#thoughts and prayers appreciated

[necr0mancers]

they’ve given me serious brain rot

[cultdionysus]

Hestia,

Protector of the home,

Goddess of the hearth,

Tender of Olympus’ flame 🕯️

Please hear my prayer:

Thank you for your protection during these difficult times.

Please protect my home from further damage. Please grant me luck and protect me from misfortune and accidents.

Please watch over my home and protect it when no one is there.

Please allow any plumbing issues and the water damage to be fixed without further damage,

so that my boyfriend and I can return home to rest and recover 💕🧿

🧿

[cowboygirlkiss]

I’m simply not born for casualty im born for gentle love and devotion to one another

but due to poor circumstances and the craving to be shown the slightest bit of affection i will be ignoring my own sentiment

[mediumgayitalian]

“Your hands.”

William smiles, tiredly, glancing down at the chapped fingers crooked around the tarnished silverware.

“Yes,” he says. “I know.”

“Don’t they hurt?”

“I’m used to it.”

He smiles again, after he says it; I’m used to it, don’t worry. He eats fine, does not wince as he moves and flexes the cracking skin, but it does not take long for them to bleed; sluggishly, slowly, pearling along tectonic lines, pooling in creases and knuckle dips.

Niccolò returns to his dinner, and watches him. The tap of his foot is at odds with the clink clink clink of his knife, the scrape of his fork along his chipped front tooth. His shoulders droop but his face does not, hair still pinned back, eyes sleepy and far away. His freckles seem to twinkle under the flickering of the candlelight, making those blue eyes into something sparkling.

“You should sleep,” Niccolò says, swallowing. “You’re tired.”

William finishes the last of his plate, and smiles, again, small and pretty and tired, still, but the gentle kind.

“It is my turn with the washing.”

“Yes,” Niccolò agrees, “but you are sleepy. And your hands are chapped.”

William says nothing more, only hums, but he kisses Niccolò’s forehead as he passes, gentle, squeezing his shoulder, and sets his dishes on the counter by the sink, untouched.

“Goodnight,” he calls from the bedroom, as Niccolò’s hands are slippery from the soap, and warm.

“Goodnight,” Niccolò responds, and turns back to the sink. He can hear the bed springs creak, and William sigh, and he smiles, waiting on the snores. They do not take long. He hums along to them as he finishes, washing up the pots, too, and the oven, and the counters. Soon the kitchen is sparkling and the sun sits low on the horizon, and he dusts, too, having noticed the griminess floating among the golden rays.

At the end of it his hands are smarting. The soap clings to his skin, even as he rinses them, and he tries to avoid picking at his knuckles, rubbing the skin; reddening them further.

He tries to imagine this, day in and day out; bedpans and food trays and cutlery and surgical knives, all dirtied, all reused. Stinging lye soap and coppery bleach. Aching, chapping hands, curled to bleeding, stretched to tearing; worn through elastic.

He retreats to his study, frowning.

———

based on “he loved her to the point of invention” (7th slide)

[redtrospective]

do you want somewhere to be insane about finnpoe but don’t have anyone to talk about them to?

i introduce you to GENERAL² ! 

we are a slightly small discord filled with finnpoe shippers ! even though our server is centered over the two generals of the resistance, we also have channels for other sw media and completely different interests (like anime, kpop, etcetc.) !!

we hope to see you there !! inv link is: https://discord.gg/AWYpVpTTYK

[dairine-bonnet]

I guess Heinrix will put the names of those people who rushingly left the room on the list of suspicious individuals.

P.S. Or the names of those who kept standing in line and didn't follow the order of an Inquisitorial acolyte?!

I've heard that if you don't act at all to improve the situation, other companions get annoyed. Is that true?! Need to figure it out!

[porcelaininkpot]

The unadulterated horror of realising I may be a Damien kinnie.

[buttered-milky]

https://youtu.be/XqXZ0tJppok?si=kF5httv3agxyOzqe

Messmer can actually turns into a snake it's his original form, and he looks soo abused and neglected maybe because of the seal?

Eeeee okay so. The summon he uses a: appears to have more blood and/or burn wounds on it. and b: otherwise has most of its scales and doesn’t have the transparency effect I thought it had like the winged serpents!! Also there’s a bunch of eyeballs all over the place but we’ll get to those later.

Burn wounds are pretty straightforward and also interesting since they imply either the serpent fucked around and found out (Messmer burned it) or the serpent fucked around and found out (burned itself like an idiot, not surprising in the slightest for snakes since they miss prey strikes all the time and are, in my humble snake owner opinion, some of the dumbest creatures you’ll ever meet. Curious yes. But also. Idiots)

The snake Messmer turns into has much deeper wounds and scarring on it than just the summon of the abyssal serpent. This snake also appears to have a blind right eye (note for any reptile keepers who care: not the temporary blindness that comes with shedding). Its body is very misshapen and there are scales trying to protrude along the spine, and in several places where there don’t appear to be any wounds the scales are just…missing. This is as expected not good for snakes! They need those scales! I am honestly not quite sure how to interpret the overlapping layers of scales in some places. Like sometimes it looks like a shedding issue but also it seems like it’s the attempts of two souls trying to occupy one body? Also missing shed transparency effect! Idk what the hell was going on in my brain or if it was just lighting but I was sooooo fucking sure of the shed buildup. I was also really tired though and don’t care. The visual read was still fun. It can be a headcanon to me <3

So on those thoughts of it being two souls trying to occupy one body. What strikes me about this design is that some of the wounds look like bite scarring you’d see from live prey fighting your snake back. Again, this is a thing entirely avoidable with good husbandry (don’t live feed unless absolutely necessary). The scales to me still imply shedding has gone very wrong at some point. You’d expect to see shedding heal and scar over these wounds, but they’re all fresh. Very symbolic. You can’t heal violence by just pretending it doesn’t exist.

Ideally when a snake is wounded, you do routine care to help them with sheds and make sure the wound is clean. The scales will grow back and the wound will scar, but it will take several sheds and consistent work! You cannot, as Marika tried to do, just put a bandaid on it. You also can’t just lock a snake in a cage it will hurt itself trying to get out of (ie messmer himself) and expect that to go even remotely well.

Some of this feels like visual symbolism of self-hatred. Like I said, the base serpent looks like it’s gotten in a fight. With its host. Some of it also feels like visible neglect (ie the wounds not being healed, missing scales)

I’m gonna discuss the eyeballs bc I fuck w them immensely. First of all congrats Messmer on having an Eldritch Horror in ur body. Second of all, all these eyes appear to have lids. Actual snakes don’t. They have hard eye caps instead and cannot blink. Some of the eyes seem like they might not be able to blink, but the scales around them are still more closed than you’d expect? I fuck with it. Fits with Messmer’s blindness motif which maybe I’ll make a post on eventually. But in regards to the base serpent specifically, of course violence can afford to close its eyes and be blind to who it chooses to hurt. Violence is also something that, when committed, always seems to haunt you. Its gaze will always be there.

It’s interesting that Marika replaced Messmer’s eye to seal the serpent off, and so maybe it grew more eyes? That could be why the scales around them aren’t correct—they’re trying to protrude from the body. This occurs in both the summon and the physical snake form Messmer has. Repression of identity = Eldritch horrors? Sure I’ll take that fromsoft.

Final thing on the eyes. They’re red, not green. The winged serpents have green eyes, Elden Ring’s color of endurance. Super fitting! The abyssal serpent’s eyes are all red, the color of rot and death in this game. Red to me also feels primordial given its use in lightning by the dragons, but I digress. It’s pretty obvious why a base serpent would have base powers. This thing is old as fuck.

Okay. I’m sure you all thought the post was done but one last note on snake biology! So, snakes’ tongues retract into their mouth. When a snake opens their mouth you won’t see a forked tongue just curled up, hanging out. It’s in a little pocket for safe keeping :)

Neither of the base serpent’s forms appear to have the anatomy for this, since there are eyeballs replacing this anatomy. This is problematic for Messmer in a snake form specifically since he’s blind, and real snakes compensate for shitty vision by having an incredibly strong sense of smell. Messmer’s snake form also doesn’t have the heat pits that the abyssal serpent has. Heat pits are another part of snake anatomy, usually located below the nostrils, and are what they use to “see” heat and locate prey. In pythons (like the winged serpents) you’ll see multiple heat pits all in a row above the lip as opposed to the single very deep pit behind and below the nostrils in vipers. This single pit is what the base serpent (summon) has. Neither Messmer’s base serpent form nor his winged serpents have heat pits which is…interesting. It could be a modeling error but I don’t think so given base serpent has very clear heat pits.

My point is, Messmer is somehow even more blind than you’d expect from a snake. Maybe this makes sense given Messmer carries an internal fire, which would likely fuck with infrared? Still interesting nonetheless.

In summary: The base serpent alone (summon) seems overall in better shape than its other form (transformation). I think this is pretty straightforward symbolism—as a being on its own the serpent would probably be fine. It’s just that it uses Messmer as a host and this causes issues. Fuck around and find out I guess, base serpent.

And holy shit Messmer Cannot fucking see. Good luck with the seeing eye snakes babe because snakes notoriously have shit vision !

(Also just an aside both of the base serpent forms kind of have narrower faces than you’d see on a real snake? Like they’re more eel like to me. Anyways.)

[skipar00]

.

[valyrfia]

butches are sooooooo fucking beautiful like damn women really took one look at masculinity and went “yeah we can do that better” and then DID!

[official-lauchzwiebel]

Today my friend told me that my gender was 'unstoppable force' and tbh that's one of the greatest compliments I've ever gotten

[chotime]

💜

[audreythevaliant]

Please please don’t listen to your mind when it plunges you into the depths of despair. It’s lying to you, I promise. Please pray, read some scripture, sing some comfort songs, eat food and drink water, then eat popcorn and drink tea. Take a walk outside in your bare feet and then take a long warm shower. This too shall pass.

[seiya-starsniper]

.

[whalefill]

i know you've been following me for a minute so you might already know a bit. while living with my parents i was enduring abuse so bad i could've died if i didn't get out. i was exceptionally lucky, which sometimes is what it takes. set up a gofundme, hatched a plan with my then-best-friend now girlfriend of one year, got on a plane with nothing but my suitcases and documents and flew across the country with the money raised. it was very risky but i had a determination to get the fuck out and it was the best decision i could've made. i personally always recommend trying to raise extra money for whatever you might need, you never know if that cushion is going to make or break you. and while i live in kind of a dinky shitty apartment, it's *my* apartment. rent frugally. do a lot of research on apartments and the landlords because while a shitty first apartment is fine and well, make sure you don't get legally screwed over. when you get out it will be the hardest thing you will ever do. when the dust settles you might crash and burn hard. you learn how to be an independent adult real fast, and it is a cruel process. but the freedom to be able to do whatever you want on your own time cannot be overstated. and once you get out into the world, it can be a kinder place than you realize, depending on where you live. sorry this got so long. i just understand your despair. even if it takes a while, even if things don't go according to plan, as long as you are alive, you will make it out. just hold on.

:( thank you so much cecil you're so sweet. i'm glad we met

[twiilys]

since my laptop had an unfortunate meeting with nice, hot mug of tea... here is what i'm up to

i like that my progression is visible :)