ITS JANEEEE

birthay

Daily Affirmations

I. am. enough.

I am. a beautiful person.

Everything. is going to be okay.

I am deserving. of love.

My balls. are huge.

I am allowed. to feel happy.

old vs. new (like a year and a half difference)

The narrator has never seen Tyler show any form of affection towards anyone. His *thing* with Marla was pure lust diguised as misconstructed affection, something Tyler was particularly good at. But there was always something more to their relationship; a small hand movement, reaching for the Narrator in the hall when the latter passed to get out of the house. It took some time for this seed to grow into something; and it was quiet, always. Whatever Tyler did, as shocking or out of character as it might be, it was never to be mentioned in the moment nor anytime after it. It was like a dirty secret, hidden away in the darkest corners of a mind too complexed by violent emotions to fully grasp its concept.

It started out slow, the hand finally reaching the back of the Narrator's shirt as he's walking out the door.

"Tyler?" The Narrator had said, in slight confusion more than judgment. But it was too late, the damage was instantaneous and Tyler let go, turning around with a quiet " ...'thing", walking away from his friend back into the house. The further in he went the more painful his thoughts became, clawing at him like odors of ammonium or gas from a stove left open nearby.

Whatever was happening to him, it would be kept quiet.

After this instance, it took at least a month for something of a similar nature to occur again. It was after a rough night at Fight Club, a combination of exhaustion from the Narrator and a particularly wound up man, tall and muscular, ready to eat at the Narrator. After the fight, Tyler helped the Narrator walk home, serving as a cane to his slightly broken up friend.

Once they got home, the Narrator took his arm off, ready to nurse himself back to health on his own, as was custom between the two men. As he looked at Tyler walking up the stairs, he suddenly noticed a movement in Tyler's hand, a movement indicating "Come, follow me." Of course, he did just that.

Once up on the second floor, Tyler walked to their common bathroom, where all their medicine and treatments were somewhat neatly arranged together in the cabinet above the sink. Tyler closed the lid to the toilet, and signed to the Narrator to sit down on it. Taken aback by the strange actions of his once "show me pity and I will make you regret it" roomate, the Narrator simply followed orders like a lost puppy, positioning himself somewhat comfortably on the closed seat. After a short instant, Tyler came closer, holding bandages and disinfectant. The Narrator could barely believe his eyes.

"Tyler? What are y-"

"Sh." That was it. Nothing more, nothing less, just a short sound and a finger on the mouth. Then, there was an understanding between them: if this is to happen again, I want not a single word spoken.

So, in total silence, Tyler gently dabbed the Narrator's cuts and bruises, applying the right treatments and whatnot to every area in need of such. The Narrator watched, in awe, expecting to get thrice the treatment he got at Fight Club from Tyler. But once the ordeal was over, Tyler simply cleaned up, put everything back in its place, and that was done. The Narrator sat there for another fifteen minutes, pondering on the meaning of Tyler's actions, if there were any. Eventually he simply let go, understanding this was perhaps another of Mother Nature's great mysteries. He didn't see Tyler for the rest of the night, probably exhausted from that small showing of affection towards someone some would consider their closest friend. The Narrator went to sleep, accepting that maybe, Tyler just needed to make a right to undo a wrong he had done earlier, or just something to make it make sense. But it never really did in the end.

This instance is what really set the ball in motion, though very slowly. After that, it was shoulders touching on the bus where they previously had empty spaces, even a small accidental touch wouldve set off an alarm of shame onto every unknowing citizen within a 50 mile radius. The Narrator took it in, looking in slight disbelief the first time, but quickly accepting it, even embracing it after a few times. After that, another unspoken thing evidently, came the hands touching. When they'd sit next to each other, no matter the place, if the Narrator had his hand openly placed next to Tyler, the latter would arrange his hand to brush the Narrator's slightly, briefly, like the fleeting appearance of a shooting star in a moonless night sky. Since the Narrator never pulled away from these moments, Tyler slowly became more forward, purposefully placing his hand next the Narrator's, their skin now touching, burning, yearning. It never went further than that, at least not with the hands.

But sometimes, when there was nothing to do, and they were both too lonely to read medical magazines separated in their rooms, they'd sit on the desolate amalgamation of pillows and duvets they affectionately called a couch downstairs, turn on the tv, and simply place their bodies in close proximity, their skin and clothes comfortably against the other's. The Narrator was used to this by now, and simply appreciated what little acknowledgement Tyler had regarding him. These moments were like drops of heaven to two repressed and touch-starved men, both too wind up on old-school ideas of what is right or wrong, what is deserving of pain and suffering and what is pure and innocent.

They had both immensly suffered from the association of simple feelings to hatred and loathing, burying everything far beneath the earth, where no mortal man would ever be capable of digging them up, sentencing them to a lifetime of suffering at the hands of people with clouded judgments.

This was their redemption.

crybaby learns how to swim - subtitled

just give me an angsty bodyswap au!

me: *looks for fic with extremely specific scenario that I made up*

fic: *doesn’t exist*

me:

last week i woke up from one of the most fucked up nightmares ive ever had with that middle panel burned into my brain. like the exact wording and the exact apartment and the exact squidward. i feel like if i didnt make it real something bad wouldve happened. anyway todays upload is spunchbob comic oc

i know my ass is up too late because i’m losing my fucking mind over accidentally typing george of the gungle

me and @a-forsteri were talking about how the narrator like, desperately wants someone to tell him his life is fucked up, what he does is fucked up, he desperately wants someone to respond with the gravity he desires.

Like, he tells these people on the plane what he does. Trying to fuck with them. Desperately hoping!! One of them will go: holy shit!!! That's really fucked up how do you live with that!!! But all he gets is people thinking he's the freak and just asking what car company he works for. Because it is easier to pretend he himself is the problem, maybe just his company, rather than actually face and recognize the systemic, widespread nature of what he's saying.

It leans together with his sense of where he is in his office, too. He feels separate from all these people. They feel fake. They feel like people going on as normal even though they're all working to hasten the apocalypse, and no one acknowledges it! They're all perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to any of the distant consequences of their actions. That is what their jobs are for. Keep them up in the cubicles, nicely fed and watered with inflated salaries, and then they'll have no issue with the distant sense that they may be contributing to a corrupt system. They can't change the system, but they need to feed their kids, so hell, just don't think about it too much.

But he doesn't have that option. He is the one who actually does go out into the field and he sees the direct result of all of their collective actions, but especially his. Every crash related to a faulty part he sees is because someone like him before him, or him himself, ran the formula and let this happen. He has no choice but to see the very real result of his actions.

And he feels INSANE over it. Because he returns to the office and it's just numbers. Applying the formula. Hearing your coworkers chat about a potluck. You're not contributing to a horrific system, you ARE the horrific system, and it's like you're the only one who sees that. He literally cannot sleep over it.

And when you tell people about it, they try to minimize it. To your company, to you. Because that is easier than acknowledging just how many things have to be corrupt and uncaring of human life to allow this to be the case. It's too much. Stick your head in the sand.

He desperarely wants someone to scream at him: how could you do that? How could anyone do that? Why is this allowed to happen? Doesn't anyone see something wrong here?

He imagines his plane crashing. Free him from this. The burden of every piece of normality manufactured for satiating any thought and discomfort he has about his job. It's all petty, pointless fluff. It's putting some artificial grass on the feedlot. Why does everything and everyone say it's all worth it for this garbage?

He wants someone to tell him all this. He doesn't want to be alone. He already feels catastrophically alone. In his life, whenever he talks about this, whenever he does anything. He loves the support groups because you're allowed to have abject misery there. You rejoice in it. Everyone's life is falling apart and ending and nothing means anything good ever. They're all honest about it, too. He plays coy when he talks about his job, but these people, everyone knows they're falling apart, and it's recognized and treated as the horror it is. This is freedom. Hitting bottom is freedom.

But he's supposed to be happy, because he's got his cushy little IKEA nest. It is only when people think he also has cancer and parasites causing his deep dissociation from his own life and general aura of resentment and misery that it's treated as something that isn't just... an individual flaw. Because it's easier for there to be something wrong with him than for that thing wrong with him to be how society makes him be this way. Rewards him for it.

So he invents someone. Tyler. To stop his little dance. To interrupt him. Drag him away and tell him all those little sundries are meaningless. Like he knows. But now he has someone saying it's true. The world IS falling apart. Everything is fucked up. It's everything he knows and has been too cowardly to say and now he finally has someone to say it for him and push to make some changes in his life. To expect him to actually do something. To feel his rage for him. And it's a catch-22, because a large part of what he hates about himself is that he's too cowardly and noncommittal to just do this all on his own.

rtc production where karnak insists jane died at the same time as the choir did with them, but she dances in styles that went out of style decades ago and the way she talks is just different enough than the choir does to raise alarm