#who isn't honestly

[basshole-astard]

PSA: i keep seeing posts about staying cool in extreme heat that include advice like "gatorade is bad actually!" and "don't drink fruit juice it'll just dehydrate you!" and neither of these are true!

regarding fruit juice: there's apparently a misconception that Any Sugar At All will dehydrate you, and that's simply not true. yes, sugar will make you pee more when consumed in large amounts, but 1) the natural sugar in fruits won't do this to you 2) great news! a lot of fruit juices exist without any added sugar in them! 3) honestly even having a glass of the fruit juice with added sugar won't completely dehydrate you as long as you're also drinking water throughout the day. if its hot you deserve a cold treat of a drink!!! can't go wrong with fruit juice!!!

regarding gatorade: maybe this isn't an every day drink, but guess what: if it's 110F/40C or hotter outside, and you don't have AC, or you're moving around a lot outside of the AC, and you're sweating buckets: that's when you drink a gatorade.

gatorade exists to replenish all the electrolytes (salt) and glucose (sugar) that you sweat out. YES it is meant for athletes to drink during intensive work outs and not necessarily for people who aren't doing that kind of exercise. BUT GUESS WHAT! when you're sweating buckets because you had to walk to the bus in extreme heat, that's intensive exercise. please feel free to drink a gatorade after that! that's its intended use case!!!!

no: neither of these drinks should be a total replacement for water. but drinking a lot of water and then treating yourself to a fruit juice with lunch is a good idea!!! drinking a gatorade becuase you just had to walk for 20 minutes in the heat is a good idea!!!

Please Stop Spreading Misinformation About Drinks!!! It's fine if you drink things that aren't water!!!! Yes you should probably always be drinking water but drinking something else As Well isn't going to hurt you!!!! okay!!!! its fine!!!!!!

honestly so long as you are consistently getting Any (non-alcoholic) fluids in you, you're doing great!!!!!! okay!!!! i love you stay safe <3

[naylor]

i love this album because for the first time in maybe her entire career she's not apologising for a single thing. the album is angry and raw and she's like "here's this chapter of my life, the sad, the bad, the terrible and it's all raw and fucking angry for you all to see and i don't need absolution for a single thing" like she's not asking forgiveness for a single thing from anyone and that's what makes the album so fucking heartbreaking

[kedreeva]

At some point in your life, there will be a moment where exactly - or near exactly - half the people in the world are younger than you, and half the people are older.

And I think that moment should be the one your soulmate Mark appears at, not at birth or puberty or something. Both because at birth is kind of boring but it's also very you-centric and soulmates are about the thing outside of you being a part of you, and I think it would be nice to include The World.

But also I think it would have fascinating implications for scientific and social studies. Longevity trends tracked by the average age soul marks appear. Tragedies causing a rash of recent marks to disappear (because the people are no longer the middle). Marks appearing early during baby booms.

[radiance1]

Alfred Pennyworth has in fact, perhaps, in the slightest of chances.

Picked up his Master's habit of collecting children as if they were on sale.

He was spending his time on one of those rare vacations he decided to take, it was nice, to relax with only the vague overhanging worry of something going wrong back at the manor that he's gotten very good at ignoring.

Only to come across a child bleeding out in an alley, heavily injured.

He would not be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try to help them however he could.

Such is how he acquired a child he later found to be a meta who whished to learn the ways of a butler.

---

Danny had escaped from a GIW compound, after having been handed over by his family a while after his reveal. He felt, completely and utterly betrayed, when it happened. His parents, while hurt, he was at least capable of actually seeing them do it, but never would he have thought Jazz would do so as well.

They did it so happily, that he wondered if letting him go really was the greatest thing to happen to this family.

He chained, muzzled, all the ways to bind him they pulled all the stops too, knowing how dangerous he was. He wouldn't have even done anything then, too stunned by his families apart willingness at handing him over to the government.

He hated them.

He hated them so much.

The GIW facility was a terrible, cold, unfeeling place. One where they drilled thoughts into his head again and again until he found himself unconsciously repeating them when his head felt empty, one where his body gained a new mark day by day and pushed through tests, he had no clue of even hoping to comprehend what they would gain out of it.

It was a cold, unfeeling place. Placed in a cell of white and nothing else, with low walls and chains binding his body in place until the time came for another experiment.

It was a room he grew used to. One he even held some kind of strange, twisted affection for.

It was a room that held a tiny piece of safety, of rest. It was a room that taught him to hate.

A deep, powerful, disgusting, twisting hatred that crawled from the depths of his cells, corrupting his blood and carving itself deep into his bones. Forcing it's out of his pores until it practically oozed from his flesh.

It drowned his mind, tainting each and every thought, every memory, every dream, every waking moment until he could feel nothing but hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate.

When he was taken out of that he could feel nothing, with the drugs swimming their way through his blood that snapped the thin string keeping him between a person and an emotionless puppet.

He thinks that's what the GIW thinks he is.

And when he was placed back in that room, he could only hate.

It was a cycle. Stuck between feeling either nothing or hatred.

He hated feeling nothing, it made him feel like he wasn't real. Like it snapped the thread that held him between what a real person was and a dream.

So, he allowed himself to drown deep into his hatred. Until the white walls of his far to small room seemed to fade, until whatever sound he could have heard became nothing but dull noise.

Until the passage of time seemed to become just a blink.

He didn't know what day it was, when he saw it. Saw them. He didn't know the time, the date, the day, the hours. He knew nothing.

But he could recognize his family. Recognize one of the objects of his intense hatred that he forced his thoughts too. The people who willingly gave him up just like that and one of the causes for his current life.

He didn't know why they showed him them, he felt it some sick, utterly cruel joke. A joke he didn't know the punchline for, a joke the universe sent his way to make his life all the more miserable.

There were multiple of them. Multiple clones of his family. Som within test tubes, some being pulled out from the tubes, some walking around in lab coats. A waste of talent, they called it in his dad's case, a waste of intelligence in his mother's, and a waste of intellect in his sister's case.

His original family was already dead, he was told. Replaced by clones, clones that took over the legal decision to change his guardianship. Clones walking around twisting and desecrating his family.

'At least it was painless.' One of the clones said, talking with his mother's face. 'Far more than they deserved for having keeping a thing like him' spoken by his father's imposter.

The drugs pumping through his system to keep him calm, to keep him feeling nothing was suddenly pierced through by an intense feeling of horror, hate and self-loathing.

He should've known it wasn't his family. He should've done more! More to protect them! To keep them safe! The could've still been alive if he just knew.

In that moment, watching imposters speaking, walking, talking, breathing, with his families faces. He exploded. Exploded with a power fueled by nothing but his intense hatred for every. Single. Living being in this goddamn facility.

He killed whoever stood in his way. Managing to get his hands on relatively newly designed weapon, an ectoplasmic scythe (that also apparently could revert into an everyday item). Which he used to rip and tear throughout the entirety of the facility. He got injured, of course, he couldn't dodge everything, but he didn't care.

A body stuck between life and death, incapable of fully going one way or the other no matter what happened. Gifted supernatural powers fueled by wrath and twisting hatred and a weapon made by man yet in the range of the supernatural.

They didn't stand a change. He killed them all. No matter who it was, man, woman, clone. He didn't, couldn't care. He could only kill, only maim, only hurt.

And that's what he did.

It was then, when the facility was blanketed with silence tainted by despair, death and hysteria. When previously white walls were covered by blood, and the halls turned into rivers of blood and corpses. That he broke down, the overwhelming hatred he felt replaced by relief then sadness then self-loathing.

His family didn't give him up! But they were killed. Kill because of him. He couldn't stand being in this place, anymore. His body felt as if it were moving on unseen strings as it walked through the halls, the scythe shrinking back what it was when out of combat, his mind too occupied by thoughts and feelings.

It walked through a portal, one to the ghost zone, and then promptly into another portal and spat him out into an alleyway. Which he then promptly collapsed and curled into a ball, curing the shrunken scythe in his palm and he was out like a light.

A few days after he woke up, he found himself growing attached to the human that found him in that alleyway. An old man, maybe, but a nice one. He didn't want to meet anyone, besides that man, so he turned invisible when anyone else come into contact with him.

Alfred Pennyworth.

It was a name he clung onto mentally and a man he clung onto physically as well. He wanted to be like that man, someone so nice and caring, someone who didn't mind that he turned invisible at the sing of another person, who let him cling onto him both invisible and not whenever he wanted to.

He did panic when he heard Alred saying his vacation was over, and such that he had to leave. He didn't want to be left alone again, he didn't know what he would do if he was left alone again.

Until Afred said we were going home.

We. As in, him plus another. Alfred plus Danny.

Home.

Heat blossomed in his chest, seeming to replace the constant, low hum of hate sitting beneath him skin.

Home.

[chaotic-carnifex]

No hold on I'm gonna make an extra post about this:

I wouldn't choose to be alloromantic

If I were given the choice to either remain aro or become alloro again, I would choose aromanticism.

And I think a lot of people need to hear that.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 317

IMAGINE THIS: Lil baby Damian, bored and being not quite old enough to start learning how to use proper weapons (curse these wooden ones, he wants true steel!) is wandering the base. This is not out of the ordinary, he’s the prince after all. What is out of the ordinary is that his shadow, his Akhi, is not here. 

Technically, he should be napping, but he woke up and neither his mother or his brother- who is quiet but gentle and isn’t a good speaker (mother said it was from a head injury)- is there. Which is how he finds his way to the Pit, which he’s not supposed to be at. Or at least not alone. 

But! His mother and Akhi are there! And- and Akhi is screaming and he’s never heard him scream like that, like he’s in agony- His eyes are green- they were blue, had, had Mother placed him in the Waters- 

And then the pool is bubbling- he should be running away, get assistance or something, he’s five, he shouldn’t be running towards it when everything is screaming to flee. But one moment he’s at the doorway, the next he’s clinging to his akhi as something writhes in the Pit, a mighty bellow echoing even as the Shadows take defensive positions. 

The water cascades, laps at their feet, splashes everywhere as a scaled form rises from the depths, wings like a bloodied sunset spreading as fur bursts into flames. Crimson eyes glare down at them all, pupils slits as they bare down at his Akhi. 

The creature- the dragon- dips its head down, its breath warm as it chuffs at his akhi, wings folding as though it is bowing. His akhi is clinging to Mother, shivering, several scars glowing as they fade and a burst of hair burned white. 

Oh. 

Oh.

@fairy-lights-and-blobs @f4nd0m-fun @hdgnj @radiance1 pspspspsps

[orange-artist]

More of them because I am normal and totally not thinking about them constantly.

[enobariasdistrict2]

there's something to be said about gale telling peeta that katniss will choose the person she can't survive without - a sentiment that katniss notices lacks any mention of love or comfort or affection, only partnership and practicality. because survival is the basis of gale and katniss's relationship - their relationship is the product of an oppressive regime where so many people starve and die and suffer. they built a partnership out of pragmatic necessity - friendship and affection and yes, even love, did spring from that, but nevertheless, survival was the foundation for them, and the fact that the majority of their dynamic is spent in the woods and this is the only place gale sees her happy is symbolic of that.

but her relationship with peeta is extremely different. he gives her laughter and comfort and joy no matter where they are. he balances out the temperamental and volatile nature (a characteristic she shares with gale as a result of their conditions) with peacefulness and an appreciation for beauty and goodness. they have a trust and camaraderie and friendship that extends far beyond the need for survival, a bond that connects them beyond merely the need to stay alive and protect their loved ones. it is with peeta that she truly lives and laughs and loves and betters herself. peeta notices and brings out the most wonderful parts of her cold, dispassionate exterior (mockingjay, suzanne collins), gives her an appreciation for beauty in life (dandelion in the spring, the pearl on the beach, etc). he's the calmness and peacefulness that she needs to truly live and feel free and safe, while gale is violence and storms and outbursts (which she may agree with, but his tendencies to choose violence don't satisfy katniss's emotional needs in a relationship like peeta does).

to gale and katniss, love and relationships and friendships and human connection come second to practical concerns and the mere desire to simply not die. for peeta and katniss, love and life are about far more than just survival, which is why they share an emotionally charged connection that's stronger than what gale and katniss have.

[dagmartoons]

the rest of the tadc fandom: *crying over kinger and his wife*

me: BITCH WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT MONSTER THAT THING WAS FUCKING TERRIFYING

[double--blind]

(SPOILERS) Ashley, self-esteem, and starvation

So, I adore Ashley. She's this intensely toxic, vicious, cruel, manipulative girl, and her psychology gives me hella brainworms. Andrew's not the only one whose head I wanna crack open and root around lol. She's thrown away the world just to keep her brother by her side, and she'll continue to do worse and worse for the same reason. She's pretty awful! I've been thinking about why, though. How did things get so bad? How did her soul get so dark?

We don't know everything (I'm waiting for those new eps patiently aND CLAWING AT THE WALLS AND FROTHING AT THE MOUTH but whatevs y'know whatevs I'm normal. I'm fine), yet what information we have been given is bumping around my brain like a DVD screensaver on hyperdrive

It's clear from the start that the roots of Ashley's issues lie in her horrible, neglectful upbringing, but it's hinted that even those outside of her family felt the same abt her. I'm lowkey even betting we'll learn later on that she was ostracized by her peers somehow. However, what's most disconcerting, I believe, is how little she was when the results of this alienation are first made apparent to us (bc kids aren't dumb; they notice this stuff oftentimes instinctively, impossibly young, before they even know what it means to be hated), and how devastating the consequences were.

(There's something decidedly childish abt her dream sequence in the "questionable" route—filled with crayon scribbles and rabbit plushies, the metaphors simplistic yet profound—which really hammers in how these sentiments are things that have made a home in her since childhood. Formative subconscious truths.)

Growing up unloved and noticeably unwanted by virtually everyone around her likely left her with a gaping hole in her heart that she'd spend the rest of her life trying to fill. She'd make friends, but she'd always worry that they'd leave her, that they'd betray her, nothing tangible or weighted enough in their connection to trust in its persistence. Why should she expect otherwise? Not even being bound by familial ties ensures affection if her parents are any indication.

Every lesson she'd ever learned had always taught her this: you are easy to abandon. You cannot love and be loved by virtue of your own worth.

You have to rip their affection from their clenched hands if you want it so bad.

This understanding carries with it an undercurrent of degradation, instilling within Ashley a constant, biting inferiority complex which will never fail to be a source of insecurity. She will always be put last. She was difficult to raise, so her parents gave up on raising her. She was difficult to get along with, so her friends gave up on getting along with her.

It's an odd cycle. She's difficult bc she needs to be to get attention, but bc she's difficult, she can't keep it. Not without having whatever fondness she's managed to cultivate within someone fray at the seams, volatile and prone to collapse, bleeding toxicity.

Hence, her relationship w/Andrew.

By being the only reliable constant in her life, caring for her and keeping her company, Andrew essentially became her only source of happiness, and she's since learned not to bother with anyone else. Still, it's dangerous to keep all your eggs in one basket; since he is all she has, she must protect her place in his life with even greater ferocity, which becomes a torturous ordeal when coupled with her damaged self-esteem.

It's apparent in her quarrels with Andrew that she needs constant reassurance that she is wanted in some capacity or perceived in some positive light (getting pouty when Andrew says he's "stuck with her", needing to hear that she's pretty, needing him to "choose her", wanting him to say he loves her back, etc. etc.), yet her insecurity remains, bc unlike her, he's got options. She doesn't think he needs her like she needs him. He's got a gf, their parents love him, her friends love him. Why would he settle for her? What if someone better comes along? Someone she can't scare away?

Wouldn't he just leave her like everyone else?

Even before getting locked in the coffin of their apartment, starvation's been a constant theme in Ashley's life. She's constantly aching for love, and Andrew's the only one who can feed her. When you're forced to fight for a bite to eat or suffer every moment you hunger, you become ravenous—covetous—when faced with food; you don't want the hunger to return, so you lock down the source of your sustenance, wary of its retreat. Ashley's in a permanent state of intense insecurity, always anxious that the love that gives her life will leave her.

Andrew knows Ashley better than anyone else in the world, and it's obvs to everyone and him how desperate Ashley is for him, but I don’t think Andrew has truly, consciously processed the depth of that desperation. It's there buried in his head somewhere no doubt, but rn, he doesn't operate w/the direct awareness that he is everything. He is brother, mother, friend, and soulmate. He is life and love, air and water, everything that is good in the world—everything that there is to justify existence.

It's heartbreaking, in a way, that it's so difficult for Andrew to convince her of his loyalty. This goes further than his tendency to hide his true feelings, bc when push comes to shove, he's at her beck and call. Objectively, he's hers. She doesn't see that bc all she sees is all the ways she can lose him.

So, she gets bratty. She gets pushy, possessive, territorial. Manipulative. Gets under his skin, guilts him to exhaustion, bc she can't see him staying any other way, bc he doesn't get it, bc it works. He bends to her will, for her sake. For now. It's always "for now", bc he'll start slipping away again, and then it'll get worse. She does worse.

Becomes worse.

[mamawasatesttube]

the thing about generally-accepted broad fanon batfam dynamics is that even if you disregard the complete stripping of all nuance in order to make a perfectly nuclear family with no lasting or significant conflict etc etc, half of it is all just built on vaguely (or explicitly) racist stereotypes anyway, like .......... ah yes the little half arab boy is a violent feral gremlin who can't fit in with refined polite society. the half east asian girl is the golden child who never speaks and is good at everything and has no flaws because she's the favorite who holds the family together. the romani one is a slut. LIKE. okay...!

[pixelatedquarter]

something so fucking funny about this angle they're really just there chatting at the best seats of the Patrick Stump concert

[essektheylyss]

Contact Other Plane really is such a perfect wizard and warlock spell, because it truly encapsulates the hubris of those classes. It's the most extreme "fuck around and find out" spell. It's like, you can make a collect call out of this world. You might get some answers, but you also might go insane for trying it. You'll be fine in the morning, though. You will learn nothing from this experience.

[scoriarose]

The Language of Love

If you are already convinced snakes are incapable of love, this post is not for you. But if you are open to the possibility that maybe they do, and maybe they love us too, this post explores that thought. Perhaps snakes feel it differently, perhaps they feel it the same humans do- though even humans experience love, be it platonic or romantic, differently from individual to individual. Different people also show their love in different ways as well! Yet still even with a divide between species most of us have felt love from our furry and feathered friends. Perhaps our scaly friends are also telling us they love us, we just might not understand.

When I first got my girl Scoria, if I could tell her only one thing it would be, "I love you." When I held her, I wondered if she understood how much I cared about her, and would do anything to protect her. When I pet her, I wondered if she knew how amazing I thought she was and enjoyed spending time with her.

And then I started watching livestreams of wild snakes, and how they act toward each other. (The above still is from Project Rattle Cam!) When the babies see a trusted adult, they slither all over them! How many times had my girl happily slithered all over me going no where in particular? I imagine that my finger petting her soft as a feather was probably quite similar to another snake greeting her in such a way.

Sakura is much more shy, yet wants to form a bond with me. I see it when she fights her fear to vibe with me. Sometimes she'll sit for hours at the edge of her tank nearest me, not wanting to come out, but just be near me.

Snakes like rattlesnakes and garter snakes will vibe peacefully with each other, with baby rattlesnakes sleeping near the adult rattlesnakes they trust to keep them safe.

Perhaps, when our shy snakes sits with us, facing their fears they're saying, "I'm scared, but I want to be closer with you." And maybe when our snakes slither all over us, going nowhere in particular, like their wild counterparts do with each other they're saying, "I'm so happy to see you! You're my favorite to be with!" I wonder if they could tell us one thing it would be "I love you, best friend!" And it's okay, best friend. I love you too, and already know. <3

[gingermintpepper]

One of my biggest pet peeves is the assumption that something has to be sad for it to be tragic.

I've always been a big believer of the 'Apollo has an awful love life'/'Apollo is plain unlucky with love' line of thinking but it does bother me that the general reasoning for that statement is given to the concept of 'Apollo is somehow undesireable and thus rejected' (Cassandra/Daphne/Marpessa) or 'his lovers die young and thus their love is unfulfilled' (Cyparissus/Hyacinthus/Coronis). I personally think that's a very unfortunate way of looking at things - not only because it neglects the many perfectly cordial entanglements and affairs Apollo has had, both mortal and divine - but because it presents a very shallow interpretation of the concepts of love and loss and how loss affects people.

Apollo can still grieve lovers that have a long, healthy life. The inherent tragedy of an immortal who knows his lovers and children will die and cannot stop it does not stop being tragic simply because those lovers and children live long, fulfilled lives. The inherent tragedy of loss does not stop being tragic simply because someone knows better than to mourn something that was always going to end.

What is tragic is not that Apollo loves and loses but that loss itself follows him. Apollo does not love with the distance of an immortal, he does not have affairs and then leaves never to listen to their prayers again. He does not have offspring and then abandon them to their trials only to appear when it is time to lead them to their destinies. He raises his young, he protects the mothers of his children, he blesses the households that have his favour and multiplies their flocks that they may never go hungry. He educates his sons, he adorns his daughters and even in wrath he is quick to come to his senses and regret the punishments he doles out.

Apollo loves. And like mortals, there will always be some part of him that wishes to protect the objects of his affections. Apollo, however, is also an emissary of Fate. He knows that the fate of all mortal things is death. He knows that to love a mortal is to accept that eventually he will have to bury them. There is no illusion of forever, there is no fantasy where he fights against the nature of living things and shields his beloveds from death. Apollo loves and because of that love, he also accepts.

And that, while beautiful, is also tragic.

[uncanny-tranny]

So often, twink death is framed as a bad thing. However, the "twink death" for trans men* is frankly one of the most healing things you will bear witness to (pun intended).