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perpetualproductions · 11 days

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Never Be The Same- Chapter 3:

All My Heroes

- Victoria Neuman gives Marie a ride home, taking the time to catch up. Marie finds herself in the middle of an accident once again.

(Title song: All My Heroes by Bleachers)

CW: Blood, semi-graphic injuries.

2k words

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“Neuman…”

Marie stood shocked as Victoria fucking Neuman stared at her, sitting in the backseat of this black SUV currently parked outside of a mid-city diner, and tries to process the fact that this isn't some weird dream of hers. Marie had gotten so used to the new normal that she had built with Jordan and Emma, that she hadn't really thought of the time when she had her conversation with Neuman. But how could she forget the time she had finally met someone who was just like her? Same powers, same tragic past, same orphanage. Victoria- or Nadia, she remembers, is the only one who can truly understand her. Marie slowly re-enters reality, focusing on the blue pantsuit wearing congresswoman in front of her.

“Oh my god, what- what are you doing here? Why-” Marie sputters out, but Neuman cuts her off before she can continue.

“Thought you could use a ride home, and maybe we can catch up on the way. What do you say, kid?”

Marie hesitates a bit and she isn't so sure why. Neuman was one of the good ones, right? She can trust her… right? Marie has learned that her instincts are usually correct, but in this instance, she really wants to see how this plays out. She nods and goes to open the car door, cautiously climbing into the backseat next to Neuman. The moment the door closes, they drive off.

“So, how was work?” Neuman attempts, but Marie prefers to get to the point of this sudden ambush.

“Why are you here? I mean, why now? It's been months since everything happened and you just fucking disappeared.”

“I'm a busy woman, Marie. The fall of Godolkin was a big deal and my team and I had to decide how to address it. Also, I was dealing with your whole virus debacle, which is now taken care of so there's no need to worry about that.” Neuman said matter-of-factly.

“Really? What did you do with it?” Marie asked.

“Like I said, I took care of it. No need to worry. Now, how about we talk about you? How've you been holding up?” Neuman said with seemingly genuine interest.

“Um… alright I guess. Nothing you need to worry about, really.” Marie spoke, cautiously.

Neuman sighs, “I do care, Marie. Like I said, I've been looking out for you ever since I've read your file from Red River. I've never met someone like me before, someone who can understand what it's like to have this ability. Us bloodbenders need to stick together.”

Marie stares at Neuman, looking for any signs of dishonesty or ill intent, but she doesn't find any. Her heartbeat was steady, but she could control that. “So you've been watching me over the last few months?”

“Keeping tabs on you, yes. Watching you, no. You deserve some privacy after everything you've been through. You seem good, living with your friends and all that.”

Marie can't fight the soft smile that comes to her face at the mention of her friends. It has been nice, the little life they've built for themselves. Though that could all change when their college plans come to fruition. “Yeah, it's been good. Better since we haven't had to worry about Vought constantly watching over us.”

“Oh, I'm sure they have some ideas of where you are. They like keeping tabs on their supes. But you haven't made any noise so far, so I'm sure they'll leave you be for now. And I'll obviously do my best to keep you off their radar, but I can only do so much.” Neuman says as if it's not a big deal, which Marie would disagree with, personally.

“So they know where we live?!” Marie says, a bit alarmed.

Neuman gives a look to Marie. “Come on. You didn't really think you could hide from Vought in some apartment in Brooklyn. Which belongs to one of their beloved creations, might I add. But like I said, just stay in their good graces for now and once you're in The Seven you can make some real change.”

Marie double takes at the end of that sentence. “Umm…” Marie chuckles nervously, fidgeting with her fingers as she tries to find the right words. “I don't really plan on getting into The Seven anymore. I don't think I can spend all those years working right under Vought. Or be a part of a team that's led by someone like fucking Homelander. After everything that happened at Godolkin, I kinda wanna stay far away from that shit.”

Neuman lets out a dry laugh, turning face Marie more. Her previous friendly demeanor turns more serious as she clears her throat. “Okay. I'm sorry to break it to you kid, but you can't play house forever. Especially with powers like yours, the likelihood of Vought taking their eyes off you is fucking slim. Vought will always be in control of supes like you and your friends so long as people like Homelander are in power.” Neuman takes a breath in an attempt to recompose herself. She leans in a bit closer to Marie, maintaining direct eye contact. “Which is why it is important that someone like you gets into that position of power and changes the system from within. No more big brother Vought taking young supes and experimenting on them or locking them up the moment they turn 18, because they are “too dangerous to society”. Sometimes, you just have to deal with shit you don't want to do to be a real hero. Isn't that what you want to be? A real hero? A hero that your little sister can be proud of?”

Marie stares back at Neuman, processing all the words coming out of her mouth, the mention of her sister taking her down a specific trail of thoughts. She takes a deep breath and steadies herself before she responds. “Look. After everything that happened at God U, I learned at least one thing. That sometimes being a real hero, means looking like the villain. Vought looks like a bunch of heroes, but that's just to cover up all the fucked up shit underneath. It's all about image. Looking and acting like something you're not. But I don't care about how I look to everyone, and what that makes them think of me, any more. I just want to do the right thing. I want to actually help people, however I can. Be a real hero. One that Annabeth can actually be proud of. Not some lie that I can feed to her for my own sake. So, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna get my power, my way. The right way.”

It's at that moment Marie realizes they've stopped moving. Looking out the window she sees they're parked about a block away from her apartment building.

Neuman shakes her head disappointingly. “You're being naive Marie. You might not see it now, but soon enough you'll realize that there isn't always a “right way”. Sometimes there's just a slightly less shittier way.”

Marie, not keen on continuing this conversation, takes the opportunity to get out of the car. Neuman continues to talk as she makes her way out. “Think of Annabeth, Marie. How are you gonna find her on your own? I have resources, but I can't help you if you walk away from this.”

Marie stops for a second, turning around to face Neuman before she leaves. “I am thinking about Annabeth. Always. I will find her, with or without your help. Now please leave me the fuck alone.” She shuts the car door and walks off before Neuman can say anything else.

—

Marie is about half way from her apartment as she trudged down the sidewalk, the conversation from just moments ago leaving her exhausted and a little heated. A million thoughts run through her head as she goes to turn the corner, but is immediately yanked back to the present when she sees a car chaotically swerving down the street. She watched as the gray SUV collided with a black sedan that was crossing the intersection. It all happened so quickly, as Marie suddenly found herself running to the scene. She could sense from there the amount of blood that was leaking from open wounds. Traffic had stopped around the crash scene fairly quickly, and luckily no more cars were added to the collision. Marie pushed through the crowd of people that were congregating around the scene. She made her way over to the black sedan where she saw a middle aged man with black, peppered hair, exit the vehicle, stumbling a bit as he tried to regain balance. “Hey, are you okay?” Marie said, panicked as she held her hands out to steady him.

The man looked at her a bit confused. “Not sure. I feel alright but I'm sure that's just the adrenaline pumping through my veins right now” they said almost humorously. Marie notices the huge gash on his forehead and immediately goes to stop the bleeding, doing her best to heal the wound. “Hey, what are you do-”

“I'm healing you. I think you should sit down.” Marie suggests sternly.

“Look, I'm a doctor, okay? I appreciate the healing but I need to make sure the people in the other car are okay.” He tries to go and move over to the other car but Marie stops him.

“Listen, that's great that you're a doctor and all, but I don't think you can help anyone in your condition-” She pauses as she looks him over with her powers. “Holy shit. Okay, you need to sit down like, right now. I think your leg is broken.” She doesn't wait for him to respond as she pulls him down to the ground and rolls up his left pant leg and she nearly gags at the sight. His lower leg is indeed broken, bone exposed as blood slowly flows out. Not much she can do about the bone, but she tries her best to stop or at least slow the bleeding.

The doctor looks up at her in awe. “Wow. Okay, thank you, but I really think you should check on the other car. I'll be fine till the paramedics get here.”

Marie nods, trusting the doctor on his self diagnosis as she rushes over to the gray SUV. In the front seat she sees a man, somewhere in his 40s or 50s, completely passed out behind the wheel. She uses her supe strength to pull the jammed door open and starts examining the man. She immediately realizes that his heart is not beating. He had a heart attack. That's why he was swerving like crazy. Marie takes a breath and focuses on his bloodstream. Slowly but surely she works her way around, eventually finding the obstruction that's restricting the blood flow. She concentrates as she breaks it down and gets the blood moving again. She opens her eyes and sighs in relief when his heart starts beating again.

The sound of sirens catch her attention as a couple of ambulances pull up and paramedics make their way onto the scene. She immediately steps back, not wanting to get in the way. She goes to leave but stops walking when she hears someone calling after her. She turns and sees the doctor who is currently being pulled on to a gurney, waving her over. She debates just walking away but decides to quickly walk over to see what he wanted to say.

“Hey, that was some real good work there.” He says with a smile on his face, which seems out of place with the broken leg and all that.

“Thanks. I was just walking by and realized that I could probably help.” She said a bit uncertain.

“Well, you helped out a lot. Your powers seem really useful for that. Helping people, I mean.” The Doctor's voice is filled with genuine interest and praise.

Marie looks down and nervously runs her fingers along the jagged scars that run across her palms. “Yeah… I'm not so sure about that.”

“Well, If I had those powers I bet I'd be able to help out a lot more people than I already do. That guy in the other car had a heart attack, Right?”

“Yeah, he did. How did you know?” Marie looked at him with surprise and slight curiosity.

“Well, for starters, I could see he wasn't breathing from where I was. I also saw you close your eyes and hover your hand over his heart. So, the best guess was probably a heart attack.” He said, shrugging his shoulders.

The paramedic spoke up before Marie could respond. “Sorry to interrupt but we gotta get you in this ambulance and to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Right. Sorry.” Marie said, stepping back.

“Thanks for healing me, kid!” The doctor yelled before the ambulance doors closed.

With that, Marie made her way with a smile on her face. It felt good helping people with her powers. She actually saved someone's life today. She couldn't wait to tell Jordan about this.

This one's pretty short. Most of these beginning chapters are just setting things up, so bare with me here, lol. Hope you're enjoying it so far, there is a lot more to come. Next chapter drops next Saturday! Hope y'all have a great day! (Obligatory thank you to Venus [@paperdoll201] again, for helping me out with this fic 💜)

Much love, 😎👍❤️

-PB

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fatuismooches · 8 months

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SMOOCHES!! Hii sweetheart, I hope you’ve been doing well! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit inactive with brainrots, school has been stressful and on top of it I’ve been struggling with my condition. Everything’s just been really heavy on me with how frequent I go to see doctors. And I may have a rare syndrome that may have affected why I grew so short (4’10). So yeah I’ve been re-reading a lot of your lovely fragile!reader works throughout the weeks.

But I keep thinking on just Zandik holding fragile!raeder while they ramble about their problems. It’s like their own safe haven, wheee you feel heard and protected by the only person who’s stuck by your side since childhood. :( I just wanna snuggle against his strong arms and fall asleep to the sound of his heart beat. Or just being comforted through examinations while Zandik checks to make sure your vitals aren’t deteriorating. But a little angsty thought: on one occurrence where Zandik is checking your vitals and he sees they haven’t improved but slowly decreased. Seeing that the medication you take is useless and he’ll need to batch something up quickly before you take notice or grow concerned. Also, fragile!reader going to Zandy for cuddles or inviting him into their room so they can cuddle. You put on a fake smile and brush it off as “wanting to be with your favorite boy”. But in reality you just really need comfort but don’t want to nag Zandik so frequently that you’ll just be a nuisance. Yeah just fragile!reader always feeling guilt </3 it’s how I’ve been for the past few days.

But I hope you have a much better week than I have had!! And I hope it’s okay to ask, but I remember you writing something about the Harbingers having a “meeting” to figure out who’s the mysterious veiled figure who is at times seen outside the lab with Dottore. I’m not sure if you ever finished it or forgot about it you don’t have to answer this I’m so sorry.

-from your dear boo boo bear 🎐 anon ୨୧

HI 🎐 ANON MY LOVE!!! <333 Please don't worry about me or brainrots! I just want you to take care of yourself. That sounds so so stressful I couldn't even begin to imagine. I hope you're managing to get rest between all of that :( I wish i could provide you with more than my words and virtual hugs, but I sincerely hope things get better for you. *hugs* And to answer your question, I'm still working on that fic, slowly but surely! It's probably going to take a while due to school and whatnot but it'll be finished eventually. I also ended up changing the title to Latin since all my Dottore fics have that theme but I also realized how bad online translators are for Latin so right now the tentative title is "Medicus potest amare? (responsum est quod sic)" That's probably way too long so it'll might get shortened. But yeah!! I hope you enjoy it when it comes out 🎐 anon ❤️

But yes! Many of the times Dottore can't really help with your problems, since they're probably related to your illness and whatnot, but what matters to you is how he listens without interrupting or nitpicking. Whether you're on his lap or cuddling together he holds you very tightly, he unconsciously holds you like that as if you would leave him. But you don't complain since you like the security of his arms. Though if it's something within his ability to do, whether it's simple or not, his clones will get it done for you. Just to make your life even the tiniest bit easier. Examinations are never fun but Zandik being the one who does them makes them a bit more comforting :( You probably dread them a lil bit since they're just a constant reminder of your sickness but Zandik and his clones do try their best to make it as stress-free as possible for you :) which is honestly a challenge for them at first considering what they usually do but dneuwidfd they'll do anything for you, yk?

Wahh the angsty thought is unfortunately a frequent reality for Dottore... </3 No matter how much he sees it, he can never truly get used to it, there's always a sharp twinge in his chest. Though he never tells you what he sees... he doesn't want you to take on extra burdens. And ughh,,, cuddles with baby Zandy ;(( honestly his childlike innocence and smile make you feel a bit better but tbh he's still a smart boy so he can probably tell when you're lying and genuinely feeling down! Zandy will still cuddle with you of course but he will probably tell Dottore that he noticed how sad you are, and soon enough the Harbinger will be in your room again. Reminding you that you are not a nuisance. That although his methods aren't conventional, he's your husband, and he's here to help and comfort you. That you two will be together until the very end of the world.

#smooches talks #🎐 anon #fragile reader <3 #dottore love notes <3 #zandy bb <3 #ahhh im giving you all of my love 🎐 anon :( <333

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cryptidafter · 2 months

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do u remember some time ago when we where talking about woh and its potential for a horroredit??? im gathering inspiration and ill probably ask u at some point to lend me ur expertise in that area but for now i just want to ask what u like abt horror, as a viewer! what do u enjoy? what would u like to see explored more, what have movies (or books!?) done before that excites u and that u could talk abt for hours? if u want pls do go deep into the technical aspects if u have any thoughts from a storyteller's perspective! youve shared your thoughts with me a bit before so view this as the extended cut!

Oooh yes, of course I remember (and am still incredibly excited about the idea)!

You asked for the extended cut so this is probably going to be another long one (get comfortable lol).

If we're specifically talking about film, what I like about horror as a genre is its ability to personify and often contextualize the complicated and uncomfortable emotions most of us have a difficult time unpacking. Grief, trauma, rage, anger, fear - they're all given a name and/or a face and by taking those abstract concepts and re-imagining them as something tangible and real, it provides me with a sense of catharsis that few other genres can.

More below the cut <3

I enjoy having that control. I'm choosing to sit down and watch a piece of media that will force me to confront those abstract unknowns in a way that's not as overwhelming as IRL. I've been drawn to darker themes from a young age (I think because death was something I had to grapple with when I was too young to really understand it) and I've always been fascinated by the parts of life people shy away from or outright refuse to acknowledge. I grew up on Goosebumps, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, and whatever vampire books I could get my hands on. Horror just hooked me.

Something I'd like to see explored more in horror is race but not in the way it's usually done. I don't want the story to be tailored for a non-black/non-poc audience. I want horror that focuses on all those nasty bits of racism that fester beneath the surface. The microaggressions and the respectability politics and the ever-looming discomfort that comes from trying to fit yourself into spaces that were never made for you in the first place. Get Out touches on some of this (hence why it's such a cultural touchstone) but even it doesn't get down into the weeds like I want. Give me the specter of racism! Make it a silent, sneaking embodiment of minstrelsy that waits in the shadows to mock you. Give me two versions of the same person: code-switching taken to its extreme. Idk, I just think there are so many terrifying but subtle ways that racism presents itself that could be personified in a way that might be hugely impactful for non-white audiences. Most people understand that slavery is bad and that you shouldn't call people slurs. Now, lets go deeper.

I've made posts about some of my favorite horror media but, like you said, I can talk about this stuff for hours and I don't think I've discussed unique types of filmmaking/writing execution before.

I'm a huge fan of psychological horror. Yes, I can get down with a good gory slasher, I LOVE zombie everything, but psychological horror is my true love. I'm a sucker for horror where something isn't quite right even if you can't put your finger on it. Something that seems ordinary and should be a safe space (like your home) suddenly becoming unfamiliar. That lingering sense of dread that comes from feeling like your surroundings are off but not knowing why or how. Seeing something that should not be possible and trying to apply logic and reason to what can never be explained. That will always fuck me up in the best ways lol. Taking the mundane and twisting it beyond recognition *chef's kiss*, I love it.

Junji Ito is one of my favorite manga writers for this reason. Not only is his art style PHENOMENAL but a lot of his stories revolve around the ordinary turned monstrous (Uzumaki, Tomie). A town that's doomed to always be consumed by spirals for reasons unknown. A girl who dies only to suddenly turn back up but something about her isn't the same. So great!

Another fantastic example of this is House of Leaves, which genuinely unnerved me so much so that I still haven't finished reading it.

The way House of Leaves has the text itself morph and change, becoming entirely nonsensical at times, really heightens the anxiety and discomfort I feel. I never know what's going to happen next, both in the actual narrative and on the page. Books have always frightened me more than visual media because my mind will always conjure up the most terrifying images imaginable lol. It's difficult to make something look as scary on screen as it does in my head (not impossible, of course, just tough).

Skinamarink is another fantastic exploration of this theme. Your home - the place where you rest, make memories, get to fully be yourself - has become a hostile environment. I won't get into how the movie is (imo) an incredibly well-done metaphor for childhood trauma (your house becomes a prison that you can't escape and your parents are demonic entities that frighten and harm you; though I can also get behind the other theory I've seen where normal things can seem more confusing and scary as a child because you have no frame of reference for what's happening). But wow this movie stuck with me. I know you're not into horror but I have to share the short film that was the inspiration behind the full-length movie to really get the message across (headphones are best because there's a lot of audio distortion).

youtube

Visually, my favorite types of horror do a lot with a little. You don't need jumpscares and buckets of fake blood to get the job done (though those are fun lol). Playing around with lighting, depth of field, focus, etc. can do a lot to make you disoriented or nervous. Take liminal spaces for instance (which I love).

There's nothing inherently strange about these images but they're unnerving. You get the sense that something could be lurking, that you might turn a corner and encounter danger. Something about being utterly alone does weird things to your brain sometimes which is really the core of what I'm getting at: good horror asks the viewer to sit with discomfort, get familiar with it.

Okay, I have rambled long enough lol. You know my DMs are always open for more discussion of this topic (especially as it pertains to WOH) <3

#asked and answered #cryptid's thoughts #horror films #horror novel #liminal spaces

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youngpettyqueen · 1 year

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RE: MASH: I keep hearing about The Hauntolgy and the Time Loop Theory, and I wanna torture myself a little by reading more but I can’t seem to find any tags or anything on the blogs I’m following, and we all know search is broken.

Any ideas? I know these are pretty popular AUs/concepts.

oooo yea these are both pretty big within the fandom here. ill be the first to admit I havent looked at a ton of the time loop theory stuff, but I do think its a fascinating concept. my personal favourites are the ones that involve Henry being the one who's conscious of the time loop, or the ones with it being Radar

Henry's is really just a beautiful and painful tragedy with the idea of him trying to escape his death but he cant. the idea of him trying to go home so many different ways but it always ends the same, and when he wakes up right back where he started. @thebreakfastgenie has a post about it thats great, I know ive reblogged it at least once so ill see if I cant find it quick and reblog it for ya anon

in terms of Radar's I dont remember any specific post but I think its an interesting take on his more clairvoyant-like moments. being able to predict what people are saying, apparently being able to read minds to some extent, etc. its a fun gag in the show, but putting him in a time loop setting and having it be that he seems to have clairvoyant abilities because he's already done all of this before... its a fun take and also it hurts <3 im not sure what id have Radar's time loop be centred around, what he would be trying to escape or change, but its definitely interesting to think about

then there's the haunting which I have looked at quite a bit more and have talked about here a couple times, though thats usually in tags. there's a lot I could say about hauntings and MASH because the show itself is just... haunted. everybody's haunted by something, the entire narrative is haunted. the ghosts of the deceased, ghosts of the loved ones they left behind, ghosts of the ones who left, ghosts of their failures, etc. my personal favourite way to look at it is through how each character's loved ones back home float around them, influence them, haunt them in their waking moments and in their dreams. theyre not dead, but theyre not there. they exist only in pictures and letters, maybe the very rare phone call just so you can remember the sound of their voice

I remember there was a post listing the best haunted episodes of MASH with like, explanations as to why each episode was haunted and by what. I dont remember who OP was unfortunately- it might have been @variousqueerthings but I could be mistaken. I think Follies of the Living is my favourite episode for this, the episode's take on ghosts is fantastic, and that last shot just really stuck with me. its one of my favourite episodes in general tbh, this desperation and then this quiet sadness of a ghost hanging around camp, watching but unseen, listening but unheard. makes me wonder how many other ghosts sometimes hang around

#mash #Hawkeye in the time loop theory is also good #he does have an awareness about him that suits it #but I like to look at different characters for the time loop theory because you can make some really interesting cases there #and then the hauntings...#I know I have a tag analysis from months ago about Dreams and how Peg haunts BJ #because I think about that fairly often #kinda wanna write a fic now from the POV of Tommy's ghost hanging around camp after his death #gonna tuck that idea away for later #I have several other WIPs to finish first #but yeah MASH is haunted I think about it all the time #my thoughts aren't particularly organized on the matter but I could write an essay about it

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not-poignant · 1 year

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*waves* I want to start off by saying that your works have been a huge comfort in my life over the years. They've helped me through some really trialing times and I'm forever thankful for everything you've done, even when life hasn't been kind to you. I've slowly been coming to terms with the fact that I have chronic pain, maybe fatigue too, unknown still. But it's been a hard pill to swallow, I feel so angry that I can't do stuff. Do you or any of your followers have advice for accepting this?

Hi anon,

Firstly, I'm so sorry you're going through this process, especially one that also involves fatigue, because fatigue is a son of a bitch. (You can - to a degree - treat some forms of pain, but there's almost nothing out there for genuine fatigue except rest and the core needs, and even then, it rarely listens).

My advice is going to be from stuff I've mostly learned for myself, but everyone's journey is different. What I like to tell myself might hurt someone else, so if I say anything here that doesn't work for you, remember it's important to find your own things too.

If necessary, look for support groups, if you have no diagnosis yet but have chronic pain and fatigue, groups for ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and Fibromyalgia are probably the best places to start.

As for advice, the first is that it's normal to be angry and it's normal to feel betrayed (by your body and by a very ableist society) and it's normal to feel sad and upset. Acceptance isn't the absence of these feelings, it's not a place you get to where you transcend these emotions, because it's normal to grieve what the course of life has taken from you. And part of the journey of chronic illness re: accepting where you find yourself, is also accepting the emotions that come with it, even if they feel really ugly or you don't want them. Not being able to do stuff you used to do, or the way you used to do it - of course you'd be angry, because that's loss. And loss by nature, creates grief.

Acceptance is the moment - for me - where you have a bad day re: anger and resentment and can stop and go 'oh of course I feel this way, I have lost a lot, but even though I'm annoyed or angry at my body today, I'm going to be kind to it and care for it to the best of my ability, because I'm sick, and that's what I'd want to do for anyone who was this sick. And I'm going to check if I need to ask for help, and remember that I don't have to do this alone.'

There might come a time when you're ready to brainstorm and problem solve, or days where you have more energy. For example, I can't hike for hours anymore, and haven't been able to for years. But I can stop and think 'what did I like most about hiking?' And it would be - the things in nature I can see. Well, I can still get out to nature, especially on accessible paths, or places that have carparks and botanical gardens. Or it would be physical exertion - well, I can do purposeful physical exertion with very gentle physiotherapy, it's not the same, but it still gives me a feeling of physical accomplishment. Or it would be I really like being in nature - thankfully there are a lot of places you can be in nature if you have friends or Ubers to take you there, and you can also bring nature to you re: plants in the home.

Generally speaking, getting creative with what is lost is part of the process of acceptance. But it doesn't always come straight away, and it doesn't always come without resentment. I have days where I'm still fiercely, fiercely angry that I can't do the things that I used to do. The fact is, the world is ableist, friends have internalised ableism, I'm often feeling guilty or frustrated that I can't do things when I just...can't do them and it's not my fault. I'm just sick.

Definitely consider organising some kind of therapy or even vent sessions with someone you trust (who has the capacity to handle it, though not many folks do, understandably) - medical trauma, and the experience of a chronic illness, can be traumatic. And look around for a good doctor and professional support network.

Pain on its own causes fatigue, so look at enrolling in a pain clinic (they have wait lists, so it's good to get the ball rolling now), and make sure that you've had at the very least a blood panel of your inflammatory markers because many causes of chronic pain can be treated or medically supported.

It's worth making friends with some folks who have chronic illnesses and spoonies, or the people who just 'get it' even if they don't. People who will never pressure you when you have to cancel. People who love you when you don't see them for months at a time. People who understand when you vanish from an online conversation halfway through without saying goodbye. These folks are worth their weight in gold.

There's things like - it's worth exploring concepts like mindfulness in chronic illness, as well as pacing (I hate pacing, but the one time I seriously tried it, I felt better and could do more - it's just so frustrating in concept). It's worth writing down the things that trigger bad episodes of pain or fatigue for you, and then thinking of ways to accommodate those things (for example, socialising causes flares for me, so I don't do it often, and I try not to do too much in one week). Research the 'energy envelope' and learn what yours is.

As to the grief and the anger, this is also something you will go through again and again, though the periods of acceptance may last longer, and feel more genuine. We're not trying to stop the emotions of grief and anger, but it is worth learning how to wrangle those emotions when you turn them against yourself, when you look for something to blame and hurt yourself in the process. Remember, if society accommodated disability and invisible illnesses better, your life would probably be a little easier, some things are actually down to how society treats us. If I knew I could access a program that delivered meals because I'm medically too tired to cook, my life would be easier. So when I go 'fuck my body is useless' - the truth is - society is pretty fucking useless, and my body is doing its goddamn best.

But you can be extremely mad at society for dropping the ball on all of this. Or upset. Or disgusted. Or betrayed. It's all valid. Society drops the ball on chronic pain and illness and fatigue every damn day.

The chronic illness train, for nearly all of us, is one that we board eventually, and it almost always has multiple stops. We never just acquire one thing, because age tends to give us age-related chronic illnesses too (arthritis, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, etc.). These declines can each come as a new shock, and going through one new illness or symptom isn't always going to look as the same process that preceded it. A new chronic illness might feel like nothing at all if it's easy to manage (see my acquisition of allergic eczema) or it might hit you really hard if it comes with pretty reduced mortality (see my acquisition of COPD). You might get decades between one thing and the next thing, or you might not, but it's a train that in the course of humankind billions of people have been on.

The people who treat you badly for being sick are the ones who refuse to believe the train exists and that it's coming for them. They often think that if they live 'well enough' they can avoid the train (they can't). Maybe that was something you once believed as well. I know I did (and sometimes still do).

And as for when we treat ourselves badly for being sick - some of it's grief and trauma, and a lot of it is internalised ableism. Having a chronic illness is not your fault anon. Even though it doesn't feel like it, your body is doing its best for you, and the process of acceptance is learning that we need to also do our best for our body, and that we should expect society to do the same, even though it often doesn't.

Idk if this was anything along the lines of what you're looking for. Tbh I still find it really hard. December just gone was one of the hardest months I've ever had the misfortune of living through not just because of chronic illness but because of my emotional reaction to three new diagnoses I wasn't prepared for, and I spiralled hard when I realised just how sick I was (no one likes to see 'possible severe liver disease' on a CT scan). We never just go through the anger or grief once, but it does get easier, and the periods of time where we just make our lives into a new shape that pleases us become longer.

Anon, you will find new things that please you and fulfill you even as you lose old things. The new things won't replace those old things, but they will bring moments of ease and comfort and joy. We all experience this process. But do chase them down. Look for them when you have moments of energy. Seek them out. The simple things in life that nourish you, whether it's soft blankets, or good food, or a particular movie or show, or a book. Pain and fatigue are bitches, but many of us with it are avid collectors of 'things that nourish, fulfill and are joyous to us.'

I wish you well with it all! The chronic illness train can feel like a very lonely one because it races us away from the people in our lives who aren't on it yet - but the truth is hundreds of millions of us are on it right now, and there will be lots of different types of advice and support waiting for you, and very few of them will deny you your anger at the situation you find yourself in. Very few people find themselves excited to board the chronic illness train, and often you don't realise it's picked you up until you learn you can't get off.

That part sucks. But accepting that it sucks goes a longer way than trying to convince yourself it shouldn't.

#asks and answers #chronic illness #dodgy advice #you don't need to find any peace or meaning in chronic illness #it's just allowed to suck #but if you like to look for peace or meaning or philosophy #might i recommend mindfulness #and also taoism for me #buddhism works for others #tbh i often settle on 'we are imperfect suits of flesh and this was inevitable'#'but damn i really enjoyed that bubble tea right now and that's all that matters in this one second or minute'#you're gonna get so good at collecting things that you love #but give it time #and be patient with yourself #if you love animals #treat yourself like a puppy that's just acquired a chronic illness #a lot of love #a lot of play #a lot of rest #and support when necessary and possible #i have had days where i've had to: if i was a rescue dog how would i treat me' in order to get through it - and weirdly it helps sdaflkfjsa

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flyonthewallmedstudent · 2 years

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What working is like during a pandemic 3 years on.

It still sucks. Less scary, but still scary.

I work a variety of as-needed-roles now as a hospitalist or physician. Sometimes I'm still a physician. Other times it's a COVID physician. In hospital. Or in out patients, which is a mix of telehealth, phone or in person. Just depends on the needs of the community at the time.

With how overloaded the system is (remember it was set up for non-pandemic times, we now have to have extra beds for COVID all the time), even when I'm not delegated the task of seeing COVID patients my main job seems to be getting patients out of the ED as fast as possible. For the sake of everybody essentially.

I'm not sure how many patients realize that when they show up to hospital, there's now a good chance they're exposing themselves to the COVID population we have (some mask up, some don't, of course we offer masks when they get to triage, but if you have delirious patients it's nigh impossible to mask in the halls while you wheel them to isolation).

It's not terribly difficult to treat COVID - it's the same set of widely accepted treatments now. We add to it as new ones get approved. It's just a struggle when despite all we do, patients still deteriorate. This is, however, a minority of cases - usually the immunosuppressed or the unvaccinated. i.e. lacking as sufficient immune system to fight off the virus even with the best medications on board.

You'll often hear doctors throw around that CT or CAT scans of the chest will resemble what looks like poured concrete in the lungs. And it's accurate, this is why patients struggle to breath or get oxygen in. All the inflammation and debris from the virus or from fighting the virus fills the lungs like concrete.

Air is black on the CT scans, white is bad. white means there's no space for oxygen to diffuse into tissues.

Image Source: ABC News

Once it gets this far, it takes weeks to months for our bodies to clear away the debris. It's a lot of long term rehabilitation, whether in hospital or in outpatients with occupational therapy, physiotherapy etc. Time off work. Breathing takes work, breathing is exhausting. So you re-learn how to breath with compromised lungs as they heal. You re-learn how to do simple tasks like shopping, showering, while you have long term breathing difficulties. It's like seeing the 20-30 years of smoking damage to the lungs occur in a few days.

Then I go from work to the community in which I live. There's no mask mandate so maybe 50% of the people around me mask up - voluntarily. It's a strange dichotomy. But it's started to feel more normal.

In outpatients I see a lot of long COVID, just in general in outpatients-anything-now. Just simply refers to persisting symptoms of COVID long past the initial infection, by weeks to months. Sometimes 1-2 years, since whenever the first outbreak occurred.

The previously young and healthy are suddenly feeling breathless and helpless as a result. I feel terrible, to have to suddenly welcome them into the fold of chronic illness and it's ability to destabilize everything they know. Many never had to go to hospital, they just had mild symptoms, that got worse or never went away. I spend a lot of time confirming what they have is long COVID and acknowledging it's existence, and that they're not alone. many are millenlials who've already joined online forums or googled it to death. They don't approach conversations as know-it-alls, on the contrary, you get a frank discussion.

I would, however, emphasize using reputable resources, like local government health websites catering the general public or other institution backed articles. For instance, Cleveland Clinic or Johns Hopkins. It's okay to be critical or skeptical of the information out there, but be sensible about it. Filter through the noise to the expert advice. The Curbsiders has a great podcast on LongCOVID and what dedicated outpatient LongCOVID clinics are like. Mainly rehabilitation focused.

It's a tough one, outpatient clinics. most will have not actually been to hospital, rather have been referred by the ED or their local PCP. Tough in the sense of the confusion they have - they haven't been to hospital. They had it mild. And yet they're still unwell while the rest of the world moves on without them. The rest of their family may have recovered. But they haven't. Many are in their peak of their careers, work lives or personal lives (young parents with young kids). And now they have to slow down as if they're already past prime. Most of the time it is temporary. If not unusual. I mean, you don't see this with the flu or common cold.

#covid #medblrs #medblr

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the-stoned-priestess · 2 years

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Heyyy love hope you’re doing well I would love to get a reading from you, I’m new to your blog. Can I have a psychic abilities reading please? Or whatever you pick up about me in general. My initial is H. Peace and blessings ❤️

Be Of Service

What I got was "clearly seeing" as a skill for you.

Empower and enrich the lives of others, you elevate the consciousness of this dimension. No Good deed is too small. Acts of kindness and service are regarded in the spiritual Realms as the loftiest of goals. To ease the suffering of another in any way, from charitable contributions to volunteer work or something as simple as making someone stay brighter with a smile or kind gesture, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself.

Raising the energy of the planet by doing selfless deeds is a win-win for all concerned. By raising the vibration of others you can raise the vibration within yourself. Remember that above all else, you are here to leave this earth dimension better than how you found it. Seek ways to make your mark. It's not possible to fix all the anguish in the world, but it's imperative that you don't create more. Be mindful of your thoughts, words, and deeds. Be the change that you want to see in the world.

If you're struggling struggling for a direction of which you should work in as in a field, you might want to look into self-help organizations, occultism, poetry, dancing, being a set director, makeup artist, wardrobe head, or anything that deals with illusion.

The general focus now is on unfoldment or expansion, yearning and discernment, meetings, discussions, and work related projects for the future.

You want things to come together be it in business, health, and love or mind, body and soul, and are anxious for the future to take shape.

Other people will cause you to re-examine your objectives and what you want out of life and romance could find you at work.

You'll be driven by the need for love and companionship, the great love because without it you'll feel like you're just going through the motions and that is a very empty feeling.

You'll feel very impressionable or sensitive and will be struggling to assert yourself.

Things are going to be different and you'll have a change of consciousness for the better.

Cosmic forces are going to correct the situation, but this is only the first step. There is still the possibility of defeat unless you're cooperation is continued. What's meant by cooperation is your determination to persevere without immediate results, and to allow the power of the infinite to penetrate your consciousness and steer you into that which you desire or to change your karma for you.

You need to accept what's going to be offered because it can change your life.

Later, the focus is going to switch toward character, stamina and self-discipline, courage, Faith or conviction, doing your best according to the circumstances you find yourself in, gathering strength, or waiting for the right moment to act.

You're going to continue to want your efforts to bear fruit, to socialize, circulate and be out with others and your health or that of another to improve.

It will be waiting for something to pan out, or for someone to arrive or if someone in your home is ill, a doctor or friend with a medical background will aid you.

It will make money at your craft and promote yourself and your business. If you are involved in or considering a metaphysical venture or profession, it will prove to be very lucrative and rewarding.

You will experience displeasure and dissatisfaction caused by confusing issues, delay or adversity.

You will enjoy giving to another or being in the arms of someone who is extremely engaging and quite a bit different from the others you've known.

Financial transactions and social activities will bring success and rewards.

You can expect a major change in your activities, attitude and love life.

But there is no getting around to it you're going to have to wait.

#tarot community #ask a psychic #witchblr #free readings #psychic #tarot readings #psychics #tarot readers #psychics of tumblr #tarot cards

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monstercollection · 1 year

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Honestly if nothing else, this challenge is revealing just how little I absorbed in school and just how much I struggled with the classics.

English was by far my best subject but I’m really coming to understand just how much of that was my ability to fake it and figure out the minimum I needed to do in order to get by. That wasn’t so much laziness on my part as it was struggling to keep up in the face of my ADHD and severe mental illness.

I was diagnosed late in High School and my parents never went through the steps of getting me an IEP. I spent a lot of time grounded for “not putting in enough effort”.

Right now, without the structure and expectations of school (quizzes where I have to remember details, written assignments for multiple classes, etc.) I’m finding it slightly easier. Access to audiobooks helps. I can tailor what I’m doing to my learning style (which I am still discovering as I go).

But I also had to go off all my ADHD meds a few years ago due to health problems they exacerbated. It’s such a struggle and I think I have so much more empathy for my younger self, seeing the difference between what I could accomplish on meds vs not. But I’m intimidated by the idea of taking any classes now. I’d like to sign up for some writing courses. I also want to eventually get my captain’s license which requires taking a course and memorizing a lot of nautical terminology and concepts.

School and my perceived failures have me very much in my own head about it all. I’m sure it’s also all tinged with the weight of the constant mental health battles I dealt with back then too. Now that I finally have the correct diagnosis and am properly medicated, that would be less of a barrier (though not one that is completely eliminated).

That doesn’t stop me from having recurring nightmares about high school and college— nightmares in which I am always failing classes and missing assignments.

I need to convince myself that what I want and what I’m capable of are more closely aligned. I need to remind myself that I’m re-wiring my brain just by practicing reading physical books again and that reading through sub-stacks is a valid way to learn.

I used to be GOOD at memorizing vocabulary. I am just out of practice.

I am not bad at learning. The way I was expected to learn was.

#literary tarot #literary tarot challenge #screw the American education system honestly

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sankirtan · 1 year

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My Arjuna Moment. By Ananda Vrindavanesvari Devi Dasi There comes a time, sometimes regularly, where we may feel, Oh, Krishna. I can’t do this anymore. This ‘this’ will be different for everyone. It happened to Arjuna in the Gita – he wanted to give up, not to fight, and go off to the forest to be alone. He did not want to deal with people and life’s problems. He told Krishna: I’m not fighting, I can’t do it, I can’t see the point, better if I don’t act and move to the side. If it can happen to Arjuna, who had everything going for him, including talent, skill, health, family, and especially friendship with Krishna, it can certainly happen to all of us. The struggle for existence, as daily life is described in our teachings, can sometimes just be too much. We will feel like Arjuna and have a desire to give up and go away. Arjuna was a good person. He did nothing wrong and still he felt despondent. Of course that was connected to him not wanting to do anything wrong; the impending war and killing was something he was having grave doubts about. And he was a warrior! In his blood was the natural desire to protect the innocent and ensure good leadership in the world. Still he was overwhelmed, doubtful, and unsure of his next steps. Our fight may be with an illness, a slow recovery, mistakes, a sudden death, a mountain of bills or debts, a challenging work environment, tension in relationships, a loss, a failure, a breaking of the law. Or it maybe we see how broken the world is and feel helpless to help. The list is endless. How to respond to such feelings of inadequacy? How to work through them, gathering our resolve, and moving forward? We need to be able to do this otherwise such feelings will wear away at our energy and we will slowly grind to a halt. By the end of the Gita, Arjuna has found his understanding, found his sense of self in relationship to the context of his life. Here are three of Krishna’s teachings in the Gita that helped him recover and re-energize: We have to do something: We are a soul with a body. One one level, spiritually, we have nothing to do with this world. The soul remains untouched. One another level, while in the body, we are connected to the world and must move within it. We are forced to act, even if all we do is breathe and eat. And every move has an impact on our future – both action and inaction. Be careful Arjuna, Krishna says. Running from difficulty may seem like a good move, but will solve nothing. Do what we are good at: Krishna told Arjuna, you are a warrior. To go off and be a renunciate is not your calling. You won’t be able to do it, and it will be neither good for you nor the world. Better do what you are called to do by your natural talents and disposition than trying to avoid your duty because it’s hard. We should try to adopt this mood ourselves. What is our best way to serve, to give, to live in community with others and Krishna? What is our part to play, even though we may sometimes want to be or do something else. We have to find our best fit. Don’t do it for ourselves, but for Krishna: Even if we know what to do and it’s what we are good at, we can still feel off center. That’s because life becomes dry if we are only trying to live it for ourselves. Working for others is a step up, but that still wasn’t enough for Arjuna. Ultimately we need to do it for Krishna. Krishna told Arjuna, “Remember Me and fight.” How can we apply these things? We should think, “I am doing this for Krishna so let me do it in the best way possible.” If I am cooking for friends, let me cook as if it’s for Krishna and make it fabulous. If I am repairing a wall, let me see it as Krishna’s wall and make it perfect. If I am managing, selling, planning, teaching, parenting, drawing, doctoring – whatever – let me do it to the very best of my ability. Let me develop that ability. Let me be and do the best for Krishna. Arjuna had Krishna in his uncertainty and so do we. With Krishna, we can face anything. And that makes all the difference.

#dandavats

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promiseiwillwrite · 2 years

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Quiet Cruelty

Something in me is very angry.

It's jaw is set. It's breathing controlled.

It's focus narrowed to the point where I am not fully processing auditory inputs.

I am on my best behavior.

But my anger is building.

I know what it is. My father is a chronic over-explainer. I have been given the parameters of high speed injection molding six or seven times on this visit, each time with greater complexity than the last.

He exists in a series of obsessive loops, which he is scrabbling to use to create security for himself, by taking refuge in his extensive knowledge, and is at the same time terrified of losing his mind like his mother.

But there is something adversarial in his presentations. Like he knows the knowledge he has is useless outside the settings of the factories he lived and worked in all his life, and that is someone else's fault. There is a need in him to push blame for that onto bad bosses and indifferent corporations.

But that is not my fault.

Except that I suspect that it Is, a bit. I did not ask to be born, but I absolutely changed the chaotic equations of his life. He had to try to create his June Cleaver fantasy life in his marriage, and nothing about what came after first that mold.

He has dedicated rumination loops for each of his ex wives and their associated drama. I am a part of those, and it will take him a lot of work to see me any other way.

He is lost inside his past, like I have been.

When I have gotten a word in edgewise, I have talked about the things I have done to get out of my mental illness. He is so trapped in honor culture, and devaluing himself for needing help that it is not even an option for him to get therapy.

And he has already rejected medication, after three doses.

I told him several times that just because he thinks judgy thoughts about himself doesn't mean I have to.

But I see it. And I feel my judgment of him. Because I have the same judgment of my own paradigm blindness. But you can't know what you don't know.

I see in myself a pervasive ability to re-write memory and history. And I don't want to re-write what went on. I want to know what is true.

Everyone in my family has clearly done this. He has told me about all the traveling and work he has done in one story, but then told me he was always there when he was supposed to pick us up for custody visits.

And sure. I am positive my mother sat in our car in the parking lot for hours waiting for him to get there on the wrong day on purpose at least once.

My dad has painted himself as a sober custodian of my drug addicted mother, and all his friends.

And he has never mentioned the beating.

That part of the divorce never happened for him.

And that is why I am angry. He has painted over it and made himself a victim whose only crime was that he loved my mother too much.

I will never be sure of everything I remember from my childhood. Memories of children in trauma are highly suggestible.

But some of my memories are definitely my memories.

Some things I was definitely not "told about" in some effort to poison me against him.

Though my mother did that too.

He seems so urgent to convince me that I was always loved and wanted.

But that simply was not my lived experience.

And it doesn't square with the beating. Or the terror.

But then, I look at my memories, and I question. What if the things I think I remember simply aren't real, when they have been real for me for 35 years?

This anger that is a part of me would just be projection.

And these things that happened 35 years ago have nothing to do with my reality now. Except everything.

And it all boils down to what I want.

I am at home in this anger. It is close in my heart, and comfortable there.

Because it was protecting me. It was an internalized experience of self love.

It was, and has been a relic of my soul, through all the hell I lived in, that held onto the fact that I was worth treating well. That I was worth protecting. That there was always something brave and unbroken in my soul.

It is my inch.

That one thing.

Self love presenting as anger is my first real, direct experience of it, and what I have always used to break through my mental problems.

I am worth more than his insecurity. I will not give him validation or worth.

And it is not my job to be brave for him, or rescue him from the hell he has made for himself.

My refusal to open the discussion of the abuse is as kind as I can be, and at once as cruel.

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annie-blackhill · 3 years

Note

Helloo i hope that the request area is here. I saw that the inbox is opened so is it possible to ask for headcanons with adadazai who's got a crush on thing girl in the ada, she seems to be really open minded and kind towards people but lost her lover in the war? Eventually she falls for Dasani too. Hope it wasn't too complicated, have a nice day❤️❤️❤️

Request #5

Thank you so much for requesting! And sorry for the late answer!

Since, I'm not a manga reader, and only watched the anime, I do not know in depth about the war, the requester has requested, so I'll be changing it to the Dead Apple movie conflict (she lost her lover in the conflict).

(And, yes, I've already talked with the requester about this, the requester has agreed with the changes, so, please no hate)

____________________________________

Warnings:

Minor character death (Y/N's lover)

Blood

Depression

Mentions of self-harm

____________________________________

Dazai Osamu

Kindhearted girl at the ADA who lost her lover in the Dead Apple conflict

____________________________________

Dazai had always been captivated by her

Her eyes gorgeous

Her voice sweet and always soft

She was always kind, Dazai held great respect for her being able to put up with Ranpo-san's temper tantrum once, because Atsushi bought the wrong type of sweets for him

But she has a lover

Well, after the battle, its now had

She had a lover

Dazai remembers meeting her lover before, he was kind, sweet, funny, polite, everything that matched her

It made him feel inferior to be in the same room as him

He was way better for her than Dazai will ever manage to be

But somehow, the other had taken a liking to Dazai and became friends with him

He had been an ability user

A minor ability, not really strong but could kill if not used properly

His own ability had killed him

Dazai's little crush managed to get her ability back and she found the corpse of her lover, slain by his own ability

Dazai remembers embracing the broken woman in his arms, silent, letting her grieve, her lover's blood stained her clothes, hands and arms

Dazai noticed her falling into a pit of depression, he helped her

He pushed aside his crush and helped her heal

Made sure she didn't hurt herself

Made sure she took care of herself

And eventually, she learned to move on

She frequented her lover's grave more, with small nostalgic smiles and murmurs of retellings of how her day had went

And soon, she was visiting his grave everyday

And some days, she'd drag Dazai along too

Although, Dazai could not really call, her lover and him, close friends, they were good friends, nonetheless, they had shared laughs, smiles and even inside jokes about the other ADA members, that Dazai had told him

Dazai was happy that she was healing now

Oh, how it shocked him when she presented him with flowers and asked him to go on a date with her, right in front of her lover's grave

"He'd want me to move on, Dazai-san. And I know, that'd be happy, if I were to move on, with someone that he trusts and was good friends with,"

she had said

Dazai's poor fragile heart was at risk of combusting

His face blushed a deep red

As he stared wide eyed at the woman before him

He had not predicted this

But he should have, if Ranpo-san's sly smiles and discreet winks to him whenever he exited or entered the ADA office with her were anything to trust

And of they were, since when was Ranpo-san ever wrong?

Dazai had just decided to never consider this possibility before

So, he managed out a stuttered "yes"

And they started dating

Dazai and her would frequent her old lover's grave together, re-telling how their days went

It was nice, he decided in the end

When she discovered, that indeed, he was suffering from depression and an array of other mental illnesses, she tried her best to help him

She didn't judge him at all

And slowly but surely they both healed

And truly, love does heal a broken person, broken soul, and broken heart

____________________________________

I really hope that wasn't too OOC.... I tried my best to make it acceptable. I made sure to not make it seem like she moved on too quickly, so I had to try and remember some elements and small details from Given and how Mafuyu was with Uenoyama.

I really hope did this well. Thank you again for the request. It really gave me a chance to experiment with a new concept and trope!

REQUESTS ARE STILL OPEN!!!

#dazai osamu #bsd dazai #bungou stray dogs #dazaibsd #dazai oneshot #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x y/n #dazai x you #dazai x reader #bungou stray dogs dazai #headcannons #dazai san #dazai headcanons #dazai #osamu dazai #dazai x reader fluff #dazai fluff

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space-city-traffic · 3 years

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yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

#firefly #Serenity #in which i choke out joss whedon with my bare hands and rescue his characters and give them better homes #ollies fix it series #malcolm reynolds #ollies personal good firefly canon

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fleetwood-mac-andcheese · 3 years

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My thoughts while watching Holes for the billionth time

It’s fucked up that the movie starts with all the supporting characters watching their friend attempt suicide

How long was Stanley’s trial and how short was Zero’s trial? Because we know that Zero got arrested the day after Stanley did, but he arrived at Camp Greenlake significantly earlier. Like, he knew Barfbag, he already had a nickname, people knew he liked to dig. How long was he there before Stanley showed up?

In the book when they sing the song, they howl on the word moon (it’s written “moo-oo-oon”) and I wish they did that in the movie

The Yelnatses screwed Stanley over by not getting him a lawyer. The little bits we see of his case prove they had no clue what they were doing. And when they eventually do get a lawyer, he’s let out almost immediately.

I love how Dr. Pendanski is written. He’s such a terrible person who has convinced himself and is trying to convince those around him that he is the nicest guy around. He fucking sucks and I love how he’s written and how Tim Blake Nelson plays him.

“Today’s menu: Chili, string beans, re-fried beans, garbanzo beans, green beans, and banana jello” — aren’t green beans and string beans the same thing?

The cinematic choices made in this movie are just *chef’s kiss*. The way they jump from timeline to timeline without ever losing pace is masterful

Eartha Kitt is flawless.

While Eartha Kitt is flawless, I want it noted that in the book, Madame Zeroni is described as a one legged Romani person (Sachar actually used the G slur) and Eartha Kitt is neither one-legged nor Romani.

Zero is the fastest digger in the camp, but they never really explain how big the camp is. Like, is he the fastest out of 25 people? 60 people, 140 people?

Just to revisit point 8, I fucking love Eartha Kitt

The yellow spotted lizards are such an excellent plot device

All the inmates are either A) mentally ill B) people of color or C) severely traumatized. But most of them are D) all of the above

When Squid throws out Stanley’s letter, catch Zero in the background with a pool cue ready to beat the shit out of that motherfucker

It’s weird that they show Sam as some kind of snake oil salesman when we know that his product actually works. The yellow spotted lizards won’t bite you if you’ve eaten his onions. Why claim they cure baldness or that Mary Lou is over 100 years old?

Zero back at it again ready to throw hands for Stanley, this time with a billiards ball

The fact that magnet got locked up for stealing a thousand dollar puppy

“You are here on account of one person. You know who that person is?” “Yeah, my no good, dirty rotten, pig-stealing, great great grandfather. That’s who it is”

Henry Winker provides such comedic levity

When Zero asks Stanley to teach him how to read and it’s such a nice moment of vulnerability, only to be shot down by Stanley. I just want to cry

What happens if someone actually dies at Camp Greenlake? Like, Zero and Stanley ran away and Barfbag got sent to the hospital, but they all survived. What would the protocol be if someone just dies while digging? Clearly there’s not a lot of oversight because Stanley can get away with Zero digging his hole, so what happens when one of those kids get overheated working all day in the Texas sun and just collapses in their hole one day and nobody thinks to check on them until the next day when the buzzards are all gathered around their corpse?

I’ve waited long enough to say this. Sigourney Weaver in this movie is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. I fucking love her

Sam and Katherine. nuff said

“Well then I guess you’d be in a lot of trouble if your boat leaked.” *sobs*

Just casually reciting Edgar Allen Poe from memory as a way of professing my love to a woman I legally cannot be with due to racist laws forbidding interracial relationships.

I can’t help but remember that Scott Plank died during the post production of this movie. Respect to him and his ability to play such a good villain as Trout Walker

“No one ever says no to Trout Walker.” “I believe I just did.” SAY IT LOUDER, KATE!

Sam

I love that Kate’s MO came from a racist sheriff sexually harassing her

The sunflower seed thing reminds me of something that happened to me at RTC and it’s just a really nice moment for me

Stanley acting so casual by not doing the one thing he’s supposed to be doing

The look on Magnet’s face right before Stanley covers for him

I really want to know more about the Warden and Mr. Sir’s relationship

I also really want a bottle of that rattlesnake nail polish, but maybe that’s just me

I also really like that Sachar didn’t shy away from the racial implications of a white guy having a black guy do his labor for him. Then again, the whole story is an indictment of racism and the American prison system, so it makes sense he wouldn’t ignore that

The way Stanley gets so excited when Zero mentions that park. Like ‘oh, we have something in common. We used to go to the same park!’ and Zero just shuts it down with “I used to sleep in the tunnel next to the swing and bridge” Stanley may have been cursed, but he still had a home

Zero finally gets to throw hands on Stanley’s behalf. He’s been waiting to do that since point 14

Pendanski really is the shittiest

“No one cares about Hector Zeroni” “I do”

I love that Twitch was just instantly ready to help Stanley steal Mr. Sir’s car

What are the chances of Kate, Zero, and Stanley all finding Sam’s boat in the middle of the desert? And I know Kate probably spent years looking for it after the lake dried up and for Zero and Stanley it was destiny, but still

Zero, you gotta ration that sploosh

One more time for emphasis: I love Eartha Kitt

Kate dying and she hallucinates Sam, only to be snapped out of it by Trout Walker. Just Trout stopping them from being together one last time

“It hasn’t rained here since the day they killed Sam” and you think whatever deity made that happen is gonna let anyone in the Walker family end up with Kate Barlow’s fortune?

“I can’t leave without Hector.”

“Call my mom. Tell her I said I was sorry. Tell her Theodore said he was sorry” cue Small Steps

Justice reigns over the Walker family and rain falls over the Walker estate

I would love for someone to find out just how much that treasure chest was really worth. Can one of those theorist channels get on that, please?

Hector finding his mom is nothing short of heart-melting. I’m not crying, you’re crying

“Camp Greenlake was closed and the boys were released on time served and sent to real counselors” Wait, are you implying that forced labor is an unjust prison sentence? Someone better tell the prison industrial complex!

So what happened with Sweet Feet? Did they sit him down and explain the misunderstanding before or after signing him as the spokesperson for their product? He was the prosecution’s lead witness at Stanley’s trial, but nope! All is forgiven!

The soundtrack slaps

Point 53, however you have Shia Labeouf and Eartha Kitt in the same movie and you put which one of them on the soundtrack? Just wondering who made that call. Like, you layer ‘I Want To Be Evil’ or ‘Burned As A Witch’ over any of Kissing Kate Barlow’s scenes, it’d be perfect. But no, instead we get the dude from Even Stevens trying to rap.

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cancerjupiter · 4 years

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astro notes: neptune edition (pt. 1)

neptune represents issues which are frequently unconscious, so all of this may operate without your awareness. if projected, the negative aspects of neptune become more emphasised. the more you reject it in your own life, the more likely it is that you’ll meet it in exaggerated ways outside yourself.

neptune in the 1st house

tends to be the kind of person who waits and sees, but your outward behavior doesn’t begin to describe what goes on inside. you feel connected to your environment because you’re aware of subtle energies, you pick up impressions from others they’re usually unaware to be giving. you find yourself in the uncomfortable position of knowing (beyond a verbal level) what others’ unconscious motivations are, what’s hidden behind their civility. you tend to be very idealistic, preferring to live in harmony: peaceful non-demanding relationships and quiet and aesthetically pleasing surroundings. you choose to think kindly of others, whether they reciprocate or not; your sensitivity gives you a natural compassion. you can be most charming, often whimsical, sometimes romantic, and usually empathic. you seem approachable and often receptive to a degree others find startling and deeply gratifying (if not a little scary lol). you want life to be perfect for yourself and others, and your desire for a better world can be channeled into artistic creative pursuits, social work, or mere daydreaming.

you often struggle with personal identity. you may be so open to others that you pick up their moods without realising it. you tend to mimic, unconsciously, the strong characteristics of the last person you were with. don’t become an emotional sponge; define your emotional boundaries and accept it is necessary for your growth to establish a firm identity. another thing i noticed about you is that you guys don’t mind suffering; no, i’m not saying you don’t hate it (everyone does!) but you seem to accept it when you don’t have to. you put others first and feel that it’s best to sacrifice your own well-being than to be responsible for someone else’s suffering.

there’s almost always a strong awareness of and interest in spiritual energies with this placement. you may actually be psychic, whether or not you’re comfortable with the ability. you may deeply religious, although not conventionally since institutions don’t satisfy you; you feel at home with a belief system you know, from personal experience, exists. your lack of interest in the real world can lead you into seriously bad habits like drug abuse or eating disorders and due to your dislike of physical activity, this can quickly damage your (often sensitive) health. alternatively, this placement can also lead to arrogance, depending on the sun and midheaven placements/aspects.

neptune in the 2nd house

you tend to be idealistic with the use of money and personal resources, not terribly attached to them. you look at them as temporary and although sad to part with something you own, you can let it go where others simply cannot. there’s an indifferent attitude towards finances, income and etc. some of you are v generous and will give things away to people who can truly admire it, believing nothing truly belongs to anyone. this outlook satisfies you greatly, making you easygoing but also easily being taken advantage of. this sort of gives you a fairy-tale attitude towards your money - it’s either always there when needed, or simply one of the world’s idiotic, materialistic preoccupations. you may be unpractical or simply forgetful with resources; not willing to sit down and figure what’s the best buy and choosing to go with intuition. purchases usually go by what you want rather than what you can afford (my friend has no idea how much is on her bank acc and doesn’t care to figure it out. she just doesn’t care lol). you should actually read the small print in contracts and not trust just anyone with your money.

alternatively, there may be a strong tendency to overvalue material things (neptune = beliefs in the house of money and possessions), specially if there’s an earth emphasis in the chart, making you inclined to putting great care and time into upkeep. you usually want your things to look aesthetic™️.

there’s also a strong creative tendency; it may be expressed in various forms but it will certainly be inherent. you need at least periodic access to music and inspiration, including the outdoors where you can soak up peace and serenity. since the 2nd house also relates to sensual pleasures, you probably expect these to provide a kind of ultimate ecstasy. in short, this placement forces you to face up to your tendencies to create illusions about money, possessions, sex, or creative pursuits. don’t expect more from them than they can provide.

neptune in the 3rd house

on one level, this placement can confuse and scatter the brain, giving it vagueness and disorganized thinking. sometimes, however, the mind exhibits uncanny insights into the subtleties of the environment. you sense the hidden nuances and meanings behind what’s being said. what you miss in terms of precise analytical ability, you can by being able to view the big-picture more clearly. there’s a danger to this however; your desire to view what’s beautiful and ideal around you can give a kind of selective perception in which only the good is seen and what doesn’t fit into that is ignored.

you don’t usually feel comfortable expressing yourself through normal channels of communication. what you have to say can be better demonstrated through dance, poetry, song, or picture (painted or taken). there’s often a shyness in the early school situation, which manifested in mental illness (my friend has dyslexia and this was a hard time for her) or simply confusion.

since this house also rules siblings, there may be some sacrifices to be made in relation to them; they may be a problem or have difficulties. since neptune fuses the boundary between the self and others, you may feel you’re responsible for their problems or everything which happens in the immediate environment (also ruled by the 3rd). if you don’t have siblings, you probably longed for the companionship of it, an idealized vision of what a sibling is. i also noticed this neptune placement showing exceptional ability as teachers - specially working w children who have learning difficulties. they can understand ways to communicate with and understand the child better than anyone else.

neptune in the 4th house

i have this one and it’s a loaded position: an unconscious planet in an unconscious house. to feel safe in a secure nest is fundamental, though that’s often quite unconscious. your idea of haven includes a lovely home, w lots of food and someone who will take care of your needs. there’s an assumption that the mother, early home life and emotional security all need to be perfect. that is, all needs will be met with ease, and there’s no upset or disappointment in these areas. the mom or other primary caregiver, is supposed to be there when needed, regardless of other commitments. the illusions connected to the 4th house (remember, neptune refers to illusions which must be exposed and released) are deeply intimate; and any threat to them is profoundly threatening to you.

neptune in the 4th generally has to overcome the strong need for the nurturing parent to not only be perfect but to continue being so into your adulthood. you have great difficulty separating from them; you may never fully do it. it doesn’t matter if they actually lived to your expectations, for their importance is in your head - the parent you idealized or pretended they were. sometimes, however, this desire focuses on the home rather than the parent. in this case, the childhood home was either perfect, or mysterious and elusive. you can react by trying to re-create the exact same nest.

with this placement, nurturing yourself becomes the ultimate value, a way to find supreme satisfaction. you can also make the most amazing caretakers and companions. your need to nurture others is a complicated expression of your own hunger to be taken care of; you give too much and eventually become resentful when no one appreciates your (not asked for) sacrifices. you might also project neptunian traits onto your parent; they may be v spiritual and loving, vague and confusing, or even absent, so you were left w only a fantasy of what they could - and should - have been. they might have also been a victim (similar to pisces moon) and you might’ve felt obligated to save them.

you feel like caring involves being swallowed up completely, and it’s something you either constantly yearn or are terrified of. you also feel if your (unrealistic) emotional security needs aren’t met, you won’t survive the disappointment (you did, and you will again). neptune in the 4th can make the most patient and loving parents, w a strong sense of their emotional bonding and spiritual responsibilities. you will do more to create an ideal parent/child relationship than anyone else and constantly remind others of how important it is to strive to be the best parent one can be.

neptune in the 5th house

this combo leads to a definite charisma, an aura of charm and power and importance (timothee, angelina, mlk, drake, etc). it’s a strong indication of some kind of acting ability, though it may be used as a teacher or a salesman rather than on stage. you’re likely to work in some area where applause and respect can be immediate and experienced personally. you need this; neptune undermines the self-confidence so you depend on others’ feedback to measure your worth. this can be a deadly dependency because even the highest praise and respect can truly fulfill the yearning to be loved unconditionally, only provide a temporary high, making you forever vulnerable.

some of the illusions related to this placement include the need to have perfect relationships and children, and the perfect artistic creation. whenever one expects perfection, they’re doomed to disappoitment, although the process of disillusionment may be needed to rethink your outlook on life. you may expect your love life to provide a complete sense of fulfillment. you can make a v romantic partner, the type to love cheesy romantic things and music, who can surround your lover with utmost affection. however, you might also expect them to sense your wishes and always meet them; or expect yourself to always be sensitive and caring at al times, regadless of your moods and/or needs.

you need to re-evaluate your tendency to romanticize lovers instead of seeing them for who they are. you may also harbor illusions towards children, your own or all, which hamper your ability to deal w them realistically and effectively. there’s a difficulty in developing a strong sense of self-worth, or maybe fancying yourself to be far more important than you really are. this placement is associated w a great deal of inspired creativity, however, and if other chart factors support it, it indicates exceptional artistic talent. with humility and self-awareness, you can use your magnetism to uplift those who have lost all confidence.

neptune in the 6th house

w this placement, neptune is in its polar opposite, since 6th house relates to virgo and neptune relates to pisces. this house is about the world as it is and how to manage it in a day-to-day basis. neptunian energy is the opposite: it yearns for and seeks to unite w the cosmos, which transcends this world. how can these two work this out?

when they’re well integrated in the chart, you can dream of neptune while using the practical 6th house skills to plan and organise the dream you wish to make true some day. it can direct the neptunian energy to envision something better, prettier, more creative and inspiring. without this, the 6th house is merely a housekeeping unit - a drive to organise and plan, but for what purpose? neptune supplies it with purpose and the house repays it with practical skills, usually related to some artistic work.

however, if the energies are at odds, there is the need to dream vs. the need to be practical and realistic. you feel a strong need to busy yourself w details and make everything as efficient as possible, tidying up and even criticising others (negative virgo energy). you may expect far too much from others and yourself, never able to say “no” when more work is piled on you. another expression is not being able to keep your shit together; you forget, are disorganized, feel tired and drained of energy, get sick often, or feel generally unfulfilled. my friend, for example, often seeks jobs for its glamorous aspects, only to get swamped by details and routine.

#astrology #zodiac signs #neptune #neptune houses #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #1st house #2nd house #3rd house #4th house #5th house #6th house

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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years

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

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

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

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

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

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

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

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

Introducing Cottagecore.

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

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

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

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

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

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

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

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

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

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

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

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

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

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

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

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

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

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

Other additions include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

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

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

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

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

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

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

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

Ari

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

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

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

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

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

So. Notes!

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

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

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

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

Emergency and Gene

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

Dr. Valencia Martinez

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

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

Notes:

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

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

Anne Walker

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

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

Notes:

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

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

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

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

Michael “Grey” Rivers

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

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

So that’s how the flock meets him.

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

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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