#this one was so painful for no reason

[cdyssey]

Valentine’s Day

Summary: On Valentine's Day, Barbara and Melissa have their worst fight yet. [Pre-2.14 Fic]

CW: Sex Mentions, Adultery Mentions, Emotional Infidelity

AO3 Link

—

The last time that they had fought so viciously, Barbara had openly called Joseph a manchild to Melissa’s face.

He had cheated on Melissa, had lain with another woman in their own damn bed.

He was more than a manchild.

He was an utterly selfish pig.

But Melissa hadn’t been ready to hear it yet, still in love with him, even though he had hurt her and hurt her and hurt her so many thousands of times over, like their marriage was a cartoon and his inability to be an adult was a recurring joke.

(The unfailing punchline was Melissa’s dutiful and obsequious forgiveness.)

She didn’t talk to Barbara for an entire week after that, ignoring all of her calls, brushing past her in the hallway like she was nothing, until Barbara found her one day in the supply closet on the second floor, sitting on top of an overturned mop bucket, gripping the phone in her hands like it was a loaded gun.

“I’m divorcin’ him,” she had spat, directing the words to the scuffed and stained floor. Her body was visibly trembling, everything that was usually solid and sturdy about her simply undone. “Kickin’ his sorry ass to the curb, so he can go fuck whoever the hell he wants to. Let the next woman deal with his beer breath and his goddamn scratchy beard. I’m so sick and tired of never bein’ enough for him. Blow job after blow job, and he still—“

But the second grade teacher had abruptly stopped herself, perhaps remembering that there was another person in the room, pressing her whitened knuckles against her red mouth as she looked up at Barbara, who could only stare at the wounded creature on the floor with horror and pity.

She could not get the disgusting image that those last words had conjured out of her head—Melissa on her knees in front of Joseph Lombardo.

Like a sinner touching the hem of Christ’s robes.

“You were right,” the younger woman said, and her voice was more than terrifying.

It was broken.

“I... didn’t want to be,” Barbara rasped, vehemently shaking her head, lowering herself to the ground as fluidly as her arthritic knee would allow. She anchored herself by palming Melissa’s upper thigh, only realizing a second too late that the touch was far more intimate than should ever pass between two friends, even very close ones.

She blushed profusely but didn’t withdraw her hand, thought it would be too awkward since she had already extended the gesture.

It didn’t escape her notice that she was the one of her knees now, a holy suppliant.

(She was incapable of envisioning herself in anything but the role of a worshipper.)

“I wanted you to be happy, Melissa,” she continued, unsure whether she was hurt that the other teacher’s gaze was averted or thoroughly relieved. “I wanted you two to make it…”

Well, at least part of that had been true. 

She would pray for God to forgive her for the lie later.

Whether Melissa actually believed her—(unlikely)—or didn’t have the energy to argue—(more likely)—she didn’t challenge her on it either way, dropping her face into her hands as her shoulders began to silently heave, all of her limbs wrought in unspeakable agony. Barbara didn’t hesitate. She encircled her friend with her arms and held her in the dark of that tiny room for a long time, resting her chin against the crown of that vivid head, whispering soothing words into the negligible space between them. You’ll be okay, sweetheart. I’m here for you. We’ll get you through this—I swear on my life, Melissa Ann Schemmenti.

And that was the end of the worst fight they had ever had.

This fight, though, the one that they’re currently having about Gary the Vending Machine Guy, is somehow far more ruinous.

Barbara, arms defensively folded across her chest, grips the skin of her forearms with her nails as though trying to physically hold herself together.

At the end of this conversation, this confrontation, this reckoning—Melissa might never speak to her again.

“You knew,” she snarls furiously, pausing her incessant pacing long enough to jab an accusing finger in Barbara’s direction. They’re in Barbara’s classroom, the door completely closed. The room is still papered with pink and red hearts that her children had cut out with safety scissors. She made them all sugar cookies for the holiday. They colored pictures of Cupid at recess today because it was still too cold for them to play outside. “You told him to set up the ring in the vending machine. You kept me outta the teacher’s lounge all day. You listened to me blather on and on about how I was afraid he was cheatin’ on me, but you knew he was doing something far flipping worse!”

Barbara can’t refute any of this. 

It is absolutely true that Gary had informed her that he was planning to propose. It’d been just last month, in fact, on a double date that she and Gerald had gone on with Melissa and her boyfriend. They’d all adventured out to dinner and a car show, and when Melissa and Gerald had walked over to ogle at some old Chevy or another, Gary had told her his intentions. He was gonna pop the question sometime that Sunday, maybe spring for a nice dinner at Applebee’s and ask her when the Eagles game was at halftime.

What d’ya think?

Barbara had been visibly, entirely, and perhaps even offensively mortified, had told him absolutely not, sir—here was how he was going to do it instead. He was going to cover the teacher’s lounge in rose petals on Valentine’s Day. He was going to buy her a bottle of Prosecco. Not the cheap kind from a bodega but a moderately priced vintage from that fancy wine cellar with the French name downtown. He was going to put on something nice—no bowling shirts, no cargo pants, and definitely no gaudy chains. He was going to be cutesy and strategically place his ring in the vending machine, attaching it to her favorite candy bar.

Snickers. 

She loves Snickers.

Come hell or high water, Gary the Vending Machine Guy was going to show Melissa Schemmenti that she was loved.

(Did it ever occur to Barbara when she was meticulously planning all of this—staying on top of Gary for an entire month, ensuring he was following her plans to the last detail, overseeing him like an overzealous hawk—that she was being a hypocrite by propping up this man’s unquestionable mediocrity? Saving him from it even? Joseph had been so careless about these sorts of occasions too, always forgetting his and Melissa’s anniversary, thinking that a gift card to his favorite restaurant was ever an appropriate gift on her birthdays. )

(It did, in fact, occur to Barbara.)

(She often thought about it.)

(Obsessed over it even.)

(This lone question has tormented her for weeks upon weeks now, kept her up at night, made her sick with guilt—but what, pray tell, was the alternative that she could have lived with? Discouraging him and risk Melissa ever finding out? Enduring yet another circular fight about how she’s too judgmental, and she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, and she should butt out of it because Melissa is a grown ass woman who she can make decisions for herself?)

(Has she not known from the very start—deep down inside the anguished well of her soul—that as nice as Gary is, as well-meaning, he's a far from a capable partner for Melissa? That he's but a type and marginally improved shadow of Joseph? That he is a man who is comfortable with settling, never once trying something new? Yes and yes and undoubtedly yes, but Barbara can’t confront any of these questions without asking a tougher one of herself. Why does she care so much?)

(There is but one answer to this particular inquiry that would destroy her where she stands, that would render her incapable of looking at herself in the mirror the next day—and all the days after that. There is an unspoken truth residing in the lily-white paradise of her moral worldview, where everything is neatly partitioned into a knowledge of what is good and what is evil, except for in the ungodly amalgamation of that one damn tree.)

(She loves her.)

(It’s as simple and as complex and as utterly horrible and as exquisitely beautiful as that.) 

(Barbara loves Melissa in a rapturous kind of way, has long elevated her to the Holy of Holies in her reverent and besotted mind. She loves her like a condemned sinner. Guilt defiles the temple of her chest every time she so much as catches a whiff of the other woman’s floral perfume. She loves her in the same way that she had loved Vivian—that girl from church camp all those many decades ago—when she was just fourteen, and their hands had accidentally brushed when they sat on the same log as the whole choir of God-fearing kids sang “Amazing Grace” around a roaring fire. They gingerly kissed behind their cabin one star-strewn night and never spoke to each other again.)

(She loves Melissa in a way that she has never quite loved her own husband. Gerald is kind and good, and he is good to her. Hell, even good for her. So steady and so gentle, the sturdy warmth she has curled up to in their shared bed for over three decades now. And she has loved that—has undoubtedly loved him—but their kisses have historically done nothing for her. She can only have sex with him when she’s a little tipsy. She desperately hides that from him, though, stuffs that dirty secret beneath her beatific smile like it's an empty bottle of Merlot hastily shoved under a bed; it isn’t fair to him that she can never get aroused. She convinces herself that no one has libido after menopause. She conveniently ignores the fact that she never had any long before that physiological change. The weight of her elaborate wedding band constricts her fourth finger like a cuff.)

(She sometimes feels that she should hate Melissa for making her feel any and all of these strange and estranging things, but she never does. She just loves her, even though it feels so wrong, except for those choice times when they’re alone in the same room together, side-by-side, taking up mutual intimate space, and Barbara has every reason to suspect that Melissa loves her right back.)

(So, yes, she planned Melissa’s proposal; she engineered the everloving and God almighty mess out of it.)

(Melissa seems happy enough with Gary.)

(She has made it her punishment and life’s mission to swallow that.)

Barbara blinks rapidly at the other’s vitriol, feels her own pride rise and rush to her defense.

“It’s worse that he proposed to you?” She cries incredulously, taking a step forward as Melissa takes a defensive step back, her leather-clad leg accidentally knocking one of the children’s tables. She winces and swears angrily under her breath, some Italian word that Barbara is sure God doesn’t like the meaning of. “You’ve been dating him for over a year now, Melissa. I just thought—“

But Melissa cuts across her violently.

“You didn’t think, Barb,” she laughs bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest, a gesture that nearly always means that she’s starting to shut down. “You hoped.”

“Excuse me?” Barbara’s heart feels liable to explode inside of her chest, throwing itself against the wall of her sternum like a wild animal. 

Feral

Unhinged.

Inconsolable.

“I said that you hoped,” the younger woman repeats herself, and the sound is somewhat quieter—if still wounded. Less of a gaping cut that a pulsing, chronic bruise, and somehow even more painful because of that. “You hoped that if I got shackled to Gary, I’d be all happy ‘n whole again. You hoped that maybe a shiny new ring would fix everything about me that my last marriage broke, and you wouldn’t have to—we would never need to—we could just keep pretendin’ that—“

But Melissa can’t seem to wrap her blunt tongue around the words in the same way that there is one tree that Barbara cannot eat from, let alone touch. She can only admire from afar and wonder to herself if its fruit would fit perfectly in the palm of her hand.

“Why—in God’s beloved and Almighty name—did you say yes to him then?” Barbara asks, her voice utterly alien to her, cold and so detached from the chemical reactions currently disrupting and denaturing her entire body. Her stomach churns. Her throat aches. Every nerve in her body is alive to the fact that there is now a new ring wrapped around Melissa Schemmenti’s fourth finger.

Because that is the crucial fact—the younger teacher said yes to the proposal.

Just minutes ago.

And she had smilingly accepted all the sweet congratulations from their colleagues that she received, and she had plopped a big kiss on Gary's laughing mouth—(making Barbara immediately want to wretch)—before dragging Barbara back here—("Just need Barb to help me take a good picture of it! Gotta rub it in my dumb cousin's face!)—so they could row about it.

About the fact that she said yes. 

Melissa dramatically falters, looking as though she’s been shot.

She glances down at the ring, as though she's expecting a bullet hole.

“What would we have done if I hadn’t, Barb?” She finally chokes out, rubbing the silvery band. “Kissed? Fucked? Lived happily ever after?”

It’s Barbara’s turn to be stricken now, to feel as though the mere six feet between them has suddenly become six-thousand, and the space between them is an abyssal depth—impossible to cross, let alone capably survive—but because she's Barbara Howard, because she is entirely used to adjusting her mask in the face of intolerable crisis, she gathers herself and all of her practiced composure together one more time, a hand resting just above her nauseous abdomen.

“I don’t know why you’re insisting on making yourself unhappy,” she hisses and almost finds it unbearable to look her best friend in the eye, hot tears threatening to form in her own. “It makes me sick to watch.”

But Melissa is apparently waiting for this particular response—locked, loaded, and brutally prepared.

“If we’re playin’ by those rules, hon, then you make me sick all the damn time.”

The effect of those words is immediate, visceral, and raw. Barbara feels as though the floor has been knocked out from under her, as though she is falling, falling, falling through that endless abyss. 

“Don’t say that, Melissa,” she utters, and she’s horrified that the words stumble out as a plea. “Never say that to me again.”

Melissa must hear it in her voice—her desperation, her denial, the presentation of her most deeply espoused fears—because apology briefly flashes in the darks of her eyes. She reaches up and scrubs her weary face with her hand, the one with that stupid, awful ring on it.

Barbara even helped the man pick it out.

Melissa likes simple jewelry.

Nothing intricate.

Something practical and sturdy—exactly like her.

“Goddamn, Barb,” she mutters, the curse muffled when she drags her palm over her mouth. “I’m engaged.”

It was already true—it’s been true the entire time that they’ve been having this accursed conversation—but hearing it aloud is too much on top of everything else. Her own hand splayed at the hollow of her throat, Barbara bows her head and fails to repress a sob.

[lotus-pear]

the day i picked up dazai or smth idk i've never read it

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

finally at that age where i'm thinking i should get a tattoo. not bc i feel strongly about it, just seems like a waste not to. i've got so much skin i'm not using

[hinamie]

i'm on an itafushi kick and i am making it everyone else's problem

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[shadowednavi]

it's been awhile since I've worked on this project! I've had this verse finished for months but didn't want to post it on its own, and instead wait until the whole thing is strung together to show the final result all at once. But I'm tired of holding onto it, so here is one section of my deltarune animation! My art tag has other clips if anyone is interested in seeing more~

(song: "The Hymn of Axciom" by Vienna Teng)

[sunlit-mess]

~

[liketheinferno2]

These aren't full ref sheets but I was trying to take some clear pictures of Hephaistos for later art reasons and then got side tracked doing all of the Pandaemonium bosses so here they are in order. Also for anyone following who doesn't play FFXIV and knows it as the catgirl game, enjoy this instead? VISUAL SPOILERS obviously.

Asphodelos

Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios

Mythic Creation: The Hippokampos

Mythic Creation: The Phoinix

(+ familiars)

Hemitheos: Hesperos

(+ sexy fanfic redesign by Nemjiji)

To be brutally honest I never really liked either of these designs compared to every other Hemitheos we get, I think the really brutal black and red of the Phoinix is weakened by gold accents, but I still am always down for gay vampire surf rock. The Savage version kind of looks like Ultimalius as well if you've played XVI.

Abyssos

Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle

Hrgrhhgrhrgrh

Hemitheos: Hegemone

^ My favourite detail on this is you can see the parasite's outlines in her robes and in her legs, then right through the eye holes on the mask to wrap around the torso. I'm convinced this version of Hegemone is functionally an ant being piloted by a cordyceps infection.

Hemitheos: Agdistis

She's very big

Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos

I'm probably biased by Abyssos being the first raid I was there for day of release but these really are all fantastic. It's also when the story abandons all pretense of not being (at least partly) about family abuse and is loudly using the body horror and shackle motifs to talk about that. It's great. Hephaistos specifically is constantly bulging and twisting in and out of different forms like a highly unstable chimera and the more I look at these the more I notice parts that just should not be there. He's giving everything.

As for the Savage design It's a hard thing to rate as such but my favourite part is the veins that grow down from the eyeholes in his mask like bloody tears.

Thanks Abyssos I love you

Anabaseios

Mythic Creation: Kokytos

Dæmoniac Dungeon: Pandæmonium

It's really hard to communicate how huge this nasty tumor crab I zoomed out as far as physically possible in the game engine and subsequently ended up at a goofy angle staring up his nose.

Ephemeral Justice: Themis

Best boy. The double ended lance and second pair of arms are fantastic for this character.

Theos: Athena

In.. almost every final fantasy adventure you're fighting the real villain not at the very end but a little beforehand, the big iconic end boss is often more a metaphorical figure representing everything wrong with that first person's ideals. Athena cut out the middle man and became her own JENOVA.

I do like the moth angel, especially the hollow body full of dubious orbs, but with her eyes closed all the time it gives off the impression of this not even being the true body but some kind of anglerfish lure in the shape of a fairy... which might be true because this exists:

I really really love her twitchy anemone feelers and how the moth body ends up grafted to the rest of it waist down.

Anyway there's the gang I did not specifically intend for this to be design reviews I just wanted to have clear photos because when you actually see them in game there's other things to focus on. In hindsight I can appreciate more the theming of each tier and then the series as a whole, but my only (extremely obvious) observation for now is that every character Athena had a personal hold over is decorated in chains somehow and so I should have seen the Hegemone thing coming lmao. Heph and Aggy are still my favourites I don't think that's changing any time soon. I'm also noticing that Anabaseios is now just old enough for random DF parties to fuck up severely and I find that fun so I'm going to go fight the crab mansion now.

[lifewithchronicpain]

The idea that all people are equal should never assume that all people are physically equal.

In other words my membership in this society should never be conditional on my ability to work. I understand many people want to just express that if you work hard you deserve an equal share of the pie. On the face of it, I get it. But you will always be leaving out disabled people who are still humans that exist and deserve dignity whether we can work 8 hours a day or not. Our work doesn’t make us equal, our humanity does.

[guitarhero-3]

even if i am not aromantic or asexual in the future i really really appreciate the aspec community. all of you are so wonderful and welcoming and i am so thankful for all of u every single one of yall

[somsonsomsoff]

headcanons for the employers have somehow turned into a crossover with de skills

[syn0vial]

living in a country with nationalized healthcare after being raised in the US is just

> experience uncomfortable medical issue > leave it untreated for months or years bc it's "not serious enough" to warrant professional medical attention > it gets worse > finally go to a clinic > they ask me how long i've had this problem and i tell them how long > they look at me like i'm a fucking nutter, treat it in 5 minutes, and charge me $6 USD > i walk out feeling like the world's luckiest idiot

[athina-blaine]

for my money, labru is head and shoulders above other ships involving them simply due to the unmatched yap potential, i imagine them feeding off each other's energy like they're slipstreaming in mario kart until they start going fast enough to break the sound barrier

[houseofborgia]

— you would end your pain?

[owlsie-hoot]

His silent pain is evident. The ground is shifting beneath Siegfried's feet. (x)

for @shelbyxhughes

[sysig]

Softly, slowly, I want to love you anyway (Patreon)