#we poor but at least we pretty

[marlow-holly]

After I’ve payed the rent, student loan, electricity, water, and internet bill with $0.02 left in my bank account:

[inkskinned]

one of the things about having an unstable parent is that it can so easily ruin your future. you want to get out, but getting out takes having agency. it takes the resume and the grades and the stellar community service history.

but you have to choose your battles. you know if you sign up for an after-school activity, it'll be okay for a while, so long as the activity is parent-approved and god-fearing. over time, like all things, it will become an argument (i can't keep carting your ass to these things) or a weapon (talk to me like that again, see if you get to go to practice). sometimes, if you love the thing, it's worth it. but you also know better than to love something: that's how they get you. if you ever actually want something, it will always be the center of their attention. they will never stop threatening you with it. telling you of course i'm a good parent, i came to all of those stupid events.

you learn to balance yourself perfectly. you can either have a social life or you can have hobbies. both of these things will be under constant scrutiny. you spend too much time with her, you should be at home with family is equally paired with you're acting like this because you're addicted to what's on that goddamn screen. you cannot ever actually win, so everything falls within a barter system that you calculate before entering: do you want to learn how to drive? if so, you'll need to give up asking for a new laptop, even though yours died. maybe you can work on a computer at the library. of course, that would mean you'd be allowed to go to the library, which would mean something else has to bleed. nothing ever actually comes free.

and that bitter, horrible irony: you could be literally following their orders and it still isn't pretty. they tell you to get a job; they hate that your job keeps you late and gives you access to actual money. they tell you to do better in school; they say no child of mine needs a tutor. they want you to stop being so morose, don't you know there are people who are really suffering - but they revile the idea you might actually need therapy.

you didn't survive that fall the way other people would. you've seen other people scramble and get their way out, however they could. maybe you were made too-soft: the answer didn't come to you easily. it wasn't quick. it was brutal and nasty. some people even asked you why didn't you just work hard and escape during school? and you felt your head spinning. why didn't you? (they control your financial aid. they control your loan status. they love having that kind of thing). maybe in another life you got diagnosed sooner and got the meds you needed to actually focus and got attention from the right teachers who helped you clear hurdles to get up out of here - but for now? here?

the effort of trying. the effort of not-dying. that kind of effort was absolutely agonizing.

[tubbytarchia]

Just saw this Jimmy skin for the first time from back when he could still experience joy and whimsy and uh yeah I can't blame anyone for having any parental instincts towards him (looks at myself and my moots and Doc)

[i-will-always-love-the-jedi]

Stellan is stopping them from punching someone

…

[thevioletcaptain]

.

[blackjackkent]

OK, into the goblin camp. Rakha's dark urge bloodthirst was sated for a little while by killing the gobbos in the outer post, so we're not quite going in guns blazing, but if someone looks at her funny, heads are probably going to end up rolling. She's feeling very on edge after the Absolute's voice blindsided them on the bridge.

The most eye-catching (and ear-catching) thing happening in the celebration happening outside is, of course, Volo, who is being forced to sing by several of the goblins at swordpoint.

And the song is terrible.

"With fragulous crown and with scepter abrade, Dror Ragzlin short work of the innkeeper made! The inn burned to ash! The captives were many! Goblinkind had reduced them to cowering filfenny! So raiseth your goblets and drain them with pride! Dror Ragzlin, the True Soul, hath led you galide!"

Baffling. Rakha knows nothing of music - she didn't even get a chance to hear Alfira sing before the beast gutted her - but it's easy enough to see that this is meant to be entertainment, and in fact that the goblins seem to be enjoying it. But it is nonsense.

"I reckon Dror Ragzlin's the gobbo in charge," Wyll says thoughtfully, "the way this one's carrying on."

Rakha grunts. That explains some of it. Not all. "'Fragulous'?" she asks with some bewilderment. "'Galide'? I don't know this language."

She has wondered to herself on more than one occasion how she knows any language, when so much else seems to be lost to her. But the bard's strange tongue is most certainly a mystery.

One of the goblins gives her a disdainful glare. "Common, ye turnip," she snarls.

Rakha scowls. That very well might be true, and the words simply lost on her. She doesn't like the possibility much. Sometimes it feels as if for every bit of this world she starts to understand, she finds a hundred other things that spark no recognition at all.

-----

Wyll gives her a slight smile, seeing her confusion. "No fear," he says in an undertone, low enough only for her to hear. "They're no words I ever heard of either. He's making them up."

She feels herself relax just slightly at this gesture of encouragement. "For what purpose?"

"To make the goblins think he's smart, I suspect. And you, for that matter," he says with a soft laugh. "Though I don't think it will hold out for long - look there." And indeed, Volo seems to have lost the thread of his song, and one of the goblins is in the process of hustling him off the stage with a kick. "Ouch."

"As I told you," Lae'zel puts in dryly. "A master only of falsehoods. And perhaps foolishness."

-----

The rest of the courtyard is full of celebrating goblins. Rakha gathers, from overheard conversations, that they are celebrating a raid on a nearby settlement, the capture of some important prisoner. None of them seem to notice Rakha's presence particularly, which makes a certain amount of sense - Nettie did say they would likely take the tadpole infection as indication that they are all on the same side.

Two particular things catch her attention - the first is the owlbear cub they first spotted in the cave with its mother some days back. There's no sign of the large one, but the cub is being tormented by one of the goblins, who is trying to get everyone nearby into a game of 'chicken-chasing.'

Rakha has no interest in the game, and would happily skewer the goblin, but as for the little beast...

She remembers Wyll's guidance for befriending Scratch, and crouches down to its height, sticking a hand out for it to sniff.

Narrator: You notice a shiver run through his feathered coat - fear, a desperate longing for the safety of his nest. But his mother is gone - taken. All that's left are these creatures.

She snorts softly. Adrift. As I am.

Offer him your hand. He can follow your scent to your camp in the wilderness.

"Oh, thank the gods," Gale says dryly. "I did worry you might be about to lash out with another kick."

"That was not my choice," Rakha mutters. "I've no quarrel with the beast."

Wyll smiles. "He'll make a fine addition to camp, if we can get him there."

In the end it doesn't take much effort to frighten the goblins into letting the cub go. With a joyful hoot, it barrels off into the distance at top speed.

-----

The other moment of interest is a drunk goblin holding forth to several others in one corner of the courtyard - and who, seeing Rakha, decides unilaterally that they are going to have a problem.

"And who're you?" he shouts up towards her. "Nother pest? Think ya rule the world just cuz ya got a scary face? Hah!"

Rakha glares at him silently, irritation stirring rapidly into anger in the back of her mind. The goblin - unfortunately for him - keeps talking.

"We got the Absolute on our side now. Ya better learn yer place! Go on - kiss my foot, or I'll wipe that nasty look right off yer face!"

The anger slides into rage, like a worn and comfortable glove sliding back onto a fist. Her vision whites out at the corners and she feels the beast stir in her head.

Lae'zel hisses with similar annoyance. "End him or leave him," she snaps sharply. "But don't you dare grovel to this slug."

Rakha feels a cool smile twist her lips. In this, she and Lae'zel are very much alike. The disrespect is guaranteed to call up the rage faster than anything else. And this creature will suffer for it now - it only matters how.

Kill, says the beast. Kill. Make him bleed. Pull him apart, piece by piece by bloody piece until there is nothing left.

She feels her control slipping, the hunger suddenly surging up again, inescapable.

Ponder how it would taste to bite his toe clean off.

Yes. That would be good. Turn the tables. Pull him apart. Make him suffer. Make it hurt. Make the blood poor from his foot as he tries to fight back and dies, and dies, and dies...

Narrator: You kneel before him, eagerly feigning reverence.

Before she fully realizes it, she has moved beyond thought into movement, her knees hitting the cold, damp stone. Her head drops; she can smell the stink of the goblin, overwhelming, before everything fades out and the beast takes over completely, her jaws closing like a predator around the goblin's foot.

Narrator: But with one quick snatch, you envelop a toe in your foul maw.

(A/N: Definitely trying to take all Dark Urge choices that don't involve a companion death, but also this is GROSS lol. Ew.)

Narrator: The toe itself tastes of curd, cave-aged, with thick helpings of rancid gristle.

The goblin screams, matching the dark screaming in her head. She tastes his blood on her tongue and it is intoxicating like fine wine. The bitter flesh contrasts with it, stokes the hunger higher still. She wants more. She wants him to bleed and scream and die under her blade. He mocked her and he will suffer...

She reawakens in a blood-hungry haze. The goblin's toe is clutched in one fist, dripping hot across her palm. The goblin is still screaming with pain and rage.

"You fiend! I'll teach you some respect!"

-----

"When I said end him," Lae'zel says, unsheathing her sword as the nearest goblins close around them, "that was not what I meant."

"Now who's acting surprised when they shouldn't be?" Gale says dryly. "Ow!" he adds, as Lae'zel elbows him sharply in the ribs.

-----

Several of the goblins crowd around to join in the fray, but Rakha and Lae'zel are both of a single mind, focused on the one that started the whole business - the one currently bleeding heavily out of one foot. And when he falls, Rakha is very satisfied to see that he begs, at once.

"Wait - I yield! I yield!" he bellows, terrified, as Rakha stands over him.

Rakha could not care less. This is beyond her now, and there is only the beast, and it will not be calmed until the goblin is dead. Lae'zel clearly feels the same.

Wyll and Gale have been watching this play out with some bemusement, a little further back. Gale looks troubled, but Wyll has his eyes narrowed, and to Rakha's distant surprise, he sounds almost as angry as she feels when he speaks.

"He wants mercy. I say show it to him - decisively."

Ignore his pleading and prepare for the finishing blow.

Lae'zel smiles in satisfaction as Rakha's knife slides from its sheathe. "A fine show of force," she murmurs. "The worms shall feast tonight."

The goblin panics completely and begins scuttling away in a desperate attempt to escape as Rakha closes with him. "HELP!" he screams. Faces from all over the camp begin to turn and look towards them. "HELP ME!"

Rakha's knife slides into his mouth and pins him to the wall behind him, and a roar goes through the whole camp.

"So much for a quiet entrance," Gale says wearily. "Yes, yes, I know," he adds as Lae'zel shoots him a glare. "I should have expected it."

[thresholdbb]

Captain Janeway: If you’re saying I play favorites, you’re wrong. I love all of my crew equally

Earlier that day…

I don’t care for Suder

[sysig]

Some further TMPs (Patreon)

[medicinemane]

Can I just for a minute complain as someone dyslexic about how when I was young everyone would always be like "well look up the spelling in the dictionary"?

Just now, I go to type a word and I spell it something like "erevicobly", which is obviously wrong, but... no idea

Well, I throw it in the search engine* and find out it's irrevocably (didn't spell it right there either, but got it close enough spellcheck could fix it)

Now you might notice something here, which is if I'd looked it up in the dictionary, I wouldn't have found it, no matter how long and hard I searched, because I'd be looking under "er" not "ir"

So do you see why that advice made me mad as hell as a kid, and I stand by my feelings today?

*literally one of the few ways search engines are a blessing is being a really great way to find spellings

[you-can-reclaim-your-crown]

Soooo this election just happened...any mutuals who want to pick me up, start a new life and yap about sukugo with me? I'm a decent cook and low maintenance

[loving-jack-kelly]

yesterday sucked so bad it was the longest day ever I cried at work and I slept like a rock bc I was so exhausted and then today I woke up and it was literally like. the sun is shining the birds are chirping it feels like fall I made birthday plans with my best friend for march that I'm so excited for the thing that was stressing me out so bad yesterday at work is fixed and over with and everybody is telling me I did well with it even though it felt like I did not in the moment AND I my adoption application was accepted at one of the shelters I applied to so I got invited to their adoption event to meet their dogs tomorrow AND I'm seeing hozier in a week and two days and that does not feel real but also it actually hit for properly for the first time today :) how the tables have turned oh and ALSO I'm watching a horror movie with emma tonight and last night I think it would have killed me bc I was so tired and empty by the time I got home but today I am Hyped for it

[marcsnuffy]

I like that Ego and Noa's designs contrast yet parallel each other somewhat

[silverislander]

i have 7 assignments, total, left in school. once i finish those i'm going to be done- i graduate in may which is WILD to think about. i just have to fucking do them

[ezraphobicsoup]

ok handels messiah is just as wonderfully dreadful as i remember it why does he write tenor lines like that. what the hell man

[hungerpunch]

new least favorite activity: holding my dog down on the exam table while she receives multiple injections, yelping and crying while trying to get away

[celepeace]

Genuinely with the death of nintendo handheld low-cost games that came with the switch, as every continuing handheld series became a switch series and thus had a price increase, a lot of their most kid-friendly franchises have become more and more inaccessible to children, especially now that nintendo has decided to follow every other major console and has started pricing new games even higher.

And now that a lot of these series are so old and thus a lot of their fanbase has aged into adulthood, a lot of these series would benefit greatly from making some of the new entries more adult-oriented. But nintendo very stubbornly wants to keep their main franchises as kid-friendly as possible, sometimes severely restricting the potential of these series by not allowing them to explore things like more complex mechanics, higher difficulty, or darker topics that past entries have brushed over in favor of keeping the age rating low. Pokemon's core battle engine has been in want of an overhaul for years now, and Legends Arceus kind of did that but not wholly, for example.

This would be pretty understandable in the interest of keeping every entry of these series accessible to all age groups, but with inflating prices, who are these games even for anymore? A normal kid with your average allowance from their parents isn't going to be able to afford tears of the kingdom or even $60 pokemon games more often than not. Back when these games were $30-$40, sure, if they saved up, but now many families have even tighter budgets than ever due to the rising cost of living. Nintendo is pricing themselves out of their target audience while simultaneously leaving their adult fans who have been with them since childhood to feel neglected in favor of exclusively making games for today's children.

Obviously nintendo will always make sales because even though they make children's games, they're still fun as hell for a person of any age, and many kids will be able to afford their games once in a while, but it does feel like they're kind of... making their games for an audience that barely exists.