Vallerina :3

I could have made it extremely clear that I had known in my heart, since adolescence and self-awareness came bearing down upon me like a flood, that I didn’t want the same things he wanted, and that if I was certain of any part of myself, I could say right now that I never would want them.

But I wasn’t certain about myself back then, and I still believed there must be something wrong with me, and even if I had been confident or articulate enough to explain who I was, what I did and didn’t want from other people...I still don’t think I owed him that.

So I was silent.

Todd must have decided I was wavering, because the softness rose in him again as he leant over and gripped my wrist for a calculated second.

He said,

“You’re lonely. I know you’re lonely, I see you, in the dorms and in the corridors, by yourself. You can’t pretend you’re not.”

With friends like you, Todd, of course I was lonely.

I stayed silent.

I turned, and walked away. Left him there on the bridge without another backwards glance.

It didn’t take me long to learn how Todd made sense of the conversation between us; as I heard him tell it to people reliably later on, there was still ‘something wrong with me.’

Whatever the supervisors had been trying to teach us about the world and how it really worked, it had failed in my case.

As if faith had anything to do with who I was. With what I wanted, and didn’t want, my life to become.

— Chapter 4: Of Lovers, Gods and Beasts.

“On Sunday, a lambent crevice opened up in the street outside my house. By Tuesday, birds were flying into it. “I probably won’t miss you,” my mother said. “I’m only interested in the end of the world,” I replied. Many find it difficult to breathe without the atmosphere, but we knew how; we just stopped breathing. We’re at the Moonlight All-Night Diner, and they’re serving up fruit from the plants growing out of the waitress. The closed sign whispers, “Please, don’t touch me.” We watch bodies fall to the ground outside like deep sea creatures surfacing. You turn to me and ask, “Do you ever think about suicide?” I look away from you and close my eyes, eat the raspberries to confuse the blood in my mouth. Now you’re in the only car in the parking lot at midnight and you’re watching me throw stones at the moon which hangs low in the sky so that he can look into your house. Your sister tried to touch him from her window once, and he flinched. Now he and the oceans watch her with a quiet concern. The lilac sky is trying to rest her head on his shoulder, all trees gradually growing through her. A hummingbird whispers to you, “Be careful. Under her dress is her skin,” and then builds his nest in the middle of the highway. I look back to you, and you close your eyes.”

— Welcome To Night Vale // Episode 20 “Poetry Week.”

i loveee fairys

currently obsessed with the silt verses so here are my carpenter and faulkner designs

who up silting they verses‼️ decided to draw them all🦀🦀🦀

happy aromantic spectrum awareness week thank you carpenter the silt verses for inventing aromanticism

Because what usually ties, say, toxic family members together is the idea that…”Oh, we're blood, we're family, we’re all of this.” Whereas these are two people - it's not even the case that they've known each other since childhood or anything like that! They've met relatively late in their lives.

But, you know, in usual, actual family situations it's presented as an obligation, kind of imposed by society. This idea that, oh, your family is your family, and all that.

Which is why I think that found family is usually presented as being this heartwarming trope within a narrative. You know? Why would you choose something that ruins you?

But then Carpenter and Faulkner have this level of commitment to one another that we usually only see when it's imposed as an obligation. But they just continue to choose to be bound by that, even when they're actively making each other’s lives quite difficult.

And there's something very darkly beautiful about that. Like, can I say it's in the best interests of either party? I don't know. But this idea that they're still bound by one another and consider themselves bound is incredible.

I think for Carpenter, family in the first place has never meant ease or support or much of anything positive in that realm anyway. But I think to her it does mean…”loyalty” is not the right word, but it's certainly…there's something about second chances there, something about extending grace.

You know? Like, that's your people. So you hold out your hand and you say, “OK, let's try again.”

had to pause the listening bc this part just absolutely devastated me. méabh de brún you have my heart & soul

here are my favorite moomin comic panels because why not

OC ART! crow and magpie ❤️🐦‍⬛⭐️

Paige doodles