because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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Logan: *walking into Wade's room late one night* Hey Wade-
*stops and stares*
Logan: -why the fuck do you have three diffent videos playing at once?
Wade: *looking up from his laptop* Well, I was just about to try to get some sleep, honeybadger.
Logan: That doesnt explain why you have three sounds going on at once.
Wade: Well, this one is nighttime skyrim music, this one is a box fan in a shower, and this one is asmr of a really boring topic!
Logan: *stares* And this is how you get to sleep?
Wade: Yeah, it's the only thing that works. *shrugs*
Logan: Bub, we gotta get you tested for ADHD.
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gojo would kill your work husband. but if he were the work husband, that's a different story
REAL!! he’s such a hypocrite because if someone mentioned you had a work husband, his entire world would stop and he wold devise the absolute worst plans to make sure that your co-worker, everyone at your job, and everyone in the next building over knew that he was happily committed to you
but if he is the work husband, he’s very........ dutiful in his role. there’s a loose office/lawyer au in my head where satoru is your secretary, and for all intents and purposes, your personal assistant, and he’s good at his job, but mostly because he considers his job to be pleasing you. he has coffee for you when you arrive, he moves your schedule around without you asking, he has answers to questions before you can even ask them, he has fresh flowers on your desk weekly, pokes into your meetings to pretend to hand you a file that’s really just maybe a single document in a manilla folder with candy on top of it—he’s made himself your business, your partner; he’s made himself irreplaceable, and he loves to remind everybody of that fact.
he’s also extremely loyal. sure, he could day a week’s worth of work done in about a day, but that doesn’t mean he’ll just use his talents for anybody. he’s your secretary, so he’s at your beck and call, and everyone knows it. they know he’s the best, but also that he’s off limits—not because you won’t share him, but because satoru won’t let himself be shared.
he also extends his duties beyond work, of course. when he hands you a print out of your schedule for the day and you’re confused by the three-hour block of time you have in the middle of the day, satoru just helps you shrug your coat of your shoulders and smiles, “that’s for the lunch date you have with me, of course!” hanging up your coat in your closet for you, “i’m paying, see you soon, sweets.” and because you’re great at your job, and satoru helps you be great, nobody really questions when the two of you have time for a 13-course tasting menu at 1pm on a tuesday afternoon. and if they did, all satoru would say that you two had a lovely date
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dunmeshi modern labru au where Kabru wants to try fromsoft games to understand why they’re so popular.
he gives elden ring a shot and surprise he gets fucking rolled. can’t get past tree sentinel, tries to fight Margit at level 15, put all his stats in intelligence and not enough dex, hasn’t even found a proper staff, picked warrior as his starting class.
he’s ready to uninstall but he paid full price for this game, he’s at least gonna defeat one boss goddammit. so he tries summoning players for aid and just his luck, he summons cooperator WolfChimeraWyvern.
and this cooperator is SO GOOD, he solos Margit without getting hit, and Kabru is just. in awe. so he adds him as a friend.
and that’s how he meets Laios, expert on all things fromsoft (has literally read every item description, knows the most obscure lore by heart, don’t ask him how many hours he’s played, he has all the platinums)
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vi is so fucking fascinating to me, I am studying her like a bug in a jar
she was a CHILD putting on her father's gauntlets in spite of the fear gathered in her little body, in spite of just witnessing someone she's known all her life die in a HORRIFIC way (benzo), still she rises, still she says I HAVE TO DO THIS still she takes on men three times her size and fucks them up so bad that silco has to send his shimmered up fucked up monster to try to stop her and STILL she persists, indifferent to the worst happening because she’s survived the worst already. furious and unstoppable and determined to do whatever she has to survive and ensure those she loves survive, no matter the cost.
vi under all that debris, bruised, bleeding, screaming, watching her family die, staring at the monkey head in shock and crying because this can't be happening, they were so close...
sobbing in pain until her father saves her just to watch helpless as he dies protecting her. they were so SO CLOSE to surviving, so close to escaping and everything gets ripped away in a second
vi trapped in that prison cell for years and years on end with the ghosts of her family and her guilt for company, drowning in guilt, wondering if her sister's still alive, no doubt thinking about how she LET her slip right through her fingers
the last thing vander said to her was "take care of powder"
she's let the man who's her FATHER and loves more than anything down.
"whatever happens is on you" / "protect the family" / "take care of powder" .... but she can't, not anymore, she's fucked it up and let everyone down (re "I should have been there for you, for everyone") all she can do is sit in that shitty prison cell, on that freezing floor, hungry, bloody, counting the hours until she can somehow rescue powder
Vi is piercings and tats that no doubt got infected, she's a child becoming a woman too fast, she is a danger-zone high-risk disaster area and won't back down, won't give up.
Vi is soft!! self-sacrificing, protective, supportive. ("You wanna talk about today?", "We've all had bad days, but we learn, and we stick together") brave, SMART, witty. she's got a tongue sharp as her fists and a barbed, delicious sense of humour. she gives people nicknames (cupcake, pow pow, pretty boy) and fights with everything that she's got to protect what she loves!!!! she is her father's daughter!!!
she is idealistic and expects the world to see her reason, look at things through her eyes and wanna make a change ( "This is how things are, how they've always been. I was so stupid to think it could change. / "oil and water that's all there is" )
and yes! vi is not flawless. she's obsessive (re sevika. to her eyes she is the last thing standing between her and silco/getting to silco and saving jinx) and complicated, morally ambivalent because she makes mistakes, flies off the handle like a comet crashing through everything in her way, makes reckless choices because she has to. she is selfish when it comes to jinx and would do anything to keep her safe.
also
look at the way she hugs the people she cares about!!!
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