#this was not. tl;dr.

[icyhotheartwritings]

Tl;dr of the unasked for Pat Parelli rant

-Pat Parelli is a con artist who beat his wife and scams people out of their money using extremely clever language

-Don’t even get me started on Parelli’s use of “horsenality” which assigns the stupid left-brain right-brain thing to horses. Along with introvert/extrovert but that’s semi-excusable. But, seriously… he’s advertising these horses as left-brain extroverts and right-brain introverts. Which, as I’ll touch on later, appeals to one market which makes the whole thing feel a bit suspicious.

-Liberty work IS an extremely valid way of working with horses, I partake in some level myself, but Parelli touts his methods as the only valid way while charging hundreds of dollars to “move up” levels in his program (where you aren’t even “allowed” to ride until level 3).

-Parelli’s website will sell you the same shit you can get at Tractor Supply or your local feed store for double the price, sometimes more.

-The most egregious item might be the Pat Parelli’s Rancher Roper, priced at $6,250. You can get a custom saddle fitted to your horse for less. My most high end saddle cost a staggering $600.

-Don’t have a horse? Don’t worry, Pat Parelli has your back! For the low low price of $5000-$150,000 (NOT a typo), you can get your very own Parelli trained horse! Purchases less than $25,000 even get levels 1-3 of the online program for free! Wow! Purchases above the price of a small down payment can claim 10 whole days of training with Pat Parelli himself! Just think, what else would you have spent that money on? I mean, a normal trainer costs about $3k/mo, what a deal Pat Parelli is giving you! For the cost of 8-50 months of training you get ten whole days with him and a horse!

-The most expensive horse at the moment, a 12 year old German Warmblood priced at $150k, only scores an 84/100 on the Parelli assessment… with a 6/10 on “Parelli Training.” It might just be me, but if I was buying a horse for more than some homes cost I would want that number to be a little higher in the training department than the 9.5/10 he got in “Look.” I’ve seen him sell an 11 year old gelding for $300k whose top characteristic was “very handsome.” Over half of this year’s highly bred Kentucky Derby horses cost less than that.

-For a quick horse price reference I have never paid $1k for a horse and my current budget is a bit over $5k. For $5k I had the opportunity to buy a dead broke papered quarter horse gelding under 10 years old. I would be hard pressed to pay $5k for a horse over maybe 13 years old unless it had like, insane breeding and/or training. Pat Parelli is selling a 16 year old mare for $15k.

-If you need more Pat Parelli in your life, you can join his campus program for 24-48 weeks for just $1000/week, where you’ll perform exciting horse training activities like building fences, a skill specifically mentioned in the application! Of course, you can only apply for this course after you’ve paid your hundreds to thousands for mere access to the online courses and additional materials and your $60 fee for each video application to move up a level! What a bargain!

-For his next in person event, you can lease a horse for the bargain price of $600/week on top of the $6500-10000 tuition for the two week program!

-Parelli’s program very clearly appeals to new, young, inexperienced horse owners. On the application to join his $1000/week program it’s asked how many hours you have spent riding a horse across your life. I’ve owned my own horse since I was 5 and started taking lessons at 4. My horse riding experience is old enough to join the US military. No way in hell would I be able to even BEGIN to calculate the amount of time I’ve spent riding. (I’m sure there’s something to say about the fact that this mostly appeals to women, and the former comments about how he treats his wife…)

-Pat Parelli’s cult feeds off of some weird form of elitism. Everyone who follows another method is wrong and abusive. Only members of Parelli’s program are good horse owners, and the more people you can convert to his methods (and website) the more good you do for horses. You’d never see a fan of Monty Roberts saying that.

-For context on training prices I’m taking an hour lesson with a trainer on my buddy’s horse to see if I mesh with the trainer for $70. Highest I’ve personally seen was under $200 a lesson and she’s a HUGE name in a specific breed. Dominates the show scene. Everyone knows her. Even the aforementioned Monty Roberts, one of THE big horse training names for DECADES only charges $300/hr for a 1-on-1 video call. Sending your horse off for training with 1-3 lessons a week usually runs $3k/mo.

-Pat Parelli isn’t fit to kiss my fucking ass.

[hinamie]

in spite of everything, I had fun <3

[olailamajnoon]

Bruce, who has a problem expressing emotions because he was teased for them in school as the "crazy Wayne kid"

Bruce, who used to clutch Alfred at night and wet himself due to his nightmares.

Bruce, who got flashbacks till his mid-twenties everytime he walked down an alley.

Bruce, who would hug a weeping Dick Grayson and stay with him until the night terrors were over, humming a soft lullaby that Bruce's mother sang for him

Bruce, who hardened his mouth and his life to keep the anger in check after Jason, because he knew if he didn't every criminal would pay.

Bruce, who sees Damian chopping up shrubbery and thinks "I was far worse as a child inside, it's a good thing he's letting it out"

Bruce, who can't walk by a homeless child in the street without calling his special Wayne Foundation liaison (who he keeps on speed dial) and asking her to find "one more spot"

Bruce, who sees Selina petting kittens and robbing the rich and thinks "if I could have had a life with her, that would have been nice"

Bruce, who looks at Cass' x-rays and sees her knit bones and swears to god he will break the bones of whoever's responsible for her upbringing

Bruce, who gives Tim projects that he himself can do faster because he sees attention-starved Tim trying to please him

Bruce, who looks at Clark smiling and thinks of what he can buy for his birthday to make him smile just like that.

Bruce to his parents in their graves after not being able to catch a criminal: I'm sorry. I've failed you. I'll try harder.

People who don't know Bruce: why is that man so unfeeling.

Bad DC writers: idk just that way i guess

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[lazylittledragon]

cringe culture needs to die because when i was 17 i printed out the entire player's handbook and monster manual with my unlimited school printing credit and also wore a black velvet cape the first time i ever DMed and somehow still thought i was too cool for dnd novels. who tf did i think i was fooling

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[egophiliac]

Hi it's just to let you know that the official romanization of Revaan's name is Raverne ! Also they have romanized Baul's name to Baur !

Twst coming back at us again with the least expected romanization! thank you everybody (oh god my inbox) (no it's great, I literally asked for this and the reactions have been INCREDIBLE, thank you all!)

I do like Raverne though, I think it's got a nice fancy sound to it! (I had kinda suspected it was going to be an R instead of an L, so the fact that it's SO close to Laverne except for that is hilarious to me personally.) and Dragoneye Duke is honestly probably the best translation for his title, I wasn't envying the localizers that one. :') Baur instead of Baul I was NOT expecting, but in retrospect I think his name's supposed to be a reference to the Bauru crocodile, so that actually makes way more sense!

someone else also said Meleanor has become Maleanor, which is the REALLY weird one to me, because I was so surprised it was written as Mel instead of Mal in the first place?! oh god no I can't decide which one I like better. 😭 (I wonder if they might change it to Mal...they have made romanization changes before) (like I remember House of Distraction being corrected to House of Destruction in Playful Land) (I did check and she's still Mel for now, but I dunno, they might Mal her up and some point and save me from having to make a decision about which one to use) (HECK I CAN'T DECIDE)

uhhhh thank you for letting me ramble about anime names, let's just say MONOGRAMMED SWEATERS FOR EVERYONE

[fdelopera]

Yo Goyim! Looks like I'm going to need to give some of you a crash course on what antisemitic language looks like, because I've been seeing entirely too much of it from some of you here on Tumblr.

Now, I think it's time for a Jewish history lesson, because I've been seeing way too many Nazi-related conspiracy theories going around. If you hear contradictions to the basic information that I am about to share (i.e., if you hear someone saying that the Jewish people are "a race that originated in Europe"), it is likely that you are hearing a white supremacist, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

So, here's the basics of Jewish history. Jews are indigenous to the Levant have been there for thousands of years. The Levantine people that Jews descended from have been in that area of the Levant since the Bronze Age. Jews as a distinct people have been there since the Late Bronze Age. Before it was Palestine it was the Kingdom of Judah, then Judea, and then Judaea, and that is literally where we are from. The word Jew means "a person from the Kingdom of Judah." The Romans renamed the area Syria-Palaestina (which they borrowed from the Greek name Palestina) in the 2nd century CE after destroying the Second Temple in Jerusalem and leading another campaign to try to eradicate the Jewish people (guess what, we're still here, motherfuckers).

And even after the Romans tried to annihilate us, even after they scattered many of us into European diaspora, many Jews came back, again and again over the ages, and there have nearly always been Jewish communities in the region throughout history.

And if you come for me or try to dispute any of this history with white supremacist bullshit, I am a Jew who has studied way more Jewish history than you. And as politely as possible, you can take your white supremacist conspiracy theories and fuck off into the sun.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

Gloves are coming off, because this is just a sampling of the Nazi dogwhistles I've been seeing here on Tumblr about the Jewish civilians who were tortured, murdered, and worse:

- If you say shit like, "The Jews got what they deserved"...

GUESS WHAT? You're talking like a white supremacist, and you need to fucking check yourself.

- And if, on the other hand, you say shit like, "The reports were probably overblown. I think those were paid actors. I don't think those Jews were murdered. No Jewish children were killed. No Jewish bodies were desecrated" blahblahblah...

GUESS WHAT? You get to sit with the Nazis at their table for lunch.

- If you tell Jews "go back to Europe where you came from"...

GUESS WHAT? Not only are you telling the descendants of Jewish refugees to go back to the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the Nazi gas chambers, as I explained in this post, but you are also repeating a white supremacist conspiracy theory about the origins of European Jews.

Jews are a Levantine people from the area of the Middle East currently called Israel (formerly called the Kingdom of Judah, and then Judea). While there was some emigration to Europe during the late Roman Republic and the early days of the Roman Empire, the first mass migration of Jews to Europe was a forced migration. Gentiles from the Roman Empire dragged us there as captives after 70 CE, the year Rome destroyed the Second Temple.

- And if you're telling yourself that there are "good Jews" and "bad Jews," and those Jewish civilians were "bad Jews," so they deserved to be tortured and killed...

GUESS WHAT? You're spouting white supremacist ideology.

Antisemitism takes a long time to deprogram.

A lot of gentiles grow up with anti-Jewish ideology that they have never questioned.

And a lot of Christians are kept ignorant about Jewish history because preachers and priests fear it would make Christians question the many inaccuracies in the Bible.

But the first step in noticing antisemitic beliefs is to notice when you start singling people out *because* they are Jewish.

And I have been seeing some of you gleefully celebrating the murder of Jewish civilians *because* they are Jewish.

And that is antisemitism.

That is one step closer to the next generation of Jews getting shoved into the gas chambers. And there are only 16 million of us left in the entire world. We're 0.2% of the world's population. And we cannot afford another Holocaust.

And if your response to me saying that is, "Well, those Jews deserve it."

Guess what. You are making it easier for Nazis and white supremacists to spread hatred and commit acts of violence against Jewish people. And you will have to live with that blood on your conscience.

So...

If you are a gentile, and you see other gentiles repeating these kinds of white supremacist dogwhistles about Jewish people, here's how you can help:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Help them direct their focus away from attacking random Jewish people online and towards helping Palestinians.

Actions that people can take right now are contributing to verified charities and relief organizations that help the people of Gaza. Only donate to organizations that are verified by CharityNavigator.org and CharityWatch.org.

2. Call that shit out. Tell people that they're being antisemitic, and explain that Jew-hatred is dangerous to Jewish people. Antisemitism gets Jews attacked and it gets Jews killed. In the US, many synagogues require round the clock security to protect against white supremacists who want to murder Jews. In Pittsburgh, my old home town, a group of Nazis from north of the city planned the murder of Jewish congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue, and so far only one of them (the gunman) has been arrested and convicted of the murders. The others are still at large.

3. Explain to them that it is antisemitic to celebrate someone's death *because* they're Jewish. ALSO, it is antisemitic to blame a random Jewish person for the actions of ANY government, whether that be the Israeli Government or the US Government.

4. Explain to people that they're not going to solve this conflict by posting antisemitic statements and memes online. All they will do is alienate the Jewish people in their lives and make those Jews feel scared and unsafe. And they will contribute to this current wave of antisemitism.

Antisemitic hatred doesn't help Palestinians. All it does is put Jewish people around the world in danger.

[nyancrimew]

just noticed your bio now says it/its rather than it/she, but the wikipedia article still refers to you as she; should this be changed?

please refer to the last 50 times i answered this exact same ask, the three different notices on my wikipedia article about this or the three separate threads about this on my articles talk page.

[notkingyet2]

dave k: and jopson is the steward with the prettiest blue eyes and the saddest backstory and he's the only person aboard that crozier doesn't hate and he's secretly really good with a gun and the most loyal and he's so good and trustworthy and smart and brave that he gets to be a lieutenant even tho the navy would never ever approve of promoting a steward like that but crozier loves him so much and all the other officers like him because he is so handsome and clever and nice and THEN he gets very sick so sad but he is so noble and brave about it and his captain comes into his tent to comfort him specifically and personally BUT THEN crozier is kidnapped but jopson doesn't know that because he's too sick :c so when the other men abandon him to die he thinks it's HIS CAPTAIN abandoning him and he crawls out of his tent and gets the most tragic death scene in a show of nonstop tragic death scenes wherein he hallucinates his captain ignoring him even though his captain loves him the MOST because he's the BEST BOY and he DIES and he leaves behind the most perfect beautiful skeleton and an archaelogist finds the skeleton and instinctively knows how strong and brave and handsome and wonderful he was in life and also this archaeologist is me :)

[cubbihue]

What does Timmy think of his little brother Peri growing up to have a neurotic personality?

Peri's always had severe anxiety. It sorta comes with being the first baby born in a 1000 years and constantly being kidnapped by everyone around you.

Timmy's just glad Peri grew up to be more confident in himself, and more assertive.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[valtsv]

there's truly nothing as crazymaking as the dynamic between a person paralysed by their own grief and the person who takes it upon themselves to break them free of that by taking their hurt onto themselves. it's inarguably not a healthy form of intimacy but it's such a unique and compelling bond. not to mention the fascinatingly irrational emotionally-driven psychological machinations that could drive someone to override their sense of self-preservation to martyr themselves in order to relieve someone else's pain in such a manner. you can destroy my possessions. hit me. say whatever cruel, unfair things are raging inside you. you need to let it out, so take it out on me. i can take it. i can't stand to see you hurting, beyond my reach, and not share in what you're feeling. so help me to understand. let me share the burden. i'll take whatever you give me. and when you're done, and you collapse in on yourself, the fire that's been eating away at you entirely spent, weeping with such shuddering sobs that they wrack your whole body on the way out, unable to stand unsupported, i will gather you in my arms and hold you tight, unable to resist placing myself between you and the rest of the world for just a little longer, and tell you i know. i know. i know. and it will be the truth.

[mayasaura]

I don't wanna further hijack that poor poll, but the thing about Harrow's schizophrenia is that it's canon. The author has confirmed it, and shared that it's based on her own experience.

It's a pretty obscure bit of canon, so of course there's no shame in not already knowing, but that's why I'm so obnoxiously persistent about letting people know.

Whatever else is up with Harrow, autism or cptsd or any number of likely headcanons, she is also schizophrenic. I feel like that's too important to be handwaved away as a difference of opinion.

[fictionadventurer]

To summarize, the Disney Pinocchio's message to children is, "Obey parental authority," but its message to parents is, "Your authority is not enough to save your child."

You can't expect your child to blindly obey without explanation just because you're in charge. If you do, they'll be led astray by villains who do explain. You can't treat your child like a puppet who will obey your commands. You have to treat them as a person with a mind and heart so you can teach them why they should obey the rules and value the things you want them to value. If you send them out helpless and ignorant into the world, you could doom them to a terrible fate. It's your responsibility to teach them to recognize and avoid evil even when you're not around, so they can avoid learning by painful experience

[m0th-t33th]

just 2 best friends pissing

original image was stolen from here

[doereams]

there's something about touya being in a relationship with you that makes me a little sad. for the first time since he's been living wherever he could, he has a place to stay without conditions. without having to plan where to stay next. his guard is always up no matter what, but it doesn't have to be.

he has someone that cares about him, that loves him, and they've opened their home up to him; he doesn't know what to do with it all. it's off-putting. it's alien. it's uncharted territory and he's unmoored. he doesn't like that.

so he bares his teeth a little and runs, because that's how he's survived for this long alone, it's instinctual, just as much as his detachment is a safety net. he runs yet he'll show up to your door in the dead of night. he needs to leave first until running becomes walking away. until it becomes begrudgingly staying. it's not as if he'd let on the fact that his knuckles would turn white with how hard he wants hold onto this one, tangible thing he has now, so the song and dance of indifference has to go on.

but he'll see the food in the cupboards that you've bought for him specifically because he's mentioned in passing that one time. you've given him a key to your apartment despite the fact he's made it known he won't stay, and he'll keep reminding you he won't, but he'll pocket the key. there's medical supplies in the bathroom. while you have expectations, you don't push or prod. you love him regardless of his absence. you love him.

he'll scoff and wave it all away as if it means little. he doesn't need these things from you, yet his heart is thumping in his chest and he disappears into the bathroom to take a breather for god knows how long.

once he stays, i do feel like it'll bring him to his knees for a little bit. it would hit him hard.