Hey You. You Reading This. Yes. You're All Of These Words.

posting my most cursed / blursed tiktok here to save it from the tiktok ban 🙏😭

(grabs you by the shoulders) you have to make room for new experiences in your life. you have to go through the unpleasant work of leaving your comfort zone, even if just for a few minutes at a time. because if you don't, your brain will trick you into stagnation. you will start to believe that the world can barely fit you in it. but that's not true. it's the opposite way around. you can fit the whole word inside of you. your task is only this: to welcome it with open arms

Rated E for Existential Crisis

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.” 

“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

___

…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.

“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”

___

…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.

“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.

“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”

“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”

___

…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”

“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”

“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”

“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.

The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.

___

A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.

They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.

___

…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.

The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”

The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”

But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.

“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.

“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”

“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.” 

___

…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”

___

“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”

“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”

___

…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”

___

…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”

___

…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”

___

“I love you,” said the scorpion.

The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”

“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”

The frog swam on, the both of them silent.

___

“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”

“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”

“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.” 

“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?” 

“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”

“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”

“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”

___

“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”  

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.

The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”

“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”

Reclaim your birthright, gentlemen

As a Filipino this makes me tear up a little TTwTT

a comic about growing up a queer filipino artist in america

(notes: please click to view in full res; reblogs are totally okay but reposts without credit are not; you may delete the caption, idgaf- thank you all for your kind words!)

WELCOME TO THE TUMBLR SEXYREMATCH

Hi, I'm sexymanotd. You may know me as the asshole from twitter who ran the original Tumblr Sexyman Tournament. I have tumblr polls now. Who's up for round two?

Here's the bracket—

Each round will last one day, and each matchup will get their own post. They'll all be tagged "#round one" etc on my blog, and I'll also update this masterpost with links to every poll.

Btw, my inbox is open for links to any fanart that might get made this time around.

As always, I hate some of these characters and I hope they get obliterated, and the winner will be taken to Baskin Robbins and given a small cone. My treat.

Lady nagant is the probably best female character we can get

Wow, that's an incredibly low bar right there.

1. Let's introduce an attractive waifu, with no build-up, give her a kind of cliché backstory that doesn't even fit very well into the universe you created so far,

2. Have her pair up with another villain for no good reason whatsoever

3. hype her up to the sky only to behave totally dumb and be defeated very easily,

4. have her oscillate between having strong convictions so she can show greyness to the MC and being no-jutsued in 30 seconds flat by the MC doing something that every hero does

5. have her blow up smiling adoringly at you MC

6. Give her another moment of hyping up another male character for having shining eyes and stronger moral fiber than she does

7. Make her last act of "defiance" being basically revealing info that is a (very obvious) trap, just to show she has no agency whatsoever

8. Ship her off to a hospital and out of the story.

I wouldn't call this peak development of a female character. Nagant is a plot device to develop Deku's power and thinking and while her design was interesting, the writing around her was absolutely terrible.

If you want a well-written female character, I suggest looking at Toga or into Mt Lady's development, who started out like an attention hog in Chapter 1:

and then grew with the events - every step of the way:

showing her moral fibre

her understanding of hero work

her grit

Influencing the main plot and becoming a mature hero, who perseveres even when the fame, glory, adoration, perks are gone.

This is at least the type of development I look for in a character.

Notes

- wounds on the mouth means they've said something wrong

- wounds on the ears mean they've heard something wrong

- wounds on, in, or around the eyes means they've seen something wrong.

-Wounds on their hands can mean many things, from thieves all the way to murderers.

- open wounds and constant bleeding mean the pain is fresh or still hurting them

- bruses mean they have been physically abused in that spot

- wounds on their head and above their heart mean mental and emotional pain.

- cuts on wrists mean attempted suicide or thoughts of suicide

- The more severe the wounds the more painful the memory.

---

These were facts I figured out the hard way. I guess I thought I could use my gift to heal everyone. I made it my life goal to help the people with their wounds.

Often I would see wounds heal and stop bleeding. A few times I've seen scars fade. Even seeing a little cut fade away made me smile because I can say I've tried and helped.

I guess I had to learn the hard way that I couldnt help everyone.

---

I had a routine before I went to work. In my undergarment I'd look in the mirror and focus.

My lips have been torn off and the remaining skin stitched shut. My ears were mangled, they look like they've got into a shreader. There were cuts over and around my eyes.

Those were the minor wounds. My neck had a bruise circling the front, a dark purple handprint. Other bruises littered my entire body. There were two hand print bruises on each side of my hips. My hands were mangled and broken beyond repair. Multiple deep cuts on my wrists.

But the worst wounds were my heart and head. Where my heart should be was a gaping hole, the shape of the rim made it look like someone had stuck their hand in my chest and pulled out my heart. On my forehead was a gun shot wound.

Each and every wound, even after all these years, still dripped blood.

I counted each and every single wound and recalled how I got them. Mental, physical, and emotional abuse. Forced actions. Rape. Death threats. Degradation from family, friends and strangets. Trauma. Self inflicted wounds. Multiple suicide attempts.

---

I take a deep breath and release. I put on my clothes and go to work.

I unlock a door that had the plack "Dr.-- Psychiatrist" mounted on the wall next to it. I flip the "Doctor is in" sign. I sit in my chair, look through files and checking my schedule.

I've dedicated my life to make sure no one else gets the same wounds I do. No one should suffer this way and if I can help then I will.

I know my patients can make it. After all, my 14 year old self has made it this far.

You’re born with the ability to see a person’s internal pain as if it were a physical injury. Most people have at least a few scratches, while some people look like they’ve fallen off of cliffs. One day, you see someone in the worst state you’ve ever seen anyone before.

kaz buying a ring to propose to inej but for kicks and giggles she steals it to propose to him but then he steals it back and it just becomes a game of who can steal the engagement ring long enough to actually propose