#learning to be single

[prosebyday]

The leaves are changing color, I'm harvesting pumpkins from the garden, the nights are getting colder - it's growing harder to keep myself warm Alone. So I exercise to keep up my heart rate I put extra blankets on my bed because there's no sweaty man here to tell me it's too many. I get the heated mattress pad out and preheat the bed for myself because it's not cuffing season it's bundle season. I will swaddle myself and lay myself on a warmer like a newborn baby because I have been reborn and I'm sensitive right now.

Cold nights // Grazia Curcuru

[hyolks]

ed: i swear to god can you STOP making the cats use my face as a springboard.

[chinelacanta]

🐌snail

[linktoo-doodles]

Happy Last Scarland day! Here's my Rolling Down Mainstreet and Hotel Architecture work for @scarland-artbook🎈🎈

process vid:

The entire scene uncropped:

Hotel Drafts:

For the hotel, I thought about the hallways and the general opulence and ambiance when you walk in (chandeliers, check-in counter, tiling on the floors). I mapped out all of the rooms (e.g. the outdoor patio, the lounge, the café/deli, & Scott and Fwhip's decorated rooms).

A few inspirations I took were the following:

Sun & Thirteen Cantons in Soho

Great Central Pub at The Landmark London

Prince of Wales Hotel at Niagara-on-the-Lake

I also wanted to consider an elevator for access... And if I had more ideas outside of the hotel layoutway honestly I'd keep designing with laundry chutes and more hallways and a pool. I love hotels

[transmascissues]

today, my coworkers’ refusal to see me as a man put one of our patients in a position where they felt unsafe for the third time. i’ve been at this job for less than two months total. i don’t even care about getting misgendered anymore, i just want the people we’re supposed to be taking care of to feel comfortable around me.

i work at a hospital where we have to supervise our patients in a lot of vulnerable situations. there are safeguarding rules in place for certain things that male employees aren’t allowed to be present for when it comes to female patients. and yet, the people training me and telling me what to do have repeatedly put me in situations where i’ve been forced to do things that the female patients aren’t comfortable with me doing. and because they have repeatedly failed to teach me the rules for doing my job as a man, i have no way of knowing when i’m crossing one of those lines unless one of the patients tells me.

i’ve had to watch a victim of SA stare at me in abject terror as my coworkers asked her to strip naked with me still in the room. it took several minutes for her to even be able to speak enough to ask if i could leave the room. i found out after that she broke down crying the moment i walked out. my biggest regret is that i didn’t realize what was happening fast enough to leave before she ever had to say something, because she shouldn’t have had to say it. i never should’ve been allowed in the room in the first place, because that’s not something male employees are supposed to be present for. but i didn’t know that yet, because i was training and i thought surely, they wouldn’t train me to do something that directly violated their own safeguarding rules. that moment was the first time, and it’s haunted me ever since, but it wasn’t the last time. not only did it happen for the third time today — it almost happened for the fourth, and would have if someone hadn’t spoken up to say they should pick someone else. i care for these people so deeply, it’s why i took this job, and i’m so tired of hearing the fear in their voices when they have to ask me not to do something i never should’ve been told to do.

i’m very used to the personal discomfort of being misgendered. i willingly deal with it a lot at work as well as in other situations, not because i’m in the closet (at this point in my medical transition that would be impossible), but because it’s such a frequent occurrence with my coworkers that we would never get anything done if i took the time to correct them every time. but to see it get to the point of causing such visceral discomfort in other people? people i’m supposed to be taking care of and keeping safe? that’s something else entirely, and i’m fucking exhausted.

and after all of that, some of them still look at me like i have two heads when they tell me what to do and i say “i can’t do that, only female employees can” because i’m learning now. clearly i’m already seen as a man by our patients, but my coworkers would still rather put them in an unsafe situation than just train me as a man.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 139

So. Dan has somehow found a small child. A practically newly born ghostling who had literally fallen right on top of him. A ghostling who had practically formed right above him, far away from nurseries and instead above him of all ghosts? 

Him, the Sunkiller? The Worldeater? Jordan Vladimir FentonNightingale-Foley-Manson? Son of Space and War? Bringer of the End?? Seriously, what the hell! Ghostlings shouldn’t even be able to form within other ghost’s Lairs, and he knew for a fact this wasn’t his own ghostling seeing as he wasn’t interested in such things. 

So here Dan is, feeling more confused than he ever has with a newborn ghostling clinging to him and sobbing in his arms about wanting his dad. What even is his unlife right now.

[aromantic-diaries]

Sure, anyone can say aromantic people are broken but I can absolutely pull an uno reverse card and point out just how fucking broken you have to be that you don't feel complete or whole unless you have a significant other. People will say shit like "my other half" and how two people "complete eachother" and I'M the one who's broken. Brother I am whole. Skill issue on your part

[mortalfortaxpurposes]

happy valentine's day!

inspired by this

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a very pink conversation

[caffetato-the-caffeinated-potato]

[astrozure]

viva el anarcosindicalismo

[wolfjackle-creates]

Answer My Call Chapter 3 part 1

Happy WIP Wednesday! Answer My Call won by all one one vote last week. I was a bit nervous since I'm starting a new POV and I wasn't sure if I wanted to write from Tucker's POV or Tim's, but I settled on Tucker because it would let me dive into the action a bit sooner.

Story Summary: Danny's missing. The GIW have taken over Amity. Jazz, Tucker, and Sam are under constant surveillance and have been scattered across the country.

When Jazz's messages to Danny go to the wrong number, Red Hood decides to step in.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.6k

-----

Tucker was alone in his dorm room working on homework. His desk was in the corner in a way that meant his computer screen faced the wall. It meant he had barely three feet of space to sit in, but after everything that had happened, he couldn’t let anyone sneak up behind him to spy on his work.

His roommate hated him for it because it took up so much extra space in their small room, but he was never around anyway, so Tucker didn’t really care what he thought.

He jumped when a loud knocking sounded on his door.

“Coming!” he called out as he took the time to save everything he had open and close all programs. He slammed it shut and squeezed out of his chair, half running to the door. “Sorry ‘bout the wait. Tyler isn’t here right now, I think he said something about spending time with Liz?”

Then he actually looked at the people at his door. The one was a broad boy wearing a spiked leather jacket over jeans. The other had a bulky sweatshirt on and a baseball cap. His face was shadowed as he was looking down at a tablet, typing away.

The bigger one was grinning at him. “You’re Tucker, right? We’re here to see you, not Tyler.”

Tucker blinked at them. “Why?” he asked, confused. People had given up on being friendly with him weeks ago.

The boy with the tablet huffed. “We’re here to invite you to our club.”

Tucker looked between them in confusion. “What?”

Tablet guy still didn’t look up. “We heard you like ghosts. We’re the officers of the student horror club and wanted to offer you a spot. Mind letting us in so we can tell you about it?”

Tucker rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m not interested in joining any clubs right now. Thanks, but no thanks.” He went to shut the door, but leather jacket stuck out his foot, keeping it from shutting.

“Just hear us out. We think you’d be perfect for it as an expert on ghosts.”

Tucker clenched his fists to hide their shaking. What did they know? Who sent them? He glared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tablet boy raised his head slightly, revealing a domino mask covering his eyes. He grinned, more a baring of teeth than anything. In a tone just loud enough to be heard, he said, “One of my associates is currently in Boston. I decided to come here instead.” In a normal ton he added, “Let me tell you about the horror club.”

Tucker’s mouth fell open. How? Boston? What had Jazz done? His eyes flitted down the hallway. But they were blocking his path and he wouldn’t be able to get past them. Dumbly, he stepped back, opening the door further.

Leather jacket grinned at him. “Thanks, dude,” he said.

Behind them, Tucker shut the door. His hand fell to his pocket where a lipstick laser was hidden.

Tablet boy was already pulling the blinds down over the window. When done, he handed his tablet to Tucker. It was open to a message that said: “We’re on your side. Turn off your devices. I’m going to set off a EMP and signal jammer.”

Tucker nodded and handed the tablet back.

Leather Jacket cleared his throat. “So, with the horror club, we meet once a week…”

Tucker only half-listened to his spiel. He used his phone to send a coded warning to Dani before turning it off. Then he went through his belongings and did the same to every laptop, PDA, tablet, and gaming system. If he turned on a ghostly recording device hidden inside an action figure, however, no one would know.

As soon as he was done, he nodded to Tablet Guy who pulled out a black cube from his backpack and pressed a button. The he pulled out another device and turned that on as well.

“That’s enough, Kon,” he said, pulling off his cap.

Leather Jacket—Kon?—grinned. “What, you don’t want to hear about my favorite horror movie, Rob?”

“I introduced you to your favorite horror movie. I know it as well as you do.”

Kon just laughed. Then he unzipped his jacket, revealing a blue outfit with Superman’s “S” on it.

“Holy shit,” breathed Tucker. What had Jazz done?

Tablet guy followed, pulling off his cap and removing his hoodie, revealing a red costume with a gold bird medallion in the center of his chest. “Nice to meet you, Tucker. I’m Red Robin, and this is Superboy. I’ve got some questions for you.”

Tucker’s eyes jumped between the two. “Holy shit,” he repeated.

Superboy laughed. “Didn’t expect to see us?”

Tucker could only shake his head. “You said Boston?” he asked.

“Red Hood is with Jazz as we speak. She asked for our help in rescuing Danny. We agreed.”

Tucker tensed. He was lying. They’d talked about reaching out to the Justice League dozens of times, but had decided they couldn’t be trusted. Jazz wouldn’t have gone to them. He reached into his pocked and pulled out the lipstick.

Both heroes tensed, though their wariness turned to confusion when they saw he only had a small lipstick tube.

Good, let them underestimate him. “Jazz wouldn’t go to the Justice League. We agreed it wasn’t safe. Why are you really here?”

Red Robin grinned at him and held up his hands. “All right, you’re right. I simplified for time’s sake. Jazz has been sending messages to a phone number she thought belonged to her brother Danny. But really, they were going to Red Hood. He’d been getting them for ages now, but was…out of town. As soon as he got back, he began looking into Amity and the GIW. When he couldn’t find anything, he brought me in on the case. When that still didn’t work, we called Jazz back. She decided to take a chance on us since Red Hood doesn’t work with the government. And, honestly, I’ve done quite a bit outside the law, too, even if I’m not as public about it.”

Tucker’s grip on the lipstick tightened and he stuck his nail under the cap, ready to flick it off at a moment’s notice. “Prove it.”

Red Robin pulled up his tablet again and tapped a few places. An audio recording started to play.

Tucker stopped breathing when he recognized Jazz’s voice. He closed his eyes and just listened. When he heard her demand a picture and the pose she asked for, he huffed out a laugh.

The recording ended and he slid the lipstick back into his pocket and wiped at his eyes.

“Okay, I believe you. What’s the plan?”

“Right now we want to make sure you, Jazz, and Sam are safe and find out as much information as we can.”

Tucker nodded. “I’m not as closely watched as Jazz. The school keeps close track of us students and the Guys in White rely on their records. Though they do have an agent stationed in admin who checks up on me at least once a week. I don’t keep my most sensitive belongings in this dorm as it’s searched every other week.”

Red Robin grinned at him. It sent shivers down Tucker’s back. “Does that mean your real stuff is kept somewhere else?”

Tucker smirked. “Of course. Cover yourselves back up; we need to go.”

Red Robin did something with his jammer and EMP and then began talking excitedly about the horror club again. “So glad you’ve agreed to come to our next meeting, Tucker! We’ve been trying to build the club.”

Superboy winked at him. “What do you say we get to know each other a bit before then? Want to come play video games with us?”

Tucker bit his lip and looked towards his desk and laptop as if he were undecided. “I should get back to my homework…”

“Oh, come on, it’ll still be there tomorrow,” said Red Robin. “Let’s go.” He looked back down at his tablet and headed towards the door, grabbing Tucker’s hand as he did.

Tucker looked over his shoulder one last time, but let himself be pulled along. They kept conversation light as they exited the building. Red Robin was an expert at angling his baseball cap to hide his masked face from every camera they passed.

Would he be willing to teach Tucker how to do that?

Once outside, Tucker took the lead. One of the first things he’d done after he’d been enrolled was memorize blueprints for every building on campus. On top of that, he’d made himself a good dozen different IDs. Three of those were copies of other students’. Those students he kept close track of to make sure their records didn’t show them in two places at once. Other ones belonged to various faculty and staff members. But his pride and joy was the one that belonged to Gabriel Carter. Gabriel was a janitor at the Academy and so could access any building. Gabriel also didn’t exist.

It was Gabriel’s ID that got them access to the basement level of one of the buildings. Hidden deep in the building was a set of rooms currently not in use. And in one of those rooms was a closet.

Tucker had built the locks on the door himself and, even having all the keys and codes, it took five minutes to get in.

He smirked when Red Robin himself let out a gasp of surprise at his set up.

-----

Hope you enjoyed!

Now, how did Kon get involved? Easy. Tim used the zeta tube from the cave to Titans Tower. Kon happened to be there. When Tim said he was working a case with Red Hood, the guy who tried to kill him once, Kon insisted on coming along. I debated having other members of the Young Justice, but I'm actually trying to keep character counts down for this one, so...

Check out the subscription post if you want a notification when I update!

[nero-neptune]

“Roy was the engineer, and anything related to engineering, in any specialism, would have to pass through his hands. This included assembling the plane’s radio, just like he’d fixed the small battery-operated Spika radio and made it work.

“Adolfo sat down beside him. He explained to Roy that it was not a matter of expertise in electronics but one of ignorance, and pointed out that Roy was the least ignorant of everybody in that department. Roy argued that he had never seen an airplane radio in his life, not even in a book. Adolfo put his hand over Roy’s. ‘I know that, Roy. We all know that. I only wanted to tell you that you were the best one at handling the wires and the terminals, that’s all. But right now that’s a lot, it makes a huge difference … you are the engineer.’

“Roy, almost breathless, added something that his older friend already knew: ‘I am barely in my first year in Engineering, I’m only twenty years old, and the only time I’ve ever been remotely close to anything like this was when I helped instal a damn audio system for my cousins.’

“‘And you fixed the Spika radio,’ Adolfo responded, as if it were a thermonuclear station and not a basic portable radio the size of a pack of cigarettes. Before Adolfo even said the next sentence he knew clearly that it was as painful for him to say as it was for his friend to hear it. ‘Roy, the group needs your abilities. All we’re asking is that you try.’ ”

– “Is Anybody Listening?” from Society of the Snow: The Definitive Account of the World’s Greatest Survival Story by Pablo Vierci

LA SOCIEDAD DE LA NIEVE | SOCIETY OF THE SNOW (2023) dir. J. A. Bayona

[aesthetic-gem]

imagine being a one month old baby that’s also an egg and that looks like this

and your rich and nice but weird tio and his kid that you’ve only gotten to meet a few times take you to their evil looking lair under their house where they keep a prisoner suspended over lava and it looks like this

[naofaun]

It's normal to feel jealous. In friendships, relationships, whatever. Jealousy is a very normal, very human emotion and most likely, it's telling you that a need of yours isn't being met. But sometimes jealousy just shows up randomly and makes itself known for no reason. Maybe you have the happiest relationship possible and you still get jealous. Maybe all of your needs, and more, are being met. That's okay.

Never be ashamed of jealousy. Never be ashamed of anger or sadness or fear. These emotions are not “bad”, there is no such thing as bad emotions. You cannot be completely free of them, and they do not inherently mean you or the other person(s) is abusive.

Listen to what your mind is telling you. If you're jealous every single time your friend hangs out with someone that's not you; why? Are you scared of your friend liking the person more than you? Are you scared that you're not worthy of your friend's time and energy? Are you scared that maybe the other person secretly hates you and plans to turn your friend against you?

Whatever it is, its okay. Don't listen to people telling you that “non-abusers don't get jealous”. Because they do. It's just about how they handle the jealousy. If you listen to your body and figure out the underlying fear or insecurity, you're already doing way more than most.

Sometimes you can talk to your friend about that fear. Sometimes you can explain to them that you feel afraid when they hang out with other people because you're insecure. Do not ever make it out to be their problem, like something they should fix. They can understand and do their best to help you, but do not ever demand or even let them drop these friends for you. Unless the friends are genuinely awful people (which you should then have an entirely different conversation about), it is your friend's right to keep them as friends.

But maybe you can come to a compromise. Maybe when your friend is done hanging out with someone, they can tell you about what they did. Maybe instead of an obligation, its like a “oh my god I had so much fun and I want to tell someone about it” thing. They get to talk about how much fun they had to someone that cares, and you get to know that these other people didn't try to turn your friend against you, or whatever your fear may have been.

Anyway, my overall point is; jealousy is okay and normal. It usually covers some sort of insecurity or fear, like how anger can cover sadness or hurt. It doesn't matter how often you feel jealous - I'm a very very jealous person but I have coping mechanisms and ways to help me when I get jealous so that I don't hurt the person I'm jealous of. I will always suggest mental health assistance like therapy or medication if it's available, but sometimes, its more about the way you treat your feelings and the communication you have with your friends.

[chessb0r3d]

Not normal about the themes of fighting the last boss/overcoming the fear of everything that is bad in order to get your happy ending because love has to be fought for.