#my emotional response to it might be because I'm on my period but who fucking cares

[jewishcissiekj]

Every time Yoda: Dark Rendezvous describes the relationship between Sidious and Dooku and the way it reflects Dooku and Asajj's own something in me breaks. by the end of this book I'll be a shattered vase.

#yael is reading star wars #daily asajj thought of the day #tearing off my skin #biting my fingers #in agony in pain it's ugh #this is THE Asajj and Dooku legends book #i'll see how it amounts to jedi lost when i finish it #asajj ventress #dooku #count dooku #yoda: dark rendezvous #darth sidious #ventress #sw #star wars #my emotional response to it might be because I'm on my period but who fucking cares

[delulujuls]

emotional support rivals | ls18, sp11

hi! i dont know how to comment on this one, basically i thought that i would try to tame sergio and lance a bit because i know that some people may not like them as much. but they did pretty well here!

anyway, enjoy!

summary: reader is having the worst day of her life aka first day of her period, lance and sergio dont know how to act but they tryna be supportive

warnings: none i think

pairing: lance stroll x fem!mclarendriver x sergio perez

This day was terrible. And that was it.

But you might ask, how could a day be terrible when it hadn't even had a chance to start? Y/N just felt in her bones that this would be the case. She also knew her current schedule of duties, which considering the current jetlag that weighed heavily on her mind, added quite a bit to her already full plate.

Of course, days like these were allowed to exist; balance in life was the norm. Nevertheless, Y/N fervently wished for this one to, as soon as possible, come to an end.

Unfortunately, a quick end was out of the question, as her alarm had just rung. She struggled to open her sleepy eyes and saw the gloomy 6:30 on her phone's display.

She sighed and sat up in bed, feeling an unpleasant sensation in her stomach. She was familiar with this feeling and it signaled one thing and one thing only.

"Oh no, it can't be."

Y/N muttered under her breath and quickly reached for her phone, opening one of the apps. The notification confirmed her worst fear. "Your period may start today!"

"Fantastic, just fucking fantastic."

In a already bad mood, she tossed her phone into the pillows and got up with a symphony of groans, sighs and curses. As soon as she got out of bed she checked the sheets but the snowy white fabric assured her that today would be a one big roulette of waiting for her period to start.

When she showered and got ready to leave, she also packed her emergency kit for days like this. She had to use it partially though, because the pain in her stomach was simply unbearable. And it wasn't the typical stomach ache that everyone thinks of when they hear 'oh no, my stomach hurts' but this stomach pain was the Lance Stroll of all stomach pains. It doesn't seem to hurt too much, but it spoils your whole mood with its terrible nature.

Since talking about Stroll, it happened like that she still had practice laps that day, which she failed to pass while everyone else did. As it turned out, the same task was waiting for Lance, because in the cafeteria, apart from the busy employees, there was him. And that damn Mexican, too.

"What time are you supposed to be on the track?"

Checo asked from behind her when she was grabbing breakfast from one of the swedish tables.

"What happened to 'hi, good morning'? 'Buenos dias,' at least?"

She muttered, pouring syrup on her pancakes.

"Normally you don't talk to me, so I figured there's no point in trying."

He replied, somewhat thrown off by her response.

"Hello Sergio, nice to see you too and yes, it just happens that we're stuck with each other today. I'm on at 10am, you're ahead of me at 9, and that Aston idiot is at 11."

Y/N said sarcastically, putting on the nicest tone she could muster.

Sergio didn't know how to respond, so when she turned to leave for her table, he simply stepped out of her way.

Lance ate in silence, observing the scene quietly. He was watching the McLaren sun, today completely covered by stormy clouds, going away and sitting alone. Inadvertently his gaze met with Checo, who just shook his head and returned to choosing his breakfast.

Y/N sighed heavily, sitting at one of the empty seats. She ate absentmindedly, not used to the absence of Oscar and Lando. They had different things to attend to that day, so it wasn't unlikely that they wouldn't even cross paths. Maybe it was even better for them; each of them would probably receive a monthly dose of sulking. The charms of being the only girl in the company could be really tough at times.

And it's not that Y/N was a pain in the ass only for Oscar and Lando. She got along well with most people she interacted with daily. A few times she even went out with other girls; she wasn't limiting herself to the company of guys only. Unfortunately, Oscar and Lando had happened to take a particular liking to each other, which made the trio basically unseparable.

There were people with whom she didn't have frequent contact, or with whom she only exchanged smiles in passing but she had never had the chance to exchange a word.

It's also known that in life you can't be liked by everyone and not everyone can be liked by you. In this case, there was no magical exception. It just so happened that she would spend today in the company of those people who sat at the other end of the cafeteria, occasionally throwing her stolen glances.

After finishing her meal, the girl got down to her duties, wanting to bring this day to an end as quickly as possible. At the appointed time, she appeared on the track, quickly changing into her racing suit. She put on her helmet and after a brief discussion of notes, she sat in the car. That's when she felt that something was wrong. The worst-case scenario flashed before her eyes.

"Can I quickly go to the bathroom?"

She asked, looking at the technician nearest to her.

"We're a bit behind schedule. Can it wait?"

Y/N resignedly nodded. She knew there was nothing left to salvage.

She adjusted her straps and when she got the signal to leave the garage, she drove outside and headed straight for the track. After the radio test and receiving permission to start, she clenched her fists and roared the engine.

She was angry and as it's known, there's nothing worse than a female rage.

She was angry at this day, at herself, at this damn car. She was angry at the bloodstain on her damn orange suit, even though she hadn't seen it yet.

She was so hormonal that if it weren't for the helmet restricting her movements, she would have screamed at the top of her lungs.

However, female anger was priceless.

"Best lap time, I repeat, best lap time."

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, not responding to the message.

In moments like this, she didn't care about anything. And it's pretty well known that a person who doesn't care has nothing to lose.

When the session ended and she received the message that she could pull into the pit lane, she complied. Mechanics rolled her into the garage and only then did it dawn on her that her hands were still clenched on the steering wheel. When she managed to free herself from the car, she immediately checked her seat. She cursed under her breath and took off her helmet, placing it aside. Quickly grabbing the nearest rag, she began to wipe away the stain of shame on her seat. The technician, whom she asked about going to the bathroom before the start, when he realized what had happened and what she was doing, just gave her an apologetic look.

She unzipped her suit and slid its top off, covering the stain on her backside. Zac wanted to congratulate her on the result and discuss the outcomes, but she apologized and grabbed her emergency kit, heading straight to the bathroom. She changed into her unstained clothes, guarded against another unpleasant surprise and bundled up the suit, muttering under her breath that a visit to the laundry awaited her later that day.

When she returned to the McLaren garage, Zac, upon seeing her, immediately smiled.

"Young lady, you charmed us today! You literally flew in that car!"

"I guess that's good, I think."

The girl replied, mustering a smile as she glanced at the monitors in front of her.

"Good? It's brilliant!"

Zac replied with a smile and checked his notes.

"After checking the car, I would ask you to put on your suit again for a moment because we need to do a few more laps on different tires."

"I thought that was it for today."

Y/N replied, looking at him.

"Now, you were driving on mediums; it would be good to know what time you can achieve on the hard compound."

The girl tightened her suit under her armpit.

"But—"

She started, but it felt silly, so she lowered her voice and approached him, "My suit is not suitable."

"How so? What happened?"

He frowned and looked at the bundle she was holding.

"I won't be able to drive in it anymore today."

Zac looked confused, so she just said "period" without using any words. He quickly understood and immediately nodded his head.

"Ask someone if we have another suit in stock. It would mean a lot to me if we could finish these tests today."

Y/N nodded and walked away, sighing heavily when she was out of his reach. However, as it turned out, racing suits are not as straightforward as one might think and the only McLaren suit in this garage was hers—rolled up into a ball of shame and unfit for use. One of the women upon hearing her situation only gave her a comforting hug and suggested borrowing a suit from Sergio or Lance, taking advantage of the fact that they were only drivers nearby. The situation was exceptional and it was all about internal measurements.

Disheartened by the fact that she would be forced to confront the men, she left the garage and looked around. Checo and Lance were sitting nearby, chatting in front of the Aston Martin garage. Y/N gathered herself and approached them, causing them to immediately pause their conversation.

"Can I borrow a suit from either of you?"

"You drive for McLaren, not for Aston or Red Bull."

Sergio said, taking a sip from his bottle. The girl involuntarily clenched her fists. Be professional, she thought and took a deep breath.

"If I didn't have to, I wouldn't ask. I need a suit; mine... is not suitable for driving."

"What happened?"

Lance asked, glancing at her. His expression lacked the hint of malice that Sergio currently possessed.

"I just need one; is that not enough?"

"Give a good reason and I might even give you mine."

Pérez said, crossing his arms.

"I just got my period which means my suit is having a fucking bloodstain on my ass and even though I feel like they're cutting me in half completely alive I have to do some extra laps because this fucking fat idiot didn't think about pitstop to change my tyres and let me go straight to the track" Y/N she spoke quietly and calmly, but her voice was dripping with fury "So do me the pleasure and let one of you give me your overalls before something hits me, for fucks sake."

Lance and Sergio stood still. Sergio's face lost its fierce expression and Lance suddenly realized that he had started holding his breath out of stress.

"I'll give you mine, no problem."

Stroll spoke up, starting to unzip his suit.

"Yours is light, you idiot; if something happens again, everything will be visible."

Pérez scolded him and turned his gaze back to the girl.

"Wait a moment; I'll bring you mine right away."

Y/N nodded and watched him leave.

"Do you feel very bad?"

Lance asked, looking at her. He couldn't wrap his head around how the girl standing in front of him, bleeding and all, could endure such a great strain and still set the best lap time.

"It's been better."

She sighed.

Lance, not knowing exactly what to do or how to help, reached out his hand with a bottle in it. Y/N looked at the bottle first and then at his face. Seeing that he was genuinely concerned, she whispered a quiet 'thanks' and took the water from him.

Sergio returned shortly after, handing her his suit.

"I hope it'll fit well for you."

The girl handed back Lance his water and thanked Pérez as well.

"Good luck, tigresa."

Y/N nodded at them one last time and returned to the garage, changing into the borrowed suit and taking her place in the car again.

As she sat there, waiting for permission to leave the pit lane, she noticed that she wasn't angry anymore, at least not as much as she was some time ago. When she drove out and headed towards the track, she passed Lance and Sergio once again, who were giving her thumbs up.

For the first time that day Y/N genuinely smiled and who would have thought it would be thanks to her rivals, who had now become her emotional support ones?

#f1 imagines #f1 one shot #f1 #formula 1 #f1 oneshots #f1 imagine #lance stroll x reader #sergio perez x reader #sp11 #ls18

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

18 on the choose violence 😏

EDIT: As y'all may have guessed, my queue I was saving drafts of these in was running last night and I forgot to switch the time over so here's the real answer.

18 - It's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on: you want me to CHOOSE?!? You expect me to CHOOSE just ONE character from Sandman that the fandom sleeps on?!?!?!? Oh, jail for 1000 years - well let me spin the roulette wheel Rose and Jed.

ROSE. God I'm emotional about her. She's been through so much, the loss of her baby brother with a father who it's implied was not the nicest, lost her mother and her best friend in the same year, and she nearly destroyed the world but yknow what, she literally did nothing wrong here. She called Dream an asshole and totally got away with it. She's got gay hair and gayer friends (fellow bi!Rose truthers anyone???? Hello??? Someone else please discuss, queer people do all tend to flock together) and I hope she gets everything she wants.

I really want to explore the possibilities of a growing relationship with her and her immortal family sometime. Morpheus isn't just going to forget about her and Jed and him looking out for her baby brother is the only way I can see her kind of starting to warm up to him again. Like I WANT to see that weird tense but possibly loving relationship explored. Dream clearly respected her intelligence and wanted to give her more information (even if he was also using her to find the Corinthian which. Not cool).

(Also I think she'd go NUTS for the library of Dreams. Like she's a writer and suddenly she's seeing all the books never published?? Who wouldn't want to read them all?)

I have feelings about the parallels between her and Death. Plus I have a hc as some of my friends already know, that in one of Rose's low moments Despair finds her and something about the fact that this girl is family tugs at her. She has her function and her duties but she also has a sense of loyalty. So that could cause some seriously juicy potential internal conflict for her AND Rose honestly kind of needs an outlet for her bottled up grief and the weightof responsibility she feels. For Jed, for Lyta and her son...feel free to ask or dm me if you want to know more this post is already long enough xD

(And the fact that in a series where she's ONE OF THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTERS for multiple episodes of this series she gets so much less attention ON HER OWN SELF - I'm talking art and fic overall PERIOD, let alone stuff where she gets any interiority of her own or her character taken seriously is just. I don't even know man)

jED. My precious baby boy my son. I want to give him a hug. I want to wrap him in a warm blanket and give him cocoa and as much popcorn as he wants. Dream's reaction to Jed was in fact channeling me. This kid has been through too much and he deserves to live a happier life with his sister, so thank God he's gonna get it.

(But also does anyone wanna talk to me about the fact that Jed is a possible candidate for Dream's successor when he's older and might be even more viable than MASSIVE COMIC SPOILER ALERT Daniel Hall and all the ways this could complicate things HELLO.)

Miranda Walker - either the gif search function is broken which isn't beyond the realm of possibility here, or I couldn't find one gif of her in this show. And I KNOW people have made them I just can't find one...sigh

But I really want her to get more attention because her story is so potentially fascinating even if she barely got any screen time. Like this girl is the granddaughter of Desire, that must've massively impacted her life. I want to know how she dealt with the relationship with her children's father going sour and him taking Jed away and her struggling to raise her kids.

And last but certainly not least drumroll please...UNITY. That's right we're giving the whole Walker-Kincaid family some love!!

HER. The queen the legend the moment.

Her story man...it gets me emotional every time. She could've had a life in the waking world. I really want to see more about what her dream life (which we know she experienced as real, with time passing and all, because of the things she said about it) was like. Even without Desire, how did she handle basically growing up in Wonderland surrounded by dreams? (I can't take credit for the Alice in Wonderland vibes that was @violetoftheendless 's great idea.) Did she make friends and a new found family there? Did she see signs she didn't understand at the time of dreams and nightmares falling into chaos and eventually leaving the realm in a slow trickle?

But also she's just such a genuinely lovely person. She took Rose into her heart without a second thought and was prepared to take Jed - I'm sure she didn't know how much more time she had but she knew she didn't have forever, and she wanted a family again and she'd lost her own parents long ago and never gotten to say goodbye...and the kicker is, unlike in the comic where she's basically on her deathbed already, she COULD have possibly lived a little longer. But she chose to sacrifice her new life to save Rose's. If this woman doesn't deserve the Spirit of Love label like I've seen in some truly beautiful meta from @windsweptinred I don't know who does. BUT ALSO she's not a perfect inhuman angel either, she is capable of being charmed by the Corinthian, which - looking around at the fandom, one can see she's not alone so I for one can't blame her too much, but also she met the king of dreams and nightmares and within less than 5 minutes called him a himbo to his face. She's beautifully human with icon behavior and Sandra James-Young deserves all the credit in the world for this role.

#rose walker #jed walker #unity kincaid #miranda walker #choose violence ask game #the sandman #me banging pots and pans together in delight going ROSE AND JED AND UNITY ARE ALL THE BEST CHARACTERS AND I WILL DIE FOR THEM AND YOURE ALL #GONNA HEAR ABOUT IT thanks for giving me the excuse :) not that I need one

[weezly14]

so i'm not going to respond to any individual asks - this is the blanket response to all the asks i've gotten in the past few weeks asking me when i'm going to update my WIPs, if i've abandoned them, etc. i appreciate the love, i do. i miss dust to dust, and something good and right and real, and i wanna be your boyfriend, too.

i might regret being this honest later, but fuck it, it's my blog and not enough people talk about this shit.

i'm struggling with infertility. emphasis on the struggle. i'm weepy from fertility meds, in the midst of my first treatment cycle, half hope and half fear. we're "unexplained infertility," so there's no reason why it shouldn't work, except it hasn't so far, so hope feels like a dangerous thing.

for anyone who hasn't experienced this, it's a complete and total mindfuck. i don't feel like the same person i was a year ago, before all those negative pregnancy tests. i thought i'd have a baby by now, or at least be pregnant. instead, i have a shitty not even diagnosis, and Options that are both a blessing but also invasive, and expensive, and in no way a guarantee. every month i calculate when the due date would be; think about the events we have planned for next year in terms of where i could be in a pregnancy; and every month, my period arrives right on schedule, if not a day early. i have yet to see a positive pregnancy test. it's "only" been a year, and i'm "so young," but it feels like it's been ages and like i'm running out of time.

we've been forced to have conversations about money, about how far we want to go with treatment, about when we might call it. "it's too early to think about that," you might say, but one cycle of ivf could cost $16k. we have good insurance, but are we willing to undergo more than one egg retrieval? how many failed transfers before we decide the emotional toll is too high? it's better to have those conversations now, before we have to, when we can maybe make clearer decisions. would we consider donor eggs or sperm? surrogacy? what about adoption?

meanwhile, i'm watching friends and acquaintances get pregnant with no problem, as i try not to completely isolate myself and try to track ovulation, as though timing might be the problem.

(it's not.)

i'm not the person i was before all of this, and it sucks. i'm a sadder, smaller person, i think. i'm trying my best. i'm "practicing hope" or some shit, i'm doing my best to keep my head up and stop isolating, stop avoiding my pregnant best friend, stop wallowing in the grief. because it is grief. if i get pregnant, it will be because of fertility meds and doctors, it will happen in a sterile exam room, hopefully with my husband holding my hand, if he can get the time off work. there will be no spontaneous pregnancy, no surprise. there's grief in that, in letting go of what i thought this might be like, how i thought it might go.

so yes, writing fic has fallen by the wayside. not because i want it to. i just have a hard time finding the energy to do even fun things. i miss the person who could write a lot in short spans of time, who had the energy for fic. i'd like to believe i can still be that person again. i don't consider any of those fics abandoned. i've written, i've worked on things.

but, right now, it feels like my entire life, my entire being, is consumed with this struggle to get pregnant. like my life is measured by where i am in my cycle. i look at my calendar and think, that's when i'll get my period or a positive test, so i should be mindful in what i plan. i might be very happy, or i might have a very bad day.

sometimes, the bad days feel eternal.

but i'm doing what i can. i'm trying, anyway. my therapist said i should practice hope, and i'm trying to. i'm trying to let myself believe things might work out. even though the fucking meds have made me weepy as hell, i'm trying to stay positive, and envision that this cycle could work. that on christmas day, instead of my period, i'll get a positive pregnancy test.

(because going home for christmas isn't loaded enough.)

there's an old wives tale that if you wrap a baby blanket and put it under the tree, you'll have a baby by next christmas. i'm jewish, but we're an interfaith household, so we bought a baby blanket, and we're going to wrap it in hanukkah paper, and put it under the tree. we have a hope basket in the nursery - because when we moved into this house we set aside a bedroom to be the nursery, and it's empty except for that little basket of baby things we've collected over the months, in the hopes that one day we'll have a baby to dress in the little onesies or socks. we have a running list of names. this is our version of practicing hope.

this is only our first treatment cycle. things could work. or maybe the next cycle. and then, there's always ivf. some days, i feel like it'll work for us, and we will have a baby, one way or another. other days, i wonder if i shouldn't just spare myself the pain and call it now. it's exhausting, infertility.

so, to everyone who misses my writing, and wonders when i'll update again - i don't know. i miss my writing, too. i miss being the person who wasn't so consumed by fertility shit, who could indulge in hobbies. i'd like to believe i can get back to that. but not this week.

the holidays are joyous but they're also really fucking hard, so let me be your friendly reminder not to ask people when they're having kids, or why they aren't pregnant yet, and to not tell people struggling with infertility to "just adopt" or "just relax."

happy holidays.

#random life post #weezly talks about infertility #weezly talks writing

[angelicalacrimae]

why strawberry crepe cookie is very autistic coded

by: yours truly, an autistic person who happens to like the pink cookie a lot! 🌸

the chart above is what i will be using as a base for some of the behaviors they express. though i'm letting you guys know beforehand that autism looks different in everyone (obviously) and that some traits might be influenced by traumatic events in your early years of life (like what happens with Crepe.)

most of the information has been taken from canon events and stories, and some other things are just based on my own interpretation of their dialogue and the few things we know about their backstory!

we will go in parts, describing each tab in as much detail as i possibly can ...

that being said, sit the fuck down, grab some snacks, and listen to me ramble about the little pink cookie, because that's what autism made ME do. some people solve math problems, i talk about my little pink thing while i rotate them around in my head like a microwave.

before i start: spoiler warning for pretty much everything regarding Strawberry Crepe Cookie and cookie odyssey.

🌸🌸🌸🌸

i. fixations -

the fixations tab is the easiest thing to explain from this mess, since it's most of their character: robotics!Crepe shows a high interest in wafflebots! being pretty much one of the few things they talk about freely (and something they're very passionate about as a whole) and being something that takes up most of their day and routine.

there are many parts where they start rambling about the bots, being most noticeable during the cookie odyssey (they have many of these moments during their parts of the story! 🎶)

(they also seem to be messy as mentioned by Clotted Cream Cookie at some point in odyssey, unless it comes to their tools! which is. something i relate to deeply lmao. i find organizing my clothes and things pretty boring, but i enjoy organizing my art supplies for example. relaxing activities ~ i'm not sure if it IS part of a fixation but i still think it deserves a spot.)

🌸🌸🌸

ii. noise sensitivity -

this is also easy to explain: they don't like noise. one of their "default phrases" is. just that. them complaining about the noise (and mentioning that their bots are more quiet, once again tying things back to their special interest/hyperfixation.)

and this new comment from the spring 2023 event.

🌸🌸🌸

iii. aggression -

while also having canon arguments to back up this one, it can't really be used as a way to say "oh Crepe is autistic". why? because crepe has gone through trauma and was exposed to violence as a fairly young kid, specially since it wasn't really explained to them that what they did was wrong.

they are aggressive, having threatened others before ... but is it an autistic thing, or just a trauma response of some sort? i can't really tell, honestly. so i'm going to replace it with:

🦄🌸 the inability to properly identify their own emotions, something i've struggled with since i was just a little guy !!!! 🌸🦄

(or, in proper terms, i think it's called alexithymia! if this is wrong i will correct myself.)

when Pure Vanilla mentioned the time period they were alone (or with DE) they responded with: "well ... it WAS boring!"

boring, a word that seems to be quite common in their vocabulary and mine (especially as a kid, we're talking a 5-8 y/o child who struggled to properly identify their emotions and was pretty disconnected from them)

i remember always complaining of boredom, and i sometimes still mix boredom with sadness, understimulation ... you call it.

and the fact that they used the word "boring" to describe a (definitely) traumatic period of their life is. quite interesting to me!

were they truly bored, or were they sad? anxious? scared ...?

and then, once again, in the spring 2023 event, we get more of that:

it happens after the group of kids they're playing with don't listen to their attempts of communicating their discomfort and stress over the situation they're in, Crepe was trying to communicate that they weren't happy with the noise they were making and the fact that everyone was walking in different directions. (and one of the kids was being particularly hyperactive too)

so, they lashed out.

pretty self-explanatory. Crepe also isn't very good at expressing and controlling their negative emotions.

so yeah! back to the ACTUAL chart now ...

🌸🌸🌸

iv. social difficulty -

yeah, another obvious one. they struggle with socializing and seem to prefer the company of their robots and small crowds. (or older people, they seem to be a lot more nicer around Espresso. like in the christmas 2022 story)

not much to say, their socializing skills may also be affected by their trauma. (they were frozen for years as a child, abandoned by their village and then by Dark Enchantress, leading to a pretty lonely life before the events of chapter 9 and odyssey)

but i do think they're genuinely just an awkward little kid, and that's fine! they're learning at their own pace as i've mentioned in another post :)

🌸🌸🌸

v. speech pattern -

... it may be me, but their way of speaking is different of the way kids around their age express themselves usually, so i say they got an abnormal speech pattern.

they use big words and know what they mean, end of the speech tab. i don't know how a normal person speaks so i can't really say "this was supposed to be abnormal speech? but I speak like that!"

🌸🌸🌸

vi. depression / anxiety -

the depression and anxiety tab are mainly based on headcanons i branched out based on their backstory, but they may be enforced by their crunchy dreams story and their fortune: "you're not alone: love surrounds you."

it's probably not related to autism, though. it's probably because of their trauma and abandonment issues. either way it's there.

to need reassuring in something like this means that they probably cling compulsively to certain thoughts/beliefs.

which, if i remember correctly, is a thing that sometimes happens with autistic people according to other autistic people. it's like a weird fixation of sorts, i'm not 100% sure ...

the only time(s) i've seen them have some sort of anxious behavior is during their battle speech, where they panic after losing to Gingerbrave's team.

then during the spring event of 2023, where they say that they "can't think straight" because of the noise Pancake Cookie is making.

🌸🌸🌸

i'm not sure if they got any tics and fidgets, i haven't noticed anything that can classify as such, so it's one of the lowest tabs.

same with the abnormal posture. and if they got it is probably because of the being frozen thing weakening their body to an extent.

🌸🌸🌸

in conclusion! after tumblr deleted part of my post from my drafts ... _(:3」 ∠)_

i wholeheartedly believe Crepe might be an autistic coded character, whether or not is something the writers intended to do isn't clear to me, but they show SO many traits that i wouldn't be surprised if they canonically were! most of the things i mentioned are also based from my own experience and the bits i can remember form my own childhood as an undiagnosed kid, but yeah!

i hope you enjoyed this painfully long rant <3 i might make one eventually about how i think Crepe might also be physically disabled (implied), but for now, have this.

okay bye i can't post more pictures because the app sucks.

#strawberry crepe cookie #strawberry crepe crk #cookie run kingdom #long post #character analysis #autism be damned my cookie can build robots #actually autistic #autistic character

[elexuscal]

Protective prompt: “He(/she/they) said what to you?!” Murderbot & Pin-Lee. Who’s being protective? Up to you!

When movement triggered outside the door to Pin-Lee's apartment at 3am, local time, a full five days before she was due to return from a planet-side trip, I assumed the worse: i.e. GrayCris or other potentially hostile agent attempting a break-in.

0.2 seconds later-- long enough for me to be on my feet and formulating a response plan-- I registered the figure I was seeing as Pin-Lee herself, and settled back down.

Unexpected, but preferable.

Stil, once she was inside, I asked a message to confirm if she was okay. Pin-Lee waited a worrying long period of time (over five minutes), to respond with a curt 'fine'.

That rung my bullshit meter, but it wasn't any of my business, and also I didn't care. So I wasn't going to ask about it.

And I didn't ask her the next cycle, either, even when she gave my drone this really weird look.

And no. I didn't even ask her three cycles after that, when she ran into me unexpectedly within the halls of the Preservation Alliance government building, and she visibly flinched.

Flinching was fine. I could handle flinching. Flinching was just a thing people did, around SecUnits.

I wasn't going to say anything about it, and I didn't expect her to either.

Three hours later, she sent me a message: [I noticed you turned your drone off.]

I hadn't turned it off. It was in low-power mode. It would fully activate if/when certain key phrases/sounds were detected.

I didn't say anything about that.

Pin-Lee said, [I'm getting the sense I better apologise.]

[For what?] I said, before I could stop myself.

[For flinching like that, when I saw you in the hallway earlier,] she said, and then there was a 7 second pause before her next message. [It's not because I'm scared of you, or anything. I promise.]

[No one said you were.]

My drone was in hibernation, so I couldn't tell if she sighed or not. [I'm just in a weird head-space right now and you surprised me. I flinched and fucked up. Sorry.]

[Okay,] I said.

There was a long enough pause that I thought this conversation was over, and I had gotten back into my book. Then Pin-Lee said, [I got into a fight with my parents.]

[A fight?]

[Well, they called it an 'intervention'.]

[An intervention for what?]

[They said I was bot-drunk.]

They said what? [They said WHAT to you?]

[You heard me.] Pin-Lee stood up and started pacing around her office, which I could see, because I'd turned her drone back on.

Bot-Drunk was a Preservation-specific bit of slang, but most CR languages and cultures had their own equivilents, ranging from 'whales' to 'silicon sluts'. (Gross.) It referred to anyone who got sucked into an obsession with a chat bot, ComfortUnit, or other artificially-constructed personality, coming to view it-- and the supposed relationship attached to it-- as real.

[Wow.]

"They said," Pin-Lee ground out, "that I was working too hard. That I needed a break. Which, okay, fair, maybe I was! But that was why I came down to visit them, like they asked! And then they wait until I'm settled in, and all my childhood friends are there, to say hi, or so I assume. But then I come home one day and they're all gathered in the living room and…" She spluttered in a sort of wordless rage, which man, I kind of wish I could pull off. It looked cathartic.

"And THEN they sit me all down, and they remind me of the AI boyfriend I had when I was twelve, TWELVE. And they say that I'm falling into old traps again. And that they know that 'chat programs can be very convincing', but that 'a layer of fake skin might make you seem more realistic, you still need to keep some perspective on what really matters'…"

[My skin is fake? Could of fooled me.]

"Your emotions, too, apparently," she said, bitterly.

"Huh. Guess I can stop feeling so fucked up about them, then."

She laughed. Then she stopped, abruptly. "I'm sorry. I'm making this all about me."

I shrugged, remembered she couldn't see me, and said, [It's okay.]

"It's not. It's fucked up. It's fucked up that they'd treat you that way, that they'd talk like that to my face."

It was fucked up. But they weren't my family, so I didn't really care.

Except for the way they had very clearly fucked Pin-Lee up, I did. She didn't just look mad; I had seen Pin-Lee mad. Pin-Lee wore anger like armour, or a cape. It made her look distinguished and powerful.

This made her look… bad. It made her skin look blotchy and her eyes look red and her body look shaky.

Okay, yeah. Now I was pissed, actually.

[Want me to go down there? Then they can for themselves just how made-up I am.]

She laughed. It was a long, ugly, bitter laugh. "Don't tempt me, SecUnit. Do not fucking tempt me."

#murderbot diaries #flash fiction #fanfic

[phoenixyfriend]

Okay so I mentioned thinking about Bo/Aayla and @jebiknights prompted me for more thoughts on Discord so here we are!

I feel like any Bo-Katan ship is very heavily colored by shaky emotional control, denial, and having to be dragged into acknowledging her own feelings. She's probably violent with her partner at some points, secure in the knowledge that they can hold their own, and unwilling to face the ways that this might make her a suboptimal person. She's also very driven, and would react negatively to even a perceived attempt to steer her into new directions that are not the one she has decided is her true purpose. She's used to either people fitting into a very set military command structure, and having an easy if-then structure to her interactions (if S.O. follow lead. if subordinate, give orders and do not tolerate backtalk. if outsider, assume hostility).

Aayla is a good match in the sense that she is very skilled at diffusing situations and does not rise to the bait, whatever said bait may be. I imagine that, if Bo-Katan were to verbally attack her, she'd weather it with an unimpressed look, and remove herself if it got too personal (e.g. something about Bly turning on her at O66 or Quinlan going Dark that one time). If Bo-Katan gets violent in that "Death Watch fucked up my stress responses and I punch or arm bar someone if they piss me off" way, Aayla's skilled enough to maneuver her into a hold instead and keep her there until she calms down or agrees to handle her anger a different way.

Slowly, Bo would manage her anger the way Aayla keeps suggesting or angling for; she was already unlearning a lot of what she had drilled into her by Death Watch, but Aayla's steady hand and refusal to take the bullshit helps speed and steady the process, and manages the relapses better. I don't think they'd actually get together until after some amount of Bo-Katan's shift into being a non-toxic partner was already handled.

Now, the question there ends up being why Aayla would even bother being around Bo-Katan if the early period would be so heavily colored by negative interactions and Death Watch-typical violence, and that's where a plot to CAUSE them to interact is necessary. The easy answer is a post-O66 plot where Bo-Katan runs into her and decides to help Aayla (possibly still recovering from O66 injuries because she doesn't have access to real health care) get in contact with Ahsoka and the rebellion, but I've already used that plot for the CodyBo fic. My instinct is unsurprisingly time-travel (enables a 'we're trapped together' plot while still giving them the whole galaxy to adventure in), but let's go in a different direction?

I think there's something to be done with the Mandalore mission, if I shift the timeline just a bit. Aayla's about nine years younger than Obi-Wan in canon, so I'm going to shrink it to six years, and Obi-Wan being 21-22, for the duration of the mission (instead of my usual 18-19, or canon's 15-ish).

So at the end of that mission with this version of the timeline, Aayla is sixteen. That means that, when an emergency message comes for an extraction of Jinn and Kenobi, and their civilian charges, Quinlan can take it because Aayla's not too young to handle the mission, so long as there are three older Jedi there with her, which there are.

Satine has, by this point, managed to find and collect her little sister, who is about Aayla's age and has already undergone several years of Death Watch training, and is somewhat indoctrinated already. Sometimes, they need to lock her in her room because of her reaction to the Jedi interference.

Every time the Adults are talking politics, Aayla is asked to hang out with Bo-Katan. Aayla is fully of the opinion that she is old enough to participate in these conversations, buuuuuuut someone needs to spend time with Bo while Satine is busy, and Bo isn't allowed in these meetings anymore.

So for the month or two that the six spend time in each others' company, Aayla and Bo-Katan actually grow a lot closer, with gems like Bo-Katan confessing to the torture she underwent with Kyr'tsad, and Aayla talking about Volfe Karkko* (that time she had an extended brush with the Dark because of an Anzati Fallen Jedi).

It's all the usual "I say my trauma, you say your trauma, now we cry on each other and after a few of these incidents we start making out (possibly while still crying)."

* Technically Karkko hasn't happened yet (apparently), but I'm already messing with the timeline and it's Legends anyway, so whatever.

#Aayla Secura #Bo Katan Kryze #bokaayla #phoenix posts #satine kryze #I don't know that I should tag the others but in my head they do have roles in all this #death watch #jedi #obi wan kenobi #quinlan vos #qui gon jinn #star wars #the clone wars #sw legends

[warpedsenseofmercy]

A Theory on Pain Tolerance and Trauma

I have a theory: people of extreme trauma or severe depression have a higher pain tolerance than people who haven't experienced trauma or depression. 

This theory is based solely on personal experience. I have a stupid high pain tolerance. Years ago, I broke a toe at work and only acknowledged it because my boss heard a snapping sound. He asked if I had just broken something, as a joke. I replied that I thought I had just broken my toe, but I really needed to know what to do about the late Pacific deliveries. While in labor, I tried to convince the student doctors that I could insert my own epidural. (They fucked it up anyway, so statistically I had a better shot of hitting my own spinal cord than they did. During contractions.) I'm pretty sure I broke the tip of my finger the other day at work, and though I did see stars for a moment, was more irritated that it split my latex glove and got industrial solvent on my skin. 

My theory stems from another theory that children of trauma process events differently in our brain. We are calm during high stress events, and can parse facts quickly in periods of high anxiety. This is partially due to our brains processing far more information than necessary in our day to day function. We constantly analyze the ridiculous amount of data our senses pick up because we're looking for dangers others might not see. Our trauma has trained our brain. 

I'll give an example. I have an older family member who is a passive aggressive narcissist. They expect me to know what they're thinking and how my behavior negatively affects them. My brain has been trained to hear aggressive dish washing. Let's break that down: I have been trained, from a young age, to know if this person is angry by the way they scrub a dish. It's 60% body language, 20% facial expressions, 10% sound, and 10% being aware of the current state of my environment. I have to constantly reassess my environment to know if the aggression is toward me, and be able to determine my options within a millisecond. 

People find this ability hilarious and fascinating. Go into any restaurant, bar, public space, and I can identify points of egress faster than a trained member of the military. Trust me, I've tested it. Crowds are panic-inducing because of the shear number of variables. My senses gather too much information and I can't process it quickly enough.

How does this relate to pain tolerance? Outside stimuli is far more important than internal stimuli. External stimuli cannot be controlled, is in a constant state of flux, and must be analyzed quickly and repeatedly in order to adjust my reaction. Internal stimuli can be controlled and/or ignored if it doesn't affect my response time. 

If this sounds exhausting,  rest assured it is. 

So, internal stimuli - pain, emotion, panic - is minimalized to accept input of external stimuli. The brain only has so much computing capacity. It focuses on what it has been trained is most important. And in the case of trauma survivors, the most important information the brain can focus on is what's going on outside. 

I have absolutely no scientific data to back up these theories, but I'd love to delve into them if they exist. And would love to see any counter arguments, because holy shit please prove me wrong. 

#my writing

[drdemonprince]

is it (internally too I guess) transphobic of me to be cautious dating someone who just started transitioning?

I don't want my opinions and preferences on how femmes look to be a factor as a tme non-binary femme. I don't want or need her to change herself (or not!) in a certain way, to be clear; I just assume that attraction can fluctuate for both of us and she is the kind of person to take relationships seriously quite quickly. can't tell if I'm overthinking it.

if that's too specific and/or obviously fucked up (I'm honestly not sure) I'm super sorry. my gender presentation stuff is a hornet's nest I am not addressing as nothing helps so I'm really happy for her.

thanks for reading

I think this is actually a really lovely and conscientious question and that your fears are reasonably founded!

The early years of transition are quite emotionally perilous for people and they try our romantic relationships quite heavily; there's a reason I've seen prominent trans people on Twitter claiming that you should end your relationship the moment you come out and begin to transition. I don't fully agree with that advice, but I think a lot of people who try to bluster through an existing relationship while transitioning do end up living to regret it, myself included. I tried to transition gradually to make all the shifts bearable for my partner and me, but that only fomented resentment and insecurity on my end and complete bafflement about how far this was all gonna "go" on my ex's end and ultimately it just meant we drifted apart painfully over the course of years instead of swiftly. it wasn't pretty.

During the first couple of years of transition, people try on all kinds of new styles and presentations, explore new sexual roles, try on different mannerisms, join new friend groups, adopt new self-narratives and frames on past events, and much more. And it's also an incredibly vulnerable time in terms of physical safety out in public AND emotional safety in bearing one's evolving self to close loved ones, and even the slightest reaction from another person can have massive ripple-effects on how we view ourselves and the 'success' of our transitions for a long period afterward.

I think it's very wise and appropriate for you to be concerned that your own reactions to your partner's transition might unduly influence them! I have seen T4T couples with bad boundaries erupt into chaos over this kind of thing in so many ways.

Sometimes the babier trans in the relationship molds herself too much on her more seasoned partner's transition and personal style. Other times, the babier trans leans heavily on the more experienced trans partner for advice and psychological transition related doula-ing, leaving the more experienced trans partner feeling used (Casey Plett has a lot of short stories about this dynamic! check out A Dream of a Woman for a story about a trans girl who becomes disillusioned with her cute, sweet, perfectly supportive cis boyfriend the moment she realizes he isn't so cis, and then ends things). I've even seen trans-trans couples break up in a hail of drama and abuse accusations, all because one partner was triggered by the (misgendering kink) porn preferences of the other partner.

There are so many ways to be trans, and each one of us who has been trans for a while has a lot of strong opinions about the subject. Even if in theory we support the body autonomy and self-expression of every other trans person, in practice we come to relationships with a mess of dysphoria triggers, trauma responses, aesthetic preferences, medical know-how, load-bearing neuroses, and sexual role hang ups to bear, and sometimes when our existing soft spots bash up against a newly-transitioning person's raw wounds, it hurts everybody.

I think it might be easier for you to know this newly-out trans person as a friend than as a romantic partner at this time. It sounds like your gut is telling you something like that, too. You mentioned that she gets attached very quickly. She's in a really open, raw position right now and will probably need a lot of support as she transitions, and she might also be really desperate for approval and for feelings of safety because of it too. And you're not bad or transphobic for wanting to avoid getting wrapped up in all that.

I think it's really big of you to recognize you have your own hang-ups and that they might unconsciously influence her and how her transition goes, too. a lot of trans people don't interrogate how their own expectations and baggage might radiate into their partners (for instance, a lot of TME nonbinaries with trans femme partners pressure those partners into staying masculine to some degree, and keeping their penises sexually available to them for penetration, and it's really harrowing and traumatic). I don't get the vibe you're the type to do anything like that and I don't even know if you're TME, but you get the idea. Trans people aren't inherently pure, we hurt one another and turn one another into symbols of what we desire and what we fear and what's hurt us when really we should be regarding each other as distinct people.

It's fine to not want to date someone newly transitioning. Do you know how many gay people I've met who've said they'll never date newly out or questioning people again? A ton! Being with someone who is newly out requires a lot of patience and emotional caretaking, and some people have no taste for that or aren't equipped to do it, and that's fine. I'd be disinclined to date someone newly out for the most part too, at least if they were also trans masc. I'd be too afraid of accidentally punishing them for reminding me of my earlier self, and that's not fair.

[wilchur]

I love planting seeds in character's minds that are bound to absolutely destroy them emotionally later on. Spoilers for my self insert fic under the cut but like I need to talk about this??

cw for period typical bigotry and attitudes towards gay people... very heavy internalised homophobia...... you know the drill, I can't write anything that's not miserable

There's a point in Jesse's story where he has an.. "encounter" with an older dude when he's in his teens (nothing below the belt tho) and he lets this slip to one of his brothers. The brother's response is basically "Jesse that's fucking unacceptable" but not as in he scolds Jesse for it just more like... is enraged by the situation itself? Because this is his baby brother and in the mind of an 19th century dude that kind of stuff puts him in danger of being turned gay, which is bad. It might come from him being a stinky catholic bigot, but in his mind he just wants to keep Jesse safe from being prayed on. He tells him as much. That these men are rotten and while he knows Jesse is not like them, that if he lets them they will force him to be.

But Jesse in his mind just goes "Uhh, I'm already like that? I've always been, no one's made me like it. I just do." and more internalises the fear of being discovered and having his only living family hate him than anything else. However the anything else comes to bite him in the ass years later when he makes a move on Arthur and Arthur freaks the fuck out. An argument follows where Arthur (obviously) insists that he's not gay stfu and says something along the lines of Jesse confusing the shit out of him and "making" him kiss him back...

Can you see where I'm going with this? :D

I am going to wreck this poor boy's self image SO BAD. He's going to HATE himself, thinking his brother was right!! It's just that it's not the older dude in the alleyway that was rotten, all this time it has been Jesse who was the disgusting predatory freak. He'll convince himself Arthur fucking hates his guts too, that he blames Jesse for making him confused and doing something he did not want to do. But Arthur is actually Very Bisexual and Very Into Him, he's just a self-conscious moron too!!! Afraid that this somehow proves every insult ever hurled at him right, giving free ammo to the demons in his head that never stop screaming how ugly, gross and not enough he is.

Oh how I love this. Causing these two poor souls endless emotional torment brings me so much joy 🥰🥰

#guess who wrote this instead of working on the actual story lmao #and who said he was working on the story to avoid doing his actual fucking job #its meee #it's the jess tag #oh the joys of fic writing

[thatstormygeek]

why the fuck does Jervis from "The Stock Dork" think they need to chime in on any trans topic anywhere?

The fuck does a site that claims it "is on a mission to teach investors about the ins and outs of building real wealth by investing in stocks and other assets" have to say about being transgender?

Spoiler alert: nothing good.

This entire story is sus.

First, who the fuck is South West News Service?

Wait, what? That sounds an awful lot like a clickbait factory.

They specifically tout that their content is aimed at triggering an emotional response. So yeah - clickbait factory. Fantastic.

Which explains a lot about how this story makes no fucking sense.

This kid had weird gender feelings at the age when most kids have weird gender feelings. News at fucking 11.

Right here, she specifically admits she doesn't know what she's talking about, but that doesn't stop her from making sweeping, unsupported generalizations about a marginalized community. And it didn't stop these folks from printing them.

The timeline makes zero sense. She first thought she might be trans at 13. Her parents were "initially skeptical." And yet, by 16, she has already legally changed her name, gone on T long enough to deepen her voice and grow facial hair, and then detransitioned. In her video, she claims to have started T at 15 (instead of the 16 in the article), but she also says she had one visit with one doctor who barely talked to her before handing over a hormone prescription. Which is not remotely how it works for minors in the US. And not how it works for most adults, either.

Did she change schools? Move to another town? I mean, how did she manage to not have a single friend who knew she was trans? She'd been on T for six months and somehow fully passed as a cis guy? In high school? With bathrooms and locker rooms?

Zero mention of puberty blockers, either, so I'm guessing she started to get boobs and have periods in there somewhere.

This story is basically the Transing Your Kids urban legend note for note: There's the 'girly girl' with her 'rapid onset gender dysphoria' caused by social media 'contagion.' The 'doctors hand out hormones like candy.' The 'everyone loves trans people and hates detransitioners' theme. And the 'being trans is a trend' plus a bonus 'trans influencers are to blame.'

The only thing missing is her being a lesbian that her parents pressured to transition out of homophobia, but that point doesn't play as well with the straights.

Hang on. Her 'mum' said? But this is published on a USian site.

Wait...her parents gave a statement to The Post? Which "The Post" would this be? Ohhhh.....the New York Post. Note, the 'original' article on The Stock Dork didn't link to this one. Or the SWNS site above.

I feel for this kid. Something fucky is clearly going on here. And whatever you think about what age kids know their gender, I'm of the opinion that 16 is not old enough to consent to being part of your parents' grift. So I hope she gets free of whatever is going on here and gets therapy to work through her issues so she can grow up to have a good life. Preferably one that doesn't involve taking rights away from other folks.

The overarching point is that, again, transphobia is profitable. I didn't go looking for this article. It was highlighted on my MSN home page in Edge.

Some shitty stock tips site based in Florida published a clickbait factory piece that was plagiarized from at least one major tabloid because they believe it will bring eyes to their site. And they were right. Again, I saw this on my MSN friggin' homepage.

Fucking worst timeline.

#this is my brain on life #us politics #the world is a trashfire #transphobia #transphobes eat shit #trashpool says fuck this shit

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hi, I simply need to rant. I have an abusive mom and some kind of (unclear which) dissociative disorder as a result. So it is not "made up" "not as bad" etc. I have psychologists proof that my mom fucked me up. But I can't tell it anyone. There's this family friend, who's in her 40s, and we used to be pretty close, not as much anymore, and she grew up with an abusive mom too. From what I heard, her mom wasn't as different from mine. But this friend, married very young an abusive man, got 2 children, worked and cared for them until she had a horrible burnout from which it took years to recover. She knows I have "some kind of mental illness maybe" but she, truly in her heart, believes that the only way to get a mental illness is by overworking and getting a burnout. In her eyes I was always kinda pretending, at least acting it worse. Because I never worked I couldn't have a mental illness. And because she likes my mom. She kinda acts as if she has the copyright for having an abusive mom. And it is so damn frustration because.... She knows how it is, she could see the signs, if she would accept the possiblity.

On the other hand I don't want to, you know, shock her by giving her my diagnosis and telling her all the shit my mom does because... I don't want her to feel bad. That she likes someone, that's as bad as her mom was. I think that would really fuck her up. And also I don't want to destroy one of my moms few friendships because... She's no inherently abusive person. She just acts like that towards me so, there's no reason to deprive her of friends. It's not like that would help me anyhow or prevent anyone from getting hurt. I was the only possible victim and I am already destroyed.

And there's my family. My cousin is only 10 years younger than my mom (big family, her mom the oldest, mine the youngest) and they kinda grew up together, went to parties etc. Which is probably why I am too so close to her. But she too doesn't want to hear one bad word about my mom. I was occasionally giving hints and I could see that she got pissed at me and thought I was lying. Plus, her mom was very sick all her life and, at least, neglected her so maybe if I told her, it would seem normal to her.

It is so frustrating, I want people to believe me, to treat me the way I deserve (like, not talking shit about me because I can't work) etc but they will probably never believe me.

That's it. Fin.

Hi Fin,

I'm sorry about what you've been going through.

It's ridiculous to assume that the only way to get a mental illness or trauma-related disorder is by burnout from overworking and I'm sorry that she imposed that idea on you. It's possible that she may not react appropriately if you told her what you have or suspect you might. It sounds unlikely to me that someone who would express those kinds of sentiments to be understanding and supportive of other possibilities.

Regardless, if you do decide to tell her, her reaction is not your responsibility. You cannot protect people from their own emotions, you know? If she doesn't want to continue being friends with her mom that's her choice. If she acts based on the information you tell her, that's also not your responsibility.

You may say that she isn't inherently abusive if she's presumably only been mistreating you, but anyone who treats you like that is abusive period. That's never okay. If someone doesn't want to be her friend over what she's done to you, that's not your fault, that's hers. It's not your fault for simply speaking the truth, it's your mom's fault for mistreating you in the first place. If her reputation or friend circle is ruined over that, perhaps she should've thought twice about abusing you.

I believe you. We believe you. But please know that you do not need other people to validate what is already true. What happened to you was real and nobody can take that from you. There are people out there who may not believe you, gaslight you, or perhaps they've normalized abusive behavior themselves, but those people are not reliable to verify what is real. You know your truth.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #trauma details #abuse #emotional abuse #child abuse #fin

[mlobsters]

supernatural s13e3 patience (w. robert berens)

recap including gutter bunny sam, huh. ok. i try to keep in mind too that even if there's a slight glancing reference to something, they'll put a whole ass clip in the recap. when it might just be a reminder that hey, vampires exist. demon blood makes people high. etc

if they bring missouri back to then hurt her, i'm gonna be pissed. i always wished she'd been a recurring character

i guess this is the grown up version of brotherly conflict, instead of lying and hiding things, we're gonna clash over whether jack is inherently evil

SAM Because we need to stay here. We need to help Jack learn how to control his powers. Jody can handle this. DEAN Yeah, maybe she can. Or maybe she ends up dead because you wanted to skip out on her to babysit the antichrist.

trying to remember if we're blaming jack for mom and cas "dying" somehow? lucifer is the responsible party there, crowley if we go back to lucifer being out to begin with. cas for lucifer being out originally and creating jack? anyway, just trying to rationalize dean being upset about mom and cas (and i guess crowley) and taking it out on sam in this way

sweet

MISSOURI He has his reasons. I’ll just stay behind, say my farewells to Dede. DEAN No, I don’t like that at all. MISSOURI You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it. You save my family, you hear me, Dean Winchester? DEAN Yes ma’am. MISSOURI Good. And thank you.

saw the "yes, ma'am" a mile away and was still good to hear. and he kind of folded in on himself looking a lot younger. just makes me sad. reminds me of times long, long since past. also lodging a complaint that she should come with purely for protection purposes

what the flying fuck was that? she just. stuck around to die. and she's dead. so she could be setup for saving her family?? what the FUCK, show. of all the one-off side characters, she was one that stuck with me straight away and you bring her back to immediately, and i mean IMMEDIATELY kill her. bullshit.

"the drama of the gifted child" and the awkward maneuvering in front of the laptop screen so he can miss jack moving. oy. this is just...

JACK Yeah well, Dean sees it. That’s why he says… he said he’d kill me. SAM He what? JACK And maybe he should. Mom said I could be good, that I had the choice to be good, that it was up to me. But she’s dead, because of me. I’ve only been on earth for a few days and I’ve already hurt people. I’ve already done bad things, and no matter how hard I try I can’t… I can’t do the one good, stupid thing you want me to. So I must be evil, like Lucifer.

i think i should have seen the allusion to sam feeling like a freak but we just met jack and this is all so... well. they want him to act like a person with no life experience and so it's all this disconnected childlike situation, but not really getting any sincere feeling emotion off him, also possibly because we just met him! no-win

JACK Sam, why are you being so nice to me? SAM Because I know what it feels like, to feel like you don’t belong. To feel like there’s this darkness inside of you, to be scared of who you are, what you can do. Dean, Cas, my family helped me through that. So now I want to help you, because you’re not evil, Jack.

glad they just said it straight out because i really don't think i was gonna reach this conclusion myself

dean so indignant, jody with the support and "cool it, bro" frown

find it pretty weird they're wedging in this missouri was actually a hunter backstory to make this plot shit work. also have some logistical questions how one feeds on a brain for an extended period of time without killing the brain owner

PATIENCE I talked to my dad. He thinks I should put it away. Dad says we should just get back to normal. Maybe he’s right. DEAN He is. This life, hunting, monsters, there’s no joy in it. There’s nothing but pain, horror and death. So if you get a chance at normal, you take it.

got the mushy music treatment.

JODY Patience, wait. I may be out of line here but you don’t have to listen to him. To either of them if it’s not what you really want. I had a daughter, I guess, Claire, and I asked her to stay in line, to fight who she really was because I thought it would keep her safe. It didn’t work, it never does. Your gift… or maybe you’re right, maybe it’ll go away. But if it doesn’t? You try to force it down to make someone else happy, you will only make yourself miserable. It’s your choice. But if you ever need someone to talk to or someplace to go, my door is always open.

and jody coming back with the realistic and less bitter advice, no more mushy music during this bit

DEAN I told him the truth. See, you think you can use this freak but I know how this ends and it ends bad. SAM I didn’t. DEAN What? SAM I didn’t ‘end bad’. When I was the freak, when I was drinking demon blood. DEAN Come on man, that’s totally different. SAM Was it? Because you could’ve put a bullet in me. Dad told you to put a bullet in me, but you didn’t! You saved me! So help me save him! DEAN You deserved to be saved, he doesn’t! SAM Yes he does, Dean, of course he does! DEAN Look, I know you think that you can use him as some sort of an interdimensional can-opener and that’s fine, but don’t act like you care about him! Because you only care about what he can do for you! So if you want to pretend, that’s fine! But me? I can hardly look at the kid! Because when I do all I see is everybody we’ve lost! SAM Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack! DEAN And what about Cas? SAM What about Cas? DEAN He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!

well, thanks for the explainer as to why he blames jack for everything since i clearly couldn't get there myself. i call bullshit on that logic but whatever. dean's upset, he's being mean. there's certainly precedent for that for him too. and i guess we needed something awful enough to get jack to send some interdimensional DM to cas in the big empty

at least my irritation is prompting me to watch the episode faster and shut up more.

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 13x03 #robert berens #missouri moseley #spn mushy music #spnwhinge

[explainyourstory]

~Abyss Anon, Part 2, let us continue

What is it like to live with Anxiety or Depression? to live with ADHD, OCD? DID or OSDD? pt 1/2+1 I decided to split this into two different categories, and I wanted to add Autism as something you might want to add to your questioning. Now, let me be honest, the only official diagnosis I have is Anxiety, but it is strongly implied I have ADD/ADHD without the hyperactivity, and Autism. Depression...I am not sure, it might be a side effect of one of the other cocktails I've got or it might be Bipolar (as my mother was diagnosed Bipolar but with new information, I'm not sure if my mother was bipolar, or if autism/Depression/ADD/Anxiety created a bipolar mimic). Anyways, let's run down the list based on the strongest one I know: Anxiety. Anxiety is like there's a knot in your chest that never goes away, a nagging worry that something is about to go wrong. You're constantly nervous that you're about to be called to the principal's office in school, but you haven't the faintest idea what you've done. Anxiety most definitely contributes to my AFAB paranoia at night. ADD, I've got a fairly strong idea I have, and that it feeds into the anxiety, cause I've always had issues with focusing, my grandfather confirmed he thought he and myself both have ADD, and my younger sibling (who is technically my half sibling, but their dad adopted me, so I use dad to refer to him) has ADHD as well. But the reason I pointed out the anxiety feed-in is because some amount of energy drinks not only help me focus (a trait of ADHD), but it also quells some of my anxiety (but not all). Autism, I know the least about, but my mother confirmed that she theorized myself, her, and my sibling all are on the spectrum, I've had people who are autistic comment that I seem to have autism, and my dad has confirmed that my sibling seems to have autism as well. And a coworker of mine who is diagnosed as autistic has pointed out some of the behaviors and descriptors that point to me having autism. I am very good at mirroring or masking, though I would argue that I don't really have a good view of myself, and would have to ask the people around me if they view me as NT or ND. Depression, I sometimes get cycles of negative thoughts and low energy from depression, though I don't know perfectly with it anymore as the thoughts don't pop up at all thanks to a tactic I used when I was younger when I struggled with suicidal thoughts, and Depression and Anxiety only appeared in my late teens.

What is it like to live with an addiction? I'm modifying this slightly. My dad used to be a bad alcoholic and was and still is a bad smoker. Addiction...I recognize it's a disease, but if you're struggling with it, you, in my opinion, have no right to subject a child to it. My dad would drink a large bottle of Canadian whiskey every night or every other night, and buy a pack of cigarettes every day. I often had to remind my dad to go to bed (8-9~) and feed himself because he drunk himself to sleep. Some things that happened I won't expunge probably didn't help either. But nowadays, I try not to think about the $$. Remember how we were living paycheck to paycheck? Yea, if I calculate how much he spent every week or every two weeks, I won't be able to control my emotions and I'm liable to lash out. I'd rather not...think about how much money was wasted because I wasn't enough for him to get clean back then.

What is it like living with one mom, one dad, both, or neither? I lived with my dad alone from 8-9 to current day, 23. I lived with my mom for a short period of time. I lived with both for an equally short period of time. They both fucked me up in vastly different ways, and for vastly different (or maybe same) reasons. I definitely think living with dad did affect my emotional responses, but my mom didn't help. She got a therapist for me when I was constantly crying to ask why I was crying all the time and tell me not to cry. When a cat I loved died, I didn't cry, and back to the therapist I went, and when asked why I didn't cry, I stated they made it clear I wasn't to cry. So there's a lot of things in play that mess with my ability to say how much of my current personality is due to my extensive time with my dad, negative encounters with children thanks to my mom, and/or the abuse I went through on both parents parts. All I'll say is that parents can have the best of intentions, and their actions can still leave marks on their children that never heal. And I really hate the "Your trauma isn't your fault, it's your responsibility". I get the intent, but what it sounds like to me is "you are responsible for what happened to you". I know it's supposed to teach people who use their trauma to excuse being assholes (I don't use my trauma to excuse hurting others, and don't hurt others when I can help it), but all it does is make people like me wh never got justice from their abusers feel like now, not only do they have to deal with trauma and potential PTSD, but now it's somehow their fault the trauma even happened in the first place. As if being a good enough kid, being a good enough sister, daughter, friend would have been enough to avoid the trauma. YOU CAN NEVER BE A GOOD ENOUGH KID, A GOOD ENOUGH SISTER, A GOOD ENOUGH DAUGHTER, OR A GOOD ENOUGH FRIEND. IF THEY WERE GOING TO ABUSE YOU, THEY'D DO IT REGARDLESS OF HOW GOOD/NOT PROBLEMATIC YOU WERE. A better phrase IMO would be something like "Being abused wasn't your fault, but being abused does not give you the right to abuse others"

What is it like to be the oldest, middle, or the youngest child? So I'm in a weird space. I'm a middle child who has spent much of my life being the oldest child. I was always responsible for my younger sibling during visits, and I was expected to entertain any children in the nearby area, as well as be a role model. I was expected to be a perfect person for children to look to, as if I was a parent. I didn't like children, and that was only exacerbated by the bullshit my mother and dad let happen to me. At this time, my younger sibling and I still have an awkward relationship that is affected by the fact my younger sibling has called me mom by accident. Yea.

What is it like to live where you do? In rural towns, in the city? I live in a city/and near a second (172k where I live, and 62k in the city I'm nearby, which I work in), Personally, I don't really know the difference. I have never been to/lived in a rural town, so I have no frame of reference, though I'll say that compared to what I've heard about rural towns, it's more anonymous to live in a city like where I live. No one knows you, beyond the few people you meet and get to know. But it also means that there isn't a close bond to you and the public servants.

~Abyss Anon, as always, see you in Part 3

Part 2

—————

As I stated in the previous post, the questions are merly examples/guidelines, so you're free to talk about anything you've deemed important or necessary, including Autism! Thank you for the suggestion though!

I've never heard of the saying "Your trauma isn't your fault, it's your responsibility." I agree with your reasoning, it does sound a bit,,, iffy. I like the alternative you proposed! I think it's the point across a lot better and makes it sound less vague.

Thank you for sharing!

#share your story #tell your story #explain your story #a medical story #a domestic story #a familial story #thank you for sharing your story

[father-time-and-baby-new-year]

OFF WITH YOUR HEAD

PART 2 OF HEADS WILL ROLL

SYNOPSIS: Whenever school is in session, Eren will just keep finding new places to corner you.

PAIRING: BULLY! EREN x FEM! READER

DEDICATED TO: you guys, always you guys.

WARNINGS: unedited, slight dubcon, groping, degradation, bullying,

WORD COUNT: 2.4K

Gooooood Morning Paradis Birds! Remember to give a big round of applause to the football team for clutching the victory against reigning champion Marley High! We stay undefeated thanks to our excellent and hardworking team. Special shoutout to Captain Eren Yeager for guiding the team to another flawless victory-

You're half-heartedly paying attention to class, sleepily listening to the school announcements over the speaker until the mention of his name douses you like a shock of ice-cold water.

You can't catch the rest of the announcement because your class erupts into cheer, enthusiastically clapping their hands for the boy of the hour.

The only one not joining is you.

Eren's smile is brighter than 100 kilowatts. In the back of your mind, you wonder where he learned to smile like that. When his emotions became so practiced.

Mr.Berner tries to calm the kids down, especially Sasha who bangs on her desks and howls, creating even more hype and ruckus. The class, now in a chattier mode, excitedly breaks into little conversations.

"Man, thank god. That school is so pretentious, I'm glad we finally have something over them."

"Jeez, I know our team was good, but it's this good-?"

"-Bro, year of XXXX is stacked as fuck. It's literally never been this stacked before. We have a whole team of prodigies, it's insane-especially Eren. "

"Yepp. My dad went to Paradis too and he said shit like this never happened during his time. The academic comps were one thing, but these footballs wins? We're being put on the fucking map."

The announcements are still going on, but it's hard to hear over the noise. You're only able to catch the tail end, a useless tidbit about the word of the day.

pre·mo·ni·tion a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant. Here is an example: "She had a premonition of imminent disaster" Have a good day folks, hope it's free of any premonitions!

Overhearing the unceasing praise of the boy who pinched your thighs until they bruise blue and purple was a little painful-but you were used to it. After all, he's putting Paradis on the map. Whatever the fuck that means.

While you didn't love sharing this class with him, he was seated far across the room and surrounded by a gaggle of friends. You might as well have been invisible, the way he did not acknowledge you. Maybe you should treat it as a small mercy.

Unwittingly, your eyelids grow heavy. You're sitting in the back of the class, no one would notice if you took a little nap right? Assured by the fact no one will notice, you lower your head into your folded arms and let your thoughts float.

You dream of vaguely nothing but shadows of smiles, tufts of dark hair, and the smell of the wind at sea until a noise confined to the shape of your name breaks the harmony.

"[y/n?]"

"[y/n?]"

You startle awake with pairs of eyes piercing their gazes at you. Swallowing thickly, you apologize to Mr.Berner who looks worried. He's a good teacher, and one of your favorites.

"I'm sorry Mr.Berner. I had a migraine so I laid my head down." You lie smoothly, with more grace than you knew you were capable of. Course, you could have just said you were taking an unprompted nap, but that would disappoint your lovely teacher.

He sighs, "Guess that can't be helped then. Go to the nurse ok?"

Bingo. The nurse was an understanding lady, she'd let you sleep the rest of the period off. You nod, and start to gather your materials, relieved the class' attention on you was beginning to dwindle.

"Wait, Mr.Berner, let me take her. What if she gets disoriented and falls in the hall?"

Fuuuuck. You should have known. You should have expected this because attached to the request dripping with faux concern was none other than the precious jewel of the kingdom. Eren's intrusion makes your peers perk up again at the scene unfolding in front of them.

You smile, lips tightly pressed, "I'll be fine. I don't want to distract anyone from the lesson and it's a short walk-

"It's still potentially dangerous.", Your teacher interrupts, pinching the bridge of the nose, "And while I'm completely surprised by Eren's sudden streak of altruism, he's right. Something could happen. He'll take you there safely."

A very convenient streak of altruism, all right. You think it over in your head, yeah the nurses' office is right down the hall, and once you're there, he'll leave. Sure, he'll taunt you but you can handle a few minutes worth of cruelty.

It's awkward getting up, and walking in front of the class while Eren props the door open like a gentleman. You know what a sharp contrast it must look like, you and him, you cowering into yourself, not meeting any eyes while he stands tall and confident.

"Do you have everything?" His tone is one of reassurance, and for the barest of the moments, feels too familiar. You know he's not being genuine right now, and for the first time, you question if he was genuine back then.

"You can hold onto my arm if you're too dizzy to walk." He says as you guys slip out of the classroom, purposefully a little too loudly. You hear coos from girls and a stray "She's so lucky!"

He must have heard it too, because he lowers his head to whisper into your ear, "Yeah, very lucky, aren't you?" Wisps of dark hair tickle your cheeks. You see the glint of tiny silver hoops and wonder when he had gotten his ears pierced. The illusion breaks and the performative charming prince's reassuring smile is replaced by a sneer.

"Didn't know you could lie like that, by the way. Some good girl you are if you're trying to ditch class like this." Fingers dig deep into your waist as he drags you along the empty hallway that seems to stretch on for miles.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat, "How did you know I was lying?"

Viridian eyes narrow, "I've seen you get migraines before." There's a knock on your heart. As if realizing he was talking about something far away ago, a vindictive edge laces into words pouring out of his mouth, "I bet you wanted this to happen, didn't you? Wanted to get us all alone."

He's trying to get a rise out of you, that much is obvious. So you ignore him to the best of your ability.

...which quickly proved to be futile, as you suddenly find your arm pinned to your back, and your front facing the nearest walls.

"I asked you a fucking question bitch." He's practically growling, "Fucking answer me."

If there was a world record for the shortest temper, best believe Eren Yeager will have collected that accolade too. He's getting too worked up, and you could definitely feel his harness poking the back on your ass, as he grinds into you.

You manage to crane your neck, wanting to have your face shoved into the wall, and then venomously spit out, "You're not looking for answers. You just want me to repeat whatever you think is true."

This position brings back flashbacks to the library when he caged you in against the bookshelves, and like then, he spins you around to face him quite abruptly.

His smile is full of sharp teeth, "No. I know I'm right."

You don't respond. He moves in closer, his breath fanning on your earlobes. Your body can't help but let an involuntary shudder, and you close your eyes, not wanting to see his pleased grin or the way the fluorescent light makes his hoops gleam like silver bullets.

One calloused finger flicks your nipple, "Do you want to know why I'm right?"

At your lack of response, the dark-haired boy rolls your nipple in between his fingers before pinching it painfully, eliciting a small whimper out of your fuckable lips. "N-no", you answer finally. You're wearing your thinnest bra because of the seasonal heat, and you can't help but regret that decision right now. The fact he's only paying attention to one of your nipples is driving you insane. Not that you want it, but you're so fucking sensitive right now. You struggle in his hold, causing him to hold you tighter, and by now his nails were probably embedded into your skin.

He chuckles at your honesty, rewarding you with a thick stripe of his tongue over the collared shirt of your uniform making you gasp. Did he just-, over your shirt too-, you look down and see a very visible wet spot.

Taking advantage of your distracted state, a eager hand snakes under your skirt until it settles in the middle of your panties. He licks your earlobe before speaking, his voice like ice under your heels.

"You were so fucking wet that day in the library while saying you hated me the entire time," he pauses as his fingers scissor you through your panties, as if to drive the message home, "About as wet as you are right now."

There's a wet spot there too, also caused by him. You crush your eyes shut, "Eren...please just take me to the nurse." You're not even struggling anymore, holding onto him out of your own accord, worried that if you don't hold onto anything-you'd fall on your knees.

The very headache you lied about having seemed not so non-existent after all.

Eren hooks his arms under the plush of your thighs, "Yeah. Of course, that's what I came to do, right?"

*

You had hoped you'd be granted a reprieve in the nurses' office but you'd forgotten that luck was never really in your favor. Because while you guys had entered the squeaky-clean office, the nurse was nowhere in sight.

Instead, a note sat on her desk in unassuming frilly cursive that Eren read with glee.

Sorry students! Minor emergency to take care of, and I'll be back by the middle of the next period. If you're badly hurt, see Mr.Ackerman in room 203. If not, just sit tight! Feel free to take up the beds.

Thank you,

Ms.Ral

Eren had turned to you with shining green eyes, "Since no one's here, I guess I'll have to keep you company. Don't want you to hurt yourself."

There was something claustrophobic about how Eren stood in front of the door as if to signify to get out of here, you had to get through him.

"Maybe I can get Mr.Ackerman..."

Eren's sudden bout of laughter makes you wince and retreat inside of yourself, "For what? A fake headache? You really wanna inconvenience him like that? Mr.Ackerman?"

You take slow steps backward until the back of your knees hit the school bed, making you stumble as you clumsily take a seat. Eren's been marching forward with every retreating step you took, and it's no surprise when he pushes you down the bed, strong hands on the side of your head, while his muscular legs force your thighs apart so he can settle himself in between.

"We have some time to kill, you know." Strands of dark hair fall into his eyes, and without thinking, you reach upwards to brush them aside.

He grips your wrist before you make it that far, nearly gritting out a "What are you doing?"

You just stare, not really knowing why that was your impulse either. Finally, you mouth out, "I want you to leave Eren."

The grip on your wrist is tighter than ever, and you very well know that you're going to have new finger-shaped bruises before the old ones even finish healing.

"And I want to stay." He punctuates each word slowly, and all you can think is how being pinned to a bed is much less painful than having the hard surface of wood digging onto your back.

You're fully aware of the heat in your core, and having Eren on top of you doesn't make this it any easier because fuck, he is attractive. Maddeningly so. And maybe you want him to go away so bad because you're afraid that if his fingers are caught inside of you, you'll thank him for it.

As if reading your mind, he lets go of your wrist (making a mental note of your sluggish movements and slipping resistance) and massages your warm hole from your panties.

"Eren please" You grit out. He merely chuckles, "What are you asking for, whore?"

You could feel tears threatening to fall. This was so embarrassing. Did you want this? Yes, yes. yes, yes. You were so wet right now and had enough of the teasing.

He alternated his kneading from slow and soft to fast and rough, and you couldn't help but let out the prettiest little moans Eren's ever heard. Since you lose all pretenses of resistance, his other hand roughly brushes against your hardened nipples, straining against the fabric of your shirt.

Okay, he decided. He's going to make you beg.

"Beg." It's announced like a command, and while you hear it, you don't really register it because your hips are busy chasing the heat, and it's all too much of an utter disappointment when his long thin fingers leave.

"I said beg slut."

"Eren, please, please. I need you so bad." You're blubbering and you don't care. You just want his pretty fingers to shove aside your panties and rub against your folds. You think back to the library, how wet you were, how the stupid fucking phone call from his coach interrupted him pumping his fingers inside of you. And you didn't know if you were happy or mad he left. But now, all you crave is the blissful wave of pleasure- the very pleasure he's been denying you.

Eren looks down at you, green eyes scrutinizing. After a long while of what it seems to be him just staring, he wipes his fingers on your skirt, brushes back his hair with a wayward hand.

"Looks like I should head back to class. See you later."

Too numb to say anything, you watch him leave with a smirk on his face. When you're sure he's walked away, you curl into yourself and cry.

#attack on titan fanfiction #eren x y/n #tw dubcon #bully eren yeager #bullying #toxic eren #yandere eren x reader #eren x reader

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived. 

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human. 

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time. 

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.) 

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know. 

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson. 

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either. 

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories. 

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault. 

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval. 

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him. 

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn���t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him. 

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite