#Domestic family feelings

[doveywovy]

usually arranged marriage aus (For peace!!!) have the uchiha be the traditionalist ones really pushing for it and the senju the ones giving way for the sake of peace. but i think it'd be funny if- i mean, look at mito. what if that's the Senju model?

tobiizu au where they're set to get married (for peace) and izuna's expecting a lot of bickering and perhaps a future murder attempt between the spouses. Certainly they're going to spend the rest of their lives arguing over which compound they stay in. he's never going to get to live with his brother again, they'll probably need some spare home in the middle of the village, it's such bullshit. And that's just location stuff, not even getting into everything else being married entails!

except then tobirama arrives and immediately sets about....being a spouse? like yes, there's a lot of bickering, but it's mostly about why the uchiha do things a certain way and if the methods matter or only the end result. Do the uchiha do their laundry in the nara for convenience or bc of historical precedence? do all uchiha brew their tea for 20 minutes or is izuna simply an insane bitter-tea lover (it's just izuna, and it's not the only bitter thing he loves.) tobirama is going to absorb every cultural norm they have and the exact reasons why they have them or so help him god

Tobirama does argue about their house- that it should be the one Izuna's already living in with madara, no secondary location, and certainly no home with the Senju. He's offended at the suggestion. Hashirama is too, when Madara brings it up with him- are you implying his little brother doesn't have his place with the uchiha? are you suggesting he's going to be constantly leaving you? Isn't he being the best wife ever? he took lessons from Mito for months in preparation, don't insult his hard work!

[virgothozul]

Ok. I have listened to the people. I have watched the thing. It is very wholesome.

Kazu comes home. He is hopeless and tipsy. And he swings between excited and wasted.

[boltsinmycereal]

✨Besties who are sick together stick together✨

Ft. Sleepy Lando in Max’s stream

[sammygender]

like. okay. im just imagining sam and dean as kids and they fight like siblings do (im talking in dean voice now). sometimes dean hits sam for being annoying cause that’s also what siblings do. dads gone all the time and when he’s back his feelings are too big for dean to handle and he cant be mad at dad cause it’s DAD, but that’s what dads do, but then sam‘s there when dad goes and sam’s being annoying as usual, can’t he understand what they do is important, can’t he put aside his own stupid wants for once, and dean’s so mad and he loves sam so much but he’s so annoying sometimes and he lashes out and hits him.

it feels a little different this time - dean actually feels kind of bad. but sam just goes quiet and takes it. and dad’s gone a lot. even when he’s there sometimes he gets really angry, too. especially when he’s drunk - sometimes he lashes out if provoked, swings for dean or for sam, sometimes he makes contact. but he never actually means it and besides dean gets what its like, dean understands. and he’s nice, really, most of the time, when he’s around, and he loves them more than anything, so it doesn’t matter. dean’s nice, too, to sam, he loves sam more than anything, so that doesn’t matter either. he’s dean’s dad and dean’s sam’s brother. this is what family is.

and if after a hunt sometimes dean’s still all fired up and sam makes a bitchy comment dean doesn’t like about hunting or dad or school or dean and dean laughs and punches him in the face? rarely sometimes sam hits back. usually more often he just scoffs, wipes the blood away, and turns back to his book or his homework or whatever he thinks is better than dean.

years pass and dad’s still never home and they’re both hunting and sam doesn’t hit back. he thinks he’s better than dean now, above the violence that’s been the language of the winchesters for so long. he just takes it. sometimes that bothers dean more than when they used to actually fight. sometimes it makes him feel guilty, sometimes it makes him more angry. but sometimes he likes it. sam’s not easily controlled and he’s always got something to say but this is a way dean can shut him up - most of the time.

its almost satisfying. it definitely makes him feel better. he’s pretty sure sam knows that, too; pretty sure it’s at least a factor in why he just takes it. maybe it’s his concession to dean, after all. something sam can do for him, does for him. maybe it’s that proof dean’s always searching for that sam does love him, no matter how often he talks about leaving these days. or maybe sometimes it just feels good to hit someone who you’re pretty sure will let you.

[jocollins]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Midsummer, Excited Stiles Stilinski, Confused Derek Hale, Nostalgia, nostalgic Stiles Stilinski, Husbands, Domestic Fluff, Domestic, Traditions, Culture Shock, Cultural Differences, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Family Feels, Dash of Humor, Happy, No Angst Summary:

Stiles is hit with nostalgia about celebrating midsummer, so he decides to celebrate it with Derek, introducing him to all the best traditions.

[hussyknee]

Two weeks ago, female wrestler Vinesh Phogat became the first woman from India to make the Olympic finals—and was promptly disqualified for being 100 grams overweight.

On August 9, Vinesh Phogat announced her retirement from the sport of wrestling in a post on X. After the previous day’s incidents, it was a message that many had been expecting.

Vinesh experienced the highest of highs at the Paris Olympics. She defeated an unbeaten Olympic champion wrestler who was considered not just the favourite in her weight division but across every weight division at the quadrennial event. She became the first Indian woman wrestler to reach an Olympic final. However, Vinesh also faced the lowest of lows at the Olympics. No one had ever reached an Olympic final only to be denied the chance to compete because they had failed to make weight on the day of the competition.

Vinesh had taken her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, seeking at least to be awarded a silver medal by virtue of reaching the final. If she had succeeded, she would have set a precedent, but, much to the disappointment of the nation, her appeal was turned down by the sole arbitrator, Annabelle Bennett.

...

Vinesh has always been a fighter. Tragedy has followed her, yet somehow, against the odds, she has emerged victorious.

When she was nine, her father was shot dead by someone in her village, believed to be a mentally disturbed relative, just outside their front door. Her mother, a young widow, refused the custom of marrying her husband’s brother. She battled cancer single-handedly. Through it all, she raised a firebrand daughter, who refused to back down.

Her cousins, who grew up near her home, were the more famous girls of the family. Geeta and Babita were among the first to win gold at the Commonwealth Games. They had a movie made about them — Dangal — which made the ‘Phogat sisters’ iconic in Indian sports.

Vinesh didn’t feature in that movie. The events described in it took place too early in her career. But she wouldn’t be satisfied with being one of the Phogat sisters — she would become ‘The Phogat’ sister.

Talk to any of her peers .— and even some of her rivals in Indian wrestling – and there is, in some cases, grudging, genuine respect. She is considered the most instinctive and natural wrestler India has ever produced in women’s freestyle wrestling.

Her career is as much a highlight reel as anything out of a movie. No one in women’s wrestling compares. No Indian woman wrestler has won three Commonwealth gold medals as she did in 2014, 2018, and 2022. No one has won an Asian Games gold medal as she did in 2018. No one has won two World Championships medals as she did in 2019 and 2022.

The one medal missing from her collection is the Olympic medal — which she fought bitterly for.

...

Vinesh has had terrible luck at the Olympics — the only competition that seems to matter to Indians. In 2016, she was one of the favourites in the Indian team before her knee was bent out of shape in the quarterfinals. In 2020, she was one of the world’s favourites to medal in the women’s 53kg weight class. Then, suddenly, a freak weight cut left her physically and psychologically broken, unable to coordinate her movements on the mat. She lost to a wrestler she had beaten comfortably just a month before. Now, in Paris, another poor weight cut left her at the lowest point of her wrestling career.

Her battles, though, haven’t been restricted to the mat. Perhaps the most significant one Vinesh has fought has been for the safety of young girls in the sport. In pursuing this fight, she took on one of the most powerful men in Indian sports — Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

When her rivals were preparing for the Olympics, Vinesh was fighting on the streets of New Delhi, where she, and few other fellow wrestlers, accused Brij Bhushan, a five-time member of parliament and the long-time president of the Wrestling Federation, of sexual harassment.

The longer she stayed on the streets, the slimmer her chances on the mat became. Yet, she continued to prioritise what she felt was right. In doing so, Vinesh showed the kind of courage almost uniformly lacking in most sportspersons in India. Most of them, as the saying goes, “crawl when asked to bend.” Vinesh’s spine has been ramrod straight. She had the courage to take on the system without caring about the consequences. She displayed it even though it cost her what she loved the most — the chance to wrestle.

Only when her protest was forced off the streets and entered the court did Vinesh finally get a chance to compete.

This article delves into her struggle to rein in her weight as the Olympic timeline unfolded. It's horrifying to read.

TW for fatphobia and people with eating disorders and body dysmorphia: fatphobia:

Even as she had been winning, Vinesh’s nutritionist had been nervously monitoring her food and fluid intake.

She had a celebratory glass of juice in the morning right after she had first made weight – 300 grams. She had another couple of litres of fluid to rehydrate herself before her bout - another 2000 grams of body weight gained. A couple of light snacks throughout the day to keep her energy up meant 700 grams more.

By the time Vinesh was done with her day’s competition, she weighed 52.7 kg.

August 7:

As the hours rolled into the night, it was clear that something had gone very wrong. After weeks of dehydration, the human body, once it gets rehydrated, simply refuses to give up water. Even urination becomes impossible.

Vinesh didn’t sleep all through the night of August 6. She was on the treadmill for six hours and in the sauna for another three. She didn’t consume a bite of food or drink a drop of water. Every few hours, she stood on a weighing scale. The numbers were getting smaller but not fast enough. In desperation, her coaches trimmed the elastic in the bottom of her costume. They thought of chopping her hair and then did it.

But the scale didn’t budge.

The function of weight classes is to prevent outsized mismatches in strength due to body mass and minimize injury. Pathologizing what is clearly water weight to this extent and subjecting athletes to this kind of psychological torture due to minute variables is simply making what is essentially a safety measure into a punitive arbitrary criteria that has huge implications for racialized fatphobia for female athletes and the reinforcement of toxic diet culture across the board. It's misogynistic, unscientific and fucked. This article goes into more detail about Phogat's career-long battle with her weight— a yo-yo of losing too much, and then too little. Indistinguishable from an eating disorder, only one imposed by the standards of international sports.

You will never convince me that a white athlete would have been disqualified in the lightest weight category for a weight less than a bar of soap. The disqualification retroactively places her dead last, which is added cruelty. The refusal to revise this and even award her a joint silver is just adding racist insult to racist injury.

Phogat spoke two days ago about her devastation at being disqualified by racism and fatphobia with a three page post on twitter.

And on top of all of this, because the Indian National Congress political party welcomed her with a road show that outshone the alt-right BJP's own planned welcome, the Hindutvas in her own country have launched a hate campaign against her.

This copy-paste has "disqualified in Rio 2016" trending on twitter. It's doubly cruel and fatphobic because she wasn't disqualified for being overweight, she sustained a knee injury.

After the witch hunt against Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, I'm just so fucking done with the Olympics. The outsize importance of this competition is nothing but an anvil to break entire careers on and offers female athletes of colour on a platter for all the world's vultures.

[formerheroeswhoquittoolate]

yeah hey damian canonically draws and I'm willing to bet money that has-read-every-book-in-the-manor jason writes, at least for himself/for fun.

so I've entered into my personal canon that occasionally they write little comic strips together.

they're just strips, four panels of a joke (jason is introducing damian to things like calvin and hobbes and foxtrot and tim has joined in with some xkcd and strange planet) but they have fun with it. sometimes they're lightly poking fun at one of their siblings or bruce or the justice league, sometimes they're inside jokes between the two of them.

they kept it quiet, but by now, each of their siblings has one of their strips, carefully tucked away in a drawer or pinned to a bulletin board or, in bruce's case, in a small frame on his desk at wayne enterprises.

[amoxicillin-tangent]

how to leave a cult & stay out (long post)

i know this isn't my usual brand, but i felt the need to make this post given the fact that my poetry journey started as an exploration of emotions after i left the cult i was in. i know a lot of my followers initially followed me for that content, and i wanted to write this in case anyone needs it.

some background: the cult i left was a small evangelical patriarchal cult with a commune-type living situation. i am afab, with little to no family support and no college experience. i live in the US. i have no experience with anything outside this situation, and thus, my advice will not be universal. however, i've left and stayed out of my cult for nearly a year, and i wanted to share what i learned. i remember wishing i'd had a post or a book or anything to help me know what to expect, so here's what i've gathered so far!

tws: religious abuse discussion and addiction/nicotine mentions

leaving (logistics)

work

my ability to logistically and financially separate from my cult stemmed largely from the fact that i had work outside the commune & their sphere. my first attempt to leave was thwarted simply by the fact that, at that time, i worked with other 4 cult members and had no ability to seek outside employment without raising suspicion.

however, i was able to gain permission to seek external employment under the premise that i would be able to tithe more, and that i felt this was "the direction i was being led in." i am aware that this is not the case for every cult. in fact, after i left, it essentially stopped being the case for mine either. however, if at all possible, gaining external employment is key.

if you cannot seek external employment, save every single penny you can [in cash if they check your bank statements], and submit job applications a couple weeks or so before you leave. do not be afraid to quit a job that the members have some access to in order to be in a safer situation, because that mentality will keep you tied there for longer. a script for asking your manager not to penalize you for a sudden exit would look something like this (presuming the managers were not also members or leaders of the cult):

"hello X,

i am experiencing some unforeseen circumstances and leaving a dangerous [complicated, difficult, etc.] situation. my last day will be [day before you plan on leaving the cult]. i understand that this is not a full two-weeks-notice, but due to this circumstance, i am asking for understanding. please keep this confidential, as it would threaten my safety if others knew about this."

if you don't trust your management not to blab, ask for answers from other members, or even just accidentally let something slip, it is acceptable to quit the day you leave. it's better to have a rough patch on your resume than to spend the rest of your life in a cult, and in all honesty, it doesn't really matter much anyways. a gap in your resume can easily be explained away as time spent caring for a family member or staying safe in the current pandemic, and quitting under "unfavorable circumstances" still bodes significantly better than being fired. this is, of course, all worst case scenario. most managers will be understanding.

having another job lined up immediately after leaving will also prevent a great deal of problems with this. job interviews can be completed virtually from a coffee shop you know they wouldn't visit, or the house of a safe friend or family member. in the middle of this post is a list of excuses you could use to step out for a job interview, and if that's not possible: while you're PIMO [physically in, mentally out, a term for still being present in the cult but having the desire and plan to leave] you can schedule your job interviews in advance for the days/weeks after your planned date of leaving the cult.

social life

let me start with this: your friends from before are your greatest asset. they do not hate you. they will believe you. chances are higher than not that they saw the warning signs before you ever did. i can guarantee you a vast majority of them have been waiting for a phone call from you since the day you joined saying that you planned on leaving.

if your family was not abusive, toxic, manipulative, or connected in any way to your cult, they can also be an asset. however, tread carefully with this. you don't want to hop out of the fire and into the frying pan, so to speak. moving out of a commune and back into an abusive parent's house can cause more trauma in the long run.

if there is any sphere where you can connect with people that your cult does not have access to, utilize it. i found friends online, at work, and through mutual friends of people i had met before i joined the cult. even if you work with other cult members, if there are any non-members in your workplace, you can still make an effort to befriend them. if questioned by your cult, you're just trying to convert them.

being friends with someone doesn't mean you have to confess every detail of your plan to leave. you don't even have to mention your plans. friends can be a safety net even if they don't know what you're going through. choose carefully who to trust, but don't shut everyone out either.

housing

if you live with your cult, finding housing is an immediate priority.

the biggest mistake i ever made was my refusal to couch surf for fear of being kicked out or "becoming a burden."

your friends aren't nearly as troubled by you as your cult would have you believe. in fact, to this day, if a member of the cult i left were to come to my door asking for refuge, i would open my home to them without a question. your friends would rather see you on their couch or in their spare bedroom for a month than ever watch you go back to the place you left.

the first time i ever left my cult, i went back because i feared i was burdening the friend i was staying with. it wasn't until she called me sobbing that i finally realized that i wasn't the burden; my absence was the burden. taking up space is not a crime. no matter how much the cult tells you otherwise.

if you can't immediately find an apartment due to credit issues, age, income thresholds, etc, extended stay hotels are an option if you have no friends to stay with. the price ends up being equivalent to the cost of room & bills at an apartment anyways. this is a temporary option, during which you can take the following (vaguely unethical but often necessary) measures to hopefully secure a more permanent situation:

find a friend who's good at photoshop and invent some pay statements. [if possible, try to make them from scratch based off an existing pay stub of yours. landlords, especially of large apartment complex chains, recognize the common templates.]

you might have better luck getting approved [and/or getting away with forged paystubs] at a smaller apartment complex, specifically the ones you can't find on google. you may have to drive around and physically look for these complexes.

look up second-chance apartments

apply for any and all government aid you may be eligible for

work overtime or a second job to make your pay stubs appear greater. this is a temporary measure only; stressful, but worthwhile in the long run.

look on roommate-finding websites! a lot of people won't require credit checks, formalities, etc. a horrible roommate is still generally less of a pain in the ass than, oh, i don't know, 12 horrible roommates who are watching your every move and reporting back to the people in charge.

look for subleasing situations on websites like Craigslist as a last resort. take precautions, don't meet anyone alone, etc.

https://www.apartments.com/ ^here's the website i used to find my apartment before i left. it has a lot of good filters. delete your browsing history afterwards.

if you don't live with your cult, the moment you separate, you should file and enforce a restraining order if you feel even the slightest bit comfortable doing so and consider changing apartments within your unit, moving houses if feasible, etc. invest in an alarm system, a vicious-looking animal, a deadbolt, all the security measures you would take if you were being stalked. which brings us to our next point.

privacy

if they're monitoring your bank accounts, open another one in secret if possible or keep as much money as you can on a Pay-pal card, Visa card, etc. funnel as much money as you can into these accounts without arousing suspicion. the moment you leave, immediately cancel any account they may have access to and withdraw all money from it.

keep any incriminating items in your bra and/or undergarments. at all times. this includes vital documents [social security card, birth certificate, etc.], cash that you're hoarding without their knowledge [gross but necessary, keep it in a ziploc and sanitize it with a lysol wipe], etc.

have all mail that would reveal your escape plans sent to non-member friends or a P.O. box.

the day you leave, inform HR at work that your presence in the building should not be disclosed to anyone. change shifts if you can, park your vehicle elsewhere and uber from close parking lots to your building, or take steps to make your vehicle unrecognizable (remove telltale stickers, add new stickers with topics you have no interest in, add new rearview mirror hangy thingies, even remove seat or steering wheel covers if you have to. they might remember your license plate, but at very least your car wouldn't be initially recognizable.

if they have access to your location, do not turn this off until the moment you leave. when you do, do so quickly and on every possible platform. this should coincide with password changes for any account that can be used to trace you (email, Google location history, maps, apple/icloud, Find my IPhone, Life360, Airtags, bank accounts [use cash until the account is cancelled if they know about it], vehicle GPS)

if you have an IPhone, you will automatically be alerted if an unfamiliar Airtag is following your location. If you have an Android device, download "Airguard" or a similar app which will serve the same purpose. at very least, this will give you peace of mind.

a burner phone is an absolute necessity. you can find them at walmart and the combined cost of the phone and prepaid card is usually less than $100 [USD].

clear your browser history. change contact names of all non-member contacts to the name of someone you're in the cult with and delete the texts. people hardly ever check phone numbers if the contact name isn't suspicious to begin with. add parentheses beside contact names with [deceptive] information about who they are.

example: i had a non-member friend saved as "Karen (Boss at Amazon)" in my phone. that way if i got a call, i could play it off as a work call and step away.

packing/preparing to leave

lie and tell them you're organizing things. this is a GREAT excuse to have everything you own in pre-packed storage bins. under the bed is a good location to keep things. the less you act like you're trying to hide what you're doing, the better.

keep clothes on hangers for easy access. when you're packing to leave [presuming you can do so in secret], just grab them off the hangers and shove them into trash bags. don't worry about neat. just find a place to put shit and haul ass.

it's okay to steal shit but don't steal anything valuable at all or anything terribly noticeable. the last thing you want is them having evidence for legal recourse against you.

if there's food, take food. i lived off a tupperware full of chicken salad i stole from the cult for a solid 4 days. bring medicine with you regardless of whether or not you "have a good immune system". even if you don't think you'll need it, you'll need it, i promise.

it's better to leave everything and get out with your freedom than take all you own and get caught. that being said, if you have a feasible way of taking everything, do that. the last thing you want is to be so financially fucked that you feel like your only hope is to go back to them. [it is NOT.]

if you need to relay information to a non-member contact in a safe and private manner while with people, have them call you and pretend to be a business. for example, i had my secret debit card mailed to a friend, and i had her call me pretending to be the bank and read me off the number so i could put it in my apple pay. this could also work as far as pretending to talk to your boss or coworker [i.e. "Yes, I can take that shift starting at 10am" = "Yes, I will meet you at X location at 10am", etc.]

playing it off/excuses to be gone for apartment hunting or other leaving-related matters

doctors' appointments

[a minor medical issue or procedure can be a really good way to get out repeatedly if your cult allows access to medical care. i only know this because i had a real, diagnosed ovarian cyst but i proceeded to make up several appointments for it that were actually apartment complex visits, so.]

illness

[make this season-appropriate and believable. flu in winter and spring and late fall only. don't do COVID unless you can realistically forge a rapid test and trust that they won't make you prove it with a PCR. i don't advocate lying in any other circumstance, but once again, this is not an ethics class. cults play dirty, so can we.

promotion at work/added responsibility

[only works for so long before they try to make you quit the job, but it can make a good excuse in the interim]

car troubles

[visits "to the mechanic"=time out of the house. "car overheated/flat tire/locked out of my car/lost my keys"=good excuse for being late to events/being gone longer than expected]

ill family member

can give you two or three days to "be out of town" if needed, and/or time to go "see them in the hospital" or "care for them" over the course of a few weeks, especially for a chronic issue or an injury that would render them unable to walk and thus in need of consistent care.

[no, this will not bring a curse on your family or "manifest itself," that's magical thinking. if you argue about this in my notes on a post meant for cult escapees who are already struggling with religious trauma i'm reporting you <3]

leaving

pretending to be "late" to a church service is a good tactic if the services aren't held in the same area as where you're living. i told them i was running late from work and in reality i was at the commune house away from the service throwing all my shit in my car.

the second time, they had already caught onto that trick and started driving me to services directly so i wouldn't have a chance to leave. if this is the case for you, 3am is generally a great time to leave. usually night owls go to bed around 2am and early risers get up around 6am, so 3am leaves you with 3 hours to gtfo and an hour of buffer in case anyone stayed up late.

i was living in a room with four other women, so i had to be very, very skilled as far as not waking anyone goes. think critically about your roommates' sleep habits if this is the case for you in your cult. i made sure to walk closer to the bed of the heavy sleeper.

walk barefoot if taking the "middle of the night escape" approach. even if it's cold. if there's snow, you may have to keep your shoes by the front door/window you're escaping from if you're having to make several trips back and forth. wear non-slip socks if you must wear socks. if the socks get wet, take them off. a great way to attract attention is by leaving footprints everywhere, or by busting your ass and getting caught because a lamp broke.

a great excuse for being up late to leave is that you're feeling sick to your stomach and need to be close to the bathroom. fake a v*miting episode if you have to.

don't leave letters. don't send goodbye texts. leave some stuff behind if you can, especially blankets and the like to make it look less empty in your living space. my cult didn't even realize i was gone until 12 hours after i left because they thought i'd just gone to work. that's 12 hours of time where i wasn't being looked for, which made me a whole lot harder to find.

block EVERYONE. as soon as you possibly can. once you're out of the direct cult location, pull off into a safe place where you won't be immediately found and block anyone who is directly there or who could be persuaded into attempting to contact you on their behalf.

after leaving

try not to be alone, if you can help it. now's not the time for self-work. if you know loneliness might trigger the desire to go back, don't get lonely. hang out with friends all the time, go to clubs [responsibly and safely], take extra shifts at work if you can. try to hang out with your coworkers, i think like 80% of my friends back then were people i worked with. they might not be the best friends you ever had, but this isn't about making forever connections. it's about not going insane from loneliness.

online friends are also great! i had/have quite a few who helped me immensely in the months after i left. if you're the kind of person to stay up late when none of your other friends irl are awake, online friends with opposite time schedules are *chefs kiss* lovely. join discord servers for your interests if you aren't sure where to start with, but some discord servers can be toxic asf so don't be afraid to abandon a groupchat if it's too much.

don't pick up habits if you can help it. one habit turns into a million, especially when you're this vulnerable. i smoked a single cigarette as an act of rebellion and two years later my nicotine addiction can be directly traced back to me self-medicating my anxiety.

that being said. and i am toeing the line heavily between realistic and ethical here. but. if i had to choose between staying in the cult or having a nicotine addiction, i'd choose the addiction. i can break an addiction without having to change my account and routing number, soooo. yeah. take that as you will.

post-cult agoraphobia is real. don't feel guilty if it's hard to leave the house at first. grocery delivery is an option. grocery pickup is an option. uber eats is a thing that exists. you'll find your safe places & start to feel less threatened, over time.

idk if this will help anyone else, but i personally benefitted greatly from making a comprehensive list of shit they told me not to do and doing it anyways. please do not endanger yourself in this process, but. fuck it! i dyed my hair purple. i did a shitty job, but it made me happy. i kissed an embarrassing number of people. i came out as a lesbian. i adopted a cat. i wrote a book. i found myself through losing the pieces of the cult until the pieces of me filed in and took their place.

if you can help it, try to avoid the physical location or even the city the cult is located in for awhile. i understand the morbid urge to keep visiting but don't, if you can help it.

nostalgia is a BITCH and a LIAR. that cult leader was not your replacement mother, she is a bitch. the other cult members are not your brothers and sisters, they are traumatized brainwashed individuals. don't try to save them, either. if they reach out to you for help that's one thing but now's not the time to be a martyr.

most importantly: breathe. i used to physically look at a clock and talk myself through every minute on the very bad nights. just "one more minute. i can survive one more minute." it's fun to watch it grow to two minutes, then five, then an hour, and eventually you realize you're not counting your survival in increments anymore, and then one day you realize you're thriving. but be nice to yourself in the interim. it's been two years for me and i just now don't feel like i'm drowning anymore.

please reach out if you need more advice/someone to talk to. you don't have to do this alone. i believe in you and you're gonna get out and stay out.

you will survive this. i promise.

[shebeafancyflapjack]

Difference between UK and US Ghosts I think could be summed up as:

The US Ghosts are Sam's best friends.

The UK Ghosts are Alison's family.

[beltsourcookie]

the faerie kingdom episode would have been better if they added worms and moles as their npcs and not a bunch of monotone grayscale silver aesthetic

in fact, the forest/woods aesthetic isnt the problem because compared to actual cottagecore faerie aesthetic, the faerie kingdom is too incredibly 'pristine' and feels like youre in in the utensil section of the cooking aisle

devsis creating the faerie kingdom:

what the faerie kingdom should have taken inspiration from:

cookies that have heavy designs from wild berries and flowers would have been more suitable because it can build a more creative and colourful world instead and there would be endless possibilities for outfits

[entering--hyperspace]

Cannot imagine whatever is going on through Mr Leonard Echowatcher's head. You spend your life yearning for a world where you lived differently, where the day wasnt soaked in war, blood, and battle. Where you could envision a future where you have a partner and a family with friends to live gracefully with. But then you are given such opportunities only to find you were never taught to be gentle, you have a gentle, empathetic nature and yet the physicality of it is a stranger to you. You are expected to raise a child with gentle hands so that she saves the world, What does that even mean? How can you accept your growing love for your friend when you were never taught how to love, that intimate love is a luxury best left forgotten, there are no need for such things in war. He has to learn to become the things he wanted bc he grew too old to develop it naturally. He becomes a father to taimi fumbling his way into learning how to care and parent, he is defensive of Aurene bc he is from a culture where they arent expected to raise their own young and yet has to do so with a dragon. It feels like a test, He has to prove both to others and to himself he is capable of being a father, of nuturing, that calloused, stained hands can still be gentle. He has to accept that love is a terrifying leap of faith in vulnerability in order to gain a partnership that is considered a rarity. I love the idea that he spent 30 years yearning for things he thought he would never have and when he is actually given those opportunities (albeit admittedly through unusual circumstances) he has to learn how to actually live in them, becuase they were always just Concepts until now. Ohhhh my god Mr. Leo you are my everything

[yesokayiknow]

rewatching the wedding of river song just for those five minutes of all three ponds sitting down at home and talking ;-;

[animeaddict578]

Agony: This is literally so dumb

Scream: The higher I am, the better I can see

Agony: You can fly

Scream: Hush now Agony, I am searching

[jocollins]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale, Laura Hale, Peter Hale Additional Tags: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Domestic, Overprotective, Overprotective Stiles Stilinski, Hale Family Feels (Teen Wolf), The Hale Family Loves Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Deserves Nice Things, Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Happy, One Big Happy Family, Healing Series: Part 6 of Broken Like You Summary:

It’s a long way to healing but having found a family who cares, can help a great deal.

[dhmis-autism]

ok literally been obsessively playing this song ALL DAY bc its such a duck song to me ok? ok

[wangxianficrecs]

Meng Yao vs. the Board of the Homeowner's Association by Ariaste

Meng Yao vs. the Board of the Homeowner's Association

by Ariaste

M, 119k, WIP, series, Xiyao & Wangxian

Summary: Two gremlins, their husbands, and the horrible HOA board. As long as nobody gets arrested for arson or murder, we're gonna call it a win.

Mojo's comments: Very funny modern au (all POV meng yao) wherein he and lan xichen are happily married and living in suburbia near a similarly happily married wangxian. Meng Yao only thrives when he can scheme, of course, and his shameless violence is aimed at protecting his hubby (whose tomatoes were violated by Horrible Susan of the HOA). Wwx is just happy to gremlin with his brother-in-law via late-night McDonald's warroom planning. Somehow, this turns them into accidental friends. Meanwhile, Lan family secrets start coming out ('secret' is a foreign concept to wei 'overshare' ying, heh) and it explains SO. MUCH. 9 works so far, series in progress. (9th work is 2/3.)

Excerpt: “Sometimes I just tell A-Yao things. They just fall out of my mouth.” Wei Wuxian spoons an alarming amount of marshmallows into his cocoa. “You understand, don’t you, dage? It’s just so easy to tell him things.” “I understand,” Huan-ge says. “I too tell him things often.” Meng Yao, sipping at the edge of the foam on his cocoa, pauses. There’s a… tone in Huan-ge’s voice. A setting-a-trap tone. “Yeah! Yeah, you get it.” “For example,” Huan-ge says smoothly, picking up the tray and straightening again, “after every time A-Yao and I make love, we shake hands and say, ‘Thank you for the orgasm, respected associate, it was satisfactory,’ and then I give his sexual performance a rating on a scale of one to ten.” Wei Wuxian freezes at the phrase ‘make love’. By the end of the sentence, his eye is twitching. Meng Yao keeps his face perfectly straight as Huan-ge walks out of the room with the tray tucked under his arm. “What’s the face for?” Meng Yao says, sipping cocoa. “Do you and Wangji not do that?” “Is this real life?” Wei Wuxian says, the paralysis melting away into distress. “Did this just happen? A-Yao, that wasn’t real, was it? He was just--fucking with me? Right??” “I beg your pardon? Have you ever known Xichen to be the sort to fuck with anyone?” Meng Yao takes another judgmental sip of cocoa. “I’ll thank you to not speak like that about my respected associate.”

humor, modern setting, modern no magic, meng yao & wei wuxian, jin guangyao & wei wuxian, pov jin guangyao, accidental therapy, accidental friendship, relationship development, hijinks & shenanigans, chicanery, fluff, domestic, family feels, adoption, bamf madam lan, bamf jin guangyao, gremlin wei wuxian, shameless wei wuxian, getting high, suburbia, feel good fic, @ariaste

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