Hey Siri, How Much More Mask Off Can You Get Without Tearing Off Your Skin

A witch ought never be frightened in the darkest forest because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

once i accidentally stepped on angel’s tail and she yelped, and it was the worst sound i could have heard. once, near the end of her life, when she wasn’t wanting to eat, i dropped her bowl and screamed/cried in anguish and scared her. neither of these were intended, and yet still haunt me and feel unforgivable, even though she did not have the capacity to hold it against me and did forgive me immediately. i still don’t forgive myself for the circumstances of her last few days spent mostly alone in the hospital, because they refused to release her to us and let her be at home. rationally this is not my fault, but it feels like a failing that can never be remedied, like so many other things i have failed at, no matter how far out of my control.

all this to say. i just don’t understand how people, with cruel purpose and malice, intentionally inflict violence and harm and mayhem and irrevocable trauma on living beings of any kind (human or animal), i don’t understand how you can get so far into the darkness that you switch off the cutting sense of hurt and horror i felt just hearing that squeak from my precious dog’s tail getting pinched for a split second. i don’t understand how history and the present day are littered with utter disregard of, or derivement of pleasure in, inflicting damage and pain. i don’t understand how you can hear a cry and not feel like you’re going to bleed to death from it. i don’t understand how the grief isn’t so overwhelming that no one would ever do any of that to begin with. i don’t understand why the world has ever been the way that it is. i understand it less the longer i have to live in it.

Beware of the ghosts tonight 🎃

“You have a good heart, and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind. But it’s not always kind to be gentle and soft. There’s a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be.”

— Angels in America (via ladysaviours)

“He was ahead of his time because he had such deep feelings. He had the privilege of deep feelings because he was deeply loved by his mother, Gladys. He was able to appreciate profound beauty in sounds. And he started a musical revolution. They say all revolutions start from love.”

Source

Betty Grable

“Without ever wanting to become reserved and shy, she had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words.”

— Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

ok ive been keeping my mouth shut on the topic bc im a coward but it is seriously seriously concerning how many people feel comfortable gleefully being mask-off antisemites at the first possible opportunity, and even more concerning how many of said people are very popular tumblr users whose thousands and thousands of followers at best cannot recognize antisemitism and at worst condone or even encourage it. and yeah some of these people have had at least somewhat concerning politics for a while (not naming names but iykyk) but some of them have seemed mostly normal or even positioned themselves as allies to the jewish community. so uh please excuse me feeling very distrustful and scared rn

art parallels jeremy lipking, federico zandomeneghi, serge marshennikov, allan douglas davidson, svetlana tartakovska