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ultimatetornshipper · 3 years

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To bee or not to bee - a Jasonette fic

@moonlitceleste I almost let this die, I honestly really wanted it dead but alas it was clearly meant to bee

(WARNING: contains puns, angst, crack and fluff. You have been warned)

If you don’t want to read my sarcastic/funny/fangirl commentary, skip the brackets

I have another bee movie au, i didn't plan it ("I don't claim to be proud. But my head won't be hung in shame. I didn't plan it. But the light turned red, and I ran it. And I'm still standing. It's not what I wanted, but now that it's right here. I understand it. A story written by my own hand" as quoted from Waitress), it just happened and i just couldn't resist. I'm not sorry

So what if instead of dying Joker turned Jason into a bee. Because Harley convinced him and told him that people were talking shit about him because he's named the Joker and they don't think he's funny. It surprisingly works. (Obviously Harley was the one who made the plan and did the magic I mean really what do u expect of Joker?)

Ok so now Jason’s a bee right? And he’s like 15 because .~:°*plot*°:~.

They look for him and Jason’s like flying around like, “Guys! Guys I’m right here!” Poor kid. (I mean I would make it funny but like angst)

Obviously they don’t understand him because he’s a fucking bee and Joker cackles madly and Harley laughs too but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes and it's kinda that laugh u do when ur supes overwhelmed and sound maniacal but like soft (I’m a simp for Harley being portrayed as the complex and beautiful character she id leave me be)

Jason is very sad. And also quite pissed

Not knowing what else to do he follows Batman home, he listens to them trying to find him, watches Dick freak out and Alfred wipe a tear the rest of the family doesn’t see.

Jason tries to approach Alfred, hoping he somehow recognizes what happened

He doesn’t, Alfred closes him in a glass and paper and takes him outside.

He sneaks back into the manor and sleeps in one of the flowers (it's a red tulip because aesthetic) next to his bed. He cries himself to sleep. (Can bees cry? Is this possible? Is this like a thing??? I don't need sleep i need answers)

The thing is even tho he's now a bee, he still has the durability of a human, so even stepping on him won’t crush him and he still has a human lifespan

Because Harley isn’t a monster and what Puddin didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. (Simping for Harley Quinn strike 2)

After a while at the manor and following them he decides he can’t stand it anymore. Alfred has thrown him out three times and Dick freaks out each time he sees him as he’s a tad allergic (read: he would die if stung)

Which is how Jason found out that getting hit with a newspaper wouldn’t kill him.

He leaves.

He’s a bee and it’s not like he knows about a way to reverse it.

But there was someone who might.

He goes to Arkham.

Luckily, Harley was still there. (YAY we get to see mah gurl)

He flies into her cell and she just watches him, then she seems to click. She gives him a small smile, “Hi birdie,” (she puns, honestly would make for a better clown of Gotham and I saw an idea for that once where she steals Joker’s title once and I’ve been yearning for it ever since)

She holds out a finger and he lands on it, she laughs but tears come to her eyes,” Hey at least you’re not dead. That was his original plan you know? To kill you with a crowbar. I convinced him this would be a cruller fate. I guess maybe it is, but at least this way... Ugh how the hell did I get here,” (Harley angst, honestly it’s all just self service at this point)

He simply stared at her as she cried, and he felt his heart clench. From here she looked so sad... not crazy, just broken.

She took a deep breath and looked at him seriously, “Look kid, there’s a way to get you back to normal, you just need to find someone, they’re called the Guardian of the Miraculous. They can help, I don’t know who or where they are, just follow your instincts. And come say hi when you get back, yeah? I could do with the... healthier company. And remember, I bee-lieve in you,” (Gasp what a shock, you mean to tell me Miraculous magic is gonna be involved in this Maribat au. Well I never what a shock. Also puns. Oh and she’s so nice to him. We love Harley in this house)

He sat there and studied her for a while more, there was more to her than it seemed. Than what he’d assumed.

But for now, he had his own problems to deal with.

She gave him a small wave as he left. (Adorable)

He left and started considering his options, as a bee, it would probably be safest to stay inside, away from birds and things that would view him as a snack.

Staying in Arkham seemed like his best option, as bad an option as it was.

Most of the prisoners wouldn’t have a second thought about trying to crush him.

A strong scent of flowers and plants suddenly came to his attention.

Of course! Poison Ivy. (Round 2 of me simping for beautiful, complex, badass women. Too bad Catwoman ain’t here.)

He followed the smell to her cell and saw her staring out of her small window. He was still taking a chance, but she loved plants and flowers and bees were important to those, weren’t they?

He flew to the window bars and sat on one. The moment she spotted him she smiled widely, in a soft way he hadn’t seen on her before. (Ahhhhh my darling plant redhead. I love writing the Sirens as soft badasses. Also has anyone noticed how rare brunettes are in superhero worlds? Like both in Marvel and DC but like irl brown is like a pretty damn common)

She held out her finger, “Hey there, little guy. A little far from home, aren’t we?”

She had no idea.

He landed on her fingertip and watched in awe as a flower and a few leaves formed on her hand. She let the flower grow itself around one of her window bars and held her finger next to one of the petals.

“There you go, it’s all I can manage with my power dampers. I haven’t had company in a while,” she said softly as he crawled into the flower. He made himself comfortable.

She laughed to herself and he saw her shaking her head, “Talking to a bee, well, I guess stranger things have happened,” (yeah ur crush is dating a green haired murderous psychopath and you get beat up by a billionaire in a batsuit on like a biweekly basis)

The flower was soft and warm and felt safer than he expected it to. He found that he could move between the petals but decided to curl up in the middle. (It's a pink rose this time because fuck yeah flowers)

He slept better than he had in days.

The next morning he took his leave, stopping only at the manor to say a mental goodbye.

Then he headed off.

Jason flew a lot the first few months, our boy was smart at least, travelling with a cruise ship on its way to Europe.

It was Spring in the Northern Hemisphere so he had until Autumn until it was in his best interest to head south to avoid the snow. He decided to head towards Africa when summer started coming to an end. (I have no reasoning for this, just that I want to)

His first spot would be the United Kingdom. Then he'd go through the rest of Europe following his instincts.

At least it was Spring.

Jason diligently searched through England, Scotland and Ireland but found nothing.

By the time he was done he realized it was time to start heading South. He’d decided to take another cruise to South-Africa, where it would be summer, he searched through the country until April. He would admit that he didn’t feel drawn to anything in any of their 9 provinces so his search wasn’t as diligent as in England. He didn’t feel anymore drawn to the neighbouring countries like Namibia or Botswana either.

(Once again no reasoning for why I picked these countries, I mean the French Hugonotes went there when they were fleeing from the French Catholics who wanted them dead so I guess I could make up some bullshit about Mari having an ancestor in common with someone there or maybe it was just the ship he could easiest get access I don’t know, you make something up)

Which was why he decided to go back to Europe as soon as April hit.

He hitched another ride on a cruise headed for France.

It’s been a year since he got turned into a damn bee.

He was sixteen now and while he’d seen some amazing things all through South-Africa (a place that proves that humans really do have a weirdly obvious way of naming things I mean the Amazon river and Chad Lake are just more examples really) as well as the United Kingdom, all he really wanted was to go back home, to be human again.

When he gets there he diligently makes his way through France, eventually arriving in Paris.

He lands on the tip top of the Eiffel Tower. As in the point of the antenna because why not.

During his year he realized that birds and other animals tended to avoid him, sensing his strangeness so that was at least one positive.

He stared out over the city. Well, the one good thing about this was definitely the views he’s been allowed to see.

That was until a massive explosion hit.

“What the fuck?” he said out loud, searching for the source. No one understood him, human or bee, but talking to himself reminded him of his humanity.

He found the source of the explosion but just as he started flying to its general direction, a blinding white light shone followed by a horde of ladybugs that were fixing everything that was wrong. (Imagine how scary this would lowkey be irl tho? Just a shit ton of Ladybugs descending on Paris my dude)

He decided that he needed a night’s sleep before he could even begin an attempt at deciphering what had just happened. He flew lower, finding a nice little balcony right above a bakery. And it had flowers. (I’ll give u five seconds to guess who this balcony belongs to)

He flew down, exploring.

He turned around when he heard a loud thump from behind him. What appeared to be a super heroine in red spandex with black spots had landed on the balcony.

She detransformed and started to talking to a floating bug- fairy thing. Strange. Though it wasn’t like he could judge, as an ex superhero sidekick who was thought to be dead but was actually a bee.

She disappeared down her trapdoor and he made himself comfortable in one of her flowers.

He slept soundly until somewhere during a night another thump woke him. He looked out of his sleeping spot to see a cat superhero stand on her balcony. He leaned down and knocked on her small trapdoor.

Ah, a teammate of hers, they were probably meeting about something, he thought as he heard her open up.

It didn’t take him long to realize that even though they were teammates, the cat, Chat Noir he later learned, was not aware of this fact.

Oh this was rich.

He couldn’t bee-lieve his eyes. (ok so Jason used self-referential puns but can you really blame him? It’s really just me and my pun problem so don’t blame the kid)

He was going on and on about his feelings for Ladybug, the girl’s hero form, that were clashing with his feelings for another girl he fenced with, while she listened, clearly fed up with it.

He also claimed that he thought that maybe they were one and the same. Which, to Jason, was hilarious as he was literally saying this to the actual Ladybug’s face.

Marinette- he learned from the Cat’s ongoing blabbering, he was a real blab-bee mouth, - was clearly tired, nodding half asleep, probably having heard it all before.

When he finally left Jason went to sleep again, incredibly amused and even more thankful that he was fluent in French. ( u think this is plot convenience? Just u wait mah dude iz about to get worse)

The next morning he decided to follow her to school. Which was how he learned of her huge crush on a boy named Adrien Agreste.

After learning the boy could fence thanks to Marinette’s obsession interest in him, he got suspicious.

Could it really bee? (not a typo)

After seeing the boy transform a month or two later for patrol he laughed like he hadn’t for over a year. It very much was. He'd spent the time staying on Marinette's balcony and decided to stay another week before moving on and continuing his search, after all, he couldn't stop now that he finally felt like he was getting close.

The next day she got home crying, claiming that Adrien had started dating someone else.

Kagami, she called the girl. Probably the fencer if he had to place a bet.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” Tikki told the girl.

“That boy's an idiot,” he said, speaking his mind, another thing he’d gotten use to being allowed to do without consequence.

Marinette nearly jumped out of her skin, she looked around and he realized that she could hear him. He hadn’t really spoken too much before, at least not when she was around. He was usually content with watching her do whatever she was doing that day.

“Tikki, did you hear that?” she asked, Tikki nodded, her eyes landing on him.

“Oh,” the kwami said softly, flying over to him, “Oh, you poor thing, who did this to you?” (Tikki is the first ever mom friend and u can fight me on this)

He stared up at her, flying so that they were eye level.

Marinette gaped at them, heartbreak seemingly forgotten, “Tik- Tikki, are- who are you talking- are you talking to a – Tikki is that a bee?!” she finally spluttered out.

“No,” Tikki said, studying him, he felt his heart twist in hope and his stomach roll in surprise. Did she know?

“I mean yes, but no. He’s a boy whose been turned into a bee,” Tikki explained, turning back to Marinette.

“Oh,” Marinette said softly, turning to him. She held her hand out and after some hesitation he landed on her finger. She looked at him then back to Tikki.

How did they know? Would he really be that lucky? Was this real?

“Uhm, how?” she said, staring at him in disbelief. He tried shrugging but realized he couldn’t anymore- beecause of his- well if you haven’t caught on to the fact that he’s a bee by now you should really start from the beginning of this story.

“I don’t know, but Joker and Harley Quinn were involved,” he said.

Marinette stared at him in disbelief, blinking a few times. She sat in shock a few moments longer. (Our darling is an awkward lil bean, and while in media awkward is portrayed as cute, irl it isn’t, it’s just well… awkward. And we’re writing a serious and realistic fic about this sidekick of guy who wears a batsuit/billionaire's ward getting turned into a bee and falling in love with a magical girl fighting a butterfly man- none of this unrealistic nonsense)

Tikki flew over and sat on Marinette’s shoulder while her holder processed the information, the kwami stared at him sweetly, “What’s your name?”

He swallowed, he hadn’t said his name in ages, it stirred up something (emotion, it’s called emotion, Jason, you know? The thing Batman can’t process??) in him, “Jason Todd,”

Marinette seemed to finally snap out of her daze, “That sounds American. Are you American? Wait if Joker and Harley are involved then you’re probably from Gotham. Are you? Wait I’ve seen the name Jason Todd somewhere. Weren’t you some rich guy’s ward? It was all over the news last year, Alya wouldn’t stop talking about it for a month, she had a million theories. He was – you were announced dead two months after Robin was taken captive by Joker, everyone thought he was – you were killed. Joker made outrageous claims as they arrested him... saying that they’d never find Robin... that he’d all but disappeared in thin air... that he wouldn’t be the only one wearing stripes... I remember because he put a really weird emphasis on the words be and stripes and...,” her eyes widened and she gasped as she looked at him in what could only be described as pure shock. (Yes this happens, people can talk for this long and since I personally know headcannon that Marinette is ADHD this long ass paragraph is just another Tuesday bud)

He sat there, surprised that she figured it all out so quickly. (yeah bub it’s called plot convenience and it’s because of me, the writer, I don’t wanna focus on secret ID shenanigans, I got other plans for yall, also Mari is smart, don’t underestimate her)

“You’re Robin,” she breathed, “they turned you into a bee. Wait- How the hell did they turn you into a bee?!”

He chuckled, “Bee-lieve me I’ve been asking myself that question for more than a year,”

She bit her lip, seemingly contemplating his words and ignoring his pun, “Tikki do you know anything that could help? Do you think Miraculous magic-,”

He felt his heart stop, he flew up to her face, flying at eye level, “Wait, did you just say Miraculous? Harley said if I could find the Guardian of the miraculous, they could help me, do you know where they are? I’ve been looking for so long,” (‘°;~*.plot convenience.*~;°’)

Marinette blinked at him and Tikki's face dawned with realization.

“I’m the guardian of the miraculous,” Marinette said softly, “Tikki, that means I can help him, right?”

Tikki nodded and he had to dial down the hope in his heart because the look on her face told him there was a Kim Kardashian sized butt on the way.

“We can help him, but we’re gonna have to wait. (don’t look at me like that, do u want them to have time to bond or not?) You’re not trained enough to pull it off yet. If you were to do it now, all three of us would be out of commission for far too long, especially with Hawkmoth on the prowl,” Tikki said.

They must’ve been able to sense his sadness because they were staring at him with an incredible amount of pity. The amount was quite unsettling actually and he suddenly felt a primal like urge to pun. (An extract from my book: “My unhealthy coping mechanisms and how to use them,” specifically Chapter 8: “Humor hides the pain”)

Suddenly Tikki’s face lit up, the whiplash of her expression change throwing any notion of punning out the window.

“Well, there’s one thing we could do,” she said, excitedly, zipping buzzing around “If he wears a miraculous, he'll return back to human form while transformed,”

Marinette perked up at the idea, but confusion soon overtook her features, “But Tikki, most of the miraculous are bigger than he is,”

Tikki waved her away,” It’s fine it’ll work,”

“Ok,” Marinette said after a bit of thought. She stood and he followed while she started climbing down her skylight,” I’m thinking you can try each of them out for different patrols and then we’ll see which one matches you best. This could be fun, having some fun sized company while figuring out how to defeat Hawkmoth,”

He laughed, flying near her ear, “Fun sized, huh? I’ll have you know I’m considered tall in human form, unlike some of us,”

She laughed and rolled her still tear stained eyes, and so, the beginning of a bee-autiful friendship bloomed.

Marinette walked to her closet and Jason took in her room. It was very pink, but in a well-balanced way - it wasn’t completely overbearing. His eye caught on a few pictures of Adrien Agreste on her wall but figured now wouldn’t be a great time to bring it up. (Look he’s already more emotionally aware, #foreshadowing of character development)

She removed a big box from her closet. She opened it and it was filled with what appeared to be a bunch of scrap materials. At the bottom she removed a bigger bundle of black and red fabric and he flew closer.

She put it in her lap and Jason had to do a double take when he realized that her hands were glowing and what the actual fuck- it was a box now -fuck fuck fuck- why was it a box? How? What- Jason was pretty sure he did not sign up for this.

She put the box down in front of her and to his relief she opened her mouth to speak as she lifted the lid, so he’d understand everyth- and its jewellery.

The box contained jewellery. Animal themed jewellery by the looks of things.

He then realized that these were probably the other miraculous.

She looked over each artefact before handing him the yellow and black hairclip.

Out of all of them, she picked the bee miraculous.

“Hilarious,” he replied dryly, giving her a look, he realized too late she wouldn’t be able to register- on account of, well you know… (if u don’t know by now, you don’t get to find out anymore)

She gave him a grin and replied, “I certainly think it is,”

Her teasing expression turned into one of worry, “I mean we could switch it out if it makes you uncomfortable-,” (being a sassy people pleaser with no filters really do be like this tho)

He laughed, “Don’t worry, I’m only teasing. What do I do?”

Marinette opened her mouth to answer before obviously realizing that she didn’t have an answer. She turned to Tikki and the kwami had a fond smile on her face before turning to Jason. (Just Tikki casually mentor- moming Mari because Fu is useless)

“Just step on the miraculous, it’ll sense that you’re human,” the creature replied.

When he stepped onto the bee miraculous, its kwami appeared.

Pollen stared at him for a few seconds before she realized what was happening.

After an explanation about her power set and what exactly he could do in suit, he transformed.

He felt his human body appearing. He was taller and more built than he remembered being. His flying clearly had physical consequences then, not that he was complaining.

His suit included a pair of bee wings. His hair was longer than he remembered it being too.

He had a black leather jacket and combat boots. With it was a pair of practical black leggings and a yellow t-shirt with three thick black stripes. (The three stripes represent each one of his families, the Todds, the Waynes and The Dupain-Chengs, because I can) He also had a pair of black gloves. His boots had yellow laces. On his face was a black and yellow striped domino mask. The top sat on his hip. The bee miraculous sat on the middle of his chest in the form of a broach.

He all but sprinted to the mirror. He stared at his face, his blue eyes and his nose that never healed quite right after breaking it that one time. His black hair was messy and stuck up every which way, his cheekbones were as high as always, and he had a little bit of stubble and it was so familiar and so new all at once.

He touched his face, barely registering the tears flowing down his cheeks and laughed in relief. He was human again. This was real! He could- he was closer to normal than he ever thought he’d get to be.

He turned to Marinette who was staring up at him in shock. He picked her up and spun her around, laughing in joy. And after a moment she joined in. He put her down and put his hands on her shoulders, smiling widely, “Thank you. Thank you so much,”

She smiled up at him, a slightly sad look on her face, “I’m sorry, it’s not permanent,”

“Don’t be sorry. For the first time I have hope. It will be permanent eventually, and till then, I have you with me, right?” he squeezed her shoulder, still high on the feeling of hope and warmth and familiarity.

When he was overcome with the sudden urge to pull her into a hug, he didn’t resist.

He held her close, resting his chin on her head, “Damn, I missed this. Hugging, I mean. I haven’t... it’s been so long,” (not that he got all that many hugs from Bruce “emotionally constipated” Wayne)

She wrapped her arms around him, “I can imagine,”

They stood there a while before the time for patrol came along. She transformed and they made their way to the Eiffel tower, where they met Chat.

The cat themed hero rose his brow questioningly, “I thought we didn’t recruit new heroes unless it was an emergency?”

Ladybug smiled nonchalantly, “It’s Guardian business, he’s gonna be a permanent fixture in our team for at least a few months so we might as well get used to working as a team,”

Chat Noir eyed him wearily and he stepped forward, sticking his hand out, “Hi, I’m Blackback, nice to meet you,”

Chat Noir shook his hand and gave Ladybug a sceptical look, “An American? Really?”

“Please Chat, he's not American, it’s just the glamour hiding his actual accent,” she replied simply, shooting Jason a worried look.

He couldn’t give away his identity, but he was also technically a bee, he didn’t really have an identity to give away. So, her behaviour was strange. Unless she wanted to give him an identity somehow?

He couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of patrol.

When they got home Marinette revealed that she wanted to give him the fox miraculous. If they asked Trixx she would be able to design the costume in a way that allowed him to look like a normal civilian, without the mask.

Trixx's glamour was also stronger than the rest so his true identity as Jason Todd would be protected.

And she could help him fake an accent.

Since Marinette was a year younger than him he could just pick up where he left off school wise.

She convinced her parents that he was an exchange student in desperate need of a place to stay because the person he would’ve stayed with backed out last minute.

They agreed easily and Jason decided to not question it.

It was his third family. His second if you only counted non abusive ones. First if you wanted one with a healthy family dynamic.

They got him a fake birth certificate and name. He went with the alias Thomas Grayson. He thought it was kind of funny, and it paid homage to both Bruce and Dick. It gave him something from home to hold on to. (Jason isn’t really salty about not being avenged in this au, he didn’t die and Talia and the pit madness wasn’t there to egg on his anger. But maybe if I ever get back to this au we could do a thing with it… guess we’ll have to wait and see ;-) no promises tho)

He built himself another home with Marinette and her family. And before he knew it, he was happy again. He felt secure.

Through the weeks, he ingrained himself into Marinette's life. In a blink of an eye, they were best friends, and he couldn’t imagine life without her.

He loved living with her family as she trained to be strong enough to turn him back to normal.

He grew close to Marinette’s friends and was her shoulder to cry on about Adrien. He and Adrien got along pretty well, and he and Marc and Rose traded Literature jokes. Max would join in when it involved Shakespeare.

Then Lila happened. (She’s a staple in Maribat fiction. U can’t have Maribat without Lila. Or well u can but that’s usually a very specific au)

Her lies started out simple enough. Then she started manipulating everyone and he, Marinette, Chloe and Adrien were one scheme away from being ostracized. They sat in the back row.

They ignored her sneers and let her lie to her heart’s content. Then one day she said something that made both Marinette and Jason freeze.

“You know, I was childhood friends with Jason Todd (I know she usually gets the names wrong but like her knowing the name just makes this next bit better) You know, Bruce Wayne’s ward who died a while ago? It was just so sad. He grew up in a nice family but his parents both died in a car accident and Brucie took pity on him. He even let us keep in contact afterwards, since our parents were such good friends. We all miss them dearly of course. We were neighbours the year we lived in Gotham, you know? We'd play every day-,” she started fake crying, “Oh it just gets too much sometimes,”

But to Jason’s shock Alya didn’t move to console Lila, in fact, she was staring at the brunette in shock.

He turned his gaze to Marinette to see the girl wearing the biggest, coldest, most satisfied smirk. She rested her chin on her hands and grinned at Lila in a way that made shivers go down his spine.

He turned back, this ought to be good.

And it was.

Alya absolutely lost it.

She ripped Lila a new one and frankly? Jason was impressed. (Alya has a temper and she’s a fangirl, and we all know how we get when someone gets something wrong about one of our hyperfixations, even if it’s an old one so like yall can imagine how bad Lila had fucked up)

When an akuma flew in towards Lila, Alya grabbed it, staring the girl down with a fury he didn’t know she could possess, “Don’t you dare! Do you think I’m blind? I’ve seen how easily you get akumatized and this time I’m not letting it happen!”

Of course, Alya then got akumatized but hey it beat another version of Lila.

Everyone made up but they weren’t quite as close as before. Their group tended to consist mostly out of him, Marinette, Chloe, Adrien, Kagami and Luka.

Other than that incident and akuma attacks, life was pretty good.

In fact, it was great.

He and Marinette would spend nights on her balcony, laughing and slow dancing. They star gazed and went on patrols. He helped her when she got nightmares and she returned the favour. They went on long walks and spent the holidays together. They crammed for tests and he played model for her designs. They worked in the bakery and hung out with their friends both in and out of suit. They’d joke about his technical bee-ness and he and Chat drove her mad with puns. In retaliation she’d introduce him as her bee friend to people or only give him honey and bee themed things. (ok this sentence sounds weird but I mean like when she brings them sweets from the bakery to snack on while working and stuff.)

And one laugh, memory and fight at a time, he started to fall. (I just want good things for Jason, and really can you blame me?)

Through the months, he kept up to date on the news about Bruce Wayne and Marinette held his hand each time a new kid joined his brood. She reminded him that no child could be replaced and reassured him that of course Bruce would want him back when they figured everything out.

And if he didn’t, she’d kick his ass into space, and he’d stay with her family in Paris- a family she made sure he knew he was a part of.

He helped Sabine in the kitchen and was the only one who came closest to beating Marinette’s Ultimate Mega Strike 3 record. Tom taught him to shave and bake. He was integrated into their family and they treated him as part of the family.

But even if they were giving him everything they were, he missed Bruce. And Dick. And Alfred. And Barbara. And Gotham. He missed them all so much. He missed home.

So, 14 months later, when Marinette told him they had a meeting with the Justice League about the Hawkmoth situation, Jason felt his heart skip a beat.

“What?” he asked softly, his eyes brimming with tears (Marinette taught him how to emotion, you see. So Jason is emotionally stable-ish enough to cry without feeling embarrassed about it), “I get to see him again?”

Marinette nodded and hugged him from behind, “I’m planning on telling him what happened. Is there anything you can tell him to verify who you are?”

Memories from a million years ago entered his mind, “Yes,”

She took his hand and took a step back, “And I think I can fix you before we go, I’m strong enough. But I’d still like your help in the final battle, I mean I know you’re going home but...,”

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled, “Of course, Pixie. I’ll always be there for you when you need me,”

He pressed a kiss against her forehead, a movement so familiar it was practically a part of him. He pulled her close and cried into her hair.

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” he asked softly, after a while, resting his chin on top of her head.

“He will,” she replied, tightening her grip around his waist.

They both knew she had no guarantee of that. That she had no way of knowing for sure. Neither of them did. And it scared him more than he wanted to admit.

The next day they do the magic turning back thing. It freaks him out quite a bit but not as much as her revealing the miraculous freaked him out the first time, you get kinda used to the magic shenaniganary. They’re both passed out for an hour afterwards and when they wake up, he holds her, crying, because he was finally, finally back to normal and this was real and permanent, and it was over.

She cried with him and held him, and they then went out and he wore a shirt she made for him, and they got ice cream the next day. They celebrated some more and went to the park with the squad and they had a picnic.

It was better than he ever could've imagined.

While the sun was setting, they stood back on her balcony, where they first spoke all those months ago, slow dancing. He pulled away and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at her as the orange light of the sunset shone on them. (So aesthetic)

“Thank you, Marinette, for everything,” he says as he rubs his thumb across her cheek. His hand holding her face. She puts her hand over his and closes her eyes, savouring the moment.

She opened her eyes again and smiled, “I’d do it again and more, if it meant I’d get to be with you,”

He started leaning down, “If I lost you, I’d fly all over the world just to find you again,”

She raised to her tip toes, faces millimetres from one another, blue bells meeting ice, “So it was all worth it in the end?”

He moves closer, eyes searching hers. “Definitely,” he breathes.

She closes the distance, and he picks her up and spins her around. They break apart and their laughter fills the air.

(now that’s enough fluff, allow me to drown you in angst)

The next day they stood on the Eiffel tower. She took his hand, “Let’s recap. I go in, we have our Hawkmoth meeting, then I ask if I can speak to Batman and Nightwing alone. Then I tell them I found you, then I give them – are you sure it’s necessary for me to give them your blood, hair and a cheek swab? Isn’t that overkill?” (Batman is serious about his no kill rule, but he’s also serious about his there’s no such thing as overkill rule)

He shook his head and she sighed, “Okay. Then I give him means to contact me and I come back. Now remember they might take a while to process and they won’t necessarily call immediately-,”

“What if they never call?” he asked, gripping her hand tightly.

She ran her finger softly through his hair, “Then you have us to help you get through it,”

He nodded, she kissed his cheek and stepped through the portal with Queen Bee, Chat Noir and Viperion. He and Ryuuko stayed behind as backup, he wielded the Fox miraculous these days, but kept the name Blackback, always wearing a black leather jacket no matter the transformation.

He and Ryuko discussed fighting styles, she was kindly trying to distract him, and if it had been anything else he needed distracting from, it would’ve worked.

So passed the slowest forty-five minutes of his life. Chat Noir and Queen Bee exit a portal and so the wait for Marinette and Luka began.

She and Bruce were talking now. Bruce would know he was alive. This was make or break for him. Luka was nearby to act as back up worst-case scenario.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, followed by someone taking and rubbing circles on his back. He looked down to see Ryuuko on his one side and saw Chat Noir on his other.

“We’ve got you,” Chloe said standing in front of him, hand on his unoccupied shoulder.

He swallowed and nodded. She squeezed his upper arm and met his gaze, “Breathe, you’re safe, honey,”

So, 30 more minutes pass. They sit down and somewhere along the line Chat goes and grabs a dozen croissants from the bakery.

In another situation he might’ve laughed. He’d baked this morning’s batch and now he got to eat some of it for free, of course, technically he could get others for free too but-

The portal opened behind them and Ladybug and Viperion stepped out. He noted that she didn’t have the bag of his DNA with her anymore.

She smiled softly at him, “Now we wait,”

And wait they did.

They waited two weeks.

And then the burner phone that's number they'd given Bruce rang.

Jason froze, Marinette jumped up and ran to get it.

He couldn't move as she walked over and put the phone on speaker, she grabbed his hand and he held onto her for dear life.

"We can both hear you now, Nightwing," she said.

There was a beat of silence on the other side of the line, "Can he- If you're- can I speak to him? In- um- private?"

Marinette looked at him, and he nodded. She took the phone off speaker and handed it to him.

He held it up to his ear and squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the circles Marinette were drawing on his hand with her thumb.

"He- hey Dick," he said. He heard his brother's breathing hitch, followed by a few seconds of silence.

"When did Batman find you?"

"25th May 2017,"

"Who's your favourite author?"

"Mary Shelley tied with Jane Austin,” he replied.

Dick stayed silent for too long and before he could stop himself the words fell from his mouth, desperation clinging to each syllable,” My favourite- my favourite playwright is Shakespeare, and my favourite school subject is English. If I could pick any day job it would be being a writer. My favourite colour is blue. Alfred has a secret fear of dolphins. You have had a ridiculously huge crush on Barbara for years and she had no idea, and I found a picture you drew under your old room's bedside table of you two getting married. I folded the picture up and hid it in a small box of memories I kept in the farthest corner of my closet under clothes I never wore. I have a round scar on the lower left side of my back where Willis Todd burned me with a cigarette when I was 5 that you don’t know I know you know about. My first Christmas at the manor you found me in the rose garden cutting a few off to take to my mother's grave and I was terrified that you would yell at me but instead you drove me to the graveyard and that was the day I decided to give you a real chance. I despise carrots but I eat them when Alfred makes them because I don't want to be a burden. And I-," he choked on a sob- when had he started crying?

He took a shuddering breath, and swallowed some of his tears, trying to make sure the words got out right, "I've missed you guys for every single second that I've been gone,"

His stomach tied itself up in a million knots as the silence stretched on. He could hear Dick moving the phone.

"Can I speak to Ladybug again please?" A female voice he didn't recognize said.

He handed the phone to Marinette and pressed his hand over his mouth to try to contain the sobs. He felt like a knife was twisting his stomach. He couldn't even hear what Marinette was saying. (I’m going through something irl and as a result u guys get to read angst by the bucketloads and I regret nothing)

Dick didn't want to talk to him. He should've just answered the question, he shouldn't have given all the extra information. Now they were never going to believe that it's really him and he would never see them again. Maybe they knew it was him and they just didn't want him-

"Jason, breathe with me," he heard Marinette's voice. His eyes latched onto hers like a lifeline, he became aware of her hands holding his.

She took his face in her hands and rested her forehead against his, in a motion so familiar that it came as easy as breathing. Well as easy as it usually was to breathe, right now excluded.

After he calmed down, she explained to him what they discussed. They would go to Gotham and meet and discuss things from there.

They wanted to meet him, but they still didn’t completely believe that it was him. He knew this for a fact because they had organized for M’gann to be there to confirm what he was saying. (Yassss M'gann my darling girl, I adore out lil Martian)

Marinette had suggested that they meet in the Batcave in an hour. Everyone had agreed. He assumed she had a plan as to why she wanted to wait. And he trusted her, so he waited for her to explain.

“I want to take the team, as backup. If you’re not comfortable with it, I want to at least take Luka. I would suggest just letting one of us wield is miraculous, but his Second Chance Timer limit is an hour so it would be most beneficial,” she said, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding his.

He nodded, sitting up straighter, but not releasing his grip on her hand, “We can bring the team, it’s smart to have backup. Besides if things go haywire, we have Luka to stop us.”

“Then let’s go get our team, love,”

(oh, I should probably mention that only he and LB knows everyone’s Identities. Or well rather no one knows like officially. Like everyone lowkey knows everyone's and a few of them have officially revealed themselves to each other, but not everyone is officially revealed to everyone and Mari and Jason are the only ones who aren’t officially revealed to anyone else, it’s kinda like the vibes of knowing your best friend is queer but not saying anything because they haven’t officially come out yet but like you know because they ain’t nearly as subtle as they think. Like that aesthetic.)

Anyway, 50 minutes later, they’re all gathered on the Eiffel Tower. Jason saw Marinette give Luka a nod to reset his timer. Suddenly he was enveloped in a light with a scratch that wasn’t there a few seconds before on his cheek, his expression quite annoyed.

Marinette immediately furrowed her brows, “How many times?”

Viperion shook his head, “Don’t worry, only one so far, but they try to restrain us. We’re gonna have to try plan b this time,” Everyone nodded, they waited two minutes before the agreed upon time and Mari opened a portal, but instead of appearing out in the opened, they hid in the shadowy parts of the cave.

Jason used his illusion to hide them from any observant eyes and they spread out a bit. He and Mari stayed together, Cloe flew to get a higher perspective and hide Viperion on one of the cave’s many ledges while Chat just moved a few feet away to have a slightly different hiding spot. Kagami dropped into her wind form and was flying above them to eavesdrop, she’d go to Luka if she heard anything of importance so he could go restart again.

They’d be one step ahead of the Bats no matter what they pulled, after all, they had all the time in the world.

They watched them all get into position as time neared. Jason didn’t know all the kids but recognized them from the news.

Dick, Bruce and M’gann stood near the bat computer with Barbara – who was in a wheelchair but that was a realization to deal with later- and Alfred.

The minute they were supposed to appear Jason cast another illusion to make it appear as though they had arrived. As expected, weapons and restraints immediately swarmed on them, each kid going for a different miraculous member. Too bad the images turned into orange dust as soon as they touched them.

The tiny one in the Robin uniform was red in the face and immediately started throwing a tantrum, “Father! They’ve tricked us-,”

Before he could get another word out, Chloe mass-venomed the horde of kids that we’re sent to attack them. He counted Black bat, Red Robin, Batgirl, Signal and Robin. They were all frozen in the middle of the room and before the others near the computer could move, Kagami trapped them in a (rather large) ring of fire. They had enough space to move around comfortably but if they tried approaching the edge the flames would grow larger.

Batman growled and his eyes searched through the cave, but he wouldn’t see them, no matter how hard he searched.

Jason stared at them. Dick was also searching the cave, but he seemed to look more hopeful than angry. Alfred seemed his usual calm self and Barbara was glancing around the cave more subtly. He didn’t bother looking at the rest of the batkids because M’gann was staring right at him, staying right where she was despite her ability to fly.

“Hi, Jason,” she softly spoke into his mind, he felt emotion overwhelm him, she’d known him before everything, and she knew it was him and it was a lot.

He knew she wasn’t probing around his brain for information like he was sure Bruce had asked her to, she didn’t have to, she knew it was him.

“Can you please tell me why we’re surrounded by fire?” she asked.

“We have a time traveller,” he replied.

“Ah, not a fan of Bruce’s restrain and question method, then? Can’t say I blame you, though I do think you’ve proven your point,”

“You really think it’s a good idea to release all of them?” he asked sceptically.

“… Good point. Maybe leave the brood in the middle in whatever frozen state they’re in and just let us in the fire out. They really just think it’s too good to be true… Jason, I won’t let them hurt you,”

“Okay,” he agreed softly. He turned to Marinette and gave her a slight nod. She returned with one of her own.

They walked over to Kagami’s ring of fire and he held their illusion until they were right in front of it. He held on to it for a bit to make sure everyone else would be able to stay in position. Chloe would keep the cavalry venomized and Chat and Viperion would stick to the shadows, unless necessary.

Jason dropped the illusion and watched four heads snap to him. M'gann simply gave him a soft smile and a nod of encouragement.

Kagami moved herself to stand next to Marinette and turned back into her human form, glaring at them with a silent warning.

Their attention was elsewhere, though. For a long time they just stood there and stared at one another in silence. They studied every part of one another they could see.

His eyes caught on Barbara’s wheelchair and he felt ready to destroy whatever put her there. She met his eyes and he held her gaze. She must’ve seen something there because she gave a small smile as she allowed a few tears to escape her eyes.

“Miss Martian?” Batman broke the silence like a cheap dinner plate, shattering it in a matter of seconds.

“It’s him,” M’gann answered without a hint of hesitation.

It was Alfred that moved first. He took a few hesitant steps towards him and before Jason knew it the man was in front of him. Alfred reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, desperately studying him for a moment before pulling him into a hug only Alfred could give.

It took Jason a moment to respond but when he did he returned it wholeheartedly.

After a few minutes they pulled apart and it took him a moment to realize that they’d both started crying. When he looked up Dick was only a few feet away. The moment Alfred stepped away Dick pulled him close.

“I thought you were dead, kid. I thought I’d never see you again, I thought I lost even more family. You were too young, too innocent. Fuck Jason,” Dick whispered, tightening his grip, “I’m so glad you’re alive,”

Jason held on to his brother and that night they cried about terrible endings and broken beginnings. They cried about lost time and found family.

It wasn’t the end yet, Hawkmoth was still terrorizing Paris and he had no idea what Bruce thought yet. There were all his other kids, his brothers and sisters. There were his teammates and the incredible story of how he’d been turned into a bee of all things.

They had a lot of catching up to do.

But just for a moment, a strand of a singular moment, he had his brother in his arms again and he was back home. His first real home.

Things weren’t perfect, as things rarely are but it didn’t matter. Because part of the beauty of life is how it builds and breaks us in a cycle of love and loss.

And that night they laughed with a lightness and joy none of them had fully been able to hold onto in years.

I hope you guys enjoyed!

This is lowkey totally gonna be the au I go to when I don’t know what to write lol, maybe write a bit of what happens afterwards or a part of everything during the year he lived with Mari them or just y’know shenanigans

#maribat #jason todd #marinette dupain cheng #jasonette #bee movie au #aka the deep dark hole within the deep dark hole #I've been working on this for a month #probably more #my brain held me captive with this au it held me at gunpoint and stalked me and wouldn't leave me alone until i wrote it #me: casually attempting to write anything else #my brain: *slaps me with ideas for this* NO #and the worst part is there's more that's not written just bull my brain came up with #and i can't believe I put angsty life philosophy writing in a CRACK AU #THIS IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF A CRACK AU #WHY #I AM SO INVESTED AND I'M MAD ABOUT IT #i enjoyed writing this and that fact alone infuriates me #blame moonie for this #and u know what blame bugabunny too #(fuck i hope i got their name right)#if it hadn't been for the two of them discussing this again i would've forgotten all about it and i woulda been allowed to write #my kaldur x marinette fic in peace. or my lila time loop fic. OR LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE #anyway i tried to make his outfit red hood esque but like only the parts i liked about it #aka the leather jacket and the combat boots #I don't know how i feel about the fact that i wrote this but what's done is done #*sigh*#jason x marinette #why me #nightwing fluff #but also angst

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horseyfuture · 3 years

Text

Lockdown 2021

Welcome, you sickening metallic pervert. I don’t know why I even tolerate you, my dues to the club have long since been settled and yet still you show up with your corrugated spleen and your laminated nipples. What? Oh, it’s you. With your simple fleshy appendages and some kind of yellow blancmange for a CPU. I suppose you will suffice. Bend yourself over the table there and we’ll get on with the show. Liquid soap’s on the side, next to the antique bum-hammer.

---

Aries: You find yourself repeatedly followed by crows. This is in no way related to the quite normal phenomenon in which a murder of crows will adopt a human who feeds them, bringing them trinkets and even offering them protection from aggressors. No, these crows find you sexy. Leaping about in your lounge, wearing your goth tops and flapping your arms to the rhythms of online parties, the crows all agree that you are “SKRARK!” or, in Crow, “one fine piece of floppy human tail”. Well done! Crows have good taste and make excellent lovers.

Taurus: Every time you open that damn Taurus mouth of yours, you sound like a broken record. I mean, literally, you sound like a piece of badly scratched vinyl. That’s been up the wrong bit of a rhino. And is being played using a bent nail. Through the speakers of a brown ‘65 Ford Allegro. In Ipswitch. In the rain. On a Wednesday. In November. That’s a lot of detail to pack into an accent every time you decide to prattle on about crisps. People find it offputting.

Gemini: On a whim, you buy yourself a File-o-fax, you know, from the 80s. You must have seen one in a kitschy American TV show or something. While excessively bored on a Sunday afternoon, you begin to fill in some of the entries from your mobile phone. As soon as you finish writing the first one, Adam, he calls! What a crazy coincidence! You move onto the next, Beth - then SHE calls! That’s just insane! As you move onto the next name, you think “My god, what if I bought a MAGICAL File-o-fax? What adventures could I HAVE?” - You look down at the table in awe, when suddenly it all becomes clear: next to the Magic File-o-fax is the Magic Empty Bottle of Gin. Ah.

Cancer: Singing a song about beans, YEAH! Singing a song about toast! Singing a song about beans on toast, ‘cos that food you like the most, WOO! Singing a song about waffles? NO! Can’t be arsed making them! Beans on toast takes like two tiny minutes and waffles take about fucking ten! (FUCK THAT!) Singing a song into the beans can! While the beans turn in the microwave, ALRIGHT! Naming individual beans (YEAH!) pretend they’re all going to a beans rave! (WHISTLE POSSE!) Shovelling the beans into your mouth WOO! Toasting bread is for twats! (LO-SERS!) Pouring cold beans onto your face and half of them fall onto the cat! (SEND HELP!)

Leo: After a successful hour’s staring at the stippled ceiling, you reward yourself with a brisk walk to the door. After three proud steps, diligently recorded by your fitness band (which you’re fairly certain is now emitting a dull weeping sound), you jubilantly punch the air and have a nice relaxing pass out on the floor. After another few hours, you surf another boost of energy and nearly make it to the fridge. Sadly, though this goal is destined to elude you as you trip over a recently-delivered Amazon envelope. A handful of attempts in, you succeed at opening the envelope (only stopping twice to catch breath) and discover it to contain one flimsy plastic finger measurer and a £60 voucher for a wine subscription. You remember the partner you once had, in the distant before times, so vibrant and loud. In recognition of having had what you’re certain is “a feeling”, you fling the ring-measurer away, order the wine and settle into a nice, relaxing cry.

Virgo: There are a number of St Bernards around your neighbourhood and you’ve started to find them more than a little intimidating. What began as friendly barks as you passed in the street has developed into the odd growl and now barking as the owners pull their wretched beasts back from you, swearing in anguish as their hounds’ slavering jaws snap at your heels. After a few weeks of this, Monthly Bath Weekend inevitably comes round and the problem seems to just go away.

Libra: Some people have been baking recently. They - of course - are twats. Others have chosen to use this time to improve existing music skills, or even pick up a new instrument in their abundance of free time. Shit-eating scum, each and every one of them. You are not going to be affected by this self-improvement bullshit and have decided to strike out on your own, tangibly making yourself less pleasant, skilled and attractive with each passing day. Monday is fudge-eating class. Tuesday, “how long can I sit on the loo?” marathons (5 hours PB). Wednesday is Yelling ‘BASTARDS’ at the Sky Day, while Thursday (being the new Friday) you party on down with a life-size model of Prince made from your own toenails. Friday you slam your face into cupboards, repeating the word “APES” in a dull monotone. At the weekend, it’s time to rest! Phew! Just a few hours drilling holes in the ceiling, a slip, a tumble, a fall, a crunching sound and a view from the underside of a very poorly constructed step-ladder until it all goes beautifully dark.

Scorpio: Fuck this, you’re buying beach balls. Yep. Why not? You do, in fact, buy beach balls. Why didn’t you think of this before? They’re bright. They’re entertaining. They’re CHEAP. You can order them in large quantities, it turns out. “Ooh, I hope you’re not having a party!” says the delivery man, with a wink “HAHAHAH, NO. Actually I’m just INFLATING THEM AND POPPING THEM” you cackle toward his suddenly retreating face. It takes a while to inflate all 400, but the high you get from blowing them up is quite intense! Now you have a house full of beach balls! Haha! You can’t bring yourself to pop them in the end. Some of them are lost to accidents (fried beach ball, anyone?) and others you draw on with crude faces of past enemies, then open the door and punt them down the street with a hearty “FUCK YOU, BEATRICE!” (or Ken, as appropriate. You had few enemies. It’s cheap therapy). The last few hundred last you happily into the next month, though the doctor is mildly unimpressed when you attempt to get them vaccinated.

Sagittarius: Your attempts at making LEGO sex toys go badly to begin with. But, weirdly, you do eventually get better at it. You’re particularly proud of the one where you use the gearbox from the racing car for, well, you know. The winking pneumatic sex-donkey (8,014 bricks) is, in most people’s opinion, your pièce de résistance. You can’t wait for the highstreet to open up again, so you can go and show off your repertoire down the local toyshop.

Capricorn: It’s tough getting through lockdown without the internet. In your case, though, it is entirely self-inflicted. You made a promise to yourself to cut down on the doomscrolling and it was successful! Prodigiously so! You end up cutting out the news sites - who needs them? - then the social sites - nothing but trash! - then eventually you just pull the wires out of your router and fling it in the bin with some bits of leftover chicken. Time passes, politicians come and go, vaccines are invented, distributed, mostly successful (with only a small amount of people instantly turning into tiny, angry lizards) and eventually the world passes through the danger period and back into something like normality! You, of course, miss this entirely and get on with your new hobby of writing subversive poetry on the walls in dollops of mouldy Marmite. Weirdly, you ARE happier.

Aquarius: Lockdown doesn’t seem to be getting to you too badly this month (whichever month it turns out to be). You did get to a bit of a peak when you were popping a Toblerone up your bum while playing kazoos just to get yourself ready for the next bloody Zoom meeting of the day, you now you’re limiting it to one bar per day and only using the two kazoos, you feel like you’ve hit your stride, found your flow, really made the most of every work-from-home hour the Lord sends. Ah, yes, the Lord truly has kept you to the virtuous path. Without your faith, you would never have got through the dark days. Sat there on his throne of Bourbons, wearing his Chocolate Finger crown. Slowly rotating on the lazy Susan you bought so you could efficiently respect His Majesty from any angle with a deft flick of the wrist (and a few Bourbons in the eyes if you get too excited). The mighty Lord. You assume his name was Lord. There were only a few letters you could read on the collar when you found him by the bins. Ah, yes. The bins. The biscuits. The Lord. The rapture. Amen.

Pisces: After popping to the door to bring in a food delivery, you notice the day looks quite pleasant for a change, pop a mask on and go for a nice walk. On the way back, you notice a ladder leant up against a tree, with a strange golden light shimmering from high in the branches. Climbing the ladder, you hear the sound of a party, people calling your name in joy, whistles and whoops, clapping and laughter. You tumble into the golden light and down a kind of shoot as a fanfare plays. The dazzling light fades, the noise abates gently and you are sat on your sofa. On the TV are the words “LEVEL 4: YODELLING GEESE”. The geese filling your living room immediately begin to yodel with anger.

---

By the sainted elbows of Bobby Tavistocke, we got there in the end. I may have been a little over-brutal with my use of the bum-hammer there, for which I apologise. Anyway, you have extracted your price once more and I have little left to give. Pick up your clothes and get out of my living room.

As usual, you may of course take a fairy cake. We’ve got the nice ones this week.

DEPART!

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segenassefa · 4 years

Text

2: On Consumerism, Fighting Demons, and Societies Inevitable Collapse

Quarantine has been lowkey surreal. My constant complaint of never having enough time to do all the things I want/should be doing has now left me bored in the house, bored in the house, bored with nothing but time to get said things done. However, it is a dual edged sword - with the collapse and subsequent reformation of civil society outside my doors, it leaves me wondering – as well as a lot of other people – in the words of Miss Juicy…what the hell we gone do now?

Nearing the end of the first leg of my university career, I should be thinking about getting ready to transition to the next logical stages of adulthood - saving for an apartment, applying for permanent residency, as well as graduate schools and part time jobs. Yet, I’m worried about if these things will even be a possibility within the next month, six months, or even the next year.

On top of ALL of that, the recent BLM protests and the way that people (read: white people, Latinxs, Black men, homo/transphobes, etc.) have shown their asses the past few months is beyond mortifying - especially regarding the treatment of black women and how our value as individuals as well as a collective to society is really perceived.* This is not to downplay the murder of numerous black men in society, BUT who the fuck is riding for black women aside from other black women? And not just the ones who find attractive, or are racially ambiguous, or the ones you feel as if you get “guilted” into supporting and demanding justice for, I mean each and every black woman. I’m just saying, it gets pretty disheartening to feel like the legwork of the revolution is on the back of one category of people, and that your value to society is measured by the amount of emotional labour you’re ready to do for others, or how fat your ass is (but I digress…).

I feel like most people have used material things as coping mechanisms instead of actually facing their feelings and dealing with the things that bother them. Just think of the number of packages that have arrived on your doorstep the past few months. Breaking the glossy seal of packing tape is similar to therapy, until all the boxes are open, and you start feeling like shit again. And now, more than ever, there’s a lot to be bothered about. Western society has dedicated phrases based on the phenomenon of substituting true self-work with figurative emotional bandages (Phrases like comfort eating and retail therapy come to mind).

It’s nice to think that we – the people entering their adolescent and young adult years – will be the one to change these things, but suddenly it’s 2 am, you have twenty different things in your Amazon cart, (who the fuck needs a metal straw cleaning kit?) and you’re trying to see how far you can stretch and grab your debit card before falling off of the bed.

The conflicting messages pushed by society don’t help all that much either. If you look up “Kondo method” or “decluttering my closet” on YouTube, the numbers of videos that come up is astounding. Pages and pages of sweaty-faced, smiling YouTubers monetizing from this kind of faux “minimalism” only to post haul videos a few days later because “I threw everything out and now I have to rebuild from scratch sksksk!”. Does this not just perpetuate a cycle of buying and throwing and buying? I am....confusion, to say the least. Still I watch them, because I’m a hypocrite, and am also easily amused.

I will be the first to admit I have always had a very unhealthy relationship with money, with self-image, and with measuring my self-worth in proximity with “stuff that stems from a complicated relationship with physical self. Follow along:

Growing up, I was a fat kid. We don’t even have to sugar coat it. Think Terrio, but better eyebrows and more hair. Except I was not killin’ em, just myself. I always envied my friends who were able to go shopping at regular stores – read: Hollister, Abercrombie, Urban Outfitters (yes my friends were white), meanwhile I was condemned to shopping in the women’s department.

So, to compensate, I would buy trinkets – things like nail polish, lip gloss, journals, you get the point. My proximity to worthiness was measured not by the things that I bought, but within the act of buying. Growing up with parents who were also financially frugal also altered my relationship with money and blessed me with crippling buyers’ remorse after every purchase, even on things that are important (read: groceries).

But as a kid, buying “stuff” was fun for me – it gave me some sort of purpose, and the acquisition of things (even if they weren’t the same things my peers had) made me feel like, to some extent, I could compete on the same playing field. As I got older, and I started to have real expenses, I moved towards second-hand shopping. I would religiously find myself at Goodwill on weekend, after school, or with friends. I could literally feel an endorphin rush when I would find something that I would consider a “good deal”, and it made me feel (again) purposeful, to be spending money, even if I didn’t need whatever I was buying.

I should also add that the people in my immediate family does not believe in thrift stores (“Why am I working for you to wear other people’s clothing?”, I remember my dad asking me one day), so the act of second-hand shopping was also my form of rebellion.

I began to amass a collection of clothing that would put Kylie’s closet to shame. I began buying things for events and situations that were yet to happen, for other people, for when I lose ten pounds. It was a madness.

In freshman year of university, I had an unhealthy relationship with clubbing clothes. Did I have the figure for clubbing clothes? Absolutely not. The funnier part is, I couldn’t even go clubbing because I wasn’t 19 at the time. And yet I had drawers and drawers full of the stuff. Not to mention that clubbing clothes is incredibly similar to summer clothing and living between Minnesota and Canada meant that these things were barely seeing the light of day.

The moral of this was – I could never figure out my relationship with stuff, This quarantine has forced me to try and break down the compulsion behind my behaviour. I felt like I was spiralling the six weeks that they closed thrift stores, and I knew myself well enough to not try and online shop with the same kind of frequency as that. But the crazy part was, I didn’t die. I didn’t go into withdrawal (ok, I did a little bit, but whatever), and I was able to take the time to go through the things I already owned and find some hidden gems that were routinely buried in the cracks and crevices of my closet. It was like the episode of Family Guy when Peter realizes he has a vestigial twin – alarming and cool at first, but then it’s just alarming and annoying.

Its more embarrassing to realize that some semblance of myself image is tied to the frequency with which I am able to spend money. I would never say that participating in capitalist society gives me some kind of purpose as a black woman because God forbid. Also, considering that a lot of big names companies are actually racist and fatphobic as hell creates a whole new dimension for analyzing the power of my black dollar, sometimes creating another spiral of guilt leading to you guessed it – more spending.

As much as it seems like it, however, this self-reflection was not in vain. In the past month, I’ve cut down my closet from +200 pieces of clothing and shoes to about 40. If you ever want a fun, humbling activity this quarantine, just clean out your closet and be honest with yourself about how often you wear certain things. It was revolting to see the number of shirts, dresses, pants, skirts that I had bought and convinced myself wholeheartedly I was going to wear, only to pull them out of my closet months later with the tags attached *insert Marge Simpson covering her face meme*.

But at the end of the whole ordeal, it felt really good to look at my space and not feel burden or guilt. It was somewhat philanthropic realizing that not only will these clothes make someone else happier (I donated pretty much everything because it’s not always about money), but that my quality of life was not dramatically impacted in owning (or not owning) certain things. The past few weeks, I’ve spent more money on going out and sharing experiences with friends, but still nowhere near the same amount of money I would have spent buying clothes and other material possession.

Youtuber Kelly Stamps has a video on how minimalism “cured” her depression**, and the whole thesis boils down to the idea that owning less things gives you less to compare yourself too, thus making you happier (in a sense) and allowing you to focus the energy and time that would have been centered around maintaining and building your collection of possessions other things.

This still doesn’t break down the root of the issue, but it’s a start. I think when you have traits or patterns that you’ve participated in for so long, it becomes hard to step back and be objective enough to realize that you – yes, you – are part of the problem. I can blame my habits on a lot of things but at the end of the day, it’s important to realize that certain cycles seem never-ending because I actively choose to participate in these kinds of behaviours (accountability is sexy, huh?). While I’m not ready to face all my demons quite yet, it’s easier to do it with a nice wardrobe and a streamlined sense of mind.

Notes

*When I say black women, I mean ALL black women. Not some limited, cis-gendered, heteronormative view of what a woman is. Over here we ride for all those who identify as women.

**She emphasizes that she doesn’t actually means that it cured anything, but rather helped with her anxiety, and in turn, helped with her depression.

Links

That Family Guy Episode

The Kelly Stamps video

#cms #selfhelp?#consumerism

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slash-em-up · 4 years

Text

Killer First Date: Asa Emory x Tiffany Valentine

What now???? WHAT NOW??? Some slasher x slasher shipping from yours truly???? Holy shit.

Yeah, I know, but in my defense Tiff and Asa are both BABIES and let’s be real they’d have so much in common!!

As usual @voorheehees and @slashermom are completely responsible for this - they should know by now not to indulge my crazy ramblings because it WILL turn into a fic.

——————————————————-

Asa was having possibly one of the worst nights of his life.

He let out a deep sigh through his nose as the buzzer rang and he rose, leaving his current ‘date’ and moving slowly to the next seat.

He checked ‘Helen Waltz’ off his list of potential matches. Though she obviously found her pseudo-pyramid scheme tupperware business fascinating, he did not.

The university was sponsoring a Speed Dating night for the faculty – and as a senior member of the Entomology department, Asa was obliged to attend.

The event was held at a local bar, nothing fancy; but full of a variety of people looking for a drink, or food, or- on this particular evening - a love connection.

Asa wanted to murder them all.

If he had to explain to one more person what Entomology was (then consequently watch their face scrunch up in confusion or disgust), he felt like he just might snap.

He kept his eyes on the wooden boards at his feet and marched towards the next two-person table like he was walking to his own execution.

“You look like I feel, honey.”

An oddly high-pitched and raspy voice spoke up from across the laminate surface.

Asa’s eyes slowly rose from the floor, up to a pair of sky-high black stilettos, attached to fishnet-clad legs, and finally to a smirking, attractive face crowned by a pale blonde up-do.

“I’m Tiffany Valentine.”

“Dr. Asa Emory.”

Tiffany raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“Doctor, huh? Wanna have a seat, Doctor?”

Asa sat.

Tiffany smiled, her painted lips stretching attractively, showing off her dimples.

“So… what’s your pitch?”

Taken aback, Asa’s brow furrowed.

“Excuse me?”

“Your pitch – your selling points; the things that make you interesting – what makes you better than every other Tom, Dick, and Harry in here. I’m your fifth date, I bet you’ve got it down to a science by now, right Doc?”

Silence filled the space between them.

Tiffany giggled.

“Ok, I’ll start. I’m semi-recently divorced, looking to try something new after ten years of someone who didn’t appreciate me like he should have. I like reading about the occult, watching late-night surgery shows, and I have a pet tarantula named Charlotte Jr. – your turn.”

“…. Why Charlotte Jr.?”

“Because Charlotte Sr. died after I took off to be with my ex… and I don’t think it’s fair that men are the only ones who get to name their children after themselves.”

“Fair enough... I’m a doctor of Entomology at the university, it’s the –“

“Ooo insects! Do you have a favorite? I’ve always liked the giant centipede, you know the one in the Amazon? Did you know it’s venomous enough to kill a person?”

Asa sat up straighter in his chair, eyes focusing in on Tiffany’s face, which was practically glowing with excitement.

He slowly began speaking.

“I’ve always appreciated how they climb cave ceilings to catch bats. They’re not quite venomous enough to kill someone my size, or yours; but they’ve killed at least one human child before.”

Tiffany bit her lip, smiling at Asa as he began going into detail about some of the more fascinating insects from the Amazon.

Once Asa got on the topic of tropical spiders, Tiffany began to chime in with her own knowledge, more than happy to ask questions and listen to Asa give a thesis-level answer to even the most inane question she posed, never making her feel like she was dumb for not knowing something – she was honestly having the best time she’d had all night watching this adorably awkward man go on and on about trap-door spiders and his own pet tarantulas.

She practically melted when Asa quietly confessed that he’d named his favorite tarantula Petunia.

The conversation carried on until the ending buzzer sounded.

Tiffany pouted, having just started her own story about feeding Charlotte Jr. her first baby mouse.

Asa made no move to rise from his chair, even as the man who’d been seated at the table next to theirs cleared his throat and tapped his foot, already making eyes at Tiffany (who noticed his bloodshot eyes never rose above her cleavage).

Tiffany decided to take matters into her own, manicured hands.

“Hey, Asa. Wanna go get a drink somewhere?”

The man across the table blinked; but slowly nodded, rising, as his replacement spluttered in indignation from the side.

Mr. Pervert shut his mouth pretty quickly once Asa stood, a full head taller, and all thick muscle where Perv was simply thick.

Tiffany stood as well, giving a surprised giggle as Asa grabbed her jacket and helped her in before offering her his elbow.

“What a gentleman.”

Asa gave her a small smile, and they both stepped out the bar door.

They walked in companionable silence through the side-alley, moseying in no particular hurry towards Asa’s car a couple blocks away.

However, soon the silence of the evening was interrupted by an unwanted interloper.

“Hey, man, gimme your wallet!”

Tiffany gasped as a thin, dirty man lunged at them from the shadows, brazenly holding a rusted switch blade in the couples direction.

She felt Asa stiffen beside her, poor man, probably scared out of his mind.

She imagined entomologists didn’t see a lot of violence other than the circle of life kind…

Asa slowly pushed her behind him, obviously trying to place himself in the way of the robber and his knife.

Tiffany took the opportunity to gingerly slide her sharpened nail file into her palm, waiting for a clear shot at the man.

He’d picked the wrong lady to mess with.

Tiffany sighed internally.

Well, here goes her night. She suspected murder would be a pretty big turn-off for the large man circling their attacker, keeping her close to his back.

She could not have been more surprised when Asa suddenly sprung at the would-be thief, grabbing the smaller mans knife-hand in his own and quickly twisting him to the ground.

Abruptly, the tables were turned, and Asa was baring down on the miscreants throat with his own knife, seemingly deaf to the mans pleas for mercy.

Asa’s eyes were feral and shining oddly in the flickering yellow light of the alleyway as he raised his gaze to Tiffany.

‘Oh…’ Tiffany realized with a tremor of excitement ‘…Maybe not such an innocent boy after all…’

A loud yell from behind her made Tiffany whirl just in time to see a second man charging at Asa from down the alleyway.

She moved quickly to intercept him and threw her arm out towards the mans throat, sharp metal gleaming.

Blood spurted from the mans neck, and he stumbled – clutching uselessly at his severed artery.

Tiffany turned just in time to see the switchblade enter the prostrate mans eye, as Asa bared his teeth and let out a low growl.

Tiffany shuddered and let out a shaky breath.

Holy shit.

Asa crouched over the now lifeless body for a moment more before rising like some dark death god. His black turtleneck shone with wet blood in the low light as he spun to face Tiffany, measured breath making his shoulders rise and fall.

He stared at the bloody corpse at Tiffany’s feet.

Tiffany swallowed hard.

“Was that your first time?”

Asa’s intense gaze never left hers as he slowly shook his head – no, not even close.

Heels pressed hard into the chilling body at her feet, rolling him onto his back as she grinned.

“Me neither.”

Asa blinked, the only show of surprise he gave at the unexpected confession.

“Wanna go get that drink and talk about it?”

The large man moved forward, coming to a halt in front of Tiffany, eyeing her with curiosity and a small amount of suspicion.

“I really would.”

Tiffany smirked and threaded her arm back through Asa’s, unconcerned with the blood soaking onto her leather jacket.

“Lead on, handsome.”

#jessica writes #asa emory #the collector 2009 #the collection 2012 #tiffany valentine #bride of chucky #tiffany valentine x asa emory

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thisdiscontentedwinter · 5 years

Text

Bad Blood - Chapter 31

You can read it on AO3 or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here.

__________

Panic drives Stiles upstairs when the shouting starts, but it’s muscle memory that takes him to the room he hasn’t set foot inside for six years. He doesn’t even realise what he’s done until he’s already pushed the door open and he’s staring his old life in the face.

The bedroom isn’t exactly how he left it—Stiles is pretty sure there wasn’t day when his comforter wasn’t in a pile on the floor and there was crap from one side of the room to the other—but all his things are here. All the things that ten-year-old Stiles loved so much.

His comforter has the Transformers on it.

There’s a plush Yoda sitting on his pillow.

His bookcase is full of Animorphs books—ha!—and comics and Lego figurines.

There are glow-in-the-dark stickers of stars and moons and planets on the ceiling.

This is a little boy’s room.

This is what Kate and Gerard stole from him. Not just possessions. Not just dumb stuff. They stole that little boy from Stiles.

“Stiles?” his dad asks him.

Stoles jolts, and spins around. He didn’t even realise his dad was behind him. If Gerard was here, he’d get punished for letting someone sneak up on him like that. He blinks, and sees the arrow sticking out of Gerard’s busted eye. It calms him more than something that grisly should.

“You, um,” Stiles says. “You kept it all the same.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else,” his dad says. His eyes shine, and he swallows.

Downstairs, Allison and Victoria are still yelling and then, abruptly, it stops. The sudden silence feels even quieter than it should.

“I don’t remember everything,” Stiles says. “I don’t remember how to be him. That kid you lost.”

“I don’t need you to be him,” his dad says. “Kiddo, I just need you to be you.”

Stiles snorts. “Still figuring that one out, to be honest.”

“Yeah?” his dad asks, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “Well, you take all the time you need.”

Stiles moves further into his room and reaches out to pick up a plastic toy from the desk. It’s some cheap crap that looks like it came out of a Happy Meal or something. He turns it over in his palm. “Do I… I mean, am I staying here now? With you?”

“I’d like you to,” his dad says.

“In this room,” Stiles says, “that’s full of kid stuff?”

“I’ve got boxes in the garage,” his dad says. “We can clear some of this stuff out now, if you want. Because I have to tell you, there is nothing in that closet that will even come close to fitting you now.”

Stiles thinks of his clothes back at Gerard’s house. “Shit. The photo of Mom and me. It’s at Gerard’s place. And my passport too. I need to get those back, or it’ll totally fuck with that cover story about the grandparents.”

“We’ll make it happen,” his dad says. “And, since I haven’t been able to say this in six years, watch the language, huh?”

Stiles flushes warmly. “Yeah, sorry.”

“I guess I’ll let it slide,” his dad says. “Extenuating circumstances.”

Aren’t they, though? Stiles squeezes the plastic toy in his hand until it hurts. “I’m not that kid,” he says again, his voice rasping. “That kid who fit into those clothes. I’m sorry.”

“I was making a joke, Stiles,” his dad says, his forehead creasing. “A pretty shitty joke, apparently. Hell, I’m not going to treat you like a little boy, Stiles. I promise. It’s going to take us a while to find our feet around each other again, but I don’t…” He sighs, and drags his hand through his hair. “I don’t have any expectations of you, you understand? I just want you to be happy here.”

Stiles swallows past the ache in his throat. “Okay. I’ll try.” He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip in an effort to ease the word out: “Dad.”

It sound so big.

Dad blinks, and his eyes shine with tears. “We’re gonna make this work, kiddo, you’ll see.” He clears his throat. “Now how about I get those boxes from the garage?”

***

Allison goes home with Victoria, though she promises to be back tomorrow. Stiles spends the afternoon going through his old stuff, with Derek beside him. Derek is… Derek is like a fire that Stiles leans towards on a winter’s night. He’s warmth and comfort and a silent promise that he’ll keep the cold away. He laughs at some of the t-shirts Stiles holds up.

“This was fashion?” Stiles asks. “Was this ever fashion?”

“I bet you were the coolest ten-year-old on the block,” Derek says.

Stiles tosses a bright red flannel shirt at him, and Derek bats it into the closest box.

“Don’t even pretend,” Derek says. “You’d still wear that if it was in your size.”

Stiles snorts, but doesn’t answer. He thinks that maybe Derek is right. Like right now his closet at Gerard’s place is full of blacks and grays and dark, muted colors. The kind of clothes that people didn’t notice. The kind of clothes that made him blend in. Stiles could wear bright red now if he wanted, or any color at all. Having that choice seems suddenly dizzying somehow, so he inhales slowly and reaches for the next shirt.

He holds up a small Batman t-shirt. “Okay, I’d wear this one if it fit.”

“You could probably get that in your size,” Derek says.

“You think I could get superhero underwear in my size too?” Stiles asks, tugging out a pair of blue and red Superman underpants.

“Oh,” Derek says with a smile. “Please do.”

Stiles snorts out an ugly sounding laugh, and feels his face burning.

He’s relieved when they turn to the toys and books.

“Hey,” Derek says, and bumps their shoulders together.

Stiles glances at him.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Derek says.

“Last night you stepped in front of a bullet for me,” Stiles says. His mouth feels dry. “I can handle a little embarrassment.”

Bullets and guns and blood and death though—Stiles knows those things. He doesn’t know this. He doesn’t know smiles and teasing and long gazes and want. He doesn’t know them at all.

But he wants to.

He shifts so that he’s sitting in front of Derek. Derek is cross-legged on the floor, and Stiles is on his knees. Stiles lifts a hand and discovers that it’s shaking, like he’s in the middle of an adrenaline dump. He brushes his fingertips against Derek’s cheek, and watches the way it pulls when Derek smiles softly.

He’s so beautiful.

He’s so beautiful, and Stiles is allowed to think that. Gerard can’t take that away from him. He can’t force Stiles to push it down, to suffocate it, the way he did with the memory of the boy in Budapest. Stiles is allowed this.

He leans in, letting his eyes close, and then his lips—a little rough and chapped—are pressing gently against Derek’s. It’s not the same kiss from the party. It’s not heated and desperate. It’s soft and slow, because, for the first time in his life, Stiles has all the time in the world.

It’s a new sensation, and he clings to it tightly.

Stiles has all the time in the world.

***

It’s a strange thing, to feel like a guest in the house he grew up in. When it’s dinner time, Dad and Peter are the ones getting everything together, not Stiles. It’s weird, because he thinks he remembers where the plates are kept, but also, they’re not his plates anymore, are they?

Dad makes spaghetti bolognaise and pairs it with store-bought garlic bread, and Stiles isn’t used to eating such carb-heavy food, at least not when he hasn’t trained in days, or even been on a run. There’s even dessert, which Stiles isn’t used to at all—a hot apple crumble with cream. It tastes so nice that Stiles doesn’t even mind feeling a little over-full.

Stiles rinses the dishes after they eat, and Laura puts them in the dishwasher.

“Laura?” he asks.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

She looks over at him, her brow creased. “What for?”

“For tricking you,” Stiles says. “For, um, for shooting you.”

She shows him a shaky smile. “You scared the fuck out of me, Stiles. I was ready to rip your throat out there for a second when I thought you’d double-crossed us. But you saved us.”

“So we’re good?” he asks cautiously.

“Stiles, you savedus. Of course we’re good!”

And Stiles lets out a breath he thinks he’s been holding since last night.

***

That night Dad sets Stiles up with his laptop and directs him to Amazon.

“Get a phone,” he says. “And some clothes, and shoes, and toiletries, and whatever else you need. Don’t worry about the total, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dad says. “The Argents are paying.”

“Guess I’ll get a laptop too,” Stiles says.

“As long as it’s a top-of-the-line one,” Dad tells him with a grin.

Laura and Derek sit on either side of him on the couch, and Laura offers unsolicited advice on fashion, and Derek keeps reaching over Stiles to jab her in the arm whenever she does. There’s a movie playing on the TV, but none of them are watching it.

“Der, you probably need a new comforter, and sheets and a pillow,” Stiles says. “Your room was kind of a mess.”

“Oooh!” Laura leans forward. “And I bet we need new kitchen stuff too.”

“The kitchen was barely touched,” Derek says.

“The couch might have been though,” Laura says. “Do they sell couches?”

It’s fun, Stiles thinks, in a weird way. It’s fun to make the Argents pay for Star Wars themed potholders and an ugly expensive lamp just because Laura likes the look of it. It’s fun, right up until Stiles thinks of everything the Argents owe the Hales, and how a crazy online shopping spree is nothing compared to what they’ve really lost.

And then Stiles thinks of a werewolf pack in Kroměříž and what he took from them.

He shoves the laptop in Laura’s direction, and pushes himself off the couch.

He hurries down the hallway and into the kitchen, and shoves the back door open. He stumbles down the porch steps and into the yard.

The night is dark and cool.

He can hear a neighbor’s television playing a fraction too loud, and, out the front of the house, a car passing in the street.

His rich, carb-heavy dinner heaves in his stomach, once, and then twice, and Stiles doubles over and is sick on the lawn. Then, stepping away from the mess, he drops to his knees and presses his hands to his eyes.

He’s a killer.

A murderer.

Stiles is the monster, and he has no right to be laughing at Star Wars potholders and ugly lamps.

A warm hand on his spine startles him. For a second he thinks it’s Derek—it’s alwaysDerek—but when he twists around, he sees that it’s Dad.

“Come on, kid,” Dad says, and draws him into an embrace. “It’s okay. It’s okay, son, I’ve got you.”

And Stiles leans into him and howls.

#sterek #steter senior #my fics #bad blood #discontentedwinter

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timeisacephalopod · 5 years

Text

Belated

I thought hmm, lets write a little Tony/Eddie/Venom thing for Reasons. And yeah I know Tony’s bday was two days ago but still. I’ve decided that this is a thing I have written for a fictional character’s belated birthday!

Tony’s half buried in paper work ready to throw all caution to the wind and throw himself out a window when Eddie walks in looking pleased with himself. Probably means he sniffed out a good story and he’s found something compelling but he doesn’t look like an absolute human disaster so he’s not too deep into it yet. Once he is he kind of looks like he’s homeless and Rhodey doesn’t really get the charm but Tony once watched Eddie overheat to the point of just fucking losing it and sitting in a lobster tank at one of the fanciest restaurants in Manhattan so he thinks Eddie is the best. Venom being around doesn’t seem to help that except now maybe he’ll eat the lobsters instead of just bothering the hell out of them.

“Happy birthday,” he says, walking over to him and behind his desk, greeting him with a kiss.

Except Tony’s kind of confused. “Wasn’t my birthday last week?” he asks and Eddie frowns.

“No, honey its today. I... who forgets their birthday? And why would you assume everyone in your life also forgot your birthday?” he asks. He looks extra confused but that’s probably just the way Eddie’s expressions work. Rhodey finds his over expressing annoying but Tony thinks it's endearing.

“You all have lives, its fine,” Tony says. Pepper’s always busy running around doing things for him, Eddie seems to have found himself some new thing to rip apart for the next couple months, and Rhodey regularly gets shot at so he figures they all have more pressing concerns.

Eddie sighs. “Sometimes I think you’re a prick and then you do something sad like make excuses for why everyone in your life would forget you were born. We didn’t forget, Tony, you got the date wrong. How did you forget when you were born?”

He shrugs, “I don’t memorize useless details. And in your defense I am a prick,” he says. They both know it, though Eddie is obviously a lot less hostile then when they met. He seems to have fallen for Tony’s charms, which he’s been reliably informed are pretty disarming.

Eddie leans in and gives him another kiss, “no you’re not, but you play one well,” pulling away and dropping his bag on Tony’s desk. Its disrupted his thread bare attempt at organizing his own life- not exactly his strong suit admittedly not that he’d tell Eddie he's managed to mess up what little organization he had. He pulls a stack of files out of his bag and drops them on top of Tony’s already too large pile of paper work. “Happy birthday, an organized list of all the moral and ethical problems I have with your company,” he says, grinning like its the best gift ever.

Tony snorts and starts laughing, shuffling closer to Eddie. He lays one hand on Eddie’s hip and pokes at the pile of folders with the other. “Well this is... intimidating.”

“Yeah, but you’ll look through it all because you do genuinely want to be a good person. You should be glad I didn’t go with V’s gift,” he says, wincing.

Fuck, Tony can only imagine when one of the first five things he did in Eddie’s body was eat several people’s heads. Sure, V turned out to be an overly sappy romantic ass goo alien but that’s a pretty rough start to things and now Eddie has to live with kind of eating people that one time several times. “Was it flowers?” he asks.

Eddie laughs, “that was suggestion like... fifty two. After I banned violence, drugs, sex- don’t give me that look it was a soft ban because that’s not a present, terrorist activities, harassing children, petty crimes of all varieties, eating heads, murder, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, space, possession, and about a half a dozen other things. He’s not too good with presents.”

“Well, he did alright with the cat,” Tony points out. V doesn’t really get Christmas, turns out his species wasn’t too cuddly and had no holidays, but he does have all Eddie’s memories of it. Conveniently, he tends to lean more towards Eddie’s view of Christmas as mostly a capitalist holiday that’s far more about big businesses making money, overworking retail employees, and present buying pressure that leads to suicide than the happy stuff. And that doesn’t even touch on Eddie’s view of religion. Though to be fair V probably gathered a lot more religious vitriol from Tony than Eddie.

“He’s threatened to eat that cat at least once a day since he decided to pick it out. Claims he’s a dog person,” Eddie says.

“Dogs are bigger, usually, so I’m not really surprised. More meat.” Given the look on Eddie’s face Tony’s going to assume V has agreed with that statement.

“We are not eating dogs,” Eddie hisses. Mostly he only does that around Tony, but its hilarious when he does it in public because most people don’t really recognize him anymore so he looks like a homeless loon being led around by a celebrity. Or at least he did before he became recognizable again through Tony’s fame and yeah, Tony knows all Eddie’s opinions on celebrity culture. None of them are positive and yeah, Tony can see why that is.

“Tell V to go hunt New York rats at night. He might have fun with that,” Tony says. “Wait, does Venom have a birthday? That a thing his species does?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Says he doesn’t have a proper earth date translation for his hatching day and I know he didn’t come from an egg so that’s a horrifying term to use. Do not enlighten me, V. I’m happy to stay in the dark.” He makes another face and Tony assumes V has let out some detail Eddie didn’t want to hear.

“That ever get annoying, the voice in your head?” he asks. Feels like it’d be exhausting. Tony doesn’t even like his own voice in his head let alone some random alien who decided pretty much on a whim to save the world strictly because he likes Eddie. Though to be fair Riot was an asshole and Tony was sick of being compared to Carlton Drake anyway. Guy was like cartoonishly evil. Though Tony will admit that he was good looking and damn smart, even if that didn’t really turn out to be a good thing later.

“Sometimes,” Eddie says, “but mostly V offers some good entertainment on human customs. Turns out his species tended to eat each other to solve problems. He thinks our petty politics is fun to watch.”

Yeah, an alien would find that funny. Or everyone outside of America at least until America decides to invade for oil or some other resource. “So who did he want to possess?” Tony asks, grinning.

“No!” Eddie says, presumably to him and Venom.

Tony’s laying in bed pretending to have died when Eddie walks over and crawls over him, laying his entire weight on Tony’s back. He sighs because of course Eddie would find the most inconvenient way to get him to stop taking up the entire bed. “This is a king and you’re like three feet tall. How is it that you take up so much space?” Eddie asks as Tony starts wiggling around.

“Ask the cat, she’s a hell of a lot smaller than me and she always manages to take up at least half the bed.” Eddie rolls off and Tony props himself up. “Thanks for the present by the way, half the stuff you pointed out happens to be things I was already looking to fix.” But Eddie is a fuck of a lot picker than him and its nice to have someone trying to hold him to account. And Eddie has no problem doing so, he gives Tony his opinion on a lot of things all the time whether or not he wants to hear them.

“Yeah, I got you something else too but its taking eighty years in the mail so I had to improvise,” Eddie says.

“Let me guess, you refuse to use Amazon,” Tony says.

“Look, that fuckstick can’t even pay his workers and he’s the richest guy in the world, and what’s all that crazy shit about pissing in-” Eddie starts but Tony cuts him off before he really gets going.

“Jeff Bezos is a prick, I get it. Actually, might get stuck at the same charity event with him next week so I can bring you along if you want to punch him,” Tony says.

The bright look of unbridled glee in Eddie’s eyes makes him smile. Yeah, he’s maybe argued a lot about Tony’s wealth, but he at least appreciates that Tony does his best to spread it around a little. Its just that he has trust issues and he knows how corporate charity works- its all tax write offs and siphoning money out of most of the ‘donations.’ So he does his best to do his research and lucky him Eddie is probably a little too good at it so he’s got some more reputable charities to share with. And he thinks its fun to pay off random people’s debt. If he’s having a bad day he’ll pick a person and bam, debt free. He likes making people happy so Eddie only kind of side eyes his money.

Generally that means he only brings it up like twice a day instead of non-stop and if nothing else Tony can appreciate that he’s passionate about his views. Rhodey thinks he’s annoying but Rhodey isn’t dating him so he can deal with it.

“Yeah, alright,” Eddie says but the way he says it tells Tony that he’s not talking to him.

“Do not eat his head, V!” Tony says, panicked. “I do not want to deal with the fallout of that. Just ruin his life like a normal person. Get JARVIS to help, he’s been helpful in my long standing efforts to ruin Hammer.”

“Yeah, pretty sure all you two have managed to do is turn Hammer into the knockoff version of you, but he uh... seems to like that so I don’t know.”

Tony damn well knows he looks offended because that’s the fucking rudest shit he’s ever heard. “What did you just call Hammer?” he asks.

Eddie realizes his mistake right away and Tony fucking resents that he looks a little dead behind the eyes because he was the one who damn well decided Hammer was good enough to be the anything version of him. “I would sooner take Carlton Drake as the cheap version of me than Hammer,” Tony hisses. “At least Drake was actually smart and hot! What’s Hammer? He looks like he came out of the womb dressed as the class clown who decided to be an accountant!”

Honestly Tony resents that Eddie sighs at that. “No V, you can’t eat Hammer’s head,” Eddie mumbles.

“Yes you can,” Tony tells him.

Tony’s attempting to make coffee while also ignoring Eddie due to his previous transgressions. Compare him to Hammer on his birthday. The disrespect. Eddie walks out of their bedroom and Tony resolutely ignores him as he starts looking around the pent house for some reason. Tony side eyes him as he moves a bunch of papers around- Eddie’s, not his, knocks the pillows off the couch, and picks up the cat. He looks at Cotton for a moment, frowning before he shakes her a little. She meows in an annoyed, disgruntled way and Eddie sighs, releasing the cat.

“Uh, the fuck are you doing?” Tony asks eventually.

Looking for me says a voice in his head and Tony throws his coffee cup, startling so badly his entire body jerks and he slips, falling on his ass.

“Oh thank god I thought he went and possessed some random secretary so he could go eat heads!” Eddie says, rushing over to him.

“Oh no, you stay back there you don’t get to come near me or V after comparing Hammer to me!” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Eddie sighs. “Tony-” he starts but Tony has already picked himself up and turned around with his arms crossed, ignoring him.

So rude. Venom agrees. We should eat Hammer V says, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Tony sighs and it pains him to do this, truly. “V, we can’t actually eat Hammer,” he says in perhaps the most dejected, upset tone he’s ever produced.

Eddie gives him, Venom technically, an offended look. “You decided to crawl into him in the middle of the night and risk killing him so you could eat someone?” he asks, hand pressed to his heart quite like an offended PTA mom. “V, you better get your ass back in here!” Eddie tells him, pointing at himself.

He compared you to Hammer. We should leave him, go sight seeing V says.

Tony rolls his eyes. “V you aren’t going to manipulate me into carrying your ass out of here because Eddie put you in the dog house.”

“Venom!” Eddie says, voice rising.

Tony swears to god he feels Venom extend from his body and that is some worrying fucking shit how’s Eddie put up with that? “Tony thinks you sound like an offended PTA mom,” Venom tells Eddie and Tony squints.

“Since when the hell are you a rat?” he asks.

Venom turns to face him, “you take that back! I am not vermin!”

“No, technically you’re a parasite now get back here,” Eddie tells him.

“Maybe I will find a new home with hosts who appreciate me,” Venom says, sinking back into Tony and he does not like that.

“How do you get these things out?” he asks.

Eddie walks over and leans in, squinting at Tony shrewdly except he’s actually looking at Venom and Tony’s not sure how he knows that. “If you don’t get back in me I will play Bohemian Rhapsody at top volumes with Tony pressed against the speaker!” he hisses.

“That kind of sounds like fun minus the speaker thing,” Tony says.

“They don’t do so well with loud noises and vibrations,” Eddie explains and oh, that makes sense. Tony watches as black goo extends from his hand to Eddie’s and it almost looks resentful for it. Or maybe Tony’s imagining that.

Tony gives Venom a sad look as the last of him disappears back into Eddie. “I’m so sad he won’t ever experience Freddy Mercury like the rest of us,” he says, hand pressed to his heart.

Eddie sighs. “V says your music taste is heinous and he would rather listen to my music.”

He listens to exclusively shitty electronica music. “I’m leaving you both,” Tony tells him, turning and walking away.

#tony x eddie brock #tony x eddie brock x venom #fanfiction #alternate universe

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pluckyredhead · 5 years

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Pls share more about Heroes in Crisis??

OKAY SO.

The pitch for Heroes in Crisis (well, the pitch to readers) was that there was going to be this place called Sanctuary, set up by the Justice League, where heroes could come and get therapy for their trauma - but something terrible happens there, and the heroes have to deal with it. The stars were going to be the trinity plus Booster Gold and Harley Quinn. It’s by Tom King and Clay Mann.

[SPOILERS AHEAD!]

So, okay, first of all, I was...concerned by King choosing to use Booster as a major character because a) WHAT IF HIS TRAUMA WAS THAT TED DIED AGAIN??? (it’s not, Ted’s fine) and b) he really shat the bed when he wrote Booster in his Batman run. I mean, just terrible.

(Short version: Booster decides to go back in time and save Bruce Wayne’s parents as a wedding gift for Batman even though four fucking seconds prior to that he was in a Superman storyline where he was like “Superman you can’t change the past, sorry bro!” and also in this continuity I’m not sure Bruce and Booster have ever MET. Anyway he created a dystopian AU where Selina is feral and kills Alfred and Batman is...some other guy who kills the Waynes, so AU Bruce chains Booster up in the basement for a year and tortures him until he agrees to bring the Waynes back and the whole experience drives Booster “insane” but he manages to restore the original timeline in the end? It’s a wildly illogical storyline that treats Booster like a more profound idiot than I think any other writer I’ve seen, and that’s saying something.)

So anyway, Heroes in Crisis starts in media res with shit already having gone down at Sanctuary, which is a fine way to start a story usually, but “Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman have an old country house somewhere remote staffed by therapy robots that we’ve never mentioned” is...KIND OF A LEAP. (I will say that Bruce deciding that the best way to provide therapy is via robots and surveillance footage that is immediately deleted is VERY in character. Bruce talk to a human please.)

Anyway a bunch of characters are dead: Roy Harper, white Wally West (because there are two Wallys now), Blue Jay, Hot Spot, Lagoon Boy, Steel (one of the Henshaws, not John Henry Irons), and Poison Ivy. So I guess the killer really fucking hated redheads? Also I’m weirdly sad about Lagoon Boy even though I hadn’t thought about him for at least 10 years. Also I find it very very hard to believe that either Ivy or Wally will stay dead for even a full 12 months. But way to bury your gays, King! (Ivy, not Wally. Afaik.)

Meanwhile Booster and Harley are on the run because they are the primary suspects but are also both convinced the other did it? Well, Harley is convinced Booster did it, Booster hasn’t strung together a full sentence in two whole issues. Like at one point he jovially lets slip to Barry that Wally is dead. LOL WHOOPSIE BOOSTER’S AN IDIOT I GUESS. Also he “was crazy” but he’s better now because that’s how mental health works! After FINALLY resetting his continuity so that the most traumatic thing in his backstory (Ted’s death) hadn’t happened, King broke him in someone else’s book for fun! I HAVE BEEN STANNING BOOSTER GOLD FOR TOO MANY YEARS TO LET THIS STAND.

So basically we were told it would be a story about trauma and healing, but it’s actually a whodunnit with the trinity trying to solve the murders while Harley and Booster scamper around in the background. Because what you want for a story about grisly mass murder is to center it on two comedy characters.

The only concession to the whole “trauma” thing is these talking heads pages where the characters talk about all the terrible things they’ve gone through, except...they’re not real things? Like, Bruce goes into a whole thing about how all his kids have died, except...they haven’t, in this continuity. (There’s a great post about it here.) Superman’s like “It’s so hard to know whether I’m Superman or Clark!” which...isn’t a thing with Superman, and never has been. Wonder Woman’s like “.................I’m good, actually” but...with a sad face? (Like, her Traumatic Moment {TM} on the variant covers is killing Max Lord, which a) DID! NOT! HAPPEN! IN! THIS! CONTINUITY! and b) she didn’t mind, SHE’S AN AMAZON WARRIOR.)

(Oh also Harley is WAY overpowered. She takes out THE WHOLE TRINITY!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! SHE IS A CLOWN WHO CAN DO HANDSTANDS, SHE CANNOT DEFEAT WONDER WOMAN. (King fucking loves this move, I’m still mad about the page in his Batman run where Catwoman defeated Barry and both Wallys at once.))

So, in conclusion:

1. We were told we’d get a story about trauma and mental health but it’s actually a murder mystery.

2. We were told it wasn’t a Capital C Crisis but at least 7 characters are dead, including a black teenage boy and a queer woman.

3. The “trauma” the A-list heroes are whining about isn’t canon and has nothing to do with the plot.

4. We’re apparently supposed to believe that Batman would believe for even a hot Gotham second that Harley or Booster would kill at least seven people including Ivy.

5. Booster is wildly OOC.

But, I mean, it sure is pretty:

#heroes in crisis #booster gold #harley quinn #I'M MAD #tawghasa

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italicwatches · 5 years

Text

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online - Episode 06

I should probably watch some anime today. It’s Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, episode 06! Here we GO!

-It’s February 11th, just a bit after the Squad Jam. And LLENN is in GGO, down in the cash shop where THEY HAVE A NEW P90 IN STOCK FUCK YEAHHHHHHH! P-chan, daughter of P-chan, is born! LLENN loves her submachine guns so much. It’s a wholesome love between a woman and her gun.

-And hey, there’s Eva! What’s the Boss doing in a place like this?

-Opening! You know, sidenote, I’m wondering if GGO has some level of self-identity thing going on. Like, it’s one thing that Karen and Saki each happened to get a form that matched who they wanted to be…But the entire team of tiny girls who wish they were bigger and got more respect, waking up in GGO as tall, buff amazons? On top of Karen, who wants to be cute and adorable and the little spoon, waking up as literally the smallest size the system allows? That feels a little too unlikely to just be the odds.

-The 15th. It’s the post-credits from episode one, as the whole of Saki’s crew is there watching the highlights from Karen’s performance in the Squad Jam, and seeing just how much crazy shit she pulled off before they fought her. You’re a MONSTER, Karen-san! A total BADASS!

-Karen is still trying to properly hook this gaggle of adorable schoolgirls she’s somehow befriended, to the terrifying amazons who pushed her to the brink. Saki is all huffy about how Karen is still kind of scared of Eva. Well what about Sophie, huh? Look at their gunner, she’s huge!

-Yeah but she has a gentler demeanor, as we start getting connections. So, Saki is Eva. Kana, with the bob cut, is Sophie. Mi, the blonde, has the sharpshooter Toma, and has learned to drive stick because she’s been overseas. The one with those cutesy rounded eyebrows, Shiori, is Roza the other heavy-gunner. Their second sniper is Moe, who is deeply embarrassed about how she puts on such cool airs in the game. And then there’s Risa, who is Tanya the scout, the closest to anyone’s real self…But still tall and muscled, just the sleek muscles of a runner.

-So that’s the whole gang! By schoolday, they are but the humble high school rhythmic gymnastics club. But by night, they are a vicious crew…And they’re here to talk strategy. They want to walk through the entire encounter and figure out where they dropped the ball! They’re in your care, Karen-san!

-Episode 06! “SAO Loser”

-Also they devour the snacks she gives them because they are, after all, athletic teenagers. And it turns out they’ve only known each other since last April, when they all joined the club…And they were fucking terrible. It’s actually why they got into VR gaming, to learn to communicate physically and sync up properly…After their coach got fed up and quit on them.

-As for why GGO? IT was the fact that it was so different, so far out of their usual context, that they could start from zero and not the outright negative position they were in with their actual sports. A crisp, clear goal, that they all knew they knew nothing about accomplishing. And of course, it’s just plain a good game, so they got super hooked on it!

-Which is why now they’ve got to push for victory in the next proper Squad Jam! What about rhythmic gymnastics…? That too. BUT ESPECIALLY GGO. Now, will you be in the next one?!

-Karen’s…Not so sure. This was kind of sprung on her. She’s not gonna say no, but she can’t say yes. And she doesn’t even know if M will keep playing, let alone want to team up with her again going forward…

-…Saki is sad now. But eventually, they’re all ready to head out, and Karen’s got to get ready for her big trip back to her parents’ place for spring break. Saki is still sad about not having a LLENN to war against in the inevitable next Squad Jam.

-The 24th. Karen’s back in her hometown, out with Miyu, and kind of wishing neither of those things were the case judging by the look on her face. Miyu keeps taking photos of her new look and she saw the highlight reel of you and that M guy! You kicked ASS! Tell her everything, everything! What made you want to split up from M? That was BANANAS!

-So Miyu learns everything…And yeah this Pito chick sounds like a nutter. Just make sure she never knows your meatspace identity and you’ll be fine. Oh, hey, this karaoke bar has some new Elsa songs! You wanna do one? Miyu’s gonna do one. They are gonna get that next set of concert tickets!

-A few days later, Karen’s on the plane back home, and gets a promo email saying that the second Squad Jam has just been announced for early April.

-Sidenote, these things don’t make any sense. Like, look, it was…fifteen teams to start, right? That means the absolute maximum player count in a single Squad Jam is 90 people, holding the 2-6 size limit. Both of the major battle royale centric games right now, PUBG and especially Fortnite (but especially Bart) can rack up a hundred players in…about 30 seconds, give or take. Even in their own squad modes, from what I’ve seen it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to get into a match, tops.

-Now, okay, that’s on an American game audience, with something that uses heavy amounts of cross-play and can be played on an incredible variety of devices. So I will freely admit it’s not a 1:1 comparison to VR. But unless the Japanese server only has a couple thousand people on it, tops, getting 30-90 people into a match shouldn’t be the kind of thing so huge it only happens once every few months…Because if it is, how the hell is the game able to keep running and pay for what I have to imagine would be much better servers than an ordinary FPS, to deal with the immense amount of data a full-dive VR player would be sending?

-I know I’m overthinking it, and they’re getting the feel of gaming right. It’s just…I don’t know. Kind of weird the way they’re trying to make the Squad Jams, as an entire concept, into these big Events when that’s not how this shit works. Anyways, it’s another personal sponsorship, with some fine tuned rules, and any of the top four teams are pre-seeded if they choose to enter.

-Oh, and then Saki emailed Karen immediately because WOOOOO SECOND SQUAD JAM! Also, her message is full of more emojis and text emoticons than I think I’ve ever seen in one place. Also Saki wants to eat her treats again so please invite them over sometime soon. …Shit, that kid is blunt.

-When Karen gets back to her place, she finds a guy waiting for her who gets WAYYYY too close and it’s M. So that removes one possibility I had. And now she’s twice freaked out because how the fuck did he find her? Can they go somewhere private to talk about that? Because shit’s gotten Real.

-And that’s how they end up in a little cafe area in the apartment building, I think? Hard to say. But, bluntly, M has to admit that he has no proof of any of his claims, but there’s some shit you need to know. Also, he gives a real name, one Asougi Goushi. Goushi is RIGHT UP ON HER and begging for her help because people’s lives are, for real, on the line.

-His, and Pito’s. …Oh fuck me, what is Pito doing. She’s insane, and they both know it. She’s going to participate, and form a team…And in real life, she said she intends to kill herself if she doesn’t take the gold. But not until she confirms his death.

-Karen would like off this ride now please. This is ludicrous and you should go to the police.

-But…Well, here’s the deal. You know the SAO Incident, right? Thousands of people locked in, forced to fight for their lives. Pito…Wasn’t in that group. She was a beta tester, and became obsessed with the game. On launch day, something came up. She had to delay her entrance into it for just a few hours…Enough for the lockdown to happen, and SAO to become a sealed bubble she couldn’t enter.

-She watched it all on the news. She watched everyone else go through the greatest crucible of their lives. And it broke her. That she lost her shot at entering that crucible, turned her inside out. To have a chance to burn her life out in battle…Ever since VR games became popular again, she’s been throwing every spare moment she had into them. But they don’t satisfy her yearning for the void.

-For a little while, though, things were…stable. Until the SAO Incident was solved, and the survivors started talking. Pito had to confront her ‘lost opportunity’, and learned about the player killers, who committed genuine murder inside the world of SAO. Most of the deaths, outside of those first few chaotic days, were in fact from player killers or from self-defense against them.

-Other sidenote, I don’t know if it’s just one of those Manga Things where shit gets enshrined and used and reused because it’s an easily understood story path, but Japanese gaming culture seems to have this really different attitude towards PvP and attacking other players in general.

-And Pito…Pito envied them. Their chance to put their lives on the line, to kill or be killed. To be them or to strike them down. That’s how fucking insane Pito is!

-Things weren’t so bad when she was burning of steam in GGO…But then she missed the Squad Jam, the first big script-changer event! And it’s caused a relapse. …So she’s going to try and turn Squad Jam 2: Gunfire Boogaloo into a death game. Yes, yes! So again. Why not the cops or professionals.

-…He can’t. Pito’s too important to him. If he goes to the police or psychiatrists, she’ll be killed, jailed or put in a psychiatric ward, and if they try to lock her up she’ll find a way to kill herself. She’d die, and not before destroying herself in the eyes of all the people who rely on her.

-…This is over her pay grade, man. She can’t help you here.

-KABEDON

-Goushi corners her up with the very important move that is Kaibedon, and look. He, loves, Pito! That’s why he has to find a way for this to end in her survival, so he can get her back to center! Karen’s first kabedon, and it’s to hear a guy confess his love for someone else. This is bullshit.

-So they end up sitting back down, with Goushi drinking black coffee, which he hates, but he drinks it because Pito likes it. …Dude just have a sweet drink and mellow. So, okay, talk it out. What’s your plan and why aren’t you scared like when she had P-chan aimed at your damn head?

-Because his real fear isn’t death…It’s leaving Pito behind without him there to keep her grounded. Say he dies. Hell, say Pito kills him. Then…Then what. What if she doesn’t have the will to kill herself? What if she tries for suicide by cop, or worse, what if she breaks down and her resolve cracks entirely? She’d be destroyed. She wouldn’t even have the dignity of death, she’d have a hollow life.

-And okay, explain in very small words how Karen’s supposed to help.

-Enter the SJ 2, face Pito, and defeat her in battle!

-…WHAT?!

-You are the one person who she will accept a defeat from. She made that promise to you! If you defeat her honestly, and if she knows it’s an honest fight…She’ll be stuck to her promise. She’ll have to stay alive, so she can meet you. And that’ll give him time, to pull her back to center and out of this relapse state.

-…This is insane. This is ludicrous. But…If it’s the only option on the board…Guess she’s entering.

-Credits!

-Aftercredits! Karen’s back in bed, and now has Goushi’s personal email as a way to talk…But Karen needs someone to enter with. Who the hell can LLENN rely…on…Miyu! MIYU SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP! …Miyu is so fucking down. They’re gonna rage, Karen!

I guess SAO’s gonna SAO, huh. Gotta be honest, I would’ve enjoyed this more without the death game angle. But oh well, let’s try and enjoy ourselves next time, in episode SIX of SAO Alt: GGO! Wait for it!

#where I watch #recap #anime #sword art online #gun gale online #sao alternative

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freedomartspress · 4 years

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LA Tenants Union May Day Motorcade speech — Bee Coleman

Delivered 5/1/2020 at LA Tenants Union May Day Motorcade against capitalism and police violence

“What’s good people? I’m Bee, my pronouns are they/she/he, I’ve lived in South LA for the last 4 years and in Los Angeles since 2010. Today is a holy day for activists and it’s lit and makes perfect sense that workers and tenants would come together today, since we are often one in the same, to make damn sure that WE are seen and heard and CARED for - not bailed out or sent back to work without protections and proper pay or way before it’s actually SAFE!

I’m here today representing the Altar Haus, a collective of 6 black and latinx queer and trans folks in South Central. Every one of us has had our income impacted, if not completely erased, and we can not pay rent, so we won’t pay - and we did not in April and we will not until our work returns when it is SAFE - so we are rent striking. We don’t believe landlords or corporations deserve to make income from people who can’t, especially during a global health crisis. We do believe Housing is a basic need and a human right, so really landlords and banks should never make a profit from exploiting people’s needs in the first fucking place. That is the curse of capitalism and that is why we must divest from that shit and support regenerative economics, invest in farming, housing and worker cooperatives so workers and tenants can own the means to meet our own needs. So we can build strong, trusting relationships and communities who connect and support each other, towards a world where we don’t need or want the police because we practice transformative justice, not criminal justice, and we have everything we need. This is a world we’re starting to see with mutual aid networks popping up and tenants and worker unions sprouting up everywhere and we can push this momentum.

Today we have a chance to make demands! To let it be known, the poor and working class, who are largely black and brown, will not martyr ourselves for this economy, our ancestors already did that! Tenants across the country today stand in solidarity with workers striking from Instacart, Walmart, Whole Foods, Amazon, Target, and more! We demand rents and mortgages canceled TODAY! We demand healthcare for all! We demand housing for all! We demand all prisoners and ice detainees freed! We demand debt relief from bills and utilities so we can stay safely home and let these billion dollar profit corporations pay to save this economy, NOT US! Y’all lil President trying to make a buck off a malaria drug made by a French company he invested in and telling doctors they didn’t have to treat trans people; local governments rushing to send people out to make and spend money so they won’t have to keep funding people’s ability to live; forcing meat processing plants to stay open when the virus is spreading among their workers; demanding the post office increase their rates or lose funding; ongoing ice raids and police still protecting and serving property owners and the state, terrorizing and murdering our neighbors without recourse; continued real estate speculation and construction on these stadiums and developments steady decimating low income communities, while we’re supposed to stay at home, but we can’t work and still none of these politicians have canceled rent or mortgages, all this shows you what’s up - these “leaders” all got their priorities fucked up! And people in black and brown communities been knowing these mutha fuckas never loved us, they’re trying to kill us! We know by now COVID is killing more black and brown people than any other group: because, thanks to white supremacy, we’re the most likely to have underlying health conditions, created by our environments, insert food deserts + environmental racism; from being more likely to work in low paying service jobs where we interact with high volumes of people; which we get thanks to shitty education in our neighborhoods, funded based on property taxes, do you see where i’m going with this? Basically all COVID did was highlight and exploit these social determinants of health, by making everyone vulnerable and making it impossible to ignore the most impacted. So, with the sun moving into Taurus, it is time that we see this moment for what it is and get clear, grounded and bullish about what we will and won’t accept from a government, a society, an economy that are supposed to serve and sustain the people. What’s happening now is what you get when corporations buy your government and profit is prioritized over everything, including people’s lives and well-being, let alone nonhuman life on earth and the well-being planet itself. People are dying now, but people have been dying and so has this planet, so while this crisis is crazy tragic, it is disruptive and transformative for the necessary end to a way of living and being that couldn’t be sustained, it’s like the planet saving itself from us. So in a way I thank COVID for making the world stop and forcing us to remember that we are all connected, that we are all human, that what we do individually, impacts everyone collectively. So I want you to remember, if nothing else, that everything is energy - if you ask scientists and spiritualists they’ll say the same thing. So that means you are more than a worker or a tenant, you are energy and you have the ability to create a life that you see fit - THAT is what makes you valuable, not your labor and ability to make someone rich. So let’s collectively focus on canceling rent - We have a bill to cancel rent and mortgages in congress right now thanks to Ilhan Omar of Minn. So I encourage you to go to homesguarantee.org/cancelrent to demand our state representative support H.R 6515, which also creates financial relief for landlords’ lost income and a mechanism to help community land trusts buy properties that end up being sold. This would be a major win, and, like Assata said, it is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win! We must love and protect one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Thank you for being here today! I know we will win!”

[Above Top: Graphic from LA Tenants Union differentiating between housing vouchers/rent assistance/rent relief and cancel rent; below: graphic from the LA Tenants Union’s Rent Forgiveness Guide]

[Below: Photo from a Mother’s Day die-in at the mayor’s house]

Follow Bee on Instagram @beetheeshiftshaper_ and the L.A. Tenants Union @latenants to keep up with some of the organizing being done on the West Coast.

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arcticdementor · 5 years

Link

I’ve never voted. Well, I lie, I voted once. I was 18, and my mother sorta forced me. It also felt like some rite of passage, you know, you grow to 18 and you get to do grown-up stuff like voting, having a voice in the political process. I’ve never been into rituals though, and I felt stupid immediately after putting my vote in the box. I didn’t even like the guy! I thought he was retarded. All of them, really. I still do.

Of course ever time there’s an election people would ask me now and then who I’m gonna vote to. I evolved a series of bunch of canned answers. First one was “Nah they all suck”. Then I read Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter and started saying “one vote doesn’t count anyway”. This triggered huge discussions if there was even a single Boomer at home. “But if everyone thought like you nobody would vote!!”.

-“Well sure but my not voting doesn’t influence other people’s behavior”.

“But you have to vote, if nobody voted…”

-“It doesn’t follow that if I don’t vote then other people don’t vote”.

“But you have to vote, if everyone did like you”

-“Where on earth are you taking that ‘if’ from?

“But you have to vote……”

You should try this, it’s hilarious. They just go in an endless loop bug. Talk about NPCs.

…

And then… Trump happened 3 years ago. It took me a while to get into Trump. I didn’t care about elections, you see? Elections don’t matter. It’s all the same. And not being American I knew little about the guy. I’d seen him on TV now and then but besides him being this kinda sleazy showbiz guy I couldn’t care much about him.

But I was on Twitter, and I was watching all the outrage, and man, Trump was good. He wasn’t good, good. He wasn’t Moldbug. Not even Pat Buchanan. Trump is really inarticulate, I don’t know his verbal IQ but he has the vocabulary of a dumb 10 year old. And yet he got his points across. Good points. Drain the Swamp. NATO is pointless. Make America Great Again. China is ripping us off. You’d be in jail. No more senseless wars. BUILD THE WALL. All great, and most importantly, hilarious ideas. Trump was trolling everyone that I hated, the press, the bureaucrats, the whole Cathedral was up in arms against him, and *he was fighting back*. Successfully! He was talking shit to AIPAC! I just couldn’t help myself. Trump was my guy. I couldn’t vote for him, I’m not American, but I would have. Honest to god, I’d wake up early and vote for Donald Trump.

…

Fast forward 2 and a half years later. No wall. No jail for Hillary. Narrowly avoided jail himself! The swamp is a big as always. Forever war still going on. Spending more time tweeting about Israel than his own country. Shits on Ann Coulter and says he wants more legal immigration. Did I mention no wall? What a disaster. Trump has been a huge and complete disappointment. Again, I don’t dislike the guy personally. I mean I never *liked* him. He’s weird, talks like a retarded 10 year old. I’d say I’d probably wouldn’t enjoy having a few beers with him but he doesn’t even drink. But I don’t hate the guy, I think odds are his heart is in the right place. He just can’t get stuff done. He’s incompetent. I mean, it’s hard. It was always hard. One just doesn’t come in as a complete outsider and reform the whole government from scratch. Then again, people who work in the heart of the beast, in Washington DC, tell me he’s just incompetent.

…

So now what? Back to Moldbuggian detachment? Nothing ever changes, huh. The Cathedral really is all powerful. Ever since Trump made some protests about the intelligence agencies being disloyal or outright attacking him, the Establishment feels so powerful they just blatantly say in the press that the CIA are the good guys. Does nobody remember that the CIA being evil was pretty much proven by the 1960s, and that evil CIA ops have been a staple of books and films for decades? Not anymore; they’re not content with being powerful in the shade. They want outright public submission.

Democracy really is a sham; but it’s hard to go back to detachment now that Bioleninism is out in the open. Elections now are openly not about economic policy or social conservatism. Elections now are about the speed of the dispossession of white straight males. It’s for or against Bioleninism. The majority of candidates of the Democratic party are openly talking of “reparations” for black people, i.e. outright Danegeld. And don’t get me started with open hunt to mess with the sexual hormones of white children in schools. It’s going on right there in the open.

The US has an election next year, the campaign is starting now. Given the present demographic trends, it is very likely that Florida, if not Texas, will flip blue very shortly; that means a rock-solid majority for the Democratic party, forever. Donald Trump is likely to be the last white male president in American history. The 2020 election is probably going to be the last election which is more or less contested. Trump does still have a chance.

But Trump is incompetent. He’s not helping. He’s just treading water while another million Third-world immigrants sneak in, another middle-school boy gets injected estrogen because he doesn’t like football, and another hundred-thousand white men just overdose on opioids because you can’t even play a videogame today without being forced to play a black woman avatar. Can you support this guy? I sure can’t. Again, not my nation, but I wouldn’t. I won’t call him a traitor, although many have. But he didn’t build the wall. He’s letting Amazon, Facebook and Twitter campaign openly against him and censor everything to the right, and he hasn’t lifted a finger. He doesn’t deserve support.

…

Seriously though, to the extent Bernie represents a constituency that’s not for instant Brazilification, I wish him well, but he’s old and frail, and his program isn’t very interesting. And most importantly, his own constituency is being taken over by a guy who’s 10 times smarter, is young, has actual good ideas, is not white and will give the Bernie crowd everything they want, and more. Much more.

To be precise, $1,000 a month more.

Come Andrew Yang.

…

He’s the only candidate in this whole race that doesn’t talk like a bugman. You know what a bugman is. All those politicians and corporate guys who talk in that odd and disingenuous jargon designed to obfuscate. High-grade NPCs, that’s what bugmen are. Well, he isn’t. He goes straight to the issues, analyzes them intelligently, and then has a plan. It may be or may not be a good plan. But I dare you to show me a presidential candidate with a higher IQ than Andrew Yang in the last 30 years. That’s even more of a feat because the guy is East Asian, and God knows East Asians tend to be bugmen too.

The guy even wrote a book called The War On Normal People, which is the perfect definition of the Left. I should use it as a subtitle for a Bioleninism book.

…

But a big part of it is just pure appreciation for the guy. Look at his interview with Tucker. You might remember my last post on Tucker, and how he’s revolutionized conservative commentary in the US by arguing that the focus of government should be taking care of working families. Well, Tucker himself liked Yang, and it’s no wonder he did. Yang is the candidate who’s using the closest arguments to Tucker. By far. He’s lamenting the plight of the working man. He’s calling to help the rural white middle class who’s being ravaged by the opioid suicide crisis. Note that Trump has said some stuff about that, and has tried to get China to stop exports of fentanyl, but he didn’t mention white people by name. Yang did, just like that. He’s the only guy who’s not only overtly or covertly calling for your extinction; he’s the only guy on the record for trying to stop it.

…

And, he’s promising to stop it by taxing the hell of the Enemy. Which again, as Tucker mentioned, isn’t a huge abstract thing The Jews or the Left. No. The enemy is Big Tech. It’s Amazon, it’s Google, It’s Apple. It’s Facebook. It’s Twitter. It’s Woke Capital. It’s those guys who aren’t only taking your jobs, they’re using their monopoly in the management of information to censore us, hide us, slander us and ostracize us. You might remember that Trump also hinted at doing something about that. Regulate Facebook and Twitter as utilities to make sure the Right could actually fight the Culture War, and perhaps show that there’s a majority of people against injecting synthetic hormones into 12 year old children. That he’d make big tech build in America and stop avoiding taxes with blatant laundering tricks. Well, Trump did nothing, and he’s avoiding the topic. Yang isn’t. I have nothing against Amazon’s business, but Bezos chose sides by buying the Washington Post and recently going on a censorship spree, banning right wing books from Amazon. He must pay. Yang says he will.

I don’t know if UBI would work. Americans are crying bloody murder about a proposed 10% VAT. I say cry me a river. Europeans have a 20% VAT. It’s annoying, but it’s not a big deal. Smart people say that automation is overhyped, it’s not growing that fast, self-driving cars, one of the biggest talking points of Yang, are likely to not even happen after all. That may be true. But I’d like to say that the beauty of UBI is not that it’s actually necessary in the way Yang says it is, to give people something to fall back on while they find a new job.

Tucker is also worried about the middle class trucker. But Tucker’s answer is to ban automation. Go full Luddite. Yang is talking about automation a lot. But he doesn’t want to stop it. By implementing UBI he wouldn’t stop automation, he’d accelerate it. Businesses would start automating like crazy once people left unsatisfying jobs to go play Fortnite on UBI or try an instagram e-thot career. A big majority of white collar jobs are complete and utter bullshit make-work made by government regulation to keep people busy and have some income to tax. If Yang succeeded in his proposed plan to completely change the regulatory paradigm to adapt to the computer economy at last, companies could actually get rid of all the inefficiencies, and automate everything. Starting with the bureaucracy.

…

Well China is pushing hard for developing AI and automation. Which is weird in a country which could have a serious unemployment problem if automation goes on. But China doesn’t care. Why not? Because China has realized that with Internet and modern computing, they don’t need the corporations to manage the people anymore. They can do it directly. Everybody has a mobile phone with a camera and a microphone 24/7 with them. The government knows your every move. You don’t need to shame people into buying your ideology by threatening with firing them from their jobs, like America does. That’s so 20th century. Now you can control behavior directly with internet surveillance. Social credit is an extension of this trend. It boggles the mind that accelerationists aren’t talking more about this. Not saying it’s a good thing. But the tech is here and it’s happening anywhere. The only place where it isn’t happening is Europe because we’ve outsourced it to American companies.

If you think UBI might work at giving people hope and readjusting the economy in a more just and fair way, sticking it to the oligarchs, vote for Yang. If you just want $1,000 a month, vote for Yang. If you think UBI would crash everything, vote for Yang, as this gay earth deserves crashing. If you just want UBI to show people that democracy inevitable ends with the people voting themselves money and thus proving democracy is a sham and discredit it as a political system, vote for Yang.

And if you want the final death of 20th century politics, and a new paradigm which breaks with the thievery of Boomers inflating the currency so that asset prices are rising through new records every year, while young people have to go through unpaid internships and ‘gig economy’ servitude until their 40s, while the Bioleninist government is busy with the soft genocide of every productive person with natural biological instincts.

Then Vote for Yang. I rest my case.

#bloody shovel #spandrell #andrew yang

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brentrogers · 4 years

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Podcast: Anxiety and Anger: A One-Two Punch

Do you struggle with anger? Did you know that some of our most hot-headed moments are actually rooted in anxiety? In today’s podcast, Jackie openly shares her own fuse-blowing moment when her husband’s keys were (gasp!) missing from the hook, and now she must face being late for therapy and perhaps even lie dying on the side of the road. How did she handle this catastrophic situation her mind so graciously forewarned her about?

Does this sound familiar? Join us as we discuss anxiety-driven anger and explore ways to minimize and possibly even prevent it.

(Transcript Available Below)

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Marriage- Depression” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Jackie: Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week’s Not Crazy. I’d like to introduce my co-host, Gabe, who lives with bipolar disorder, and is really, really wonderful.

Gabe: I would like to introduce my co-host, Jackie, who lives with major depression.

Jackie: And is not wonderful. Whatever. That’s actually a really great segue, Gabe, because as you may know, a couple weeks ago we talked about bipolar anger and I was pretty angry that I didn’t get a chance to share some of my experiences, not with bipolar anger, but with anger that is rooted in anxiety. And so I thought that that would make a good episode too, to continue the anger talk, I guess, but to redirect it towards anxiety.

Gabe: If you haven’t listened to that episode, you should definitely go and check it out and you don’t have to have bipolar disorder to learn anything from it, because one of the things that it talks about is how anger is on a spectrum from irritability to rage and everything in between. I mean, we really kind of delve deep. So it’s a little asterisk there that we might reference the episode. But, you know, we might not we don’t know what we’re doing.

Jackie: We’re winging it every episode; we’re just winging it.

Gabe: But Jackie, you made a good point when the show wrapped up. Jackie and I were talking and Jackie said, you know, do you think we made the point that people without bipolar disorder can be irrationally angry? And I said, well, I don’t know that we ever discussed it. And then Jackie explained:

Jackie: Oh, but we can, and by we, I mean people who live with anxiety and experience, these little like blips, I guess, of completely irrational moments of anger. And the number one reason why I really wanted to talk about this was because I didn’t know this was anxiety until I had a very clear conversation with my therapist. Shout to Kristen, as usual, we know I love her. Because I would have these moments where I would get so angry so fast. And I knew that it was irrational. I knew it didn’t make sense. I knew that I was completely overreacting. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t figure out what it was and I couldn’t figure out why. Whatever it was, it was making me so angry. And as it turns out, that was my anxiety.

Gabe: Anxiety is this far reaching kind of emotion. On one hand, anxiety is kind of good. I mean, it’s the hairs on the back of your neck that stick up. It’s a warning system and sometimes it’s good to be nervous. Before I go on to a stage to give a speech, I always have, you know, the butterflies in my stomach. You know, I’m just a little bit nervous. And I kind of like that because it shows me that I understand the gravity of what I’m about to do. I’m taking the situation seriously, which makes me more prepared. But an anxiety disorder, of course, is when that anxiety is too much and that anxiety has to manifest itself in something, whether it’s an anxiety attack or just in Jackie’s case, what we’re now calling blip rage.

Jackie: Blip rage? I like it. Yeah, it is not a fun thing to experience. And mostly because I know that when this happens, it’s almost always directed at my husband. My lovely husband, Adam, who does not deserve any of this blip rage. But he’s on the receiving end most of the time because it’s something, sorry, Adam, something that he’s done that is not a big deal, but it has triggered this little bit of anxiety that turns into anger. And so then I’m like just raging at him. And I know it’s wrong. And then I feel bad while I’m doing it. But you can’t stop. You know, it’s like when you’re eating like a jar of Pringles and you just can’t stop eating the whole thing. Or is that

Gabe: Are you literally going to say once you pop, you can’t stop?

Jackie: It’s so appropriate.

Gabe: Pringles, ladies and gentlemen, sponsoring Not Crazy since never. Since never.

Jackie: Well.

Gabe: Straight up, never.

Jackie: Anxiety. Once you pop the anxiety thing, it’s just like full steam ahead.

Gabe: So I think that people listening are like what you just said, that your husband did something wrong. So it’s your response to it that’s unrealistic. I think we’ve kind of followed along in that. But just to kind of ground this for us. Can you give us an example of something that your husband did wrong and your disproportionate angered to said situation?

Jackie: I have so many examples, but something happened a couple of weeks ago, and well, now that I know that this is anxiety, I’m able to like talk myself down sometimes where I’m like, this is just anxiety. You’re not actually angry. But when I left the house, I will tell this story. But when I left, I went through what I was deep thinking. Right. Like where the panic was coming from. And then I was able to explain that to Adam later.

Gabe: Ok. But what did Adam do?

Jackie: I’m getting there. OK. So this is what happened. I was leaving for therapy. Actually, this is like the greatest part of all of this. I was leaving for therapy. Adam was parked behind me. I leave chronically early for everything because I hate being late because it makes me anxious. So I’m like leaving early. We’re good to go. I know he’s parked behind me, but that’s fine because his keys are on the hook and I’ll just move his car until his keys are not on the hook anymore. And now I start to panic because I’m gonna be late. I hate being late. You’re unreliable when you’re late. People judge you when you’re late. So I’m like, Adam, where are your keys? And he goes, Oh, they’re in my pants pocket in your office. I go into my office. There’s no fucking pants in my office. So there’s no fucking keys in my office. So now it went from zero to furious in literally four seconds. From couldn’t find the keys to couldn’t find the keys to now I’m ready to murder somebody. So.

Gabe: I can hear you getting angry as you retell

Jackie: Oh, my God, I’m reliving it.

Gabe: the story.

Jackie: I’m getting, I’m getting just so anxious.

Gabe: Yeah, I mean, listening to your voice, you started off with, let me explain this thing that happened between me and my beloved. And then all of a sudden, the F word came out. And you were just like

Jackie: I know.

Gabe: There’s no keys! Where are my keys? So we all agree that not being able to find your keys in the grand scheme of things is not that big of a deal. And also, you live in like a twelve hundred square foot house. So there’s just a finite place that they could be.

Jackie: Right. Right. I know this. So Adam gets out of bed. He walks four steps in a different direction and picks up his keys and goes. Here they are. Well, I’m already furious at this point. Right? Because I’m going to be late. I get the keys. I am honestly approximately probably a total of 40 seconds later than I had anticipated being. But this is the 40 seconds that’s gonna make the difference in my day. I was not even a block away from the house and I immediately felt guilty and like a dickhead. So I was like, all right, just what happened? What just happened, self? Because that one was like kind of a doozy.

Gabe: Hang on, hang on, Jackie. Let me back you up for a moment. When you started doing this self-talk, this sort of chain analysis of what was going on in your mind and what was happening and why you lost your shit on Adam, had the anger subsided? Were you now back to normal? I’m trying to avoid using the phrase. Had you calmed down?

Jackie: So I was in the car driving, and now this is just anxiety, right, like heart rate faster. Everything is just more intense. I’m not mad anymore. Now I just have lingering like heart palpitations. I’m still anxious, like heightened anxiety, but the anger part is slipping away. And that’s when I start to feel like I was a jerk in that moment where I can feel it slipping away.

Gabe: The anger has started to subside, so your rational brain is starting to take over, and that’s when you sort of realize that you got angry at Adam for essentially either doing nothing wrong depending on how you look at it, or doing something just minor. A minor household infraction, you lost your shit over. So guilt is probably the next feeling that is about to like form in your brain.

Jackie: Yes, I almost immediately called him and apologized. I went to therapy and on the drive there, it’s about 20 minutes away. I was thinking about what was actually the anxiety process. Right. What was I so anxious about? What was it that I was worried would happen? As you may know, if you live with anxiety, a lot of anxiety is rooted in fear. Whether we know it or not, most anger is also rooted in fear. So it’s not terribly surprising when they present in similar ways. And so I was trying to think about what was I afraid of. And then I wanted to be able to explain this to Adam later, because we’ve gotten past the point of identifying this anger as anxiety. He knows it’s anxiety now, but it doesn’t make it any better. It doesn’t make it any easier to understand. And it damn sure doesn’t make me feel any less guilty after it happens.

Gabe: What do you do with that guilt? So now your anger has calmed down, your rational brain has taken over. You are now back to the Jackie Zimmerman that we all know and love. But you’ve got this thing in your past that happened. So what do you do?

Jackie: I went to how can I explain this to Adam? How can I help him understand irrational anxiety, anger? Not to be like, well, now you get it, so it doesn’t matter if it happens, it doesn’t count anymore. But to me, it felt like if I could get him to understand when he sees this happening, he might not take it personally. Basically, it might just be like this is a behavior that you have that we work through. And I can help calm you down in these moments as opposed to being like, figure it out. The keys are on the hook kind of thing.

Gabe: One, I’m going to say, as your friend who is always on your side in any fight that you get into with your spouse. Yeah, yeah, he should help you manage your emotions and learn to be a better spouse for an irrationally angry and anxious person. I got your back. And then I’m going to say, really? You think Adam has to help stop you from being an anxious, irrational, angry person? Like Adam has any culpability here? Why are you involving him in this?

Jackie: Here’s why. And no, I don’t think that’s his responsibility. But Adam asks regularly in these moments, how can I help you? What can I do to make this better? And these are the moments where I’m like, well, you could put your fucking keys on the hook. That would have made it better.

Gabe: But that’s not helpful.

Jackie: No, it’s not. Right. So I’m thinking, what can I do to make this helpful? And this is what I realized. And I got home and I told Adam this. I know in that moment it looked like we couldn’t find your keys. And I left 40 seconds later than I anticipated and I lost my shit. But this is actually what was happening. I’m good. I’m leaving on time. Everything’s gonna be great. And then it’s oh, shit, I’m not leaving on time. So then I’m gonna be in a different traffic pattern and then this traffic pattern is gonna have an accident. And now I’m gonna get in an accident because I’m 10 minutes later than I was supposed to be. And so now I’m gonna be on the side of the road dying because you didn’t put your fucking keys on the hook. I put my keys on the hook. I shouldn’t be dying on the side of the road. This completely irrational thought pattern. It took me a minute to realize it, but that’s really what happened. I was worried because I left four seconds later, I’d be in a different spot on the freeway than I was supposed to be. That was gonna be the problem spot and something terrible was gonna happen because I didn’t leave when I thought I was supposed to leave.

Gabe: You became a victim of catastrophic thinking. It’s where you played out the worst possible scenario in your own mind and then responded to it as if it actually happened. One of the things that helped me really early on with catastrophic thinking is it can go the other way, right? You can decide that, oh my God, Adam saved your life. If you would have left on time, you would have got run over by a bus. But because you left 40 seconds later, you were in a different traffic pattern. You were on the freeway at a completely different time. So now that bus, when it changed lanes, your car wasn’t there. You are alive today because Adam didn’t put his keys on the hook. That is just as likely as a scenario as the one that our brains give us. Except that the ones that our brains give us are almost universally negative. But you know what? They both are false, not reality, didn’t happen. Untrue. Completely and entirely made up.

Jackie: No, that’s totally right. It is catastrophic to the worst possible degree. Right? Literally 40 seconds difference. And I’m dead on the side of the road in this scenario, too. Also, like I couldn’t reach my phone. Like, I went really into it really far and I came home and I explain this to Adam and he looked at me like, first of all, you are fucking crazy. Like, literally, how did you get there from my keys are not on the hook. And I was like, this is what anxiety does to me. Right? I get anxious about what’s supposed to happen. And then when it’s not happening, I go immediately into a deep, dark hole.

Gabe: One of the things that we love about our spouses, of course, is that they ask us follow up questions and that they try to understand and I sincerely hope that all of our listeners have someone in their life to help them manage anxiety, mental illness, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, whatever. I know that many people don’t, but if you get somebody that wants to help you, you have to take responsibility to train them. You become their sensei and they are your mental illness ninja.

Jackie: Yeah, something like that.

Gabe: Listen. It was much cooler in my head, Jackie. But go with it. Adam was nice enough to ask and I know you made the joke. You wanted to say, put your fucking keys on the hook, but you didn’t because you want Adam to be able to help. So you’ve tried to explain it to him. You have explained it to him because the answer makes you look fucking crazy. That’s a really weird thing to think. But what advice did you give Adam to help you? Because I know that you didn’t just say, Oh, Adam, I’m going through this crazy anxiety. I’m catastrophizing everything. And I’m just, I’m just nuts. So just tell me to calm down and I immediately will. That cannot be what you did. What did you actually do? What worked?

Jackie: Two things in this scenario. One, I did not say that at all. I kind of wish that I had, though, just to see the look on his face. In this scenario, I found the words to explain exactly what was happening. Right? Because I’ve said to him multiple times, Oh, it’s my anxiety. You can tell that I’m anxious. I’m mad right now, but it’s just anxiety. But I really broke it down into like, it’s not just anxiety. It’s me, literally catastrophizing and dying on the side of the road. That’s why I got upset. So I think if you can dig deep down and really picture what your anxiety is telling you and you can verbalize that to somebody. I do think it helps because, one, it puts your crazy in front of somebody else, which feels vulnerable, but also, I think, teaches them why it’s so bad. It really shows them what’s happening in your head and helps them hopefully understand at least a little bit.

Gabe: And it’s honest.

Jackie: Yeah.

Gabe: There is a freedom in telling somebody what happened and being aware that it makes you sound ridiculous or insane or crazy or nuts or whatever word we want to use. But you’re admitting that you were wrong. Right. You were admitting that what you did was wrong. I’d like to think that you’re apologizing for it. I don’t want to put words in your mouth there. Jackie.

Jackie: I did apologize numerous times.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Jackie: And we’re back talking about anger caused by anxiety.

Gabe: Everything that we’ve talked about up until now was sort of making amends after the fact, explaining what happened after the fact. Did you get to a conversation where you’re like, look, the next time this happens? It would be helpful if you could try to do X? Like, are you working together to try to prevent this from happening in the future?

Jackie: A little bit. We’re not great at it because most of the stuff that would make it better is proactive approaches, not reactive like. Put your fucking keys on the hook.

Gabe: I love how this is still Adam’s fault. Right?

Jackie: I mean.

Gabe: Why is the proactive approach not care that the keys weren’t on the hook?

Jackie: Well, because I have to be on time.

Gabe: Right, you have to be on time. But why is the proactive approach not leave two minutes earlier so that you have a built in 120 seconds to find Adam’s keys that you only need 40 seconds to find?

Jackie: Well, because what you may not realize is that in this scenario, I am already leaving at least 15 minutes earlier than I need to be leaving. But if for some reason I don’t leave the door until 10 minutes before I need to be leaving, then I’m late. Right? Again, these are not rational thoughts, Gabe. This is irrational shit. And it’s the unexpected, right? It’s not so much that Adam’s keys weren’t on the hook, but they were on the table. It’s that they weren’t on the hook. And then they weren’t where you said they were. So then it was like, well, now they could be anywhere, right? Then we just freaked out. And what if we never find them? And I’m stuck here forever and I don’t go to therapy and then I’m a disaster? This is how it goes. So.

Gabe: I’m still going to give push back, though, that it seems like your solution to this problem is not for you to make changes, but for Adam to make changes like that can’t be the take away, Jackie.

Jackie: Honestly, part of it is on him because there are times when, like we leave the house together and I’m like, we have to leave at noon. We have to. Or otherwise I know in my head I’m going to have a meltdown because we’re late, and he’ll like wait until 11:59 to put his shoes on. And then I’m already like, we’re gonna be late, right? So these are moments where I’m like, hey, you know that I get very anxious when we don’t leave on time. So if we could work together to really leave on time, that would be lovely. Right? So some of this is teamwork in that we need to make sure things are where they’re supposed to be and or we leave when we say we’re going to.

Gabe: All right. Jackie, but all of this is predicated on the idea that your spouse, your family members want to help. Not everybody has that. Some people live with their roommates and their roommates are not their mom or dad and doesn’t love them. It’s not their spouse, et cetera. And that person is like, look, I’m sorry that my keys weren’t there, but this is your problem. This is completely your problem. I’m not going to live with a crazy person that does this. What advice do you have for them? I mean, you’re lucky you live with Adam. What are the rest of us do? We all don’t live with Adam.

Jackie: I know. I’m so lucky I live with Adam. The other thing that I do, I’m not great at it, but I can do sometimes, is I have learned ways to talk myself down. Slash, self-soothe, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes it is very silly things that feel stupid to say. You feel like such an idiot when you’re trying to self-soothe. But one of the things that I learned in therapy was essentially to just tell yourself that you’re safe and you’re comfortable. Just keep repeating like in a circle that like, I’m safe, I’m comfortable, I’m happy. A lot of these affirmations, if nothing else, it distracts you from the anxiety that’s circling around your head. I still have an issue where I feel like an idiot saying these things out loud. So I don’t do that one very often. What I do is I kind of lean into the anxiety where I go, like, what’s the worst case scenario here? And then try to work myself back from it. If that makes sense.

Gabe: Yeah. What you’re describing is chain analysis. It’s where you get yourself to the worst possible scenario. And then you go back to the second worst possible scenario and then the third and you just kind of moving yourself all the way back to where you are now. And when you put all of those things, you know, in your brain, when you analyze them one at a time, you see just how many steps are between where you are now and where the worst case scenario is that makes you feel better. I took the liberty Jackie, of getting on the Internet and searching for ways to calm anxiety. And the first one right up at the top was leave early. So you’ve kind of messed that up because you’re leaving early and you’re still panicked. I understand. But I guess I just want the audience to know that leaving extra time is something that works for a lot of people. They’re not as worried about being late. If they just leave 15 minutes early for everything because they’ll either get there 15 minutes early. Which case? Hey, use your phone in the parking lot, stop and get a cup of coffee. Who cares? Or they have the 15 minutes to be late because of the aforementioned train crash on the freeway, I guess.

Jackie: Yeah. Who put that train on the freeway? I don’t know. But, you know.

Gabe: It was a terrible idea. Other examples they gave are the affirmations I’m going to be OK, this is not a major setback. This is not a big deal. Counting to 10 breathing exercises. The one, though, that I like the most and one that I use and I did not even realize that this was an anxiety technique is fidget toys. I carry a little fidget toy. I bought it off the Internet. I think it was like six bucks. Keep it in my pocket. And when I’m really, really stressed out, I pull it out of my pocket and I just start playing with it just right there, because focusing on that little fidget toy, moving it around, spinning the little gears, the buttons, the different tactile feels, even the way it kind of clinks together. It’s very soothing to me. You can also do this with pictures on your phone. You know, look at pictures of your last vacation. I know I tease you because you have you and Adam’s wedding picture as your screen saver on your phone. But, you know, I imagine that this helps reduce anxiety.

Jackie: Another thing that I do a lot when I’m just anxious is I meditate, and it really works well for me. But when I am angry because of my anxiety, I’m not going to meditate. I can’t focus. I got to be angry. Right. So for me, some of the self-talk, because it redirects the thought process. This didn’t work in the scenario I gave you with the keys on the hook. Because in my head, I was already late. I wasn’t late. But in my head, it was late. In these other scenarios, when I’m not feeling like I’m going to be late, I’m just really anxious because we’re not leaving on time. I give myself moments to really walk through it and be like, this is not so bad. You’re gonna be five minutes late. It’s gonna be fine. Right? Talking myself down. It didn’t work this time because I already felt like I was dying on the side of the road before I even left the house. But I do work really hard to internalize talking myself down to the point where like, this is fine. You know, this is fine. This is not going to be a big deal.

Gabe: Jackie, you’ve kind of hit on a chronic problem with self-soothing. Oftentimes we start it too late. We wait until the anger kicks in before we pull out the fidget spinner, before we look at the picture, before we do the affirmation, before we count to 10, before we are aware of our breathing and practice some sort of mindfulness. We have to get better at doing it too early because what would be the bummer? What would be the bummer if you’re like, okay, I can’t find Adam’s keys, I’m going to count to ten right now. You didn’t need to count to 10. So, I mean, like what? The horror. Oh, my God. You counted to 10 or you told yourself you were a good person or you looked at a picture on your phone that made you happy? No. How dare you? How dare you have an unsolicited, unwarranted moment of joy? We have to give ourselves permission to use coping mechanisms before we need to cope. Right? They can be preventative. So many people want to whip these things out after the tiger is out of the cage. That’s not what we should do them.

Jackie: I definitely agree, and I think that in some of these scenarios where like I leave early, that’s my attempt at being proactive when something comes up unexpected like keys on the hook where you can’t predict it. That’s when I think you need to know what works for you, right? Is it self-soothing via talk? Is it meditating? Is it counting? Like what is the reactive thing that is going to work for you? And just know it, have it in your back pocket. Because what really sucks is being this person and apologizing for it all the fucking time. Right? Being like I know that that was shitty. Sorry. Hey, this happened yesterday. I’m sorry again. I couldn’t figure out how to talk myself off a cliff, so I yelled at you. That’s not a fun place to be. So it’s much better to know what works for you and try to remember to use it because being a dick is not fun for anybody.

Gabe: Jackie, all I know is that for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, any gift giving holiday that happens between Gabe and Jackie, I am giving you and Adam an extra set of keys to Adam’s car. You’re just gonna be drowning in extra keys because honestly, at this point in the show, if all of the audience is just not like, you know, I have two keys to my car, why do they only have one? I don’t think they’re paying attention.

Jackie: He didn’t know where his spare set was. I’m just putting it out there.

Gabe: Thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of Not Crazy. Wherever you downloaded the podcast, please rate, review, and subscribe share us on social media and use your words to tell people why they should click on and listen to us. You can always e-mail us at [email protected]. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don’t like. Or tell Jackie where she can buy a third set of keys for Adam’s car. Remember, we always put outtakes after the credits and we will see you next week.

Jackie: See ya.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Not Crazy from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. To work with Jackie, go to JackieZimmerman.co. Not Crazy travels well. Have Gabe and Jackie record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

Podcast: Anxiety and Anger: A One-Two Punch syndicated from

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positivepsychologyinterventions · 4 years