#you've given me things to think about
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Would you ever consider writing a symbiote!MCU Spidey? I’d love to see your take on a darker Peter Parker!
OH BOY WOULD I
you don't understand the DEPTHS of my euphoria when I saw peter go apeshit on the green goblin during no way home. like??
the way he's visibly shaking from rage, the unrestrained violence, the line "no, I just wanna kill you myself". there's something so delicious about a character who is usually dedicated to being a good person in the face of grief and sadness only to give into their wrath when they get pushed just a little too far. peter's a great character for that because to me, you can tell he is consciously making the choice to be a good person everyday. it's not because it comes easy to him, it's because he wants to, which makes it all the more compelling when he decides to stop
but now you've got me thinking about. post-nwh symbiote!peter dealing with the loss of his loved ones and you, his partner who's completely forgotten him. how before the symbiote, he was so good at staying away from you, letting you live your life even if it meant that you were dating someone new. even if it meant that he couldn't swing by your place anymore because someone else was living there, someone else was kissing you good morning, someone else was the love of your life
and he's so good at pretending because he loves you and you don't remember him, he's no one, so it's only right that he leaves you alone. starts a new life even though he never really could say goodbye to the last one
but then he finds the symbiote and. well. he starts thinking that maybe it's not right. he's given so much to this city and what? he's just supposed to be okay with losing everything he loves for it? he doesn't ask for much. barely anything. he's living out of a shitty apartment, barely making ends meet, getting bruised and bloody night and day and watching all his friends and family and you slip through his fingers. why is someone else taking his place? it's not fair, is it?
he was powerless when he lost you. that won't happen again
#you've given me things to think about#I'm so excited for symbiote!peter in the spider-man 2 game coming out this year and dark!peter fics are my guilty pleasure#there's just! so much potential#given nwh's ending I really hope we see more venom in the mcu#symbiote!peter#anonymous#mjanswers
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Lived My Whole Life Before the First Light
Omg here we are. At the end. I'm sad, I've been having such a blast with you guys this week! But all good things... Anyway, this is a strange one, rambling and mournful but hopefully with some sweetness. I hope it makes you feel things, I hope it gives you something, I hope we part on this final day of Painland Week as friends and confidants 💛 Huge, huge thanks to the organisers of Painland Week for putting this magical event together! Special love on this day goes out to @mellxncollie , who has been creating amazing gifs all week and has made beautiful ones for this very fic. It's been so so wonderful to collab with you and everyone should go and look at these wonderful creations at ONCE. Warnings for canonical character death (sorry, Charles) and the stuff that comes with it (i.e. refs to bullying/hatecrimes), non-graphic injury description, and just general mournful grief vibes all round. But hopeful ending bc let's face it, we all know how this played out! 7.3k, M-rated, available on Ao3. Thanks again, @painlandweek!
"Colour! What a deep and mysterious language. The language of dreams."
~ Paul Gauguin
Edwin Payne had always possessed a thirst for knowledge. As a child, he'd wished to learn just about everything there was to learn — every fact in every field. He'd been told, many times, that he could live to be a hundred years old, and still not have enough hours to do so.
Edwin had most certainly not lived to be a hundred. But he supposed that if you added his sixteen years of life to his seventy-three of death, he was getting rather close.
The dead years, however, had been far from conducive to study. Knowledge was hard to come by in Hell. Found either in burnt and bloodied books scavenged from individual damnations, or delivered in the form of cruel trials. He'd been taught a lesson or two in his time, but not on anything so polite and pedestrian as geometry. Edwin's key area of personal study in Hell had been one thing, and one thing only: how to escape from it.
It had taken seven decades, a slew of disembowelments and innumerable failed attempts, but at last he'd passed his final exam with merit. Or at least, a version of him had. But there wasn't much to be done for his original self, whose body lay mouldering on the dollhouse floor beneath a thousand savaged duplicates.
Best not to dwell on it.
He supposed he should have been upset about where the door to Hell spat him out. Not many people would be happy to return to the place where they'd met their untimely, violent demise. But to Edwin, after a small infinity in the blackest pit, stepping back into St. Hilarion's hallowed halls felt like greeting an old friend. Well, friend might be a tad generous. More of an acquaintance, or perhaps a second cousin one barely tolerated. Not a person one enjoyed spending time with, but nonetheless a familiar face.
For a day or so he'd wandered about in a bit of a daze, glancing over his shoulder for any sign he'd been followed from the depths. He'd drunk in every familiar feature, and puzzled over the unfamiliar ones. It was a small change in the grand scheme of things, but he suspected they'd replaced the drapes. They were a lighter grey now than they had been in his time. He wondered what colour they'd chosen — or for that matter, what colour they were in the first place. He'd never thought to ask.
Then on his second day of wandering, he'd stumbled across the old library. And that, for several weeks, had been that.
He'd probably had dreams about this, in his youth. Dreams of being left to his own devices, surrounded by books. All the information he could inhale, with no interruptions. Not even from the other boys. Their voices had startled him a few times, and he was always wary when a gaggle of them descended on the library. But he'd quickly realised that none of them could see him, and so long as he turned the pages quietly, he was free to continue his reading unmolested.
And he did so, continuously, for days. Not even boring old human restrictions like hunger, tiredness or eye strain could stop him now. He read everything he could get his hands on, brushed up on everything, filling in the gaps of the last decades. On the future that had been robbed from him, subsiding into history while his back was turned. He'd sat in his own shellshock when he read not only about how the so-called 'war to end all wars' had concluded, but also how little time had passed before the next one. He'd blushed and skimmed the pages pertaining to the nineteen-sixties free love movement. He'd gazed, thunderstruck, at the moon through the library window; wondering what the Earth must have looked like to the man they put up there.
All these years he'd been trapped in the gutters at the deepest depths of suffering, reaching up towards the light; all that time, humanity had been reaching, too. Up, up and up, all the way to the stars.
It became habit, after that, to gaze at the moon in between books and chapters. An opportunity to gather his thoughts on what he'd just read, to file away the facts, to jot down the most pertinent in his notebook. It was rather a meditative process.
Or at least it had been, until the night he'd seen something else beneath that moon. Something tragically earthbound amidst the gently illuminated greys of the grounds. A hunched and trembling shape against the trees, lurching by Edwin's window. A boy, on the run — his pursuers baying for blood like wolves at his heels.
They could put a man on the moon, but some things never changed.
It would be the first time Edwin had left the library since re-discovering it. Holding aloft the pilfered lantern he'd been using to read into the night, he trod carefully through the darkened corridors. The majority of staff and students were in dorms or common rooms by now, voices a soft patter, bleeding with the light under the doors. No one marked Edwin, or came to investigate the lantern floating past. Though some extinguished their own lights and hushed their voices, mistaking him for a warden. Edwin didn't wish to scare anyone, but he drew some comfort from it. He'd grown tired of being pounced upon in long, black, twisting hallways. How comforting for once to be the root of fear and not merely its captive.
Edwin had to search a little while, but he was already familiar with the best hiding places. It wasn't long before he was creeping up to the attic, minding his ghostly tread upon the stairs. He didn't wish to cause alarm, or send the boy deeper into hiding thinking his assailants had found him.
He crossed the threshold, and at once heard a shuddering intake of breath as the harsh white aura of his lantern bounced off the walls. He supposed there was no disguising the glow. He hung back a moment, conflicted. All he wanted was to offer some light and warmth, but perhaps a floating lantern would be a sight too much for the terrified boy. Well, it was too late for that, now. He stepped into the room proper, peering past the flare of his lantern to the source of the sound. A shivering bundle on the floor, tucked into a nook behind the shelves. Trying to be as small as possible and, by and large, succeeding.
Wide, hunted eyes stared into the light. A voice, low and wary, spoke.
"What do you want?"
It was then that Edwin realised the eyes weren't looking into the light. They were looking at him. He glanced behind himself, just to make sure, but he wasn't mistaken. "You can see me?"
It was also when he noticed something equally perplexing happening to the light. It had started to look... less white. No, in fact it no longer looked white at all, but it had not dimmed, and it bore no resemblance to any shade of grey Edwin had ever seen. It was... he didn't even have the language to describe it. If he had to choose a word, he could only say it looked warm. He'd never seen anything like it. Not in seventy years of Hell, nor in his life before. It simply defied description.
He tore his gaze from it. There were more pressing matters to attend to. "I... I thought this lantern might help," he said, still dumbfounded. He approached, with care — this boy was clearly a victim in this circumstance, but there was a defensive set to his jaw. A wild look in his eyes. A creature caught in a trap was as liable to bite a rescuer as an attacker. "You can simply extinguish it if those boys come up here."
The guarded expression cracked, vulnerability bleeding through. As Edwin drew closer, he noticed that the strange new quality of the light was reflected where it hit the boy. There were notes of something else beneath the pallid grey tones of his skin, something richer. Just as something beyond simple black glistened in his enormous eyes.
"You saw them?" the boy rasped.
"I did. I went to school here a long time ago." Edwin knelt before him, bringing the light closer to the lad’s face and marvelling, quietly, at the strange tones that sprang into sharp relief. Whoever this young man was, Edwin's very perception of the world appeared to be shifting in his presence. "We had bullies, too."
He looked so weak, curled up and trembling. He certainly wasn't weak, Edwin suspected that much. Peeking out from beneath the blanket were shoes and trousers of a kind he'd seen these modern boys wearing out on the sports pitch. The lad was no delicate flower, but at this moment, at the mercy of his wounds, he was helpless.
And if he could see Edwin... then his fate was already sealed.
Edwin looked at the boy levelly, at the fear in his strange eyes. He'd seen that fear upon countless faces these last seventy years, on the wretched souls crying out for respite from their torment. He'd worn a similar expression some decades ago, when a careless act of cruelty had damned him, too.
"Rest assured," he said, gently, offering the lantern. "I shan't hurt you."
He could see the moment the boy decided to believe him. His shoulders slumped, his breath escaped in a rattle of relief. He reached out from his blanket shell, and flashed a sliver of that curiously saturated skin at his shoulder. Against the stark white of the sleeveless vest he wore, the difference was now undeniable. Not grey, not white, but something altogether different. Like his eyes, like the metal at his throat and ear that glimmered in the lamplight. Tones Edwin had never seen before, couldn't even name.
It couldn't be...
"Cheers, mate," said the boy, shivering as he brought the lantern closer. "I'm freezing. Never been this cold in my life."
Swallowing, Edwin nodded. "It's the least I can do."
The boy's lips twitched in a feeble half-smile. "Yeah? You mean you can do more?"
Probably not as much as he'd like. But Edwin nodded again. "Of course."
The light shone upon the boy's face and the dark, waterlogged curls of his hair. Steeped in that impossible hue.
"Stick around a bit?" he asked, his voice very small indeed. "Bit lonely up here..."
Edwin had not come here with any plans to stick around. He'd wished to help, of course. But to say he was unaccustomed to dealing with people was a tremendous understatement. He'd planned to drop off the lantern, check the boy was alright, and slip away without a fuss.
But the boy was clearly not alright, half-alive and fading fast. And he'd seen Edwin, asked him in no uncertain terms to stay. Asked him with all the broken hope in his voice and all the impossible buried, blooming hues in his eyes. And if those colours meant what he had always been told…
Well. How could Edwin begrudge his own soulmate a last request?
"My name is Edwin," he said, as measured as he could manage. "Edwin Payne."
The boy grinned. It wobbled at the edges. "Charlie," he introduced himself. "Charles Rowland."
Edwin hummed. Charles. A pleasant name. Respectable. He thought it rather suited the young man. "A pleasure to meet you, Charles."
Charles chuckled, drawing the lantern closer to himself. "Pretty bloody brills to meet you, too, Edwin."
The colour — for it surely was a colour, Edwin knew of no other word or explanation — of the lantern seemed to pulse, then settle, stronger than before. It illuminated the feeble grin upon Charles' drawn face in hues as yet unnamed.
Edwin would have to find some names. Compare what he could see with what he'd been told, what he'd read. Identify what he could.
While he still had the chance.
"Best thing to happen to me all night," Charles mumbled. "You showing up."
Edwin wished to tell him things could only improve from here; but he knew it to be a lie.
~
"It is the color closest to light. In its utmost purity, it always implies the nature of brightness and has a cheerful, serene, gently stimulating character. Hence, experience teaches us that yellow makes a thoroughly warm and comforting impression."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Just didn't seem right. Letting that kid get beat on 'cause he's from Pakistan," said Charles.
His socks peeked out from the blanket, bright white in the lamplight. Interesting — a part of Edwin had always presumed that white would look vastly different with the rest of the spectrum unlocked. It didn't, but there was much less of it. The world was full of more off-whites in more hues than Edwin could've previously imagined. Charles' skin wasn't dissimilar. Pale-ish, but bearing pleasant warm under-and-overtones that made Edwin's look near-translucent by comparison.
"I mean, I'm half Indian," Charles continued. "Why am I so different?"
"That is a fair point," said Edwin, thoughtful, harkening back to some of the history books he'd skimmed of late. "They were the same country back when I was alive."
Fascinating how the times changed, new lines drawn in the sand. Fascinating, and frustrating. In the time Edwin had been gone wars had started and ended, entire countries had been ruptured, borders reshaped. And yet some of life's most persistent mysteries remained unanswered.
He'd not looked much into it, but it seemed little advancement had been made in understanding of the so-called 'soulmate' principle. It had been a frequent enough phenomenon to be common knowledge in Edwin's time, but no one ever had any real explanation for it. Plenty of spiritual explanations, of course. But it seemed no one could point to any tangible scientific reason why a person, upon hearing the voice of a certain other person, had the entire hidden colour spectrum revealed unto them. An entire dimension of the visible world remained inaccessible to the vast majority of the population, and still no one knew why, or even how. Clearly, there was still much research to be done on the subject.
And clearly, the notion of this mysterious person as a 'soulmate' was romantic drivel. Charles seemed a pleasant fellow, but he was a fellow. And two boys could hardly be soulmates, could they? No God-fearing Christian would embrace the concept if that were the case. So no, Charles couldn't possibly be his soulmate. Perhaps the phenomenon represented something else entirely. Like minds? Charles seemed an easy boy to get on with — and Edwin seldom got on with anybody. He even felt at ease sitting beside him on the hard attic floor, nearly touching. Perhaps Charles was simply his universe-appointed fastest friend; the one person in creation who could truly understand him.
Or maybe it was a cosmic fluke, a quirk of biology. Maybe it could have been absolutely anybody in the world.
Yes, that was probably it. Nothing deeper at play than that.
Still, it was a pity Charles would be dead before the night was out. Soulmate or not.
(Definitely not.)
"Right..." Charles mumbled. Followed by a frown. "Wait, what?"
"Hm?"
"What d'you mean 'when you were alive'?"
Edwin looked at him. Charles still seemed rather small, rather sorry. A chilly little lump, all curled in on himself, even now they were side by side and of a height with one another. He looked cold, sallow. Not even the warm hues of the light Edwin had tentatively designated yellow could hide it, cheerful though it may be.
"You ought to move around a bit," said Edwin, standing smoothly. "You must keep your circulation going."
It would do no good, of course. But who knew? Charles might be hardier than Edwin gave him credit for.
"Edwin," said Charles, all seriousness. "What d'you mean when you were alive?"
Edwin's brow twitched. He held out his hand. "Get up, and I shall tell you."
Charles took his hand — and startled. "Fuck — you're colder than me, mate!"
"And for good reason. Come, now. Two or three quick laps of the room. I'll hold the lantern."
~
"Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead."
~ Wilfred Owen
Edwin had heard some truly hideous sounds in his time. Crunching bones, squelching organs, agonised screams. And yet somehow, the wheeze of Charles hacking up water from pulverised lungs was among the worst to date.
"Are you alright?" Edwin asked, hands clasped upon the table — lest he risk something overfamiliar like a pat on the back.
"I'm fine," Charles deflected, voice hoarse and unconvincing. "Just answer my question.
Charles was looking worse by the minute. The warm tones of his skin that Edwin had grown so fascinated by were receding under sallow grey. A new colour was blooming, in and around his eyes; in the puffy lids underneath, in the spiderwebbing veins across the whites.
This colour was not nearly so puzzling — the veins were a dead giveaway. Edwin had read more than enough crime literature to be able to identify the colour of blood.
So, this was the famous red. A bold colour, possibly quite charming in the right context; which this most assuredly was not. Edwin was no physician, but he'd read a number of medical textbooks. Charles bore all the hallmarks of a man bedevilled with internal bleeding. It was not a matter of whether he would die, but of what would kill him first; the cold, or the injuries.
He tore his gaze away. Anger, bitter and harsh, had him by the throat, had his fists clenching together until his gloves creaked. Who were those wretched boys, to lay hands upon Charles? To break him so? This boy who, insofar as Edwin could tell, hadn't a bad bone in his body? Whatever Charles was to him, soulmate or not (definitely, definitely not), he was his. He was supposed to be his, and soon he would be dead, and Edwin understood, now. Understood how people found themselves mired in Hell's fifth circle, swamped in wrath and rage. For no reason, no reason at all, those boys had taken Charles’ life without a care. Taken his life, and the colour from Edwin's eyes, all in one fell swoop. Soon both would be gone; and if Edwin ever found the hooligans responsible they'd have a formidable haunting on their hands.
"Nineteen thirteen, to..." he counted one, two, three, slowly. Collecting himself. "Nineteen sixteen."
"Bullshit." Charles cocked his head, a small smile of disbelief upon his lips. It was a charming expression, in its impertinence. "When did you go to school here for reals?"
"Nineteen thirteen to nineteen sixteen," Edwin repeated, slower. "I am dead, Charles."
Charles laughed. Edwin raised his eyebrows — and pretended not to be fascinated by the flash of not-red in Charles' mouth, his tongue and gums. What was the word for a light red, again? He was sure he'd read it somewhere...
The laughter died, and Charles' eyes went wider still. "...Oh."
There was more of that not-red than Edwin had thought, actually. The shells of Charles' ears, where the dawning light from the window glowed through translucent skin. He'd never considered that a person's ears might appear a different colour to the rest of them. How many secret tricks of the light had he been oblivious to all these years? How many more had he yet to discover? How many would he never get the chance to see for himself?
Just how much more could possibly be stolen from him?
"I... I dunno if this is, um, bad to ask, or what, but..." Charles swallowed. "How'd you die, mate?"
His lips, too, were redder than the rest of him; although that was fading, rapidly. Cooling at the edges. Edwin suspected that wasn't supposed to be the case.
"As I said," Edwin replied, sadly. "We had bullies, too."
~
"Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
~ Robert Frost
He had Charles move around again, though it was clear it would serve no purpose. He was delaying the inevitable. Charles was all but shutting down already; the occasional boost to his circulatory system was hardly going to bring him back from Death's door.
But perhaps Charles would beat the odds. Why not? He seemed a resilient fellow. Perhaps he would, indeed, outlast the night, see another day. Perhaps help would arrive. Perhaps Edwin could give him the push he needed to survive this if he only persisted.
Besides, he couldn't let Charles seize up and expire just yet. Charles had questions and damn it all, Edwin would answer them!
"Actually, you can move around any space however you like," Edwin explained. "It is not that you cannot touch things, you just cannot feel them."
A blessing in disguise, on occasion. Though Edwin had done his utmost to fill up this nook by the window with whatever musty blankets and futons he could salvage, he doubted the floor was comfortable. He himself sat with his knees tucked up to his chest, bracing for discomfort he couldn't feel. It was far from ideal. But he supposed that a hard floor was the least of Charles' problems.
Charles was rapidly declining. That cool tinge upon his lips was growing more prominent, his coughs harsher and more visceral-sounding. But here, at least, he seemed as snug as Edwin could make him. Swaddled like a babe, tucked up against the cluttered old shelves. Perhaps this was warm enough to get him through. It certainly seemed warm, with the yellow light burning merrily on.
It glowed not only off Charles' skin and his eyes, but a myriad small reflective surfaces strewn about the forgotten nook. Edwin was particularly taken with the shimmer of it off what appeared to be a dented instrument — possibly a tuba? — near Charles' head. Metals had always looked very similar to one another, in Edwin's grayscale vision. Now he could see the metal of the horn was a somewhat deeper shade than that of, say, the earring Charles wore. Finally, he could see first-hand the differences between the precious and non-precious metals. Alas, he had few of them to choose from, and little way of knowing which was which. He supposed it safe to assume that the instrument was brass, hence its orchestral designation.
But the metal Charles was wearing was his favourite so far. It had a little of the yellow about it, but richer, more lustrous. Edwin found himself quite transfixed by the way it fluttered and flickered in the light.
He was familiar with the saying all that glitters is not gold, of course. But for want of further evidence, gold seemed as good a guess as any.
"It's stupid, but... I think I'd miss kissing," said Charles. He looked right at Edwin, earring and eyes twinkling with the motion. He did have... handsome eyes. Edwin simply must figure out what colour they were. Of a similar hue but different tone to his hair, to the old wooden shelves at his back. "Do you miss kissing?"
"Mmm-mmmm," Edwin mumbled, with a small shake of his head. "No. Not as such."
How many people had Charles kissed, he wondered? Surely not an abundance, they were of a similar age. Had he kissed someone this month, this week? Today? Before his lips grew cold and chapped, when they were... oh, what was that word for a lighter red? Pink, yes, that was it.
Then again, perhaps he went about with painted lips in every day life. He already wore some sort of cosmetic on his eyes, after all, so maybe it wasn't a stretch for a modern young man. Imagine. A boy, staining the lips of his paramours with lipstick when he kissed them...
Goodness. The world really had moved on.
Edwin cleared his throat. "No," he repeated, firmly. "No, I don't miss kissing."
He supposed it was fine that Charles liked it, though. And maybe he'd get the chance to do it again. He just had to hold on a little longer, outlive the dawn chorus, until the teachers noticed his absence and sent people searching. Then he could keep on living, and kissing and whatever else he wished to do and Edwin...
Well, Charles probably wouldn't have much use for a ghost friend. But at least Edwin could keep the colours. Just a little while longer.
Charles chuckled. It was a bit of a sadder sound than the last time Edwin heard it. "Must've had some shit kisses in your life, mate."
Edwin smiled, tightly. "Something of that ilk."
"Shame we weren't mates," said Charles. "I'd've..."
"You'd have... what?"
A smattering of colour returned to Charles' face, then. It might've been a trick of the light, but Edwin could've sworn his cheeks warmed. "I'd've... well, I'd've found you someone to snog, wouldn't I?" he laughed, drawing his blanket closer around his chin. "Got some fit mates from my old school. And the birds proper fancy the brainy lads."
Edwin frowned. "The... birds?"
"Y'know. Lasses. Girls."
"Oh." For whatever reason, Edwin felt... disappointed. And not just at the apparently abysmal state of modern slang. "Yes. Girls."
He cocked his head, watching Charles carefully. He was a very good looking boy. And he wasn't Edwin's soulmate, couldn't be, but...
Edwin cleared his throat. "Charles?"
"Yeah?"
"Do I look..." He wavered. "...Unusual, at all? To you?"
Charles blinked. "Um. Well. Outfit's a bit retro." His eyes widened slightly, a dash of mortification. "Not being rude! I like it! It's... it's cool."
Edwin rolled his eyes. "I don't mean my outfit, I mean... have you noticed anything different about this room since I walked in?" he pressed.
"Well, yeah."
Edwin inhaled. "You have?"
"Yeah."
He leaned in closer. "What have you noticed exactly?"
Charles smiled weakly. "Well. It... feels a lot less lonely. With you here. Warmer, too." He chuckled. "Daft as that sounds. With you being dead, and all."
Edwin's fingers flexed on his knees — all he could do to stop himself hugging them, wretchedly, to his heart. "Yes," he agreed, dully. "Daft, indeed..."
~
"Green makes me think of silence, or maybe it’s loneliness. I get the feeling of a terribly distant star."
~ Kobo Abe
Edwin had only ever known one person ‘fortunate’ enough to meet her soulmate.
Aunt Florence had always been a bit of an odd duck. Flighty and fickle, a perpetual embarrassment to her brother — Edwin's father — whose job it had been to lend financial support to her spinster lifestyle. As she alleged it, she'd found her soulmate in the late eighteen seventies. For reasons undisclosed (to Edwin, at least) they had never married. Edwin had never had the pleasure of meeting her mysterious match.
She had always seemed very fascinated with the world around her, Aunt Florence. A trait she shared with Edwin; though while his interest lay in facts, hers lay in aesthetics. He’d seen her dedicate hours to the study of a singular rose petal in her garden. Edwin was told she could do quite beautiful things with oil paints, for those with eyes to see. They were passable, too, in black and white, but lacking dimension.
Once, when Edwin was about nine or so, Aunt Florence had taken his chin between her willowy fingers.
"What lovely eyes you have, my boy," she'd said, in a smoker's croak. Uncouth for a woman to smoke, particularly one of her social standing, but she'd never much cared what others thought of her. Her tobacco-stained nail had nipped his chin as she held him close. "Your mother's eyes. Sea green... You'll find yourself someone who can appreciate them, won't you?"
Edwin, of course, had had no idea what green was, and little desire to find out. Not if finding a so-called soulmate was the prerequisite condition. He was of an age where the fixation that grown-ups seemed to have on kissing one another was both vexing and perplexing to him. A phase of his life that, to be frank, he'd never entirely left behind. He'd extricated himself from Aunt Florence's talons as politely as possible, and given her a wide berth for the rest of her visit.
The next time he'd seen her, she had taken one look at his eyes, and burst into tears.
They all ended the same way, these soulmate stories. It was a law of nature. Death was not neat, or particularly fair. No matter how blissfully happy the pair, someone always had to leave first; and when they did, the colour left with them.
Some, at least, got time to enjoy it all. Before their love — and their colour — died away. A few decades, or years. Months, even.
Some, like Edwin, got far less. Hours, if that.
And some, like Charles Rowland, got no time at all.
~
"They're out of the dark's ragbag, these two
Moles dead in the pebbled rut,
Shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart —
Blue suede a dog or fox has chewed.
One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough,
Little victim unearthed by some large creature
From his orbit under the elm root.
The second carcass makes a duel of the affair:
Blind twins bitten by bad nature."
~ Sylvia Plath
"Shut up, mate. That is brills."
Edwin was inclined to agree. Especially now he could appreciate the full effect. He'd been aware, of course, that his form seemed to partially dissolve into a mirage when he passed through solid surfaces. He'd been unaware that the mirage seemed to possess a certain hue. Not unlike the hue beginning to bleed through the filthy window.
The pre-dawn light was different to the majority of the colours Edwin had identified so far. It was colder. Greyer. Pale and stark against the opaque black silhouette of the distant treeline (interesting, how the trees still seemed black in this light. He wondered if he'd get a chance to see this green he'd heard so much about before the night was over.) If Charles' face was warmed by the yellow lamplight, it was cooled at the edges by the seeping tones through the glass.
This, like the red and the blood, came with an easy reference point. Everybody knew that the sky was supposed to be blue.
Seemed Edwin finally had a word for the sickly tint of Charles' lips.
"Why don't you fall through the floor?" Charles asked, puzzled.
"There are many, many, so-called ghost rules," said Edwin, sagely. He had, after all, spent several weeks conducting his own personal study and compiling the rules himself. "I shan't waste your time listing them."
"Well, I only asked about the floor, didn't I?" said Charles, a teasing lilt to his lip. Honestly, the cheek of the man.
"Because I choose not to fall through the floor," Edwin replied, in utterly falsified exasperation. "Happy?"
Charles had a certain way of smiling; one that spread up from his grinning mouth and into his eyes. Despite the cold, miserable state of the rest of him they fairly shone with warmth, a merry humour. A knowing gleam that said 'look at us, in on the joke'.
Edwin had never been in on the joke, before.
Charles chuckled; and Edwin did likewise, helpless to the draw of it. The magnetic sound. It had his lips lifting of their own volition — even as his heart sank further and further into the floor.
The blue devils, that's what his father had called it. On those rare occasions when he acknowledged Mother's low mood, or found Edwin weeping silently upon his bed. "You've just got the blue devils, my boy. Chin up, now, and soldier on. You've better things to do than mope."
He could feel them, now, those blue devils upon his shoulder. Cold, heavy, and the colour of Charles' bloodless lips. Weighing Edwin down like stones in his pockets. He hadn't felt hot or cold in decades, but now he felt as Charles must have done with the chill lake pressing down upon him, filling his lungs. And unlike Charles, he wasn't sure he possessed the tenacity to break the surface before the bubbles stopped.
He'd fought his way from the pits of Hell itself, and yet this climb seemed more insurmountable by far. He was no longer fighting his way from the dark to the light. There was no light above the surface of this icy water, no light at all. The light was here, the entire spectrum of it; above was only grey, grey, grey, as far as the eye could see.
"Oi," said Charles. He looked so very tired; but still inquisitive to a fault. "What other cool stuff can you do, then?"
Edwin huffed. "I can travel through mirrors, if you must know."
Charles' blue lips parted, breath escaping on a wonderstruck wheeze. "Wicked."
He ought to be more careful with his breaths. He couldn't have had all that many left to draw.
~
"We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death."
~ John Burroughs
Charles Rowland passed away in the small hours of the morning. Edwin didn't even need to look up from the page; he just watched the pinkish tint bleed from his own ghostly fingertips, and made a deduction.
Even before his passing, Edwin hadn't looked directly at Charles in some time. He hadn't been able to bring himself to. The colour in his ailing new friend had diminished all but completely, his skin a sallow patina, his lips a cracked grey slate.
Edwin had only come to know colour on this night, and already he could feel its absence like a hole in his heart. He understood, now, why Aunt Florence had dragged herself so mournfully through her twilight years. Going through the motions of existing. Colour, for Aunt Florence, had been life; without it, there was simply no point living.
Somehow, Edwin found his voice, and he read on. Because Edwin was no Aunt Florence, arty and flighty and prone to outpourings of passion. Edwin was his father's son; he soldiered on. No matter what.
But the ache in his chest persisted, despite his best efforts to quash it. There had been so much yet to see. He'd never witnessed the colour purple — an expensive hue of which he'd heard a great many appreciative things. He'd never seen a flower, any flower, in full bloom, or watched one of those famous sunsets.
In the end, he never even got to see what his aunt meant about his eyes. But he had no reflection anymore, so. Perhaps that one was always a lost cause.
On the topic of lost causes; there was someone else in this room with him, yet. Someone who'd lost far more than a fleeting glimpse of creation in technicolour.
""— I cease to believe,"" Edwin finished reading with a soft, forced chuckle. To no response. He looked up to find Charles standing tall, gaze turned to the window. It was the first time all night he'd been without his blanket; and the first time he'd borne not the slightest shiver.
Well. At least he would never be cold again.
"Not enjoying this one?" Edwin prompted, gently. "Carrados the blind detective was just becoming quite popular in my day."
When Charles turned around, of course Edwin already knew what he would find. Knew what his own eyes would fall upon when they followed Charles’ gaze.
But knowing did not prepare him for the reality. The cold, desaturated tableau of Charles Rowland's demise, illuminated like a crime scene in the stark white light of the lantern. How a person so vital, so vibrant as Charles should be without blood and colour defied all reason. And yet there he lay; bereft of hue, and of life.
Edwin swallowed, and closed the book gently upon Max Carrados. "When you could see me, I knew it was too late."
Charles was silent. For the first time all night. Silent as the grave.
"But I simply..." Edwin hesitated. "I did not want to scare you."
In the corner of Edwin's eye, the lantern guttered and died. Good. It didn't seem right; all that light upon Charles, and not a drop of warmth in it.
"Well. Glad you didn't say anything." Charles' voice was stronger, now. How different he sounded, without the rattle of lake water in his lungs.
Charles looked at his hands. As did Edwin. How strange they appeared, in the bleak grey of Edwin's impoverished eyes. How unsettlingly close to the pallor his skin had taken on in his death throes. And yet he wasn't pallid, not in the slightest. Standing tall, unchained from his ailing flesh, he was more wholly and healthily Charles than Edwin had yet seen him.
"Doesn't feel like I imagined. Being dead," said Charles, thoughtful. "Feels okay, doesn't it?"
In truth, there was nothing remotely 'okay' about this situation. Edwin felt... robbed. He felt robbed. Because he would never know the colour of Charles' skin when it wasn't frozen grey, or beaten black and blue. He'd never see this Charles, standing tall in the dawning sunlight, the way he was designed to be seen. The way he was chosen, by God or fate or an impossible quirk of biology to be seen, by Edwin. Only by Edwin. For he was Edwin's, no more could he deny it.
And Charles would never see Edwin. Not the way Edwin saw him. Because by the time they met, it was already too late. Because in a wretched twist of fate, Charles’ soulmate — his unfortunate, unorthodox soulmate — was dead in the ground before Charles was even born.
And Edwin had thought Hell to be cruel and unusual punishment.
"I sincerely wish we could have been friends for longer," said Edwin, dropping the magazine and standing from his seat on the old trunk. "But Death will come for you, now. You should go with her when she arrives."
He turned, and began his brisk march to the door. What's done is done; and Charles was, unmistakably, done. Done in and done for, done in just about every sense.
So Charles would be off, now. He'd be off, and Edwin would just have to carry him, too. In his head, with his facts and his torments and a thousand tiny heartbreaks. What was another one, in the grand scheme of things? What else was there to do in this fugitive afterlife but keep his chin up, and soldier on?
"Well I'm not ready, am I?” Charles called out. “I don't wanna go somewhere else, yet."
Edwin faltered. Turned. Charles was watching him.
"What if I stay here for a bit with you, instead?" said Charles, preposterously.
"Then you will always be running from her," was Edwin's quick, logical response. But Charles was still watching him with those... those damnably appealing eyes, and he felt the need to defend his case. "Also, I'm not good with other people. And I only just came back to this school after escaping Hell, so. I'm out of practice, to be perfectly frank. So. When the light comes. You stay, and I go."
He smiled, tightly, and turned once more. There. He'd avoided mentioning Hell all night, but it was done, now. No boy with a lick of sense would —
"Well, I'm aces with other people."
… He simply could not be serious.
"Pretty chuffed you got out of Hell, mate," Charles continued, maddeningly blasé. "That sounds hard. Nice job."
Edwin turned on him, incredulous. "That is not how you make decisions," he snapped, taking a challenging step towards Charles. "Just based on whatever you happen to be feeling in the moment!"
"It's how I lived my life."
Charles turned his head, looked down at his own body. Edwin couldn't bring himself to do likewise.
"Doesn't seem all that different now."
Charles looked at Edwin, unflinching. And what a different creature he was, free of cold and pain. Lithe but lax, eyes slightly narrowed in almost catlike contemplation of Edwin. He stood before a hellbound soul, near naked and freshly dead, and yet the easygoing slope of his narrow shoulders bore no strain.
He shrugged, nonchalant. White light glimmered from his dangling earring. "Looks like you're stuck with me.”
For a moment it was nigh on impossible to believe he hadn't seen it, too. Hadn't seen the spectrum unfold when Edwin said his name. Because how else could someone look at anyone, let alone Edwin, with such certainty? As if he'd never been more sure of anything or anyone in his tragically short life.
Breathtaking was not a word Edwin liked to use lightly. In fact, he preferred not to use it at all. Who had ever seen something so rare, so staggeringly beautiful they'd lost their breath? It was the sort of word Aunt Florence would have used; flowery and hyperbolic.
It seemed Edwin owed her yet another apology.
Light flared in the corner. Their eyes leapt to it. It was of no colour that Edwin could see and yet he could feel it, deep in his soul, he knew its shape and colour; blue. A kinder, softer blue than that of bloodless lips and dreary skies. The wild blue yonder that he was barred from forevermore; the one that awaited Charles Rowland with open arms.
Charles looked at Edwin.
Edwin looked at Charles.
Charles smiled, soul glowing lantern-bright in those dark, confident eyes. He didn't move, not towards the light or away from it, but he held out his hand. Planted like a tree, unbending, unbowed. His roots sunk deep into the loamy earth of life; his branches beckoning Edwin into their boughs.
Oh, thought Edwin, when he understood — didn't see, simply understood — the colour that had been gazing back at him all along. That's the word I was looking for.
~
Thirty years passed, fading into memory, and with them faded the sting. It was hard to mourn the loss of colour when one could scarcely remember what it looked like in the first place. Those fleeting hours blended and blurred amidst the grey years, lost to time; a single hand-tinted frame in a hundred miles of monochrome celluloid.
Though he tried to remember, Edwin struggled to visualise the yellow light that had bathed their faces; the gold that glinted at the cut of Charles' jaw. Pink lips, red veins, the blue stain of death. Such things were impossible to note down in a world of black ink and white pages, and his aide-mémoires soon failed him. The colours fluttered away into the past, scattered to the winds of memory like his mother's smile, his father's voice, Aunt Florence's smoky laughter and the roses she painted on the guest room walls.
But though he could not recall the exact shade of Charles' eyes, nor compare them to any other — not even his own — Edwin knew something about them. Just as he knew Death's light shone heavenly blue. And for once in Edwin's long and tormented afterlife, he felt truly fortunate. Because he'd been allowed to experience only a fraction of what the visible spectrum had to offer; colours he could count on less than two hands.
And yet somehow, by some stroke of luck, he'd seen the best one nonetheless.
~
"At breakfast that morning I had been struck by the lively dissonance of its colours. But that was no longer the point. I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence."
~ Aldous Huxley
~~
Thank you for coming on this journey with me, my darlings 💛 Love to hear your thoughts! Reminder to check out Olly's amazing gifs! This one took a little while to come together, bc in my first draft Edwin's feelings/progression were a bit all over the place. But I realised that all the sections of the attic scene (not including the very first one/my inserted flashback about Aunt Florence) could track along the five stages of grief quite nicely and that gave me a good framework to loosely follow, starting in his denial of the implications and ending in devastated acceptance of what he's lost. As to why he didn't like, *tell* Charles, well, what would you do? Be honest? If you were a dead Edwardian ghost boy and you found out your actual soulmate was not only another boy, but a doomed one? One who isn't even seeing what you're seeing. Maybe he thought Charles wouldn't believe him, or would take it badly. Maybe he thought telling him would sway him unfairly into staying when Edwin believed he should go. I think he will tell him, one day. And Charles is gonna be PISSED that he kept it from him so long xD For the quotes, I tried to stick to things Edwin could possibly have read, so pre-1989 things, as I like the idea of him using literature as a framework for understanding what he's seeing. It was really interesting writing about colour from the perspective of someone with no reference for it! Some of the quotes might have ended up anachronistic by a couple of years, tbh people are *shit* at sourcing their quotes and while I could source authors easy enough it was hard sometimes to isolate what specific book/anthology the piece came from, or what year it was published. If I'd have had more time I would have done more digging! Anyway, that's about all I got right now. I dunno when I'll be back, probably (hopefully) in a few weeks with the next chapter of Lonely Bones. In the meantime please, feel free to continue chatting with me in the comments, on my tumblr, come be a pal, I've had the time of my life with y'all this week and I'm not ready to get off this train just yet! Until next time! 💛
#painlandweek#painland week#payneland#dead boy detectives#dbda#my fanfic#PHEW#WE MADE IT GUYS#i think there's some things about this one i might have tweaked/restructured given a little more time#a few things i would have gone into more as well#idk if it's a thorough an exploration of the concept as I'd planned#but all in all not half bad!#and working with olly has been an honour and a delight!!#thank you so much everyone who's been cheering me on this week 💛💛💛#and now i have time to finally go and read all the great stuff you've been writing!!!
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#altaria#here it is… the bird that turns into a dragon-type because reasons…#i still don't think just from looking at this thing that they should be a dragon-type. i feel like it still seems out-of-place given their#design but HONESTLY i like it. i think it's a cool like. subversion. type thing. i would not look at swablu and be like Yeah that evolves#into a dragon-type. and apparently a really good one at that? i believe i've heard good things about altaria#ugh. good things. got a selection of GOOD THINGS on sale‚ stranger… my brain does that sometimes#when i hear or say innocuous phrases it's like HEY that's the same thing this OTHER guy said in this QUOTE you've heard before#dunno WHY but. it happens. and it just happened there. but altaria i dunno it's a dragon-type and that's awesome. i don't remember what i#said i was gonna talk about on the swablu post yesterday wrt altaria and i am too lazy to look back at those tags to remember#hi it's me morning of this posting at like 7 AM. i remembered bc i just looked. i was gonna ask if they were good competitively#and. i'm pretty sure they are. ALRIGHT LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT SMOGON#ah okay not busted but generally good i guess. latest information states RU in gen 9 but UU in a lot of other gens. NU and PU in there too#bounced around a lot i guess. but here's my question. why? do i care#it's cute. and i don't care if they're strong or not… because they're cute…
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Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol
#I added a few people that you can randomly run into around town (like at the inn or in the forest or etc) and have very short conversations#with just to kind of flesh out the world a little more in a more natural-ish seeming way. Like nobody in the main cast would really#have much reason to talk about the actual city you're in or anything. Since most of them havent lived there that long anyway.#But if there's a ''city inspector'' that you can run into whilst he's writing up notes examining the local inn. then maybe there could be a#few dialogue options with him where you can ask about things like that. since he would know more about the area as an offical Government#Worker or etc. Optional of course. since I have to be so wary of my natural inclination to lore dump lol and am trying extra hard to make i#all stuff thats easily avoided/skipped. But for the people like ME who deliberately choose to exhaust every possible optional dialogue#option and explore every single inch of the world and try to collect as much information as possible - then there are a few extra places to#do that. Though obviously not all of them just give exposition for like 15 paragraphs blandly. Some you don't really learn anything from#and it's kind of just.. random flavor to make the non-shop map locations more ''lived in'' feeling. Like the random#little girl you can talk to in the park doesn't bizarrely start reading out the wikipedia description of some War that happened 10 years ag#or whatever. she's just complains about school a little and asks if you've tried the nearby ice cream cart treats and etc lol#ANYWAY..#some of the art is so so evil but I'm not going to spend 800 years trying to clean it up and update it. whatever the hell mess I sketched#out in 2018 or whatever is just what I'm keeping lol... it is what it is#One of the many trials of the whole 'briefly work a few months on something and then abandon it almost entirely only to pick up work#on it literally like 4 - 5 yrs later and now you must contend with trying to decipher whatever weird shit you did years ago' experience lol#Also given the population breakdowns of the world in general I think there's an unrealistic amount of jhevona in this lineup since#they're a much rarer species to just see out and about anywhere but.. it IS a global trading center type area. and the game#takes place in the north (the country of Asen. near the coast. for the maybe 2 or less people who actually keep up with my worldbuilding#enough to know where that is lol (the same continent as Navyete (where the avirre'thel live)) and there's a decent concentration#of nothern jhevona only a short ways away so... tee hee..I shall pretend it makes sense and not merely me just wanting#to represent more of that species because I think their lore is interesting lol#I MEAN also realistically there would NOT be a human here because humans are extremely isolated species that don't even know the rest#of the world exists really and human territories are extremely protected from the outside world but... of course it's like.. well we need#at least One of them to be there for the Optional Lore. Same with the Ythrili. But at least those are like.. PLAUSIBLE.. not nonsensically#outlandish. If I had a Verrucalt or something in there THEN that would be truly lore-breaking almost lol#ANYWAY.. rambling that only means anything to me because nobody else knows what I'm even referencing but hbjh#also I think my character designs are so funny in the sense that I really do just love to do the same thing over and over again ghbjh#wow... random asymmetry and belts and arm straps and high collars where the neck is completely covered?? you dont say..how novel
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#something i've been thinking about for a while now#is how much context matters in fandoms especially when talking about things like racism and other bigotry#the stuff i saw after 4x01 will stay with me forever#the way people were not only so mad at carlos but also how some of them went to other peoples' inboxes#people who weren't mad at him or hadn't decided his character had been ruined#and were basically like 'how can you still like him how can you support him after this'#'people supporting him and still caring about him just means he'll be able to continue avoiding and poor tk will just have to deal with it'#that part's been so hard to shake because that's not criticism#going to peoples' inboxes who still liked him and were giving him grace and asking how they could implying he didn't deserve it#if you felt he was ruined that's fine that's you but to go to other people who did not feel that way and be upset they didn't#as if a character of color being given grace and patience is a commonplace thing in fandom lol#as if people that look like carlos in the real world are regularly given grace (they're not)#it's not that some people weren't able to empathize with his decisions it's that they got angry at people who were able to.#because apparently he didn't deserve it.#and i've watched this sentiment grow stronger and stronger for almost two years and it is just.... i don't even know#when we talk about things like empathy and understanding in relation to carlos it is loaded#it does come from this#and i really think that's important to understand it's necessary context#peoples' strong feelings about this have not just sprung up out of nowhere#if you've been here since then you know how everything went down#i don't know. i think sometimes the urge to punish him feels really strong and i can't understand it#and it's hard to take particularly now because we know why he's struggling and we have all of the context#and yet. still.#idk what my point is i just need it to be known that nothing happening right now exists in a vacuum
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for my birthday I got to rant to my family about that fuckass fic uninterrupted and lubricated with the humble tropical mojito. now memorizing that fuckass argument
#hewwo#DONT YOU DARE SAY THEY HAVE NOT CHANGED!#IF THIS IS HOW LITTLE YOU'VE EVER CARED FOR ME. TO LET THIS THING HAPPEN. THEN I DON’T WANT TO KNOW IT#I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THAT YOUR AFFECTION HAS BEEN SO MEAGER FROM THE BEGINNING!#I'VE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING#I'VE BEEN A SLAVE ALL MY LIFE. YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW HOW IT LOOKS LIKE. HOW IT FEELS LIKE#EVEN IF THE FOOD IS GOOD AND THE BED IS SOFT AND NO ONE BEATS ME ANYMORE?#I LET YOU PUT A COLLAR ON ME BECAUSE I KNEW YOU WOULD DIE IF I DIDN’T. BECAUSE **YOU** NEEDED **ME**#AND I HOPED YOUR FEELINGS FOR ME WOULD AT LEAST KEEP THE LEASH SLACK! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER#YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN TOO WEAK--#DIE FOR ALL I CARE#god. goddddd god god god#2 drunk to be thinking about this tbh. goodnight#like a fucking poem.#if i ever marry im saying that shit no notes no cue cards instead of a marriage vow#it's a marriage threat.#do that shit to me and i will have to ask forgiveness from god from my parents and from myself for what i'll do to you.
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The only thing I truly want from volume 9 is Blake telling Yang "Not just for the people you care about, but for you."
#Annie babbles about RWBY#I say it's the only thing but the kiss is just a given#CRWBY please#You've had this line locked and loaded for 8 years#It'll probably be closer to 8.5 years by the time volume 9 is out#I just think they should call back to the first moment that made me think there was a chance for the Bees
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Beginning to really wonder how much of my financial concern is manufactured and handed to me as opposed to something I'm genuinely concerned by
#bc like. i'm getting by just fine. i don't have anything to be reasonably worried about#but also when i was a kid my father would break down my mother's paycheck and basically explain how broke we were#and that May Have Affected Me Somewhat#as well as just. the way you consistently see the advice to just save! don't get takeout! necessities! and i'm not intent on living like#a monk nor am i intent on being on that grindset for financial gain#it's like i don't intrinsically care but i have so many messages given to me about how i need to care a lot and it puts me in a weird spot#i am simultaneously standing still and moving at mach speeds#i mean right now i just need a safety net while in between jobs; after that i need to save up to move out of state bc the uh#political situation and upcoming presidential election don't seem very sustainable for someone like me anymore#they weren't to begin with but i don't wanna stick around to see how bad it's gonna get#but it's like. okay and then what? save for what? going back to school i guess? idk#i feel like i keep asking myself what i'm trying to accomplish and keep trying to force myself to have answers#here and now when i have to be okay with taking things one step at a time instead of having everything here and now#it's simultaneously fine and terrible and i am holding two conflicting yet equal truths#i feel i may have a clearer head once i leave my current job. i'm trying to look but nothing feels appealing given how#burnt out i already feel. i dread going back into my workplace and i fear it's showing to the patients and i don't want that#i want a month off to rediscover who i am as a person outside of getting yelled at in retail and then pick something back up#could be feasible. genuinely could be. i need to sort out the health insurance aspect but. that's lowkey the plan?#to construct a financial safety net and then slam on the breaks for a while; see if i can strike up a deal with the staff about me#coming in for specific tasks bc we already know i'm quick and efficient with the inventory so i do have a little leverage#you know what. this is getting some of it off my chest and i'm starting to feel confident again lmao#i won't be doing weekends starting either next week or the week after so that's a start! i just think i want everything done right now#bc i'm afraid i won't have the chance again but i will. i definitely will#i just need to let myself get to that point; it's just the immense drain from the register work and the Everything that comes with retail#also having to accept that it's okay to leave this; there's not something wrong with me like. ''not being able to handle it'' or w/e#no mindfulness or detachment could've saved me; it was shit and i'm hitting the bricks and that's all there is to it#i've been thinking a lot about it all lately bc it's what's most prominent in my life rn of course#idk. pondering. introspecting. as i am wont to do#anyways if you've read all this you're a real mvp and i am kissing you on the hand#shai speaks
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hrngnfghnfg
#just thinking aloud but#i dunno. kind of feel like the last Barrier between me and Normal Personness or whatever#is just. i feel so completely and utterly unable to feel empathy specifically with regards to children and childbearing and childrearing.#like. i have known ever since i was small that my parents lost other pregnancies before me and between me and my sister. and all i could#feel about that as a kid was 'thank god because i never wanted a sibling anyway' and 'uh well i never asked to be born soooo... so what'#and now as an adult. i know that it's a terrible thing to suffer a loss like that.#and i'd at least manage not to act inappropriately towards someone i knew if they were in that position.#but i still can't find any of the *feelings* about it.#which is strange because i usually feel Everything So Much.#i also still don't understand when people talk about like. instantly falling in love with their kid or whatever#like maybe i almost get it if it's a child you've gestated for nine months and then given birth to.#but i feel like people *must* be at least partially lying about it when it comes to things like adoption#because there'd be such a high psychological and social penalty to admitting that you felt anything less.#adoption in general drives me crazy like i cannot Believe that it's still just a really accepted alternative to having a biological child#when... any kid who has had to be removed from the circumstances into which they were born and given to new people#is surely going to be traumatised or have issues or however you want to put it.#and it can't possibly be the Same Thing as having a... fresh baby of your own.#anyway. i feel some sympathy for and plenty of logical understanding of children and parents.#but none of it makes sense to me on the level on which i usually connect with people.#and hell maybe everyone feels that way until they have a kid. in which case i think everyone#is wildly irresponsible for having those kids without knowing they're gonna like it or be good at it and hoping it'll just work out. lmao
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obviously there's a billion other things but one thing that sucks about being sick/disabled is that most of the time i don't have enough energy to both get to and from somewhere, and also BE in the place. brain-wise and, like, life-fulfillment-wise, things would be way better if i could spend more time somewhere that isn't by myself in my house (although for much of the time this is the best environment to manage my various disabilities), but physical-ability-wise, often the travelling to and from a place takes all the 'spare' energy i have, so i can't actually *be* at the place without experiencing a level of various symptoms that negates the benefits of being there in the moment, or being so so ill when i get home, or the 'being at the place' leaving me unable to safely travel home in the first place. it sucks.
anyway i guess that the flipside of that is super strong appreciation for the instances that i *can* do things, the people that help me get places, and the people who're happy to meet outdoors and/or with precautions. it makes a huge difference to have some things to look forward to, even if i am greedy for more!
#it would be really neat if people were taking more precautions so it was a little safer for disabled people to use public transport without#like. potentially life threatening consequences too for everyone involved.#or like in the world in general too not just public transport :P.#oh also if the public transport sucked less and was close to places you wanted to go :P#i'm definitely on the high caution end of things because the concept of becoming further disabled by post-viral conditions brings#unfathomable dread to me given how things are anyway and having been able to claw my way to a little 'better' than things have been#but still. feel like it should be less high stakes for everyone including high risk individuals you know :P#this post probably brought to you by being asked the question 'don't you miss (the job you were so so passionate about but had to quit bc#you became disablingly sick as a teenager)?'. the answer. shockingly. is yes. :P#Anyway. i actively try to make the best of reality not the alternate reality where things are as they were but sometimes you've gotta be#sad about things! that's fine too.#i'm always more melancholy when i'm actively having medical stuff happen because i'm forced to think about it more and also to#compare my own level of concern with that of those around me and like. process and deal with the gaps between them :P
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#I'm not saying I'm perfect; but I'm saying I can at least cite places where I've changed my mind when given new evidence#I used to be hardline pacifist; shut down all military everywhere type thinking#but I saw the horror of what was happening in Ukraine#and it didn't take much for me to see that the only solution was to give them the weapons to defend themselves with#and sadly that means I have to admit that weapons manufacture does serve a purpose and is required even if it shouldn't be#and it means... fucking having to admit the DOD needs to exist even though I hate them#doesn't mean I don't get to think that they need to... you know... pass a fucking audit#and doesn't mean I don't think they need to be reigned in; that there's dangers to opaque cultures like military culture#and it doesn't mean... doesn't mean I like the army or the military industrial complex#just that... as I understand more about defense economics and logistics... I against what I want to see#begin to see points to making large numbers of missiles and shit because... quantity of production can bring prices down#you can end up getting a lot more for the same price; and... and you can sell them; which again I morally oppose but...#I'm coming to accept is just a fact of life when you have people willing to invade their neighbor#maybe you should sell them some weapons; recoup some of the insane spending you've done; and give them tools to defend themselves#I fucking changed my mind on this despite frankly finding it all abhorrent and thinking the US is run like a shit show#because sometimes the reality of things has to win out over what I think should be the reality of things#and sometimes the wellbeing of Ukrainians outweighs if I believe in war or not#I may not fucking be close to perfect; and there's probably plenty of places I'm wrong about shit#hell; even here I could actually somehow be wrong#(though I'm sorry... it's hard to see the people suffering horribly and not think they need to be able to defend themselves)#but at least I fucking am capable of changing my mind... which I feel like is more than some of you#you'll never fucking acknowledge that you might be doing great great great harm based purely on belief#while I in disagreeing with you at least admit I could be wrong but am acting on my best information#at least I fucking stumble and grope my way through life without the knowledge of good and evil#I'd far rather than then boldly stomp my way through life so certain I'm right; the bodies under my boots be damned#fuck you for your dogmatic points of you; and worst of all fuck you for not even meaning to be cruel or cause pain#yet still closing your eyes to any pain you do cause because you know you're actually right#you spin every last thing that defies what you believe till it only reinforces it#and I see no way to get you to sit down at the table and try and figure out what's best for everyone#because you'd just boldly proclaim you already knew and demand I agree
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not to be like mean or smug or annoying bc i do mean this in the nicest way possible but some people who run brackets are absolutely not meant for it. pulling 'i will not tolerate people being mean in the tags. that's so rude' (they are talking about when someone said 'what tf is wrong with you........' in a poll with a tough matchup). rbing pages and pages of unrelated stuff or other polls with their opinions as though people following the bracket care about anything besides the bracket. like just make a sideblog and only post polls. people are gonna say shit in the tags idk what to tell you. it's more work than you think it's gonna be but i thought the basics were pretty clear. like i know it's not that serious at all and this is a silly thing for me to try to criticize i just keep seeing poll mods having like full on meltdowns or posting shit i do not care about after i follow them for the bracket and i feel like we can save ourselves a lot of grief by being cool about shit. idk. do an absurd amount of seeding and graphics-making in a fevered frenzy becoming simultaneously over-invested in your own poll and desperate to keep the bracket itself as fair and professional as possible to give yourself something to feel in control of and ignore your own deteriorating mental health over the course of like two or three weeks like the rest of us.
#me when i love a system and being professional witnessing a poll mod having a breakdown over someone saying a joke insult in tags :|#you've given yourself a job not made a bunch of new friends?#if you need to complain talk about it on your main?? don't make it your followers' problem?#idk maybe if i'd run a bracket where people sent in contestants i'd understand#like the episode bracket was pretty clean plus most of us voters were bound together by shared community#(<- oppression of the lowly sam stan in the spn community)#guess im just always shocked by people getting genuinely mad at their voters and im also annoyed by a clogged bracket blog#controversial take the 'propaganda' thing is annoying i am not voting if i havent heard of these characters my decision will be Informed#(<- hates fun and takes polls too seriously and should be taken with a grain of salt at all times)#im also high rn though i would not be sharing these thoughts sober even though i think them often <3
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GIGGLING AND KICKING MY FEET READING THE NEW INFO ABOUT NEMESIS
#THANK YOU WALTER LONDRA THIS IS THE BEST THING YOu'VE GIVEN ME.......... ME RIGHTS#THAT IS *MY* NEMESIS!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!#OH MY SPACE AI SPOUSE...... babygirl we could psychologically and physically torture those zeniths together.......#<<< that should go on my self shipping side blog but idc idc i am too excited to keep it shut#i should rewrite my fic about fross on the day of the sirius colony destruction but now with up-to-date accurate to canon info....... 👉👈#i will be thinking about this for the rest of the day and perhaps week thank you guerilla 🙏#ramble#hfw spoilers#bs spoilers#hfw#bs#nemesis
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stuck at liberty international for 6 hours answering work emails on my phone and drinking very expensive coffee
#human crap sack tire fire#my flight landed at 9:30 and my train is at 4pm#I'm camping out at a cushy gate whose next plane isn't until 4:30#also one of the endocrinologists just asked me what I meant by mlp attorneys#what do you mean what do I mean#I mean me!!!! how do you not know how this program works#given that you've been part of it for 10 years#she wants me to go to this invite only gender clinic thing#that the hosting org clearly intended to be for medical providers and in house counsel#not poverty law lawyers who happen to work with the patients#anyways when will the gender program stop thinking I work for the hospital and can answer questions about physician liability#at this rate probably never
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ooh is that an elephant gun?
i assume you're reference this drawing
the answer is no, Cassidy's using just a simple repeating rifle anything stronger would be counter intuitive to bringing any bounty back alive.
but i do quite like the idea of Cassidy using an elephant rifle when the need arises maybe if they ever had to hunt down another werewolf like Ezekiel.
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also if you have relatives/friends who will not in a million years admit that they are racist/homophobic/etc. since they know this is a bad thing they shouldn't endorse or be, then calling them out directly often leads to denial and deflection and getting really defensive and not backing down.
But if you just say 'hey, it was kind of rude to say X' or 'i think you were making H uncomfortable by bringing up X/making X joke' then they're more likely to listen w/out immediately going to level 10 defensive mode.
Also, ppl who will staunchly deny being a racist/fatphobe/homophobe/etc. will be more likely to agree to simply being 'a bit of an asshole last night.'
The goal is not to get the person to make a complete 180. It's to get them to be a little bit less of an asshole next time. And then rinse and repeat until someday they're, like, barely an asshole at all.
GRADE SCHOOL SJWS stop using social justice language to explain shit to your conservative parents IT’S NOT GONNA GO THROUGH now all they have are some new words to make fun of. don’t tell your mom she’s being fatphobic tell her she’s being a dick
#i have a lot of family and friends who can be dicks about stuff#sad thing is a lot of them don't actually think they're being harmful#like they legit do think that making a racist joke IN FRONT OF a person of that race is like...something they'd be cool with#like no i'm sorry but yes they are laughing at the joke but like very uncomfortably#they are going to find an excuse to leave any second now and u will not understand why they had to go so early#also the fatphobia is strong in this family. fat is also strong in this family#so it's like even worse somehow#like jesus christ it's one thing if it's my skinny-ass baby sister with a long history of body image issues and eating disorders#who is making the fat-shaming remarks#but Dad? my guy YOU are not a skinny guy. you've very much got a classic dad beer gut going there#you are in no position to be throwing these stones#the inside of his mind must be wild because he knows he has a fat beer gut and is like proud of it#but he also does not consider himself fat. like does not cross his mind#also majority of our extended relatives are fat. this is america. not surprising.#he somehow has them all put into separate categories of like good and bad kind of fat ppl but i can't figure out the metric#it's not something simple like gender or age or ppl over a specific weight#at this point i have given up on figuring out what's going on in his head#my middle sister and i have had great success on getting Dad and baby sis to simply not say shit in public#no racist jokes no fatphobic remarks. save it for car rides and family dinners#where the only ones suffering are me and middle sis#and not some poor innocent waitress or retail clerk or somebody behind us at the grocery store#baby steps
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