#I can not stress this enough THIS HAPPENS MOST OF THE TIME I DO THESE

[syggwolf]

Not to hijack this post or anything, and I'm gonna share some seriously depressing stuff here, along with talk of injuries and blood, just as a warning, but I can easily pinpoint the (And I cannot stress this enough.) SINGLE most traumatic thing that ever happened to me in a long, long, long line of catastrophically traumatic things: It was a very specific incident of being told not to cry. And it wasn't like I wasn't already told not to cry already or anything because, you know, you have a dick, you're not allowed to cry past the age of six and all that. And I was about thirteen so, way beyond that point. But this time, I mean, it was sort of a big deal. You see, unfortunately for me, a very heavy falling object had split my forehead open, and the amount of blood pouring down my face had convinced me that I was pretty for sure probably maybe going to die. Also it really hurt. But because I went into shock, I started laughing instead. I want to stress: the laughing was a panic reaction, not conscious, nor on purpose. Then I proceeded to leave an unbroken trail of blood all the way up to the front door of my house, about a half a block away. All the other kids fled as soon as it happened, except for one; another boy who was a friend of mine, only slightly older than me, who walked with me up to my house and came inside. Well, my mom shrieked and put an icepack on it, which, if you've never had burning cold shoved against exposed skull, it kinda really hurts even more than getting your skull exposed in the first place. And so I'm sitting there on the couch next to my friend, who's still staring in horror at my head and the blood all over my face. By this point I have definitely stopped laughing or doing much of anything, and the sheer amount of "I am so fucked." is starting to sink in because they are calling a fucking ambulance. My dad is sitting there, yelling at my friend to explain what the fuck happened and my friend gets to the part where I started laughing and my dad looks at me, and no bullshit, at this exact moment, there's a spike of pain from my head, and I'm miserable and it's sinking in that I'm going to the fucking HOSPITAL in an AMBULANCE and I am definitely in trouble. (Which is another fun thing that happens in an abusive household. Imagine thinking you're in trouble for getting hurt. Spoilers, I did in fact get yelled at, excessively. My intelligence, character, moral fiber, strength, and foresight were all called into question.) So right there, with all of that hitting at once and my father staring straight at me, my chest hitches and I fuck up and I let out a voice cracking little whimper. My father looked at me with an absolutely haunting combination of anger, disappointment, and some kind of disgust, and he said in this very rough, clipped tone that was more threat than anything else, "Don't you dare. You will NOT cry." And that broke something inside of me that to this day I've never been able to fix. If the role of a "man" was not to cry even under circumstances as extreme as that, than I clearly was broken in some way and I would endeavor to never cry again. And even Now? I simply cannot cry until I fully and completely lose control of every aspect of myself and snap, and even then it never lasts longer than a few moments. I can't make noise while I'm doing it either. It's a silent affair that can only happen in the most extreme circumstances when I am alone. His reasoning for saying that to me? For looking at his wounded child, blood covered face and pain and misery and all, and saying those words? He wanted the story to get around the neighborhood that I laughed at having my head split open because he thought it would make me look cool and really badass. He literally told me that to my face a few hours later, and said it was for my own good because none of the kids would fuck with me if I looked manly. He also chewed me out for possibly ruining it for having the gall to break while my friend was still next to me. The patriarchy is fucking evil and must be destroyed.

Everyone is so weird about people who cry easily. Fellas, is it evil and manipulative to *checks notes* have an involuntary stress response?

[ckret2]

Kinda weird ask incoming: Are Bill's substance abuse issues in your characterization based on anything canon or an Alex Hirsch interview or something or is it just "he obviously would abuse substances (more) if this wasn't a disney show so I'm just filling in the blanks"

1/3 actual canon & context clues, 1/3 reading five feet deep into one foot deep canon material, 1/3 "he totally would if this wasn't Disney."

To my knowledge there's no interviews confirming that he's heavy on the substance ABUSE (rather than just substance use), but to my recollection I'm pretty sure he's got the most allusions to consuming something alcohol/drug-adjacent of all the characters in the show. Outside of Bill we've got:

Stan ordering "expired apple juice"

since we're including "they probably would have done this if not for Disney," you could make the argument that Stan drinking Pitt cola was probably supposed to be beer cans.

the apple cider at the Northwest party

I'm gonna throw in Grenda drinking spoiled milk

Mabel consuming Smile Dip

farmer Sprott drinking hippie tea and pouring it out when he sees the love god fly by

Ford & the Oracle drinking Cosmic Sand, something strong enough he wakes up the next morning in a different dimension

that one alcoholic priest in TBOB

on TINAWDC, Ford tells Stan where to find his stash of beer.

And I think that's it?? Remind me if there's more.

WITH Bill, we've got:

In the Bill Reddit AMA he mentions salting his margarita glass with Time Baby's molecules. (and for the longest time I'm pretty sure this was the only explicit reference to an alcoholic beverage in a Gravity Falls-adjacent media; but Reddit is a godless land where S&P cannot tread, so I'm not gonna put too much weight on that. Still worth mentioning tho.)

he's got Time Punch at his Fearamid Party. Considering the "time" in the name, it could be related to Cosmic Sand (maybe you mix sand to make the punch?) which would mean they're drinking HARD.

(if Cosmic Sand IS related to Time Punch, now that we know Jheselbraum was in Bill's gang, there's a high chance she picked up drinking it while in the Henchmaniacs, so that's another thing we can now tie back to Bill's influence.)

He's drinking something while trying to interrogate Ford, an activity you'd probably want to be clear headed for, meaning either he drinks so hard so regularly that he DOES still have a clear head or else he's so accustomed to going "this is stressful, I need a drink to unwind" that he just does it even though it puts him at a disadvantage.

with the addition of TBOB, we now have: the silly straw page, where he's drinking a cocktail while also sitting in an enormous cocktail. Bill gushes about silly straws as one of his favorite things; and we know that stems from childhood, but NOW he paints an association between silly straws, drinks, and an overall margaritaville vibe

Bill mentions that the shaman introduced him to a local strain of hallucinogenic moss

Bill brings boxed wine to the Puritan girls' night.

Bill gets Ford wasted at karaoke night (and I have no doubt Bill was just as sloshed)—and if he knows how to make a drink that'll get you drunk in your sleep, he's got some serious mixology chops

the O'Sadley's incident.

That's so big it gets two bullet points. Nowhere else in all of Gravity Falls is there such an extensive, explicit, or extreme example of unhealthy substance abuse—barring the Smile Dip incident, but like, Mabel didn't know that was gonna happen and immediately swore off Smile Dip.

Three bullet points. He noclipped a guy into the ceiling. he got so drunk he forgot he killed his mom. He was arrested for "indecent exposure." Bill you good???

So most of the examples of drinking/hallucinogenics we get from the rest of the show are like, casual drinking or else children doing stupid shit. ONE incident of depressed drinking and one alcoholic side character.

But Bill drinks when he's partying, drinks when he's depressed, drinks when he's relaxing, drinks when he's stressed, drinks socially, drinks alone, drinks when he's helping a friend have fun, and thinks about drinking when he contemplates his worst enemies.

Okay.

Now half of these are from TBOB, so obviously they didn't factor into my decision to portray him as inclined to substance abuse over a year ago; but like... I'd say I interpreted the info we had on hand correctly, yeah?

Beyond that, it's a headcanon built up on the fact that he's got a lot of traits that lend themselves toward substance abuse.

An EXTREME "maximum fun NOW, consequences later NEVER" attitude. There seems to be no limits to how far he'll go in the name of chaos, fun, & hedonism, no matter who he hurts, no matter if he hurts himself. He's got that combination of reckless + irresponsible + shortsighted + passively self-destructive.

BIG on partying, which generally means drinks are involved and definitely seems to be the case here based on the time punch. "A party that never ends with a host that never dies"??

"says he's happy, he's a liar." When an emotionally stunted depressed person is in denial about being depressed and trying to convince everyone they're fine, what's a common coping mechanism? Self-medication!

he likes hurting himself. consuming substances in ways that are harmful to him is recreation to him. Yes I am talking about the soda in the eyes, even if it was a loaner body that can't have felt pleasant. The way he seeks out extreme+strange sensations makes me think he'd jump at the chance to try some weird new substance that does some crazy new thing to your head.

loves to socialize, but like... doesn't seem to have close friends. It would make sense for him to be inclined to use drinks/drugs as a social lubricant, both for himself and for his "friends," to help them all overlook the fact that maybe they don't actually really enjoy each other.

he's got a very strained relationship with reality, by which I mean he's actively attempting to murder reality and replace it with fantasy. What's a common method people use to try to escape/avoid reality? Self-medication!! What's one variety of self-medication particularly good at letting you slide into a fantasy world? Hallucinogenics! Which thanks to TBOB we now know he takes!!!

if Bill's reaction to an emotionally close relationship catastrophically falling apart is going on a massive bender, and if Bill's got a long string of exes that fell apart so catastrophically that they're straight up blocking his number, he's denying he ever dated them or ever felt love, and he's claiming that love is merely a pupa for hate... I think there's probably been a lot of benders.

overall he's just... a stressed, cranky, high-strung control freak who wants to give off the image of being so chill and cool and popular and enviable and suuuper happy. I think it'd make sense for him to turn to chemical assistance to bridge the gap between who he really is and who he pretends to be.

[anonymous-existences]

Permission has been given :)

I'd say sorry for the word vomit, but you said to share with you my thoughts.

Here are my thoughts :)

I kinda wanna throw Danny into the Monster Hunter Stories world. Specifically Stories 2, the Wyverian Village atop the cliff.

Maybe he's been needing to reconnect with nature after so long of floating aimlessly amidst the other ghosts, after his parents, sister and friends all grew old and died, but he remained.

He ages so slowly now, that he looks barely 30 when he buries Sam and Tucker, who were already old and gray and tired of everything.

I cannot stress this enough, this man looks like the Hot History Teacher trope, and yet he's just as old as the other senior citizens of Amity Park.

So, he packs up everything he has, all the old Fenton Tech goes into storage in his lair, and leaves through a natural portal. The Fenton Portal was decommissioned when his parents found out. Their research was entirely redone and republished, and the Ghosts stopped invading, partly afraid after his defeat of Pariah Dark, partly out of respect for Danny's ability to wreck them.

Danny goes off, spends a good couple of decades going around the Zone, helping out whenever, and exploring, and eventually just drifting about.

Then, as per canon, the Monster Hunter Stories 2 main character's grandpa, Red, goes off on his journey. Accidentally stumbles across an old shrine tucked away somewhere, one that honoured past warriors. Danny is a past warrior, and one that is more human than most ghosts. So maybe settling down at the shrine to patch up an injury wasnt a great idea.

Brilliant lights and rumbling, the ground cracks open with an eerie green glow, his Rathalos is screeching and ready to open fire on the weird fissure.

A hand pushes out of the crack in the ground, and pulls up a dad-shaped man through the ground. One dressed in crystalline armor and carrying a spear. Slightly singed and bleeding green from a cut on his cheek.

Turns out, Danny wasnt expecting to be summoned in the middle of an exhibition match against Pandora, but now he's looking down at a teenager pointing a sword at him while a dragon-looking thing behind him growls and looks two seconds away from opening fire on him. What else can he do but adopt the little shit? Danny could use a vacation away from the Ghosts, and this kid is on an unsupervised journey across the world.

Danny can totally go on a nice cross-country journey. Amd besides, kid has his own flying mount, and Danny can fly. He's going to wrangle in this kid and keep him safe.

He's a Dad now. Fuck. Wait until Ellie hears about this!

They do the journey, find the odd pink pits of evil light, Danny totally teaches the kid about magic and ghosts, and all the skills he needs to be a good fighter.

And then Red grows up, has his own family, and all. Danny becomes that hermit Uncle that owns a chunk of forest and teaches you to hunt, but always comes down for the family gathering. That is, until Red dies. (And considering the MC in Monster Hunter Stories 2 doesn't even mention parents, maybe they've also died too).

Danny goes into the woods, never to be seen again. Occasionally someone brings words of a tall, handsome man in crystalline armor helping someone and then disappearing before their eyes, but as soon as reports his Terga Volcano they stop. They assume he's disappeared too.

In reality, Danny found that game's equivalent of the elves, and they understand his grief of looking barely over 40 and having mourned several generations of humans already. They live atop a cliff that you need to fly to get into, and don't ask invasive questions about his powers.

He becomes their best Hunter, but rarely needs to be sent out, only to chase off invasive species or poachers. Danny hates poachers and their cruel methods.

By the time game story happens, and the MC arrives at the volcano, they're received at the village entrance by warriors, as happens in canon, and get to meet their commander, a tall, regal-looking man, with a spear over his shoulder and crystal armor covering him. He's glaring and giving out orders to bring the intruders to the village, but he's very soft-spoken towards the Rathalos accompanying the MC.

And then the kid takes off their helmet and Danny feels his entire world freeze. That's...that's impossible. He knows those eyes, but on a much older face. On the face of a son he couldn't get to in time.

The MC gets to witness the tall, scary man suddenly look pained by so much grief, falling to his knees and asking them about their grandpa Red.

I kinda wanna have the MC be a girl, specifically so Danny, who raised a feral son and his Monster friends, now gets to be a dad to a girl, and oh Ancients, what do girls in this world even like?

Turns out, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and she likes to climb everywhere. Instead of a bed will sleep comfortably on her Monster friends, and she's more likely to end up covered in mud and sticks, than anything he's expecting a girl to like.

Except, this go around, you get tired veteran and his emptional support feral child. Imagine Geralt raising Ciri, if young Ciri had the attitude of Dick Grayson along with the love of nature of Damian al Ghul Wayne.

This kid was half raised by her village's Monsters, because she refused to sit still and kept running off to go play with the baby Monsters in the Stables, and eventually got semi-adopted by the adults.

Picture this:

"Kid, please get down from there! You're gonna hurt yourself!"

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, already feeling a slight headache coming. Somehow, his great-granddaughter had found her way up the cliff with the help of a bunch of vines, a knife, and clinging to a particularly big Konchu.

"Not until I find it!"

"Find what? Kid, what are you looking for that could be worth a broken arm or leg?"

And thena the kid is wrenching something out of the cliff face, tipping over backwards further than her improvised rope can bear. It snaps, and she goes falling, leading to a fussing Danny flying up to catch her, holding her against his chest, too terrified for words.

Sure, later the kid is going to realize she almost died AND made her great-grandpa almost have a heart attack if he still could get those, but for now she's safe in his arms, her prize of a particularly shiny rock is in her hands, and they're flying without riding on a Monster's back.

"Let's do that again!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!"

Just...girldad Danny, who looks like the Hot Teacher, but is too Scarred by The Horrors to consider dating, having to contend with raising a feral girl who's somehow even worse than raising her grandpa was. And she keeps trying to set him up with single older women, except Danny's got almost, or already well over two centuries under his belt.

He's the Hot Immortal Lover, and doesn't understand that everyone they meet would happily be All Over That if he only let them. And now the Handsome Immortal has a child. Oh no, he's hot AND a good dad!

HOLY FUCK!! AHEIRBRIBAIE this was a good read. I love it. I don't understand some of the terms but I'll gobble it all up either way.

(I kinda wanna see Dan -Biased-)

[aliceisaperson]

Me after doing yet another sims 4 Lautski photo shoot post and putting Pete in all the female poses so he’ll be shorter than Steph

[geraldmariaivo]

I’m like 95% sure that I’m autistic, though undiagnosed. While I absolutely experienced a lot of these, I found the communication barrier less extreme. Mostly for three reasons.

1) as a smallish child I devoured books, and my parents encouraged my reading, so they just chucked thicker and thicker books at me. And my dad has a lot of old fantasy books. Between that and my later consumption of really long fanfics online, my childhood-adolescent vocabulary exploded with big words that older people know, and mean very specific things.

2) My parents watched lots of detective and private investigator shows (think Elementary and Person of Interest). These shows had smart characters who used big words, lots of words, spoke calmly, and very importantly- got their points across in a way that I understood very clearly, and the other characters understood as they walked through their explanations. None of them were particularly good at socializing, but they could convey information.

3) growing up, my dad and especially my uncle (my dad’s older brother, and an engineer) were the single most pedantic people I knew, and they would argue semantics into the ground. I know for a fact that my uncle is autistic (undiagnosed, but trust me there’s no way he’s not), and he had the most literal mindset ever. He was the kind of guy who drilled into me to never say “always” unless I genuinely meant “every single solitary instance.” He’s loosened up with age, but my god it was so stressful to talk to him as a child. Between him and my dad, I had to figure out how to piece together sentences so there was no possible way it could be misconstrued or used against me, because anything that could be, would be.

I ended up absorbing the speech patterns, and paired it with my vocabulary to make what I said as air-tight as possible. (Example: if someone asked “Did [X] do [Y]?” and you’re 98% sure they didn’t, normal answer is “No.” or “I don’t think so.” What I had learned to say in middle school was “To the best of my knowledge, [X] didn’t do [Y], though I haven’t asked them about it recently, so you might need to.”

Unfortunately I now have the opposite problem. In the words of Red from OSP: “Why use one word, when fifteen will do!” Which also sometimes (but much less often) results in people not knowing what the fuck I’m talking about because I explained it in too much detail. This usually happens when someone is sleep deprived, extra stressed, or uninterested in what I’m saying anyway. Ironically, my dad is the one who complains about it the most, telling me that I sound weird, and need to learn how to talk like a normal person. Meanwhile my uncle is like “Ah, yes. I can understand what you’re saying perfectly.”

Funnily enough I’ll sometimes use internet shorthand when something is obvious enough that I can be confident that the person I’m talking to can extrapolate the meaning, but it ends up with me say things like “Honestly the Generation 1 Transformers theme songs are funny to me. They clearly didn’t really know what they were doing. The every season’s theme was different, and all of them had disorganized music and vocals. None of them were particularly coherent, and half the time you wouldn’t be able to tell what genre the show was by listening to it if it wasn’t for the fact that they slapped a computer-y sounding filter over the voice lines because robots.”

ironically, my dad, one of the main reasons that i Talk Like That, tells me that i have the weirdest speech patterns. It’s not particularly derogatory, but every time he does it reminds me that he knows has gained the trust of zero autistic people under the age of forty because of his boomer-ass nonsense, because every autistic person under the age of forty that I’ve met who’s heard me speak like that almost immediately dropped the mask and started using their own patchwork speech patterns. (Yes i know all naturally occurring speech patterns are patchwork due to social mirroring and the like.)

I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Understandably So no one mentions charles when talking about the Logan movie and again Understandably So This Aint Bout Him however i do confess that as someone who had never seen Logan until like. a month ago when i was binging all the movies and without knowing a single thing about it aside from laura i cant lie i was in fact jumpscared by him being there. especially for at least like 3/4s of the movie

[jackfrostimposter]

genuinely why is there so much misinformation about the guardians of childhood book series?

[faithfromanewperspective]

what’s there not to understand about hypomania? you know when you get overtired, and like a toddler, you get all hyperactive and also want to cry or do Every Fun Thing you can think of and it actually becomes harder to sleep? like as a result of too much overwhelm or being so emotionally exhausted that’s how your body makes you able to cope, the aftereffects of too much adrenaline? just imagine being stuck like that. and every day it triggers itself more, overload of emotional whiplash and energy and you’ve lost all ability to think rationally and you can do anything at this point, because why not? you’ve got nothing left in you to hold back on any idea that could be exciting and stop you from falling into the void where the wiredness you feel has nothing to latch onto to burn off that nervous energy in a positive way, emotionally. for days or weeks or months on end. you don’t need to have ever experienced this fully to extrapolate and be like. yeah. I can see how it would suck eventually to get stuck like that

[cosmogyros]

Literally can't pay my rent until I get paid for September, which hasn't happened yet. Today is Friday, and Monday is the last day of the month. I'm so tired of being poor.

[thiscrimsonsoul]

The welcoming acceptance of both her presence and her struggles right now was almost disorienting to Wanda, it was so unexpected. She was used to being hated and feared, or at the very least misunderstood, everywhere she went now. To have Mantis and Thor speak so kindly to her, and to have the others agree to allow her into their home, made her feel like a little bit less of a monster. "Thank you, Mantis. I-I can't tell you what this means to me." Hopefully, she could tell, since she was an empath like Wanda. Because right now, Wanda wasn't good enough with words to properly express it. "Yes, that's... that's what I need more right now... To not be alone..." That and my boys back in my arms.

"Thank you, Thor," she now said when he continued Mantis' sentiment. Maybe it wasn't his ship to offer, but he seemed to have a place among the Guardians, and they seemed to respect his opinion on the subject, so if he said she could stay, then Wanda felt welcome enough to. And of course Mantis had already said she could, so she tried to tell herself that she could relax a little. Relaxing, however, was something Wanda had really not done in months. It was like she walked around with a constant tension in her body, always waiting for something terrible to happen to or around her. "Do you think I can heal?" she asked quite out of the blue and without her usual filter? "Sometimes I am not sure of that," she whispered.

Wanda clutched the picture of her beloved family to her for a time before putting it back into her pocket. Mantis led her to where she might have a shower, and after she'd showed her where everything was and let her borrow some of her amenities, Wanda's eyes teared up again. "Thank you so much, Mantis, really," she said sincerely.

The shower and the shampoo were both very good, but about halfway through, Wanda just started to sob. It was as if all the stress in her had bubbled to the surface, brought out by the hot water, comfort, and kindness she'd been surrounded with. For a few minutes, all she could do was cry. There wasn't any stopping it, for as one knows, one can only hold back one's tears for so long before they become insistent. Grief and guilt were some of the most insistent types of tears, and Wanda had enough of each to last her a lifetime.

She also scrubbed at the blackness on her fingers, unable to remove it. It wasn't a stain that could be removed, at least not by soap. It was a lot deeper than skin. It reached all the way through to her soul, she knew. How had she fallen so far in life? What would Pietro or Vision think of her now? Was she even fit to be a mother anymore? All these thoughts fueled her tears until... it was as if the tears had decided they were done for now, and she found it suddenly easy to stop crying. They'd be back, though, she knew.

When she's gotten out of the shower and conjured up a simple outfit of linen pants and a plain t-shirt, Wanda wandered back out to the Guardians. She'd replaced her illusion spell, making her look a bit more normal to them. It wasn't as if they hadn't just seen her without it, but... it was done more for her own confidence than to please them. Like putting on makeup before one showed their face to the world.

She was soon handed a mug of tea she's definitely never tried before, given that it was Asgardian. It was good, though, and warm. "Thank you," she said gratefully to Thor. As Mantis explained the sleeping arrangements, she sipped her tea. She wasn't going to be alone with the book anymore. That thought was immediately comforting, but also a bit stressful. She felt like a recovering addict, and despite all that had happened, the pull to continue studying the book was strong.

"I... I sometimes study it in my sleep, though..." she admitted it. "Using astral projection. It's... something that's become second nature. It happens like... like dreaming. That automatically. I might not be able to stop myself once my consciousness is subdued by sleep." She felt rather exposed, explaining all of this about herself, but if she was gong to recover and break the ties between her and that accursed book, then she had to be honest with those who wanted to help her.

What Have I Become? || closed reply

@thiscrimsonsoul continued from here

Mantis knew things would never be the same, not after everything Thanos had done to the galaxy. To the family Mantis had found when she wasn't even looking for one. She had always known the galaxy was cruel, so much so that Mantis only sought to make it softer with her gentle disposition. But, as she witnessed the aftermath of Thanos' plan, Mantis realized she would hardly be able to make a difference. She pushed the thought aside; after all, a small difference was still a difference.

Even though the galaxy had been permanently changed, Mantis enjoyed little moments like these, letting her mind wander while she would tend to her plants. She hummed a melody, her hands arranging the leaves calmly. Focused as she was, she didn't notice there was someone new aboard the Benatar. She was startled by a loud knock on her bedroom door, and she frowned slightly before reaching out to open it.

"Wanda?" Mantis asked. What was Wanda Maximoff doing in space? And how did she get into their ship?

Mantis wasn't too familiar with Wanda, but as the young woman threw her arms around her, begging for help, Mantis hugged her back almost instinctively. A victim of the Snap holding another in a moment of need, now that they were something other than mere dust.

"Wanda," she repeated, keeping her voice soft. "What...?"

Wanda's energy revealed she was unwell, so Mantis knew her healthy, youthful appearance was an illusion. Wanda was in so much pain... She was grieving, and she felt tremendous loss, guilt and overwhelming loneliness. Mantis rubbed Wanda's back in an attempt to soothe her, though she refused to use her powers for now. Sometimes people just needed a hug and a sympathetic ear.

"It's okay, you are safe. Thor is here, if you are looking for him, and... I am here, too. You are not alone," she said, hoping Wanda would understand that whatever had happened, she didn't have to go through it alone.

[girl-bateman]

it sounds so obvious now, but im pretty sure my physical problems rn can all be traced back to the fact that my brain and body has been in a constant hypervigilance and cortisol overload for 3 months straight. the dizziness, the blackouts, the acne, the constant nausea, the giant eyebags and sudden crows feet ?? Like yeah, no shit thats what happens when ur every waking hour is the equivalent of that camille preaker crying gif

[cimeriansparrow]

My mom got mad at me this morning bc "I never talk to her," but every time we try to really talk, it turns into a massive fight (guess what happened 15 minutes ago)

I can't even ask questions without them eventually leading down a road where she keeps cutting me off and begins to yell at me. Obviously I'm taking a tone with you. Not only am I literally just speaking to you in the way that you speak to me, but being spoken down to for 22 years really teaches you that it doesn't matter How I speak to you, you won't ever Listen. Idk. I'm tired of living in a house where I can't even try to talk to my parents about the smaller stressors that I have.

Tried to bring up what's been going on the past few months bc she accused me of being depressed and lazy and. Yeah. I was depressed for 3 months. Thank you So much for noticing. It really speaks volumes to me that you didn't say anything about it while I was going through it?? I tried explaining that a new medication (that she knew I was taking!!! I told her when I switched to it!) Was causing me immense brain fog and seriously scary suicidal ideations that I did nearly act on.

And she got pissed and started yelling bc I never talk to her, and when I asked her to stop yelling she told me that she's gonna yell because she shouldn't be made to feel like this in her own house. She just went through a massive surgery and she's had to walk on eggshells around us when we should have been taking care of her (which we did. And it fucking tears me apart that she doesn't realize how much of my own life I've given up already to make sure she's been taken care of) and she's done with tiptoeing around all of us and she just kept going and going and going and going and going because she doesn't actually ever know when to fucking stop.

No shit we don't talk. Every single time I try to talk with you it ends up like this. With me trying to calm down after stepping away after you've accused me of some wild shit and when I come back to try to talk normally you're still yelling. In fact, you're more incensed than before.

For some reason she thinks adhd medication will fix everything. Like it's some sort of cure all and I don't have a decent handle on it. And every time I bring up that I've done some research and I feel like I might be on the autism spectrum she tells me that's stupid and people are making a trend of it and that's why I feel that way and I shouldn't think that because none of us (myself and two younger sisters) are autistic.

If none of this makes any sense to anyone reading, know that that's how Every Single conversation with her goes. If she's not in a good mood she's going to bring you down to her level of emotion. She will make it about her through the stupidest methods possible, and after being emotionally manipulated like that my entire life it's hard to see exactly what's going on because she comes at you so fast.

[pallases]

okay guys i have calculated it all out and even if i get a big fat zero on this race i will still earn a b in the class assuming i get 100% on the other remaining three assignments two of which are a given for 100% and the last of which is like. even if we get a 75% on it (which i do not really see happening) i can still scrape by w a b-

[kaijutegu]

Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views

Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:

That is not what a happy gator looks like.

That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.

Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.

Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)

So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!

Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.

How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!

Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.

For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?

Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.

By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.

Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:

It is doing a threat display.

It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.

It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)

It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.

There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.

In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.

It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)

Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator

So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.

Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)

Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.

As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.

Why Should I Listen To You?

Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?

Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!

But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.

Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:

Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets

The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt

Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk

Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet

Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang

Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)

Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson

Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul

Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.

[sinecosinewheel]

yeah this is a vent post

[nezushi]

read a whole book in one day. i feel alive again