#thoughts //

[leanmachine5]

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

[ghostflowerdreams]

I've been watching European news channels, and there's been a massive power outage across Spain, Portugal, and southern France. The only reason some stations were even able to report on it was because they had generators to keep their broadcasts running and update the public. No one knows the cause yet — some suspect a cyberattack, while others believe it could be a climatological event.

Restoring electricity is the top priority, since nearly everything depends on it.

Cell phones aren't working, not even landlines, and there's no Wi-Fi either. There are no traffic lights, no trains, and no metro service. People have been trapped for hours in elevators and on trains. Hospitals are struggling to keep their backup generators running. Airports are at a standstill, and travelers can't even book hotels, leaving them stranded.

Nearly all the stores are closed because cash registers (and security system) won't work without electricity, so people can't buy food, candles, batteries, or even gasoline. Some people can't even access ATMs, and without cash on hand, they're fucked. And of course, food is spoiling in homes, stores, and restaurants, and with no way to heat it, many are being forced to eat it cold.

I can only imagine how much worse it would be if this had happened during extreme winter or summer temperatures, when staying warm or cool would be critical.

This situation really shows how unprepared most people are if something even worse were to happen. It's not a big deal if the power is out for an hour or two, but 10+ hours? That's a different story. This is why it's so important to have an emergency bag or stash. Make sure it includes a first-aid kit, flashlights, candles, fire starters, blankets, canned food, and water — along with a portable radio, ideally one that charges by solar power or a hand crank instead of batteries.

Seriously, it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

[quotefeeling]

I will not think less of myself just because you do not know how to love me.

Unknown

[thoughtkick]

People don’t get to choose who they fall in love with. They only get to choose who they stay in love with.

Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

[stevesgother]

i'm sure this has been said of before but just hear me out

you, who's not quite as close with steve harrington has some of his other friends but still you're still friendly nonetheless.

you had been there when billy hargrove beat him within an inch of his life. you'd driven he and the kids to the tunnels. shared trauma, but that was really it.

steve, who has had vivid nightmares since the fall of 84', decides that one night his house is too empty, and he feels too alone, and he needs to call someone.

robin has an early shift, nancy is out of the question for obvious reasons as well as jonathan. all that leaves is you.

so he dials your number into his landline with shaking fingers just before he starts to really hyperventilate. for it being the middle of the night, you sound much more awake than he thought you would. he can't seem to get the words out, so you finish his question for him:

"you need me to come over?"

he nods before remembering you can't see him, "yes."

so you go over. you get him water and make him drink it. you place a cold washcloth to the back of his sweaty neck and sit with him on the edge of his bed until he feels ready to lay down again. it's a little awkward, you've never hung out together just the two of you. if you could call it that.

shoulder to shoulder on his mattress, you teach him grounding exercises. five things he can see, four things he can touch, three things he can hear, two things he can smell and one thing he can taste. he develops a habit of fidgeting with your fingers until he falls back asleep.

then he calls you again two weeks later, asking the same thing. and then again the week after that. you find yourself staying the night at steve harrington's house upwards of three times a week at one point.

and if you're being honest? it helps you too. he wasn't the only one suffering from night terrors, the difference being that you had people. steve barely did.

it gets to the point where he doesn't have to ask anymore. you start showing up at his house with a packed bag, he just smiles and steps aside once he's opened the door.

sometimes you show up around dinner time with pizza or chinese food and you guys watch movies until your eyelids feel too heavy to continue. one day, doing exactly that, you realize you that you wouldn't rather be spending your time with anyone else.

steve's bitching about his parents a few months later. saying how unfair it is that they want him to move out of a house that they hardly even live in. you feel his pain: living with your parents may be monetarily free, but you're paying with your sanity.

"well, maybe we could find an apartment and split the rent?"

so you do. you don't bother with two bedrooms; you hadn't spent a night not sleeping in the same bed for six months now so why bother with the higher rent?

and all your friends think you're insane and they don't understand the dynamic between the two of you because you're also...not dating? not that you've never thought about it, i mean who wouldn't right? look at him for christ's sake, and he is so thoughtful.

but it's whatever! because you're best friends and you help each other cope with your shared ptsd and nightmares and you cuddle when you sleep and play with each other's hair and designate wednesdays to watch movies and eat greasy food and leave little notes around your apartment for the other to find platonically. duh.

[resqectable]

I choose to love you in silence because in silence I find no rejection, and in silence no one owns you but me.

Rumi

[goodnightmari]

I did not know they were stackable ?????????

[grntaire]

HELLLLLL YEAH!!!!!!!

[cersplace]

─ Hisham Siddiqi

[soul-from-another-era]

Unconditional love isn't a free pass to hurt me.

[vendetta06]

the world is getting so ugly and bleak and it’s hard not to feel so hopeless. but we have to remember that they want us to feel that way.

it reminds me of this quote by dan savage - “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night, and it was the dance that kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”

joy is resistance. it’s really scary times but we are all in this together.

[lovinganddreaming]

asking myself “is this really who i want to be forever?” a lot lately

[freckledrosalie]

realest shit

[artbyblastweave]

Been a really long time since I've watched Daredevil but I do remember coming away from it feeling like it presented a pretty compelling internally-consistent moral justification for the vigilante thing. You're not planet-crackingly powerful, it's just that you can hear, in detail, every awful thing your neighbors are doing to each other, every night that they're doing it. You can't not know and you can't pretend not to know and when the kid tells you the next day that he just fell down the stairs you can't fall back on the provided ambiguity to absolve yourself of your responsibility to act. Semi-relatedly, you're really really good at martial arts. Start the clock

[hellish-timy]

Someone being patient with you on your bad days is one of the softest forms of love