Tag: okay

iwillbeinmynest:

and-a-pidgey-in-a-wepear-tree:

scoutdoesstuff:

nonbinaryjasontodd:

twitter canceled

It becomes a pattern in the aftermath. 

Bruce has set up a makeshift lab in Wakanda, while the world takes stock of their dead and Wakanda mourns for their king. Bruce isn’t doing anything important, but he needs to do something, so he studies Wakanda’s vibranium supply and attempts to keep Shuri busy. 

Otherwise, the grief might just be too much for the both of them to bear. 

Bruce also tries very hard not to think about Tony and what form of matter Tony may or may not be at this very moment. He’s only moderately successful. 

It’s on the third day of the second week after half of the world has turned to ash that Thor brings Bruce a little green snake. Bruce is baffled, but he tried to be polite about it. Bruce is heartsick, though, so that makes everything a little harder. 

Then Thor asks for Bruce to see if the snake is Loki, and it takes every bit of willpower Bruce Banner poses to not burst into tears. Thor is so strong and so keen to smile, he makes it so easy for everyone to forget that he has lost nearly everything. 

Bruce pokes at the snake without any further complaints. When nothing happens, the grief on Thor’s face is unimaginable. 

Bruce begins spending time with both Thor and Shuri, in a desperate attempt to combat his own grief by combatting theirs. 

All the while, every second or third day, Thor brings Bruce a small green animal and asks Bruce to see if it his lost brother. Bruce checks every time, with care and precision, but the result is always negative. It’s awful for both of them, but Thor can’t seem to stop and Bruce doesn’t know how to make him. 

This pattern holds for a few weeks, until Thor brings Bruce a beaten and battered lizard. It’d been burned somehow and it looked like one of its limbs had been badly broken. When Thor presents it to him, Bruce honestly isn’t sure if Thor had just brought the little thing to Bruce to see if it could be saved. 

“Could you check?” Thor asks, the question quiet and hurt after so many weeks of negative results from Bruce’s prodding and poking. 

“Of course,” Bruce says softly, adding his portion of the call and response. 

He gingerly picks up the lizard, as the poor also looks like he’d been through the wringer, and gives him a quick once over. Bruce’d been right about the broken leg and the burns were pretty –

The lizard fucking turns into Loki. A damaged, burnt Loki who scuttles backward on a broken leg while spitting blood. 

Thor bursts into tears. Bruce bursts out laughing. Everyone has their own way of processing grief and shock and grief turned into shock, apparently. 

It’s later, when they’ve gotten Loki a little patched up, convinced Okoye not to kill Loki (”He tried to destroy the world!” she says – “He’s gotten better,” Bruce says), and Thor’s eyes were mostly dry, that Loki finally says through clenched, bloodied teeth: 

“They’re in a pocket dimension.”

“Who?” Bruce whispers, stunned. 

“Everyone. I told him he’d never be a god. He was just a warlord playing at being something powerful. He should’ve fucking listened.”

JUST THIS ONCE, ROSE, EVERYBODY LIVES

I just… I needed this today

holey-george:

“If only he had died like Hedwig, so quickly he would not have known it
happened. Or if he could have launched himself in front of a wand to
save someone he loved… He envied even his parents’ deaths now. This
cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind
of bravery.”

load-bearing

brightlotusmoon:

aspiring-bonobo-rationalist:

theunitofcaring:

Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.

(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)

I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.

It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”

When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting. 

Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is.  Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.

This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.

gatheringbones:

swiggle-muffin:

quasarkisses:

gatheringbones:

tbh a lot of my advice boils down to “hey you know that terrible horrible looming thing you’re doing your best to avoid and distract and escape as much as possible but no matter what you do it just keeps looming and looming and ruining your life”

“just, fuckign, run straight at it screaming.”

i needed this as a background

What if it’s death?

same basic principle hon just go down swinging

xen-xa:

HATARAKU SAIBOU MANGA SPOILERS

I’ve seen some people post about how the host body probably should take care of themselves more and I don’t know how to tell them that the host body is a pretty healthy, normal boy.

We’re going with the assumption that the normal cells is what the host body looks like but yeah, he’s a healthy boy.

Let’s make it clear that being a healthy person doesn’t mean that nothing  happens to the body. It just means that everything is working as it should.

Bacteria and germs are always attacking the body. Every minute of every day. Scrapes and allergies and heat stroke and colds and pimples happen all the time. Even the cancer cells are normal. It just hasn’t gotten to a serious enough level because the immune system is doing its work.

Really, the most serious thing that happened to the body so far was the head wound and that could have been from an accident.

I just don’t want anyone else to think that the body isn’t taking care of itself. It’s only because the series is hilariously exaggerating what’s going on the body that makes it look more serious than it is. And that’s the point really.

Now, if you really want to see how a not-quite-healthy body looks to be functioning, then you just have to wait for the Hataraku Saibou Black manga. Because that’ll surely be a trip.

beka-tiddalik:

writing-prompt-s:

Someone says, “I’d sell my soul for that.” You decide to take them up on their offer.

“What are you going to use it for?” Duncan asked, scratching his head.

“Iunno, but don’t worry I’ll take good care of it. When you want it back I’ll let you know what I want to trade,” said Nate, and that was that.

Forty years passed, and Duncan never had got around to trading back for his soul.

“I figure Nate’s as good as anybody for holding onto it,” he explained once. “I was dumb enough to trade in for tickets to see a band I can’t remember anymore, and it’s probably just as well I didn’t have a second opportunity to make a more dumbass deal with a worse person.”

Nate didn’t often think about the contract that he kept in the dashboard compartment of his truck signed in Duncan’s blood, but when he remembered he just shrugged. He’d willed the thing back to Duncan in the case of his death, because he figured if that happened then Duncan would have to take care of himself.

He probably should have been more surprised when one day a faintly glowing figure popped into the cabin of his truck with him.

Nate carefully pulled his truck over into the shoulder. He figured this would probably take his full attention.

“Hello Nathaniel Graham Bourke,” said the figure.

Nate grunted in response, inclining his head.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” the figure continued.

“How do you figure that?” Nate asked warily.

“Your friend Duncan is deceased. Fell down a flight of stairs,” the figure replied.

Nate sighed. “Had he been drinking?” He asked.

The figure hummed as though checking through some mental list. “No. Tripped on his shoelace. Broke his neck.”

Nate nodded to himself. “Well that’s something,” he said. Lisa would have been so disappointed if Duncan had been drinking again, so it was good she at least had that cold comfort that her husband hadn’t lied when he’d said he’d try harder.

“Yes. Your friend is dead and so I’m here to collect the soul I’m owed,” the figure said.

Nate frowned. “Does it work like that?” He wondered doubtfully, “Because I traded for that soul fair and square, so I don’t see how that means I need to just give it away at the first opportunity to the first comer.” Nate wrinkled his nose. “You haven’t even introduced yourself. I’ve kept that soul safe for years, and done my best to encourage Duncan away from making dumbass decisions. I’m not letting it go unless you can prove to me that it’s going to good hands.”

“I am an Angel. What better hands then mine?” The figure asked rhetorically. “I will take Duncan Jacobsen’s soul to the afterlife.”

Nate raised an eyebrow. “Which afterlife?” He wanted to know.

“Duncan Jacobsen was a sinner,” the Angel replied.

“That’s as maybe,” Nate allowed, “but you didn’t answer my question. I’ve been taking care of that soul for forty years now and I’m not going to just give it away to someone who’s going to mistreat it. Duncan was not the clearest thinker, but he tried his best most of the time and I reckon that should count for something.”

The figure started emitting a smell similar to sulfur. (Nate hoped it wouldn’t take too long to get out of the upholstery.)

“Ah,” said Nate. “Well in that case I think I’ll be holding onto it for a while until someone comes up with a better offer.”

“Even if it is inevitable that your friend should end in my custody?” The Angel demanded.

“If that was true,” Nate replied, “then you wouldn’t need to negotiate with me. You could just nab it.” He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “I’m not a well read man, but I do know about salespitches.”

The Angel snarled, but Nate refused to buckle.

“See now you’re just being a bully,” Nate said. “And a sore loser,” he added. “And this is doing nothing to convince me that you’re going to take good care of my buddy’s soul. The opposite really,” he nodded to himself.

The Angel calmed abruptly. “You say you’re waiting for a better offer,” the Angel said with honeyed tones. “So, what would induce you to give the soul to me? What do you desire?”

Nate scoffed. “Already said, didn’t I? Just want to make sure Duncan’s soul is going somewhere good where it’s going to be looked after proper.” He looked the Angel in the rough position where its eyes should be. “If you can honestly promise me that, then we’ve got a deal. If not…” Nate shrugged, “then I reckon I’ll be holding onto this soul a bit longer.”

The sulfurous smell increased in intensity.

“This is not over, Nathaniel Graham Bourke,” the Angel hissed, and disappeared.

“Didn’t reckon it would be,” muttered Nate. “But there’s still time.”

After a few minutes of quiet, Nate restarted the truck and pulled out into the road.

“Thanks Nate,” came a thin whisper from the dashboard.

Nate smiled sadly. “No worries, Dunc. Got your back.”