#I need to find someone to mod my chair :)

[youngchronicpain]

Really wish I could change the sound of the horn on my powerchair. I want to customize it! Make it scream! I don't know!

[orteil42]

some undifferentiated thoughts about my Starfield playthrough as i have them. i am a game developer with a strong interest in procedural generation and i've enjoyed a bunch of other bethesda games so this might get pretty mean sorry

(this is a long one)

starfield dialogue is already exhausting me "oh you must've been living under a moon rock ;)" get it! because they're in space! this would've been too corny for the Jetsons

there's a kind of cheap dusting of space theme over everything. the food isn't salmon but alien salmon. it's not seaweed but alien seaweed. cooking alien stir-fry. come on

cannot get over how clumsily the theming is handled. books, board games, weapon names revolve heavily around space. these people have been living on alien planets for hundreds of years yet have this unending sense of novelty about it. the game takes itself completely seriously but feels like it's attempting to parody itself

people's EYEBALLS are CLIPPING THROUGH THEIR EYELIDS

a woman is speaking to me in french. her accent is about as believable as her haircut

these are some of the worst reflection maps i've ever seen

next to nothing is interactive. you can sit in chairs and sleep in beds and that is about it. can't even drink from people's toilets. disgraceful

game helpfully crashes 5 seconds after i decide i should get some sleep. very handy!

my character has not said a single thing since i started playing. not one peep. this is an unmitigated improvement over Fallout 4 i'm so glad honestly

the more i poke around the big city the more the NPC quips feel like something out of gen-1 pokemon. can't get enough of this coffee :) this city is where it's at :) spacesuits are comfy and easy to wear

very strange sense of altered reality from the quest dialogue too. has anyone at bethesda met a person before? i move on to some mission that has me scanning wildlife on a faraway planet hoping this will, somehow, feel less alien than human conversation

just as with No Man's Sky, every planet is uniformly dotted with equidistantly-placed points of interest that you slowly make your way to (no vehicles besides your jetpack) which always turn out to be some cave or building identical to those you've cleared before

unlike with No Man's Sky, the seamless exploration is faked and the biodiversity is nil. you do get an impressive amount of raw loading screens however

the prefab bases and power stations found everywhere on planets seem to have very sparse, very specific slots for spawning consumables, which results in encountering some giant industrial installation in the middle of nowhere with, i don't know, a loaf of whole-grain sandwich bread just casually sitting next to it all proper. there is no breathable atmosphere here. who is eating this

planetary traversal is a CHORE. i am saying this as someone who loved Death Stranding

heinous "hold to confirm" buttons sprinkled in various flow-breaking places throughout the interface

enemy AI is abominable. nobody is pathing their way to get my ass. "must've been the wind" taken to the next level. an infant playing peekaboo has more object permanence

hoisting yourself up on ledges when jumping is…nice

companions randomly nowhere to be found. persists through multiple fast-travels and loading screens until, just as randomly, they pop back up

storage space is now limited! unlike in Fallout 4 and virtually every other bethesda game, your containers now hold a finite item capacity. god forbid we let the player have fun

baffling inventory UI. i imagine there's a mod out there that completely overhauls it the way SkyUI did for Skyrim. this should not be needed! how are your UIs getting worse a decade later!

scanning the precious few species inhabiting some dusty planet; one of them is this arching red root i've already seen several times before. my job done in this biome, i travel (read: teleport with a loading screen) to the polar region to find some other species. the first one i catalogue is the exact same red root again but this time it's named "boreas root" todd howard is a genius

some alien horror comes at me full fangs out. i hop on a pebble. obscenely, i am safe

procedural terrain generation beyond dull, impossibly unimaginative. these people have not had one critical thought on what makes a procedural world interesting. beginning to feel validated in my belief that only i should be trusted with proc gen. along with perhaps tarn adams

jokes aside this is making me feel genuinely insane. there have been excellent procedural generation techniques that produce compelling explorable maps for decades now. bethesda absolutely has the budget and know-how to do miles better than this yet somehow they just…do not? the same way Pokemon has decided to just no longer bother with their mainline games despite being the highest-grossing media franchise in history? hello? what is for real going on

some of the most cynical breadcrumbing i've seen in years. approaching some random cave and this person in space gear, who in the vast immensity of the infinite cosmos just happens to be snapping pictures right here, tells me more-or-less verbatim "if you like this place, you should see this other place" [other random cave has been added to your map.]

i do not like how good this makes No Man's Sky's gameplay look. it depresses me how much i have to hand it to No Man's Sky for at least not fucking up this bad. please stop making me wish i was playing No Man's Sky instead this is grotesque

i think i've exhausted my interest and patience for this game at the moment. i'll get back to the main story at some point and try some other systems ie. crafting and base-building to see if there's any engagement to be found but so far, my god. my god

[cookiescribble]

Show Me How To Be Whole Again

A/N: hi everyone! This is the fic I've been working on for eight months 😮‍💨. I hope it came out as well as I hoped it would 😅 - mod angel

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Summary: When Spencer is abducted, you rush to the team to make sure you're there when they find him. After you get home, Spencer's behavior starts to get more and more concerning, and you're desperate for answers. (based on 2x15 and the aftermath of that episode)

Word Count: 7.1k

CW: Mentions of abduction, violence, drug addiction, withdrawal, arguing. some angst in the middle but i am incapable of writing something without a happy ending.

~~~~~

The call came early in the morning. They said they called you as soon as they could. 

If you were thinking rationally, or if you could stand being alone for 5 minutes after hearing the news, maybe you would’ve stayed home. But you couldn’t stay put knowing Spencer was in trouble. 

You quickly threw a few days’ worth of clothes in a carry-on bag and took the first flight out of the nearest airport. You were trying so hard to keep yourself together and not break down crying on a crowded airplane, but the thoughts just kept rushing in your head. You were so worried about him. 

When you landed, you called the team and told them you were going to the police station and you were going to stay there until they found him. You wouldn’t let anyone argue with you. You wouldn’t be able to calm down until they found him anyway, so being anywhere else didn’t make sense. 

You didn’t really think of what you’d do when you got there. You’d just been on autopilot since you got the call. You were hoping someone would meet you there. 

When you frantically burst through the doors of the police station, JJ was standing there waiting for you. You dropped your bag and hugged her tight. 

“It was my fault,” she choked out, sobbing. “We were together and… we split up… I shouldn’t have split up…”

You shook your head vigorously. “No, no, you’re not the one who abducted him. It’s not your fault.” You were also sobbing now. You tried taking deep breaths to calm yourself, but all you could think about was what could possibly be happening to Spencer right now. 

You calmed down enough to ask, “Where is everybody else?”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath herself. “We set up at the unsub’s house. He took Spence to a secondary location, and Garcia set up there to get to his computers.” She looked down. “I really should be getting back there.”

You nodded while she talked. “I’m coming with you,” you announced. 

She looked at you, concerned. “We can’t risk you-“

You cut her off. “I am coming with you. I’m staying with you until we find him,” you stated forcefully. 

She didn’t argue further. She could see the desperation in your eyes, you’re sure. Even someone who didn’t analyze behavior for a living could see that. “Alright. Let’s go.”

…

You arrived at the house. You couldn’t tell how long the car ride took; every second felt like an hour. 

When everybody saw you, they took turns giving you a hug. You could tell they were concerned that you were here, but they could see how devastated you were. You think they understood. 

You hung around while they all did their jobs and tried to find Spencer. You sat next to Penelope and watched as she tried to do whatever she could to help find him. 

Time passed. The team was coming in and out of the room as they needed to. Derek was probably in here the most, giving his moral support to Penelope. 

Suddenly, the monitors in front of you lit up. 

“What‘s happening?” Derek asked. 

“I… don’t know,” Penelope answered. 

Your heart dropped as an image popped up on the screen. 

It was Spencer. He was sitting in a chair, his hands tied together. He was wearing the clothes you watched him pack on the morning you last saw him. 

He looked so scared. 

“Guys! Get in here!” you heard Derek yell. 

You couldn’t look away from the screen. 

The rest of the team rushed in, faces dropping as they saw what was happening. 

Someone was talking in the background of the stream. You couldn’t hear them. Your heart was thumping so hard you could hear it in your ears. Spencer was replying to whatever they were saying. Through your loud heartbeat, you could hear his trembling voice. Your eyes started to water. 

After a few moments, you heard someone near you say something and suddenly you were being pulled away from the screen and into another room. 

When you realized what was happening, you looked up to see Hotch holding your shoulders, pushing you away from the horrific scene unfolding on the monitors. 

You started sobbing. “I have to see him,” you tried to say, but your voice was cracking. 

“No. You saw that he’s alive. That’s all you need to see.” he said firmly. He was protecting you from seeing something that would truly break you. 

You couldn’t argue. What you saw shook you to your very core; you couldn’t go back in there. You squeezed your eyes shut and nodded. “You’re going to find him and bring him back safe.” It wasn’t a question. You knew they’d find him. They had to. 

You took a step back, telling Hotch he could go back to the team in the other room, and that you were okay out here.

You sat at a table, laying your head down and covering it with your arms. You had started crying, and you couldn’t stop. How could they do this to him? He’s never done anything to hurt anybody. All he does is help people. How could someone look at him and feel anything other than warmth, comfort, and love?

You heard footsteps come into the room. The girls came in and sat around you. You picked your head up to look at them, your eyes already swollen from crying so much. 

“What happened?” you asked frantically. Your heart was racing again. 

“He’s okay,” Emily said quickly. “He’s alive. The unsub… made him choose a victim to keep alive, but there’s going to be more victims… and then the camera cut off.” She took a deep breath. “It looked like making that decision let him live.”

You buried your face in your hands. This was so cruel. you knew he dealt with bad people every day, but… this was so heartbreaking. How could someone feel so little remorse for other human beings that they force an innocent person to decide someone’s fate?

You took deep breaths to try not to cry again. “I can tell he’s in so much pain right now… He’s going to blame himself for all those people’s deaths. The guilt is going to eat him up inside. He’ll feel horrible even if he does make it out of this.”

Everyone took turns patting your back to reassure you. “He is going to make it out of this. He’ll be home soon.”

You nodded, forcing yourself to believe it. You had to believe it. If you didn’t believe it… you would break down more than you ever have before. 

…

You stayed in that room for what felt like an eternity. The team took turns keeping you company when they weren’t busy. They gave you vague updates to let you know that Spencer was still alive. They didn’t tell you details of what they saw. You didn’t ask. Seeing the somber looks on their faces told you all you needed to know.

Eventually, everyone came rushing out of the room, putting on their coats and practically running out the door. Penelope came to sit with you, her eyes wide and full of hope. “They found where he is. They’re going to him now.” She hugged you tightly. “He’s going to be okay.”

Tears leaked out of your eyes again. This time they were happy tears. The immense rush of relief you felt was enough to render you speechless for a while, until you finally choked out, “They’re going to call us when he’s safe?” She nodded eagerly and you let out a huge sigh of relief. 

The wait felt like forever. You were still nervous. What if they don’t get to him in time? What if they’re just barely too late?

Finally, finally Penelope’s phone rang. She answered quickly, nodding at what she was hearing. Eventually she hung up and looked at you, smiling. “He’s with them now. The unsub is dead. They’re rushing an ambulance but his injuries seem minor considering… what’s been happening.”

You closed your eyes and took another big sigh of relief. “I’m going to meet the ambulance there,” you declared.

Penelope looked at you quizzically. “I don’t know if-“

“You said the unsub is dead,” you cut her off. “There’s no more danger. I’m going to him.” You saw keys to one of the FBI vehicles that was left over since they had multiple people to a van. You picked them up and tossed them to Penelope. “You know their coordinates. You drive.”

She caught the keys and nodded at you, unable to argue with your logic. You both rushed out to the van and sped over to the location. 

You saw the ambulance as you arrived there. You barely waited for Penelope to put the car in park before you were running out the door to where the ambulance had parked. 

You saw Spencer sitting at the edge of the back of the ambulance with a first aid blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was beaten up, but he was still conscious and alert. You were relieved his injuries weren’t worse. 

“Spencer!” you shouted as you ran towards him. He looked your way, his eyes widening as he saw you. 

You threw your arms around his shoulders when you reached him. His shock quickly turned to something softer as he relaxed into your arms, wrapping his arms around your waist. 

You nestled your face into his neck for a few moments, unable to stop your sobs of joy. “Oh, sweetie…” you cooed into his ear. 

He moved so his forehead was touching yours. Tears were streaking down his face. “I’m sorry…” he started. 

You shook your head vigorously. “No apologies. You’re okay now.” You kissed him on the forehead gently and threaded your fingers in his hair “Everything’s going to be okay.”

He nodded and tightened his grip on you, kissing you firmly. He kissed you for a long time before finally pulling away, resting his forehead on yours. “I love you,” he whispered.

You smiled warmly, whispering back to him. “I love you, too.”

You stayed like that for a few moments before everyone started pushing Spencer to get in the ambulance so he could go to the hospital. You rode with him, of course. You held his hand the whole way there. 

He wasn’t in the hospital for too long. They were able to treat his wounds relatively easily. The team waited in the waiting room while you followed him into the examination room. 

When you came back to the waiting room, hand in hand, everyone rushed to greet you before you all headed to the jet. 

You sat in the corner of the couch to the side of the other seats, motioning for Spencer to lay his head in your lap. He followed eagerly, curling up on his side and nestling his head in your lap. 

You ran your fingers through his curls as he began to fall asleep. He must’ve been exhausted. You couldn’t imagine him sleeping during any of that. 

You stayed like that the whole ride home, him asleep and you petting his hair softly. 

You gently woke him up when you landed. “C’mon, baby. We’re going home.”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. You kissed his cheek before standing up, taking his hand as you went to the parking lot. He obviously wasn’t in any condition to drive, so he handed you the keys to his car and let you drive home. You insisted on stopping and getting some food on the way back. He said he didn’t feel hungry, but once he started eating, it seemed like he’d never stop. He must’ve been starving.

When you walked into your apartment, he grabbed you and hugged you tightly to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, relaxing into him. 

“I missed you so much.” He was crying again, sniffling softly. “I thought about you every waking moment. I knew I had to make it through because you were waiting for me.” He leaned down to kiss your forehead, closing his eyes and savoring the moment. 

“I missed you too,” you said quietly, looking into his eyes with a soft expression. “I knew you were going to make it back.” You hugged him tight again. “I didn’t see everything. The team… made sure I didn’t see anything that was going to hurt me.”

He nodded, leaning down to stroke your cheek gently with his thumb. “I’m glad you didn’t have to see me like that.” He touched his forehead to yours. “What matters now is that I’m here with you.” He kissed you slowly, pushing your hair out of your face. 

You kissed for a long time, slowly making your way to your bedroom. You smiled up at him after a while. “As much as I would love to continue this…” You gestured to the bed. “You need to sleep.”

As if to prove your point, he let out a quiet yawn. You smiled as he sat down at the edge of the bed. You grabbed his pajamas from the drawer and helped him get changed and settled into bed. 

He lay his head on your chest and you stroked his hair gently, just like you did the whole way home. “Go to sleep, baby,” you whispered as his eyes closed. After a moment you heard his breathing slow as he fell asleep. 

“Goodnight,” you whispered, kissing the top of his head before relaxing to fall asleep yourself.   

…

After that night, things got… bad. 

Spencer wasn’t acting like himself anymore. He was… distant. Cold. He had never acted this way towards you before. Or anyone, for that matter. 

You had never had a problem with intimacy before, but suddenly he refused to touch you. Any time you would reach for his hand, or try to put your arm around him, he’d just shrug you off of him and move away from you. It always ended in you mumbling an apology and putting some space between you. 

He never explained why he didn’t want you to touch him. In fact, he didn’t talk a whole lot anymore. You often sat in silence, completely apart from each other. You always used to be able to count on him to fill these silences, but now he just stayed quiet. 

When he did talk, he was a lot more cold to you than he used to be. You had never fought before, but now it felt like any time he talked it was to argue with you about something. It felt like he was always angry lately. 

He didn’t even like to sleep in the same bed as you anymore. Most nights, if not every night, he slept on the couch. You started begging him, telling him that you would never cross over your side of the bed, but he shrugged you off saying he just needed to be alone.

All of this was really taking a toll on you. You tried not to show it, because you knew he was going through a hard time, so you only let your feelings out in places you could be alone. Which meant you spent a lot of time crying in the bathroom.

This went on for months. You thought that, surely, he had to tell you what was going on eventually. He had never hidden anything from you before, so you didn’t really know what to do, or how to handle this. You didn’t want to push him into talking about things he didn’t want to talk about, but something was very clearly wrong. 

After a particularly bad argument one night, you couldn’t take it anymore. You had to go to someone about this. For Spencer’s sake.

The next morning, you set an extra early alarm, quietly getting dressed and tiptoeing past Spencer, who was asleep on the couch, and silently leaving your apartment. 

As you got in your car and started driving, you started arguing with yourself in your head. Part of your brain was trying to say that this wasn’t going to help, and that this was just like being a little kid and tattling to a teacher. But the emotional part of your brain was saying that just telling anyone would be able to help Spencer. And that little shred of hope was all it took to convince you to do this.

You shoved open the doors to the BAU, hoping that Spencer’s stories about his boss barely leaving his office were true. When you looked around, you saw an office with a light on, making you breathe a sigh of relief.

You bound up the stairs, knocking on the office door, a little more forcefully than you had intended. Hopefully it would help get your emotions across.

“Come in,” a familiar voice ordered. 

You took a deep breath before opening the door, seeing Hotch sitting at his desk with a bunch of paperwork in front of him. You wondered just how much paperwork this job required, and if he was always here hours before everyone else.

He looked surprised to see you. He would probably be surprised to see anyone at this early hour, but considering you don’t even work for him, he probably wouldn’t have even considered the possibility of you coming here. “Is there something I can help you with?” He asked. 

You opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out. You didn’t really think this far; you just figured that surely someone who works so closely with Spencer had to know something, especially since he was a profiler. 

You thought about everything that had happened in the last few months, trying to find the right words to properly articulate your concerns. But all the thoughts about Spencer pushing you away and refusing your affection, mixed with remembering what your relationship was like before that fateful night of his abduction, overwhelmed your mind so much that you just couldn’t stop your emotions flowing out. Tears welled in your eyes before starting to streak down your face. Here you were, in Hotch’s office, completely unannounced and uninvited, and you were just standing there crying.

After a few moments of crying, and of Hotch looking very concerned at this scene playing out before him, you decided it didn’t matter that you couldn’t form the perfect words. You just needed to say something. 

Through choked sobs, you finally managed to blurt out, “What’s wrong with Spencer?”

Hotch looked at you, his expression as unreadable as always. “What do you mean?”

You took a deep breath, too emotional to think about how you shouldn’t be saying all of this to your boyfriend’s boss. The words just started coming out in a rush. “Something’s wrong. We had never had a single argument before, and now the only time he ever talks to me is to pick a fight. He’s never present, he barely speaks, which I’m sure I don’t have to tell you is very strange behavior for Spencer. He never smiles anymore, he won’t let me touch him anymore, he won’t sleep in our bed anymore, he only sleeps on the couch…” 

You covered your eyes with your hands, trying to stop the tears from coming out. Finally, after some shaky breaths, you finished by saying, “I just wanted to know if there’s anything you could tell me about this. If you know why he’s acting this way. If there’s something he’s not telling me.”

Hotch hesitated before gesturing to a chair in front of his desk. “Do you want to take a seat?”

You looked at the chair, and you noticed you were shaking. You nodded, and sat down in the chair, trying to calm down. But you couldn’t help being extremely restless, your leg bouncing rapidly while you sat.

Hotch leaned forward, moving some paperwork out of the way and placing his hands on his desk. His expression was slightly softened. “Working in this field, you go through a lot of traumatic things. Reid’s abduction was one of the worst things an agent can go through.” His voice was low and steady, which was a welcome contrast to how frantic your own words had come out. “Anyone would struggle after that.”

You sighed. “I know, but-”

He raised his hand to cut you off. “That being said, we’ve all been able to tell that Reid has been a little off.” He saw you raise your eyebrow and added, “Okay, a lot off.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “We have some… theories, but we can’t know for sure what’s happening with him unless he tells us. And since he’s already struggling, we didn’t want to make it worse, especially since he’s technically just a subordinate or coworker. But if he’s not telling you either…” He looked at you sympathetically. “I’ll try to talk to him.”

You nodded, taking a deep breath. “... Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m so sorry I came here out of the blue.” You stood up, taking a step forward as if you were going to hug him, but for once your rational thoughts took over and you stayed where you were.

He stood up after you. “You’re welcome. It couldn’t have been easy to come here and talk about this.” He reached out to shake your hand, and when you shook his hand back he put his other hand over yours and spoke softly to you. “I’m going to try to get through to him. I promise.”

His gentle hands and soft-spoken words were enough to reassure you, at least for now. You nodded, thanking him again before leaving his office. You were able to leave with a lot more composure than you came here with.

It was getting late by the time you left Hotch’s office, and there were a lot more people here now. As you came down the stairs, you looked up to see Spencer staring at you. He wasn’t angry, thankfully, but he looked… kind of dumbfounded. Which made sense. You had no reason to be here at all, let alone a reason to be talking to his boss.

As you walked towards him to get to the door to leave, he turned to you. “Hey…” he started, his voice soft.

You didn’t know what to say, his soft voice sounding nothing like what you’ve been hearing these past few months. So you just kind of waved to him awkwardly, pointing to your watch to indicate that you had to get to work, and you left the BAU. 

When you got back in your car, you took a few minutes to process everything that had happened. You closed your eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to convince yourself that everything was okay. You believed Hotch when he said he’d help. It felt like Spencer was in capable hands.

…

Later that day, you had been in the bathroom when Spencer came home, and you didn’t hear the door open and close. When you came out, you saw him standing awkwardly in the front of your apartment. It made you jump a little bit. “Hi… I didn’t know you were home,” you muttered awkwardly.

He stood there looking at you, his eyes moving a little as if he was thinking of what to say. After a few moments, instead of saying anything, he walked over to you and hugged you, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist.

You just froze for a moment, not sure how to react. But he kept his tight hold on you, as if you were the only thing keeping him up right now, and you finally started to hug him back just as tightly. You both just stood like that for a few minutes, holding each other.

Finally, he spoke up. His voice was soft, barely a whisper, and he sounded so fragile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He was starting to cry now, making soft sobbing sounds into your shoulder.

Hearing him cry broke something in you, and shortly you were also in tears. “Oh, Spence…” You squeezed him a little tighter, rubbing soothing circles on his back. “It’s okay…”

He sniffled and shook his head, pulling back a little so he could look you in the eyes. “My behavior has been abhorrent lately. I’ve been struggling, and I’ve been bottling everything up. I didn’t realize just how much this was hurting you.” He took a deep breath, trying to keep up with his thoughts. “I guess I figured, if I didn’t tell you about my problems, then they couldn’t affect you. But I was wrong. It just made it worse.”

You looked at him sadly, one of your hands moving to gently stroke his hair. “You can always come to me with anything. I’ll always try to help you. You know that.”

Some more tears started falling down his cheeks, and you started to wipe them away with your thumb. “I guess I felt like… I didn’t deserve the help.” He took a few shaky breaths as he tried to calm down. “Like I didn’t deserve you being so nice to me.”

“Spencer…” you started, trying to make your voice sound as soothing as possible. “What’s wrong? What’s so bad that you can’t tell me?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. “I… I don’t know if I can talk about it yet. But I promise I’ll tell you soon.�� He looked at you determinedly. “Until then, I promise I’m going to try to be better to you.” As if to prove his point, he grabbed your face and captured your lips in a soft kiss, making your heart flutter.

After years of dating, you didn’t think you’d feel that flustered, shy feeling of butterflies in your stomach again. But, after these past few months of having no physical contact, this kiss almost felt like it was your first kiss all over again.

You couldn’t help but hold the back of his head to try to bring his face even closer to yours. You were craving his touch, and you needed his affection. On the off chance that this was a one-time thing, and that he would start to distance himself again after this, you figured you had to make it last.

He showed no signs of letting up, though, moving you both so you were laying on the couch, with him hovering over you. His lips never left yours the whole time, and his hands were moving around your face as if he was trying to remember what it felt like. 

He broke the kiss to look at you, before closing his eyes. His hands trailed from your face down to your neck, moving slightly under your shirt to your shoulders. He wasn’t just touching you, he was feeling you. As if feeling your skin would jog his memory of you. His breathing was soft and even as his hands moved down to your hips, his fingers gentle and slow on your waist as he started to lift your shirt up. 

Your breath hitched when you felt cold air suddenly hit your stomach. “Spence…” you spoke quietly, a soft blush on your face. 

He looked at you, his voice quick and reassuring. “I don’t want to do anything like… that. It would be a little too much for me right now.” He quickly flashed you that awkward little smile he had sometimes. “I just want to see you, to feel you.” His voice went a little quieter when he added, “I missed you.”

You looked at him sadly, reaching up to touch his face. “I missed you, too.” You leaned in to kiss him again. “I missed you so much.”

The soft, slow kissing resumed, and Spencer very carefully pulled your shirt over your head, his hands gently gliding over the newly exposed skin. You let out a dreamy sigh. You hadn’t realized just how touch starved you had been over these past few months. This is exactly what you had been needing. 

You just stayed on the couch like that for a while, his lips and hands on you, the gentlest of touches. After a little while longer, you started to unbutton his shirt, because you wanted to do the same to him.

He completely froze, sucking in a breath. You immediately pulled your hands away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” You trailed off, worried that you just ruined any progress that had been made tonight. 

He shook his head, sitting up and pulling you up with him. “It’s okay, I just… I don’t want you to see me with my shirt off.” He looked at you with pleading eyes, as if he was begging you not to ask about it. 

You hesitated, but instead of asking about it you tried to be a little more lighthearted. “I’ve seen you without a shirt plenty of times, Spencer.” 

He gave you a slight smile before the worried look came back to his face. “I just…” he started, “I can’t right now. Please understand.”

You nodded, taking his hand and giving it a slight squeeze. “I understand.” You stroked his hand gently with your thumb. “I’m not going to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. You can trust me.”

He squeezed your hand back, giving you another little smile. “I know you won’t. I do trust you.” He let out a little yawn and started to rub his eyes. 

You looked at the clock, not realizing how late it had gotten. “Come on, let’s go to bed.” You leaned over to kiss his forehead. “You should get some sleep.”

You worried he would still insist on sleeping on the couch, but he just nodded, his hand still tightly holding yours as you both stood up and walked to your bedroom. He grabbed his pajamas and headed to the bathroom to change.

You sat on the bed and watched him for a few moments before he closed the door. You started to get dressed yourself, wondering what this problem was about. He had been a little shy around you when you two first started getting intimate, but you thought he had gotten over that. Had these past few months apart made the shyness come back?

Your thoughts were interrupted by Spencer coming back into the room. You stood up so he could get in bed. He looked so tired; you could see just how bad the dark circles under his eyes were.

He crawled under the covers, curling up and closing his eyes. You got in the other side of the bed, gently rubbing his back to soothe him. You didn’t want to push any boundaries, so you pulled away after just a moment.

He turned around, looking at you with those big eyes of his, and grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers together. He closed his eyes again, taking a deep breath, as if soothed by your touch. You smiled softly. He looked more peaceful than you had seen him in a long time. It made it easier to close your eyes and relax.

It was silent for a while, and you thought he had fallen asleep. But then, you heard him speak very softly. “I love you.”

You opened your eyes to see him looking back at you. You squeezed his hand gently. “I love you too.” You leaned in and kissed his forehead, making him smile. “Get some sleep. I can tell you need it,” you whispered.

He nodded and closed his eyes again, moving a little closer to you before wrapping his arms around you and nestling his head in your neck. You hesitated for a moment in shock before cradling him in your arms. You kissed the top of his head. “Goodnight, baby,” you whispered to him. Soon, you could hear his breathing soften, and you just listened to the quiet sounds of him sleeping for a few more moments before falling asleep yourself.

…

Things didn’t magically get better after that, but they did improve. 

Spencer went back to sleeping in your bed, though he seemed to have a hard time sleeping nowadays. He was always tossing and turning, and you usually woke up in the middle of the night to either try to soothe him to sleep or to keep him company when he couldn’t sleep. 

There was a lot more talking, and a lot less fighting. You could have more comfortable conversations, and he would politely tell you when he didn’t feel like talking. It was a lot better than him yelling at you to leave him alone. 

There was still some arguing, but usually only when you were trying to get him to eat. He was always saying he wasn’t hungry, and you had to try to push to get him to eat, saying he needed some kind of nutrition. Sometimes he would snap at you, saying he would eat if he was hungry and that he didn’t push you when you didn’t want to eat. He’d always apologize, though, and try his best to explain that he was either feeling nauseous or he just didn’t have much of an appetite anymore. It seemed to get a little better after a few days.

He didn’t mind a little more physical contact. He wasn’t always up for it, but he didn’t seem to mind it as much. It was always trial and error, almost like trying to pet a skittish cat. You’d start by putting a gentle hand on his, and he’d tense up for a second, and he’d either pull away and explain he didn’t want to be touched, or he’d take your hand and hold it gently. A big improvement. It was just little touches: holding hands, an arm around his shoulder, a hug… it never went past that.

He didn’t talk about what it was that was bothering him at first, but you trusted that he would tell you when he was ready. After about a week, he was finally ready to talk about it.

…

You both were sitting on the couch, in one of your quiet moments. You were reading a book, like you usually did when Spencer felt like being quiet. The silences were starting to get more comfortable, making it easier to just do quiet activities next to each other.

After a few minutes, Spencer cleared his throat, making you look over at him. You bookmarked the page you were on and turned to him. “What is it?”

He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure how to start this conversation. He closed his eyes for a moment to put his thoughts together, before opening them again to look at you. He spoke very softly.

“When I was…” he started, swallowing and taking a deep breath to compose himself before continuing, “... When I was abducted for those few days back in February, a lot happened. The man who took me had dissociative identity disorder, and dealing with all his personalities was difficult. But there was one of his personalities that was… nicer than the others. More helpful than harmful.” He closed his eyes again, and you knew this was really hard for him to talk about. You placed a gentle hand over his, and he let out a breath, grabbing your hand and giving it a squeeze. He continued on, his voice still soft and sad.

“Unfortunately, one of the ways that he helped me was to… give me something to help numb the pain the others were causing.” He closed his eyes again, and he slowly rolled up his sleeves for you to see his arms.

You stared in shock. His arms were covered in needle marks. You covered your mouth. “Oh, Spencer…” You looked back up at his face, but his eyes were squeezed shut, as if he didn’t want to face this. You squeezed his hand to let him know you were here to support him.

“He would come to me saying Dilaudid helped with the pain, and after a few times, it started to feel… good.” He took another deep breath, his eyes still closed. “After he died, I took the bottles he still had. And when things started getting hard to handle… all the flashbacks and memories of what happened to me, I just needed to numb myself. And it worked, for a while. But eventually, I just… couldn’t stop.”

“Spencer…” you started, your voice gentle. “You could’ve come to me, I could’ve tried to help you-”

“I didn’t want that,” he cut you off. “I tried to convince myself that what I was doing wasn’t wrong. That it was just medicine that was helping me. But, obviously, I knew that wasn’t the truth. And I knew that if I told anyone about it, they would say I needed help. But I didn’t want help. I just wanted to live in this unrealistic world where everything I was doing was fine.” He finally opened his eyes to look at you. “That’s why I was lashing out. I didn’t want anyone to help me, and I also felt like I didn’t deserve anyone being nice to me.”

He looked at you very seriously. “I thought, if I didn’t tell you any of this, it couldn’t hurt you. I know how sensitive you are to other people’s emotions and problems, so I figured if I didn’t tell you, you couldn’t worry about me. Obviously, I was wrong, and that was a naive way of thinking.” He reached out and gently touched your face. “When I saw you at the BAU, I knew it was because you were worried about me, and I saw that you looked like you had been crying. And it just snapped me out of this false reality I had created for myself. And that’s when I came home and apologized, because I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep hurting you.”

You listened to him silently while he talked, letting him get out everything he needed to say before responding. “Why didn’t you tell me that day? Or the few days after that? Why did you wait until now?”

He nodded as if he was waiting for this question. “I read that withdrawal symptoms peak within 12-48 hours, and that it usually takes 5-7 days for the symptoms to resolve. So I wanted to wait out those 7 days just to make sure.”

You gave him a sad look. “But if I knew you were having withdrawal symptoms, I could have helped you. I really wish you would have told me.”

He sighed. “I wanted to do it on my own. To prove to myself that I could do it. That I wasn’t just going to quit halfway through and relapse.”

You nodded sympathetically. “Well, I’m really glad you told me now. We can get through this together.” You gave his hand a little pat. “You know this isn’t the end of it, right? It’s not just over when withdrawal symptoms stop. You still need to work out these issues that made you start this in the first place.”

He nodded. “I know. I want to try to get help now. I… I think I’m ready. I want to look into going to therapy, and maybe some support groups if I need them.” He squeezed your hand again. “I know I can make it through this, because I know you’ll be by my side.”

You smiled softly at him. “I’ll always be by your side.” Your hand trailed up his arms, looking back at the needle marks. “Do they… hurt?” you asked softly.

He shrugged. “Only when they first appear. They don’t hurt right now.”

You nodded, and you gently touched the marks on his arm. You looked at him, and you slowly brought his arm up so you could give every little mark a gentle kiss, to let him know that everything was going to get better soon.

He looked at you with big, loving eyes, and he started tearing up a bit. He pulled you in for a tight hug, sniffling as he buried his face in your neck. “I love you so much,” he said with a shaky voice.

You held him tight, rubbing his back to comfort him. “I love you too, Spence. Everything is going to be okay.” Your voice was calm and soothing. “I’m here now.”

…

Things started to get much better after that. Spencer was way more comfortable telling you when things were feeling more difficult than usual. Typically, it would be when he came home from a particularly emotional case. You were always there to hold him and to soothe him. There was no more aversion to your touch or need for extended silences. He felt comfortable in your arms, and he knew he could talk to you when something was bothering him.

He started seeing a therapist, and you always went there with him. Usually, you just sat outside the office for his sessions so he could have the one-on-one help he needed. Sometimes, if he was having a particularly rough week, he would bring you in with him for extra support. And you were always there when he needed you.

It took a bit of time, but you learned how to help with whatever he needed you for. If he needed a distraction, you could always come up with some activity to get his mind off of things. You played a lot of board games, and started learning to bake so you could just pull out a new recipe to try and he could focus on getting everything just right. When he just needed someone to listen to him, or a shoulder to cry on, you didn’t mind being that person for him. And sometimes he just wanted to be held, saying that the physical touch grounded him. You were always happy to hold him. 

Over time, things got easier and easier to deal with. Eventually, things seemed to be fully back to normal. You both knew that this was always going to be a struggle that could come back, but you knew how to handle it now, and you were certain that you could get through any struggle that ever tried to get in your way.

[averagebioweaponslover]

So mild trigger warning for vague descriptions of violence, disassociation and ptsd. There’s also some period typical avoiding of mental health issues/ toxic masculinity. A character becomes agitated while anxious. It’s nothing super serious but I felt the need to add. You should be fine unless you are super sensitive to these topics. This was a creative writing bit I came up with. Cmedics name is Quincy or Quinn. He’s also referred to as just medic as I find reading cmedic is a bit clunky in my brain. Cengineer is referred to as Fred and engineer for the same reasons.

Mod

Micro fic below the cut

The heat of battle was gone and the base was left cold and dark. The screams, gunshots and smells from the day would cling to Quinn far into the night, clawing its way into his skull and haunting his dreams. The faces of teammates turning to the faces of fallen soilders on gurneys, desert sand and limestone turning into mud caked trenches. Norman woke up with a loud gasp. He was at his desk, cold sweat causes the thin fabric of his scrubs to stick to his skin. He reached for the now luke warm mug of coffee that set next to the paper work. Someone was in the room with him but the doctor was too far in his own mind to notice. Instead their presence lingered in the back of his mind like the echos of the fallen soldiers cry’s for their mother. The coffee was bitter, cold and sour from being left abanonded during his nightmare. It reminded him of the taste of vomit that would come up every time he—

“You alright doc?”

A hand was placed on his shoulder. Immediately jolting him back to reality.

Quinn looks up to see framiliar face of Fred. He crinkles his nose and swats the other away. Tired grey eyes glaring up from the office chair. “I’m fine Fred. what do you want?”

“I was just wanting to see if I could borrow some alcohol for the workshop…” a fat second of silence follows. Quinn expected Fred to say more, he knew damn well he looked like shit and there was no way the other didn’t notice. Quinn stood up with a groan.

“Yeah yeah- fine. I have plenty in here- just don’t drink it okay?” Quinn walks over to one of the shelves in the room removing a bottle of medical grade rubbing alcohol from where it sat.

Fred only seemed amused at the prickly tone. “Don’t worry doc, it is just to clean - I’m not as stupid as I look.” His tone was jovial.

Medic was not impressed and he handed the bottle over with an eye roll. The Engineer holds the bottle in his hands for awhile but makes no motion to leave the infirmary. The battle medic feels his lip twitch in frustration and he crosses his arms. “You know, I could use a little help in my shop. If you have free time maybe you can stop by and lend me a hand“

The doctor knew damn well that Fred did not need his help. However something about the engineers tone caused bile to rise in his throat. Quinn knew he’s been an ass again and shakes his head. “I- I’m fine Fred, really I am. I’m sorry I’m Just.—“

Fred just nodded numbly. He never knew what to say to the doctor when he got like this. He just waved a a hand dismissing Quinn’s words. “don’t worry about explaining yourself doc. I know you’re just havin a hard time. Just know that my workshop is open if you want to take your mind off things.”

[sleepyhead-poll]

BONUS! MOD'S CHOICE POLL!

Mod's Propaganda Under the Cut:

Judai:

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Yu-Gi-Oh fan. For whatever reason, this series imprinted on me when I was a child and I just never let it go. I've watched the original series, season 0, GX, 5Ds, and Arc V, as well as read the original manga, the GX manga, and the Arc V manga, as well as watched all the movies. The point is: I like Yu-Gi-Oh. There are people who like it more than me, that have watched all the series and what not, but I think I still like it an absurd amount. And out of all the protagonists I know, Judai is my favorite. He's just so lovable, you can't help but like him! He's goofy, he's reliable, he's fun, he has a descent into madness, he's gay, what more could you want in a shounen protagonist? Though being sleepy isn't a major part of him, it's more of a gag of him slacking in class and always going to sleep, it's still super funny and I'm a little sad that he lost in Round 1, though I do like Sonic as well (who he lost to). Give the Slifer Slacker a chance!

Linhardt:

Considering Linhardt is my profile picture at the moment, I don't think I need to justify this too much. But I will anyway. Linhardt is the sleepy crest scholar. Although I will be the first to admit that I am not actually a Fire Emblem fan (and tbh I find the writing in Three Houses kind of bad) (sorry to those who enjoy it) I love Linhardt so much anyway. He's probably my favorite in that very large cost. I love that he's so unapologetically sleepy, like he doesn't care if you scold him to do work, he will do work on his own time. Not only that, but he's actually really smart and dedicated when he wants to be. Linny's friendship with Caspar is really nice, especially since I think someone needs to save Caspar from his awful dad & self-destructive tendencies. Plus, I really like his supports. Especially with Marianne, Hubert, and Edelgard. His supports with Dorothea in Three Hopes is also really nice.

Garfield:

It's Garfield. He's a classic comic. He's a classic meme. Little orange kitty. What more could you possibly want? I love Snoopy, but to be perfectly honest I think Garfield should have gotten as far as Snoopy.

Sleepytime Tea Bear:

Again. He's just a classic. What more would you want but a sleepy bear in pajamas on a chair?

Olruggio:

I'm a big Witch Hat Atelier fan and I love Olruggio. Like yes, I like Orufrey like everyone else, but I also just like Olruggio on his own. I like his scruffy little look and I love the fact that at first he is so intimating but almost immediately he's revealed to be a big softie. I love his light magic motif and I really think it's sweet that he made the thing to keep you warm when you sleep and gave it to the kids-- he's a FATHER. This man needs a nap fr though. Man I need to catch up with this manga.

Osaka:

IT'S OSAKA. Like!!! I don't even know how many clips and comics from Azumanga Daioh make the rounds around Tumblr, but specifically the ones about Osaka are amazing!!! She has the most autistic anime girl swag I love her so much. She's so sweet and earnest and silly... I always lose my mind at "OH MAH GOD!" and she has so many other classics. Like when she makes the Osaka stamp with her eraser or when she struggles to cross the street because she keeps zoning out when the light gets green or when she's distressed about Americans wearing shoes inside... I love her. And to her sleepyheadness, she's always falling asleep in class and whenever she's studying she just starts falling asleep. She's just like me fr...

Takane:

Back in the day I really liked Kagerou Project and so as tribute to my old obsession from middle/high school I have to give a spot to Takane. My favorite part of the series was when we saw flashbacks to the Yuukei quartet and Headphone Actor is still a bop.

Tanaka:

THE REASON WHY I STARTED THIS TOURNAMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? Last December during finals I decided to read something light and fun while working and I chose Tanaka-kun is Always Listless because I remember the title from a few years ago when the anime came out and like I loved it SOOOOOO much. He's the ultimate sleepyboy and he's just so funny and relatable. He needs to be carried around by his best friend Ohta and his ultimate goal in life is to minimize as much effort as possible and he's always nodding off and he dislikes being a main character, instead wishing he was a background character... my favorite guy for real.

[mediocre-shark-tales]

Qsmp x Streamer reader (1)

Summary - A friend has asked you to join the QSMP to help fill some gaps in the lore and regain the viewership that qsmp has lost. So you get your very own event where most of the qsmp members finally meet you.

Warnings - None for this part

There is a chance for this to turn into a love trope of some kind but for now there is focus on fluffy platonic-ness

Masterlist

I sat down in my blue gaming chair and been to turn on my computer. Today I would be joining a new Minecraft world, one of my friends was an admin of this place. I had kept up with it mainly because I loved to watch my friend play their role, but I also had become friends with some of the streamers they already had in the world. I was a pretty well known streamer, definitely not anywhere near the level of most of them. However I was at a decent spot and I had the chance to meet a few of them occasionally. I hit it off well with Tubbo, Charlie and Philza. Through them I got to meet many more streamers and had gotten a collection of friends to stream with, however since I lived in the U.S.A, timezones made things tough. But I still made it work.

Anyways, my admin friend had asked me to be a new member of this lore and world simply because they needed someone to fill a few holes in the lore and it would benefit their time limit for the next bg lore drop. As most know they had just recently dropped the Purgatory double week bomb. After all the work that took and the time they had to use, now they needed to step up their game and make the next big lore drop. Of course they wouldn't tell me anymore than a summarized context of what my lore was going to be and also explaining why I was there.

If I was to summarize all of this better, I would say they needed me to help keep up the viewership or better yet the engagement. So they had more time to perfect the next lore event.

Absolutely nobody besides the admins knew I was joining the qsmp, I told no one. I had tweeted out after we had finalized the date and time for my entrance into the world. Telling my fans to clear their schedules during that date and time and big news was going down. Of course they began spamming that post with questions asking for more hints. I instead ignored the post and any questions regarding it from that day forth.

I typed in my password and opened up twitch, I had about 5 minutes left before I needed to start stream. So I quickly started up everything, me being me I had already pre-prepped hours in advance. My viewers would be given 5 minutes to join stream before I would start actually streaming. However while they danced to my stream starting soon music and replaying clip of sharks, I would be prepping on the qsmp.

Days ago my admin friend had kicked everyone off the qsmp so I could login and get my name changed. This way when everyone logged back on for the event today, no one could accidentally find out the secret before the event was over.

Finally it was time and I watched as my viewer count began to skyrocket, people screaming in chat that they have been waiting for today for forever. I smiled it was always fun to see my chat get excited about something like this.

I logged into the qsmp, everyone had just gotten kicked for the event. I was the only one besides admins allowed on the server right now. They set me up in my lore relevant area. Being a streamer known for my love for sharks, they decided to introduce me as a mer-person. Except instead of the mermaid one may think of, I was half shark. Similar to that older show named H2O, once I got into water I could choose to shift into my mer-form. My friend had done an amazing job creating this mod and making sure I was the only one who could access the powers but others could still see it.

Besides the obvious visual change, it also allowed me to breathe underwater and swim 5x faster than the others. Though foolish could keep up well with me seeing as he has his shark fin now too.

The Admins had me hidden on an island they built for this event, though they said I could keep it if I wish to make my home there. On this island, I would be caged up inside this little hut. Even though this hut was too small for anything really to fit in it, there was a secret hatch that led down to a hug basement where I was caged and kept. The idea was that I had been captured by pirates and caged away. So the members of the qsmp were now tasked with saving me from the pirates. of course the pirates were all played by admins that usually played the 'workers'.

My stream timer ended and I started up my screen to play for the best experience my viewers were gonna receive. I wanted to keep them in suspense so I had made my own mini lore like message. It started off with the sound of a typewriter as text showed up of screen. "Todays stream will be a little bit different, for the first few minutes you will experience the perspectives of other streamers." Tubbo, Philza, Foolish and Niki's current streams all popped up for them. I had found a way to show their live streams while also adding having my sounds and text play for my viewers. "For an easier experience choose a streamer to watch for a bit, you'll know when is best to come back. Otherwise you can stay, however the live stream on the screen will switch every 5 minutes." I watched as my viewership went down, most people choosing to watch from a specific streamer instead of my way.

I smiled and on a separate screen I pulled up all 4 streams, I would switch between them on my own accord until they got close enough to me. This would help entertain myself since I couldn't do much right now, besides exist in this 1 by 2 block fish tank.

I watched Phil's stream first, he had just logged back into the server. "Hello new people, turns out today some new lore is happening? The admins said that some crazy stuff had been set up, like another event." He was about to teleport somewhere as the members who had logged on today were all wanting to meet up. But the admins had instead teleported them to the movie theater. This spooked him but he quickly recovered of course. "Oh hey fit! Do you have any idea what's going on today?" I smiled to myself as I watched them begin their little theorizing huddle. Tubbo had joined them in seconds, he had been itching for some changes recently and was overly-excited.

There conversations were cut short by a qsmp worker walking in playing a loud noise to get their attention. Phil had walked over expecting to be given a book to read, how ever this time the qsmp worker had been given a sign to hold. This sign was enlarged so everyone could read the words 'sit down'. In seconds everyone had their own seat and went dead silent.

The screen turned on and a short video began. It had the same animation style as the purgatory video. They watched as Minecraft pirates rode through a storm on their pirate ship. Seconds later they could see the pirates pulling up a fishing net, but they couldn't see what was in it. The shot changed to an over the shoulder shot with the viewer following the captain, before it showed his face. Watching as his face slowly turned upward into a menacing smile. In the next shot, you could see the ship had docked up to a small island. The captain and his crew walking towards this small hut. One crewmate held a shark tail fin over his shoulder, it looked lifeless. However in the next second there was lots of movement from it, multiply cremates running to help that helpless crewmate. The video ended a a really short shot of an arm grabbing out onto the sand. Then text appeared on the screen "Please save me.." written in red with my coordinates right under it.

"Quick get those cords!" I heard Phil yell as he began to type the coords in chat. Within seconds 5 different members had typed them in chat. After that the group was off, lead by Philza. I watched as Niki, Foolish, Tubbo, Fit, Phil, Bagi, Mouse, Pac, and BBH all began racing out to my location.

Within another 5-10 minutes they had found my island, as they came closer they realized all the pirates were on the island. Phil instantly took over the role of diplomat, trying to talk to the pirates. "We are here for someone, they told us they needed help. Will you do this the easy or the hard way." Of course within seconds they were battling the pirates. It didn't take long as the real fight was meant to be with the captain. That admin was killable however it was gonna take some work from the members, this admin could also spawn random enemies. It took a few more minutes before they killed off the admin, at this time I saw my viewership begin to rise again. I knew they would figure it out, so I toggled off the live streams and turned on my view. They could see my screen and my face-cam now. I smirked at my chat as they went crazy, but I just stayed quiet and showed them my character in third person. This of course just set them off even more as this was completely new to the server.

I heard the voices of my friends getting closer to my room, "Wow this place is actually huge down here! Look treasure!" I heard turbo yell. I unmuted myself in the proximity chat, however I was attuned to sound like I was behind a few walls and such. This way it would sound like I was actually in a tank. I yelled into the mic, with this auto-tuning, I would have to yell to be heard. I would only turn it off when they broke me out of the tank.

"Help! is some there!" They went silent before I heard Phil again followed by Fit. "Yes we are here, where are you!?" "Over Here guys!" The door across the room finally opened and all the members poured in. "Y/n! OMG is that you!?" I heard different people yelling my name as they came closer to see me. "Yes it is, now would you mind breaking me out of here!?" Fit instantly began breaking the glass, water and myself poring out now. "Hey Y/n! nice to see you again but one question... where are you legs!?" Foolish asked. I smiled as I got the message along with everyone else about how the next bit was lore related. "Well you see, I'm a mer-person. No not the classic mermaid you might think of, I'm not part fish. Instead I'm part shark, if you couldn't tell by the shark tail and shark like features I have." When I was in mer-person mode, I also had a dorsal fin on my back. "However seeing as I'll need to be on land you will probably see me more like this." I hit the t button on my keyboard and seconds later my mer form had been toggled off. I heard gasps of wows and awe all around me.

Another message from the admins told everyone that was it for the new lore today, as in that would be all I was allowed to say. Not necessarily that my lore was actually finished for my newly joined status. More was to come of course.

"Wow so we are like the shark people here!" Foolish yelled. I laughed. "Yeah I guess so!" Then I heard another gasp. "Oh my gosh y/n you need to come meet the eggs!" Niki said louder than usual but not yelling. I smiled. "I would love to meet them!" I was told they had left them behind in the hint that they would have to fight something. You know, gotta keep our children safe and all.

While all of the members got into their boats to leave, I instead turned my mer-mode back on and began to swim back with them all. Of course I had to explain how I could breathe underwater and swim faster when I was in this form.

Swimming onto the shore, I turned the mode back off and followed everyone up to spawn. All the parents left, promising to be back quick with their corresponding kids. Basically I was left alone, but pac had decided to stay back to keep me company. I hadn't met him yet so I was glad to get to know someone new. "So do you know everyone here?" I looked at him in game. "Yes and no, like I have met the majority of people on this server before, but I'm only really close with a few of them. But that is only because we hit it off so well when we met that we immediately added each other on things. You know what I'm trying to say right?" Pac nodded in game. "Yeah that makes sense, well I hope we can become good friends too!" I smiled wide, "I'm sure we will Pac." A moment passed and the eggs started to show up.

Smiling faces filled the group again as I met a chatted with all the eggs that were currently online. I surprised most of them by being able to read their signs without the translation device. When I was younger I had decided to learn Spanish and later on I began to learn German as well. The drive to learn German only intensified when I met and became friends with Niki. I am a fast learner so while I wasn't quite perfect, I was at least good.

When Talulah began to play her flute, I danced along with it. Later I would hopefully get to drop the hint that I loved to play instruments too. Which is how I became friends with Wilbur, so hopefully I could befriend his egg too. This brought up the question of when I might get to see him online, it's hard to tell with that man. Especially since he's such a big deal now in the music world with his band.

Either way, I was so glad to have joined this server. I could wait to help move the lore along in a cleaner more flowing way. I especially was excited to have a new way to stay in touch with my friends, make new friend, and hang out with them too.

To be continued...

[bigdreamerpeach]

Never lie to a Demon

________

Ban ban was not in a good mod today. It was a really hard and stressful day in other words

In the Kindergarten happend weird things.

Jumbo Josh has is face ful of color like someone painting his face, Opilas eggs are now fake eggs or chocolate eggs and someone take off ban ban Party hats , now He has Catears on his head.

Ban ban has enough and wanna find out who doing this pranks

He ask the Sheriff if he can help him. After a while they found paintbrushes and Many colors , the Sheriff see something ... on the colors is a jester face on it

"This is from Bittergiggle, he did all the thing Partner. We need to find him." The Sheriff said to Ban ban

" Maybe i know where he is". Ban ban said

Both going to there where ban ban thinks Bittergiggle would be. They find him

"BITTERGIGGLE!!!!" . Both yelled

Bittergiggle jumps

" ohhhhh heyyyy guys , how's you doing " He ask silly

" did you do the pranks on us?? " ban ban ask madly

"Whaaaat, meee?? Noooo!!! I would nev- AHH!! " The Sheriff grabs him and brings him to a room , tie him up on a chair.

Bittergiggle wiggles and try to get free.

" Let me go!!! Ngaahhhh!!!".

" Only if you tell us the true , Did you do the pranks ?? ". Ban ban ask

Bittergiggle ignore the question.the Sheriff then ask him , walks around him

"We know you do it , Tell us " He ask

But the jester didn't talk

" Well, then we need to make you tell". She Sheriff said

Ban ban was confused. " how we make him talk?". " ohhh , just watch me" the Sheriff told him

The Sheriff walks behind Bittergiggle and put his hands under his arm . The jester jumps

" No no no no , don't , please , PleaHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!-...

The Sheriff tickling Bittergiggle armpits. The Jester twitch around and laughing

"HAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAH!!!! STOP STOP STOOHOHOOP!!!! NOOHOHOHOO!!! SHERIFF!!!! STAHHAHAHHPPPP!!!! "

Ban ban only watch , the didn't know that Jester were so ticklish, it looks funny

"Ban ban , help me ". The Sheriff said

" uhmmm , okay , where should i go? ".

" ohhh he is ticklish on every Single spot , but mostly on his armpits ,stomach and his hip-side area ".

With this Ban ban tickles Bittergiggle stomach, making the Jester more laugh.

" AAAKKK!!!! PFFFFHIIIHHHAHAHHA!!!!! STOOOP STOP STOP STOP STOOHOHOOP!!!! EEEE!!!". The Jester starts crying from the tickling

" Tell us what we wanna know" ban ban said , moving down to his feet , want to see if he is ticklish there

" AHHH!!! BAN BAN NO!! NOT THE FEET!!!"

Ban ban take one of the feet , only Touch his sole

Bittergiggle screams in laughter

" i didn't really touch you there Jester".

" this is my wordt spot , please don't !!"

" Okay, last time , did you play the pranks?? " ban ban aks with tickling his foot , making the Jester laugj like crazy

After a few minutes he break

" OKAAHAHAHYYYY I ...I DID IT BUT PLEASE STOHOHOP!!! "

With this , the tickling stop , Bittergiggle catch his breath

Ban ban and Sheriff Look at him.. ban ban then speak

" Never lie to a demon , my friend. "

" Okay, i ..i never do it again".

Both untie him , letting him go . The jester runs away

Sheriff chuckle

" tickling always break him , remember this"

"Heh yep, good to know".

________________

New story !!!

Have fun!!! And sorry when my english isn't this great

[methvapes]

your art is so good but every post you make is a literal mindfuck what is even happening here

i wrote fanfiction about us

it was a dark and stormy night

being a criminal justice mastermind i dont often bring my skillset into the real world

and yet sitting here, in my private investigators office, 73rd floor atop the highest skyscraper in new york city, i can appreciate the intellectual high ground it takes to make it this far, in a world gone mad. its 1972, and yet my minds still stuck in the past, in the could haves and the what once was

a drag on my marlboro brings me back into the present. a knock on the door. another knock. i exhale a foul smelling line of smoke out my mouth and flick the butt of my dart outta the window. let some other poor schmuck deal with it. ive got enough on my plate

adjusting my melancholic overcoat, and sleazing my way over to the door, i can see the silhouette of a greasy, stout man infront of it. a piercing voice carries through my office and out into the streets of the city. his speech wrests its way through my ears in an attempt to make them bleed, surely, even the street dogs would be whining at the shrill pitch of it. and yet… i know who this is. anonymous.

a scowl makes its way to my face, from my 5 foot 11 stature. distaste registers in my mind. i knew this guy as kids, when he used to bathe in grease and shit every day and then roll around in the streets, looking desperately for a thing he called, "asks". accompanied often with a flattened stone, or a piece of paper, with buttons drawn crudely onto it. we all assumed he was an escapee of the nearby mental institution as children, and i was the only one patient enough to be kind to him, enduring his insane prattling about something or other, or his blatant disregard for the female sex, and juvenile objectification of women

"my MINECRAFT mods wont LOAD CORRECTLY! i sense that SOMEONE HAS MEDDLED WITH my STATE OF THE ART gaming PC and LARD SOAKED CHAIR!"

he seems to be writhing on the floor of my waiting office, and throwing a tantrum similar to that of my 3 year old daughter

"anon, anon, my friend, what could be the issue?" i attempt to quell the insane beast to no avail. often he would lull into some breakdown or another, freakouts that wouldnt pertain to our world

"oh mister investigator sir! you gotta help me!" i can hardly understand him through his blubbering tears. "you gotta help me i saw a very scary monster in my room, and he went under my bed! you gotta help me kill him mister investigator sir! he meddled with my future device! i need my fix of asks!"

what a world we live in. do i help a childhood acquaintance, and attempt to quiet his babyish outburst? my illustrious supermodel big breasted booty cheeked up rich successful atheist businesswoman wife and supergenius 3 year old daughter would surely miss me on my adventure, and yet i find myself hungering for the hunt of the game yet again, even as the hunt is little more than a search for a round object in a ball pit, with the mental limitations of my good friend anonymous. i decide to help him with his journey free of charge. i know hes rather broke after spending all his time at the local casino. i told him he didnt know how blackjack worked after he tried to bluff a win, and got beaten senseless by the guards. tsk. whats a man of my caliber to do?

"ill help you anon, if its the last thing i do."

grabbing my '66 colt diamondback, and my silky fedora, i stride over to the door with purpose. my bumbling sidekick tottering his way over to the exit and falling over immediately upon walking through the doorway. i always did forget he had the object permanence of a toddler. we make our way downstairs

the rain pours out upon that damned, dirt filled city. taxis and cars blazing by my office in hurried races

stepping onto the pavement, anon rushes forwards, step after shortened step. in horror, i watch as he trips on one of his homemade "mobile devices" and falls into the street. a taxicar's yellowed paint feels like a slap in the face as the dark street fills with the blood of my childhood friend. heroically flagging down traffic in the tense night of the city, i race to his side. the man who was like a distant cousin to me. an eccentric nephew, or odd sort of relative, gone in the blink of an eye.

but yet! hope! as anons labored breathing grew more stagnant by the second, i knew i only had moments to spare. jumping 15 feet into a nearby vehicle, i hotwire the wheel in mere seconds, racing my way to the hospital. i knew i could save him… if only… if only i had more time…

a race against the clock, i could feel the ticks of milliseconds pound against my skin like the judgemental gavel of a courts closing. like a stampede of hooves amid a horserace. like a thrumming engine, ready to blow at any given moment. i needed to get to that hospital

minutes later, there i am, pulling into the crowded parking lot. carrying his frail and short four foot two body into the intensive care, i knew there would be lasting damage. a man doesnt play modded minecraft all day and be left with the highest condition of physical ability, after all.

"nurse! ready a room for my friend! immediately!" i shout, as i shed my private investigators coat and reveal a second doctors coat underneath. i also pull out a surgical liscence from my back pocket, where it had been digging into my ass all night which hurt really bad. it also explained why i looked so bulky and puffy under 2 coats. from anonymous comes faint mumbling.

"need more… need more fried mushrooms… radishes…. the jade door… collapsing… oh… the sand… help…" it seems he had been having some kind of nightmarish hallucination, spurred on by him getting run over by a fucking car. i rush to the operating room. the rest of it is but a blur, as i endlessly repair damage thought to be deadly, and attempt to restore function to his marred body.

its 7 hours later, when he is finally placed in a visitation recovery room. maybe his 4 moms could come and visit him, it might help with this apparently insane state he had been put in. mutterings about, squids, of all things. squids? who likes squids? those damned creatures from the sea?

anons odd ramblings only seemed to continue from there, to my eternal dismay. "the truth… im unclear of the truth… 2003… cleopatra.. wife boobs…" i was deeply unsettled by this, and forever in grievance of the loss of one of my friends. as a strong male figure, i emotionally was unsure of what to do from here… a loss… devastating to this world.. one soul less among the masses of our earth… lifes but a walking shadow, a power player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more

[mllemaenad]

The Magnus Protocol: Introductions

It may just be a side effect of the new story format, but it strikes me how deliberately ... attention seeking, let's say, some of these supernatural events seem to be.

I don't mean all of them. I noted previously that Norris's stories, so far, have involved accessing quite private information – and without access to those accounts you wouldn't necessarily spot what was going on.

But Chester's first story in First Shift had something deliberately post a provocative, and apparently gory, image that had to be removed by the forum moderators:

Chester Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By RedCanary on Saturday April 30 2022 2:01am [Image removed by moderator] Canaries should stay above ground. Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By FlowersUnderground on Saturday April 30 2022 2:27am Gross! Can we get some mod action over here? Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By BadGrav31 on Saturday April 30 2022 3:11am What the hell is that? Are those eyes? Are you all right? Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By ArcherK on Saturday April 30 2022 7:33am RedCanary, you have been warned, our terms forbid posting explicit images including gore. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but you brought it on yourself. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

And the deleted posts in Personal Screening indicate that something took the time and trouble to remove any content that wasn't related to the horror story. It's not just that "Freddy" knows how to skip irrelevant details. Someone or something did away with the clutter.

And it is more noticeable still in the cases that are direct recordings, rather than read by the text-to-speech programs. I don't so much mean Daria from Making Adjustments, whose privacy is presumably being violated here, but I do mean the mysterious tattoo artist, Ink5oul, who made their mark while livestreaming, and apparently got increased fame and fortune out of it:

Daria Before I could reply they hit a button on their set-up and suddenly we were live streaming with lights in my eyes and their arm tight around my shoulders. I don’t remember much of what they said to their viewers, but they kept telling everyone how lucky I was whilst they dragged me into the chair. – The Magnus Protocol: Making Adjustments

And here we have Needles. And the thing about Needles is that he deliberately calls the police to demand that they be scared of him. And the thread of humour running through the story is that everybody (barring, presumably, the poor bastard who got "cuddled") needs a bit of convincing that needles are, in fact, scary. Needles can feed on the fear of others, sure – but he's got to work for it.

Needles Call it dessert. But you’re not afraid are you? Unsettled, off-balance but nothing more. Why is that? Police Operator I guess I’m just not scared of needles. Needles (irritated) Not sca- This isn’t some poxy blood test, some little pinprick, this is hundreds, thousands of razor sharp points pushing into your flesh. We’re talking about the embrace of an iron maiden, an excruciating agony formed from a thousand tiny hurts. – The Magnus Protocol: Introductions

It's interesting how deeply entitled he feels to the operator's terror ... but I have to imagine he's aiming high. If there's any group of people, in any reality, who are used to hearing horrifying things on the phone and just dealing with them, it has to be emergency service operators. Needles wants to be feared by the fearless. Surely he doesn't need to? He could presumably wander down an alley and find another isolated person to stab. But he chooses to make himself known.

I don't mean to say that no one in The Magnus Archives ever posted weird shit on the internet. Obviously they did. But there is a difference between a program that disappears after being downloaded once, or a forum that ostensibly never received any visitors, and these fairly direct demands to be noticed.

There are occasional more public instances of supernatural occurrences in The Magnus Archives, but, well in the case of a ritual the participants believed they were about to remake the world in the image of their god – so discretion was pretty much off the table. And in those cases, they were nevertheless isolating a bunch of people. Just ... significantly more than the norm.

In most cases, the incidents were private or isolated. The entities needed a victim to be isolated in order to get hold of them. Finding other people – or sometimes even merely thinking of other people – could save someone from their grasp. Yes, there were cases where the isolation could be emotional rather than physical, but the whole process relied quite heavily on most people not seeing or acknowledging the monsters.

It was the core struggle of the characters working in the archives: even if you believed the stories, even if you accepted that if it would only record on the tape recorder it was definitely real, there was still very little you could do about it. You can't easily follow up on something that happened behind a closed door with no witnesses or physical evidence. There were few opportunities to actually deal with the things that lurked in the shadows.

But here it does feel like something wants to be seen.

And that leads to the other side of the story: the people doing the listening. We're reminded again that these people are all working a night shift, and Sam in particular is suffering for it.

It's not clear why this is a night shift. I'm aware there are multiple possible reasons this could be so, but my assumption so far has been that they are the remnants of an additional emergency service. After all, one term for a person who arrives to deal with a crisis is a "first responder" – and Sam is apparently in the middle of applying to the supposedly defunct Response Department.

The fact that they seem to have mislaid a whole department certainly suggests the OIAR has seen better days, and it's highlighted that the building feels like it should have more people:

Celia Sure, no worries. I’ll be honest, I thought there’d be more people working here given the size of the building? Sam Yeah, no we’re, uh… Alice Streamlined? – The Magnus Protocol: Introductions

If, for whatever reason, you found yourself working with a reduced budget, you might have to choose which shifts remained active. And well, things do traditionally go bump in the night ...

There's also a really clear parallel drawn between the determinedly phlegmatic police operator and Alice, the almost 10 year (!) veteran, who has heard it all before:

Alice Well who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll kill again. What was it? Sam Like … A guy made of needles I think. Alice Needles? Is that scary? I’ve been working here so long I can’t tell anymore. Gwen Maybe if you’re scared of needles? Sam To be fair, he did sound kind of … sensitive about that. Alice Huh. – The Magnus Protocol: Introductions

Even Gwen takes some time out of her work to be moderately dubious about the potential scariness of needles. The only significant difference between these people and the operators on the call is that, at the moment, they don't really do anything with what they hear. Which goes back to that Response Department again.

None of that means the OIAR isn't necessarily up to something nefarious, of course. The Magnus Institute also had a moderately respectable public face, at least in the universe in which The Magnus Archives was set.

The OIAR has some association with a mercenary company called "Starkwall", after all. And that both suggests that, at least at one point, they had the ability to respond to what they heard with some force – and that their activities were incredibly dodgy.

Then, of course, there's Celia. Needles introduces himself three times in the story: speaking to three operators, and a fourth, beyond that, to Sam, who hears his story. It seems reasonable to suppose that he will recur at some point in the future. And Celia introduces herself right after that. So presumably she's staying too, at least for a while.

Celia, of course, was a character from The Magnus Archives. And, so Google tells me, both characters share a voice actress. I am going to assume that's plot relevant, because it's an odd and distracting choice if not.

The interesting thing about Celia, of course, is that that is not her name. Or, no, to be clear, Celia is the name she chose for herself after forgetting her original one.

Martin [Puzzled] Celia? Celia Probably. The, um… place I was trapped in, they took my name. I never got it back. But I like Celia, so… yeah! Celia it is. – The Magnus Archives: Scavengers

Her name prior to that was Lynne Hammond. Reasonably, you might expect an alternate version of the character to go by Lynne. You can come up with reasons for her to have still chosen to change her name, sure, but that seems unnecessarily convoluted.

But if it is the Celia from The Magnus Archives, it raises interesting questions about how she got here. She's not a voice on a machine – she's apparently a whole, functioning person.

There's no way to know where she was, at the end, as she was carried off by monsters. Proximity seems an unlikely factor. You'd have to assume that, of all outsiders, Rosie was closest to the fire, because she had only a limited amount of time to make a run for it – and she's confirmed alive, well and cat-sitting The Admiral.

Celia might have come through, accidentally or intentionally, on her own, of course, by poking around Hill Top Road, because apparently that's a thing – although if this is indeed a multiverse, you'd still have to ask how she ended up in this one. Or is she here because she was taken by the "servants of the Eye"? And if so, might the other "cultists", both the ones we know and the lost ones from Georgie and Melanie's previous rescue attempt, be here too?

Amusingly, Celia's surname seems to be Ripley. And that might mean nothing at all. Several characters in The Magnus Archives were named after famous horror writers, so if you recognised somebody's surname it mostly meant they were probably going to be a major character. In a new universe, people might tend to be named after famous horror characters.

So it's really only interesting if you assume that Celia, needing a surname to go with her new first name, chose it for herself.

Ripley is the one who knows about the monsters. She's a survivor of multiple interactions with hostile alien life – and okay, there was the time she didn't survive, but even then she did. She's the sensible one, to whom nobody listens when they should. She's an employee of a company that repeatedly and explicitly prioritises its ability to profit from a terrifying space monster over the lives of its workers. She's constantly out of place in both space and time, with no way to get back to her old life. And, interestingly, she has a complicated relationship with AI – dealing first with Ash, the android company plant who turned on his coworkers in pursuit of the alien-as profit, and later Bishop, her eventual ally in protecting the child Newt from the monsters.

You can see how, under the circumstances, Ripley might be a good role model for Celia. She doesn't scare so easily either.

[akiasolaris]

The Day I Fell in Love with Him

# He wore a red shirt and I hadn't even brushed my hair.

I graduated recently, and while I’m thrilled to have crossed the finish line, a quiet ache lingers—one tied to memories I can’t seem to let go of. Graduation is supposed to mark the end of something, but for me, it feels like the beginning of a bittersweet yearning.

Breaking up with an actual partner, the one who shared a life with me, a future, even if it was fleeting—well, that’s hard. But this... this is different. Breaking up with a college crush, someone I never truly had but always thought I might, feels like grieving something that never even existed.

I keep dreaming of our first meeting. I looked horrible—maybe I’m being harsh on myself, but I had been out of breath, and my hair was certainly not brushed. I rushed to the student center and, miraculously, found the room within moments. Normally, I’d struggle with finding it more. I stood outside the door, frozen. My brow was furrowed, and I must have looked like I was grimacing as I hesitated to go inside. It was just a simple campus club—it wouldn’t be anything scary—but my feet refused to move.

Then I caught his eyes looking back at me. A guy around my age, I’d assumed, wore a bright red shirt. He flashed me a mischievous smile and raised his eyebrows. I raised mine in response. He pointed to the board behind him labeled “Computer Engineering Club” and cocked his head to the side. I nodded to his implied question of whether I belonged, and he pulled out a chair next to him.

It was a silent exchange, but suddenly, I could breathe again. I walked into the club meeting ten minutes late.

I gently dipped my head in greeting to everyone and took a seat. Others trickled in after me, and I felt my shoulders relax. The president and vice presidents of the club were both female, and I celebrated internally—there were girls in engineering! I wouldn’t be alone anymore in engineering.

Then came the icebreaker. I’d been out of practice, only speaking to professors in emails and my family in a mix of English and Bangla. I was rusty on all aspects of conversation; it was a miracle I had even attended the meeting today, I hadn't expected to actually talk. I zoned out for most of the introductions and grew more anxious as it circled to my turn. "I mod game systems and like watching anime. I like reading as well." I say quickly, the room hushed around my words and I panic internally needing somewhere to ground myself.

"Oh really, what systems?" my seat partner flashed me a handsome smile as he gently probed further. "The old Gameboy advanced game cartridges, a Nintendo DSi XL, and a Wii U system I had on hand," I said, meeting his gaze. His smile softened, and he leaned back, relaxing into his seat as if settling in for a story. "A Nintendo fan; I have an old DSi lying around that I'd love to learn how to mod." He leaned in and suggested I help him. I felt my anxiety fade somehow and happily responded, "I'd love to help if you're ever free."

He smiles again and laughs gently as he addresses himself next in the icebreaker. "Hi, my name is Sam." I think, that was the moment my heart quietly decided—he would be the first man I’d ever fall in love with.

And I hadn’t even brushed my hair.

[la-principessa-nuova]

It truly is insane how much of life is luck.

I feel like I always bring the negative stuff here, so here’s a long info dump about how I’ve been incredibly lucky in other ways.

Keep in mind I tend to dive into details too much at random points and I don’t feel like editing this, so be prepared for a long and winding road that may or may not get to a point.

Because of my particular combination of disabilities and trauma and circumstances and all that, I would do awful in a service job.

Like, within a week, I would be fired. I am terrible at being on time consistently long term, especially in the morning.

My social anxiety is especially bad during the kind of interactions I would have to do every day in that kind of job, and so I expect within the first week it would get bad enough that I would completely fail to help someone and then go in the back and cry.

My manager would almost certainly find me pacing around and staring off into space instead of doing the task I’d been told to do.

It would be straight up awful.

Sure, I’d eventually acclimate a little and start to develop coping mechanisms to get by, but I still think I’d eventually be fired from every job and therefore have trouble finding a new one.

But I just kind of stumbled into a career that is fully compatible with my brain and I happen to be very good at.

Yes, my last job was awful, but now that I’m back at the good one, I’m reminded of how lucky it made me feel.

Most days being a few minutes late or sometimes even like an hour late is not only forgiven, but often not even noticed, and if they did notice, they wouldn’t care unless it’s consistently really late. The only days being on time matters is if there happens to be a meeting scheduled early in the morning.

Because the important thing is getting the work done long term. I can even have days where my brain just isn’t cooperating and nothing happens, and it blows over and then I do more when I can.

So how did I get here? Surely it took a lot of hard work, right?

Well, yeah, but also a ton of luck.

Here’s some of the things that just so happened to lead to this point.

Like most kids with an older sibling, I copied many of her interests. And my older sister was into video games and computers. So I was.

And then in 2009 she started playing this new early access indie game that i had never heard of called Minecraft. So I started playing it.

At the time there was a free version you could play on the website, which at the time was called creative mode (I think later referred to or maybe officially referred to as minecraft classic to distinguish from the creative mode in the current game).

So I showed all my friends who would hang out at the library after school on the library computer. And eventually, I think in February 2010, I finally convinced my mom to buy me a copy of the game for €15, which converted to about $20 at the time.

Over the next couple years I got really into the game, and eventually my sister got into watching let’s plays, and she introduced me to them by setting up her laptop and some chairs in my room so we could watch Shadow of Israphel together.

From that, I started watching (and occasionally trying my hand at making) Minecraft videos, and eventually I started to get interested in mods.

The idea that I could change the game just seemed so exciting, and so I decided to make one.

I eventually followed the steps to decompile and deobfuscate the code, but I didn’t know anything about programming. I did some basic script kiddie stuff, copying and pasting files and changing values to add twinkies to the game, make pigs drop leather, add crafting recipes, and other minor things.

But I wanted to do more. I posted a video about how I was going to make this cool mod adding magic to the game and it was going to all be based around lapis lazuli (which at the time did nothing but dye wool), and it was gonna be so cool…

But I knew I needed to actually know how to code to pull that off. So I decided to put a pause on trying to make changes so I could “learn programming” first.

I knew Java was what I should learn since it was what Minecraft was written in, but it seemed hard, and I wondered if I should start with something easier. So I looked up what is the best language to start with, and the site I clicked on first said JavaScript.

So I started learning JavaScript on Codecademy. And then I had this skill that I couldn’t really do anything with, so I learned HTML and CSS so I could make websites using JavaScript.

Then I started making a lot of websites and I got pretty good at JavaScript and web development for a high schooler. I learned some other languages, but didn’t use them past the free online courses I followed.

Oh, except for TI-BASIC, which I used a ton to write programs to do my math and physics homework.

I wasn’t doing great in school (I failed a couple classes and had to retake them) but at home I was teaching myself to code.

I failed Algebra II but then the summer before retaking it, I taught myself the rest of the school’s algebra curriculum and calculus, and I don’t know what’s more twice-exceptional than that.

When it came time to go to college, I was originally going for music education and I was sure that I was going to end up as a music teacher, but I was worried about my ability to keep up with the demands of that job.

When I couldn’t keep up with the extremely demanding program, I was left in the worst mental health state I had ever been in. I was only sleeping a few hours a night. By the time I got back to my dorm from the practice room, I would need to skip my first class to be able to take a nap before the second one.

But meanwhile I was taking a computer science elective where I was learning about the Unix command line and writing scripts, and it just came so much more naturally to me.

As I looked at the painful path to bringing up my GPA enough to remain in the professional program, all so I could spend my entire life fighting for my underpaid and overworked job not to be cut while using what little money I got to fund the music program myself while all the money went to sports, I looked at that class.

So much easier, and such better job prospects. And if I switched, it made sense to switch schools and get away from the place where my mind had slowly been slipping into truly scary places.

And so I switched, and instantly things improved. I now had a normal college schedule instead of 8 AM to 10:30 PM followed by homework and practice 5 days per week, and the classes came so much easier to me.

Because I already knew the basics of coding, I did all the homework while the professor lectured and messed around with things to learn how the language worked.

Since I wasn’t interested in drinking or smoking or partying with the other students, I did all of my homework and had time for other projects. This coincided with not having any interest in TV shows that we’re currently airing or YouTube channels, so I got all my entertainment from podcasts while walking between classes and working out.

My health improved drastically and I felt great after I finished reeling from realizing I was trans (honestly I probably got so overly focused on health and schoolwork because I was avoiding thinking about what that meant).

So I worked hard and got good grades, mostly because I happened to be in a situation where I ended up throwing myself fully into my work, and my interests aligned with that work.

Then I was known as one of the stronger students and happened to accidentally end up on one of the stronger teams for a group project where we did work for real companies (I was being too socially awkward to pick a team and then somebody left one team to join another and so they asked me to join), and I got assigned to one of the two teams doing work for a major employer in the biggest industry in my state.

They were really impressed with my work in particular (I had to refactor the whole project and rewrite a large portion the night before it was due because we discovered a memory leak and that lead me to look into the spaghetti code written by this one tech bro on the team who acted like he knew everything but was actually terrible at coding), and the guy in charge of overseeing our project actually reached out to me directly that summer asking me to come work on his team specifically (where as the other team members other than that one guy had been asked to apply to their new graduate program).

Unfortunately, I still had one semester left, so I couldn’t take that full time job (he had assumed it was my final year because that course normally was during the final year but I had a scheduling conflict between two required classes I had put off until the end that made me take one more semester to fit in my last 2 classes).

But having that project on my resume got one of their competitors (who happens to be a lot less evil and a much healthier work environment) really interested in me, so I got an interview for an internship.

Luckily for me, when I showed up late for my on campus interview, my interviewer also had ADHD and showed up even later.

So I had no problem there and got the internship. Then I lucked out in getting placed on a team of entirely data scientists who barely knew how to code, so I really impressed them with my basic programming skills and spent the internship teaching them how to code and being the saving grace to get a bunch of their broken projects working.

Most of the team was surprised when I left because they didn’t know I was just an intern.

I also had a ton of networking opportunities and built up a reputation across the company as being a really strong developer.

I lucked out with an awesome mentor who was able to get me into some private lessons on machine learning, which I haven’t really used since but was really interesting and got me in the room with the R&D folks and got people seeing me as someone who would be in those circles.

Then a friend of my manager in a different department was hiring full time the next year, and so when I applied full time he had heard of me and sought me out specifically (there were some other teams I’d met who sought me out, but this was the best one).

That team ended up being great and had some of the most emotionally intelligent people I’ve ever met, and the way they worked was a little different from the other teams in a way that was much more compatible with my PDA autism that I didn’t know about yet.

On that team, I quickly built up a reputation for knowing everything about TypeScript (it was very much a special interest at the time at least) and just generally being really good at solving problems within a complex domain.

I had some issues during particularly bad mental health periods, but the worst I got was a “Hey, are you alright? I noticed you haven’t been doing X as well as normal.” or rarely “Can you try to be better about Y?”

When I left there for more money, they were clear that they’d take me back if I changed my mind (they even offered me almost as much to stay).

Then that job was awful, and I came back, and things are pretty good again.

I kind of got into the story a bit, but my point is that in so many ways, in this one regard, I have been incredibly lucky.

So many little things happened to align to get me here.

My sister liking Minecraft, seeing videos about mods, happening to click on the answer that said JavaScript, having a good professor for the CS Elective, not wanting to do anything other than study for a while in college, ending up in a group project doing work for a major employer, having an interviewer who didn’t care I was late, getting assigned to a team that had me do real work and recognized me for it, my manager knowing someone who ran such a good fit of a team.

Even things more fundamental, like happening to like a thing that pays well and be good at it.

Yes there was a lot of work to get here, but also so much luck. I could have put in the same or much more work without these opportunities and been in a much worse place.

Also side note maybe give programming a shot? I hear a lot of people immediately shut it down that it’s not an option for them because they don’t know how to do it, but like, it’s worth a shot. If you’re good at it, it’s one of the few ways to rise out of poverty, and there are companies hiring for it without requiring a degree, plus opportunities to do freelance work if that’s your sort of thing. If not, no harm done.

I was very lucky to stumble into it the way I did because there’s no way I would be willing to try learning it now. But it is absolutely worth it if you can.

[neon-danger]

You get used to your own issues after awhile that someone else's would probably feel foreign even if they're at similar levels of severity. Like why are some worlds in my game inexplicably laggy? Who knows, but some are not so it's just, don't go to the bad ones, problem solved, it isn't bad if you're not experiencing it, except if you are it's horrendous. I made attempts to organize my mods folder for Sims 3, and 2, but both are probably not the best and I still can never find shit when I need to. I think Windows search is just terrible and useless tho. Somehow I had less issues in 3 when I had everything in one folder unsorted and played on the world's worst laptop at minimum graphics with 1 hour load and save times. I used to not care as much, I suppose.

Windows search doesn’t make any sense if I search “hair” it should show me anything that has hair in the name even if the word it finds is chair

1 hour save and load times would kill me on the spot

[veryflirtytransportalate]

< Previous > . . . < Next >

"Wow. This is going to be a great story! Just wait till you see this in print. You won't regret this, Blue." - Piper

Oh, Piper. Always there. Always chilling. Always ready for whatever. I cannot stand how she is about me stealing stuff, but other than that we get along great. She runs a newspaper with her little sister, although she's been following me because she wants to publish my story. In exchange, she takes some pics for me to post here. We all win.

She and Dogmeat get along really well. I'm actually kind of confused about Dogmeat on the whole. He's... I met him on the road one day out of the blue, and ever since, he's been following me. I'm not saying we met, got to know each other, I literally looked at him and went, "Hey," and he just made himself my dog. I don't feed him. I pet him, stab him with Stim when he needs it, but I don't know where he gets water from. I've never seen him poop. He can take a .303 round like a champ, too. He is also a vicious murderer who attacks anyone I get into a scrap with. That's true friend material right there and also, maybe, a, robot, I'm suddenly realizing. That's cool, actually, robo-dog. Why do Stimpa-eh they work on Nick too, funk it, like anything else makes any sense here.

Honestly, I get why people are falling over themselves to be with me (see: my legs, my torso, my face), but I'm sometimes weirded out by how into me they can get? And it does not take a long time. Preston made me dad of his local cub scouts after knowing me for fifteen minutes. All I'd done up to that point was get high, kill like two dozen dudes in a suit of armor (I think one of them turned into a dragonman but I was pretty up there), and insult his old lady friend right to her face. Hell, Strong Mad can't stand me, and he still spends all day riding my Red Rocket. ...okay hold on, I just meant he hangs out where I told him to, okay, me and Strong Mad aren't... we... well... let me go to the Red Rocket, and take a good hard look at him, and get back to you. There... may be potential there.

(Outfit credits, my thoughts, and a few more shots below the cut.)

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Cait is here too! I use Koozebane's Loving Cait mod (opens in new tab) to change her general vibe some. Piper's hat is Niero's CROSS_MojaveManhunter mod (opens in new tab).

Fallout 4 companions, dude. I've only ever gotten as far as Virgil's cave so I haven't met most of them, but like... bro, they are in rough shape.

Cait's storyline I think lays it out the best, which is to say, is one of the worst: it combines a desire to tell a deeply empathetic story of sorrow and trauma and regret and redemption, but that desire is so mishandled and poorly considered that it feels more like an insult to people who have lived experiences similar to her's - if you've ever been told 'you're so brave' by someone and suddenly felt a not terribly intense form of insulted, that's the exact emotional response I think this combination elicits. Her description of the physiological and mental effects of her intoxicated lifestyle feels like only a rough impression of what long-term functional intoxication feels like in the body, she doesn't follow the rules of addiction the player does, her story has to actively ignore the magical addiction cures around every corner*, but then plops a science-magic chair McGuffin into play with the same 'it's an instant cure' handwaving that the rest of the game already does as a deus ex machina to a story that could have been about the redemptive power of self-forgiveness, and there's not even time to mention that the story of the Vault you find the chair in implies that a group of addicts would turn kill mode over a single stash of drugs so fast that they'd storm in and murder an entire therapy group in their chairs, implying a discovery to murder timeline of less than an hour, and the fact that someone signed off on the only Irish character in all of Fallout just to have her be defined by violence and addiction and red hair and an accent feels funking nasty. Irish people in post apocalyptic Boston? Super fun. Thematic. Represents the reality of Boston and would have been an excellent addition! But Cait... the elements of her story could have been something really powerful to explore in a second person narrative, but instead, the writing placed on top of her damages the cohesiveness of the world in every place it touches.

We're all on the same page here**, and literally all of the characters are like this, although most other companions don't have narratives nearly so long or with nearly such personal themes (thank goodness). Nick is a hardboiled detective who smokes cigarettes. He does not have lungs. He also has memories of his previous life? I never do his quest. Piper is a scrappy reporter lady. She is upbeat and supportive and cares about her sister. The end. Codsworth is a robot who is a butler. Mr. Handycock is a ghoul dressed like a red coat, and, in his free time, something like a character. McGravy is a merc and a lazy Fallout 3 callback. Strong Mad is just Fawkes again but worse, which is ridiculous when we could have had Fawkes be the lazy call back, or another lazy call back, I guess. Danse is the words "semper fi" injection molded into a human shape (with a hot face). Preston is... actually a fun combo of dorky dude in a bad situation with good intentions, Preston gets... ugh, as much of a pass as I'll give anyone, even though he holds the terrible distinction of radiant quest giver. You never wanna be the radiant quest giver, okay, even Mike Rowe wouldn't do that dirty job. Lucky for him I kind of like the radiant quests, but that's only because the un-radiant quests usually have writing in them, and I have a hard limit on the amount of Fallout 4 writing I can stomach (I can't remember if I've ever through mods or whatever gotten to the Institute but I remember the cutscene with Father where you meet him and I Just... oh wow... if... if I was in a class, and someone presented that scene as a project, I'd be so embarrassed for them).

I downloaded a few mod companions (the super mutant lady, an Enclave general, and someone else, I forget), but they don't quite fit in with the general mood I'm trying to tweak Fallout 4 into: this Cowboy Bebop-esque colorful and bombastic adventure world with weird tech and sexy badasses.

I'm going to keep trying to Collect 'Um All! but... I don't have high hopes.

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*Addictol, which I carry on me at all times, doctors, who are in every town we stop at, a special tea from the chemistry station, or a funking omelet can cure addiction and if you don't believe me well than (opens in new tab) - your move, funko.

**Oh my gosh I just Googled "why is cait irish fallout 4" and the top answer suggested by Google was "The reason Cait has a (terrible, stereotypical) 'Irish' accent is because Bethesda didn't stop to think about how little sense it would make." YES, JUST RIP THEM APART. Oh, internet, you weird commercialized corpse of a thing - thank you so much, that made my day.

[yoongiblunt]

Today was a fever dream

I’ve had this shitty heat rash that has made my hands cramp, burn, and sting. I also have blisters from working while my skin is so sensitive. I have a UV allergy and made the mistake of going out in the sun on the 4th, which was the hottest day the US has ever recorded with UV rays of like, 12. I didn’t know that, obviously. But I got a little sun and a little rash. The AC being broken at my job made it so much worse though. It’s nearly 100 degrees in the building and we have literally been getting awful reviews because of it and even had a pregnant woman get sick due to it. The Ac NEEEEEDS fixed but our owners are dragging such ass.

I started having awful blisters coming up on my hands, arms, and legs while working. I went to deal with it and MOD literally was upset at me for sitting in the manager chair while I applied burn cream and bandaids. So I told him what was up and he MOCKED ME. So I lost my cool on him a little.

I watched a customer come to the store with a messed up order, she asked for extra beef lamb on her gyro and that’s a little subjective due to our already large portions. She drove home and came back during shift change, so her order took a little longer. Her fries, from a separate order, got cold, and she demanded we replaced those as well. We remade both orders even though only one was messed up. She drives about 10 minutes away o guess and comes back pissed because her fries are cold. Maam you were in an air conditioned car and they were hot when you left. Food cools. She demanded a free meal, and the 19 year old trainee explained that they had already fixed the meal and all she could do was grab fresh fries as that’s the only thing that was wrong. The woman demanded that joy eat or touch her fries to see how cold they were. Joy refused and the woman threw the order at her.

A friend came up to me while I was working and she said she had done some coke before she came in and felt bad. She’s a regular user so it was weird to feel that shitty after a couple of bumps and she asked if I had test strips. I knew the bartender and her fiancé had them as they are hardcore harm reduction bitches and are all about making sure someone is using safely. I wasn’t really concerned with if she got it at my job or did it at my job, moreso I just needed to know what she had taken on the off chance that she began to OD. I meet lynlee in the office and she tosses me a couple of tests and I run Leelee to the bathroom and we test the bag just to find out she had been dosed on Fentanyl. Naturally I calmly grab her face and am checking her out to see if she’s okay. She insists that she just needs to go home and get to bed. I get her a ride home and make sure security walks her out, have her send a picture of the positive test to her dealer, and flush the coke. I let MOD know, and this man literally just gets mad. He’s like wtf like why did she do it here. Idk man, we have plenty of people doing coke here. He got upset because he thought that she would tell her friends that they can get their shit tested here. Bro. That’s not an okay way to think about that. It’s like he totally overlooked the fact that one of our customers ingested fentanyl and could have overdosed and had we not tested her coke we would not have known what happened. Warranted, most of FOH is narcan certified due to lynlee wanting to cut down on accidental overdose among friend groups. He was like we aren’t gonna talk about it and no one needs to know.

I said fuck that and texted the general manager and let him know because not only is he my roommate, but the last thing I need is it getting around I was in a bathroom stall with leelee with a bag of coke, or that she “did coke with me” that had fent in it. I’m three months sober. I’m not touching that shit. I did it to protect her and make sure she had knowledge on how to test her drugs in the future for her safety.

Obviously Caleb told me I did the right thing and told me he would make sure I didn’t get in trouble if anything was said.

I was obviously ridiculously stressed about the ordeal and got off the clock and won a bunch of fireball shots because apparently the only luck I have is playing quarters for free shots.

We all hung around at the bar and got a little drunk and then a bunch of us went to the pocket museum, which is literally just an alley way connected to our historical saenger theater that has little miniature people hidden around and art from local artists. It’s a really cool spot, and has twinkle lights and music playing all night long. We got some Taco Bell and twisted teas and explored and star gazed. We absolutely tagged the parking garage a little ways away with some trans rights shit. I was a little insecure about literally being on the security cameras laying on the pavement while we stargazed so I shot the museum a little message letting them know that we were just looking at the stars and that we were alright. They have security cameras for people who steal from the exhibits and deface the alley as it’s part of our historically protected district. A lady and her kid literally took blue paint and splashed it all over the place.

The people who run the page actually messaged me back saying that they appreciated us having a good time and enjoying their space and that our drunken star gazing was safe with them.

I brought cole and Brooke from work over and we had a mini dance party in my room and I got to show them some cool music videos. It’s been a long time since I’ve hung out with people without being high as hell, so it was nice. I taught cole a couple of bass lines and he asked me to play a random song (alien blues) and I hadn’t heard the song in a while but gave it a shot, I managed to play thru most of it without fucking up and he complimented my playing. I was super embarrassed tho because I did fudge a few notes. He even scolded Brooke for talking while I played because he was listening.

Idk it was a really good night and a really bad night all the same. My life really is an uncomfortable balance of good and bad.

Caleb wants to throw a triple birthday party for himself, his son Aaron who is turning one, and me next month and told me to go on and ask the days off cause he wants a week of partying with a bouncy slip and slide.

Even tho things are often rough, I’m starting to feel a little more loved.

[saltysaccharin]

Bbg

— [ELYSIUM AU-ISH] {NONCANON}

• characters :: shigaraki tomura, ryouga atsumu, himegami kuroi, extras

• genre :: crack

• warnings :: written while high. not literally high bc drugs are bad kids but like high in spirit /ij none

prompt / synopsis :: "call him baby girl"

word count :: ~900

a/n :: i had SUCH a day today. very eventful /pos. i should be sleepimg bc i'm tired from said day but bro. smth took over. and i churned out like 900 somwthing words of utter stupidity.

dw, not canon to elysium at all bc. frankly it's TOO stupid to be 🫶

Himegami ordering Shigaraki Tomura to get an updated-daily social media account was supposed to be serious. He was supposed to upload short 'reports' on his life rooming with Apollo every day, not.. whatever this was.

"'Call him baby girl for me'? What the fuck?" Shigaraki barked out a laugh, muttering the comment aloud as he read it and clearly finding it entertaining rather than taking offense to it (as he definitely would have a year or two ago). "Fine. I need to find the fucker first, though."

The audio translated the shuffling off of a couch very well; he had been blessed with a really good phone model by the very person he was planning to make fun of. Oops. Hey, he had to give his audience something, didn't he?

Nice place.

holy shit its actually happening someone clip this quick

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

rly went 'bet' lol

Idk what y'all expected ofc he'd do it XD

Shocker, the symbol of fear has no fear?!?!?

Shigaraki casually walked through the spacious penthouse, still using the front camera as the Live continued. His watchers' expressions of disbelief and amusement flooded the chat as he continued his search for a certain doctor.

talk about upper-class

*whistles*

Do u guys need an extra roomie maybe?? 🥺

Address drop or no balls

where is that

Finally peeking his head and his camera around the master bedroom's doorway, the lens focused on his prey. There, sitting at his work desk, was Ryouga Atsumu — otherwise known as Doc Apollo — tinkering with a foldable bow. The brunet grunted ever so often every time he ran into a particularly frustrating component to calibrate.

it's a wild apollo!

Sexy Heroes in your area right now! Click the link: <https://www.insertcreativedomain.com/japan-no-2>

help mods theres a fucking bot

@/ERĀ Mod get the bot pls

Im jealous ngl how come u get to live w/ him :(

@/ERĀ sic it

THE SPAMBOT LOLOLOLOL

An especially impatient fan sent a Gift into the Live in an attempt to encourage Shigaraki. The loud notification from it managed to catch Ryouga's notice, dragging his attention from his weapon directly to Shigaraki.

"Oh, hey. Need anything?" Ryouga smiled softly as he spun his chair to face the correct direction. With a hum, he tilted his head before pointing at the phone in Shigaraki's hand, "Is it rolling? Daily check-in?" He asked curiously.

"It's live," Shigaraki replied, stepping out of the concealment of the doorway since he'd been discovered. He straightened his camera as well. "People are watching in real time."

Ryouga made an O with his mouth in understanding and nodded. "Right, yeah. Well, you know I don't involve myself much with social media, Shigaraki; I have a whole group of people running my account for me."

WHAT

omg he's a boomer in disguise. i knew no guy could be perfect </3

Was this not common knowledge?

knowing Apollo having a team just for managing his Tweetr made my fucking week

Send help

Shigaraki waved his free hand in dismissal, "Yeah, yeah, I know all that—" He paused, suddenly narrowing his eyes as he stared directly at the former, "—baby girl." Delivered with absolutely no shame, accompanied by a singular finger gun and a tongue click.

Ryouga only stared in response, seemingly frozen in time. Mouth slightly agape, he blinked twice, then a bunch more times in quick succession before leaning forward in his chair and shaking his head. He knitted his eyebrows as he squinted at Shigaraki for answers.

"Baby what?"

Shigaraki snickered as his focus transferred to the live chat, his thousand-or-so viewers currently blowing up the inbox at the speed of a bullet train. The number signifying how many people were watching went up a slight amount as more people joined the stream.

"Nonono, you listen here," Ryouga pushed himself up from his seat before marching toward Shigaraki, who watched him approach through the camera rather than directly with his own eyes. The red-eyed man only grinned as the doctor gave him an incredulous look.

Quite the switch in expressions compared to their less amicable times with one another.

"Ryouga, it's fine, it's a fucking meme—" Shigaraki managed to explain between every other chuckle as he raised both hands in surrender, the camera angle disregarded as the screen now barely showed either of them fully, much to the dismay of the people watching. It captured a diagonally-warped perspective of Shigaraki's face as he looked at the off-screen Ryouga.

I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING :ANGR:

this is honestly hilarious i cant do this im gonna die today

PLEAS E

Nooo the videooooo

🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑🪑

he looks like he's getting an earful

All the viewers could experience from that point on was hearing Ryouga chuckle and go: "Oh no, I know. I don't keep up with online trends but I'm not that blissfully unaware of my surroundings!" He huffed, albeit overdramatically just to prove his point.

"You.. know? Then why the hell did you give me that look? I thought I upset you!"

"Well, I'm not 'baby girl,'"

A brief shot of Shigaraki's lips being pecked followed that statement, the culprit disappearing from sight as quick as they had committed the crime.

"You are."

"...I'm not sure you know what 'baby girl' entails." Shigaraki coughed into his shoulder, attempting to hide the blush creeping onto his face.

Oh my GOD

WIFE HIM UP APOLLO LMFAOOOOOO

nvm not an earful. mouthful maybe LOL

This was disgusting & I don't mean that in a good way smh

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!!!!

I feel like i've intruded on a moment here

🫣🫣🫣

THEYRE TOGWTHER??_?_(?? AND NOBODY TOLD ME?_(_!()")?

Aww what a cute couple (is sleeping on the highway)

gay gay homosexual gay

@/ERĀ you and me when

Dudeee wtfff (do it again)

When is it my turn to be happy

wait WHAT is happening i literally thought apollo and hawks were still a thing help me

GET IT

Himegami slowly breathed out into her intertwined fingers as she deadpanned at her laptop screen.

What in the nine circles did she just watch?

[unknownentry404]

My dude. My fellow disabled trans person. I cannot tell you how much I relate to you. I’m, too, in that weird stage where a wheelchair sounds like heaven, but I know family would see it as “an over-reaction” or some such bullshit. And I just don’t have the accessibility house-features/access/funds to even get one anyway.

Fortunately I don’t have to dodge family members as I live solo now, but will share the accessibility features I added to my life in the past year that help me:

I have a circular shower chair that fits in the bath, but I just bring it into my room when I’m done, leaving it by my wall after. (I was worried initially about its wetness, but honestly it drys very quickly, though I do have carpet). I’ve been sharing with four random housemates for 6 months and none of them have even noticed me use it. (And I haven’t been hiding it in particular, just the nature of the dash from bath to bedroom lol).

Another thing I use is a trolley, and a telescopic stool that I hang off it. The stool allows me be able to sit anywhere (I’ve gotten very quick at whipping it out/extending it) and the trolley is like a smoother cane on even ground. Unfortunately rougher terrain, and/or when I’ve filled it up too heavy, it becomes more neutral than helpful: but I have my cane attached onto the side so I just change to duel wielding and taking my time. No rush and sit when I need.

The trolley helps with shopping too (though people often comment “big shopping day?” when they see me, whether I am or not, it still is my baby and beats a disability comment I suppose?). Unfortunately using a trolley is pain with finding accessibility/dealing with unavoidable stairs. (Be prepared to feel even more indignant when it comes to accessibility features available and NOT available). Though the excuse of “it being heavy” is a good way to force me to use those features if available, and plan my routes for them where I can, when otherwise I might feel embarrassed to be the only one/go the long way when with a group when I “only” have my cane.

To Summerize:

-As soon as you are willing and able, be brave and get that shower stool! Fuck em!

- There are a lot of telescopic stools options out there. I hope if you do go looking for one, that you find one that suits you!

(You can experiment with making it easy to access the stool off the trolley. I just often have it hanging off the back, with the strap it comes with , etc. Just had to shorten the strap a bit).

- For trolleys I recommend 4 Wheelers as a must- 2 wheeler only “help carry things” and you can’t lean on them. (Plus, as someone, with chronic back pain, I found pulling a two wheeler trolley eventually causes that pain anyway).

I’ll recommend my one here actually, as they can be hard to find. (And it’s become my baby). The second link is a different one I almost got instead that had “stair wheels“ too? Didn’t get it as said, (I’m a simple guy who just wanted his tartan patterned trolley) so can’t say how well they work, but always good to try/research your options!

Mine: https://amzn.eu/d/e6khhbw

Other one with ten wheels lol (actually unavailable here, but gives you the idea): https://amzn.eu/d/fpVRMkl

Then of course, there are the actual two handed walkers, some with inbuilt seats in them. I see people out with them sometimes and there appears to be a lot of options online etc. I went for the above for more of an incognito approach, but I do look on in envy sometimes when I see someone with them in the wild.

Here’s the cheapest one I could find with a quick Amazon search, but there are plenty as said: https://amzn.eu/d/dBbK66y

But yeah, just my two cents. I’ve made it a project to mod my trolley to my liking, and am having fun with it. Isn’t a perfect solution, but alas. It’s something.

And may the Wheelchair gods one day shine upon you! Oh! And the fuck ableist shits who try and gatekeeper you from making your life easier!

Wishing you the best and ALL the love,

Ríon.

A transmasc cane/trolley(incognito walker) user. 😘

Having a wheelchair and a shower chair would make my life easier, but I know that my family would have problems with me having that around here. I can barely use my cane here. I doubt I'd have much luck getting any other mobility and disability aids.

-Amber (any pronouns)