“The light of long ago is different from the light of today.”
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
Study time!
I’ve got a week off from school and exams starting in three weeks time. Time to start revising and studying everything.
Longest fast yet for me - 16 hours
Feeling sort of okay, the headache fades after a while. I feel pretty good. My hands and feet a bit numb tho :/
I was up all night with my boyfriend talking about how miserable I am. I rarely open up, but I found it surprisingly comforting. He wrapped me up in blankets with my favourite cuddly toys and stroked my hair until I fell asleep. I’m so lucky to have him. He reminds me that I am worthy of life.
Thinspo
- luke skywalker is terrifying.
- no, shut up, come back.
- you have to understand:
- to you or me he may not be; he may be all sunshine smiles and corngold hair and the biggest eyes this side of the galaxy, but imagine you’re Dagger (stormtroopers don’t get proper names), firing at a boy, only the bolts never hit. They sing to the side. You think that there’s something wrong with your blaster, maybe, but none of your friends can hit him either. Finest shots in the Empire, you are, but you can’t hit this boy. And he cuts you down. He wields a weapon whose name you’ve never learned and he cuts you down into smoking bloodless bodies and your friends die before you – only he leaves you. Knocks you out with a blow of the Force – and isn’t that a nightmare of its own, unseen hands blotting out your thoughts – leaves you there in the cooling blood of your squadmates.
- Imagine that you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a dancer for the Hutt and you hate it, of course you do, but it is a living, a living, and this boy comes in, fresh-faced and young and he says surrender or be destroyed only he and you both know that the Hutt do not and never have surrendered and when he says destroythere’s this grin on his lips, thin and sharp, and he’s kind, of course he is, but –
- so you’re Cara Ilhyre and you’re a native of tattooine and like many of your specis you are force-touched and you were a girl, once, a very little girl, and your mother told you tales of krayt dragons who slumbered beneath the sands and gentled their young to their pearl-heavy breasts. krayt dragons are tender mothers, she had said, and it was meant to teach you something of the duality of nature, or to fear those with young to protect, or something; but all you can think is this boy, how he smiles as kind as your mother did, once, but you’re convinced that if you were to cut him down the middle you would find dragon-pearls in his ribs and fire instead of a heart
- the boy cuts downs jabba’s goons like they are nothing, nothing, and afterwards, afterwards, you sense his sorrow. and somehow that makes it worse.
- because you say, later, to your mother’s ghost (maybe) or to the desert, he knows that killing people is hard and that weighs on him and he does it anyway and –
- and,you say, it isn’t as simple as: he makes the hard choices. he knew the hutt would fight. he wanted to burn them down, oh he did, and that sister of his –
reblogging my own post to add: luke skywalker can wave his hand and choke you half to death, make you believe whatever he wants you to; he’s killed monsters and gangsters and the greatest weapon the world has ever seen – of course some people will fear him, because every hero is a villain to some, and the sunshiney marshmallow exterior does not mean that he’s not a force of fucking nature
#luke skywalkeron the one hand yes cinnamon rollon the other #holy fuck really not #i just love the idea of our heroes being terrors when viewed from just the right angle #star wars
#this is what pretty much everyone in the luke skywalker fandom seems to forget#there’s a lot of emphasis on how pure and good and hardworking and whatever else he is#and he is!#but he is first and foremost and forever#A Fucking Terrifying Creature#people on Jakku (a junkyard planet by even Han Solo’s reckoning) have heard of him#and think he’s a made-up story#and guess what kiddos#made-up stories are not nice#the stories that people tell each other in the desert are about demons and monsters and vicious animals that will kill you with a look#and heroes who are (if you look very carefully in the right light) barely distinguishable from those demons/monsters/animals#Luke Skywalker is the boogeyman on worlds he’s never heard of and the threat billions of parents use on their children#and the worst part is#Luke must know all this#must have heard those stories and learned about these myths#and he cannot argue with a single one because here’s the thing:#he is pure and good and hardworking and whatever else#but he’s killed hundreds of thousands of people and he can invade your mind and move your body and kill you with a look#so he can’t ever argue against those stories and myths#because like Han said: it’s true#all of it (via@leupagus)
I’ll never not be amused by the fact that I can drop the words “crucifix nail nipples” into a conversation and some of you who have been with me since the livejournal days will join me in the flashbacks, screaming and crying all the way.
I require context. Because this is a very interesting start of a story, and now I need the rest of it. Could I get a link, or a summary, or something? Pretty please?
All right buckle the fuck up kids, it’s the year 2012 and I’ve just been handed what should be an easy editing gig by my senior editor. It’s a vampire erotica story because one of the final Twilight movies is about to come out, and everything is vampires. Everything. I haven’t edited a single thing in months which isn’t about vampires. I am ready, I can do this. So I open the file and notice there’s a typo in the title, which really should have been my first inkling that something horrendous was about to go down, but you see I’m not quite dead inside yet so I carry on, bushy tailed and bright eyed with my faith in humanity intact. It’ll be dead by page 24, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just editing one more vampire boner fest.
The MC is a girl who we’ll call Sue. Sue is a Good Girl™, Sue is Not Like Other Girls™, she is pale and awkward and a virgin and has somehow managed to find herself a Bad Boy™ for a boyfriend. We’ll call him Dickhead.
Now Dickhead as previously stated is a bit of dick, he tries to pressure Sue into sex because he knows she is The One™ but he loves her really so it’s okay. Except it’s not okay because Sue is a Good Girl™ and holding out till marriage which he’s fine with except he’s got such a bad case of blue balls that one night walking home an attractive stranger lures him into an alley with the words “hey stud” and he follows, dick out before she’s even finished her sentence. Well turns out that was a mistake for Dickhead because she’s a vampire, but not just any vampire, a Dick Biting Vampire. So what started out as a skeevy blow job behind a club that he’ll feel bad about in the morning, turns into him being bitten on the dick and drained of his life essence and left for dead. Except DBV fucked up and now he’s a vampire. Are you still with me? Good, cause it’s about to get weirder.
Realizing he is now an abomination, Dickhead flees, becoming a creature of the night and feeding on animals rather than humans to repent for being such an asshole in life. Sue meanwhile is heartbroken, but carries on valiantly with her life and goes to bed each night crying for the loss of her One True Love™ who she would do anything to bring back. Well guess what Sue, Dickhead never really left you! He’s been “instinctively protecting her from rapists” by hiding out on her roof and fighting hobos who try to get to her open window via the fire escape for months now. Because that’s not fucking terrifying at all.
Upon learning of his predicament and how it happened, Sue can do nothing but blame herself. Oh if only she’d let him touch her secret places, then perhaps all of this could be avoided! Meanwhile Dickhead is having another dilemma of his own, realizing too late that his vampire powers have given him super senses and now he can smell her blood and he can’t decide whether he wants to get with her or eat her. And I don’t mean in the French sense. But he is strong! And over comes his base manly vampire instincts and neither rapes not kills her. Hurrah! And this is so romantic that Sue gives it up, but not before she launches into a theory about how in all fairy tales, True Love saves the day, so maybe her magical pure vagina that has never been touched by anyone, not even her, can bring him back to life. So Dickhead being a dickhead agrees and rips her clothes off, but not before he takes one last moment to marvel at the beauty of her purity, because he will never again look on her again and know she is Pure.
If you’ve only vomited once by now, I applaud your resolve.
So they hop on the good foot and do the nasty, except she is literally so pure in spirit, her flesh burns his. And I quote you from memory because these words are burned into my soul: “her breasts bit into his hands, like crucifix nail nipples tearing at his flesh, but he did not care because he loved her so and couldn’t stop”
This phrase haunts me. I dread that it will be the last thing I think about on my death bed and my last words will literally be “god fucking dammit” as I die, carrying that mental image with me into the afterlife. My own solace is in knowing that I inflicted it on other people too, like @ahzuri who is somehow still with me after all these years.
When the magical burning sex fails to heal him and leaves her bruised, battered and broken with “a dainty blue bells of bruises around her secret flower” (I am genuinely quoting this, I could never make something as horrendous as this up without being on acid) Dickhead leaves. Yeah. Off he fucks, leaving her to the mercy of the hobos at her window, and into the night to be the true monster he really is. But wait, there’s more. Remember the dick biting vampire? Well turns out she has figured out she made him into a vampire and has also been stalking HIM and is totally jealous of Sue, so tries to kill her. But again Sues Purity saves her, because sex before marriage which was done out of True Love is not a sin, so she is still a spiritual virgin and I’ll be honest, I started drinking heavily at this point and it’s all a bit of a blur.
A fight ensues some pages later after Dickhead returns, realizing the mistake he has made. And he rescues Sue from the Dick Biter, but not before he assaults Dick Biter, and calls her a slut for luring innocent men into alleys cuts her heart out by cutting her breasts off, at which point i screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU REACH THE HEART” and my brain short circuited completely and I have no idea how it ends because I realized there was 30 pages left and my soul couldn’t take it. I emailed the chief editor like ?????!!!!!!????!!!!!! and the book was immediately pulled from the work line and the author dismissed from the publishing house. Turns out she was a friend of a friend and that was how she got the manuscript past our entry levels for requirement.
And that’s the story of how an author sent me death threats for over a month because I stopped her shitty vampire porn from ever seeing the light of day. You’re all fucking WELCOME.
Ah yes, this and the Kylo Ren/Donald Trump slashfic are my two favorite cursed posts.
Thanks, Internet.
becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:
Ukraine, 26th Feb, 2022
A friend of mine told me yesterday that he didn’t realise how much Ukraine meant to him until now. I posted yesterday about the time we spent there, and we’re all getting super pre-occupied about the invasion. As I said in that post, I can’t get our waitress out of my head. I can sort of remember what she looked like now. She had an undercut. I think maybe her hair might have been blue? But - I will never know if she lives through this, and it’s driving me very slightly mad.
So naturally, my husband spent all day yesterday obsessively researching everything he could about it with the help of his journalist friends, as a way to help me process it.
This post is me putting it all in order, as a way to try and process my own emotional response as much as anything else (I freely admit there is an element of self-indulgence here). Please don’t take me as the spokesperson for Ukraine right now, nor as a solid reliable news source. But, I haven’t seen this stuff except in bits and pieces on Tumblr, so here we go.
(This is also not about whythe invasion has happened. This post is solely about whathas happened, and how the invasion is going.)
So, Putin and the rest of the world believed that this invasion would take 1-4 days. The plan was to push through fast, take Kyiv, and force Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, to surrender. Given Russia’s military might, it really looked likely.
Here is the conclusion of all that’s happened so far:
Ukraine is absolutely nailing this??? Actually???
They managed to defend every single city overnight, including Kyiv. They started rolling out and using these WW2-style anti-tank thingies that look a bit like angry gabbions, look, here’s a picture of one being delivered:
A bunch of spare iron girders turned into a hefty octopus of Russian misery, basically.
But it’s not just tanks they’re taking down, oh no. Ukraine successfully shot down a transport plane 20km from Kyiv. That is, I shit you not, the single biggest hit to the Russian military since the Second Chechen War. Volunteers from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan and Israel are all entering Ukraine to help fight and bolster the anti-Russian forces, which is probably illustrative of how Eurovision voting is going to run for the next decade. Most countries have banned Russian planes from their air space. To help stop the Russian advance, Ukraine has made and installed new road signs, like this one:
I can only say a handful of sentences in Ukrainian, Tumblrs, but as I understand it, from top to bottom, it says:
“Fuck off”
“Fuck off again”
“Fuck off Russia”
Meanwhile, it turns out the Russian military might we feared is… possibly not quite as advertised?
They’re underfunded and badly trained. Ukraine captured 200 soldiers in one go, and most of them were confused 19 year olds with no training. The equipment is shite. The tanks keep running out of fuel. Russian soldiers keep abandoning their tanks and handing them over to the Ukrainian army. Putin’s plan was to take Kyiv fast and move on, and he didn’t have a plan B - hence these kids, playing soldier. Here is an image of a Russian tank receiving roadside assistance from Russia’s finest, an old Lada.
No one expected Zelenskyy to survive the night; but he did. America offered him asylum in the White House.
But he said no.
Zelenskyy remains in Kyiv, with his people.
And Putin, in his desperation to be adored, has turned Zelenskyy into a global icon and hero.
Here is something you may not know about Volodymyr Zelenskyy - he used to be a standup comedian. Was he any good? No idea - but what he IS good at is producing funny short videos he can put on Twitter and that, which are absolutely fantastic for Ukrainian morale. And morale is vital in an invasion like this, and Ukraine are smashing it out of the park there.
They are utilising the internet to its fullest extent. In addition to Zelenskyy’s videos, they’ve made sure that the final words of the Ukrainian defenders of Snake Island are known and now echoed around the world: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” A video has gone viral of Ukrainians mocking a group of Russian soldiers whose tank had broken down and who didn’t know the way to Kyiv anyway, presumably because of all the new road signs. They have created a website that lists every single Russian death they can identify, partly so Russian mothers can have closure (thus also painting themselves as the defenders of decency and humanity), and partly for the enormous morale boost of the world knowing, categorically, that they’ve already killed 3700 Russian soldiers (over 100 of which were from that transport plane.) Not one word has leaked of Ukrainian casualties. I’m sure they’re devastating, but for morale purposes, they’re being kept quiet until the dust settles. Ukrainians have started setting up fake Tindr profiles to catfish Russian soldiers for intel, and they’re all 19 and lost, so it’s working. Plus, they’re using Grindr to actually track where the soldiers are, because it turns out Putin was not entirely correct about there being no gays in Russia.
So, Russia wants to cut their internet access. Can the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, shame a billionaire into providing aid?
This is crucial, remember. Atrocities happen best in the dark, and the world is watching - because of the internet. Morale is vital to maintain. Can they convince Elon Musk to help?
Yep.
Ukraine now has the fastest internet service in the world. The fastest, most stable internet service in human history, in fact. Russia cannot now disable it. The world watches.
Which is just as well, because then Anonymous decided to get involved, and have leaked the website database of the Russian Ministry of Defence. Lol. Also this happens:
And then the Russian propaganda channels started broadcasting the truth of what is happening in Ukraine. Double lol.
So what is the political response?
Well, in addition to closing airspace to Russian planes, loads of countries are sending weapons to Ukraine. Those that can’t are offering asylum. They’re also offering asylum to any Russian soldiers who surrender or defect, which is startlingly good tactics, and there are rumours of around 5000 Russian soldiers who have done just that. Germany, of course, has long had a block on lethal weapons transfer; but Germany recognise this shit for what it is. They’ve lifted the block, thus allowing the Netherlands to send weapons. Efforts are now underway to fast-track Ukraine into the EU. I presume they will consider the lack of pint glasses with crowns on to be a worthwhile price to pay.
So what about Russia’s supporters?
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenka helped Russia with this invasion. Now, this has happened:
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was actually elected president, but some wild nonsense kept her out of power. She’s now running a government in exile. I have literally no idea what this means or will mean! But my god. She has a spine of steel, and this is not a good time to be happening for Putin.
And it’s really, really not, because then intel on a meeting of Putin and assembled Oligarchs LEAKS (hello Anonymous, probably). The highlights:
- This war is costing Russia $15bn a day
- He expected it to take ONE TO FOUR DAYS TO WIN
- It’s been two days and he is losing very badly, currently
- They will run out of rockets by day 4, maybe sooner
- After that they will be down to rifles and ammo
- It will take 3-4 months to make more significant weapons, except they need raw materials, and the countries that can provide them… have cut supply lines
- If the war lasts 10 days, Russia will have completely run out of money and weapons
- It’s only day 2, and Russian soldiers are knocking the doors of random Ukrainian homes begging for food and water because they’ve already run out
So, out of desperation, Putin turns to his greatest, closest and most trusted ally for help: Kazakhstan.
And Kazakhstan
SAYS NO
And then Ukraine shoots down a second Russian plane.
Anyway, I’m going to finish off with a final point. Morale is vital in this situation, so here is the message from the Ukrainian government at the minute, to everyone watching around the world:
Be VERY SUSPICIOUS of any negative news about Ukraine. Russia uses misinformation and propaganda. They will want to damage Ukrainian morale.
Use your social media to spread news of Ukrainian victories.
Don’t give oxygen to negative stories. Especially since they might not be true.
That’s genuinely something we can do to help. Every victory of Ukraine, blast it far and wide. So on that note, I’ll leave you with this:
Congrats to Natalia Antonova’s cousin’s son.
The street signs are photoshopped in that specific picture, but Ukrainians have been taking down street signs to confuse Russian soldiers.
listen people are starting to realize tumblr isn’t dead we all need to be as cringe as possible for the next few months, it’s vital to our survival
I love that op said “be as cringe as possible” and my main man Tumblr replied with giffs of Superwholock in that exact order. I love you all so much.