#sorry I've been gone for so long! you know how adhd is

[cursed-spop]

Netossa Pride icons

#spop #netossa #pride month #sorry I've been gone for so long! you know how adhd is #feel free to use for icons

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for not noticing I hurt my friend's feelings?

I (24F) had a somewhat close friend (24F) whom I've known since highschool but only got closer to recently. I've had a friend crush on her forever and apparently she did too. We share a lot of interests and we're both neurodivergent (I'm diagnosed with adhd, and we're almost certain she has autism). We also sort of bonded over a shared trauma -- basically we got two-timed several years ago by a really abusive asshole.

Anyway something happened a couple of months ago and I feel our friendship has gone downhill since then. It was multiple occasions really: what would happen is that I would say something impulsively, and she would misinterpret it and get sensitive about it, we talk it out, I apologize, and we move on. But one time it was a bit too much that i burst into tears while texting her because I felt I really hurt her and I felt that all my friendships will go downhill because whenever I get comfortable with someone I just completely lose my filter and end up hurting them. What happened that day was that we were hanging out and a guy apparently told her something sexist but I didn't hear him. She came to me to complain and I sort of brushed it off because from the way she said it happened it just seemed he was vaguely pointing out something but I later understood that I was just wrong. Then her dress had a tiny hole which I pointed out to her in front of my boyfriend rather impulsively and she got really upset about that. Later on I was telling her about a book I'd read that had great autism representation that didn't have the character just be -- and here I did the dinosaur arms thing (no offense whatsoever to people who do that; I know full well it's a common thing, I was just saying the character had more to him than just that). The problem is that she didn't hear the part where I was talking about a book character because we were changing tables in a crowded cafe and I was just talking non-stop because that's what I do and she thought I just did the dinosaur arms out of nowhere and got offended but didn't say so except over text later and just looked unwell for the rest of the next half hour before she suddenly excused herself and left. That day she texted me about all of these things and we talked it out and I pretended that I was not literally having a meltdown all while apologizing (but not before I tried to plead my case a bit). This all happened on the same day, but before that there were other occasions too. One time she would be talking about something, then I change the subject, then she'd say I know you didn't mean to but I wanted you to give a reply to what I just said. Another time we had a particularly bad exam which I did okay on, but she was telling about how she botched it. I couldn't tell from her face how serious it was and I gave her what i thought was a sympathetic smile (which she later told me was a weird smile) because I really didn't know what to say and then turned away to look for my boyfriend to check on him as well. She told me that day that she felt that I brushed her off when she was having a difficult time and didn't console her enough.

It's just multiple things that made me feel that I need to be more on guard around her for her sake. She moved to another city recently and even before that we were texting less and less. I even asked her if she was upset about the cafe day and she said no since I apologized and we talked it out, but I could feel something in our relationship changed. It just felt like such a shame because I felt a great connection between us and I have massive difficulties when it comes to making friends. She was sort of my last friend that I felt close to aside from my boyfriend, and now I can't help thinking that the problem has always been me.

Sorry if the post was too long and sorry for the sob story lol

#aita #am i the asshole

[fuck-customers]

Sorry in advance. This one is gonna be REAL long and vent-y.

So I currently have a retail job that I've been at for 4 years. I'll be honestly, it's never been a great job and since it's retail, I obviously never intended to stay there forever. Honestly, I've stayed there longer than I intended to, due to a lot of disasters in my personal life. (legal battles, house fire, homelessness) And because it was easier to just stay at a job that I already had and was already established and trained and knew the drill vs. going through these personal disasters at a new job, trying to give a good impression and perform well while hiding the fact that I'm miserable and going through a lot of difficulties that I do not want to bring into work/have bosses or coworkers be aware of. (I feel very hesitant to share any personal info at work, because I worry that any shared info not work-related can be used against me, in minor and major ways. But perhaps I'm being unnecessarily paranoid.)

However, after all this time of me dragging my feet, it is unfortunately clear to me that I am going to have to get another job. My job was always part-time (with a promise that was a lie about being promoted to full-time with good performance) but now my hours have majorly decreased from 12-30 hours per week when I was first hired, to now getting 3-6 hours EVERY OTHER WEEK.

So now I have begrudgingly resigned myself to accept the fact that I need to apply for jobs. I'm terrified. I've accepted it, but I'm terrified.

I don't have very much work experience. I had a seasonal job before my current job (3 months) and I've been at my current job for (a bit over) 4 years, which looks good because it shows loyalty, commitment, blah, blah, blah. But that's IT. 2 jobs. No degree or license or qualifications. I was in a few clubs in high school, but I'm too old to be listing my high school achievements. I can't afford college. And I know that a lot of job applications have auto-delete programs that will just trash an application if it doesn't have the correct buzzwords...but how am I supposed to know the correct buzzwords? I've also heard about ghost listings where companies post job listings they never intend to fill so they get a tax write off or whatever. (Idk if this is true, but the idea is enough to terrify me) I also have a hearing disability and I suspect (but am undiagnosed) that I have a learning/neurological disability, possibly ADHD or mild autism.

So there's ALL THAT weighing on my mind. And then on top of all of that, I'm scared out of my mind about my own personal situation.

I figure I can probably fake it well enough for the first week or so, maybe the first month if I'm really crafty and lucky (I figure I can get through the application process by listing my P.O. box as an address without putting that it's a P.O. box. And I have a lot of clothes from before becoming homeless that I can change into so I'm not constantly wearing the same clothes) but eventually people at this hypothetical new job will figure out that I live in a car (I can change my outfits and use dry shampoo on my hair, but trust me, from experience I know that I can really only go about a week and a half without a proper shower before it becomes very noticeable, no matter how much dry shampoo I use. I am a female woman with medium-length hair, for perspective) and will treat me differently and disrespect me and treat me as less than human. Or possibly take advantage of me, shoving extra work on me because I "need the money" and making me a scapegoat. Or worse, firing me. Sure, it's illegal (I think) but if they really want you gone, they can find any minor mistake you have made (and being new at a job, I will likely make a few) and use that as an excuse to fire me. Or lay me off due to "budget cuts" or some bullshit. If they want you gone, they can make it happen.

But most importantly, I don't feel good about myself. I've never had particularly high self-esteem, but in past interviews, I was able to list positive traits of mine and spin the less positive ones in a good light.

But now I don't even remember a positive thing about me. It doesn't help that my mother (whose car I live in) puts me down every chance she gets. Every day, she calls me a loser with a dead-end job and tells me I need to get a new job, without listening to what I tell her I need from her to do so. (She doesn't have a job, but of course that's not a problem) For example, I do not have word on my laptop. I need to go somewhere (library? the paperclips store? Unfortunately the work network place in my area that used to help with job applications, resumes, etc shut down) to use a computer with word to update my resume, as the one I have on my computer does not have my current job. (I tried to use the online version...what a nightmare. Also, sure there ARE resume websites where you can use their templates and make your resume....for a price. Usually $50+ that I can't afford for something I will use exactly once.) She refuses to help, even though I think her laptop has word, but I am not certain, and instead just repeats the same things over and over like a broken record. "You need to get a better job." "You're going to die a loser at a dead-end job if you don't quit." "You need to get a full-time job." (Sidenote: she herself has not even glanced at job listings. There are NO full-time jobs available, unless you are a licensed professional, a doctor, nurse, teacher, etc.)

But despite all of that, I need a new job. I held our for the holidays, thinking with the holiday rush, I'd get more hours and I could use that to keep me afloat while looking for a new job in the new year. Well. Our hours continually got CUT during the holidays and I suspect the store may go out of business and I do not want to still work there when it does. (Even though I would LOVE to watch it burn) The harsh reality is that I need a new job. I just have absolutely no faith that I can find anything much better than my current job. I expect the most I'll find is part-time of 20-30 hours per week, which is still better than 3-6 every other week, but I truly need a full-time job. Which will not happen.

Posted by admin Rodney.

[shockingshinx12-shinx]

In the authors notes for your fic "a dog's breakfast" you mentioned that you have a lot of opinions about Clockwork's involvement in TUE. I am curious what your opinions are, cause I've got some of my own, and I wonder how much they align.

I spent several hours typing up a response to this earlier and I hit something and tumblr DELETED IT WHILE I WAS MID-WAY THROUGH!!!!! SO I HAD TO RESTART AGAIN JHGDFGHGDF sorry for the delay o7

BUT BOY HOWDY DO IT, A LOT IN FACT!! I already dragged 2 of my friends to watch the ep. so I could give them the full rundown of what I'm talking about, so thank you for enabling me cause I love talking about this! Buckle in cause I have ADHD and tend to word vomit, so I hope this all makes sense

I'm sure you've seen a million bajillion people say this already (plus your own thoughts, opinions, and observations) so this may all be stuff you know, but the OG ep is filled with several time paradoxes that make absolutely no sense, which can probably be attributed to the writers not really caring about the logistics of a kids show time-travel ep. But if you wanna look at it from an in-universe standpoint,Clockwork is directly responsible for the events of TUE in both Dan and Danny’s timeline

Let’s start with what we know: (Also, sorry for the crunchy screenshots, I work with what I got)

CW sends Box-Lunch back in time to fight Danny, which causes the Nasty burger to be condemned/abandoned for several days

CW sends Skulk-Tech back in time, which causes the heating element to start heating up the vats of Nasty sauce

Danny and Co. beat Skulk-Tech which transports them to CW’s lair and forces them to flee to the future to escape his “wrath”, which then gives Dan a chance to escape to the past to recreate the NB explosion and ensure his continued existence

OK SO! These are the key points!

Dan Mentions during one of his Spiels to Danny that his loved ones died in an explosion at the Nasty burger, which is reinforced by Vlad when Danny goes to him for help. Similar enough events to what we see in the episode.

The Nasty Burger explosion wouldn’t have happened if Clockwork hadn’t sent Box-Lunch and Skulk-tech to the past. Their direct influence on the present-timeline is what set up those dominoes. This means that CW interfered and fucked Dan over intentionally in his timeline and didn’t do anything to change, or fix what he caused.

The heating element wouldn’t have been left on and unattended if Danny didn’t have to fight Box-Lunch, and the sauce wouldn’t have exploded if Skulk-Tech hadn’t crashed and pushed the element towards the vats.

There’s something to be said about leaving dangerous equipment unattended, so even if Skulk-Tech hadn’t crashed into the kitchen, there’s a chance something else in there could’ve caught fire and triggered an explosion, but it would’ve been at a completely different time, and could’ve potentially been caught and stopped by repair crews (potentially). Skulk-Tech’s involvement ensured the explosion happened sooner. You could also argue that Danny’s fights take him all over the city, and you’d be correct. There’s a possibility that, if Box-Lunch hadn’t been sent back and Danny was fighting one of his other present-day rogue’s, they could’ve accidentally gone crashing through the NB as well; but it’s not guaranteed to have the same result as the Box-Lunch fight. All his Rogue’s are vastly different, with different strengths, weaknesses, fighting styles, and reactions. For example, there’s no guarantee that if Johnny 13 and Shadow went flying through the NB, they’d stay long enough for Danny to think of using the sauce as a weapon against them. Not only that, but it's not guaranteed he'd fight more than one ghost that day. From what we see, none of his usual rogue's bug him during that specific day, so there's a chance he doesn't even fight anyone at all.

If it could be done by anyone else, CW wouldn't have gone through the trouble of pulling ghosts from the future. We also know Dan has met CW before and knows what he does, very specifically stating “Clockwork! Meddling again". So clearly he knows what Clockwork's done, at least to some degree.

Not to mention, Clockwork seems like a chaotic neutral character at BEST. Why would he see fit to completely ruin Danny’s life in the first place? Him going out of his way to do such a thing just doesn’t make sense to me, I can’t see him doing that on purpose, but the events ONLY happen due to his interference. Clockwork is initially shown as only intervening and sending Box-Lunch back because the Observant's ask him to, but if that’s the case, what caused the Nasty burger explosion in Dan’s timeline? Sure, Clockwork is mischievous like anyone else, we see it in the way he slams Danny repeatedly into a bell, but he’s not outright malevolent.

Also quick side-note, Valerie outright blames Phantom for causing the explosion but we know for a fact that Danny didn’t want that to happen, he was literally heartbroken. This could be interpreted a couple different ways I suppose; -One being: that Danny was flying around as Phantom post-explosion while trying to find his family in the rubble and the public wrongfully blamed him again. But that can’t be possible because Danny Fenton WAS found at the scene of the explosion. The paper outright says he was the lone survivor, so if Phantom was flying around, no one would've been able to find "Fenton" at the scene. -Or two being: a different future evil version of Phantom caused the explosion in Dan’s timeline just like Dan did in Danny’s timeline, which is just as impossible as the first option, but more in line with the canon we're given. If he did, Dan would’ve known he was going to lose and would've done things differently, accounted for his previous versions mistakes, not to mention he says Danny shouldn’t get the ghostly wail for 10 more years, plus his surprise that Jazz knew about his secret. If Dan really did have to face a jerky version of himself in his timeline before the explosion, he would’ve acquired the wail long ago and seen Jazz's note. Not to mention present-timeline Danny is grossed out by the idea of having his humanity ripped out. I’d apply that same “grossed-out” feeling to Dan, even if he is mega-depressed after moving to Vlad’s. But also, Dan is only created due to Skulk-Tech and Box-Lunches intervention in the past, who only come into creation due to Dan's rampages in the future. This option would also mean there’s an infinite amount of Phantom’s being displaced in time, constantly, but Clockwork only has the one thermos.

That also brings up another issue.

The Observants make it seem like this is a “first”, but  if the explosion only happens cause of Clockwork’s interference with ST and BL in the past, which causes Dan’s creation, then in some timeline before Dan’s- Danny had to become evil to enable the right conditions for each of those “new” ghosts to exist. This means Dan was doomed from the start, the cards were stacked against him, and this loop has been going on for an indeterminate/indefinite amount of time. (Idk if that makes sense, I’m really bad at explaining my thoughts in ways people understand so I made a diagram. Hope this makes the point I’m trying to make clear?)

Ok with the ghosts out of the way, what about the answer booklet? Danny wouldn’t have obtained the answers to the CAT if he hadn’t gone flying through Mr. Lancer’s briefcase at the NB.

This next part contradicts my statement that Dan’s timeline is partially a circle that feeds itself, but bear with me. I attack this from different angles (cause technically both these angles may or may not co-exist at the same time cause this whole ep. Is a mess and we already have an incursion that conflicts with other stated facts of canon JHGDHGJFGHFD this also treads a little more into headcanon area, so I guess take it with a grain of salt if you feel I'm reaching)

Danny seemed genuinely surprised the booklet was there, and his eyes went wide at the prospect that he even could study the answers, like it hadn’t even crossed his mind before that moment. I’d like to think that he wouldn’t have even thought about that being an option till after the test, in a comedic “Man, I’m surprised you didn’t just steal the answers” comment from Tucker which would have caused Danny to facepalm so hard.

 We’re never actually given the reason why in Dan’s timeline, he and his loved ones were at the Nasty Burger. Clockwork just says “He turns evil? ‘Cause he’s under pressure from some ‘test’?” which isn’t really a confirmation of anything other than he’s “stressed”, and Sam and Tucker just assume that Danny cheating is the cause with no further evidence than that. Sure, Dan cheats to lure everyone to the Nasty Burger, but that’s because he knows it’ll work. I have reason to believe that in his OG timeline, that’s not exactly how events went down, that he was framed.

This little assumption of mine is based on a few context clues we’re given: First; Danny seems genuinely concerned about doing a good job on this test. He’s actually trying to study for it, he’s putting in the effort, even if he says he quits just before Box-Lunch's assault.

Second; Why were Tucker and Sam at a parent teacher conference that was meant to be between the Fenton’s and Mr. Lancer?

Third; We have the line Lancer says to Jazz when she mentions he has no proof Danny stole the cheat sheet, “Fair enough. He has up until the test to return the answers. BUT! If he cheats, I won’t just fail him, I’ll DESTROY his future!” This shows Lancer has already cemented in his mind that Danny has stolen them, and nothing can convince him otherwise. Cause Jazz is right, Lancer has no proof Danny stole the answers. Sure, he overheard Tucker say something to Danny about not cheating, and when he looked in his case they were gone, but that’s not really grounds for anything. The operative word in Tucker’s statement was “thinking”, which should've cued anyone who was eavesdropping in that Danny hadn’t done anything yet. (IK he has the answers at this time in the ep, but that’s besides the point I’m making here) (Also, the specific quote Tucker says that Lancer overhears is: “Yeahh, you’re right. You’re not thinking of cheating on a test that you’re convinced will determine your future.”) Anyway, despite not having proper proof, he’s already hellbent on ruining Danny’s life no matter what the truth might be.

Fourth; No one gives us specific details about what happened in Dan’s timeline, they’re all based on vague details, assumptions, and jumped conclusion. 

I wanna say in Dan’s OG timeline he never actually steals the answers. Lancer was literally walking around everywhere with that briefcase, It’s got a giant target painted on it due to him hand-cuffing it to his wrist. Now I’m not gonna say I know the logistics of stealing shit, but from what I’ve seen of irl lockpicking videos, and the fact that while the briefcase has 2 locks, Lancer only needed to use his key to unlock 1 side, it would be stupidly easy to open his briefcase, anyone could’ve done it. It’s just a matter of distracting him long enough to get it open.

If someone else stole the answers Dan probably would’ve still been Lancer’s main suspect, due to his grades, attendance, running out mid-lesson, and all that other jazz (pun intended), as well as the fact that we already know Lancer shows favoritism towards some students, so he wouldn’t suspect them right away, if at all. It makes Dan the perfect scapegoat in that situation, a bad student, woefully unprepared for the exam of a lifetime, trying to ensure he doesn’t fail, that gets into mischief all the time. 

It’d explain why he and his family were called to the Nasty Burger, as well as why Sam and Tucker might be there. They could’ve been trying to defend him from the accusations, trying to build Danny’s case, and demand or plead that Lancer not do anything rash. 

The explosion still would’ve had to be caused by CW’s intervention of sending ghosts from the future, which I know doesn’t make sense with how Danny gets the CAT answers, but this idea that Dan’s innocent plays with the fact that no one makes it seem like Danny actually cheated in Dan’s OG timeline. This headcanon makes no sense and I’m well aware of that, but for all intents and purposes, I never saw Dan as being guilty of cheating, it's all flimsy here-say. Not to mention him losing all his friends and family for such a thing is an unjustly cruel punishment for everyone involved, and is extremely stupid. (That being said, I'm not saying Danny ISN'T capable of cheating, I'm just stating he wouldn't cheat here specifically)

He was just painted in a bad light, wrongfully blamed for something he didn’t do, and he’s just a kid who went through something awful. Everyone has it out for him in this scenario, and everyone keeps telling him he’s a monster. Valerie spends 10 years of their future supposedly blaming Phantom for the death of his own friends and family, so if that’s all he’s ever told, of course he sees that as being the only way. (Now I'm not saying Dan's innocent of murder and shit, just that he didn't do what was accused of him before and immediately after the NB explosion)

Anyway, my conclusion to the above is a restatement from earlier, and the TLDR is; none of it makes any goddamn sense, and none of it should’ve happened. Clockwork doesn’t seem like an outwardly malignant ghost, so him going and messing with Danny doesn’t make sense, but TUE only occurs because he crafted that series of events. Also the fact that Danny turned into Dan in a countless number of repeating realities/timelines before Clockwork was forced to stop it by the observants. (And also my headcanon I guess that he didn’t ACTUALLY cheat). 

I got a bunch more opinions on other stuff tho. Like about the Nasty burger, the logistics of Dan going to the past the way he did, Danny’s ghost half being ripped from his human half and why phantom did what he did afterwards HJGFDGFGD but this post’s already kinda long so I’ll leave it for another day if you wanna hear about it!! I love talking about this sorta thing so feel free to ask away

Hope you enjoyed my little rant!! And I desperately hope it makes sense HGDFGFJHD

WAIT EDIT: ALSO ALSO, IK everyone loves to depict CW as a mentor figure to Danny whose caring, but that is not the vibe I get from him at ALL. As I said, I think he's a chaotic neutral character at best

#DannyPhantom #I hope this doesn't seem like me just speaking out of my ass #After a certain point I stopped proof reading so it slowly spirals from there #Also everytime I typed “NB” for the nasty burger i kept reading it as “nonbinary” so diversity win‚ the food establishment that has a body- #count of 6 and is now a hole in the ground is nonbinary #I actually wrote an entire series of events for Dan's version of the Timeline that leads up to the explosion #It's mostly just plot outlines and some vague details but it solves a lot of the weird paradoxes and shit #I haven't posted it anywhere but I use it as a basis whenever I write for the “learning to fly” series

[blubushie]

do you tell people irl you have aspd?

Hahahaha. No.

Listen. Most people don't know what the fuck ASPD is. But they do know what a sociopath is—or at least have their own idea of what one is, an idea which is practically always incorrect.

So me having to tell someone I have ASPD has always gone "Hey, I want you to know something about me. We're good mates and I figure you got a right to know. I have ASPD." And they always ask what ASPD is. "Antisocial personality disorder." And if I leave it at that I get dropped, cause people always look it up when they get home and I get dropped for lying by omission and not calling myself a sociopath and thinking I could "get away with hiding what it really is" or something. And if I do explain cuz they don't know what ASPD is, it goes "Aka sociopathy. I'm a sociopath." And then I usually get dropped cuz Things Start Making Sense and people have seen too many horror movies.

Or, y'know, I get fired from a job I really enjoyed cuz they consider me a liability. Cheers, M*lbourne.

So I just. I don't fucken tell people. I've got comorbidities and most of my ASPD symptoms/traits I can brush off on those conditions as traits of them. I have low empathy cuz I'm autistic. I'm aggressive because I have trauma and haven't learnt how to cope with it. I'm impulsive cuz of ADHD, I use aliases because of my job, I'm hypersexual because of the CSA I experienced, I do crime cuz I like money and I'm fucken gay, I don't know. I don't tell people about the conduct disorder I had as a kid preceding my trauma, or that I've used aliases long before I started my job, or that I was medicated for my ADHD and certain traits just never changed regardless of how high the dose was until we puzzled out it was because they just weren't the result of ADHD at all.

(Like run-on sentences. Unfortunately that's just how I talk. What's a semicolon?)

So yeah, I just. Don't fucken tell people. I was diagnosed in early February of 2019 at 18 years old as ASPD nomadic subtype with secondary paranoid traits (there's assumed to be a convergent type between malevolent and nomadic but I don't know the name of it and it's not a confirmed subtype, but there's suspicion that's my ACTUAL subtype if it's real), found out I'm also a psychopath when I went to a therapist in M*lbourne a few weeks, and I just. Don't fucking tell people.

My dad knows. Mum knows. My biological brothers don't, but my adoptive brother does. I've confided in mates from high school and I guess 2 years ain't shit cuz they'd all ghosted me after. I told my ex after we'd been dating 4 months and got an earbashing and she very briefly dumped me for a week to "figure things out". And I didn't talk to her a week, and there's nothing quite like desperately wanting to tell someone you're sorry and not being able to because you know you can be really intense sometimes and there's no way for you to approach someone to apologise without them being afraid. And that's hard—she knew about every symptom I had. It wasn't new. But you slap the label of sociopath on it, and now when she looks at you there's a fear in her eyes what wasn't there before. And she wasn't afraid before, when she thought it was just anxiety or autism or OCD or trauma. But "sociopath" is a scary word.

So no, I don't tell people. I let them get to know me first and learn that despite how weird or creepy or unsettling I can come off as, I'm actually harmless. And then if I feel I can trust them to not be ableist about it or turn on a dime and assume the worst of me—and only then—maybe I'll sit them down and be honest.

#blu whos #aspd

[charlithepuppeteer]

My rivusa fate wins saga head cannons

( sorry I haven't posted I've been dead with vivid since Monday. Also there will be slight meetings if smut in this)

Riven is a kinky top during sex

Musa is a raging bottom

Riven bites musa's neck and her inner thighs during sex. Musa enjoys this greatly.

Musa always gets flirted with in bars on nights out and this makes riven jealous. He always leaves her with hickeys if he knows there going to a bar.

riven knows musa's playlists by heart ( her least favorite to favorite, all the lyrics, and all the songs on the playlists ) and this makes musa love him even more then she already does.

They have assigned dates for some time alone in sky and rivens dorm with skloom.

Riven doesn't allow musa to wear the runic limiters all the time only during practice and morning and night. She can't sleep with them on. Since her head hurts from other people's emotions in public places riven always holds her hand and she focuses on his mind.

Musa once tried wearing the runic limiters all the time and her wrists got seriously injured and they cracked her bones and fucked up her nerves so she now always has to wear a wrist brace for support.

Both Riven and musa have had from suicidal thoughts and cut/used to cut. Musa still cuts when she can't wear her runic limiters. She does this on her shoulders and thighs so no one notices. She only recently started doing it on her shoulders. Stella is the only one who knows.

Musa can manipulate what people see now from further training, and caused that to happen when riven first saw her cuts.

Musa is a big how to train your dragon, wings of fire, and Greek mythology nerd.

Musa read Percy Jackson and a kid so Riven learned about it and made blue cookies for her.

musa made Riven take a which Greek god/goddess are you. He got Hera and musa didn't talk to him for a week.

Musa thought her tongue was gone after her wisdom teeth removal.

Musa and Riven play fight all the time.

They don't do normal dates. They do things like Nerf battles, debates about stupid things, acting out stupid plays, and roasting random people they see on the street ( not out loud to the person though).

Musa bites people to show affection.

Musa and Riven are always touching.

They both have shitty dads who abused them. Rivens physically, musa's mentally.

Musa owns hella fuzzy socks.

Riven loves to scare people with his sword. In his third year he ran into a random class with his sword and scared everyone a few times.

He's super festive around holidays and acts like a child with musa.

They both are obsessed with Squishmallows.

If one gets sick then the other is tasked with caring for them no matter what. They gladly do this.

Musa and rivens relationship is based on cuddles.

They would cuddle after long days of training every once in a while, then it escalated to every night when they were still friends.

They have this inside joke of pinning each other on random places.

Riven tickles musa a lot.

They go shopping together and both need to be restrained in there certain areas of interest.

Riven is obsessed with candles. His favorite scent is strawberry or jasmine and rose because they remind him of musa.

Riven loves the rain and him and musa always go out and play in it when it rains.

They sit in the balcony in the winx suite ( i am a firm believer that there should have been a balcony so I made one in these head cannons) when it snows and drink hot chocolate.

Stella is rivens favorite winx girl apart from musa because she was the one who took the dating news the best and fully supports it. ( She also set them up in secret)

they text each other random emojis during class to make each other laugh.

They make everything a competition.

musa does really stupid shit sometimes and riven always covers for her.

Riven and Musa have both ADHD. Musa has minor autism.

Riven can't sleep at night when musa's not with him. Same with sky. so they both rearrange their room at night as a last minute thought.

Riven places musa's things in different places, she hates this but riven thinks it's hilarious.

Whenever the group is watching Disney movies musa and Riven will always start singing if it's a boy and girl duet. Sometimes skloom beats them to this. They all pick characters and sing their songs if they have one during movies.

Musa is into so many fandoms ( Sally face, how to train you dragon, wings of fire, Lilo and stitch, Percy Jackson, descendants, helluva boss, hazbin hotel, and many more) and Riven anyways gets her random merch for her fandoms.

They are both bisexual and Musa uses they/them pro nouns, so they attend pride festivals every year.

Riven always draws on musa's arms.

They both have tattoos symbolizing each other. Musa had a sword and Riven had a music note. Only they can see The others tattoos and no one else knows about them.

Riven had an obsession with bath and body works hand sanitizers. He has over 50 of them.

Musa can't cook for shit. Riven is an amazing cook and always brings her breakfast in bed when they sleepover at the end suite.

They don't shower together it's just not something they really want to do. The shower calms them down and they enjoy their private time to themselves in there.

Rivens favorite people in the world are musa, sky, Silvia, Stella, Flora, Bloom, Dane, Terra, and Aisha

Dane and Musa are best friends since musa went to him for advice on riven since sky was unhelpful and only fangirled once she asked him for help

Riven always kisses musa on the nose as a goodbye.

#Rivusa #winx fate saga #musa needs a hug #Riven needs a hug #aisha #terra #Flora #Skloom #Sky #Bloom #Abuse #Self harm #Stella and Musa friendship #Stella

[fantasycorrupted-a]

I'll be gone, hopefully about a month, possibly more. TL;DR just the usual isht, frustrated & tired, going on a break.

Y'all probably noticed my activity dipping. You must be tired of hearing me talk about my retake (sorry about that :'/). Well preparing for a job hunt (and a catch) is why I've been gone. I wasted a lot of time with no work because I'm an idiot and I'll be trying to catch up.

That aside I've been feeling shitty about writing. I still think I'm not portraying my characters properly, like they're just not fleshed out enough. Not themselves enough. They don't work as they should outside of their stories. And despite this I tried to take on canon characters again (from F.ar C.ry) knowing my inspiration for that would die just as fast as that for all the other canons I've had (damn you ADHD!). And here I am. Just disappointing myself.

(Another aside, but I recently made a bunch of changes to characters that I don't know if I like and can reverse, and how. Not sure how I'm feeling about them. And I've said before that I feel like I'm not writing Fiann properly. Fiann was a morally grey character, and she doesn't easily do friends at all but I can't bring that point across. I can't write villains lol. I have no idea what to do with this character anymore; same goes for the Corbeaus' and Hella's stories. Hell not even short stories are as easy as they used to. I hate writing.)

Maybe turning these blogs into ask blogs like what people used to have back in the day might kickstart inspiration... Then again I don't know. It's likely my inspiration will come back but it's been returning and then leaving so quickly recently that I don't want to rely on it. Or maybe it's just a year of letting go of shit. I turned my back on friendships that weren't making me feel okay at all in the long run and right now writing is doing the same to me. I may not stop writing forever, I can't give that up. Or drawing. It doesn't feel like I've gotten any better at either over these (almost) 2 years. And don't get me started on how I abandoned Arvid. I'm sad about that.

#stfu ani ( ooc. )

[rxvera]

Hey i love love love your posts about steve and bucky's cats and children and i've been trying to find like their origin posts, but i can't. Could you link it or explain how they got each of the cats and stuff?? I really want to know more about frankie and raisin<33

hey!! Unfortunently, there are no origin posts, my friend @gay-jewish-bucky and I came up with them in private, but I can totally give you a quick run down, and GJB could probably add on some valuable stuff too if they'd like (or correct me since it has been a little while since we've gone over it lol)

For the cats:

Alpine - They got her when she was a kitten and Bucky found her abandoned in a box in an alley.

Frankie - They got him from a neighbor when Bucky wanted another cat and Steve just fell in love with him.

Raisin - She actually has no origin story so far, but her whole thing is that she's Mari's (their 2nd daughter) best friend and she's a great support

AND BONUS: Eatie - The cat Bucky rescued when they were teenagers, she's a tiny grey fluffball :)

For the kids:

Sarah - Their eldest daughter

Mari (Shot for Mariposa) - Their 2nd, she has mitochondrial disease (which we've decided was the root cause of all Steve's medical conditions as a child and how she inherited it)

Samuel - The 3rd, and he's adopted (the rest were concieved through ivf with a surrogate), they got him because he was the nephew of some friends from their temple and long story short, he ended up with no more family to take him in and they ended up as the extended next of kin

Winnie (Short for Winifred) - Twins with Lia, nonbinary, they have ADHD if I'm remembering correctly

Lia (Short for Nataliyah) - Winnie's twin, she has ADD too I think (? I'm not sure what we decided), she has IBD and ends up with an ileostomy as a teen and later on visceral myopathy

I'm sorry this was such a quick run down with just like major plot points and stuff sticking out. We've discussed this stuff in so much detail, sometimes it's so hard to get out to other people, but let me know what else you'd like to know!!

#marvel #steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #stevebucky #post canon #mcu #cole help me out here I don't know how to do summaries hfkljaldksa

[chipped-chimera]

Ugh ... I am low-key so worried about how the BG3 ending is gonna play out for Karlach that I'm considering stopping playing and just coming back to it when I can handle it. Some of this shit is just hitting too close to home and I'm not sure I'm cut out for it.

More personal context under the cut if you want.

I relate to Karlach's pain so much. Too much. To the point it makes me teary thinking about it. Both of our lives have been cruel.

It has been hard for me, despite a stable family upbringing that most would envy, in a lower-middle class family that for the large part has been financially stable. I'm also white. I know I'm lucky in that capacity - god I fucking know (and the thought that what I've gone through could be considered a 'lucky' position? What does that mean for others? It keeps me up at night).

But that didn't stop the pain crawling in. I wasn't diagnosed with Autism until 27. I wasn't diagnosed with co-morbid ADHD until I was 28. I wasn't medicated for ADHD until I was 30 (and that was AFTER being told by a psych who also invalidated my Autism diagnosis aka the context for fucking EVERYTHING in my life, I couldn't have ADHD because I could 'read a book').

Before that? I knew I was depressed at 13, but didn't want to burden my family so I did nothing - we may be lower middle class and stable but I knew that was only because my parents tried so fucking hard. We had camping chairs in place of furniture up until I was eight. I lived with the pain because I didn't want to burden them, and without the context of my neurodivergence I just blamed myself for the problem, not being good enough, not trying hard enough - not being ENOUGH. I held onto it until I cracked and couldn't take it anymore at 16. I was diagnosed with Depression and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. It's since been upgraded to chronic Major Depression and it's classed as treatment resistant.

Both of us have had moments of building ourselves up from nothing. Through therapy and medication I was able to feel a bit better, more positive as I left high school. Thinking maybe it was gonna be okay after all, out there in the world.

It felt like I'd slowly reached out into the light, tentatively, hopefully - there'd be something more, that I'd live out the dreams I'd had, the things I'd always wanted to do. I was still optimistic.

Instead it felt like that arm had been immediately lopped off.

The story is long and too complicated to tell without this being longer than it needs to be. But like Karlach, I feel I've lost years of my life. Like Karlach, it's been a decade - ten years. That I cannot get back, that I grieve keenly.

I have been isolated, and then betrayed by those I thought I trusted. First, by the systems that were supposed to help me when I was struggling - my own government's system as they hit me with a debt that I couldn't even pay, on a scheme which has in retrospect been found to be completely illegal, but has left me with lasting trauma and damage and no closure. Not even a sorry. Because I, with my undiagnosed Autism and ADHD and a growing fatigue issue where I was so exhausted from simply being alive I just couldn't fight it. So I let them take money out of my social security payment - which was and still is considered below the poverty line. I was punished for being poor, I was punished for arguably, being disabled.

And then, by the person I trusted most. The person I thought I loved, the person who made it felt like everything was okay - I may be struggling still but there was still a future! There was someone who cared about me, who would be beside me for the rest of my lifetime. He asked me to marry him. We were engaged for three. Years. We'd been dating for 10. I thought everything, despite all the shit happening to me, was going to be okay.

It wasn't.

I had landed some employment for the first time in 3 years. I was working more hours than advised by the psychologist who diagnosed me with Autism but I had no choice - I was literally on the minimum limit available to me, due to the barriers I still have to navigate to qualify for disability supports (again, from a government system that I no longer trusted and gave me the earnest impression that they preferred me dead than 'leeching off their system'). But I was not living. I couldn't handle even 15 hours a week, I was more exhausted than I'd ever been. I felt like a corpse. I spoke with my disability employment coordinator (no, despite what I said, being on disability EMPLOYMENT services does not qualify you getting onto disability support, just means the government will only hound me for a minimum of 15 hrs a week instead of 30 in order for social security, that's a whole other complicated thing) IN CONFIDENCE that I wasn't sure I could keep up with the current work format and hoped I could discuss some solutions. Next minute I find I'm locked out of the work facebook. I was fired, without warning and without protections because I was a casual. Because my employment coordinator told my boss before even discussing anything with me.

My relationship was suffering but I wasn't aware. I was too tired for intimacy, and probably two tired to see the signs. I'd gotten my Autism diagnosis at this point and maybe it was a bit difficult for my fiancée at the time to understand, but he came to terms with it. The ADHD assessment was booked. I had realized at this point pushing myself to be something I wasn't, thinking somehow landing work and earning money for myself would help the depression - it didn't. I was worse than I'd ever been. Then the moment came where I was handed a notice that the government would no longer give me any social security because my partner, on his meager chef's salary was earning too much. All because I'd tried to do the right thing by the government. I'd tried so hard to be good. I'd tried so hard to be ENOUGH.

I wasn't enough.

My fiancée came to me, my fiancée who I'd been talking to about our upcoming wedding plans now the pandemic was over, my fiancée who I'd been cuddling with on the couch last night watching films - he came to me when I was battered, and raw and broken and crying in bed - just said 'I can't do this anymore.' And that was it. It was done. As I processed it, I realised the root of it was, it was because I'd taken the mask off. I decided I wasn't going to try to be something I wasn't anymore, because I knew and it was backed up in countless studies - what I was doing was actively killing me. And he didn't want to deal with that. I wasn't enough, and yet I was too much.

It has been two years since then. My ADHD is medicated. I live in a stable, safe environment with my parents where I don't have to worry about my security. I have set firm boundaries that I learned while I was independent, and they respect them. But the wounds are still deep and it'll take a long time to recover, to get that trust in the world back.

When I look at Karlach, I see some of myself. Someone who has been used, abused and betrayed by those they trusted. Someone who felt abandoned by everything, that there was no hope, no way out. And yet in spite of it all - kept going. Who, deep in their heart kept something soft and safe. Held onto and protected what little shred of optimism left. Because if we don't practice kindness, who will? We want to be the kindness we want to see in the world, because fuck, have we seen so little of it. It is so easy to give up, to fall into despair when you've been through so much shit. It requires so much vigilance and energy and momentum to keep going, when you're wading through a battlefield of carnage and gore in your life, whether metaphorical or literal. We hold on and we are kind because we hope, one day, that kindness will touch us back. That despite it all we try our fucking hardest to wear a smile, and see the good in everything we can.

And I think that's why it hurts so much. Karlach is finally free. And happy. She feels loved. She's finally feeling some of that kindness again kindness that I know, that she knows she fucking deserves. And it's on a fucking time limit.

And that's what's fucking breaking me. I know she's supposed to be some kind of allegory for terminal illness. And I know this isn't my story. I know it's a story that is important to tell, and it will touch others in a different way. But for me it feels like all the wounds I've barely scabbed over are being ripped open again. Because this is not an ending she deserves at all. It makes me sit and wonder, is that all there is for people like us? Just brief windows of happiness in the pain until we die? Don't we deserve saving? Don't we deserve a happy ending? A peaceful one? Don't we deserve to wear that smile, that happiness without us having to fight for every second it with tooth and nail to keep it there? To believe in it?

I don't know the endings in detail for her. But i have seen enough in the vaguest sense to feel it won't be good, and I don't know if I'm ready for that. I have played games with sad themes, like I know Cyberpunk isn't that great either - but I think the difference is who it is happening to. It's somehow easier when it's you, as the player. But when it's someone else? When you know that pain so fucking keenly you would rip yourself apart just to let them escape that hell, it's hard to stomach.

Then there's the disability angle that bothers me so much. Currently her options, as she puts it, are burning up and dying or going back to Avernus. I understand why she's choosing death, like, fuck man I do. Why is it always death though? Why is death better. Why can't she get a replacement heart? Make it shit! It can be a shitty heart that still works, but needs tune ups, and maybe she can't fight like she used to but she gets to fucking live a happy life! Because a shitty, happy life is better than nothing at all. Because as it goes, it feels to me I'm just being told it's easier to just die than submit to the suffering again whenever a piece of media picks an end like this. It's either the cure-all or death, there's never room for something in between. There's never room for making peace with what you have lost and still reclaiming some of your life, grieving what you have lost but still finding something worth having and holding onto. And when you're in that limbo state yourself, it's a hard pill to swallow. And it's hard to let anyone else fall into it.

We both deserve life. We both deserve happiness.

Fuck.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #karlach #ugh why did i have to get stupid for her #ok i know why i got stupid for her #you provide me muscled woman for once? I AM NOT TURNING DOWN A MEAL I AM STARVING FOR #just ugh some of this shit though is hitting too hard #this is long #ventpost #if anyone reads this entire thing and has finished BG3 and doesn't think I can handle it pls let me know #probably gonna drop the game like a hot potato #despite what I said about wanting to finish it badly #idk just got to the bit where she was talking to me about feeling scared and I just ... couldn't #depression tw #trauma tw #I hate that this entire spiel? yeah? This is the /short/ version of my deeplore ok #ngl the disability thing makes me wanna write to larian because I'm sick of this 'better off dead' message thrown at us all #we deserve some positive fucking rep for once #ableism tw #maybe idk #kerytalk #keryplays bg3

[wowpindrop]

Reunited | Ed Gamble

For: anon

Request:

I think it’s absolutely messed up how there is no Ed Gamble fic’s and was wondering if you can do a fluffy one for him? I’m not sure at all what it be about and will happily leave that to you but I am ADHD (Inattentive and distractible type) and was wondering if you could include the fic

Summary: you haven't seen Ed for a while due to him being on tour. You are missing him. A lot. Finally you two are reunited.

Notes: Hi! I'm so so sorry that it's taken me this long to write this. I've just started college so life has been very hectic and it took me a long while to think of a storyline I was happy with. I hope you like it and happy reading!

You opened your eyes slowly, groaning at the tiredness that washed over you. Checking your phone you glanced at the time.

4am

Great.

Just what you needed for today. You glanced over at the empty left hand side of the bed, and felt that familiar pang of longing.

How you missed Ed.

You two had been together for a couple of years now. However, you had never been apart for this long.

Ed was on tour, with his show Electric, travelling up and down the country performing to hundreds of fans on a nightly basis.

You were proud of him. Of course you were. Doesn't mean that you weren't jealous of those people that got to see him.

You felt your emotions more than the average person. You'd always been that way. That meant that the sadness you felt at not being able to see you're favourite asshole hurt just that little bit more.

Well you certainly weren't getting back to sleep now.

_____________________________________

You got yourself sorted as you always did. Shower, dressed, breakfast.

When finished, you plonked onto your couch and popped on something to watch. Unsurprisingly it was something Ed was in. An old episode of mock the week to be precise.

It made you smile to see the man you loved laughing so hard at his friends jokes.

You watched another episode.

And another.

You didn't know how many episodes you had gone through before your phone buzzed next to you, making you jump.

It was a message.

Your heart lept when you realised it was from Ed.

It was a fairly encrypted message that you couldn't really decipher. It contained four words:

Train station.

30 minutes.

Ed wasn't due home for a few weeks yet so you were very confused as to what he meant.

That's when you realised the time.

12pm.

Shit. How had that long passed already. You hadn't been sitting there for that long. Right?

Shaking that thought aside, you stood up to go to the train station as your boyfriend had requested. Still really confused as to what he was on about.

_____________________________________

You arrived at the train station about 20 minutes later, the hustle and bustle around you common for London at this time of day.

You stood in the main entrance, not really knowing what to do, back facing the doors behind you.

You stood for about 5 minutes, people constantly milling around you. Some running in the hopes that they wouldn't miss their train. Every now and again someone would brush arms with you accidentally, as the station was so busy.

You were beginning to get impatient. That is until you recieved another message.

Look behind you, dumbass

You frowned. The heck was he on about?

You turned, not seeing anything, until you felt a tap on your shoulder.

You spin back around to be faced with him.

Ed.

He was here, infront of you.

"Shit!" You jumped in suprise, not expecting to see him standing there.

"Did you miss me?" He smirked. You wrapped your arms around him, enveloping him in a huge hug. You smiled so glad he was here.

He ruffled your hair, laughing his all too familiar laugh at your delight. He hugged back and you revelled in the feeling of familiarity it brought you.

"I'll take that as a yes then." He teased, pulling back to look you in the eyes.

"What in the everliving fuck are you doing here, you're meant to be in Brighton tonight." You exclaimed, immediately worried that he would miss his gig.

"Eh. It only takes an hour or two by train. Anyway, I wanted to see my favourite gullible prick."

You flicked his forehead at that. Ed made a slight noise of pain as you laughed at his reaction.

"You have no idea how much I've missed you" you admitted, staring into those blue eyes.

"Me too. Me too" he replied.

You hugged again. Comfortable in each others arms.

Time seemed to stand still. It felt so good to be reunited.

_____________________________________

I hope that was alright. Sorry again for the delay.

I love Ed sm and the fact that there is no fanfiction for him is abysmal. Hopefully this makes up for that.

Hope you have a great day or rest of day!

#britcom #james acaster #ed gamble #ed gamble x reader #taskmaster #off menu #quinn's fics

[siriuslysatorusimping]

I’ve loved every minute of your series, especially Gojo’s POV. Fantastic job!

I absolutely zeroed in on that box the first mention of it, I was like this boy is gone. He’s done. He’s whipped for life. And watching him beat himself up over his being a dumbass (for real, for how smart he is, he can be just as stupid) just confirmed how much he loves her!

I have a few questions? About the job for Sukuna’s finger, did she know? Maybe I missed that? Or did she realize after the fact, and didn’t bring it up because she knew how bad it’d look? And WTF are the Zenins wanting with a finger???? They cause too much shit…

Also, on another note, did Rinko’s mom know or suspect about her relationship with Gojo? I don’t know what I just thought of it…

Sorry for rambling! Just wanted you to know that you are doing a wonderful job with this series, even when you are doubting yourself, everything all comes together beautifully ❤️

You're perfectly fine, sweet Anon! No problems with rambling here 😊

EDIT: My ADHD ass forgot to say THANK YOU so much for reading and sending this wonderful and sweet message and I hope you have a wonderful day 🥹💕

But I did ramble, so my response is below the cut! Oh look, Kiko fucking REMEMBERED THAT'S A FUCKING THING AFTER A TON OF LONG ASS RESPONSES TODAY 💀

I forgot to eat during work today because I am a garbage human bad at humaning who wrote when I didn't have tasks instead of eating 🫠🫠🫠 I WORK FROM HOME THE FRIDGE WAS IN THE OTHER FUCKING ROOM- sorry I'm done now

You can find Another Level on AO3 :)

The box was so important because, as I've said before, he knows that the challenge with Rinko will be convincing her he's serious. He knows that if he can convince her that he's serious, she will feel the same way. But the problem, was that after having the damn box, all of these lil suspicious things be happening and he thought he'd been bamboozled and was afraid he'd let himself be. And technically he did 🙃

I said to an ask earlier today, Rinko genuinely thinks he is the dumbest man alive. She really think he doesn't realize that all the things he does are what you do in relationships. And she's accepted that. Because before he realized he was in love with her, he was the dumbest man alive. Because he was a dumbass who didn't realize that all the shit is stuff you do in relationships. So Rinko ain't wrong for thinking he's a dumb lil shit 🙃

Sukuna's finger will be discussed! They're going to talk about it. And why would they want it? Keep it away from Gojo, for one, to keep him from feeding more to Yuuji (they sent her on that job before Yuuji died) remember, she finished her end of the deal before Yuuji died. Leverage, their own gain, money. The Zenins are assholes, who knows what they could be up to.

Did Rinko's mom suspect anything with Gojo?

Yuzuki knew that there was something there. But she never met Gojo, and she never saw Rinko with Gojo. She just knew that Rinko was happy when she spent time with him.

And SPEAKING of Yuzuki, there will be a part coming up soon-ish that I think you guys will really like 😊 I really cannot wait for you guys to get to read it. I would give a sneak peek, but alas, it would give too much away...

#sweet asks #sweet anons #another level asks #gojo satoru x original female character #rinko kurisaki aka my favorite oc i've ever written #yuzuki kurisaki

[intrepid-creations]

New Years Message

It's a little long because I get rambly so I'm putting it beneath a cut.

As people in my neighborhood start ringing in the New Year with a truly excessive amount of pyrotechnics - I'd like to thank everyone who have supported me and my journey as an artist. I started this blog almost a year ago because I was getting incredibly down on myself on how my art looked. Some of it was valid self-critique that helped me improve (and boy howdy have I improved) but most of it was just unnecessarily mean comments. So I kinda needed a blog to separate my art from the artist so-to-speak.

And shockingly, it worked out way better than I thought.

On a more personal note than this already is, I was diagnosed with ADHD this year and it was a long time coming tbh (the autism diagnosis was inconclusive ... he could have gone either way but he went with "you're either not autistic or you're masking incredibly well" - that doesn't really matter for this post). One of the symptoms/features that I didn't quite know about before I started taking steps towards getting a proper diagnosis was Rejection Sensitivity. That feeling of dread and anxiety when I posted something, thinking I was about to get nasty comments about it and then I ended up getting nothing.

Rather than just chalk it up to: "I'm not a well known person on Tumblr, this place is inundated by art/writing, obviously you're not going to get a ton of hits or reactions" ...

Well, I went straight to "I suck at art and everything I do"

Emotional regulation: I don't have it.

Like this isn't meant to make people feel sorry for me, this is a real problem and this is something that I've been fighting hard to work on. This shit has wrecked my life for long enough and it's about time I work with it to make sure it doesn't. I've been taking steps so it's not like I'm sitting around lamenting about it.

And I'd really like to thank everyone who's stuck with me through those emotional lows when it seemed like the only thing I had to say about my art and writing was:

"I don't know why I keep posting this garbage"

Honestly?

You know what's improved this year more than just my art? My perception of myself. I feel I am more confident and I feel like it shows in both my creative life and my work life. Yes the imposter syndrome and rejection sensitivity do come crashing into my life like the goddamn Kool-Aid man but I recover better from it than I had. I'd like to keep that general trajectory through next year.

And I'd like to stick with posting that web novel I'm writing, even if no one reads it, and even if I get some shitty comments on it. I just gotta keep doing my own thing. (and I'm not saying that there's going to be either: zero reaction or just overwhelmingly negative reaction ... I know people will like it and I'm not a bad writer).

ANYWAY.

Have a goddamn amazing 2024 everyone.

#personal post

[mysticalibra1994]

My thoughts on the upcoming Sonic movie...

So, this is coming from my personal life so it will come off as a bias.

When I lost my mom from a gran mal during my middle school years, I felt lost. Somehow, I discovered the series "Sonic X" and that was when I came across a character named Shadow the Hedgehog. As I read and got to know more about his past, I've grown attached; he became my first comfort character...

Ever since I began writing fanfictions that relate to Shadow in my composition notebooks; of course, I have gotten in trouble during class... The fanfiction would contain the origins of my fanmade (or OC) character who came across Shadow when he crash-landed nearby her family's home, took him in, tended to his wounds (even though his injuries healed on their own), and their friendship became a bit rocky at the start. But, eventually, their relationship increased naturally.

Their relationship did take a slight/brief pause when Shadow nearly got hit by some kind of weapon, but my OC took the hit instead. As her injuries healed in the hospital, Shadow never left her side; especially when she transformed into a Mobian Cat. As she recovered, she made her choice to live with Shadow on the same planet/universe(?) where Sonic and his friends are from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, that was from before...

Ever since I saw the Sonic the Hedgehog movies (both 1 and 2), the moment they mentioned "Project Shadow", my ADHD told my hands to "start stimming"!

Then, I decided to make various headcanons, and a select few were related to Dr. Robotnik, Shadow, and Maria... V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V

On a crisp, cool morning in Green Hills, MT. Rosaline Forrest gets ready to do her morning outings (that she does every day); where she would walk into town for her usual breakfast (which she would order iced tea or hot chocolate, depending on the weather) that consists of hearty keto meals. Then, she would walk into the woods to enjoy being alive... That is until she accidentally got in the middle of a battle with Dr. Robotnik and Sonic (in Super mode), which knocked her unconscious.

As the smoke clears the G.U.N. started doing a sweep, Agent Stone (in disguise) came across Rosaline and informs the others. While she went in and out for a while, she hears a faint voice... She slowly gains consciousness and starts hearing more voices, but not from before. She meets Agent Stone as he sneaks Dr. Robotnik into her room (I assumed that Stone tended to Dr. Robotnik's wounds after they faked his death). Suddenly, Dr. Robotnik felt off... Like he knew her. But, he actually knew "her". After recovering, Rosaline has been given a task; to retrieve the living essence of Project Shadow. Just like before, Shadow grows attached to her. Well, not her, but "her".

Their meeting with the Wachowski's was... a little rocky. It started off smoothly until Sonic mentioned their family name. Shadow suddenly attacks Tom, crying "YOU TOOK HER AWAY!!!" Suddenly, a gun goes off...

It belongs to Tom's dad, Charles Wachowski. Due to how long it's been since he's retired, I would believe that he's about as old-fashioned as "that one relative in our family that claims to be open-minded... until they drink". So, when the group (excluding Shadow for... personal reasons) explains to him what's been going on...

"So, you're telling me that the girl I shot is still around, and is in that girl over there; the one whose hair matches your wife's skin? Ha! I'm sorry, but that's just as impossible as changing genders!"

Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik is growing irritated about why "she" wouldn't remember him. Despite being loyal to him, Agent Stone would be at his limit and accidentally snap. "Because your cousin's gone! I-I'm sorry, sir. But, with all due respect, living in the past is not healthy." Then, he would notice a shift in the atmosphere... "Alright, let's say that Maria's spirit is around and in that girl (which does explain the flatline). We can't force her to remember the incident that happened 50 years ago." "But," the doctor said, "what if we can! Stone! If my memory is correct, as is, then my late grandfather has some hidden documents that are STILL in the computers of the Space Colony ARK! Momma didn't raise a single-digit IQ and Poppa raised milk and never came back!" "I- Of course, they didn't, Doctor."

Back to the Wachowski residence... Sonic meets Shadow up on the roof, looking up at the stars.

"So, uh... Do you think they'll like the chili dogs?" "Blue Hedgehog, I have more important issues to deal with. "You mean 'Mari'-" "Keep her name out of your mouth, Hedgehog! You have no idea what it's like to lose someone who's close to you." "Her name was Longclaw. I didn't really know my real parents, but she took me in as her own. I passed the hoglet stage when she gave up her life to protect me and the Rings from the Echidnas." "'Echidnas'? You mean like that red one? You two were enemies, yet you're no longer." "Welcome to Earth." "I don't get it." "You've never seen 'Independence Day' starring Will Smith?! What year are you from?" "1974. The location is the Space Colony ARK. I was created by Prof. Robotnik in order to find the cure for Maria's condition. I grew a sibling-like attachment to her. We would talk about everything, mostly about the Earth and when we would visit. But, the GUN wanted to stop the Project. They didn't even explain why. Maria and I saw their weapons and we headed for the escape pods. Suddenly, I felt a push and I- I heard a gun going off. Before I could understand what was going on, I was in the pod and Maria... S-she took th-"

Before Shadow could finish, Sonic stopped him with an embrace; saying that he doesn't have to say anymore...

Meanwhile, at the Space Colony ARK, Agent Stone was growing concerned about Dr. Robotnik's mental health. He understands that Maria was his only family, but at some point, the doctor will have to let her go... Suddenly, something happened. By the time Dr. Robotnik played a video diary of his late grandfather, the timer of the Bio-Lizard goes off.

I-I don't understand! I thought Project Shadow was to protect her and humanity! Why would he-? Dr. Robotnik is... stunned. Too stunned to speak. In his mind, he's rekilling his only family.

"Doctor? What do we do? D-Doctor? Doctor! Ivo!! We have to leave, now!" "B-but, Maria..." "Don't worry, we'll save her. Come on!"

Nobody outside of the Robotnik Family has ever used his first name before. But, if it wasn't for Agent Stone's quick thinking, they would be too late...

As soon as they arrived at the Wachowski residence, they warned the others (of course, Tom's father mentions something homophobic when he saw Agent Stone comforting Dr. Robotnik "like a husband comforts his wife during a panic attack").

"Dad, it's the 21st century! We can marry who we love as long as it's consensual! Plus, I'm not surprised that you find that surprising and not the fact that the world is about to be destroyed!" "Well, of course, it's gonna be destroyed! These two Skittles are in love!" "Dad!"

While the two beings fuss at each other, Tails, Agent Stone, and Dr. Robotnik are working together to find a solution to save the world.

"That may be plausible, but in order to harness that kind of power... It's impossible." "We could use the Chaos Emeralds, but we need the Master Emerald."

When Knuckles hears about this, he hesitates at first; not wanting to give the Master Emerald to anyone who's as evil as Dr. Robotnik. But, when discussing this with Sonic and Shadow. Sonic is all for it, but Shadow...

"Let the world burn. It wasn't there for Maria, why should I help?"

Shadow was about to leave, when Rosaline stops him as she tries to convince him...

"Shadow, please listen to me. What do you think my promise was?" "Y-you..." "Yes, I knew. I've always known. The reason why I never said anything was that I was adjusting to this new timeline. Shadow, yes, I was angry about what happened to me all of those years ago. But, when my soul was wandering throughout the years, I noticed something. Something amazing about this planet and the people who lived on it... Yes, there are bad people out there. But, there are good people out there, too. Like my cousin and his partner, the Wachowskis, and the nice people in this quaint and unique town of Green Hills. My promise to you was, is, and always will be this... For all of the people who live on Earth, give them a chance to be happy. Let them live their dreams."

Everyone around them gave them a moment when Agent Stone notice Shadow's eyes begin welling up with tears. Rosaline gently pulls him in for an embrace of a lifetime.

"Shadow, I know you can do it. That's the reason why you were brought into this world."

After wiping his eyes, Shadow accepts the offer and thanks her for those kind words. Tom and Maddie offer to watch over Rosaline as the others (except Tom's dad... for obvious reasons) work together as they make it to the ARK.

At the ARK, Knuckles allow Sonic and Shadow to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic and Super Shadow. As the two Super hedgehogs try to use the power of the Chaos Emeralds to Chaos Control the Bioweapon, the one and only thing that him Shadow going is Maria. He notices that Sonic is slowly getting a bit winded, so he takes over, removes his Inhibitor Rings, and delivers the final "CHAOS... CONTROL!!!!!"

He did it... The world is saved! Sonic turns to thank Shadow, but he notices that the energy from the fight has been depleted from Shadow and his light-golden quills turn black. As Shadow falls, he notices that Sonic is reaching out for him. The fading black hedgehog bats Sonic's hand away. As he continues falling, Shadow only had one thought before becoming unconscious...

"Maria... this is what you wanted, right? This is the promise I made to you..."

The rest of the group is patiently waiting for their return. Even Dr. Robotnik is hold Agent Stone's hand; he lies and claims it's for the nerves. Sonic is back! They all congratulate him, even Dr. Robotnik and Agent Stone. Of course, the doctor wonders where Shadow is. Sonic answers with a saddened: "He gave his life for all of us."

The group is shocked with melancholy. Agent Stone and Dr. Robotnik talk about this as they looked out the bay window.

"This place... I remember seeing her looking out through this window with him. I would visit as often as I could." "Doctor, I-" "It's alright, you can call me 'Ivo'." "I- Ivo, I'm sorry for what I said related to Maria. I was just worried about you and your mental state. Ever since you ended up on the mushroom planet, I felt... lost without you. I-I know that you said that you wouldn't miss me when I'm gone, but I-" "Hush, Stone. I know."

After they say their final words, they make their way back to Earth. Dr. Robotnik sends Rosaline his condolences as Sonic hands her one of Shadow's Inhibitor Rings.

"Rosaline... Maria..." Agent Stone grievingly said, "If it counts, he fought bravely along with Sonic."

Before Rosaline could say anything, the group collectively felt a chill down their spines when they hear the spirit of Maria saying this before she parted ways...

"Thank you all for saving this planet..."

Then, Rosaline loses consciousness, but Dr. Robotnik catches her before she makes an impact. She awakes in the hospital. This time, she's surrounded by the Wachowskis, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Dr. Robotnik, and Agent Stone. When asked how she's still alive, Agent Stone answered by saying that when the flatline happened, he grabbed a "soul jar" to contain Rosaline's soul when Maria's soul slipped in. Rosaline thanks him as she makes a full recovery.

After being released from the hospital, Rosaline chose to stay with the Wachowskis... as they prepare a wedding for Dr. Robotnik and Agent Stone. It wasn't certain which one proposed to who; Agent Stone went down on one knee, and Dr. Robotnik claimed that he thought about it first. During the "big damn kiss", Rosaline caught a glimpse of Maria's smiling spirit.

After the wedding, Rosaline watches a movie with Jojo. Then all of a sudden, they heard a medium-sized boom-like thud. When they went outside (to the backyard) to check, they came across a medium-sized hole in the yard. After investigating the crash, Rosaline tells Jojo to get the First-Aid kit as she carefully pulls out a familiar-looking black hedgehog out of the small crater.

While Rosaline tends to his wounds (again, it was unnecessary due to his wound slowly regenerating, but she didn't know), Shadow slowly comes to. Before the movie ends, it wasn't certain whether he remembers her or remembers "her". All that we know for certain is that he smiled the moment their eyes met.

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

Well, what do you guys think?

I'd like to believe that Rosaline would help Shadow with his memories as best as she can (with a little help from Maria's spirit that visits when needed).

As for the "after credits scene", I'd like to believe that a familiar-looking futuristic hedgehog jumps out of the portal, notices Sonic and goes... "I finally found him, the Iblis Trigger."

#oc #sonic movie 3 #headcanon/theory #Donut Lord #Pretzel Lady #Shadow The Hedgehog #Stobotnik #Maria Robotnik #After Credits scene(?) #Silver the Hedgehog

[sorcerersandskillusers]

Trick or treat!! 🎃👻🦇

so in this game, I guess we give anything..

I'm giving you...

--------

My loveee 😄😄😄 (yayyyy!)

you were like the first blog whom I ever actively followed and fangirled over 😅😅

I loved your analyses, your thoughts, your openness to other opinions, your odasaku beast fanfic, etc. ---- your entire blog overall was just a slay 💖

I appreciated the effort too <33

sorry for acting like an insane teenage girl sometimes (I am actually that 😅😅) but I hope it didn't bother you jerigwjv (if it did let me know so I can tone down on the crazy 😅)

Happy Halloween!!! 👻🦇🦇🥳

random asks if (only if) you feel like answering:

why is your pfp Paul Verlaine?

what's the story behind your username?

how's life?

no pressure btw!! just answer the ones you want (it's okay too if u don't feel like answering any).

Happy Halloween and I hope you have a good day/night wherever you are 🥳🥳🦇👻🦇💖💖

Thank you so much!!! This made me feel really proud of this blog, I've been a lot less active on tumblr recently since I just started university and have been adjusting to a very different lifestyle. I'm really glad you enjoy my analyses and the bits of writing I've done, now that I'm more settled in I might try to do some more on this blog again (no promises)

for your asks:

why is your pfp Paul Verlaine?

When I first made this blog I had just read stormbringer for the first time and was completely obsessed with Verlaine, partially because I used to love super powerful characters with interesting abilities, and partially because of how interesting he was as a villain and character in general.

What's the story behind your username?

When I first made this blog I was really hyperfocused on Jujutsu Kaisen and since I had wanted to make an anime alt for a while, I wanted it to reflect both of the anime I planned to talk about, so I took Sorcerer's from JJK and Skill Users from bsd and I liked the alliteration. In the end my interest in jjk has kind of gone down, I still really like it, but it's not the same as my life long obsessing with bsd.

(I've been obsessed with this show for like 6 years which is crazy to think about)

how's life?

Overall good, like I said earlier I've recently started Uni, so there's been some really big changes and there's a lot to get used to, but I've got some good friends and am getting more in control of my studying. I'm doing Materials Engineering, which is already a pretty complicated course that's made even harder when you have ADHD and struggle with self study.

But I find it really interesting and have found a lot of good support, so I'm going to make it work somehow

Thank you for you ask, it really does mean a lot that people enjoy my analyses and stories, If you ever have a specific moment, character, or dynamic you want me to analyse just shoot me an ask and I'll give you my thoughts

Happy Halloween

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #my asks #send me asks #answered

[lovelylovelyartist]

This will come out a little rambly, so I'm sorry ahead of time, but I had some thoughts and I just want to get it out.

I was 13 when I first started adhd drugs. At that time I was a depressed kid, who didn't know where she belonged or why she was so awkward and weird. She didn't know about bisexuality, and it'd be almost 10 years until she met other people that didn't feel like a guy or a girl, and that she was they, not she. She also didn't know that OTHER people had trouble keeping schedules, doing their homework, staying still in classes, doing chores at home, breaking focus when something really had her attention. She'd been told by teachers and parents most of her life that it was a moral failing, that "I forgot isn't an excuse, because if you really cared about it you'd remember." (if you ever want to see an adult Max cry, here's how).

That depressed kid tried Riddalin.

And Hated it. With every fiber of their being.

It made me feel slowed down. It made me feel like a muted version of myself. It made me feel like I could be shuffled to the back of the classroom, and I'd be a good little kid that can put up and shut up now. It made me feel less in general. I was lucky enough to have a mom that let me drop it, despite her saying in retrospect that I was doing well in school and at home.

Fast forward about 10 years. I'm in my early twenties. I've realized a lot of things about myself, and have a better picture of who i want to be. I've started seeing a psychologist, who pegs me for ADHD the second I've walked in (20 minutes late, crying because I'm so ashamed, fidgeting up a storm). Over the next couple months we go through rigmarole getting a proper diagnosis, preparing a case file, etc, so that I might try medication again. I'm leery, because of last time, but I do.

And pretty much the first time I take it, it feels like putting on clean glasses after having blurry vision for my whole life.

It's the same medication, more or less. It's on a person 10 years older, who now actually WANTS to exist (Most of the time), and whose symptoms and presentation has changed so they WANT the chatter and unending racing thoughts to calm the hell down, and whose gone through hormonal and mental changes that 13 year old Max hadn't yet. But this time, something feels different.

There's more to this story, about how fucking awful I felt and how I had the question of "How the hell did I LIVE like this before?!" when I could no longer get medication due to supply order issues, but this feels too long as it is. Long story short, doc changed medications around so we have a temporary solution while the supply chain evens out, and now that I have medication again, it's the same goddamn feeling. I feel like I'm driving in the drivers seat, not trying to drive from the back seat. I can do stuff I want to do again. I don't feel like I'm going to crash my car.

What Ive taken forever to actually say is not everything will work for you at every point in your life. Bodies change. Brains change. Hormones change. Sometimes what didn't work for you in the past might work for you now that youre in a different place and time and body. Sometimes, it's not a bad thing to try something again.

(Barring the stuff that yknow, actually almost killed you. don't be willing to try that again maybe)

#actually adhd #actually autistic #adhd support #adhd struggles #rambling #life story #Sorry that this came out so rambling. #I'd just reblogged that other adhd post and wanted to add something like this but it didn't feel appropriate #the artist has spoken

[abalidoth]

never seen the ocean, never seen the tides

@undynedevotion told me about this post (specifically the "ADHD selkie losing their skin" part) and it sort of bloomed into this idea that I spent the next three hours feverishly typing up. It has nothing to do with the original fandom, but still, thank you @penandinkprincess for the inspiration!

Read on Ao3

I caught her trying to break into my laptop at three in the morning.

I've always been a light sleeper, especially when I've been alone on a research trip for long enough to go just a little strange. The random-access connections and stray thoughts that would ordinarily get inflicted on a coworker or a hapless grad student just build up pressure, churning into turbulence where there should only be still, placid sleep. So when furtive typing sounds started up from the equipment tent, I was awake to hear it.

I threw on a hoodie and a raincoat and stepped out. Summer nights in Orkney aren't frigid, but they're wet and cool, and the urge to go back to my warm, dry sleeping bag was stronger than I'd like to admit. Surely nobody was on my laptop, not on an island four miles off the coast, populated only by seals and terns. (The Arctic tern is a pretty impressive bird, but computer skills are not usually listed on its CV.) I was imagining things, and I should have gone back to bed.

But as soon as the tent flap fell behind me, I knew I wasn't making anything up. There was a light on in the equipment tent that there shouldn’t have been, and... yep, that was typing. And a human silhouette, projected on the white polyamide wall of the equipment tent.

I pulled myself up to full height (tall, but even five years after my Ph.D. I had the physique of an underfed grad student; I'd take whatever intimidation I could get) and pulled back the flap.

I don't know what I had been expecting, but a naked woman with long, night-black hair wrapped in a silver space blanket wasn't it. The blanket wasn't hiding all that much of the warm brown skin underneath. I also wasn't expecting her to scream, and I don't think she was expecting me to scream back.

After an embarrassingly long volley of startled shouts (never mind the other reason I was embarrassed) and a moment to catch my breath, I said "Who are you--" at the same moment she said "I'm sorry--"

"Wait, no, you first," she said. Weirdly polite. Way more polite than I would have been if I'd just broken into someone else's field research station. She was looking me straight in the eyes, too, and even with the fundamental distraction of very pretty woman not wearing very much I couldn't look away from those eyes. They were dark gray, liquid, and I'd compare them to a stormy sea, if I wanted to make the sea feel small.

"Who are you," I repeated, "And why are you in my tent? And..." I looked over at the first aid kit for the first time. Ah. That's where she'd gotten the blanket. So she came in here completely naked. What the hell. Oh, and there was the other thing. "And how did you unlock my laptop?"

"Oh!" she said. "There was a zero-day exploit on this distro of Linux that they patched out pretty quick, but I thought I'd just give it a shot, because you know, a lot of people don't upgrade security features on field equipment like this, and it gave me root access right quick. It's actually a pretty clever little thing, it's a buffer overflow in the text handler that lets you write the password salt to... uh..." The words had come out like a tidal wave, not especially fast but somehow inexorable, until they stumbled to a stop. "Sorry. I hacked in."

I blinked. "But. Why?"

"I didn't want to bother you. I promise, if it hadn't worked, I would have woken you up." She smiled at me, as though all of... this... wasn't happening.

"That's not... actually an answer," I said, feeling increasingly surreal in this conversation.

"I need your help," she said, and looked away for the first time. "Um. I lost something. A... seal took it."

"A seal took it."

"A specific seal."

I rubbed my face. "Did the seal take your clothing, too?"

The grin intensified, blinding and bright like an overcast sky. "Funny you should mention!"

Okay. I took stock. Literally none of her story or situation makes any goddamn sense at all -- not the part she told, and not the part I can see for myself. But at the same time, I wasn't getting even a hint of malice off of her. I'm not the best at reading social cues, any of my ex-girlfriends would be happy to tell you, but even then, absolutely nothing. And on a more rational level, I had absolutely no idea what she could possibly have to gain by lying to me.

I'd been stuck on this rock for two weeks, tracking migration patterns, and I was going a little crazy. I was pretty sure she wasn't a poacher or something like that. So what was the harm?

(It's certainly irrelevant that even after months of doing research here, I was a sucker for a Scottish accent.)

"...okay," I said, carefully. "So what do you need my help with?"

"Like I said. A specific seal, um, took my stuff. And I need it back. And it was... it might have been a seal that you put a GPS tracker tag on? Like last week? So I was just going to, um, hack in and find it."

"That's not how the tags work," I said. "They store and log GPS data, but they don't transmit it. They have a tracker signal so you can find it, but they're not constantly broadcasting their coordinates to a satellite or anything. That's why they send sleep-deprived postdocs out here, not just to tag them, but also to track down any of them that have been previously tagged and redownload the data."

"Oh." She deflated, and shivered a bit under the blanket. "So you can't tell me where my... where the seal is."

I don't know if it was the salt air filling my nose, or the way the emergency light glinted off the tears at the corner of her eyes, or just my subconscious finally getting my attention, but a voice in the back of my head whispered a single word.

There was no way, right? I'm a woman of science, dammit. Cryptids and folk legends are great to read about but they're impossible, they're out of lockstep with everything we know about biology and physics and basic fucking reality, there was absolutely not a chance in hell that--

"Are you a selkie?"

She flinched. "I -- How -- No, of course not!"

Fuck, she was a worse liar than me.

"All right," I said. "Don't lose hope. I have a Zodiac here, and if you remember vaguely where this seal is, we should be able to use the tracker to find it. I'm Jackie, by the way."

She brightened again. "Aoife. And thank you."

---

I found Aoife some clothing that would suit. She was shorter and curvier than me, but I was mostly living out of comfortable, rugged stuff while researching, and we made do. I offered her my spare pair of boots, but she declined. Probably just because they would have been way too big for her, but every little odd behavior from her made me wonder. Was it rude to offer one of the fair folk a pair of shoes? Did selkies even count? Had I mortally offended her, and she was just too nice to say anything?

She kept up the pretense for a little while longer as I got the boat inflated and started gathering my things for our expedition, but I'd caught her out and she knew it. Still, it wasn't like she talked all that much about her status as a being of myth; she talked a lot, but it was mostly about her interest in computers, and questions about what I was doing.

Neurodivergent folks know what it's like to run into someone else like you at a party, someone who talks as excitedly about their thing as you do yours, and how exhilarating, how connecting that kind of conversation can be. We were on a little rock off the north of Scotland and not a college house party, but everything else was the same. My thing is migration patterns. Hers, as it turned out, was type-safe programming languages. Never thought a selkie would be the person to teach me about Haskell -- but I would bet she didn't expect to learn today about the history of human understanding of migration.

"Wait," she said. "You're taking the piss."

"Nope," I said. I paused for a bit to haul the outboard motor into position in the back of the boat. "Cross my heart. Medieval bestiaries said that barnacle geese hatched from goose barnacles. They didn't know about migration, so they had to have some explanation of where geese went on the off-season."

"But they look nothing alike!"

"At the risk of defending my species' goofy beliefs too much, neither do birds and eggs. If you'd never heard of an egg before, and I told you they turned into birds, you wouldn't believe me."

She scoffed and sucked her arms back in the long sleeves of her borrowed hoodie. "They had chickens, didn't they?"

"Sure, they knew some birds hatched from eggs. But it was pretty easy to just say whatever you wanted back then. Aristotle did it all the time, and people just went along with it for thousands of years without checking."

"Ech." Aoife rolled her eyes and dropped into what sounded, to my untrained Canadian ears, like a pretty good imitation of a posh RP accent. "Ah, yes, learnèd men know that some birds come from eggs, and some come from... from..." Her natural brogue flooded back in. "From weird-looking rocks. That wiggle."

I laughed. "Hey. That's why I do what I do."

"You know," she said, "some of us, you don't need to do the whole... tagging thing. You could just ask."

"Like you asked to use my laptop?"

"Okay," she said, "that's fair."

"Besides, if I hadn't, I wouldn't be able to help you." I hauled the boat the last few feet over the rocky shore and stepped over the side. "C'mon. Hop in."

---

The tracker wasn't terribly precise. Her memory of where she had left her skin was close enough to get in range, but the thing only had the ability to show signal strength. We had to do the old hot-cold-game triangulation dance with it, which was tough on an inflatable outrigger with only the barest hint of dawn peeking over the horizon. It left a lot of time for chatting, and a little for companionable silence, and even some spare seconds for a wistful gaze or two.

Eventually, we decided it would be easier when we hit land. We found a little cove, a bit gentler than the sheer rocky cliffs that surrounded this island. It was bigger than the one I had been calling home, but still definitely uninhabited. It was the kind of island that, if anyone lived there, you'd think it would be a grizzled lighthouse keeper, stepping directly out of a Herman Melville pastiche. Not a cute selkie who knows way too much about polymorphic programming.

"Oh," she said, as we got close to the shore. "This is it. I remember this place. It should be, uh..." She gestured somewhere off to our left. "Can you land over there?"

"Sure." I wasn't a master at handling the boat, but I got us in the right neighborhood. Aoife got more and more excited the closer we got, bouncing her legs up and down, and I was pretty sure she would have just bailed out right then if she wasn't worried about getting my clothes wet.

Sure enough, when we landed, she grabbed the handheld tracker and launched out over the side. Aoife streaked across the rocky sand and around a big rock, heedless of her bare feet. The tracker's beeping increased in frequency as she ran, until the beeps became a constant tone in the night breeze, like a weird mechanical birdcall. I made sure the boat wasn't going to float away first, which took longer than I thought, then trudged along after her. The full moon peeked out from between some clouds on the western horizon, casting Aoife's footprints on the sand in a mystic light. It was superstition, but it was stronger than my rationality at the moment; she was like a story given form, and while I followed after her, I was careful not to step on her tracks.

By the time I got to her, she had already shed the clothes I had given her, and folded them in a neat pile on a nearby rock, with the tracker on top. She stood with a cloak held around her shoulders, a cloak that looked like the night and the sea and like it wasn't quite there. Her eyes were huge and bright, and she smiled at me.

"You found it," I said. The words felt dumb and clunky, but I'm not a poet, and I had to say something.

"Thanks, Jackie," Aoife said. She moved to me, deceptively fast, quicker than I could react. She went up on tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. It felt like silk and smelled like the sea, and by the time my wits came back to me, she was already running towards the shore, wild, legs pumping.

She leaped, and something shifted, but it was too fast for me to see. A dark shape slid into the water, leaving only ripples.

I watched those ripples fade into the soft churn of the sea, and then I turned back to collect the things she'd left behind.

When I looked closer, I could see beside the boxy ruggedized plastic of the tracker, was a smaller piece of electronics. I knew it well -- after all, I had been the one to give it to her in the first place.

On a whim, I held the tracker up to the tag, and pushed the download tracking data button that popped up on the screen.

A little box came up, one that I was used to seeing full of the digits of latitude and longitude, but it had text in it this time. An email address, and a message.

I thought you might want this back. But next time, if you want to know where I am, you can just email me, and I can tell you over dinner?

-Aoife

#writing #original work #selkie #tessa writes stuff