#(very funny to us that we got into the counsellor after a bunch of “it's not that bad” and “you just have to show up”)

[mantisgodsdomain]

The real pain of Getting Into Fountain Pens is the fact that this is an item that is a Luxury Purchase in the higher-end forms, where the quality legitimately massively improves by putting more money into it, and we have personally experienced how much better a spendier fountain pen is compared to a cheaper one, but we are also the kind of person where everything over $10 gets sorted into the category of "major purchase" and the fact that there are people in the hobby who say that, like, three hundred dollar pens are must-haves is doing a process to our brain, and it is not a good one.

It is remarkably hard to comprehend that there are people who can just spend three hundred dollars on something. It is also remarkably hard to comprehend that we could spend three hundred dollars on something and it would not take out our entire food budget for all of that month. The government should give us money more often

[grahamstoney]

Life Coach Training with Beyond Success

New Post has been published on https://grahamstoney.com/life-coaching/life-coach-training-with-beyond-success

Life Coach Training with Beyond Success

If you’re interested in training to become a Life Coach, you might be interested in my experience of the Life Coach training course run by Beyond Success.

I first heard Paul Blackburn from Beyond Success speak at a Think and Grow Rich event run by Stuart Zadel, back in July 2007. At the time, I had been suffering from Chronic Fatigue for about 4 months, and was feeling very anxious, agitated, exhausted, and desperate about my future. Having visited a bunch of doctors with no success, I didn’t know why I was ill or what to do about it. I was beginning to worry about how I was going to be able to earn money again in the future. I had burned out rather spectacularly from my Engineering career, and although I had plenty of available job offers the idea of going back to a job in an industry I no longer found fulfilling while I was feeling so ill was very unappealing. Figuring I could make it through a three day seminar without collapsing, I turned up at the Think and Grow Rich wealth creation conference hoping for some kind of inspiration.

Various speakers talked enthusiastically about investing in shares, property, and Internet-based businesses. In theory with my background in Computer Engineering I should have been well suited to developing an Internet-based business; but my expertise was more about understanding how the protocols and servers that ran it worked, than how to make money selling things over it. All the presentations were very slick, giving enough details of the various business ideas to hook you in, followed by a sales pitch for some kind of information product or training where they slashed the prices and threw in a stack of bonuses, putting the traditional free-set-of-steak-knives to shame. Yet somehow none of the ideas on offer appealed to me.

Then I heard Paul Blackburn speak. He was tremendously funny, yet he spoke about things that seemed important: why we do what we do, and the emotions underlying everything that drives us. He spoke a couple of times, and his message about the importance of our subconscious mindset struck a chord with me. In his last talk he got everyone in the room to pair up and do an eye contact exercise which involved asking the question “What is love?” repetitively until we ran out of things to say; and then some. It was tremendously moving, with barely a dry eye in the place. I paired up with a woman around my age, and we both cried as we spoke about what love meant to us, and how badly genuine unconditional was missing in our lives. Given we were complete strangers at a wealth creation conference, it was pretty moving stuff.

After that came the sales pitch. Paul said he had a problem. His company worked in the personal development industry, and were in the business of helping people change their lives through Life Coaching. There was a massive demand out there, he said, and they were desperately needing more people to train as Life Coaches. So they were running a 12-month training course. This course would be different from most Life Coach training courses, because a major component of the course would focus on emotional healing for the trainees themselves. Paul figured that you’ve got to walk your talk. For him, dealing with emotional issues was central to everything, and if we were going to help other people offload their emotional baggage, we’d have to get our own houses in order first.

Fair enough, I thought. That sounded like it had integrity. I remembered back to when I had been a volunteer telephone counsellor with Lifeline several years before, and how rewarding I had found it at the time. I’d pretty much burned out at that too, but it had been the one thing aside from Engineering that I’d found really rewarding. Coaching would be a bit different to counselling, but it sounded like a good option. I was looking for a short quick-fix escape from the anxiety and desperation of feeling ill all the time. Helping other people might even help me get my own life into order, but I didn’t feel like doing a 3 year degree or diploma in counselling or psychology. Twelve months sounded nice and short; although I wondered if it was long enough to learn how to be a good Life Coach, start my own coaching business, and deal with my own remaining emotional baggage.

Up on screen flashed the details of the offer, followed by the price: $50,000. Gulp. I waited for the hefty discount… and there wasn’t one. The payment structure was $25,000 now, and a further $25,000 when you make your first $100,000 per year as a coach. Ouch. If we paid the first payment up-front, we got a $5000 discount. It was still more money that I’d ever paid on anything other than my home, and certainly vastly more than any of the many personal development courses I’d done in the past. My car didn’t even cost that much. But the course seemed to combine everything I was interested in, into one package: emotional healing, coach training bootcamps, how to write and publish a book, and how to become a public speaker to promote your business. I had been working on an autobiographical book about dealing with emotional baggage from my childhood before becoming ill, and knew that in order to promote it I would need to learn the art of public speaking. I’d even joined [intlink id=”270″ type=”post”]Toastmasters[/intlink] the month before the conference to get me started. Here was a training course offering everything I wanted in one package, but I was baulking at the price.

I pondered whether I was just running one of the subconscious programs that Paul had talked about, in my case seeing what I wanted in front of me but making some excuse for not going for it. I didn’t have $25,000 in spare cash just lying around. I had enough in shares to cover it, but it would mean a years worth of living expenses gone in one hit at a time when I had very little income. “Bugger it… I’ll just do it!”, I decided. So at the appointed time when most people left the room, I went forward with the faithful to find out more. The intake procedure involved Paul holding your hand, staring into your eyes, and somehow discerning that you were serious and ready for this undertaking. Just to be sure it was backed by a $950 deposit payable on the spot. It seemed a bit voodoo, but I was in.

The core of the course consisted of four 3-day emotional healing bootcamps spread out over the country, over a 12 month period. Trainees from every different state in Australia would fly in for the bootcamps. I was fortunate to be living in Sydney and since Beyond Success are based in Canberra, their events tend to be biased towards Canberra and Sydney. But I also went to bootcamps and other events in Perth and Melbourne.

Each emotional healing bootcamp covered a particular aspect of emotional healing. Much of the work revolved around talking about emotional issues relating to our parents, our siblings, our partners, and even God, as we worked on fear, grief, sadness, anger, anxiety and other troubling emotions. The basic philosophy behind it all was that “The healing is in the expression of the feeling”, and to ditch our emotional baggage involved allowing ourselves to express and feel all the painful feelings that we had been avoiding. Even after years of therapy, I knew I still had emotional baggage that I wanted to ditch, and welcomed the opportunity to do it in a supportive group environment. Plus the notion that we were doing it ultimately so that would could help others do the same seemed a little less self-indulgent than more navel-gazing therapy.

After each emotional healing bootcamp was a 2-day coach training and business development workshop, where we learned how to recruit clients, how to work with the, and how to use the Beyond Success coaching system. The system includes a home-grown personality typing test, and a series of units which we were to email to clients as homework exercises between coaching calls. The bulk of the work for the client involved working on these exercises, then sending them back for us to review. Most of the actual client contact work could be done over the Internet by email, with support calls every couple of weeks or once a month. There are hundreds of units in the system covering topics such as life management, relationships, self-esteem, assertiveness, finances, and more. At a suggested rate of one unit per week, a client could keep working (and paying) for years provided they felt they were continuing to get value out of it.

As part of the training, each of us was assigned a Life Coach of our own from Beyond Success’s pool of master coaches. If we were offering coaching to other people, we needed to have our own coach as well. I liked the integrity behind this. It also meant that we experienced what it was like to have a coach, and as part of working on our own issues we would learn how to use the system to help other people work on theirs. The master coach used exactly the same system and process of homework units that we were being taught to use with our clients, so we got to see how it all worked in practise.

I have been interested in personal development for a long time, and had already read widely on the subject. There wasn’t a great deal of new material for me in the units that I worked on, and I can’t honestly say that I felt I got a great deal out of the unit work. The common underlying theme is that emotions are at the heart of everything that we do, and we need to learn to deal with how we truly feel by expressing it constructively. Coming from an emotionally shut-down family, it has taken me a long time to unlock my repressed emotions, and most of the action for me happened at the bootcamps rather than by doing the unit homework. I’d already read books like Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, and the like. I found that a lot of the material in the Beyond Success coaching system is derived from popular personal development best-sellers. What they have done is structured it really nicely into a system that’s easy to deliver and work with clients with. It’s a little like buying a franchise where you get access to the business system; and looking at it this way, the cost of the course is a little more palatable. That said, one friend I met on the course was cured of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and years of depression, by a single powerful psychodrama exercise Paul conducted on one of the bootcamps. To him, that one experience was worth the $25K alone.

One of the things I liked about the course was the sense of community surrounding the trainees. We were all from diverse backgrounds, but we all came together for the bootcamps and other events during the 12-months. So we would meet up, and check in with how everyone else was going. It was amazing seeing how much the other trainees I met grew during the period.

In addition to the bootcamps, the course also offered free access to all Beyond Success’s other events. These include The Mental Toolbox, which is like a lite emotional healing bootcamp; Mouthing Off For Big Money, which taught public speaking and selling-from-stage skills; Resolving The Money Riddle, which taught financial management and wealth creation; and Your Book In 90 Days, which taught how to write and market your own book. All are based on the same core philosophy of dealing with emotional baggage in order to be successful. There was some overlap between all of these, but Paul always seemed to be coming up with something interesting to say, or a new way to say it that reinforced the idea. We were also given free tickets to events run by friends of the Blackburns, such and Darryl and Andrew Grant’s Internet Secrets workshop.

Over the course of the 12 months, I had two different coaches. I got on really well with the first: a married woman about my age and married with kids. We related well and she was very supportive. The coaching relationship is more two-way than a traditional counselling relationship, and it was very much like having a friend who you paid for advice. When she went on maternity leave I switched to another coach: a country guy who was also married with kids. I didn’t feel like I connected with him very well. He was generally pretty supportive, but I seemed to grate on him. Both coaches were very receptive to talking about emotional issues, as they saw this as key to what a good coach should be working on. Towards the end, my second coach seemed to run out of ideas and become frustrated with me, although he didn’t really let on. I can well understand that working with a client with chronic fatigue would be frustrating, because our energy is so limited and our frustration level off-the-scale. Also, his goals as a married man and my goals as a single playboy-wannabe were rather divergent. Although he was married, I didn’t get the impression he was brilliant when it came to women. One thing I learned from all this was that if you are going to have a mentor, you want to make sure they’ve already achieved what you want to achieve.

Part of the course involved setting up your own coaching business. They recommend you start off by recruiting at least 5 pro-bono clients, offering them an introductory 3 months of free coaching, and converting them into paying clients at the end of the 3 months if possible. We could do this at any time after the first bootcamp, when we got access to the full set of homework units. I had no trouble recruiting friends and associates as clients with the offer of 3 months free coaching, although I had difficulty converting them into paying clients at the end of the 3 months.

My clients all had self-esteem issues, and one said he “wanted more energy”. That seemed ironic given that I had chronic low self-esteem myself, and chronic fatigue. Apparently a coach tends to attract clients with similar issues. My health was really getting me down, and I wondered whether I could actually help these people. Focusing on someone else’s problems gave me a break from my own, but I wasn’t all that excited about making coaching calls and answering emails. Some days I felt inspired, but on others I just didn’t have the energy or motivation to help them. I can’t say for sure whether it was the emotional gunge dredged up by the emotional healing work, or the chronic fatigue but I found myself becoming increasingly depressed. Who wants a depressed Life Coach? That sounded ridiculous, and by the time my pro-bono clients were coming to the end of their free 3 months, I was happy to let them go. I was relieved that none of them wanted to continue coaching, although it would have been nice to have someone say they wanted to pay for my services and I felt pretty terrible about giving up.

For the later bootcamps, the company mailed everyone on its database with an offer of 3 months free coaching for anyone who was prepared to fill in a preliminary assessment and travel to Canberra and meet up with a trainee. Potential clients flew in from all over the country. The director of coaching paired all the clients and trainees up in advance, and let the trainees loose on the clients armed with the information from the client’s preliminary assessment form. This seemed to work really well, especially for coach trainees who were having difficulty sourcing pro-bono clients. Even though the offer was for “free” coaching, the fact that people were prepared to travel to Canberra to get it indicated a reasonable level of commitment and showed that there really was a lot of demand out there for coaches.

If the clients sourced by Beyond Success converted to paying clients at the end of the 3 months, the agreement was that Beyond Success would take a rather hefty commission of the ongoing payments. Whereas for clients we sourced ourselves, we kept 100% of their payments; there is no ongoing license fee on the Beyond Success system. Unfortunately by this stage I was too depressed to want to coach anyone. I ended up working with one of the other coaches, who helped me to put together an action plan for digging myself out of my hole once I got home again. Looking back now, the plan appears to have worked.

Most of the people I met on the coach training programme were intending to start their own coaching business, but some where there purely for the emotional healing aspect of it; and probably the sense of community. I’d estimate that only about half the people I met on the course have actually ended up starting a coaching business at the present time. I don’t know of any who are earning the big dollars over $100K. At the minimum fee of $440/month, it would take a client load of 20 clients in order to do so; which would keep you pretty busy answering their emails. Most of the people I know working as coaches after completing the program also had previous training in counselling, NLP, voice dialogue or some other form of healing therapy. My 9 year stint as a part time volunteer telephone counsellor with Lifeline helped me enormously in talking about emotions. I think a random person with no helping background who did the course would struggle to become an effective coach on such a short, intense program. I’m sure it’s been done, but they’d be the exception rather than the rule.

At the time I finished the course, I felt like a failure because I hadn’t managed to get my coaching business going. I lacked the motivation and follow through to do it. I was struggling health-wise, and was actually relieved when the course was over and I no longer had bootcamps to attend. I chose not to go on with the follow-on Coach Pro programme which would have extended the training for another 12 months, as I wanted a break from the emotional roller-coaster I was on and paying more money on coach training didn’t seem to make sense to me if I wasn’t actually committed to getting a coaching business of my own going. I lost contact with most of the people in the community as they were spread all over the country, and didn’t even stay in regular contact with those based in my home town of Sydney.

At times I felt I was pretending to want to be a Life Coach. I had been lacking a career path and felt anxious about that. Coaching seemed like a good option, sometimes. At other times, the whole idea of Life Coaching seemed a bit dicky to me. I didn’t feel like I really got all that much out of having a coach of my own. By far the best part of the training programme was the boot camps, and we couldn’t easily offer them to our clients. If a client asked me if I had a coach, I could say “yes”, but if they asked if I found it good value for money, I would have to have said “not really, I don’t feel I get that much out of having a coach to be honest”.

Beyond Success have been around for a long time, and have networked with other people doing similar work. One such person is Nicholas de Castella, who now runs his own healing program after being introduced to emotional healing at a Beyond Success event. I heard about his Passionately Alive workshop and went down to Melbourne for it, still suffering with Chronic Fatigue and the associated frustration. I found it even more powerful than the Beyond Success bootcamps. If you want access to emotional healing group work but aren’t interested in training to become a Life Coach, I recommend you look into Nicholas’s programs instead.

It’s now almost 12 months since I completed the Beyond Success Life Coach Training course. My health is slowly on the mend, and I’m going back to working on the book I put aside when I became ill. I’m doing an acting course based on emotional truth to further unlock my emotional repression, and I’m quite involved at my Toastmaster’s club learning the public speaking skills I’ll need to promote my book. There are common threads between all these things and what I learned on the coach training programme. I liked the fact that they were explicitly validating of emotions, and most of the trainees had a sense of unconditional acceptance about how I felt. Occasionally I came across coaches who appeared judgemental of my chronic state of ill health, but most people were supportive and empathic.

I haven’t done a great deal of research on how this course compares to other Life Coach training courses. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the most expensive. For your money, you get some life changing emotional healing, a network of supportive people to work with, and a system to use with your clients. In some ways it’s a bit cultish, but in Paul Blackburn’s words “yes, but it’s a good cult”. One thing I found frustrating was that venues and dates of components of the course tended to be organised at the last minute. I didn’t mind this too much as I had few other commitments, but if there was one thing I’d like to see Beyond Success improve it is their forward planning. It seems to be a pattern; their recent inaugural coaching conference sounded excellent, but came with only a couple of weeks notice. When the actual events came around though, they were great at communicating about getting to the right place at the right time with a diligent office worker calling each time to confirm that we were on-track to attend. But when forking out that amount of money, I expect the programme for the next 12 months to be nailed down with venues and dates. I know event management is a bit of a nightmare and things go wrong, but I heard Mary Blackburn apologise for unforeseen circumstances many times and wondered whether that would happen if things were planned further in advance.

Despite my reservations about the cost, the brevity of the course, and the health difficulties I was experiencing at the time, I can definitely say that the course helped open my eyes to the importance of developing my emotional intelligence and dealing with my emotional baggage. It also linked me up with a network of new friends who also considered this important. I see my future in public speaking and story telling on this very topic, rather than coaching, but will more than likely be mentoring other people as I go. The skills I learned in the Beyond Success Life Coach Training course will be invaluable.

If you’re interested in becoming a Life Coach and you like what Paul and Mary teach, chances are you’ll get a lot out of this course. The best way to find out if you resonate with Paul’s core message is to hear him speak, and the best place to do that is by going to Resolving The Mindset Riddle when it comes to your town.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

[littlemisslipbalm]

“Just Dandy!” Camp Counselor!Harry

AU: Harry and you are camp counselors, always at each other’s throats, but now, you’re at each other’s lips ;)

hehe what is this?! I saw some prompt a while back with writing your name out with prompts and mine was like alternate universe, best friend’s brother, and intoxication - so you’ll have all of that if you read this! I wanted this to be kind of fun, kind of silly, kind of ~campy~ - still it gives me strong soulmate and love vibes, idk i’m just incapable of writing casual life, like this has to be some epic love, still this is very lowkey, I’d say, -- anyway let me know what you think! This is definitely a 1 part only tho :) there is no gif that goes with thisss except if i found something from LWWY mv lmao but what i chose is cute

Word Count: 3.8k | Warnings: kissing and alchohol, and language?

-

How’s it going, Camper?” he said. 

You rolled your eyes, “Just dandy, Counselor.” 

You turned away from Harry and continued working, you were surprised he didn’t have his trail of fans right behind him for the first time all day. 

“Oh c’mon, Y/N, you know you can just call me Harry,” he said with a sickly sweet voice, laying on the charm. 

“Oh?! Harry! I didn’t realize it was you. Can you walk out and walk back in so I can swoon immediately at your presence?”

-

It was just a summer job, but somehow it had turned into something more. You and your best friend, Annie, began working at the camp once you became too old to attend yourselves, this being your second year as a counselor. You had to be 18 or older to be a counselor, you and Annie were 19.

This year you were both in charge of the oldest group of girls there, the 13-16 year olds, the ones closest to your age. The ones closest to all of the counselors' ages, meaning they had crushes on your male colleagues and weren’t afraid of going after what they wanted. Thankfully, most of your fellow counselors would shut down the young girls’ advances immediately. However, there was one camp counsellor who revelled in the attention and he was the one who received the most by far. Annie’s brother, Harry, was two years older than you, and he was the young camp goers’ greatest subject of affection and puppy love.

He was, admittedly, very attractive, his body chiseled and taut from working out, tattoos littering his arms and body variously. His hair was brown and flowy, flopping all around and into his face to give him the boyish charm that the girls’ - mostly the girls - fell for. His personality is what kept them around, he was cheeky and fun to be with. Extremely adventurous, too, always wanting to check out something he’d never seen before. Annie and I always had to remind him that he couldn’t just walk into the woods with a bunch of young teen girls. He would never do anything to hurt them, he simply didn’t see their advances as flirtation, he was oblivious and just thought they were just as interested in nature and exploration as he was. At least, that’s what he always said. You knew better, that he loved the ego boost he got from it.

-

You thought back to when it was your last year as a camp goer, Harry’s first year as a counselor. Every girl was constantly swarming you and Annie in hopes of hearing a little more about Harry and what he was like. Annie kept a tight lip, not really enjoying the attention that her brother was bringing her. Harry had been gone for just one year, when he was seventeen, too old to attend, but too young to be a counselor. Yet, within that one year he had transformed from just another guy attending the camp to a man with authority. He also had matured a bit, bulking up, getting tattoos, the likes. The girls around you were eating it up, all you could do was roll your eyes. Sure he was cute, but he was Harry.

On the first day of his camp counselling, you were assigned to his group for setting up the California Spot. The first day of camp was always a set up day, the campers helped the counselors put the place back together and then on the second to last day, everyone took it back down till the next year’s first day. The California Spot was the part of the camp by the river and small lake, the camp’s “beachiest” area, hence the California name. It wasn’t that hard of a set up so older campers were the ones who usually got assigned it. And new counselors usually got assigned it too, so they couldn’t mess it up, it made sense then that Harry was the counselor in charge. Everyone seemed to be happy to be there, except you, mostly because you and Annie hadn’t been put together, but also because Harry was in charge of you.

Harry walked up beside you as you were dusting off floaties in the back shed. “How’s it going, Camper?” he said. You rolled your eyes, “Just dandy, Counselor.” You turned away from Harry and continued working, you were surprised he didn’t have his trail of fans right behind him for the first time all day. “Oh c’mon, Y/N, you know you can just call me Harry,” he said with a sickly sweet voice, laying on the charm. “Oh?! Harry! I didn’t realize it was you. Can you walk out and walk back in so I can swoon immediately at your presence?” You gave him a pointed glare, clearly not amused at whatever he was trying to do. Get a rise out of you, maybe, just being his annoying self, probably. He chuckled, “Ouch.” He was about to speak again, but you cut him off before he could ever start, leaving his mouth agape. “Harry, I know you think you’re a big cool counselor now, but you’re always just going to be Annie’s kind of annoying older brother to me. So don’t come in here trying to get off on some power trip with me.” Now he was definitely taken aback. After a moment of staring at one another, both of your anger seeping out of you. He took a step closer to you and whispered loudly, “We may know each other outside of this, Y/N, but you can’t speak to me like that in front of other campers. I’ll let this go, but you cannot undermine my authority like that when others can hear you.” You were silent, unsure how you had gotten yourself in this situation. “And by the way, I was just trying to be funny with you, Y/N, take a joke,” he finished and walked off with a huff. You stood there, dumbfounded, watching him disappear out of the door and back to the makeshift beach. You honestly felt a little bad, you knew it was his first day, maybe you shouldn’t have been so harsh. Oh well.

For the rest of that summer, the two of you didn’t really talk. Only occasionally and it was always kind of awkward. The next summer you had off so you didn’t see Harry much at all, except for the part of the summer before and after the camp occurred and you were at Annie’s house. He and you got along a lot better during those small moments. Without the camp setting of him having authority over you, you enjoyed his presence more. He wasn’t bossy and he wasn’t surrounded by throngs of your peers. He was just Harry and you liked that.  Your first summer as a counselor was fine as well. Harry and you became more like friends that year. He was happy to help you and Annie understand counselor duties around the camp. You laughed when you and him were assigned the California Spot to set up. Thinking back to when you two had gotten into a fight that lasted almost a year.

Unlike the first time, you walked up to him at the edge of the lake, feeding a line out for safety. “How’s it going, Counselor?” you asked him, some play in your voice as you tapped his shoulder. He glanced behind him, at you, and smiled. He threw the rest of the line in the lake and stepped back to be beside you and look out at the lake. “Just dandy, Counselor,” he said, while he nudged you with his elbow and winked at you. You both laughed and he threw an arm around you and spun you around in his arms. It felt nice. Harry and you being friends was a good thing. For you and him, but also for Annie, she had hated the year when the two of you were at odds with each other.

-

Now it was your second year as a counselor. Harry was at Uni now so it was going to be the first time seeing him since last summer. You didn’t feel any excitement about the prospect, but you were definitely happy to see him. A similar amount of happiness as seeing any other counselor, you were sure of it.

Two campers, in your supervising group, raced up to, giggling all the way to your side. “Have you seen Counselor Harry yet, Y/N?!” they exclaimed, overly excited. You put your clipboard down by your side and lifted your sunglasses from your face. The girls were about your height and likely 15. “Um, no I haven’t, has he grown a third eye or something?” You looked at them with indifference and a hint of amusement at your own joke. They both rolled their eyes. “No!” The first girl, Elise, responded. Georgie continued, “He’s just gotten even hotter than he was last year!” “If that’s even possible!” Elise chimed in, talking over Georgie. You looked up to the sky as if you were praying to a god, asking yourself why you loved this job so much?

You offered the girls a tight lipped smile. Disregarding what they said about your colleague and friend, you shooed them off to go unpack. Then, you continued on your walk around the camp grounds. You stopped at the mail area to check to see if you already had mail from your eager parents, they would send you a letter a week while you were away, even though you had your phone on you as a counselor.

Seeing no mail, you turned on your heel and was about to step foot back outside when you were blocked. There wasn’t a lot of context for you to see what you had just bumped into, it was large, hard, and dark. You backed up and blinked. “What the f-” You looked up and it was Harry. He was wearing an all black ensemble, you being shorter than him, caused you to only see his shirt when you walked directly into him. You took in the rest of his appearance and realized he had cut his long hair since last summer, it was now short but slightly flowy, but pushed back as opposed to how it used to be - swept across the forehead.

“Didn’t see you there, m’sorry,” Harry said. You noticed his hands holding onto your waist, he had reached out instinctively, not wanting you to fall. “It’s alright, good to see you, Harry.” He seemed as though he was about to say something, but you cut him off. You had a habit of doing that. “I’d love to catch up, but I’ve got some stuff I have to take care of.” You were being vague on your excuse, but you were already walking away before Harry could call after you, “See you around then! ...I guess.” He definitely couldn’t deny that he was a little disappointed that you couldn’t spare a minute to talk to him.

-

You and Harry interacted seldom over the next few weeks. You were paired up as supervisors for various activities with the campers, but whenever you two talked it always seemed like one of you was itching to leave the conversation. Sometimes you would sit beside each other at counselor meetings and meal times. There you would talk a bit more, but still there was something off. Annie even asked you if you were mad at Harry. You replied that you weren’t, citing ‘we just haven’t had anything to talk about with each other, I guess’ as reasoning for the distance between you two.

It was the last Saturday before the camp ended, evening, when you heard a knock on the cabin, you were staying in, door. You weren’t in your counselor clothes anymore, instead an oversized old t-shirt and some sweatpants with your school’s logo. You assumed it’d be a camper needing assistance with something. To your surprise, it was none other than Harry. He also had changed from his counselor clothes for the day. Instead he wore dark sweatpants and a flannel, barely buttoned up. You thought he might catch a cold with how much of his skin was left exposed due to his button job.

“I bring libations!” He says happily and barges into your cabin. You had been lucky this year, while not being assigned Annie as your roommate was a bummer, you had been assigned another counselor whose boyfriend was a lead counselor, and got his own room, meaning she was almost never in yours. Tonight was like usual, she wasn’t there.

Harry continues into the room despite your figure still standing at the doorway, a look of complete and utter confusion on your face. Harry answers your question before you even have the chance to answer it. “It’s our last Saturday and I want to get sloshed with a friend, won’t you join me, Y/N?” He pulls out the handle he had somehow hidden on his trek over to your cabin.

“We’re not really supposed…” you began. Harry shushed you, saying, “Live a little!”

“It’s against the rules for us to…”

“Please!”

“We could lose our jobs if we…”

“For me?”

“This seems like coercion,” you huff, sitting on your roommate’s bed, seeing as Harry has taken residence on yours. You were thankful you’d had the ambition to make it today.

“It’s only coercion if you really didn’t want to do it, but I know you better, Y/N. You never followed the rules as a camper, why would you follow them now as a counselor.” He took a swig straight from the bottle before offering it up to you.

You grinned and leaned across the small space between you and Harry, grabbing the bottle happily.

You thought back to sneaking around the lake house when you were younger, with Annie and Harry, sometimes even just Harry. One of you always somehow got your hands on a bottle of some alcohol that was heinous, but did the job of getting you three (or two) off your asses.

Now you were of legal drinking age and that was definitely a plus when you were in your real life. As a counselor though, you felt like you needed to be alert and being drunk was most definitely the opposite of that. Still, Harry made a point, you liked having fun and the camp was ending soon. There were also plenty of other counselors the camper’s could go to if they needed anything for the next few hours. It wasn’t like you and Harry were the only people they could get help from. 

You threw back your neck, the bottle attached tightly to your lips. Happy to be finally letting go a little.

Truthfully, the second year as a counselor hadn’t been as fun as the first. The older kids were harder to deal with and it was slightly more draining dealing with them then the younger campers.

Your pull was big and Harry was quick to reach over and pull the handle down, stopping you from getting hammered immediately. “Easy there, this bottle’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

You rolled your eyes and stuck up the middle finger at him. “You’re an ass.” You both laughed.

As the alcohol began to pass between the two of you steadily, the conversation came much more easily than it had been for the past weeks.

Eventually, when the bottle reached the two-thirds gone mark, Harry and you were sitting on the ground facing each other, nice and close. He told you how his Uni experience was going, not as great as he’d hoped it to be, if he was being honest with himself, he said. You talked about how bored you were with life back home. He chuckled at that.

As you got further past the line of tipsy and into the territory of fully intoxicated, you couldn’t help but notice the sound of Harry’s voice. He was talking again, but you weren’t understanding what he was saying at all. All you were noticing was how his mouth moved around the words that came out of his mouth and how nice it all sounded.

He continued talking and you squinted your eyes at him. Then, without the knowledge of your brain, your hands were reaching out and cupping Harry’s face. He stopped talking at this contact and he looked at you curiously. Your mind was fuzzy and made no registration that what you were doing was slightly odd, especially with no warning to the receiver of your touch. You looked back at him, with a look of quiet interest all over your face.

“Keep talking,” you said. Harry nodded and began to ramble again, confused, but not against whatever you were doing. As he spoke, you ran your fingers around his dimple and the smile lines that appeared when he said things with “A” “C” “E” and other syllables that made his lips quirk up.

“Feels nice.” Then, Harry faltered in his thought process. His mind was numbing from the alcohol as well and the sensory overload he was beginning to have from your hands was enough to make him stop speaking again. He looked in your eyes as you focused on his mouth. You were sat up on your knees, practically leaning on him, while he was sat cross-legged, with his hands out behind him. When he stopped speaking this time, you didn’t tell him to start up again. Instead, your hands floated even closer to his lips.

You ran your hand over the entirety of his mouth first. Then, you took both your pointers and used them to manipulate Harry’s mouth into a smile. He bared his teeth for you. You giggled. Then, you brought his lips back to neutral and ran a finger around the outline of his lips. Then, your hand disappeared from his face and you sat back on your heels. Harry missed your touch immediately. While odd, he had liked the tingles behind his face that he had experienced from it.

“Why’d you stop?” he whined quietly.

“Because…” you trailed off.

“Because why?”

You sat silent. You repositioned yourself to laying down completely on the floor and looking up at the ceiling. You sighed and said, “I don’t know.. I forgot.”

Harry smiled at the response and shifted to lay beside you. “You’re drunk as shite, aren’t you?”  He reached his left arm across himself and bopped your nose, along with his tease.

“It’s not like you’re any better,” you grumbled and rolled onto your side to face Harry’s body.

When you were drunk you felt completely alive. Your entire body tingling yet foggy at the same time. You blinked hard, twice, taking in the man beside you. He was long in the position he was in. His silhouette was quite attractive at the moment, your bedside lamp illuminating half of his face in golden light, the other falling into darkness, beyond where the light could reach.  

“Because you’re too beautiful,” you whispered, finally remembering your reasoning from Harry’s earlier question. Harry moved his arm to rest it under his head. Giving him a slight vantage over you.  He wobbled slightly, as if his head might slip from his hand’s grasp. Yet he controlled it after a moment.

“Oh?” The slightest smirk graced his face. Your comment fed his ego, but his ego had mostly gone to bed since the two of you had begun drinking. Your intoxication caused his comment to get to you so much more than it would have sober, not that you would have been having this conversation sober. Either way, his simple ‘Oh?’ made you cover your face with your hands and laugh embarrassedly for a moment. Then you let your hands trail down your face a bit so your eyes were peaking at Harry and you were biting a finger in your mouth.

“So you think I’m pretty?” Harry said, completely intrigued with what you were saying. You took your hands away from your face and mirrored his position, leaning your head on your hand. You wobbled like Harry had, trying to maintain your balance. Only this time, Harry reached a hand out to steady you at your waist. Your shirt had shifted up, throughout your wiggling, so your skin was bare where his hand touched. The skin his hand met was lit on fire. The sparks being sent out and fizzling throughout your body. You closed your eyes at the sensation and hummed almost inaudibly. Harry licked his lips at the sound and decided that it was okay to leave his hand where it was.

“I asked you a question, Counselor,” he whispered. You blinked open your eyes at his words. For one moment, your stupor was gone and you saw everything rather clear. “Yeah, I think you’re quite possibly the prettiest person ever, Harry.” He was silent for a moment, shifting once again onto his elbow, his body now towering over you once again.

“Well that’s simply not true,” he said, finally, shaking his head slightly. You couldn’t help but laugh, “You? Humble?” Now that Harry was sitting more upright, you shifted so you were leaning on both of your elbows, much closer to the ground than Harry. His hand remained on your waist, causing him to hover above you. This unspoken shifting of places was weird, the meaning of it unclear to either of you.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but...I just know I’m not the prettiest person ever.” He looked away from you. “And why’s that, Counselor?” you whispered, staring straight at him, even if he was avoiding eye contact. Then, suddenly, he was looking back at you, his eyes dark and intense. Despite the intensity in his eyes, though, his voice was soft and sweet. Perhaps, even, darling.

“Because...you’re the prettiest person ever.”

As you opened your mouth to say something, Harry leaned down over you, lips meeting yours. His lips brushed softly against yours, but you wanted more. You reached a hand up behind his neck and pulled you closer. He met your passion with his own and pushed his lips more desperately against yours. As you pulled him closer, your ability to hold yourself up faltered. It sent you both tumbling to the ground, completely. You whined slightly, but weren’t fazed by the wooden floor. You continued to press your lips to Harry’s and he groaned appreciatively into you. After a few minutes of wet, hot kisses, Harry reluctantly pulled away. Your chest was heaving steadily and Harry couldn’t help but notice, but he shook the thought from his mind. He took one hand from the ground and let it roam down the side of your face. You smiled up at him.

“Now, that is what I call ‘just dandy’!” He said. You rolled your eyes, “Oh my god!” you moaned and shoved him off of you. You stood up and Harry followed quickly behind. Both of you had sobered up significantly during the kissing. You faced each other and Harry smiled. A smile crept onto your face, too, matching his perfectly.

“I hate you,” you said one last time, never really meaning it.

“Uh-huh,” Harry responded, taking you into his arms. He pressed a kiss on the top of your head. His lips softly brushing your hair.

“Hate you, too.”

Neither of you could be further from the truth with those words.

-

Tag list: @cronias13, @theresthingsthatwellneverknow, @harrys-cherry

Hopefully that actually works this time! Have a nice day 🤍!

[backhurtyy]

Hear me out: Zukka! Percy Jackson AU

My head is too messy already, but I was listening to The Lightning Thief Musical and couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I put it here. This got very long, so I put it under the cut.

Zuko is basically the equivalent of Percy, except he’s the son of Ozai (Zeus. This one is perfect- lightning... Ozai’s a jerk... Zeus’s a jerk...)

He’s been living with him mom, Ursa, all his life. He never knew his dad, but he must have inherited his bad luck because he’s had a rough go. He’s been kicked out of school after school, he’s got ADHD, dyslexia, and weird things always seem to happen to him. But he’s got his mom, so everything’s fine

On a trip to a museum, his math teacher, Zhao, turns into a weird flying monster thing, and his history teach Piandao throws him a pen that turns into a sword, which he uses to kill his Zhao. He gets expelled yet again for “separating from the group”, and when Zuko asks Piandao why he isn’t backing him up, the wheelchair bound man simply shrugs

When he tells his mom what happens, she decides that’s it, and knows it’s finally time to tell him the truth and take him to Camp Half Blood

He’s in shock, to say the least. He’s apparently the son of a God, though his mom won’t say his name, and apparently his best friend, Aang, is a child of the long lost God of the Wild, Gyatso. He also has furry legs????

They’re almost to camp when suddenly, there’s another monster. The fight passes by in a blur and Zuko gets knocked out. The last thing he sees is his mom, disappearing in a blinding golden light

When he wakes up, there’s a boy staring at him quizzically. “You drool when you sleep,” is the first thing he says. Then he introduces himself as Sokka, the only human at camp

Zukos confused, of course, but this boy is very beautiful, so he decides to roll with it. Only once Piandao walks in, the lower half of his body a horse instead of a wheelchair, does he realize somethings off. Then he remembers his mom

Also Jeong Jeong is here too. He’s Dionysus, and he and Piandao are husbands. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Sokka is tasked with explaining things to him- he and his sister Katara have been at Camp Half Blood since they were young, when their dad joined the military or something, not quite sure on that

They have the same dad, but Sokka is human while Katara is the child of Hakoda and Kya (who’s Poseidon’s equivalent because I say so). Piandao (Chiron) agreed to let Sokka stay with Katara at camp because they were so young. Sokka has become super adapted to life at camp, and helps out with planning, administration, and strategy stuff

Basically, he works with The Mechanist kids (more on that later) and the Wan Shi Tong kids (he’s the only one I could think of who would be equivalent to Athena... it’s funny cause he’s an owl... and Athena’s symbol is the owl... yeah) 

Basically cue Zuko freaking out about being a demigod and wondering who his godly parent is. Meanwhile, everyone is staring at his scar, whispering about it. He doesn’t pay any attention to it- he’s used to it by now, several years after he slipped and crashed his face onto the burning stove

He gets introduced to the campers, and they are... a wild bunch of kids

There’s Jet, the son of someone who’s the equivalent of Hermes, idk who though. He’s Zuko’s counsellor in the beginning 

He ends up being the equivalent of Luke- I’m sorry. I love Jet, but he fits Luke’s character the best)

Suki, the daughter of Kyoshi (Artemis), is a skilled warrior with a sharp tongue, though she readily welcomes Zuko to camp and helps train him

Toph, the daughter of Poppy (Demeter), is a spunky blind girl with incredible control of the earth and plants 

Haru is also a son of Poppy

Ty Lee, the daughter of someone who’s essentially Aphrodite- she’s beautiful and fun and everyone loves her, but she’s as deadly with a weapon as Suki

Mai, the daughter of Ukano (Ares), is deadly with knives; she takes well to Zuko, but she has the energy of the God of War flowing through her, so it doesn’t come across very well. She does like him though, even if she doesn’t go easy on him just because he’s new

Teo, the son of The Mechanist (Hephaestus), is a brilliant inventor who created his own wheelchair that still allows him to fight and participate in all the demigod activities

He and Sokka are genius inventing buddies. We were robbed of that in the show

Basically, on the day they play capture the flag, Zuko summons lightning that causes the field to burst into flames and the symbol of Ozai appears over his head

Everyone is shocked, and Piandao tells him it’s because there are rarely children of the big three: Ozai, the king of the Gods and god of the skies. Kya, the goddess of the ocean. Iroh, the god of the underworld and Ozai’s brother.

Basically he gets the prophecy, which is why everyone was staring at him when he arrived- it spoke of a demigod with a scar on his face, then Zuko, Sokka, Katara, and Aang go off to save Zuko’s mom and get back Ozai’s lightning bolt that they think Iroh stole

On their quest, amidst all the fighting monsters and crossing country, Sokka and Zuko discover they have crushes on each other, but they just kind of dance around their feelings since they’re busy trying not to die

Eventually they save the day, and discover Jet was the bad guy, but he gets away

Zuko gets injured by Jet and wakes up in the infirmary to Sokka sitting next to him, worried out of his mind. He’s so relieved to see Zuko awake that he kisses him. They don’t start dating because Zuko’s going back to school in the fall and Sokka’s staying at camp, but they both admit their feelings

After that, basically everything continues along with the rest of the series, including Azula coming back to life after the tree gets cured by the Golden Fleece

Eventually Zuko and Sokka start dating and the Gaang saves the day and everything’s great

[thegeekyzoologist]

My opinion on Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (SPOILERS)

Like many people interested in the Jurassic franchise, I binge-watched that show back in september and here are my thoughts.  First of all, I precise that I had no expectations for the series as the combo Jurassic World + kid show didn’t attracted me at all, and the trailers have done nothing but confirm my fears.

Let’s start by the positive: - Amidst the cringefest that the first episodes were, the scenes with Darius back home stand out from the rest by their quality as they are centred more on drama and character development and not on clumsy comedy like the scenes on Nublar. The idea of getting an access to Jurassic World and Camp Cretaceous as a reward for beating that virtual reality game reminded me the recruitment of Eli Wallace by the SGC at the very beginning of Stargate Universe. - Starting from the beginning of the season’s second half, the series gets better and a little more mature in its unfolding and writing, up to the point where it doesn’t seem targeted for young children but rather young teens. Some dumb scenes remain however (like the one of the geneticist Eddie, abandoned in the lab with the sole company of his birthday cake). - There is a few action and suspenseful scenes that aren’t bad in the second half with, among other things, a hide-and-seek game with the Indominus amidst the containers, a part in the tunnels that can remind some people of Telltale’s game, a monorail attack by the pteranodons which should have deserved a live-action treatment, and a climax in a storage area where the protagonists have to use their wits in order to defeat the carnotaur and escape from the underground network. On the matter of the carnotaur, one can note a nice paleontological reference with its difficulty to turn when it is chasing prey. - Of all of the characters, Roxie is the most realistic, responsible and reasonable one (and the only tolerable one in the first episodes). And let’s bring now the negative aspects: - On the matter of the original soundtrack, I don’t remember any of the original themes sadly. As I had the same problem when I viewed The Witcher though (I didn’t liked its first season but I rather well appreciated its soundtrack following a separated listening), I will wait for the release of the soundtrack before criticizing it further. - The first episodes are a total farce with a succession of all kinds of nonsenses with the bunch of stereotypical buffoons that the kids are that are involved in stupid acts by the night of their first day, acts that fall under Reversed Darwinism (the survival of the most idiotic like Grant would say in Jurassic Park 3) and that gave me the desire to give some slaps and send those Kennys to a firing squad (for the crimes of property destruction and, above all, endangering dinosaurs and employees); the infringements during the activities of hygiene and security rules that are applied in many theme parks and laboratories around the world (with the kids wandering around in the lab and touching to everything in a total dissidence; running down a zipline and brushing past brachiosaurs...); the counsellor Dave which talks to Wu like if he was an old pal of his while Wu is one of the highest corporate executive around and someone famous and respected in-universe; Wu being depicted with the subtlety of a fat beer-drunk sea lion (with his mannerisms and attitude worthy of a James Bond villain, we know right away that he is bad); cartoony action scenes (I mean bloody hell. Look at that Parasaurolophus that jumps off the jeep’s roof like he was a fookin’ kangaroo while the jeep itself wasn’t miraculously crushed under the hadrosaur’s weight); the employees and the park’s security being shitty (one enter so easily in the underground network that Biosyn could organise rave parties there right under InGen’s nose; Darius and Kenji being left with no supervision in the middle of the jungle while they are supposed to shovel shit as a punishment); the dinosaurs that passes too as incompetent for failing to kill the kids while such situations in real-life or in the first films would have unforgiving or barely forgiving but only at a certain cost. - Despite the ordeals they are going through, the kids seems to be never traumatised or at least shaken like the Murphys, Kelly Malcolm or Maisie were respectively in JP, TLW and FK since here, they seems to be in shock for a moment or two before starting again to squabble or quipping once they are away from danger. - At the end of the monorail attack scene, I thought that the writers had the balls to kill off Ben  and I would have tipped my hat to this narrative decision and give more credit to this kid show if we didn’t had the reveal at the end that he was still alive. At the end, we just got another Billy Brennan situation. - Bumby is useless in this season, aside from encouraging toy sales and being the show’s cute caution and still, it’s relative as her closeups along with Brooklynn’s rapy face in episode 2 have scared me more than the predators’ attacks in the season’s second half. And her growth rate is so fucked up as she hatch in episode 2 before reappearing in episode 5 I think which is supposed to be set two days later, where she is already the size of a bulldog. And the scene where she cries while the kids are being kicked off the lab (for understandable reasons) is so ridiculous... - Aside from in the action and suspenseful scenes mentioned above in the positive aspects, the use and depicting of dinosaurs is either anecdotal, either WTF with the Sinoceratops being almost as gentle as a lamb (try to do with a hippo or a rhino what the Kennys did with the sino, I wouldn’t mind some funny antics...). I’m not a fan of the bioluminescent Parasaurolophus and their scene either. It seems like they wanted to copy the Na’vi River Journey’s attraction from Animal Kingdom in Orlando, with semi-aquatic parasaurs worthy of some outdated depictions from the last century.   - Visually speaking, the universe and the artistic direction are poor. The jungle has the same look everywhere on the island (with trees of average height being relatively spaced from one another while the ground is covered with grass) and its scenery never seem foreboding or ominous while Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna were, in some way, entire characters in the films that sometimes aroused an eerie sense of mystery and danger, at east in the original trilogy and Fallen Kingdom. The park itself is quite empty too, even before the evacuation. There is only scene with a large amount of people and the latter seems to all share the same model and the same animation in addition of being blurred (probably as a camouflage for the lack of budget) and we don’t believe in this world as nothing grand comes out of the visited locations (aside from maybe the eponymous Camp Cretaceous) and that everything seems so bland, with even the employees being of the same corpulence, age group and behaviour except for a few exceptions. - Finally, let’s discuss about the coherence with the Jurassic World film, of which this show is supposed be a canon interquel. Even though if there is several nods to some of the latter’s events (Masrani’s helicopter is seen a couple of times; the Kennys take the ACU’s van; they walk past Zach and Gray’s destroyed gyrosphere and the killed ankylosaur’s body...)  as well as other materials of the franchise, including JP3 and Masrani Global website, like if the show wanted to tell us “Hey look! I did my homework!” in order to please the fans. It’s one thing to make references to the rest of the saga and it’s easy actually, but it’s another to use them for something else than just fan-service. Despite all this, Camp Cretaceous has its share of inconsistencies with Jurassic World. I won’t list them all since it wouldn’t be that interesting but among other things, we have the mention of fences falling apart across the entire island while nothing like this happened in JW (it seems they mixed up the JP and JW incidents) or at least not on this scale; the kids visit a lab somewhere north of the park whose existence seems a bit off as the Innovation Center’s lab can do everything that lab does, in addition of housing Wu’s secret lab; the surroundings of the mosasaur lagoon which seems empty by the end of the afternoon while chronologically speaking, the scene is supposed to happen just after the pterosaurs attack (and thus the area should be crawling with employees that are looking for eventual late visitors, or the still running security cameras could have spotted the kids) and why did those foolish Kennys didn’t thought of going to the nearby hotels right after the ordeal with the mosasaur instead of hanging around in the bleachers up until sunset, hotels where a large number of visitors are supposed to be found up until quite late in the night according to the Jurassic World film? Anyway, Camp Cretaceous might have got a kick up the backside halfway through and the quality of the episodes did increased little by little but the whole season stays nevertheless mediocre and the viewing of the series is honestly quite dispensable, especially if you were disappointed by the Jurassic World films. Some will probably tell me that I’m being too hard with a kids show but actually, the fact that it is targeted for kids is no excuse for some flaws like a lack of ambition in the artistic direction, the shitty humour or the wtf scenes. Whether a work is for adults, for all audiences, or for kids, the creative investment and the work quality should stay the same.

[littledonkeyburrito]

My neighbours seeing me naked all the time

1. What gives you anxiety? Having to go do something new

2. Are you the type that’s too ashamed to ask for or use directions? Are you kidding me, I fucking love google maps

3. Were you tired when you woke up this morning? I was when I woke up at 11, but not after I went back to sleep and woke up again at 2pm.

4. When you watch the news, how does it effect your mood? Depends on the news, but it generally has a negative impact. That’s why I avoid watching it.

5. Have you ever taken an online IQ test? What was the result? I actually took a real IQ test once but I was 11 and didn’t know that’s the test I was taking. I think the results came back as the high end of average. When I was in grade 5 I was almost constantly fighting with my best friend at the time, Dylan. It was stressing me out so I asked my mum if I could talk to someone at the school for help so she set me up with one of the school counsellors, I think his name was something like Mr Zagini or Mr Zagami (I remember his two nicknames being Mr zucchini and Mr salami). Anyway, it was mostly stuff I already knew but I got to skip class sometimes for our sessions. I didn’t continue sessions with him in grade 6 (I don’t know why), but he came to me one time and was like “hey I want to do this series of tests with you, are you okay with that?” and I was like “yeah sure” so I did them. Just a bunch of little lateral thinking puzzles which I was well used to doing, due to having been part of the school’s “gifted and talented” program (the instructor of which committed suicide a few years later after the cops found out he was into child porn, but that’s a story for another time I guess) since I was 6 years old. I feel like if I took an IQ test these days I would probably come back as squarely average. I don’t feel that smart since I hit adulthood.

6. Have you ever had anything expensive stolen from you? There was that one time someone broke into my house and stole my potatoes.

7. Can you hear anything right now? A group of drunk people from the bars downstairs

8. Have you ever been to a wedding? A few family weddings, yeah. Next year I will be a groomsman for my friend/old flatmate.

9. What is your favourite kind of pasta? I prefer rice noodles tbh

10. Are you proud of who you are? Sometimes

11. Would you prefer an ice cream sundae or an ice cream cone? Sundae.

12. What time is it? 12:03am

13. Are you good at giving directions? If I have a map, or know where I am, yeah

14. Do you own any Sims games? Which ones? Sims 3, plus pets and supernatural expansions.

15. What is your favourite kind of fruit juice? Probably orange

16. Have you worn a necklace today? I haven’t worn a necklace in years

17. Do your parents smoke cigarettes? Unusually, neither of my parents ever got into smoking

18. What is the color of the curtains in the room you’re in right now? No curtains. I just deal with my neighbours seeing me naked all the time

19. How many instruments do you own/have you owned? Now I just have one guitar but over the years I’ve had 2 acoustic guitars, 2 electric guitars, 2 ukuleles, a bass guitar, a glockenspiel, a full size electric piano, an electric drum kit and an acoustic drum kit.

20. What does one of your T-shirts have written on it? "Netflix”

21. Name a pet you definitely wouldn’t want. Tarantula.

22. Who’s the fifth contact in your phonebook? My aunt

23. If you had to text them something now what would you say? I would say that I’m probably coming back to australia in january and that we should have a family gathering

24. Should you be in bed right now? I haven’t had a bedtime since I was like 13

25. Do you know anyone that has the same birthday? A sort-of-friend’s boyfriend who is also the ex of the girlfriend of one of my best friends. But he’s a year or two younger than me.

26. Would you prefer your partner smaller or taller? I’ve tried both and established that my preference is definitely taller.

27. Do you acknowledge your feelings or ignore them? Depends on the feeling but generally suppress, bottle and ignore.

28. When was the last time someone saw you naked? Back in panama. God, it’s been slow since I’ve been home

29. How would you describe your current mood? Is tipsy a mood?

30. When was the last time you did something you were embarrassed by? Whenever I last got very drunk probably

31. What was the last thing you lied about? I generally don’t like lying so the last time was probably when I was telling my travel group in central america that I had never slept with the tour guide.

32. Where is your favorite place to have sex? Uhh a bed I guess. Although that one time I fooled around in the back of a car was pretty fun too.

33. Do you ever drink or get high alone? I tried getting high alone once and that was no fun. Drunk, yes, like once a week.

34. What type of a drunk are you? Happy and fun

35. When was the last time you revealed your feelings for someone? Were they accepted or rejected? I generally don’t tell guys that I like them. Although tbh I generally don’t develop actual feeling for them so...

36. What was the reason behind your last visit to the hospital? I think that was when a friend had his appendix out and a group of us went to see him. The time before that was a fair bit more distressing though. 

36. What is the “worst” drug you’ve done? Are there any you will never try, or any you want to try? The worst is probably coke. I will never ever ever try meth or heroin. Those are just a baaaaad idea. Nothing that I specifically want to try.

37. When was the last time you were up all night and why? Up the whole night would have been my last night shift in australia. Although there’s been several times since then that I’ve been up until 3am or even sunrise on a night out.

38. Who was the last person to yell at you? Did you yell back? I have absolutely no idea

39. Where did your last injury come from? Uhhh I think my last “injury” was about a month ago when I cut my thumb on a beer can. Hardly an injury though.

40. Where do you like to be kissed? Tbh I quite like being kissed on the neck

41. You have 5 minutes - grab 3 snacks from the grocery store. What are they? A bunch of mandarins, a pack of chips and a block of chocolate probably

42. Dancing, acting, and singing - which two are you best at? None of the above

43. Deep fried Oreos & deep fried pickles - would you try either? I’d try either at least once

44. Funny, charming, cute, romantic, smart - choose only 2 for a potential partner. Funny and cute I think.

45. Snow or sand? Soda or juice? Cake or cookies? Royalty or immortality? Snow, soda, cake, immortality.

46. Which is more important to you: make-up or hair? Hair.

47. What is one tradition that you and your family have? Do you enjoy it? Generally my brother and I spend christmas morning at mum’s house and have breakfast with her and then head to dad’s for the afternoon/evening and have his big full roast christmas dinner with him and sometimes a couple of his friends.

48. You can go back in time & change something in your Mom’s past - what is it? I think I would somehow try to give her more self esteem as a teenager. Or maybe I’d have stopped that one boyfriend from breaking up with her to move to sydney, after which she cried for at least a week. Idk I think I’d have tried to make her see that he was kind of a douche and not worth her time because she only deserves the absolute best.

49. Money doesn’t matter - choose a vacation destination and pick your party: If money is no issue then I would travel from alaska all the way down to the southern-most tip of argentina with whoever wants to join for a section. IRL I kinda plan on travelling mexico to argentina in a year or so anyway.

50. Been on any websites today you wouldn’t want your parents to see? No. I mean, they’d probably be mildly confused as to why I was researching when the shower was invented but it’s not like they’d care.

51. Flip your arm over - can you see your veins? No because I’m wearing a jumper and can’t see my skin through the sleeve obvs.

52. Pick a movie at least 5 years old that you absolutely love: Love and Other Drugs

53. Do you ever buy snacks at the movie theater? What do you get? Sometimes I did in australia but I never do here. I always have dinner beforehand and then just buy a bottle of water from the grocery store next door to take into the theatre. 

54. When was the last time you had to jump? Jump? Uhhhh ... I didn’t have to but I jumped off the front of the boat into the ocean while I was in the San Blas Islands off Panama a couple of months ago. 

55. At what time does it start getting dark where you live? Currently it gets dark around 5:30pm

56. Which is worse: dusting or mopping? I’m not sure I’ve ever dusted in my life.

57. Peanut butter VS. Caramel - which side are you on? Depends on context but probably usually caramel.

58. Have you ever complained to a manager about anything? What was it? I argued with some bond cleaners a bit over a year ago. I didn’t ask to, but I spoke to the manager and I ended up winning the argument.

59. Any idea where the shirt you’re wearing was made? Take a guess. I don’t know, China? Actually, none of the labels seem to specify where it was made.

60. Would you marry somebody who was intensely religious? No because our lifestyles wouldn’t match up.

61. Are you “with” the very last person you kissed? No

62. Ever dated/kissed a someone with the name Casey, Tyler, Ryan, Jordan, Colton, Rebecca, Samantha, Lauren, Taylor, or Ashley? That’s so specific. I think I’ve kissed a rebecca.

63. Was your last kiss, standing up, sitting down, or lying down? Standing up, saying goodbye at the hotel room door.

64. Are you happy with the choices you’ve made? In general, yeah

65. Are you excited for anything? Well, I’m going to Paris next week.

66. Do you hate the last person you kissed? No.

67. You’re stuck in an elevator with one of your worst enemies, what do you do? Scroll through facebook/instagram/whatever on my phone.

68. Will this weekend be a good one? The weekend is over.

69. Do you like to listen to the radio in the car? Nah, I listen to my iPod in the car and the radio at work. I mean, y’know, when I had a car and a job.

70. Do you sleep with a fan on? I literally don’t even have a fan

71. How is your hair right now? In need of a cut.

72. Have you ever broken up with someone for someone else? No.

73. How many windows are open on your computer? 1 window, 4 tabs.

74. How tall are you? ~5′3″ but I slouch

75. Have you ever taken a shower with anyone before? Yeah but tbh I don’t really understand the appeal unless you plan on fucking in the shower which sounds slippery and dangerous.

76. Is your hair clean? Almost always

77. What are you drinking right now? Nothing.

78. Do you wear your seatbelt in the car? Yes, unless I’m in a bus or sometimes I don’t when I’m in a country where the law doesn’t make you wear one. Eg in some countries cabs will have sheets covering the back seats so even if you want to put on the seatbelt you can’t because the clip thing is covered up and you can’t access it.

79. Does someone have feelings for you? Doubt it

80. Have you ever been cheated on? Pretty sure, yeah

81. Are you hard to please? Not at all

82. What are you craving right now? TRAVEL

83. How are you feeling right now? A bit cold

84. What color shirt are you wearing? Tshirt is orange and white. Jumper over it is grey with white stripes.

85. Who is the last person you got a message from? @aturinfortheworse

86. Are you excited for winter? Only if I get to go somewhere with snow (unlikely). I love the cold when I’m actually out and about and doing things but when I’m just sitting at home doing nothing and my feet are so cold they’re in physical pain then I don’t enjoy it so much. This is only a thing I’ve realised recently.

87. When are you at your happiest? When I’m travelling and having adventures.

88. Do you live alone? Yep

89. What do you do to pass time? Netflix, video games, tumblr 90. Do you go clubbing on weekends? When I live in the same city as my friends, sometimes

91. Twin bed, or other? Maybe a couch? What is this even asking? I have a king size bed currently 92. What are three things, that are not hygiene related you do every single day? Eat, check facebook, charge my phone 93. Are you addicted to anything drug like? No. 94. Did you pull a senior prank? They weren’t allowed at my school, but I don’t think I’d have cared enough anyway 95. Did you graduate? Highschool, yes. Uni, no.

96. Any goals? Live comfortably (with a job) in a country other than Australia, preferably a spanish speaking country.

97. Do you miss being a kid? In some ways yes, like not having responsibilities. In other ways no, like not getting laid... I mean, not that I’m getting laid now either...

98. Have you ever been unfaithful in a serious realfionship? Never had a serious relationship. 99. Do you have any tattoos? No. 100. Regrets? Nah. No point regretting things. Just learn and move on.

[wellamarke]

probability

humans challenge, week 2, day 2: high school/college au warning for references to canonical character death

Even now, weeks afterwards, Mattie still half-expected to see Leo waiting for her outside the English block, at the end of class. They had always met up after third period, ready to sneak off to the gap in the hedge at the bottom of the school field. Max would meet them there, keen to hear how their day was going, and Mattie would try and trick him into doing her maths homework for her. Max didn’t fall for it very often, but it had always made Leo laugh, the fact that she kept trying.

That was all over now. Leo was in hospital - he would probably never come back to school, even if he got to come home. People had finally stopped looking at Mattie with Sympathy Eyes, and she was glad of it - she didn’t need to be constantly reminded by their pitying stares. You didn’t just forget that your best friend was in a coma. It was pretty much a constant thing.

Except, at the start of every lunch hour, when she walked out of English and Leo wasn’t standing there, in his usual place. A group of year seven girls used it now, oblivious to the history of that broken second step, with the bit of brick that jutted out at the wrong angle. It was a private landmark, known only to Mattie for now.

She crossed the basketball court and went down the slope on the other side of it, headed for the field. She and Max had kept up their tradition, as best they could, although for obvious reasons he was having to spend a lot of time with his family at present, so it wasn’t as regular as it had been before. Mattie didn’t mind. It was always nicer to see Max, but on days where he didn’t turn up, she appreciated the time to think.

Harun waved, as Mattie passed the section of the field that was unofficially reserved by the people who came there to smoke. She nodded to him. Now that Leo wasn’t there, he was the closest thing she had to a friend at school, and she had to hand it to him for trying really hard to be there for her, after Leo’s accident. It wasn’t Harun’s fault Mattie didn’t want to talk about it.

He jogged over to meet her, even though she hadn’t stopped. “Hey,” he said. “The guys are saying the assembly this afternoon might be about Leo. Like, a fundraiser or something. You know about it?”

Mattie wrinkled her nose. “What good would a fundraiser do?”

“I dunno. Raise funds.”

“Proper bright spark, you are.”

Harun grinned. His eyes were still serious, though. “Just thought you might know about it. Like if they’d asked you to go up and talk about him or something.”

She had clearly brought out the sarcasm too early in the conversation. “As if I’d do that.”

“Why not? No-one else really knows him.”

Mattie ignored that comment. “What makes you think it’s about Leo, anyway?”

“Somebody saw his dad leaving the head’s office before school today.”

This, at least, was an interesting development. “Serious?”

“Yeah.”

Mattie shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it’s to do with the assembly. It’s probably just going to be some boring exam revision shit, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Harun stood there for a few more moments, then when it was clear Mattie wasn’t going to further the conversation, he said goodbye to her and returned to his other friends. Mattie carried on towards the far border of the field, but she barely noticed the steps she was taking. The truth was, it hadn’t even occurred to her that the special assembly that had been announced this morning could have anything to do with Leo. She’d barely given it a second thought. But if it was just an exams thing, wouldn’t they have said? Wouldn’t it have been planned a little more in advance?

She told herself to stop worrying over nothing. It was a big school. Other things happened in it than one year nine going into hospital. Other things happened in it that were everybody’s business.

There was no sign of Max at the hedge gap. Mattie dumped her school bag on the grass and sat down next to it, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back on the palms of her hands. She could hear the sounds of a football game starting up, and over in the smokers’ corner, someone was playing music from a Bluetooth speaker. Looking uphill, she could see one of the school’s synth janitors, with a troupe of student counsellors in tow, the ones who gave up one lunchtime a week to pick up litter in the school grounds. Funny, Mattie thought, that there were people like that in the world, and there were also people like Darren Andrews, who’d asked Mattie last week how anyone was supposed to know Leo was in a coma, when he never spoke or reacted to anything in the first place.

Mattie may have shoved him against the wall of lockers. That was immaterial. Darren Andrews was an idiot.

It was true that growing up with a bunch of synths had made Leo quite a still, contained sort of person, just out of habit. Being around synths either made you mega fidgety, to make up for it, or it got you slowing right down with them. It was also true that Leo hadn’t spoken much to anyone besides Mattie, but when your family was made of technology too advanced to officially exist, and their very lives would be at stake if anyone reported them, you didn’t exactly go around inviting people over to play FIFA. If Leo was perceived as weird, it was mostly circumstantial. It just so happened that the circumstances were unknown to everyone except Mattie.

The lunch hour passed irritatingly slowly, so much so that Mattie almost thought about going over and joining Harun and his lot after all. She checked her phone a few times, just to have something to do, but there were no messages, and no new threads on Headcrack that caught her eye. Mostly, she just sat and enjoyed being cut off from it all.

********

“We understand that some of you may be upset by this news. That’s perfectly natural. Mrs Lacey, our school guidance counsellor, will be available for the rest of the afternoon, for anyone who wants to talk to her privately.”

The words washed over Mattie in a wave of meaningless sound. None of it was reaching past her ears anymore. It was like her brain had shut off, closed up the windows, barricaded the door. Nothing was getting in or out. Vaguely, she was aware that the people sitting nearest her were all looking in her direction, but she was staring straight ahead, not meeting anyone’s gaze. Her hands were in her lap, balled up in tight fists, and the sensation of nails against skin was the only part of the physical world she was properly connecting to.

The rest of it couldn’t be true, it just wasn’t. Leo was in hospital. He had been in hospital for weeks. Those were the facts, and nothing had changed about his condition, not since the day of the accident. He was sleeping. He would sleep and sleep and sleep until he woke up. The machines would stay on. That was key, that the machines stayed on. Nobody was going to turn them off. Nobody had the right to turn them off, and certainly the headteacher of Mattie’s school did not have the right to stand up in front of everyone and say otherwise.

He was asleep. He was supposed to stay asleep.

The words continued. Mrs Lacey was talking now. There were people sniffling in the audience. Stupid. They didn’t know anything. They didn’t know Leo was still asleep and they hadn’t really known him while he was awake so it was stupid if they cried now. Mattie’s cheeks were dry, she was going to see Leo again even if he didn’t open his eyes to see her, the machine was staying on. The headteacher had been wrong, misinformed somehow. Leo’s father had not really been to visit her this morning. Harun’s friend must have imagined it. The machines weren’t allowed to turn off when they were the ones doing the breathing. You didn’t just stop someone breathing.

The headteacher was talking again. Then there was music, and lots of shuffling about - people were leaving. Mattie stood up when it came to her row’s turn. Her movements were smooth and automatic. Like a synth. Like Max. Max hadn’t been at the hedge today, which meant he had probably been at the hospital. He would have stopped them switching off the machines. He must have. He wouldn’t have let them stop breathing for him.

Somebody spoke in Mattie’s ear. Harun. She looked in his direction, but she hadn’t heard him in words, just a string of noises that didn’t mean anything. His hand was on her arm. She looked at it. It seemed far away, though she wasn’t aware of her arm having grown. The sounds of people collecting their things were making strange echoes off the walls of the hall, and something in Mattie’s brain had decided to tune into those, rather than anything else. The crowd was moving towards the exit. She allowed herself to be borne along.

It was fifth period. Physics, she was supposed to have Physics. It was back that way. She needed to turn round, but the people in front of her were going this way, and Mattie’s feet were just following. There was a door at the end of this corridor. She could go out of it and double back on herself, walking back to where she should have made the turn.

She went out of the door. She didn’t turn; she kept walking straight, down the ramp and towards the basketball court. Before the assembly she had been on the field. Everything was alright on the field.

Mattie realised she was running, but only when she was already out of breath. She slowed down, having no idea how long she had sprinted for, only that she was almost at the gap in the hedge. Max wouldn’t be there. He hadn’t been there at lunch and he wouldn’t be there now. He would be at the hospital, making sure nothing was changing. Max wouldn’t let Leo down, he never had. Mattie didn’t need him to be at the gap if it meant he was at the hospital instead.

“Mattie?”

Max’s voice. No, he wasn’t there, he hadn’t been before. Mattie turned away from the gap and took a deep breath. Where had all the air gone? She was outside. It was allowed to be stuffy in the hall but out here she was supposed to be able to breathe properly. Maybe she needed a machine too.

“Mattie, it’s me. Behind you.”

She turned around. Max was there, now, standing in the gap, behind the border where the hedge should be but still fully visible for anyone to see. Instinctively Mattie pushed through to join him on the other side, and they moved out of sight.

“Max,” she said, struggling even to form that one sentence. Her mouth was foreign soil, unchartered territory that her tongue didn’t know how to plough anymore. “I can’t…”

“I tried to get here earlier,” Max said. “But there was a lot to organise. Mia needed my help.”

The sound of his voice, so measured and calm and familiar, grounded Mattie for the first time since the news. The full force of the last half an hour hit her all at once, slamming into her so hard that she almost choked. “Leo’s dead?” she croaked out.

Max moved forwards, and took hold of Mattie’s arms. “Not entirely. Listen to me, Mattie, we haven’t lost him yet, but we still might.”

She blinked. Her heart had given a leap but now it lodged in her throat, throbbing there, confusion flooding her.

“But– they said–”

“He’s been discharged from the hospital,” Max said. “They couldn’t do anything else for him. Officially, he’s died. But our father is going to continue working on him at home. He’s studied the human brain extensively, to help with creating us, and there are things he can try that the doctors won’t.”

“Like what?” Mattie asked, her eyes saucer-wide and threatening to spill.

“I don’t know, he won’t say. No-one is allowed to know, Mattie. He isn’t a licensed medical doctor, and he would be punished for falsifying a death certificate.”

“I won’t say anything,” Mattie assured him, finally able to breathe properly. Her heart was still beating fast, but with uncertainty now, and that was a thousand times better than despair.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before the announcement. I didn’t even know Father had been to tell the school what was going to happen, not until we already had Leo home. By then it was too late to reach you.”

“Why did he have to tell the school?” Mattie asked, dazed still.

“I suspect he wants to cover all bases straight away. As far as the whole world knows, this is the day Leo died. Whoever you ask, they’ll say the same. Even if doubt is cast upon the documentation, there’ll still be a lot of people who remember it the same way.”

“But… there’s a chance he could live?”

“Yes.”

“How big a chance?”

Max looked uneasy. “I haven’t dared to ask. I don’t think it's very big at all.”

Mattie nodded. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the odds in any more detail, really. Any chance, however tiny, was something to hold on to, at least. “Probability,” she said, a tiny note of bitter humour edging her voice. “I never did see the point of it anyway.”

Max’s lips twitched in the faintest glimmer of his usual beaming smile. “I remember.”

“Can I see him, d'you think?”

“Not today. Probably not for a long time. My father will be with him as much as possible, and he mustn’t find out that you know.”

It made sense. A tiny, shameful part of Mattie was glad she wouldn’t be allowed. Images flickered in her mind, the sight of Leo stretched out on a table with wires running in and out of him, little lights bleeping and reflecting on his pale, lifeless skin; even in her imagination, he looked too close to being dead. Properly, irrevocably dead, like people in the churchyard where it was set in stone, just like the phrase said, un-undoable.

“But you’ll keep me updated?”

“Of course I will.”

Impulsively Mattie closed the gap between them, throwing her arms around Max. He hugged her back, and a relieved sob forced its way out of her. She had been to so many emotional extremes in such a short time. Her head was still spinning.

When they parted, Max was smiling his proper smile. “Today is a good day, Mattie. We have to keep hoping.”

“I will,” she promised.

The chance didn’t have to be big, it just had to be within her reach.

[everyoneneedsalisteningear]

Dear possible future counsellor/therapist,

I hate to be that kind of patient, those that did their kinda whole background reading online and come to you expecting that you confirm what they have already diagnosed for yourself and in the whole process, kind of not trust you if you tell them otherwise.

...I'm very sorry, but I am this kind of patient.

I know it is annoying, but let's face it, in this day and age, who wouldn't find and see things on the internet? We all need to start adapting our ways to deal with such patients. To get them to trust you without wholly discrediting the "homework" they did and believe in.

I would also like to bring up the prevalence of mental health issues in my generation. It is almost like a joke now amongst a ton of us, that we have no life goals, that we're just dissatisfied with life in general and it's a slob, where we're always alone and sad --- there's a whole meme culture for this called dank memes, and the amount of people that relate to this is quite a lot.

many many people in our generation are identifying as having anxiety and depression, and it is truly a whole community worth of people.

But I need to tell you this, and I want you to believe me. As much as I find these depressing jokes very funny and relatable, that isn't the reason why I'm here, and that isn't the reason why I choose to feel this way.

I wouldn't want to be here if I didn't feel like I needed to be. Feeling this way sucks. I want my old self back. I didn't choose for this to happen. The main reason why I am here, is because I feel that what I am going through seems abnormal. Emotions are supposed to be relatively rational, in a sense that if you're worried, something worth worrying about has happened/if you're sad, something sad has happened etc.

The thing is, I feel a pang of sadness that comes out of nowhere. For no particular reason whatsoever worth me feeling THIS sucky. I have a quote from myself, once when I was going through those times, that goes "can I fall sick or something so I have a legit reason to feel this shitty".

There was literally nothing going on. My life is uneventful like that. I could just be studying. I could even be hanging out with my beloved friends, who put up with so much more of my crap than they should be subjected to, I could be alone doing things I love like dancing or watching a movie or even eating, and there would be times where my chest hurts and I feel like crying. It's funny because it's not so much sadness, but like I like to describe it, I'm simply, down. Kind of like you're some heavy rock. Then obviously you don't feel like doing anything except lie on a bed and wallow in self-pity.

My baseline, I would describe it as a certain extent of self-consciousness. There is an inner monologue in my head going on most of the time, thinking through things I want to do or say. I remember once, for 2 days straight, I was functional as heck. Inner monologue me wasn't there, and I socialised well and was alone well as well. I was happy and content, and I never felt so confident with myself.

But that was awhile ago, and the muck creeped back in over time.

Inner monologue me is frustrating. When my chest hurts, it screams my motto at me (kinda the coping mechanism I found for myself over the year), which is that the lower I feel, the more I must fight it. "Fight it, resist it you idiot!", it would scream at me. At other times when my mind is racing, there's just many inner monologue mes talking over each other. Sometimes it's not just me, it's replayed conversations from my past, just coming back here and there. If it doesn't reach a peak, that's manageable. But sometimes, the talking gets faster and faster, and my heart starts to race and I get kinda panicky and I really need to find some way to break it. Usually I change my activity or find another distraction. Sleeping does not work.

But these aren't the worst things. Let me tell you about my worst fear. It used to be that I was scared I wasn't a good person at heart. That's no longer the case, after I started feeling something different.

It started with a rare, seemingly one-off episode, like my chest-hurting which is much more common now..., where I was just suddenly acutely aware that I am a person, alive in this world, and I am me.

I don't like talking about it because imagining it may make me go there, and I don't want to go there. I lose myself there. It's like I don't even know who I am anymore, and I'm just some... thing controlling this human I call "me" in this weird universe we call reality. I feel like an avatar, in a first person game, navigating my way around. Even when I talk to my friends, sometimes it's like talking to them through a screen. That is my worst fear. That I lose myself completely, that I start contemplating about things I can't put into words, when reality falls apart and seems like some sort of game. When I am detached from the world around me and everything seems muffled, and everything overwhelms me all at once. Where I feel alone and yet I don't know who I am. That is my worst fear. This may sound melodramatic, but.. sinking into oblivion like into a deep dark sea with no one around you, no sounds of life, blurry visions, no start and no end, like being trapped in some kind of weird limbo? yeah that's the stuff.

...

So, I feel like I need to pull myself out of that for awhile now and just let you know some of my counselling history. I went to the school counsellor for a couple of sessions and stopped completely. I have no intention of going back to see her, ever, because it wasn't a good fit.

Granted, I wasn't always completely honest with her but that's in a way of me just feeling weird to be so dramatic about my emotions. Like how I am usually like with friends and family, I tend to joke around alot and be very sarcastic, and I do that especially when talking about serious and sad things like that.

I suppose I wasn't taken very seriously then, because she kept reassuring me that there is nothing wrong with me, just some self-confidence issues.

Now...you must see where this is a problem. For me, at least.

I, am someone who has been writing diary entries since I was in kindergarten. I love writing whenever I had something I wanted to share. Writing was my outlet, writing is where I tell stories about my life and usually, make them sound better than they actually were, but that's just a speciality of mine. Also, and most importantly, writing made me my own counsellor.

I've been solving my own problems, insecurities and whatnot, via writing for the past like 13/14 years. I wouldn't be here, if I didn't think that there was something really wrong with me, that was abnormal, that I cannot rationalise myself out of, and that I need professional help with.

So when I've gathered all my courage to approach a mental health professional, telling them I think I may need help, telling me that nothing is wrong with me is NOT reassuring.

What does that mean? If nothing is wrong with me, that means that whatever emotions I'm feeling and whatever thoughts I'm having, that there is a reason to them. That they make sense, and it's a normal reaction to things happening in my life. But that's not the case! I feel and think these things REGARDLESS!

So how do you explain this, if there is "nothing wrong with me"??

It was really frustrating. I felt like she didn't believe me, and once, when I told her I really didn't feel like getting out of bed and doing anything at all, feeling unmotivated etc, she laughed and said, oh right, like feeling too lazy to do anything right and I was like. okay. no.

Being lazy, is a whole other issue altogether.

I'm not someone, to not do important things, and let myself fall apart, simply because of laziness. I won't let myself. Which is why I've been fighting it even more nowadays, because I gave in to it initially when I first felt it for the first few times. Back then, I thought well maybe if I really sink myself into it, I'll "use it up" and then I can move on. You know how they say, accepting the emotion instead of being in denial so you can find out what's wrong, accept it and then move on. But nooo.... I let myself sink into it, and only got out a few months later. It was horrible. That period of my life is a blur, I don't even know what was going on, I was just surviving blindly.

She did, eventually, give me a referral to some mental health organisation because I think she could tell that I was exasperated she wasn't giving me a diagnosis of some sort (my fault, sorry), but then I met another kind of frustration.

The man I talked to, basically told me that I wasn't depressed enough to have depression.

Oh, your life isn't in complete shambles? Oh, you can still get out of bed in the morning? Oh, you haven't missed a bunch of meals or ate until your stomach exploded? Oh, you still have friends? Yeah, I don't think you're depressed. You're fine.

Excuse me, perhaps I feel these ways in a milder version. I may not feel like eating, but I eat something anyway because I'm not to the point where I want to starve myself. Besides, eating is a coping mechanism for me. A great distraction. So not eating? yeah no, not gonna happen. Eating too much? I eat a lot normally, so it's not really a thing. I really can't tell the difference. But yes, now, I do see the differences abit more clearly perhaps after a longer period of monitoring myself, I do eat less when I'm down. But not to the point of not eating because I'm not suicidal yet.

Sleep patterns is a whole other thing. I can safely tell you that when I am down, I sleep past 2am, unless I have a headache and have to sleep earlier. Because I lose track of time, and I don't want to be alone with my head. I get a bad feeling about it sometimes. Which is why I can't be alone, usually, when I'm down because I'm scared that negative thoughts will overwhelm me.

The thing is though, I am someone who also wants to be empowered to live their life, so I'm not going to just sit back and let all these things ruin my life. I fight back. So to say that as if my grades are slipping like shit and I'm going to LET it? nope, not gonna happen. I have a career ahead of me and no matter how shitty I feel and how unmotivated I am to do anything about it, you'd be sure I will sit myself on that chair, and I will stare at my laptop screen until I do some work. No it will not be my best work. But it will be something. So to say that I'm going to let all these things happen and me just letting it be, as a sign of depression? no. I felt insulted, if I have to be completely honest.

So at that point I did get pissed, and outrightly asked him, "okay so if I don't have depression, what is this? why do I feel all this? there has to be a reason for it", and he finally gave in not fighting me on it, that I may have depressive symptoms, but then added, but not to the point of depression yet.

I guess it was the most I could get out of him at that point.

I feel bad that I want people to diagnose me. I want to feel that these thoughts and emotions to be validated by a mental health issue, because, like what I asked him, if this isn't it, them give me a good reason why my thoughts and emotions are irrational!

I believe I made my stand clear ... I hope to hear what you have to say. Thank you for listening.

[grandmaster-flashraf]

.

This is just me trying to get all of my emotions out of my person so I can focus on studying for my last 2 exams this semester so if you read this and feel any sort of emotion at all whatsoever then yay I did a thing. I'm literally just venting but I don't want to just write it down and I know writing some fkn tumblr post about it is corny as fuck but oh well I don't want to write it on paper only to throw it in the trash. So basically on February 4th 2017 I tried to overdose on Tylenol because I just couldn't deal with my life anymore and frankly I'm feeling the same way now as I did on that day but maybe getting these feelings out will somehow get rid of it. When I was younger I thought I was just above relationships, that they weren't for me at all and I couldn't see any future version of me being in a relationship with a girl. I thought kissing and the idea of sex was nasty unlike people around me who in grade 6 were already turning into little horny animals. I was so high and mighty in my own mind thinking hah I won't be distracted by girls I don't like them at all screw relationships. Then I realized; oops, I like boys, not girls. But being in a middle eastern Muslim family didn't exactly make that easy and so I kinda bottled up that feeling. Apparently I wasn't very good at it though because supposedly it showed in the way I walked and talked and carried myself as a person. My dad had his suspicions and for some reason thought my brother had sexually harassed me which is genuinely disgusting to me especially considering that this is my only brother now that upon hearing about this part of me didn't try to make me change it. So anyways he asks me about this and if I'm gay and I deny both because the first is outright disgusting and the other I'm not ready to share. He basically pushes me further into the closet when he tells me that if I'm gay he can just take me back to Egypt and I can marry a girl there and have a family. Oh I forgot to mention this was when I was like 12 or 13, so needless to say I didn't take it very well. So there's me just trying to get good grades in elementary school because, you guessed it, I was (and frankly still am) an overweight socially awkward child. All I had was a slight predisposition to be intelligent. So life goes on and I do make friends and form bonds with people, but never get into any relationships. Then high school was a thing and I went to a high school where I knew like 5 people going into grade 9. That was probably the most uneventful year of my life until I fall in love with theatre at the end of the year and decide to start doing improv in grade 10 and throughout high school I find joy in it. I make more friends and become closer with the people around me, but still not really impressing anybody at home with anything I do. My love of performing was pushed down by my doctor dad, and when I came home from an actual scripted show I performed and won the competition that night, all I get is the remark that I can focus on school again because all this stupid theatre stuff is over. It's funny how I became so interested in something so looked down upon by my parents, and honestly a huge part of me loved performing and I definitely liked that something I loved to do also pissed off my dad. I also perform at a coffee house event and when my parents find out that the funds were going to support LGBT homeless youth my mom tells me they deserve to be homeless because they might as well have killed somebody and my dad just outright gets mad. So then I'm deciding to go to university to study math, and I was pretty good at it coming to the end of high school. I get accepted to an actuarial science program and I tell my parents I want to accept my offer, but to no avail. They make me take another offer to a science program. I enjoy science, but I had just put in so much effort into researching actuarial science programs and learning about future career opportunities that having my dream thrown under the bus was gut wrenching. They also make me move into an apartment in the same building as my grandma, a 30 minute bus ride from campus. But I'm excited because at least in this city I can just be myself. Even though I had uncles and aunts also living in that city, I was going to take the opportunity to just be myself and not hide my sexuality. I came out to a handful of my close friends in high school, and honestly with the way I was acting I was overcompensating for the fact that I hadn't actually just come out by liking stereotypical gay guy things like Beyoncé and lady gaga and that's a part of why I did theatre too. But regardless, my dad must've predicted that I wanted to be myself when moving to this city because he told me one of his doctor friends said that I'd been fucking guys all throughout high school, keep in mind that I literally never went to a single party because I was barely ever allowed out of the house after dark. He told me that if I was gay I should just wait until he's dead because this would kill him anyways. That he'd never be able to look any other family member in the eye when he has a gay son. That I should watch out in this city because I have other family members in the city who know people and if word gets out everybody is going to know. I don't know to this day what he expected to come of that conversation. He wanted me to change the way I walked, talked, and moved my hands around while I talked, but that person was the one that got accepted to the every university he applied to. I had adhered to every single rule put on me my entire life, and still being me just fucking wasn't enough. We had this conversation while my mom was visiting my sister and her newborn kid, and this was also the day before I was going to drive to this new city and move the rest of my things into this apartment. I had sushi the next day with a close friend of mine who knew I was gay but didn't tell her about what my dad told me. I don't go home from university until one of my other siblings is getting married. I'm the youngest of 7, and when my parents got married they each had 3 kids of their own and they together just had me, so there's a pretty big age gap between my siblings and I. So this brother of mine is getting married over thanksgiving weekend in October and I'm stuck with my family in a hotel trying to study for midterms but being forced to do a bunch of wedding stuff because the wedding planner just disappears as usual. That whole weekend just stressed me out, but I still did okay on my midterms. It wasn't until around the end of October where I went home for 2 days because we had a study break from school Thursday/Friday followed by the weekend. My dad asks me that weekend if I can promise him that he'll see me get married to a girl and have a child before he dies and I just agree and brush it off but I know what his intentions were with that comment. So I leave home early and head back to my apartment because I'm not putting up with that kind of bullshit anymore. But it had to manifest into something so I started self harming. Wow cutting yourself in 2016 so edgy. But anyways I literally just couldn't function anymore so I went to a 24 hour crisis centre in my city and just spill all of this information on to one of the counsellors there. I forget her name, but she was an older white woman who was very aware of the fact that she couldn't understand the cultural implications of my situation, but I still wanted to just try and talk it out. I have it in my head that I just need to become a doctor or successful whatever and then tell my family I'm gay and at that point when I'm financially independent they can't touch me. I confide this is one of my friends from high school and he tells me that he cares about me but can't help me from where he is and that I need real help. He also tells 2 of my other best friends from high school about my situation. All of them knew I was gay but they were so genuinely worried about me that I just carried myself on. So the end of my first academic term comes around and one of my best friends calls me telling me she'd overdosed. I was in the library studying for my calculus final so I panic and call somebody else close to her to go get her asap. I don't know how I managed to stay calm and get her help while simultaneously getting the highest mark I've ever gotten on an exam the next day while thinking about one of my friends being in a hospital without me there. I just finish my exams and I don't actually end up seeing her over the winter break. I say break with a grain of salt because it definitely wasn't a break for me. I left my car at my apartment because there wasn't space for it with all my siblings visiting, so I couldn't leave the house for basically 3 weeks. On top of that I didn't have a room to stay in, just a mattress in the basement next to some gym equipment nobody used. My dad tried to make me use it, and came down multiple times a day to tell me I should use it instead of laying around all day. I'm pretty sure that this lack of a break is what really pushed me over, but it was still only December heading into 2017. I was exhausted from finals and wanted to relax, but life didn't award me such luxury. I headed into the second academic term mentally exhausted, still didn't go home at all. I had a chem midterm Friday February 3rd and then a bio and physics midterm Saturday the 11th. Oh, and another one of my close friends tries to overdose in January, once again I'm the first to know about it and I freak out and call her roommate. She gets the help she needs and because she told me so early they flushed her system fast and she was out of hospital a day later. I feel bad that I don't remember exactly what day it was. So after my chemistry midterm that I studied for the entire week, I tell myself that February 4th is going to be a productive day of more studying for my next two midterms. I did absolutely nothing all day and at around 6 or 7 pm I decide I want to die. But I know I'm too much of a bitch to just take the pills, so I drink some vodka and 30 Tylenol 500mg each. I found something online that said how much Tylenol was lethal, and calculated it based on my body weight how many I needed to take. By the time I was taking the pills I'd sobered up and didn't take enough of them for my weight. I bitched out. Thought I'd be fine and I just went to sleep. I woke up the next morning vomiting bile. One of my high school friends snapchats me something funny, but I ignore it and respond to him telling him what I did. We go to the same university, so he's just a bus ride away. Still, his response is just "wtf why did u do that." And when I respond telling him why, he never opens it. So a few more hours go by and I'm going back and forth between my bed and my bathroom every 20'minutes or so until I message one of my friends I've made here at my university. I tell him what I've done and he does the responsible thing of telling his parents who also live in the city and they call an ambulance. At this point I'm so defeated I give them my address and the ambulance shows up. Nobody sees me get taken out of the building. I forgot a phone charger though, and that was just another mistake I made that day. So I get to the nearest hospital and they ask me if I want my emergency contact to be called. It's my mom, and because I'm 18 I decline. I don't want any family to know I'm there. I have blood work done and they put me on an IV. I'm falling behind on schoolwork by the second but I have my phone so I ask my nurse if she has a phone charger. They don't have any laying around the hospital, but she says I should call a friend and have them come see me. I really regret putting my friends through all that stress. They don't deserve it. I call one of my friends who I've known since elementary school. He lives on campus. I tell him I tried overdosing and I can hear him tear up. I feel bad because I hear people around him so I know that must've been embarrassing. He's one of the three friends who in November knew how I was feeling. I guess he tells my other friend from another school who told him about it, and then this friend calls me, also tearing up. I still remember exactly how he sounded on the phone. He calls the last friend from November who knew how I was feeling, and she's also the one who overdosed back in January. She calls me, and as we're talking my phone dies. She didn't cry at all; she was stronger than me. As my phone dies my friend on campus that I called shows up with my other friend that I Snapchatted that morning. I just feel embarrassed at this point. I'm in a stupid hospital robe and I'm just over exposed while laying on a hospital bed in emerg. They're shocked when they walk in. They start of by just acting normal but eventually the conversation just takes a turn and they're concerned for why I didn't talk to them. I always just felt like a burden on people, I always wanted to be self sufficient. That's where my plan of waiting until I'm financially stable came from. I didn't say that to them. I just say I don't know, and at the time I couldn't formulate any reason why so basically I really didn't know. What I knew is that I had friends to cared about me. After they left, my friend who tried to overdose in December took a bus from her different city to come visit me at 1am. I told her not to come but I'm so glad she did. She sat with me and talked to me like a normal human being, and stayed up all night. I fell asleep in my bed but she stayed up all night doing her psychology work, and I woke up in the morning with a note from her that I still keep on my phone case behind my phone to this day. She had to catch her bus back at 7:30 am because she had class that day, but still she came to visit. I see more and more people that day to ask me questions but it took me until Tuesday to see the psychiatry team. I was feeling better emotionally, but physically just gross. I hadn't showered or changed since Friday or Saturday. My facial hair was nasty too. The first person from the team who sees me is an Indian guy. We connect immediately, and he understands my perspective and the significance of my situation. He was only a student doing his residency though. The other three team members were old white women who basically gave me the decision to stay in the hospital for 2 more weeks or call my family for support and to come out to them officially. One of them even had the audacity to even ask me "do you really think they don't know you're gay." That struck a cord, and to this day I still hate that bitch. But Wednesday I called my brother, the one who my dad thinks made me gay, and I tell him what happened. He calls my parents and starts to drive to where I am but he's farther away than they are, so they get to me first. The first thing my dad says to me is that he knew I was at a high risk for this kind of thing. I thought at the time he meant to OD, but soon after I realized it was still the gay thing. I let him talk and tell me all this bullshit, but he just goes on and on about how put all the gays on an island and we'll die off, how it's not in our genes to be gay, and that this was my choice. He also said that I'm the one who chose the program I went into and chose to live off campus. He said all of this was on me. He and my mom came to this hospital to tell me that everything was in my head. I couldn't believe it. Then my parents asked me who else from my hometown knew so they could "deal with it" whatever that means. They asked me who I was having sex with, and that if my guy friends were really just people I was having sex with. It was the most demeaning experience I've ever had in my life. But my brother showed up and shut it down. I don't know how, but he did. We were speaking in Arabic the whole time, and disagreed entirely on just about everything we talked about in that hospital except for the fact that I needed to leave asap. The next day my parents and brother spoke to the psychiatry team and by some stroke of luck got them to lift my form and let me leave. My mom stays with me for the next 3 weeks and psychiatry sets me up an appointment with a professional at the university to talk to for some follow up. In the meantime I've missed a week of class and have to get my midterms moved from the 11th because I left the hospital Thursday afternoon and no way I could write them in less than two days. Walking on to campus the next day with a doctors note saying I was in the hospital was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I was so out of touch with how to interact with people. I walked up to an academic counsellor to ask her what I needed to do to get my exam moved and missed assignments taken care of and she told me to go fill out a form. While I was filling it out she said "maybe you should ask somebody else next time how this works or just look it up online ahead of time." I had almost burst into tears right there in the academic counselling office but I got everything moved to the next week and tried to make things go back to normal but everybody treated me differently. Only one of my new friends I had made new what happened because he's the one who called the ambulance and I had 5 high school friends who knew. My family was still all over the religion thing and how being gay was just wrong and it not even being a religion thing. My sister called me while I was waiting in the hospital for my parents and brother to come but I was still balling my eyes out to the nurse on duty about it so my sister found out and told me that I shouldn't act on it because we all have to do our best to be good Muslims. I just told the new friends I had made in university that I was sick in the hospital, not that I had actually put myself there. I think I might be more open with them after exams are over because I can't put that burden on them while we're stressed about exams and school. I just feel like utter trash. I'm 3/5 of the way done exams and gotten marks back for 2 courses already, and my marks have dropped another 10% from first semester on top of the 10% I dropped between high school and first semester. I need an 80% average to keep my scholarship for next year and I'm pulling it way too close. I'm a part of the orientation program for first year students over the summer and in the fall, as a way to try and do some good for new students and put an emphasis on letting people know about the importance of getting help when you need it. There's so many on campus resources, but I just didn't go to them. I went through a 2 week period where I just felt like trash and missed my second appointment with the specialist on campus, and I got fined 160 bucks for it, and they treated me like absolute trash for it when I went to pay. "You shouldn't skip these appointments," "playing hookie doesn't get you anywhere." I had barely made it out of my bed to class on day that week because I had a presentation to do which I physically and very visibly shook through but I guess the TA felt bad for me because she gave my group 95% on it. So here I am trying to pull myself together at the end of the semester trying to spill my feelings on to my Tumblr blog that I've had for 6 years that nobody reads from. I might add some screenshots of what I vented to my friends just to make sure those never get lost either. If you read this (which I genuinely know is nobody) then I'm sorry I put you through that. To my best friends in this world I love you so much. My last final exam is this Friday night and finishes at 10pm. Hoping to go home to at least see my mom because my dad is visiting family overseas. I wanted to drive home to see him before he left but he just facetimed me for 2 minutes asking me how I'm doing socially. Socially. As in am I fucking anyone behind his back. The answer is definitely no. I get hit on by 60 year old me. On Grindr and anyone I match on tinder either doesn't message me or if I message them we just have a short conversation before they just ignore me entirely. I needed to get this out of my system though. Out into the world somehow. Oh well. Guess it's time to see how my life goes from here. April 24th 2017