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I’m glad ppl on tiktok are doing ok

when no one has written the exact fic to scratch a very specific emotional itch and you absolutely do not have time to write it yourself but you still want to read it dammit

cinderella marries the prince

and it’s… fine. The prince is great! They’re in love, he’s very sweet and passionate, writing her poems and songs, giving her anything she wants. The time she spends with her husband is great.

but cinderella is not royalty, her family was noble but she never spent time in those circles. She’s used to being busy, she’s used to cooking and cleaning and mending. There are hours, days, where she has nothing to do.

time passes. cinderella learns the fancy lady type of needlework. Learns to ride horses. Reads a lot.

as is normal for royalty at the time, they travel and are hosted by nobles or stay at castles owned by the king. But even that variety begins to become routine. The prince is distracted, there’s a lot of young women living and working on their route. Daughters of nobles. Younger and prettier with soft hands that have never done a day’s work.

cinderella needs something to spend her time on, and there’s a part of her thinking a couple-only trip might get her husband’s attention again, so she suggests making an old castle that’s fallen into disrepair their “project.” It was built in the time when castles were made to be defensible, so it’s quite sturdy, but it’s overgrown and secluded. The prince doesn’t know why his family stopped living there either. A hundred years ago it was their summer home.

so they go. And they work. And for a while it’s great! But when they leave for winter cinderella’s husband forgets her once again. cinderella resolves to make the best of her life and stop worrying about a man who has gotten what he wanted from her.

summer comes again and this time cinderella goes alone to the old castle (minus staff, of course, but cinderella manages to narrow it down to only repair workers and one maid). She can cook and clean and mend again, but this time it’s her own choice. She is happy.

this summer they make more progress on repairs. The workers say that most of it can be salvaged, except one tower that’s been completely overgrown with vines and briars. It will have to come down, eventually, but for now it can be safely ignored.

cinderella has more free time now. The old castle has a surprisingly untouched library, though time and moisture have damaged many of the books. Behind a collection of greek poetry cinderella finds an old diary. Very old, in fact, at least a hundred years. It’s rude to read a diary, of course, but whoever wrote this is long dead, and cinderella is bored, so…

from the description of activities the author looks to have been nobility. Maybe even a princess. She’s sensitive and sweet and smarter than she seems to realize. If circumstances had been different cinderella wishes they could have been friends…

after the summer ends cinderella returns to her husband. He’s spending a lot of time with a young musician and cinderella can’t even work up the energy to care. She does some research about the castle and the family she’s married into, finds out the name of the princess who wrote the diary.

aurora. Cursed and forgotten. She died young, they say, in a plague that also took out the castle staff and her own parents. Luckily they avoided a succession crisis, but not so lucky for the dead.

time passes. cinderella goes to the old castle again and again, even out of season. Soon enough all that remains to be done is the old tower, and the builders say they should tear it down and fill the gaps before it gets cold.

one night cinderella is restless. The princess from the diary had been fond of that tower, and cinderella is far more attached to a dead woman than she ought to be. She gets out of bed, reads by candlelight, and finally goes to walk the empty halls.

she finds herself going to the tower. Pushing past the vines that don’t seem so troublesome really. They almost part before her. The stairs are perfectly intact, the door at the top is already cracked open. As if she should have done this years ago, cinderella steps into aurora’s bedroom.

she’s as beautiful as the stories say. And sitting under her hands, crossed across her stomach as it rises and falls, is a book of greek poetry.

years later, people will tell the story of cinderella as a cautionary one. Don’t seek above your station. Don’t marry for prestige. After all, a girl who grew up as a servant once married the crown prince, and disappeared after only three years. She ran away, they say, she couldn’t handle the lifestyle.

two old women who run a bookshop together agree with the lesson. Marrying for the wrong reasons never ends well. It’s best to wait for someone you have things in common with, shared interests.

or, failing that, the more linguistic of the two says, wait a decade or ten for someone to fall in love with you from your diary.

her partner laughs and hits her with the socks she is mending.

y’all just— thinking about how excited Stanley must have been to host the twins— Alex says he smokes cigars but he doesn’t smoke once in the show— has a beer gut but he only drinks sodas in front of the kids— doesn’t swear when they’re around which must have taken INCREDIBLE effort— Stanley Pines, known crook, buying pancake mix at the supermarket and many bottles of syrup— learning to cook basic healthy meals and burning so many of them before he gets it right— buying new sheets, new mattresses— avoiding bunk beds because it reminds him of Ford— looking at the attic room he made wondering “is this enough will they like me”— trying to act aloof at the bus stop so he doesn’t betray the fact that he was there hours early— watching them goof around and thinking of New Jersey beaches— then the first night they’re there, he watches them debate running away and only stay because Mabel shook a magic 8 ball. That must have kept him awake all night.

Well shit, Helluva Boss stans saw my post about this.

"Maybe the people posting Octavia hate are like trolls".

If it's was a trolls than explain to me, why many people hate Octavia.

I really want know because you don't know what the fuck are you talk about.

Also Helluva Boss stans please leave me the fuck alone, if you disagree with me, fine whatever but from fuck sake, don't harassing me over i share about this.

How do you tell a depressed friend or partner that you don’t have the mental resources to listen to them be depressed anymore, without coming across as a massive asshole?

My wife has major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, and PTSD. She goes to therapy regularly and is medicated so most of the time she manages it well. But when other things in our life are difficult her mental health can take some serious downturns. Due to our relationship being more than just friends I’m obviously more invested in helping her than I would be with other people, but here are some things I have learned over the years. Things which have made our relationship very successful and mutually beneficial.

Ask the person what they need. Oftentimes when a person we care about is struggling we want to jump in and fix everything. That’s not always what the person needs. Maybe they just need to vent to someone without judgement. They might not want advice, because they know what they should be doing, but their condition is making that hard. Maybe they don’t want to talk at all and just need a hug or a shoulder rub (if you both are comfortable with physical contact). Or maybe they just want to sit with you and watch a movie, or go for a walk, and take their mind off of it. Giving advice that is never taken is draining and frustrating - but you can help them without doing that.

Tell them what you need. Just because you don’t have the same mental struggles doesn’t mean you can’t also have needs. Let’s say they came to you asking to vent, but you had a long day and are tired physically and emotionally. Tell them “I am not in a place to be able to carry that right now.” This is when you could offer to do something else for them, or tell them when you feel you’ll be better able to help. You could also tell them a time limit if you have some energy to give. Like “I would love to let you vent, but I need to set a limit of 15 minutes today. After that let’s agree to change the subject, or do another activity that we can both use to unwind.” This gives your person a clear view of your boundary and lets them still get support from you.

It’s okay to have lines that can’t be crossed. Adding to the boundaries I brought up in point 2, it’s perfectly okay to have limits on where your support ends. There may be topics that are triggering or uncomfortable for you and you are allowed to say talking about those is off-limits. You can also change those limits depending on what’s happening in your own life. Maybe they have a bad relationship with a parent, while your beloved parent is unwell. It’s not going to feel good for you to hear them talk about how horrible their mother is when you want nothing more than for your mom to get better. That would be an appropriate time to tell them this is a boundary and if they need support in this then they need to seek it elsewhere. You can still be there for them, but find a way around this particular issue. Your limits can also be time-based rather than topic-based. You can tell them they can’t contact you while you are at work, or before/after x time. Or that you can only hang out on x days.

Communication. This is the most important. Just be honest with them. They don’t want you to burn out. They don’t want to drag you down with them. But one of the symptoms of these problems can be pushing people away and isolating yourself. That means that they only have a limited number of supports in their life and it can put a lot of pressure on the supports they do have. It’s up to you to be very clear about how you’re feeling and what you need so they don’t push you away too. If you do all of the above from a loving place they will be happy to know they aren’t putting too much on you. Being clear about this will ultimately be helpful to you both.

They need to respect you. If they don’t listen to your boundaries it’s okay to cut them off. If you have to go that route, it would be kind to let them know why. But you always need to put your own health first. You deserve to have friends that you enjoy being around. You deserve to be happy. You don’t need to be anyone’s emotional doormat.

you know what’s always bothered me? how people talk about their babies having “random weird fussy days” and they get mad about it right but the thing about that is...

babies don’t steadily grow, they grow in spurts, which means on a growth day they’re in quite a lot of pain ... but no one takes it seriously because a baby can’t communicate that they’re growing over a centimeter over night and that HURTS

like, massage your fussy baby ... theyre having a hard time ... theyre growing obscene amounts in a short period of time and need love and care ...

The First Murder of Twice/Jin Bubaigawara

one of the more heatedly debated topics in the My Hero Academia Fandom, Is the death of the mentally ill villain Twice/Jin Bubaigawara, at the hands of pro hero Hawks/Keigo Takami.

The debate is a facinating view of how each individual reader interprets justice, morality, when and when not killing should be allowed by law officers, should it be avoided at all costs? or should there be times where it is allowed?

On one side of the argument, is the fact that Twice WAS running off to help his comrades, and his briefly surviving clone did murder a pro hero to accomplish this goal.

on the other hand, there is the fact that Hawks stabbed a man who was running away from him, and sought to speciffically kill him, rather than knock unconcious, or capture. Further, his motivation was very speciffically, that he regarded twice as too powerfull to live, and simply a threat that was too massive to be allowed to exist in this world on the wrong side of the law.

There has been much and more debate about this topic, but i am not actually here to discuss the morality of Twice’s actual death.

Rather i wish to take a look at the first time Hawks tried to kill Twice, and show just how unheroic Hawks was while doing it.

The confrotation between Hawks and Twice begins as The number 2 hero ambushes him during the beginnng of the war arc, easily subduing the man he deems the biggest threat on the villains side.

after getting Twice into a position where he is in complete control, Hawks decides to lay it all out on the table. essentially, he’s monologuing for his audience because his ultimate goal at this moment is to convert his enemy into his ally, to make him switch sides. and that begins by laying out just how screwed Twice is.

What is very interesting here, is that Hawks flat out says he’s going to capture Twice and hand him over to the authorities. which is absolutely the right thing to do. That is his job, and i dont think anyone would argue othervise. capturing criminals alive and then bring them to justice, is what law enforcement should idealy be about, and it is most certainly the ideal of hero work within the context of MHA.

That however, comes with a price tag.

Hawks is willing to capture Twice, and even help him out on the path of becoming a law abiding citizen… if he’s willing to ideologically change, and turn to the same path as Hawks did.

what i dont want to do in this post is to debate the reasons for WHY hawks reacts this way(as that would require a full character post on him in his entierty). What i want to discuss, is the complete flip Hawks does once it become’s clear that Twice isnt going to join his side.

the very first thing he does Twice makes it clear he’s not going to cooperate the way hawks wants to, he immediatly turns this mission from capture, to kill, as his very first act is to slice off Twice’s arm, something that would at best have maimed him for life if it hadnt been for twice’s great strides in his abilities in the previous villain arc. this ability to replace lost limbs isnt something Hawks would be familiar with, given its the first time in the series both Jin, and the audience gets to see it.

the point here, is that the moment twice makes it clear where Hawks can shove it, he ditches all ideas of capturing him alive, and relatively unharmed, and switches straight to Lethal force.

and the worst part of it all is that at any point, Hawks could have ended this non lethally by knocking Twice out.

in the brief time where hawks and Endeavour teamed up, there was a very brief scene where a very minor villain tried to get revenge on his ex-company. 

the scene is very, very brief, and Hawks deals with it in one panel, knocking the guy in question out withouth even focusing on him.

This scene at the time was there both establish Hawk’s strength and quirk, and to act as a funny gag. in hindsight however, this very silly scene has a much more darker purpose. its there to showcase that Hawke is completely capable of knocking out people in one single blow to the back.

He could have done to Twice what he did to this random villain at any point during their confrontation, and he simply doesnt. 

he decides, after realising that Twice isnt going to become a hero no matter what, that he has to die.

after violently making mincemeat of twice’s first assault, Hawks gives Twice one more chance to yield, and come to the other side.

and when predictably, twice tells him to fuck off, he decides to end it, but while doing so, he uses some really interesting language. and this little detail is a very interesting one i never really noticed before i made this article. Hawks actually tapes this next part. he makes sure to record it, presumably for legal use. and what does he focus on in this next part, which he knows might one day be used in court?

he speciffically, makes sure to mention how villains like Twice refuse to get knocked out, to make it seem like he had no choice but to do what he’s about to do.

and without video to contradict him, who’s to say that he wasnt? he is free to spin this little encouter any way he wants. twice is after all resisting, so who’s to say hawke was in a position to knock him out?

The readers however, was shown that scene in the previous arc for a reason. to showcase that this is all bullshit on Hawks part.

Hawks is completely capable of knocking out Twice non lethaly here, and frankly speaking, he could, and should have ended this the moment he had him surrounded by his telekenetic feathers at the start of this match.

he beats him to the ground and prepares to murder him in cold blood, all while making sure to speciffically talk into the mic about how this battle has reached a point where one of them has to die, when it clearly has not.

even disregarding that hawks is capable of knocking twice out at any time in this battle, at this point, hawks doesnt even need any of that. 

Twice is beaten. he is bested. he is helpless, and not capable of posing any threat to hawks anymore. he IS resisting, but he is about as much danger to Hawks at this point as a small child with a set of bow and arrows made of twigs and twine is to a knight in plated steel.

there is NOTHING Twice can do here to escape his predicimant, or beat hawks.

which is really what makes what Hawks is doing here so chilling. as he has him on the ground, and Twice prepares his final pointless struggle, Hawks brings down the sword, fully preparing to murder him.

this is flat out murder. and not a murder in the heat of the moment either. this is a planned, and calculated one, where he prepped the legal justification he would need for it. Hawks prepared a freaking script to make the situation look much more dire for him than it actually were to justify killing twice.

For me, this scene is far, FAR more important than the actual killing that happened shortly afterwards. because this is the moment that shows that there is nothing noble, or heroic about the way Hawks killed twice. he had every single opportunity to avoid it, and end it quickly, but he decided on his own, that if Twice wasnt going to dance to his script, he HAD to die.

he decided that HE was the arbitrator of life and death, that he had both the right and the duty, to be both jury, judge, and executioner. 

i dont know about you, but i really dont think anyone could argue that his attempt to kill Twice as he laid on the ground could in any way be called self defence, or saving anyone.

To me, its just a murder, perpetrated by an officer of the law, who went out of his way to make sure that this would not fuck him over if it ever ended up in a court.

Western colleagues say that it will be almost impossible to classify Russia’s actions as the genocide of Ukrainians. I must reassure you. When genocide comes to your lands, it will be easily recognisable.

It’s when everything inside you freezes from what you’ve seen, your knees go weak and you become speechless. It’s when the realisation comes that the evil committed will have irreversible consequences.

It’s when the enemy daily changes the landscape of your consciousness, and your psyche – the essence of what you are – is forced to form new reactions, habits and broken patterns of behaviour.

It’s when the scale of the catastrophe doesn’t fit in the finite box of your imagination. It’s when it turns out that the previous day’s wrath isn’t sufficient. And you realise you are capable of feeling even stronger rage towards the enemy.

This is when all life is fighting for the future.

- Oleksandr Mykhed for The Guardian (x)