do it scared do it stupid do it badly whatever it is that's worth doing, that's worth anything at all, we do it. be it scared be it stupid be it badly. the sincerity remains the same.

"Me booping my mutuals-" no. That's not enough. I am booping literally everyone I see on here with the boop button beside their name, mutual or not. There is no escaping. I will find all of you

Reblog if its ok to spam you with boops

please do

Nico laughing echoes with the sound of bones rattling

Hand Annabeth a few strands of thick thread while she speaks and in seconds she'll have woven the strongest rope imaginable

When Piper speaks, you swear you can hear the voices of all those you love in her words

As the sun shines on Will, his blond hair catches his father's light creating such a bright illuminance that it's impossible to look at him without squinting

When Thalia and Jason stand in a storm, self created or natural, their eyes flash with each lightning bolt that shoots through the sky

Look at Hazel for too long and you'll soon see the ghostly outline of her skull

To know what Percy is feeling, you'll only have to look at the sea around him. The ocean tells what his face does not

There's a quiet strength in Leo, if he's not careful he could crush solid metal as if it were merely clay

Frank does not need to shout to be heard, if he wished, he could speak only in a whisper and everyone would hear his words as if they'd been spoken directly in your ear. You cannot ignore War

The demigods bleed the deep red of humanity, mortality. But, their blood also holds a slight shimmer, a hint of ichor. Because no matter how human they seem, no part of them can ever hide that they are of the divine.

What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself

I’ve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into “princesses is saved by a prince and nothing else”, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because she’s a strong female character! (Implying if you’re in a bad situation, it’s because you’re not strong enough to get out)

Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like… a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella  going from ‘Haha nice I really like you’ to ‘oh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UP’   it’s good shit   ‘I have just met you but ON GOD I’m gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery woman’   cinderella  makes desperately yelling into the night ‘how can I find you again!??!’ when she’s taking off that much more poignant really

He’s been trained to read the room. To read the context clues. To read politics and scheming and planning and people. He’s a Prince, it’s either that or accidentally drink poison by age 15. And he reads her and …

She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.

All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.

Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.

He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.

The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.

And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.

Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.

And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.

The way he sees it, sometimes even the strongest people can be brought low and need just… a little help. She had enough in her to do whatever she had to do to free herself of those evil relations if she had to, but she shouldn’t have to. There’s no glory in blood. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending to be happily ever after.

the hardest lines ALWAYS come from ao3 fanfics and I stand by this

Mostly thanks to @emilyelizabethfowl (their reblog contains many of the fic links!! thank u sm) and a few deep dives into my ao3 history, the sources of the quotes have mostly all been recovered! I apologise for not posting them all with proper credit originally, I truly didn't think the post would blow up so much, but the lesson is very much learned :) enjoy!

- number 1 is from merthur fic called Destiny Ordered You To Die, But I Willed You To Live by ironfamjam

-number 2 is from a klance fic called reach out for you (break these walls) by Paladin-Pile (UserFromPluto)

- number 3 is a batman fic called Home (jason centered) by Daisybirb

- number 4 is a zukka fic by I'm Not Angry Anymore by team_avatars_eyebags

- numbers 5 and 9 are from The Art Of Burning by hella1975, an amazing ongoing atla following zuko

- number 6 is a hualian fic called No paths are bound by cataclysmic_calamity (originally a thread fic but also fully uploaded on ao3)

- number 7 is a merthur fic called tell me every terrible thing you ever did (and let me love you anyway) by Stardustwrites17 (the quote is also originally from a poem apparently)

- number 8 is from a batman fic called Nature and Nurture by lurkinglurkerwholurks

- number 10 is from a steddie fic called let me know (everythings alright) by bexiguess

ALSO there is now a part 2 !! (which I swear is better organized)

Part two of ao3 fanfic lines that go extremely (emotionally devastatingly) hard !

Part one (although quite a mess) was pretty popular and I have tons of these in my gallery so please enjoy -

please tag the authors tumblrs if they have one!!

(and of course I'm not forgetting that one stucky line - we deserve a soft epilogue, my love - that line is forever in my head even though I've never read the fic 😭)

considering the manor is completely massive and the only person who spends more than a few consecutive hours there at a time is probably Alfred, i think it would be funny if after the pit, Jason decides after everything he's been through that he can't be bothered to do the whole revenge thing, or sort out safe houses or get an apartment and instead just decides to kill the joker himself and just... secretly go home.

like, as long as he kept an ear out to make sure he wasn't eating in the dining room when Bruce comes down, he could probably get away with walking around without ever being caught. Alfred would find out, i assume, but i think knowing how complicated Jasons emotions towards Bruce are right now, he'd keep it quiet and just be happy that the one other person he trusts to leave alone in the kitchen is finally back. And then, of course, there's the kids.

Damian knew from the beginning. Not because he's especially observant, but because this is his big brother from the league and the first night he spent at the manor Jason crawled through his window in full Red Hood gear and told him not to snitch. Considering that in the league Jason once snuck up behind Ra's and shaved a strip of hair off the back of his head, Damian decides there's far stupider shit the guy could be doing and leaves it be.

Tim finds out next. admittedly, the only reason he finds out is because Jason thought he knew and just stopped attempting to avoid him. in reality, what happened was Tim, having not slept for three days and living off nothing but spite and coffee, accidentally walked in on Jason cooking in the middle of the night, and immediately wrote it off as a hallucination. Jason, seeing Tim find him in the manor and not react badly, decided that 'oh, the replacement must just be chill i guess' and mentally pencilled him in as another person in the building that he can be seen by. it came to a head when a few days later Damian was forced by Jason to invite Tim out with them on their weekly 'eat junk food and talk shit about the rest of the family' outings, since he was a part of the group now. Tim cries.

Dick only finds out because Tim and Damian keep forgetting that Jason isn't supposed to be talked about in public. there comes a point where Tim rips Dick's favourite sweater and when Dick confronts him about it, Tim panics and blurts out 'it wasn't me, must have been jason!', and upon seeing Dick's face, Damian smacks him and grumbles 'good job Drake, now we have to show him Todd or he'll cry again.'. Jason is not overly happy when he sneaks through his bedroom window after going out as Red Hood and finds a sobbing Dick sat on his bed, Tim staring at the ground looking very ashamed while Damian straight face points at Tim to make it clear that this was Not His Fault.

after realising literally everyone in the house sans Bruce knows he's there, Jason decides to just. stop hiding. the fact is that he wasn't trying that hard in the first place, and Bruce still didn't have a clue, so he kinda wants to see how long it takes the 'world's greatest detective' to realise his dead kid is just. back.

so he stops hiding. starts showing up for family meals, starts being more friendly with the bats as Red Hood, and they all wait to see what finally tips Bruce off.

they forget how fucking stupid this man can be.

because if Jason had gone up to Bruce and done some sort of dramatic or emotional reveal then sure, Bruce would be shocked. he'd freak out. but the fact is that Bruce has both Batman and Brucie Wayne to keep up with. He's barely paying attention to his own feet while walking, let alone the people around him.

so when Jason starts showing up and acting like nothings changed, and literally nobody else in the house acts like anything's different either? Bruce straight up forgets that Jason's supposed to be dead. His mind just registers 'oh there are his kids, fighting like usual', and forgets to take in whether or not those kids are SUPPOSED to be ALIVE.

the kids find it fucking fascinating. Jason can actually have conversations with Bruce at the dinner table, and Bruce doesn't even realise that this is a wild fucking thing to be happening. Tim starts laughing at him and Bruce gets confused, only making the poor kid laugh harder. Jason just can't believe he actually bothered putting effort into hiding when he first came back. Damian's respect for his father diminishes every day.

it becomes a game, to see how far it will go. at one point Dick straight up asks who was better as Robin, him or Jason, in an attempt to jog his memory, and Bruce without looking up from the batcomputer goes 'you were both equally good, stop trying to start competitions with your brother'. Dick throws his hands up in the air and Jason, who has been sat on top of his own fucking memorial case to watch this shit show for the past 20 minutes, slow claps.

it's only after like a month of this that half way through a casual family breakfast, Damian asks Jason to pass him the orange juice or something, and Bruce finally has the fucking moment of

he never lives it down.

that cherished feeling.

it's a feeling you've never felt before, but bakugou shows you just how wonderful it can feel.

a/n: this is the longest oneshot i've ever written and ive been working on this for like a week lol. i really hope you guys enjoy this :)) i love fantasy au's and specifically (1) barbarian!bakugou!

pairing: barbarian!bakugou katsuki x f!reader

word count: 8,010

warnings: parental abuse, death

“Make sure she looks decent enough for him.”

Starlight, Star Bright

Pairing: Darklina x Fem!Star Summoner!Reader

Summary: The arrival of the sun summoner - your darling Alina - changes everything for you and Aleksander.

Warnings [18+]: canon level violence and death, mentions of death, nightmares, use of sleeping tonics, anxiety, mentions of Luda x Reader x Aleksander, angst, smut, oral (fem receiving), fingering, mentions of masturbation, smidge of corruption/innocence kink, Alina had a strict and conservative upbringing

My Masterlist

Alina’s concentration face is rather adorable. Dark brows furrowed together, pink lips parted, and a tiny peek of her tongue can be seen at the corner of her mouth. It hadn’t been intentional - watching her like this. But the library at the Little Palace is one of your favourite places to hide from your duties and seeing her here feels like an unexpected treat.

Her concentration dissolves into frustration, plush lips pressing into a firm line, then emotion seems to overwhelm her. A redness has crept over her throat which bobs rapidly and her dark eyes blink in an embarrassed flurry. When you realise she’s holding back tears, you move towards her without thinking.

𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬

summary: you find yourself in a marriage that you never wanted in the first place. your husband seems to hate you and you begin to wonder if anything you used to think of him was even true. who would have though a marriage to gojo satoru would be so difficult?

warnings: 18+ mdni, arranged marriage, misunderstandings and just not talking shit out, mentions of cheating, slight angst (with comfort), eating out (fem! receiving), fingering, gojo doesn't really know how to husband for some of it

word count: 10.9K (whoops)

note: part two is up! i really had a lot of fun writing this so reblogs and comments are always appreciated! as always, thank you to @jadeisthirsting for beta reading <3

jjk masterlist

never did you think that you’d be stuck in a marriage to a man who didn’t love you, but there’s a first for everything. 

you should count yourself lucky that he’s not old and bald. he’s pretty. in fact, he’s the prettiest man you’ve ever seen. his eyes are the bluest, bluer than the sky. his hair mirrors the winter snows, and his back ripples with muscles whenever he fights. 

his agility is unlike any other man. he fights swiftly and cleanly, never taking more than a couple minutes to get rid of whatever it was that stood in his way. he’s charming with his words (or so you’ve heard), and he knows how to make somebody swoon if he really wants them to. 

and he seems to despise you.

you had known gojo since you were a child, the two of you running around each other's fields as you chased him with your wooden sword. you remembered watching him in training, wishing him good luck whenever he went on a hunt. you could even remember how he would stutter whenever he tried to talk, something he must have worked on because he never seemed to stutter anymore. 

he was always nice to you, his cheeks rosy whenever you kissed him goodbye. he was kind back then, grinning brightly whenever he saw you. 

but as time grew and you with it, and it was only a matter of years before the two of you went your separate ways. it didn’t help that once he turned thirteen he had to leave for training and fighting in whatever it was that was needed of him, but you had hoped that he would be able to write back. 

you would send him letters whenever you could, it was tradition whenever the two of you were separated for too long to do so. each letter telling him about new experiences and embarrassing things that happened in your life, but he never responded. you liked to send one every week, sometimes including little tokens you thought he might enjoy. but you stopped sending them after the first two years and stopped asking about his whereabouts after three. 

but you were hopeful that when you saw him that night so many months ago, he’d be civil with you. you were nervous, sure, but who could blame you? you had recently gotten news that his time to serve his clan was over and that he was finally back home. it wasn’t as though the two of you had left on bad graces, so you were hopeful that he would at least remember you. but he could barely meet your eyes whenever you tried to catch him from across the room, acting as if you had never existed. 

he looked so different since the last time you had seen him. he was taller than most of the people in the room, his white hair just as bright as it used to be. he had gained muscle mass almost everywhere, and you felt yourself wondering just how much training he had to go through to look this way. you could see him talking to a girl, a smile on his face as he tilted his head to look at her better. you gave him some time to socialize, not wanting to intrude on anything. 

after an hour you decided that it was long enough, and tried to weave your way through the crowd to get to him. you had tried to call out to him, waving to him despite your mother quickly shoving your hand down, saying how improper it was. he heard you and you knew that he was purposely ignoring you, so you began to feel heavy-hearted after a couple of attempts at trying to catch his attention, eventually giving up. 

and now, despite you wanting to, you can’t even blame him for hating you. 

ever since your mother caught you, alone with him, a man you hadn’t seen in so long, she had swiftly and promptly proposed the idea of marriage only a few days later. it was really to save face for the two families, but it helped that this marriage would unify the two clans. 

you were sure he had ladies lined up to marry him, and you weren’t somebody he was actively trying to pursue. you didn’t even know if he was in love with somebody else if he shared a connection with a girl who was surely not you and cursed you for taking that away from him. 

not that it mattered now. 

Heartbreak Trees - Kakashi x Reader

warnings: cursing, people die, people only wear underwear at some point + hinting at my Might Guy fic at some point

requested by @revasserium

Right behind his house, always visible from the corner of his eyes wherever he’s looking, are the heartbreak trees.

At some point in the history of the Hatake Clan they must have had a different meaning, those five proud willows overlooking the the estate.

But he’s the last living Hatake and most of his blood is buried beneath them.

His father used to tell him about it. How his grand-grand-grand-father’s first wife used to love sitting in their shadow, how he saw it only fit that she’d be able to spend all of her days beneath them.

His own mother is buried there, because death through childbirth does not make you a hero and everyone knows that only heroes are buried around the memorial stone.

He made sure to bury his father right next to her.

-

“What’cha doing?” You’re hanging upside down from a branch, trusting only your toes to support your weight. Your grin is upside down but he’d still recognise it everywhere.

“Reading.” He flips a page he’s not bothered to look at, pretending to be focused on something else while he stays aware of your every movement.

“Mhm.” You flip yourself off and land with the ease of a practiced Shinobi. “You wanna take that to Ichiraku’s?”

“I’m not hungry.” 

“Mhm.” You humm again. “No one said you have to eat. Maybe I just like the sight of you.”

He doesn’t blush but his hand freezes, halfway between flipping to another page.

Your grin tells him that you did not miss it, like you never seem to miss anything he does.

-

“Well, that sucks.” You say to no one at particular and stare at the puddle of blood forming under your leg.

“How’d that happen?” He asks, already pulling bandages from his bag. “You’re normally the one with the least amount of injuries.”

“Oh, I got distracted.” You say and smile up at him as he cradles your leg in his hands, applying pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding.

“You’re a former Anbu. What could have distracted you?”

“Your hair looked like spiderwebs in the sunshine.” He freezes before your words have fully left your lips and he can feel the heat of your eyes on his hair, appreciating not for the first time that you might be pushy with your words, but your actions speak of your patience. You will not touch him unless he allows it.

“You’re impossible.”

“Mhm. You’re impossible attractive.”

-

“You know, you do have enough money to buy yourself a better bed.” 

He flinches so hard he throws himself out of said bed, glaring up at you from the floor.

“What are you doing in my house?” 

You blink, trying to look innocent and failing spectacularly.

“Darling, I was the one who got you home last night. Remember? You were so drunk you tried to take Might Guy’s head with you and called it your favorite bowling ball.”

He rubs his eyes and pinches his nose.

“And you stayed?”

There’s a somber tone in your voice, one he can’t remember having heard before.

“You asked me to stay. I couldn’t say no.”

He wonders, shame flooding his veins, how he asked.

Did he beg, like he once did with Might Guy? Did he cry, like he’d done multiple times with Pakkun as his only witness?

“I think you should stop trying to drink Might Guy’s girlfriend under the table. It will never happen.”

“I was challenged by Anko.”

You harrumph. “Even worse. But you know, getting back to the topic at hand, you definitely need a new mattres. Do you want me to help you shop for it?”

-

“Well fuck that, who are you?” He hears your voice in the kitchen. 

He knows that you’re more than capable defending yourself, he recognizes that your voice sound more intrigued than fearful, but his mind is still drunk on sleep and insecurity, flinging him out of bed like a jack in the box.

Naruto’s in the kitchen. 

Naruto, in all his freshly-made-Genin arrogance and his tendency to wreak havoc where peace had been before, is standing in his kitchen, facing you, in your underwear, coffee in one hand, breakfast sandwich in the other, your hair a mess that spelt late nights under his covers.

“Who are you?” Naruto asks back, brows furrowed in a way that would have been adorable in almost any other circumstance.

“A ghost.” You clip back and put the sandwich down only to turn to Kakashi with raised eyebrows.

“You’re not wearing pants.”

Right. At least he’d put on his mask.

-

Naruto, incapable of keeping a secret, turns out to be highly susceptible to bribery.

“You’re costing me a lot, pretty boy.” You tell him later that day when he returns from training the gremlins only to find you perched on his bed like you’re a dragon and this is your stash of gold.

“No one would have believed him.” He argues with what he’s been telling himself the whole day.

“Mhm. But you would have cared about it.” 

It’s not the first time you’ve been able to look right through him, as if his eyes are windows to you when they are locked doors to everyone else.

“Come on.” You pat the spot next to you as if this is your bed and not his, your home and not his. “I gotta tell you about my day. You won’t believe what happened.”

He slips into his spot like he’s done hundreds of times before and wonders if this is really still his home, and his alone, and not maybe yours, as in the both of you.

You knock your head against his when you realize he’s zoning out and he grunts as if he’s annoyed.

Both of you ignore the way he takes your hands in his.

-

“I bet he has a scar.” Kotetsu nods to himself as he speaks, almost throwing his glass off the table as he tries to reach for it.

“Nah.” Izumo is just as drunk as he is, but he’s got better controlf of his extremities, Sake still sloshing out of his cup as he drinks. “I’m telling you, he’s got a mole.”

Genma’s a heavy weight on your shoulder, not yet as drunk as your friends, but grinning like the fool he is. “Well, you know, don’t you?”

He asks and even in your inebriated state you can tell that that body at the end of the bar is stiffening at his words. 

“Why would I know?” You say. “‘sides, it’s not any of our businesses.” You stumble over the last word a little, with it’s too many s.

“Yeah, but you’re in love with him.” Genma’s cooing now, trying to sound like a lovesick fool but the endresult sounds more like Might Guy’s drunken singing. He tries to poke your cheek and you grab his hand and twist it until it’s flat on the table and he’s cursing.

“I’m going home.” You say. “Next you’re going to talk about Anko’s booty and I don’t need to be around for that.”

“But it’s so nice.” Genma whines, cradling his arm and you roll your eyes at him.

“Tell her that yourself.” You stumble away from your table, wondering yet again how the Sake only ever kicks in when you need to walk but never when you’re sitting comfortably, debating another bottle.

The man from the bar exits behind you. You eye him suspiciously, the purple streaks under his eyes not distracting enough for you.

“Since when are you getting jealous of Genma?” You ask and he snorts, offering you his arm to hold on to as you make your way through town.

“I’m not jealous.”

“Good.” You pat his arm. “No reason to be jealous of. You know he’s into Anko.”

“And you’re in love with me.” He copies Genma’s singing and you kick the back of his knee, cackling when he looses his balance, barely catching himself before he topples over with you in tow.

-

“We can make it official.” He tells you once he’s upright again, your cackling turned into a content giggle.

“Hmm?” You ask, the topic already wiped from your brain.

“Our relationship. We could make it official.”

You smile and it’s soft and understanding, not the teasing one he’s grown to love or the wide one he’s learned to trust.

“Darling,” you say, “You don’t have to force yourself to anything. I don’t mind walking the streets with you in disguise as long as you’re honest with me.”

He falls quiet, lets you drag him the rest of the way, singing a song under your breath as you sway.

But he leads you away from the house, into the darkness surrounding it, up to the heartbreak trees.

You fall quiet beside him, always able to recognize what he needs.

He touches the bark of the first willow, his heart beating in his throat. 

“This is me.” He says. He doesn’t mean the tree and yet he does.

“Yeah.” You say, looking down at the gravestones wedged between the roots. “You are. A living being growing strong despite the devastation beneath your feet.”

He only realizes that he’s started shivering when you take his hands in yours, fold your fingers around his. 

“I’ve always loved the thought of this burial ground. To love someone so much you want them close in all your lifes.”

He chokes and his heart slips from his throat and into his chest, beating twice as strong now that it’s back at its right place, a warm and foreign presence.

You lift one hand from his and reach up to brush his hair from his face.

“You okay?” You ask and he nods.

He’s okay. He’s okay when he’s with you.

-

All he wants to do is sleep.

All you want to do is stay up.

He’s buried himself in blankets, has curled himself around you, but you’re still sitting in bed, flipping through one of his books. Your eyes never stay long enough on a page to read the words and he wonders if he’s finally reached your breaking point.

This might be the moment where you realize. 

Kakashi Hatake is a mess no one can fix. A pot so broken you cannot Kintsugi your way out of this. 

He should speak up, give you the courtesy of addressing it, but he cannot bring himself to break his own heart.

So he watches, drained and tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep but unwilling to miss any second he has left with you.

Eventually you reach the last page and stare down at it, your hands shaking a little as if you’re holding back tears.

Wordlessly you put the book away and reach around you to pry his arms of you.

He lets it happen, mouth pulled into a thin line as he pretends to be asleep.

But you don’t move away from him. You pull him into your lap instead, fold his body until his head is pressed into your stomach and his hands are wrapped around your legs instead. 

Your hands move into his hair, braiding sections and tugging on strands that are too short to be braided.

“I thought I did not have to talk about it.” You tell him, your voice hoarse. “But I can’t live, laugh, love my way out of this.”

He wonders if he should fake snore to get out of this conversation. You pinch his side as if you heard his thoughts.

“When I was sixteen, I drowned on a mission.” His body stiffens as his mind supplies the pictures. He doesn’t want to think of you that way. He cannot picture you that way.

“We had a medic nin with us who knew her shit, so I got back and I pretended everything was fine but, like… I was so scared.” You whisper the last words, your hands stopping in his hair. 

“Got a mission right after that, two days recovery max. Getting back into action kept me going after that, you probably know how it is.”

He doesn’t answer but you don’t need him to. Instead you fold into yourself until he can feel your lips press against his temple.

“So many people died today, Kakashi. You died today. I need to talk about it.”

“What do you want to talk about?” He wants to sound light hearted but fails miserably.

“I want to tell you that you have to die after me.” You take a half breath. “And that you have to bury me with your family because if you think death can get you out of this relationship, you’ve got another thing coming.” 

He blinks up at you and you crack that smile he would know everywhere, even if it’s upside down.

“But I wouldn’t do that to you.” You brush your hand over his eyebrows and he kisses the skin of your hands with his eyelashes, can feel your caress on his cheeks and your fingertips on his lips.

“We die together.” He voices your thoughts and you grimace.

“I know we can’t plan that shit.”

“We can. If anyone can, it’s us.” He catches your hand this time, pulling his mask down with the other.

You blink down at him and cock your head.

“No mole.” You tell him and he shakes his head with a grin, pulling the fabric back up..

“No mole.”

“Mhm.” You tug at his mask with your free hand. “Let me check again. Just to be sure.”

-

One day he might be able to tell you of the dream he had when he was dead.

Tell you what he told his father about you. 

One day he might be able to tell you about the heartbreak trees.

They weren’t always named that way.

Once upon a time, they were simply called… home.

Slowlyyy but surely adding more sapphics in traditional costumes to my gallery hihi

Palestinian sapphics !!!!!! 10th sketch done ✅️

I have an end-of-life patient to whom I spoke today. She burst out laughing and said, "It was all such fun. I just had so much fun." I wish this for everyone. I wish that we each would meet death laughing, with little regret and even less fear.

In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"

We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines

We will be feeding our grandchildren strawberries and raspberries we grew in our gardens, dragging them along to the farmers' markets for tomatoes and eggs and goats milk and pickles and pecans and salsa and sunflower seed butter and jars of honey, as they complain and drag their feet because Gramma always stands around talking to people for like an HOUR

and we will say "When I was YOUR age, fruits and vegetables came from a supermarket and they were bred to get shipped 1000 miles in a truck and sit on shelves for weeks, and they tasted so sour and watery it was like eating paper compared to these ones. It wasn't even legal in some places to grow your own food"

and they will roll their eyes like yeah yeah just because everything was miserable in the 20s doesn't mean I have to have a smile on my face standing in the hot sun while you listen to that one guy talk about his bees FOREVER

But they will go, because there might be baby goats.

Since I made this post, dozens and dozens of people have left tags telling me that it was the first thing today that made them want to continue living, that it was the first thing that made them consider that they might be okay years in the future, that they might grow old, that it was the first and only post of its kind they'd ever seen—the first post that boldly predicts a future where we make it.

And many other people have been just spitting, foaming at the mouth fucking FURIOUS. How dare I have the audacity to imagine a future where things get better?

Don't I know how BAD things are? Am I not aware of the TERROR and DEVASTATION of climate change and fascism and biodiversity loss? How dare someone be so bold, so callous, as to imagine something other than misery and suicide. How dare someone suggest it will get better. How dare a person propose that there is a future where we will be okay, in the face of so much terror. Hasn't she seen the abyss opening its jaws before us?

Well? What do you think?

Do you think I've seen the abyss?

still thinking about wolf 21

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Twenty-one was “remarkably gentle” with the members of his pack, says Rick. Immediately after making a kill, he would often walk away to urinate or lie down and nap, allowing family members who’d had nothing to do with the hunt to eat their fill. 

One of Twenty-one’s favorite things was to wrestle with little pups. “And what he really loved to do,” Rick adds, “was to pretend to lose. He just got a huge kick out of it.” Here was this great big male wolf. And he’d let some little wolf jump on him and bite his fur. “He’d just fall on his back with his paws in the air,” Rick half-mimes. “And the triumphant-looking little one would be standing over him with his tail wagging.”

“The ability to pretend,” Rick adds, “shows that you understand how your actions are perceived by others. It indicates high intelligence. I’m sure the pups knew what was going on, but it was a way for them to learn how it feels to conquer something much bigger than you. And that kind of confidence is what wolves need every day of their hunting lives.”

In Twenty-one’s life, there was a particular male, a sort of roving Casanova, a continual annoyance. He was strikingly good-looking, had a big personality, and was always doing something interesting. “The single best word is ‘charisma,’” says Rick. “Female wolves were happy to mate with him. People loved him. His irresponsibility and infidelity – it didn’t matter.”

One day, Twenty-one discovered this Casanova among his daughters. Twenty-one ran in, caught him, and began biting and pinning him to the ground. Various pack members piled in, beating Casanova up.

“Casanova was also big,” Rick says, “but he was a bad fighter. Now he was totally overwhelmed and the pack was finally killing him. Suddenly Twenty-one steps back. Everything stops. The pack members are looking at Twenty-one as if saying, ‘Why has Dad stopped?’” The Casanova wolf jumped up and — as always in such situations — ran away. 

But Casanova kept causing problems for Twenty-one. Why didn’t Twenty-one just kill him so he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore? It didn’t make sense — until years later.

Fast-forward to after Twenty-one’s death. Casanova briefly became the Druid pack’s alpha male. But he wasn’t effective, Rick recalls. He didn’t know what to do, “just not a leader personality.” and although it’s very rare for a younger brother to depose an older one, that’s what happened to him. Casanova didn’t mind; it meant he was free to wander and meet other females.

Eventually Casanova, along with several Druid males, met some females, and they all formed another pack. “With them,” Rick remembers, “he finally became the model of a responsible alpha male and a great father.” Meanwhile, the mighty Druids were ravaged and weakened by mange and diminished by interpack fighting; the last Druid was shot near Butte, Montana, in 2010. Casanova, though he’d been averse to fighting, died in a fight with a rival pack. But everyone in his pack remained uninjured — including grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Twenty-one.

Wolves can’t foresee such plot twists any more than people can. But evolution does. I’s calculus integrates long averages. By sparing the Casanova wolf, Twenty-one actually helped assure himself more surviving descendants. And in evolution, surviving descendants are the only currency that matters.

So in strictly survivalist terms, “should” a wolf let his rival go free? Is restraint an effective strategy for accumulating benefits? I think the answer is yes, if you can afford it, because sometimes your enemy today becomes, tomorrow, a vehicle for your legacy. What Rick saw play out over those years might be just the kinds of events that are the basis for magnanimity in wolves, and at the heart of mercy in men.

Early on, when Twenty-one was young and still living with his mother and adoptive father, one of their new pups was not acting normal. The other pups were a bit afraid of him and wouldn’t play with him. One day, Twenty-one brought back some food for the small pups, and after feeding them, he just stood there, looking around for something. Soon he started wagging his tail. “He’d been looking for the sickly little pup,” Rick says, “and finding him, he just went over to hang out with him for a while.”

Rick suddenly seems to be searching inside himself for something deeper he wants to express. Then he looks at me, saying simply, “Of all the stories I have about Twenty-one, that’s my favorite.” Strength impresses us. But what we remember is kindness.

The majority of wolves die violently. Despite a violent, eventful life even by wolf standards, Twenty-one distinguished himself to the very end: He was a black wolf who grayed with the years and became one of the few Yellowstone wolves to die of old age.

One June day when Twenty-one was 9 years old, his family was lying bedded down when an elk came by. Everyone jumped up to give chase. He jumped up, too, but just stood watching the action and then lay down again. Later, when the pack headed up toward the den site, Twenty-one crossed the valley in the opposite direction, traveling purposefully somewhere, alone.

Sometime later, a visitor who’d been way up high in the backcountry reported having seen something very unusual: a dead wolf. Rick got a horse and rode up to investigate.

The last day, it seems, Twenty-one knew his time had come. He used the last of his energy to go up to the top of a high mountain. In a favorite family rendezvous site, where he’d been with his pups year after year, amid high summer grass and mountain wildflowers, Twenty-one curled up in the shade of a big tree. And on his own terms, he went to sleep for the last time.

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the story above was taken from this article, and the whole thing is really worth a read.

https://theweek.com/articles/577618/what-animals-think

@stvksn on ig

i hope your god has asked you for mercy and i hope you've refused to forgive him

is so insanely powerful. that's gonna be seared in my brain for a long time. fuck.