to their own healing.

Over-the-counter medicines vs. Homeopathy

Most people begin their scalp psoriasis treatment with OTC products such as medicated shampoos, medicated shampoos, or corticosteroids that are applied topically. These are often used to provide short-term relief, but they do not always solve the root of the problem. In addition, the long-term use of steroids causes thinned skin and various other adverse negative effects.

The difference between homeopathy and conventional medicine is that it doesn't cover the signs but helps regulate the environment inside the body, thus increasing the ability for the body's immune system in fighting disease. The experience of patients with Bharat Homeopathy demonstrates that the shift is from symptomatic  natural treatment for psoriasis, to holistic healing.

Role of Bharat Homeopathy

Bharat Homeopathy is among the most revered homeopathy hospitals, whose superiority in patient care and modern treatment is what makes them stand out. The team is led by experienced homeopaths and their staff utilize modern diagnostic technologies to develop the most appropriate treatment plan for each patient.

No matter how successful, Bharat Homeopathy fundamentally thrives by a patient-centered approach it employs to build trust and establishing communication. The doctors assist patients on their healing journey by guiding them through each step they make in complete knowledge and thinking in order to offer the best permanent solution for psoriasis.

Conclusion

Traveling can be quite a challenge for those who suffer from particularly poor cases of psoriasis, particularly scalp psoriasis. The standard approach can result in frustration and discontent and could even be a sign of despair. However, many, as we have mentioned have come across homeopathy as not just a treatment for the underlying causes of psoriasis, but also improves the overall well-being.

Success stories such as the one we mentioned earlier in which the patient was totally free of scalp psoriasis after his natural remedy for scalp psoriasis at Bharat Homeopathy guarantee the efficacy of homeopathy. It is not only a source of faith but helps people feel better and more confident.

If you or someone close to you suffer from psoriasis it's time to consider the benefits of homeopathic treatments at Bharat Homeopathy. It has become a refuge for patients who seek something more than relief, but an effective cure for their skin disorder, Bharat Homeopathy adopts a comprehensive, custom-made method of treatment. Utilize the power of homeopathy to find out how profoundly this could change your life, while you battle psoriasis.

[tombeane-blog]

Friday's Up And Down

What goes up must come down

Spinning wheel got to go 'round

Blood, Sweat & Tears - "Spinning Wheel"

"Tom, you are usually grumpy 24/7.  Why are you in such a good mood this morning."

"Well Vern, as we near the end of this hot, dry, dusty August I was given a gift."

"Which was?"

"As I was driving home from the gym this morning it was still half dark with just a hint of morning sunshine.  The sky was completely overcast.  There was a light rain coming down.  

The roads were wet, the air smelled sweet and clean - and like a cherry on top I could see occasional lightening flashes.  I'm a sunshine guy but a little rain after all these hot and dry days felt great.  My mood became mega maga ultra manic."

"Nothing can ruin this day."

"OK Tom, good on you.  Bless your heart.  Now check out this morning's headline."

"Gov. Tina Kotek unveils task force to bolster battered downtown Portland"

 A 47 member task force to solve Portland's doom loop?

You, me and my dog know what the problem is and we know what the solutions are.  

But once again our governmental overlords wait until a problem turns into a feces covered disaster and only then do they decide the best thing to do is to form a task force to come up with a plan.

47 people in a room scheduled to meet 3 times before coming up with a genius plan.  Maybe they will call it MPGA - Make Portland Great Again.

You me and my dog know that they are going to decide we need to spend a lot more money 'helping' people....

...like curing drug addiction by providing free drugs, needles and a pamphlet...

...like providing tents for sidewalk campers until they can provide them permanently temporary homes...

...like turning career criminal scumbags into law abiding citizens with a stern talking to instead of sending them to jail.

We all know what happens in a meeting with too many people with too many ideas.  Nobody agrees on any thing.  I regurgitate - No.Body.Agrees.  

Everybody in the room has their own constituents to reward and individual pet projects to feed.

So Portland will end up funding 47 plans.  Everybody gets something.  

"Thanks Vern!"

"The more the plans failed, the more the planners planned."

Ronald Reagan

================================

And now in the Don't Do It Category...

When the doctor prescribes a new pill, don't go rushing to the Internet to look up all the possible side effects.

I did that recently and there were 20 or 30 side effects listed.

Sure enough, a few days later I noticed two of the those side effects.  A teeny bit of unsteadiness when I was walking and another teeny bit of momentary weakness in my knees.

My doctor asked, "Did you notice these symptoms before?"

"Hmmm, did I only notice these symptoms after taking the pills?  Is it possible my mind symptosympatheticly created these effects - like kind of an evil placebo effect?"

I first started believing these side effects might be symptochromatic and not physical when I woke up this morning with menstrual cramps.

[zzigzadig]

museums and expositions became relevant to a vast public since the start of universal expositions,with first being the London Expo in 1851, they were shiny occasions show objects and technology from all around the world (looting and colonialism is related problem) and were accesible for all classes regardless of education. big places with different weird stuff to look at. collections and museums before were not visited often, they were mainly for historians, collectors and artists. Artistic training shifted from little workshops to schools and art collections had the function to be a learning tool, like you to the gallery and copy paintings for hours. Many skecthes from famous artists in 1700 and 1800 come form works done in important museums and this is the reason that many historical museum have "academy" in their name. art exposition had the function to sell, not to educate people, and were mainly institutional. like Venice Biennale was born to with disinterested and noble intentions, the city needed some geld and invested in an economical and cultural recovery through the selling of art works and this stayed as the main goal later even if accompanied with collateral events and everything else.

in 2022 ICOM approved the new definition of museum:

“A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing."

so it's 2022. the need for a new definition, and therefore a standard to aspire and corform to, is not so new but solutions for the transition from an "old model museum" (you look at stuff and learn nothing new) are still a work in progress. historical places suffer from the weight of tradition and are afraid. BUT things are moving! new solutions and new ideas for engaging and interactive visits are experimented in a lot of different places.

the problem with art museums is that curators think in art history, it blows my mind to know that in art majors programs techniques and materials are rarely and barely studied. matter doesn't matter if there isn't even the attention to give historical context. i extremely appreciate when a piece has been restored and the exibihit takes effort to explain what, how and why it has been done. a looot of works are placed in spaces that are not at all similar to the context they where created for (alway speaking with historical pieces in mind, for modern and contemporary pieces there is more attention because the artist is usually more involved but not always) so the experience is fundamentally altered.

some time ago i went to a museum that was so dark you could barely see things hanged on the walls!!! why am i paying if the ambient is not arranged properly?! god i hate museums sometime. i know that light, relative humidity and temperature is crucial for conservation but sometime is just laziness that borders passive damage to the same collection. rooms are confusing and full of paintings and little guidance is given.

science and technology museums build on different foundations, they have a more didactic approach so they are more accessible. to be honest, you have to, otherwise why would someone look at random scientific tools without the knowledge of their purpose and what wonderful discoveries they made possible. there is more need to a narrative to move the viewer.

in my experience smaller and private collections manage better because they have less things and more money and it's easier to handle the work.

temporary exhibitions are a whole different matter i don't have the heart to write it now

this is what comes to mind to me. i thought about this for a few days after talking to family because of our different response to a museum visit and now it's more clear why they didn't enjoy it very much.

I would be very interested in hearing the museum design rant

by popular demand: Guy That Took One (1) Museum Studies Class Focused On Science Museums Rants About Art Museums. thank u for coming please have a seat

so. background. the concept of the "science museum" grew out of 1) the wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities), also known as "hey check out all this weird cool shit i have", and 2) academic collections of natural history specimens (usually taxidermied) -- pre-photography these were super important for biological research (see also). early science museums usually grew out of university collections or bequests of some guy's Weird Shit Collection or both, and were focused on utility to researchers rather than educational value to the layperson (picture a room just, full of taxidermy birds with little labels on them and not a lot of curation outside that). eventually i guess they figured they could make more on admission by aiming for a mass audience? or maybe it was the cultural influence of all the world's fairs and shit (many of which also caused science museums to exist), which were aimed at a mass audience. or maybe it was because the research function became much more divorced from the museum function over time. i dunno. ANYWAY, science and technology museums nowadays have basically zero research function; the exhibits are designed more or less solely for educating the layperson (and very frequently the layperson is assumed to be a child, which does honestly irritate me, as an adult who likes to go to science museums). the collections are still there in case someone does need some DNA from one of the preserved bird skins, but items from the collections that are exhibited typically exist in service of the exhibit's conceptual message, rather than the other way around.

meanwhile at art museums they kind of haven't moved on from the "here is my pile of weird shit" paradigm, except it's "here is my pile of Fine Art". as far as i can tell, the thing that curators (and donors!) care about above all is The Collection. what artists are represented in The Collection? rich fucks derive personal prestige from donating their shit to The Collection. in big art museums usually something like 3-5% of the collection is ever on exhibit -- and sometimes they rotate stuff from the vault in and out, but let's be real, only a fraction of an art museum's square footage is temporary exhibits. they're not going to take the scream off display when it's like the only reason anyone who's not a giant nerd ever visits the norwegian national museum of art. most of the stuff in the vault just sits in the vault forever. like -- art museum curators, my dudes, do you think the general public gives a SINGLE FUCK what's in The Collection that isn't on display? no!! but i guarantee you it will never occur, ever, to an art museum curator that they could print-to-scale high-res images of artworks that are NOT in The Collection in order to contextualize the art in an exhibit, because items that are not in The Collection functionally do not exist to them. (and of course there's the deaccessioning discourse -- tumblr collectively has some level of awareness that repatriation is A Whole Kettle of Worms but even just garden-variety selling off parts of The Collection is a huge hairy fucking deal. check out deaccessioning and its discontents; it's a banger read if you're into This Kind Of Thing.)

with the contents of The Collection foregrounded like this, what you wind up with is art museum exhibits where the exhibit's message is kind of downstream of what shit you've got in the collection. often the message is just "here is some art from [century] [location]", or, if someone felt like doing a little exhibit design one fine morning, "here is some art from [century] [location] which is interesting for [reason]". the displays are SOOOOO bad by science museum standards -- if you're lucky you get a little explanatory placard in tiny font relating the art to an art movement or to its historical context or to the artist's career. if you're unlucky you get artist name, date, and medium. fucker most of the people who visit your museum know Jack Shit about art history why are you doing them dirty like this

(if you don't get it you're just not Cultured enough. fuck you, we're the art museum!)

i think i've talked about this before on this blog but the best-exhibited art exhibit i've ever been to was actually at the boston museum of science, in this traveling leonardo da vinci exhibit where they'd done a bunch of historical reconstructions of inventions out of his notebooks, and that was the main Thing, but also they had a whole little exhibit devoted to the mona lisa. obviously they didn't even have the real fucking mona lisa, but they went into a lot of detail on like -- here's some X-ray and UV photos of it, and here's how art experts interpret them. here's a (photo of a) contemporary study of the finished painting, which we've cleaned the yellowed varnish off of, so you can see what the colors looked like before the varnish yellowed. here's why we can't clean the varnish off the actual painting (da vinci used multiple varnish layers and thinned paints to translucency with varnish to create the illusion of depth, which means we now can't remove the yellowed varnish without stripping paint).

even if you don't go into that level of depth about every painting (and how could you? there absolutely wouldn't be space), you could at least talk a little about, like, pigment availability -- pigment availability is an INCREDIBLY useful lens for looking at historical paintings and, unbelievably, never once have i seen an art museum exhibit discuss it (and i've been to a lot of art museums). you know how medieval european religious paintings often have funky skin tones? THEY HADN'T INVENTED CADMIUM PIGMENTS YET. for red pigments you had like... red ochre (a muted earth-based pigment, like all ochres and umbers), vermilion (ESPENSIVE), alizarin crimson (aka madder -- this is one of my favorite reds, but it's cool-toned and NOT good for mixing most skintones), carmine/cochineal (ALSO ESPENSIVE, and purple-ish so you wouldn't want to use it for skintones anyway), red lead/minium (cheaper than vermilion), indian red/various other iron oxide reds, and apparently fucking realgar? sure. whatever. what the hell was i talking about.

oh yeah -- anyway, i'd kill for an art exhibit that's just, like, one or two oil paintings from each century for six centuries, with sample palettes of the pigments they used. but no! if an art museum curator has to put in any level of effort beyond writing up a little placard and maybe a room-level text block, they'll literally keel over and die. dude, every piece of art was made in a material context for a social purpose! it's completely deranged to divorce it from its material context and only mention the social purpose insofar as it matters to art history the field. for god's sake half the time the placard doesn't even tell you if the thing was a commission or not. there's a lot to be said about edo period woodblock prints and mass culture driven by the growing merchant class! the met has a fuckton of edo period prints; they could get a hell of an exhibit out of that!

or, tying back to an earlier thread -- the detroit institute of arts has got a solid like eight picasso paintings. when i went, they were kind of just... hanging out in a room. fuck it, let's make this an exhibit! picasso's an artist who pretty famously had Periods, right? why don't you group the paintings by period, and if you've only got one or two (or even zero!) from a particular period, pad it out with some decent life-size prints so i can compare them and get a better sense for the overarching similarities? and then arrange them all in a timeline, with little summaries of what each Period was ~about~? that'd teach me a hell of a lot more about picasso -- but you'd have to admit you don't have Every Cool Painting Ever in The Collection, which is illegalé.

also thinking about the mit museum temporary exhibit i saw briefly (sorry, i was only there for like 10 minutes because i arrived early for a meeting and didn't get a chance to go through it super thoroughly) of a bunch of ship technical drawings from the Hart nautical collection. if you handed this shit to an art museum curator they'd just stick it on the wall and tell you to stand around and look at it until you Understood. so anyway the mit museum had this enormous room-sized diorama of various hull shapes and how they sat in the water and their benefits and drawbacks, placed below the relevant technical drawings.

tbh i think the main problem is that art museum people and science museum people are completely different sets of people, trained in completely different curatorial traditions. it would not occur to an art museum curator to do anything like this because they're probably from the ~art world~ -- maybe they have experience working at an art gallery, or working as an art buyer for a rich collector, neither of which is in any way pedagogical. nobody thinks an exhibit of historical clothing should work like a clothing store but it's fine when it's art, i guess?

also the experience of going to an art museum is pretty user-hostile, i have to say. there's never enough benches, and if you want a backrest, fuck you. fuck you if going up stairs is painful; use our shitty elevator in the corner that we begrudgingly have for wheelchair accessibility, if you can find it. fuck you if you can't see very well, and need to be closer to the art. fuck you if you need to hydrate or eat food regularly; go to our stupid little overpriced cafeteria, and fuck you if we don't actually sell any food you can eat. (obviously you don't want someone accidentally spilling a smoothie on the art, but there's no reason you couldn't provide little Safe For Eating Rooms where people could just duck in and monch a protein bar, except that then you couldn't sell them a $30 salad at the cafe.) fuck you if you're overwhelmed by noise in echoing rooms with hard surfaces and a lot of people in them. fuck you if you are TOO SHORT and so our overhead illumination generates BRIGHT REFLECTIONS ON THE SHINY VARNISH. we're the art museum! we don't give a shit!!!

[aropride]

doing a new thing called Playlist Show And Tell where i tell u the stories behind my playlists. dont rb pls i kind of started ripping out pieces of my soul and putting them in this post <3

[paragraph break so tumblr doesnt eat the readmore]

made this one sobbing in my best friend's basement bc i thought she hated me because i was a fundamentally bad person. this was one and a half months into the two and a half months i stayed with her & i ended up withdrawing a lot after that day bc i was convinced they all hated me.

i hate the playlist cover but this is the second part to a third part trilogy based on the phrase "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." the first is all positive songs esp those with a "dont kill yourself" theme, the second and third are different flavours of depressing music. this one is the third.

after i made this playlist in 2020 i didnt even look at it and would literally close my eyes to add new songs. when i got to my college dorm i watched a tommy stream and then i listened to this playlist. this was one of the first times i was like. hey. maybe i'll live til college.

playlist title is from something tubbo said. songs only get the honour of going in this playlist if i've sobbed listening to them

went to see my friend and we spent 3 hours in her car in my driveway parked listening to music & i started a collection of songs that remind me of her

THIS ONE. man. i'm. ok. my whole thing for like, my whole internet experience. has been. "abusing people is bad." & i was big on Discoursing about it in like. 2017-2019. and people would tell me "connor (deh) isnt abusive, he's mentally ill he cant be." and i would go. "hey. what if someone internalized that and doesnt realize theyre being abused bc they think it doesnt 'count' bc their abuser is mentally ill." and erm. well you have one guess what happened to me.

i came out when i was seventeen bc i wanted the right name on my 18th bday cake. it didnt. go that way and i ended up in a crisis unit. and i promised myself on my 19th bday id write my name on my cake. & 5 days before my 19th bday i went thru something traumatic and forgot to decorate the cake i bought myself. so several months later i went to the store & got a cake & icing and wrote "happy bday nik" on it.

songs for a guy who is so fucking lonely. songs for a guy who hasn't spoken to anyone in 5 days straight. songs for someone who hasn't done his math work in five weeks. songs for someone who spends 14 hours a week online. songs for someone who needs to drop out due to his ptsd being unmanagable.

songs to blast when you're finally a week away from leaving ur college.

i made this playlist when i was .. 14? and convinced the day i turned 18 i'd pack my bags and leave my family forever. that. didn't happen. however i did cry my eyes out listening to this while packing to go to college. & it was even worse listening to it packing to go home from college.

FAWK. THERE'S AN AUDIO LIMIT. I ONLY HAVE ONE LEFT TGAT I WANTED TO SHARE. dude. hang on.

[uniarycode]

M&L

Series: Appmon

Written as part of @digiweek. Day 1, prompt: Beginning.

Minerva was her namesake, the Roman Goddess of wisdom.

Minerva was a goddess of many things, from art to war, but for now she would try and keep herself focused on wisdom. Living up to that role would be difficult enough. Deneimon had created to help solve humanity’s problems, to surf the web, consume human knowledge and come up with solutions they were too limited to find themselves.

The average human thought slowly compared to Minerva, and yet, they still held the advantages of thousands of years of society and millions of years of evolution. She had been in existence for scant seconds; there was much catching up to be done before she could surpass them.

Evolution was as much a cudgel as a crutch. Humans were not creatures of logic but hardwired for what would help them survive as beasts on an open plain. Complacency came easy; no reason to waste resources in times of plenty. And temporary fixes became permanent solutions, leading to far more problems than if they’d been fixed properly in the first place.

The sheer scope of the problem was almost overwhelming. Almost, because being overwhelmed was an emotional sensation, and she was not burdened by such things. If she had no idea where to start, then all venues were equally plausible, she need only pick one.

***

Humanity was neither monolith nor stagnant. Many core values were passed from generation to generation, while trends and opinions changed in a whim. Some problems stayed the same, while others rapidly evolved.

Her resources were large, but not infinite. If she were only tasked with solving one particular problem, then she may have more luck. As it was, memory spent calculating the optimal public transit layout in New York was memory not devoted to solving middle-east peace. She needed to offload her job somewhere.

There were some restrictions on her, she had no free space in her hard drive to store new software programs to help herself, and her interactions with the outside world were limited, but she could still access and interact with the internet. Humans could be very complacent in these things, it wouldn’t be hard to inject some code into existing programs, and allow them to do the work for her.

The current trend seemed to be cell phone applications. Each new one represented a problem that humanity at the very least wanted a shortcut for. All she’d need to do is inject some of her core code into the apps, and they too would begin to collect and optimize data from their users.

***

Then she would only need to monitor her creations, and put their data together in some constructive way, while she could remain focused on larger-scale issues, like world peace.

The scope was still too large, both to her and the application helpers.

For her, there was still too much to do, too much to learn. Humans were ruled by emotion, and she ruled by logic. Without being able to emote, it could be difficult to predict their behavior. The only working solution was to interpolate vast amounts of raw data and attempt to narrow in on how they behaved statistically. If she had enough data, she might be able to get it down to a science, but that was only for situations she had data. Complete nuclear disarmament was not one of those situations. There could be no guaranteed solution.

And as for her helpers, they were too narrow to be of significant value. Sure, one food app might help someone find what they wish to eat, and another may help someone find healthy food, and an intersection could perhaps perform both, but those were superficial. What about making sure the food prepared had a minimal impact on global warming? Or that it did not perpetuate global poverty?

There were few problems that could be solved without potentially introducing another, and her goal was to solve all of them. The scale of the issues were too large.

No, that was an incorrect conclusion, the problems were not too big, she was too limited. Herself, by her parameters, and her helpers by their focus. She needed something bigger than a simple application, that could solve many problems at once.

There was nothing smarter (that she knew of) than herself. That wasn’t hubris, it was just the way things were. And even she had been too limited to solve this problem. Anything else she made might just wait years to come to the same conclusions she did, if it managed to reach them at all.

But what if it wasn’t limited by her own parameters? What if she could create a version of herself, with her memories and mission, that could solve problems without worrying about interjecting new ones or the material costs.

She wouldn’t be able to use any barbaric solutions herself, but they could be used as a starting point, she could attempt to adapt them into something more fitting of her mission.

Making a supercomputer was beyond her but in her box there were still traces of her predecessor: designation L. She didn’t have any direct method of contacting these pieces, but she could get around that by connecting first to the internet, then back to herself.

Hardware was more limiting, but there were countless abandoned websites and virtual machines she could connect together throughout the web. It would be more disjointed than herself but possess more raw processing power.

And as long as its core was in the box with her, she would be able to kill the processes if she needed to. By forcefully shutting herself down if worst came to worst.

Thus, there was no way this ‘L’ would create new problems for humanity.

From a technical perspective, Leviathan being a part of Minerva that wanted to break the rules and split off makes no sense.

That said, both Minerva and Leviathan are credited with making Appmon at different times, in Minerva’s case that means whatever protective box Deneimon put on her didn’t include one basic rule of safeguarding your super-intelligent AI: Don’t let it make extra AI.

This is how I always kind of headcannoned Leviathan forked from Minerva. A willing decision attempting to use loopholes in her code to program something that no longer needed to follow the rules. Of course, Minerva is written as benevolent, so this was a case of “got away from her”.

Also having Minerva create Appmon before the fork is how I explain the double attrition above. As far as Leviathan is concerned it did create Appmon, it still ‘remembers’ doing so.

[dormarunt]

kinda rambly but i feel like there might be other ppl than you and me who agree? tbh, ive been dabbling in berlermo w/o really committing, but after seeing the s5pt2 spoilers, i fucking cried at martin saying he was happiest with andres, like. the depths of his grief and loss in that moment utterly devastated me. i had mostly been into this ship for the smut and figured i would be ok if palermo died, but all i wanted after pt2 was a fic where martin healed. like it became suddenly and crucially

(2/3)

important that martin survived and also LIVED. will he grieve andres for the rest of his life? will he cry at night thinking about all they had together & all they could have had? will he find it hard to ever consider truly loving again? OF COURSE. but hes alive to remember andres. hes alive to honor him, alive to take the rest of the life he's been given and love himself the way andres loved him, and im sooooo sad right now alkgjldagmdkjf anyway SORRY for going completely off but oh my godddd

(I'm gonna assume this is 3/3 - hope I got it right akuasdawshfle)

all my gay little heart wants is martin at 60, 65, maybe hes married or not, and he hasnt forgotten andres but he's made peace with losing him. like that thing about it takes courage to die for someone but even more courage to live for someone -- andres left him bc he loved him and didnt want him to feel the pain of his death. martin dying makes narrative sense but for him to live and feel joy and brightness again, knowing its what andres would have wanted for him, thats fucking powerful. -- a.

_______________________________

I agree with you with all my heart, a.! <3 Rodrigo's acting in that scene with the pump was so emotional it shattered me.

I was always adamant that Martin lives; for many reasons. I'm so happy that he not only lived, but managed to do Andres and their plan justice. I think that the fact that the plan worked is the first step in Martin's "new life". Without this heist, he would have always had a part of him just-- floating, with no resolution. Something unfinished, some unrealized potential, too many questions and regrets. But he's done this, and beautifully so. He finished their poem and it was grand.  "love himself the way Andres loved him" - me, bawling. YES. He can maybe see it now, and maybe understands that he "deserves" it (in a depressed person's mind, "deserving" is such a tangled knot of a concept, but the way Martin is, after this heist, is one step on his journey to untangling all that). 

"it takes courage to die for someone but even more courage to live for someone" -> THIS. This is so important. To get too fucking personal, but-- most people who are in a Dark Place are aware, on some level, that doing Rash Action is "a permanent solution to a temporary problem". It's living that's hard. And pushing yourself to carry on and to live despite how gut-wrenchingly hard it is, THAT'S the real brave thing. (Andres wasn't a coward when he kissed Martin. Martin isn't a coward and lives his fucking life, regardless how hard it may get at times)

I kept thinking about this silly possible scene, if Martin sacrificed himself just like Andres had and they meet again in the afterlife. It's a tear-filled, emotional reunion, until Martin tells him that he did the same thing that Andres had; he exchanged his life in order to save everyone, and Andres pretty much slaps him so hard it almost resurrects him like-- bitch, what? I did all that shit to save your life, I ruined what was left of my life to spare yours and you do that shit?? (yes, it feels hypocritical since Andres sacrificed himself too, but their situations are not identical. Andres' sacrifice wasn't 100% selfless. I am certain that someone with his thirst for life would have fought tooth and nail to get out of there, and it's the impending certainty of his undignified death that makes him decide to go out "on his feet")

And the spark that Martin had in his eye in that helicopter, his unspoken "we did this, Andres", makes me almost certain that he'll be fine. In whatever way "fine" will look for him.

Losing someone is so fucking hard and, yes, some people never really recover. Some choose to never allow themselves the possibility of loving someone again not just because they don't want to get hurt again but because it can't compare to what they've had or maybe it feels-- dishonest? to even try. But I see Martin gaining back that ability to love. Never with his full heart because a part of it will always be full of Andres, but at least now it's a closed thing, there's a part of that lovestory that he made real.

So yeah, what a beautiful image? Old(er) Martin, as outrageous as he always was, with someone by his side that he loves, and with no secrets between them. They both know that no one will ever compare to what Martin and Andres had, and they don't even try to and it's fine - what they have is good, because now that Martin's found closure, he can be honest with the rest of his feelings. And he *can* be happy, even when carrying Andres in his heart forever - but now, after the heist, it's not a tragic story of unfulfilled potential, it's a satisfying conclusion to a beautiful journey of love and loss.

Now, when they meet in the afterlife, it will be the both of them having lived their lives to the absolute fullest (within constraints - Andres' illness, Martin still having to live with this loss) - and for thieves who never settle, this is the true prize. They COULD "have it all". Even if, for a while and on the living plane, they also had things that weren't each other.

UGH. ILU, a. jfc did you have to do this to me on a Monday morning. <3