#trigger warning under the cut

[alwayschasingrainbows]

Tangled Web Readalong - a black cat's wishbone:

"If I'd a black cat's wish-bone I'd give it to you, Gay," he said whimsically. "They tell me as long as you have a black cat's wish-bone you can get everything you want."

Tangled Web by L. M. Montgomery

I never heard about "black cat wishbone", so I googled it. I have learnt from Wikipedia, that:

"A black cat bone is a type of lucky charm used in the magical tradition of hoodoo. It is thought to ensure a variety of positive effects, such as invisibility, good luck, protection from malevolent magic, rebirth after death, and romantic success."

"The black cat has been a symbol of both good and ill luck in near-worldwide folklore accounts. Magical traditions involving black cat bones, specifically, have been found in German-Canadian practice as well as in hoodoo; these German-Canadian magic-makers were not previously in contact with hoodooists, suggesting a European origin to the charm."

Trigger warning: the paragraph, hidden below the cut (and I hid it for a reason) contains a description of animal slaughter and animal cruelty, used in so called "rituals". Please, feel free to skip the part hidden under the cut.

Another thing: I haven't heard of "black cat wishbone" before. If somebody did a research about it, please feel free to comment or correct me (or rather, Wikipedia).

Here is the Wikipedia link:

"After a black cat is caught, it is almost universally boiled alive in a pot of water at midnight, so that its bones may be more easily looked over by the practitioner. One particular bone, special to each individual cat, contains all the magical efficacy alone. This part of the ritual comes from the European magical text, the Book of Saint Cyprian."

A variety of rituals and methods are used to determine which bone is the right one, and preparation before the cat's slaughter can vary according to tradition.

One method of obtaining a black cat bone, described in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men, involves a period of fasting before the actual catching of the animal. After the standard boiling of the cat's corpse, each bone is tasted by the hoodooist, who then selects the first bitter-tasting bone as the correct one.

Another way to determine the magical bone, though it is otherwise similar in procedure, involves a mirror. When the reflection of the bone becomes dark, the hoodoo practitioner will know that it is the right one. A variation of this method is also practiced on the Sea Islands, where the one bone that does not reflect in the mirror is believed to be magical.

Yet another method of determining which bone is the correct one is to dump all the bones into a river. The bone that floats upstream is to be considered the bone of choice."

[howlingaround]

Little Cousin Dodo on an adventure

[popping-greenbean]

HEADS UP HERE: some vent art below! there are some generally bummer subjects,, not quite gore but some representations, as well as very saturated clashing colours!!

im posting them bc i think they're kind of interesting in visuals and such, for anyone who might want a peek, but it's very different from my normal blog content and so please scroll past if you think you won't get anything good from this post!!

most of these are a bit old now actually but. i think the yikes wacko thoughts id be having at the time makes me feel more willing to carry out weird ideas which ends up being more interesting so. you know

[three--rings]

HEY Trigger warning for the new episodes of Our Flag Means Death!

People who have issues with suicide or suicidal ideation being depicted should be careful. More details below. Vague spoilers.

I'm only halfway through ep 2, so I can't speak to all three eps. But there are multiple scenes in the first two eps where someone holds a gun to their head or talks about suicide or it's implied a suicide by self-shooting has occurred.

Also there's a general vibe that there's serious passive suicidal ideation going on, specifically with Ed.

So if you're sensitive to this, ESPECIALLY to suicide by gun, or people threatening to shoot themselves, I'd watch out. I don't think that it will happen at any point in this show, but still...

[riftdancing]

Why do you hold me...

...like you always owned me?

Every time I try to escape...

You bring out the tape...

Then I bite 'till it breaks.

• PART ONE • PART TWO <-

If you are interested in this plotline and want to know more I've talked about it in depth in this post.

[bucketofchum]

Foster Bros AU Atumu gets a girlfriend at age 22-ish? Maybe older. Maybe 25. She's respectful so she hasn't tried to push his boundaries (he's still aroace but she's a nice person - one of the few nice people he has met in his life), so they haven't ever done anything beyond cuddling before. She's older than he is. A lot of emotional intelligence. More content with under the cut (lots of SA trigger warning)

I think this is after she had met Startop and Startop acts like a total dick bc he's jealous. Atumu tries to defend his foster brother for his behaviour. After all, Startop is the only other human being who has ever been kind to him and genuinely cared for him as a person.

Atumu casually alludes to some bad shit that happened, but he seems emotionally okay with it. Doesn't go into detail but he just mentions it. Like some bad shit happened, but it's bc he's got this deformed body. And Alice is like ?? Bc she has seen Atumu in basically his underwear and he looks fine to her. He looks FINE to her haha. Anyhow he shrugs it off like it's no biggie but she is actually curious. Will be tell her? They've been dating for, idk, like, 2 years now at this point? (Atumu doesn't really know what a relationship is so I guess he doesn't know how long they have been dating. He doesn't even know what dating is).

Atumu is intersex. He doesn't really know what it is, and he doesn't know much about it. But he knows there is something physically "wrong" with him, and that's probably why all the Bad Stuff happened. He has experienced REPEATED sexual assaults, in almost every stage of his life. Early childhood (before 8 years old - but he has no memory of that, age 12 at boarding school from a group of older boys - really fucking traumatic, age 15 when he went to a private university - first week getting drugged and date raped by a bunch of upperclassmen, and 15-18 all throughout his entire undergraduate experience just because he didn't understand boundaries and didn't KNOW he was allowed to say no). By the time he was 18, in his last year in university, he was so emotionally vacant and dissociative and had basically zero will to live. He said no for the first time in his life. And kept saying no. And hadn't had sex since.

Now, some 4-6 years later, it has been a while since he has had any sexual experiences and it's....nice. He has never wanted sex. He was already asexual before the sexual assaults, and afterwards...? He has a hard time distinguishing the difference between sex and rape. Because he has NEVER wanted it. It's all the same to him.

But the kind of tragic thing is that he has sort of internalized it to be...his fault? Like the REASON he was raped was bc of his body. He's got this fucked up body - that's why he was raped. That's why all those horrible things happened to him repeatedly. And this is what he gets for having a fucked up body.

Alice can't imagine what he's talking about since he's so fucking vague about it. He never told her about the rapes, but his vague ass language gave her some idea that he might have been SA'd. But deformed? She's seen almost all of him and the only thing that seemed strange, besides how tall and thin he is, were his large scars across his back. But he has already told her that he doesn't know what those are from (that happened before he was 8 years old, which he has no living memory of).

So she asks to see. Atumu still doesn't know why anyone would want to see his genitals. He thinks all genitals are kinda........ blegh. And his in particular are even more messed up. So he gives her a warning. She still wants to see.

He does eventually show her and.....it sort of all makes sense. Why he'd say that sort of thing. Why he'd think that. He has a penis, like normal - well, I mean not that normal cuz it's MmMmmm..hmmm we will just say more than proportional ... Hm okay no additional comment, but at the base of it, it connects to what looks like a fully formed vagina instead of a scrotum. It looks identical to any normal ciswoman's labia...just weirdly where the clit would be, Atumu instead has his penis. She has heard of "hermaphrodite" before but never knew it could be like this. (She'd spend the next few days furiously teaching herself about it on the internet).

Anyhow, in the moment, she asks if she can touch it. Atumu is uncomfortable, but he allows her to. She tries a bit, but based on Atumu's body language in response, she doesn't push it.

They don't mention it again for a while, but Alice thinks about it nonstop for like...the rest of her life.

[ef-1]

🚩👹❤️❌️🆘️🚨💄💋🌹🍒!

sooooOOooooOOOOooo I'm 21, my friend is engaged, this is my first experience with one of my direct friends actually going on a wedding journey or whatever the fuck you call it, until today I thought the bridzilla thing was like a myth or a joke or mayhaps a boomer thing I don't fucking know what I thought but like. what is this truly. how many times can one person say "but it's my engagement party" before it's socially acceptable to hiss at them.

It's literally so bizarre. I know this is a stressful time. I understand the urge to want everything to be perfect. I know you want the support and help of your friends but maybe? Don't? Be? A? Cunt? I've known her for years, she's always been so sweet???

She made our other friend cry bc she wanted him to pick up the wine and he replied "sure! I'll head over at 3pm (party was at 7) after lunch with my bf" "ITS MY FUCKING ENGAGEMENT, CANT YOUR LUNCH WAIT" ¿¿¿ ???

I picked up the hors d'oeuvres, she changed the order from the catering company last minute so there was an extra charge, no biggie, I paid for it, didn't mention it to her at all. Picked up her dress. I booked & paid for her hair stylist. We're the same shoe size so for a couple of weeks I went out, tried on a bunch of shoes for her and sent her photos until she found the one. Steamed her dress this morning. She's not too handy with makeup and she asked me to do her makeup, something I've done hundreds of times before to no complaints but today was"kate, you're not doing it right, I want it to look like yours" WE DONT HAVE THE SAME FUCKINF FEATURES IM NOT A FUCKING MAGICIAN. Her sister doesn't drive so a couple of weeks ago I made the 3 hour drive to her country ass town to pick her and her weird husband who would not fucking stop flirting with me up. My friend got his bf who's a photographer to photograph the party for free. I lended her my grandmother's jewellery.

Literally one thing about me is I'll never ever, ever, ever do anything for someone because I expect something in return bc I think that's a shitty way to approach life and you'll hurt yourself when people don't repay you for something they didn't ask for. So I'm not the type of person to regret doing a favour bc if I do something, I wanted to. I had no problem with doing any of the above bc I agreed to do it. I wanted to do it.

What I did not agree to is having to watch her scream at our friend for 20 minutes until he cried. Honestly this should have been enough, I'm not a timid person I should have told her to fucking cut it out and I'm ashamed I didn't.

My nervous system has been literally fucking eating itself. My leg has been completely numb for 2 weeks now. standing is fine, but I literally can't walk without a cane. It sucks. It fucking sucks because people look at you and they mean well always but they can't not look like they pity you when they do. And she'd been disgusting today. Like a genuinely horrible person. And it's her night, didn't want to ruin it so after 2 hours of formalities, when people started grinding on eachother like animals in heat and her sister's husband started eyeing me like the fucking weirdo that he is and i got my 8th "Awwwww Katherine you look beautiful, why don't you dance" of the night BECAUSE I FUCKING CANT MAYBE THIS IS A REHEARSAL FOR WHEN I GET PARALYSED FUCK OFFFFFFFF I HOPE THE SUN FALLS ON YOUR FUCKING HEAD

I went up to her and whispered "hey, I'm just going to head out, the fatigue is hitting hard and I hate when people ask me why I'm not dancing" which is something she knows. Something I've confided in her about a hundred times. When MS fucks my mobility I usually just stay at home until it boils over, she knows this. So imagine my surprise when she literally looks me in my dumb fucking eyes 🧿🧿 and says "kate are you serious? Can't you just hold on a for a couple of hours, what am I meant to do without you." girl at this point? die for all I care.

Her raggedy ass fiance, who I've advocated the dumping of a trillion times btw has the AUDACITY to chase me to the car when my flatmate comes to pick me up with "Katherine you're upsetting her" ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽

the wildest part is, this isn't even the wedding, this is just the engagement I just realised maybe despite knowing this friend for years maybe I didn't know her at all lol anyway I looked so fucking good it wasn't even close and I'm so glad I decided not to wear the expensive dress I'd planned on wearing, and maybe this is all a sobering lesson about socially sanctioned behaviour and not swallowing your tongue when someone you love is made to cry

[queermoths]

under cut im vaguely working through some feelings about my experience with the troubled teen industry, no specific tw but still putting it under the cut cause tti in and of itself needs a tw

realizing more and more of what happened to me in the tti. its been just under four years since i left it and still processing it. putting more puzzle pieces together, still unlearning what they trained me to believe. might write about it, but i probably wont share anything i write (for now)

[missallanea-archive]

personal positive life update ( feel free to keep scrolling : )

I can't express how much having a good doctor makes a difference. I struggled with being taken seriously by doctors for years and I still have so much shame about going to the doctor because of it. I always feel like I'm going to be made to feel stupid or crazy. My doctor now never makes me feel that way: it's incredible to just have someone listen.

I've been struggling with long COVID symptoms for over a year now and I finally decided to try and talk to him about it. I was ready for the usual "diet and exercise" routine. Instead, not only did he take me seriously, he walked me through each and every symptom and immediately ordered tests and gave me something to hopefully help with the cough.

IDK I'm just feeling really emotional about it. ;w; So yeah I have a crap ton of blood work, an ECG, and a chest x-ray all scheduled now.

[jellyfitzjelly]

If you don't mind me asking another prompt, can I have "be gentle please" with brudick?

TW: RAPE

Dick doesn't have time to do anything before Batman is upon him. He's like a crazed animal, trying to kiss him and tearing his clothes apart. Bruce smells strongly of pollen, and Dick knows immediately what's happening. He tries to scream, to reason with him even though he knows it's useless. Bruce flips him over and shoves his jeans down.

"Bruce, stop! Stop!" he screams, but his mentor is deaf to his pleas.

Bruce isn't holding back, and Dick can't even move from where he's keeping him flat on the floor of the Batcave. Craning his neck, he can see Bruce smearing not nearly enough lube on his erect cock before knees his legs open.

"Wait," Dick chokes out, tears welling up in his eyes as he understands what is about to happen. "Please, wait!"

But Bruce holds him by the neck and pushes his face against the floor, his other hand gripping painfully his hip. He jerks when he feels the tip of Bruce's cock against his rim.

"Please, Bruce! Be gentle, please!" he begs, and Bruce sheathes himself in a single thrust.

Dick screams, the cock and the pain splitting him open. Bruce sets a brutal pace. Dick tries desperately to crawl away from the unbearable pain tearing him apart, but the fingers around his neck squeeze. As Bruce brutally violates him, tears stream down his face, gasping for air. The pain, the thrusting and the squeeze don't relent. Dick starts to choke. The world is spinning, a whirlwind of pain, as it grows dark.

I'm going to die, Dick thinks as he slowly loses consciousness.

Above him, Bruce growls like an enraged animal as he goes limp.

[blindecho6]

Just a drawing of my third ever Deleth :v

Lore under the cut as always:

Well, befoe lore, some links:

Her first ref sheet (verly lacking, I need to make her a new one someday) is here: Deleth - Forgotten Queen/The Mad One

For more info about what are Deleths look here: Deleths - what are they?

Some lore of hers is in her sheet, but because I feel so much cringe looking at it I didn't read the description, so I have no idea what is written there. I'll probanly repeat a lot if it here, and maybe even give some more info here.

So... she's a Deleth. She once was a human with ability called "Guiding light", told that with it's help she would bring her kingdom glory, etc. She was also a Princess/Queen of this kingdom called Astoria.

She was supposed to mary a king of neighbouring country (without a name for now), but for some reason (I don't have a reason though up) the king decided to just erase her kingdom from existence. They destroyed everything and killed everyone and made sure any mention of this kingdom from history was also destroyed. They kinda didn't expect her to becoma a Deleth, but since she was a bit (a lot actually) traumatized from everything she didn't do anything at the beggining. The king just went with his plan to erase everything and kill eveyone who managed to surviwe just to make it harder for her to fix everything later.

Well, unfortuantely for her the most loyal knight of this king (this guy, who also need a new sheet, because man, he's ugly) also became a Deleth (which was a big suprise to have two people become Deleths so close to each other). He decided to follow kings order to keep Astoria forgotten many years after the king died and she just wasn't able to go against a knight who literally killed her.

The scar on her neck is her death scar (the only scar that deleths have). The cloth around her waist is the last flag of her kingdom she managed to retrieve from castle's rubble. It's the one and only important thing for her, so you better not even thing of touching it.

She just went and became mad from all of this. You can look at her the wrong way and she might kill you if she's in a bad mood. But if you help her (ex. let her live for free) she will protect you.

She lives in the country that attacked her, mostly because it's absorbed her country inside. And the knight wanted to have an eye on her, so he wouldn't let her leave so easly anyway.

The only records of Astoria are in the Library (the one protected by a harpy deleth), but in a section that isn't open to the public, so no one except the owner can't access them (the kingh basically forced the harpy to make it like that). As for the traveling historian (from one of the ealrier posts), she was basically threatened into signing a pact to keep info about it hidden (She's just waiting for the knight to forget to renew this pact, so she can sneak some information about it into history books again).

I guess that's it for her lore. It was mostly about her country, so I guess it's world lore more than a character lore.

[naviculariis]

Ooooh I just queued something that I'm lowkey worried about posting

[ofpd]

the pinned messages in horrible exr fic book club groupchat <3

(most important & most egregious one under the cut)

[webster-max]

I love the Web and I really love Web!Martin, but something about Web!Jon makes my skin crawl in a way that no other entity really can, and I think that for me that’s because Jon is entirely and wholly the victim of the Web. Unlike Martin, who I could see being empowered and gaining agency from the Web, a Web!Jon is someone utterly in the power of the Web and acting against his own wishes and desire for agency that it really does break my heart. Even not!Jon, another particularly bad end for Jon, at least allows Jon to be dead- web!jon divests Jon of agency just as thoroughly without the mercy of even killing him. Instead, he’s forced to witness how his actions are simultaneously not his own and impacting his friends.

More under the cut about Jon, the Web, Mag81 typical childhood neglect and abuse, and for S5 typical suicide.

I think ultimately the way Jon would be taken by the Web would be through his experience with A Guest For Mr Spider. Simply put, if Jon’s childhood bully hadn’t intervened at the wrong moment, I think Jon would have spent the rest of his life under the power of the Web. I think he would have taken step after step, raised his fist up to the door, and knocked as instructed. The door would have opened, and then he would have stepped in as it pulled on strings, and the door would shut behind him.

After going missing for a few days, the local authorities would find him starving and parched, but otherwise unharmed and alone in the abandoned house in Bournemouth. After that, I think he would have been taken out of his grandmother’s custody and put into the care system. A few strings pulled, and I think he may have soon have as found himself fostered by a Fielding - not the same as Agnes’, not at Hill Top Road, just another relative of the family’s, some limb of the Mother’s or another, doing the same work and making sure things fall into place just so.

After that, I think Jon would be a good kid, exactly like the others. He’d brush his teeth and go to bed and study for his GCSEs and then A-levels all knowing that his life is not his own. All watching his foster siblings walk downstairs not to return one day, when they were 18 or close enough to it. When the spider got hungry enough. When he gets his acceptance to Oxford, he feels a pang of longing for the life he wishes he’d have. He mostly feels nothing as he drifts through his daily existence pulled on strings.

And then he’s packing his meagre things and he’s put into a car. The other children in the home are watching from the window. No one’s ever left like Jon before, and he watches the scenery change. He goes to university. His fosterer does not stay to help him unpack. Fielding has arranged for private accommodation. Jon doesn’t have to go home for the holidays. How the rent is paid, Jon doesn’t question. He sits down in the middle of his empty room, and he is alone for the first time since he touched A Guest For Mr Spider. It’s been a decade. He feels the strings relax.

He goes out. He makes friends. A girlfriend. Establishes a life. He doesn’t remember much of his childhood, and people don’t ask when he explains that he’s an orphan, that he grew up in care. It doesn’t often come up. He talks about his work- first, this is in his degree, then it’s in his job as a researcher for the Magnus Institute. He searched for the paranormal. He doesn’t find it. He knows he can’t prove anything. He knows he can’t even remember anything definitive, anything conclusive. He still freezes when he sees a spider. Freezes and shuts his eyes. He convinced himself that he remembers nothing because nothing happened, and that the paranormal isn’t real.

One day, Elias Bouchard offers Jon the role of head archivist. In that moment, every string Jon has ever felt hanging around his neck and throat- every social expectation, unsaid cue, suggestion and influence- every breath of cigarette smoke and every second spent pining for the next drag- each string snaps taught like a choke chain and the word “no,” is dragged from Jon’s mouth. “No, but I can help you find the right candidate.”

The life Jon makes for himself is over. Jon names the head archivist, and Elias listens, because he recognises Jon for what he is. A gift. A blessing from the Web. And Jon feels exactly as he did walking towards Mr Spider’s door when he does everything the Web asks of him to make the head archivist.

The archivist is made out of Jon’s friend, who he has worked with and trusted and genuinely liked for years. They’ve researched together, spent hours staking out suspects together- this is someone Jon knows and cares about, and someone who believes that they know and care about him in turn. Jon doesn’t want to hurt the archivist. His resistance is futile, and Jon can’t warn the archivist or his fellow assistants, the sound dies in his throat and what comes out instead is just more of the web’s lies like so many strand of silk, smoothing over suspicion and leading the archivist back into danger. He’s overflowing with it, and Jon realises that one does not need to see the teeth of the thing that will eat you alive if the consumption is from the inside out.

Though the archivist opens the door, Jon feels it. As Jon’s domain winds around him, the Web shoots him through with the rest of the plan, for reversing the apocalypse and spreading through the multiverse. The Web doesn’t tell him if it will spread to one universe at a time or whether it will enter infinite universes simultaneously. It tells him how to save the world, no more, no less- pragmatic. It tells Jon how to end his own suffering in this domain that epitomises his helplessness and still throws Jon’s guilt in his face. It literalises the strings, now hooked under his chin, blood dripping down his throat- for the first time, his hands are literally tied and the script is high in his throat, waiting to be sprung on the archivist. The web uses Jon’s domain like a gun to his head, and Jon knows it’s him and this world or every other universe.

So that’s why when the archivist walks through Jon’s domain and takes his statement, proving conclusively that Jon suffers as a victim, where the Web has given him Jon’s first bargaining chip and the motive to end his own suffering and everyone else’s on Earth by telling the archivist how to undo the apocalypse- that’s why Jon makes the same choice he makes in cannon. That’s why Web!Jon makes the first, last, and only choice he’ll ever make.

The words are there and waiting, “end this suffering, save me and I’ll tell you how to save the world.”

He’s never resisted the Web before. He wishes he learned the knack of it a little earlier.

He doesn’t tell the archivist how to allow the Web into potentially infinite, potentially one other world. He doesn’t tell the archivist how to make another archivist, another Jon, even one more person suffer as they’ve suffered.

“End me.” He rasps. His own voice, free of the Web and bereft of the elegance it leant him. “S-suffering, end me-“ The web cuts him off. The strings tighten to Jon’s limit, then past it. His head’s pulled back, the only eye he can look the archivist in is the one in the sky. Jon tries not to overbalance on his tiptoes, his whole body stretched as if on a wrack. A wretched noise escapes him, and an answering sigh leaves the Archivist, pity or frustration Jon doesn’t know.

The archivist unhooks the web from under Jon’s chin. For a second his stomach lurches and he thinks he’s been saved and that he’ll be forced to comply with the Web’s plan. The Web made it easy for Jon to be saved, after all, and Jon thinks his effort came to nothing. He slumps, collapsing into the archivist. He feels their hands in his hair.

The archivist’s chest rumbles against Jon’s as they speak.

“Ceaseless watcher,” Jon buries his face in the crook of the archivist’s neck. They hold him, out of compassion or to keep him from bolting, and it steadies Jon.

“Turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.”

[liesyousoldme]

my mom is getting her second knee replacement surgery today and i walked into the waiting room to the WEIRDEST conversation i’ve ever heard???? literally this man is telling this old woman how he enacts vigilante justice against child molesters and rapists by fighting them. when they’re tall specifically he takes them out at the knees. somehow this conversation transitioned into politics and as you have to be in texas i geared up for conservative bullshit but they actually both hate trump and Mr Vigilante Shit actually had opinions i agree with?? anyway that was bonkers

[nostomannia]

Also just to make sure I get in Solita's daily angst:

Solita does not feel at home in her body. All she knows is that her body is one she stole from some alternate self. Her body is not her own. Even if the face in the mirror is familiar, as far as Solita is concerned, it's a complete stranger.

It's not something she voices often, but she avoids looking at herself fairly often because of this. She sits long enough to look her version of presentable and she doesn't bother with her reflection for as long as possible.

Then, on top of that, Solita doesn't even feel like she owns her own body and soul. Deity does. She's just a puppet on their whim. She's not even sure her mind is her own anymore.

In some way, the way Solita sleeps around is some twisted manner of finding a way to at least settle into herself. Find some form of control. Find someone who at least appreciates her in some manner, even if it's only some shallow surface-level one.