if I ever tell you “lmk what you think if you read/play/watch it!” I am firmly inviting you to send me a play by play minute by minute cataloguing of your thoughts about The Thing
Ooo my goodnesss I love shattered!! *Sighs dreamily* my gosh is he such a good concept, so many potential ideas and executions and- kyaa, so good.
He really does just have like, so much potential.
Okay, so, in my version of the multiverse, as we've said, the reason shattered becomes shattered is becoming of a suicide attempt. Whether he thought for sure that it would actually work or not is left up to debate.
Due to his soul residing in the apple for so long, it became, in terms of positivity magic, somewhat hollow, and nowhere near as Powerful as a freshly picked, regular apple would've been, which might have been why he thought that, if he ate it, it wouldn't have enough magic to transform him And keep him alive and would kill him instead. He doesn't really get how the apple incident worked here, he's just guessing (and he picked wrong)
I actually wrote the scene in which he tries to kill himself Years ago, I'll see later if i can find and dig it up for you guys, dust it off like "woosh" and all that. But the main gist of it is that he woke up heavily injured after a battle with nightmare Again (blue and ink, but mainly blue, helped heal him afterwards and left him alone in a bed upstairs) and just kinda.. stared at nothing for a while, just thinking about everything and nothing much in particular. There isn't a single piece of dialogue in the entire scene, it's morning, it's a beautiful day by any other means but the ones dream can see it through.
He stands up, quietly, the amount of time it takes for his head to stop spinning enough for him to stand would be embarrassing on any other day.
But not this one.
He stands up, feet bare and cold in a hospital gown that ink had no doubt painted for him before he left, and a quiet iv drip to his right.
He moves, taking a few steps forward, his circlet not on his head for once, and he debates grabbing for a long while. And..
He goes to stand in the middle of the room.
The light is off, because the sun outside shines so brightly there's no need for anything but.
He stands there a while, just slowly breathing with exhaustion, and summons his soul.
How long is he willing to play this game of.. cat and mouse? Hide and seek? Waiting? Nightmare waited five hundred years to try and kill him, he can wait forever.
Dream thinks that maybe he can't seem to find this virtue within himself.
He holds it in his cold hands, the warmth that would usually be emanating from it weakened, its golden colour paled, dream finds it hasn't been golden for a very long time
He stands and stares at it for a very long time, doing nothing else, ignoring the birds chirping outside and the slight crack in the window that makes the wind jostle the curtains.
He brings it up, to his mouth, fits his teeth perfectly about it, holds it there for a minute or so, his jaw doesn't even begin to ache.
His teeth sink in, slowly, sickeningly sweet.
He takes a bite.
And immediately it melts into his mouth as the rest of the apple drops, quickly beginning to rot against the ground and decaying as it crawls back towards him.
Is this how nighty must've felt? He thinks as he clutches his chest? He didn't know that choking makes you so quiet, it all makes sense now why he couldn't scream.
One hand claws at his throat, and the most terrifying thing is how Full his esophagus is, how quickly air stops moving through it, no matter how hard he pushes to make even a single sound as he stumbles back a few steps and then down onto one violently trembling knee.
It's a jarring feeling, to have something move through your throat back into your chest and into your spine, he never thought he could feel something pushing against the Inside of his skull rather than the out, and the pain is blinding, it is, so much so that when his throat gets an opening for a small gasp, it's immediately interrupted by the squelch of Something breaking through his bone.
His mouth hangs open, eyes- eye- eye wide and wet and unmoving as his body unwillingly goes limp, if not for the consistently violent twitching of his hands. Like a spear through your head his spine is broken.
He remembers this, as he falls, he remembers exactly how nightmare looked when this had happened.
Only he didn't thud so hard against the grass as dream does against the carpetless floor, and being so tiny back then, he only could've fallen so far.
Dream hsd never been more scared in his life, because despite the fact that he shouldn't be awake right now, He Can Still Feel It Moving.
His head faces away from the door, his now one singular working eye trying its hardest to see through the sludge beginning to pour down it from his open skull, he can't feel the pain in his head for a moment, just a steady insistent pulsing, the pupil pinpricked and bright and refusing to move.
He can't feel his legs, but he can feel it moving against them, he can feel it cutting off the connection between his head and his spine through the weight of it on the nerves, like stepping on a tv cable and watching the channel flicker; they hadn't been cut off yet, but they don't need to be, his spine shouldn't be big enough for anything to move comfortably in there. It Shouldn't Be Big Enough.
It moves anyway, It shouldn't bend, like a warm wet, earthy tunnel, it's Bone, but it bends anyway. even as dream tries his hardest to grip a hand against the floor, manage a fist, he doesn't, and it just curls higher up against his back and the terror increases tenfold because he knows what's about to happen.
The soft crack like a breaking eggshell hurts so much more than he could've ever imagined it doing.
He doesn't know if it's translucent tears or black magma that's pouring from his face now - it certainly feels heated - as it hangs slightly limp above the floor, the tip of his nose brushing against the cold of the ceramic as his back is pushed through and prodded slowly, why is it so slow, nighty's broke out so much quicker-
He feels like the difference between an old dying tree and a freshly cut one; where he crackles over and over again, breaking from the inside out for minutes under his own empty sapless weight before fully falling over, and where nighty, with an axe, is just cut open.
He thinks, minutely, through blinded searing hot pain, that he must look like those plant videos blue always shows him, the ones sped to to show for growth, but still moving so smoothly. He imagines that's what he must look like now, elbows now above ground as the things steady themselves like the roots of a tree against the floor, his head hanging fully limp above it, his mouth pouring as it pushes out Just One More.
All at once his body suddenly drops, skull cracking against the floor and blinding him once again, and a few seconds later he manages some movement of his chest, choked as it is, and lets out a terrified whimper before his mouth begins to fill once again.
He can't see now, he can clench his fists now but he can't see, it's all dark, miasmic liquid that flows through his nose his throat his sockets and through his mouth, he can't feel his tongue, he can't move it, all he can do is jolt and twitch as it Finds a way out, now done with his back and face, through the miniscule pores that all skeletons have that he can now physically Feel growing bigger as it burns straight through them and out of his body, like acid on rock, a deflating balloon that isn't done moving.
Dream wants to cry.
Dream wants so badly to cry.
He'd settle for even a single Sound.
He wishes selfishly, managing a gasp through stained teeth, that someone could come find him right now. He knows the touch will burn, he can remember how it happened last time, but he can't think about it, he can't, he wants it to stop, he wants it to Stop, he wants it to stop, he wants it to stop- nighty's didn't last this long he chokes he wants it to Stop.
This wasn't as violent as he thought it would be, he expected it to be a quick death, nighty was running towards him one second and body limp, held up by a tendril shot through his skull the next, and just like that he was gone. Was he? Was he gone? It was too dark to tell, maybe his eyelight was still moving, maybe he still had one, dream can remember being yanked away and back, all he can remember is how hard he fought to be let go of, because even though nighty wasn't staring at him, he knew he must've wanted him there.
He never thought a day could last so long as that one did, much less longer, the wetness in his clenched gloves feels alive and painful, like he'd peeled back a layer of skin, still attached through nerve and slight muscle, and squeezed it in his waiting hands like a rag, that's what this feels like, he feels like he's holding multiple layers of himself as he seeps into the floor through some slight, stony cracks.
He didn't think he could ever feel so constricted, he didn't understand how he could move through walls and under them and doorways, how nighty moved so easily between objects like a liquid.
He whimpers, bone snapping to jagged shards, pressure, how they make cheap wooden furniture as it crushes the rest of his spine- he thinks he gets it now. He thinks he can get how small the shards of a body can feel, he can't feel the breaking of his hands but he can feel the bone remnants digging into the liquid that now houses his nerves now seprated from his ma- from his Old magic and it Hurts. It hurts, he's not meant to be like this, he's not supposed to-
He's separating, now, that's what he's doing, he's separating into two different layers, and he doesn't know which one is him anymore.
And there's nothing he can do but wait to get his answer.
Now, I'm not quite sure how shattered gets found out if at all, in my version of the multiverse, it doesn't uncorrupt nightmare, the two of them basically both get fucked, but shattered is incredibly clumsy with all the sudden weight on his back/body, the agonizing pain of literally everything, the sudden half blindness, the ringing in his head (actually, would the twins have tinnitus? Hmm.. i must think about it), and the fact he has to physically keep his body hardened for as long as he can because it returns to liquid immediately by default (he doesn't have enough positivity to keep it automatically at the perfect state in between liquid and solid, nightmare usually has plenty) his tendrils might not even be that thick, i consider the tendrils a place to store extra negativity/emotions magic, like fat reserves (is that what they're called?) so the lower you run on them, the thinner/shorter the tendrils get as you eat up from your excess, at worst one can burn through it all and get stuck with basically no weapon and fatigue from lack of eating, until they can store some again. (When the tendrils (healthy) disappear, the mass gets reabsorbed into the body, giving it more shape, like Actual human fat basically, but they can choose where the extra reserves get stored, how, what shape, etc, so that's fun)
((HEY NIGHTMARE SIMPS, YOU CAN GIVE HIM TITS NOW WOOO))
Cough, anyway, where was i? Oh yes.
Shattered does Not have any extra reserves, at least, not as much as would make one comfortable. Had he been human, his bones would jut out greatly.
His tendrils Are longer, but they Are thinner, he might've subconsciously made them not as short as nightmare's to ease the ache on his back from them, but he wouldn't realise he did that, again, he's dealing with a lot right now, mainly self loathing.
He runs away, i think, but not before blue and or ink catch sight of him, he may have even teleported without realising he was doing it and ended up somewhere completely random alone, in pain, scared, and confused. Going in and out of consciousness as he tried (and failed) to move and or get up. And mostly angry, too, angry at himself, he can't be of help to anyone anymore now, not even himself.
He was less than ideal before, and now he's completely useless.
His self pity doesn't actually present as that though, he begins lashing out, probably in an attempt to gain back some semblance of control over his situation, and also a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. He's so horrible now, surely it's inevitable that he'll act that part? He's scared that he's going to hurt people, so he does, he's scared of himself, so he becomes something to fear. Meanwhile he's avoiding letting anyone he knows see or find him, running away if they ever catch sight of him again. He doesn't think he can handle it if they saw him like this, if they saw him differently, he couldn't handle seeing it. It's a whole "I'm not scared of you-" "THEN LOOK AT ME LIKE YOU USED TO!" thing, poor guy :(
He's never really been as stressed as he is right now, which is impressive (and scary), because dream is Constantly stressed. Over everything. All of the time. Like, in my honest to god opinion, I don't know How the fuck he hasn't canonically crashed out yet. Genuinely. Like he is six, and homeless, and abused, and his brother dies, and his mom dies again, and everyone dies, and everything is destroyed (still Six by the way), and his brother hates him, and his brother attacks him, and his brother hurts him, and he wakes up and everything and everyone is still gone, but his brother is older now and still hates him and still tries to hurt him and his body hurts and he doesn't understand what anyone is saying or what they want from him and it's his job to fix it even though he doesn't know how and literally everyone wants his brother dead and they expect Him to kill him and he's immediately thrust into fights barely knowing how to defend himself. Like how the actual Fuck does he not crash out already. His shattering is the straw that breaks the camel's back he's Done, emotionally he's taken everything he could possibly take and the glass has shattered and everything is pouring out and it Keeps Pouring out like one of those magical infinite waterskin things, the trauma just keeps going. And he doesn't know how to make it or make himself stop.
He's horrible now. And he knows through trying with nighty that nothing can ever fix it again, he's going to be stuck like this for the rest of a life that he didn't even want, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, he knows that, he's Tried. He might not even acknowledge to himself after it happens that he tried to kill himself, he won't say it if anyone asks. You're gonna have to force it out of him (someone give his future therapist a raise.. they're gonna need it)
He feels Stupid, he feels So Stupid. He already did before, for a lot of things, but he already should've guessed that he would've corrupted instead of died, he already Knew that's what happened with his brother, he Saw it Happen, but he Still risked this while not being given any proof that it would actually work, how could he have been so Stupid.
Ink and blue definitely look for him, i think ink felt uneasy about things even before dream corrupted, antsy and fidgety because he just had a Feeling that the creators were going to do Something, and in turn blue felt nervous seeing him too but couldn't ask him why because he knew ink would not be able to answer, and so they were both just sitting around waiting until maybe they heard the most Horrible cracking sound from upstairs, but by the time they got there it was already too late (even if blue could've reached him before he left he'd have been yanked back by ink, because fresh corruption would've Definitely killed him (think the difference between earth and molten rock))
It would have been Horrible, for dream in that moment, Horrible to see one friend reaching out for him and the other pulling them back like he was a danger because he Was, he couldn't have known ink did it because of his corruption, all he would have known is that ink took one look at him and decided that he would absolutely hurt blue if he got too close, and so pulled him back. I think dream would've choked out a Hurt sound before teleporting, or an attempt at one (like when kitty cat babies meow but nothing comes out) this whole thing might've been the reason he did so in the first place and now they've gotta come find him again. It basically immediately broke any hope he had that they would accept him as he is now, which was, like, none to begin with, like 0.0000000000~1 basically.
He might attempt to shove blue and ink away because he himself believes fully that he is now a danger.
The entire purpose of dream's existence is to exist for and help other people, and now he's broken that, he broke the one thing he's supposed to do, he ruined himself, and the one thing he was good for he no longer is, he has no purpose, he's completely and utterly a failure of a guardian for trying to kill himself like this and failing, he was a coward who couldn't handle his duties a day in his life and now he's getting punished for trying to get out of them. He deserves this, he earned it, nighty did nothing wrong, he was just a child, but what excuse does dream have? He was tired? Everyone else is also always tired and they still manage to get things done anyway.
He's completely ashamed of himself, he can't handle looking at himself or thinking about what he did without feeling so Shitty that he gets short of breath and nauseous, he flinches when he curls the tendrils around himself like a blanket but can't seem to make himself stop doing it in an attempt at comfort because they're all he has right now, even though they're very thin and are nowhere near feeling like a pair of arms to hug or a blanket, he tries to flick them away consistently because he Hates how they feel but subconsciouy they keep coming back until he eventually just gives in and gives up and lets it happen. I think he cries a lot but it is physically painful with his chest feeling so wet, think very bad case of pneumonia so he tries to stop himself from doing it before it even happens. He tries to tear off his clothes because they feel disgusting and unclean but ends up tearing at his own flesh (now, the corruption) and it hurts so he stops trying, he's very confused while trying to make sense of all this. The constant bumping into things and tripping and falling because he can't eat regular food anymore (very shaky from stress and malnutrition) doesn't help with his still very fresh injuries and unstable corruption, it's still mostly liquidy wet when it's touching something, so there's not much cushioning between it and the exposed nerves of his bone shards, his body isn't working correctly anymore and he can barely walk (broken legs) and over the next few coming months his teeth will go soft and he won't be able to chew unless he figures out how to keep them hardened. Nightmare had centuries to figure this out, dream didn't.
Nightmare will not try to help him. He doesn't care. Contrary to what dream wholeheartedly believes his brother Is dead, this Is just a parasite wearing his face. It might find what happened to him amusing and will taunt him about it but it otherwise doesn't care about him and quickly loses interest. It was only really chasing him for the apple anyway, and now that it's gone, because he ate it, it has no reason to pursue him anymore, dead or alive, it no longer cares. So dream has to also deal with That kind of abandonment.
Again, dream is not as stupid as he thinks he is because by all means it Should have worked, he Should have died like nightmare did but again, because the apple was fused to his soul for so long most of its Inherent Apple-Specific magic had been safely diluted with his own, so it didn't kill him, there was no parasite left to kill. If he'd eaten the apple a few hundred years before, when he had first emerged, he might've gotten a shot at it, who knows, now he never will.
He feels so completely, and utterly alone in all this. The one person who could possibly understand refuses to care, and the people he thinks might've loved him clearly loathe and fear him now, he can't give them anything anymore, so just like the moment he woke up from the stone, he's completely alone again, knowing and trusting nobody, and having nowhere else to go.
He might've stolen some food at first, and by at first i mean when he was literally on the brink of Starvation, like to the point he couldn't even stand up, and eating it he would've thrown up immediately, even though tears slid down his face because it tasted like absolutely nothing.(No more taste buds, not really) He remembers, vaguely, blue telling him that you can't feed a starving person too much too quickly, so painstakingly, he forces himself to slow down next time, no tendrils left to hold him up, he burned straight through them, but he throws it up again and he cries because he doesn't understand what he's doing wrong. He doesn't know it yet, but his body is no longer capable of processing regular food, he doesn't have a functional stomach anymore, a butterfly can't eat a leaf, he either eats positivity, or he starves, he's got nothing else to keep him full anymore, that option is long gone now.
Maybe he gets lucky and the time is around a holiday, happy times, or it's a more peaceful au, but still, most people don't feel overwhelming Joy constantly, not like how you can feel despair coming and going at a moment's notice, it's gonna be a lot harder for dream to keep himself fed than it is for his brother. I guess for the sake of all arguments that this exists in the same universe as This poem i wrote, because that's the most parasitic nightmare i ever actually wrote (and i like it ehe), and it's the closest to canon I've got.
(I'll be honest I don't really think about shattered beyond a few aus me and helen had of him, and we haven't spoken about him in a long time too, so, it's a little difficult for me right now to decide how he would Actually Act as a separate entity from said aus, hmm..)
I don't know yet how he reconciles with blue and ink.. he needs to, he's not gonna be able to survive without them, he can't handle the support but he needs it, and he's in no state to trust anybody new so it's either them or nobody, not to mention that he needs to be shown that there's nothing really wrong with the way that he is now, that they don't Actually hate him, they still want him back, they still love him, he's still Wanted. Istg they need an Immediate group hug that he is Not getting out of he Will cry and weep (very softly, crying too hard still hurts) i think he'll just go limp in their arms because he either feels too weak to hug back or is too scared of hurting them/getting rejected if he Does reach back towards them. If one of them flinches he's Leaving (unless they physically grab him and pull him back again, and even then, lots of reassurances)
They both love him so much guys you don't understand- kyaaa, *sobs*
I think he immediately breaks any mirror he sees his face in because his first immediate reaction is "that's my brother and i need to defend myself"
God.. there's also such a cruel irony of them being twins and eventually always matching. For a very long time they were identical, and then they just.. weren't. And dream would look at his own face and try to imagine the colour of his eyes as purple and he can't Do that anymore because, well, he got his wish. They can match again.
(I don't personally consider them Identical twins but i know the majority of the fandom does so, cough, excuse me)
They definitely group hug often and group cuddle, if they can wrestle dream and his horrible self esteem into it. I think maybe he starts calling himself shattered because nightmare mocked him with it when he first saw him like that "oh? Has the glass half full finally shattered? How cute." Etc. and dream just, felt something in him crack at the complete lack of care from his brother.
(oh baby.. who's gonna tell him)
Blue and ink are having none of it though, they still call him dream, even when he tries to intimidate them into stopping, because they know he only calls himself shattered to demean himself (he broke under the pressure, didn't he?), and not because it's a name that he actually wants. If that were the case, they'd call him by it, but it's not.
(very vividly imagine them all sitting together with shattered in the middle crying, one of them behind him eyes squeezed shut with their head against his shoulder and their arms around his waist, and the other infront of him cupping his face, they love him So much guys omg)
It takes him a very, very long time to get back to trusting them with Himself around them, he feels constantly unsafe because the lack of safety comes from Him, and assumes everyone else feels that way too. He feels like an undeniable threat. They put in a lot of effort to prove to him that they don't care about that, blue is basically the best mortal fighter in the entire multiverse, with the most precision (him and all his alternate versions but, eh), and ink has no soul and so is basically undefeatable in battle and legitimately just cannot Die by any mortal Or immortal means so, they can also cause harm if they choose to, but they don't, and he doesn't have to either.
I think he Does hurt people, after he becomes like this, I don't think it's right for him not to. Like, thematically, he needs to act like the horrible "monster" he believes himself to be because dream Is capable of harm, he'd refused the thought for so long and now he's being confronted with it, he's just as capable of causing hurt and pain and misery as nightmare is, he could've turned out exactly like his brother did had circumstances been different, there is no Inherent part of being the guardian of positivity that makes him incapable of being a bad person. He can be, he can, he should confront that. Nightmare kills people because he Wants to, not because he's being forced to, dream now holds a knife glued to his hands and has to confront the fact that he is just as capable of using it as anybody else, and that scares him, he doesn't want that power, he doesn't want people to look at him and think "he Can hurt me, if he wants to". He's being shown that even if a parasite, or corruption, Wasn't possessing his brother and causing all these bad things to happen in his stead, nightmare himself, had he been here, could have also just Chosen to act in this exact way, too, and it would've been completely his choice. I think he tends to think that had nightmares just not gone through this, just not gone through that, he wouldn't have hurt anyone. He absolves him of responsibility without meaning to, because despite everything, he still thinks nightmare can't, or Won't, actually hurt anyone. In his head nightmare is the nicest person in existence, and Something must be causing him to act like this, and if dream could just Fix it, he'd go back to the way that he used to be. He doesn't view nightmare as his actions, he views him as an idea of what he used to be; the safest thing in the world. But he isn't anymore. Dream can't confront that. He can't confront the fact that anyone's hatred of him is warranted. He can't handle the fact that the people who say that the world would be better off with him dead might actually be Right. Because nighty made the world better, nighty was so kind, Is so kind, isn't he? Nighty was so nice, and the most patient person in the whole wide world. Nighty sang him to sleep, he didn't kill people, he read him books, he didn't tear them limb from limb and laugh in their faces, something is wrong with him, something is Wrong with him, and if dream could just Fix it, could just Explain to everyone then they would understand, they'd understand that he's a good person still, that he just needs help, that he just needs-
Him.
But he doesn't anymore, does he.
Dream has blood on his hands, too, what excuse does He have?
He uses the same arguments, but he barely believes them.
He's still a good person, right? This is just- this is just something wrong with him, that needs to be fixed, he's still not hurt anyone deep inside, right? This doesn't count, he's corrupted, surely it doesn't count, surely dream hasn't hurt anyone, surely he has-
If dream is a good person while corrupted, if he doesn't hurt his brother, then that means that nightmare isn't being Forced to be a bad person, that he's choosing to, that he just straight up Hates dream, and dream can't cope with that, so, he denies it.
....
Yeah his relationship with nighty is not getting out of this intact now is it-
Anyway.
He gets a lot of those grouphugs after nightmares, blue and ink have to basically pin him down with their bodies and Purr to get him to stay. There's a lot of affection there. And try as he might to convince everyone he doesn't like that/that he wants to leave, his tendrils curling tightly around them both say otherwise. Internally he's begging them not to leave.
(Also sorry guys i just found i don't have it written where i left dream's suicide attempt and i am NOT gonna go look that shit spans Years 😩 send me like, 15 dollars if you want me to though lol-)
He also definitely like, goes Low Blow and insults them on things he knows they're insecure about. The lowest he's gone is ink's lack of soul/emotion i think, ink didn't talk to him for a while after that (he was really, really hurt, that dream could use something like that against him, Especially because they all Know it's a sore spot (shattered did eventually apologize, they discussed it, they both cried)). I think blue is a little more self sacrificial in the fact that he forces himself to take it and stay anyway, even if what dream tells him hurts and Also digs at his insecurities.
He feels the need to because he's just so Angry now and, it's for their own good, he needs to get them away from him, as quickly as he can, it's to keep them Safe-
Guysss we need to talk more about shattered actually you're so right ahsjsjskks
But, i must simply leave you with this.
"first i cried for him, and, then i cried for me,
"haunted by the ghost of the girl i used to be-
"but the rocks with holes are warm in my hands and i bury my, toes in the hot hot sand- and the
"silverpink pony, kisses me and, says
""you've come a long long way and you, deserve, to be,
""really happy.""
The beer, by Kimya Dawson :')
(just- that whole song actually. I feel like i have more to say but I've already posted this ajsnsiis)
Somewhere out there on a planet very far away is a civilization that has included our sun in a beloved constellation of some animal we couldn't dream up if we tried
How many video games are in your backlog right now?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
Welp gotta feed the entity, games on my play list are Don’t look outside, Dredge, a bug catching game I cant remember the name of and actually finishing/winning Pressure
i saw a post on twitter by a european saying americans are fake for their random compliments to strangers and their general cheery demeanor and like no. no no no you don’t understand. if you get a random compliment from an american on the street about your outfit or whatever, that is 100% genuine. we mean it. we aren’t lying we are making a small but fleeting connection with you because our lives are shitty but the human condition is enduring. oh god i’m clutching my chest
If you get a compliment from a random American on the street, know that they tried their best to keep from saying a peep to you but they literally could not hold it in. They HAD to say something.
The other day a tiny gay man in a hurry bumped me on the Metro escalator and said "Sorry, great dress by the way" and then he stopped at the top of the escalator and turned around and said "AND a great hat. THAT is how we do summer!" and SPRINTED for his bus and I coasted on that for the rest of the day.
When I first moved to Prague I had a colleague who had such great style, and I always complimented her because I thought she was hot and cool. Years later when we were friends, she told me that she always suspected me of trying to manipulate her somehow because that is not how Czechs roll, and it was really inconceivable to her that I was simply complimenting her with no ulterior motive, but that's culturally normal to me?
Also, I am married to a British person, and his mother is an artist -- she's a collograph print-maker, and she told me that whenever she wants a pick me up, she sends photos of her latest prints to me, because I can be counted upon to say something nice. What can I say? I love her work? Her prints are beautiful, so...not faking?
Americans have a lot of blind spots and issues, but saying the nice thing in their brains to other people is fine? Like? A little more kindness and connection isn't hurting anyone?
There was a post on r/askanamerican just the other day, by a guy living in Eastern Europe who has a fun backpack (it looks like a reeses cup package with a bite taken out of it!) and said he constantly got compliments on it from American tourists
And he was like...are all of you like that? You say nice things to total strangers as if you're life-long friends??
And the entire comment section was like: Yup. Absolutely. This is 100% a thing we do.
And someone looked up a picture of the backpack and shared it and we were all like OMG THAT IS AN AMAZING BACKPACK yeah if I saw someone in any city on earth wearing that thing I would in fact say something.
Sometimes posts on that subreddit are a trash fire, but we were all so happy to talk about times we've told strangers compliments or been complimented by strangers.
And genuinely, it's one of the few things that makes me proud to be American. Like. We have a reputation for telling total strangers when we like something they're wearing/doing. And we mean it, every single time!
I like to perch upon hill overlooking the fossilized horse and observe the young archaeologists as they chip away at the rock with a vigor that once paralleled my own, it is relaxing in a way only something so familiar can be
Heeeey guys so I’ve been scrolling through the Iorn Lung tag and I’ve seen pepole talk about the whispering like yeah theres a lot of overlapping voices and all that, love it but um. Did anyone else hear the “Psst” because I swear it happened multiple times and I saw an earlier showing on a Thursday so there weren’t that many pepole there so I’m pretty damn sure it wasn’t someone in the the theater it was the same feminine voice each time, I just need to know if anyone else heard it or if I’m cray cray
saw an elderly woman walking around with a tote bag whose design were the four AO3 fic category squares and she very excitedly asked if i was a reader or a writer bcs nobody else at the con had recognized it, and after telling her that i've been writing fic since fanfic.net, she solemnly nodded and explained that she'd been reading fic since "the days of personal websites" but that she only started writing fanfic when she was 47 and oh my god when i tell you that i genuinely teared up on the spot!!!!! like!!! HELL YEAH???? LITERALLY NEVER TOO OLD TO START WRITING. NEVER TOO OLD TO WRITE AND SHARE YOUR FIC.
her enthusiastic "i'm a very nice and bubbly person, i swear! but i love writing angst and major character death :)" nearly took me the fuck out.
icon. legend. diva. i wish her nothing but a kajillion million comments and kudos. i hope her fic updates crash AO3. i hope she knows i'm promoting her to my personal patron saint of AO3.
You can tell when someone’s frame of reference for “normal people” is more “people at the church sponsored ice cream social” and less “people on the bus”
I took the bus for three years when I lived in Honolulu and haven't lived anywhere with even usable public transit since, but in those three years I had dozens of utterly bizarre experiences that were also Perfectly Normal. This is because the human condition is vast and also Very fucking Weird.
Kid one the bus next to me whose backpack starts moving and it turns out he's got three chickens and a painted turtle he caught in there? This is Perfectly Normal. Humans have been catching small game and transporting it home in whatever they had since we invented bags to put chickens and turtles in.
I traded him three king-size snickers bars I had on me for the turtle because I vaguely remembered that many freshwater turtles were toxic to eat (incorrectly, as it turns out, but this was when I still had a Nokia Brick that lived a blissful, internet-free existence), and didn't want him accidentally poisoning his family, but didn't want to just. Steal his hard-won turtle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans have been cautious about poisons, looking out for strangers kids and bartering shit since before we were technically humans, probably.
Having acquired a turtle, I now needed to transport the turtle to the on-campus pond that effectively served as an Invasive Freshwater Turtle Containment Zone, but did not have a bag that could adequately contain him so I had to sit the rest of that bus ride, at the station and all through the next bus ride holding the turtle like the world's angriest hamburger. Multiple people were curious about and delighted with the turtle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans love an animal, especially one that is capable of appearing grumpy, and hands are for holding things.
By the time I got back to Campus, the anthropology and child psychology building that the Invasive Turtle Containment Pond was in had closed, so I had to figure out how to climb the tree over the wall and get down off the roof while holding The World's Angriest And Sharpest Hamburger. I eventually ended up having to briefly shove the turtle into by bra to get up to the initial branch and off the roof without breaking an ankle. This is Perfectly Normal. Humans are, as a species, a bunch of barely-evolved arboreal frugivores and really good at Tree Physics, and I don't know a single titty-having bitch out there that hasn't used their bra as Emergency Pockets at least once, if not daily.
I released the turtle into the Turtle Containment Pond and then had to solve the problem of getting back OUT of the locked building, but Nokia Brick never loses a signal or drops a call (including that time I accidentally dropped it off a 13-story building in the middle of a call to my parents and the damn thing BOUNCED but kept the line open. I miss that phone every day.) and while campus security has been carefully trained to not let people IN to places without proper ID and a call to someone inside, they assume that if you got locked in somewhere, that you got in by legitimate means and not Lemur Shenanigans, so i just called them, apologized that I'd been working late with headphones on and didn't realize I'd been locked in. This is Perfectly Normal, people have been lying to cops since laws were invented, and will continue to do so because all cops are bastards.
Anyway, everyone should have access to good public transportation because freedom of movement is a human right and meeting a broad spectrum of humanity is good for your mental health and spiritual welfare.
This is Perfectly Normal. Humans have long delighted in the delight of other creatures, whether or not they are the same type of creature. This includes other humans, of course, but also non-human animals and inanimate objects.
You are going to laugh until your stomach hurts again. You're going to be in awe of a sunset. Watch your favorite show while you eat your favorite food. Find money on the street. Discover a great band you haven't heard of before. You will find your way back.
I’m obsessed with how you drew them, your incredibly talented and truly bring life to what your draw. There expressions, the poses, the scenes, the colors, the outfits!! All just incredible 💖 Thank you so much for this
vaporwave
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turnnoffyourmind
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