because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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okay but !! jealous Ghost listening to the reader talk about their tinder date.
"Soap, he was fucking 6 feet tall, shoulde—"
"Taller than I am?"
From the deep rumble of Ghost’s voice, you raised a brow.
"No one’s fucking taller than you are, Ghost. Anyway," you turned back to grinning Soap, "he had shoulders for goddamn days, and his fucking hands—" You let out a deep breath, your voice touched with breathless amusement. "Soap, I swear when he touched me, I—"
The feeling of something reaching for your fingers cut your sentence short, and all it took was one glance down for your breathing to cling to your throat.
Resting against the palm of your hand were five fingers, covered by a skeleton glove. So much bigger than yours.
Longer, thicker.
Belonging to your fucking Lieutenant.
“Bigger than mine, yeah?”
You raised your sight to meet the gaze of Ghost, his head ever so slightly tilted, his eyes dark with amusement.
“No.” Your voice was slightly breathless as his fingers brushed against yours. “Not bigger than yours, sir.”
With a deep chuckle and his gaze not leaving yours, Ghost took a step back. “You’ll do well to remember that, darlin’.”
masterlist | requests are open 💌
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blah blah blah aging tumblr population etc etc if you are ever visiting a family that just had a baby, and you know that they have other small children, bring a little something for each of the other kids. it doesn’t have to be anything fancy but, even the most charitable, well-behaved child starts feeling left out and lonely after the nth visitor brings gifts and attention for their parents and new sibling and, either isn’t there for them at all or the only engage with them about their baby sibling, especially since their parents have probably been completely consumed with the new baby. make their day and they will remember that bit of kindness and attention from you forever.
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The difference between a strike and a boycott is the focus of what is being withheald
In a strike the supply is being withheald because the workers aren’t producing whatever it is. It works by having the masses demand what the companies cannot produce and therefore, if the company wants to continue providing whatever it is in order to continue making money, they have to listen to worker demands
In a boycott the demand is being withheald because the masses aren’t buying or engaging with whatever it is. It works because companies, obviously, need to actually sell things in order to function. The point is to make the company change something about a product in order to appeal to the masses again
That’s why you shouldn’t boycott when a strike is on (unless the union says so) because it kind of cancels out the strike. If there is no demand then witholding supply is meaningless - again, unless the union says so, since that means they factored it into their industrial action plan and believe it would be beneficial
I know people want to help but the reaction to call for a boycott whenever there’s a strike just kind of...... doesn’t
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