#this is fucky but it's fine

[energons]

faces designs

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

have i mentioned how great cats are. there's a lil guy in my house and when i lay my head on her side she starts purring so hard <3 and ten seconds later she will try to open my wrist with her teeth <3 truly the best <3

[gothprentiss]

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love, live at the 1986 BRIT Awards

[imthursdaysyme]

Arthur and Gwen at a sports game

[tendertenebrosity]

Prev.

It was night when Raidan came to visit me, but I was awake. I hurt too much, was too filled to bursting point with misery and resentment and fear, to have slept.

It was stupid of me to be lying there, feeling each one of my lashes, shamed down to my very bones, and fretting that the royal family was defenceless. They had the entire rest of the guard! Why did I feel like there was something I could do that everybody else couldn’t?

You know someone’s out there. Some THING. And nobody else does.

My Prince exchanged a few words with the healer’s assistant at the door; then he came in, taking off a long cloak and laying it on the edge of the bed, as I craned and tried fruitlessly to see him.

“Stop it,” he scolded. “You’re hurting yourself.”

There was a chair; he dragged it around to beside the bed, where I could see it where I lay on front with my face turned to the side.

I propped myself up on my elbow, trying to wipe the pain off my face for him. “Rai!"

For a moment I just held myself there and looked at him. He came. He came to see me. I knew he would! For a moment, despite it all, I was happy. Even now, in the middle of the night, with darkness under his eyes from not sleeping and his hair still in its style from the day - he was lovely enough to make my heart turn over. I ached to brush my thumb over those hollows, kiss the crease away from between his eyes.

“The healer-priest says you’ll scar but it shouldn’t impair your movement,” he said, after looking at me for a long time. His gaze flickered away from my face.

I didn’t know how long they’d let me languish here before they made me leave the palace. I wasn’t a guardsman anymore. I had no right to its medical care, technically. Guess I should be grateful they hadn’t thrown me into the street as soon as the formalities were all done.

“I won’t be allowed a sword again,” I said. “Not in palace grounds.”

His gaze dropped to his lap. “No. But you’ll need to move for… other things. I assume.”

“Who’s come with you?” I found myself asking. In my mind, sticky black shadows rose up out of the flagstones to grasp at him, and I couldn’t disguise the fear in my voice. “You didn’t walk through the palace alone, did you? Your apartment is ages away! At this time of night! You should have guards with you. You should - ”

“I have to answer to you even less than I previously did,” he said, sharply. “You’re not still jumping at shadows? Fuck’s sake, Keldin!”

“I’m scared for you,” I said desperately. “They were there, Rai, I - ”

“Enough,” he said, enunciating the words clearly, the warning note of command I’d rarely heard. “Besides, you shouldn’t want others to see this, any more than I do!”

Abruptly, I realised the cloak he’d come in was his winter one, with the deep hood. The one nobody could see his face in.

He didn’t want anybody to know he was here visiting me.

My heart twisted. Had I truly almost forgotten that pain? Just because he came, and sat, and looked at me for a moment? “You wouldn’t admit to me in court,” I said. “When Tell asked the Queen if she knew, and you said - ”

His mouth pressed flat. “Oh yes, everybody likes announcing their dalliances to their mother in front of -”

“Dallian - ”

“Seriously, are you going to..!”

“You’re ashamed,” I said, pushing myself more upright even though it hurt. Hurt in horrible throbbing waves from the base of my skull down to my hips. “Ashamed of me - a common guardsman, how low - ”

“You killed four people, Keldin!”

He was standing, suddenly pushing the chair out of the way and looking down at me with his face all creased and taut. Like he could hardly bear the sight of me. The thought that he would look at me like that hurt more than my back, more than the pull of stitches in my leg and my cheek.

“You seriously can’t imagine why I might be reluctant to have it known how close we were?” he demanded, furious. “This is a relations nightmare as it is. Not that I expect you to understand that kind of thing!”

I could feel wetness trickling down my shoulder; I’d pulled something open. I ignored it.

“For you,” I said, lost. “I killed - I didn’t - They would have killed you. They said it. You’d rather believe that I did that on purpose, for no reason, than that I - ”

He put his hands up to his face, groaned and turned away. “Fuck, what am I doing here,” he mumbled behind them. “I don’t think you did it on purpose. I think - I don’t know what I think. You were wrong, Kel. Just wrong. You can’t sit there and tell me you did it for me and expect that to make it - do you know how that feels? That kid was thirteen! Gods, I feel sick. Fuck.”

“He wasn’t human anymore. Why won’t you believe me?” I could feel tears building behind my eyes; no. No. “You won’t even consider - Rai, please - ”

“I did consider,” he snapped. “We closed the whole street, searched the inn top to bottom on your say-so! Captain Cora even had those people’s houses searched, because I asked, and that didn’t endear us to anybody either! I went out on a limb because I thought you had to have a reason, and there was nothing there.”

“I don’t know why,” I whispered. “I don’t know why there was nothing. But I saw… I saw…”

My back hurt too much; I had to let myself fall forward again. Tears pooled on the pillow underneath my cheek when I let it rest there for a moment. The stripes on my back throbbed and burned; I'd disturbed at least two to bleeding, probably more. How was it possible for skin to hurt this much?

The silence had gone on a long time. Rai let out his breath in a huge sigh, and dropped back to sit on the chair.

“Look, I didn’t come here to argue with you,” he said. “I just came to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” I echoed, lifting my head.

“I thought - no matter how it’s ended, you were… you deserve that much from me,” he said, in this sad, gentle way that made my hand ball into a fist underneath the sheet. “You were exactly what I needed, for a while. In a difficult time of my life. And I’m grateful for that much. I hope you - I hope you get the help you need out there. Whatever it is that’s caused you to do this. Really.”

“I - ” I closed my eyes. Each sentence out of his mouth was like a wave knocking me further off balance, one after another. I made a huge effort to pull myself away from it - hadn’t there been something I wanted to say, too? A goodbye? “Raidan. Could you look - there should be something in the drawer, there, the - the bedside table - ”

He gave me a long-suffering look that was almost my old prince back again. After a moment, he leaned forward and fished around out of my sight. He came up holding my charm, dangling from its broken cord. It spun in the air as he held it up.

“I want you to take that,” I said, wincing and hissing in pain as I propped myself back up again to face him. “Please.”

I hadn’t forgotten, the way the assassin had tried to cut it off me during the fight; or the way things had squirmed and shone in my vision when I’d been holding it yesterday, before the whipping. I should have told him all of that - I would have done, a week ago. I would have told him anything, everything - every thought that passed through my head, if he’d have borne it. He owned everything I had, in my head and my heart.

The fact that I couldn’t do that now stuck in my throat and hurt, hurt, hurt.

But he wouldn’t have believed me.

“This is your lucky stone,” he said, cupping it in his hand. Did his face soften, looking at it on his palm? Or was it my imagination? “Kel, you wear this every day. I can’t take this.”

“Yes, you can,” I insisted. “I want you to. Just humour me. Put it in your pocket or around your neck under your clothes. If I’m - I’m not going to be here to take care of you. I want to know you have it.”

He shook his head, wrapping the cord in neat loops around his fingers. “Kel… no.”

“Please?” I said, desperately. When I’d hit upon this idea, I’d still thought - I’d pictured a version of this conversation where I could tell him I suspected the charm had saved my life. What a joke! Fuck, I was just as stupid as Tell had said during the trial. “Please take it. It’s my goodbye. I want you to wear it. Would you do that for me?”

He put the charm on the bed beside me, the cords springing out of their folds. I tried to pick it up with the hand and arm I was holding myself up with, and almost slid forward onto my face. I held it out to him, fingers clumsy.

“Stop it, Kel, I’m not going to - ”

“If you ever loved me at all,” I said, my voice shaking, “Take it. Please.”

And I watched his face still. And harden.

He stood, ignoring my hand.

“You presume a lot, Keldin,” he said, coldly. “Too much. I don’t know why you think I’d have any use for your superstitious love-token.”

“Wait - ”

He was already moving, picking up his hooded cloak from where he’d thrown it, wrapping it around his shoulders.

“Please, Rai - don't go - ”

“I meant what I said,” he said, mouth tight and angry. “You’ve always been devoted. Thank you, goodbye, and take my sincerest good wishes for wherever life takes you next.”

“Wait! Rai!” The charm slid forgotten out of my fingers as I tried to sit up, push my legs out of bed - my voice was climbing, high and distressed, and I couldn’t make my stupid body cooperate. “Rai, I love you!”

The cloak hid his face; he yanked it angrily into place. “Goodbye, Keldin.”

And then he was gone.

[death-limes]

fuckin uuuuuuuuuuh sorry if this is a hot take or anything but “ai art is theft and unfair to the ppl who made the original art being sampled” doesnt suddenly become not true if the person generating the ai art is disabled

and its also possible to hold that opinion WITHOUT believing that disabled ppl are in any way “lazy” or “deserve” their disability or “it’s their fault” or any of that bullshit

i get that disability can be devastating to those who used to do a certain type of art that their body no longer allows in the traditional sense. but physical and mental disability have literally NEVER stopped people from creating art, EVER, in all of history. artists are creative. passionate people find a way.

and even if a way can’t be found…. stealing is still stealing. like. plagiarizing an article isn’t suddenly ethical just bc the person who stole it can’t read, and being against plagiarism doesn’t mean you hate people who can’t read.

the whole ableism angle on ai art confuses the hell out of me, if im honest. at least be consistent about it. if it’s ethical when disabled people do it, then it’s ethical when anyone does it

[onelonelyghost0]

I constantly cycle between “I can’t let my illness make me ill, I should keep it from everyone and ensure that I act like a normal person even if it makes me push past my limits it’s ok bc I’m pretty and have good days so why should I let this define me?” And “I don’t give a flying fuck Debrah, I am ill, I’ll always be ill unless the chucklefucks running medical research finally get off their ass and find me a cure, and my illness is acting up, so therefore I’m going to stay in bed today bc moving makes my entire back hurt and if ANYTHING touches my stomach I’m going to throw up from pain. I’m over sharing so you leave me alone and I can do what I need to” on a consistent basis. Like it’s not even funny.

Anyway guess who had to reassure multiple people I didn’t need to go to the ER bc they can’t do jack shit other than give me stronger pain meds and I just need a day to stay in bed.

[merge-conflict]

been reflecting on it now for a bit and I really enjoy that when PL started, and I did not trust or even really like So Mi– but listening to all her superiors being like "Ohhhh we love So Mi, she's great, but... y'know, we're going to have to put her in ultra mega jail for a billion years because she's crazy and dangerous like a bomb" like HEY. QUICK QUESTION. why does So Mi feel like she has to crash the President and make friends with a warlord for the slimmest chance to a) survive past 35 b) have any sort of life worth living? no? oh we're all "taking one for the team" and "upholding something bigger than individual people" okay, she's mine now lmao. I'm so sorry that part of your calculation did not factor in the human cost of what you are doing and now your lack of planning is an emergency you want me to clean up. Maybe if you were smarter you wouldn't be in this mess, eh? Actions have consequences dipshit. Yeah of course So Mi is lying to me I'd lie to me too, and yes I'm angry about it, but the chance to specifically piss Myers and Reed off? worth the blood tbh.

[dullahandyke]

being 20 is weird actually. used to look at users who were like 21 and go fuckkkkk theyre so much older and more mature than me... now its like. One. you are One year older than me. wild

[verycharismaticdragon]

I FUCKEN FINISHED IT. EMBROIDERY D O N E

[quilleth]

My internet and discord specifically have been weird all weekend and it's SO frustrating because that's the main way i have to chat with people and idk if it's just discord doing dumb "updates" or something with our isp (my husband said he had the same issue a few days ago). And of course our isp has continuously raised our bill over the last several months, for the same service level we've had for the entire 6 years we've lived here >:( like fuck you spectrum. if you're going to charge us that much you could at least make sure the service fucking works. We pay way too much for it not to be working consistently even if we do live in the boonies.

[cleromancy]

yall heard about dcs new jason whump fanfic its crazy

[killbaned]

girl i asked mom on sunday if she wanted me to pull out some chicken for yesterday and she was like "why don't we cook up that whole chicken that's still in the freezer" so i was like. well yeah shit why not, cook it once and then there's leftovers for several days. (side note she claims i say this "every time" and am wrong "every time" but like look listen-)

anyway. i took it out sunday. this bitch is still frozen in the center and we can't get the stupid bag with the guts and whatnot out. so it's just. going right back in the fridge until tomorrow i guess bc i'm not fucking w a whole chicken this late at night. i was wanting it prepped for when the grocery delivery comes in a few mins so it can go in the oven and be done by like 7 or so.

[notadamnmermaid]

I am losing what little mind I have left, my brain has a worm in it and it’s not even one I can find easily it is a GODDAMN PHRASE, not even a full FUCKING QUOTE.

“Bye bye”— Izuku, looking cute possibly dazed, maybe in an office???? TO WHOMST DOES HE SPEAK???? Was it kirideku bakudeku aideku tododeku??????

I have spent the last week searching tags, revisiting old fics once read and long abandoned. I have found wonderful stories I’d forgotten, more that I can’t wait to read but I. Am. HAUNTED. By this mental image of Izuku looking cute possibly dazed saying “bye bye” to a potential romantic interest.

HELP. HOW STOP.

[thornedraven]

when you start adding clothing to a drawing... it all just... goes so horribly wrong ... 🫠🫠

lets just scrap the last 5 layers i was working on and start over...

[gemharvest]

joins server, immediately overwhelmed into exhaustion