#like i could really do without it

[inkskinned]

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?

[captainjonnitkessler]

I truly, TRULY do not know how to say this, because the fact that I have to say it makes me feel like I am losing my grip on reality. But no, in the post-capitalistic anarchist utopia, I will not be relying on “autistic minecraft girlies” to be building inspectors because - and this may shock you - one of those occupations takes years of education in how to read and interpret hundreds of thousands of lines of regulations based on complicated math and physics that were the result of decades of tragedy and death, and the other one involves playing a children’s video game.

[fictionadventurer]

How did Treasure Planet manage to come up with the greatest aesthetic in all human history? Victorian elegance plus space-age flair, with just enough dirt and grime and wear and tear to make it feel real? A combination of traditional and computer animation that perfectly embodies the movie's blend of old and futuristic? How does it get any better than that?

[aunmenosheteroenespanol]

2.12 Chimney Begins - 2.09 Hen Begins - 2.16 Bobby Begins Again - 7.04 Buck, Bothered and Bewildered

Tommy's family arc

[tubbytarchia]

got an urge to design ponies oops

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[valtsv]

wish there were more self harm discussion/harm reduction spaces where it's actually destigmatised and not just a self-professed "safe space" that will chase you out if you don't express yourself according to a useless formulaic script or stereotype

[imminent-danger-came]

2x02 // 3x01 // 3x03 // 3x13 // 4x12

Team huddle!

[deeva-arud]

A considerable amount of makeup was used to cover Deeva's freckles and face marks, and Cater also had to use magic to make her clothes his size. They did this as a joke, but they sure were committed to it! 💪

Original style swap challenge by @ashipiko ! (see her post here!!) If anyone wants to give it a try, go ahead, it's really fun!!! <3

[gunstellations]

In the world I love

_

In a different world

[marshmallowgoop]

no thoughts just Heiji Hattori (HD)

[imaybe5tupid]

Falin in the Isle of Wa

ft Benichidori and Hien 👯‍♀️

Part 1 of my postcanon dyke drama cinematic universe

Part 2

Interlude

Part 3

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 6: Happy Ending

[haunted-xander]

Shadowbringers is about learning how to live.

Your enemy is stasis- everything and everyone is stagnant, they wait and wait for something to happen, but don't do anything to make it so (because the ones who tried before failed, because they don't know what to do/how to do it). People don't change, they don't try, not really. The crystarium is doing well, it's independent and sustainable, but it doesn't have the reach or power to do much outside of Lakeland. The Exarch is more-or-less confined to the city (because of the tower, because he's waiting for you), so even if he had power elsewhere, he'd be limited with how much he, personally, can do.

Eulemore is filled with mindless indulgence, there's no hardships or labour or anything but luxury for the free citizens, and the bonded only have to worry about fulfilling the task(s) they were brought for. The outside world doesn't matter, hard work doesn't matter, personal fulfillment beyond indulgence doesn't matter, everything exist solely in the moment. The people out in Kholusia have pretty much given up, they stay close to the city in the hopes that this time they will be picked, this time they will be saved. They wait and wait and do nothing but wait. The ones who try to live on are dying out or eventually give up and join the rest in waiting.

Ahm Areang, Rak'tika, even Il Mheg are all just waiting for something, anything to happen. They go day to day, surviving simply because it's all they can. Nothing changes.

Until, of course, you should up. You, who causes a ripple of change simply by existing, who can move the immovable by sheer will. You showed them that things can change, that things can, and will happen, if they just try. You show them that they can make things better, that there is an option besides waiting for a slow death, if they'd just grab fate by the neck and tell it "No. We are doing this my way".

And they do. They rally up together and do what they thought impossible. Not all their efforts succeed(not immediately), but they tried. They tried, they failed, and they got up and tried again and again until it did work. They take the chances, not knowing how it'll turn out (because it's not about whether it fails or succeeds, it's about having tried).

They learn how to try, little by little, and every step they learn what it means to really live.

Endwalker is about learning how to love life.

Your enemy is nihilism- the idea that nothing matters, that there is no real joy to be found that isn't snuffed out by misery. A concept that denounces greys in favor of a black-and-white view where black is all encompassing. Everywhere you go, people are doing what they can to survive, but refuses (or maybe are afraid to, or maybe never knew they could) try to actually save themselves. The Forum plans for escape, to leave their homeworld behind and take whatever they can afford. They will live on, but they won't be saved, no one is saved(and even with escape they aren't safe, Despair is everywhere and She will not stop until all has become Nothing).

The Loporrits love Etheirys, but in the way Winter loves Spring. They know about it, they are so close to it, but they are distant. They're strangers, they've never met. It's love, and it's pure and true, but it's also just love. It's surface-level(because the surface is all they had). Their love is pure but it's instinctual. Programmed. They love because they don't know how to not love. They want to save it's people, save us, but they don't know what it really means to save, so they create refuge instead(because that's what She told them to, because this is how love works for them).

The people of Garlemald are terrified, they are victims of extreme indoctrination, the (deserved) push-back their army got proved them "right"(that we are savage beasts to fear, that they are but prey in the maws of rabid dogs). They want to be build-up again, but what's left for them now? The world hates them(and it's all their fault, the ones who see past the propaganda know this, but who will listen to them?) and they are dying. It's so cold and the fuel is running out. They won't accept help, because they've been filled with the idea that there is no such thing as pure kindness from "savages"(and they are too prideful to question it, to break apart from the illusion that they are surperior, because they're terrified to face the truth).

The sky screams, the earth wheeps and the foundation of existence is overtaken by Despair, misery is around every corner and who knows what will happen now? Where do we go? What do we do? We live and live but for what?

What's the point of it all?

That's the question, and the answer is everything. We live because there is joy to be found. Because there is beauty in the world. Because there are stars in the sky. Because flowers bloom in spring. Because cats purr. Because waves crash against the shore. Because of every single little thing we can see, hear or feel. Because we love and are loved. Because there are things to do and discover. Because why not?

And you tell them this, by letting them see that there is more to life than the little they have seen. The Forum has closed it's eyes to anything but it's own kith and kin, everything outside of Old Sharlayan is irrelevant(non-intervention, always non-intervention) and it takes the entire world coming and telling them "We are here. We are alive, and we will make tomorrow happen." for them to realize they have slowly been killing themselves and what they stand for(you pride yourself on knowledge, but where is your wisdom? What do you truly know of things outside your own bubble? You do not know that which is lived because you refuse to aknowledge anything but the written word).

The Loporrits see Etheirys itself, they experience it's corners and valleys and learn what love can really be. They want to save it, truly save it, because they love and this time it's informed, it's personal(I love you, I love you, and I want you to know I love your loves too).

In Garlemald everything is slow, unsteady and complicated, but it's changing. They're changing. With every person who accepts help the illusion of supremacy and "purity" melts away just a bit, and the wall standing between them and us breaks a little(it will never vanish completely, years upon years of oppression and subjugation and conquest don't disappear like that, but it's a start).

Shadobringers is about learning how to live, but Endwalker is about learning how to love life.

[feroluce]

For some weird reason, I've always been fascinated by how wildly different Sampo operates in the Underground vs the Overworld.

Sampo is present in both places and even in official sources, he's not really counted as one side or the other- now that the theory has been confirmed in-game, he's generally just lumped in with the Masked Fools.

But there really is a big difference!

Probably the most obvious and well known instance of Sampo's...business practices *cough burglary and fraud COUGH* in the Overworld is from the Belobog Museum event. In it, you don't find out Sampo is the main culprit until near the end, because Pela has to set up a sting just to catch him in the act. And that sting is necessary all because the initial suspect they arrested, Norbert, had pretty much no idea of his partner's identity. Sampo wouldn't even speak to him face-to-face.

And whereas Sampo is normally very pleasant and friendly with the trailblazer...when he thinks he's talking to Norbert here, he straight up says that they are NOT friends. Like he really shuts that shit DOWN.

There's also an Overworld NPC, Chavez, who heads the "Dark Blue Scam Support Group." And he. Really really really does not like Sampo fjkdasjklfdj

Chavez clearly wants Sampo caught, and has literally no positive feelings about him. So. Why call it the Dark Blue Scam? Why not just out him by name? Chavez obviously doesn't give a single shit about Sampo's dignity or privacy. But he never once refers to him as "Sampo," and even the pamphlets he passes out make no mention of it. No one in the entire support group seems to know how to identify him or how to refer to him except by his hair color. If the trailblazer says his name, Chavez reacts as though he's never heard it before.

(I've seen people say this means Sampo Koski is an alias and not his real name? But Ray pointed this out, and honestly I agree; even the Fools call him Sampo, after all. I think it's just that Chavez never knew Sampo's name in the first place, and given his immense distrust, immediately assumes it's an alias.)

And then there's his characters stories, where he proceeds to pull off a heist in the Overworld while in disguise as Brughel Poisson the entire time. Literally his own stories don't mention Sampo's name even once.

So anyway, all this shows that when he's up in the Overworld working cons, Sampo is incredibly slippery and secretive about his identity. The only people who seem to know him are Pela, Serval, and Gepard. He doesn't get close to anyone else, and is even surprisingly unfriendly. Nobody knows his name. No one knows his face. He has zero qualms about backstabbing or double-crossing, and even plans for it in some cases.

Meanwhile, down in the Underground, I'm pretty sure literally the worst thing we hear of him doing is scalping tickets in front of the Fight Club. Which isn't even illegal in a lot of places (although it's certainly a dick move).

In Hook's companion quest, a vagrant miner steals Fersman's equipment and tries to sell it to Sampo. Even before the trailblazer and Hook jump in and out the vagrant as a thief, Sampo hesitates to buy it because it sounds like stolen goods, which he doesn't want any part of.

Even knowing that a geomarrow detector is rare and incredibly valuable in the mines, Sampo makes no attempt to double-cross Hook or profit off of her loss, and even tells her who to go to to get it fixed.

And my favorite example of Sampo in the Underground is the Survival Wisdom adventure mission. In it, Sampo starts up a business with Peak, another miner. And like. In wild contrast to all the cons he pulls above ground, Sampo is actually super nice and helpful here.

Just the same as with Hook's quest, Sampo talks to Peak face-to-face, with no disguises or barriers. When the trailblazer finds them, they're just in the Great Mine, no secretive meeting places. Peak knows Sampo, is familiar with him, and calls him by name. It's not even a con! There's nothing illegal going on; it really is just a business partnership. Peak is more than happy with their deal, he's even pretty enthusiastic about it, because thanks to Sampo he can now make enough money to get by while also accommodating his chronic fatigue.

The only person Sampo lies to in this whole ordeal is the trailblazer, who he manipulates into getting Peak's mining equipment back from the vagrants that stole it in the first place. And when it's done, he rewards them with a legit treasure map.

So when he's working in the Underground, Sampo is MUCH more upright and lawful. Part of this is probably to do with his "business" model- Sampo only takes advantage of the wealthy, and poverty runs rampant in the Underground. When he charges Peak an extra 30% (the same percentage he charges Norbert as a consultation fee in the museum heists- Sampo seems to go by percentage instead of a flat rate, which means his prices are more fair for lower incomes) for carelessly losing their supply, Peak literally starts counting out pocket change.

Dude's working for pennies and good will down there dknsmdmd

And you can twist this into a Robin Hood thing if you want- Sampo IS technically working to feed orphans and heal the sick. He says himself he's more than happy to make up the shortfall between the greedy and the marginalized- I mean he says it in the shadiest way possible, but I doubt the people benefiting from his work really care that he's a slimeball if it means they can survive another day. Even the two heists he pulls in his character stories are literally just him stealing absurd amounts of food.

Personally though I think it is solely because of Natasha, and Sampo is hilariously well-behaved specifically for her, because she keeps him on a short leash JSKZJMSMSKS

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: violence mention / death mention / ]

Will never stop thinking about how Leo, all alone in an endless void and being beaten again and again and again by the only other living thing around, still finds comfort in that space. The situation he was in was completely hopeless, and in any other circumstances he would not have escaped, at least not fast enough to save him from permanent (or even fatal) damage, be it physical or mental.

And yet, despite the bleakness of his situation, despite the agony and helplessness, all he needs is one glance at a crumbled photograph, one glance to remember his family, and that’s enough of a reason for him to smile.

Maybe that’s why his powers center around manipulating space - because no matter how much space is between them, no matter how dire his own situation may be, just the thought of his family, alive and okay, is enough to give Leo hope.