#or a stable childhood

[cartoonartistpng]

Dadphiles au is my fav

[la1npilledg1rl]

I was only a child when I started begging people to love me.

[kirby-the-gorb]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

This election day, I'm thinking of my Nana.

I'm thinking of how as a young woman, she fled political violence in her native Colombia to build a new home in a more stable country. I'm thinking about how she lived a long life, but not long enough to see her home country elect its first ever progressive president (just a few months ago!).

Coincidentally, I was living in Colombia at that time (in the very city she grew up in), and I was able to witness what felt like a miracle. A very conservative country, suffering from the violent inheritance of colonization and catholic invasion and the war on drugs, against a backdrop of the dangerous global rise of the far right--this unlikely country managed to elect one of the most progressive heads of state in the world, in 2022. That's a pretty big deal.

And I'm thinking about this, this election day, because that election was won by a very thin margin. I'm thinking about how it almost didn't happen. I'm thinking about how it was only possible thanks to the highest voter turnout in 20 year. And I am thinking about the countless number of voters who chose to vote for the first time. I am thinking of the poorest and most disenfranchised citizens who showed up at the polls. I am thinking of the indigenous women who rode 12 hours on public buses to vote at the 'nearest' polling stations. I am thinking of all the money and corruption that went into preventing minority citizens from voting, and I'm thinking about how they showed up in the millions and voted anyway.

I am thinking that I would like to see a miracle like that in my own home country.

So if you're on the fence about waiting in line today to cast your vote, I hope that you will think--about the country you want to live in, the future you hope will unfold, and about all of the people it takes to make a miracle.

Because history may deem us nameless and faceless, but when we show up en masse, we are the ones who make history happen.

And yes, maybe also spare a thought for my Nana. Who was in fact a very angry and judgemental woman who supported the republican party for 50+ years, and who would be turning in her grave right now (if the family hadn't had her cremated). Think about the mean angry ghost of my Colombian grandmother, who very much wants you to not show up at the polls to support abortion and other sinful progressive values. Think about her. Do it for her. Do it for Nana.

[blood-orange-juice]

Thinking about how Childe's personality can be boiled down to three main parts (Abyssal Childe, his Harbinger role and the normal human boy) and whenever any two of them are in conflict he uses the third to solve it.

There's no place for abyssal bloodlust (and probably PTSD anger issues) in normal human life? Enlist in the military to have a safe outlet.

Abyssal desire for chaos contradicts the need for structure and subordination required in the military? Dig up the old childhood dream of being a knight, find a worthy sovereign, do it for her. Unspeakable horrors can have loyalties too.

The consequences of building a military career might burst the illusory bubble of normalcy he created for his siblings? Use awesome eldritch powers to punch everything that threatens to do that.

By which I mean yes, he's conflicted but it's also a surpsingly stable state. Like a 3-legged chair.

Removing any of his identities will cause the whole construct to collapse though.

[miras-false-pr0phet]

You are so Precious to me Cute as can be

Baby of Mine 🎵

Baby Nyx what a cutie patootie <3 Who never has any problems ever

Also proto-Phantoms are 100% baby Phantoms you cant fool me

[curioscurio]

I finally decided to finish Steven Universe Future and its a little scary how much I identified with Steven this time around. Who am I kidding it was like looking in a mirror. . I have got to move the FUCK out

[123pixieaod]

Tried to write a fun little fic about why Daniel unfollowed on Instagram Zak, Michael, Fernando, and Nicki, the most random quartet possible, only to end up with this lol

Daniel finally answers a call at just gone 4.30am, Max's time. It's 5.30am, Daniel's time, which admittedly is only marginally better, but maybe the hospital he's in has some crazy Get-Up-And-Seize-The-Day sort of ethos. Although from what Christian has told him, Daniel might not be seizing anything, metaphorically or otherwise, for some time.

"Daniel," Max says as soon as he hears the line clicking through. "How are you? How do you feel? Is your wrist alright? Do the doctors and nurses take care of you, do they speak English, or did Red Bull send a Spanish translator and I hope I have not woken you up and-"

He cuts himself off. There's a sort of stunned silence on the other side of the line. Sometimes, Max thinks his need for Daniel is a bottomless pit, something that has hollowed him out and leaves an ache echoing through him.

"Max?" Daniel says, incredulous. High, drugged up, gone on pain medication. "How did you get into my phone?!"

Max squeezes his eyes shut. His mouth is twisted, making some shape. A smile, a frown? He doesn't know, nobody can see him in his old childhood bedroom.

He wants to be with Daniel. He wants to brush a hand through his curls and run his fingertips along the lines of his faded tattoos like how a child would first begin to trace letters and numbers.

I miss you, he wants to say

I want you

I need you

"I'm not in your phone," he says instead, tone light and soft. "I called you. I am in the Netherlands."

"Oh," Daniel says, as if the fact Max had not been magically transformed into his phone is mildly disappointing. "What are you doing there?"

"We had a race, remember?" Max says. He's stretched out on his old bed. His feet dangle just slightly off the edge, and each year, he's promised a new one, bigger and larger and finally a grown-up bed. But it never materialises and Max has stopped bringing it up now.

The room is unchanged. Around him, the faces of former racing legends watch him, tapped to his wall. Above, stars look down, stuck to his ceiling in haphazard patterns. The day his father got to play God and created universes and cosmos splayed above his head.

"Of course," Daniel huffs good naturedly. "You won, Maxy."

"I know," Max replies softly.

"It was your ninth consecutive win," Daniel continues, his tone strong and proud, as if it's Daniel who has achieved it. Maybe he's so high on meds he thinks it is, that him and Max are some sort of Jeckyl and Hyde being, two sides of the same life. Max doesn't know. A headache is building behind his eyes. He hasn't really slept since Friday, three days previous.

"You're now equalling Sebastian Vettle. If you win the next race, you'll beat the record." Daniel continues before pausing, as if realisation is only just dawning. "I don't think I'll be there."

"No," Max murmurs. "I don't think you will be either."

"My wrist is really fucked," Daniel goes back to his jubilant tone, like a child with the best show and tell in school. "I have a metal plate in it, isn't that neat?"

He laughs. Max closes his eyes, just listening to the sound. "Imagine if it goes off at every airport security, Maxy? How annoying with that be?" He laughs again, the prospect sounding delightful to him in that very moment.

Max hums softly, and then shifts on the bed, turning away from the stars his father hung up for him. Instead, he moves to his side, facing a giant poster of Micheal Schumacher celebrating one of his championships. At the bottom, Max, to great things! MS. He was six. It was one of the best Christmas presents his dad had ever gotten him.

"How do you feel?" He asks. Daniel is humming a tune under his breath, the theme song to some gameshome Max barely recognises. He stops at Max's question.

"Good," he says happily. "I have gained deep clarity."

That shocks a laugh out of Max, as only Daniel, even doped, drugged Daniel, can do. The longing feels physical, the hole never ending in his chest. He closes his eyes, blocking out the stars and racing legends whose shine has faded and whose records he's now beating.

In another life, he thinks, he would be there. He'd be the first face Daniel would see, the first hand he'd get to hold, the first for nearly everything, just like Daniel had been for Max.

But instead they're a time zone apart and Daniel is alone in a country where he can't even speak the language and Max is in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by his family who are fast sleep and utterly oblivious to the fact he's gay, let alone in a relationship with Daniel Ricciardo.

"Clarity," Max forces his mind back on track. "How so?"

"Oh you know," Daniel says with ease. "Cleared my mental space."

Max huffs another laugh. His chest aches, empty. He wonders does Daniel know how hollowed out he is without him.

"Go on."

"Well, I deleted a shit ton of apps. That wellness app you made me download last year? Sorry Maxy, but that went," Daniel makes a popping noise. "And the fertility tracking app Scotty downloaded at his bachelor's party."

"Presumably he just got his and your phones mixed up, right?"

"No Maxy, it was a prank because I -" Daniel breaks away, finally understanding, laughing as if Max has made the funniest joke possible.

"Okay so you cleared up some space on your phone," Max prompts him.

"Oh yes, and then deleted twitter and went to WhatsApp and left about a billion groups and then I went to Instagram, and went through who I followed, and unfollowed tons of people."

"Oh? Did I make the cut?"

Daniel tutts as if Max is being purposefully dense.

"Naturally Maxy. In fact, I sort of debated unfollowing everyone except you, but then figured you might've been pissed at me."

Max can't tell if Daniel is joking or not. He doesn't know which he wants it to be.

"So firstly I unfollowed a bunch of people I had met years ago at business deals and stuff, and then Craig and Rebecca from school because I never really liked them anyway and they definitely never liked me and then Zak because the vibes were Not It and then my high-school teacher who I definitely only ended up following on a dare and -"

"Zak," Max says, picking out the familiar name in the sea of chatter. "As in Zak Brown?"

Daniel hums. "Yeah, the vibes were Not It. And then I also unfollowed Fernando -"

"Alonso?" Max splutters out another laugh of disbelief. "What on earth did he do to you?"

"I don't like how he acts around you."

"Me?!" Max voice goes up an octave. "What? But he's always nice to me Daniel. I like him."

"I know Max, that's the point," Daniel says, and before Max can even begin to comprehend what he means, he's continuing. "And then also Richard, from McLaren because I swear he used to tell Zak everything I did and then Michael, and then Sam, this old hookup, and -"

"Michael," Max cuts in, sure he's mistaken, "as in ..."

"Yeah," Daniel says after a beat. "That Michael."

Max swallows. Michael has been a constant strain on their relationship, the fly in the otherwise smooth ointment. Max had told Daniel he wasn't good for him, he wasn't looking after him. That friendship and business rarely mixed, and that in this case, it had congealed into something of neither, a strange, interdependent relationship which drained them both.

Daniel had said Max hadn't understood it, hadn't gotten how much Michael helped him, how good it was to have a physico who was also his mate. Max replied by saying that as far as he was concerned, Michael was proving himself to be neither.

Jealousy. That was what Daniel had pinned to him, had washed all rationality away with. Max was jealous.

He remembers feeling like he had been slapped. Jealousy. Fucking jealousy.

He never mentioned Michael again.

"But," Max begins slowly, mind whirling. "You had lunch with him last week." Even though you never mentioned it, even though I had to find out through fans' blurry photos.

"Yeah," Daniel draws the syllable out. "But... the vibes were not immaculate."

"Right," Max says, hating how terse the single word sounds. And the vibes were fine when he encouraged you to do that fucked up intermittent fasting? When he recommended yoga and gym sessions instead of therapy?

"And then I unfollowed Nicky Latifi, because unfortunately, he's going to do a masters in London, and following him online will simply remind me of all the missed possibilities I had in the academic world," he goes on.

"Daniel," Max says, trying to force his mind to move on, Daniel has unfollowed Michael Daniel has unfollowed Michael. "You dropped out of school when you were seventeen. In the most loving of ways, I would hardly call you an up and coming scholar."

"Details, Maxy," he says, but then goes quiet, and so does Max. He opens his eyes. His room is painted in shadows, sunrise still distant. The trophies he won as a child are carefully displayed in neat rows, their plaques opaque with dust, now thick and heavy. He remembers winning them, young and already starving for more, remembers the weight of plastic, the way sugary pop soda dried sticky on his skin.

"I think you were right," Daniel says softly. Max nods, face pressed against his pillow.

"I mean about him. Michael."

"I know who you meant," Max murmurs.

"Okay good, because you're definitely not write about my academic prowess, I was one hundred percent on track to be this world's Stephen Hawkens."

Max laughs softly. "It's Hawking not Hawken."

"Once again Maxy, details."

There's another exhale of quiet between them, and outside Max hears the world beginning to rise. Birds waking, their whistles winding their way through the crack in his window.

"I miss you," he says softly, as if the words are barely permitted to be spoken aloud.

"I love you too Maxy," Daniel replies with ease. Then - "you should come. I think it would be nice. If you were here too."

"I think so too," Max says. The longing grows. The trophies are dusty on his shelf, forgotten. His feet hang off his childhood bed. Birds begin to sing.

"So will you?" Daniel persists. Max squeezes his eyes shut.

"I don't know. I do not think you would be saying this if you weren't off your head on pain meds," he tries to joke. His chest aches. Hollowed out, always wanting more than he's allowed.

"Of course I would," Daniel says confidently, even though he ends it with a yawn. "I anyways want you around."

Max keeps his eyes still tightly shut. He tucks his knees up, bringing them to his chest. When he was very young and his parents were still together, he'd do this. Curl up on the bed with his eyes squeezed closed. The door shut, their shouts muffled; as distant as the bird song is to him now.

"Maxy?"

His sister said the same. Maxy? Climbing on his bed, tugging at his arms. What are they talking about? Nothing, nothing, it doesn't matter.

"How's your wrist?" Max asks. He opens his eyes - the room has grown lighter, dawn finally creeping in.

"Good," Daniel says, already forgotten what he said. Like a butterfly, moving onto the next topic, nothing permanent. "Sore. I'm on some strong shit though." He laughs. It sounds so near.

Max imagines it. He could do it. Book the ticket to Spain. It wouldn't even be that bad. People know him and Daniel are mates, and mates visit each other in hospital. And that's if it even comes out, which it might not. Nobody has to know.

"I love you," he blurts out, cheeks warm. Daniel laughs again, soft and delighted.

"Good, because my right hand is currently out of action, so I might need help over the next few weeks with a few particular things."

Max laughs, cheeks warm. He's not being quiet any more. His family can probably hear him through the walls, just like he could hear his parents all those years ago.

He can imagine his sister asking him, echoing their childhood as she questions him on words she's grasped through walls. This time, though, he thinks he will tell her the truth.

"I've heard Spain is very beautiful at the end of August," he says.

Daniel hums, "I've heard something similar, Maxy."

Outside, birds sing. The dawn continues on, filling the emptiness of night.

[la1npilledg1rl]

I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother

[xilaaa]

Good old times

[rockingrobin69]

Wip Snip

Thanks for the tag (from ages ago), @orange-peony and @littlewinnow! I'm completely and thoroughly taken by my new Victorian era AU. Here's a snip of young nobleman Draco being a brat, and poor stable boy Harry finding it hilarious until... well.

It started raining, a light and yet insistent drizzle. Jumping off the saddle when the stables were in sight, hurrying to get Isolde back and—clashed quite bodily into something warm, and fell, with a great thud, straight in a puddle.

Draco was too stunned for words for a long moment. His assailant came closer with a horrified gasp, and a hand wiggled in front of his nose, presumably to help him up. It was brown and calloused and Draco saw red.

“You,” he murmured, pushing up to his elbows, “you brainless, gormless idiot, look what you’ve—ah!” to discovering his entire sleeve drenched in mud.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said in a weird tone.

From between his teeth: “Sorry?” Draco got up to his feet. He sort of towered above him like that, when Harry’s knees were slightly bent and Draco was dripping. “You’re sorry?”

“So—” his bottom lip disappeared between his teeth. “So sorry. My lord. Can I help you—”

“Help,” Draco said to the heavens. “He wants to help. Have you any idea how expensive these clothes you’ve just ruined are?”

Harry stared at him wide-eyed for a moment. “You ran into me,” he said.

“I ran into—” he only realised he grabbed Harry’s collar a moment after doing so. “You—you—and look at my horse!” for Isolde too had suffered from the splash, and now her side was covered in grime.

“Would you like me to apologise to it again,” Harry said, and the corners of his mouth twitched.

Draco blinked. “You think this is funny?” he asked, in a tone that managed to convey the deepest disbelief while being deadly icy. “You think. This is. Funny?” shaking him with every syllable. There was spittle on Harry’s face, and still he was only barely concealing the laugh.

“Not at all, my lord.”

Draco was so outraged he nearly started laughing too. Or shouting, perhaps that would be easier and more efficient. “You utter imbecile,” shaking him worse, “I will have you—I’ll have you—”

“Please don’t fire him, milord,” Mr. Hagrid’s voice came from the stables. The rain kept hitting Draco’s face in tiny droplets. “He didn’t mean it, whatever he said.”

“What he said?” Draco gasped. He wasn’t entirely certain he had the power to fire anyone, anyway, but there was no point in relaying that. On the bright side, Harry wasn’t laughing anymore, and now looked at least a little apprehensive.

“Harry’s a bit slow, milord. Nothing too serious, but he can sometimes say or do things that might, ah, cause a touch of grief to someone as cultured as y’rself, and, please, milord, he didn’t mean it.”

The serious tone did make him pause. Mr. Hagrid wasn’t one for meaningless chatter, and besides, Draco was willing to grant him leave to far greater extent than most other people. Still, to look over such slight—to himself, to his clothing, and to Isolde—with a gasp as the sky above darkened a degree: “Dinner! I must—it would start soon, and I’m all—all—” running a hand through his matted hair. “I’m ruined,” he said, in a voice nearing tears.

“No, not at all, milord, look—why don’t you go back to the house and take a nice, quick bath. I find matters always feel mighty better after a bath, don’t you?”

But there was no time. “There’s no—” Draco stopped, shook his head, lost and irritated with the way Harry just kept standing there, not at all horrified or at the very least repentant. “You,” he spat.

Harry came closer. “My lord?”

“You’ll pay for this,” Draco promised coldly.

“Yes, my lord.”

“I will make you suffer.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The evenness to his tone unnerved Draco so completely that he nearly squealed. “Are you listening? Mark my words, you’ll rue this day!”

“Yes, my lord, I’ll rue it forever.”

He was impossible. Draco, out of time and out of his mind, just grabbed the infuriating man by both shoulders and threw him down in the puddle, to stare blankly at his feet like a fish pulled out of the water.

“Milord!” Mr. Hagrid ran forward, stopping only a pace away. Granted he had a very long stride. “Harry, are—milord, was that truly necessary?”

The rebuke was harmless, but the disappointed look Draco did not deserve. “He was mocking me!” came out sounding far too childish, but there was no time to fix any mistake made. Harry stayed down in the mud, blinking long dark lashes like he was too stunned for words, and something not unlike anger moved on his brow, which he swallowed down.

After a long, long moment, in a dull voice: “Forgive me, my lord. I did not intend it.”

“See?” Mr. Hagrid pleaded. “The boy didn’t mean it. All’s well, then?”

The shriek that got out of him: “No!” gesturing wildly, “All is certainly not well! I am filthy, with no time to change for dinner, my mare is soaked through, and this blithering idiot is laughing at me like this is—like—” why did anything coming out of his mouth sound so petty and impossibly small. “Never mind, I’ve no time for this. Have my horse cleaned and taken care of, please, Mr. Hagrid. And make sure to punish this oaf for getting in my way.”

“Will do, milord, will do,” with his natural severity and good-humour, and Draco truly had no time to dawdle. With a last look at Harry in the mud, far less satisfying than he’d hoped, he dashed indoors and suffered a hair-splitting lecture from his maid, who was too old and too scary to punish.

(If it makes you feel any better, Draco will pay for this 😈🙃)

[undeadvinyls]

rewatching season 4 of code lyoko rn and i NEED a discourse on how the writing team treated william, yumi and sissi (and also sam!) like shit

[villainihavedonethymotheronao3]

I know “Luz grows up with Hunter as another Golden Guard” is a common AU but I think that if baby Luz had stumbled through the portal somehow things would have shaken out very differently.

Belos clearly needs the psychological affirmation of having another human support him and agree with him, he lets Luz in on his secrets and monologues to her. So we’d end up with a dynamic of the hyper-isolated because the only way to convince a child that killing all witches is righteous is to not let them meet any witches princess who knows all the secrets and gets burdened with all the emotional baggage and who most people might not even know exists vs. Hunter the punching bag who takes the blame and acts as a surrogate for Wittebrother’s betrayal and whose public responsibilities are mirrored by his behind stage caretaking. Rapunzel and Cinderella. Of course they like each other at the end of the day, they’re both sweet and empathetic kids, but Belos is going to pit them against each other even in his own head. The good human kid he bravely rescued from the witches and his perennial traitor brother/son/nephew. The innocent younger sibling who can do no wrong and the older sibling whose job is clearly to look after them at any cost, subsuming their whole identity to Older Brotherhood. The duality of child abuse.

[abbinurmel]

Listen I frankly don't care how yall relax or decompress and if you're among those people who regress or like kid stuff purely for aesthetic then fine, whatever long as you're still able to live a functional happy safe life-

But.

I really gotta ask. Where does this "happy vacant minded pure innocent haha no thoughts mind" association with being a kid or reliving childhood play even come from?

Cos frankly alla yall never have been or been around kids. At all.

"Lookee mee teehee Imma just a kyoot widdle goil with my immaculately decorated and absolutely clean hair and clean #aesthetic pink room and expensive adorable imported Japanese cosplays and designer stuffed animals and Instagram selfie influencer makeup, i just sit all day in bed surrounded by neat fwuffy pillows and flowers and organized building blocks in my sweet cute heavenly paradise where nothing bad ever happens uwu"

Meanwhile ACTUAL childhood, regardless of gender be like-

"MOMMMMM BILLY'S BLEEDING COS HE CALLED ME A PIECE OF SHIT SO I BIT HIM"

"I GOT ICE CREAM ON MY DRESS"

"DADDY DADDY WATCH ME KICK DIRT AT YOU HAHAH"

"EEEEEEEEEEEUGGHHHHRARAAAAAAA"

"FUCK YOU! NO FUCK YOU! DROP DEAD STUPID POOP HEAD"

"WAAAAAAH AUUUGHHH GHHHHHHHNNNN BUT I WANNA EAT MCDONALLLLDS"

"I will now take Barbie atop the great fire mountain, where she will make a living sacrifice of Pinkie Pie to the bloodthirsty ancient gods, so they may be appeased and no longer send deadly plagues to wipe out LegoLand."

"LEAVE ME ALONE STAY OUTTA MY ROOM IDIOTS AGGHH I HATE YOUUUU"

"MOMMEE THERE'S GUM IN MY HAIR"

"It's 9PM and I am in bed and I just heard a funny buzzing noise come from the house somewhere. The whole world literally wants to kill me in my sleep now. My bed will have nothing but my skeleton left in it by tomorrow....👀"

"I got pushed down in the mud at the playground because I told my friends I liked the color purple."

"I saw a dead earthworm on the ground and I cried cos I knew existential despair til I was red in the face and then got sent to the principle's office."

"Billy threw up so I just stood there and laughed until Billy threw some of his throw up at me"

[autoneurotic]

i think for real after the new year starts i’m going to get a referral for an overnight sleep study, like, something is UP. i know i have ptsd and nightmares/dreams manifest in sometimes vague ways but. none of these dreams have ever been tied to the things i’ve been thru. i’ve never killed anyone i’ve never been killed i’ve never been in a war or drowned or any of the 5000000 other gruesome fucking scenarios my brain cooks up. i’ve always had vivid dreams and it’s only gotten worse with age, strictly nightmares now, and like, i’ve had a few psychologists and psychiatrists now and all of them are like idk! we just don’t know a whole lot about dreams :) cool but this is torture. i’ve tried tranquilizers and sedatives and ptsd-dreams-specific drugs i can’t remember the name of now and NONE OF THEM work for more than a month. i wake up fearful! i dread going to sleep sometimes because it feels like im going back to a very real world designed to terrify me specifically for eternity. anyway. good morning i guess.