#Don’t think the thing is scary or don’t think it can kill

[wonderjanga]

Marvel Being Scary

Marvel can be scary. The JL knows it. Magic users know it. Fawcitizens strangely don’t for whatever reason. Anyways, point is, he’s scary.

Marvel: “Wait… So this isn’t your real form?”

Martian Manhunter(MM): “No. This is simply a form I took after coming to earth.”

Marvel: “Oooh that’s cool! So you also have it so you don’t scare people?”

MM: “Yes- what do you mean by also?”

Marvel: “I mean that if I also reverted back to my normal form, the living the lightning, it would also scare a lot of people too.”

MM: “Oh?”

Marvel: “Yeah, and apparently I’d drive everyone who sees me insane too.” *sounds so nonchalant*

MM: “Oh.” *sounds concerned now*

Flash: *making a sandwich for himself and overheard* “Wait, like Bird Box?”

Marvel: “What’s Bird Box?”

After Watching Bird Box…

Marvel: “Huh. Yeah, like Bird Box. I don’t think they’d kill themselves tho-”

Solomon: “There’s actually a 50 percent chance they would.”

Marvel: “Never mind.”

Yeah… He can be scary. Thankfully, none of the JL have seen this ‘living lightning’ first hand. He’s still found other ways to scare him though. Granted, it’s not his fault, but still. Like his shape shifting abilities are absolutely grotesque and the first time Flash and GL saw it, it almost cost them a mission.

Flash, GL, and Marvel: *trying to do a stealth mission*

GL: “We need disguises!”

Marvel: “Oh, I got this.” *shapeshifts into a woman*

Now see, the idea of him shapeshifting itself isn’t scary, but the way he shapeshifts is absolutely horrifying because you can literally see the skin and bone warp and snap and contract to fit into whatever he wants to be at the moment.

Flash and GL: *staring with horrified expressions*

Marvel: *now a prim and proper looking lady* “What is it?”

Flash: *vomits on the floor cause the shapeshifting looks absolutely disgusting*

That actually gave away their position so GL and Flash ended up running while Billy was forced to pretend like he was the one who vomited. Thankfully, they let him/her off.

This isn’t even counting the entire array of disgusting and horrifying things he’s done to horrify everyone. In conclusion, Marvel’s a weird and kinda scary guy, but the JL still like him cause he’s Marvel.

Also, Junior and Mary have done similar horrific/gross things around the Teen Titans and Young Justice respectively.

[sirhamburrger]

ᯤ feat. yoichi isagi, meguru bachira, hyoma chigiri, rin itoshi, seishiro nagi, kenyu yukimiya, ryusei shidou and oliver aiku ᯤ tags/cw: all characters are aged up, bit suggestive (shidou you freak), petnames ('sweetheart' in isagi's, 'love' in rin's, 'babe' in shidou's), rin is mean (affectionately), shidou being a freak in the minecraft bedsheets, but also really sweet, hopefully not that ooc, i have a semi-serious, semi-casual relationship with minecraft ᯤ a/n: no reason for this whatsoever no prompt no nothing just take this love child between me and my insomnia *shoves this into your arms and runs away* || divider by @sister-lucifer part 2 [rocket league ver with kuni, reo, karasu, sae]

yoichi isagi:

ᯤ is just kinda average at it. like he truly is just okay at it. ᯤ he’s so competitive though (he would ‘race you to that tree over there’ 😭 but he doesn’t know how to sprint so he always loses to you) ᯤ he likes the little sounds the eyes of ender make when you place them in the end portal frame ᯤ defeats the ender dragon with your help but makes you go ahead of him when exploring the nether ᯤ “hey uh sweetheart? why’s that green thing flashing white and making a noise” ᯤ favourite mob: chickens (they’re funny)

meguru bachira:

ᯤ he l o v e s minecraft so much it’s unbelievable (he was probably one of those kids who grew up playing it) ᯤ he loves trying out different hacks he sees on youtube. he knows that 99 percent of the time they don’t even work, but “there’s a 1 percent chance it will, and i’m feeling lucky today!” ᯤ lets you practice your shooting skills using his avatar as a dummy ᯤ cannot wire redstone for shit ᯤ tries to get the rarest (dumbest) in-game death messages ᯤ baabaabaachira experienced mid-life crisis while being attacked by tropical fish ᯤ favourite mob: cave spiders (they look scary in a cool way)

hyoma chigiri:

ᯤ plays for the mobs. will protect his lovelies with all his heart. ᯤ when he got his first minecraft dog, he built a little kennel made of cherry wood for it, only for it to fall into a pit of lava deep in the caves on day 5 ᯤ he cried for five hours ᯤ once you dyed all his sheep pink and he started to tear up just from looking at them ᯤ “hear me out, okay? i think we should get a pet axolotl.” and it’s legal in japan, so you do! (her name is hyoma jr) ᯤ has a huge minecraft zoo ᯤ favourite mob: parrots (they can sit)

rin itoshi:

ᯤ is mean to you at first. he’ll be like “why do you suck at this” and “i could do that too” ᯤ then he gets his hands on the controller and can’t figure out the controls for half an hour ᯤ “… love?” ᯤ “… yes, rin?” (you, amused) ᯤ “… how do you jump…” ᯤ its subtle charm does grow on him after a while. he plays on creative mode and just explores the server on a horse he named sugarcube ᯤ it’s cute watching him play (you send photos to sae) ᯤ favourite mob: sheep (all they do is eat grass and don’t bother you)

seishiro nagi:

ᯤ i will subvert expectations here and say that nagi doesn’t even play minecraft that much because he doesn’t like it ᯤ “such a hassle to play this game… there isn’t even any storyline you can just do whatever you want… and i don’t want to have to decide what to do” ᯤ he ends up finding a passion for building elaborate traps for you to walk into ᯤ absolute beast at parkour. he performs triple neos to perfection ᯤ if he’s a streamer he plays on twitch for the fans but he complains as he does it ᯤ favourite mob: bees (they’re just cute)

kenyu yukimiya:

ᯤ he doesn’t really play video games so understandably he gets off to a slow start ᯤ but once he gets the hang of things? he’s unstoppable. breezing through achievements like nobody’s business ᯤ he’s really excited about it too like “did you see that?? i just killed a zombie!” ᯤ it’s truly the culmination of 18 years of not touching a single game as a child/teen and now playing a sandbox game ᯤ feeling confident, he starts a hardcore world. (he dies from hunger.) ᯤ he's the kind to look up the most beautiful minecraft seed numbers, key them in meticulously and just take in how amazing they are ᯤ favourite mob: foxes, specifically the orange ones (he loves all things forest biome)

ryusei shidou:

ᯤ we all know he’s a very artistic kind of guy so he’d be geeking out over the textures and which colours would go best with each other ᯤ he doesn’t shower for a day because he’s playing creative (my lil stinky 🫶) ᯤ he builds the most beautiful multi storey houses!! and he’s like “if it were real we could live in there together 🥺“ ᯤ “why is the bedroom huge with like twenty beds…” (you, concerned) ᯤ “oh we’re gonna need space babe. for activities.” ᯤ but he doesn’t stop there; he learns how to make entire cities and landscapes and frankly they are masterpieces - think shovel241 (i freaking LOVE his videos they’re so satisfying) ᯤ favourite mob: endermen (he thinks they look badass)

oliver aiku: 

ᯤ meh he’s pretty good ᯤ raged when he first found out fall damage was a thing and again when he discovered hunger and drowning as death messages ᯤ is obsessed with speed runs and parkour for some reason (he’s really bad at both though) ᯤ is the guy who makes “100 MINECRAFT FACTS YOU DIDN’T KNOW” videos with his friends sendo and lorenzo ᯤ you once saw him set up an experiment to see how many blocks a llama can spit and died laughing ᯤ would absolutely kill you in-game just for the fun of it ᯤ favourite mob: cats (especially the black ones)

say hi to hyoma jr. it is not optional.

bllk masterlist || general masterlist

© sirhamburrger 2024

[revelboo]

Rodimus is too damn charming for his own good! 😤

He is

Attractive Today Pt 5

Rodimus x Reader

• Standing up with your blanket draped around your shoulders and dragging behind you like a cape as you walk to the edge of the berth and look up at him, Rodimus feels the tension from his duties drain away. Because you’ve started greeting him when he returns. And he enjoys seeing you smile for him. Though it could be that he tries to bring you things he finds about the ship that you might like. Withdrawing the bit of metal he’d shined to a mirrored polish, he holds it up so you can see yourself and you grin up at him, smile fading as your fingers drift to your hair. “Oh, that’s bad,” you say, finger combing your hair.

• “I like it. Wild and untamed,” he says as you make a face at him. It’s certainly that. You look like you’ve been grubbing about in the wilds in a cave somewhere. Of course, it’s not like Rodimus cares what you look like. You’re pretty sure he views you like a stray cat he started feeding. Not really his pet, but he feels obligated at this point to keep taking care of you and would pet you, but suspects you’d bite. “Fierce,” he adds to make you laugh as he reaches out a servo to touch your hair.

• “You mean scary. That’s the word.” Because you’d kill for a hairbrush. Some deodorant. Your soaps. Your clothes. All those stupid little things you just take for granted. You’re missing them now and suddenly want to cry you’re so frustrated. “I’m a mess.” That warm servo hesitantly touches your cheek and you grab onto it as he looks away as if embarrassed. Refusing to let go as you curl yourself into the heat of his palm and he’s makes a little noise at the contact, but he’s warm and it’s freezing in his quarters. So you’ve started taking advantage of your alien space heater every chance you get.

• “As the king of being a mess, I think you’re doing fine,” he says, one shoulder lifting in a shrug as you snuggle into his palm, holding onto his servo as if to keep him from escaping. But you smile up at him again. “You’re stronger than you think you are.” When you arch your brows at him, he vents at you. “Seriously.” Knows you don’t believe him, but if your roles were reversed? He’s not so sure he’d be dealing with it as well as you or the other humans are. But that’s what he’s come to expect from your kind. An almost admirable kind of stubbornness to survive no matter what you’re up against.

• “You’re a sweetheart.” But a liar. You’re coping because it’s either that or spend your time stuck with him crying in a corner and hysterical. Maybe humans are just good at dealing with whatever shitty hand they’ve been dealt. Life saying screw you and instead of giving up, just shrugging it off. Rolling with it when all you want to do is cry. But seeing Rodimus have a breakdown has firmly shifted him from big, scary robot, to someone needing help. You know it’s stupid to want to take care of him, but realizing it doesn’t lessen the urge. He needs you and you definitely need him.

Previous

[ciderjacks]

I made this bc I feel like I actually love horror more than most people it’s just that most horror movies think they need to kill characters off or it’s not scary, which ironically actually usually means the movie is way less scary

[clegfly]

Finally got caught up with TADC and to no one’s surprise I’m now uncontrollably sobbing over the tragic doomed loving couple

[crucifixcavity]

watched

[capobegone]

Hello everybody! I think some of my posts may have reached a wee bit of the wrong audience and I just wanted to remind everybody to please please please do lots of research and

FREE FUCKING PALESTINE🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

[wilted]

iwas gonna write a really long reply to this but it’s kind of a “make your own post” thing so… but i truly don’t understand why pitbulls are the main focus of any “aggressive dog” conversation. dobermans, german shepards, and rottweilers are just as intimidating and “scary” but nobody ever bats an eye at the way those dogs behave or how their owners “trained” them because they’re seen as “protector” dogs and their aggression is therefore justified. dogs behavior lies solely on the owner. you have to be a specific type of person to own these dogs, you have to have a specific type of personality to match these dogs, that’s why so many pit bulls are seen as aggressive, when in reality they are just extremely untrained because their owners don’t want to put in the extra effort to make sure their dog isn’t a complete lunatic wherever it goes. pitbulls are great dogs. they are sweet and loving and extremely well behaved if they are just trained correctly by someone who is actually informed and has actually done their research on the breed. but unfortunately people will continue to have these dogs “for the aesthetic” and continue to be the reason these poor dogs have this stigma around them

[acoyote]

i got sleep paralysis again the other night but instead of thinking someone was trying to kill me this time i perceived the being sitting on me as a nice guy, he just didn’t realize that i was there and that he was crushing me. he looked like this but with a longer head, more horns and just one eye, and seemed really sad, holding his head in his hands. in my mind the scenario was that he was sitting on a curb (that i was laying on i guess) hiding in a dark alley after something bad happened. so i wasn't scared of him i just felt bad for him. when i managed to get his attention he was apologetic and went away and my body started to wake up

shout out to the benevolent sleep paralysis demon hope things get better for u

[himblebo]

Oh god oh fuck

[steampunk-raven]

spider in room but everyone else is asleep so no one can help me :/ panic time i guess lol

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

All I can do until we see what happens with this election is hope, distract myself, and try to get others to vote, because if I think too hard about it my anxiety and depression gets worse and the voice in the back of my head that tells me to hurt myself and go hide in the woods or something gets louder

[rafesweetie]

in which you’re forced into having a talk with your ex-boyfriend, rafe cameron, on the boat ride to morocco.

being a pogue and rafe cameron’s ex was not easy. although you dated shortly before he killed peterkin, and you were sure he barely even remembered your favourite colour, seeing him blatanly disrespect you and his friends, and go down a path you tried so hard to prevent him from, was hard to watch. but now he’s picked himself up since ward died. you thought you had another chance to at least be on good terms. sending flowers and a card to tanneyhill when ward died, smiling at him when you’d see him around. it didn’t work, he still hated you and your friends.

fortunately, he redeemed himself ever so slightly by volunteering to take the pogues to morocco. rafe had to find chandler groff, you guys wanted the blue crown. it was perfect.

until jj punched him, that is. he knocked him out cold. with a scolding “jj!” coming from majority of the pogues, including you, jj carries him down into the downstairs washroom and ties his wrists to a pole. they don’t trust him, which is fair. you don’t either — you shouldn’t, anyway.

rafe was down there quietly for a mere half hour until he woke up with a groan from his head hitting the ground earlier, followed up with yelling once he realizes he was stuck down there.

all touching your noses and saying ‘not it’ the minute pope suggests someone going down there to check on him, you’re the unlucky one who said it last. shutting up your protests, john b gently coaxes you downstairs, saying things like, “you used to mack on him”, “this is good, you know him”, “he won’t hurt you,” john b leaves you downstairs once you make it to the door of the bathroom. knocking gently, you timidly ask, “can i come in?”

there’s no answer. you can picture him. wrists tied, brows furrowed, eyes closed tightly as his head leans against the wall and towards the ceiling. his gorgeous stressed face. you slowly open the door, peeking your head in. “hi,” you say gently, timid around the scary and aggressive man you have the curse of calling your ex.

“…hey,” rafe says, voice rough as he shuts his eyes tight.

unsure what to say, you awkwardly stand there and stare down at him. “um, i brought asprin,”

“right, right, like i can fuckin’ swallow it. what, you gonna throw it in my mouth like a.. seal or something?” sassy, his upper lip lifts a bit as he thinks about it and isn’t very fond of the idea.

a second of silence as you figure out what to say. “…um, ill just set it down here,” you say, putting the container down beside him. “sorry about your head.”

“yeah, uh, your little boyfriend can’t control his fists, huh?”

“…not my boyfriend,” you correct softly, though you’re not sure why you feel the need to tell him that. “but no one really.. trusts you, rafe, so you kind of brought this on yourself—“

he quickly interrupts you. “bullshit. you know why that’s bullshit? because i was helping. who got you this boat, huh? me. i did. rafe. i’m the reason that you guys aren’t swimming, or some shit, to north africa. i’m being helpful and understanding, and this is what i get. you think that’s fair?” when you’re stood there in silence at his sudden raised voice, he repeats, “you think that’s fucking fair, y/n!?” he kicks a can in anger.

it’s like you’re his girlfriend again as you sit down next to him instantly instead of running. you get deja vu to the time three years ago when he was high on coke and got kicked out of the house. everyone ignored him except for you. “..um, okay, i’m gonna give you some asprin,” you say softly. “help your head. open,” you tell him, grabbing a pill as he gives you a look but opens his mouth. you pop it in his mouth and he dry swallows. “there.”

you two share a look. you don’t think it’s a bad look by any means. he looks frustrated still, but there’s an underlying gentleness in his eyes, as if he registers you’re still the same girl you were when you two were together. “…and, um, for the record, i don’t think it’s fair that you’re down here. you helped us, thats.. nice.”

the word ‘us’ when referring to you and the pogues makes him feel weird. “i don’t get why you hang out with them,” he mutters as he looks at the ground. “tried so fucking hard to keep you away from them when we were.. together.”

“i know,” you whisper, your gaze dropping as well, to his tied wrists. you feel awful. “trust me, your warnings still play in my head when i’m with them sometimes,”

“you remind me of sarah.” he says. you’re not sure what that means.

“you hate sarah,”

“nah, nah— i don’t hate her. hate who she’s turned into,” he adjusts himself. “she makes me sad. i’m sad for her, alright? she had so much potential.“ he shrugs. “but there’s no saving her. she’s in too deep,” he looks back up at you again. “i think there’s saving you, though,”

“…this is weird, rafe,”

“how?” he asks.

“because in the years we’ve been broken up, you’ve never talked to me about this. feels like it’s a… trick or something,”

“it’s not a trick,” he assures, voice still rough. “look, i’m out half a mill, i’m tied up in a bathroom, i’m probably gonna.. die or something. i got nothing to lose, may as well tell you my concern,”

“um, i appreciate it,” you say gently, unsure how to respond. “and i’m gonna go back upstairs.”

“hey— no, woah, woah, woah,” he stops you quickly. “stay. okay?”

“i should go up and help with dinner, though—“

“no, stay. i— i want you to stay, okay? i don’t wanna be down here alone, and i want you away from the pogues,”

he doesn’t wanna be alone. you feel bad for him all over again, nodding gently as you sit back down beside him. you always were so good for rafe.

you’re not sure how long you’ll be down here with him. maybe until it’s late at night and he’s asleep. so gently, after about five minutes of silence, to ease some of the tension and pass the time, you murmur a, “truth or dare?”

rafe just smiles.

[creatingblackcharacters]

“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” - Violence, Violent Imagery & Black Horror

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of death, violence, blood, hate crimes, antiblackness, police violence, rape

Note! I am going to be speaking from a Black American point of view, as my identity informs my experience. That said, antiblackness itself is international. The idea of my Blackness as a threat, as a source of fear and violence to repress and to destroy, is something every Black person in the world that has ever dealt with white supremacy has experienced.

There are two things, I think, that are important to note as we start this conversation.

One: there is a long history of violence towards Black bodies that is due to our dehumanization. People do not care for the killing of a mouse in the way they care about a human. But if you think the people you are dealing with are not people, but animals- more particularly, pests, something distasteful- then you will be able to rationalize treating them as such.

Two: even though we live in a time period where that overt belief of Blackness as inhuman is less likely, we must recognize that there are centuries of belief behind this concept; centuries of arguments and actions that cement in our minds that a certain amount of violence towards Blackness is normal. That subconscious belief you may hold is steeped in centuries of effort to convince you of it without even questioning it. And because of this very real re-enforcement of desensitization, naturally another place this will manifest itself is in how we tell and comprehend stories.

There are also three points I'm about to make first- not the only three that can ever be made, but the ones that stand out the most to me when we talk about violence with Black characters:

One: Your Black readers may experience that scene you wrote differently than you meant anyone to, just because our history may change our perspective on what’s happening.

Two: The idea that Black characters and people deserve the pain they are experiencing.

Three: The disbelief or dismissal of the pain of Black characters and people.

You Better Start Believing In Ghost Stories- You’re In One

I don’t need to tell Black viewers scary fairytales of sadists, body snatchers and noncoincidental disappearances, cannibals, monsters appearing in the night, and dystopian, unjust systems that bury people alive- real life suffices! We recognize the symbolism because we’ve seen real demons.

Some real examples of familiar, terrifying stories that feel like drama, but are real experiences:

12 Years a Slave: “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana.” – Solomon Northup

When They See Us: I can’t get myself to watch When They See Us, because I learned about the actual trial of the Central Park Five- now the Exonerated Five- in my undergrad program. Five teen Black and brown boys, subjected to racist and cruel policing and vilification in the media- from Donald Trump calling for their deaths in the newspaper, to being imprisoned under what the Clintons deemed a generation of “superpredators” during a “tough on crime” administration. And as audacious as it is to say, as Solomon Northup explained, they were fortunate. The average Black person funneled into the prison system doesn’t get the opportunity to make it back out redeemed or exonerated, because the system is designed to capture and keep them there regardless of their innocence or guilt. Their lives are irreparably changed; they are forever trapped.

Jasper, Texas: Learning about the vicious, gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr, was horrific- and that was just the movie. No matter how “community comes together” everyone tells that story, the reality is that there are people who will beat you, drag you chained down a gravel road for three miles as your body shreds away until you are decapitated, and leave your mangled body in front of a Black church to send a message… Because you’re Black and they hate you. To date I am scared when I’m walking and I see trucks passing me, and don’t let them have the American or the Confederate flag on them. Even Ahmaud Arbery, all he was doing was jogging in his hometown, and white men from out of town decided he should be murdered for that.

Do you want to know what all of these men and boys, from 1841 to 2020, had in common? What they did to warrant what happened to them? Being outside while Black. Some might call it “wrong place wrong time”, but the reality is that there is no “right place”. Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor- murdered inside their home. Where else can you be, if the danger has every right to barge inside? There is no “safe”.

It is already Frightening to live while Black- not because being Black is inherently frightening, but because our society has made it horrific to do so. But that leads into my next point:

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

Think of all the videos of assaulted and murdered Black people from police violence. If you can stomach going into the comments- which I don’t, anymore- you’ll see this classic comment of hate in the thousands, twisting your stomach into knots:

“if they obeyed the officer, if they didn’t resist, this wouldn’t have happened”

Another way our punitive society normalizes itself is via the idea of respectability politics; the idea that “if you are Good, if you do what you are Supposed to do, you will not be hurt- I will not have to hurt you”. Therefore, if my people are always suffering violence, it must be because we are Bad. And in a society that is already less gracious to Black people, that is more likely to think we are less human, that we are innately bad and must earn the right to be exceptional… the use of excessive violence towards me must be the natural outcome. “If your people weren’t more likely to be criminals, there wouldn’t be the need to be suspicious of you”- that is the way our society has taught us to frame these interactions, placing the blame for our own victimization on us.

Sidebar: I would highly suggest reading The New Jim Crow, written in 2010 by Michelle Alexander, to see how this mentality helps tie into large scale criminalization and mass incarceration, and how the cycle is purposely perpetuated.

You have to constantly be aware of how you look, walk and talk- and even then, that won’t be enough to save you if the time comes. The turning point for me, personally, was the murder of Sandra Bland. If she could be educated, beautiful, a beacon of her community, be everything a “Good” Black person is supposed to be… and still be murdered via police violence, they can kill any of us. And that’s a very terrifying thought- that anything at any point can be the reason for your death, and it will be validated because someone thinks you shouldn’t have “been that way”. And that way has far less to do with what you did, than it does who you are. Being “that way” is Black.

My point is, if this belief is so normalized in real life about violence on Black bodies- that somehow, we must have done something to deserve this- what makes you think that this belief does not affect how you comprehend Black people suffering in stories?

Hippocratic Oath

Human experimentation? Vivisection? Organ stealing? Begging for medicine? Dramatically bleeding out? Not trusting just anyone to see that you are hurt, because they might take advantage? All very real fears. The idea that pain is normal for Black people is especially rampant in the healthcare field, where ideas like our melanin making our skin thick enough to feel less pain (no), an overblown fear of ‘drug misuse’, and believing we are overexaggerating our pain makes many Black people being unwilling to trust the healthcare system. And it comes down to this thought:

If you think that I feel less pain, you will allow me to suffer long before you believe that I am in pain.

I was psychologically spiraling I was in so much pain after my wisdom teeth removal, and my surgeon was more concerned about “addiction to the medication”. Only because Hot Chocolate’s mom is a nurse, did I get an effective medicine schedule. My mother ended up with jaw rot because her surgeon outright claimed that she didn’t believe that she was in more than the ‘healing’ pain after her wisdom teeth were removed. She also has a gigantic, macabre (and awesome fr) scar on her stomach from a c-section she received after four days of labor attempting to have me… all because she was too poor and too Black to afford better doctors who wouldn’t have dismissed her struggles to push.

As a major example of dismissed Black pain: let’s discuss the mortality rate of Black women during childbirth, as well as the likelihood of our children to die. When we say “they will let you bleed to death”, we mean it.

“Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black babies are more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them through their lives.”

Even gynecology roots in dismissal (and taking brutal advantage of) Black women's pain:

“The history of this particular medical branch … it begins on a slave farm in Alabama,” Owens said. “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women.” Reproductive surgeries that were experimental at the time, like cesarean sections, were commonly performed on enslaved Black women. Physicians like the once-heralded J. Marion Sims, an Alabama doctor many call the “father of gynecology,” performed torturous surgical experiments on enslaved Black women in the 1840s without anesthesia. And well after the abolition of slavery, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them.”

If you think Black characters are not in pain, or that they’re overexaggerating, you’re more likely to be okay with them suffering more in comparison to those whose pain you take more seriously- to those you believe.

What’s My Point?

My point is that whatever terrifying scene you think you’re writing, whatever violent whump scenario you think you’re about to put your Black characters through, there’s a chance it has probably happened and was treated as nonimportant (damn shame, right?) And when those terrifying scenes are both written and read, the way their suffering will be felt depends on how much you as a reader care, how much you believe they are suffering.

There’s a joke amongst readers of color that many dystopian tales are tales of “what happened if white people experienced things that the rest of us have already been put through?” Think concepts like alien invasion and mass eradication of the existing population- you may think of that as an action flick, meanwhile peoples globally have suffered colonization for centuries. The Handmaid’s Tale- forced birthing and raising of “someone else’s” children, always subject to sexual harassment by the Master while subject to hate from the Mistress- that’s just being a Mammy.

There’s nothing wrong with having Black characters be violent or deal with violence, especially in a story where every character is going through shit. That is not the problem! What I am trying to tell you, though, is to be aware that certain violent imagery is going to evoke familiarity in Black viewers. And if I as a Black viewer see my very real traumas treated as entertainment fodder- or worse, dismissed- by the narrative and other viewers, I will probably not want to consume that piece of media anymore. I will also question the intentions and the beliefs of the people who treat said traumas so callously. Now, if that’s not something you care about, that’s on you! But for people who do care, it is something we need to make sure we are catching before we do it.

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

Stop that. There are plenty of examples of stories containing horror and violence with Black characters. There’s an entire genre of us telling our own stories, using the same violence as symbolism. I’m not telling you “no” (least not always). I’m telling you to take some consideration when you write the things that you do. There’s nothing wrong about writing your Black characters being violent or experiencing violence. But there is a difference between making it narratively relevant, and thoughtlessly using them as a “spook”, a stereotypical scary Black person, or a punching bag, especially in a way that may invoke certain trauma.

The Black Guy Dies First

The joke is that we never survive these horror movies because we either wouldn’t be there to begin with, or because we would make better decisions and the narrative can’t have that. But the reality is just that a lot of writers find Black characters- Black people- expendable in comparison to their white counterparts, and it shows. More of a “here, damn” sort of character, not worth investment and easy to shrug off. The book itself I haven’t read, just because it’s pretty new, but I’m looking forward to doing so. But from the summaries, it goes into horror media history and how Black characters have fared in these stories, as well as how that connects to the society those characters were written in. I.e., a thorough version of this lesson.

Instead, I wrote an entire list of questions you could possibly ask yourself involving violence or villainy involving a Black character. Feel free to print it and put it on your wall where you write if you have to! I cannot stress enough that asking yourself questions like these are good both for your creation and just… being less antiblack in general when you consume media.

Black Horror/Black Thriller

We, too, have turned our violent experiences into stories. I continue to highly suggest watching our films and reading our stories to see how we convey our fear, our terror, our violence and our pain. There are plenty of stories that work- Get Out, The Angry Black Girl and her Monster, Candyman, Lovecraft Country (the show) and Nanny are some examples. There’s even a blog by the co-writer of The Black Guy Dies First who runs BlackHorrorMovies where he reviews horror movies from throughout the decades.

Desiree Evans has a great essay, We Need Black Horror More Than Ever, that gets into why this genre is so creative and effective, that I think says what I have to say better than I could.

“Even before Peele, Black horror had a rich literary lineage going back to the folklore of Africa and its Diaspora. Stories of haints, witches, curses, and magic of all kinds can be found in the folktales collected by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and in the folktales retold by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. One of my earliest childhood literary memories is being entranced by Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear and Patricia McKissack’s children’s book classic The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, both examples of the ways Black authors have tapped into Black history along with our rich ghostlore.” “Black horror can be clever and subversive, allowing Black writers to move against racist tropes, to reconfigure who stands at the center of a story, and to shift the focus from the dominant narrative to that which is hidden, submerged. To ask: what happens when the group that was Othered, gets to tell their side of the story?”

For on the nose simplicity, I’m going to use hood classic Tales From The Hood (1994) as an example of how violence can be integrated into Black horror tales. Tales From The Hood is like… The Twilight Zone by Black people. Messages discussing issues in our community, done through a mystical twist. Free on Tubi! If you want to stop here before some spoilers, it’s an hour and a half. A great time!

In the first story, a Black political activist is murdered by the cops. The scene is reflective of the real-world efforts to discredit and even murder activists speaking out against police violence, as well as the types of things done to criminalize Black citizens for capture. The song Strange Fruit plays in the background, to drive the point home that this is a lynching.

The second story deals with a Black little boy experiencing abuse in the home, drawing a green monster to show his teacher why he’s covered in wounds and is lashing out at school.

The fourth story is about a gangbanger who undergoes “behavioral modification” to be released from prison early. Think of the classic scene from A Clockwork Orange. He must watch as imagery of the Klan and of happy whites lynching Black bodies (real-life pictures and video, mind you!) play into his mind alongside gang violence.

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

That last story from Tales From The Hood leads into a good point. It can be! But it does not have to be! Violence is a human experience. By suggesting we don’t experience it or commit it, you would be denying everything I’ve just spoken about. We don’t have to be racist to write our Black characters in violent situations. We also don’t have to comprehend those situations through a racist lens.

Even experiences that seem “stereotypical” do not have to be comprehended that way. I get a LOT of questions about if something is stereotypical, and my response is always that it depends on the writing!!! You could give me a harmless prompt and it becomes the most racist story ever once you leave my inbox. But you could give me a “stereotypical” prompt and it be genuine writing.

Let’s take the movie Juice for example. Juice in my honest to God opinion becomes a thriller about halfway in. On its surface, Juice looks like bad Black boys shooting and cursing and doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing! Incredibly stereotypical- violent young thugs. You might think, “you shouldn’t write something like this- you’re telling everyone this is what your community is like”. First- there’s that respectability politics again! Just because something is not a “respectable” story does not mean it doesn’t need to be told!

But if we’re actually paying attention, what we’re looking at is four young boys dealing with their environment in different ways. All four of them originally stick together to feel power amongst their brotherhood as they all act tough and discover their own identities. They are not perfect, but they are still kids. In this environment, to be tough, to be strong, you do the things that they are doing. You run from cops, you steal from stores, you mess with all the girls and talk shit and wave weapons. That’s what makes you “big”. That’s what gives you the “juice”- and the “juice” can make you untouchable.

I want to focus particularly on Bishop, yes, played by Tupac. Bishop, the antagonist of Juice, is particularly powerless, angry, and scared of the world around him. He puts on a big front of bravado, yelling, cursing, and talking big because he’s tired of being afraid, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it otherwise. So when he gets access to a gun- to power- he quickly spirals out of control. His response to his fear is to wave around a tool that makes him feel stronger, that stops the things that scare him from scaring him.

Now, that is not a unique tale! That is a tale that any race could write about, particularly young white men with gun violence! If you ever cared for Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft, it is a similar fall from grace. But because it is on a young, Black man in the hood, audiences are less likely to empathize with Bishop. And granted, Bishop is unhinged! But many a white character has been, and is not shoved into a stereotype that white people cannot escape from!

Now would I be comfortable if a nonblack person attempted to write a narrative like Juice? Yes, because I’d worry about the tendency to lose the messaging and just fall into stereotype outright. But it can be done! The story can be told!

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

First, rap is not “only violence and misogyny”. Step your understanding of the genre up; there are plenty of options outside of the mainstream that don’t discuss those things. Second, every genre of music has mainstream popular songs about vice and sin. The idea that Black rappers have to be held to a higher standard is yet another example of how we are seen as inherently bad and must prove ourselves good. We could speak about nothing but drugs and alcohol and 1) there would still be white artists who do the very same and 2) we would still deserve to be treated like humans.

That said, many- not all- rappers rap about violence for the same reason Billy Joel wrote We Didn’t Start the Fire, the same reason Homer first spoke The Iliad- because they have something to say about it! They stand in a long tradition of people using poetry and rhythm to tell stories. Rap is an art of storytelling!

Rap is often used as an expression of frustration and righteous anger against a system built to keep us trapped within it. I’m not allowed to be angry? Why wouldn’t I be angry? Anger is a protective emotion, often when one feels helpless. Young Black people also began to reclaim and glorify the violence they lived in within their music, to take pride in their survival and in their success in a world that otherwise wanted them to fail. If I think the world fights against me no matter what I do, I’d rather live in pride than in shame with a bent head. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t want them to rap about violence, why not alleviate the things leading to the violence in their environment?

Whether you choose to listen to their words, because the delivery scares you- and trust, angry Black men scared the music industry and society- doesn’t make the story any less valid!

Conclusion

I am going to drop a classic by Slick Rick called Children’s Story. I think listening to it- and I mean genuinely listening- summarizes what I’ve said here about how Black creators can tell stories, even violent ones, and how even the delivery through Blackness can change how you perceive them. Please take the time to listen before continuing.

I’ve been alive for 28 years and have known this song my whole life, and it just hit me tonight: not once is the kid in this story identified as Black! My perception of this story was completely altered by my own experiences, who told the story, and how it was told.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can tell stories of violence that involve Black characters. I love and adore a good hurt/comfort myself! But you need to be cognizant of your audience and how they’ll perceive the story you’re telling, and that includes the types of imagery you include. It’s not effective catharsis via hurt/comfort for the audience if your Black readers are being completely left out of the comfort. “I wrote this for myself” that’s cool, but… if you wrote racism for yourself, and you’re willing to admit that to yourself, that’s on you. I’d like to think that’s not your intention! You can write these stories of woe and pain without mistreating your Black characters- but that requires knowing and acknowledging when and how you’re doing that!

@afropiscesism makes a solid point in this post: our horror stories are not just fairytales full of amorphous boogiemen meant to teach lessons. Racial violence is very real, very alive, and we cannot act like the things we write can be dismissed outright as “oh well it’s not real”. Sure, those characters aren’t real. But the way you feel about Black bodies and violence is, and often it can slip into your writing as a pattern without you even realizing it. Be willing to get uncomfortable and check yourself on this as you write, as well as noticing it in other works!

If you’re constantly thinking “I would never do this”, you’ll never stop yourself when you inevitably do! If you know what violent imagery can be evoked, you can utilize it or avoid it altogether- but only if you’re willing to get honest about it. You might not intend to do any of this, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t change the pattern, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

[obsesssedblerd]

“SATORU!!!” 

Your white-haired boyfriend pops around the corner. “Yes? Why on earth are you screaming?” 

You fearfully point at the roach scampering up the living room wall, nervously hiding behind him. “That.” 

“Uh...What am I looking at here?” 

“Oh, don’t act— the bug, Toru!” You yell. “You mean to tell me that you can’t see that thing with your Six Eyes?!” 

Satoru lifts his blindfold, then looks back and forth between you and the insect. A wide, incredulous smile spreads across his face. “No way,” he snickers, then bursts into loud laughter. “That tiny little thing?! Baby, you exorcize curses daily, but this is what you’re afraid of?!” You stare at him blankly as he leans against the wall, breathless from laughing. Oh, my god, this is too funny.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Can you just kill it, please?”

He sighs dramatically, then pokes your cheek. “Sure, I’ll take care of the big scary bug,” he mocks, and you curse underneath your breath as he walks closer to the wall. 

“Satoru—you better not do anything stupid,” you warn him. You know that he enjoys playing jokes, and you would be stupid to think that he wouldn’t bring the insect to you to scare you even more.

“Oh, relax. Why don’t you go to the room since you’re so scared?” 

You bite back any insults, and then go all the way down the hall. There, you find your other boyfriend, Suguru, who had rushed out of the bathroom, his hair wet from the shower. “Heard you scream. Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, I saw a bug in the living room, but Satoru’s taking care of it.” You reach up to push a wet strand of hair out of his face. “You can head back and finish up. By the way, for dinner, I was thinking—” 

“HOLY SHIT!!!” 

You and Suguru see the burst of crimson light from the living room before the loud explosion fills your ears. The house shakes, and both of you stumble to the ground. When everything settles, Suguru helps you up, then you both rush to the living room. 

What’s left of the living room. 

The wall is completely gone, and where there isn’t rubble from the house, there are bits and pieces of your furniture. From where you’re standing, you can see some of the neighbors begin to poke their heads out of their doors and windows, wondering what the explosion was. Then, you see Satoru, who is wide-eyed, and slightly trembling. 

Suguru is the first to break the silence. “What the hell just happened?!” 

Satoru’s chest rises and falls with each breath. He then turns to you, pointing at where the wall used to be. “You didn’t tell me that it flies.” 

“...Huh?!” You ask.

“What- Don’t ‘huh’ me!” He sputters, flailing his hands around. “The roach! You didn’t tell me that it flies! It scared the shit out of me! It was so unexpected!!” 

Finally, the only thing that could’ve happened clicks in your head. The light you saw, the blast. “Did you just fire Red?!” 

He crosses his arms. “Yes, I fired Red!! Didn’t you just hear me say that—” 

“Okay, both of you, just stop!” Suguru shouts, putting his hands up. “Just…” He then faces his boyfriend, disbelief and disappointment evident in his features. “You mean to tell me, that you blew a massive hole in our damn house all because of a roach?! Satoru, what the hell!!” 

“Suguru, it was flying!!” 

“So that’s a good reason to destroy our house?!” 

“Hey! At least it’s not the whole house,” he says, then laughs nervously when Suguru glares at him. “Like yeah, our TV is definitely gone, but, uh… at least the roach is dead?” 

“You fucking idiot!!” Suguru snaps. 

Satoru snaps right back at him. “You weren’t there to see how it was flying!” 

As they go back and forth with their yelling, you groan, burying your face into your hands. You definitely should’ve just found the strength to kill it with a shoe earlier.

----

a/n: got inspired by that post about spiders that i made lmaooooo

[quarterlifekitty]

first, im a bit new to cod but idk…

thinking about ghost’s spouse visiting him on base or some shit, and everyone else wondering how tf he was emotionally flexible enough to bag a bad bitch 🫶

note: this is just my personal little fantasy world headcanon lol so take it with a grain of salt!

Simon maintains a vaguely human lifestyle by adhering to one very strict rule: rigid compartmentalization. You don’t come up at work, and work doesn’t come up around you. Never the twain shall meet, he thinks. And he’s not exactly a watershed of information when he’s with his mates. And it’s not like anyone is asking “When was the last time you got fucked, Ghost?” and seriously expecting a response.

He tells you about the crew, but not about what he does with them. Killing, espionage, torture– that kind of thing stays off the dinner table.

Let it be known that you do not surprise him at work. You respect his boundaries too much, which is why he’s so fucking serious about you, honestly. He calls, asking if you can run something to him. This is maybe the greatest symbol of trust he can bestow, as a man who has only a fraction of an existence in the eyes of the government: he asks you to bring a document of his. He gives you the instructions on how to find it, and trusts that you won’t look at anything you don’t have to.

You know Johnny lets out a low whistle when he sees you coming up with a manilla folder in your hands.

“Who’s that bloody bombshell, then?”

You spy Simon and jog up to him with a smile. He’s the one who embraces you, short but strong. Cue the nigh audible gasping.

“LT, you absolute dog.”

Simon rolls his eyes as the two of you are crowded in short order. You make polite introductions, but have a previous engagement– you really did only have time to stop by.

Hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave.

Everyone is wondering how this could’ve happened. For the record– I think in this scenario, Johnny and Gaz go through a constant string of heartbreaks, and John is kinda married to his job. So in a cruel twist of fate, Simon is actually the only one currently with a partner, much less a spouse.

“How’d you manage to bag a right beauty like that, LT? C’mon, spill it–”

Simon doesn’t mean to diminish your value or anything, but his answer is not going to be satisfying, because he doesn’t find it that difficult to get women. And also, you’re his true love, so you’re perfect for each other and growing close to you was as easy as breathing. But he doesn’t say that.

“S’not that hard. Remember the stuff she says, don’t keep no secrets… dick ‘er down the way she likes.” He doesn’t mean to be crude about it, but from his perspective, is one of the main reasons why you tolerate him. Soap howls at the response.

He’s telling the truth, though! He has a scarily good memory. Remembers every friend you’ve ever told him about, every movie you’ve ever mentioned, every meal he’s cooked for you and how you liked it. He remembers dates, times, and lists with no issue whatsoever.

And he’s never kept anything from you. He tells you how the fuck he’s feeling, and you return the favor, even if it isn’t pleasant. The only thing he doesn’t mention to you are the gorey details of his work.

And you have never had more of a communicative partner, ironically. There were times in the beginning when he didn’t know all of the ins and outs of coaxing pleasure from your body, so he asked you to show him how you like it. And that scary memory is at work yet again– every sensitive spot, every offhand mention of a kink you’ve not yet explored together, every arch of your spine and clench of your cunt. He’s got it down to a science. Could write novels about making love to you specifically.

What I’m trying to say, at the end of the day, is that Ghost bagged a bad bitch by being autistic.