#that traumatizing thing had a pretty deep effect on me and my subconscious and it kinda broke me to learn it was real

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Btw the fact Zuko or Azula likely misrembered or misinterpreted memories they had of Ursa from when they were little doesn't mean they're stupid or willfully ignorant.

When i was about that age i thought i saw Hell because i didn't know what an oil well looked like. I didn't have a term for suicidal ideation or a way to verbalize how I experienced it. I didn't know i had scoliosis or that it was the reason exercise was painful. I was convinced a flashback of something traumatizing that happened to me was just a nightmare i kept having and it was actually fairly recently that i learned that that wasn't the case.

Suggesting that children process things like children isn't the insult or attack some of you seem to think it is

#suicide mention #suicidal ideation mention #that traumatizing thing had a pretty deep effect on me and my subconscious and it kinda broke me to learn it was real #it also isn't ableist to say mentally ill or neurodivergent children can get their perception all fucked up thru adults manipulating them #as a survivor of that kind of abuse that point always felt condescending as hell

[catzula]

dreams that smell of caramel

Hello, hello. I know I disappeared for a hot minute, i blame depression for everything. i think I’ll be more active from now on, and thank you for reading!

btw, I did take a break form my 400 followers event cuz I burned out really really bad sorry about it

pairing: Bakugou x gn!reader

genre: fluff

warnings: cursing, 3.6k

synopsis: Really, who falls asleep in a subway? Apparently, you do, and Bakugou can’t help but feel protective over it. It’s because he’s training to be a hero, right? It’s not like he likes you, right? Right?!

Bakugou hated the subway. 

There was almost nothing there to like. It was dirty, caused Bakugou to feel like he couldn't breathe, and frankly, ever since the day he read that the air in a subway was %30 pieces of human skin, he didn't want to breathe, either.

The traumatic effect that piece of information had on him was something he never got over. But it wasn't only how dirty the air was, either. It was dusty and dry, and it always caused his eye contacts to dry on his eyes, causing him to see blurry for a while, and there had been many incidents where Bakugou had furiously rubbed his eyes, and made himself blind for a good few minutes.

People there always seemed to be almost as rude and angry as him, most of them thinking they had the right to sit wherever and whenever, and people invading his personal space wasn't something unusual, either. And the smell, oh god, the smell. Some people obviously hadn't discovered what a fucking soap or deodorant was since he could sometimes feel the smell in his brain. 

All this, even though he hadn't even seen the real torture. With the mean, scary look on his face and the way he stood that screamed, stay away from me if you're smart enough, people usually tried to do just that, so Bakugou didn't know what his space being invaded actually could be, or how bad the smell could get.

It was a warm day when he had met you. When he saw you barging in the last second, right before the doors closed behind you, he scoffed, slightly amused. You looked like you were running for your dear life, chest heaving, a thin layer of sweat forming on your temples, clothes disheveled, and hair messy, but you had a proud smile on your lips despite all that.

Crimson eyes followed you as you happily sighed when you noticed the seat across Bakugou was free, dropping yourself on the hard surface. You looked around, realizing there was almost no one around the 10-meter radius of you, the seats were vacant, but people were crowding a bit further down the subway. Your brows furrowed with confusion, and only then did you notice the ash-blonde across you, his gaze piercing through you, the mean scowl on his lips reminding you of a wolf. 

The moment your eyes met, Bakugou had expected you to jump to your feet and run away since he had become well-known after the sports festival and many incidents that had forced him to the tv. And even if someone didn't recognize him, the slightest glare from him was enough to make people run with their tails between their legs, but not this time, apparently, since you dared to cock your head to the side and smile at him.

Smile at him! It was almost an insult! When was the last time anyone actually did that? Especially a stranger? Or maybe you weren't a stranger, was that it? Looking at it now, you did have a familiar face, and it felt like he had seen you quite a few times before. But the more he tried to remember, the more the memory of you went deeper into his brain, causing him to grit his teeth subconsciously and look at you even more intensely. Bakugou wasn't aware he was staring at you like he was trying to see your soul, red gaze never faltering a second away from you.

It was when you tilted your brows slightly upwards, your pretty smile turning into an awkward one, he realized he was staring for the past station. Bakugou's brows snapped together, annoyed at himself, but he was also aware of how his face felt warmer than usual. He gritted his teeth with an angry grunt, looking away from you and fixing his eyes on the stupid advertisement that was right across from him, and he could swear he heard a muffled laugh coming from your way. Bakugou was surprised at how much he wanted to look at you, but his pride wouldn't let him do so, and so he kept staring at the poorly made advertisement brochure. 

Bakugou was a proud, smug man, and he always prided himself on the amount of control he had over himself. But that day, he had let himself down. What was this stupid force that kept making him flick his eyes your way almost every five minutes? It felt like his body was possessed, and it was impossible to suppress his curiosity and not look at you. Bakugou had looked around if there was anyone else looking at you and to try and see if this was a quirk of some sort since it made no sense. 

He grunted in annoyance when he couldn't help himself once again and glance at you, but it wasn't a curt look this time. His eyes narrowed and widened when he took a glimpse of you, of your relaxed body, head falling back and eyes closed. 

"What the hell?" He muttered to himself, leaning forward slightly to try and understand just what the fuck you were- were you sleeping? The realization of how you were, in fact, fucking sleeping had hit him hard, brows shooting upwards, his eyes were wide with confusion and a wave of slight anger. 

Were you dumb? Did you have no rational part in your brain? General knowledge of some sorts? Who in their right mind slept in a fucking subway? Where criminals swarmed, thieves lurking in the corners, waiting for people to slip for a second so they could steal a watch, phone, or a wallet easily, and you were sleeping? 

Bakugou had no idea why he was so fired up about someone he had seen only half an hour ago. He couldn't help but jump in his place, ready to fight, hand itching for a punch whenever someone as much as walked before you, growling and shooting a dirty, scary look when he caught anyone looking your way more than half a second, even the baby that stood in the corner.

He was a hero, after all, right? It was only normal he wanted to protect you, right? Right? God fucking damn it, when were you even going to wake up? He had no idea how you were so relaxed to be able to sleep in a subway, but it caused him more stress than he had felt the past ten years. 

When Bakugou noticed you finally shifting in your place and opening your eyes the second the next station's name was announced, he took a breath of relief. You started to gather your stuff as if you hadn't just woken up from a deep ass slumber, yawning and checking your phone for the time. Bakugou was watching you dazed, shocked at how someone could even do that. If pulling his interest and gaze towards you wasn't your quirk, this had to be it. 

You glanced at him, his gaze meeting yours, and you smile once again, causing his heart to make an odd fucking pause, a snarl appearing on his lips, and he scoffs. But instead of that making you furrow your brows and turn around, you laugh again and turn around. 

~~~

Bakugou had replayed that day over and over again in his head and had arrived at one conclusion. 

You were mad.

You had to be at least a bit mad since it wasn't the most normal thing to smile at strangers as if you knew them for years, especially with a smile as charming as yours, and it was straight-up insane to sleep in a public place, a dangerous place like a subway. 

But whatever conclusion he ended up with, he still couldn't get you out of his mind. It was the stupidest fucking thing ever, made no sense thinking about a stranger you had seen once, but you somehow didn't feel like a stranger. Of course, he didn't feel like he knew you for years, (even though Bakugou thought everyone else but him were just extras, he never forgot a face he saw), but you didn't feel like a threat, either. 

The alerting feeling that formed in his stomach whenever he was around people he didn't know, or sometimes even with the people he did know, wasn't there that time. 

Maybe he was just overthinking. 

Of course, he was over fucking thinking. He had been thinking about a stranger for almost two days straight. (And he hadn't seen you ever since.)

It was such an odd behavior of him that even his friends had noticed something was wrong. Mina had done her best to get a word from him but failed, and Kirishima and Kaminari had declared it their mission to try and cheer Bakugou, and it only meant more for him to deal with.

"Hey, Bakubro, I'm going to the mall today with friends, wanna tag along?" Kaminari asked him the 20th time that day, not even aware it was the worst thing to say if he wanted Bakugou to come. "Look at me you damn Pikachu," Bakugou finally snapped, "If you ask me that one more fucking time, I swear to god-"

"Hey, hey, let's not get violent." Kirishima interrupted before Bakugou finished his threat, thinking it was the best before he spat some illegal shit out. "Then make him fuck off." Bakugou snarled. 

"Yeah, actually, Kami? What are you even trying to do, asking him to come to your date?"

"It's a fucking date?" Bakugou burst, but Kaminari had already sprinted out of the room. "Did he ask me to third fucking wheel? How dense is he?!"

"Calm down, Bakugou." Kirishima sighed. "What's up with you these days, even more irritated than normal?"

"Huh, what the fuck does that even mean?"

"I'm just sayin'." Kirishima shrugged. "You're acting extra grumpy these past few days. You know you can talk to me if you-" 

"Ah, don't start with the cheesy shit, shitty fucking hair. I'm fine." Bakugou cut him off, but his frown was now a bit softer, voice calmer.

"If you say so," Kirishima shrugged. "Hey, by the way, I'm going downstairs to the general studies to change something about my costume, wanna come?"

"General studies? Why the fuck would I go there? You've been visiting that place a lot lately, too." Bakugou asked a little too aggressively, his brows raising when Kirishima grinned. "What, afraid I'll steal your fan?"

"My fan?"

Fan? Bakugou had a fucking fan? Not that he cared, of course, but it still did feel-

Kirishima shrugged with a grin. "You know, the cute student who helped with your gauntlets? Maybe pay a visit to them sometime, they seem to like you a little." Kirishima chuckled when Bakugou kept looking at him blankly. All Bakugou could remember about the person who did his gauntlets was just how pretty their eyes were since he hadn't seen anything but that. He remembered how they always had a flimsy mask on, so it could filter the dust that covered everything in their work station, including the open half of their face.

"I'm not gonna go see an extra just because they like me." He scoffed, but Kirishima could see how Bakugou was dying inside to learn more about this fan of his.

"Sure, whatever you say, bro." He grinned cheekily, gathering his bag and walking downstairs.

~~~

It was the third-day Bakugou had finally stopped thinking about you nonstop, and it felt like freedom. The third time was the charm, wasn't it?

Of course, not. 

You just had to show up the day he was over it, didn't you? You had once again sprinted through the doors just before they closed, heaving in the dirty air, face flushed. You stood up, trying to regain your composure as you smiled proudly at yourself and looking around to find a free seat. 

It didn't take long for you to spot the angry blonde, lips pressed together angrily and vermillion eyes looking directly at you. 

A bright smile appeared on your face just then, and even though you hadn't expected him to do anything, you were surprised when he averted his eyes away from you with a curt nod and a grunt. It had to mean he had acknowledged your smile, right? Well, you hoped it did since you were grinning stupidly at yourself.

You sat on your spot across from him, noticing how people stood even further away from you this time. Glancing at the handsome blonde across you, you tried and couldn't catch his crimson eyes. 

You sighed, frustrated, not aware that Bakugou was even more so. He had promised himself that he wasn't going to be a creep and stare at you like the last time, but your occasional side-eyes and those doe-like glances weren't helping his case the slightest. He wanted to meet your gaze, he really did, but Bakugou also had pride that forbade him from doing so, so he was left there, frustrated and confused.

He was able to keep that up for eight minutes (he had checked, eight minutes and 34 fucking seconds) before he had finally looked at you. Apparently, all it took was eight minutes for you, too, to fall asleep.

You had fallen asleep.

Again?!

"For fucks sake." Bakugou cursed, pressing his fingers on the bridge of his nose and clenching his teeth. He had already concluded you were mad, but a second time? Was this a fucking habit or something?

He grunted in annoyance, but he couldn't take his eyes off you. You looked so relaxed and calm, the smallest smile on your lips, your head moving along with the movements of the train, hands weakly clutching your bag and phone. He felt almost jealous of how reckless you were.

Almost being the keyword, though.

"Don't you fucking get close." He snarled at the man that had been watching you for a few minutes, and he had only taken a step towards you before he heard the blonde and immediately retreated.

His 'come a little closer and I'll bite your head off' look never once faltering, Bakugou was feeling exhausted when he heard your station's name announced, and you opened your eyes. (despite the earbuds that were in your ears? You couldn't have heard the station's name, so how were you able to wake up right on time?)

You gathered your stuff and raised on your legs, just as the train took a sharp turn and caused you to lose your balance, stumbling over to the blonde. "Fuck!" You muttered as you tried to gain your balance back, but the hand that caught you from your wrist did it for you.

"Th-thank you." You told him, sounding a bit out of breath. You chuckled when he grunted. "Be careful, dumb- just be careful." He muttered, eyes slightly widening when he realized he was about to insult you.

You chuckled once again, and Bakugou had to stop himself from smiling back. "See you later, Bakugou-kun." You waved a shy hand, expecting him to sit back in his place, but instead, he looked at you, baffled.

"How do you know my name?

It was hard to surprise Bakugou. Not only was he extremely smart, but he was also very cautious and usually thought almost everything that could go wrong or not.

But he was genuinely, very sincerely shocked when you had started laughing at his question. Out loud, too. You were bending slightly forwards as you laughed, and Bakugou was both amazed and afraid of the motion. You had one of the prettiest laughs he had seen or heard, but this was the most awkward time you could have shown him that.

He had asked you how you knew his name, and you were laughing? He was starting to think you were even crazier than he thought you were. "You're quite popular, you know." You told him. "It's almost impossible to not know about you, especially if- well, after the sport festival, I'd say." You shrugged, pressing your lips in a mischievous smile, and Bakugou had noticed how you stopped yourself before something had slipped out of your mouth.

"Of course, I am." He replied smugly, but his eyes were watching you now even closer as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.

"Well, I have to go now, thanks again!" You smiled and waved goodbye, and Bakugou couldn't stop his scowl turning into an awkward smile.

~~~

It had turned into an odd form of agreement. 

As days passed, you found yourself sitting closer to him, and after almost a week of bumping into each other, you were now sitting next to him, and he had no complaints. 

He thought it was a bit better, actually. Not because he liked, it, of course, he didn't like being so close to you that your shoulders brushed when you moved, your head falling on his shoulder after only a few minutes of riding the train, sitting so close that your smell filled his senses. 

No, of course, he didn't like that, and Bakugou liked having you sit so close to him because that was more convenient, and nothing else. It was easier to scare people away, to track if anyone walking before you was picking and sliding your phone into their pockets. 

And maybe, just maybe, he might be liking your conversations, too. It wasn't much since you were almost always asleep, but when you weren't, Bakugou decided it wasn't the worst. 

"So, mr. future number one hero," ah, and there was that. You referred to him as that often, and even though he was well aware it was mostly teasing, he had to admit it did affect his ego. "How was your day?"

"Fucking long." He sighed, and you giggled. "You always say that!"

"That's cause every day is fucking long!" He groaned, but he had an odd, almost affectionate smile on his lips that just made your heart giddy. "Well, that's hero course for you." You chuckled, biting your lip as you debated whether he'd push you off if you dropped your head on his shoulder now.

This had become your favorite part of the day. Not only was his caramel scent addicting, and it caused you to have the best sleep of your life (you found yourself unable to sleep without caramel scent and the safe feeling it brought to you, so you had to purchase caramel-scented candles), but he was also always warm.

So you did, deciding to live the moment to its best, closed your eyes and dropped your head, half expecting to be thrown off. But he didn't, chuckled instead, the vibrations of his laugh sending chills through your body. "Sleepy already?" He muttered into your hair, surprising you since you thought he wasn't the type to be comfortable with intimacy much, but he looked relaxed.

You could almost feel him smirking when you nodded softly. "Your day was obviously fucking long as well."

~~~

"Ah, man! I forgot my phone downstairs." Kirishima cussed, rolling his eyes at himself. "Hey, Bakubro, I have to leave immediately, but could you pick my phone up for me?"

"Do I look like a fucking maid from there?"

"Please, please! I have to go, and maybe you'll see your fan, too!" Bakugou's brows furrowed, "Whatever, if it'll make you shut the fuck up." He sighed annoyedly, he wouldn't have agreed any other day, but he had nothing better to do since you had texted him about an hour ago that you were going to be late for the train that day. Something about the school, you had told him.

"Really? Dude, you're a lifesaver, thanks!" Kirishima sighed relieved. "Just wake them up if they're asleep! They're like a cat, almost always sleeping in a corner." He added before he left the room. 

Somehow, that description sounded awfully familiar, Bakugou thought.

"Oi, is anyone fucking here?" He called into the dim litten room when he arrived, mumbling to himself something about extras and dumbasses. He had visited the room once or twice when he was having his gauntlets remade, and why did he feel like he was missing something?

"Oi?" He shouted one more time, red gaze stumbling on the figure that was in the corner of the room, almost hiding behind the table, sleeping. His eyes found a half-melted caramel-scented candle on the table, wondering if it was safe to have a candle in a workshop like this one. A mask and workshop clothes stood right next to the candle.

"Hey, I'm fucking talking to... you." His voice trailed off when they lifted their head, stretching their arms when their eyes found the dumbfounded blonde.

"Oh, hey Katsuki-kun!" You cheered, rising to your legs. 

"What the hell are you- why are you... What the fuck?"

You kept your silence, a mischievous smile on your lips as you waited for him to regain his thoughts. You watched as he connected the pieces, a lightbulb almost visible above his head. "You're a fucking student here!" He yelled, and you couldn't help but giggle at how accusing he sounded. 

"Guilty as charged." You raised your hands, teasing him, knowing this was a one-time chance.

"Ah, would you look at the time." You spoke, inspecting the nonexistent watch on your wrist. "We should hurry if we want to catch the next train, you know." You grinned, watching him as he tried to suppress the smile creeping upon his lips. 

"I guess so." He muttered, frowning as he looked away, but it was only to hide the blush that was settling on his cheeks. 

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou imagine #bnha scenarios #mha imagines #bnha x you #bakugou katsuki x reader #mha bakugou #mha fanfiction #mha x y/n #bnha bakugou #bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha x y/n #bnha x gender neutral reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugou fluff #bakugou x fem!reader #bakugou x you #bakugou x y/n #bnha bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n

[thyneighbors-wife]

Does anyone want 1k of not steve friendly, Villain!Stephen, later SIM!Tony, later supreme fam, ironstrange?

I accidentally broke my tumblr lol, here ya go

The projection was fading but the image of his mother's death was tattooed in Tony's mind. All of his emotions started boiling up at once, bubbling and clouding his focus. The usually composed man shook his head and waved his hands in front of him, as though he was clearing away projections.

Tony had to think rationally. Feeling one, sadness. His mother's death was just shown to him in great detail, traumatic but not immediately threatening. Next, anger. He was in the presence of the very man who killed her. Cautiously he took in the former Winter Soldier, he looked as though he'd seen the scene for the first time. Tony rationalizes this because of course he didn't remember, James Buchanan was brainwashed and not in control. Another emotion that was harder to wrap his genius mind around was betrayal. He felt betrayed. He had opened up, trusted Steve and loved him, and Captain America had hidden this from him. No longer was he a lover, Steve Rogers was showing how truly selfish and manipulative he was on the inside.

Tony turned to Steve, one hand clutched to his chest and the other on his wrist. Looking at his former teammate, Tony knew. He could see Steve's heart through his eyes, cold and hard with no regrets.

"Why? How? How could you live like that, let me live with that? Did you think I would try to hurt him? That I would go after him? Is he worth more to you than I am? Steve Rogers, we were engaged, and you don't trust me. Do you even know me?" Tony's hands were wildly gesturing around him. He pointed at Buchanan with his hand; although he didn't blame him, it was hard to separate him. Rogers stepped forward at that, knocking Tony's hand away from the man he really loved.

"Don't talk like that Tony. I didn't tell you because I do know you. You're brave, and efficient, and smart. But you're also selfish, and angry, and you can be irrational at times. I loved you, but how could I trust you? You who is so willing to do damage and pass responsibility off to anyone nearby." every word from his now ex-fiancé like ice crystallizing on Tony's skin.

"If that's how you feel, then I'll be moving out of the compound. I see who you are, and I'm not gonna fight for you." Iron man turned to leave, only for Captain America to interpret it as an attack. Tony was knocked off his feet with the shield he upgraded with care.

All of the pain of the day crashed on Tony the moment of impact. The fight, if you could call it that, consisted of Iron Man trying to keep his arms up and Captain America turning him to puree. Even the fearsome Winter Soldier ended up pulling his friend off of the metal suit, the man inside already unconscious.

They left him like that. Cold, dying, and alone.

~~~~~~~

It would be a week before Tony opened his eyes; and when he did, he thought he was still dreaming. He was looking into blue eyes that'd he'd only allowed his subconscious to admire. The corners of those eyes crinkled when the man gave a relieved smirk. The man's soft lips managed to convey that he'd never doubted Tony's strength, while also looking smug. As though he was due the credit.

He probably is, thought Tony. He allowed himself a long look at the man as he walked across the room. His black hair was brushed back, except for a single lock that'd fallen down the middle of his forehead. He was gray at the temples and still managed to keep his youthfulness.

"Hello hero, did you miss me?" as pretty a face he had, the man's voice never failed to give him chills. In good and bad ways.

"Strange, how did you find me?" Tony tried to keep his voice casual, unfortunately the wizard had deep effects on him.

"That's nit an answer. Quid pro quo, dear. I tell, you tell. I felt you get hurt, and I was able to portal to you. Unfortunately not in time to catch the baddie who did this to you." he cast his eyes to the wall, as though he actually cared about his nemesis. Tony Stark couldn't fall for that though. Instead the reality of who did this came to him like an ice fog.

"It doesn't matter if I missed you. You're evil, I'm an Avenger. We can't go together. We-"

"It seems those two things already go together, in a single package too." he knew. He knew Steve did this. Tony's heart started racing. The sorcerors eyes hardened, as though Tony had confirmed prior suspicions. Mentally kicking himself Tony tried to appease him, "Its not his fault, he thought I'd react badly. And I did. I should have handled it better. It's my fault it escalated. Please don't hurt him because I was stupid." Stephen Strange listened to his rambling with an incredulous expression, but he let him finish before he spoke softly.

"Tony," he placed an injured hand on the injured man's chest. "It's not your fault. I've been watching you two for years. I've seen how he speaks to you, and how he treats you, and how-" he took a breath to calm down before he continued, "The point is, he doesn't love you like you love him, like I love you." Tony's breath caught. He'd known that Stephen still had feelings for him, they'd seen eachother for almost three years before what happened in Afghanistan. It had almost broke Tony when his greatest love became his enemy. They'd only fought on opposing sides since Iron Man and Captain America started together two years ago, when Pepper decided that they were healthier as friends.

"Steph," Stephen cupped his other hand to his love's face.

"I know Tones, you don't have to say anything. I know I lost my chance. I just can't watch you be hurt like this. You tear yourself apart for the Avengers, and they spit on the pieces." he had tears in his eyes, and he pressed his face to Tony's chest before the genius noticed. Instinctively Tony brought his hands to Stephens hair, knowing how much that calms him down. Tony didn't realize that he already had tears stainng his cheeks.

They lay like that for hours at the sanctum, with Tony on the couch and Stephen on his knees with his head on Tony's chest. He'd turned his face so that they could look at eachother. Tony felt a strength that he hadn't felt in years. One that makes him forget what pain feels like. One that makes sadness a distant memory.

They fell asleep like that, healing each others pain with their presence

@salty-ironstrange-shipper

@autismdoesntspeak

@thorandlokigetsunshine

@ad-astraea

#my writing #ironstrange #Blue lies

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #37)

(cw: alcohol mention, fire) ----------

01/25/88   11:53 PM

Hey.

I wish I could say that I walked away from that heated encounter at therapy with little to no after effects. That I marched on back to my game, got some sleep, and continued on my road to recovery without missing a beat. I wish I could say that.

But that would just be unrealistic. 

When I went back to my game after the whole thing with Worluk, I told my cousin what happened. He reacted just about the same as I’d expected him to. Horrified, relieved I was safe, glad justice was served before she could hurt anyone else. He also told me how proud he was of me for not using violence to solve my problem. The praise felt a little misplaced, given how much I did actually fantasize about ripping her to shreds, and I told him that. But that just made him all the prouder, he said. It was the fact that, unlike so many past instances, I didn’t act on those impulses.

It was a pretty big deal for me. But I still didn’t quite know how to accept his pride. That much hadn’t changed.

I felt pretty sick, so I turned in kind of early, but I didn’t sleep well. Some of the old confusing flashbacks were eating at me again. I’d be nearly asleep, just dipping into dreamspace when phantom memories of fire and explosions and echoing screams would jolt me awake. I hadn’t had visions like those in a while, but I also hadn’t been quite that sober in a while.

The next morning carried on like any other at first, apart from me being quieter than I’d normally be. Fix-it had his breakfast and morning coffee. He yammered at me for a little bit. Some Nicelanders showed up, and then he yammered at them for a little bit. Then, after wishing me a good day, he left with the others, and the arcade opened.

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But since painting had been so soothing before, I figured I’d try that. It certainly couldn’t hurt. I hauled out the tarp and Fix-it’s paints and papers. I sat cross-legged by the blank sheet for a while, feeling dry of creativity. But I forced myself to start anyway, trying to let my thoughts and feelings fall freely and paint along to them.

What was I feeling, anyway?

I took a deep breath and tried to meditate on that question as I painted.

Grey. Unsure. Numb. Lukewarm. I wanted to be happy about Worluk being arrested. It should have been closure on her traumatic chapter of my life. But I just wasn’t satisfied. What she had said about her sister’s ‘burning body’ just opened up too much mystery for me to put her out of my mind and move on. It wasn’t really the idea of me jumping over a burning sprite to get to you that was so disturbing. It was just the fact that I couldn’t remember it. I kept trying to brush it off and say that Worluk was just some raving lunatic spouting nonsense. But what if she wasn’t?

White. Blank. Cold. Lost. I couldn’t stand not remembering that day. Not remembering how you died. Not knowing your whole story. Out of anyone, I should have been the one to know. No one was closer to you than me. I was your friend. Best friend. Or something else entirely.

Yellow. Confused. Nauseous. Anxious. 

I paused. Three colors splotched the canvas in aimless, abstract shapes. Part of me almost laughed, but in a really joyless way. This palette I’d been subconsciously putting together out of distress reminded me of something that used to make me happy. It was just missing one color.

Red. Demanding. Arrogant. Bold.

You.

I’d almost painted you by accident. Not in the right shapes, but the right colors were there. Some of them, anyway. Just the surface colors, the ones I could see on your pixels. Just seeing all of them together was enough to put a pang of what I could only describe as ‘miserable affection’ in my chest. It suddenly felt like it had been so long since I even took the time to think about you. I’d been so occupied with counselling, I guess I just didn’t want to give myself the chance to miss you too much and derail things.

But I was taking a break from counselling. I was alone. I had nothing but time to spend remembering you. And whether I thought it was a good idea or not, it was happening. You poured down on my mind like heavy rain.

So, without really thinking about what I was doing, I kept painting with every color you inspired in me. 

Black for your smoky, metallic scent. Red-Violet for your overheated body. Sienna for your voice. Salmon for your genuine, high-pitched laugh. It did not take long for me to run out of space. I didn’t care. I kept painting. I smeared heaping gobs of color until the paper was slathered with glistening, muddy slime that was likely too thick to dry. 

Eventually, I stopped. I could have just gotten another sheet of paper, but I felt too heavy to stand. I just sat there, staring at my gloves that were speckled with tiny flecks of paint. My heart, I finally noticed, had been pounding. I’d been running for so long from how I felt when I remembered you. The hurt. The betrayal. The moments of resentment. Worst of all were the moments when I simply, truly missed you.

This was one of those moments. 

I wish that I could say that by that point, I’d learned to stop running away. That I didn’t have it in me anymore. I’d like to say that I just went limp and sank into the feeling until it inevitably either drowned me or I learned to breathe through it. But I wasn’t ready to believe I could do that. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust reality to remain sound. But you were raining on me whether I chose it or not. I was neck-deep, floundering.

And then the desperation, as it has so often done, turned me a little strange.

The first thing I did was remove my gloves, and then my smock. It felt like all else in the world went quiet as I wet my fingers with a rainbow of paint. Keep it together, I told myself. Deep breaths. It was just color. All feelings, all memories, are just color. And color is choice. I could choose not to hurt over you if I just redirected. If I took every color that you were not, and wore them like armor to protect myself from all thoughts of you.

So I just… painted myself. 

There were too many shades to rightly recall. Teal, bronze, vermillion, lavender, aqua, magenta, seafoam, you name it. But they didn’t keep you out. They just invited you in. For every color, there was some emotion, or some memory, that reminded me of my time with you. I fought to keep it together, but I couldn’t. I spiraled, and I spiraled hard. I grabbed onto my hair, and it clumped together in the paint between my fingers. I told myself that I’d done enough. I had taken a moment to mourn you, but I wouldn’t let it get to me. Not like it had done in the past. I was beyond that. I’d grown past it. I kept repeating: Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him right now.

Don’t think about his smarmy smile. Don’t think about his pointy ears. Don’t think about the lisp he worked so hard to hide. Don’t think about how he constantly bit his tongue. Don’t think about that time he rode an Excitebike and broke his nose. Don’t think about how his hands were rough from mechanic work. Don’t think about the times we spent sending Don’s sailboat models down the Frogger river in flames. Don’t think about the time he fell in an open grave in Ghosts n’ Goblins. Don’t think about pranking him for the first time. Don’t think about your bar fight at Tapper’s after. Don’t think about the trashy music he always played in his garage. Don’t think about how terrible he was at dancing. Don’t think about how tightly he’d hold you when he thought you were asleep. Don’t think about his stupid hair that always had to be a perfect mess. Don’t think about his actually really cool abstract contour line drawings. Don’t think about the time we microwaved six eggs just to watch them explode. Don’t think about the first time he brought you takeout without being asked. Don’t think about the first time you let him touch you. Don’t think about how it sometimes felt like you were the only two sprites in the arcade. Don’t think about how he made you feel like you belonged somewhere.

Don’t think about how you’ve forever lost your chance to tell him that.

That was it. 

That did me in. 

The good ol’ unreality came crashing back -- it couldn’t be true. You couldn’t be gone. It wasn’t real. By extension, nothing was real. Niceland was just a popsicle stick model that would collapse on top of me at any moment. Everyone I’d spoken to for weeks were just holograms. Even I didn’t feel real. I didn’t understand how I could be so numb and still be in so much pain. It was a nightmare. I needed to get away. I needed intervention, some kind of release, anything to chase the horror away.

I stood, feeling like I was in a trance. I had just the faintest control over my body. Everything I’d learned in counselling flashed in my head, but it did not take. I was driven by almost life-or-death urgency, as if I’d ingested poison and desperately needed the antidote. I shambled into the kitchen, marking cabinets with rainbow fingerprints as I looked for absolutely anything alcoholic. But Fix-it’s not a drinker, unsurprisingly. I wish that alone had been enough to stop me, but I carried my search into the bathroom. And there, on the spotless porcelain sink, sat a bottle of blue mouthwash.

Technically alcoholic.

I grabbed it. It seemed like the paint itself was trying to dissuade me, making the bottle so hard to grip. As I struggled to twist the cap off, I was screaming at myself internally to make the right choice. Make any other choice at all. But I needed it, I thought. I was in so much pain and I needed a drink or I’d…

I paused, shaking, the uncapped bottle almost to my lips. I finally saw myself in the mirror, smeared with a rainbow of garish war paint that covered almost all of my exposed skin and stained bits of my clothes. I looked beautiful, honestly. But the bottle of mouthwash in my hand, about to be my one last pathetic attempt at drowning my sorrows? It spoiled the beauty. It was below me. No matter how badly I was hurting, I knew better.

Pain explains, but it does not justify. 

Yeah. Damn it. Damn it all.

That was enough time for the bottle to slip from my fingers and hit the floor with a sloshing thud, spewing its bright blue contents over the floor, and along with it, my last chance to run from the pain. My back hit the wall as I stumbled, a sticky hand clapped over my face. I sank to the floor. It was there that I cried harder and longer than I have in my entire life.

There was just no escape from how much I missed you.

My best friend.

I stayed there for hours in Fix-it’s bathroom after my crying breakdown, crumpled in the corner. I might have fallen asleep a little bit, because I remember sort of waking up as the arcade closed. I heard the rumbling of Wreck-it pounding the building stop for good, and then the parade of little footsteps overhead as Nicelanders descended the stairs and returned to their homes. Which meant Fix-it would not be far behind.

And he’d see me. In my… state.

That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t deal with that, not after such an atrociously messy breakdown. I knew it wasn’t the right move, and I knew he would have only wanted to help, but I sprang to my feet and locked his front door anyway. When that didn’t satisfy me, I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and propped it under the door handle. 

There was something awful driving me. Some deep panic. It felt avoidant, like I just couldn’t face whatever was coming. But it wasn’t just Fix-it, I noticed as I feverishly paced. I couldn’t carry on with things the way they were. I was done. I was sick of it. I was sick of you being gone and me just having to live with that, with no memory of you passing. I couldn’t stand that I had to carry on just convincing myself our story had ended, while it seemed like everyone else had witnessed it first-hand. It wasn’t right. I had no closure. I just had nightmares of explosions, screaming, and fire.

Fire, fire, fire. 

It was always fire. It seemed like no matter what happened, fire would not leave my head. Even the yellow, orange, and red colors of my brush were all fiery, and I knew that wasn’t a coincidence. I’d been so hung up on this stupid mysterious fire for so long. Then there was my odd fear of the fireworks. And the sea of gasoline in that dream, when you told me, “Come find me in the fire…”

I froze. ‘Find me in the fire.’ 

The front door handle jiggled and the door struggled against the chair. I heard Fix-it’s confused grunt. “Mavy?” he called. “Mavy, are you in there?”

I didn’t answer. He was nearly drowned out by the pounding in my ears. 

Whatever happened on August 7th had fallen out of my mind. Well, sort of. It’s not that the memories were gone completely, they were just virtually inaccessible. Bits and pieces had been haunting me since you left. Fire brought vague, horrifying flashbacks of painful memories I didn’t recognize. But what if I wanted to recognize them? What if I didn’t run away when things got painful? Could I bring back the entire memory if I walked up to my fear and stepped inside it?

‘Find me in the fire,’ you had said. ‘Find me in the fire.’

Listen. You know me. By now, you’d probably be able to guess what I was about to do. But in the heat of the moment, even I wasn’t sure. I was going full autopilot, possessed by some stupid idea that probably wasn’t going to work. I think my destructive instincts were relapsing after being peaceful and constructive for too long. In any case, I searched the apartment like a bloodhound for the means to bring my impulsive plan to fruition, and fast.

It didn’t take long. In Fix-it’s utility closet, I found paint thinner. The irony of which sailed clear over my head at the time. The little flame symbol on the label was all I cared about.

I felt completely outside of my body as I poured the foul-smelling stuff all over everything. The floor, the furniture, the walls, even the bathroom. Fix-it was pounding and yelling at the door by then, demanding to know if I was alright. 

“I’m fine,” I told him as I shook out the last drops. 

I heard him sigh. “Mav-- Why is the door locked? Wait--” he paused, and then he spoke with the urgency of a man who has dealt with me his whole life, “-- what’s that smell? What are you doing in there?!”

I stood in the middle of the living room, right next to my muddy painting. All the fumes were starting to give me a headache by that point, so I opted to hurry it up. I took my brush -- my coded, faulty brush -- in my hand, and with the color red, I painted into my palm a fist-sized cherry bomb. Then, painting an orange spark, I lit it.

“Art project,” I called out to him. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, I took just long enough to mentally hold my own hand and tell myself that no matter what I saw or didn’t see, I was gonna be okay. 

You may not have been fireproof. But I am.

I rolled the bomb in the direction of the bathroom. 

“Mavy?!”

Closing my eyes, steeling myself to the imminent blast, I said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

BANG.

The bomb went off, and I was staggered by a wall of suffocating heat as the apartment roared with flame. I caught myself on the coffee table and, trembling, opened my eyes. They stung immediately, and I blinked hard against the vicious light. The very air seemed stained a dry, sick red. It was just as terrifying as I had hoped, watching arms of hellfire claw across the floor, over the furniture, up the walls, quickly filling the ceiling with a black sea of smog. Squinting through it towards the door, I could see that the blast had knocked a bookshelf onto its side, only barricading the door further. It seemed to shake as Fix-it presumably rammed against it from the other side. If he was still calling out to me, I couldn’t hear him over the ringing in my ears. 

So, what did I do?

I just stood up straight and… stayed there. I didn’t crouch beneath the smoke. I just let the flames crawl up to my feet and creep up my clothes, threatening to melt all my pixels together. The pain was quickly becoming too much to bear, but I focused on that. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel the fire eat all the confusing layers away, until I could finally see the truth.

So many horribly familiar sensations snuck up on me. The sickening smell of the burn. The hot ash reaching down my throat and choking me. The painful dryness in my eyes. Reality felt unsteady. I quickly became very dizzy from the suffocating fumes, and I could no longer hold up my own weight. I remember stumbling backwards, and my darkening vision fell on the kitchen just in time to see the oven split apart, erupting in an explosion exponentially bigger than the first.

I was forced back, I lost my footing, and fell into memories so vivid, I may as well have been living them again.

I’m just… going to need a minute before I tell you about it. But you can wait. 

Wherever you are, I’m sure you remember the day you died.

#fanfiction #fanfic #wreck it ralph #fix it felix #turbo #make it mavis #original character #homesick

[lgalacticjayl]

Homestuck review pt.2 Beta kids

Spolier warning! And i am not finished the series yet so these are inital thoughts stream of consciousness style and just my opinion .

Lets talk about the beta kids!

First off they are portrayed pretty well in the fandom in my opinion. As being kids that kinda just got dragged into this but each taking it very differently. I Love the similarites between them with very wild realtionships with their caregivers is portrayed right off the bat but they are kids so their veiws of their caregivers are probably very different to how they actually act. As John later realizes his dad does have clowns to mock him but to try and make him feel seen.

Speaking of lets talk about John. As he is a kinda stereotypical main charcter kinda feel sometimes he definitely grows and you can see his personality in the things he is passionate about. His movies of course and his love for his friends. He really does subconscious pull the team together almost but really all of them somehow just work really well as a team anyways. John just seems like a very optimistic person and is very willing to accept most things even if he doesn't fully understand, seen in his alternate timeline where he died fighting the denizen and vriska shows him around. He is very ready to treat everyone as a friend no matter what they do. Vriska literally got him killed and he was still understanding that thats what had to happen. He just seems pretty calm in new situations but has his moments of just being a kid and goofy off, creating his pogo hammer, but can get pretty serious when it needs to be, when he wakes up on his sinking bed in the oil ocean was probably the closest he's come to like freaking out completely. He gets done what needs to get done and I respect him alot for that. His is very trusting which I personally don't love the trust he puts in Vriska as her motives are pretty self serving in the beginning. Him and Dave are fun to see interact cuz they've been friends forever and just goof around and make fun of each other but there is still a lot of respect. I do love his sibling relationship with Jade a lot. I just love good sibling representation thats not just fighting iver stupid stuff all the time cuz it reminds me of me and my sister's relationship. Conclusion John is a good boy doing his best.

Speking of Jade lets move on to her. Lovely gal at first I related to her cuz she just kept taking naps as i also can fall alseep literally anywhere. I fell alseep during a final last year for like a ten minute nap then just kept doing the test. I did actually cosplay jade as my first homestuck cosplay but only cuz I already had everything I needed. Anyway jade is a very sweet girl and I see her as very unafraid and willing to do anything almost like john, which is kinda why their dynamic works so well. The best jade moment so far is when she took off all her reminders cuz she felt she was no longer the one who knows all in the group and starts to actually share her feelings. Her yelling at Karkat is so good and like yess Jade! I love the stuffed octopi and would love to try and make them as well. Also her kinda being a furry is very fun. She comes off as very whimsical as she basically knows everything that will and did happen because she's the first to awaken in her dream but later as she doesn't know everything she seems like she's just trying her best to fully grasp this because she realizes that her dreams aren't just silly things but are very important. She also basically raised herself and fends for herself which i very strong and smart for a 13 year old and she kinda has to learn on her own. I also just love the frog aspect of the game and as a space player myself would love to breed frogs.

Now Rose another very powerful character like Jade but still very different. She seems to just soak in knowledge like a human sponge as many people do with things they are interested it. From the beginning Rose has wanted to know everything about this game and diverts in her original plan just to study more. She goes to being the most knowledgeable almost the opposite of Jade and kinda controls some major things from behind the scenes. Like John accidentally picking hammerkind her combining probably her 2 favorite items to make the grimdark needles has significant effect on the story. Her demeanor doesn't seem to change as she is still elegant and not too emotional in her speech but you can tell she got her self into some deep dark stuff like most teens getting into their emo phase but this has a huge impact on ending the game and potentially saving everyone. She feels she is the only one capable to complete the mission and tricks Dave so she can sacrifice herself something a young teen should not have to consider. She also tries to fight Jack at some point even tho she knows he will win. She is very thoughtful and planned out in every situation and I love that.

Now on to some of y'alls favorite Dave. I know a lot of gay/transmac people really conect with dave and as transmac myself i can see why but its hard to explain. Even tho he isn't said to be gay or trans his experience can be tied to a lot of things. He is very stoic all the time and I think he's been conditioned into not showing emotions cuz of Bro and he looks up to Bro as his only family figure. Like he does tey to seem cool with rapping and swords and while he succeeds and i think he does truly enjoy them he also sees them as his only way to be cool. Like for art for me I do enjoy it but I understand that there is also a level of attention i do want from it. Sorry this got a bit personal im realizing im relating to these characters too much. Anyway Dave does seek out reason for his actions and doesn't just intuitively follow them. He is actually smart even tho he has like a dumb boy persona going on but like he has to keep up with all these timelines. He also has a truly terrible moral dilemma when terezi makes him kill him and thats not something ordinary teens should have to go through. That and his grieving period when he finds bro dead are the rare times that he shows his emotions, through actions rather than words. And they are powerful moments. Hes not some emotionless cool guy hes a human child.He also has to literally mentor himself at somepoint and spends the most time in the game through time travel.

This event is traumatic for all of them in very different and similar ways and they all grow and learn so much its way more than I did at 13, It's powerful.

I will probably do the trolls next and some more characters then I would love to get into my thoughts on some specific events

#homestuck #let me tell you about homestuck #beta kids #john egderp #john egbert #jade harley #rose lalonde #dave strider #stream of conscious writing #stream of conscience #stream of thought #homestuck discussion #homestuck review

[flappingbrickwings]

Code zero

Hi friends! Holy shit, right? 

Based on the current state of my neck (i.e., seized up on one side like an engine without oil), I’m pretty sure my subconscious mind is spending all the time worrying about the both the short term (i.e., people we love might die) and long-term (i.e., every we know might be completely fucked) implications of this still-pretty-fucking-new new world order, and I imagine yours is too. But I’m finding great comfort in the stories from all over the world of people pulling together to help each other, as well as those of the “penguins touring the aquarium” variety. So rather than cracking another “I may never wear a bra again” joke or telling a “wow, turns out I’m really bad at second grade math” tale, here’s a completely unrelated story that involves me humiliating myself again (bonus points on this one for also traumatizing my closest friends) in the hopes that it might take your mind off things for a minute or two. Please enjoy.

Take yourself back to a simpler time: February 2020, when my primary concerns included how to get two kids to overlapping soccer games, whether to go to Din Tai Fung or Damon’s for dinner, and if I should invest in a new pair of checkered Vans or throw caution to the wind and buy the python print ones. My three best ladies and I had planned a much-needed spa day. Much-needed because, despite all our high hopes, 2020 had already not gotten off to a fantastic start (I know, I know), and because life is hard, and because we’re all busy (correction: we were all busy) and only get together sans hanger-oners (spouses, children, dogs) once or twice a year at most. So we blocked out a whole day, a Sunday to be precise, all to ourselves. 

For weeks, months possibly (maybe even years), our iMessage thread was peppered with excited variations of “Calgon, take me away!” followed by counting down the sleeps, until at last our day arrived.

We piled into my friend Allison’s car (actually her husband’s truck because her sister was in all seriousness almost fucking killed in a car accident two days before and her miraculous survival and minimal injury was attributed to her sturdy Toyota pickup – see previous comment re: 2020) at 9am, rolling in deep athleisurewear (Rebecca was particularly impressive in head to toe Adidas, prompting her 13 year-old son to ask her not to get out of the car when she dropped him off at baseball practice that morning - rude) and cackled our way out to the spa. Upon arrival we checked in and donned our squishy bathrobes. Robyn and I also downed a mimosa. We discussed, with some disdain, how we would definitely not be using the plastic phone case necklaces provided to all patrons, presumably to enable easy selfie-taking (i.e., free marketing for the spa). We would not, we assured each other, be taking any bathing suit selfies, thank you very much. Then we hit the pools, feverish with excitement at all the hours of unbridled relaxation that lay ahead of us. 

We squeezed into the mineral tubs first, where we rubbed elbows with fellow bathers for the prescribed 20 minutes. Then we walked casually (as casually as one can walk in one’s bathing suit) to the next pool, which was shaded and infused with epsom salts, apparently. It was also quite crowded. It was also, unbeknownst to me, the hottest pool on the grounds. We found a spot near the stairs and soaked in the heat and saline for a while, still babbling excitedly, planning our route for the day. Around the time we started discussing lunch (the text-thread plan that morning was to “fuck up some nachos” when we got there), I also started looking around for something cooler than shade, feeling like I was maybe getting a wee bit hot. We agreed to move on. 

As soon as I stood up and started heading for the stairs, I felt it. That cold tingling sensation in my spine followed by a blurring on the edges of my vision. I remember looking over at the lounge chairs where we’d left our stuff, which were probably about 15 feet away but felt to me at that moment a thousand miles out of my reach, and thinking to myself, “Just get to the chair and put your head between your legs.” My brain screamed, Be cool, bitch! I even managed to say to my friends, “I feel a little bit like I might pass out.” 

And then I passed the fuck out. On the concrete. In my bikini. In front of about 5,000 people.

The worst thing about fainting is that you wake up with no idea what’s going on, wondering how you managed to have an impromptu nap in whatever random location you happen to find yourself in. You may remember my tattoo shop incident a few years ago, which was equally humiliating. That time I woke up lying on a tattoo table vaguely confused about what was happening. 

This time, I woke up to complete pandemonium. 

I was in the vicinity of the lounge chair I’d been aiming for, but not on it. Rebecca and Robyn were propping me up by my neck and elbow (I think – there may have been a leg involved) while some guy named Brian, who I suspected was a cop but who turned out to be a particularly dedicated spa employee, threw cold water in my face. My friend Allison was running around in her bathrobe screaming, “A phone! A phone! I need a phone!” at anyone who would listen, while another spa employee with a radio kept saying, “Code zero!” and several unfamiliar women in bathing suits were shouting my name and some other things I couldn’t understand in my general direction. (These kindly bathers turned out to be nurses who had jumped out of the pool when I dropped, as my husband would say, like a bag of shit. Bless them.) 

My first thought was, “Wow, how did I fall asleep in all this excitement?” followed closely by, “Wow, what is all this excitement about?” And hot on the heels of that thought came the realization that - oh, hey, it’s me. Clearly, I hadn’t made it to the lounge chair in time. I almost fainted again when I heard someone nearby announce excitedly, “The paramedics are on their way!” Fortunately, Robyn’s alter ego, Reggie, took over at that point, holding her hands up and saying, in the manner of one totally in control of the situation and not, as she actually was, freaking the fuck out, “Hold on, hold on – she has a history of fainting. She does this. Let’s just give her a minute.” 

Moments later another spa employee rolled up with a wheelchair and I really thought I would die. As Brian, Rebecca, and Robyn, my “triangle of support,” discussed how to best transfer me to said wheelchair (sidenote: Rebecca later informed me that it turns out I weigh 250 lbs when unconscious), Robyn casually leaned down and said, in a voice so low not a soul but me could hear, “Wait, before you stand up – did you shit yourself?” 

Friends, friends. My wish for you is this: I hope you have someone (or three) in your life who, should you ever pass out in a crowded public place wearing only a bikini, will have the foresight to tell your to check yourself in case you wrecked yourself before you stand up in front of a gawking crowd. If you accomplish nothing else in life, let me tell you – this is something. 

I looked up at her, a little bewildered, and said, “I have no idea.” 

Spoiler alert: I didn’t shit myself. (Who says I have bad luck?) I was successfully transferred to the wheelchair. Someone (probably Brian) gave me two cups of cold water and told me to put my hands in them, which was surprisingly effective at waking me up. We were whisked off to the “medical room,” which turned out to be a closet housing an industrial ice machine, with an examination table and one folding chair. After reluctantly answering some questions (I was still convinced Brian was a cop – don’t ask me why, maybe lack of oxygen to the brain?), a giant plate of nachos appeared as if by magic and we were escorted via several wrong turns, which meant doubling back to pass curious spa-goers for the third or fourth time, to a small private dining area that was shady and quiet. Brian pushed the wheelchair, Robyn, Rebecca, and Allison followed, and the guy carrying the nachos brought up the rear.

Did I mention, this all took place within half on hour of our arrival? So yeah, kind of put a damper on the hours of unbridled relaxation. 2020 is really not fucking around. (Also, did I mention this is not the first time I fainted at a spa? Last time it was at Burke Williams in Hollywood and I was wearing a bathrobe with nothing underneath when I keeled over in the co-ed waiting room. No triangle of support.)

So, however worried you are about the current state of affairs, just remember – one day we’ll all be back out there in the world, standing within six feet other humans and being grateful we didn’t shit our pants in public. And if we’re lucky, being escorted by a plate of nachos.  

You’re welcome. 

My triangle of support - that day, and every day.

#flappingbrickwings #funny #inthistogether quarantinestories writing

[shewolfofficial]

Spell Casted!Levi x Reader ~ Potions and Scientists

Just a heads up that Levi will be a lil OOC in this little story~!

It's 2:38 in the morning so please excuse any errors

Warning: Cursing

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

The thumping and muffled shouts from upstairs never seemed to end, you never really did decide to question what Hanji was doing in her lab- especially now it sounded like a world war was going on in there. You sat on your bed trying to read, yet the thumping that kept coming from your ceiling never seemed to stop. It sounded like she was throwing chairs about or bouncing a lot of balls against the floor on purpose.

Eyebrows knitting together in annoyance you inwardly growled and snapped your book shut before setting it aside, hopping off the covers of your bed you stomped to the door not even bothering to get your Scout jacket since you were only going upstairs to find out what the commotion was about. Shutting the door behind you, you trudged towards the staircase leading to all three floors of the Scouts HQ. The clicking of your heels from the boots against the stone stairs echoed somewhat up and down it like a spiral. As you arrived on the third floor you could see Hanji's laboratory door opened a tad bit, light seeping through into the corridor from her window elsewhere in the room.

That's when you realized that it seemed like she was trying to reason with someone, she seemed like she was pleading for someone not to leave the room. Another crash sounded in your ears as you marched towards her lab, arriving at the already opened door you peered into the room. Hanji stood with her arms out towards Levi who was scowling at her, a book raised in his hand as if he were to throw it at her. "You idiot! I still didn't even agree to become your lab rat yet you spike my tea with some shit!?" He shouted to her as she waved her arms about, glasses shimmering in the reflection of the sunlight "I knew you wouldn't have agreed anyways shorty but I needed someone and you were the perfect asset! Turns out it didn't work but just for the safety of everyone! Just don't leave this room I'm still not sure of the side effects or behavioural effects" she screeched in a panicked tone.

"Uhm.. Is everything alright here? I heard the commotion from downstairs?" You asked stepping into the room.

Both heads snapped in your direction, Hanji gulped and smiled in an uncertain way before scratching the back of her neck and nodding silently. Levi's face exploded in a crimson before he gulped, the thud of the hard book hitting the floorboards suddenly became the only sound in the lab. "I was just talking with Lev-" "Why everything is fine princess, what's your name?" Levi suddenly piped, as your eyes widened a fraction. You were pretty sure Levi knew you from how much time you spent together and talked- Hanji's jaw dropped at his sudden behaviour change before she dove for her notepad.

"Captain? Don't you remember m-me? It's me.. F/N" you told the man who tilted a thin brow, fixing up his jacket somewhat before he waltzed towards you, swaying hips with a suggestive smirk. Levi looked you up and down before blinking and walking around you as if he were examining you, looking to Hanji with a worried expression she caught your gaze and bit her lip mouthing a 'don't worry'. Levi had appeared in front of you again, that impish smirk before he softly took your hand and pressed a kiss to your knuckles "F/N... I believe we haven't met before but you have such a beautiful name along with the looks of a goddess- gorgeous." He lulled before peppering your knuckles again with kisses.

Your face exploded in a blush, blinking from surprise you felt your breath hitch in your throat. Hanji seemed to notice you suddenly freeze and butt in "shorty has a crush! Anyways! F/N I have papers here to deliver to the Commander! Seeing as you need to get going you don't mind doing me a favour?" She said whipping out blank sheets that were supposed to be 'paperwork' for Erwin. Mentally praising the scientist you nodded, taking the papers while muttering a quiet thanks before darting to the door in a speedy walk. Yet you were stopped by the same short-tempered corporal who leaned against the doorway. Standing up properly Levi eyed you again "Four eyes you shouldn't work her too hard, poor thing, let me help you and maybe we can get to kno-"

Oh he's definitely not okay.

"No thank you sir! I'll survive! Have a good evening!" You hastily chirp before slipping under his arm as he tried to block your escape, hurrying down the corridor towards the staircase, the dreading sound of boots following behind you made your heart thump in your chest as Levi rounded you, a saddened expression on his face. "F/N I am so sorry for saying that, it was wrong of me, I shouldn't dare ever say that to you but I can't help but want to help a beautiful woman- I just wanted to help" he tried to explain as you sent him a side glance from the corner of your eye.

He was getting attached quickly to you, you didn't know whether it was a good or bad thing at this point considering the attraction you felt towards him.

"Captain it's fine, don't worry about it just go back to Hanji and she'll help you out with whatever happened" you try and pry him to leave you be as you both go down the staircase. "Love I'm not leaving you by yourself- We may be in HQ but I don't trust some idiots to not stay out of your personal space and irritate you" Levi says looking ahead of you both before returning his hues to you. "I can handle myself sir-" "Please, I promise I won't do anything- if anything, the least I can do is ask you out for dinner? I'm not letting this opportunity pass me" Levi continues as you take in a deep breath, arriving outside your room.

"Listen, Captain, no offence but whatever Hanji put in your tea is making you act weird- you're not yourself and I'm not going to let you make a fool of yourself" you try and turn him down by saying the truth, Levi's expression falls to a disappointed one. "But I'm still the same man.. I'm Humanities Strongest! How could you not like the possibility of your husband being named that?" Levi babbled as you try your best to maintain your patience with him instead of telling him to piss off. "I want to court you.. Treat you like no other man did.. Love you like you never were before.." "Sir less then ten minutes ago you were asking who I was now if you'll please excuse me, I'm going to go and read. Once again. Have. A. Good. Evening." You shot him a disapproved look before going into your bedroom and shutting the door, locking it in case he tried to get in and continue to preach about his newly found adoration for you.

// Time Skip - Dinner \\

Hanji's P.O.V

I watched F/N eat with her friends, I decided to keep an eye on both her and Levi after shat happened- right now he was currently sitting next to me sipping his tea looking at her again. Erwin and the others had noticed shorty's change in behaviour but so far nobody had said anything.

"Levi, why are you staring at the cadets?" Erwin finally started, I gulped and averted all eye contact with either of the males as Levi lifted the cup away from his lips. Sending a glimpse to the blonde commander Levi sighed and sat back in his seat. "I'm not staring at the cadets- I'm simply watching them... Watching her.. Just so she's alright.." He drifted off as Erwin raised a brow, Miche leaned towards shorty and sniffed him briefly before taking a bite of his bread.

"Hanji used a potion on him."

That rat-!

"Hanji what did you do this time?" Erwin droned as I sheepishly giggled to him. "Well I kinda spiked Levi's tea with some new mixture I randomly came up with in hopes it will make him taller because I was wondering how tall Levi would look then he lost his shot after he found out and F/N appeared seeing a what was happening now leading to Levi fawning over her for no now" I quickly explain feeling Levi flick the side of my head making me wince. "But she's gorgeous.. Someday my wife" he commented narrowing his eyes towards the males at the table where F/N sat.

"How long will this last?" Erwin asked in a bored tone, I hummed and tapped my chin remembering doing the cure for it. "It should wear off in an hour or so-" "Meaning I won't be madly in love with such a perfect woman anymore? As much as I hate you right now four eyes, I never thought I'd fall for F/N" Levi cut in as I rolled my eyes. "You're only saying it because of the potion shorty, don't worry you'll be back to normal in no time!" I grin and pat his back as Erwin looks over to F/N for a second. "Yeah and when you're both done I'd expect the two of you to apologise to the girl for most likely traumatizing her" Erwin adds in as I look down to my lap and nod, not hearing anything from Levi I look to where he is only to see an empty seat. Even his tea was gone too.

3rd Person P.O.V

You were sitting and chatting with your friends, laughing at some jokes tossed about too until the table suddenly went dead silent, the sound of a chair being pulled from right next to you caused you to look to whoever was joining you- only to see Levi sit down with his tea and rest his arm at the back of your chair.

"S-Sir?" Eren stuttered as Levi glared at him before looking to each individual, sending a wink your way lastly. "What? Just because I arrive you all quieten down? Tch" he sips his tea as chatter subtly begins up again at your table, yet you feel so nervous. Why was he here? When would that damn potion wear off?

"Hey, you alright honey?" Levi asked earning a few odd looks from your friends as you frowned subconsciously. "Captain, don't call me that unless you want the commander after you for pulling off this shit" you grumbled making Levi fall silent, thankfully he stayed silent for the entirety of dinner after all.

// Time Skip - 2 Hours After Potion Weared Off \\

"Now, what do you both have to say to F/N?" Erwin said from behind his desk, Hanji muttered a sorry for causing the event in the first place and Levi apologized for acting that way towards you and trying to stick to you like a leech. "F/N, if these two give you any trouble come to me, you're all dismissed" the blonde concluded, as if he were scolding his children who broke the rules. You never wanted to leave more than ever, making your way out to the corridor you hoped to avoid the pair as much as possible seeing how awkward it was in Erwin's office. You were upset for the fact that your and Levi's 'connection' might possibly be ruined but after all you did still fancy him after what happened but you couldn't exactly blame him because it wasn't his fault.

"F/N, do you have a minute?"

I really don't have the energy for this right now..

Shoulder slumping a little you turned to face Levi who walked to you with a disappointed expression. "I'm sorry for that, you didn't deserve that unwanted attention- You'd probably consider me something like those MP pigs from how disgusting I acted, I understand if you don't want to talk at the minute I just needed to apologise personally." He murmured seeing you nod a little, sighing you cast your orbs elsewhere from him. "Apology accepted sir, I know you weren't in the right state of mind from the potion so I don't blame you for anything" you explained in a tired voice as Levi watched you closely "I hope this doesn't ruin what we already got, I'd prefer you to most shitheads here." Levi added as you hum and smile. "You're not too bad yourself, I'm going to sleep anyways~" you sing shortly yawning after. Levi nods somewhat seeing a smirk tug on the edge of your lips as you give him a quick peck on the cheek before leaving.

"Goodnight corporal!"

#attack on titan #levi ackerman #aot #snk #levi #captain levi #levi x reader #x reader #levi ackerman x reader #anime #manga #shingkei no kyojin #captain levi x reader #shingeki no kyojin #fanfic #fanfiction #levi heichou #erwin smith #eren jaeger #eren yeager #hanji zoe #aot x reader #aot crack #fanfictions #hanji zoë #levi aot #snk crack #levi snk #snk x reader #levi headcanons

[geejaysmith]

Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here. 

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively:  "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"  

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter."  So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her.  ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."  

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me. 

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

#wolf 359 #wolf 359 spoilers #long post #i underestimated how detailed these posts would get as the plot ramped up lmao

[crackcrocs]

DEATH WILL ONLY BE THE BEGINNING #4

4. Maggot Brain

I’m so grateful to have people around me that are willing to carry my pain as their own, I’m so out of love with myself but beginning to fill my soul with what I’ve been lacking.

it’s difficult, having undergone such a traumatic situation, spending years to convince myself this nightmare was nothing but a pigment of my imagination, but finally saying it out loud is a process I’m willing to go through. I might go as far as to say this could be about the bravest thing i could’ve done in this life. i wasn't the problem. it wasn't my fault. in no way am i responsible for my own rape.

abuse is never acceptable and i do not deserve it despite thinking I did for a majority of the short time I’ve walked the face of this earth; but neither does anyone and I mean anyone. Everyone responds differently to trauma, even worse when you’ve been gaslighted for so many years of your life that you doubt your own sanity, you blame yourself & you feel crazy- when really you’re just traumatised. I’ve been abused in every sense on multiple other occasions & now I’m scared, I’ve lived my life in fear; that’s why I speak up.

I still feel weak; it still eats away at my brain like a maggot-but I feel good about saying it, not guilty, not like my fault, just right. I would have weird triggers for years and have those triggers feel invalid or dumb. I would put all the abuse I’ve gone through into one category rather than separate the occasions because it made me feel disgusting amplified 4 times rather than just 1. My views became distorted, I became paranoid & began to watch a cycle of abusive manipulators enter my life & never stopped to question why, because I didn’t want to believe why or where this could’ve stemmed from. Until now, I didn’t want to connect the dots but I knew if I never did it might be too late, I’d lose the desire to address it & live, and the guilty would never be proved guilty. I feel really rude that i cant go back in time and save my younger self, how I let such a poison control me- but I still breathe, I still strut my feet, I keep moving. I’m still alive.

men can be bloody awful, but for once I want something that’s says, yes women can be bad too; more than just that-women can abuse men domestically too. in order to understand our present existence it all goes back to past environmental morals, principles & values. Unfortunately I can’t question or study my violators and I can’t sit and police anyone or talk about anyone else’s experiences or contributing factors as to why they are the way they are. I can only talk & direct this or let this be inspired by my experiences, I’ve been raped twice by two separate men on two separate occasions-excluding a covert narcissist I dated & my childhood abuser.

I have an element of personal pride yet sometimes I wonder if it’s an inherent part of my character that I taught myself to enjoy/ find happiness in solitude- or if it stems from feeling inescapably lonely in the first place.

-as a kid or teenager I would create alternative realities that I could go escape too because it was my coping mechanism..it sounds dumb to anyone who is has no deep escapism issues and isn’t affected by the ways of the world. i always wanted to make my own show or felt like it was up to me to write my own script because i didn’t understand what character i was assigned to be in the one on how to be a good girl and function normally in a shitty pedophilic infested rapey shan ass fuckin excuse of a society. lol i could only try maintain the front like the good girl i was. I knew from pretty young the script we were ‘supposed’ to follow was not all that, and eventually i began lusting to be as powerful as the people who overpowered me, but not in such a brutal way, still i was going to make them do what i wanted. in life i would have to slay some demonic reptiles that may come in my way (me thinking i’m a warrior) otherwise i would get eaten alive. yeah so i knew the script had a deeper meaning. real shady, conforming and sus. mines would be freeing, true and carefree.

so there’s obviously an awareness these realities aren’t real now but when you begin to look at life as a game, subconsciously even in adult hood, you take certain risks before putting the logical precautionary measures in place!! I always wish i could stay in line but i vowed to write my own script as soon as i got a pen licence in primary! sometimes i feel like its one of my personalities controlling that ‘i must control my destiny’ crap, however i literally do feel my brain split, i still ave my purpose and will achieve things, there’s just a time scale in my head which makes everything sticky. in most situations where i should be able to act with logic or just make a simple bloody decision, it’s kinda like the classic devil on ones shoulder with an angel on the other (in my head it’s more like fosters home for imaginary friends gang) we don’t always want to make the best decisions or know what is right.

anyhooOO sometimes good things come out of risky situations, sometimes you think you’ll get killed but it becomes all part of the game and you just hope you aren’t getting played and they haven’t been sent to ruin or test you. sometimes you get sent messiahs and griots, storytellers and healers. people are assigned symbols, memorable energies too will never be forgotten, be it aura colors or lucky numbers. anyways I live in my imaginatio still but apply some of that to my ‘reality’ whatever the fuck that is. I am baaaaad for ghosting but i want cuddles all the time when i’m not thinking about hitting my  head against a wall. i want to read a poetry book or some shit with someone in the grass and eat jackfruit! & not run away from my issues when things feel too intense. Although it’s never a boring time when I’m away off sites other than tumblr i do miss when i was once a good communicator, now I really do specifically enjoy the isolated factor. but then I wonder how to differentiate an ingrained love of solitude from an acquired ability to thrive off  loneliness. 

I have seriously learned from it but i don’t need to be nourished by it forever- i want intimacy and honest expression really.. ; i just don’t know to what extent being alone is simply just a form of escapism to recharge or because i have always been convinced by something inside me that i wasn’t the same as others. either way i built contentment residing on my lonesome.

i'm nowhere near recovery. but i'm opening up about it. i'm no longer terrified to talk about it with the close ones that know. i'm trying not to feel ashamed due to the effects my trauma still has today. when in doubt, i have people to go to. i plan to join one to one therapy to help me accept & overcome it after and if things ever go back to some kind of normal that my brain can adapt to. I plan to free myself from this bondage.

#LCZABIBU #deathwillonlybethebeginning

[pulpgurukeke-blog]

Meathead American Maverick meets Mystical Ancient Magic

Since the 70′s there has seldom been a man more responsible for doling out a plethora of pulp cultural perfection than the true craftsmen himself;

John Carpenter. 

From haunting Halloween Themes and shuffling Shatner faced Shapes to Escapes from major cities and Things from outer space, few could argue the impact this man has had in Hollywood. However in my humble opinion he did not peak the summit of personal perfection until he got into Big Trouble in 1986. I may be a bit biased as I am truly a Die Hard Kurt Russell fan (Do yourself a favor and go watch Overboard and Breakdown tonight!), but maybe if admit to never being a fan of Escape from NY/LA you’ll be more inclined to trust my opinion for this Kurt/Carpenter Collabo. Snake Plissken is still one of the gnarliest movie names ever though.  

There are a handful of movies that have stuck in my heart solely based on one connecting thread; my dad made a big deal about watching it with my brothers and I for the first time. Terminator, T2, Predator, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, Alien(s), The Goonies (because kids cursed and back then it was atypical...), Stand By Me, Lost Boys, My Cousin Vinny, Psycho, Goodfellas, The Godfather, Caddyshack, Animal House, and Halloween are all embedded in my subconscious movie fanatic mind as seminal pieces of pop culture due solely to the venerated recommendation of my blue collar father. Dude’s got great taste I know!

Yet among those heavy hitters rested one movie that despite the definite and formative impact the others impressed upon my Young mind, the first time I was pulled into the living room to watch Big Trouble in Little China with him, the effect of this movie’s magic was one of the most memorable. (Perhaps second only to the first time he made us watch Aliens while decorating for Christmas, Oh Hey! what’s up Traumatic memory! we’ll table that for another day.)

It’s difficult in the age of mind melding millennial meme jockey’s to let the sardonic sarcasm take a back seat to benign enjoyment, but Big Trouble in Little China is well worth relinquishing your rectangle for its meager Ninety Nine minute run time. In fact a valuable lesson can be pulled from the Black Blood of the Earth (reference you’ll only understand if you watch it), and that is; If you don’t take yourself too seriously, even when things don’t quite make sense, you just might find yourself having more fun than expected. I Promise that is as faux-losophically deep as I’ll ever get.

That being said, this is a movie that effectively thrives with the knowledge that it’s tongue is firmly placed in its cheek. Russell’s not so subtle shades of Graceland blended with The Duke let you know instantly amidst his trucker lingo laden monologues that we’ve got our Hero. Carpenter uses the cliched conventions of what would otherwise be regarded as poor storytelling to his advantage in crafting his martial arts magnum opus. Kim Cattrall’s Gracie Law, The Lawyer and unapologetic plot device, kindly delivers succinct self answering questions used simply to supply us with all necessary exposition to get us to the next hare-brained scheme or high stakes action. The entire supporting cast all plays the stereotype much to their strengths as Carpenter is clearly focused on the audience’s amusement over any academy’s awards. James Hong and Victor Wong round out the cast as David Lo Pan and Egg Shen; the opposing sides of the mystical side of the movie’s magic. James Hong’s villainous Lo Pan deserves his place in the ranks of All-Time Creeps if not for his costume and make-up ( those nails...), then certainly his giddy cackle alone merits his inclusion. 

Carpenter’s eye for striking imagery is never allowed out to play more than with the set designs throughout the entire movie, especially when we make it to Lo Pan’s Palace. The visuals throughout the entire film are not held back by the era in which it was released, rather they are enhanced by it. I’ll take a neon skull palace any day thank you very much.

Perhaps nostalgia and personal attachment are the primary reasons for my perpetual enjoyment of this movie, but I’d have to kindly disagree as I find this movie to be one of the best of all time. “Cult Classic” is usually an indicator that the mainstream minds that be didn’t quite get what was tried by the movie but I promise if you give this one a go with an open mind and a desire to just have some good clean fun, you won’t even need Egg Shen’s bubbling brew to make you feel pretty good.

P.S It gets extra points for sneakin’ an all too perfect “F-Bomb” into a PG-13 in ‘86 

#big trouble in little china #kurt russell #john carpenter #movies #cult classic #pork chop express #jack burton #lo pan #1986 #kim cattrall #review

[fimawari]

I've been thinking about this for awhile - this is a rather different kind of personal story I wanted to share to highlight some of the underlying problems that any form of abuse can have on a person. Warning ahead of time this talks about some pretty upsetting stuff, abuse and the harmful effects of such - as well as cognitive bias.

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Many years ago - more than a decade probably, before I even had access to social media, I was introduced to the concept of Transpeople and Trans-rights back in late elementary school. We didn't call it "Trans" (because we were small children) but it certainly existed, as it has for however long humans have been self-aware and probably before that.

Also with humans, there is the plight of something called a cognitive bias - let me provide an example.

While I was never "transphobic" in the conscious sense - I had a strange gut reaction, a slight amount of panic, even around trans people who were my friends. Of course I quickly dismiss this and act as I normally do - but back then it was always an instinctual reaction. But I always felt goddamn awful as shit that I was even feeling that way in the slightest - why couldn't I just get used to it and stop being weird? I thought maybe, deep down, I truly was a phobic piece of shit - and I bet many people would agree, to this day. Because there are cruel people everywhere in this world. This is something I talked with a therapist about several times - a constant worry that I was a horrible person because I couldn't stop the weird feelings that happened every single damn time.

Well, number one - I was horribly socially awkward, so no matter who I ran into my constant thinking was "Oh my god don't offend them."

But the second lesson was something new I learned that day. The reason I had this cognitive bias, this weird panic, was because of a negative incident I experienced with a person who happened to be trans. 

Without going into any harsh detail - it was rape, not an assault, not a miscommunication - straight up rape. And then when I tried to get help for it from my counselors- they took my rapists side. Because they believed I was bullying him for being "weird". Without regard for the cameras, the roofies, the DNA evidence collected in the rape kit when my father had to drive me out of state because the one I was in didn't even have rape kits at this time. So like I said - I was never voluntarily transphobic, but I still had that subconscious instinct to start producing adrenaline and cortisol whenever the word was even mentioned. Because your conscious may forget, but the subconscious never does.

Childhood years are the most important for the development of the subconscious. From a young age I was surrounded by harmful people who reinforced a stereotype that everyone and anyone is automatically evil just for being born how they are. For instance - in 3rd grade we began learning about the Nazis and the Holocaust - it was also at this time we did a world heritage project. Well, I'm 50% German. 

And when you have a teacher who stereotypes  and a bunch of young impressionable third graders - who just learned that say that "Germans were Nazis" and "Nazis were Evil People" things don't go over well. I won't go into long ass detail, but it resulted in a school move.

I don't blame those other children though, I blame the adult woman who knew what was going on and just let things happen because she believed it was "Justice" and "Retaliation" for what the Nazis did long before my grandparents were even conceived.

And I've run into many who think like that. It's been nearly a hundred years and I still get the occasional "nuke the Japs" joke towards my half-korean, half-american husband - and it makes my blood boil.

But when people insult me … I am complacent. Because deep down, I'd think that rightfully, I did deserve this unwarranted anger. That it was my fault for existing - and that I shouldn't even try and speak up about i.t because that lead to more arguments.

This right here is abuse. This is what abuse does to a person over the long-term. You may be able to stand up for your friends but when it comes to yourself - you let it happen because you've been told over and over and over and over that you deserve it.

Whether or not you read my ramblings, this is basically the moral of the story -It is ok to have intrusive thoughts, negative evil thoughts that you hate - as long as you are aware of them. Many people are not. Many of the extreme racists and homophobes and xenophobes end up that way because of a singular, or a few isolated incidents, of bad experiences - with which they associated characteristics subconsciously. And they fail to see that. Because we meet about 20,000 people on average in our lifespan - a bare fraction of the world's people, and we try to print those personalities on the nearly 8 billion people across the world. It's too overwhelming to think that every single damn person is different, so we stereotype to make it more comprehensible. It's a fact repeated so often but it is true, never judge a book by it's cover. That goes for all, and yes, I mean all people.

To wrap up, you will have subconscious biases. Traumatic events. Everyone does - and if they say they don't they're lying or they are an Android. This doesn't make you a bad person. Acting on them, or refusing to acknowledge them however, does. 

#personal story #fima #abuse warning #rape mentioning #cognitive biases

[maggieminordesignssculpture-blog]

How to Feel Safe in your Home as a Woman

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’ testimony on Thursday had me crying from the moment she walked through the door of the Senate hearing room. I understood her fear, her anxiety, and her apprehension to come forward. I know because I too have spent my life in fear from past events I had no control over. I have a strong memory of a grown man sticking his tongue down my throat when I was 3 or 4 years old. I’ve was shoved against the wall at a drunken celebration when I was 22 and kissed against my will. I lived in fear in college about drinking too much in public because I knew so many women who had been raped. I have a strong memory of someone chocking me with a scarf when I was about 12 …but the memories surrounding the event are blurry.

As a child and even to this day I can’t have anything too tight around my neck without experiencing severe panic. I can remember screaming at the top of my lungs as a child whenever my mother tried to put a turtle neck on me. I thought that I was just a little strange, but I realize now I’m not. I lived through something traumatic…and even though my early memories are in flashes it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen…..and as a result I have safety issues.

And I’m not alone. Most women I work with or socialize with refer to this either directly or in passing. Their fear is a way of reliving their past trauma and trying to process it … but with our culture of shame around assault most women don’t feel empowered to voice the very thing that would enable them to work through the fear. My hope is that Dr Ford’s testimony and the #metoo movement that things will start to change….and I want to help.

So many things struck me during Dr. Ford’s testimony but professionally I was struck by what brought her and her husband to couple’s therapy in the first place….a deep desire for two front doors. When she said this it made total sense to me….because I’m the same way certain things. For example, I can’t be in a room with the lights on that has windows without closed curtains or blinds. It physically makes me uncomfortable and even paniced…and to be perfectly frank I don’t exactly know what the root cause is….but I have some ideas.

But professionally I have noticed that most women have at least one thing that they have set up or do in their homes because of past trauma. And I think it’s really important at this time especially if the hearing is bringing up feelings of anxiety around past trauma to evaluate what is triggering you…and if its sever anxiety to seek a therapist to talk it through.

After I had processed the mammoth emotional effect of the hearing one question popped into my head, “what if she’s never gone to therapy and just gotten the second door?” Would the second door actually have made her feel better or would it have served as a reminder of her trauma? In my experience women who make alterations like these in their homes feel better in the short-term but long-term the alteration becomes a daily reminder of their anxiety….instead of serving their initial intent which was to feel safe.

So let’s dig into the top three that I’ve seen….

Alarm Systems

One of the most common ‘go-tos’ for women when they feel unsafe is to get an alarm system. Now I’m not knocking alarms systems. I live in an urban area where break-ins are relatively common and I will probably get one when I buy my next house. However, I think it’s important to explore ‘why’ you’re getting an alarm before you pay for the installation and the monthly fees. Do you think that having it will subside a strong sense of anxiety or fear or do you simply want the police to be notified if someone tries to force themselves into your home. The two may sound similar but let’s dive a bit deeper because they’re actually two very different things.

if you think that an alarm system will ease your intense anxiety then you’re actually fighting the anxiety…which can make it worse and according to the law of attraction could actually attract more things into your life to be anxious about. So if this is you, here’s what I suggest. Ask yourself when in your past have you felt a similar intense feeling of anxiety and do your best using therapy or personal analysis to resolve your feelings from that past event.

Proceed with getting your alarm system if you feel inclined but take care of the visual cues that you are setting up for yourself as you enter your home. For example become aware that if you put an alarm sticker on your front door or in your lawn you are reminding yourself of your anxiety every time you come home. Now I’m not saying don’t put any stickers on outer windows, etc but become aware of your path….and think about it from a burglar’s point of view….is the average burglar really going to walk up to your front door and walk in? Put your stickers in all of the places that they may see as they’re scouting out the place ….so you cause them anxiety instead of you.

Curtains & Blinds

Ok. Time to move onto my anxiety-causer…..windows without curtains or blinds. And although I think its a pretty common feeling to feel safer when you have closed curtains or blinds when the lights are on your home…it can be much more intense for anyone who grew up in a home with poor boundaries where they constantly felt exposed and whose privacy was not respected. I know because me and many of my clients who have mentioned this very topic grew up in similar circumstances….and it’s not that ‘oh I need to close the curtains feeling'. It’s an almost paniced feeling that someone is going to get you if you don’t.

It’s an easy one not to deal with because basic safety practices are to close the curtains so burglar and other criminals can’t follow your movements ….so it’s a rational thing to do. It’s not that….it’s the intensity of your reaction that I recommend you pay attention to. What stories are you telling yourself will happen if you don’t close the curtains? When you walk past windows without window treatments what do you think about? Do you flash back to any specific moment?

Just take a pause ….and take a look at the root cause of your anxiety so you can let your curtains and blinds not be a reminder of fear but rather something that actually does protect you.

What you watch on TV

Bad things do happen, but they happen much more in our heads and our imaginations than they do in real life. We play out bad scenerios over and over in our heads especially if we have past trauma that we haven’t dealt with…..and we subconsciously pick television shows that feed into that anxiety. If you’d like to put it to the test stop and pause next time you finish watching an episode of a heart pumping gritty show like Law and Order or a horror movie like Halloween. Pause and think, is this really how I want to feel in my home?

Then choose a television show that feeds your intellect but also makes you laugh once in a while…and pause and see how you feel afterwards. From my own experience I know that it makes a huge difference. As I’ve slowly started to curate what I watch on television I’ve found myself feeling safer not only in my home but as I walk my dog through an empty park and simply going about my day.

In fact, Netflix has a section called “Strong Women Leads.” I choose from this section regularly and not all but most of them leave me feeling not only safer but empowered.

Do you want everything in your home to make you feel empowered?

Then check out my ecourse The Powerful Room. Not only does it include straight forward ways to declutter and decorate that will make sense to you on an emotional level, but it will fill your home with intention and help you to use your home …and office as a foundation to reach your most ambitious goals.

For More Inspirational Artwork and Design Ideas

How to Buy Inspirational Art when you're Traveling

How to Bring more Softness to your Life

How to Sleep Better with a Calming Nightstand

How to Transform your Bedroom into a Sexy Sanctuary

How to Buy an Awesome Eco Friendly Rug Pad

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