#unpleasant truths

[reality-detective]

be-LIE-fs / be-LIE-ve

Continue to do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got. If you want things to change, then be the change 🤔

[hale-my-nathan]

Trump Weird News - Trump - Comforting Lies & Unpleasant Truths

Trump Cracks Up Host With "Basically Truthful" Claim!

[cricketcat9]

A comment about the " clean, moisturize, sunscreen " debacle:

"you're weirdly strongly antagonistic about this considering plenty of people are just too disabled to have a three product care routine or don't require one because they can't leave their house or, and this is the most important one, just plain don't care if their skin shows age because we should destigmatize aging and getting old is a privilege?"

Yes, I'm strongly antagonistic to not having a skincare routine AT ALL because it's a BASIC self-care, just like brushing your teeth, washing your hair, and applying deodorant. Secondly, I don't know if the author of the comment actually knows any disabled people. I do, and, oh surprise, even the homebound ones get haircuts, manicures, use skincare products and, the horror, even makeup. Why? Because, according to one of them, it makes them feel better. Self-care is for ONESELF, not for " leaving the house"...

About "plain don't care if their skin shows age"... that's very stoical, but I did not yet meet a person who actually really doesn't care. Some accept it easier than others; nobody says " Oh, first wrinkles and age spots, finally, couldn't wait". Maybe we should talk about it, via Quija board, when you'll be 55.

Unpleasant truth: almost every physical neglect of your body when you're young comes back and bites you in the ass when you're old; speaking from experience. Some prevention and maintenance pays off. I understand it seems superfluous when you're at the sge when you can't envision yourself living past the ancient age of 50...

I'm all for destigmatizing aging. Let's not do it by self- neglect. Maybe stopping harrasment of people over 15 on this platform would be a good start.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Your URL is factually incorrect, but if it was, you realize tumblr is the “mentally ill people are still human and aren’t exempt from kindness” website, right?

It's telling that you seem to think that "kindness" is synonymous with lying to people. That I should be silent and not point out how obviously false religions are. Like, obviously.

A god who is both good and inscrutable is self-refuting. A god who knows all and grants free will is self-refuting. A god who is both perfect and needs worship is self-refuting. Such gods not just don't exist, but cannot exist, by definition.

I don't need to facilitate or endorse people's delusions. Any first-year psych course would teach you that affirming people's mental disturbances, that they're true and correct and right for them to believe, is absolute the worst thing of all.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, the very idea of helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided. A person who is trapped in an elevator during a power outage may panic and think she is going to die. That frightening experience can change neural connections in her amygdala, leading to an elevator phobia. If you want this woman to retain her fear for life, you should help her avoid elevators. But if you want to help her return to normalcy, you should take your cues from Ivan Pavlov and guide her through a process known as exposure therapy. You might start by asking the woman to merely look at an elevator from a distance—standing in a building lobby, perhaps—until her apprehension begins to subside. If nothing bad happens while she’s standing in the lobby—if the fear is not “reinforced”—then she will begin to learn a new association: elevators are not dangerous. (This reduction in fear during exposure is called habituation.) Then, on subsequent days, you might ask her to get closer, and on later days to push the call button, and eventually to step in and go up one floor. This is how the amygdala can get rewired again to associate a previously feared situation with safety or normalcy.

You don't tell someone with paranoia that yes, the neighbor's cat really is listening in and reporting to the government how many times a day you open your fridge.

You don't tell someone who believes an invisible man follows them around awarding gold stars ⭐️ and flames 🔥 for every good and bad thing you do, that yes, that man really does exist. Even if that man lives up in the sky and has a 1700 year old book of magic and myth written about him, that changes nothing.

It's not kindness to protect people from figuring out they made a mistake; that's the emotional equivalent of foot-binding - you're protecting them from growing.

It's not kindness to help people live in a false reality, one that doesn't function the way they think it does. And it doesn't help the rest of us to be surrounded by people who don't understand how the world works.

I'm the person who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. A person who does the latter is called a sycophant. And they probably want something from you. Someone who wants you to believe something that's false has their own agenda. That's basically the definition of a scammer.

The idea that we have to be "kind" rather than truthful belongs in the trash.

If your priority is to be "kind," then you're not being truthful. I do not suffer from that malady.

[heightened-awareness]

Mann..😪

[thixcy]

[kyouka-supremacy]

Also, since we're being particularly self-indulgent tonight: I think Akutagawa would be very, uhm, not concerned about his appearance, at least for the time before they get together. You know the “omg there's a slim chance I meet my crush today so I need to fix up the best I can 🥰🥰”? Well, he's the exact opposite: “Falling for you is already the greatest disgrace crumpled on me and I hate you with all I have in my being because of it. I'm perfectly aware you will never love me back no matter what I do, so what would be the point of humiliating myself by adjusting my appearance to your tastes if that wouldn't change anything? And even in the wretched case of you requiting my cursed feelings; then you must own it to love me for my disgusting self, and not some miserable attempt to hide my corruption behind layers of pretending. It's a take-it-or-leave-it deal. Actually I'm going to be meaner to you, just in case.”

[cutekoala1001]

POV: You’ve been drawing for clients all week, and you finally decide to stop and draw something for yourself. Wyd? 👀

Anatomy practice

That present for your brother

Backgrounds

Hands

♡✨BUSTER MOON✨♡

[utilitycaster]

This is admittedly a post that will read differently depending on which fandom you know me in, but more often than not when someone's come to my notice for trying to start shit with me in the CR fandom I'll check their blog and they're just like this in every fandom they're in. Just someone whose entire online personality is running around throwing a tantrum and getting on people's posts or in their inbox to attack them if they have even slightly different takes or tastes, interpreting everything anyone else does in the absolute worst light while expecting everyone else to extend endless good faith towards them, and then they blame everyone but themselves when they have a terrible experience everywhere they go.

I cannot stress this enough, but I really don't have much of an active following literally anywhere else, and despite running my mouth on my own blog all the time, I've never had problems beyond one or two lone weirdos elsewhere. This isn't, to be clear, commentary on the CR fandom; it's commentary that the people who give me shit in the CR fandom are, for the most part, entitled and miserable idiots who start fights and then go "no I'm just a baby just a little birthday boy" every single place they go, and this is just the first place I've been popular enough to get on that kind of loser's radar. Anyway, it is just a pattern, but if someone complains about how they've had a terrible experience in every single fandom? what's the constant here babe.

[666elarus]

RP BLOG RULES

My main blog is gentlym-rbid, so I follow from there!

Mun is 18+ — I politely ask that minors refrain from attempting to have in depth roleplay/messages with me. This is just for personal comfort. However, this does not bar minors from asking questions or responding to posts.

SFW Blog — This rp blog will remain SFW, once again for personal comfort. I do not roleplay NSFW content. Mildly Suggestive/lighthearted jokes are always fine though.

Basic DNI — No homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc etc.

Ships/Interactions are welcome!

Crossover/AU interactions are welcome!

Overall use your best judgement and common sense! If I need to add anything to these rules, I will edit this post :)

ASK RULES

Order — Asks will be answered in the order they are received. There may be situations or certain asks that might disrupt this, but I will try to keep everything in order.

Answering — I might not answer every ask, just depending on different circumstances/how busy I am on a given day. I hope you all understand!

Minors are allowed to ask questions — I just won’t be interacting beyond answering asks or replying to short reblogs. It’s nothing personal!

My portrayal of Natallia Arlovskaya 🔪

Disclaimer: I am not fluent in Belarusian nor am I a historian.

My portrayal of Natallia is a mix of how she is portrayed in Hetalia and taking some creative liberties. Also, I figure I should say it here now to be clear, my portrayal of Natallia is much more than her just wanting her brother’s attention. She is much more than that! This blog is purely for fun and wanting to roleplay with other hetalia fans :) (and also wanting to attempt to give Belarus the justice she deserves when it comes to characterization!)

⚰️ Tag Directory

# .◞ ♱ ◟. LITTLEST MATRYOSHKA ~ (media)

# .◞ ♱ ◟. I SEE DEAD PEOPLE ~ (ic)

# .◞ ♱ ◟. ANSWERS FROM THE BEYOND ~ (asks)

# .◞ ♱ ◟. UNPLEASANT TRUTHS ~ (ooc)

# .◞ ♱ ◟. A HAPPY FAMILY ~ (rp)

[batsplat]

casey is obvs funny with this rivalry stuff because on the one hand he's very 'well I don't care who I beat' (lie) and 'I don't motivate myself using my rivals' (also a lie) and then he's also repeatedly emphasising that valentino was ONE of his biggest rivals and he only competed against him a few years... like a lil side quest in the story of his career. Those Few Years where valentino was his big rival. whereas dani and jorge were his cohort so he did compete with them for a greater span of time... and this is technically true and does MATTER but it is also extremely noticeable in his output which rivalry he has the most thoughts about. and yes casey would say that this is because everyone ELSE cares the most about That One Rivalry the most and also his opponent being an annoying dickhead means it's the one he has the most complaints about... but at a certain point, it doesn't really matter, because there's still one rivalry you're talking about way more than any other. you can tell that he's at least given jorge's interiority a bit of thought, kinda went 'well he was arrogant but also Learnt From The Error Of His Ways and was maybe misunderstood so' -- but also he's not going beyond that, he's not examining jorge's soul, and he's not even doing any of that with dani. it's very much a rhetorical commitment to those other two rivalries. ultimately the point is that he's doing what he can to not talk up his biggest rivalry TOO much, because, you see. he Did Not Care That Much. (lie.) now objectively speaking this kind of framing literally does not matter, who cares which one of these was the most meaningful rivalry, but it's interesting that it matters to him!! casey's problem is that he is extremely sensitive and cares deeply about what other people say about him, but one of the things he's most sensitive about is the idea that he could let himself be mentally affected by ANYTHING, worst of all his rivals. they cannot be granted that much power over him. and all of this has kinda funny consequences in that he has pretty rigid patterns in how he talks about this stuff that are at times quite convoluted because he has to simultaneously emphasise that a) none of his rivals massively mattered to him, b) That Rival didn't matter more than the others, c) what That Rival did to him was completely beyond the pale, and d) none of that affected him mentally whatsoever. at most one of these is true. there are so many things casey wants so badly not to care about but it keeps spilling out of him anyway, this oozing sludge of resentment and repressed hopes and desires and frustration and longing and bitterness. he keeps giving himself away... he cares so much and he can't stand it

[asydicsydney]

Hollow eyes ✓

Gaping jaws ✓

Something that is most definitely a centipede ✓

This is the currency of a Desert Bluffs 2.5?? Baby Kevin making another new DB?

[nova-moon13]

[redemptiionss]

Sometimes I just think there’s something deeply wrong with me idk

[void-botanist]

Notes from Camp #1

Since I'm not doing regular updates I'm gonna give myself a cool title!

I've fallen behind on my blackout pages through a combination of forgetting, experiencing stomach cataclysms, and cringing about these early chapters, because tragically, I have to read them to make poetry out of them. The writing does improve after these chapters, though. Currently I've blackoutified 7/65 pages.

The fixing of the AOM timeline is going pretty well. Turns out I can justify things taking forever from Sid's perspective when Horatio is canonically a workaholic and he will get around to the vacation he specifically and unilaterally decided to take only when he can't put it off anymore. But oh boy [slaps roof of Sid] you can fit so much unexpected grief in this man.

Camp taglist: @outpost51 @kk7-rbs

[goldeneyedgirl]

@sonyawixI am so so sorry about your earring. If it's a pair or you have a photo, I know there are people on etsy who can recreate one for you!

However, let me see what I can do...

divorced jalice.

He braces himself on the deck railing as he stares out into the night. He looks haunted, honestly, and she almost feels bad for him. 

“That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” she begins gently, and he just shakes his head. 

“How long?” His voice is hoarse and for a moment she wonders if he’s fighting back tears. “How long has this been going on?”

“Six and a half years.” She moves closer slowly, like he’s a wild animal, too easily spooked. “My doctor is great, I’m doing well. I just wanted Carlisle’s opinion on if I needed to bump up an appointment, it isn’t a big deal.”

He still hasn’t looked at her. 

“When did you find out?” He’s so tense, she’s surprised he hasn’t hit something yet. 

“Six and a half years ago,” she replies. Don’t get specific, Jasper, you’ll just upset yourself. Please.

“Before or… after?”

That’s when he looks at her, and the raw pain in his eyes cuts her. She wants to lie to him, offer him some comfort, but she can’t and she won’t. She’s been protecting him from the full picture for so long, has let him live with the easy reality that she gave up on him and on them because he was an addict and a cheater.

She moves closer to him. “Why does that matter?”

He shakes his head. “Because the fact that you were… you were that fucking sick and I didn’t notice? That you had to walk away from everything… god, I know Rose and Bella cut you out. I know they blamed you for months until Rose worked out that I was having an affair, and then we couldn’t fucking find you. You could have been dead and I wouldn’t have known…”

“You were still my next of kin, you would have been told,” she offers lamely, and he just stares at her again. 

“You had no one, Alice. You didn’t even have your own home,” he says through gritted teeth. “When did you know?”

“Before the divorce was finalised.” The words she says are firm, determined and they both know that she’s dancing around the truth, and he feels so sick. 

“It was why you left, wasn’t it?”

She closes her eyes to steel herself for what she says next. “I… I knew that nothing was going to change between us until you knew you had a problem. Maria hurt my ego, but the drugs Jas… They changed you. And I could manage that better when I was healthy but when I found out that it was serious, I realised that I needed to … to put on my own life vest first. How ugly do you think it would have gotten if I had stayed? My recovery was long, Jasper. It would have been a disaster. I made the best choice I could with what I had.”

He nods once but he looks so miserable, she wants to hold him.

“Why didn’t you tell everyone the truth? About everything?” He finally asks. “You know Esme and Carlisle would have taken care of you, and Bella, and…”

“Because they were your family and you needed them. My family came through for me when I needed them to.”

“With money. Health insurance. Have you actually seen them in person?” His voice is laced with anger and she feels tired. She didn’t want this conversation to happen like this. She had it planned out, had it prepared in nice, easy pieces so that it didn’t have to hurt like this. 

The best laid plans. 

“No, Mom and I email each other. I think she sent flowers once? Maybe she just talked about it. But I didn’t want to see them, Jasper. If healthcare in this country wasn’t so awful, I wouldn’t have spoken to them at all.”

“So you were alone.”

“Jasper, I honestly wasn’t well enough to care or notice for most of it. You’re making this a much bigger deal than it is.” That’s when she reaches out to touch his arm, but he pulls away. 

“I need to go,” he says suddenly, straightening. He still isn’t looking at her. “I just… need to go.”

“No.” She’s shaking her head and turning back to go inside, for the whole Cullen family to look at her with pity and curiosity in their eyes. “I’ll go. You stay here with your family, and you call Peter, okay? I’ll call an Uber and we’ll talk in a couple of days. I don’t want to be the reason you break your sobriety, okay?”

--

deaf mary-alice.

Seeing Jasper again is like... it's like the world is back in colour. It's a cliche, thinking like that, but she can't help it - she missed him so bad it was like someone had taken off a limb. She just kind of... adapted. It was easier knowing that he was safe and he was healing; she could watch her and see him getting better, and she convinced herself that it was selfish to want anything more than his safety and happiness. That it was enough to keep her going.

How many times had Maria and the other older soldiers reminded her that no one had any use for a defective vampire? That she would make any coven vulnerable and they'd turn her away, and that she was safer with Maria?

(The last night was supposed to be special but it all went wrong. They only got a little while to sit and talk before it was over. She regretted that. She wanted to send him off with the memory of her touch, with her kiss. That he would remember that he was treasured. Instead... well, sometimes the future changes and she just has to live with that.)

She lives in a quiet world with everyone gone. Maria still talks to her, but mostly she's expected to lip-read and that's all orders and stuff. No one wants a conversation, so she just stops bothering. Maria lets her keep the Major's quarters and his books. At lot of them are hard to understand, and slow to read, but she tries. She draws a lot, when there's chalk and paper. She fights and trains and hunts. It's a small life, a quiet life, but it's hers. The future doesn't show her ever having anything more, so she just appreciates what she has.

What she had.

It's been decades by the time that Peter and Charlotte just... show up. She's never been so pleased to see them before, talking to Maria like they didn't flee in terror. She cannot help herself, the way she half-tackles them, hugging them so tightly. They look wonderful and Peter laughs at her, fumbles through what he remembers of her language, and Charlotte seems a little sad at her excitement.

(Charlotte's wearing a top that has little flowers on it, it's clean, and she smells so nice. Even shoes! And fancy little pins for her hair!)

She's not paying attention to Maria's conversation with Peter until Maria taps her shoulder and signs the words.

You can go North with Peter and Charlotte, Mary-Alice. You've done well.

It's the biggest compliment that Maria has ever given her and the words take a moment to settle her brain. North? 

Charlotte smiles at her and tells her, she can go and see the Major. 

And that was terrifying. North to see the Major. 

She'd nearly asked to stay with Maria. 

What if... what if the Major didn't want her? What if he'd forgotten her?

What if he had a mate? She hadn't checked on him in a while - sometimes it was hard - and maybe the Cullens had found him some pretty girl who could talk and hear and sing.

Her stomach had been in knots and it had taken every ounce of her bravery to agree to go North. Something new, something different.

(She couldn't bring herself to Look because she was terrified about what she would find.)

And then she got there, arrived at him home, and he remembered her. 

He remembered her and he was happy to see her. He had missed her, he still cared. 

(He still knew their words, still smelt the same, and held her so tight like he was making sure she couldn't get away. It was like the world had flipped the right way up.)

She presses herself so close to him, holds him so tight, only lets go to speak. “Maria sent me, said I could come be with you now. You went north and I was lonely. No one spoke to me like you.”

She doesn't even care about the Cullens watching them, watching her tell him she missed him and loved him, watching his hands fall into the old words. 

(The Cullens are... nice. She remembers them from her early visions, and what she knows of them, they are no threat. She can lipread some of what they say; she can see their eyes follow how she holds onto Jasper, how eagerly she speaks with him. But they smile and welcome her into the house, into the home, and maybe something is finally going right for her. Maybe the world just got a little bit bigger).

--

anathema.

We sat together on the couch, talking about superficial topics at first - he went by Jasper Hale, not Cullen, as part of their cover story of adopted and fostered children. He had drawn the short straw, and had to attend Forks as a sophomore this year - luckily, the school year was more than half over. He was originally from Texas, but the Cullens’ most recent residence was Alaska. 

“That night in the field when you fainted,” Jasper began. ��You mentioned something… you have some kind of gift?”

I nodded. “I sometimes get knowledge of things that might happen,” I said, twisting to face him on the couch, crossing my legs. “I might wake up with the absolute certainty that a client is going to smash a vase, or that Charlie Swan is going to have a flat tire. It very, very rarely happens when I’m awake.”

“But it did the other night?” Jasper looked so serious. “It caused a seizure.”

I looked at my lap. “When decisions change rapidly, my mind just shuts down,” I explained. “I kind of just… shut down. It’s happened before, but that was kind of an extreme episode. I’m fine.”

He watches me with this look on his face that I cannot decipher; almost affectionate. He reaches out to gently take my hand. 

“As long as you’re okay.” 

—

The Cullens come over to speak with Freddie on Friday night, and I am buzzing -  I can’t stop moving and fussing and asking questions, and Dulcie is going to strangle me when I am too nervous to eat dinner. 

I break two plates washing the dishes, and Freddie is quick to redeploy me to drying up before we run out of flatware.

“You’ll stay up here for the meeting, Alice,” he informs me with a sternness that is alien to me, when he catches me watching the clock. 

“What?” I promptly drop a mug, and Dulcie plucks the dishcloth out of my hands. “But…”

“No buts. This discussion does not involve you,” he says. “Go and study, make sure that you make a convincing high school student.” He’s sour tonight, grim, and I am reminded of the days after Jeanie’s death. 

I am desperate to see Jasper again, but I don’t want to push my uncle too far. I don’t want this to hurt him more than it already is. 

“Can I call Cynthia?” I ask, as I pause to get myself a soda out of the fridge - more habitual than anything else. 

“Tomorrow,” Dulcie says kindly, and nods for me to leave.

My room seems small and stale now that I am virtually trapped in it for the evening. I have the little drawing Jasper did of me on the scrap of paper taped to my mirror, and the flowers he brought me that have wilted. Nothing Freddie would notice as out of place. Dulcie tells me my bedroom reminds her of a thrift store - so many little treasures cluttering up the surfaces. It’s a good way to hide things in plain sight. 

I could watch a movie in the living room, but that holds less appeal than my room. Instead, I pick up the books Dulcie bought me, left stacked neatly on my desk. They don’t hold my interest for more than a casual flip through - I was never taught Spanish or Algebra, and I have little patience for History, or for Chemistry, especially when I handle chemicals every day of my life. I should be working my way through the reading list Sue brought over, but it’s dull work and almost enough to convince me not to bother with high school at all. 

But Jasper…

I am making my way bravely through Romeo and Juliet when Dulcie brings me in a slice of cake, her hand running through my curls gently. “He worries so much about you,” she said kindly. “He’s just nervous.”

I nod, taking a bite of the cake before I reply. “I know, it’s just… different. I know with my whole heart that Jasper would burn this town to the ground before he hurt me. I am never more safe than I am when I’m with him.”

—

Dulcie is officially my partner in crime; the door isn’t latched, so there’s no sound as I creep out of the apartment and down to the landing. 

I crouch on the landing of the stairs; with the lights off, Freddie and Jeanie couldn’t spot me but the Cullens do and Carlisle winks at me. I probably look like a child, with my hair in curly pigtails and in a giant pink sweater. 

“Alice is a child,” Freddie insisted, looking older than I had ever seen him. “She might not look like it but…”

“How old is Alice?” Carlisle asked gently, and Freddie looked at the ground. 

“You need to tell them the truth, Fred,” Dulcie said gently. “If nothing else, they can protect her when we can’t.”

“Protect her from what?” Edward asks, and I want to echo that question. 

Freddie takes a shuddering breath. “Her mother… Alice’s father was a vampire that stalked and raped her mother. Lilian did not survive the birth, and Alice was… not a normal child.”

“That’s impossible.” The blonde, Rosalie, snaps but Carlisle holds his hand up. 

“Please, Mr Brandon, continue.”

“She grew so fast - by her first birthday, she looked like a perfectly healthy three year old. We brought her here to Forks because Jeanne had a family home out near Noah Bay. When she was born, she was… she was aware of us. Does that make sense? She reached for her mother, but Lillian was dead by then. 

“She didn’t eat for weeks because she … she wanted blood. That was our line in the sand, we couldn’t do that for her. I have no idea how Jeanne managed to get her to take milk and human food, but we got past it. Jeanne always wondered if Alice was so small because we accidentally stunted her growth.”

My hands were shaking.

No one had ever told me any of this before.