That's Crazy, You Have This Person Who Is Basically Family, And There's No Indication Of That When You

Based on my own and my familiy's life experiences, I've long held the sneaking suspicion many ghost stories on one side were 'dangit do you think they saw?!' tidbits on the other.

Imagine going on a walk on a really foggy day, enjoying the vaguely eerie, faint and distant aesthetic of it all, and the soft quiet of having no other people around. You're about to cross a familiar bridge when you suddenly feel lightheaded. It's nothing to worry about, just a weirdly wobbly feeling that means you should sit down. And probably get more iron in your diet. Either way, you need to get up and you need to cross this bridge to get home. But now being alone has put this weird fear in you - irrational or not - that if you walk over the bridge, you might get dizzy again and fall from it.

Weird and lonely problems require weird and lonely solutions. Since you're all alone here anyhow, you can act strange if you need to. So you get down on all fours - not on your hands and knees, but on the balls of your feet, like a dog. And like this, you start to slowly creep over the bridge. Nice and slow, happy about your solution that made it feel safe to cross and get home. You can be weird if you want to, nobody's judging here.

You're creeping at a comfortable speed, very slowly, but the bridge isn't that long. You can kind of make out the outlines of things on the other side through the mist. The end of the bridge, a familiar tree, a streetlamp, the silhouette of a bush and-

A person. A human figure. You freeze mid-step to stare. That is the most definitely the outline of a person, standing perfectly still. Staring right at you. You don't know how long this moment lingers, but eventually you can't hold your balance anymore and you have to step forward, placing your open palm back on the cold damp bridge. The figure turns, and takes off running. Bolting off in a very normal, startled way that anyone would when they're spooked.

It occurs to you that you only saw the vague outline of an unexpected person, an obscure figure standing in the fog. They, however, saw the vague outline of you, something perhaps vaguely human-shaped, but moving in a way that people simply do not, slowly, very slowly, creeping over a bridge.

Assuming that nobody would see you, you accidentally became someone's unexplained Silent Hill experience.

~~One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is w-BETTER~~

The 4 approaches to “orphaned etymology” problems in fiction

1. Obviously we can’t call it French toast if there’s no France so we’re just gonna replace it with something else.

2. The word abattoir sounds too French so it wouldn’t make sense for it to be here without a France. Even though we use English without there being an England.

3. This is called a Ming vase because when you tap it it makes a “Ming!” sound.

4. I am JRR Tolkien and every single word I write has a fictional etymology attached to it that I am translating into English for your convenience.

NGL, I would 100% wear a ladies version of this sadly I am too curvy for the original

cunty spock sewing plz?

Does anyone have a pattern for that cunty Spock outfit, you know the one, black velvet cape-shirt thing from the movie era.

I love a good metanarrative and this is a 15 layer chocolate cake of a media experience

"It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is a immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamor."

THE FINAL PROBLEM - part 7 of many - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6. Another scene I've had written in some form for months. Getting close now...

This is in the Watson's Sketchbook series!

The absolute tonal whiplash of this story delighted me as a kid, and you have somehow captured it in reverse with these three comics. A bungee cord from tragic to comic to ???Large?Feelings??? Also, Ms. Hudson here is a fantastic portrayal.

THE DYING DETECTIVE - part 3 - part 1 - part 2 - "to the last gasp he would always be the master" - there is at least one panel that made me laugh while drawing it so I hope it makes you laugh, too. It's the least I could do.

This will most likely be the last update for a few weeks - going to England on a trip (where Sherlock Holmes lives!!! omg!) - when I return it will be for a cozy early Christmas special, THE BLUE CARBUNCLE.

(This is in the Watsons sketchbook series!)

Hope is a lie if you mistake it for a promise. No, hope is a gamble. A chance that it might work out in your favour. A possibility that those odds are worth the risk. A cornered rat does not launch to bite a dog in the face with absolute confidence that it will escape with its life.

It attacks for the chance that it might.

This is how my siblings and I experienced Tolkien pre-preschool.

this should have been me

Either yes, because extinct deer cannot punch, or DEER GOD NO because that ton-and-a-half terror-elk somehow learned fist fighting

your icon punches you in the face do you survive

"an explanation, but never an excuse," as my mother would say.

Since the OP made their post unrebloggable (and blocked me. Both actions they are well in with their right to do)

I'm going to make my response it's own post because I think the point is important

-

As someone who is autistic and has BPD and CPTSD and loads of trauma yes you sometimes need to change how you interact with others to keep people around

When I was 13 I hit the few friends I had when I was angry

I had to change that in order to keep those friendships

When I was in my early 20s if I was losing an disagreement with my husband I would threaten to kill myself. My husband told me it hurt him and was cruel and manipulative behaviour, because it was.

So I worked hard to change that to keep my relationship

It's easy to say "I shouldn't have to change for others" and that's true to an extent. You shouldn't change your interests or passions or dim your light. And you should have space to be imperfect and flawed and not have to pretend your ugly bits aren't real. But if something you are doing it causing other people harm you kinda need to change that.

That's called "living in a society"

People adapt to each other and make space for each other in their lives. You adapt to them and they adapt to you

You start being more diligent about throwing away the empty toilet roll because it really bothers them. They start warning you before they run the blender because you hate loud noises

I stopped threatening to kill myself because I was mad I was losing an argument and my husband stopped being so vocally judgemental amount media he personally dislikes

There is a certain type of person who heard the phrase "your emotions are valid" and took that to mean "my emotional reactions and my behaviour are always objectively correct because my emotions are valid and if you have an emotional response or react to what I'm doing negatively then you are wrong and you can't be hurt because my emotions are valid"

And that's a recipe for disaster

Your emotions are valid to feel. They are how you feel and there are reasons you feel the way you do

However, your reactions and behaviour are something you can learn to control and can be irrational

We live in a society and we as people change each other as we interact and that isn't necessarily a bad thing

All the proportionate social skills of a spider.

A reeeeeally big one.

Truly Peter your superpower is fucking up your social life. Amazing Spiderman 17