#long hard road

[churcvh]

lyrics from Long Hard Road by Tyler Childers

i was listening to this song as we were driving through the winding roads and i never felt more at home

[jt1674]

[madcat-world]

Long Hard Road - Alex Andreev

[unholy-cvlt]

LONG HARD ROAD OUT OF HELL

I want to fly into your sun

Need fear to make me numb

Live like a teenage Christ

I'm a saint, got a date with suicide

Oh, Mary, Mary

To be this young is oh, so scary

Mary, Mary

To be this young I'm oh, so scared

I wanna live, I wanna love

But it's a long hard road out of hell

I wanna live, I wanna love

But it's a long hard road out of hell

You never said forever could ever hurt like this

[nicollekidman]

it’s so. good. that buffy has to feel self loathing about what she’s doing with spike specifically because the underpinnings of the show require that vampires be Bad Monster Creatures who Cannot Feel and are just Lifeless Demons otherwise everything comes into question. about everything. except that spike is the crack in the foundation of the show itself and in that, he makes the show better! he’s the only end that makes sense for her because he sets her free!!!

[gunsatthaphan]

“I love you.”

[puppyeared]

is this your card? ♦️♣️♥️♠️ it isnt but you dont wanna hurt his feelings

[omnificent-orion]

Day 3: Connection

You were once me, I'll never be you. Let's meet again, in the next--

[humanmorph]

(transcript by @violentandmagnificent)

It’s quiet here, living in your head. It’s quiet here, and when I talk, you listen, at least when you can hear me, which isn’t always. It isn’t always, but it’s better than never. It’s quiet here, living on this ship. It’s quiet here, and I remember when it was loud, I remember different voices bouncing in these halls, I remember old arguments, I remember myself. I wonder how much I can tell you; because  I can tell you; I have much to say. But you never saw me astride the Prophet’s Path, beside the Resin Heart, imparting wrath and play. So who am I? You only know what they’ve told you. So who am I? You only know what’s written down. So who am I? You only know what’s on recordings, and according to the world, I’m a hypocrite, or drowned. I doubt you can hear me, but I know that she can. So pardon my frustration, I’m just tired of her plan. I lost my life long before I understood, before metaphor became real, before I felt the wheel’s wood. I wonder what she’ll tell you. I wonder what she’ll share.  I wonder what she’ll ask of you, what task of sweat and prayer.  I long to sweat and pray, a body in the day. The color of the sun. The touch, the ocean's spray.  The last thing that I felt in life. (The first thing that I felt in life.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I hope she tells the truth to you. (I hope she tells the worst to you.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I loved her like she told me to. (I left her like she told me to.) The touch, the ocean's spray.  We’re running out of time, you know? (She’s running out of time, you know?) The touch, the ocean's spray.  I fear we might be mirrored, two echoes of a call shouted between two queens, two queens who want it all. I fear we might be symmetry, I fear we might be one. Make her tell the truth to you before we come undone.

PALISADE 37: Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 1

[piniond]

MARILYN MANSON for LONG HARD ROAD OUT OF HELL

[owlsie-hoot]

Siegfried Farnon has always been a strong presence, and it’s complicated because he’s her employer, as well. It’s a lot she’s giving up. For a woman who’s in a position where she’s independent, but she’s entirely dependent on her income from that job, and that’s also where she lives, it was a big thing to offer to give all of that up and to go towards something quite unknown. (Anna Madeley)

[windydrawallday]

COMFORTABLE

Continuation of [this one] ! Yeah, the tone shifted because... Because.

This is what I really wished that happened to me in a similar experience years ago. But it didn't. At all.

Now I can go back, reflect on it, learn and... talk about it. It still stings but the lesson is greater to let it hide behind my heart. I deserved comfort.

We all deserve comfort.

So, I will keep writing in this way now and then ♥.

[raynavan]

actually did this a few days ago. slowly re-learning animation. thought using blaiddraws worm au Ingo would be fun- and it was!

[lukedanger]

Caitlyn's Narrow Way Through without a Golden Path - A Spectulation

So, in the new S2 teaser, Caitlyn lists three objectives for her task force: locate Jinx, dismantle shimmer, and neutralize any of Silco's remaining loyalists. A clear set of objectives, and ones that in theory allow for precision as not every Zaunite is a Silco loyalist - the Firelights, for one. And ones that would almost certainly be in contrast to someone else's idea of how to retaliate. Say, a Noxian invasion? An invasion that this compromise of her leading a task force into Zaun can avert. Yet to do so, Caitlyn would still need to lead the Enforcers into Zaun as a military force: the opposite of what she wanted before.

This is not going to be pretty, but I think this is going to be a situation where she sees it as the least bad option. Caitlyn knows full well that the Piltover Council being exploded was not an attack by Zaun as a whole - Jinx made the decision herself. Caitlyn absolutely wants revenge, but I do not see her wanting to collectively punish all of Zaun for it.

Others, though, are itching to punish all of Zaun for the hexrocket attack. The most likely leading voice for that? Ambessa Medarda: if Piltover does nothing, then Noxus steps in. And Ambessa's methods would be an indiscriminate orgy of blood and fire that isn't going to care whether a Zaunite was one of Silco's men or a Firelight who opposed him. And we know that Noxus is sending at least one ship full of troops for the job from the teaser.

So, Caitlyn, now the closest thing Piltover has to a leader (assuming Jayce and Mel are out of action even if they live), steps up to the plate. She takes the reins before Ambessa makes a decision for them. And with that Sword of Damocles overhead tries to find a way through, however narrow, that avoids a total war between the cities or Piltover becoming a de facto Noxian vassal.

She creates a compromise to appease the warmongers while still avoiding collective punishment of Zaun, and asserts that Piltover is not free real estate. A narrow path of three limited objectives to resolve things in the absence of a golden path to bring justice to both cities. It is not a good solution, but the now-dead council missed every opportunity for one in their neglect and apathy. Cait makes a plan with the options she has available to her after all the better ones were lost.

Is it a good plan? Hell no! I fully expect that Cait's willingness to launch even a limited invasion of Zaun as a compromise is going to be because she wants revenge herself. At the same time, I don't think it is going to completely erase her good heart. She still is going to want the cities to heal, she just sees this conflict as one that needs to be resolved. Definitively. By her actions. Once she finishes fixing this crisis, they can deal with the actual root causes. The alternative means surrendering to despair and letting the broken system continue to fail.

But with her judgment clouded by revenge and no small amount of "I have to fix this because I seem to be the only topsider who cares", Caitlyn could lose the good heart we know her for in the first season. No doubt Ambessa will be there constantly encouraging Caitlyn to listen to the little voice in her head that says 'screw them all, they deserve to suffer for killing mom!'. To include more and more under the description "Silco's Loyalists" until that distinction is functionally meaningless. Or even starts counting Silco's enemies like the Firelights when they object to the inevitable excesses of the Enforcers.

This is where Vi will step in, I believe. She is someone who cares about Cait as a person and who is not going to fall in line to enable her worst impulses past a point of no return. I fully expect that Vi will call Caitlyn's judgment into question when it absolutely needs to be, painful an argument as it will be for those involved and to watch.

At the same time, it will be that argument that yanks Caitlyn away from the void she was about to step into. The other half of this is that when Vi calls Cait out, she listens and learns. It's just that this time, it is the lover's plea to the hero to step back before it is too late.

Maybe it is still too late for the main plan by the time this happens. Maybe this is what causes the final showdown between sisters as Cait has to let go and trust Vi to face this alone. Or maybe Vi has to do it alone because Caitlyn has to stop Ambessa as their timer runs out. There's a lot of ways it could go from here, but I think it will be a continuation of the same thing: a desperate attempt to find the narrow way through as every better option is closed off.

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

Happy anniversary, VII

I cannot believe it's been a whole year since I posted VII. I wrote and posted it at a pretty dark time for me, and figured it'd be a weird little oneshot that some people might like but would ultimately just kind of. exist.

That is not what happened. I'm still overwhelmed by the response it got. To the folks who loved it and left such wonderful comments, you will never know how much that mattered to me -- and still matters to me. And to everyone who has shared their love for the sequel or helped build that world with me, thank you all so, so much. It's been so fun and such a thrill to see your reactions and your support for my codependent trauma buddies.

I was really hoping to have a new chapter of A long, hard road to post today, but the brain is just not braining right now. Fingers crossed for March 19 (the anniversary of ALHR)!

If you haven't read VII/ALHR, you can read them here: Your legs give way, you hit the ground

I cursed my readers with this snippet, so now Tumblr gets cursed too. (If you haven't read any of it yet, this is not indicative of the fic whatsoever):

Maybe-canon-but-probably-not omake: Because no one has any chill whatsoever “Okay, so you think it’s romantic that he would, like, literally sew you two together if he could. We’re going to ignore how weird that is for the moment.” “Ronald…” “But mate, he’s a giant, skeletal snake-man. You can’t honestly say you find him attractive.” Harry mutters something under his breath that sounds a little too much like, “Oh, can’t I?” for his friends’ tastes. “Is this some problematic holdover of your infatuation with the diary horcrux?” Hermione asks as Harry sputters and turns bright red. “No!” he shouts. And, after a suspicious delay, “And I wasn’t ‘infatuated’ with the diary!” Ron and Hermione both give him a look at that. Traitors. “Psychologists would fight to the death for the chance to sort through all your issues, Harry.” “Sy-ko-wha?” “Good to know if I ever decide to hold gladiatorial contests,” Harry says dryly. The topic of conversation dies out for a couple minutes before Ron turns back to Harry and looks him dead in the eye. “So, given the chance – you would bang the snake-man?” Hermione puts her head in her hands and regrets several life choices. Harry sighs. “Like a screen door in a hurricane.” Ron chokes on air.  “Harry!” “He asked!”