#I’ve been chasing up a lot of strange symptoms I’ve been having that . haven’t been causing me pain but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scarlett-v-the-fox · 2 years

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Mona Blog Entries

Hey there! I just translated Mona’s blog on the WarioWare Mega Microgame$ website.

Disclaimer: My Japanese isn’t perfect, and I had to look up a lot of words used. But I’m confident 95% of this is correct!

Feel free to ask me any questions!

February 28, Friday “I made a homepage and decided to write a diary starting today. I love Friday! That’s because I have a day off tomorrow. But on my days off, I've been working part-time at a gelato shop since mornings. So today, I'm going to visit Kat-chan and Ana-chan's house! I wonder if I can learn ninjutsu for self-defense.”

March 1, Saturday “I worked at my part-time job at the gelato shop since morning. But my scooter wasn't working well, so I was about to be late, and I was chased by some police cars. I'm glad I managed to make it in time! During work, I was called by a strange yellow and square customer. He looked tiny and had the height of a child, but the way he talked was uncle-like and formal.”

March 2, Sunday “There was a game tournament at 9-Volt-kun’s house today. I heard that he was playing a game called "Yoshi's Cookie," so I made a nose-shaped cookie and played it, but it didn't help at all. Cookies were very popular. Oh yeah! Yesterday's yellow and square strange customer turned out to be 9-Volt-kun's pet! His name is "Fronk.” It seems that he is only one year old, but he didn't look like it.”

March 3, Monday “I overslept a little this morning and thought I'd be late for school. However, thanks to the police car that cracked down on speed violations, all the other cars avoided it, and it was safe for a while! I have to thank the policeman for today.”

March 4, Tuesday “I met Orbulon-ojisama on my way home from school today. When I talked to him about school, he said it was very interesting. I wonder if he’s never been to school. Orbulon-ojisama is interesting because he has pure white skin, looks squishy, a little scary, and doesn’t have a nose. It’s a pity that I can’t no the nose fortune-telling on him!”

March 5, Wednesday “I got an email from Jimmy-ojisama on my mobile phone today. I was surprised because I hadn't given my address yet. I think he got it from Kat-chan. Jimmy-ojisama's email has a ringtone, which is really cool! But I haven't written a reply yet. I'm going to write a thank-you email from now on.”

March 6, Thursday “I traded Pokémon with 9-Volt-kun. All of his Pokémon are strong, but they have names like “Love Tester” and “Tumbler Puzzle” which don’t make them as cute…”

March 7, Friday “Wario-ojisama suddenly contacted me about having a barbecue tomorrow at “Waves with a Voice.” That’s why I asked the manager at the gelato shop to do tomorrow’s part-time job today. It was warm today, so there were more customers than usual. I wasn’t planning on working part-time in the first place, so I was very tired. But it’s for a barbecue, so I couldn’t help myself. Ah~ I’m looking forward to it.”

March 8, Saturday “Today’s weather is nice and it’s a perfect day for a barbecue. I brought gelato, but maybe it wasn’t suitable for a barbecue. It melted into juice. I couldn’t afford to look at other people because I was too busy eating, but it seems that Wario-ojisama ate a lot. Everyone was complaining about that. Jimmy-ojisama showed me a professional dance at night. It was very powerful and cool! I wonder if I can learn to dance too~. It was a really satisfying day!”

March 9, Sunday “It was cold this morning when I woke up. I wonder if it wasn’t the right camping season yet. I have a cold and my throat hurts. My lucky item this week was a runny nose, but I wish I didn’t get it. Other than me, a few others got sick, but Wario-ojisama had the worst symptoms. He was like a whole different person. What kind of illness was that?”

March 10, Monday “I had my part-time job at the gelato shop from this afternoon. Since it was raining, there weren’t as many customers. The store manager was worried because my throat was still hurting and I was still sick, so we ended up closing early. I’m sorry store manager, I will take a rest and work well tomorrow!”

March 11, Tuesday “My throat has healed a lot, but my voice is still a little faint. I kind of like his husky voice. I feel a little different than usual.”

March 12, Wednesday “My voice has returned to its original state. A little disappointed. I had my part-time job today. It’s a little busy outside. There was a disturbing noise nearby. It was coming from Wario-ojisama’s house. I wonder if he’s ok. Speaking of which, a nice scent is drifting from there.”

March 13, Thursday “Unusually, Wario-ojisama came to the gelato shop today. It’s nice that he ordered a ton of gelato, but he went home without paying. I couldn’t tell the store manager that I knew him because he got so angry. Wario-ojisama, I’m sorry.”

March 14, Friday “It was warm today, so I walked to school for the first time in awhile. On the way, something suddenly popped out on my feet and I accidentally kicked it off. When I looked closely, it was a cute toad. I’m sure it woke up from its hibernation. I wonder if spring is approaching little by little.”

March 15, Saturday “My papa is an artist. He said he was looking for a model for his next sculpture exhibit. When we asked me, “Do you know a man with a nice nose?” I recommended Wario-ojisama without hesitation. But I wonder if he’ll be an ideal model…”

March 16, Sunday “Looks like my papa met Wario-ojisama today. He said “His nose is the best color and shape!” When I heard that compliment, I got so happy. I’m looking forward to the kind of work will be made.”

March 17, Monday “Mama is a supermodel. She’s almost always away from home because she’s always flying around the world for shoots and fashion shows, but she’s back for the first time in awhile! She’s leaving tomorrow, so we talked a lot! Mama seems to read this diary every day. It’s a little embarrassing, but it makes me happy!”

March 18, Tuesday “I said goodbye to Mama today. At the time of our parting, I got a souvenir earthworm muffler. I’m very happy, but it’s getting warmer. I’ll use it next winter. By the way, I got an email from Jimmy-san. He wants me to tell him my older sister’s email address. But I’m an only child.”

March 19, Wednesday “I got my desire to learn ninjutsu from Kat-chan and Ana-chan! Ninjutsu is fun! I especially liked the art of hiding. It seems to be useful for catching insects. For the time being, I got a scroll called “License of Iga Styled Arts.” I want to do it again!”

March 20, Thursday “This is a very sudden story, but I’m going to space with Wario-ojisama and others today. Wario says it’s an employee trip, but I’m sure it’s for treasure at an unknown planet. The blood of the treasure hunter has been clamored. I can’t update my diary for a while, but I’ll be back with souvenirs, so please wait!”

April 15, Tuesday “How terrible! I came back from the space trip, but I came back soon because of its failure. Besides, it’s been three weeks on earth! Was that some kind of Urashima phenomenon? Spring break has already ended and I’m kind of disappointed.”

April 16, Wednesday “I was in trouble when my friend asked me about my experience of space travel at school. After all, I didn’t do anything. That’s why I created various stories such as being attacked by a Hanamogera monster. I’ll have to ask everyone to talk to each other later.”

April 17, Thursday “When I went to my part-time job, I was surprised to see a lot of customers lined up. My gelato shop was on a TV program this morning. I also wanted to go outside. By the way, I wanted to promote WarioWare.”

April 18, Friday “When I went to my part-time job, the shop was rattled like yesterday’s excitement was a lie. There was no boom. I served more gelato to today’s customers than usual.”

April 19, Saturday “I overslept and was about to be late for my part-time job, so when I speeded up my bike, I was caught by policemen. My pets didn’t help me out. Thanks to that, I had to pay a fine and I couldn't make it to my part-time job. When I saw my bike later, it seemed that I ran out of bananas. When I think about it, it’s all my fault. I was oversleeping, speeding, and forgot to get more bananas. Reflection.”

April 20, Sunday “Today was unusual. Jimmy-san came to the gelato shop. He didn’t come to eat gelato, he brought me a printout of the email that arrived at the Wario company. I knew that he was collecting them for the homepage, so I wanted to read it. What is the reputation for WarioWare? I wanted to read it quickly, so I closed up early.”

April 21, Monday “I read emails from everyone until late night yesterday. I’m so happy that many people wrote “I love them!” about the games I’ve made! At first, I started making microgames with the feeing of having another part-time job, but when I get good reactions, I think about how glad I am to make them! Thank you to everyone who wrote to me!”

April 22, Tuesday “I went to Club Sugar today. I was worried I couldn’t dance because it was my first time doing so, but it’s pretty cool to move to the rhythm. After all, Jimmy-ojisama’s dance was so cool! Professionals have a different feel. Also, Mr. Yohitomi’s dance was changing. I was a little drawn to it.”

April 23, Wednesday “I finally bought a Gameboy Advance SP. I have never had a game consuls before, so I’m super happy! It’s shape is simple, so you can play with the various stickers. But I don’t have any game software yet. I wonder if I can get WarioWare from Wario-ojisama.”

April 24, Thursday “Today we had a roundtable discussion with the employees who made WarioWare. It was fun because I hadn't had a chance to talk about the game since it was completed! There are a lot of tricks I didn't know about some games made by the other employees, and I thought that everyone had good ideas. I heard that today's story will be posted on the homepage. I wonder what it will be like.”

April 25, Friday “In today's morning edition, there was news that the ruins of the diamond civilization, which was said to be the golden city, were discovered. It's been a long time since it was talked about that, so I was excited. I expected Wario-ojisama to go out for treasure hunting, and I found out that he would start riding his motorcycle in an adventurous style! Of course I’ll be chasing after that! That’s why today will be my last diary entry. It was a short time, but thank you for reading my diary!”

#warioware #WarioWare inc mega microgames #mona #translation

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blackcherrykiss · 3 years

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BLOOD BOUNDARIES - Enhypen OT7 Fanfic (ch.10)

[CH.1] [CH.2] [CH.3] [CH.4] [CH.5] [CH.6] [CH.7][CH.8][CH.9] previous chapters [CH.11] next chapter (unavailable on tumblr but avaliable on wattpad!)

"You'll give me your blood in exchange for theirs."

You could feel his earnest breath against the left side of your neck when he spoke. The proximity was causing you to hold your breath tightly. "Sunghoon please..." You just barely breathed out, fearing anything you said would be the death of you.

"Afraid my love? I'm not going to hurt you unless you let me in." You felt Sunghoon's soft lower lip stroke up your neck until it met your ear, "I'll give you time to think." He pulled away to caress your face with a feathery touch as the sky grew darker and darker.

...

You rested the following day with no intentions of going to classes. You got your dormmates to tell the office about the severe headache you had; too weak to attend that day. To your surprise, one of the nurses at the school had knocked at your dorm to do a brief check-up and ensure you weren't lying.

"You must be Y/N! Sweetie, how are you feeling?" A slim young woman came in with a medium briefcase of supplies.

"It's nothing too serious right now, it's just a slight headache, I think you brought a bit much..." You held your pounding head while staring at the excessive equipment she had in hand.

"Oh, all of this? It's a standard to bring it just in case." The nurse said with a Southern Irish accent, "Now sit down, I'll take your temperature first."

You sat down on your own bed and watched as she took out a pink thermometer and put it under your arm. You yawned while waiting, getting a closer look at the woman. She had naturally fawn-blonde hair that flowed down in delicate curls. Healthy skin that was rosy at the cheekbones.

"Hun, your temperature is just slightly over normal. Is it just today you've been having headaches?" The nurse said while waving around the stick that read 38.1°C.

"I get them from time... Rarely though, I think I've been stressed lately that's all..."

"Perhaps you have low iron? Are you sure no other symptoms and potential causes?"

"Lack of sleep." You admitted, "And probably low iron... My mom has so I must too..."

"I see hun... Many girls call in sick and it's usually related to their menstrual cycles. But recently I find there is some sort of common cold going around. Yesterday this young boy fainted and when I took his temperature he had a seriously high fever." The nurse said while beginning to sterilize the thermometer with some rubbing alcohol.

"He did?!" You blurted out unintentionally, your voice making an embarrassing crack, "Sorry... He's just my friend, I was there when he fainted. Do you mind me asking how Jungwon is doing?"

"Not too well... He seems very sick but... Whenever I try phoning his parents regarding a checkup with a doctor or a record of his medical history, nobody ever picks up." The nurse looked upset and frustrated that she couldn't do much for him.

Little did the nurse know Jungwon didn't even have parents... 'Heeseung would be his guardian at best' you thought. "Oh, that's terrible..." You felt yourself tense up knowing the reason for Jungwon's illness.

"Well, if you have no other questions I guess I will be on my way. Your name was y/n right?" She said while scratching a couple of words on a small pad of paper.

"That's correct."

"y/n... That name sounds familiar... Perhaps you are friends with Kyungeun?" The nurse put her pen and paper down on your nightstand.

"You know Kyungeun?" You rubbed the back of your neck.

"Of course! I visit her often. She's mentioned your name from time to time." She gave a healthy smile before getting up to leave, "She loves you to bits!"

You were touched Kyungeun would mention that to the nurse, it made you feel a little better knowing that.

"I'll get going now then, hun!" The nurse grabbed her case and exited your dorm after you thanked her.

When you went back to your bed you noticed the nurse had left her pad of paper. Taking the paper to go and run after her, you squint to read what was actually written on it. The paper just had blue ink notes in some wavy font about your condition and personal information. When you lifted the notepad up, you noticed a paper fell from the stack. Bending down with just your back, you saw Kyungeun's medical information swirled on the front.

"Anemia?" You read aloud before a semi-aggressive knock was heard from behind your dorm door. You quickly stuffed the paper where it was originally attached, feeling guilty you saw what you should not have. "I was just about to chase you down!" You began speaking before the door was even completely open.

You saw the young nurse once again with a troubled face, "I'm so sorry, I'm so disorganized! Thanks, darling!" She looked relieved as you handed over the stuff she had left behind. You smiled to cover up the actual shock that shot through your veins after seeing Kyungeun's records.

Anaemia is a low blood condition and knowing Kyungeun had it still surprised you. Were you really trying to deny that Sunghoon drinks Kyungeun's blood?

...

You napped the rest of the day, catching up on the sleep you had missed over the past week. The throbbing in your head gladly helped you fall asleep in an instant, but your wishes of having a quiet sleep would not come true.

You found yourself in a fever dream, scenes flickering in your mind at the speed of light. You saw Jungwon's complexion glitter against a deep velvet as he drove his fangs deep into a prominent vein. The vein however on his own wrist; drinking his own blood. The amber-red liquid began streaming down his chin and into an empty wine glass in large opaque droplets. The imagery of the blood in a wine glass was one you had never thought you would see, especially in a dream. The blood was much thicker in consistency compared to alcohol and it made your stomach churn with absolute sickness as Sunoo picked up the glass to swish it around as the adults do with classic red wine. Sunoo then bit down on the heel of his palm, planting a deep bite mark. He began squeezing his hand tightly to release more blood into the glass. When the glass had filled midway, Sunoo chugged it down.

"Y/N?!" You felt Nana shake both of your shoulders, waking you back conscious. You twitched while sitting up from your bed, "You're sweating like crazy. I got scared seeing your distressed face..."

"Fever dream... It's whatever..." Surprisingly your headache hurt a lot less even after the vividly strange dream had seemingly interrupted your off day. The problem was now your stomach that felt awful over the constant blood being displayed in your head, "I think I'll be fine to go to school tomorrow after I sleep on it tonight, my headache has become a mild stomach"

"More rest? You probably just need to get up and out of your bed, it's too warm and stuffy plus you've barely moved the entire day." Nana nagged. To which you agreed, you were getting unbearably hot which might've been the trigger to the fever dream.

"Yeah, I'll go for a walk..." You stared down at your sheets while thinking about what the strange dream meant. Why did Sunoo drink Jungwon's blood? And can vampires drink each other's blood? You immediately thought of the book you had left in the woods the previous night, perhaps there were answers in it. You were just too horrified that day to pick up the book and take it with you. But it seemed it might be of use to you now.

"Have you eaten yet? Hyesun and Dahee are at the dining hall right now and I just came to check up on you."

"No, I haven't eaten the whole day... But I think I might vomit if I eat..." You fastened your eyes shut at the recollection of what you had seen, "Just go without me, I'll go for a walk in the meantime." You said with the means to go off into the forest and find that damned book.

...

You feel refreshed, with the clean autumn breeze gusting your hair back, and out of your face. It was around the time most people ate an early meal, so you weren't surprised to see few pairs of people in the courtyards. Students seemed to be taking it nice and slow under the calm weather, one on one conversations and cloud watching on the wood benches.

You strut along the same path you had gone down the other day, your mary jane shoes getting wet from a puddle on the way. The woods had looked a lot less intimidating during the early evening compared to after sunset. You just had to ensure you were taking the path Sunghoon had led you down and you'd find the book, right? It would be a quick and simple job.

But after taking the seemingly correct path, you found yourself getting more unfamiliar with where you walked. Regardless of where you ended up, the place was a lot more peaceful and pretty than your first impression of it. You skipped along, turning your journey into a leisurely hike now. The sun heavily coated one particular part of the forest, creating a mystic olive glow onto the dried grass. The section of forest, in particular, had fewer trees with a giant rock in the centre of it. As you approached the area, you noticed someone far in the distance laying on the rock, basking in the sunlight with skin so white it looked teal under the reflection of the trees. The young boy didn't have your school's uniform but instead, a rust coloured flannel and some tatteredly torn jeans with cuts all over them. You were willing to just leave the delinquent alone, turn back and give up. That is until you noticed the boy reading.

As you came into a four-metre radius to get a better look at if the book he possessed was the one you were searching for, the boy sat up to gaze dead on at you. You probably looked worse than a deer in the headlights, surprised at his alertness. "Who are you?" The ash haired boy asked before you could.

"I'm looking for a book I dropped around here the other day." You bore your eyes at his hands.

"This wouldn't be it, would it?" The young stranger stood up to scoop the book off the rock so you could see it clearly. He was a lot taller than how he appeared while lying on his back.

"I'm pretty sure it is my book... May I have it back?" You asked politely after noticing the colour of the backing was identical to the one you picked up from the library.

"What's it to you?" He raised a brow while swirling his tongue around the inside of his cheek.

"It might answer some questions I have..." You bit your tongue as to whether or not the boy in front of you was among the vampire pack. It seemed his hesitation to give the book back was telling you undermining something.

"Ahh, so it's you who they talk about?" He nodded to himself, "Heard you were some clever girl who would eventually figure out our little secret." He dozed off into the distance at some withering pine trees. It was clear he was associated with the bunch by now, no surprises there.

"Sunghoon t-told me the other day you were all vampires... He was the one who took the book in the first place and used it to bait me here."

"Then why did you leave the book?"

"Got too shocked and sick, just wanted to escape the place after he told me you were all vampires. Thought I was going to die." You began to sweat. Recalling the situation made you realize you were in the same position once again; alone with a vampire in the woods far away from people.

"Alright? So you have questions about us that you think this silly book will answer? Why ask a book when you could ask the vampire right in front of you." He faced his palms up on either side of him.

You stood astonished by his response. Instead of forcibly taking your blood he was offering some useful information to you, "You mean you're not going to kill me?"

"I considered it... Until I found out who you were." He commented with a hint of disappointment. "Luckily you've caught me at the right time, so ask away."

"Found out who I was? What do you mean?"

"Who knows what kind of shit I'll hear from the guys if they found out I got a lick of your blood." He shut down your further questions about the matter, "Now ask the questions."

Looking around as if you were about to tell a secret, you dived right into the ideas you were given from your dreams, "Can vampires drink their own blood?" You gulped remembering Jungwon drawing blood from himself.

"They can... It helps with blood cravings but it tastes very bitter. Next." He said, treating the conversation as some speed round questionnaire.

"Okay...? Can vampires drink each other's blood?" The last scene of your dream coming to mind of Sunoo taking a swig of the wine glass filled with his blood mixed with Jungwon's.

"Who have you seen doing that? Sunoo? Jaeyun?"

"No one, it was just a dream!? Sunoo and Jaeyun actually do that?" It seemed weird hearing Sunoo's name being directly suggested. It was as if your dream was a potential reflection of reality. How could that be?

"Drinking other vampires blood tastes better than drinking your own blood but it's not often we do that." The boy tapped his head to think.

"So then what occasion would you drink each other's blood?"

"Usually when we can't get ahold of human blood. Survival purposes in short. Put it this way, drinking your own blood won't make you stronger because you're not getting any new nutrients. Drinking other vampire's blood will fulfil that it's just not as vital as half-humans or better yet, full human blood."

"Half-humans?! They exist?"

"Yeah, their blood tastes a lot better than full vampire blood but it's definitely not better than full human blood. Pretty sure Sunghoon feeds off some half-blooded girl, not that I can remember her name."

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shutupandshipit · 4 years

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Little Life - Ch.7

Summary: A baby could ruin his career before it had even started. If anyone found out, he would be kicked out of the Hero Course at the very least and UA at the very worst. Even then, how was he supposed to care for a baby once it arrived? He was a fucking seventeen-year-old boy, not a twenty-nine-year-old omega with their shit at least somewhat together.

…..

Or where Katsuki get pregnant, but is determined to make it to graduation. No matter what it takes.

Pairing: Bakudeku

Rating: T (just for language mostly)

Chapter: 7/16

Previous <- Chapter 6

Chapter 8 -> Next

Master Post

Chapter 7: 5 Months

Katsuki groaned salaciously, melting into his nest with the roll and push of Deku's hot, hot, hot hands against his skin. "Oh yeah, right there, you perfect, prefect alpha. Oh my god~"

Above him, Izuku laughed warmly, bending to nuzzle into the back of Katsuki's neck. "You really weren't kidding. You're so tense. I don't know how you were even moving. You must have been in a lot of pain."

"Do you think I'd have be bitching if I were kidding?" Katsuki asked, but his voice lacked the usual bite, drunk on bliss. He purred loudly, and his back bowed up, chasing the feel of Izuku's hands.

"You're so responsive today. It's kind of nice." Izuku moved down his body, kneading away every knot and tense muscle. His hands and lips spent an exorbitant amount of time on his ass, but Katsuki couldn't find it in him to protest.

Instead of starting something like Katsuki assumed he would, he continued down his thighs and calves, spending time gently rubbing his feet and flexing every toe before coaxing him into his back and working his way back up. He paused at his hands until Katsuki nearly drifted off, pressing his thumbs into calloused flesh and nuzzling at the cups of his palms. His attention was nearly reverential.

It was only when he was straddling Katsuki's hips again, working his arms and chest, that he spoke. His voice dragged Katsuki out of a literal endorphin and pheromone induced haze, gentle and curious. "I didn't really notice before, but your nipples have changed color." He idly ran the soft pads of his thumbs over Katsuki's nipples. They immediately hardened, and Katsuki shivered involuntarily. "Yeah, they're like a brownish-red instead of their usual soft greyish-pink." He repeated the motion, and Katsuki's body responded in kind.

He wanted to snap Izuku's fingers off for the almost clinical way he was inspecting him, but Katsuki's omega had other ideas.

Izuku's expression was alight with fascination. "Does that feel good, Kacchan? Your nipples have never been very sensitive, but they're really sensitive now. I wonder why."

'I'm pregnant, you absolute lovable dolt,' Katsuki thought, 'Figure it out already!'

Instead of saying that, he bucked his hips to flip Izuku onto his back, following to slot between his spread knees. He pressed their hips flush. "Less talking, more kissing," he demanded, and Izuku surged up to meet his lips enthusiastically. Katsuki had never once imagined how good kissing felt before, but since he'd had Izuku's lips for his own, he could never quite get enough.

Afterwards, when they were both properly exhausted and Izuku was lovingly running his fingers through his hair, he whispered, "I really love that you're my mate, Kacchan, and I'm happy that we can be together in the open now. I'm the luckiest alpha in the world."

The enormity of his secret loomed over him again as it so often did these days, souring his mood. He didn't let the mood take hold, and turned his nose into Izuku's neck in response. Words were still hard. He'd always had to show his emotions through action.

As the emotion receded back into its sealed box, he couldn't help but think, 'You might not feel that way after you find out what I've been hiding.' He shoved that thought into his chest of secrets as well, locking everything away to hold close.

.....

Fear reared its head when Aizawa called him into his office after class one day. He had to consciously repress the anxiety in his scent as he gingerly sat on the couch that took up too much space in the tiny room that was connected to the rest of his rooms. He felt enclosed, captured, like the walls were bearing down over him and would at any moment clamp down on top of him.

The anxiety only built when Aizawa didn't say anything, only continued to sip at whatever was in his mug. Katsuki hoped it was vodka to make him less perceptive, but he knew he wasn't that lucky. He just hoped he was lucky enough to make it through this meeting with secrets and faculties fully intact.

"How are you doing in classes and with training?"

Katsuki startled, narrowing his eyes at the unexpected question.

Aizawa sighed tiredly and leaned back in his seat, crossing an ankle over his knee. "Calm down, Bakugou, you're not in trouble. This conversation would have started very differently if you were."

As Katsuki unfortunately knew first hand. "I am calm, sir."

Leveling an unimpressed look at him, Aizawa said, "I can smell your anxiety from here as much as you're trying to hide it, trouble kid. Like I said, you're not in trouble."

That really didn't make him feel any better, but he tried to slow the tripping rhythm of his heart. "You know how I'm doing. You're my teacher."

"Analytically, yes. On paper, I can see how you're doing; how much progress your making, what shortcomings you're working through, your grades. Paper can't tell me how you're emotionally holding up. You and your classmates haven't had an easy two years here, and it's my job to make sure you graduate at your full potential, or at least as close to it as I can get you." Aizawa took another sip before setting the mug down and crossing his arms. "I've been seeing some strange behavior from you since the start of the year. A de-evolution of your devotional training schedule and dietary habits. The exhaustion I've observed from you during training and class would be normal for everyone else with how hard you push, but not for you specifically. And as barely sociable as you were before, you've almost completely isolated yourself from everyone except for Midoriya and Kirishima it seems. While I don't think this is the case, I am obligated as your teacher and mentor to make sure you are still in good mental health.

"So, I'm going to ask you a question that will make you extremely uncomfortable. Are you harboring any suicidal ideas and/or have you ever or considered intentionally harming yourself?"

Katsuki's brain completely shut down for the duration of an entire minute as he tried to internalize the literal insanity of that question.

Finally, he sputtered, "N-n-no! What the fuck?"

"Everything I just talked about can be symptoms of depression and suicidal thoughts. You wouldn't be the first student I've intercepted before doing something stupid. You wouldn't be the first student to feel like that if you do. You can see how I'd be concerned about you, especially in an individual like yourself whose habits have not changed in two years."

"I'm not suicidal!" Katsuki shouted indignantly.

"Then do you still want to be a hero?"

"What the fuck kind of questions are these? Of course I still want to be a hero! I'm not going to let that damn nerd be Number one! Who do you think I am?"

Aizawa sighed grudgingly. "Someone with a lot of drive, but also a teenager under a lot of stress. You're scent has changed, did you notice?"

"So?"

Aizawa stared back silently.

"I am not suicidal!" Katsuki reiterated. How selfish would he be to be considering suicide with a helpless life growing inside him that hadn't gotten a say in the matter?

"Then what? Scents don't just change. Is it the stress? Depression? Anxiety? Something else I'm not aware of?"

He was just not going to let up, and Katsuki swallowed as heat flooded his cheeks. "I- Izu- D-Deku and I are... mated. At the beginning of the year." He wanted to combust and crawl his way down to hell.

"Ah." Aizawa leaned his head back on the edge of his chair, closing his eyes.

"Ah?!"

"Yes, well, the sexual education system is extraordinarily lacking in terms of how a mating bond changes you, and that explains it. It also gives me more insight into your personal relationships that I am, frankly, uncomfortable with." He raised his head again, grimacing as he did. "Well, now I'm obligated to have a different discussion that I was not prepared for. I'm going to take the benefit of the doubt and assume you're being careful. Despite the low probability, you know what will happen to your career if you get pregnant while at school?"

Katsuki's face was hot for several different reasons now, and he worked desperately to reel in his scent. "I'm not stupid," he grit out even though he definitely absolutely was. He was possibly the stupidest person on the face of the planet.

But his teacher didn't have to know that.

"Good. I advise you stop by the nurse's office to get on a course of birth control. Use protection if you decide to get physical. You can go now."

Katsuki was out of his seat like someone had set him on fire, and all but sprinted from the room and out to the grass behind the dorms. He inhaled the cooling air until he'd calmed down enough to stop pulling at his hair.

Sitting on the steps, he stared up at the tree tops where the sun was quickly burning the sky away. There was a flutter, a turn in his stomach, and he stared down at his own body in wonder.

He knew that at some point he'd be able to feel the baby moving, but he hadn't expected it. Even less he'd been expecting the rush of love and excitement that flushed away the vestiges of his discussion with Aizawa.

He placed a tentative hand over his stomach, and there was the flutter again, as if they were responding to his touch. The tears came in a torrent, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "God-fucking-dammit," he whispered miserably.

"Bakugou?"

"Oh, fucking kill me now," he growled before peaking over at Izuku's best friend. Why couldn't he just have one moment where someone didn't catch him crying? "What do your want, Round Face?"

She smiled gently before tilting her head back towards the dorms. "Let's talk. I have something I want to talk to you about."

"Jesus," he bit out, but more out of obligation to his mate than actual want to talk to the only other omega in their class, he dried his face and followed her inside.

.....

Katsuki was not expecting an honest to god 'shovel talk' when he followed the small brunette into her room. He really wasn't expecting it when she set a cup of peppermint tea in front of him and curled her legs beneath her on her bed, a steaming cup in her own hands. It was uncomfortably familiar to how Aizawa had started everything, and the fluttering in his stomach became nausea rather than his baby moving.

"What do you want, Round Face? I'm not really in the mood for a chat," he muttered gloomily, staring down at the cup. He was intensely aware that she'd seen him crying, and he hated the thought. Only Izuku, Kirishima and All Might had ever seen him cry save for the singular time his parents had when he'd presented. He was severely off balance from the thought.

Ochako pursed her lips for a long moment before saying, "I'm going to put this very simply and bluntly, Bakugou. If you ever hurt Deku, I will kill you and make it look like an accident. I'll rip out your throat and bury you so deep that by the time you're found again, the term will have gone from 'grave robbing' to 'archaeology', and mark my words, you will not have a grave. You'll drift from memory as the 'hero that never was'. Do you understand?" Her voice was calm, almost cordial, but the look in her eyes... She'd definitely learned that from Izuku.

Katsuki laughed without humor, bracing a hand on his forehead as heat pressed in at his eyes again. "Why do you assume I'm going to hurt him?"

"Well, you have a notoriously bad track record for being nice to him. You've hurt him more than you will ever know, and he's working really hard to get over everything you put him through. Honestly, I think this whole thing is just a disgusting form of Stolkholm Syndrome. I'm not going to let you hurt him like that again."

Another hollow laugh. "You don't have to tell me. I know well enough. I don't need your meddling, nosy ass to tell me. But we're mates. It's different now."

"Is it?" The tone in her voice had changed, becoming hard and harsh. Flat like he'd never heard her voice go before. "Then why haven't you told Deku that you're pregnant?"

Katsuki's head snapped up, and the tears escaped before he could stop them. 'No. No. Nonononononononono! Fuck!' And underneath the shock was anger.

Ochako huffed, setting her cup down on her beside table. "Don't look so surprised. I'm not an idiot. One plus one equals two, Bakugou. One being the frankly weird shit you've been doing and the other being stuff from Deku. Before you get mad, it was just him honestly gushing about your relationship."

Actually, the anger had been thinking Kirishima had outed him for reasons he couldn't father. It was more than a relief to know that his best friend still knew how to keep his mouth shut.

"I'm not stupid, and neither is anyone else, but as a fellow omega and a woman, I know my fair share about pregnancy because I made the effort to learn about my body. That, and well, a stint as a kid where pregnancy fascinated me. My point still stands. If I figured it out, there may be more people suspecting..." She trailed off, eyes tracking over his face. "Then again, probably not since no one else is an omega. They probably think you're acting weird because of the 'new' mate bond."

Katsuki didn't answer, and reached for the cup as he felt the burn of bile at the back of his throat.

Ochako sighed, and the hard expression she sported dropped into her more usual soft expression. She grabbed her own cup. They drank in silence until Katsuki couldn't take it anymore.

Slowly, he bent until his forehead pressed to his knees and choked out, "You can't tell him. Please."

"Don't hurt yourself there, Bakugou," she said, voice light.

He snapped back up, anger boiling in his stomach. "Don't take this so lightly, Round Face! I'm being-"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Serious, yes, I am taking this seriously. I'm an omega, Bakugou, and a woman, like I said before. I know what this means for the both of you if the wrong person finds out. I'm not stupid, and I'm not heartless. I want to see all of us become heroes." She smiled softly before her smile fell away, becoming serious again. "But you've been reckless. You need to be more careful with your body."

"I'm being as careful as I can, but I can't back down too much or I'll get caught."

She sighed. "Fair enough." Pressing her fingers together, she pursed her lips. "You're going to have to tell him eventually, especially before the birth. He literally has to be there. You know the success rate otherwise."

"Yeah, I've done my fucking research, Ochako. I'm not a goddamn imbecile," he growled.

"Honestly, you could have fooled me."

Katsuki snarled in reply.

"But for the sake of my best friend and his career and for the baffling love he has for you, I'll support you as much as I can. That way you'll give birth to a strong healthy baby! The fact that that baby is going to make him literally the happiest person in the world is the only reason I'm being nice here."

"Jesus, between you and Shitty Hair, I'll be getting enough paternal pheromones that Deku won't need to be in the picture," he groused, but that was a lie. No one could ever replace Izuku.

"Dirty lies," Ochako chirped.

Katsuki thought that would be the last of it, but one talk turned into Katsuki teaching her how to sew and knit which ultimately turned into long quiet hours of putting together onsie after onsie.

He wanted to hate it, he really did, but the feeling of growing his tiny little pack of soon to be five was intoxicating. So, he indulged. Izuku being excited about him making friends with Ochako was only an added bonus.

#my hero academia #mha #bakudeku #dekubaku #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #omegaverse #omega!katsuki #alpha!izuku #my writing #multi-chapter #little life

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steve0discusses · 4 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep 25: Oh Hai Mai

Heyyy we’re back. Thank for bearing with me, it’s been kind of chaos over here. Everything from a pandemic (we are very sloooowly reopening over here but I’ve been quarantined so long I can french braid my damn leg hair.) to important political protests, to getting an evacuation order because an arsonist burned down 90 acres in the heat of summer (luckily we’re all fine), to a vole that ate everything in my pandemic self-care garden so I lost my entire mind and waged war and dug so many holes and put out 17 mouse traps and set off so many critter bombs under the ground trying to kill the little bastard like it was Caddyshack (It’s still alive, ps, I lost that war). These last 3 months have been the longest decades of my life. The only month longer was the one where I’m pretty sure I had mono and it made me positive that my basement was haunted.

Man, bring back my haunted basement, Sorry if this comes through in my writing, I tried but, I can’t edit it out. You get FML-Rachel today.

Lets get back to a good, mindless distraction, lets turn on Yugioh.

BUT------->it just so happens that this episode of Yugioh has cop stuff in it, I’m just going to be blunt. We’re going into Valon’s backstory, he’s very much a victim of problems within the bizarre Yugioh legal system, and much like a Gotham supervillain, he is a symptom of the problem more than the cause.

I’m not going to ignore that, but in case you are overwhelmed about that right now, if you want to like...save this for later--I have another FMA recap coming out soon that I wrote in a simpler time before....the corona freakin ruined us all.

Last we left off, we were on the heels of Joey Wheeler, who decided to book it down the street because he wants to murder the hell out of Valon.

Youknow...Joey is one hell of a protagonist. He just does...so MANY antagonistic things.

Joey has decided that although the world is ending, and everyone left alive will be absorbed into the Great Leviathon’s big yummy tummy, which can only be prevented by three people, of which he is one of--he’s going to go sprint in completely the other direction.

We even managed to get Kaiba on board. We were ready. We were done, but then Joey had to lose his freakin mind because that’s just what Joey Wheeler does sometimes.

Normally heroes avoid the call to duty because of a severe lack of self confidence, but this is Joey, and he’s going to avoid the call to duty because of too much self confidence.

And so Joey and his Chaperone turn a corner and walk into this random orc who’s just casually living his best life and touring SF.

One of my worst fears walking through SF, tbh. Running into high school people. Not so much the orcs.

Yo, I wonder what the bushman was doing through all of this? So IRL, we have this guy who just...hides in a bush and jump-scares tourists. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in a bush and then just...all these orcs show up and you’re all.

...oh no, now I’m the fool...

I just want to know if bushman made it, or if he’s in a paper card that’s just a picture of foliage.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, Joey was already in the process of running, so they just turned around on this street of...so much parking.

Like y’all there is SO MUCH PARKING this episode. I was trying to pay attention to anything else, but like...do you see this!? It takes nearly half an hour usually to get a spot but this--this right here?

And the crazy thing is, recently my bro had to go pick up some old guy from a cruise that...got quarantined...and so bro had to go the Pier and like--this is what the city looked like. This is a pandemic, it’s just lots of parking, so I want to criticize Yugioh, and I normally would, but I can’t. I’ve seen the receipts. They called it. This is what the endtimes look like and it’s so much parking.

Also, they were too lazy to draw cars but damn, they called it.

So, left with no other option, Joey decides to...be Joey, and punches a huge orc covered in armor.

So Valon’s here, because apparently SF has just...no one left alive in it except for these few kids and that one Uber Eats driver. I imagine it’s a lot easier to find Joey if you just follow the only one screaming in Japanese in a Brooklyn accent at the top of his lungs.

And Valon decides that this one way street isn’t good enough, and that they must duel somewhere else.

I assumed it would be a tall structure, but considering Kaiba just blew up the tallest structures in the Financial District...I was like...what else is tall? And bear in mind, I’m a mess, so I was like...OMG I wish it were Macy’s!!!

Now I hear you saying that’s weird, and we shouldn’t have a very fancy Macy’s in 2020, and you’re correct. but we still have one, and the top floor is just...a massive Cheesecake factory, and I can’t think of anything more 00′s than a Yugioh duel on top of that specific Cheesecake Factory.

And I’ve never really thought before about where the best Yugioh duel would be, and it’s there. It’s at the high rise Cheesecake. Listen Yugioh, if you need an insider to choose locations for your Netflix remake of S4--call me.

So anyways, instead of doing the right thing and going to the Cheesecake Factory on top of Macy’s like any other self respecting 00′s teenager, Valon and Joey are going to drive through the most boring parts of town.

They had an opportunity to go chase eachother through any tourist attraction, Lombard street, Ghirardelli Square, the Palace of Fine Arts, China town, reuse some assets and drive through Japan town, that fountain that looks like Yoda--but no...they decided to drive through literal trash.

Just...a missed opportunity, and it should have been a Cheesecake Factory.

Also, I totally and fully acknowledge that a strange nostalgic affection for the Cheesecake Factory is a weird Millennial thing (much like our weird encyclopedic knowledge of Sailor Moon) but listen. You have your thing, too. You go do you, I’m gonna soak my sorrows in a bowl of Chinese chicken salad so wide, it’ll last me 3 days.

Anyways, Joey’s gonna steal that guy’s bike.

Yugioh just predicting the future in 2003. We actually have a HUGE problem right now with vehicle theft in the city to an almost comedic degree, which is partly why the parking situation has gotten so incredibly dire. It’s kind of incredible that this guy left his bike out because after about 1 day in the city you learn pretty fast that you need to be constantly checking on your street parked vehicle--I mean, that guy was just asking for it, honestly. If Joey hadn’t taken it, some other guy would have absolutely taken it, (even that orc would’ve taken it, the city has no consideration for cars.)

Sorry --one sec-- that was an earthquake just now. As I’m typing this. Just a little guy. Just a little treat for me...

...but still like...c’mon. I’m also getting this weird issue where Tumblr doesn’t save my drafts so like...this is like the 3rd time I’ve had to write this like...I just want to make a Yugioh post for my tiny funtime tv blog, Universe. Don’t @ me right now, Universe.

SO MUCH FREAKIN PARKING.

...is it the space between two piers? What is this? We don’t have rivers in SF, it is a peninsula covered in very steep hills. Like very VERY steep hills. All water just rolls into the ocean and there’s a couple of lake thingies but...no rivers that I know of (And like maybe this is a thing, and I just haven’t seen it? Learn something new every day.)

*loud, audible sigh* home. Where we belong. At the warehousssssssse.

Back at the RV base, Duke Devlin is still babysitting. Maybe this is to make up for the two seasons he spent trying to date a girl Rebecca’s age, that they felt like going out of their way to show that he has indeed no longer horny now. Got to hand it to them, that’s a lot of character development right there. Although at the same time, it has made Duke Devlin a very non-character.

But imagine how insanely complicated would it have been if Duke got involved in that bizarre love-square that is Yugi, Tea, and the Ghost that killed Yugi by accident.

PS that’s either a freeway onramp (which is too far South from where they were, I think) or it sure does look like old Embarcadero behind them. Youknow, that lifted street from the 80′s that fell down in Loma Prieta and was never rebuilt? I just freakin love that it’s still here in 2003. This bizarre Yugioh alternate California.

Anyway, because this is alternate California, Seto set a massive fire and the entire city didn’t immediately go up in flames. Apparently they just kinda ran away from the explosion and damage before anyone noticed.

Probably because most people on Earth are dead anyway, so what more can these two actually do?

And so Yami ends up getting lectured by the wife.

And justifiably, the wife seems to have absolutely no confidence that Yami will be able to do a damn thing right.

Wifes all around this episode.

Speaking of,

At this point, Arthur Hawkins senses that Yami’s nearby, so he opens the door just to freakin dump some guilt on him.

...Rebecca seems to be a character that’s mostly there to recap the lore and also to dump on Yami. I don’t mind that. Yami needs to get dunked more often, and I’m saying that in S4, where the entire season’s tagline is “how many times can we dunk on Yami?”

So lets check on Yugi, how’s that kid doing? It’s been quite a number of episodes since we last saw him.

Yep, still hanging out in the Han Solo cosplay room.

And then, because I guess everyone is just hanging out in the same 4 blocks, Mai and Tristan have a heart-to-heart.

In the show, this conversation was Mai (who is now a serial killer) saying “Oh hey, Tristan, where’s Joey?” and Tristan saying “It’s ALL YOUR FAULT he wants to kill Valon--thanks a lot, Mai! GODS!” all indignant like.

Not how you would ordinarily talk to a serial killer, just saying. No one from the Yugi crew fears this woman...at all...and she has killed over 20 people in front of them and is trying very hard to kill Joey Wheeler all the time.

Like what would it actually take for them to fear this woman? They can’t, right?

Meanwhile, Valon is trying to explain to Joey that his obsession with Mai is in fact damaging any relationship they could have had.

So then when you’re like OK...this is actually very valid points on Valon’s part, and Joey really does need to step back and let people make their mistakes considering Joey was barely a part of her life to begin with. But then, Valon just turns a 180 and...it becomes a catty love triangle where only one person in the triangle even feels romantic emotions.

I just...so Valon is doing this fight because he thinks Mai is in love with Joey.

This whole time I was like “well maybe it’s more that Valon is trying to defend Mai’s right to make her own choices” but no...he just straight up thinks Mai is in love with Joey. And, in fighting Joey, Valon himself is ignoring Mai’s life choices

Just a whole lot of misunderstanding that would have been fixed with better ways than dueling with cards. At least that one guy in S2 who tried to marry Mai actually dueled HER instead of some random guy.

It just really feels like these boys are having a pissing contest and Mai was never let in on the deets that this was even happening.

Mai needs to hang out with older men. Set her up with Roland, this is ridiculous.

Back at the RV, which got very, very big in this shot, Seto has an odd convo with Mokuba about how they are probably not going to get Kaiba Corp back. And then no one really argued with him about that.

He’s taking it really well. Maybe because this isn’t even the first time or the second time or even really the third time Seto’s lost everything. Kid’s really freakin great at failure. At least this time Mokuba isn’t currently abducted, which is really good improvement for these two.

Outside the RV, Tristan has decided to...give up as well, just right here, in the middle of traffic. Then he gets Orc’d...these orcs are kind of like Slenderman, in that they kinda...show up...but then that’s all they do because the designers didn’t actually want to animate anything.

And then this happens.

God bless this story boarder for this random series of events presented in just this way.

Also here’s yet another example where Tea just has...no fear. She’s actually only out here because she was like “that’s it, we’re getting another driver” and was going to chew out Duke Devlin. The Orc being in the middle of the road was not the reason she walked out here.

Anyways, Yami killed it because everyone here can just throw cards forever, these things are not threatening.

The subplot of everyone refusing to drive with Duke Devlin after he busted his car in Death Valley is still ongoing, and it’s still low key hilarious that no one will outright say “Duke, your driving is just so bad” and instead, Duke just has to sit there and watch Joey STEAL A MOTORCYCLE just so he won’t have to drive shotgun with Duke Devlin.

Rebecca, our plot-dump device, then informs us that Valon has Special Rules.

Because Valon, if you’ve forgotten, has a card that allows him to physically punch his opponent in the face.

They should have invented that card a long time ago TBH.

SO, lets get into Valons tragic backstory. First off, go turn on your Les Mis Soundtrack, because this is some old school cop stuff.

So apparently Valon, as a child just...stayed in the system forever. We don’t know why yet, but lets just assume that it’s tragic and heavy handed. If he steals a loaf of bread and ends up in 12 Juvies (which is a line from the show and not an exaggeration--12 Juvies) then I will expect him to be singing by the end of this and I will be very disappointed if he does not.

Anyways, he was such an asshole, that he caught the attention of some very illegal rich bastard who was trying to turn prisoners into...card murders. (it was Dartz.) because apparently...Dartz also funds prisons and that is...that is some deep lore.

And so probably about the same time that Yugi was Dueling to the death on Pegasus’ Island, and about the same time that Marik was hanging out in the ocean next to Pegasus’ Island with a pair of binoculars, and about the same time that Noah was underneath Pegasus’ Island just watching Pegasus steal KaibaCorp, Dartz decided to make his OWN murder island--because I guess he got jealous.

Anyway, Valon won, and didn’t even need to set anyone on fire.

Those little green things there--those are all souls of prison inmates.

YUGIOH.

Millennials got DARK, OK? Freakin...we had a show for 9 year olds that went deep into the school-to-prison pipeline and didn’t even try to hide it under any layers of symbolism. Like Hunger Games at least had two people survive.

This was a show to sell PAPER CARDS.

+++++++++++THIS IS A RANT WHERE I WENT OFF ABOUT PRISON TALK IN KID’S SHOWS FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++++++++

Now, there’s a lot of good conversation going on right now about errors in the modern justice system on not just a local scale, but on a global scale, especially regarding racial profiling and criminalization of poor, sick, and young, and we better keep pushing it. But it’s surprising when people pretend like this hasn’t been talked about for a long time. Because...we’ve been talking about it in kids and YA shows for a long time. This is not something that just popped up in 2020.

Like millennials didn’t invent this obsession with dark and gritty stories with uncomfortable themes. It’s been around for thousands of years, but back in the 90′s and 00′s, a lot of shows for YA and younger enjoyed talking about the problems with prisons and abuse of power with our justice systems--a lot. Batman, X-men, Death Note, so so many, hell, even the OC.

And like, don’t get me wrong, we still have these shows running around, but I’ve been there’s been a trend of stories (not saying names) where just...nothing bad happens. And, that’s kind of sad because...they CAN have small elements that are more progressive in them, but only brought forth with a very risk-free cotton candy fluffy coating to make the majority of the population happy.

I could go long about this, and I’m getting very cryptic. If a kid escapes to more colorful worlds where nothing bad ever happens, that’s OK--sometimes you need that, but when nothing bad ever happens surrounding certain experiences where bad things normally happen--the meaning of the story changes because it isn’t a real experience anymore.

Like I don’t want to tangent too much, and I just had to delete a lot of examples, but I know a lot of people want to write stories about misrepresented minorities and about real deal serious situations and are just so afraid of misrepresentation that they go in completely the wrong direction by not putting in anything uncomfortable at all. I think it’s important to look at the work and ask yourself is this about the minority the work should be about--or is this work about patting the majority of the population on the back and saying neat, we’ve achieved utopia without having to even do anything?

...anyway, obvi I’m ranting, but I feel like we’re taking a step backwards when it comes to the importance of kids programming and that we do need to talk to kids about prison again. This is a show about paper cards, and they don’t do a great job at talking about...the reality of prison, this was exaggerated with genre stereotypes, but at least they didn’t cover it with rainbows and unicorns, because this isn’t about how great Joey and the “normal” people are at saving Valon, this is about how society screwed Valon beyond repair, and I am 99% certain we will see this guy’s soul stuffed in a brick above Dartz’ snake fireplace.

Like, yeah he duels to the death on an island, but that’s imagery that is very close to real life prison issues. We don’t talk to kids a lot about how a lot of inmates get enlisted into the military during war times (and quite literally...duel to their death...on islands). We don’t talk about how we use inmates to betray eachother for a chance at maybe getting amnesty. We don’t talk about how a lot of the victims of this system are essentially children, and have been caught in a system of endless prison for what will probably be the rest of their lives. We don’t talk about how we’re systematically turning kids into criminals so much in kid’s shows of late...and Freakin Yugioh just did in a filler season.

....................I think our standard for modern kids programming to talk about serious issues is way too low if Yugioh just threw this out there in a filler season, is all I’m saying.

++++++++++++++++++END OF PRISON RANT++++++++++++++++++++++

So, Valon is free but...is he?

Not really, he’s just gone from one jailer to another, but at least this time he gets his own room. Don’t blame him for latching onto Dartz’ dream to end the world, because the world for him has been one behind bars. He doesn’t know it. Never been there.

It’s just interesting juxtaposed to Joey because Joey had some sort of Season Zero history with a gang and I haven’t watched that episode yet.

So that’s it for now, again, I’m very slooow lately. I slept for 3 hours today...and I don’t know why. But hey--we all got through three (four???) months of this...we just gotta go...one month at a time.

That and I accidentally did my taxes early so there’s that. See? Good things still happen.

Also, because I only slightly referenced the most incredible movie ever made on San Fransisco soil, I’ll just leave this here. The true hallmark of our city.

youtube

Anyway you know the drill, here’s the link

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lyssismagical · 5 years

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Darken the Sky, Light up the Moon

Day Three of Whumptober: Delirium

Read on AO3

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tony demands, glaring at the doctor.

Banner sighs, scrubbing a hand harshly over his tired face. “I’m sorry, Tony. Cho’s done every test in the book and outside the books too. We’ve tried but there’s not much we can tell you. We’ve never had to deal with this before.”

“You’ve never had to deal with a brain injury before?” the billionaire says, voice raising to nearly a shout.

“For one, I’m not that kind of doctor in the first place, but I meant that we haven’t dealt with a brain injury on an enhanced individual before. Peter’s… capabilities are different to anything we’ve worked with before and we haven’t had the chance to properly test everything out yet. I’m not saying we couldn’t, but I just-”

“What do you know?” Tony asks, taking deep breaths to try to stop the panic that’s bubbling inside him. The last thing he needs right now is a panic attack. “All you’re giving me is ifs and maybes. I need something solid.”

Banner moves anxiously to the sink in the room and peels off his gloves. He starts washing his green-tinged hands and sighs again.

“Honestly?” he says. “Not much. Not enough, at least. We’ve seen the Baby Monitor Protocol; we know how it happened. We know he has a brain injury. We have the CT scan and the MRI and everything else to base our assumptions off of. If he were a regular individual, he would’ve been dead already, Tony, so it’s hard to say when he’ll be better.”

“Fuck,” Tony breathes unintelligently in response. His phone rings in his pocket, declining yet another call from Pepper.

Bruce leaves, probably to go check on Peter, who’s still too unstable for any visitors, with a quick suggestion to call Pepper and let her know what’s going on and maybe try to get in touch with Doctor Strange. Cho’s a real doctor, one of the best, but having a sorcerer might give them a little bit more luck with Peter’s state.

“Hey, Pep,” Tony breathes, finding a chair in the waiting room area. “It’s not looking great.”

“What’s going on?” Pepper asks. Tony has trouble thinking he’s the only one who cares about Peter, but Pepper loves the kid to the moon and back, as well.

“TBI,” Tony replies. “He got hurt real bad on patrol and I guess… They’ve done scans, but they don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t- They can’t even guess.”

Pepper sighs heavily. Morgan’s asking questions and making a lot of noise in the background, but Pepper says she just thinks Peter’s sick.

“He is sick.” Tony runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “He might- They’re not even sure if he’ll wake up or not. All they know is if he didn’t have his healing, he would’ve died.”

“But he does have his healing, Tony. He’s been through a lot; this isn’t what’s going to take him down.”

“A bullet went into his fucking skull,” Tony spits, more angrily than he should. He knows Pepper’s just trying to help, but she doesn’t get it. She didn’t watch the bullet. “A few centimeters over and he would’ve died. Not just should’ve. This isn’t- this isn’t just a few broken bones or a stab wound. This is- He has a traumatic brain injury, Pepper. This isn’t-”

Pepper shushes Morgan gently. “Tony, I know, take a deep breath. I know this is scary, but Peter’s a strong kid-”

“Kid, Pepper, key word there. He’s a kid. A child. And he’s- they had to take a bullet out of his fucking head-”

“I know, I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

Tony huffs, sliding a hand over his face, scared to find tears all down his cheeks, he hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“Take care of Morgan for me?”

“Of course, Tony. Update us when you can.”

Tony’s finally been allowed to sit at Peter’s hospital bedside. It’s not much better than sitting in the waiting room on an uncomfortable chair – Friday already has a note reminding him to change them into something comfier.

Peter looks young lying in the white sheets, thick bandages wrapped around his forehead. Apparently the external healing is already almost complete, but they’re not even sure he’s capable of the internal healing. And if he is, the process of getting there, might take years of hard work. For the TBI patients Cho’s helped before, sometimes they never get past it.

Research was pretty easy, there’s studies and personal stories all over the internet that Tony’s had a fun (read: awful) time reading through. It scares him that those are some of the things his kid might have to deal with depending on the extent of his healing factor.

Right now, Peter’s on some heavy sedatives and even heavier pain medication. Banner’s busy synthesizing some more that’ll hopefully help him a little bit more than the one’s he’s on now. It doesn’t help as much as it should, but it’s hard to find the balance between an overdose and enough for Peter’s high metabolism.

Peter’s hand is cold in his. That’s one of the only things Tony can think about.

(He can’t think about Peter’s ghostly pale face and his unresponsive corpse-like body. How he’s almost always a restless ball of energy, even in his sleep, but now he’s still. He can’t think about that. He’s too dehydrated to start crying again.)

His hand helps warm Peter’s up and he can almost pretend Peter’s just fine. Almost.

Peter wakes up coughing. It startles Tony awake from where’d been dozing in the chair beside the bed.

Tony doesn’t have to think about how Peter’s finally, finally, awake, he just hurries over to the little sink in the room and gets the kid a glass of water to drink.

“Take it slow, kid.”

Peter sips at the water, movements uncoordinated and clumsy. He nearly spills it down the front of his hospital gown but catches himself. Peter’s always been a bit of a klutz, but never this bad. He’s always had his spidey-powers on his side.

When Peter’s done, Tony fusses over him, taking the cup and fluffing the pillows, and checking all of Peter’s IVs.

Peter’s watching him, pupils dilated more than usual and glazed too. Tony suspects it’s the drugs, but then Peter speaks up.

“Ben?” he slurs. “What- What happened? I… the last thing I remember is… is May’s terrible meatloaf…”

Tony flinches hard. That was at least eight years ago, with the five-year gap. Only at least three years ago for Peter, but that’s still a lot of time for him to forget. Peter doesn’t even know Tony; he thinks Tony is Ben.

It’s an impulse decision, it really is, but the last thing Tony wants to do is scare Peter more. So he brushes back Peter’s curls and throws on the gentlest smile he can manage.

“We just got into an accident, Pete,” Tony says, trying his hardest to make sure his voice doesn’t crack. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Peter nods a few times, blinking too slowly like he isn’t grasping anything. He probably isn’t.

“You okay?” Tony asks quietly, gently cupping Peter’s soft cheek.

The kid tips his head to the side, glazed eyes struggling to find Tony’s.

“Ben?” he says slowly, like he can’t get control of his tongue. “What- What happened? The last thing- I can’t remember-”

Tony’s heart breaks just a little bit more. “Just an accident, Pete. You’ll be back on your feet before you know it.”

“Okay,” Peter murmurs. His eyes are closed now, leaning into Tony’s touch. “Loud.”

If it weren’t for Peter’s sensory overloads and Tony’s experience dealing with them, Tony probably wouldn’t have understood.

“Hey, Fri? Could you enable Goodnight Moon Protocol,” Tony murmurs. Immediately, all the lights are dimmed, and external noises are dimmed to nothing. The equipment by Peter’s bed are all quieted, but they can’t be totally silenced.

“What…” Peter starts saying but trails off before he can finish.

“What was that, Pete?” Tony asks.

Peter jolts a little bit, dull eyes struggling to focus again. “What- Ben?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“Where- Where are we? What… Happened? What happened?”

“Just an accident. You’ll be all better in no time.”

“You can’t go in there, Tony,” Banner says, blocking the doorway.

Tony had only been gone for ten minutes, about an hour after Peter had fallen back to sleep. Enough time to have a breakdown and make himself a coffee.

“Why not?” Tony demands, hands clenching around his mug. He sets it down on the windowsill, worried his shaking hands will drop it. And it’s his World’s Best Dad Mug with the boss crossed out and Boss written in Peter’s messy, scrawling handwriting with a stupid little smiley face. And then the Boss is crossed out and Dad is written underneath with another little smile.

“He had a seizure while you were gone,” the doctor replies bluntly. “We’re still stabilizing him.”

Tony’s heart drops. “He- fuck, Bruce. You should’ve seen him. He thought I was his Uncle Ben and he couldn’t- He could only remember things Pre-Spiderbite. I just- I played along. I didn’t want to scare him, but that’s eight years he’s missing. He’s not going to-”

“For all we know, this could be his brain’s way of healing. Amnesia and delirium are both pretty normal with brain injuries. It could be a good sign that he’s having those symptoms. And that he was awake so soon.”

Tony covers his face with his hands, taking a few steadying breaths to try to chase off his tears.

“Be honest with me,” Tony says, keeping his face hidden. “Is he going to be okay? I know you don’t know, but give me your best guess here, doc.”

Bruce sighs. “Cho thinks he’ll be okay, but that the symptoms will last either a long time or forever. I… I’ve had a little bit more experience in Peter’s biological compositions with his metabolism and healing factor while synthesizing his medications, so I might have a little more knowledge than her in that area, but I’d have the best guess as her. I think Peter’s going to pull through. I think he’ll be back on his feet and that this amnesia he’s dealing with is only temporary. I think he’ll be okay, but like Cho said, his symptoms might last a really long time, Tony. The forgetfulness, the confusion, the delirium. Who knows.”

Tony presses his fists into his eyes, shoulders hunching over himself as he continues to struggle to bring his walls up and push his emotions down.

“Doctor Strange is going to be here in a few days’ time, so hopefully he might have a better idea of how Peter’s doing, but for now, he needs you,” Bruce continues. “Whether it’s as Tony or as Uncle Ben or as whoever he needs you to be. I know it’s asking a lot, but I think right now, Peter just needs someone to answer his questions, even if he’s asking the same ones over and over again.”

“I have Morgan,” Tony says, trying to laugh. It comes out forced and hoarse and all wrong. “She’s constantly asking me the same qusestions. I think I’ll have enough patience for Peter.”

The patience isn’t really the issue, it’s whether or not Tony can endure Peter being so lost without breaking in front of him.

Peter is unresponsive once he settled after the seizure. His eyes are open, but they’re hazy and dull like he isn’t taking anything in. He’s awake but not really. He might as well be asleep.

Tony takes his hand anyway, sitting in the chair beside his bed. He has a feeling that this chair will become more of a home to him than the cabin at this rate.

“Hey, kiddo. I don’t know how much you’re listening, but if you are, I just wanted you to know I’m here. I’m sorry I left earlier. Just had to get myself a cup of coffee,” Tony says, voice too loud in the silent room except for the steady noises of the machines at Peter’s side. “I… I heard you had a pretty nasty seizure, bud. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, at least for support. I, uh, I’m here now, though. I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”

Peter just blinks slowly at the ceiling in response, fingers twitching in Tony’s strong grip.

It’s weird to know that Peter’s there and awake and alive, but not acting at all like himself. No excited or nervous rambling, no constantly jittery movement, no bright smiles or loud laughter. It’s like he’s not even Peter anymore.

It reminds Tony a little too much of the months after the Snap was reversed. Everything was different, Peter was dealing with the fact that he’d died, Tony nearly died, and May had died during those five years in a car accident. Peter had struggled a lot with his mental health throughout those first few months before he allowed Tony, his friends, and the other remaining Avengers to help him flourish once again.

“I know this is scary, bud, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ll keep you safe. I love you.”

It’s not the first time he’s said that he’s loved Peter. After the snap was reversed, it was common for them to say I love you, all the time. Goodmorning, I love you. Goodnight, I love you. Goodbye, I love you. It’s less common now, just once a day more or less because it doesn’t need to be verbalized to be known.

“I love you, kiddo. You’ll pull through.”

Morgan desperately wants to visit her big brother, promising everything to be allowed to see him. But Tony’s not sure it’s a good idea. It’ll be too hard for Peter’s brain to understand since he can’t remember anything post-spiderbite. And also because Morgan’s not going to understand that Peter’s not going to know who she is.

Tony doesn’t want to put either of his kids through that, so he settles for letting Morgan send them a Get Well Soon card. Drawn in every crayon colour with pictures of sunshine and superheroes.

“Who’s this from?” Peter asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Visually, he looks one hundred percent again. He looks healthy and strong, but it’s obvious that he’s not when he asks questions like that. “Who’s Morgan?”

Tony tries to offer a smile, running a hand through Peter’s curls. “She’s family. Distant.”

Surprisingly, Peter just nods and sets the card back on his nightstand, picking up the box of chocolates from Pepper. He pops a caramel one into his mouth with a smile.

“When’s May gonna be here?”

Tony flinches, the loss still sitting heavily on his chest.

“She’s, uh, she’s busy, kid. Sorry. She’s not going to be visiting for a little while. That okay?”

A sad expression crosses Peter’s face, a little confused and dazed like always, but at least he’s present. He looks pained all of a sudden.

“Is Skip visiting?” he asks quietly.

“Do you want him to?” Tony asks. He doesn’t know who Skip is, but if Peter wants to see him, he’d do anything to track him down and get him here.

Peter frowns, shifting uncomfortably. “No, thanks… If that’s okay? I’d rather it just be us and May whenever she can get here.”

“That’s fine, kid. You don’t need to have any visitors if you don’t want any.”

The Get Well Card and the box of chocolates on the nightstand from Pepper and Morgan, the balloons tied to the end of the bed from Happy and Rhodey, the vase of flowers from the Avengers. That’ll have to do.

Peter wakes up gasping, tears racing down his pale cheeks, limbs flailing under the hospital sheets, tangled in them.

“Hey, hey, hey, kiddo. It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. You’re okay,” Tony says quickly, hands catching Peter by the elbows to still his movements. Instantly, Peter falls like a marionette into Tony’s chest, heaving for breath.

“I- I dreamt I… I thought I died,” Peter cries, burying his face in Tony’s shirt.

If Tony thought he had any fragments of heart left after the past few days, he might’ve felt them break. Peter did die. Nearly a year ago. And yet, he doesn’t remember it. And Tony won’t remind him. He couldn’t do that to his kid. Not after everything.

There’s a part of amnesia for a superhero that almost seems appealing. Peter can’t remember the majority of grief that’s come out of his life. He can’t remember his uncle’s death, his own death, Tony’s near death, May’s death, the whole ordeal that went down just last summer in Europe. He can’t remember Toomes or Thanos or even Germany.

And maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better that Peter can’t remember all of the shit he’s been through.

On the other hand, though, that means Peter can’t remember any of the good that came out of it either. His little sister, Morgan. Tony adopting Peter officially. Pepper becoming his stepmother. Peter’s acceptance into his dream University. The amazing things he’s done as Spider-Man.

All of that is gone too.

Tony just holds Peter tight and hopes that whatever happens, he’ll be allowed to be at Peter’s side through it.

“Peter’s strong enough to do as he pleases,” Bruce says. “I’d suggest daily checkups with me or Cho, but if he wants to move throughout the tower, he can. I’m sure he’s dying to get out of that bed.”

“It’s only been a week, Banner. Don’t you think this is a little soon?” Eight days since Peter got hurt, seven since he woke up. Tony’s barely slept.

Bruce shrugs. “He’s pretty much healed externally. There’s not even a scar. But you’ve seen it. He’s getting irritable and annoyed at being kept in there when he thinks he feels fine.”

“The symptoms are still pretty strong,” Cho adds in, flipping to a page on her clipboard. “I mean, delirium, long-term and short-term memory loss, confusion, irritability, difficulty concentrating, increased sensitivity to light and sound, some slurred speech or slow speech. He’s mentioned some blurry vision issues, ringing in his ears, frequent pain, insomnia, and he’s had three seizures.”

“We’re pretty positive he won’t develop anymore symptoms as he begins to heal, but there’s not much we can do to help him other than keeping him comfortable,” Bruce says with another shrug. “We’ve tried predicting how long all of this will last and we’re hoping it’ll all go away pretty quickly, especially with him dreaming about the time period he’s missing, but we aren’t too sure.”

Tony gives himself thirty seconds of panic, lets it all wash over him for half a minute, before he’s carefully tucking all his emotions away once again.

“Doctor Strange is coming by today. We’ll see what he says, and we’ll work from there.”

Tony didn’t want to say it, but he didn’t want Peter to leave the hospital room because he’s not sure he could explain why Peter’s in the tower without breaking the kid’s brain more.

Turns out, Doctor Strange didn’t have much more to offer.

Full of Ifs and Maybes.

Which wasn’t good enough when he’s talking about Tony’s kid. He needs certainty before he makes any decisions.

He can’t risk losing his kid when he only just got him back.

He can’t.

Hospitals are weird and warp time.

Tony never has any idea what time of the day, day of the week, week of the month, unless he looks at his watch. He wouldn’t know. The blinds to the window are closed all the time due to Peter’s light sensitivity he’s dealing with. Tony rarely ever leaves Peter’s side, not wanting him to feel alone and small in the unfamiliar hospital room by himself.

The docs bring him and Peter food and coffee whenever they ask for it, always prepared to be a helping hand, and Tony’s become all too familiar with the added couch in the hospital room for naps whenever he gets too tired.

Ever schedule he has is thrown off the charts, but he can’t find it in himself to care. It’s all for Peter. Always. Even if Peter still thinks he’s Ben.

Pepper and Morgan facetime him whenever they both can, whenever Peter’s sleeping and Morgan’s home. A rare occurrence, especially because of Peter’s insomnia and nightmares.

He feels more alone than he should.

He feels like a fraud, pretending to be Peter’s late Uncle.

Lying to the kid about why May can’t visit, playing along with who the Get Well Soon gifts are from, pretending to be someone he’s not.

It’s all wrong and Tony spends about an hour every few days crying in the shower so Peter will never know about the emotional toll this has taken on him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Peter says, out of the blue on one of his Lesser days. The days where he’s less receptive and less aware. His eyes are trained on the TV, but he isn’t taking any of it in.

Tony squeezes Peter’s hand. “Course, bud.”

“I heard you talking the other day,” Peter says, sniffling. He’s gotten a little bit better with his short-term memory. He remembers where he is when he wakes up and he’ll remember why he thinks he’s there, and he can hold conversations for a few minutes now.

“Hm?”

“You were talking to… Morgan and Pepper?” Peter says, confusion and concentration filling his face. “Your wife and child? You’re not Ben, are you? I’m just- my head’s just fucked up isn’t it?”

Tony sighs. “No, I’m not Ben. I’m Tony. You, um, there’s a lot you don’t remember.”

“I dreamt he died last night.” Peter swallows thickly, watery eyes refusing to look at Tony. He pulls his hand away. “Is it true? Did that happen?”

“I’m sorry, kid.”

“Could you- I just- I don’t know what to do.” Peter sits up suddenly, nearly hitting his head against Tony’s in his haste to get up. “Can we go outside? Am I allowed to leave? I need some air.”

Tony takes Peter out to the field behind the tower, a ring of trees separating the grassy area from the rest of the city. Peter’s changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and he sits down on the grass, staring blankly at the trees swaying gently in the breeze.

Tony keeps his distance, unsure of where they stand. He knew this would happen eventually; he just couldn’t ever anticipate how Peter would feel about it.

“Is May gone too?” Peter asks, voice breaking.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

It’s silent as they both watch the steady traffic through the trees.

It’s been three days since Peter found out Tony was lying. It wasn’t this instant falling into place of all his memories, but he’s been able to see through the cracks sometimes. If he sees something he knows, he’s reminded of some things he’s forgotten.

His short-term memory is definitely on the way to mended. His pain levels are still pretty high, Banner has him on some pretty strong pain meds that don’t make him as drowsy, pill form as well instead of the IV he normally has. Some of his other symptoms have started fading away, but he’s still a little bit more sensitive to light and sound, but they’ve been able to open the blinds for a few hours in the evening without Peter getting a headache. And his concentration is still much lower than it used to be.

Cho says that it’s miraculous that he’s been able to heal as much as he has in only a few short weeks. She says it’s still possible for his symptoms to get worse again, but that he should be okay to be discharged from the hospital by the end of the week. She also says Peter now needs to be incredibly careful not to have any more head injuries as they could be life-threatening, even if it’s just a concussion.

That thought terrifies Tony because concussions were something Peter got regularly while out on patrol.

“It’ll be fine,” Peter says, looking more focused than he has since before The Accident. (Tony hates calling it The Accident for one reason: it wasn’t an accident. Tony’s already found the fucker and he’s locked him away for the rest of his life.)

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to tell you? Not vice versa?” Tony replies, rubbing his thumb over Peter’s knuckles.

The kid grins in response. “Maybe but when have we ever followed the norms, right?”

Tony stares at Peter for a long few seconds, pretending to be exasperated. (In reality, he’s mapping the planes of Peter’s face in his head, making a little note of the thin white scar by Peter’s temple. The little freckles along Peter’s cheekbone that he’s never been close enough to see. The little bits of acne Peter always complained about because his healing never worked on healing his acne; a reminder of the kid Peter is. Too young to be hospitalized for a bullet wound to the skull.)

“Am I Spider-Man?” Peter asks, out of the blue and oblivious to Tony’s gaze. “I kind of thought I was, but now I’m not so sure.”

“You are.”

Peter doesn’t seem surprised by the answer. “It wasn’t a car crash, was it?”

Tony doesn’t answer, but Peter seems to understand.

Before either of them can say anything, Morgan is running full speed into the room and diving onto Peter’s hospital bed with a loud shriek.

“Morgan, inside voice. Petey’s tired and his head hurts,” Pepper chastises gently as she walks in after their daughter. It’s a weird way to put Peter’s real symptoms.

“Petey!” Morgan shouts, hands grabbing onto the front of Peter’s nerdy science t-shirt Tony brought him. She starts rambling about what happened with their imaginary game since Peter was last home. Peter looks lost and confused, but nods along and asks questions as appropriate times, anyways. Forever the people pleaser he is.

“How are you doing, honey?” Pepper asks, carefully tipping Peter’s head up and tutting when she sees the little scar. “Everything okay?”

“Yep, feeling much, much better,” Peter says. It’s the truth but it’s not really the whole truth. “I’m still trying to remember a lot of things, but Tony’s been a lot of help.”

“It’s still weird to hear you calling him Tony,” Pepper says, letting out a little laugh.

The room falls silent as suddenly Peter’s eyes widen and he reflexively pushes Morgan off his lap, glazed eyes unseeing.

To Morgan and Pepper, this is scary, Tony can understand that, but it’s normal now. He’s gotten used to it. It just means Peter’s been triggered by something to remember.

“Petey just needed to check out for a minute,” Tony says, gently shifting Morgan up into Pepper’s arms. He moves diligently to push Peter back onto the bed, lying him down and tucking the blankets around him. It hasn’t been easy, but Peter’s getting better.

“Is he okay?” Morgan asks quietly. Her eyes are wide and filling with tears as she stares down at her brother.

“Yeah, sweetie. He’s fine. Just taking a little nap. He’ll be back with us before you know it.”

And he is. Peter checks in again after only a few minutes, eyes wide and blinking quickly to focus himself again. He looks vaguely confused as Morgan tucks herself into his side, but he slips his hand into Tony’s, a tired smile on his face.

“You ’kay, Mister Stark?”

Tony smiles. “Yeah, Bambi, I’m right here.”

They still have a long way to go, but Peter was lucky. Without his enhanced healing, Tony doesn’t even want to think about what could’ve happened. But Peter’s okay and Tony will help him along, every step of the way. Family.

"Love you," Peter slurs. already drifting off.

"Love you too."

#whumptober2019 #no.3 #lyss writes #tw: swearing #tw: brain injury #tw: amnesia #irondad fic #irondad #spiderbaby

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wordssometimesfail · 5 years

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Textual Reddie & Queer!Eddie: A Masterpost

So I’ve been planning on doing something like this for a while, but it had fallen to the wayside until @skinks and I started talking about Reddie again, and my weak little heart was rekindled.

Speaking of reKINDLEd (ehh? Ehhhhh?), my Kindle copy of IT is full of highlighted textual support of unresolved Reddie feelings, and a queer reading of Eddie specifically. And lo, a disjointed essay-type meta was birthed. This fucker’s about to get long, so if you’re interested, dive on under the cut – but be forewarned, there are massive spoilers for the book and (probably) Chapter 2 below!

(Seriously, cannot emphasize the MASSIVE SPOILERS enough. If you don’t know what happens and you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this.)

As a very general disclaimer, I am not going to be including everything that I highlighted. There is a fuckton, including a lot of small moments of Richie and Eddie interacting that don’t showcase anything other than their closeness. I’ll be paring it down here to moments that prove a larger theme, and some standout cuteness. With that said, IT is a 1,300-page behemoth, and it’s definitely possible that I skipped over something. If you know of anything significant that I missed, feel free to reblog with additions.

Note: I will be using terrible, half-assed MLA citations for this. Pagination is from my Kindle copy of the novel. All quotes will be italicized to help differentiate them visually from my points (if something was italicized in the original text, it’ll be unitalicized here). Unless otherwise stated, all bolded emphasis is mine. “--” will be used in place of em-dashes, “/” will be used to denote paragraph breaks.

PART I – ASTHMA

“When Eddie’s nervous he reaches for his aspirator.” (King 372)

It doesn’t get much more explicit than this. We’re told in no uncertain terms that Eddie’s psychosomatic asthma is rooted in nervousness, in things that make him scared and uncomfortable. The trigger for this particular explanation is being overwhelmed by the age and significance of Boston, but in an earlier scene:

“These shoes no longer looked just right... but he supposed they would do for where he was going. And for whatever he might have to do when he got there. Maybe Richie Tozier would-- / But then the blackness threatened and he felt his throat beginning to close up.” (King 112)

This is Eddie’s first on-page asthma attack. It hits him the first time we see him as an adult, having just received his call from Mike to return to Derry. And yet it’s the thought of Richie, not It or Derry, that makes Eddie nervous enough to need his aspirator. Notably, the thought goes unfinished. We don’t know, nor do we ever find out in explicit terms, what Eddie thought Richie Tozier would.

Of course, asthma is the most prominent symptom of Eddie’s hypochondria, so the attacks crop up often in the text. The most interesting of these attacks for our purposes (other than Eddie becoming nervous at the thought of Richie) is the following:

“‘The first of the ‘new murders’ [...] began on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma.’ / Eddie’s hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator.” (King 646)

Mike (speaking) tells the gang about the death of Adrian Mellon, and takes care to note three things about him: he was gay, he was childlike, and he had asthma. The connection between Eddie and Adrian is drawn quickly and obviously as Eddie reaches for his aspirator, seemingly out of reflex - but what we can also infer here is that this is making Eddie nervous. He could be nervous because a man with asthma was just killed by It, and he, too, is a man with asthma. He could also be nervous because the parallel that Mike and the prose have none-too-subtly drawn between Eddie and Adrian implies that they have more in common than a respiratory problem. But what?

PART II – EDDIE/ADRIAN

“[The other Losers] are being called--I know that much. Each murder in this new cycle has been a call.” (King 1116)

Mike writes this in the fourth interlude, referring to the way that It’s murders 27 years later all seem to be calling out to the Losers’ Club. By drawing a parallel between Eddie and Adrian through their asthma, King leads us to believe that Adrian’s murder specifically called to Eddie. He also leads us to consider how else they might be linked.

Adrian is virtually Eddie’s opposite. He’s out and proud and in a loving, unstrained relationship. He flirts openly with other men, teases his aggressors, and, to contrast with the neurotic and nervous Eddie:

“‘He didn’t have much in the way of protective coloration. He was one of those fools who think things really are going to turn out all right.’” (King 27)

His openness, however, is what gets him killed. While being harassed by some homophobes, Adrian teases and antagonizes them, and the next time they see him they assault him and unwittingly gift him, half-dead, to Pennywise.

It especially kills me that Adrian’s asthma is not significantly mentioned in his chapter. He makes a comment to his boyfriend that the “air’s better” (King 36) in Derry, which could imply that he has had less problems since he moved there, but the word “asthma” is never used. It’s not relevant to his story, and it’s not brought up until King has to draw a parallel between Adrian and Eddie. Because it’s not relevant to Adrian’s story, the connection that King draws between them feels almost half-assed and weak, until one considers their contrasting personalities and contrasting happinesses in their respective relationships. Along that same line of thinking, the implications of having Eddie directly paralleled by a gay man killed for being gay cast a suspicious light on Eddie’s presumed straightness.

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, that Adrian’s murder was a specific call to Eddie, then it goes without saying that there is a strong implication here that Eddie is closeted. He is being contrasted with an out gay man who fears no consequence for being out in a small, violent, hateful town. Eddie’s neuroses and fixation on his psychosomatic asthma are contrasted with a man who hadn’t a care in the world - not even his (presumably) real physical condition. The fear and self-hate that dogged Eddie his whole life never bothered Adrian Mellon, until it killed him.

If we accept that Eddie and Adrian are linked, and what that implies, then we can infer that Adrian is what Eddie could have been, were he happy, open, and out - and what happens to Adrian is the exact kind of thing that may have kept poor, terrified Eddie in the closet.

PART III – SEX, QUEERNESS, AND SELF-LOATHING

So, I think we all remember the leper scene--creepy in the 2017 movie, even creepier in the novel. One notable book-only detail is that the leper “[offers] to give Eddie a blowjob for a quarter” (King 400) in addition to chasing him around and being generally disgusting.

“Come back here, kid, the hoarse voice whispered. I’ll blow you for free. Come back here! / No, Eddie moaned at it. Please, go away, I don’t want to think about that.” (King 394)

Eddie is immediately terrified by the mere thought of getting a blowjob, of being touched by someone diseased, of being touched by a man. He doesn’t even want to think about it... and then the question becomes, does he not want to think about sex with the leper, or sex at all? Regardless, it seems pretty normal for an eleven-year-old boy to be scared of a blowjob from a strange adult with open sores on his face. But there is, of course, more to unpack here.

Another difference between book and film comes when Eddie recounts the tale to Richie and Bill...:

“‘He didn’t have leprosy, you dummy,’ Richie said. “He had [syphilis].’ / […] / ‘It’s a disease you get from fucking,’ Richie said. ‘You know about fucking, don’t you, Eds?’ / ‘Sure,’ Eddie said. He hoped he wasn’t blushing.” (King 400)

All of a sudden Eddie isn’t just afraid of disease, but of a sexually transmitted disease. Pennywise’s angle on Eddie is a big fuck-off combo of decay and sex--specifically gay sex. Not only is the “leper” a man offering him sexual favours, but Bill is quick to point out that men can get syphilis from “another g-g-guy if they’re kwuh-kwuh-queer" (King 402). Queerness and gay sex are therefore lumped in with Eddie’s fear of the “leper” from word go.

Since he’s a pre-pubescent child (in that same scene, Eddie recalls trying to masturbate and nothing happening), Eddie’s disinterest in and general apprehension towards sex makes sense without bringing the element of internalized homophobia into the mix. But this is my post, I can do what I want, and Stephen King already brought it into the mix for me.

Eddie is frightened by the thought of queer sex at another notable point in the novel as well, when he recalls a vignette from his and the Losers’ past:

“Patrick Hockstetter was down [in the Barrens]. Before It took him Beverly saw him doing something bad. It made her laugh but she knew it was bad. Something to do with Henry Bowers, wasn’t it? Yes, I think so. And-- / [Eddie] turned away suddenly and started back toward the abandoned depot, not wanting to look down into the Barrens anymore, not liking the thoughts they conjured up. He wanted to be home with Myra.” (King 720)

Myra, for those who haven’t read the novel, is Eddie’s wife. If you’re one of those people (or even if you haven’t read it in a while), you might also be wondering what exactly Patrick Hockstetter did to Henry Bowers in the Barrens that made Eddie balk and suddenly crave his wife’s company. Well, my friends, Patrick tried to give Henry Bowers a blowjob. Eddie has to turn away from the mere thought of two men (well, boys) engaging in a sex act. He has to return to his wife, the implication here being that she is there to shield him from queerness, from queer sex.

And the scene between Patrick and Henry, which we do see later from Bev’s point of view, is extremely telling as to why Eddie has to turn away. Henry gets violent and angry when Patrick propositions him, just like Adrian Mellon’s assailants got violent and angry, just like Eddie’s own mother gets defensive and cruel at the thought of a pair of (unconfirmed) gay men in their town with a nicer house than hers:

“‘Any two men who bother keeping a house so nice must be queers,’ Eddie’s mother had once said in a disgruntled sort of way, and Eddie hadn’t dared ask for clarification.” (King 712)

Eddie here is afraid to even question the root of his mother’s assumptions, or the very fact of her prejudice. Questioning, experimentation, being openly anything other than straight in Derry only earns you bile and violence from the rest of the town, and Eddie knows this. Why would anyone come out? How could they? Isn’t it better to just turn away and leave the thought unfinished?

And it is explicit that Eddie feels somehow wrong and incomplete, in addition to his general aversion to all things queer and sexual. At one point, compounding himself and the homeless “leper”, Eddie has an internal monologue that ends as follows:

“I got me a disease that’s eating me up. My skin’s cracking open, my teeth are falling out, and you know what? I can feel myself turning bad like an apple that’s going soft. I can feel it happening, eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating, eating me.” (King 405)

By conflating himself with the “leper”, Eddie makes the disease his own. He makes his fear of the “leper” falling apart a fear he has about himself. He fears something within himself, something rotten, turning him “bad” - bad like offering a blowjob to Henry Bowers in the Barrens. It’s a literal fear of disease, to be sure, but that sense of being rotten to the core, being bad on the inside in a way you cannot change, also feels like an apt metaphor for internalized homophobia in light of the subtextual queerness of the rest of Eddie’s fear. And especially in light of another scene in which he feels inferior, rotten, wrong:

“Simply reaching for the cubes of bread [at communion] became an act which required courage, and he always feared an electrical shock... or worse, that the bread would suddenly change color in his hand, become a blood-clot, and a disembodied Voice would begin to thunder in the church: Not worthy! Not worthy! Damned to Hell! Damned to Hell!” (King 1247)

We will absolutely come back to the fact that Eddie uses Voice with a capital V, but for now let’s focus on the rest of the scene. Eddie’s fear of being damned and unworthy is rooted in a story his Sunday School teacher told him, about a boy who blasphemed. Even as a small child, he has anxiety about his existence or behaviour cursing him – making him diseased, or turning bread into blood. And, of course, for the purposes of this reading, we can’t ignore the fact that queerness and American Christianity don’t typically go hand-in-hand. This compounded with the suggestion that he is rotten from the inside out suggests that Eddie has some reason to think he has blasphemed – and his persistent association with queerness suggests that this reason may be the knowledge or suspicion that he isn’t straight.

Eddie’s worries even follow him into adulthood:

“Get off it, Eds, Richie’s voice seemed to whisper. You ain’t solid at all […].” (King 715)

I included this quote because it reinforces my point about Eddie not feeling whole or right within himself. It’s not quite time for the Reddie part of this meta, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Richie is nowhere in this scene and has absolutely nothing to do with it, and still it’s his voice that voices Eddie’s subconscious fears about not being “solid”. Again, I will be going into this in more detail later. First, there’s one more element of this queer reading of Eddie that needs to be tackled.

PART IV – THIS ONE QUOTE GETS TO BE ITS OWN PART BECAUSE MY GOD

Most of you are probably familiar with Anthony Perkins, even if you don’t know you are – if you’ve ever been exposed to Psycho, either by watching it or through pop-cultural osmosis, you'll know him as Norman Bates. You also may or may not know that he was famously closeted. He reportedly only had relationships with men until he met and married Berinthia Berenson in his early 40s, and never came out during his lifetime. (Obviously one’s sexual history doesn’t necessarily determine one’s sexuality, but most sources I can find suggest that he was gay, not bisexual.)

Now, if you read Eddie Kaspbrak as gay, this may sound somewhat familiar. Married a woman, never came out, horror icon, it’s all there. But why do I bring it up? Well, because of this:

“Eddie--it was weird but true--had grown up to look quite a little bit like Anthony Perkins.” (King 628)

On its own, it’s a seemingly innocuous, if oddly specific, pop-cultural reference. Nothing to write home about. Compounded with everything else we know about Eddie, and everything else I’ve covered above? It’s telling as balls. King could have simply described Eddie, as he does immediately after this line, but he takes the time to compare a character repeatedly associated with queerness and sexual repression to a closeted gay man who eventually married a woman.

(Note: admittedly, IT would’ve been written in the early-mid 80s, at which point Perkins was not officially known to be gay, but according to my father there were plenty of rumours. He was, additionally, known as a repressed, shy “mama’s boy” who was made nervous by female attention. Sound like anyone else we know?)

PART V – REDDIE

And now for the main event.

If I unpack every individual piece of Reddie goodness to the degree that I’ve unpacked Eddie himself, we’ll be here for another 2,500 words. So, I’m only going to hit three major points:

PART VA – CLOSENESS

Richie is all over Eddie. He frequently pinches Eddie’s cheeks, calls him cute, and is all-around physically and verbally affectionate with him. Some notable examples:

“Richie […] pinched Eddie’s cheek. / ‘Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie.’ / ‘Ah, you love it, Eds,’ Richie said, and beamed at him.” (King 384-85)

This is their first on-page interaction, mind you. This moment sets the stage for the rest of their relationship.

“Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddie’s cheek. ‘Cute, cute, cute!’ Richie exclaimed.” (King 390)

“‘[My aunts] all pinch my cheek and tell me how much I’ve grown,’ Eddie said. / ‘That’s cause they know how cute you are, Eds--just like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you.’” (King 446-47)

Listen. Do you think I’ll ever get over this? Do you think I can move on, knowing that this exists? Richie teases everyone, but he only ever uses “cute” for Eddie.

“‘Take it easy, Eds,’ Richie soothed, and leaned toward him. / ‘Don’t call me Eds and don’t you dare pinch my cheek!’ [Eddie] cried, rounding on Richie. ‘You know I hate that! I always hated it!’ / Richie recoiled, blinking.” (King 668)

This scene takes place when they’re adults, and I love it for a number of reasons – the easy return to form for both of them, Richie genuinely trying to comfort Eddie, and Richie’s surprise at being snapped at. My heart goes out to the man.

“‘I hate it when you call me Eds.’ / ‘I know,’ Richie said, hugging him tightly, ‘but somebody has to toughen you up, Eds. When you stop leading the sheltered igs-zistence of a child and grow up, you gonna, Ah say, Ah say you gonna find out life ain’t always this easy, boy!’ / Eddie began to shriek with laughter.” (King 1334)

There are quite a few scenes where they make each other laugh, but this one is my personal favourite.

And the cherry on top:

“[Richie] slapped Eddie’s can.” (King 1322)

The context of this is less than shippy (they’re squeezing through a tight passageway, Richie is behind Eddie and needs him to move forward), but there are few ships that can say that party A has canonically smacked party B’s ass, and I think we should appreciate that more as a fandom.

There’s also a strong element of protectiveness – Richie is very protective of Eddie in a way that Eddie’s mother isn’t. He genuinely pays attention to Eddie’s needs and tries to do right by him:

“It was Richie and Bev who went to Eddie. […] Richie dug his aspirator out of his pocket. ‘Bite on this, Eddie,’ he said, and Eddie took a hitching, gasping breath as Richie pulled the trigger.” (King 903)

“Richie heard Eddie cough twice […] and then fall silent again. He shouldn’t be down here, he thought […].” (King 968)

“...Eddie [agreed to follow Bill into the sewers] last. / ‘I don’t think so, Eddie,’ Richie said. ‘Your arm’s not, you know, looking too cool.’” (King 1251)

“Richie turned Bill toward him, looked at him as you would look at a man who is hopelessly raving. ‘Bill, we have to take care of Eddie. We have to get a tourniquet on him, get him out of here.’” (King 1396)

Hey fun fact? Fun fucking fact, Eddie’s already dead in this scene and Richie knows that.

On a cheerier note, and to add one last dimension to Eddie and Richie’s closeness, Richie is the only person with whom we see Eddie intentionally swapping spit/germs (outside of ritualistic bloodletting). Not only does Richie use Eddie’s aspirator at one point, but there’s also this scene:

“‘I can carry [the Parcheesi board],’ Eddie said, a little out of breath. ‘How about a lick on your Rocket?’ / ‘Your mom wouldn’t approve, Eddie,’ Richie said sadly. […] ‘[…] Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else!’ / ‘I’ll chance it,’ Eddie said. / Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie’s mouth... and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.” (King 1243)

The obvious humour of this scene aside (poor Richie, having to share), the fact that hypochondriac Mama’s boy Eddie doesn’t mind Richie’s germs in particular is both sweet and interesting. The imagery here, of Eddie licking Richie’s Rocket despite his mother’s disapproval (compounded with the pre-established association between Eddie and blowjobs) is just... interesting, to say the least. As is the fact that I totally stole this scene and reversed the roles for the sake of a fic that I would like to pimp as a reward for making it this far into this monstrosity. It has a happy ending, don’t worry.

What does all of this put together signify? Richie and Eddie are close. They clearly love each other as friends, and the almost flirtatious touching, cute-calling, teasing, protectiveness, and Rocket-licking can also all signify the beginnings of something else as well. If nothing else, it’s fun, sweet fic fodder.

PART VB – THE VOICE (WITH A CAPITAL V)

This is one of my favourite details. Eddie thinks of all the Losers from time to time, but Richie is straight-up one of the voices in his head. Richie refers to his impressions and characters as Voices with a capital V, and Very often, Eddie will think in them. He’ll hear jokes in them, Pennywise will taunt him with them, he’ll hear the very criticism and hate that he fears hurled back at him in Voices. Right from the start:

“‘Had any good chucks lately, Eds?’ [Eddie] says out loud, and laughs again.” (King 374)

As he drives to Derry, Eddie is already laughing and delighting in the thought of his friends (specifically Bill and Richie) and the way they used to be. Later in the same scene:

“‘Sure, kid, EV-ery day,’ he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again.” (King 376)

King quickly establishes that Richie’s Voices are a source of joy for Eddie, and that Richie himself is one of the Losers that Eddie is most looking forward to seeing. Indeed, in several scenes (including one of the ones quoted above), we see Eddie laughing at or with Richie when he does his Voices, both in the present and the past. But Eddie’s love of the Voices gets twisted by his own subconscious fears – I mentioned earlier that it is a Voice with a capital V that tells Eddie that he’s damned to Hell during his imaginary blood-communion. And it’s Richie’s voice that reminds Eddie that he’s not “solid”, to cap off a scene where he literally runs away from thoughts of queerness and sex. Eddie’s fear of himself becomes conflated with the Voices in a way that suggests his fear is of Richie, of Richie’s hatred, contempt, and dismissal. He is afraid that Richie sees him as unworthy, damned, unsolid. He is afraid that Richie sees the thing that’s eating him from the inside out.

Eddie wants to be home with Myra. It’s easier to keep Richie and his Voices in his head than to risk what they would (--) do if they saw all of Eddie clearly.

PART VC – EDS & EDDIE’S DEATH

Yes, we all know and love “Eds”. We love Richie being a little shit, we love Eddie being his tsundere self, and we love that Eddie canonically has a soft spot for the nickname:

“Man, he had hated it when Richie called him Eds... but he had sort of liked it, too.” (King 374)

We also love (or hate) that “Eds” factors into Eddie and Richie’s final exchange in the novel:

“But there was something else [Eddie] had to say [before he died]. / ‘Richie,’ he whispered. / ‘What?’ Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. / ‘Don’t call me Eds,’ he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie’s cheek. Richie was crying. ‘You know I... I...’ Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died.” (King 1386)

(A.k.a. the scene that nearly made me throw my Kindle across the room.)

This ties into a broader theme with Eddie that I only began noticing when I started compiling my notes for this meta – his thoughts, when connected to other men, queerness, or sex, often go unfinished. He cuts them off before they stray somewhere that makes him nervous (the thought of Richie giving him an asthma attack), before they stray anywhere at all (the memory of Patrick and Henry making him yearn for Myra, not wanting to think about blowjobs), or before they even become thoughts (not daring to question his mother’s homophobic comments). And here, when he has to say one thing before he dies, when he’s finally allowing himself to conclude a sentimental, intimate thought that he doesn’t even know how to word... he’s cut off one last time.

And we don’t know what he was going to say. We can speculate, we can infer, but we don’t know, just as we will never know what “Richie Tozier would”.

Richie Tozier seems to know, though. When he realizes they’ll have to leave Eddie’s body behind, he kisses Eddie’s cheek (just as Eddie touched his in his final moments, and in contrast to the way he used to pinch them) and...:

“Richie got up and turned toward the door. ‘Fuck you, Bitch!’ he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched. / ‘Why’d you do that?’ Beverly asked. / ‘I don’t know,’ Richie said, but he knew well enough.” (King 1427)

Richie’s shutting the door on Pennywise and the sewers and the whole horrible tragedy of it all, yes. But he’s also furious with the grief of losing Eddie, and shutting the door that will now forever separate Eddie’s final resting place from the hole where he died. Bev’s question allows Richie to do just what Eddie did, too – keep it quiet, cut it off, not acknowledge what he’s avoiding or what he’s just lost. Still, he knows well enough.

PART VI – CONCLUSION

I don’t know for sure that King intended for Eddie to be closeted, but I think he did. He’s gone on the record that he believes in leaving stuff like this for the reader to figure out. There are a lot of scenes, a lot of small moments, that suggest that Eddie is gay, and while many of them make sense without that reading, the entirety of the picture they paint does not. I’m partial to Reddie, and as I’ve demonstrated above, I believe there is a lot of textual evidence to support the theory that they had feelings for each other. Eddie’s death alone, and the fact that the last thing he had to say needed to be addressed to Richie while Eddie held his face in his hands, is... a LOT. But I’ll be honest – my loyalty is to queer!Eddie on its own.

If Eddie Kaspbrak is gay, then his story is ten times more heartbreaking. It’s a story of fear, not just of the supernatural but of the very real hatred and pain he would have faced being openly gay in Derry. It’s a story of fearing that something inside of him was rotten and sick and sinful, and that one of his closest friends in the world thought so too. It’s a story of self-loathing. And it’s a story without an end, because Eddie could never let himself think of how to finish admitting what he needed to admit to himself. The truth was lost in asthma attacks, in Myra, in death. In that sense, it’s fitting that King never explicitly stated that Eddie was gay, if that was indeed his intent – it's one more thing we’ll never know for sure, because Eddie couldn’t bring himself to tell us.

THAT BEING SAID. My loyalty is to queer!Eddie. Which means that my loyalty is to making this shit better, exploring and dissecting the hell out of it, and fixing it. Give Eddie Kaspbrak the ending he deserved! Let him finish his thoughts! Take these quotes, draw inspiration from them, and let’s all cling to each other in preparation for Chapter 2.

#it stephen king #stephen king's it #reddie #eddie kaspbrak #gay eddie kaspbrak #it meta #reddie meta #Aaliya writes #I have been working on this... for a long time #please tell me what you think and what I've missed #unless what you think is that eddie isn't gay because why are you here then #why did you read this #who are you

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njcklenjart · 5 years

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Post-fbtcog, part 6

Tina leaves that following week. She’s not the only one, Yusuf the first to depart. He promises to keep in touch and to visit, but is determined to get his affairs in order.

“I’ve let my father’s revenge take so much of my life,” he says sadly, shaking their hands one by one. “I think it’s time I do something for myself.”

Jacob prepares him some food. “I ain’t one of them French cooks, but at least you won’t leave hungry.”

In a prejudice world, Yusuf is a kindred soul, a pureblood who accepts the gifts of a Muggle and willingly embraces a Maledictus when even the more revered wizard would not. He leans in close when Jacob leads Nagini back to the kitchen to finish everyone else’s breakfast. “Look after Mlle. Nagini. She’ll be treated far better here than anywhere I take her.”

Theseus promises and, while Newt’s brother is a good man (if not insufferable at times), he’d never been one to take in strays. Paris has taken something from each of them, but it’s also given something in return. Another chance.

Newt personally takes Tina to the Ministry that night.

They stand by the fireplace in silence, awaiting her turn while the crowds of witches and wizards pass by, an air of morose hanging over them like a stormcloud. Staring at the pristine stone that make the mantle, the shining plaque that reads ‘New York City’ in lovely cursive, Newt comes to a sudden realization. He absolutely doesn’t want her to leave.

They haven’t spoken much about what lies between them, about what it means, or what comes after. It’s something entirely new, more dangerous than any of his escapades to foreign jungles and deserts, his pulse rocketing in anticipation at the mere thought of her responses. For the first time in his life, Newt would like nothing more than to talk about this terrifying feeling, except he isn’t sure how to go at it himself.

“I’ll get Jacob situated,” he promises instead of bringing it up, “and Nagini will be taken care of. She’s agreed to let me, um, study her curse. I’m not sure I can do much—alleviate the symptoms maybe—and hopefully give her more time.”

“Thank you.” The cool light in the atrium paints the scene like it’s the end of some tragedy and it’s a pitiful way to end their story. “Take care of yourself, Newt.”

Newt glances up at her and finds that Tina’s holding back tears and he reaches forward to do—what, he doesn’t know—only for Tina cover the rest of the distance for him. She steps into his space and envelops him in a what he can only describe as a loving embrace, and, after a beat, his arms wrap themselves around her waist like this is a normal habit of his. He holds her tight, beginning to see why Theseus likes it so much, the feel of someone he so desperately wants close, unwilling to let go just yet, not until he’s ingrained the moment in his memory for duller days.

“I will,” he says to the crook of her neck and soon he’s holding back his own wave of emotions. Exchanging letters will be a pitiful replacement, inadequate to having the real object of his affection in front of him, speaking to her whenever he likes. “Try not get in so much trouble that I need to go chasing after you.”

She squeezes a little tighter. “Keep doing that.”

“Do what?”

She pulls away to face him and this close her eyes are dark and endless. “Chase after me.”

It’s a quieter breakfast the following morning.

“Where’s Tina?”

Newt looks up from his breakfast. “She went back to New York.”

Jacob nearly drops the eggs from the pan. “What? Tell me you didn’t mention no salamanders and scare her off.”

Theseus looks at him confused and Newt resolutely keeps his gaze on the tabletop. He never openly talked about his growing fondness for Tina, preferring to be selfish and keep her to himself, and with the engagement and his newfound fame, he valued his solidarity more than ever.

“I don’t understand why that would scare her off. As an auror she sees and hears quite a lot of unsightly things,” Newt says, playing with his food, his appetite nonexistent. “And she took the compliment rather well.”

“She did? Then what went wrong? Did she tell you?”

Newt shrugs, just as confused. “We haven’t, um, spoken about it much. I’m not sure Tina…she said she wants me to chase after her…”

For the first time in days, Jacob’s expression doesn’t have any lingering sadness. He looks gobsmacked. “And you’re still here?”

“Well, she still has things to take care of in New York. MACUSA will want a report of what happened in Paris and I suppose she needs to deal with her…” Newt grimaces. “Boyfriend.”

Theseus is staring at him strangely now, like he’s grown two more heads.

There’s a clatter as Jacob abandons his cooking and pulls up a chair beside him, breakfast forgotten. His elbow nearly topples Pickett’s small dish of lice. “Listen, pal. When a doll says to come after her then you follow her!” He turns to their only female companion. “Right?”

Nagini stares blankly at them, startled from her own activity; she’s become enamoured with the baby nifflers and their courageous attitudes and has been giving Newt’s spare change to the little buggers. Pumpernickel has become particularly fond of her and begun to gift her bits and pieces of treasure that only he finds valuable. Brass knobs, golden wrappings, and the like. “I don’t…”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” Jacob pushes past her blunder. “We’ll, uh, go over the rules later.”

Newt frowns. “It’d be easier if everyone was middle-headed instead flapping around like a diricawl in heat in the hopes of doing the right step.”

Jacob stares at him for a beat. “I don’t know how to answer that.” He turns to Theseus who shakes his head.

“I don’t know either. Newt, you’ve treated her as equally as everyone else, am I right?” When Newt makes to explain that Tina is not like anyone he’s ever met, his brother gives him a stern glare. “She accepted your confession, though as strange as it was?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then what’s stopping you from snatching her back?”

“Snatch her back? Tina’s not—I don’t think that’s appropriate here.”

Jacob continues despite Newt’s preference for this conversation to end. “When you see her again, all you have to do is sweep her off her feet and place a good one on her. Go to town until she’s swooning. Gals like that.”

Newt flushes. Tina might jinx him if he did such a thing.

“Let her decide,” Nagini whispers and they all quiet at the sound of her voice. “You both should compromise and…not think so much about it.”

Jacob rolls with this advice as enthusiastically as he did with Theseus’s. “Go find your thunderbird.”

Newt frowns. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just trying to speak your language. You know what—forget I even said that.” Jacob takes Newt’s morning tea from him and pulls him to his feet while Theseus summons his coat. “You gotta get to New York stat!”

Newt stumbles when his clothes straighten and clean themselves, pulls at his tie when it tightens a smidge too tight. “I’m still banned from international travel!”

“I’ll deal with Travers and the rest.” Theseus lays a hand on his case when Newt makes to grab it. “Let’s keep this here for this trip. I’ll send for your assistant if there’s any trouble.”

He’s not a stranger to impromptu adventures, faces most problems in his life with the assumption that surprises should be expected and that it was better to go with the flow of things rather than fight the impossible, to enjoy the value of the experience. Except this is more terrifying than anything he’s ever faced, laced with guilt at the mere aspect of focusing on something so selfish while the world is that much closer to crumbling; it feels wrong to be happy when others have lost so much.

Nagini must guess his thoughts because she smiles sadly and reaches for his hand as he passes by, pressing something into his palm. A miniature salamander made from the golden wrapping of a liquor bottle cap. “For good luck.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

#newtina #fantastic beasts #hp #fbtcog #newt x tina #newt scamander #tina goldstein #Porpentina Scamander #fantastic beasts and where to find them #fantastic beasts the crimes of grindelwald #crimes of grindelwald #fbcog #tcog #cog #the crimes of grindelwald #crimes of grindlewald spoilers #njckle

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periodicreviews · 4 years

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Uncharted 1-3

With the release of the Uncharted trilogy for free, I decided to finally make my way through them. When I bought my PS4 in 2017, it came with a copy of Uncharted 4 that I’ve left untouched until now. I go into specifics for Uncharted 1-3, then talk a little about the series as a whole.

Uncharted 1

My biggest complaint with this game was the platforming. It was not only tough to figure out which ledges were “grabbable” but even after my 9 hours in the game, I couldn’t accurately judge distances.

Some ledges appear to be close enough, but there’s actually a different side path the developers want you to take. Drake as a character seems to have a variable jump distance depending on if the game detects you are trying to land on a grabbable ledge.

If you jump too soon or at the wrong angle, you’ll execute a short “hop” and fall to your death. I haven’t done any digging on whether such a system exists, that’s just what it appears like.

I died over and over on one of the later levels where there is a series of platforms in the rafters of a church. I just kept misjudging distances and jumping too early.

My primary cause of death had to have been just been falling as opposed to any enemy NPC.

As I say that, I’m reminded of one particular shootout in a courtyard. At the time I remember being really frustrated that being in cover didn’t mean that you were safe from bullets. There was so much gunfire that I couldn’t get anywhere near the people who were shooting at me especially with the number of grenades they were shooting at me. It was tough to have to unlearn everything I know about cover from Gears of War, where you are safe if you don’t peek out from people shooting towards you.

Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2 in some ways felt like a step back and a step forward.

The remastering team on U1 maybe did too good of a job because I felt the eyes of the characters in U2 felt a lot more lifeless.

The step forward was obviously in the improved platforming. I had less and less trouble judging distances. I can’t tell if that’s just because I had 9 hours of practice from the previous game, but I feel like the system judging character movement was also greatly improved.

I died 10 or more times in a single sequence when a helicopter is firing missiles at a building. The building begins to tip over and collapse and you are supposed to jump through a window on a neighboring building to escape.

Fail to jump and you die. Jump at the wrong angle, and you fall between the collapsing building and are crushed. Before I realized I was supposed to go through the window, I thought I was supposed to grab onto the ledge of the neighboring building.

Right after you jump at the exact spot, Drake says “Jump”. But for me, this audio cue always came after I was supposed to jump. I’m not sure if they intended that audio cue to be the cue for the user or not.

This particular scene is a symptom of the root problem in my opinion of the game trying to be too cinematic. I say that, even as a fan of Quantic Dream games. I know there’s a very fine line between cinematic and game. Go too far and you can confuse the player on when they are required to interact and/or make it feel like their actions have no impact. Uncharted 2 had a few such sequences for me. I never wanted to see another train by the end of it.

Uncharted 3

The beginning of the game had me a little worried about the collision detection. It might have just been a side effect of playing with a smaller character model and the collision requirements being slightly different than the regular sized character. There were a few moments when I would get stuck in the chase sequence on corners or edges of geometry.

U3 also put a lot more importance on the melee combat system. I personally prefer to stick with the gunplay but for certain enemies like the shotgun/bulletproof vest guy and the giant brawler types, it felt like a requirement to engage them melee combat. The ability to return grenades and dropdown on enemies in silent takedowns was a welcome addition though.

I really hated the “drug trip” levels. It was very uncomfortable to look at the screen as it distorts and I started to panic during the first level because I was worried I was going in circles and causing this level to last longer than it should. Though to the developers’ credit, that’s really the point of these sequences.

There was one segment I was intent on getting through on all stealth as you infiltrate the airport to stowaway on the cargo plane to the desert. Two enemies at the end guard a door and you can’t shoot either without triggering the “alert”. You had to catch their attention, one at a time, to lure them away from the door and take them out. I really wished I could use the rock mechanic from Horizon Zero Dawn to even get them to spread out on a patrol as they searched for the noise. Ultimately, I was able to remain in the shadows enough to grab their attention but not to fully alert them.

General

I think story-wise, I enjoyed the first game the most, despite it being a little cliché that the Nazis appeared. But gameplay-wise, I probably prefer U2. I enjoyed Elena being presented as someone who didn’t have to rely on Drake to save her. The scene where Elena breaks Drake out of jail in particular was well executed and it was fun to watch these actors perform it.

In U2, although realistic that there would be some animosity between Chloe and Elena, I wished the two could be there as part of a team, not just as two sides of the love triangle. Thankfully they do warm up to each other.

In U2 and U3, characters ask Drake “what’s the point?” and I felt like Drake never successfully answered that. In U1, the driving motivation is rescuing Sully and Elena, then later on it’s in preventing the destructive power from leaving the island. In U2, despite Elena being on death’s doorstep, Drake still decides to face Lazarevic. In U3, especially after getting the warning that Francis Drake himself is alleged to have written. Drake wants to continue on. I guess that just speaks to who he is as a character but the 2nd and 3rd games lost me in that regard as to knowing when to quit. To be fair, he did want to quit in U2 until Schafer convinced him otherwise with the power of the Cintamani stone.

Music

Given Uncharted’s inclusion on stuff like Video Games Live, I expected there to be more to the soundtrack. The main theme is notable but unfortunately that’s the only track that stands out. There are no bad tracks so to speak, but nothing that made me want to listen to it again.

Hints

The hint system was hit and miss at times. I imagine they did a lot of testing to figure out what’s the average time it takes for someone to figure out a particular puzzle and then use that time for how long it takes for the hint to appear. Frequently, the hint would appear when I was already well on my way to finishing the puzzle or when I had just figured it out.

Sometimes the hints would take the form of pressing up on the D-pad and that’s great because I have the option to not press it. It was frustrating when character dialog would tell me what to do instead of letting me figure it out. I know I could’ve turned off the hints in the menu, but I think that would have only worked for the D-pad. It would’ve been nice if that extra character dialog wouldn’t give it all away or could be triggered optionally by the D-pad.

Take a break

It’s probably my fault for trying to rush through these games. But I couldn’t help but notice how high the body count is as you kill non-descript enemy after non-descript enemy. In the first game, they’re just trying to find El Dorado and yet these people are throwing their lives away. In U2, it’s maybe a little more believable because Lazarevic is a warlord basically. And in U3, I guess it’s also believable that this secret society has vast sums of money and influence. Everyone has a price as they say.

At times, I just felt fatigued at having to mow through a whole other squadron of enemies. I know that sounds strange from someone who has played his fair share of Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War, where there are no puzzles or exploration, it’s just killing.

In two of those, you’re fighting aliens or “monsters”. I wonder if I played through the 3 Call of Duty Modern Warfare games back to back, would I feel the same way about them? Or maybe it’s merely because Uncharted is not sold to me as being a soldier on a battlefield, you’re just a treasure hunter against mercenaries hired by some rich guy who are just looking for a paycheck (though to be fair, that’s many soldiers as well). Maybe it’s just my personal tastes changing over the years.

This endless warzone type combat also made me yearn for one or two scene where Drake takes it easy. Even just like stopping to eat or sleep would’ve been good. The puzzle and vehicle sections are there to break up the standard run and gun action but I just feel like as a person, it would feel more realistic to see Drake take a nap some time.

Granted, Uncharted is not necessarily aiming for realism. Chances are very low that any person would be able to climb up a train car as it teeters on the edge of a cliff in Tibet. Or escape from a collapsing building that has been shot with rockets from a helicopter gunship. Or survive days walking through the Rub' al Khali with no water and still have the stamina to survive waves of troops in a gun battle. And keep doing it all over and over again.

He does take 1 nap in Uncharted 3 for like 3 hours and I welcomed every second of it. Uncharted 2 opens at a bar where he takes several sips of a drink and of course he takes several sips of the poisoned water in Uncharted 3. But in excluding all of these normal human activities, Drake feels less and less like a human and more like a god.

I feel like maybe I’m missing something that all of these 10/10 and 9/10 reviewers saw. Part of that is probably the time that has passed. I started with The Last of Us and moved on to other games, like Death Stranding, that have built upon the motion capture acting format. Part of it is probably due to me trying to beat these games too quickly, especially when it comes to 2 and 3. I feel like as a whole they are more an 8/10.

I’ve since moved on to Uncharted 4 and so far it feels like a very different game, which I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing yet.

#uncharted

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mybipolar-coaster · 5 years

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An Introduction

I would like to say it was an easy decision to write down my experiences thus far in life but that would be a lie. I don’t really consider myself an interesting person. As a matter of fact, I consider myself rather boring. I like boring things like history and science. I studied statistics in university. I’ve led what I would consider an amazingly average life. That is, until late last year when I was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder, or as those in the states would call it, Bipolar I. Since then, so many things in my life have clicked into place. Things that had always seemed unusual now had a reason behind them, a cause. I had something I could point to and say, “that’s why”. Since being diagnosed I have found an entire community online of people both living with the disorder and coping with the fallout of it. I have also had my own share of trials and ordeals to deal with since my diagnosis, but that’s getting ahead of myself a bit. First, let me explain what it was that finally made me commit to writing this blog. I am currently waiting for the right opportunity to ask the girl I have been dating for the past 10 years to marry me. I have the ring. I know the when, I know the where. The how is still slightly eluding me but I think a small amount of improvisation on that front won’t hurt. This is what made me want to write this blog. I wanted to detail my feelings leading up to asking the question. I hope to portray the excitement and nerves leading up to the moment of truth so that afterwards I can get my (hopefully) fiancée to read back and see how much thought, work and planning went into this and how much I love her. But then I thought, “hey, why stop there”? I could keep the blog going afterwards, talk about ordinary, every-day things. Perhaps even give people an insight into how I live with my condition and how it affects those around me. I have always been a creative person and I enjoy writing, so maybe this could be a new hobby for me. I certainly hope so. So, this will be the first post in a hopefully ongoing series of blog posts. However, in the off chance that my girlfriend does happen to stumble upon this blog, I will be operating under strict anonymity for the time being. I won’t say my name, or the name of anyone that could be used to identify me in these blogs, at least until after I’ve popped the question, but everything else within will be true. I think an ideal first post then, would be for me to give a quick recap of my life so far, and give you the reader an introduction to my life and how my messed-up brain works. I hope you enjoy!

I was born in the UK in the early 90’s (trying to be vague) into a working-class family. My dad worked as an electrician in a dog-food factory and my mum volunteered as a cook in a nursing home. My parents were quite old when they had me, so there is a large age gap between me and the rest of my family. In fact, when I was born both of my older brothers were teenagers. My mum says that one of my brothers refused to talk to her or my dad for a year after they told him they were pregnant because he was so disgusted that they were still having sex “at their age”. Having an older family definitely has its advantages though. When I was young, all my siblings had jobs, so I got four times the amount of presents that most other kids got. I should point out that I also have a sister, who is the closest in age to me. Growing up, me and my sister got on like oil and water. I’m surprised my mum managed to survive through my early years – in the same year my sister turned sixteen I was going through my “terrible twos”. I have always been a mummy’s boy. Even now that I’m in my 20’s, I get on great with my mum and have a good relationship with her. I bring up my mum because she was my first ever contact with mental illnesses. My mum had panic attacks and generalised anxiety when I was younger. I have multiple memories of us being somewhere and my mum suddenly bursting into floods of tears, sometimes running away, and my dad having to track her down and console her. It was an incredibly scary experience as a child but, to my mum’s credit, she did a great job of explaining things as she calmed down. She would tell me it wasn’t anyone’s fault, that it was something that was medically wrong with her like being sick and that I shouldn’t blame myself for her attacks. Her explanations were pivotal in my understanding of mental illnesses and my dad’s behaviour during these attacks served as an example to me for the rest of my life on how to deal with a crisis situation.

Even far back in my childhood, symptoms of my bipolar were there. It was subtle, but there were things about me that made me different from other kids. I could be morose or have fits of worry every now and then. I would worry about dying, or someone in my family being hurt. I was very young when I realised that, because there was such a big age gap between me and the rest of my family, I was most likely going to have to watch my whole family die. I’d have to attend their funerals, possibly give speeches, and then I’d be left alone at the end. This terrified me as a child and even now it still serves as a strange sort of morbid obsession during my low days. For instance, I have the speech I will give at my father’s funeral memorised and have done for quite some time. My dad isn’t even ill and shows no signs of kicking the bucket anytime soon, but it plays in my head so often that I’ll be prepared for when that day comes. In fact, I’ll be prepared in more ways than one. Ever since I was a child, I have been experiencing a symptom of bipolar affective disorder that I didn’t even realise was unusual until I was diagnosed. I spent my entire life thinking everyone got this at certain points in their lives and it was only after a conversation with my girlfriend where she pointed out that this wasn’t normal that I went to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed. This symptom is called Disassociation. Disassociation can happen multiple ways, but it always affects me the same way. During moments of crisis, moments of importance or sometimes when I feel I am in a place of some significance, I feel as if I leave my body and allow another entity to control it. That sounds far more sinister than what it actually feels like so let me try and explain it as best I can. Most people experience going on autopilot, where their mind switches off and they continue to do some monotonous or repetitive task. My Disassociation feels a bit like that. The entity that takes over my body is my autopilot. He will do what I would want to do anyway. He doesn’t have his own needs or wants. He just does. I, on the other hand, leave my body. I picture it like that episode of Tom & Jerry where Tom accidentally kills himself with a falling piano while chasing Jerry. His soul leaves his body and rises up to cat heaven only to not be allowed in because he’s been so mean to Jerry. Well my “soul” (I don’t believe in a soul so the more fitting term here would probably be id) leaves me in the same way and floats, just above and behind me, and observes. I feel like I am acting like a documentarian in these moments. Like a wildlife cameraman observing the animal he has been tracking for years being eaten by a predator – I am totally detached. I’m there to watch, not to influence. Sometimes I think maybe I’m me in the future, remembering this event and not actually the present me at all. Does this make sense? It’s a very strange sensation and, from what I gather, kind of unique to me so I really struggle to explain it to other people. My girlfriend thinks she can sometimes tell when I’m disassociating though. She says I become wide-eyed and emotionless, talking in a monotone. This might be true, but she has only been able to correctly identify when I’m disassociating twice in the entire time I’ve known her so it might just be they were particularly noticeable incidents.

Of course, the other big symptom of Bipolar Affective Disorder is the mood cycles. When I was younger, my cycles were generally rather enjoyable but as I have gotten older, they have gotten less enjoyable and more something to be monitored and observed. Before I go any further into how my cycle affects me, I feel I should spend a bit of time explaining the cycle as a lot of people don’t really get the Bipolar cycle and there is a lot of misinformation in the media. To put it in the simplest terms, lets imagine a scale from 0 to 10. Now if you are a neurotypical, normal person, I want you to imagine the happiest you have ever been. Then I want you to imagine the saddest you’ve ever been. Now if I was to say to you that 0 is the worst and 10 is the best, where would you put those memories? Probably 0 and 10, right? Well, in terms of measuring bipolar moods, we tend to use the 0 to 10 scale as well but ours is a bit different. When you get down to 0, there should be extreme hopelessness. Either you haven’t moved for extended periods, haven’t eaten and most likely have self-harmed, tried to commit suicide or have at least given it serious thought. Now your 0 may hit a lot of those same notes. You may have considered killing yourself after the death of a close loved one or a life event that hit you particularly hard. Once again, I want you to think back to that worst moment in your life. Now what if I said you’d feel that way every few months. You feel like that, not because something has happened or because you lost something but because it’s September. It’s just that time again. Now let’s go to the other side of the spectrum. This one is a little trickier because it involves more than just emotion, it involves energy levels and sanity levels. This is an important thing to bear in mind with bipolar. If you’re a normal person, your 10 is the happiest you’ve ever been in your life. If you’re bipolar, you’re 10 is the furthest from reality you’ve ever been in your life. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes mania can feel great but sometimes it can feel like hell. A 10 on the bipolar scale can involve hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, an insane amount of energy that absolutely must be excised, a manic state and way of speaking and a lack of need to sleep. Seriously, while manic I can sleep for as little as 2 hours in a 48-hour period and feel absolutely fine. The only upside to a manic state is that it can sometimes feel really good and all that energy helps you get through a lot of work if you can keep focused. You also tend to get a burst of creativity while manic which can help with business projects, artistic creations or even writing the first post for a new blog!

I think I’ll leave it here for my first blog post, I’ve explained a little about myself and why I wanted to start this blog, but mostly rambled in my scatter-brained way about my bipolar disorder. I think I’ve put enough words down for today and I’ll pick up on this tomorrow. I promise I will get into more of the general diary keeping and talking about the proposal, but I feel it is important to get this bipolar stuff explained first so that you know what lens I look at the world through before I start telling you what I can see. And if you’re reading this, I love you Gorgeous!

-B

#bipolar #bipolaraffectivedisorder #bipolardisorder #proposal #marriage #blog #firstpostever #personal #bipolar affective disorder

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lotsofdogs · 6 years

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PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 32-34

Hello!! As I near the end of my pregnancy (I hit 35 weeks on Monday!), I wanted to switch things up on the blog a bit and dive into a little more detail in my pregnancy recaps because I feel like so much is happening and changing and I don’t want to forget it. Also, I’ve been referencing my weekly pregnancy recaps from my pregnancy with Chase like crazy lately and am beginning to miss sharing so much about this exciting time, especially now that we’re so close to our due date and everything is starting to hit me and feel so real. Our baby is due in just over 30 days and it feels like the clock is really ticking! Rather than the monthly pregnancy recaps I’ve been sharing, I’m planning to share bi-weekly updates up until delivery.

Here are my past updates from this pregnancy if you’re just catching up:

A Miracle On The Way

The First and Second Trimester (So Far)

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 20-23

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 24-27

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 28-31

What I’m Going To Pack In My Hospital Bag

And you may also check out all of my weekly pregnancy updates from my first pregnancy on the Pregnancy page of this blog.

Also, I know I’ve said this time and time again on this blog, but if you are not in a place where reading about pregnancy is good for your heart, I get it and I am sending you so much love. I don’t want to be the source of heartache for any of you and encourage you to please skip the blog posts you need to skip, take a break from this blog if you need a break and take care of yourself.

Baby Updates

(34 Week Baby Bump)

At 34 weeks, baby is the size of a butternut squash and typically weighs in at around 4 pounds 7 ounces.

At my 32-week prenatal appointment with a maternal and fetal medicine specialist, the doctor estimated our little one is already up to 4 pounds 12 ounces and I’m measuring a bit ahead. I am so curious about the size of our baby right now because my belly growth, belly shape and weight gain all vary quite a bit from my pregnancy with Chase. I’m definitely bigger all around and my belly shape is more of a high basketball as opposed to a long, low belly.

Weight Gained

Currently hovering around 27-30 pounds which is 5-8 pounds more than I weighed at this point with Chase.

Workouts

(33 Week Bump!)

Workouts are a bit all over the place right now as I am just really trying to listen to my body. On days when I feel tired or more nauseated than usual in the mornings, I’ll take a rest day or just go for a walk. This seems to happen three or four days a week right now so I’m making it to the gym or doing a workout at home the other three or four days. You may see what a full week of workouts looked like for me at 33 weeks pregnant in this post: Weekly Workouts: 33 Weeks Pregnant. Favorite workouts continue to include modified Burn Boot Camp workouts (I am skipping most cardio and plyometric days) and circuit-style strength training. I’ve also found a handful of YouTube workout videos that range anywhere from 10-20 minutes that I am loving lately for my random at home workouts! The Tone It Up Bikini Arms Workout is one of my favs for a quick arm burner.

Symptoms

Nausea. Ooph! It’s back with a vengeance right now and I find myself feeling nauseated more often than not in the mornings. Most times I’m able to get ahead of it by eating something immediately upon waking, but 3-4 days a week it will linger through the early afternoon no matter what or how often I eat.

I’ve also noticed that as my belly gets bigger, the shortness of breath I began experiencing a few weeks ago is increasing like crazy! The smallest things will leave me feeling ridiculously winded right now like walking up a very small hill or a flight of stairs… or even simply bending over to pick something up! The belly is a force – I still remember thinking it should be way squishier and more malleable during my first pregnancy – and it definitely fights back when I bend over or squat down these days.

I feel like every day I don’t experience severe sacroiliac or sciatic joint pain, I count my blessings because that was, without a doubt, the most frustrating and painful symptom I experienced in my first pregnancy. I am so grateful it happened before I had a toddler to chase around because I’m not sure what I would do if I couldn’t walk without feeling a stabbing pain in my butt and lower back. I am experiencing minor lower back pain on my right side – more like a quick stab of pain if I stand up after I’ve been sitting or laying down for an extended period of time – but it usually happens at the end of the day and stretching and massaging the spot helps a lot.

I’m also still experiencing occasional calf and foot cramps but introducing Natural Calm into my nightly routine seems to have made a difference and helped decrease their frequency.

Food Aversions

Nothing is really too off-putting to me at the moment, but sometimes when I eat a lot of vegetables or a salad, I’ll feel almost repulsed after the meal is over. I can eat it and it tastes good while I eat, but thinking back about what I ate will occasionally make me feel pukey. So strange! I also tend to be much hungrier in the mornings and afternoons and feel almost indifferent toward food around dinnertime. Smaller evening meals are my friend.

Food Cravings

(34-Week Belly Bump Snack Shelf!)

Fruit, especially watermelon, bananas and citrus, chocolate (<—this often feels like a NEED more than a want) and cereal. I’m also eating a lot of oatmeal, random slices of bread, avocado, yogurt and cottage cheese.

Sleep

Oh sleep, you are a tricky beast. Sleep is on and off and extremely unpredictable around here. I’ve struggled with pregnancy-related insomnia a lot this time around and sometimes it totally kicks my butt (I cannot fall asleep until 3 a.m.) and other nights I’ll fall asleep quickly but wake up for hours and hours in the middle of the night. And then, inevitably, I’ll be blessed with a night or two of decent sleep and it will be AMAZINGGG and I want to wake up high-fiving everyone around me. I also wake up constantly in the night to pee (we’re talking five times at least) but I’ve been that way for months.

I am still 100 percent in love with my Snoogle and don’t know what I’d do without it from a comfort standpoint. I am hugged up on that monstrosity ALL night long!

Any Baby/Pregnancy Related Purchases?

I still haven’t bought much of anything this pregnancy! I am grateful for the sprinkles my aunt and my friends hosted for our little one so I feel pretty good to go on the diaper and wipes front but I need to take some time to stock up on post-delivery self care essentials (Tucks Witch Hazel Pads, Perineal Irrigation Bottle, Dermoplast Pain Relieving Spray, Extra Heavy Pads, etc.).

I’d love to get a jump start on setting up our baby’s nursery but know that our baby will be sleeping in our room with us for months so I’m having a hard time feeling particularly motivated. Ryan moved all of our home gym stuff out of the room that will be our baby’s nursery and into the garage so now that the room is an empty space/diaper staging area, I am feeling the itch to begin decorating but want to know our baby’s sex before going all out!

And these aren’t necessarily brand new purchases, but I’ve been getting a lot of wear out of the following bump-friendly clothing over the course of the past few weeks:

Flounce Sleeve Wrap Dress (I have this in pink and a dusty blue color and wore it to my baby sprinkle and on a date night with Ryan! It’s not maternity but accommodates the bump well. I ordered a size up from my pre-pregnancy size.)

Lululemon Align Pant (I will sing the praises of these pants for eternity! I now have two pairs and wash them immediately after wearing because I don’t want to ever be without a clean pair right now. I have them in my pre-pregnancy size and they are stretchy enough to work well over my belly!)

ASOS Maternity Romper (I wasn’t sure this purchase would be a hit but I love it! Great for dressing up with a funky bralette – you can see it here on a recent date night – or throwing on over a bathing suit for a comfy cover-up.)

Victoria’s Secret V-Neck Tee (A pregnancy fav from my first pregnancy! I have this tee in FIVE colors. I just sized up two sizes from my pre-pregnancy size and it works great with the belly and postpartum for a relaxed fit v-neck tee!)

ASOS Maternity Cold Shoulder Top (Love the feminine look of this top that doesn’t scream “maaaternity!!!”)

Belly Button In or Out?

My belly button is definitely out right now but not overly noticeable through clothing.

Boy or Girl Thoughts and Name Ideas

We’re all beginning to get hone in on whether we think we’re having a boy or a girl right now and it’s SO much fun! I am seriously loving every second of not knowing and this truly shocks me because I never thought I’d want to be surprised in a million years. Right now, Chase and I are pretty much the only two people who think I’m having a boy. Ryan, the vast majority of our friends and our families are all convinced we’re having a girl. I will just have to laugh if we end up having a girl and Chase and I are the only two people who thought boy. And no, Chase hasn’t wavered on his thoughts on the baby’s sex even one time. He tells everyone I’m having a boy with such certainty and I’m pretty sure that if we end up having a girl we’ll just tell him “the baby is here!” and break the news that it’s a girl slooowly… Haha!

As far as names go, we’re still pretty clueless. Ah! There is one boy name Ryan and I both love and agree on but there are a few things holding us back from committing to it, namely because it makes us think of a certain television show character. (I’ll definitely fill you in on the name later whether we use it or not!) When it comes to a girl name, we have a couple we like but nothing finite just yet. And, truthfully, I could see us veering from our current list of frontrunners completely… Clearly we are ALL over the place with names right now.

Feeling…

I’m beginning to find myself spending more and more time thinking about birth. I was almost always measuring behind with Chase and he was such a little peanut when he was born, so I’m curious what it will be like to birth a bigger baby since my labor with Chase was so fast and relatively easy. I’m hoping the fact that this will be my second delivery will work in my favor and really hope my body remembers what to do because the whole childbirth part of having a baby still admittedly freaks me out a bit! I’m 10,000 times better with needles and medical things than I was before I became pregnant with Chase but I still get queasy relatively easy and feel like a bit of a baby myself about the whole thing. Thankfully there’s no better motivation going into labor than knowing I’ll finally be able to meet the baby I already love so much! I am SO ridiculously excited for that moment!!

Another thing I’m feeling is a lot of mixed emotions surrounding my final few weeks of one-on-one time with Chase.

I wrote a lot more about these feelings on this Instagram post and it was so, so helpful to hear from so many of you who have been there and experienced the same rollercoaster of emotions before welcoming your second baby into the world. I’m hoping to plan a few special Mom and Chase dates where we do something unique and fun together before our baby arrives and hope to continue to really focus on soaking up every moment of special time with my firstborn before it becomes more challenging to give him undivided attention.

Also, I cannot help but wonder how my relationship with Ryan will change once a second child enters the picture.

With Chase, it was relatively easy for both of us to hang out with our tiny baby and spend time together when Chase was sleeping on the weekends but I know that won’t be possible when when we have a baby and an energetic toddler in the mix who needs attention and activity. I LOVE our family time and know things will evolve naturally but it’s hard not to picture chaotic bed times and one of us handling one child while the other handles the other child and limited time to really be together in an intentional way. I’d absolutely LOVE to hear thoughts from those of you who have been through this before… How did your relationship change with two kids in the mix? Was there anything you did to make the transition easier? I remember communication becoming even more pivotal after Chase was born and telling Ryan what I need from him rather than just hoping he’ll know or figure it out was crucial.

[Read More ...] https://www.pbfingers.com/pbf-baby-2-pregnancy-weeks-32-34/

#health #fitness

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toycarousel · 6 years

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Hey Wren. I wish what I had to ask wasn't so strange I guess but today I had this event I was supposed to go to. But I pulled in the parking lot there and I just froze and I started to panic and I really did not want to go, and I felt relieved when I just started driving back home. But now that I'm home I just started to feel worse and now I don't know how to explain it to the people who held it why I didn't go because it was an acquirement and I don't how I'm going to make it up. I feel dumb.

Not to worry, Anon, what you’re describing here makes complete sense! Sometimes our emotions seem so odd, right? We think that we’re okay enough with doing something (often at least ‘at peace’ with doing it, if it’s a non-optional thing), we suddenly realize we’re not okay with doing it, we don’t do it, and then we feel bad for not doing it. I’ve been through that cycle of emotions in various circumstances constantly, throughout my life! I know many ppl who have. You’re not alone here, and this experience doesn’t indicate anything bad about personality at all, I can promise you that!

Now, everyone experiences things like this sliiiiiiightly differently, right? Since we’re all individuals. So I’m glad that you shared your individual feelings with me here. Talking these things out with people, relating to others in some ways, and also explaining the differences in personal experience, can be very helpful!

Along that vein, I’d aim to, like, talk to people you trust about this (anyone -- friends, family, just people who are generally kind, trustworthy, and supportive). You could bounce ideas off them as to how you can explain it and make it up to the people who held the event (since you said it was a required thing. If it’s not 100% required, then you may not owe them any explanation, depending on their relationship to you. It’s up to you what personal info you disclose to others).

You can also just talk to ppl you trust about the situation for the sake of expressing yourself, if you haven’t already. It’s a healthy way of working through your emotions, figuring out exactly what happened (which will be helpful knowledge when finding ways to prevent yourself from having to endure this sort of intense discomfort over and over again), and gaining others’ perspectives/support.

Look for ways as to how you can explain to yourself what happened to you in that moment as well. Consider what happened beforehand (what all led up to the event -- just listing the facts, without labelling anything on that list as “good” or “bad.”) Ask yourself questions like “what might have triggered this particular panic attack in me at that time?” “What was going on around me, externally, in my environment?” (Like, was the weather bad, did someone yell at you about something else earlier that day, etc.,) and “what was going on inside me internally, just before the panic struck?” (Things like hunger, tiredness, physical pain, stress, and specific thoughts and emotions that popped into your mind when you experienced that panic, and wrt what you’re feeling now).

You can’t help panic responses. Panic is a neurological thing that happens to everyone, and it’s a physical function! It’s often sparked by emotional/psychological things, but it’s not something you can simply talk yourself out of, and it’s never, ever your fault for having it. Panic is a bodily instinct to something that we fear. And that fear doesn’t always have to be something we’d consider absolutely terrifying (like being chased by a dudebro wearing a serial killer mask at a frat party and chasing you down the street with it).

For example, some people get panic attacks from having to do public speaking (and from other social situations). Oftentimes that’s because they’ve had severely negative experiences with public speaking/other people in the past. Because of this, and after it happens over time, their brain starts to interpret public speaking as a life-threatening event.

Our brains can’t always tell the difference between a life-threatening situation that’s causing us anxiety, and a non life-threatening situation that’s causing us anxiety. It sometimes just picks up on body signals such as a faster heartbeat, sweating, shakiness (and other symptoms of fear/anxiety/trepidation) and assumes that the related trigger is a threat to your survival, so it sparks the “fight or flight” response, which is -- very broadly speaking -- what a panic attack is. It’s when we’re forced into fight-or-flight mode by our brain. It’s a misdirected survival instinct that’s been forged (usually) by past experiences that we couldn’t control, that we couldn’t help, and that are not our fault.

This is not your fault, Anon, and it doesn’t make you silly at all! If an explanation is required by these people, then again, depending on your relationship to them, maybe just be completely honest with them, and let them know that this was not something you expected or could control! Go easy on yourself, Anon~!!!

#vent asks #advice asks #panic #panic attacks #anxiety #anons #scotchasks

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sanctferum · 7 years

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Dangan Ronpa V3: Chapter 4. Let’s see what bullshit we got this time.

A few days ago…a video is being watched by someone. A video from Rantaro Amami, TO Rantaro Amami. Is this how he knew about the Ultimate Hunt? He made a video before repressing his memories?

We skip over the important stuff via static. We’re at the end of the video now.

The killing game will continue until only 2 people are left. The important part of that regulation is, static again.

And one other thing…this isn’t Rantaro’s first, more static. First killing game, perhaps?

Anyone who finds out Rantaro’s true identity will come for him…so trust no one. And don’t forget…static.

Rantaro wanted the killing game to happen…but why?

No matter what, Rantaro had to win. But he didn’t. He died…the first one to die.

Chapter 4: Live And Let The Languid World Live

What does languid mean? According to the dictionary, slow, tired, exhausted. Is that it? Did the world die of exhaustion? What?

And if Rantaro’s pre-memory wipe self wanted the killing game to happen…what does that mean? Having lost his memory, he must have watched this video and found out the truth. Does that mean he was the one working with the mastermind, the one who used the hidden bookcase door? He definitely couldn’t have been the mastermind himself, but…maybe Kaede killing him off wasn’t such an awful thing after all. Maybe.

Rantaro’s talent is connected to the truth. But we still haven’t found his lab, or anything to indicate what his talent was.

We also have not found Shuichi, Kaito, Tsumugi, Kokichi, or Keebo’s labs yet. So there’s six undiscovered labs.

Well, I’m gonna make a list of who will live and who will die, in all likelihood. I say: Shuichi, Maki, Gonta, Himiko, and Tsumugi have a good chance of surviving. Keebo, Kaito, and Kokichi, not so much, but it’s possible Kokichi will survive. Miu I’m not sure about, possibly switch her with Tsumugi or Himiko.

Out of my original guesses...only Maki and Gonta are still alive. Shuichi, who I predicted would be the first one to die, is most likely gonna survive until the end. After Kaede, I’m not willing to say anything like that with certainty, though.

Let’s continue, then!

It’s the morning after the class trial. Everyone seems very moody, what with yesterday’s 3 deaths. Gonta isn’t here, so I’m guessing he’s out looking at the graffiti to see if anything new is there.

Kaito and Kokichi seems to be in higher spirits than the rest. I do think Kaito’s situation, whatever it might be, will come to a head in this chapter.

Everyone is gloomy, but then, someone says something.

“Heeey! You guys have no energy! You need to look alive! You’re all still teenagers!”

I mean, it’s true, but coming from Himiko, being called energyless is a bit…

Oh wow, she really meant it when she said she wasn’t gonna say things were a pain anymore. She’s fired up, for the first time in the game!

Miu keeps groaning. She sounds annoyed at something…at least, it sounds more like that than anything sexual.

Himiko has to keep moving forward, or else the dead, including Tenko and Angie, won’t be able to rest in peace. Time for a new Himiko, one who lives life positively! She’s using up a lot of energy doing so, though. She’s already out of breath from her proclamation.

Kokichi is still viewing this as a killing game, so I gotta keep my eye on him.

Gonta bursts into the dining hall just as Kaito is about to yell at Kokichi. Lemme guess, more grafitti appeared.

“The_s wor_d _s __ine O_ic___ma”

This world is…something something.

Maki plans to just ignore it, but…I’ve had many suspicions about “this world” and “new world” for quite some time.

Maki still hasn’t gotten over her habit of saying “Do you want to die?” to stuff she doesn’t want to hear.

The only one who could have written it and then conveniently found it is Gonta, and I believe him when he says he didn’t. This isn’t being written by any of the Ultimates.

There isn’t much we can do with it for now. Not till more writing appears.

Gonta might still be a gullible guy, but he’s at least wised up to Kokichi’s trickery.

Monokuma shows up, likely to get the Kubs to give us new items. With only two Kubs left, there should be two items, one of which will likely be used on the wall scroll on the 4th floor.

The Kubs come, but it’s a lot less lively with only two. And they’re bickering and bullying each other. Monophanie whacks Monotaro over the head with a frying pan, causing various amusing personality changes to occur.

Kokichi just wants the reward already. He’s way too into this. He’s the only one left who wants there to be a killing game…so I gotta keep that in mind.

A levistone, an octobrush, and a card key. The brush should go to the wall scroll, and the levistone…I have no idea. We don’t have an airship, after all. As for the card key…well, I only know one place, behind a certain bookshelf, that can be opened with a card key.

Oh good, the card key is the motive too. Definitely related to the bookshelf then.

What motive lies behind the Monokuma door, though?

Keebo says that in that case, they won’t use the card key. Kokichi grabs the card key and declares that he wouldn’t mind if another murder happened. This is a game, and games are meant to be played.

Kokichi leaves with the card, and Kaito runs after him. After they leave, Monokuma mentions the flashback light being hidden somewhere, and he leaves. The Kubs do so as well.

So, seven people to search for Kokichi, while Shuichi alone looks through the new areas. And Kaito’s chasing after Kokichi as well, on his own. We can’t go to the library in the basement, since there’s no mysterious objects there. We also can’t tell the others where to wait for Kokichi to inevitably come to. Oh well.

The octobrush automatically paints the scroll, revealing the stairs to the fifth floor. Hoo boy.

The fifth floor is like a middle age chapel, but with two Monokuma statues representing god and the devil. Tsumugi is concerned by a strange door. Is this…her lab?

Inside what is indeed the Ultimate Cosplayer’s Lab, there is…a sewing machine, work tables, two filming set for photoshoots (one with elaborate abckgrounds), and a third set, a replica of a bar.

The drinks here are real. Tsumugi mentions she used to make cocktails at her part-time job. Which was what? Do tell.

Whatever these part-time jobs were (it sounds like it wasn’t just one), Tsumugi would turn on the charm at these and ask for help with her financial troubles. Then she got sponsors and didn’t need to do that anymore, I guess.

Tsumugi makes us a cocktail (virgin, on the rocks). Nice!

Tsumugi likes her lab, but doing cosplay by herself isn’t fun. So she invites Shuichi to cosplay with her. We have no option to decline, but we manage to delay it till after the investigation of the new areas is done.

Maki is near the other side of the floor, musing on how the floor is basically a Monokuma chapel. Considering what the killing game has done to people’s beliefs in God, Atua or otherwise, this feels like a sick joke.

There’s two rooms at the end of the hall. One of them is clearly an Ultimate Research Lab. Turns out, it’s ours. The Ultimate Detective Lab…it’s about damn time.

Something about the lab is giving Maki a bad feeling…

Maki is a better detective than the Ultimate Detective. We need to step up our game.

The lab feels made for like, Sherlock Holmes or someone. Not a high school detective like us.

A bookshelf containing 50 or so files. Each one containing photographs of murder scenes, and descriptions of the murders. Someone could easily take a look at these for inspiration as to what tricks to use in a murder. But with each trick detailed in the file, there’s an explanation as to how it was carried out. And with everyone able to check these files, any trick taken directly from them would be easily solveable.

This file doesn’t have photographs. Just drawn illustrations? The older files all have illustrations, and the newer ones have photographs. Odd. It’s like they aren’t real cases.

And on the other shelf, there are chemicals. Most likely poisons.

We could pour em all down the drain, but nothing’s stopping Monokuma from restocking em once we leave.

The poisons in here are varied. Some cause instant death, some inflict various symptoms.

This is awfully strange. All the other labs were tailor-made to suit the needs of the Ultimates. But Shuichi’s lab doesn’t feel like a detective’s lab. It feels like a criminal’s lab. Hmmm.

Everything in here is related to one common theme: death. A detective can find out what killed someone, but they’re useless if nothing has happened yet. Conversely, they can’t save anyone. They become useful only when it’s already too late…

Kaito randomly shows up to encourage Shuichi. Maki has a warning, though. Shuichi has been the one solving these cases, as the Ultimate Detective. If someone wants to stand a good chance of escaping, one thing they could do is choose a victim who would otherwise be able to reveal the truth. Anyone looking to become the blackened could very well try and kill Shuichi.

Kaito pledges to protect Shuichi and Mako both. Even when Maki says she could potentially be a future blackened, Kaito immediately dismisses the possibility. Because he believes in us.

Kokichi escaped Kaito and is currently…somewhere. Where could that be, though?

Kaito did find something in his search – the flashback light. We’ll meet later on to use it, Maki included this time. If Kokichi doesn’t show up to use it with us, he’ll just have to deal with not having the relevant memories.

As for the other door in this hall, it’s a grand one, with a big ‘ol old-fashioned keyhole. We must get the key next chapter, right?

Nothing else on this floor. To the dining hall, to maybe get a hint on where to use the levistone, and to look at the flashback light. Actually, let’s see if the levistone works on the Othello door first. Nope…and we can’t go to the dining hall till we find out what the levistone unlocks. It’s gotta be something outside…

Monokuma originally said this whole place was built for us…we still don’t know this place’s true nature.

Himiko is teaching herself how to make facial expressions. Gonta still keeps occasionally seeing that tiny bug. Miu’s glad that no one’s talking about Atua anymore, and is shit-talking Angie.

Keebo couldn’t find Kokichi, and he thinks Shuichi’s comments on the matter are robophobic.

An object with an indentation that wasn’t here before. HMMMM.

After we put the stone in the indentation, the stone starts to levitate, shoots up towards the End Wall, and a building comes crashing down onto Miu’s lab, combining with it into a bigger building. Weird. Could this be Keebo’s lab? Why is it in such close proximity to Miu’s? Is it because she’s the Ultimate Inventor and he’s basically the Ultimate Invention?

Woah, this lab looks so cool. There’s nothing we can investigate in here beside the monitor, and nothing we can shoot. Dammit.

Upgrade parts for Keebo? Well, sounds good to me, except I don’t trust Miu to not make the new functions pervy in some way.

Keebo doesn’t like sci-fi technology (uh-huh. Got some bad news for you, buddy.) and does not like his lab at all.

Shuichi’s lab is perfect for a detective, and Keebo’s lab is perfect for a robot…but a generic detective or robot. Were the two labs not made for Shuichi and Keebo specifically?

Keebo would prefer a more Japanese-themed lab, since that’s his favorite type of food. Too bad he can’t actually eat! But he appreciates the aesthetics of it.

Keebo’s image of a perfect lab includes kimonos, and a porch with wind chimes. OK. Guess this lab is free for anyone to use, since Keebo isn’t gonna use it.

Everyone gathers in the dining hall to use the light. Except Kokichi. Well, too bad for him, then.

He might be in a place we didn’t look, because we couldn’t. Whatever the card key unlocks. Hey, anyone wanna take a guess what that could be? Such as, secret bookcase door?

Tsumugi’s a bit worried about the flashback lights, but if we don’t use them, how will we regain our memories and learn more clues?

Miu calls Himiko fish dicks. Himiko mishears it as fish sticks. Before the two of them can get into a spat, a familiar voice rings out…hello Kokichi.

Kokichi claims he couldn’t use the card key. After all, he had no idea where to use it. You little liar, you know exactly where that goes.

Kokichi baits Kaito into turning on the light. Which he was gonna do anyways, but now we have no loverage over Kokichi…dammit.

The light restores our memories of the world. The world, with meteorites raining down on it from above. With rioters and looters in the streets and everyone panicking as the end draws near.

A researcher said that similar meteorite impacts happened millions of years ago, destroying all life on Earth.

And within that chaos, strange groups started forming. Groups claiming that mankind deserved their imminent destruction. Cults.

But since we got here, not a single meteorite has been seen.

There was a plan, too. A plan to try and save the world…the Gofer Project. All countries banded together, but it failed.

As for why it failed…we’re once again at a loss. We don’t know what exactly the project was, why it failed…there’s no clues about the Ultimate Hunt, either.

Miu starts to freak out. Mankind deserves damnation? Living in this academy, forced to kill each other…the Ultimates are already damned. This is a hell of its own. And she wants out.

Everything will probably start to connect after the next flashback light. But that means someone becoming a blackened…

Kokichi wouldn’t be surprised if the explanation for all this was that everyone was already dead, and the Ultimate Academy is the afterlife. My theory about the situation seems to be something that’s possible. If this is all a computer simulation, and we’re AIs created from the memories of the real deals…programs that don’t know we’re programs (except for Keebo, who I guess would be a double program)…if that’s the case, we could make sense of a lot of things. The only thing about this is how it would differentiate itself from Dangan Ronpa 2…other than there being no physical bodies to return to.

Also, the V in V3 would have to stand for virtual, right?

If anything is possible, then everything is possible. If meteorites can happen, us being already dead could happen too. A mysterious space virus, or some weird technology, or some unknown substance brought to Earth, capable of bending time and space…

Perhaps Kokichi’s just using his vivid imagination. But on the other hand, the flashback lights, the Exisals, Monokuma and his Kubs…none of that makes any sense either, so aren’t all “common sense” theories out the window?

Gonta put the manhole cover back next to the manhole and removed the boulders. But there’s no way we can get through the Death Road with only nine people…

We head back to our rooms for the time being…

*Silver the Hedgehog voice* IT’S NO USE

Yes, I’m gonna type that every time that particular Shuichi voice line gets used.

Free time. Let’s check out the casino first.

All the minigames have normal mode unlocked! Before it was just easy that was available.

Next, to the library! Where we don’t seem to realize what the card key could unlock, no matter how much we click on the bookcase. Ugh.

Well, Free Time with someone, then. Next time!

#Dangan Ronpa #Dangan Ronpa V3 #Danganronpa V3

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lady-tempest · 7 years

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On Panic Attacks and How to Help

I was browsing reddit and I came across what looks to be a couple of helpful comments about panic attacks (there will be a link to the comment thread after the quotes for those interested).

First, why panic attacks are such a big deal:

“A panic attack is a strange thing, your brain kind of ends up in a weird cycle.

It initially decides that some input is super dangerous and life threatening. This initial thing could be a physical sensation like a pain in your chest/elevated heart rate, or sensory- maybe you saw a quick flash of light that your brain decides is a physical attack, or stress related- you're worried about someone not liking you which elevates your stress hormones enough that it causes a danger response. It can be anything really. The tricky part about this is that it's your "lizard" or basal brain that is monitoring your safety, so there's no conscious control involved in setting off the chain reaction, and you are often never aware of what the triggering event is.

Once your brain senses imminent, life threatening danger, it jumps into superhero mode. It releases stress hormones, speeds up the heart rate and breathing rate, you can get a flood of adrenaline, senses become heightened, etc. These things are all awesome if you were, say, being chased by a bear, but when you're hanging out alone in your bedroom they end up really messing with your brain, which is what contributes to the physical sensations of a panic attack. You feel your heart racing, like you can't breathe (your body is trying to pull in more oxygen), you get shaky, you get tunnel vision, you become acutely aware of every part of your body and every tiny twinge in it.

The rational part of your brain does try to kick in at some point, but it doesn't really help the situation. One part of your brain has flashing lights and sirens and is in full blown panic mode. The "smart" part of your brain starts to try to figure out what's going on by doing a quick scan. It doesn't see a bear, there's no knife wielding madman, you're not falling out of an air plane. But wait! Your heart is racing! You can't breathe! You can't see right! You're getting dizzy! You're body is shaking! There's a pain in your side! Your brain takes all this in, the terrible symptoms, the warning lights - which it is hard wired to trust and respond to- and the lack of a visible threat, and concludes that there is some terrible physical event happening and that you are truly dying.

Of course, the irony is that that reinforces the stress responses and continues the cycle until you are able to disrupt it. Truly the whole point of a panic attack is that your brain has decided that you are, in some fashion, dying. It can be a really terrible feeling.” - (reddit user) cow_girl_up

How to help, as explained by (reddit user) acgk on how they help their girlfriend:

First things first: attitude. You cannot help her until she begins to help herself. You are guiding her, not fixing her. Don't even think about fixing or problems. There's nothing wrong. Your demeanor should be "this is happening and I am being supportive," not "there is a problem and I am fixing it."

Ask her to look at you as best she can. Eye contact is best, but it might be too hard. If she can't, let her know that it's okay and pick something easier, like an inanimate object comparable in size to a human (e.g., not something tiny like a pen or huge like the night sky or ocean). It should be unique, though. And it definitely shouldn't be fragile or broken. Look at it with her, but pay her the occasional glance to monitor her condition. If she just needs to keep her eyes shut, let her and reassure her that's okay, too.

Ask her to describe what she's feeling. Ideally, only let her move up the order of preference before: if she was looking at a lamp and now she's looking at you, that's a good sign. If she was looking at a lamp and now she's got her eyes shut or she's looking at her feet, that's bad. Don't comment on it, but make a mental note.

Now you can help. Make her understand that she is safe. Food, warmth, soft things, and hugs are all good things here, usually, but not for everyone. If she gets claustrophobic when she has an anxiety attack, it may be better to go outside with her. Read the situation. If she's still got a full on anxiety attack, maybe take some vital signs so you can prove to her that she is physically alive and well, but honestly if nothing has helped yet then we're leaving the realm of my expertise.

If she's anxious about losing you, hugs first. If she's anxious about trusting you, a blanket and some hot cocoa first. If she's anxious about something that doesn't involve you, it matters less. This can be hard to judge because at this point you still haven't asked her what's wrong. We're getting to that.

In any case, don't just leave and go get things for her. Communication is key. Don't ask her if she wants something; she'll probably say no. Let her know you're planning to go get it for her and give her enough time to stop you if she doesn't want it or would rather you stayed by her.

Edit to clarify previous paragraph. Think of it this way: if you ask if she wants something, the status quo is you not doing something but if she accepts the offer, she's given you a little extra burden. You don't mind or even think about it that way because you love her, but she can worry about that kind of thing when she has anxiety. If you just tell her what your plan is, the status quo is that you've already decided to do the thing, so she's less likely to stop you just because she feels like she doesn't deserve it.

Now, once she's begun to relax or volunteer the information, you can ask about what the initial problem was.

Behind the Scenes

Step one was something called "grounding". She's in hell inside her head, and you've got to get her to focus on something real and concrete. Show her the way out of her head to a place where she can talk.

Next, you made her take an objective look at the real problem. When you're having an anxiety attack, the real problem is the anxiety attack. Your panic response is in a feedback loop: you're panicking because you're panicking. The thing that initially caused you to panic, if it was ever real, is no longer part of the equation. She needs to go from "I'm dying" to "I feel short of breath because I'm scared about ____." That's why we avoided asking her what was wrong. She's wasn't sure at that point, and if you asked her then she might've started panicking even more.

Now that no new fuel is being added to the fire, you put it out and/or stay with her until it burns itself out.

Edit to add: If all else fails, there is one more thing you can try. Just talk to her. Let her know she's not necessarily expected to participate; just talk. Avoid topics that would make her more anxious, obviously, but really just having another person there can be really helpful.

Edit: It really made my day that this has helped so many people. I had no idea it would blow up like this. Thank you all for the comments and gold.

My experience: Literally everyone I've ever been close to except for one person deals with anxiety in some level. At the worst end, my sister had a suicide scare more than once and at the best end, my closest friend's anxiety is basically under control and I've never been with her during an attack. Also I deal with my own anxiety. I'm in academia, so I have some experience reading academic journals as a way of learning new information, but that's the only advantage I've got: I'm not in psychology and what I say should not be considered medical advice. If it's truly serious, talk to them about seeing a professional.

Grounding techniques: I went over two of them. These are the two that, to me, are the easiest to walk a person through conversationally. There are lots of grounding techniques, but many of them would be rather obviously clinical to try and walk someone through, and I can't tell you how well that would be received. If you have the chance to talk seriously about anxiety with your partner, it can be good to go over some grounding techniques with them and encourage them to find what works for them. There are a couple mentioned elsewhere in this thread, and they're all over the internet with varying levels of academic rigor behind them.

Notes about OP: I cannot emphasize enough how non-judgemental you have to be. It can be really hard for someone to make eye contact if they have anxiety. They might be genuinely not strong enough and if you try to make them, they might panic more. You'll have to learn a little from experience, but it might be better to switch steps one and two sometimes, or omit eye contact entirely. Maybe start a little bit of a conversation about the object they focus on instead of jumping straight into talking about their feelings. Get them to take in details of the world around them.

Hope this information helps people, here’s the link to the comment as promised: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5nmmcq/if_someone_were_to_take_over_your_body_in_this/dcd03qy/

#panic attack #panic reduction

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thedaywebuiltthefort-blog · 5 years

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A little update

I realise that I haven’t written anything for this blog for a while, although I have made numerous attempts over the past few weeks. There have been several times that I’ve sat at the keyboard willing myself to make words happen, but knowing that nothing will come.

In my last post, I talked about feeling depressed again, and I had hoped that by now, the episode would have finished, the mood would have lifted and everything would be business as usual. Unfortunately, however, this has not been the case.

Instead, it’s spent the last several weeks well and truly kicking my ass. It hasn’t gone and it doesn’t look like it’s going to go anytime soon, so instead, I am just going to have to deal with it as best I can until it eventually starts to dissipate.

My reluctance to write anything for the blog has been made up of several factors – firstly, I am very aware that writing or reading about this subject can be a trigger and honestly I didn’t know if it was going to make me feel better or worse. Secondly, I am exhausted, all of the time. I don’t just mean a little bit tired. I am talking about all-consuming, complete and utter energy drain. There have been days when I have been lying in bed, willing my body to move, to get up, do anything and it just won’t happen. Lastly, I always knew that if I was going to write about depression that I would want to be brutally candid about my own experiences. The last thing I want to do is upset anyone or worry anyone.

In the end though, I am hoping that by writing about the symptoms, the experiences and the journey that I have been on, it might help somebody who is or has gone through the same thing to feel a little less alone.

There is no way to tell how or why depression will hit, but for me, I feel like there have been a lot of things that have contributed to this particular episode being a bad one. I’ll talk about that first, just to try and give the situation a little context.

When I look back over the year that has just been, it feels like a hurricane has ripped right through my life. I can’t remember many other times when so much has happened so soon and in such quick succession. I lost my job and was unemployed for months; we hit the financial skids and barely made it out with a roof still over our heads. There were family issues, troubles we needed to overcome together and what felt like endless days of waiting for news – good or bad. There was the day we made the list. Months spent charging from one thing to another, fundraising, fighting, running hundreds of miles and constantly, constantly feeling like we were facing a tidal wave of crap that just never stopped coming.

The strange thing was, throughout all of that, I had never felt so sure of myself, so energised and so ready to take on the world. The best way that I can explain that last twelve months is that it has been like being in a high-speed car chase, only the car is being chased by a tsunami...and whilst you’re driving you’re having to fight off an angry bear...and the bear has a hammer...and you’re being shot at by snipers and you’re trying to avoid all the potholes in the road.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the brakes slam on and you’re thrown out of the car. You land in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere and where once there was chaos and noise, now there is nothing.

There is nothing.

No noise, no bright lights, nothing.

And you’re alone.

I had spent so much of the last year in fight mode that I had no idea what to do when suddenly, everything seemed to stop. Now don’t get me wrong, I am glad to see the back of a lot of the problems we’d been dealing with, but (and in the spirit of honesty and transparency) I wish I had been better prepared for what would happen when the dust settled.

So that’s how this thing all started. It has been one of the most drastic changes in outlook, mood, and circumstance that I have experienced probably in the last decade. My body and my mind just haven’t known how to deal with that. The list, which had been one of the most important factors in getting me through the last twelve months, got shelved.

I started to feel like I had let myself down, that I had given up on something that I had committed to. One low day turned into another and another. All the little parts of my life that I had been successfully juggling started to drop away.

Truth told, physically, I think Sweatember left me in worse shape than I was prepared to admit. I loved doing it and honestly, will probably do it again but I think doing that may have drained the last little bit of gung-ho spirit from my now somewhat flabbier muscles.

If I really push myself, I can get to the gym twice a week at the moment for a very light 40-minute session. My regime has not so much gone out of the window as it has packed its bags, left a note on the kitchen table telling me what a disappointment I am and caught the bus to the next town.

Strangely, this time I don’t think my confidence has gone down as much as it would normally – or at least – not in all aspects. I certainly don’t like myself very much at the moment, but I do at least feel capable in certain situations. My confidence in my writing has gone, as the current lack of it proves. My confidence in my ability to run the 2019 Manchester marathon is non-existent.

What is worse this time, however, is the paranoia.

Oh yes, it’s time to dust off the old tinfoil hat and sit in the corner. I am full on, borderline conspiracy theorist paranoid. Little things that my husband or friends say take on whole new and deranged meanings. Ask me if I forgot to put the washing on before I go to work and you might as well be accusing me of murder.

Every little whisper, every laugh, every hushed conversation becomes, in my foggy brain, about me and how much you hate me, about something I’ve done wrong or not done. I know that this is just my mind vomiting up poison into my brain hole but it doesn’t matter. I can’t stop myself from feeling like that. It makes socialising a little awkward.

Which explains why I’ve been avoiding socialising wherever possible – the idea of a night out or going round to a friend’s house has become like facing a mountain that I’m really not prepared to climb right now.

Anyway, I feel like I could go on but I have neither the energy nor the inclination. I’ll try and write again soon and share more of the journey, at whatever point I may be, the next time I’m able to sit down and get something on paper (or screen as the case may be).

In other news, Kyli recently brought a ukulele so I am expecting that her next blog post may be cheerier than this one. I still need to learn to yodel so a duet is definitely on the cards in the future.

Lastly, I’d like to just point out something really obvious – it’s Christmas.

For a lot of people, this time of year is about fun, festivities, and frolics.

For others, it’s a really difficult time. There are some who, unlike me, aren’t able to talk about the things that they are going through. There are some who are much worse off and it’s important to understand that no matter what the time of year, it is as they say, OK not to be OK.

Just as long as you keep on fighting.

Don’t give up.

You’re not crazy, you’re not a failure and you are so very much not alone.

I might have taken a few knocks, I might feel like I’ve had my back against the ropes a few times but the important thing is that I haven’t and will not hit that floor. It doesn’t matter how much of an ass kicking that life or depression wants to give us. The gloves stay on. It’s not over. We keep on going and we don’t stop until that bell rings.

Success is never final, failure is never fatal, courage always counts – John Wooden

#depression blogging itsokaynottobeokay mentalhealth journey experience

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goldfistgirl · 6 years

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Anxiety

OCD used to be classified as anxiety until it became a distinct disorder in and of itself

OCD compulsions or obsessions are often accompanied by dysfunctional behaviors to relieve intense anxiety (IE, staying inside your house due to anxiety about uncleanliness outside)

GAD means you are continuously tense or apprehensive, experiencing unfocused, negative, and out-of-control feelings

My feelings are often out-of-control and only relieved through irrational, self-destructive behaviors. My insecurity calls for constant reassurance, and my anxiety disorder causes for me to ask for that reassurance in a dysfunctional way

Randomly apprehensive or anxious just sitting at work, just sitting at home, often only relieved by distracting myself with friends,

Fear of anxiety leads to phobias which lead to avoidance behaviors.

I have avoidance behaviors toward being seen by others, specifically having my name or life known by people online if i became a popular artist/writer/whatever online

I also have avoidance behavior when it comes to intimacy, like kissing or accepting flowers, and especially expressing love deeply, admitting to feeling connected to a person, saying I love you and deeply meaning it, all of that. anything romantic terrifies me. the thought of my own wedding terrifies me because i’d be so vulnerable and sharing intimate thoughts with a lot of my loved ones, and i have a lot of anxiety and insecurity about their judgments of me. i’m very traumatized from being bullied so harshly by GG and so disconnected from my father and other family, and left behind by my mother and grandma Joyce

So anxious around some people that I feel suddenly and strangely disconnected from reality, like I’m watching a movie, or stop recognizing the person and become confused. I struggle to concentrate so much that I sort of lose memory and order in my thoughts, and become disoriented and confused about my setting or the direction of the conversation. i may experience cognitive dissonance: why am i around this person who makes me feel bad/anxious/insecure? and that thought will be followed by a strange numbness or confusion and a feeling of my thoughts being disorganized, and a lot of confusion about why my emotions are so hurt/elevated if my brain is telling me i logically dont like how i feel around this person, tehrefore do not like them

Blush intensely and very easily, sometimes experience chest tightness, a lot of mind fog when trying to approach issues of intimacy (serious anxiety around intimacy), i feel shaky and overwhelmed

Sometimes i will become low energy and lose sight of the direction a conversation was going even if i do like the person and am not experiencing cognitive dissonance.

unable to sleep due to obsessively thinking about why my feelings are so overwhelming and hurt when i dislike someone, lose sleep worrying about the direction of my life and why i’m so afraid of intimacy, mad that josh opened the door for me to be very insecure about my sexual and intimate issues, my worries about inadequacy and intimacy with Josh are a serious obsession and symptom of GAD

Unable to fall asleep most nights even if I dont’ have a worry, and the worry comes from just lying trying to fall asleep

Severe nightmares and frequent lucid dreaming that is distressing due to how difficult it can be for me to differentiate from dreams and reality at times when I’m first waking up

I think a lot about why I do the things I do when it comes to relationships

I feel I am losing control

I enjoy my favorite activities less

Escapism has historically been a major crutch for me, like Emmerdale

My muscles are often tense or sore, I have bad neck pain from work that is worsened through tense muscles and anxiety

I have a tic that is driven by this physical tension that builds and is only released through doing my tic, and when I am anxious, the tic gets worse

I have a lot of headaches

Easily irritated at all times, very on edge most of the day

Not able to be happy like the people around me, feel odd that I can’t get excited to do anything like I used to, new projects don’t excite me, I just get sad when I think about them since I know I won’t do them

Lately I focus a lot on the situations upsetting me in my life, and I used to never to do that, so I obsess on the issues and then also on the fact that I obsess. I am confused why I am no longer well-adjusted and extremely depressed and upset that I am so emotional, I am not at ease with what I am feeling and feel guilty and bad about my self-image changing in a way that I do not respect in myself. Cannot accept that I worry so much now when I used to never.

Very focused on “why” I do things, overthinking and overanalyzing what motivates me to do certain things, in what way am I broken etc, whereas I used to just sort of accept that I did things and worried less about what drove me to do those things since it seemed counterproductive to being true to myself to question myself with “why” all the them

Issues never resolve after talking about them for hours, many times over weeks and even months, harbor hurt feelings and stress about ancient problems, even small things like someone canceling plans to see a different person

Often think about how unsatisfied I am with life.

I have extreme difficulty concentrating or remembering things.

I feel nothing will help me stop worrying so much and treat people fairly, I feel guilty for how obsessive I am toward the wrongs people do toward me

Difficult relaxing or getting my mind off my problems

Extreme indecision about shit that doesn’t matter, like whether or not to get a red or blue backpack. i have a lot of anxiety about potentially making the wrong decision

I am afraid of being abandoned. I think my abandonment issues and emotional trauma from GG bullying/abusing me have lead me to have a bad case of GAD and intimacy phobia.

I don’t like being this way, but I don’t know what to do to change and it makes me feel worse that I can’t just live in the moment and enjoy my time with Josh. I often blame Josh for not fixing it by taking the lead and making me feel less afraid, and it’s unfair of me to blame someone else for something that is clearly a disorder

Things are often too much work, like actually starting my podcast or blog or cleaning my house, it all feels too overwhelming and I actually get anxiety about starting

Extremely afraid of humiliation or embarrassment, like chronically unable to handle embarrassment. Once dropped an entire college course due to embarrassing myself once in class

Fear of humiliation leads to extreme fear of being vulnerable in intimate situations specifically. Fear of performing badly intimately has lead me to freeze my entire body and stare blankly for extended periods of time while my partner is confused about why I’ve suddenly stopped moving, I dodge kisses, prevent the organic rhythm of sex or kissing because I am afraid of the intimacy while at the same time feeling anxious about the fact that I don’t have it, compulsions to avoid are illogical and self-destructive toward my goals of building a loving organic relationship

Old memories are very intrusive and I have a hard time changing my thoughts when it occurs, at the moment dealing with drama with Josh so memories with him are intrusive, but once i’m in an anxious state, memories of chase or whatever else will intrude, and recently my old bad feelings from that actually returned, which was alarming since i haven’t felt bad about him in almost a decade

most of the time, however, my memory is shit and i barely remember most people, places i’ve been, etc, i have a very limited memory. so it’s not intrusive memories i’m usaully plagued by, it’s the issue is that worrisome thoughts and a running “tally” of things done wrong to me intrude my mind and I can’t work past them or stop feeling hurt/paranoid that more wrongdoing will happen to me. and i can’t leave people who make me feel bad because the need for them to like me makes me want to stay around for as long as possible and earn it and prove i’m worthy

i feel a lot of my worries are extremely paranoid (he lied to me!!!) and i have a hard time telling if my fear is justified or not. he’s lied to me in the past, so i’m justifiably worried, but i also worry about it so much that i can’t function at work, enjoy my hobbies at home, sleep, or clean

sometimes i’m plagued by a fear that i’ve gone crazy. i used to be so well-adjusted, smart, motivated, and excited about life. i was often forgetful and had a lot of ADHD-like symptoms, but I never even associated them with disorders. I just went on being myself and accepted my insecurities or fears as they came and moved on from them, but now I feel I have all these disorders that have popped up, like depression, anxiety, maybe adhd, that i dont know how to cope with

Memory Loss:

Entire gaps of my life are forgotten in a way that feels extremely abnormal, like sincerely struggle to remember things that most other people seem to recall easily, like where they grew up or stuff like that, i’m often called out for forgetting things i’ve done with friends or loved ones, struggle to remember people and places from important times of my life, often feel frustrated and confused by my inability to recall things

Anxiety produces a lot of cortisol, cortisol affects our brains and leads to memory loss and problems with recall

my anxiety absorbed so much of my mental energy and was such a distraction that i feel i was unable to build memories and can’t focus on the things much, especially not things I need to or want to.

Often so stressed/anxious i’m unable to register what people are saying to me or absorb what they’re saying

The stress of the anxiety and fear is so intense that I actually don’t remember things, sometimes even what triggered my fear, because the feeling was so strong

Often sleep deprived, so building memories is hard

Don’t have much social support, so I have a harder time remembering things well. apparently social support contributes to better memory, so my memory loss may be a secondary symptom of lack of social support

i’m mostly ok with my memory loss, it doesn’t upset me, i’m just intrigued by the fact that something I always knew about myself seems to be a potential symptom of GAD

Healing:

Stop shaming myself for experiencing anxiety when it comes to intimacy

Accept that I am this way and that that is not inherently bad, it just is

Remind myself that I have overcome a lot of my fears

Josh cannot be my crutch for overcoming my fears; he has helped a lot, but he has also triggered many of them a lot. i need to distance myself from him so i can achieve these on my own

Continue to stay okay experiencing anxiety throughout the day. I rarely mind it or obsess on it when it happens, it’s really only an issue when I become emotionally overwhelmed or challenged beyond my means of coping, which so far has been most intensely experienced with Josh. but also how i freaked out with my motorcycle, for example

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