people are always like "Oh a vampire wouldn't get horny while drinking someone's blood, that's like getting horny while eating a sandwich" and like man have you never had a really good fucking sandwich?

The real question is, "Would a vampire get horny from seeing us eat a sandwich?"

Much to think about.

Finally. a fucking academic on this post.

the devil in winter | chapter one | notoriety

London, 1824

Rowan Whitethorn assumed he had imagined the knock at the door. A glance at the mantle clock showed it was after midnight, and the idea of a caller at this hour was laughable at best. Especially in Mayfair. Especially at his home. He burrowed his shoulders back into the leather chair, his eyes closing against the glow of the fireplace. He should go to bed, should drag himself upstairs to the smaller room where he was sure his valet had lit a fire…

Knock knock knock 

More urgent this time, and Rowan knew he was awake and therefore had not imagined the sound. Hurried footsteps sounded outside the sitting room and Rowan sat up, his eyes meeting that of his housekeeper, Sarah.

“I’ll get it,” Rowan said firmly, his long legs swinging off the foot stool. Sarah shook her head. 

“Don’t trouble -“ 

“It’s after midnight, Sarah, do you think I’m going to let you open the door? You barely come up to my shoulder.” 

She bobbed a quick curtsy, her face coloring. “That’s very…I’ll just stand around the corner, then.” 

Rowan nodded once, striding into the hall. He rolled his shoulders and pulled open the door, the cold December wind freezing his face.  “How can I - “ The words died in his throat as he regarded a woman wrapped in a too-light cloak. 

“You’re the Duke of Wendlyn?” 

Her face tilted toward him, and he huffed a breath. “You’re Ashryver’s cousin.” She nodded curtly. 

not sure if this will make sense to anyone besides me but: the antidote to negativity is not positivity, its warmth

positivity tells a sad person that there is no reason to be sad. warmth asks the sad person if they want to go get some ice cream

Been a moment since I saw this. Glad it’s back on my dash when I needed it.

i think a lot about exactly 1 thing from the roman empire: the concept of bread and circus. the idea was that if your population was fed and entertained, they wouldn't revolt. you are asking us to give up our one small life, is the thing - for under 15 dollars an hour.

what would that buy, even. i am trading weekends and late nights and my back health. i am trading slow mornings and long walks and cortisol levels. i am trading sleep and silence and peace. for ... this. for what barely-covers-rent.

life really is more expensive right now. you aren't making that up. i make almost 3 times what i did 5 years ago, and despite an incredibly equal series of bills - i am still struggling. the most expensive line item i added was to own a dog. the money is just evaporating.

we were okay with it because it's a cost-benefit analysis. i could handle the customer harassment and standing all day and the manager's constantly changing temperament - i was coming home to hope, and my life planned in a blue envelope. three hours would buy me my dog's food for a month. i can give up three hours for him, for his shiny coat and wide, happy mouth. three days could be a new mattress, if i was thrifty. if i really scrimped and saved, we could maybe afford a trip into the city.

recently i cried in the car about the price of groceries.

business majors will be mad at me, but my most inflammatory opinion is that people should never be valued at the same place as products. your staff should not be a series of numbers in an excel sheet that you can just "replace" whenever you need something at that moment. your staff should be people, end of sentence.

it feels like someone somewhere is playing a very bad video game. like my life is a toy. like someone opened an app on their phone and hired me in diner dash ultra. they don't need to pay me well or treat me alright - they can always just show me the door. there is always someone more desperate, always someone more willing.

but i go to work and know i could save for years and not afford housing. i am never going to own my own home, most likely. i have no idea how to afford her ring, much less the wedding. my dog doesn't have his own yard. everything i love is on subscription. if i lose my job, i have no "nest egg" to catch my falling.

this thin life - they want me to give up summer for it. to open my mouth and throat and swallow the horrible hours and counted keystrokes. they want me to give up mountains and any non-federal holiday. to give up snow days. to give up talking to my mom whenever i want. to give up visiting the ocean and hearing the waves.

bread and circus worked for a while, actually. it was a the kind of plan that would probably now be denounced by republicans as socialist commie liberal pronoun bullshit.

but sometimes i wonder if we should point them to the part of the history book that says: it worked until it didn't.

ah shit

In addition to being pastors, my parents were both also professional teachers. My mom has a master's in education.

I still wish I wasn't homeschooled.

Like, I run into folks now who get super excited when I tell them I was homeschooled because they're thinking about homeschooling if they ever have a kid and want intel, and they get super grumpy and dismissive and defensive when I tell them how absolutely debilitating it was socially, and that it really wasn't worth it just to be a year ahead in math.

And part of that is this sense that homeschooling is an opportunity for you to customize your child. It's usually an extension of a broader fantasy that that's what parenthood is about. That you can minmax your child's stats and construct the perfect build, and the only reason everyone's all screwed up is just that nobody sat down and really micromanaged their child's education enough. Other teachers (and peers, for that matter) might steer them in directions you don't want.

Even when done well, homeschooling is about removing those outside influences so you can control their environment and prioritize your own goals for them. It's a magnet for people with narcissism and control issues as a result, it's a magnet for fundamentalists, but it's also a magnet for idealists. Sometimes it even works out great, hell, there are people who for accessibility reasons will likely be taught far better at home. But that's more a "lesser of two evils" situation.

One person cannot be smarter in every single subject than every single teacher that the kid would ever have. They can't singlehandedly replace the socialization, the networking, the mentorship, and the life experiences. And to think that they can borders on megalomania.

“you talk about me like i’m worth writing poetry for.”

“love, you are the reason poetry was created.”

I dunno I mean I knew a lot of Americans were against it but I assumed they were all elitist right wing weirdos.

What's the mainstream left wing position then if it's not socialism?

Oh

Oh no

Your first warning sign should have been when they called the Bismark Model of healthcare, literally named after the nationalist monarchist and noble statesman who invented it, far left.

I don’t know how to explain to people that, in any other country, Biden would be a conservative and somehow most Americans have been convinced he’s a commie.

He reads people the way I read books: As a form of discovery and adventure and to experience the world outside of himself.

And not a book that he keeps immaculate, but one with dog-eared pages and half sentences scribbled in the margins. One where he adds his own seams between the pages that will forever remember that time, however brief.

He leaves his fingerprints on my hips and salt on my lips and the echo of laughter in my chest.

i think it's funny that hera gave jason 6 months at camp half-blood to settle in and make friends, but knew that percy only needed a week to become everyone's best friend and the preator. also he didn't even last the week without antagonising several gods and managing to fully regain his memory

hera had percy sleep for six months because the olympians needed a break

The latest from my sketchbook.

I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.

dude.

$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.

re-reblogging and thinking about when i have another collection agency calling that i can just do this

This 👆👆