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notquiteaghost · 5 years

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there isn't enough nonbinary jon sims content, here is... well i started writing this as headcanons but this is really a not!fic about nonbinary jon sims. it’s 3′300 words

it contains: nonbinary trans masc autistic jon, jongeorgie, lesbian georgie, trans guy martin & tim, trans woman sasha, team archives trans solidarity, and not-insignificant amount of internalised transphobia and references to misgendering & general cis people bullshit

(also ftr i am heavily basing jon's experiences here as a nonbinary autistic person on my own experiences as a nonbinary autistic person) (this is like 80% projection) (what else is fandom for!)

also on AO3 if you prefer your 3k of bullet points to have better spacing

tiny baby [jon] who knows she isn't very good at being a girl but doesn't have the words to articulate why

her grandmother thinks kids clothes should be durable and practical so even tho jon is not a kid who climbs trees or plays football, her wardrobe is exclusively straight jeans & 'boys' t-shirts & large jumpers

she keeps her hair roughly shoulder length because that's the length it's always been but strangers still 'mistake' her for a boy a lot. this makes her feel a way she again hasn't got the words for

when she starts secondary school she continues to dress 'masc', never starts wearing makeup, never gets any interest in dating, generally fills out the checklist for everyone else assuming she's a lesbian

she knows she's definitely not a straight girl, so she shrugs and decides sure, she's a lesbian. it's a moot point, mostly, seeing as even if she did have any interest in dating she's the only gay person her age she knows

but she does get involved in some community support stuff – she spends a lot of time in the library as a teenager, and one of the librarians is a lesbian who takes jon under her wing a bit

coffee mornings and book clubs and things like that. sixteen year old jon and a dozen queer women all in their late twenties at the youngest. they joke a lot how often they forget jon isn't also a thirty-something

(this is that autism feel of having no interest in your peers but getting on great with adults)

and then she goes to uni, and then she meets georgie

georgie is a Very Out lesbian. she goes to clubs, she's heavily involved in the lgbt society, she has a rainbow flag hanging in her bedroom window. yknow.

jon likes her a lot, and still isn't really sure if it's romantic or not, but assumes that's more due to being gay than anything else

(no one has told jon about asexuality yet)

so when, one night when they're meant to be studying in georgie's room but instead are mostly drinking shit cheap wine and complaining about their professors, georgie looks at jon with this soft look on her face and asks to kiss her, jon says yes

and then they date

they're both living in one of those massive student houses with a thousand bedrooms crammed everywhere and only a kitchen for a communal space. georgie has lived there since coming back to finish first year, and jon moved in halfway through second year after a somewhat disastrous flatmate situation

so after they graduate, moving in together seems like the natural progression of things even tho they’ve only been dating for two months

jon is still, when asked, identifying as a lesbian and using she/her, but is also still dressing what other people now call butch. she always feels kind of weird about that term, but again, just chalks it up to the mess of complicated feelings being a gnc lesbian does genuinely involve

and then, finally, jon meets some actual trans people

jon has, circumstantially, known trans people. thanks to georgie, jon goes to a lot of lgbt soc things, and is passingly familiar with most of the lgbt people on their campus

but there’s a big difference between nodding at someone when you see them in the library and having an actual, proper conversation about gender

so, jon goes to a lot of social events because georgie does. without georgie, jon would probably not leave the house except to go to work and to the library (jon is not doing postgrad. jon’s library habits do not particularly reflect this)

mostly at these events, jon sits in the corner and reads, and only talks to other quiet antisocial people, while georgie circles back periodically to report on her social butterfly escapades

and at one, one of the other quiet antisocial people is a trans guy

he’s called harry, and he asks about the book jon is reading, and after they’ve been talking a while he says, “sorry, you probably get this a lot, but what pronouns do you use?”

jon just blinks at him and says “what”

“well, i’m trans, so i’m always really cautious about assuming,” harry says, easily, and this does not answer the question jon was asking

jon.exe has crashed

she(?) eventually says, “uh. she? i’ve never– she”

and harry, who has spent the last forty minutes discussing dante with jon and is already sure they’re going to be friends, says “want the trans 101? you’re making a face like you need it”

three hours later georgie finally reappears with the intent to actually interrupt (she’s drifted past periodically, but jon was always deep in conversation with harry, so she left them alone) and get going, and jon gets harry’s email address and is then very quiet as they walk arm-in-arm back to their house

just as they turn onto their street, jon says, “i, ah. i think i might be trans?”

georgie, who has for the past couple months been having something of a crisis after realising she definitely loves jon but she isn’t in love and she can’t figure out why, says “oh thank god”

jon, very bemused, “that wasn’t the reaction i was expecting”

“i think we should break up,” georgie replies, and jon stops walking. they’re four feet from their front door, but it’s late, no one’s about, so georgie decides sure, they can have this conversation in the street

“you– because i’m trans?”

“i love you, i really do,” georgie steps closer, takes jon’s hands in hers, “but i’m not in love with you. and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out why, but if you’re not a girl–”

“i can’t tell if i should be offended by this or not,” jon says, somewhat dazed, “i’ve been trans for an hour, georgie, i don’t know if this is transphobic yet”

georgie laughs, and presses a kiss to jon’s cheek, and says “it’s nearly midnight, we both have work tomorrow, let’s table this for later. we can look up names and what word i should use when i complain to other people how you always leave your shoes in the middle of the floor when we aren’t both on the verge of passing out”

and that sounds reasonable, so jon nods, and kisses georgie on the mouth, and then they go inside

the next day jon stops by the library on the way home from work and checks out almost every baby names book they have. georgie comes home and he’s sat at the kitchen table making a spreadsheet

“you don’t have to make it this complicated, you know,” she says, hooking her chin over his shoulder to read what he’s already got. the spreadsheet has a lot of columns.

“it’s my name,” he retorts, and she hums agreeably, then points to ‘jonathan’, which has relatively few ticks in any pro columns (god, this nerd), and says, “isn’t that your grandfather’s name?”

it is. he doesn’t talk about his grandfather a lot – doesn’t talk about his family a lot full stop, but she knows, even though he died when jon was still a toddler, the stories his grandmother told had a significant impact

“my parents didn’t name me after anyone,” jon says, quietly

georgie nods. she doesn’t say they’re not here now to offer an opinion, because that’s far harsher than jon deserves to hear, and it’s not like she ever needs to remind him of it either. he’s definitely already beating himself up for taking so long to come to this realisation there’s no one left around to tell him how they’d have reacted

“i think it suits you,” she says instead, and jon nods, and then she moves away to make a pot of tea and some pasta (it’s technically jon’s night to cook, but she was anticipating coming home to find him already hyperfocused beyond the point of no return)

a week later, jon looks up from the spreadsheet to where georgie is curled up on the sofa reading and says “ugh, fine, you win, you were right”

(georgie hadn’t pressed her point any further, jon is just like that)

“jon?” she asks, and he makes an exasperated noise and nods, then closes his laptop dramatically and stands. most of his spine pops when he stretches

“this calls for celebration” georgie says, also standing, “franco’s or monsoon?”

“franco’s. i’m going to eat a pizza the size of a car”

so then jon is actually going by jon, and using he/him, and isn’t dating georgie anymore but is still living with her and spending most of his time with her and factoring her into all his major decisions

he talks to harry, and other (binary) trans people, and reads a lot of blogs, and after a few months gets a referral to charing cross gic

by the time he starts at the magnus institute, he’s had top surgery and has been on T for years, and passes as cis completely, and he doesn’t know how to articulate it but this is. bothering him.

he’s not exactly… he likes being stealth, he doesn’t need to flaunt his personal life. he can understand the impulse, but he doesn’t share it. his feelings about gender and romance are no one’s business but his own

but. everyone assuming he was a girl itched – being miss simms, georgie’s girlfriend, she, it felt like wearing a coarse knitted jumper. it was exhausting

and, for a while, everyone assuming he was a man was a relief. it didn’t make his skin crawl, it didn’t make him want to scream, it was nice. it felt good.

it didn’t feel right. but it didn’t feel bad, either, and jon has never been gendered in a way that felt right. he thought that was just part of being trans

except. he moves to london, and he starts at the magnus institute, and he wears shirts and slacks, and the long skirts and patterned dresses some of his colleagues wear keep catching his eye the way men in three-piece suits used to, and that terrifies him

he was lucky, in a way, having no family left to care when he transitioned – if anyone reacted negatively, he could just cut them out of his life, and his social circle was already queer enough that was hardly necessary

but that doesn’t mean he escaped internalising a whole swathe of shit about what being trans should mean and how he should act and what he should want and if he wants to wear skirts then is he even a man? was he making it up all along after all?

naturally, he deals with this by ignoring it. he’s a man, men don’t wear skirts, he doesn’t wear skirts, that’s that.

he manages to keep that up until he’s made head archivist, and he’s given three assistants who are all also trans

(he doesn’t know if elias did it on purpose. elias knows he’s trans, of course, because he’s never bothered to get the name on his diploma changed, but the way elias reacted lead jon to assume elias may also be trans. and if that’s true, then selecting only trans people for the archives staff feels like a kindness more than anything)

and, the thing about them all being trans, is even if jon and martin are both rather fond of being stealth, and sasha and tim aren’t used to being out at work, and none of them are exactly friends, they’re the only people who ever come in the archives, so the archives very quickly becomes the Safe Trans Zone

they all vent a lot about cis people. sasha will walk in and the first words out her mouth will be “the next person to ask me if i’d had the surgery is getting their own surgery when i cut their tongues out”, and tim will make a commiserating noise and offer her the pack of donuts martin brought in

so when, on one of the rare afternoons when jon leaves his office to lean against tim’s desk and brainstorm organisational system ideas, martin walks back from the break room upstairs with a scowl and says, bitterly, as he sits back down, “oh so when cis guys wear nail polish it’s inspiring and breaking down gender roles but when i wear nail polish, jenny from HR gets to side eye me and ask if that means i changed my mind, because surely i’m the one who’ll do that and not all the men who didn’t have to do hours of therapy to establish they are definitely, one hundred percent for sure a guy!”

tim and sasha both make the standard commiseration noises, and sasha says something about the supervisor at her last job trying to say it wasn’t appropriate for her to wear trousers, and jon stops listening and runs away moves back to his office

he hadn’t noticed martin is wearing nail polish, is the thing. or, he had noticed it, but he hadn’t thought about it, and now he’s thinking about it. he’s thinking about it a lot

martin had– martin is a guy. martin is definitely a guy, if something of a feminine-leaning gay guy, the kind of feminine-leaning no one ever questions in cis guys, and it hadn’t occurred to jon to question martin, either, even though he’s trans, and. and.

he’s still circling round a revelation he can’t quite make himself have an hour or so later, when martin sticks his head round the door

“you, uh. you alright?” martin asks, incredibly tentatively. it says a lot, jon thinks, about how nice martin is, that he’s asking even though there’s a 90% chance jon will tell him to fuck off “you kind of disappeared abruptly, earlier. i didn’t upset you, did i?”

jon stares at him for a long moment, then says, “can i see your nail polish?”

“oh!” martin’s cheeks flush, just slightly, as he steps inside the office and lets the door shut behind him “uh, yeah, of course. it’s a little chipped, now, but, yeah”

martin’s nail polish is a light, pastel blue. it’s neat, and even, though his nails aren’t that long, and jon thinks he remembers martin saying something about mostly painting his nails to try and get himself to stop biting them. jon’s never really gone for nail polish, but it’s. nice.

“it’s, uh. it’s a good colour, on you,” he says awkwardly. martin flushes even more

“oh, um, thanks? did– are you alright?”

if jon was a different kind of person, this is where he’d open up to martin, and this would be the beginning of them becoming actual friends

jon is jon, though, so he just shoves all his emotions back in the box they escaped from, nods, and says “i didn’t sleep that well, is all. not really up to socialising”

(an aside about s1 jonmartin dynamic: jon is very good at shittalking martin when martin isn’t around, but in the face of martin’s genuine care and concern, he defaults back to a far more friendlier tone than he’s aiming for. he knows, on a level, that he and martin could be good friends if he ever got his shit together, but that is something else he’s currently repressing. he doesn’t need friends! he isn’t desperate for social contact at all! what’s loneliness!)

martin says “ah, okay, i’ll just– i’ll leave you alone, then”, and then jon makes himself focus on work, and then when he gets home he opens the group chat he’s still, thankfully, in with the trans people who got him through his first gender crisis and sends ‘help i don’t know if i’m a guy after all’

three people immediately send back a link to nonbinary.org

and that’s the rest of jon’s evening

he reads through every article. he reads several articles multiple times. he opens several new tabs, and gets a notepad to make a list of books, and eventually remembers to reply in the group chat

a week later, he bites the bullet and writes an email to georgie

nothing long, just, they still tell each other about big life events

and then, another couple weeks after that, when martin brings him tea, he says, “ah, martin, could i– do you have a moment?”

“of course,” martin says, and lets the door swing closed again, “what do you need?”

“i, ah. this isn’t very professional, so, you don’t– you are perfectly welcome to say no, of course, but i. um. would you– come clothes shopping with me?”

(ideally, jon would have asked georgie, but as much as he loves her (still), they haven’t talked properly in years, and she is cis. the best cis person he knows, but still a cis person. and he’d just, rather have a trans person, for emotional support, and no one in the group chat lives particularly nearby anymore) (or, well, some of them are, but when he asked they all told him to get over himself and ask one of his ‘lovely’ coworkers)

(why does he ask martin and not sasha?) (well, dear reader, he is nursing the beginnings of a crush) (not that he knows it. but that’s absolutely what’s happening here. martin is sweet and lovely and jon definitely finds him annoying and overbearing. yes. nothing else. no other emotions.) (his chest feels all weird when martin smiles because he doesn’t like him. that always happens around people he dislikes.)

“oh!” martin says, surprised. “uh, yes, of course, is– is there an event or something…?”

jon takes a moment to stare at the wall above martin’s head before he makes himself say, “i. am non-binary, and i need– different clothes.”

“oh, god, have we been–”

“no, no, this is a, a very recent development. he is still fine,” jon says, quickly, then pauses, then adds, more haltingly, “i think. i might, if – they, as well, maybe? just, to see”

“of course. d’you want me to tell tim and sasha?”

martin, jon thinks, is maybe not all that bad “yes, please”

“cool,” martin smiles, “i’m free this weekend? for shopping?”

“this saturday would be good, yes”

and then jon and martin go shopping! it’s probably not that successful of a shopping trip, because it takes jon like four shops before they admit what exactly it is they’re looking for, but they go to several charity shops and have fun trying to one-up each other with the most ridiculous/inexplicable item of clothing, and at the end of the day jon has three skirts (a knee-length black a-line skirt, a full-length black skirt, and a full-length black skirt patterned with red flowers), two necklaces, and a skater dress they probably can’t get away with wearing to work, but they really liked the way the skirt moved when they spun

other things that happen include lunch at a cafe where the staff definitely think they’re on a date and only martin notices and also martin is dying, both of them only managing to walk past a secondhand bookshop twice before they cave and go inside, and then emerge half an hour later both holding three books (two poetry anthologies and a sci fi novel; a psychology book and two history books), and martin somehow talking jon into trying on skinny jeans and then, again, leaving this mortal coil

jon doesn’t buy the skinny jeans, which is for the best really

the first time jon wears one of the skirts to work, sasha does a victory lap around the archives because “hell yes skirts are so much more comfortable, and now you swish! tim you should get a skirt. skirts for archives uniform”

and jon is still a prickly antisocial bastard but now he’s an outly nonbinary prickly antisocial bastard, and sometimes they walk into the archives at 2PM smelling of tobacco and holding a bottle of vodka, and then the archives staff all do shots and dramatic readings of the most ridiculous fake statements, because sometimes that’s how you cope with cis people, and that’s! valid!

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #georgie barker #martin blackwood #jongeorgie #yelling at clouds #fic tag #draw jon sims in skirts. thank you.

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shuttershocky · 6 years

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Ok so some thoughts on Persona 3 (FES) after like, 150 hours:

- As much as I did enjoy enjoy the story, it definitely wasn’t all good. The pacing was fucking atrocious and most of the social links were boring four line scenes. I also definitely didn’t like how they kinda took the buildup of the protagonist’s bond with the SEES members for granted. Minato sure acted apathetic for months on end until suddenly he... cared for them? Somehow? Despite literally only being able to bond with the girls (and all three need a maxed out stat too). Like damn I know I, as the player, cared for Shinjiro; fucker hit like a truck and wasn’t weak to anything of course I’d miss the guy, but The protagonist as a character? Yeah I’m not sold on Shinjiro’s death being traumatic when, outside of battle, the most they interacted was Shinjiro handing Minato a kitchen knife.

- Introducing Mudo and Hama on enemies with no warning that instant kills existed in this game was super bullshit.

- Maybe people would like The Answer more if it came with difficulty options because holy flying nutsacks on dirigibles it’s mcfucking hard.

- Aigis was... a surprise. Sure she’s beholden to rather dated dialogue (”I want to be by your side” repeated ad nauseam) but her Pinnochio story is actually really good. I adore stories of robots questioning if they are real and what real would actually mean for them, and how Aigis explores this is something I very much enjoyed. There is a fine touch to Aigis’ growth into a real person, from her sense of humor developing slowly over the course of the game to the fear and guilt she feels when what she did to Minato 10 years ago finally resurfaces. She expresses great frustration over being physically unable to cry for her friends when she sees them all so afraid and facing death. Then of course, there’s the ending and the goodbye Aigis gives by song over the credits. It’s so, so good. I love the trope of an android feeling love being what convinces them they are real, and it’s handled beautifully with Aigis. I love how her Persona is at first a mere image of Athena, Palladion. It’s a shell that looks like a person but opening it up reveals a weapon inside. And when she breaks down in fear and grief and is helped back up by her friends, her Persona changes into the actual Athena, no longer an empty shell. She makes the game. She even makes The Answer worth it with her whole arc of accepting grief and loss as another part of becoming human. (Seriously though what the fuck was up with The Answer not having an easier mode) - Nyx Avatar shows it’s ok to be cliche’ and tropey when you have a kickass soundtrack. It ticks off every final JRPG bossfight trope. Godlike indestructible being? Check. Telepathically beams out messages of doom? Check. This isn’t even its final form? 14 checks. Complete bullshit moveset in its final form? FUCK MOONLIGHT GOWN CHECK. And yet, it’s probably one of the best boss battles I’ve ever played. In a genre where godkilling is just another Tuesday, Nyx Avatar makes apocalyptic entities frightening again. - I cannot get over how strong Persona 3 gets after October 4th. I was enjoying myself playing the early parts of the game but everything afterwards was like, sit up straight in chair then lean forward sort of intense. Everything gets ratcheted up to 11 and absolutely zero chill is to be found, anywhere. Akihiko tells you that on the day that all will die he wants to look at god right in the eyes and dare her to kill him and it’s fucking idle dialogue. The sheer spirit of defiance is exhilarating, like a hyperfocused version of the rebellious spirit that powers Persona 5′s power fantasy. No one can convince me that in the days leading up to the apocalypse SEES truly believed they ever had a chance of winning. They knew they couldn’t, they had already been told what they were going up against was beyond human comprehension, to the point where they cannot even physically speak her true name. And yet, they all decide they’re going to die fighting it at the strike of midnight at the top of its own tower. Their fight was not about hope; hope died on New Year’s eve, it was about will. About not going gentle into that good night. And that’s just *clench fist* the good shit.

- I have no idea how people say this game is cynical? I mean it certainly is the darkest of the three modern Personas but it literally revolves around rejecting futility and the end. They summon their Personas by reminding themselves they are mortal; they don’t have forever to live so the time TO live is now and fuck all who would take that away from them. Fuck apathy fuck the cold fuck accepting things as they are and begging for death. It literally ends with Minato facing off against the collective apathy of humanity, cold acceptance against defiant rage, and winning.

- Thanatos is one of the coolest designs I’ve ever seen I’m so fucking mad that he sucks how could they do this to Minato’s ultimate Persona aaaarrgghh.

- This is the single greatest OST I’ve ever heard in a video game. I once listened to Mass Destruction for a full 24 hours on end wondering If I would get sick of it. Nope. Still fucking slaps. The Battle for Everyone’s Souls makes you forget it’s already been an hour since Nyx started charming your allies so they cast Diarahan on him. - THE ARCANA IS THE MEANS BY WHICH ALL IS REVEALED is pretty cool yeah but have you ever heard *GASP* THE ENEMY! - Persona 3 HD fucking when Atlus? Fucking when???

#Persona 3 #Thoughts

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mercenarypark · 7 years

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“ hotaliens said: WHEN U CAN talk about medic and his birds, red scout and blu scout mayhaps, ANDdddddddddddddddd what the mercs do on the weekend “ hey guys remember how i said i was gonna talk about hcs well let me finally get around to that hours late here we go

[Medic and Birds]

[these go for RED and BLU medic]

-Medic’s mother had a cockatoo, she absolutely ADORED him even when he was a baby, though ofc his mother made sure to monitor their interactions together; and even as an infant he always treated that bird with surprising gentleness, never pulling or prodding hard. that cockatoo never bit him harder than a warning nip, and she would somehow always know how to calm him down from a tantrum.

the bird died of illness right around the time the war started, and to this day he believes that somehow, those were connected.

-medic stole his flock of doves[technically homing pigeons] from a wedding in England, not realizing that the catering van he’d stolen had an entire flock of birds and a makeshift aviary inside. the method with which he retrained them is,,,,,,, unconventional and spoiler-y for some things i have written but not published

-he holds full conversations with birds, often- not just his own, but birds in the trees, on the street, in pet stores and houses.

-the flock is mostly his homing pigeons from his stolen wedding flock, and their children; with a couple of fancy pigeons stolen from pigeon shows[because lord knows the poor things need some help, esp the ones who’ve been bred to fit a certain standard at the cost of their health and ability to function], and a few feral street pigeons he’s adopted

-the flock mostly refers to him as “papa”, “Vati” or “Opa”

-he speaks to them in German, Yiddish, and English- they understand all three

-he cries every single time an egg hatches. every time. sadly he cant let EVERY egg that they lay, hatch, because he’d never be able to care for them all, but the flock understands this and lets him remove eggs as he pleases, and in return he gives them all as much love and attention as he can

-medic’s office is his makeshift aviary, though he very rarely keeps them cooped in there- for the majority of the day they have free roam of the base. they all know where home is

-heavy, pyro, and scout all are allowed to play w/ medic’s birds whenever they want, heavy and pyro both have a key to medic’s office so they can get into the aviary without having to ask [scout WOULD have one but she’s notorious for losing keys]

-----

[RED Scout BLU Scout]

-for clarities sake, again, there are a lot of things i[and gabby+em]’ve written but not published that i dont want 2 spoil, and the reason that theres two of every merc is one of them; but i will say that yes, there are two versions of scout who mostly have the same backstory shit, but things differ when theyre hired as mercs

-[also, both scouts use she/her and occasionally they/them]

-both scouts have a long standing hatred for the other, and absolutely target each other on the battlefield

-this is at least a LITTLE BIT because of self loathing, IE “im gonna beat the shit out of the person who looks exactly like me”, though neither of them realize that

-RED scout is the one who comes to terms with the fact that she’s trans first and that just amplifies how much she HAAATES the BLU scout

-but RED scout is also the first of the two to go through character growth and become a genuinely better person, as she slowly comes out to her family and friends, finds support in her teammates, accidentally adopts medic as her unofficial dad, unlearns a lot of internalized bullshit,

-which infuriates BLU scout because suddenly RED scout doesnt seem to really care about fighting her anymore

-and then BLU scout overhears one of RED mercs refer to RED scout w/ she/her pronouns and has a fucking crisis of confusion [but also validation]

-and after a lot of internal turmoil brought on by the UNBELIEVABLE Mental Fuckery that has got to come with realizing that the alternate version of yourself is openly trans while you’re still confused and closeted,

-BLU scout decides yea u know what. im trans and im not gonna hide it anymore, esp since apparently all the RED versions of my teammates are accepting so like, the BLUs should be too right???

-and they are

-BLU scout and BLU medic aren’t as close as RED scout + RED medic, for multiple reasons, but in both cases the scouts came out to the medics first [because, Hes Doctor]

-after BLU scout starts going through her own Character Development[tm] and mellows out, both scouts are pretty chilled on the battlefield towards each other, even joking with each other about their teammates, nowhere near as violent and vicious as they were before

-most of the time that they DO fight its more casual and more like rough-housing, with bullets and also spiked baseball bats

-sorry this mostly turned into Gender Stuff hdfjghh but i took that prompt to mean “both scout’s relationships 2 the other” and the answer to that is, well, “fight” ----

[weekend]

[some of these are specific to the RED versions of everyone, sorry, though most are more general]

-demo is usually working one of his other jobs- piano gigs at fancy establishments, art commissions[hes a pretty fantastic painter, he prefers more abstract pieces and he has a very distinct style with a strong sense of movement and fluidity], and some volunteer work at the ol’ kitten orphanage [he’d work at the regular human orphanage next door, but, well. he’s got bad experiences with those. and hes scared of messing up around children]

basically even when hes technically off duty, hes still always working- its the degroot way, whether he likes it or not

but when he can relax, he usually spends as much time as he can with his parrot, keeping her entertained and socialized and happy; he also spends a lot of time in engies workspace watching him build and repair stuff while they drink together, with pyro playing whatever game they’re hyperfocused on at the moment, and, in the old days, he would spend a lot of time sneaking out to be with BLU soldier... Those days are gone in the times of WAR, of course

-engie, of course, is usually still working as well. honestly he doesnt even notice the fact that its the weekend half the time unless someone tells him, he’ll just keep pouring over blueprints and fine tuning designs.

if you do pry him away from his work table long enough, though, he will crash on the nearest soft surface and sleep for 15 hours. rancho relaxo time motherfucker

-medic becomes a cryptid every goddamn weekend, unless you check one of four places: his bedroom, heavy’s bedroom, his office/aviary, and the morgue. you will not see him literally anywhere else. he is also only seen with at least 5-6 birds on his person at all times, as opposed to his usual 1 or 2.

he spends most of the time on the weekends being v overaffectionate with both his birds and heavy; and the rest of the time cutting open dead bodies in the morgue and injecting them with weird shit

-heavy spends a lot of time reading and writing on the weekends- editing older drafts of books he’s written, translating things to and from English to practice his skills with the language, and just, reading books he’s had recommended to him or old favorites. sometimes he reads out loud to medic while medic is busy with other things [IE he’s distracted by birds or corpses]

-spy? literally just this textpost by gabby.

http://thefrenchiestfrytisi.tumblr.com/post/161502800096/ok-before-i-go-to-sleep-though-this-image-from

you dont need any more info than that. this is perfect. spy spends like 5 hours in the bath every saturday and 6 every sunday and its always like this

-pyro is the other cryptid at the base, no one can ever find them unless pyro WANTS to be found so they can show off a drawing they did, or a card trick they learned, or just so they can hang out w/ someone for a while

-scout is either playing Video Games[tm] from the moment she wakes up until she passes out, or she is outside jogging for 3 hours straight and then she impulse steals a golf cart, there is no middle ground here -every single saturday, soldier doesnt realize its the weekend, gets completely ready for battle, runs outside, and only sees the other soldier. and they just both fight each other for the next couple hours until someone gets them both to come inside. the rest of the weekend she’s “taming” her raccoons and planning for the next fight

-i dont care about sniper

#hotaliens #IVE STILL GOTTA RESPOND TO BIRCHMERE'S BUT THAT WONT BE TOO HARD #ilu both #long post /#text heavy /#ive literally been writing on this on and off for hours hdkfhgh #frend #birds /#medical /#death /#medical abuse /?#ask to tag /#reblog if u want idc /#captain's log #tf2 posts

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sassypotatoe1 · 4 years

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Now that I'm thinking of malicious compliance.

(Malicious compliance is the behaviour of intentionally inflicting harm by strictly following the orders of a superior knowing that compliance with the orders will not have the intended result. The term usually implies the following of an order in such a way that ignores the order's intent but follows it to the letter.) for reference so I can be sure I'm using the term correctly.

When I was in primary school, in 1st grade I think, I was doing homework, and this bitch yelled at me for writing messy (like bitch I just learned how to write two months ago, I'm left handed, have ADHD and the way I'm holding my pen is the correct way for right handed people not lefties because I can't fucking see what I'm writing that way but I wasn't taught differently and I had no idea how to correct it and instead of patiently helping me write neater you're yelling at me two minutes after I started doing homework because my letters are slightly wobbly, fuck you) so I fucking took a ruler, and drew every single letter and number individually with a ruler so it looked perfect, but it was taking ages. I didn't have friends, preferred being inside and messing around with drawing and writing instruments, hyperfocused and I was fueled by spite and anger. I had a lot of energy and a lot of time, and if you want neat writing, you'll either have to teach me how to write neatly with my left hand, or wait for me until I wrote all 6 sentences and did all 20 sums using a ruler to make sure the strokes are straight. She yelled at me for wasting time so I told her "well do you want me to write neat or write fast?" And she told me to just do it at home and wrote a note to my parents in my book saying I was giving her attitude and refusing to do my homework. Get home, parents read note and ask me why I refuse to do homework. I tell them I was doing it but she yelled at me for not writing neat enough so I tried using a ruler to make it neater and then she yelled at me for not working fast enough and then told me to do it at home. They were understandably miffed, and told my Occupational therapist (who was treating me for some of my motor skills I was developing too slowly because ADHD) to look at my writing and try to work out a way for me to write so I can see what I'm writing. She tried teaching me the right way, but my second grade teacher finally told me how to hold my pen and to turn my book and to write smaller and that solved the problem. My writing is some of the neatest I have seen to date now.

When I was in 6th grade, I fell behind on homework because of a tour I took in the middle of a term, and trying to catch up fast enough to my teachers' taste gave me so much anxiety that I started to detest homework. From then on out, I memorized which teachers checked homework, what homework they check and how often, and what standards they have for homework and only did the homework that got checked, and only put any semblance of effort into the homework that had to demonstrate critical thinking and creativity. The rest I either didn't do, or copied from friends before class. As far as teachers were concerned, I was doing the homework well enough. They knew I wasn't actually trying, but since my homework was done, they couldn't really punish me, and in 12 years of school, only 3 teachers actually cared about why I don't do homework, but I have been lying to so many people about so many things in order to save my ass from punishment for things I genuinely struggled with that every attempt they made to help was met with me going "I don't know why I'm like this, I'll do better" and then never doing better.

In high school, the district athletics meet was a huge deal, and if you didn't do athletics (disgraceful), you had to at least support at the meet, because there was also a prize for the school with the most spirit and discipline. If you didn't do either, you were marked absent, even though it's not an actual school day since all of the schools in the district are spending the whole day at the meet, and treated like shit by teachers because you "didn't have any school pride or spirit and didn't participate in anything so you must be a lazy person that doesn't care about anything but yourself". I generally actually enjoyed supporting at those meets, and I was pumped every year to yell my lungs out so we can win the spirit cup, even though I'm a singer and yelling my lungs out is pretty taboo. In 9th grade, however, my grandpa died from cancer, and he was my idol, so it was really hard on me. I was planning on going to the meet so I spent every day at the practice period where we learned cheers and dances so we'll be in sinc on the bleachers. My grandpa died a week before the meet, and 4 days before I found out that his funeral was on the day of the meet. I went to the practice period because I still wanted to at least have fun and feel like I'm going. I'm halfway up the bleachers when the teacher running the whole thing says "anyone here not going to the meet, sit next to the bleachers for the rest of the period, and I hope you know how pathetic it is that you're not supporting your school". Now, right next to the bleachers, where she wanted us to sit, is in the sun, in the middle of summer, with 30° Celsius heat. Now you bet I'm already pissed at this bitch for calling us pathetic, and being a bitch about kids not going to the meet even though a lot of them want to but likely can't, like me, so I'm like fuck her. Ilsit next to the bleachers, but I'm going waay to the back and sitting in the shade of the trees. I'm doing what she said, just not the way she wanted me to. Sorry for you bitch, I'm only complying as much as is needed to not get me in trouble.

In my first year of university, I had to meet a required reading speed for a literature module that I HAD to take. Now the reading centre that tests reading speed and "trains" students to read faster functions independently from the university, but on campus, and they're paid commission based on how many students that don't meet reading requirements they help on top of their salaries. Therefore, their programs have been rigged to reduce the reading speed of some profiles from what it actually is, so that less students seem to reach the requirements and they therefore have to "help" more students and get more commission. I was one of these unlucky fuckers. Me. The fastest reader and writer on my grade all throughout school. The girl that read 6 full sized novels a week in sixth grade. 100 pages in 2 hours. I calculated my actual reading speed, shit was 70 words per minute more than the program said it was, and definitely met the requirements. I had to do the course though, or I'll fail the literature module, so I did. Sort of. I got in, memorized the article with the eye test (which showed you a sentence at a time according to your last recorded reading speed) by reading the sentence THREE TIMES in the time it's shown. Then I clicked through the speed reading article. Literally, I spent probably a second and a half on the actual article page, before answering the comprehension and memory test, which I always got 90-100% for btw. Still, it said I was reading too slow. I clicked through the page which means that I technically "read" 500-700 words in a second, but the bitch said I read 345 in a minute. The requirement is 450 a minute. And the attendants notice. Oh boy do they notice. So when I get there every appointment, you can FEEL their annoyance at seeing my face. Eventually I click through the article in 0.34 seconds and get 100% on the comprehension and the system says I have 446 words per minute. 4 words short. And the attendant that usually "assists" me says it's fine. You can go. I'll sign you out.

I have tons of stories like this, and I wish I could say I was chill enough through every situation to be considered cool and suave, but I was a seething, sarcastic mess every time, and baby, you know people could tell. I may not have the freedom to actively challenge the system, but you bet your ass I'm following the rules just well enough to piss people off without getting in trouble.

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