Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

raptorific:

Ever since I did my post about how Thomas Jefferson would go to hell, people have been like “can you do Andrew Jackson too” to which my answer is a resounding HELL NOPE. That dude will LITERALLY MURDER ME and the fact that he’s dead WILL NOT DO A THING TO STOP HIM BECAUSE HELL CANNOT HOLD HIM. Like, most U.S. Presidents are murderers by proxy, but this dude was a LITERAL SERIAL KILLER WHO LIKED TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY. He is responsible for the only time in American History that the president’s bodyguards had to save the ASSASSIN’S LIFE from the PRESIDENT. You know how we called Nixon “Tricky Dick” because he was a liar and we called George W. Bush “Dubya” after his middle initial and we called Abraham Lincoln “Honest Abe” because he was a pretty above-the-board type of guy? They called Andrew Jackson “Old Hickory” because he liked to BEAT PEOPLE ABOUT THE FACE AND BODY WITH HIS CANE. Like he was absolutely a genocidal maniac who apparently only held the office of President because everyone was too afraid to ask him to leave but now that I’ve said that, I want you all to know that if I’m found beaten to death with a blunt object, I can save the police the trouble of investigating: It was former U.S. President Andrew Jackson come back from the dead for revenge. 

nakedbrownie:

Combeferre, a professional chess player, organized a small tournament at Musain that no one showed up to except one very hungover guy who wordlessly sat across Combeferre and checkmated him in under ten minutes and that’s how Les Amis met Grantaire.

outofcontextdnd:

-The Swashbuckler, running full speed at his buddy.

dayanknight:

sprinkle-dicks:

piercethefvck:

If you’re suffering from depression and are looking for a sign to not go through with ending your life, this is it. This is the sign. We care.

If you see this on your dash, reblog it. You could save a life.

Just in case you don’t think it can actually save a life, this is a message I got in my inbox after reblogging this post

Please to any of my followers who might be thinking of this in light of the recent events, I care about each and every one of you!

roachpatrol:

this is coleus. for reasons that escape me, it grows in seventy fuckzillion bizarre alien colors, from neon pink to white, and is very close to unkillable. additionally, it propagates extremely well through cuttings. you know it’s coleus if you touch it and it is just a little bit soft, with a juicy stem, and it grows in bunches with alternate paired leaves, and has sort of ‘embossed’ veins that stick out on the bottom of the leaf but are creased in on the top. 

when you see coleus growing in a planter you can reach, look both ways to see if the coast is clear, then pinch off a little sprig with your fingernails. you need at least two leaves, though four and a centimeter of stem is best. keep the clipped end moist, like in a water bottle or wet napkin, and get it home fast.

fill a soda or beer bottle up with water. pop the stem in. put on a windowsill to get some light. in two or three days you’ll see little roots starting (make sure to refill the bottle periodically), and in as soon as a week you can plant it, though a month is a good time to wait. you can also keep it in a bottle indefinitely, though green and brown bottles are best for that, as it will block sunlight and cut down on algae growth.

coleus that wants more water will have very droopy, limp leaves, so it’s easy to know when to water it. after it’s been watered, the leaves perk back up in an hour or so and it looks happy. coleus are very dramatic plants.

enjoy your coleus collecting! don’t get caught. if you do, don’t show them this post. 

some-wayward-daughter:

softjoly:

blkbutchprincess:

I would love to see more representation of interracial relationships where neither partner is white

i like this screencap because it looks like BB-8 is officiating their marriage

awed-frog:

Honestly, though, the best part of teaching Greek mythology is that soft ‘huh’ coming from behind you as you’re finishing up a diagram of the gods and the relationships they have between them.

“Is something wrong?” you ask, turning around while you try, and fail, to clean white chalk off your fingers.

“It’s just,” the boy says, and then he blushes a bit, because people taking Latin are usually good and shy and the last thing they want is to get into a fight with a teacher. “Those two characters here - aren’t they both men?”

And okay, at this point everybody’s paying attention except the resident class child - that one girl who still has to uses four different colours for everything she writes and will get upset if you point out she should only use black or blue when filling in exams. So, yeah, you look at the boy, and then at everybody else, and then you turn back, pretend to check.

“Yes, they are,” you say, frowning, as if you never had to answer that question before.

“So why is there a double line between them?”

“Because they were in a relationship at some point. Double lines are for sex, remember? Single lines are kids and parents, and double lines are lovers.”

Someone giggles. The two kids whose parents bring them along to weird art exhibitions - the ones who’ve grown up hearing frank political discussions and the occasional dirty joke - are now looking collected and a bit smug. The others are losing it, and fast - they look at the board, as if only just noticing the thing, and then at you.

“So, they were like, gay?” someone else asks, and it’s always a girl asking this question, because ‘gay’ is just something boys aged 14 and a half never use - a Voldemort word, something that’s on your lips today and on everybody else’s tomorrow.

And this, of course, is the moment you’ve been waiting for - what the lesson was actually about. You wouldn’t plan a lesson around that, but you will mention the subject if it comes up, and so you start talking, about all of it - about sexual orientation being a cultural construct, about the Greek language not even having a term for ‘gay’ and ‘straight’, about warriors falling in love with each other and neglecting their teenage wives, about the fact our society is still coming to terms with something people have known in their hearts for millennia - that there’s no choosing and no free will, not about this. About how the most important thing is to respect yourself and each other, and the rest doesn’t matter all that much.

Statistically, in every class there’s a kid who’s struggling with this. Maybe two. Here things are not as bad as they could be, but it’s still hard, especially when you’re fourteen and you think you may be the only one and you don’t want to be different and how the hell can you even have a conversation about these things, with anyone?

And sometimes when you talk about these things - and dedicated teachers will find a way to include this speech somehow, because you never know who might need an ally, and who might need to hear it said out loud - teachers who loves their kids will mention the issue when discussing Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare and the Iliad - sometimes you see exactly who these kids are. Sometimes you see them looking at you, wide-eyed and fearful and yet full to the brim with that Go on look that’s so endearing on any kind of student. And sometimes all you see is their floppy hair, because they will keep scribbling in their notebooks and pretending like this is uninteresting and embarrassing and Oh my God, but the tips of their ears are getting red, and you find yourself hoping they’ll get a hug today, because they really need it.

elliewants2write:

lianabrooks:

Not: You might be rejected.

Not: You’ll have a few rejections.

Not Even: Well, if you’re only mid-list worthy you’ll have at least twenty rejections.

You want to get published? Fine. You need to accept that every single day of your career will have rejection.

Everything you write will be rejected.

Every book you publish will be hated.

Every character you love will be degraded.

Every hour you put in – the blood and sweat and tears – will be dismissed as “…talentless hack who doesn’t know how to string a sentence together.”

Millions of people will never read your book because they can’t read at all.

Millions of people will never read your book because they don’t speak the same language as you.

Millions of people will never read your book because they hate your genre.

Millions of people will never read your book because they don’t like fe/male authors.

Millions of people will never read your book because they didn’t get into it.

Billions of people will reject your work. They will mock you. They will dismiss you. They will talk trash about you.

You. Will. Be. Rejected.

It doesn’t matter. You aren’t writing for the millions. You are writing for the one.

The one person who tells you your book made them cry because it spoke to them.

The one person who tells you your book changed the way they saw the world.

The one person who tells you your book was the only light in a dark time.

The one person who tells you your book inspired them to be something more.

You are writing for them.

They will wish they could take your characters to prom.

They will read your book after their mother’s funeral.

They will curl up in bed with your book on a cold night after their first real break up.

They will turn to those pages time and again to revisit the places they love.

You’re going to get rejected. And you’re going to take that punch square on the chin and not ever back down because you know who you are writing for. Because you know it takes more than a pretty font to make a book work, you have to be willing to take the rejections. You have to go into this knowing you will fail a million times with a million readers, and that it doesn’t matter because you aren’t writing for them.

Keep your chin up. You are someone’s favorite author even if they don’t know it yet.

this is amazing!!!!!!  <3

artiestroke:

splintercellconviction:

giraffepoliceforce:

I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.

They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.

Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

“Hippopotamus.”

This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned 

ink-splotch:

- Within her first week at Starfleet Academy, Jaylah hacked into the environmental controls and security systems of her dorm– because she was bored and twitchy, because she didn’t know what to do with a home she had not taken apart and re-wired herself. 

- She broke into the cafeteria after hours and told herself it was just to see if she could. She skipped class to go wander the streets and build a map of the city, of these concrete canyons and glass-and-steel cliff walls, of which way she would run if she needed to. She played her music too loud. Kirk wrote her from deep space, further and further away as the months and maydays of their mission moved on, to ask if she was trying to beat him in demerits earned in an Academy tenure. She took that to mean he approved.

- Jaylah had had a big brother, once. Elah had taught her about engines, about how to wrestle, and a lot of really terrible jokes, once. But Scotty walked her through the Enterprise’s engines, when she was rebuilt and shining. They got grease and fluids all over their overalls. Kirk and Spock sparred with her while they waited for the Enterprise’s next mission to come through– Academy martial arts and Vulcan holds and corn-fed Idaho brawling tricks. Uhura provided the bawdy humor, parsed out smugly at the edges of social gatherings. 

- They had set the ruins of the Franklin up as a museum, tucked into the floating bubble of Yorktown. Schoolchildren would take field trips to wander the halls of her house. They invited her to the opening ceremony, cut the ribbon while she and the Enterprise crew were still wandering, limping, through those clean curving streets, but she did not attend. 

- Instead Scotty showed up at her doorstep with a bottle of Scotch stolen from Chekhov. They played her music so loud it shook the walls and earned them a dozen pissed off texts from Bones and a single sternly disapproving note from Spock. They ignored them all and toasted the Franklin, a good lady, a fine home. 

- When Jaylah boarded a transport ship for Earth, for California and San Francisco and the Academy that lived in the shadow of that golden bridge, the whole surviving crew of the Enterprise came out to the loading dock to wave her good-bye. It had been so many years since she had known any faces so well, living, other than her enemies’. She pressed up against the window and watched them– peach and blue and brown and black and green– disappear. 

- No matter how hard she fought and hoped, she had thought she would never get off that planet. The moment she saw her father go down, she had thought she would never be able to survive that stab in his gut, that light that went out of his eyes. She had been small, willow limbs and shaking hands, and she had thought she would never see another sky again. 

- She got up early on cold mornings and walked through the swirling San Francisco fog. She greeted the sun as it climbed up over the Bay and burned the sky back to blue. 

- The crew pooled their credits and bought her a motorcycle for her next birthday, to replace the one they’d left on the planet. Jaylah had left a lot of things in that boneyard. She drove the steep streets on her humming bike and felt like perhaps she had not left everything. 

- When Jaylah took the Kobyashi Maru her final year, she watched her classmates complain and rant afterward about unfairness, about no win scenarios. She did not speak up, just took her results and left. The lesson was one she had already learned, already buried in herself. Sometimes you cannot win, no matter how good you are, no matter how brave, no matter how much you love your daughter and want to live and live and live for her. Sometimes all you can do is die the best way you know how. 

- (When the ruckus had finally died down on Yorktown Base, after the smoke had settled, after the crowds had parted, Jaylah had seen Demora Sulu run to her father’s arms. She had seen Hikaru kneel in the rubble and lift his daughter into his lap and hold her safe in his arms. She had thought, I would have died for this. I am alive, and I am glad, but I would have died for this, I would have, I would have died for this)

- (Her little sister Jessy had been about Dem’s age, the last time Jaylah had seen her alive). 

- She didn’t declare an emphasis in her Academy studies for two years. Scotty thought she should go into engineering, because as a traumatized, escaped child she had reverse-engineered repairs on the Franklin that could only be matched by his own genius. Kirk thought she would make an excellent command officer. Uhura, impressed by how she had taught herself Federation Standard from the Franklin’s logs, made sure the communications department paid friendly attention to her. 

- Instead, Jaylah took the introductory classes for every field of study in the Academy, ignoring the disapproving cries of her guidance counselors. In combat she was years ahead of her peers. She found languages easy, but their technical underpinnings were unengaging and confusing. In engineering she was gifted, but decades behind the state of technology. Scotty had happily dragged her through the Enterprise’s rebuilt engines, but her heart and her blackened fingers would always belong to engines lifetimes older.

- The Enterprise crew were on their second five year mission when Jaylah graduated from Starfleet Academy. They gathered in the main mess hall, all the crew that had survived the Enterprise’s first death, and the new crew members who had heard stories of this adopted daughter of the ship for years. They live-streamed the ceremony. Scotty wore a ‘PROUD BIG BROTHER OF A STARFLEET GRADUATE’ shirt Sulu had hand-lettered for him. Bones opened a bottle of good ol’ Earthside bourbon and pretended not to tear up when her name was called. 

- She wore medical blue.  

- After years of Academy schooling and medical training, Jaylah stepped onto a Starfleet ship, her badge pinned to her chest. The corridors curved into the distance. The lights hummed and lit up as the ship floor murmured under her feet. It felt like coming home. 

- But there were no rocky hills out her shipboard window, no dull sky, no shimmering shield to hide her from her enemies. There was just space– black, cold, endless; brilliant, star-studded; full of discovery and danger and things worth dying for. She was ready to boldly go. She was ready to bravely go. She had thought she would never see another sky and here she was, older than her oldest brother had ever gotten to be, with hands that could defend lives and save them and heal them. The universe was spreading out before her, endless stars lighting the skies of endless planets. She was ready. 

unpretty:

unpretty:

unpretty:

tim drake’s snapchat is 90% him making bruce wayne do normal middle-class american things and filming the results. popular youtube compilations include the one where they’re at denny’s at two in the morning and tim keeps trying to get bruce to order a moon over my hammy just so he’ll have to say it, the one where they’re at disneyworld and bruce gets increasingly frazzled culminating in him actually physically picking up gaston for reasons no one can entirely recall, and everyone’s favorite series “bruce wayne doesn’t understand walmart”

having thought about it the best part is probably when a pranking fails because bruce has such a bizarre patchwork of knowledge/skills and it does not occur to him to hide most of it. tim puts a ghost pepper in bruce’s food but bruce just eats it like nothing is wrong. the same thing happens with the chocolate-covered crickets. it turns out bruce can lick his own elbow. bruce can lasso a runaway robot lawnmower like it’s a calf at a rodeo. whenever tim expresses shock that bruce knows how to do something he says “i did go to college, tim” as if that explains anything and it becomes a meme. whenever anyone does something fucking absurd it just gets tagged “i did go to college, tim”.

The camera came uncomfortably close to the face of a man ignoring it. He was very good at it. He was reading a book about, of all things, the history of denim. It was not the sort of book that made it easy to ignore cameras, but he remained stoic.

The caption said helpfully: [been doing this for 30 mins]

“Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. We need to go Walmart. Bruce. I need it.”

“Ask Alfred.”

→→→

“It’s a surprise for Alfred.”

“You can’t surprise Alfred.”

“Bruce, please.”

→→→

“It’s not a matter of permission, I’m saying you literally can’t surprise Alfred.”

→→→

[he hates when i say that]

“Bruuuuce.”

“No.”

“This is bullroar.”

Bruce finally set down his book with an expression of the most profound disgust.

→→→

[oh no now we’ll be here all day]

“—either curse or don’t, just commit one way or the other instead of—”

→→→

The camera took its time panning over a black BMW.

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

→→→

[after this he took away my music privileges]

Bruce was driving, looking stoic again. His face lent itself well to stoicism. The radio played, at high volume, “Sandstorm” by Darude.

→→→

“I’ll play something different this time.”

“You had your chance and you blew it on a meme.”

→→→

[SJGJDH;FUKC 😂😂😂]

“I’m boooored.”

“Hi, bored,” Bruce said, eyes still on the road, and Tim groaned loudly. “I don’t give a shit.”

The view shifted and audio clattered as Tim dropped the phone, barking a laugh.

→→→

The phone was wobbly as Tim followed Bruce into the store. “Can I get a trampoline?” he asked, camera pointed to one outside the store.

“We have three trampolines.”

“But I want that one.”

→→→

They were in the chip aisle. “Have you ever had a Dorito? One Dorito? In your whole life?”

“I am a person. I eat food for people.”

→→→

The camera followed a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos into the cart.

“We’re not getting those.”

“We need to get sour cream, too.”

“No.”

“You’ll love it.”

“No.”

→→→

Tim had put the seatbelt of the cart’s seat, intended for toddlers, around a giant plastic jar of orange cheese puffs.

“I thought you were getting something for Alfred.”

“I’m getting groceries while we’re here.”

“None of this is food.”

→→→

[$3 pickles blowing his mind rn]

Bruce was holding a gallon jar of pickles with an expression of incredulity.

“—costs extra to not waste food?”

“It’s Walmart.”

“Even taking into account the economies of scale—”

→→→

[putting his degree to use in the pickle aisle]

“—it just makes no sense even as a loss leader, unless the goal is to drive the competition out of business and hope they don’t go bankrupt in the—”

→→→

[i think he’s buying a pickle company??]

Bruce had every appearance of furiously texting on his phone, or possibly composing emails.

→→→

[lmao he did]

Bruce was now on his phone, looking impassive as ever as he contemplated the giant jar of pickles.

“—the business itself is perfectly sound. Yes. Obviously. Dead serious. Look, if you—”

→→→

Tim put a gallon jug of ranch dressing into the cart.

“Absolutely not.”

→→→

Tim was in the frozen section, his reflection visible in the glass.

“I bet Alfred would love some pizza rolls.”

“Your lies demean us both, Tim.”

→→→

Bruce was standing in the toy aisle, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I understand the concept of blind boxes perfectly well, thank you.”

“Then why are you acting confused?”

“Why does Thomas the Tank Engine—”

→→→

[🌈🌈🌈]

Bruce was making a face of disgruntled bafflement at a display of baby clothes.

“—disturbed by the amount of aggressive heterosexuality being foisted on these babies.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “What about the gay babies?”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking but I’m unironically concerned.”

→→→

[gotham pride]

The camera panned over a display of hero-themed hats. Most of the Batman hats had sold out, while the Superman display was nearly full. It panned back to Bruce, who was taking a picture with his own phone.

“Who you texting it to?”

“Friend in Metropolis.”

“Metropolis sucks.”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

→→→

[no escape]

The camera peered out slowly from behind a clothing display. Bruce was surrounded by enthusiastic and friendly women. It was impossible to tell what they were talking about.

→→→

[???]

Bruce was holding a dress up against himself. The women around him seemed delighted and were nodding their approval.

→→→

[i’ll strike while he’s distracted]

Tim dropped another two four-movie collections of Shrek on top of the considerable pile he’d already amassed. He panned up to check that Bruce had not caught him before grabbing another.

→→→

[busted]

While Bruce put DVDs back on the shelf, Tim surreptitiously grabbed a Shrek coloring book.

→→→

[he’s gonna get a fish]

Bruce was frowning at the wall of fishtanks in silence. Finally he said, “These fish are very unhealthy.”

→→→

[HE’S BUYING ALL THE FISH]

The man attempting to help Bruce looked baffled. Bruce gestured to the entire display of fish with a nod. The man shook his head. Tim brought his phone close to a betta, blue and red with a tattered and graying tail.

“We’re here to save you,” Tim stage-whispered to it.

→→→

Bruce was now engrossed in conversation with multiple employees.

“—if I bought some tanks — they’re much too small but as a temporary measure — we could transfer them directly and it might be less distressing for the fish.”

“Maybe I could get one of the big dolly carts from the back?” one young man suggested.

→→→

The low camera angle suggested Tim was trying to be surreptitious.

“—for trying to unionize is completely against the law,” Bruce was saying, his voice low. He was helping three other employees transfer fish into large plastic tanks.

“At-will employment,” one woman said.

“We’d have to prove that was why they fired us,” someone clarified. “Otherwise they can say it was for no reason.”

“You’re shitting me.”

→→→

“—fucking with my hours hoping I’ll quit.”

“What? Why?”

“If they fired me, they’d have to pay unemployment.”

“That’s why they won’t let me work full-time.”

“What the fuck.”

→→→

[omg he’s stealing the employees now]

“—in Gotham, but there’s more opportunities outside of manufacturing if you’re willing to move.”

“Wait, so do you mean like for management?”

“No, no, that’s the starting wage for someone working assembly, quality control, that kind of thing. We’re all unionized, none of this at-will bullshit.”

“So if I—”

→→→

The woman from earlier was showing Bruce her phone while the others continued moving fish.

“You painted this?” Bruce asked. She nodded. “That’s fantastic. Are you showing it anywhere? I know a guy with a gallery — actually I know pretty much everyone with an art gallery in Gotham. I think I have a friend who’d really love this, if you don’t mind me making some calls for you.”

→→→

Four more employees had joined the menagerie.

“—almost always hiring in Gotham. People are always moving to cities with fewer evil clowns.” Everyone laughed. Tim snorted. “Employee insurance totally covers acts of supervillainy, though.”

→→→

[trying to crush the revolution]

The employees had not dispersed. In the distance, someone managerial was talking to Bruce. He looked much less amused than Bruce did.

→→→

[THEY CALLED THE COPS]

Tim had switched to the selfie camera, his face pure glee. He turned bodily to show the employees wheeling out tanks of fish out of the store, police lights in the parking lot.

“The manager tried to make Bruce leave but he insisted on paying for his fish and he wouldn’t stop giving people better jobs so the guy said it was corporate espionage and threatened to call the cops and Bruce called his bluff so he did it.”

→→→

[WE’RE BANNED FROM WALMART FOREVER]

Bruce was laughing with the police officers about something. The manager from earlier had been joined by men in suits. None of them looked happy. Some of the employees from earlier were yelling and flipping them off. One man pulled off the shirt of his uniform and started setting it on fire.

→→→

Bruce was on the phone in the parking lot.

“They’re small, most of them are tropical. You can figure out what they are when you get here. How is that racist? I’m not suggesting you already know them, I’m well aware you don’t personally know every single fish—”

→→→

“Either you take these fish or I toss them in the sewer and Killer Croc can eat them. It will be a merciful death compared to what they were getting. It doesn’t matter where I found them.”

→→→

[i’m not allowed near toxic waste]

Tim held the betta from earlier in front of his phone, bringing it dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Bruce had hung up, but seemed to be dialing another number.

“I’m keeping this one,” Tim said.

“Fine.”

“If I drop him in toxic waste do you think he’ll get powers?”

“We’ve already had this discussion.”

→→→

[the pettiest man in gotham]

Bruce was on the phone again, looking out at the empty field beside the Walmart parking lot.

“Yeah, just buy the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely sure. Green Market’s doing good, we’ll build another one of those. Can we put up a billboard while it’s under construction? A really big billboard.”

→→→

“First of all, if it’s in writing, it’s libel. Second, figures taken directly from their report to shareholders aren’t defamatory. What’s the most they could even sue me for? See, that’s nothing. Bad PR for them, good for us, it's—”

→→→

Tim had switched to the selfie camera again, and was using a sparkling purple filter that made his eyes look huge. He backed into Bruce so that Bruce’s face would be in the shot. “Bruce, look! You’re a pretty pretty princess!”

Bruce raised an eyebrow as he looked at his face on the screen. “I’m always a pretty princess,” he said seriously.

→→→

[he picked the music this time]

Bruce was driving again. He was listening to 100 Little Curses without any apparent irony. This did not mean there wasn’t any irony.

→→→

[i named him wally]

The Walmart betta was now in a tank that held at least a hundred gallons. His underwater castle was resplendent. His tail had grown in, a shimmering gradient of red and blue. Bruce could be seen in the background through the tank, sitting on the couch and reading a book.

kidpxv:

lunalab:

neurodiversitysci:

adhd-community:

philosophium:

Do I have any followers with ADHD? Or does anyone have some really good information on it? I want to write a character who has ADHD but I don’t know anything about it except the basics so I’m looking to educate myself. Any help beyond a wiki article would appreciated! 

Friends, what would you like to see in an ADHD character?

One thing I gleefully identify with is the level of restless frustration experienced by BBC’s Sherlock during boredom (not that Sherlock is necessarily ADHD - let’s not open that diagnostic nightmare of a discussion please!).

I would like to see more of a struggle with internal noise shown in media. Often I see the bouncy, silly outsider view of the disorder and I would greatly appreciate seeing a wider range of symptoms/experiences, including the ones that make us want to pull out our hair. For me, off medication, being in a room where I am required to be silent, still, and focusing is basically my own personal hell.

It doesn’t at all need to be all doom and gloom, just not squirrel-chasing-8-year-old-boy-stereotype so much please!

First of all, philosophium, thanks for asking!

I’m glad ADHD community replied, because they’re a good source of facts about ADHD presented from an ADHD perspective. So, you learn some of what you’d get in a psych textbook, but also what it feels like from the inside.

If you’re really starting from zero, this Buzzfeed article is a nice place to start. 

Here’s some miscellaneous information about ADHD that will hopefully help you write more accurate, and less stereotypical, characters.

1) We’re Not All Extraverted, Hyper, Happy Go Lucky Males. We can be male or female, child or adult. I’d love to see an introverted, non-hyperactive ADHD character, ideally a male one. Or an ADHD character who obsessively overthinks, and is prone to anxiety and perfectionism.

2) Look at Both Extremes. In real life, some people with ADHD can only multitask while others can only hyperfocus. Some people with ADHD can focus on the details while ignoring the big picture, others see the big picture brilliantly but miss all the details, while others can bounce back and forth but can’t see both at the same time. Some of us are laid back and prefer to go with the flow, while others react to their disabilities by becoming extremely perfectionistic and trying to plan everything ahead of time (me). Some of us have IQ in the gifted range (see “need for stimulation”), while others have low IQ or severe developmental delays (children who are born prematurely, have lead poisoning, or who have fetal alcohol syndrome often have ADHD). Almost all the people I know with ADHD are artists, scientists, or both.

3) ADHD Is a Disability of Executive Function. Executive function is a confusing mess of tasks performed by the frontal lobe that allow us to control our behavior and respond flexibly and optimally to a changing environment. Some executive functions include working memory, inhibition (i.e., stopping oneself from doing or thinking something), task switching, sustained attention, planning, decision making, prioritizing, prospective memory.

4) We Can Pay Attention, We Just Can’t Regulate It. We can focus for hours on something that interests us, or on procrastinating. We’re not good at focusing on things that we find boring or that don’t matter to us. We also aren’t good at controlling the amount of attention we pay. This is how our attention works:

5) ADHD is a Production Problem, Not a Learning Problem. A lot of us excel at getting information into our brains, especially when it interests us. The difficulty is producing something that shows what we’ve learned by a deadline–be it a paper, a presentation, or a project. For some of us, the hardest part of any assignment is finishing it and turning it in on time in the correct format. If we can do these things, we’ll probably get an A; if we can’t, we’ll probably fail. As a result, the idea of “gradating your effort” doesn’t apply well to us (telling us to “stop being so perfectionistic and do the minimum” makes no sense to us), and our achievement can be all-or-nothing.

6) We Don’t All Get Bad Grades, Or Misbehave in School. Those of us who are smart, learn easily, and are interested in school can get good grades until the demands for organized, well-formatted, and on-time work overwhelm our abilities to produce (see #5). Those with inattentive ADHD, when bored, tend to daydream, look out the window, or draw rather than misbehave. Teachers might not notice these students at all–or might even see them as well-behaved and a joy to teach.

7) Need for Stimulation. As ADHD community said, an ADHD character who is wildly intelligent, and when bored, feels as if they’re in a sensory deprivation tank. Boredom is Chinese water torture. Each second is a drop of water. How we react to this varies. Some are constantly bored and highly aware of their search for stimulation. Others, like me, think they’re never bored because they’ve become very good at keeping themselves occupied. I always carried a book to read and a sketchbook to draw in with me, and I would read even while crossing the street. Only when I needed to learn to cook did I realize I can get bored within literally 10 seconds.

8) Sometimes, what’s “hard” or “complex” is easy for us, and what’s “easy” or “simple” for others is hard for us. Especially if we’re also gifted. See: http://neurodiversitysci.tumblr.com/post/12568168808/the-complex-is-simple-the-simple-complexif

9) Memory Problems. I’d like to see an ADHD character who has a terrible memory, and struggles with the psychological/identity consequences of that and not just the academic ones. They’re constantly writing things down, and constantly worrying about how to organize the record of their life, or about what would happen if it were destroyed in a fire/flood/other accident. The most impaired form of memory, though, is prospective memory, the ability to remember what you are going to do. Memory problems are some of my worst ADHD traits, yet I rarely see them discussed. 

10) Paradoxes of Reminders and Clutters. Because of our memory problems, you might think the answer is simple: just put post-it notes everywhere. And indeed, even other ADHD-ers often advise us to use colorful post-it notes and put them everywhere. However, visual clutter shuts our brains off, so we stop looking at these post it notes and reminders–or even look right at them and don’t register their existence. Another version: if items aren’t visible, I forget that they exist. (For example, I forget about food in the back of the refrigerator until it goes bad; I forget about clothes in the corner of the closet). But if too many things are visible, I stop being able to see them. They just look like clutter, an undifferentiated “bunch of stuff” to me. It would seem like the answer is to get rid of as much stuff as possible, but the decisions involved take hours and leave me exhausted.

11) The Paradox of Routines/Habits: Habits help us function despite our inability to remember what we’re supposed to be doing and our tendency to get sidetracked in the middle. That’s because habits require no thought, attention, or memory–we do them automatically. 

The problem is, it’s almost impossible for us to make the habit in the first place because we can’t consistently remember to do it. So, you get people with ADHD who forget to take their medication for the very reasons they need it in the first place.

12) Inconsistency. An ADHD character whose functioning is inconsistent from day to day and so feels he/she can’t rely on him/herself. There’s a lot of research on this “intra-individual variability” and indeed, it ranks among the most consistently-found traits found in both children and adults.

13) When we’re exhausted or overwhelmed, or a life crisis happens, we can stop being able to do basic things we used to be able to do. Maybe we used to be able to get to work/school on time, remember when assignments were due, or have a consistent morning routine. Now we’re no longer able to get out of the house on time, remember our assignments, or remember to take our medicine or brush our teeth in the morning. When this happens to me, I realize how much energy and attention I’m putting into doing “basic” things and wonder when I’ll ever “get them under control” so I can focus on learning new things.

14) Slow or Inconsistent Processing Speed. We don’t always talk fast and display high energy (I wish!). Some of us struggle with fatigue and slow processing speed (see: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, a proposed subtype of Inattentive ADHD). For example, I usually feel mentally and emotionally tired–I feel after a full night’s sleep the way most people do after three or four hours of sleep. The more tired I feel, the more difficulty I have concentrating, multitasking, remembering to do things, and making decisions. This is one reason why stimulants and even wakefulness medications can help. Some people, like me, have inconsistent processing speed. Sometimes I think and talk so fast it irritates others, I find what’s happening around us boring (think of the world’s longest meeting), and I interrupt others. Other times, I am just about to answer someone’s question when they irritably repeat themselves or ask why I’m taking so long to answer. It feels like I’m  thinking and talking at the normal speed, but others’ reactions make clear that we’re going much faster or slower than they are. Our relative strengths and weaknesses can affect when we think faster vs. slower than normal. For example, I finished the verbal portion of the SAT and checked my answers multiple times halfway through the time limit. I then had to sit there, bored, until the time was up. On the other hand, I ran out of time on the math section before I could check my work.

15) Some of us are socially awkward penguins, not graceful adrenaline junkies. There’s a stereotype that we’re adrenaline junkies who perform surgeries and jump out of planes. Or, we’re social butterflies who compensate for our school difficulties by playing class clown or making friends with everyone. But some of us are physically or socially awkward. Socially, lapses in attention can make us say things that come off as awkward or rude. Our poor sense of timing and inconsistent processing speed can throw off our conversational rhythm, making us interrupt–or just appear odd. Many of us also have motor coordination delays and difficulties (and research bears this out). As kids, we might have had difficulty using scissors, writing, tying our shoes, throwing or catching a ball, or riding a bike. We can have social and/or motor difficulties without meeting criteria for autism spectrum disorder. (Although a lot of people with ADHD have autism, too–see below).

16) Anxiety. Most of us develop anxiety, for all sorts of reasons. We’re prone to overthinking, to begin with. We have to worry about others misunderstanding us and calling us lazy, stupid, flaky, or rude. Some of us develop an exhausting habit of “constant vigilance” because we know of no other way to avoid making ADHD mistakes (losing things, forgetting things, math/writing errors, running late, etc.).

17) Co-occurring conditions. ADHD rarely rides alone. People with ADHD often have dyslexia, math disability, sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia, autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or allergies. Immune system or digestive problems might make us even more inconsistent.

18) Our family members are likely to have ADHD or autism–diagnosed or otherwise. Many people report being diagnosed with ADHD after their own children were diagnosed. Like autism, dyslexia, and other disabilities, ADHD is highly heritable, meaning that it’s highly likely that someone with ADHD traits will have children with the same traits (and their parents probably have them, too). I have a younger brother on the spectrum, and have met a number of other older ADHD sisters with younger autistic brothers. While the gender thing may be a fluke, I have read that ADHD and autism share genetic causes and can run together in families. 

19) We have a variety of attitudes towards our ADHD. Some of us see ADHD as uniformly disabling, preventing us from using our talents and passions Other people see ADHD as a gift. People with each of these viewpoints sometimes see the opposite as harmful to people with ADHD. Still others view ADHD as a trait like any other, which can have positive or negative effects depending on how one chooses to use it and what environment one is in. (Personally, I see ADHD, in general, as a set of traits. However, I see mine as mostly negative because they have been impairing me recently and preventing me from pursuing a longstanding dream. I view my ADHD traits as preventing me from using many of my talents and passions. However, there are environments where they’d be less disabling, and I’m currently trying to find them).

20) Being diagnosed and labeled can have good effects, too. There’s a sense of relief, of understanding, of not being broken, of having words for one’s experience. The book title “You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?” captures the feeling pretty well, I think. I’ve also written about the benefits of diagnosis and the crappiness of growing up without diagnosis a LOT–see this, this, most of all, this:

“…that sense that there was some mysterious thing wrong with me. (Do you know what it feels like, to carry around a sense that something is wrong with you, always ready to erupt, and not know what’s wrong or why? To have people constantly pointing out when you do something wrong but never acknowledging that mysterious brokenness–pointing out the elephant dung and squished sofa in your living room but never mentioning the elephant or offering to help get it out of your living room? And since no one will talk about the elephant, you have no idea how to get it out of your living room, so you’re just stuck with it there. No one can tell you how to fix what’s broken).”  

21) Stimulants don’t necessarily turn you into a zombie. They aren’t necessarily a cure-all, either, and some of us choose not to take them. I have yet to find a medication at a dose I can take daily, because it makes me completely lose my appetite. I only take it during emergencies–high-stakes days where I’m not able to function, and/or due to other health problems acting up, I can’t drink coffee. This isn’t the only side effect. Some people get migraines from stimulants. These medications can also slightly stunt children’s growth.

22) ADHD can be seriously disabling. ADHD looks on the surface like something “everyone deals with,” but as the experiences I’ve described above suggest, it can cause serious problems in school, work, and relationships. The large-scale MTA study, which followed hundreds of girls and boys with ADHD into adulthood, found some poor outcomes, including higher rates of self-injury and mental illness; adolescent substance use; eating disorders; and poorer relationships with peers in adolescence and parents and partners in adulthood. ADHD has also been linked to lower test performance, poorer education and work performance, greater risk of accidents, and obesity. Researchers and the media tend to describe these problems as a result of the ADHD traits themselves, especially impulsivity. But the way we treat people with ADHD probably has a lot to do with the bad outcomes. One contributing factor: many, especially those diagnosed late in life, develop crippling shame and self-hatred. 

23) We’re also awesome! People with ADHD can be creative, energetic, passionate, thoughtful, academically skilled, empathetic, entrepreneurial, and more. Famous people in every walk of life have diagnosed ADHD, and many past geniuses have traits. Like other disabilities, ADHD colors how we experience and act in the world, but it does not diminish us or make us less human.   

24) Bonus point that doesn’t fit anywhere: I’ve noticed that smart women with ADHD have a very distinctive style of talking. We talk fast, crowding as many ideas into a sentence as possible before we forget what we’re saying. We are trying to pack a lot complicated thoughts into a short amount of time. We veer off on tangents whenever someone says something interesting. If two of us start talking, we can go on for hours and never run out of things to say–and also never return to the topic we started with. To those who do not have ADHD, we sound rambling or incoherent. To other women with ADHD, we make perfect sense and the conversation feels exhilarating, with the energy building increasingly as we talk. We sound incoherent to others but not each other because our thoughts are arranged in a very dense and logical web, but we move through the web in a zig-zagging pattern based on associations instead of a straight line. The zig-zag pattern happens in part because with our short working memory, our span of awareness is extremely short. So we operate on associations; everything reminds us of something else. Other people’s words, objects in the room, and music we hear reminds us of something, but then then we forget what we were talking about before. We’re constantly forgetting what we were talking about or what we were doing in the middle. As a result, some of us have a bad habit of interrupting others in order to get our message out before we forget it. 

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Sorry this was so long…

@springreyzors the last point

who-the-fuck-let-me-have-a-blog:

If Alexander Hamilton can vote for Jefferson in 1800 to stop Burr without hating himself, I can vote for Hillary in 2016 to stop Trump and not hate myself.

achillvs:

garnetthefirst:

dusty-purple:

I just love the myth of Persephone, i mean the real, original version of it, because it’s not like she got kidnapped, no, this bitch was la-de-da-ing in a meadow and she just happened to find an entrance to the Underworld and she was like “Imma check this out”. And she just wanders into the Underworld and discovers that hey this place ain’t too bad.

Meanwhile Hades is in the background “????? UM??? PRETTY GIRL??? WHY ARE YOU HERE?????? YOU AREN’T DEAD???” 

And Persephone (who was originally called Kore just a little fyi) just looked at him and said “I like it here. I’m staying.”

And Hades kinda just went with it, until Demeter started throwing the temper tantrum of the millenium upstairs and Zeus had to intervene because this shit was getting out of hand and its actually his job to be admistrator of justice. Which considering the shit he gets up to is kinda histerical but that’s another story there. 

And basically Persephone wasn’t a prisoner or kidnap victim at all she just really loved the Underworld and her (eventual) husband, and the Greeks feared her arguably more than her husband because Hades could be reasoned with but Persephone was the one laying the smack down on sinners, and really, who wouldn’t be at least a little scared of someone who’s name means something along the lines of “the destroyer”

Basically, Persephone is amazing and everbody needs to get on her level

i think the best part of that myth is that Zeus decided to change Kore’s name to Persephone (basically “the one who brings chaos”) only because she wanted to stay in the underworld and SHE WOULDN’T FUCKING LISTEN then Zeus, all-mighty king of the gods, kinda gives up and goes “fine, but you’re going to visit your mom” “also, I changed your name” “get rekt”

Also, if I’m not mistaken, Kore means “little girl” so imagine going from that to “chaos bringer”

polyamoryavengers:

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

4) favorite character you’ve written

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

8) favorite genre to write

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

12) your weaknesses as an author

13) your strengths as an author

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

15) why did you start writing?

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

feminismfuckyeah:

PREACH 

slyrider:

blackpaanther:

eleanor–rigby:

m4ge:

strawberryaj:

andyouknowit:

thatonevaleriegirl:

meme-of-lord:

thegenderfluiddruid:

runningaftershadows:

tinyhanded:

ledamemangociana:

magebirb:

stellaathena:

grimbarkgrimdark:

spankyhole:

soldieronbarnes:

greatestgoth:

ghost-plot:

thejourneytonirvana:

lilmotel:

envyadams:

today at work i let someone into a dressing room and they said “thanks” and half of me tried to say “you’re welcome” and the other half tried to say “no problem” and i ended up saying “your problem”

this post had me in tears

I was hoping the notes would be full of similar stories, but they’re not, so I’ll add my story for anyone else looking for more laughs:

I had to go to a library to pay a fee and I was practicing in the car between “I have to pay a fine” and “I have to pay a fee” and I walked in and firmly stated “I have to pee” and slapped a five dollar bill on the counter (the fee was like ten cents), and walked out. This was like three years ago and I still haven’t been back,

My friend was driving and we were almost past our turnoff so I tried to say “quick” and “fast” at the same time and I ended up screaming “QUACK” which ended up with him judging me very hard and missing the turn

Recently someone in class asked me how I was doing and I started off saying I was good but switched to I’m okay in the middle and ended up saying “I’m gay.”

Which, while kind of accurate, was not what I meant to announce to my classmate.

This Halloween I was handing out candy and a child said “trick or treat” and I smiled gave them their candy and apparently my mouth betrayed me and I said “Merry Christmas” and proceeded to sit down and look up to the sky for answers while their mother laughed at me :)))))

I was switching between “Bye Deanna” and “Goodbye” and I ended up saying “Go Die”

Sometimes I try to say “I fucking love you” but it comes out in the wrong order and then everyone’s uncomfortable.

When I first started my coffee shop job, I was still getting used to greeting customers as they came in the door. A man walked in, and in the jumble of trying to say, “How are you doing?” and “What’s up?” I ended up demanding “What are you doing here?!”

something really cool happened once at the office and i started to say “i’m so amazed” but halfway through my mind changed to “that’s really amazing” and i just ended up saying “i’m really so amazing”

one time i was out in the woods in the spring when the birds were just beginning to come out again and i went to say “i’m so pumped for the birds” and “i’m so hyped for the birds” and instead i said “i’m so humped for birds”

Once I was walking to school and there was a guy walking his dog and the dog came to me and started sniffing me and I was in such a good mood and when I passed by his owner I wanted to say like “hello” or “good morning” or “cute dog” or something like that and I ended up looking up at him, smiling real big, and saying “thank you”. 

I was at the convenience store and I was going to buy a drink, but i dropped my keys and the drink when I got to the register so I got caught between “my drink!” and “my keys” and ended up screaming “MY KINK.”

I walked up to this register,in a target. When the cashier finished checking me out she said have a good day, and i wanted to say “You have a good day” and “You too” so it came out “You have a good do do”

I FUCKIN H HIT MY HEAD ON A CHAIR FROM LAUGHING TOO HARD AT THIS FUCKING POS T

This post is too good. I once tried to say have a nice day or have a good day to a customer and said ‘Have a nude gay!’. Still haven’t recovered.

OOC: i get really used to working nights or days at my work so i’m often jumbled between “have a nice night” and “have a good day” so often it comes out as “have a nice neigh” or “have a good date” or occasionally even “have a night die”

in first grade someone apologized to me and i responded by saying “you’re welcome” and i still haven’t recovered

one time while working at a summer camp I poured milk into some kids cereal looked him straight in the eye and said, “thank you”

One time I was checking our fridge and went to ask “Is anyone gonna have this cake” as I was reading the “chocolate” label on it, and cake/chocolate got mixed up in my brain so it came out as “is anyone gonna have this cock?!”

@words-writ-in-starlight I feel like you’d appreciate this

I just almost feLL OUT OF MY CHAIR LAUGHING, JESUS.

winnifredfoster:

someone: thinks they followed me for regular specific content

me, reaching into my fuckign mixed bag of a blog: ha

gelatins:

idk how you guys can send anon hate, like i can’t even send a nice anon without being scared that i didn’t hit anon and now they know

rabidchild67:

thepathlesstrekked:

xenadd:

I went to see Star Trek Beyond again the other day and I noticed something that I hadn’t before: the escape pods on the bridge of the Enterprise were specifically called Kelvin pods. At every other point, crew referred to escape pods until the bridge crew specifically began to evacuate. We saw the pods after ejection: escape pods were larger, presumably could fit multiple crew members (going by previous Trek history, really, and the size and number that we glimpsed), and had to be got to. The Kelvin pods were streamlined, single person carriers and built straight into the walls of the bridge. Accessible from any point in that space, effectively. 

‘Kelvin pods’ or their equivalent haven’t been seen before in Star Trek (as far as I know) and definitely have never been referred to before in the Kelvin timeline. The USS Kelvin bridge crew had to leave the bridge to evacuate, and George Kirk had no point of escape after he set the ship on its fatal collision post. Given the name of these pods, it’s safe to say that these were installed after that incident to ensure that no Starfleet officer would ever have to go down with his ship in that way. Had there been pods in the bridge, George Kirk would have been likely to survive.

And I think that this is a thought that occurred to Kirk as he stood there, watching his ship be ripped apart too logn after the last of his crew (darling Checkov) had abandoned ship. As he lingered and made that decision to go. To live. To save his crew like his father would. 

I noticed this when I saw it and remembered thinking what a beautiful little piece of world building it was.

It’s a very casual kind of way to remind the audience, not only the reaching effect of the Kelvin incident in-world, but also how hard it is for Jim Kirk to escape the circumstances of his birth.

There he is, able to get his crew to safety and follow them off the ship because of something that was created to prevent what his father had to do. In a way it’s George Kirk getting Jim off a crashing ship all over again.

It’s details like this that show why Simon and Doug need to write the next one if you ask me. 

The level of emotional wreckage this movie has caused in my life is ASTOUNDING.

janey-jane:

there were a lot of moments in Star Trek Beyond that emotionally compromised me, but as i am irrationally attached to the Enterprise herself i need to vent feels about my very favorite dilithium-powered inanimate object.

The previews made it pretty clear that she was going to be destroyed so it wasn’t a surprise; but watching the extended, gratuitous destruction scene - every puncture to her hull, seeing her nacelles severed, watching the drone ships pick her apart piece by piece - was still painful.

but… 

when Chekov & Kirk are standing looking at the burning ruins of her saucer and kirk says “She still has a few tricks up her sleeve, ” i. lost. mY. SHIT.  OF COURSE SHE DOES BBY. SHE WILL GIVE THE LAST PIECE OF HERSELF FOR YOU.  SHE LOVES YOU ALL.

And even at the bitter end, when the wrecked saucer is being COMPLETELY DESTROYED, she saves Kirk and Chekov one more time.  I almost fucking bawled.

thebobblehat:

crazydiamonds:

shrineart:

clairenovac:

cashiering is the most thankless job i s2g you have no control over anything and customers seem to expect you to leave your station and personally attend to their needs

I feel so bad every time like, something is wrong and a cashier has to tell us. The other day at a Five Guys I ordered a coffee milkshake and a few minutes later the dude had to tell me they didn’t have any coffee left and he looked like he was bracing for impact. And I was just like “Dude it’s fine, let’s do this flavor instead” and he looked relieved.
And honestly, that breaks my heart.
Be nice to people that work in these positions man. It’s a thankless job and they could use the niceness.

i used to work a cashier job and the worst is when they complain about how expensive shit is??? like what do you want me to say? what do you want me to do about it??? theres nothing i can do. why you tellin me. i know.

also keep in mind that not only are cashiers a) the frontlines for dealing with horrible people and b) mostly powerless, a lot of places have cashiers standing in one position for upwards of six or eight hours. when I worked for Hell Incarnate (aka Panera Bread) I was less a human and more a unit they could station and work endlessly. Moving a leg or a foot after endless hours of standing in one place was torture. So often times, when you’re dealing with a cashier, keep in mind that they’re probably under physical strain as well. 

wingardiumlevesque:

If anyone would be proud of Harry’s sass, it’s Lily. Like mother, like son, y’know? Everyone lives AU - Lily’s the one who cheers Harry on and highfives him when he slaughters someone Malfoy, Lily’s the one who massages Harry’s back before he gets on the train to Hogwarts and whispers pro tips in his ear, Lily’s the one who ignores Sirius’ loud laughter and calls Harry tiger - “go for the jugular, NO MERCY” - James is in the background falling in love all over again

berrystumpytail:

Buffy Summers is a depressed, suicidal college drop out who works a minimum wage job to support her family and she still keeps fighting and that is so inspiring to me

the-rain-monster:

rhube:

a-tergo-lupi:

2 kilomockingbirds

no

yes

@littlestartopaz