#a letter to my friends

[pearlh3art]

I’m an awful friend, why do they still talk to me.

Im grateful they do but

Why do they I’m no fun, depressing, and stubborn

But they continue to ask to hang out.

I’m a terrible friend

I’m sorry that I’ve changed.

[probablyscreamingintothevoid]

To my friends that don't understand why I love Eddie Munson (or whoever is reading this....)

That's valid. You didn't really know me when I was a little emo kid. You didn't know how fucking proud I was that the other kids in my class never understood why I was the way I was. But I was an edgy, wanna be emo kid dude. I did weird shit for the attention because, if I am being honest with you, I didn't know how else to get it. I've mostly outgrown that now.

You've gotten close to the version of me who forces herself to communicate even though it's a challenge and it isn't always perfect. The person that types this today is not the same one that identifies with Eddie, not really. I've grown and changed and healed and broken apart just to have to do it all over again. This me? I understand why you are confused. She is pastels and glitter, aesthetic wallpapers and pretty anime boys hung up in her bed room. She is crop tops and perfectly painted nails, the color pink, a bubble tea popsocket, and soft indie acoustic music playing in the background as she writes. She is living authentically for herself and for others, in hopes that no one she meets will ever feel as alone as she once did. She should not identify with Eddie. But she does.

I remember once in middle school someone dared me to dress in the gothic fashion, make up and all and I did it. And this other 8th grade was like, "You know that doesn't make you pretty right? No one will like you if you dress like that" and I was thrilled, dude. Beyond thrilled. 

And that's where I identify with Eddie. I was happy being the "freak". I didn't want to fit in. Fitting in and later being rejected? That was scarier than never fitting in at all. I never gave people the opportunity to get to know me because I had been hurt before - I had no interest in doing it again. I kept my walls up, hiding in dark clothes and angry music, straightened hair and chains on my pants. I didn't want to be approachable because I did not want to be approached.

You can still see that part of me now, it's just less edgy and more, me??? It's softened, like I have, with time. But that was such a big part of me for literally so long. My two aesthetics battle with each other to this day. They always will. I have learned to simply give them both time to shine.

And I don't know. I think seeing Eddie reminded me that the broken, angry, nonconforming version of myself will always be here. And I'll always love her. I've accepted her, given her the love that she always needed and didn't get from anyone else. Helped her to understand that should could like pink and ripped jeans, dark make up and soft music. She could be two multiple things at once, while still being herself. It was okay if she liked things everyone else did, and it was okay to like things that no one else did too.

That's how I identify with Eddie. I saw that freak and my little, once lost heart was so happy. I wanted to be Eddie, a part of me still does, and I think it always will.

I hope that makes sense. And I don't mean to imply that Eddie is broken, or people who identify with him are damaged in anyway. That isn't my intention. I am speaking of my own experience, the things that I loved once and the things that I love now and how I can look back at them and see my own journey of self love and self discovery so clearly. But that's not me saying that I think someone like Eddie should change. Not at all, in fact. I love him. I love the part of me that identifies with him.

I have connected with other characters and I hate it because they highlight the parts of me that I am still learning to love and accept, the parts of me that I am trying to not think of as weak but still feel as though they are. But I love my connection to Eddie. The girl who loves him is strong, and I hope he continues to connect with a whole group of people who have desperately waited for a character like him.

If you made it this far and you don't understand me any better than when you started that's okay. We can't always fully understand each other, but we can love and accept one another, and that's all I ask. Please don't hate someone for loving Eddie as much as I do - for loving anyone to that capacity, you never know what part of that person the character is able to reach, and maybe it's a part that has feel alone for a really, really long time.

Be kind.

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

[wobubling]

Tim drake outed as #1 nightwing fan

Text transcript:

Bart: Hey, Kon, doesn’t that guy remind you of Robin?

Kon: No way! Robin would never do something as geeky as wearing superhero merch! And aren’t him and Nightwing like siblings anyways?

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

Hot take maybe but I think Bertie would be FAR more likely to survive the first two months of Dracula than Jeeves would be. Bertie has a healthy sense of self-preservation. Jeeves consistently underestimates how dangerous a situation might get (Steeple Bumpleigh, the club book) because he’s overconfident about his level of control over any given situation. He'd handle Dracula masterfully if they faced off in England, but on Dracula's home turf? Much more doubtful.

I realize this might be a tough sell, so I will explain further (or it's not a tough sell, and I'm going to explain further because I want to). (criteria taken from @canyourfavesurvivecastledracula) Without further ado.

Would Jeeves and Wooster survive Castle Dracula?

Jeeves

Jeeves' survival will depend on how long Dracula finds him more entertaining than irritating. On that basis, I don't think he's long for this world. On the one hand, he has a huge wealth of knowledge about English society and culture that he can recite perfectly from memory. That should buy him at least a little time with noted teaboo Dracula.

On the other hand, he would be absolutely no fun as a vampire plaything. Jeeves cannot be got. Sneaking up on him while he's shaving will yield zero reaction (though that's at least good for his short-term survival--given that, although he DID take the crucifix from the old woman out of politeness, he certainly isn't going to wear it. The rules of fashion don't go out the window just because you're in a spooky castle). Then, although managing the whims of rich jerks is not an insignificant part of a valet's job, Jeeves usually does this by bending his employers to his will. Dracula is not the sort of employer this will work on. It'll just add insult to injury when on top of being impossible to scare, NOW Jeeves is telling Dracula that his favorite cloak is several centuries out of fashion and he's not allowed to wear it anymore.

Jeeves will 100% go exploring in the areas he was told not to go-- though to be fair, he MIGHT actually get away with this, what with his superpower of appearing in rooms without being seen or heard. Said superpower might save him from the brides as well (though this is by no means guaranteed). Since I find it doubtful that Dracula would come to rescue his annoying ass, not being noticed is his best defense.

There are a couple other things working in Jeeves's favor; the question is just whether they'll be enough to save him.

He DOES know shorthand, and could try to send coded letters. He might even have the foresight to squirrel away some extra stationary where Dracula can't find it. But could he get them posted? Would it even do him any good?

He certainly has enough cultural literacy to figure out what his new boss is pretty quickly. If he didn't chuck the crucifix out the carriage window, he might start carrying it around in his pocket.

Psychology of the individual, sure, but the individual in question is a 400-year-old vampire who lives in an isolated castle in a foreign country and is regarded as a terrifying mythological figure in the surrounding villages. Jeeves has never come up against anything this alien before, he's cut off from his normal resources, and opportunities to play people against each other are limited.

He probably has enough upper body strength from all that shrimping and fishing to climb the wall, so he COULD escape if he wanted to, if he survived long enough. It's just, again, that overconfidence, and also Dracula has a vast library full of rare old books that are entirely at his disposal. He's keeping his eyes and ears alert for potential escape strategies, of course, but I don't see him being as desperate to get out as Jonathan was.

There are just a lot of "depends on"s here, and I'm not convinced that luck would shake out in Jeeves's favor, all things considered.

Bertie

Bertie is so perfect for the job of Castle Dracula Prisoner it's like it was made for him. Think about it. Being held against his will in big manor houses comes more naturally to him than breathing. He's afraid of things that are scary. A lifetime of dealing with Aunt Agatha has made him the world's preeminent expert in "curl[ing] up in a ball in the hope that a meek subservience [will] enable [him] to get off lightly." He will NEVER go exploring in places he's been warned away from if nobody is forcing him to (Rev. Aubrey Upjohn's office notwithstanding. There were biscuits in there). He's both fun to talk to and easy to toy with (and extremely English). A+ prisoner. Dracula adores him.

In my opinion, Bertie is at Castle Dracula either because Aunt Agatha got some wires seriously crossed and thinks he’s going to meet an eligible potential bride (I mean, there are certainly brides there), or because Dracula has something Aunt Dahlia wants him to steal (far less likely, given that one of Dracula’s THINGS is famously not owning anything silver). Either way, he's shown himself entirely willing and able to escape down drainpipes if a sitch gets too scaly.

He DOES take the crucifix, and DOES wear it (which is what will save him during the shaving scene, because you KNOW he's going to jump a foot and cut himself like the dickens). He's read enough supernatural goosefleshers to be genre savvy about terrified old women cryptically pushing crucifixes into one's hands. I also think his sunny disposish endeared him to the villagers, and they were particularly vehement about urging him not to go. He doesn't speak German or Romanian, but he's empathetic enough to recognize Pure Terror. So by the time he actually gets to the castle, his imagination is already running wild and he's plenty aware that he is in imminent danger.

I think the biggest risk to Bertie will be the brides; whether or not he's susceptible to trances, if he thinks they're trying to marry him, it's against the code of the Woosters to turn them down. But that only becomes an issue if he comes face to face with them, which, luckily, I think is unlikely on account of the aforementioned "won't go exploring" (and if he did, Dracula would definitely rescue him).

I'm inclined to say due to his drainpipe-escape habits that he WOULD be able to climb the wall and MAY attempt to sneak into Dracula's room to look for the keys if his desperation grows to outweigh his fear. Whether he does or not, though, he does NOT have the stomach to attempt shovel murder, and therefore won't get magic brain fever, and may very well simply walk out the front doors when the people come to take the boxes away. OR he climbs his way out like Jonathan did. Either way.

When Bertie tells this story at the Drones later, Tuppy will say that no doubt it's been greatly exaggerated and all that probably happened was that he spent a couple months in an oldish house entertaining a weird loner.

[fictionadventurer]

I love libraries.

I'm browsing the WWI shelves (as you do) and notice a very old book about the war. I glance at the first pages that talk about how one day the war will be over and we'll look at this place and not see any signs of the battlefield.

Then it hits me. And I check the publishing date.

This book was printed before the war's end. Not written. Printed. The physical object was created in 1918, while the war in question was raging and the end was as yet uncertain.

Now I'm standing on the other side of the apocalypse, with this physical link to that era in my hands. I'm living proof that the war did end and life did go on and we can all look at the end of the world as a long-ago memory.

Reading old books is cool enough, connecting our minds and hearts through the ideas of people who lived long ago, but there's something extra profound about holding a copy of the book that comes from the time that it was written. It's a physical link between the past and the present connecting me to those long-ago people. A piece of the past come into the future that gives me the chance to almost take the hand of some long-ago reader, to hold something they could have held, connecting not just mentally but physically to their era, a moment of connection across more than a century.

Excuse me while I go weep.

[bitsbug]

Me and a friend have been developing this conlang thing for use in co-op play, both for immersion and so we don’t need to constantly pause to type things. I call it slugsign :-)

I should note that neither of us know ANYTHING about language structure or conlanging, we just developed it naturally lol.

some grammar notes:

-’punctuation’ style signs (such as ‘question’, ’attention’, ’relax’) come before the rest of the sentence. this is for clarity of intent

-’relax’ can be used to initiate longer, more complex conversations

-signs are VERY position specific. the limitations of the medium make a lot of signs look similar, so using the right starting and ending positions are important.

-’region’ specifies which region you’re referring to by the direction of your arm waggling, and the regions adjecent to the one you’re currently in. For example if you were in industrial complex and wanted to refer to chimney canopy, you’d waggle upwards.

[bunjywunjy]

I got got again

[metamorphesque]

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

[magpiedraws]

Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion

[positivelyadhd]

reminder that making time for your friends, even when you're tried and socialising feels overwhelming is important to do every so often. it's especially important to do this actually.

time alone can be good, for a time, but humans are social creatures and we need to talk to people, there's nothing wrong with that!!

sometimes the more time you spend alone the more your brain will tell you to stay alone. that's not true, you're allowed to (and should!!) see people that are important to you. sometimes that alone can be surprisingly healing.

[umblrspectrum]

go read Memento Nori and Like the Stars and What Friends Are For and just generally all of Ad Astra Per Aspera by LadyDaybreaker on ao3

[kakyogay]

⚠️ploppy playbime chaper 3 spoiler and gore warnig ⚠️

the line goes so hard!!!!!1

(stupid dog getting me really into this stuid game and breaking my rain world streak grrr grrrr >:[ /pos)

pics without text under cut <3

[christakisbang]

yes, lee know-ya i see you aging along with me you're the second oldest but, to me you'll always be the maknae~♡

[callme-alaska]

Soul mates

souls made

from the same darkness

I know your demons

as my own

together we have

fought and grown

We have laughed

and we have wept

a promise made

has to be kept

Even when we're

miles apart

I carry you

within my heart

~ love letters to my best friend

wordsbyalaska