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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 2 years

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Genuine question, what’s wrong with the DSM?

[OP refers to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which I mentioned being unpopular among mental health professionals.] Disclaimer: I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a therapist, and I'm not trained in counseling. I'm a social psychology researcher. If a therapist contradicts me, listen to the therapist.

The problem with the DSM as I understand it: a lot of counselors/ psychiatrists/ etc. want to move away from a category- and source-based diagnostic system, toward a symptom-based treatment system. For example, think about Pepto Bismol: you feel nauseous, you chew pink tablets, it ends your nausea. It doesn't matter if your nausea is indigestion or seasickness or lactose intolerance. You match a treatment (pink bismuth) to a symptom (nausea) and don't waste time or money on diagnosis unless that treatment proves ineffective.

A large percent of counselors etc. would like to take the same approach to mental health. So we'd be researching treatments for nightmares (neurofeedback? MDMA?) in the long-term, and giving clients treatments for nightmares (meditation! Ambien!) in the short-term. All without worrying too much about whether the nightmares are caused by General Anxiety Disorder or a phobia or Seasonal Affective Disorder. There are many strengths to that approach.

Only, see, there's this big purple dinosaur holding us back.

[Image ID: Hardcover copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association; the title is white text on a purple background.]

So if everyone who uses the DSM also hates the DSM, why does it still exist and why do we keep buying it every time a $100 text revision gets published? Two reasons, in order of importance:

Insurance

Communication

Insurance is, I kid you not, the DSM's #1 reason for existence. American insurance companies won't cover treatment unless it's for a diagnosed illness, and so therapists put diagnosed illnesses on what they'd often be more comfortable describing as "bro, this dude is hella distressed and I'm trying to help undistress him." Note the word American on the cover; other countries have other manuals, and no other country's counselors are as chained to theirs as we are to ours. This means that the DSM helps — yay, affordable therapy! It means the DSM hurts — sets of symptoms get grouped artificially, spectra get split into categories, and diagnosis happens way too early in the therapeutic process.

Another comparison to unmental health: I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome, but my insurance provider thinks I do. I only announce that I don't because I haven't told you who I am or where I live. (If the insurance companies find us... Well, we just won't let them find us. The thing you should know is everyone is getting screwed by health insurance. Yeah, even you.) I have wrist pain and tingling. It has the wrong antecedents for carpal tunnel, and it has weird manifestations — pressure on the base of my thumb causes pain in my pinky — but my OT wrote down "Carpal Tunnel" on the forms because the alternative was a $500+ round of diagnostic scans. No one cares whether my median nerve is inflamed or not; occupational therapy still looks like "try this stretch, that stretch, this brace, that brace, and these activity changes; keep whichever combination makes the pain and tingling go away."

This kind of thing also happens in mental health all the time. Many therapists don't care — and neither should you — if your serotonin levels are low; if you're miserable and an SSRI prevents the misery, take the dang SSRI. If your mother was harshly critical and now you feel panic at any hint of criticism, it doesn't matter whether that better fits C-PTSD or NPD; it matters whether you cope with soothing self-talk or if you cope with alcohol. Put something from the DSM on the forms, and focus on finding which stretches (breathing exercises) make the tingling (panic) go away.

Communication is the biggest strength of the DSM. It means that clients can benefit from labels ("I'm not lazy, I'm ADHD") and consistent standards of treatment can be applied across different clients in different states. The DSM has huge lists of things like "if your client shows memory problems, be sure to check for alcohol abuse" or "if they have self-harm, make sure it's non-suicidal before you do anything else" that are tremendously helpful. It can help therapists who encounter a set of behaviors they've never seen before to go "client is rigid, rule-bound, and lacks insight... huh, looks like I'd better refer them to an OCPD specialist." (It's also the source of a lot of toxic misinformation on social media when symptom lists get taken out of context without that all-important differential diagnosis information, but I digress.)

However, diagnosis should never be the beginning point for therapy — it's impossible to know your client's mind without first building trust and transference — but reliance on the DSM for insurance often forces it to be. Diagnosis should never be the end point for therapy — knowing your perceptions don't match others' because of Bipolar I won't stop you hearing the dang hallucinations — but home use of the DSM often acts that way. Categorical diagnosis is limiting if your therapist is primarily interested in how depressed you are but the Beck Depression Inventory uses an absolute cutoff point for "depressed" or "non-depressed." Categorical diagnosis is useless if over 50% of people diagnosed with a depression are later diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and vice versa. So it's an imperfect book that does a lot of things well and a few things badly, and many of its heaviest users would argue that it shouldn't exist at all.

For further reading, I recommend The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. I don't agree with all the axes he grinds or all the ways he grinds them, but he's got decades of psychiatry experience and is (I hope) predicting the next paradigm shift in mental health.

For instance, van der Kolk argues that it doesn't matter if at intake your client has long blond hair and is named Linda, only to show up the next time with no hair and the name Gerald, only to come next time with short red hair and the name Taylor. The therapist should only be asking "how does the client feel about these changes?" and "what are these changes doing for the client?" If Linda can't remember what Gerald did, then focus on the terrible memory gaps that alter identities create. If Taylor became Gerald to try and please you, then focus on teaching mindfulness and self-compassion. If this is a happily genderqueer person, then figure out why they're seeking help and don't worry about the appearance changes. If this is someone who thinks in absolutes and regards their personality as constantly changing, then work on teaching them to see the world and themself with moral complexity. It doesn't matter whether Dissociative Identity Disorder exists or not; just ask your client what they need and how you can help, then go from there.

Anyway, the DSM is an imperfect solution to a complex problem, and a lot of mental health practitioners view it as a relic of a more paternalizing era. No one has come up with a really good solution for how to remove and replace it, so for now it's the least-bad option.

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nitewrighter · 10 months

Text

I Got Thyme

I saw on twitter that it's currently Yeehan Week! And one of the prompts for this year is plants! It made me think back to my whole "Watchpoint Garden" headcanon, and I realized it would be a really fun thing to explore for pre-relationship YeeHan. Did you know contact with dirt can raise serotonin levels?

Oh, also this is part of my fic continuity, so if you're new here, you'll want to check out Family Reunions and First Impressions for context.

----

"Do you attempt to break all new recruits with hard labor?" Hanzo asked as they walked.

"Look," Cassidy was rubbing his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger, "If you stay here, you gotta help, and you're not exactly in a position to go on missions yet."

"I assure you, I would be more competent against Talon than at least half this Watchpoint."

"No one's sayin' you ain't good at killin'. But part of keeping this whole watchpoint moving means having food, and man does not live on shitty RTE's and shelf-stable dry goods alone."

"I am not a farmhand," said Hanzo.

"And what's wrong with bein' a farmhand?" Cassidy was giving him a raised-eyebrow, half-lidded look that told Hanzo to choose his next words very carefully.

Hanzo narrowed his own eyes at Cassidy. "I simply do not believe this is the best use of my time, or the best use of me as an asset,"

"You know 'probationary period' means we're still figuring out if we want you as an asset," said Cassidy.

"Somehow I doubt your organization can afford such exclusivity."

"Well, we certainly can't be picky when it comes to farmhands, I can tell you that much," Cassidy adjusted his belt as they walked.

A growling 'hmm' rumbled deep in Hanzo's throat as they approached the orange trees bordering the watchpoint garden.

Hanzo soon quickly regretted the ‘hard labor’ and ‘farmhand’ comments as it became immediately clear that whoever was available and not on a mission or working on some other immediately technically demanding task around the Watchpoint was working in the garden. He recognized a few faces from the night of his arrival. Satya was over near one of the few spaces of wall not covered by an orange tree, setting up a lattice. Ana was pruning back some ornamental perennials they were presumably using for pollination and pest control. Orisa was rearing back on her hind legs with some large shears, trimming away dead branches on the orange trees. Hanzo watched as her head swiveled at him and her optical sensors narrowed. A part of him knew he would have to apologize to her, if he was going to start getting any respect and traction from the rest of this group (but did he really want it?) and yet at the same time he was still so frustrated by this ridiculous 'probationary program' that they had clearly cooked up because of his presence and had not had as an established longstanding policy, that he didn't want to dignify the concept of having to earn this Watchpoint's respect.

An almost equally large, blocky robot was tilling up a new patch of soil. Hanzo's brow crinkled at the sight of the bastion unit. He knew it was on the watchpoint from his preliminary recons on the watchpoint--in truth, its presence had only made him more suspicious of Genji's organization. What kind of people would keep something that had caused such horrific devastation? But seeing it now threw him off. It was making chirruping beeping noises as it worked, in some eerie imitation of humming, as a yellow bird dizzily circled its head and tweeted tunelessly along.

"Yeah, Bastion gets that reaction a lot," said Cassidy, and Hanzo snapped out of his focus.

"Why would you keep something like that around?" asked Hanzo on reflex.

"Bastion's Torbjorn's..." Cassidy hesitated.

"Pet?"

"...buddy," It was clear Cassidy had some skepticism himself on the matter, but was far more used to Bastion's presence.

"Does it go on missions as well?"

"Not that often. We've brought it along on some missions outreaching with omnic communities, some non-combat ecology missions. I can think of like, maybe two missions where there was actual combat but that wasn't really planned. Other than that, it's a bit of a homebody."

"Non-combat missions?" Hanzo arched an eyebrow.

"Yup."

"That is a gun with legs," said Hanzo.

"Well, it doesn't want to be a gun with legs. It wants to be a gardener, and we're more than happy to help it with that."

"So happy you could join us, Cole," Ana stepped up to both of them and Hanzo felt himself tense at the words 'Join us.'

"Well, I figured y'all could use a little extra muscle," Cassidy demonstratively put a hand on his own shoulder and circled his arm with a grin.

Ana's gaze shifted Hanzo with a deliberate slowness. A slight smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "So you're really going along with Winston and Jack's plan, then?" she said, her eyes flicking back to Cole.

Hanzo hated being referred to as a 'plan.'

"Just helpin' where I can," said Cassidy with an easy shrug. He bumped his shoulder into Hanzo's, "And he's here to help, too."

"You all... seem to have the. matter well in hand--" Hanzo started, glancing around awkwardly.

"Trust me, we're playing catch-up. I'm sure you'll find something," said Ana, before looking over at Cassidy, "In fact, Cole, we were hoping you could take a look at the irrigation Satya and Torbjörn have planned for the new plot, seeing as technically you have more experience with those systems than a lot of people here."

"Ah hell, I was just a teenager," Cassidy itched at the hair poking out under the brim of his hat.

"That experience is still worth something," said Ana.

A prickle of realization went up the back of Hanzo's neck.

What's wrong with bein' a farmhand?

Of course... Hanzo thought grimly, watching as Cassidy pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and followed Ana over to the area that Bastion was digging up. Hanzo moved to follow over, though he wasn't exactly sure what he would do, when he heard a polite, "Excuse me?"

"Hanzo, right?" a voice piped up next to him and Hanzo glanced sharply over and down at a round, pleasant face, with sunlight catching in glasses.

"We haven't met yet. I'm Mei, would you like to help me in the greenhouse?"

Hanzo's brow crinkled.

----

It really wasn't enough of a 'house' to be called a greenhouse. More of a green 'shed,' or a green 'shanty.' Hanzo frowned over the seedlings in the egg carton before glancing up at Mei, who was carefully cutting out her selections from their egg carton with some shears. He glanced over at several seedlings growing out of cut up cardboard tubes. For one of the leading scientists of her time, Mei wasn't picky when it came to seed containers, and apparently neither were the plants.

"Just separate out the bigger sprouts from the littler ones," said Mei, "We want the most viable plants for the new plot. If you see an extra sprout in the cell, you can just clip that one short. We don't want to risk damaging the roots this early. we want about 6 plants each of tomatoes and peppers."

"I... see..." said Hanzo, who was still helplessly watching her hands as she worked and feeling even more foolish to be afraid of using gardening shears after decades of skillfully handling deadly weapons.

"We've been wanting to expand the growing area for a while," Mei was talking, "It's just, we knew that would mean re-doing the irrigation, which isn't that hard, and honestly it really is now or never with these seedlings looking the way they are. It's just one of those things people easily forget about with all the missions and with their own things..."

She had, as she had explained for most of their time in the greenhouse, been back in China researching aquifers in Shanxi when he first arrived on the Watchpoint. Hanzo wasn't sure if she had been briefed on all of the events of his arrival, and was stuck in the annoying limbo of, 'Does she not know or is she actively choosing to ignore all of that?' as Mei spoke. There was a pause and Hanzo realized Mei was waiting for him to respond.

"And... Shanxi was... your business?" Hanzo said slowly, feeling like an idiot. The more time he spent here, the more he heard people talk to each other, the more he realized how few and far between his interactions with people over the years since leaving the Shimada clan had been.

"Honestly, I think water tables are everyone's business already, or at least they should be," there was a giggle in Mei's voice, "But, some work you do with Overwatch, and other stuff... well, you can't."

"Because Overwatch is operating illegally," Hanzo said flatly, cutting away at a cell which seemed to have a strong seedling.

"Er... yes," said Mei, tucking some hair back, sheepishly, "But, even when I'm on my own, I like to think I'm doing the same work I was doing with them 9 years ago, even if a lot of things are different now."

"And... you are not a soldier, but a scientist."

"The amount of times I've heard that!" said Mei with an eye roll.

"So... you are a non-combatant as well? Like... the Bastion unit?" Hanzo clipped a stray sprout in its cell, and felt oddly guilty in doing so.

"It's not 'the bastion unit' it's just 'Bastion,'" said Mei, easily clipping away at her own seedlings, "But... no, I fight."

"You fight?" Hanzo repeated incredulously.

"Well it's not usually that direct, it's more like the cryo-gun has a lot of applications that can help my team. Raising barriers, creating platforms to get us to higher levels, sometimes creating temporary fixes to unstable structures... it's not all guns blazing all the time!"

"...clearly," said Hanzo, looking at his own seedlings.

"Well, I think we're all set for the tomatoes and peppers!" said Mei, with their selected seedlings all lined up.

"What about this one?" Hanzo held up one of his own seedlings, not wanting to admit that he was a little hurt that she seemed to favor her own selections over his.

"Well, we only have limited space in the garden and these guys are going to get a lot bigger--but you can just keep that one for yourself, if you like? I'm sure we have a spare pot lying around..."

Hanzo glanced at the seedling, and then looked at Mei. "...why?"

"Plants are good for you! I honestly think the Watchpoint could use more green outside the garden. Think of it like... a welcome gift!"

"I am only here on probation," Hanzo said flatly.

"Oh..." Mei said quietly.

"But... I do not know when I will be leaving so... I will see that it is taken care of until then."

"Oh--um, good," said Mei.

A long pause passed between them. Mei was awkwardly sweeping spare bits of dirt off of their worktable.

"Hey, so... you weren't trying to hurt anyone when you came onto the Watchpoint, right?"

So she does know, Hanzo thought sourly.

"No," said Hanzo, "But... I apologize for damaging your security drone."

"What security drone?" Mei tilted her head and a half-sphere-shaped robot suddenly hovered to her side, making a quizzical whirring sound. Okay, so she hadn't heard everything, apparently.

"Eh--" Hanzo stammered at the robot. How many pet robots do they have? he thought, bewilderedly.

"Oh, sorry! This is Snowball! Snowball, Hanzo." Mei gestured at Hanzo to her robot, "But sorry, you were saying about a security drone?"

Hanzo remembered, at this point, how he had managed to make everyone who had confronted him that night hate him by referring to Orisa as a security drone, and he had simply referred to her as a security drone in that moment because he was too frustrated with the concept of apologizing to someone whom he was just meeting now for something she hadn't even been here for to remember Orisa had a name.

"There was--" Hanzo started, but then there was a creak of the greenhouse door opening and Ana leaned in.

"Mei, do you mind if I borrow him for a bit? We're shelling the last of the broad bean harvest."

"Do you mind?" Mei looked at Hanzo.

Hanzo minded a lot of things about the current situation, but now was in a position where he wasn't sure if he was more annoyed at Ana talking as if he didn't have a choice in the matter, and Mei talking to him as if he did. Where was the damned discipline in this place? But instead, all that came out of his mouth was, "...beans?"

---

Both Hanzo and Ana sat at a temporary hard-light table with hard-light chairs in the shade of one of the orange trees. Each of them had a small bowl in their lap to catch the beans as they shelled them. A large bowl, slowly being filled with shelled beans was between them, and a slowly growing pile of empty bean pods was at their feet. Hanzo hated to admit that he liked this work far more than working with the seedlings. In a way it reminded him of crafting his own arrows, in a more menial, mindless way.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," said Ana, tossing down a

"You shot me with a sleeping dart."

"You broke onto the watchpoint and attacked both Orisa and Cole."

"They attacked me--"

"Did they attack you, or did they talk to you first?"

"...they... told me to lower my weapon."

"The weapon you had at the ready while breaking onto our Watchpoint."

"...yes."

Ana was giving him a steady, tired-but-patient look. "You're very used to doing things on your own terms, aren't you?"

Hanzo returned her gaze with a mild glower.

Hanzo wasn't exactly sure how long he would keep up the glare, but the moment of tension was abruptly ended when Bastion clunked up to them and gestured at the bean pods at their feet with a questioning chirrup.

"Yes, dear, thank you," said Ana as Bastion scooped up the bean pods and clunked off again towards the compost pile.

"...you fought in the crisis, didn't you?" Hanzo asked.

"I did," said Ana.

"And you have no issue living with a Bastion unit?"

"You seem a bit hung up on that."

"I have no issues with omnics, I've worked with many in my travels, but that is clearly not a typical laborer unit, and I am trying to understand why it is here."

"Why 'it' is here..." Ana repeated musingly and Hanzo felt the back of his neck burning.

"If it does not fight..." Hanzo trailed off.

"Not everything is about combat," said Ana.

Hanzo gave Ana a skeptical look.

"Overwatch was initially formed to combat the omnic crisis, this is true, but many believe that our greater contributions were in our relief efforts, in our scientific research and advancements," Ana looked over at Bastion, turning over the compost pile with a rake, "It's taken some getting used to, but I think I like what Bastion's presence represents to me."

"And that is...?"

"That we are more than the battles we fought. That we can shape ourselves beyond the circumstances we were made in."

"To be... gardeners," said Hanzo, watching as Bastion took up a shovel-ful of more broken down compost and clunked over to where Cassidy was hoeing up an extra square foot onto the end of their new intended plot. Hanzo's eyes lingered over Cassidy and the way the plaid of his shirt stretched taut over his back muscles, the way his belt stood stubborn over the movement of his hips. Cassidy pushed himself up to his full height, tilted his hat back with his thumb, and wiped the sweat from his brow, his gardening gloves leaving a smudge of dirt amidst the salt and shine, the topmost buttons of his shirt straining with his breath.

"Among other things," said Ana. Hanzo instantly gauged that she could tell where he was looking and shoved his eyes down to the bean pods in his lap.

"It would be more efficient to just attach a hard-light plow to the OR-15 unit," Hanzo muttered, shelling beans faster than usual.

"There's not really enough space for that. Although, you're welcome to try and put a plow on Orisa," Ana said with amusement.

Hanzo's lips just thinned and he shelled in silence. Eventually, though, his eyes did trail back to Cassidy.

"...I should have asked you, how are you two getting along?"

"He... worked on farms prior to this?" said Hanzo, watching as Cassidy guzzled from a water bottle to the point where it was running down his neck. Not realizing he wasn't really answering Ana's question.

"We were able to find some temporary working documentation with a few agro-corps in his records when we first recruited him. He doesn't like talking about it much, but he does have some skills in that area," said Ana. She paused. "He's not a thug, by the way."

"What?" said Hanzo.

"That's what you called him your first night here. A 'thug serving the word of whomever's most convenient to him.'"

Hanzo's shoulders shrank a little.

"He didn't have a lot of say in the matter when he first joined us either," Ana went on, "But he's been one of our most loyal agents over the years, even knowing us at our worst. He knew when we were doing wrong, he knew when things were going rotten, but we were all he had so..." she trailed off, "I don't think he's ever done anything out of 'convenience.'"

Hanzo watched as Cassidy struck down with the hoe once more, jamming a booted foot on top of it, apparently working with a particularly rooty, hard chunk of earth.

"I... spoke more out of emotion than recognition of my environment that night," said Hanzo, "It will not happen again."

"It always happens again," said Ana, "To everyone."

Hanzo gave her a sidelong glance and turned his attention down to his beans. "I can't afford that sort of misstep. And I can't see how you all can sit around gardening and shelling beans when, if Genji is to be believed, you stand on the brink of annihilation from Null Sector and Talon."

"What do you think Genji and the others are doing right now?" said Ana, dumping her own bowl of shelled beans into the larger bowl between them, "There is always the fight, but there's also the garrison. There's making sure there's a place to regroup, to recover, to strategize, to assess the threats present to us" she demonstratively shook a bean pod at him, "To eat."

Hanzo snorted softly.

"You have been alone for a long time," Ana said quietly, casting an empty bean pod to the ground.

"I have," Hanzo admitted, "And... I am not sure if I am capable of helping build what you are describing."

"According to your dossier, you're, in theory, a highly proficient strategist and organizer."

"That was for criminals. This is..." Hanzo trailed off.

Ana just shrugged and continued shelling. "You know," she said, "In the military, there's two kinds of people--well, it's more of two ends of a spectrum, really. You have the people who joined because they like the concept of order, both having discipline put in their lives, and being able to have order over others--the ability to say something, and then see others put your words into action. Then there are others--they join for their own reasons, they don't take to the authority as well, but they prove themselves highly adaptable in combat. No one is 100% of either, and you need people who have a well-balanced mix of all those attributes, or a good mix of people who lean more towards one or the other, to have a successful team. A team that's too dependent on falling in line can't adapt when things change, and things will change, and a team that's full of self-declared mavericks can't pull together as a unit."

"Why are you telling me this?" said Hanzo.

"I don't think I've ever met someone who is such a thorough mix of both those aspects in a way that completely bites them in the ass before you," she paused, "Well, except maybe Jack."

"And you can make this judgment when I've only been on the Watchpoint several days?" Hanzo didn't look up from his own bean pods.

"I've been doing this a long time," Ana said easily.

Hanzo glanced back at Cassidy. "And which type was he?"

"I'll give you one guess," said Ana, and Hanzo gave an amused huff.

----

The shadows were long on the watchpoint by the time they had the irrigation completely set up and all the little seedlings planted at their respective plots. Bastion tweeted as it spread out mulch and raked up stray dirt and clippings. Most of the gardeners dispersed to put away equipment or prep for dinner in the mess hall.

"Whatcha got there?" Cassidy asked as they both walked away from the garden.

"It's...nothing," said Hanzo, holding the small seedling at his side away from Cassidy.

"Doesn't look like nothing," said Cassidy, craning over Hanzo's shoulder to get a better look. He smelled like sweat and crushed leaves and orange rinds and sweet earth.

"It's a plant," Hanzo said flatly, "It was a gift."

"Look at you, makin' friends already," said Cassidy, pocketing his hands, "So what do you think? Now that we all ain't in pajamas and pointing guns and bows at each other?"

Hanzo kept his eyes fixed forward. "I am still trying to understand how you organize yourselves. I came here under the impression that this was a mercenary group, but actually observing you..." he trailed off.

"It's not all gardening, obviously," said Cassidy, "There's maintenance, inventorying, surveying watchpoint security 'n where we need equipment, whether we can whip something up on-site, other means of acquisitions and what-have-you, Winston keep sending out these 'team morale evaluations,'" Cassidy used finger quotes at this, "Yup. I think this was a pretty lucky day to see the Watchpoint like this, t'be honest. And you can bet the old Overwatch wasn't exactly keeping itself fed with a victory garden either—I mean aside from what they'd have for Ecowatch photo-ops. We do what we can to teach each other different jobs. 'Course everyone has different areas of expertise, but you figure out ways to carry each others' loads. Somehow shit pulls together. The wheels haven't fallen off yet."

"Fewer resources and personnel means a more fluid hierarchy," Hanzo murmured to himself.

"I guess," Cassidy shrugged, "You think about what you want out of all this?"

"What do you mean?" said Hanzo, managing to suppress the question of 'What is there to get out of all this?'

"I mean like... You talk about wanting to fight alongside us---"

"I want to fight because I won't have the only family I have left dying for you."

"And that's great! It is! I mean, I want to think it's great. Again--you're still on probation--"

"You don't have to keep telling me."

"But I'm asking about you. Your plans. We all make it through this, what are you going to do? Are you just going to keep following Genji around? Go back to Japan and try and take that big ol' palace back? Ride off into the sunset?"

Hanzo's jaw set grimly and he didn't answer. Cassidy watched him for a few seconds in silence. Hanzo's eyes met his only briefly, expecting contempt but not finding it. Instead, Cassidy's face had softened. Pity?

"...You don't have to answer that," said Cassidy, a bit too late.

"What about you?" asked Hanzo.

Cassidy just pocketed his hands and fixed his eyes forward. "Ride off into the sunset?" he said again, shrugging, then after a beat he said, "...maybe turn myself in. Get a lawyer. Say my piece. Do my time if I have to. Hell, maybe the system'll be working then."

"...You don't know if you're going to make it out of this alive," Hanzo said quietly.

"I'm just more worried about getting everyone else through this alive," said Cassidy, "You included, believe it or not."

Another long silence passed between them as they walked.

"Don't tell the Captain that, though," said Cassidy, "She fusses over me enough as it is."

"I can tell," said Hanzo. For once the corners of his mouth were pulled in something that was not a frown.

#Hanzo has a lot of mixed feelings looking at Orisa and a lot of those feelings are 'horse'#yeehan #ana: First of all let me set the record straight about MY BOY #cole cassidy #hanzo shimada #ana amari #overwatch

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tinkabelle24 · 29 days

Text

Valerie "Val" Scott

Face/voice claim: Katie Douglas

---

Name: Valerie "Val" Jane Scott

Name meaning: Healthy, strong.

MBTI Personality Type: ENFJ (Turbulent Protagonist)

Age:

23 (Ch. 1-22)

24 (Ch. 23-)

Birthdate: March 19th (Pisces ♓)

Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland

Current residence: Harlem, NYC

Physical traits:

Height: 5'5"

Build: Val's weight fluctuates throughout her story depending on her stress levels. High stress often leads to skipped meals and subsequent loss of fat/muscle. In times of low stress, she maintains a petite but healthy figure.

Key features: Dark, wide-set eyes; dark, shoulder-length hair; plump lips; pale, almost translucent skin; bright, mischievous, dimpled smile ("pixie-faced").

Tattoos/Piercings: Two tattoos, a large Koi Yin-Yang thigh tattoo and a "tramp stamp" (as Raph lovingly calls it) of Luna Lovegood's quote: "You're Just As Sane As I Am". Three piercings in each ear.

Signature style: "Basic", edgy (i.e., ripped jeans, graphic tees, blouses, flannel, cardigans, sneakers, boots)

Family:

Olivia (younger half-sister)

Noah (younger half-brother)

Nicola (mother, abusive)

Unnamed biological father

Anthony (step-father, absent)

Education:

Highschool dropout (Sophomore)

General Education Diploma (GED) (Ch. 23-)

Employment:

Cafe all-rounder (Ch. 1-22)

Bartender (Ch. 1-22)

Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) (Ch. 23-)

Personality:

If Val were a Sim, her traits would be:

Outgoing

Goofy

Foodie

Green-thumb

Perfectionist

(Yes, I'm doing five cos fuck Sims 4's three trait system).

Val is high-energy, competitive and brimming with sass. Like Mikey, she enjoys cooking and a well-meaning shit-stir and/or prank; though she has a firmer grasp on time and place. Like Donnie, she is curious about the world and how it operates, pushing through her limitations (ADHD and dyslexia) to acquire knowledge. Like Leo, she is the eldest and most responsible of her siblings - too responsible, through no fault of her own.

Like Raph, she struggles with impulse control and has a tendency to run her mouth, particularly during times of high stress. She has zero problem standing up for herself... except where her mother is concerned.

Her mother, Nicola, is Val's kryptonite. Her Boggart. Her worst nightmare.

Much of Val's mental health issues stem from her turbulent childhood. Nicola has a rather black and white view of the world and of her eldest daughter. Whenever Val was "good" (i.e., kowtowed to her mother's every whim), she was the greatest daughter ever. But if she was "bad" (i.e., attempted to instill healthy boundaries), she was worse than Satan.

We'll explore more of Val and Nicola's relationship in their story; I don't wanna give away too much!

Her Songs:

Santigold - "Disparate Youth"

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Lindsey Stirling - "Shatter Me"

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girl in red - "Serotonin"

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More to come!

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #oc val scott #tmnt 2007 #to build a home #raph x oc #tmnt fanfic #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt oc #tmnt original character #original character #character profile #tbah #Youtube

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star-going-supernova · 1 year

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Hi Star, I have a silly question,,,

I've been fixated on Vanessa A. for very long and have constructed this narrative where she's an Afton because she married Michael Afton in their twenties. After he dissapears, she gets a call from him telling her to stay away from Freddy's. She doesn't listen and searches for him anyway, discovering that he used fake names and lied about everything, fueling her obsession with finding him.

Then Glitchtrap finds her and uses her for his own purposes, due to his murder obsessed ego and petty grudge against Michael probably

Vanessa at one point writes a note "flowers for your grave" and orders chocolate despite not eating sweets. This would imply that she was visiting Michael's grave, which just breaks my heart into a million pieces and makes me want to scream into a pillow like a child

William is trying to brainwash her into thinking she's his daughter, which is just sick.

I think Vanessa is determined and broken and she blames herself for Mike's disappearance. She is absolutely my favourite character out of all of FNaF lore and I can say that it's because of my selfish and dillusional attatchment to her LMAO

I struggle to express her story correctly. Do you have any advice as an author?

(you dont need to answer this, i also just wanted to say that your fanfics bring me so much serotonin thank u *holds a thumbs up*)

Aww, thank you, friend! I’m glad you enjoy my stories! And what an interesting premise! I’d be happy to offer some words of wisdom. Keep in mind that everyone’s got different advice to offer and different views on writing, and this is merely mine!

Now, without knowing exactly what you’re struggling with, my advice to you is really allow yourself to explore Vanessa internally. This can really help show her inner struggles and determination and guilt. I sometimes see authors—not just of fics—who rarely go beyond the surface-level parts of a character (not that that's a bad thing!). Let’s quickly define external, surface-level, and internal characterizations:

External: facial expressions, body language, actions, reactions, habits, etc. (these are details that can be observed)

Surface-Level: preferences, obvious thoughts/emotions, intentions, etc. (think of this one like what a standard movie can do: we see the character, maybe we get some flashbacks, and there might be voiceovers for internal thoughts. but everything we see inside the character is deliberately shown to us)

Internal: how their emotions feel rather than what they are (difference between saying “they were sad” and “their throat was tight, a sob getting stuck somewhere behind their sternum. they trembled and closed their stinging eyes. the gathered tears slipped free, tracing slowly down their cheeks, warm, but only for a moment.”), their bias/thoughts/reactions to what’s happening without it being so clear-cut, their unspoken wants/needs, their secrets and memories, etc. (the story is largely told by them, and a lot of the story is colored by the character’s perception/experiences/thoughts/etc.)

These are very closely tied to the point of view you choose, and obviously, if you’re not telling the story in Character A’s POV, you can’t dig into their internals. And not every story needs to be deeply connected to a character. I’m personally a believer in character-driven stories (did a paper on that once, actually, lol) and love love love really getting to flesh out my characters. When you use internal characterizations, you’re telling the story through someone. It’s an excellent way of giving the reader a chance to understand and connect with your character.

Here’s an example of how the deeper into a character you go, the more you can show:

He sharply raised his hand, and she flinched. Her eyes squeezed shut, but she didn’t move away.

There are only external things here, a reaction that a witness could see. We aren’t in her head at all.

He sharply raised his hand. She flinched, already anticipating the sting of a slap. Stupid, she berated herself, shaking in place. Now you’ve really made him angry.

We’re in her head, but it’s all spelled out. Her thoughts are clearly marked rather than a part of the storytelling itself. We’re not truly seeing the world through her eyes.

He sharply raised his hand. With a little stuttered gasp, she flinched. It took everything in her not to throw herself backward, but that would only make him angrier. She shouldn’t have done that; why had she done that? Her thoughts ran on loop, panic choking her. Tense, she waited, the sour taste of fear clawing up her throat.

We are deeply inside this character. We aren’t seeing conscious thoughts; we’re experiencing this moment with her. The story is told through her reaction and reasoning and feelings.

Like I said above, this style is really good for when the emphasis is on the character. Keep in mind, of course, that not everything in the story has to be super descriptive. Sometimes, characters just do stuff or go from point A to point B. Moderation makes it so the times you do highlight the character's inner workings are notable.

If you’re having trouble with something else, such as plot, then this might not be very helpful, whoops. That would be entirely different advice. Regardless, I hope this helps even just a little, friend! Thank you for asking, and I’d be more than willing to ramble about a different part of storytelling if that would help! ;) I did go to college for this, lol.

#i answered a thing #anonymous #rambling about writing #life and times of star

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newsom · 2 years

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hello!!! i'd like to preemptively state that this might be long and/or largely incoherent but i hope you don't mind that much. darklands has been very close to my heart ever since i first read it, so you can imagine the shriek my inside voice let out when i got the update email. i'd been thinking of rereading the whole thing, so, the first free day i had (today), i lined up four or five records and did exactly that. and man… it still hits so hard!!!!! like fuck. wow. i could go ab it for many many words if you let me, but i'll just focus on the most important stuff:

1) chapter nine!!! cHAPTer NINe!!!! i'm yelling!!! god tier stuff, seriously, by which i mean that it has been in my mind, without fail, at least once per week for the past however months. like, obsession level thoughts. it deserves them. the narrative technique is absolutely fitting/engaging/fucking incredible for the pacing and you executed it flawlessly. it's like, the orgasmic cultivation of a epistolary-based story.

2) your use of music! (nothing more needs to be said, other than the fact that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME i listen to wuthering heights i think of the cat (now lola!) my beloved) (also can't listen to the jesus and mary chain album like a normal person anymore)

2) i think another thing that made me routinely come back to darklands, which i came to understand in this second read, are your descriptions, generally, but most specifically of granada. while i've never been (i really want to!!!) i've grown up and live in the mediterrenean and i have to say, wow! like, i know every place is unique, but i'm talking about a specific essence that, of course, is vastly different than the scottish and welsh countryside or the bustling city of london that you often see described in marauders fics. and it appeared so surprisingly familiar to me that it created an dare i say comfortable atmosphere (what comes to mind now is your description of the terracotta stairs and roofs!! like!!! yes that's it!! or like. the stray cats lol) i also appreciate the fact that you describe different parts of the world (spain, los angeles, now wales) with equal degrees of detail and perfection. my little geography/literature lover brain is getting its serotonin :)

3) your writing generally stayed with me the past months (from your other fics too, that i will definitely reread the following days lol) but this one specific line has superglued itself to the front of my brain, and i have it better memorised than most of the poems i consider beloved: "At nineteen they were overripe with desire and spilling over with more love than they knew how to give or take; they poured each other overflowing goblets of the stuff and drank too deeply. Ecstatic, decadent love, laughing and delirious and always sweet." i also remember, but can't locate right now, a line about how summer was overgenerous one year and its rays had spilled into september and it made remus selfish . ouf.

man i needed to let that out. in short; i absolutely love love love darklands, and am always ready to soak up your words. i'll go listen to the playlist now and think about those lovely idiots. cheers!

🥺😢😭😫💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

I hope it’s ok to publish this, I didn’t want it to be lost forever by answering privately bc this is a dream of a comment and I want to be able to read it over and over LOL. thank you so much for taking the time to write, it means so much 💗 really glad you’re enjoying the story!!!

#answers #darklands

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thedarkmistress16 · 9 months

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please gush about your passions and pastimes!!! I would love to hear about them

ack- im happy you want to hear about them!

Passions:

obvs as y'all know recently and just in gen., i guess, writing- i love crafting worlds and stories where anything can happen and just creating scenes above all else, like getting lost in the details of everything. I love getting lost in my own world and making myself happy as most self-indulgent writers do (and showing off my legitimate skill in a proper form of writing after doing shitpost-y things for so long is pretty rejuvenating, XD). And upon going back to some of my older, posted works and wips, I still laugh at the dumb shit I thought was the best stuff ever and now find myself giving those ideas a refresher like my last writing update, because it's still a legitimately enjoyable read.

i love sketching for similar reasons, but more so to visualize a fuzzy, almost-there idea, usually about fashion. Like recently I re-drafted some outfits for a fic idea I had, in order to make the world and designs make sense in my head. And I redesigned an existing outfit, running with certain themes and embellishments in design. I'm so happy I can churn out simple sketches like that when i really put my mind to it and feel content with the finished product nowadays. I feel accomplished as a hobby artist now and it's all thanks to heavy online research, a few how-to books, and putting effort into one art class. It's the second hobby of mine that I want to be good at, almost as much as my writing. Speaking of, I sometimes draw what I write or dream about because it's that prominent in my head.

Wow i love music guys- ha, but you already knew that *lenny face*

Past times:

I really like playing the simpler games in life- not as much in the vein of it being less difficult or busy, but more so with fewer controls, interesting mechanics, and a captivating style that I can easily fuck around in or beat some levels for a few hours. Bring on the (spider) solitare (only 4 suit sucks ass why do i do this to myself), jewel quest (FUCK YOU CROWS), barbie's fashion show (SINGLE DREAM-), zoo tycoon (fuck guest happiness), and sonic adventure or x-men of course.

MMD vids are v neat, like I know a handful of choreos that are fun as past midnight exercises to get my blood pumping and i get to discover new songs and learn more about other languages at the same time! Also the aph as mmd crack vids are the best whether its them making 'i hate this' or 'yeah im hot shit' faces or being completely into it as they're forced to dance or simply copying a vine. Like, they give me brainrot and serotonin at the same time its so fun. I love seeing all the different outfits for mmd vids in general, too, on top of new covers i never would've known about.

I really love analyzing things in general, actually. It's how I learn most of the things I do and know now, even though it technically causes me to lose large chunks of time because all i'm doing is staring at the damn thing, XD. Sometimes (all the time) I'll look at a gif or vid of a character changing their facial expression as they do/say something and I'll be completely enthralled by it. Something similar happens when I stare at REALLY GOOD artwork. I think it's the technical part of my brain trying to figure out the individual elements which make up whatever that thing is, like what facial muscles are being used to convey that emotion or mix of them, what the character is feeling, how the lighting or shading of the environment or extra details in editing affects said expression, etc. And for art, I'm thinking of the lines, posture, composition, object placement, color palette, negative space, tone, and all that jazz you learn from studying art.

Scrapbooking is a fun pastime for me that's extended from celebratory cards to actual gifts to my personal sketchbooks. It's part of the "creating something out of nothing/seeing what you can create with some basic templates and decorations" kind of mindset. And it makes me happy because I get to be creative and my family members and friends (even my employer) love them as part of their gifts every time and come to expect it from me each holiday, so I'm constantly encouraged to do it in the best way. I've recently kinda gone overboard on using ribbons and charms for the spiral and stickers and washi tape for the actual book itself on my sketchbooks, but I find myself wanting to draw in it more because I did that, lol.

I love rewatching the things I love. I usually have the same commentary about it, but its nonetheless enjoyable. And I never know what new thing I'll discover about it next, even if i've seen it over 50 times and only have it on as background noise and don't actually watch it. And yes, I will easily let something play on repeat at least that many times in my lifespan as well (like, a full day of it, at least).

wow i love staring at characters im attracted to for hours on end can i get a HUYEA-

#ask for moi #im glad your interested- truly. made my day! *happy tears*#people who like this word vomit have my upmost respect

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shyamasete · 1 year

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How Your Relationship With Your Pet Boosts Your Health

You love your pet, and they love you back. It’s a relationship built on companionship, trust, and unconditional love. But did you know that this relationship also has some serious health benefits? In this article, we will explore how your relationship with your pet store near me can have a positive impact on your physical and mental health. From reducing stress to increasing opportunities for exercise, read on to learn more about the ways in which your furry friend is making you a healthier person.

The Benefits of Owning a Pet

There are countless benefits to owning a pet, including boosting your mental and physical health. Pets can provide companionship, love, and support when you need it most. They can also help you stay active and improve your overall sense of well-being.

Pets can help reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and increase levels of serotonin and dopamine (the “happy hormones”). They can also provide social support and increase opportunities for physical activity. In fact, studies have shown that dog owners are more likely to meet their recommended daily exercise goals than those without dogs.

Whether you choose a cat, dog, bird, fish, or reptile as your pet, you’re sure to reap the many benefits of pet ownership. So why not give it a try? Your furry (or scaly) friend will be glad you did!

How Pets Can Improve Your Mental Health

Pets can improve your mental health in a number of ways. They can provide companionship, love, and support when you need it the most. They can also help to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Pets can also help to increase your sense of well-being and improve your overall mental health.

The Physical Health Benefits of Having a Pet

There are countless benefits to owning a pet, including the positive impact they have on your physical health. Regular exercise is one of the key ways to maintain good physical health, and having a pet can be a great motivator to stay active. Walking or playing with your dog every day is a great way to get some exercise, and it’s also a bonding experience that can reduce stress levels.

In addition to the exercise you get from walking your pet, studies have shown that owning a pet can also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.Pet ownership has also been linked with reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, and obesity. So if you’re looking for ways to boost your physical health, consider getting a furry friend!

How to Choose the Right Pet for You

There are a few things to consider when choosing the right pet for you. Think about your lifestyle and whether you have the time and energy to care for a pet. If you live in a small space, a large dog may not be the best fit. Consider also whether you or anyone in your household has allergies.

Another important factor to think about is what kind of personality you are looking for in a pet. Do you want an energetic dog who will go on long walks with you, or a calm cat who will curl up on your lap? There is no wrong answer, but it is important to choose a pet whose personality will complement your own.

Finally, think about the level of care you are willing and able to provide. Some pets require more grooming or exercise than others. Make sure you are prepared to meet the needs of your chosen pet before making any commitments.

Tips for Properly Caring for Your Pet

Pets provide us with companionship, love, and affection. In return, they rely on us for their food, water, shelter, and health care. Properly caring for your pet not only keeps them healthy and happy, but also strengthens the bond between you and your furry pet shop near me . Here are some tips for properly caring for your pet:

-Provide them with a nutritious diet: Pets need a balanced diet just like people do. Make sure to feed them food that is appropriate for their species and age.

-Give them plenty of fresh water: Just like us, pets need to stay hydrated. Be sure to clean and fill their water bowls daily.

-Exercise with them: Exercise is important for both our physical and mental health. Taking your dog for a walk or playing fetch with your cat are great ways to bond with your pet while getting some exercise yourself.

-Brush their fur: Brushing your pet's fur helps remove dirt, debris, and loose hair. It also stimulates blood circulation and helps distribute natural oils throughout their coat.

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0613magazine · 2 years

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210526 Bustle

BTS Wants You To “Fall For Us For Good”

The South Korean group just dropped “Butter,” their second English-language summer anthem.

Nobody knows how to make a catchy summer anthem quite like BTS. The massively popular South Korean group — comprised of members RM, Jin, SUGA, Jimin, j-hope, V, and Jung Kook — dominated the airwaves last summer with their first English-language single, the disco-heavy “Dynamite.” Now, they’re looking to climb the charts again with the electro-pop dance song “Butter” — a cheeky nod to their own irresistibility.

“We want to have a blast with everyone this summer,” RM tells Bustle. Jin adds that their goal was to create something “brimming with bright and positive energy” for ARMY, as BTS’ fans are known. j-hope likens the song to a serotonin boost, joking that he hopes “Butter” will make listeners “fall for us for good.”

As any ARMY will tell you, it’s all too easy to fall head-over-heels for BTS’ inimitable charm. The group made their first studio album, 2014’s Dark & Wild — described by SUGA as “a firm stance against oppression and prejudice” — in a tiny garage. (They were but rural “bumpkins” then, they once told Vanity Fair.). Since then, they’ve remained humble as they’ve amassed the trappings of musical success, earning a Grammy nomination, smashing records, and selling out stadiums. And BTS has made a point to wield their considerable influence for good, partnering with UNICEF, speaking twice at the United Nations General Assembly, donating $1 million to Black Lives Matter, and condemning hate crimes against Asian Americans.

ARMY, along with the American celebrities who’ve worked with BTS, have known for years that they’re a huge deal; as Halsey notes in her 2019 TIME100 tribute to the band, they’ve achieved nothing short of “world domination.” Yet because they’re Asian performers singing largely in Korean, some still seem to view BTS as a novelty act. In an industry that’s slow to give artists of color their dues, it feels telling that the Recording Academy didn’t acknowledge them until 2021. And though BTS has spent years crafting socially conscious and complex lyrics that weave in references to mental health, Greek philosophy, and classic literature, they weren’t nominated for a Grammy until they produced the English-language “Dynamite” — a song that, RM explains, only had the simple goal of sharing “some fresh energy” with ARMY amid the pandemic.

The band is well aware that xenophobia and racism make it harder to break into the American music industry. RM has told Rolling Stone that BTS hopes their work will help dispel such prejudices. But in the face of such hardships, the group is most vocal in crediting their fans for their continued success. In a Korean variety show interview, SUGA said it was actually ARMY who “made the gateway” into the American market, by asking their local DJs to bump BTS’ songs. The members show appreciation for their fans in a myriad of ways, from connecting with them via humorous tweets and domestic vlogs to comforting them after award ceremonies: “We were nominated for the first time!” RM said after their Grammys loss. “Let’s look at the positive side.”

As the boys boast in “Butter,” they’ve “got ARMY right behind us when we say so” — and there’s good reason for that. Their music is often crafted as a love letter to the people who supported them from the basement level to today. The group’s live performances, in particular, showcase how ARMY buoys up BTS and vice versa. “On stage, you really know and feel when the cheers heat up,” Jimin says. “And it makes me want to perform better.” Naturally, seeing their Map of the Soul: 7 world tour canceled amid the pandemic wasn’t easy. Even as they adapted, staging virtual concerts and making virtual appearances, “it felt like something was missing,” RM says. But “I learned that I’m into more things than I thought I was, and that I am quite good at spending time alone,” he says. “I think I’m getting to know how to be my own friend.”

Ultimately, each of the members found ways to stay busy into 2021. Jimin teases that he’s been doing a lot of “tryouts” lately, while j-hope says he’s focusing on “creating more mature music.” Suga has been working on a number of different projects, while V has been plugging away at his own music and “doing everything from scratch again.”

And the group is always looking to the future, to a time when they can reconnect with ARMY in person again. They’ve already announced a virtual concert in honor of their eighth anniversary, to take place on June 13 and 14. “I’m eager to do more as soon as possible,” Jung Kook explains. “As it’s been a while since we did a live concert, I want to bring new innovative ideas and create a spectacular stage.”

Below, the members talk about their music writing process, their choreography, and their goals for the year.

On The Importance Of Choreography, & Members’ Individual Mixtapes

When creating a song, do you start thinking about how it might be performed onstage or turned into a music video — or does that come later?

SUGA: I picture all of that when creating a song. “Daechwita” was an example of turning that into reality to its full potential, 100%.

“Blue & Grey” was originally written for V’s mixtape but ended up on BE. As a group, how do you decide which songs go on the BTS albums and which ones end up on your individual mixtapes?

SUGA: As a group, you tend to deliver a more versatile story. We first write songs for a group album, and with the songs that don’t end up there, we work on our mixtapes.

V: We don’t have any set rules when we work on music, but after we finalize it we see if the song fits the group’s vibe and then decide.

In your BE-Hind Story interviews, each of you spoke about opening up emotionally on tracks like “Dis-ease” and “Stay.” Have you found that you’ve grown more comfortable with being vulnerable in your music, or has it gotten more difficult as your reach has expanded?

Jin: I understand that music makes difficult things more approachable. People around us told us that music opens our way of speaking.

j-hope: I know it’s not easy to show your real self. But when it comes to music, it’s not like that. I don’t want to change this. I want to keep making honest, genuine music.

Jung Kook: I always do my best when it comes to music, but I know there are parts that I’m still lacking. I think people will look at it as it is, and the only thing I can do is keep giving my all and filling up my shortcomings.

You’re known as a performance group with really precise choreography. How do you feel your dancing informs your music?

j-hope: I think it’s an undeniable fact that performances really elevate and enhance BTS’ music, so we really work hard on it and pour our effort into it. That’s why I put more focus on the choreography these days.

Jimin: Choreography is another way of expressing music. You can get chills through the musical experience of course, but I think a good performance can give you a different kind of breathtaking experience as well. Coordinating with our members for our performances has brought great synergy to our group. And I also think that it has helped us effectively deliver our emotions and feelings to our audience.

You’re also known for your innovative music videos. Is there a song of yours that you wish you did a music video for, or hope to do one for in the future?

Jin: V has a solo track called “Inner Child.” I think it’s the perfect song for a stadium, so I want to have a video of us performing on stage along with that song.

On Their Go-to Songs & What They Hope To Accomplish In 2021

What’s your current go-to song that you immediately put on when someone hands you the AUX cord?

Jimin: I listen to songs that you’d listen to when you’re alone in a quiet place.

V: “Daddy” by Coldplay.

What comes first, the melody or the words? Has this approach changed over the years?

Jin: I just start with whichever pops up in my mind and carry it out.

J-Hope: Words come first nowadays.

What song lyric, either yours or someone else’s, is resonating the most with you right now?

Jin: “Life goes on” and “the day will come back around.”

Where’s your favorite place to write or compose right now?

RM: At the studio, at home, and at Hangang River.

What are your goals for the rest of 2021?

RM: To become a better person.

Jin: I want to perform!

SUGA: I want to try working on more external projects, no matter where they may take place.

j-hope: My personal goal for this year is to work and polish some of my personal stuff and maybe put out something. I also want to become a person who can organize thoughts in a more mature way.

Jimin: You never know when we will be able to meet our fans in person again, so I’m preparing and staying fit for that day.

V: I want to freely live a healthy life.

Jung Kook: Live life to the fullest!

Source: Bustle

#2021 #bts #bustle

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abductionradiation · 2 years

Video

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This week, Marlon Williams shares his first solo music since 2018 with new single “My Boy”. The bright track spans just under 3 minutes long but its infectious rhythm and effervescent energy will have you in a happy daze. “My Boy” is the perfect blend of indie pop with a slight folky twang that gives the track an earthy goodness that feels comfortable yet liberating. Marlon Williams brings a weightless freedom to the track that’ll have your serotonin levels rising.

Marlon Williams · My Boy

On the track, Williams shares “‘My Boy' is a pop song with a Māori folk strum. The urge to turn every song on the planet into a Māori strummer descended on me like a fever sometime during the long and winding tour cycle of Make Way for Love. So writing it into my artistic life became the only way to get the fever to lift.

I turned up at Mark ‘Merk’ Perkins studio early in 2019 with 'My Boy' and a small handful of other tunes. Some simple songs will try to tempt and lure you into over-complication; this one showed no such insecurities. For the first time in my writing life, it didn’t even demand lyrics in the chorus. It laid itself out, buoyed by its own sailing rhythm and lightness of phrase: Mark and I fleshed out the demo with a simple drumbeat and a whimsical mellotron descant and dinner was largely on the table. Going into Roundhead with Tom and the band, we kept that simplicity, adding only some extra percussion from Elroy Finn and a folk electric guitar solo from Tom.”

My Boy by Marlon Williams

US Tour Date:

Wed. Sep. 14 - Boston, MA @ The Sinclair Thu. Sep. 15 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Made Fri. Sep. 16 - Washington, DC @ The Miracle Theater Sat. Sep. 17 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s Mon. Sep. 19 - Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall Wed. Sep. 21 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall Thu. Sep. 22 - Minneapolis, MN @ Turf club Sat. Sep. 24 - Denver, CO @ Lost Lake Tue. Sep. 27 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern Wed. Sep. 28 - Vancouver, BC @ Hollywood Theater Thu. Sep. 29 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater Mon. Oct. 3 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour

Connect with Marlon Williams:

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

#marlon williams #pop #indie #new zealand

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opedguy · 2 years

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Musk Urges Folks to Stop Wellbutrin

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), May 1, 2022.--Elon Musk, 50, the world’s richest man at $268 billion, warned people against taking the antidepressant medication AKA as Wellbutrin or the generic bupropion, a powerful norepinehrine and dopamine boosting medication. Whether Musk has personal experience with Wellbutrin is anyone’s guess but the Tesla and SpaceX CEO warned about the adverse side effect of increasing suicidal behavior. Must Tweeted Friday, April 29, that Wellbutrin “should be taken off the market.” Musk said Wellbutri was “way worse that Adderall,” a powerful stimulant used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder [ADD], a completely different class of medications. Wellbutrin is considered a norempinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibiter [NDRI], a drug designed to boost norepinephrine and domamine levels, different from the more common and harmless antidepressants AKA Serotonin Selective Reuptake Inhibitors {SSRIs}. Musk said a number of anecdotal stories linked Wellbutrin with suicidal ideation and behavior. “Every time that drug has come up in conversation, someone at the table has a suicide or near suicide story.” Musk said. It wasn’t that long ago, July 7, 1991, that the Church of Scientology launched its campaign against Eli Lilly’s Prozac, a SSRI medication, without the known adverse side effects as NDRI, working to help depression by boosting norepinephrine and dopamine. Musk was criticized without scientific knowledge of drug interactions as giving recommendations, especially with patients who get some benefit from the drug. Comparing Wellbutrin to Adderall, also confuses matters for the public because Wellbutrin is an antidepressant while Adderall is a “cognitive enhancer,” stimulant used to increase memory and concentration, not primarily to boost a depressed mood. Scientology consulted many psychiatrists when they went after Prozac in the early 90s, all based on anecdotal information about suicide. “Please consult a licensed doctor before you stop your meds,” said an unnamed Twitter user. “Elon Musk isn’t a doctor,” suggesting that Musk has no business dispensing medical advice. Musk talked about whether Ritalin was a good replacement for Adderall and Wellbutrin.” “I have not heard bad things about Ritalin, which is not good to say, it’s good , just haven’t heard bad things about it,” Musk tweeted, clearly opining about psychotropic medications he knows nothing about. When it comes to Ritalin, it’s an older medication, also derived from amphetamine salts, a drug largely replaced by over the last 20 years. Ritalin and Adderral are both stimulants designed to improve Attention Deficit Disorder [ADD], with wide applications in educational settings. Confusion over different classes of drugs leads lay people, like Musk, to lump all psychotropic medications into one basket. But there are big differences and applications between stimulants like Adderall and antidepressants like Wellbutrin. It’s a shame before Musk starts opining on things he knows little about, it influences end users. “For me, I love taking Wellbutrin. It has a lot less side effects than Adderall. The drug has made me less suicidal, not more,” said an unnamed Twitter user. Whoever the Wellbutrin user, they don’t understand the difference between antidepressants and ADD-stimulant drugs. Musk isn’t the only one confused by psychotropic drugs, requiring a board certified psychiatrist to know their meds. “Talk to a doctor/pharmacist bout whatever medication you’re taking. They are the ones who can give you answers about what’s best for you,. Not Elon Musk. Most people taking psychotropic medications don’t know the differences between antidepressant, stimulus drugs or anything else. Musk isn’t the only one confused about the different classes of psychotropic medications. Whether Wellbutrin induced suicide more often than any other drug isn’t known. Drug makers typically reject any correlations between their medications and suicidality, a far more complex condition involving many factors, no always obvious to lay people or trained psychiatrists. Musk read a 2016 New York Times Magazine article called “Generattion Adderrall,” talking about complications and withdrawal from ling-term Adderall use. When it comes to Adderall, there’s no comparison with antidepressants like Wellbutrin, other than the fact that both norepinephrine and dopamine also have stimulating effects. Other than that, they’re prescribed for entirely different purposes. When it comes to psychotropic medications, Musk should let the experts opine on the pros-and-cons, benefits-and-risks of medications used for different purposes. What’s clear is that Mush isn’t the only one grossly misinformed about Wellbutrin and Adderall, both different classes of psychotropic medications. “Everyone thinks our present society was caused by social media. I’m wonder whether Adderall plus ubiquitous Google searches have bigger effects, said Mark Andreessen, a Silicon Valley investor. Whether any antidepressant medication causes suicidal behavior is anyone’s guess. Most drug companies deny any link to their medications and suicide. But if a depressive person gets a sudden boost of energy from antidepressants, it’s possible they could do something self-destruction with a flurry of sudden energy. Questions about psychotropic medications should be left to medical experts. About the Author John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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strawberridonut · 3 years

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everyone pls drop your far cry 5 deputy ocs or just far cry ocs in general i LOVE hearing abt them

#it gives me large levels of serotonin #far cry 5 #far cry #deputy rook #fc5

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quackiseok · 3 years

Text

— strawberry kisses

feral boys x gn! reader || headcanon

genre : fluff

warnings : swearing

summary : their reaction to you giving them a kiss on the cheek for the first time!

a/n : hi hi! this is my first fic, i hope you like it 🥺 and i'm so sorry if there's any mistake, i'll try fixing them asap!

song to listen to while reading :

; DREAM

this man right here is VERY careful with you

always asking for consent before any physical contact with you (consent is always the key!)

he was so happy when you said that you were fine with cuddles and hugs with him! be ready for tight back hugs from him 'cause he loves putting his head on the crook of your neck >:)

but kisses... you were a bit shy about it since you were new to this type of relationship and you wanted to learn a bit first,

you told him about wanting to take things slowly and get used to it first, and of course he understands! dream will 100% respect your boundaries

he will wait patiently until you're comfortable enough with him because he loves you so much and he wants you to see him as a safe, comfort place :)

then one day when the two of you were baking cookies for valentines day, dream jokingly asked you to kiss him on the cheek as a thank you for helping you with the cookies

i mean, it's almost valentines anyways. a small, innocent kiss wouldn't hurt right? ö

you just giggled and gently leaned your face closer to his cheek, your fingers softly bringing his chin closer to you

you gently placed a kiss on his cheek, then quickly turning away from him with a wide smile

congratulations, you have successfully broke dream

man would be frozen on the place for a full minute, trying to process what just happened and is this real or not (because if it's not real he'd cry on the floor)

expect him to cling on you and not letting you go for the next few hours, calling you with sweet names like baby, hun, etc. for no reason and just be all lovey dovey with you ♡

he would secretly mark the date on his phone's calendar just for this special day where you kissed him for the first time HHAHSJDKSKD

if you were comfortable, he would offer you a kiss on your cheek to return the favor 🥺

and if you said yes, AAAAAAAA he would be so fucking happy, his serotonin level would just go through the roof like 📈📈

and ofc, he would happily give you a sweet kiss on your cheek! ( ˙ᵕ˙ )♡

; GEORGE

george is definitely very shy with you at first

he's VERY careful around you and treat you with so much care 🥺

( but once the two of you have gotten pretty used to each other, you guys bully each other 24/7 💀💀 (jokingly ofc!) )

at first, you thought george didn't like physical affections like kisses, hugs, etc.

boy you were wrong

this cat boy secretly LOVES physical affections from you, but he just hides it from you! and of couse, you love giving them to him too :)

but you were a little bit shy about kisses, and same goes to him. two shy cuties !!

if he was being honest : he wants to squish your cheeks and shower you with kisses, but he respects your boundaries and will wait until you're ready to take a step further! (( and he's really shy, he would also need time to get the courage to do it :D ))

then one day george has just finished recording for minecraft manhunt and boy, that block game can actually make you tired

the moment he's done with the recording, he immediately rushed to the bed and plop himself next to you

you would ask him things like how did the recording went, etc. and he'll answer you while letting you play with his soft hair 🥺

george was feeling a little playful, so he joked and asked you to give him a kiss on the cheek to recharge his energy

you looked at him with your cheeks slightly reddened. george has been working hard lately anyways, he deserves a gift, right?

you slowly bought your face closer to his cheek and planted a quick kiss on his cheek before looking away then melt into a puddle

georgenotfound who? i only know georgenotworking

his eyes would be widened, face red, and he would just sit there with his palm on the cheek where you planted the kiss on

it's been 3 minutes and his face is still red, huge grin on his face while hugging you tightly

he won't even try to hide the fact that he loves being affectionate with you anymore

it's the first time george has ever been clingy with you and you're living for it tbh 🥺

he'd ask you if you want a kiss too, in such a shy manner like "i can... give you... a kiss too... if you want... 👉👈"

if you say yes ? MMMMMMMMMM the two of you melt into a puddle together <33

he'll give you a quick but sweet kiss on your cheek with his face redder than before (,,．．„ )

; SAPNAP

man seems like he would fight you no matter what size you are

but in reality? sapnap's the sweetest and the clingiest (in a positive way, ofc!) man you've ever been with and you're so into this

he LOVES being affectionate and clingy with you, in fact he does it all the time. it's just how he is with you :)

he also LOVES giving you affection. he doesn't care about who's giving and who's receiving tbh, he just loves being around you in general 👉👈

you love his affection and giving him affection too, of course!! but you were a bit shy since this was your first romantic relationship with someone and kissing was a new thing to you

sapnap would tease you for being so shy around him, endlessly flirting with you just to see you all flustered, because in his eyes? you're so fucking adorable and that's a fact. ♡

despite him being all playful and flirty with you, he respects your boundaries and will 100% wait until you're ready!

of course he wants kiss you right on the spot but he can wait patiently, just for you <3

then one day, he was playfully flirting with you as usual

and he jokingly said "hey y/n, i think i deserve a kiss on the cheek for being cute!" well, you couldn't disagree with what he just said 👀

so you put on a large grin and placed a kiss on his cheek, immediately turning red afterwards

sapnap's the new pogchamp emote now

he would be so surprised and just turn into a ball of absolute joy

he'd immediately scoop you closer to him, hugging you tightly while giggling and just— shower you with lots of love 🥺

and trust me, he won't let go of you unless it's emergency or if you were uncomfortable

but if you were fine with it? this man will hold you like his life depends on it

he would also give you kisses on your cheek / the top of your head if you were comfortable enough :)

and if you did allowed him to kiss you? he'll immediately shower you with kisses and calling you his in between the kisses, like "you're mine, mine, mine" 👉👈

; QUACKITY

alex, he's such a flirty mf 😳

endlessly teasing you and flirting with you just to see you being flustered, just like sapnap

he'd call you with sweet spanish nicknames like mi amor, hermosa, etc. and you find them cute, honestly 🥺

he's really clingy with you (in a good way!) and always hugs you whenever he sees you. it's almost like an instinct to him when he sees you :) but you don't mind since you're living for his warm hugs and cuddles ♡

he LOVES the way you melt under his hugs, and honestly? he wants to cover your whole face with kisses but he knew you were new into dating and want to take things slowly, so he respects your boundaries! :))

one day, he was in a discord call with his friends and they were endlessly teasing him; which leads him to fake crying as a joke and asked you to give him a kiss on the cheek to make him stop crying

man, alex is so fucking adorable and you thought that he deserves a reward for being such a cutie

so you giggled and moved closer to him, slightly bending down to get to his level and placed a kiss on his cheek before turning away with a large grin on your face.

you know that one time karl jokingly leaned in to kiss alex? yeah, he has the exact same expression now

this man would stare blankly at you, his cheeks slightly red but then a few seconds later he's screaming in absolute joy

his friends would be so confused, asking him if he was alright but instead of answering them, he mutes the call and immediately clings his arms around your neck

"mi amor, you should do that more often if you're okay with it ;)"

100% endlessly flirting with you while hugging you tightly, melting you into a puddle ( bonus point if you knew spanish, cause he'd say cheesy pick up lines in spanish for you ;) )

and just like sapnap, he'd shower you with sweet kisses on your face if you were fine with it!

and if you were okay with him kissing you? man... you know that one vine where a kid is crying because of how cute her puppy is? yeah that's alex quackity @ your existence

he'd just be so happy and shower you with kisses, praising you, telling you how adorable you are, and telling you that you're his and he loves you so fucking much 🥺

; KARLJACOBS

karl jacobs is the definition of wholesome itself

he's literally the sweetest human being you've ever met, you can almost taste cotton candies when you're with him

he's really affectionate and loving towards you, always praising you whenever he's hugging you and holding you close to him! and of course, we can't forget the sweet nicknames he have for you. he just loves giving you so much affection, and you're in for it! 🥺

don't forget his playful side too! he would always joke around with you and maybe be flirty when he's feeling extra playful :) he can go from sending you wholesome memes to weird cursed images, no in between

but you were a little bit shy since you were new in this type of relationship. you told karl that you wanted to learn more first before jumping into more romantic gestures, including kisses.

of course this boy would go "okay! :)" and shower you with gestures you're comfortable with instead (hugs, cuddles, etc.) he wants you to feel comfortable around him, so he respects your boundaries! ♡

then one day when the two of you were cuddling on the couch while watching adventure time, karl jokingly asked what if you gave him a kiss on the cheek like marceline did to bubblegum

and you thought karl has been so sweet with you this whole time. you gotta return the favor to him, right?

so you just displayed a shy smile, leaning closer to him and gave him a small kiss on the cheek before you slowly melt in his arms

his eyes widened and he just wants to scream the way puppycat did

he'd immediately bring you closer to his body and mutter out uncountable i love you's, calling you perfect, sweet, etc. just praising you and being all giggly with you. of course he would be so giggly, you just gave him a kiss!!! 🥺👉👈

he would LOVE to return the favor to you, if you're fine with it!

and if you said yes? places such a sweet kiss on your face and just admire you with his starry eyes 🥺

JNNGGHHH SO MUCH SEROTONIN THIS RELATIONSHIP IS JUST 50% WHOLESOME AND 50% WHOLESOME BUT IN RED

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expectingtofly · 3 years

Text

Take a Load Off

2.5k

fluff, post-canon, human!cas, anxious dean, established dean/cas

(i saw this post by @emptymeg and couldn’t get it out of my head, so here’s a fic :)

also posted on ao3

“What’s in the box?” Dean asked, coming into the library to see Cas setting a large package on the map table with a huff. The table creaked under its weight. “Hey, name that movie.”

Cas cocked his head. “What movie?”

Dean groaned. “Seriously, dude, you’re hopeless. What’s in the box! Brad Pitt?” Cas shrugged and Dean sighed. “Forget it.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Cas said, fetching scissors from a drawer, “This box is for you. I bought you something.”

“Oh?” Dean came to the table, interest even more piqued. “What kind of something?”

Cas gave him a look. “Not what you’re thinking.” He cut through the tape securing the box. “I read that this can relieve stress and help you sleep better.”

“I already know something that can do that.” He added a wink for good measure.

“So,” Cas continued, ignoring him, “I thought you should try it. You haven’t been getting enough sleep lately and I’m worried about your anxiety levels.”

“Wait a moment,” Dean protested. “What do you mean, my ‘anxiety levels’?” Cas opened the box and he leaned over to look at the contents. Folded, silky dark grey fabric. “What is that, a blanket?”

“A weighted blanket,” Cas corrected, heaving it out of the box. “Twenty pounds.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” He plucked at the fabric. “This is supposed to help?"

“It’s proven by science.” He nodded at a chair by Dean. “Go, sit.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean sat down and Cas draped the blanket over him. “Fuck.” Dean lifted his arms up under the blanket, then dropped them. “This is actually heavy.”

“Do you feel relaxed?”

“I feel ridiculous.”

“You don’t look it at all,” Cas deadpanned and Dean kicked at him. Cas pulled a brochure out of the box. “Soft cotton filled with poly pellets,” he read. “Alleviate anxiety and increase serotonin.” He studied Dean, eyes squinted. “You still look tense.”

“Sorry, Cas.” Dean shoved the blanket to the floor with a thump. “Think you got duped.”

“You’re not doing it right,” Cas grumbled, picking it up off the ground. “You have to give it a chance.”

“I just gave it a chance.” Standing, he brushed Cas’ hair off his forehead, gave him his best you love me smile. “Now, do you really wanna help me relax?”

Cas studied him for a long moment, then said, “Okay.” He carefully folded the blanket. “We’re keeping this, though. I still think it’ll work.”

Dean made a face behind his back and started to follow him out of the room, but the phone Sam had recently installed in the library for a hunter hotline started ringing. He groaned and Cas hesitated in the doorway.

“Do I have to?” Dean asked him.

“I suppose so,” Cas sighed and set the blanket down on a chair. Turns out the call was from a hunter out near Boise who needed help with a case. Of course, Sam was away visiting Eileen, so he and Cas got stuck spending the next two hours going over the case information, trying to figure out what the monster was. They finally settled on vetala, a whole pack of them, and after instructing the hunter on how to kill them, Dean hung up the phone.

“Fuck,” he swore, rubbing at his eyes. “Who knows how big the pack is. Could be a whole dozen of the freaks.”

“Well, now she knows how to kill them,” Cas said. “And there’s other hunters in the area who can help.”

“Yeah...” Dean fiddled with his pen, tapping it on the open pages of his dad’s journal.

“What’s wrong?” Cas asked.

Dean realized he was frowning. “Nothing.” Flexing his shoulders, he stretched out his back, stiff from poring over books. “Just, three people are already dead. I better be right that it’s a pack of vetala.”

Reaching over, Cas rubbed his back in small circles and Dean leaned back into his hand. “We did all we could, Dean.”

Dean wasn’t so sure that was true. But, short of driving all night out to Boise, he supposed there wasn’t much else they could do. Still, he didn’t like the idea that he might’ve missed a clue, might’ve misled the hunter. He clicked his pen again and again, going over the case in his mind, worst case scenarios—

“Are you going to sleep now?” Cas asked, and Dean glanced at him.

“No.” Dropping the pen, he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Don’t think I can now.”

“Would you say you’re feeling stressed? Anxious, perhaps?” Cas deliberately looked to his right and Dean followed his gaze to the weighted blanket folded on a chair.

“Dude, don’t even start.”

“You should use it,” Cas urged. “There’s no shame in feeling anxious, I often feel the same way too.”

“I’ve dealt with worse before, this is nothing new. Just comes with the job.”

Cas sighed. “You put too much on your shoulders.”

Dean shrugged. “Like I said, comes with the job.” If he wasn’t always on edge, he figured he was doing things wrong. Get too comfortable and bad things happened. Just the way it was.

“Still, you can admit you need a break.”

“Jeez, Cas, I’m wounded.” Dean pressed a hand to his chest. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

Cas rolled his eyes and stood. “Don’t stay up too late.” He seemed to hesitate, fighting against saying more, and Dean said,

“I’m fine, Cas, really.”

“Okay.” Cas didn’t look too convinced, but he kissed Dean goodnight and headed off to their bedroom.

Dean cleaned up the mess of books and papers on the table, turned off the lamps just to do something with his hands. Normally, this is when he’d grab a drink, try to calm his head, but he’d been trying to cut back lately—blame Cas’ concern for his liver—so instead he decided to head to the Dean Cave. Maybe a few episodes of Dr. Sexy would distract himself enough to sleep.

Leaving the room, his eyes fell on the weighted blanket again. Cas and his ridiculous ideas. If Dean hadn’t been sleeping too well lately, that was just the result of living their kind of life. Nothing to do about it. Ignore the stress or end up drowning in it, that was his motto.

(And a horrible coping method, according to Sam and Cas)

Either way, lying under twenty pounds of “cotton and poly pellets” wasn’t going to help. Though the blanket had been really soft, he’d give it that.

He forgot all about it the following day, though, when Sam found a case a few towns over, and Dean and Cas drove over to meet him there. Disturbed gravesites, people disappearing near the cemetery at night. A ghoul, by all signs. A day of morgue visits and interviewing witnesses, then another two days of sitting parked in the cemetery, waiting for the ghoul to emerge again and feed. Dean was almost happy to see the thing when it crawled out of its grave. Almost.

Killing the damn thing hadn’t been too easy. But after inadvertently destroying a few gravestones, nearly falling into an open grave, and narrowly avoiding losing a few limbs, they finally bashed the ghoul’s brains in thoroughly, and split up from the cemetery. Dean went to speak to the latest victim’s mother while Cas and Sam got rid of the remains.

Returning to the bunker first, Dean showered, blood and ghoul remains washing away down the drain. But even the warm water couldn’t ease the jitteriness sitting high in his chest. The ghoul had been strong, fast, and Dean’s heart had leapt into his throat when it got a hold of Sam. Even Cas had struggled to stop the thing, gunshots only serving to anger the son of a bitch more.

Getting out of the shower, he scrubbed himself dry with his towel, inspected a cut along his arm. Not deep enough for stitches. If Sam had avoided a concussion, they were lucky. The ghoul was dead, at least. Left a dozen ruined graves and a few torn apart teenagers in its wake, but dead.

As he changed into clean clothes, he heard the bunker door open. “All good?” he asked, entering the war room to find Sam and Cas setting down their bags.

“If you mean will the trunk always reek like ghoul, then yes,” Sam said. He grimaced as he took off his boots, muddy footprints already leaving a trail down the bunker stairs. Then he glanced at his phone and smiled, said, “Eileen’s calling.”

“Whipped,” Dean mouthed at him as Sam answered his phone, smiling at the screen and walking off down the hallway. “Well,” he told Cas, ”you look like shit.”

Cas gave him his best, I can smite you even without my grace look. “Charming.” He headed off down the hallway towards their bedroom and Dean followed. “How did Mrs. Landis take the news?”

Dean sucked in a breath. “Uh, 'bout how you'd expect, I guess. Told her a bear had gotten to her son, but it was all taken care of now. Not much else to say.”

The mother had sobbed and thanked him. He’d done a piss poor job of comforting her and left with an all-too-familiar sick feeling in his stomach; they hadn’t done enough, they could never save everyone.

“And you?” Cas asked, pulling him from his thoughts. He glanced at Dean as he pushed open the door to their bedroom. “Are you alright?”

Dean started to nod, say fine, but he knew Cas would see straight through the lie. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he shrugged, dropping his hands into his lap. “Just shook up. Coulda been a bad one.”

Cas nodded as he pulled off his trenchcoat, the edges bloody and muddy. “We’re all safe. You don’t have to torture yourself thinking about what could’ve happened.”

Dean shut his eyes, took a deep breath. “I know.” Easier said than done.

He heard Cas’s footsteps, then felt Cas’ fingers on his cheek and tilted his head into his palm. Breathed in and out. Cas smelled like blood and guts and sweat, not a particularly pleasant combination, but his hand was warm and his other hand was carding through his hair and, shit, that felt nice.

“Go to sleep,” Cas said quietly. “You need rest.”

Dean nodded and Cas kissed the top of his head. He left to take a shower and Dean scrubbed his hands over his face.

Fuck, this hunt had been a close one. Closer than they’d had in a long time.

Dropping his hands, his eyes settled on the weighted blanket that Cas had left folded on the chair at the desk, a silent plea for him to use it. He rolled his eyes. Anxious, his ass.

He started to pull the covers back on the bed, but the thought of lying down with the hunt running on repeat through his head was less than appealing. Cas’ trenchcoat hung bloody on the wall, and Dean clenched his hands into fists to stop them from shaking, adrenaline and nerves still rushing through him.

Alright, maybe a little anxious.

With a glance at the door to convince himself Cas would be in the shower for a little while longer, he grabbed the blanket, brought it to their bed.

Getting under the covers, he draped the blanket over himself and lay down, shifting to get comfortable. Once settled, he stared up at the ceiling and waited for the miracle blanket to work its wonders. How much money had Cas spent on this shit? He really had to hide the credit cards.

He shifted again, the mattress creaking, and dropped back with a huff. Not that he didn’t appreciate Cas trying to help, but a twenty-pound blanket wasn’t what he needed. What he needed was a full night of sleep and a blow job and an all-expenses-paid trip to Cancún. His nose was itchy, his knee was bruised, his back was fucked up from getting thrown against a gravestone, Sam had already found another case in Albuquerque, and, fuck, he was just so damn tired.

Shutting his eyes, he forced himself to breathe through the sensation of his chest tightening. He could feel the blanket rise and fall with every deliberate breath, and he counted like Sam had taught him years ago when he’d woken with a panic attack—breathe in for seven seconds, hold for four, let out for eight.

Don’t think about what could’ve happened. We’re all safe. Cas is safe, Sam is safe. I’m safe.

His heartbeat slowly settled. The blanket’s weight was strangely comforting, warm, trapping him under the covers. Forced to stay still, he felt his limbs slowly relax into the mattress, the tenseness in his shoulders dissipating, his back easing and hands curling loosely along the sheets.

Okay. Shit. Maybe there was something to this weighted blanket thing. His mind grew hazier as his thoughts began to wander, and he found himself drifting off to sleep when the bedroom door creaked open and startled his eyes open.

“You’re using it,” Cas whispered excitedly, standing in the doorway. “Are you relaxed?”

“Fuck off,” Dean told him. He would’ve flipped him off, but that would require lifting his hand out from under the blanket and he was too—dammit, Cas was right—relaxed to move.

“I knew it would be perfect,” Cas said, sounding too triumphant. Shutting the door softly, he got into bed next to him—well, tried to. He shoved at the blanket encroaching on his side of the bed. “Dean, move over.”

“Nope.” Dean shut his eyes again. “Reap what you have sown.”

Grumbling, Cas turned off the light and got under the covers with more rustling and movement than necessary. Finally, he settled down. The bunker hummed, the heating running, the pipes in the walls creaking as a shower turned on down the hallway. The blanket heavy on top of him, Dean began to fall asleep again.

“Are you really gonna keep that on all night?” Cas asked, disturbing the quiet.

“Yup.”

Cas huffed and Dean could only keep up the ruse for a few more seconds before lifting the edge of the blanket. “Come on, get under.”

Sliding over, Cas got underneath, and they laid side by side, pressed against each other. Their fingers brushed, and Dean crooked a finger around Cas’ thumb.

“This is nice,” Cas commented, voice quiet. “I’m glad it’s helping.”

“Mhm.” He was starting to think he should’ve bought one of these things a long time ago. He hadn’t realized how strung out he was before until now, all the tension in his body slipping away.

Cas shifted onto his side and Dean blinked open his eyes to look at him. “I guess I was right all along, wasn’t I?”

“Don’t push it.” He caught Cas’ smile in the dark and elbowed him on principle before shifting over to kiss him. Then he tugged at Cas’ arm and turned onto his side, prompting Cas to press close against his back and wrap an arm around him.

He smiled, eyes falling shut at the warm press of the blanket and Cas’ body around his. Now he was relaxed.

tag list:

@becky-srs @xojo @marvelnaturalock @aelysianmuse @prayedtoyou @letsjustdieeveryone @good-things-do-happen-dean @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @theninthdutchessofhell @madronasky @famouspsychicpizzabandit @multifandomdisorder @arcticfox007 @improvedpeanut @castiel-is-a-cat @harmonyhelms @thetrueliesofafangirl @dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you @theangelwiththewormstache @confusedisaster @welcome-to-crowleys-hellhole @celestialcastiel

let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from the tag list :)

#missed all the drama about the 15x20 script bc i was writing this last night #finale who?#dean and cas are alive and thriving #destiel fic #cw anxiety #expectingtofly writes #fluff

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nightingaelic · 3 years

Note

FNV Companions react to being re-united with the Courier after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam (NCR Best Ending)

TW: Blood, gore

As the screams of men, metal and guns petered out, movement on the Hoover Dam slowed. The sun was low, red as the ground beneath it, and the heat rising from the concrete and hundreds of gun barrels gave the area a faint shimmer. Most of the Legion lay dead or dying, their last gasps covered by the sounds of NCR soldiers calling to each other, looking for friends or officers or just reassurance that what had happened was true.

Victory.

Arcade Gannon: Though plenty of the NCR heavy troopers were popping off their helmets as the battle came to a close, Arcade kept his on out of fear someone would recognize him. The Brotherhood of Steel attendees appeared to be of the same mind, so he did his best to linger between the two groups and hoped both would assume he had arrived with the other.

Someone slapped the side of his metal-encased arm, and he looked down to find the courier beaming up at him, gasping like they had just run a marathon. "Hey, Six," Arcade said, surprised. "I thought General Oliver would've packed you on a flight to Shady Sands by now."

"Not yet. How're you holding up in there?" the courier asked breathlessly. "Looks like it'd be an oven under the sun."

"Oh, it is," Arcade assured them. "But it also stopped a few bullets and a machete or two, so no complaints here."

The courier bent over and put their hands on their knees. "I saw Daisy... saw her chopper off with the others after the fighting stopped. Oliver's confused as all hell, he doesn't know who they are, where they came from or where they went, but he's got bigger problems to deal with right now than chasing them down."

They looked up with a grin. "Thanks. Tell them all I said hi."

Arcade laughed. "Will do. And thank you."

"For what, dragging you and your only surviving family into this?"

"Well, yeah." Arcade looked down sheepishly. "Fortune favors the bold."

The courier nodded. "Fortis fortuna adiuvat."

"You remembered?"

"Of course I did." They gestured at the broken and scattered weapons and men of Caesar's Legion that lay around them. "After today, we're running low on people who know how to speak Latin."

Craig Boone: Though the other NCR snipers around him packed up their gear and headed toward the dam, Boone stayed put with his rifle until the courier made their way up the rocks to his position. They waved when they spotted him, and he put up a hand of greeting as well.

"And it's over," they said, plopping down to take a seat next to him and dangle their legs over the drop-off.

"Yep."

"Was that you who got that shot in and made Lanius drop his sword?"

Boone smiled. "Mm-hmm."

They smiled back. "Thanks."

The two of them sat together in silence, watching the activity below. Boone's smile grew and grew, wider than it had in years.

"Do you want to go down and join in?" the courier asked, when a group of NCR soldiers started putting broken defenses and wooden Legion weapons into a pile to burn.

Boone straightened his sunglasses and looked toward the horizon. "Yeah. I do."

Lily Bowen: "Pumpkin!" Lily bellowed when she spotted the courier across the dam, leaning on the concrete barrier next to the edge. She pushed her way past several surprised NCR troops, who yelped and jumped out of her path. "Pumpkin, are you alright?"

"Lily." The courier was pale, nursing a jagged wound on their arm. "I'm okay, Lily. I just need..."

Lily barred anyone else from approaching them as they rooted around in their pack. Finally, they extracted a stimpak and jabbed it into their arm, hissing as the medicine found its way into their bloodstream.

Lily inspected the cut carefully. Aside from its ragged appearance and the blood surrounding it, the wound was clean. The stimpak was working its magic, and the redness seeping out was already slowing. "Is that better, dearie?" she asked.

"Much." The courier sighed and leaned back against the concrete. "Legate Lanius had a sword. Not as... as big as yours, but big enough to slice me up when I got too close."

"You rest, pumpkin." Lily sat down on the barrier next to them, careful to hold her hat on in the breeze. "The fight is over now. Leo is quiet again."

"Mmmm-hm." The courier nodded sagely, before turning to face the steep drop below to the bottom of the dam. "We did it."

"How do you feel?"

The courier opened their mouth to answer, but instead threw up over the barrier and into the crevasse below. Lily carefully patted them on the back and produced a box of gum drops from her overalls pocket. "Here. For your breath, dearie."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "Courier!" Raul pushed his sombrero back with the tip of his revolver, scanning the battlefield atop the dam. "Six, dónde estás?"

An injured NCR soldier looked up from the curb he was sitting on. "What's a ghoul doing here? He's not with us, is he?"

"Chinga tu madre," Raul swore, pausing his search. "You see the courier anywhere around here?"

"Raul!"

He turned back to the devastated landscape and there they were, jogging through the mess of bodies, shell casings and busted concrete. Raul laughed and spread his arms in relief, in welcome. The courier dropped their gun and threw themselves into his embrace, ignoring the blood and dust that covered his costume. Truthfully, they were just as covered in the battle's detritus as he was.

"I lost you so quickly," they breathed hard in his ear. "No wonder... no wonder they call you the ghost vaquero."

"Mij@." Raul embraced them tightly, then held them at arm's length to inspect them. "You had me worried. I thought I was the one who was going to have to track down twelve mariachi bands to play at your funeral."

The courier grinned. "Still want your medal?"

"Think the NCR'll give me one?"

They made a face at that. "If they wanna give me one, they'll have to give you one, too. Come on. I want to see the look on General Oliver's face when I tell him that you did just as much work here as me."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: A lone NCR trooper stood by the nearest flag pole, hoisting a scrap of fabric high above the scene. Cass could make out the two-headed bear emblazoned upon it, and something in her heart rose. She was still standing there, watching the red star whip in the breeze atop the dam, when the courier made their way over to her.

"Cap for your thoughts?" they asked.

For a moment, Cass tried to find the words for that feeling inside her. When she failed, she turned away from the flag. "Nah. Nothing you don't already know. What next, Six?"

The courier scratched their head and looked around. "Clean-up. Round up the Legion boys who are still kicking, grab everything that isn't nailed down before anyone else does, and pull this place back into some kinda shape."

"And then?"

"And then we drink." The courier pulled out their canteen and offered it to Cass. "But here's a little something for right now. Go on, keep it."

Cass drank deeply. Whiskey, just the way she liked it. "The NCR did good today."

Her traveling companion smiled. "We did good today."

"Mmm, not yet." Cass waved them off. "Don't lump me in with the bear before the work's all done. Ask me later, we'll see how I feel."

"Way I see it, if you had any actual qualms about this, you wouldn't have come," the courier replied with a chuckle. "But I'm damn glad you did."

They'd walked off toward the NCR top brass before Cass could answer, but she let the wind take the words anyway, small as they were. "Me too."

Veronica Santangelo: As soon as the courier was finished speaking to General Oliver, Veronica pulled them away and unearthed a handkerchief from inside her robes to wipe away the worst of the gore from their face. "Eugh. Is this... did somebody explode on you?"

"Hard to say." The courier pulled out their own bandanna and began wiping Veronica's face down in return. "How do you feel?"

Veronica laughed and accepted the help. "Honestly? I'm not sure what my parents would think of me fighting for the NCR, but for New Vegas it seemed like this was the best chance at stability. I don't regret it, if that's what you're asking."

The courier gestured at the Brotherhood of Steel Knights and Paladins that were milling about next to and among the NCR soldiers. "Your family doesn't seem to regret it either."

"Yeah." Veronica brightened somewhat. "They actually came. That ought to show both the Elders and the NCR that this, this is possible."

She watched her brothers and sisters from afar, making awkward introductions and conversation with the defenders of the dam and even comparing power armor pieces with the NCR heavy troopers. She smiled faintly.

The courier followed her gaze. "Did you want to join them?"

"No." Veronica looked down at her power glove, flexing the joints as if lost in thought. "No, that's okay."

ED-E: The courier found ED-E stuck beneath a collapsed barricade, where it had been knocked during the fighting by a lucky Legion swipe. They pulled the eyebot out and dusted it off. "You okay, buddy?"

ED-E beeped its reassurance and pulled itself from the courier's grasp, shaking in midair to dislodge any remaining debris. It did one final loop-de-loop to lose a large splinter before blasting its triumphant music at top volume.

Surprised, the courier laughed. "That's right. We did it. We won."

Rex: The chaos around Rex began to fade into the background, overwhelmed by the scent that clung to the courier at his side. A rush of endorphins, dopamine, a whiff of serotonin- Rex didn't know the words, but he knew what they meant when mixed together in that way. Relief. Happy relief.

The cyberdog yawned, signaling his own stress, and looked up at the courier. They noticed his movement and dropped down to his level immediately, running their hands through the ruff of fur around his neck and inspecting his mechanical parts carefully. "Good dog. Good boy. We did good today, you and me."

Under their touch, Rex relaxed. He opened his mouth to pant. It had been a long, hot day.

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