#some suicidal ideation

[party-gilmore]

Check ALL The Warnings In The Tags If You’re Ducking Below The Read More.

DISCLAIMER: This is a post about me specifically and my broken fucking brain. I am not trying to make any sweeping statements about colonizer guilt or “activism burn-out,” of which others have made EXCELLENT points and i am not trying to draw away from those conversations at all. This is specifically about how my panic disorder and suicidal ideation are making it difficult for me to safely manage my level of involvement and interaction online, at the expense of the ability to actually put in the work for change out in the real world.

OKAY.

Last post on mobile. Tumblr is officially deleted from my phone. we are on Set Amount Of Time A Day - PC/Desktop only for a while.

To be very clear the point of this is not looking for sympathy or trying to be guilt trippy, just trying to get a hold of where my head’s at and let y’all know I’m not gonna be around so much but that I’m okay. Or least, this is me TRYING to be okay.

i CANNOT let the doom-scrolling keep affecting my ability to actually do anything that might actually help. The way i’ve been interacting on this site, trying to Stay Informed but blurring that line and crossing into constantly seeking more and more details that i NEED to admit i can’t handle, whether it’s the level of detail or the constantness of it or both…

the paralysis and anxiety and panic and - there’s an actual word for when you keep vividly imagining the absolute worst possible outcome but i can’t remember what it is, probably something else starting with “doom” - anyways the point is i clearly don’t have the ability right now to:

a) have any kind of ready access to The Horrors without making it… LITERALLY constant in my life. i don’t have the control to take it in measured doses, i need to recognize that if i have any kind of access all the time it WILL be a 100% deep dive nothing but the fucking trauma and abominations being inflicted on others in detail from the moment i get up until i finally clear my head enough to sleep for a few hours. which yeah i KNOW Palestinians in Gaza don’t GET that luxury it IS 24/7 all the time for them and I wouldn’t be complaint about that at ALL honestly if it weren’t for the fact that right now CLEARLY i do not have the fucking ability to

b) stop that from paralyzing me from any Real Action. It just locks me up. It SHOULDNT i should be able to compartmentalize that shit because physically for now i am fine my family is fine but instead i just fucking sit there , blankly staring as I scroll through atrocity after atrocity after atrocity that powerful governments are supporting, feeling like i cant do shit cuz it’s just getting worse and worse, then guilty that i feel like giving up, then GUILTY that i feel guilty because who am i trying to guiltrip here who CARES if I feel guilty when i’m not in the same situation they are they have it so much worse and they keep on going what would YOU do in that situation huh if you can’t even handle THIS - then that kicks of the vivid imaginings of me and my family experiencing that kind of slow death and dismemberment and being crushed by rubble then of course because we’re in america close to dc my brain jumps to nukes and how we’re in the zone JUST far away enough from DC for it not to kill us outright it would be slow and horrifying and painful and could i bring myself to at least get in the car and make it up to them so we could at least die together or would it be alone and afraid like all these people around the world are going through, that Palestine is going through, that my government is putting them through -

anyways it’s that spiral that keeps me sitting and scrolling and sitting and scrolling and wallowing in - what i genuinely thought was me just being a shitty fucking person but i realize now was actually genuinely - an anxiety attack (that’s the one that’s slow and creeping, right? panic is the fast sharp one) like an actual physically can’t shake myself out of “i forgot my brain was fucking broken, the adhd meds aren’t gonna magically fix everything” anxiety attack. Every goddamn day.

And let me be very clear again about my point here my point is not to try and guilt trip or garner sympathy my POINT is -

I cant do the kind of shit that actually helps anyone, in real fucking life, if I keep sending my brain into lockdown panic “All Is Lost, You Suck, Just Fucking Die” mode.

I want to be better, do better, be stronger, not have to look away at all. But I can’t trust myself not to fucking…. wallow in the goddamn despair of it all right now. So I need to take that option away.

Because who’s it really for, honestly? All the sharing and the posting? There’s a limit to what actually helps. The people following me have already made up their minds, one way or another. Sharing more of the same old shit isn’t going to actually CHANGE anything. Once youre through the new information of the day, the shit people actually need to know that they might not already… it feels like it’s just fucking… performative bullshit. like it’s all about making sure people SEE you still sharing all of this stuff. Oh look i’m still involved see how involved i am see how i’m still reading and sharing and posting all this stuff arent I a Good Activist?

What does any of that matter if it’s breaking my brain so much I can’t actually do any activism???

I would rather be considered weak and selfish by strangers on the fucking internet who don’t see me sharing as many posts as they think I should, but who ACTUALLY KEEPS WRITING the emails and MAKING the calls and SEEKING OUT events and disruptions and protests that maybe i can actually PARTICIPATE in

Than to keep showing off how i’m not “Looking Away” online but then spend every night sitting on my couch doing Fuck All about it, locked in a perpetual doom scroll through my For You page, imagining my flesh slowly burning and melting off as I hoist my whimpering dying dog’s body into the back of my car and desperately try to reach my parent’s house in time to say good bye and all go together, then shoving all that down into a flimsy box at the last minute to be able to smile at my mom and act like I just swung by to help with the floors instead of absolutely needing to see her and my father alive right now and touch them and fucking hate myself for indulging in that when Palestinians can’t so much that i force myself into an even deeper doom scroll next time as penance because how dare i look away for a MOMENT i can see them i can live i NEED to MAKE myself look at what’s happening-… rinse and repeat.

[sammialex]

This site needs more Neville meta. Quote below is my fic.

Contrary to what most believed, Neville Longbottom was not afraid of heights. No; heights were one of his favorite places. As a child he’d been drawn to the highest windows of the manor. The land rolled out like the greenest carpet in every direction, the wind buffeted his face like millions of tiny kisses, and most importantly, it kept him well out of reach of his gran, hobbled as she was with her walking stick.

No; heights were not the problem. Even falling was a rush, surrounded by air with no one and nothing to bother him.

No; it wasn’t heights that scared Neville. It was the landing, that sickening crunch that preceded the bounce that turned out to be the only moment Neville had been worth anything at all.

[casper-perry]

all the king's horses

author: en passant (corinthian)

summary: The Underworld is not as one would expect. Leona discovers much more than blot and phantoms. Leona dies in his Overblot, everything changes.

[notaplaceofhonour]

it’s october 7th. you hear about the attack by seeing people you followed glorifying the terrorist attack—a massacre, a pogrom—as victory & justified resistance, glorifying a terrorist group that was founded with the explicit intent to kill your entire people

you make a post in which you make it clear you support palestinians and oppose the ways israel has wronged them, explaining that the terrorist group is still not good. you know you will probably get some flacc from the pro-Hamas side, but naively underestimate how much.

you get thousands of notifications on that one post, the majority of them hateful comments.

some of the response is positive. multiple messages thank you for the post, expressing bafflement that it’s controversial.

a few Israelis are upset at the loaded language in your post, but explain their problems with it civilly. you called Israel “apartheid”. they ask you what apartheid laws Israel has. you admit you honestly don’t know.

your inbox is flooded with anonymous hate from anti-Israel leftists.

over the course of a few weeks you have received hundreds of death threats, a dozen rape threats. people accuse you of being pro-genocide. you’re a literal Nazi. you’re racist, you thirst for the blood of Palestinians. you’re brainwashed by propaganda, a shill for The Zionist Entity. a few of the hate messages are from literal Neo-Nazis; the overwhelming majority are from leftists, many of them queer.

you are considering suicide.

you see footage of the october 7th attacks. you see footage of the bombings in gaza. you see footage of a Jewish man being murdered at an anti-Israel rally.

a popular creator you follow posts in support of an antisemitic hate group that masquerades as a Jewish organization. this organization regularly posts blood libel and other antisemitic rhetoric, works with groups that are even more explicitly antisemitic, including celebrating October 7th, holocaust inversion, blood libel, “Khazar theory” and others. more than one of the orgs they work with is pro-Putin.

your former roommate liked the post.

graffiti appears on a street you frequent that says “#freepalestine” and “end settler colonialism”

the boyfriend of the friend you spent most of the summer with makes his first post about the war. it’s a reposted comic that mocks and downplays the october 7th attack.

you doubt he’ll be receptive to criticism. he’s shared leftist memes about “monied elites” pulling all the strings and evangelicals being modern day “pharisees” in the past, and getting him to understand why that was antisemitic was like herding cats. you try anyway.

another of his Jewish friends also pushes back. he smugly dismisses her, tells her she’s falling for Zionist propaganda and uses several antisemitic tropes. you go off on him. he just deletes your comment.

you give up. you’re done. you block him.

you see anti-Israel posters and billboards around town

you mention what happened with the guy you went off on to his girlfriend—the friend you’ve grown very close to, who you’ve been listening to as she unburdens her fears for the future and complains about her bf’s BS over the last year. she doesn’t respond to you.

a friend of a friend shares posts tokenizing fringe groups that spread blood libel and have collaborated with holocaust deniers. you know they don’t know what you know, so you explain what those groups are. they seem somewhat receptive, apologize, and take it down

the next day they share several more posts that dip into antisemitic tropes. you mention this to your mutual friend, that you’re worried about them being radicalized. you’re not sure how receptive they’ll be to continued criticism

you have a confrontation with the foaf. in the meantime they’ve shared even more antisemitic posts. they say they didn’t mean to cause you distress but instead of stopping they effectively block you.

the “end settler colonialism” vandalism has been counter-vandalized with the words “commie propaganda” in place of “settler colonialism”. you don’t know if this is an improvement.

a month passes. the friend whose bf you went off on still hasn’t spoken to you. you see she shared a post defending an SJP chapter that posted Nazi cartoon caricatures of Jews repurposed in “Anti-Zionist” memes. you unfriend her on all social media platforms but you can’t bring yourself to block her number.

you see a friend of someone whose couch you surfed when you were homeless harassing Jewish celebrities with “Free Palestine” comments. you block them.

you’ve lost count of how many people you’ve unfollowed or blocked, or who’ve blocked you. friends, content creators.

when a friend takes an unusually long time to respond you worry if it’s because of your posts about antisemitism.

most of the podcasts, youtube channels, and other content creators you regularly engaged with no longer feel safe. you wonder who will be next

a couple friends wish you a happy hanukkah. you don’t celebrate much aside from lighting the hanukkiah and making some latkes.

you see posts about a destroyed chabad menorah, antisemitic comments on Jewish celebrities’ Hanukkah posts.

your neighborhood is covered in pro-Palestine & anti-Israel posters. some are seemingly innocuous, some are JVP “not in our name” posters. some call for intifada. “globalize the intifada” “Zionists fuck off!” “solidarity means attack!”

a man kills himself shouting “free palestine”. you learn about his suicide by seeing posts from several popular accounts you followed glorifying it.

you follow a bunch of jewish accounts on social media and commiserate with them about everything happening

your jewish friends post screenshots of the dead man’s antisemitic, pro-Hamas views. you look at his reddit and find even more horrific shit: anti-Ukraine posts. mocking Zelensky. “elites” are “lizard people”; the only named individual he calls a lizard person is Jewish. you start to notice a pattern: a lot of the people he dislikes just so happen to be jews.

several people you know share a post glorifying this man’s suicide. most are acquaintances, one is someone incredibly important to you.

you wonder how they would respond to your suicide.

you tell the close friend that shared this post how it scares you. you show them the receipts of the man’s antisemitism. their response is a single sentence. they didn’t know about the antisemitism.

they don’t apologize.

you notice none of your irl friends, even your closest ones, interact with your posts about antisemitism. you are able to vent to a couple friends, but no one has reach out to you

you try not to read into it. you try not to take it personally.

you haven’t slept well in months. you’ve always been an insomniac but not like this. you’re not sleeping until 4am, 6am, even 9am. even when you get to bed at a decent hour and get a full night’s rest it takes you hours to get out of bed.

a few weeks go by. the friend with the single sentence response shares a post saying they’re excited and proud to join a group to help palestinians. you’re excited and proud for them.

a couple days later, they share a post about a fundraiser to help a palestinian family get out of gaza. you note to yourself this is a much more effective & less concerning form of activism than the pro-suicidal antisemite post.

your friend shares another post about the fundraiser. it’s a joint post between their group and another group.

you open the other group’s page

the page is just a wall of signs from rallies. you swipe through one after another: “from the river to the sea”, “by any means necessary”, justifying/denying the atrocities of october 7th, calling for violent revolution. anything done in the name of resistance can’t be terrorism, all Israelis are terrorists. Jews aren’t indigenous; they’re white colonizers. holocaust inversion. other vile, thinly veiled violent rhetoric

you feel sick to your stomach imagining talking to your friend about it.

you already feel like you’re burdening the few friends you can talk to about this. you already feel like you think about it too much, talk about it too much. but you can’t not think about it; it affects every aspect of your life.

you’ve filtered out relevant keywords on more than one social media site to avoid the worst of it. some still manages to leak through.

there isn’t a single friend you regularly interact with that you don’t fear the moment when they will switch from listening to your concerns to seeing you as the evil zionist or indoctrinated hasbaranik they’ve been warned about.

it’s not an irrational fear. it keeps happening. you knew it would then, and you were powerless to do anything about it before, and you continue to be as it happens again and again.

you don’t know what to do about any of it.

[thelaurenshippen]

911 really is such a good reminder of the particularly kind of joy that is weekly, seasons-long shows with many episodes per season. every character gets a moment to shine even in a truncated season. the satisfaction of seeing characters grapple with stuff that happened YEARS ago. having multi-episode arcs and one-off arcs that are equally enjoyable. beach episodes (metaphorical). I know we're all saying this all the time but why can't more tv be like this

[incendavery]

the internal dialog corvids in: 'tis the season(al depression)

[theatre-apocalypse]

Sharing my “Paul has MDD” propaganda.

[jaskierx]

sorry i can’t stop thinking about how at the start of the season ed was actively suicidal and he felt so unloveable and so broken that he didn’t see any way out other than provoking a mutiny bc he thought he was such a monster

and he gets to end the season at the very beginning of a new life, embarking on a new dream with a man who loves him, a man who not only is able to love him but who finds it incredibly easy to do so, who deliberately chose him over piracy bc he’s that important

if the end of ofmd s2 is not a kind ending then i don’t know what is

[57sfinest]

no honestly did jean genuinely not realize that the car in the ocean was a suicide attempt?? did he really think harry was THAT drunk or was he willingly misinterpreting it so he could shift any sympathy away from harry? because i can absolutely see jean seeing it as a suicide attempt but deliberately choosing to frame it as an irresponsible accident resulting from harry's alcoholism, because that way no one will be like "oh shit harry tried to kill himself?" and they'd instead join jean in condemning harry for his addiction

[green-eyedfirework]

He didn’t know what possessed him to blurt it out, but the words spilled from his lips, “You’re attracted to me.”

The cold blue eye flicked up, and then back down at the book.  “You’re attractive.”

A frustratingly typical non-committal answer.

“You know what I mean,” Dick snapped, releasing his stretch and pushing up on his knees.  Slade didn’t look at him, not even when Dick loomed above him.  “Slade.”

“What are you fishing for?” Slade asked, still intent on his book.

“You said—you told them,” Dick started, and stopped.  He remembered the day they’d come into the cell, and the way Slade casually talked about him like he wasn’t right there—“You told them you wanted me.  It’s true.  You do want me.”

“Is there a question in there somewhere, kid?”

“You don’t—” Dick didn’t know how to make the right words come out.  Slade was staring at him now, attention off the book, and even if Dick shut up, he knew that the older man would tuck the memory of his flustration away.  “If you really wanted me, you’d fuck me more often,” Dick said bluntly.

Slade’s eye narrowed.  “Do you want me to fuck you more often?” he asked blandly, and Dick immediately snarled.  “Don’t give me that, kid.  You’re the one who started this conversation.”

Dick breathed, in and out, and resisted the urge to try and punch Slade.  He wouldn’t succeed anyway, collar or not.

“Why don’t you fuck me more often?”  The question was quieter than Dick intended, though at least he hid the rawness.  If Slade was a monster, it would’ve been easier to endure.  If he was the manipulative jackass Dick knew he was, taking advantage of the opportunity of Nightwing at his feet, Dick could understand.  But Slade kept the fucks almost military-precise, like they were just another thing to check off his schedule.  Meals, shower, training, and every other day, fuck Nightwing.

Slade’s face tightened, and Dick prepared himself for another sarcastic non-answer, but Slade just turned back to his book.  “Because being forced to put on a show is not my idea of a good time.”

Dick made a high, unamused laugh.  “I didn’t realize my consent mattered to you so much.”

“I wasn’t,” Slade said evenly, “Talking about you.”

Dick stilled.  Something hot was burning in his stomach, tight and furious.  “Not enjoying yourself?” Dick asked, his tone dark and poisonous, “Not getting off to dominating me—oh wait, you are.  I have proof of that.”

“I mastered control of my body a long time ago,” Slade said, disinterested again, and Dick’s fingers itched with the desire to reach out and claw out his remaining eye.

“Do you really expect me to believe that this isn’t entertaining for you?” Dick spit out.

“I like a challenge,” Slade said levelly, not looking up at him, “I like a fight.  Fucking someone who’s limp and sobbing is unappealing.”  His tone took a harder edge, “One of us is wearing the collar, kid, and it isn’t you.”

That hit more painfully than if Slade had reached out and slapped him.  “Why do you fuck me if you hate it so much, then?” Dick hissed.

“Why do you let me fuck you if you hate it so much?” Slade turned the question back onto him.  Let me fuck you.  Jesus fucking Christ.  Like Dick had a fucking choice.

His fingers curled into fists as his heartbeat throbbed angrily in his skull.  “The choice is rape or death,” he said more evenly than he felt.

Slade tilted his head, as if to say ‘there you have it’.

“You won’t die if you don’t fuck me,” Dick snarled.

“No,” Slade looked up at him, ice blue eye pinning him in place, “But you will.”

~#~

Dick opened his eyes to meet an icy blue one, the one he’d been dreaming of in the stupor exhaustion dragged him into, more sticky and draining than actual sleep.  The only thing he dreamed of, because all the others were too implausible in this hellhole, unable to coalesce even in his imagination, but this was close enough to hope for.

Slade would not come, would not protect him, would not help—

“Robin,” cracked past bloody, crusted lips, a rasp of a whisper that Dick forced out.

But he might kill him.

Dick didn’t want to die.  He wanted to go home, back to his family, back to his life, but he was dying anyway, and he preferred Slade’s instantaneous option over being raped and torn apart, again and again and again until his body just gave up.

In his dreams, Slade always agreed.  He looked angry or gentle or blank, but he cupped Dick’s face in his hands and jerked—and then Dick woke back up to his hell.

This time, Slade hesitated.  He blinked in what looked like shock, before it flickered through upset and hardened into grim determination.  “Okay, little bird,” he murmured, oh-so-soft, and one forearm braced against his shoulders, not cupping his face, and the other fit around his jaw.

Wait a minute.

Dick squinted at this uncharacteristic change, why—Slade’s face was splattered with blood, and gaunter than he remembered.

Fingers tensed on his jaw.

“Stop,” burst forth, his heart suddenly hammering as he raised a shaky hand to grab Slade’s arm.  “Stop, no, Slade, don’t.”

Slade relinquished him easily, and Dick propped himself up on an elbow and tried to blink the exhaustion from his eyes.

The room was a bloodbath.  Most of it was concentrated near the open door, the bodies outside, but there was also a spreading stain on the bed, where Adams’ mutilated corpse was strewn over the sheets.

Freshly mutilated, because Adams had definitely used him just hours before, and yet he was dead and Slade was covered in blood.

Dick snapped his gaze back to Slade, who had retreated a couple of steps, watching him silently.  The sling was gone, the broken cheekbone healed, all the injuries vanished like they’d never been there, but there was something broken in his expression, and Dick didn’t know what it was.

He did know one thing.

“You came,” Dick choked past the growing lump in his throat, struggling to straighten upright with weak, spasming arms.  He hadn’t dreamed—sparing his life the first time had been a whim, but this—this destruction Slade had wrecked to get Dick back—

Dick was all out of tears, but the harsh gasps shuddering through him were the closest equivalent of sobs his battered body could manage.  “You came,” he whispered again, reaching out a trembling hand, and Slade closed the distance between them and allowed Dick to tighten a hand in his shirt as he slowly, carefully, gently picked him up.

Dick wanted to tell him it didn’t matter.  Every part of Dick ached and burned, Slade’s care wouldn’t make a difference.  But he just buried his face against Slade’s shirt and held on tight.

~#~

Dick never left Slade’s reach.

At first, he was injured enough that it wasn’t apparent, Slade hovering solicitously over him as he recovered his strength, bit by bit, spooning soup into his mouth, practically carrying him to the bathroom, dressing his injuries.  Soon, Dick had enough strength to be able to walk shakily to the far wall and back, though he frequently had to pause along the way.

Before, he would’ve taken the opportunity to sit in the far corner, as far away from Slade as he could get, back turned to show his visible displeasure.  Even later, when the days settled into a rhythm, Dick grew more comfortable with the space but still kept away, anger churning inside of him after each of their public fights.

Now, he stayed on the bed, Slade in sight if Dick wasn’t already pressed against him, and Slade escorted him to the bathroom for every trip.  The handful of times Slade had gone to the training arena, Dick had sat on the nearest bench and kept his white-knuckled grip on the wood, barely even daring to blink.

Every time he did, every time he looked away, he remembered the door buzzing open, too many hands overwhelming him, fighting punished painfully, the high, shrieking thought that if Slade had been there, Dick would’ve never gotten hurt.  It made his breaths run fast and high, his chest squeeze painfully, and his heart pound in his ears as terror blanketed him.

He knew it wasn’t healthy, knew that Slade wasn’t his white knight, wasn’t even a good person, that the man had stained his hands with more blood than anyone he faced in the arena, but to Dick’s traumatized senses, he registered as safe.

Slade’s patience with Dick’s clinging, however, finally ran out.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Dick said quietly, his gaze focused on the strings he was weaving together.  Red and black.  Maybe he could impress Jason with his bracelet-making skills when he got out.

“So go,” Slade rumbled from beside him, “You don’t need me holding your hand anymore.”

The strings fell through suddenly trembling fingers.  Dick looked up, and Slade turned to look down at him, raising an eyebrow.

He wasn’t breathing too fast, wasn’t shaking, but Slade must’ve seen something on his face because he lowered the book to look at Dick properly.  “I’ve gone over every inch of that bathroom,” he said, calm and even, “No one can get out, much less in.”

That...was true.  The ensuite had only one door, and no windows.  Slade would stop anyone who tried to enter the cell.  Dick was as safe as he could get.

His throat was still locked up.  He didn’t know why.  He stared up at Slade, mute, pleading for something he didn’t understand, and Slade’s expression roiled before it settled to a fractured blankness.

“I can’t protect you, kid,” Slade said quietly, and it sounded like it hurt him to admit it.

Not like this, his furrowed brow told him.  Not with a collar around his neck, suppressing the meta powers that made him one of the deadliest people on Earth.  Not locked inside a fighting ring used for someone’s sick entertainment.  Dick had gotten a crash course in the fact that Slade wasn’t invincible and couldn’t be everywhere.

Dick’s eyes were beginning to prickle.

Slade sighed, and closed his book.  “Fine,” he grumbled, getting off the bed, “Let’s go.”

~#~

“Did you get injured worse in that last match?” Dick asked, curled up in Slade’s arms and still coming down from the panic attack he’d gotten when the door buzzed open to admit Slade post his infirmary check-up.

Slade healed ridiculously fast, Dick couldn’t think of any injury that would’ve kept him out for days, and yet he hadn’t been there when Adams and the others had come prowling.

“They kept my collar on,” Slade replied, his tone terse.

Dick twisted to look up at Slade.  “What?”

Deathstroke was one of their most valuable fighters, a great draw for spectators, and they usually took off his collar—while he was completely drugged up—to allow him to rapidly heal any injuries he got.  It was one of the main points of vulnerability that existed in the whole set-up, and if Dick could just figure out how to use it, they’d be free.

There were very few problems that couldn’t be solved by pointing a determined Deathstroke in its direction.

It was also unfortunately the reason Slade stuck to his no-holds-barred fighting style, willing to tank attacks to keep on the offensive, and some part of Dick went cold as he remembered how easily the cell door had opened.

Like someone had unlocked it.

“They did it on purpose,” Dick said distantly, his grip tightening on Slade, “They—me—they did it on purpose.  Why?”

“Could be several reasons,” Slade said levelly, and he maneuvered Dick until he was curled up more tightly in Slade’s lap.  “They wanted to get back at me, put me in my place, remind me that I’m not in charge.”

Well, that backfired spectacularly, then, every single one of their fighters was now utterly terrified of Slade.

“Or they could’ve despised you.  Thought that you were too unbroken.”

Partially succeeded on that account.  All it took was a goddamn door opening to send Dick into a panic attack.

“Or,” Slade said quietly, “The ones that fancy themselves as intelligent, they probably wanted to see what I’d do.”

How Slade would act, to come back and discover that his plaything had been stolen.  How attached he was to Dick.  Possessiveness didn’t equal protectiveness, after all, and Dick had the sinking feeling that they revealed too much with Slade’s rescue and care.

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Dick whispered, “That they’re studying your actions?”  That they know they can use me against you?

“No,” was the casual response, “Because I’ll kill them all.”  A callused thumb brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen into Dick’s face.  “The cleverer ones would’ve argued against provoking me at all.”

Dick could’ve said something, about murder and justice and one not equating the other.  He didn’t.

Justice—trials and laws and enforcement—was the privilege of a civilized society.  The arena didn’t meet the list of requirements.

“And the cleverest ones?” Dick asked, resting his head against Slade’s chest, “What did they do?”

“Run,” Slade murmured, “The moment they saw me in the arena.”

[thetrinitytest]

huge shoutout to Big Finish and GDL for tearing my heart out through my throat and wringing it out like a towel

[y-rhywbeth2]

*You've butchered so many before - each death a gift to your Father. But this one, you will take from him. This one is just for you.*

I'm not saying that keeping Durge from dying/committing suicide is a bad thing (especially because their afterlife was not going to be an improvement), but if you lean into the options that portray them as suicidal, and then we get to Bhaal giving them the option of service or death (the only real choice he's ever given them) and Durge makes their choice - and judging by the Prayer for Forgiveness, death is something they've wanted for a long while.

This death, this choice, is for them.

And immediately somebody takes their decision away from them.

For the millionth time.

Jergal wasn't in the wrong, but my Durge still isn't speaking to him. (And yes, that's technically from the Chosen of Bhaal post-final battle thing but it's relevant.)

[foldingfittedsheets]

Oh my god. Our DM sometimes… fundamentally misses how traumatic things can be? So in tonights session we got sucked into a trap made by a beholder. We had a normal NPC with us, an old god who had lapsed into obscurity and powerlessness, and four adventurers.

It turned out the beholder wanted to keep us in a person zoo, and the DM stripped us of all powers and magic while in this prison. Our only food was unlimited doughnut holes, grape juice, and water. There was also a mimic trash can but no toilet.

So we ended up dumping our waste into the mimic which just. Ate it.

Eventually we decided to try to ramp up the old gods powers by believing in them really hard to try to escape. We played games of chance and prayed to them for luck.

It started as card games and roulette wheels of tea, escalating in insanity until we ended up using the mimic as a piñata. With one extremely good whack to it it puked up the piss and doughnut holes we’d fed it.

And that was really funny! Haha! Now how long are we gonna be stuck in here? Not that long, right?

This continued for two. Months. (In game). No food but doughnut holes and grape juice, no magic, my dragon couldn’t even transform for some reason, all while under constant surveillance from a sociopathic beholder.

When we’d finally powered up the god enough to break out of her plane all of us players were just:

And we were like, “holy fuck, we need therapy.”

The DM then laughed and said, “Oh, you’re adventurers, you don’t need therapy! It wasn’t that bad!”

[jonahfagnus]

also i cant explain it but suicidal jonah is so real to me

[cursed-coat-of-homosexuality]

how we feelin

(gif by @usermeggy)

pain. I feel pain

[petrichor-moss-and-lightning]

you think about killing yourself. you think about going to bed at a reasonable time. you do neither of these things.

instead, you resign yourself to staring at the cracks in the ceiling—tell yourself that tomorrow will fix it. that a mouth to the underside of your jaw will fix it. that ginger shots or yoga or taking three deep breaths or patching the goddamned cracks in the ceiling will fix it. you've been trying to fix it—this gasping, hollowing sensation in the gore of your chest—since you were fifteen and bitter and lurching into traffic / into lovers you couldn't love back / into any scrap of warmth that would have you.

you take three deep breaths. you watch the ceiling. you let time pass through you like a knife.