stephrc79:

inkskinned:

ive been on tumblr a long time and i remember when everyone said “oh don’t romanticize mental illness” and it was agreed that doing that was gross and a good way to kill people indirectly

but somehow we’ve come full circle and there are people who legit defend their right to be anti-recovery there are people who don’t want to get better and spread the idea that you can’t get better as if it’s gospel and it’s fucking frightening to me bc nobody seems to want to say “hey? this is toxic and untrue and is your disease speaking, and it’s not something you should accept.”

and i feel like every recovery post gets about 500 of these people saying “this isn’t something that will work” “cool karen i’m depressed” “maybe it worked for you but it won’t work for other people” and that’s… just… im so sorry if you’re 15. i’m sorry if you’re in high school and watching grown adults tell you it doesn’t get better. that nobody says that with time and help and patience the world stops being so heavy, that accepting your illness as a fact is one thing but accepting it as the only way to be is just wrong, that you can learn to live with it and still find some degree of “happy”…. if i had seen this shit back when i was … oh god starting at 12 when i was already self-harming …. i think i’d have actually honest-to-god killed myself. not a joke, not a funny tumblr punchline, i would have actually just killed myself. 

i’m saying this right here and right now to the adults on this site. if you for any reason shoot down positivity that’s causing no harm – you might have indirectly worsened someone else’s condition, and you should try and do better in the future. if you find it necessary to tell people “recovery is a lie”, you need to do better. i know everyone has different circumstances, but i also know that mental illness behaves in such a way that everyone thinks they can’t recover.  if you feel like you should be spreading the Word Of Relapse, you are causing toxic language to be normalized and you need to do better. 

im team “cool karen ive got depression and that means i’m going to try this because i’ve got to try something” i’m team “romanticize recovery” i’m team “it isn’t working now but it might in the future and it’s worth staying to find out” im team “hey this didn’t work for me but it might help somebody else out”

fuck guys it shouldn’t be an unpopular opinion to say “i don’t want any of you to die”.

Oh thank fuck someone finally said it!

Well said!! 💕

Aloy: and then I was like ‘oh no you didn’t, you did NOT just go there’

Nil: uh huh

Aloy: and he was like ‘you’re just a motherless chuff’

Nil: yeah go on

Aloy: and then I was like ‘dude you’re only fit to guard the latrines’ and I slammed the door in his face

Nil: that’s awesome babe I’m proud

Aloy: thanks boo it was pretty awesome

(Note: yes, I got these photos by fighting Nil in one playthrough. @vythika96 made me do it!! But then I reloaded a previous save!! 😅)

Headcanon: Sona and Nil do NOT like each other, but grudgingly respect each other’s strength. 

Nil gave a tiny sigh that only Varl could hear, then tapped his Focus. His eyes darted around the ruins, then he tapped the Focus again and turned to Sona and Varl. “Fifteen,” he murmured. Varl nodded, then started to slip away to circle the camp and take position on the opposite side as he usually would, but Nil surprised him by speaking again. “I’ll take point. You two can snipe.” He started to slide towards the nearest bandit.

“Stop,” Sona hissed. Nil slowly turned to look at her with a dangerous scowl. “What?”

“Our young hunters must do this. That’s why we’re here,” Sona growled.

Nil’s shoulders slumped visibly, even despite his crouched position in the grass. “I thought we were demonstrating for them.”

“No,” Sona replied. “This is their hunt. It is their first time being bloodied.”

“How fortunate for them,” Nil interjected. Varl shot him a quick glance of bemusement; he sounded oddly resentful.

Sona glared fiercely at him. “Don’t you dare be glib. This is a grave moment.”

“Graves won’t be necessary. Just leave the bodies. They’ll be a festive touch of red for these green lands of yours.” Nil smirked, then gave Sona a chiding look. “It’s only fifteen bandits. It’s hardly a challenge. I could kill all of them on my own.”

“It’s not about the number,” Varl explained quietly. “It’s about making that leap to taking a human life. It’s not easy.”

Nil looked at him like he was crazy, then smiled. “Of course it is. It’s easy and fun. I could do this half-addled with Scrappersap.”

Goosebumps suddenly rippled across the back of Varl’s neck as Nil smiled at him with those eerie metallic eyes, and Varl realized with a chill that Nil wasn’t joking.

Varl was stunned anew when his mother slowly stood from the grass, despite the nearby bandit threat. Nil stood as well, but somehow Sona still managed to stare down at him, even though he was half a head taller than her. Varl gazed up at both of them, a fresh wave of anxiety washing over him as two of the most dangerous people he’d ever known faced each other like a pair of angry Ravagers.

Read the rest on AO3.

pikapeppa:

Headcanon: Nil tolerates pain better than anyone Aloy knows, but he’s a total baby when he gets sick. 

Once she’d caught a rabbit for their dinner, Aloy returned to the fire and was mildly gratified to find that Nil had drunk the ochrebloom-and-winterfresh tea as she’d commanded, but he looked more miserable than ever as she skinned the rabbit and set it on a spit to roast. “I can’t breathe through my nose,” he complained; indeed, his voice had a distinctly hyponasal sound.

Aloy bit the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing. She kneeled in front of him with her little pot of winterfresh ointment, then gently rubbed some of the ointment on his chest and dabbed a tiny bit under his nose. “This should help,” she told him softly. Then, in an equally soft voice, she asked, “Did you whine this much when you got sick as a soldier?”

Nil recoiled from her, looking deeply offended. “I am not whining,” he protested, and Aloy finally laughed. It was hard to take his offense seriously when he sounded so stuffy. “Then what would you call it?” she asked.

Nil folded his arms petulantly. “I’m stating facts,” he said. Aloy rolled her eyes, then crawled back towards the fire to turn the spitted rabbit. “Well, try stating your facts more quietly so I don’t have to hear them,” she replied.

Suddenly Nil grabbed her waist and dragged her back towards him, then nuzzled her face roughly, smearing the winterfresh ointment from his nose onto her cheek. Aloy squealed in disgust and struggled to free herself, but his strong arms were locked around her, keeping her captive in his lap. “Nil! You’re disgusting! Let me go!” she cried.

He snickered vindictively. “Never,” he purred against her ear. “You’re stuck with me and my whining. I hope you enjoy germs as much as I know you enjoy hunting bandits.”

“I really don’t enjoy either,” she insisted haughtily, but she stopped struggling against his embrace. Even when he was gross and infectious, Aloy couldn’t help but appreciate the heat of his arms wrapped around her.

But his words had given her an idea. If anything would perk Nil up and bring him out of his complaint-laden funk, it was hunting bandits.

Read the rest on AO3. 

Ughhhh I am home sick today so reblogging this seems appropriate.

On the plus side: SICK DAY = FROZEN WILDS YAY

I’ve barely ventured out of the first settlement in Frozen Wilds and already I’m in love. I was moved to write a little ficlet about it. Spoilers for the first 5 minutes only!

Aloy panted for breath and doubled over, her hands on her trembling knees. “Daemonic Scorcher is right,” she muttered to herself as she glared at the sparking remains of the foreign machine. Yariki hadn’t been kidding with her implicit warning to turn around and go back.

But Aloy couldn’t help but feel satisfied with her kill. Slowly she limped over to the Scorcher’s inert form and pried the lens from the casing. Then she made her way over to the nearest Banuk torch and inspected the lens curiously in the torch’s glowing blue light.

Like all machine lenses, it was round; it was as large as a Ravager’s lens but twice as thick, and yet surprisingly light. Aloy pocketed the lens, then continued slowly on her way up the mountain path.

Just as she was about to turn a bend in the path, Aloy glanced briefly over her shoulder… and she stopped dead in wonder. Slowly she turned, her mouth open in awe as she craned her neck back and stared at the sky.

Ribbons of green and violet light were strung across the stars, wavering and dancing like ribbons in a stream. The slow, undulating dance of foreign lights in the sky was almost hypnotizing in its beauty. In all her life, everything she’d seen from the Sacred Lands to the Sundom, Aloy had never seen anything like this.

Aloy drew in a deep breath. The air was ice-cold, but somehow she felt warm, heated from the inside by something hotter than fire: the burning drive for discovery and adventure.

A small smile curved her lips. “Let’s see what the Cut has in store, then,” she whispered to the sky. Aloy tossed her hair over her shoulder, then continued to follow the blue lights up the mountain.

She was ready.