wait what comments has he made recently regarding tour? 👀 I haven't had time to keep up with everything this time around and I've not heard anything! but I do agree with you from the little I have seen the vibe I'm getting is that he seems quite lost right now but I don't know how to explain why I think that

no I haven’t had time either akdhskajan I just saw a quote floating around from Zane Lowe I think it was?? He was talking about making the decision tour during the pandemic and about the alleged ‘bubble’ and stuff and he said something like “well I’ve decided I’m going to tour, so you can come if you want” which just seems so reckless and indifferent to the entire world to me lol

Having major Gender Thoughts that I am trying my best to ignore

did wander darkling in the eternal space

Title taken from the poem Darkness by Lord Byron (George Gordon).

Prompt: Dead of Night

TMNT 2012.

(tw mental health issues, identity crisis, self-doubt, suicide attempt, somewhat unreliable narrator, abandonment, past deception)

It's dark up here, April thinks idly, brushing a careful toe along the rooftops. She's in her fluffy socks, cool wood digging into her feet as she makes her way along the roof. Ninja grace means she doesn't have to worry about balance, but she lets herself sway a little anyway, just for kicks.  

"April?"  

The voice is small and soft, almost frightened. April tilts her head at the sound, wincing at the tender flare in her skull. She's still recovering from her battle with the beast Mikey so aptly refers to as the Mom-Thing.

"Hey, Raph," she calls, and instantly knows she didn't say it right. Her voice is dull and flat, almost a monotone; she thinks of the Kraangbots and shudders. But she doesn't know how to sound like anything else right now. She's far too tired.  

"Ape, what are you doin' up here? It's the middle of the night." He climbs quietly, but she can hear his voice rising, joining her on the roof. Beneath them the rest of the house sleeps or pretends to.  

If she wanted to, April thinks, she could feel exactly how many people beneath them had collapsed into exhaustion, and how many people were still bolt awake. If she wanted to, she could feel the shape of everyone's worries and nightmares, every terrible memory her not-mother had left behind. If she wanted to, she could--  

She takes another, abrupt step, foot grinding against the edge of the roof. The trees rattle in the distance, and she tilts her head back, savoring the cool kiss of wind against her face.  

"April?" Raph asks. He sounds nothing like his boisterous daily self, but April had learned that self was bullshit a long time ago. Or at least she thinks she learned it. Maybe she just reached into his mind and took it like everything else.  

"It's dark out here," April says idly. A second, and then she adds, "Quiet, too. A lot quieter than the city."  

"Yeah..." An awkward little shuffle. "Weird, huh?"  

"Mm-hmmm." She lurks up into her toes, balancing like the ballerina she hasn't been in such a long time. "I never got to go out here as a kid, you know. My dad told me that Grandma and Grandpa didn't like him, 'cause they blamed him for Dad's death." She sways back and forth, just a little bit out over the edge.  

"Ape--"  

"But then I thought, couldn't they share custody with him or something? Get me on the weekends? They're old money, they could manage it, if they wanted. Unless they didn't want to. Unless Dad wasn't the one that they blamed."  

Raph laughs with a tongue of nervous hysteria. "C'mon, Ape. That's crazy talk."  

"Yeah." She smiles to herself. "Crazy." She closes her eyes, listens. In the distance she swears she can feel the soft spike of panic as a small animal dies to sharp claws, a slow bloom of misery of another creature bleeding out in a trap.  

"Listen, April, why dontcha come down from there?"  

"Why?" she asks, genuinely curious. "We've done wackier stunts from bigger heights, haven't we?"  

"Yeah, but..." Raph shuffles awkwardly back and forth. "You--you've been actin' weird, since the Mom-Thing. We're worried, Ape."  

"Does that scare you?" she asks. And then, because she feels like it's easy to be blunt up here in the dark like this, "Do I scare you?" 

A sharp gasp. "What the fuck, Ape, of course not! We'd never be scared of ya!" 

 "Really?" She laughs, cold and harsh, the sound chewed up by the shadows and vanishing into the night. "That makes one of us, at least."  

"Look, can we talk about this downstairs? I'm gettin' kind of nervous up here. Or I could get Donnie, Leo--"  

April smiles to herself. "You can go whenever you want," she says pleasantly. "It's late, after all." She peers down into the darkness beneath her; she can't see now, but she knows that the fall probably isn't long enough to kill her. Not unless she was smart about it; not unless she aimed carefully.  

"I'm probably going to turn in for the night soon," she says. "Monsters need their rest too, after all."  

Raph takes a deep breath. "You ain't a monster, Ape. Ya hear me? You ain't a thing like the one you killed today."

"Well, I seem to have a habit of palling around with them," April replies. "This isn't the first time I've let a monster close, is it?" She keeps her voice calm, but the words stab all her tender wounds like knives. It's okay, though. She deserves it.

"You made a mistake, April," Raph protests. "Everybody makes a mistake. And you saved our asses both times, didn'tcha?"

"Right. I mean, who better to kill a monster than another monster?"

"That ain't what I--"

"I know," April says. She knows this because she knows Raph, not because of her power--at least, she's pretty sure that's how she goes. Or maybe the truth is that both possibilities overlap to the point that it no longer matters which is which. "You'd never think such a thing, Raph. You're a good person."

"Yeah, I am," Raph says gruffly. "And so're you. Ape, if anyone knows the difference between a monster and not a monster, it's us, and you're not a monster."

"Mom didn't agree with you," April says before she can think.  

Raph doesn't ask what she's talking about, but April can feel him freeze anyway. She can taste the shock and confusion pulsing through the air, heavy on her tongue.  

"I was in my grandpa's office," she explains. "After I got out of the shower." After she'd had to go clean her not-mother's blood and guts off of her while the others washed up downstairs. "I...I needed a distraction, but I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought I'd tidy up. Lucky, huh?"

"April..."

"I found something," and the words are spilling out of her, fast and relentless like a river unbound. "A note from my mom to her parents, talking about how she had to run, leave my dad, change her name and cut herself off from me and anything and everything she'd known. She told them that I wasn't--that I wasn't her daughter. That whoever she'd given birth to, wherever that child was, it wasn't me.

"She left, Raph." And the tears that have been haunting her since she found the note claw up her throat, choking her. "She didn't die or get kidnapped, she left. Because there is something very wrong with me."

A shocked heartbeat, and then Raph rallies. "Then she was nuts, okay? It happens. Or she was scared or confused or--"  

"She talked about changelings, in the note," April says. "Like fairy tales, y'know? Like something came into her house that looked like her, but wasn't, and it left something in her house, something that called itself her daughter, and--”

"April--"  

"And what if I killed my mom today?"

The words bust out of her before she can stop them, the one terrible thing she hadn't considered until now. "What if...what if that thing you wrapped up in trash bags and burned, what if that was my real mom?”

She’s rounding on Raph, heels skidding out over the edge, and gesturing to herself. "What if this is the lie? What if one day I'm goin’ to open up and a monster is going to come out and kill you or merge with you or something even worse?"

 "Then it doesn't fucking matter," Raph growls, and his eyes are glowing bright, so bright against the dark. "It doesn't matter what you are, it matters what you do, and you, April O'Neil, would never do anything like that."  

She wants to believe him so fucking bad, but-- "And if I'm just making you say that?"  

"April, you'll drive yourself crazy with the what-ifs." There's such desperate love in his eyes that April wants to die. "We've all been there-""

"But it's not just a fucking what-if, Raph!" She's angry now, so angry at his refusal to understand, and she swears she can feel the tiles start to shift beneath her feet. "I don't know how these powers work, I don't know why I use them sometimes and why I can't use them at others, I don't know if I ever stop using them."

"Look, we can talk to Donnie about this--"

"Donnie?" April lets out a bitter laugh, twisted by self-loathing. "The one who loves me the most?"  

"I don't understand...April, please." Raph takes a step forward and April lurches back, skidding even farther over the edge; he freezes. "Please, please just come down from there so we can talk about this."  

"Is that you talking, or me?"  

"What? I--"  

"Because it could be me," April says, desperately. “Don't you understand? If I'm like that Mom-Thing, and if my mom saw that from the beginning, that means I could be anything, I could do anything, and I wouldn't even know, just like when I have a hunch and I don't know where it's coming from. I could make you forgive me for what happened today, I could make you forgive me for getting Leo hurt and your dad killed-  

"Splinter ain't dead and it wasn't your--"  

"I could make you take me back after I acted like a shitbag and left, hell, I could be making you let me win in sparring!" She lets out a half-hysterical giggle. "I'm a fucking decade behind you guys, how the hell do I manage to land so many punches? And I could make Donnie love me, without even trying, because I was made to enslave people just like that--"

"Stop it!" Raph’s yelling so loudly April can feel the others stirring awake beneath them. "Quit it, okay! You, you win fights because you're a badass and you work harder than anyone I've ever known, and we forgive you for shit 'cause that's what friends fucking do, and Donnie loves you 'cause he never fucking got over Beauty and the Beast!

"And I don't know why the fuck your mom left, but I do know there isn't a shred of real proof you've done anything like that to anyone. It's all just fucking DNA and shit."

"But we can’t be sure," and this, finally, is when her voice breaks. "We don't know, Raph, and isn't that the worst part? Because we could just keep on not knowing, and then I'll wake up and I'll have dragged you all into a fucking hive and then it'll be too late."  

Raph's beautiful green eyes are wide and panicked, his stance tense like he somehow thinks he can drag her back from the edge. What would he and his brothers feel if she was gone? Would they cry, weep, scream? Or would they buckle with the same kind of relief she felt from them when she killed her (not-?)mother?  

She turns away and looks out into the dark, dark world, dark as the space her creators crawled from. Dark and wicked and comforting in a way that few things feel these days. She takes a deep breath, lets the night air fill her lungs one last time.

"There's only one way we can both be really, truly sure of what I am," she tells the night, so quiet she's not certain Raph can hear it. "Only one way to know how the story ends."  

She steps off the edge, into the black ocean.  

From a distance she can hear Raph scream her name, but the sound is muffled and warped by the sudden whoosh of air. April twists, aiming herself like an arrow, mind drawn to the little clump of insects bustling underneath that one pile of nice, hard rocks near the house. She lets herself go, lets herself fall--  

And is jerked by a halt when strong hands wrap around her leg. She screams, too shocked to try and twist free even though it's not the first time she's been grabbed like this by far. Raph hauls her up with a roar of effort, dumping her gracelessly onto the root.  

The impact jolts April back into action and she launches upright, snarling. Raph jumps on her, pinning her down--and, and she should be able to knock him off, with her body and her mind, but she can't. She can feel the power building, the roof rattling beneath them, ready to send Raph flying, but she can't--it won't--she won't--

"Go on," Raph whispers, an inch away from her face. "You wanna make me do shit? Make me let ya die."  

She can't breathe, can't think. Raph's eyes burn through her, so bright they make the darkness look pale.  

"You wanna die so bad, you better be ready to take me with ya, Ape," Raph growls, fingers shaking as he clings to her like he might die if he lets go, while the others clatter up onto the roof. "Cause we ain't sayin' goodbye tonight."

can you see the smoke from here? burning leaves and charred trunks, torches in the night sky

a fire so bright, it brought the entire horizon alive

it’s only a matter of time before the fumes swallow us whole and turn us to ash

this shouldn’t be different from how we’ve felt our whole lives

after all, we are children born of a forest fire and this is how we die.

// the flames that gave us everything will take it away

(super short 2 minute poem that i will work more on. someday.)

Columbo S05E03 - Identity Crisis (1975)

anonymous asked: Hunter, when are you going to tell Willow and Gus you're a grimwalker? You can't keep it hidden forever.

“I don’t know how you’re aware of this information, but much like I told the hu---like I told Luz, I can certainly try! A-At least until I can nail down what, or who I really am...” 

How do you tell your friends you were never supposed to exist in the first place?

I think I finally know who I am!

Said all 410 versions of myself. <3

having to do some blog checking bc half my mutuals are changing their urls to be return era related and now my notes are full of people i don’t recognize who have incredibly familiar icons

can only wonder how people are gonna react when they find out wato is getting an E rating bc of later chapters........

Energy type 2: orange energy

Orange energy is very basic, but can be useful in certain circumstances. While the user is sleeping, they project a "ghost"- their consciousness.

This energy type is incredibly basic, as the ghost is the only thing orange energy can do. The only thing to really train with this power is the tangibility and control over the ghost.

For example, an inexperienced user might not be able to control when their ghost comes out or where their ghost goes. A more experience user, however, is able to purposefully drift into their ghost and it able to float to where they want to go.

tfw your true sign is pipia but i dont feel like i would be fucshia at alllll like yea..... i like the ocean and i like swimming but idk i dont think its on brand for me ?!!?

peter falk on the set of columbo, c. 1970s

Ever get gender dysphoria so bad and you're like I will literally remove my own body parts if I have to just to become a man

But then a few days later you're like Well that was a bit dramatic huh-

Is this a universal experience or am I just a bit extra fucked up for ✨️spice✨️

Holy shit ok, in a previous post I said that I was “Aromantic, Asexual, and Agender. I’ve got the whole collection” and I just found out about the concept of Aplatonic and god fucking damnit God made me a combo streak.

Most people, on waking up, accelerate through a quick panicky pre-consciousness check-up: who am I, where am I, who is he/she, good god, why am I cuddling a policeman's helmet, what happened last night?

And this is because people are riddled by Doubt. It is the engine that drives them through their lives. It is the elastic band in the little model airplane of their soul, and they spend their time winding it up until it knots. Early morning is the worst time--there's that little moment of panic in case You have drifted away in the night and something else has moved in. This never happened to Granny Weatherwax. She went straight from fast asleep to instant operation on all six cylinders. She never needed to find herself because she always knew who was doing the looking.

Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

not me having a minor identity crisis after gushing to a friend about coming out to my parents

dflksjlkjdfj nick hated lucy saying synths should be helped. go look in a mirror buddy

Y’all I

I think I’m demiromantic and have been misinterpreting it as a trauma response this whole time???

I'm trying to paint a pretty picture in front of everyone

But it ain't so fun

'Cause with one mad rush, yeah they'll take my brush

And make god damn sure that the colors run