#the crush not the depression

[the-moons-coffin]

hello i am returned. ive gotten my mother to make the appointment to the doctor for my fatigue and i am feeling very depressed lately.

[celestial-artisan]

Lucifer: Sitting and doing paperwork all day is killing me... Alastor: You won't die from that. Lucifer: It's a figure of speech, idiot, use the great tool of empathy! Alastor: Alastor: The King of Hell has died! Lucifer: Don't you have something called 'middle ground'?

[thepersonalquotes]

Do not allow your happiness to be controlled by the thoughts of others. People are happy for you one minute and then the next they are looking down their noses at you. You have to find within yourself the kind of happiness that withstands the ups and downs of life. No one should have the power to limit or repress your happiness.

Amaka Imani Nkosazana, Heart Crush

[dykealloy]

this man is. embarrassingly transparent

[lotus-pear]

do you ever think about the tragic fact that odasaku's dying words to dazai were to become a good man, to be on the side that saves people.....which leads to the creation of the beast universe as dazai, in his grief and denial, finds the book and alters reality with the mentality "then....that means saving you too, right?"

[infernal-lamb]

Hey, I've seen your drawings from Neves. They are brilliant. I like her a lot, and are you writing fanfic about her?

Ahh thank you!!! That's really flattering fkljgfjf....It's always a pleasant surprise that people like Neves :'-) (and I love when I get an excuse to post my doodles of her and the Lamb lol)

I am in the works of trying to write a cotl fanfic abt this specific au (I call it The Apostate & The Martyr in my head lol), but writing doesn't come as easily as drawing to me SIGH. I've actually written quite a bit, but the problem is putting all these random excerpts together to make something coherent LOL. But yes, the fic is intended to be the story of The Lamb and Neves' friendship amidst the brutality and terror of the Lands of the Old Faith, how to deal with the consequences of their choices, and the mutual alienation they experience in their positions....as silly as that sounds lol. It's very self-indulgent! I just liked the concept of the "Outsider" POV, so to speak, being subjected to the sort of normalized violence that exists in cotl. Though, I might end up just making comics if I can't pan out this fanfic well enough!

[thesoftestmess]

this might not be canon, but personally i need furina to struggle a whole lot longer and harder with post-prophecy depression and mental illness. She's played the same tiring and painful act for five centuries, was constantly in a life or death scenario and had to hide her true self from the world the entire time and she won't just recover in a few years from that.

There's parts of her that will never ever be compatible with a simple human lifestyle, and parts of her that are irreparably broken. She isn't sure of her personality after everything that happened and the lie she had to live. She slips between personas and her archon temperament comes through like a defensive mechanism at any sign of conflict or trouble.

She's plagued by nightmares. Of the flood, of the trial, of the people closest to her conspiring against her behind her back, and of being found out in a million terrible ways. Of saying the wrong thing, making a wrong decision. Of being found out, of being found out, of being found out.

Lying or keeping a secret feels existential still. Being honest still feels life threatening sometimes. Putting herself first feels like putting both hands on a hot stove.

She doesn't live in the palais anymore, doesn't have to sit through trials anymore, but her heart and soul are still there. In her dreams she's still at the place she spent her entire life's memories at.

Yes, she can make new memories, but it'll take time. More time than she has, maybe, now that she's the closest to being human she'll ever be.

She'll never be human in the way the people around her are.

What sort of human has 500 years worth of memories after all? What human tells personal anecdotes and mixes up their centuries?

What sort of human can feel the absence of their divinity like it's a physical thing? A voice that will never speak to her again, or keep her alive? What human has no family, no childhood?

What human remembers so little, but still remembers death somewhere deep within?

She jerks out of sleep from it sometimes, gasping for air, and spends the rest of the night awake, almost frozen by fear. The flood is over, but it's hard to convince her racing heart that the danger is too.

Humans have entire family trees that go generations back, but Furina was put into this world a solitary creature, her blood heavy with sin ever since she turned human.

She owns a hydro vision now and doesn't know how to yield it, but the ocean still calls out to her some days. Sea creatures flock to her like they can smell she's not human enough.

She learns how to make little hydro companions for herself, so the darkness and emptiness of her apartment feels less ominous when she lies awake at night.

She can't turn her vision into a weapon quite yet, but when it rains the droplets seem to cling to her. She's watched them roll upwards along her arm, watched them gather in her palm like kin. She wonders if sea creatures flock to neuvillette in a similar way, or if his immense power makes them recoil. She wonders if elemental dragons can feel regret. Wonders if he, too, ever feels entirely foreign in that human body he was given. If he, too, lies awake trying to grasp faint memories of a past life.

She's extremely human in the way she's plagued by body pains from not being able to relax just one day in five centuries. The years catch up with her once she gets out of survival mode, and fatigue is a constant companion now. Sleep comes difficultly and getting out of bed was easier when the fate of a whole nation depended on it. On her. She's never lived for just herself before and some days she's not sure she wants to.

She did her duty and earned her retirement and the story turned out well, all things considered. She still has people by her side, some of them.

Still, she feels raw and tired and overwhelmed by the life lying ahead of her. As a human and as someone who will always be Something Else.

[moonlight-s0nata]

Maybe in another universe, we’re still two friends talking about our favourite books. And maybe that's enough. Maybe my heart never skipped a beat for something more.

[lithium-poet]

Miller's Girl (2024)? More like Detachment (2011).

𝓁ℴ𝓋ℯ, 𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒷ℯ𝓁𝓁𝒶

[oeuvrinarydurian]

It’s ONE WORD WEDNESDAY.

You know the (new) rules. Choose a GIF or image that illustrates, to you, the meaning of the word. We do this obviously under protest, because we have no new half nakedness. Reblog with tags within this thread because we want to see everybody’s choices, etc. 

The past two Wednesday words have been beautifully oblique. I have been giving this a lot of thought, and took @jessieren’s comment that she tries to come up with a word around a photo she happens to want to use to heart.

I hope you find the myriad possibilities in this week’s word. 

Today’s word is…..

Morse.

[vicsy]

They had an agreement, thing is. 

Lance hadn't forgotten even in the midst of getting his brain scrambled and his body feeling like jelly once the last bits of the adrenaline seeped out of him; evaporated like droplets of water on the heated surface of the Singapore race track, streaked with burnt tyre marks and covered in the debris of his car.

His dad caught up with him at the doors of the med center, tugging Lance in for a mindful hug, away from cameras and those media vultures. The doctors had already cleared him of the worst but Lance couldn't fight a jittery feeling, even with Lawrence's hold steadying him in more ways than one. He powered through it, though, managing a quick foray to catering and finding nothing to his liking. 

Lance's phone was a minute or two away from blowing up, messages and notifications piling up. He called his sister instead of texting her back, gingerly sitting on the side of the hotel room bed, the aftermath of his crash reverberating through his bones, a faint buzzing under his skin. When Chloe picked up with envious speed, as if she's been waiting, Lance cut off whatever she was gearing up to say, his voice steadier than he felt. 

Fine. He was fine. He didn't have to see the pics; he's been there, he lived through it. Saved him from the mockery of it all, for sure.

He set his phone on the nightstand beside a pack of painkillers the doctors prescribed and a half-drank bottle of water, slumping against the headboard, floating on the verge of passing out. It took some time to settle in, Lance diligently cataloguing every painful pang and uncomfortable pull of muscles that made him grit his teeth until he settled carefully on his side, facing the panoramic window. 

He hadn't forgotten, even in sleep, and when Lance opens his eyes, disturbed by a familiar noise of the door opening, something stirs at the back of his mind, a warning flashing before his bleary eyes. 

It was their thing. On media day, Lance found himself chatting away with Esteban when Fernando came up to both of them, discreetly palming Lance's ass, then dipping his fingers in his back pocket to fish out a keycard. Este only looked in horror and Lance barely contained a tiny laugh bubbling in his chest. Fernando's nonchalance as he waved the keycard playfully at him and shot a pointed took Esteban's way earned Lance a nasty smack on the shoulder and a frantic tirade half in French, half in English. 

That was Thursday. Lance ended up spread out on the bed, panting into the mattress helplessly, thighs shaking as Fernando took his fill and they fell asleep tangled with each other, sated. On Friday night, he went down to his knees, Fernando's eyes screwed shut and his back pressed against the door of his hotel room, fingers tangled in Lance's hair, the keycard he stole lying on the floor beside him. Two could play this game.

And tonight, they're not supposed to–

There's a muffled sound of footsteps and then the bed dips. Lance moves to roll onto his back, only to stop short as a hand wraps around his middle, strong and possessive. Fernando presses his body alongside his, sure and steady; warm but out of place. 

"Fernando?" Lance calls out, dumbly, in some sort of dizzy disbelief. 

He wasn't superstitious. It was Fernando's forte. Anyone else would have laughed it off but Lance listened to Fernando's reasoning the night after they raced in Spain, stealing two days out of the schedule to be away from their pressing obligations, media shitstorm and judgmental looks. Lance doesn't remember leaving the bed much but the sunset over Oviedo burned itself in his memory, along with every little quiver and moan Fernando wrenched out of him, sealing their lips together as the sun slipped below the horizon outside an open window. 

"Is bad luck," Fernando had said, propped up on one elbow, mouth curving in an easy grin that pulled a lazy smile out of Lance, almost automatically. "Better we always miss one day and meet after the race, no?"

Fernando kissed the corner of his mouth, gripping the back of Lance's neck, and he'd agreed to the terms, never the one to protest. It didn't matter to Lance much back then, setting a tray with their food aside in favor of pulling Fernando on top of him, chasing what neither of them should have ever had.

And yet.

A day before the race, they stay in their rooms; they don't fuck. No funny business. 

They had an agreement and it shouldn't be broken over Lance's own string of bad fucking luck or whatever karmic debt he acquired; over the hunger he knows resides deep in Fernando's soul. Over the one that flickers within Lance, a trivial thing before the real enormity of it swallowed him whole. 

Fernando's palm slips up and down his thigh, fingers passing over the hem of his sleep shorts and Lance's breath hitches. He's never said no, but he's not in the right condition for anything, let alone lying there and taking it. Usually Fernando rolls him onto his belly and Lance goes, pliant and willing and already breathless with anticipation. Now, his body freezes like he's about to crash again and his mind wanders.

Offhandedly, Lance tries to remember if Fernando had called or texted him but what would be the point of it now? He breathes in shakily, staying painfully still. 

"Hey, I don't–"

Fernando cuts him off.

"Shh," he whispers as if annoyed, softly kissing the nape of Lance's neck once, twice, then splaying his palm across the flat plane of Lance's stomach. "You sleep now. Tomorrow, we race."

It knocks Lance off balance, the way he entirely missed the mark. He feels Fernando burrow his face in his hair, breath tickling his sensitive skin. He holds Lance close, his grip unrelenting, borderline suffocating and something cracks open in Lance's chest, spills out and makes him shiver. The tension eases and he tentatively covers Fernando's hand on his body with his. 

Crawling out of the corner Lance backed himself into, he settles in the bewildered comfort. In his eyes, Fernando is two men at once — the one who who isn't scared of means to an end in order to win and the one who comes up with a different nickname to call Lance in private, making his heart flutter. 

And in the never-ending aftermath of his crash, in the face of those who always turn their back to Lance, the latter man claims his victory. Lulled by Fernando's steady heartbeat against his shoulder blades, Lance slips into fitful sleep, hope nestling deep in his ribcage. 

He wakes with a jolt. Feels like he's fallen into a pit, panicky and sticky with sweat, heart hammering away an uneven rhythm. A heavy weight of Fernando's hand is still slung across his back, a solid point of contact. Some semblance of relief lurches in his throat along with nausea. 

Lance knows something is wrong. He sluggishly gets his hands underneath himself, struggling to lift himself up, and falls back on the bed with a pathetic little noise. His alarm hasn't gone off yet. It's barely light outside. 

His limbs won't cooperate, no substantial strength in his muscles, his t-shirt sticking to his skin uncomfortably. Head pounding, Lance blinks rapidly, suddenly out of breath, like he just completed the race. What a fucking joke. He screws his eyes shut, his mind racing.  

A hand pushes on his shoulder to roll him onto his back in a sick reverse of what he's used to. When Lance blinks his eyes open again, Fernando's sleep-rumpled face swims into his vision. He can't read his expression right, just takes in the lines of worry on Fernando's forehead. He must look like hell.

Lance shakes his head against the pillow, the pinprick of tears in the corners of his eyes. Fernando's shoulders sag as he rasps:

"Is fine, Lance."

It's not. He's not fit to race, a hopeless case at this point. 

"I can't," Lance chokes against the unfamiliar lump in his throat. "Fer, I'm– I can't."

He hurts all over, pain erupting in different parts of his body and then flaring everywhere at once. Lance feels so fucking betrayed, restrained, pitiful. He remembers waking up from surgery, groggy and still half-broken but it feels worse now, feels baneful. Lance moves to swipe damp hair from his forehead, hand wavering, laden. 

Fernando takes him by the wrist, lifts his hand gentle enough and Lance allows to be manoeuvred, guided. Then; a kiss placed over the scar there, warm lips pressed to his clammy skin, grounding him. Lance lets an ugly sob free.

"Is fine," Fernando repeats, a hollow look in his eyes. His fingers tighten around Lance's wrist. "I race for us both this time."

He leaves, soon after; Lance stays behind. 

He almost wishes Fernando good luck, out of habit. Almost. Lately, Lance has been all out of it but he'd spare some for Fernando, unprompted. He promises Lance to wear one of his gloves for the race. For luck. Lance's face twist as do his insides. He's always been dismal at masking how he really feels. 

The last twenty laps Lance watches from the back of the Aston Martin garage, tucked safely away from the reporters. His body still feels sore, like a foreign entity that exists outside of him but it pales in comparison to the feeling of his stomach dropping as Fernando spins on the track and keeps losing and losing and losing. 

Perhaps, it's Lance's luck that does him in. Misplaced blame tastes acrid on his tongue. 

As the celebrations unfold, he seeks Fernando out from a distance. He catches him among the sea of mechanics, race suit undone halfway, the same hollowed look from this morning haunting his features. He stalks forward, past where Lance has glued himself to one of the chairs. He makes no move to follow. Fernando doesn't grace him with a mere gaze. In the background, fireworks erupt.

Back in his hotel room, suitcase laid on the floor in disarray, Lance distracts himself and puts his phones aside, itching to shoot a text or anything, really. Fernando has been radio silent since the end of the race, leaving the debrief earlier than usual. Lance isn't some dumb, love-sick teenager, he knows well enough that after today's debacle Fernando would need space. He waits with patience honed with years.

And waits.

And waits.

Then gives up, momentarily scorned. It's almost past midnight. He should have known better; Esteban would be right to laugh in his face. 

They had an agreement. 

It's unfair to the core since Fernando shattered it himself and the reason why was kept implicit, just beneath the surface. Too many ifs cross Lance's mind like someone opened the floodgates of his thoughts. If he was insignificant, Fernando wouldn't bother right from the very start but they're way past the point of no return. If Lance was wiser or older or not himself, he would not have cared at all and even now, he fucking shouldn't. If isn't good enough of an excuse to feel the skin on his wrist burn with a ghost of a kiss; to crave the safety of Fernando's embrace. To be the sole center of his undivided attention.

It's still Sunday night.

They had an agreement. 

Lance downs the last of the painkillers and drags himself under a thick blanket, the aircon cranked to the max and all the lights turned off. 

The door stays shut, the night passes by. His ache grows stronger and doesn't subside.

Morning greets Lance with a taste of defeat and the knowledge settling deep in his bones. He could race with his heart out on the track but could hardly wrestle a win against the clutches the race itself has sunk so utterly deep into Fernando.

Lance's luck leaves him no chances. After all, he was born to lose.

[uncanny-tranny]

Realizing you can never please anybody can be a devastating loss... until you internalize exactly what that means.

When you sacrifice so much of yourself for others, you forget that you leave yourself behind. Not being able to please everybody means you can start learning how to fully embody who you are instead of juggling everybody else's baggage, trying to make something work out.

You might feel devastated about this, thinking you're terrible for not pleasing everybody. The truth is, it was impossible from the start, and learning who you are is infinitely rewarding

[n1ghteeea]

More The Real Ghostbusters art 💪💪

[rainyyy-dayysss]

We fell in love together. I fall for you, and you fall for her

[koxiia]

autistic people and people with BPD are the worst clash of illnesses and i will never retract that statement 😀

[maleine-thoughts]

i can’t stop thinking about him when i’m high pls help haha