There are two types of people in the world: those who react to learning that you can use touch screens with your tongue with disgust and those who immediately go to lick their phones.
i’m gonna go ahead and assume that the reason this doesn’t have many notes is because you’re all too busy making out with your phones
WHY DID I LET YOU TALK ME INTO THIS, THERE IS NOTHING HERE BUT PAIN. I mean also that scene where Micheletto tells Paolo to tell him of love and claims to know nothing of it makes me really need to write some stuff for like the first season, BUT MY POINT STILL STANDS.
OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT THE SCENE WHERE MICHELETTO AGGRESSIVELY ASKS PAOLO TO TELL HIM ABOUT LOVE. HE’S TRYING TO WEB MD HIS OWN EMOTIONS. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH
HOW IS MICHELETTO TELLING LUCREZIA THAT SHE DOESN’T NEED TO MURDER A PERSON BECAUSE HE, MICHELETTO, WOULD BE VERY HAPPY TO MURDER SOMEONE FOR HER, AND THAT MURDER WOULD BE FROM THE HEART
Me: *looking critically at what is supposed to be a pwp* The problem with this is it needs more set up.
Me: *drafts four pages of an outline for the setup*
Me: I love this I love this I love this
Me: *looking critically at the ending* Does it even NEED the porn
As much as I love mutual pining and using it for every ship ever, I really don’t picture it applying to young, pre-relationship Baze and Chirrut
Because I imagine it as Baze being completely lovesick, head over heels pining, “I would die if he found out how much I love him but also he keeps accidentally flirting with me and doesn’t he know it’s killing me?”
meanwhile Chirrut never feels like this because he’s under the impression they’re already dating
Chirrut can tell Baze loves him and he can also tell something is eating Baze alive but because he thinks they’re already dating (what do you mean, we didn’t actually have that conversation?) he doesn’t realize it’s unrequited love
so he keeps asking what’s wrong and Baze keeps saying “nothing,” and of course that’s a lie but there’s obvious pain and shame behind it, so Chirrut doesn’t want to push
finally Chirrut gets Baze alone and says “listen, I know something is bothering you and I think you need to talk about it. don’t worry that I’m going to judge you; you’re my boyfriend and I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”
it probably takes a good two-three minutes before Baze can say anything but “what” and he’s been cranky ever since
For your last anon, a quote from Buffering by Hannah Hart "If you're reading this and you think that maybe you love someone of the same gender (or nongender), all I have to say to you is this: Congratulation! You're perfect and wonderful and more alive than you ever knew. Be proud of who you are because you are already more than enough" <3
Thanks, babe! Hey, anon, one of my fabulous followers is here for you with an excellent quote.
Hey, honey, I know it can be scary to suddenly have your self-image change as drastically as something like this can. So first, take a deep breath and let it out. You’re the same person you were yesterday, a week ago, a year ago, you’re just learning something new about yourself. Discovering stuff like this isn’t about adding stuff you didn’t have before, it’s like pulling something out of the attic and dusting it off. It was always there, you’re just ready to look at it now.
Second of all, congratulations, honey! Not on being gay, although my queer ass welcomes you to the party. But it’s hard to acknowledge something like this, even to yourself, and I’m so, so proud of you for being that strong. I’m honored that you told me, that you felt like you could tell me, and I hope I live up to that honor.
And third of all: it’s okay. It’s okay to be gay, honey. I don’t know what your situation looks like, but I want that to be clear. This is a part of you, a part of your heart, and it’s okay. If you find that you’re bi, that you’re pan, that you’re just figuring shit out, that’s okay too. If anybody gives you shit for this, I’ll punch them in the fucking face for you.
There are always going to be people who want you to be ashamed of who you love, the color of your skin, the shape of your body, the quirks of your mind. And fuck them, honey. Fuck them, straight to hell.
I love ya, honey. I hope this was a little helpful for you.
Say there are over seven billion people in the world, at this moment. Say that there are three hundred twenty five million people in the United States of America alone, and that there are eight million people in New York City alone, all minding their own business, not counting the ones only passing by.
Now say there’s a woman out there, with warm brown eyes and a smile like the sun. Her hair’s pinned back, her touch is light, and her breath comes easy and tickles against tanned skin.
When you’re around I don’t
know how to hide my feelings. I count in
binary, in my head. zero one one zero
one one and you count clouds. (while you count clouds)
So it was going to be a stand-alone Vision/Wanda thing but then I started it after eight hours of researching WWI and??? Instead it’s an immediate prequel to the first Vision/Wanda fic I ever wrote, it’s mostly Natasha being smug, and Wanda doesn’t even appear, I don’t know what happened.
Natasha prided herself on being difficult to sneak up
on. It had served her well for their
brief stint in Wakanda, but now they were in America again, scattered up the
East Coast, and she was sitting on the roof of one of her less secret safehouses,
watching the sun go down. And any dense half-blind
idiot could see a six-foot bright red robot in a cape descending onto a roof in
Middle of Nowhere, Appalachia.
The only reason she didn’t immediately yank out the gun
she’d tucked away under the corner of her blanket was because Stark, Banner,
and Rhodes were all about as subtle as…well, a six-foot bright red robot in a
cape. She was confident that she’d
notice them coming, and if she didn’t they deserved
to cuff her.
• hyperfocus until u die
• unless u actually need to focus, in which case: no
• “if you cared, you’d remember”
• bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce
• “just write a note for yourself!”/“just get organized!”
• casual interests??? those aren’t real
• forgot to eat for three days oops
• time is a man-made construct and nothing is real
• when ur brain won’t shh so u can sleep
• “but ur so smart!!1” ok what’s ur point
• talking about a hyperfixation and ur very !!!!!! but ur audience seems uninterested and u get Sad™
•the cousin of forgetting to eat: my god I’m hungry all the time •why are you so loud? I DONT LIKE TO REPEAT MYSELF •could not tell thing you were trying to say for three minutes? It’s gone now. Doesn’t matter how important •song stuck in head has been there for 2 days, you do not even like this song •distraction distraction distraction and over focus over focus over focus •my brain got better connection on the task at hand than my internet got connection to my laptop
can u believe not more people talk abt podfic makers? like?? podfic makers you are amazing little stars in this cold night of a life ily you do amazing work
I adore one of tropes going around in Star Wars fandom: Obi-Wan knows about Anakin and Padme’s relationship, takes it upon himself to stage a diversion, and because of that he systematically entertains other Councilors with fancy dinners and conversations, lest they could start to search for Anakin.
However, behavior like that is a very direct political statement. Because, while Obi-Wan certainly doesn’t think about it in those terms and probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it (a terrible misstep for a trained negotiator), he cultivates his contacts, courts his potential political cloud, and gathers allies.
For the outsider, it looks like he’s gunning for higher position.
So, I would really like to read something where Obi-Wan ends up as the Master of the Order by accidentally launching a successful political campaign, surprising absolutely no-one except for him and probably Anakin.
The sheer amount of scheming that everyone is managing to fit into individual letters here
Cesare and Lucrezia
This also covers the previous episode, but Lucrezia Borgia and Giulia Farnese, CEO and COO of Badass Ladies In Elaborately Elegant Dresses Incorporated (aka BLEED Inc)
Cesare and Sister Martha (I am SO PROUD of them for making the obvious Abelard and Heloise reference by the by)
Their gleeful advantage-taking of the fact that this particular French king was called Charles the Affable which is hilarious to me
Watching Cesare needle Della Rovere
Micheletto’s line “Then I am servant to a hostage, Your Eminence” I AM DEAD
17: I know your
weakness. It’s kisses. You are doomed. (Don’t worry. We’re all doomed eventually.)
How the galaxy fell to the Dark Side, one kiss at a
time. Or, an overview of the Sith Padmé
AU.
“Oh,” Padmé says in surprise as the Force
goes yesss in the back of her mind at
the sight of a young boy with hair like sunshine and a presence like the sun
itself. Her Jedi protectors are easily
as arrested by the boy’s presence, but she suspects for rather different
reasons. His power is spectacular,
certainly, but there’s more—a sharp click
as of a lock, and something in her core says that is mine.
The boy’s head snaps up and his eyes meet
hers and she hears, clear as day, his voice, as it says, An angel.
When she meets him properly, Anakin with his
sky-blue eyes and child’s voice, she offers her hand to shake. Instead, he takes it, reverent, and kisses
her knuckles.
“I’m going to marry you, someday,” he tells
her solemnly, still holding her hand, and she smiles.
It occurs to me that as much as “humans are the scary ones” fits sometimes, if you look at it another way, humans might seem like the absurdly friendly or curious ones.
I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?
And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.
And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”
Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”
“Why?!”
“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”
And it’s like the first friendly interaction the species has had in forever so suddenly humanity has a bunch of big scary friends.
“Commander, we must update the code of conduct to include the humans.”
“Why? Are they more aggressive than we anticipated?”
“It seems to be the opposite Commander. Just this morning a crewman nearly lost their hand when attempting to stroke an unidentified feline on an unknown world. Their reaction to the attack was to call the creature a “mean kitty” and vow to win it over. Upon inquiry it seems they bond so readily with creatures outside their species that they have the capacity to feel sympathy for an alien creature they have never seen before simply because it appears distressed. I hate to say this commander but we must install a rule to prevent them from endangering their own lives when interacting with the galaxy’s fauna.”
“I see what you mean. So be it, from now on no crewman is allowed to touch unknown animals without permission from a superior officer. And send a message to supplies about acquiring one of these “puppies” so that their desire to touch furred predators can be safely sated.
Ehehehe I love this! Every time someone adds a short story to my post it gets like 90% cuter and more epic
Lets be honest, the humans would ignore the hell outta that rule whenever alone.
“So I hear that you’ve just recruited a human for your ship.”
“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species,
but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can
you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s
avoidable.”
“The
first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”
“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that
every crew should have at least one on board?”
“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent
innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then
a human that has bonded wth your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your
human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their
ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”
“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”
“The
trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them
unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was
sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked
up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”
“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”
“The
very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on
that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it.
As a pet.”
“A Dunlip? You
mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”
“Yup. Don’t
leave your humans unsupervised.”
“I’ll uh, take that under advisement.”
“Seriously. Get a supply of safe animals for the humans to bond with or they will make their own. I mean, they will try to befriend anything they come across anyway, but without any permanent pets they can get… creative. Don’t even get me started on the time one of them taped a knife to one of our auto-cleaners and named it Stabby.
Three weeks in and when we finally caught the wretched thing, half the humans on crew tried to revolt about us “killing” Stabby by removing the knife.
“How… how did you resolve that sir?”
“Glaxcol made a toy knife out of insulation rubber and strapped that on instead. Quite a creative solution, I suppose.”
“And that sated the humans?
“Worse.”
“Worse?”
“They thought it was so funny they made a second one, strapped false eyes on springs to both and held mock battles. Then decided Stabby and Knifey were in love and now none of them will allow the others to stage fights between them any more.”
also palpatine knew leia was anakin’s daughter from the moment she made planetfall on coruscant.
of course, was more generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter; when the threat comes—and it will come, he would not be a sith master if he could not feel the force gathering like a storm—he knows alderaan will be the tip of the spear. accordingly, he has armed himself against it. why else would palpatine have pressured bail to retire from the imperial senate, and send his beloved daughter in his place?
(children are weaknesses, children are the softest, most vulnerable place, where any blunted knife can cut. he has known this since anakin came to him, wracked with nightmares of birth and death.)
but being generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter is very different than knowing leia organa, feeling her drop like an ion bomb through the atmosphere of coruscant, so screaming-loud and shiveringly powerful through the force that palpatine stops dead. it’s been over fifteen years since he last felt that raw, unchecked, untaught power—since anakin skywalker returned to coruscant after so long away, all of nineteen and long-limbed, something animal have taken up residence under his skin. palpatine had taken one look and wanted to leash it.
and now his daughter is here.
(palpatine has been making do with such puny, stunted specimens lately. crippled things, taught in the dark by vader and then presented to him as though they were something to be proud of. but a skywalker daughter, who did not even know enough to shield herself from him—)
palpatine is patient. (he has always been patient.) he does not reach out, he makes no overture; instead he gives her his glittering planet with all its pleasures and strangeness. he even pulls his spies and guards back, to give her more room to run. aldera is hardly a backwater swill, but there is nothing in the galaxy like coruscant.
on the fifth day, the junior senators are presented to the emperor.
leia organa looks so very much like her mother, that for a moment, palpatine is back on naboo, standing before another little girl with a crown of braids. but her expression is all anakin, a badly-hidden contempt behind her eyes.
“leia organa,” emperor palpatine says, extending his hand for her to bow over. “we are gratified by your coming. may you serve us as loyally as your father has.”
A friend and I were out with our kids when another family’s two-year-old came up. She began hugging my friend’s 18-month-old, following her around and smiling at her. My friend’s little girl looked like she wasn’t so sure she liked this, and at that moment the other little girl’s mom came up and got down on her little girl’s level to talk to her.
“Honey, can you listen to me for a moment? I’m glad you’ve found a new friend, but you need to make sure to look at her face to see if she likes it when you hug her. And if she doesn’t like it, you need to give her space. Okay?”
Two years old, and already her mother was teaching her about consent.
My daughter Sally likes to color on herself with markers. I tell her it’s her body, so it’s her choice. Sometimes she writes her name, sometimes she draws flowers or patterns. The other day I heard her talking to her brother, a marker in her hand.
“Bobby, do you mind if I color on your leg?”
Bobby smiled and moved himself closer to his sister. She began drawing a pattern on his leg with a marker while he watched, fascinated. Later, she began coloring on the sole of his foot. After each stoke, he pulled his foot back, laughing. I looked over to see what was causing the commotion, and Sally turned to me.
“He doesn’t mind if I do this,” she explained, “he is only moving his foot because it tickles. He thinks its funny.” And she was right. Already Bobby had extended his foot to her again, smiling as he did so.
External image
What I find really fascinating about these two anecdotes is that they both deal with the consent of children not yet old enough to communicate verbally. In both stories, the older child must read the consent of the younger child through nonverbal cues. And even then, consent is not this ambiguous thing that is difficult to understand.
Teaching consent is ongoing, but it starts when children are very young. It involves both teaching children to pay attention to and respect others’ consent (or lack thereof) and teaching children that they should expect their own bodies and their own space to be respected—even by their parents and other relatives.
And if children of two or four can be expected to read the nonverbal cues and expressions of children not yet old enough to talk in order to assess whether there is consent, what excuse do full grown adults have?
I try to do this every day I go to nursery and gosh it makes me so happy to see it done elsewhere.
Yes, consent is nonsexual, too!
Not only that, but one of the reasons many child victims of sexual abuse don’t reach out is that they don’t have the understanding or words for what is happening to them, and why it isn’t okay. Teaching kids about consent helps them build better relationships and gives them the tools to seek help if they or a friend need our protection.
I wish this post featured the OP’s name more prominently; it’s by Libby Anne of love joy feminism, and she writes fantastic stuff. A survivor of Christian patriarchal fundamentalism, she writes about parenting from the perspective of someone working through her own traumatic experiences. I love reading her blog.
For @twistedangelsays: AU where Wolfgang takes up his uncle’s criminal empire. Obviously, spoilers for the special episode of Sense8.
So Wolfgang’s uncle was a fucking crime king. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He’s all ready to shoot the offer down and go
on his merry way—who the fuck offers
a quarter of Berlin to some safecracker just because he happened to off the old
boss, anyway—and then… He imagines Sun,
in prison because she wouldn’t throw her brother under the bus, and her dark
eyes glittering in the harsh light of her cell.
He imagines Nomi, constantly reaching out to visit them in order to not
go stir-crazy in the hiding places the American government is forcing her
into. He imagines Lito, barely treading
water against the downward drag of prejudice, and Capheus, who has already
swapped so much of his innocence for medicine.
He imagines Will, already taking on the pale look of an addict to
protect them all.
Look, it’s simple. Wolfgang has always been good at looking out for
number one, and now number one is an eighth of a whole. Looking out for number one, these days, means
making sure that he looks out for all of his fractional selves, and they need
money, and clout, and somewhere safe.
He takes the offer. He’ll figure it out as he goes.
It’s dark in Seoul when he visits Sun that
night—he’s really gotten himself in over his head this time, and he needs her
steady presence—and she gracefully flips herself down from where she’s doing a
handstand against the wall. He’s sitting
against the wall of her cell when he says, “I’ve got a fucking story to tell
you.” Sun nods, folding herself into a cross-legged
position, and he takes a moment to wonder how he’s supposed to explain.
He can’t come up with anything particularly
diplomatic, so he takes a deep breath and says bluntly, “My uncle was in charge
of a quarter of Berlin, and it turns out I’m his fucking heir.”
Sun stares at him like it’s the craziest
thing she’s heard in weeks, which he finds unlikely. “What?”
Wolfgang bares his teeth and says, “I got
promoted.”
It’s a fucking trip to explain it to the others.
Kala is disappointed, which…he wishes he was surprised by that, but it’s
not like he’s lied to her about who he is.
Nomi probably rolls with it best, except for Capheus, because Capheus is
just unconquerably happy whenever the cluster is together and no petty little
criminal empire is going to change that. He hugs Riley and gets a kiss on the cheek
from Lito and actually laughs like a kid when Wolfgang admits to the
situation. Nomi starts making
suggestions immediately, and under any other circumstances Wolfgang might be
offended, but the truth is that he needs the help, so he nods and writes down
what she says.
Riley is the first one to bring up the
obvious question, because for all that she’s quiet and shy even within their
cluster, she’s ferociously
loyal. “So,” she asks, a quiet murmur
that nonetheless brings debate to a halt, “can you help get Sun out of prison?”
Sun looks up in surprise from where Lito is
teaching her a clapping game to keep her busy in her cell.
Wolfgang grins. “Well, I didn’t take the offer for the
fucking benefits.”
It’s unfathomably weird, some month and a
half later, to have a tiny Korean woman in a business-formal dress turn up at
his door, really truly there and
scowling at his bodyguard (he only has one, and only because he couldn’t make
him leave). She’s been yelling in Korean
for five minutes by the time someone gets Wolfgang, and her frown evaporates as
she throws herself at him in a hug.
“Look!” she shouts in Korean that he
understands, dragging him outside into the perpetual Berlin rain—worse than
usual today, plastering her hair to her face.
He lets himself be dragged, because it would be bad for his reputation
if he was beaten up by this tiny woman, and Sun-Capheus-Riley-Lito grabs his
hands to spin in a circle. “I am free!”
“Yeah,” Wolfgang laughs, feeling his fractional
selves at his back. “Yeah, you are.”
…..most of alderaan probably thought leia was a jedi anyway.
I mean, one minute the viceroy is a lauded senator and alderaan’s queen is childless, and the jedi are heroes, fighting a noble war against the separatists. Then suddenly the chancellor emperor is declaring that the jedi had to be cleansed, and senator organa slinks back to alderaan in unexplained semi-disgrace, and the queen has an infant daughter who is just Way Too Pale to be either bail or breha’s natural-born child
“an orphan,” the queen and viceroy of alderaan tell absolutely everyone.
“a jedi orphan,” absolutely everyone replies. “saved from the destruction of the jedi temple. where the jedi lived.”
“no no, just a regular normal orphan with nothing force-sensitive about her! what a silly idea, our daughter being a powerful jedi. are we even sure jedi really existed? emperor palpatine makes some good points, about them never having existed.“
“we literally have 700 hours of holonews footage that’s just viceroy organa hanging out on the warfront with a bunch of jedi.”
“I don’t recall that,” bail says cheerfully. “and neither does my daughter, who is force-sensitive as a box of bricks.”
(leia is eight when she dreams of her father in the war. he is holding a sword of fire, and he breathes too loudly, harsh in her ears—she is scared, and so she reaches for him, seeking comfort,and suddenly he turns on her. he is shadow and death and that awful sword of fire, not her father at all, and he says in a breath of smoke, who—?
she wakes up to her father’s arms, real and warm, cradling her to his chest. it was only a nightmare, bail says, as she cries. shh, it wasn’t real.)
”on alderaan, they say she was an orphan rescued from the destruction of the jedi temple,” general tarkin says. “that she is a jedi too.” the footage is grainy, but tarkin can make out the shape of her well enough, the princess throwing herself against the cell door. such dramatics.
“impossible,” darth vader says from beside tarkin. the vocoder makes it hard to read his tone. “I killed every child that breathed.”
Prompt: Animorphs AU where Tobias is raised by Loren, perhaps about how it'd change the nothlit thing or his interactions with Ax?
I spent several minutes considering whether this should be an AU where Loren has her memories of Elfangor or doesn’t. I went with yes because… why not?
I was sitting in front of the TV listening to the local news about the “fireworks” at the construction site when Tobias came in and said, “Hey, Mom. Jake invited me along to check out the Sharing meeting at the beach later. Can I go?”
Cold dread trickled into my veins. I had hoped the war would never touch us. It wasn’t our war to fight; we didn’t have the weapons. But finally, it had come to my doorstep. “No,” I said firmly. “I need you help to me clean the house this evening. You’re staying in.”
“What if we start now?” Tobias said. “We could finish early and then I could catch up with Jake?”
I hit mute on the TV. “Tobias. I know some of your classmates have gotten into the Sharing. But I’ve heard about this group through my church friends. They look harmless, but they’re a dangerous cult. Has anyone ever told you what you have to do to become a full member?”
A pause. “Jake’s brother Tom says there’s a minimum number of hours of service, and then you go to a couple of special meetings and you become a full member.”
“But did he tell you what the initiation is like?” I insisted. “The ‘initiation ceremony’ is full members only.”
“No,” Tobias said, a frown in his voice. “He said it was secret. He just said that it totally changed his life.”
“I don’t trust an organization like that and neither should you,” I said firmly. “I won’t allow you to go there. Stay home and help me clean.”
Then there was the news story about the man who found a piece of metal on the beach with strange writing on it. I asked my church friend Mary to describe it to me. It took a while for the image to form in my mind, but when it did, it was unmistakable. Andalite writing. Elfangor had taught it to me.
That night, I dreamed of a thought-speak voice calling to me from the sea.
I woke up in a cold sweat. An Andalite ship had crashed somewhere off the coast of California. There was an Andalite trapped in there, using the ship to broadcast his thought-speech. And somehow, I’d heard his call. My heart ached. There was nothing I could do for him.
I got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I found that Tobias was already there. “Tobias?” I said. “What are you doing up?”
“Bad dream,” he said.
Oh no. Had the message reached him too? Because of his heritage? Because Elfangor had touched both our lives? “What was it about?” I said, tentatively.
“There was a voice,” he said. “Calling to me from the ocean. It sounded scared. Desperate.”
Part of me wanted to tell him, after a lifetime of keeping the truth to myself. But what good could it possibly do? There was nothing he could do to help the doomed Andalite, either. So I said, “Hey. Why don’t you read to me from the book you’re reading?” It was an old ritual of ours. We went to his bedroom, and he read to me until he yawned between every word, and went back to sleep.
A month or so later, Tobias came to the house with a new friend in tow. “This is Philip, Mom. He’s here to borrow some books.”
“Yes, my name is Phil-up-puh,” the other boy said. “Puh. I am here to read book-suh.”
Playing with sounds. Just like Elfangor did in the first couple of weeks being human.
Then the boy added, stiffly, “I am sorry to intrude, intrud-ud-duh, on your solitude. Tude.”
“Come on, Philip,” Tobias said, and took him to his room.
I sat and frowned over that remark. It took me a minute to remember Elfangor’s distaste for the disabled that I’d had to train him out of, the way he insisted that they should be secluded from society. It probably didn’t mean anything. It was a coincidence. There were autistic humans who played with sound, and plenty of humans who acted weird around a blind woman. But there had to be a way to know. To be sure.
When Philip and Tobias came back out of his room, I was ready. If I was just being paranoid, I could say I’d gotten the phrase from a fantasy book. But if I wasn’t…
“Nice to meet you, Philip,” I said. “May your blade stay sharp, and the four moons guide our paths to cross again one day.”
Dead silence fell. Then I heard a sound I thought I’d never hear again – of bones grinding against each other, organs liquefying.
“Philip,” Tobias said, a little hysterically, but not hysterical enough for the morph to be a surprise. “What are you doing?”
“He’s demorphing,” I said, sounding calmer than I felt. “Tobias, close the curtain on the window of the back door. Just in case.”
“Mom?”
“Do it,” I said. “What if someone walks through the backyard and sees?”
I heard the whistle through the air, and the lightest press of the edge of a tail blade against my throat. «Demorph.»
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m not an Andalite. But I had a child with one.”
I told them everything. I gave enough details that they even believed me.
“You never told me,” Tobias whispered. “I met my dad, and I didn’t even know. I would have known if you’d told me.”
“And you’re fighting a war I swore to myself you’d never have to fight,” I whispered back. “I’m sorry.”
I am a star. Not in the metaphorical sense of a shining bauble to coo over and capture in camera flash, but in the fierce and wild sense of the cosmos. I burn white-hot, powered by an engine humanity cannot dream of touching, strong enough to alter the very matter of myself, to merge the unmergable atom. My parents are a solar wind and a nebula, a thing cast out and a thing destroyed, and I am what they have spun me into being as, a thing untouched.
And you are not. You are tiny. You have looked up into the sky on your little world and seen the speck of light and named me and drawn me into constellations, but you see a memory of the dead and distant past. You could not bear my present. My touch would burn you, my light would blind you, and so you cling to the small light of my past, and I spin my planets and moons in a song you will never hear, and mourn the fact that you could not stand with me as I am.
So next time you wish you could reach up and touch me and make me into that small light, remember: I am a star. You have not had a hand in my creation save to throw petty stones and place me in pretty pictures with cruel stories, and you will not have a hand in my future.
And to the small light, remember: this is only a distant memory.
Three cats died after their owners used an anti-inflammatory cream used to treat arthritis. The Food and Drug Administration warns to keep drugs away from pets; a tiny bit can be toxic.
Important for spoonies with cats!
Creams with Flurbiprofen are fatal to cats.
Brands that use this chemical (Not a complete list):
Myoflex Traumeel Capzasin
If you have cats, check your pain relieving cream for this, and keep them from ingesting it, please!
Me: man, Lito is so dramatic how did he get this way?
Lito’s Mom: throws a party with a dozen place settings and wine glasses for guests that aren’t coming and meticulously arranges the tabloids of her son having sex with another man for both of them to see as soon as they walk in just to prove a point about how much she loves and supports him
he made my wife and i (i’m a woman) a giant banner for our one year anniversary
when i was pregnant, the baby was kicking and when he touched my belly, the baby stopped and he called him a little shit
he once called and left a voicemail asking how to spell styrofoam
he flipped a table bc he saw someone hit a dog
he beat skrim in 4 days
he served in the korean war and when he came home, he learned korean so if he ever ran into a korean vet, he could “give them the same respect he’d give an american vet”
my son has two moms and there was a “special guy in your life” day at his school for father’s day so my grandpa went and showed up in dress pants and a pressed shirt bc he “didn’t want to embarrass him”. also, there was a little boy who didn’t have anyone there and grandpa asked if he could be his “special guy” and the little boy beamed
he knows all of the secrets to the zelda games
he’s had 4 open heart surgeries and can still kick your ass
my grandpa is having another major surgery so those of you who love him as much as i do, please keep him in your thoughts. i’ll try and keep y'all updated
his surgery is scheduled for the Jan 13th of this year. wish us luck
thank god for the mythbusters though because it used to be that whenever i knew i had insomnia i’d just kind of accept it and stay up doing whatever until my morning classes and spend the day feeling like shit
but then they did an episode where they established that even just fucking laying there for a half hour, not even sleeping just laying there and not even for an hour, makes a significant difference and you’ll feel way better
it has made a huge difference in my life to know that it’s okay if i can’t fall asleep, it takes a lot of the pressure off and ironically helps me fall asleep better
…i did not know this, thank you
If anyone wants to look it up, the episode was specifically the Deadliest Catch crossover ep, and the myth was that it’s better/safer when working a 30 hour shift to take a 20 minute nap every six hours rather than try to power through. They did an obstacle course test, one without naps and one with, and even though they couldn’t even sleep half the time the naps resulted in their scores doubling.
So actually I undersold it, even if it’s 7:40 and your alarm goes off at 8 just lie down and shut your eyes and it will still be better than nothing
bless you
i wish i had known this in college, but oh well
THIS NEEDS TO BE REBLOGGED ALWAYS
i’m not familiar with the episode, but once I realized this in my personal life sleeping/resting became a lot easier. i always tell people that laying down and napping are so important
