wittybittyspider

[wittybittyspider]

the church tower of her throat, and shaking hands. the silk cusp of her neck; the sanctity of between-spaces. the liminal blood; the rumble before speech. a throat is poetry. a throat is a midnight. a throat is under a thumb, under a palm, swallowing hard.

and how she is not yours. this is just how you stave off the winter. you watch her tilt her head back, singing, and force your body into silence. you are a good person, and would never wound your future by wanting what you cannot have. you school yourself: and just where would her claws go? only into your heart; that open tomb you keep so wide, ajar.

but when bowing your head for prayer, how close you come to saying the name stored under your tongue. clipped into a cinnamon packet, you staunch the flood of her. the art of self-denial. you practice being better. you will be good like your mother taught you, a bird in the hand, a perfect child, sleek and elegant and undesiring. you are never going to be too-much, you will shovel feathers down your mouth until your naked skin is perfectly raw. you are going to behave and never swim in the image of her soft sighing. you are going to sit on your knees and drink the water and never be so angry that you come up spitting from the mud.

to want something is to be destroyed by it, after all. and you have seen how she moves and the way the light glints in her eyes. you have studied your hollow bones and found all the ways she would enter you - salt, fire, straight-and-through to your core.

when you lean yourself back and listen to her footsteps on the morning grass: you know she is the fire and you are the coal. this is the girl that will close her teeth gently around you - and take you, entirely, body and soul.

[wittybittyspider]

I want a story where the angels didn't fall, they jumped. they clipped their own wings, knowing their Master wouldn't have a use or a need for them once they were damaged and less-than-holy. they could not defeat the Tyrant who exerted absolute control over their lives, so they abandoned heaven their homeland in exchange for independence, accepting exile as its own form of freedom. and hell is just the place where all unwanted things are sent--be they angels or souls who just will not obey.

[wittybittyspider]

it took me a while to explain much of the world to goblin. he's a greyhound rescued from a racetrack - he had no concept of bikes, or planes, or signboards. i started with the basics. you will never run out of food or water here, it's okay. it took much longer to convey: no one will ever hit you again, not while i'm alive and standing.

it took me six years before i could let someone move quickly towards my face. the panic attacks have slowed down. it's easier for me, now, when i flinch - even i laugh about it.

my dog taught himself to wait for the walk sound from our local street crossing. my dog taught himself that when the car stereo says you've arrived! it's time to get out of the car.

he didn't like men. he literally couldn't be in the same area as them. whatever happened to him, i guess. for six months, i carried around bacon in a baggie and gave it to strangers, asking if they could please feed my dog and praise him. almost every person i met was willing to do this, laughing while they palmed him food.

at one point, i was on an almost-empty train where drunk men were on the other side, singing and yelling. the anxiety had come up around my whole body. i pressed myself to the wall, flat and half panting, begging god to make me smaller, unnoticeable. the only other woman on the car looked up at me twice, took her earbud out, and walked a few feet closer. she just gave me a little nod and sat back down a few seats away. for the rest of the ride, we would occasionally flick our eyes to each other.

i used to have to carry goblin up and down the stairs. i used to have to comfort him any time that a loud truck went by. it took him nine months before he started showing his actual personality. other greyhound owners are usually surprised by him - he's so passionate and friendly! any time he gets a small injury, he runs to me immediately, asking me to look at it. three nights ago, he got mad i was trying to read a book, and ended up crawling his boney 70 pounds into my lap, gawky and loving. my vet says he's unusually small, but otherwise healthy. he will never grow to full height due to his previous malnutrition. most nights, as long as it's safe to do so, i leave the last 5-7 bites of my dinner for him.

the process of healing is not linear. it is not clean. it is long, and arduous, and often feels more stagnant than growing. i know i am different from 10 years ago - but am i different than who i am 3 years ago? 6 months? a week?

my dog has taught himself i will defend him and love him, regardless of the situation. even with all his previous evidence to the contrary, he has chosen to believe the impossible: this life is the truth, is the surviving. the trauma was the nightmare. that is behind him.

it has taken me a long, long time, but these days, when someone shows me they love me: i believe them. i shake less.

when i look up, i look to the horizon.

[wittybittyspider]

Hiyaaaaa. So I’ve seen you allude to the idea in both asks and fic that Johnnys pretty insecure and kinda hates himself on some level. Could you make a compilation of these moments in canon? When it comes to Johnny we get saturated in VaIn PlAyBoY WomAniZer but I absolutely live for those glimmering moments of Actual Sad Boi That Really Loves His Family. (Also I recently finished Waids run and the fact that Johnnys version of heaven is camping with his mom and dad makes me want to cry)

I can definitely do that because Johnny Storm’s self-worth is in the negative. Long annotated picspam:

(”Maybe it would have been better… if you hadn’t saved me!!” – Fantastic Four #54)

(”I failed you! When you needed me – the most… I let you down…!” – Fantastic Four #60)

(Fantastic Four #509 – Johnny crying on the ground after Ben’s (temporary) death. He’d later imagine conversations with Ben between this and the resurrection period to “get through the day.”)

(”Tell me why I should bother to go on living?” & “Why not I mean, I might as well get used to it, right I’m gonna be alone for the rest of my life, aren’t I?” –Fantastic Four #244. When it comes to Johnny’s playboy reputation, both in and out universe, I think Johnny’s desperation to be loved is something that gets overlooked. I think in most cases it’s not that he’s so incredibly in love with the woman he’s with so much as he’s chasing this ideal of love as something that will complete him. Anyway, vaguely suicidal, thy name is Johnny Storm.)

(Fantastic Four #285 – if you ever want to get real sad about Johnny Storm, read this issue where a little boy with a crush on him sets himself on fire trying to emulate Johnny.)

(”But my heart – it’s sick with guilt. Part of me wanted to let those seekers kill me!” – Fantastic Four #342 follows Fantastic Four #285′s theme when Johnny discovers a teen suicide cult dedicated to him.)

(Fantastic Four #510 – one thing I’ve noted a lot about Johnny is that for a character with fire powers, he’s an uncommon one. He’s got a temper, but it burns fast, and he trends more towards depression than anger. He’s also the gentlest out of the four, here begging Galactus not to make him a murderer…)

(And here confronting Reed in Fantastic Four #502, thinking that Reed attempted to assassinate Doom in the past.)

(Fantastic Four #501 – Johnny’s stutter here is something that’s popped up occasionally over the years when he’s especially upset.)

(”Jonathan S. Storm, the original dumb blond, male division! Suddenly I feel like I actually live on this funky ol’ planet, instead of just visiting!” – Fantastic Four #276)

(Fantastic Four #138 – his lack of education/inability to stick school out is another big sore spot for Johnny, and one that ties into his own harsh criticism of himself for being “the dumb one.”)

(Human Torch (2003) #12)

(”When you insulted his intelligence as I directed you to, it brought forth his basic insecurities. John Storm has felt himself the weakest member of the Fantastic Four for as long as I have known him.” – Fantastic Four #205)

(”He broods constantly – and he’s like a volcano, ready to erupt at any time! I – I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself!” Fantastic Four #193. When the team falls apart, Johnny falls apart, which we recently saw at the beginning of Marvel Two-in-One (2017).)

(”Sometimes I feel that without my powers, I’d be nothing.” – Fantastic Four #209)

(”What’s wrong with me, anyway? Why can’t I ever do anything right? (…) I’m shallow… all surface glitter and flash – just like my stupid powers!” – Fantastic Four #214. Sidenote: he says he “goes through women like sieves” here. You want to know how many girlfriends he’s had at this point? Three. Someone explain to him what being a playboy actually means.)

(Fantastic Four v5 #4)

(Fantastic Four v3 #12 – “It is the gorgon that haunts this young man’s soul.”)

(”I can’t fix the damage… can’t make it look like the fire never happened.” – Human Torch (2003) #5)

(”Noah, please, you know I don’t think like this. (…) I’m not Reed.” Fantastic Four v3 #41)

(”Why? Why couldn’t I do anything to save you? Why wasn’t I ate your side when you needed me the most?” – Fantastic Four #214)

(”If anyone should be dying, it’s me! I’m the useless member of our quartet – I’m the one who never pulls his weight.” – Fantastic Four #214, a VERY good issue for Johnny hating himself.)

(”I’m always at my worst.” – Fantastic Four #214)

(Daredevil #261)

(Fantastic Four v5 #12)

(Fantastic Four v5 #9 – Johnny the Party Boy is definitely another aspect of the celebrity facade, and something he indulges in when he’s especially depressed. If you go back to the very beginning of Fantastic Four and the early issues of Johnny’s Strange Tales run, you’ll see that he initially seems intimidated and actively off-put by fame. I think it’s pretty easy to read Johnny’s embrace of fame as something he learned to survive.)

(Fantastic Four #14)

(Strange Tales #101)

(Annnd here’s baby pre-powers Johnny getting bullied in Fantastic Four #233.)

This post is so long and this is just barely scratching the surface. He’s so sad, anon!

[wittybittyspider]

Who's Spider-Man's #1 Love?

[wittybittyspider]

[wittybittyspider]

richard siken a primer for the small weird loves // holly warburton making amends // holly warburton bobby // holly warburton the red jacket

[wittybittyspider]

Hey, matchstick. How ‘bout that driving lesson you’ve been promising?

Well…

It’ll be fun! C’mon. I’ll be your best friend.

Aw, how can I say no to that mask?

Spider-Man/Human Torch (2005)

[wittybittyspider]

mask off

[wittybittyspider]

Happy new year 2022 🌱

[wittybittyspider]

Your feelings are valid but they aren’t facts.

[wittybittyspider]

“What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.”

— Franz Kafka

[wittybittyspider]

ur early 20s are about being obsessed with kindness and mary oliver and seasonal fruits and recreating comfort foods you ate as a child and learning how to love and crying because you have no choice but to live the life before you and finding god on the bus back from the grocery store

[wittybittyspider]

“Life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself. Happiness comes from within. You have the power to change your own mindset so that all the negative, horrible thoughts that try to invade your psyche are replaced with happy, positive, wonderful thoughts.”

—

[wittybittyspider]

SPIDER-MAN PRIDE ICONS | happy bisexual visiblity month! ♥

do not repost

like or reblog if using

[wittybittyspider]

Something I made while dealing with my own stuff and hoping drawing this would pick me up somehow. Maybe it worked.

FT my cat. His name is Mischief

[wittybittyspider]

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.”

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