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jeniffercheck · 6 months

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kyleeeeeee #3 from the three sentence prompt list for. maybe twiniverse? maybe? <3

3. "I don't care."

thank u nia<33 under the cut bc this got long (of course it did) :)

Karolina wakes up to an empty bed. It shouldn’t surprise her; if she were Shiv, she thinks she might’ve left as well, recalling the anger and the vitriol in the night before.

I can’t keep doing things with the nannies and the assistants, Shiv. I need you. I need you, and you’re not fucking here. I swear, you wouldn’t even read my messages if they came to you in a court summons.

She considers staying in bed, sulking the rest of the day and drowning herself in fucking RHONY and mind-numbing emails, but Audrey’s still home, which means there’s going to be a horde of hungry teenagers flooding her staff-less kitchen in a matter of hours. She pulls herself out of bed and stalks to the kitchen, planning out the string of expletives she’s going to text Shiv that’ll be no doubt intercepted by Sarah before she even has to read them, nearly missing the scent of coffee already spreading throughout the downstairs.

She briefly wonders if she did schedule the kitchen staff for the day and didn’t realize, but they’re not on her calendar. She’s not positive Audrey even knows how to use the coffee machine, which leaves one option. She hates that she’s surprised when she finds her wife in their kitchen.

“You know how to use that?” she asks as she enters, Shiv’s head shooting up from her phone where she’s stood, leaning against the counter.

“It’s mine,” Shiv says. “Why would I not?”

Karolina sits down at the island across from Shiv, shrugging her shoulders. “I just thought you’d have forgotten by now.”

Shiv scoffs and sets her mug down on the counter. She pulls a second one out, Karolina’s, and fills it. “Good morning, honey,” Shiv says to herself, adding cream and sugar to the mug. “How’d you sleep?”

Shiv slides the mug across the counter to Karolina, and Karolina sips it. It’s perfect. “Good morning, honey,” Karolina says. “It needs more sugar.”

Shiv grabs a couple of packets, tossing them across the counter. Karolina grabs them, but leaves them unopened. Shiv rolls her eyes when she notices.

“You’re such an ass.”

It’s almost so normal of an interaction that Karolina would feel comforted by it if it weren’t for the events of the night prior playing on a loop in her head. She knows Shiv feels it too—try as she might, the woman isn’t a robot—but neither of them is going to bring it up. Stalemate, per usual.

Karolina thinks about ripping off the band-aid and bringing it back up, but the apartment is too quiet and too many of Audrey’s friends are over. She’s already dreading the thought of any of them having heard last night. Then she sees it. She notices it before Shiv does, her phone ringing, silently on the counter.

“Your phone’s ringing,” Karolina says. Shiv looks down at it, her fingers twitch and her lips purse, but she doesn’t budge. Shiv has a point to prove.

“I don’t care.”

Karolina can’t help the laugh that escapes her. Shiv, if anything, is not a good liar.

“You do,” Karolina says. Time’s running out on the call, and they both know it. Karolina doesn’t want to be cruel. She doesn’t want to be the thing keeping Shiv from her life. She doesn’t want to be resentment in a body, the thing that suppresses Shiv until Shiv has no choice but to suppress her back. She doesn’t want that for them. She sighs. “Answer it, Shiv.”

Shiv still doesn’t pick it up, though. Instead, she grabs the phone and silences the call, flipping it over to hide the screen.

“They can survive for an hour without me,” Shiv says. “While we figure out what the fuck I’m doing here.”

You’ve been in between home and DC for months. I wouldn’t even call this your home anymore.

Karolina looks down into her coffee. She’ll admit, part of her had wanted to make Shiv feel bad. To make her see what she was missing, to see what her absence had caused, and she knows she succeeded, that much is clear. What she didn’t want was to drive Shiv away. To make her feel like this isn’t where she belongs.

“Shiv,” Karolina says, looking back up. “This is your home. I shouldn’t have…when I said that—I was just mad.”

Shiv grips her mug, and her eyebrows betray her a bit as they twitch downward ever so slightly. “Are you still mad?” Shiv asks, and she somehow sounds hopeful, even though they’re both well aware it’s wishful thinking.

Karolina wants to say yes, wants to lay into Shiv all over again and tell her all the ways Shiv’s failing them, Karolina, their kids, but it’s hard to do it now that Shiv’s here. Now that Karolina’s not running on sheer spite and loneliness, and she actually remembers what it’s like to sleep with Shiv’s arms around her. Now that she can look into Shiv’s eyes and see that they’re just as tired as her own. Just as worried. It gives Karolina pause that she doesn’t want, an aching absolution for Shiv that always comes over her, no matter what she does, no matter how Karolina feels.

“Of course, I’m mad,” Karolina says, because she has to. “But I don’t want to be, Shiv. I miss you.”

Maybe it’s the way she says it—without the gruffness of a hoarse throat or drawer to slam shut in cadence with her words—or maybe it’s because it’s the truth and there’s nothing else left to say, that makes Shiv come to her side of the counter and cup her cheeks, lips lightly hitting her forehead.

“I’m right here,” Shiv says quietly.

“For how long?”

Karolina’s glad she can’t see Shiv’s face when she asks, glad Shiv can’t see the preemptive disappointment on her own.

“Audrey found me this morning,” Shiv says. “I promised I’d make her and the girls pancakes.”

So, long enough to make breakfast. After that, it’s fair game. Shiv could be out the door within the hour, which means Karolina doesn’t want to waste what little time she has left being upset. Not when it’s inevitable anyway.

She leans away from Shiv, letting a smirk take over her features. “She wants your pancakes?”

“Well, duh,” Shiv says, welcoming the switch up in energy. “You know mine are better.”

“If you like them burnt,” Karolina says, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, that’s how it is?” Shiv says, laughing. Karolina’s surprised when she finds herself laughing as well, and her lips settle into a small smile, Shiv’s own to match. They sit in the silence for a moment, letting the feeling of genuine joy flow between them, and then Shiv holds out a hand.

“Fine. Show me how it’s done, Novotney,” Shiv says. Karolina knows it won’t mean everything’s fixed, knows they’ll probably be arguing again by the time they have the house all to themselves and Shiv’s due back in DC, but she lets herself have this moment. Lets herself have Shiv.

“Fine, Roy,” Karolina says. “But you’re cracking all of the eggs.”

Shiv frowns as Karolina grabs her extended hand. “You know I hate that.”

“Oh,” Karolina says. “Do you? I must’ve forgotten.”

“Fuck you,” Shiv says, and she smiles as she says it, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like she and Shiv might be just fine.

#the girls they're married and getting along #kind of #shivlina #shivlina fic #shiv roy x karolina novotney #duskfalls #twiniverse

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yahoodarling · 2 years

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Baizhu X Inexperienced/sick reader(GN)

I have done it... i have written fluff! It is possible! Im rather proud of myself

Warnings: Smoking

"You are going to hurt yourself." Baizhu sighed as you clumsily held the lighter too close to your face trying to get the paper to light. It wasnt your fault this damn paper was fire resistant.

Baizhu stood up from his desks chair and sat next to you on the couch behind the Bubu pharmacy. Gently he tipped the rolled paper fulled with his selection of herbs and weeds upwards, took hold of your hand and guided it to lighting the end. "Suck in deeply. The flame needs suction to light the herbs inside, else you are just burning the ends of the paper and not the actual stuff you want burnt."

Baizhu was a good friend, he always entertained your thoughts and requests. You had known him for so long now, you were one of his first patients he had when the Bubu pharmacy began, of course you needed contant supervision at the time to make sure you were alright. Even to this day neither of you knew what exactly made you feel fatigued, light headed and easily susceptible to illness but your symptoms were a lot less sever now then they were in the past. You could live a life, have a job and have friends when before in your youth you were bedridden and scared to explore anything outside your rooms walls. Your teenage years were fulled with books and sleep, missing an important part of life but at least you got to know Baizhu, your reliable ever flamboyant doctor and friend.

At this moment you wanted to spend time with him, he had gotten so busy in his work you hardly got to see him so you told him you were interested in trying out a known hobby of his: casual smoking.

Baizhu described the sensation as simply mind numbing not world altering like you first thought. You always imagined getting high ment not being in the right mind, saying stupid stuff and doing stuff youd regret, Baizhu laughed a lot when you explained your concerns, how silly.

You sucked hard on command, getting a mouth fill of a slightly bitter air, hardly anything as bitter as Baizhus medicine but still having that noteable ting to it.

You let go and scrunched your face slightly, it wasnt bad or overpowering like you thought, in fact it felt underwhelming.

"Congratulations! Youve just set your first foot into a world of drug abuse and addiction. How do you feel?" Baizhu sang sarcastically, mocking your original concerns.

"Shush" you huffed and tried breathing in another pull to see if it was any different.

The man beside you chuckled and leaned back into his couch, picking up a book and flicking threw it. Hed never admit it but it was thanks to you he didnt overwork himself. He knew what was healthy for him but he often got consumed in his research or daily deeds providing for the sick citizens all over Liyue. It was thanks to you he could remind himself that a break was okay now and then.

"So, how long does this stuff last?" You ask turned to him in question.

He continued to read his book, answer robotic like he knew youd ask and had planned a response long before. "Depends. Peoples bodies tend to work differently. It could take you a second or hours to feel the effects. The effects could last a jolly moment or a life time, or your body simply won't register it and you wont feel a thing. Its out of my control. All i can do is ulter the type and amount of stuff you take in, how your body recieves it is up to your body."

He looked away from his book and up to the roof, an emotionless look on his face which was very unlike him. "If i could control how the body recieves stimulants and toxins both myself and the world would be a very different."

You knew instantly that he was reffering to his illness. Much like you he was plagued with something uncurable, he never went into detail about it but you knew it was a soft spot for him. He feared death as much as you feared uncertainty.

You hummed in thought, trying to think of an appropriate response when you felt your hand lift unintentionally. Baizhu held your wrist, pulled in closer to it and gave a drag off the roll. Then leant back and huffed a sigh, getting comfy in the couchs blankets and pillows again.

"Dont worry about it. Life has its treasures. We just have to explore them and cherish the ones that deside to stick with us." He stated before going back to his book.

'Explore'. Were you too scared? You hadnt left Liyue Harbour your entire life, the furthest out you had gone was the surrounding mountain range one year you were feeling well enough to go see the lantern right. Perhaps you should try explore a little more?

With that thought the new muscle memory of brining the roll to your mouth unlocked as you periodically took huff after huff. Baizhu didnt give you anything 'heavy' as he described it and you trusted him to that. In time the plush couch, familiar environment and good friend to your side erged a dozy feeling to arise as you began to focus on the smaller sounds of late night Liyue.

"Dont burn yourself." Baizhu suddenly said, lifting your hand away from your leg, the one holding the still liy though short roll. He took it out your hand, gave a quick pull or two and stood up to despose of what was left.

Baizhu was so good to you. So gentle. His humorous nature that seemed overpowering at times contrasted to the graceful care he showed. In all your years of knowing him his touch had never been harsh, times you were in pain were all because of the sicknesses youd catch and it was thanks to him that youd recover.

"Baizhu, you are so good to me." You voiced your thoughts. He chuckled in return and sat back next to you, a knowing smile on his face as he ruffled your hair.

"Im your doctor. Id hope i can treat you well."

You frowned at his response.

"No, i mean as a friend, well… yes as a doctor too but i dont think i would be spending a late night with a usual doctor smoking and dozing off now right? I wanna thank you for this safe space you have created for me. Thanks to you i can over come my fears and slowly push my boundaries a little further everyday."

Baizhu pulled you in, cradled your head into his chest and have you a quick kiss on the crown of your head. The action left you a little flustered but otherwise unbothered.

"Im glad to know that. I hope to have more moments like this in the future."

He didnt pull away, you simply fell into his hold as he went back to reading. It was so warm and safe and yet something you had never done before, you had never been this close to him like you were now.

You truly wanted to get closer, to be fitted againt him entirely and share his touch but in order to do that youd have to initiate it. Baizhu wouldnt lead you into that. What if he didnt want to get any closer? Maybe he was simply comforting you and didnt feel as relaxed and willing to share each others space as you felt. You closed your eyes, deeply thinking about what move to make. You really wanted to get closer but you didnt want to distrub him. None the less you willed yourself. You shuffled in, lay your head deeper onto his chest to the point you slowly began falling into his lap.

Baizhu didnt mind. He hummed and let yourself get comfortable before laying his hand in your hair, gently carresing through each lock of strands and slightly pulling and untangling knots. The gentle pull of your scalp and soft plush of his lap tempted your eyelids to close. You battled greatly to stay awake, not wanting to fall asleep and lose the moment.

"Its alright. You can rest. If i must rest so must you." Baizhu said as he looked down on you through his glasses, the chains connected dangling above like a childs mobile watching the chains and beads sway to his heads movements.

"Next time you want to spend some time together you dont need to push yourself to involve yourself into my hobby, ill be more aware to spend time with you. I think its important and getting to share this time… its enjoyable."

His hands finally pushed you to closing your eyes and they stayed close. Finally accepting sleep. Baizhu blushed at the sight, enjoyed the view for a moment more then got back to carresing your hair and reading his book until he too retires to bed.

Look at me being all fluffy~ you would hardly believe its the same person~

#yahooworks #x gender neutral reader #x male reader #x female reader #genshin x gn reader #genshin x male reader #genshin x female reader #baizhu #fluff

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jobey-wan-kenobi · 1 year

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Two-Bit and Marcia

I see all y’all’s cute headcanons about them dating and defying their respective family/friends and being a sweet happy lil’ couple. I want that to be true but it just rings false to me. No way. Can’t happen. Not in their world. (Also, let’s be honest, Two-Bit’s drunk ass should not be marrying anyone, certainly not some sheltered young girl with poor conflict resolution skills.)

Here’s what I do see happening. It’s way later in life. Like, mid-80s? Reagan’s in the White House. Neither is in Tulsa anymore. They’ve both wound up, indirectly, in a not-too-far away city, like, I dunno. Edmonton or Fayetteville. They know through the grapevine the other is living there too but don’t seek each other out. It’s serendipitous, the day they run into each other. It’s a treat. Not gonna lie, it’s a special treat for both of them when they find out pretty quickly that they’re both single.

Date night! Dinner and drinks at a bar. Both are a little nervous but they wind up spilling their guts and roasting each other the whole time. There’s bowling involved. It sounds lame, and compared to their teenage years of course it is, but it’s still a blast, because it’s them.

Both of them feel like they’ve pretty much fucked up their lives so far. The more they share, the more comfortable they both feel sharing more. Marcia tells him about her asshole ex and how most of their kids hate both of them right now and how she’s living like a fugitive to avoid getting served papers because her husband got photographs of her screwing around with another man while they were unofficially separated. Two-Bit tells her about the stupidest and most embarrassing arrests he’s been put under. The late 60s and 70s weren’t kind to him. He made a lousy hippie. But he was a big fan of the drugs. He has a kid too. His kid adores him, because he visits only occasionally. He’s Disneyland Dad. Two-Bit doesn’t push the mom for more because he knows she’s right that it’s not good for the kid to expect consistency that he can’t live up to.

Both of them roast themselves. This is Two-Bit and Marcia. They don’t just make polite awkward self-deprecating jokes. It’s not “funny.” It’s not fishing for compliments. It’s brutal. And they don’t reassure each other. They roast each other too. They talk and laugh loudly but they’re in their own old language of metaphors and wordplay and non-sequiturs. No one understands them. It’s okay to tell each other all of their fuck-ups though. Neither of them is surprised. Neither of them thinks any less of the other. “You haven’t changed,” Two-Bit tells her. “You stop that,” Marcia says, “I wish.” “Fine, you’ve changed. You’ve grown up.” “I’ve still got that same stick up my ass.” Two-Bit lights up. He starts trying to physically locate it. In the bar. She has to throw some of her drink in his face. They leave sniping and laughing.

Once they meet, Marcia gets more serious about getting her affairs in order. She gets a new lawyer, stops playing games and procrastinating, gets the divorce finalized. She does get screwed quite a bit but at least it’s a closed book now. Two-Bit goes back to AA for, like, the eighth time? It’s different this time. Everyone can tell. He didn’t come to make friends. He didn’t come to get an audience for his “and I’m a shit-faced motherfucker!” jokes. He came to finally advance past Step 4.

They drive to Vegas to elope. They like being on the road so much that they stick with it for years, becoming antiques and mechanical parts dealers. They kill at it. Eventually they decide to settle in one spot again, but they don’t lose their zest for life. Two-Bit is steadily employed by the time his kid graduates and he puts the kid through college. They make new friends. Not greasers or Socs or suburban robots or criminals. Just regular ordinary people.

#the outsiders #two-bit #two-bit matthews #headcanons

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serialjune · 3 months

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The Betty Boop Continuum, ch. 1

George

Sandra twisted my mind in no way any woman ever had before. She'd torment me, hardly speaking, barely moving, her face concealing the bad news. There's only one woman like that in every man's life and possibly only one woman, period, Sandra. I suppose you can't be yourself all the time and, at one point or another, the adversary is going to capitalize on that inconsistency, making a fool of you for the ages. I always thought history had such a soft-hearted and coy way of putting social rejection: left out in the rain, beaten away with a broom, cartoon acts of glib violence and a parable featured at the end. There's nothing soft hearted about Quartown. A couple of romances here and there, the vanishing voice of a Cuban enchantress, a secret shared only by the ends of the Earth, where the Atlantic meets the Pacific. And I always have to ask, embracing the sea in this romantic mode, would I go back to that place? Where seashores yearned for inexperience, that lust for life, mythically our own, but never really. Neither ancestors, either.

I wanted to get away, by night, where I could join the descendents who might take me from this cruel place. I needed some benign fool to warm my saucer with the tender rays of mutual acceptance. If that meant deforming into a sack of skin, I wouldn't mind. Conquistadors before me would, at times, keel to their own cruelty and settle for a savage, only to learn that the savage, too, cannot digest stupidity any more than his own kin might. The priestly elder, coat of arms, no more kindly when he taps the staff of exile. I took a skinny bitch in shades, from the tanning booth, to be the hallmark of decadence both my grandpa and myself could take euphoria from: beauty for an age, eclipsed by a moment's desire. Evil, all evil, not mine, but someone else's: how it is all like a game of hot potato, taken to the bitter end, where the can goes rattling down the line.

Lately my anxiety had grown like a mazey vine of tangles, right out of my seat, a fire down under. All these girls, even before Sandra, had this remarkably cheap way of applying mascara and it somehow made them look like Goddesses. Not Greek. Polynesian, maybe. Babylonian. A cascading yellow face illuminated by the bronze emission of a city bus: unconventional, but pretty. The universal smell of wine and beer, especially where it does not belong... she'd come from the wreckage looking pure, untouched by her own environmental conditioning. Such scenes, such racoon looking smears of makeup, all tribute to the one and only lost soul, the orchid, the phony. Why did everyone love beer so much? Disarray, disorder, aesthetics of contradiction and disgusting portraiture. I know that's the ticket for me, but for everyone else, too? Just never thought the old working stiffs had it in them, maybe we weren't sharing the same drink... somehow always reminding me of her. I raced to drunkenness, raping her with the very presence of my disfigured mind. She always saw right through me like an x-ray. To lose it all in one gesture of over-confidence. I never was the type to lose my head, in love or peace time, but for her, I'd not go gently into that good night... And now bathrobes and chintzy leather, braids and robotic forms of masculinity shuffle around the corridor, as I wallow dead in my failure to organize a plan.

Sandra

So then we watched Adventure Time for four seasons straight, refusing to eat and drunk on love to the point of hangover. Hey, it's embarrassing, but it's what really happened. Oh, love, that relapse of the animalian will.

Teagan (who's name really sounded more like "Teenager") manage to save two bong rips over the course of six hours, all night. Every tiny bump startled him to the point of jumping. It looked remarkably silly, to see a man with a beard that Paul Bunyan could have only dreamed of, afraid like a little boy. The beadiness of those black eyes caused me to frantically worry about things his alter-ego might do, if suddenly enabled by a switch. As a woman, I knew to keep my panic hushed and plan for my escape later.

On a scale of 1-100 (with 100 being "party planet" and 1 being "sometimes I still see my neighbour", I'd say the present year of 202x was at about 50%). I was having good thoughts for an alarming amount of time, then my dad walked in and ruined the chill vibes immediately. He came at me, saying all this about,

"I play the fool just to build you up into playing the seer. Young people cannot see how lucky they are, if not for this one fact: parents act as step ladders for their minds,"

And my brain tried its hardest to reject that thought. It was like KFC, Skittles and Pepsi, during the Superbowl, were electrocuting my mind with their rainbow crest of intrusion. In that moment, I could have told you that I wanted it all in me. Yet how little that was to ask, Pepsi, KFC and Skittles. Corruption is a part of getting older, after all. Maybe believing that for so long led me here, amongst the beer stains and bong water debris. This living room was a temple to the devil, an unbearable chamber of death to any person not "in" on the filthiness. I'd joke around, thinking about a maid coming into this and neatly feather dusting as if she didn't see a thing. People could not believe my dad taught us to drink at 14. He had deeply Catholic suspicions.

And then there was George. He'd walk in the door at about 11, or so, and his onlookers would hysterically ask of his present state, worrying to no end that he might be in trouble. I believe this challenged his patience to some degree. Sometimes he'd arrive at 2am and no one would bat an eye. He'd take off his blue Northface, take a bath, and the calm he felt was enviable. No one knew why he rented a room here, but that's like so many autistic adults. My theory is that "the machine" mistakes them for pot smoking, metaphysical detective burnouts. The truth couldn't be any more ambiguous.

I used this moment to make my escape. I could not stop thinking about the country life and how much I missed and adored that old world. All countries are the same country anyways, and I miss mine as much as Wordsworth's (a "friend" of my dad.) The return to the country, that would solve everything. All this would end. No more thought, no more worry. Those trees could do the heavy thinking for me, absorbing it all. I missed the countryside so much, so much. Friendly aliens and untouched night crystals, so unlike human terrain. It made me cry to imagine. Slyvia Plath was an idiot for sticking her head in the oven and not the lilacs.

Teegan

I remember thinking how extremely hot Sandra looked with that wire frame. She could have been a mommy from the start, all right. I bought chocolates that looked like seashells and left them out for her. I was going to show her, tonight, how to catch a firefly, then sneak in for the perfect kiss. Instead, George and I got stoned and he seemed instantly freaked out. I put mushrooms in our joints, but mostly his. I didn't think that it was wrong, or anything. He clearly was a bit of a badass. His lack of concern made it so. Blowing his mind one more time wouldn't hurt. Five minutes in, he said it tasted like dirt and that the dirt in the ground was making him accept the dirtiness of all things around him. It's these kinds of things that made me think this guy was the best, the kind of guy you have to take to a party. He yelled at me like Patton when he was angry and I respected that. We watched Blade, with Wesley Snipes, and one of our sparks flew so far that no one could see where it ended up. Dave Holster (Sandra's dad) would have believed me if I told him that the spark travelled to a different dimension. Dave watched drone footage of UFOs and recorded the videos to his iMac, where he'd show the equipment to a church home group. I never went or anything, I just borrowed his microphone from time to time. Our new band, "Eeyore's Sorry", was about to make a tribute album to our friend who's mom was raped by her dad to make her into an embryo. Dave told me that God makes solid on his promises, sooner or later, and that his daughter playing PS5, without bitching, was an example of a modern miracle, as well.

So George left, I think stoned off the mushroom surprise. Feeling good, he'd gone to get soda from the 50 cent machines outside Safeway. The dude was told to go get pickles and I think it was a fool's errand, put on by the girls. The same girls couldn't wait for Giorgio Armani to release their new line of eyelash extensions (at midnight) and I wonder if any of them, except for the two Chloes really, truly cared. I left a note, expressing this, under their door and snuck off like a vampire. When George came back, they told him he needed to get Cumberland's pickles. I don't know what gives them such a hard-on for "Cumberland's Pickles". They were going to subject him to this errand, with no explanation! Those two girls I mentioned a moment ago insisted. Stuff like this makes me want to pour gasoline and light a fire... I wouldn't even try and do it for the insurance.

George looked like Wittgenstein, wearing his cuffed up blazer. His frazzled moustache made him out to be the most straggely, poetic stoner possible. The guy huffed and puffed traffic fumes and dreamed of living in the mall's scaffolds. His room had knife marks all over the walls and the door, I think he couldn't find a dart board online that he felt like spending money on. While he was out to get pickles, the guy left his phone on dead and, unable to tell the time, made it to the store late. I think he DoorDashed the pickles from a gas station, right to the store, and then came home late with Grandma's Fresh (not Cumberland). He told me that he had impulsively bought a whole tray of pre-cooked chicken and left 3/4ths of it at somebody's apartment complex, murmuring something about,

"A waste of $15..."

Natya

I was living with my boyfriend for what felt like several months by now. He was the barfly and I was his bartender. We'd put on this charade of two people, cordial as hell, taking up the world stage. There was no temptation. It was wonderful in a completely unsustainable way. Minestrone soup sat on the counter top with a bone hemmed into the skin. The epic orchestration from, "The Fox and the Hound," seeped into the kitchen stench and the sogginess of this bun reminded me of the work sponsored luncheons of the past. I hated work with the force of flaming arrows and only ever wanted it to exist in relation to when my parents got home from their jobs.

The truth is, with or without my boyfriend, my life had been going on like this, well, since it started. The harsh winds and unforgiving tundra of reality was bogging me down and my mood had gone downhill since I was a baby. It says, once, in the Book of Mark, that Jesus cursed a fig tree after it refused to make figs for him, and that says it all. My job was to play old reels of Loreal shampoo commercials for new shareholders. I would typically light a cigarette and babysit and wait as they watched the same old films. If a setting or a nob needed fixing, the eyebrows on the old geezers' faces would tarnish and convey sudden outrage. I hated my life and I began to spend every cent of my savings on makeup and accessories I didn't deserve. I was hastening to become just like my mother and my habits were just as peculiar-seeming. I found a master tape for the "waiting in line" music, shared by all Sanderson & Son corporation sub-companies. This became my driving music almost every day. My soul felt exhumed and stretched beyond the corners, diving so far and so fast into the months that passed like hours. My kids were once very happy just to watch TV. They'd watch so much TV and I'd grow so old. If I died of a fever, they'd still be watching TV. I just wanted to skip it all. Skipping and skipping and skipping.

I saw the ideal life as a sterilized and tidied space. My boyfriend saw it more as a tangled outgrowth of spontaneous elixirs. My father saw it as fathoming the insignificance of it all so that one could be truly free. Last New Year's, I stayed at a YA hostel and watched all the couples come together (just to break apart again). Soon, everything would be the "same as ever", and all the "goodness" that Christmas wasn't would leave out the door, just as the couples had. My only friends, now, are the tracings of the lost souls I encountered over the years. My only solace: the vastness of my mouth and how I could live inside it, like a shellfish. Tomorrow was supposed to be one degree warmer out. Was my life a curse or was this really the last stop?

My boyfriend watched with eyes like needle nose plyers. He would think, similarly, about the glacial melting of grand father figures, things slowly breaking up. Knowing everyone would leave him in the end, he'd oscillate between pure kindness and the positive desire to shoot everyone, like a proud Leninist. If everyone was dead, the memories he had of everyone would live. There was always Teegan's place, but I felt above group homes, trap houses, whatever you wanted to call them. I was invited one night to hang out for the Armani sales event, because the one sister, who was probably into crack, decided ovular sunglasses would be her salvation. I guess, maybe, I wasn't so different, in allowing myself to sharply dive into fate, like this.

George, March 13 [in real time]

You know that floorboard in old houses that feels like mulch? That texture was the scene around here: fibrously connected, damp and simple. Anyone could come in and be anyone. I once listened to this guy, Jason, talk about driving major sized HEMIs off three storey ramps set on the highway. At the same time, Jason's brother would be strung out, not even listening, as Jason lied about him in the story. This band called Chrome played and a sales agent named Tracey kept trying to knock on the door. Just to fuck with her, I told her I was the land lady and she'd have to undo my bathrobe to confirm the sex. I'd never seen anyone so persistent to sell a house, she completely ignored my joke and continued trying to ram her services through the door. I guess the landlord had been trying to sell the place, this group home where all sorts of randoms and fandoms coalesced. If there was ever a sudden eviction notice, nobody cared or paid much attention. It made sense that our Chinese landlord, Ching, wouldn't consult everyone beforehand. I guess this meant we'd need to be packing our stuff. Teegan had his clothes and furniture in garbage bags, at the curb already. That dude was like a Ho Chi Minh of moving between places. Nevermind you, the garbage bags were protruded with sharp edges and panelling, metal from the TV stand to the pipes he installed in the rooftop (he'd be taking them, as they were, "technically his"). The kid came from one of those small lake towns, outrageous hillbilly. I could hear him, right now, recording snaps of himself, saying,

"Don't touch my ass when you come over baby?!"

And it was unreal enough for my great grandmother to have a laugh. My great grandmother lived in Okinawa for many years and was a transient in the Garden Scene for twenty years. After she left, her slogan became, "Love is All You Need," and a dilapidated shelving unit, with the words inscribed, proved it. Truth is, she was an influence on my neo-Catholic identity. I rejected sex, love and all the rest and found truth in becoming a zealot behind the scenes. The more I smoked, the more I became the cigarette and it turns out no one outsmarts the cigarette.

Sandra had moved out years ago, Jason started a new life running a pumpkin patch (but I may have missed the sarcasm when he originally said that.) The more and more my greatest and truest and realist friends fled from the scene, the more this house became a sty. I read House of Leaves and couldn't get through 100 pages before realizing that this wasn't about me. I looked out the window of Natya's "second room" (she claimed a second, after Dylan moved) and thought I saw a turkey sandwich outside, out there. A few moments passed and I decided to retrieve it.

I couldn't stop overthinking about the contents of my pockets. I shuffled, readjusted and gained control, before finally leaving the door, secure and one person. In the wild, twisted twilight, I knew that the war was over. I went over to the sandwich and a giant dog zoomed at me. I couldn't believe what was happening (maybe because of my ADD), but I thought he just wanted the sandwich. When I came to my senses, after many moments I would rather forget, hitting and kicking, I had a painful scar on my head and could feel an angel looking after me, like I was a small babe in the world. All this was easy to rub off. What wasn't was the inevitability of losing control like that in a serious situation. I could go off like a gun, join the infantry, and yet all this fiery dispassion never made sense in the context of my very tepid grasp on life.

Inside, everyone was watching old Japanese commercials and wearing overblown lounge wear, one of the newer roomies even in a golf polo. These guys would one day be my best friends, but that's another story for another time.

Natya, same day

My mother had bought Christmas presents for three of her friends the year before and I had somehow wound up with all three of them. Actually, I took them for myself rather thoughtlessly. One was a "rocket notebook" and I had this romantic vision that I'd become an accounting assistant overnight with it. I felt embarrassed, now, seeing all the entries about, "butt still tight after workout" (who'd I think I was, Anne Charlotte Robertson?). I had a tab left open asking me if I wanted to continue applying for the role of "Cake Decorator".

(The night I wrote down my workout at the reception area at the Hyatt, a man approached me and asked if I knew who Chantel Ackerman was. As I hesitated to recite just one of her films, y'know, the famous one, he screamed an inch from my face and said I had to be on it. I thought that was a ridiculous gesture, but I took it seriously by pretending he was a Maltese who'd been through it all).

Anyhow, dispensable as it were, nothing could change last night and how I got married and basically saw my entire future in one molly excursion. While I fumbled around the haphazardly named "Broadway St.," it was like I could have actually been in New York. I had no sense of whether I would miss my job and I didn't care either. I was growing up way too fast and the little pinion of my heart had to make it slow down. I did not fear missing out, I did not even fear turning into a late-Cookie Mueller. My impulsive decision to get married was part of a project to let go and play with the elements of my life like a fingerprinting. Somehow I felt too embarrassed to really preach it, but my shiny shoes, buckling together, knew the secret, all too well.

This little village of houses on Emerald Grove sang out, and I could hear the patchwork of people, now living, in that choir. I remember fiddling around, for the first two hours of the trip, with a ballerina in a music box and, oh, how it spoke to me... The bijou fragility, the possibility that I could be on top of the silver globe like that. The neighbours' screaming baby was the reminder that all this would end and there was nowhere to go anyway. I was rolling by myself and George was playing something on the Wii, where the Miis would clap and spectators would slowly drop out. I felt so stupid watching him with the biggest, twisted smile on my face. Yet, I felt cute, knowing I was cute. He could have been my bigger brother, my first crush, the president and all he had to do was swing that Wiimote that he, truly, wanted nothing to do with. All was an object of my attraction, written in an arcane universe, just for me.

When I called home, to see if my dad would notice me, they were watching Ed Sullivan re-runs and I could hear through the tube,

"Tonight... We have a very special announcement. Now, I want everyone to hear this and I want no one backing out. It's extremely important that everybody in America year this message...,"

And I could hear my mom whispering,

"Yessss," at the end of Ed's sentences. I didn't even understand what they were watching, quite, but I knew her hands were raised up and all of them, in there, would be shooting at the red scare, soon enough.

I asked my dad for one inspirational quote that would summarize his life's teachings and, with his old farmer's face, he spoke,

"Eat your peas," shaking. And I thought,

"Oh dad, how could you give into whatever that is..."

Love had long passed me by and was now whirring around the subway system at supersonic intervals, turning 'round Giza and passing through Bombay, and again. As these very thoughts gargled around in my head a while, I felt like an old lady, knitting away. The way it was: the way it had been. Out of time, out of sight. I was going to be very late for work. Think they'd fire me? I asked the boy sitting next to me and he looked sternly in his ill-fitting headphones. People I loved kept messaging me on Facebook messenger and I rudely swiped away the notifications. Love was all around, the jittery and empty city meant nothing. Everything was yoga and I always had myself to do a twirl, if ever in doubt that anyone would be around. Alison by Slowdive kept scrobbling on my phone despite the fact I was listening to Nephilim.

#short story #creative writing #alt lit

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awonderlandsystem · 1 year

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Super Baked thought trains that are rambly and likely cried through 🚂💨

Out of all the headmates I probably, definitely, have the most anxiety issues. I try to downplay it but some days are really bad when fronting. Usually ends up with me getting front stuck. The panic attacks have started to trigger Omi. That's been helpful. But she had me make a list of everything I can do to calm myself down. Halo's been pushing our journals a lot. Not just to write down day to day stuff but other things too.

I used to go right to music when I was feeling overwhelmed. But music can be a tricky tool because it can trigger emotional reactions. The wrong song choice and instead of calming down I become a crying dork. Or angry which affects Eva. Halo has been listening to these ASMR videos on YouTube. Omi suggested I try one and I think it works pretty good. I like the scratchy sounds. And the hair brushing ones. I usually stick to just the noise ones. Halo likes the android and robot repair ones. She says they help her adjust to the front. Zoe goes for the silly ones. And some eh, dirtier ones. Eva recently started trying them too. She likes this french lady that does like old victorian ones.

Halo says it's important to have as many plans in place for self care and routine as we can. Living outside my head is super hard. Being in the moment is super hard. I think we're doing better. Mostly. Trying to not beat myself up so much of my shortcomings and celebrate the small victories.

R is super depressed right now because he broke his computer. I've tried to stay as quiet and invisible as possible. The things he says, I know I'm not supposed to let his words hurt me but what about the kids? That's why I told my mom it's so important we go. R needs help. I need help. But neither of us have made that step. He won't because he's in denial. There's nothing wrong with him, in his eyes. If I would just do my job and shut up and make him happy. I can't help but think that if he really loved me he'd be trying harder to help instead of constantly belittling and putting me down. I don't deserve that. I may not be perfect, not even close really, but no one deserves that.

I feel like I've been on auto pilot so long that I've forgotten what the world's like outside these walls. I see media or stories from recent years and it's pretty scary, depressing mostly. R lays it on thick by making sure to tell me every time there's a shooting near by. I think that definitely adds to the fear of going places. I see people I went to school with or worked with but I don't recognize them. I don't remember them. I just know I should know them. I have to understand the past to know what I need to learn but keep getting stuck in it because it feels more familiar than the last 15 years. All I can think is how do I even explain this to a therapist? Where do I even start? What happens if they think I'm not fit to be a parent? What happens if they don't think I'm fit to take care of myself? What happens if the blackouts come back? I think those are my biggest worries. I've never lived on my own. I feel like I'm 36 years old with the life experience of a teenager. I better stop before I get front stuck.

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alsjeblieft-zeg · 2 years

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15 of 2022

Do you like apple soda?

Yeah, I love Appletiser, sadly it’s not widely available here anymore.

Are there any writing utensils close to you?

Three boxes of them on my coffee table.

Are you registered to vote?

Voting is mandatory in Belgium.

Do you watch football regularly?

No. I hate football, and it seems to be a big thing where I live.

Look up, what do you see?

The ceiling.

Do you have a bigger upper or lower lip?

Lower. I like it this way.

Are you currently doing any big projects?

No, I’m on a disability note from everything.

When was the last time you really laughed out loud when you typed ‘lol’?

Does anyone really do it? I don’t even need a reason to laugh loud.

Do you have any screen names with spelling errors?

No. All my screen names are Dutch words.

Open the nearest drawer and tell me what’s inside it:

I don’t fancy moving right now.

What was the last thing that shocked you?

Someone confessing sexual feelings to me. Ew, gross.

How many other rooms can you currently see into?

Kitchen if I turn my head. Ooh and backyard from the window.

Do you need to take the trash out?

We put it outside on the street and the certain company picks it up with a truck. That’s how it works here. It’s a paper day today, so I put one box outside.

Do you need to clean your room right now?

Not really need, but I would like to, assuming I’m not too tired again.

Do you need to clean out a litter box right now?

I’ve done it earlier today.

Are these questions reminding you of things you put off to do this survey?

I’m not putting anything off for a survey, don’t think too big of yourself.

How about dishes?

Done them already, but I might do the rest when I’m back from rehabilitation.

How many days have you been wearing those clothes?

Picked them today.

Do you like listening to 60’s music?

I don’t mind.

Can you move your nose?

I can’t.

Can you flip your eyelids inside out?

No, but I can do it with my eyeballs. Sometimes it’s doing itself, though.

Can you wiggle your ears?

I can’t, but my father can.

Can you make a clover with your tongue?

Nope. It’s genetic, though.

Can you put your foot behind your head?

I used to be able to.

When was your last break-up?

Four years ago.

Would you rather not be reminded of that?

It was our mutual decision, and we remain friends until today. I’m happy to still have him in my life. He’s a wonderful person who deserves only good things in life.

What one thing never fails to amuse you?

Fart jokes. Yeah I’m that simple and my soul is still a teenager :P

How many songs have you downloaded this week?

Torrents are blocked by the government here. Besides, who needs downloading when you have Spotify.

Would you rather be a ninja or a samurai?

A samurai.

Would you rather be a pirate or robot?

A robot.

Would you rather be a ghost or a zombie?

A ghost, but preferably neither.

Have you ever considered living in a bomb shelter?

No, but looking what’s going on in Ukraine...

How lonely are you right now?

Not at all, even though I’m alone.

If I gave you a piano and told you hit middle c, could you?

Easily.

Have you ever typed out a long rant, then your computer died?

I always save copies while writing, if it’s long, then I put it in the text editor.

#survey #q&a survey

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kdinjenzen · 2 years

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I’m going to be honest…

When a cishet white neurotypical person writes a character and then finds out that people see it as an allegory for being trans, or neurodivergent, or queer, or a PoC and then the cishet white neurotypical person says “This Was Not My Intention”…

I’m likely to believe them.

For the simple fact that most, if not close to all of them, had no idea the rest of the world existed beyond their worldview until 2020 hit.

So when folks say “I Bet This Was A Trans Allegory” about a character written before say, oh I dunno, 2018… I have to quirk my eyebrow, because - as much as it may seem like it - it almost 100% isn’t.

Cishet White Neurotypical people write Robots, Monsters, Aliens, etc as “Not Understanding Typical Earth Human Society Standards Of Things” and stumble accidentally into relatable content for people who aren’t like them.

When the writer of “The Thing From Before 2018” says it’s not about being neurodivergent, or trans, or a PoC, or anything… they’re probably telling the truth because they legitimately didn’t even consider that a possibility until the world forced them to see those types of people as people in the real world let alone fiction.

Also this isn’t a “we should forgive/turn a blind to this stuff” post.

It’s more a “stop saying these characters are factually allegories when they are not at all that” post.

One of the main reasons we resonate with Robots, Aliens, Monsters, etc in media is because Cishet White Neurotypical folks othered us in real life the same way they other THOSE kinds of characters in fiction, treated as “not exactly human.”

#like as much as I want Nier Automata to have trans themes in it - it doesn’t have trans themes legitimately #neither does My Life As A Teenage Robot #Or literally anything from my childhood or even my recent memory #and that kinda goes for everything else too #and if it DOES it’s in the WORST ways and not for any GOOD reason #also y’all know I love RWBY - but when Penny was confronted by the fact that Blake ‘wasn’t like them’ she immediately called Blake a ‘man’#sooooooooooo YA KNOW … let’s just realize that everyone kinda had no idea wtf they were talking about until recently #and even so most folks STILL don’t know what they’re talking about

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bamfdaddio · 3 years

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X-Men Abridged: 1981 - the Body-Swap

The X-Men, those body-swapping mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. We’ve been untangling that history for a while, but sometimes, you really want a more in-depth look. Interested? Then read the (un)Abridged X-Men!

(Uncanny X-Men 151 - 152) - by Chris Claremont and Josef Rubinstein

Emma Frost and her frenemy Ororo Munroe have not been getting along! One fateful evening, as the two quibble away, they mysteriously switch bodies and minds. Talk about your Freaky Friday! What lessons will they learn, walking a mile in one another’s shoes? And will they be able to switch back, or will they stay in each other’s bodies forever? Mutant Monday, coming soon to a cinema near you. Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Angela Bassett and Elliot Page. (PG-13)

For a moment, we’re in a proper period drama: a letter delivers ill tidings!

I love that Kitty’s parents are so self-involved that it took them A WHOLE YEAR to realize that it’s weird that Kitty is the only non-adult attending the Xavier Institute.

I can only assume the mailman interrupted a pool party of some kind? Or a communal shower? I get why Kurt would not swim a lot - all that fur - but did Scott wear that while they were splashing around? Was it a beach volleyball competition where one half got to wear swimsuits and the other half superhero costumes? Most importantly, was Scott’s costume always this tight?

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.

The awful thing is that Kitty’s parents are transferring her to the Massachusetts Academy, not realizing that headmistress Emma Frost is, in fact, a terrible human being. Charles, uncharacteristically, says that changing their minds telepathically is a line he does not cross (any more) and half the viewing audience bursts out in laughter. More importantly, last they saw Emma, she was kind of dead-by-Phoenix, so it might be better there this time? Kitty does a Classic Teenage Stomp-Off and Storm comes to comfort her. Kitty cries that life is unfair (“My parents are only doing this because they’re splitting up”) and Ororo tells her that yes, life is unfair. You just gotta roll with the punches as best you can.

To be fair, bald men are technically all cheek, so it doesn’t matter where you kiss them.

While I enjoy the relationship Kitty has with the other X-Men (Scott gave her a compliment! Logan told her his name!), especially the mother-daughter-bond she shares with Ororo, the whole Piotr-thing always gives me pause. Even if we’re being very generous with age, Kitty is, what? 14 going on 15? And Piotr is… 19? At best? I get why Kitty would have a crush on him: he’s a gentle hunky giant: at fifteen, my teenage ass would have felt the exact same viz-a-viz Colossus’ upper arms. The fact that Piotr reciprocates feels skeevy, though, especially because they’re always treated like star-crossed idiots these days.

Skee-vy.

Ororo drives Kitty to Massachusetts, where her young ward is greeted by someone named Muffy and whisked away for orientation. All seems well. Ororo stands in a parlour, surveying the grounds and considering that they should have fought harder for Kitty. Still, nothing seems too wrong just yet: this Academy just seems very preppy.

Not-at-all-dead Emma takes her cue and jumps out, saying (essentially): “Surprise motherfucker.”

There’s a flash of light, and then...

I’m willing to bet that Emma’s EVIL journal has the following to-do-list: - Steal Storm’s body. - Experiment with her powers. - See how good Storm looks in white. (Leather? Fur?! Both!??) - REWARD: Smoke break.

I wonder if Emma’s plan hinged on being able to body-swap with Storm, or whether any X-Man would have sufficed. Was her original target Xavier? Cyclops? What if one of Kitty’s parents had brought her to Massachusetts, would she have taken Kitty instead?

In a locked cell, Storm wakes up in Emma’s body and is horrified. I wonder why Emma didn’t take any more precautions. Couldn’t the guy who made the freaky friday-gizmo also make a power dampener to nullify not!Emma’s telepathic abilities? Or did Emma count on her victim being so utterly incapacitated by her mind-powers that they’d be driven mad? (This would actually tie in with some of Emma’s later-revealed history: when her powers first emerged, she also got locked away in a padded room because of her madness.)

Emma is not wrong, by the way: Storm can’t get a handle on Emma’s powers. What follows is possibly the sweetest moment in an arc filled with sweet moments:

This arc isn’t drawn by any of the regulars - not Byrne, not Cockrum - but Josef Rubinstein brings his own kind of panache to the pages. I love the way he draws women’s faces: in a story that’s all about women, their faces are actually distinguishable. Kudoz.

Emma, meanwhile, coordinates with Sebastian Shaw to execute the second part of their two-pronged attack on the X-Men. They both laugh evilly in their phones while the mansion is attacked by Sentinels! These androids take out Cyclops and Xavier with some sleeping gas and knock out Nightcrawler, but the rest of the X-Men manage to trounce these robots. Then ‘Storm’ appears! She zaps the rest of the X-Men (and Amanda Sefton), successfully finishing their master-plan.

It’s not entirely clear what the Hellfire Club wants with the X-Men this time, but I’m assuming it’s more experimentation to improve the sentinels? Eh, doesn’t matter! Nefarious Hellfire Club is nefarious.

The real Storm, meanwhile, comes to claim Kitty, forgetting that she looks like the one and only Emma Frost. Kitty spooks and Storm accidentally reaches out, knocking her out telepathically. Whoops! Storm takes Kitty and flees in a car, while Emma gives chase. (How dare Ororo run off with her body, which is absolutely the kind of hypocritical hilariousness we all love Emma for.)

Kitty awakens and jumps from the car, causing Storm to swerve and...

JETSTREAM!? Speaking of which, where are the Hellions in all of this?

Kitty sees that an unconscious ‘Emma’ is about to burn to a tender and moist little crisp and she is faced with the hero’s dilemma: would you save a villain that would never save you?

Emma, meanwhile, has realized the downside to body-swapping: somebody else gets to run around with your body too. Shaw, of all people, talks her down from her anger.

You can’t just introduce a persona exchange gun to the plot WITHOUT EXPLAINING WHERE THE FUCK YOU GOT IT FROM.

My favorite detail is that Emma keeps calling Kitty brat, like she’s some sort of Pokémon-villain.

Kitty, meanwhile, has saved ‘Emma’ and tied her up with a special knot. Storm tries to convince Kitty, going for the “ask me something only Storm would know”, but Kitty’s all: “Duh, you’re a telepath.” Ororo insists, but the thing that clinches it is when she breaks free of her ties without breaking a sweat. That knot was taught to Kitty by Ororo and she’d be the only one who knew how to break out of it.

Storm and Kitty recruit Stevie Hunter to come pick them up and during the ride, Storm-being-angry-mother!Storm convinces Kitty more than anything else:

After all, Storm was voted most likely to say: “If you don’t stop this nonsense immediately, I will turn this Blackbird around, so help me God!”

Ororo and Kitty sneak inside. Ororo even uses Emma’s telepathy to help her pick a lock after phasing through a door. (Kind of funny: Kitty’s still such a neophyte that she can’t even phase with anyone else yet.) Emma, meanwhile, taunts the captured X-Men, presenting herself as the new white queen:

Anybody feel the inclination to point out that the Hellfire Club did this exact same thing last year, except then they tried it with a redhead?

I secretly suspect that the Hellfire Club’s plots always revolve around seducing X-Men to their side and dressing them up in sexy lingerie. (Which: fair.) There’s also a subplot where the guys Wolverine cut apart last year want to exact revenge on him for being made bionic, but eh. We’ll start paying attention to them when they become actual Reavers.

Kitty phases through the locks of the X-Men, freeing them, and a kerfuffle ensues. Emma starts using Storm’s powers, but they grow out of control. Colossus tosses Shaw out of the window - which should just be company policy, really: all Shaws should be defenestrated - where he’s promptly hit by a rogue thunderbolt.

When he doesn’t get up, Emma starts to lose it. The weather goes wild. Storm intervenes, using her telepathic power to help calm down Emma (and the raging storm), but she also manages to get a hold of the swap-gun. There’s a zap, and with a satisfied sigh, the status-quo is restored again.

My favorite implication is that, apparently, Emma decides which school Kitty attends and not her parents.

While this little arc is neither the most iconic nor the most profound of 1981 -- those would be Days of Future Past and I, Magneto, respectively -- I still love this for a couple of reasons.

As a lover of Freaky Friday, 17 Again and the new Jumanji-film, I just have a soft spot for body swap plots. (Hi Psylocke!)

It focuses on the Xavier Institute as a school, planting seeds for the upcoming New Mutants.

It is very female-driven without beating you over the head with it. (Looking at you, Birds of Prey.)

It has three definitive main characters, who all get fleshed out in fun and interesting ways. It starts the trend of robbing Ororo of some of her powers and tossing her into against-the-odds circumstances, only for her to come out on top.

It solidifies the Storm/Kitty mother/daughter (or older/younger sibling) dynamic. Kitty is a believable teenager when it comes to Storm - clever and kind, but also looking for answers and prone to rash decisions - and I love how much they care for each other.

Jean/Storm-friendship-callback, yay!

Emma gets fleshed out as a villain. Resourceful and petty, powerful and vain. It’s no wonder she’s one of the break-out antagonists of the X-Men, because, like Magneto, Claremont is not afraid of giving her depth. Arguably, she is the most three-dimensional of the Hellfire Club at this point.

Yay! And fuck completely sensible plots, if you don’t know what to do with your plot, just introduce a random persona exchange gun. Let’s use it on Xavier and Legion in Way of X next!

#x-men abridged #abridged x-men #x-men #storm #professor x #kitty pryde #uncanny x-men #emma frost #cyclops #nightcrawler #stevie hunter #colossus #sebastian shaw

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give-grian-rights · 3 years

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CHAPTER TWO HOUR. CHAPTER TWO HOUR. I AM SO TIRED. IT IS 6AM. TELL ME IF HTERE’S TYPOS AND THAT NORMAL STUFF

Bets Against The Void, Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Whitelist au from @petrichormeraki

Crossposted on AO3

Tubbo quietly chuckled, smiling fondly as their friend squawked indignantly. “Tubbo! I’m serious, explain some shit, fuckin’ nerd!” Tommy scoffed, prodding at their side with his elbow. Tubbo hushed him, their smirk still lingering.

“Hermitcraft is a super crazy popular server. If you’ve ever searched for examples of builds on your tablet, chances are, they’re from one of the Hermits. Or if you looked up something about redstone! Anything! You’ll find one of their instructions. They’re geniuses- just, complete geniuses. Grian’s one of them-”

“Grian’s one of them!?” Tommy exclaimed, his eyes shooting open. Tubbo’s grin widened, nodding vigorously. “Yes! He’s the newest Hermit, last I heard.. Most of the guys he’s teammates with every MCC, they’re usually other Hermits!” They’d continue explaining to the best of their ability.

“Should’ve fuckin’ started with the fact that Grian’s here! That fuckin’ dude! He killed Dream three times! Three times, Tubbo!” The blond continued with his excited shouting. Well, that certainly fixed the situation, Tubbo mused.

The brunett nodded along, chuckling. “Yeah! He, and most of the others, really- post all that much right now. The new World Client, with the axolotls and caves ‘n stuff? They’ve started posting and sharing discoveries about that. I know Grian did, at least. But considering they call themselves the ‘Hermits’ it makes sense to be a bit inactive, yeah?” Tubbo shrugged, tapping the chilly cool sandstone beneath them.

Tommy nodded dumbly, glancing around the room for a moment. Tubbo, meanwhile, had pulled their tablet up. The holographic comm system was displayed infront of them, everything on the screen they touched being read aloud to them.

Launching an accessibility app, the tablet began describing aloud the block palette, dimensions, and colors. As the tablet’s robotic voice played in his com system, reading aloud the details of his surrounding, Tubbo nodded along to an incoherent rant from Tommy.

Tubbo wasn’t too sure what Tommy was ranting about- likely MCC, and Grian. Grian got a kill on Tommy, last MCC, if they remember correctly. The brunnett wouldn’t be surprised if that was the target of the blond’s current tangent. Tommy hadn’t even been able to get a word out, when Grian began shouting vigorous apologises between matches.

The descriptions from the tablet were long, and boring. The robotic voice drawing on and on, as it attempted to describe the intricate room. Shutting down the program, Tubbo tuned back into Tommy.

“Fuckin’ am..So fucking tired. Of course we ended up here. It’d be to easy if we’d just be let back into Dream SMP, huh? Think Dream even knew we were out? I bet not. Even if he does, probably didn’t even care, fuckin’ dick. Bet that green asshole’s just sitting over his code and shit, simping over Gogy-” The blond ranted heatedly. The blind teen could hear the shifting and chustling of fabric, before the boy’s voice became muffled.

With his head pressed against his knees, legs drawn to his chest, Tommy sat there practically panting. His chest heaved, the rage draining from him. “Why is all- all of this, always so complicated, Tubbo?” Blue eyes turned to meet the scarred, burnt front of the other.

Tubbo picked at faded and torn tennis shoes, tentatively listening. The rymnatic pattern of the boy’s breathing, and the crashing overhead, offered some vague comfort. “All of what?” They’d tilt their head.

The younger of the two quietly sighed, his mouth pressed in a thin line. His hand clutched the bottom of his torn, tan cargo pants, fidgetting with the frayed ends. “Us. Shit with us, it always gets so fuckin’ complicated. Big Man, you’re president. You’re- you’re the fucking president, now, Tubbo.”

The bunnett’s brows furrowed together, as they inched closer to their friend. “Yeah. But it’s- it’s still us, y’know? If- if life was easy, then we’d be missing out on a lot of things. What if we had just never met-”

“We’d always meet eachother, Tubbo. There’s no fuckin’ getting rid of me, even in your fantasy world.” The blond nudged the teen’s shoulder, a wolfish grin evident in his tone.

That made the other crack a smile, shaking their head. “I hope so, Tommy.” They’d chuckle, shaking their head. The weight of the day came crashing down all again. Before the rushing thoughts could boggle down their mind, Tubbo slumped against Tommy’s side sigh an exhausted sigh.

“This is just, livin’ the fucking life, huh?” Tommy remarked, looking over his friend. The tall boy already shifted himself, his long legs sprawled out on the floor with his back leaned against sandstone walls.

His head leaned against that of his compaignian, half-lidded blue eyes giving one last surveillance of the room. “We’ll figure this shit out tomorrow..” Tommy mumbled, glancing down at the brunette.

Tubbo was already asleep, their expression finally one of peace. Tommy wasn’t given a moment more to appreciate the serenity of the quiet room, before he’d be pulled into slumber as well.

Both of the teens were stirred awake by the whirring noises of an active portal- the Netherportal beside them, with particles flying, gaveway to two players. Tommy kicked himself up to his feet, defensively. Tubbo stumbled along with him, pulling back away from the strangers.

Though two stepped out, only one immediately caught Tommy’s eyes.

“W- Holy shit! You’re Grian!” Tommy squawked indignantly.

Tubbo’s head immediately shot up, excitably breaking into a grin. Any exhaustion the two held was wiped away- neither was sure how long their unrestful sleep had been, but it was far more than other nights.

The target of the excitement, Grian, sheepishly stood there, nodding. “Uh, yeah! You guys are Tommy and Tubbo, yeah? I’ve seen you at most of the MCC’s I’ve been to. You both did really good last time, by the way! I’m really looking forward to the next one!”

This was easily the closest they probably ever were to the dirty blond. He also looked far more at ease, on this server. The iconic figure, ever-present in the community, had his wild mop of a fringe frazzled and framing his face.

Poking under the bangs, Tommy could now see faint, ragged lines from a scar, along with other various healed-over wounds. Another contrary to how either of them had seen Grian, at MCC, was the large circular glasses loosely sat on his face.

Seeing one of his heroes like this (The only one that hadn’t betrayed, killed him, turned against him, despised him-) in such a..Domestic state, was bizarre. Tommy was scrambling for words, starting and giving up on getting his tongue around what to say.

“This is so cool! Hi! I used to watch and- and listen, to a lot of your old build tutorials! A lot of people on our server would always say how we learned building from you!” Tubbo would blurt out, practically bouncing on their heel. Grian turned to the teen, slightly shocked but amused.

“Oh! I- well thank you! I’m glad I could be any help at all- my builds are nothing compared to some of what the other Hermits have going on..Speaking of others- this is Stress!” He’d take the opportunity to escape the small spotlight, glancing towards the brunette woman next to him sheepishly.

The woman- Stress, apparently, quietly chuckled. A fond smile grazed her face, as she looked over towards the two teenagers. “Ello there, Loves! Sorry to interrupt your fan meetup,” She teased, side-eyeing the dirty blond beside her. “We just wanted to come and check in, is all! X told us two to come visit, yeah?”

Tommy quietly hummed skeptically, surveying her. Short brown hair hung barely as low as her shoulder, a neat, white, blue, and pink flower-crown sat upon her head. The colors must’ve been very purposeful, considering they matched with her colorful outfit of the same color.

“Fine, sure..Well, we’re still fuckin’ breathing, and we’re here. So you don’t really need to be here any longer, yeah?” Tommy scoffed, slumping back against the wall. Tubbo was already standing, nudging at his side.

“Thank you, for checking in. I- I’m sure this is a bit of a strange situation. That- Yeah, that’s my bad.” They chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of their neck. This caught Stress’ attention, turning towards the tene.

“Oh, no! This isn’t a problem at all. Dear, this happens all the time. Grian just- just appeared, one day, in our previous server. We walk out the portal for the first time- and boom! There that weirdo is!” Stress chuckled, her grin unwavering as she gave a playful nudge to the dirty blond beside her.

Grian scoffed, a smirk edging at his lips as he rolled his eyes. “Okay, but I’m not the only example of that happening- you didn’t have to pick me out specifically!”

“Sure I do, Love! You’re the first new Hermit to join, after me and Zed! I get to bully you, lovingly!” She cheered. Stress’ energy was absolutely efficacious, Tubbo couldn’t help but smile and cackle at her and Grian’s banter.

“Uh huh,” Grian scoffed, dramatically crossing his arms. “Last I checked, that was Iskall’s job to bully newcomers- oh, Gord, when you all walked out of the portal and they just decked me ? I mean, it didn’t really hurt all that bad, but it’s a matter of the principle!”

Stress seemed like she was almost gonna break down with laughter, clutching her stomach. “I forgot they did that with you, too! Iskall certainly is one that needs work with their introduction, that absolute weirdo!” She chostled, shaking her head fondly.

She then turned towards the two teens, reassuringly smiling. “They won’t give you any hard time, they’re just like that sometimes, especially in the beginning of a new season..They’re usually just incomprehensible in the beginning, I learnt!” She giggled, covering her mouth.

Tubbo awkwardly laughed, nodding. “Yeah- they, they sound like something.” It was..A strange environment, to be sure.

Sure, they knew of the Hermits, their reputation impossible to avoid- but most outsiders didn’t know much about the actual Hermits. They went by that title for a reason.

Tommy was having similar thoughts, he felt as if he was completely imposing on, everything. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care- it frankly was..Warming, almost, to see this. He missed being able to have that, on Dream’s server.

The blond in particular seemed to have tuned out, because by the time he snapped out of those thoughts, Grian was speaking again.

“We’re glad to see you’re both alright, but, I don’t think we’ve been exactly great hosts. You both have gotta be hungry- I know the last thing you two seem to want is help, but..We’d be happy to help you however we can. We can go get you fresh, real food. Or- you both come with us, and we take you to our central area, the Cowmercial district.”

Tommy stared blankly at Grian for a moment, brows knitted together in bewilderment. “The… Cow..merical district?” He’d repeat, squinting.

Grian snickered, nodding. “Yeah! The name just stuck. It’s our shopping district. We have a bakery- it’s never, ever too early for cake. There’s Doc’s shop, but that’s all villager-bought, if it’s the rare occasion that it’s stocked at all- so the Bakery may be the only option, for today.” He glanced back at Stress, who nodded in agreement.

“Only if you’d want to,” Stress would interject. “Either of us could come bring you food here- but, we figured you might want to just..Get out. You’re allowed to leave here whenever you want- but, navigating our server by yourself, for the first time? Not the easiest.”

The two teens glanced towards eachother. Tubbo looked like they were practically buzzing in place, at the idea of exploring the Hermits’ world. Tommy watched them for a moment, before quietly scoffing.

“..Yeah, okay, sure- how the hell do we even get out of here though, for starters?” Tommy crossed his arms, inching closer towards Tubbo. He, for one, was really not a fan of having to fly out.

Stress cheered excitably, pulling open her inventory. The woman promptly dropped a stack each to the two teens. “I came prepared, just in-case!” She grinned. With a swipe of her arm, the digital screen dissipated.

“If you know how to use elytras, X already said he’s more than happy to lend out two from the back-up system. I have some to spare, as well. But- you two never seemed the most comfortable in the air, during flight-based games.” Grian would add awkwardly, adjusting his own wings behind him.

Tommy didn’t pay much attention to the words- instead, he promptly threw open his inventory, gawking at the full stack of pearls. “What! I don’t think i’ve ever had this many pearls! Holy shit!” He pulled out the stack of sixteen.

One pearl manifested in his hand, while a holographic icon hovered beside him. The pixel-image of an enderpearl, with a large 15x in the corner in white font was projected for only his vision. The blond couldn’t remember a time he had so many enderpearls.

“Thank you! Wow- yeah, pearls aren’t really common in our server! This- this is really nice!” They felt giddy, as they pulled their’s out as well, the action muscle-memory.

“Well, I’m glad you two can put them to good-use, then!” She chuckled. The idle question of how can a server lack pearls skimming through her head for a moment.

Within seconds of her saying that, Tommy had already blindly tossed one of his pearls- promptly falling down from the ceiling, and landing on the floor with a short shriek. Tubbo straightened up from the sidelines, tilting their head.

“Tommy! What did you do?” Tubbo called out accusatorily, as they quickly popped their surrounding descriptor back on.

“Nothing!” Tommy quickly yelled back, lunging to their feet with a stumble as they dusted themselves off.

At the sidelines, Stress and Grian cackled, watching in lighthearted amusement. Tommy could feel his face flushed red with brief embarrassment, quickly attempting to play it off.

“Truer answer; I was being awesome. That was what, Tubbo. Are we eating or what? I want to throw pearls and go places. And eat, that too.” He quickly turned towards the two Hermits expectantly, narrowing his eyes at them.

Grian grinned, nodding. “Yes, yes we are! I have boats. Go ahead and pop up with your pearls, and we’ll fly out to you.” He explained briefly, pulling the boats from his inventory. The thin, digitized object manifesting in his hand.

Tommy turned expectantly to Tubbo. “You got this, Toob?” He tilted his head, watching his friend. Tubbo had immediately nodded vigoriously, running over towards the center of the room, the ceiling above open to the water.

“Yeah! I’ve got this, Big Man! No sweat!” They gave a toothy grin, shifting the enderpearl in their hand. Arching their arm back, the teen cautiously stepped back.

Their communicator had continued reading off the details of the room into their thin earpiece, primarily the dimensions. All they had to do was hit the wall leading up to the surface to get out. They could do that, surely.

With a huff of effort, they chucked the pearl. They heard it break through the under-surface of the water, and then they were submerged. Breaching the surface, they gasped for a moment. The ocean rippled, clothes heavy and soaked. They were certainly glad they had been in their casual clothes, rather than their presidential outfit.

Within a moment, Tommy was up beside them, quietly gasping as well. The blond pushed his hair back, lightly nudging Tubbo away from the gaping hole in the water beneath them- and then Grian and Stress flew out.

The sound from the rockets were deafened from beneath the ocean, thankfully. Only a thin trail of smoke followed them, the sight certainly unfamiliar to the fireworks the two teens had been accustomed to.

Both Hermits had dived straight into the shallow water with a splash, before the dirty-blond dropped down two boats.

“I want to drive! Tommy, i’m driving us!” Tubbo cried out, at the sound of the wood hitting the water. Beside them, Tommy scoffed.

“Tubbo! I’m not gettin’ motion sickness! We just woke up, no way. Your idea of ‘driving’ is no one elses, my friend.” He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he pulled himself into the boat. Beside him, Tubbo whined.

“C’mon, man! Nothing like a bit of motion-sickness to get the day started!” They playfully remarked. Despite that, they had already accepted their defeat, pulling up into the boat.

Stress and Grian watched the teens carefully, with Stress laughing lightheartedly at the banter between them as she pulled herself into the boat, behind Grian.

Grian, on the otherhand, was mostly quiet. A thin wisp of a smile was present, conveying one of bemusement. Tommy didn’t get a good look, but, he couldn’t quite pinpoint the look from Grian. He didn’t like it.

“Alright,” The older Brit at hand started. “We’re real close. No one should be at Looky Looky At My Cookie- and it should be early enough that there aren’t any real occupants at the Cowmerical District.” He explained, turning the boat as he got a small start ahead of the teens.

“Sure, then! That sounds g- wait, what’s that name?”

“C’mon, then!” Grian wouldn't answer Tubbo’s valid question, before boating off. Tommy quickly following behind, shouting indignantly after them.

It certainly was odd. It felt..Comforting, here. Certainly not relaxing. The opposite of cf relaxing- Tubbo had nothing but the craving to do something. But it was..Welcoming. It was strange. They hadn’t felt so- so unbothered, since..Ever, really. They liked it.

Tubbo wondered if it could stay this way.

Tommy wondered what the hell they were about to get themselves into.

#bets against the void fic #whitelist au #mika-posts #mcyt fic #mcyt au #dream smp au #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft fic #dream smp fic

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bcbdrums · 3 years

Text

Wildest Dreams

A missing scene from the KP Live Action Movie. Happy birthday, @talisablackfyre!!!

FFn AO3

--------------------------------------------

Shego leaned back on the red throne as she surveyed the lair—the rusty construction, the vines overgrowing everything, and the very out-of-place new equipment her henchwomen had hauled in...including the work table Drakken was currently hunched over.

He was muttering to himself in sheer delight as he put the finishing touches on the project for which she had stolen and scavenged the components over several months. Every now and then he would turn slightly and she would catch a glimpse of his brilliant grin. At other times he would nearly stumble on the moss-covered floor and toss a verbal barb at her about how low they had sunk when other villains flaunted their state-of-the-art lairs on social media.

It was almost enough to make Shego reveal the true lair hidden behind the facade of squalor she had so carefully constructed, but his blaming her for their current state caused her to hold her tongue. Still, she was tempted.

She glanced at the fridge where she knew were dozens of milk bottles. She could ask him to take a break to share in a few with her... She shook her head and looked over at the single bed where he'd dropped his bag of junk upon arrival, but then abandoned when he'd said something insulting and she'd shoved his stuff to the floor.

He had taken that hint clearly, but it wasn't the one she had meant to give. She hadn't intended to spend the cold nights alone in that awful bed, with him ironically on the floor next to her... But she'd never given him any true indication she wanted him to join her.

Part of her almost wanted to tell him to stop the revenge plan he'd been working on for over a year, and tell him that she'd missed him in all that time—that his choice to stay in prison to allay suspicion had been the loneliest year of her life, and that in that time her feelings toward him had...changed.

As she watched him work on his creation she debated with herself. She could show him the true extent of the lair... Invite him to a milk break... Invite him into the bed that night... Or she could simply walk up and kiss the oblivious blue-veined man.

'No.'

None of it would work, she realized, as he shouted a gleeful, "Yes!" and stepped back from the work table. Fists in the air triumphantly, he turned to face her and she instinctively sat up at attention, feeling her heart begin to flutter at the intensity of his smile as he gazed at her.

"It's finished!" Drakken continued.

As Shego stared at his bright, joy-filled eyes she knew her own desires would have to wait, as always. Nothing would sway Drakken from his revenge plot against Kim Possible, and neither did she want to sway him. Especially since this plan would definitely succeed, and they would benefit long-term. Not that she would ever tell him how great it was.

"Come Shego, come come!"

She rolled her eyes and hefted herself out of the throne, though she let a hint of a smirk show on her face. When she reached his side to stare down at the invention she was surprised to find his arm suddenly around her shoulders. Was it some sort of...buddy hug, or...?

"Just look at it... It's perfect. The perfect weapon to take down Kim Possible!"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, though she didn't shrug off his arm as she looked down at the robot—because of course it was a robot; it was Drakken's standard operating procedure, next to mind control.

"My most brilliant creation..."

Shego was ready for a long-winded rant about his genius, but it didn't come. She felt his eyes on her and she looked at him with her brow twisted in confusion.

"And I couldn't have done it without you."

Shego felt her face flush. She crossed her arms and stepped out from where his hand had started gripping her shoulder more tightly, and then immediately gave herself a mental kick as the brightness started to leave Drakken's eyes.

"About time," was all she managed as she tossed her hair back and gazed down at the robot again.

"Well. Get to training it. Shouldn't waste anymore time," Drakken said, turning and stepping away from the table.

Shego felt her stomach twist as she mentally kicked herself again, but she looked down at the robot that was staring back at her. The lifelike realism was very disconcerting, and Shego frowned.

"Does it have a name?" Shego called out.

Before Drakken could answer, the robot sat up. "Uh, I'm right here," it said.

Shego eyed the thing as Drakken returned to her side.

"Fine. What do I call you?"

"Athena. And I'm not calling you 'mom' anymore than I'm calling him 'dad.'"

Shego looked at Drakken with raised brows, who glanced away in further embarrassment. Shego let the question die on her lips about when he had made that request of the apparently very independent cyborg...

"Good. So you want to...start with combat training, or learning about Possible?"

"Combat, if you're up for it. How much am I going to need to pull my punches?" Athena said, the last addressed to Drakken.

Shego frowned as Drakken seemed to wither a bit.

"Don't do any harm. People need to think you're human, remember?"

The robot—Athena—rolled her eyes. "Fine."

Drakken glanced at Shego as the teenaged cyborg creation hopped off the work table and started down to the more open floor space where she would spar with Shego. Shego's brow rose as Drakken smirked.

"She gets that from you, 'mom.'"

"Don't you dare... If you think for one second I'm playing some...parent role with this thing—"

"I wouldn't dream of it, Shego," Drakken said, waving her off as he retreated.

As Shego stepped down to meet...'Athena' on the floor to train, she could have sworn she heard Drakken mutter something about not sharing the bed with him. But that must have been her imagination. He didn't share her feelings...

Only in her wildest dreams.

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haemosexuality · 2 years

Text

i. feel and have always felt since im a little kid so incredibly guilty about, existing. about being a burden to my parents. being something that they have to spend time and money on. and it only got worse and worse the older i got and the more difficult it became to parent me and the more i understood about what being an adult and a parent meant. but specifically, i feel very guilty about my mom

because, im not a good daughter. and i know that. im hard to deal with with and i cant receive criticism or the slightest discipline without freaking out and ive threated to and did hurt myself and its, gotta be hard. its gotta be tiring. and as much as ive been getting better ab it i for long didnt do shit around the house and i didnt do homework and didnt clean my room and i say i do this all because im mentally ill or whatever but isnt she too? isnt she more? doesnt she have trauma and on top of it has tk work all day and take care of a teenager and a husband and a house?? and doesnt she do it, while i dont, because i say i cant? and even if i know all that, im aware of the burden i must be and everything i do wrong, i cant change, because ive tried so ill only lay there and feel guilty while she keeps having to do everything without a moment of rest?

but i also cant help resenting her and being mad because her being stressed and tired just inevitably ends up in her hurting me, over and over and over again, and making me feel like shit and her not really recognizing the fact that i am a person and i have feelings and am not just a robot or a doll she got to be her perfect daughter who never has negative feelings or gets hurt by things she does. but dont i end up treating her the same way? and its a cicle bc she gets stressed and lashes out at me and i get worse and worse which causes me to be more useless and unstable which causes her to have to do more and be more stressed and we both get mad at each other and. neither of us are gonna be the bigger person, neither of us are going to let it go. and this will just keep going forever. until i move out and we can get a break.

ill never be able to make up for the ways ive ruined her life by merely existing and being the way i am, and i'll carry forever with me all the ways she messed me up. we're both just gonna have to live with this, forever, and eventually push it down enough we'll act like a normal adult daughter and her old mother around each other

#i feel like shit rn both bc i feel hurt and angry with her and bc i feel guilty about being her child #i have been feeling like this for like 2 weeks now but i also just finished playing inmost and it got me Thinking #we have not been talking for a feel days now #few* not feel

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rotzaprachim · 3 years

Text

i realised i probably will never get here in in painter’s light so enjoy this my favorite fandom crossover/easter egg i’ve ever written:

(It’s from an au where declan stayed with his mother ergo canon + dialect differences)

6. Washington DC

Age twenty, he gets a business call from a woman who has a statue to sell. Normally he doesn’t take these kinds of calls anymore, the ones that are meant to go straight to his mother’s number, but this woman sounds desperate in the way that has him thinking it’s better if he handles it than one of his mother’s hands in the city, so he buys two Amtrack tickets, and north he goes. Matthew gets sick after eating a microwaveable, foil-wrapped train burger from the snack car.

He installs Matthew in the Met while he meets his contact. An old school deli, one of the kind that’s apparently disappearing fast, an endangered species, and she’s probably a local so it’ll be annoying or pretentious anyway, but she refused any of his options for fancier, more expensive wine-and-dine locations anyway so deli it is. He gets a lox bagel and a coffee and two black-and-whites in a bag to split with Matthew later while he sizes her up. She keeps looking at her hands but she’s calm with the person she called in from Boudicca, has something steely about her, like she’s dealt with bigger fish before and isn’t scared. There’s something about her that’s like him, he knows, thought they don’t say the magic word at all. He thinks she’s maybe thirty.

“In the interest of not beating around the bush further, as it’s clear that’s what neither of us is here to do, let’s move on to the real action item.”

“I have a statue to sell.”

She shows him photos. The camera resolution isn’t quite what he needs to appraise it seriously, but he can see how shockingly life-like it is already.

“How much d’you want for it?”

“Fifty thousand.”

He almost coughs up his coffee.

“You haven’t been playing this game for long.”

She doesn't’ say anything.

“Fifty thousand, take it or leave it.”

“What’s the material?”

“Marble.”

He considers. If it’s good up close he could probably resell it for four or five times that to some collector interested in neo-hellenic stuff. Not many people making original marble statuary these days compared to the market of the super-rich looking for shit to decorate their back gardens.

“Can you show me?”

Declan calls Matthew to tell him to go back to the hotel and get takeaway without him and follows the woman uptown on the bus. They get off in Spanish Harlem, a world away from the shiny robot skyscrapers downtown. She lives on the fourth floor of her building, in a narrow apartment somewhat rank with the smell of body odour and spilled beer, although she throws the windows open and has loads of potted plants about, like she’s trying very hard to get rid of the smell.

“There.”

The sculpture is unmissable. Life size and astonishingly, terribly ugly. Truly incredible in it’s attention to awful detail. A middle aged, balding, short man with a fan of cards in one hand and a beer swinging from the other, positioned exactly as if he’s just got up from sitting. Mouth opened, soundlessly screaming his head off. Declan sees it and flinches without even meaning too. His mother’s not had many men, but she had a few, when she was younger. But it’s just a statue. Just a statue.

Still one of the weirdest goddamn things he’s ever fucking seen, and that’s saying something.

Authentic marble though.

“Formal education? Apprenticed to someone?”

“Take it or leave it. Fifty thousand.”

No more information. He knows exactly why she called him. He’s the kind of man you call when you don’t have information about the life-sized sculpture of a man in your sitting room and no information to give about how you made it, in the same year you report your husband missing to the police. When to the untrained eye, the two look identical. He’s that kind of man.

He gets her three million USD for it.

It’s all through an official channel so it’s harder to launder, get it looking legal. A million upfront, the rest leaked in increments over the next ten years. All shiny, all legal, all IRS-signed off. He personally takes out fifty thousand and puts it in a manila envelope for when he meets her a few blocks off central station, an hour before his train’s scheduled to leave. He gives her the envelope. She gives him a white paper bag containing only blue sweets. It looks like a proper pick-n-mix haul, something he didn’t even think the States had. Whoppers, sour strings, taffy, gum, gummy sharks. He eats a sweet and sour wind-up before being able to stop himself, the sweet-sour crystals on his fingers like being a kid again.

“You’re so young,” she says finally, like this didn’t occur to her the entire time he was selling what was probably her husband’s dead body.

He shrugs, but he’s smiling. “But I got your done.” She can’t be more than ten years older than him, anyway, and most of her jobs have been harder. You don’t tell art world undergrounders your personal life, anyway, but he noticed all of the accoutrements of a maybe secondary-school aged kid lurking around her flat, Lucky Charms, mud scuffs on the floor in strange places, football jerseys in the hamper. She’d tried to hide the obvious things, no photos on the fridge or skateboard leaning against the door frame, but he had an eye for those kinds of details like other people had a head for figures, and he recognised the detritus of a teenager well, because he’d been one recently and he had one.

She appraises him for a second. Her eyes are large and very dark brown, and they don’t let anything go. “Zeus?” she finally says, like she’s been thinking it for a long time, testing the waters. “Hera?”

“Like the Greek gods?”

He went through his greek mythology phase, for sure. Half of decoding what posh people write seems to be about knowing the ins and outs of the soap operatic turns of events people told each other for fun two thousand years ago, which is then called Classics.

She looks at him longer, considers him.

“Lugh, then? Bridgid?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

She nods. “Sorry if- nevermind. Thank you for selling my statue.”

“I hope you do well with it. With your… artistic career. Now, and I don’t fucking care if you blow throught he money in a year, never call me again. Never call this number again. Never call any number related to it. If your money never comes through do fine with a million and don’t go looking. Never.” They shake hands and part ways, and he never sees her again, but he does think about her a lot afterwards anyway, parsing their conversation out. No gods and no God either, as far as he knows. Strange fucking thing to ask.

He’s learned enough by how Matthew is on trains - and on ferries, it transpires, and in strange taxis, and he doesn’t want to fucking think about the transatlantic flight he’s planning at some point - not to let him eat much before the train back to DC, for which he feels bad. While they were in New York he let Matthew choose a show and dutifully got some last minute Dear Evan Hansen tickets off a third party seller, got the good seats and the playbill they got signed after by the cast, Declan knows who to talk to for these kinds of things.

#my writing #crossover time.#in painter's light #declan lynch #and i won't... say who else #but after i saw posts about this online i was like of course. of course

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popwasabi · 3 years

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“End of Evangelion” and the tempting nature of oblivion

(TW: Suicide, Self-harm, Pain, Depression, Mental Health, Death)

“End of Evangelion” is a perplexing movie to say the least.

Not that the original classic anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion” series ends on exactly the most conclusive note itself, but “End” takes everything that transpired in the series and literally destroys it.

The films ends with Earth experiencing the long foreshadowed Third Impact and all of the planet returning to the primordial “soup,” as fans call it, with its main protagonist Shinji Ikari and comrade Asuka Langley Soryu as the only remaining humans left. A pseudo, twisted rebeginning of Adam and Eve’s Genesis.

The film is fairly divisive among the fans to say the least. Some fans consider it a masterpiece for its nihilistic tone and mind-bending illustrations of body horror and others despised it for being too dark and confusing with no clear explanation of anything that happened in the film’s events. Hell, even the movie’s fans have a difficult time explaining what exactly happens in the narrative.

I was somewhat in the middle with it after I watched it the first time not super long ago. It was certainly abstract, and I like plenty of stories that don’t make it easy for me to understand. The animation is definitely the franchise’s best and I enjoyed the character moments between Shinji, Asuka, and Misato. But it was also, as stated before, dreadfully confusing and still to this day hard to makes heads or tails out of with its plot.

But, as with more than a few movies I have revisited this year, 2020 helped me contextualize one aspect I think the story is concretely trying to get across.

(We’ll save discussion of “Rebuild” for another day...)

At my lowest points not long ago, I had this frequent vision that would crawl across my mind.

I imagined being up in the clouds on a beautiful sunny day, but I wasn’t floating or flying. I was plummeting, falling like a bird without wings at a speed that would definitely kill me once I got to the ground. But I never imagined actually hitting the Earth like a meat-bagged, human sized asteroid. I only ever imagined the falling part. The wind reaching a terminal velocity and the air rushing past my body and you know what look I had on my face?

Happiness.

I was confused a bit by why I kept imagining this moribund fall into oblivion over and over again. I wasn’t suicidal, though I certainly have had thoughts of self-harm plenty of times before and general detachment from life. But why the fuck was I so happy? I’m about to die after all!

What I have come to realize in recent years, as I’ve developed a better understanding of my mental health and what makes me tick, it wasn’t that I wanted to die so much as I wanted the freedom that comes moments before it. The feeling of finally letting go and letting fate/gravity do the rest.

Years of my life failing at various aspects of societal expectations and career obligations from not being able to get the girls I wanted to date so badly, relationships ending poorly, not quite applying myself the way I should’ve in college, and working a plethora of unfulfilling jobs since graduation made me yearn for that release. Just that feeling of saying “fuck it all” and giving in to the void.

I wanted to stop feeling out of control. The way the world is structured often feels like you are on a wild, rapid river flowing in one very stark direction but you desperately want to go the other way. You keep fighting and fighting it and realize after a while you are just swimming in place, you tire out and either float where the river wants you to go or you drown. I wanted neither of those things, I just wanted control and unfortunately part of life is accepting that a very large percentage of it is beyond your power to alter.

2020 made this feeling starkly apparent once again as we were hit with a once in a lifetime global pandemic that has killed 2.21 million people and counting. As common people struggle to find ways to handle the loss of loved ones and the fallout from economic instability those tasked with protecting us have more or less ignored the cries of needy. Hell, they’re fucking miffed that we would even have the audacity to ask for $2000 of our own fucking tax dollars to put a band-aid on the situation. Combine this with an extremely volatile two-party system and late stage capitalism, we are about as out of control as ever in terms of how much we actually can course correct our destinies in a period like this.

It is why so many irony-pilled millennials and gen z-ers are posting dank memes about meteors colliding with the earth over the course of the year. We’ve lived through two recessions, two forever wars, and now a pandemic in our lifetimes while paying off our crippling debt with slave wages and yet boomers still wonder why we are near universally depressed as a generation.

(Seriously, everybody needs a fucking therapist right now...and also to dismantle the fucking system that’s making us depressed!)

This is what I feel is the real heart of “End of Evangelion.” The movie is a lot of things, obviously, but, after the events of this year and looking back on the more depressing parts of my life, I feel this film is about the tempting nature of oblivion. Giving up when things are clearly beyond your control so you can get that sweet but twisted, fleeting sense of freedom from it all.

Director Hideaki Anno didn’t feel too entirely different about the state of life when he made this series and certainly by the time he made “End” he was in a very dark place.

So, quick history lesson, “Neon Genesis Evangelion” debuted in 1994 and quickly became a classic among fans of anime and the giant mech vs monster genre. Critics loved it for its exploration of mental health and depression and of course plenty enjoyed the hell out of it for its giant monster/robot escapism as well. Fast forward to the conclusion of the series, critics and fans especially are far more polarized. I won’t try to explain exactly what happens in the ending and frankly I don’t think anyone can, but that confusion led to quite a bit of outcry by the fans.

Hideaki Anno, the series’ director, received tons of hate mail and death threats following the series conclusion. The fans hated how abstract it was, how it had an undecisive ending and chose to dive into the mind of Shinji instead of conclusively describing the events of the Third Impact with plenty going as far as to say he had “ruined” his own series for them. This made him unfortunately quite depressed himself over the ending he felt creatively fairly content with.

(I think it should be clear who Shinji is mostly likely a stand-in for in this anime...)

The fan reaction was toxic to say the least and all too familiar for many creatives who didn’t adequately satisfy the insatiable vapid needs of their fandom. Anno did not take this well to put it lightly. A man who was known as a delinquent in high school and expelled from the Osaka University of Arts much earlier in his life, and dealt plenty with his own bouts of depression, Anno had plenty of his own demons to sort out and quite clearly wanted to explore that mental state in “Neon Genesis Evangelion.”

I’ll be honest and say that I myself was not fond of the ending either when I watched it the first time as a freshman in college, and even went as far as to describe it as everything that was wrong with anime to friends in the years that followed for a while. I felt it was confusing and “fake deep,” existential for no reason other than because it just wanted to and people were “dumb” if they liked it.

When I rewatched it again as a much older adult when it came on Netflix last year, I found it much more fascinating and interesting. A sort of abstract introspective into the mind of a troubled teenager, who I had written off many years prior as a “whiny baby.” Though I wouldn’t say I completely understand it still, I get it much more now and I think it has a lot to say about depression and mental health.

Unfortunately, most fans did not have that reaction back then and as a result Anno made his true conclusion “End of Evangelion” as a response to that negativity.

(You’re welcome, nerds.)

As mentioned before, “End of Evangelion” is an extremely nihilistic film that seems to one up each dark moment as you traverse its spiraling narrative. It’s a film where things never get better. If you go into it blind expecting that big last minute heroic save the day moment, it’s always teased and never comes. Things just end very badly for everyone. Nobody gets a “happy ending.”

While the ending to the original series is strange for sure, it does end on a light note that can be interpreted in a number of different ways but ultimately positive. With the way fans reacted to it Anno decided to write a big “fuck you” to them by, in many ways, smashing his toys so no one could play with them again. He even went as far as to splice in the actual hate mail he received into the movie to quite clearly show to the audience, as their favorite characters met their grissly ends, that this was their fault.

(“Gee, I wonder what that was all about.” ~ a fan walking out of the theater back in 1997.)

In a way though, Anno created something strangely beautiful from that reaction. “End of Evangelion” is about giving up in some ways and accepting our inevitable doom. There are no easy answers, no workable solutions to achieve a happy ending because sometimes in life there isn’t one. Despite last ditch efforts by Misato, Shinji, and the crew of NERV the world still ends through the Third Impact. But tonally it’s not quite pessimistic; it’s actually positive, in a very twisted sense of course.

Set to the song “Komm Susser Tod” by ARIANNE, the film’s apocalypse can almost be described as a celebration. With people “popping” and turning into the primordial soup they all largely have smiles on their faces as they kind of get what they want whether it’s a desire to reunite with loved ones, to be with people they have crushes on, or happiness that they have sought for so long in the embrace of others. Everyone’s depressed! But now they are happy because it’s finally all over, they don’t have to give a shit anymore.

As the planet lights up like a Christmas tree, there are images of suicide and death that rapidly cross the screen in the form of the Angel’s final transformation but again, nobody is truly sad about it. They all have some kind of twisted smile or joy that they get from it. It’s a shocking film, if you’re not already prepared for what’s going to happen, and provocative to say the least.

youtube

(Can’t decide if I recommend watching this high or not...)

I had no idea what any of it meant at the time when I watched it several years ago (I watched it well after I had seen the original series), and to be fair there are many ways fans have interpreted what exactly took place in the film and have debated endlessly on its meaning for decades now. But at least in my interpretation, after everything we’ve been through this year, “End of Evangelion” to me is about the sweet release of not giving a fuck anymore.

Whether it’s about Anno feeling that way about his own life or the expectations of his fans or both, the film quite clearly doesn’t care about what people may or may not have wanted for Shinji and the NGE characters and is perfectly fine with the way it all comes “tumbling down.”

(He just wants to be with his boyfriend, guys.)

This past July 4th, city fireworks shows were prohibited in my area because they wanted to limit mass gatherings due to COVID but this didn’t stop people from buying plenty of their own to fire off. In what amounted to a collective “fuck you” to everything and 2020, beginning pretty much exactly at dusk people started firing off their at home lightshows like they were mortar gunners in World War I and did not let up until well past midnight. The entire Southern California night sky was lit up not to unlike the thousands of crosses that filled the screen during the Third Impact of “End of Evangelion” and though it could certainly be interpreted as a moment of people patriotically going “Yea, America!” that night, my head canon was much different. It felt like tens of thousands of people across the region just saying “Fuck it” into the night sky at everything; COVID, our horrendous government, police violence, pending World Wars, environmental disaster, and our collective impending doom from it all.

As these fireworks hit their zenith around 9pm I broke out my phone and started playing “Komm Susser Tod” from the movie and it felt perfect. Everyone just wanted to feel that freedom in the moment, that freedom of not giving a damn anymore. To be removed from expectations, from control, from hatred, from pain and it was kind of beautiful in a sick way.

And that’s what “End of Evangelion” feels like to me now; kind of beautiful in a sick way.

(Not saying the LA skyline looked like this exactly but it felt like it haha...)

There are still many ways to interpret Hideaki Anno’s cult classic, and it’s part of its charm but I think the take away fans should have is definitely not that suicide is ok but that we get it. We understand why people have those feelings and why it feels freeing to desire the void and oblivion. It’s a pity that the series most toxic fans didn’t get that clue through the original finale but Anno, not a person who likes being shoved around, clearly created perhaps the most twistedly beautiful “fuck you” to that in anime history.

As we enter 2021 all I can say is it’s ok to feel like this, it’s ok to desire freedom from the relentless gloom and doom of the world and people’s prying expectations of what they think you “should” be. No one blames you. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to survive the apocalypse we have zero control over, so the least we can do is be a bit nicer and considerate of one another.

At least it’ll make the Third Impact more pleasant whenever it eventually comes...

Happy New Year, everyone!

Congratulations on surviving 2020! Have fun in 2021...

#neon genesis evangelion #end of evangelion #evangelion #hideaki anno #anime #japan #90s #vintage anime #2020 #apocalypse #covid #mental health #depression #sadness #horror #shinji #covid19 #quarantine

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Final Space: And Into The Fire Review or Now with 110% More Homoerotic Telepathy

Welcome new and old to my first Final Space review! If you’ve never seen the blog before, and given this is the first “new” series i’ve covered as it come out in some time that’s probably quite a few of you, welcome. I’m Jake, I do recaps and reviews of various animated shows and comics, mostly just stuff I want to do, often on comission (5 dollars an episode if theres any episode of the first two seasons of this show or any episode of any other show you’d like tos ee me cover), or for my patreon patreon.com/popculturebuffet. And it is my utmost honor to add this show to my rotating roster of shows I cover as they come out.

I friggin love Final Space. I was intrigued by it back when TBS released the animatics alongside Close Enough (Wth the two shows ironically finally together on HBO max as of earlier this month), for their doomed block. I heard a lot of good things about season 1.. and let it get away from me, not watching it till Season 2. But both seasons had more than enough to pull me in with intriguging characters, even greater jokes and a truly unique idea for a premise involving giant monsters, an edltrich god and lots of cookies.

So while it took an extra year given Covid, I’m super friggin pumped to get into season 3 at long last after the hell of a cliffhanger, especially since ironically last night I saw Steven Yeun’s oscar nominated performance in “Minari”. Now i get to watch him play a cat teenager again too.. and in a few days Mark friggin Grayson. It’s a good week to be a fan of his is what i’m saying and a good week in general.

Previously on Final Space Yo!: Since it’s been a year and while the series provides a recap , I’m going to be doing these anyway so:

Our heroes finally got all 5 dimensional keys and freed Bolo, and in the process also freed Avacato from Invictus, the horrifying entity controlling final space. Meanwhile Tribore got Sheryl to stop being a selfish prick and she joined the team trying to be a better mother from now on. But freeing Bolo came at a high cost as Nightfall sacrified herself as the sixth key (KVN was natrually both Gary and Bolo’s first choice, but was inllegible. ) So we ended the season with our heroes entering Final Space and Gary reuniting with Quinn.... while Invictus loomed. So over a year later we finally get some answers so join me under the cut for spoilers, recaps, and homoerotic text ahoy.

Something i’m doing since both the roster keeps changing.. and as I correctly guessed from the trailer, and the general tone of the promos for this season, that everyone won’t be all together all season.. or even in one piece.. i’ll be doing a silver age style roll call to let us know who all we have on the Team Squad for the episode Roll Call: Gary, Quinn, Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, KVN, HUE, AVA, Sheryl, Bolo, and Tribore

So we pick up right where we left off, Gary tearfully reuniting with Quinn, with Quinn wishing he hadn’t come for her, and Gary being Gary naturally having ignored that, and actually been more determined since that made it forbidden which made it extra tempting and him want to extra do it. God I missed this glorious idiot let me tell you.

So things are quickly interrupted by invictus, who turns out to be a giant flaming head.. thing... and chases them and the crimson light, which has to start speeding with our heroes tethered to the outside, Quinn holding onto Gary.

So we get one hell of a thrilling chase as the Crimson Light outspeeds the demon head and runs into two titans, but Bolo shows up to take out one, with Mooncake trying his dimension shattering blast thingy on Invictus.. and naturlaly g ven this is the big bad we need to show off how horrying they are, and it does NOTHING. But Gary catches his little buddy so we’re alright.

Sheryl also shows off her badass bonafieds by LIGHTFOLDING THROUGH A TITAN... granted she still has some parenting skills to learn as “lightfolding while your son is hanging out the back through an edltrich god” really isn’t a motherly thing to do.. but neither is trying to murder your child several times or blaming him for how shitty your life turned out so ANYTHING is a step up for her.

But.. it’s not enough. While she does manage to kill ONE the Crimson Light is too badly damaged to go on and we get two tragic deaths in one go... The Team Squad is forced to abandon the Crimson Light.. and AVA is too damaged to Upload into HUE. “I’m Sad” “For who?” “For you.. and for us. “ God damn Tom Kenny is amazing. You don’t need me telling you that, but sometimes you need a reminder.

So our heroes end up on a desolate mystery world, stranded in final space with no ship, no suplies and no hope. The only thing to do now is survivie and hope they can continue the mission at some point.

ONE MONTH LATER

Things have not gotten any better, as naturally , our heroes have only found weird cartoon eyed worms that regrow their heads when you bite them off. So while this means unlimited food, it’s also disgusting and Garry hates it. “This may be a head but it tastes like a butt”. Quinn and Tribore are with him and Quinn hasn’t been ready to talk about her experiences trapped in this hellscape and still isn’t but being a good dude, Gary dosen’t push her on it. Though the weird red veiny thing on her arm tells me maybe one of you should speed that up before she explodes or gets cronnenburgy. Just saying. I’ll also say i’m not huge on the one month time skip, as while I feel they probably have a reason for being that specific i’ts a bit TOO long and I question why have that long a period of a jump, not the longest but still long enough for things to happen with nothing changingin that time? Still it’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic episode so I can let it go, I just don’t get it.

What we do get is some Gary Corpses dropping and Invictius puppeting them... i’m with gary that is bowel openingly scary. I also do like how despite the FAR more dire circumstances, they still get in the requisite shenanigans this series requires. I’ts not to the network mandated subplot levels where it distracts, but it’s enough to help ease the terror of the situation and isn’t around for situations like the opening where it really SHOULDN’T be. As the series always has when something big happens, the bollocks goes away. Once we’re in between we can get back to literal pissing contests, KVN leading a crowd to their deaths and HUE in a pimp hat like god intended.

So yeah our heroes have to outrun the horrible horde of Gary’s, though Little Cato catches on something’s wrong as Tribore makes gary cary him as foreshadowing for later and Sends mooncake down to asssit. Our heroes escape.. but a cave in happens.

After the break, Gary wakes up confused with the party now split in two: Gary, Quinn, KVN, Tribore and HUE on one side and Avacato, Ash, Fox, Little Cato and Sheryl on the other. So Gary does the logical thing... and take his shirt off telling Avacato to feel him.

I mean I didn’t even ship them before this scene but... Gary claims because of their bond he can telepahtically connect with Avacato. That’s normal Gary shenanigans.. except not only does he shrug off his girlfriend asking why they can’t do that.. but it WORKS. We have a scene of the two telepahtically talking in a wheatfield that is so homerotic I guarantee there only wasn’t the Careless Whisper sax because they couldn’t afford it.. or their saving it for later this season. Look sometimes you don’t ship a ship because you just.. dont’ care that strongly one way or another and sometimes you just need an incredibly gay scene to see the light. Same thing happened with Weblena same thing here.

Fox also says “that was glorious to watch” same man. That was freaking art. So our heroes split up into three plots. As usual for me

Team Gary: So yeah... Triobore’s pregnant. No way to really softball into that. He’s been pregnant this whole time. So we get a stupid and mildly horrifying gross out sequence with Gary having to look Triobore in teh eyes and Quinn having to “uncork him”. Which is code for ... you know what i’m not going to say it. If you’ve seen the episode you know and if not your better off not visualizing it trust me. Point is this whole sequence is dumb and the worst part of the episode by far. And the series CAN do good gross out. While Olan Rodgers regrets it, the pissing contest was one of the funniest scenes of season 2, and managed to make a gross idea on paper actually pretty damn funny. This.. this is just “Haha males giving birth and tribore’s an asshole”. There’s no joke here just a .. plug. .. gah.. the vomit is rising let me tell you.

We do get something good out of this nightmare, Tribore’s son who hatches as the army of gary’s dig their way in, Quanstranstro, who rapidly ages into a stylsih spanish speaking adult badass. He is fucking awesome and a great addition to the team and the sheer.. oddity of his birth is wonderful even if the actual birthing was not. Then the climax happens so before that.

Team Avacato:

Avacato and Co come across a sleeping giant robot cyborg .. thingy. Naturally Fox wakes him up. Little Cato remains not suprised. It occelates between panicking over it’s legs being gone and amenisa and is pretty damn funny. It’s voiced by John Dimagio. But it gets serious as we find out nothing has ever made it out of final space, and things.. change the longer there there. And Quinn’s been there several months if not a year. Whuh oh. This part is much better both due to better jokes and plot advancment.. though again Quanstrano is still fucking amazing.

Team Bolo: Bolo meanwhile returns and fights a titan, and has mooncake help him rather htan join the others, but looses, hitting the planet with his body.. I mean he might not get back up.. but the impact shatters the caverns and causes an explosion. Everyone but Gary, Quinn, KVN and HUE are MIA, as our remaining party find earth floating overhead.

TO BE CONTINUED>

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the season. Like I said the whole birthing sequence can die in a fire and reminds me of the terrible comedy subplots adult swim wanted grafted onto two episodes.. but otherwise it’s a tense stark opener that sets up the bleak tone while still keeping the series rediciulous shenanigans in tact. It’s the perfect welcome back after so long. I mean the gay telepathy alone would make it a winner.

Next Time on This Blog: We dive into a little history with HIsteria. See you at the next rainbow.

#final space #gary goodspeed #avacato #little cato #quinn airgon #ash grayven #fox #KVN #HUE #AVA #invictus #bollo #sheryl goodspeed #tribore menendez

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nothingunrealistic · 3 years

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naturally was going "hmm what kind of fins (fish) would young taylor in the bathtub wish for. how would we know what they think would be the best fish tail to have" & then was just thinking of Younger Taylor Hcs just in general. got any you'd wanna share, or like, any faves from what's been provided either as unofficial ideas or via those glimpses of info in the show's text. Fave can be in a "truly enjoy this" way & or simply more of a "truly Thinking About This An Extra Lot" sense lol. They

Boy Do I… first, a listing of everything we Know from canon about their childhood / early life / family:

taylor grew up in “a place like” connerty’s small apartment where “the heat pipes bang practically all night” in the winter [2x11]

taylor’s mom would deem the apartment they rented for her & douglas too expensive, and if she & douglas were shopping for furniture, they’d argue about how much things cost [4x07]

taylor never thought they’d be thinking about living a life where they book private jets [2x09]

the masons’ home is hundreds of miles from any body of water (as shown here) and douglas had to fly to nyc to see taylor [4x03]

douglas figures taylor’s mom won’t miss him getting in her way back home [4x03]

taylor has a sister; when she gets married, in michigan, taylor is part of the wedding party [2x09]

at a young age, taylor was always measuring information around them, and sweet / affectionate, especially toward douglas [4x03]

taylor’s favorite cereal as a kid was frosted flakes [4x09]

taylor was never really douglas’s “little girl” like he claims [4x03]

the first time douglas brought taylor to his lab, it meant a lot to them, and the next day they gave him designs to remake it [4x06]

douglas taught taylor: “don’t just have an idea, build the model that proves it” [4x07]

according to douglas, taylor gets the “unyielding compulsion to get it right” from him, and their relationship was best when they “kept things mathematical” [4x03]

douglas wishes he could have built real wealth / success and given it all to taylor [4x03]

wendy mentions to taylor that douglas has “exploited your need for his approval,” and taylor agrees that douglas only cares about his own advancement rather than being a father first [4x07]

douglas dislikes the military / the government [4x06]

taylor is surprised by douglas quoting a pop song [4x07]

when taylor was younger, the bathtub was the only place they could go to be alone and think, and they’d press their legs against the sides hard enough to make them go numb [3x11]

taylor started playing online poker at age 12 under the screen name ZackCody892 and played up to 16 tables at a time (and for thousands of hours) [2x03]

douglas was fired from his job at an aerospace firm when taylor was in 7th grade. this firing damaged their relationship with him and “affected the home life.” for years, taylor thought douglas had been fired so that the firm could steal his invention, and only found out the truth from his personnel file [2x11, 4x05, 4x06]

taylor has had 927 hours of therapy prior to their session with dr. gus, and that number hasn’t changed at their first session with wendy [2x03, 2x08]

douglas, in bringing taylor food and coffee, claims they rarely take the time to look after themself [4x04]

taylor used to lie to themself and others but is now past that, and knows “how hard it is to have things inside you that you can’t communicate” and “what it’s like to face public scrutiny over who you are” [2x08, 3x02, 4x04]

when taylor reminds douglas about their pronouns, he says “this talk again?”, implying it’s a discussion they’ve had before [4x03]

taylor once got into a bar fight with a high school classmate (it’s unclear whether they were still in high school at the time) after seeing y tu mamá también in a theater [5x07]

taylor was active in occupy wall street in college [2x10]

taylor played poker in college against classmates, grad students, & professors, but their opponents kicked them out for winning too much; additionally, the competitive aspect made them sick (described as “malaise” or “vertigo-like symptoms”) [2x03, 4x12]

taylor planned to go to chicago for grad school and study with eugene fama [2x02]

mafee picked taylor as his intern because they were the only applicant who wasn’t boring / didn’t care about the same bullshit that everyone from wharton or harvard did [5x04]

douglas initiated the visit to taylor, claiming it was because he’d missed them, after not being ready to see them even though taylor’s mother wanted to visit countless times [4x03, 4x07]

taylor is trying to be “everything to their father” in funding his company, and neither of them will be able to come back from taylor being forced to betray him [4x06, 4x07]

wow that’s a long list. and now, my own thoughts and extrapolations:

taylor grew up somewhere in the west / midwest with their parents and sister, who’s a few years older than them, in a house small enough that they had to share a bedroom with her. hence, needing to hide out in the bathtub to get any space & time alone.

from very early on, taylor was douglas’s favorite child and he was their favorite parent — douglas saw taylor’s intelligence & insight (and saw himself in them) and chose to put time & effort into teaching / guiding / molding them, hoping they’d one day follow in his footsteps / support his ambitions, and taylor liked that attention & recognition. (douglas’s attitude toward taylor’s sister is essentially “well she’s here too i guess.”)

douglas taught taylor enough about aerospace engineering & mathematics for them to understand the value of his lattice fin concept, and to generally have a better grasp of engineering concepts than your average (even very well-read) business major / financier. (remember how rebecca knew a robot’s “proprietary” power source was a combustion engine because her father was a mechanic? same deal here. see also: the “smash electronics apart to find the microchips inside and figure out who makes them” strategy; taylor comparing losing grigor’s money to building a turbo engine and having the nitrous tank blow up in their face.) this manifested in both directly teaching them in his lab and in playing games like the silverware-stacking game we see in 4x03, or like douglas throwing out math problems for taylor to solve on the spot, or the two of them solving math problems together.

douglas also imparted his taste in music (which does not include anything new / popular) to taylor, though their taste as an adult (or even as, like, a teenager) isn’t identical to his. this is how they discovered rush in the first place and why they have such strong opinions about The Best Rush Albums. (if douglas had such a ranking, it’d be closer to axe’s than to taylor’s.)

listening to rush helped make taylor a libertarian 😔 that’s just life when you’re a neil peart stan, which of course they are. they admire his lyrics + his drumming talent + his absolute poker face in performances.

douglas also taught taylor to play blackjack, which inspired them to go and learn poker on their own and start playing online. they tried to keep it a secret, but it's hard to be secretive about spending hours a day playing online poker on the family computer. (this is 2006 or so, after all.)

taylor figured out that they were Not A Girl (or at least had thoughts of “hm i don’t enjoy being addressed / perceived as A Girl”) fairly young but didn’t acquire a concrete vocabulary for / specific understanding of that for some time. (if douglas is calling they/them pronouns “that woke stuff” in 2019, he sure wasn’t saying anything clear or favorable about trans people in 2009 or 1999. ditto for online poker sites.)

douglas’s firing exacerbated every negative aspect of the mason family dynamic. he doubled down on pushing taylor toward his field, urging them to succeed where he’d failed, and warning them against letting anyone Steal Their Value. money got tighter, taylor’s parents argued more, and any activities taylor was in (like, say, swimming at the ymca) that required payment got cut; they may have figured out how to make money (illegally!) from online poker at this point. the combined stress of financial instability, being torn between pursuing their own ambitions and fulfilling douglas’s expectations for them, and increasing Gendered Expectations in general — plus the whole “playing online poker for hours a day” thing — probably put taylor in therapy within a few months, if they weren’t in therapy already. (how did their parents pay for it? i don’t know either.)

stealing this from that interview asia & brian & david did in 2017: if taylor had not already taught themself to think and speak directly & incisively and look people in the eye when they talk, et cetera, it started here, whether in therapy or on their own time.

taylor went to college in new york city. douglas did not want them to do this, for a number of reasons, and would have preferred they stick closer to home (and study something other than finance), but doing so would have made them miserable.

by the time they finished high school (circa 2012), taylor had properly heard of trans people and figured that they were somehow One Of Them, but not until college did they hear of people being nonbinary and go “ohhhh yeah that’s me.” (they’d also gotten a Short Haircut in high school, but didn’t go full buzzcut until college. unsurprisingly, they got some shit in high school for being Visibly gnc.)

for some period of time while figuring out their gender situation, taylor went by the name neil as a nod to neil peart. (it’s fun to imagine that they still have a faceless twitter / tumblr account where they go by neil. doubles as a way to prevent anyone connecting it to their real life.)

taylor came out to their family while in college. their mom and sister had fairly similar reactions of “well i don’t Get this exactly, but i love you and want to support you and i’m sure you know what you're talking about better than i do and you did clearly hate it every time i urged you to conform to Standards Of Womanhood so sure i can call you Them and my [child / sibling] :)” given some time to think about it. douglas… well. if he’s starting from a place of “i don’t get this,” he’ll end up at “so it must be wrong and stupid, because i’m always right,” especially if This = his favorite child being different in some significant way from who / what he thought they were. obviously he doesn’t react well or supportively, and the strain in his relationship with taylor tips over into full-blown estrangement. bad times for everyone.

if taylor’s bar fight happened when they were old enough to legally enter a bar, it happened after coming out to their family (also after the live poker fiasco), and before making plans for grad school / internships. most likely it was on a summer break they were spending back in their hometown. (another fun thought: taylor seeing the video of axe punching a guy, just weeks after they punched a guy, and going “well maybe i should work for him.”)

if douglas was at taylor’s sister’s wedding (and maybe he wasn’t!), it was awkward for everyone when he and taylor crossed paths again. barest of pleasantries, passive-aggressive comments, et cetera. naturally, it took a few more years — and douglas realizing that taylor, now being fairly wealthy and successful, could probably fund his dream project if they didn’t hate him — for him to decide to visit them.

#inbox #unproduciblesmackdown #billions #taylor mason #douglas mason #this post brought to you by ''if i had you'' and ''for your entertainment'' by adam lambert. absolute bangers #also partway through writing this i went and searched ''neil peart stan'' (sans quotes) on twitter and i definitely didn't get there first

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