#if you can make that kid feel safe

[abyssmarked]

so like, i haven’t really talked about neph’s experience at the brothel she was a slave at much ( and i don’t plan on going into any gruesome detail here, mostly just how i perceived the environment and the strict rules she lived by for a decade, but trigger warnings just in case ), but i imagine it was tailored to the higher class. the setting was a massive temple-like, stone building, multiple stories, cells in a dingy dungeon underground. anywhere where rich clientele might inhabit within the building was lavishly decorated— a common area where drinks and ‘live entertainment shows’ would be held, all of the rooms which could be paid for and used were better than a lot of the best inns in the realms.

it was crawling with guards. the girls’ personal sleeping quarters weren’t nearly as fancy, not in the slightest, but they were clean. they had to be clean, it was a rule. clean rooms, clean bodies— prim and proper. often there were four to six girls in one very small room, sleeping in bunk beds with thin mattresses and thin blankets. each girl had designated tasks, chores to have completed throughout the building, keeping it clean and looking presentable— making beds, cleaning blood, they were even responsible for a lot of the cooking, given limited resources to make enough food for each of them to survive.

regardless of having mostly free reign of the place, no place was private. someone was always, always watching, in every room, in every corner. if girls were seen trying to speak to one another in a secretive manner, or caught trying to plan some kind of escape, examples were made of them. the girls weren’t even allowed to become too close with one another, no touching, no ‘fraternizing’. the men in charge often would put some girls in positions of authority overs, these girls were treated slightly better— they found ways to make it incredibly difficult to build trust with one another. i also imagine nepharia was definitely one of the girls to climb that inner hierarchy of fuckery, anything for the slightest amount of relief, and maybe to try and build a rapport with the higher powers of the brothel— prove that she can be trusted, so they she might one day have some kind of upper hand, regardless of the girls she needed to throw under the bus to do it.

fuck, the other girls probably hated her.

on the business side of things, the doors would close to wealthy clientele at the beginning of the week, then reopen at the start of the weekend— giving the girls about five days to prepare for the next. every single girl is to be accounted for and dressed in the proper attire that was assigned ( usually, the attire was modest in nature, which somehow made it more disgusting in neph’s mind ) at the exact time the beginning of every weekend before the doors are opened. they’re already paid for in advance, waiting in assigned rooms for their client to arrive, and any girl that might be patron-less is assigned to the common area, to offer their services there.

if any of the rules were broken, or any of them got out of line in any way, the first warning is a lashing, then you’re sent to solitary confinement underground, in a small, windowless room, sealed with magic, only a small slot in the door to receive enough food and water to live for days, sometimes weeks, depending on the punishment. you sit with nothing but a bucket as a toilet that doesn’t get changed and cleaned the entire duration you’re there, and a mat on the ground for sleeping. the walls are thin and you’re close enough to where they send the really strong-willed girls who just couldn’t conform, and have to listen to their screams as they are tortured, healed, and tortured again. and if none of that works to break you?? well, they simply kill you.

after making a deal with a devil ( one of her regular clients, who only ever bought her to speak riddles at her ), and acquiring her warlock powers and learning of her true nature from said devil, he showed her what she could really do now. she didn’t immediately go ape shit, though. she was smarter than that. she had worked her way up, the owner of the brothel himself held her in high regard, well, as high as you can regard someone you literally keep as a slave. she probably used mad charm spells to convince him to take her out somewhere, away from the brothel, just the two of them. should would kill him quick, and his guards, and then just be so fucking elated that she can just…. go. be. she honestly probably doesn’t even go back to the brothel, not even to save anyone— she hadn’t made friends, but enemies. friends weren’t allowed. she might have tried to tell some kind of authority what was going on, and she just was unlucky enough to find the authority that was involved in keeping that place running— basically just murdering her hope that justice actually existed in the world, or that good men existed.

[aardvaark]

i was thinking about how i wished leverage had a birthday episode for some of the characters cause that would be sweet, but then i realised something and basically…. okay here’s my thoughts in quotes form, just for fun

hardison: so when’s your birthday? i could plan something for us and the team to do and-

parker: i dont know

hardison: you don’t know… your own birthday?

parker: no, how would i know? pshh, cmon, you’re telling me you remember EXACTLY when you were born? watch this - hey, eliot, do you know your exact birth date?

eliot, innocently passing by, who was canonically anonymously dropped off at a hospital as an infant: no, how would i know?

parker: that’s what i said!

hardison: excuse me?? what is going on right now

sophie, walking into the apartment: whats wrong?

hardison: parker and eliot- well, okay, when’s your birthday? i just have to prove something.

sophie: …….july 12th

hardison: why did you pause? wait, is that your birthday or sophie devereaux’s birthday?

sophie: ………… (guilty silence)

parker: see, no one knows their real birthday! haha you’re so weird sometimes, hardison

hardison:

hardison: what the fuck guys

[ardentpoop]

you guys really don’t get him tbfh

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

[everysongineverykey]

i love how unfatherly crowley and aziraphale both are when it comes down to it. sure aziraphale is more than willing to give the young people in his life help and advice and be their friend but he and crowley spent six years (eleven in the book) practically raising a kid (you just know his parents weren't around that often) and by the end they didn't even like him. crowley even suggested they just fucking kill him. he turned three kids into lizards for annoying him right after he destroyed their house. like it was that or kill them obviously but he did NOT hesitate with the newts. that's so funny to me. they're just inherently disinclined to parenthood. we need more characters like them actually

[spacedlexi]

people dont talk enough about how heartbreaking the marlon betrayal mustve been for clem too,,

this dude saves the life of her and her kid. takes them in has them patched up gives them their first hot meal in who knows how long. gives them a safe place to stay. possibly permanently. confides in her that hes trying to be a good leader but feels like and fears that hes failing. asks her to help him take care of the rest of the group. helps her get over her fear of dogs by asking her to trust him. and things go well. she feels safe. like this place could really finally be the home shes been looking for

but as soon as she finds out what happened to the twins. that marlon planned on giving up her and aj too. she immediately becomes a liability to him and he attempts to kill her for it. locks her in the basement to die by walker. then tries to turn the group against her so he can shoot her instead when the first method fails. and he nearly succeeds

then a majority of the group turn against clem the minute aj kills marlon. ignoring marlons mistakes but condemning aj for his. like clem wasnt betrayed by marlon in the exact same way he betrayed the twins. like she literally wasnt almost killed twice? and how long had he been considering giving her up? was it always some contingency he planned? did he truly want to keep them around and things only changed when he feared the raiders had returned? she'll never know

[runayachi]

okay so you know when takeda manages to get ukai to come watch karasuno play for the first time and kagehina show off their freak quick and ukai is like "sensei how long have those two been paired together" and takeda is like "oh kageyama and hinata? they just met this year i've heard it was rocky at first but they're getting along well now" and ukai is like "what a shame". do you think he goes home and looks into them and finds out that kageyama's the lonely king and that his teammates abandoned him. do you think he looks and looks for hinata but can't find him until finally he stumbles across a no-name school that barely had a volleyball team and their only match lasted 31 minutes. do you think he wonders about how lonely they were. a coach can't replace teammates but do you think he decides to try and make sure that no one on his team feels lonely again.

[samarecharm]

Love being able to write. I can do whatever i want. I can make Ryuji interact w Lala-chan and u literally cant stop me.

[bittersweetresilience]

say hi to me i don't know, i just remembered being so much brighter, i guess

cigarette ash like wildfire burning holes in the nighttime open scars feel like barbed wire white lies flying high like a ceasefire dropping flags on the shoreline this is as far as i can feel right 'cause what you don't know can haunt you

and all we ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think for a while

don't drag it out living like that doesn't mean a thing

so let's, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars 'cause happy endings hardest to fake

and i wanna let you know i wanna let you go but i just can't bring myself to speak but this is how it goes the end credits, they roll this bridge was built over kerosene but we can watch it and all i ever wanted was sunlight and honesty highlights to want to repeat let's get away from here and live like the movies do i won't mind when it's over at least i didn't think

so let's run, make a great escape and i'll be waiting outside for the getaway it doesn't matter who we are we'll keep running through the dark and all we'll ever need is another day we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away and live like shooting stars you can wish away forever but you'll never find a thing like today

[nohoperadio]

I’d like to hear your answer to 9 - a childhood story.

:)

One of my earliest memories (I must be younger than five here but I can't narrow it down further than that) is watching my dad and (much older) half-brother playing darts together in our kitchen. One of them missed the dartboard and a dart went into the wall, which apparently was something Small Me considered a really big deal and I started demanding that someone remove the dart from the wall. But they didn't! I remember my dad saying something like that he'd get it later and then they both left the room at some point. To be fair even from Big Me's perspective this seems like weirdly sloppy behaviour.

Well anyway so now I've gotta take matters into my own hands obviously. I'm too short to reach the dart myself but super luckily the relevant section of wall is right next to our fridge, and super luckily the fridge's power cable is within reach and runs from the top all the way down, so I'm expecting this to be pretty easy: I've never actually climbed a rope before but I'm familiar with the technique from watching cartoons and such.

Disappointingly I have literally no memory of the electrocution itself; I vividly remember hatching my brilliant plan in the kitchen, and then I remember my mom taking me to our neighbour's house because they had some first aid supplies or something like that? I can't remember feeling any pain or even being particularly distressed at any point, although I clearly remember the sight of my whole thumb being black. I don't even remember feeling any sense of having acted foolishly, I think I just saw the whole incident as being obviously 100% my dad's fault for not promptly removing the dart and it wasn't until many years later that it occurred to me that any other interpretation was possible.

[quietwingsinthesky]

part of me wonders like. what if ruby's mom had just left. what if ruby had said "i'm named after a road", looking at her with so much hope in her eyes, and her mom, who made this choice nineteen years ago, couldn't handle it. and left.

[miabrown007]

going crazy about kaz brekker hours

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about fallout 4 against my will

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[comfortlesshurt]

brutally reminded that somewhere out there is a physical copy of an absolutely terrible detective conan genderbend au i wrote when i was like 12

i am not thriving today so here's a tag rant

[spacedlexi]

it honestly frustrates me when i see people reduce the ericsons cast down to "just some teens in the woods" acting like theyre no different than any other group of lone teenagers from other existing properties and treating them like an overused trope

it is sooo important to acknowledge the "troubled youth" aspect of the whole equation. theyre not just some random teens in the woods clem stumbles across. these kids were abandoned by their families for their various "difficulties" and fucked up by The System before the outbreak even began. and then once zombies started roaming the streets their familes never came back for them and the adults that were in charge of taking care of them just left them there to rot in that old boarding school (except for ms martin who was like their lee 🥺 the only person who ever saw them as the scared traumatized kids they were and died protecting them)

the whole aspect of them already being fucked up by the adults that controlled their lives is like.....kind of important when discussing the whole "delta is stealing kids to force them to fight in a war they have no real part in and want nothing to do with" aspect of the season. and its important when comparing them to clem and her journey of also suffering at the hands of the adults around her forcing her to become self reliant. AND its important when discussing the "just trying to build a safe home (and future) worth fighting for in this world that wants them dead" aspect of the season as well

these kids were forced to come together to survive. and a Lot of them didnt... theyre the only family they have left and you can tell that even when they argue with each other theyre still a close knit group who looks out for each other. theyre a Real family before clem even gets there (and its why what really happened with the twins and brody and marlon hits them all so especially hard)

all of this is what REALLY makes ericsons such a perfect home for clem. its a Real community of her True peers. theyre not Just teens. they mightve had a layer of safety clem never had by at least having walls to keep them safe. and having the benefit of the school being hard to find. its the only reason theyre still alive when clem shows up. but theyre also some of the only people who can Truly understand where clem and aj are coming from. and its why it hurts so much when they vote to kick them out. but its also partially why she merges back into the fold so easily when she returns. plus the fact that shes Really the only one who has any idea what shes doing. shes their rock and she makes them feel safe because underneath it all theyre still just those scared traumatized kids ("EVERYONE is scared, clem..." vi was Definitely including herself in that 'everyone'), and on some level, so is clem

they saved clementines life. and she saved theirs. "the school was supposed to help them with their trauma, now they help each other" its about the LOVE the COMMUNITY the SUPPORT!!!! and thats the shit that makes good zombie media honestly 👌