#teenhood is amazing for me

[a-silly-worm1]

So I went to Chuck E. Cheese’s for my little cousin’s birthday party and I took these photos..

#the stanley parable #tsp #tspud #tsp stanley #this is so stupid #why am i like this #teenhood is amazing for me #chuck e cheese

[povlnfour]

ੈ✩‧₊˚ OVERDRIVE (LN4)

pairing: lando norris x f!reader

summary: a practical stranger is determined to change your opinion on cars (and maybe make you fall in love in the process)

word count: 2k

content warnings: brief mentions of alcohol, brief make out, 110% irresponsible driving (don’t take ur eyes off the road kids)

“you’re right next to me, feel the heat, going overdrive” — conan gray, overdrive

cars were never something you understood.

your friends growing up had always had a weird fixation whenever they saw specific models racing down the streets where you lived, stopping to ogle and obsess as they used key words that were entirely lost on you. when you expressed your disinterest and lack of care over a model’s ‘horse power’, you were met with groans of disappointment and a quick change of subject.

perhaps that was why those particular friendships never lasted out of teenhood. they became stagnant over the years when you found new interests and connections that led you elsewhere.

somewhere in the back of your mind, despite time making those old acquaintances nothing more than a distant memory, you wondered what they’d say if they could see you now.

so it stood true that you never understood cars, but you certainly had an affinity for pretty men driving them. and lando norris definitely fit into that category.

sat in the passenger seat of a mclaren model you had entirely missed the name of, you gained a new outlook on what made such cars so good. granted it had nothing to do with the technicalities of the car, and more the way the wind whipped through your hair as lando guided the two of you through the streets of monaco. it was dark by now, but the city still shone bright with the lights from the buildings that towered over you — casinos and restaurants much like the ones you found the driver in to begin with.

you barely spared lando a glance, too afraid to lose focus on the road ahead of you. if you were to spend too long admiring the man you might never be able to look away. he had a certain transfixing aura around him you couldn’t quite explain from just the short time you had known him.

the city whizzed by as lando made green light after green light, turning onto less clustered roads where he could finally show the full potential of the car he was clearly so fond of.

“you look like you’re enjoying yourself no matter how much you’re pretending not to.” lando commented, and for the first time since accepting his offer of a drive home, you turned to face him. he was already looking at you, paying no attention to the roads despite the danger such an action possessed, and you couldn’t help the blush the attention brought to your cheeks. “let yourself have fun. stop trying to hate it so much.”

laughing, you shook your head, amazed at how a man who was nothing more than a stranger to you less than three hours ago already had such a good read on you. you’d have plenty to tell your friends who you had met at the casino in the morning it would seem.

“i’ve got a reputation to withhold here.” you admitted, enjoying the way he laughed as he looked back towards the road that grew quieter with every passing metre.

“not a car person?” lando observed.

“not at all.” you admitted, shaking your head fondly as you recalled those times you disappointed your friends. “i don’t think i’ve ever quite understood the fascination behind it.”

lando hummed, going quiet momentarily. he made an action similar to that of checking a watch, seeming to think over a grand idea. “you don’t have anywhere to be, right?”

it was already long gone two in the morning, he knew as well as you did the answer to that. “besides my bed, nope.” popping the ‘p’, you looked back towards the man driving.

“then let me show you what you’re missing.”

you underestimated to what extent his determination reached until his foot was on the pedal, and the slick car was rushing away from the city with nothing more than a light humming sound. your laughter mixed in with the whisp of the wind as suddenly you shot off into the night with a man who was barely more than a pretty stranger.

lando seemed to enjoy the sound, one hand slipping to the bottom of the wheel so he could rest on the door of his car whilst he eased his way through the roads. he navigated with such an ease you were sure he had done this route many a time before, slowing just enough when he reached cameras as to not be caught, but keeping the experience all the same.

“you’re insane!” you laughed as he skidded the car around a perfectly timed corner, knowing your mother would be crying in fear if she saw how reckless you were being.

“admit you’re enjoying yourself!” lando prompted, still finding time to look over at you once more throughout the journey.

grinning through your lies, you refuted “you’ll have to do more than that to impress me.”

“oh come on!” he whined, no malice or despair in his voice, but a glint in his eye that told he was more than prepared to take the challenge, “you’re a hard crowd to please.”

with that, he shifted the gear once more, finding a corner at which he unexpectedly spun back around on, bringing you back onto a straight towards the city that gave him plenty of opportunity to show off.

“you’re going to kill me!” you squealed, clinging on to the door for dear life as you giggled over the wind once more.

lando barely missed a beat before he shifted speeds once again, offering a playful “i’ll make sure they say you died enjoying yourself in the obituary.”

as you swung another corner, you let the motion pull you back towards the centre of the car, the electricity between the two of you becoming more prominent than ever. lando noticed it too, swapping the hand which held the wheel as his right one found its way to your left. you looked at the contact, unsure for just a moment, until he lifted your arms above your head, letting the recklessness wash over you until it shifted into exhilaration. you couldn’t help but lift your other arm to enjoy it, till you were practically shouting with adrenaline field joy into the night.

the fear of the speed was outweighed by the thrill, and you closed your eyes for a beat, enjoying the simple sensation of wind in your hair and lando’s hand in yours.

when you began to emerge into those more populated areas once more, the sight of red lights up ahead, lando spun once again, masterfully avoiding any disturbance with a practiced ease. the motion threw you further to the side, and this time, the squeal that left your mouth was entirely involuntary. you whipped your hands down from the air, this time choosing to find purchase on lando’s bicep as you steadied yourself.

lando chuckled lowly, making no quick decision to move away. instead, his hand that previously held yours found it’s way to rest on your thigh, holding you in place against the centre console and his shoulder. his comfort made you bolder, so even when you had steadied yourself, the grip you had on his arm only faltered enough to provide him momentarily relief, staying close to his side with your hands still linked now at his elbow.

“if you crash, i’ll kill you.” you joked, lando whipping his head around to face you with a smooth wink in your direction.

“you underestimate my skill, baby.”

the way your heart fluttered at the pet name made you briefly consider your own insanity. speeding down unpopulated streets with a stranger, with no care for what may happen. selfishly, you only wanted to bask in the feeling of his hand on the scarcely clothed skin of your thigh, and the look on his face whenever he met your eye.

you spared a glance towards his lips, pulled taut into a smile as he showed off for you. there was something about his confidence that only added to the compellement you felt towards him.

before you could readjust your attention, his eyes flickered back towards you, and the sharp decrease in speed told he had caught where you were looking. you may have pulled back in embarrassment had the grip he had on your thigh not tightened in response.

the temptation to apologise was quelled just as fast when he brought the car to a less extreme speed, able to spend longer fixating on you without the imminent threat of crashing if he lacked too much focus.

“i’m gonna need you to stop looking at me like that.” he practically growled. “otherwise i’ll do something stupid.”

you considered for a moment, debating just how reckless you would allow yourself to be tonight before the words left your lips involuntarily. “nothing’s stopping you.”

it was as though something shifted in the man, his hand finally leaving your thigh just long enough to bring the car to a halt in a convenient lay-by. and before you even had the chance to react to the standstill, he was pushing back over the centre console and connecting his lips with yours.

his hands found the back of your neck with a terrifyingly practiced ease. one your own gripped onto his forearm, your other finding it’s way between his curls and giving a sharp tug that had him gasping into your mouth. he recovered fast, using his tongue to swipe against your bottom lip in a request you couldn’t deny.

as lando deepened the kiss, he tugged you towards him, one hand slipping down to your waist and helping you across the console without ever having to disconnect your lips. you planted yourself firmly against his thighs, chests connecting as his tongue encircled yours. both his hands now crept towards your ass, squeezing firmly when they found their goal.

you almost automatically rolled your hips down as he gave a tug, eliciting a groan from his lips you so desperately wanted to hear again in a less public situation. he only held you tighter in response, tugging your bottom lip between his teeth in an attempt to gain some power back. you let him take it happily, bracing your hands against the headrest to gain some stability.

you were sure your lips were red and swollen by now, too enticed by the man below you who tasted vaguely of mint from the singular mojito you had seen him nurse all night.

the alcohol in your own system would be little match for the memories of lando’s hands on your skin. his fingers found their way up your waist and between the slits in your outfit so that they could dance along your skin with a wave of electricity.

lando tugged you closer, a feat you didn’t feel possible until your bodies were flush together, your knees taking the brunt of your weight to allow the closeness to remain. you let one finger slip from the headrest to trace the curve of his neck, enjoying the way his muscles tensed in anticipation at the contact. the sly smile it brought to your lips was enough to finally break your kiss, the two of you panting shallowly as your foreheads rested together.

lando took a moment, squeezing your waist as he closed his eyes to regain some of his own sanity.

“i should really get you home.” he muttered, voice void of any real haste “you make it quite hard to let you go.”

as he tilted his head to trail sweet kisses along the side of your jaw, you couldn’t quite help the offer that left your lips. something about the man below you had you believing that a rash decision would somehow be worth it.

“i never said you couldn’t come in.”

lando grinned in response, connecting your lips again as he turned the ignition back on in a clear acceptance of your invitation.

you’d have to clamber back into the passenger seat soon enough, but for one last second you allowed yourself to revel in the realisation that your night was about to get a lot more interesting.

so maybe you didn’t understand cars, but you’d certainly thank them for this outcome.

hello pals

soooo my first one shot ?! on this account at least. i used to write terrible 1d fanfic so this is a step up lmao. written based on overdrive by conan gray, 10/10 recommend

if you’re still here, thank you SO MUCH for reading. feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments/reblogs/asks, i always love reading what people have to say. i have not proof read this bc i hate my own writing so apologies if there are glaring mistakes.

i’ve also only been to monaco like three times but these quiet streets are entirely made up that place is manic (for someone who lives so close i do not go enough)

got some ideas in the brain, mostly around lando but also a few charles and oscar bits as they’re my boys so let’s see how this goes

but for now, big love! taglist can be found in my pinned post along with masterlist i’m slowing filling out🧡

- love, gigi xx

tags: @idkiwantchocolatee @vellicora @alessioayla @bborra @crimeshowjunkie @paolexsstuff @champagnelovers101 @loxbbg @hobiismyhopeu @moonypixel @celestialpato @champagneproblems17

#ੈ✩‧₊˚ works #f1 #f1 x reader #lando norris #lando norris x reader #mclaren #lando norris au #lando norris blurb #lando norris imagine #lando norris scenario #lando norris one shot

[iintervallum]

Sometimes I think about how the dndads cast should be on tumblr, with them having a subreddit(you know how they can be) and dndadstwt being like 10 people, tumblr would be the perfect place for them to see more of the fandom, if they wish to that is. Since quite a lot of people on here are way less honed in on negativity than reddit and twitter.

My edit of this is getting long lol so I'm putting it under a cut

Especially reddit, the people on there honestly I think just get too attached to a specific format or way of doing things, its a common pattern in any long running show fandoms i've been in where its reddit that constantly complains about the "good ol' days" and hate any new changes made. I would sometimes drop in and just see a lot of Scary hate at times, or people getting very irritated with the rule breaking, or just complaining that they're "forcing" the humor. I saw a post like that when i just started s2 and that couldnt have been more incorrect (yeah the piss jokes got a bit much but every other part was golden!...pun not intended)

There were absolutely points where I felt my interest wanning, but I think people would get pretty vicious about it and make a lot of mean spirited accusations. Like if anything the things I really enjoyed about this season was how different it was to s1, the contrast was really nice and i liked a lot of the story choices made, i still think about the apollo four teens and the fucking goof realm episodes, they were amazing. Which is why I remember thinking it was odd that they suddenly started involving the dads from s1 more, but knowing now that Anthony was struggling with people not liking this season as much it makes perfect sense.

Idk if it were just me, but i liked the earlier parts of the season for how the teens were still kind of discovering more about themselves and through gathering each anchor, learning more that their parents are people too, with their own fuck ups revealed and the teens have to clean up after them, so having it shift to be about Willy again was a little odd if i'm being honest(I didnt hate it but a repeat villian is hard to do, and for what its worth i think Willy did get the end he deserved and i loved the finale).

Funnily, in its own way it fits the theme of being a teenager and having to live up to your parents expectations. In a meta sense this being the successor to the first season and it being awkward at points and having issues with its identity is very fitting and just like how teenhood actually is.

I've gotten off topic but my point is fandom is just fandom, and letting it influence the way creators can view their own work is an interesting side effect of the internet and the way we navigate with the media we enjoy or hate. And spaces like reddit are grown in a way to encourage more brutally critical ways of analysing media which has very little consideration for the creator. By no means am I saying that the creators of things should be coddled, heck I literally airing my own annoyances with the podcast in space where i'm uplifting the positivity of tumblr over those spaces lol. I just mean that seeing the more genuine side of the fanbase would be more of a better time for them.

EDIT: (I just phrased things better, fixed the spelling and grammer errors and added more thoughts) The more I ruminate on this the more I think that it would honestly be a good idea. Like I do get the base worry of being too close to the more intense side of the fandom, as people on here are unafraid to gush about the show in ways that can be a little much and theres parasociality and all that jazz.

But it would be really good at least to see some actual genuine positivity, so many people provide their thoughtful meta and theories that even if widely off base are just interesting to read through because of how various different people see themselves in the characters they play. And even the critiques people give are not unkind, they come from a place of wanting to understand the choices made better.

I mentioned this in the old version of this post but having a blacklisted tag that only the people who don't wish their post to be seen by the cast use, something along the lines like how the magnus archives fandom has "do not archive", would be a very useful tool to create a barrier in the fanbase. I know i'm someone who feels very nervous about creators seeing the posts I make. Something like "not safe for dads" could work well or any other joke or pun about it being hidden. I doubt it would be filled with discourse or whatever it would mainly be people hornyposting since i know fandom well enough lol.

#aster.txt #dndads #dungeons and daddies #i think people understandably may not want the creators of things here because it's very fandomy #and that sort of known idea that the creator could be seeing what you post can make people be less honest #at least i never feel comfortable with the creators seeing my posts about things i get shy over it #like idk it's embarrassing lol: they know now how much i enjoy the thing they make #I've edited the post! #Please reblog this version instead its more comphrehensive to my actual thoughts #that arent just a half assed post i put randomly in the main tag #dungeons and daddies podcast #fandom commentary

[vampiriccreature]

I think about Dadgil au’s ALL the time, as sad as it is that Vergil never got to raise Nero it now gives me so many ideas for “what if” situations so here are some of my favs:

- Classic Vergil raising Nero as a baby, total teen dad that is emotionally unstable having to be there for a kid. Vergil abandoning his search for power due to the sense of responsibility he had for raising a kid. Vergil would by no means be an amazing father but I think he’d try.

- Vergil discovers Nero when Neros already a bit grown but not an adult. Like Vergil gets out of hell or whatnot and runs into a 10-15 year old Nero at the orphanage and raises him from then on. Just a lot of Nero teen angst and “You’re not my father,” and “You weren’t there when I was younger so you have to earn my respect,” type shit.

- Vergil raising Nero as a baby but disappearing when he’s older. Similar to the first where he steps up as a a dad and abandons his search for power and the such but when Neros older something happens to Vergil like he gets trapped in hell or demons kill/kidnap him and Neros still a child but of course remembers his father. I think if he knows/thinks Vergil was killed he’d become so deadset on revenge it would destroy any chance he had at teenhood. Meanwhile if it’s just a “Vergil disappears mysteriously” situation then Nero would be so conflicted on if his Dad abandoned him or not. I like this idea a lot since it’s similar to what happened to Vergil with him thinking his mother abandoned him but she didn’t and it wasn’t her fault.

Those are the main versions of Dadgil that cross my mind of course but if you have any other ideas or wanna add onto mine pleaseee do, these guys infect my mind.

#dmc #dmc headcannon #dadgil #vergil #vergil headcannon #dmc vergil #devil may cry #nero #dmc nero #baby nero #dadgil aus are better then any other au idgaf #i wanna see a mess of a teen dad Vergil trying his best despite everything #i didnt mean to have this child but by god I will make sure he’s not a abandoned like i was #also dont even get me started on dadgil with trans nero ohhh my gos

[still-astray]

A Special Someone (part 5)

Sophie gets a taste of normal teenhood

genre: fluff (finally)

word count: 1.6k

warnings: mention of biting (this was written almost solely on impulse and i proofread almost nothing so it’s quite chaotic) (it’s not a bad kind of biting!! i feel like i’m digging my grave deeper and deeper the more i try to explain this)

Special thanks to @mynameisnotlaura for coming up with this idea <3 i really don’t know where Sophie would be without your amazing ideas

taglist: @fromfreesia @skz-angel @skzfairies @mynameisnotlaura (just send in an ask to be added or removed <33) (couldn’t tag: @fromfreesia)

🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️

“I really want to see you.” Ni-ki brushed his hair out of his eyes as he looked through the screen at Sophie. “If we take a couple members of one of our groups we can just hang out as friends. Our manager is all for it.”

Sophie smiled sadly. “Your members may be ready to move on, Riki, but mine aren’t. I mean it took six months to even get to call you.”

“True.” Riki fell silent for a few moments. Sophie wound a strand of hair around her finger, thinking over the last few months. Like awkward silence!

Seven months had passed since Sophie’s last scandal. Things had calmed down for the most part around the Stray Kids dorm, with the exception of the normal daily chaos.

She hadn’t seen Riki (or any member of Enhypen for that matter) since the scandal. Recently Chan had begun allowing her to message and call Riki again, but a FaceTime video just wasn’t the same as seeing him in person.

Behind Riki, Sophie saw the boy’s bedroom door open and Heeseung poke his head in. “Ni-ki, we’re home.”

“Hello there,” Riki replied without turning around. “As you can see, I’m still here.”

Sophie cracked a smile. “I thought you just said your members were okay with leaving the situation behind now,” she said to Riki.

“We are,” Heeseung answered for Riki. “He’s still salty about the time when he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except for work.”

Sophie giggled. “Riki, I’m still not allowed to, so count yourself lucky.”

Heeseung whistled. “Chan’s still trying to figure out when he can let you go?”

“Yep.” Sophie fiddled with a ring on her hand, one Riki had given her as a belated birthday present last year. “I keep telling him that I’m never going to rebuild my reputation if he never lets me try.”

“Good for you. He just wants what’s best for everyone,” Heeseung told her. “I guarantee you it’ll get better.”

“Thanks.” Sophie was about to say something else, but right then her door opened and Jeongin came in. “Hey, Bubble! Dinner’s ready.”

“Be right there,” Sophie answered. Jeongin grinned at her and nodded towards the iPad. “Talking to Ni-ki?”

Sophie’s cheeks flamed pink. “How did you know?”

“I just did.” Jeongin winked and fled the premises.

Sophie let out an amused sigh. “I better go before someone else comes to get me,” she told the two Enhypen boys. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Tomorrow?” Riki asked hopefully.

“Depends on schedules, but I’d love to.”

The two said their goodbyes, Heeseung included, and Sophie closed down the iPad.

She could smell the food before she even left the hallway: hamburgers. Felix must have taken over chef duties for the night, she decided.

Seungmin met her as she passed through the living room. “Did Felix steal your job?” he asked her.

Sophie laughed. It was technically her job to make American food, but Felix loved to playfully steal the job from her. “I guess he did,” she replied as they entered the dining room.

“Who did what?” Hyunjin asked, looking up from selecting a burger patty.

“Felix stole my job tonight,” Sophie replied, taking a place next to Minho.

Felix grinned at her. “I didn’t have the heart to take you away from your FaceTime.”

“Aw, that’s sweet of you.” Sophie sent him a grateful smile as she picked a burger and started adding condiments to her bun.

Changbin stared at her from across the table. “What the heck are you doing?”

Sophie looked up at him, puzzled. “I’m just putting on ketchup and mustard.”

“I mean why is it that specific way every time?”

“Mustard burns so I put the ketchup on the underside,” Sophie explained, replacing the ketchup bottle and adding pickles and French fries to her plate.

“Oh.” Changbin still looked a little perplexed but he let it go.

Sensing that someone was missing, Sophie glanced around the table, mentally counting members. “Where’s Chan?”

The other seven members glanced at each other. Their answer came simultaneously. “Working.”

Sophie sighed. “Of course.”

“He said he’ll be home tomorrow, though,” added Jisung. “He wants to-“

“Jisung!!” six voices yelled in unison.

“What?” shrugged Jisung.

“That’s a secret,” scolded Hyunjin. “He literally told us to keep it a secret.”

“Naeryeooneun binmure modeun geokjeongdeureul dama tteolchyeonae,” sang Seungmin on an impulse.

“Okay, now you’ve got me curious.” Sophie took her seat at the table and sent Jeongin her best pair of puppy eyes. “Pleaseee Jeongin?”

Jeongin rolled his eyes, letting out a sigh. “Bubble, you know it’s hard to resist when you make that face at me.”

“That’s exactly why she’s doing it,” Hyunjin said. “Stay strong!”

Jeongin sent Hyunjin a look that clearly said, i don’t know if i can…

“YOU MUST RESIST!!” Hyunjin insisted.

Sophie broke into giggles. “You sound like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West trying to put a spell on him!”

Now it was Hyunjin’s turn to roll his eyes. “Oh, come on….”

“She sure put a spell on Ni-ki,” teased Jisung, earning a flick on the shoulder from Sophie. “Ow- hey, you’re getting pretty good at that.”

“I have all of you to practice on,” replied Sophie with a grin.

“Can we eat?” Changbin asked plaintively. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hungry.”

🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️🧚🏻‍♀️

(the next afternoon)

7/9 members were lounging in different areas of the dorm. Sophie was napping, having suffered a bout of insomnia the night before and gone immediately to an early dance practice and recording session.

Half the members were dozing off while the other half played Just Dance. The sudden click of a key turning in the front door alerted them to either an intruder, a friend with a key, or-

“CHAN!” yelled Jeongin excitedly, the other members joining in.

Though exhausted, Chan smiled at the sudden enthusiasm from his members. However, he had one thing to do before he could grab a nap.

“Where’s Sophie?” he asked, setting his bag down on the couch.

“Napping,” said Hyunjin, completely failing a Just Dance song (due to all the distractions, as he would insist to his members later when they teased him for it). “I don’t think you should wake her up Chan hyung. She gets reeeeally cranky.”

Chan let out a sigh. “Welp,” was all he said (copying a phrase of Sophie’s) before heading towards the maknae’s room.

Hyunjin watched in utter disbelief and a bit of horror. “I JUST WARNED YOU??? DO MY WARNINGS MEAN NOTHING?? DO YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE CAUSE SOPHIE MIGHT NOT ONCE YOU WAKE HER UP-”

“I’m not too worried,” Chan called back right before the members heard him opening Sophie’s door.

Felix smacked Hyunjin upside the head. “She’s sleeping you idiot!”

“OW!” Chan yelled. “SHE BIT ME!”

Hyunjin smirked at Felix. “Not anymore, pabo.” He looked towards the hallway. “I TOLD YOU HYUNG. SHE’S VERY CRANKY WHEN WOKEN UP. SHE’S LIKE A SEA BEAST. SHE WILL DRAG YOU BY THE FEET AND NEVER LET YOU GO! SHE-”

“SHUT UP, HYUNJIN!” Sophie interrupted. She hates being woken up.

Hyunjin cringed back, reminded of four months ago when Sophie kicked him in the shin after he woke her up from her nap. It hurt even more than stepping on legos.

“That’s Texans for you,” Minho said.

Felix just let out a sigh and started for the Sleeper Car, as they called the hall where all the bedrooms were. “Need help pouring oil on the troubled waters?” he asked in English.

“GET HIM OFF OF ME???” Sophie shrieked before Chan could answer. The members ran to her room- well, more like most of them walked, but the over-dramatic HyunSung ran. They were greeted by Chan literally lying on top of her like a beached whale and hugging her while she was biting his arm (“Please tell me she’s not drawing blood,” muttered Changbin) and trying kick him off (Jeongin later remarked that she looked like she was trying to swim). Her hair was a mess from her nap. Honestly? It was like someone took tumbleweed, flattened it out, and plopped it on her head. It wasn’t pretty.

Sophie took one look in the mirror and shrieked. As if Levi Ackerman had gifted her all his strength, she launched Chan off of her to grab her brush and comb through that mess. He landed with a thud on the floor and stared up at her, a little scared. Matter of fact, after what she did to Chan, the others took a step back, the expression on all their faces saying the same thing: Don’t wake Sophie up. She’ll wake up and become Supergirl!

Sophie turned and glared at her members, who recoiled in fear of her wrath as she got out of bed. “If you’d just told me my hair looked a mess, I would’ve WOKEN UP. WHAT IS THIS??? WHO FRIED MY HAIR? ZEUS? WHERE’S MY DRY SHAMPOO??” Her gaze pierced the person with the next best hair after her. “Hyunjin?” With that he bolted. You could hear his footsteps as he went into his room to grab it. He ran back with it in a matter of seconds.

Sophie, looking like a wild raccoon with her smudged mascara and slightly-improved hair, took a deep breath and calmed down a little bit. “What?” she said innocently, like she hadn’t just terrified the living heck out of eight guys.

Chan blinked at her. “Well, I was just coming to say that if you’ll get dressed and fix your makeup, I have someplace we’re going.”

Sophie looked down at him. “Hey, how'd you get on the floor? That’s weird. But anyway, that’ll take me like half an hour. Where to?”

The others looked at her like she grew a second head and lost her memory. How did she not remember turning into She-Hulk?

“Americans are so forgetful.” Minho mutters it under his breath as he turns away to leave the room, hoping Sophie wouldn’t hear.

She didn’t.

Chan got up off the floor, shooing the rest of the members out the door. “That’s a surprise,” he said to Sophie with a wink.

#skz’ bubbly sunflower 🫧🌻 #stray kids 9th member #stray kids’ sophie #kpop imagines #kpop au #fictional kpop oc #stray kids au #stray kids imagines #stray kids

[whysojiminimnida]

Maknae Line Sipping Things, Pt. 1

Maybe it's tea but more likely it's gonna hit and make us dizzy, knowing these guys. Because it's always something with them, isn't it?

WAIT BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER PLEASE TO READ THE DISCLAIMER

ARMY is many things to "our boys" - who, by the way, have not been "boys" for nearly a decade, now. Can we just normalize letting grown ass men be, IDK, GROWN ASS MEN?

They DO LOVE US. More than we realize. We are their validation. We are their audience, their personal search engine, their friends in a weird kind of two-sided parasocial relationship (which I guess makes it nearly a social relationship). But we are also their paychecks.

BTS is at a point where none of them need to work. Ever. They could fuck off to Bora Borahae (don't get me started) and spend lavishly for the rest of their days and still leave an enormous inheritance to their pets. They're fine, financially, in a way that most of us will never be. It's a heady experience, I'm told, having fuck-you money, and they have that. And yet they continue to work.

They continue to move their lives within a very tight, very enclosed but entirely too visible bubble. They always will, because their level of fame is that, now. Their lives don't really belong to them - they belong to us. Which is a heavy and often uncomfortable reality for them. So that's my angle going into the whole What The Fuck Is Up With The Maknae Line thing. They are in an unhealthy relationship - with ARMY - and it's changed who they are to each other, over time.

To be fair it's not ARMY's fault, either. If we must lay blame somewhere throw it on the idol system, maybe. They were assigned their roles in the beginning and SO WAS ARMY. It goes both ways.

The hyungs handle it better, overall. They were a few very crucial years older. They were given more responsibility and less, I think, insecurity. Don't get me started on neurodivergency. Or gayness. I'LL PONTIFICATE, IT WILL TURN INTO A DAMN FILIBUSTER, LET'S JUST NOT OKAY.

"But we LOVE THEM," I hear you cry. How can our love be unhealthy? Oh let me count the ways.

I LOVE a good fansite photographer. And Black & White is the best of the best - supportive, great shots, excellent with boundaries. See that? Jungkook recognized and was not upset to see them - because he sees them. A LOT. Here's Jimin taking notice:

He ain't mad. But cameras are as normal to BTS as breathing. Kinda like stylists. They get so used to having them there they don't quite seem real without them. To us, certainly, but maybe also to themselves. And as we've been let in to (almost) every facet of their lives we've become a little entitled. We think we know them - and in many ways we do. We see them cry, laugh, snort, fart, snore, sneeze and cough. We've even managed to be privy to inconvenient wood and bathtub photos - usually dressed, but Namjoon is not here today. "They're so relatable", we sigh. "How are they even real," we swoon. And yet we know they are, because we see them like this:

Little derpcakes, all of 'em. And we go "must protect!"

We protecc, we attacc, we give a boy a snacc, we make up memes about it and feel a little superior to all those fans who don't protect their idols - as well we should, we're the bomb. THE BANGTAN BOMB BITCHES.

And in so doing we have "protected" the maknae line right into eternal teenhood.

I've done it myself. Ask me how old Park Jimin is and I am as likely as not to tell you he's 24. (He's about to turn 27 international. At the end of the year he turns 29, Korean age.)

Again, much of this is marketing and is done deliberately because teen girls spend money. They also write fanfiction, draw and paint fan art, and attend concerts. And some of the fics are amazing, most are porn-adjacent or straight (gayyyy) erotica. Ditto a chunk of the art. But keep in mind that minors produce and consume all manner of media. A Minors DNI warning might as well be a neon sign. And fiction and depiction are SAFE ways for ARMY to explore their own and other sexualities. Put a pretty boy naked in a high school locker room with a tattooed, musclebound alpha quarterback and the metaphorical or literal jizz flings itself into the stratosphere. BUT LORD HELP A GROWN ASS ADULT MAN THAT ACTUALLY GETS A GIRLFRIEND.

Or boyfriend.

Stay tuned for the rest of this mess, probably.

#parasocial relationships #maknae line #army #bts army #jimin #jungkook #taehyung #just out here on my bullshit don't mind me

[archduchessofnowhere]

Love your posts, they are amazing. How was the relationship between emperor franz joseph and his youngest daughter archduchess marie valerie? There were rumors about valerie being count andrassay's child though people later stopped the slader do you think it made franz treat valerie differently from his other 2 children. Did he neglect her due to this rumors. I would like to hear your personal opinion as well along with the facts

Thank you so much! Despite the rumors Franz Josef and Valerie had a good and loving relationship, though they weren't as close as they could've been. Elisabeth was very possessive towards Valerie when she was a child, always terrified about her health (probably because of the trauma of loosing her first daughter to an illness), openly telling her that she was the only person she loved and her sole reason to continue to live. Since she was her mother's companion for most of her childhood and teenhood she couldn't have a particularly close relationship with her father - but she adored him and would've much preferred to stay in Vienna with him than to travel with her mother. After an argument between her parents regarding her well-being she wrote in her diary:

What I most wanted to do was fall at his [Franz Josef's] feet and kiss his paternal imperial hands, even as I felt — God forgive me — a momentary anger at Mama since her unbridled love and exaggerated, groundless concern place me in such an embarrassing and false position.

That she wanted a close relationship with her father can also be seen in another entry from 1884:

For more than an hour I sat next to him, quiet as a mouse, while he worked and smoked. It must have been important, for he looked up only once, and that was to remark, "But you must be terribly bored," to which, of course, I answered impetuously, "Oh, no, Papa, it is good to be sitting here…." "A pretty pleasure," he said and continued working. The poor man! As I saw him sitting so patiently before this pile of papers, without a word of complaint… how every man in the state always pushes the cares and sorrows away, always higher and higher, until finally everything comes to the Emperor-and he, who cannot send it higher, accepts everything and works everything through patiently, personally caring for the welfare of each and every one. How wonderful it is to have such a father.

Franz Josef doesn't seem to have treated Valerie with less affection than the rest of his children, and if anything, he seem to have been more affectionate towards her than his son:

How different, how courteous but selfconscious Papa is with them [Rudolf and Stephanie] as compared with [his behavior to] me! Surely that is the reason for Rudolf’s jealousy.

(Not that it's that surprising giving how much his relationship with Rudolf had deteriorated, but still).

After Valerie married Archduke Franz Salvator and formed her own family, her father visited her often. Unlike Elisabeth, who never was truly confortable in the role of grandmother, he was a loving grandfather who loved to play with his grandchildren. The emperor spent the Christmas of 1894 with his daughter and son-in-law (Elisabeth was in Madeira), of which Valerie wrote:

Papa arrived at noon … It was a very nice Christmas Eve, even though Papa's presence did not make it quite so informal, but again we were especially happy with the feeling that he, the poor thing, was really enjoying this family celebration. [The next day] When he's [Franz Josef's] not working, he spends almost the whole day with the children and does everything Ella [Elisabeth, Valerie's two-years-old daughter] wants when she gets him something: grandpa this, grandpa that.

But the relationship between father and daughter wasn't without its strain. After Rudolf's death Elisabeth was practically never at court, and the emperor fell into a sad a lonely life. Valerie describes his visits as sometimes awkward; simply put, Franz Josef doesn't seem to have felt truly confortable with Valerie's family, and neither did she:

not to know whether one should talk about our misfortune or about distracting things, to try in vain to find subjects of conversation of the latter kind, to wish the children to act natural... and yet tremble that their shouting might irritate Papa — to see him now sink into dull unhappiness, now being nervous... How well I understand now that being in Papa’s company almost crushed Mama. Yes, it is difficult to be with Papa, since he has never known a real exchange of views. I know how deep his feelings go and how deeply he suffers and stand powerless before all this woe, with no other weapon than the traditional routines.

The one person that could really cheer up the emperor in the absence of his wife was the actress Katharina Schratt, but Valerie didn't approve of her father's friendship with her and had been very much horrified both by her father's apparent indifference to the rumors surrounding them as well as her mother encouraging the relationship in the first place. A month after Elisabeth's death Valerie wrote in her diary:

Every morning Papa takes his walk with Schratt, whom I was also repeatedly forced to see and embrace — not with my heart — and yet I think her in herself — that is, aside from the people who cling to her — a harmless, loyal soul. — With fear I think of Mama’s wish, expressed to me so often, "when I die Papa should marry Schratt". In any case, I wish to remain passive, cannot act coldly to her in view of Papa’s true friendship with her, would find it unjust and cruel to sour this comfort for Papa — but do not consider it my duty to abet him.

He probably didn't marry Schratt, but did consider her his only friend, and only after he and Katharina had a fell out that lead him to become deeply depressed did Valerie understood how important the actress was in her father's life.

But even with their differences Valerie always remained loyal to her father, and was in his deathbed when he died in 1916, aged 86-years-old.

Now on my personal opinion, first of all I've always thought that Valerie was the child that resembled him the most, specially if you compare her with the portraits of his father when he was a teenager:

So without even considering how it's literally impossible that Andrássy was Valerie's father (in all the years they knew each other he and Elisabeth were alone only once in a short carriage ride), I think there's no doubt that she was the emperor's daughter. I would say that the person that was affected by the rumors the most was Valerie herself, since she always held a deep dislikeness not only towards Hungary but also towards Andrássy himself. And if Franz Josef wasn't closer to her wasn't out of neglect, but simply because Elisabeth monopolized Valerie, whom despite being raised to be her mother's daughter, always longed to be her father's daughter.

SOURCES:

Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria (1998). Das Tagebuch der Lieblingstochter von Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (1878-1899)

Hamann, Brigitte (1986). The Reluctant Empress: A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (translation by Ruth Hein)

#archduchess marie valerie of austria #franz josef i of austria #empress elisabeth of austria #katharina schratt #asks

[eyelinerda3euro]

lol don’t reblog lol but i have come to terms that i have amazing boobs with a lot of stretchmarks because I have lost and gained weight 3000 times and I have been ashamed of boobs all my life because of stupid trends, extreme thinness aesthetic, the androgynous look glamorised and I was relieved when my body type was not being just a sexualised type but also considered as a body that could be elegant and fashionable. i am scared we’re getting back to the elegant anorexia look that haunted me all through my teenhood lol i still struggle with how my body looks like but at the end of the day i am really healthy and strong and powerful and my boobs are great bye

[jeaniesthots]

The Cursed Harlot

Written by: Andrea-Jean Roberts

To be a woman within society is to find yourself caught in the current of often obscene judgment and standards so out of reach, that one can only ever feel inadequate. I recently watched a very intriguing video “The Madness of Feminine Perfection, Explored through black swan” by the Final Girl Studio. This creator offered me such an eye-opening perception of femininity. Within our world, since as distant as we can collectively remember, women only ever were given two totems of reflection, the darling Madonna, pure and innocent, the essence of divine feminine, the perfect daughter and wife. Quiet and domestic. If you were someone who turned their back on societal normalities, maybe more boisterous, independent, or even more sexually liberated, you were given the unfortunate role of the Harlot.

  (To preface, both of these terms are rather impudent and dimwitted. I understand that even those who fall into the category of the “Madonna” are not even all that valued at times. Such women are often called prudish, boring, and stale. The same women who are idolized for their purity, are also shamed for it. I laughed while writing this because this all is just a joke. Women constantly fail to make men happy and it just amazes me how even when you're “good” you're not good enough.)

This deeply engrained dichotomy brought me to think more in-depth about not only my place within society but all transexual women. I look back on all my experiences, from virginal adolescence to a sexually liberated young woman, and have come to a startling observation. I never could have been the ideal Madonna. Prior to my full development, I shied away from men, from sex; mainly due to my lack of confidence and my own revulsion against my body. When I was 19 my world of sexuality finally broadened. However, this sort of thing soon was out of the grasp of my control. My newfound beauty and ambiguity catapulted me deep into a world of shadows and secrecy. Only at night time did I ever meet men, in hotel rooms or high-rise apartments, staring out at the sparking building of Manhattan, shy and timid, giving in to the only thing men ever wanted from me. Though many times part of me didn’t want to, I still did. Why? It was not out of fear or out of lack of power, but rather it was due to one simple thing, possibility. 

I felt, and many people who embody the feminine understand this, that if I gave up my body sexually, I would be desired emotionally. Julia Fox brought this up recently in a podcast, that sex often feels like the price we naively pay for companionship. But what all us dreadfully hopeful women realize, is that though we thought we gained, we unfortunately lost. 

Transwomen never have the opportunity to ever be anything other than the harlot. The promiscuous and shameful woman. The kind who men only want to sleep with and forget about until they are in the mood for their next sexual escapade. We succumb to lives where we realize the harshest reality of all. We will never be the dream girl. 

The world teaches young trans girls that you are an object of amusement, a toy for men. Pump your hips with silicone, carve that jawline, implant your breasts, dress slutty, talk dirty, all you are is a fuck doll; and from teenhood into adulthood, we face such cruel discrimination and betrayal, especially in the hands of men who desire us; maybe not us, but our bodies. We are hidden, hushed, and told to approach only when approached. Even in love, at times, we cannot escape this. We are the secret girlfriends, the melancholic night-time lovers. 

All we want is to be valued and seen for more than what we can sexually offer. We are women with minds and hearts, woes, joys, humor, and courage. The Whore is never an accurate description of who we are. If the world gave us a chance our ancestors would have never been in the alleys of the Meatpacking District. We would never choose to live a life of constant risk. The world told us we were shameful, the world pushed us into the outskirts. It's not an easy life we live. Within the soul of every transgirl is a survivor. They throw us into the wild, try to erase our existence, and diminish our humanity. Men invade our spaces, women spit in our faces, and at times even our community kicks us when we are already low. The thing that keeps us all going is hope, in the world and each other. We may not be sisters by blood but rather sisters by spirit. 

Aside from our value being seen, what most transwomen desire is peace. There are transwomen in this world who have it worse than others. Some don't have any family to cling to, some can't get any other work than sex work, some are verbally assaulted every day, and others have experienced violence of varying degrees; add our constant degrading in the media and the unstable state of our future, I can speak for all of us when I say we just want to be left alone. The path we walk is an exhausting one. Beyond the painted faces, perfect bodies, and glamorous attire, is a woman who just wants a break. Every day is not only a battle with the world, but with yourself, praying you don’t get clocked, fighting with your dysphoria, and hoping you make it home safely and alive. 

Often I ponder when our humanity will be restored from the world. 

Dear Trans Girl, 

you are worth all the love you desire, your space is well-earned in this world, you're not a freak or a pervert, you’re merely a woman who was gifted a deeper understanding of gender and sexuality, a traveler of the binary, a truly original human being. Your beauty is not defined by your breasts or your hips, by the softness of your voice or how well you pass, your beauty is energy that radiates and transcends time and space. Though it is not always easy, don’t waste your energy on men or people who cannot truly embrace the woman you are, whose shame attempts to dim your light. Don’t let the world make you bitter because you don’t fit into a life that the majority aren’t even content living. All will be well, just trust yourself and remember to remind yourself that you are and always will be worthy.

April 22nd, 2024

#authors #write #journal #lgbt #transgender #book #booklr #spilled thoughts #book blog #blog #girl blogger #microblog #joandid #joan didion #evebab #eve babitz #poetry #words words words #los angeles

[dank-meme-legend]

I've battled hard, hard, with internalized ableism throughout my pre-teen and teenhood

Part of it was brought on by the repeated phrasing of, “You pass as neurotypical. Don’t lead with it.”

I don’t, truly

If you know who I am or have seen me at my most comfortable

Then you know I do not pass as neurotypical

But what even does that mean? I don’t know nor do I care

Whatever the hell it means, I really do not “pass”

Like I said, I don’t want to

I’ve learned to be happy as an autistic person

I have the autism or neurodivergent infinity symbol as a pin on my backpack that I’m thrilled to have (thank my amazing girlfriend @strawberryfemmesapphic for giving me that tiny, literally it’s a very small pin, but meaningful present)

I stim when I’m excited

When given the chance, I infodump and bond with people because of shared interests (when people want to talk about The Politician, who do they come to? Me! When my friends write The Politician fics, who do they loyally know will read it? Who do they know that can tell them specific details about the show to fill-in? You guessed it, me! Thanks @turniptitaness and @coffeelovinggayidiot for being awesome friends and writers, I love you guys)

Being autistic has its challenges and I know that; trust me, I’m well aware

I can’t go into a room and talk to people

My photographic memory is sometimes a huge burden and curse

I’m literal to a fault

I don’t know how to comfort people

Despite these problems, I’m proud to be autistic

Despite the burning memories of bullying by kids my own age, staff in school and my own parents, I’m proud

I’ve fought so hard against myself for years

Despite the scars and pain, I’ve found pride

Learned to find strengths

Strong suits

Ways to accommodate and overcome

Ways to thrive

Ways to thrive

#autism #actually autistic #actually neurodivergent #neurodivergent

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

mind meld and me: some random autistic bullshit

so

I’ve been recently trying to figure out why I keep harping on about the ROTTMNT! episode ‘Mind Meld.’ I mean, I’m not that obsessed with it, but I have reblogged/posted about it here and here, along with writing this story, which probably includes my least sympathetic depiction of Donnie, or any ninja turtle, to date. It makes me uncomfortable when I see people feeling sorry for Donnie during this episode, even though he’s just a goddamn cartoon character and none of this should really matter.

A lot of it comes from issues discussed in goldenspecter’s amazing story, Mind Meld Part Deux, which uses the magic of fanfiction to fix a lot of the shit tangled up in that episode. And yet, it still bothers me.

Now, I think it might be because I...sorta kinda have experience with people using technology to try to “fix” a part of my brain that wasn’t actually broken.

a walk down memory lane

Okay, anybody ever hear of biofeedback? It’s a pretty well known, and actually very helpful in some cases, form of mind-body therapy. However, there have been some attempts to use it to “help” autistic kids, only it doesn’t really work. I should know, because when I was a kid I had biofeedback therapy meant to “help” me with my own autism.

It’s a kind of weird story, basically involving some guy my aunt met at a party (no, I don’t know how the hell he convinced her either) and her subsequent attempts to convince my parents to take me to this therapy. Frankly, they thought it was bullshit, but eventually took me there because they correctly assumed the process wouldn’t hurt me whether or not it worked.

I don’t remember a whole lot about it, to be honest. I know we had to go on a long fucking drive and that there were wires people put on my head. I don’t remember ever really knowing what in the fresh turkey hell was going on, although maybe I did at the time. I remember that I cried, but I cried a lot during my childhood due to a lot of random shit (my teenhood, too, but that’s a whole other story).

It wasn’t traumatizing, really. Nobody told me I was damaged or broken that I remember and biofeedback is an absolutely painless procedure. I was a lot luckier than many other autistic kids have been, that’s for sure. These days, my aunt and my parents are some of my strongest allies, as their knowledge of autism has grown and expanded, and they understood that there were better ways to help me with my issues.

And yet–it happened. It was a thing that happened. And that bugs me.

back to the show

The thing about ‘Mind Meld’ (and I’m not the first to mention the plot’s ableism) is that ROTTMNT!Donnie is trying to “help” his brothers. The inciting incident is that instead of helping Donnie with his goal, they’ve been distracted by their own, seeming irrational fixation to the exclusion of what he deems important (sound familiar?). As a result, he manipulates them into stepping into a machine that “changes” them, making them smarter and more rational--more like him.

Like my own experiences with being “helped,” this procedure is painless. Like my own experiences, the other turtles really have no control over the situation. But unlike my own experiences, the procedure works. And the change Donnie plans for is a lot more extreme than anything modern science could pull off.

Now, some people will probably explain this thoughtlessness on Donnie’s part by discussing how he himself is probably neurodivergent. And they might have a point--except in my experience, neurodivergence doesn’t really look like that. I’ll be honest, I have lashed out when I couldn’t make myself understood or didn’t understand how I couldn’t control events.

But there was no calculation there, no manipulation, not on the scale Donnie uses against his brothers. It’s a planned act with science (or at least cartoon science) behind it, and if Donnie’s behavior makes me think of anyone it makes me remember the biofeedback people.

lessons unlearned

And this isn’t even the first time he’s done this! In “Donnie’s Gifts,” Donnie uses his technology to psychologically and physically torture his brothers. There’s the helmet he uses on Raph, of course, and who could forget Leo’s shock collar? And there are fics that do an impressive job of highlighting how badly this could be misused.

(Although I feel that the author of one particular fic lets Donnie off way too easily, as well. It's implied that the problem isn’t that Donnie created the fucking collar in the first place and strapped it on Leo without explaining what it does, but rather that it was misused by someone outside the family, and his own protests otherwise are lumped in with the survivor's guilt everyone else is feeling. Donnie loves Leo, therefore he can’t actually hurt him, even in a situations where Donnie actually thinks he has.

But I digress).

The point is that we can’t really trust anything Donnie is supposed to learn from this episode, because he didn’t learn anything from the last one. And yet, “Mind Meld” is centered around Donnie far more than “Donnie’s Gifts” ever were, giving us even less time to explore how his brothers are affected by the choices he makes for them.

rise of the teenage mutant ninja donnie

The subsequent episode is, on the whole, about Donnie’s experience, rather than that of his brothers. He slowly starts to regret this change, if only because of the ways it affects him and the way his brothers treat him, rather than out of concern for their own rights to their minds.

Admittedly, Donnie is punished by the narrative for his attempts to change his brothers, realizing how much he misses who they used to be and choosing to sacrifice his own interests to restore them. But at the same time, the parts of his “new” brothers that he finds so disturbing are lack of interest in social activities, focusing on their own projects, and attempts to mimic his behavior--all stuff that could possibly be seen as other stuff from the neurodivergent spectrum.

And once again, it’s up to Donnie to get back to “improving” his brothers. He needs to readjust them just that little bit more, by force if necessary, while they actively resist his attempts to do so.

At the end of the show, he seems to be the only one’s actually learned anything--although, as I’ve mentioned above, we can’t really trust whether he has. His brothers seem to have no memory of the incident whatsoever, reduced to props for Donnie’s character growth.

My parents and aunt have learned to accept my autism because they took advantage of new information, because they listen when I explain myself to them and put in the work to understand. And before they learned how to do that, they did what they did because they were worried for me; I can understand their motivations while also being grateful they’ve grown.

Donnie isn’t worried, he’s angry that his family won’t get along with what he wants, and he punishes them for it. He only expresses concern after he fucks with his brother’s heads and doesn’t like the results. He’s sorry because his quick fix didn’t work the way he wanted, because it doesn’t benefit him.

speaking of...

This actually isn’t the first time TMNT has discussed a character doing something like this to a family member. TMNT 2012 also has an episode in which a character uses cartoon science to manipulate the brain of someone they love, turning them into the kind of person they’re “supposed” to be, “helping” them to be what they consider better. They use experimental technology on this supposed loved one without their consent to affect their brain chemistry and only show something like remorse when it goes wrong.

Only, the character is Shredder. The person he uses it on is Karai (with Raph and the Mutanimals serving as guinea pigs). The procedure isn’t disguised as a cheerful Pizza Machine, it’s the goddamn brain worms.

It’s really fucking bad, and for all 2012′s flaws, they managed to frame it as really fucking bad. The procedure is shown as being physically painful, accompanied by disturbing physical changes, and the people affected are forced to fight the ones they love. The show is pretty shitty at acknowledging how traumatizing all this would actually be, but they do acknowledge that trying to mess with somebody’s head like that, even if you love them and only want to help them, is wrong.

ROTTMNT doesn’t do that. While Karai and Raph’s brainwashing is terrifying, Mind Meld treats the aftermath of Leon, Mikey, and Raph’s transformation as an opportunity for jokes. And yes, the procedure is painless, but it’s also a huge personality shift that receives no gravitas whatsoever.

When they are restored, instead of taking the opportunity to ask Donnie what the hell he was thinking, Raph asks for a dollar bill to stick up his nose. Despite the fact that they’re all crime-fighting heroes, they’re somehow incapable of advocating for themselves.

Unlike Karai or Raph, they aren’t given even an opportunity, successful or unsuccessful, to fight back (Karai’s final fight against Shredder was a fucking disgrace, but whatever, fan fiction is better). The aftermath of an objectively disturbing manipulation by someone they thought they could trust.

Shredder is, in the end, very much punished for his attempts to control Karai. The fact that he loves her or that her behavior is distracting him from his goals doesn’t excuse his behavior, and it shouldn’t. He refuses to change in a way that isn’t selfish, and so he’s punished. Donnie, on the other hand, despite the selfish nature of both his actions and his attempts to correct them, seems to get off scot free for no other reason than because he’s...Donnie.

when all else fails, blame the writers

Look, despite how it might seem, this is not an anti-Donnie piece. Why? Because Donnie is a fictional character, and attacking him does nothing for anyone. I like the little shithead despite myself and he’d gone full evil in turning his brothers into zombie slaves, I might not mind so much.

The rottmnt writers are, on the other hand, very fucking real. And they made a deliberate choice when they took a story about being “fixed” to fit the mold, filled it with jokes, and centered it around a person doing the “fixing” instead of the people being fixed.

I’m not going to tell you when the biofeedback thing happened, but it wasn’t in the fucking 1950s, that’s for sure. My parents are doctors who didn’t know what “ableism” was until I, a nondoctor, casually mentioned it and had to explain it to them. Autism Speaks is still a thing. Important conversations are being had right now and how we represent shit like our relatives’ right to mess with our heads--based on how it affects us, not them--matters.

It matters to me. When I look up “autism and biofeedback” and the first thing that comes up is a site slinging biofeedback’s ability to “help” autistic kids, it makes me doubt. A part of me wonders if I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, blurring fiction with reality, fixating too much on meaningless shit. And that’s wrong.

It was wrong that my family, and who knows how many others, were encouraged to waste time, energy, and money on this procedure instead of focusing on stuff that would actually help me. It was wrong for equipment and expertise that should have been used to help people who actually benefit from biofeedback to be used on me, someone who didn’t need it. It’s wrong that I have to live the knowledge that the biofeedback, even if they mean me no harm, believed the best way to help me live my life was to stick wires on my head instead of letting me express my wants and needs in my own way It’s wrong that they’re not the only ones who think like that, or think worse.

And it was so wrong for the ROTTMNT to take all this and turn it into a story about character growth for the person responsible, instead of giving the Donnie’s brothers an opportunity to respond to their mistreatment. If your character needs to see the people they love radically altered and experimented on before they can love them, that’s not a heroic character. Write them that way if you want, but fucking acknowledge it.

This isn’t a clearly defined issue, like murder or assault, that people automatically know is bad. The way the episode frames it, viewers might not fully understand how bad all this “fixing” shit get can get--if my parents had been as determined to make me play along with what they wanted as Donnie was for his brothers, my childhood could have been a whole lot worse.

ROTTMNT brought a lot of important issues into play here and then blew it. They weren’t malicious, but they were thoughtless, and stuff like that should be called out the same as malicious behavior, or it won’t change.

let’s be real

I’m not saying that what I experienced was anything like the shit Donnie pulled or that Donnie is like anyone in my life. I’m just saying, episodes like this have a bit more to do with real issues affecting real people than you might think, and if I’m not careful I could end up as one of those people.

ROTTMNT fucked up with “Mind Meld” in a lot of ways with real-life implications, and I basically wrote this essay to remind myself it’s okay for me to be bothered by that. It’s okay for me to be a little mad about it, even.

It’s okay for me to be grateful when other people call this out, in fiction or nonfiction, and it’s okay to write stuff about it on my own. It’s okay for me to use platforms like these to vent and work out my thoughts about it, even if I get negligible attention.

It’s okay for me to spend way too much time analyzing all this shit because it is relevant to my past, present, and future. And it’s okay for me to want--no, demand--that the content creators who come next do better.

It’s okay to say, again and again, that no one has a right to mess with my brain without my full understanding and consent, no matter how much they love me. It’s okay to be relieved that the people in my life understand this now  and it’s okay to be mad when others talk about this stuff in fiction or nonfiction without fully considering the implications.

I am not here to be fixed, I am here to be understood.

TLDR: ROTTMNT’s “Mind Meld” disturbs me because it uses science, however painless, to “fix” people with neurodivergent tendencies, and this reminds me of both my own experiences and the dangers of ableist misrepresentation.

This little clusterfuck of an essay can also be found on AO3.

#mind meld #rottmnt mind meld #biofeedback #personal #actually autistic #anti ableism #essay #autistic author #actuallyautistic #autism #ableism #donatello #donnie #rottmnt #autistic writer #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2k18 #tmnt 2018 #leonardo #leo #raphael #raph #mikey #actually neurodivergent #this is kind of a rant ngl #michelangelo #disability pride month #I guess #this is kind of a vent

[praisetheaxolotl]

I think it's real funny that like, Gravity Falls is, at its core, a show about growing up. And this blog in particular shaped my teen years, even when it went dark for a while. The fics i wrote for this fandom, inspired by this blog, were kind of the start of a new, better era of my writing. I met people that I still hold dear, even though we no longer talk. I met my fiance through this fandom!

And I'm still here. Whether I'm sixteen or twenty-two, I'm still the same. But also not. Time did do a number on me, and it's surreal to look back and realize that all my posts were me coping with personality disorders I didn't fully realize I had. I identified with Bill because I, too, felt confined, and wanted to let loose and burn it all down. But I was also a person, and I wanted Bill to be, too- a person who was unruly, destructive, and mean, but a person who did want some sort of stability at the end of the day, but someone who was stunted and, through horrific life experiences, didn't feel as if he could have that stability until he had ultimate control.

And then. It didn't work? So he tried the "out" he'd been given; the alternative option that he'd most likely brushed off as bogus or "too soft" for him.

And then what?

I grew up with this blog, and the stuff I did here shaped my later teenhood and my life going forward. This blog was never popular, not by a long shot- but it endured; and it still amazes me whenever I get new asks or new reblogs and rambles in the tags.

I've just been thinking about it all. At the end of the day, I was a lonely kid grappling with things I didn't understand, so I decided to grapple with them in a way I could understand- through Bill. I'm not so lonely as an adult, and a lot of my unpleasant-ness has been lost to time (though not all of it.) And the thing that helped me most was having a non-judgemental support system- exactly the thing I liked to imagine Bill having.

It's funny how it all worked out, in the end.

#ive just been thinking!! #cuz i might write a piece on yk. running this blog and personality disorders and connection and growing up and the like #who knows! #maybe ill chicken out and never send the pitch </3 #im gonna talk w my editor abt it ssssooooooon like tonight or tomorrow

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[raisin-shell]

Hi Holly! First let me say I love your take on the boys. Secondly here is my ask… why did master splinter choose each color for each of them? Thank you so much and I’ll be waiting patiently for your reply. 🙂

Hi nonnie. This is an awesome ask and of course I’m going to head cannon the fuck out of this. So let’s get into it. As we all know in the Bayverse world, splinter does not give his sons their masks until they reach teenhood (possibly 18 in these movies, they never say their actual age). With that said enough time had gone by for each of the brothers to develop their own personality traits and I believe the colors represent exactly that.

Leonardo… blue. Like the calm depths of the oceans floor. His movements flow smoothly and precisely. And much like the ocean, he can become treacherous but only when needed.

Raphael… red with a temper that will set a blaze as quickly as fire. His movements are swift and deadly. But much like water can stow a fire… his brother Leo was and still is his exact opposite which is why the two were, and still are constantly butting heads.

Donatello… ever seeking his strength in knowledge and technology started from youth and excelled at rapid speed as he grew older. His movements are calculated and precise. Donnie even crafted his own bo with purple electrical shock on each end of his metal staff, much to his father’s amazement. Purple was the upmost choice.

Michelangelo… orange crush being his favorite choice of drink added with his bubbly exuberance would be a no brainer. His movement’s are unpredictable and surprising, matching his sunshine like aura. He was graced with the color orange.

I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit as much as I enjoyed writing it nonnie. It got the wheels in my brain going once more and I thank you.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt bayverse #tmnt raphael #tmnt leonardo #tmnt 2016 #bayverse #tmnt donatello #tmnt #tmnt michelangelo #answered asks

[hyperfigations]

No One Escapes From Life Alive

Prologue

Summary: Dylan Lenivy survived North Kill's only tragedy, coming out of it with a lifetime of trauma. Luckily, his imaginary friend, Silas, is there to help him through the pain. Attached at the hip for years in his childhood, Dylan thought that he couldn't live without Silas. Until an accident forced him to leave his imaginary friend behind. After a teenhood filled with nonstop therapy sessions, Dylan is finally ready to leave North Kill behind to go to college with his bestfriend, Kaitlyn. College is messy... to say the least. Good thing, a grown Silas comes back to help. Help with college, help to win the heart of the broody loner guy in his photography class, and help him become as blasé as he possibly can. But with the resurrection of the old imaginary pal, Dylan must face the dark, bloody past that comes with Silas.

A/N: OKAYYYYYYY, I'm not great at writing horror but here it is! A Daniel Isn't Real Quarry AU!!! I really hope you guys like it and I would love, love, love to hear your thoughts and see if you all want more!

Word Count: 2,240

TW: Suicide, Gore, Murder, Death

Chapter 1

Read on AO3 or Read More:

When Travis Hackett went into work today, he wasn’t expecting to work a homicide.

The damp asphalt caught the light of the street lamps on Nightingale Avenue, the golden light meeting the red and blue of his flashing lights. The North Kill Deputy reached for the gear stick to put the car into park, unprepared for what he was about to walk into. An icy breeze greeted the cop as he stepped out of his car. There was a certain evil in the air as he approached the house, and for a split moment he considered calling for back-up. It was quite a small house, but it looked threatening under the full, yellow moon. Shadows on the lawn dragged toward the cop’s feet, as if it was reaching out to him. Beckoning him to come closer. 

  Nothing like that ever happened in the small town of North Kill, New York. It was a mostly peaceful town that occasionally got a few stragglers that strayed from the main highway. Everyone knew everyone in their town. And no one expected the other to be capable of murder. The Hackett’s always kept the town quiet, whether it was the local monopoly they had over the North Kill businesses or protecting the town, they kept a tight grip to keep their home’s excellent reputation. A reputation they held for generations, but it was destroyed in just a single, insignificant night. Just one night was all it took to make North Kill live up to its name.

The call he had received this late in the night, when he was the only one on duty, made Travis think it was a prank. And when he heard the soft-spoken voice on the other line, it made him think that maybe that thought wasn’t unreasonable. Kids liked to play pranks, right?

“North Kill Police Department, how may I help-”

“Deputy Hackett?” A tiny, little voice had squeaked out. 

That edge in the kid’s voice sent shivers crawling down his spine. If this was a prank, this kid was an amazing actor. But it didn’t take long for Travis to realize that this wasn’t the case.

“Yes, it’s me. Who’s callin?”

 “Um… I-It’s uh.. Dylan?”

“...Dylan Lenivy?” Travis suddenly recognized the scared, hushed voice. The child’s voice carried a rattle that the Deputy could only assume was fear.

“Yes sir’,” The kid sputtered out. Travis’ lips thinned, the grip on the phone tightening.

Travis knew the Lenivy Family, not well, besides the occasional run-into downtown or poker nights. His younger brother knew them far better than he had, considering Dylan was a camper at the Hackett's Quarry Summer Camp. The kid wasn’t exactly shy, but he also wasn’t out there. In fact, he usually stayed by himself during activities, besides when his little friend Kaitlyn dragged him to socialize with others. Dylan was a bright, polite child who rarely ever found himself in any kind of trouble, that was something Travis was sure of. 

The Deputy's voice came out calmly, but the dread that filled the air made worry blossom in his chest, “What can I do you for, son?”

“Well… I uh… um…”

“Son, I need to know if everything is okay? I can’t help you if you don't tell me anything, okay?”

Dylan was 8-years old. The boy wasn’t exactly the bravest, but he was the smartest kid Travis had ever met. He would’ve never called the police for a non legitimate reason.

“Okay,” The kid had mumbled, breathing out a shaky breath. “It’s my dad…”

“What’s wrong with your dad Dylan,”

“I think he’s dead.”

Travis’ heart dropped into his stomach. 

What did he mean he was dead? The way he said it made it even more bone-chilling. Dylan’s voice was still and cautious. He was obviously afraid but his voice carried a calmness to it. 

It had to be shock, that was the only thing that could explain it.

“What do ya mean-?” Travis managed to finally force out. 

It was hard to not let his emotions get the better of him, considering nothing like this ever happens. Not in his town. Travis couldn’t stop thinking about how he had talked to Brian Lenivy just yesterday morning when he had gotten his morning coffee, before they both headed to work. They laughed together over a dark, hot brew trying to stay warm in the crisp air of this small mountain town. 

“He’s lying on the ground, he’s not breathing… I think he’s bleeding–Yeah, he’s bleeding a lot…”

Fuck. The closer he got to the house, the more his stomach twisted in knots.

Travis’ knuckles went white holding the police station phone, the quietness of the station finally hitting him. At this moment, he had really wished someone was here with him. Hank would've known what to do...

“Alright son, can you tell me anything else? Like what happened?”

“Y-yes sir’…” Dylan wavered, white noise crackling low through the line. “I was asleep… but then I heard some loud bangs from the- from the-”

Dylan was fading off, his voice getting more and more afraid. More unsure. “D-deputy?” He choked out, and Travis could just imagine his poor face contorted in terror. “T-there’s another body… in the kitchen.”

“Another body?”

“I don’t know who that is…”

“What does he look like son?”

“I don’t… I don’t want to get close to it s-sir’,”

Travis didn’t blame him. He was a kid after all, and it’s obvious he’s seen enough tonight. “Yeah. Yeah okay, I’m on my way Dylan. You need to go to a bathroom, or your room and lock yourself in there, alright?”

His left hand reached for the round, gold door knob as his right reached for the gun in his holster. 

“O-okay… I just have to find Newton…”

Travis shook his head, “W-what?”

“My cat… He’s probably so scared, he hates loud noises.”

“No, no. Dylan you need to hide, okay? Once I get there, I’ll find… Newton.”

“But–”

“Dylan, I’m sorry. This is non-negotiable. Get somewhere safe, now.” Travis regretted the stern approach he had taken with the boy, but he needed to get the kid somewhere safe. Just until he could get there.

When Travis opened the door, the scent of iron along with a hint of wet dog hit him like a truck. He bit his tongue to stop himself from gagging. He stepped further into the pitch dark house, but the minute his foot made contact with the wooden floorboard, he heard a sickening crunch under his boot followed by the nastiest, gushiest squish. His eyes closed shut tightly, the grip on his gun stiffening. 

With his free hand Travis grabs the flashlight on his belt, clicking it on. He didn’t want to look at what he had just stepped on. He knew in his heart whatever it was, wasn't good. It scared him to death, but slowly he lowered the light down to whatever was underneath him. 

             As he lifted his foot up, whatever it was crackled from the release of the pressure. He saw a gooey, red like slime string up from the floor to the bottom of his boot.

             It took a second to even realize what he was even looking at. It was a pile of red, seeping mush. Peaking out of the disgusting pile was fragments of white fur and bits and pieces of what looked like animal bone. Then it hit him.

He had kept his promise… 

He found Newton.

Newton was completely ripped into pieces, torn apart. Bite marks made the edges of what remained of Newton ragged. Travis’ mouth curved downward.

"What in Sam Hill…." He groaned, staring at the pile with a new sense of urgency. He had to find that Lenivy kid. 

“Dylan? It’s Deputy Hackett!” He called out to the kid, his heart beating against his ribcage harshly. 

He had no clue what was happening, and he hated not knowing. It didn’t help that the kid wasn’t answering him. He prayed to god, who he didn’t even believe in, that he was safe. 

Travis cautiously continued to travel deeper into the deathly quiet home. The light from his torch tore through the darkness, brightening every piece of furniture it hit. Every shadow that conjured up behind said furniture made Deputy Hackett just a little more nervous. 

Through the heavy air, he could hear his heartbeat bash heavier against his chest. It was like every bone in his body was telling him to run away. But he couldn't. He'd be damned if he didn't find Dylan safe and sound. That was his number one priority. With that in mind, he forced himself past the living room, toward the kitchen. The dire need to run out of this terrible place clawing at his stomach turning more and more crucial. 

His body turned to the side, avoiding the dining room table as he made his way toward the archway of the kitchen. The rotting smell of old eggs haunted the air. And that other smell too… wet dog. God. If Travis wasn't so fixated on the mission at hand, he probably would've thrown up. 

Travis' anxiety had risen tenfold the closer he got to the kitchen. He could hear in the back of his mind a voice… one that had started off as a voice he was familiar with. One that he could safely say was his own. 

Leave.

It said...

Leave.

The voice had grown colder.

More wicked.

Then it laughed.

            Fear struck Travis' heart. He looked around the dining room hastily with his light. 

            His dismay was causing an illusion, he finally decided. But that conclusion hadn't sat right with him. But for his sake, he had forced himself to believe so. 

             Quickly, he inhaled the putrid aroma of the home as a wake up call. He couldn't be distracted. Not right now.

              But the stench had not been what brought him back from being distracted by the cackle in the night. 

              The circular glow that radiated from the flashlight in his hand had hit something. Something that looked like the outline of rugged, old penny loafers. They were offset brown with worn out soles… shoes that anyone in North Kill would associate with none other than Mr.Lenivy…

               He always wore those dirty old things… He loved them for some god-known reason. No one knew why but he would've rather died than throw them out and replace them. 

                 Slowly, the ring of light made its way up the body, revealing more and more blood. Bile climbed up, burning the insides of his throat. A bitter taste spread over his taste buds as saliva began to build in his mouth. 

                  His head….

                  Mr.Lenivy's head was split into bits. As if someone shoved a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Pieces of blood and brain were splattered against the tan carpet. If it weren't for his torn up loafers or the typical, basic collared shirt he wore, there was no way he could've recognized this to be Mr.Lenivy.

                   The curses on Travis' gall covered tongue refused to slip through his lips. His eyes were wide as he stood there in horror. 

                    Shakily, his hand raised the light toward the archway of the kitchen. And there it was.

                    The other body… it was sprawled out on the checkered kitchen floor, looking quite similar to Dylan's dad. His head was blown into a sloppy mess but the difference was that he had no distinguishable features that would separate him from the ordinary man. He wore a dark hoodie with dark blue jeans. In his hands he held a large shotgun that was faced toward his own head. The only thing Travis could tell from the distance he kept was his skin.

                     Travis Hackett knew that was a weird thing to notice but it was the only thing that stood out. His skin was almost… white in color. And he didn't think caucasian but literal white. Like a sheet of printer paper. Unmarked. Unflawed. Pure white. 

                        Mentally he noted that as he breathed in slowly, trying to stay as calm as possible.

                       "Dylan?!" He called out again. The name ripped through his dry, scratchy throat. 

                       Once again, nothing was heard in reply. Until a moment of stillness had passed, a moment that felt like hours, Travis could make out what sounded like small whispers. Discreetly, he followed them.

                       "What if it's Deputy Hackett though???" 

                      "I promise you that he's here to help… he's always been nice to me."

                       The hushed whispers got louder as he went through the carpeted corridor. It was easy to tell that they were coming from behind the last door in the hallway. The door had a sign that said 'Dylan' in bright big letters. It had been decorated with cartoony planets and stars. Travis crept closer to the door as he heard a stern whisper say: "Mr.Hackett is one of the good guys, Silas. He's gonna help." 

                        "Dylan Lenivy?" The deputy said as softly as he could manage. "It's Deputy Hackett, you… you can come out, okay?"

                         "SEE! I TOLD YOU IT WAS HIM!" 

                         Loud but small footsteps approached the closed door. With a click, the door swung open and there he was.

                          Dylan Lenivy stared up at Travis with dark, sparkling eyes. They held a certain exhaustion but he could tell that Dylan was ready to be, in a word, "saved." 

#the quarry #hacketteers #hacketts quarry #dylan leviny #horror #ryan ezrahler #daniel isnt real #miles robbins #The Quarry AU #Ryan x Dylan #Radioheads #until dawn #travis hackett #the hackett family #jacob custos #laura kearney #max brinly #emma mountebank #abigail blyg #nick furcillo #the quarry fanfiction #the quarry angst #angst

[tolerateit]

Thrilled to say I had just enough time to read everyone’s clowning before going to the airport again. Literally the most insane 24 hours of my life and I will remember this forever. It’s so funny because the last time I was on my just go for it, life is short energy was like during the OG 1989 era. Like that CD was the soundtrack to so many adventures and I am wildly emotional about this 💙

Oh that is amazing and SO WILD THAT YOU EXPERIENCED ALL OF IT!!! And so trueee, 1989 was such an integral part of my early teenhood it's such an important album to me 🥺

#you ask for the tab* #💙 anon

[lotusmi]

Hi I have a personal question and I have no one to talk about it so please answer me.

I left my boyfriend 4 months ago he was my first love and my first relationship so il experienced everything with him for the first time. I have been struggling with self love and body shaming since teenhood.

We were dating since 3 years and since around 4-5 months our relationship was very bad like it was obvious we were both forcing ourselves to keep going. For me I realized he had changed and he treated differently I had to beg him for the bare minimum and it crushed the very low self love I had for myself. I thought that I wasn’t deserving to be treated better and h’i should’ve been grateful to have him and at some point he told me that he was attired by other women, he couldn’t help but watch them and imagining doing things with them. He told me he wanted to enjoy life (=meet many girls and do things with them) and he wasn’t ready for commitment.

The first time he told me this he was crying and he was feeling sorry for me and hating on himself somehow I used this by saying that he was sorry for me to stay with him because I couldn’t imagine my life without him. But time passed and I was literally dying with this situation, I used to trust him blindly but I couldn’t trust him anymore, I wanted to hurt myself so badly as a punishement because I thought I deserved it, if I was prettier he wouldn’t want them, if I was smarter he wouldn’t desire them and I kept drawning deeper and deeper until my dad passed away.

It came unexpectedly and it broke me. I was destroyed i swear and while suffering so much I thought to myself that I couldn’t keep going, if I don’t do something now my death will destroy my family even more and didn’t want that, so I decided to leave my ex boyfriend. Somehow we parted in good terms and I was still defending him when I was talking about our story to my family but with time I started to hate on him.

Today he came back saying he loved me and he was waiting for me to welcome him immediately but I didn’t. I couldn’t go back into his arms and now he is almost harassing me sending texts, mails he even contacted my mom. He told me to think about our happy memories but I don’t know how they are blurry and I can’t remember anything except those last hellish months.

I am wondering i am doing the right thing? Do I have the right to reject him and hold a grudge against him? Was everything my fault?

I need someone advice or opinion on this but I have no one to ask

I know Unique already gave you an amazing answer. I would say: what your heart truly wants? You can revise and recreate all his behaviour if this is what you want, but you can manifest someone knew too. You are the power and I hope you can manifest all your dreams!